#but its my first shift as a solo shift lead. and ill be leading people that ive never met before

[hwanhd]

hi everyone, red (21+, they/them), here with my lovely boy, klein lee hwan! he's been a trainee for 4 years overall (2 years in an old ent, and another 2 to current in kiss studio) trainee number #111! below holds information about him + possible threads! (as i havent work on a plot page yet) dossier / plot page / playlist / moodboard

klein lee aka and now is being addressed as lee hwan, is born from new york! around four years old, his family moved from the states and to seoul due to his father shifting jobs and hence needing to migrate

hwan is a child actor, having to act at the age of 3 in an american's children show (think: barney and friends, life action blues clue) and around 5 y/o after migrating, he got a role as a child actor for a korean saeguk drama where he was the younger ver of the male lead but unfortunately theres been a lot of bad comments tw: racism, verbal abuse / whereby he's been told he's too 'mixed' to act in a saeguk while citing his awkward acting + bad korean pronunciation. (mind you, hwan's first language is english)

due to this backlash and as a fragile child, hwan went into hiding/became a shut in for 2 years but while he was in isolation, he discovered the world of soundcloud and rapping, hence making it his interest!

when his 2 years isolation ends in 2017, he uploaded his first original, 'child'

around jan 2018, he's scouted thru his soundcloud to audition for kiss studio. march 2018 is his when he started his journey as a trainee.

he's currently four years and 9 months into his training period.

his goals aside from debuting is to be able to compose professional for his future group and solo debut (eventually and hopefully!!)

here comes the plots i may interested to connect with!!

childhood friends whom was his first friend after moving to korea! coincidentally said friend wanted to be an idol/artist first while hwan was into the acting industry... years down the line they meet again!

someone whos seen him act and is nosy to ask what had happened to him (which hwan does not mention as its still a sore memory to him even after all those years)

fellow 'oldie' trainee line, even if they arent in the same label, perhaps they came across each other in music camp?? idk

friendly rivals from trainee days till present (or actual rivals ((that could possibly debut together))) tho preferably if they are in the same labels but not necessary

a muse?? perhaps hwan's first crush in his early years of being a trainee??? or someone hes just fascinated with and had treat him with enough kindness for him to write songs about and of and for. (alternatively: your muse whom he writes about has discovered his lyrics/composition. and extra alternatively: if instead of knowing the song is about your muse, ends up teasing about mark possible crush on other people).

first's, trainees dont date but somehow your muse is acquainted with hwan and are both curious teens since they're both around the same age. behind closed doors, they tried kissing and experimenting but the relationship never worked out. (alternatively: if they were found out and one of them had to transfer labels, or other bad consequences. or the better ending, is that the both agree to put the curiosity to a stop mutually). (and if they ever met again down the line, would they regret seeing each other??)

older training period muse who gets jealous over hwan (i.e: inferiority complex/out of spite/feeling like the company is treating hwan better)

and lastly for now, a friend who he can do crazy things with (i.e: with hwan being homeschooled and then completely dropping out in junior high before he joined kiss studio, is then dragged by your muse in school uniform to muse's school to experience hwan's first step into an actual school), or if your muse ever finds hwan in the act of weakness and would comfort him and see thru his mental illness (and relapse from recalling his childhood)

[existentialmagazine]

Review: The alt-rock upcomer Molly Meaker just shared her debut ‘Sertraline’, a hard-hitting narrative beneath a bubbly front

Debuting to a sold out upstairs show at Ronnie Scott's in July 2022 and most recently seen opening for Grammy award winning band Chai, the upcoming alt-rock artist Molly Meaker is now ready to share her first ever single 'Sertraline' alongside a 6-date UK tour either side of the release.

From pressing play, the oddly sugary sound of 'Sertraline' dances through your eardrums with an unexpected level of vibrancy for a song on such intimate themes, an anthem-like journey that turns the lows into the highs. Masking meaning behind tumbling drums, groovy guitar strums and bass twangs, 'Sertraline' pounds with an introductory moment of instrumental charisma and charm, bundling you within its glossy covers for quite the tumultuous ride. Simmering for the verse, steady beats and a subtle bassline join together, allowing Molly’s impressive vocals to take the lead through impressive ranges between sombre tones and airy glides. With a short mid-verse intermission, the instruments once again peak into clashing drums, vigorous strums and backing twangs before settling back into the verses’ chant-along infectiousness. The chorus is simple but addictive, flowing through ‘na na na na na’ vocal hooks and dominating instruments at their most brash. The track feels rather untraditional in format though, never leaving you sure whether you’re amidst an ongoing verse, the choruses high or something in-between, capturing more of a living aspect to the way it chooses to evolve and unfold. Delivering an unexpectedly electrifying guitar solo after the more lulled bridge, 'Sertraline' jumps from modern day swagger to more rock and roll roots, ecentrically showing off in a performance made to both uplift and leave you thinking deeper. Molly also seems to become more confident as the track plays out, sharing lines with an attitude and flair that’s utterly mesmerising, reminiscent of some of the most smashing rock headliners.

The lyrics are just as powerful, with the track named after the antidepressant Sertraline and Molly’s own experience through mental health, as well as recovery. From the opening admission that ‘sertraline’s got me feeling sick’, Molly touches on the common themes of antidepressants causing a period of nausea, caught up in a new experience without anyone to share advice on her solitary journey - instead hoping to help other people in the same situation. Continuing ‘I’m finally getting rather good at it, now I feel like I almost exist’ , Molly seems almost torn on her opinions, half-pessimistic as the drugs haven’t quite brought her back to life but perhaps taken her a step closer to where she once was. It’s almost as though her outlook still continues to be rather down though, lingering on lines like ‘this ship is going down’ that don’t seem to wish for anything to go right, finding security and comfort in the unknowns of depression. She does still acknowledge an unhappiness within this rut however, admitting ‘can’t escape, my mind is suffering’ , feeling trapped within an illness that consumes her every moment of existence. There are moments of clarity however, singing ‘a chemical imbalance I suppose, let’s hope these drugs finally hit’ , in some ways maybe relying too heavily on antidepressants to be a quick fix without acknowledging the causes of her emotions. Everything about ‘Sertraline’ is very back and forth, shifting in moods and working through newfound experiences in ways that feels authentic and raw. For those still finding their way along their own mental health journey, ‘Sertraline’ is a single worth checking out for some comfort in an experience that can be isolating.

Check out ‘Sertraline’ for yourself here to enjoy Molly’s vibrant sound and more important lyrical message beneath.

Written by: Tatiana Whybrow

Photo Credits: Unknown

// This coverage was supported and created via Musosoup, #SustainableCurator.

[dragons-and-yellow-roses]

My boss: Alright, Monday will be your first shift alone as a shift lead!

Me: Cool! Is it the shift I'm familiar with and have worked as long as I've been here?

Boss: Nope!

Me: ... Okay, but will I at least be working with people I've worked with before, or even met?

Boss: Not at all!

Me: Alright. So uh... Are you going to tell me what the duties are for this shift?

Boss: No! You can learn on the job!

Me: So... How do you expect me to effectively run this shift?

Boss: Figure it out! But just so you know, if you mess anything up then I will express my extreme disappointment the next day.

[dustedmagazine]

Derek Taylor 2020: We’re Still Here

That’s about the best that can be said for a year that pulled out nearly every stop in a surging sea change to calamity, adversity and tragedy. The number of people lost to a pandemic that now stands steadfast as a monument to the true meaning of American Exceptionalism as the epitome of empathy-eradicating self-interest is enough to negate even the noblest efforts at laughing to keep from crying. Musicians and music persisted though, even in a severely altered performance landscape of shuttered venues and virtual concerts.  And recorded offerings new and archival remained plentiful. 

When so much about the present feels like a sprint backwards, societally, environmentally and across multiple other measures, music reliably endures as a means for finding both meaning and footing in the world. What follows are 20 capsule vignettes describing selections from the sea of albums circulated this year that kept me afloat, followed by 25 more in list form that did the same. Thank you for reading and thanks for sticking with us.

Paul Desmond — The Complete 1975 Toronto Recordings (Mosaic)

Given the magnitude of hardship this year’s wrought on living musicians, it may appear a bit perverse to lead this list with a dead one. Even so, this immersive set’s become an old reliable when it comes to achieving aurally-sourced solace. Desmond, the arch and affluent altoist, leaning into a Canadian club residency with ace sidemen while making good on his gentleman’s agreement with absent Dave Brubeck to abstain from piano accompaniment. The leader’s lady-killer instincts are assiduously evident in the amorously-oriented song choices as his dulcet, tranquilizing tone seduces and delights, night after night.

Chris Dingman — Peace (Inner Arts)

An intensely personal project where abundancy of content arose not out of ambition but rather necessity and is made all the more affecting for it. Dingman designed and played the nearly six hours of solo vibraphone music on this set for his hospice-sequestered father with sole purpose of providing comfort and calm. Reflection after his parent’s passing moved him to release it into the world with the hope that it could do the same for others. Intention accomplished.

 Joe McPhee — Black Is the Color (Corbett vs. Dempsey)

It’s been a distressing year for nearly everyone, but particularly for McPhee, who lost his brother Charlie to illness. Even amidst ongoing emotional tumult, his fecundity felt undiminished. AC/DC on the British OtoROKU label offers another entry with the English organ trio Decoy. Of Things Beyond Thule, Vol. 2 is a smashing CD sequel to its vinyl predecessor with Dave Rempis, Tomeka Reid, Brandon Lopez and Paal Nilssen-Love comprising the super group. A reissue of the seminal She Knows… with Scandinavian power trio The Thing on the Ezz-thetics label and Black is the Color compiling early concert material in surprisingly sharp fidelity from the Corbett vs. Dempsey imprint cover the archival end of things.

 Sonny Rollins — Rollins in Holland (Resonance)

The Saxophone Colossus holding court with Dutch compatriots in 1967. Most conspicuous is daredevil drummer Han Bennink, who even at this early stage straddles swing to European Free Jazz from behind his kit. Rollins shifts between comparatively pithy studio salvos and effusive concert excursions that once again cement his supremacy in the strenuous realm of long form improvisation. Seven decades as a musician makes for a bank vault-sized cache of bootlegs, but this one, refurbished and authorized remains something special.

 Stephen Riley — Friday the 13th (Steeplechase)

Like McPhee, Riley’s a perennial resident of my pantheon. This date realized a long-standing wish to hear him in the company of cornetist Kirk Knuffke backed by the freeing simplicity of bass and drums. Both men have aerated, instantly recognizable tones and pliancy in phrasing that provides practically endless possibilities in tandem. Riley’s also instrumental as featured guest on Pierre Dørge’s Bluu Afroo, a slightly preemptive Ruby Anniversary celebration of guitarist’s multinational New Jungle Orchestra.

 Sam Rivers — Ricochet & Braids (No Business)

The auspicious launch of a Sam Rivers archival series last year was among the Lithuanian No Business label’s greatest achievements. Two more seminal entries came down the pike in 2020: Ricochet featuring Dave Holland and Barry Altschul of particularly fine vintage, and Braids spotlighting another pivotal Rivers ensemble in Hamburg with low brass wizard Joe Daley. There are four more to go, which should target the end of 2022 for the series’ completion.

 James Brandon Lewis — Live at Willisau & Molecular (Intakt)

Lewis is the type of compelling artist tapped for accolades like Down Beat’s Rising Star award, despite having been active as an accomplished improviser for over a decade. Delayed exposure is common collateral to a career path in improvised music though, and the saxophonist hasn’t let slow-to-cotton critics slow him down a bit. A deal inked with the Swiss Intakt imprint has so far yielded Live at Willsau, which finds him in fiery duo with Chad Taylor, and Molecular, a studio venture with an all-star quartet that will hopefully become a working band again in 2021.

 Susan Alcorn — Pedernal (Relative Pitch)

Pedal steel may feel like a nascent voice in improvised music, but in actuality Susan Alcorn and her peers have been plying it as a viable vehicle for some time. While Pedernal is somewhat perplexingly her first album as clear-cut leader, impediments to an earlier debut seem inconsequential given the ample amount of thought and design evident in the end product. Strings wielded by Michael Formanek, Mary Halvorson and Mark Feldman weave with the wide gamut of Alcorn’s aqueous sonorities across intricate pieces further stamped by Ryan Sawyer’s peripatetic drums. The results are at once daring and distinguished.

 John Scofield — Swallow Tales (ECM)

ECM has an enviably accomplished record when it comes to matching the austerity and formality of its sound design to artists’ objectives. Case in point this stark, but not standoffish trio set that’s as much (electric) bassist Steve Swallow’s offspring as it is Scofield’s. Drummer Stewart is the third point in the triangle, but he sagely defers to his elders, leaving them to a dance of differently gauged strings that expertly balances motion and space.

 Corbett vs. Dempsey

John Corbett is emblematic of that rare breed of music monomaniac who balances obsessiveness with altruistic generosity. He’s personally responsible for bringing dozens of rare and classic recordings back into circulation, first through the fondly remembered Unheard Music Series and more recently via the CvD concern. This year, another stack was added to that sum with Milford Graves & Don Pullen’s The Complete Yale Concert 1966 (including the rarified Nommo), Alexander von Schlippenbach’s Three Nails Left, Tetterettet by the ICP Tentet, Peter Kowald’s self-titled FMP debut as a leader and the madcap New Acoustic Swing Duo from Willem Breuker and Han Bennink as standouts.

 Whit Boyd Combo — Party Girls & Dracula (the Dirty Old Man) (Modern Harmonic)

Vintage skin flick soundtracks have rarely if ever received an even-handed shake in terms of relative artistic merits. Tarred with the same smut brush as the visuals they were constructed to accompany, they’re routinely viewed as just as disposable. The Whit Boyd Combo doesn’t exactly dispel this dictum, but it does lay down some funky and at times refreshingly fractious freewheeling horns over organ, bass, and drums driven beats on this late-60s session tape excavated by the folks at Modern Harmonic. The companion Dracula (the Dirty Old Man) isn’t quite on par, but it’s still a solid vessel for competently crafted fossilized grooves.  

 Robbie Basho — Songs of the Avatars (Tompkins Square)

Real Gone Music whet the appetite earlier this year with the release of Songs of the Great Mystery, a “lost session” from Basho’s tenure at the Vanguard label. Songs of the Avatars ups the ante substantially by granting outsider access to a six-hour survey of the dearly departed fingerstyle guitarist’s personal tape trove. The aural riches are ample and include Basho exploring familiar proclivities (Indian, Native American and Japanese interpolations) alongside unexpected new ones (ballet and cantata) with passion and conviction to burn along the way.

 Jimi Hendrix — Live in Maui (Experience Hendrix)

Posthumous Hendrix is a seemingly inexhaustible resource as each year repackaged and repurposed treasures are released into the marketplace. Fortunately, familial heirs are the ones doing the sowing and this lavish set documenting musical and extra-musical particulars of the icon’s reluctant conscription into cosmic hippie scam does right by him. Given the windswept conditions near the Haleakala Crater it’s a minor miracle that he, Billy Cox and Mitch Mitchell mesh as well as they do, and while the footage included can be frustrating in its fragmentary presentation, it’s still a thrill to see and hear them jamming in amiable and ebullient form.

 Joe Maneri, Udi Hrant & Friends — The Cleopatra Record (Canary)

Details on this one could easily serve as grist for a credible short film screenplay with perhaps Jim Jarmusch directing. Brooklyn, 1963: A group of marginalized ethnic musicians relegated to playing wedding gigs gets conscripted for an afternoon recording session. The cheaply packaged and provincially distributed results are destined for the anonymity of dime store cut out bins. Except that the band includes two geniuses: Joe Maneri, who would go on to become a master microtonal improviser/composer and Udi Hrant Kenkulian, one of most revered modern doyens of the Turkish oud. Available over at Bandcamp for a pittance.

 Ayalew Mesfin — Good Aderegechegn, Che Belew and Tewedije Limut (Now Again)

Adding up Buda Musique’s 30-volume Ethiopiques series and a host of other more modest enterprises, it’s obvious that there’s never been more access to vintage Ethiopian music than now. This trilogy of discs from the Now Again label covering vocalist/keyboardist/bandleader Ayalew Mesfin’s catalog restores one of the last untapped reservoirs to circulation. Tight horns, choppy, fuzz and wah-wah drenched guitars and chugging bass fuel dance floor burners while Mesfin’s pipes work memorable magic on a string of melancholic, melismatic ballads.

 Kent & Modern Records Blues into the 60s, Vol. 1 & 2 (Ace)

Ace’s appellation as a music label of enviable reach and import has never been an erroneous assignation. This pair of compilations investigates the urban, but far from urbane, blues scene surrounding Los Angeles as documented by the Kent label in the 1960s. Comparatively longer-in-tooth legends like T-Bone Walker and Big Jay McNeely jockey with younger, fame hungry artists like Larry Davis and Little Joe Blue in negotiating a West Coast argot that’s heavy on electricity channeled through guitars and organs. McNeely’s ripping “Blues in G Minor” is one of several snarling sonic wolves in non-descript sheep’s titling.

 V/A — A Stranger I May Be: Savoy Gospel 1954-1986 (Honest Jons)

This astutely-sequenced set stands out in the particularly plentiful playing field of this year’s gospel reissues. The mighty Savoy label started out as a jazz venture before branching out into other African American musical idioms. The compilers at Honest Jons parse the program chronologically across three-discs and leave the heavy-lifting of context and artists biography to a lengthy essay. Choirs, ensembles, bands, and moonlighting R&B singers all make appearances directing their talents to devotional and invocational celebrations of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

 Sun Ra

One of the highlight roundtables at Dusted this year was a Listening Post ruminating on the Sun Ra Arkesta with and sans Ra on the occasion of the band’s new release Swirling. I got to play the (hopefully uncharacteristic) part of curmudgeon in those exchanges principally because while I respect the ensemble’s longevity absent their lodestar leader, there’s still an explicit void extant that tends to eclipse my actual interest. The Ra reissue docket for 2020, which included excellent editions of Celestial Love and A Fireside Chat with Lucifer from Modern Harmonic, When Angels Speak of Love on Cosmic Myth, Heliocentric Worlds, Vols. 1 and 2 from Ezz-thetics, and Strut’s Egypt 1971, which collects Dark Myth Equation Visitation, Nidhamu and Horizon alongside a bevy of contemporaneous unreleased recordings, only bolstered the bias. 

 Fresh Sound Records

Still the standard for thoughtfully and lavishly curated jazz reissues, Barcelona-based Fresh Sound kept commensurately prolific pace throughout the year. Gary Peacock - The Beginnings surveys the recently deceased bassist’s early work as a versatile California-stationed sideman. Remembering does similar service to rare concert recordings by Belgian guitarist Rene Thomas while The Complete 1961 Milano Sessions offers truth in advertising by compiling woodwind savant Buddy Collette’s sojourn on Italian shores with (mostly) indigenous sidemen.

 V/A — Sumer is Icumenin (Grapefruit)

An overdue sequel to Dust on the Nettles (2015), which apparently commands on princely sums on Discogs these days, this set encompasses 4+ hours of cherry-picked vintage British freak folk. Second helpings from stalwarts of the style such as Comus, Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention join Albion offerings from obscurants like Vulcan’s Hammer, Mr. Fox and Oberon in celebrating the weird crossroads of ancient Britannic and 1960s counterculture influences. The cant is more to The Wicker Man side of the spectrum with Magnet’s bucolic canticle “Corn Rigs” the ringer in that regard.

Twenty-five more in mostly stochastic order:

Aruán Ortiz - Inside Rhythmic Falls (Intakt)

Brandon Seabrook/Cooper-Moore/Gerald Cleaver — Exultations (Astral Spirits)

Cecil Taylor & Tony Oxley — Birdland, Neuberg 2011 (Fundacja Sluchaj)

Horace Tapscott w/ the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra — Ancestral Echoes: The Covina Sessions, 1976 (Dark Tree)

Damon Smith — Whatever is Not Stone is Light (Balance Point Acoustics)

Frank Lowe & Rashied Ali — Duo Exchange: Complete Sessions (Survival)

Dudu Pukwana — and the “Spears” (Matsuli Music)

Mary Halvorson’s Code Girl — Artlessly Falling (Firehouse 12)

Burton Greene — Peace Beyond Conflict (Birdwatcher)

Albert Ayler — Trio 1964: Prophecy Revisited (Ezz-thetics)

JD Allen — Toys/Die Dreaming (Savant)

Charles Mingus — At Bremen 1964 and 1975 (Sunnyside)

The Warriors of the Wonderful Sound — Soundpath (Clean Feed)

Kidd Jordan/Joel Futterman/Alvin Fielder — Spirits (Silkheart)

Roland Haynes — 2nd Wave (Black Jazz)

Quin Kirchner — The Shadows and the Light (Astral Spirits)

Thelonious Monk — Palo Alto (Universal/Impulse)

Black Unity Trio — Al-Fatihah (Salaam Records/Gotta Groove)

Gary Smulyan — Our Contrafacts (Steeplechase)

Joni Mitchell — Archives Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963-1967 (Rhino)

Elder Charles Beck — Your Man of Faith (Gospel Friend)

Sarhabil Ahmed — King of Sudanese Jazz (Habibi Funk)

V/A – The Right to Rock: The Mexicano and Chicano Rock ‘n’ Roll Rebellion 1955-1963, Episodio Uno (Bear Family)

V/A – Hillbillies in Hell: Country Music’s Tormented Testament (1952-1974) ~ Revelations (The Omni Recording Corporation)

V/A — The Harry Smith B-Sides (Dust to Digital)

[doomedandstoned]

Gangrened Conjure Dizzying Atmosphere in ‘Deadly Algorithm’

~Review by Billy Goate~

Before us lies an enigma called 'Deadly Algorithm' (2021) by Finnish band GANGRENED, whom we've introduced you to before, when they dropped that wonderfully dreary doomer 'We Are Nothing' (2014). Let me share with you the diary of my thoughts as I immersed myself in their recently released full-length.

Deadly Algorithm by Gangrened

Deadly Algorithm starts with gentle, quiet picking that echoes faintly, but already surrounds us with a strange, if inviting, airspace. A melodic line develops as "Harrbåda" gains volume, building it seems towards a crescendo -- then suddenly stopping as a drumroll interrupts. The atmosphere returns to quirks and quarks, increasingly distorted notes, spikes of reverberating rhythm. All the while, the same short impermanent melodic motif makes its statement, until it flitters away into the void.

Deadly Algorithm by Gangrened

"Triptaani" makes a strong entrance, this time with galled vocal attack and a slow, but strong, guitar lead girded by the fuzz-sparked gears of bass and drum languidly moving this machine along. A hail of shredding follows, with cymbals crashing to a throbbing beat, leading to one ardent chord laid upon another. Eventually the pace slows to a crawl, with dissonant harmonies, and a wild solo from Jon Imbernon that's almost overcome by the industrial crunch of Lassi Männikkö's dumming, Joakim Udd's vile spew of noise, Mikko Mannistö's declamatory singing.

Deadly Algorithm by Gangrened

"Hologrammi" features more familiar doom pacing with a searing riffage, a slow burn flow of bass and drums, and clean (but pissed off) crooning. It's surrounded by a mesmerizing jumble of pedal effects, noise, downtuned instrumental buzz, and crackling amps -- of which make its climactic moment of vocal delivery emphatic and powerful.

Deadly Algorithm by Gangrened

Intricate guitar trilling action introduces “Kuningatar” and it sounds almost like temelos dancing upon its appointed harmonic scale in those opening moments. By the time the rest of the crew sounds off, it turns into a frightening ensemble, indeed. I imagine this would be quite chilling to experience in a live setting. While the vocals feel swallowed up in the great reverberating wall of sound, it seems to add to the mystique of the whole dim sound environment. Psychedelic noodling returns six minutes and if you listen carefully you can hear a seething malediction pronounced sternly beneath the fray of scattered noise, synth, and pedal effects. Great doom returns to ground us to reality and the band improvises a swirl of activity that makes me think of the wandering spirits released from the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Deadly Algorithm by Gangrened

”Triangeli” grabs hold of us with a rumbling bass line that establishes the song’s basic theme, soon to be reinforced by guitar. Meanwhile, words are spoken with accented cymbals and hypnotic drumming. The song ends with whispered lyrics uttered over a soundgarden of riffage, soft cymbals, omnipotent bass rumble, and the cycling sounds of amp feedback. I don't know the words, and the singer refuses to share them, so that means what he's singing is left up to your fertile imagination. Or you can just enjoy the vocal aesthetic and what it contributes to this dense, dark atmosphere.

A cathartic journey, indeed, which I ventured on while I was in an especially discouraged and pissed off mood. Even though I understood not its words, I felt its sentiment and it was in some way cleansing. Available digitally, on vinyl and compact disc as an independent release (order here).

Interviewing Gangrened Guitarist Jon Imbernon

By Billy Goate

You've been a band for quite a while. I understand you are one of the founding members, too. How did Gangrened form to begin with?

Well, we were a bunch of guys living in the same area around ostrobotnia, between kokkola and new karleby, here in the center west coast of finland. so few of us had the idea to do the band so we asked the others, but none of those guys except me are still in the band. high level of mobility because studies in this area of small towns, to bigger cities of Finland.

It sounds like there are challenges keeping a band together in Ostrobotnia? I imagine it makes it ver5y challenging to get new band members to replace the old. Is there much of a music scene to speak of?

Yeah, actually I'm not from here myself. I'm Basque/Spanish and in the specific area I live, like around 110 kilometers or so, there's no real bands or scene, but if you go forward you reach Oulu in the north or Seinajoki, bigger cities with more bands and such. And yes, from the exact spot I live now, I have needed to look more than 100 kms to find new members. I'm moving in a near future to Tampere, so that should help in strengthening the line-up.

So how long has the most recent crew of Gangrened been together?

Since May of 2015, just after some dates we played with Bongzilla in Finland, the entire line-up shifted.

Gangrened basically means "gangrene" right?

It's like "corrupted," you know? Yes, the name comes from the illness.

My grandfather's big toe got infected from a cut because he didn't treat it properly. When he finally went to a doctor, they told him he would have to amputate his foot to live. He refused, stating he wanted to die with both of his feet on. So he officially died of gangrene!

Ouch! Okay...

Did you pick Gangrened for any special reason, like the corruption of society or something like that?

Yeah, that kind of reason. I wanted some grimmy name, but actually now it's getting a bit inappropriate, as we are not so typically doom sludge anymore.

How would you describe/characterize your sound now?

Well, I would say it is deep and varied. Actually, I think this record is like transitional, just because, for example, one song "Hologrammi" is an old song we included. But newer stuff goes beyond what has been previously recorded, take songs like "Triangeli" or "Kuningatar."

Deadly Algorithm by Gangrened

We reviewed 'We Are Nothing' back in 2014, and at the time we described your sound in terms of: "Slow, behemoth sized riffs. Excessive feedback. Fuzz worship." What would you say has changed or is different now, as your sound, style, and general musical approach has evolved?

Well, at some point, just as an exercise of abstraction to what we were doing, how it was turning out with songs like "Triangeli" or "Kuningatar" I decided to look into my whole musical background, and keep on adding elements from it. Also I got bored of the regular sludge-doom thing. So I considered it more interesting, and more comfortable to me, to keep an essence of slow and heavy music, and atmospheric at times, but not so defined inside the regular sludge-doom thing. The atmosphere feels very trippy, even psychedelic at times.

Let's talk about the new album. Why is it called 'Deadly Algorithm'? I think about 10 years ago, I never used the word "algorithm," but now it's a common word that most people at least understand in concept.

Well, I'm studying now in the university again, engineering in information technology, and at same time i'm a person a lot with strong progressive values, so through my studies and also digging on related topics like online privacy or the evolution and development of the new technologies I found alarming how the new technologies are going and its implications.

There are several key things that many people do not think about: smart phones have like six sensors on average to spot your location, plus no company gives services for free. If so, it's because the product is the user of the service. There's no other reason for that. So beginning with these facts, there are a lot of things going on that everyone should be aware of, and the album theme is all about that. Nowadays, data algorithms are making more and more decisions in our lives that no more take into account true needs as humans.

It seems like we have created our own virtual prison, without even realizing it.

Yes, but the thing is who runs the prison? not ourselves at all.

Getting into the songs themselves, are they all sung in Finnish?

Yes. At first some were in english but then the singer decided to sing all songs in Finnish.

Starting with the first song, can you tell us what each title means and what themes you explore?

The first song ("Harrbåda") is simply the name of a coastal area around here. The second ("Triptaani") is a medicine for headaches. The third song ("Hologrammi") is named obviously after a hologram. The fourth ("Kuningatar") means "Queen" and the last ("Triangeli") is "triangle."

Is there any conceptual, thematic, or spiritual relationship between these tracks?

It's quite a personal thing to the singer, he wrote the lyrics and I can't exactly tell you their meaning because Mikko Mannistö is a bit secretive about it. But personal things, yes. Personal matters to him.

Tell us a little bit about the recording process. Where did you record, with whom, and are there any memories that stand out from that time?

Well, we started recording the record in june 2018, with a friend of the singer, at some big rooms in a youth center house. We did most of the recordings with him until February of 2019. At that time, we asked a few people to mix, master, and finish the process. but nothing worked and there was some time wasted waiting for answers.

I decided moving forward we would go with someone who is recording records all the time and known by us, so we asked Tom Brooke, an English guy who lives close to Jyväskylä, runs a studio, and is the live sound technician for Oranssi Pazuzu. So we finished the record, a few more guitar tracks, mixing, and mastering with him.

I remember there was a long time between sessions, so new ideas were constantly coming to us to add to the songs for the next session. That’s why some guitar tracks were added for mixing just the day before starting to mix.

I'm sure you were relieved once all the recording, mixing, and mastering was finally done!

Yeah ! like this is the record and now its totally defined and wrapped up. As a guitarist, what can you tell us about the guitar writing on the new album? Anything that you are especially proud of or that you think the listener should pay special attention to?

The intro is all played by me, and then the weirdest stuff, noisy guitar here and there, and the first half of riffs of triptaani , i'm quite proud of the first two or three riffs, and I used to be proud about some riffs in the middle of "hologrammi." The noisiest and more psyched out guitars of kuningatar.

Tell us about what you, as a guitarist, used in the studio while recording 'Deadly Algorithm'

Well, so I used three guitars to record the album: one Gibson SG Standard from the late '90s, another SG Standard from 1980, and a Gibson Les Paul Classic from around 1991. The SG from the late '90s was ultra-modded -- I changed the finish, pickups, electronics, tuners, but in the end sold it and now it's owned by David from Slomatics. The 1980 I just bought for the recording, so it was all stock. Later, I changed the pickups. The Gibson Les Paul also had all replaced tuners, circuit pickups, and so. It's my main guitar and I used it in most of the songs. The SGs I just used for "Triangeli," the last song.

About effects, I use a Big Muff Fuzz mainly, but also a custom Dunwich Amps FuzzThrone for the ultra heavy parts, like at the end of "Kuningatar." Other effects I used were the Dunlop Echoplex pedal and the Strymon Capistan. I love tape echo sounds and these pedals emulate it. Also, another effect I really like and couldn't live without is the Earthquaker Devices Transmisser. I used it in three of the songs.

Amps used included an '80s Laney AOR Pro Tube and Orange OR120 from 1975 and a late '70s Matamp GT120. Every rhythm guitar track was recorded with two of them at same time, mainly the Matamp and the Laney. That probably is the main sound of the album, but I think "Hologrami" I recorded with the Orange and the Matamp. About cabs, I used two Orange cabs -- one with Eminence speakers the other with WGS speakers.

Have you had a chance to play live at all since the pandemic?

Nope, we haven't been rehearsing either.

If you had your choice to tour with any five bands and play in any five places, what would they be and why?

We are keeping it for when there's no risk of cancellations, we have some date plans and so on, but it sucks to cancel things so we are just waiting. I would play with Unsane in New York for example then some bands I have liked recently, even if some are inactive at this moment. Belzebong, Nightslug, Domkraft, Follakzoid, and the body also.

That would be a sick line-up!

What parts of the world would you like to travel to?

Well, I've never been to America or Asia. I have been to Europe, the UK, and Russia only.

Okay, yeah it would be cool to have you come over here and play for us sometime.

Yeah, would be nice

Lastly, did you all wear your heart on the opposite sides of your head for this photo to give the illusion that your heads are on backwards? Or was it digitally manipulated to make it look like your heads were on the wrong way? I love the concept!

I made that pic myself. I took two photographs, one of us in front and another in the backs. So then I took the heads of the back picture and put on our front bodies pic, with Photoshop. David lynch-ish vibes!

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[a-bugz-life]

I’m Toxic, You’re Slipping Under || Solo

TIMING: Last Night SUMMARY: Anita relapses.  CONTENT WARNINGS: NSFW (kissing, touching, sex mentions), death, vomit

Anita wasn’t the type to settle down. She thought she might have been, at one point, years ago. But with the way things went with Priya… she knew that she wasn’t the kind of person, the kind of creature that could be trusted around another person. She was designed to kill, that was what her kind was meant to do. So to protect herself and others, she made a very strict rule to never be anything but casual with women. If there wasn’t much emotion, if there wasn’t a ton of passion, she knew that she could control herself. She could make sure that she wasn’t around anyone when she was really hungry, she could make sure to eat before sleeping with anyone. 

For years sticking with that plan worked. She’d “lose” girls numbers after she hooked up with them. She’d avoid sleeping with people she saw too often so that there wouldn’t be any awkwardness. Sure, there were plenty of women who got pissed at her, who didn’t want a one-night only kind of thing. But that’s who Anita was. Until Marley. 

Maybe it was because the first night they had ever met it was obvious to both of them that neither was human, or maybe it was just because of who Marley was, but Anita couldn’t help but keep going back to her. It was getting to the point where it was nearly all-consuming. The appeal of going out to pick up women lost its edge, and more nights than not she opted to instead just spend time with Marley. But tonight wasn’t one of those nights, even though she had wanted it to be. Anita knew Marley was working the night shift, and used this as an opportunity to force herself to get back out there, to meet some random women and have a random one-night-stand and try to get back to her old self. 

Dell’s was always a good bet. Packed on the weekends, plenty of people to mingle with until she found someone who was interested. Not that that ever really took very long. When she arrived the place was bustling with energy, and any nerves or reservations she previously had about going out seemed to just slip away. Anita approached the bar, and slid in beside a woman who appeared to be sitting alone. She waved down the bartender, who gave her the ‘one minute’ signal, then she turned to the woman beside her. “Damn, what are you drinking that looks really good.” 

It was a fairly outright lie. Anita wasn’t really into the fruity drinks, and this one was clearly that. But she was into the woman, and this bit was always an easy way to strike up a conversation. And that was exactly what happened in this case. Anita ordered the same drink that the woman was having, something bright blue and full of literal chunks of fruit. It wasn’t the greatest, but the conversations that followed were pretty decent. It was at least enough for Anita to be able to gather that this woman, Sarah, was pretty into her, which was really all she was looking for that evening. 

After a few drinks and a few hours, the bartender announced the last call. Like most nights, this was the make it or break it moment. A subtle look and a flutter of her eyes, she’d tentatively place a hand on the other woman’s thigh, then lean in and whisper in her ear,  “Hey, you know, I think I got the ingredient to make more of these at my place. Wanna continue this there?” If the answer was no, it wouldn’t be the end of the world, but after hours of flirting the answer was almost always a resounding, “That sounds amazing.” 

Anita grinned at the words, paid out her tab then wrapped her one arm around the other woman’s waist as they made their way out to the parking lot. The good thing about closing time is that the taxi service in town always had cars out in the lot just as people were making their way out, like a well oiled machine. The pair of women got into a cab, and Anita offered up her address as their destination. The ride over to Dark Score Lake took a bit of time, so Anita used every second to get cozy with her lady for the night. 

Before the cab even made it to her home, the women were already kissing in the backseat. The cab driver almost swerved out of the lane a few times looking back at them in the rearview mirror. Anita couldn’t help but smirk. 

Once the cab pulled into Anita’s driveway, she threw a wad of cash into the driver’s lap then led Sarah up to the front door. “To be clear, you’re not actually expecting me to make you that fruity drink, are you?” She asked teasingly, fairly sure that she and Sarah were on the same wavelength. 

“Oh god no.” Her companion replied, as she wrapped an arm around Anita’s waist and pulled her inside the house. 

Anita smiled widely, then shut and locked the front door behind them, pressing Sarah up against it. Their bodies and lips moved in an easy unison, the pair of them seemed to have the same egar hunger for each other. Their movements got intense, and Anita began to lead the woman out to the bedroom. 

As they fell into the bed, the other woman shed the shyness she had displayed at the bar, and took complete control. Anita gave in, always happy to let the other woman decide who was going to be dominant and who was going to be submissive. Sarah knew what she was doing, and their bodies were moving together in such a rhythm that Anita lost track of… well, everything. She lost track of time, of where she was, of who she was with, and perhaps most importantly - of who she was. 

Sarah was kissing along Anita’s collarbone, gently nibbling on the skin. As Anita began to return the favor of kissing on the other woman’s neck, she was still so lost. She slipped up. She bit down. 

At first she was hardly even aware of what she had done, it wasn’t until she felt the woman go limp on top of her that she knew. The taste lingered in her mouth, a deadly mixture of blood and venom. For what felt like an eternity she did nothing but lay there, unable and partly unwilling to process what she had just done. If she wasn’t already cold-blooded, she was sure that her blood would have turned cold as she laid there. 

Finally, she knew that she needed to do something. She couldn’t just stay there until the shame and guilt took her life too. Maybe it was because she was feeling so uneasy, but it took nearly all of her strength to push Sarah to the side in order for her to get out of the bed. Once she climbed out of the bed, her body dropped to the floor like a ton of bricks. There was a pain, a heaviness to her and she began to sob. It was an ugly cry, and she wished she could will her tears to turn back time. To have her just call up Marley instead of going to that damn bar in the first place. 

That’s when it hit her - Marley. She could help. She’d know what to do. Even if she arrested her, maybe that was for the best. Maybe she didn’t deserve to be roaming about anymore, not if she clearly couldn’t control herself. 

But as soon as that thought crossed her mind, she felt her stomach churn. Anita was slightly surprised that she had enough strength to stand up. As soon as she did, she stumbled towards the bathroom right off her room, barely making it to the toilet before she became violently ill. Sliding herself down she laid on the cold tiles of the bathroom floor for a moment. Her mind couldn’t stop flashing back to Priya. The memory of her lifeless body as her sisters tore her apart. She had spent years convincing herself that she was better than them. But tonight proved that she wasn’t capable of change. Anita was every bit the monster she feared she was. 

Desperation flooded over her as she stood up once more. She made her way back into her bedroom and pulled her phone out of the jacket she had been wearing. She went into her favorites, and clicked on Marley’s name, her heart beating faster with each ring that she heard.

[justherekinda]

In Your Dreams // part 2

Summary: Things grow stronger but will a face from Kelsea’s past make the connection between her and Aryia weaken?

Warnings: Alcohol mention, swearing

Word Count: 2,772

I truly never thought I would be in this position, well not in real life, but I did read a lot of fanfictions about it through my time. Aryia and I have been talking nonstop, that includes texting, facetime calls and even phone calls on some occasions. I didn’t realize that we would bond as much as we actually are, we talked about things from as silly conspiracies we believed in all the way to the deep shit like our familiarity with addiction. Which believe me, I was not expecting to have him be so open with me when it came to that topic. I suppose he felt the connection due to my experiences with it throughout my childhood with my older brother. Other than the sly compliments through our talking, he’d even pop up at my work and without a word leave food behind with Ashley (the receptionist obviously). I probably shouldn’t have slipped up and told him how I didn’t eat sometimes through my double shifts. I was now sitting on my bed back at my apartment, staring at the most recent text message I had received from him.

“btw some of my friends are throwing a party at their place and I’d rather not go alone… come with?” I didn’t know what to say, do I go and hang out with him one on one? Does he want to introduce me to his friends low key to see how I reacted? I obviously left out the specific detail that I might’ve watched him and his friends videos through college so what if I go there and freak the fuck out? I ran a hand across my face once before I shook my head, picking my phone back up and quickly typing, “Can’t let you suffer alone now can I?” I sucked my bottom lip in between my teeth, weighing the pros and cons of sending the message before saying fuck it and clicking the arrow to send it. Not even five seconds later I got a reply along with the wink emoji, “ill send you the location darling, party starts at 8.” My eyebrows furrowed slightly as I quickly glanced up at the time on my phone before my eyes widened. Oh my fuck I have three hours to get my shit together and look presentable. I quickly clicked a specific number in my phone, lifting it up to my ear and said, “Hey Rachel… I need your help. How fast can you get here?” Thank god for having a best friend who lived 10 minutes away.

My eyes were locked on my reflection in the mirror of my dresser, the light rose color of blush starting to show up where Rachel applied it. The grin never failed to leave her face as she picked my outfit out all the way through to the putting on the final touches of my makeup. The wideness of her smile made one slowly start to grow on mine as I gently bumped her arm with my shoulder. “Stop grinning like that,” I whined softly, hearing her scoff slightly as I continue. “Its just a party its not like he’s about to propose Rach.”

She rolled her eyes, moving in front of me to inspect her work; the smile still obvious. “Oh cmon Kels, you’ve been gaga for him since college and now you’re literally the main character in a fanfic.”

Now that comment made me roll my eyes, crossing my arms across my chest as I looked at her. “I don’t do parties, especially parties that involve famous fuckin Youtubers.”

She came and sat down beside me on my bed, my head automatically falling onto her shoulder. “Then why’d you agree to go with him?” She asked, her fingers twisting a makeup brush between them.

A tedious habit I noticed she did when she focused on a conversation. I shrugged slightly, not being able to help the small smile that spread on my lips. The answer coming so simply and yet, still made those pesky butterflies erupt in my stomach.

“Because I feel like he could actually become something to me.”

She lightly bumped her shoulder up to make me look at her, the grin making her nose scrunch up slightly. “Then make tonight worth it.”

Rachel had been long gone by the time I had to make my way into an Uber to head towards the location Aryia had sent me. When the uber pulled up at the location, my mouth went dry as I quickly recognized the house before me. It was the trap house, THE trap house that Sam Golbach, Corey Scherer, Jake Webber and the infamous Colby Brock moved into once their apartment days were behind them. The beep of a horn that was waiting for my Uber to move, snapped me out of my thoughts. Nodding a thank you to the driver I finally stepped out, brushing my hair behind my hair behind my shoulder as I walked up to the door. My nose crinkled slightly as the guard who was blocking the door put his arm out in front of me. I opened my mouth to argue about him letting me in before I heard him, someone who I spent nights before talking to.

“It’s okay Patrick,” He said, stepping out of the house and slipping his hand into mine. “She’s with me.” As those left his lips, his eyes finally locked with mine; gently pulling me inside behind him. The music was loud and people were flooded throughout the house, some faces were familiar and some not so much. Goosebumps swept through my body as I felt Aryias lips brush against my ear, him whispering in my ear due to the music.

“You look amazing by the way.”

Five simple words that made my face heat up completely, shaking my head as I said, “I do wear things other than scrubs and pajamas.” He lead me through the crowd to the back of the house, my eyes widening slightly in awe as I looked around at all the fairy lights. Well those were certainly new. We sat down on a bench that was placed right under the lights, our legs brushing as we both got comfortable. A sheepish smile came across his lips, his body turning to face me slightly before he said, “is this a super shitty first hangout? If it is we can like totally ditch.”

I laughed softly, shaking my head and turning my body to match his. “Definitely not, honestly if it was just us two somewhere I’d probably be more nervous than I am.”

The words slipped from my lips with ease, a flush coming back to my cheeks. I watched as his eyebrow cocked playfully and with a tilt of his head said, “Oh so I make you nervous aye?”

I rolled my eyes, gently hitting his shoulder with the palm of my hand; not being able to control the smile. “Oh hush, you’re just lucky I blessed you with my presence tonight.”

A softness crossed over his features, one that I’ve only seen once before with Ronnie at the hospital. His hand went and gently laid on the top of my knee, his thumb rubbing it ever so gently. “Blessed is definitely the word I’d use.”

My eyes glanced down at his position on my knee, my hand going to lay gently on top of his. I shook my head slightly, giving his hand a gentle squeeze before saying, “You trying to make putty in your hands or is this just your natural charm?”

I watched as he rolled his eyes, the smile starting to grow on his lips. “Maybe a little bit of both but I’m enjoying the putty part of you.”

I rolled my eyes, licking my lips as I run a hand nervously through my hair. I felt as he gently squeezed my knee before he lifted his hand up from it. “I’m goin to get us both a soda, I’ll be back in a bit love,” he said, gently brushing his finger against my jaw before walking inside.

I felt my cheeks flush with redness, shaking my head as I took out my phone to pass the time that he was gone. The scrolling through my phone didn’t last a long time before I felt a body plop down beside me. I glanced up, expecting to see Aryias hazels eyes looking at me but was in for a surprise as I saw instead, bright blue ones. I noticed the confused look across his face, a slight chuckle coming from me.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m Kelsea and you are?” I asked, trying to act as if I had no clue of the man in front of me or our history he didn’t even know about.

A small chuckle escaped him that matched mine, a slight nod coming as he said, “Colby Brock, this is sort of my party doll. Which confuses me as to why I’ve never seen you here before?” I swallowed slightly, plastering a smile onto my lips as I sat up straighter to look at him.

“Was invited, guess the host didn’t get the memo aye?” The remark came out sassier than I intended but I couldn’t help but notice the smirk appear on his.

“A feisty one we have here huh? I like that. Least I got a name to match the mysterious beauty.” I swallowed again, feeling my stomach flip slightly as I did a slight nod. The words coming from him were… unexpected and flirty? It made me speechless, only able to do a nod in response which made him speak once again.

“Can I get you a drink babe? We have all sorts of liquor or even a seltzer like I have here,” he said, lifting up his own solo cup.  I opened my mouth to reply before I felt a hand lay on my shoulder. The approach making me jump slightly and glance up, letting out a slight breath of relief as I saw Aryia smiling adoringly down at me. He looked at me a moment before looking at Colby, his head tilting slightly.

“I see you’ve met Kelsea, the vet I told you about that helped Ronnie?” I glanced over at Colby, relaxing back into Aryias gentle touch and trying to hide the smirk that grew as Colby’s dropped. He cleared his throat briefly before he stood up, smiling politely at Aryia.

“Oh, didn’t know she was with you brother. Seems like a good one.” He excused himself after saying that, his hand rubbing Aryias shoulder while he walked past. Aryia resumed his position beside me, my eyes glancing back at Colby just to see his already on mine. The quick wink he sent me, made me tense up slightly before I looked back at Aryia. He held out the solo cup to me, our fingers brushing as I took the cup from him. Peering down into it as I noticed the fizzy substance inside of it, the smile growing back onto my lips as I relaxed. I could tell Aryia noticed the breath of relief that I let out when he put his hand back on my leg. “

“Are you okay? We can leave if you want, I know these parties can be… a bit much.”

His words seemed genuine and seemed like he actually cared for my wellbeing and comfort which was new to me. I let myself place my hand on top of his, my eyes growing softer as I looked at the man in front of me. My fingers gently brushed his to lay right between his on my leg, gaining comfort from such an innocent motion.

“I’m perfect and I know we both agreed that we were terrible dancers before I came but I gotta ask. You wanna dance?”

I raise an eyebrow, taking my bottom lip slightly between my teeth as I worried about his reply. A slight scoff came from his lips, taking my drink from me and placing it on the ground beside the bench. I watched as he stood up and held out his hand to me, a playful look in his eyes.

“Hope you don’t embarrass easy, let’s dance.”

 The time I spent dancing with Aryia felt like time didn’t pass, the amount of times I busted out laughing due to him acting like a fool made it unforgettable. I feel by the time we finally stepped off to the side to catch our breathes, him making me laugh as much as humanly possible was his goal. My back was leaned against the wall by the kitchen, my eyes staying on Aryia as he spoke about a time, he got so plastered at one of these things that he ended up puking off a balcony. My attention was caught as a little wave was mustered by, of course, Colby in the kitchen. My attention for a moment left Aryia to look at Colby, curious as to why he even wanted my attention in the first place. Once he realized he had caught my eyes, he glanced down to a random girl that was staring at him all doe eyed. He curled his finger against her jawbone before practically shoving his tongue down her throat, making a look of disgust cross over my face. I quickly turned my attention back to Aryia to see him looking at me with a raised eyebrow. Oh fuck, I definitely have been caught not listening. My cheeks flushed in embarrassment, shaking my head quickly as I placed my hand gently up to lay against his neck.

“I’m sorryyyyy,” I said, pouting my lip out quickly as I started to give him puppy dog eyes. “I thought I saw someone I knew, got distracted,” I finished, keeping my puppy dog face up before a little huff fell from his lips. He placed his hand over the one on my neck, looking down at me with a smile.

“If I was boring you baby you could’ve told me.” I opened my mouth to argue before realization crossed over me and I let a smirk come onto my lips.

“Oh, I’m baby now huh?” I said, gently tapping my fingers against his neck as I watched as he blushed ever so slightly. He took his bottom lip between his teeth for a moment before letting it go, a shrug rolling off his shoulders.

“I’d like for you to be…” He drifted off, his tone sounding genuine which made my stomach curl into a knot. I let his words set with me for a moment, giving myself time to examine his face completely. From the way his eyes were slightly dark from the lack of sleep he spoke about struggling with, but also somehow holding light whenever he smiled. Fuck, that smile, I couldn’t even begin to describe how I ached to have that smile stay on his lips forever. I slipped my fingers from his neck to lay against my side, letting a smile come onto my lips.

“I’d like that too.” My voice was quiet, and the nerves were obvious in my slow movements, not really sure where to place my hands in that moment. I feel like he could sense that because before I could even breath, he reached and gently placed my left hand on his side. I could feel the curl of his side under my fingertips as he reached and placed my right one on the back of his neck. The motions he put me made him step closer to me, making me let out a nervous breath at how close we were. His fingers went and delicately held my chin between his index finger and thumb. My eyes glanced back and forth between his eyes; I swore I could feel the bass of the music match the rhythm of my heart. He leaned down slightly, our eyes staying locked before he stopped right as his lips were above mine. I could feel his breath hit my lips as he said just loud enough for me to hear him, “I won’t hurt you Kels.” After those words slipped from him, I felt his lips meet mine. He gave me a few moments to push him away before he stepped closer to put his free hand on my hip. My stomach instantly flipped as his lips connected to mine, my fingers curling around his body as I kissed him back. For the first time in forever, I felt like he wouldn’t break those five words he spoke to me

[fire-toolz]

My family's beloved 16-year-old Siamese cat, Webley, died in my arms last year. He'd been a sleek fat kitty before he got ill, but he'd lost weight and lost weight till he was little more than a bedraggled shadow. At the end he could barely lift his head, and then the vet gave him the shot and he couldn't lift his head at all. I was scratching his ears as I'd so often done before, and suddenly they dropped, and whatever I was petting wasn't Webley anymore. It's one of the worst memories of my life.

I've been thinking about Webley a lot while listening to the new Fire-Toolz album, Rainbow Bridge, which comes out May 8 on local label Hausu Mountain. Angel Marcloid, a Chicago musician who records as Fire-Toolz (as well as under several other names), made Rainbow Bridge about her 16-year-old cat, Breakfast, also a Siamese, who died in December 2018. The album is an idiosyncratic collage of guttural death-metal roars, electronic bleeps, and vaporwave ambience. Bleak, sweet, and quietly unflinching, it slides back and forth between two emotional poles: one boils with rage and grief, while the other is steeped in a comforting lyricism as gentle as a cat rubbing its chin against your hand. "It's been a while, but I think about her every day," Marcloid says. "I still have moments where I feel her close and I just cry a whole bunch. I've got her ashes two feet from me right now. I have a tattoo of her on my chest. So yeah, I'm happy to honor her in my music."

From as early as she can remember, Marcloid says, music made her feel things "that are just so abstract and visceral and hard to put your finger on." She was born near Annapolis in 1984 to a music-loving family; her parents constantly played CDs of hair metal, the Beatles, and her all-time favorite band, Rush. Marcloid started making little drum sets out of pots and pans almost as soon as she could walk.

Her first public performance was when she was seven. Her parents knew a local bar band, and she sat in with them to play drums on a cover of the Black Crowes' "Hard to Handle."

"This is a smoky bar, women showing their boobs and stuff—it was not an environment for kids!" Marcloid says. "But I sat down with the drum kit and we played the songs, and they were just amazed. They were looking back at me while we were playing, like, 'Holy shit! This kid's actually keeping time!' I'll never forget walking off that stage, and all these drunk, smelly adults cheering me on, and a couple of people just gave me money. 'You're awesome, kid! Here's 20 dollars!'"

Marcloid soon taught herself to play guitar and bass too, and her musical interests expanded. As a child she had a formative late-night exposure to Morbid Angel's 1993 video for "Rapture" via MTV's Headbangers Ball, and soon she was also listening to jazz and electronica. She performed in several short-lived bands, and in the late 2000s she launched her own label, also called Rainbow Bridge. Through it Marcloid released cassettes and CDs by other musicians, as well as a blizzard of her own music under various names—including ambient acoustic music as the Human Excuse, punky dream pop with the trio Shadow Government, and electroacoustic noise as Water Bullet.

Marcloid came to Chicago in 2012 to move in with a girlfriend, who owned several cats and had just adopted Breakfast. Like most Siamese, Marcloid says, Breakfast "has always been a little strange." She was neurotic and disliked the other cats, and she never really warmed up to Marcloid's partner. In fact she only had one clear favorite. "She took to me immediately," Marcloid says, "and always wanted to be on me and just wanted to spend all her time with me." When Marcloid and her partner split up, there was no question who Breakfast would go with. The kitty ended up spending most of her life in Marcloid's bedroom to avoid other cats. "The rest of the house was just scary for her. There were too many other cat smells," Marcloid says.

"On the one hand, it may seem weird or maybe even borderline cruel to keep a cat in a single bedroom for their entire lives. But that's what she wanted; she was happy."

Marcloid has featured Breakfast in tracks throughout her oeuvre. "Spirit Spit" from the 2017 album Drip Mental (Hausu Mountain), for example, is a short wordless suite in which Marcloid imagines the usually shy Breakfast grown adventurous enough to go exploring in the house during a storm. The track opens with Breakfast engaging in some Siamese vocalizing and squawking, with thunder in the background. The rest of the narrative unfolds through auditory cues. "She comes down to the basement and turns on her ancient computer, which dials in to AOL," Marcloid explains. "Then she puts on a Telepath CD, which is a vaporwave artist that I absolutely love. You can hear the CD drive opening, you can hear the Telepath song start. And then she types some stuff and is meowing. And then she turns off the computer and goes back upstairs."

In 2018 Breakfast began to go into kidney failure. She was constantly peeing in Marcloid's room, and she wasn't eating. Eventually she was so uncomfortable and miserable Marcloid had to euthanize her. "And that was just so fucking traumatic for me, and so emotional," Marcloid says. "It really energized the search for truth and meaning that I had already begun years ago."

Marcloid began making Rainbow Bridge during Breakfast's illness. The title isn't just a callback to her record label (which she folded around five years ago) but also a reference to contemporary folk mythology about a rainbow bridge that, in Marcloid's words, "our pets either cross when they die to go to the other side, or they go there and they wait for us." The cover art, by Marcloid and Jeremy Coubrough, shows a Siamese cat sitting in a green field with her back to the viewer, looking at the prismatic steps of a bridge that leads upward into a kind of bloated growth of exploding colors.

The chaos of different hues fits the Fire-Toolz aesthetic. As Hausu Mountain cofounder Doug Kaplan puts it, "There's just nobody else that sounds like this, and there will never be another. Each track goes a billion different places but has a strong sense of oneness." Marcloid's other projects often follow particular rules or fit into particular genres; Mindspring Memories, for example, is mostly slowed-down and otherwise manipulated smooth-jazz samples. A recent album under the name Path to Lobster Believers is tape-collage improvisation. But with Fire-Toolz, Marcloid says, "Anything goes. It's a no-rules catchall; everything reports to it. It's the top of the pyramid."

The violent shifts in tone and genre on a Fire-Toolz track often feel exuberant and playful. On Rainbow Bridge, though, they create splatters of emotion: nostalgia, confusion, loss, hope. The opening track, "Gnosis .•o°Ozing," starts out as ranting death metal, with Marcloid screaming distorted, virtually indecipherable lyrics: "Arms wrapped in neon like a warning / A rainbow bridge unfurling / And now I lay listening to nothing / I feel my organs locking up."

By the second verse, she's superimposed smooth-jazz keyboard flourishes atop the noise, so that it sounds like the metal is battling easy listening, anger struggling with happier memories. "Layers in grief not unlike stages of passing / There are many / Not too many / Not so much."

The video for the song "Rainbow ∞ Bridge," created by Marcloid with Armpitrubber (aka Christine Janokowicz), provides an intense visual analogue for the music's smeared palette. This song too starts with a death-metal feel, pairing double kick drum with Marcloid's throat-tearing vocals. "Please don't be mad that I cut your cord / Fear lodged in my gums / Pressing into my face with fingerlike force / Breakfast!" she yells, as images of the kitty strobe and dissolve into colors, lights, emojis, a door opening, SpongeBob screaming. Tinkly new-age keyboard ambience plays over purple clouds and the on-screen words "Heaven! They say I can sit and soak you up." A guitar solo fit for a classic-rock ballad cuts through the shifting landscape, and then the song briefly fades into ambience as Breakfast romps across the screen and dissolves. It's a vision of a loved one disintegrating, perhaps into nothing, perhaps into memory or heaven, while pain and happiness alternate in spasms of glitches.

"Heaven has no location," Marcloid howls near the end of the track. That's a statement of spiritual hope; heaven is everywhere, Marcloid believes. "It's not any particular place. It's something that is all-encompassing," she says. "I think that it's everywhere and everything. It's the flow of life." You can hear that hope on tracks such as "⌈Mego⌉ ≜ Maitrī," which is all gentle surging keyboards and pattering electronica, encouraging you to gently drift into an ether of soft fur and purring.

A heaven without location can also simply be a heaven that doesn't exist, though, and that fear and doubt is also part of Rainbow Bridge. On the jittery "Microtubules," a throbbing beat loops around and around as Marcloid asks, "Were you afraid of crossing?" It's an unsettling question: of course she'd worry about a cat who never wanted to leave the bedroom going off on a long journey alone.

"When Breakfast was sick, anxiety was a huge, huge part of it," Marcloid says. "And even after she passed, and I knew that there was nothing to be done, there was still so much anxiety. I became frustrated because I wanted to know where she was, if she was anywhere. I just want the truth. I don't even care what it is, even if the truth is we're all just dead, and that when my body stops working, it's completely over."

Marcloid finished Rainbow Bridge months ago, and of course she didn't know it would be released at a time when anxiety, uncertainty, fear, and isolation would be so pervasive. In the context of a pandemic, the album seems even more relevant, not just because of its grief but also because of its prescient reminder of the importance of pets: during the stay-at-home order, animal adoptions have broken records as humans turn to cats and dogs to keep them company, and keep them sane, in isolation.

Marcloid adopted another cat herself after Breakfast died, and she now has three. "It's incredibly comforting to have them during a time like this," she says. "They're a solid rock for me to lean on. Especially lately, because they just don't fight with themselves. They're just such simpler creatures, and they're so much more connected to reality than any human could possibly be because of how complex our lives are. When they're in pain, they'll react—they won't like it, but they don't conceptualize and theorize about it. They don't get into this existential dread. They're just in pain, and they just want the pain to go away. That's all it is. It's that simple. We are just hopeless cases in comparison."

Marcloid's music, for all its genre shifts and chaotic oddness, can also reach for that kind of simplicity of thought and emotion. The six-minute instrumental "Angel (of Deth)" is elegiac, oceanic Muzak—a soundtrack to play while the waves roll in, or while watching a kitty sleep. At its conclusion the track breaks up into electronic blips and warbles, as though the world were coming apart and something else were wavering into existence behind the static.

"It's a mystery because we don't know," Marcloid says. "So I have to love and honor that mystery. I don't even know what God is, or if God exists, but whatever it is, that's what I love." Marcloid's tribute suggests that cats may know more about love than we do. They trust you even at the end, to help them die. Rainbow Bridge is not just a eulogy but an expression of hope that they'll lend you a paw in turn when your time comes. It's a comfort to think that when you start up those stairs, there will be a small someone to show you the way.  

[theclintbartonbraindump]

Clint Barton x Reader - N(ice) Doggies Ch. 1

Pairing - Clint Barton (Hawkeye) x Reader (that’s you)

Word count - 1772

Warnings - Language I guess, but what did you expect.

This is my first fic that I am actually posting! There will be at least one more chapter, possibly two depending on where it goes and how wordy I get. Just something nice and fluffy. Please feel free to leave comments and suggestions, I’m always looking to improve! Enjoy!

__________

“Did you see that?” The words came from Clint’s mouth as a stuttered hiss as another gust of icy wind whipped around him. The small valley the two of you had chosen to settle down in for the night was offering about as much protection from the Russian winter as a wet blanket. Even with the tent blocking you from the majority of the wind you could still feel wave after wave of what felt like liquid ice traveling under your chin and down the front of your coat. That whole experience was nothing short of miserable.

You and Clint had been told this was the tamest January this part of Siberia had seen in over a decade. “Thank God for that global warming,” the hotel manager had quipped, earning a look from you that was so cold it probably would’ve seen the global crisis reversed. If this was mother nature’s idea of tame you hated to think what she might throw at you if you ever showed up at her door unannounced, interrupting her favorite soap opera.

You shivered aimlessly as the hand Clint had been using to gesture towards whatever he’d apparently seen quickly retreated back to his coat pocket. Despite the violent protest from your neck, which had grown painfully stiff from the cold and your hopeless shivering, you lifted your gaze to match his own. You knew it was probably nothing, just shapes in the snow as is swirled through the trees, but you also knew that he’d keep pestering you about it if you didn’t make some attempt to ease his paranoia. As you suspected your eye met nothing but the endless sea of conifers, painted white by the blasting snow. You tried looking beyond the tree line, hoping to give Clint the benefit of the doubt that he wasn’t just seeing things, but again there was nothing. You saw only the same thing you’d seen for the past three days, trees and snow. The most interesting thing you’d seen on your little Russian excursion was an owl, landing talons first on an unsuspecting field mouse. You looked back to Clint with sarcastic concern.

“I wasn’t aware that hypothermia also caused hallucinations. Or is that the sleep deprivation acting up again. I told you I could take a longer watch.”

“And I told you I am fine, I don’t need more sleep, Mom!” The emphasis he threw onto the last word made you smile as you turned back to the small fire that was now in serious danger of being blown out. It had taken the two of you nearly two hours and Clint using his body as a shield to finally get it lit. If it died now you were certain you would resign yourself to the same fate without a second thought. Damn wind! Weren’t the trees supposed to protect you from this shit?

Clint ignored your amusement at his outburst and turned his gaze towards some distant point beyond the tree. He lingered there quietly for a few more moments before continuing in his defense.

“And I’m not crazy. I definitely saw something.”

“Well Hawkeye, I’ll just have to take your word for it, I guess. You are the eyes of this duo after all.”

You didn’t even have to look up to know that a mischievous smirk had crawled its way onto his lips.

“Oh yeah, what does that make you?”

You didn’t miss a beat.

“Mom, apparently.”

Clint playfully swat at your arm, earning himself a feigned look of anguish to which he just smirked.

“I guess somebody’s gotta keep an eye on me.” He mused.

“If Natasha gave up I don’t know how SHIELD expects me to do any better.” The Russian assassin, and your personal friend, you were more than a little proud to say, had turned the walking catastrophe that was Clint Barton over to you for a couple of missions while she was “on vacation”. Knowing full well that Natasha would sooner be dead than take any well-deserved time off, you guessed that this was just her way of telling you that she was off on an extended solo mission that required her full attention. i.e. she didn’t have time to babysit the strangely easily distracted archer. Clint was the best marksman in the world, there was no doubting that, but his lack of any real formal training showed in some unusual ways. Most recently you’d noticed that it reared its head in Clint’s inability to focus on any one thing for more than exactly seven minutes. Why seven, you had no idea, but you’d clocked it more than once and each time at the seven-minute mark he’d be turning to you with some random thought, usually pertaining to food. The man really just needed someone to keep him on target, literally.

“What makes you say that? I think you’re doing a great job.”

While you wanted to be surprised that Clint hadn’t even pretended to be offended by your previous comment, you couldn’t manage it, because there it was again. You felt it every time he gave you that lopsided smile. It was like he knew the power it had over you. Like he knew it would always make you forget whatever scold or self-deprecating remark you had been planning to make. It’s like he knew just how to make your heart feel lite but turn your knees to lead at the same time. You’d known each other for years but had only really been able to get the chance to know the real Clint Barton over the past few weeks and he was still a mystery to you. You were now more confused about the archer than you had ever been and you didn’t know if his remarks were meant as mischief or if he truly meant it all to be endearing. Clint’s sense of humor, or rather his personality to be honest, always made it difficult to discern the sincere from the sarcasm.

You lowered your head a bit further to hide the blush that was forcing its way to your cheeks. True it would’ve been hidden under layers of rosy, snow-blasted skin, but you couldn’t take the chance. You smiled and went back to poking hopelessly at the fire before finally giving up. In its unattended state, the flames began to wither and eventually choked out of existence. Neither of you made a move to save it so as the fire finally flickered out the cold began to seep its way back into your bones. Not only that, but you were now very aware that night had fallen. Without the fire and with little to no moonlight reaching through the dense canopy of pine trees, you and Clint found yourselves enveloped in the near pitch black.

“Could be worse.” Clint piped up as he shifted closer to you.

“Really? Even with Bigfoot out there creeping on up.”

“I’m serious!”

“How Clint? How does this get worse? I’m sitting here freezing my ass off in the middle of bumblefuck nowhere Russia for absolutely no reason at all.”

Ok, maybe not no reason. You had been sent out here for a pretty legitimate reason actually. Something about Hydra recruiting in the area in the hopes of setting up a base. But days worth of trudging through the snow surrounding your coordinates had only proved what you’d guessed after about the eighth hour of your search. This was all a wild goose chase. Clint had radioed in to report as much only to be met with the news that you’d be forced to stay in the wilderness for at least another 24 hours due to inclement weather. Only once the storm cleared would you be evacuated. That was 36 hours ago, and the snow was showing no signs of relenting. To make matters worse your food stores were running low. You either needed to be rescued or to find the town you had started out in soon or they’d be adding you to the town folklore about people who never came out of these woods.

“There could be wolves.” You stared at him. Jesus Christ why was he like this?

“Wolves?”

“Yeah, you know, wolves. Like doggies only bigger and hungrier.” Why did he look so proud of himself?

“I know what they are, dingus.” You threw and ill-conceived snowball at him in retaliation for the lame joke that still had you chuckling despite yourself. Clint attempted to get his revenge by tackling you, only to be met with an armful of the snow you’d just been sitting in. You looked down at him amused from where you were now standing before gazing out once again past the trees. “You better not jinx us. There’s no way you and I are fighting off monster dogs in our sorry state.”

“Aw c’mon, don’t worry. If there was a pack in the area they would’ve found us by now.” He sounded so nonchalant as he picked himself up and brushed the snow from his pants and jacket. Like he hadn’t just been cracking jokes about one of the many creatures in the region that could and would definitely tear you to shreds. “Come on, let’s get inside. No use staying out here in Jack Frost’s asshole.”

“You go ahead. I’ll keep watch for a while.” You started to take your place back on the ground when Clint caught your arm.

“Of what? The pinecones? Look the fire’s blown out and there’s nothing to see out here, sweetheart. At this point, if there is anything out there you’ll hear it before you see it. Storm’s picking back up. Even I can’t see more than 10 feet ahead out here. Best to just stay in and wait it out.”

His words were all but lost on you after the utterance of the new nickname. Clint had a rep for be a pretentious flirt and you were definitely no stranger to that side of him. You’d been subject to his bad pick-up lines on so many occasions you had started keeping a tally. None of it ever really got to you, or so you had convinced yourself, but there was something in it this time that made you stop and do a mental double-take. Maybe you were overthinking this. You were definitely overthinking this. But then again, he looked more sincere than playful. You shook yourself out of your mild shock when you realized that Clint had been staring at you expectantly. You decided to blame his sudden change in demeanor on the shit circumstances you found yourselves in as you knelt down to climb into the tent.

[metaphoricallyroger]

With Love, From Me to You - iv of iv [R.T.]

Summary: One-hundred ways to say ‘I love you’ over twenty-eight years.

Words: 3,265

Warnings: Implied smut. Language. Baby blues and pregnancy difficulties (at 77. 85.). Talk of illness and death (at 96. 98.).

Note: This follows both Bohemian Rhapsody’s and real-life events (generally for dates, minor plot etc.), picture whichever Roger you fancy! The title is taken from ‘From Me To You’ by The Beatles.

--

76. (1984):

“Can you believe he’s going to do this solo project? What a joke! Told me all I’d be is some dentist, too! As if I’d have ever done that.”

“Roger.” Heavily pregnant, listening to Roger screech about band problems, although extremely valid, isn’t at the top of your priorities at the moment.

“Four million dollars! I can’t believe it!”

“Roger,” you interrupt, louder now, “I’ve been having contractions since you left for the meeting. Could we please go to the hospital now?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were having contractions?”

“Because you were too busy yelling to listen properly!” You breathe in and out deeply to calm your heart rate.

“I’ll drive you to the hospital.” He bends at the waist to help you up, which you ignore. Just because you’re going into labour doesn’t mean you’ve suddenly become incapable of caring for yourself.

“Who else would I want to drive me?” Despite feeling nauseous and racked with pain, you smile at your husband as you walk out the door.

--

77. (1984):

“Are you okay?”

“What?” You snap out of the daze you have been in, staring blankly at the artwork above Robin’s cot.

“You’re crying, love.”

“I am? I didn’t- I didn’t realise that I was.” You wipe at your cheek and hot tears follow.

“What’s wrong? You can tell me, I’ll try to help,” he offers.

“She doesn’t want to breastfeed and my arms are getting so tired trying to hold her up, I can’t do this. It’s too hard this time around.” You whimper and more tears fall, landing on the baby’s head.

“Can I take her for a moment? I’ll be right back.”

You pass the four-day-old over and he disappears out of the room, returning with a pillow from your bed. He sits next to you and puts the pillow on your lap and transfers Robin back to you.

“Rest her on the pillow, and I’ll support her neck, okay?” You make a noise of agreement and move your arm for Roger’s which quickly replaces yours.

“There, she can take all the time she wants to feed, I’ve got her. Now, you get your udder out.” You know he’s trying to make you laugh, and it does with a sniffle.

--

78. (1984):

“Did you know it’s been ten years to the date that we first kissed?” Robin lies against your chest, having her morning feed, beginning to daze as she has her fill of milk.

“You remember when our first kiss was?” Roger looks up where he sits with the three-year-old Zoe on his lap, who he is letting poke her fingers anywhere she likes, including up his nose on accident.

“Of course, don’t you?”

“I could never forget you making the first move, love.” He shifts in bed, careful not to jostle the now dozing baby and steals the first kiss of the next decade of your lives.

--

79. (1985):

For the first time in years, Roger had returned from a meeting with Miami in a fit. He’d left happy this morning, but you presume something had gone amiss during the meeting with Brian and John.

“I can’t believe he’d be that much of a coward to set up a meeting through Miami.”

“He’s your family, Roger. Besides, weren’t you telling me you haven’t spoken to him nor would pending Armageddon?” You watch him pace back and forth like a trapped zoo animal, a lion if you’re being specific.

“What the hell do you think he wants?” He ignores your quip.

“Maybe he wants to be a part of the band again. Or maybe he just wants to talk, apologise.”

“That’d be bloody right. What, he finally got sick of Prenter and his club songs? Finally decided we’re worth something to him?” His voice seems to gain an octave with every syllable.

“Hey,” you call, “don’t get angry at me. I’m team Roger. Always.”

“I’m sorry,” he collapses on the settee in the corner of the room.

“You don’t have to accept his apology. But at least hear him out. Maybe you could be the bigger person?”

His hand comes up to pinch the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache forming.

“I hate that you’re always right.”

--

80. (1985):

“How was rehearsal?” You know it can’t have gone too well considering Roger went straight to the fridge for a beer without saying hello to any members of the household.

He bites his lip and his nostrils flare, making your eyebrows crease. His tone is solemn as he begins to speak.

“I really need to tell you something, but it’s about someone else and I got told I couldn’t tell anyone.”

You take Roger at his word and don’t require him to tell you. Something about this conversation has an overtone of loyalty, loyalty to whom, you aren’t sure. There is a small crease between his brows and he just looks sad.

“You don’t need to tell me. If it involves me, yes, I would prefer that you tell me, but if the person doesn’t want anything told, I won’t ask.”

“I don’t know what I’d do without you.” His hands curve around your hips as he takes another sip of beer and you rest your head on his chest, listening to the percussive beating of his heart.

--

81. (1985):

The band have been working hard (harder than you’ve seen in recent years) in the days leading up to Live Aid. You know that the practise and days of only see Roger at bedtime are going to be worth it.

Roger crouches in front of Zoe after having put earmuffs on Robin who is testing her balance on your shoulders. The earmuffs go over her blonde waves and he holds them away from her ears so she can still hear him.

“These are so you don’t lose any hearing in your young age and your mother doesn’t divorce me.”

“Okay, Daddy,” Zoe giggles, not comprehending what Roger’s saying.

The size of the earmuffs on the four and one-year-old is almost comical.

“You’re an excellent dad.” You kiss his cheek tenderly.

You turn back to wave at him as you make your way to the side of the stage and can’t help the proud welling of your eyes as Queen takes to the stage.

--

82. (1986):

The rain that has tapped resoundingly against the windows and dampened the sound of the city has finally eased. Roger lifts his head to nibble at the crease between thigh and hip.

“Oh, look, the suns out again,” you say, sweaty and joyously. You rest your hand on your stomach and look down at the man between your legs.

You run your knuckles along Roger’s cheeks, your fingertips gliding over blonde brows.

“Do you want me to stop?”

“Nope, you look good in that spot,” you return your hands back to the sheet whilst Roger’s head returns to its previous position.

--

83. (1986):

The party after Queen’s sold out Wembley shows is crowded with many people, most of whom you haven’t seen before, friends of friends of friends.

You sit in Roger’s lap, where he rattles the ice in the bottom of his now empty glass. You feel him shift under you as if to move you, but he yawns instead.

“Tired?”

“Mhm. It’s been a long day,” he sighs into your shoulder, flexing his fingers around your waist.

“Let me get you a drink,” you take the glass from his hand and stand up.

--

84. (1986):

“All the numbers you could possibly need are on the fridge,” you remind Roger as you move through the house, bags in hand.

“Don’t you worry about us,” Roger places a calming hand to your bicep, “we’ll have a right good time, won’t we girls?” The two angels look innocently up at Roger and nod.

“They’ve never been without me before.”

“You don’t trust me to look after my own children?” You ache to sooth the downturned lips of Roger’s.

“No, I do, you’re the only person I trust with them more than me. I’m just anxious.”

“Try not to worry about us, okay? I’ve got this. Go sort everything out with your parents.” His calming tone aids you in alleviating some of the panic you were feeling about leaving your kids alone for the first time.

“Okay,” you sigh, “okay.”

“Say goodbye to Mama, kids.” They both give you a hug and a kiss that you don’t want to let go of, but you do, if only to move onto Roger and cling even harder.

--

85. (1987):

“Why isn’t this happening?” Your tears drench your face as you sit, fully clothed, in a scalding hot bath.

Roger had tried to get you to take off your clothes but you ignored him, wanting to feel the weight of sopping clothing, forcing yourself to stay upright in the bath so you don’t sink below the water. It would be easy to do, at least your hair would be clean.

“We’ll just have to give it time,” he whispers into your hair, pressing butterfly kisses over the crown of your head.

You want to have another child with Roger. Having Zoe and Robin was easy, you feel as if your luck has now run out, and you ache with a fire you’ve never felt before.  

--

86. (1987):

The restaurant Roger has booked a reservation at is fancy and bright, doing much to boost your mood after the past emotionally draining months you’ve experienced.

“After you,” Roger opens the door to the restaurant and guides you inside with a hand on your lower back.

--

87. (1988):

“How are you so calm?” You’re sitting on your hospital bed, going through the motions of contractions while watching your husband pace wall to wall in the private room.

“Done this twice before, remember?”

You clamber off the bed and pace with Roger, hands intertwined, as it helps you to feel like your labour is progressing rather than sitting, which feels like watching paint dry.

It’s Roger that cries this time when the midwife announces that the baby’s a boy, and it’s the sight of him holding his son, still sticky with newness, with such a look of awe that makes your own emotions bubble over.

--

88. (1988):

“Now, you have to be really quiet because he’s going to be asleep, okay?” Zoe puts her pointer finger to her lips and Robin follows, enjoying mimicking her sister.

Roger glances down at the girls and leads them to the living room where you sit with Henry in his baby capsule.

“Can I pet him?” Robin looks to you as she asks and you nod.

“Yes you can,” Roger laughs, “gentle, he’s still little.” He guides Robin’s hand, still too young to truly understand what Roger is saying. He helps her brush her hand across the soft skin of Henry’s forehead while Zoe waits her turn.

You sit back and watch the interactions with a soft smile.

--

89. (1988):

“Could you leave my shirt on?” You wonder, tilting your head back, trying to keep tears from spilling.

“What?”

Roger sits up on his knees between your bent legs, looking over your face with concern.

“I don’t feel comfortable naked any- anymore. I don’t look l-like I did at twenty-five,” you stammer.

“Hey,” he whispers, “This body has been a home for three beautiful children. This body has done amazing things that continuously leaves me in awe. I didn’t fall for you because of your body, I fell for you because of your heart and your mind, which hasn’t changed. I feel like you were a gift, made for me.” At every pause, a kiss is placed over your body, your fluttering eyes, nervous fingers, soft earlobes.

Tears, this time of happiness slowly spill from your eyes as you allow him to remove your shirt.

--

90. (1989):

Roger didn’t imagine his fortieth birthday beginning with the shape of your head moving up and down underneath the bed covers to be interrupted. But life, as it would seem, always has other plans.

“Mum! Henry spilt juice all over the kitchen table!”

“Can’t you clean it up yourself?” Roger hollers to your eldest. You pull back when you hear a crash and a wail that interrupts the once tranquil space.

“Sorry, rain check?”

“We had three too many children,” he huffs and rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, you say that, but you enjoy it.”

“That I do.” The skin around his eyes crinkles when he grins, showing age but they have that same shine, looking just as young as when you first met.

--

91. (1989):

The obligatory first day of school photos was taken, except this time, Roger was home to be included in them. He made you take about a hundred of them with both girls, singly and in a group. Your favourite one of the day, which will be framed, is a picture of Roger holding both girls up, backpacks too large on and kissing his cheek. His grin is so wide you momentarily think it will split his face.

“Daddy, will you walk me to my class?”

“Of course, Bubs.” Roger changes his pace so that it is slower than Robin’s, and you don’t say anything. There’s still plenty of time to get to class after you dropped Zoe off to her own classroom.

“Daddy are you sad?” Robin’s blue eyes look up at Roger whose matching one’s look back at her.

“No, I’m not, darling.” Once you all make it to the classroom, Robin runs off without a glance back once she gives a hug and a kiss to both of you.

You make it back to the car, relatively in control of your own emotions, but Roger, you aren’t so sure. He keeps mumbling under his breath about

“Don’t go getting sappy on me now, Taylor.”

“She’s so cute in her little uniform though. Her shoes still aren’t bigger than my hand, how is she old enough for school?” You watch him push his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose to cover his watering eyes.

“Want a hug?”

“Yes please.”

--

92. (1989):

You hear the clatter of the hammer against the floor and many specific expletives which makes you grin, but you remain on the lounge, waiting for Roger to make his way to you.

“I just smashed my thumb and busted it,” Roger stomps into the room and heads towards the bathroom.

“Hold on, I’ll kiss it better.”

--

93. (1990):

“Do I need a tie?” Roger looks at you from where he’s stood in front of the cupboard, trying to decide, last minute, of course, what he should wear.

“Yes, you need a tie, you’re getting an award, Roger.”

“Which one?” He holds up two ties, a blue and a black.

“The black one,” you point, sitting with Henry on the floor who’s playing with blocks.

“Does this look good?” Roger turns around from the full-length mirror and your eyes grow wide.

You swallow roughly, squeezing down the ball of lust in your throat.

“Brings out your blue eyes, pretty boy.”

--

94. (1990):

“How’s Montreux?”

“It’s really beautiful here. I wish you could all be here too.” Despite the joy in Roger’s tone, you can tell there is a hidden sadness behind it.

“I wish we could too. But you know the kids have school otherwise I’d be there at the drop of a hat.”

“I miss you.” Your own heart clenches as you hear him take a shaky breath.

“I miss you.”

--

95. (1990):

Roger hasn’t picked you up in what feels like years, but he does today. Your legs wrap familiarly around his waist and your hand goes up to run through his hair. It’s tender and cozy, and he still smells the same, like home.

“I missed you,” you whisper against his mouth.

“I missed you more,” he breathes, connecting his lips with yours.

--

96. (1991):

The brightness of the albicant lighting from the bathroom wakes Roger despite the door being half-closed. He glances to the side, checking the clock, and noting the early hour and the still dark house. He pulls himself out of the warm bed and rubs his eyes.

“You okay?” He stumbles into the bathroom where you’re ridding Henry of his pyjamas after he’s been sick all over himself.

“Just let me get him cleaned up. Go back to bed. I’ll be there once I’ve changed his sheets and mopped the floor.”

You don’t want to bother Roger. You’ve never seen him so physically or emotionally drained and the fine lines that have appeared seem to have taken permanent residence on his face this year.

“No, no, I’ll do it for you,” Roger presses a kiss to his miserable, green looking son's forehead and then yours before exiting the room to find cleaning products.

--

97. (1991):

“Take a deep breath.”

The paparazzi and journalists have been camped out in front of Garden Lodge for what seems like forever, and have taken it upon themselves to slander every movement from those coming and going.

It aggravated everyone that had any contact with the people behind the garden walls and often sent Roger spiralling into a rage that ended with smashed glasses and broken cigarettes he no longer smoked.

“How the fuck is that going to calm me down?”

“It might. Just try it, Roger.” You both get out of the car and you grab onto his clammy hand, giving him a pointed, yet reassuring look.

Together you make your way through the swarm of locusts and keep your eyes trained to the floor, ignoring any allegations thrown at you. You both seem to release a sigh of relief once you make it behind the green door, it symbolising something akin to a boundary between worlds.

--

98. (1991):

You add the cards and the flowers to Roger’s surprise whilst your two oldest kids run around with their homemade presents, putting them into place. The pancakes border on barely cooked and burnt, which in turn makes them odd shaped, but you know Roger will appreciate it, especially because your babies helped make them. You also made your own batch of pancakes just in case which are cooked for everyone else to eat, but that is beside the point.

“What is going on in here?” Roger walks into the room, bleary-eyed and warm with sleep.

“Hey! Turn around, this is supposed to be a surprise!”

“Did you make this all for me?” He stares at the thoughtful display despite your warning.

“Happy Father’s Day. You always surprise me, but it’s your turn. You’re important in this family too.” You press a kiss to his cheek and pull out his chair for him.

--

99. (1991):

You aren’t used to having the weight of an awake Roger on your lap. You run your hand through his hair and gently tug every time you come to the blonde ends.

One of his hands grips yours tightly, resting against his hip with nails creating moon-like imprints on your knuckles. If your lashes weren’t already damp, the sharp feeling would have brought tears to your eyes.

“It’s okay to cry.”

Roger stubbornly shakes his head, eyes swollen and red, waiting for the break. The ticking of the clock in the living room creates a metronome that seems to count down to when he will allow himself one moment of respite.

“Yes it is, baby, it is completely okay to. You don’t have to be strong for anyone.”

With a whimper, he turns himself around and buries his face in your stomach, and icy heat spreads with the tears he finally releases.

--

100. (1992):

“I love you.” You whisper in Roger’s ear, standing side by side.

You get a squeeze on the hand in response so gentle you almost miss it.

--

A/N: So that’s it! I hope you all enjoyed? Thank you for taking the time to read these four parts and all of the likes, reblogs and comments, they’re very appreciated. If you ever want to request an imagine, feel free to send an ask or message me, I’d love to chat! See you all next time …

[t-oresama]

My thoughts on Sulli, her life and death

I wanted to gather my many swirling thoughts on the passing of Sulli, especially because it’s taken me a little while to truly process that she's gone, so her we go. There is obviously going to be mentions of death, depression, bullying and suicide, so there's your warning for this reality that Sulli was bravely facing for so long. There will also be mention of Jonghyun, but only to show the drastic differences in what led to he and Sulli finding their ends the way they did.

Sulli has been a Korean celebrity for 14 years. She debuted as an actress when she was 11, and debuted as a singer in f(x) when she was 15. I honestly didn't know that she was only 25 until today, because she's been around seemingly for forever. 25 years old. Barely in her mid-20s. The time where you're finally starting to get a grasp on this thing called adulthood and enjoy it. There was a video floating around from a variety show she did where she said she wanted to be a mother before she died. She won't get to now. She had her dream cruelly ripped away from her. And I've found in this processing that I've been more angry than anything. Yes, I'm sad, shocked and heartbroken over the loss of this beautiful, spunky, and brave girl, but I'm mostly just so, so pissed off.

There is an obvious understanding for idols or any celebrities that their personal lives are not very personal after becoming famous. Everything they do is magnified because they have become so prolific and, yes, idolized. But this doesn't mean that their privacy entirely should be taken away. It doesn't make them any less susceptible to pain, frustration, fatigue, and sadness. And it doesn't mean that, just because their actions are magnified, that EVERYTHING they do HAS to get reported on, does it? Surely not. But ever since Sulli's "laziness" controversy and subsequent leaving f(x), every post, every picture, every quote out of Sulli's mouth became an article. For 5 years, she has had to defend herself for believing in women's rights for equality and choice, for loving a man that happens to be older than her, for not wearing a goddamn bra. This year has been rife with extremely vile and illegal accusations and convictions. Never once did Sulli break the law in any action she did or said. She was still a young woman trying to find herself, and good for her if she wanted to act outside of the "proper Korean lady" norm. It never hurt anybody. But because she was famous, it was weird and scandalous. She was called a pig, she was called a feminazi, she was called an attention whore, and that is just the beginning of what she had to endure from every salacious article and malicious commenter for 5 YEARS.

I hate to bring him up like this, but this is the second suicide of a high-profile K-pop idol in 2 years so I must bring this up to make my point. And I preface that I am not a therapist or psychologist, but unfortunately looking back now, the signs become more evident in death than in life.I despise when people pin the cause of SHINee's Jonghyun's death on K-pop, and that the industry is what drove him to suicide. In fact, I ranted about just this a couple of weeks ago. He had a horrible illness in depression that was made worse by the pressures and nearly unreal expectations of K-pop, but depression had lingered with him for years. Nothing in the outside world suddenly drove him over the edge. His depression just engulfed him one day to the point of no return. But with Sulli, I do blame the industry.

I blame the industry. I blame the Korean media and the Korean media translation sites, some that cherry-picked the most negative and controversial headlines to gain clicks. I blame the netizens who hid like cowards behind computer screens attacking a young woman with the ferocity of a fictitious video game villain, throwing insults, slurs, and expectations at every new pointless article. I blame Korean society for having these high expectations to begin with, and still, YEARS after Jonghyun's death, stigmatizing those who suffer from mental illness and write it off as "a bad day" or "attention seeking". Her environment did not help her, but hurt her. It kicked her while she was down for all these years with no relief. I mean, for goodness sake, Sulli joined a show literally called "The Night of Vicious Comments" in order to attempt to show strength in the face of so much adversity and get people to understand that words hurt, especially how many she was getting on a daily basis. Some of her last mentions in Korean media was her doing a live broadcast on two different occasions, and having one where a man wouldn't leave her alone and one where her breast was exposed for all but a half a second. Never were these considered by the public at large to be mistakes, but ploys at attention seeking. Rarely was there sympathy for this girl who was just trying to find her place in the world and fight back against oppression. She was already suffering from mental anguish-- the reason she left f(x) all those years ago-- but no one except for Sulli herself can ever convince me that it wasn't the culmination of all this hate for all these years that drove her to her breaking point. Now these same publications-- some even cashing in like they did for Jonghyun releasing multiple articles on the deceased for website hits-- and these same people who left these vicious comments and the Korean society at large want to say "Oh, what a tragedy. What a shame we didn't stop this sooner. She was human after all." Shame on the lot of you. I never would wish anything ill on anyone, but I hope the people who left even one hate comment for Sulli or any other celebrity take a good look at themselves and realize their words can kill. I hope they realize what they've caused.

Her last Instagram live had Sulli saying that she wasn't a bad person, and asking desperately why people send her hate. That is so heartbreaking. She was bullied relentlessly and all she wanted was to know why. For being herself? For being outspoken? For going against this inhuman mold of K-pop idols and Korean celebrities who are chaste and pure and robotic that the industry has set as a standard? For not wearing a goddamn bra? Heartbreaking. I do believe she was already suffering from sort of mental strife, whether that was depression or something else, but it was perpetuated by a society that completely and utterly failed her. My first thought reading the news of her death this morning was "I'm so sorry, Sulli," and not because I ever left her a hateful comment (and, honestly, you are entitled to not like a celebrity, but to waste so much energy constantly bombarding them with hateful messages? Like, how do so many nasty people have time to do that?). But because I saw it happen. Because I would click on the occasional clickbaity article and give those publications a motivation to keep translating the absurdly controversial. Because I never commented something nice. And, as a result of her death, I've seen a flood of comments of concern and love go to some idols Sulli was closest to, like Taeyeon and Tiffany and Amber and IU (and countless more), asking if they are okay, showing them support. It truly sucks that this is what it takes for the good to truly outweigh the bad, and that this is inevitably too little too late. But I think any normal person who knew what Sulli was constantly up against feels some sense of sorrow or guilt for what's happened, even those of us who don't live in Korea who don't impact Korean celebrities like those in Korea. There's also guilt for not seeing the signs of her suffering until it was too late. But, as with Jonghyun, those most open about their pain, who try to put on this brave front, can end up being the ones who suffer most. There needs to be a greater vigilance in online commenting, privacy protection, sensationalist articles, and insuring the well-being of Korean celebrities. This involves a total shift in how the Korean industry has been working for decades, but part of me wants to hope that THIS death, not the first of its kind, can lead to something to change. I selfishly and maybe foolishly hope that something can change.

To end this very long post/rant, I want to dedicate this last paragraph to Sulli. Choi Jin Ri. The effervescent Peach. The big baby of f(x). The princess of eye smiles. The girl who dared to go against an industry just to stay true to herself. Again, I am so sorry that we have collectively failed you. You deserved so much more than what you had to endure. And I am so sorry that your dream of being a mother will never be realized. I am sorry the plethora of milestones that laid ahead for you you'll never experience. I'm so sorry you were suffering. I hope wherever you are that you are finally, deservedly, at peace. No bad words or malicious intentions can come close to touching you now. Thank you for both what you have generously shared with us in your solo work and your work as a member of f(x). You are a legend and a true game-changer. The world wasn't ready for someone like you, and some of them didn't deserve you. But thank you for leaving us with so much of you in your songs and performances and words and true, uncapturable beauty. Rest in everlasting peace.

Finally, if you reading this are suffering with negative thoughts or mental anguish, please find the hotline that corresponds to your country and seek help. https://ibpf.org/resou…/list-international-suicide-hotlines… There are people who are there to help. Take time to practice true self care and love over these next few days. Stay safe and stay strong.

[honmakurara]

Gr8est full Osaka report

Yeah I know I’m (several months) late in writing this report, but:

1) DVD & Blu-Ray are up so I'd honestly love to read the opinion of more and more eighters about this con;

2) the truth is that the Gr8est concerts I attended in Osaka last August left me a bit shaken, for I think it was impossible not to deal with a eighter's feeling, after all.Anyway, since 2018 has gone, 2019 has started and maybe (maybe) I'm coping slightly better with my "Subaru feels", I feel like I can now write down a more relaxed report. Let's try, at least!

I feel very grateful I am in this fandom. Thanks to awesome Eighters I met back in Rotterdam for Misono Universe preview, I was able to attend Gr8est concert twice in Osaka last August. Since 2018 has been a terrible year for Eito, I deeply wished I could go and cheer for them live, but due to various constraints + the fact that I literally live on the other end of the world, I could not take it for granted, not at all. Still, I hoped. And that's why I deeply appreciate the effort and the exquisite kidness of people who allowed me to be there; more than anything else, even more than the concert itself, I have to say this gentleness touched me very, very deeply. Thanks to this, I met new Eighters and I'm, like... in love with them already. Both Eito & Eighters. I really hope I can go back to Japan and meet them again, one day. As for what the concert itself is concerned, to be honest, rather than a full report, at first I thought I was okay with writing just a quick report about how Eito members are handling this Gr8est Tour (that you will find HERE as "6nin eito, musically speaking").I made also another quick post HERE, right after the con.But as day, weeks and months passed by, I thought it was better to write down my personal memories because... they fade. So, sorry if you're going to read quite a messy, random and biased "report"... that's it! A creepy baby voice belonging to an animated Gr8est Baby (lol) introduces the concert... (I do actually wonder to whom that voice belongs... too creepy XD) BAND SESSION: Just like in Jam, the ouverture of the concert has been given to MUSIC (and I like it, because it ROCKS). Just like the mention written on the Tshirt tour "we'll make you forget it with our rock." Exactly. 1. Otou Seyo: unpopular opinion... I didn't like this song. Yeah, it was band-like even in the PV but, I don't know... I couldn't find anything special about it. Anything worth remembering/singing. Well, this tour definitely made me COMPLETELY change my mind (and I like it very much when the brats that Eito are DO that... it's so much like them, making people fall for their every work sooner or later. We are doomed XD)This song was (is) perfect: sung and played like never before, I'd say, strong and powerful and amazing. Everyone sang very focused-like, and above all I can still remember the strength of Ohkura's drums, its sound dominated (very beautifully, very impressively) every. other. sound. I swear. It was incredible to hear, to the point I can still feel its echo even now. I'm sure the DVD will also give justice to the beauty that is this song.If I have to say, I'd say that Eito started this con with a real blast! In between the two songs, Ryo made his initial speech. Very long, straightforward and even cute. He did refer to Subaru and to Eito's will of going on. Gosh, I wanted to hug him. He looked incredibly cool, tender and sweet at the same time. Yeah I know he's a good actor (thus pretty convincing), so it's not like we know how he truly felt like during that moment, but... I want to believe in what he said, being happy and eager to enjoy Eito+Eighters time together. Also, maybe it was just my impression, but it seemed to me like they took "longer pauses" between one song and another, during the band session (while in JAM it was one right after another). Maybe this was also made "for Yasu's sake" in order to let him recover better (or maybe I'm wrong... I just noticed these pauses were quite longer than last year). 2. Koko ni shikanai keshiki: SO GREAT. I'm very very happy this song was in the setlist because I've always, always loved it. It's also very nice for "opening" a concert after Ryo's speech. Oh, and btw during this song Ryo was amazing. 3. Noroshi: another unpopular opinion, I don't like this song. It never grew on me despite all the times they performed it during concerts since winter Eightertainment, on television and so on. Yeah, the PV is pretty cool, and also the lyrics. But it's not King of Otoko to me, I can't help it. Just like Oto Seyo, though, I changed idea after hearing it at this concert. I don't know exactly what's different from before, maybe it's the way Eito seemed to pour all their will power into this song... it turned out great, anyway. I also thought I would have missed Subaru's vocals here but, luckily, I didn't (which is something. Sasuga Eito). 4. Itta Janai ka: Aww, cuties! don't ask me whether they changed lyrics during their solo parts in this song, because I have no idea, I couldn't catch their words XD (I do remember Eighters laughed and cheered for them, anyway XD) What I can remember is also that the stage started moving forward, "Jukebox-like", and this is so freaking cool. Technically speaking I loved that choice in Jukebox because, I mean, can you imagine having to shift a whole band of people with a whole set of electronic instruments while singing and playing o_O? Exactly. I loved it! 5. Nagurigaki Beat: a song that grew on me slowly but steadily. I had the impression the dome was particularly "on fire" during this song, or maybe it was just me XD 6. Kokoro Sora Moyou: I've liked this song for so long that I was almost "surprised" it could be part of the setlist (when, unfortunately, Tsuyoku Tsuyoku Tsuyoku did not make it...) . It was soooooo lovely to hear. 7. Heavenly Psycho: okay, now, the feels and the confession. As far as I never liked the original song (with Uchi's presence... sorry, he's not my cup of tea) and I never really understood why Eito are so fond of this, I came to fall deeply in love with its "updated version" they sang during Genki con/DVD. I cried a river because it was too beautiful and because Ohkura was not there (being ill in the hospital). Hearing it live, OMG, I think I froze. To the point I didn't manage to enjoy it as I wished (yeah I know it's stupid but this was what happened), on my first day. The following day I felt better and I started crying when they played it, so I think I'm helpless XD 8. BJ: I'm deeply in love with this song, but I was so nervous during Heavenly Psycho that when I first heard the beginning of this song, I didn't even recognize it. Then, half of my mind went "OMG they're playing this one right after HP, they want me dead" and the other half was "mind going blank." Also, Ohkura's voice faltered during his lines (that I AM IN LOVE WITH), so... ç_ç I know it's not Ohkura's fault, but my heart clenched in pain with him during this song. Same as HP, the following day I cried a river. 9. Zukkoke Otokomichi: this song belongs to Yoko fully XD It's all I can remember about it, with Yoko taking the lead and being basically everywhere during the song (it's probably not like this, but my biased mind is... biased XD). Oww I loved it sooo much, the "sped-up" version is so freakin' cool!!! 10. Musekinin Hero: by this time, if I remember well, the moving stage had gone back to its original place, while my poor feelings had not, especially when Ryo decided to go around here and there and everywhere while playing the guitar Anyway I don't think I have mentioned so far how badass Yasu was while playing, during EACH of the band songs XD It was a pleasure to see he was able to move freely and more. Also there was a time during one of the first songs (KNSKeshiki?) when he joined Maru's spot and Ryo did the same and omg they played in circle facing each other and it was just too cool! 11. Life: oh this is so tough. What this song means to both Eito and Eighters, both before Subaru's departure and after that. I really hoped they would include this one in the setlist because it's, like, some kind of identity card of who they are, what they could achieve, what they can aim for, the way they've always struggled to see the light, the way they've never given up. Never ever. This song is precious and carries a deep meaning, but also a sort of "burden", I think, after it was the last one they sang with Subaru (with Ryo finally crying out his pain). Re-starting as Eito had to pass through this (and go on through Koko Ni), so even if they didn't play it flawless (Maru is a bit unsure sometimes, vocally speaking, when playing Subaru's lines, and Ohkura was really struggling to sing properly -I don't think I'll ever forget his bent head while singing-), it was too precious and I cried. I wanted to sing it along with them, but I had to stop midway because my eyes were so teary I wasn't able to see nor the boys nor the big screens anymore. So, well... I'm very happy that this song keeps staying by their side always. 12. Omoidama: other tears, okay. Maybe I remember very badly but for this song, Eito stood up and sang it all lined up on the main stage. This song carries extraordinary beautiful lyrics so maybe it's no wonder that I gave up again and went teary (again!), especially seeing Ohkura conveying his everything into this song. I like Omoidama, it always gave me positive thinking; at least until Eito performed it one last time with Subaru on television, and I don't know even know why, I felt so moved I cried. During this live concert, once again. MC I understand very, very little Japanese, and Eito during MC change topic every half a minute, so I have to confess I didn't get most of their talks. I think they started talking about nicknames? or the way people calls them at work? Something like that? Memorable thing was Maru anyway (bless him) that made a few incredibly resembling monomane about the different firework types... A-WE-SO-ME XD Yasu was sent behind the stage to rest, and I also witnessed cute Ryo making sure Ohkura got his own water bottle before giving back the empty bottles to staff guys :p 

Second part of the concert: 

13. Ima / 14. Hesomagari / 15. ER2 / 16. Gamushara Koushinkyoku: during this parts Eito went on the little moving stages (dunno how they're called) and despite the fact that I don't like Ima (I like the lyrics and the PV, but not the frilly dance), I was blessed with a Tatsu rapping his everything during ER2 right above me (well he was not exactly near but I was so dumbstruck he is REAL, so please forgive me)... so when I saw the DVD preview with him screencapped exactly during that moment, omg, the feels!! 

Solos: 

17. Watashi Kagami: I cried. 18. TORN: I was speechless. 19. PanPanda: I died from cuteness. 20. Love&King: I grinned like an idiot XD 

Okay, on a more serious note:

17. Watashi Kagami: my fave about Yasu's solos, I was so hyped and dokidoki, and Yasu looked so tiny (well, I was far away) all by himself on stage but at the same time his presence and his soul was HUGE and I was blown away during his performance. I relaxed down completely, and hearing him was like having the sweetest lullaby ever. I cried. I really loved, loved loved it utterly. I'm so grateful I could hear this live. 18. TORN: ahhhh. I'm not coherent. Quite differently from Watashi Kagami, I kept being too hyped/dokidoki/nervous all the time during TORN so I cannot say I enjoyed this as I wished but still, I'm so happy I was there. I went to the cons with no spoilers about the setlist BUT the solos, and back then when I heard about TORN I couldn't believe it and was even scared and panicking bc, what if they only played it in Sapporo? what if they changed the part of the setlist like they did for winter Eightertainment? I know it's incredibly stupid and selfish of me but I went into all kind of idiot thinking bc I wanted to see them SO MUCH çoç Then, well, I really was there ♥♥♥ One day I was in arena () and I witnessed Ryo GRINNING like an idiot (in love) when he came on stage for TORN, before his own part started. He's in love, yeah I know U_U No I'm not coherent about this, sorry! SORRY! Oh but did you see Ryo SMILING LIKE AN IDIOT also during his dance part together with Tatsu çOç??? 19. PanPanda: two cutieeeeees! During this cuteness I manage to collect all the pieces of my heart that had melted during Watashi Kagami and TORN... 20. Love&King: when Takatsuking project first began, long ago, I wasn't that eager, but he slowly grew on me with time and this perf was epic! TORN presence during Love&King was so funny, I might have fangirled more on this rather than TORN itself, maybe because TORN does not give you the time to THINK, actually King on his throne was THE BEST XD 

Game corner: Ohkura Tik + another thing whose purpose I didn't exactly understand, but it was funny to see and I saw TORN again dealing with this thing together, so my feels were a mess XD Ohkura Tik corner was terribly stupid and cute and the best thing ever. Seriously.

The Yokohina part here is definitely my fave, and whole dome squealed as much as I did, so I was double happy XD

 21. Hibiki / 22. Namida no Kotae: two quite "Ohkura-centered" songs to begin with, I'm not very fond of those but several parts had me moved. As said above, Ohkura's voice was off but he tried his best, I remember him bending forward so much, nearly crouching in order to sing better (?) and he nonetheless smiled all the time. It was kinda painful to see ç__ç 

23. King of Otoko / 24. Tsumi to Natsu / 25. Clover / 26. Maemuki Scream: during this part here I have barely memories because they went around on carts and the fangirl that is in me tried desperately to look everywhere at the same time. Sorry. Eito were as energetic as always and I really enjoyed watching them going around, not to mention all Eighters doing the dance moves just like them omg so perfect!!! so skilled!!! I'm a fan of Eighters also XD 

27. Osaka Romanesque: I think I have been very very lucky hearing this in Osaka. I remember when they mentioned lyrics of places I had been into just a few hours before, and I burst into tears from feels and I felt I wanted to hug Eito and Eighters and the whole dome at the same time. It gave me shivers and it felt very special. Encore 28. Sweet Parade / 29. Panorama / 30. Aoppana I don't like Sweet Parade/Panorama very much, but they're okay songs for an encore, so I didn't stop from fangirling here x3

31. Koko Ni: ah, this. Even Eighters barely remembered the lyrics bc it was the newest song, and Eito in Osaka didn't play it yet as we saw that in Tokyo or Fukuoka, I mean, hugging each other or being the usual idiots. But still, the overwhelming feeling this song spread on the whole dome when they sang it is... I cannot describe it enough, I guess. They sang it one beside another, like Hibiki, but at the same time they played it from the bottom of their hearts, with all the love and feels they carried. When I walked back to my hotel, my legs were jelly beans, my feels were a mess and I couldn't even realize I had just come back from Kyocera Dome. All I could hear in my mind was Koko ni. Ugh ♥

Random things: 

1. I attended the concert of 25th August 2018 in Osaka... yeah, the anniversary of Eito Kansai debut Two years ago, on that very same day, I attended my very first Eito event (Recital in Nagoya), which is still so precious to me *_* 

2. It was my very first time attending a concert at Kyocera Dome, my first time in an arena seat (!!!! on Saturday only, close to a spot where Ryochan performed torn), my first time being freaking nervous before/during/after the concert. The following day I relaxed down quite a lot. My memories about the concert come straight from Sunday only, while as for Saturday, I have mostly a black-out. 

3. despite the arena seat, our area got zero gintape, but I am very happy anyway because a friend of mine offered me a green gin tape... my treasure çOçEighters are really the best  I am sorry that I was so much "blacked-out" during the cons that even of my very very very favourite moment, the final one when Eito join hands and so do Eighters, I only have blurred memories. But the lingering, beautiful feeling is always there, though.

It wouldn't be fair of me to even try making a comparison between GR8EST and JAM, that I both attended, because if last year everything seemed perfect, now we now that it wasn't exactly like so (after Yasu's surgery and Subaru's idea of leaving already in the way) and this latest tour proved how Eito tried their hardest to start again from scratch and from -literally- body and soul deep injuries. They didn't come out unscathed but they really, really opened their own heart up to eighters in order to share a good time together. I've said this before, Ryo was impressive and amazing all the time. A cutie, a cool guitarist, a still a bit awkward "leader" but always very humble in his attitude, even during the 'least important' of moments of the show. It really impressed me how he made sure that every Eito member took their drink during MC, how he brought back the empty bottles... maybe a very ordinary gesture, but so caring, and he wasn't even supposed to do that himself. While Ohkura's attitude broke my heart because he was obviously unwell with his voice off and his desperate attempts to sing 'well' anyway. He drummed with all his might and soul, and he waved energetically (with that SOFT arms of his) even to the most far away upper seats. He later said he felt like he received tons of love in Osaka and by reading that I melted, even though the day of the concert I didn't melt, I just squealed like an idiot despite being very far, so I feel really the biggest idiot ever XD Anyway. Teeny tiny Yasu isn't teeny tiny anymore. He might have been recovering, but he was very sassy when playing the guitar and never showed any mercy to his fragile body, I'd say O-o He was impressive and so is his voice, growing very fast and very beautifully. Maru is a softie. What would we do without Maru's gags XD? We know he's hurt the most by Subaru's absence but, again, he never let those feelings overshadow the show, the music, the other members. Yoko and Hina, papa and mama, mama and papa. Yoko, to me, was like watching Maru: not letting himself go, giving his very best both on trumpet and on cheering Eighters when he had to. I wanted to hug him so tight!!! And Hina is a steady rock and among all the other qualities of this man, I am really, really thankful he is there to watch over the whole group (and that's how KING+TORN was born 8D - sorry just kidding ^^''). Maybe the Eito we saw during GR8EST weren't the most sparkling Eito ever, but they sure are the guys that risked it all by choosing to go on even this time, despite many hardships, and they won the deal, because Eighters are there with them. On a closing note, I remember Tacchon doing the gay monomane a few times during the con and one last time before saying 'bye, and this time he was with Yasu who tried to imitate him, obviously failing due to his injured waist. This made the whole dome laugh and I found the whole thing honestly so sweet, rather than gross (it'd normally be gross, I guess), because this is just so much like Eito, "find and share the laughter even when normally only some sad/pity thoughts would be there." That's one of the reason why I fell for them, and probably the biggest and deepest one that keeps me tied to them. So despite my tears and my messy feels of those days, I can say it aloud: I'm very proud to be an Eighter PS: god bless Ohkura always for being such a fanboy of his own group and singing the lines of the songs even when he's not supposed to. You damn cutie, I love you!

[bandimaginezzz]

Cold Blooded Lover  

You picked up your phone. It was a text message from your manager. Y/n you need to be at the studio in less then an hour. You groaned. That’s right you had to go work with the band The Pretty Reckless. You had met them in brief passing before and you and their lead singer Taylor had completely clashed. You got dressed. Brushed and spiked your thick black hair. You got in the car and started to head towards the studio. Of course you had to stop and get coffee. If you didn’t, there was no way you were survive this session. You arrived at the studio five minutes before your session was about to begin. Your manager saw you and waved you into the booked room. You walked in and noticed you were the first one there. Your manager started talking to you, however you weren’t really paying much attention to what he was saying. He said he had a bunch of work to do and said goodbye. Suddenly you were alone. You looked around the room at all the equipment. Multiple guitars, keyboards, basses and drums surrounded the room. As well as multiple microphones. You stayed seated and pulled out your phone. You glanced at the time, not really knowing when they were supposed to get here. You started watching random ass videos on YouTube. You laughed as you watched someone get knocked over by a wave while trying to be all sexy. You noticed your phone’s battery was running low. That’s when you also noticed the time. What the fuck you thought to yourself. They were over a half hour late. What a way to make an entrance. As you went to plug your phone in, you heard the sound of people laughing, just before the door opened. You turned your head to see the band had finally arrived. You were pissed, so you just continued to focus on plugging your phone in. “Oh sorry y/n were late. Taylor and Ben were taking forever to get ready.” Marked laughed as Ben wacked his arm. You just nodded. You glanced at Taylor as you nodded noticing her eyes rolling as you didn’t speak. “Ok well let’s get this over with” you spoke just loud enough for everyone to hear.  Taylor was next to speak. “Ben and I will write some lyrics and then you can figure out what you want to do on this song.” You glared at her. “We’re supposed to write the lyrics together. I mean if you even know what that means.” You hissed through your teeth. “Okay you two don’t start fighting. Taylor you and y/n can write lyrics. As soon as that’s done I will look them over and help fix it up.” Ben spoke as a leader. Taylor and you just nodded. You pulled up a chair at the little table in the studio. Grabbing a pad of paper, pencil and guitar. “Okay well I don’t know how you do it Momsen but as a solo artist I start with the overall guitar part.” “Oh wow the newbie knows how to write a song. This ought to be good.” Taylor spoke sarcastically. You started to fool around with the guitar. You knew you couldn’t possibly make a light and upbeat song with this chick. It would have to be dreary and depressing. The way she made you feel. You started to play random chords and little riffs based off of those chords. Taylor wasn’t really paying any mind to you. That was until you played a series of chords. Sad but also still thrilling. She gawked her head towards you. “Again” she said. “What?” you responded not really paying any attention to her. ”Play those damn chords again.” You stared at her for a second but not at her it was a blank stare. Trying to think of the order that you just played those chords in. You figured it out and started to play. Ben was watching you. He started to play the same chords. “That’s it. Yea something along those lines.” Taylor was speaking to Ben as if he came up with the riff. You stopped playing and just watched him. He was fumbling around with the chords. Playing them with different pedals and distortions. Taylor’s eyes fixated on him, watching as he found a way to bring those chords further to life. Eventually it was time to leave. You honestly hadn’t gotten any further then finding the right chords to use. You got home and went straight to bed. The next morning you woke up and started to think of the song. Going over the chords and riffs again and again in your mind. You had to think of an overall theme to the song. What was it going to be about. You didn’t know. You showered and then looked at the time. You realize that it was time for you to head back to the studio. You sat in your car when you arrived at the studio. You knew they wouldn’t arrive on time so what was the point of you going in and sitting around waiting. It was easier to do that in the car where you could also sit comfortably. You watched the rain hit your windshield, as the pitter patter of the drops hit the metallic roof of the vehicle. You watched as a van pulled up. Out walked The Pretty Reckless. You turned off your car and headed inside. Today was the last day to write the song and tomorrow was the deadline for recording. You sat at the table. Everyone grabbed instruments. You glanced at Ben and asked “can you play the song?”. He nodded. He started to run through the song. As he did the other band members started to find their footing for their instruments. Jamie beating on the drums and Mark plucking away at the bass. The song was slowly starting to come together. The only thing missing was the lyrics. The guys continued to play the song through multiple times. As they did you started to hum a similar melody. Taylor heard you humming the melody. You watched as she began to furiously scribbled down a variety of lines. You were curious on what she was writing. She stopped and just stared at the paper. “May I?” you asked as you pointed at the note pad. She looked at you surprised and just nodded. You read through the various lines. They were all pretty good but nothing totally stood out completely. As you went through reading them you misread a line. You had accidently combined two different lines. You wrote down what you had just misread on a new piece of paper, “You can’t trust a cold blooded man, girl don’t believe in his lies. You cant trust a cold blooded man, hell love you and leave you alive.” You slid the paper back over to Taylor. She read what you had written. You watched as her mouth read over the words repeatedly. She was analyzing the lyrics. She continued to write from that prompt. You decided to scoot your chair closer to her. She didn’t even flinch when you started to move. You watched as she was writing, reading over what she had written along the way. You nodded with each line approvingly. “What if for the second verse we do it in the perspective of a male?”. Waiting for a response you saw Taylor start to smile. “That’s actually a great idea” she said. The two of you started to talk amongst yourselves. Both giving off lines for what the song should sound like. The both of you were laughing and actually getting along. You stared at her. Her blue eyes a clear as a sky on a beautiful day, her blonde hair falling just perfectly around her face. Holy shit you thought to yourself you were starting to fall in love with her. At the end of the night, the two of you had finished the lyrics. You ran through the song a couple times. Making sure the song flows perfectly. As you were getting into your car you watched as someone ran up to your window. You looked and saw Taylor. “Hey y/n I just wanted to ask you, if you wanted to get some dinner before coming to the studio tomorrow. I mean I felt some serious chemistry in there but if you don’t want to that’s ok.” You watched her eyes shift in nervousness. “Yea sure I would love that. Uh ill pick you up at 5, and we’ll go wherever you want.” You smiled at her. “Ok, ill text you my address y/n”. You watched her walk back to her car and drive away. You drove home and grabbed a drink. You sat silently thinking about Taylor. The way her face lit up when you wrote fitting lyrics. The way she smiled when you both made a joke. You snapped out of your thoughts and decided to go to bed. You woke the next morning to the sound of your phone. You looked at the number. It was unmarked. You opened the text. Hey It’s Taylor. Do you think you can pick me up at the Starbucks near the mall. The mall near the studio? You quickly sent her a message back. Yea of course, ill see you later. You checked the time. It was shortly after 3 pm. You decided to take a shower. You took your time in the shower. You got out of the shower and walked to the closet. You grabbed a plain black shirt, a pair of dark grey jeans and a black hoodie. You got dressed and went back to the bathroom. You hair was still dripping wet. You grabbed the towel and started to dry your hair off. You ran a comb through hair to get rid of any knots. You looked in the mirror and decided not to spike up your hair today. Instead you ran your hand through your hair and pulled it out of your face. You made your way down the stairs. It was time for you to go pick up Taylor. You grabbed your leather coat and a grey beanie and got in your car. You were slightly nervous. You pulled up to the Starbucks and saw Taylor waiting for you. She noticed you and walked over to the car. She got in. “So Taylor where would you like to go for dinner/” you asked smiling. “How about that restaurant umm, Broadways I think its called.” You agreed. As you were eating you finally had built enough courage to ask Taylor if she would consider being your girlfriend. “Um Taylor, I have something to ask you and honestly I am afraid of the answer. But what the hell would you like to be my girlfriend?” She looked at you and smiled. She started to nod. “Yea I would actually. I was going to ask you but I was scared you didn’t think about me the same way.” The two of you left and headed to the studio. The night ran late and the two of you headed your separate.

 A couple months had passed. The two of you were going strong. You had been seeing each other practically every day.  Both of your Instagram’s were filled with disgustingly cute photos of the two of you. You both loved to read the comments and tweets that were constantly sent to you. The fans loved seeing the two of you together. Some days you would receive comments, asking why there wasn’t a new photo of the two of you together. You smiled at these types of comments. You loved Taylor and she made it very clear that she loved you. You had decided together to make the step and move in together. As the two of you were going to bed one night Taylor had asked you to come sing with her at one of the shows. You agreed.

 “Tonight we have a special guest. As you guys may know I wrote and recorded a song called cold blooded, with my boyfriend y/n. Tonight I have asked him to come join us on stage and give you guys a treat. Please welcome out Y/n”. You walked out on stage as the crowd went wild. You went over to Taylor and hugged her tightly. You placed a small kiss on her cheek. The crew brought you out an extra microphone. Ben started to play the intro of the song. As Taylor started to sing you watched her mouth move. She slowly swayed along with the music. It was your turn to sing. As you started you saw Taylor begin to dance slowly around you. The crowd was loud. You could hear them singing/ screaming all the words back to you. You knew it was a successful song when this was happening. It warmed you heart almost as much as waking up next to Taylor did.  The song came to a finish. Taylor placed a kiss on your lips just before you left the stage. You watched the rest of the show from the side of the stage. She made you happy and that was the best part.

[tamboradventure]

Let’s Talk About the Double Standard in Travel

Posted: 02/20/2020 | February 20th, 2020

Kristin Addis from Be My Travel Muse writes our regular column on solo female travel. It’s an important topic I can’t adequately cover, so I brought in an expert to share her advice for other women travelers to help cover the topics important and specific to them! In this month’s article, she explores the double standards that come with solo female travel.

I rushed to the gate at Julius Nyerere Airport in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. As the agent checked my passport, he looked around me and, perplexed, asked if I was alone.

I’d just finished up four months of solo traveling up from South Africa, one of the best and most enriching solo trips of my life, and replied that yes, I was alone.

“Your husband lets you do that?” he asked incredulously.

I get it. In Tanzania, it’s unthinkable for a woman, especially in her late twenties like I was, to travel alone. I gently let him know that nobody “lets” me do anything, and that I’m unmarried.

While I take pleasure in shifting paradigms when possible, I still wonder what it would be like if I were a man. How would I be perceived when I solo travel or write about it? How would people treat me differently?

1. They wouldn’t ask me whether or not my husband “lets me” travel alone.

From Tanzania to the Philippines, I’ve been asked where my boyfriend or husband is. I bet almost nobody would ask me if my girlfriend lets me travel alone if I were a man.

I wouldn’t have to question whether or not I should lie about being single. I wouldn’t debate wearing a decoy wedding band. My safety wouldn’t be tied up in my singleness.

2. They wouldn’t question whether a boyfriend or daddy pays for my trips.

Is it so strange to believe that a woman can fund her own lifestyle? Why is there such a pervasive myth that women who travel solo are being bankrolled by someone?

When I travel, I pay for it, and when I travel with my partner, we split it 50/50.

I bet I wouldn’t have to state that if I were a man, though.

3. People might ask when I’m planning to settle down, but they wouldn’t do it with such frequency and entitlement to the answer

Maybe settling down with a white picket fence, 2.5 kids, and a dog named Spike used to be the norm, but we have more mobility these days, and the internet, and too many people anyway. So why is it so darn important to people that I eventually settle down?

I think in a way it’s saying, “Hey, this was the only option I gave myself, and now you have to follow suit.” For those who conform to expectations, it’s uncomfortable when others deviate from the norm, especially women.

But I’m not worried about it. If and when I choose, I’ll do it, and if I don’t, that’s OK too. I’m approaching this more like a man, OK?

Also, get out of my ovaries.

4. I’d be called adventurous and an explorer rather than irresponsible and stupid.

If I traveled solo as a man, even if something unfortunate happened to me, I’d be called an explorer and lover of life.

Yet as a woman, I’ve been called stupid, warned I’d be “found dead and cannibalized,” and accused of leading other women to their death (just look at the comments on this video, the worst of which I actually deleted).

5. I wouldn’t be warned I’d “get raped” if I traveled alone.

If I were a man, I’d only have a 6.6% chance of being told I’d “get raped” if I travel alone, versus nearly 70% as a woman.

This is problematic on so many levels, it deserves its own post.

6. I’d be able to wear what I want.

In some places, I can’t wear what I want. I understand that modesty is built into the culture in many places around the world, and I respect it and assimilate when in those countries.

But that doesn’t mean I have to pretend that I enjoy wearing long sleeves and pants in 90-degree weather with 90% humidity while the boys get to wear shorts and tank tops.

7. I wouldn’t have had to wonder what the hell to do when cornered in an elevator in Santiago by two big men, saying salacious things to me in Spanish.

When I traveled through Patagonia with a male friend, nobody harassed me, assuming I wasn’t available. Yet when we parted ways so that I could solo travel — something that was important to me to do — the catcalls started pouring in.

Sadly, I’ve been catcalled in almost every country that I’ve been to, even the ones you’d least expect (yet not at all in southern and eastern Africa — points for Africa!). It ranges from “ciao bella” to being chased down the sidewalk.

It is not a compliment, it’s an assertion of power, and it’s exhausting.

In Santiago, it crossed the line into terrifying when two huge guys got into an elevator with me, hovered over me, and harassed me. It was the perfect place, because who could help me in there?

Would that have happened to a man?

(On the positive side, if I were a man, locals might not be as concerned with taking care of me as many are. People might also not trust me outright the way they do. Right or wrong, women tend to be perceived as more peaceful and gentle and in need of protection.)

8. Nobody would have assaulted me in public in Nepal.

In Pokhara, Nepal, after a random power cut, the sun was setting and I realized I needed water to drink to get through the evening. Though I prefer not to walk alone when it gets dark, I had to do so in that instance.

I heard myself scream before realizing that a local male had grabbed my breast. I whirled around and saw nothing but the back of his head as he ran away like the coward he is.

Everyone nearby just pretended like they hadn’t seen anything, of course.

9. But maybe the police would have taken me more seriously.

I wonder, if I’d been a man demanding the police take notice, would they have listened to me? Would the officer still have rolled his eyes and acted like I was ruining his night by demanding an escort back to my guesthouse?

I can only wonder if it would have been different.

10. Insulting my ass would not be the topic of discussion on a post about road trips.

When women share about something like travel on social media, why is body shaming still a thing?

Why, on a post about road trips of all things, does someone feel the need to inform me that my ass is flat? Does that happen to guys too? I think not.

11. I wouldn’t have had an internet stalker demand a naked selfie from me for months on all of my social platforms.

If being a solo female traveler is tough at times, try writing about it. Have any of my male peers ever been harassed for months on end, on every platform, by a stalker demanding a naked selfie?

Unfortunately, women are targeted online way more than men. According to the BBC, one in three teenage girls have been sexually harassed online.

Why can’t we just share our travel pictures in peace?

12. I wouldn’t get a flood of comments from fragile males on posts like this.

It always happens, but I’m curious: Why should any egalitarian male, who has the ability to see things from someone else’s perspective, ever take this personally? Why does pointing out issues in our society automatically equate to blaming men?

Louder, for the ones in the back: it doesn’t.

***

Obviously, there are drawbacks for male solo travelers too — and benefits that only women who travel solo get to enjoy. There can be an implied trust factor between women that transcends cultures, and time and time again, people have been generous towards me in ways that I didn’t expect.

In the end, I still love and champion solo female travel and believe that every woman should do it. I’m just sick of all the double standards and think it’s high time to call them out.

Kristin Addis is a solo female travel expert who inspires women to travel the world in an authentic and adventurous way. A former investment banker who sold all of her belongings and left California in 2012, Kristin has solo traveled the world for over eight years, covering every continent (except for Antarctica, but it’s on her list). There’s almost nothing she won’t try and almost nowhere she won’t explore. You can find more of her musings at Be My Travel Muse or on Instagram and Facebook.

Book Your Trip: Logistical Tips and Tricks

Book Your Flight Find a cheap flight by using Skyscanner or Momondo. They are my two favorite search engines because they search websites and airlines around the globe so you always know no stone is left unturned.

Book Your Accommodation You can book your hostel with Hostelworld as they have the largest inventory. If you want to stay somewher eother than a hotel, use Booking.com as they consistently return the cheapest rates for guesthouses and cheap hotels. I use them all the time.

Don’t Forget Travel Insurance Travel insurance will protect you against illness, injury, theft, and cancellations. It’s comprehensive protection in case anything goes wrong. I never go on a trip without it as I’ve had to use it many times in the past. I’ve been using World Nomads for ten years. My favorite companies that offer the best service and value are:

World Nomads (for everyone below 70)

Insure My Trip (for those over 70)

Looking for the best companies to save money with? Check out my resource page for the best companies to use when you travel! I list all the ones I use to save money when I travel – and I think will help you too!

The post Let’s Talk About the Double Standard in Travel appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

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[thegloober]

RIFF 2018: Woman at War, Jonas Mekas Exhibition and Camilla Strøm Henriksen on Phoenix

by Matt Fagerholm

October 8, 2018   |  

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“You know who would’ve loved this movie? Roger Ebert!” declared Anne Hubbell, founder of Tangerine Entertainment, during our chat at the Reykjavík International Film Festival. She was discussing Yann Gonzalez’s cheerfully blood-spattered melodrama “Knife + Heart,” and I couldn’t help agreeing with her, considering Ebert’s love of Brian De Palma and bold genre mash-ups including his own, “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.” A day after I posted my enthusiastic review of the picture, Hubbell and her fellow jury members gave “Knife + Heart” RIFF’s top prize—the Golden Puffin, awarded to first or second-time directors—praising Gonzalez’s ability to defy labels “using confidence, humor and a thrilling juxtaposition of love and loss.” Earning a Special Mention was “Styx,” Wolfgang Fischer’s riveting thriller about the refugee crisis that is still in the running for the LUX Prize, presented in November by the European Parliament. Nominated alongside it is Benedikt Erlingsson’s “Woman at War,” a superlative example of Icelandic cinema, showcasing not only the landscape’s distinctive beauty but also its inherent drama.

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Through various tourist sites are accessible by road along the country’s perimeter, the vast majority of Iceland consists of uninhabited terrain, with sand and volcanic glass covering a desert terrain well over 12,000 miles in size. This is the sort of desolate locale ripe for a suspenseful set-piece, and as Halla—the notorious activist in Erlingsson’s film—scampered about its rugged surface, outwitting every helicopter and drone aiming to take her down, I was reminded of Cary Grant’s infamous battle with the deadly crop-duster in Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest.” As played by Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir with winning perseverance and warm eyes that can fire daggers without warning, Halla is a woman after Mildred Hayes’ heart, so determined to raise awareness about industrial corruption that she has no qualms with torpedoing a few power lines in the process. 

When she marches toward the camera to a quirky militaristic anthem evocative of “Moonrise Kingdom” during the opening credits, the camera pans over to reveal a three-piece band performing the soundtrack live. This conceit soon proves to be much more than a one-time sight gag a la Count Basie’s cameo in “Blazing Saddles,” as the musicians repeatedly materialize along with a Greek chorus of sorts, embodying the conscience and tireless spirit of Geirharðsdóttir’s protagonist in melodic form. The score by Davíð Þór Jónsson, who also composed the music for Erlingsson’s previous festival favorite, “Of Horses and Men,” ranks among the year’s best, emerging as a literal character in the movie without diffusing any tension or emotional nuance. Geirharðsdóttir is equally delightful as Halla’s twin sister, Ása, a bohemian yoga instructor whose dislike of extremism may make her an unlikely ally in her sibling’s uncompromising crusade. 

Halla’s rage at profit-driven forces threatening to forfeit our survival by ruining the environment beyond repair couldn’t be timelier, especially when the government attempts to antagonize her by claiming that she has declared war on working people (there are echoes here of Trump’s motives behind championing the coal industry). How Erlingsson and co-writer Ólafur Egilsson go about tackling this topic is by turns poignant and comedic, leading to some well-earned moments of catharsis that had me cheering, such as when Halla—clad in a Nelson Mandela mask—yanks a drone out of the sky before smashing it to bits. Her ambivalence toward bringing new life into the world has caused her to put plans for adoption on hold, but when a four-year-old girl is left orphaned by the war in Ukraine, her attitude toward the future begins to shift. The film’s lyrical final shot comes as close to encapsulating mankind’s current self-imposed predicament as any I’ve seen in 2018.

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Photo of Jonas Mekas by Joanna Kedzierska.

Jonas Mekas, the godfather of American avant-garde cinema whose diaristic chronicling of everyday life predated the modern internet by several decades, was set to be RIFF’s Guest of Honor until ill health caused him to reluctantly cancel. The 95-year-old auteur was still eager to conduct his scheduled masterclass vila Skype, and his exuberance was euphoric to behold. At one point striking a kung fu pose, Mekas displayed the energy of a man one-fifth his age, consistently punctuating the word “cinema” with an exclamation point. He rejects work that lingers on misery, opting to continue crafting “a celebration of life on this planet.” 

Born in Lithuania a day before Christmas, Mekas vividly recalled in a 2015 interview how his brother gave him a still camera on his birthday, which just so happened to be the same week that Russian tanks rolled into his country. His first-ever pictures were taken of the tanks, causing a disgruntled lieutenant to rip the camera from his hands and destroy the footage. After being imprisoned for eight months with his brother in a labor camp, they eventually settled in New York, where the filmmaker still lives today. With online media liberating his intuitive creativity just as it did for David Lynch, Mekas launched his own site in 2006, where his experimental uploads continue to push the form in provocative ways. I particularly love his manifesto on the eternal youth of cinema, produced in honor of its centennial, where he insists that the art form can never age because “it is always beginning.” He considers his camera an extension of his hand, and will continue to use the same one until it needs to be replaced (he currently operates a GoPro). 

Like a Flower in a Field, Mekas’ first solo exhibition in Iceland, debuted two days prior to the masterclass at Reykjavík’s Ásmundarsalur art gallery. Skillfully curated by Francesco Urbano Ragazzi, the exhibition featured three monitors compiling excerpts of the filmmaker’s online diaries. Likening the sprouting of flora in New York with the spontaneity of his artistry, Ragazzi selected 45 images of flowers captured in Mekas’ work to align the gallery windows, bathing the white-walled room in colorful light. A collection of handwritten statements from the director also covered the walls, my favorite being, “We do not need perfection! We need nervous breakdowns!”

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Perfection certainly wouldn’t be the word to describe the masterclass itself, which was marred by poor reception that rendered Mekas’ answers nearly unintelligible. Every time his voice cut out, I silently recited the Icelandic mantra taught to me by the festival’s indispensable guest coordinator, Martiina Putnik: “þetta reddast,” meaning, “Oh well, it will work itself out somehow!” And work itself out it did, thanks in large part to Mekas’ indomitable spirit. So expressive were his gesticulations and jovial grins that they told us everything we needed to know, even when his words were obscured. He loved interacting with the audience, waving to each of us on the monitor as the camera scanned the crowd. I asked him about his belief in the importance of changing one’s mind—which he memorably voiced in defense of Paris Hilton—and how the chronically divided American populace could benefit from this perspective. This question elicited one of Mekas’ most animated responses, arguing that we are doomed to rot if we remain stuck in one way of thinking. He concluded the Q&A by taking a recording the audience with his GoPro (pictured above), making us the latest addition to his intimate oeuvre. 

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Among the best movies I saw at RIFF was “Phoenix,” the first directorial feature effort of Norwegian actress-turned-filmmaker, Camilla Strøm Henriksen. She made her film debut in Martin Asphaug’s acclaimed 1989 drama, “A Handful of Time,” for which she earned the Best Actress prize at Norway’s Amanda Awards. During our chat at RIFF, Henriksen credited the picture with bringing a new energy to her nation’s cinema, increasing the number of high-quality films that were made there. Her interest in directing spawned from her frustration with the acting business and the difficulty in acquiring good roles, ultimately finding that she preferred telling stories rather than acting in them. Henriksen’s extensive experience in directing television, including over 100 episodes of Scandinavia’s longest-running soap, “Hotel Cæsar,” was an ideal training ground for the tight turnaround of independent filmmaking, since it required her to shoot a great deal in a small span of time, moving fast while being clear with her intentions. 

The heroine of “Phoenix” is Jill (Ylva Bjørkaas Thedin), a girl on the cusp of celebrating her 14th birthday, whose unstable mother (Maria Bonnevie) and estranged father (Sverrir Gudnason) have caused her to become the sole parental figure in her family. Jill’s younger brother, Bo (Casper Falck-Løvås), may be pint-sized, but he’s also wise behind his years, able to see directly through the lies he’s fed. Henriksen first began developing “Phoenix” 12 years ago, around the same time I began my career as a published film critic. Both of us have vivid memories of seeing Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 masterpiece, “Pan’s Labyrinth” on the big screen for the first time, an experience that Henriksen found immensely influential as she crafted her own psychological portrait of a young girl. 

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“I saw it eight times and loved it, even though fantasy is not really my kind of thing at all,” Henriksen told me. “I was inspired by how seamlessly the director blended fantasy with melodrama full of pathos. My grandparents had worked in puppet theatre, and I grew up with the Norwegian fairy tales that they performed. The monsters in these stories externalized the fear of things in life that are too terrifying for children to fully comprehend. I thought that element would fit naturally into this family drama, where we are authentic in the psychology without allowing it to become the sort of social realist picture that bores me to death. Having the story be viewed from Jill’s heightened and subjective point-of-view is what draws in the audience. She has a very strong ambivalence toward her mother. In a way, she hates her and deep down, wants her dead, but that’s something she could never admit to herself. That little monster in the film externalizes her resentment and fear of her mother—all these feelings that are still undigested.”  

Henriksen makes a point of not specifying the insidious disorder afflicting Jill’s mother, and says that no particular research was needed since the story was based on events from her own childhood. Her years of therapy have been immensely helpful, serving as a form of research by teaching her so much about herself. In terms of understanding the mind of an actor, Henriksen draws from her own personal experiences as well. She is well aware of how actors must bare their souls onscreen, and won’t be able to do so unless they feel they are in safe hands. Thedin’s remarkably assured and unmannered debut performance is a testament not only to her talent but the mastery of Henriksen’s direction. 

“From the moment we first met, Ylva had this wonderful open curiosity about her,” said Henriksen. “Not only did she have an intuitive understanding of drama, she also had a great sense of empathy that really touched me. That wasn’t something that I was specifically looking for, but I realized when I met Ylva that this quality is important for the role of Jill. She taught me a lot, actually, because I initially had been looking to cast children whom you could sense were carrying a big burden. Both Ylva and Casper are very resourceful and you feel that they will survive even as their parents go under. The film is an ode to the strength and courage of children. I wanted to show that in a truthful way without being simplistic. There is no clear solution for their plight, but they have each other.”

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Swedish production designer Eva Norén, whose credits include Tomas Alfredson’s 2008 landmark, “Let the Right One In,” collaborated with Henriksen to find subtle ways in expressing the characters’ inner journey through the mise-en-scène. Nearly the entire first half is set within the family’s claustrophobic loft, aside from one entrancing sequence set in Jill’s class, where she develops a crush on the boy seated next to her. The educational rainforest footage projected onto the screen before them makes it appear as if they being doused with water, a deft metaphor for the bracing sensations being felt by the girl.

“It’s the one moment where Jill finds a window to the world opening up,” noted Henriksen. “So much of her focus is inwards, since her life is centered around taking care of her family, while trying to get her mother on her feet. She has very little space to actually dream or invest in her own life—in a life that is outside the world of the family. With her mother planning for a job interview and her father due to arrive home in time for her birthday, Jill is now clinging to enough hope that enables her to have a moment of freedom. That scene in class is where she finally opens herself up to something else—her own sexuality—before her hopes are crushed. The subtlety with which this is conveyed came about through the writing process. Though the shooting script was quite close to the first draft, it came together only after a great deal of decluttering. I knew in my heart what I wanted the ending to be, but I didn’t trust it until that last draft.”

“Phoenix” will be released this Friday, October 12th, in Norway, and it is my deep hope that the film will receive the U.S. distribution it deserves. In my review published during the festival, I likened the film to Charles Laughton’s 1955 knockout, “The Night of the Hunter,” an enduring classic that I was delighted to hear Henriksen cite among her chief references. The haunting rendition of “Fly Me To The Moon” sung by a young girl over the end credits reminded me the famous sequence in Laughton’s film, where little orphaned Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce, dubbed by Betty Benson) comforts her brother by singing “Once Upon a Time There Was A Pretty Fly” as they sail along a river at night. Whereas Robert Mitchum’s sociopath-in-preacher’s clothing was the evil force tearing apart the children’s family, in the case of “Phoenix,” it is the even scarier scourge of mental illness.

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“My music supervisor, Goran Obad, and I thought it would be lovely to have a young girl singing at the end,” recalled Henriksen. “We wanted somebody who sung well, but not too well—who didn’t hit all the notes. So he found a 14-year-old girl who isn’t an established star, but is obviously a good singer, as you hear during the credits. What I hope the song conveys is that the children were able to take something positive from their parents. Jill and Casper share a resourcefulness and an ability to express love that is, in some way, indicative of how they were brought up. Even though it’s going to be hard for them moving forward, they will be able to find joy in life.”

If I were asked to compare RIFF to any previous festival I’ve attended, the closest equivalent would be Ebertfest, the jubilant movie marathon annually held at Roger Ebert’s alma mater in Champaign, Illinois. Both events prioritize the moviegoing experience above all else, and celebrities are invited not to promote a project but to have their work honored. The stars aren’t on hand for interview opportunities, but that makes one’s interactions with them all the more meaningful. Mads Mikkelsen, recipient of this year’s Creative Excellence Award, chatted with me about how his brilliant 2012 collaboration with director Thomas Vinterberg, “The Hunt,” has become all the more radical in our current sociopolitical climate, challenging us to break the stigmas surrounding what can and cannot be discussed in regards to allegations of abuse. I treasured the opportunity to tell honorary guest and jury member Shailene Woodley that her performance in James Ponsoldt’s 2013 gem, “The Spectacular Now,” is one of the best I’ve ever seen. As the camera holds on her character during the film’s breathtaking final moment, every conflicted feeling she harbors for her ex ripples across her face, suggesting the many directions she could go, none of which are guaranteed. 

After Helga Stephenson, former head of the Toronto International Film Festival and mentor to RIFF festival director Hrönn Marínósdóttir, was honored at a festive ceremony, she spoke with me about her fond memories of Ebert, whom she knew since the late ’70s. The tribute to Stephenson was held at Bessastaðir, the residence of Icelandic president Guðni Thorlacius Jóhannesson. When I got the chance to meet the president, I told him how refreshing it was to see a literate head of state who was knowledgable about history, supports universal health care and speaks in complete sentences. He savored every last one of my well-deserved compliments, asking me to “please continue,” before getting swept back up into the crowd. Photographer Donald Gíslason, a longtime friend of Guy Maddin’s, had endless great stories to share about Icelandic culture and the vibrant history of the festival, which has always taken full advantage of its natural surroundings (back in 2015, a screening took place in a “secret cave”). I also must give special thanks to photographer Joanna Kedzierska for her excellent film recommendations, her impromptu tour of Reykjavík’s nightlife and most of all, her friendship.

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During my daily strolls to screenings at the Bíó Paradís, I passed a costumed singer (pictured above) who serenaded passersby with beautiful tunes, one of which moved me so deeply that it became the official anthem of my entire trip. “Goodnight, Irene,” the American folk standard first recorded by Huddie ‘Lead Belly’ Ledbetter, nailed the bittersweetness I felt as one of the greatest adventures of my life came to a close. As the plane lifted off the runway at Keflavík Airport, taking me back to a country of toxic 24-hour news cycles and misogynistic Supreme Court justices, my paraphrased version of Ledbetter’s song ran through my mind…

Goodbye, Iceland

Goodbye, Iceland

I’ll see you in my dreams

Next Article: NYFF 2018: Ray & Liz, Asako I & II, Hotel by the River Previous Article: NYFF 2018: Divide and Conquer, What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire?, Film Noir Revivals

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Source: https://bloghyped.com/riff-2018-woman-at-war-jonas-mekas-exhibition-and-camilla-strom-henriksen-on-phoenix/

[mrmichaelchadler]

RIFF 2018: Woman at War, Jonas Mekas Exhibition and Camilla Strøm Henriksen on Phoenix

“You know who would’ve loved this movie? Roger Ebert!” declared Anne Hubbell, founder of Tangerine Entertainment, during our chat at the Reykjavík International Film Festival. She was discussing Yann Gonzalez’s cheerfully blood-spattered melodrama “Knife + Heart,” and I couldn’t help agreeing with her, considering Ebert’s love of Brian De Palma and bold genre mash-ups including his own, “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.” A day after I posted my enthusiastic review of the picture, Hubbell and her fellow jury members gave “Knife + Heart” RIFF’s top prize—the Golden Puffin, awarded to first or second-time directors—praising Gonzalez’s ability to defy labels “using confidence, humor and a thrilling juxtaposition of love and loss.” Earning a Special Mention was “Styx,” Wolfgang Fischer’s riveting thriller about the refugee crisis that is still in the running for the LUX Prize, presented in November by the European Parliament. Nominated alongside it is Benedikt Erlingsson’s “Woman at War,” a superlative example of Icelandic cinema, showcasing not only the landscape’s distinctive beauty but also its inherent drama.

Through various tourist sites are accessible by road along the country’s perimeter, the vast majority of Iceland consists of uninhabited terrain, with sand and volcanic glass covering a desert terrain well over 12,000 miles in size. This is the sort of desolate locale ripe for a suspenseful set-piece, and as Halla—the notorious activist in Erlingsson’s film—scampered about its rugged surface, outwitting every helicopter and drone aiming to take her down, I was reminded of Cary Grant’s infamous battle with the deadly crop-duster in Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest.” As played by Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir with winning perseverance and warm eyes that can fire daggers without warning, Halla is a woman after Mildred Hayes’ heart, so determined to raise awareness about industrial corruption that she has no qualms with torpedoing a few power lines in the process. 

When she marches toward the camera to a quirky militaristic anthem evocative of “Moonrise Kingdom” during the opening credits, the camera pans over to reveal a three-piece band performing the soundtrack live. This conceit soon proves to be much more than a one-time sight gag a la Count Basie’s cameo in “Blazing Saddles,” as the musicians repeatedly materialize along with a Greek chorus of sorts, embodying the conscience and tireless spirit of Geirharðsdóttir’s protagonist in melodic form. The score by Davíð Þór Jónsson, who also composed the music for Erlingsson’s previous festival favorite, “Of Horses and Men,” ranks among the year’s best, emerging as a literal character in the movie without diffusing any tension or emotional nuance. Geirharðsdóttir is equally delightful as Halla’s twin sister, Ása, a bohemian yoga instructor whose dislike of extremism may make her an unlikely ally in her sibling’s uncompromising crusade. 

Halla’s rage at profit-driven forces threatening to forfeit our survival by ruining the environment beyond repair couldn’t be timelier, especially when the government attempts to antagonize her by claiming that she has declared war on working people (there are echoes here of Trump’s motives behind championing the coal industry). How Erlingsson and co-writer Ólafur Egilsson go about tackling this topic is by turns poignant and comedic, leading to some well-earned moments of catharsis that had me cheering, such as when Halla—clad in a Nelson Mandela mask—yanks a drone out of the sky before smashing it to bits. Her ambivalence toward bringing new life into the world has caused her to put plans for adoption on hold, but when a four-year-old girl is left orphaned by the war in Ukraine, her attitude toward the future begins to shift. The film’s lyrical final shot comes as close to encapsulating mankind’s current self-imposed predicament as any I’ve seen in 2018.

Photo of Jonas Mekas by Joanna Kedzierska.

Jonas Mekas, the godfather of American avant-garde cinema whose diaristic chronicling of everyday life predated the modern internet by several decades, was set to be RIFF’s Guest of Honor until ill health caused him to reluctantly cancel. The 95-year-old auteur was still eager to conduct his scheduled masterclass vila Skype, and his exuberance was euphoric to behold. At one point striking a kung fu pose, Mekas displayed the energy of a man one-fifth his age, consistently punctuating the word “cinema” with an exclamation point. He rejects work that lingers on misery, opting to continue crafting “a celebration of life on this planet.” 

Born in Lithuania a day before Christmas, Mekas vividly recalled in a 2015 interview how his brother gave him a still camera on his birthday, which just so happened to be the same week that Russian tanks rolled into his country. His first-ever pictures were taken of the tanks, causing a disgruntled lieutenant to rip the camera from his hands and destroy the footage. After being imprisoned for eight months with his brother in a labor camp, they eventually settled in New York, where the filmmaker still lives today. With online media liberating his intuitive creativity just as it did for David Lynch, Mekas launched his own site in 2006, where his experimental uploads continue to push the form in provocative ways. I particularly love his manifesto on the eternal youth of cinema, produced in honor of its centennial, where he insists that the art form can never age because “it is always beginning.” He considers his camera an extension of his hand, and will continue to use the same one until it needs to be replaced (he currently operates a GoPro). 

Like a Flower in a Field, Mekas’ first solo exhibition in Iceland, debuted two days prior to the masterclass at Reykjavík’s Ásmundarsalur art gallery. Skillfully curated by Francesco Urbano Ragazzi, the exhibition featured three monitors compiling excerpts of the filmmaker’s online diaries. Likening the sprouting of flora in New York with the spontaneity of his artistry, Ragazzi selected 45 images of flowers captured in Mekas’ work to align the gallery windows, bathing the white-walled room in colorful light. A collection of handwritten statements from the director also covered the walls, my favorite being, “We do not need perfection! We need nervous breakdowns!”

Perfection certainly wouldn’t be the word to describe the masterclass itself, which was marred by poor reception that rendered Mekas’ answers nearly unintelligible. Every time his voice cut out, I silently recited the Icelandic mantra taught to me by the festival’s indispensable guest coordinator, Martiina Putnik: “þetta reddast,” meaning, “Oh well, it will work itself out somehow!” And work itself out it did, thanks in large part to Mekas’ indomitable spirit. So expressive were his gesticulations and jovial grins that they told us everything we needed to know, even when his words were obscured. He loved interacting with the audience, waving to each of us on the monitor as the camera scanned the crowd. I asked him about his belief in the importance of changing one’s mind—which he memorably voiced in defense of Paris Hilton—and how the chronically divided American populace could benefit from this perspective. This question elicited one of Mekas’ most animated responses, arguing that we are doomed to rot if we remain stuck in one way of thinking. He concluded the Q&A by taking a recording the audience with his GoPro (pictured above), making us the latest addition to his intimate oeuvre. 

Among the best movies I saw at RIFF was “Phoenix,” the first directorial feature effort of Norwegian actress-turned-filmmaker, Camilla Strøm Henriksen. She made her film debut in Martin Asphaug’s acclaimed 1989 drama, “A Handful of Time,” for which she earned the Best Actress prize at Norway’s Amanda Awards. During our chat at RIFF, Henriksen credited the picture with bringing a new energy to her nation’s cinema, increasing the number of high-quality films that were made there. Her interest in directing spawned from her frustration with the acting business and the difficulty in acquiring good roles, ultimately finding that she preferred telling stories rather than acting in them. Henriksen’s extensive experience in directing television, including over 100 episodes of Scandinavia’s longest-running soap, “Hotel Cæsar,” was an ideal training ground for the tight turnaround of independent filmmaking, since it required her to shoot a great deal in a small span of time, moving fast while being clear with her intentions. 

The heroine of “Phoenix” is Jill (Ylva Bjørkaas Thedin), a girl on the cusp of celebrating her 14th birthday, whose unstable mother (Maria Bonnevie) and estranged father (Sverrir Gudnason) have caused her to become the sole parental figure in her family. Jill’s younger brother, Bo (Casper Falck-Løvås), may be pint-sized, but he’s also wise behind his years, able to see directly through the lies he’s fed. Henriksen first began developing “Phoenix” 12 years ago, around the same time I began my career as a published film critic. Both of us have vivid memories of seeing Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 masterpiece, “Pan’s Labyrinth” on the big screen for the first time, an experience that Henriksen found immensely influential as she crafted her own psychological portrait of a young girl. 

“I saw it eight times and loved it, even though fantasy is not really my kind of thing at all,” Henriksen told me. “I was inspired by how seamlessly the director blended fantasy with melodrama full of pathos. My grandparents had worked in puppet theatre, and I grew up with the Norwegian fairy tales that they performed. The monsters in these stories externalized the fear of things in life that are too terrifying for children to fully comprehend. I thought that element would fit naturally into this family drama, where we are authentic in the psychology without allowing it to become the sort of social realist picture that bores me to death. Having the story be viewed from Jill’s heightened and subjective point-of-view is what draws in the audience. She has a very strong ambivalence toward her mother. In a way, she hates her and deep down, wants her dead, but that’s something she could never admit to herself. That little monster in the film externalizes her resentment and fear of her mother—all these feelings that are still undigested.”  

Henriksen makes a point of not specifying the insidious disorder afflicting Jill’s mother, and says that no particular research was needed since the story was based on events from her own childhood. Her years of therapy have been immensely helpful, serving as a form of research by teaching her so much about herself. In terms of understanding the mind of an actor, Henriksen draws from her own personal experiences as well. She is well aware of how actors must bare their souls onscreen, and won’t be able to do so unless they feel they are in safe hands. Thedin’s remarkably assured and unmannered debut performance is a testament not only to her talent but the mastery of Henriksen’s direction. 

“From the moment we first met, Ylva had this wonderful open curiosity about her,” said Henriksen. “Not only did she have an intuitive understanding of drama, she also had a great sense of empathy that really touched me. That wasn’t something that I was specifically looking for, but I realized when I met Ylva that this quality is important for the role of Jill. She taught me a lot, actually, because I initially had been looking to cast children whom you could sense were carrying a big burden. Both Ylva and Casper are very resourceful and you feel that they will survive even as their parents go under. The film is an ode to the strength and courage of children. I wanted to show that in a truthful way without being simplistic. There is no clear solution for their plight, but they have each other.”

Swedish production designer Eva Norén, whose credits include Tomas Alfredson’s 2008 landmark, “Let the Right One In,” collaborated with Henriksen to find subtle ways in expressing the characters’ inner journey through the mise-en-scène. Nearly the entire first half is set within the family’s claustrophobic loft, aside from one entrancing sequence set in Jill’s class, where she develops a crush on the boy seated next to her. The educational rainforest footage projected onto the screen before them makes it appear as if they being doused with water, a deft metaphor for the bracing sensations being felt by the girl.

“It’s the one moment where Jill finds a window to the world opening up,” noted Henriksen. “So much of her focus is inwards, since her life is centered around taking care of her family, while trying to get her mother on her feet. She has very little space to actually dream or invest in her own life—in a life that is outside the world of the family. With her mother planning for a job interview and her father due to arrive home in time for her birthday, Jill is now clinging to enough hope that enables her to have a moment of freedom. That scene in class is where she finally opens herself up to something else—her own sexuality—before her hopes are crushed. The subtlety with which this is conveyed came about through the writing process. Though the shooting script was quite close to the first draft, it came together only after a great deal of decluttering. I knew in my heart what I wanted the ending to be, but I didn’t trust it until that last draft.”

“Phoenix” will be released this Friday, October 12th, in Norway, and it is my deep hope that the film will receive the U.S. distribution it deserves. In my review published during the festival, I likened the film to Charles Laughton’s 1955 knockout, “The Night of the Hunter,” an enduring classic that I was delighted to hear Henriksen cite among her chief references. The haunting rendition of “Fly Me To The Moon” sung by a young girl over the end credits reminded me the famous sequence in Laughton’s film, where little orphaned Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce, dubbed by Betty Benson) comforts her brother by singing “Once Upon a Time There Was A Pretty Fly” as they sail along a river at night. Whereas Robert Mitchum’s sociopath-in-preacher’s clothing was the evil force tearing apart the children’s family, in the case of “Phoenix,” it is the even scarier scourge of mental illness.

“My music supervisor, Goran Obad, and I thought it would be lovely to have a young girl singing at the end,” recalled Henriksen. “We wanted somebody who sung well, but not too well—who didn’t hit all the notes. So he found a 14-year-old girl who isn’t an established star, but is obviously a good singer, as you hear during the credits. What I hope the song conveys is that the children were able to take something positive from their parents. Jill and Casper share a resourcefulness and an ability to express love that is, in some way, indicative of how they were brought up. Even though it’s going to be hard for them moving forward, they will be able to find joy in life.”

If I were asked to compare RIFF to any previous festival I’ve attended, the closest equivalent would be Ebertfest, the jubilant movie marathon annually held at Roger Ebert’s alma mater in Champaign, Illinois. Both events prioritize the moviegoing experience above all else, and celebrities are invited not to promote a project but to have their work honored. The stars aren’t on hand for interview opportunities, but that makes one’s interactions with them all the more meaningful. Mads Mikkelsen, recipient of this year’s Creative Excellence Award, chatted with me about how his brilliant 2012 collaboration with director Thomas Vinterberg, “The Hunt,” has become all the more radical in our current sociopolitical climate, challenging us to break the stigmas surrounding what can and cannot be discussed in regards to allegations of abuse. I treasured the opportunity to tell honorary guest and jury member Shailene Woodley that her performance in James Ponsoldt’s 2013 gem, “The Spectacular Now,” is one of the best I’ve ever seen. As the camera holds on her character during the film’s breathtaking final moment, every conflicted feeling she harbors for her ex ripples across her face, suggesting the many directions she could go, none of which are guaranteed. 

After Helga Stephenson, former head of the Toronto International Film Festival and mentor to RIFF festival director Hrönn Marínósdóttir, was honored at a festive ceremony, she spoke with me about her fond memories of Ebert, whom she knew since the late ’70s. The tribute to Stephenson was held at Bessastaðir, the residence of Icelandic president Guðni Thorlacius Jóhannesson. When I got the chance to meet the president, I told him how refreshing it was to see a literate head of state who was knowledgable about history, supports universal health care and speaks in complete sentences. He savored every last one of my well-deserved compliments, asking me to “please continue,” before getting swept back up into the crowd. Photographer Donald Gíslason, a longtime friend of Guy Maddin’s, had endless great stories to share about Icelandic culture and the vibrant history of the festival, which has always taken full advantage of its natural surroundings (back in 2015, a screening took place in a “secret cave”). I also must give special thanks to photographer Joanna Kedzierska for her excellent film recommendations, her impromptu tour of Reykjavík’s nightlife and most of all, her friendship.

During my daily strolls to screenings at the Bíó Paradís, I passed a costumed singer (pictured above) who serenaded passersby with beautiful tunes, one of which moved me so deeply that it became the official anthem of my entire trip. “Goodnight, Irene,” the American folk standard first recorded by Huddie ‘Lead Belly’ Ledbetter, nailed the bittersweetness I felt as one of the greatest adventures of my life came to a close. As the plane lifted off the runway at Keflavík Airport, taking me back to a country of toxic 24-hour news cycles and misogynistic Supreme Court justices, my paraphrased version of Ledbetter’s song ran through my mind…

Goodbye, Iceland

Goodbye, Iceland

I’ll see you in my dreams

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