#but scared of my guitar has been haunting me lately. its not even new i listened to this when it came out

[pxper-riings]

oh no i think im in my fic writing era,,

[bloodybells1]

Heavy Metal is Not Your Mascot

The modern recast of heavy metal as salubrious societal analgesic comes at the price of its originally subversive appeal.

This video came across my algorithmically determined online television viewing streaming platform—otherwise known as YouTube—earlier this afternoon and watching it made me think some more about a topic I’ve been meditating on now for a long time: 

As someone who grew up in the 80s and 90s listening to heavy metal, who is now an adult living well into the 21st Century, I’ve often found the ongoing evolution of the public perception of this most idiosyncratic music genre rather puzzling. 

You see, I actually remember when the now laughable moral panic around heavy metal was in full swing, when the news show 2020 aired an episode about Ozzy eating a bat, about Judas Priest supposedly causing a couple of kids to shoot each other in the face and about Mötley Crüe being Satan worshippers because they put a pentagram on the cover of their second album. 

I mean, anyone who was born after 1990 has got to look back at that saga and see something truly surreal. How is it that such caricatures were so compelling, so effective in scaring the well-to-do, those bourgeois patriarchs and matriarchs who today, in the age of Internet pornography and 5,678,987 television shows, are way too inundated with imagery to really be scandalized by these bespandexed dudes with long tongues? At least the McCarthy Hearings can be seen as a national security concern and therefore seem somewhat believable that it occurred, so long as you consider the country had only recently come out of a world war and its principle ally had now become a world power with a diametrically opposed economic system. 

But some mumbly long haired white dude who chopped off the head of a bat in his mouth? 

If a dude in America bit off the head of a bat the way Ozzy did decades ago, he’d be commandeered by the feds for gain of function research (drumroll cymbal crash I’m here all week, folks), not become the subject of a scandal. Actually a dude who chops off the head of a bat with his teeth would today more likely have a reality show than become the subject of Senate Hearings. In fact, eventually, that dude did have a reality show (more on that soon).

But the truth is that heavy metal did in fact scandalize. The satanic imagery and long hair festooning the average metal album back in the 80s, funny as it may seem to modern sensibilities, did actually have the power to shock, no matter the quaintness of the moral panic by today’s standards. For myself growing up as a teenager in the late 80s, the sight of a grown man with a big mane, an electric guitar and a leather jacket signified an authentically antiauthoritarian pose and an effective political tool that communicated independence and freethinking. But the only way that it was actually able to signify all of that relied on its counterdependent effect on pearl-clutching conservative adults. Without the ability to scandalize, disturb and deregulate the affect of the authoritarian class, we teenage underlings had no power. If we couldn’t scare anyone, it’d be like a milquetoast haunted house, not anything to worry about and therefore not worthy of notice.

But this ability to serve as the bugbear for conformist interests could also acquire a specifically dialectical manifestation. You didn’t just have to turn it up to eleven to get people’s attention, you could also speak your mind, something that some of the more articulate members of the “movement,” if we can even call it that, like Dave Mustaine and Alice Cooper, made a habit of doing during interviews. I have a vivid recollection of being moved out of my seat in 1985 at the sight of Dee Snider, curly mop swinging from his head, entering the committee hearings that Tipper Gore put on for the purpose of those warning labels that are now ubiquitous on extreme music catalogs, mostly on hip-hop records (perhaps an early version of the now common trigger warning). He entered a room full of suits and politicians and on national television read aloud his prepared notes, decrying censorship and governmental overreach. In the following interview conducted by the committee—which, funnily enough, included Al Gore—Snider was charming, funny and intelligent, totally comfortable in front of DC legislators and, more importantly, persuasive in his defense of the moral imperative of his way of life. 

The importance of that particular moment for me is difficult to overstate. More so than even the weekly diet of videos on Headbanger’s Ball every Saturday night, the event of Twisted Sister’s frontman speaking truth to power on network television transformed my sense of what it meant to stand up for personal autonomy. Something about the juxtaposition of an articulate voice with a rebellious mien, like a Hell’s Angel with a PhD, floored me and shook me deeply: it made me believe in the necessity for heavy metal to be undergirded by an ideology, one that needed to be clearly defended using the lexicon of the “oppressor” against the oppressor and deployed by a member of the tribe. From that point forward heavy metal was for me a political device, not just a fantastic type of music, but a rhetorical quiver in a bow, a language and style comprising a disruptive affect designed to incense the neighbors. 

And it worked. After I grew my hair, stuck some pins on my denim jacket and ripped my jeans, I started having the impact I so desired. I made all the adults around me angry. All the teachers hated me. Every single grown person’s eye looked at me askance and clutched their children when they saw me walking down the block. And the reason why this all worked was because, back then, before our pop culture became recycled and regurgitated and remixed and mashed up over and over again, before the Internet made every new thing only yet another layer on a cultural palimpsest, heavy metal still had the ability to shock. There still were pockets in every suburb of every state suffused in middle class propriety with nary a flower pointing in the off direction, a purist fantasy more than easily defiled by the angry decibels of a car stereo blasting Iron Maiden. 

But what happens when this all changes? What happens when the Pope of Evil himself, the chiropteran eater, the Pablo Escobar of the offense cartel, one Ozzy Osbourne, reinvents himself as a lovable, hapless, perfectly innocent pater familias within that most innovative medium known as the reality show? What does it say about the political device of heavy metal when its chief icon, who for a whole decade was seen as the black void of all morality, becomes normalized, through one of the most commercial mediums in television, as merely another version of modernity’s companionate figure, the flawed-but-well-meaning father?

I think what happens is what’s in that video I started off this post talking about. What happens is the evolution of a once disruptive force into a kind of medicinal compost, a panacea for the legions of stressed subjects littering the manifold of capitalist relations in the new millennium, a political device turned into a therapeutic regimen. In the world of this video, where psychologists may opine with straight faces about the salubrious properties of heavy metal music, Ozzy Osbourne is no longer the archetype of evil he once truly represented, but an avuncular wizard with John Lennon spectacles, promising peace and harmony, all while—quietly—socially reproducing the specter of the beloved nuclear family. 

You might say that heavy metal is an example of that over-referenced business phenomenon, that is, the proverbial “victim of its own success.” It so captivated a whole generation of people, mostly Gen Xers, who’re by now all grown up, that these people have successfully, through shows like Stranger Things, influenced the subsequent generations’ curiosity for analog culture and managed to keep metal alive as a hotbed of durable cultural properties, though with the necessary consequence of deracinating it from any of its originally subversive potential. 

It’s true that authentically subversive metal continues to live on in the diaspora of micro-niche territories for which YouTube, SoundCloud and Spotify serve as the main platforms. Metal lives on, chiefly in the form of an extremely diversified field of thousands of new artists, many of whom have serious artistry and talent. 

The video above is in fact accurate: metal doesn’t so much as shock or disrupt as it catalyzes self-improvement through extreme ritual. There’s a very strong case to be made for the spiritual benefits that extreme imagery have on society. In Hinduism, the displays of icons of evil gods in front of one’s homes is encouraged, something poet Robert Bly calls “embracing the Shadow.” By this reading, an embrace of the lifestyles and rituals in heavy metal fandom constitutes a successful invitation of the darker energies inhabiting all spheres of human experience and which we ignore at our own peril. 

But the real sting is gone. The heavy metal of my adolescence was not a normalized construct which could be favorably documented for its restorative and spiritual potential. It was a terrifying and disruptive weapon that’d been placed in the hands of youths who were in desperate need to announce their personal autonomy. In my own case this took on the aspect of a need to set expectations around the adults in my life. I was to be understood not as a normal kid but as a self-described hellion and my manner of dress and musical taste reflected this desire to offend and frighten for the purpose of stating my preferred manner of being treated by adults, as someone who would not follow their prescriptions, values and career recommendations. 

Maybe I’m just falling victim to the natural tendency for older folks to chafe at the loss of their beloved value environments. “These kids,” and so forth. I will say that if you haven’t yet, please read Freddie DeBoer’s essay on the 90s because it makes a very strong case for why this might not actually be the case. It is true that the innocence of several decades ago looks positively embarrassing by today’s standards, especially when coupled with the decadence and optimism of new media in the 1980s (see “Looks that Kill”). Furthermore, the notion of heavy metal as an authentic political device is severely problematized by the hegemonic impact of its mostly white, male and, way too frequently, nativist, affect. It can be said that the primary maxim in heavy metal of the freedom to flout the rules is merely a reproduction of a Eurocentric, masculinized “freedom” to thrive in the patriarchal caste system it relies on for its special privileges (see Disco Demolition Night). Kaleefa Sanneh has written compellingly about how the rockist critical analysis that dominated music criticism for so long is another reproduction of this narrative (click here for my review of his book Major Labels). Interestingly, this problematization itself also needs further problematization through a class lens, as heavy metal has hardly been hegemonic in its role of providing a soundtrack for working class solidarity (it’s true that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, we’re talking about a white working class solidarity, but let’s save that conversation for another post). 

The idea that the public perception of heavy metal has been degraded from its originally revolutionary aspect relies on a certain element of the status quo that, since that time long ago, has greatly shifted. Cultural historian John Higgs has written powerfully about the exact nature of this shift, what he characterizes as an increase in emotional intelligence on the part of Gen Z. Read this piece he wrote about his experience watching one of the most beloved Gen X cultural properties, one that is situated perfectly with the zeitgeist of heavy metal’s classic 80s period, The Breakfast Club. To Higgs, having watched the film with a bunch of Gen Z kids led him to believe that this film, whose Bender protagonist so represented the deepest aspirations of nonconformists like myself, “no longer makes sense at all to modern teenagers.” It’s difficult to disagree with his analysis. Please do yourself a favor and read it (it’s short). 

The meaningful difference between the two eras being discussed here, the era of my adolescence and the era of the microdoc YouTube video I posted above, lies in the fact that adults are no longer being treated suspiciously by adolescents. This makes perfect sense when you consider that those of us who grew up during the 80s were experiencing a transitional period in between a paternal model of development and our modern companionate model. Heavy metal music was a perfect vehicle to defy the paternalistic encroachment of the adults who were still stuck in a pre-Elvis era of puritanical conformity. This isn’t the time or place to fully flesh out what I believe might be troubling about some aspects of the companionate model. But I think it’s beyond doubt that, in sheer terms of critical awareness and empathic response, Gen Z are miles ahead of Gen X, and that is something to take note of, especially for what it says about family relations. Interestingly, this advent has done little to stay the epidemic of mental illness among this cohort, though the causes and correlations of that are likely found in different arenas than in the family (ahem, Instagram, ahem). 

I will admit that it’s pretty clear that the revolutionary affect of the heavy metal of my teenage years appears more like a counterrevolutionary force in the present day. For a truly revolutionary art, punk music is a far more effective entity than heavy metal. Perhaps it was heavy metal’s more central provenance within the historical line of rock music that I found so persuasive back then. Unlike the zine pamphleteering and Xerox iconography of social unrest directly visible in punk music’s propaganda, heavy metal made a more mainstream case: it was a broader movement than anything punk could hope to muster. It’s interesting to consider that punk was popular only in its more tepid incarnations in college rock and Grunge while heavy metal could attain wide popularity with relatively less devaluation of its subversive content. 

But it’s this more broad appeal that also complicates the picture of a heavy metal music as a truly revolutionary force. 

At the same time, it’s hard for me to take seriously the idea that heavy metal today is to be lauded for its spirituality and therapeutic effects. The zeitgeist might have shifted to better, more humanistic environs. But heavy metal should not be regarded as the feisty commercialist mascot to a self-help movement. 

[astrologydonut]

MADS lover lyrics

I forgot you existed

“I forgot that you sent me a clear message, taught me some hard lessons... I just forget what they were. It's all just a blur”

“Would have faught the whole town”

Cruel Summer

“I’m always waiting for you just to cut to the bone.”

“Say that we’ll just screw it up, in these trying times we’re not trying.”

“And I scream for whatever its worth, I love you ain’t that the worst thing you ever heard! He looks so pretty like a devil. He looks up grinning like a devil”

“I’m drunk in the back of the car and I cried like a baby coming home from the bar. Said I’m fine but it wasn’t true. I don’t wanna keep secrets just to keep you.”

Lover

“And there's a dazzling haze, a mysterious way about you, dear.”

“With every guitar string scar on my hand

I take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover.”

“My heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue

All's well that ends well to end up with you

Swear to be overdramatic and true to my lover.”

The Man

“And I'm so sick of them coming at me again”

“They would make me out to be bad so it’s okay that I’m mad.”

The Archer

”Cause cruelty wins in the movies

I've got a hundred thrown-out speeches I almost said to you.”

“All of my enemies started out friends.”

“Can you see right through me? They see right through me. I see right through me.”

“I never grew up, it’s getting so old.”

I think he knows

“He’s so obsessed with me and boy I understand.”

Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince

“They whisper in the hallway she’s a bad bad girl.”

“I don’t really want to fight cause nobody’s gonna win.”

“I'm feeling helpless, The damsels are depressed.“

Paper Rings

“Went home and tried to stalk you on the internet

Now I've read all of the books beside your bed.”

“I want to drive away with you

I want your complications too

I want your dreary Mondays”

I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this

“To the color that we painted your brother's wall. Honey, without all the exes, fights, and flaws we wouldn't be standing here so tall.”

CorneilIa Street

"I rent a place on Cornelia Street, I say casually in the car.”

“Back when we were card sharks, playing games. I thought you were leading me on. I packed my bags, left Cornelia Street

Before you even knew I was gone.”

Death By a Thousand Cuts

“Cause I can't pretend it's okay when it's not”

“I ask the traffic lights if it'll be alright

They say, "I don't know"”

“You said it was a great love, One for the ages

But if the story's over, why am I still writing pages?”

“Gave up on me like I was a bad drug

Now I'm searching for signs in a haunted club

Our songs, our films, united, we stand

Our country, guess it was a lawless land

Quiet my fears with the touch of your hand

Paper cut stings from our paper-thin plans

My time, my wine, my spirit, my trust

Tryna find a part of me you didn't take up

Gave you so much, but it wasn't enough

But I'll be alright, it's just a thousand cuts”

London Boy

You can find me in the pub, we are watching rugby with his school friends

Show me a gray sky, a rainy cab ride

Babe, don't threaten me with a good time

Like a child when our eyes meet

Soon You’ll Get Better

I know delusion when I see it in the mirror

You like the nicer nurses, you make the best of a bad deal

I just pretend it isn't real

I’ll paint the kitchen neon

And I hate to make this all about me but who am I supposed to talk to? What am I supposed to do if there's no you?

False God

Remember how I said I'd die for you

And I can't talk to you when you're like this

Staring out the window like I'm not your favorite town

I'm New York City

Daring you to leave me just so I can try and scare you

You Need To Calm Down

And I ain't tryna mess with your self-expression but I've learned a lesson that stressin' and obsessin' 'bout somebody else is no fun

Sunshine on the street at the parade but you would rather be in the dark age, just makin' that sign must've taken all night

You just need to take several seats and then try to restore the peace and control your urges to scream about all the people you hate

Afterglow

Put you in jail for something you didn't do

Chemistry 'til it blows up, 'til there's no us

ME!

I know that I'm a handful, baby, uh

I know I never think before I jump

And you're the kind of guy the ladies want

I know that I went psycho on the phone

I never leave well enough alone

And trouble's gonna follow where I go

I know I tend to make it about me

I know you never get just what you see

But I will never bore you, baby

It’s Nice To Have a Friend

Lost my gloves, you give me one

"Wanna hang out?"

Yeah, sounds like fun.

“on the roof, 20 questions, we tell the truth

You've been stressed out lately? Yeah, me too

Call my bluff, call you "babe"

Have my back, yeah, everyday

Something gave you the nerve

Daylight

My love was as cruel as the cities I lived in

Everyone looked worse in the light

There are so many lines that I've crossed, unforgiven

Luck of the draw only draws the unlucky

And so I became the butt of the joke

I wounded the good and I trusted the wicked

Clearin' the air, I breathed in the smoke

Maybe you ran with the wolves and refused to settle down

Maybe I've stormed out of every single room in this town

I don't wanna look at anything else now that I saw you

(I can never look away)

I don't wanna think of anything else now that I thought of you

(Things will never be the same)

I've been sleepin' so long in a twenty-year dark night

(Now I'm wide awake)

[satanfm]

lux & jordan’s playlist @jordanpls

TRACES OF YOU, ROOTED IN ME.

i don’t regret loving you, but wow do i ever fucking miss you. you are my musical leitmotif; everything reminds me of you...of us.

nearly witches (ever since we met...) by p!atd ---  “ever since we met, i only shoot up with your perfume. it's the only thing that makes me feel as good as you do. ever since we met. i've got just one regret to live through. and that one regret is you. how does a heart love if no one has noticed its presence? and where does it go? trembling hands play my heart like a drum, but the beat's gotten lost in the show. you have set your heart on haunting me forever from the start. it's never silent.”

new york by st. vincent --- “new york isn't new york without you, love so far in a few blocks to be so low and if i call you from first avenue where you're the only motherfucker in the city who can handle me. new love, wasn't true love, back to you, love. so much for a home run with some blue bloods. if i last-strawed you on 8th avenue, where you're the only motherfucker in the city who can stand me. i have lost a hero. i have lost a friend. but for you, darling i'd do it all again.”

atlantis by seafret --- “we got here the hard way all those words that we exchange is it any wonder things get dark? it's in my heart, it's in my head i never take back the things i said. so, high above i feel it coming down. she said, in my heart and in my head tell me why this has to end. oh no, oh no... i can't save us. my atlantis, we fall. we've built this town on shaky ground i can't save us my atlantis, oh no we've built it up to pull it down. now all the birds have fled, the hurt just leaves me scared losing everything i've ever known. it's all become too much. maybe i'm not built for love if i knew that i could reach you i would go.”

not over you by gavin degraw --- “dreams, that's where i have to go to see your beautiful face anymore. i stare at a picture of you and listen to the radio. hope, hope there's a conversation where we both admit we had it good. but until then it's alienation i know that much is understood. and i realize if you ask me how i'm doin', i would say i'm doin' just fine, i would lie and say that you're not on my mind. but i go out and i sit down at a table set for two and finally i'm forced to face the truth no matter what i say i'm not over you.”

all too well by taylor swift --- “oh, your sweet disposition and my wide-eyed gaze we're singing in the car, getting lost upstate autumn leaves falling down like pieces into place and i can picture it after all these days and i know it's long gone and that magic's not here no more and i might be okay but i'm not fine at all 'cause there we are again on that little town street you almost ran the red 'cause you were looking over me wind in my hair, i was there, i remember it all too well 'cause there we are again in the middle of the night we dance around the kitchen in the refrigerator light down the stairs, i was there, i remember it all too well, yeah. maybe we got lost in translation, maybe i asked for too much but maybe this thing was a masterpiece 'til you tore it all up running scared, i was there, i remember it all too well hey, you call me up again just to break me like a promise so casually cruel in the name of being honest i'm a crumpled up piece of paper lying here 'cause i remember it all, all, all too well time won't fly, it's like i'm paralyzed by it. i'd like to be my old self again, but i'm still trying to find it. after plaid shirt days and nights when you made me your own now you mail back my things and i walk home alone. but you keep my old scarf from that very first week ‘cause it reminds you of innocence and it smells like me you can't get rid of it, 'cause you remember it all too well, yeah.”

ocean breathers salty by modest mouse --- “your body may be gone, i'm gonna carry you in. in my head, in my heart, in my soul. and maybe we'll get lucky and we'll both live again. well i don't know. i don't know. i don't know. don't think so. well that is that and this is this. you tell me what you want and i'll tell you what you get. you get away from me. you get away from me. collected my belongings and i left the jail. well thanks for the time, i needed to think a spell. i had to think awhile. i had to think awhile. the ocean breathes salty, won't you carry it in? in your head, in your mouth, in your soul. and maybe we'll get lucky and we'll both grow old. well i don't know. i don't know. i don't know. i hope so.”

lover by taylor swift --- “can i go where you go? can we always be this close forever and ever? and ah, take me out, and take me home you're my, my, my, my lover. we could let our friends crash in the living room this is our place, we make the call. and i'm highly suspicious that everyone who sees you wants you i've loved you three summers now, honey, but i want 'em all. can i go where you go? can we always be this close forever and ever? and ah, take me out, and take me home you're my, my, my, my lover. ladies and gentlemen, will you please stand? with every guitar string scar on my hand i take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover my heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue all's well that ends well to end up with you swear to be overdramatic and true to my lover.”

sick of losing soulmates by dodie --- “what a strange being you are, god knows where i would be if you hadn't found me, sitting all alone in the dark a dumb screenshot of youth watch how a cold broken teen will desperately lean on a super glued human of proof what the hell would i be, without you (what the hell would i be) brave face talk so lightly, hide the truth (hide the truth) 'cause i'm sick of losing soulmates, so where do we begin i can finally see, you're as fucked up as me so how do we win? yeah, i'm sick of losing soulmates, won't be alone again i can finally see, you're as fucked up as me so how do we win? we will grow old as friends.”

i get along well without you very well by billie holiday --- “i get along without you very well of course, i do except when soft rains fall and drip from leaves then i recall the thrill of being sheltered in your arms of course, i do but i get along without you very well i've forgotten you just like i should of course, i have except to hear your name or someone's laugh that is the same but i've forgotten you just like i should what a guy what a fool am i to think my breaking heart could kid the moon what's in store should i fall once more no, it's best that i stick to my tune.”

the breakup by lany --- “my momma always said, "hey take it slow" but how the hell do you fall in love? the last time i checked, you can't fall in slow mo you think you wanna be, you wanna be alone just wait until you're crying on the shower floor it hits you in the chest, 'bout every day you're done 'cause once you let it go, you better know it's gone ooh it's never the same, uh yeah, after the breakup ooh it's never the same, love don't try to make up.”

first love / late spring by mitski --- “wild women don't get the blues but i find that lately i've been crying like a tall child so please hurry leave me i can't breathe please don't say you love me one word from you and i would jump off of this ledge i'm on baby tell me "don't" so i can crawl back in and i was so young when i behaved twenty five yet now i find i've grown into a tall child.”

daylight by taylor swift --- “my love was as cruel as the cities i lived in everyone looked worse in the light there are so many lines that i've crossed, unforgiven i'll tell you truth, but never, "goodbye" i don't wanna look at anything else now that i saw you i don't wanna think of anything else now that i thought of you i've been sleepin' so long in a twenty-year dark night and now i see daylight, i only see daylight.”

death by a thousand cuts by taylor swift --- “saying goodbye is death by a thousand cuts flashbacks waking me up i get drunk, but it's not enough 'cause the morning comes and you're not my baby i look through the windows of this love even though we boarded them up chandelier still flickering here 'cause i can't pretend it's okay when it's not it's death by a thousand cuts i dress to kill my time i take the long way home i ask the traffic lights if it'll be alright they say, "i don't know" and what once was ours is no one's now i see you everywhere, the only thing we share is this small town you said it was a great love one for the ages but if the story's over, why am i still writing pages?”

[jjungkookiex]

My review/thoughts on MOTS7!

This album blew me away in terms of the lyrics, sound composition, EVERYTHING in fact so I figured that I would write a little review of it! Listening to every past BTS album brings me acutely to a period of my life when it was first released so I’m curious to see what memories I’ll forever associate with MOTS7

Interlude: Shadow- From the moment the MV was dropped I was speechless by this masterpiece. It sets the tone for this album so incredibly well by setting up the parallels between fighting your shadows and being engulfed by them. This constant battle I feel is central to the album as a whole. The alternation between Yoongi’s whispered beginning of “I wanna be a rapstar” “I wanna be king” to the Agust D esque switch of flow at the end almost seems as though his shadow is talking back to him. It is as though he realises that he cannot escape it but must embrace it to emerge from it. And also his INSANE flow and fluidity of rap is just something else, this song was made for Suga. 

Black Swan- This has got to be one of my favourite songs from the album, I was hooked by the dark, almost classical intrumentals paired with the urgency of the vocals and rap. I feel as though this is one of the most introspective songs the boys have ever written, with the analogy of the dancer’s first death working to illustrate how art is all consuming for the creator. The pulsing beat underneath the vocals and rap served as a reminder of how important it is for artists to have something that literally makes their heart beat. It’s rare when songs make you truly analyse not only the lyrics but your relation to them and Black Swan 100% did that for me. 

Filter- This had me HOOKED from the first few strings and the smooth Latin beat made me imagine listening to this whist walking through a bustling city at sunset. Jimin’s vocal range and siren like vocals make this song alluring and addictive in a way that no other singer could have done. The lyrics are playful and confident yet simultaneously deep. Jimin realises how attractive his various sides are to millions around the world and he owns that, yet he’s also aware that what people see is mostly akin to a filter, not reality in itself. 

My Time- I’m so proud of Jungkook for experimenting and creating different sounds for each of his solo tracks and My Time is no exception. His beautiful airy vocals echo and blend perfectly with the lowkey beat. The lyrics hit hard when you realise that Jungkook’ s time scale of life has been directly opposite to that of his peers. He’s grown up on airplanes while they took the subway and you get a sense of yearning from his voice, a yearning for maybe the childhood and things he missed out on. Yet there’s a sense of assertion, that he owns his time has been different and accepts his fate. 

Louder than bombs- I 100% understand why Namjoon cried writing this song. It so perfectly encapsulates the sense of fear and desperation that arises from uncertainty in one’s position in life. Troye did such a great job helping the boys with this song because it sounds sonically like the pair of them together. Even though this song is one of the darker numbers on the album it is offset by the small hints of hope. Namjoon’s mantra that he’s going to “pray for better days” is so striking because often in life that’s all you can do when you’re breaking- hope that things will change and the majority of the time they do, so you need to keep that fire of hope alive in you. 

ON- On is a certified bop and its so INTENSE with the drum beats in the beginning. This song is going to be amazing in concerts with its anthemic rhythm and the lyrics “bring the pain on” and “can’t hold me down cos I’m a fighter” are so empowering. I feel this song embraces the pain and hardship with the confidence of the rap and vocals coming together to say- bad things will happen but we’ll emerge stronger and surge ON. 

UGH!- Even from the title I could tell that this queen was going to sit with her sisters Ddaeng and Cypher. I’m so incredibly proud of our rapline they SNAPPED, like the flow, the wordplay the artistry?? The gunshots immediately grabbed my attention and the build up the chorus which hits like a gut punch is EVERYTHING. The way they discuss anger is so pertinent, with the rise of social media people unleash their anger on whoever they choose whilst hiding behind a screen on anonymity. Anger, like they say, is necessary but only when it can be used as a motivator for justice. Petty cowardly anger, like that which is directed towards BTS, can only lead to pain and that is what our rapline so masterfully condemns. 

Zero O Clock- This is my new healing song, the acoustic guitar and soothing vocals are like a warm hug. The chorus is so uplifting and assuring, just hearing the gentle refrain of “and you’re gonna be happy” is so comforting. This reminds me of curling up on a winter’s day and finding comfort in small things and happy memories regardless of the storm that rages outside. The way that BTS never tell you meaningless words like “don’t be sad”, instead they assure you that sadness will not last forever and that the metaphorical spring will brighten your life once more. 

Inner Child- Tae’s solo track radiates innocence and I am so in love with it. The way that he accepts his past and the hard times he went through and instead of allowing himself to dwell on it, he looks to the future. The refrain “we gon change” is going to be so uplifting at concerts. Even though our boys bring us so much joy we have to remember they’ve been through so many trials in the past. It’s comforting to know that I’ve gone through struggles alongside him and we can both move on whilst still recognising that our scars are the reason we are here now and that they prove we are alive and capable of healing. 

Friends- One of my favourites from this album hands down. This makes me so inexplicably happy. It reminds of walking home hands intertwined with your best friend after school, late night conversations and inside jokes that make you double over whilst still containing that deep and powerful love you share with your soulmate alone. And isn’t that just vmin encapsulated? I can’t wait to see they perform this live, the Stay! Hey! part makes me so nostalgic and makes me want to reassure them that they’ll always have each other and the cheers of us, their ARMY. The part where they acknowledge their relationship as soulmates made me BAWL, their bond is one of such purity and rarity and I’m honoured to even witness it. 

Moon- Another one of my all time favourites from this album. This could be the soundtrack for a slice of life anime and it is so bright and cheery, like Jin himself. His sweet vocals and the beat fits the spring season so well and the lyrics made me so soft. The way he uses the metaphor of him being the moon and circling us, his precious earth made me realise even more how much his man ADORES us. How could anyone sleep on Jin?? He’s songwriting is so pure and his presence gives me such comfort and hope, you’re so much more than just a moon Jin. You’re our one and only moon. 

Respect- Namgi you geniuses! The wordplay, playful banter and topic matter are so unique in this song that I knew that it could only be made for the two of them. Respect I feel at the foundation of all relationships, can you ever have a healthy and mutual relationship with anyone or thing if you don’t respect them? With their distinctive rap that blends and flows so well with each other Namgi discuss the concept of respect and what it really means in the modern world when people place a veneer over their actions and words so as to disguise whether or not they truly respect you. As artists all I feel Bangtan want is people to respect them, not idolise them, but respect their artistry and work and sadly in an world where people hold numerous prejudices this is hard. Kudos to them for exploring this topic in a way that is simultaneously light with the satori at the end but still very thought provoking. 

We are Bulletproof: The Eternal- I was 100% expecting this song to be a hardcore hip hop track so imagine my surprise to find a song that made its way into my BTS songs I can’t listen to casually because they mean too much to me and will make me bawl in public tracklist. The gorgeously haunting melody, the angelic vocals and intensely emotional rap has me in tears. When they sing “We were only seven” and “But we have you all now” I lost it. The memories I have of BTS who were my second family for the majority of my youth, the times we spent together, the music that was the soundtrack to my life. The way they adore us and find comfort and hope from us... this song really made me believe that I’m going to love them forever and vice versa. It makes me less scared to go on the rollercoaster that is life knowing that I will always have Bangtan beside me. 

Outro:Ego- I saw a post that said Namjoon looks up to his Persona, Yoongi’s Shadow looks down on him but Hobi is the only one who is at the same level as, and looks his Ego right in the eye. I feel this song is such a wonderful upbeat positive track that is so Hoseok?? The way that he accepts his fate and looks forward and is confident and happy in the person he is now? This is going to be amazing at all the summer concerts and it just radiates such joy and never fails to make me dance. The perfect ending to an album that chronicles the ups and downs of BTS’s relationship with their career and selves and ultimately ends on such a bright note of hope and happiness. 

[mazanica]

So anymore funfacts about anyone? Red, Freddy, anyone you want? (I was gonna send in an ask like right after the last one but then I had an anxiety attack, the universe will not stop me from talking to you 😂)

(Took me a few days bc my phone was the GPS to get home and I’ve been relaxing and winding down and also i can’t answer on my PC rn bc I share a room with my sister and she has to get up at like 4 am for work and I type rly fast and loud and it wakes her up, keeps her awake and ticks her off lmao so mobile post! I hope you feel better now! ;w; I LOVE TALKING TO YOU TALK TO ME MORE 👀 discord)

Also you said fun facts and I wrote a book, thanks.

Freddy is the most level headed, yet also the most dangerous out of ALL of the animatronics (this does not include the shadows and nightmares, as they’re not technically real animatronics, or the puppet who is basically the closest thing possible to a mortal god). He knows things none of the others know, and often the first person he tells anything to is either Red (as the Toys’ leader and bc of their personal relationship ofc) or Bonnie (his best friend, inside and outside of the programming). He witnessed the very first murder (after the Bite of ‘83, so Fredbear’s is shut down and it’s the first official Freddy Fazbear restaurant), along with the Puppet, but as this is before the (first) children are murdered he can do nothing but adhere to his code. He began to glitch out of course, as the first sign of autonomy fought with his programming. He and the other OGs did not gain full autonomy until they came in contact with the murdered children, though they have always been sentient (can you imagine…)

Bonnie ADORES cute things. He’ll never admit it though. He’s a little bitter and a little jealous, but the Toys quickly endear themselves to him in part because of their cute very-80’s design. He’s loyal to a fault but when his trust is broken, its a bitch to get back. He has Freddy’s back no matter what. He likes to bicker with Chica and Foxy, and often insults and teases them as big brothers do, but the moment someone else does he’s ready to throw down. He’s very protective and mildly possessive, but Freddy’s working with him on that last bit- possessive is not good and Bonnie knows that.

Chica was programmed bilingual, with English and Spanish in order to help children who only spoke the latter (the Hispanic population was fairly high in their city and Henry was highly aware of the children and their parents who only knew Spanish, so it was good to have someone always there who can communicate). She cooks, of course, she’s Chica, and while she and Bonnie definitely have the bickering teasing sibling relationship she’s closest to Foxy. Those two, while they will have a go at each other, will usually band together and are often found playing games together. Foxy is the one she feels she can trust with her secrets.

Foxy is good at keeping secrets. He’s a storyteller and loves to play pretend, and often he can glean info from the others based on what they choose their characters to be or do. He gets the others to open up to him easily, and of the OGs he’s probably the most open and sympathetic, allowing him to easily befriend the Toys when they meet. He’s also the most sensitive, so he’s the most torn up about the murdered children, but his reactions to hurt is often violence- against himself, against the perpetrator, against the wall, etc… But he never hurts his friends.

The Golden duo were actually built by a novice inventor (though she was a genius), initially as babysitters and entertainers for the inventor’s children (single mother). However, the kids in the neighborhood LOVED them so she opened the diner. It ran for a few years, over time the Golden duo gaining their autonomy as they learned. This was in the 50’s, and this tech was unheard of back then so it obviously caught attention. Time passed and the inventor eventually died in the late 70’s, and her children teamed up with Henry and William to bring in new animatronics to expand the “family.” Thus Freddy, Bonnie, Chica and Foxy were built (the band came first, Foxy was added later) and placed in a sister restaurant… When ‘83 happened, the inventor’s kids shut the restaurant down (feeling ashamed that their beloved goldies could cause such harm) and sold all of the rights to Henry and William, under the condition that their mother’s characters always be honoured; and thus the name Fredbear remains, even if only in programming.

Henry is the one who built the OGs, using the blueprints and plans from the golden duo in order to achieve the same effect. William, wanting to best Henry (William was a very very jealous and selfish man), began secretly working on the Sister Location before ‘83 (basically right after Henry revealed the OG Fazband), and he made the blueprints for the Toys (as they were the prototypes for the SL) from scratch, using very little of the Goldens’ creator’s code and instead using a child genius who would never know any better. The child was forced into writing the first “living code”, which would grow and develop on its own- the first true AI, or so William thought (the OGs and Goldens learn and grow but that’s through time and observation and ghosts, they weren’t actually programmed for it). As such, the Toys from the moment they woke up could feel.

William is a monster. He murders for fun. Freddy was the first to show aggression towards him- Freddy saw the murder, but he didn’t see the murderer, but he never liked how William reacted to finding out about the child found dead in the alley, especially since he was supposed to be a family friend. William murdered the first set of children out of anger at Henry, wanting to see “Mr. Perfect” fail- not realizing Henry was spiraling (the first child was Henry’s daughter, Sammy). When Freddy’s shut down and they decided to reopen, he decided that instead of letting Henry have the glory of refitting the OGs, he introduced Henry to the Toys.

The Toys have no knowledge of William, beyond “our creator.” They also don’t know of the child genius that William used and abused to create them, though they do have fragments of memory about them.

Blue is the most sensitive about the “replacement” thing. After he finds out, he refuses to respond to the name Bonnie- even has an actual breakdown over it because “if you’re not Freddy and I’m not Bonnie then who the heck are we?!” Total existential crisis. He even breaks a mirror in the bathroom. It’s after that that the Toys officially take up nicknames to use among themselves.

The Toys were given the OGs’ props when they were activated, but they gave them back. The restaurant crew eventually got tired of having to fetch the props from the back and just ordered new props for the Toys.

Mangle’s nickname was originally Vixy, but after being ripped apart they embraced the name Mangle and decided they liked the sound of it. Red tried to reason with them about it but Mangle was firm in their decision.

The Toys and OGs (as the Withereds) never hunted the night guard. The night guards were scared stiff when the animatronics moved and got it in their heads that they were being hunted. The animatronics had no reason to hunt the night guard; they didn’t know after all. The Withereds did tell the Toys about the first set of murders (and Freddy admitted the truth about the first child to Red), but the Toys couldn’t imagine the pain until they went through it themselves (second set of murdered kids).

Red and Chii take the most issue with being called “Toy”- Red because it likens them to cheap knockoffs and Chii because it likens them to simple objects meant to be played with and tossed away. Mangle and Blue were indifferent to the title.

The Toys are the only ones who saw the murderer. The secret of his identity died with them.

William (under the alias Dominic Fueller) masqueraded as a guard after he and Henry had a falling out, and during this time he kidnapped the kids and murdered them. This time he was more careful, and the Toys were the only witnesses. However, when the OGs later read about the Bite of '87 (which targeted William but ended up getting selfless little Jeremy instead), they put the pieces together that it was a night guard (as the paper said they “cornered a guard”) and began hunting night guards from that day onwards.

All in all there were 11 murdered children and 2 bite victims. Bite of '83 was the crying child, shortly after that was Sammy, then in '85 was the first five children who briefly haunted the restaurant and the OGs’ suits (their bodies were found, however, and properly interred so they moved on bc closure). Then '87 came and the second set of murders happened, and the day after was the Bite of '87.

Henry committed suicide shortly after '87, leaving William with the rest of the company… But he stuck around.

Things between the Toys and OGs was initially rocky, but no one was outright hostile. Of the Toys, Red was the first to reach out a hand, and of the OGs Foxy was the first (though Freddy did extend pleasantries, as the leader). Bonnie just sort of started hanging around and Blue on a whim gave him back his guitar, and that simple act is what truly bridged the gap. Soon the Toys decided to fix the OGs up, with Red hoping one day the OGs would perform again. Blue often voiced a desire to perform alongside Bonnie, not as Old and New but as Bonnie and Blue.

When Mangle was ripped apart with no hope of being fixed, everyone did what they could to make things better for them. However, Mangle came to the conclusion eventually that they liked being a “spider fox.” They could go places and do things the others couldn’t, and soon it became the norm to look up and see a fox chillin on the ceilin

The animatronics have souls of their own, formed over time, circumstance and experiences. They’re all reunited in the end, and either stay in the afterlife or move on to another life- hopefully a happier one. Surprise, all my AUs are connected in a multiverse 😂 they exist parallel to each other, sometimes even in the same universe/timeline but at different points in time. They’re all the lives the animatronics (and night guards and children) live, whether it’s in another universe or the same. They have happy stories and not so happy stories… But they’re stories. Their stories. And they always find each other, one way or another.

Oh yeah those next and parallel lives I mentioned? Yeah the souls carry wounds that transcend time and space. 9 times out of 10, their names or nicknames will be the same, they’ll look as they always did, and they hold the same scars as their animatronic forms.

[jflashandclash]

Tales From Mount Othrys

The Versatility of a Guitar String II

 Phil told them to whistle while they worked.

Jack had never been so scared to whistle. Knowing his luck, Apollo would want to wreak vengeance on Jack for killing Apollo’s favorite son. If Jack so much as meeped, all the squirrels in the forest would probably be stricken with sickness and rain from the trees.

         While clutching Ryan’s sheet-wrapped ankles, stumbling through the near-darkness of the forest, seeing the ghostly gold glow of Luke’s blond hair as Luke gripped Ryan’s wrists ahead, Jack had to wonder if Flynn was having as much luck on her first mission.

Go to recruit someone?

Kill someone instead.

Phil seemed to think they were equivalent.

         “It was a good preemptive shot. This guy would have never turned to Kronos’ side, so you deprived the Greeks of a great healer.” Phil trotted beside them. “And you did it when everyone was shouting at the campfire, so no one could hear. Had Luke and I not been coming over to check up on you, we’d have never known. You’ve got some natural talent here, kid.” He gave Jack’s cheek an affectionate nudge before returning to Ryan’s bag of belongings.

         The satyr had already pocketed Ryan’s ID, spare cash, and spare drachma. When Luke demanded why they needed to spend the time to gather all of Ryan’s things, Phil said, “People are less likely to see what’s no longer there.”

         Pain ached through Jack’s hands, back, and bruised knee. He wanted to ask Luke if the older boy was alright, but Luke had been terrifyingly quiet during the whole walk. Once, Luke mentioned he could sometimes hear Kronos’ voice when he wasn’t sleeping. Jack feared Kronos and Luke were talking at that very moment, discussing how to get rid of a troublesome new recruit.

         What Luke said, instead, make Jack jump. “Dryad incoming. Phil, take the reigns.”

         By “reigns,” Luke meant “dead dude’s hands.”

         After an awkward second of musical chairs with a corpse, Luke separated and ran ahead, into the trees. Jack couldn’t see what Luke had been talking about, but heard Luke switch his charming voice on, “Oh! Hey, Juniper! Too late? Nah. Curfew couldn’t keep me away from your beautiful branches.”

         There was giggling, some hushed conversation, then a sudden rustling of foliage and more giggling. If Jack had to guess, Luke was playing a game of chase with the dryad, luring her away from their destination.

         Confusion crept over Jack’s mind about Luke and Juniper’s interaction and he wanted to ask Phil about it. He was scared this was his typical misunderstanding of the world: where he heard things that didn’t happen or made facts real that weren’t. But, Flynn, Luke, and Phil said everything he heard was real. After all, the monsters were real.

         And anything would be better than focusing on the upturned, inch-long curve along the sheets that must have been Ryan’s wrapped nose. One edge of the sheet had untucked and swayed ominously with each uncoordinated step. Jack was terrified a gust of wind would rip it open, revealing Ryan’s stare. Worse: it would be the same stare that his parents had when he found their bodies.

         “I thought Luke was dating Ms. Beauregard?” Jack said softly.

         Phil snorted. “If Luke were a god, he’d keep a scoreboard against Zeus.[1] That’s why I’m hoping we can get that Thalia girlie back soon. She’ll set him straight.”

         Jack tore his gaze from Ryan’s covered face and to the back of Phil’s head. At camp, the satyr didn’t wear any clothing, so this scene could have been taken out of a Greek play. “So, Thalia is like Luke’s Flynn,” Jack rationalized. “What was Thalia like?”

         Phil shrugged, making Ryan’s body tilt. “Don’t know. Luke won’t talk to me much about her.”

         That was weird. All Jack wanted to do was talk and sing and gawk over how awesome Flynn was. But, would Jack think that way if she’d been turned into a tree? She’d almost died once protecting him. What if she actually had?

         His shivers increased, making Jack almost lose his hold on Ryan’s ankles. He wanted to ask how much further this “Labyrinth” entrance was. His parents always taught him it was rude to ask such questions.

         The more he was learning, the less he ought to care what his parents had to say.

         “Hey, uh, don’t mind Luke, with him swatting you and all,” Phil said. At first, Jack didn’t know what Phil was talking about. Then he remembered the slight ache at the back of his skull, where Luke had smacked Jack for screaming. It wasn’t the first time someone had smacked Jack for being confus—not for being confused. Jack wasn’t confused. He had to keep reminding himself.

         “Luke’s under a lot of pressure. He’s still mad about losing the Master Bolt to Ares—he’s looking at it as his second failed quest. Then, this Poseidon punk comes in, fulfilling his little sister’s dream of going on a quest and taking his satyr along on that quest—” Jack vaguely remembered Luke mentioning that his friends, Annabeth and Grover, weren’t around. “—and proves to be as powerful a pain in the ass as everyone thought he would be. He resisted Kronos’ pull into Tartarus…”

         Phil sighed. He let go of one of Ryan’s wrists, letting it dangle limply along the ground, so Phil could make a flippant gesture. “Rumors are betting that Percy can survive having Ares come after him. If he does, that means Luke needs to either recruit or kill Percy, and, I mean, the kid’s under a lot of pressure. I don’t think that Luke’s killed someone in cold blood before. He’s not ready to start.”

         In cold blood. Is that what Jack had done to Ryan? Or was that a murder of passion? He couldn’t remember if there was a difference.

         Phil must have noticed Jack’s lack of answer. He waved his free hand dismissively again. It looked like the first motions of a musical number with Phil’s fingers reaching towards the sky and Ryan’s fingers trailing the tree trunks and ferns. “Listen to this old goat chatter. How’re you and Flynn doing? I heard you two lovebirds managed to score a room together.”

         The tease in Phil’s tone made Jack blush up at the sky. He let the gentle tug of Ryan’s ankles direct his shambles, hoping he wouldn’t misstep and trip onto the body. Goofiness made his insides flutter away from their current activity and back to that morning, allowing him the tiniest bit of disassociated respite. Although they had been aboard the Princess Andromeda for awhile, sharing a room with Flynn made him giddy, especially waking and looking across their cabin to see her curled up on her cot or doing morning stretches.

         “I don’t think boys and girls are supposed to share a room, but Flynn is really good at working around the rules,” Jack said. It took her all of ten seconds to convince Luke about the arrangement.

         “A charm speaker getting her way? No,” Phil teased, “Luke just has a soft spot for you.”

         “Really?” Jack asked. He assumed Luke thought he was a nuisance, especially when he screwed up like he had today.

         Phil laughed. Jack couldn’t help but feel like he’d missed out on a joke. “Oh, kid. You’re funny. I’ll bet its nice sharing a room with a daughter of Aphrodite. Makes it easier not having to sneak around your local pastor or teacher, huh?”

         Jack glanced down to see Phil quarter turn and wink at him.

         Then, the satyr walked into a branch.

         Phil cursed in ancient Greek. Jack only caught every few words. The other demigods said he’d catch on quicker to the language the more he heard it.

         Heat spread through Jack’s cheeks. He’d accidentally—or, he at least thought it was accidentally on Flynn’s part—walked into the room when she’d been changing. He always knocked and announced himself, but she must not have heard him. Now, he knew she either wore boy shorts or thongs, depending on the pair of pants, and a double layer of sport bras to keep her chest contained for fighting.

         He had seen her bras once before, the day she saved him from a monster at school. She almost died by goring. At the time, he’d been too focused on keeping her alive to be flustered over how her tan skin looked against the dark grey fabric.

         But, he wasn’t about to say any of that to Phil.

         “Uh—we don’t—we haven’t—” Jack sputtered. “She only is—um—with guys that she can command—” What had Phil called it? “—that she can charm speak.”

         Phil stopped walking beside a giant pile of rocks. They seemed to creep up out of the forest. The moonlight had easier access to them now, making Ryan’s bed sheet glow. “Not that you would know, but she never charm speaks you?”

         Jack’s arms shook. Until they stopped moving, he hadn’t noticed how heavy the corpse was. Maybe that was Ryan’s vengeance: getting heavier with each step, the subtlest of haunting. He tried to focus on the image of Flynn’s face instead of Ryan’s white sheet.

         “She knows she doesn’t have to.” Even if Jack sometimes wished she would. “I would do anything she wants. I would die for her. For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings, that then I scorn to change my state with kings.”[2]

         The first time Jack had quoted that to her, she’d socked him good in the arm. Last time, she had snuggled against that arm. Jack swooned to think about the warmth of her against him.

         Although it would be much easier with how stationary they were, Phil didn’t look at him. “Would you kill for her? Like this? All over again?”

         Jack’s trembling became violent, jittering Ryan around like a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos. No matter how hard he focused, he couldn’t remember the feel of Ryan’s squirms, or the way his struggles had eased. Why was that memory so blurred? Wasn’t it supposed to scar itself into his mind forever? “Yes,” Jack said, “But I’m not very good at it.”

         Maybe he shouldn’t be good at it. Though, was it bad if he was? If there was one thing he had learned from his pastor, it was that everyone had a purpose. Maybe they did in the Greek world. What if his purpose here, the thing he was good at, was—

         “I think you’re a real natural. It’s a pity you can’t drag her uncle out of Tartarus. I’d love to see how you’d kill him,” Phil said.

         “What?” Jack asked. Had he heard Phil wrong? Flynn had never told Jack about anyone other than her grandmother, and a quick explanation that her father died when she was a toddler. Drug overdose. Why she kept Mr. Sunny, his weekly medicine box, instead of letting Jack carry it around.

         Instead of answering, Phil said, “Help an old goat toss a body, would ya?”

         Phil made a big show of groaning and swearing as he gestured to a crack between the rocks.

         The slit would have been invisible if Phil hadn’t pointed it out. The slit of darkness was so narrow, Jack doubted Ryan would fit inside.

         “So, we just shove him back there?” Jack asked.

         “Yep. A monster will creep through this part of the Labyrinth and get a free snack. Think of it like… you’re giving some lucky fellow a winning lottery ticket or feeding the homeless,” Phil said.

         They propped Ryan’s body against the rock façade, so Phil and Jack could awkwardly shove him through the opening. It would have been easier for someone living to crawl through, especially since Ryan’s body was stiffening and jerked occasionally. Jack told himself it was just his imagination. He was used to ignoring weird details like that, like the absolute sense of calm he kept getting from seeing a dead sibling.

         They shoved Ryan’s upper torso through with little problem. The legs were more difficult, requiring Phil to swear and jam and twist them.

         There was a sickening crack from one leg and something gave.

         Jack tried not to scream.

         None of it bothered Phil.[3] He kept pushing. Jack’s last sensation of Ryan was the leather of Ryan’s shoe. Then his dead half-sibling disappeared into the blackness of the crack. And that was it.

         Phil had been right. The Labyrinth—whatever it was—seemed to eat him immediately.

         With that finality, exhaustion overtook Jack. He collapsed onto the ground outside the entrance, expecting Ryan’s corpse to squirm back through, clawing out of his white sheet.

         Nothing.

         There was something chilly in his hands that burned against his blisters.

         Jack held it up, finding the guitar string still wrapped around one palm. He must have trailed it all the way from the cabin, parallel to how Phil had let Ryan’s hand drag.

         Phil frowned down at him, leaning against the rock wall. “You should keep it, as a memento or whatever sentimental shit mortals do.”

         Jack swallowed. Slowly, he tied the cord around his wrist like a bracelet. It bit into his skin. He tried not to think of how that would feel around the neck.

         Phil sighed. “Listen, kid. Ryan really did need to die regardless. But, you can’t go around killing all your problems. That’s some old-school hero mentality and it isn’t 2,000 BC anymore. Next time you get upset, take a few breathes and come talk to Uncle Phil.” He pointed a thumb to himself.  “We’ll discuss if you can or can’t kill the person. And then…” He pointed that thumb towards the Labyrinth entrance. “Uncle Phil can help you with the body and throw a party afterwards.”

         Jack nodded. He remembered his mother fussing over his association with Flynn, saying she was a bad influence. She would have called the SWAT team on Phil.

         Someone burst out of the woods, making Jack jump and Phil let out a quick shriek.

         “Holy Hera, kid, learn to announce yourself! It’s not like we were just petting puppies over here!” Phil snapped, clutching at his chest.

         Luke was mid-pulling his shirt back over his head. He combed his fingers through his hair, which looked silvery in the moonlight. Twigs and leaves fell out of the blond and joined the bits on his shirt and pants. He looked much more relaxed than the panic he’d left with. “Everything taken care of?” he asked.

         Jack stumbled to his feet and tried to answer. But, “yes” couldn’t be the answer, could it? He’d just killed someone. That wasn’t just “taken care of,” was it?

         Phil stood up straight and patted Jack’s back. He slung an arm over Jack’s shoulder, dragging him forward so he could sling his other arm around Luke. The satyr was much shorter than the two boys. “I was just telling Jack that he needs to take the initiative if his girlie is dropping him all these hints. Wouldn’t you agree, Luke?”

         Luke’s blue eyes darted from the Labyrinth entrance back to Jack. Jack wished Phil were a bit taller, so he couldn’t see Luke’s critical stare. When Phil tried to corral them forward, Luke wouldn’t budge.

         Phil sighed. “And, I’m thinking we need a little celebration. Jack took out Camp Half-Blood’s up-and-coming healer that would have never converted. Beers are on me, kids.”

         That broke Jack’s attention. He felt the color drained out of his face. “I’m too young to drink.” And his medicine wasn’t suppose to mix with alcohol.

         Almost to himself, Phil muttered, “Kid who committed murder doesn’t want to break the law. He’s too young, he says.” He stared up at Jack, skeptically. “You know, your ancestors were drinking before they came out of their mother’s skirts.”

         “Didn’t you just say I shouldn’t be acting like them?” Jack asked, unsure what Phil wanted from him.

         Although Luke tried to hide it, he cracked a smile at Phil’s exacerbation.

         “Alright! Fine. Shirley Temples on me, you little brats,” Phil grumbled. “Luke, that little dryad of yours suspect anything?”

         Luke took a step forward with Phil. “Juniper has no idea you guys were here.”

         The way Luke talked about the dryad unsettled Jack. Yea, Flynn had been with other guys when Jack was crushing on her and writing her songs. He wouldn’t be surprised if she’d go off with other guys now that they were dating, but Flynn wouldn’t hide it from him. Jack had to wonder if Ms. Juniper and Ms. Beauregard knew about each other.

         Phil led them away from camp, further into the woods. “I know a great bar we can go to. We’ll get the centaurs to take us. We’ll be done in a flash, that way, Luke, you can be back and acting all menacing or whatever. Ha! It’s not like you’re going to be sleeping—”

         Luke made a face. Jack remembered Phil mentioning something about nightmares. Was Luke still having them?

         “—and I’ll take Jak-Jak back to camp, and he can take our advice on his girlie. What do you think, Luke? Should he take the initiative or no?”

         Luke took another glance behind them, where the rock pile had disappeared in the trees. He frowned. For a moment, Jack thought Luke might turn to him with the same disgusted disappointment Steve, his step-father, had when Steve had to pick up Jack from school. Those were the days when Jack had “an incident” as Steve called them, when Jack’s paranoia and confusion left him sobbing in a corner.

         Instead, the consternation in Luke’s expression faded. He brushed some dirt off his pants. “She’s really into you. I’d say to go for it.”

         Just like that, they were talking about girls instead of bodies. Being a half-blood was weird.

         “See, Jak-Jak—oh! Hold on!” Phil dramatically tilted his ear to listen. He lifted his hands off their shoulders in a flourish. “I have important satyr things I must attend to, else old Mr. Douche Bag might get suspicious. But, uh, you kids go have some fun on your own.”

         He fished the money he’d stolen from Ryan and shoved it into Luke’s hands. Jack hadn’t realized that Phil intended to celebrate Ryan’s murder with Ryan’s own money. Jack couldn’t decide if that was efficient, horrifying, or both. “The centaurs can still take you and I can swing by to pick up Jack in two hours. Now, kids, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

         A sentiment that, from Phil, must have meant nothing.[4]

         He waggled a finger at them.

         With that, he dashed off into the trees.

         They walked in silence for the first fifteen paces.

         Jack didn’t realize he’d been slowly tightening the guitar string around his wrist. The metal didn’t want to stay taught.

This felt like the times his parents had shoved Jack onto Shelby or Aston, his two little siblings. They would whine, not wanting to babysit their older brother. One time, when Shelby wanted to talk to one of her friends instead, she told Jack they were going to play hide and seek, then locked him in a closet. “To protect you from the monsters.”

         “Look… dude,” Luke said, breaking the silence. “I meant to check up on you and Flynn sooner. It’s been busy. And I can’t decide if I want this Percy kid to survive or not, and he keeps doing stuff we didn’t predict. It’s just been complicated, you know?”

         An hour ago, Jack wouldn’t have. Now, he thought about what Phil said, about Luke’s best friends favoring Percy, about Kronos punishing Luke for stuff he couldn’t control, and about how naturally talented Percy was rumored to be. Jack loosened the guitar string, examining the way it left deep, dark indents in his pale flesh.

         “It’s really hard when someone else has better luck than you. Especially here. ‘Luck’ must really be a product of some divine intervention, right?” Jack muttered. It means some god loves the luckiest the most. “I guess we gotta make our own luck, huh?”

         Luke glanced at him, his blue eyes widened in surprise. “Yea. Yea, we do. Um… look, it’s just… With your medication, your smile—you remind me of my—of someone I knew. Especially how you went from being a good kid to—to what happened back there.”

         Jack wasn’t sure what Luke meant by the first part, but he knew what he was supposed to say. Queasiness clenched him. “I—I’m sorry. I’ve never done something like that before. I don’t want to—”

         The older boy awkwardly patted his shoulder. “No, dude, it’s cool.”

I’m not going to abandon you like the gods would. I’m not going to let them do to you what they did to her.” Ferocity glinted in Luke’s gaze. Desperation crept into his voice. “Phil said you’re not actually crazy. This is reversible. That outburst—it was probably because you’re weaning off your medication, right?”

         As far as Jack knew, Flynn was giving him the same amount of medication that he’d been taking previously. There was no way to know if it was still working as well. He still heard voices, saw monsters, and felt an urgent wrongness that left him trembling with no known source. But, he was on a boat for monsters. His family was dead. He’d just found out that everything he knew—that he was crazy, that God loved him in a special way, that violence of any kind was abhorrent and should be punished—was wrong. Maybe that should have been in the demigod orientation program.

         Jack didn’t want to talk about it. “Is there a way to turn that Thalia girl back from being a tree?” he blurted. He hoped Luke wouldn’t push it. Whomever he’d been referencing must have been personal to Luke, but Jack wanted an easy conversation. Too much had happened in the last few hours and Jack still wasn’t comfortable with how calm he felt.

         Luke smiled mischievously, looking more like his siblings in the Hermes cabin. “I have a plan.”

         The air seemed to sizzle hotter, making Jack aware of how much he’d been sweating. They must have crossed the border for Camp Half-Blood. Everything felt like it hopped up by ten degrees. The foliage looked more parched, probably from the erratic weather they’d been having all summer.

         Jack jumped as an idea jolted him out of his gloom, far easier than he felt like it should have. “We—we should set up a celebration for it! Thalia seems really important to you—and I’ll bet the monsters and demigods would like something like that. It’s the one thing the Princess Andromeda is missing: a relaxing, fun thing that brings everyone together, something that isn’t competitive that would encourage the monsters and demigods to interact more, like a dance or a concert!”

         With how horrible everything had been, Jack hadn’t been getting many exciting ideas. He hadn’t meant to prattle on. He bit his lip, expecting Luke to tell him that was stupid or impractical.

         The tiniest part of him had some hope. How nice would it be if Jack got to make up for missing prom by dancing with Flynn at a celebration? Especially if Luke got to invite Thalia and she—what had Phil said?—set Luke straight.

         Instead, Luke let out a genuine laugh, looking more surprised. “A concert? Not a bad idea. Thalia would probably love that.” He examined Jack with new interest.

The two stopped walking at a yellow diamond traffic sign posted in the middle of the woods. A centaur was depicted in a black outline, holding one thumb up like a hitchhiker. Jack found himself wondering if there was a centaur transportation system around the whole world that he’d never noticed before.

“You know, if you come up with more ideas like that, I might set you up as the coordinator for morale boosting and demigod-monster relations,” Luke said, jamming his hands into his pockets and kicking at the dirt. “Some of the new recruits have been complaining that the appeal of a cruise ship fades fast when you’ve got monster slime in all the pools. Kinda hard to swim in.”

Jack grinned, bashful. Most people didn’t like his ideas. Even Flynn glared him when he brought up forming a band or making a reality TV show. “I—I would like that. The morale boosting, not the slime pools. I’m not great at fighting.”

         “Not with a sword,” Luke agreed, eyeing the guitar string unraveling from Jack’s wrist. Base strings, Jack realized. It’s too thick to be guitar string.

         Jack clenched his fists, feeling the sting of his cut palms. He didn’t want to think about what happened or ruin this uncanny tranquility inside of him. “Can you tell me all about Thalia?”

         Phil had said that Luke didn’t talk about Thalia much, so the chances were low. Jack still had to try.

         Luke shuffled his foot one more time. He exhaled. “Uh… yea, man. We can talk about her.”

         The centaurs arrived soon after Luke started describing her. The more Luke talked about Thalia, the less Jack remembered the feel of Ryan’s shoe when he tossed the corpse into the Labyrinth. By the time they got to the monster bar—Jack, a Shirley Temple; Luke, an Irish Car Bomb and three beers[5]—Jack was giddy thinking about this potential party. He could almost look at a crumpled napkin without thinking about the bump of Ryan’s nose under his wrapped bed sheet.

         With that night, Jack and Luke set an unintentional tradition, going to the monster bar every other week. That was the first time Luke took Jack out to celebrate and party after Jack killed a sibling. It wouldn’t be the last. Jack couldn’t care about that. All he cared about was how he’d found himself the perfect friend.

 ***

Hey everyone! Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed. (Mel asked how I made murder buddies adorable. They did it themselves.) My brother got married last weekend so sorry for the delay! Stay tuned this Fri/Sat (Wait? Tomorrow—shit! Must. Find Time. To. Edit.) for the intro of a certain set of brothers with a penchant for acrobatics and weasels in Axel’s Say No To Cruise Ships. (And a quick thanks to @chumo-cookie for inspiring me to post/write/be more than a blob today. May many Pax hugs find you and may your wallet stay by your side when they do! <3)      

            Footnotes:

 [1] Mel (betaeditor)’s one request, “Just don’t change into weird things… and actually, don’t keep a scoreboard.”

[2] Shakespeare. Sonnet 29.

[3] Mel betacomment, “I would be horrified to know what bothered Phil.” Jack, “High shelves on a liquor cabinet and a disorganized kitchen.”

[4] My brother said this to me a lot growing up. He also threw house parties when my parents were out of town (my dad liked to double back and infiltrate the parties to freak the partiers out), ended a lot of fights, snuck a lot of girls into the “fort” we built in the woods behind our house, and plenty of other admirable activities. Exquisite role model.

[5] Mel betacomment, “I READ BEARS AT FIRST AND GOT SO CONFUSED!” Jack, “Agrius comes in NEXT short story.”

[102818arcvd]

PLOT BUNNIES MASTERPOST

GENERAL/MISCELLANEOUS:

You’re walking home and it’s late. I can't just let you walk home like that so I’m walking a bit behind you so I can make sure you’re safe, but that doesn’t mean I’ll admit that soft tidbit of facts.

‘I can’t avoid you. Why do you keep showing up in places where I’m at and… Are you-? You’re not-? You can’t be stalking me . . . are you? Are you sure you’re not?’

Jinsoo has a bad habit of taking dares and bets with enough coercing even if they are not in the best option for him. your muse had dared him // or you’re involved in a dare that he has been tasked with. 

Jinsoo has been coming by and feeding this stray animal for weeks, only to find out that it was your pet.

We’re both waiting for the bus and you forgot your umbrella but uh– why are you standing so close to me? . . . Are you purposefully trying to stand under my umbrella? This is embarrassing . . just take it, God.

I Tried to get the candy bar that didn’t drop out of the vending machine and now my hand is stuck. can u help me or I’m going to die here… At least send my regards to my family, they might have to cremate me aND the vending machine together. (x)

You’re so drunk that you literally got onto/into my (vehicle) thinking I was a taxi and you refuse to get off, So, I just end up driving you. 

Your muse and Jinsoo both decide to deal with paranormal situations, ghost hunting ig ? i dunno i just want cute talks of all things paranormal stuff, legends, folklore, conspiracy theories-- Going to abandoned places and investigating!! Bringing a camera and equipment, Buzzfeed unsolved type antics!! Going to the haunted forest in wonseo and getting lost!! give me please

‘You fell asleep on my shoulder and I’m feeling a bit uncomfortable but you look so cute and angelic as you sleep and I don’t have the heart to wake you up. No. Wait-- we aren’t a couple, this isn’t what it looks like– Stop it.’

‘You’re a complete stranger but I can tell you have a fear of our current task whatever it may be and I’m attempting to be comforting and take your mind away from the fear by distracting you with conversation and such.’

Jinsoo has a few different things he’s afraid of Spiders,Heights, And open water due to a near-death experience when he was a child. Idea of possibly the other person finding out. Teasing him on it or possibly helping him overcome such fears. He doesn’t like to open up about things about himself unless he’s close to you though so keep this in mind, we can plot some ideas on how they find out!

Muse A is this fairly popular (online persona) and Muse B ran into them and recognized them. when Muse B offered Muse A a handshake, Muse A gave them a hug and followed their (social media) so now they dm each other and every time Muse B visits their events/live streams/ect. Muse A always excitedly greets them and they feel so special.

I meant to grab the popcorn, not your crotch, sorry. 

Muse A Sits beside Muse B In a theatre and Muse B is terrified of horror-- Muse B Freaks out partway through and grabs for Muse A's hand repeatedly and Muse A doesn't complain, Because Fuck.. They're really cute .. 

Muse A is working/chilling at (Location) and witnesses Muse B get stood up and Muse A goes over to make sure Muse B is okay but-- Oh Jeez . . . are you crying? Uhm, Wait , just -- ...

muse a's puppy has a major problem with behaving while on a leash. while out on a walk, the dog takes off after a squirrel or something. enter muse b, who manages to intercept the beast and now the dog likes them better.

You steal my parking spot all the time and I was just heading out to leave a strongly worded note under your windshield wiper but oh no you're hot I saw you trying to hit the 'door close' button in the elevator but I made it in and then I pushed every single button to make you later for work, but now we're stuck in this fucking elevator as it stops at every single floor and I don't know what to say other than 'you started it!' 

Theres a Warning alert because of recent crimes (small to serial killer? whichever) and I'm/You're scared to walk home, so we've been walking home together since.

we're in the waiting room at the vet (groomers or whatever) and my dog keeps whimpering and tugging to go over to your cat/dog and I keep apologizing because my dog just loves everyone seriously

We both like the same person and I’m jealous, so by default, I just don’t like you at least 99% more than before.

We’ve always been partners in crime, best friends till the end, ride or die- but you’ve been spending a lot of time around this new friend and I’m getting way more jealous than I should because I don’t want to lose you.’

FAMILY/FRIENDS THREADS:

‘You and I always get mistaken for siblings and- no, we aren’t? Let’s just roll with it anyway though.’

‘you’re a family member or friend w/e that I drifted away from because you don’t really support anything I do in life and always get preachy about my opinions, actions, and beliefs and now I just try to avoid you every time you want to see me because it’s awkward’

You really like my brother and so you’re asking me to help you but uh… ? I’ve never dated . . . how would I know….

‘character b drifted from their friend (character a) but when they were reunited, one or both of them changed too much’

‘used-to-be strangers who bonded over a mutual enemy’

‘ex-enemies who are now bffs attached at the hip’

'saltmates (friends who bond over their mutual dislike of things) ’

'character b pretended to be character a’s significant other to get creeps to leave them alone and now they’re close friends’

'friends who always seem to find trouble and danger together’

'character a is always pushing character b to do/be better’

'character b is the only person who can talk character a through their panic episodes’

'We used-to-be best friends until character a left character b for new friends’

'friends who bring out the worst in each other (or the best) ’

'they met on social media as teenagers and they’re still close friends’

'We’ve been pen pals/internet friends for a bit and hey, I’m in your area, so let’s meet up?’

“I know I’m the one who suggested we watch a scary movie, but now I can’t sleep. Can I sleep in your room?” (preferably your muse !! Jinsoo is a bit fearless with these things)

CLASS/WORK THREADS:

you keep finding Jinsoo’s origami around and, finding it interesting and also being skilled in (talent) you leave (said item) where his frogs are and somehow it had become a habit regularly, you don’t know each other but tend to always leave the items and maybe words for each other that turn into letters and become friendly penpals of somesort.

you copied off of me and got mad when you got a bad score while I got a good one.  you’re just so frustrated because how the hell does that even happen and damn, I seem pretty pleased with myself because I intentionally marked answers wrong and fixed them later so you would stop copying off of me but the teacher figured that I should tutor you and I’m mad that I have to waste my time on a cheater.

'We’re related / Peers in (Competitive Enviornment) and I have an attitude with you but only because I’m really just envious of you.’

'You’re someone I literally can not stand with every fiber in my body for whatever reason. Who in heaven or hell keeps pairing us together for tasks?’

bonding solely via eye contact over that annoying person in our class that we’re both slowly becoming more and more exasperated about.

 you came into the store i work at looking for something and i had no idea where it was so we bonded over this impromptu scavenger hunt and now you’re always out shopping for something just to see me.

while waiting outside our classroom i asked what the homework was to which you replied "we had homework!?" and now we always wait outside the classroom together,  also you always copy my homework

In (said store) and Muse A Is struggling to reach something, So Muse B comes over to help.

Muse B is a new student / Transfer / visitor to the college and is completely lost as well as horrible at directions, So when Muse A comes by to help-- they end up doing The Most(TM)

NEIGHBOR/ROOMMATE THREADS:

Hanging out and Power outage causes them to have dinner by candlelight; joking about it being romantic

Fighting over the thermostat settings.

You’re a (friend/Neighbor) and something is making noises from the closet but you’re terrified, so I go to investigate the strange noises coming from the closet only to find that a cat had climbed in through your open window and was trying to break free from its encloseted prison.

You keep getting my neighbour to let you inside because I refuse to let you in, can you go home? 

‘you accidentally shipped this weird thing to my apartment and I’m returning it and uh– what the hell is that my pet inside your house…???’

‘You’ve been playing guitar in the hall right outside my apartment door for a while now and its 3AM and I’m exhausted, I have a test tomorrow at 9AM- and I’m contemplating going to beat your ass, shut the fuck up.’

'We are neighbours and you always are so loud so late– stomping around and making so much sound- loud as hell… and I used to get mad and be grumpy as fuck and always go over to yell at you but lately, its been strangely quiet and Maybe I miss it? And- Is that crying? are you crying? That’s it, I’m going over.’

i live downstairs from you and your sink pipe has burst and now it's leaking into my apartment so i go upstairs, knock on your door, and you open it soaking wet so i help you fix it while also trying not to get distracted by the fact that your shirt is now see through

ROMANTIC  THREADS:

I suggested we play spin the bottle so i could kiss you, but now everyone else is kissing you except me and im highkey getting pissed off now,, :/

I suggested we go to the beach but everyone is checking you out in your swimsuit and now i'm jealous, but i can’t say anything because we’re not even dating.

You have a crush on me for some odd reason and always come to watch me during baseball but I’m pretty dense and don’t realize it and so I genuinely think you want to play baseball with me.

You confessed to me before I went to study abroad in high school and I never replied properly– I had forgotten about it till now.

'I asked you to help me with these topics because I didn’t understand them- But honestly, I think you’re stunning and I just want your attention on me for just a minute. Look at me for now.

'we were each others wingman/wingwoman for some time but now I’m starting to realize that I might be kind of into you and I’m confused. When did that happen? Shit.’

[dustedmagazine]

Jennifer Kelly: Riffing on the margins

Every year, picking favorites seems more like an exercise in futility. You listen to a small subset of the available music, because it’s what people send you, it’s what comes on when you tune into WFMU, it’s what your friends write about or post on Now Playing, etc. and no human being can listen to everything or even a good portion of it. Then because of the way you’re wired and what you eat and who you know and a thousand other essentially random factors, you like what you like out of that small subset. I, personally, have never felt more out of the mainstream or less influential than this year. (Not that I was ever very on the pulse of what’s popular, but still…)

So anyway, with that caveat, music was as important as ever in my life, and maybe more so, because of the continual flood of unbelievable, awful, comically evil events on the world stage. We somehow seem to have elected Voldemort as president, a sex-abusing, corrupt, traitorous idiot, who will not shut up even for an instant, despite having a vocabulary of approximately 20 words. So turn it up, drown it out, take it away…the music remained very good this year, even when nothing else did.

It was a year when Michael Chapman made one of his best records ever, 50 years into his career, and backed by a brash young collection of guitar slingers and new jack folk dudes – two of whom (Steve Gunn and James Elkington) came out with their own excellent records as well. It was a year when a fractious, not entirely comfortable collaboration between West African traditionalists and French punk rockers pretty much owned my stereo, when Mark Lanegan guested on a haunting album by Tinawaren and also turned in his own soul-stirring rock album.  I might have listened to less straight up guitar banging this year than usual, but if you have to pick a couple, you could do a lot worse than Xeta’s Husker Du-ish The Tower or feedtime’s back-from-the-hiatus Gas. More fantastic albums from Protomartyr and the Sleaford Mods, not surprising, but welcome anyway, and the wonderfully mordant, rueful and very Irish outing from Seamus Fogarty, which no one else seemed to pick up on, but I loved. 

My two favorite songs this year will not appear on anyone else’s songs of the year lists, but whatever, next time you’re feeling wistful, check out Jack Cooper’s “Memphis, Lancashire” or hone in on the mesmerizing instrumental break (that’s Chicago free-jazz cellist Tomeka Reid) on James Elkington’s “Wading the Vapors.”  I could also listen to Lanegan’s “Emperor” any day, all day, despite or maybe because it kinda reminds of Iggy’s “The Passenger.” 

 Reissues feel a little like cheating, because who the hell would reissue them if they weren’t already great, but still, a few of them measurably enhanced my life. I spent months on Cherry Red’s Fall singles collection and another very happy week or so talking about them with my Dusted pals. And discovering  Jackie Shane — both for the quality of the music and the amazing story of her life — was unquestionably a highlight of this fall.  

So with that, and out of the three hundred or so new albums that I listened to this year at least a couple times, and the maybe 100 that I played on repeat enough to have much of an opinion, here are the ones that moved me the most.

Michael Chapman — 50 (Paradise of Bachelors)  

50 by Michael Chapman

I said in Blurt: Now in his 70s, Chapman sings with some authority about all the things you give up for a life in music – a settled abode (“Sometimes You Just Drive”), a late-model vehicle (“Spanish Incident”), a working relationship (“Falling from Grace”) and cold hard wherewithal (“Money Troubles”). And yet, surrounded by younger and contemporary peers, in a translucent mesh of jangling, tangling guitar/bass/banjo tones, he makes a case for the difficult path he’s chosen. “You know I don’t scare easy… but I do get scared,” he rasps on the superlative “That Time of the Night” (last heard covered by Lucinda Williams on the Oh Michael What Have You Done? tribute album and before that on 2008’s Time Past and Passing). The lilt in the line pulls the tune out of the darkness, the massed guitars and hushed group vocals bring shivering into the light.

Group Doueh & Cheveu — Dakhla Sahara Session (Born Bad) 

From my Dusted review: This is not the kind of collaboration where you have to untangle who does what. The focus shifts from one band to another within the space of the song, and each comes out of the fray more or less as he or she went in. Cheveu’s members make no attempt to bend to the West African aesthetic, and Group Doueh plays from their rep book right over whatever punk mayhem Cheveu has put on offer. There’s a great deal of tension in these tunes, as two very different sets of musicians block out space for themselves. And yet, it’s a wonderful thing, feistier and more belligerent than most cross-cultural meetings. “Tout Droit,” the CD’s most exhilarating cut, sets up a rousing, shout-chanted Cheveu chorus, punctuated by grunts and “huhs,” then cuts it to ribbons with ravaging flourishes of guitar, ebullient forays of singing. The two bands are doing entirely different things, at the same exact time, and it works like a motherfucker. 

Mark Lanegan Band — Gargoyle (Heavenly)

I celebrated my long-term affair with Mark Lanegan’s voice in this review at Dusted: Mark Lanegan can sound like a voice from the crypt, his hollowed out, deep-black whisper almost too low to hear properly, a whisper like Leonard Cohen if he’d recently been to hell, a whisper that could frighten children into eating their vegetables. In Gargoyle, though, he uses this whisper sparingly; the hairs on my arm rise to it just once, during “Nocturne” and for the rest of the time, the one-time Screaming Trees’ front man sticks to melody. Gargoyle is a singing record, a tuneful record, a densely, headily arranged record that surrounds Lanegan’s gothic reveries in soft glowing light. There’s almost no negative space in these ten songs. All are filled, end to end, with enveloping textures and sustained sounds. 

Xetas — The Tower (12XU)

The Tower by XETAS

Hail, hail, rock and roll, say I in Dusted. Xetas, out of Austin, make an unholy racket, a noisy, feedback blurred firehose spray of sound that does not quite obscure a tendency towards tunefulness. The hooks bristle with barbed wire abrasion, putting this band more in line with Hüsker Dü than the Wipers, but they’re in there, glinting out of a cyclone of broken glass and diesel smoke. So, also, a kind of positivity radiates intermittently through the rage and turmoil of this band’s attack. The Tower, Xetas’ second, vibrates with the brash, brave defiance of 99%-ers who have been beaten down, but aren’t quite finished yet. 

Jack Cooper — Sandgrown (Trouble in Mind)  

Sandgrown by Jack Cooper

Bill Meyer and I both wanted to cover this one, and then we each did a “no, you go ahead” kind of thing and neither one of us ended up reviewing it for Dusted, but I wrote about it for Blurt thusly:  These shimmering songs are full of ellipses, the spaces between guitar notes clouded over with wistful nostalgia for Jack Cooper’s lost seaside childhood. Cooper has gotten a fair amount of ink lately for his quietly subversive, acoustic dueling guitar duo Ultimate Painting (with Veronica Falls’ James Hoare), also rather luminously introspective, but Sandgrown is more personal, with the smell of salt air, the sting of sea breezes, the sharp sense of loss and change running through every track.

Sleaford Mods — English Tapas (Rough Trade)  

Back into the Sleaford Mods fold with this one, the words again appearing in Dusted: Key Markets and the follow-up EP T.C.R., to me, sounded a little thin, as if the concept of Sleaford Mods, whatever it was, had already been fully explored, the meat pried out, the beginnings of self-parody creeping in. English Tapas reverses this trend. It returns to the sly humor, the hypnotic barking aggression, the occasional whiffs of wistful tune-ish-ness slipped in between robotic beats of Divide and Exit and maybe does it one better. 

James Elkington—Wintres Woma (Paradise of Bachelors)

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Wintres Woma by James Elkington

I listened between the lines at Dusted:  James Elkington, once of Zincs and now the go-to guitar guy for any number of indie icons (but most prominently, Jeff Tweedy and Richard Thompson), has an effortless skill in this latest solo album, the kind of picking prowess that dissolves like smoke into mood and atmosphere. He is a very good player, a lovely relaxed singer (in the vein of Bert Jansch) and an eccentric writer, whose songs borrow liberally from British folk tradition, but veer into unexpected directions. But if you want to know what’s mesmerizing about this slow burning beauty of an album, listen to the intervals, where Elkington dreams jazz-inflected fever reveries with a set of musicians that includes bassist Nick Macri, drummer Tim Daisy, and, most remarkably, violinist Macie Stewart and improv-jazz cellist Tomeka Reid.

Seamus Fogarty—The Curious Hand (Domino)

I fell in love with this album the first time I heard the line in “Mexico” about getting reamed out by the boss for a smoke break. I also reviewed an album that doesn’t really exist (it was revised between promo and release) at Dusted:  Seamus Fogarty makes shaggy songs, rumpled as if they’d been slept in rough, and plaintive at their core but with a shrugging, wry, what-are-ya-gonna-do sense of humor. Though mostly acoustic, leaning heavily on strummed guitar with some lovely melancholy fiddle, viola and maybe cello for accents, his songs also incorporate electronics and evocative field recordings.

Protomartyr—Relatives in Descent (Domino)

Relatives In Descent by Protomartyr

Four great albums in a row, who else is doing this?  My Dusted review: Protomartyr ruminates on the nature of knowing in its fourth full-length album, tangling knotty intellectual conundrums over an obliterating roar. Backed again by a Detroit post-punk freight-train clamor  — Greg Ahee on guitar, drummer Alex Leonard, bassist Scott Davidson — Joe Casey, the band’s rumple-suited, bile-spitting nerve center, finds a free-associative space for rant-poems about consciousness, memory, free will and the refracted shards of current events.

 Feedtime—Gas (In the Red)

Naturally, I root for the old guys, again from Dusted:  You might expect some throat clearing, some tentative beginnings, in a band that had taken off the previous generation, but no, from the opener, “Any Good Thing,” you hear the same noisy slide-bent guitar riffs, the same rough and furious rhythms, the same growling, monster-voiced vocal attack as ever. feedtime might have gone out for a pack of cigarettes, slipped back in casually and ramped up to eleven.

  Loved these, too.

Julie Byrne—Not Even Happiness (BaDaBing)

Jaimie Branch — Fly or Die (International Anthem)

Joseph Childress—Rebirths (Empty Cellar)

Heron Oblivion—The Chapel (self-release)

Tinariwen—Elwan (Anti-)

Stef Chura — Messes (Urinal Cake)

Feral Ohms—S-T (Silver Current)

Pere Ubu—20 Years in a Montana Missile Silo (Cherry Red)

Upper Wilds—Upper Wilds (Thrill Jockey)

Melkbelly—Nothing Valley (Wax Nine)

Kelley Stoltz — Que Aura (Castle Face)

The Clientele—The Age of Miracles (Merge)

Algiers — The Underside of Power (Matador)

Avey Tare — Eucalyptus (Domino)

Golden Boys—Better than Good Times (12XU)

Gunn-Truscinski Duo—Bay Head (Three-Lobed)

Contributors—ST (Monofonus Press)

Mark Eitzel—Hey Mr. Ferryman (Merge)

 Reissues/Comps

The Fall—A Sides and B Sides (Cherry Red)

Jackie Shane—Any Other Way (Numero Group)

V/A—Ote Maloya (Strut)

 I really like books, too, so here are my favorite reads from last year as well.

 George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo

Hamid Moshin, Exit West

The Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Kolbert

Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere

An American Sickness, Elizabeth Rosenthal

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, Desmond Matthew

[fuckyeahincubus]

Kerrang! (UK) - 3 May 2017

And Incubus are reborn

BRANDON BOYD AND INCUBUS WERE ONCE TWO OF THE BIGGEST NAMES IN ROCK. THEN CAME THE FALL. IAN WINWOOD MEETS A MAN REBORN…

Brandon Boyd is a 41-year-old rockstar that does impressions of wild animals. Pouring himself a glass of chilled still water in the library of London’s tastefully opulent Soho Hotel, he reveals that from the windows of his home in the Greater Los Angeles Area at night he can hear the calls of peacocks.asked by this perfect stranger at barely noon on a Monday what the call of a peacock sounds like, Brandon says, well, it sounds like this, and he makes a kind of ‘aw aw aw’ sound, hard on the ‘a’s.It’s unusual for a rockstar to start an interview with wildlife impressions, he’s told. He says he can do the crowing of a rooster, too, and duly does.the impression is rendered with such enthusiasm that a blind person might think it the real thing.

“Tragically, I’m the one person in my band that is single,” he says.When the members of Incubus gathered together in Los Angeles at the end of 2012, it is unlikely that the group’s highly-photogenic frontman regaled his colleagues with impersonations of flightless birds.the band that formed 26 years ago in Calabasas, California, and who over the course of seven albums that had found their way into the homes of 23 million listeners and defined the innovations of late 20th century rock music – few guitar solos, turntablists, that kind of thing – as well as any, and with more brains than most, were knackered.they’d spent 18 months touring the frankly awful, 1K-rated If Not Now,when? album, over the course of which they’d somehow lost the capacity to communicate.“it was at this point where we were as dysfunctional as we’ve ever been,” says the singer. Drugs had played a part in the emotional breakdown,“nothing major like heroin”, rather “just a couple of guys who weren’t making the smartest decisions”.On the subject of decisions, Incubus had their own to make: whether to stick or bust.“Being in a band is really quite difficult,” Brandon says.“it’s a family, and how successfully it works is really dependent on the players involved…

[In LA] we had an emotional showdown of sorts, where we did finally begin to communicate. But we communicated things really poorly. Everyone was completely exhausted and scared and frustrated; it was also the end of a really long relationship with our record company [Epic]. It could very easily have been the end of the group. It was one of those moments where if cooler heads had not prevailed, it could have been the end of us.”Had you at all reconciled yourself to the fact that it might be over?“There was that moment where I thought,‘has this run its course?’” Brandon says.“having the wherewithal to know that it’s time to walk away from this, that’s the hardest thing. So I was thinking about it, and I wasn’t even sure if singing was something that I wanted to keep doing, although it only took me about a weekend to realise that I did.as challenging as it is, there’s too much joy in music to walk away from it, although I was thinking of doing it on a much smaller scale. But music is such a wonderful accompaniment to life

In the pursuit of getting their shit together, Incubus focused.along with guitarist and co-songwriter Mike Einziger, Brandon rented a bungalow in Venice Beach, where each morning the pair would meet, drink coffee and sit across a table discussing the news of the day and events in each other’s lives.they were, if you like, learning how to be friends again. Soon enough these conversations turned into songs, basic structures that were centred around only a piano or a guitar. One year later these embryonic creations have incubated into the band’s eighth album, helpfully titled 8, mixed by Skrillex and released last week. It is the best Incubus record for a number of years.“People ask,‘where have you guys been?’ when of course the answer is that we’ve been here all the time,” says Brandon.“i know on If Not Now,when? we lost a lot of what you called our ‘core constituents’, but while that album wasn’t something they wanted to hear, it was something that we needed to do. We’re always going to make albums that are honest portrayals of who we are.we’re not fakers, we’re not panderers; we won’t make music for people because it’s what we think they want to hear.“But people seem to be responding to what they’ve heard from [8] because it’s…” he begins to search for the word… Heavier? “Yeah.

”Brandon Boyd recently read two things about himself.the first is that he and his wife, who he doesn’t have, are about to have a baby.the second is that he is the highest-paid singer in all of rock’n’roll. That last one, especially, made him laugh. But what this irksomely handsome bachelor who lives alone save for a cat and a dog does have is a degree of equilibrium as a singer of a band that has been together for more than a quarter of a century in a business that encourages and even necessitates a state of perpetual adolescence.today he scores Incubus’ rate of functionality at “between eight-anda-half and nine out of 10”, whereas a little over four years ago, it was just two. He believes relationships are cyclical and so realises that there is a “high probability” that the problems that beset his band in 2012 will come back to haunt them.Last time the problems were addressed by the band’s members taking the piss out of each other – nicely, like – instead of scolding each other or talking things out directly or rationally, as other human beings might. But as strange as this sounds, Incubus did learn something from what today Brandon describes as his band’s “dark night of the soul”.“It turned out that we love each other, and that there are many things that we want to accomplish together.” Does this feel like a rebirth? “It does, yes, very much so. Some of those feelings have been overwhelming. It does feel like we’re reborn.“It feels brand-new again.

[myincubusupdate]

@brandonboyd @incubusofficial #kerrang #incubus #brandonboyd Kerrang! (UK) - 3 May 2017 And Incubus are reborn BRANDON BOYD AND INCUBUS WERE ONCE TWO OF THE BIGGEST NAMES IN ROCK. THEN CAME THE FALL. IAN WINWOOD MEETS A MAN REBORN… Brandon Boyd is a 41-year-old rockstar that does impressions of wild animals. Pouring himself a glass of chilled still water in the library of London’s tastefully opulent Soho Hotel, he reveals that from the windows of his home in the Greater Los Angeles Area at night he can hear the calls of peacocks.asked by this perfect stranger at barely noon on a Monday what the call of a peacock sounds like, Brandon says, well, it sounds like this, and he makes a kind of ‘aw aw aw’ sound, hard on the ‘a’s.It’s unusual for a rockstar to start an interview with wildlife impressions, he’s told. He says he can do the crowing of a rooster, too, and duly does.the impression is rendered with such enthusiasm that a blind person might think it the real thing. “Tragically, I’m the one person in my band that is single,” he says.When the members of Incubus gathered together in Los Angeles at the end of 2012, it is unlikely that the group’s highly-photogenic frontman regaled his colleagues with impersonations of flightless birds.the band that formed 26 years ago in Calabasas, California, and who over the course of seven albums that had found their way into the homes of 23 million listeners and defined the innovations of late 20th century rock music – few guitar solos, turntablists, that kind of thing – as well as any, and with more brains than most, were knackered.they’d spent 18 months touring the frankly awful, 1K-rated If Not Now,when? album, over the course of which they’d somehow lost the capacity to communicate.“it was at this point where we were as dysfunctional as we’ve ever been,” says the singer. Drugs had played a part in the emotional breakdown,“nothing major like heroin”, rather “just a couple of guys who weren’t making the smartest decisions”.On the subject of decisions, Incubus had their own to make: whether to stick or bust.“Being in a band is really quite difficult,” Brandon says.“it’s a family, and how successfully it works is really dependent on the players involved… [In LA] we had an emotional showdown of sorts, where we did finally begin to communicate. But we communicated things really poorly. Everyone was completely exhausted and scared and frustrated; it was also the end of a really long relationship with our record company [Epic]. It could very easily have been the end of the group. It was one of those moments where if cooler heads had not prevailed, it could have been the end of us.”Had you at all reconciled yourself to the fact that it might be over?“There was that moment where I thought,‘has this run its course?’” Brandon says.“having the wherewithal to know that it’s time to walk away from this, that’s the hardest thing. So I was thinking about it, and I wasn’t even sure if singing was something that I wanted to keep doing, although it only took me about a weekend to realise that I did.as challenging as it is, there’s too much joy in music to walk away from it, although I was thinking of doing it on a much smaller scale. But music is such a wonderful accompaniment to life In the pursuit of getting their shit together, Incubus focused.along with guitarist and co-songwriter Mike Einziger, Brandon rented a bungalow in Venice Beach, where each morning the pair would meet, drink coffee and sit across a table discussing the news of the day and events in each other’s lives.they were, if you like, learning how to be friends again. Soon enough these conversations turned into songs, basic structures that were centred around only a piano or a guitar. One year later these embryonic creations have incubated into the band’s eighth album, helpfully titled 8, mixed by Skrillex and released last week. It is the best Incubus record for a number of years.“People ask,‘where have you guys been?’ when of course the answer is that we’ve been here all the time,” says Brandon.“i know on If Not Now,when? we lost a lot of what you called our ‘core constituents’, but while that album wasn’t something they wanted to hear, it was something that we needed to do. We’re always going to make albums that are honest portrayals of who we are.we’re not fakers, we’re not panderers; we won’t make music for people because it’s what we think they want to hear.“But people seem to be responding to what they’ve heard from [8] because it’s…” he begins to search for the word… Heavier? “Yeah. ”Brandon Boyd recently read two things about himself.the first is that he and his wife, who he doesn’t have, are about to have a baby.the second is that he is the highest-paid singer in all of rock’n’roll. That last one, especially, made him laugh. But what this irksomely handsome bachelor who lives alone save for a cat and a dog does have is a degree of equilibrium as a singer of a band that has been together for more than a quarter of a century in a business that encourages and even necessitates a state of perpetual adolescence.today he scores Incubus’ rate of functionality at “between eight-anda-half and nine out of 10”, whereas a little over four years ago, it was just two. He believes relationships are cyclical and so realises that there is a “high probability” that the problems that beset his band in 2012 will come back to haunt them.Last time the problems were addressed by the band’s members taking the piss out of each other – nicely, like – instead of scolding each other or talking things out directly or rationally, as other human beings might. But as strange as this sounds, Incubus did learn something from what today Brandon describes as his band’s “dark night of the soul”.“It turned out that we love each other, and that there are many things that we want to accomplish together.” Does this feel like a rebirth? “It does, yes, very much so. Some of those feelings have been overwhelming. It does feel like we’re reborn.“It feels brand-new again. http://www.pressreader.com/uk/kerrang-uk/20170503/281728384421399

[stories-everywhere]

One Shot: Not One Of Them

This is post Prinxiety breakup

@vortexart

(Anxiety’s P.O.V)

I am now in my room listening to a song called ‘Paint it black’ nightcore version as it is so much creepier that way while I think over how I am seen as the bad guy out of the four sides. I do not help Thomas like at all… I just burden him and make his life so much harder than is needed.

“I best go and get something to eat as I can’t brood with an empty stomach.” I mumble to myself with a tired groan as I get up off my bed and leave my room… where are the other three now?

“So Prince what you doing?” I hear Morality ask cheerfully from the common area, I make my way over to the large room I hide behind the wall so that they don’t see me but I can see them all.

“Oh nothing much… what about you Morality?” Prince returns with a kind tone of voice, I can just see that the others are all sharing laughs and jokes as if I don’t exist and I don’t blame them.

“Yeah I’m good… well as good as I can be after that rather strong panic attack Thomas had earlier today.” Mo sighs as he takes a seat next to Prince, he looks older then he should be allowed.

“Anx was more active than normal and that had almost ruined the whole day that we had planned for Thomas.” I make my way back to my room without grabbing any food to think over what I had just saw, I grab my black guitar and start to strum the tune for a very familiar song of mine.

-Feeling left out. From the right side of your bed. Feeling stressed out over every last word you said. Feelings left now, just a ghost inside my head. Feeling less now cause I know you dream me dead- I sing out onto my room as I continue the song that I fits with my own life so perfectly.

“HAHAHAH!” I can suddenly hear Prince laugh out at something that Morality must have said.

-I been left out, lied to, talked about and used. Stared down and laughed at, while walking out of school. You wanna put the blame on me the feeling's nothing new. You wanna hang more pain on me there's nothing you can do. A moment lasts inside this coffin, I'm buried often- I continue to sing as I let the sad music wash over me and it takes away all of my worries as least for now.

(Prince’s P.O.V)

“Did you guys hear that? It sound like singing?” I ask as I we all become silent and we can make out that it is indeed singing but where is it coming from and what does it mean, I wonder?

-Every time you're calling once you're starting there's no stopping. You know what, I pick my phone up, know you can hear me, just show up and show love, just want you near me. But like does that even feel right cause I don't want you if anyone can hold you all through the night- I stand up from our little game and with the other two follow after me as well we all leave the main common area to go try and figure out where this rather soulful music is coming from and why.

“The person singing sounds so sad.” Morality mutters and I have to agree with him on that.

-And is it even fair or worth for me to put up a fight, just to prove that I'm the one and you still leave out of spite. No more broken hearts to fall apart to broken promise, no more playing cards with broken shards with ghosts to haunt us. And we don't gotta put all this care beyond us, but you don't gotta be scared to be honest- We continue to follow the sad and broken sounding song to find that it’s coming from Anxiety’s room and none of us have been in there no even me.

“It’s coming from Anxiety’s room? Prince surely you know what we can expect in there?” Logic asks and I shake my head at them gaining shocked and confused looks from the both of them.

“No I don’t, not even I have been in his room…” I trail off as we hear the singing start up again.

-Feeling left out. From the right side of your bed. Feeling stressed out over every last word you said. Feelings left now, just a ghost inside my head. Feeling less now cause I know you dream me dead- We all recognise the song that he is singing as Thomas hear it on the radio the other day.

“Why is he singing that song?” Morality asks us but I don’t have an answer for him and it looks like that Logic doesn’t have one either, I try to slowly open his door but its look... of course it is.

“Does anyone know how to unlock it?” Logic asks and again Logic and Morality look at me.

-I thought a lot lately, please. I wanna stop playing these games. Your mom and pops hate me. And now I'm probably not your top choice as you're drinking on the rocks lately ha. I wanna confess, I wanna die when you're brought up by friends, and every night I'm haunted in bed so I cry every drop is a sin. And I think I'm healing again but every feeling I'm feeling is like I'm peeling the skin- We hear the next part of the sad song before I can answer the question asked of me.

“Does he really feel that way?” Mo asks us both as I look at the door with a worried look on it.

“We need to get in and talk with him.” I say to the other two and they nod their heads at me.

-Always dealing with women at every show and event but when we're home or if we're out you're on your phone every second. Said that I'm an ass, I said I think you're right. So every conversation turns to basically a fight. Stare into my eyes tell me what you need. As I pray to God that you never leave- I doubt any of us had realise that he has ever felt like that as he always keeps it to himself.

(Anxiety’s P.O.V)

-Feeling left out. From the right side of your bed. Feeling stressed out over every last word you said. Feelings left now, just a ghost inside my head. Feeling less now cause I know you dream me dead- I sing the last of verse of the song before I put my guitar back and my room shifts once again to show a black and empty void of nothing expect for my basic furniture that is all dark wood.

“It sounds so quiet in there… maybe he is asleep?” I hear Morality ask in a whisper as I make my way to the door before I roughly open it startling the three other sides not looking impressed.

“What did you three want?” I ask with a sneer on my lips and arms crossed over my chest.

“We just want to know how you are Anxiety.” Morality with that smile on his face and I give them a blank stare back from the looks of it they were standing here a long time so that means…

“You three where eavesdropping on me weren’t you? You can’t leave me alone in case I harm Thomas again.” I ask them with a dark tone and my eyes narrowed down at them all slightly.

“Now Anxiety that’s not the reason why we are here, though…” Morality starts to say but he trails off as my stare doesn’t waver… my room is the one place I don’t have to hide my emotions.

“Can we come in so that we can talk, please?” Prince asks and I think it over so that’s why it shifted from the cult space back to normal… I move out of the way for them all to come in after me.

“This is the only time that you are allowed in.” I tell them with a sneer before I make my way back to my bed, Logic sits at my desk and two other chairs shift into existence for them to sit down.

“How…” Princey trails off looking surprised… don’t their rooms morph and change like mine?

“So why are you all here anyway, I mean none of you have never wanted to be anywhere near me or my room before?” I ask the others sounding not that impressed with the whole thing.

“Well you see Anx, with the panic attack this morning and the song you sang is there something that you need to tell us?” Prince asks me with a nervous tone with Morality and Logic agreeing with him and I just stare at them all not believing what I had just heard coming from Prince.

“Really? You all have the nerve to ask that of me? First off you have a go at me about the panic attack that Thomas had then you eavesdrop on me and now you ask me if I’m alright?” I ask them with my hands now on my hips instead and I stare them all down as I stand up from my bed.

“Anx, we…” Morality starts to speak but he doesn’t know what to say to me so he trails off.

“No you can’t do that to me, you can’t confuse me even more than I already am… get out all of you.” I tell them with a growl leaving me and my room starts to shift around with my feelings, they get up and leave without look my way as I try to get my room back to my type of normal.

“Well if you need to talk then you know where to find me.” I hear Morality say before my door is closed behind them, I wait a few moments to be sure that they have gone before I give up.

“Even after everything what happened between me and Prince they still all hate me… I will never be one of them, no matter what.” I let the silent tears flow as my room shifts and changes around me.

[cradleofvenus]

this house has always had the uncanny ability of making me feel this strange little sense of barrenness when i’m alone.

it makes all the times i’ve gotten drunk out of my mind in here understandable, and why being sober without able to even so much as smoke a moldy cigarette so unnerving. 

i was never alone in the other house, ever. i was during the day, of course, for some hours, two at the very most...but then my boyfriend would drop by, or i would have to take care of my sister, or go to the conservatory and that vacancy would be filled up with noise and prescence again.

i find it awfully funny that my mom, behind her baskets of perfumes and handcreams, still keeps this one picture, one picture i had once destroyed in a fit of rage, i remember. it was us four in front of a bariloche lake whose name i barely remember, but it jostled me. i don’t know why it made me feel so strange, so heavy, as if the years had settled neatly on top of my shoulders. how my father after all those years spent cooped up in that other small house lived here for barely five months. how empty this house had been, for so long. the silence here. i don’t think i could ever get used to this silence, how i clutch onto the sound of a passerby car or sleepy neighbor just to avoid feeling so small and alone in this gaping house, with its lovely painted walls and chic interiors but its as empty as my own hollow heart. 

i’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. when i close my eyes in this deep, unending darkness, i can still see the palm trees swaying in the wind outside my parent’s bedroom, the clearness of the blue sky, the gleaming leaves underneath the sunlight, the red, red floors of my tiny patio, the colorful little flowers that would dot the windows which i’d water every day before going to school in my too large skirt and my flimsy white button down and knee socks that would always roll down as i walked a block or two, pulling them up red faced and embarrassed because my mom didn’t want to buy me new ones. the sting of the wind beating against my face as i sat snug against him on his motorbike picking me up from gym class. the way the wood on the floor would sound when i walked on it with bare feet. i can still remember,

the way the 4 o’clock sun would dance on the white walls of my living room and the brightness, the clarity, still remember my parents watching tv, laughing underneath the warm, homely yellow lights chewing on our oven cooked meats and potatoes, my sister shoving fruits all over her face perched on her babychair and that was the first house where i learned my first guitar chord, where my sister was potty trained, where i had many a first time,

(fumbling and all gangly limbs and bright pink cheeks and lust i haven’t felt in years)

where i cried over a boy and a girl for the first time, where i killed my first roach, and studied for my first biology test and spent so much time trying to get away from there yet i’m here in this deep, deafening, unswaying darkness of my own small little 20 meter apartment in this middle of this big gaping city buzzing like a monstrous cicada, the city where i’d stare up at it’s thousand and one windows and dream of living lives that weren’t mine and i lay scheming, imagining, envisioning ways of going back to that sweet little quiant house one last time, retrace my steps, find comfort in my memories that otherwise haunt me like a lullaby i can’t remember the words to when i can’t sleep at 3 in the morning. this deep, rooted, stubborn feeling of displacement, where should i be? where do i want to be? i just wanted to go back and listen, to the creaking and the groaning and chirping that sometimes i can still hear in my sleep...having lived so many different lives, what a snowy christmas is, a sweaty christmas in tropical heat, how to kick a ball and bat a baseball...i feel like i’m 3 or 4 people in my body sometimes, all screaming and clawing over each other, would it have been the same if i would’ve stayed in that tiny apartment forever? never known jet lag, icicles outside my window or gospel or fourth of july fireworks? what would’ve i been like? i don’t think i’ll ever really know, and that scares me a little bit, sometimes, just wish i had that stability, that permanence, that place where i could go back and say

oh,

this happened here,

i was here before,

it really did happen

i am me.

this isn’t a dream

the sky really was that blue

the sun really was that warm

and i really was that happy, once.

[disanddatmedia]

The year I was 24.

The year I was 24, was the biggest year for me. Right before I turned 24, I was living at home, dating the person I thought I would marry, and just ignoring any problem I can for the most part, pretending everything was fine. I was just doing what I did for years, not changing or evolving or anything, just staying the same. 

The week before my 24th birthday, I moved out of my parents' basement into an apartment that I thought I would be sharing with my Girlfriend at the time. We were hiding our relationship from her family so the plan was for her to move in a month later. The end of November came and nothing. Moved the deadline to mid December, nothing. Moved it again to end of December, nothing. Moved to mid January, nothing. End of January, nothing. Mid February, nothing. Finally moved it to end of February with me saying 

"look, we agreed to get this apartment, it's a bit pricey but it was no problem cause we both be living here, but its been like 4 months and you made no effort to move in, if you don't want to live together just say so, but if you do and not here by the end of the month, were done, I'm done having my hopes up for nothing." 

So she agreed to end of February. She told her family and that was a complete shit show, which ended with us breaking up. Now when February came around I became extremely depressed, I didn't think she gave a crap or loved me at all, and instead of hearing me out or helping me when I told her that I was extremely depressed, she said 

"what else is new". 

That hurt like a mother fucker. After me and her broke up at the end of February I had a complete mental breakdown, at the worst time possible. It happened when driving a crappy old truck, in the middle of winter, going 130kms down highway 63, with my breakdown consisting of me clawing at myself, I almost drove off the road like 7 times and still have scars from the clawing (my left arm, small dots). I stopped and became uncontrollable, my life was fucked up, the person I thought I was going to ask to marry me was gone, and no one was checking in on me, no one lived with me, I felt utterly alone for the first time in my life. I'm pretty sure subconsciously I was trying to end my life in that moment by car accident. The next day, I walked across halfway across town to seek professional help, was too scared to drive.

In November I also had an idea, to live in a truck/van and just drive around, travel all over the place, even designed a plan for the truck (lost the papers). In November I started to do photography and songwriting less and less to where I didn't even want to by the end of February, I had no desire to do those things. Part of this was, there was I wrote for my Girlfriend at the time, I wanted to play it for her first for so long and I tried, and tried, but the time was quote "never right" according to her. So I lost the motivation to write, which also did the same for photography. Once April came around I picked up both again, and even better than before, with photography I learned the F-stop finally, with song writing, a sudden surge of creativity came over me and I wrote a bunch of songs, even some more with guitar, also learned them and learned the song "Tell Me Who To Be" by "Cosmo Jarvis".

In April, I went down to Calgary and Edmonton to visit my siblings, when I got down there I tried weed for the first time, I decided to try it after 8 and a half years of depression and anxiety so I said fuck it, It now helps with bad days and to get off of "work mode" after work. I also decided that I was going to grow out a mohawk and dye it different colours, I wanted to since grade 10 but at that time I was in the Air Cadets and I loved it, after aging out, the best friends I had at that time, I knew they wont approve of it and didn't want to lose their friendship (which I'm no longer friends with any of them), to this day it's a long, kickass mohawk thats black for spooky month (next colour is red for Remembrance Day and Christmas).

Right after Christmas, my parents broke the news to me that my Pepére had throat cancer, it explains the Christmas phone call, where he didn't want to say hi, that really sucked, broke my heart. My mom then told me that she was leaving to go back east to take care of Pepére and Memére (she had many problems), as a result, she gave me her cat to take care of, Turbo the 20lb lazy boi who a goof. At the end of his stay, he was on a diet to get to a healthy weight, which didn't last long when he went back home. Mom was gone for 7 months.

At work in January, my boss left for maternity leave, leaving me in charge for a month and so, this was extremely stressful as I was already dealing with everything outside of work, barely made it before the next boss came in, he came however when everything in my life was falling apart, not a good way to introduce yourself.

After I became single, my neighbor gave me really important advice.

"In life, there is Truth, the capital T stands for TRUTH, which the lower t is truths that don't change (life breathing oxygen, needing sleep, etc), stuff that will never change that ALWAYS stays true, truth is stuff you THINK will always be true but can change (relationships, state of life etc.), remember that Truth always has two types of truths, look to see which what something falls into. I will take that advice to heart.

In January I started to go to a DnD group to get out of the apartment, something once a week to look forward to, I played a half elf, half reaper, the son of Lady Death (think Death the Kid from Soul Eater, that basically was the character), the first time I really played DnD and now it's something I will play if given the opportunity.

Mid April came and with that, a twist in events. A coworker of mine needed a place to stay, so they stayed on my futon, during her stay, we helped each other with our break ups, I helped her get back on her feet and she helped me regain my confidence again, we became fast best friends during her stay. 

During this time also, a trusted source told me that my now ex and (at that time) best friend of several years were hooking up behind my back for at least 2 weeks after me and my ex broke up, knowing how I was NOT okay after the break up, made me pissed, but then I remember and event in January, where with this new information, made me 99% sure she wasn't moving in also due to her cheating on me with said "friend". Pissed off, I completely dropped not only him as a friend, but also his two roommates, fuck that I'm not dealing with any of that bullshit, who the fuck does that? It broke me, just when I started to get better I was pushed back down to the dirt. Backstabbed by someone I consider a brother. With this, I also had to stop playing DnD since he was in the group I played in and I couldn't bare to even look at him or hear his name nevermind be in the same room as him, those two will never get my forgiveness. Funny enough, May came and it was discovered that he had gotten my ex girlfriend pregnant, so good riddance.

The month of May, I have also taken in my friend/coworker's friend in on and off as well, this was a bit of a headache but in my true self, I will help anyone who needs it. When I decided to have a housewarming party for myself (a bit late but oh well), which was fun, until that friend started to have a complete mental breakdown, she wanted cocaine, no one was letting her leave, meanwhile others were just trying to pretend nothing is going on (I don't blame them).

During this month I started liking the friend that was staying with me, something I was proud of myself was that I made damn sure to separate those feelings with what advice/things needed to help her, also to be able to realize that it won't be a good idea to date her, not compatible is all. Regardless of that we did become closer and she was able to get my confidence up to "go for it", which includes playing the songs I wrote for the first time to anyone.

I remember when I came back from my April trip to Calgary and Edmonton, I decided that I was going to move to one of those places, after spending half my life in a small city that I have a love-hate relationship with. I knew that I needed something new, it would be the perfect year to do so, my lease was up at the same time as my last week of paid vacation. I asked my sister and my brother for information of their city (since they live in those cities), my sister put effort into telling about her city so Edmonton it is. Doing something this big is scary but doing this will help me mentally, being away from my haunted past, making a new life with a new me.

I started to talk to two of my friends again after drifting away due to my ex, and I started to plan out a road trip, where one of my stops will be where one of them lives. If you're reading this, by the way, I'm sorry that happened, the relationship I was in wasn't healthy.

I started making a patch jacket, I have grown out the mohawk to a good length, dyed it green, blue, and red (currently black now), started really getting into the music from the band "The Speakeasies Swing Band!" and other areas of music, go out until 3am just doing random stuff, alone or with people, at times even all night, so that I could live life, practice playing the songs I wrote more, doing more photography, and finally, finally, I started to feel better, I started to notice that I was becoming someone new, someone more, me.

Fast forward to the summer, I was out hiking, swimming (including skinny dipping), out late at night, long drives, all that good stuff, and then, my road trip comes.

My road trip changed me, exactly what I needed and it changed my life. My trip starts with Edmonton. While there for the first pass, I had edibles for the first time, by accident mind you. How? You know when you ask your sibling for a bite of something and take a huge bite like an asshole? Turns out my sister was eating a homemade weed brownie. I went out and took photos at night, this led to what I thought was me breaking a law, by swimming in the fountain at the legislation building, when I got there to take photos, strangers were swimming in the fountain, it was 1am, I said "fuck it" and join in, it was really relaxing and amazing. Went to a food festival and tried some weird food, including octopus. 

I then went to Calgary, traveled all around, found a piano and played it, took loads of photos, rode on an electric scooter, met up with my aunts, brother and his fiancee, and two of my old friends. While staying in Calgary, I took a one day trip to Drumheller, saw dinosaurs, went on a hike (in the badlands), got heat exhaustion, and went home. Also went to Cochrane, kinda technically maybe trespassed to take a photo, maybe I didn't though.

After Calgary, I was off to Banff! On the way was horrible traffic, like deadlock traffic for two hours. I stopped in Camrose for what was 30 minutes, as soon as I got there it rained, as soon as I left, the sun came out. When I got to Banff, I went to some hot springs, it was relaxing, another thing to scratch off my bucket list. After I left the hot springs, I saw a trail going up, I hear a couple walk by which I only heard "one and a half-" I assume they were talking about kilometers, turns out, the hike was one and a half HOURS, so I hiked, completely unprepared, 100% up hill, for one and a half hours, to get to the very top of Sulphur Mountain. The extremely difficult hike was completely worth it, when I got to the top, I felt the universe again, hear her in the wind, saw her in the rays of the sun, shining through the clouds, hitting the surface of the bottom of the valleys, seen the tops of mountains, I screamed in triumph and in victory. When I had that moment, I knew I was in a better place, that everything was going to be okay, that I'm more myself than ever before, the best I've been in 9 years. I started my way down the mountain, I got to the bottom, went to the bus stop, that's when I met a travel friend, we talked and we decided to hang out that night, we grabbed a drink, we went dancing, I wore my kilt, and I noticed my confidence was higher than it was before.

My next stop was Blind Bay, I stayed with an old friend, while there, I made one day trips to Revelstoke, Kamloops, and Kelowna (all great places). I met her boyfriend, who is a great guy, drove a car you drive on the right side of the car, it was great. This part of the trip would end with confusion, unanswered questions, and sadness, my old friend, my best friend for 9 and a half years, looked me in the eye and said, "I can't do this anymore". Apparently the reason was because I have been miserable since high school, which didn't make sense since when I got there, I was doing great, she didn't deal with the worst back in February and March, and life happens, it goes up and down. Just left not knowing what the fuck really happened. So I left British Columbia, with one less friend, but one extra travel friend.

I arrived in Edmonton again and hung out with the travel friend the first night, it was nice and she told me a really great piece of advice I also will never forget: "If you think of it, do it in 5 to 10 seconds, if you don't, then don't do it", basically if you want to do something, like kiss a pretty girl you're dancing with, if it takes more than 10 seconds to do, don't do it so just do it within 10 seconds. The 10 second rule. The next morning, We went to a farmers market, the first one I ever went to. The rest of the time I relaxed, being exhausted from going, going, going, going, going.

So, after my trip, I realized that I have more life in me, I was different, even my taste in food changed, even my tolerance for spice was back to where it was before an incident in high school fucking it up. I was a changed man, a better man.

When my roommate came back, she changed too, not for the better unfortunately, she came back and immediately started asking for favors, at some point, I thought she would want to hang out with me, but no, she went back to the ex she ran from, and only contacted me or a few others only if she needed a favor, I ghosted her cause it just got too much, she would ask for drives all the time, and in that moment, I stopped. letting her walk all over me. I did see her before I moved, and she seemed to be back the way she was, the person I knew, which is nice, to me, it must have been a rough patch and hopefully she is better.

I was again living alone, this time, I started to learn how to be comfortably alone for the first time in my life, I found peace in being alone, anxiety still comes around but I have more control over it, I understand why people like being alone, there's a peace to it, to control your environment around you.

I moved 99% of my stuff down to Edmonton at the start of October, so for the next month(ish) I lived with very little, like a minimalist lifestyle, which was very interesting, learned that I don't need most of what I have.

During this last month, I went through a lot of stress at work and left that job, on my second last day I trained someone new who became my friend quickly, also went to my works awards ceremony and got my five years award. I got my first paid gig for photography and took some of my favorite photos ever. I started to learn more songs on the guitar, even played a few of those for other people. I had a going away party, invited people over, played games, laughed, played guitar, and then went to a karaoke bar where we sang, drink, and were complete goofs. I also was able to tell my friends how much they mean to me before going.

I moved to Edmonton, living with my sister, sister-in-law, and sister-in-law's best friend will be interesting. I went job hunting for the first time in five years, and my car was involved in a hit and run, I'm able to drive still but I was surprisingly calm for how I thought I would be.

So, I went from a depressed, anxious person who was only kinda himself, with little confidence, living at home with my parents, dating a girl who stopped caring, living in a town I hated, to someone that worked on fixing on my depression and anxiety, that knows how to be comfortably alone, confident, stopped letting people walk all over me, better at my passions, dropped shit friends, learned who I was, is now more my true self and is living in a new and bigger city to live a more exciting life. For years I was depressed, anxious, nervous to express myself, and would just do what would only make someone else happy, not to make me happy, worrying about what others would think of me, friends with people that held me back, and now, I don't have those problems, I get to leave all that behind me, in the dust. The year I was 24, was the worst and best year of my life, the biggest changes of my life happened, an epic year of ups and downs. It was wild and great, ill never forget anyone that made this year the way it was, and ill never forget the year that everything changed, when I was 24.

(p.s. sorry for the mess this post is)

[alien-princess-kitty-blog]

Halloween Songs For Children And Children Ten Scary Steps

Mammoth digital music service Spotify has sifted by way of 21,000 playlists to seek out out which Halloween songs are hottest with their users. Overplayed to the purpose of being a bit annoying, the Australian arduous rock group's most famous observe still deserves a place on the Halloween occasion playlist - the one technique to further embarrass yourself while in fancy costume is with an air guitar. See beneath for what's taking place in Music City for households to take pleasure in throughout Halloween weekend. The low-key tune is steeped in cinematic horror - its title refers to the actor well-known for taking part in Dracula within the authentic 1931 film, and Bauhaus carried out the tune throughout the opening credits of 1983 horror movie The Hunger. Coming soon: Tons of of latest songs to show seasons, climate, professions, good habits, manners, and many others. It definitely is among the livelier musical items to have on the list for Halloween as evening music. We begin by discussing nursery rhymes on the whole, and by naming as a lot of them as we are able to. Celebration music from the remainder of the year's playlists will still be confirmed floorfillers, after all, out of your pop classics to chart hits and past. Flip a big, hollowed-out Halloween pumpkin into a goal for throwing objects.

They even have a stay album of certainly one of these Halloween shows titled Hallowmas Dwell at North Six. There are a number of completely different designs of Halloween bingo playing cards so you will make sure you discover one you like. If there are ghosts, they appear to be melancholy ghosts or ghosts come to warn, however nothing really scary about them. In reality, the present has featured THREE different http://mp3clan.com/mp3/frozen_songs.html songs up to now: Wasting Away” , I Want the Good Instances Back” , and Daddy's Little Angel” In my opinion, Losing Away” stays the very best of the bunch. Your teen could not know precisely who Freddy Krueger is, however they hopefully won't thoughts while you sing along to this catchy tune based mostly on the 1988 hit film, A Nightmare on Elm Avenue 4: The Dream Master. Free Halloween Songs HD Pro is an entertaining music tune app designed to give a mild show to the standard creatures monsters related to the celebration.

One in every of them is colored and one is black and white in order that youthful college students can coloration them in. These can be nice for a classroom's Halloween occasion or as a take-dwelling exercise. These songs are geared towards preschoolers, and as such they're scare-free (I don't do scary…at all). As like me many children and kids also want to rejoice with loved ones like household and mates as a result of they don't wish to go backward in any sense or in something from any grownup. While all of Helloween's songs would match the bill, we're going with essentially the most apparent, Halloween,” a creepy traditional. Endlessly hauled into lazy spherical-ups like this one, lately The Specials' largest hit is more commonly rolled out as a novelty hit for Halloween. However I Was a Teenage Werewolf,” off the group's 1980 debut LP Songs the Lord Taught Us,” is maybe the most fitting. Final year he unleashed the mutated beast ‘Zombies' as a part of the newly minted 1984 Suite, and people brain-gorging rotters mingle with Bobby Boris” Pickett's rock'n'roll basic, ‘The Monster Mash' and the Prince Of Darkness himself, Ozzy Osbourne, who loses his thoughts on ‘Bark At The Moon'. I've been in search for years of this little Halloween music that I also realized within the third or fourth grade ( 1969-1970).

You can also just play the audio of http://frozen.disney.com.au/sing-along-songs the songs and have your class sing and transfer along. Prime members also get pleasure from unique entry to films and TELEVISION reveals, two million songs and way more. On the third day of Halloween my true love gave to my three black bats, two trick or treaters, and an owl in a useless oak tree. Your favourite indie artists additionally love Halloween, and have give you a fantastic number of songs that conjure up pictures of ghosts, vampires and other monsters which can be certain to present a fright. This is an instrumental number, but with the heavy ominous bass and fuzzed out guitars (they have three guitarists) it is simply as creepy as any music with eerie lyrics. One time in the 60s, there was this actually great pop music songwriter named Syd Barrett who played in a cool new band referred to as Pink Floyd. Here's the step by step guide on can you employ iSkysoft Audio File to download the ringtones for completely freed from cost. On the time of Halloween you'll be able to carve your personal pumpkin as well as spooky pumpkin design. Performers Hearken to songs performed by a few of the best artists in kids's music. While that is arguably one of the best of his Halloween themed tracks that he does, there are several songs by this artist that might prove to be worthwhile to add to your playlist. Halloween songs in latest instances will not be fairly the match to the old classics however surely serves the purpose. Cinco calabazas is an excellent Spanish Halloween music for youthful Spanish learners.

Whereas Nina Simone made this haunting tune a traditional, the jazz standard is more appropriate for a relaxed Halloween night in. The Divine Miss M's pizzazz-filled rendition from Hocus Pocus will get everybody singing along. Checklist: At the start, create a Halloween celebration planning guidelines to verify your Halloween celebrations have the entire requirements. Choose a model of the tune that is not too excessive or too low for teenagers to sing alongside. Sounds spreading many genres will be performed through the evening including all of the IN DEMAND songs & Tabula's very own TOP a hundred! DOES THE MUSIC SOUND SCARY?: Yes, it appears like a tune that might play in goth '80s hell. This free printable piano music might be your scholar's favourite for a very long time! Halloween is the night time earlier than the Catholic pageant of All Saints and the pagan Celtic pageant of Samhain (1st November). Alison Mosshart's breathy vocals will show you how to justify your horny Halloween costume this year. The music tells a narrative a couple of group of mischievous monsters with a plan to steal all of the Halloween candy they will find! The drum rolls and sinister lyrics will inspire you to showcase your deadliest moves on the dance flooring. That is Halloween” is the opening monitor from the Halloween animated film mascot The Nightmare Before Christmas.” It is a infantile tour of a land based fully on the spooky elements of Halloween. Halloween Night time is a 2006 American horror film produced by The Asylum Regardless of sharing a similar title with the 1978 movie Halloween , Halloween Evening is itself an authentic film as opposed to a mockbuster movie , for which The Asylum are infamous. Please fill out the data under to help us present you a better expertise.