#cam eats chords

[cam-stopped-eating-candles]

[i-am-hungry-24-7]

[Smut Challenge - Neighbor Series] Simon “Ghost”Riley*Fem!Reader

Simon with a Cam girl!Reader neighbor.

Word Count: 2.3K

CW: 18+, mdni, pet names, streaming, masturbating, I’m practicing writing smut :)

pls tell me if I forget to tag something in CW! tyvm!

Simon Riley is obsessed with you.

If someone told him that he would be crazy for a cam girl one day, he would definitely snort in their face, but here he was, clicking on your name to join the stream, watching you riding a pink dildo, thighs trembling and eyes rolling back when it hit the spongy spot.

Your eyes darted, shooting the screen a glimpse when you heard the sound effect you set just for him when he joined the stream.

“Simon! Welcome back!”

Oh, how much he missed your honey-soaked voice calling his name sweetly. Simon took his cock in his fist, which already hardened once he heard you moan out when you head back to pleasure yourself, pretty cunt swallowing the dildo too perfect that he wished it was his cock instead.

‘Simon donated $200: Missed me, baby girl?’

Simon mindlessly stroked his cock with his left hand while he donated, he saw your eyes widen at the notification and shifted closer to the camera.

“I missed you, Simon... hmm...Can’t you see...?”

A moan slipped through his clenched jaw when you showed him your puffy pussy, thighs stained with your juices, and you started pumping the dildo in and out of your cunt again, that’s when he started losing his control, moaning and grunting with you, making a chord in his room, and his pace quickened when your voice getting louder and higher.

“Simon! I'm coming... I'm coming...!”

He whispered your name when you hit your high, his cock shooting spurts and spurts of hot cum when you called out his name while orgasm rushed through your body, as you collapsed onto the floor.

A few minutes later, Simon watched you regain the energy to sit up and say goodbye to chat and of course — him.

“Simon, see you next time!”

Your stream room became a dark screen, Simon’s room only illuminate by the light of his laptop, and he stared at his fist, white cum scattered.

His mind wandered to the time you moaned out his name a few minutes ago.

He was down bad.

Simon became extremely grumpy the next week.

You hadn’t streamed for over 5 days, first two days he assumed you might just want some rest, but when he looked at the ‘offline’ on your streaming status on the third night, he started becoming anxious.

The paperwork forming a pile on his desk made him additionally angry, he yelled and scolded the stupid recruits harsher than he used to, even Soap became attentive when joking with him, noticing his lieutenant's bad temper lately.

Maybe you were sick, maybe you went on a vacation with someone.

Someone... What if they were your boyfriend?

Simon never thought about the idea you might have a partner, but now he reminded himself, and he felt more and more annoyed when this idea kept running through his mind.

He ruffled his messy hair, it was finally weekend, giving him some time to relax, but there was no chance he could truly relieve all of his stress when you weren’t streaming. The only methods left are smoking, drinking, becoming a couch potato, and maybe eating some microwave food.

but seemed like the whole world was fucking with him right now, because no food or beer was remaining in his fridge, so he needed to go on shopping.

What he never expected was the sight in front of him when he opened the door of his flat.

There was you, his dream, carrying a box and standing at the next door, where he knew there would be a new neighbor.

His pupils dilated, eyes locked on you, as you recognized his presence and turned around, face delighted with an adorable smile.

“... hello? Hello? Sir?”

He snapped out of his trance when he realized you — now only a few inches next to him — head tilting up to face him with concern on your face.

“Hello.” He simply nodded.

“I’m moving into the flat next to yours today, nice to meet you.” He stared at your plump lips, glistening with the lipstick you used, while trying not to form a fucking boner in front of his new neighbor when you told him your name. “What’s your name, sir?”

“Just call me Simon.”

“Simon?” He noticed you crooked your eyebrow at his response.

“Any problem, love?” The pet name floated out his mouth fluently, as if it was what he said to you every day.

“Oh... nothing! just have an old friend whose name is Simon too, but it’s quite a common name.”

You waved your hands, but it only made Simon wonder if that ‘Simon’ was him.

“Well, I need to finish placing everything in their place, let’s chat next time, or maybe you can come to my flat and have dinner together.” You reached out your hand, “again, glad to know you, Simon!”

He watched you step into your flat, the door shut behind you, and now he could finally let out the sigh he held once he saw you.

Your hands were so, so soft, and he could smell the shower gel you used when you turned around and walked away, unknowing your movement drowned him in your scent.

He wondered whether you would stream today.

He didn’t need to open the streaming website to know if you were online now, he now could jerk while hearing you whining and moaning his name while he sent hundreds and hundreds of donations, calling you a good girl or pretty doll.

Speakers ruined your beautiful voices, he listened to you tumbled over your orgasm directly now.

You should be happy that only you two lived on this floor.

but what he noticed is that you would masturbate when you weren’t streaming, and it was a huge discovery.

because he realized you still called out his name when you weren’t streaming.

“Simon... oh god... you’re so big…”

He made sure to memorize this beautiful melody, whilst he fisted his cock furiously, how eager he wanted to break this common wall, pressed you onto your bed and fuck you until you couldn’t walk straightly the next day, gave you what you truly want, what you truly deserved.

but for now, your relationship only stayed as friends, you sometimes invited him to your place for dinner, and this became a little habit that you two shared.

“You need to leave for two weeks?” Your voice raised at his words, while he picked up the last broccoli on his plate.

You already knew he work in the military, and he fucking loved that you greeted him with home-cooked dinner whenever he came back from deployment, at the same time, he hated seeing the sadness on your angelic face every time he told you he won’t be here for a while.

“two weeks, it will pass very quickly.”

“Okay...” you compromised to the reality, but the unhappiness on your face still lingered. “Just be safe and take care of yourself, please?”

He swallowed down his broccoli when you stood up so you could hug him. You always did this before missions, after the time he told you he had no family members anymore.

He melted in your arms, eyes closed when he returned the embrace.

“I will.”

Just as Simon said, two weeks flew in the blink of an eye, and his craving to finish the mission as quickly as possible so he could return to you was obvious, even Gaz started asking him if he had someone waiting for him at home, which he shot him a death glare to shut the sergeant up.

but hell, seeing you again literally was the only thing he wanted to do after the mission was completed, so he jumped on the earliest Uber he could book and rushed home immediately after he was able to leave.

Well, he really just thirsted for a dinner time with you, or maybe jerk to your sugary sounds behind his door, wholeheartedly, but all his plans changed when he stepped out of the elevator and heard you cry out his name in pleasure.

All his restraints were gone in the millisecond, and he carelessly threw the bag aside.

Around half a minute after Simon knocked on your door, you finally came to the door, clothes wearing sloppily and shallowly panting, he could even see your nipple perking through your t-shirt.

“Oh! Simon! Welcome back!” bloody hell, even the same word you always said to him when he joined the stream.

Without answering, Simon pushed you into your flat, and closed the door behind you two, locking any rational thoughts outside.

“Such a needy girl, moaning my name while pleasuring yourself when I’m deployed, eh?”

He leaned down to nip at your earlobe and saw your face blushed due to embarrassment.

“Sorry- I’m just... you are too similar to my friend, I...” Your eyes shifted, unable to meet his, but he chuckled when he heard your poor defense.

“your friend... or do you mean your supporter? hmm? On that streaming website which you shamelessly ride a dildo and moan out my name?”

Now you finally meet his gaze, stuttering as you connect everything.

“You are the Simon from my stream?!”

Simon didn’t answer you, instead, he bent you over the counter, hands traveled across your thigh, went north to your core, and cupped it in his samely heated palm.

“You know how much I want to fuck you when you play with yourself just a wall from me? how much I want you to scream out my name until everyone knows you belong to me?”

He tore your pants off and smirked at your lack of underwear inside.

“you know you could always ask me when you’ve missed me so much, love.”

His callused fingers slipped between your folds, and you didn’t even need lubes, previous masturbation and his words already made your pussy drool with prominent juices.

“Please... I need you, Simon. Please fuck me.” You look over your shoulder, and the man gives you an open mouth kiss at your nape.

“I’ve got you, princess.”

You yelped when he suddenly scooped you into his arms and carried you inside your room, but he didn’t bring you to your bed, instead, he set you down at the place you usually stream at.

“go live on the website, baby.” When you were still processing what he said, he already reached out his arm to open your laptop.

“Wait... Simon, you want me to stream?!”

“yeah, let the world see only I can make you feel the best.”

Your hands quivered when you took over the mouse, and just as you clicked on ‘go live’, you felt Simon nudging the tip at your entrance.

“He-Hello... guys, today we have a special guest, he’s- ahh!” Just as the viewers started joining the stream, and you were about to explain the difference of today’s stream, Simon suddenly push all of his shafts into your cunt, hitting your cervix and forcing you to squeal out to the heavenly bliss, you spare a mind to check the camera could only record you and Simon’s lower body before you got pulled into a glorious state by him.

You can’t even form a proper sentence as Simon’s hands anchored at your hips, and he moved his hips at an inhuman speed, the slightly up-tilt of his fat cock made it able to hit the right spot every time he rammed into your tight pussy.

“Simon! Simon! Oh god, you’re too big! I’m gonna cum!”

Your eyes rolled back at Simon’s brutal pace, and his grunts only made you climb to the peak much quicker than usual.

“yeah? Only I can make you feel good, cum for me, love, cum for your best supporter.”

His coos and a hard thrust sent you over the edge, you squirted all over the floor, screaming out Simon’s name when he kept his thrusting, and you became a whining mess.

you could hear donations flooding in your stream like pouring rain, but you couldn’t thank each of them, not when the man you lusted for so long still maintained his pace and overstimulated you till you started squirming.

“bloody hell... you’re so tight, doll. Do I fucking you in front of your viewers make you so excited?” You could hear Simon taunting you, but all you could do was ramble an uncoherent answer to him.

“Yes! You make me feel so good! ahh... Simon, stop! I can’t! I’m gonna cum again!”

Not only you felt like you were in paradise, Simon’s frequent grunting and the kisses he continuously planted on your shoulder allowed you to know he was enjoying too.

“fuck... gripping me like a vice, you can do it, baby, cum with me, I’m gonna mark this pussy as mine.”

When Simon’s hand reach down to rub circles at your clit, he finally granted you the orgasm, and your tight cunt forced his out too, hot cum painting your inner walls in white.

Recovering from the orgasm, Simon looked down at you — unable to lift yourself up, body shaking at the aftertaste.

He smirked, and shut down your laptop.

“Stream’s over, goodbye.”

With a smash of his hand, your stream room became black again.

[drawlfoy]

Wonders of Ohio - P.7

masterlist (catch up with the series here!)

request guidelines (yes i am taking them!)

pairing: draco x reader

request: no! this is my original idea 

summary: american high school senior is in for a surprise when her family takes on a foreign exchange student with a mysterious past.

warnings: teen drinking, mentions of an armed robbery, language, a brief hospital visit, and descriptions of illness

a/n: hey. so. this is definitely where stuff starts to go down. thanks so much for waiting...i have so many more things planned for this series and i’m thrilled to see it come together the way that it is right now. thank you very much for reading and thank you for your patience!

taglist: @gruffle1 @missmulti @cleopatera @hahaboop @accio-rogers @geeksareunique @eltanin-malfoy @war-sword @cams-lynn @itsivyberry @ayo-cowbelly @nerd-domland @yesnerdsblog @shizarianathania @evanstanfanatic @strawberriesonsummer @hariosborn @night-ving @straightzoinked @imintoodeeptostop @icintliviinyiniilsiji @erisdogwood @loveissupernatural

word count: 6k

song recs: 

murders - miracle musical

pink in the night - mitski

always, forever - cults

ice dance - ashton gleckman

enjoy!

Y/N should’ve felt cold when she awoke on the wet pavement. Despite a figure looming over her and blocking out most of the rain, the back of her neck and body was drenched in the cool water from the puddle to her right. It was easily in the mid 40s at this point in the evening, something that would ordinarily make her toes curl and her figure tremble, but it felt...different.

She felt like her insides had been scorched, like she’d downed an entire pitcher of boiling hot water. Every movement she made hurt--right down to wiggling her fingertips and her eyes. Her body was exhausted. If she hadn’t known any better, she would’ve thought that she’d just finished running a marathon in hell.

“Can you hear me?” A posh British voice cut through her musings as the figure above her came into focus. 

Draco.

“Yeah. Was there a fire?” Her words left her throat painfully, scratching their way up her vocal chords. 

“Er...what do you remember?”

She squeezed her eyes shut. The memories of the night slowly began trickling back--she’d done Draco’s tie, told him to watch his drink, argued with Chad about how funny he was, and walked to...Oh, yeah. The antique store. The box. The stars inside of her.

She flinched. “I fainted. I’m sorry. That was really stupid of me.”

“What?” Draco shifted back, the light from the front of the antique store catching his face. There were lines in his forehead that she’d never seen before. “Why?”

“I didn’t eat enough today,” said Y/N. Speaking was starting to feel less and less like lighting her trachea on fire. “I was really nervous and I lost my appetite. I’m an easy fainter.”

He cleared his throat. “Er, okay. Yeah. That was it. Anyways, we have to get home. You need to, uh, eat.”

“Okay.”

Y/N allowed herself to be hauled up onto her feet, swaying slightly once her full weight was on her feet. Her sense of gravity felt like it had been loosened. With every step, she felt pulled to the ground from a different part of her core.

“Steady. Don’t fall.” By some miracle, once Draco’s hands were gently guiding her shoulders, she was able to make her way to the backseat of Heather’s car before she collapsed.

“Where are we going?” asked Y/N. Despite no longer feeling like she was near death, her head was still cloudy. 

“Home,” was all Draco said as he slid in on the other side of the car. 

She didn’t bother putting on her seatbelt--she still felt like she was about to keel over--and rested her head on the car window. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Draco open the passenger car door for a moment, pause, shut it, and instead tug open the door across from her and slide in. 

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“My insides feel like they’re on fire.” Y/N winced as she tried to shift and get the weight off of her neck. “I think I’m sick.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” said Heather from the front, her eyes catching Y/N’s from the mirror. “You were just laying down in the middle of a rainstorm. Go home and take some Zi-cam or something, jesus.”

Y/N tried to chuckle in response, but it came out as a sorry squeak instead. No one made a move to further comment on the evening’s events as Heather pulled onto the freeway and began to gain speed. The sudden lurches and changes of speed in the car set Y/N’s stomach into a churning frenzy, her head growing light again. 

“Draco.”

Her voice was so soft it was hardly audible--the syllables jumbled together on her lips in a quiet mess--but he immediately snapped to attention.

“What is it?”

She took a deep breath. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“For the love of god, at least try and hold it until we get off the freeway.” 

“Shut up, Heather,” said Draco. Y/N couldn’t help but feel the slightest twinge of satisfaction as he rolled his eyes and turned his attention back on her. “Is it the motion? Are you sick from that?”

“I don’t know,” she managed. 

He sighed. “Helpful.”

“Dick.”

Draco frowned at her, but she could see the slightest twinkle of amusement in his eye. “Can you move into the middle seat for me? Do you need help?”

Once Y/N had scooted over from her side, he leaned away from her and pointed up to the sunroof above them. “Go ahead and count all the lights that you can see in the sky. I promise it’ll make you feel better. Just keep your head pointed up.”

She tilted her head back. The night sky was largely gloomy, but the flickering lights of the planes that dove in and out of clouds provided some glowing dots. As she counted, Heather hit the fog strips and nearly threw her back into her original seat. She felt a warm hand wrap around her wrist and gently grip, the long fingers completely encircling it. 

Y/N blinked. The nausea was gone. “What are you, a sorcerer or something?” she joked, not expecting to see Draco so frozen at the comment. “Kidding. I just feel better already. Thank you.”

He nodded and turned away to look out the window. His soft grip on her hand was long gone, and Y/N took Heather’s slightly uncoordinated driving as a cue to slide back into her seat and buckle up.

“If you really need to puke,” said Heather, “I have a Target bag back somewhere under the passenger seat. Please avoid the seats. They’re authentic vegan leather.”

“I don’t think that’s a thing.”

“Just don’t throw up, okay?” 

~

Y/N was in Art History when it happened. The chills began, so intense and teeth-chattering that her teacher took one look at her and sent her immediately to the nurse. Sylvia offered to walk her, but she was only allowed to under the condition that she avoid all physical contact with her and sanitized each surface that Y/N touched. It was a wonder she made it to the first floor office--each step felt heavier than the last, and from the beginning she felt moments from simply passing out. 

A temperature check revealed that she had a mild fever--100.3 F, to be exact--and a call home resulted in her mother’s full voicemail box and the remembrance that her parents were out for the week. 

“Can someone else drive you?” Nurse Hazelwood asked as she stepped away to douse her hands in hand sanitizer. “I don’t think you should get yourself home in this state.”

After some deliberation, it was decided that Sylvia would take her home and call someone for a ride back. It was a bit overkill--but she didn’t know what else to do.

“And can you make sure Draco has a ride home today?” Y/N asked as they pulled into the driveway of the Y/L/N home. 

“Stop stressing so much, dude.” Sylvia took the keys out of the ignition to give her an expectant look. “You’re sick. Go inside and make some soup or something. I’m sure your boyfriend will figure it out.”

“Now I really am gonna be sick,” said Y/N as she rolled her eyes. 

The rest of her afternoon was a blur. Y/N tried to force down some chicken soup, but it took all her might to keep it from coming right back up. It was safe to say her appetite was gone. 

After a failed attempt at walking up the stairs to crawl into bed, she collapsed onto the couch. The last thing she remembered was the sound of footsteps outside the front door.

~

Y/N hadn’t been to the hospital since she had to get stitches in middle school. Then, all she did was lie back in the chair and try to shut her eyes as the needle wove in and out of her torn thigh (bad bike accident, in case anyone was curious). But now was different. 

Her eyes hurt to open, like someone had thrown soap in them and the very line where her two lids met were lined with knives. Everything inside of her was on fire--a manic, all-consuming fire that made it impossible for her to keep anything down. 

The nurses and doctors were no help--not like Y/N actually had her eyes long enough to see any of them--but their voices were enough to let her know what was going on.

“Fever of 104--”

“Can’t keep anything down--”

“Severely dehydrated--”

“Tested negative for everything we tried--”

“Never seen anything like this before--”

“No viruses were detected--”

“Not mono--”

As she wove in and out of consciousness, one fact stuck in her mind: I think I might die here. Something is very wrong.

 When she did dream, images of the box she picked up plagued her mind. The symbol, etched lightly into the black top, glowed menacingly in her hands. Open it, open it something around her urged, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t.

It was during one of these dreams that her world suddenly shifted back to her hospital room. She was suspended above her body, looking down at the tangle of IVs and various other wires that imprisoned her...but she wasn’t alone.

The dim lighting and darkness outside confirmed her suspicion that it was indeed late at night. A figure, tall and slim, was sitting to her left. It was whispering something unintelligible as it gently took her hand and squeezed.

If Y/N could scream, she would’ve. The sudden pull back to her body was so strong that she was yanked across the room so she just barely hovered over her corporeal form. She could feel a grip, steady and firm, wrapped around her hand as a rush of cool ran through her. Each breath, each pulse, each heartbeat pulled her back to herself. It felt like a bucket of water had been poured over--into--her, extinguishing the flames that were eating away the inside of her.  

The figure’s whispering finally came to an end as she settled back into her physical body. Before she drifted off to a peaceful slumber, a familiar voice rose above the quiet whispers.

“I’m sorry.”

~

“Y/N!”

Her eyes shot open to see her mother, heavy eye bags and all, standing over her bed. “Hi Mo-”

“You scared me half to death!” Mrs. Y/L/N interrupted, placing her hand on her forehead. “No fever. Thank god. You know, when you were a baby, you were horribly ill with…”

Y/N sat and pretended she was listening as she relinquished in the fact that she was awake, she was here. The fire inside of her was long gone, replaced with the familiar...whatever was there before. Nothing? Maybe. Nothing was good, or at least better than the painful fire. It struck her with a sudden urgency that she had no idea what day it was, much less time. What about her homework? What about her UChicago application? Her counselor was supposed to submit her letter of rec a week ago...or a week ago from whenever she was brought to the hospital.

“Honey, are you even listening?” 

“Uh, yeah,” she said. 

“That’s what I thought. The food here is horrendous--of course you’re excited to go home.” Mrs. Y/L/N took her glasses off to wipe at the lens in a gesture that seemed more habitual and less effective. “You poor thing. Your father is still in New York--John simply couldn’t have him leave--but he’ll be back as soon as he can. Let’s get you out of here.”

The next few hours were a strange blur of paperwork, changes of clothes, and a bag of medication. The nurses and doctors were bewildered at her miraculous recovery and expressed this at every chance they had on her way out, reminding her to immediately seek attention if she feels anything similar again.

“What day is it?” Y/N finally asked once they were on the way home. 

“Wow, you really were out of it.” Mrs. Y/L/N flicked her blinker on as she merged onto the freeway. “Sunday. You were there almost a whole week.”

“Huh? What about school? Do my teachers know? How did Draco get to school? Is he ok?”

“Of course your teachers know, hun. They’re all being very forgiving with their late work policies. As long as you’re putting effort into learning the material you missed, they have no problem letting you skip out on the homework. As for Draco...I think he’s fine. Sylvia’s family took him under their wing for the week. He’s still alive.”

And such a statement was proven when Y/N walked through the front door. Draco shot up from his seat at the living room couch the moment they locked eyes, his hands wringing back and forth.

“You’re okay.”

“You’re okay too,” she responded airily. “When I wasn’t dying I was worrying myself about how you’d do without me. I see my fears of you walking into moving traffic didn’t come true, thank God.”

His lips, tight, offered her the slightest upturn. 

“Y/N, dearie, no need to harass the boy,” her mother said. “Up to your room. I’ll bring you some soup in a moment. You need to rest, young lady.”

She sent one last teasing grin at Draco before she was ushered up the steps, her mother fussing over her the entire way. 

~

“So,” Sylvia said, crossing her legs over the other and giving Y/N a wicked look, “Consider this your last formal invitation to my Halloween party. It’s this Friday. It’s not even the night before the ED deadline. You should go.”

“I don’t know, Vy,” said Y/N. Her art history notes lay untouched in front of her as the teacher droned on about something related to how mannerism as an art style came to fame during the...Reformation? She didn’t know. “I’m kind of tired. I feel bad about leaving Draco alone, too.”

“Dude.”

“What?”

Sylvia rolled her eyes. “Will you just do us all a favor and admit that you like him? It’s getting exhausting. Just ask him to come with you.”

“You’re absolutely off your rocker if you think I’m gonna do that,” Y/N said. 

“I’m just saying, you’ve done weirder things. Like almost dying from...literally nothing.”

“Hey, hey, don’t be rude. I’ll think about it but no guarantees. I don’t really think Draco is the partying type, though.”

“I’d be careful about making such a wild assumption. You never know what goes on in those posh private British schools for rich kids or wherever he went.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

Her friend laughed. “No. Just an optimist.”

Y/N swung the sleeve of her cardigan at her, whacking her pretty good on the bicep. If Sylvia was bothered by it, she didn’t show it. “Fine. I’ll ask him as a friend.”

“Pansy.”

~

Y/N was never the type to enjoy background noise as she worked, but there was something nostalgic about hearing the identical voices of her local news anchors in the room over as she sat at the kitchen table and worked on a last minute Physics review set. 

“Hey loser,” she called out as she saw a head of blond hair pass by her to get to the kettle. “Care to join me?” 

Draco turned, his mouth open and ready to issue a retort before he appeared to change his mind. He’d been oddly distant lately, avoiding her in the common spaces they often saw each other and choosing to get breakfast and his evening tea at times that he knew she wouldn’t be down in the kitchen for. Perhaps that was the reason why she was sitting at the kitchen table at present, but of course she’d never admit that. Not even to herself. 

“Can’t. I’m a bit busy with work.”

“Draco,” she chided. “What work is it? I can help you, you know.” 

He paused for a few seconds, taking in the scatter of papers on the table and the nearly complete review sheet. “The Physics review is taking me a bit of time,” he said, his tone forced and resigned.

“Go grab it!” She grinned as his scowl deepened. “If you’re nice I’ll let you copy.”

She lost track of time as they went over his work, his pencil marks filling the page with symbols that were unfamiliar to her.

“Your handwriting is really nice,” she noted. “Like, so nice that I feel like you could really make it as a study youtuber or a study blogger or whatever. You have that potential if you want to tap into it, dude.”

“I have no idea what that is,” he said neatly as he punched an equation into her calculator. 

“Fair.”

She sat still for a few more moments, watching as her study partner’s chest rose and fell with each breath he took. Sylvia’s Halloween party was just a few days away, and she needed to ask him at some point. Every time she mustered up the courage to open her mouth and hitch her breath, the words would die on her tongue. 

The silence weighed heavy in the air as the words of the news anchors floated over…”multiple reports of an armed robbery….suburbs surrounding Cincinnati...cautioned to lock doors...potential link to the missing persons case…”

“Draco,” she said finally. He jolted up from his work to gaze at her. His eyes were probably the prettiest things she’d ever seen--all pale and metallic and silvery. “Uh, I’m going to this Halloween party this Friday. You should come with me, it sounds like it’ll be fun. I think that Heather will be there.”

Y/N mentally groaned at her admission to Heather’s attendance but didn’t know what else to say. She wanted him to come--even if it was so he could spend the whole time being woo-ed over by her.

“Er,” he began, twirling his pencil around his fingers. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea. Homework, you know.”

“Just finish it before--That’s what I’m doing.”

“I think I’m go--”

The slam of the front door made both of them jump, scattering Y/N’s long forgotten work and threatening to knock Draco’s mug over.

“Hi kids,” Mrs. Y/L/N greeted as she entered the kitchen, an armful of grocery bags in tow. “Studying?” 

“Yeah,” Y/N answered. “By the way, Mom, Sylvia invited me over to her house on Friday for a sort of Halloween get together. Can I go?”

Her mother was silent for a few moments as she methodically unpacked the paper bags on the counter. 

“I don’t see why not. Is Draco coming too?”

“No,” he replied before Y/N even had the chance to open her mouth.

“I don’t think you should be home alone at night, my dear,” said her mother. “Have you seen the news? There’s someone on the loose. I’d feel much better if you were with Y/N--Robert and I are going to an auction that night. We won’t be around.”

“I’ll be fi--”

“If Y/N is going, you’re going,” Mrs. Y/L/N said as she finished unloading and brushed her hands off on her thighs. Her no nonsense demeanor rarely showed itself, but when it did, she was difficult to argue with. 

Y/N shrunk down in her seat as Draco sent her a sour look. 

Sorry she mouthed. If he noticed, he didn’t show it.

~ 

“Remind me again why we’re walking?” 

Draco’s snotty tone carried through the crisp fall air as they neared the street that Sylvia lived on. 

“Because,” said Y/N, “Quite frankly, I don’t think I can get through being in an enclosed space with Heather for an entire night without being at least a little buzzed. And I’m not gonna have you drive us home.”

“Hmph.” His dress shoes, odd pointed tips and all, kicked at the fall leaves below them. His costume was literally nothing different than what he wore when he arrived--a crisp white dress shirt, an oddly cut blazer, and a weird looking green and silver pin attached to his lapel. 

“If anyone asks,” she had told him from the hallway as they were getting ready to go that afternoon, “Just say you’re a corporate rat or something.” 

He’d snorted at her choice of clothing--a completely dark brown set up with a picture of a shoe taped to her chest. 

“I’m the shoe that that Iraqi reporter threw at Bush,” she had explained. 

He just stared.

“If you aren’t having fun, please just let me know,” Y/N said as they turned one of the last corners. “We can tell her our fish died or something. Sylvia would totally understand.”

“We don’t have a fish.”

“I know, genius,” she teased, giving him a little punch. Instead of balking, he just crinkled his nose. “But she doesn’t.”

“I think she does.”

“You’re missing the point. You’ll tell me if you want to go back home, promise?”

“I want to go home.”

“You’re going to be the death of me.” 

He grinned as they waited for Sylvia to open the door. 

The next few hours were a bit of a blur. Y/N didn’t drink much at first--maybe the equivalent of 2 or 3 shots, spaced out in between a couple of sips of water--but the energy in Sylvia’s home definitely had her more buzzed than usual. There was something about her home that always felt twice as spooky, a type of underlying energy that pulsed at the seams. 

To her surprise, Draco actually took a cup of whatever Sylvia offered him and downed it. She laughed when she saw him finally lower the cup as he furrowed his brow at her.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

His features looked softer in the dim lighting of Sylvia’s living room--all the tension that he carried in his shoulders and face seemed to be gone. When he smiled at her, it was all she could do to keep herself from disintegrating into the couch.

As the night wore on, Y/N felt herself getting progressively more tipsy, and, in her haze, she could see that Draco was going down a similar path. He was touchier than she would have expected--hanging onto her elbow or sleeve whenever Sylvia or Y/N said anything funny, not moving his leg when her thigh was pressed against his, stretching his arm out behind her and resting it on the back of the couch--and she found herself wishing she was sober enough for it to feel real. Maybe she was so drunk that she was imagining it all. Maybe she was actually asleep next to her toilet at home after throwing it all up and was just dreaming. 

“Fuck!” Someone exclaimed, prompting her to look up. Abby, a girl she kind of knew from her grade, had spilled the entirety of her drink on the coffee table.

“Y/N,” Sylvia whined, “I’m too tired to get the paper towels. Will you and Draco go?” 

Despite the half-hearted protests from Draco, she managed to haul him up by his arm as she pushed back the pleasure that Sylvia saw them as a sort of team, a sort of unit.

“I think she keeps the extra paper towels in her pantry,” she told him as they made their way over to the quiet part of the house. The light hanging over the kitchen island was on, but the rest of the room was bathed in darkness. 

“Right he--”

Y/N froze as she saw it--or, as she would come to discover, them. 

Heather and Chad stared back at them, looking much more disheveled than one is permitted simply sitting on the kitchen counter. It was hard to make it out clearly, but Heather’s cheeks looked flushed. Chad’s matched.

“In a fucking kitchen? Chad, I thought you were better than this,” Y/N said, turning and grabbing the paper towels from the cabinet behind them. “Get a room, you weirdos.”

Chad laughed, a short lived and awkward sound. 

Once they were back out in the living room, Y/N tossed the paper towels to Sylvia. “I think we’re gonna head back. We have to walk, you know.”

Sylvia dramatically threw herself back onto the couch. “I suppose. Thanks for coming guys, it was nice to see you outside of class again.”

“Likewise!” Y/N called over her shoulder as she walked out of the door with Draco by her side.

The walk home was silent for the first few moments. Despite the fact that it was late October, the night was pleasantly crisp and not too cold. The only sources of illumination were the scattered street lights, casting a soft orange hue on the two.

As they turn the corner onto the main street, Y/N’s shoe caught on a crack in the pavement in a movement that would’ve sent her sprawling face-first into the cold concrete if it hadn’t been for Draco’s hand grabbing her own and yanking her back up.

“Thanks,” she said. His hands were warmer than usual despite the coolness of the air.

He just sent her a small smile as he untangled their fingers and placed his hand back into his pants pockets.

“Weird to see Chad and Heather, right?” Y/N nudged him with her shoulder. To her surprise, he nudged back.

“I guess. I thought it was obvious, though.”

“What?! No way.”

“Are you blind? Heather’s been all over Chad,” he said.

“Are you? I thought she was obsessed with you!” 

“No, definitely not.”

“Are you sure about that?” she asked, turning to look at him. The dim glow of the streetlights made his hair look almost like a halo. “She wouldn’t leave you alone.”

“Dunno.” Draco shrugged. It was then that Y/N remembered how much he’d had that night.

“I’m sorry. I know you’re probably not in the right mindset to be analyzing other people right now,” said Y/N. 

His lips twitched upwards. “No, no, it’s ok. I’m fine. I just couldn’t be bothered over the whole ordeal. Entirely uninspiring, I think.”

“You’re such a nerd, even when you’re drunk,” teased Y/N. “It’s honestly a wonder that you spent the first month near failing physics.”

“Sod off.” He nudged her again, hard enough to make her sway. “You’re the one who’s still an insufferable smartass. I figured drinking would make you more tolerable.”

“Don’t be a dick,” she muttered as she shoved him back. “You know you love me.”

He froze in the middle of his retaliatory shove, his hand rested on her forearm.

“Sarcasm, king,” said Y/N. “I don’t mean it. I wouldn’t blame you if I were right, though. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’m quite the commodity.” 

“Oh, yes, most certainly.” His tone was dripping in faux genuity as he gave her a gentle push. 

As he was doing this, Y/N grabbed the offending arm and took him down with her, landing in the soft garden bush in poor Ms. McCoyle’s front yard.

“Gotcha!” she cheered as he frowned from his spot on top of her. It took all her might to ignore the fact that his face was inches away. “It’s just my smart physics brain at work.”

 “Your neighbor is gonna kill us.”

“She can try.” 

Draco sat up, grabbing her hand and hauling her to her feet. She took the opportunity to hang onto the sleeve of his coat as a sneaking suspicion overtook her that things wouldn’t be like this again without the clever excuse of intoxication. 

“What’s that?”

“What’s what?”

Y/N let go of his sleeve to look up at his face in confusion. She followed his eyes, suddenly hardened with an emotion she couldn’t quite place, to their house at the end of the street.

“You shut the door behind us, right?” Draco asked.

“And locked it.”

Their front door, hanging wide open and swinging in the breeze, told a different story.

~ 

Sobering up was easy once the police sirens showed up and searched their house. Y/N could tell the responding sheriff knew they’d been drinking, but since they weren’t driving and were speaking clearly, he didn’t mention anything.

“We’ve searched the house,” he told them as they sat together outside on the curb. “It looks like it fits the profile of the other armed burglaries in the area, but nothing was taken this time. The bedroom that looks out into the garden is completely trashed--it seems like the suspect was looking through your things for something. The bedroom across the hall was displaced a bit, but nothing compared to the first.” He took another look at his notes, adjusting the thick rimmed glasses that were perched on his nose. “You kids are lucky. Whoever this is means business. There’s unfortunately not much we can do except set up a patrol to watch over the street for now. Please give us a call if you see anything or hear anything.”

They nodded. Y/N had placed a call to their parents while they waited a safe distance from the home for the police to arrive. She’d been shaking as she pressed their number into her phone, and Draco, to his credit, rested his hand on her thigh.

“We’ll be fine,” he’d said before retracting it. “Don’t worry.”

Draco seemed considerably calm for someone experiencing a home break in in a foreign country as they made their way into the house. The first responders had left the lights on, and the wash of LED bulbs did nothing to hide the disturbance of her bedroom. Everything of hers was thrown into the middle of the room from her drawers, closet, and dresser. Her laptop, open and plugged in, was left completely untouched.

“Draco,” she said, “Can I ask you something?”

“Depends, what is it?” 

Y/N noted that he was getting considerably paler as they stood in her doorway. “I don’t think I can sleep here. Knowing what happened. Especially when it’s still a disaster.”

“Understandable.”

His features looked hardened again, like he’d gone through a filter of seriousness. She decided that this was probably her last chance to ask for any act of intimacy before the effects of alcohol dissipated in his system. “And I don’t want to sleep alone.”

“Er...Oh.” He stared at her. “What?”

“I know that this is really awkward, but can I, like, sleep on your floor or something? Just for tonight.” When she swallowed her throat felt painfully dry. “I don’t snore or anything. It’ll be like I’m not even there.”

Draco sucked in a long breath, casting his eyes up to the ceiling. Y/N wished she knew what he was thinking about. “Yeah. That’s fine.”

“Thank you thank you thank you,” she sang, darting into her room to grab a blanket and a pillow as he watched wordlessly by the doorframe.

The walk to his room was dead silent except for their sounds of shock when they saw the broken glass in the middle of the floor. 

“I think that was from the picture frame,” Y/N said as she carefully walked into the middle of the room. Sure enough, a framed photo of her and their late dog that had been left on the wall was face down on the carpet. 

“Is this when you ask me to sleep in my bed, too?” quipped Draco as he sidestepped the wreckage and sat on the opposite side of the queen mattress.

“Um...we can make a pillow barrier so we don’t touch.”

He rolled his eyes and tossed his blazer over his chair as he took off his shoes and buttonup, leaving nothing but his undershirt and dress pants. “I’m going to get changed. If you’re asleep before I get back, this is me saying goodnight.”

With that, he grabbed something from his dresser and walked into his bathroom, Y/N ripped off the picture of the shoe and placed her phone on the bedside table. Before she knew it, she was completely passed out.

~ 

It was barely dawn when she next woke up. Her head was heavy--no doubt the beginnings of a hangover--but she’d never felt more electrified.

A small huff prompted her to look to her left where Draco was just a few movements away from her. He was very clearly still sleeping, each breath leaving his lips with a whisper. His hand, draped over the covers, was millimeters away from touching her. The pink of the sunrise made his hair, now ruffled and sticking up in the side, glitter in the light. She resisted the urge to reach out and brush it away from his face.

Y/N lay there, admiring the boy sleeping next to her, until the urgency of her situation struck her. She was absolutely parched, and if she wanted to mitigate the damage she’d already done, it was in her best interest to drink a glass of water and take 4 Ibuprofen. 

With a sigh, she quietly slid out from under Draco’s covers and made her way to her room, careful to avoid the glass scattered all about. She knew she had a packet of Ibuprofen somewhere in one of her dresser drawers.

The pile in her room was bigger than she remembered. She began by just throwing her clothes that had been on the ground onto her bed, sorting through everything in rough categories. When this proved unhelpful, she turned to the mini pile by her door which, to her surprise, had a few sweatshirts that definitely weren’t hers.

Draco she thought absentmindedly as she combed through the pile. Aha. A small green pouch, just like the one she kept her over the counter medications in.

Her hands struggled to undo the tie--Did she normally knot it like that?--as she admired the lining. She never noticed that the edges had silver thread stitched in. 

Once she finally opened it up, she grabbed her water bottle and prepared to be faced with a variety of pill bottles as she tipped it over; however, what came out was very different.

A collection of letters. Namely, Draco’s. She knew it was wrong, but he was sleeping, and every letter looked official, stamped with a seal and etched with some sort of crest. They couldn’t have been that personal.

After a bit of bargaining, she decided to open one. If it was personal, she made the deal with herself to put it away and never speak of it again. 

The parchment was heavy and clearly expensive. Her hands were shaking as she unfolded the first one, feeling guilty the whole way.

Foreign words flooded her vision. It wasn’t like the letter was written in a foreign language--but there were so many terms she didn’t understand. 

Death eater...Voldemort...Crimes against the ministry...Conspiracy against Dumbledore...Hogwarts-sanctioned punishment...

She read on until a word popped out that made sense--Magic. And there it was again--Magic. Wizard. Magic.

Swallowing hard, she shoved the letter back into the envelope and opened one more. This one was much more coherent.

“Dear Mr. Draco Lucius Malfoy of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy:

       It has been made apparent to us that, while serving the punishment of your accused crimes, you have unlawfully used magic (namely, a Glamour spell) in front of a muggle. Consider this to be your first strong warning. One more slip up and the Ministry will be forced to reconsider your dropped sentence of Azkaban.

Sincerely and warmly,

The Ministry of Magic -- Justice Sector”

What. What the fuck. What the fuck.

Her racing mind was put to a screeching halt at the sound of someone clearing their throat behind her. 

[oikaw-ugh]

HI told u im gonna req smth 👀 may i request headcanons of oikawa, bokuto, and tsukki catching their crush (or s/o, u choose!!) sing and play their guitar in secret? 💞 no pressure 😗 thank you very much!!! -🥧 (i think u'll know who's this tho HASHAAHA)

+ omg forgot to mention: i chose them since they're kinda the expressive/teasing type so if that interaction happens with the reader that would be LOVELY 💞 THANK U AGAIN -🥧

OMG WHO IS THIS 👁️👄👁️ I'M KIDDING AND YES I DEFINITELY KNOW YOU UWU 🥺✨

Oikawa, Bokuto, and Tsukki catching their s/o sing and play their guitar in secret.

God knows how much I love to write but I CRINGED WITH THE OVERFLOWING KILIG 'CAUSE SOMEONE REQUESTED (AGAIN) AND I'M EXPLODING!

I'm actually very nervous right now but anxiousness and procrastination is my profession so 👁️👄👁️

Oikawa Tooru

Ah, my first love.

Oikawa, after his volleyball practice, went to your classroom to fetch you since you didn't really like watching his practices and matches with all the fangirls around 👀

Usually, group of students tend to stay at their classrooms after class to finish stuff or just to chill (so me) so most likely, you’re never alone.

So Oikawa is surprised upon arriving at your room only to see you all alone as you sit on the teacher's table with this guitar on your lap.

You actually brought your guitar for a group performance in a subject (JHS feels ✨)

"Ikaw ang Binibini na ninanais ko" kidding. You definitely sang an english love song not that HAHAHAHAHA (sorry LSS)

He didn't announce his arrival, you know? He hid his self at the doorway, staring at you (like a stalker-) as you drown yourself with your guitar and your voice.

Listening to you was 👌 so good and before you knew it, you earned yourself a fan.

Silently, he took his phone and was aiming to record your guitar session.

But lmao Tooru had the flash on his cam on

Surprised, you looked at the doorway, only to see your boyfriend peeping like a creep.

"Tooru, what are you doing?"

"I was trying to record you." 👁️👄👁️

The fact that your boyfriend saw you playing the guitar and singing made you blush. You placed your guitar on the table-

"No! No! No! Don't stop, Y/N!" Oikawa stops you as he runs towards you.

"But it's embrassing"

Now he's mad at you. He glues his hands in his hips like a mother, "Non-sense! You're so good, you can pass as an artist!"

That makes you more embarrassed honestly but he keeps on showering you praises to the point that you can no longer tell if they were real or just bluff.

He will definitely bug you to continue playing your guitar even though you made excuses but he's not buying them.

"Play this song!" "Do you know this song?" "Play this song next!" He says that while his phone is recording you.

In the end, it became a live performance of you and Oikawa as your audience. He has this grin in his face as he rests his chin in his palms, the other hand holding his phone, looking as if he is being lulled with your voice and your guitar.

After he's finally had enough of listening to you, he'd give you a tight hug after you zipped up your guitar case. Kissing the top of your head, he'd shower you praises again as if the praises earlier weren't enough.

"You're so good, Y/N, you should've told me you can sing and play the guitar." "I'm gonna brag about this to Iwa-chan and the rest tomorrow." "Can I post your video at my IG?"

Bokuto Koutarou

Another first love

Singing and playing the guitar are hobbies you don't really share with other people.

But when your classmate brought their guitar to school, you couldn't help but to give in to the urge to borrow.

Your classmates were totally in awe as they hear you sing and play. This makes you feel so flustered but sistz, we stan an individual who shows the world their talent! 🥺✨

Anyways, it has became a ritual for you and your boyfriend, Bokuto, to eat lunch together at your room. Most of your classmates eat at the cafeteria and Bokuto hated the thought of you eating alone so...

Waiting for Bokuto to arrive, you took your classmates' guitar and started to get familiar with it by playing simple chords and humming in to a familiar song.

"Oh, Binibini, just touch my body" kidding(2) you're singing a love song.

Getting in to it, you kind of forgot that you were in your classroom and not in your room. So the moment you heard Bokuto's energetic scream, you felt your soul try to astral project.

"Y/N! You actually play the guitar?!" Bokuto screamed as he ran towards you.

"Yes, Ko-"

"PLAY A SONG!"

"But, Ko-".

"PLAY THIS SONG! PLAY THIS SONG!"

In the end, you couldn't help but to give in, especially with how persistent Bokuto is. You started playing the chords of a familiar song.

"Sa 'yo lang ako babayo" HAHAHAHA JOKE LANG. AKOLANGBANANDIDIRISAKANTANGTO?

You couldn't see it but Bokuto is in awe with how beautiful you sang and how good you were at playing your guitar.

He falls silent as he takes the empty chair beside yours, scooting as close as he could next to you so he can hear your voice clearer.

"Ko?" You asked him when you stopped playing and yet his wide eyes are still staring at you.

The heaven knows how Bokuto was so close to switching to his emo mode when you no longer sang. But in the end, he thought of an InCrEdIbLe idea:

"Y/N, I think you should be the one playing at our wedding." 👁️👄👁️

Now this makes you laugh as you blush with his sudden suggestion.

He insists you sing another song but you reprimanded by saying you two haven't eaten your lunches yet. He had his arguments set but in the end you won.

Or so you thought. Because the moment you two started eating, he didn't stop asking you questions about this new discovery of his.

"When did you start playing and singing?" "Who taught you to sing and play?" "Do you love it?" "Do you have fun?"

"Why do you have the voice of an angel?"

Even when you two headed out of your room to buy yourselves some drinks, he still was asking you and giving you ridiculously cute ridiculous ideas.

"You should play during our matches next time!"

"But, Ko, that would be in the gym and it would be too loud for you to hear."

"I'll make the crowd stop cheering for me!"

Tsukishima Kei

This salty boy is a bully. Periodt.

So when he went to your place upon receiving your text and caught you strumming your guitar, instead of expressing his shock, he'd mock you instead.

"Eh? You know how to play that?"

You abruptly look at your doorstep only to see Tsukishima leaning lazily on the frame, his arms crossed.

You stopped from strumming and you placed your guitar on your side.

Now Tsukki scrunches his nose, "Why stop? Afraid to show me how bad you are?" He teases.

It's one of his strategic ways of making you do it without him having to confess that he wanted to hear more.

You rolled your eyes as you took your guitar again, willing to prove Tsukki's wordsare wrong. You strummed your guitar and started singing:

"Inisip ko kung bakit ganito ang langit, nilayo ako sa 'yo" (JEJEMON DAYS UGH) JOKE THAT'S NOT WHAT YOU'RE SINGING. YOU'RE PROLLY SINGING AN INDIE SONG OR WHAT.

Immersing yourself on your guitar as you sing, you didn't even notice how Tsukki is already on the floor, his legs crossed, head lazily leaning on his palms as he tries to look unimpressed.

He wanted to take a video so bad but he's already made an impression that he hates it and he's not letting his pride go down so he enjoys you perform instead, casually wobbling your head with the beat, finding your voice perfect with the song.

He was so into your voice he didn't even notice you already stopped, with a teasing grin in your lips as you look down on him.

Tsukki: 👁️👄👁️ (I'm sorry for excessively using this emoji I just love it, it's such a mood)

"So? How was it?" You asked.

Tsukki looks away, hiding his blushing ears, "Fine. Fine for a beginner." He said that sarcastically but you knew better.

You were about to get rid of your guitar for real this time when he stopped you.

"Play..." He said, barely audible.

"Huh?" You.

"Play it one more time," he says, fishing for his phone, "I want to record it."

You blushed. Tsukki must've noticed how you got flustered with his words 'cause he has casts this offending look in his face again.

"I'll...record how bad you are, dummy."

[gayenerd]

The Band You Love To Hate By Tom Lanham of RIP  (There’s no date on this but I would say 1995 or 1996?)

Eyes wide as a barn owl's. Spines stiff with anticipation, like a hungry scorpion. The two teenage girls sit stock-still in their booth at a posh Berkeley diner, practically bursting with excitement, but without the faintest clue how to handles it. Clueless, you might call them. A few feet across the linoleum aisle--with his back to them, oblivious to all the oh-my-gawd facial expressions--sits the object of their adulation, dressed in unassuming black jeans, black T-shirt, shredded black Converse, and a beat-up black baseball jacket. But even with his once-green dreadlocks tamed to a short black business cut, Billie Joe Armstrong--yes, the snaggle-toothed MTV ragamuffin from megaplatinum neo-punkers, Green Day--is as easy to spot as Michael Bolton at a Rogaine convention. Although the kids want to leap up from their seats and race over for an autograph or a jittery hello, they don't dare. Instead, they're forced to deal with their seething emotions as if they were eating post-tonsillectomy ice cream: a lot of numb gulping and a quick pain chaser. This is the blessing of being Billie Joe Armstrong. Alas, it's also his curse. By the time you read this, the irascible little rocker will have turned 24. And exactly two years ago, he and his wacky bandmates--drummer Tré Cool and bassist Mike Dirnt--lolled around the trashy basement flat they shared, getting stoned and sneering at the idea that Dookie--their just-released "sellout" on big-time Reprise--would ever amount to more than a nice drink coaster. Fame? They were more preoccupied with their bong collection, stacks of rock 'n' roll bubblegum cards, and a thriving sea monkey tank displayed prominently on a window-sill. Most of their furniture had springs poking through--they didn't care. Armstrong regularly picked boogers from his gold-ringed nostril and then flick them onto the scary shag carpet--what did he have to worry about? Too bad he couldn't have foreseen the all-too-near future. Green Day happened to be in the right place at the right time. The three-chord slam-a-rama Dookie--a pop-edged return to decade-old punk ethics--became the surprise hit of '94, going on to sell over 11 million copies. Armstrong, accustomed to frenetic club performances, began translating the group's infectious energy to larger and larger venues. Demand continued to grow at a staggering pace; Green Day fought back. They turned a satellite MTV Video Awards performance into a "spit-cam" fest by urging the crowd to gob any camera lens it could ("[The cameramen] tried to make it look like it was cool, but it wasn't"). Last October, Armstrong and company issued their 32-minute follow up, Insomniac, almost as an afterthought, with little promotion, a visually offensive video (for "Geek Stink Breath") and--at least initially--a strict no-interview policy. Simultaneously, they ditched their high-powered Cahn-Man management team and are now virtually managing themselves. Along the way, Armstrong married his long-time sweetheart Adrienne and last March fathered a son, Joey. In typical down-to-earth fashion, the couple spent their honeymoon a few blocks from home at Berkeley's prestigious Claremont Hotel, not on some exotic island. Beginning to see the problem here? How does a street-smart kid from humble beginnings skyrocket to world-class notoriety and yet--with his music in millions of homes and his privacy suddenly a right that needs defending--still adhere to the simple ideals, the simple lifestyle that spawned him? Is "successful punk" an oxymoron? Insomniac provided few clues--it was more of the same slacker-ennui sentiment, more defeated, disenfranchised grousing set to speedy, memorable hooks. Or, as Armstrong barks in the aptly-dubbed "Walking Contradiction," "My wallet's fat and so is my head...I'm a victim of a Catch-22." And that, in essence, was the topic this tortured artist wanted to discuss at the diner. The old "be careful what you wish for" adage. The classic "problem with success is finding someone to enjoy it with you" truism. Armstrong, who takes occasional sips from a vanilla milkshake, but mostly stares morosely at the floor, seems to be dealing with superstardom in a relatively normal way. Don't be fooled by the steady stream of negative vitriol that follows; he's analyzing it, breaking it down, figuring out ways to disconnect his kinetic career. Or at least turn down the volume for awhile. 

RIP: We know what's going right. But what's going wrong? 

BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG: Lots of things, really. Actually, when I came here today, I said I didn't wanna talk about anything good, because I don't really have anything good to talk about. Goin' on tour pretty soon--don't really wanna go. Just because I've been kinda torn. I wanna stick around at home. I don't like playing arenas, and I realized I didn't know what I was getting myself into on the last tour, but I went into it being positive and getting excited about it. But I didn't realize that I was the kind of person to whom it's too much of an event and not really a personal thing anymore. And I started to realize how much I liked being the background music to this scene at the club. And now it's.... I dunno. People expect so much. It's cool and stuff, and it can be a lot of fun, a really good experience. But when you play that many arenas.... The first time we ever played those big kinds of shows at the Shoreline (Amphitheater in Mountain View, California), there was weirdness--we were playing for a lot of f?!kin' people. And I hate to say it, but sometimes it just feels like another gig. We played every day, 50 gigs this last leg, and it just wears on ya. There's all these people, and they think "Alright. I paid my $15--you better impress the f?!kin' shit outta me right now!" And I realized that for Joey, the rock and roll touring life is not a good atmosphere for a kid. I tried to make it to where it would be, bringing lots of his toys out. But there are no familiar surroundings for him. And he likes all the attention--people come up and say hello to him every day, people who are on tour with us. But he doesn't have his own room or a home to go to every day. So, no more touring for Joey. 

RIP: Turned on Regis and Kathie Lee this morning to find their gossip columnist dishing dirt on Green Day. How Insomniac didn't do nearly as well as predicted, how it was a disappointment to the label. A failure, supposedly. 

BJA: Well, it's like, we didn't set up this record. We didn't. We didn't do any promotion beforehand, we completely quit doing interviews, and basically we just wanted to go on into it. We weren't even sure if we wanted to do a video. And then when we did a video, it got yanked from daytime rotation because people were getting grossed-out by it. So I think we did alienate a lot of people. So that was expected, that it wasn't going to sell a lot of records. 

RIP: NOFX have taken it one step further. They refuse to talk to press, make videos, pander potential singles to radio. They don't want to get any bigger. 

BJA: I dunno, maybe I'm just getting jaded or something. But I just got cable again and I can't stand anything. Six years ago you could hear something that was different and know that it was different. So it'd be "alternative" or whatever. But now it's like you get this Joan...Osborne? With the ring in her nose, waving the alternative rock flag, when she's just...not, ya know? And I'm thinking, I hate all this music that's coming out now--the past year was just hell for music. But people are buying it, so then I'm thinking, Maybe they're the ones that are good and I'm the one who sucks? I just don't know if I really wanna be involved in the rock world anymore at all. Period. I don't necessarily have anything against a big record company or people who what to join up with a big record company. It really is right for some people, but more and more, I don't think that I'm really meant to. And I hate to sound like that, because I don't like taking things for granted. I don't like to talk about my problems when there's some kid struggling in his garage somewhere saying "F?!k him! He's just taking it for granted. Shit, I wish I could do something like that, but I'm just stuck here in Biloxi, Mississippi, and I can't even get a gig." I'm so confused right now. 

RIP: It must be odd to know that, with all those millions of albums sold, drunken frat boys are probably staggering around to your music right now. Your audience grew far beyond your control. 

BJA: Oh, totally! We became what we hated. Which is, the people I despised in high school--and now--are buying our records. We initially became a trend, so there was no way I expected to sell as many records with Insomniac as with Dookie. That's one of the biggest-selling records of the decade. We get slagged by the punk rockers, and it's like, I don't blame them. If you draw that much attention to yourself, that's what you're gonna get--attention--and it's not personal anymore. 

RIP: Ever think about giving it all up? 

BJA: There isn't a day goes by in the past year and a half that I haven't thought about quitting. I went to this party on New Year's Eve, and this band Juke, and another band, the Tantrums, played in a friend of mine's backyard. And a lot of my old friends showed up, and everybody was just dancing. And I was dancing, and getting really muddy, and I was having a great time. I can't remember the last time I sat down and listened to a record from beginning to end and felt this incredible spine-chilling music. And it's because I haven't been able to go out and watch bands play at my free will. I'm not gonna live in a closet, I'm not gonna vegetate myself. 

RIP: But it has to be difficult, when tons of kids know your face. You're on your way to Michael Jackson-dom, where you have to wear a disguise in public. 

BJA: If you think about the Beatles, at that time all people had to go by were the photographs on the records and every now and then a television appearance. So when they'd come to town, people would just flip out--it became this huge public event every single time. Whereas now, everything is so saturated kids don't even have to leave their home to go to a show anymore. They can sit in the comfort of their living room, and your favorite rock star is gonna be entertaining you while you sit down and have your microwave burrito. 

RIP: The Milwaukee cops weren't pleased with aspects of Green Day's Milwaukee show last November. Why were you arrested? 

BJA: I dropped the pick and--actually, I even forgot about it--I just mooned the crowd, which is pretty harmless compared to what I've done before. And I wasn't even thinking about it--I just went out and started playing again. Then I went backstage and was hanging out with Adrienne, and this guy Jimmy who does security for us goes "Come on--there's a car waiting for you outside right now. You've gotta get out of here!" I said "What's wrong?" and he said he didn't even know. So we get in the car and all of a sudden about ten cops come walking over, fully surrounding the car. So the guy puts the cuffs on me, throws me in the car, and I get tossed in the holding tank for two, three hours. I wasn't in the bullpen--I was in with the other ones, the not-so-bad ones. They made me take all my jewelry out. And my shoestrings, so I wouldn't hang myself or something. I dunno. I just don't know how to fit into rock music anymore. I don't know what I like about it anymore. I don't like anything about it anymore, to tell you the truth. To tell you the real truth, I'm a pretty miserable person right now. I'm totally depressed, and my wife can vouch for that because she's around me. In fact, she's the only person who's really around me. I dunno, the whole thing with the mainstreaming of punk rock. I just feel lost in the whole thing...I don't really know...I don't wanna...I dunno...It's miserable, it really is. It's f?!ked up. 

RIP: For every original voice that comes along, there will be countless mad signing dashes for any and all sound-alike artists, with no thought given to the artist's longevity. Just throw the record out quickly and hope it sticks. 

BJA: The thing is, a lot of musicians have gotten so comfortable with this big so-called "Revolution in Rock Music" over the past decade. First it was like, "F?!k the corporations! F?!k the corporations!" And then people just sorta got cozy with that, and forgot that these bands are getting lost in the shuffle. And I'm talking about the ones that never get noticed at all and just get kinda bitter. The 15 minutes of fame is getting shorter and shorter. And now music is totally going backwards--the first half of this decade, there were a few things going on that were interesting. It wasn't my favorite kind of music, but it had a sensibility about it. If you think about Nirvana and Pearl Jam and that whole Seattle scene, and even the Offspring--there was this thing going on that was more honest, in a lot of ways. It wasn't like, beer, drugs and pussy, like what went on through the '80s with all the hair bands. But now what we've got is Hootie & the Blowfish.... 

RIP: Who are probably a lot like you. They seem like nice, regular guys who--through no real fault of their own--are suddenly assimilated into pop culture. 

BJA: Yeah, but that's the problem, is that they are nice regular guys. And they're totally comfortable with that, and they sort of put that out, to where they don't really have...I dunno, there's a certain amount of attitude that, say, someone like Cobain or Vedder has that they don't have. But it's becoming way not...real anymore or something. Maybe not real to me. It's just turning back into what it was in the '80s. It's like, "Hey, everyone! We're Huey Lewis and the News!" I dunno. Maybe nobody knows what the f?!k I'm talking about anymore. 

BJA: I get so irritated by people. I think I'm more bitter than I've ever been in my whole life, to tell you the honest truth. I think Insomniac is much more of a bitter record than Dookie. And I think the older people get, the more they kinda get angry. I think a lot of people feel like they get cheated by lief somehow--no-one is ever completely satisfied. There's maybe a few. But I mean, I'm in a place where I don't really wanna be. It's like, sometimes I feel like we're losing our passion for playing music. And that's the f?!ked-up thing, when you lose passion for what you love, then it's like, Is this marriage headed for divorce or what? 

RIP: Theoretically, you can fight back a couple of ways. Like Cobain, you could make a record almost calculated to offend all the bandwagon-jumpers. Or take as much time off as you'd like. Who says you can't go live on a desert island for two years? 

BJA: That'd be nice. I'm just not enjoying life right now. I'm really not. I'm so cluttered, I can't even speak. Yeah, I do feel like I'm getting old, and I'm kinda bitter about that. I'm not excited about being onstage anymore, and I was really trying to convince myself that I was. Really. Before we did this last U.S. tour, every time I did an interview--I don't know if you read the last Rolling Stone piece--I was like "Yeah! I'm excited! I wanna play these arenas!" and stuff. And then just every night, it started sucking, it felt like a routine or something. It felt almost choreographed in a lot of ways. And I was yelling "f?!k you!" to people, but I didn't know who I was yelling "f?!k you" to anymore. 

RIP: Last time we spoke, you said you went out of your way to change every single show, make each one different. 

BJA: Well, I think it's just the stress of getting up in front of all those people all the time, every day. It's like, "Do I really feel like downing another f?!cking pot of coffee and a bottle of wine before I walk onstage to do this again? Just to get myself ready to go?" You know, for all those people. And every night I always do something different and stupid. But at the same time, it'd be really cool to just say "F?!k you!" to people and like, walk off. And then they'd get it. It's like, "I'm really telling you to f?!k off this time! Time to pack up and go home." It'd just be so nice to start from scratch again. 

RIP: In many ways you can. That's the music-making system trying to program your behavior. And obviously you've broken quite a few rules already--you don't even have to be talking to me right now, actually.... 

BJA: Oh no. I really wanted to do this interview, just because the last interviews that I've done, I've been miserable, and I was pretending not to be. I really was, I was lying. Not to the reader, not to the person I was doing the interview. But I was lying to myself, convincing myself that I was really happy with how everything is going. 

RIP: So you always knew what you wanted, and now you've got it, in spades. You're having trouble figuring out what's next? 

BJA: I didn't even know what I wanted back then. I really didn't. I didn't know if I wanted to be huge, totally successful. I never knew that. I was struggling so hard even to sign that f?!king contract--when I was sitting there, I was contemplating, "Should I just run outta here right now? Am I making the biggest mistake of my life?" A lot of people say, "You're totally disillusioned with what money can do for people," but money never meant shit to me. There's something very passionate to me, very romantic, about living on the street in a lot of ways. Just because I really like my lifestyle back then. I was totally content, in retrospect. A lot of it has to do with the fame. I dunno, I'm trying to talk right now and just totally stuttering. 

RIP: It's not like you chose music--it chose you, and you can't help it. 

BJA: Yeah, it's cool when people really get it. But what a lot of people don't understand is that we're a band that's been around a lot longer than people know. And that's the thing. The difference between this and what happened between Kerplunk and Dookie--in a year, I got married, I had a kid, and I sold 11 million records worldwide. That can do something to ya, ya know? 

BJA: Sometimes I think it'd be cool to just hang out with my friends, drink beer, smoke cigarettes. The more I think about it, the more I'd be really happy with that. I don't think that we're feeling quite like a band anymore--that's one problem we have. There was this certain rock 'n' roll underdog think that we always had--we always drove for something, always drove from town to town in a small van. And you know, I f?!kin' like touring like that--it's like culture shock, really, driving around in a van, setting up my amp when I get there, and playing. That's rock 'n' roll, that's what it started out as. A bunch of sweaty pigs in some tiny f?!kin' bar having a hootenanny, that's what punk rock was to me, that's what drove me to it. I love rock music in its simples, rawest form. And I think we're the only band, really, that plays rock 'n' roll. 

RIP: Has all this put a strain on your old friendships? Do your pals treat you a little differently now? 

BJA: When I come up to friends I haven't talked to in a while, there's a weirdness. And the ones who are really close to me don't really bring up anything, but that thing is still there; it's still in the air. And sometimes I'll just not say anything the whole time we're hanging out. I'll be totally quiet, because the only thing I'll have to talk about is my band, and I get so sick of talking about my band and myself. So I'll just be quiet, since that's the only thing there is to me, except for my son and my wife. 

RIP: Pretty soon, you'll be boring everyone with slide shows--"There we are at Yosemite!" 

BJA: Ha! Adrienne was telling me the other day, "When you were in there dancing with all your friends, while the band was playing, you were so happy because you were so in your element." And I've even gone as far as saying we're not a punk band anymore. But no matter what, that's still gonna stick with me forever, because I love the music, I love the energy of a new band coming out that creates this sense of urgency about 'em. I'll never be able to kick that habit. I love hangin' out with my friends who have small fanzines--kids just writing their guts out about whatever the hell's bothering 'em, and putting it on a Xerox machine and then handing it out for a quarter apiece at shows or at a party. All I wanna do is just try and work it out. I was sitting there the other day, counting all the records that the Replacements put out, stuff like that, Dan thinking how [Paul] Westerberg totally came across to his audience and did everything, everything that the wanted to do in music. He wasn't extremely successful for it, but the guy has influenced people, and a lot of 'em don't even know that they are influenced by him. All I wanna do is just write good songs and stick to it. I wanna develop--not being experimental--but go into different styles, go across my boundaries of the two-and-a-half minute punk song with a three-and-a-half minute jazz song, or maybe get into a little bit of swing or rockabilly. 

RIP: With such staggering success, you could walk into Reprise and tell 'em you're doing an album of saxophone solos and they'd allow you that creative luxury. 

BJA: Well, I never wanna be that experimental. I don't wanna get into synthesizers and shit like that. The thing that was cool for me with Insomniac was that I think we definitely set a foundation for ourselves, because we put out our hardest record to date, totally in-your-face all the way through, and now we're able to go anywhere we want. We can do that now--we do have that going for us. That is, if people are still interested. Which is kinda weird for me to say.... 

RIP: Your craft will always remain the most important thing of all, even if you're just writing for your own amusement. 

BJA: Yeah. No matter what, I'm gonna be writing songs for the rest of my life. I mean, I already have a shitload of new songs right now. But I just wanna do some other things with it. We've sold a million of Insomniac so far. But I definitely want to be respected as a musician. Well, more as a songwriter than as a musician. I wanna be f?!kin' normal, is what I wanna be. The thing is, I've seen so many freaks and so many weirdos and crazy punk rockers and drunks and junkies. But for a lot of those people being weird is easy. It's so easy to be strange--the hard thing is to try to be normal. There's no such thing as normal, ya know. 

RIP: How's your mom feel about all this? 

BJA: She's kinda worried about me. She doesn't know what to think of everything. We have a hard time communicating with each other, just because I don't like to talk about it that much. So she feels like she has to walk on eggshells around me all the time. 

RIP: You buy her anything cool once the money started rolling in? 

BJA: Nah--she doesn't want anything. I've asked her. She's been living in the same house for over 20 years, and she's content living there. But I did give her a trip--she went to Hawaii, her and her boyfriend. And I think travelling is really good--if you paid for someone to travel, so they can go and explore and see some things they've never seen before. But I think that's probably where I get it from. I get so content with not having much. And then you get all this stuff, all this attention, and you don't really know what to do with it. You don't know how to channel it. 

RIP: Most outrageous thing you've bought for yourself? 

BJA: I got my car primered! And one thing I did do was build a home studio. So I've been recording all my friends' bands for free. I produced this band called Dead and Gone, and Social Unrest, Fetish and the Criminals. And I have this side-project called Pinhead Gunpowder--nothing's up with it right now, but we played at the beginning of '94 a few times. RIP: Sounds like you've got more than enough pressure valves to let off the steam. Still, do you worry about death? 

BJA: Yeah, I do. But I have too many reasons to stick around. One is my son and my wife. And I don't feel like I'm finished yet. I'm not done, ya know? And the beauty of it is that death is forever and your problems aren't. And that's why I'm talking about my bad shit, because you vent that, you get it off your chest and you can move on to something else. There's gotta be a positive side to all this--so you just sort of try and dig it out. Get rid of all the bad--out with the bad air, in with the good air. 

RIP: You said about Green Day that you think your "bandwagon is coming to a close and all that's gonna be left is just a band. Hopefully." So then will you start writing happy songs? 

BJA: I thought about writing a totally sarcastic song called "I'm So Goddamn Happy," just talking about how happy I am. Actually, I'd like to put out a double record--I'd like to put out tons of music. But I never wanna become an egomaniac. I just wanna keep things down to earth, so I think it's really important for us to take a long break after all this stuff. We just put out two records back to back, one year after another, and now we can sit back and work on ourselves as people again. So we don't parody ourselves. And it's so hard to be a father and a musician at the same time. If I get into one thing and I pay close attention to it, like if I'm with Joey and I start neglecting my music, then I feel like I should play more often. So I start playing my music, and then I'm going, "Am I neglecting Joey?" So it becomes hard to do everything at the same time. 

BJA: I wanna create a very mellow and sound atmosphere for him, because I don't wanna make any mistakes for him--I want him to be able to make his own mistakes. And even when it comes to swearing--I don't cuss in front of my kid. I'd rather him get it from some dirty-mouthed kid at school. Then at least I'd know, I could go "Thank God--my kid is in a real world and he's learning these things from his surroundings." That'd be a good thing. Because the best things you ever learn are the things you learn in kindergarten. 

Finally, after more than an hour worth of gut-spilling, Armstrong suddenly observes four brace-faced girls, each no more than 12 years old, idling over by the cash register. They're there on the pretext of getting change. In reality, they just want to ogle punk icon and pin-up darling Billie Joe, stare at those caterpillar eyebrows and chiselled cheekbones up close. Another oh-my-gawd event. "I gotta go--it's gettin' weird," the reluctant rocker whispers, literally leaping up from the booth. "I can feel eyeballs all over me already...." And as fast as that, he's gone. "Was that...was that...B-B-B-B-Billie Joe?" stammers one swooner. "No," says the waitress, with a subtle smile. "That was just some guy who usually eats here alone, nobody famous at all. You know, just an average guy." A little white lie to herd the young 'uns out. But nevertheless the truth.

[thenightling]

My horror dislikes list

I love horror, particularly Gothic Horror as a genre. However there are certain common types of horror or sub-genres of horror I don’t really care for.  Just because I don’t like it, it doesn’t mean I don’t understand it or can’t appreciate that others might like it.    This is just my personal opinion and I mean no offense to anyone.  And some of what I may list will be controversial to some.   Bear that in mind.  Horror that I don't care for:

1.  This one is probably the most controversial so I’ll list it first. 

Most controversial:  H. P. Lovecraft.   It's not that he is "too wordy" or "long winded." (Never insult me like that.)  It's not that I "don't get it."  It’s not that he uses “archaic language.”  (These are real things people have assumed when I tell them I don’t like Lovecraft).  I just feel he's overrated.  I don't like his antisemitism, which was considered extreme by 1930s American standards.  And I don't like how he's credited with creating certain concepts that weren't really his doing.  His ideas about long sleeping ancient / forgotten Gods or Old Ones can be found as early as Goethe's Faust Part 2, if not earlier.   Other authors that had similar ideas before Lovecraft include George MacDonald, author of Lilith.     Sometimes I like when other people adapt Lovecraft.  I liked Neil Gaiman’s A Study in Emerald.  I liked the origin of Morpheus’ helm in Sandman: Overture (also Neil Gaiman).  I liked the two episodes of The Real Ghostbusters animated series inspired by Lovecraft.  I even like the spoof Lil Cthulhu.  But I’m just not a big fan of actual H. P. Lovecraft. This doesn’t mean I haven’t read it.  Nor does it mean I don’t understand it.  And I do appreciate his influence on pop culture.  I just feel he’s overrated.       2.  I don't like Rob Zombie movies.  It's all the same to me.  Boring, grimy, sweaty, eldgelordy- full of overused modern tropes like flickering lights, jump scares, and "I haven't showered in a month" antagonists.  He sucked the supernatural out of Halloween and there's nothing truly distinct about any of his films.  It's just a style that doesn't appeal to me. 3.   CG.  I love practical effects.  Most CG is lazy, cartoonish, and doesn't look like it's really there.  I know it can look realistic and gorgeous at time but most horror films don’t take that route.  Most horror directors use it lazily. There’s a Night of the Living dead 4 or 5 by the Syfy Channel where a manhole cover is clearly CG.  Why did a manhole cover have to be CG?!  And there’s CG blood in Spartacus: Blood and Sand, which is very distracting because it looks like jello flying at the camera.  The werewolves in An American werewolf in Paris are already dated and very fake looking yet the transformation in An American Werewolf in London still gets to people today.  The werewolves in An American werewolf in Paris didn't even look real by 90s standards.  They looked like beasts that escaped Who Framed Roger Rabbit.   In the Fright Night remake there's a scene where a windshield shatters in front of Amy's face and she screams on que but she doesn't flinch or blink, making it very clear the glass isn't really there.  Had it been sugar glass or ice to give the effect, there would have been a natural flinch.  I feel practical effects, if you can't guess how it was done, can be more unnerving and the reactions seem more real.  That's why some 80s fantasy is more unnerving for kids than some modern horror.    4.  Jump scares.  Jump scares are lazy.  Being startled is not the same as being afraid.  And when they add a musical chord to accompany the scare it's like idiot proofing ot say "This is where you should react."   The only jump scare that ever worked on me was when I was twelve-years-old watching Interview with the vampire.  Louis says "It's the carriage." and he goes down to the door. And you know damn good and well it's not the carriage.  He opens the door, there's no one there.   You know it's coming, but when he turns his head and Lestat's hand grabs his throat, I jumped the first time I saw that.  I knew it was coming.  But I still jumped.   To me a good scare is when it creeps in and crawls under your skin. When I was watching Let the Right One In I remembered thinking “Ah, this isn’t so scary.” and it was at the part where Eli climbs up the side of the hospital.  It was snowy outside, just as it was in the movie, and late at night.  And at that moment the power went out. For a split second (It was only a second) I thought “Oh, crap!  Vampire child’s gonna get me!”   And I was a grown woman in 2008.  I was twenty-six-years-old. Another incident that made me realize just how scary Gothic horror truly is was when I was watching a History Channel show about the real Castle Dracula.  And it mentioned the locals seeing mysterious lights and noises up in the castle so some priests were sent to bless the place.  A storm came in suddenly and the priests had to do the blessing from a distance.  (This was Poenari castle, not Bran.  Bran is used for tourists.  Poenari is where Vlad spent most of his time but it’s considered unsafe).  And as I watched this I remembered that storm summoning was supposed to be one of the vampire Dracula’s powers. At that moment the door creaked open And I practically leapt out of my skin.   That’s when I knew Dracula is actually scary.

I also had a nightmare once about being a werewolf in the style of The wolfman. In the dream I blacked out during the transformation and then suddenly it was hours or a day later and I knew I must have done something terrible and I found loved ones slaughtered.   I remember the guilt in that dream and I knew The Wolfman had reached me on a level most horror doesn’t, on a fear of what it must be like to be like him.           My most recent experience with a truly good sense of my skin crawling horror was watching an episode of DC Universe's Swamp Thing. A child is possessed with the ghost of Abby Arcane's dead childhood friend.   She's been singing their old song and acting ...well, weird.   "If you're her than prove it?"  She is smiling menacingly.  It looks like she'll do nothing.  Abby turns to walk away.  This is where most jump scares happen.  But it doesn't.  As she nears the door it slams shut but that isn't the end of it.  It's not just a stupid psych out jump scare the way most horror movies do now.  Instead the whole atmosphere of the room changes.  Everything becomes damp.  The lighting dims.   Everything becomes slightly off-kilter or "wrong" like in a nightmare.  It was so atmospheric, so spooky... It was the best Gothic horror moment I had seen in literally years.  I had goosebumps.  5.   The polarization of vampire fiction triggered by the Twilight fad.  Thankfully this is dying now.   But for a while vampires were divided into two styles.  The broody, whiny emo, or the mindless killing machine AKA "the Shark with legs."   I missed the balance of charming and charismatic, but also predatory.  I missed the likes of Frank Langella as Dracula and Chris Sarandon as Jerry Dandridge. The Fright Night remake was disappointing for this reason.  I hate that vampires rarely shapeshift now.  I hate the nerfing of their powers.   And I hate that Jerry's human-side was erased as a reactionary response to be anti-Twilight.   It ruined the remake for me.  6.   Ghosts that movie like a broken VHS tape.  The jerking movement ghosts of ghosts that suddenly flicker or spasm and suddenly are a few stepped forward without actually moving...  This works in Ringu / The Ring because she IS a damaged VHS tape but in other ghost stories it doesn't really work for me.  it takes me out of the story and I notice it's following a trend. 7.    Torture porn.   Pity, and gross-out is not fear.  It's like how that game show / reality show  "Fear Factor" confused fear with disgust. "eat these random cow pies" isn't fear, folks.   Actually Torture porn kind of bores me . I don't feel fear.  It's just drawn out mutilation and torture.  I may feel pity for the character or be disgusted by the graphic mutilations but I'm not afraid of it.  And it's lazy and cheap.  8.   Next on Lazy and cheap...  Found footage.  I HATE found footage movies.   Shaky cam and screams into a camera don't do it for me.  And they all feel the same.    9.   Most Zombie Apocalypse movies.  Most recent Zombie apocalypse movies bore me.    There are a few exceptions like the original Night of the Living Dead, which, at the time it was made was unique and atmospheric but many zombie films attempt to imitate it and it becomes bland and formulaic.   I also liked Return of the Living Dead because it was one of the first Zombie Apocalypse movies.  It hadn’t yet become dull and predictable to me that everyone huddles together and it becomes more and more futile until there is no one left or it’s utterly hopeless.  And so as things became repetitive I started to dislike the ‘zombie apocalypse genre.”   Exceptions include Night of the Living Dead and Return of the Living Dead.  I also like the original White Zombie and I walked with a Zombie but those are pre-Zombie Apocalypse.   There are a few zombie films I like that aren’t that scary but I like them because they are different.  Those include “My boyfriend’s back.”  (Daddy, I love him!”  “He’s a zombie, you freakin’ idiot!”  I love that line).    And Warm Bodies.   And please don’t use Warm Bodies to discredit my status as a horror fan.  I just like it because it’s different.  First, R isn’t that bad of a protagonist.  He’s more well developed than Edward Cullen and he spends half the movie eating the brains of the dead boyfriend of the girl he’s pining for, carrying bits of brain in his pocket.  There’s no sugar coating that.   Also it’s one of the few zombie apocalypse movies to have a happy ending.  Yeah, it’s sappy and a bit hamhanded bu tit has a sweet message.  Sometimes it’s okay to like sweet.

 10.   Remakes that suck the supernatural out of a supernatural story.  I’m tired of gritty.  I’m tired of “grounded in reality.”  The supernatural is scary because it is unknown.  In the case of Child’s Play, a hacked AI doesn’t seem as creepy to me as a soul of a serial killer seeking a new host body. Also the cynical part of me suspects the “grounding in reality” is a direct ploy to get a release in China, which does not like supernatural content in American import movies. This is part of why Disney / Marvel has been downplaying Marvel’s supernatural side.  I miss supernatural horror.   I’m tired of remakes literally sucking out the soul.  

11. Bonus: Anything based on a “true case” by The Warrens.  I believe in the paranormal.   I respect paranormal research but The Warrens were known con artists, even among paranormal researchers.   If you look at most of their haunted house cases there’s a particular formula.  Woman moves into dream home with loving, Catholic family. Weird things slowly start to happen. The husband is skeptical / getting possessed.  The wife goes to the church for help.  The priests can’t help or nothing happens in front of them.   Desperate she attends a Warrens lecture.  Never fear, The Warrens are here!  And lo’ and behold, the house is full of demons!  Demons only The Warrens know how to Handle.  This happens in The Haunted (Not to be confused with The Haunting), it happens in Gave Secrets: the story of Black Hope Cemetery and pretty much every other haunted house story they got involved in.   They made book and TV movie deals and later bigger Hollywood movie deals.  Now half the horror and Parapsychology world thinks they were demonology heroes and not the con artists who once ‘exorcised a werewolf” (Look it up.)  I am not a fan of The Warrens.

[madscientistjournal]

Fiction: Tempo Rubato

An essay by an unnamed musician, as provided by Jonathan Danz Art by Errow Collens

Tonight, backstage is too hot, too dark, too much like some high-ceilinged mausoleum straight out of one of those old Friday night TV horror shows. The strap of my dinged-up Telecaster bites into my shoulder. Tonight, like most nights in recent memory, this guitar is like my very own stone of Sisyphus. Truth be told, I don’t know if I can roll it up the mountain one more fucking time. I don’t know if I can go out on stage yet again and pretend I’m me.

Vegas–swarm cams, drinkbots, holo-betting, omni-feeds, every last bit of it–can go to hell. The guy on stage now, the Buddy Holly impersonator, even with his bitglam in effect, comes off more like an impersonator of a Buddy Holly impersonator. He’s opening with “Peggy Sue.” Poor bastard. There’s nowhere to go from there but downhill.

Everyone’s an entertainer these days, what with voice plugins, appearance modifiers, movement enhancer neuro-mods, and every other trick. There’s no work at the art anymore, just show up and let the tech do the work.

Me and my new band, we’re the only completely analog performers in Vegas. Re-Invaded And It Feels So Good, that’s our act. Real clever stuff. The crowds eat it up. It’s fresh, in a manner of speaking, especially after seeing a hundred enhanced shows in a hundred casinos. After a while, it all blurs together.

I know, I know, that’s what they said when we were all flooding into the U.S. during the British Invasion. I’m a connoisseur of irony. But when something stands out from the pop-star one-offs and Rat Pack 3.0 crooners, people take notice. People don’t know they’re craving something different until they get it.

These Vegas performers could stand a lesson in “less is more,” but instead they’re all in on everything. All that tech must seem like magic to these fools, but tech ain’t magic. Believe me, I know from magic. Not like this Buddy Holly guy.

Look, I liked Buddy Holly back in the day–we all did–but that sound aged about as well as a bottle of piss. When you hear it, you know exactly when it came out. It never evolved. Sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened if his plane hadn’t crashed.

Sometimes I wonder if Buddy wasn’t the lucky one.

~

It was the 1960s, and the Beatles exploded out of Liverpool with us right on their heels, and the British Invasion was on. The money began rolling in free and easy like juice through a Marshall stack. In a move that would become the hallmark of making it in rock and roll, I bought a posh estate in the English countryside.

That’s where we were between tours in ’70. One night, December 11–Christ, you’d think I’d forget after so long, but the memory is like tough old scar tissue that’ll never go away–anyway, we were in the studio, turning a three minute song into something epic. I dove into my solo, weaving amplified heat through drums and base and rhythm guitar, stitching it all together at first. Then I began teasing strands out into the dark corners of sound. My fingers slipped and slid high on the fretboard. My guitar wailed and moaned with an urgency I could feel. I raced out ahead of the rhythm, then eased back into the mix by turns. I scooped time from some measures and poured it into others. The world around me wobbled and shimmered.

By the time the cops barged in, I was fully lost in the solo. It was as if someone had accidentally stuck a needle in my artery and my life was spraying out everywhere. It wasn’t blood, though, dig? I swear it was life itself flowing from me, streaming into my mates. Everyone was higher than an old vicar’s waistband. The cops’ shouting tore it all down and the music collapsed. I was wasted, could barely stand.

The cops’ arrival probably saved me, but all they saw was some weed, some pills, and whatever, and that’s all they needed to know. They grabbed their headlines for busting some punk kids who’ve risen far too high, and I grabbed some jail time. Prison was no great shakes, but there was something about the monotony of the routine. It freed up time to think. And I had a lot to think about.

~

Vegas Buddy Holly slides smoothly into “Rollercoaster.” It’s a checklist for him: hit this note, do that hiccup thing, take three steps. Technically, it’s perfect, but there’s no love for the music, no heat. Choosing to impersonate Buddy Holly is purely mercenary. He’s found a niche and it pays. It’s calculated. And I’ve got to tell you, hearing exactly the same thing done exactly the same way night after night gets tiresome.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the music itself; I feel like I could play forever. It’s everything else. Some might say the world has passed me by, but I’d argue it’s the people who flock to this place on the regular who are being passed by. Was a time when people would spend hours parsing song lyrics or album cover art. Now everything wheels by like startled birds, gone in an instant, replaced by the latest streaming shows or VR episode or vending machine stimdrugs. We’re so fixated on what’s coming next, we can’t enjoy whatever it is we’re consuming right then and there.

The marketers’ll tell you their latest con expands the mind and taps into unexplored landscapes of the imagination. Rubbish. It’s about making money. It’s always about making money. Just ask ol’ Buddy Holly on stage there.

The guys in my band are no different. Sure, they tolerate the analog sets, occasionally even enjoy themselves when they’re not thinking about it. But they’re just gigging with me to pay the bills while they seek online stardom. That’s where the real money is, even if the odds are so long they stretch well beyond the horizon. They just need one video to virus out, and they’ll have it made.

I hear you, telling me to fuck right the hell off. I made my money, so why shouldn’t they make theirs, right? I say, have at it. There’s no magic there. You want magic? Strip it all down, get rid of the enhancements. Focus on the music, the guitar strings beneath your fingers, the vibrations of your vocal cords, the buzz of a packed venue. If you let yourself fall deep enough, you’ll find the space between it all.

You’d think songs almost a hundred years old would lose their luster, but that ain’t so. There’s that quote about not being the same person who crossed the river the first time or some shit. There’s truth there. Songs are like rivers, always changing, waiting to show you something new, if you’re willing to look. That’s why I hang around, every single day and twice on Saturdays.

~

After the bust, I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened at that rehearsal. I needed to know what that was. As a band, we were looking forward, working on new songs, planning new tours, finding new ways to spend our windfall. But as an individual, I’d decided to look backwards as well.

I searched for answers in the deep, slippery roots of music, looking for the faintest whiff of anything even remotely like what happened the night of the bust. Whenever we hit a new city, I scoured libraries and bookstores and pored over rare tomes, letters, and sheet music for something like magic.

Then I found tempo rubato.

Now, I know you’re thinking of that Styx song about the robot. That was Japanese. Tempo rubato is Italian, mate.

The definition of tempo rubato in music texts refers to, and I quote, “the slight speeding up and then slowing down of the tempo of a piece at the discretion of the soloist or the conductor to be more expressive.”

But here’s the thing, Tempo rubato isn’t just an Italian term on some sheet music like sotto voce or fortissimo or any of that lot. Now I had no idea if the concept originated in Italy or not, but the Italians nailed the naming of whatever this phenomenon is.

In Italian, tempo rubato means stolen time.

As a musical cue, that was all fine and well, but I was positive there was more to it than that. Slowing down, speeding up, everything I’d been doing that night, it was all there.

I began playing around on stage, messing around in subtle ways with what almost killed me the night of the bust, learning, refining. I did it carefully until I unpacked tempo rubato and put it to work for me. I pilfered small bits of time so as not to cause harm and, as much as we played, the stolen time accumulated like the juice on a mob loan.

~

We’re a long way from Vegas, now, aren’t we? What does this have fuckall to do with tech enhancements and swarm bots and flash androgynous technicians? Well, hang tight, bruv, I’m getting to that. Besides, Buddy Holly’s got one more song yet.

He launches into “That’ll Be the Day.” When he hits the chorus, like he does every night, I can’t help but think that maybe in some alternate universe I’m dead, and he’s here in Vegas in real life, the original watching some mercenary performer imitate me.

“That’ll be the day that I die,” Buddy sings. Well, the real Buddy Holly boarded a plane that flew him right into his grave at the tender age of 22. And, despite the booze, the drugs, and other depredations of the body, here I am still going strong well beyond my expiration date. Is it fair? That’s not for me to say, but I’m fully aware of the irony.

The ubiquitous “they” insist everything that’s old is new again and I’m inclined to agree. Maybe that’s true, but it’s a cycle, ain’t it, which bloody well means everything that’s new becomes old again as well.

I think about all those musicians who hung around too long. I’d need more fingers than I’ve got to count everyone who couldn’t let it go, guys who wished they headed out at the top of their game, leaving the fans wanting more.

But damn if every time I hit that first chord on stage, I’m not transported back to our first live gig in Coogan’s Pub in Dartford. Now there’s a magic all its own, you know? Throw in the fans and the applause, and small wonder musicians can’t let it go.

What I miss, though, what has me in this funk, is that I’ve got no one to share any of this with. Everyone’s gone. What’s the use of hanging around as long as I have if you can’t share the honest-to-god artistry?

There are days I’m aware the only person I’m really playing for is myself, searching the music for ghosts of the long-gone boys who crossed the Atlantic and got rich with me. There are days I wonder if stealing time during all those tours with them might have hastened their respective ends. Shit, we were all getting older. People just age differently, right?

I search through the music. Maybe some combination of sound will bring them back, but inevitably the ghosts are always just out of reach. I’ve seen musicians wind up searching elsewhere, the needle or the booze or something just as deadly even though we know whatever it is we need isn’t there at all. And sometimes you don’t even know you need anything at all until you’re shown otherwise.

~

Inside some nondescript sound studio in Memphis in the late ’20s, I was waiting to record an interview for some classic rock retrospective podcast. At least I think they were still calling what we did way back when “classic.” The host was explaining to an angsty lad on the sound crew what vibe he needed and who I was.

But damn if every time I hit that first chord on stage, I’m not transported back to our first live gig in Coogan’s Pub in Dartford.

“Seriously?” the angsty lad asked. “I thought that guy died years ago.” No embarrassment. No apology. Just a statement of fact with perhaps the smallest hint of a question or accusation in his tone. That’s when I realized I couldn’t keep on as myself forever. No matter how good I felt, no matter how I looked, someone would do the math and start asking questions I had no intention of answering.

And so I did the only thing that made sense: I disappeared to sort things out. For a few decades, I traveled to places where people had no idea who I was. For a while, it wasn’t so bad, the newness of it, you know. I tried out things I couldn’t do when we were touring, things like gardening and painting and woodworking, whatever struck my fancy.

Even as I did these things, in the need was always there, waiting. I told myself it was just the music I needed, just the feel of the guitar in my hands, the heat of the stage lights, the cheering crowds. I mean, the music was definitely part of it, but I missed what I was able to do with the music even more. I needed tempo rubato.

What better place to resurface than Vegas, the impersonator capital of the world? If I couldn’t be me, at least I could pretend to be me. I mean, I had me down pretty good.

~

Buddy Holly wraps up with a deep cut, one of his b-sides that has surprising layers. Something about this song appeals to Buddy. I can tell, because he loses himself in it. He’s so close to touching the music and doesn’t even know. The crowd applauds just enough to encourage Buddy Holly to do an encore.

Buddy Holly launches into a respectable version of “Not Fade Away.” Huh. Normally he trots out a tired medley of songs that roll into that other song that’s not by Buddy Holly but about Buddy Holly, when his plane crashed, and the music died, and all that. Tonight, Buddy Holly’s veering off script.

I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

One more song to figure out how I’m going to break it to the band. Since I returned to Vegas–what has it been, 30, 40 years?–I’ve asked myself why I keep going so many times it feels like a vocation unto itself. If there’s an answer to that question, I’ll be damned if I know what it is. Now’s as good a time as any to call it quits.

“Hey, Billy,” I say to my bassist.

He turns to me and raises his eyebrows in question.

Time to tell the crew tonight is the night I stop, but the words die in my throat just as Buddy Holly strums the last chord of his encore.

The applause for Buddy Holly packs more punch this time around, there’s real enthusiasm behind it. Buddy comes off stage. His bitglam distorts and winks off. Bruv looks tired, but he’s smiling.

We nod at each other.

That simple gesture is like a smack upside my head. It’s straight out of those days right before the British Invasion, back when we were just one of a hundred bands were trying to make it. Yeah, we hated each other, but there was some measure of respect for the fact we were all chasing the same thing. There’s a camaraderie that comes from mutual suffering.

Maybe I’ve been too hard on ol’ Buddy.

Then the host is announcing us to the crowd. Cheers and stomping feet shake the building. The crowd is as amped as I’ve ever heard it. That sound … that sweet, goddamned sound washes over us. The hair on my arms and the back of my neck stands at attention, expectant. My heart thrills and prances inside my chest. A smile spreads of its own accord across my face.

Billy smiles the same me. He’s feeling it too. “What were you going to say?”

My guitar feels lighter, and the only thing on my mind is strumming that first chord. “Forget it,” I say.

Billy’s no longer the fresh-faced kid I brought in to hold down the beat a few months ago, but that’s what the business does to a musician, isn’t it? The pull of the stage and the lights are like an old friend’s arm around my shoulder, warm and comforting.

A British Invasion musician learns the secret to rock on for evermore, but after outliving his mates and winding up as an impersonator of himself in Vegas, he wonders if it’s time to hang it up.

Jonathan Danz is a speculative fiction writer living in West Virginia with his wife, daughter, and cat, all of whom are artists in their own right. He attended Viable Paradise 21 and narrates for various science fiction, fantasy, and horror podcasts. He likes books, bikes, and beer.

Errow is a comic artist and illustrator with a predilection towards mashing the surreal with the familiar. They pay their time to developing worlds not quite like our own with their fiancee and pushing the queer agenda. They probably left a candle burning somewhere. More of their work can be found at errowcollins.wix.com/portfolio.

“Tempo Rubato” is © 2019 Jonathan Danz Art accompanying story is © 2019 Errow Collins

Fiction: Tempo Rubato was originally published on Mad Scientist Journal

[evalulu]

A little thing based off this by @xmafiacatx​!  It gets a little bloody, so do be warned.

Fuze could hardly see, the dim lights further muddled by the tint of his visor on his helmet.  His shoulder was bleeding, grazed by countless bullets that his gear had shielded him from the worst of.  A simple mission of clearing out the abandoned offices should have been simple for him, cluster charges given full reign to cause as much damage as possible without endangering innocent lives.  The same couldn’t be said for the building, but better destruction of things that could be rebuilt in the end over lives that could never be put back together.  

Fuze had made a mistake.  He didn’t particularly enjoy admitting it, but the bullets flying past him and keeping him in place were clear indications of that.  If he tried to get up and run, or even fire back, he’d be an easy target.  He had to find a way out of this, and quickly, before he got overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of his enemy.  

He took the break in gunfire as his moment to fire back, AK-12 familiar in his hands and taking down several targets before he had to duck behind the cover he had put together.  The situation was getting a bit more manageable, he just had to be patient.  He made sure his knife was at the ready when he swore he heard footsteps getting closer, sound masked by the gunfire.  

Another break in the suppressing fire allowed him to stand and take down more targets, down to at least a more reasonable number of terrorists to kill before he was out of the worst of this situation.  The sudden creak of wood underfoot caught his attention; he hadn’t moved.  He spun around to meet the aggressor, knife drawn and aiming for the jugular vein.  He felt the stab in his arm, making sure to drive the knife deeper until the flow of blood coated the floor and every nearby surface.  The body fell limply to the ground, giving Fuze the opportunity to see what he had been stabbed with.  The syringe was quickly rolling away in the pool of blood.  Has to be tranquilizer.

No, no no no no-

He couldn't pass out now.  The gunfire entirely ceased but he knew they were waiting like vultures, just beyond his reach.  He had to fight back the surge of panic.  Stay focused.  He shook his head harshly, trying to shake the blurriness from his vision.  Whatever it was, it was acting quickly and he didn't have time-

Fuze barely registered that he stumbled to the ground.  He kept his hold on his gun, determined to at least fight back if they got overconfident.  There was at least three different sets of footsteps inching closer, undoubtedly aware of what their lone member had died to achieve.  It was a disgusting sacrifice that the White Masks made all too often.

When he saw the leg of a terrorist walk around the corner, he didn't hesitate in lifting his gun and firing.  If he could simply kill the rest of them, passing out wouldn't be that much of a concern.  He could at least be sure in knowing that his team would grow concerned and find him, there was no telling what would happen if there was a terrorist alive when he passed out.  The sudden shout cut short from the terrorist was enough of an alert for the others still alive.  He felt the strike on his shoulder from behind, turning around to try and pierce his own knife into the terrorist's neck.  

Another strike across his side made him stumble backwards, looking down to realize he was bleeding and that the strikes were stabs from the terrorist’s own knife.  His vision was getting more and more spotty, combining pain with panic as he finally slipped from consciousness.  

The harsh scent of burnt metal awoke him.  His arms were tied behind his back, shoulder wound no longer bleeding but still in pain as his arm bent further than he would've liked.  Fuze instantly knew his protective gear had been taken from him, leaving only his basic clothes and his helmet.  He preferred it that way, not wanting his captors to clearly see his eyes.  He was forced onto his knees, skin and fabric torn away as he was undoubtedly dragged with little regard.  There was no outside light in the small, damp cell, but he couldn't really be surprised.  

There was blood spattered across his visor, not able to remember when that even happened.  He was familiar with pain by now, biting his lip to stifle any sound of pain.  The person in the room with him had clearly been waiting patiently, and didn't want to give that any satisfaction.

“Rise and shine, asshat.”

The voice was alarmingly feminine, but distinctly annoyed.  

“Easy, V.  We just got started.”

Another voice, this time deeper and more masculine.  He was clearly the patient one of the two he heard.  

“Yea, and I don't plan on wasting time with this.  We got pulled away from our-need I remind you, Jay- very important project for this waste of space.  We should just kill him and save ourselves the trouble.”

“Ever so impatient, V.  This won't be a waste of time.  Consider it a well needed break from that project.  We don't get much done besides destruction when you get frustrated.”

Fuze was starting to get annoyed.  These people were more than willing to bicker in front of him, uncaring if he heard.  Even going so far as to use their names, they had to be confident that by the end of this, what he knew wouldn't at all matter.  They would likely kill him regardless.  

“You know what?  Fine, this is a break from work.  But if you-" she paused, grabbing the collar of Fuze’s shirt, “-don't cooperate, you're gonna have bigger fucking problems.”

She let go and stepped back, Fuze keeping his head down but moving his eyes to watch them.  Their masks were different, half white and half red with the sides alternating with each other.  The left side of V’s mask was the same color as the right side of Jay’s, ake vice versa. Jay sighed, crossing his arms and turning to look at Fuze.  

“Don’t worry too much.  This can go very simply if you work with us.”

Hell would sooner freeze.

He refused to speak, staying silent until he felt a hand under his chin to lift his head.  

“I don’t recommend defiance.”

He kept quiet, narrowing his eyes at the man.  V was leaning against the wall, arms crossed and clearly annoyed.

“Quit being nice and fucking electrocute him already, you damn electromaniac.”

“Patience, V.”

“For what?  Rainbow shouldn't get mercy, they should be put down like the mutts they are.”

Fuze felt heat rise to his face.  He hated not being able to fight back, to make her eat her own words and die with the knowledge that she was horribly outclassed.  

“Since my dear twin here is getting irritated, I'll speed this process up.  Tell me where the base you operate from is.”

“Go to hell.”

“Look at that!  He does have vocal chords.”

“V, I'd hate to have to ask you to wait outside.”

“Like you really would.  You enjoy having an audience way too much.”

Jay laughed quietly, Fuze able to feel his gaze shift back to him.  

“So, no cooperation then?”

“Are you deaf?  Go.  To.  Hell.”

It was V’s turn to laugh, pushing herself off of the wall.  

“I'll go get your favorite toys, because I'm such a considerate, dear sister.”

She left the room quickly, leaving Fuze alone with Jay.

“Truly, she’s quite lovely when she isn’t upset.  Best family I could ask for.”

Fuze hated them.  He wanted nothing more than to tear the ropes apart and close his hands around Jay’s throat.  He wanted to kill them both, make sure they never opened their mouths again.  The door opened again, Fuze slowly looking over to see her bring in what he guessed was an electric cattle prod.

“And you brought my most favorite.  Such a sweetheart, V.”  

“Only the best.”

She pat his shoulder, taking position again against the wall to watch.  

“A customized cattle prod, capable of extremely high voltages that are excruciatingly painful for human limitations.”

The device was turned on, crackling electricity audible before he felt it jab at his injured side.  He couldn’t bite back the screams of agony or stop himself from convulsing with the shocks.  He wasn’t sure how long it lasted, taking strained breaths when it finally stopped.  

“Tell us where your base is, and this will stop.”

He was breathing hard, pain becoming almost unbearable. Almost.  

“Go fuck yourself.”

The prod was pressed into his side again, making him scream and jerk away.  V watched intently, waiting for Jay to stop before speaking.  

“Fucking bastard!  Can’t we just shoot him?”

“No, not yet.  Don’t worry, it will take some time for anyone to get to us, even with the very best after us.  We have time.”

Fuze bit his lip and braced for another shock, closing his eyes tightly.

Twitch was tired and worried out of her mind, but there was no way she could stop now.  Fuze had been MIA for a day now, and it was far too unlike him to simply disappear without a trace.  She and Valkyrie had made slow progress, only getting an area of where he was and no real idea of what to expect.  Valkyrie had recognized the area as an abandoned theme park, eroded away and repurposed now as a fairly large terrorist base.  They had to narrow down where he was, and make sure the team that went in avoided certain death that would await if they simply rushed in.  

That didn’t factor in the guilt she felt for keeping it secret from the others.  It was a delicate situation, and while she cared intensely, there was no way she was going to put others at risk too.  She dreaded the reactions of some of the others if they found out, especially Maverick and the other Spetsnaz.  They would be beyond pissed off, she knew.  

“Do we have a better idea of how many there are yet?”

Twitch looked over to Valkyrie, who seemed just as tired as she was.

“No, they know where the cameras are and shot out inside cams.  I have no way of knowing how many are in there, or even if they’ve rigged the whole place to blow up the moment we step inside.”

Twitch sighed, rubbing her hands through her hair.  

“They have to know we're onto them, then, and are buying themselves more time.  Still, we can't risk more lives if it's all a trap.”

Valkyrie sat back in the chair.  

“We’re starting to not have much of a choice.  We've been at this since last night, and it’s nearly been a full day since I've even seen my bed.”

“I know, I just hate the idea of walking blindly into a trap.”

Twitch let out a sigh.  

“I'll see if Ying or Lesion know anything about it, maybe their home CTU is aware of it and has something they haven't shared.”

Valkyrie nodded, leaning back in the chair.  

“Sounds good to me.  I'll see if I can get something new while we wait.”

Twitch nodded once and turned to the door, heart leaping to her throat when she heard footsteps.  She swung the door open quickly, seeing Maverick turn around a corner.  

“Merde, Erik!  Wait!”

Valkyrie turned her attention around when Twitch sprinted down the hall, not able to speak before she was long gone.  

“Erik, just listen to me-"

“A full fucking day, and neither of you told anybody.  You're happy to sit on your fucking asses for a full fucking day?!”  

He paused to glare at her, unbridled fury in his eyes.  

“Erik, just listen, we can't rush in without any knowledge- hey!”  

She grabbed his arm as he turned to walk off, yelping when his fist connected with her nose.  

“Don't put your hands on me!  Do you have any fucking idea what they could be doing to him while we're sitting here doing nothing?!  I'm going to get our fucking teammate back.”

He left her standing in the hallway, delicately holding her bleeding nose.  She knew better than to try pursuing him again, instead pulling out her phone.

“Evening Manu, is-"

“Gilles, I need you to stop Erik from doing something ridiculously dangerous.  I'm worried he's going to go on a suicide mission by himself.”

“I'm on my way over now, I'll make sure he doesn't.”

“Merci.”  

She hung up quickly after that, heading to the infirmary.  She could take care of herself with what Doc kept well maintained in the cabinets.  She turned down the hall and bumped straight into Lion, walking far too fast to realize he was there in time.  Lion was one of the last people she wanted to see right now, knowing how confrontational he could be.

His hands immediately went to lift her face after he spotted blood on his own clothes and get a better look at Twitch.  

“Manu, who hit you?”  

“Olivier, it's alright, you don't-"

“I don't need to but I will.  Who was it?”  

Twitch shook her head.  

“Please, Olivier, not now.”

He could see tears threatening her eyes, nodding and gently grabbing her hand to head to the infirmary.  Doc couldn't yell at him for going through supplies if it was for Twitch's sake.  

“Will you tell me what's wrong?”

He handed the tissues over to Twitch, letting her hold them up to her nose to wipe blood away.  

“Fuze got captured.  Valkyrie and I have been trying to find him and the best way to get him out without sending anyone into their death, and…”  

She shook her head, taking a deep breath.  

“I'm so exhausted and being told that I've been sitting and doing nothing just…  hurts.”

Lion nodded quietly, then grabbed an ice pack from the small cooler.  

“That's not your fault Manu.  You've been trying your hardest, like you always do.  We'll get him back safe and sound, don't worry.  I'll make sure of it.”  

She nodded meekly, wiping her eyes and staying quiet.  He gently pulled her close in a hug, rubbing her back.  

“It'll be okay.  I promise, it will.  Take care of yourself, I’ll handle it.”

He gently kissed her forehead, reluctant to leave her alone but far more determined to ease the source of her stress.  He didn’t necessarily like Fuze personally, but he was still a teammate and Rainbow always stuck together.  He took one last glance at her before walking out, heading to the room where he knew Twitch tended to be when working on intel gathering.  

“Emma, you get anything from Ying or Le-Oh.  You’re not Emma.”

Valkyrie blinked, staring tiredly at Lion.  He shook his head.  

“No, I’m not.  What do you have so far?”

“Please don’t tell me you’re thinking of just heading out alone to do this.”

“Not alone, no.  But we cannot wait longer.  We’ll have to take the risk.”

Valkyrie nodded, getting out of the chair.  

“Plenty of hostiles inside, I don’t know how many exactly, but there’s a lot we don’t know.  I’d take IQ, Montagne, Zofia, and have Doc on standby.  I’d also bring Blackbeard, he won’t quit with someone on the line like that.”

Lion quietly listened, already planning out who he would want to bring along.  

“Merci, we’ll head out with that team, then.”

“Good luck out there, I’ll be here if you need me.”

He walked out without another moment of hesitation.  Valkyrie would take the news to Six and the other operators, that they were going now and couldn’t wait.  When he got to the landing zone for base helicopters, he was surprised to see Montagne already there, holding Maverick in a bear hug.  

“Put me down, god damn it!”

“Erik, please calm down!”

“Not while one of our own is getting tortured!  I’m not letting that happen for any longer, put me FUCKING DOWN!”  

It was almost like watching a rebellious child being physically carried away from a toy they wanted, kicking and screaming.  Part of Lion understood it entirely, sheer rage clouding clarity and bringing personal feelings to the forefront of decision making.  The other part of him knew how dangerous that was in itself.  

“Maverick, please, just list-”

Montagne was cut off when the back of Maverick’s head collided with his forehead, yet his grip stayed firm.  Maverick was only slightly shorter than Montagne, making the effort of holding him still a struggle.  

“Olivier, could you-” Maverick’s struggling interrupted him, starting to seem more like a frenzied animal, “-could you get Seamus?  And possibly Alexan-Mon Dieu, Erik!”

Lion didn’t need to stick around to do as his friend asked, knowing that Maverick wouldn’t rest.  Sledge and Tachanka were easy to find, and didn’t need much convincing to run to the landing pad and take the still trashing Maverick off Montagne’s hands.  It was a struggle for the two of them to hold him back, pulling him away as Zofia, IQ, Blackbeard, and Doc made their way over.  Zofia unsurprisingly took charge, moving towards the helicopter.  

“Let’s go.  No more delaying.”

The others didn’t hesitate at the command.  Zofia was a very adaptable operator, capable of changing plans in an instant and handling near anything that came her way.  Doc sat across from Lion, arms crossed.

“I imagine you might know why the supplies in the infirmary have been thrown around?  And more importantly, why Emmanuelle had a bleeding nose when I walked in?”

Montagne’s attention snapped from Doc to Lion.

“Is she okay?”

“She refused to tell me exactly what was wrong.  She’s stressed over this situation.”

Doc nodded, attention being grabbed when Montagne spoke up.  

“She called me asking me to prevent Erik from doing something reckless.  You don’t imagine…?”

Lion muttered curses under his breath, already planning on the conversation he’d have with Maverick later.  For now, his attention needed to be on the mission.  It would be a relatively long flight, and they had to be ready to move quickly when they finally got there.  The waiting was the worst part.  

Zofia had already decided on a plan, and there was hardly any swaying her from it.  IQ would check constantly for explosives and stay close to Blackbeard, while she, Montagne, Lion, and Doc would stick together and press forward.  IQ and Blackbeard could take spot and take care of other threats trying to surprise them.  

IQ’s scanner was up even before they touched the ground, detecting the maze of mines hidden under the ground.  She carefully stepped off the helicopter, scanning around as Montagne moved to cover her if anyone from the theme park was aiming at them.  

“There are a lot of them.  Step carefully.”  

They moved behind Montagne with IQ’s guidance, Blackbeard keeping his attention on the building to make sure no hostiles inside took shots at them with no returning fire.  The entrance of the building was boarded up, normal doors torn down.  

“When we’re inside, we go back to our plan.”  

Zofia quickly looked to the others, then to the door as she shouldered the KS79 Lifeline and blasted the barricade apart with an impact grenade.  Montagne’s shield took the brunt of the gunfire, allowing Blackbeard to easily take them down with the rifle shield protecting his face and Le Roc protecting his body.  

“We’re moving quickly, but not recklessly.  We’ll check downstairs first, since Valkyrie wasn’t able to get anything from his gear, it has to be below ground somewhere.”

Lion was content to nod and follow orders, trusting Zofia’s judgement and calls.  The woman hardly ever went wrong, and fought tooth and nail to make things right if they did.  Blackbeard and IQ stayed close by, checking around the area and covering their flanks.  Their movement was agonizingly slow, nitro and explosives nearly everywhere and forcing them to take their time.  Lion despised it, also able to tell how irritated Doc was getting as his concern for their captured teammate instilled a special urgency that wouldn’t stop until they were back at base.  

The stairs down were coated in dried blood.  It was a morbid sign they were on the right track, but Lion would take it regardless.  

“Bottom of the stairs, tripwire explosives on either side.”

IQ and Blackbeard were above them, taking the opportunity to clear out the ground floor of hostile targets and still scan for threats from a floor above.  Doc shot the explosives, following down the steps.  Even in the flickering lights, Lion could see the blood trail across the tiles.  The surroundings were messy, things strewn about as if they had been searched for.  

“They wanted to make us waste time, so they could leave.”

Zofia simply nodded at Doc’s realization, eyes following the trail to a barricaded doorway.  The impact grenade from her launcher revealed the other room, beeping with idle nitro cells.  The trail led to the end of the room, behind a sturdier door.  

“Those cells are close enough to get caught in the same blast and be destroyed with only a few explosions.  I can set them off safely.”

Montagne rarely differed, putting himself in harm's way so others didn't have to.  Lion took his pistol out of the holster and started taking out the further cells.

“For ones closer, I agree.  But we can take out plenty of them now.”

All of the visible explosives were now gone, leaving Montagne to walk towards the incessant beeping and let the nitro cells detonate harmlessly against the shield.  

“That hall is all clear.”

IQ’s voice called out over the radio, Doc taking the opportunity to move up to the door.  

“We need to get this door open.”

Zofia set up the breaching charge on the door, planning to at least blast the hinges and get inside one way or another.  They backed up to let the charge explode, hinges coming loose and letting the door fall backwards.  

Fuze had heard the explosions, even with the overwhelming fogginess clouding around his mind.  The White Masks had left the room awhile ago, for some reason he didn't know.  He was in pain and far too weak to keep himself upright, arms still tied behind his back as he lay on his right side.  The floor was damp-he couldn't tell if it was water or blood or both-and overall miserable.

He couldn't even keep his eyes open, the pain in his stomach from hunger and in his throat from thirst familiar now.  He wasn't sure if he preferred that over the pain of electric shocks.  The loud bang of the door hitting the ground was out of place; White Masks held the key.  Didn't they?  He couldn't make a sound as he felt the gentle touch against his neck, checking for his pulse, but he couldn't help the attempt to shy away from it.  A futile attempt, but he still tried.  

He heard a voice but he couldn't tell what they were saying or even clearly tell who it was.  It's familiar.  Familiarity didn’t matter; he wanted their hands off of him.  He couldn’t struggle with his arms behind his back as the person’s hands moved from their neck to the open wound on his side.  The pressure hurt, forcing a soft, strained cry from him.  He could feel his own weakness, could understand why it was so difficult to get his body to respond to anything he tried to do, and he hated it.  Being entirely at someone else’s mercy only drilled the fact harder into his mind.  

He was at least relieved when he felt the ties around his wrists get cut loose.  The relief was soon overtaken by the fierce feeling of distress when he was lifted over someone’s shoulders.  Their grip on him was much stronger than any of his weak attempts to get free, spotty vision making it hard to see who it even was.  It had to be Rainbow, the sound of metal moving was a sound he was used to hearing from Montagne’s shield.  

Blackbeard didn’t have to be an expert to know Fuze was in bad shape.  Doc was rightfully worried, and stressed the importance of getting back to base as soon as possible.  He was more than capable of carrying Fuze, and was more than happy to help get him back home.  It was a fast trip back to the helicopter, he and IQ had confirmed the rest of the building was devoid of any opfor.  Doc didn’t wait to start cleaning the bloodied injuries, despite Fuze’s struggles and quiet protests.  It was almost a relief when Blackbeard watched him finally pass out; at least he wouldn’t be conscious for the pain of tending to every wound.  Blackbeard knew Doc well enough to know the man wouldn’t rest himself until he was sure Fuze would be alright.  

Fuze slowly opened his eyes, struggling to adjust to the bright lights shining above him.  It didn’t take him long to realize he was in the infirmary, beeps marking his heat rate.  He tried sitting up, only gaining Doc’s attention and being gently stopped.  

“Don’t stress yourself.  You came very close to dying.”

Fuze let himself relax, body aching with the dull awareness of the pain he had felt.  He watched Doc look over the various instruments around the bed, preferring to stay quiet.  What was there to even say?  His stomach growled, prompting Doc to hand him a plate of food.  

“Slowly, so you don’t throw up what you just ate.”  

“I know.”

He didn’t like being babied, even if Doc only meant well.  He knew how to take care of himself, had dealt with his fair share of pain and agony in his life and this was hardly going to be the last time.  Doc took a deep breath, putting a pill bottle on the bedside stand.  

“If your pain gets worse, take two of those no more than every four hours.”

Fuze nodded again, watching Doc leave.  His phone was on the stand beside the bottle, and he couldn’t help the curiosity of checking it.  He had a mountain of messages, every one of them concerned questions about how he was doing.  

At least I have time.  

[cam-stopped-eating-candles]

[shawnstilinski]

Home (S.M)

MASTERLIST

WATTPAD

Word count: 1,578

Author: Cams

GIF source

Y/N’s POV

Normally, I would only be this nervous, when I was about to lie. That is not the case this time around, though. In fact, I am going to be more painfully honest, than I have been in a long while.

It is not like he doesn’t know that I miss him every time he leaves. It is not that he does not know that I wish for every plane, I see in the sky, to be the one that brings him home whenever he is away. He knows me, and he knows that I hate to be apart from him, but I have never told him as clearly and as heartfelt, as this.

I think of when I wrote it, to try and convince myself that this is a good idea.

Shawns most recent trip carried him to France, and the minute I found myself seated on my bed and my eyes caught sight of the a-bit-too dusty guitar in the corner, I felt drawn to it – I felt a need to put, what I felt, into words; and so I did:

Your plane, it left for France

My heart stopped its dance

Oh, I need you to come home

I’m all alone, and right now I need you to know

I felt the water gathering at the brim of my eyes. This typically happens when I allow myself to sing whatever words I carry in my heart. I laughed lightly at myself before shaking it off and carrying on:

Turn the plane around

Please come back to me

It’s where you need to be

Don’t put your feet on the ground

I need you here,

Please don’t disappear

I sighed a soft ‘oh, God’ at myself as I felt myself shake lightly. I was really going to miss him – just like every time. I sang another note, but shortly after, I placed the guitar back on the ground, feeling a lump take place in my throat. The first sob left me only a few moments later, as I scolded myself for already having spent plenty of time crying about his departure. I breathed in heavily and stood up. The guitar went back to its dusty corner.

“Why not?” I spoke to myself, as I decided to scribble down the lyrics I had poured out. Accompanying the many other unfinished lyrics in my notebook, the song was adorned with a salty droplet of water at the bottom of the page. I shut the book and left the room.

A few weeks later, after hanging up on a particularly emotional phone call with Shawn, I found myself leaning against the wall in the dusty corner, with the guitar settled in my lap. I had told him that in spite of having lived here for a long while, I continued to feel lost in the city every time he was not present. He did not have to be by my side at all times, but the city didn’t feel like home when he wasn’t in it. Hell, even my own home didn’t really feel like home. I had subconsciously been strumming the chords of the song and softly hummed along as I eased my crying.

I needed to sing something more. Something like:

The days turn into weeks

As I continue to seek

What am I looking for? And what is the cost?

Oh, how can I search, when I’m not really lost?

I knew the way from “home” to the library via the nearest coffee shop. I could probably walk to work in my sleep (not that I would dare try it). I had this part of the city down to a T, but it felt strange – empty, yet so terribly crowded, when he was not around. It seemed my internal compass pointed me to him, no matter what I did.

Turn the plane around

Please come back to me

It’s where you need to be

Don’t put your feet on the ground

I need you here,

Please don’t disappear

I swiftly scribbled the new words in my notebook, before they left my mind. I sang the whole thing accompanied by the soft and simple strumming of the strings. Down, down, up, up, down, up.

The day of Shawn’s return inched closer, but I still longed for him. Old Dusty was brought with me to the balcony on a chilly night when the homesickness was getting heavy. I attempted playing a few of his songs, as he had shown me, while I stared at the stars, most likely sporting a dreamy far-off look.

I returned to the song. The song of need. The song of love and longing. His song.

I never stopped gawking at the stars, as I manoeuvred through the chords and unquestionably cheesy lyrics. New ones were brought to life, as I spotted the Northern Star and a small smile found its way onto my lips.

They say ‘look for the stars’

If you ever wanna find your way home

Don’t stray too far, no

I cuddled up on the soft love seat drabbed in several blankets I had brought outside with me. The stars and the noisy city below me sang me to sleep, as I unexpectedly drifted off.

A much greater star but the same noise was what woke me from my sleep on the little love seat. The candle I had lit the night before had long burned out and had my notebook not been tightly tucked under my blanket it would have surely looked slightly worn out because of the dew. It took a lot of strength to lift my tired form to a sitting position. I lifted the guitar and examined it. Considering it had spent the night outside, (like my unfortunate self,) it was doing surprisingly well. After tuning it, which was highly required with the massive change of temperature, I found myself strumming last nights addition to the song to find something more for it.

I spotted a contrail that seemed to be from quite far away, and so, the next part came about:

So I’m keeping my eyes on the grey horizon

As I’m longingly anticipating your return

My god, I miss him.

I did not want to turn off the lights in the hallway in case Shawn came home during the night. I snuggled up to his side of the bed, but I woke to find it as empty as it had been when I had dozed off. Hoping for him to return a week early may have been a bit much to expect. The guitar had been placed right by the sofa in the living room, and so, after eating breakfast, the final part of his song came around:

So when you’re out there finding yourself

and finding some peace of mind

Please, don’t put me on the shelf

‘Cause I find I’m

Keeping the lights on

And staying awake the night through

Waiting, for when you…

Come home. Make this feel like home, please.

Turn the plane around

Please come back to me

It’s where you need to be

Don’t put your feet on the ground

I need you here,

Please don’t disappear

I wrote down the pretty words and looked at the pages in awe, surprised that I had finished a full song.

Now, I am seated on the edge of the sofa, nerves taking up my whole body, as I have foolishly called Shawn over to play him my creation. Stupid. The man knows talent better than anyone does, and for me to think that I could have created a song he may appreciate is simply ridiculous. Yet, here I am, as he is staring at me with hopeful, dark eyes, encouraging me to “go on, honey!”

I strum the first chord, but due to my nerves, it comes off harsh and slightly flawed. I look down embarrassed and utter a small ‘sorry’ accompanied by a light chuckle. He simply shakes his head, smiling, and ushers me to try again.

I take a deep breath, let my eyes fall to the ground and start over – this time successfully.

The first few notes come out shaky, as I am beyond nervous, but as the song carries on and he has yet to tell me to stop or just straight up leave, I relax more and finish the song nearly painlessly. As I open my eyes again, I am met with his looking back at me, faintly red around the edges, with tears lining the lash lines.

“You wrote that for me?” he asks, each word soaked in pride. I nod and look at my lap with a flustered grin painted across my lips.

“It was beautiful – amazing!”

“You really think so? I mean it was just kinda written as a spur of the moment kinda thing. And, I mean, I’m pretty unsure about the bridge, like, is it too long? And does it even really fit in?” I ramble on until he finally interrupts me by wrapping his arms around me.

I feel safe and loved, and I suddenly understand his passion for wearing his heart on his sleeve, covered only by beautiful notes, and letting the beating of it serve as the drums. There is really nothing quite like baring your heart in a song when this is what you earn back.

He softly hums the melody and offers a small “Thank you.” I cannot help but giggle at his appreciation.

“‘Welcome, home.”

A/N: Hellooo! I have finally gotten around to writing a new piece and this time you’re getting a song along with it. I wrote this song for one of my best friends, who went to France for a few months (hence, the lyrics), and I decided to write something about it. The audio is me singing the song and playing my trusty ukulele! 

Thank you for reading, I really hope you enjoyed it! 

Feedback is, as always, highly appreciated; on the writing as well as the song xx

[haxo-lw]

i was tagged by @dariaxcooper ! thank you!

rules: answer these 30 questions and tag some followers!

1. Nicknames: cam or willow 2. Gender: female 3. Star sign: taurus 4. Height:  1m61 5. Time: 10:53 am 6. Birthday: 24th april 7. Favorite bands: GET READY bad religion, ghost, led zeppelin, king crimson, MCC, rammstein, uncle acid and the deadbeats, the beatles, the clash 8. Favorite solo artists: kt tunstall <3 9. Song stuck in my head: little sun by blues pills 10. Last movie watched: hot fuzz  11. Last show watched: rizzoli and isles because it was on tv yesterday 12. When did I create my blog: who knows

13. What do I post: music stuff, pretty stuff, cats, funny things mostly

14. Last thing I googled: pierre guffroy 15. Do you have other blogs: yes, but not much active, i’ll try to update my studyblr when i’ll get back to school 16. Do you get asks: rarely 17. Why did you choose your url: the name of a never opened paris subway station and the first letters of my nickname and one of my oc! 18. Following: i dont know 19. Followers: 275 20. Favorite color: green 21. Average hours of sleep: 7 to 9 hours 22. Lucky number: 3 23. Instruments: i sing, play the guitar, and can do chords on a piano 24. What am I wearing: pyjama pants and a bad religion tour tee 25. How many blankets I sleep with: 2 when i’m cold, one when it’s super hot, and most of the time i sleep around the blanket anyway 26. Dream job: being in a band or being a roadie, although it’ll probably never happen so engineer 27. Dream trip: looots of places, right now it’s Slovenia that’s on my mind 28. Favorite food: bolognese spaghetti boy i could eat those all day all night 29. Nationality: french 30. Favorite songs now: let’s be original and name a whole album: red fang by the band red fang!

I don’t really know who to tag so anyone feel free to tag yoselves and do it! (dont be shy)

[brimbrimbrimbrim]

Hi I hate to ask this but I've had the worst day of my life, a sprained ankle and then a car accident. It's been horribly rough. Could I get a small one shot Lucas fic of taking a liking to and comforting a found captive?

Don’t apologize for asking, Anon. That sounds like a terrible day. I hope you recover mentally, physically and financially very soon. Car accidents are terrible and a sprained ankle is rough. I hope this fic helps ease some of the crappy feels that today has given you. Much love for you on your road to recovery.

It started off with Lucas getting bored enough to watch all the VHS tapes he could salvage - ending up with a bundle of his Ma’s collection and nothing else to do. So, he sat around with his thumb up his ass and suffered through Beaches, Titanic and… some stupid Wayne Newton thing while eating bags of cheese puffs and peanuts.

By the end of Steel Magnolias, he felt like someone had ripped his balls off and sewn a pussy on him. All he could think about was cuddling and fawning over a girl of his own, and it made him nearly sick.

He sat around for another two days thinking about what it’d be like to have a girlfriend and jus’…hold hands. Hold hands?! Like he was some fuckin’ prepubescent brat. He wanted to fuck and cum balls deep in some hot cunt, not sit around and hold hands all day. But he did, and so he sat around with a blank TV and a heartache, not knowing what to do with himself.

On the third day of his self-inflicted misery, the ol’ man came in with two bodies.

“Morgue’s overrun, boy. I’m sticking these down in the stalls. They ain’t been fed yet so don’t you touch ‘em, ya here?!”

“Whatever,” he replied, not thinking twice about it cause on account of the goop his brain had become and got a nice crack in the back of his head with a baseball bat for his trouble.

After dear ol’ dad had taken down a charter bus full of shitheels lookin’ to spend the weekend in New Orleans for the big fuckin’ Mardi Gras parade, Lucas got stuck with two captives when the basement started overflowing with new arrivals. Two too many, he grumbled, hearing one of them start screamin’ after only two hours strapped up.

Ain’t nobody got time fer this, he thought.

He had other shit to do (he didn’t), and it wasn’t even like he could use ‘em for test subjects either so what good were they but an annoyance? They’d both been there since this morning, and it only took until now for Lucas to realize one of ‘em wasn’t screaming - hadn’t been since Daddy brought ‘em by.

Typically it wouldn’t peak his interest - the silence - but the last bitch he’d tossed in the rat’s nest had long since turned to bones, and he was bored. The tapes had made him weak at heart, and he couldn’t stand watching another one of his Ma’s sentimental tear fests.

Just the thought was making him wanna puke.

Lucas hunched over his desk, frowned and gave the little joystick a push to the right, panning camera nine over to the quiet one all tied up in one of the horse stalls.

A girl, Lucas noticed immediately. She was quiet, reserved and hadn’t moved much. Without much reason to, Lucas hadn’t gone down since they’d been brought in and secured to their posts. He hadn’t bothered to look at ‘em either since he wasn’t supposed to play with ‘em. Shoulda took a little trip down though, cause the chick looked kind of hot once he zoomed in a bit. Get rid of the blood and dirt, and she’d been the nicest lookin’ bitch to ever get past the gates.

“Ain’t it just peachy ah’ get stuck with a dumb whore in the barn…” he grumbled.  She looked like one too (not really), but guess that coulda’ been the fact that she’d been stripped down to her panties. At this angle, he couldn’t see her tits, but her back was bare, so she wasn’t wearing a bra or nothin’.

Shame - shame he didn’t have a good angle for a free viewing.

His Pa never said he couldn’t have himself a look-see. As long as he didn’t chuck her in the Birthday Room, who cared if he had a little fun? All he wanted was a look and maybe a hug or some snuggles - No! No, he just wanted to watch her heaving tits as he jerked off on the floor in front of her. He wanted to slip his dick between ‘em and… ugh…

Lucas wanted good night’s sleep with a warm body beside him, in all honesty. It got pretty lonely now that he was off the grid more or less - just enough connection established to contact his people and set up communication between all the cameras and speakers. No more porn to toss his rocks off to. No cam girls to watch while he fucked his fist, pretending it was a pussy. And now, worst of all, he’d brainwashed himself into wanting something more innocent than a good fuck. Maybe when the girl down in the barn passed out, he’d go lay next to her…

The girl down in the stall shifted, stretching a long pale leg across a bed of musty hay.

Shit! Where was his Polaroid at? Worse case scenario he’d snap a picture of her and lay in bed looking at it like a freak.

Four upturned boxes and a messy bed later, Lucas was loading up his ol’ polaroid camera with a dozen blanks, fingers shaking. He was only a bit ashamed of how low he was willing to go for some semblance of intimacy, but hell… he was desperate, and it was hard enough keeping his head clear as it was.

It was pretty pointless, but he rubbed his face clean of the blood from earlier and threw his door open. Lucas kicked his heels into the stairs, eyeing the molded that were hanging off the walls. They’re gaping jaws clicked open, swinging towards him jus’ enough to know it wasn’t some escapee running fer the hills. One of ‘em gurgled, gagged and puked up a messy wad of bones as Lucas passed it by.

Easily ignored, when his heart was busy jackhammering at the thought of this girl his Pa had brought in.

The girl was sitting in the stall, a chain wrapped around her waist, connecting her manacled wrists and branching out to the pole she was resting against. She didn’t have much wiggle room, but all in all, it wasn’t as bad as getting cramped into one o’ them dog crates.

She didn’t even bother lookin’ at him as his sneakers crunched over brittle hay, pausing outside the wooden gate. A fountain of pale hair hung down in front of her face, covering the tops of her tits.

“Hey-hey, come on, bitch! Wake up!” He snorted as she jerked but did little else. Only when he growled and gave the gate a hard kick did she swayed. A hint of perky nipple poked out of her thick hair as she lifted her head; blood-matted hair slipping out of her eyes. Blue eyes, like his own, looked up at him, gazing under wet lashes.

She was a hottie, and Lucas was struck half dumb for a good long minute jus’ looking at her.

“My leg’s broken,” she whispered. Pain made her voice throaty, ragged enough he found himself licking his lips, wondering if he should have brought her a soda or somethin’. He palmed his Polaroid, nodding to her with the tip of his chin.

“I’ll set it fer ya if ya give me a smile. I’ll even bring you upstairs and get ya somethin’ to eat. How about that? Sounds like ah sweet little deal, don’t it? Jus’ gotta say cheese!”

“It doesn’t and I won’t,” she said, leaning back against the wooden pole, exposing her bare tits through a curtain of dirty hair, uncaring.

Lucas popped himself a picture without obscuring his view with the shitty glass lens. All she did was blink at the flash and nothing more. No rebuttal, no tears or anything else he’d have expected. Hell, Lucas even had a running shower up there. How could she say no that kinda offer?

Slowly, checking the barn entrance with a narrowed look, he smashed the lock on the gate and swung it open. The noise or the implication made her stiffen over the hay bed. In her lap, she curled her fingers and closed her eyes. Dry, cracked lips, which probably looked pretty full and sexy when she wasn’t dehydrated, mouthed words… no, they mouthed numbers.

Lucas shoved his shoulder into the wooden post as he read her lips while she chanted math equations, solving for X and Y in some weird, brainy coping mechanism. Probably thought he was gonna rape her or somethin’. All the chicks that came through here thought he would…kinda got insulting after ah while.

“Ya forgot to carry the four, sweetheart…” he told her, watching as she ignored him, continuing despite her fuck up.

Kinda interesting. Usually, everyone just begged and screamed for someone to come rescue ‘em - like they were a princess in some wild fairy tale. This one accepted her fate, or at least what she thought was gonna happen, and did her best to prepare for it. Lucas liked that - respected it. And so he yanked the film from his camera, gave it a couples flaps until the badly lit sight of her with those cute tits came full color. He threw the picture at her, snorted when she kept on dividing and subtracting and left her there.

It wasn’t until the next morning that Lucas got itchy again.

All night he’d been watching her through the camera, ignoring the stupid asshat in the stall beside her as he screamed. It was hard to see through the snowy lenses, but Lucas was pretty sure she was still miming mathematics to herself. She didn’t sleep, at least not for more than half an hour maybe. Her unbroken leg would kick or stretch and once he saw her turn her head up towards the camera, staring at him.

“Come and do it already,” she’d say, making his gut churn sickly.

After his ol’ man had come in for the retard with the broken vocal chords, Lucas stuffed a bag of skittles in his pocket, grabbed a can of soda and hopped the stairs to see his adorable brainiac.

She was docile, only watching him, never begging, as he swung the gate open and stepped inside. The stall was narrow but spacious, but Lucas threw himself down beside her despite having enough room to host an orgy if he wanted. The girl tipped her head back and breathed deeply, ready for whatever she thought he was gonna do.

“Skittles?” he offered, shaking the packet near his jaw with a feral grin that made his cheeks ache. He’d forgotten how to smile, so a grin would have to do.

The barest touch of her tongue between her lips made Lucas swallow. In her lap he noticed her fingers twitch.

“…why?”

He didn’t need a reason, but he had one, ‘course he did. Lucas wasn’t gonna tell her, though, so he just shrugged and tore the corner off the packet, shaking a few into his palm. All he needed to do was stare at her hands fer a few seconds before she got the idea and offered her palms to him; shackles clinking. Bruises and bloody scabs ran like bracelets around her wrists.

He dropped a few sickly bright skittles into her palm and watched her wince, trying to put them in her mouth. If he weren’t so sure she’d bite his fingers off or curl her nose in disgust, he’d have fed them to her.

“So, ya like numbers, huh?” He waited for her to say something, but she merely sucked the Skittles in her mouth with half-closed eyes; savoring the sugar in silence.

“Me too,” he sighed, scooting a little closer to her until he just missed bumping her broken leg.

“My Pa said I was gifted when ah’ was younger. But hell! - Guess geniuses go crazy every damn day, huh? Jus’ another one with a bad brain.” It felt better talkin’ to someone that wasn’t Eveline…or imaginary like Oliver had been (sometimes still was). Even if she didn’t talk back, Lucas liked laying back in the barn with her. Nothin’ else better to do anyhow and it was the closest he dared to get to something resembling cuddles. Not that he wanted that… obviously.

“… can I have some more?” she asked, sounding so tiny and small that somethin’ in Lucas started to hurt. He looked up at her from the soft ground, saw how empty her eyes were - like a dead sea - and handed her the whole bag of skittles. The little, hopeless smile she gave him made his chest tighten like there was a hook buried in it.

The only thing that sucked about dosing himself with that serum was all the emotions he had coming back to him. That’s all it was. Could’ah done without ‘em, if he were honest, but the girl ate her candy through the pain, meeting her hands halfway down and somethin’ about giving her that little act of kindness made him wanna do more and more… and more.

For the next two days, he spent most of his time either telling himself not to go down and see her, or sitting with her in the barn, feeding her junk food, handing her bottles of water or talking to her (actually talking to himself, but that was neither here nor there).

Eventually, he went down to see her with a real goal in mind - not just trying to keep her alive. He brought the bolt cutters with him. The ol’ man wouldn’t sweat one little captive - not when he had dozens of ‘em fresh and ready to be hatched. If his Pa said anything, Lucas could just tell ‘im the molded got hungry and climbed the gate. Easy.

She withdrew at the sight of him with the cutters in hand, but still, she didn’t beg or scream. Lucas cut her chains without a word and tore her manacles off as easily as if they’d been clay. When he grabbed her around the waist, careful of the raw red skin where her chains had been, he felt her muscles tighten. Not one to take that shit personally, Lucas tried to smile but ended up grinning and slung her over his shoulder… only then did she scream. He could feel her tears soak through the back of his hoodie and her broken leg bang against his chest.

Lucas tried not to let the sounds of her agony bother him, but they did. Every step made him wince as she bawled her eyes out, shouting and begging him to stop - that it hurt 'it hurt so bad!’

In a few minutes, she’d be right as rain, but the pathetic, sloppy sounds still wedged their way under his skin somehow.

She sobbed when he set her down on his couch, fingers running along her broken thigh like fluttering leaves; listless. Pain lined her body - her face and brows. The lights above their heads highlight the heavy fall of tears that made Lucas feel guilty for some fucking reason. Not like he’d broken her leg…

He grumbled and left her there to her misery as he went to the kitchen, pulling out a bottle of the good stuff for her and his last candy bar. Maybe she’d be more apt to forgive him if he showered her with sugar. Wouldn’t hurt, right? - And he was pretty desperate at that point.

When he returned, she was halfway across the floor, dragging herself towards the door. A long, scattered line of dark blood following her line a snail trail.

“Hahaaaa’ah shit, sweetheart. Where’d you think yur goin’? Ain’t nothing out there but moldy freaks with them teeth waitin’ fer ya,” he laughed at her, hamming it up as his gut pulled when she merely whimpered and pulled herself another few inches across the floor.

Badass, bitch. Smart and sturdy and cute… didn’t find many of those anymore. Not that Lucas would know really. He never did get out much before Evie showed up - didn’t do much talking to girls even before he was labeled the crazy head.

Lucas swallowed and knelt down beside her, pulling at her ankle. She howled, hissed and threw a fist into his face. Took him by surprise, but it was weak and barely did more than sting. He hadn’t meant to pull at the busted leg like that.

Didn’t matter, though. He was gonna fix her, and she could hit him all she wanted if it made her feel better, Lucas could take it even if she broke his jaw. He gave her a hard look and poured the bottle’s cool, slick contents over her thigh.

Those wet blues fluttered closed, as the shit took effect.

“… I can feel my bones snapping.”

Lucas grinned, biting his lip to keep most of the infectious glee inside until he could breathe it back down, “Yeah, how about that? Feelin’ pretty good by now I reckon.”

She twisted at the waist, running a hand over her healed thigh before giving him a calculating look, “I-I don’t understand.”

“Bout what?”

“Everything,” she whispered, pulling her legs in, laying an arm over her chest with a slight blush. Guess now that she wasn’t in so much pain she had enough sense to be embarrassed by her tits hanging free. Lucas liked lookin’ at ‘em, but that free fun was over. If he’d wanted to keep ogling her, he coulda just kept her in the horse stall. Naw, Lucas wanted her - wanted to hug her close and wash away the blood and dirty, pat the wounds dry and kiss them better. It was real fuckin’ sappy and stupid and yet he didn’t bother worrying about it now that her leg was healed.

“T-this,” she started, inhaling brutally as Lucas dared put a hand on his calf, “you can’t kill her, take her away from me like that - you can’t snap my fucking leg in half and throw me in some damn pig pen and… and… and feed me candy like some pet and now this?!”

Lucas frowned, feeling like someone had a knife stuck in his stomach, giving it a good wiggle with each seething word.  She shook and cried silent tears, staring heatedly at him while he sat there frozen, just wanting to wrap his arm around her.

As more grief poured outta her, her lips started to quiver like they were hooked up to car batteries, “That asshole h-he killed 'er and now you wanna… just do it already! Just do it!”

Her fists coiled and like a feral cat, she came at him, throwing a jab at his chest and another up into his chin.

Lucas hissed, grabbing at her wrists and pulled her up over his thighs, keeping her claws out of his eyes as she trembled and sobbed; leaking wet tears down into his lap. The only crying girl he’d helped was Zoe when they were teenagers when some cunt had called her fat during lunch. This was… Lucas tried to stop looking at her tits as they bounced while she cried - sought to halt the boner from growing between his legs as her hair tickled the back of his hands. Her eyes opened wide, stared up at him, and suddenly she collapsed into his chest; sniffling.

“Ain’t gonna rape ya…” he told her; pretty lame sounding in truth, but he wasn’t sure what to do with a crazy chick in his lap, curling her fingers around his sides… hugging him hatefully. Bitch was insane, but Lucas couldn’t ignore the warmth he felt as she held him around the middle, trying to suck some sort of comfort from him.

Lucas found himself wrapping his arms around her, holding her bare shoulders, rubbing her shivering, naked back as she whimpered into his chest. Shit circumstances and all, but Lucas loved every second of the contact. She was warm and soft…

“Shh… Hush, now,” he muttered, doing what his Mama used to do for him when he had nightmares… or scuffed up his knees on the stairs. The words just sorta came out without much thought to it, and before Lucas knew what was happenin’, he was whispering sweet nothings to this chick while she breathed easy against him. There on the floor, he held her, feeling her heart thud gently against his stomach.

It was the first real intimate contact he’d had since Eveline showed up, long before that even…and suddenly he couldn’t get enough of it. Lucas groaned, pulling her up and cradled her carefully in his lap. She only struggled for a second before sinking into his arms silently, breathing slow and gentle. Lucas inhaled the stale, blood tinged smell of her hair, found something sweet buried underneath the dirt and sighed.

“Thanks,” he muttered; lips on her scalp. Down beside his stomach, he felt a soft touch, like a thumb brushing the jut of his ribs and shuddered in pleasure.

If this was how good it felt to be held - to hold - and offer comfort then Lucas decided he wasn’t gonna let his Pa get this one. Lucas was gonna keep her safe and sound, and she wasn’t ever gonna feel pain again. If he had to kill ‘em all… he’d do it, just to keep her from cryin’ ever again.

[sysig]

TAZ Ep. 57 Liveblog

The episode isn't even out yet and I'm going to Actually Die

IT'S HERE

FRICK

RED ROBES RIGHT OFF THE BAT JUST KILL ME NOW

GAME OVER

MAGNUS REMEMBERS

I'M DYING ACTIVELY RIGHT NOW I'M DYING AND WE'RE ONLY 30 SECONDS IN

CAM IS HERE IN THE REMINDER

Aight aight aight

We're back to being caught up

I AM ALREADY CUSSING INTRO MAN

*aggressively hums along*

Abso-fricken'-lutely

Someone get this man some wooden dice

Well frick??

Dexterity saving throw please

Uhm

WOAH

Right right

Hot dang why are you here RR

Of course you have Taako, you are TV

Why you laugh

"Burly"

MORE HECKING MUSIC

Oh gosh

IS THIS WONDERLAND ROUND 3???

It's hecking good that's what

Oh good

Thank, at least you're taking care of my boy's body

But you can heal Magnus tho, I think that'd count?

Oh! Stats, good

HAHAHA

Good one Griffi

I mean

Oooh

In a tiny wooden body vs. the arm-pulling Mango body

Well

Are you ticklish

Oh nice

Ruff boi, that's what

What a shocker

Oh shit

Please no, my boy is made of wood

Hmmmmmm imagine

I mean yeah

Mango is going to die in a mannequin, and then I'll die

Not against Railsplitter thank you

Aw Merle ;;

Hey no, trees are wood

FRICK

NO

MY BOY

I KNEW IT I CALLED IT

MERLE'S DEAD

NO HE'S DEAD SHUT UP

HNG

Pretty much, you're right

HAH

HOT HECK NICE

GRIFF YOU WERE RIGHT

I just noticed how long this episode is, nice

Yeas

100%

Heh, nice~

Well if one didn't work, let's try 10

Hot dang, cast that on Magnus, he'll be great

WAIT NO DON'T ATTACK MANGO'S BODY

Okay 2d6 isn't that bad, and he was just healed I guess

Jeez tho

I think Taako's made a death save once

I mean yeah, you're right

Why is this exactly what somebody said once, why is this accurate

No ;;

I mean I'm glad he saved but like

Please no more fives Merle

What the heck

JEEZ

JEEZ

I

Heh

While the other mannequins are there?

That's cute

Oooh nice, get to see the Magnetic Charge, that's neato

I'm not dying yet, this is either a good sign or a terrible terrible sign

Carey taught you so well <3

Clipped into the belt, got it memorized

Hahah, he just like floats the armour

Poor mannequin

Bye glasses, I didn't know you were metal

Don't need glasses if you're dead *touches temple*

Taako

It's time to stop

Vocal chords are? Physical?

Haha, you have to charismatically call the Lance

FRICK YEAH, that's awesome

Stop smiling, Edward, you lost the Charisma roll

GRIFFIN

DON'T

I DON'T TRUST YOU IN THIS VERY MOMENT

THE MOMENT YOU STARTED CLAPPING

Okay nevermind this is good and I trust you

I hate this but this is very good

FRICK

"Is Magnus going to tear off his own arms" this still counts okay

What the frick

He literally unarmed you

What

Uhm

More music and now I don't trust it

"Great pain" inner peace?

Oh hey I know that thing

Alright...

Wait but it didn't come back? Either way I like

Like two moons?

I

You mean Faerun? Not Magnus' home?

Who said shit, but I agree

Great thanks

Six rounds, s'all good

She float

Merle is dead, be quiet

Hahah

Noice, good work Taako

Why are we still attacking Magnus' body tho, please stop?

Merle

Both of you, you need to stop

I mean according to Clint you're not wrong??

Protection from both? Why

That sounds wildly helpful, maybe shoulda led with that?

Hey maybe don't

What??

You're still floating, how long does Levitation last

Why are you talking to the Red Robe this is the weirdest thing

HE ONLY NEEDS 1HP GIVE IT TO HIM PLEASE

Hey maybe don't die tho?

What, why, he only needed 1 please maybe don't?

You said you had 4, he literally only needed 1, why are you like this

Frick you Cam

HAHA NICE

Gross X3

Ooh

Bless you Merle

Don't kill my son

He doesn't have thAT MANY HP STOP ROLLING DICE

And now Taako is dead, great

Sleepy soul boy

I like how "the" is not part of Chance Lance's name

HEY MAYBE DON'T DO THAT??

3d10....

Okay good, yes

DOG PILE ON EDWARD

I can envision that so well, thank you Griffi

Oh

Is Edward gonna be eated?

Oh shit

WHILE DEAD

So badass

JEEZUS EDWARD IS DEADWARD

I can't imagine why

Well jeez, wish we could stop that but ah...dead

Ohp

WOAH

Yeah man same

"Wrong with her" Hmmmm

How 'bout that Suffering there Lydia?

Damn...

DAMN

WHAT??

NO

HOW COULD YOU

FRUK

HEY BBY NOT READY FOR THIS ADVERTISEMENT ZONE

You are definitely my clock, thank you

HNG

Aight time to check the tumblees and see how much everyone else is dying

We can't have gotten to the point where Griffi's heart was beating super fast...can we? It's gotta still be up the line, I'm scared very thank you

I love this fanfic in the Shout Box, this is great

No it's great Griffi, we've got it, we got it five years ago

Thank, all I ask is that you give my boys their proper resolutions, thank again

Ah man, please record it, I want to see that please please please

On Tumblr - there was a vore thing? I missed it very much? It did not register I have to relisten to this immediately

"Oh btw MBMBAM TV" It's good bby, I want to watch it so much

Griffin

GRIFFIN

WHEN YOU SAY THINGS LIKE THIS I GET 20% MORE SCARED EVERY TIME

I TRUST YOU BUT ALSO FRICK YOU

March 2nd, hnnnggg

THIS MUSIC IS POPPIN' THO IT'S TOTALLY ROUND 3 HOLY

Taako's dead and Magnus' body is gone and Merle is frickin' almost dead again

LICHES GET STITCHES YUP

Magnus

Yay ;u; Steven the fish is fine

I believe you Mango

Hahah

"Heal't"

Red Robe hey, shut up

Can mannequins be enthralled

Hahaha

Magnus would hate that, it's true

Well shit great wonderful good

Thank, yes, thank for explicitly breaking my heart

Kill the building, kill it

Save Rowan and co.

Hmmmmm that doesn't sound good

Ayyyyy

Good job boys

Only problem is MAGNUS' BODY IS GONE

MAYBE DON'T

Woah??

Thank you Antonia ;;

Yeah just a little

Hahah, "I lost my pinkie" "Are you a mannequin?"

Hahaha

Antonia you are lovely

But where is Rowan and Sterling, I'm concerned

HAHAHAH Oh Taako, friendship wins the day

Ay there's Sterling

Now where's my other son

What

Woah, too much

But the halflings?

But why Merle? Taako was the most hurt?

I'm just confused, gotta relisten

YAY ROWAN

But yeah, no, this is kinda important I guess

"Having a fit" accurate

"Your arm is wood, my whole body is wood AND I'm missing an arm"

More memories, frick

OH SHIT

Hide something............terrifying

HNG

Insignia

What does it look like tho

Also music

JUNE AND JACK

OH MY GOD IT TOTALLY IS THO???

FRICK

FRICK FRICK FRICK FRICK

FRIIICK

Yeah no

Magnus I can think of things for you to lose but uh

Oh yeah, they're out of Wonderland now

MY SPECIAL BOY

How long has he been calling ;;

Hahah

FRICK

RED ROBE

Taako please

Ango, gone already no ;;

There's only 10 minutes left, what's gonna pop off

Tomorrow hahahahahahahahahaha

Hold up, gotta whisper into a coin

Aw Merle ;u; The beach dwarf leading the party

Oh how homey

Wait is this

Oh gosh, oh man, ahhhh nooo

Finally my boys rest ;;;;

Mannequin dreams anD THE MUSIC RETURNS

Okay, yeah, the Voidfish touched on this

Is this because his body is dead?

Ohh shoot, a whole book

Larry Burnsides

OH SHIT THERE IT IS

HOLY SHIT

~We're following the Red Robe~

IT'S THE PLACE??

IT'S THE PLACE

WHERE'S THE POD

THERE IT IS

SHIT

EPILOGUE IS HERE

DOUBLE SHIT

TRIPLE FRICK SHIT I KNEW IT

WOAH WHAT

"I P R E"

Yeah by like seven years

WAIT WHAT

WELL OKAY THEN, GREAT

How the heckle do you attach a Lich to a body

I'm

Hey y'know what I'm super into that, I love the truth from the BOB

Also hey, amnesia, the hardest thing to successfully pull off

Shit

A humanman

You can frickin' hear that smile

ALSO HEY I HATE THAT LINE 

I HATE THIS

I HATE THIS SO MUCH

I HATE THIS I HATE THIS I HATE THIIIIIIIIIS

JEEZUS I HATE YOU GRIFFIN SO MUCH

I HATE THIS OH MY GOD

BARRY'S FRICKING BACK AND I HATE EVERYTHING

FRICK YOU

Well alright then. Here’s to another two frickin’ weeks

[framing-the-picture]

IT’S HERE~!!!

Check out this comprehensive playlist of my favorite songs of 2016!!!

There are 55 entries here (counting the couple of multi-part songs that I didn’t want to break up as one entry) and you can see the full list after the break below. All in all, it’s a little over 4 hours of my favorite individual songs from the hundreds of albums I listened to this year.

Also, side note, the playlist is in descending order (meaning the first song is my #55 pick, the final song is my #1 pick, etc.) because then the playlist only gets stronger from my perspective... also, I like the way the playlist flows that way instead.

Happy listening! Hope you enjoy it!!!

Andy Shauf - To You

Danny Brown - When It Rain

Lemon Demon - Cabinet Man

Animal Collective - The Burglars

FLANCH ft. Stone Irr - hal0

Radiohead - Daydreaming

The Avalanches ft. Danny Brown - The Wozard of Iz (plus the tracks that lead up to it)

Jeff Rosenstock - The WORRY. Medley

Deakin - Golden Chords

Esperanza Spalding - Ebony and Ivy

Frank Ocean - Self Control

Blood Orange ft. Carly Rae Jepsen - Better Than Me

Sleigh Bells - Unlimited Dark Paths

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Gamma Knife

Car Seat Headrest - Cosmic Hero

Cakes da Killa ft. Rye Rye - Gon Blow

clipping. - A Better Place

Told Slant - Tsunami

MONEY - A Cocaine Christmas and An Alcoholic’s New Year

Open Mike Eagle & Paul White - Insecurity Part 2 (The Moor The Marry Her)

Kevin Abstract - Miserable America

Kishi Bashi - Honeybody

Chairlift - Unfinished Business

Ness Io Kain - Angel’s Umbra

PUP - If This Tour Doesn’t Kill You, I Will

Jessy Lanza - It Means I Love You

ANOHNI - Drone Bomb Me

Childish Gambino - Me and Your Mama

PWR BTTM - Projection

Angel Olsen - Pops

Mitski - Your Best American Girl

Crying - There Was A Door

Parquet Courts - Captive of the Sun

Glass Animals - Life Itself

Kendrick Lamar - untitled 08 | 09.06.2014

Xenia Rubinos - Black Stars

Sturgill Simpson - Call to Arms

Noname ft. Cam O’bi and Raury - Diddy Bop

Ryley Walker - The Halfwit in Me

Lady Lamb - Heaven Bent

Bat for Lashes - In Your Bed

The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die - Katamari Duquette

Sylvan Esso - Kick Jump Twist

Weyes Blood - Generation Why

A Giant Dog - Sex & Drugs

Japanese Breakfast - Everybody Wants to Love You

Xiu Xiu - Falling

Death Grips - Spikes

Common ft. Stevie Wonder - Black America Again

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Rings of Saturn

Street Sects - And I Grew Into Ribbons

the i.l.y’s - Starts With A C Ends With A U

Jenny Hval - Conceptual Romance

Cymbals Eat Guitars - Mallwalking

Massive Attack ft. Young Fathers - Voodoo in My Blood

[train-inthedistance]

I’ve been tagged by @thaknows thanks a lotttt!!♡♡♡

Five things you’ll find in my backpack

kleenex

keys

chapstick

a bottle of water (stay well hydrated!)

lit a years’ stock of antiallergenic meds and my asthma inhaler

my ID

(this is so boring i’m sry they always say what’s in your backpack tells a lot abt you it’s just the way it is i’m just broing af)

Five things in my bedroom

clothes literally everywhere but in my wardrobe

books

my easel

my guitars and my bass

my record player

Five things I’ve wanted to do in my life

found a band and play concerts with said band and maybe release a record?

write a good?song?like a rly good one??or a book?!?

learn rly good spanish/french and live in barcelona/paris for a while

road trip from the west to the east coast (or the other way round) with someone i love (hitch hiking will be accepted too)

?? ?? ? ???????

(i can’t think of anything proper rn my brain is literally almost?empty??)

Five things that make me happy

music!

bands!

my friends♡

????????

pleasant chord combinations ?! ! and figuring out chords of songs by listening to them

Five things I’m currently into

i’m so into peaky blinders atm oh boy (and i’ve been watching lots of tom hardy films recently)

cam avery/the growl, AM, tame impala, the 1975.. as for bands (bet you didn’t know that)

no but honestly cam avery i would literally. die for him

listening to music in general ??

um..existentialism??nihilism?philosophy? that kinda stuff? ?

Five things on my to do list

exercising (ughhghg g)

eating healthier

reading and drawing more and spending less time on the internet 

sorting my future out

convincing my friend to go to that the 1975 concert in feb with me haha

thanks for tagging me this is rly sweet ummm i’ll tag @mygoldenmove, @misscurlyhairtoothemax, @partynthem, @shedoesthewoods, @isthereroomforbothofus, @alexturntable, @doublevisions, @enthusiasm-paraphernalia and @humpuukia don’t do this if you don’t want to of course ily ♡

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Women In Business Articles.

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