#easy bombay crush

[thetockablog]

Bombay Crush

Bombay Crush IngredientsMilk Jelly250ml water125ml milk1 tbsp china grass powder/agar agar Bombay crush4 cups vanilla ice cream, plus extra for serving1.5 cups milk1-2 tbsp rose syrup, or more if needed1/2 tsp ground cardamomPinch nutmeg1 tsp basil seedsCrushed pistachios, for serving, optional MethodMilk JellyAdd the water, milk, and china grass powder, and whisk into a saucepan. Place on…

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Deborah Kerr (Bonjour Tristesse, An Affair to Remember, The King and I)— For several decades she held the record for most Oscar nominations without a win (6 in total), and she was a prolific leading lady throughout the 40s and 50s. She's best known today for the romance An Affair to Remember with Cary Grant, and as the governess in The King and I. Many people have this erroneous perception of her as extremely prim, proper, and virginal, but this could not be further from the truth. When she first came to Hollywood under MGM she was typecast into boring decorative roles, but broke sexual boundaries for herself and Hollywood generally in From Here to Eternity, when she made out (horizontally!) with Burt Lancaster (on top of him!) in the famous Beach Scene. She went on to play many sexually conflicted women, a character type that would define most of her post- Eternity work. She continued to break Hays Code boundaries with Tea and Sympathy, which addresses homosexuality/homophobia head-on, and even did a topless scene in The Gypsy Moths 1969!! One of the only classic stars to do so. She deserves a more nuanced and frankly a hotter legacy than she currently has!!!

Devika Rani (Achhut Kanya)—She was grandniece of Rabindranath Tagore (laureate). She was sent to boarding school in England at age nine and grew up there. After completing her schooling, she joined the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and the Royal Academy of Music to study acting and music, at a time when aristocratic women did not enter showbiz. She studied filmmaking in Berlin. It is well known that she underwent training at the UFA Studios in the art and technique of acting under Eric Pommer, and other aspects of film production including costume and set designing and make-up, under eminent directors like GW Pabst, Fritz Lang, Emil Jannings and Josef von Sternberg. She is also reported to have worked with Marlene Dietrich. She had a multi-faceted personality and took on many responsibilities of film production at Bombay Talkies, a studio that she co-founded with Himanshu Rai in Mumbai in 1934. She often took care of hair and make up, supervised set design and editing, scouted for new talent and mentored them. She was the face of Bombay Talkies, and also the reason behind the political and financial backing the studio received, at a time when even women from red light districts refused to work as actresses. She was the first recipient of the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, when it was instituted in 1970.

This is round 3 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Deborah Kerr:

I think she was one of my first crushes before I realised I was bi in The King and I when I watched it as a kid honestly. The kissing scene in From Here to Eternity is iconic for a reason. Actually tried to learn the accents for the characters she was playing if they weren't English which is more than pretty much anyone else was doing then. Played very restrained characters who frequently seemed to be desperate not to be so restrained. Did horror movies without venturing into hagsploitation tropes. Gave Marni Nixon the credit she deserved for her share of the singing in The King and I.

Anne Larsen is a peak late 1950s bisexual with big MILF energy. Have you seen the behind the scenes pics of her wearing a suit?? Have you????? Vote Deb as Anne Larsen.

Nominated for an Oscar six (6) times and never won, but besides her having actual talent (hot), and besides her looking Like That (very hot, also beautiful), she was always playing women who are, like, crazy repressed. Which makes it fun and easy for me to read these characters as queer. Icon!!!! You know what's hot? Playing ambiguously gay in vintage Hollywood.

Her face and talent and body, yes, ofc, duh. But also!!! Her HANDS!!!! I may be but a simple lesbian, but she is the best hactor (hand actor) that ever lived and that's HOT! For propriety's sake I feel I must redact a large portion of my commentary on this subject. Anyway. She's hot in her most famous roles (mentioned above), and also some of her sexiest hacting is on display in An Affair to Remember (her hand on the bannister when Cary Grant kisses her off-screen??? HELLO???), Tea and Sympathy (when she's trying to persuade Tom not to go out and she keeps flexing her hands like she wants to reach out to him but can't??? ALLY BEHAVIOR! WE STAN!), and The Innocents (which opens and closes with extended shots of her hands bc director Jack Clayton was also an ally and he did that for ME). Much of her appeal also lies in the fact that she often played deeply repressed characters and you know what's hot? When those uptight characters finally unravel. It's sexy. It's cathartic. It's erotic. Plus, she's beautiful to look at in both black & white and technicolor, and the more of her films you see, the more you can't help but fall in love!

Literally is in thee most famously sexy scene of all time (or maybe just during the hays code era which is what we're talking about HELLO), which is the beach scene with Burt Lancaster in from here to eternity. To quote a tumblr post of a screen capture of a tweet of a video of joy behar on the view: "y'know, there used to be movies where they were kissing on the beach... From Here to Eternity. They're kissing-- Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr are Kissing on the Beach and then the WAVES crash!! You know exactly what they did!"

She might have a reputation of being chaste and virginal or whatever, but we all know it's the quiet ones who are certifiable FREAKS

Devika Rani:

Achhut Kanya (1936) is the only one of hers I've seen but hot DAMN

[orionsangel86]

Hob Gadling - A Queer Romantic?

I have been listening to The World's End chapters of The Sandman on Audible lately and just finished Hob's Leviathan. I didn't pay this story much attention when I first read the comic, as I tended to read through the stories quickly and put more focus into the stories where Dream had a larger role. But one of the reasons I like listening to the Audible book is because it allows me to absorb each story more thoroughly and take my time thinking about each one and the (usually multiple) meanings behind them.

Hob Gadling is a character that fandom has fallen in love with. I think this is clear to anyone that takes even a partial glance at Sandman fandom. This isn't a criticism - Ferdie's performance as Hob in the Netflix show has done wonders for Hob's character. He has made his version of Hob very easy to fall in love with!

But the truth is that in The Sandman comics, Hob is a minor character who we only get to know very little about. The story Hob's Leviathan appears in The Worlds End Sandman book. We only meet him twice before this, once in The Doll's House, where we are introduced to him in Men of Good Fortune, and again in Season of Mists when Dream comes to let him know that he may miss their next meeting. In both these issues, Hob is introduced via the narrator, and therefore I like to think that we are given a fairly honest representation of the kind of person he is. We watch him grow and learn throughout the centuries in MoGF, but one of the major takeaways from this I believe is that he tends to always be on the wrong side of history. He makes bad choices and can be a bit narrow minded. He is rude and selfish and also rather self-absorbed. I actually think that the performance of the voice actor who plays Hob in the Audible book emphasises these character flaws making him even more unlikeable in many ways, though I am aware that this could just be my own experience and opinion.

But Hob's Leviathan takes a different view of Hob. Literally. The narrator of this story is a young boy of 16 called Jim. Jim met Hob on a ship travelling from Bombay to Liverpool in 1914. Jim was working on the ship as a cabin boy and Hob had bought his passage back to England - though it is revealled at the end of the story that Hob actually owned the ship they were travelling on. It is clear that at this point in time, Hob is extremely wealthy.

Jim attends to Hob throughout the journey, and grows very fond of him. In Jim's tale, Hob is a good man, who is kind and thoughtful and cares about others. He saves the life of a stowaway (who turns out to be another immortal). He is shown to be patient, and funny, and very intelligent. Jim waxes poetic about how smart Hob is, and how much he impressed him. It is particularly clear in the Audible book that Jim is taken with Hob, to the point that it could arguably be a crush.

It is fascinating how much more likeable Hob is when narrated from the viewpoint of someone with a crush on him, whether this story is exaggerated through rose tinted glasses is of course something to consider. All the tales in World's End are just that, tales. There is a constant undercurrent of exaggeration and make believe to them where even the other patrons of the inn question elements to each of the stories. We are not supposed to take these stories as absolute fact, rather they are supposed to reveal to us more about the narrators as well as their own experiences existing in this magical and strange world.

When it is revealled that Jim is actually a girl called Peggy in disguise so they can get work on the ships, the quite obvious crush makes more sense to a heteronormative audience, but what I particularly like about this story is its queer potential. See in the comic, it isn't really clarified if Jim goes by Jim because they feel more themselves as a boy, rather than a girl, or if they are disguising themself as a boy just to get work as a means to an end. I would argue that the latter is the more obvious interpretation. Jim tells the other World's End patrons that they are getting too old to keep up the disguise and will eventually have to stop working in shipping, and that when that happens, they will take on a new name, a new identity and do something else, but that for now, the patrons can keep calling them Jim.

*for a lack of clarity around the point in the comic, I am going to use gender neutral pronouns for Jim going forward*

Now from Hob's POV, he figured out that Jim was a girl, and they talk about it briefly along with the sea serpent they saw. I think that at this point, Hob is impressively progressive compared to the previous times we have met him. Now whether or not this is biased storytelling from someone who has a crush on him remains to be seen, but if we take Jim's word as truth, not only is 1914 Hob a fair and honest man who is willing to pay the way of a stowaway and fully respect the secrets of a young girl disguised as a boy so they can work on ships, but he's also totally comfortable flirting with them.

I like that he calls Jim the "handsome cabin boy". I like that this version of Hob, whether real or an exaggeration skewed by Jim's feelings for him, respects Jim's identity. Jim may be a girl in disguise, but Hob doesnt call her pretty, he calls him handsome.

It's all just a bit subtly queer and I like that for Hob (But then I would do, I'm a Dreamling shipper HA)

When Jim finishes their story, they state that they didn't see Hob again after that, but the comics later do give us a possible outcome to Jim's story...

We next see Hob in The Kindly Ones where he is mourning the death of his girlfriend Audrey. He briefly reveals that Audrey was the first person he had loved since Peggy, who was his lover until her death during the Blitz. Whilst it isn't made clear that Hob's lover Peggy is the same Jim that we meet in World's End, it is a bit too much of a coincidence. The timing adds up. If Jim was 16 in 1914, they'd be in their early 40s during the Blitz. Hob remains forever in his early 30s so I'd say its a safe bet that Jim eventually found Hob again and they were together. Hob loved them enough that he wasn't with anyone again until Audrey in the 80s. That's 50 years worth of mourning. A long time not to be with anyone, even for an immortal.

It's funny because we know so little about Hob, but one thing that I have seen commented on here a lot is that comic Hob is deemed to be as Straight as an arrow. Now I admit that the voice actor in the Audible book plays him very straight, but that is still only one interpretation.

All this is to say that I am fascinated with how the Netflix show will adapt this, since Hob in the show already comes across much kinder and more selfless than his comic counterpart. He already has an entire fandom viewing him as queer, and the comics certainly don't outright shut down such interpretations. There are moments in the comics that you have to wonder on. He does call Jim handsome rather than pretty, and when he talks to Audrey's grave he mentions his wives and loves as separate groups. He talks about finding it easy to get sex if you want it, and he talks about it in generally gender neutral terms. In Sunday Mourning Gwen reveals that she thought he was gay when she first met him, though her reasonings were that he knew so many dead people (a dark reminder that these comics were published at the height of the Aids epidemic). He reacts very badly to the news of Morpheus' death. He states on several occassions just how much he liked Morpheus, and he is one of the few people to wake up from the Wake with tears running down his cheeks. I would arguably state that its between Hob and Matthew as to who had the worst reaction to Morpheus' death, showing just how much both Hob and Matthew cared about him, and placing Hob on par with Matthew in the comics is a big deal. He seriously considers accepting Death's gift when she offers it, simply because Morpheus is dead. He doesn't, because at the end of the day, its just not in his nature to do so, and given he then dreams of Morpheus, I like to think that it was a test, that he passed.

When it comes to how the show will adapt all this, I genuinely think it will take a new approach with Jim/Peggy. I think they will be either a trans man, or at least non binary. But I think having Jim be a trans man is the better option. In the comics, Jim's tale is only very subtly queer, Jim clearly likes being Jim, but it seems like its a means to an end, a convenience in order to get work on the ships, rather than being something that is core to Jim's feelings on their gender. Besides, if we assume that Jim is indeed the Peggy Hob talks about in The Kindly Ones, then we know that Jim goes back to being Peggy when they get older and apparently continues living as a woman whilst they are with Hob, otherwise I doubt Hob would have referred to one of his greatest loves by a name they themselves rejected and only used she/her pronouns when talking about them. Nevertheless there is no reason for the show to take this approach, and if they DO decide that Jim should be a trans man, then their relationship with Hob is canonically a queer one. Trans men are men and if one of Hob's greatest loves is a trans man, then Hob is a queer man himself. I genuinely believe the show will take this route and I can't wait to see it.

Going back to my point about narrators bias, if MoGF, SoM, tKO, and TW are all narrated by a neutral third party, then this must be the true Hob. A not overly likeable rather selfish man. He has his good points, and he has certainly grown and changed over the centuries, and carries a lot of guilt for his past mistakes, but he is still quite self absorbed. Jim paints a picture of a rose tinted Hob that is far more the dreamy romantic older gentleman that took a young person under his wing. Which is fair enough.

The show is of course its own adaptation, with changes from the comics as it sees fit, but I do feel it's my duty to remind you that the show also has a narrator guiding the audience through its many stories. Dream of the Endless, Lord Morpheus, King of Nightmares and Prince of Stories himself. Take from that whatever you will.

;-)

[kaaaaaaarf]

So I had quite a few people ask me about Remus' 💖💖🍆🥵Sirius Black🥵🍆💖💖 playlist from chapter two of The Killing Time (unwillingly mine), and you all know how much I love playlists, so....may I present a weird and horny playlist by Remus J Lupin:

My Body ft. Your Lips by The Beaches & Beach Weather

Ooh, I wanna be your bitch I wanna taste your spit I wanna be your bitch Leave a mark on my innocence My body featuring your lips, your lips

2. Young American by The Vaccines

Hold me in the grips of your jaw So you can show me what my mouth is for Suffocate me in between your thighs And take me swimming naked in your eyes [...] Heavy and aggressive, I'm your thug So easy and obsessive, I'm your drug I am yours, take me now

3. I Want To Be Your Only Pet by Bombay Bicycle Club

Oh I want to be your only pet I want to be your only pet I want to be your only pet I want to be your only pet I want to be your only pet I want to be your only pet I want to be your only pet I want to be your only pet

4. Rock My Boy's Body by Joseph Stephens

People stop to ask me, "How do you please your man?" Take it from the black sheep baby, every way I can Sometimes it's with fire, and sometimes with ice Just don't get it twisted, this body's gonna pay the price Gonna rock my boy's body Gonna rock my boy's body tonight

5. Every Breath You Take by The Police

Oh, can't you see You belong to me? How my poor heart aches With every step you take? Every move you make And every vow you break Every smile you fake Every claim you stake I'll be watching you

6. Closer by Nine Inch Nails

I broke apart my insides (Help me) I've got no soul to sell (Help me) the only thing that works for me Help me get away from myself I wanna fuck you like an animal I wanna feel you from the inside I wanna fuck you like an animal My whole existence is flawed You get me closer to God

7. Maps (Early Four Track Demo) by Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Wait, they don't love you like I love you Wait, they don't love you like I love you Maps Wait, they don't love you like I love you

8. You're Mine by Phantogram

'Cause you're mine 'Cause you're mine 'Cause you're mine 'Cause you're mine No one's gonna love you No one's gonna touch you No ones gonna look at you the way that I do

9. Tear You Apart by She Wants Revenge

Its cute in a way, till you cannot speak And you leave to have a cigarette, your knees get weak An escape is just a nod and a casual wave Obsessed about it, heavy for the next two days It's only just a crush, it'll go away It's just like all the others it'll go away Or maybe this is danger and he just don't know You pray it all away but it continues to grow [...] As I whisper in your ear I want to fucking tear you apart

10. Cockroach by Miya Folick

Crush me under the weight Bitterness, jealousy, hate 'Cause I'm a fucking cockroach And you can't kill me I'm a fuckin' cockroach And you can't kill me Crush me, crush me Crush me, crush me (crush me) Crush me (crush me), crush me Crush me (crush me), crush me

11. Treat Me Like A Slut by Kim Petras

Ride it, slide it, bite it, get inside it Come on, touch my body I know that you like it, you can't hide it Come on, touch my body Harder, bigger, faster, longer, thicker Come on, touch my body I can see that you gettin' excited Come on, touch my body Treat me like a slut Little dirty bitch, I love to fuck

12. Make Me Feel by Janelle Monae

It's like I'm powerful with a little bit of tender An emotional, sexual bender Mess me up, yeah, but no one does it better There's nothin' better That's just the way you make me feel That's just the way you make me feel So real, so good, so fuckin' real

13. Filthy/Gorgeous by Scissor Sisters

'Cause you're filthy (filthy) Ooh, and I'm gorgeous (gorgeous) 'Cause you're filthy (filthy) Ooh, and I'm gorgeous (gorgeous) You're disgusting Ooh, and you're nasty And you can grab me Ooh, 'cause you're nasty

14. Stuff Me Up by Peaches

I see you sitting, stuffing your face, why don't you stuff me up? Mmmmm, mmm, mmm, mmm

15. Flower by Liz Phair

Everything you say is so obnoxious, funny, true and mean I want to be your blow job queen You're probably shy and introspective That's not part of my objective I just want your fresh, young jimmy Jamming, slamming, ramming in me Every time I see your face I think of things unpure, unchaste I want to fuck you like a dog I'll take you home and make you like it Everything you ever wanted Everything you ever thought of Is everything I'll do to you I'll fuck you till your dick is blue

16. ...Baby, One More Time by Britney Spears

Show me how you want it to be Tell me baby 'cause I need to know now, oh because My loneliness is killing me (and I) I must confess I still believe (still believe) When I'm not with you I lose my mind Give me a sign Hit me baby one more time Hit me baby one more time

17. Wet Dream by Wet Leg

I was in your wet dream Driving in my car Saw you at the side of the road There's no one else around You're touching yourself, touching yourself Touching your, touching yourself Touching yourself

18. Stars Are Blind by Paris Hilton

I don't mind spending some time just hanging here with you 'Cause I don't find too many guys that treat me like you do Those other guys all wanna take me for a ride But when I walk, they talk of suicide Some people never get beyond their stupid pride But you can see the real me inside, and I'm satisfied

19. What's Your Fantasy by Ludacris

I wanna, li-li-li-lick you from your head to your toes And I wanna, move from the bed down to the, down to the, to the flo' Then I wanna, "Ahh ahh, " you make it so good I don't wanna leave But I gotta kn-kn-kn-know, what-what's your fan-ta-ta-sy? [...] How ever you want it, lover-lover gon' tap that ass soon See I cast 'em and I passed 'em Get a tight grip and I grasp 'em I flash 'em and outlast 'em And if it ain't good then I trash 'em While you stash 'em, I'll let 'em free And they tell me what's they fantasy Like up on the roof, roof Tell your boyfriend not to be mad at me

20. Taste by Lorna Vallings

If I could have just a moment of you Would I be wanting more? If I could have just a taste of you Would I be addicted? If I could have just a touch of you Could I tear myself away? I would pray to be the rain that runs over and in your skin With no consequence To be the liquid in your glass that falls around your lips and mouth Swallow me

21. Gimme More by Britney Spears

Gimme, gimme (more), gimme (more), gimme, gimme (more) Gimme, gimme (more), gimme (more), gimme, gimme (more) I just can't control myself Ooh (more) They want more? Well, I'll give them more Ow! (More)

22. Drive by Melissa Ferrick

Your mouth waters Stretched out on my bed Your fingers are trembling And your heart is heavy and red And your head is bent back And your back is arched My hand is under there Holding you up I'll hold you up And drive you all night I'll hold you up And drive you, baby, till you feel the daylight

23. Killshot - Slowed + Reverb by Magdalena Bay

If I fall in every time Wicked love will leave me blind Yeah I knew it I been through it Oh god Can you make my heart stop Hit me with your kill shot baby I mean it so serious

24. (You Drive Me) Crazy by Britney Spears

Tell me you're so into me That I'm the only one you will see Tell me I'm not in the blue, oh That I'm not wasting my feelings on you Loving you means so much more More than anything I ever felt before You drive me crazy I just can't sleep I'm so excited, I'm in too deep Whoa oh oh, crazy, but it feels alright Baby, thinking of you keeps me up all night Crazy, I just can't sleep I'm so excited, I'm in too deep Crazy, but it feels alright Every day and every night

25. Buttons by The Pussycat Dolls

Typical ain't hardly the type I fall for I like when the physical Don't leave me asking for more I'm a sexy mama (Mama) Who knows just how to get what I wanna (Wanna) What I wanna do is spring this on ya (On ya) Back up all of the things that I told ya (Told ya, told ya, told ya) You been sayin' all the right things all night long But I can't seem to get you over here to help take this off

26. Popsicle by Talking Heads

Ask, it shall be given Pay, and ye shall receive Cigarettes and pantyhose Hit me in the funny bone Hynie hole Tootsie roll Jelly roll Time to go Popsicle of love Gimme gimme gimme one of those (It's summertime, boy!) coconut delight Honey honey honey don't let go (It's summertime, love)

27. Horny by Mark Morrison

Get on the floor I wanna freak you, huh Roses are red And violets are blue Get on the floor Oh oh yeah Get horny, get horny (Drop your clothes on da floor) Get horny, get horny, wooh (An close da door, ya know the score) Get horny, get horny (Show ya bod, I don't waste no time, no) Get horny, get horny

28. Sex Bomb by Tom Jones

Make me explode although you know The route to go to sex me slow (slow baby) And yes, I must react to claims of those Who say that you are not all that Sex bomb, sex bomb, you're my sex bomb uh, huh You can give it to me when I need to come along Sex bomb, sex bomb, you're my sex bomb And baby you can turn me on (turn me on)

29. I'm Too Sexy by Right Said Fred

I'm a model, you know what I mean And I do my little turn on the catwalk Yeah, on the catwalk, yeah, on the catwalk, yeah I shake my little tush on the catwalk I'm too sexy for my cat Too sexy for my cat Poor pussy, poor pussy cat I'm too sexy for my love Too sexy for my love Love's going to leave me

30. Hot In Herre by Nelly

I got secrets cant leave Cancun So take it off like your home alone You know dance in front your mirror while your on the phone Checkin your reflection and tellin your best friend, Like "girl I think my butt gettin big" Its gettin hot in here (so hot) So take off all your clothes I am gettin so hot, I wanna take my clothes off

31. Casual by Chappell Roan

My friends call me a loser 'Cause I'm still hanging around I've heard so many rumors That I'm just a girl that you bang on your couch I thought you thought of me better Someone you couldn't lose You said, "We're not together" So now when we kiss, I have anger issues You said, "Baby, no attachment" But we're Knee deep in the passenger seat and you're eating me out Is it casual now? Two weeks and your mom invites me to her house on Long Beach Is it casual now? I know what you tell your friends It's casual, if it's casual now Then, baby, get me off again If it's casual, it's casual now

32. I'm Your Man by Wham!

Call me good Call me bad Call me anything you want to, baby But I know that you're sad And I know I'll make you happy With the one thing that you never had Baby, I'm your man (do do do that, don't you do that) Don't you know that? Baby, I'm your man (do do do that) You bet If you're gonna do it, do it right (right, do it with me)

33. You Want It Darker by Leonard Cohen

If you are the dealer, I'm out of the game If you are the healer, it means im broken and lame If thine is the glory, then mine must be the shame You want it darker We kill the flame Magnified, sanctified Be the holy name Vilified, crucified In the human frame A million candles burning For the help that never came You want it darker

[princesssarisa]

Fictional character ask: The Great Gonzo from the Muppets franchise

Favorite thing about them: What a shamelessly weird, exuberant, funny daredevil he is, yet how touching he can be in his melancholy moments, which fortunately never last long. He's always been one of my favorite Muppets.

Least favorite thing about them: His occasional habit of emotionally cheating on Camilla by chasing after other creatures. Also, in his '80s Muppet Babies incarnation, he can be too pushy with his crush on Piggy when she clearly doesn't return it.

Three things I have in common with them:

*I can be eccentric.

*I think chickens are nice birds.

*I look good in maroon and purple.

Three things I don't have in common with them:

*I don't like doing daredevil stunts.

*I wouldn't want to date a chicken, or a cow or a pig for that matter.

*I don't have blue fur.

Favorite line:

*From The Muppet Movie:

Gonzo: Well, I want to go to Bombay, India and become a movie star.

Fozzie: You don't go to Bombay to become a movie star! You go where we're going: Hollywood.

Gonzo: Sure, if you want to do it the *easy* way.

*From The Great Muppet Caper:

Gonzo: STOP THE PRESSES!!

News Editor: Why? What happened?

Gonzo: I don't know. I just always wanted to say that.

*From The Muppet Christmas Carol:

Gonzo: ... I know the story of A Christmas Carol like the back of my hand!

Rizzo: Prove it!

Gonzo: Alright. Um… There’s a little mole on my thumb… and a scar on my wrist from when I fell off my bicycle.

*And from Muppet Treasure Island:

Gonzo: It just feels so weird.

Rizzo: You mean that Mr. Arrow's dead?

Gonzo: Yeah, that... and my pants are filled with starfish.

Rizzo: You and your hobbies!

brOTP: Kermit, Rizzo, and in Muppet Babies, Animal.

OTP: Camilla the Chicken.

nOTP: Miss Piggy (fortunately his crush on her is limited to early Muppet Show episodes and the '80s Muppet Babies cartoon) and Big Bird (see below).

Random headcanon: After the Leslie Uggams episode of The Muppet Show, he was very ashamed of having flirted with Big Bird when he learned that the latter is only six years old. But learning that Big Bird is male didn't faze him at all. He's pansexual when it comes to both gender and species.

Unpopular opinion: Unlike some of the old-school Muppet fans whose comments I've read, I don't mind that in the '90s he was pushed more to the forefront of the Muppets while Kermit took more supporting roles for a while. I understand why those fans were annoyed: they loved Gonzo as a supporting Muppet, but they grew up with Kermit as the star of the franchise and they wanted him back in the spotlight. But in the wake of Jim Henson's death, it makes sense that it took some time before everyone felt ready to do Kermit-centered projects again, and during that time, I think Gonzo did a great job with his bigger roles. Maybe I just feel this way because the '90s were my childhood, but I do.

Song I associate with them:

"Jamboree" from The Muppet Show.

"I'm Going to Go Back There Someday" from The Muppet Movie.

"I'll Be Blue for You" from Muppet Babies.

(In this show Camilla is a plush baby chick, his favorite toy, and in this episode he accidentally rips her to shreds doing a dangerous stunt. He sings this sad song while waiting to see if Nanny can repair her.)

Favorite picture of them:

[stuhde]

sunday: i meant to post this playlist weeks ago, so you could all have some soft indie study tunes to listen to while you’re studying for exams/midterms. as much as i love instrumental study music, sometimes you just want lyrics to listen to while studying. here’s a playlist to guide you through your work day before the next week begins 💫

(listen here)

patience - the lumineers // obvious bicycle - vampire weekend // all i want - kodaline // somebody else - the 1975 // meet me in the hallway - harry styles // from eden - hozier // angela - the lumineers // is there somebody who can watch you - the 1975 // all we ever knew - the head and the heart // featherstone - the paper kites // dirty paws - of monsters and men // like real people do - hozier  // miracle aligners - the shadow puppets // hannah hunt - vampire weekend // hey k - passion pit // the cave - mumford and sons // suck it and see - arctic monkeys // reign down - bombay bicycle club // rivers and road - the head and the heart // ophelia - the lumineers // cherry wine (live) - hozier // from the dining table - harry styles

cleopatra - the lumineers // medicine - the 1975 // i think ur a contra - vampire weekend // monsoon - hippo campus // devil like me - rainbow kitten surprise // another story - the head and the heart // paint - the paper kits // sleep on the floor - the lumineers // please be naked - the 1975 // bloom (bonus track) - the paper kites // no guarantees (stinson beach ed.) - the head and the heart // goodnight chicago - rainbow kitten surpise  // someone new - hozier // down in the valley - the head and the heart // to build a home - the cinematic orchestra // down in the valley - the head and the heart // polite company - rainbow kitten surprise // rhythm and blues - the head and the heart // stuck on puzzle - alex turner // work song - hozier // fallingforyou - the 1975 // this must be the place (naïve melody) - the lumineers // winter song - the head and the heart // woodland - the paper kites // baby i’m yours - arctic monrkeys // chateau - angus & julia stone // sedona - houndmouth // fire and fear - the head and the heart // tell me how - paramore // for sondra (it means the world to me) - passion pit // sincerity is scary - the 1975 // days on a wire - case // signs of light - the head and the heart // inside your mind - they 1975  // cowards - raleigh ritchie // wake me - bleachers // run - hozier // all well that ends well - rainbow kitten surprise // mine - the 1975 // on the way home - the paper kites // the ultracheese - arctic monkeys // mountain sound - of monsters and men // surrounded by heads and bodies - the 1975 // don’t forget me - the head and the heart // hey, ma - bon iver // arms - the paper kites // two weeks - grizzly bear // the only thing - sufjfan stevens // south - hippo campus // amsterdam - gregory alan isakov // backstroke - dizzy // loving is easy - rex orange county // rainbow - kacey musgraves // jesus christ 2005 god bless america  - the 1975 // i <3 u - boy pablo // frail state of mind - they 1975  // RABi - bon iver // disappear - beabadoobee // say my name (spotify cover) - hozier // cig - baby fuzZ // be my mistake - the 1975 // crush - day wave // fine line - harry styles // i couldn’t be more in love - the 1975 // corduroy dreams - rex orange county // naeem - bon iver // don’t worry - the 1975 // nowadays - boy pablo // bloodlines - cape francis // halloween - pheobe bridgers // eugene - arlo parks // over the moon - the marías

[uppersidedreams]

[ mitch marner, cis man, twenty-two ] Let’s give a warm welcome to one of Sparkwood’s finest, CHARLIE CONWAY !! Before coming here, he once lived on the pages of THE MIGHTY DUCKS. Though now they currently spend most of their time as a STUDENT / HOCKEY PLAYER. If you ask the townsfolk about what they are like, you will hear that they are DETERMINED but also CLUMSY. If they had a theme song it would be HOLD ON - JUSTIN BIEBER.

note: you can find my full muse page here !

bio triggers: n/a.

life was never easy for charlie conway, but that didn’t necessarily mean that it was bad. he was raised by a single mother and grew up in the small town of sparkwood. his father ended up abandoning charlie’s mother soon after she gave birth but she didn’t let this sudden heartbreak shake her will. she was determined to provide her son with the best life possible, working long grueling shifts at the diner to help pay the bills and obtain necessities. as charlie grew up, he found himself spending a lot of time watching television to distract himself at his babysitter’s house. something that always sparked his interest was hockey. he was a big fan of the minnesota wild, the pittsburgh penguins, and the anaheim ducks, looking up to several of the players he watched play on the ice.

due to his love for the sport, he eventually managed to convince his mom to sign him up for peewee hockey. that’s where district five’s hockey team in sparkwood came in. it was a team full of misfits that were easily pushed around on the ice, with no coach truly giving the rag-tag group a chance. but the coaches who didn’t truly care about them didn’t phase charlie, he still loved the game and was passionate to get better as a player. the team didn’t turn around until a man named gordon bombay became their coach. at first, he was reluctant and apathetic, but once he saw the spirit and personalities of the kids he warmed up to them. they soon became a team that no one wanted to mess with: the mighty ducks of sparkwood.

with age, charlie and his teammates moved onto the juniors league and gordon followed them to keep motivating them. charlie’s skills only improved and before long he was named alternate captain to the team. he didn’t have any ambition to move onto being captain and was content with his role on the team, especially since his best friend adam was the captain of their team. but when they graduated high school, adam unexpectedly left their team and began to play for their rival team. charlie was soon named captain of the team and his passion for the game was slowly flickering out. he felt so much pressure on his shoulders. charlie felt utterly betrayed and still doesn’t know how to cope with the aftermath of adam’s departure from the team. he hasn’t bothered trying to speak to the other since then, despite adam’s attempts to reach out.

he still plays hockey now and attends university where he majors in sports management.

HEADCANONS.

charlie plays centre and actually used to be really bad at his position initially. he would always trip over his own feet when trying to navigate the ice. luckily, that was something he grew out of.

he is bisexual, but fairly closeted about his sexuality. he has a lot of internalized homophobia due to the environment that he’s constantly in and the fear his teammates with think he’s into them just because he likes men.

his idol is sidney crosby ! he totally has a crush on him too, but you didn’t hear that from me.

he’s a little on the insecure side and gets really flushed whenever someone compliments him. he’s starved for praise, truly.

he has major trust issues due to both his father and his best friend’s abandonment.

he gives pretty good pep talks before the game despite not initially wanting to be captain.

drinks too much mountain dew to be as healthy as he is.

helps his mom when she has late shifts at the diner because he’s a momma’s boy. <3

[sunsummoneds]

[ mitch marner, cis man, twenty-two ] Let’s give a warm welcome to one of Sparkwood’s finest, CHARLIE CONWAY !! Before coming here, he once lived on the pages of THE MIGHTY DUCKS. Though now they currently spend most of their time as a STUDENT / HOCKEY PLAYER. If you ask the townsfolk about what they are like, you will hear that they are DETERMINED but also CLUMSY. If they had a theme song it would be HOLD ON - JUSTIN BIEBER. Let’s see how their story unravels this time.

note: you can find my full muse page here !

bio triggers: n/a.

life was never easy for charlie conway, but that didn’t necessarily mean that it was bad. he was raised by a single mother and grew up in the small town of sparkwood. his father ended up abandoning charlie’s mother soon after she gave birth but she didn’t let this sudden heartbreak shake her will. she was determined to provide her son with the best life possible, working long grueling shifts at the diner to help pay the bills and obtain necessities. as charlie grew up, he found himself spending a lot of time watching television to distract himself at his babysitter’s house. something that always sparked his interest was hockey. he was a big fan of the minnesota wild, the pittsburgh penguins, and the anaheim ducks, looking up to several of the players he watched play on the ice.

due to his love for the sport, he eventually managed to convince his mom to sign him up for peewee hockey. that’s where district five’s hockey team in sparkwood came in. it was a team full of misfits that were easily pushed around on the ice, with no coach truly giving the rag-tag group a chance. but the coaches who didn’t truly care about them didn’t phase charlie, he still loved the game and was passionate to get better as a player. the team didn’t turn around until a man named gordon bombay became their coach. at first, he was reluctant and apathetic, but once he saw the spirit and personalities of the kids he warmed up to them. they soon became a team that no one wanted to mess with: the mighty ducks of sparkwood.

with age, charlie and his teammates moved onto the juniors league and gordon followed them to keep motivating them. charlie’s skills only improved and before long he was named alternate captain to the team. he didn’t have any ambition to move onto being captain and was content with his role on the team, especially since his best friend adam was the captain of their team. but when they graduated high school, adam unexpectedly left their team and began to play for their rival team. charlie was soon named captain of the team and his passion for the game was slowly flickering out. he felt so much pressure on his shoulders. charlie felt utterly betrayed and still doesn’t know how to cope with the aftermath of adam’s departure from the team. he hasn’t bothered trying to speak to the other since then, despite adam’s attempts to reach out.

he still plays hockey now and attends university where he majors in sports management.

HEADCANONS.

charlie plays centre and actually used to be really bad at his position initially. he would always trip over his own feet when trying to navigate the ice. luckily, that was something he grew out of.

he is bisexual, but fairly closeted about his sexuality. he has a lot of internalized homophobia due to the environment that he’s constantly in and the fear his teammates with think he’s into them just because he likes men.

his idol is sidney crosby ! he totally has a crush on him too, but you didn’t hear that from me.

he’s a little on the insecure side and gets really flushed whenever someone compliments him. he’s starved for praise, truly.

he has major trust issues due to both his father and his best friend’s abandonment.

he gives pretty good pep talks before the game despite not initially wanting to be captain.

drinks too much mountain dew to be as healthy as he is.

helps his mom when she has late shifts at the diner because he’s a momma’s boy. <3

[fallin-flcwer]

JIWON’S TRUTH BOOTH

GENERAL QUESTIONS

1. Please state your full name: “Moon Ji Won” 2. Does your name(s) have any kind of meaning? If so, what is it? “My name has numerous meanings. “Ji” can either mean ‘wise’ or ‘ambitious’ and “Won” can either mean ‘beautiful woman, as well as ‘first’. My parents never really decided what it meant, but I just take it as “ambitious and beautiful woman.””  3. Do you have any nicknames? “Nope” 4. Where were you born? And in which country? “Seoul, South Korea” 5. What is your date of birth? “I was born on June the 22nd, 1998″  6. Of course, the following question; what is your Zodiac sign? “My star sign is Cancer, I believe.” 7. Do you believe in Zodiac signs? “Not completely, but I still find them interesting to read about sometimes.” 8. Where do you live? “I’ve got a house Lilac Wells, I’m staying in while I’m here. I’ve also got a house in Seoul, as well as in Tokyo but I don’t visit that one often since I’m usually busy in the first two.” 9. What is your home situation like? (ex. do you live with your family? Your partner etc.?) “I live on my own.” 10. Do you have any siblings? “I’m an only child.” 11. Do you have any kind of allergies? “None that I know of” 12. Do you own any pets? If so, what kind of pets are they? “Yes! I’ve got a miniature poodle called Bambi and a bombay cat called Byeol” 13. Why did you apply to St Jude’s? “Honestly I just did it for fun. It wasn’t until I got accepted that I realised how big of an opportunity it was.” 14. Did you had to go through a lot audition rounds? “Not really. I had already debut by the time auditions came. Personally, I think I could’ve done a lot better for my debut, but it still got me by.” 15. What is the current course you’re following? If you can switch courses, which one would you switch to and why? “I am currently doing music and dance. I think acting and fashion would be fun” 17. What is your proudest project you’ve done? “Gotta Go! I think some people my argue that Snapping was the better comeback, but I still see it as a sequel to Gotta Go. It definitely the comeback that started steering my career to where it is now.” 18. What is the proudest project that someone’s else has done? “Singular Act I! I think, especially since Everleigh and I were both opening acts for Ruby, I’ve seen her grow so much as an artist.” 19. Do you like FanCons? “Yes!” 20. What do you like about FanCons? “I like being able to meet fans.” 21. What don’t you like about FanCons? “I don’t really have anything bad to say about them.” 22. A fan memory that always stuck with you? Can be positive or negative. "While I was doing a fansign one fan walked towards me, got on her knees and bowed down. It happened so quickly and caught me completely off guard.” 23. Your favorite event so far? “I love anything halloween, to be honest.” 24. What kind of event would you like to see in the future? “Something in Korea, maybe? We’ve got quite a few K-Pop artists here now so it’d be nice to do something there.” 25. Would you recommend St Jude’s to friends, family. etc? “Yes.”

PERSONALITY QUESTIONS

26. What are your positive traits? “I am very ambitious, approachable, and detail-oriented” 27. What are you negative traits? “Sometimes I don’t know when to rest and I kinda set myself into overdrive until I’m satisfied with everything” 28. What would other people describe you as? “Hard-working, always busy and resourceful” 29. What are your pet peeves? “Does constant, loud yawners count?” 30. What makes you happy? “Seeing a project I’ve been working hard on finished.” 31. What makes you upset? “Seeing people not take me seriously because I’m a woman. It doesn’t get to me as much as it used to, but it’s still gets disheartening from time to time.” 32. What is something you love? “My parents, Byeol and Bambi, and my work.” 33. What is something you dislike? “Having my idol and hotel life interfering with each other. I’ve done a pretty good job keeping them separate, but there have been times where they’ve coincided and it got too overbearing.” 34. What are you strengths? “Singing, Dancing, Working” 35. What are you weaknesses? “I can be overly critical of myself when things don’t go to plan.” 36. A misconception people often think of you? “That everything came easy for me. Yes, I’m privileged, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t work. In fact, it really meant that people expected more from me. I graduated high school and got my degree early, but I worked myself to the bone making sure I was on top of everything. I chose to become an idol as well as working in the hotels, and people gave me hate for it. That’s died down a bit, but still... Both jobs consist of me having to satisfy people, so I have an ongoing cycle of writing reports, writing songs, recording, choreographing, performing, promoting, the list goes on forever and it’s rare that I ever catch time to set aside for myself.” 37. Do you have any fears? “Mice and rats. I’m fine with mice that are kept as pets and stuff, but if I ever found out that there’s a mouse or a rat living in my house. I just might move out.” 38. What scares you the most? “Not being able to live up to people’s expectations of me as the next CEO of the family business.” 39. What do you do to entertain yourself? “I don’t have time to entertain myself, unless choreographing counts, but it’s still work.” 40. What is your MBTI? “I believe I am ESFJ-A” 41. How do you deal with stress? “I think I handle stress relatively well. I kinda just work through it.” 42. Are you a determined person? Are you a stubborn person? “I’m definitely a determined person” 43. Do you consider yourself selfish? “I think sometimes I can be, but after a bit I scold myself for being selfish.”  44. Would you like to be different? “Nah” 45. Are you more introverted (focused on your inner world) or more extraverted (focused on other people and the outer world)? “I’m definitely more extroverted”

ROMANCE QUESTIONS

46. What is your sexual orientation? “I’m heterosexual”  47. Current relationship status? “Single” 48. When was your first kiss? “I think I was about 17″ 49. Do you remember your first date? If so, with who was it? What did you do? “My first date was set up by my parents. It was with a one of their acquaintance’s sons in Tokyo and he showed me around the city.” 50. Have you ever experienced heart-break? “Yes” 51. Have you ever been in love? (If yes, skip to question 53) “Yes” 53. How do you know when you’re in love? "I think it’s when I realise I want to spend time with them outside of work, and I catch myself trying to make time for them despite always being busy.” 54. What would be your ideal date? “A day out exploring. I’m more of a city person, so that’s my preference, but I’m open to anywhere” 55. What is your perspective on marriage? “I’d love to get married one day, but I don’t think I’ve ever have the time for it at this rate. Maybe if I ever quit becoming an idol I will.” 56. (only for non-virgins) Are you a sub, dom or switch? “Pass” 57. What do you think of relationships? “They’re best when both parties are putting equal amounts of effort into it.”  58. What do you think of one-night stands? “I don’t really have an opinion on them. I’m not gonna lie, I’ve experienced one or two before when I was younger, but it’s not something I plan on doing again.”  59. Are you still a virgin? “No”  60. Most attractive trait in a different person? “A nice personality” 61. What matters most to you when it comes to a relationship? “Honesty and loyalty. I’m also an incredibly busy person, so I hope that they can be a bit patient with me too.” 62. Are you comfortable with PDA? Or would you be comfortable with PDA? “I think so? I’m relatively private when it comes to relationships but I think once I have the confidence to go public I’d be fine with PDA.” 63. Are you more of a type to be asked out or the type to ask the other out? “I’d rather be asked out.” 64. How do you express love to the other? “I change my schedule up to make time for them.” 65. Who is your celebrity crush? “Sung Hoon”

GETTING DEEP QUESTIONS

66. Do you regret anything? “Yes” 67. Is there something you would like to re-do? So, start all over again? “Pass” 68. What is something you would never share with anyone?  “As rewarding as my life is, it can get draining.” 69. When was the last time you cried? Why did you cry? “I definitely had a mental breakdown sometime between after Boxing Day and New Years. I got into a little argument with one of my Dad’s competitors during an event in Seoul and I had a little breakdown when I got home.” 70. Most memorable event that happened in your time in St Judes? This could be anything: “Winning Female Artist of the Year at Spotlight. Since there were so many artists nominated that had a big impact on St. Judes I was 100% certain that I wasn’t going to get it.”  71. One thing you wish you could do all over? “High school. To be honest, I didn’t really make many friends growing up, since I was so determined to rush through my studies.” 72. Someone you miss? “My mother.” 73. Something you wish you could forget? “My past relationship”  74. Who has the biggest impact on you? “My parents” 75. What is your perspective on love? Is it beautiful? Does it scare you? “Love can be risky, but if you play your cards right it can be rewarding.” 76. What has hurt you in the past that you don’t want others to go through? “Pass” 77. What is something you have gained, something you have lost and something you let go of during the past year? “I think I’ve gained a lot of direction as to where I want to go as an Idol in the past year. I haven’t necessarily lost anything, but I’ve let go of a lot of the negativity people usually give me when it come to my role in the family business.” 78. Have you ever lost a friend? do you wish you would still be friends? “I’ve definitely neglected some friendships because of my workload. If I got the chance I’d love to reconnect with them.” 79. Do you have any triggers? What is the history behind these triggers and are they related to any disorders or mental illnesses? “Nope”  80. If you could meet your 16 year old self, what would tell them? “Keep pushing through the same way you do, but don’t be afraid to relax whenever you need to.”

RANDOM QUESTION ROUND

81. Summer or Winter? “Winter” 82. Cats or dogs? “Dogs” 83. Beach or mountains? “Mountains” 84. Phone calls or texting? “Phone calls" 85. Have you ever skipped class? “No”

[malereader-inserts]

Sand Grains

Fandom: Avengers Pairing: Peter Parker x Male!Stark!Reader Summary: How much love is there? Well, it depends on how many sand grains there is in the world Word Count: 4,025 (Oof this is a long one guys) A/n: Okay, this bitch has been reading all the Field Trip trope in AO3 and lemme me tell you something, I love them, especially all the Avengers showing up at random times of the day like yes - so this is inspired this insert. CIVIL WAR/INFINITY WAR/ENDGAME NOT COMPLIANT (we’re all family here)

Peter has a great life.

He has a loving aunt, a weird second family, the two best friends ever, and a devoted boyfriend. He could not ask for a better life. He adored you, you were the most handsome person he’s ever laid eyes on and the smartest person. Well, at least for your age of nineteen. Being a year younger than you means that he still had school, bummer for him, but it was very easy to conceal the relationship between you and him.

It wasn’t because you weren’t ready to come out as a couple, you weren’t mentally prepared of the teasing the team had come up with. But, your moments were much more intimate. Especially that time when he first said those three special words.

“I love you,” He had said, as you turned around in his room with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh, is that so?” There was a playful tease to your voice, “How much?”

“Every sand grain in the world,” He replied as you look taken aback, your eyes flickering above his head to process what he had admitted before you turned your attention back to him.

“Wow, that’s a lot,” You breathes out as you leaned closer to him, inches apart, “Then I love you, just a grain more.”

You mostly hang out his apartment in Queens, with his aunt taking the night shift, you’re at his for movie nights or just nights where you don’t have to conceal your relationship. Peter comes over to the Stark Tower, which was sold for a bit before your dad rebought it to spite Ross before he got detained, to do some interning.

Wednesdays are strictly interning, Fridays are Avenger bonding and the weekends are a mixture of both. Peter had his own room in the Stark Tower when he sleeps over for the weekend, starting on Friday and leaving on Sunday night. Which means he gets to see your face quite frequently.

He adores watching you tinkering in your part of the lab, advancing the tech for the Avengers. He also watches you get trained to take over the Stark Industries as Pepper and Tony had been coaxing you in your training. On top of that, you get training with the Avengers.

But, it was Wednesday and after dinner, he’ll be going home soon.

“Pete,” You hummed, knocking on the glass window next to the glass door, “Dinner.”

He looks up from his update on the Spider-man suit, “Coming, what is it?”

“Steve made Mac and Cheese whilst Natasha made Pot-roast Bombay chicken,” You explained as Peter and you make your way to the dinner table, “They were having a competition who is the better cook, try and not get in the firing line.”

“I’ll try not to.”

Peter loves hanging around with his second family, they were loud and fun. So, his happy mood was dampened quickly the next day.

“Alright guys,” Mr Harrington vocalised at Decathlon team meeting, “I’ve managed to snag us a field trip to the one and only, Stark Towers.”

“You- what?” Peter mutters under his breath.

“He said-” MJ started as Peter gave her a look, “You need a better hearing.”

She was teasing, she knew full well of his superhero status. Permission slips were being handed out and Peter bolted out of school to avoid Flash from taunting him anymore. He got home in record time as May was there to greet him.

“How’s school, kid?”

“Not bad, got a thing for you to sign,” Peter waved the sheet that needed signing, though by his look on his face May could tell he wasn’t happy, “A trip to the Stark Tower.”

“Oh honey, is that why you looked all glum?” May asked, grabbing the sheet and scanning it before promptly signing it off, “Why don’t you ask (Y/n) to come over, that always cheer you up.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, don’t act stupid now, Pete,” May laughs as he tilts his head in disbelief, “I know a smitten boy when I see one and it certainly wasn’t MJ that caught your attention this time.”

Sure, he had a slight crush on MJ for a bit but in his current situation, he loved you with all of his heart, if not more. Though his shoulders relax that his aunt had known, she wasn’t mad nor disappointed. 

“Well, call him, I’m sure he’ll make up an excuse to come see you - I always wonder how that boy gets a lot of freedom.”

“(Y/n) has good lies,” Peter replies, “I once witnessed him lie to the team about being at conference meeting out of the country but had decided to take a holiday to India because he was getting sick and tired of the team.”

May shake her head as Peter calls you up, without a doubt you had come up with an excuse and had got at his apartment within half an hour. Hugging him tightly as you greeted May with a hug.

“You two have fun in the living room, no funny business going on our I will call your dad (Y/n).”

You put your hand up in defence, “I promise May, there is nothing funny than a good comedy film.”

May nodded in approval, as she shoos you off the living room, you smile at Peter, who looked down. 

“I’m guessing this is about the trip, huh?” You asked, slinging your arm over your boyfriend.

“You know?”

“Yeah, everyone knows and I mean they know,” You emphasised, “Listen, it’s next Friday, there’s nothing to sweat, you know other than the impending embarrassment...”

Peter groaned, “This is the worst, it’s just my luck, Parker luck!”

“Hey, at least you get to prove that kid wrong, no?” You bumped shoulders with him, “I love you.”

“Oh, yeah how much because it’s hard to believe.”

You chuckle as you tenderly kissed his cheek, “With all the sand grains in the world.”

Peter looks up at you as he relaxes under you, letting out a wistful sigh, “I love you too, just a sand grain more.”

The days that were leading up to the trip had been eventful, with the team teasing and coming up with plans in front of Peter on how to embarrass him for the whole weekend. They even had started to tease Peter on a crush on MJ, and whilst Peter continues to redden it had contributed to the teasing.

Whilst you came off a little bit annoyed, which has caused the team to ask about why you had suddenly dislike MJ. So, over the weekend, you were actively ignoring or leave the room once they started to mention MJ.

“Come on, Petey,” You drawled out, ruffling his hair on Wednesday’s dinner, it was in two days that he will be back to face his death, “It’s not gonna be that bad.”

“Isn’t it Steve’s job to be optimistic about stuff like this?”

“Hey, the old man has been bouncing walls to embarrass you, give it to him,” You sat down at the dinner table next to Sam as Peter rolls his eyes whilst Steve calls out a ‘hey’ at being called old, “You’re staying after the trip, yeah? Don’t forget to have May have a note to leave you here.”

He had dreaded the day to come, sitting by Ned and the window with MJ behind, he was hoping that he could vanish out of thin air. 

“Hey, Penis Parker,” Flash’s voice echoed.

“Flash, that behaviour is not acceptable,” Mr Harrington had warned, though it wasn’t going to stop the teenager from his bullying.

“You’re ready to be exposed for all your lies?” The boy had asked.

Whilst the rest of the team had rolled their eyes - whilst they hadn’t believed Peter and his internship they weren’t going to harass him every minute of the day. The only people who believed him was Ned and MJ, even Mr Harrington was sceptical of the whole thing and warned Peter not to say anything about this fake internship around Stark Industries to embarrass Midtown High.

So, when they had stepped off the bus, he wasn’t surprised to get pushed past by Flash, who got off the bus before Peter but held back just to dig at Peter. Ned had patted Peter on the shoulder with a reassuring smile as MJ started to scowl at Flash as she was captain of the team she took her role very seriously.

“Hi Midtown!” A preppy girl greeted the small group, her name was Emily, Peter had worked with her on some of her intern projects, “I’m Emily and I’m an intern at Stark Industries, I will be your tour guide of the day.”

Peter sighs, straightening his back as he listens to Emily rant about how they will be not allowed to take any pictures unless said otherwise. 

“You will all be given a visitor pass, these passes allow clearance to certain aspects of the tower. Level one and two have the lowest clearance, level ones are usually tourist, visitors on tours such as you guys. Level two are guest who frequently visits so they could be friends and family of people who work here.”

“What level are you?” Cindy asked as Emily smiles softly.

“I’m level four, there are ten levels in total. Level three and four are usually interns or on the business side of the Industries such as sales. Usually starting interns or starting employees of the business management start at three before ranking up to four. Levels five to seven are the scientist in research and development or better known as R&D, like level three and four, they can be ranked up depending on how well they work.”

“What levels are the Avengers?” Abe asked.

“I was about to get to that!” Emily chirped, “Level eight are Lab directors, they oversee the whole lab they work in, check on interns work and all. Avengers are level nine and level ten are only to the Starks, Pepper Potts, Happy Hogan, James Rhodes and anyone who have a connection to them that needs a full grant to areas of the tower.”

Flash was about to ask an important question before she had started to hand out passes before smiling at Peter. Flash was about to exclaim why Peter hadn’t been given a Level 1 pass that was a plain white card held in a black lanyard.

“We will be passing a metal detector, it’s for FRIDAY - Starks’ AI, to make sure you are safe to enter the building.” She had explained, swiping her pass like so and passing through the metal detection.

“Emily Robinson, Level 4: Intern,  all clear.” The AI voice had startled the team before Emily had beckoned the group to pass.

The group was passing through until they had noticed that Peter was pushed back with MJ and Ned coming through with white passes but with a blue, a white and red lanyard around their neck.

“Ned Leeds, Level 2: Frequent Visitor, all clear,” Friday sounded slightly warmer, “Welcome back Ned!”

MJ was quick to scan her pass and walk through, “Michelle Jones, Level 2: Frequent Visitor, all clear,” whilst the Decathlon team looked shocked MJ just rolls her eyes, “Welcome back MJ!”

Peter sighs and scans his pass, which was a light blue with the lanyard designed with red and blue with intricate details of spider webs, “Peter Parker, Level 10: Personal Intern, all clear.”

Peter had sighed out in relief when Friday hadn’t called out he was an Avenger, but then again, he was never called out as an Avenger if he as entering from the entrance like a normal person.

“Welcome back, Peter, the Starks have been informed of the arrival.” Friday had warmed her voice, Peter almost senses a smile in the tone despite being only an AI.

“WHAT!” Flash had exploded, that was one for MJ’s sketchbook.

“Miniboss has sent down a message, Peter, would you like to hear it?”

Peter chuckles at your nickname, you were either referred as Mini boss by FRIDAY or Mini Stark by the rest of the team, you don’t seem to mind it despite being grumpy about the nickname. Peter was sure you were secretly fond of the nickname.

“No, he can wait.”

He knew you couldn’t wait, it’s a Stark trait that you and your dad cannot wait. But, he was going to do it anyway, because admittedly he was a little shit. This was only the start of the tour and he was ready to end himself.

“Okay, but he said sand grains but I don’t understand.”

“I understand perfectly, thanks, Friday.”

He smiles to himself, at least you were trying to cheer him up.

He wishes the day couldn’t get any worst but it had. He had run in with each Avengers so far. Steve and Bucky coming down at the museum of the Avengers History to say hi to Peter, who turned red when they heard a girl gasp only to find it was only Ned.

Sam came down a few minutes later after Steve and Bucky tried to answer questions only to rile the Decathlon team to ask more questions. They all leave grinning and ruffling his hair.

“I’m showing Tony the PSA videos,” Peter muttered, unhappy as the three men just continue to grin.

“Bold enough of you to think I haven’t shown him already.”

Peter glanced at Sam with a raised eyebrow, “Hey, don’t look at me, blame Mini Stark on making these two old men catch up with the memes.”

Trust you to make Steve and Bucky too aware of the teenage world.

“See you later, squirt,” Steve beams, “I’m making tacos tonight.” 

Then, after the Decathlon team had gotten over Peter’s interaction with three Avengers,  they still haven’t gotten over Peter bantering with the Avengers. As Flash was about to hurl more abuse to Peter about his fake internship, despite many people telling already it was true, he refused to believe it. 

“Hey, Penis-” The elevator door slide open earlier than usual, they were not at their stop.

“Oh, hey,” Peter offers weakly, his voice breaking, “Hi Nat.”

“Hey ребенок паук,” She smiles, entering the elevator, turning to MJ, “Hey MJ.”

Natasha gives Peter a side glance as Peter rolls his eyes, knowing what she was trying to insinuate, no doubt that you would have heard this hint in your little lab. He can’t seem to shake off the rumours that he doesn’t like MJ in that way without becoming red.

“Good thing, (Y/n) isn’t here,” Natasha hums, “I don’t understand why he’s in a foul mood lately every time we mention MJ, didn’t know he dislikes the girl.”

 MJ raised an eyebrow at Peter, who looks at her with a sheepish smile, “He hears everything, Nat, you know that.”

“Still, that kid needs to sort himself out, he’s just as petty as his dad.”

“I heard that,” Your voice grumbled through the ceiling as Peter’s classmate jumped, “I’m not that petty.”

“You’re pretty petty,” Peter responds back, only to get a string of grumbling from your end.

Natasha chuckles, “Hey Stark, you better get a move on with fixing my bites or I’ll have Parker do it for me.”

The group had gaped at the Avenger, who affectionately bumps his shoulder and the elevator doors slide open.

“This is your stop, ребенок паук, enjoy the rest of your tour,” She teased as Peter’s ears flared hot.

For a split second, he had forgotten that he was on a school trip. The elevator door closed ominously as Peter noticed that they were on the R&D labs, well, one of the many labs.

“Does the rich boy not like me?” MJ asked, though on the outside she seemed like she couldn’t care less however on the inside, she was offended.

“No, he does, but the team thinks I have a crush on you and it’s getting to him so he avoids any conversations with you in it,” Peter explains as MJ nods.

It was his Parker luck that he would run into Bruce and Clint eventually. Clint had been poking at Bruce’s work before greeting Peter as hyper as he could. Bruce tiredly sighs before waving to Peter. The two Avengers leaving their interaction short.

“I can’t believe you, dickwad,” Flash hissed, obviously infuriated that Peter hadn’t been lying, “What money did you give to let you in? Did your aunt sucked dick-”

“I wouldn’t finish that Flash,” Peter growled dangerously low, a sudden protective instinct had washed over him, he will not take May slander.

“Or what, Penis?” Flash taunted.

Peter was about to punch him but Emily had called over that they were going to do a Q&A with Tony, himself as if Peter couldn’t want to bury himself in a hole even more.

Flash scoffs and shoves Peter into Ned, “Ignore him, Pete, he’s just being a dick.”

“He insulted May.”

“He insulted May?” Ned exclaims, “Changed my mind, punch him.”

“That’s not like you to say,” MJ interjected but shrugged, “But, I’m for it.”

The team had sat down in a conference room, it wasn’t just Tony speaking up but it was the rest of the team who had been notified about the bullying that was going on for the rest of the day. Even, Pepper managed to show up despite being very busy. 

“You’re telling me that Parker, puny little Parker actually does work for you?” Flash exclaims as Peter stands up with Flash.

Just as Tony was about to snap at the kid Peter had interrupted, “You know, Flash, you’re gonna wish that it was them that was scowling at you and not him.”

“Who-?”

“Me,” You dryly commented at the doorway, eyes were drawn up to you, noticing a terrifying glint in your eyes, “Eugene Thompson, right?”

“You know me?”

“Oh yeah, kid,” You commented, despiting being a year older than him and taking strides to be uncomfortably close to him, Peter winces, “You’re the kid that’s bullying my boyfriend, my boyfriend who was supposed to tell me or May or anyone on the Avengers that if his bullying got worst.”

“Yeah, about that...”

“Not now, Pete.”

“See, we could all endure a 45 minutes presentation that I’ve made on why Peter Parker is fucking-”

“Language-” Tony scowls as the team smirks at the inside joke, but it had dropped that you weren’t dropping 

“Wonderful, smart and amongst everything else that you could never be. I love that kid with all my heart, I love him with every grain of sand in the world. I’ll be damned if anything bad happens to him. So, what do you value more? Your fingers or your toes?”

There was a splutter of fear as the Avengers almost had an uproar when you had threatened the kid, the Decathlon team too afraid to challenge a Stark as Peter stood awkwardly watching his boyfriend confront his bully.

“Or, we could do it the easy way where you get on your knees, beg for forgiveness, though Peter will not be taking it, and admit that Peter Parker is always going to be ten times the man you’ll never be.”

Flash looks at Peter as you pressed a heavy finger on Flash’s chest to make him look at you.

“You will never have an opportunity at Stark Industries, and don’t get me angry or I will ruin your chances for any Ivy Leagues or MIT or Caltech.”

“You can’t do that!” Flash gasped, whining like a little kid.

“Why not? Going to run to daddy to sue us? Don’t worry, our lawyers are already suing you for assaulting a valuable member of Stark Industries, right babe?”

Peter reddens as eyes look over to him, “He might have bruised a few ribs when kicked me off the ropes in gym class.”

“Peter!” Tony and Pepper stressed out, as Avengers was even taken back with this revelation.

“Is there any other injuries your sustain to him?” Steve asked, concerned.

“I’ll tell you later,” Peter murmured, leaving the Avengers uneasy.

“And you-” You looked over your shoulder, turning away to look at the teacher, “See whilst you were lecturing Peter to not tarnish Midtown’s reputation, you and Flash have done an incredible job at doing so... What teacher ignores bullying?”

“I-I-...?”

“I can answer that!” MJ calls out, looking smug as she was gathering source for her sketchbook, “Flash’s parents contribute a lot to the school, telling him off would put that on the line.”

“You could have focused on students’ mentality, students in general, but no you rather feed to a kid’s ego and in a way, contribute to the bullying, and man,” you looked in distaste, “You’re a bit old to be called in the principal office at your age.”

“What?”

“You’d be lucky if you still have a job,” You shrugged, looking smug, “Made a few calls and turns out bullying is not tolerated in the school, which has been messaged through on Steve’s PSA.”

“I think that’s enough, babe,” Peter pleaded you looked at him, your shoulders deflating, you had been surprised that no one had stopped you from ranting.

“Alright,” You hummed softly, your eyes softening at Peter who smiles at you, “Only after this.”

You had a good right hook on Flash’s jaw, the Avengers quickly jumping off stage to the scene but you had backed off to go around the table to meet Peter. 

“You just right hooked him.” Peter spoke astonished as you grinned at him, “You’re lucky I love you, but that was embarrassing.”

“Oh? Well, the kid needed his ego knock down a notch,” You snaked your arms around him and pulled him close.

He buried his face in your neck as you chuckled, watching Emily frantically moving the Decathalon kids out and back to the entrance. You knew that you’re going to get a lecture from one of the guys in the room.

“Look after him Stark! He’s had a bad day,” MJ calls before being the last one to exit.

“No problem MJ!” You grinned as Peter groans, “Come on, Petey I can’t be that bad!”

“You just sucker punch a kid-” Bucky exclaims but there was evident amusement in his tone.

“He’s a year younger than me, it’s fine Buck.”

“I admit that was a good hit,” Natasha complimented, “Little bastard deserves it.”

“It’s fine, there’s no video evidence of anything and Peter’s classmates all signed a form about things being slipped out, I might have slipped in some extra stuff.”

“You planned this!” Peter exclaims, burying his face out of your neck as he looks at you.

“Well, not exactly, I wasn’t expecting to punch him but he said some stuff about May but the whole rant thing was planned,” You explained, “Am I the greatest boyfriend or am I the greatest boyfriend.”

“He really is your kid, Stark,” Sam commented, “He’s all cocky now.”

Peter shakes his head, “I love you with every sand grain in the world.”

You chuckled, kissing his temple, “And I love you, just a sand grain more.”

“Okay, was anybody going to tell me that Peter and (Y/n) were dating or was I just supposed to witness the cutest shit ever myself?” Steve asked out loud, quoting that one meme Peter had heard from.

“Language, Steve,” Bucky teased.

You and Peter looked at each other before looking at the superfamily.

“You got to stop teaching the old men memes, (Y/n),” Peter chuckles, you shrugged, holding his hand.

“Can’t help it,” You looked at your dad and offered him a sheepish smile as he looked annoyed, “I can explain?”

“You have a lot to explain young man.” Tony doesn’t use his father voice a lot, but the Avengers cringed because they knew Tony meant business, “I want a full rundown of your relationship with Peter, start to now, not missing details okay? Yay, girl time!”

This was going to be a long weekend, but Peter spares you a glance again and relaxes into your side. But, at least he has you and his large love for you.

[andrewdz]

Favorite Albums of 2019

2019 was a big year for me in music. According to my Last.FM stats, it’s the most music I’ve listened to in one year. That played a big role in why I have a top 50 albums list for the year. There was a lot of stuff I really enjoyed.  

I tried to find new bands this year because I’m over 30 now which they say is around the time you stop seeking new music and I want to prove that wrong. 14 out of my top 50 were brand new artists to me, which I wish was higher, but that’s a goal for next year now. 

I also reignited my love for some bands. I got really into the Go-Betweens in 2019. I bought a documentary about them, a book about the two founders of the band, and got a box set of their last three albums that is now one of most prized music possessions. I also found some Deerhunter records in Nashville that I listened to quite a bit. I also got to see them live this year which was a real treat. Other artists I got really into this year was Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, Bombay Bicycle Club, Chris Isaak, Hightide Hotel, The Brave Little Abacus and Titus Andronicus (who I was already into, but got almost all of their albums on vinyl now).

It was another terrific year for live shows as well, as I got to see a lot of artists I loved as well as ones on my bucket list. Kacey Musgraves, Sharon Van Etten, Priests, mewithoutyou (2nd time), Tigers Jaw, Titus Andronicus (2nd Time), Angel Olsen (3rd Time), Deerhunter, Trampled by Turtles, and Miami Horror. The best month was late April to late May when I got to go to five amazing but very different shows. It was one of the most fun months of my life. I got to see the Drums (2nd Time), PUP, Ratboys, Doomsquad, Operators, Desire, Chromatics, and Passion Pit! All of them were some of the best shows I’ve ever been to.

Now enough about my music year, let’s get to the list. I only wrote things about the top 30 but wanted to highlight some other ones so expanded the list to 50. Like I mentioned earlier, it was a really great year of music. Not sure if I will release a list of favorite songs this year, but we’ll see. I’ve lately become more of an album fan instead of singles. Let me know what you checked out this year!

50. Chromatics – Closer to Grey  

49. Hatchie – Keepsake

48. Nilufer Yana – Miss Universe

47. Denzel Curry - ZUU

46. Pedro the Lion - Phoenix

45. Proper. - I Spent the Winter Writing Songs About Getting Better

44. Turnover – Altogether

43. Jay Som – Anak Ko

42. Big Thief – Two Hands

41. Jimmy Eat World - Surviving

40. Titus Andronicus – An Obelisk

39. The National – I Am Easy to Find

38. Priests – Seduction of Kansas

37. DIIV – Deceiver

36. Mildura - Mildura

35. Jamila Woods – LEGACY! LEGACY!

34. Doomsquad – Let Yourself Be Seen

33. Charly Bliss – Young Enough

32. Operators – Radiant Dawn

31. Black Marble – Bigger Than Life

30. The Get Up Kids – Problems

I was late on the Get Up Kids (I know, I know, I’ll turn in my emo card after this article), and I’ve been trying to catch-up these past couple years. And what perfect timing because it’s the first album in eight years (They also had a terrific EP in 2018). It’s a really good return album from them. They can still write amazing pop punk anthems, and few bands leave songs stuck in my head as often as the Get Up Kids do. It’s interesting that the early wave of emo are now elder statesmen of the scene and they touch on that a little in this album. Reflecting on the past and what it means to be a band in 2019. It’s always good to see a band not only not just rely on nostalgia to tour on, but still release relevant music that stands up with some of their best material.

Favorite Track: Satellite

29. Bon Iver – i,i

It’s interesting where Bon Iver has gone in the past decade. First bursting on the scene with the perfect story of going to a cabin and recording a heartbreaking breakup album. Since then he’s won some Grammys, been featured on Kanye West songs, and embraced the synthesizer. For some reason, however, this album reminds me more of “For Emma, Forever Go” than his previous couple albums despite still using the more electronic approach. It has that same raw honesty that his debut had. He’s not alone in the woods anymore. He’s commanding a large group of musicians now, creating this huge sound without losing any of his heart. He also sounds more assured in himself. It’s seems like the beginning of a new era for Justin Vernon and the last song “RABi” sounds like his “riding off into the sunset” moment. Awaiting the next adventure.

Favorite Track: Faith

28. Yola – Walk Through Fire

A really strong debut album from singer/songwriter Yola. It’s really soothing with a nice wall of sound production that just sweeps you away. It also helps that she has such an amazing voice. Songs like “Faraway Look” & “Lonely the Night” feel like songs I’ve known my entire life, but was just waiting for Yola to record them. Really excited to see what she does next.

Favorite Track: Lonely the Night

27. Prince Daddy & the Hyena – Cosmic Thrill Seekers

“Cosmic Thrill Seekers” is an ambitious album, like “The Monitor” level of ambitious. It’s written almost entirely by Kory Gregory about his cycles of struggling with mental health with allusions to Wizard of Oz. They take you on a journey on this album. The feelings of self-destruction, to wanting to escape from people who aren’t even your friends, and not quite fitting in with rest of the world while also playing the most anthemic guitar riffs and crashing cymbals.  I can only imaging what the experience is like seeing this album performed live. It would have to feel like a sonic tornado, and you would wonder what just happened after you’re walking away on the street. This album didn’t make it number one on any charts, but this album is going to mean so much to so many people. Also, the last track goes right back into the first one to begin the cycle again.

Favorite Track: Lauren (Track 2)

26. Strange Ranger – Remembering the Rockets

It’s amazing how much this album reminds me of 90’s indie rock. It is so easy to picture Strange Ranger playing this album in between sets of Mazzy Star and Teenage Fanclub. I had not really clicked with Strange Ranger’s earlier stuff, but this album just seemed to make sense to me. It sounds like a fully formed album with a band that is confident enough to be more adventurous. There are some incredibly poppy hooks, but also some interesting synth beat choices. Also the switch of singing songs about the end of the world to being excited to go on a date gives the album a little extra something. A good mixture of despair and hope.

Favorite Track: Leona

25. Lost Under Heaven – Love Hates What You’ve Become

I love when a band just says “F*** It! Let’s make songs meant to be heard in a stadium,” even though they will never get a chance to. This is one of those albums that is meant to be turned all the way up with you screaming along to every chorus in your car. They are definitely wearing their hearts on their sleeve on this one, encouraging you be the best version of ourselves so by the time the album reaches it’s colossal closer “For the Wild,” you are ready to take on the world. It’s fun when a band decides to be super sincere on an album. You actually feel like rock and roll will save us, just like you did when you were a teenager and first found music for yourself.

Favorite Track: For the Wild

24. Mark Ronson – Late Night Feelings

I think my favorite thing about a Mark Ronson record is how much they seem like an awesome compilation album, and this one lives up to its name and is a perfect soundtrack for late night out on the town. He’s got a great ear for collaborators creating the perfect songs to best suit their voices. Lykke Li, Angel Olsen, Alicia Keys, and even Miley Cyrus have some terrific showings on this record. There’s no super hit like “Uptown Funk” on this album, but it is a fun listening experience, and I cannot get enough of Angel Olsen’s “True Blue” on here (Which really should have ended the album. It’s a perfect end credits song).

Favorite Track: True Blue

23. The Drums – Brutalism

The Drums are a group that has had quite a decade. They’ve released four albums, and every member but Johnny has left the group. “Brutalism,” however, is still a strong album in one of the best indie rock discographies of the past 20 years. There are some throwback songs to the early Drums days (Body Chemistry), a rare acoustic ballad (Nervous), and one of the catchiest songs they’ve ever written (626 Bedford Ave). The Drums get overlooked, but they’ve quietly created an impressive catalogue that is just begging to be reevaluated with “Brutalism“ adding a lot to that conversation. Not many indie rock bands make it to five albums, let alone having songs on that fifth album that fit along their biggest hits.

Favorite Track: 626 Bedford Ave.

22. Brittany Howard – Jaime

When I first heard this album was coming out, I thought it meant that Alabama Shakes were done as a band and Brittany was going to be an exclusively solo artist now. However, after listening to this album, I understand why it was not an Alabama Shakes record. This is a very personal record that just wouldn’t sound right as a band collaboration. This is Brittany’s story. She’s singing about life on the road, her faith, first crushes, family, and making sense of what it’s like growing up in the south. This solo record also gave her a chance to explore some different sounds than she would have on an Alabama Shakes record. You can hear some Prince influence, especially on the final track “Run to Me.” Not sure if she plans to release more solo records, but I hope this isn’t the last.

Favorite Track: History Repeats

21. (Sandy) Alex G – House of Sugar

“House of Sugar” has probably got my favorite Side A of any record this year. It just gives a chance to showcase what I love about (Sandy) Alex G so much. You’ve got the psychedelic drone style and that fast almost folk-punk style. It’s just filled with this fun eclectic sound and his voice, while probably viewed as limited in sense of range, just captures so much emotion in the music. I found this record to be one that rewards you the most the more you listen to it. I feel like I’m always discovering something new with each listen. I always enjoy checking out the latest (Sandy) Alex G record because his albums are always adventurous, and “House of Sugar” is definitely that. I would have a tough time describing this album. It’s like when you’re in a dream and there are those moments that completely change the scenario and location, but for some reason it makes sense to you in a way you can’t explain. That’s what this album is like for me.

Favorite Track: Gretal

20. Angel Olsen – All Mirrors

If I had to describe this album, I would say it’s Angel Olsen’s “Nebraska” if she had Bauhaus as her backing band. This is a big sounding record, and it’s easy to let the emotional crescendos take you away. You feel every emotion she’s putting on this record, and it is a wild ride. It’s a breakup record, and this album does a good job of capturing that feeling fresh off a breakup that just feels like a tornado of feelings. It’s a storm of emotions, but sometimes there’s a beauty in a storm as well. She said there’s an acoustic version of this album that will come out next year, but I’m glad we got to hear this version first. We get to feel the real raw emotion on this, and then when more time has passed a chance to be softer with a more reflective look back.

Favorite track: All Mirrors

19. billy woods + kenny segal – Hiding Places

It really sounds like Woods is letting it all out on this album; frustrations with music, other people, the current state of things, and his intensity is only amplified by the beats from Kenny Segal. The samples on this album are not catchy, and they shouldn’t be. This is an album that wants you to reckon with what Woods is saying. That’s what makes the final album so impressive. It’s a perfect blend between Wood’s lyrics and Segal’s beats. Complimenting each other in frustration and uneasiness. I was not familiar with either artists before this album, but I’m definitely a fan now, and I hope they will collaborate again in the near future.

Favorite Track: Red Dust

18. Truth Club – Not an Exit

There is something very old school about Truth Club. They’ve got this post-punk nasty guitar riff energy that just make this an album a delight to hear. They sound like a band with something to prove, delivering exactly what you want from a post-punk record. Sweet riffs, monotone vocals, and done in less than a half-hour. Love it.

Favorite Track: Student Housing

17. Helado Negro – This is How You Smile

Sometimes records just feel like a dream as if you can just see the music and travel in it. That’s how I feel every time I listen to “This is How you Smile.” The mixture of electronic and folk makes such beautiful music and Roberto Carlos Lange’s voice is perfect on top of these amazing collections of sound. Apparently he invited a lot of different musicians to play on this record and it really sounds like a group of friends got together and had the perfect jam with Lange’s artistic vision taking the lead. Some songs tackle today’s issues with even some field recordings from an Abolish ICE March in Brooklyn and singing about being proud of being Latinx, but not being confrontational about it. It’s beautiful music with a message.

Favorite Track: Please Won’t Please

16. Deerhunter - Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared?

You’ve got to give credit to Deerhunter for continuing to make really interesting albums throughout all of the 2010s, and this one seems like a good one to end the decade with. When so many of their contemporaries have disbanded or walked away from music, Deerhunter has kept going. Not resting on their past success, but creating new sounds and challenging their audience to go somewhere new with them. They can still write an amazing hook and the lyrics are as sharp as any previous album. It’s an ode to a world that seems to be on the brink of destruction by its own design.

Favorite Track: Plains

15. Anderson Paak – Ventura

Anderson Paak is on quite a creative streak with this being his fourth album in five years and I think this one may be my favorite. He’s got some amazing guests singers on this album including Andre 3000, Brandy, and the legendary Smokey Robinson. It just sounds terrific too. The 70’s soul-funk inspiration makes for some of the best grooves I’ve heard this year, and it’s a perfect album for a night drive.

Favorite Track: Jet Black

14. PUP – Morbid Stuff

Few bands do “ANGER” as good as PUP, but Morbid Stuff is not the typical angry record either. It’s like “I’m angry. You’re angry. Let’s be angry together” kind of record which is perfect for the general attitude of 2019. PUP inspires a real passionate fan base, and on this record it’s easy to see why. They packed it with cathartic anthems for the disenfranchised. Not getting along with your family? Not quite over your ex? Feel like you missed that turn you were supposed to take in life about four years ago? Get over here and let all that anger out by singing along with us. This album is community even though you can’t be with this group in person. It also helps that this is a band that can PLAY. The musicianship is just fantastic which is probably helped because this is a band. These four guys have been PUP since the beginning and they sound better and better on each album. So let’s get angry!

Favorite Track: Kids

13. Raphael Saadiq – Jimmy Lee

It’s been eight years since the last Raphael Saadiq album, and it’s understandable because this album is dealing with a lot of heavy issues; addiction, incarceration, faith, and losing family. It’s also an album that Raphael Saadiq could have only made after being a bit older with some life wisdom to look back at. Sometimes it can be uncomfortable to listen to, but also necessary. It feels like a very personal album, and you can tell how much work must have been put into producing it. The album sounds terrific, which makes sense for how much experience he’s had producing other projects in-between albums. I also forget how talented of a singer he is. This album is a real showcase of his vocal skills. Some songs sound like he’s pouring his soul into it, and just somehow keeping his voice from breaking. You get swept up in that anger he feels. This album will make you really think about where the world has been, where it’s at today, and where it’s going. A powerful and necessary album for 2019.

Favorite Track: Rearview

12. Orville Peck – Pony

Orville Peck’s music is the kind of music that would sound just as perfect being performed on stage at the Grand Ole Opry as it would hearing it off a jukebox in a dive bar in the middle of nowhere. Peck’s really tapped into that timeless country sound that just seems to sounds good anywhere in any situation. Feeling sad? Perfect. Feeling that freedom you get from just hitting the road alone? Perfect. That baritone voice is so beautiful to listen to as well. It’s a new generations Roy Orbison or Chris Isaak. Beautiful but haunting, and it wouldn’t sound out of place in a David Lynch film. The storytelling in the lyrics are also astounding. I can picture the desert riding while listening to “Dead of Night.” It’s fascinating to know that this is Peck’s first album because it’s so well formed in terms of lyrics, vocals, and hooks. Makes me even more excited for what the next album will sound like.

Favorite Track: Dead of Night

11. Great Grandpa – Four of Arrows

“Four of Arrows” sounds like a level up album from Great Grandpa after their terrific debut “Plastic Cough.” It’s a great example of a band expanding their sound without losing the identity that made their first album special. The band sounds tighter, richer (especially with the addition of strings and synths on some songs), and more ambitious. It also helps to have the amazing Alex Menne vocals. She really conveys an energy that escalates these songs’ emotional payoffs. Especially on a song like “Digger” where she sings (almost screams) “That’s why I hate you,” “That’s why I love you” with almost the same energy. You may not know what each song is about, but you certainly know how it feels.

Favorite Track: Treat Jar

10. Holy Ghost! – Work

Sometimes all you need is great dance album in your life, and Holy Ghost! provided that for me this year.  They have a kind of style of dance music that has fallen out of critical favor by the end of this decade, but I still love to hear it. They continued the tradition of Daft Punk’s “Random Access Memories” of applying their flavor to 70’s dance music, and it’s terrific fun. This album is super catchy, has wonderfully danceable grooves, and features a 7-minute plus dance closer. A perfect dance record.

Favorite track: Do This

9. American Football - American Football (LP3)

With emo revival being a big topic of conversation this past decade in certain music critics’ world, it’s only fair that one of the greatest emo bands ends the decade with a terrific album. After reuniting a couple years ago for an okay album, I’m glad they went back to studio to create an album worthy of comparison to their first album that influenced so many amazing artists. The musicianship on this album is just stunning, with a rich tapestry of melancholy permeating throughout. They also happened to create possibly the best duet of the decade by having fellow emo legend Haley Williams join them for “Uncomfortably Numb.” Just beautiful. #defendemo

Favorite Track: Uncomfortably Numb

8. oso oso – Basking in the Glow

To be honest, I feel invested in oso oso. I remember a few years back he released “the yunahon mixtape” as a pay what you want on Bandcamp and planning to walk away from music. I checked it out, and loved it on first listen. Then the album got some nice shout-outs from critics and other artists and eventually found an audience. So to see not only oso oso stick with music, but to release this terrific follow up record as well, feels like a win for everyone. There is a common misconception that emo=sad music, but this album shows that is not the case. There’s a joy on this album that is super infectious. He wants you to feel a part of his joy. It’s an album of positivity that we needed in 2019, and it helps that so many of these songs are very catchy. This is the “dance around your bedroom” kind of album, and just let yourself go for a half-hour. I’m so happy that this album is getting recognized on so many year-end lists. It feels like a win for the entire emo scene that usually gets ignored. The fact that it happened to oso oso makes it all the better.

Favorite track: The View

7. Big Thief - U.F.O.F.

I always thought of Big Thief as a perfect band for fall. Something about their music feels like the end of something before dealing with something that will be tough but necessary. That they’re the ferryman taking us into the next stage in life, and the cost is you’re going to feel a little sad listening to some heartbreaking tales. U.F.O.F., their first album of 2019, can break you down. In the first track “Contact” we hear lead singer Adrianne Lenker let out these howling screams. Giving ua permission to let yourself go. Be your most pure self as this album takes you on a journey. I don’t mean to make this album sound depressing, because even though there’re numerous allusions to death it is quite hopeful. You get to LIVE because one day you will die. It makes life more important because it has an ending.  This album doesn’t have a lot of hooks on it, but it just makes it more important to listen to it as an album. It’s one big piece that feels so right together. It’s hard to imagine anyone having as creatively successful year as Big Thief did in 2019. Kind of apt they got it in right before the end of a decade. A necessary end, I think.

Favorite Track: Cattails

6. Mini Dresses – Heaven Sent

Listening to Mini Dresses’ “Heaven Sent” feels like I found some hidden album demo from the early 2000s that was secretly a masterpiece. I truly do not know why hardly anyone seems to be talking about this album. If it came out in 2008 it feels like it would have been huge on indie blogs. This album is so catchy and a style of indie rock that doesn’t seem to be big anymore, which is a shame because it’s too good to miss. This album reminds me of Blondie if they would have been part of the indie wave of the mid-2000s, which if that sounds cool to you, please check this album out.

Favorite Track: Rank and File

5. Better Oblivion Community Center – Better Oblivion Community Center

After hearing “Would You Rather” on Phoebe Bridgers’ phenomenal debut album “Stranger in the Alps,” I suppose we were all secretly hoping for more songs from Conor Oberst and Phoebe. There are few songwriters that can capture the feeling of loneliness and emptiness, but still have that sense of hope that it can somehow get better like these two can. “If you’re not feeling ready, there’s always tomorrow” on their last song “Dominos” really hits that point home. Their voices sound great together and the production on this album is fantastic. They’ve got the hooks, they’ve got the ballads, and they’re ready to make you cry, but they will be the first ones to help pick you back up. This album feels like an old friend that knows you get sad sometimes, but is always there for you when you need them.

Favorite Track: Dylan Thomas

4. glass beach – the first glass beach album

There’s nothing better than when a band just goes for it on an album. I haven’t listened to an album that has made me think of emo, Disney, Hellogoodbye, and Playstation video game soundtracks all before I’ve even made it to track 5. It’s like they threw everything on the wall and everything stuck. I would not be surprised to find out that this band is around my age. It sounds like an album that only someone who grew up in the 90’s and early 2000’s could make.  Just picking sounds from everything in that era and making an album out of it. It’s pure chaos, but somehow completely makes sense. This album is not for everybody, but if it clicks with you, it’s like it’s looking into your soul.

Favorite track:  cold weather

3. Slaughter Beach Dog – Safe and Also No Fear

I was a big fan of Modern Baseball, like all good emo revival fans should be, and was super sad to hear they were going on indefinite hiatus. When I heard Jake Ewald was starting a new project as Slaughter Beach Dog, I checked out some songs from his album “Birdie” but didn’t really connect with it. Probably because I wanted something more like Modern Baseball. Then when this album came out, it had some buzz from critics whose opinions on music closely line up with mine, and I checked out this album. Whatever opinion I had on the first album, this one was the exact opposite. I really connected with. Listening to it feels like those times where you visit your old hometown, driving around the old spots you used to hang out. Then you realize these spots don’t mean what they did to you anymore, and they never could. No matter how much old friends want you to be that old person again, you can’t go backwards and you’re fine with that. This is also a beautiful sounding record. It sounds like Jake let the other musicians have a bit more say in the sound, and it does sound like a band collaboration. It’s a sweet indie/folk/alternative sound that just pierces my soul. If we don’t get another Modern Baseball reunion, that’s fine. It sounds like Jake has moved on, and I’m ready to follow wherever his new music takes him.

Favorite Track: Black Oak

2. Sharon Van Etten – Remind Me Tomorrow

It’s always exciting to witness an artist make the album they were always meant to. All of her work has lead up to her masterpiece. You feel her soul on this record. Not one moment feels faked. She’s not hiding anything from the listener. Talking about letting go of your past self (I Told You Everything), making a new version of yourself (Comeback Kid), letting yourself love again (Jupiter 4), and what it’s like to be a mother (Stay). Also, on this record she embraces the synth and it makes for some tremendous production. The anthems have an extra kick to them. Not only is this a terrific album for 2019, but one of the standouts of the decade from an artist who already had an impressive discography these past ten years. I’m not sure where she will go next, but I’m hoping this is a sign of what to expect from her in the 2020s.

Favorite Track: Seventeen

1. Purple Mountains – Purple Mountains

This is my favorite album of 2019, and it’s not even close. I was not familiar with David Berman until I heard the first couple singles before the album came out. His name was one that I heard critics tweet about or referenced by other artists, but had never really checked out his music. However, after hearing “All My Happiness is Gone” and “Darkness and Cold” I could not get enough of this music. The melodies were incredibly catchy, I thought the lyrics were super memorable, and they just felt like they really connected with me. He sounded like a natural storyteller, and I was hooked on every word he said. I’m not usually a lyrics person, but I paid attention when I heard these songs. Then when the album came out, it was a treasure trove of an album that I could really dive into. This heartland country sound with a terrific backing band, Woods, complimenting David Berman’s unique voice. I loved it immediately. Then when the tragic news came out of David Berman’s passing, it hit me hard. It’s difficult to talk about this album without acknowledging David committed suicide shortly after it was released. However, I don’t think of this album as a suicide note. This really felt like an album about life. There are struggles, but there are the good moments too. Find the happiness where you can. Margaritas at the mall, that lovely connection of a child with their parent, and if the snow is falling and it’s looking bad, enjoy how warm it will be inside. Berman’s legacy will be everything he contributed to culture; his poetry, his wit, his dark humor, and especially the music. Every once in awhile now when I hear “All My Happiness is Gone” on the radio or if it comes up on a shuffled playlist, my eyes start to well up. Not because I’m sad, but because I’m happy David shared a piece of his soul with us. That’s the real power of music.

Favorite Track: All My Happiness is Gone

[talesofpanem]

The Interview

Author: @xerxia31

Rating: T for potty language, adult situations, mentions of substance abuse and minor character death.

Summary: This has all the makings of the most uncomfortable job interview of all time.

Author’s note: This is for the prompt ‘work’, but I just couldn’t get it done on time. Thank goodness for make-up week!

————

It feels like entering another world, driving through the grounds of the west campus. Everything is wide open, lush, green, alive, a huge contrast to the dirty and crowded city where I’ve been living for the past two years.

There are young people everywhere on the expansive lawns, throwing frisbees or leaning against trees with books or binders in hand, and not a cellphone to be seen. It’s like a utopian fantasy world, on the surface.

But I know better.

I pull up to the building where my appointment will be. Grey stone, old, but not yet old enough to be considered classic. Its architectural failings have been compensated for by brightly-painted window trim and shutters, and climbing vines clinging to the stones, bursting with purple flowers. Elegant, but only if you don’t look too closely. For all of its window dressing, it’s an institution.

I’d been instructed to wait in the lobby, arranged as a waiting room of sorts. It’s little more than a dozen chairs ringing the area, facing the double set of interior doors, faded industrial carpet underfoot. I settle into one, the sun-hardened vinyl squeaks in protest. The walls are covered with inspirational posters, pictures of sunsets and mountaintops with words of wisdom in bold print underneath. Motivation. Persistence. Achievement. 

“Mr. Mellark?” 

I jump to my feet as a young woman with glossy black ringlets enters the room where I’ve been cooling my heels for twenty minutes. She smiles at me. “They’re ready for you now.”

Taking a deep, cleansing breath, I wipe my hands on my suit pants before picking up my portfolio. I can’t remember the last time I was this nervous about anything. Young Peeta Mellark was an outgoing, gregarious fellow. But I haven’t been that guy in a very long time.

The doors close behind me, electronic locks snapping ominously. 

The young woman, Rue, she tells me her name is, leads me along a dim corridor, the floors polished to gleaming, reflecting scattered pools of light. “We only use emergency lighting in the offices on the weekends,” she confides. “Budget…” I nod. The schools where I worked while finishing my master’s degrees had all struggled with budgets too. Education is not a career that is steeped in money.

But working with children is what I’ve chosen. And this job, at this particular school, is the one I want more than anything.

Art therapist at the Panem Institute.

The Panem Institute is the preeminent residential facility for kids in trouble, kids struggling with substance abuse issues or mental health disorders. And unlike most centres of its kind, lack of funds is not a barrier to admission.

I can’t help wondering how different my life might have turned out if I’d had access to a place like this when I was a teen. Would I be established now, with a life I could be proud of? A wife, maybe even a family of my own?

Instead, I’m thirty, with a shiny new double MA in social work and art therapy, and precious little in the way of resumé experience. That the institute is even meeting with me is almost miraculous. Apart from student placements and volunteer work, I have almost nothing to show for my life.

But I want this job so badly I can almost taste it. This job, this place– this is why I’ve worked so hard the past six years, for the chance to make up for my own failings.

My childhood wasn’t fantastic, but it was typical by most measures. The youngest of three children, I was born upstate, in a quintessential white-washed all-American small town where everyone knew everyone else. My parents didn’t get along, but they stuck it out for the sake of us boys, which is retrospect was probably far, far worse for us than if they’d simply split.

Instead, beaten down by a life she hated and a town she couldn’t escape, my mother was cold, and often rough with us. Rye, Brann and I learned young to hide from her temper. She, in turn, hid in a bottle.

My dad, though, was my hero, mine and my brothers’ too. He coached our little league teams, came to every one of our wrestling matches, filled our lives with cookies and hugs. Shielded us from mother’s ever-increasing drunken and violent episodes.

Then midway through my senior year of high school, the unthinkable happened. My father, my kind, generous father, was murdered. Shot by some punk barely older than I was, killed for nothing more than the two hundred dollars in the cash register of the small family bakery my father owned.

I was devastated.

There was no one left to moderate my mother’s behaviour with my father gone and my brothers away at school. Down to one final obligation, freedom in sight, she made it her sole purpose in life to be rid of me as well. Or maybe she was just drowning in grief and alcoholism and wasn’t even aware of how she was acting, a theory my brother broached at the time. Whatever the reason, life at home deteriorated. Badly.

And like my mother, I sought refuge in a bottle. Or many, many bottles.

I’d already been offered a college wrestling scholarship based on my earlier performances. A good thing since I showed up at the state wrestling championship - my last ever high school wrestling meet and the first one where my father wasn’t a spectator - hungover as hell, or maybe still a little drunk, and ended up placing second.

College was supposed to be my escape, but by the time I got to State that September, I was far more interested in getting bombed than in studying or practicing. 

Over the course of a year, I destroyed every dream I’d ever had, every hope, every plan, every relationship. I alienated every friend, every mentor, even, eventually, my own brothers.

And I hadn’t even cared.

Twelve years later, I’ve clawed my way back, one sober day at a time, through more ups and downs than I can even remember. Fought to become a man my father would have been proud of. But I didn’t do it alone. Therapists and counsellors helped me heal, and in doing so showed me how satisfying it could be to guide someone back from the brink, to help set them on the right path.

And that’s why I’m here now, standing sweaty-palmed but hopeful at the door of a boardroom. Interviewing for a job where I could change the lives of troubled young people like I once was.

My escort, Rue, pulls the door open and gestures for me to enter. The room is small and much brighter than the hallway, with a pair of large windows and pale wood reflecting the warm afternoon light. It takes me a moment to adjust to the brightness, to focus on the group of people waiting for me.

Then the bottom drops out of my stomach, and out of my world.

I never got blackout drunk. Consequently, I remember every stupid decision I made, every assholish word I said. And the recipient of one of the tirades I regret most is sitting across the table, her ebony hair pulled back in an elegant chignon. 

Katniss Everdeen.

She and I went to school together, from kindergarten all the way through until I ruined my life. I had the worst crush on her back then. But until after we graduated from high school, she didn’t even know I was alive.

Imagine my shock when, a few months into my ill-fated college career, I ran into her at a party on campus. I’d had no idea she went to the same school. But I was well into a bottle of Bombay that night, and what should have been the start of an epic relationship, or at least a chance for me to talk to the girl I’d lusted after always, turned into a nightmare.

I was already slipping then, already on academic probation, already suspended from the wrestling team and constantly in trouble with my coaches. I was weeks away from losing everything - my scholarship, my sport, my friends. And every encounter with my professors, with my academic advisor, with the counsellor the athletic department had insisted on, every single one had impressed on me that I wasn’t good enough, though I am, in retrospect, certain that’s not what any of them had meant. But I’d had so much anger in my system then, so much loathing. 

And Katniss, beautiful, seemingly unattainable Katniss, for some reason seeing her there triggered the deepest well of self pity to open in my chest. She was, in that moment, the embodiment of everything I’d been told I could never have. My gut clenches and my heart hurts as I remember the vitriol I’d spewed at her that night, the accusations about her character and motivations, every one of them utterly untrue. I’d called her stuck-up, selfish, a bitch, among so many other words. Katniss, beautiful, stoic Katniss hadn’t reacted at all, apart from a widening of her eyes and maybe a slight trembling of her lower lip. When I’d run out of filth to throw her way, she’d simply blinked and said softly, “This isn’t you, Peeta.” Then she’d walked away.

I have heard those words in my head a thousand times since that night. 

It had taken another three years of couch-surfing and homelessness, of lying and begging and stealing to feed my addiction, before I finally hit rock-bottom. In an alley in the Capitol, with a bunch of other low-life scum just like me, I’d listened as they made plans to rob a convenience store a few blocks away. So desperate was I for the few bucks it would have garnered me that I was ready to go along with them… until I saw the gun.

The idea of robbing a little mom-and-pop convenience store at gunpoint was my come to Jesus moment. I was hunched in filth, hungry and so desperate for a drink that I was steps away from becoming the man who had killed my father.

The road back from that point wasn’t straight, and it wasn’t easy. I’d like to say that I never had another drink after that, but it’d be a lie. But I’ve been sober now for seven years and forty-four days, a purple medallion in my pocket reminds me every day how far I’ve come.

As does Katniss’s voice in my head, reminding me when I feel weak, when the cravings hit hard, that I’m not that person.

But she doesn’t know that. Looking across the table, she must be seeing the asshole who treated everyone, and especially her, like dirt.

“Please have a seat, Mr. Mellark,” an older, balding man says, smiling. I recognize his voice, Plutarch Heavensbee, the institute’s director, with whom I’ve spoken on the phone several times before today. I hesitate though, steeling myself to meet Katniss’s eyes. If she looks uncomfortable I’ll leave. It wouldn’t be fair to her if I stayed. As disappointing as it’ll be to walk away from this opportunity that I want so damned badly, I have only myself to blame.

I catch her gaze, silver pools in the sunlight, expecting her to be glaring at me. She’s not though, her expression is carefully neutral. But as if she sees the question in my glance, she nods.

Plutarch introduces the others in turn; Reza Seder, head of counselling services, Dr. Lavinia DeSantis, head of medical services, Alma Coin, head of security. “And of course you know Ms. Everdeen,” Plutarch says, his smile widening, and I can feel my eyebrows crawling up to my hairline. She knew I was coming, told the others that she knew me, and yet I’m still here. They’re still going to interview me.

“Hello, Peeta,” she says, in that smoky smooth bourbon voice that has acted as my conscience for years. And, okay, has narrated my fantasies too, if I’m being honest.

“I’ve already disclosed to the board that we grew up together,” she continues, “and they’re okay with my presence. But of course I’ll leave if it makes you uncomfortable having me here.” Her words and delivery are coolly professional, but beneath them I hear a faint note of pleading. She wants to be here, I just know it. And though I’m likely signing the death warrant on this job, I find myself asking her to stay.

This has all the makings of the most uncomfortable job interview of all time. But if I’ve learned anything from my primary therapist, Dr. Aurelius, it’s that I can’t run from my past. And if I’ve learned anything from AA, it’s that I can’t ignore my shortcomings.

Each member questions me, softballs to start - my education, my job experiences, my plans. I pull out my portfolio, walk them through the educational and therapeutic programs I’ve developed, outline what worked during my previous placements, what innovations I’d like to employ. They seem impressed, and I start to relax. 

“You didn’t go to college right after high school, Mr. Mellark?” Alma Coin asks, her strange, pale eyes cold and judgemental. I stiffen; this is where previous interviews have gone off the rails. I’d never outright lie about my addiction, but I’m not keen to bring it up either. Even seven years sober, people are reluctant to entrust an alcoholic to watch over children.

“That’s correct,” I tell her. “I didn’t start my undergrad until I was twenty-four.”

“Why is that?” I could tell her that I couldn’t afford it until then, that’s true, or about my father’s death throwing a spanner in my plans, also true.

Katniss is looking at me, grey eyes wide and guileless. She nods again, and it feels like encouragement. I know what I have to say.

“I’m an alcoholic,” I tell them, bracing for their reactions. But nobody flinches. “I’ve been sober for seven years. But I started drinking in high school, and I lost a lot of years to the disease.” Across from me, a hint of a smile graces Katniss’s pouty peach lips. I take it as my cue to keep going. “That’s why I went into social work, and why I want to work here so much. To help kids like me. To maybe save some of them from the mistakes I made.”

There are nods around the table, no one looks particularly surprised. I don’t know whether Katniss has told them, or if it came up in my background check.

“And you’re not concerned that working with addicted children might trigger you to revisit your own demons? Your CV is completely lacking in experience with troubled youth.” It’s true, my field placements were all in middle schools, my experience as an art therapist mostly with kids with ADHD or autism spectrum disorders. The kids here by and large have much more complex issues, abuse and addiction and mental illness all compounded, often violent and criminal backgrounds too. 

“I’ve spent years in therapy learning to cope with my triggers,” I tell Coin.

“That’s not the same as real-world experience,” Seder interjects. “These kids, the things they tell you, the things they’ve seen. It’s gutting.”

“I realize that,” I tell her, affecting the most professional tone I’m capable of despite the cavern that’s opened in my stomach, the knowledge that I’m nowhere near qualified enough in their eyes. “I completed a research project on intergenerational addiction in college and interviewed hundreds of young addicts.”

“That’s really not the same as interacting with them day to day,” Seder says, and it’s not cruel, but it feels dismissive.

“I also observed troubled youth in counselling during my practicum while I was in graduate school.” They know this, it’s in my resumé, along with letters of reference from the clinician supervisors. But Seder is shaking her head and Coin looks unimpressed and I can feel the opportunity slipping away.

“Peeta has volunteered as a mentor at the Children’s Hospital’s substance abuse treatment program for more than three years,” Katniss interjects, and every hair on my body stands on end. Because while that’s true, it’s also something that’s not in my resumé, something I’ve avoided self-reporting because it’s common knowledge that the program volunteers are all addicts in recovery themselves.

I have no idea how she knows that.

My gaze snaps to Katniss. Her expression remains carefully neutral, but there is the barest hint of a smile in her silver eyes.

“That’s an excellent program,” Dr. De Santis says, looking up from her notes for the first time. “They’re incredibly selective about who they choose to work with their clients.” 

“They are,” I agree. The screening had been brutal, but it had been necessary, so many of those kids have lead lives that make mine look like a walk in the park and many are not shy about sharing all of the horrific details. “They can’t risk having the volunteers drop out or relapse. The kids need the stability of knowing that they can’t scare away their mentors. So many of them have had everyone else in their lives give up on them.” I swallow hard; it’s the reason I volunteer there. I’ve seen myself in so many of their faces, kids who use alcohol and drugs to escape the pain, kids who lash out and push away the people around them before those people can abandon them. Like I’d done to my teachers and coaches, my friends and my brothers.

Like I’d done to Katniss, all of those years ago.

“How do you find your personal experiences impact your work with those children?” Katniss asks, a gently leading question, and one for which I am so grateful.

“I can empathise with them in ways that their doctors and case workers often can’t,” I say, mostly tamping down the waver in my voice. Four sets of eyes watch me intently. “It’s the whole basis for the program, giving these kids not only guidance, but hope for their future. If I can succeed after all of my mistakes, after all I’ve done, then they can too.”

“And you intend on continuing to volunteer there?” Coin asks.

“I do.” I’ve already checked with the hospital about whether this job would constitute a conflict of interest, they assured me it would not.

Across the table, each of the interviewers smiles, even Coin, though her smile looks a little less genuine. But I only have eyes for Katniss. Because her smile feels like forgiveness. And though this is my dream job, I feel like even if I don’t get it I’ve accomplished something monumental here. I’ve shown Katniss that she was right, that nasty boy who hurt her, who made her feel small and alone, that person wasn’t me.

Plutarch claps his hands. “Excellent, my boy,” he says. “Now let’s talk salary.”

“I… what?” 

“For the position.” At my expression, he laughs. “The interview is really just a formality,” he says, mirth twinkling in his eyes. “The job is yours if you want it.” He pushes a couple of papers across the table. A contract. “I know it’s a little less in salary than you’d make in private practice, but we offer a comprehensive benefits package. Take a couple of days to look it over and let us know.”

I don’t need a couple of days. I don’t need a couple of minutes. “I want the job,” I tell him firmly.

“Well then,” Plutarch booms with evident pleasure. “Welcome aboard, Mr. Mellark.” He reaches across to shake my hand firmly, and I can’t help my goofy grin. I got the job!

Plutarch informs me that their admin will get in touch with me over the next few days to file the tax and legal paperwork they need, and then I’ll begin at the start of the new term, some four weeks away. And I nod in all the right places, but my mind is spinning so fast I’m almost dizzy with it.

I shake each of their hands in turn, lingering just a bit longer to squeeze Katniss’s hand tightly. I thank each of them, but my gratitude to her means more. I think she can tell.

“Could you see Mr. Mellark out?” Plutarch asks Katniss, and she agrees, though she doesn’t meet my eyes. 

I follow her silently down the corridor, towards the exit, the delicate tapping of her heels on linoleum almost drowned out by the pounding of my pulse in my ears. Katniss was a cute kid, tiny and scrappy, and she had morphed into a fierce and self-possessed young woman  by the time we’d graduated high school. But now, at thirty, she’s an absolute bombshell. Still lean, but with delicate curves that her pencil skirt and blouse highlight perfectly. She walks with confidence, back straight, head held high. She’s more intimidating than ever.

At the electronic doors, she pauses, hand poised just above the lever that would release the locks. Then she sighs, and glances back at me over her shoulder. “Would you like to have a cup of tea with me? Catch up?” I’m nearly rendered speechless; not only is Katniss Everdeen willing to work with me, she’s willing to talk with me too. 

“I’d like that,” I rasp, the first words I’ve spoken directly to her in twelve long years.

She leads me back into the building and up a set of stairs. Another corridor stretches in front of us, windowless doors set close together. “Our offices,” she says. Partway down the hall, she stops and pulls a set of keys from her pocket. A small brass plate on the door reads Katniss Everdeen, Lead Addictions Therapist.

Her office is small, and appears to be set up for both paperwork and individual counselling sessions with a tiny desk tucked back into the corner but comfortable looking couches dominating the space. She confirms my guess. “I see the lower risk kids here,” she says. “It feels less institutional that way.”

I can only stare, stunned, as she unlocks a cabinet and withdraws a tea kettle. I knew Katniss’s title here from Plutarch’s introduction of course. But until now, it hadn’t really sunk in, what she does. She’s an addictions counsellor. How utterly incredible that she went into the very field that eventually inspired my own career path.

“Sit, please,” she says over her shoulder. I slip off my blazer, draping it over the arm of the couch, then sink into plush microfibre. The ceramic clink of teacups and spoons and the sultry sway of her perfect posterior as she putters, preparing tea and humming just faintly are almost hypnotic. For all of the times I’d thought about Katniss Everdeen, I never imagined I’d ever actually see her again, and good lord she’s so much hotter than even my edgiest fantasies. “Black, right?” she says, snapping me out of my lurid thoughts.

“Uh, yeah,” I say after a moment’s pause where I try to pull myself together and remember that she’s making tea, so that we can talk. So that I can apologize to her. As glorious as her ass is, I have no business looking at her that way. I lost any possible chance I might have had a dozen years ago.

But she knows how I take my tea. The last time I saw her, gin was the only thing I was drinking.

She sets a red mug in front of me, on the low table between the couches. But she herself sits beside me, instead of across from me, which surprises me. Though maybe it shouldn’t, since she’s a therapist. Knowing how to set someone at ease is part of her training. It’s backfiring in my case though, since her closeness feels intimate. I catch a hint of her scent, something fresh and green but with a little bit of spice, like a campfire in the woods. So perfectly Katniss. “How have you been?” she says, sipping from her own mug.

“Better,” I tell her, because she’s not asking to make small talk. In addition to knowing everything I confessed in the interview, she was there when my world fell apart, she saw first hand how shitty I was.

“I’m glad,” she says softly, and she smiles, and it’s so beautiful and sweet it nearly breaks my heart.

“I am so sorry,” I tell her, but the words are completely inadequate. How do you tell someone that they are not only your biggest regret, but also your biggest inspiration? “For how I treated you when I was drinking. You didn’t deserve any of that, and I have regretted it every day.”

“I know,” she says. 

“And what you did for me today,” I continue before my nerve runs out. “I can’t begin to thank you. You not only gave me this chance when you could have told any of them I wasn’t worth considering, but you actively helped me in the interview.”

“You earned the job, Peeta. Plutarch was already convinced before you even walked in the door.”

“The others weren’t.”

She laughs. “I knew Lavinia would love you. And Alma, well, she doesn’t really like anyone, but I have a feeling you’ll win her over eventually.”

“What about you?” I can’t help asking. She’s treating me so kindly, but she can’t possibly have forgiven me. I know she hasn’t forgotten. 

“I believe in second chances.” Her smile is softer, a little pained. “I knew you’d find your way back.”

“I was such a dick.”

“You were,” she agrees. “But I knew that wasn’t you.”

“You said that back then too,” I tell her, my tea forgotten. “I, uhm.” My neck feels hot and I rub it distractedly. “I hear you saying that, when I’m having a difficult day. It’s helped me so much over the years. You’ve helped me more than you’ll ever know.” It’s embarrassing as hell to admit that. But she deserves the truth.

She snorts, and it’s a sound so at odds with her elegant presentation and with the seriousness of our conversation. My gaze snaps up to her face, she looks amused and abashed. 

“You’re the reason I went into psychology,” she says, and my eyebrows shoot up to my hairline. “I was a biology major first year. But seeing how everyone failed you after your dad died, and how easy it was for you to fall…” she trails off. “And then when you came back to school to try again, sober and working so hard, I knew I’d made the right choice.”

“You were there?” 

She nods. “Just for a semester. I was finishing my masters. I saw you a couple of times on campus, but you never noticed me.”

Honestly, that’s probably for the best. That early in my recovery I was still so fragile, just getting through classes took every bit of effort I had, and I spent so many hours with my sponsor and therapist back then I had no time for anyone else. “I wish I’d known,” I tell her. “But I had my head pretty far up my own ass.”

“You didn’t though.” She looks away, towards the tiny, narrow window on the exterior wall, barred, like all of the windows I’ve seen in this building. “I watched you. I’ve kept track of you over the years, when I could. Even then you were already working so hard to make amends.”

I was. And I can tell by that specific word that she knows why. One of the steps in AA is making amends for the shitty things we’ve done, at least where doing so won’t cause any further damage. In those early years, I’d concentrated mostly on my brothers, and earning their trust again. But I also spent time speaking with professors and coaches who I had alienated. It would have been far easier to start over at a different college, and likely would have been less triggering. But it’d have been a coward’s way.

“I never got a chance before now to apologize to you,” I whisper. She’d kept track of me, but I hadn’t made the same effort. Before the booze, Katniss Everdeen was that perfect, unattainable fantasy woman I put on a pedestal and never approached. And after, I locked her away, so terribly ashamed by my actions that I never sought her out, even though she would have been easy to find. I was terrified by how she might look at me.

But she’s clearly a much bigger person than I could ever be.

“I think the time wouldn’t have been right before now,” she says. “For either of us.”

We lapse into silence, Katniss still staring out the window, me fiddling with the mug I’ve picked up again. “Can I ask you something?” she says, and there’s something in her tone that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

“Of course.”

“That night… why me?” She’s trying to keep her voice even, I can tell, but the slight waver slays me. 

“You were there, and I was a drunken asshole,” I rasp, but she shakes her head, glancing at me.

“It was more than that. The things you said…” she looks away, but not before I see the shine in her eyes. Not before I see the hurt I had been expecting all along. The knowledge that even all of these years later, my words continue to bother her is gut-wrenching. I feel like the biggest piece of shit.

“It was all bullshit, Katniss, the ramblings of an absolute lowlife shit of a human.”

“There’s always truth, even in ramblings,” she says softly. “It certainly wasn’t the first time I’d been called those things. But we’d never even spoken before then. I didn’t know you even knew my name.”

“I knew you, Katniss. I’d always been watching you.” She turns back to me eyebrows raised, confusion in every line of her beautiful face. I don’t want to make her uncomfortable, and I don’t want to make excuses for my absolutely inexcusable behaviour. But she deserves the whole truth. I drop my gaze to my lap. “The truth is, I had a huge crush on you, nearly the whole way through high school.” 

She makes a little choking sound, and I can’t bear to look at her. I know I’m doing unfathomable damage to our potential working relationship, confessing like this. I’ll decline Plutarch’s offer, if being here will hurt her. But I can’t let her think that any of the awful things I said had even a speck of truth to them. I can’t let her take any blame. 

“In senior year,” I continue, “I had finally convinced myself that I was going to talk to you, to ask you to the Valentine’s dance. But then…” I trail off. My father had died at the end of January, and everything else in my life had fallen away, sucked into the black pit of grief.

A soft, cool hand lands on my forearm, and I glance up. Far from looking disgusted, as I was expecting, Katniss is looking at me with compassion, even through her confusion. “When I saw you that night,” I whisper, barely able to get the words out. “I had already screwed up everything else in my life. I was just so angry at the world, but mostly at myself. I was drowning in regret and self-loathing. And you were there, and you were every bit as beautiful as you had always been. And you just represented everything I wanted so badly and had fucked up. My father was gone, my sport was gone, and the girl of my dreams was completely out of my league. And I lost it, lashed out at you instead of at the person who really deserved it. Me.”

“You didn’t deserve it either,” she whispers, and her eyes shine silver under a film of moisture.

I place my hand over hers where it still rests on my arm, and she doesn’t pull away. “I’m truly sorry, Katniss. Hurting you is the biggest regret of my life.” 

“I accept your apology.” I squeeze her hand in gratitude, and a sad half smile ticks at her lips.

“I won’t take the offer,” I murmur, and her brow furrows again. “This is your career, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, being here.”

She shakes her head. “You won’t,” she says. “I’ve been watching you for so long, cheering for you from the sidelines. I feel like I know you. And I know you won’t ever repeat that mistake.”

“I won’t,” I swear. “I’ll always be an alcoholic, and there will always be a risk that I’ll relapse. But I’ve learned so much in therapy, about communication and managing my emotions. About coping. I have better mechanisms now, and a really great support group behind me.” It had taken a long time to make things right with my brothers, but they are my staunchest supporters now. And my sponsor, Haymitch, is a crusty old bastard, but he’d rip out someone’s throat before letting me down.

“Then stay,” she says. “I’d like to start again, if it wouldn’t make you uncomfortable. Build up that friendship we should have had.” She looks down at our hands. At some point, she’d flipped her palm and I’d entwined my fingers with hers.

“Always,” I whisper in awe, and she smiles, that beautiful, elusive smile that I know will be the stuff of all of my future fantasies. And maybe, just maybe, the stuff of my future reality too.

[trackunknownblog]

Last Month In Review_0919

Lana Del Rey - Norman fucking Rockwell

Metronomy - Salted Caramel Ice Cream

Robyn - Beach2k20 (Yaeji Remix)

Gus Dapperton - Give It To Me Straight

A$AP Rocky - Babushka Boi

LION BABE - Western World (omniboi remix)

Francis and the Lights, Bon Iver, Kanye West - Take Me to the Light

Kindness - Softness As A Weapon

Rome Fortune - Ethan Hawke

Danny Brown - Best Life

NEIL FRANCES - Shallow End

Kito, Empress Of - Wild Girl

Blue Hawaii - All The Things

Biig Piig - Sunny

Sampa the Great - Freedom

Perfume Genius - Eye in the Wall

Wild Nothing - Partners in Motion (Live from Brooklyn Steel)

Tei Shi Feat. Blood Orange - Even If It Hurts 

Pavo Pavo - Mystery Hour

Broadcast - The Book Lovers

Angel Olsen - Lark

David Bowie - Conversation Piece (2019 Mix)

Johnny Payne - All Messed Up

Holy Hive - If I Could See You Now

Brittany Howard - History Repeats

The Big Moon - Your Light

The Growlers - Try Hard Fool

BRONCHO - Keep It in Line (Yeasayer Remix)

Temples - Context

Allah-Las - Prazer Em Te Conhecer

Van Houten - Moon

Part Time - Everyone's Got a Gun

Dad Bod - You Never Say Hi

sir Was - The Sun Will Shine

Shura - religion (u can lay your hands on me)

Gemini Rising, Tensnake, Fiora - After the Rain

Death and the Maiden - Wisteria

Bat For Lashes - Vampires

Twin Shadow - Crushed

lophiile, Col3trane, Amber Mark - No Bus

FKA twigs, Future - holy terrain

Grimes, i_o - Violence

Boys Noize, Francis and the Lights - Why Not?

Free Nationals, JID, Kadhja Bonet, MIKNNA - On Sight

Roosevelt - Yr Love (Midnight Version)

BAD CHILD - BAD CHILD (MUNYA Remix)

King Princess, Mark Ronson - Happy Together

Claud - Easy

Userdeleted_95, Ava Trilling - Honest.

Lily Moore, Maverick Sabre - In-between

Oh He Dead - Lonely Sometimes

The Harmaleighs - Sorry, I'm busy

Lucy Dacus - Dancing In The Dark

Samia - Ode to Artifice

beabadoobee - She Plays Bass

Y La Bamba - Entre Los Dos

Vacationer - Autofocus

Automatic - Calling It

Triptides - Call of Creation

Gillet - Said It

GRMLN - Osaka

Blonder - I.C.U.

Twin Peaks - Laid in Gold

The Black Keys - Walk Across The Water *0919 @ The Wiltern

Alex Cameron - Far From Born Again

Pond - Don't Look At The Sun (Or You'll Go Blind) (Live) *09/20 @ The Fonda

Sturgill Simpson - Mercury In Retrograde

Cold War Kids - Waiting For Your Love

The Shelters - Down the Line

Heaven the Dude, Fat Tony, Dent May - Waiting For A Check

OJR - Song for Stephen H

Connan Mockasin - Con Conn Was Impatient (Live At Rough Trade)

Amen Dunes - L.A. (Remix feat. Westerman)

Andrew Combs - Ideal Man

Whitney - Rhododendron

Cigarettes After Sex - Heavenly

North Downs - Dad's Old Tapes

Bombay Bicycle Club - Eat, Sleep, Wake (Nothing But You)

Hot Chip - Spell (Superorganism Remix)

Underworld - Tree And Two Chairs (Film Edit)

Discovery - Can You Discover? *09/15 Booksmart @ Rooftop Cinema NeueHouse

Charli XCX, Kim Petras, Tommy Cash - Click

Deaton Chris Anthony, Clairo, Coco & Clair Clair - RACECAR

Seb Wildblood, Buddy Love - ghostie

Toro y Moi - New House *09/20 @ The Palladium

H.E.R., YG - Slide

Ambar Lucid - Mar de Llanto

Wallows - Trust Fall

Wasuremono - Are You OK?

Monster Rally - Shell Snake

Wilco - Everyone Hides

Jim James, Teddy Abrams, Louisville Orchestra - Back To The End Of The World

Jenny Hval - Ashes to Ashes

Jeff Goldblum & The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, Sharon Van Etten - Let's Face The Music And Dance

Franz Waxman - Juke Box # 6 (From "Rear Window") *01/10 Rear Window @ Alamo Drafthouse

[thevividgreenmoss]

A good or great writer may refuse to accept any responsibility or morality that society wishes to impose on her. Yet the best and greatest of them know that if they abuse this hard-won freedom, it can only lead to bad art. There is an intricate web of morality, rigor, and responsibility that art, that writing itself, imposes on a writer. It’s singular, it’s individual, but nevertheless it’s there. At its best, it’s an exquisite bond between the artist and the medium. At its acceptable end, it’s a sort of sensible cooperation. At its worst, it’s a relationship of disrespect and exploitation.

The absence of external rules complicates things. There’s a very thin line that separates the strong, true, bright bird of the imagination from the synthetic, noisy bauble. Where is that line? How do you recognize it? How do you know you’ve crossed it? At the risk of sounding esoteric and arcane, I’m tempted to say that you just know. The fact is that nobody—no reader, no reviewer, agent, publisher, colleague, friend, or enemy—can tell for sure. A writer just has to ask herself that question and answer it as honestly as possible. The thing about this “line” is that once you learn to recognize it, once you see it, it’s impossible to ignore. You have no choice but to live with it, to follow it through. You have to bear with all its complexities, contradictions, and demands. And that’s not always easy. It doesn’t always lead to compliments and standing ovations. It can lead you to the strangest, wildest places. In the midst of a bloody military coup, for instance, you could find yourself fascinated by the mating rituals of a purple sunbird, or the secret life of captive goldfish, or an old aunt’s descent into madness. And nobody can say that there isn’t truth and art and beauty in that. Or, on the contrary, in the midst of putative peace, you could, like me, be unfortunate enough to stumble on a silent war. The trouble is that once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And once you’ve seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There’s no innocence. Either way, you’re accountable.

Today, perhaps more so than in any other era in history, the writer’s right to free speech is guarded and defended by the civil societies and state establishments of the most powerful countries in the world. Any overt attempt to silence or muffle a voice is met with furious opposition. The writer is embraced and protected. This is a wonderful thing. The writer, the actor, the musician, the filmmaker—they have become radiant jewels in the crown of modern civilization. The artist, I imagine, is finally as free as he or she will ever be. Never before have so many writers had their books published. (And now, of course, we have the Internet.) Never before have we been more commercially viable. We live and prosper in the heart of the marketplace. True, for every so-called success there are hundreds who “fail.” True, there are myriad art forms, both folk and classical, myriad languages, myriad cultural and artistic traditions that are being crushed and cast aside in the stampede to the big bumper sale in Wonderland. Still, there have never been more writers, singers, actors, or painters who have become influential, wealthy superstars. And they, the successful ones, spawn a million imitators, they become the torchbearers, their work becomes the benchmark for what art is, or ought to be.

Nowadays in India the scene is almost farcical. Following the recent commercial success of some Indian authors, Western publishers are desperately prospecting for the next big Indo-Anglian work of fiction. They’re doing everything short of interviewing English-speaking Indians for the post of “writer.” Ambitious middle-class parents who, a few years ago, would only settle for a future in Engineering, Medicine, or Management for their children, now hopefully send them to creative writing schools. People like myself are constantly petitioned by computer companies, watch manufacturers, even media magnates to endorse their products. A boutique owner in Bombay once asked me if he could “display” my book The God of Small Things (as if it were an accessory, a bracelet or a pair of earrings) while he filmed me shopping for clothes! Jhumpa Lahiri, the American writer of Indian origin who won the Pulitzer Prize, came to India recently to have a traditional Bengali wedding. The wedding was reported on the front page of national newspapers.

Now where does all this lead us? Is it just harmless nonsense that’s best ignored? How does all this ardent wooing affect our art? What kind of lenses does it put in our spectacles? How far does it remove us from the world around us?

There is very real danger that this neoteric seduction can shut us up far more effectively than violence and repression ever could. We have free speech. Maybe. But do we have Really Free Speech? If what we have to say doesn’t “sell,” will we still say it? Can we? Or is everybody looking for Things That Sell to say? Could writers end up playing the role of palace entertainers? Or the subtle twenty-first-century version of court eunuchs attending to the pleasures of our incumbent CEOs? You know—naughty, but nice. Risqué perhaps, but not risky. It has been nearly four years now since my first, and so far only, novel, The God of Small Things, was published. In the early days, I used to be described—introduced—as the author of an almost freakishly “successful” (if I may use so vulgar a term) first book. Nowadays I’m introduced as something of a freak myself. I am, apparently, what is known in twenty-first-century vernacular as a “writer-activist.” (Like a sofa-bed.)

Why am I called a “writer-activist” and why—even when it’s used approvingly, admiringly—does that term make me flinch? I’m called a writer-activist because after writing The God of Small Things I wrote three political essays: “The End of Imagination,” about India’s nuclear tests, “The Greater Common Good,” about Big Dams and the “development” debate, and “Power Politics: The Reincarnation of Rumpelstiltskin,” about the privatization and corporatization of essential infrastructure like water and electricity. Apart from the building of the temple in Ayodhya, these currently also happen to be the top priorities of the Indian government.4

Now, I’ve been wondering why it should be that the person who wrote The God of Small Things is called a writer, and the person who wrote the political essays is called an activist. True, The God of Small Things is a work of fiction, but it’s no less political than any of my essays. True, the essays are works of nonfiction, but since when did writers forgo the right to write nonfiction?

My thesis—my humble theory, as we say in India—is that I’ve been saddled with this double-barreled appellation, this awful professional label, not because my work is political but because in my essays, which are about very contentious issues, I take sides. I take a position. I have a point of view. What’s worse, I make it clear that I think it’s right and moral to take that position, and what’s even worse, I use everything in my power to flagrantly solicit support for that position. Now, for a writer of the twenty-first century, that’s considered a pretty uncool, unsophisticated thing to do. It skates uncomfortably close to the territory occupied by political party ideologues—a breed of people that the world has learned (quite rightly) to mistrust. I’m aware of this. I’m all for being circumspect. I’m all for discretion, prudence, tentativeness, subtlety, ambiguity, complexity. I love the unanswered question, the unresolved story, the unclimbed mountain, the tender shard of an incomplete dream. Most of the time.

But is it mandatory for a writer to be ambiguous about everything? Isn’t it true that there have been fearful episodes in human history when prudence and discretion would have just been euphemisms for pusillanimity? When caution was actually cowardice? When sophistication was disguised decadence? When circumspection was really a kind of espousal?

Isn’t it true, or at least theoretically possible, that there are times in the life of a people or a nation when the political climate demands that we—even the most sophisticated of us—overtly take sides? I believe that such times are upon us. And I believe that in the coming years intellectuals and artists in India will be called upon to take sides.

Arundhati Roy, The Ladies Have Feelings, So . . . Shall We Leave It to the Experts? (Based on a talk given at the Third Annual Eqbal Ahmad Lecture, Amherst, Massachusetts, February 15, 2001; compiled in The End of Imagination)

[potter-inthe-tardis]

V, Y, P please

Second Ask: “Sorry, I meant B instead of V”

B: a song to listen to before you go to sleep

Asleep by The Smiths (Maybe it’s a really cliche song to listen to before going to sleep, but i find it nice and calming to listen too, even tho it is kinda about death so i probably shoudn’t be listening to it before sleep but yeah, i often do, so maybe it explains somethings)

You Already Know by Bombay Bicycle Club (It’s a bit happier song than the last one, but it’s just really chill and sweet and calm to listen too before falling asleep)

Y: a song I’d send to my crush (I did just do this one but i’ll come up with another song)

Pick Me from Produce 101 season 1 (Mostly cuz i think it’d be hilarious to send to a crush, and then they’d have an idea of exactly what kind of a weirdo they may consider getting involved with, or it’s could be like a warning to them to avoid me at all costs lol)   

P: a song that I’d recommend you based on your blog

Sherlock Holmes by Mini Mansions (The group because I saw you like AM, and so you’ll probably also like Mini Mansions, and the song, cuz i saw you like Supernatural and Doctor Who so i feel like it’s likely you also like Sherlock or have at least at some point in time, and it’s a cool song, even tho it has little to do with SH but still) 

Bigmouth Strikes Again by The Smiths (Cuz i noticed you also really like The Killers, and i know The Smiths were a huge influence on Brandon, so i think it’d be a band you’d want to look into if you haven’t yet, also this is my favorite song for them and i guess as upbeat as The Smiths can get at least in comparison to the one i mentioned earlier) 

I did link all the songs so they are easy to find, i even linked the previous post were i answered letter Y more, I’d love to know your thoughts on the songs! Thank You!!!!

Send Me Letters!!!

[meyhew]

a little bit of love; a harry & louis playlist

two fingers; jake bugg • waiting; jake bugg • into the black; chromatics • unsteady; x ambassadors • firelight; courtyards • way down we go; kaleo • always like this; bombay bicycle club • comeback story; kings of leon • last nite; the strokes • miss atomic bomb; the killers • strawberry swing; coldplay • easy; sky ferreira • here comes the sun; the beatles • i feel it coming; the weeknd • one; ed sheeran • all i want; kodaline • into you; ariana grande • lust for life; lana del rey • next to me; imagine dragons • genesis; dua lipa • birds; coldplay • army of one; coldplay • ink; coldplay • whispers; passenger • moving on; kodaline • sleep on the floor; the lumineers • see you soon; coldplay • amsterdam; coldplay • crazy little called love; queen • tiny dancer; elton john • suck it and see; arctic monkeys • cornerstone; arctic monkeys • ho hey; the lumineers; • robbers; the 1975 • fallingforyou; the 1975 • i will wait; mumford & sons • wings; birdy • brid set free; sia • lego house; ed sheeran • chasing cars; snow patrol • skinny love; birdy • wonderful wonderful; the killers • nothing’s gonna hurt you baby; cigarettes after sex • zombie; bad wolves • beloved; say lou lou • lost without you; freya ridings • we don’t have to take our clothes off; elle eyre • elastic heart; sia • come home safe; trent dabbs • don’t let me down; joy williams • to be free; passenger • shed a tear; kodaline • grow old with me; tom odell • something to hold on to; emily warren • the house we never built; gabrielle aplin • look after you; the fray • nervous; gavin james • there for you; martin garrix, troye sivan • strawberries & cigarettes; troye sivan • to build a home; the cinematic orchestra • sweet disposition; the temper trap • bloodsport ‘15 by raleigh ritchie • in my veins; andrew belle • 18 by one direction • photograph; ed sheeran • young and beautiful; lana del rey • afterglow; all time low • girl crush; harry styles • a moor; raleigh ritchie • english rose; ed sheeran • turning page; sleeping at last • secrets; jacob lee • 3000 miles; emblem3 • mirrors; justin timberlake • us; james bay • rainbow; kesha • black butterflies and déjà vu; the maine • still the one; orleans • stand by you; rachel platten • the last romance; raleigh ritchie • just a little bit of your heart; ariana grande • two ghosts; harry styles • if i could fly; one direction • sweet creature; harry styles • you’re still the one; shania twain • some day one day; queen