#farewell live at like a jazz machine

[bpark667]

Icy Hearts | Festival 'Like A Jazz Machine' | David Laborier

David Laborier & Three's A Crowd

[dameronology]

fade into you (steve harrington)

a.k.a the one where steve comes to get his stuff (x)

warnings: this is pure angst. no happiness here guys. also mentions of alcohol.

enjoy this very very very short one lads i hope it tides you over until the last part of timing is a bitch comes out <3

-jazz xx

Setting an alarm in New York City was pointless when you were woken up at dawn every morning by the traffic.

Beeping from cars, bells from bicycles, the angry yells of morning commuters queuing at the street cart below your apartment for their morning coffee. It was like clock-work. Side characters in your life pulling you from your sleep, reminding you that alone time in this city was something so rare and so equally craved. Especially this morning, when you'd woken to pink skies and a cool breeze and the world's worst fucking hangover. It had taken you a second to remember; a second of pure bliss before you felt a hammer to your head and made eye contact with Captain Morgan on the front of the bottle of rum strewn a few feet ahead of you.

Beside it? A note.

Thanks for last night. Call me.

Tossing it aside, you traipsed across the living room to the toilet, picking up random items of clothing as you did. A pair of cycling shorts, a previously-yellow-but-now-faded Hawkins High jumper about six sizes too big. The bright lights of the bathroom were less than welcoming, like someone was shining a flashlight brighter than the harshness of reality right into your sore, hungover eyes. Hands fumbling and cabinet clanging open, you produced a bottle of Advil and welcomed it with open arms. Hangovers sucked. Almost as much as life had in recent days.

Now, with painkillers acquired, you fumbled back to your living room. Your answering machine was lighting up - brilliant. You'd forgotten to call your mum back and there was no doubt she'd left a lovely message for you. Reaching across, you pressed the play button and mentally prepared yourself.

"Hey...uh. Hi. Yeah. It's Steve. I hope you're doing well. I don't know if you remember but I called last week and you said I could come grab my stuff today. I'll come by and my way to work just before eight. Let me know if that's too early. See you soon."

You let out a groan, and then a louder one when you realised it was 7:55AM. Needless to say, five singular minutes was not enough time to prepare yourself to see your ex. The same ex who you still loved, by the way, and the same ex that had been the reason you'd gotten drunk last night in pursuit of a one night stand to numb the pain.

Steve Harrington had been your high school sweetheart. You'd gotten together in junior year and against all odds - of which there had been many in Hawkins - you'd managed to make it into your early twenties together. Unfortunately, as it often goes, life happened. Work and stress and all the joys that came with being an adult and no matter how hard you and Steve tried to cling onto each other, it felt like the universe was against you. So, you bid each other farewell and he'd moved three blocks over.

That had been two months ago. It had taken him until now to even think about getting his stuff. You could have done with more time, but now all his remaining belongings were piled neatly into a cardboard box by your front door. All the photos you had together - graduation, your last homecoming, your first trip to New York before you moved here - were tucked away in the back of your wardrobe. Neither of you had wanted custody of those. Not yet.

The buzzer rang at exactly 8:03, true to Steve fashion. On time, but still somehow later than promised. He probably spent a good ten minutes stood outside your apartment building debating if he really needed his yearbook, or the one formal shirt that he owned. What he needed was you...for you to forgive him, for him to forgive you, for you two to work this the fuck out. But, what you both needed above all those things, was time. Time and space and the chance to exist outside of the relationship that had defined you for the better part of a decade.

Hopping off the sofa, you pressed the buzzer.

"Hey, it's me," Steve's voice came through.

"Yeah, come on up."

He was at the door a moment later, a sight for sore eyes. Hair slightly disheveled from the windy New York winter and a red nose to match. He was dressed for work - even then, not that formally - and wore the round rimmed glasses that it had taken you four years to convince him that he needed. Steve gave you a smile when your eyes met.

"Hi," you gave him an equally nervous smile, stepping aside. "Come in."

"Thanks," he said. "Sorry for dropping by so early-"

"- no, it's fine honestly," you cut him off. "You did tell me last week and last night and...I forgot. That's sort of why I'm dressed the way I am."

Steve raised his eyebrows. "Isn't that my jumper?"

"Oh shit, yeah, sorry I just grabbed it," your eyes widened. "I can get changed. Just give me two seconds."

"No, it's fine," he laughed. "You can keep it. It's basically yours now anyways."

You both walked further into the apartment. Steve glanced around, trying to ignore the pang of nostalgia in his chest. This had been his place too at one point but, ever the gentleman, he'd insisted on being the one to move. Even if his new place felt bare, almost as bare this one without your photos hanging up and his shoes strewn all over the place as they has been the last five years. He raised his eyebrows at the empty bottle of rum, leaning down to pick it up and the note beside it.

"Big night?" he asked.

"Uh...yeah," you replied. "Sorry...again. You weren't meant to find that."

"No, it's okay," Steve shrugged. "We broke up. You can do what you want."

"Yeah, but if I came to your apartment and found a note from a one night stand I would be pretty gutted."

He smiled a little. "You would?"

"Don't be a dumb-ass, Steve."

"I think I am ever the dumb-ass. Especially lately, because..." Steve began, but then stopped. "Do you think we could have tried harder?"

You glanced around the room, and then at him. "Yeah. Maybe, but I don't know. I think we just have to accept it for what it is, you know?"

You didn't want to accept it. You didn't want to accept that this was it; that all you had left of the man you loved was a stupid yellow jumper, that you clung onto the faint smell of his aftershave for all it was worth and that last week, you'd hidden behind a turnstile when you saw him on the F-Train. And that now, he was stood in his apartment with his box of things and as soon as he left, this whole thing would really be over. You'd spent a third of your life loving him and that was supposed to be a number that grew with you; that third would become a half, and then more than that, and then you were meant to be old and having spent most your life loving him. Now, it would stay at just that. Those seven years would forever be there but the amount of time you spent loving each other would grow smaller as the years went. Soon, it would be nothing but a drop of water against an ocean of time. An ocean that felt like it might truly and wholly drown you.

Steve nodded. "Yeah."

There was another moment of silence. It felt hesitant, like you both wanted to say something. You definitely did - you just didn't know what. There had been a lot of feelings and aches bubbling under the surface the last few weeks but you were worried that if you tried to articulate them, it would just come out as word vomit. Or actual vomit, because your hangover was still there, only it was worst now because yeah, you had your hangover from last night but now, you had your hangover from the end of a seven year relationship. Advil was good fora headache but it couldn't fix heartbreak. There was only one cure for that, but he was about to leave because he was late for work.

"I should get going," Steve announced.

"Yeah, no worries. All your stuff's by the door," you replied.

He turned around and began towards the door, but then stopped and turned back to face you. There was another moment, another beat, before Steve opened his arms to you. You fell into them without hesitation, arms wrapping around his waist and head burying in his neck. You let him overwhelm your senses for just a second longer.

"I miss you," he said.

"I miss you too," you replied. 'Are you sure you don't want your jumper back?"

"No," he shook his head. "It means I have a reason to come back once more if you keep it."

[ughhhdavid]

No because let's talk about it.

Ted spent the entire episode pushing people away. He said he was too "tapped out". He barely had any reaction to the "goodbye, farewell" performance. Just stood there, motionless, while everybody was freaking out. Cheering, screaming. He just stood there. He wasn't part of it.

The out of character moments. The Rebecca one, the Trent one, the whole Beard of it all. The fact that it doesn't seem like Ted thinks he's abandoning Beard. He thinks he's letting him go.

Ted killed every part of himself that wasn't Henry's father. He killed his love for Trent, Rebecca, Beard, AFC Richmond. Ted knows Richmond is his home. But he won't let himself stay there.

The plane cabin. It has walls. Walls separating even him and Beard. Ted has once again put himself into a box.

Ted takes out the snow globe out of the bag and shakes it. The little flakes, falling around, dancing, while he is on the outside.

Golden light hits his face. Heavenly light.

Cut to Trent. Wearing a shirt saying "Stay Golden". The only way it could be significant is if this is a dream sequence, and the shirt points to that.

And so it begins.

The "It was never about me"s. The montage of the people that stayed behind in Richmond. And the life Ted imagines for them. A life in which they are able to go on without him.

And he wants it to never have been about him. Maybe it's part the fact that he doesn't think he's deserving of actual, real love from people. That he doesn't deserve the support he gave everyone else. And another part maybe it's guilt. He wants to believe that everyone will leave such good, rich, happy lives even though, if not because he left.

Everyone's relationships are fixed. Everyone happy and together. Everyone getting rich and successful. Everyone getting everything they ever wanted.

Everything he ever wanted. That he won't let himself accept.

He's startled awake, still drenched in golden light. Off the plane, he sits motionless in the back of the black car until it stops, him having been driven to his last ever stop. And he gets out, on the other side.

To his house, the box. The gray, single family home, the environment where he became repressed, where he couldn't be himself or reach his potential. The environment where he wasn't loved and accepted for who he was.

And we can see in the symbolic pinball machine, outside that box, the rainbow that he left behind.

Golden light still hits him for the last shot of the season. That smile, with his eyes so sad still. The scene gets hazier and hazier, around his face.

That is all Ted is now.

The suicide motif never let up this season. Van gogh, the american jazz player Chet Baker, the "you ever wonder what we're still doing here?" "in london or on Earth?". Ted said he would never quit anything in his life, and yet, he quit this. In the last episode of season 1, him talking about quitting came with some very... Interesting gestures. He even wrote a "resignation letter" on the back of a takeout menu.

It's clear what quitting is symbolic for here.

So yes, because of his guilt and fear of abandoning his son, he killed every part of himself that wasn't his fatherhood.

His fluidity, his freedom, his versatility. His friendships, his love, his job, his spirit of adventure.

And for the wholesome, heart-warming, believing show, I can't believe that's the bleak, depressing ending they decided to give their main character.

No because... Ted was so deeply traumatized by his father killing himself and abandoning him that he killed every part of himself that wasn't his fatherhood so that he did't end up hurting Henry in the same way. And I don't know what I would call this if not a tragedy.

[noloveforned]

it's friday night and no love for ned is back to its usual peculiar self on wlur from 8pm until midnight.

last week's show (stream it on mixcloud) celebrated the music of peter brötzmann. if you've ever rolled your eyes because my show got "weird" in the second hour you can thank mr. brötzmann as he is probably the free jazz musician most responsible for sending me down that path twenty years ago. i witnessed two outstanding live performances from him in that time- once with his chicago tentet and once as a duo with joe mcphee. he'll be missed by myself and many others...

no love for ned on wlur – june 23rd, 2023 from 8pm-1am a tribute to peter brötzmann

artist // track // album // label brötzmann quartet // lila eula no. 2 // the inexplicable flyswatter // atavistic peter brötzmann trio with fred van hove // everything (excerpt) // for adolphe sax // brö peter brötzmann octet // machine gun (excerpt) // machine gun // brö manfred schoof // european echoes, part two (excerpt) // european echoes // free music production alexander von schlippenbach // into the staggerin // the living music // quasar peter brötzmann, fred van hove and han bennink // garten // balls // free music production peter brötzmann, fred van hove and han bennink plus albert mangelsdorff // antwarrepe // live in berlin 1971 // free music production peter brötzmann, juhani aaltonen, peter kowald and edward vesala // kippis // hot lotta // blue master special instant composers pool tentet // tetterettet nr. 11 // in berlin // free music production peter brötzmann and han bennink // aufen #2 // schwarzwaldfahrt // free music production peter brötzmann, harry miller and louis moholo // long time service // the nearer the bone, the sweeter the meat // free music production peter brötzmann and willi kellers // edelgard (excerpt) // edelgard... maar helaas! // free music production peter brötzmann // number five (a-clarinet) // 14 love poems // free music production last exit // enemy within // moers // (self-released) peter brötzmann, jay oliver and willi kellers featuring manfred schoof // trollymog // in a state of undress // free music production sprawl // physica subterranea // sprawl // trost brötzmann chicago tentet // aziz // the chicago octet/tentet // okka disc die like a dog quartet // part 5 // little birds have fast hearts // free music production peter brötzmann, william parker and hamid drake // never run but go, part three // never too late but always too early // eremite peter brötzmann, william parker and milford graves // side c (excerpt) // historic music past tense future // black editions peter brötzmann chicago tentet // all things being equal, part two // images // okka disk peter brötzmann and peeter uuskyla // dead and useless (excerpt) // dead and useless // omlott sonore // two birds in a feather // only the devil has no dreams // jazzwerkstatt peter brötzmann and han bennink // this is my faith // in amherst, 2006 // brö full blast // (part four) // farewell tonic // trost peter brötzmann, johannes bauer and mikołaj trzaska // storm in the wasserglass // goosetalks // kilogram konstrukt and peter brötzmann // makinalı (excerpt) // dolunay // re:konstrukt peter brötzmann and fred lonberg-holm // the fusion of opposites // ouroboros // astral spirits peter brötzmann and jason adasiewicz // going all fancy // going all fancy // brö peter brötzmann, john edwards and steve noble // nail dogs by ears // soulfood available // clean feed peter brötzmann // the very heart of things // münster bern // cubus laboratorio musicale suono c and peter brötzmann // decomposition six // decomposition // setola di maiale black bombaim and peter brötzmann // (part four) // black bombaim and peter brötzmann // lovers and lollypops los toscos and peter brötzmann // las malvaceas // la vigilia de las flores // in-correcto peter brötzmann and szilveszter miklos // at mu (first part, excerpt) // at mu // adyton peter brötzmann and heather leigh // at first sight // sparrow nights // trost peter brötzmann and keiji haino duo // a landscape never glimpsed before is on the verge of manifestation (excerpt) // the intellect given birth to here (eternity) is too young // black editions peter brötzmann // lady sings the blues // i surrender dear // trost peter brötzmann, farida amadou and steve noble // b.a.n., part two (excerpt) // b.a.n. // dropa disc peter brötzmann, maâlem mokhtar gania and hamid drake // almost with the sun (excerpt) // the catch of a ghost // i dischi di angelica peter brötzmann and fred van hove // front to front // front to front // dropa disc peter brötzmann, heather leigh and fred lonberg-holm // flower flaps // naked nudes // trost peter brötzmann, majid bekkas and hamid drake // mawama // catching ghosts // act music

[tilbageidanmark]

Movies I watched this Week #128 (Year 3/Week 24):

Nils Malmros’s Tree of knowledge (”Kundskabens træ”) has always been my favorite Danish movie, and also one of my general All-time Top-Five favorites - Ever. Together with Truffault’s ‘Small Change’, it’s also the best movie about the pains of puberty and the joys of adolescence.

It was hard to find online, and seeing it again after many years, is like meeting an old lover after 40 years apart, and they hasn’t age a day. It’s a perfect masterpiece without a single faulty frame.

A nostalgic trip to provincial Århus at the end of the 1950′s, Malmros spent two years filming a group of teens as they struggle with first loves and heartbreaks. A tragic story of innocent lost. (Photo Above).

Later Edit:

A second viewing the next day confirmed that it is indeed an impeccable classic, subtle and precise. So many Friday night jazz parties where for their first time the kids are allowed to dance in the dark cheek to cheek to Gershwin’s ‘The man I love’.

“You probably don’t get that there’s only has to be very little for people to talk”:  The misery that befalls Erin as she turns from the popular girl into a pariah is crushing. 10/10.

🍿   Lourdes, my 1st film by Austrian filmmaker Jessica Hausner, starring the incomparable Léa Seydoux as a young nun with a twinkle in her eye. A rarely seen subject of Catholic cripples and handicapped pilgrims who flock to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, searching for a miracle. With priests who look like Cardinal Mahoney, Holy water sprinkled around and piously praying invalids, it feels very much like a blanding of Buñuel and Haneke. It must have been shot with the permission of the church, as much of it looks like part of the real rituals going on there. However, it hides a certain unorthodox subversiveness. 7/10. 

🍿   

2 more by British director Michael Radford:

🍿 “...If you want a vision of the future, Winston, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever...”

Nineteen Eighty-Four, the original hopeless dystopia. Orwell’s frightening vision of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, thought-police and total repression was anti-Stalinist when he wrote it, but it became a real-life blue-print for today’s hyper-Capitalist societies too.

Many of the scenes were shot on the days noted originally in the novel. The scene where Winston Smith writes in his diary, dating the entry April 4, 1984, was filmed on April 4, 1984. It was Richard Burton’s final film, and was photographed by Roger Deakins. 9/10.

Terry Gilliam’s ‘Brazil’ came a year later and also described a doomed love story in a cheerless bureaucratic nightmare. But unlike Brazil, 1984 had only dark and painful reality to deal with, no flights of surrealism and fancy.

"...Oranges and lemons, Say the bells of St. Clement's.  You owe me five farthings, Say the bells of St. Martin's...”

🍿 Lovable 80-year-olds Shirley MacLaine and Christopher Plummer fall in love in New Orleans in Elsa and Fred. He’s reserved and bitter, she’s exuberant and over-whelming, and there’s a Picasso drawing of her that is used as ‘Chekhov’s gun’.  Also, it was George Segal’s last film. 5/10.

I love it when an unusual musical note in a movie signifys an emotional high-point, and when checking the clock, it’s exactly 47:30 minutes in - the middle of the movie!

Maybe it’s time to watch Fellini’s ‘8 1/2′ again [The Anita Ekberg dive in the Trevi Fountain is the film’s driver].

🍿

The Farewell Party (’Good Death’ in Hebrew) is a tragic-comic story about old age and mercy killing. A group of seniors at an assisted living home develop a machine for self-euthanasia. They reluctantly use it on one of their dying friends, but once the word gets around, more and more people want it. 7/10. 

🍿   First watch: Bergman’s magnetic, early romance film Summer with Monika. It was considered scandalous at the time, because of “frank” nude scenes. Star-making vehicle to young rebel Harriet Andersson (still alive and 91-year-old). 100% score on ‘Rotten Tomatoes’ and no argument from me there. Terrific Mise-en-scène, crisp cinematography and rich visual story-telling.

It featured Åke Fridell (’Plog’ from ‘The Seventh Seal’) as her father. On the official Bergman site, there’s a good list of many of his other collaborators.

[There are some early Bergman’s films I haven’t seen yet, which I have to remedy ASAP] 🍿

2 more with Robert De Nero: 

🍿 Sergio Leone’s last, overrated film, Once upon a time in America, the 229-min. Cut. It’s a crime saga about Jewish gangsters, a Spaghetti Godfather if you will, but it doesn’t hold a candle to Coppola’s. ‘The Godfather’ is perfect in spirit and execution, and every element in it works. Leone’s facsimile is epic and stylish, but most of it feels like a vacant rip-off. Some good performance from De Nero, and some great romantic scenes (Jennifer Connelly reading the Psalms, and reuniting with Deborah again), but the young characters (and many of the others, including wooden James Wood) are bland and unauthentic.

Without Ennio Morricone’s swiping score elevating every scene it plays with, the film wouldn’t get half the accolades it received. And the brutal, unprovoked rape scene was shocking and uncalled for. Not a superb film - 5/10. 

RIP, Treat Williams!

🍿 Ellis, a short (15 min.) poetic evocation of the large hospital complex in Ellis Island. Basically it’s Robert De Nero, “The immigrant”, walking slowly in abandoned corridors, accompanied by some vaguely-moody piano chords, reciting in a somber voice-over some vaguely impressionist lines about dreams and immigrants and yearnings. 1/10.

🍿 

2 very different documentaries:

🍿 Close to Vermeer is a very moving Dutch documentary about the staging and preparation of last year’s Rijksmuseum Vermeer exhibition, the largest ever mounted. Only 34 paintings are universally attributed to him today, and the museum’s curators were able to bring a total of 28 of them for this magnificent event. Scholars and researchers, collectors and art historians participate in this sober, quiet and passionate exploration of the enigmatic 'Sphinx of Delft‘.

Close to transcendence - 10/10.

(The trailer in inferior to the film itself.)

[This is the 3rd Vermeer film that I’ve seen (after Penn & Teller’s documentary ‘Tim’s Vermeer’ and Scarlett Johansson’s ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’, both terrific!). As a completist, I now discovered 6 more films that I will watch in the near future: ‘All The Vermeers In New York’, ‘Brush with fate’, Dan Friedkin‘s ‘The last Vermeer’ (That one sounds odd!), the Dutch ‘A real Vermeer’, and two more documentaries, ‘Vermeer: Master of Light’ narrated by Meryl Streep, and the newest ‘Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition’, about this same exhibition at the Rijksmuseum. Can’t wait!]

🍿 The art of the prank is a fun 2015 documentary about provocative Culture Jammer Joey Skaggs, who had been staging elaborate media pranks since the 60′s. Like previous hoaxers ‘Coyle and Sharpe’, and later ones ‘Yes Men’ and ‘Improv Everywhere’, he builds ‘Fake news’ performances art events, designed to stir shit and embarrass the inane world of television news. Things like ‘Cathouse for dogs’, ‘Celebrity sperm bank’ and ‘Comacocoon’.

🍿  Hacksaw Ridge, my first film directed by known homophobe / antisemite Mel Gibson. [Watched after encouragement from Ahmad]. I’m not big on war dramas, even when they’re about a real-life conscientious objector. Trying to combine the opening from ‘Saving Private Ryan’ with ‘Full Metal Jacket’ boot camp hysterics. But I still can’t stand Andrew Garfield, Vince Vaughn is no Lee Ermey, and the war parts were simply not interesting. 4/10.

🍿 

“I Really Don’t Like Netflix” X 2:

🍿 Inside the mind of a cat, a typically-trash Netflix documentary, narrated by a highly-irritating “pleasant” voice. The only way to endure it is by turning of the sound and reading the subtitles. Lazy and un-inteligent, but “Hey: Cats!” - The second most-common reason to go on the internet.

🍿 After years of anticipation, Season 6 of Black Mirror finally dropped. Was it as good as some of the previous ones? An Emphatic No!

Episode 1, ‘Joan is awful’, was awful. An average woman is stunned to discover that Netflix has launched a prestige TV drama adaptation of her life, in which she is portrayed by Salma Hayek, and taking a shit in a church. Inception-like Meta-Netflix labyrinth with an unlikable cast making fun of themselves. 3/10.

Episode 2, ‘Loch Henry’, a meta-making of a True Crime series about a notorious serial killer who tortured his victims in a quaint faraway Scottish village. Unoriginal horror tale. 2/10.

Episode 3, ‘Beyond the sea’ too was sub-par on every level. A sadistic sci-fi, all superficial with no depth of emotions. Using Charles Trenet’s “La Mer” improves any movie immeasurably, from the opening to LA Story to the ending of Mr. Bean. But here, in a typical Netflix appropriation, it felt 100% fake. 2/10.

Episode 4, ‘Mazey Day’: Another hit-and-run thriller + unscrupulous paparazzi + LA Thomas Guide (which means it’s the early 2000′s!) which turns into a gory ‘American werewolf in London’ fantasy-thingy. 4/10.

The set up of Episode 5, ‘Demon 79′ was ridiculous: “A young Indian Sales Assistant accidentally frees a ruthless and handsome demon-in-training who is required to damn a soul to hell in order to become a full-fledged demon. The sales assistant is told she must kill three people for the demon-in-training, with the demon threatening to cause a nuclear apocalypse if she refuses”. But it was the only episode in this season that worked, and the only one that will be worth re-visiting. It was directed by the guy who also did ‘USS Callister’, another absurd concept that he got right. 8/10.

🍿 

2 shorts from ‘Nag:

🍿 Morocco Arise, by nomadic vlogger Brandon Li. His ‘Director Commentary’ was just as captivating.

🍿 Greenpeace takes aim at “fossil fuel party” with Don’t stop, a star-studded Fleetwood Mac cover. Exec-produced by Steve McQueen.

🍿 

Throw-back to the "Art project”:  

1984 Adora.

Adora with the pearl earring.

Black Mirror Adora.

🍿  

(My complete movie list is here).

[passionate-reply]

This week on Great Albums, I finally do a video on one of my very favourite artists: Gary Numan! And I’ve started with a not-so-obvious choice, his second solo album, Telekon. What makes Telekon so great? Click and find out! Or read the full transcript, which is below the break.

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! Today, we’ll be talking about Gary Numan for the first time in this series, and most definitely not the last. Telekon, Numan’s second LP under his own name, is not a particularly obvious place to start tackling his enormous legacy, but I chose it partly for sentimental reasons: while I can no longer remember exactly what my first vinyl record purchase as a teenager was, there’s a solid chance it might have been this copy of Telekon. But, that aside, Telekon holds a pivotal spot in Numan’s discography, in that it’s basically the last entry in his very brief “imperial phase.” 

Numan’s first major hit was, of course, the unforgettable “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?”, the main single off of his second album with Tubeway Army, 1979’s Replicas. Replicas was a bit patchy and stylistically diverse, a snapshot of the artist emerging from punk rock, and just starting to meld that with electronics and forge something new. Later in ‘79, Numan followed it up with something more cohesive: his arguable masterpiece, The Pleasure Principle. This album would pull no punches in its attempts to blast you onto your back with its synthesised screeches.

Music: “Films”

But, where to next? While all of Numan’s music is distinctively “him,” he’s also never been one to get too comfortable in any particular style. If The Pleasure Principle was Numan leaning into the punk side of Replicas, and tracks like “When the Machines Rock,” then Telekon represented a return to the dark and ominous atmosphere of tracks like “Down in the Park.”

Music: “The Aircrash Bureau”

While The Pleasure Principle had been defined by its buzzing, gritty walls of texture, Telekon tracks like “The Aircrash Bureau” emphasize eerie, whining synth lines, and create a sense of delicate frailty with traditional instruments like viola and piano. Where The Pleasure Principle strove for a busy and full sound, bordering on overwhelming, Telekon is bleak, hollow, and haunting. But aside from its sound, “The Aircrash Bureau” doesn’t necessarily push new conceptual and thematic ground for Numan, being narrated by the titular entity, a hopelessly mysterious force of death and chaos that seems to threaten us listeners. Equally gothic themes pervade the rest of Telekon, including its lone single and opening track, “This Wreckage.”

Music: “This Wreckage”

In 1980, Numan also released two other singles, “We Are Glass” and “I Die: You Die.” These standalone A-sides were clearly intended to be part of the “Telekon era,” as their sleeves prominently feature Numan in his iconic black-and-red leather jumpsuit, like the album does. They were initially absent from Telekon, though--at least, before some releases added them to the tracklisting. I like a big hook as much as anybody else, but I can still appreciate the commitment to ambiance and crawling, slow-burning song structures on Telekon proper. Thanks to the dominance of slower-paced material, the more strident moments feel well-earned--as on “Sleep By Windows,” the track usually cut for “I Die: You Die.”

Music: “Sleep By Windows”

While it’s easy to praise the artistic integrity of Numan’s aversion to including those singles, it was certainly a somewhat bold career move. But Numan was more or less on top of the world at this point--and he’d been hitting the top of the pop charts, with both Replicas and The Pleasure Principle becoming number one albums. If he was a bit cocky, that was understandable...and it ended up paying off for him in the end, at least this time, with Telekon also achieving that number one spot. But Telekon would prove to be Numan’s last LP to do so. While there’s never one clear reason why an artist falls out of the spotlight, it’s hard to listen to Telekon without coming away with the impression that Numan was a bit tired of his sudden and unexpected fame, which had swallowed him up when he was hardly a legal adult. “Remind Me to Smile” stands out as a track whose lyrics seem to embody Numan’s desire for relief from so much public scrutiny.

Music: “Remind Me to Smile”

“Remind Me to Smile”’s strikingly upbeat melody seems to embody the titular request, putting on a stilted facade of emotion despite the misery expressed in its lyrics. Numan’s diffident demeanour and social awkwardness, which he later learned to attribute to autism, undoubtedly made his life difficult. His personality also contributed to his perception by the masses as robotic or alien, almost as much as the futuristic themes of his art, grounded in his lifelong interest in science fiction. The much-beloved track “I Dream of Wires” is one of his most famous dystopian narratives, spinning the tale of an elderly electrician who’s lived to see himself become obsolete, in a high-tech world with no more use for his skills. With its chorus ambiguously referencing “new waves,” it’s tempting to interpret it as an expression of Numan’s own fears of the world of music continuing without him someday.

Music: “I Dream of Wires”

The cover of Telekon is dominated by this bold black and red colour scheme, its criss-crossed stripes evoking the straps of Numan’s aforementioned jumpsuit without actually portraying him wearing it. The artist’s disembodied head appears to be floating, with a sort of ghostly halo behind it, adding to the album’s spooky feel. Equally mysterious is the expression on Numan’s face: his head is slightly tilted, and his eyes seem to drift away from meeting our gaze as viewers, which might be read as a symptom of his characteristic shyness.

While the title “Telekon” doesn’t particularly mean anything on its own, it seems to be derived from the word “telecommunication,” and could be interpreted as an outgrowth of Numan’s established association with things technological. Telekon is often concerned with ways of communicating with others, as on “Remind Me to Smile.” Phone calls are prominently mentioned on several Telekon tracks, as well as the aforementioned single "I Die: You Die." “Please Push No More,” perhaps the album’s most desolate moment, is anchored by what seems to be a call from a telephone booth.

Music: “Please Push No More”

After Telekon, Numan made yet another bold move: embarking on a “Farewell Tour,” and declaring his intent to retire from giving his much-lauded live performances. However, he quickly reneged. His next two albums, 1981’s Dance and 1982’s I, Assassin, saw him vary his sound even more drastically, adopting influences from jazz and funk. They also saw him decline ever further in relevance and commercial viability. To this day, Telekon is usually considered the last truly great album Numan made for a long time. I’m not a huge fan of his early 80s followups myself, but I do think that they’re at least a bit unfairly maligned. I’d challenge the notion that their stylistic shakeups came “out of nowhere,” and point to Telekon’s increasing emphasis on groovy basslines as a hint of where Numan would decide to go next. 

Music: “Music For Chameleons”

My favourite song from Telekon is its closer, “The Joy Circuit.” While Telekon has a lot of pretty dejected-sounding tracks, “The Joy Circuit” seems to send us off on a more cheerful note, with a dramatic finish bursting with violin and viola. It’s tempting to see it as a sunbeam, parting the gloomy, grey clouds of the rest of the album...but Numan doesn’t let us off the hook that easy. The final line of the song, and hence the entire album, is “all I find is a reason to die,” which is a hell of a way to close the book. With that, I have to end my video--thanks for watching!

Music: “The Joy Circuit”

[kevrocksicehouse]

In Trainspotting Ewan McGregor became a star by playing a heroin addict. A few more actors who found gold in the lower depths.

Frank Sinatra in The Man With the Golden Arm. D: Otto Preminger (1955). Sinatra’s golden arm, plays jazz drums, deals cards for a living and used to regularly take the needle. As an addict trying not to relapse in a life that wants him to, Sinatra gives one of those tough, lucid performances from before he got tired of all that acting crap.

Chloe Webb in Sid and Nancy. D: Alex Cox (1986).  As the junkie harridan who gets Sid Vicious (Gary Oldman) hooked and is later (maybe) accidentally killed by him, Webb’s funny, pathetic and LOUD performance (“SIIIIIIID! WHAT ABOUT THE FAREWELL DRUGS?”) should have taken her farther. The kitten dream speech should be taught in acting classes.

Matt Dillon in Drugstore Cowboy. D: Gus Van Sant (1989). As the head of a gang that steals drugs from pharmacies and who tries to go straight, he tells a rehab support group that drugs are “Something to relieve the pressures of their everyday life, like…..having to tie your shoes.”

John Travolta in Pulp Fiction. D: Quentin Tarantino (1994). You could describe Travolta’s hipster hitman as a high-functioning addict if it weren’t for that whole “leaving his smack where his boss’s coke-sniffing girlfriend (Uma Thurman) can get at it” business. And leaving his machine gun when he takes a leak. And when he shot that guy in the head in a car in broad daylight………

Ryan Gosling in Half-Nelson. D: Ryan Fleck (2006). Gosling got his first Oscar-nod as a crackhead middle-school teacher who bonds with a student (Shareeka Epps) when she discovers his secret, in this very good movie about friendship and forgiveness with no easy answers.

[pollylynn]

Title: Shall I Compare Thee WC: 1300

The surveillance photos are not traumatic. The folder of them is on her desk when she comes in. She flips through them and spares the last one an eye roll and an exasperated sigh. She flips the folder closed again and mutters So there, Lanie under her breath, which spoils the effect of her blasé response a little, but they are definitely not traumatic.

She decides that—no, she affirms it—just a minute or two before he trails in. The timing is convenient, because a little punishment is in order. Because he’s stupid and utterly predictable and such a guy. Punishment has nothing to do with her being traumatized in any way.

So she lectures him about the chair. She impresses even herself with her improv skills and has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from giving up the game when he turns seventeen shades of red denies in a voice that’s way, way to loud that anyone had yanked anything. It’s a satisfying bit of payback right up to the moment that he confesses.

He confesses. That’s . . . kind of traumatizing.

It’s not the fact of it. She doesn’t care that he met with the one that got away on a rooftop, and she doesn’t care that he kissed her. It’s not that she’s jealous, whatever Lanie might think, whatever he apparently thinks five seconds later when they’re suddenly sniping at each other—irony of ironies—like an old married couple.

What’s traumatizing is that he’s upset by it. He’s hurt by seeing Kyra again under such bizarre circumstances, and he’s troubled by the whole damned thing—that he wanted to kiss her, that he did kiss her, and that it’s messed up, because the poor woman is dealing with so much right now, and a kiss like that is just piling on. She can see that he’s miserable about it, even though he’s trying to cover by picking a fight with her. Even though she’s rising to the bait and hitting back, she can see that he’s struggling, and all of this is far more complicated than simple jealousy.

She doesn’t really have time to wallow in it. Esposito shows up, the annoying little imp in the machine as always, and then they’re not fighting anymore. Whatever his trauma and her trauma might be, they’re on to Sophie’s odd behavior, and the killer isn’t Kyra, the killer isn’t Greg.

She watches through the yellowed slats of the work room blinds, as he plays Kyra the recording of Greg pushing Sophie away. She watches out of the corner of her eye as Kyra kisses his cheek. The closure for the two of them, twenty years in coming, is so quickly accomplished that she’s almost caught out. As it stands, Kyra stops, coat over her arm, and says He’s all yours, and that’s definitely kind of traumatizing.

Because he is hers, kind of. He’s her friend and something well beyond that. What they are to one another is far more complicated than anything that lives in Lanie’s overactive imagination or Ryan and Esposito’s significant looks, and closure or no, he’s hurting.

It’s why she says yes when he asks her to come to the make-up wedding with him. It’s why she pretends to believe him when he says Kyra told him to extend the invitation, that she and Greg would really like them both to be there. It’s why she pastes on a smile and finds a blouse in a subtle mauve chiffon in the back of her closet, and it’s why she’s almost late picking him up. Because at the last minute, she dashes back into her apartment and hunts through her photo albums. It takes her a while, and she’s already almost late, but she snaps a picture with her phone and dashes out again.  

The ceremony is short and undeniably sweet. There’s a lot of laughter from the dozen or so guests. It’s a little too hearty in places, and each of them has their own reasons for that. He has his own reasons for that, but the belly laugh he lets out when Kyra lobs the bouquet directly at her is genuine enough that she elbows him hard.

They  make up the reception as they go along. There’s a small stereo with an iPod hook up and people keep swapping theirs in and out to play the usual things and some not so usual ones as well. The dancing, for whatever reason, flips his brooding switch, so she tugs him out of the corner he’s retreated to for a jazz standard that’s not too slow.

She tells him he should dance with Kyra and he does. He taps Greg on the shoulder and makes a formal bow. The two of them share a handshake that will probably leave them both a little sore for a few days, and he and Kyra smile and tease one another for the length of a song.

She asks if he wants to go not long after that and he nods gratefully. They’re not the only ones breaking up the party and Greg and Kyra are distracted. They’re exhausted, and the farewell is mercifully brief.

“Thank you for doing this,” he says quietly as she pulls to the curb around the corner from his front door. He can’t seem to find  anything else to say, but he makes no move to go, either. He leans back hard into the seat, and his eyes close. He’s exhausted, too.

“No problem.” She tries to gauge where he is, what kind of moment this is. “It was fun,” she adds with an absolutely straight face.

“Fun?!” He rolls his head against the headrest to give her A Look.  He’s a total amateur at that, but she knows she got it right. She laughs out the windshield, and she sees him out of the corner of her eye, talking to traffic gliding by. She feels for the phone in her pocket and thinks about the last-minute picture she snapped. She’s wondering what, if anything, to do about that, when he adds, “You really are a mystery, Detective.”

It feels like an opening. A sign, he’d say, and she’d show him how A Look is really done. But it does feel like a sign, so she thumbs the screen on and navigates to her photos.

“Such a mystery,” she says, casually holding the phone out between them. 
 “You!” He snatches it from her. She makes a perfunctory attempt to snatch it back, but he’s holding it practically up to his face. “These are . . . yikes. Are those some kind of kangaroo pouches or what?”

“The pouf waist. A friend to no one.” She’s really doing a number on the inside of her own cheek today. “Ditto those balloon of-the-shoulder sleeves.”



“But where . . . ?” He squints hard, then swivels for a second attempt at A Look. The improvement is modest at best. “None of these is you!” 
“Oh, no?” She makes a casual grab for the phone, but he lifts it high and squints again.

“Flower girl!” he shouts very nearly loud enough to rattle the windows. “You’re the gap-toothed little flower girl!”

“I’m missing a tooth,” she protests. She blushes a little at the way he’s poring over the picture. “It’s not a gap.”

“Wow,” he says with genuine awe in his voice. “How old were you?”

“Five?” she thinks about it. “Almost six. Some older cousin. I’m not even sure why she asked me. My parents never talked to her much after the wedding.”

“Obviously not,” he scoffs.  “This right here is the start of a feud.” She gives him a puzzled look. He shakes his head like nothing could be more obviously. “Little Katie Beckett upstaged the bride.”  A/N: Gluuuurrrggge. Hmmm.

images via homeofthenutty

[scottsumrners]

avengers: flopgame, a rundown

most of the spoilers were right to some degree: cap does go back to peggy, iron man does snap thanos out of existence, all that jazz. they were wrong in several other things (cap doesn’t break the soul stone, he doesn’t receive a letter from peggy)

the plotline is very bareboned, and honestly i still dont know how it lasted for three hours. thanos does the snap and then “retires” to some planet in a corner of the universe. captain marvel rescues iron man, who promptly tells everybody to fuck off while he mops. the avengers + carol go out and beat thanos’ ass, but they found out that he used the stones to erase the stones

this part is hilarious when you look back after a certain part of the movie because the ancient one literally says that if the stones are removed from existence, the universe is fucked. but i guess it was already fucked either way?

five years pass. thor is fat and depressed. cap is handsome and depressed. natasha is depressed. captain marvel has a lesbian haircut. tony is living his best life with his daughter and pepper, because it turns out tony didn’t lose anybody in the snap! fun, i know

then scott is accidentally freed fro the quantum realm when a rat steps over the controls, reaches a grown up cassie (how did she go from 9 years old to 17, god only knows). then he goes after the avengers with the idea of going back in time. this is where the plot starts to unravel completely.

they go to tony for help, but he refuses because of his kid. then they go to “mr. hulk”, who tries to help but doesn’t know much. then tony changes his mind and helps them, under the condition that they don’t go back to when the snap happened, but instead just...ressurrect everybody who died. this completely overlooks the fact that FIVE YEARS HAVE PASSED, people have moved on, and many more have died/committed suicide/done a lot of bad things to themselves and others in the awake of the snap and afterwards. clint is proof of that

clint, by the way, lost his whole family, so he decided to get a haircut and become racist. he literally goes to, like, mexico and japan to kill criminals. “people died and you didn’t”, he says to a mafia boss. there are no mafia bosses in america apparently.

so they go back in time, because hulk and tony say that whatever they do in the past doesn’t count because of fixed timeloops. and then when they get to the past, the ancient one says that if they remove an infinity stone they create a fringe timeline, which is unprotected because the stones are meant to be the guardians of the universe or something

by the way did i mention thanos destroyed them? right?

there is a moment which is just. like. okay. steve goes back in time in the end with the purpose of not messing with the timeline by putting them back there, except steve whispers “hail hydra” to brock rumlow to get the mind stone and loki disappears with the cube, which is like. a massive fucking alteration in the timeline? but who the fuck knows! not the writers, thats for sure.

and then they fuck up even further because when nebula goes back in time, her systems interact with past nebula, who gets hijacked by thanos and literally tells thanos the whole plan. so evil past nebula replaces present nebula, goes back to the future, and when the team assembles to undo the snap (which they do), she brings thanos’ ship from 2014 to the present.

bearing in mind that scott literally says they only have fuel to go one back-to-back trip, but nebula manages to an entire ship using the pym particles *after* she has returned, and it is never explained how except there is a moment of her showing thanos the pym particles

so they undo the snap and everybody is back, but so is thanos from the past, who decides that only killing half the population doesn’t work because there will always be those wanting to undo it, so he wants to kill everybody and start anew. cap, thor and iron man go toe-to-toe with him while the hulk is buried under a bunch of rubble (thanos’ ship destroys the avengers compound) with rocket and war machine, and hawkeye is running from thanos’ creatures with the gauntlet

by the way did i mention that natasha had to sacrifice herself to get the soul stone? lmfao that was like....terrible. alas

the final battle is cool. cap wields the mjolnir (and thor says “i knew it!”. also he got the hammer back when he went to get the red stone) and beats thanos’ ass until he gets the upper hand. and then when all appears lost, the rest of the heroes show up to help and there is the big battle, with the goal of carrying the gauntlet from hawkeye to antman to send the stones back to the past

which they can’t do, and thanos gets them all back, but before he can snap he and carol have a beatdown. carol has three moments in the whole movie: rescuing iron man, as a hologram showing off her lesbian haircut, and this moment destroy thanos’ ship and beating his ass (and a cute scene with peter). then tony steals the stones from him by...literally grabbing them out of gauntlet, which is apparently something he COULDN’T have done in the original timeline?

also thanos has a gauntlet even though the gauntlet wasn’t made in 2014. but who is paying attention

and then iron man snaps thanos out of existence, he dies, people in my session were crying a lot. there is a funeral scene with everybody there; clint and wanda mourn natasha and iron man (hilarious bc tony put her in a straight fucking jacket, but alas), thor passes down the mantle of king of asgard to valkyrie and fucks off to be with the guardians of the galaxy, and steve goes back in time to put the stones back, but then he doesn’t come back. he is back as an old man there to pass down the mantle of captain america to sam, with the shield and all.

did i mention that cap and bucky have one (1) scene together? and he and falcon also only have this one? bucky seems super chill with all of it. he apparently could telepathically already know that steve was gonna do this bullshit.

the last shot of the movie is steve and peggy dancing, which made me nauseated. or maybe was the sugar. but probably steggy.

the positive points:

beautiful cinematography, except for the moments where it was too dark to see what the fuck was going on

less of a barrage of jokes, which was a welcome change. much of the joke was the fact that thor is fat and depressed and is a drunk now. haha. hilarious.

also there is a moment where they joke about captain america’s ass and two shots of captain america’s ass, which may just save this movie from being a complete disaster.

they aged cassie so there is real hope for a young avengers movie now

that’s it

the negative points:

the movie is extremely long for a plot extremely thin. but also it passed super quickly. wouldve been quicker if my bladder wasn’t full

iron man was, throughout the entire movie, completely selfish. he was arrogant and rude and he put his stupid ooc family above the rest of the universe. if he had been smart and gone back to the moment of the snap, he would have survived to have morgan stark again

when he goes back in time and meets his father, howard literally tells him he regretted putting his job above his family, which for tony translates on forcing the team to not undo the snap properly

natasha’s plotline was that she was lost and lonely and her “family” had died so she had no reason to keep living. so she kills herself. INCREDIBLE message to the audience

robert downey jr and jeremy renner are very ugly and old and the fact that we get getting these extreme close ups of both of them was. uncomfortable.

people kept saying that steve’s farewell was touching and beautiful and it would make sense but it didn’t. steve’s existence in the past changes hundreds of things - and if it doesn’t, the alternative is that steve knew what would happen and chose to do nothing, which is just. taking a shit on everything steve rogers stands for.

like, literally - and this makes me angry - the entire movie they kept hammering the idea that cap needed to MOVE ON. that he needed to go on with his life. when they showed peggy in the past and steve is watching her, the idea is that she has carried on with her life, only holding on to the memory of who he was as a memento. and then they take a shit all over it

the resolution of thor’s plotline from the last several movies being “thor doesnt actually want to be king, he just wants to be a space hooligan” is just. baffling. 

steve, bucky and sam have ONE SCENE TOGETHER. IN THREE HOURS OF MOVIE!!!!!

the moral of the avengers: endgame is that never try to do a movie about superheroes and time travel because you just wont be able to do it right. and that’s that on that.

[the-dork-neko]

The Hardest Path (Father Brown, one-shot in English)

[Sinopse] Basically, The Owl of Minerva (S03 E15, season finale) with Sid's point of view, a bit of slashy twist, and some drama that could give a nice Mexican soap opera a run for their money. Sorry for it. :3

[Word Count] 4,444

[Disclaimer] Father Brown belongs to the family of the writer G.K. Chesterton (books and short stories, published between World War I and II), and to BBC (adaptation into the very groovy TV series, since 2013). This is just a fanwork, meant for some pleasure, enjoyment, entertainment, and maybe some tears, absolutely without any intention of financial profit whatsoever.

Cross-posted to AO3 and FFN.

 1.

- Kembleford, 731.

Wasn't it easier just to say “Hello?”

He never knew how to react to any joke, to the point of making his pranks lose any trace of fun.

He also never did anything the easiest way.

Probably had never been allowed to go through the easiest path, never had been given any opportunity to play, relax, chill out, try to live a normal life. And for some reason, as absurd as the iron-hard discipline imposed on him, he just never have spared any time to complain, or to rebel.

It was unbearable, to see that stupid act of a trial, with tons of false evidences and bought testimonies, could be taken to the last consequences. Who could see a murderer in the most upstanding man in town? How could such an  uptight, unable to turn a blind eye to some useless, silly rule, be unable to disrespect the sacred gift of life? Even more, the life of a fellow copper, an apprentice who also swore to serve and protect innocent civilians?

The house that they have temporarily given him would remain empty, until the arrival of the next Inspector.

For a few weeks, it'd be, again, an old, empty cottage. Just as dead as any of the graves in the cemetery behind the Church.

Regardless of how many people would be living there, for Sid, that house would never come back to life again.

The next time that the phone would ring, it wouldn't be that boyish voice, affecting cold and authority, that would answer the unlucky interlocutor. That lost expression, a tired attempt to keep people at arm's lenght, would never repeat the address, instead of trying to keep a normal conversation.

If Sid picked the lock, with his good old magic trick, instead of a key, like the previous resident, or any "honest person", he wouldn't have to worry about the nearly empty cupboards, always forgotten by the owner, neither about the ancient plumbing, which would never spend more than a month without breaking, and giving an unpleasant but never unexpected surprise.

He'd never see the well-known mugs stained of coffee or tea, or the plates of pancakes in the sink; and would never listen to the sound of big bands, easy listening or jazz, and never would get weirded out by the otherworldy voices of an opera, because any part of the small and smart collection of  long-plays would spin lazily in that old turntable again.

The slim and well-known figure would never come back to nap or brood in the armchair in the sitting room. There would never be another trenchcoat, wet with dew or rain, or any well-tailored suit jacket, in any dark, austere colour, hanging in the rack by the door. And the sofa would never be laden with that mess of old books full of markers and scribblings.

The next occupant of the police cottage would never have time to stop and enjoy their own home.

And Sid would never have to worry about other nightmares but his own.

Because the person for whom he used to make the nest of blankets that was not in the bed anymore would never come back home, seeking shelter for another cold and sleepless night.

 2.

When Her Ladyship answered the phone, soon after breakfast, Sid feigned the typical mischievous smile, thinking that the call had no more news than another wave in Mrs. M's, or another of Lady F's informants, eternal river of gossiping.

However, when she fell instead of sitting in the sofa, and raised those beautiful green eyes to her loyal servant, the sadness in the precious face became a telepathic message. A single mind, heavy with affliction, multiplied into two.

To the contrary of Sid's fear, the endangered person wasn't the Father, but the person involved in his new "amateur" investigation.

The man that Sid though as gone to never be seen again; condemned to death, for a crime he'd never even think to commit. A man who finally raised in riot against the useless machine that chewed him up, and spat no more than an empty shell back into the world of the living.

Fragile, subdued, dirty, covered in bruises. He was beaten, wounded and broken, physically, mentally and spiritually, in the unjust prison. Didn't look, even in the slightest, like the equivalent guarded in Sid's memory, heart and senses.

Nevertheless, the tired voice had the same timbre, and the hazel-coloured eyes, the same innocence, for which the driver would never be able to resist.

His smart eyes devoured that exhausted shadow, and focused instantly where the suit sleeves couldn't hide parts of horrible red marks in the other man's wrists.

Blood boiled in fury, destroying impulse without a certain target, the need to protect someone who ignored his own closeness to death. An infinite conflict on sentiment, silenced by the former petty criminal.

It was easy, too easy, to fake a joke with the absurd irony of the situation, and even easier to open the cuffs, in less than five seconds.

Look into the well-known eyes and see them full of pain was hard, too hard, and fight the will to soothe the wounded innocent, dress, balm and clean his wounds, almost impossible.

Like always, the black-haired young man ignored his needs, and went on with his story. After biting back a tired sigh, he exposed the free-masons' conspiration, and his own desperate masterplan to clean his name, and get his honor back.

Good God. He still thought about going back and serving the stupid machine of "justice"? With his own life, probably??

Carter felt even angrier, and questioned the prisioner's sanity even more vehemently. The fugitive broke out of jail... to refuse all other offers of help, and go back to the enemy's lair, in a few hours, to get the only and last true evidence that still remained for the case.

A clue that costed two lifes, and his could perfectly be the third.

"Have you forgotten which one of us is the police officer?"

Why did he come and ask for help and shelter, to the found family he despised, for all the time he lived in the town, if he was planning to go alone, in a damn suicide mission, first thing in the morning?

The Father offered a conciliatory answer, soon ignored by the kamikaze; a blanket and the presbytery's sofa, and a break for sleep, and plan a more appropriate counter-attack in the morning.

Sid could see Sullivan, though the shadows in the curtains; his vague outline, curled up in a tight ball of tense muscles, painful bruises and restless nerves. Could feel him struggling in insomniac silence. Both man had been unable to sleep that night.

Sidney was already used to see the stubborn officer working until falling to exhaustion, every time an enquire proved to be more complex than usual. It was obvious that he haven't had even a nap in the previous few days, and that his conscience hasn't gotten off for even a moment of rest, since the start of that perverse circus act.

During the brief, but lovely time they spent nearly living together - in clandestinity, of course - the repentant scoundrel learned to use all sorts of silly and sly tricks and persuasions, to get his constantly tense companion some time to rest, or to eat, even if it were just once in a while. He definetely saw no bother in the fact that the only place where the enslaved policeman could have a proper night of sleep was in the warm nest between a certain thief's chest, and one or two fluffy blankets.

The few exceptions were the annoying, unnecesary situations he spared to make his very best Inspector pose, and be more resistent than his usual.

The bloke was an Atheist and came to ask for sanctuary in the Chuch; to beg for the blessed interference of a man whose kindness and wisdom he overlook and misunderstood.

But he didn't ask for help to the man who know him better than anyone, who kept the most precious and most dangerous secret of his wounded heart.

The silent rejection, a quiet goodbye, sounded loud and clear in Sid's heart. The pain in the con artist's chest was not new. Seeing the Father go back with the Army, to the War; watching Susie go in a bus to London. Biding farewell to a beloved person always hurt the same.

Although, the family had an urgent problem right now. Thomas Sullivan was an innocent man, who brought them a case to solve, and a need of justice to be attended.

The man came, in a moment of despair, to ask the protection of the family. Regardless of how many times he'd soon ask to be abandoned again, none of them would leave him in his darkest hour. Even less a penitent rascal.

3.

When the Father organized the family's combined efforts, Sidney adored the idea of playing the living dummy, a running bait in the police's man hunt. He was already well-used to playing tag with the coppers; a fox could easily run away from a troop of mastodonts.

Throwing the recalcitrant's suit and hat in the river was just a bonus. Such a typical, perfect specimen of well-bred city boy, always obsessed in keeping an immaculate elegance, would be livid after the end of the situation, when he came back home, put his things back in order, and noticed that the coat and the fedora were missing.

Nobody needed to know about the miliseconds of hesitation spent by the young rogue, because the hat and the gabardine still smelled like their owner.

A whiff of that mixture. Cologne, tea, ink from the fountain pen, rain, aftershave. The atmosphere impregnated in the cottage, when it was still a living house. An attractive perfume, painfully calling to his missing heart, and his needy senses.

The sounds of whistles and runnings brought him back to reality.

Whoever saw the shambles of dark blue fabric, floating in the peaceful early morning currents of the river, could only think that the runaway, in an act of despair, threw himself in the cold waters of Hambleston, to avoid the hangman's rope.

When Carter got back to the presbytery, he'd expose the found family's smarts, and maybe he'd succeed at calling Sullivan back to reason.

May God have mercy of the person who needed Sidney Carter, Agnostic hedonist, professional madcap, and reformed criminal, to be adviced back to the common sense!

 4.

 Lady F. brought news and evidence. The Father, a perfect deduction. Mrs. M., a newly-sewn disguise, and Sid, the overview of enemy territory, and a perfect distraction to cover the theft.

... Naturally, he didn't listen to the voice of wisdom.

He reacted just like his predecessor, Valentine. An unkown observer would think that the younger officer was interested in no more than getting another accomplishment to his starry curriculum.

A distant illusion.

Of course that he'd get back into damn "copper mode", and refuse the family's help, to carry an impossible burden alone, and risk his life in vain.

"Do you really think I'd let a cold case loose in my Evidence Room?? Besides, he doesn't know what he's looking for!"

Despite the extreme situation, the reluctant accomplice was still an adorable sight, and a lovely company. The grumpiness with which he hid the obvious vulnerability broke the trespasser's heart. And the ironic answers to all bickering amused him to no end.

Of course, that sourpuss would get even sourer if Sidney remarked on how he looked like an excited thief carring his prey, when he laid avid hands in the clue, and got distracted with the possibilities it opened.

In reality, both got distracted. They went away safe and sound, because they owned their lifes to Sgt. Goodfellow. Two more souls who'd vouch for the giant's pure heart, when God welcomed him into Heaven.

Sullivan was not an ungrateful man, although his inflexibility could inspire envy in a stone; and his stubborness, in an immortal entity.

He went alone to the station, in the pursuit of the dead jounalist's briefcase. Like that wasn't enough, followed the Father, whom he'd mistaken for an interested trader in favour of the conspirators, and nearly got both killed by Harriet Greensleaves, an evil woman successfully disguised as a victim of domestic abuse.

Sidney would like that the stubborn innocent could learn to trust the family without the cost of more lifes.

 5.

Sid would also like to be free of the need of waiting an entire week, in bitter suspense, after going back home... or to his caravan... in a cold night, of rare clean, starry sky, after drinking his last pints at the Red Lion, before the court and the stay of some months in the fridge, and finding a brown paper bag on his tiny, wobbly table.

The intact, labled package, exactly as it was in the shelf at the police station. Inside, the evidence, plus a bonus, the case file.

He still was the most upstanding, honest man in town, and paid all of his debts accordingly. On the other hand, he was susceptible to the bad influence of a cheap thief, who now smiled from ear to ear.

Immediately sober, Sidney ran up the field and the dusty road after, in a mad dash to the police cottage.

Didn't even need to think about picking locks in doors or windows. There was the lonely inhabitant, sat by the back door, with a mug of cold tea in a hand, and a star map, just like the one kept by the Father in St. Mary's library, in the other. A rare sight in shirtsleeves, an insomniac, unsheltered and placid, sitting in the cold night, playing a staring contest against the sky.

The quiet stare flew to the newcomer, just for the time needed to sign that his arrival was noticed, before it went back to the counting of stars and galaxies. Like this was more natural than a worker resting in bed, after a long, tiring day.

Regardless of the light, or its absence, around the two man, Sid known that his interlocutor hadn't slept in days, maybe weeks; and that he refused any superior orders, medical attention, or other disciplines that came with a prescription for barbiturates.

He knew and felt the extension of the dark circles under the hazel eyes, the pain and oppresion, physical and mental, the wounds, the scars, the bruises, as well as if they were upon his own flesh.

Also knew that he'd need a silver tongue to convince the benefactor of the sincerity of his gratitude, and his offer of caring feelings.

A simple, modest thief, a man of insignificant crimes and petty ambitions, had his little skills in his hands, not in his words.

There was only the easiest way to start. He sat in the stone floor, close to the back door of the cottage, and closed the distance between the policeman and himself with the package.

"Evening, Tom."

No answer, but at least now he had some attention.

Practically every single person with whom the austere Inspector had interacted with would hate the intensity of that stare. A silent, gloomy attention, thal almost never blinked, and reminded the unlucky observer of a loud, clear, constant warning of "Keep away!".

Sid also had a body language that went misunderstood by most of the people who passed through his life. And, for the sake of his hard-earned livelihood, learned to discern other postures that went off the beaten path. Among them, there was Tom's unique way to keep people at arm's lenght, to evaluate the people around him, to calculate all possiblities to reveal the minimum possible about himself, and to avoid to get even more hurt, at all costs.

Nothing could be more appealing, more unresistible, to Sid, as the potential of the shy stargazer giving him his hurt trust again.

All at his reach was gratitude and retribuition.

"Thanks, handsome. Thank you, a lot. You saved my sorry skin..."

The compliment, to his aesthetic beauty, or to his gentlemany, thankless honesty, made him look away.

Or maybe was he blushing? How sweet.

"Without your goodness, I'd spend six months in a damn cell."

The other voice failed in a hesitant answer.

"I thought you saw it as just the payment of a debt... Nothing more."

So, that was the poor sweetheart's problem, all the time. He haven't let him down, he lost all hope, before everyone, and bid him farewell. After all, he had all reasons to believe he'd come back dead, after the encounter with the "Enlighted". At the end of the hellish ordeal, the clueless upstanding didn't know how to thank the beloved accomplice for the victory.

The same innocent of always.

Relieved and even more grateful, Sid grinned and shaked the package.

"No way! We were in the thing against the Illu... Illumi... Illumi-whatever... those guys..."

It was so good to see him trying to hide a smile, trough the corner of that beautiful mouth, no matter how briefly.

"... 'cause you came to us, and asked for our help. You got into the family, you're one of us now. And we never let each other down. You'll never see any of us, left to get drown, in the boiling water..."

While his attention was still into holding back some mirth, Sid could hide his own blush, and gather the bone to say the few words still missing from his speech.

"I'd get into your thing anyway, 'cause I love you, and I wouldn't sit still and watch you get arrested for something you'd never do!"

The usual guarded expression in the stoic face opened in naive stunning.

"What??"

It wasn't typical, seeing a man who could force confessions from cold-blooded killers, getting speechless after a talk with a small-time thief. However, it was even funnier than stealing evidence, or exchanging banter with him.

"And now, because you're family, I have even more reason to love you, and take good care of you."

Sid ignored the discomfort of his burning cheeks, and smirked again, before getting up, and taking the other unprotected body with his.

"That's it, mate. When have you last slept? Or ate? Or had any medicine for these wounds??"

"I can't remember... "

Merciful Lord. He felt so cold and rigid. Felt, now more than ever, like a figure cast in stone, marble, or some rusty metal. If all he could do was answer his questions with a weak voice, he was terrible exhausted, maybe even sick.

Or just a bit stunned, with the feelings that neither of them had never confessed.

"Your working hours are already over, Tom. Get over your Inspetor mode. Let's go home. Come back to me."

The cottage was still bereft of the mismatched fusion of order and mess, zeal and forgetfullness; the environment of an inhabitant who was nearly always out, who could almost never stop for a while and enjoy its comfort. The atmosphere Sid remembered and missed was still not there.

Tom was very shy and introverted, and Sid didn't want to think on how devastated he felt, going back to the place that slowly became his home, and see it invaded, nearly destroyed, brutally ransacked by the search of evidence that had never even been there.

First, the kind-hearted rascal would take good care of the living. And after, he'd help him... as much as possible... to take care of the home. Their home, with some hope.

The door closed behind them, and he sheltered the slightly smaller body in a long, timeless embrace, a hug like they missed for uncountable days, lived by both like infinite, bitter years. Adored each inch of the body melted against his own, molded in a perfect fit, and the quiet relieved sigh, impossible to discern from whose mouth it went, and Sid didn't care; too busy in feeling dematerialize, in his body, the tension he didn't know that was guarded there for too long.

Bending down, just a little, he got drunk in Tom's smell, before kissing his hair, his forehead, his temples, his lips, and delight in the heat that slowly, so slowly, enveloped both their bodies.

Under any other circunstances he'd love to caress, spoil and venerate each little part of that delectable body, before pleasing them both in loving possession. He'd love to watch the quiet, stoic expression melting into innocent, stunned pleasure. With some reluctance, the former con man let go of the luscious mouth, and fell even more in love with it and its owner, and the needy murmur it couldn't bite back. Also let go of of their embrace, just enough to open the cuffs of the black-haired man's shirt sleeves, and to let his braces loose, before resting a hand in his still bruised wrist, and the other in the back of his neck, and call both their attentions to other needs, more urgents in that moment.

"Come here. Let's give you a nice warm bath, and put something in these wounds."

The insomniac still had some complaints, something about not being a child, neither being under no pain and suffering no wounds;and the ultimate proof of his clean bill of health was his presence at home, instead of the Cottage Hospital in the nearest town.

Or maybe that was what Sid could telepatically guess, from his lover's rough, broken voice, and the words suffocated by the face pressed against the crook of his neck, and the desperate hands squeezing his back.

“It's all right. I'm not letting go of you any sooner. Come here.”

He dozed in the warm water of the tub, and was totally unaware of Sidney's furious, horrified gaze. Was just too lost, far away from the borders of conscience, trying to find out, why was him in the water, and not in the backyard, counting stars, like usual, or in the armchair in the sitting room, curled up with a book, or in the bed, under the cocoon of blankets that he hid under in the coldest nights. Didn't notice the loving, careful hands washing and massaging his body, neither the pained eyes full of empathy, making an inventary of his cuts, bruises and wounds.

Didn't feel the ointment in his hurting flesh, nor the new bandages in the wrists, ribs and right hand. His very tired, green and naive eyes opened up on their own accord, well-fixed, but completely blind to his beloved. Like he dreamed of his presence, but the solidity of the dream was more strange than its irreality.

Wasn't used to sleeping, even less dreaming. There was never a safe, peaceful place to do it. Lived in constant alert, kept his eyes open, for the maximum of possible time, and when he closed them, only nightmares appeared before his eyelids. Usually, the creatures there were, indeed, pretty solid, and had really big hands. But their touch was cold, bloody and painful; never warm and soothing.

Since his eyes were unable to show him a logic image, they went closed again.

Sid washed himself in a hurry, quickly got rid from the smell of alcohol in his body and breath. Had years of practice into going to work, absolutely functional, after a good, long night ot drinking and brawling. Got up and off the tub, taking Tom with him, before getting them both dry, and dressing his wounds in new bandages.

Tried to tell his own heavy mind that dressing him in some pyjama bottoms was hard because he was a very, very attractive image, so perfectly into his reach, so effective at getting him distracted. Both the petty man and his conscience knew that it was the relief of finally, finally see that he was safe and resting. The usually tense muscles, the sinew that was dead cold not too long before, were now warm and malleable to the touch, like Mrs. M's homemade bread dough.

Sid chuckled with his own comparation, and with how it'd affect both people who were the subjects in his figure of speech. His delighted mirth grew when he felt Tom's hands tangling in his torso, searching for him in a tired, slack grip, treading his chest like a sleeping cat.

He retributed the kind caress, in a continuous, careful touch on the young man's naked back. His hands roamed carefully over the recent bruises, and other scars, older, probably from the War, things that Tom was terribly ashamed of talking, even more of showing. The con man delighted in feeling the body nestled in his chest relax even more, in warm docility. Threw the blankets over them both, and fell asleep, enjoying the shelter of mutual conforting, healing warmth.

Tom took several hours to get back even a shred of his conscience. Didn't remember when was the last time he slept trough the night. His head felt like full of cotton. His already very off notion of time went away, along with the sunlight streaming through the window. Tried a clumsy movement to sit up in the bed, and after waking Sid up, accidentally, ended back in the lazy brunet's chest.

"Morning, handsome. It's your day off. Come back here!"

"??"

Sid exulted. He wouldn't lose his freedom, nor the contact with the family, nor even the man he loved even more, after fighting those darn conspirators.

They were both alive, whole, free, cleaned their wounds that were slowly closing, while they could rest to fight another day.

Regardless of the adventures, news, or dangers brought by the next sun, Sid was feeling optimistic and well ready to face whatever would appear in their way. Being a petty, mediocre small-time thief haven't made him unable to fight world-level conspirators, for the sake of the safety of his beloved and his family.

 Tom couldn't struggle for more than some seconds, trying in vain to awake his blurry conscience. Hands, enormous, kind and warm, ran over his back, the hands from the dream, counting, feeling, playing with his vertebrae and his shoulder blades. Their caress molded and rebuild his nerves and bones, transforming him into a shapeless, thoughtless mass of confort.Didn't stop to ask himself about why was him in bed, instead of the tub, or why Sid was there. Didn't have strenght to more than fall back asleep.

The reformed criminal smiled to his innocent lover, adoring the pleasure of watching him, and the illusion of protecting him, while he finally got some rest after his hellish ordeal.

[bpark667]

Dr. No No | Festival 'Like A Jazz Machine' | David Laborier

David Laborier & Three's A Crowd

[theessaflett]

To All The Ghosts I’ve Loved Before: A Farewell Letter to 53a

Written by Elisabeth Flett 

Elisabeth perches on the bed mid-move, March 2019.

How do you say goodbye to something that can’t say goodbye back?

That was the question I found myself asking as stood in the middle of my boxed-up flat, my beloved home for the last four years.

To understand the magnitude of this impossible farewell we need to go back to June 2015, when a unhappy, stressed-out 19 year old first stepped inside 53a. Like so many other second year university students these days I was emerging battered and shaken from a disastrous flat-share, my fresher’s week hopes and dreams of a rosy uni experience from the year before long since gone. I was out of my depth, winging it and wearing my best jacket and quite a lot of make-up in the hope that the estate agent wouldn’t realise that I was still a teenager. Nightmarish images of the truly uninhabitable hovels I’d viewed the previous year with my soon-to-be new flatmates had played in my mind on the bus journey there, as had all the warnings from concerned friends that moving into a flat on my own would be a terrible idea. What would happen if I was burgled? What about if I became horribly ill and needed someone to look after me? As I stood there in the empty flat, the estate agent hovering impatiently next to me, I could see that at least the worry of this place being a hovel wasn’t going to be an issue. Okay sure, there were some cracks and peeling paint here and there, but compared to the underground basement off Brick Lane I remembered viewing in 2014 (no windows, mouldy sofa and nuclear bomb-site worthy toilet…the most worrying part was that I genuinely considered it as a possibility because we were so desperate) it was practically a paradise. The shower was in the main room. The toilet was in a tiny cupboard so small that you couldn’t really shut the door if you sat down on the loo.

It wasn’t much. But it would be mine, and mine alone.

“I’d like to put a deposit on the flat,” I said, trying to feel like an adult but only succeeding in feeling like a child pretending to be a grown-up. A truly terrifying amount of money passed hands, and that was it. I was moving into my first ever studio flat. Sure, it was on the same street as two strip clubs and next to a kebab shop, a nightclub and a taxi delivery service, but what could go wrong? Single living, here I came.

It seemed like a great idea until the first night on my own. Lying there terrified, I listened to every creak, every grumble from the traffic, and was convinced that a hundred axe-wielding murderers lay in wait outside my front door. What was that noise from the landing outside? Should I call the police? My parents, wearily supportive, took my hysterical whispered 1am phone call with good grace but suggested that since this was going to be my living situation for the foreseeable future I should find some way to cope with these entirely irrational fears of horror movie break-ins. Thankfully, it didn’t end up being a big problem; one night of not being hacked to pieces was all it took for me to settle down to the idea that I probably wasn’t going to be horribly murdered in my sleep. It was just as well, as not long afterwards I had my first real nighttime “Situation”…

Picture the scene. You’re nineteen. You’ve recently moved into a flat, on your own, into a part of London you don’t know. For all the above reasons, you’re a bit on edge anyway. And then, at 2am, you’re woken by an almighty crash. I’m talking loud. You lie there, wide awake, hoping that it was part of your dream. And then you hear it. The ominous hhhhssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.

Worried now, you get up, turn a light on, blearily searching for the hissing noise whilst still mostly asleep. You grew up in a house with a gas cooker so in your sleep-ridden state you first check the electric hobs for any suspicious smells, then when that unsurprisingly doesn’t give you any clues you check the boiler in the hallway. It’s not that either. At a loss, you then step into the tiny toilet cupboard, noticing the floor is wet. Something has broken in the toilet, maybe? You idly notice a can of air freshener on top of the toilet cistern, move it out of the way. And then, very dramatically, the bookshelf on the wall - the one your father built himself but didn’t screw in quite enough, the one that had fallen directly down onto the air freshener can and by some mad, wild law of physics was balancing on its nozzle head, causing the air freshener to spray all over the bathroom, the one that now with no air freshener can beneath it continued its downwards trajectory - came crashing down onto my head, with all its contents along with it. Dazed, I lay in a crumpled heap on the floor, surrounded by broken bits of bookcase and battered paperbacks, and mused that this was definitely not on the list of things people had warned me about.

Some of the challenges I had to cope with were a little more expected, if entirely unwelcome.

I have, embarrassingly enough for someone who grew up in the countryside, a very real phobia of rodents, and discovering that I had a few mice for visitors in the winter of 2015 was enough to send me in a state of terror that I found very embarrassing but could do nothing to ease. My Top Two Least Dignified Mice Moments over the years were probably when A) a mouse ran across my floor and I screamed hysterically into the phone to a friend who had to then talk me down from the chair I’d jumped on when spotting the offending rodent, and was still stuck on despite the mouse having run off half an hour previously. B) was a little more traumatising; finding a dead mouse next to my kitchen bin and finding out that I couldn’t “pick it up and put it in the bin” as my Grandma impatiently suggested when I phoned her…because my knees actually gave out when I tried to pick it up and I just fell over whilst hyperventilating. Another London friend of mine very kindly rushed over and came to my aid. I was so grateful I even forgave her when she waved it towards me going,” Look, it’s all stiff!”

Various challenges came up over the years: the time that water came through the light fittings and dripped from doorways because a water tank on the roof had burst; the time that water came through the kitchen ceiling; the time that the toilet upstairs leaked into my Toilet Cupboard…three times in four weeks, but who’s counting; the time that my shower, fridge, washing machine and tap all broke in the space of a month; the time that the creepy guy next door tried to persuade me to take him in as a roommate despite there only being one bed in my flat; the time that the floor started to move; the very scary time a group of drugged up guys were hanging out outside the front door and wouldn’t let me in; the time I was stuck in bed with flu for three days and, as warned by those friends when I first moved in, I indeed had to crawl to the sink myself rather croak out a request for water to someone else. The front door was regularly graffitied. The electricity meter could only be topped up by a easily losable key card. The stairs creaked, and got steadily more creaky over the years, the front door lock broke more times than I can count and the street fights stopped being exotic entertainment and starting just being annoying within the first few months. I hadn’t quite anticipated the sheer level of noise the combination of shops and venues on my street would bring, and the long summer nights full of boomboxes blaring at 3am, screamed arguments about who sold who the wrong type of crack and people vomiting onto the pavement outside the apartment were not my favourite times at 53a. By 2016 I was in a relationship and my girlfriend at the time was not at all as keen as I was about seeing the whole thing as an exciting observation on modern society. “I think someone’s being stabbed,” she would darkly mutter to me as we lay in bed trying to sleep despite the traffic noise blaring outside. “There’s not enough screaming,” I would mutter back with a yawn. “That’s just your average fight. Go back to sleep.”  “I would if there wasn’t about fifty cars beeping outside your window. Oh, and now there’s a street cleaning lorry too. I can’t wait for you to move.”

In the end it was our relationship that moved on before I moved out of the flat, but having a second opinion on 53a did cast a few small doubts in my mind about the place. Was the traffic a little too unreasonable? Were the nighttime brawls a little too regular? Despite these musings I continued to love my little hide-away, my safe haven from the world.

How to describe 53a? 53a was:

chipped green paint

neon light

creak of floorboards

lamplight casting soft shadows at 1am

Radio 2 Jazz programmes and the smell of incense

overground train rumble

afternoon sunlight streaming through dusty windows

mug balanced on bed, laptop open

candle flickering,  polaroids on kitchen tiles

evenings full of laughter, mornings full of sleep

first hellos

last goodbyes.

This flat was always so much more to me than just a place to live. It was where I rebuilt myself, where I found the bits and pieces of my soul that had got lost, trampled and hidden along the way during the previous years and painfully, painfully, dragged them back to me until I was whole once more. It was the backdrop for my first love, and my first heartbreak. It saw dinner parties, welcome parties, leaving parties, parties where no-one showed up and parties where everyone showed up and brought a bottle of rum with them for good measure. It was where I practised for my final exams, where I decided what to wear for my first day at work, where I celebrated one year out of university, then two. This place has heard many words, some hard, some soft, and many ghosts live inside these walls.

It was the ghosts, in the end, who helped me decide to leave.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s a difficult thing, leaving. Not for everyone, of course - there are some people out there who find change exciting, crucial to how they live their life. I am not one of them. Or rather; I feel like people who say that they like change just don’t notice enough about the world around them.

It’s almost impossible to “like change” if you begin to take note of every single little thing that is rudely adjusted around you, without the slightest warning or heads-up.

What do you think of when you think of an example of “change”? Chances are it’s something big.

Moving to a different job, maybe. Getting married. Or something a little smaller, like getting a new haircut. This is what I’ll call the “top tier” of change, and it’s the only tier that a lot of people notice as they go about their lives. There are, however, other levels below that “top tier”. Things that, if you’re me, clump together to make life just a little more hard to cope with, just a little bit more stressful.

For instance:

If the old bus stop pole that I’m used to seeing every morning has been replaced by a new, less dented bus stop pole, the seat I usually take has someone else sitting in it, the train comes at 8:57 rather than 8:55, the chair I like in the cafe I always go to has been moved to another table, there’s a different person from normal on the check-out and they’ve changed an ingredient in the drink I always get, I find out that the podcast I listen to on Tuesdays has started releasing new episodes on Wednesdays instead and then I get an email informing me that an upcoming rehearsal I was expecting to happen in one venue has been moved to a different venue that I’ve never been to before… That, for me, is a very stressful morning. Now, take that level of what I’m going to call Change Stress and apply it to something as enormous as moving house, especially from somewhere that has as much meaning for me as 53a. It took the front door breaking again, the thought of yet another summer listening to dubstep outside my window at 3am and a really stellar flat showing to convince me that it was time, but here I was. Moving for the first time in four years. And boy, it was hard work.

My moving house priorities would have seemed very odd to people helping me organise and pack my belongings. (…If they hadn’t been my aforementioned long-suffering parents, that is.) When there’s such a big uncontrollable change looming over someone as change-phobic as I am, I tend to bury into tiny details and get very annoyingly intense about them being just right.  “No, the tea lights go in the left hand corner of this box! We need to unpack everything again now. No no we can’t pack the radio there, it’s the third item that I’m going to put on my desk, next to the pen pot and opposite that picture frame!!!”  A total slide into insanity and Change Stress are hard to differentiate.

“I was walking around my East Village neighbourhood…you know…you live so much life in these very small blocks, and these routes that you take every day…You grow so much, you know, when you think about who you’ve been in this tiny amount of space… you’re living with the ghosts of yourself.”

The singer St Vincent might have been talking about her time in NYC East Village when she spoke these words in an GQ interview about her song New York, but they resonated with me as I watched the YouTube video in early 2019 sitting on my bed in London. It occurred to me that I was also surrounded by ghosts; both ghosts of myself and ghosts of people I had met, been friends with, fallen out of friendship with or had simply drifted away as folk tend to do at the end of university. The streets surrounding my flat were filled with memories, both good and bad, and 53a itself was groaning with the weight of so much life lived under one roof. 2015 was a long time ago, I realised. Everyone else in the polaroids on my wall from parties now long over seemed to have moved on. I should move on too. To have new experiences, to make new memories, and, in time, to make new ghosts.

Now, as the spring sunlight of March streamed through the windows of 53a, I looked around at the boxes and crates and felt a sense of profound loss mixed in with the fatigue and stress of moving and the excitement of what was to come. There was one more thing that I needed to do.

I laid a hand on the wall, breathed in the smell of wood, paint and dust. “Thank you,” I whispered.

It may have just be my imagination but I’m sure, just for a second, that I felt a slight energy through my fingertips, an acknowledgement of my farewell.

Maybe 53a could say goodbye, after all.

[melonmork]

this is home

in which yukhei works at his parent’s bakery in the town where you spend your summer~ 💕💫💛💖

~the best part of spending the summer in your parent’s home town is the accessibility of everything due to walking and biking trails that connect almost every neighborhood, store, and of course the downtown area

~you’d been spending summers here for a long time, longer than you can remember

~you love taking walks in the warm summer air, watching the birds flying in flocks over head, smelling the breeze that carries the perfume of flowers in bloom, and listening to children’s laughter like a song in the afternoon daze

~and now, this summer seems auspicious already; you arrive at your grandparents’ home just as the setting sun paints the sky brilliant shades of golden yellow and deep orange, and you fall asleep soon thereafter thinking about where you will venture to tomorrow

~mornings here are your favorite, because nearly every morning, like this one, you wake up to a simple melody sung by a bird right near your open window, and the sunlight in your eyes welcomes you back

~this year more than ever before, you feel a sense of home, and the thought lingers through breakfast and even as you say farewell to your family and set out to see what’s new in town

~yes, you think, i’ll go into town today and see what all is there, see if there’s anything new

~you walk leisurely through the paths, sometimes through woody areas teeming with wildflowers, squirrels, and butterflies, and sometimes through a quaint neighborhood with bikes strewn haphazardly on driveways, or an old man reading a book on his porch, enjoying the fresh morning air just like you

~after a relaxing half hour walk, you arrive in the downtown area, welcomed by the familiar scents of street food and the sound of soft, upbeat jazz tunes coming from shops surrounding the blocks

~the thought and feeling of home reoccurs to you instantaneously, and your heart feels a bit giddy at the sentiment. even though you don’t really live here for most of the year, you certainly feel a sense of belonging, and you can’t help but smile at the familiarity of everything in front of you

~you make your way comfortably through the area, recognizing each store and almost every street vendor, save for a few

~the smells tempt you every time you get a whiff of them; you ate a rather big breakfast, but that was nearly an hour ago now, and besides… how does that saying go? oh yeah! “when in rome…”

~so you continue down the street, turning here and there and making your way to your favorite cafe in the area, eager to taste that amazing lemon poppy seed muffin again

~but while you’re on your way, you have to do a double take, because something’s different…

~to your surprise, a local bakery had taken place of the small pottery shop you used to look through often

~your heart falls at first, upset to see that the pottery shop is no longer there, but your stomach wins over your heart after you get a whiff of the pastries and breads inside the new bakery

~you hesitate for a moment, not completely willing to give up on your quest for that divine lemon poppy seed muffin, but you figure it will be there later, and it’s always good to try something new, so you enter into the bakery

~and good lord does it smell heavenly in there

~and it’s not only the smell, but the ambiance of the bakery that enchants you

~the walls are a light yellow, the color of honeysuckles, and small vases with pink roses complemented by baby’s breath grace each little cafe table

~small speakers on the ceiling play soft accoustic tunes accompanied by charming lyrics

~the glass door and the multiple windows let in a cozy amount of sunlight, completing the comfortable atmosphere, and you decide that you aren’t upset anymore at the disappearance of the pottery shop

~nor are a lot of people in the area, either, apparent by the considerable line of people waiting to order a fresh pastry, or maybe a latte

~so you make your way to the end of the line and admire the decorations, the cute light bulbs hanging from the ceiling joining with the sunlight to illuminate everything in the cafe warmly and softly

~framed paintings of fruit bowls, loaves of bread, and people picnicking hang on the honeysuckle walls, and you look at each painting as you wait in line, slowly moving forward

~you’re close to the counter when you find yourself standing in front of a large wicker board covered in photographs which, as you inspect them, seem to be all of the same family

~in most of the photographs, the family is in a small kitchen, kneading dough or stirring something in a bowl or peering into a retro-looking oven

~there are a few photos of the same young boy, who in some photos wears a cheesy grin that lights up his whole face, and in others feeds his mother some sort of baked treat of his own childish creation, opening his own mouth as he feeds the treat to his mother, who looks at him fondly

~the odd photo out is the one of that same boy wearing a high school uniform, holding a diploma and standing in between his parents, wearing that same bright smile but looking much more handsome, and naturally so; in the photo, he is tall and seems mature, and you think he must be around your age in the picture

~you gather that this family of three-the mother, the father, and the son-is the family that opened this bakery here

~the line moves forward, and so must you, so you reluctantly remove your gaze from the photos and shuffle forward until you’re standing in front of the display of pastries, cakes, and sandwiches, all of which make your tummy growl on sight

~it’s so hard to decide because everything looks so absolutely delicious, and your heart (and tummy) is torn between the chocolate croissant and cinnamon bagel

~which you unfortunately do not have the time to choose between before it’s your turn to order at the register

~the same woman from the photos you were looking at earlier stands behind the register, wearing the same pretty smile as in the photos, her face a little more lined than back then but no less beautiful, and you can’t help but smile back at her motherly appearance

~“what can i get for you, darling?” she asks kindly, her smile genuine and inviting

~“well…” you start, but then stop, because you still havent decided between the croissant and the bagel and you’re really too torn between the two to make a decision on the spot

~someone behind you clears their throat in an attempt to express their impatience, and you pick up on the hint and try to hurry yourself

~suddenly, the son from the photos appears behind the mother and leans his hip against the counter and says, “if it’s pastries you’re interested in, i recommend the chocolate croissant! it’s not too heavy and it’s got just the right amount of chocolate. plus, i made them this morning, so they’re especially good today!” he gives you a big smile, the same one as in the photos, and then pushes back from the counter and busies himself again near the coffee grinding machines

~that’s pretty much an inarguable omen, you decide, so you tell the nice lady that you’ll have a chocolate croissant and a chai latte and then make your way to one of the two person tables near the windows with your order number

~as you sit there enjoying the sunlight, you think about the son, who you suppose you were right about regarding age.. he looks to be fairly young, maybe just barely an adult

~what shocked you, though, was the depth of his voice… somehow, it differed so starkly from the brightness of his smile, and you couldn’t help but think of it as attractive

~as you wait, your mind wanders to other topics, like the swimming lake not too far from your grandparents’ house, and the mangos you plan to buy tomorrow morning at the local produce market near the residential area of town

~your mango daydreams are interrupted by the smiley boy, who surprises you as he places your mug and croissant gingerly in front of you

~and he surprises you further by sitting down across from you and starting a conversation

~“are you new in town? i havent seen you come in the bakery before” his question is amiable and he raises his eyebrows innocently, and you cant help but notice how absolutely brown his eyes are…. they’re lovely

~“oh! not really, i spend every summer here with my grandparents, and i got here just yesterday!” you respond, giving him a smile and stirring your latte as a means to busy yourself

~“ahhh, cool! well, i hope to see you in here a lot this summer! my name is yukhei, by the way. enjoy your croissant!” he smiles warmly at you and then pushes in his chair and leaves, returning your goodbye wave before going back to the counter

~and throughout the rest of the morning, even while you eat your delicious croissant, you can’t rid yourself of the soft smile and the flush that lingers on your face and in your heart, all just because the smiley boy, yukhei, took a little time to meet you

~he probably introduces himself to all the new customers who dine in, you think, and the thought finally removes the blush and soft smile at his actions

~two mornings later you return to the bakery, this time for bread as well as breakfast

~you come a lot earlier than your first visit, so only a few other people are in the cafe, and there’s no one in line

~so you walk up to the register and order two loaves of bread and a muffin from yukhei’s mother, then sit down with your number at the same table and you doze off as you look at the flowers in the vase, still sleepy from having not rested well the previous night

~you snap out of your doze at the sound of a plate being set down in front of you, and your tired eyes look up to see yukhei, his face sleepy like your own, too

~he’s smiling sheepishly at you and he apologizes for waking you up and you tell him it’s okay, dont worry!! but he still apologizes again

~and this time he asks, “is it okay if i sit here for a minute?”, motioning toward the chair across from you

~“of course!” so he seats himself and leans his elbows on the table and rests his chin in his palms

~“i felt bad that i never asked your name,” he begins, “so im glad you came back in… i thought i might not see you again…” he hesitates saying the last part, smiling shyly and slowly moving one hand to rest behind his neck

~you tell him your name and smile shyly too

~“wow! pretty name!” he gives you a big smile, the one from two days ago and the one from the photos, and it makes your heart skip a little beat, because u are quite sure you’ve never seen a smile so pure and radiant on a boy so tall and alluring

~“thank you, yukhei,” and he smiles and leans his chin back into the palm of his hand, and there’s a moment of comfortable silence where the pale early morning sunlight shines on his fluffy hair, his pretty big nose, his shapely lips and his cute eye bags, and you take all of his beauty in

~“there aren’t a lot of young people here,” yukhei says, “so i was so excited when i saw you… no offense to the older people” he laughs and runs a hand through his hair, making it even fluffier and messier, and you laugh with him

~“yeah, most of the people our age have moved out of town, huh?”

~you and yukhei spend fifteen or so minutes talking about the town and what you like about it, getting excited when the other person mentions a place you’re both familiar with

~his mom eventually calls him back to the register once more customers start filing in, and he lingers a moment, still laughing at something you said, before getting up and pushing his chair in… but he hesitates there for a moment, and then says, “i’ll see you tomorrow morning?” with a cute, hopeful expression, and of course you can’t say no to yukhei’s big brown eyes, so you laugh and tell him that you’ll see him tomorrow morning

~and you do see him the next morning

~and the morning after that

~and for the next month, you go to the bakery to see him at least five mornings a week, spending fifteen (or thirty, if his mom is feeling extra sweet) minutes with him talking about your lives, about your own home towns, about the swimming lake

~yukhei tells you about how much he loves baking, how it’s so fun to knead dough and the outcome is so rewarding, how icing cakes is meticulous and exciting as well as frustrating, how baking muffins and cookies is easy and fun

~one morning about a month after you two became friends, yukhei perks up from where he was taking a little nap on the table and practically yells “I FORGOT TO BAKE THE PUMPKIN MUFFINS!!” and you’re like dude????? what should you do? and hes like come on, come help me bake them quickly so my parents dont get mad

~he quickly gets up from the table and grabs your hand in his own, leading you quickly behind the counter and back into the kitchen

~he grabs two aprons from a coat rack on the wall and hands you one, then puts on and ties his own in a few seconds while you’re still standing there confused

~“are you sure it’s okay for me to be back here?” you ask, a bit apprehensive even if yukhei is the son of the owners

~“eyyy, of course. want me to tie that for you?” he gestures toward your apron, and you stutter out a “sure” and hand him the apron

~he was in such a rush a second ago when he tied his own, but this time he���s meticulous, standing close to you and draping the apron carefully over your head, then gently placing his hands on your shoulders to turn you around

~his long fingers quickly tie a bow with the apron strings behind your back, and he mumbles a soft apology when his fingers graze against your back

~the intimate moment is over as soon as it started as yukhei quickly guides you over to a metal countertop and asks you to grab a bowl and a whisk while he prepares the ingredients

~yukhei works surprisingly silently, adeptly and precisely measuring each ingredient and asking you to pour them into the bowl in a specific order as he mixes

~in not ten minutes, you and yukhei finish the prep and put the muffin pan in the oven, then let out a simultaneous sigh and lean back against the counter

~and then you hear yukhei let out a low chuckle

~you look over to find him smiling at you, shaking his head slightly and still chuckling

~“what??” you ask through your own giggling… you can’t help it, his smile and his laughter are just so contagious

~“you’ve got flour all over your apron, and some even in your hair! how did you manage that~” he teases, with nothing but kindness and laughter in his tone, and you look down at yourself and laugh too, because u really did manage to get flour all over yourself

~“here, hold still.” yukhei leans the arm closest to you on the area of the counter directly behind you, then leans in and narrows his eyes, looking at your hair

~you’ve tried so hard not to develop a crush on him throughout the past month because you’ll have to go away in two months anyway and you don’t want to deal with the heartache

~but he makes it so hard even when he’s just sitting across from you talking about how he stubbed his toe on a desk chair right after he woke up that morning, so how, in moments like this one, are you supposed to not fall … hard… for him?

~honestly

~he focuses on gently brushing the flour out of your hair, and while doing so he absentmindedly chews on his bottom lip

~your attention, naturally, is drawn there, and you wonder what his lips taste like

~pumpkin muffins? sugar? coffee? chocolate croissant? cocoa, or maybe even fruit? maybe they taste like those mangoes from the street vendor right outside…

~your attention is drawn away from the taste of his lips (to your dismay) as he leans back and inspects your hair from a further distance away, no longer chewing on his bottom lip (which is now pinker than before, and it makes ur heart beat faster)

~“okayyyyy much better” he says, making finger guns and shooting them at you (complete with “pew pew” sound effects bc this is yukhei)

~you laugh at his silliness and try to laugh off the racing of your heart too, which doesnt work as well as you had hoped

~especially since yukhei, with your permission, is untying your apron and removing it from around your neck, this time not mumbling an apology when his fingers graze your back and the nape of your neck

~yukhei turns to you after hanging up the aprons and thinks for a second before speaking

~“i have tomorrow off” he says, and you nod, listening

~“would you… er, could we hang out?” his hand goes to rub the back of his neck and you internally thank the heavens for it because his arm always looks so good from your angle

~“sure! i was planning on getting some mangoes tomorrow morning from the vendor just outside. should we meet there at the normal time?” you ask, surprised by your own confidence and simultaneously excited at the opportunity to spend a whole day with yukhei

~“yeah! yes! yeah man let’s do it!” his eyes light up and he holds his hands up for you to high five them, and when you do, he briefly tangles his fingers with your own and holds your hands in the air

~and for a moment you’re just holding hands with him and both of you are laughing 

~he holds eye contact with you as you let your hands drop and he’s still got his cute grin on his face and his hair is messy and floofy and your tummy is doing somersaults 

~that confidence you had just a minute ago??? she is Gone and now you’re standing there kind of nervously, looking a little too often at your fidgeting hands between stealing glaces at yukhei’s pretty features

~you don’t know what else to do or say and yukhei is literally just standing there smiling at you and he’s so close and you feel like something is going to happen and you’re not sure if you’re ready for that so you quickly say that you should get going

~he opens his mouth in an O and after a moment he’s like “oh, yeah, okay” and he becomes a bit awkward too and after a second of standing there quietly, he opens his arms for a hug and smiles shyly at you

~so of course you oblige, wrapping your arms around his surprisingly strong waist and his big hands rest gently on your back

~then you pull away and say goodbye and he walks you out of the kitchen and waves at you as you leave the bakery, still waving even when you’ve turned around and left

~and then he remembers the muffins

~the timer goes off just as you leave the bakery, and he doesn’t hesitate a second, sprinting into the kitchen to take the muffins out of the oven, fumbling to get a muffin out of the pan without burning himself, and snagging a paper bag as he sprints out of the bakery to catch up to you

~you’re just taking your time walking through the street on your way back home when you hear someone yelling your name and all of the people around you turn their heads too, wondering what all this commotion is

~you stop walking and look around, startled until you see yukhei running toward you, his hair going every which way in the breeze and he’s weaving through everyone quickly

~when he comes to a clumsy stop in front of you, he’s panting and he has to lean down and rest his hands on his knees for a second before standing back up and huffing “you forgot… a muffin!” then he smiles and laughs loudly and hands you a paper bag, crumpled from where he was holding it

~you laugh from shock, still startled but so fond as you look at him, panting, his whole face lit up by his unabashed smile

~then, just as quickly as he came, he waves goodbye (after wiggling his eyebrows at you lol) and starts jogging back to the bakery

~”gotta go, my dad’s going to be pissed!” he yells as he weaves through the crowd again

~and you’re left standing there, still taken aback, shaking your head and laughing at the boy who ran after you and ditched his job just to give you a muffin

~it makes you feel special… which yukhei hopes it did!! because you are special to him!!

~and his tummy is fluttering just as much as yours as he runs back to the bakery, sort of proud of himself because he saw the blush in your cheeks and your ears and he saw the way you smiled at him and thinking about it boosts his confidence

~his mood is fantastic for the rest of the day, even after his dad threw a dirty dish rag at him and ruffled his hair for running off

~”yeesh, the things young boys do when they’re in love,” his dad says as he walks out of the kitchen, shaking his head

~in love? yukhei considers those two words all day, finding that they feel and sound write in a sentence with his name and yours, and it makes him grin like a goober at random moments during the day

~you are also grinning randomly all day because u cant stop thinking about his hands holding your back and how nice it would be to run ur fingers through his floofy hair

~and you even think about stealing little kisses, sitting next to him in the grass under the shade of a tree, the wind playing with ur hair and his fingers playing with yours

~that night neither of you sleep very well, and yukhei sets out early to be at the mango vendor because he has too much energy and was getting impatient waiting at home

~on his way into town he picks a bunch of wildflowers, orange and pink and yellow and white, to give to you 

~he ends up helping the nice old man who runs the mango stand set up his display and cart and helps him run the stand while he waits for you to arrive

~the old man thinks yukhei is just the greatest young man in town and he gives him a bunch of free mangoes 

~so when you arrive a little bit earlier than the agreed time, yukhei quickly bids the nice old man goodbye and walks up to you

~ur cute boy is grinning ear to ear, in one hand holding a bunch of wildflowers that, while still lovely, are beginning to droop, and in another hand he’s got five mangoes 

~”hi!” he says, and he tries to wave, but the mangoes just fall out of his hand, and he hangs his head and laughs and you help him pick up the mangoes, taking a few so he doesn’t have to carry them all

~”hey, yukhei,” you respond, smiling back at him and giggling at how excited he seems

~”these are for you!” he hands you the flowers and u laugh again and thank him, telling him that they’re beautiful

~”just like you~” he says, and then he looks down at his feet before looking at you again, embarrassed by his own flirting, but proud of himself because of it too

~you thank him shyly and then you two are on your way, walking down the street, making light conversation about the summer, about the morning songbirds, about all of the street vendors; you laugh at his silly jokes and exclamations and he listens eagerly to your stories about here and about home, laughing at your jokes, too, even when they’re kind of lame :’-)

~eventually you find a bench in a park and you sit next to him, pulling out a bagel sandwich that you cut in half for you two to eat for breakfast, and you eat together, content to just be there in each other’s presence, even when the conversation lulls

~the day is so beautiful: a few fast moving white clouds grace the blue sky, songbirds speak with each other pleasantly from the trees all around, and the soft breeze moves through the park, dancing with the flowers and the grass and the trees, cooling you down and bringing you the subtle scent of the summer morning

~you mention it to yukhei, and he nods in agreement, admiring the lovely morning in the park, pointing out pretty views and cute dogs passing by

~and then he turns to you and looks at you with the same admiration, as if he’s beholding the loveliest sight he’s ever laid his eyes upon

~in fact, that’s exactly the thought going through his head

~and he’s also thinking that he has to tell you today because he doesn’t want to waste any more of the summer without you knowing how he feels

~he stands up, holds a hand out to you, smiles, and tells you to come with him, so you take his hand tentatively and follow his lead

~he walks you across the park, not saying anything, but as he walks he intertwines his fingers in yours and holds your hand tightly, as if he might lose you in a moment

~finally you reach the edge of the park where the grass meets the swimming lake you often visit, but he continues walking, entering a slightly wooded area, making sure you don’t trip on roots or stumps

~when you ask him where you’re going, he just smiles softly and says “you’ll see”

~eventually you reach a small clearing at the edge of the woods; the sun shines onto the little patch of forest, wildflowers like the ones you’re holding surrounding the grassy clearing

~it sits right on the edge of the lake, and your breath hitches in your throat because it’s so beautiful

~yukhei lets go of your hand and walks into the clearing, then turns to face you, smiling, pleased by your reaction

~finally, you manage to say that it’s beautiful, and yukhei nods and takes a deep breath and then rubs the back of his neck

~”i’ve wanted to bring you here for a while now,” he says, and he faces the lake now, watching the dazzling sunlight reflect on the water. “i’m glad you like it.” his voice sounds a little more serious than usual, and you’re a little worried because his smile has faded and he’s watching the water so intently

~you decide not to question him though; you walk over and stand by him and look out at the water too, recognizing points of reference from a different vantage point now

~you’re still admiring the view when he turns to you and abruptly says “i like you. a lot” and then he sighs again and looks back out at the water

~for some reason he thinks you’ll tell him that it won’t work, that you can’t be with him because you live somewhere else, that you aren’t into him like that, so he feels sad and a bit deflated

~until you say “i like you a lot too” 

~he’s like “okay, i understand.” cause he wasnt expecting you to say that to him so upfront

~and then a second later his face lights up and he turns to you, his playful, excited grin returning to his face, and he says “wait, seriously??! oh my god! wow!” hes laughing that cute laugh of his and he opens his arms again for a hug, this time not gentle at all as he holds you tightly against his chest and happily sways back and forth, still laughing, burying his uncontrollable smile in your hair

~you’re laughing with him, also hiding your smile against his neck

~he smells like cinnamon and sugar and clean laundry and… home

~home, you find yourself thinking again, this is what home feels like.

~after the bear hug, yukhei takes a mango from his pocket (yes he was keeping mangoes in his pockets) and he also takes a little pocket knife from his pocket and adeptly cuts up a mango, giving you one half to eat, and when you finish eating your half, he gives you the stone to eat the fruit off of too

~yukhei when he gives you the stone: “im only giving this to you because you’re so special to me~”

~you: “oh hush,,” but you’re blushing and u have to look the other way because you don’t want him to see how big you’re smiling

~your attempt is futile though, because he definitely notices and it makes him smile even bigger 

~after you two finish the mango, yukhei lays back in the grass and puts his arms behind his head and you watch him, openly admiring his arms and chest and his profile, and when he sees you looking at him he smiles and makes a silly face to make you laugh

~a few minutes pass, you sitting beside him, propped up by your arms with your legs out in front of you, both of you just enjoying the peaceful and beautiful day

~then yukhei sits up beside you, his shoulder nudging against yours, and he leans his face teasingly close to yours at the very moment you look over at him

~he smiles cheekily and watches your cute shocked face for a minute, shamelessly letting his gaze linger on your lips

~but then he leans back again and you look back out to the water in another futile attempt to hide your smile

~”can i lay my head in your lap?” he asks suddenly

~he really just wants to be close to you all the time and he’s trying so hard not to come off too strong right after he confessed to you

~you smile at him and nod and you think about your daydreams from just yesterday… the ones about his hair… about his lips

~he situates himself so that the back of his head lays on your thighs and he’s looking up at you and you get so shy when he says “you’re beautiful”

~again you try to hide your face, this time holding your hands in front of yourself and smiling widely from embarrassment, butterflies playing around in your tummy

~yukhei’s hands come up to yours and he gently pulls them away from your face, resting one of your hands on his chest and holding it in his own and leading your other hand to his hair

~he closes his eyes, smiling softly as you run your hands through his hair

~it’s even softer and fluffier than you imagined and your heart soars when you see how happy he looks, laying in your lap while you play with his hair and massage his scalp

~you two sit like that for a while, unhurried, enjoying the intimacy with each other which you’ve both been thinking about before falling asleep for the past couple weeks

~and then yukhei slowly sits up and sits criss cross beside you and asks you to face him, so you do, sitting criss cross too

~his expression is still so peaceful and content, his pretty lips curved in a small smile and his big, sleepy eyes fondly looking into your own

~again, his gaze falls to your lips, and he watches them for a moment 

~and then he brings a hand up to your jaw, gently cupping your face, his thumb rubbing your cheek slowly and softly

~”can i kiss you?” he asks, his deep voice quiet and each word deliberate, and you can’t even get any words out to respond, you just nod and try not to breathe too fast

~he leans in now, and you watch breathlessly as his lips part every so slowly and then in a moment you’ve closed your eyes and his lips are on yours

~and it’s so so much better than you imagined

~his lips are soft and he tastes like mango and the moment his lips touched yours he let out a low hum that made your whole body flush from head to toe

~the kiss is relaxed and sweet, your lips moving slowly in tandem; it doesn’t last very long, but it’s perfect, and he lets out a little sigh when he pulls away and it makes you feel like you must be in heaven... you must have just kissed an angel

~his thought process is exactly the same 

~he leans his forehead against yours and whispers “i’ve been wanting to do that for a while,” and you laugh and say “me too”

~in your head, that same thought repeats over and over again

~this is home, you think as you press another chaste kiss against his lips, this really is home.

i hope you enjoyed this! it's quite long, im sorry, ahhhh! shoutout to my gorl ira for coming up with this concept with me!!! 💐☕️💫🌳🌊🍰 

[tumblunni]

“SO WHY DO U WANT 2 HUG THIS TRASH GRANDPA, BUNNI” post

Okay, i figured since, well, that one goddamn wifi event is That One Goddamn Wifi Event, I may as well make a short post about it so people who weren’t able to see it can understand how it fuckin Blew My Mind when I was a teenager and plunged me into the fandom hell for the most obscure unloved jerkass grandpa who may or may not even be the guy this vague tantalizing mystery plot point is even about, and AAAA

So yeah here we go, transcript of the event text (thanks, Bulbapedia!) and some general summary of the context of who da fuk dis Charon is, and hopefully maybe at least one more person shall now understand this tiny fandom for a tiny gremp!

~The Context Of Charon~

(skip all this if you just wanna get to the wifi event transcipt)

If you haven’t played DPPT and don’t plan to: The villain team of Sinnoh is Team Galactic, a bunch of silly guys in space costumes with a rad jazz theme tune and a surprising level of competance in a terrifying plan to erase the universe and replace all emotion with infinate silence. Also, interesting moral ambiguity cos most of them are either oblivious or outright good, just being manipulated by the team’s super scary badass leader Cyrus who’s led them to believe they’re going to ‘fix’ the world to end all sadness for everyone. This weird complexity behind goofy nonsense hair people is what got me hooked on them as my faves!

So who is Charon in particular? Diamond and Pearl got a third version called Platinum that fixed a bunch of glitches and unfinished graphics and expanded upon the rushed endgame, etc. It also (for some reason) added one single extra member to Team Galactic, as seen here on the second furthest from the right. Charon is a grumpy grandpa and he literally does nothing in the plot. Its really confusing why he was actually added, he only gets more than two lines of dialogue if you pursue a secret sidequest waaaaay in the postgame, and he still gets like.. SIX lines of dialogue and not even a boss fight. Poor dude barely exists in this game! So what’s weird is that this wifi event kinda contains more dialogue for him than he ever got in the main game, and it at least gives him a purpose for being here- to introduce the new transformations for Rotom that were added in this wifi event. But it just seems pretty badly handled cos he never even appears in the event and there’s a lot of fan debate that it isnt even meant to be him, blablabla. And he still doesn’t do anything UNLESS you get this wifi event, which is really unfair and probably contributes a lot to his unpopularity, okay sorry I’m starting to ramble...

Basically, all you need to know is that Charon is a grumpy grandpa who does literally nothing in the plot.

The Establishing Of The Grump Gramp This is... kinda necessary to know why this thing hit me so hard in the emotions? This is why I don’t think it would work as well if Mystery Wifi Event Flashback Person actually ISNT Charon. All we see of Charon in his VERY FEW non-optional dialogues is that he is vain, cynical, pompous, greedy and for some reason obsessed with talking like a complete tool. And he’s SO MUCH this that he doesn’t even have any loyalty to his fellow villains, he exists to be like.. The More. Everyone else is some degree of honorable dude doing what they do cos they believe in a good cause, Charon is that one teammate that’s too evil even for the rest of them. Or, like, at least too petty? He’s an eternally incompetant comic relief dumbass who never even has enough imagination to do anything genuinely evil, he’s somehow less dangerous than his morally ambiguous teammates! He’s just sitting here like ‘fuq yeh i luv bein evil cos i can swipe the pocket change outta dis vending machine’, then somehow it falls on him and shatters his old man spine. Meanwhile his boss is being all ‘I want to make a world of smiles!’ *collapses the universe into a black hole and literally summons poke-satan* So ANYWAY the relevant point is that you can see why he’s THE SINGLE MOST UNEXPECTED person to suddenly get a sympathetic backstory!

Some transcript of his tiny non-wifi-event dialogues for comparison of how much of an absolute prick this man be:

” It seems quite obvious to me, Charon, the genius even the boss recognizes.” "Humph. Saturn and even Cyrus fall to a mere child... Perhaps another option needs to be considered. One befitting the genius of Charon!" [This is basically his only dialogue in a normal game run, aside from expositioning a few things that were said by other people in the previous version.]

Postgame optional dungeon text:

“What do they see in Cyrus? Immature, overthinking buffoon. He goes through the trouble of assembling Team Galactic for what? Ultimately, he destroys his own creation for his ludicrous vision. It's no thanks to him that I have to struggle with the pieces." “The young can live with their dreams. I prefer to remain firmly in reality. And for that, money is paramount.” “ With this Magma Stone, I will awaken the legendary Heatran! I will control the volcano's eruptions to extort money by the millions! Fear me! “ [cue him being defeated offscreen in a cutscene by someone else] "...Uh, what are you saying? I know nothing! Extorting with Heatran? Merely the blathering of this harmless old man! All said in jest! Besides, among Team Galactic's Commanders, I was the most junior..." [Seriously, you don’t even get to see what Heatran even is! its just an optional scene to go back after he’s gone and catch the thing.]

So yeah he does literally nothing and all we know is that he’s a jerk and he betrays his evil team only to fail horribly at being his own villain also that he has a Rather Specific Speaking Pattern, which will come up later in linking him to that wifi event BUT ANYWAY literally the rest of the team walks away and leaves him to his fate cos he’s such a jerk literally Jupiter says he’s ‘not fun anymore’ literally a man dressed in a boulder costume bitchslaps him with a giant frog its like the biggest fuckin smackdown and the player didn’t even need to participate, he just self-destructed mid cutscene farewell two paragraphs of dialogue granddad, we will probably never remember you ever

B U T

~ The Transcipt Of The Fabled Wifi Event ~

Extra context: this was probably the worst handled of all the horribly handled wifi events. Makes sense at least, sinnoh was like the beta test for whether such a thing could actually be possible in this series. i’m glad they’re more accessable nowadays, but what sucks is that now we don’t seem to even get as many Actual Events, instead they’re just a plain gift of a pokemon via trade without a fun cutscene :( But yeah it was only accessable for a one month period when the game first released, and the item you got in the vent didnt have enough clues about where and how you were meant to use it in order to find the secret room, unless you already knew it was connected to Charon.

The item for the event is the Secret Key, which is somehow charmingly the least secret secret of all time

You take this to one random spot on a random wall in one of two separate Team Galactic HQs in this game, and the whole damn wall vanishes to reveal Charon’s Secret Lab/The Rotom Room

Here, you can turn Rotom into any of its new transformations. And then, completely optional, is a hidden backstory for this one terrible granddad! The notebook on the bottom desk explains how the transformations work, gameplay-wise, and also ‘hey this secret lab belongs to me specifically, Charon’ The notebook up to the top right on top of the box which you might not have noticed, and might have assumed would just contain more boring tutorials? Hoo boy dude, 99% OF THE EVENT DIALOGUE is in that thing! And you’d think a second hand flashback entirely through longwinded narration would be terrible but man somehow it really just worked for me. RIP my soul, cause of death: this

SO LETS GET GOING TO THE MEAT OF THIS POST, MY FRIEND

If you don’t feel like scrolling thru this textdump, I’d reccommend Chuggaaconroy’s excellent lets play of platinum, where he read out the journal here. (16:25, talks about the various wifi event failures first.) Or if you watch this earlier episode (17:15) you can see the whole mini-dungeon where you can catch Rotom in the first place, which isn’t necessary to understand all this but its still super cool. If you do feel like scrolling, here have the appropriate music, or the appropriate music: anime orchestrated version

+++

"It's an old notebook. There's no telling how old it is."

Our encounter was a sudden one. It was when I found my toy robot, one that I had earlier misplaced. At that instant, a Pokémon startlingly emerged from the lawn mower's motor! Clutching my robot, I stared, transfixed by the peculiar Pokémon.

The Pokémon hovered in the air, held aloft by a power unseen. As if curious and unafraid of my presence, it floated toward me. Crackling sounds accompanied it, as if from static electricity in the air. Remarkably, it seemed the Pokémon was the source of this power! In alarm, I flinched, certain that my face would be subjected to a shock. Much to my surprise, the Pokémon seemed to favor me with a smile.

Finally, I came to realize that the Pokémon only wished to be friends. I have decided to name this most wondrous Pokémon 'Rotom.' Simple though it may be, Rotom emerged to me from the motor of a lawn mower. Motor and Rotom... Surely the link is obvious?

Rotom is a Pokémon that is simply sensational. The fact that it can turn invisible is simply the beginning. What makes Rotom unique is its ability to enter and operate machinery!

Rotom and I became fast friends. We were perpetual companions. The electricity from its body forbade contact, however. We could not touch, let alone hug or hold hands, but we cared not. For we were bonded on a much deeper, incorporeal level.

A feeling of mischief got the better of me one day. Seeing Rotom hovering, I decided to startle it--normally I would not. Perhaps frightened, Rotom discharged power beyond its usual range. I fell, stunned, into the arms of unconsciousness...

When I came to, to my horror I realized that Rotom had disappeared. I searched high and low for my friend in dismay and desperation. 'Don't chastise yourself. The fault is mine. No harm done. Let us play as we always have.' Though my words poured out, my friend could not be found to hear them...

My search for Rotom carried me far from home. It was in the town's rubbish heap that I again found my old toy robot. Curiously, our eyes met, then the robot waved a hand as if in greeting. I knew then that I had found my lost friend. I ran to it and hugged Rotom tight, talking on and on.

The robot's eyes lit up happily as I held it. I'm certain that, within it, Rotom was emitting lots of electricity. Somehow, I felt I could understand Rotom's thoughts better than before. Also, I realized that we would remain friends throughout our lives...

"The notebook ends with this page..."

+++

+++

And this is his one and only trading card, and the biggest canon confirmation that he was indeed intended to be the mysterious author of Eighteen Pages Of How Much I Love To Hug My Friend Don’t tell me he doesn’t become INFINATELY more interesting with this knowledge!

Fuckin hell I would give my left foot to see an expanded plot upon this man’s secret good side seriously HOLY SHIT would you ever have imagined he cared about anyone, let alone THIS MUCH? Just sorry seriously i could talk for hours about this aaa dear god...

Oh and another minor transcript, you can get some dialogue from Rowan the first time you transform Rotom into one of its new forms. Its kinda interesting cos it gives some more Vague Potential Lore that inspires a cool headcanon that him and Charon might have known each other in the past? Cos he seems to know at least some details of that hidden journal...

"A Pokémon that slips into electric appliances, you say... Hmm... That is somewhat off from what I've heard about it. Hmm... This is what I've heard. Long ago, there was a Pokémon that merged with a toy robot. Should that Pokémon be recognized as a new species or not... Debates over the issue were about to start when they were rendered moot. The very topic of discussion--the Pokémon-infused robot--disappeared..."

Also that leads into another possible less-heartwarming interpretation of the whole thing that is actually EQUALLY interesting and ALSO makes Charon way more deep as a character! The idea that maybe this heartwarming thing is completely in the past, and nowadays he actually is 100% a horrible prick. Cos I mean, the one rotom you can find in the game is in that mysterious abandoned fancy old house, which is pretty heavily implied to be the notebook-writer’s childhood home where they met it. You can find a fragmented extra notebook page which seems to be the day before the start of the entries you can read in Charon’s lab. It says "Som...hing so pecu...r shou... make off ...ith the mot..." , which was confirmed to be "Something so peculiar should make off with the motor..."  aaaaaallll these years later in an episode of Pokemon Generations. So there’s the interpretation that maybe this rotom you can catch is the same one described in the journal, which makes you wonder why its all alone here if Charon supposedly cared about his friend so much. Perhaps he really was a decent guy once, but when he grew up to be such an evil prick he abandoned his pokemon? or maybe it saw what he became, and ran away? or maybe some other sort of mysterious thing happened to cause them to become separated? There’s so many potential interpretations of this whole thing, aaaa!! Why was such a tantalizing plot point wasted on a super hidden wifi!!!

But of course I like the version where trash gramp has one shred of redeemability in his soul and then hypothetically you could have a sidequest to reunite him with his tiny tangerine friend and convince him of the error of his ways and then EVERYONE CAN HUGS AGAIN

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA

srsly its got the power to make me never stop thinking about this damn wifi event for all these fuckin years giv grandpa justice, dammit

[eyez-ff-blog]

○○ eyez | thirty-five

June 24, 2017 – New York City

Beija breathed out slowly as she finished the run she had on her treadmill. She glanced down at her watch before she glanced up at the burly man sitting nearby in the small gym that resided in the Gramercy Park Hotel. She grabbed her iPhone as her workout playlist played within her earbuds, sighing softly before she moved over to the elliptical machine and began her reps there. She found herself zoning out once more as Beyoncé’s “Ghost Interlude/Haunted” switched into Kanye West’s “Black Skinhead.” She pushed harder once the beat seemed to drum into her ears. Her body was finally working with her, and ever since Beija had been in a more focused mind state. There were still days that she felt that sense of guilt and unworthiness, but Beija had gained a sense of clarity that would stay with her even throughout such a stressful time—if she didn’t feel like she earned Jermaine and the life that came with him, now was the time to earn it. Now was as good of a time as any to prove to herself that she was more than worthy than to become Mrs. Jermaine Cole.

When Jermaine finally revealed to those who needed to know of the situation that had been presented, it seemed that everyone had buckled down on making sure that no one else would be affected by this mystery admirer that had gotten way too close for comfort. Beija was more exhausted by the situation than she was afraid—the fact that they had been near her home freaked her out a bit but at this point she had been through so much that everything else now just felt like an annoyance. She wanted peace in her life and she was unsure that it’d ever be that way for a long time. So instead, she had to find ways to really just roll with the punches, or become the punches themselves. She would have to find a way to fight back if it got to that point.

But for now, Beija’s worries were in only three places—Janiya, work, and this wedding that up until recently was placed on a planning pause. But now that Beija seemed to be a bit more balanced she was back on the ball somewhat, and she refused to let herself falter again. Her days now consisted of making sure she had her duties on point but also to make sure she had time for herself and to balance her mind. She had completely changed her schedule, and after much reluctance she hired a traveling nanny to help her with Janiya when Beija had to switch occupational and life hats. Beija had even changed her diet to slim herself down to her previous body weight; she craved the pasta, rice and sweets that she had cut out, but with her combined fitness routine she could already see results.

After her run and elliptical she had been taking laps in the pool, then doing weight training along with some pilates to keep her body strong. She selected times of the day that she turned her phone off and sat in silence to meditate and reflect on her day. She picked times to let out her frustrations or cry. She was forcing herself to feel and live in the emotions as they came, and as difficult as it served it be at times, she knew it was helping her in the end. She needed to be mentally on it or she wouldn’t survive anything else that was thrown at her.

Once she got off the elliptical machine, she wiped the sweat from her forehead before she glanced over at the large man. “Jesse, I’m ready to go to the pool now,” She notified.

“Yes, Ms. Demarco,” Jesse was considered one of the best in the business—he had worked with some of the industry’s brightest stars, and he was known to be thorough and professional in every way possible. He was near 7 feet in height and over 200 pounds of solid man, with fair light skin and big blue eyes that were seemingly deeper than any ocean the world possessed. With a head full of blonde hair and a sleek yet stern athletic build, he looked like he was the star of someone’s NFL roster. “Are we getting breakfast before we head to the venue?” He asked.

“Yes, but I’ll have to go back to the room first—I hope Niya isn’t giving Gina too much trouble,” Beija sighed softly before she took her phone from her exercise bag, slinging it over her shoulder before the two left the room. She dialed the number to her nanny before she pressed her phone to her ear.

After some rings, she heard some soft cooing in the background. “Hi, Beija. Everything okay?” Gina’s voice was an almost sulty simmer, and with her Spanish accent there was no mistaking her heritage.

“Yeah, I just wanted to check in. I’m heading to do my laps then I’ll be back up there to shower and then I’ll have to head out to the venue for the showcase tonight. Is Niya doing okay? Do you need anything before I go?” Beija pushed the button to beckon the elevator once she and Jesse got to them, and she heard her name being called. She looked over her shoulder to see some children, dressed in what looked to be Dreamville gear. She gave a gracious smile and a wave before she and Jesse stepped onto the elevator.

“Oh, well no I don’t think so; I fed her and burped her not too long ago so she might be off to sleep again,” Gina explained, and Beija nodded as she leaned against the elevator wall.

Jesse pressed the button to the appropriate floor and Beija crossed one leg over the other as she stood, glancing down at her freshly manicured nails. “Good. Well I’ll be there soon, I just need to get my laps in,” She said, and the two bid farewell before hanging up the phone.

“I looked up a good breakfast spot near the hotel—I heard they have a nice selection of food and it won’t interfere with your diet,” Jesse notified.

“Oh, wonderful! If they need to reserve go ahead and do that while I’m in the pool,” Beija said as they stepped out onto the floor they stopped upon.

After Beija took her laps in the pool, she returned to the suite Jermaine had booked for them to stay in while they were in the city. She got a shower in before she got dressed, did her hair and make-up, and touched base with Gina to make sure all was well before she left. Before long, she and Jesse were back in the streets, first heading off to get something to eat. Beija felt weird about having this large white man following her around, and even weirder now that the paparazzi were taking photos of her. Even when she was inside the restaurant she could hear some clicks, or feel her phone vibrate as she was notified of Instagram candid photos that she had been tagged in. It was something she just had to get used to.

After getting her breakfast in, she headed off towards the venue where Twisted Elegance would finally be introduced to the world—not only that, the rest of Dreamville were actually going to perform as well for the night. It was a lot of firsts for everyone, including Jermaine, who would be performing some of the most recent album’s songs for the very first time. Although Beija wasn’t doing much but doing an introductory speech, she felt every inch of the performance jitters.

She entered the venue with her bag slung on her shoulder, and she smiled as she heard the band slowly tuning their instruments and practicing. “Hey guys!” She waved excitedly as she made her way over to the stage.

“Is that my girl Beija? Oh shit, I haven’t seen you in so long!” Ron Gilmore was who Beija affectionately called her ‘King of the Piano,’ and he was a constant fixture in Jermaine’s band when he went out on tour. Despite him being raised and trained within the Jazz genre, he and J had a love and an ear for music that made Ron essential to not only the live shows, but some of Beija’s favorite tracks that Jermaine had made over the years.

The two hugged quickly as he sat back down at his keyboard, playing a bit with the keys. “I see y’all hard at work. The man hasn’t been annoying y’all too bad, huh?” Beija placed a hand on her hip as she spoke, and he shook his head.

“You know he has—been in work mode all day. Hopefully he’ll relax by the time the show starts,” Ron chuckled a bit.

“I hear y’all talking shit you know,” Beija looked to her right to see Jermaine standing in the open space that would soon have people filling it to the brim. She smiled a bit before he shook his head, approaching her before he helped her off stage. He leaned down and kissed her softly before he rubbed his hand over her hair briefly, dodging her incoming hand. “Niya’s still at the hotel, right? She’s good?” He asked.

“Yes, she’s fine. She’s with Gina,” Beija replied, and he nodded.

“And where’s Kevin?” J’s next question was towards Jesse next.

“He just texted me—he’s at the room with them,” Jesse replied, referring to the other bodyguard that J had hired.

“Good,” J mumbled before he glanced down at Beija again. “You memorized your speech and everything, right? I don’t want you up there getting nervous,” He said with a small smile, his hands casually cupping at her behind as he spoke to her.

Beija sucked her teeth before she swatted at his hands, letting out a small giggle. “Yes, I remember! Don’t even worry about that—you just make sure everything is right with your set,” She said before she ran her hands down his arm.

“Oh, it’s the Mrs.!” She looked back and saw Zeus walk into the immediate area, his shades rested on top of his head. She pulled away from J before giving him a brief hug. “How’s it going, y’all?” He asked before giving J a brief dap.

“Chaos, man. Just how I like it,” J said sarcastically before laughing slightly. “Where’s Whit?” He asked.

“She’ll be here in a minute. She had to make a stop for her ‘voice potion.’ You know how that go,” Z notified, and Beija let out a small groan.

“I can already smell the mint,” Beija laughed softly. Whitney had a special tea she made almost all the time to make sure that her voice stayed in top shape. A ‘voice potion’ was what everyone else called it because it smelled so strong.

The day for Beija was almost nostalgic but with a key difference; instead of running errands however, Beija seemed to be trying to make sure everything sounded and looked aesthetically pleasing. It was the first show she had been to in a while, and she felt as if she had to make time to help with whatever she could.

As the day wound down, she was confined to the backstage area while the venue filled with fans, press, bloggers and radio personalities alike. She got the last of her make-up done when she heard the knock o the door. “Come in,” She called.

“Hey sis,” She heard Ib’s voice, and she smiled as she looked back at him as he entered the room. “Everyone’s pretty much ready, so we’re just waiting on the place to fill up and the band to get itself all the way together. You ready for your debut?” He joked.

“No. Not at all,” She laughed a bit before she stood up, turning to face Ibrahim as she dusted her hands against the side of her denim shorts. Paired with the label branded t-shirt and black Doc Martin boots, she gave off a grungy street look. Her hair was pinned into a messy top bun, and she had redone her make-up to give off her signature ‘natural’ look. “How do I look?” She asked.

“You look great and ready,” Ib chuckled before he slid his hands into his pocket. “But I also wanted to talk to you,” He said.

“Yeah?” She raised her eyebrow slightly.

“I just wanted to congratulate you,” He began, and she tilted her head before she nodded slightly. “You’ve been working hard as hell ever since I hired you. It’s been a long road and I’ve watched you grow as my employee and as my friend. I really do see you like family, you know? Like a little sister,” Ib nodded as he took a pause. “And it’s been so dope to watch the woman you’ve become. I’m so proud of you,” He said.

“Wow, Ib...I ain’t heard you talk like this in a minute. Thank you, though,” Beija laughed softly. “It’s because of you that I’m even here...despite what drama I deal with, this has all been a dream come true. I could never repay you,” She said.

“No need. Seeing you doing what you love is worth it. But tomorrow, I want you and J to meet up with me. We can go eat and talk about your promotion,” He wiggled his eyebrows with a small smirk. “Director of Label Marketing...how does that sound, huh?”

“What?!” Beija let out a scream before she jumped into Ibrahim’s arms, laughing as the two hugged tightly. “Thank you, thank you! I—that’s incredible!” She exclaimed.

“Yeah, it is! This would make you a part of the executive board we’re trying to put together. I’m tryna expand and I think you’re vital. You’d still be able to do your job but now you’d be able to hire A&Rs to lift the load for you and me. There’s so much more we gotta speak on tomorrow though,” He explained.

“I’m so...boy, if you make me cry when I just put on this make-up!” Beija laughed as she smacked Ib’s arm gently. “But seriously, thank you so much. I can’t wait to get the ball rolling,” She smiled.

“I can’t wait either. You earned it, though. But good luck tonight, mama. You got this,” Ib smiled before gently patting her shoulder, leaving Beija alone in the room.

She blew out a wad of air before she stared up at the ceiling, smiling brightly as she clasped her hands together. “Thank you. Thank you,” She whispered.

---

The crowd seemed to be alive with people—throughout the venue there was music playing from the DJ booth that was dressed in the sheet that brandished the label’s name. Fans were dressed in their best, whether it be their casual concert going attire or in label merchandise. Press officials, bloggers and other professionals were spotted throughout the crowd in ‘VIP’ areas, their phones and other devices on the ready for jotting down information.

Backstage, everyone seemed to be ready to hit the stage. The group was now crowded together in the main common area, taking each other’s hands before they went through their pre-show prayer. Afterwards, Beija’s time was set—it was time for her to introduce the show.

She walked out onto the stage and the crowd seemed to rouse up in excitement. She waved a bit before she took the microphone that was passed to her by one of the band members. “So how y’all doing tonight?” She asked, and a couple of people clapped and whistled.

“Marry me, Beija!” Someone in the crowd screamed.

“Uh, I’ll take a rain check,” She laughed softly. “Love you though! But tonight, I’m happy to introduce our new group to you guys—we’ve been working hard with these two and they’re so excited to be playing their music for you. We got so excited about it we just decided to make it a big ass concert, so! I hope you’re all ready for the family,” The audience roared in approval before she furrowed her eyebrows. “Okay, that was weak as fuck—are you ready for Dreamville or nah?!” She yelled, and the room seemed to almost shake from the enthusiastic response. “Let’s get this goin’, then!”

The show seemed to go off without a hitch—Cody and Dame had opened the show, with Courtney seamlessly moving the show into a bit more of a subdued vibe. Then Bas kept up the subtlety before hyping up the crowd once more, passing the baton to Jermaine next. The crowd was more than excited to get a first live taste of some of Eyez’s material. He ended his set with ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ that made a perfect transition to introduce Twisted Elegance, considering that Zeus helped with the production. Zeus and Whitney’s set seemed to capture the crowd just as everyone had hoped; with the funky and unique production from Zeus combined with Whit’s smooth vocals, they seemed to be a hit already. The show as a whole was amazing, and Beija was proud to see all of her friends in their element. It all came together the way she had dreamed.

“And we’re done! Hallelujah,” The crew clapped once everyone had returned backstage after their closing bow to the crowd. Beija was bombarded with her fiancé’s warm embrace, and she laughed as she shook her head.

“You’re sweaty,” She complained, laughing as Jermaine kissed the side of her face. “Y’all were amazing! Done made me lose my voice screaming,” She chuckled as she watched Cody hug a female she had seen him come in with earlier. She had to assume that she was his companion of some sort.

“That crowd was fucking...man,” Zeus seemed to be the most excited out of everyone, and it was more than justified. “Gave me so much energy—and baby,” He dragged out his speech, his Southern accent dripping from his tone as he wrapped his arms around Whitney’s waist. “You were amazing! I told you that everything was gonna be fine,” He said.

“Oh yeah! Y’all were dope as fuck,” Dame nodded as he uncapped his water bottle. “Where’s Courtney, though? Showing out headass—...” He grabbed her by the shoulders and playfully shook her as she laughed. “I don’t wanna hear nobody say they nervous no more!” He laughed as he hugged her.

Beija let out a small laugh before she looked up at Jermaine, running a hand over his hair. “You did so great, baby...I loved it,” She said, and he smiled a bit as he nodded.

“Oh yeah? You just loved me doing Déjà Vu live, huh?” He teased, and she chuckled as he leaned in and kissed the side of her face.

“That might or might not have been my favorite part,” She smiled as she arched her brow gently, tugging slightly on his beard. “There’s something about that song, my good man. Something about it,” She shrugged.

“Either you’re a narcissist or you just get all wet when I get a little cocky,” He spoke into her ear teasingly, and she rolled her eyes before playfully mushing his head.

After going out to eat with the rest of the label to celebrate the successful show, the couple headed back to the hotel and relieved Gina of her duties for the night. While Jermaine took his shower, Beija removed her make-up and cleansed her face before going to check on Janiya, who was wiggling about in her crib.

“You sure are a busy body,” She said as she picked Janiya up and sat down with the baby in her arms. “Guess what? Mommy got a promotion,” Beija revealed to her child, and even though she knew the girl couldn’t respond or even comprehend what that meant, she wanted to tell her anyway. “Isn’t that cool? I’ll be making more money so I can take care of you. You are one lucky kid you know,” She chuckled. “And then—man, you totally missed it, but Daddy did a show tonight. Your auntie and uncles did too, and it was amazing. I can’t wait until you’re old enough to see a show,” Beija laughed as Niya snuggled against her body, her eyes staring up at the woman. “I know that you probably don’t even understand a word I’m sayin’, but I want you to know that mommy loves you. I have always loved you; I was just scared when you got here. Scared and sad that you were in danger and I couldn’t protect you. I felt like I failed you,” She mumbled, twisting her lips to the side as she let out a sigh. “But you know what? You’re here because you’re supposed to be. You’re a Cole...you’re a Demarco, too. You were never meant to give up. You fought to live because you got that fight in you,” B smiled brightly, even as her eyes brimmed with tears. “And as long as you fight, you give mommy a reason to fight. Daddy too. Just know that we’ll always fight for you, babygirl,” She sighed as she closed her eyes, and for the first time in a long time, she released tears of joy and gratitude. It finally felt as if she was worthy of the gift she had been given, and she would be forever thankful for it.

[savetopnow]

2018-03-10 19 MUSIC now

MUSIC

Brooklyn Vegan

What's going on Saturday?

tours announced: Soccer Mommy, Ravyn Lenae, Wet, The Slackers, more

Neil Innes (Bonzo Dog Band, Rutles) at Beatles 'The Fest,' playing NYC-area shows

Lifetime, Minor Threat & Bouncing Souls members form Beach Rats

Rock Werchter 2018 lineup (Gorillaz, QOTSA, Jack White, Arctic Monkeys, more)

Consquence of Sound

CoS Readers’ Poll: What’s Your Favorite David Bowie Album?

Film Review: Thoroughbreds Captures the Lifestyles of the Rich and Amoral

Denis Villeneuve says his Dune adaptation will be “two films, maybe more”

Dr. Dog are leisurely “Buzzing in the Light” on new song: Stream

Norm Macdonald to host late-night talk show for Netflix

Fact Magazine

Watch a short film exploring Shibuya’s dance music history

Regis releases Play Neutral mixtape on Hospital Productions

Trippie Redd – Confessions

Grouper announces new album Grid Of Points

Wave is a wearable MIDI ring controller for making music with gestures

Fluxblog

Hopes Or Holidays

An Emotional Sexual Bender

Straight To Your Face

The Last Year Has Been Kinda Rough

Radion Beams Casting Vibrant Views

Idolator

The Drop: Your Guide To New Music Friday Featuring Liv Dawson & Wet

Maluma Goes On A Sexy Crime Spree In His “El Préstamo” Video

Lily Allen Announces ‘No Shame’ Release Date; Shares Two New Promo Tracks

FLETCHER’s “I Believe You” Is Timely And Anthemic

Pentatonix Mash Up “New Rules” & “Are You That Somebody” In A Hot Cover

Listen to This

HXXS - SEPPUKU [Electronic] (2017)

Claire Laffut - Vérité [indie/pop] (2018)

Hot Dad - I Like Love [Funk/Rock] (2018)

Ginger Root -- Call It Home [Alternative Pop] (2018)

Friendship Commanders - Tuxedo Means Wolf [Sludge/Punk] (2016) Nashville, TN

Popjustice

New Music Friday: Vera Blue’s Lady Powers are still strong

New Music Friday: When it’s time to put Andrew WK at the top of the playlist it’s time to put Andrew WK at the top of the playlist hard

Important service announcement for anybody intending to travel on today’s M-Train

So obviously the latest CHVRCHES track is fairly incredible

Troye Sivan interview: “I feel more fully-realised as a person”

Reddit Music

Helmet - Unsung [Alternative Rock/Noise Rock/Alternative Metal]

Rainbow - Rainbow Eyes [Rock]

Prisoner - All in all, I had a good life [psychodelic lofi jazz rock hip hop instrumental] With psychodelic space video

Ramses Shaffy - Sammy [Dutch topsongs]1966

Dance Gavin Dance - Man Of The Year [Post-Hardcore]

Rolling Stone

Estate-Approved Whitney Houston Doc Boasts Unreleased Recordings

See Dan Deacon in Talking Heads-Inspired Ed Schrader's Music Beat Video

Review: Rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine Takes Dodgy Stage Dive Into Fame on 'Day 69'

10 New Albums to Stream Now: Logic, David Byrne and More Rolling Stone Editors' Picks

Watch Judas Priest Unleash Mushroom Clouds, Snakes in 'Spectre' Video

Slipped Disc

Barenboim and Ashkenazy: Feel the tension

Jurowski to step down at London Philharmonic

A woman in the right place at the wrong time

Boston ties down a viola

Paul Simon will take a classical sextet on his farewell tour

Spotify Blog

Spotify Kicks off Women’s History Month with the Launch of ‘Amplify,’ a New Hub Spotlighting Causes & Community Voices

Spotify’s Electrifying Concert Series “RapCaviar Live” Returns with a New Tour Lineup featuring Migos, 2 Chainz, Tory Lanez, DJ Mustard, Lil Pump, and more

When It Comes to Sex, The Weeknd Delivers as Spotify’s Sexiest Artist This Valentine’s Day

Spotify Launches New Songwriter Credits Feature

Spotify Launches Good As Hell Podcast in Partnership with Refinery29, Hosted by Lizzo

We Are the Music Makers

Question regarding mixing console output level. Is Zed-6 to hot for a Tascam DR-40? (+4dbu)

Which streaming services pay artists the most?

Just realized a song I wrote has a very similar melody to a pre existing song.

/r/AudioVideoCollab - subreddit for collaboration!

Neural Drum Machine: an in-browser drum machine sequencer where you create a seed and a neural network expands it to a full, unique loop.