#i have the WORST LUCK with electronics and I HATE it. nothing ever works for me how it should :(

[hollowsart]

Guess whose switch isn't charging and isn't turning on anymore 💕💔💕

[wu-sisyphus-gang]

Motion Sickness Chapter 56

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Peach led the way towards the bunker. It looked mostly the same as the one built near Mistral. Dented in places from the Grimm, a sign that there was nobody home. Merlot wasn't here at least at first inspection.

The front entrance was just sitting open, though. It wasn't torn into like I would have done. It seemed from an open fuse box that somebody had wired their way inside.

They had to know about electronics much more than I did to do something like that. And it wasn't likely that Merlot would have to wire his way into his own facilities. Unlikely but not impossible. Especially if he hadn't visited in a while.

A harsh wind howled around us. It was quickly whipping up into a blizzard. I pulled my pipe out and smoked it. I struggled to get my lighter to work and I sniffled against the cold.

"This is it. But it wasn't open the last time I was here," Peach said. "Well not here here but near enough to see it."

"Stay here Peach. Be on your guard," I returned. "I'm not sure what we'll find inside. Merlot is rather famous for his experiments on the Grimm."

"On the Grimm? Why?"

"Why indeed. I suspect that he likes it but I haven't had the chance to talk to him about it. Maybe that changes today."

I rather doubted it but it was always possible that he was really here. Somebody had wired that door open.

Neo took a step forward and together we walked into the laboratory. Some Grimm had made their way inside and we collapsed on them easily. I pulled my shorter longsword and Neo used her stiletto. I cut down a creeper and paced my way over a hexagonal tiled floor. The lights were on unlike the last place we'd been to so I didn't need to use my soul to cast light on the place.  

A Beowulf came upon me and I easily sliced it and it disintegrated into ash and the usual Grimm goo. My heavy boot falls rang out against the tile. Even Neo's heels disturbed the sound of the place with little clacks. It was as somber as a crypt inside.

I stomped on a Creeper. I easily crushed the small monster under my heavy boot. They'd gotten inside and had started to tear the place up a little. Some of the glass tubes were broken and frayed wires sparked.

I felt a warning in my soul. My sixth sense called out to me.

"Someone is here. Or was here very recently," I murmured to Neo. There were giant tubes and inside them were Creepers. They were frozen in a strange blue fluid. It wasn't glowing from within like the experiments in Mistral had been, however.

It was incredibly macabre, even these monsters in the tubes rather than the malformed 'human' Grimm of Mistral. The chamber we were currently in was tall and triangular. But it went on past these white and blue suspension pods and deeper inside. Large electrical lights were on above us. They must be dust run, this far from civilization.

The laboratory had to be totally independent of the rest of Atlas and Solitas.

A creeper oozed from the blue liquid from one of the recently broken pods. It was blue instead of white but only in places. The transformation was splotchy and incomplete unlike the green ones we'd run into near Mistral.

It let out a groaning noise and crawled toward me and I put my sword down through it and into the hexagonal tiles. The ground sparked beneath where I sliced it up after the Grimm dissolved into goo and died.

A voice was coming from further in. A low male voice from the baritone of it.

"Come on. Let's see who's up ahead."

As I walked I sliced apart the tubes we came across with Creepers in them. They disgusted me. Perhaps I saw a bit of the experiment that had created me in these. It made my blood boil with hatred. Not just for the Grimm and their ilk but also for Merlot. And for whoever was making noise up ahead.

It also, and I realized that it probably wasn't healthy, made me hate myself.

I didn't like me. That had been true before I learned the kind of monster I really was. I wasn't my biggest fan. I hated what I had to do to get by.

Even before I killed Ren and Nora I hadn't been fond of me. I'd gotten what I deserved more often than I had bad luck. I was disgusted with myself. At Beacon, I hated my weakness. I think that was when it really started.

When Ruby loved me I couldn't believe it. How could she? How dare she, an angel like her, love a monster like me. How could she do that to me? It was, in a self detrimental way, incredibly cruel of her to care about me so. Even before I knew what I was I had been like that. I loathed myself and it fucking showed sometimes.

But then again smoking wasn't healthy and I was doing that. I was also hell bent on this path of revenge. Had been bent on revenge for a long time now, between Cinder and Merlot. I probably just figured something else would kill me long before smoking did. My lifestyle plus the enemies I had made ensured that I was probably going to die young. Salem sort of sealed that deal for me, too, by being an immortal goddess.

My self hatred was there. It was present even in the things that I loved and in the relationships I formed with the people who loved me.

Then I started killing people. I became good at it too. I hated me for that even more than ever. I hated hiding it from Ruby when I killed Eminence and her Seifer.

Now that I knew that I had been right to hate me all along though… now that I knew I really truly was a monster… Now that I was doomed to die fighting with a goddess in my brain after she made me kill my team I just had all the more reason to hate myself.

If before I didn't like me, then of late I despised myself.

I tortured people now. I hurt them because I could and they… they couldn't stop me. I'd chosen blood and violence and when Wutai burned I'd thought about finishing the job just because I could and they couldn't stop me.

I wanted to kill Raven Branwen. She'd never done anything to me personally. Except through Vernal she'd never done me wrong but I wanted her dead all the same. Still, I wanted her dead. She'd only narrowly escaped me and I hungred for her blood as much as I did any of the others just because I could. I knew it was wrong.

I wanted to destroy Cinder Fall. I wanted to eviscerate her for all that she had done. For what she did to me personally when she took Pyrrha from me. Whatever could have been, whatever had been supposed to be, it was no more because of her. She took that from me. I was robbed.

Her minions like Emerald and Mercury would have to go too. That went without saying but they weren't at the top of my list of people to nix. If I ran across them and they got got, so be it. But I wasn't hunting them like I was the others.

Tyrian I had killed for so much as looking at Ruby wrong. The wounds he'd left on my body was meaningless beside what he had wanted to do to her. He tried to take her from me and bring her to Mother. He had to die for that. He did die for that, whether he himself knew that before the end was irrelevant.

Ren and Nora wouldn't want this for me. Pyrrha wouldn't have wanted this for me. She wouldn't have wanted me to seek my revenge against Cinder either but damn it, I wanted that too.

I'd chosen blood over friendship in my heart a long, long time ago. Especially relative to how old I was. One year old and I was committed to revenge.

Ruby's love had been too much for my Grimm blackened heart to bear. In my depths I wanted the boot and the sword. I wanted it.

Mother needed to go too. I wasn't sure how yet. I wasn't sure when but she'd suffer by my hand. As much as she was capable of suffering. However much that was she would experience it. I was going to cut her into pieces.

She had her fingers in my brain. It made me want to slam my head into the wall over and over. There was nothing I could do about it. Her claws were in me. Nothing could keep me safe from her. I was born doomed to go through this.

My cursed father Merlot who even now I hunted would also know my spirit. He would know what it meant to bring a monster into this world. He would know what he had truly wrought. How dare he? How could he?

It was all their fault and I hated them as much as I hated myself. I was a sword. I was meant for this vendetta. My power which allowed me to grow stronger with each beat of my hatred would allow me to strike them down.

We grew closer to the voice. A low aristocratic murmur. It was distant in this place and echoing beside our footfalls. We would be upon the source at any moment.

I suspected it wasn't Merlot but it could be. It could be… and then I'd give him to Neo. Or worse or something, anything worse. I'd split his limbs. I'd tear his eyes from his skull. I'd-I'd… I was working myself up into a tizzy.

I exhaled lowly and slowed my beating heart. It wouldn't do me any good to get jumpy. I breathed in and out, nice and deep as we crept up on our target.

This hall contained suspended Beowulfs now. I continued to spear them. I refused to be cornered by these monsters should the worst come to pass. Whatever purpose my father had intended the blue fluid to have on them was rendered utterly meaningless. Just as I would one day rend his heart.

I moved around a corner, and out a blast door. I came out into a huge open room sword and shield at the ready. I gazed up over a series of computers up at a man in a deep navy blue suit trimmed in yellow. He was speaking into a scroll and abruptly stopped at my presence.

He tapped a few buttons on one of the computers and a shimmering barrier appeared between us. Sealing me and Neo into the cavernous room and himself in the smaller control room.

"And who are you?" His voice boomed into speakers that surrounded me.

"Are you Merlot?" I demanded.

He laughed. "No, I'm not mad Merlot. Now what's your name?"

"I'm Jaune Arc," I announced.

"You… you're Merlot's creation. You're Salem's son!"

I glowered through the barrier at him. "I gave you my name. What's yours?"

"You have… you have the relic of knowledge! I thought your sisters would reclaim it."

"You know my sisters?" I demanded.

"My boy," he drawled. "I created your sisters. In my own laboratory. I suppose if Merlot is your 'father' then I am your 'step-father.'"

I stared at him. "Your name."

"I don't see the point in giving my name to a failure . In fact, I don't see much point in continuing this conversation. I will be taking that relic, however."

"Not from in there, you're not." I glared and turned my semblance on. "Come fight me."

"Oh," he mocked with a lazy yawn. "Shiny." He started tapping away at one of the control panels before him.

"Neo, do you think you can teleport in there and shut this barrier down."

She looked at it and shook her head.

I guess there needed to be a little bit of open space for her to move through and that shimmering barrier allowed her none. Some semblances had rules like that. Like mine had plenty of laws. Mine was even defined by its rules.

A gate began to open up in the floor in a spiraling fashion. I hadn't really taken stock of it but it was earth beneath my boots rather than the hard hexagonal tiles that made up the rest of the facility.

From the pit a giant Deathstalker emerged. It was slightly splotched blue like so many of my wretched father's other wretched specimens in this place.

It was enormous, at least as big as the one in initiation, if not a little bigger. It lowered its brightly colored stinger at me and I raised my shield and sword. It slammed it's stinger forward but I met it with the cold hard strength only my semblance could provide. I didn't budge. Back in initiation I'd been pushed back by that Deathstalker's claws but I was so much unbelievably stronger now than then.

I slashed out from behind my shield at the stinger where it met the rest of the white, blue, and black tail.

It screeched at me as I bit deep into its vulnerable flesh and it pulled back. It came at me with its claws but Neo and I vanished with our speed. She backflipped over it, picking at it's exposed eyes as I slid at it hard and sliced at its mouth.

"Neo cut the tail!" She landed next to me and I saw her nod. The tail was now hanging by a twist of flesh and little else. It was vulnerable there. I doubted we'd hammer the stinger into its own head, probably kill it some other way.

I dashed forward and I met its claws. I held it steady while Neo flipped over it and cut its tail off. It screeched again and the Deathstalker reared back.

I cut at its claws where they met dark flesh and the blueish pincers retreated from me. It then charged me and slammed my body against one of the grey walls. I pushed back against it with a heavy boot.

The tail came around and smashed me in the chest, knocking me to the ground. I picked myself back up and met the pincers again with my shield. I slashed around it, trying for the eyes and mouth but it must have seen that trick before because it held me far away with the pincers.

Like an oversized lobster. I tried again to take off one of the pincers. I bit deep into the black flesh between blue and white flesh and it flailed pressing against me.

Neo flipped into place again and stabbed it in one of its eyes. It roared with rage, the mouth parts frothed with spittle and I felt nothing but disgust for it.  

This thing was just reminding me of better times with my friends. Not that I had anything against Neo, in fact I probably had the least against Neo out of anybody alive on the planet. She just wasn't a good replacement for my teammates and friends. She just didn't do it for me like Pyrrha, Ren, or Nora could. You know? It was nothing personal. I'm sure she felt the same way about me and Roman.

I dived and brought my sword down two handed against the claw and took the tip off through the armor. The tail came whipping around and I jumped and hovered in the middle of the air and Cross-Slashed its face and tail.

It writhed to get away from my combo and it screamed in agony as I took its tail off and left deep gouges in its carapace near its face.

There wasn't that much room for it to escape me from. I was guessing things in here with it were more locked in with it and less having it locked in with them. I was turning its usual situation on its head.

I stabbed down through an eye as I fell and it writhed and tried to shake me off. I twisted Crocea Mors and shattered its shell around where Crocea Mors was buried.

It cried and began to dissolve into dust and goo.

I walked up to the barrier that guy was on the other side of and banged on it four times. Gong. Gong. Gong. Gong. I began to recharge my semblance.

"Little pit, little pig, let me in." He began to back away from his control panel. I stood and charged for a long time. I got my hands on my semblance again and swung at the barrier as hard as I could, burning my semblance with it in a wild attack.

The barrier failed for a moment and lights on his side of the barrier blared.

"I'll huff and I'll puff." I menaced from outside. "What's it going to be Mr. Man."

He ran away, the enormous coward. I couldn't believe it. He was just leaving us locked in here. I charged up my semblance and rattled the barrier until it broke. I banged at it over and over again and then I Cross-Slashed it after putting my sword together with the shield and getting the broadsword. But whoever the man with the mustache was, he escaped.

I swore and I screamed and I slashed up some of the computers in my rage before I had the sense to calm down and remember I might want to look through them.

Then I marched down the passageway after the mustached man. It eventually led out a back entrance to the laboratory. I sighed. He was stone cold gone. Along with any chance I had of learning about my sisters.

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-WG

[the-hetchia-universe]

So i found i miciti disney of phantom blot!

And i wanted to share the translated version of the interview ! ( and i like he has some kinda story behind the interview. The extras will be on a reblog post.)

"If I didn't have a heart of gold..."

Meeting within the walls of the prison with the one who likes to call himself a villain unique in style, intelligence and personality. A true emperor of crime, if it were not for the too much sensitivity that makes him hate violence and has prevented him on various occasions to get rid of the enemy Mickey, for now.

When it was decided to dedicate a volume - and a coin - to The Phantom blot, it was prudently placed towards the end of the series, in the belief that sooner or later the person concerned would be available for the ritual interview.

The reasoning did not make a wrinkle: more than six months would have been enough for him to try to pull off one of his famous shots, which would have been followed by the probable (not to say inevitable) arrest, and so it would have been easy to meet him in the cooler.

And instead, time has passed and no news of the lantitante Phantom blot has been heard.

That he had decided to take a long vacation or, even worse, to retire permanently from...business?

The only hope of not being forced to write with blank pages was placed in the major expert of the black character and his nemesis for sixty years, and that is Mickey. Who immediately reassured us. "No, Phantom Blot doesn't know what the holidays are," he said convinced.

"And as for the idea of retiring, I don't think it ever even crossed his twisted mind. He's not the type to sit on his hands, and even if he was, he'd never retire before he took me off the streets. He swore it to me... and he's not the type to break his word."

But then how did you explain him not talking about himself for so long? 

"He's on a break," sentenced Mickey. "he's preparing a big score... and I know which one too!"

At the Mousetown Research Center, very advanced studies were underway on a device to make people invisible. Very secret studies, of course, but not for Phantom Blot, as revealed by an ingenious electronic bug system discovered by chance at the Center.

There was no doubt that he was the one who planted them.

"Invisibility has always been his dream," Mickey said.

"And with that device, he'd have one that's perfectly good, not the handcrafted one that gives him his black cloak in the night."

the bug hadn't been removed, so as not to put the Phantom blot on the forewarning so that we could catch him red-handed at the appropriate time. Which, unfortunately, wouldn't be for a few months at the earliest. And to hasten the time was not even talked about it: even if it had been possible, an interview would hardly have been a sufficient reason to speed up the work.

I was already resigned to having to give up the interview when I had a dazzling idea. What if he just pretended to finish the job? A nice, exclusive benefit performance by Blot and his bugs and...

"And he'll bite for sure, because he doesn't know that we know that he knows!" exclaimed Mickey.

"Besides, if he has to act sooner than expected, he won't have the time to get his plans right, and it'll be easier to neutralize him. And there is another advantage: even if he gets away with it, he will have nothing to steal. But he won't get away with it..."

Mickey was a good man (not that it took long: all the precedents were in his favor) and so here I am, in Mousetown prison, visiting the blackest black character in the Disney world.

Who receives me in his usual cell. I'd like to describe him, but how do you tell something you can't see? The room, in fact, is in total darkness...

Interviewing an invisible subject is not the best, but taking notes in the dark is impossible...can't you turn on a light?

PB: Yes, but then you'll miss the right dark atmosphere.

Patience, I'll work on my imagination.

PB: I hope you've had enough. Anyway, I'm keeping the cloak and hood. Without them, I wouldn't be me anymore. Even the warden lets me wear them when I'm in jail. He has respect for my personality...

Me too, I assure you. You've always been my favorite negative character. The best villain. And don't get me wrong, when I say "bad"...

PB: There's no need to add anything else. I get it. On the other hand, how could you define me differently? Well, maybe instead of "bad," you could use the term "evil." I think it suits me better and is more exclusive. I'm the only one who's evil, and the comic book pages are full of villains.

And no one remotely has my class. Not to mention style, intelligence and personality.

Modesty, on the other hand, is quite common among you criminals...

PB: If you think you're funny, you're very wrong. I'm not immodest, I'm just telling it like it is. I'm not the kind of guy who's special, I'm not the kind of guy you're looking for.

That's what Floyd Gottfredson thought, too... 

PB: He's designed me. You ever wonder why I made myself look so much like Walt Disney?

As a joke, if I'm not mistaken.

PB: Pff! That's the official version. The truth is, he wanted to pay tribute to a great man by making him play a great character. And who could you find better than me? Walt and I have a lot in common.

Certainly not a criminal record.

PB: Obviously not. But we're both geniuses.

With very different results, though. His career has been a little bit better than yours. Speaking of which, can you explain the long hole between your first compo, in 1939, and your return to action, in 1955? Sixteen years is a long time: what have you been doing in all that time?

PB: If you had that imagination you boasted about earlier, you wouldn't ask me such a question. It's obvious I've been in prison. Serving my long sentence and figuring out how to get revenge on the man who put me away. You should have known better. And if you're really a fan of mine, you should know that I almost succeeded. I had a diabolical plan, a revenge so subtle that only I could have imagined it. Nothing crude, no direct violence. Mickey sabotaged himself with his own hands! I hope you publish the story of my return to the scene, so that readers will also appreciate my genius.

It's the first of this volume, a real classic. You really missed nothing because you're getting rid of your enemy. In this regard, can you explain me why, even though you had several times - and since your first encounter - the possibility to eliminate Mickey directly, you never did it?

PB: Because I'm too sensitive. I hate violence and I could never get my hands dirty. I wish I could. It would be so easy to just get the rat out of the way! But instead I'm forced to make deadly contraptions or studying very complicated subjects. Imagine that once, in order to get rid of my hated enemy, I managed to erase it from the mind of every inhabitant of Mousetown. Of course, as you can gather from my presence here, it didn't help. Do you know what that crude Pete once said to me, who I often share a cell with? That without my good heart, I'd be the emperor of crime! I hate to do this, but I have to agree with him.

Yeah, if it hadn't been Mickey in his way... He's blacked you out plenty of times!

PB: Yeah ! That's some low-rent humor. Why don't you also say that it's...stained my career? I don't mind anyway, because I'm tenacious, me. I'll never give up. I know what I'm worth, and I know the day will come when I can get rid of Mickey once and for all. That is, if luck doesn't keep on helping him, of course. That nosy little chap's always got a dose to envy even Gladstone.

You're not saying that to console yourself? The way you're putting it, it sounds like Mickey doesn't deserve any credit for putting you in jail. I'll grant you that sometimes he got away with it because your sensitivity prevented you from giving him the coup de grâce, but to say that he beats you regularly just because he's lucky, seems too much.

PB: Is that what you think? Then let us examine this latest supposed success of the brilliant detective, the genius of investigators, the terror of criminals. Tsk! I was preparing a perfect score, according to a schedule studied in detail... and what happens? That those scientists realize much earlier than expected the invention that I was so interested in, thus forcing me into a hasty action that led to my arrest. Mickey was there waiting for me, but if I'd had time to make a proper plan, I'd have done it under his nose, always snooping around. Grrr! And you're telling me he's not lucky?

Well, yeah, maybe a little. I'll grant you that it's not his fault, but the case, if the microplashes you had installed at the Research Center were discovered. But he was the one who figured out you planted them and had the idea to leave them where they were so you wouldn't get suspicious. And the fact that the invention was ready before its time is not a stroke of luck, but simply... false news.

PB: What?! You made that up. I don't believe it!

And it hurts, because I know what I'm talking about. I'm the one who gave him the idea. I went to consult him to find a way to interview you... Hey! Why did you get up? You don't want to...

PB: ...hurt you? No! I hate violence, you know that. I just want to hug you to show my appreciation! You are living proof that Mickey beats me just because he is lucky. But do you realize? I ended up in jail because of an interview!

That we can continue...

PB: Ah no! Even if I'm not angry with you, I don't talk to my worst enemy's allies. It's a matter of principle... that brings us to the end. So I'd be grateful if you'd leave. And on your way out, turn off the light!

[fmdminaharchive]

007: lipstick titletracks (updated version)

wordcount: 1,549 (old: 735 & new: 814)

run devil run: when she first sees the skin-tight bodysuits, minah is a little taken aback. she’s nervous enough for her debut as it is. minah isn’t a naturally alluring person, always on the more reserved side herself, something she has to completely cast aside to suit the image of lipstick. but, luckily, run devil run feel like safe enough baby steps for minah. she gets to ease a little into what bc has in store still for her.

flashback: if run devil run was the kiddie pool, flashback is the deep end. or so minah feels at least. the song itself is nice of course, she has plenty of lines too, but it’s hard to focus on that when there seem to be much more pressing matters. flashback is everything but subtle about how sexy it is and minah has never been someone effortlessly sexy, not in her own eyes. most of the promotions, she spends worrying, about the way she looks, the way she acts, about everything but her since.

because of you: lipstick dials it a bit back again with because of you and minah is very glad for that. because of you is a slower song, bursting with emotional vocals and relatively sparse on choreography which, of course, makes it a big win in minah’s book. she enjoys performing and promoting because of you a lot but due to their debut year being such a hectic one, both in terms of comebacks and her personal life, it’s an era she doesn’t think back on a lot. a good song that got buried under less fortunate circumstances.

hoot!: minah likes hoot, a lot. there is something very classy about the retro vibe of the song, even if she thinks there isn’t much classy about the shorts they’re wearing.  hoot, if anything, makes her realize that maybe, she’s not too terrible at the whole alluring thing, it’s not all about flashing her body or being sexy, it’s about the way she carries herself. this era, minah might not grow much as a vocalist, but she does as a performer.

bang!: not going to lie, bang intimidates minah a little bit (read: a lot). minah would argue that it’s lipsticks first perfomance-oriented title track and she’s a little intimidated by it. bang! is a good song, minah wouldn’t argue that, but it’s definitely the type of song where some of the other members shine more than her and that’s more than okay with her. she does kill that high note in the bridge though.

first love: when bc told them they were going to be pole dancing, minah felt like she could cry to be honest. but by some stroke of luck (or bc’s choreographers having as little faith in her as she did in herself) minah is actually exempt of any and all pole dancing. she’s just there to look pretty and sing, yes queen give us nothing. she doesn’t hate this era but she doesn’t really love it either, it’s just very neutral for her.

mr. mr.: honestly, mr. mr. could have been one of minah’s top lipstick songs. but it’s not. there are a lot of things that minah likes about this comeback, the styling and choreography are some of her faves they ever had and she likes the song too, apart from one thing. the heavy electronics in the background are just not for minah and it’s always been a huge deal-breaker for her, leaving mr. mr. somewhere in the mid-tier rather than somewhere in the top of the list. 

tell me your wish (genie): there is one thing minah and the general public can agree on, genie is one of the best things lipstick has ever done. if not the best. minah loves everything about genie from the song to the styling and so on. it was also their launch to the top of the industry leaving minah with a lot of good memories of this era. also, minah’s iconic ‘dj, put it back on’ launching lipstick into stardom? i think iconic.

dolls: another all-time favorite of minah. dolls is an upbeat, swing-y song that never fails to put minah in a good mood. it was not the hit genie was but it hasn’t made her love the song any less. another thing minah likes about dolls is the choreography. generally speaking, that’s not minah cares about, as long as it’s simple it’s good with her. but for the point dance for dolls, she has a soft spot, it’s just so fun to watch and do.

the boys: the boys is another iconic songs, a clear milestone in their careers and yet again, minah can definitely see why, it’s an incredible song. the only reason it’s not among the very top of her favorite lipstick songs is because -much like bang!- it’s definitely not her strongest era. she has fun doing it, that’s not it, but there are a lot of the members that pull off the song better than her and she has the utmost respect for that.

mr. taxi: yeah no, minah really did try to give this one the benefit of the doubt but mr taxi really just is another miss. the song is little special, not the worst but far from good either, a very forgettable type of mediocre. oh well, it’s only a repackage anyway, it’s not like anyone has high hopes for it. the sexy taxi driver concept is also one of the absolute least favorite things bc has put them in through the years.

party: this… what was this exactly? party is a weird move for lipstick. it’s cuter than their usual sound for some reason and minah isn’t sure why exactly and she doesn’t care to find out either. party is generic, boring and pretty annoying in all honesty. minah cares absolutely nothing for it and if they never have to revisit the song again, her life will be better for it.

lionheart: the better single on the album. with a nostalgic sound and classy 20′s concept to go with it, lionheart rapidly becomes one of minah’s all time favorite lipstick title tracks. lionheart truly redeems the mess that was party.the song is sweet, it’s elegant, and it’s perfect for minah, what more could she ask for?

holiday: remember when minah called party childish? well holiday multiplies that in tenfold. the styling, the song in itself, everything about it. what is it with bc and giving their full albums one good single and one terrible one? in late 2017, minah can’t help but feel like she’s getting too old for stuff like this. also, what the hell are those tule skirts? who allowed that?

all night: the better single on holiday night, anyone with taste would say so, minah included. it’s not one of her all-time faves, but she does appreciate it for what it is. also, she’s a sucker for that disco beat it has to it.

catch me if you can: noise, just like mr mr had been, a harsh electronic undertone that minah just can’t ever grow accustomed to. the prechorus and bridge are nice, she’ll give the song that, the only parts of it that lend for some decent vocal work too, but the rest of it is pure and utter garbage. on top of that, she’s no fan of the choreo either, she’s not a dancer okay. a disappointing comeback, especially as their first without goeun.

gun: those vocals. oh damn. those vocals. gun era didn’t come to play, and minah is here for it. she takes on a large part of the vocals, this time actually interesting ones and never before has she been as determined to prove she is in fact worthy of lipstick’s unofficial new main vocal title. it’s rather on the sexy side, but by now, minah has gained experience, she hasn’t been promoting all these years for nothing.

lil’ touch: minah isn’t gonna lie, the choreo for this one is tough (or well, by her standards at least, which aren’t that high) but it’s so, so worth it. maybe it’s the years of experience, but finally, minah accepts that she can’t keep complaining about dancing, it’s part of the job after all. most of all, lil’ touch assures her lipstick will be just fine.

glue: after all the dust settles, it’s almost like bc remembers what they had in mind when they debuted. sexy, alluring and loads of pleather, the true essence of lipstick, or that’s what it feels like at least. glue is a song that they could have released around their debut era with a non-existing budget to match it. she’s not a huge fan of it, but well, what can she do other than hope their next comebacks will be better. it could be worse though, lipstick has definitely done worse.

wild: honestly, on paper, minah should hate this song more than she does. she’s always been the least favorable towards their sexier concepts mainly because minah doubts she’s much of sexy presence but wild, it works somehow. sure, the mv is a bit much with its cleavage shots and seductive camera staring but the song is actually a lot of fun, very high energy and it makes it nice to perform. 

the best of the best...: genie, dolls, lionheart, gun

...and the worst of the worst: mr taxi, party, holiday, catch me if you can

[gladio-to-meet-you]

God of Destruction (ft the Chocobros, Nyx, and Luna)

This draws some instances from things that have happened to me, I'll leave y'all guessing which is real and which is fabricated

Not proofread, hope you guys enjoy it/maybe even get some laughs from this!

I’ll work on other prompts I have, but I may not post anything else today, idk for sure though

~~~

Ignis

You took it upon yourself to try and lighten the burden laid upon his shoulders since you managed to get put of work early. There was pep in your step as you hurried home to change and rush out to the store. You planned to surprise him with dinner! He'd have one less thing to do and you could prove that you did know your way around the kitchen, at least enough so that he didn't have to constantly cook for you guys. You pointedly decided to ignore the precious mishaps that had happened that he teasingly brings up every one in a while; you were better now!

After getting the necessary ingredients, you pay and leave and practically run home so you have time to finish everything. It all started off okay enough, you felt confident enough that things would work out. That was before you nicked your finger and had to clean and bandage it to avoid contaminating the food. While hurrying to the bathroom for the bandaids, you managed to knock a ceramic baking dish off the counter.

By the time Ignis walked in, ready to make dinner and just relax, talking about the day with you, he's met with an absolute mess. You're still in the kitchen, fingers covered with bandaids and cursing as you try to clean up the shards in the floor with smoke lingering in the room, leaving a bitter taste in your mouth. "Oh, honey, let me get that," he'd say and sweep you off your feet to deposit you on the couch where you wouldn't risk cutting your feet up. There would be a fond smile curling his lips as he opened the windows to air the place out and went for the broom, deciding take out sounded nice.

Prompto

He thought you were just exaggerating your bad luck with electronics until he had the privilege of living with you. Then he saw what you meant. The gaming system you guys bought together would only turn on and work right, not freezing, if he turned it on. The coffee pot would always make a mess the first time you used it and it would always come out tasting burnt. Your laptop was a lost cause. Your phone that was newer than his was spastic with you, you'd have to restart it once or twice a day and delete and reinstall apps to get them to cooperate.

But the best - the worst? - of this was that he accompanied you into your office one day so you could print some papers off to turn into your boss before the weekend and he got to see just how bad the electronics you used the majority of the day reacted. After an hour of computer problems and having IT come back two separate times for completely different issues, you pointed at your partner and gestured to the computer. "I don't want to be here all day, help!" You demanded in a small voice, stomping your foot, moments away from pouting.

He laughed a little at the situation but sat down and followed your instructions to find the particular file that needed printed off. Once the papers were handed in, he draped his arm around your shoulders as you guys left the building. "I thought you were kidding, babe, but technology hates you. But that's okay, I'll help you any day! In all seriousness though...why do you have an office job?"

Noctis

You decided that since Noctis had caught dinner, you’d try to help Ignis with cooking it. You forgot that since you guys were camping, that meant dealing with a campfire. You hadn’t ever done more than roast some marshmallows over the fire, you didn’t trust yourself. But since you had spoken up, Ignis gladly accepted your help.

So you sucked it up and followed his instructions very carefully, from helping him prepare the fish and the fire to actually starting the cooking process. You made sure you copied every moment he did so you wouldn’t mess it up. You were envious of the other three that were just sitting around, waiting for dinner to be ready. Noctis and Prompto were huddled together on their phones, probably playing King’s Knight, while Gladio appeared to be reading.

It wasn’t until you and Ignis both smelled something burning that you turned back to the fire, only to screech in alarm. You had somehow managed to catch your jacket on fire when you set it down?! You rushed forward and yanked it away, dropping it on the ground and immediately stomping on it to try and put the fire on the sleeve out. After you panic passed, you heard Noctis wheezing with laughter. “You weren’t kidding, were you? You really are a danger magnet,” he teased you as you all sat down around the fire with dinner, you sitting a bit further away than normal after that.

Gladio

He had been with you long enough to realize that if anything at all could go wrong, it probably would. He started carrying around a small first aid kit with him, knowing it would be used at some point by you. He’d seen you trip over nothing, break things with an ease that betrayed your small size, and he’s seen the really bad days where things just keep going wrong one after another.

He thought he had seen it all, but he was wrong. You guys went to one of the first places you had gone on dates to, hoping to recreate one of your first dates. While waiting on food, you mentioned running to the bathroom. He realized that by the time the food was delivered, you were still nowhere to be seen. Instead of freaking out like he would’ve when you guys first started dating, he just sent you a text inquiring where you were.You looked down at your phone and then back at the door that had been a barrier for that last couple minutes.

You hesitated on responding and tried turning the door knob to open the door again. Nothing. It wouldn’t budge. So you bit the bullet and sent Gladio an SOS message, requesting he get the owner to free you from the damn bathroom. You heard his laughter before he got within ten feet of the door so you stomped your foot as you pocketed your phone. “Stop laughing, Gladdy! It’s not funny!” You pouted as you heard the two men discuss the best way to handle it. In the end, the hinges were removed so the door could be moved out of the way and you could leave the bathroom. The owner was apologetic as he had been told before that the lock had been sticking and even let you guys eat for free.

Nyx

This man had seen your destructive powers in full swing before. You had gone to the bar together and you broke no fewer than five glasses in the span of ten minutes. You had managed to knock the table over and spilled everyone's drinks while simultaneously breaking them as they hit the ground. The owner was actually pretty cool about it, saying he had new glasses he hadn't been able to put into rotation yet, so it wasn't a big deal. The mess was cleaned up and your group was jokingly given plastic cups after that.

However, after that night he didn't expect it to get any worse, he thought he had seen it at its worst. Nope, not at all. He took you to a newer restaurant that members of the Glaive had told him about, saying it was great food for the price and he wouldn't regret it. He didn't regret the food. He regretted letting you drink there and allowing you to go to the bathroom unsupervised, knowing your luck got worse the more that you drank. You hurried out of the bathroom, eyes a bit wide, and giggles escaping your lips. You were glad Nyx had been in the process of paying the bill when you left the table because it would make for a quicker getaway this way.

You tried to school your face into a serious one, but your lips kept twitching and he eyed you cautiously, knowing something had happened. especially when you got back to the table and started grabbing the takeout containers. “We need to leave, now,” you whispered urgently. When you got out of there and to his car, you collapsed into the seat laughing until you were crying and gasping. He had to wait until you calmed down to hear your story, and even then it was interspersed with you laughing. He finally heard the story and couldn’t help but laugh in astonishment. You had heard someone in the bathroom make an “oop” sound and found out, by asking and revealing that you were probably as tipsy as they were that they had broken a handle off the sink. You went to the other sink and the hot water handle literally came off in your hand as you tried turning the water off. You had both replaced the handles and tried to discreetly leave the bathroom.

Luna

You made sure you spelled it out for Luna, how badly accident prone you were, how bad your luck seemed to be on the daily, but she waved your concerns away. You guys hadn't spent a full day together since you got together, both busy with your duties, but she had seen some of the cuts and bruises you came home with. She never brought them up because they were always minor though, trusting that you'd say something if you got into a fight or something. "Babe, I'm serious, I should just live life bubble wrapped in a protective bubble!"

She'd giggle at the mental image that would provoke and assure you, again, that everything would be fine on your date. It was like your luck took that as a challenge and accepted it with gusto. On the way to the little bistro you guys planned to eat lunch at, you tripped no less than three times and it was a short walk! You also almost fell into traffic when someone bumped into your side as they passed.

At the bistro, you expected things to calm down. Nope! You went to sit in your chair and when it shifted, you knocked your phone off the table and in the process of bending over to get it, you smashed your head into the edge of the table. When you jerked up from that, you rocked the table enough to rattle the drinks and splash them over the table. You paused to take a deep breath and reached for the napkins to clean up the mess while Luna was still at the counter and somehow managed to give yourself a damned paper cut from the napkins you had grabbed. "Luna, that's it, I'm done, I'm going home to live in my bubble!" You called to her with a pout. She giggled as she came back to make sure you were okay, deciding that maybe you hadn't exaggerated that much.

[evalulu]

A little thing I wanted to write for R6!  (and also some of what I’ve been tormenting @xmafiacatx with :p)

Jäger still wasn’t quite able to figure out what had hit him and brought his helicopter into a dangerous nosedive, but he did know he was extremely lucky to be alive.  Dominic was going to be annoyed, he was sure, but the other wouldn’t ever have to know that luck was the reason.  The injury on his left side bled heavily and stained his pant leg a dark red, but he knew it wasn’t lethal.  By itself, that is.  Walking was a struggle he couldn’t manage on his own, he found, and enemies were quickly closing in to the sound of the dying engine.  There was no way Rainbow would leave him alone.  Right?  

He sat waiting in silence, laying on rubble and hoping that playing dead would fool some of the roaches coming closer.  The sound of gunfire was unexpected, but wholeheartedly welcome.  Rescue was coming soon enough, and he just needed to hold out.  His vision was blurring, but he still recognized Smoke coming through the open doorway, accompanied by the two CBRN experts, Finka and Lion.  He could hear their chatter, helped up to a sitting position and firmly asked if he was alright.  He was fine enough; the injury wouldn’t kill him.  

He hated now having to wait for the extraction helicopter to come in, forced to sit like a child in timeout as the other operators fortified the building.  They were working to give him the much needed protection until help arrived, he knew, but that didn’t change how much he hated it.  The roaches swarmed, eager to tear him to shreds or blow him up, and the only prevention was covering fire from the others.  His own guns were out of ammo; the supplies strewn when he went down.  

He felt a sense of sympathy for the crashed machine, it had done nothing but serve him well and there was no saving it.  It almost felt wrong, to have to leave it torn and burning in the roof of the roadside store, yet there was nothing he could do.  He almost swore that it’s blades whirred to life, having to look up to confirm that the machine was still wrecked and the noise he heard was instead coming from outside.  There was never a moment where the sound made a wave of relief wash over him, but he felt it nonetheless.  

Lion got him to his feet and helped him to the cabin of the helicopter, and the thought that this would be far more embarrassing if I wasn’t bleeding out crossed his mind.  There was a firm pressure at his side, stemming the blood flow that had trailed after him.  The ground got further and further away as they took off, and Jäger was able to fully appreciate just how lucky he really was.  The crash would have killed any passengers, and should have killed him, and somehow it didn’t.  He sat silently, waving off questions of concern.  He was fine, and would be fine, they didn’t need to worry.  

Doc was firm in seeing him, confirming that he would recover just fine and ensure that he wasn’t at all infected.  To his disappointment, he was being sent home, no longer fit to perform on mission.  Jäger knew better than to argue with Doc when the altruist’s mind was made up for the sake of someone else.  The worst part was waiting, where the pain was the only clear feeling and everything else was fuzzy.  He would at least have time to sleep on the ride home, and he wasn’t about to forsake that opportunity and avoid more concerned looks and questions.  He rested in the back of the helicopter to take him home, staying near the back to hear and feel the vibrations of the tail’s rotors as he fell asleep.  

The banging on the door of the cabin startled him awake, already not a great start to a sour mood.  He used the seats and the walls to support himself as he stood, surprised when the door was thrown open.  

“Jesus.  You really look like scheiße this time.”

Dominic’s statement shouldn’t have surprised him.  

“Don’t worry, I feel just as bad as I look.”

Behind Dominic were Monika and Elias, clearly expecting him.  He realized too late that he hadn’t said anything to them, having completely forgotten in favor of ignoring all interactions with other people.  

“If we’d known you were coming back so soon,” Elias’ voice started, “I would have asked Frost for help with a proper welcome mat.”

“Very funny, Elias.”

Dominic snickered, moving now to help him down from the helicopter.

“What even happened?”

Monika was clearly concerned, and there was no denying it to anyone.  He knew he should have at least told her, the woman was dedicated to her very best and deserved at least that much.  Even if she sometimes puts those expectations on other people.  

“Something hit me while flying and took me out of the air.  Rescue team came before things got too bad, don’t worry that much.”

“Clearly still bad enough if Doc is so eager in sending you home as soon as possible.”

“It’s nothing lethal, Monika.  It will heal just fine.”

Monika shrugged, and he was grateful that she decided to let the topic go.  

“Fine.  No pranks or rough housing until you’ve healed.”  

The collective groan of disappointment from Elias and Dominic made him grin.  She and Elias turned to head inside, leaving Dominic to help him walk.  He was still sure he would be more embarrassed and annoyed if there wasn’t the unspoken agreement that he did sincerely need the help, and as much as the other operator moaned about him being a “heavy sack of shit”, there was no refusing to help.  The walk to his bed felt like an eternity, with the slow pace and endless stream of sarcastic retorts, making it incredibly hard to not simply collapse on the soft cushions and relax.  

The pain by now had dulled, now allowed to take the painkillers that Doc had recommended.  They will make you drowsy, Doc warned, do not take them until you’re back at your own quarters.  The helmet and other easy-to-remove gear was carelessly thrown aside; he couldn’t be bothered as exhaustion set in.  Monika was preoccupied with her electronics scanner, still aware of Dominic’s intense and plotting gaze combined with the disgustingly sweet voice.  

“Do you think we should tidy up his gear?  Perhaps get the vest off him?”

“Let him rest, both of you.”

Elias gave a sigh at Monika’s command.  

“You know, I can get the vest off without bothering him too much.”

“And then what, cover the inside with velcro?  No.”

“Could we compromise to bubble wrap?”

Elias gladly joined in, now making her look up to very eager and devious faces.  

“If I let you, will you leave him alone until he’s recovered?”

The nod was the best answer she was going to get, she figured.  With a roll of her eyes, she waved her hand.  

“Fine, go ahead.”

Dominic grinned as he got up to go find a roll of bubble wrap, leaving Elias to carefully undo the straps of the vest and follow suit.  

[llampacaeatingguppy]

Aspects of winter life that might not occur to you

Maybe you’re writing a book about someone in The North but you live in The South, maybe you’re moving somewhere cold, and maybe you just want to know. I don’t really care, I’m just a long-time resident of Wisconsin who wants to write a bunch of stuff, so I am. (Please note some of this might be Wisconsin-exclusive)

First of all, let’s talk about that little transition from summer to winter. There are literally maybe two weeks of a stereotypical “not too hot, not too cold” temperature, sometimes not even that. Fall is mostly unpredictable weather hell and it’s hard to be sure when they will truly decide to stop. For example: our last warm day was December 4, and it was almost 60 degrees (15.5 C). On my sisters birthday, December 6, it was 20 degrees  (-6.5 C) and snowing, which was far more normal for that time of year.

Women’s clothes are the dumbest things ever, especially jeans. Your top half gets additional insulation through your coat. Your legs do not, and women’s jeans are thin. Leggings and/or long socks under your pants pretty much every day are a must if you don’t want you legs to turn into icesicles. And if you must either wear leggings or jeans by themselves, I feel warmer in leggings. Sweatpants are the best, but I usually use those as pajamas.

On the topic of women’s clothes and coats, my classmate was cold in class once and I offered her my fall coat (which I wear if it’s about 40+ degrees (4+ C)). It’s a hoodie that I found in the men’s section. You know what she told me? It was warmer than her fall coat. Let me tell you something: that thing wasn’t even marketed as a coat. Don’t get me wrong, I knew it was warm, that’s why I wore it, but I didn’t realize it was that warm. Women’s clothes vs men’s clothes. Yay. And people wonder why men on campus are still walking around in sweaters when women are wearing their winter coats in the fall.

One more thing about clothes to get all the salt out of my system and then I’m done with clothes, I promise. If you want some women’s clothes actually suitable for the weather, your best bet is secondhand stores or small local shops, because those clothes are from people who also actually have to endure this climate. Any sort of chain of stores just don’t have clothes designed for cold weather. Heck, some of the stuff that I’ve seen in Target for “winter” I wouldn’t wear until May or June.

There is a confusing temperature where you’re not sure whether to wear your fall coat or your winter coat. It varies per person, but since my winter coat is literally a cleared for -30 degrees (-34 C) heavy duty stuffed trench coat (that I had to scramble for while it was on sale, cheap coats are not made for Wisconsin-level cold. People do it, but I have no idea how) and my fall coat is a men’s hoodie, the choice between roast and freeze is particularly present because the range of temperature those were made for is so different.

If you go outside and the snot in your nose freezes before you’ve taken two steps, you can safely say that it’s really cold without anyone arguing with you.

Also, “You know it’s cold when your snot is frozen in two seconds” and other variants is kinda a local meme. Probably has been for decades. I’ve lived here 18 years and I don’t remember ever not hearing it.

A lot of people seem to assume that sickness season is in the winter. It’s not. It’s the Times of Horrible Weather (aka spring and fall). People get sick in winter, sure, but it’s spring and fall where over half of the people you know all get sick at once, although it’s milder cold-like things. The exception to this is the explosion of influenza that happens around January, but one month is a small chunk of winter, believe me.

Spring is really similar to fall, just an fyi. I keep saying fall because we’re in the thick of winter now, it’s -17 (-27 C) outside, and spring looks like an impossibility, but they’re really similar in terms of awful temperature fluctuations. Most people are more tolerant of its obnoxiousness because when it ends the weather won’t be trying to kill you. I personally like it less because all that snow melting makes everything wet and muddy and all the litter that the snow hid is now visible and I never know if it’s hot or cold outside and it feels like nothing really grows until the week before summer so it’s just naked and ugly and inconvenient. I hate spring. Can you tell?

I’m just now realizing that it probably sounds like I don’t like winter, but I actually do. Like yeah it’s annoying, but I like it? It’s kinda like that character you love who’s a complete asshole and you’re not even sure why you love them but you do.

The. Car. It gets cold. And it doesn’t warm up right away, either, because of how cold the engine gets. And you might need to jump start it, too, depending on how good your battery is. Also there’s ice and snow and fun stuff that you have to scrape off after it snows. And it’s cold outside while you’re doing it. And you’re probably also late because the world hates you. And the roads are probably bad.

10+ inches (25.4+ cm) of snow = elementary and high schools have to close. -40 degrees (which is the same in Celsius, crazy right?) or lower windchill = elementary and high schools have to close. Both happen a few times a year. College classes don’t have that rule. You walk to class in -50 degree (-45.5 C) windchill anyways and try to ignore the fact that you haven’t been able to feel your face pretty much the whole time.

If you’re on your period, things can get really cold and uncomfortable down there. Changing your pad more frequently than usual helps some. Tampons might also do the trick, but I can’t tell you for sure because I don’t like to use them.

If you’re like me and get chilled easily, winter is kinda nice because nobody will judge you for wearing an ungodly number of layers. Are you still cold when you go outside? Probably, at least some of the time. But you’re comfortable while indoors, which is a nice change of pace.

Folks farther north try to assert their dominance over you, and you do the same to those who live farther south than you. This is achieved by bragging about the bad weather.

Snowing on Halloween is a very real thing. When you’re a young trick-or-treater, it’s beyond frustrating because unless you’re literally going as a scientist living in Antarctica or your parents don’t care if you get sick by running around without a coat, good luck having people see your costume because it’s coat time.

Bugs are small. The largest spider I regularly see is a little bigger than a quarter, and most of that’s legs.

My dad loves to tell the story about how when he lived in Virginia, they got two feet of snow and they still expected him to come to work because he was from the north, despite the fact that the state was essentially in a state of crisis. But we don’t drive in two feet of snow, either, because a crap ton of snow plows go out every time it snows. It’s not perfect, and the roads are bad for a while, but there isn’t literally the total amount of snow accumulation just sitting on the road for us to drive through. So please don’t ask your employee from the north to come in to work when it snowed two feet overnight and there are not nearly enough snowplows, because then there literally is two feet of snow on the road and that’s dangerous for anyone, north or not. (He didn’t go in, by the way.)

When the roads aren’t great, seeing cars in the ditch is normal. People don’t even bat an eye and they’re often used as a measurement for how bad roads are. (ex: “I saw three cars in the ditch on the way here” = roads are bad) This is just normal, car swerved a little bit and ran off the road stuff, though. If it’s more serious (like if the car flipped upside down or hit another car or something), then it gets regarded as a car accident, not as a car in the ditch.

If you’re asthmatic, the cold can induce asthma attacks. It doesn’t always, but when I was diagnosed with asthma a few years ago, the doctor told me to be careful because it’s a very real problem for some folks. The worst it does to me personally is makes me cough a few times if it’s less then 0 degrees and I breathe too deeply through my mouth, and if I cover my face with a scarf it gets rid of the problem altogether.

I have never in my life successfully made an igloo. I don’t think most people have. They always caved in at the top the few times I tried. What I did do all the time as a youngling was dig tunnels under the snow and army-crawl through them.

Later in the winter, when the temperature starts to ease up but it’s still not spring, just the top layer of snow will melt a smidge and then freeze back over, making a hard shell. It’s oftentimes thick enough for kids to walk on without breaking it and I thought it was one of the coolest things ever. Even now, if I find a place that can support my weight as an adult, it gives me this odd sense of giddiness and usually makes my day.

Electronics were not made to handle cold and leaving them out in it can be a nightmare on your battery.

There are quite a few people who eat summer-coded desserts in the winter, especially ice cream. Winter gives enough people negativity without the added sadness of certain sweets being off-limits.

[howyoustudythestars]

Don’t call me a heathen, but I don’t like “All My Friends”...

(Yes, I made a Twenty One Pilots reference in a post about Owl City, shoot me!)

I’ve never been disappointed this much with a new Owl City song until now.

Now, before you fill my inbox with hate like “You just want Adam to go back to Ocean Eyes days” or “You don’t like his new stuff” or even “Your no longer a fan”, read these posts of mine.  Furthermore, as a musician myself, I understand change is inevitable.  To ask him to keep writing 500 versions of the same album would be counterintuitive at best and nearly impossible at worst.  You’re essentially asking someone to return to the days when he only had a vague idea of what the world was like and spent times daydreaming at dead-end jobs, returning home at night, and turning them into what he remembered as songs and continued when he couldn’t fall asleep.  Now he has seen the world, he has a better grip on life, and he has new knowledge in his craft.  While I may miss that style from time to time, I understand his music will be different as he continues to grow as a musician and artist.

And I’ll always be a fan of Adam Young.  Nothing will likely change that.  But the thing is (and it’s something I’ve noticed with the HootOwl fandom from time to time) is that you can be critical of an artist and still be a fan of them.  That is not mutually exclusive.  Music is subjective by nature.  What someone got out of one song will be different from what someone else got out of it, and that’s regardless of whether or not they agree or disagree on whether the song is good or bad.  One of my favorite music critics, Jon from ARTV, has called himself an Owl City fan in the past.  He didn’t like The Midsummer Station, but it grew on him.  He still holds Mobile Orchestra as a bad album for various reasons, the main one being that the tracklist felt like a checklist of demographics his label wanted the album to appeal to.  (The college graduation song, the 90s nostalgic song, the old school Owl City-sounding song to please fans, the Christian song, the country-pop crossover song, etc.)  There’s nothing wrong with being critical of an artist you love, and up until now, I have enjoyed most songs that Adam has put out, including The Scores project that I initially had reservations about.  So what went wrong here?

Warning: Long post ahead!

When I heard Adam was going to be writing songs based on his personal stories and experiences, I wasn’t put off by it in the slightest.  He’s done it before numerous times: “Lonely Lullaby” was about his painful breakup with Annmarie.  “I Hope You Think Of Me” is believed to be about Taylor Swift, and his favorite song to have ever written, “This Isn’t the End”, was about his mother as a young child having to deal with his mother committing suicide.  I’ll even include the Christmas song “Humbug” in this list, as it’s about his experiences going Christmas shopping every year, and how the best gift he can give is the love in his heart.  None of those songs I had a problem with.  In fact, one of the artists I wish Adam would collaborate with is Matthew West, a Contemporary Christian artist who is well known for his storytelling style, including using his fan’s stories as inspiration for songs.  I think their styles would work well together.  If anything, I was more worried that a more personal style would give more ammunition to fans that he has changed too much and no longer is writing music true to himself.  I firmly believe this isn’t the case to this day, but I still feel let down by the new music we’ve gotten so far.

And the other day, I was super stoked to hear the Cinematic announcement.  After all, this will be his first project completed completely without the help of a label since Maybe I’m Dreaming.  The instrumental in the announcement video was gold, and part of my disappointment with All My Friends is that the instrumental is probably part of a different song.  It may not even be on any of the 3 reels for all I know.  But that will be a song that I will be looking forward to, together with the Twitter Q&A video’s instrumental from earlier this year.

One thing I’ve missed since Mobile Orchestra (barring the Scores project) is that music is his electronic melodies and synth lines.  Sure, we got that in Thunderstruck and his Waving Through a Window cover.  And based on the tracklisting now also including “Not All Heroes Wear Capes”, I certainly hope it isn’t in this more guitar-driven direction.  To be honest, the lines between Sky Sailing and Owl City is becoming a lot less blurred in terms of instrumentation.  And that’s not necessarily a good or bad thing, but I’m wondering why Adam keeps saying Sky Sailing isn’t dead if it feels like some of these acoustic-driven songs are now part of the Owl City canon more and more often.  Heck, I even consider “Paper Tigers” to be a Sky Sailing demo and not an Owl City demo for that very reason.

And, speaking of Not All Heroes Wear Capes, as I mentioned in the tags of a post around the time of that song’s announcement, I can’t relate to the song at all.  My dad was never in my life.  He left my mom before I could even remember, supposedly to go be with another woman.  I can’t say for sure because I was too young to remember and I don’t want to say that was the reason when I haven’t talked to him about it.  I’m now wondering if the lack of a father figure in my life has contributed in any way to my anxieties or my depression in any way, so it’s safe to say that my dad is no hero to me.  In some ways, minus the suicide and the gender being swapped, This Isn’t the End is more or less a better representative of my non-existent relationship with my dad.  I still wound up buying the song, but it more or less feels like a list of things Adam likes about his dad.  There is some emotion behind it, and like I said, I can’t really relate to it personally, so I can’t speak to it other than the lack of electronic elements.

But what turned me off of “All My Friends”?  If it was just the lack of electronic elements, I wouldn’t feel this way.  And to be fair, I don’t have a problem with Adam rapping or producing a spoken word track or anything of that sort, either.  To me, the lyrics can sometimes make or break a song, and I feel that was the case with this song, but it ultimately fell flat.  Honestly, it feels like a country rendition of “Good Time”, Part 2 (much like how “Can’t Live Without You” and “Embers” were part 2′s of “Tidal Wave” and “Shooting Star”, respectively), with the theme of staying true to yourself and to what you stand for, but it can’t even hold that message for long when it seems boastful in this repeated part:

And they'll be awestruck, sayin', "Aww shucks" They either got real good or they got real good luck

I mean, not to be too conspiratorial or pull a Summertime’s End, but that isn’t really biblical thinking.  And to top it all off, it’s the first Owl City song that I feel is so bland it no longer resembles Adam Young.  It feels like anyone could sing that song and it would work.  Furthermore, where are the parts that are “personal”?  Apart from talking about a dance, which I can only think of being a school dance or something of that sort, it’s not something that sounds like it’s personal to Adam, and if it is, I at least can’t relate to it.

A song that I feel would be better suited and even in a similar vein is the Outasight song “If I Fall Down”.  It has a similar theme and the story in the second verse sounds a lot like Adam’s story of making it in the music industry:

Welcome to my story Before the songs before the glory There was a boy in a town that’s boring Who let go of the fear he's holding Walked out of all his classes Followed his so-called passion Everyone said he was crazy And they were right but that was back then

Sounds more Adam like, right?  There’s a reason for that: According to ayoungmusic.com, the song was written and produced by Adam Young!

Now, I will still buy Cinematic.  I’m super excited for it.  The tracklisting has some promising titles like “Firebird”, “Lucid Dream”, and even the title track “Cinematic”, among many others.  I’m just a little nervous in the direction it will go.

The only thing I can say in Adam’s defense is that the first song/lead single that's released is not usually representative of the whole album. "Fireflies" does not capture the whole of Ocean Eyes. "Alligator Sky" does not capture the whole of All Things Bright and Beautiful. "Good Time" does not capture the whole of The Midsummer Station. And "Verge" does not capture the whole of Mobile Orchestra. Here's to hoping that "All My Friends" does not capture the whole of Cinematic.

Finally, in my opinion, what made Humbug work as a personal song is that it has a tongue-in-cheek quality that is very Owl City-ish in nature.  Even though it doesn’t really have synths, it still sounds like an Owl City song.  I can’t say the same for this song.  It sounds too bland and not at all like an Owl City song.  I am still an Owl City fan and remain excited for Cinematic, but I can’t stand behind the song “All My Friends”.  I’m just hoping the album goes in a slightly different direction!

[tinymixtapes]

Feature: 2017: Favorite Labels

When I was a shithead high school kid playing in my first punk rock band, I’m pretty positive that my cohorts and I dedicated much more time to hanging out in a Denny’s booth sketching logos and fine-tuning our astoundingly under-researched shortlists of the record labels that would ideally release our first earthshaking longplayer than we ever dedicated to, ya know, “writing” and “practicing” songs. But strangely, I don’t think this sort of thing happened because we were “lazy.” I think it’s because, a lot of times, the brand name counts even more than the music does. And I guess we all kinda understood that, even back then. Sure, we may all walk around our lives most of the time pretending like our choices and justifications are all pure and internally driven… but — as the introductory statements to three solid years’ worth of these Favorite Labels lists all ably point out — that shit is a straight-up hallucination. What we all really need at the end of the day is to feel assured that we’re part of a bigger story. We want those choices backed up by some weird, impossibly infallible guarantee. On a grand scale, this whole project represents nothing less than the most utterly serious of metaphysical business: nothing and no one stands on their own. Individuals are forgotten. Lines have endpoints. Organisms wither and die. We see this. We know this. We hate this. Brands, on the other hand, endure. Those glorious abstractions known as “classifications,” “families,” “institutions,” and so on can’t be killed. In other words, we’re not just talking comfort here; we’re talking Immortality. But even on the level of our day-to-day exploitation and/or enjoyment of culture, it holds true. For example, even now, as I try to reconstitute the narrative, some of my favorite records of 2017 didn’t just “come out.” They “came out as editions on Sean McCann’s Recital program.” As a writer, I found it downright difficult to parse and explain the evolution of certain monikers without using Hospital Productions as a scaffolding or to discuss this-or-that artist without shouting-out Posh Isolation. And I’ve got to fess up to the fact that, as a fan, I attended several shows and bought several records based on their Don Giovanni tag alone. Is any of this compulsive brand-association particularly justified or fair? Objectively, no, I guess not. But that’s exactly the point: categorizing frail, transient little things into grand structures that transcend the worth of each of those little peons when tallied individually not only provides a nice distraction, but it also helps cocoon us — however temporarily and delusionally — in a cozy and structured-yet-flexible hammock rather than leaving us all sailing naked through the silent, freezing, soulless, limitless, and immeasurable depths of deep space at a million miles an hour. So, um, if it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll just go head and keep clinging like grim death to all the delusional institutions I can get my mammalian hands on. In fact, here’s 14 or so that you might find handy too. Take ’em or leave ’em. –Dan Smart --- Noumenal Loom [$EGA & THE RAINBOW STREETS · TOIRET STATUS · PASCALE PROJECT] Since 2013, Noumenal Loom, run by Garrett Crosby, a.k.a. Holly Waxwing, out of Birmingham, Alabama, has been pogoing around the globe to gather together all sounds exciting and excitable. So far, the label has pepped us way up with seminal releases by aggregative electronic wizards Foodman, Giant Claw, and Seth Graham, while concurrently winding down with gentle albums from the lovably chill likes of Tuluum Shimmering and Angel Dust Dealers. Their 2017 roster opened with an addictively danceable cassette from DJ Voilà, and whether the label has been exploring techno, funk, smooth jazz, or muzak, it’s been an idea of bodily movement that has unified all of this year’s tapes and albums. We’ve window-shopped with Haha Mart and loosened into a swaying groove with Jasper Lee and Earthly. Bouncy releases from Pascale Project and $3.33 scrubbed the dance floor clean, and, to round out the year, the label just dropped two back-to-back bath bombs by $ega & The Rainbow Streets, a new project from Kenji Yamamoto, and some mind-boggling impishness from Toiret Status. Amidst all kinds of paralyzing madness outside, spaces and sounds that invite such movement feel distinctly joyful and freeing. –Cookcook --- Hands in the Dark [BYRON WESTBROOK · BRIAN CASE · MATT JENCIK] Even French label Hands In the Dark’s name dallies with the corporeal, alluding to a sense beyond the visible, a prickle or a tickle when the lights are off. Label founder Morgan Cuinet has compiled a walloping roster of experimental artists whose work mines the occult affect of sub-bass, the pilomotor reflex to binaural wizardry, and the pineal proprioception to the encounter between ambie(/a)nce and the human ear. It’s hardly a surprise, then, that the artists represented — among them Matt Jencik, Brian Case, and Byron Westbrook — positively bodied the electronic music scene in 2017. Even from the pirouetting opening seconds of Westbrook’s “Dance and Free Fall,” the opening track off Body Consonance, tendrils of sound coagulate and consummate with the ear, consonate with the flesh, palpitate along with the temple’s pulse. Mastered by Helmut Erler and TMT favorite Rashad Becker at Berlin’s Dubplates & Mastering, these delicately fashioned transmissions massage and clench, stimulating the viscera and churning the gut. Hands in the Dark has quietly built a catalog of ambient music with gumption, a dance music for the synapses and for the goosebumps. The future is now: forget your antidepressants and anhedonia. With hands and feet and neck and back — in the dark or in the light — we’re getting sensual. –Benjamin Eckman Bieser --- Nyege Nyege Tapes [RIDDLORE · OTIM ALPHA · MAKAVELI] Luck’s acute attribute is having enough faith in letting go of the good and/or bad; a bird shits your in hair: half-think you won the lottery, but you keep thinking, a bird shit in my hair. Communication will forever be sharpened through adverse arts. Nyege Nyege Tapes bugged on 2017 with some excellent cultural deep-dive for listeners to gnash. What hit first was the jux-flow of “Ukuti” by Disco Vumbi. Immediately after, Riddlore’s Afromutations banged so hard, listeners lost direction of “Why?” and pursed immediate: “What timeline does Nyege Nyege Tapes abide by?” The third release defined another unique MC’s entry, Gulu City Anthems by Otim Alpha, baring a certain soul that comes more with the certainty of songwriting than production. Mysterians’s Joyride on Judgment Day was a gem that power-washed nodes on a level of intellect we won’t find until all the pieces of blasted-ambience have fit. But most importantly, Sounds of Sisso vibes on such a level of reappropriative, cultural instinct, one forgets to even find the magnitude of hype, purely grappling at the textures of rhythm. Nyege Nyege Tapes defines the stripped-down airfare to where prestige and lister-expansion take the next step. –C Monster --- Recital Program [ROGER ENO · DICK HIGGINS · MARY MAZZACANE] Whatever happened to the classics? Did we just get over them? Or rather, did they get over us? Is it still possible to remain just a little bit old-fashioned in a world that’s progressing at an exponential rate, when what happened even yesterday is archaic, forgotten, meaningless? For one, maybe study up on Sean McCann’s Recital Program, which spent yet another year shattering the glass walls between “high” and “low” art, proving again that everything is fascinating if we just look a little closer. Between exploring the lost lineage of the Mazzacane/Connors family, exposing the ever-tumbling wordplay of Dick Higgins, and issuing regal, flowing piano works from the likes of Michael Vincent Waller and Roger Eno, Recital kept its cool amidst a musical landscape that continues to self-implode. In reclaiming the opulent world of the classical for the underground of today, McCann’s label creates its own sort of beautiful order out of chaos, a theater in which the mundane and the ornate can freely converse and even trade places for a while if they so choose, unshackled from the class boundaries that so often keep the two camps railing against one another. Whatever happened to the classics? They’re living among us now. –Sam Goldner --- Music from Memory [BENE FONTELES · DUB OVEN · GAUSSIAN CURVE] “Music from Memory” is a misnomer and double entendre both. The records released by the Amsterdam label can’t be from memory in its most common meaning, simply because they have almost never been heard by “the masses” before. The music does, however, come from what could be called a place of memory. It has the ability to instill nostalgia for mysteries, to create attachments to unlived experiences. What started with the phenomenal Vito Ricci full-length in 2015 and was constituted with the Dip In The Pool reissue in 2016 has, this year, become a stalwart of archival transcendence. Although it’s often titled a “reissue label,” every 2017 release out of Music from Memory feels incredibly new. Psychedelic Brazilian music comps feel dime-a-dozen these days, but 2017’s Outro Tempo pillars over them all. The clunky disco of Dutch DJ Richenel feels a step ahead of contemporary house nostalgics. What the label provides is a sort of one-way mirror, looking at a past that was dreaming of its future. The attention to detail and arduous curation that goes into every record from Music from Memory highlights not where we went wrong, but what was done right. –E. Fosl --- The Worst [MINOGAME · X.NTE · ANCIENT ORIGIN] The Worst couldn’t be more misnamed. Since January, the Tennessean netlabel has birthed a baker’s dozen of the squelchiest/geekiest/sugar-sludgiest breakcore the bowels of SoundCloud have to offer. Spearheaded by visual-artist-cum-producer Minogame, the imprint functions as the post-internet era’s answer to the Smithsonian Folkways, cataloguing cyberpunk transmissions from the web’s uncharted territories: aside from surface-level nods to Warp’s cheeky humor and penchant for cluttered drum-breaks, much of the label’s output represents the hyper-individualism within a late-capitalist state that has driven us deep into our own curated aesthetics for solace. The aforementioned Minogame’s a tribe of one, signified by their Lascaux-like scribblings and math-rock source material. The prolific Ancient Origin is also a culture unto itself, one informed as much by Animal Crossing’s pastoral tradition as it is by mid-aughts crunk mixtapes. Visit The Worst’s Bandcamp, click a record cover, and assimilate: this is an expansive charting a miniature world. –Jude Noel --- Profound Lore [BELL WITCH · SANNHET · FULL OF HELL] I’ll be real: last year, I hadn’t heard of Profound Lore Records. Sure, I knew a ton of their past releases, like those of Krallice, Altar of Plagues, and Nadja, but I wasn’t fully conscious of the brilliant and gnarled web that tied them all together. The fateful moment that changed all that was the December release of Ash Borer’s superb The Irrepassable Gate, which was one of the most truly badass black metal records I’d heard in years. I became obsessed, and I started paying attention to Profound Lore (run by the great Chris Bruni). Enter 2017. I came into this year ready to chomp on anything Profound Lore released, and what a fucking year they’ve had. Pallbearer’s Heartless was a thrilling, prog-tinged doom journey that was as compelling as anything the band has done. Full Of Hell’s Trumpeting Ecstasy was an impeccably produced and excellently paced grindcore album, one of the year’s best in the genre. And then there was Loss’ magical doom odyssey Horizonless, whose grizzly howls brought an appropriate sense of melancholic yearning for listeners in 2017. And let’s not forget Sannhet’s aggressive and relentless So Numb, a refreshingly powerful exercise in instrumental metal. But, in my opinion, Profound Lore’s crowning achievement for the year was Bell Witch’s Mirror Reaper, a breathtaking, bass-laden drive through the great beyond via glacial doom metal. The label capped the year off with this month’s epically unsettling 7xLP Rainbow Mirror by Prurient, a release that delivered a whole new set of mysteries and moods for us to relish as we slide gracefully into 2018. I raise my glass to you now, Profound Lore, as I have many times in my life, whether knowingly or unknowingly. You have brought a significant amount of beautiful music into the world this year. Thank you. –Adam Rothbarth --- End of the Alphabet [AKE · OMIT · MARHAUS AND MEEK] I have often wondered the existential meaning behind Noel Meek’s End of the Alphabet label. I can conjure many shortsighted missives about the location of New Zealand, the idea of the letters X, Y, and Z being largely ignored and underused, or perhaps the notion that those same letters are quite weird and therefore loosely lumped together. So I’ll stick to a combination of all three, which is why EotA is such an ear-opening experience. Whether it’s via Meek’s own releases and collaborations, or those spotlighting both his New Zealand and its surrounding — and equally ignored — regional sounds. Considering how stuck Western culture seems to be, I’d rather delve into the XYZs of our globe than the ABCs. –Jspicer --- MOTOR Collective [KLEIN & LACK · SABERTOOTH · R. GAMBLE] Tucked away in the fogs of the Pacific Northwest, this year the gang at MOTOR Collective did not “break through” so much as further refine their version of dance music — moody, spacious, and deep, yet grounded enough that you can actually move to it. MOTOR releases (as well as their excellent parties and podcasts) feel less like music for the club as we know it and more like the jump-off point for some head-trip gathering in the forest; the sense of a group yearning for this vision carries across records as varied as R Gamble’s Realistic Spaces and Heidi Sabertooth’s The Hear Of Now (both highlights for the year). That you can still hear the tape hiss on many digital versions of MOTOR tracks (as opposed to the hyperreal, LOL-perfect rendering of so much modern electronic music) speaks to what the label is going for. Like mighty ponderosa left in the rain, it’s imperfect and gently warped, still sturdy, and full of personality. –Dylan Pasture --- PERMALNK [DETENTE · LEO HOFFSAES & LOTO RETINA · BENOIT B] The Parisian label PERMALNK has been offering what it calls an “empathetic image of the world” since 2014, but it wasn’t until this year, with three strong releases, that it brought that image into clearer focus. The empathy of DETENTE’s Basic Dwell is reserved for the world’s smoldering and static-charged bits, where its energy is locked up, and from whence it manifests in stuttering impact and action-movie fidelity, accompanied by the grungy tremolo of guitar. Léo Hoffsaes and Loto Retina collaborated on Early Contact, the intimate story of a woman’s day out with her son and husband as her second child squirms in her belly, with uterine gurgling joining airy string melodies in a duet of nervous anticipation that spreads, as if contagiously, from narrator to listener. Far from both the incidental onslaught of Basic Dwell and the human intimacy of Early Contact, Benoit B’s Ethereal Drops addressed itself to the world as if to a fantastic, New Age-adjacent vision of nature. Its tracks, like the standouts “Sparkling Stream” and “Diamonds Rain,” combined a high, animalistic chirp with pads colored in shades of balearic and trance, constructing an image that, like artist Tavi Lee’s album cover, carries about it a worldly air, even in its bold color palette and surreal bending of the edges of its “natural” forms about one another. In 2017, PERMALNK has accomplished something rare in releasing three albums with little in common aside from an adherence to the label’s noble mission statement and, more importantly, an uncanny coherence as individual works of art. –Will Neibergall --- Posh Isolation [CROATIAN ARMOR · DAMIEN DUBROVNIK · KYO] In some secret file on Loke Rahbek’s hard drive, one can find my full frontal nudes along with a genetalia garden of many other bodies, desecrated and devalued, for they all were exchanged, vulnerability for vulnerability, with a cassette tape of Croatian Amor’s 2014 album The Wild Palms. In the commodification of the world, all things are abstractly identified with an exchange value, where even vulnerability has a value, for the body is as expendable as every other image. Yet, here we give one’s inability to give as a gift — one’s vulnerability. The self-interest of commodity economy is abdicated in preference of a gift exchange. Here, Rahbek creates an artificial space to find other people. Posh Isolation’s forays beyond noise and industrial to lyrical ambient and minimal techno belie industrial music’s foundation in the incommunicable dissonance of the world of industrial capitalism, where seeking to be heard above the din is a project worthy of art. By fetishizing the empty object in the artificial space of performance, this bubblegum industrial forges impossible connections that, though artificial, become pleasurable and therefore real. Through pain directed inward, as if pierced by a great many arrows, we confirm that one’s self is irreducible to the abstract identification of the commodity, as Saint Sebastian his beauty. The ultimate need to make contact snaps one out of artificiality. In 2017, the cold has become a little bit warmer and a sort of sincerity is resuscitated. –Evan Coral --- Don Giovanni [SCREAMING FEMALES · AGUA VIVA · LEE BAINS III & THE GLORY FIRES] What’s opera, doc? Opera is text by tune splitting story, Italian for “work.” Opera is Don Giovanni, some Austrian seraph’s diminishing sevenths flicking humans into shouting until the sound shakes our hearts. Hearts and mouths shout, so listen: Joe Steinhardt and Zach Gajewski played in a bad band at Boston College, made their own 7-inch, and voila: opera via Don Giovanni. It’s music label as New Brunswick new alternative, nixing commercial interruption so artist and audience are fleet free as a Mozart minuet to trade roles and help each other. “Anyone can do anything and not just that, everyone can do everything. No one’s fucking special,” Steinhardt reminds us. In an ashen historical moment, those words are totem for remembering the good work of “nobody lives unless everybody lives.” Don Giovanni is Aye Nako’s rim shot disrupt-punk and the geography-atomizing Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires. It’s Irreversible Entanglements, unmetered jazz outfit as union collective and A Piece of Water, the Buenos Aires tidal pool dream of Agua Viva, a body’s buoyancy over oppression. It’s La Neve’s American Sounds, a non-binary bodying the electric song as new national anthem sans strict script and the breaking “Glass House,” Screaming Female’s yowl of a collective body’s mission to re-member shards of 2017’s ill-reality into something better for every body. The music label model is the original resisting force, the libretto punk show, a two-fold work of labor output and piece created. Don Giovanni refuses repenting like the title character and screams high C’s into hell, a Looney Tunes promise that everything is movable except good work. Don Giovanni is the good work, opera for us by us. No one’s fucking special. Everyone’s fucking special. –Frank Falisi --- Piratón [MINICOMPONENTE · UPGRAYEDD JESSICA · AMAZONDOTCOM] OK, you caught me; Piratón Records isn’t as prolific as some of these other labels. As far as I can tell, it currently only exists as a Bandcamp page, and since its founding in 2015 by Mexico City musician and music journalist Carlos Huerta (a.k.a. Josué Josué), there are only four releases, all available for free streaming with a “name your price” option for download. One of them, Ruido’s 2015 FUN LP, is a totally bonkers instrumental hip-hop/chip-tune/synth punk thing. Two of them are compilations in a series called No hay más fruta que las nuestra, which means, “There is no fruit other than ours,” a play on a quote by Mexican social realist painter David Siqueiros: “No hay mas ruta que la nuestra” (“There is no other route but ours”). This year’s No hay más fruta que la nuestra 2 is why I’m writing this blurb. Like its 2016 predecessor, it features all kinds of music by female artists from Latin America and Spain. TMT favorite (Upgrayedd) Smurphy is on it, along with 11 other incredible ladies whose work spans pop, punk, rap, techno, and folk. It’s basically all I’ve listened to this year (besides, like, DAMN. and A Crow Looked At Me, so you know it’s good but ultimately responsible for way fewer tears). Snarkiness aside, I hope that somebody finds this at least half as empowering as I did this year. Life fairs a little better when your music’s this good. –Jazz Scott --- Hospital Productions [LUSSURIA · RAINFOREST SPIRITUAL ENSLAVEMENT · NINOS DU BRASIL] 2017 was the 20th year in the business for Dominic Fernow’s Hospital Productions. The label celebrated with tastefully grim releases that fit nicely under the three categories of Fernow’s own projects, Vatican Shadow, Prurient, and Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement. Like Demdike Stare’s DDS and Oneohtrix Point Never’s Software imprints, Hospital Productions never strays far from Fernow’s infernal circle of influence. The label eschews the convenience of modern platforms, preferring physical record stores and distributors like Boomkat and Bleep to platforms like Bandcamp and SoundCloud. Aesthetically, the labels seems to occupy a razor-thin void that exists between the chic, palatable throb of ambient techno — the sort of jilted, swooning sound that intellectual architecture students in horn-rimmed glasses and ket-heads in crop tops can bond over — and the always unpalatable, unpredictable underground noise scene. The latter is the spawning pool of Hospital Productions, a realm of cut-and-paste cassette art and “noise tables,” which basically kept the National Audio Company in business until avant-garde electronica and Urban Outfitters found tapes to be a fashionable medium again. It’s a dangerous game Fernow plays: with every high-bias, 180g limited-edition release at the luxury price point, he runs the risk of playing to the “market,” whether ironically or for personal gain. Industry politics aside, the music is of scrupulous quality and gluttonous proportions. Hospital Productions is committed to releases of staggering, atmospheric scale: the monolithic physical LPs and cassette boxes are like dense artifacts, adding to the imprint’s quasi-archaeological mystique. Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement put out a few large cuts, coming over two hours on a reissue of Green Graves. The project also put out an eight-cassette compilation titled Water Witches, one of many such bricks of tape that the label would drop. Another eight-hour box set of 8xCS was released for Dust Belt’s brooding, dark ambient on Ecocannibalism, and then of course there was the 6xLP release of Prurient’s massive Rainbow Mirror, which was co-released with Profound Lore. The club side of Hospital Productions is equally grim: Ninos du Brasil released their second full-length, Vida Eterna, a bludgeoning set of trance-inducing Latin rhythms, as well as another 12-inch. Natural Assembly put out The Fantasy of Love, a mix of post punk and deep house. Shifted drew a converging plane between metal grooves (the rhythmic kind) that sound like they’ve been rubbed out of literal metal grooves and outsider techno beats on Appropriation Stories. As much as I hate the “outsider” term, there’s still not much of a vocabulary for the sort of undanceable, fringes-of-the-club-basement beats that Hospital represents so well. –Ross Devlin http://j.mp/2iT0sDJ

[brokaw22]

Fic: Childhood vs Adulthood

ff.net

Day Two of TimDrakeWeek: Prompt: Childhood / Adulthood

Tim usually doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about his childhood.

After all, other than that one special moment spent on the opposite side of the camera taking a picture with a smiling acrobat family, all of the best moments of Tim’s childhood were experienced through a viewfinder, the press of a button, the click of a shutter, and still shots of other people’s lives. He hates to admit that he misses it immensely. He misses the feel of the thick leather strap around his neck, and the heft of the camera weighing on him and bumping into his chest as he made his way through dimly lit alleyways and darker still side streets. He misses crawling into impossibly small crevices high above a city that never sleeps. Tim also misses the thrill and joy of being able to capture such amazing pictures without anyone ever noticing him. However, most of all, Tim misses the immense amount of enjoyment his hobby brought to him.

He doesn’t like to think about how his childhood was fraught with loneliness and empty rooms, and how the only thing that eased the endless days of silence were nights spent following his heroes through a noisy city. He doesn’t like remembering how much a simple glimpse of a cape or hearing an exulted whoop of delight left him jovial and excited for an entire evening. It was in those moments, tucked away behind a convenient air vent or huddled in a shadowy corner on an ancient, rusted fire escape, that Tim could pretend that the long trips that his parents took and the insistence that Tim didn’t need anyone watching him, spending time with him, or truly interacting with him were good things. After all, he certainly couldn’t have done the things he’s done or become who he is had his parents been more attentive.

Conversely, Tim doesn’t really enjoy thinking about his adulthood, either. Things have changed drastically. He has a different name now, and an entirely different family, and yet, the comparisons and similarities are nearly startling. Tim doesn’t spend a lot of time behind camera lenses anymore, because he spends far more time than he ever believed that he would in front of them. After all, Timothy Drake Wayne doesn’t get to stand in the shadows merely observing anymore. He’s someone to be scrutinized now. It makes his skin crawl in a way that can sometimes feel like Scarecrow Toxin. Still, Tim endures it, knowing that these things are a necessary evil.

However, the camera placement isn’t the only thing that has changed. Where once there were too many rooms and not enough people to fill them, silence that was so deafening that sometimes Tim imagined he lived in a museum, or worse, a mausoleum, now there is too much noise and finding a quiet place away from his family can be nearly impossible. Sometimes he wonders if this is really better than that big empty house, especially since, even in the manor, surrounded by people, Tim still has a tendency to feel alone. Still, he knows there’s a difference between being isolated and merely feeling that way. After all, he relives those moments every time he spends a little too much time away from the manor and his family. Nonetheless, it would be nice if he could get a single second to himself sometimes.

In fact, right now would be good. He doesn’t even know what Dick, Damian, and Jason are bickering about. He just knows that the noise level is giving him a headache and distracting him from the work that he desperately needs to finish. He considers asking them to quiet down, but Tim knows that drawing their attention to himself won’t actually yield the result that he’s looking for. He has always been prone to feeling invisible. It used to be a comfort. After all, it’s one of the many reasons that he got away with his childhood hobby in the first place. However, feeling invisible while surrounded by people isn’t nearly as comforting.

Tim thinks about his empty, silent apartment, where no one really visits him unless they need something, and wonders if it would be better there. The quiet hum of electronics isn’t always enough to remind Tim that he isn’t actually as alone as he used to be during his childhood, but it is more conducive to work. He’s just about to get to his feet and leave when a hand lands on his shoulder, leaving him frozen in place. “You’ve been awfully quiet over there. Wanna settle this for us?”

Tim owlishly stares up at Jason, confused as to why he’s suddenly being included and uncertain of what he’s precisely being included in. “Settle what, exactly?”

Jason rolls his eyes, but there’s a smirk on his face, so Tim knows that he’s not actually as annoyed as he’s pretending to be. “Haven’t you been paying attention? We’re discussing the worst Brucie nickname ever, and I don’t care what those two morons think, Tiger is still the worst.”

Dick shakes his head as he plops down beside Tim and drapes an arm over his shoulder. “No way, Chum was definitely worse. He always said it with that creepy Brucie smile…you know the one.”

Damian scoffs as he joins them on the other side of the room. “You’re both idiots. Clearly, little man is the most appalling.”

Tim’s eyebrows furrow in puzzlement. He’s more than a little mystified that this is what they’ve been squabbling about for the last thirty minutes. Tim merely shrugs as he pulls his laptop closer to himself, subtly saving what he’s been working on, knowing that now that their attention has been drawn to him, he isn’t going to lose it any time soon. That is, at least, something that’s altered since his childhood, though he’s not entirely certain that it’s a good change. “Dunno, they’re all kind of terrible.”

Jason’s rolls his eyes dramatically as he folds his arms over his chest. “No shit, what was yours, anyway?”

Tim’s brow creases further as he thinks about it. It’s been a long time since Brucie has referred to him as anything other than Tim or Timothy. He supposes that being the active CEO of WE does have its perks, after all. “Um, I’m pretty sure it was just Sport, but I’m also fairly certain that he calls all of us that, so I guess nothing.”

Jason’s eyes widen. “Seriously? You never had a specific Brucie nickname?”

Dick looks as though he’s trying to recall one, but Tim knows that he’s right. There isn’t a Brucie moniker to remember. Damian just stares at him with mild interest, although Tim doesn’t know why. Jason seems to be waiting for something, and Tim merely shrugs.

He’s honestly never thought about it before…not when he was a child who sometimes attended galas and parties with his parents when they were actually home. In fact, at the time, Tim usually spent the majority of the evening steering clear of Brucie Wayne, because seeing that smile on Batman’s face was unnerving, even then. Tim didn’t think about the lack of a nickname when he was older. After all, he generally only attended the parties in order for Robin to keep an eye on things. He spent the evening working and covering his side of the ballroom.

Tim certainly doesn’t consider it a big deal now that he’s an adult and Timothy Drake Wayne is expected to attend nearly every single one of the galas and parties. Brucie was never really in a position to give Tim his own specific nickname, anyway. After all, Tim doubts Bruce ever really noticed him at first. He was just a scrawny kid occasionally dragged along by his parents. He wasn’t anything worth Bruce’s, Brucie’s, or Batman’s notice.

When Tim did finally become something worth Bruce’s, Brucie’s, and Batman’s notice, a nickname still wasn’t needed. Robin may have been needed, but, at the time, he certainly wasn’t wanted, and Tim certainly wasn’t Bruce’s son. He’s sure it never even occurred to Brucie to give him his own nickname, because Tim’s certain Bruce had no idea he’d stick around for so long. After all, he has the photographic and video evidence to prove that his Robin training was far more extensive than his predecessors.

By the time that Tim became one of Bruce’s sons, Brucie had been attending parties with sweet, little, polite Timothy Drake by his side long enough that there was no need for a new moniker. In fact, the sudden change probably would have just been awkward and weird for both of them. And as for right now…well, Tim or Timothy is just more natural and expected, especially given how long Brucie has been referring to him as such in those particular settings.

Not to mention, Tim is actually an adult now, and even Dick hasn’t been referred to as ‘Chum’ for quite some time. Jason equally hasn’t had to endure being referred to as Tiger since his return to the family. Therefore, it just makes sense not to bother bestowing a Brucie nickname at this point. “Guess, I just lucked out there.”

Jason’s expression suddenly shifts to something darker and far more acidic. Tim has no idea why, but, no matter the reason, he does know that he doesn’t like it. “Fucking damn, Baby Bird, this shit is ridiculous.”

Tim merely blinks repeatedly at Jason’s outbursts. He doesn’t see why this is such an explosive issue for Jason. After all, Tim was a very different Robin from the rest of them. He wasn’t chosen. Sure, he eventually wormed his way into the family and has since found his place among them, but that doesn’t change the fact that for a long time Tim was no one’s son.

At best, his parents were absent, and Bruce didn’t even know that he existed. By the time Tim revealed himself to Bruce, it was more important that Tim do his best to keep his mentor from crossing a certain line than it was for him to become something akin to family. Not to mention, the Jason sized hole in the other man’s heart made anything more than just Bruce’s partner nearly impossible. When Tim and Bruce finally managed to settle into a more comfortable partnership, Tim’s life crumbled. His dad ended up in a coma, and, while Bruce may have taken in him, the billionaire still sure as hell wasn’t his father.

When Tim finally legally became Bruce’s son, there were still complications with that type of relationship between them. Tim recognizes how many of those complications were directly caused by himself, but that doesn’t negate the fact that years of being nothing more to Bruce than a sidekick left him with certain expectations for their continued partnership. By the time, Tim actually accepted that he could have something similar to a father/son relationship with Bruce; Damian appeared. Therefore, all in all, it makes sense that he just wasn’t privy to certain traditions and family related experiences.

Still, Tim can see how this could quickly devolve into one of Jason’s less entertaining rants, so he shuts his laptop and smirks. “Face it, Jay; you’re just jealous that I didn’t have to endure one of Brucie’s more annoying habits. By the way, Chum is definitely the worst one.”

Dick laughs as he gets to his feet. “Ha, see, I win. I knew Tim would be on my side. He is a genius, after all.”

Damian rolls his eyes as he punches Dick. “I have yet to witness his supposed genius, given that, as usual, Drake is obviously wrong.”

Dick moves to ruffle Damian’s hair, before the brat has a chance to dodge. “Now, now, don’t be a sore loser, Dami.”

Jason seems torn between arguing whatever point he was trying to make and rejoining the bickering. Tim merely smiles and shakes his head, which seems to be all of the encouragement that Jason needs. “What would Baby Bird know? He didn’t even have an atrocious nickname. He doesn’t know what it feels like to have Brucie just sneak up behind you while you’re trying to sneak a handful of cucumber sandwiches, and loudly proclaim, ‘Slow down, Tiger. The food isn’t going anywhere.’ It’s downright irritating.”

Tim laughs as all three of them launch into a renewed argument, and opens his laptop again. He’s not entirely positive that he’ll be able to get any work done with the three of them squawking indignantly at each other mere feet from him, but he does know for certain that it’s better than empty rooms and deafening silence. Tim smiles to himself as he considers that this is probably the first time that he truly feels as though his adulthood is infinitely better than his childhood.

The End

[renaroo]

The Search (4/16)

Disclaimer: Red vs Blue and related characters are the property of Rooster Teeth. Warnings: Language, Canon-typical violence, Psychological manipulation and trauma Rating: T Synopsis: [Canon Divergence - Alternate S15] The Reds and Blues saved Chorus, but it has been a year and they are still missing. A motley crew has been gathered with the common goal of finding the war heroes, though the road is more troubled than anyone seems to realize.

A/N: Wooooo getting this one in on the wire! Lots of fun stuff in this chapter, mostly to do with character, so I hope you all enjoy ; ) 

Special thanks to @analiarvb, @secretlystephaniebrown, @cobaltqueen, Yin, @notatroll7, and JP for the comments and feedback!

This fic seems to attract the weirdest comments, so to the guest who shared their... concerns about this fic maybe trying to sneak into the dreaded, horrible, unforgiveable realm of being a Tuckington fic, I... don’t know where you came to that conclusion. Especially on a fic that is... gen... and... doesn’t have Tucker featured as a main character at all. And didn’t list the pairing. Or anything. But you’re wrong. Not because you’re right but because you, as a person, are just wrong. Hope that clears up any of your concerns. 

Family Affairs

As much as Washington just loved to point out how much he hated it — and boy did he — Kaikaina slipped the ship into autopilot, set for their course as FILSS directed it. After all, FILSS sounded and acted a whole lot like Sheila, and they trusted Sheila to man a tank by herself, so Kai figured what the fuck and trusted FILSS with their ship.

After all, they had stolen it. It’s not like Kaikaina had some magical connection to a ship that a computer wouldn’t. She just knew she had to get out of Blood Gulch and find her brother after seeing Church’s big damn transmission to everyone.

It was kinda like a great middle finger to the UNSC. But also confusing, because Kai was fairly certain she was never aware of more than half of any story at any one time. And the Reds and Blues had lots of fucking stories she needed to catch up on.

Hell, she barely knew who Carolina was, and supposedly she’d been around for years!

With a sigh, Kaikaina leaned back in the pilot’s seat and kicked up her feet to the console. Her arms folded behind her mess of hair and she looked out toward the stars around them.

Her brother was still out there. Somewhere.

There were a few heavy footsteps and a chortling noise that only kind of got Kai’s attention from the beautiful space scenery around them. She didn’t fully turn to look and confirm that it was Junior approaching until the alien-dog-human-baby was almost at the console.

Junior looked out into the stars with his dark, soulful eyes, and then leaned in until his mandibles were resting against the smooth top of the console.

“Hey, you,” Kai finally said, tilting her nearest foot just enough that the tip of her boot nudged Junior’s snout. “You just gonna walk up and invade my space without saying at least hello? Rude. Doesn’t your sexy dad teach you nothing?”

With a rattling of his rows of teeth Junior seemed to grumble a low few blarghs at her. Even if she was an expert in Sangheili, though, it was not anything she would’ve been able to make out over the rumble of the ship.

“Rude,” she said all the same, yawning. “Oh my eff, is it like… late or something? Shouldn’t you be in bed?” she asked, swiveling her seat enough to face Junior more completely. “If Washington comes up here and starts yelling at me because you’re not supposed to be awake right now, I’m so going to throw your little butt to the wolves. The Wash wolves. Which I hear are the worst kind of wolves. And it’s not gonna be, like, anything personal. But a girl’s not been yelled at for a few hours or arrested, so I’ve gotta protect my luck.”

To that, Junior tilted his head and let out another series of low rumbles.

“Do you kiss your father with that mouth?” she asked him critically just before the cockpit door opened again.

Fo a moment, Kai’s heart leaped in her chest as the fear of it actually being Wash and her getting her ass chewed again became a momentary reality. But instead she breathed a heavy sigh of relief and resettled in her seat, eyes sliding closed.

It was only Doctor Grey, after all.

“Yo, Doc!” Kai said with her eyes closed, fist bumping the air.

“Good evening, Kaikaina. Lavernius Junior,” Grey replied cordially.

Junior stood up straight and greeted the doctor with a formal honk.

“You making another collect call, Doc?” Kai asked curiously, though not too curiously so as to not lose the sense of her cool. “Or are you finally gonna give me that physical and make me show off the mole on my butt cheek?”

“I’m contacting Chorus again, Private Grif,” she answered before hesitating and looking at Kaikaina questioningly. “I read your medical records and saw no mention of such a mole.”

“What? How’d the other Doc miss that?” Kai asked critically. She paused and tapped her finger against hr chin in thought. “Well… now that I think about it, even I don’t really know what cheek it’s on this time. You’d think I’d know my own ass better.”

Doctor Grey offered Kai a smile that was simply too kind for the subject at hand. “We can give you a true physical and sort that out at a later date, if you wish.”

“Sounds like a date,” Kai said with a wink and a click of her tongue.

“I suppose so,” Grey replied before looking to the door. “Do you wish for me to close the cockpit door, Private Grif?”

“Is that naked physical happening now?” Kai asked back.

Junior chortled.

“I can’t imagine that we’ll have the time for it, I’m afraid,” Doctor Grey replied in a very bemused tone.

“Nah then, keep it open,” Kai shrugged before turning back to her business. “We still flying straight, FILSS?”

“It is the shortest distance between our current coordinates and the ones designated as our next point of intrigue, Private Gif,” FILSS’ electronic voice hummed from the speakers in response.

“Righteous,” Kai nodded.

She didn’t pay much mind to Grey calling in to Chorus — it was something she did quite frequently on their trip and there had been nothing really spectacular about it outside of an occasional urge to ask Grey if Chorus was something like Paradise Island where all the leaders and soldiers were butch women with fantastic hair (the answer had been no to Kai’s displeasure since some President Kimball was the only one who ever seemed to be on the other line with Grey).

Few things were capable of holding a Grif’s focus for too long and the Chorusian contacts were not an exception to the general rule.

Junior didn’t seem particularly interested in whatever the conversation was either, though, and laid out against the console with another begrudging sigh.

“Dude, I don’t know why you come up here if you’re going to act so moody every time. Like goddamn,” Kai groaned as she kicked back into her seat again. Her eyes focused on the distant stars and she frowned as an itchy feeling scratched at her back.

The little dude was just staring at her. Openly.

“You’ve traveled a lot for being such a little guy, huh?” she asked casually. “The stars and space aren’t even that interesting to you anymore.”

Junior’s teeth clattered together in what passed for affirmation in what Kai considered to be a truly nonsense tongue.

“Yeah, well, just so you know, you’re pretty lucky. I didn’t leave the planet I was born on until I was joining up with the army to find my bro,” Kai explained, sitting more upright. “The first time I was in a transport ship, I pretended I was looking for the bathroom so that I could get in the cockpit and see the stars — they didn’t have windows or anything on the rest of the ship. And they treat military recruits like shit. But outside of trying to find Dex again… I was here to see those stars, up close for the first time in my whole life.” She looked back toward the window, which urged Junior’s gaze to follow. “They weren’t gonna let me stay up there and watch the stars, but I gave the captain a lap dance so they’d shut the fuck up about it. It worked.”

“Bow chicka honk honk,” Junior called out, crawling into the passenger seat finally.

“Dude, no, I banged your dad,” Kai snapped at him. “You can’t make comments at me after I bang your dad. It’s illegal in, like, all of space. Pretty sure. Like what the fuck were they trying to teach you at that prissy prep school? Definitely not the law.”

Blarghing, Junior seemed to want to challenge the sentiment.

Kai shrugged casually. “Hey, don’t take up complaints with the law against me! Go bitch to Washington! He’s the cop, he can change laws and stuff for you. It’s not, like, it’s an act of congress or something. He just has to change his mind. Then you can hit on me and get rejected for being a little perv.”

The little alien rolled his eyes and kicked out his feet to get a better position in his seat, grumbling to himself still with his arms crossed. His frustration was written all over his lizardy face and Kai couldn’t help but smirk at it.

“You know, it’s weird, but even though you’re, like, an alien and crap, sometimes I look at you and you just remind me of your dad so much,” Kaikaina told Junior, immediately causing the little guy to perk up. “Which is saying something, ‘cuz your dad and I were intimate.”

“I hadn’t realized you and Captain Tucker were an item.”

The voice was so unfamiliar and caught Kai so off guard that she nearly fell out of her seat as she whirled around to face it. Her heart only began to calm down once she saw that it was the reporter lady Carolina had brought along. “The fuck. How’d you get in here so quiet?”

The reporter tilted her head and looked back to the ajar cockpit door before turning back. “The door was open,” she said flatly. “Now about you and Captain Tucker—“

“Me and Tucker fucked a few times,” Kai snapped angrily. “That doesn’t make us an item, you old cootch.”

“Bow chicka honk honk,” Junior said in the correct context for, perhaps, the first time since he had joined their team.

Andrews paused and tilted her head. “I think you meant coot.”

Kai folded her arms. “I know what I said.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you, Kaikaina — or do you prefer Li’l Grif?” Andrews offered peacefully.

“I tell you what I prefer, reporter lady, I prefer to know that everyone on this ship’s on the same mission of the same reason. Because we care about my brother and my teammates and the other idiots that I didn’t bother to remember the names of because they were old or geeky or too gay to care that I somersaulted naked. But then there’s you,” Kai said, pointing a heavy finger toward the reporter. “You want to spin a story. And lemme tell ya, I was the Queen Bitch in high school so I know not to trust people who are interested in spinning stories. Especially when they’re about people I care about.”

Looking taken aback, Andrews tilted her head. “I’m sorry if I offended in any way, Kaikaina—“

“You didn’t, as long as you don’t go full Regina George on us,” Kai warned.

“Regina…?” Andrews tried to follow.

“Ugh, you’re old. I can hear it in your lack of relevant source material,” Kai snapped before getting to her feet and holding out her hand for Junior to take. “Keep driving us steady, FILSS. I’m taking Junior to bed.”

“Request accepted!” FILSS called after them as Kai and Junior shoved past Andrews on their way out.

Kai only momentarily caught the sharp eyes of Doctor Grey on the whole scene.

Carolina was quiet while Wash worked at redressing her leg wound.

He didn’t like it — the fact that she still had not taken time to allow the wound to heal and the fact that she was overly quiet despite their generally positive results. Wash might not have liked when their plans fell completely through, but he was used to it happening without giving them any results. This seemed to be a distinct improvement, as it were.

But he and Carolina went back before the Reds and Blues, as difficult as that was to remember at times. They had known each other since Freelancer, and he had followed her cues as closely as he could since then.

Her silence spoke volumes. It was her considering over their results, it was reliving the scenario as it played out, how she could have made it better, how she could have made it safer.

Washington highly doubted any of it had to do with making sure she didn’t have to use her speed unit and reopen the old wound she wouldn’t allow to heal. Things never came to that sense of self preservation for her anymore.

“I’d ask if you want a penny for your thoughts,” Wash broke the silence solemnly, “but I know you well enough to know that that’d be underselling your thoughts’ worth.”

That at least got a smirk and small huff of a laugh from Carolina.

He looked up to watch the momentary expression unfold. The smile and laugh — those weren’t things from Freelancer. Sure, she smirked and was good for the old sarcastic quips. Still was. But there was a warmth to them now that had not been present before. Wash wondered if his own changes since meeting the Reds and Blues were nearly as subtle.

He doubted it.

Spending time with the Reds and Blues did not promote subtly. At least not for him.

“You really know how to make an ex-marine blush, Wash,” Carolina retorted dryly. She looked him in the eyes. “My thoughts aren’t pretty right now, or else I’d share.”

Finishing up the wrap of gauze, Washington flared his nostrils with a sharp exhale and then tilted his head back to return Carolina’s look meaningfully. “I’ve come to find that when your thoughts are less than pleasant, it’s probably the best time to share them. Or… else…”

She raised a brow at him. “Or else…?”

“It just seems like a bad idea. Getting stuck in your own head,” he said. “Besides, even if I don’t like how it all played out like a tire rolling down a garbage hill… on fire… You got results. Just like you always do. And now we have FILSS navigating the ship instead of a barely legal Grif. So I’d say things are running remotely in the positive thus far.”

“Would you lay off Li’l Grif?” Carolina sighed, leaning back against the wall. “I happen to like her. Besides. She might be loud and obnoxious, but the part of that she’s not overdoing to annoy you is a coverup for how worried she is about her brother.”

Surprised by the depth of her defense, Washington looked at Carolina.

In return, Carolina shrugged. “Girl talk.”

“Girl talk,” Wash replied dryly. “Anything you need to share with me? Besides the fact that I’m an annoyance that needs to be talked over by the second most perverted person in the galaxy?”

Carolina scoffed. “Don’t let Li’l Grif hear you say that!”

“Oh, she’d be flattered,” Wash replied with a twist of his wrist and a roll of his eyes.

“Of being second?”

“She’s met Tucker before,” Wash said flatly. “In… the biblical sense.”

“Oh, god, we need another girl talk. Homegirl deserves better,” Carolina said though it was mostly without malice.

“Hey, we promised not to make demeaning jokes about the guys until we found them again,” Wash reminded her. “That includes my… lascivious teammate.”

Carolina sobered up some at that and inhaled sharply. “You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s just… old habits.”

“Almost as difficult to kill as the Reds and Blues, I know,” Wash said, squeezing Carolina’s knee. “You have to keep yourself together, Carolina. You’re still leading this mission. And the Reds and Blues have to be alive. If you just search your feelings—“

“We already agreed this is Star Wars, you don’t have to keep nerding up the point, Wash,” Carolina rolled her eyes.

“Carolina,” Wash said intently. “Promise me you’re going to not leave me alone on this. I’ve already lost the Reds and Blues… Freelancer… I can only be the last man standing so many times before I get a condition.”

She looked surprised before growing a sour look. “That sob story doesn’t work on me.”

“The truth isn’t a sob story!” Wash complained.

“It is when it’s you, jesus, Wash,” Carolina retorted before leaning her head back with an audible thud against the wall. Her eyes were distant and aimed toward the ceiling, though they seemed to look even further. “You really think we’re going to find everyone alive? All of them?” she asked lowly.

“No doubts,” Wash replied firmly.

“I have them.”

Almost immediately, Wash could feel himself deflated. “What do you mean—“

“I think the guys are alive. I feel like it must be the case because… even if it’s hard to imagine a god that would allow the kind of shit we’ve gone through… the universe itself can’t be that unjust, to make us lose our family again after just finding them,” Carolina answered lowly. “And I want that to be enough to keep me happy, to keep me positive. But when it’s just you and me and I’m not worried about motivating the others and keeping us moving, there’s an emptiness in me. There’s… there’s just a place that Epsilon used to fill. Even when he wasn’t synced with me. And it’s just. Not there anymore, Wash. I don’t… I don’t know if he’s still with us. But I think he’s not.”

Washington absorbed the information quietly, respectfully. He did not have to use words to express to Carolina what she already very well knew — that for Wash there were no simple feelings with Epsilon. That Epsilon was something that he never counted with the guys for himself.

Their bond was not something he could spend his time thinking about, nor did he really want to to begin with.

“I’m sorry, if that’s how you feel,” he finally responded.

“It is,” Carolina said, dropping her head. “Before things got too crazy on Chorus, before the final attack and taking down the Tower against Felix and Locus… Before all that, the Insurrectionist soldier — the one who remembered us from Freelancer. He said something. He said… He said Epsilon was failing. That he was dying. And when I thought about it all — the glitches, the… multiple projections. Just the way he was jumping around between equipment and soldiers and… It was there. Before the Reds and Blues disappeared. He was dying. And he lied to my face — to my brain — when I confronted him.”

Wash’s veins grew cold and he straightened his jaw.

Epsilon, after all, had a habit of dying, or at least trying to, in people’s heads.

“I’m sorry,” Wash said when he could think of nothing else.

“No, I’m sorry. This is a shitty conversation,” Carolina said with a grunt, getting to her feet. “I’m sorry you’re the only person I can have it with, too.”

Wash pushed up from the ground to get to his own feet. “Not even Grey?” he asked.

“Normally, maybe,” Carolina said, crossing her arms. “But lately we’ve had this… weirdness between us ever since I brought Dylan onboard.”

Pausing, Wash tilted his head at her. “Dylan?”

“See? That’s exactly what Emily said, too!” Carolina growled out, frustrated.

Not ready to let that thread go without a fight, Wash opened his mouth and began to argue for more details when the door to the bunks burst open and nearly sent Carolina and himself into fight mode.

“Eureka!” Doctor Grey shrieked. “She found it!”

[hatingwithfears]

MORRISSEY- I Am Not a Dog on a Chain REVIEW

At 60 years old, Morrissey has become the dog on a chain, sadly the chain isn’t tight enough. 50 minutes worth of this one-time great falling lower than ever before with ill-fitting electronics mashed together with his grossest and meanest lyrics yet (which is really saying something). 1992’s Your Arsenal might have been gross as well, but at least you could write off some of the hate as sly criticism, no luck now in 2020.

I Am Not a Dog On a Chain is a hate-filled diatribe of shit that goes nowhere fast. The first song has Morrissey pleading for another person to commit suicide, AND it’s one of the better songs on the album. Yikes.

The title song is one his worst yet, where he pretty much defends fake news (of course the artist would insist otherwise, but it’s pretty damn easy to read his lines about “newspapers being troublemakers” as anything less than what is sung). He’s disillusioned himself into plenty of corners over the years (I won’t even get into the mess he’s made of himself over the past few years in interviews (it’s not good)), and he seems determined to stay stuck in this self-imposed position throughout this album.

“What Kind of People Live in These Houses” has Morrissey thinking he’s much better than most people, criticizing people who watch TV (seriously). He strikes against animal hunters on “Love Is on Its Way Out”, a song that does allow for Morrissey to use his voice and get away with some of his lines. It’s a rare moment on the album that works. “Once I Saw the River Clean” has some Smiths-like guitar moments, and Morrissey’s lyrics are focused on his past, mentioning his family and the places he went and the music he was listening to (T Rex’s “Metal Guru” gets a shout-out (it’s a much better song than anything on this album)). The song is reminiscent of “Last Night, Maudlin Street”, and it’s the best damn song on the entire album, one of the few good ones.

“Darling, I Hug a Pillow” has some of Morrissey’s typical lines about not getting that booty, and even now, in our time of isolation, Morrissey’s “I can’t get no booty” track on this album falls flat thanks to Morrissey not going for it vocally, instead some backing vocals come in and muddle the mix during the chorus, not to mention the poor electronic sounds mixed in (they never quite work here), and the trumpets used were nice, but the mix should have place more emphasis on them.

“Bobby, Don’t You Think They Know” is a basic bit of nothing from Morrissey moaning the torture of hell or something, and the guest vocals by Thelma Houston just exist, and there’s a saxophone solo, a throwaway song that can’t be saved because Morrissey’s writing has failed again.

The man’s writing is not where it used to be, and “The Truth About Ruth” is a bad title, but the rest of the song is even worse. Beginner poetry with the most basic of rhymes. The song doesn’t make much sense, there’s names, and there’s almost a story somewhere, but not really. Are lyrics that hard? They must be, because on the next track, “The Secret of Music” does not reveal any secrets. With Morrissey going on about nothing, for no reason. Despite the title, the music is repetitive and there’s no reason behind most of the rhymes, making for another mess, only it goes on for eight minutes. He could have trimmed it down, but there’s no telling if that would make the song any better.

The final song, “My Hurling Days Are Done”, is any odd move, a sort of curveball that (almost) works. A ballad with some serious lines about life being fragile, and time moving on without you sound like Morrissey’s age is finally catching up with him. It’s an odd move for the final song, and it still feels like Morrissey doesn’t know how to really go for it here, not taking the opportunity to really sing.

Morrissey’s outlook on life doesn’t make sense, not in his interviews, not in his blog posts, not in his bizarre memoir, and not on his new album either. The anger found throughout Morrissey’s solo work has only gotten more bitter over the years, and I’m unsure if he can artistically recover from this mess of an album.

I’ve alway been a Morrissey fan. I’ve seen him in concert, and even have a ripped piece of his shirt that he threw into the crowd that night. But to see his views shift more and more into the far-right, as well as putting together albums of sub-par materials over the past ten years (I didn’t even listen to all of his covers album from a few years ago) have made Morrissey deeply irrelevant, and never more so than right now.

Rating: 2.7 out of 10.