#i still have a bunch of my lps set up on a thing behind my door bc i love them a lot still...

[possuminnit]

i love that ur posting lps art bc i was literally just telling someone abt remembering and missing my lps ds game :( the characters in that are SO CUTE!!!!

I KNOW THE EXACT GAME UR TALKING ABT I LOVEDD THAT SHIT i actually pulled it out n my old ds out and played that again for a little bit... i had like 5 saves that were all a variation of my first name it was a rlly silly thing that just showed how young i was when i played it last...

[dollarbin]

Shakey Sundays #11:

Ragged Glory Part 2: Smell the Horse

Judging by the impending release of Fu##in' Up (a live version of Ragged Glory recorded live last November by Neil and Crazy Horse) it seems likely that Young will focus on songs from that much storied LP when I see him and the boys play live next month in San Diego.

That sounds pretty damn good to me. I'm more than ready to hear Neil rip through everything from Over and Over to Country Home (I see that, in true Shakey style, every song has been needlessly retitled for the new record by cherry picking lyrics from the songs; Country Home is hopefully now called Pickin' Someone Else's Potatoes; Over and Over should hereafter be named Ha! Ha! Ha! after the background vocals that follow the line "time was just a joke").

But if I had my druthers... well, that would be weird. What the heck are druthers? Where would I keep them if I had them?

Anyway, says I, Neil should shelve both Love and Only Love and Love to Burn for those upcoming shows; he should keep them safe at home with his own druthers while on tour. What he should bring is his giant wind machines. I want to see those things at full blast.

As I wrote a few weeks back in my first post about Ragged Glory, Young's epics on the attributes and flammability of love are great, sure, but compared with everything else from that era I find them a tad dull and definitely overplayed. Stephen Stills is probably planning reggaelishious versions of each track for his next record, the working title for which is I Suck Up The Dollar Bin. What's more, Neil has an entirely alternative version of Ragged Glory to consider for his set list: the aptly titled Smell the Horse.

Neil puts out about 16 new things a month, all of them on 480.6 kilogram clear audiofile vinyl, or whatever, so you are forgiven if you missed this one. Smell the Horse is an extended version of Ragged Glory which features four additional tracks. That doesn't sound too impressive, but I'm here to argue that it's a pretty big deal: hear about Smell the Horse is definitely worth a few minutes of your fine Sunday and I'd love to see it take up a healthy chunk of Neil's upcoming tour.

Let's start with the song that serves as inspiration for the extended version's title, a song which I think should been chosen to end the original record instead of the plodding and overly earnest Mother Earth.

We're talking about about Don't Spook the Horse:

I love how slow everyone plays here, holding onto their sonic and vocal notes alike for as long as they damn well please. Neil, Frank, Pancho and Lefty (that would be Billy Talbot) had plenty of reasons to slow down and savor everything at that point: Neil's wacko 80's were finally over, they already had a great album in the can and everyone was clearly stoned out of their minds in Neil's barn.

Saying "barn" here isn't quite right; we should say "one of Neil's barns." Apparently he had a bunch of them. On was filled head to toe with about 65 million dollars worth of toy trains. Seriously. Neil had employees dedicated to maintaining those trains, and he'd invented cordless and accessibly adapted remotes for running them all with his wheelchair bound son. Neil was clearly the richest, best and wackiest dad on the planet. I've got kids of my own and a shed behind my house too. Guess what I keep in it? Rusted and broken nonsense, of course, plus a few remaining battered and original Hoth-era plastic Star Wars toys that I simply can't justify throwing away; suffice to say that my kids would prefer Neil Young as a dad when it comes to finding pleasures in a barn.

Anyway, Neil and the boys play this song at a glacial pace because where the hell else have they got to be? "Let's play it even slower next time," I picture Neil telling them. "This one's never gonna be on the record anyway. Plus, if we play it slow enough, I can make up some lyrics as we go."

And how about the collage Neil assembles of those throw away lyrics at 3:20 mark. He's already introduced the characters and repeated their attributes for us: there's a horse who spooks, a dog who tends to roll in its own feces and a pretty little girl worth courting. But then Neil puts all of them in his homebrew lyric blender:

If you're gonna mess around with that chick,

Be sure to close the barn door;

Try to not spook the horse,

Make sure she ain't rolled in shit.

Just who exactly are we concerned about the smell of here Neil, your dog, your horse or the pretty little girl? I sincerely hope he means the little girl, 'cuz that's the silliest thing I've ever heard.

Next up in the song, Neil references "the valley of hearts", a rather boring image he plucks nonsensically from the aforementioned Love to Burn. If not for that song's somber, dull lyrics and the preachy Mother Earth, we'd include the word preface the word"gnarly" with "hilariously" when describing Ragged Glory. After all this album opens with Neil telling us that his car only starts if it's pointed downhill and then he goes on to make this song the record's only cover:

I had no idea until this moment that there was yet another silly, never seen by anyone at the time, video for this song. This one's even dumber and more ridiculous than the other videos from the record Neil made, which we spent time with a few weeks back. The visuals here, including Pancho's pants, basically prove my argument that this whole album can easily be taken as a joyful joke. Is that lady dancing with corn on the cob? And watch for when Farmer John himself shows up, first with a pitchfork, then with a shotgun. Neil was clearly cracking himself up.

And how about the fact that Neil passed over every song in the Western popular catalog from Sister Ray to Respect and chose instead to cover what is perhaps the least poetic and simplest song in history, a song which asks the Horse to hold down the beat and go "Whoa-o-o" over and over again while Young makes the least compelling case anyone has ever made for dating another human being and freaks out on his guitar. (So it's in writing: Neil, if you ever want to date one of my daughters, or, for that matter have one of them appear in one of his videos, the answer is hell no.)

But back to the whole "valley of hearts" thing: by referencing that dull valley in the delightfully sloppy Don't Spook the Horse, Neil effectively makes fun of his overly earnest writing at spots on the record and puts us even more at ease. Somebody, we think, ought to get me some of that stuff they're smoking while I check my dog for suspicious scents.

So are you with me? Isn't this whole thing a big, wonderful joke if you set aside Love to Bun, Mother Earth and Love and Only Love? I'm telling you, Neil could have completed the record's fantastically silly leap to unbridled joy by including Don't Spook the Horse from the get go.

But Smell the Horse does a lot more than add levity to the original record. It also adds some big deal beauty. Check out one of the most tender, spacious and shimmering album outtakes from Shakey's entire 60 year career:

Man, I just love this. Name another song that makes such loud and lovely use of the squeak fingers can make across the fretboard; name another song where Neil sings with this much care.

Interstate shows the vast breath of what Young was doing during the Ragged Glory sessions. Sure he could have made a comedy record. But if Interstate were on the original record instead of Farmer John we might call the whole thing introspectively soulful. Bob Dylan, it turns out, isn't the only genius who tended to cut the very best songs off his records in this era.

It initially makes sense that Young recorded Interstate a few weeks after the brilliant, hillbilly toss-off that is Don't Speak the Horse. Surely, he couldn't have achieved such disparate tones on the same day, right?

Well, don't be so sure about that: after all, 15 years earlier Young recorded one of the most hopeless songs of his entire career, Borrowed Tune, on the very same day he recorded one of his most hopeful, Traces.

That's Neil Young: from heartbreak to hope in sixty seconds flat.

The third outtake featured on Smell the Horse is Boxcar, a bouncy, strident track with some pretty questionable lyrics about Young's skin color (he says he's like a white man, which is a pretty obvious metaphor. Hey Neil, I'm a lot like a white man too. That because I'm a white male. But then Young goes on to tell us he's like a black man too, and a red man, whatever that is. Um, okay Neil...) that he wrestled with on and off for 20+ years before finally releasing on Chrome Dreams 2. The song could have added a much needed tasty note to the nothing-burger that is Old Ways; but it has no real business on the plate of swordfish, greens and hominy that is Ragged Glory. Sometimes Neil leaves the right songs off his records.

And finally, there's one of the weirdest songs in Young's entire, wonderfully weird catalog: Born to Run. No, this isn't Neil covering the Springsteen track. Young wrote his song first, supposedly, and initially recorded it in the summer of 1975 during the Zuma sessions, which just so happens to be the same summer Bruuuuuce released his own anthem by that name.

This all reminds me of my own summer of 89. I was 13 year old and about to get world famous through a song I'd just penned and recorded with my band, The Thurmanistic Paul Barrs, entitled Freefallin'. But then, bad luck came my way: Tom Petty beat me to it and put out his own, vastly worse, song with that very same name. My own Freefallin' was a stirring account of the time I fell off my bike and straight into the arms of a stunning middle school lady, but it remains on the shelf to this day because I didn't want to deal with persistent questions from the press about the possibly Pettyish origins of my own hit record; I'd seen my good friend, the incomparably talented Vanilla Ice, get unfairly pummeled by that very same media for the bass line he most certainly did not steal from Under Pressure in any way whatsoever, and I did not want to go through all that myself.

(Okay, you got me. Obviously, none of that is true. But I really was in a middle school band with that name. I sang lead.)

Anyway, I'm not accusing Neil of any plagiarism here; his song and the Boss's have nothing in common beyond their title, and Young surely would have left his own Born To Run off Zuma regardless because, well, it's a bit of a mess. Here, take a listen:

Don't get me wrong, this song still rocks. There's a fun, boneheaded hook, and everything recorded for Zuma is freakin' awesome. But I think we all get why, in addition to the Springsteen issue, the song went unheard until Archives 2.

But just listen to where Neil and the boys take that same song on Smell the Horse. The riff has new texture and less clunk. Plus there are about 16 different tempo shifts and about 48 different instrumental sections, and Neil breaks out some serious wailing in the vocal department during the chorus alongside his trademark snarl in the verses.

This track is a total and glorious mess. Clearly the plan was to have Neil's coked-up genius of a producer, David Briggs, edit the hell out of this, patching together the best 5-7 minutes of their 12 minutes of wandering through variations of the chorus and primary verse. Briggs would have definitely used the guitar work in the 7th and 8th minutes as the song's centerpiece: listen to Neil discover sounds in the neck of his Les Paul that he, and everyone else on the planet, has never heard before or since, while Billy Talbot thumps away (12345, 12345 goes the bass...) doggedly underneath him; my guess is someone had to punch Billy in the arm and tell him to stop already long after Neil was ready to wrap things up.

I'd argue that Neil made the right call again here: this song doesn't belong on Ragged Glory. Its tempo and mood swings are too symphonic, too complex and bizarre. Rather, Neil should have figured out how to play Born to Run with this much energy and ambition for either of his 80's Crazy Horse records, Re-ac-tor or Life, instead. Both of those records are filled with equally complex, ambitious and boneheaded songs, most of which somehow fail to miss their mark. Had Neil told us that he was born to run during either of those records Ragged Glory might not be viewed today as the renaissance for the band that it truly was.

So start running, or get out on the interstate, or, better yet, mess around with someone you love in your barn on this Shakey Sunday. Just remember to check the dog, or the person your fooling around with, for foul odors.

[vespertin-y]

CH4 DAILY LIFE 2 ELECTRIC BOOGALOO. that’s what this was saved as in my drafts and i’m not changing it now.

-the monokub domestic abuse subplot has started please pray for me

-”maki. good morning.” “...good morning...” [...this is a bit awkward. kaito’s obliviousness made last night...weird. but the way she talked about it like she didn’t care, that got to me...] “...hey, about last night.” “wh-what?” “you probably assumed i didn’t care...but, that wasn’t it at all.” “it wasn’t?” “you’re not fit to be a detective when you assume things without listening first.” “maki...” GODDAMNIT WE WERE SO CLOSE...all women know is eat hot chip repeatedly dig at their only two friends’ greatest insecurities without remorse and lie 😔

-”ah, why did you run? are you in a hurry?” “...i decided to live life facing forward. that’s why i can’t stop. actually, i can’t even walk! i need to be constantly running forward!” your depression can’t catch you if you run fast enough!!

-shuichi convincing himiko to come exercise with him so she feels better 😭 kaito has started a good coping mechanism mlm and i fully support this.

-”but we gotta do it! if not now, then when!?” “l-like i said before, it’s reckless! there are still two exisals, right!?” “gonta know that, but...watching friends disappear...seeing everyone get weaker...gonta no can take this anymore! that’s why gonta go fight monokuma!” “fight monokuma!?” “shuichi, good timing! talk some sense into him! gonta’s saying a bunch of reckless stuff and he won’t listen to us!” “gonta know it reckless...but it only way to save everyone. waiting around, doing nothing just make more victims...that why gonta gotta risk his life! real gentleman would risk life! gonta gladly give up life to save everyone!” aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. one thing ch4 is really good at is DREAD. you’ve been watching gonta slowly crumble as he “fails” to protect his friends over and over and you see it boiling over here.  you see miu and kokichi both obviously doing bad as well. you know the buff self-sacrificing one goes in ch4. you might not know exactly *what’s* coming, but you know it *is*. i felt so sick my whole first time through this chapter it was almost a relief when the shoe finally dropped. it’s not much easier now.

-”kokichi...what the hell’s gotten into you?” “...” “you were messed up to begin with, but this is a whole ‘nother level of weird...“ poor kaito doesn’t know this is the Mental Breakdown Chapter!! everyone gets a mental breakdown!!! him, gonta, kokichi, miu, shuichi, ME

-kokichi is dead silent for the entire rest of the morning.........

-two important things to note about what happened w/ kokichi behind the scenes: 1) he saw the outside world *in person*. i see a lot of people say there’s no way he believed it was real when he’s already been mistrustful of the flashback lights, but this is different. he saw the sky, the earth, the broken buildings stretching all the way to the horizon - he felt the air leave his lungs. to deny it as just a set seems borderline delusional imo. and 2) monokuma (probably) saved his life. think about it - who else could it have been? we see that even with several people in the room they collapse too fast to close the door without outside help. monokuma can’t directly interfere with a murder, but he can definitely save his favorite student from a boring, offscreen death, right?

-anyway now that we’re done being cripplingly sad: fun dojo event!!! :D

-”i need a lot of energy to use magic. and the best way to get that energy is by having someone with overflowing vitality nearby.” i’m gonna CRY gonta asks how he can help and himiko is just like ‘u have such incredible vibes u can just stand there and it’ll help actually 👍’ so FUCKING TRUE

-cutest cg in the game i will not be taking questions

-[the reason gonta said he wanted to fight monokuma was to save his friends...i think...miu is the same.] is she, shuichi. is she.

-on that ominous note: FTE time! first another of maki’s....except not really, because the LP gave her a gift she hated and she left immediately 💀

-they picked kaito next (maybe because he’s easy to get gifts for, lmao). he tells more cartoonishly fake stories (kaito x pirate king 500k enemies to lovers when) and tells shuichi the reason he wants to be an astronaut is just “because it’s cool”. never change, buddy.

-the announcement was slightly more tolerable this time, if only because monotaro literally fucking forgor about the incest plotline.

-”what are you doing, tsumugi?” “oh, shuichi...nothing, really. that announcement played when i was going back to my room. it would’ve been fine if they just told us the time, but why’d it have to be so melodramatic?” there are two interpretations we could take here: one is that even the fuckign monokubs’ plotline is spiraling out of tsumugi’s control, and the other is that there is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT incest fetishist from tsumugi at team DR cramming their kinks into the plot. i cannot decide which one is funnier to me.

-”if i couldn’t keep up as an assassin, the orphanage would no longer receive funding...and then, i wouldn’t have a purpose in life anymore.” damn, the parentification hit her HARD. i wish they explored more into this - maybe even have her as a *willing* bounty hunter instead of being practically held hostage by the cult, doing something she hates and knows is wrong because she feels like her only purpose in life is to provide for the kids? (that would’ve given her agency and responsibility over her actions, though, and we know how the writers hate that...). i thought going back to canon would reawaken my hatred for maki, and in some ways it has, but i feel like i’m growing fonder and fonder of the character she *could’ve* been. potential queen.

-that’s the end of day fifteen...but we get a bonus scene to tide us over :)c

-THE SPRITE. THE FUCKING SPRITE. i don’t believe anyone who says they didn’t shit their pants the first time they saw this what is up with those TEETH!!! kokichi’s other freaky sprites are all at least a little cute, in a creepy sort of way, but this one has what i can only refer to as Horse Energy and it terrifies me.

-uhh other important things to note about this scene,,,,kokichi’s teacher’s pet gambit pays off again! sure, monokuma only helps him to make the game more interesting, but do you think he’d believe, like, kaito or shuichi if they came to him with these claims? i don’t think so. he does this because kokichi has proven himself as an ally to the mastermind. (he’s going to throw away all that credit by the next chapter, but we’ll get to that when we get to it).

-that’s all for today! see you next time, where we’ll hopefully bang out the rest of daily life.

[castle-dominion]

4x20 the limey

man's in trouble nvm he's the killer Oh no he totally gonna get caught-- NO IS IT GOING TO BE A DOUBLE HOMICIDE WHERE HE KILLS THE CLEANING STAFF TOO? but dang he should have put up the do not disturb sign Love the music btw, 10/10 Girl just take the coat with you Strokes her face... sus U gonna run after him?

u'r a detective u should have figured out he heard you in the box. Lanie is SO right but gosh I cannot believe it has been four years! LP: You remember how he used to be, girl on either arm? Me: Yeah that's how he was but even back in s2 during his book launch party the girl on either arm were his mother & daughter respectively. Also what's with her outfit? What's her shirt? KB: What if it doesn’t work? What if it ends up like you and Javi? ((first names still shock me but they are outside of work rn speaking as friends in relationships ofc it's going to be his first name)) LP: Well, at least we gave it a shot. ((So true bestie)) And so it didn’t work out. So what? Now we can move on, ((Heck yeah)) give or take the occasional booty call. ((Wait what?)) You should have heard me out loud there.

Why didn't lanie get the call first? Wrong times & definitely wrong times Gina? Not gina just some gal Wow castle is very... intense Wow vegas? lmao Is this his rebound or he trying to make her jealous or what??

Not robbed for that but maybe robbed for smth else? Like a really fancy expensive painting? LP: Like you waited too long! KB: THE VIC "Espo" is so weird

How do you have jobs in two countries at once? it's insane. "choices" you say. "unconventional" you say. Like escorts, not necessarily sex workers but also pretty dates. idk.

KB, assuming they have the shared brainwave thing going: Are you thinking what I’m thinking? RC, being horny & silly & a man who likes to party (while theoretically also drawing out the murderer or witnesses): Yeah, that we should throw a party and hire a bunch of models.

What is WITH ryan's outfit today? Not necessarily good not necessarily bad, it's just,, that vest has an interesting hem on it.

Ok so she has her gun out but they are not wearing their vests? Also don't just barge in that's horrible. Announce yourself. *walks into the room wearing Very Little* He just cover's beckett's eyes while she's holding a gun OHHH I just noticed the accent!

That's sweet. I mean he's right. She's right nvm He's also right nvm. Sus. Nobody else tossed it, you're the tornado in the room. Like beckett & Royce. Colin Hunt: He made her put pepper spray in her jacket lining. that's where I found it. KB: Found what? ME: The pepper spray??? That's what he just said Girl you're technically witholding evidence rn but that's so valid bestie. I kind of like him. He's a lot like beckett. Castle seems surprised she went down without a fight but that's bc beckett is territorial, I'm of the perspective that she knows his situation & that's why she didn't fight too much. That or made gates fight her battle.

RC: Yeah, well, sometimes it’s the people we think we know the best that we don’t really know at all.

RC: Well, I guess it’s not outsiders she doesn’t like. It’s just me. *looks at her in her office rly quick* Unless she just put the key there for safekeeping bro. I really like keys. Arco-Rifkin 1130R. feo k1/elevator key (tbh it's good until you need a second key behind the panel in the elevator), c415a, ch751 (that entire line is good), 1284x (kind of useless for me personally lol), 16 120, (plus jigglers & a wire loop heheh), 222343 (I don't remember this one actually), & a cuff key (castle had one of these. btw you're more likely to get accidentally cuffed in some sort of sex cult than accidentally cuffed by cops but whatever it's useful either way), plus of course my lockpick set which I don't carry around bc it is illegal. ugh I love a good key.

KB: He's from scotland yard JE: !! Holy crap that's a great photo there just fist in face for the camera like that lol Castle actin real weird here. Oh that's why. She misses him omo it's so sad a few HOURS?

Nicky Jay: Hell, yeah, I clocked her! Biggie slim,,, hold on that's an oxymoron

Love his hat. Angry sex yeah lol Castle would sympathize with the "women are powerless against my charm" dude

That's a great photo they're using of him lol btw we are missing ryan & castle here, it's beckett espt & hunt. (Maybe ryan is castl'es lunch date lol) & now it's just her & hunt. Weird how they have these situations go in these directions to leave them in groups like this. "total pants" is not smth I have heard before CH: I just wanted her to think I sympathized. And honestly, after meeting Biggie Slim, I do. Me, for just a second: Hold on do you mean you sympathize with her bc he's hot or are you just european? Me: Wait he has a wandering eye & he's kind of an a-hole, you sympahize with her for those reasons. nvm. She Is Not Talking About Random People Right Now.

I totally thought Lanie would hit on Colin (also lanie has a nice rack but I feel bad for her bc I know how much of a hassle boobs can be. The trans man in me & the lesbian in me are fighting rn.) I thought for a sec that the bruise had a fingerprint but no it was the lotion, phew, I was insane for a sec there. Sus how he just goes away to make a call like that. LP, being the realest fellow on the show: Look, maybe it’s the wrong time, or maybe he’s even the wrong guy, but if he is, how long are you gonna wait to find out?

So now we know Dr Parish has been here for ten years. & interesting shot there, we usually don't see that perspective.

Oh he just excused himself bc he was sad & uncomfy. I thought he was closer to her dad's age but maybe it's the way fathers say "I have the prettiest baby girl in all the land" All dads are supposed to interrogate the date lol what if she IS a different person? KB: People change when you’re not looking. HHHH I like how she says "excuse me" before answering her phone & then answers mid-ring, smth movies often don't do. He really is replacement-castle rn, maybe she can make castle jealous. (But he's from over the pond, no wonder esposito doesn't look into him when he's trying to figure out beckett's boyfriend in s5)

Ryan looks normal again. that's good. Looked like a phone number at first Where did she get the photo from?

"I'll bet" At least he is pulling in his favours with his scotland yard mates. Reminds me of the detective slaughter episode except hunt probs does not need to lend out a ferarri for favours.

Ah nepotism. I got my first job because the owners were my mom's cousins. Well that & they were short staffed & I had experience in kitchens. Good thing is I didn't need a resumé. In fact, my previous job was busking so I didn't need a resumé for that either, & then my most recent job I had an impromptu interview on the spot (neither me nor the interviewer were prepared, we just sat down in the cafeteria at my college, I was still wearing my whites from class) apparently there was a competition to see who could hire the most people & they got a bonus for every person they hired. So I haven't needed a resumé for any job I've had in my short life so far. Well there was this one time I had a resumé & technically got a job but then the owner (a guy I knew) went to china & I never actually got hired. So the one job I got with a resumé I never worked & all the jobs I've worked I haven't needed a resumé. Ah, I was just wondering where Ryan was! Castle spinning again. Not super into it. "kill" his marriage & career lol. Silence speaks. They won't be Nigel's prints. It won't be a match. It wouldn't be a good story if that happened to be the case.

Ooh heck YES look at ryan there MMm! Shiny red back on that suit vest & it has stripes not in colour but because the weave direction changes? Beautiful! Rolling up his sleeves? I could die right now. Esposito on the other hand is wearing a plain long-sleeved sweater, the kind of thing I have started wearing recently bc I want to hide my SH scars but it is too hot for a real sweater. That's the kind of shirt I wear at home when I want to be comfortable not fashionable. (Except when I embroider it to look pretty.) The boys finishing each other's sentences hh so good. I also can't help it, Ryan rolling up his sleeves is not smth I thought I needed.

*castle rolls a whiteboard across the screen* *rysposito look over with mild confusion, & only half intrigue* He has some good art skills there apparently I've posted the youtube clip of this, right? bc it was hilarious. & I've posted screenshots of the pictures Castle uses for them, right? Btw, how did castle get the floor plan for the building? ok yes I did post it & I will reblog it BUT THE YOUTUBE ACCOUNT ASSOCIATED WITH THE VIDEO HAS BEEN TERMINATED??? SCREW THAT. I guess I WILL have to film the clip to post. See my other post for my comments

Ooh love the music The boys watching "or they could do that"

CH: He’s British. Trust me, he drinks Oh woman I miss dancing. But it is hard (for me) to dance to that kind of jazz. Aw that was sweet. "Well, that’s because my companion is the most beautiful woman in this room." He has gained a surprising amount of respect from me throughout this episode. It would be nice if he were a recurring character. "These aren’t my people. My people are the ones carrying the trays. Yeah. I grew up on the East End. My mum cleaned flats. Dad worked in a factory. They wanted something better, they just…they couldn’t quite get it." T Eaton Fiddle? Beckett backstory!!! KB: I grew up in the city, and, uh, went to college in California. I struggle to trust "my calling" answers. Nurses who say it is their calling tend to be more in love with being a people-helper than actually helping people. Saviour complex. Like how cops often have the hero complex where they are more in love with being a cop than actually doing things that would get you listed as a hero in my book. She just doesn't answer whether it leaves time for personal life. "Call her the bit the way I'm committed to her" - my older bro That dress is too long to dance in btw, I could never.

Ugly ties lol. Not a good music transition imo... Becks is way too obvious here. "Jean Harrington, bored." LMAO THAT WAS ACTUALLY KIND OF FUNNY Mum totally thought that she switched the glasses

But ew how can u dance with the glass?

Nigel Wyndham: Well, what meets the eye is irresistible. She is being SO obvious

He is really struggling to get there huh. You know what? She should have tripped him & made him break the glass & then they could have stolen all the broken pieces.

She is SO struggling to dance with him rn, just focus on dancing, you can let hunt out of your eyes for a sec babe! "Other activities" lol Casually grabs a caviar & what is even going on? I SAW THAT WEIRD THING IN HER BRA, I WAS SO CONFUSED.

are there ALL of his prints on the case? WHICH finger's partial was on the vic? Also in s1e1 they had to wait ages for the fingerprints to go through, now ryan can just run it three times???

CASTLE Or a better path might be to look into this mysterious number that Naomi wrote on the back of that photo, which is a mystery no longer.

[Castle points to the "W4-1949-898" written on the murder board and then hands Esposito a box of leftovers. for some reason he decides that esposito would like this food, or maybe esposito told him "if you have any leftovers bring em back for me"] JE: Is this lobster, bro? RC: Lucky for you, Jacinda's a light eater. You heat that up, little bit of melted butter-- KB: *ahem* The Case maybe? Succulent? Earthy yet elegant pinot noire? Girl RC: Right. Well, we were going over the file. Turns out Jacinda's quite a little crime solver. KB: !?!? You showed the stewardess the evidence file? RC: No. *laughs/scoffs* RC: I took a picture of it with my phone.

Where IS ryan rn? lmao the coffee is so awkward Does the end justify the means? Maybe, but what if it did not have that end?

Ooh oh heck I love this, look at the way he walks! CH: Well, Then it's a good thing I'm not NYPD. RC: *that's my line!*

Bauer? Really? Ryan is such a smarty pants, it is 200lbs so it must be sturdy, it would not be a flimsy cardboard box. (Maybe a sturdy one ig... it depends on the contents)

MORGAN (AIRPORT SECURITY): Agent Bauer! I need you to step outta there, please. KR: Okay, that didn't sound good. RC: Agent Bauer--what did he expect? CH (on cell): I heard that.

CH: It's clear to me that you've been working harder than a… (!???!?) …one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. DHAFKJDH WHAT He spent a LONG time waiting to tell them it was missiles

lol I love esposito's face when hunt talks about getting into hot water.

All finishing each others sentences, five people same brainwaves

Man just happens to know the name

She demands I gotta supply lmao Man has a nice hat btw Oh wow the plot thickens I hope biggie slim is not the murderer Ok nvm this is sad

*calls for security* *security shows up* *they arrest him instead lol*

Her eyes went so squinty & cute when she smiled there uwu, I might snag a pic tbh. K I did, uploading rn. Tbh I wish that esposito had looked into colin hunt when he was trying to find beckett's boyf in s5 Fun & uncomplicated. That's what my life needs right now. tbh that's totally valid

jdshjkadshfkjdfh pining

Ok so I think I'll record a few clips to post now

[radramblog]

Pokemon Quartz

I have a confession to make.

I fucking love Pokemon Quartz.

Okay, context. Pokemon Quartz is an infamous Romhack of Pokemon Ruby, finished in 2006 by a young Spanish developer going by Baro. It was possibly the first completed romhack that completely replaced the entire set of the available 386 Pokemon with a set of newly designed Fakemon, and while lots of the replacements are pretty obvious analogues, there are some pretty interesting designs and the sheer effort required to do this solo as a teenager is something to behold.

(Look at Lileep, it’s a dodo now! I think its cute.)

The hack shows it age pretty well these days, with the sheer development made in GBA hacking especially in the last couple of years obviously showing it up- obviously something like Clover or Radical Red is going to make Quartz look ancient, and limitations in available tools are pretty obvious if you know where to look. The game’s region, Corna, is blatantly just Hoenn with some modified route themes, and its pretty clear that the designs for each Pokemon are limited to the replaced mon’s colour palette (as with Torido above).

(The map is kinda pretty though imo)

Quartz is infamous for a few reasons ultimately linked to the developer’s youth. For one, the dialogue tends to be a mix of poor English and weird humour and plenty of cursing, along with some jokes that don’t really fly these days. (To Baro’s credit, the writing and English does get better as the hack progresses.) The plot is utterly nonsensical as a result of shoehorning the Electric themed Band Ambar as villains into vanilla Ruby’s story, and involving the very 00s teenage idea of CHAOS vs ORDER and the pseudophilosophical musings that go along with it. Also like some of the designs are extremely ugly, to be frank. Lots of people are aware of Babos, the Skitty replacement, but that’s only really scratching the surface- the Llamayama line (aka Numel) and Berchi line (Clamperl) are pretty awful if you ask me.

(ew)

(…sis you are literally standing in a centre)

(hey can we take this from a 10 down to like a 6 or so)

I first encountered Pokemon Quartz as part of a bootleg multi-game cartridge picked up in my time living in Kuala Lumpur. The version of the hack on that cart was either very early or just broken, since none of the doors in Golden Island or the nearby Broke Cave (Dewford Island/Granite Cave) would actually let me in and therefore I couldn’t progress especially far. (I understand there was another broken ROM running around the internet that just had legendaries and Master Balls running around the first few routes, for some reason,). My trying to find a walkthrough or a fix led me to one Let’s Play of the hack by Zorak, which I suspect considering his association with fellow early LPer Chorocojo is the reason a fair few people are aware of Quartz at all. While I absolutely wouldn’t recommend reading that LP these days- its very late 00s, enjoys a certain R-word way too much, and to his credit Zorak has a comment on the archive stating that he considers it “immature and severely unfunny!”, but it was the only way for me to consume the remainder of the game at the time, having not figured out emulators at that point. I could go on for a long time about those early Lets Plays, but I’ll save that for another day.

(Oh also I’m ganking a bunch of the screenshots from that LP since my file is in endgame, cheers mate)

Okay but why do I like this game then? Well, aside from tickling my nostalgia bone something fierce, there’s a lot of cool things in the hack that make it stand out. While the lore behind the main legendary Pokemon is pretty bad and some of their designs are godawful, the Braille puzzles from Ruby have been converted into an entire original runic alphabet and is expanded to be present in the encounter events for Kaomare and Karendi (Kyogre and Jirachi). I had a lot of fun translating all of the script by hand, even if the actual text is a bit edgy. Speaking of Karendi, the game has a very JRPG style item chain sidequest to get to the encounter, which is pretty fun and something that to my recollection hasn’t been seen since. It has some little ideas in the dex that took Game Freak years to try, such as an evolving legendary (Ordkip->Tanord, replacing Latias and Latios) and the hack’s replacement for the Kanto starters having a 4th evolution (replacing the legendary beasts in the dex). The player is actually offered a second starter from the trio replacing the Johto starters late in the game at Muddy Island (Pacifidlog), which while a bit useless at that point is still something that took GF until X and Y to try. (Emerald doesn’t count imo)

(I’d translate the Cornan, but I lost my notes. Find the key yourself, cowards)

I can’t really explain beyond that why I love Quartz so much, but it’s the type of attachment that doesn’t really make sense and can’t really be explained. With that in mind, please believe me when I say never play Pokemon Quartz.

Most of the Pokemon are reskins of the original mon without changing the stats or learnset, and some of the ones that are make zero sense (As an example, the Water starter gets Aeroblast of all things, but only if you overlevel it in the second stage). The 3rd Gym leader’s ace, an overleveled Groundoe (Sandslash), has 4 ground moves, so any Flying type beats it outright, except 2 of those moves are Earthquake and Fissure, so if you don’t have a bird you are S.O.L. . The 4thleader has an absurdly overpowered ace in the form of Freech, one of the few mons to be completely overhauled, being the Milotic equivalent except its Dragon/Ice with overpowering STAB moves and Speed Boost. Basically, the game balance is completely out of whack.

Instead give a look into Pokemon Ultra Quartz (I refuse to type Let’s go Blobbos more than once). Released in 2018 by the developers for the excellent if also problematic Clover, UQ fixes just about every issue with the game’s balance, expands the encounter tables to include many of the Quartz mons that were implemented but unobtainable, and re-enables missing features such as the Battle Tower, while leaving most of the rest of the Quartz experience untouched- in this sense, I’d argue it’s the superior Quartz experience. It does still have issues- the labyrinthine route and cave design is untouched, Blobbos is here but is pretty pointless, and TM availability is as shitty as Quartz (which is the same as vanilla Ruby, but still). It does also add a few events of varying quality- Blobbos is as adorable as ever if a little pointless, the endgame developer battles are neat and decent grinding, and the postgame dungeon added is pretty sick even if the secret boss is… unique? The direct 1:1 import of the Deadly Seven from the infamous Pokemon Snakewood is both unnecessary and obnoxious, so try to keep in mind its origin when suffering through that forced segment of the game.

(My final team- Dotori, Psimouse, Rubygon, Mazalon, Oceadino, Kaosune. Or, Flying/Fighting completely overhauled Cradily, Serene Grace Gardevoir, Split evolution Vibrava, Ghost/Steel Banette, Water/Flying Swampert, and Fire/Dragon Groudon.)

It’s a good game despite this, ok? Give it a shot, experience some Romhack history but not quite as shit as it was in ’06.

Wait shit I forgot to mention how Baro put his name everywh-

[hyperpsychomaniac]

Who Says You Can't Go Home - Chapter 3

Darkwing Duck (90s series) fanfiction

Sequel to my recent fanfic The Other Side of Me

Summary: Down on his luck, the Negaverse Launchpad crashes at Launchpad’s parents looking for help. Launchpad, who has avoided visiting his family since he started working with Darkwing, returns in a panic to ensure his double isn’t causing trouble. And then it gets awkward.

Chapter 1

***

Launchpad left the Gator outside and stormed into the hanger. “Why am I always so stupid?!” Forget the planes. He just wanted to find something to throw.

Until he stepped inside. He’d forgotten how pristine his parents’ hanger was. Unlike the dilapidated hanger he’d been able to afford in Saint Canard, this was tidy and immaculate. Every plane was clean and painted. Every tool had its place, outlined in white paint on the numerous tool boards, so there could be no excuse to not put them back where they belonged.

The nostalgia hit him like a slap in the chest. This was where his love for aeroplanes had started, and grown. And it was impossible to separate those feelings from memories of his family, being here with him, and sharing every triumph and crash along the way. He’d missed this place. He wished he’d come back sooner. Launchpad gulped at the lump in his throat. “Yeah,” he said hoarsely. “Why am I always so stupid?”

The only clutter was on the work bench in one corner, which had a half pulled apart piece of equipment on it. And beside the work bench, his father’s desk. It had been there for as long as Launchpad could remember. The diagrams and spreadsheets and post its stuck above it would inevitable change, and accumulate, but they were all along the same theme. Ripcord tracked every scrap of maintenance information to do with every plane in the hanger, at least until his wife told him to get rid of all that useless paper and he’d cut it back down to a more reasonable level. There was certainly a degree of organisation to it, be it something only his father could really follow. But, seriously, talk about overkill.

Launchpad picked up the maintenance drawings left out on the very top of the pile. Despite his annoyance at his father’s over-complication of what should be a simple task, this was the easiest way to see which plane Mom and Dad were currently working on.

“Okay, I get you’re ticked at Mom and Dad. But if you screw around with Dad’s paperwork he is really going to lose it.”

Launchpad dropped the paper back in its spot. “I wasn’t going to.” He turned to face his sister and flung a hand out at the wall behind him. “I can’t believe he’s still doing this.”

“I told him last time I visited I could help him computerise it,” said Loopey. “But I think he likes it all out where he can see it.”

“That’s not what I meant. They’ve barely got a dozen planes. How much time does he waste with this?”

Loopey raised an eyebrow. “Not everyone runs their planes to failure.”

Launchpad snorted. “I do not run my planes to failure. I run them until they crash. Then I have to repair it all anyway. That seems to keep on top of it.”

Loopey shrugged, then rubbed her arm. “Listen, I didn’t know Mom and Dad lied to get you here. I’m sorry.”

Launchpad leaned back against the desk. “Its not that they lied. It’s just… I was worried! But they’re not bothered by the other LP at all. I think Mom may have scared him into behaving himself. They don’t need me to keep him in line. And I just… I wasn’t ready for this. I came out in a rush. If he wasn’t here, I wouldn’t have even come!”

“You think, maybe, that’s why they weren’t honest? I know the last few times I’ve visited, they missed you. Especially Dad.”

He wanted to say it was complicated. That they’d end up asking too many questions, and he just wasn’t smart enough to make up something which wouldn’t put DW in a spot. “Yeah, well, looks like Dad’s got a replacement now, so.”

“Oh, Launchpad. Really?”

“Yeah, I know. I’m being childish. But I didn’t want to disappoint Dad and I knew he’d be upset that I haven’t seen him, or hardly spoken to him. I knew it was going to be awkward. But then he was there with the other Launchpad he just seemed… fine… and I wanted to be able to talk to him like that, but there’s all this… stuff… we’d have to go through first. I was going to come back at some stage. It’s just… hard. And now everything’s blown up. What am I supposed to do?”

Loopey put an arm around his shoulders. “Come on, lets take the planes out. You need to clear your head. By the time we get back, Dad’ll have calmed down too. I think you two just need to sit down and talk, you know. It’ll be fine. He’s just a big softie who hoards maintenance manuals. It won’t be as bad as you think, I promise.”

Launchpad smiled faintly. “Yeah, maybe. Lets do that. For so long I’ve just been flying the…” Thunderquack. He cut himself off with a gulp.

Loopey chewed her lip. “Whatever you’re doing right now, Mom and Dad are going to be proud of you.”

Yeah. If only he could tell them.

“Come on. You pick first. Hint: make sure its something small and manoeuvrable. There’s a place I really want to show you.”

***

“If its trouble you’re looking for, I’ve got a few ideas.”

Gosalyn whirled around at the familiar voice, fists bunched.

The Negaverse Launchpad leaned on the porch railing behind her, twirling an unlit cigarette in his fingers. She hadn’t even heard him approach. “I mean, I kind of owe you one. That was getting awkward. I’ll help Gosalyn find the snacks was a perfect excuse to get out of there.”

“You don’t fool me one bit.”

“You don’t like me very much, do you?”

“You beat up Launchpad!” Gosalyn jabbed a finger back at the house. “I bet you didn’t tell his parents THAT, did you?”

The cigarette slowed in its dance about his fingers, and Launchpad looked down at his boots. “I did, actually. Brought Mrs McQuack to tears. And the look on Mr McQuack’s face… I thought he was going to punch me. And I would’ve let him. But, of course, he didn’t. At least I know where Launchpad got his good heart from. I don’t know what would’ve happened to me these last few months if it weren’t for these guys.”

“What you did was still wrong. And mean.”

“I know. But Launchpad and me, we’ve already talked about this. I apologised, and he accepted it. At least, I thought he had.” Launchpad pulled out his lighter, paused, then headed off the porch and down the front path. He looked back over his shoulder. “Well, are you coming? Mrs McQuack will kill me if I light up right outside the house.”

Gosalyn chewed her lip. Awkward adult conversation, or the seedy guy her Dad definitely would not want her hanging out with alone? There was really no contest. She leapt down the front steps and jogged to catch up with him.

Launchpad grinned at her.

“Don’t look so smug. I said I’d be watching you. I can’t watch you if I just let you wander off, now can I?”

The Negaverse Launchpad shrugged. He lit up as they walked, then pointed to a churned up section of dirt just beyond the greener gardens surrounding the house. “That was where I landed when I crashed here.”

“I bet you don’t crash as good as Launchpad.”

“I thought I did a pretty good job for my first time. And with a snapped arm.”

Gosalyn immediately stared at his arm.

Launchpad flexed his hand with a slight wince. “It’s getting there.”

“How’d you snap your arm in an aeroplane?

“Genius that I am, I thought it’d be fun to hang out with air pirates. I figured they’d be a little nicer over in your dimension. They were, sort of. Unfortunately, thanks to your Launchpad, I think I’m developing a conscience. They were nicer, at least until you call them on their crap and tell them you’re leaving.”

“And they broke your arm…?”

“No. I broke it punching my way out of a poorly constructed jail cell so I could steal my aeroplane back.”

“Ow?”

“Yeah.” Launchpad sucked on his cigarette. Smoke wafted from his nostrils as he spoke. “But I’ll be damned if I let anybody else bully me into staying somewhere I don’t want to be.”

Gosalyn kicked at a stone along the dirt track. Launchpad had explained to her, back when he’d come back home after setting up his double with his own plane, why he’d done something nice for the guy who’d beat him up so bad it’d left him sobbing on their living room sofa. But she wanted to hear it straight from the source. “Launchpad said Negaduck wasn’t very nice to you.”

Launchpad looked away. “No, he wasn’t.”

“So what did…”

“Did you want to get into some trouble or not?”

Gosalyn scowled at him, then folded his arms. Fine, he could change the subject. She didn’t have to make it easy for him though. “I don’t know. You are still Launchpad, sort of. I don’t think you’d be game to get into my kind of trouble.”

Launchpad snorted smoke, and laughed. “Seriously, kiddo?”

“Launchpad won’t even play baseball in the house with me.”

“I ain’t your Launchpad.”

“Oh yeah? You wouldn’t even smoke outside the McQuack’s house because you’re scared you’re going to get in trouble with Launchpad’s Mom. So what have you got to offer?”

“There’s an art to getting into trouble that I’m only now starting to understand since I left the Negaverse. Over there, you can cause as much chaos as you want. Especially if you work for…” He swallowed, then covered it with a cough. “Well, over here, there’s an art. I’m not scared of the McQuacks. They’ve just been really nice to me and I don’t want to upset them by setting things on fire in their front garden. But that doesn’t mean I can’t set things on fire.” He winked. “They just can’t find out.”

“Hmm. I think you just don’t want them to yell at you.”

Launchpad shrugged. “That too.”

“So, we’re going to set something on fire?”

Launchpad rubbed at his beak, then snapped his fingers. “No. I think you’d like the potato gun.”

“There’s a gun for shooting potatoes? What did the potatoes do?”

“Not for shooting potatoes. For shooting potatoes. AT things. And because if I brought an actual rocket launcher onto their property I would definitely get kicked out.”

Gosalyn’s eyes widened. “Keen gear.”

***

As the two planes - one red, one pink - climbed into the air, Launchpad felt the lead in his stomach start to dissolve. The wind whipped through his feathers and blew his scarf back. It was cold and clean and it tore away at the last shreds of exhaustion better than any cup of coffee could. This was what he’d been missing in the Thunderquack.

Loopey’s bright pink plane pulled ahead of him. She waggled her wings, then tapped the side of her head.

Launchpad adjusted his headset.

“… still testing,” his sister’s voice came through the radio. “Hey, you big doofus. Loopey is the best.”

“Yes, I can hear you now. Squirt.”

Loopey snorted. “Seriously. I am not twelve anymore.”

“Gee, I don’t know…”

“I’m assuming you’re feeling better? You seem to have your sense of humour back.”

Launchpad settled into level flight. “Yeah. Thanks for this. I really needed it.”

“Good. Now, try to keep up.” Loopey dropped her plane down to skim the desert floor and accelerated.

Launchpad fell in behind her. His sister flew deliberately; she definitely had a place in mind. He followed her silently for a few moments, thinking. Where the heck had he not flown around his parents’ place? Sure, he’d left long before his little sister had been old enough that they could go out flying together, by themselves. Some new obstacle was not just going to grow out of the desert floor. Unless… “Loopey?”

“Yeah?”

“Where are you taking me?”

“The canyon.”

It was the only place he could think of. But hearing Loopey actually say it still made Launchpad baulk. “Woah. Wait. The canyon?”

Loopey laughed. “Oh wow. Serious deja vu, big brother. You say that just like Dad used to.”

“Um, yeah. When he told us never to go fly there.”

“Yeah. When we were kids. We’re not kids anymore.”

Launchpad frowned. His sister had a point. “What was the reason he didn’t like it again?”

“He never said. Look, its a tight canyon. If you behave like an idiot, or you’re fifteen and don’t really know what you’re doing, you’re going to get in trouble. I’m not surprised he didn’t want his teen-aged kids flying through there and getting hurt. But we’re both adults now. We’ve got thousands of hours under the belt between us. We know what we’re doing. I’ve been dozens of times. You know, when I actually come to visit our parents. And… maybe once… when I was a teenager…”

Launchpad snorted. “Loopey!”

“Don’t you dare tell Dad that last bit!”

“Heh. I’m glad we’re on our channel.”

“He was just worried about us getting hurt. You know what he’s like. Trust me, it’s fine.”

“So, they know you go there now?”

“No, are you kidding?”

Launchpad laughed. “Okay, yeah. I think if I go to the scary forbidden canyon behind Dad’s back I can probably just about manage to talk to him when I get back without acting like a three year old. Get the rebellion out of my system. Thanks, Loopey. You really are the best.”

“And don’t you forget it. Okay. There it is. Two o'clock.”

A sheer cliff rose out of the desert surface. Loopey banked towards the crack she’d indicated and Launchpad followed, tight on her tail.

“It varies in height. But deep enough for two planes, so skilled pilots such as ourselves should be able to pass. It you decide you need to bail, check what’s up there first, or you’ll clip your wing on a branch or a rock or something growing over the edge. There’s a few narrow bits. But if you just concentrate, and stay on the line, you’ll be fine.”

The desert sped past beneath them; the crack raced towards them. “Got it.”

“Oh yeah,” his sister said as she lined her plane up with the entrance. “It’s a race.” She darted into the gap.

“Hey! Little sneak!” Launchpad didn’t bother sending the message through the radio. He grinned and barreled in behind his sister.

A pink tail darted around the first bend. Launchpad floored it, and concentrated on eating up the distance. She’d gained a slight lead. And her flying had gotten better since he’d last seen her. Her plane swayed along with the undulations of the canyon, perfectly in rhythm. She’d definitely done this before.

But the canyon walls were no tighter, comparatively speaking, to threading the Thunderquack through the skyscrapers of Saint Canard. Launchpad did that every second night. If he didn’t need to cover for DW, he could’ve told his sister that. Launchpad shook off the thought. He kept on her tail, cutting the corners tighter and tighter.

He saw his chance, he dipped the plane down, wheels just clearing the rocks below, and swooped underneath her, taking the lead. “Hah! You’re going to have to do better than that if you want to beat the great Launchpad Mc…”

Loopey shot clear over his head, did a complete sideways roll, rocked left and right, then angled her plane at the last minute to clear the next bend.

“Show off!” Launchpad drew in a breath and focused. He’d underestimated his little sister. But, like most people, he doubted she had as much experience crashing as he did. And experience crashing meant he had experience getting close to a crash without freaking out.

She knew the bends, but she was not getting anywhere near as close to those rocks as Launchpad knew he could. He caught up quickly. The canyon decreased in depth. Loopey was keeping down low, so he pulled up above her. His wings were about a foot or two from the top of the canyon. If he had to bail, he’d lose the race on a technicality. But the position meant he could also keep his sister from pulling any fancy moves on him.

“Launchpad, pull up! I’ve got to clear that…”

Now that was just low. There was plenty of room to… Launchpad saw the rock jutting out of the canyon wall, down at his sister’s level. In the position he’d forced her into, it’d cleave off half her wing.

Launchpad yanked up on the control yoke, at the exact moment his sister slammed her upper wing into his wheels. He shot out and over the edge of the canyon. Below him came the scrape of tortured metal and pulverised rock billowed up into the air. “Loopey!”

Launchpad banked his plane around, bleeding off speed as quickly as he could. He still shot back over the canyon far too fast. A flash of pink caught his eye, bouncing along the canyon floor, but disappeared again just as quickly.

Launchpad scrambled for his headset. “Loopey, Loopey! Come in. Are you okay?” Then he yanked his finger off the send button, leaving the channel open, and forced himself to wait.

The siblings’ channel, the one they’d used ever since their parents had given them their first two-way radio set, and they’d called each other from either end of the house, was filled with nothing but static.

“No, no, no…” Launchpad banked around again and landed the plane. He trundled right up to the canyon’s edge and leapt out, heart hammering in his chest. He cupped his hands to his beak. “Loopey!”

He caught sight of her plane below. The dents of his wheels were in her upper wing. The very edge of her wing had been sheared clean off. The canyon wall wasn’t that steep. He could climb down. Launchpad alternated between sliding and grabbing for handholds. His shoulder slammed into the dirt behind him in his rush and he skidded the last few feet down.

He was on his feet in an instant and ran for Loopey’s plane. “Loopey!”

Loopey leaned heavily against the side of her plane, hugging herself and drawing in steadying breaths.

Launchpad barrelled into her. “Loopey, I’m so so sorry.”

Loopey threw her arms around his neck. “The hell were you doing, Launchpad? I was telling you to pull up.”

“I know,” Launchpad sniffed, face buried against her hair. “I thought you were messing with me so I’d lose.”

“Not with something like that.”

“I know.”

Loopey pushed him gently back. Launchpad cupped a hand to her cheek and wiped away a stray tear from her feathers. “Please don’t cry.”

“Pft.” Loopey waved his hand away. “I just scared the crap out of myself. Besides, you are too you big dummy.”

Launchpad rubbed at his eyes, then turned his attention to Loopey’s plane. “Well, you managed to land in a canyon. That’s… impressive.”

“I cleared most of that rock after I had to ram you out of my way. Still clipped the wing though. That tends to slow you down pretty quick.”

“You’re not going to be able to fly that back, you know. Even if we fix it, we can’t take off in here.”

Both of the siblings turned to each other and winced.

Loopey snapped her fingers. “The jeep. It’ll be able to tow it out. And we can bring the parts to fix the wing. Just need some sealant and we can bolt or rivet that loose strut back down.”

“We can climb back out of the canyon. I’ll fly you back. We might just be able to get it back before Mom and Dad find out.” Dad. Launchpad groaned. “I think I need to sit down.”

“Woah, hang on.” They both sat in the shade under Loopey’s wing. She put an arm around his shoulder. “You okay?”

“I don’t know what’s scarier. The thought of facing Dad, or nearly killing my little sister.”

“Hey, this was not all your fault. This was super dumb. I should’ve at least taken you though the canyon to scout it out before we tried racing each other. That bit of rock I nearly ran into… it wasn’t even there last time. Something must’ve shifted.”

They sat under the wing for a few minutes more. Launchpad felt his heart starting to still. Well, turned out crashing was a whole lot scarier when someone you cared about was doing it. Who knew? They still had to get that plane back without letting their parents know what they’d done. It still set him on edge. But… it was better than the alternative.

“Hey, Launchpad?” Loopey said eventually.

“Yeah?”

“You know that awkward moment when you realise your parents were right?”

Launchpad groaned and put his face in his hands.

***

Chapter 4

[isaarchive]

The Story Behind Every Song on Linkin Park’s ‘Hybrid Theory’: 20th Anniversary Track-By-Track

The group's Mike Shinoda and Joe Hahn dive deep into the diamond-selling classic, sharing how smashes like "In The End," "Crawling" and "One Step Closer" came together in the studio.

By Jason Lipshutz

“It was a bizarre, but very special, moment in time.” That’s how Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda describes the release of the band’s seminal debut, Hybrid Theory, one of the best-selling rock albums of all time.

Upon the album’s Oct. 24, 2000 release, the members of Linkin Park were in their early twenties -- “just children, screwing around,” as Shinoda affectionately describes the group’s early days in the Los Angeles suburbs. With Shinoda and Chester Bennington sharing the frontman role, Linkin Park offered a bold progression on the strand of rap-rock that had bubbled up the charts in the late ‘90s. They often delineated the rapping and singing duties between vocalists and carefully balancing hard rock riffs from guitarist Brad Delson with hip-hop-style beats from drummer Rob Bourdon and turntablist/DJ/programmer Joe Hahn.

The band’s mixture of rap and rock was approached with some skepticism from their label, Warner Bros. Records, and their producer, Don Gilmore. Yet as soon as “One Step Closer,” Hybrid Theory's blistering lead single, became a top 10 hit at U.S. alt-rock radio, those doubts were quickly alleviated.

“When I grew up, you were either a rock kid or a rap kid, but you didn’t listen to blended music, really,” Shinoda recalls. “I was so excited when Rage Against The Machine came out, and Red Hot Chili Peppers, or when I found Led Zeppelin by listening to Beastie Boys. There were things that were out there that took from varying styles of music and put them together, but they were not the norm at all. And to have played a role in mashing styles together, that is, for us, part of our legacy that we’re proud of.”

Indeed, Hybrid Theory remains a touchstone of the time period: the album has sold a whopping 10.8 million copies to date, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data, and produced singles that have remained alternative radio staples for decades. “In The End,” the brilliantly rendered signature anthem that mixes rap verses and a melodic hard rock chorus, peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, while “Crawling” earned Linkin Park its first Grammy award. The album would kick-start a career that produced seven total albums, 28.8 million total copies sold, and countless arena performances, until the tragic passing of Bennington in 2017.

Now, the band is looking back on its landmark debut with Hybrid Theory: 20th Anniversary Edition, a new collection featuring previously unreleased demos, B-sides, rarities, DVDs and the long-sought-after fan favorite track from the time period, “She Couldn’t,” among many other things. The multiple configurations of the boxed set -- including a Super Deluxe Edition with 5 CDs, 3 LPs and 3 DVDs -- will be released on Friday (Oct. 9); in addition, Sirius XM has launched a limited-run music channel “Linkin Park Radio” on Oct. 5 to commemorate the anniversary.

“It’s a nice time to pause and think and focus on what it took to make that record, the impact it had, and the opportunity it allowed us to continue with our careers,” Hahn tells Billboard. “For me, it’s a testament to the camaraderie between all the guys in the band, to our friendship, to our work ethic, to the values in how we approached not just making music, but the business of making music, and the way we interact with our fans.”

In separate interviews, Shinoda and Hahn shared their memories of all 12 songs on the standard edition of Hybrid Theory, from the biggest hits that the album spawned to the deep cuts that hold a special place in their hearts. Check out their track-by-track remembrance of Linkin Park’s Hybrid Theory below.

1. “Papercut”

MIKE SHINODA: To me, the two songs that were the most important were “Papercut” and “In The End.” “Papercut” was all of the identity of the band packed into one song. Even the fact that it started with that beat, and it went straight into a double-time bouncy rap with heavy guitars, the fact that Chester was rapping with me on the chorus -- you can’t even hear him because of the mix, it sounds like it’s just him but it’s actually both of us.

When you got to the bridge, that soaring, huge vocal! And we didn’t come back to a chorus at the end of it, it was a unique song structure. I feel like it checked a lot of the boxes in terms of what the band was really about. And we knew, from the moment we had the song, we knew it needed to open the album.

JOE HAHN: “Papercut” at the time was one of my favorites. We were really trying to mash up styles, and I think we did that pretty successfully. The idea of bringing the breakbeat element that hip-hop has, I think we got pretty cool vibe when we intertwined the guitar riffs with the drum break on that song. The album’s called Hybrid Theory because it represents that ideal.

SHINODA: There was a weird thing with the singles on this album. Technically, there were three singles: it was “One Step Closer,” “Crawling” and “In The End.” And then there was a European single, which was “Papercut.” The reason was that “Crawling” was still going strong at radio in the States, but the European radio market moves faster, so they’d already burned through two singles and they needed a third one. [The label] basically wanted to time it out so that the European market had a third single, and then we could go worldwide with “In The End.” They were like, “We want everything to culminate with ‘In The End,’” and the momentum ended up working out that way.

2. “One Step Closer”

SHINODA: In choosing Don Gilmore as a producer, we were really hesitant. Don had more of these radio-alternative songs, and we knew that he would get that part of our sound right, but he knew nothing about hip-hop. Not a thing! And he said that to us when he met with us. He was like, ‘Here’s the deal, the part of your sound that I can’t contribute to is the hip-hop part. I know that’s a big part of your thing. But I like how you do it, so I will try to just get out of the way in terms of the beats and raps and stuff, I will leave that to you.’ And we were like, ‘Okay!’ And that worked out great, because we didn’t know how to mic up and engineer a rock band in the studio. We didn’t know how to arrange, how to multi-track guitar and vocals, in a way that sounded like what we heard on the radio that we loved. So that was all us learning from Don.

As we got into it, we did have these real tense points of conflict, because since he was hands-off on some of the creative in terms of letting us dictate how the hybrid was supposed to work, when somebody from the label came in and said, “I don’t like what they’re doing with mashing up these things,” or if they came in and said “I’m not sure about the rapping,” then all of a sudden Don couldn’t definitively defend it. He was like, “Uh, okay, well, that’s what the band thinks sounds good!” The power struggle became part of what making that album was. Some of the intensity and frustration you hear on the album is specifically album-related.

“One Step Closer” was me and Chester literally writing about Don. We were so mad at him. The ‘shut up’ riff was literally Chester screaming at Don. We were losing our minds. At that point in the process, it was just like, why don’t you trust us? This is our album. Our A&R guy doesn’t have to have his f--king name on the front of the CD, and play this music onstage everyday. We knew, if we put anything on this record that we don’t like or that we’re not feeling, we’re gonna have to live with it. Like, this is our career!

HAHN: I feel like, at that time, that was our loudest song, which turned into the first single. In making that record, we weren’t completely understood by the record label, mainly because there was a categorization of what bucket you fit in. Being a rock band but trying to have a firm foundation with our hip-hop and electronic influence that we bring to the music. The formats were alternative rock and active rock at the time. I remember the label at one point asked us to have less rapping, and less scratching. If you actually listen to the radio edits of that song from when it first came out, they took out the scratching on the bridge of the song, which I found kind of annoying and unnecessary.

SHINODA: The “shut up” part in the bridge, I know one of my reference points was “F--k you, I won’t do what you tell me” [from Rage Against The Machine’s "Killing in the Name"], and we wanted a part like that in one of our songs. And we were in the studio writing and re-writing “One Step Closer,” and eventually we got so mad that Chester was just writing words down about how mad he was at Don for making us rewrite s--t. And eventually he wrote down “Shut up” and I was like, “What if the bridge is just ‘Shut up’? What if it’s simpler than anything we’ve said so far?” Because we were just writing out lyrics. And he was like, “I think that’s gonna sound awesome!”

We went in and told Don, “Put up ‘One Step Closer,’ we wanna record the bridge.” He was like “Well, tell me what it is.” And we go, “No no no, it’s better if we just record it. Listen to it in its full concept.” [laughs] And Don was like, jumping up and down. I think he figured out eventually that the whole song was about him. At least in part -- it wasn’t just about him, but part of it was inspired by how frustrated we were with him.

3. “With You”

HAHN: We worked with the Dust Brothers on that -- previous to that, they did [Beastie Boys’] Paul’s Boutique, so they were definitely a part of our history of music. They basically gave us a bunch of stems from an unused remix that they had, so we constructed that into the song. Some of the sounds at the beginning, like that ‘Dun-dun. DUN,’ some of the loops and drum breaks in there are from them.

I remember being really excited at that time, working with them, because it just represented a new way of making music, re-assembling parts that sounded cool into something totally different. It was fun to do that in a collaborative fashion.

SHINODA: I always liked “With You”! It was more ‘of the time,’ it was very nu-metal, so for better or worse, that’s what that was really about. I really like Joe’s parts on it. I like the production, the beats and stuff that I did -- we had a lot of back-and-forth about the production on it.

4. “Points of Authority”

SHINODA: There are a couple references on “Points of Authority” that are interesting. The vocal scat thing that I do on the intro, that’s really inspired by the Roots and Black Thought. I heard him doing that on Illadelph Halflife, and I just thought there was something so cool about that. And I thought it would mix well with the scratching, so we kind of did this back-and-forth with those things. The guitar line of the song was originally completely different -- I think we actually included the original riff, the original version of the song, on our boxed set for Hybrid Theory. But at some point we realized that the original guitar riff was really basic, so I went into Pro Tools and chopped it up, and moved the pieces around just to experiment with how it could sound, and I treated it like a sample off a record.

The song didn’t have the current chorus for a long time -- we basically wrote that chorus while we were in the studio with Don, because we decided it needed something melodic but we didn’t want it to be too soft, so we opted for this really simple, two-chord yelling-shouting melodic part.

HAHN: I direct the majority of the music videos, so I had a lot of fun making that one [for a version of the song on the band's 2002 remix album Reanimation]. We story-boarded that whole video, and worked with an animation team in L.A., and went, “Let’s just create this world, and it’s gonna be this race against this race, and they’re battling it out.” I remember I was referencing Saving Private Ryan, and looking at a lot of anime, and the dynamics of things blowing up. It was so fun, because I had this crazy idea, and everyone was like, “Okay! Go do it!” And they let me do it!

5. “Crawling”

SHINODA: The “One Step Closer” video, we had a very modest budget for that, and we had never made a video before. So when it was time to do a second video, we had a little more money, and I think the label was really instrumental at that point in helping us find a really good team to make a good video. And Joe started to get more confident about asserting himself in the process -- during “Crawling,” he really got in there, and probably learned a lot, and asked a ton of questions. But it came out great, the video was really an important part in introducing people to the band.

HAHN: “One Step Closer” is a pretty aggressive song, and it’s not very sweet-sounding by any means. When “Crawling” came out [as the second single], it represented a different side of what we do, intertwining something very intimate with an outpouring of emotion in the chorus and bridge, and even with some screaming. We always tried to play with what works, with the music and the dynamic of the vocal that Chester and Mike would bring to the table. Funny thing too, because the first song was such a big deal at the time -- and then we come out with “Crawling,” which is more of a softer side of what we do. I think if you got the album, you really understood it, but people that didn’t were like, “How does this song have anything to do with that other song?”

SHINODA: We won a Grammy for “Crawling,” for best hard rock performance, and at the time I didn’t know the difference between “hard rock song” and “hard rock performance,” since they had Grammys for both. And eventually I was like, “Oh, this is a Grammy for Chester’s vocal.” Like, it was a great recording, but if we really want to be super honest, the reason we got that Grammy was because of Chester’s performance on that song was bananas. It was so insane! I don’t think I’ve ever heard him sing like that. And it’s just that extra fierceness in his vocal that we captured that day. Just once in a while, he would walk in with that going on in his voice, and we knew we had to record as many things as possible whenever that happened. [laughs] It was like, can we please do five songs that day?

6. “Runaway”

SHINODA: “Runaway” was originally a song called “Stick and Move,” and the lyrics were really trite, but it was super bouncy and fun to play. At all of our early shows, that was basically our big song -- people who would come to our shows for the first time, we would talk to them afterwards and mention that song. So we always thought, this is an important song to get right in the studio. And once we had some of the other songs starting to take shape, we were like, “Oh no, one of our best songs is now one of our worst songs.” We thought we had this gem, and now it’s turning to be kind of a mess.

We completely disassembled the song and re-wrote it. We kept the chords and some of the drum grooves, but added a bunch of new stuff to it, and rewrote all the lyrics, and it became “Runaway.”

HAHN: There was definitely this thing we were doing repeatedly, just trying to master the song structures, going from lulls to reaching climaxes back to the lull. This song represented that formula that we mastered before we started to explore different ways of writing songs. If you break it down, it’s much simpler than some of the later music.

SHINODA: “Runaway” is funny, because some people think that it was a single from the album, but that’s just because a bunch of radio stations started playing it without us even promoting it as a song or doing a video. It was just a time when everyone was so enamored with the album and the band that they would just play album cuts. It was unbelievable.

7. “By Myself”

HAHN: That was one of the songs that we carried over [from early demos], too. I remember it being like this quiet-to-loud, really cool vibe, going from almost a whisper to grabbing your shirt. I think it had a lot of conviction, and when we played it live it definitely had that vibe where people were just amped up from listening to it.

SHINODA: “By Myself” was our attempt to do the softest verses and every other parts of the song be the nastiest, loudest sounds we can. And so it was drawing more from like, Nine Inch Nails and Ministry, than some of the more nu-metal stuff.

I remember doing the demos for that song in my apartment in Glendale, in the L.A. area, and my neighbor just f--king hated me. The walls were paper-thin, Chester’s screaming the chorus, and they must have thought we were murdering somebody in the room. We were both just shouting, and I’m going, “No, LOUDER!” [laughs] And my neighbors would bang on the wall at 10 PM every night to tell us that it was time to go to bed, basically. And thus, we would record all the way up ’til 10, and then you’d hear a thumping on the wall. We’ve got our headphones on, we’re doing our thing, and they’re literally punching the wall, trying to get our attention and tell us to shut the f--k up.

HAHN: The album is full of these moments like the one where Mike is saying “By myself,” and then Chester goes, “MYSELLLLLF!” That’s what was kind of magical about Mike and Chester as frontmen, partners and co-vocalists -- to have that sort of Jekyll-and-Hyde type moment. Two vocalists that could pull that off together really made us stand out from everyone else.

8. “In The End”

SHINODA: We had a bunch of tracks that we really liked, but we knew we needed something else that was a next-level kind of song. And I was having this moment of, I knew it was on me, I had to find it. I locked myself in our rehearsal studio on Hollywood and Vine -- back when Hollywood and Vine was like, drug addicts and prostitutes everywhere, so you wouldn’t just want to go in and out of there. Once it got to be about 7 o’clock, I went in there and locked the door and stayed overnight. There’s no windows or anything, I didn’t know what time of day it was. I wrote all night, and I ended up with “In The End” in the morning.

Our drummer Rob was the first one to show up that afternoon and I played it for him, and he absolutely lit up. He said something to the effect of, “I was dreaming, imagining that we needed a melodic song that took us to the next level, where the chorus was just the undeniable thing. This is the song. You made the song that I would have imagined.” So that was the first endorsement, and then after that, everybody we played it for had a similar excitement about it.

HAHN: We knew that we needed more melody. We knew we needed to round out what we were doing. People don’t want to be screamed at for a full record -- well, some people do. But everything from the melodies to the piano that loops... we write a lot of music, and for each album, there’s probably at least a hundred song ideas, sometimes double that. Sometimes there’s these magical moments where all of the elements come together perfectly at the same time. This is one of those ‘eureka’ moments.

SHINODA: The only part that we had a lot of drama around was my rap verses -- my original verses were okay, but our A&R guy at the time was really an insecure guy all around, and he kept going around to everybody else asking what they thought about the rap verses on that song. He’d play them and go, “These aren’t right, don’t you think?” And it was like, setting them up to pick something apart. He was the one who suggested that I not rap in the band, that I just be the keyboard player or whatever. Thankfully the guys, and Chester in particular, came to my rescue on that one.

9. “A Place For My Head”

SHINODA: “A Place For My Head” used to be called “Esaul,” and that was one of the earliest songs -- it might have been on the first demo that me and my friend Mark Wakefield made, when the band was just the two of us. And it went through different iterations to this version, but it was always a favorite. I think when it got recorded in the studio for Hybrid Theory, it was one of those scenarios where the song was already something we liked, but then when it was recorded the energy went up a lot, and it became a song that we always closed our shows with, either that or “One Step Closer.”

HAHN: For a while we were making these songs that had this outpouring of energy which would get people to mosh. I think that was our goal: to somehow lyrically and musically convey this feeling of frustration and tension, almost like you’re stuffing a bottle full of those emotions and then you’re shaking it up until it explodes. I think that song does that very well.

10. “Forgotten”

SHINODA: “Forgotten” was the other one that started as a demo with me and Mark. That one was called “Rhinestone” at the time. Both of these demos in their original versions are on Hybrid Theory 20, and we got Mark’s begrudging approval to put them on, with his voice and everything.

HAHN: That was cool, because back then, we were just putting parts together that fit. When I hear that song, I hear the ingredients, in a way that a chef might eat a dish and pick apart the different ingredients, in a very simple but elegant kind of way. It felt great to come out with a product at the end that represented exactly what we were trying to do at that moment.

SHINODA: As a side note, with the Hybrid Theory 20 release, we didn’t mix or re-mix any of the songs. It’s just a mastered version of the original cassette demo. People have asked a couple of times if we ever wanted to do a remaster, and the technology of mastering hasn’t changed a lot between Hybrid Theory and now. I remember telling everyone else who would listen [while making it], “I’ve got a subwoofer and an amp in the trunk of my car, I want to be able to put this record on right after Timbaland and Dr. Dre and have it thump just as much as those records. It needs to have the shape of a rap record.”

11. “Cure For The Itch”

HAHN: Mike had this really cool beat idea, those strings that were on the song. We really liked the feeling of it, but it wasn’t a song. I was like, “What if we put a beat to it, and an intro that I can scratch on?” We took the approach of making it a musical journey, and have it lean more on the DJ side of things. It gives a nice pause to the intensity of the album.

SHINODA: Joe and I loved DJ Shadow and Aphex Twin and so much of the electronic and trip-hop stuff that was coming out back then. One thing that happened when that community butted up against the DJ community is that there was a sense of humor that came through -- DJ crews, when they did their sets, they’d throw in little things that made you laughs. That’s why “Cure For The Itch” is a little bit lighter. It’s kind of flexing in terms of the beat production, but it has a little bit of a sense of humor. We wanted to give Joe a little bit of a spotlight track. We thought it’d be fun for him and that the fans would love it, so it’s very much a Joe experience.

12. “Pushing Me Away”

SHINODA: “Pushing Me Away” was like, basically we were really happy with how “Crawling” came out, so we were like, “Let’s do another melodic song like that!”

HAHN: That’s another one of those ballad-y songs, that’s like one of those conversations ... In recent years we brought it back into our live set, as an a cappella/acoustic version, because it was never a single but we really loved that song. I think that struck a chord with all the fans that loved Hybrid Theory.

[duhragonball]

Nanwum IV toolboxkit

I have a love/hate relationship with the word “tool”.  On the one hand, tools are awesome.    I like holding a big screwdriver and thinking about all the screws I can loosen with it.    I ordered a thing at work yesterday and I can’t wait for it to arrive.   There’s a rush of power in knowing some object will solve a bunch of problems.   Look out, screws.

On the other hand, it annoys me how people use the term “tool” in a more abstract sense, like statistical “tools” or using a flow chart to figure out what to do.    I can’t hold any of that crap, so calling it a tool feels like a bait-and-switch.   But I can appreciate the power of the term.   If you can liken a thing to a power drill, then you have my attention.   

Anyway, this weekend is for making preparations for National Novel Writing Month, which starts next Sunday, so I thought it would be useful to go over the stuff that I use to get me through it.  

1) The NaNoWriMo website.

Back in 2017, I seriously considered not even bothering with the website, because I figured it had nothing to offer.    I’m the one doing all the work, right?   But tracking progress is an effective motivator, and I like being able to see a chart that shows how well I’m doing.    There’s some bugs in it.    For some reason it doesn’t show my Camp Nano April 2018 as being complete, and when I tried to fix it, it doubled the word count instead.  

It’s also useful for where I’m at today.    Now that I’ve done this thing a few times, I can measure current performance against past years.  November 2018 was my personal best, so I’m going to use that as a model for this year.    I don’t need to beat 2018-me, but I do need to remind myself that I’ve performed this well in the past.  

2) George R. R. Martin motivational desktop wallpaper.

I started doing this as a joke, but looking at this dude sitting at his computer, not writing is a much more powerful motivator than I ever thought possible.  The idea is that if I minimize the writing window to do something else, I have to look this dude in the eye before I can look up Robocop clips on YouTube.   I’ve had months where I was struggling to meet the goal, and then I went “Oh, yeah, I forgot to change my desktop pic, and it pushes me over the finish line.   It’s like Popeye eating spinach.   

Now the Tone Police will take issue with something like this, and call it arrogant.   “How dare you put down a highly successful fantasy author just to make yourself feel confident,” they’ll say as they wag their finger.   “Don’t you care that you might be making procrastinators feel bad?”  To that I say: fuck’em.  

See, I’m a world-class procrastinator in my own right.   I have to get hyped for this stuff every year, because that’s the only way I can build up enough momentum to see it through.    Like all Sith Lords, I have to call upon all of my emotions -- fear, anger, pride, fernweh -- to fuel the creative monster.  I don’t make a dime on this, so if I can’t take some bloody satisfaction out of it then what’s the point?   

I’m pretty sure George doesn’t even know I do this, but in case he’s reading this, let me address him specifically: George, I’ve cranked out three of these Nanwums and you still haven’t finished Winds of Winter, which is well on its way to becoming the Duke Nukem Forever of modern fantasy.   I don’t know if you got soft, like Rocky in Rocky IV, or maybe you’ve lost your confidence like Rocky in Rocky III, but you have to kindle a fire under your ass, even if it’s a silly fire, like fear of dying before the book goes to print, or getting it done just to spite assholes like me.   But find something and use it.  

3) Kenny Omega vs. Sonny Kiss, AEW Dynamite 10/21/2020

This was a first-round match in a tournament for the right to challenge for the AEW World title, and it was Kenny’s big return to singles action, so I guess the idea here was to make him look strong by having him crush Sonny Kiss in under 15 seconds.   I’ve seen blowouts in wrestling before, but this one speaks to me on a different level, and I’m sorely tempted to swap out my GRRM image with this shot of in-the-zone Kenny Omega.

Because I feel this right now.    This isn’t like last year or the year before, where I got behind working on stuff in October so I wasn’t fully prepared.   I got all caught up a few weeks ago, and I have eight days to get ready.    I haven’t written a thing in weeks, and I’m itching to get back to it.    I want a big Day One total to start the month off, and seeing this match makes me want to aim even higher than 7000 words.    Can I hit 10,000 in one day?    The Cleaner sure thinks so.  Clapclap-clap clap clap.   

4) Focus Writer

You can check it out for yourself at https://gottcode.org/focuswriter/

The main selling point for Focus Writer is that it can be used for “distraction free” writing, in that it’s default setting makes it tricky to minimize the window to do other stuff.   But I turned that off a while back.    For my purposes, I just need the word counter.  

One thing I learned while editing work instead of writing from scratch is that you can just set the word count goal to 100 words.    That way, the percentage displayed at the bottom of the screen will keep track of how many words you’ve written in that session.   So if you write 1275 new words, the counter will say 1275%.  

I used to set actual goals, like 3500 words for the day or whatever, but I found myself constantly trying to calculate what 53% of that is, and that ended up being a huge distraction in itself.    So now I just stick to the 100 word “goal” and use it to track my actual progress, rather than setting lofty goals that I may not need to actually hit.   The Nano website does that for me anyway.

5) The Adventures of Dumplin

I’m essentially adapting the events of Dragon Ball Xenoverse 1 into this story, so I could break out my PS3 and play it through again to remind me of all the stuff I wanted to use from 2015, but it’s a lot easier to just watch someone else play it instead.   Team FourStar’s playthrough of the Xenoverse games is some of their best material, as far as I’m concerned, and knowing this is one of my go-to references is going to make this November pretty awesome.   

I’m not sure I could, or should, work Dumplin into my fic.  If I did, he couldn’t be the same guy who saved the day in this LP series, because I’m having Luffa do all that.   Early on, I envisioned a scene where she wakes up one morning after a night of heavy drinking and finds Dumplin in bed with her, but that seemed a little too goofy to use.    But I want you to have that mental picture anyway, so I’m writing about it here.

6) Diet Pepsi

Straight Edge, Hard Core.    Stephen King’s a wuss for using cocaine to help him write.   

[uta-no-fakku-sama]

30 UtaPri Questions

I finally got around to doing this after being tagged so here we go :3

this is supposed to go on my main but i already saved the draft before i could do anything so oh well ;w;

Your Best Boy? Natsuki, but Cecil and Camus are not too far behind.

Your Least Favorite Boy? I don’t really have any; they’re all really nice.

A Character You Never Thought You Would Love as Much as You Do Now? Y-Yamato. . . There’s just something about him that makes me happy ÚwÙ

A Character You Can Relate to in Any Way? Otoya, I guess. I’m not exactly sure on how I should put it, though.

A Character That You Think Deserved More Love? Eiichi, definitely. I know he’s messed up a lot and I don’t agree with what he did, but it’s (not really but it’s there) simple to see he means well. I know what it’s like to do something I thought as good but ended up hurting someone else through it, which in turn hurt me. He had good intentions, but went with them the wrong way. I do understand why people feel so upset and angry towards him; in a way, he has been shown in a bad light. Then again, HEAVENS in general during their very first appearance in Season 2 were depicted to be like the main villains of the series. Then again, that’s probably just me overanalyzing again. Sorry for the rambling ;w:

A Character You Would Want as Your Partner/Lover? Haruka. Just Haruka. Let me smooch.

A Character You Would Want as Your Mentor/Senpai? Reiji! I mean, he’s Reiji. And maybe Cesshi. Or Masato. Maybe Camus if I’m allowed to make fun of him.

Your Favorite Ship? NatsuCam. Such a rare pair. Like, a really fucking rare pair. Most of the content for it is mine. Haha ;w;

A Character You Want to Cosplay/Have Already Cosplayed? I’d like to try Cesshi, but I don’t know if my skin’s dark enough for that so I don’t wanna risk any chances. An alternative may be Natsuki, but then I’d be a short kinda chubby-looking Natsuki. Kira’d be nice too though! But I’m probably a little too expressive for him;;; Nagi’d be a nice fit as well, I dunno :3

Favorite Side Character? I’m not really sure if Satsuki counts as a side character since he really only shows up during Natsuki-centered episodes. If not him, then Tomochika! She. Just she.

Your Favorite Solo Song? I found myself enjoying Cesshi’s solo songs a lot. Destiny Song really brings me in. Brand New Melody has a lil something to it that makes me really happy though. I don’t know what it is, but it gives me a nice feeling inside. I also really like SUKIxSUKI Hanamaru and Hatsukoi o Mata Hajimeyou!! Those are both really nice songs that make me feel really fluffy happy inside >w<! And Melting of Snow. And Hurrayx2 Dreamers. And there’s a lot of solo songs I like. Oops.

Your Favorite Duet Song? North Wind and SunShine. I just really like that song. Like, that was the duet song my mind really stuck onto when I first started playing SL. I got attached.

Your Favorite Trio Song? Kaleidoscope. When I watched the movie in theaters, that was the one I kinda got really hooked on;;;

Your Favorite Group Song? There’s Mirai Chizu and Maj LOVE 2000% and QUARTET NIGHT and Poison KISS and HEAVENS GATE and GIRAx2 SEVEN an—

Your Least Favorite Group Song? FORCE LIVE I guess?? I mean, the chorus is okay and stuff, but the other things in the song are just not really my taste. Like the beginning. The beginning just feels so eeeeehhh to me;;;

Your Favorite Singer? I think they’re all good how do choose favorite help—

Your Favorite Group/Trio/Duo? Favorite group is hard to choose; they all are good. Favorite trio is easily either the Kawaii Group or the White Chocolate Horse/Tea Party Group (Natsuki, Ren, and Camus). Favorite duo is also very easily the Royal Group.

Your Favorite Member of STARISH? Natsuki Shinomiya. Tsuki-chan. Ye. I love he. Cesshi’s also very close behind. He sweet. Beb. I also love he.

Your Favorite Member of QUARTET NIGHT? Camus. Used to be Reiji. Sorry, maracaboo. It all started when I got his My Only Prince UR (the first MOP card I got) which in turn made me go “I guess I’ll change Natsuki for him on my screen and then I tapped him and he go “high butler voice time hewwo mistwess uwu ^-^” and I went “holy shi—

Your Favorite Member of HEAVENS? Yamato!! I love him. I love his appearance. I love his clothing choices. I love his voice. I love his personality. I. Uh. Munscklez. Ha;;;;;;;;

Your Favorite Seiyuu/Voice Actor? Why do I have to choose one? I mean, unrelated but through their seiyuus and stuff I was able to find out Mamoru is in the Japanese dub of The Lorax and that put me through a fucking loop. Thanks, Mamo :3

Favorite Drama CD? Lycoris no Mori. Shit. That was. Made me remember that Vocaloid song The Wolf Who Fell in Love with Little Red Riding Hood. Also Black Hood Cesshi. Evil boi. Just doing evil spirit boi things. Kinda caused people to murder along the way but it’s okay because in the end he’s probably still dancing over their dead bodies in the woods. Also wolf Randolph Toki red-nosed bitch. Randolph sounds really close to Rudolph, don’tcha agree? And Blood Otoya. Or Brad Otoya. Or whatever. Who in their right mind thought Blood was a good name for a boi? Like, I know he has red hair and red eyes and a red hood and red blood an— Victor. Huntsman Ren. Ren with ponytail. H. That is all. H.

Your Favorite Shining Live Card? *slams hands on table* TEA. PARTY. UR. BOIS. Natsuki please come home soon ;-;

Your Favorite Song Beatmap? Any of the ones with slide notes. Like, a lot of them. Also just any really difficult song I somehow manage to FC on the first couple tries. Like I remember there was one song for an event I was playing in only to get more LP where there was like a fuck ton of notes. I forgot if if was 800 or 900, but there were a lot. And I managed to FC it first try. Haha whoops ;w;

Your Least Favorite Song Beatmap? Nothing really comes to mind except for the lower difficulty ones. When you play a lot of Pro songs, the lower ones just kinda get boring.

Black Dejavu or White Gravity? White Gravity definitely. I can’t believe Masato said “lol bye” and joined the Kawaii and Royal Groups. Also, Natsuki’s high notes. They told him to do it twice and he said “okay :D”. I know it has a more uniform(?) singing distribution and order, but that just personally fits me and my ears better :3

UtaPri Merch That You Own/Watch? I have a Prince Cat of Citron!! And a Natsuki face towel that came along with him. I wanna get either Lime or Aqua next, but I can’t choose who. Lime because second best boi, Aqua because third best boi and shipping reasons. Also, you ever follow accounts that have Prince Cats of different sizes and have them act out as if they’re like a lil family? I want that life. Like, there’s one I follow on Twitter with Rosso and Cielo and Iris and Arancia and Verde and a lil Aqua as their child and I adore them. They use emojis to represent who’s talking and the lil Aqua’s emoji is a lollipop it’s just so cute ;-;. . .

How did You Get into UtaPri? Shining Live. I saw that Klab had another idol rhythm game on the app store and went “Why not? I haven’t had one with guydols yet?” and look where we are now;;;

A Set Theme in Shining Live That You Want to See in the Future? I’ve been having a bunch of gacha set and event ideas on a note on my phone. Like street dancer, fairytales, zodiac, zookeeper, cyber, and seven deadly sins/four horsemen as gacha ideas (some I already made art concepts for;;;). And for events, I got carhop, first date kinda thing, and ice/figure skating. In short, I want a lot :3

Why Do You Love Your Best Boy? At first, it was because he adores cute things and I adore cute things and he’s cute so I adore him. After learning more about him, I do see more similarities between the two of us. The feeling of being betrayed and growing defensive because of it, his defense being Satsuki and mine is trying to use words to help me. The need to grow stronger to not be seen as a burden, to try and not rely and depend on others to fight our battles for us. There’s probably more I can dwell upon, but that’s all I can think about for now.

Tagging: I don’t know I’m sorry ;-;. . . Anyone who wants to do this can have the go ahead.

[illbefinealonereads]

Blog tour day! Today I’m sharing some information about Lobizona by Romina Garber, as well as an excerpt. Scroll down to learn more.

Some people ARE illegal.

Lobizonas do NOT exist.

Both of these statements are false.

Manuela Azul has been crammed into an existence that feels too small for her. As an undocumented immigrant who's on the run from her father's Argentine crime-family, Manu is confined to a small apartment and a small life in Miami, Florida.

Until Manu's protective bubble is shattered.

Her surrogate grandmother is attacked, lifelong lies are exposed, and her mother is arrested by ICE. Without a home, without answers, and finally without shackles, Manu investigates the only clue she has about her past—a mysterious "Z" emblem—which leads her to a secret world buried within our own. A world connected to her dead father and his criminal past. A world straight out of Argentine folklore, where the seventh consecutive daughter is born a bruja and the seventh consecutive son is a lobizón, a werewolf. A world where her unusual eyes allow her to belong.

As Manu uncovers her own story and traces her real heritage all the way back to a cursed city in Argentina, she learns it's not just her U.S. residency that's illegal. . . .it’s her entire existence.

Early Praise: “With vivid characters that take on a life of their own, beautiful details that peel back the curtain on Romina's Argentinian heritage, and cutting prose that shines a light on the difficulties of being the ‘other’ in America today, Romina Garber crafts a timely tale of identity and adventure that every teenager should read.”–Tomi Adeyemi New York Times bestselling author of Children of Blood and Bone

“Romina Garber has created an enthralling young adult fantasy led by an unforgettable Latinx character Manu. In Manu we find a young girl who not only must contend with the injustice of being undocumented she also discovers a hidden world that may explain her very existence. I fell in love with this world where wolves, witches and magic thrives, all in a rich Latinx setting!” –Lilliam Rivera, author of Dealing in Dreams and The Education of Margot Sanchez

Buy Link:https://read.macmillan.com/lp/lobizona/

Author bio:

ROMINA GARBER (pen name Romina Russell) is a New York Times and international bestselling author. Originally from Argentina, she landed her first writing gig as a teen—a weekly column for the Miami Herald that was later nationally syndicated—and she hasn’t stopped writing since. Her books include Lobizona. When she’s not working on a novel, Romina can be found producing movie trailers, taking photographs, or daydreaming about buying a new drum set. She is a graduate of Harvard College and a Virgo to the core.

Social Links:  Twitter: @RominaRussell // Instagram: @rominagarber

Excerpt:

2

I awaken with a jolt.

It takes me a moment to register that I’ve been out for three days. I can tell by the well-rested feeling in my bones—I don’t sleep this well any other time of the month.

The first thing I’m aware of as I sit up  is an urgent need  to use the bathroom. My muscles are heavy from lack of use, and it takes some concentration to keep my steps light so I won’t wake Ma or Perla. I leave the lights off to avoid meeting my gaze in the mirror, and after tossing out my heavy-duty period pad and replacing it with a tampon, I tiptoe back to Ma’s and my room.

I’m always disoriented after lunaritis, so I feel separate from my waking life as I survey my teetering stacks of journals and used books, Ma’s yoga mat and collection of weights, and the posters on the wall of the planets and constellations I hope to visit one day.

After a moment, my shoulders slump in disappointment.

This month has officially peaked.

I yank the bleach-stained blue sheets off the mattress and slide out the pillows from their cases, balling up the bedding to wash later. My body feels like a crumpled piece of paper that needs to be stretched, so I plant my feet together in the tiny area between the bed and the door, and I raise my hands and arch my back, lengthening my spine disc by disc. The pull on my tendons releases stored tension, and I exhale in relief.

Something tugs at my consciousness, an unresolved riddle that must have timed out when I surfaced . . . but the harder I focus, the quicker I forget. Swinging my head forward, I reach down to touch my toes and stretch my spine the other way—

My ears pop so hard, I gasp.

I stumble back to the mattress, and I cradle my head in my hands as a rush of noise invades my mind. The buzzing of a fly in the window blinds, the gunning of a car engine on the street below, the groaning of our building’s prehistoric eleva- tor. Each sound is so crisp, it’s like a filter was just peeled back from my hearing.

My pulse picks up as I slide my hands away from my temples to trace the outlines of my ears. I think the top parts feel a little . . . pointier.

I ignore the tingling in my eardrums as I cut through the living room to the kitchen, and I fill a stained green bowl with cold water. Ma’s asleep on the turquoise couch because we don’t share our bed this time of the month. She says I thrash around too much in my drugged dreams.

I carefully shut the apartment door behind me as I step out into the building’s hallway, and I crack open our neighbor’s window to slide the bowl through. A black cat leaps over to lap up the drink.

“Hola, Mimitos,” I say, stroking his velvety head. Since we’re both confined to this building, I hear him meowing any time his owner, Fanny, forgets to feed him. I think she’s going senile.

“I’ll take you up with me later, after lunch. And I’ll bring you some turkey,” I add, shutting the window again quickly. I usually let him come with me, but I prefer to spend the morn- ings after lunaritis alone. Even if I’m no longer dreaming, I’m not awake either.

My heart is still beating unusually fast as I clamber up six flights of stairs. But I savor the burn of my sedentary muscles, and when at last I reach the highest point, I swing open the door to the rooftop.

It’s not quite morning yet, and the sky looks like blue- tinged steel. Surrounding me are balconies festooned with colorful clotheslines, broken-down properties with boarded- up windows, fuzzy-leaved palm trees reaching up from the pitted streets . . . and in the distance, the ground and sky blur where the Atlantic swallows the horizon.

El Retiro is a rundown apartment complex with all elderly residents—mostly Cuban, Colombian, Venezuelan, Nicara- guan, and Argentine immigrants. There’s just one slow, loud elevator in the building, and since I’m the youngest person here, I never use it in case someone else needs it.

I came up here hoping for a breath of fresh air, but since it’s summertime, there’s no caress of a breeze to greet me. Just the suffocating embrace of Miami’s humidity.

Smothering me.

I close my eyes and take in deep gulps of musty oxygen, trying to push the dread down to where it can’t touch me. The way Perla taught me to do whenever I get anxious.

My metamorphosis started this year. I first felt something

was different four full moons ago, when I no longer needed to squint to study the ground from up here. I simply opened my eyes to perfect vision.

The following month, my hair thickened so much that I had to buy bigger clips to pin it back. Next menstrual cycle came the growth spurt that left my jeans three inches too short, and last lunaritis I awoke with such a heightened sense of smell that I could sniff out what Ma and Perla had for dinner all three nights I was out.

It’s bad enough to feel the outside world pressing in on me, but now even my insides are spinning out of my control.

As Perla’s breathing exercises relax my thoughts, I begin  to feel the stirrings of my dreamworld calling me back. I slide onto the rooftop’s ledge and lie back along the warm cement, my body as stagnant as the stale air. A dragon-shaped cloud comes apart like cotton, and I let my gaze drift with Miami’s hypnotic sky, trying to call up the dream’s details before they fade . . .

What Ma and Perla don’t know about the Septis is they don’t simply sedate me for sixty hours—they transport me.

Every lunaritis, I visit the same nameless land of magic and mist and monsters. There’s the golden grass that ticks off time by turning silver as the day ages; the black-leafed trees that can cry up storms, their dewdrop tears rolling down their bark to form rivers; the colorful waterfalls that warn onlookers of oncoming danger; the hope-sucking Sombras that dwell in darkness and attach like parasitic shadows . . .

And the Citadel.

It’s a place I instinctively know I’m not allowed to go, yet I’m always trying to get to. Whenever I think I’m going to make it inside, I wake up with a start.

Picturing the black stone wall, I see the thorny ivy that

twines across its surface like a nest of guardian snakes, slith- ering and bunching up wherever it senses a threat.

The sharper the image, the sleepier I feel, like I’m slowly sliding back into my dream, until I reach my hand out tenta- tively. If I could just move faster than the ivy, I could finally grip the opal doorknob before the thorns—

Howling breaks my reverie.

I blink, and the dream disappears as I spring to sitting and scour the battered buildings. For a moment, I’m sure I heard a wolf.

My spine locks at the sight of a far more dangerous threat: A cop car is careening in the distance, its lights flashing and siren wailing. Even though the black-and-white is still too far away to see me, I leap down from the ledge and take cover behind it, the old mantra running through my mind.

Don’t come here, don’t come here, don’t come here.

A familiar claustrophobia claws at my skin, an affliction forged of rage and shame and powerlessness that’s been my companion as long as I’ve been in this country. Ma tells me I should let her worry about this stuff and only concern myself with studying, so when our papers come through, I can take my GED and one day make it to NASA—but it’s impossible not to worry when I’m constantly having to hide.

My muscles don’t uncoil until the siren’s howling fades and the police are gone, but the morning’s spell of stillness has broken. A door slams, and I instinctively turn toward the pink building across the street that’s tattooed with territorial graf- fiti. Where the alternate version of me lives.

I call her Other Manu.

The first thing I ever noticed about her was her Argentine fútbol jersey: #10 Lionel Messi. Then I saw her face and real- ized we look a lot alike. I was reading Borges at the time, and

it ocurred to me that she and I could be the same person in overlapping parallel universes.

But it’s an older man and not Other Manu who lopes down the street. She wouldn’t be up this early on a Sunday anyway. I arch my back again, and thankfully this time, the only pop I hear is in my joints.

The sun’s golden glare is strong enough that I almost wish I had my sunglasses. But this rooftop is sacred to me because it’s the only place where Ma doesn’t make me wear them, since no one else comes up here.

I’m reaching for the stairwell door when I hear it.

Faint footsteps are growing louder, like someone’s racing up. My heart shoots into my throat, and I leap around the corner right as the door swings open.

The person who steps out is too light on their feet to be someone who lives here. No El Retiro resident could make it up the stairs that fast. I flatten myself against the wall.

“Creo que encontré algo, pero por ahora no quiero decir nada.”

Whenever Ma is upset with me, I have a habit of translat- ing her words into English without processing them. I asked Perla about it to see if it’s a common bilingual thing, and she said it’s probably my way of keeping Ma’s anger at a distance; if I can deconstruct her words into language—something de- tached that can be studied and dissected—I can strip them of their charge.

As my anxiety kicks in, my mind goes into automatic trans- lation mode: I think I found something, but I don’t want to say anything yet.

The woman or girl (it’s hard to tell her age) has a deep, throaty voice that’s sultry and soulful, yet her singsongy accent is unquestionably Argentine. Or Uruguayan. They sound similar.

My cheek is pressed to the wall as I make myself as flat as possible, in case she crosses my line of vision.

“Si tengo razón, me harán la capitana más joven en la his- toria de los Cazadores.”

If I’m right, they’ll make me the youngest captain in the history of the . . . Cazadores? That means hunters.

In my eight years living here, I’ve never seen another per- son on this rooftop. Curious, I edge closer, but I don’t dare peek around the corner. I want to see this stranger’s face, but not badly enough to let her see mine.

“¿El encuentro es ahora? Che, Nacho, ¿vos no me podrías cubrir?”

Is the meeting right now? Couldn’t you cover for me, Nacho?

The che and vos sound like Argentinespeak. What if it’s Other Manu?

The exciting possibility brings me a half step closer, and now my nose is inches from rounding the corner. Maybe I can sneak a peek without her noticing.

“Okay,” I hear her say, and her voice sounds like she’s just a few paces away.

I suck in a quick inhale, and before I can overthink it, I pop my head out—

And see the door swinging shut.

I scramble over and tug it open, desperate to spot even a hint of her hair, any clue at all to confirm it was Other Manu— but she’s already gone.

All that remains is a wisp of red smoke that vanishes with the swiftness of a morning cloud.

Excerpted from Lobizona by Romina Garber. Published by Wednesday Books.

[mypassionfortrash]

Nothing Serious: Parts 1-3

With all your friends having married themselves off, having kids and getting boring, you turn to Tinder to fill your time. When you match with a familiar face, you quickly realise you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. (Modern Sugar Daddy AU).

Pairing: Roger Taylor x f!Reader Warnings: Filth, angst, daddy kink, morbid humour, strictly 18+. Notes: This was originally posted on my Queen blog (BoRhapRogerina) before I deleted it. If you’re new here, welcome. If you’ve read this before, I’ve reworked this quite substantially. I’m planning on finishing all of my fics for NaNoWriMo this year, so stay tuned for updates on all my WIPs!

[1/4]

It was a Friday evening, and you had just got off work. Not that you had plans. 

All your friends had partnered up and gone away on romantic weekends away. 

Leaving you alone, with no plans. 

On the plus side, you had a laundry list of shows to binge watch, and a full fridge of goodies, that would most likely last until Saturday morning. If you were lucky. 

Flopping down on the couch, you fired up the first show on your list and settled down, fully prepared to fester for two days. Bliss, you thought, absentmindedly opening Tinder for a glimpse of what could be. If you could stomach the dating game.

You must have swiped left on a hundred people in the space of ten minutes, never bothering to read their self absorbed ‘about me’ sections, or to look at more of their photos. Until Roger (37 years old, 20 kilometres away) caught your eye.

He was handsome. Recently divorced. And a musician. 

He looked familiar, too.

But 37 was too old. Curiosity got the better of you when you set your search parameters, casting the net as wide as possible to see what the app would throw up. 

It threw up Roger.

He was too old. 

But too intriguing to reject. 

So you swiped right. 

And then went back to your show.

The Umbrella Academy wasn’t boring, per se, but every now and again, your eyes would be drawn towards your phone on the coffee table. You wondered whether Roger had noticed you. Surely not.

When the first episode was over, you padded through to the kitchen and flicked the kettle on. You couldn’t help but kick yourself for not giving his profile enough attention. He caught you by surprise and you didn’t fully absorb his profile. Apart from the obvious. You swiped right without thinking. And now, he was all you could think about.

What did he do for a living? Did he have kids? Was his ex-wife a total nutter?

You stood, drumming your fingertips against the kitchen counter, waiting for the kettle to boil. Until you heard your phone vibrate.

Never in your life had you moved so fast, darting through to the living room and almost knocking over a lamp. You picked up your phone and looked at your notifications. Sure enough, there it was, ‘you have matched with Roger.’

Throwing yourself back on to the couch, you could feel your cheeks burning. It felt utterly alien to you to even match with someone you were actually attracted to, so you were determined to make a good impression. Staring up at the ceiling, your lips moved slowly, trying to verbalise what you were going to open with and all the ways you could woo him straight off the bat. A simple, ‘how are you?’ wasn’t going to suffice.

‘How YOU doin’ tonight?’ Uncool. 

‘Any plans for the weekend?’ Boring.

‘If you were a cocktail, what would you be?’ Better.

And then your phone vibrated again.

You looked down to see a notification flash up and disappear. ‘Roger has sent you a message.’

Your stomach churned. They never messaged first. At least he was keen, you thought, unlocking your phone to read what he had sent. 

‘If you were a fruit, you’d be a fine-apple.’

You snorted, feeling your face burn up even more. It was a stinker of a line. A stinker that somehow made your heart flutter.

Just as you were hovering your thumbs over your keyboard to type a response, another message popped up.

‘Sorry, that was rotten.’

And another.

‘It’s really nice to match with you. Any plans for the weekend?’

He stole your boring line.

Game on!

[2/4]

You and Roger spent the entire weekend messaging back and forth about everything from your favourite films to your favourite holiday destinations (he cited dirty weekends away at his villa - wherever that was - as a top pick). It turned out he was charming, witty and ever so slightly filthy, without being disrespectful. Despite your qualms about his age, you were aching to see if he was as enthralling in real life.

It was Monday morning. Sat at your desk, you desperately clung to any focus you could muster for your work. But, in the back of your mind, you couldn’t help wondering when Roger's next message would appear. You prayed it would be soon. You had a mountain of paperwork to do, but precisely zero focus to follow through.

By midday, you lost hope. 

Maybe he was too good to be true? Perhaps your joke about being ‘An Old Man Fucker’ was a step too far?

Packing up your desk to go to lunch, you decided to leave your phone behind. But as you walked away, you heard it vibrate.

You darted back to your desk and grabbed your phone.

Roger had a funny habit of appearing on your phone, just as you were about to do something. You scanned his latest offering.

‘What’s the difference between a tyre and 365 used condoms?’

Even without a punchline, it earned a giggle, which in turn earned you disapproving looks from your colleagues. You hurriedly tapped out a quick, ‘I don’t know,’ before stowing your phone in your pocket and following the mass exodus to the canteen.

Your heart felt like it was going to escape from your chest as you waited for the punchline to yet another dirty joke.

His response came quickly: ‘One’s a Goodyear, the other’s a great year! Doing anything nice tonight, gorgeous? Hope you're having a lovely day! I hate Mondays :(’

———————————————————————————————————

A few hours later, you were sprawled on the sofa, bouncing your leg impatiently. A typical weeknight consisted of a quick change into your pyjamas, scarfing down instant noodles and a side of hating the single life. 

But not tonight. Roger was coming over. And you were determined to impress.

You had swapped your joggers and a plain old t-shirt for a short, black tea dress. Makeup on. Hair done. You even wore a bra; a rarity at home.

The seconds ticked by at an impossibly slow rate and Roger was late. He said he'd be there for seven. It was five past. 

You got up to pace back and forth across the living room. Your mind wandered, anticipating what your evening with Roger would entail. 

What would you talk about? You had covered a lot of ground over the weekend. 

Would you watch a film? You knew he was into sci-fi. You could do sci-fi. Get drunk? On a school night, really? Maybe not.

Sleep with him?

That last question stopped you in your tracks. It wasn’t as if you didn’t want to. That was precisely the reason you joined Tinder, as tough as it was to admit. After speaking to him all weekend, you actually kind of liked him. But you just didn’t know him that well.

Your brain felt like it had just run a marathon when there was a knock at the door. 

It made your stomach drop, and your legs turn to jelly as you scrambled to answer it; your mind blank and exhausted. With a deep breath, you turned the handle and cracked the door open, peering out into the hall. 

Roger peeked through the gap, a mischievous smile on his face. “Hi,” he beamed. "Sorry, I'm late."

You flung the door open, eyeing him with a shy smirk. “Hi." That was all you could muster.

Roger quickly pulled you into him, squeezing you tightly. “It’s so nice to meet you,” he mumbled against your hair.

He smelled incredible. Like sandalwood and pine forests, enticing you to bury your face against his collarbone. “And you,” you sighed.

All those worries in your head melted away, but there was something between both of your bodies. Breaking away from Roger’s embrace, you looked down to find a bunch of flowers and two bottles of wine tucked into the crook of his arm. You gazed up at him, forgetting how to form sentences. It seemed like he did too. 

Luckily he noticed your stare trailing down to the flowers and the wine. Red and white. He rocked on his feet, remembering what was happening. “Oh! These are for you. Couldn’t come empty-handed and I wasn’t sure…” He babbled, passing them to you.

“They’re perfect," you smiled, waving him inside, "Come in.”

You led roger through the hall and into the living room, motioning him towards the couch. “Make yourself at home. What do you want to drink?”

Roger shrugged. “Whatever you’re having.”

The kitchen felt like it was worlds away, granting you a short reprieve from Roger’s company. He was so much more handsome in real life, you thought, rifling through your cupboards. So handsome, in fact, that you had forgotten when you kept your wine glasses. “The ones above the sink, fuck,” you grumbled to yourself, throwing open the cupboard and snatching the glasses. You tried to even yourself out with what little time alone you had, pressing your hands into the edge of the counter and bowing your head. Deep breaths.

A clatter from the living room pulled you back to reality. You hastily dunked the flowers in the sink and grabbed your drinks, to see what the commotion in the living room was. 

When you got back to Roger, you found him picking some records up off the floor. 

Roger looked up at you wearing a coy smirk. “Sorry. Had to make sure you weren’t a crazy fan.”

You gave an awkward laugh, wandering past him.

“It’s happened before,” he added, getting to his feet and giving a shrug. “You’ve got good taste though.”

“I thought you looked familiar.” You sat the bottle and the glasses down on the coffee table and joined him over by your boxes of records. 

He skimmed through your collection. “I can’t believe people still buy these,” Roger laughed, taking out a copy of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA.’ “Don’t tell me this is some new hipster wanker thing? Buying LPs?” he asked, eyeing you with his eyebrows raised.

You snatched the record from his grasp, screwing up your features. “I’ll have you know, vinyl is far superior.”

Roger rolled his eyes. “Yeah, with all that crackling and popping, it’s bound to sound better.”

“It’s all about the listening experience,” you sneered, taking the record out of its slipcase and placing it on the turntable. “You can’t be passive when you’re listening to records. It gives you more of a chance to absorb it.”

“I believe you,” Roger chuckled. 

“You haven’t told me what kind of music Queen play,” you added, waltzing back to the sofa.

Roger flopped down next to you, watching as you poured his drink and handed it to him. As he was about to take a sip, his eyes narrowed. “Do you know something? I’m shocked you haven’t heard of us.”

“Why’s that?” you asked, glaring at him.

“Well, you’ve got the music taste of a forty-year-old man for starters.”

You choked on your wine. He was on to you. But now wasn’t the time to tell him you had spent the entire weekend researching his band. Or the shame you felt when you realised how big they were. Or that you had overlooked them this long. Or that you loved their work. “Maybe you’re just not that good,” you grinned.

Roger shrugged. “That’s just one woman’s opinion, I suppose.”

“I suppose it is.”

“I’m glad, actually.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re not into me because I’m a rockstar.”

“But it helps,” you admitted.

Roger smirked. “You’ve got a thing for musicians? Never would have guessed.”

“You could say that.”

“So why are you on Tinder?” Roger asked, turning side on to face you. “I’m assuming picking up handsome drummers ranks pretty highly.”

“Well,” you began, moving closer to him, “all I wanted was an easy lay if I'm honest.”

The corners of Roger’s mouth perked up into a devilish smile upon hearing those words. “You know, out of all the members of a band, drummers are definitely the easiest. Speaking from experience.”

Your stomach fluttered. But you just couldn’t stop yourself. You weren’t even drunk yet. “Are you?”

Roger’s face was dangerously close to your’s at this point, his nose was practically pressed against yours. “Don’t you want to know what I want?” he prodded.

“Not particularly. No.”

“I love a girl who knows what she wants,” Roger chuckled, drawing his calloused fingers along your jawline, tilting your face up ever so slightly. Roger wasted no time in replacing his fingers with his lips, pressing kisses along your jaw, before settling on your mouth. His hand was firm at the back of your neck, pulling you into him. 

You put up little resistance when things became heated, slinking over his lap to deepen the kiss. 

Roger’s hands squeezed at your thighs when your tongue slipped past his lips. He was feverish, needy, almost, in the way that he kneaded your flesh, letting out breathless gasps.

The feeling that things were moving too fast began to claw at your gut. Your movements slowed, eventually breaking away from Roger. 

“Are you ok?” he asked, sweeping a stray strand of hair behind your ears. His eyes moved across your features. They were loaded with concern.

More aware of the music playing in the background than before, you moved in time to the last few bars of ‘Downbound Train.’ “I’m fine,” you whispered.

Roger took your hand and kissed your palm. His eyes saddened, peeking through your fingers. “Are you sure?”

You didn’t respond. All you could do was take Roger’s hand as you scrambled to your feet. Leading him out into the centre of the living room, you pulled him into you, swaying along to ‘I’m On Fire.’ “Do you like dancing, Roger?”

Roger gave a quiet laugh and pressed his nose to yours. “Only if I have the right partner.”

You danced slowly, intimately, until Side A spun out, leaving the pair of you rocking aimlessly away in silence. Your face rested against his chest, revelling in his scent. His arms bound you to him, and his chin perched on top of your head. And for just a second, you thought you had died and gone to heaven.

“Tell me something,” Roger said, breaking the quiet calm. “Are you really just looking for an easy lay?”

You continued to dance in circles while you thought up a response. Your heart was beating frantically at the thought you might have been wrong about what you wanted. “I don’t know. Are you just looking for the odd dirty weekend at your villa?”

Roger’s chest rattled with a warm laugh. “Touché. Are you going to flip that record or are we gonna dance in silence all night?”

You groaned into his shirt at the thought. It was near impossible. As hard as you tried, you couldn’t quite bring yourself to move away from Roger. 

So he did it for you. He moved over to your record player and flipped the album over on to side B, while you got to work on refilling your glasses. “I love this song,” Roger said, nodding in approval. 

“Are you a big Springsteen fan?” you asked, handing his glass back to him. 

“Yeah, I mean I like the E-Street band more than the stuff he did on his own. But his songs just resonate a lot with me.”

“I’ll drink to that,” you said, raising your glass.

Your glasses clinked together. And then your brain decided to remind you that this was your first date. The nerves were back. For both of you. 

The quicker either of you set about drinking more, the faster any awkwardness between you could dissipate. Before you knew it, you were on your fifth glass. And you had worked your way through yet another of Springsteen’s albums, ‘Nebraska.’

You and Roger sat side by side giggling away on the couch, but you couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. It had you conflicted, though. Not wanting to come on too strong, or be too intense. But you weren’t keen on being sidelined by Roger. He was handsome, witty and it was so easy for you to feel comfortable around him. You could see yourself being happy with him; you felt it in your gut that he was more than the easy lay you wanted. But there was so much you needed to know. Your mind raced. And your face sank.

Roger noticed and he softened his gaze, running his fingers through your hair.

“What exactly are you looking for, Roger?”

“Do you want me to be honest?” Roger slurred.

You nodded.

“You’re not going to like it.”

“Just tell me.”

“I hate being on my own. I don’t want it to be that way.”

“I get that.”

“Now what do you want?” Roger asked, jabbing his finger against your chest. “Really want.”

You rolled your eyes, knowing your motivations weren’t so different to his. “I hate being alone too,” you admitted, not being able to look at him. Instead, you stretched out your arms lazily. “Guess that makes us a pair of losers.”

Roger looked away, his eyes misting over. “Guess it does.”

Roger’s sudden, sullen demeanour had you desperate to change the subject. “So where is this villa of your’s and how dirty are we talking?”

“What villa?”

Your heart sank. “You said you had a villa.”

“I have more than one, but I like the one in Ibiza the best.”

Your mind became a hamster wheel, wondering just how rich Roger was. “You have more than one?”

Roger was nonchalant as he shrugged his shoulders and nodded. “I have the filthiest times in Ibiza, but I’m not averse to the one in LA. Especially in the winter. I hate the cold.”

“How filthy do I have to be for you to take me out there?” you joked.

Roger snorted. “I reckon I could turn you into an absolute whore.”

“Well that sounds like fun.”

“You look like you could use a holiday.”

[3/3]

Your phone wouldn’t stop buzzing as you waited patiently by the window. Pressing your knuckles to your lips, you paced, keeping your eyes trained on the street below. Roger would be here any minute now. A suitcase and a bag sat beside the door, containing everything you thought you needed for your trip.

It had taken you three days to make the decision. You lay in bed every night since Monday, wide awake, trying to suss him out. 

It was insanity at best, agreeing to it. But, you knew it wouldn’t exactly be a conventional romance anyway.

He made you laugh and put you at ease. And you would be lying if you claimed he didn’t make you smile exactly when you needed it. One particular remark - 'that villa’s where I keep all ten of my wives, chained up in the basement' - that was the kicker. It tipped the scales all the way to a resounding ‘yes’ from you.

‘Any time now,’ you repeated to yourself, trying to block out the racket of your phone. You had lost count of the number of frantic messages from your friends. All of them tried to dissuade you. But the backflips your stomach did when a strange, black Mercedes slipped into view told you everything you needed to know. 

Grabbing your handbag and your suitcase, you burst from your flat, trundling your brimming case noisily down the stairs. Your heart felt like it was working overtime as you flung open the front door. 

A chauffeur stood by the back door of the car as Roger fell out on to the street, beaming at you.

“There she is!” He stretched out his linen-clad arms, ushering you into a hug. He felt even softer and smelled even better than he did on Monday. He certainly hugged you tighter, propping his chin up on your head. “You all set?” he mumbled, kissing your hair.

“God, I’m so nervous," you squeaked.

Roger held you away from him. From underneath his dark tinted lenses, you could tell his eyes were darting over the windows of the flats behind you, searching for intrusive gazes and curtain pullers. Then his attention snapped back to you, a look of seriousness cloaking his features as he gripped your shoulders just a little bit tighter. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. It’s your trip, you can enjoy it however you want.” He paused, looking down. The corners of his mouth perking up. “And I’m a bit nervous too, actually.”

Shattering the moment into millions of tiny fragments, the chauffeur cleared his throat audibly. “I’ve just put your suitcase in the boot, Miss. We should be going soon.”

“Yeah, thanks Lewis,” Roger piped up. 

The pair of you bundled yourselves into the back seat. The saloon was cramped, unaided by you and Roger’s need to sit almost on top of each other. Both of you searched for something to say, but, over the week, you seemed to have covered everything in your texts and long-winded phone calls. From Queen’s creative differences in the studio to stakeholders messing you about at work with their half-baked briefs and their fake deadlines. You touched on it all. And now, you were wondering what else there was to say, as your knee constantly knocked against Roger’s.

Your thoughts turned to spending an entire flight in his company. How awkward that might be if you didn’t find something. And fast. 

Luckily, the townscape whizzed past you at breakneck speed. You had only spent the longest ten minutes of your life in the car beside him before it was navigating its way through the airport complex. A wave of relief loosened you up, seeing the ‘drop off’ sign straight ahead. But those hoped were dashed when the chauffeur bypassed it.

“I think you’ve missed the drop-off,” you said, leaning towards the driver.

“Oh, he never misses,” Roger smirked, focusing on the view from his window.

You sank back, furrowing your brow as the car pulled up to a security barrier. You couldn’t quite pick up on what Lewis was saying, but it was enough to grant him access.

Your jaw dropped as the car rounded the corner on to the tarmac. “How the hell are you able to do that?” you asked, turning to Roger. “What about security? Baggage-”

Roger laughed, placing his arm around you. “When you’re in one of the world’s biggest rock bands, normal airport procedure doesn’t really apply, darling. But if you’re shocked by this, wait until you see the plane.”

“The plane?”

Roger pointed to the small plan directly in front of the car. “That plane.”

Your eyes widened. “You own that?”

“Well, it’s chartered. It’s very nice inside, though. Comes with a couple of stewardesses.”

It turns out ‘nice’ was an understatement. Never in your life had you seen that level of classless opulence. Your eyes were on everything as Roger led you into the cabin. Every gold accent, every marble surface, every red leather seat. Complete with two blonde and beautiful stewardesses who handed you a glass of champagne each. It was jarring, tacky and screamed ‘money.’ 

You followed Roger to the middle of the aircraft, where he threw himself on to one of the sofas with a relieved groan, sprawling out like a starfish. You roamed towards the bathroom, swigging away at your champagne, your mind overloaded by the situation. You poked your head inside the obnoxiously pristine cubicle. Ryanair hadn’t a patch on this. You could throw an entire orgy in here, and still have room for a few more. There was even a bottle of lube and a bowl of condoms sat on the counter. You had a feeling people like Roger used the plane for just that. “You could easily join the mile high club in here,” you thought aloud. 

“Yeah, well I wouldn’t touch anything if I were you. Steven Tyler was in here last week. God knows what he gets up to.”

“Lovely,” you replied, sauntering back to Roger. 

“I’m glad you like it." Roger observed you throwing back the rest of your drink. “You look like you needed that.”

You simpered, not wanting to meet Roger’s line of sight. “I did. And I think I’m going to need more.”

“More’s definitely good,” he laughed.

Without him asking, one of the stewardesses brought over a bottle, bending down at the waist to present it to Roger. It granted you both an impressive view of her cleavage. But Roger was having none of it. “That’ll be everything, thank you, Claudia,” Roger said, taking the bottle from her, his attention still on you. 

Roger’s shirt was unbuttoned down to his chest, and your head had somehow found itself resting on his bare skin. You gazed up at him while he poured you both drinks and slipped your glass back into your hand.

Settling into a comfortable position as the plane took to the skies, Roger’s arm found its way around your shoulders and his lips littered kisses over your forehead between sips of his drink.

“You must be loaded,” you pondered. “How many years have Queen been going?”

“Well over twenty now, I think, why?”

“You must have seen a lot.”

“I’ve seen everything,” Roger chuckled. 

“Where’s your favourite place in the world?”

“Hm, that a tough one. I love Japan. It always has this amazing energy to it. It’s brimming with people, everywhere, but it still manages to have a lot of calm about it. And the food? God, it’s delicious. Could eat Japanese food all the time.”

You raised your eyebrows. “Never would have thought that about you.”

“I’ll take you out there someday, you’ll love it.”

“Bet the industry’s changed a lot from when you started out,” you mused, turning from your side to your back. 

Roger’s arm dropped around your waist. “You have no idea. It’s sort of soul destroying. All this streaming business," he began. You hung on his every word. "If people really knew how little we get from that, I hope they’d think twice and just buy a bloody album like they used to. I’ve seen a lot of good bands go under because they can’t afford to live.”

“And how have Queen lasted this long?”

“Because we’re not just ‘good.’ We’re more than that.” He sighed, draining another glass. “I’m glad we made our millions and constantly toured in those early days. Enough to outlast everyone else in the long run. Now, we can do what we like. God, I sound like I’m giving an interview.”

“I like hearing you ramble, by the way,” you encouraged. “Bet you’ve met some crazy ones though.”

“Some of them can be intense… yeah, but-”

“And you’re out there on Tinder for the world to see. Dating women half your age,” you jibed, sitting up straight. You turned around, looking at him. His cheeks were flushed as he nodded away, agreeing with everything that came out of your mouth. “How have you not ended up dead, yet?”

Roger batted his hand through the air. “No one pays any attention to the drummer. It’s that rotter, Freddie, everybody fawns over! And besides,” Roger paused, moving just inches away from your face, “You’re not planning to kill me, are you, darling?”

“How would you know?”

Something in Roger’s demeanour changed. His sleepy, half-lidded eyes turned glassy. Sinking in on himself, he looked away. “I’m a good judge of character. Or at least I hope I am, after everything.”

Unsure of whether your newfound courage was down to the champagne or the chip in Roger’s happy-go-lucky facade, you felt emboldened to ask. “Is this about the divorce?”

Sure, you had done your research. The internet was awash with gossip about his drawn out, acrimonious divorce from his wife of ten years. The vitriol. The scandal. But you wanted to hear his side of it.

Roger nodded.

Backing away, your hands fumbled in your lap. You crossed the line. Too much too soon. How could that possibly have been the case with you and Roger was anyone’s guess, but the silence that fell over you two had you eyeing the emergency exit, wondering if you could survive a 27,000-foot drop.

“Put some music on, will you, darling,” Roger said, taking your empty glass and refilling it. “Anything you like. Just plug your phone in.” He nodded towards a towering sound system at the back of the plane. 

You went over to it and pulled out your phone. You felt like an idiot, but you had already made a playlist loaded with songs that reminded you of him. All before your time. Your finger hovered over the shuffle button, deliberating whether to put it on. You gave in and hit the button, letting the first few bars of Moonage Daydream to pour from the speakers, making the cabin vibrate. 

“I love this song,” Roger said quietly.

You turned back to him, feeling the rush of nervousness in your chest, seeing the way he stared at you. Aided by the champagne, you began to dance. You could feel his gaze relishing every inch of you and the way you moved. The way you swept through the blistering rays that shone through the windows. The halo it created around you.

“Aren’t you going to dance with me?” you pouted, nearing the end of the track.

“I prefer watching you, darling,” Roger said, lowering his sunglasses over his eyes. 

“What if I put on something you’ll really like?” you pushed with another quick twirl.

“Try me.”

You went back over to the sound system and scrolled through the collection of songs, pressing play on the perfect number. You glanced over your shoulder at Roger’s reaction. 

“Cover Me?” Roger asked, raising his eyebrows. “I’m tempted.”

You shimmied over to him. 

His foot, tapped away. His fingers drummed against the back of the sofa. A smirk on his lips as he looked up at you. “You’re gonna have to make me.”

You accepted the challenge. 

In one fell swoop, you grabbed his shirt collar and hauled him to his feet, sending the remainder of its buttons popping free. 

Roger quietly stood in front of you, dying to break out in a fit of hysterics. He desperately wanted to move with you. Instead, he made you do all the work.

But that was how you wanted it to play out. You wanted to be in control. To tease. He was so strung out that even the feeling of your fingertips curling through the hair on his chest made his breathing hitch. You prowled around him, working the fabric down his arms, pressing into his shoulders. “You’re so tense,” you remarked. “Don’t tell me I got you all worked up this fast.”

“You should be so lucky,” Roger quipped, attempting to play it cool. Full circle, you stalked into view again. His expression flipped from a broad grin to a look of false seriousness. 

“That’s funny,” you began, pressing yourself into him, “because that cock of yours feels pretty hard to me. Did you like what you saw?”

Roger still wore a wicked smirk, trying to avoid eye contact. Instead, he concentrated on something over your shoulder, leaving you both in silence for a moment. 

Then, when you least expected it, he barged past you, seizing your hand on the way to the back of the plane. He dragged you all the way to the bathroom. Bundling you inside and slamming the door closed. 

Before you knew it, you were sandwiched between Roger and the counter.

His hands shook, fumbling with the buttons on your blouse, distracting himself with nipping at the sensitive skin on your neck. And taunting you. “So you like teasing me, Princess?” He murmured, yanking your shirt off.

Your fingers snaked into Roger’s hair, while your free hand took the opportunity to ghost over his cock through his jeans. “You’re easy to tease.” 

Your sass was short-lived; Roger had taken to pinching your nipples through your bra, in time to his lips marking you up. It made you throw yourself back against the mirror, granting him easier access to the rest of you.

“God, you’re gorgeous,” he murmured, moving lower over your chest. 

All you could do was tug your lower lip between your teeth, watching as he made his way down. Your bra was gone before you knew it, and his hands had already found their way to the zipper on your jeans. Roger kneeled down, lavishing your stomach with slow wet kisses, looking up at you through his lashes. His fingers clawed at your waistband, dragging them lower - your underwear with them - into a pool around your ankles. 

You could feel that need spreading through you like wildfire. You struggled, even just to breathe, driving your hips against Roger’s efforts. Your fingers laced into his hair. It was a feeble effort at leading him to where you really needed him.

Of course, Roger noticed, smiling to himself. He grasped at your thighs, causing you to falter. “I can’t wait to taste you, Princess. Would you like that?”

“Yes please,” you sang, clutching the edge of the counter for support.

“Hop up there. Let’s get a good look at you.”

Without missing a beat, you hauled yourself atop the freezing marble counter, lewdly presenting yourself. 

He seemed like all his Christmases had come at once. Like he wasn’t sure where to look, or even where to place his hands. They just skimmed, ponderously over your inner thighs, never quite going anywhere. 

“Are you going to keep gawping at it, Roger?”

That drew a response out of him. The realisation that he was required to actually do something, rather than admire you for hours. Not that he would have minded. “Right, boss,” he grinned. He settled between your legs, dragging his thumb over your slick, pink folds, savouring just how aroused you were. “So pretty,” he remarked, before leaning in.

One long, lazy lap of you was all it took for all your inhibitions to melt away. Those tense and taut muscles in every part of your body loosened, while Roger’s mouth devoured and savoured every dripping wet inch of you. And then an almighty shockwave hit you. Roger’s tongue circled your clit, stringing you out again, forcing a surprised moan from you.

Roger’s quiet chuckles reverberated through you like tiny aftershocks.

It had you wondering what his next trick was.

He was hellbent on making quick work of you, his tongue zeroing in on your sensitive little nub, making you writhe against him. Ratcheting up your pleasure until it felt like all your nerves were on fire. And then slipping a finger inside you. And then another. And another. Curling them in on themselves, like they were daring you to claw at Roger’s hair with just a little bit more aggression. Daring you to howl louder for him.

“You love having that tight little cunt of yours stretched, don’t you, Princess?” Roger taunted, moving back to look up at you, his chin glistening.

“Yes,” you sighed.

You could feel your orgasm beginning to build. You weren’t exactly in control of your body or the things that came out of your mouth. But the words that tumbled from them shocked you, urging him on. “Just like that, Daddy.” It was as if your body had been torn in half out of shame and pure ecstasy. 

Roger never said anything about it. In fact, you could practically feel him grinning as his mouth delved back down to finish what he had started. 

“Oh, god, Daddy, I’m so close.” There it was again. 

It raised nothing but a giggle from Roger.

Between that, his mouth and his fingers, you were teetering on the brink of something wonderful.

“Repeat it, Princess,” Roger urged, “tell me how good I make you feel.”

“Da-”

Before you could finish that sentence, you lost control, viciously trembling on Roger’s fingers. 

You still saw stars when you came to. Roger had flipped you over, leaving you face to face with your own reflection. He was fumbling away in the background with a condom wrapper. “That was amazing,” you panted, burying your face in your arms.

Roger ran his thumb over your slit again. “It’s not over yet, sweetheart.”

You swayed your hips in response, smirking over at him in the mirror.

“You want Daddy’s cock in you, Princess?” His expression was just as wicked. 

You nodded, still making eye contact with him.

But he taunted you. “I wanna hear you say it,” he said, drawing the tip of his cock through your folds, coating it until it was slick with your juices. 

“Please Daddy, I need your cock inside me,” you whined.

“I’m never gonna tire of hearing you say that, Princess,” he said, slipping into you. 

Roger was far thicker than you had anticipated, forcing a shocked groan from you as he stretched you to your limit. Of course, he was analysing you in the mirror, studying every small change in your expression. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” you sighed, nodding vigorously, “I think.”

“You want me to go slow?” Roger asked, rubbing the small of your back, gingerly sinking back and forth.

“No. God no.”

“That’s my girl,” Roger beamed, thrusting into you harder. “Tell me if it gets too much for you, Princess.”

It was already too much for you in the best way possible. The more pace Roger gathered, the more unsteady your legs felt. The more he threatened to hurl you over the edge again. 

There was nothing left to do but babble on about how incredible he felt. You couldn’t even look at yourself in the mirror. Desperate to hold on for just a little bit longer.

“You’re taking Daddy’s cock so well, Princess,” Roger growled in your ear. “And you look so beautiful.” One of his hands found its way to your hair, pulling you upright while his other arm  squeezed around your waist. He goaded you. “Look at yourself, Princess, look how good you’re being. Open those eyes.” Even just hearing him say those things sent a shiver through you. 

But actually opening your eyes, watching him fill you. Seeing your skin, damp with sweat all because of what he was doing to you. The way you writhed against his grasp, your chest bouncing with every merciless thrust. The sheer lust in his eyes, glancing at your reflection, as he continued to taunt and tease. 

“Touch yourself for me. Touch yourself, Princess.”

You did exactly as Roger told you, spinning hasty circles around your clit as that warmth built in your stomach again.

“How does Daddy make you feel?”

There it was again. Sending another searing spark through your body. “You make me feel so good, Daddy. Oh god, Daddy, it feels so full,” you whimpered, nearing the end of your rope.

“Are you gonna come on Daddy’s cock? Be a good girl and show Daddy how much you like it.” 

Every time he said it, it drove you closer. And he wasn’t far behind. Your bodies were pressed so tightly together that you could feel the rattle of his breath and every animalistic growl that escaped him, growing more and more ragged.

“Yes, Daddy.”

Your head spun; he plunged you into delirium. Unable to focus on anything else, you lurched forward over the counter as it hit you. And Roger.

When it all subsided, you turned around to face him. He was already half dressed; jeans on, his shirt dangling from his hand. Your chest still heaved, your muscles ablaze. 

But the look that Roger wore was something else. A complete one-eighty from moments ago. Soft, and warm, he pressed himself against you, glueing you to him. He draped his shirt over your shoulders, placing a series of kisses on your damp forehead.

“That was amazing,” you sighed, wrapping your arms around him. 

“I never knew you were that filthy,” he chuckled.

“Well, you did say you wanted dirty weekends at the villa,” you mocked.

“How are you feeling?”

“Exhausted.”

“If you wanna sleep it off, I won’t hold it against you.”

“Sounds like a good idea.”

“Right,” Roger began, unsticking himself from you and unlocking the door, “I’ll leave you to clean yourself up. My shirt looks good on you, by the way.”

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

The sound of waves crashing drew you back to consciousness. Rolling over onto your back, you enjoyed it for a moment. Your awareness sharpened. Your chest rose and fell steadily under a light layer of silk, and a gentle breeze filled the blank space around your body. The last you remembered was falling asleep in Roger’s arms. On the plane. In the air.

Your eyes shot open to find your reflection staring back at you. Sitting up, you took in more of the room. The vast, empty space in the bed. The impersonal feel of the dresser to your right, neither a book nor a photograph adorning it. The way the red curtains wafted into the room. You craned your neck forward, catching the view out of the open balcony doors to be met by a bright blue sea for miles ahead. But there was no one there. No Roger in sight. 

Panic seared through you as your legs dangled off the edge of the bed. 

You sighed and embarked on a journey down the hall. It was lined with gold and platinum discs from all of Queen’s albums and large prints of the band in action. Portraits of Roger and his bandmates looking much younger. ‘Like fine wine,’ you muttered to yourself, sauntering through to the staircase. It looked out on to a grand, marble reception area with huge, marble doors at the front. It was unlike anything you had ever seen or been inside, and certainly not what you expected from Roger when he talked about his favourite villa.

As you began to descend the stairs, something caught your attention. Music. Finally, some sign of life.

You followed the sound down the stairs and through the hall, into a rustic kitchen. Standing at the island, with his back to the door, was Roger. Clad in white shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, he shook his hips to the music, in time with the drinks mixer in his hand.

“This song sounds familiar,” you mused, causing him to jump.

Roger turned around, his glasses askew on his face. Realising it was you, his form softened. He beckoned you into a hug. “Did you sleep well, darling?” he asked, kissing the top of your head.

“I did, thank you,” you responded, beaming up at him.

Roger shook the mixer, filling the room with the shimmering sound of crushed ice. “I’m making margaritas,” he announced, “want one?”

“I’d love one,” you said, breaking away from Roger’s embrace. Hauling yourself up on to one of the wooden stools around the island, you watched as Roger poured the drinks, finishing them off with a twist of lime. He looked rather pleased with himself, sliding it across the counter to you. He watched, waiting with bated breath, as you lifted the glass to your lips. 

But then you paused, sitting it back down on the counter. “How did you get me in here while I was asleep?”

“I didn’t wanna wake you,” Roger shrugged. “Just asked the driver if he could give me a hand getting you in and out the car. You never stirred once,” he explained taking a sip of his own drink, nodding in approval. “Christ, that’s good. You must be the heaviest sleeper I’ve ever met. But you did nearly sink an entire bottle of fizz on your own so I won’t hold it against you.”

You laughed, taking a swig of your cocktail. “Good.”

Roger leaned over the counter, closer to you, smirking. “You know, the cleaning lady genuinely thought I’d snapped and brought a dead body back.”

That wasn’t the worst joke Roger had hit you with, but you had made a habit of hyping up the shock value in those little tidbits he shared with you, moving back in your seat, open-mouthed. “She didn’t?”

“Yeah. Guess what I said to her?”

“You told her you were getting laid tonight, didn’t you?” you said, slapping Roger’s arm.

He sunk his teeth into his lower lip, slowly nodding.

“Oh you sick fuck,” you scolded.

“I know you love it though.”

“That’s debatable,” you quipped, taking another sip. “I love this album. I feel like I’ve heard these songs before. What is it?”

“It’s 1989 by Ryan Adams.”

You slammed down your glass and slapped the counter. “That’s where I’ve heard this before! These are Taylor Swift songs!”

Roger narrowed his eyes. “No, they’re not.”

A mocking tone took hold of your voice. With your hands on your hips, you sat up straight. “Uh, yes they are!”

“She can’t bloody write songs like this,” Roger said, rolling his eyes. “This guy, though? Genius.”

“She wrote those songs. And, he’s a known sex pest, Roger,” you explained. “Come to think of it, that’s probably why you like him, right?”

“That’s a low blow,” Roger said, sliding his phone into his eye line. “So if I’m right about him writing these songs, what do I get?”

“A kick up the arse.”

“You make that sound like it’s a bad thing, darling.”

“And if you’re wrong, you have to take me to all the villas you own. I quite like this one but I’m dying to see what the others-”

“You’re right.”

“What?”

“She did write those songs,” he said, showing you the Wikipedia entry. “You’re right.”

“Told you.”

“Well, short of going to the other villas, what are your plans for the rest of the day, darling?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” you sighed, “what do you want to do?”

“It’s your holiday.”

“Honestly, I just want to get out of these clothes and chill out for a bit. I’m exhausted. Maybe you could show me around tomorrow?”

“We could go for a nice drive around the island if you want? Get some nice food, soak up a bit of sun.”

“Sounds good!”

“And just now, why don’t we take the margaritas upstairs and have a nice long soak?”

Like a pair of giddy teenagers, you and Roger raced each other up the marble staircase, and back into the master bedroom. You beat him, of course, and stood aimlessly in the doorway, wondering which door on the wall led to the bathroom. You hadn’t thought to find it when you woke up.

Eventually, Roger caught up. “It’s the first one, darling. But you missed the bigger bathroom, at the top of the stairs,” he explained, taking your hand and leading you back along the hallway. “We’ll never fit in that tiny little shower cubicle in my room.”

“Well I think you need a bigger shower,” you quipped. But you were quickly silenced by the sight of the free-standing tub in the master bathroom. Completely marble, again, with gold accents. You could easily fit an entire football team in it. But what struck you most was the view. The glass of the window stretched from floor to ceiling, providing you with a clear view of the sea and the beach below.

“Why would I get a bigger shower when I could have all ten of my wives in this?” Roger joked, sitting the margarita jug and glasses on the counter opposite the bath. 

“Don’t you get worried people might see you?”

“Why would I get worried? It should be a bloody treat for them.”

You waited patiently as Roger poured bubbles and bath salts into the tub. Awkwardly thumbing at the collar of your shirt, you wondered where this was going. If this was going to be anything like the situation on the plane. You weren’t exactly feeling flirtatious anymore. You suddenly felt gross. Unsexy. As Roger began to shed his shirt and shorts. Finally his underwear. Your hands shook as you did the same. 

“What’s the matter, darling?” Roger asked with one foot in the bath.

“What?” You asked. “Nothing.”

“Your face is like fizz. You sure you’re alright?” 

You laughed. “Guess I’m not as bold when I’m sober.”

Roger sank down beneath the bubbles and peered over the top at you. “For what it’s worth, I’m pretty sloshed. You could look like Elton John right now, and I’d still adore you.”

“You’re not helping,” you said, tugging off your jeans.

Roger watched you, utterly spellbound as you climbed in beside him. “You’re right, I just wanted to get you naked again. What can I do to help?”

You looked at him with one eyebrow raised. It wasn’t as easy as that, but you had to commend his desire to try. “I don’t know. I’m still really nervous,” you shrugged, allowing the warm water to soothe your weary bones.

He studied you. The way his eyes darted over your features, memorising every detail, told you he was deep in thought. Wondering what he could do to put you at ease. But you could tell he felt defeated. 

“This is all new to me too,” he sighed.

“You’re far better at this than I am. Waking up here, I had one of those ‘what the fuck am I doing?’ moments. I’m here. In a villa. On an island. With a man that I only met at the start of the week. And he’s far older than I’d ever usually go for.”

Roger’s shoulders sank. His eyes did the same, focusing on the margarita in his hand. “I don’t want you to think I’m some manipulative, perverted old man. I’m sorry if I’ve given you that impression.”

Roger was on the wrong track. You shimmied over to him and ran your fingers over his jaw. “Never! That’s the thing. I like you. This is the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done, and here I am, too stuck inside my own head to enjoy it.”

He keened into your touch for a moment, enjoying the contact. “That’s good,” he began, taking your hand and pressing your knuckles to his lips, looking at you with those glassy blue eyes of his. “Because I like you a lot.”

That was it. That was all he had to do to make you melt and throw yourself into his arms. You could think of worse ways to spend your evening, than watching the sun go down, in the biggest bathtub you had ever seen, with a handsome, filthy rich rockstar playing with your hair. “It’s just gonna take a bit of getting used to. Nothing serious.”

>>NEXT PARTS>>

[gerbiloftriumph]

So you wanna be a king (pt3)

or maybe you just wanna cosplay one.

Continuing the cosplay semi-tutorial-semi-rambling for those who love one smol bean and wish to dress as him for funsies:

Part 3: Trousers and Boots

Okay, so, at this point you’ve probably spent at least $150, and at least enough hours to watch every Game Grumps King’s Quest LP (that's three and a quarter full games) three times. Likely more. 

It’s time to pull out your screencaps again, to remind yourself why we’re here. 

(it’s for this cute face, with all his determination and compassion and bravery and intelligence. That’s why.)

You’ve got a jerkin (pt 2) and a cloak (pt 1) but it’s indecent to walk around without anything waist down, so let’s a’stitch some trousers. And also some boots while we’re at it. 

Trousers!

When I was at the Renfest, someone asked me where I got my neat blue riding pants. Well, for starters......they’re yoga pants. And also, Goodwill. Have you noticed a trend with me yet. 

This knobbly-kneed lad is definitely not pulling a Men In Tights routine--there’s too much definition and stiffness in the wrinkles. I decided on sweatpants, though, because why not? May as well be comfy. (The more accurate fabric choice would probably be like, a khaki material, but, nah). I selected two separate pairs in the colors I wanted.

Because this costume isn’t warm enough, I attached the lighter pair over the darker rather than Frankenstein-sew two chopped parts together. It’s kind of like wearing pants and a half. Because I’m the monster. And also I was concerned that long-term wear would weaken the stitching if I pulled a Frankenstein, and this costume has been time consuming enough without risking it falling apart on me. 

What that means is this: I put on the darker pair, measured about how wide it looked Graham’s pants were vs on me, turned the lighter pair inside out so I could mark the width on them, and cut out a long and bizarre looking rectangle from the inner section of the light pair. 

The reason why we cosplay is to get into our favorite character’s pant--no, I’m sorry, the joke’s too bad, I’ll see myself out. 

I selected three inches wide on either side of the inner pant hem, so six inches wide in total, from ankle to ankle. This does mean there’s more fabric around the ankle since they naturally slim down, but the boot covers that. Since the lighter pair had an elastic stretchy cuff, I left that intact so the pants wouldn’t bunch up when walking. 

Immediately after cutting out the light pair, I ran it through my sewing machine with that herringbone stitch (the zigzag triangles) to “seal” the fabric edge and prevent fraying. It gives it kind of a bubbly textured look if you look closely, but if you’re not about that life, you could cut out an extra inch and hem it back for a straight clean line. 

I then carefully lined up all the hemlines, light to dark, pinning as flat and evenly as possible. Then, hand sewing. Bane of my novice cosplay life. 

First I stitched hemline to hemline so it would be precisely centered, then again along the edges of the light fabric. So I sewed this thing by hand three times, paying special attention to the area where the legs intersect since that’s where the most friction from walking and picking up inventory items and the like will wear. Just sew along existing hemlines. It can be sloppy; no one will ever see your stitches--unless you turn it inside out to make a semi-tutorial for strangers on the internet, and then they’ll laugh at you.

If you feel fancy, you can add the thick patches on Graham’s trousers. I didn’t bother at the time because it felt like a bit much, but I do really like those patches. Maybe someday. 

Also, you should probably handwash this piece too. Unless you trust your sloppy stitches more than I trust mine. 

Boots!

I’ma tell you a secret: my absolute favorite part of all of Graham’s outfit is the boots. I love them. I want a real pair. Like, with actual metal bits, not cheap eBay boots and shoe goo and hope. The boots are at least a quarter of the reason why I made this costume in the first place. 

And yet, the boots were the last thing I made, more than a year after completing the rest of the costume. I wore shin-high lace up boots in the meantime, and it was fine, but knee length is truly the ideal silhouette against your cloak. It does make a difference.

I’ve made boot covers before (Lynne, Ghost Trick, bright red), and it’s fine, but it’s also frustrating. I highkey recommend just modifying a regular boot. There are lots of gorgeous, expensive options out there, but in the end I settled for a bootleg boot from China (you know, the ones that are “fashion” but which all use the same stock image and are fake mimics for a fraction of the cost on eBay) for a grand total of...$25.00, with shipping. Ye boi.

According to the receipt this boot is an.....”American Rag Ada Round Toe Synthetic Over the Knee Boot.” Cool, deffo bootleg. 

Another secret: I put gel inserts in both the toe and the heel, I wear gel-ankle socks over my regular socks, and I stuff the heels with leftover plushie-making cotton fluff. Because bootleg boots are cheap and blistery, and comic con floors are hard enough even with a nice sturdy pair of shoes, so seek every advantage you can. More cotton fluff. More! Stuff it in there! And also wear your favorite patterned socks, because it’s my tutorial and I said so. 

Okay, back to the store. Get the following things: a small amount of stretchy black fabric, a small amount of gray fabric, a sheet or two of craft foam, a tube of shoe goo, and popsicle sticks or some other way to “paint” the goo. Also an audiobook to help pass the time. (can you believe no one’s recorded the King’s Quest novels into an audiobook form, how tragic.)

Using some of the boundless scrap you have from the rest of this cosplay, determine how wide you want the black pieces to be, and maybe the gray while you’re at it. That fully depends on your boot. 

Cut out your black for the front and back pieces. They won’t be pure rectangles, but have a trapezoid curve to them to mimic the shoe curve. Pin and hem.

Apply shoe goo around the whole section of the boot you’re covering, as flat and even as possible, and stretch, apply, and pin your black fabric into place. Do little detail work with the popsicle sticks, and once it’s all pinned, leave to dry for a while. Ideally, overnight, so the glue can set. 

Go play King’s Quest again or something while you’re waiting. It’s not like you have anything else to do, right?

This boot happened to already have a buckle on the back which I wrapped in gray fabric to mimic the silver on Graham’s heels--your boot probably doesn’t have this, so use this following method instead.

To get the silver cuffs, I cut out foam (you might have to look around for foam in a good thickness, or glue multiple sheets together--mine is, uh....the thick foam my bose headphones came in.....), and glued fabric over it. Then I glued the foam/fabric curve to the shoe, pinned it in place, and walked away again. I sure hope you like your audiobook. There’s a lot of downtime here. 

This method works for the anklets too. Wrap foam entirely in black fabric. Hilariously, since it’s foam, I didn’t have any trouble pushing it through my sewing machine to add the gray on top of the black. Another secret: my anklets connect via elastic, so I can get the boots on while still having a snug anklet. No, it probably doesn’t look great if you’re walking right behind me, but there’s that 5 foot rule of cosplay that means no one should see it, and who’s staring at my heels anyway, that’s weird. 

Cut thin regular plain sheet foam in the right size to fit over your toe. To achieve the curve, cut out little notches (you can just see a discarded notch in the included picture), then glue the edges together again sans notch. Bam, curve. Cover in fabric, glue to the toes of the boots like everything else, pin, and wait until dry (yes, overnight again--I did tell you about the audiobook). 

And that’s that! (At least, for me: I have not done the laces on the front, or cut out the knee guard, or anything that requires actual intensive boot modification because I was in a hurry to go meet Christopher Lloyd and on a deadline and forgot to come back to it. No, for reals. Comic cons are magic places.) It’s held up for two full years at cons and renfests and even in a light rain without trouble, tho I do need to touch up some of the edges a bit. 

Put the whole thing together: jerkin, cloak, cowl, trousers, boots. You’re looking fiiiine. All the cool cats are jealous of your sweet new kicks.

And with that, all the giant heavy pieces of your cosplay are done! It’s just accessories and details left. And the adventuring cap, one might argue the most important piece of all. But we’ll get there. Probably. As long as this is helping someone. 

[antiquatedfuture]

Zine Care Packages (Antiquated Future Spring Newsletter)

What a challenging time. Things have felt pretty bleak and I debated about whether to send this spring newsletter a lot, but friends convinced me we're all in need of good news. If nothing else, I want to say two things: 1) We'll still be shipping orders (with plenty of hand-washing and sanitizing) several times a week. 2) While we always appreciate and need your financial support, we'd also like to offer the resources we have to any of you who are having a hard time. 

In short: We're offering free zines (and tapes and books) to anyone who's currently struggling financially, mentally, or physically right now. No need to tell us details, just email and say "I'd like a package," and we'll send one your way. Let it be a surprise or make a list of what you'd like and we'll send you what we can. Feel free to spread the word to your friends and community through our Facebook or Twitter posts. It's not much, admittedly, but hopefully it's something.

In more general distro news: we have a few more calendars & planners in stock (and very very on sale), we’ve been restocking things as much as we can, and we accidentally left up our temporary store-wide cassette sale (that also includes a decent handful of LPs and CDs) as well as our zine sale on select titles. We also just posted a newsletter from the record label side of Antiquated Future. We're currently lending some small financial assistance to Portland writer Martha Grover as she recovers from a brain surgery by selling a fundraiser pack of her Somnambulist zine. And if you're in the Portland area, we're helping do porch deliveries of food, baby supplies, and various resources. Please reach out if you'd like one or you know someone in need.

NEW ZINES Antonia- A rare, almost-sublime zine about place, memory, and lost history. About the ways things change and stay the same. About how the place you're from shapes who you become. About growing up in a small Midwestern town without a zip code, a place not on most maps. ($5) Behind the Zines #9: A Zine About Zines- The latest issue of newest best zine about zines around. Within: the evolution of DIY comics culture, zine-fest history, imagined zines, One Punk's Guide to collaborative zines, a history of that one Crimethinc poster, The Most Unwanted Zine, confessions of a sex-zine zinester. Contributions from our own Gina Sarti, as well as John Porcellino and so many others. ($3) Brainscan #34: A Dabbler's Week of DIY Witchery- In the wake of the controversy surrounding a recent viral article about spending a week "becoming a witch," Alex considers what her guide to a witchcraft practice would look like. The results are a day-by-day guide to trying out her particular variety of secular witchcraft (that she lovingly refers to as "DIY witchery"). ($4)

Caboose #12: Jury Duty- A personal story of serving as a juror on a medical malpractice suit. As usual, Liz Mason's playful, endlessly curious take on the world makes this a ride worth taking. A peek into the court system through the eyes of this long-running zine-star. ($4) Clock Tower Nine #15- One of our favorite Seattle zines is back with tales from the record store counter, long walks in various locales, dangerous doppelgängers, and 8-track tapes. As Clock Tower Nine ringleader Danny Noonan describes it in the introduction: "This fanzine is like a bunch of people sitting around a fire in late fall, all taking turns telling a story." ($3) Cometbus #59: Post-Mortem- How does Cometbus, after 38 years as a zine, just get better and better? It's a mystery, but it does. Issue 59 is a deep dive into both death and longevity in the underground. In short: what does sustainability look like in counterculture? This question takes Aaron on a journey from the Epitaph Records and Thrasher magazine offices to hanging out at a punk-owned vegan donut shop and a tamale stand at the farmer's market with Allison Wolfe (of Bratmobile). ($5)

Doris #23- A back-issue fave from one of the best zines ever. Long personal stories that look both outward and inward in surprising ways. ($2) Doris #26- Shy-punk-girl comics, social ecology, the cynical hour, a grandpa who built malls, hammer and nail history, and more. ($2) Eulalia #3- Two issues of the art zine Eulalia in one. Grief and romance, hand-in-hand. Gorgeously designed! Letterpress-printed covers. Each issue is bound with a special do-si-do binding, so each half can be read separately. ($10) Fluke Fanzine #17- Since 1991, Fluke has been creating great variety zines covering all realms of punk and underground culture. Graphic novelist Nate Powell, skateboard magazine historians, Maximum Rocknroll, R.E.M., '90s women-led punk, the Soophie Nun Squad family tree, more. ($3)

Forever & Everything #5- Comics on parenting, depression, coffee, therapy, alcohol, Willie Nelson, Charlie Brown, and living in New Orleans. ($5) Good Days Gone Cold Days- A photography zine/art zine made while living and working in "a house without heat, without doorknobs, and without much insulation or electricity to speak of" for a late fall in western Pennsylvania. Comes with homemade bookmark, building permit, and banjo tab. ($12) Keep Loving, Keep Fighting #8- A reprint of this 2008 issue of Keep Loving, Keep Fighting. Forty pages of feeling at home in New Orleans, communication between friends, death, visiting Montreal, and moving away. ($5)

Learning Good Consent- An essential compilation zine about consent. From personal stories to worksheets, approaches, definitions, resources, and beyond, Learning Good Consent is here to help us all feel more comfortable and be more respectful. ($4)

Little Leagues #1- The companion comics scrapbook to Simon Moreton's epic Minor Leagues series. Prose, comics and photos about being in Japan, making chutney, experiencing autumn. ($3) Little Leagues #2- Comics about being in the snow. Drawings and photos of spring. A fold-out cover with facts about lesser-spotted dogfish. ($3) Our Lady of Near Death Experiences- Jodi Darby writes about becoming a cross-country truck driver as a 23-year-old woman in the mid 1990s. A mini-memoir told in vignettes, Our Lady is a twisted love song to the road in all its complexities. A gorgeous reprint of this zine classic from 1998. (And we have the last few copies before it goes out of print!) ($10)

The Paruretic #1: The Story of a Guy Who's Pee Shy- The first issue of one of our favorite new zine series. The Paruretic tells what the intricacies and complexities of life with parusesis, the social phobia of being pee shy. Illuminating, accessible, and worth reading every issue. ($2)

The Paruretic #2: The Story of a Guy Who's Pee Shy (College)- In this issue, Mark recalls figuring out the debilitating effects of his bladder issues when he goes to college and, for the first time, navigates living in dorms, drinking at college-town bars, and hooking-up. ($3)

The Paruretic #3: The Story of a Guy Who's Pee Shy (Vacation)- In this issue: searching out acceptable bathrooms while on the road, not urinating for ten hours while in the air, and a bathroom-by-bathroom diary of experiences. ($3) The Paruretic #4: The Story of a Guy Who's Pee Shy (The Search for Help)- In this issue, Mark reaches out, looking for help, and is met with a less-than-sympathetic medical system. Within: clueless medical professionals, almost losing a job over a urinalysis, and finally finding someone who understands. ($3) The Paruretic #5: The Story of a Guy Who's Pee Shy (Dating)- The dating issue covers how Mark handled (or avoided handling) dating in high school and college. It's a chronicle of, as Mark says, "how my shy bladder has driven every part of my love life." ($3)

Somnambulist Zine Pack Fundraiser- For the past 17 years, Portland memoirist and illustrator Martha Grover has been publishing Somnambulist zine, an expansive and playful look at the world at large (and easily one of the best zines running today). This pack includes all nine in-print issues of Somnambulist (a $40 value for $25!). All proceeds go straight to Martha's brain surgery recovery fund. Help a great writer, get nine amazing zines. ($25) Somnambulist #33: How to Survive the Portland Winter- A fun how-to guide from Portland-born writer Martha Grover. Within: dealing with all the rain, taking care of your mental health, venturing out, staying in, eating soup (with recipes!), and the truth about umbrellas. Illustrated by Liz Yerby. ($5)

Somnambulist #34: The Starfish- A single, long-form essay about Martha's journey through Cushing's disease and Addison's disease, and the lingering tumor she's chosen to not demonize or see as something separate. The Starfish is a surprising and exciting meditation on what it means to be in a body. ($3) Surely, They'll Tear it Down- A short zine letter about gender, race, identity, and not-knowing from the author of Fixer Eraser and We, the Drowned. ($2) Tattoo Punk Fanzine, Issue 3- A jam-packed new issue of Tattoo Punk, the fanzine about tattoos, punks, and tattooed punks. Edited by Ben Trogdon of everyone's favorite artsy punk paper, Nuts! ($15) Valentines Every Day- Weirdo anytime-valentines from zine-seller extraordinaire, Julie Wade. Funny, bizarre, off-kilter, occasionally unsettling. The perfect gift for that especially-odd someone. ($6) What Happened- A dreamy comic from UK artist Simon Moreton. Set in a '90s boyhood of meadows, sci-fi VHS tapes, MTV, crushes, first kisses. ($5) 

NEW BOOKS & MISCELLANY The Collected Plays by Portland Preschoolers- In short: One of our favorite little books around! A modern classic, even. Five years of collected plays written by Portland, Oregon preschoolers. Hilarious, invariably bizarre, oddly brilliant, sometimes surprisingly profound. Perfect for putting out on the coffee table, reading aloud to friends, impromptu group performances. ($10) Four-Year Depression- A book about figuring out how to love your family in the Trump era. From Billy McCall of Proof I Exist and Behind the Zines. ($10) Zine Game- A long-time favorite in the zine community, now in a fancy, professionally-made version accessible to all game lovers. Playing like a cross between canasta and Magic: The Gathering, Zine Game is all about building your own zines. A really fun time with tons of possibilities. ($16)

NEW MUSIC & SPOKEN WORD Alice Notley "Live in Seattle"- An LP of one of the most adored living poets. Alice Notley pushes boundaries, and it's an absolute joy to hear her reading her work. (LP + digital download) ($16.95) Annelyse Gelman & Jason Grier "About Repulsion"- A collaboration between poet Annelyse Gelman and sound artist Jason Grier. About Repulsion mixes songs, sampled poems, textural walls, beats, noise, to create this EP of one-of-a-kind soundscapes. (LP + digital download) ($16.95) Eileen Myles "Aloha / Irish Trees"- The legendary poet Eileen Myles, on vinyl for the first time. Aloha/Irish Trees features nearly an hour of Myles live in the studio, reading past and present poems. Intimate, playful, raw. (LP + digital download) ($16.95)

Harmony Holiday "The Black Saint and the Sinnerman"- Harmony Holiday's record of poems and sound collage. Adventurous and accessible, twisting cultural images into something surprising, political, socially aware. In conversation with Charles Mingus’ classic 1963 album The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady. (LP + digital download) ($16.95) Rae Armantrout "Conflation"- Fifty-four surprising and gloriously unique poems from Rae Armantrout, a Pulitzer-winning poet of great gifts. (LP + digital download) ($16.95) Susan Howe & Nathaniel Mackey  "Stray: A Graphic Tone"- Made in collaboration with Shannon Ebner, Stray: A Graphic Tone juxtaposes historic and recent material from poets Susan Howe and Nathaniel Mackey. An adventurous LP of spoken word delights. (LP + digital download) ($16.95)

Stay well, take care of each other as much as possible. Xo, Antiquated Future

[dustedmagazine]

Dusted’s Decade Picks

Heron Oblivion, still the closest thing to a Dusted consensus pick

Just as, in spring, the young's fancy turns to thoughts of love, at the end of the decade the thoughts of critics and fans naturally tend towards reflection. Sure, time is an arbitrary human division of reality, but it seems to be working out okay for us so far. We're too humble a bunch to offer some sort of itemized list of The Best Of or anything like that, though; a decade is hard enough to wrap your head around when it's just your life, let alone all the music produced during said time. Instead these decade picks are our jumping off points to consider our decades, whether in personal terms, or aesthetic ones, or any other. The records we reflect on here are, to be sure, some of our picks for the best of the 2010s (for more, check back this afternoon), but think of what follows less as anything exhaustive and more as our hand-picked tour to what stuck with us over the course of these ten years, and why.

Brian Eno — The Ship (Warp, 2016)

You don’t need to dig deep to see that our rapidly evolving and hyper-consciously inclusive discourse is taking on the fluidity of its surroundings. In 2016, a year of what I’ll gently call transformation, Brian Eno had his finger on multiple pulses; The Ship resulted. It’s anchored in steady modality, and its melody, once introduced, doesn’t change, but everything else ebbs and flows with the Protean certainty of uncertainty. While the album moves from the watery ambiguities of the title track, through the emotional and textural extremes of “Fickle Sun” toward the gorgeously orchestrated version of “I’m Set Free,” implying some kind of final redemption, the moment-to-moment motion remains wonderfully non-binary. Images of war and of the instants producing its ravaging effects mirror and counterbalance the calmly and increasingly gender-fluid voice as it concludes the titular piece by depicting “wave after wave after wave.” Is it all Salman Rushdie’s numbers marching again? The lyrics embody the movement from “undescribed” through “undefined” and “unrefined’” connoting a journey toward aging, but size, place, chronology and the music encompassing them remain in constant flux, often nearly but never quite recognizable. Genre and sample float in and out of view with the elusive but devastating certainty of tides as the ship travels toward silence, toward that ultimate ambiguity that follows all disillusion, filling the time between cycles. The disconnect between stasis and motion is as disconcerting as these pieces’ relationship to the songform Eno inherited and exploded. The album encapsulates the modernist subtlety and Romantic grace propelling his art and the state of a civilization in the faintly but still glowing borderlands between change and decay.

Marc Medwin

Cate Le Bon — Cyrk (Control Group, 2012)

There's no artist whose work I anticipated more this decade than Cate Le Bon, and no artist who frustrated me more with each release, only to keep reeling me in for the long run. Le Bon's innate talent is for soothing yet oblique folk, soberly psychedelic, which she originally delivered in the Welsh language, and continued into English with rustic reserve.

Except something about her pastoralism seems to bore her, and the four-chord arpeggios are shot through with scorches of noise, or sent haywire with post-punk brittleness. In its present state, her music is built around chattering xylophones and croaking saxophone, even as the lyrics draw deeper into memory and introspection, with ever more haunting payoffs. It's as if Nick Drake shoved his way into the leadership of Pere Ubu. She's taken breaks from music to work on pottery and furniture-making, and retreats to locales like a British cottage and Texas art colony to plumb for new inspirations. She's clearly energized by collaboration and relocation, but there’s a force to her persona that, despite her introverted presence, dominates a session. Rare for our age, she's an artist who gets to follow her muse full time, bouncing between record labels and seeing her name spelled out in the medium typefaces on festival bills.

Cyrk, from 2012, is the record where I fell in, and it captures her at something close to joyous, a half smile. Landing between her earliest folk and later surrealism, it is open to comparison with the Velvet Underground. But not the VU that is archetypical to indie rock – Cyrk is more an echo of the solo work that followed. There’s the sharp compositional order and Welsh lilt of John Cale. Like Lou Reed, she makes a grand electric guitar hook out of the words “you’re making it worse.” The homebound twee of Mo Tucker and forbidding atmosphere of Nico are present in equal parts. Those comparisons are reductive, but they demonstrate how Cyrk feels instantly familiar if you’ve garnered certain listening habits. Songs surround you with woolly keyboard and guitar hooks, and one can forget a song ends with an awkward trumpet coda even after dozens of listens. The awkwardness is what keeps the album fresh.

She lulls, then dowses with cold water. So Cyrk isn't an entirely easy record, even if it is frequently a pretty one. The most epic song here, reaching high with those woolly hums and twang, is "Fold the Cloth.” It bobs along, coiling tight as she reaches into the strange register of female falsetto. Le Bon cranks out a fuzz solo – she's great at extending her sung melodies across instruments. Then the climax chants out, "fold the cloth or cut the cloth.” What is so important about this mundane action? Her mystery lyrics never feel haphazard, like LSD posey. They are out of step with pop grandiose. Maybe when her back is turned, there's a full smile.

Who are "Julia" and "Greta,” two mid-album sketches that avoid verse-chorus structure? Julia is represented by a limp waltz, Greta by pulses on keyboards. Shortly after the release, Le Bon followed up with the EP Cyrk II made up of tracks left off the album. To a piece, they’re easier numbers than "Julia" and "Greta.” The cryptic and the scribble are essential to how Cyrk flows, which is to say it flows haltingly.

This approach dampens her acclaim and her potential audience, but that's how she fashions decades-old tropes into fresh art. She’s also quite the band leader. Drummers have a different thud when they play on her stage. Musicians' fills disappear. She brings in a horn solo as often as she lays down a guitar lead. The closer tracks, "Plowing Out Pts 1 & 2," aren't inherently linked numbers. By the second part, the group has worked up to a carnival swirl, frothing like "Sister Ray" yet as sweet as a children's TV show theme. Does that sound sinister? The effect is more like heartbreak fuelling abandon, her forlorn presence informing everyone's playing.

Fuse this album with the excellent Cyrk II tracks, and you can image a deluxe double LP 10th anniversary reissue in a few years. Ha ha no. I expect nothing so garish will happen. It sure wouldn't suit the artist. In a decade where "fan service" became an everyday concept, Le Bon is immune. She's a songwriter who seems like she might walk away from at all without notice, if that’s where her craftsmanship leads. The odd and oddly comfortable chair that is Cyrk doesn't suit any particular decor, but my room would feel bare without it.

Ben Donnelly

Converge — All We Love We Leave Behind (Epitaph)

Here’s the scenario: Heavily tatted guy has some dogs. He really loves his dogs. Heavily tatted guy goes on tour with his band. While he’s on the road, one of his dogs dies. Heavily tatted guy gets really sad. He writes a song about it.  

That should be the set-up for an insufferably maudlin emo record. But instead what you get is Converge’s “All We Love We Leave Behind” and the searing LP that shares the title. The songs dive headlong into the emotional intensities of loss and reflect on the cost of artistic ambition. The enormously talented line-up that recorded All We Love We Leave Behind in 2012 had been playing together for just over a decade, and vocalist Jacob Bannon and guitarist Kurt Ballou had been collaborating for more than twenty years. It shows. The record pummels and roars with remarkable precision, and its songs maniacally twist, and somehow they soar.  

Any number of genre tags have been stuck on (or innovated by) Converge’s music: mathcore, metalcore, post-hardcore. It’s fun to split sonic hairs. But All We Love… is most notable for its exhilarating fury and naked heart, musical qualities that no subgenre can entirely claim. Few bands can couple such carefully crafted artifice with such raw intensity. And few records of the decade can match the compositional wit and palpable passion of All We Love…, which never lets itself slip into shallow romanticism. It hurts. And it ruthlessly rocks.  

Jonathan Shaw

EMA — The Future’s Void (City Slang, 2014)

When trying to narrow down to whatever my own most important records of the decade are, I tried to keep it to one per artist (as I do with individual years, although it’s a lot easier there). Out of everyone, though, EMA came by far the closest to having two records on that list, and this could have been 2017’s Exile in the Outer Ring, which along with The Future’s Void comes terrifyingly close to unpacking an awful lot of what’s going wrong, and has been going wrong, with the world we live in for a while now. The Future’s Void focuses more on the technological end of our particular dystopia, shuddering both emotionally and sonically through the dead end of the Cold War all the way to us refreshing our preferred social media site when somebody dies. EMA is right there with us, too; this isn’t judgment, it’s just reporting from the front line. And it must be said, very few things from this decade ripped like “Cthulu” rips.

Ian Mathers

The Field — Looping State of Mind (Kompakt, 2011)

Looping State of Mind by The Field

On Looping State of Mind, Swedish producer Axel Willner builds his music with seamlessly jointed loops of synths, beats, guitars and voice to create warm cushions of sound that envelop the ears, nod the head and move the body. Willner is a master of texture and atmosphere, in lesser hands this may have produced mere comfort food but there is spice in the details that elevates this record as he accretes iotas of elements, withholding release to heighten anticipation. Although this is essentially deep house built on almost exclusively motorik 4/4 beats, Willner also plays with ambient, post-punk and shoegaze dynamics. From the slow piano dub of “Then It’s White,” which wouldn’t be out of place on a Labradford or Pan American album, to the ecstatic shuffling lope of “Arpeggiated Love” and “Is This Power” with its hint of a truncated Gang of Four-like bass riff, Looping State of Mind is a deeply satisfying smorgasbord of delicacies and a highlight of The Field’s four album output during the 2010s.

Andrew Forell

Gang Gang Dance — “Glass Jar” (4AD, 2011)

Instead of telling you my favorite album of the decade — I made my case for it the first year we moved to Tumblr, help yourself — it feels more fitting to tell you a story from my friend Will about my favorite piece of music from the last 10 years, a song that arrived just before the rise of streaming, which flattened “the album experience” to oppressive uniformity and rendered it an increasingly joyless, rudderless routine of force-fed jams and AI/VC-directed mixes catering to a listener that exists in username only. The first four seconds of “Glass Jar” told you everything you needed to know about what lie ahead, but here’s the kind of thing that could happen before everything was all the time:

I took eight hours of coursework in five weeks in order to get caught up on classes and be in a friend's wedding at the end of June. Finishing a week earlier than the usual summer session meant I had to give my end-of-class presentations and turn in my end-of-class papers in a single day, which in turn meant that I was well into the 60-70 hour range without sleep by the time I got to the airport for an early-morning flight. (Partly my fault for insisting that I needed to stay up and make a “wedding night” mix for the couple — real virgin bride included — and even more my fault for insisting that it be a single, perfectly crossfaded track). I was fuelled only by lingering adrenaline fumes and whatever herbal gunpowder shit I had been mixing with my coffee — piracetam, rhodiola, bacopa or DMAE depending on the combination we had at the time. At any rate, eyes burning, skull heavy, joints stiff with dry rot, I still had my wits enough to refuse the backscatter machine at the TSA checkpoint; instead of the usual begrudging pat-down, I got pulled into a separate room. Anyway, it was a weird psychic setback at that particular time, but nothing came of it. Having arrived at my gate, I popped on the iPod with a brand new set of studio headphones and finally got around to listening to the Gang Gang Dance I had downloaded months before. "Glass Jar," at that moment, was the most religious experience I’d had in four years. I was literally weeping with joy.

Point being: It is worth it to stay up for a few days just to listen to ‘Glass Jar’ the way it was meant to be heard.

Patrick Masterson

Heron Oblivion — Heron Oblivion (Sub Pop, 2016)

Heron Oblivion by Heron Oblivion

Heron Oblivion’s self-titled first album fused unholy guitar racket with a limpid serenity. It was loud and cathartic but also pure beauty, floating drummer Meg Baird’s unearthly vocals over a sound that was as turbulent and majestic as nature itself, now roiled in storm, now glistening with dewy clarity. The band convened four storied guitarists—Baird from Espers, Ethan Miller and Noel Harmonson from Comets on Fire and Charlie Sauffley—then relegated two of them to other instruments (Baird on drums and Miller on bass). The sound drew on the full flared wail and scree of Hendrix and Acid Mothers Temple, the misty romance of Pentangle and Fairport Convention. It was a record out of time and could have happened in any year from about 1963 onward, or it could have not happened at all. We were so glad it did at Dusted; Heron Oblivion’s eponymous was closer to a consensus pick than any record before or since, and if you want to define a decade, how about the careening riffs of “Oriar” breaking for Baird’s dream-like chants?

Jennifer Kelly

The Jacka — What Happened to the World (The Artist, 2014)

Probably the most prophetic rap album of the 2010s. The Jacka was the king of Bay rap since he started MOB movement. He was always generous with his time, and clique albums were pouring out of The Jacka and his disciples every few months. Even some of his own albums resembled at times collective efforts. This generosity made some of the albums unfocused and disjointed, yet what it really shows is that even in the times when dreams of collective living were abandoned The Jacka still had hopes for Utopia and collective struggles. It was about the riches, but he saw the riches in people first and foremost.

This final album before he was gunned down in the early 2014 is full of predictions about what’s going to happen to him. Maybe this explains why it’s focused as never before and even Jacka’s leaned-out voice has doomed overtones. This music is the only possible answer to the question the album’s title poses: everything is wrong with the world where artists are murdered over music.

Ray Garraty

John Maus — We Must Become Pitiless Censors of Ourselves (Upset The Rhythm, 2011)

We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves by John Maus

Minnesota polymath John Maus’ quest for the perfect pop song found its apotheosis on his third album We Must Become Pitiless Censors of Ourselves in 2011. On the surface an homage to 1980s synth pop, Maus’ album reveals its depth with repeated listens. Over expertly constructed layers of vintage keyboards, Maus’ oft-stentorian baritone alternately intones and croons deceptively simple couplets that blur the line between sincerity and provocation. Lurking beneath the smooth surface Maus uses Baroque musical tropes that give the record a liturgical atmosphere that reinforces the Gregorian repetition of his lyrics. The tension between the radical ironic banality of the words and the deeply serious nature of the music and voice makes We Must Become Pitiless Censors of Ourselves an oddly compelling collection that interrogates the very notion of taste and serves an apt soundtrack to the post-truth age.

Andrew Forell

Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society — Mandatory Reality (Eremite, 2019)

Mandatory Reality by Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society

Any one of the albums that Joshua Abrams has made under the Natural Information Society banner could have made this list. While each has a particular character, they share common essences of sound and spirit. Abrams made his bones playing bass with Nicole Mitchell, Matana Roberts, Mike Reed, Fred Anderson, Chad Taylor, and many others, but in the Society his main instrument is the guimbri, a three-stringed bass lute from Morocco. He uses it to braid melody, groove, and tone into complex strands of sound that feel like they might never end. Mandatory Reality is the album where he delivers on the promise of that sound. Its centerpiece is “Finite,” a forty-minute long performance by an eight-person, all-acoustic version of Natural Information Society. It has become the main and often sole piece that the Society plays. Put the needle down and at first it sounds like you are hearing some ensemble that Don Cherry might have convened negotiating a lost Steve Reich composition. But as the music winds patiently onwards, strings, drums, horns, and harmonium rise in turn to the surface. These aren’t solos in the jazz sense so much as individual invitations for the audience to ease deeper into the sonic entirety. The music doesn’t end when the record does, but keeps manifesting with each performance. Mandatory Reality is a nodal point in an endless stream of sound that courses through the collective unconscious, periodically surfacing in order to engage new listeners and take them to the source.

Bill Meyer

Mansions — Doom Loop (Clifton Motel, 2013)

I knew nothing about Mansions when I first heard about this record; I can’t even remember how I heard about this record. But I liked the name of the album and the album art, so I listened to it. Sometimes the most important records in your decade have as much to do with you as with them. I’d been frantically looking for a job for nearly two years at that point, the severance and my access Ontario’s Employment Insurance program (basically, you pay in every paycheck, and then have ~8 months of support if you’re unemployed) had both ran out. I was living with a friend in Toronto sponsoring my American wife into the country (fun fact: they don’t care if you have an income when you do that), feeling the walls close in a little each day, sure I was going to wind up one of those kids who had to move back to the small town I’d left and a parent’s house. There were multiple days I’d send out 10+ applications and then walk around my neighbourhood blasting “Climbers” and “Out for Blood” through my earbuds, cueing up “La Dentista” again and dreaming of revenge… on what? Capitalism? There was no more proximate target in view. That’s not to say that Doom Loop is necessarily about being poor or about the shit hand my generation (I fit, just barely) got in the job market, or anything like that; but for me it is about the almost literal doom loop of that worst six months, and I still can’t listen to “The Economist” without my blood pressure spiking a little.

Ian Mathers

Protomartyr — Under Colour of Official Right (Hardly Art, 2014)

Under Color of Official Right by Protomartyr

By my count, Protomartyr made not one but four great albums in the 2010s, racking up a string of rhythmically unstoppable, intellectually challenging discs with absolute commitment and intent. I caught whiff of the band in 2012, while helping out with editing the old Dusted. Jon Treneff’s review of All Passion No Technique told a story of exhilarant discovery; I read it and immediately wanted in. The conversion event, though, came two years later, with the stupendous Under Color of Official Right, all Wire-y rampage and Fall-spittled-bile, a rattletrap construction of every sort of punk rock held together by the preening contempt of black-suited Joe Casey. Doug Mosurock reviewed it for us, concluding, “Poppier than expected, but still covered in burrs, and adeptly analyzing the pain and suffering of their city and this year’s edition of the society that judges it, Protomartyr has raised the bar high enough for any bands to follow, so high that most won’t even know it’s there.” Except here’s the thing: Protomartyr jumped that bar two more times this decade, and there’s no reason to believe that they won’t do it again. The industry turned on the kind of bands with four working class dudes who can play a while ago, but this is the band of the 2010s anyway.

Jennifer Kelly

Tau Ceti IV — Satan, You’re the God of This Age, but Your Reign Is Ending (Cold Vomit, 2018)

Satan, You're The God of This Age But Your Reign is Ending by Tau Ceti IV

This decade was full of takes on American primitive guitar. Some were pretty good, a few were great, many were forgettable, and then there was this overlooked gem from Jordan Darby of Uranium Orchard. Satan, You’re the God of This Age, but Your Reign Is Ending is an antidote to bland genre exercises. Like John Fahey, Darby has a distinct voice and style, as well as a sense of humor. Also like Fahey, his playing incorporates diverse influences in subtle but pronounced ways. American primitive itself isn’t a staid template. Though there are also plenty of beautiful, dare I say pastoral moments, which still stand out for being genuinely evocative.

Darby’s background in aggressive electric guitar music partly explains his approach. (Not sure if he’s the only ex-hardcore guy to go in this direction, but there can’t be many.) His playing is heavier than one might expect, but it feels natural, not like he’s just playing metal riffs on an acoustic guitar. But heaviness isn’t the only difference. Like his other projects, Satan is wonderfully off-kilter. This album’s strangeness isn’t reducible to component parts, but here are two representative examples: “The Wind Cries Mary” gradually encroaches on the last track, and throughout, the microphone picks up more string noise than most would consider tasteful. It all works, or at least it’s never boring.

Ethan Milititisky

Z-Ro — The Crown (Rap-a-Lot, 2014)

When singing in rap was outsourced to pop singers and Auto Tune, Z-Ro remained true to his self, singing even more than he ever did. He did his hooks and his verses himself, and no singing could harm his image as a hustler moonlighting as a rapper. He can’t be copied exactly because of his gift, to combine singing soft and rapping hard. It’s a sort of common wisdom that he recorded his best material in the previous decade, yet quite apart from hundreds of artists that continued to capitalize on their fame he re-invented himself all the past decade, making songs that didn’t sound like each other out of the same raw material. The Crown is a tough pick because since his post-prison output he made solid discs one after each other.

Ray Garraty

[liam-93-productions]

The kingpin of music is erupting in the spotlight with a fresh new set of notes, ones that are equally smart and dashing with style. Liam Payne, English-born singer and songwriter who soared through the charts as a member of the band One Direction, is writing a new chorus in unison with BOSS by Hugo Boss. Recently launching a capsule collection at Aventura Mall in synthesis with the opening of the brand’s first ever pop-up shop, Payne is powering up for a partnership that will take starry-eyed fans and wildly cool fashion aficionados “from the plane to the festival in style.”

Haute Living sat down with Payne to hear more on his role as the brand’s new global ambassador, his evolving taste for fashion and his master tips on creating a signature style.

HAUTE LIVING: Tell us about partnering with Hugo Boss as their new global ambassador and collaborating on a capsule collection for BOSS by Hugo Boss.

LIAM PAYNE: It’s been super exciting. Obviously getting to do things like this for me are quite unusual and kind of breaks away from the music a little bit, which is fun actually! It’s been a really fun experience—getting to sit and design clothes—and then finally now, a year in the making, seeing people wear the clothes, meeting all the fans and seeing them enjoy it. It’s amazing. My mom and dad went down to one of the shops in the UK and sent me pictures of all the windows. It’s quite exciting to see a whole new thing start.

HL: Growing up in England, has British-inspired fashion influenced your taste, design-wise?

LP: I think so. This is a heavily German fashion house, as well, and I think both worlds married up quite well towards where my fashion sits. The stuff that we make is very chill. There’s nothing over the top about it. It doesn’t have my name plastered all over it. I was very adamant that I didn’t want that because I want people to be able to buy it if they like the clothes, not just if they like me as well. If you’re a fan, you can enjoy it. If you’re not a fan, it’s still something you can buy and wear and you would never know the difference. I think that’s what is quite fun about the whole thing. But there’s definitely a touch of British fashion there and a lot of German fashion as well.

HL: Your collection reflects the signature chevron artwork. Why use the chevron?

LP: I was sitting down in a design meeting and they presented me with a bunch of different logos that they had been working on and there was one that just stood out to me very clearly. And as I sat downstairs, it was really amazing. I got to speak with Kim Jones, who is obviously one of the biggest fashion designers who’s ever lived, and I asked, ‘I’m designing at the moment for Hugo, is there anything you can tell me?’ He said it’s a bit like music. Once you have a hit, you’ll understand the whole process. And as soon as I saw that, I said ‘that’s the hit.’ I knew it worked.

HL: It’s common to make fashion mistakes. Since your time with One Direction, what was your biggest fashion mistake?

LP: Mine were in front of everyone! You can’t get rid of those pictures. I think my biggest fashion mistake, even though I really enjoyed it at the time, was my rapper gold chains phase, which was quite fun. I enjoyed it for what it was. But it wasn’t for me! I think the most important part of it is dressing for what suits you. Push your boundaries, but I overdid it. I went a little bit too far with it.

HL: How has your personal style evolved?

LP: I actually think my style has gone full circle to when I first started to learn about clothes, right as the band started. And then I went on a little journey and tried out a bunch of stuff, which I think is really important and people should definitely do and go experience, but just don’t take loads of pictures like I did because that’s just really awkward. But I think my fashion sense has gone full circle.

HL: Sporting classy, clever and unforgettably catchy looks throughout your career, which one was your favorite? Do you still have it in your closet?

LP: There’s a few suits that I’ve worn in the past few months actually that have been good. When we were in the band, we didn’t really get to wear many suits and it was quite funny that there was a paradox of one part of the job where I hated wearing suits, but then for me I always wanted to wear a suit somewhere. And the more suits we got to wear was quite fun. There was one outfit in particular that I wore when One Direction first went to Japan, promoting our film. I had a coat on and I was feeling myself that night. I still have it somewhere.

HL: Rapidly growing as a musician and designer, where do you see your career progressing in the future and do you predict both worlds will collide together?

LP: I have more music on the way, so that’s going to be quite fun and I think the more I learn about fashion, the more I’m falling in love with the design process. As soon as we shot the pictures for this first capsule I went home and starting designing stuff right away and they’ve let me change all different logos and all sorts of things for the next one, which is really cool. So I got a lot of freedom on that. Where it’s going to go in the next few years, I don’t really know. I would like to carry on working alongside Hugo. The marriage of the two brands together is just perfect at the moment. Hopefully they’re enjoying it as much as I am. I hope it’s something I can continue doing.

HL: Did you always picture yourself becoming a fashion designer?

LP: Never! When I was on my way to the first meeting with the designer, I was thinking about what was I going to tell people about designing clothes. I haven’t got a clue! But like I said, once you get in there and you actually think it through and you see things, you realize you know more about what you like than you thought.

HL: Jumping into the world of haute couture fashion, which brands can we see you collaborating with next?

LP: For this, I have another collection coming out next year. I have an underwear shoot that’s coming out very soon. And a couple other things I’m doing with Hugo. As far as other brands, I would like to do something more sporty, whether that’s with Hugo or not with Hugo I don’t really know. Probably accessories would be something else I would want to get into at some time point I think. Lots of great ideas!

HL: What’s your pro tip on creating personal style and not being scared of fashion?

LP: I think sometimes, it’s hard to differentiate between when something to you seems boring because it works so well to when you put something else on to try something new. It seems exciting, but then you might be going a bit too far with it. Usually, what’s boring and easy is actually the right thing to go for. For me, I always steered away from what was obvious. I think that’s the first way to go. And then just take inspiration from a bunch of people and things you like and then dress it yourself with your own individual take on it.

HL: What’s your individual take on your new capsule collection with BOSS by Hugo Boss?

LP: It’s quite smart actually! I didn’t realize I dressed as smart as I did.

HL: You initially mentioned your parents went to one of the shops in the UK to browse the windows. How did your parents feel about your new collection?

LP: They were very happy! My dad actually tried to phone me, but I was away somewhere, to talk to the people behind the desk. It was very cute. I think they’re really proud of it actually. It’s something that we all didn’t expect. It’s the best thing ever!

[radramblog]

Linkin Park Retrospective Pt. 2

Aight let’s get into it.

Minutes to Midnight

The third album, and what many would call Linkin Park’s turning point. When this came out in 2007, nu-metal was mostly dead, and the band was growing up, so like most other people they left a lot of it behind in favour of a more diverse set of tracks.

This was a controversial move.

Minutes to Midnight was probably my least favourite of the studio albums (until No More Light, but we’ll get there), but I guess I’m far from alone in that. The album suffers greatly from not using the signature call-and-response vocals between Chester and Mike that got the band famous- the only song on the list that has both sharing the lead is Bleed it Out, which is probably the best track on the album. Ironically, despite the name and lyrics, it’s probably the least edgy of the harder songs there- it’s literally about struggling with writing lyrics- but its not like it isn’t emotional, as Chester as usual has a screamy bridge to work with. I think adding the claps and backing vocals, like it’s being played at a bar, was a ballsy move.

Surprisingly, there are a lot fewer tracks on this album that come even remotely close to metal than I remember. Like, it’s pretty much just Given Up and No More Sorrow, if you don’t count What I’ve Done. And I don’t count What I’ve Done, it sucks. What I’ve Done was literally written to be a single for the album, even they didn’t like making that shit, and it’s just so utterly overrated. While I can’t comment as such on the movies that they’re attached to, New Divide (which isn’t on an album) is basically just What I’ve Done but actually good. Back to MtM though- Given Up introduces us to something somewhat surprising- Minutes was actually the first album to have a parental advisory sticker, and Given Up is probably half of why what with the multiple F-bombs (Bleed it Out is the other half). No More Sorrow is probably the better of the pair, with a more interesting chorus in my opinion, and while the bridges of the two songs are similar enough that I confused them while writing this, I think NMS’s sludgier tones gives it the edge, though Given Up does have that 17-odd second scream which is pretty hella.

The rest of the album, on the other hand, is a mix of softer tracks, which vary wildly in quality. In my opinion, Leave Out All The Rest, Shadow of the Day, and Valentine’s Day haven’t really aged well, and honestly listening to Chester being a sadboi isn’t really something I’m down for considering semi-recent events. (Valentine’s Day is actually edgier than it seems, it’s about a funeral not a breakup. This does not make it a better song.) On the other hand, Hands Held High is really unique among the band’s discography, being a protest march/hymn with pretty sparse instrumentation under Mike’s frustrated rhyming that shouldn’t ring as true today as it did in ’07. It took me way too long to realize the backing vocals were going Amen in those little bits.

On a less somber note, I do think the album’s last 3 tracks do work fairly well. In Between gets carried pretty hard by that little riff, but the bridge really gets to me. In Pieces is a nice little bit where disconnected elements of percussion and vocals (and later get some guits) slowly build and come together before a fun little solo and the last minute actually sounding like a Linkin Park song. Some would argue I’m being unfair separating this from Shadow of the Day etc, but that last bit does save it for me. And The Little Things Give You Away is just a really chill, very gradual build which is just a great style for songs to be in.

Minutes to Midnight is still far far from my favourite LP album, and the contemporary complaint that it didn’t sound like a Linkin Park album is valid, but the band was moving away from its roots regardless. MtM is like a stepping point, a stumble maybe, for the more experimental work to come.

 A Thousand Suns

(psyche)

Reanimation

Yeahhhh I wanna give more time to A Thousand Suns. It’s my favourite album, which is a controversial pick, so I think it deserves space to breathe. So instead, we’re gonna talk about Reanimation now.

(oh fuck I have to talk about people rapping? shiet)

Released in 2002, between Hybrid Theory and Meteora, Reanimation is an album of remixes of all the tracks from Hybrid Theory, as well as some of the B-sides from that era, done by a bunch of DJs I’ve never heard of and featuring rappers I also have never heard of. I’d argue its almost painfully early 2000s, and I mean that in the most loving way possible.

The quality of the tracks on Reanimation varies pretty wildly, which makes sense considering they’re all done by different people. On the one hand, you’ve got stuff like Frgt/10 (that’s Forgotten by the way, yes they’re all like that) where the instrumentation is kind of utterly awful but the guest verse (and Mike’s new one) are pretty decent, but on the other hand you have stuff like P5hng Me A*wy, one of the few where the remix was done my Mike himself, which I actually like a fair bit more than the original. I think H! Vltg3 is easily the best of the 3 or so versions of High Voltage, and I’ve definitely tried to memorise its bars before.

I suppose not mentioning Enth E Nd would be criminal of me. I think it’s a lot like Frgt/10, though rather than having awful instrumentation its just…different. It fits the tone of this version of the song better, for sure, but it does feel weird to have the original chorus just sitting on it feels really weird, and the random stuttering on it doesn’t help at all. Unlike with the original In the End, the effects on the vocals don’t feel as deliberate, or as meaningful (if that makes sense). Again, though, I really like the added verse from Mike, even if Motion Man’s doesn’t do a lot for me.

Mike and the guest DJs aren’t the only ones with remixes in the game, as both Wth>You and Kyur4 Th Ich (unsurprisingly) are by mister haaaaaaaaaaaahn himself. The former is actually pretty similar to the original, outside of the different instrumentation in the verses, guest bars, and that little piano line running through its latter half which I do admittedly like. Kyur4 Th Ich is just so incredibly extra compared to the original, mixing in some of the vocals from the (pointedly absent from this album) Step Up. Where Cure for the Itch is Mr. Hahn showing off, Kyur4 Th Ich is him just kinda fucking around, and I can appreciate that.

Reanimation tries to save the best for last, in the form of Krwlng. Krwlng has been built up to, with both the Opening and Ntr/mssion being samples of its strings line (hey looks strings in a rock song my favourite), and itself being a slow build of strings with lyrics faded into the background until a minute and a half in when the rhythm from the original kicks in, but it’s still loose and low-energy, guest vocalist Aaron Lewis giving a much more restrained performance (not that that’s hard on a Crawling remix),. It isn’t until the 4 and a half minute mark when the song has a similar energy to the original, but it feels earned, and the result is arguably a much more satisfying one.

Unfortunately, I’ll probably never be able to take Krwlng seriously, because of a particular stage magician show I went to, the performer’s name redacted for spoilers I guess but mostly I don’t remember it. One of the big ones, as far as you can have those in that industry, I guess. Either way he was using Krwling to build up to the climax of the show, with the Opening and Ntr/mssion bits being hype for the big bit where he flies or some shit, but the second I recognized those strings I practically cracked up then and there in the audience. It was hard to take this bloke’s aura of mystique seriously anymore because I knew that he was probably just as much of a Linkin Park nerd as I am, and he’s getting away with it on the big stage. Kudos to him to be honest.

Next time: A Thousand Suns.