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gingerlurk · 1 year ago

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Lovers' Crest | Chapter 16: The Bounty Hunter

Din Djarin x f!Reader

Masterlist

Summary: Six months later...

Word count: 3.6k

Warnings: 18+ MDNI, slow burn, non-canon (the Razor Crest never gets destroyed, it also gets upgraded with a cabin), post season 3, ANGST, I'm sorry, yearning, there is the squeakiest blink-and-you-miss-it mention of Reader with someone else (so brief, so squeaky), brief blood/gore, canon characters present (Greef gets the briefest mention - rest in power, Carl), Reader uses her Force powers.

A/N: Here. We. Go. Moving into the endgame. Hang with me. All the love.

SIX MONTHS LATER

Smoke from more than two dozen water pipes wafts at every corner of the buzzy cantina. A sad jizz band drones away in a neglected corner, barely a stage to crowd in on. Every figure in the place sits with the assured air of the heavily armed and capable.

The doorway is darkened briefly by a lone figure entering the place, strolling down thrumming aisles of chatter and hustle. Mutual shoulder nudges and open stares follow the shadow passing over tables and booths. Whispers of ‘that who I think it is?’ and ‘yes, so shut up’ carry on the hazy air. Ignoring it all, the presence comes to a stop in front of the honch of the Guild. Three complete tracking fobs are tossed on the table.

Leaf Goghal looks up.

‘That was quick,’ he slurs, he peers at the stony visage by his booth. ‘Queenie here ready for more?’

Only your eyes can be seen under the shadow of the hood pulled far forward. Anger and impatience radiate out.

Leaf tuts, leans back.

‘You know, pace like this and folks here will start to resent your pretty little presence.’ He waves for a droid tender to come near. ‘Why not sit a bit, have a beverage? Take in the ambiance?’

A hand raised, a gesture at the fobs, and he drops the entreaty immediately.

‘Fine, here,’ he smirks, tossing a mess of credits to you. ‘And here.’ A puck is placed more gently at your hand, glowing with dim eminence. ‘A good one, I guarantee. Real piece of shit too. You enjoy those ones don’t you? Like to make it rough? Take it, and consider a drink with me next time, hm?’

You just scoop the lot into a hand and head for the bar. Putting your back to the sleazy honch, you motion for a drink. It’s slid to you without pause.

Staring into the foamy, spongy liquid of your cup, you focus on channelling your rage and boredom into the space where the crushing loneliness is trying to win ground. It’s been a battle for months. Once fear and guilt were coaxed down into a simmer, you’d noticed your heartbreak fresh and blistering. It was close to unbearable. It almost drowned you. But a primordial will to live still festered hot along with the pain, so you decided to do your best to hide from it.

How better to hide from all that than to seek out violence.

So here you were, in the Guild. The place you were sure was as far out of the way as it was possible to be. It had changed a lot since Greef Karga was in charge. Less principled, more brutal. And it suited your needs. That sludge Leaf knew your one condition on hire, fade quadrant jobs only. Fortunately, there was plenty of work out there.

But grief, and guilt, and heartbreak, have their ways of catching you.

You’ve not gotten through half your drink, but you slam it onto the bar, grab your fresh puck and stalk out of the cantina.

Leaf wasn’t kidding when he said this quarry was a piece of shit. A courier. Of what and who varied considerably, but always for the unsavoury and reprehensible. A long charge sheet of assault came along with the job – a lot of bartenders, some security personnel, and even an escort or two.

Your blood boils as you drop into the cockpit of your ride and dump a couple credits by your pilot’s knee, where they’re crouched low ratcheting an access panel closed.

‘Well fuck you very much,’ Gaius mutters, picking up the coin. ‘That it?’

‘That’s it,’ you say, leaning over the control panel and slotting the puck into place. ‘Next job’ll settle me up though.’

‘Right.’ You move past each other as you take the passenger seat and they drop into the pilot’s chair. Gaius plugs in the nav to the planet where your bounty was most likely enterprising himself with a labour trafficking ring. You sit back, grit teeth and flex knuckles.

The trip is silent, as it always is. The pilot speaks up only as you stand and ready to leave. They reach around and brush a hand against one of yours.

‘Hey, careful out there?’ Gaius says.

You step away from the touch and climb out into the suffocating urban air.

Gaius was an alright pilot who’d come along just when you needed them, still not confident in your own abilities to fly a craft without killing yourself. Quick and savvy, they’d helped you out of a tight spot. You weren’t planning on forming a partnership with anyone, but getting a hole blown in their old ship wasn’t planned either. It was gracious of them to continue to ferry you back and forth on jobs while you paid back on the damage.

You’d taken a tumble in bed with them exactly once, so consumed by loneliness and touch-starvation to the point that it physically hurt. You’d hoped it would help. Hoped, maybe, that it would take your mind off the cold, hollow ache in your chest for a little while. Let you stop thinking about it if for only a few moments. But it didn’t. The only feeling that leaked in afterwards was remorse.

You’d decided that once this job was done, you’d hand over whatever remained on the bill and break it off.

You don’t think they’ve realised that yet, though.

Cringing at the thought of that conversation, you push it aside and duck into the seedy dive frequented by your favoured informant.

‘God fucking dammit,’ you mutter, kicking the gory little stubs aside and tucking away your tracking fob. ‘Better hope a few missing fingers don’t dock the reward on your scummy ass.’

Your quarry is slumped against a bloodied bench, wrists finally restrained. He glares at his right hand as blood continues to seep from where three of his fingers used to be.

‘More’s the pity for you,’ he spits.

It had been a brutal fight. Maybe you’d made it that way, but he’d landed one too many fists into your ribs when you’d taken the upper hand by slamming his own onto the table and your knife down along with it. When you’d twisted the hand up behind his back and made a real show of preparing to take the remaining forefinger and thumb, he’d angrily yielded.

‘Yeah,’ you tap at the cuff on your wrist to let Gaius know you’re on your way and make an ‘up you get’ gesture at the bounty.

He gets a look like he’s calculating an out, so you just unsheathe your blade again. Hold it lazily at your side.

You look up to the ceiling of his dingy hideout, thoughtful. ‘On second thought,’ you say. ‘I could probably afford a whole hand.’ Stare back down at him. He pales at that and grunts in furious resignation, lurching to unsteady feet.

Marching him through the back alleys, he speaks up.

‘You know, I think I’ve heard of you,’ he says.

You roll your eyes. ‘Less chat, please.’

‘Mm, so polite,’ he sniggers. Why do they always do this when the fight is over? So ready to run you through, then all they wanna do is talk.

‘Heard you took in the Daly crew,’ he throws over his shoulder.

‘Shut up.’

‘Is it true? All six of them?’ He whistles low. ‘Where’d a girlie like you get bounty huntin’ skills like that?’

‘Shut up.' You give him a hard kick in the ass. He stumbles forward with a cry. As he flails to not fall on his face, something drops from his coat pocket. It’s a compact datapad that lights up on impact with the ground. You’re about to stomp on it maliciously when a fragment of data on the screen catches your eye.

You bend to pick it up as he rights himself with a pained hiss. He watches you study the screen, its illumination highlighting the colour draining from your face.

‘Hey, uh,’ he hedges. ‘You can take that you know? Big job, huge. One I’ll never finish… now, and,’ a chuckle, ‘I get it, work doesn’t pay like it used to. But that… that’ll make you rich.’

A long, heavy pause. Your eyes stay locked on the screen, a thumb moves to scroll through it.

‘I can get you started?’ he tries again. ‘If you hold off on turning me in? Skills like yours, contacts like mine… We--’

You don’t look at him as you pocket the device, take a small dart revolver from your holster and twirl it to the heaviest tranq you have. His ‘huh’ is brief as he thuds to the ground.

You sigh, annoyed and uneasy. Punching at your comms, you mutter, ‘Gaius, can you get out here and help me, got a dragger … What--? … Yes you can have a higher cut, hells.'

You get back to the Guild’s quarters and do the whole song and dance with Leaf again.

Settled up, you retake your usual place at the bar. A drink appears by your elbow, but you ignore it. Instead, you pull out the datapad and stare at the detailed ship manifests and inventory supply runs for an imp battle fleet.

This can’t be what I think it is.

You’d marked rumours. Knew something was rising. Felt despair and fear. Tried to send hidden comms but probably into nothing but ether – useless and untrustworthy that you were.

As if the universe had it in for you, the alert sensor on your cuff pings to life. You stare at it in shock, not wanting to believe what you’re seeing. But the hum in your wrist is echoed beside you and the barfly there is glaring at the same alert. The whole place is alight with the sound of alarms and buzzing as every bounty hunter in the establishment moves to their feet. You and your neighbours turn to a booming laugh.

Leaf Goghal, despite being what seemed to be mostly gone not long ago, is standing atop his booth table with the holo alert waving above his head.

‘We have been contracted!’ He bellows. ‘The job of our lives! Join the vaunted efforts of this war campaign and be crowned in glory and riches. The Guild will be made elite!’

A general confusion and nervous excitement vibrates within the crowd.

Leaf leaps from the table, seems to stalk expressly toward you.

‘We will follow the imperial militia into war. They will grant us everything – riches, power, resources – we would scourge this galaxy. Be unstoppable. Untameable.’

Your heart is pounding. Hands ice cold. Here it is.

‘We’re going to war against Mandalore!’

Every creature in the bar hollers and cheers.

Fierce and riled up warriors gather themselves into formation, oddly formal for their ragtag demeanour. But bloodlust was rising, and they all wanted the fastest route into a battle frenzy as was possible.

Sparks of panic shoot up and down your body as Leaf Goghal stands before you. He leans into your ear, treating it to his hot, stale breath.

‘Now, Queenie,’ he mutters. ‘No one here knows your little secret. No one but me. I was happy to take you in with such strong credentials. And I remind you now that you have made your choice.’

He clicks his teeth together in menace. You cringe.

‘You will not be leaving my side, do you understand? I want you in my sights until we’re on a frigate to the rendezvous. No mischief; no reneging on your pledge to me. Remember, they aren’t your people. To them you are apostate, outsider, enemy. Am I wrong?’

He isn’t.

You shake your head slightly, taking the chance to step back to glare at him.

‘No,’ you grit out.

He claps.

‘Excellent,’ and he gestures to his side, you fall in. He rounds on the crowd. ‘Guild! We go!’

Marching past bay after bay of spacecraft, a tempest rages inside you. There’s no point trying. You have to try something. Where would you even begin? Anywhere, anywhere but here. It’s hopeless. You have to try. You could die. So? There’s nothing you can do. You’ll probably die anyway.

But then you pass a hangar with a tiny, ancient T-Wing sitting across the way. It makes your stomach lurch. Its silhouette is so like that of the Razor Crest that all the months of trying to ignore your yearning and sadness slip away in a torrent.

It’s your heart that decides it, in the end.

Without breaking stride, you plant your right foot and raise the left to slam into the back of the knee Leaf has extended in his gait. He hollers and goes down, it’s an old injury he punishes anyone for even mentioning. At the same time, you’re punching the door controls to pull up the crisis module, so that it slams shut and engages a hard lock.

Every person, being and creature in the hallway freezes, unsure of what just happened. But Leaf pushes to his feet and shrieks, ‘get her!’, pointing to the door’s window where you’re on the other side, sprinting toward the ship.

‘Get this fucking thing open, and get that little shit back here!’

You hear his profanity-laced orders become fuzzy, blood rushing in your ears. You vault into the little craft with a speed that unsettles you and start jamming at the keypad, bringing the instruments out of standby. It roars to life.

‘C’mon, baby,’ you encourage the controls. To yourself, ‘C’mon, just like he showed you.’

The craft swings wildly and strafes toward the hangar opening. You hurl hard on stall just as it aligns with the exit and then throw the throttle with your whole weight. Forced back into your seat, you give a yelp of fear as the crystalline black rushes toward you.

The second the g-forces let you, you’re leaning over the nav screen and punching in the only code you’d come to know by heart – the system containing Navarro. Thinking the odds of surviving your first solo hyperspace jump are slim and frightening, you close your eyes and heave on the lever.

A few moments of uncertain wincing before you open your eyes and see dazzling light sailing past.

You push your head back into the pilot seat and contemplate your next move.

It had been a difficult and terrifying decision to head to Mandalore, where you knew the risk of being shot out of orbit without pause was great. But you’d survived hyperspace and you’d survived Greef Karga’s passive aggressive rejection of your plea for help. So you thought, why not dive further into the pit of the mess you’d made?

It takes a while. You have to make several stops for fuel and supplies, trekking the galaxy toward the distant and mysterious system, hoping on hope that your memory of the path there was sound. Your tiny little craft manages to stealth by a couple of terrifying imperial ships, so you’re pretty sure you’re going the right way. You just hope you’re not taking too long.

Despite everything, you actually feel good and in control for the first time in an age. Oddly enough, the journey keeps you calm.

Bo-Katan Kryze accepting your transmission and permitting you to land, on the other hand, begins a war within you between soaring hope and abject terror, twisting up your guts and setting your lungs on fire. Piloting your craft to a pad where it is dwarfed many times over by towering war ships, you let the current of your decisions and actions will you forward.

An escort eventually leads into a wide open room, with long tables and a hearth burning blue flame.

It’s a modest throne she occupies, a wide bench with little adornment. The truly staggering feature is the tall casting of an ancient looking megalith that rises behind her into the vaulted ceiling. You think Din had told you about something like it once, but in this moment there’s too much already crashing through you to recall.

You try to focus on the brittle and impatient look the woman in front of you channels into your very soul. But really all that’s going on in your head is an endless loop of Is he here? Is he nearby? Will I see him? Is he here?

You glance around the room at your company, flicking from one helmed figure to another. None are familiar. All stand with a watchful edge and some kind of weapon at the ready.

The escort that had marched with you comes to a stop and peels away, leaving you standing alone save but one Mandalorian that keeps a laser rifle at your back. Of course you’d left all weapons back at your little ship, but they seem aware you could still be a hand-to-hand threat anyway. Perhaps Din had warned them.

Bo-Katan leans forward and cocks her head.

‘He isn’t here,’ she says, voice ringing in the vast space. Gods, she just knew that would be the exact thing to say to make your insides crumble and your heart falter. Batting back tears, you run your tongue over teeth and lips, take a breath and look at her head on.

‘Will you tell me where he is?’

She smirks, ‘His Covert, the Covert of the Watch, continues to be among several groups covering our system’s perimeter. Why?’

‘I need to warn him. To warn you, all of you.’

The leader of a planet, a whole world, stands suddenly. The room rustles with many armoured individuals shifting to high alert. After a moment, she takes a step, then another.

She marches toward you with menace in every footfall. Halts just flush of you and leans into your ear.

‘That’s where your loyalty is?’ she says. ‘To him?’

You just steel yourself and nod.

‘You hurt him,’ she whispers, voice tight. ‘A lot.’

‘I know,’ you say, not moving another muscle. ‘I know that, I-- I just want to do right by him, by your people.’

She leans back and glares at you. ‘What if he does not want to see you at all, ever again?’

You stare at her.

‘I’ll accept that. I will. So long as he, as they, as you, hear what I have to say. And let me help.’ You lean in to whisper your entreaty, your message, your intentions. She listens, lets you trail off before stepping back and locking eyes with you.

She studies you, pierces you with her keen and discerning gaze. You feel as if you are being drilled apart, bit by bit.

‘I cannot tell you where he is,’ she intones to the rest of the room. ‘His Covert is in a system where Comms are difficult to maintain; they compose a forward party to incur the initial salvos, feeding us the intelligence we need to prepare.’

Her eyes settle back on you for a split second. You mouth a silent, tiny ‘thank you’ that she nods at slightly while turning away.

‘I am sorry I cannot help you,’ she says while marching back to her station.

It wasn’t much to go on, but there was an ionised cluster in the next sector over where frequencies were distorted and would corrode over distance. It also happened to be smack in the middle of the trajectory of the imps’ leading regiment. And it was also possible for a sufficiently small spacecraft to make discreet jumps back to Mandalore to share updates without detection.

It wasn’t much to go on. But Bo-Katan had given you what she could.

You pilot your battered T-Wing into the field.

Okay, now or never.

You push the autopilot into staying power and lean back in your chair. With an iron will, you let your mind clear, ferrying thoughts to the side and opening a way to that thing you fear to touch. It waits for you, doesn’t approach or call, just holds. You grit your teeth and reach for it.

The moment you accept the feeling into yourself, it unfurls and coils around your consciousness, hugging at the edges of your mind’s eye. As it does, you fill your thoughts with the image of two sweet glistening eyes blinking at you slowly, of big twitching ears flapping in the rush of a speeder, and of a happy, babbling maw munching on whatever tasty treat is within reach. You conjure the feeling of a small, clawed hand gripping your own, just grasping onto a single finger in comfort. And you listen hard for the sound of Grogu’s exclamations of delight and curiosity, summoning his essence toward you.

‘C’mon, baby. C’mere. I miss you so much.’

A hot sweat erupts across your brow and neck. Tears break free. All form a salty river down to dampen your collar, shuddering above your chest heaving with effort.

‘Please,’ you weep. ‘Please.’

You’re ready to give up. You were a fool. Not strong enough for this; who were you kidding. Then, a soft, featherlight, curious strand of tender embrace reaches back to you. You let it nuzzle the tip of your nose, leaning into the feeling.

It lasts a second, then drains away and the cold hard cockpit rushes back into focus. Without pause you punch in the string of coordinates foremost in your mind’s eye. You give yourself a moment to close your eyes again and breathe, then you throw the lever.

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No such thing in-universe as a 'T-Wing' as far as I'm aware. But I for one think it makes a cool as hell 'lil spacecraft. Name suggestions welcome. And I had no idea what to choose as the gif for this one, so imagine that tiny speck is Reader crossing the galaxy to get back to Din... 💔

Until next time!

#din djarin x you #din djarin x reader #din djarin smut #the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian #din djarin #din djarin/reader #din djarin/you #the mandaloria/reader #din djarin x f!reader #the mandalorian x f!reader

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dustedmagazine · 1 year ago

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Dust Volume 9, Number 12

James Elkington

Last Dust of the year and, holy cow, next year will be a whole decade since we started. We’re working with a bit of skeleton crew this time because of the holidays, but still managed to take in a broad spectrum of music, from famous novelists on holiday to monochord droners to surprisingly joyful takes on saudade. Dusted writers who shrugged off Christmas shopping, wrapping and general festivity long enough to write included Jennifer Kelly, Bill Meyer, Ian Mathers and Bryon Hayes. Happy new year and see you in 2024.

Gabriel Birnbaum—Nightwater/all the dead do is dream (Western Vinyl)

Gabriel Birnbaum, leader of the indie band Wilder Maker and one-time saxophonist in the ethio-jazz Debo Band, started making music on a Tascam four-track during the pandemic. It was, at first, a way to keep busy, to keep the dread at bay, but it evolved into a regular meditative practice and, eventually, a public-facing recording project, now releasing on the esteemed Western Vinyl imprint. This second release under the Nightwater banner is, as all that history suggests, a serene and unruffled piece of work, using mostly synthetic textures but also incorporating some rougher, more organic sounds. “above a forest with a house that’s on fire” pulses with bright keyboard tones that blow up unexpectedly into dissonance periodically. It moves deliberately, placidly, from here to there, letting sustained tones linger over insistent cadences. “i ordered a beer that never came,” is a bit livelier, with claves-ish clicks and percolating guitar; it dances a bit and flares into jazzy bravado. Some of these cuts have a dream-like aura, like the child’s wind-up lullaby “through a gauntlet of moonlit junk” with its sliding, morphing guitar notes, arcing over bell-tone intricacies. This is an album that works best in darkness and calm; use it as background music and it will disappear.

Jennifer Kelly

Max Eastley / Terry Day / John Butcher—Angles of Enquiry (Confront)

It would be easy to focus on the personally and sonically idiosyncratic aspects of this recording. Given that it’s just one string on a block of wood Max Eastley’s monochord has a spectacularly flexible sound bank; sometimes he sounds like a Vietnamese dan bau, and other times like a reportable manufacturing safety incident. Terry Day’s drumming manages to combine a respect for space with a brisk harshness that keeps things on point; rumor has it that he was not enamored of the drumkit that was supplied to him, and there’s certainly no kindness in his audible touch. And John Butcher’s saxophone playing is, as usual, adroit and immaculately controlled while inhabiting a realm of sounds that others imitate at their peril. But what keeps me coming back to this humble CD-r, which is part of the Confront label’s Core series of new recordings of improvised music, is the way this music feels simultaneously sudden and proportional. The three minds that imagined this music are not only responsive improvisers, but a formidable compositional collective.

Bill Meyer

James Elkington—Me Neither (Important)

James Elkington is an exceptional guitar player, the top-of-list sideman for Wilco and Richard Thompson and an accomplished and fluid folk-indie songwriter, whose agile picking is matched by a sardonic lyrical wit. Me Neither showcases the former, but not the latter, in a series of 29 short, improvised pieces Elkington recorded during the pandemic. There is some lovely playing here in the brief but radiant “Today’s Dictation,” the Brit-folk pavane of “The Incredible Waist of Time,” the buzzy, squeaky urgency of “Where For Do I Run.” Indeed, these cuts are, to a one, rather beautiful for the one or two minutes in which they flare and die. Even, so the overall result is unsatisfying. It’s like making a meal out of happy hour hors d'oeuvres, each bite tasty and caloric, but fleeting.

Jennifer Kelly

Neil Gaiman and the FourPlay String Quartet—Signs of Life (Instrumental)

“Mobius Strip” is an intricate bit of musical machinery. Its pizzicato architecture meshes like sparking gears; its winding violin melody careens wildly over prickly structures. It neither recedes nor predominates over Neil Gaiman’s spoken word, fitting neatly in the spaces he leaves in a fascinating, ruminative story about the twisted paper ring that stands in for eternity. The piece is that most difficult of verbal maneuvers, the extended metaphor, which Gaiman sticks like a gymnast’s landing. His starts with Gaiman’s grandfather demonstrating how you can trace your finger along its surface, traveling from one side to the other without ever breaking contact. It becomes a way of looking at life, connection and the unexpected. As Gaiman concludes, “It’s the twist that brings you back where you started.” “Mobius Strip” is maybe the best and most impressive cut from Signs of Life, but not by much. Joan of Arc makes a disruptive reappearance in raucous, “The Problem with Saints,” while “Credo” recounts Gaiman’s free-thinking philosophy against the throb of mournful cello and viola. There are long extinct animals and barely remembered life turning points and a meditation on death, all spirited and inventive and absolutely without sentimentality. You will hear the words first—you can’t help it—but as you listen, you’ll also notice how well the music supports and nourishes the poetry.

The music on this disc comes from what was intended as a one-time collaboration between celebrated sci-fi/fantasy author Neil Gaiman and Australia’s hippest string quartet. The author’s knotty, reflective spoken word entwined with the FourPlay String Quartet’s spare, rhythmic accompaniment first for a commission at the Sydney Opera House’s Graphic Festival. It went so well that the artists recorded it, had it illustrated and released it as a book, e-book and CD—they have since performed it in New York and London. It is a marvelous piece of work, odd and unsettling, bent and beautiful. I’m not much novelists in rock bands, generally, but this is different.

Jennifer Kelly

Peppermint Moon—Pocket Dial Tears (Self-Released)

Peppermint Moon makes a jangly, mildly psychedelic power pop that might, in other decades, be regarded as Paisley underground. A one-man project of Colin Schitt, who also plays in El Radio Fantastique. Pocket Dial Tears works the tuneful, happy-sad vein of Anton Barbeau, the Lilys and the Young Fresh Fellows, with well-shaped melodies made for staring wistfully out of windows. “I Thought I Knew” lays yearning, reverberating surf guitar licks atop bittersweet, rain-through-sunshine verses; the song has a drifting, musing propulsion, its wry confessions and fiery guitar solos evoking Steve Wynn & the Miracle 3. “Day to Day” pivots more delicately on a music box melody, whammied guitar notes vibrating in the ether around the verse and a little bit of string romanticism swooping in at the interstices. “He She They” is maybe the best of the lot, a lament about being misunderstood spun out into baroque pop grandeur.

Jennifer Kelly

Polyorchard — scree/n (Trip Ticks Tapes)

scree/n is a single, multifaceted improvisation, recorded remotely by an illustrious crew and extending without break for an hour and 20 minutes. David Menestres solicited contributions from Gastr del Sol-into-Black Faurest mainstay David Grubbs, Exploding Star Orchestra’s Jeb Bishop on trombone and experimental saxophonists Laurent Estoppey and Catherine Sikora, a passel of experimental composers and out-there bassist Ollie Brice, then pieced them together in a composition that feels somewhat episodic but not incohesive. It starts in the frayed blowing, a saxophone tone split into two pieces, full of air. This whispery invocation fades, and then the music starts to dance then, another sax (or maybe the same one) kicking out in blowsy frolic, then settling to buzz again. Now a bit of percussion enters in, now a subdued screech of feedback builds in the background. Blasts of noise hammer through contemplative intervals of saxophone. A tune emerges and disappears into buzz and squawk and rumble. A roiling surf wave of noise that maybe comes from an acoustic bass played unconventionally squalls amid rattling knocks on wood. Still the sax persists in making a song out of things, fluttering and beckoning and flirting back at you over one shoulder as it saunters into the maw of things. At the half hour mark you begin to hear David Grubbs in lucid, lyrical chords, placed at wide intervals like wickets on a croquet course that the sax must thread through. Explosive noise erupts and just as suddenly recedes. Serene and unhurried, but somehow also full of sturm and howl, scree/n is a perfect metaphor for our age’s listless anxiety, our ceaseless striving to make sense and beauty out of accumulated sensory inputs.

Jennifer Kelly

Nicole Rampersaud — Saudade (Ansible Editions)

The Portuguese word saudade has no direct translation to English but evokes a complicated mixture of emotions: deep sorrow, wistfulness, longing for a past that brought joy. Toronto composer/improviser and trumpeter Nicole Rampersaud’s debut solo outing complicates matters in that it revels in moving forward and pushing against boundaries. Shards of digital noise hold equal weight to her trumpet intonations, raw breath, puckering and clucking. There’s an immensity at play as the elements interact. Multiple layers pile onto the fray that Rampersaud provokes, such that she conjures a nervous energy. The sparks fly, and her trumpet lines weave around the nests of glowing particles, hoping to avoid catching fire. Perhaps she’s avoiding her own sense of saudade by outpouring such rich and spirited compositions. Regardless, Rampersaud’s music mirrors the complex nature of the term, rather than the literal emotions that lie beneath it. It’s we listeners who end up reaping the benefits, so this writer isn’t complaining.

Bryon Hayes

Andreas Røysum Ensemble — Mysterier (Motvind)

Mysterier (in English, Mysteries) is the third album by Norwegian clarinetist Andreas Røysum’s biggish band, which is populated by musicians who lead or are members of other bands on the Motvind roster. The label’s name translates to Headwind, whose diverse endeavors present an art-as-activism stance, and the album covers depicts the ensemble tying up Uncle Sam and deposing the Monopoly Man whilst dressed in fairytale drag. The music is correspondingly defiant and optimistic, marshalling celebratory grooves, folk melodies and free-ish horn solos to fight the powers that be. Singer Sofie Tollefsbøl’s two turns at the microphone tip the balance towards an English folk vibe, and the grandeur attained by their arrangement of “Barbara Allen puts the rest of the album in the shade. But if Steeleye Span dancing with Organic Music Society at the protest sounds like your vibe, you’ll want to hear the whole thing, which is available on download, vinyl, and green-faced, short-run compact disc.

Bill Meyer

Spanish Love Songs — No Joy (Pure Noise)

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The emotional arc between Spanish Love Songs’ last album and this one can be summed up by going from “my bleak mind says it’s cheaper just to die” to “you're not a cautionary tale/so don't you vanish on me.” The sonic one, meanwhile, comes with the Springsteenian synth backing that accompanies the latter song. Dylan Slocum and the rest of the band are still grappling with oppression both economic (“Clean-Up Crew”) and spiritual (“Rapture Seeker”), and with existentially paralyzing levels of depression (“I’m Gonna Miss Everything,” “Middle of Nine”). But the hard-won perseverance they’ve developed has clearly stuck with them and grown in strength. No Joy is less singularly pummelling, but it more than makes up for it by seamlessly folding in the influence of the band’s new wave and Americana forebears. Just as the February 2020-released Brave Faces Everyone accidentally fit the rest of that extremely dark year perfectly, No Joy feels like the right record for 2023; harrowing, but in a different way.

Ian Mathers

Tacoma Park — What About a Collage? (self released)

You could excuse Carrboro, NC duo Tacoma Park if they’d decided to rest on their laurels for the rest of 2023. Their self-titled second album, released in April, could be fairly considered a triumph (it was here at Dusted, for one), the culmination of years of adjusting to a new, pandemic-related creative practice, which also generated a series of singles (which they collected this September). That’s a productive year. Instead, Ben Felton and John Harrison have given us all this 40-minute new single. The title probably refers more to their taste in album art than the nature of “What About a Collage?” itself, because this is a pretty focused journey. It starts out a little more on the bleepy-bloopy end of things before whisking the listener off to a space where it feels like Ash Ra Tempel is playing around with Mountains. Eventually the whole thing ends with some beautiful interplay between what sounds like synthesized woodwinds and some plangent guitar. Good to hear that their lengthy, labyrinthine album doesn’t appear to have come anywhere close to tapping out their creativity.

Ian Mathers

Trespass Trio Featuring Susana Santos Silva — Live In Oslo (Clean Feed)

This summit between the Swedish Trespass Trio and the commanding Portuguese trumpeter, Susana Santos Silva, was recorded in 2018 and released in 2023. While the date span might suggest that it’s release was instigated by COVID-time shelf-cleaning, it takes just a few seconds to hear that the quality of the music was not a factor in the delay. The trio, which comprises baritone/sopranino saxophonist Martin Küchen, bassist Per Zanussi, and drummer Raymond Strid, brings a sequence of flexible tunes that encompass the slow-motion dirges roiled with turbulent rhythmic undercurrents and instant, combustible exchanges. Santos is right there with them, darting and jabbing during the fiery moments and amplifying the tragedy of the slow passages. The set was only 32 minutes long, so that’s what you get, but it’s quite enough for music of such conviction.

Bill Meyer

#dust #dusted magazine #gabriel birnbaum #jennifer kelly #max eastley #bill meyer #james elkington #neil gaiman #four-play string quartet #peppermint moon #polyorchard #nicole rampersaude #bryon hayes #Andreas Røysum #spanish love songs #ian mathers #tacoma park #trespass trio

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thesinglesjukebox · 1 year ago

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REMI WOLF - "PRESCRIPTION"

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Ask your doctor if Remi Wolf is right for you. Aaron, who brought "Prescription" to our attention, did...

[6.40]

Aaron Bergstrom: Boots Riley starts big. His new show I'm A Virgo comes with the contradictions pre-heightened, a masterful Afro-surrealist fun house with every absurdity stretched to its breaking point, amplifying a message that has never been more timely: real change doesn't come from painstakingly crafted anti-capitalist rhetoric or even aspiring revolutionaries with questionable superpowers, as convenient as that might be. It comes from community. It comes from solidarity. It comes from other people. Remi Wolf starts small. "Prescription," written at Riley's request for a very specific plot point in I'm A Virgo (I won't spoil it, but the episode is called "Balance Beam"), opens on spare drums and descending synths, Gen Z Prince working through some social anxiety issues. Wolf said that the song is about "being in love and being really, really scared about it," and it's that underlying fear that underpins the subsequent ascent into ecstasy, the horns and the key change and the climax that probably only works if you're just a little bit nostalgic for Macy Gray. It all hinges on giving up control. This isn't the kind of joy you can find on your own. It comes from connection. It comes from other people. Riley and Wolf arrive at the same place: whether your revolution is personal or political, you're going to have to let yourself be vulnerable. You're going to have to reach out. [9]

David Moore: Remi Wolf, the little pop engine that couldn't -- thanks to the peculiar vagaries of Spotify's algorithms and curated playlists, I think I've heard almost everything Remi Wolf has ever released, and every time I hear a song, I'm really into it for about 15 seconds before the pleasure slowly ebbs. (My favorite Remi Wolf song is this Little Dragon remix of "Disco Man," which must employ some kind of Energy Star plugin to keep things humming along consistently.) At the same time, I don't know that there's a single bad Remi Wolf song either -- there's something sort of captivating about Remi Wolf's oeuvre, all these little candles emitting a few dazzling flickers before inevitably snuffing themselves out. [6]

Peter Ryan: A smidge more narratively straight-ahead than the gnarly, motormouthed Juno or its predecessor EPs; here Wolf's sonic freak-out puts a point on the exhilaration of the lyric -- you couldn't really call it mellowed, but it's less wickedly hedonistic in sound than a lot of her work, more a snowballing sugar overload. In three-minute form it's a bit of a band showcase, a rich thicket of soul-pop horns punctuated by Wolf's increasingly enraptured vocal breaks and ad-libbing. I'll take the seven-minute version, of course, indulgent and luxuriating in the thrall of yearning while affording the arrangement more time to unfold and Wolf more space to settle into it, goofy jam-interlude and all. At any length it might sound like a stopover for one of pop's most chaotic, inventive voices, but that restless energy at the core of her work would enliven even the most dependable of tropes. [8]

John S. Quinn-Puerta: A sex jam with more than cursory shout outs to depression, "Prescription" pulls off one of my favorite tricks, layering instruments progressively with each chorus. Wolf's squeaky half shouts play nicely off a rich round bass guitar, which in turn plays off the bouncy, just buzzy enough acoustic. The layered vocals in the bridge feel earned, breaking through into a lush horn and piano-scape. [9]

Nortey Dowuona: The way this song opens up with flat demo synths and drums, with Remi's high voice catapulting over thin guitar, made me feel like we were not going to go anywhere. Then the bass slid in, the horns started stabbing and punctuating certain lyrics and sidewinding during the chorus and the piano riff appears at the tail end of the second verse, and I was hooked. The lush and muscular bass rumbles below the mix and girds an otherwise very thin song with a strength it needs. But the extended version, which has an extra verse and refrain and chorus, feels both less abrupt and more vivid, allowing the song space to become bigger and bigger and delightful, while Remi -- even in all the lushness -- is still visible at the roots, her thin keening voice which was allowed no space on the standard version spreading far and wide, at ease, excited, delighted to refill. [8]

Ian Mathers: "Effortful" is not necessarily a synonym for "bad." [7]

Leah Isobel: Surprised to not hate a Tones & I-style vocal affection in 2023, but I think it's because the production's vaporwave synth textures and aggressively contained snare hits aim at an equally unreal emotional tone. It's not soulful, but "soulful": aware of its own absurdity and desperation. [7]

Katherine St Asaph: An absolute vocal ordeal. [1]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: She's singing her damn heart out, maybe even literally. [3]

Alfred Soto: No way I'd listen to this indie playroom "Purple Rain" meets "Brownsville Girl" again, but the soupy mix in which a brass section and pattern bob and turn complements the deliberately unhinged vocal performance. If I'd watched it on a busy street corner I'd look over my shoulder once. [6]

Brad Shoup: On the one hand, isn't pumping your devotional funk ballad with enough vocal fuckery to induce hypoxia a perfect Prince tribute? Some of those hoots in the post-chorus made me rip my headphones off, not because they were bad (they were), but because I thought one of my kids woke up. In places it sounds like she's trying to triangulate the Troutman talkbox through sheer vocal layering. Still, as insistent as she is, the arrangement of oozy synth/banjo pluck/brass hits is easy as hell, even if it's hard to pick out. Like she says, it makes my skin crawl in the best way (Adderall). [7]

Will Adams: All those vocal pyrotechnics only for them to be shoved way down in the mix. Why? It's not like the instrumental's ~chill vibes~ are particularly attention-grabbing. [5]

Hannah Jocelyn: I love that Remi Wolf stretches her voice as far as it can go and she's never actively grating for most of the song. Maybe it's because Nathan Phillips places Wolf (and the choir of Remi Wolves) far back in the mix; I can't explain why, but the effect is less someone screaming in your face and more witnessing Ken barely step out of frame to yell "SUBLIME!" The outro goes too over-the-top and bright -- the situation calls for Brittany Howard, someone who Remi Wolf is decidedly not -- but until then, there's a lot to love.. [7]

Vikram Joseph: Turns out the difference between "classic-sounding" and "derivative" is largely just charm, which Remi Wolf has in buckets and which turns a song that could have been a rote gospel-pop exercise into a full-hearted, grin-inducing joy of a song. It has shades of "I Try", and while it's not quite as beautifully constructed it more than matches it in endearing vocal acrobatics and in exuberant dorkiness -- "Prescription" is a love song that's totally sincere but which doesn't take itself remotely seriously. It feels like walking through your city in the sun and being weightless; it feels like "climbing over the walls I made"; it feels like giving yourself completely to someone and it not hurting at all. [8]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: I do not believe that one's background inherently determines one's future but as a Californian I must call it as I see it: this is exactly the kind of song you make when you go to Palo Alto High School and then USC Thornton. [5]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]

#remi wolf #music #music writing #pop music #music criticism #music reviews #the singles jukebox #Youtube

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fairytalesreality · 2 years ago

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as someone who works with dogs/cats and has to take their photos? a lot of the attention-grabbing ideas work well with children too, i've discovered too.... squeaky toys, mouth-buzzy noises and large arm movements will get their attention and then just a little extra direction can get them to where/how you want posed

"Youd be an excellent mo-"

"Absolutely not."

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aknosde · 4 years ago

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Can I Watch You?

I was thinking about writing this and then Mac (@bitchboyjackson ) asked me about my poetic hair thoughts™ and I actually ended up doing it / Kaz & Inej and their interpretive relationship / no Crooked Kingdom spoilers / there actually isn’t much angst / brief mention of cannon-compliant but underage drinking by US standards / 6.7k

ao3

—————

The stairs of the Slat have been Kaz’s enemy since he was fourteen. They are steep, rickety things that go far too high with limited railing. The steps are made of wooden slats, which rot when introduced to water for too long, and frequently crack or break, often going far too long without being fixed. To add insult to injury, they are also absurdly squeaky, making masking his footsteps far too difficult a task to focus on unless absolutely necessary. Inej has been walking them perfectly since day one, that is until she started discarding them in favor of scaling the railing, or simply coming in through the windows.

Through the gaps in the steps Kaz can see Jesper and Wylan, but he wouldn’t need his eyes to know that they’re there. Their laughter follows him and Inej on the stairs, almost pushing them up. Inej is walking behind him, her hand on the rail even though she doesn’t have to use the stairs. It’s a habit he’s noticed her to have, walking up with him after he drinks. It’s unnecessary, but he doesn’t mind having a bit more time with her.

It’s unnecessary because he isn’t actually drunk. He doesn’t drink enough to get drunk. At least, not when he has a four flight climb up to his room, or business to attend to. He won’t say that he hasn’t ended up laying on the floor drunk with Inej as they trade theories before, although that is hardly important. Tonight he is not drunk–it’s not late enough for that–it’s barely eleven. At most, he feels buzzy. And that, that is on purpose.

There are many benefits to being buzzed. The first he had discovered at fifteen. A low amount of alcohol flowing through his system can soften the ache in his leg which is especially valuable in the winter, although he didn’t make it a habit. Secondly, a more recent revelation, it makes the sensation of skin on skin fade quicker. He can feel it working now, clearing the spot on the back of his neck where Jesper’s hand had grazed moments before. And thirdly, most importantly, with a little focus he can blur his vision until all that’s left is Inej. And he won’t lie to himself by saying it isn’t a better view. He hopes she touches him before the feeling wears off.

Through the doorway of his bedroom he watches her pick through his office shelves, pulling out various books and putting some back, checking titles in the lamp light. He has amassed quite the collection over the past three years, one that is unlikely to be found anywhere else in the Barrel. But the bound books with their embossed spines and gilded titles pale in comparison to Inej, her face lit by warm twinkling light and curiosity.

He turns his gaze–not his attention–away from her, in order to drape his coat and hat over the chair he keeps in his bedroom. She takes his place as he takes off his vest and shirt, trying to focus on the buttons and not her casual form, leaning against the doorframe and watching him with a look in her eyes he recognizes but can never quite comprehend. He smirks at her, but the look does not leave her eyes as she rolls them.

Moving around his room to put his clothes away he can hear her undoing the latches of her quilted vest. His lips quirk, minutely. Nights spent working until the morning with Inej as quiet company have been moments of solace in his life as long as he has known her, and knowing for certain that another awaits him tonight releases some of the tension from his shoulders. He takes his gloves off.

He doesn’t watch her take out her knives as he washes up, but he lets his other senses do it for him. He counts as she sets them on top of his dresser. He knows she is reciting their names as they find their place, and he thinks them along with her. It’s not the first time she has done this, but it’s rare enough for him to take note. Her knives look at rest there, as if they fall asleep on that stained wood top every night, all lined up with his gloves ending the row.

He slips a sleep shirt over his head as she grabs their stacks of books, papers, and notes off of his desk in the other room. Three thick volumes of ledgers for him, along with their accompanying papers, and an atlas and several books of nautical maps and tide charts for herself. The new book, the one he swiped from a merchers house earlier that week just for her, sits at the top of one of her piles. He makes a mental note to get more books about tidal patterns.

They really don’t have to be working on his bed, he could have brought his extra chair out to his door-and-crate desk in his office as they had for the first few months. He can’t even remember why they migrated to his bed in the first place. Maybe a late and cold night that had his office window rattling. It’s not like they never work on his desk, they do, especially during the day. It must be a habit now, working until morning means working on his bed.

He extends his bad leg on the mattress, flexing his foot in a perpetually failing attempt at lessening the ache, and pulls his left leg underneath, propping up the most recent ledger on a fold of the quilt. Inej sits, her legs crossed and tucked, on the opposite corner, ever so slightly leaning against the footboard of his bed and adjusting her braid so it no longer hangs over her shoulder.

She’s concentrating already, he can see it in her brow and the way her head tilts ever so slightly to the left. Almost as if she can hear the ocean through her maps. One of Wylan’s pencils is in her hand, he can’t remember if it’s one he lifted or one she snatched off a table, but either way, she holds it steady and sure, writing things down into a notebook without looking.

Drawing in a deep breath, though not one loud enough to draw her attention, he settles into his frame, preparing for hours of numbers and tallies and sums and products. He holds his pocket watch in one hand, the ticking barely loud enough to hear, the pulse just strong enough to feel on his fingertips. The pattern helps him with the math, a steady rhythm by which he can track number movements, a system through which he can trace his steps–on the off chance that he made an error.

In his other hand is a fountain pen. He makes a dark line, striking through an empty box, signifying the termination of the employee, and lets the numbers come. How much they’ll save, how much they’ll make, possible replacements, salary adjustments, comparisons to annual profits. If he’s right, income will nearly double by the end of the quarter. He should get Inej into the traders office some time this month, to get ahead on what’s coming.

They are shaken out of concentration three hours later when chimes from the clocktower work their way through the streets of the financial district, and then the Barrel, and then straight into the Slat’s attic. He might have paid to make things warm and dry, but he hadn’t paid for sound insulation. She makes eye contact, momentarily startled even by such a scheduled interruption, and they break into laughter. It’s nice, he thinks. The type of laughter that can only come from two seventeen year olds, both at their normal levels of sleep deprivation. Maybe he should feel guilty about that, he’s the insomniac, not her, and she’s staying up with him, but he doesn’t care enough for that. It’s almost as if they are normal teenage university students, staying up late studying, and it’s a glimpse at that life that doesn’t make him want to run. Not quite.

She stretches her arms above her head, twisting in her seat, looking satisfied. He follows suit, extending both legs and reaching for his toes until his hips no longer feel locked. Their laughter might have petered out, but it’s clear that he is loose and not quite ready to bury himself in work again.

Repositioning himself to lean back on his hands he watches Inej with a faint smile on his lips, not that he would tell anyone. She rubs at her eyes and shakes out her wrists, glancing over her notes. He watches her blink owlishly, consumed by her research, and he follows the shadows cast by her eyelashes as they move across her face. The lamp will fade in a few hours, and without the energy to refill it they will put their books away and Inej will retreat to her room on the floor below. So, you see, he will not be able to enjoy her eyelashes in this way again anytime soon. That’s why it’s so special, he supposes, although he knows that if he could watch her like this for the rest of his life he would.

Her hands move upwards, he assumes to remove Wylan’s pencil tucked behind her ear, but instead her fingers find the coil of hair at the nape of her neck. They spider down the braid, pulling it in front of her, to her periphery, until they reach the end. And then she does something he doesn’t expect, she removes her hair tie.

Her hair unwinds in sheets, guided by deft fingers until it spills out. When she shakes it out, changing her part until it cloaks both shoulders, framing her face, he thinks he might be dying. It casts shadows on her features, but soft shadows, soothing the bright lamp light like she’s drawing it to her and then brushing it aside kindly, leaving only the light worthy of gracing her. He can’t help but think–no, know–that whatever Suli god or goddess of beauty that is out there can’t compare to Inej.

Gods of beauty might be able to change their appearances until they catch the eye of anyone looking. Gods of love could adapt themselves until they slotted into the heart of those who aren’t looking. These gods bow to Inej, she is their religion, they are her servants, and far better are they to her than Greed ever could be to him.

He’s always secretly thought that Inej’s danger is what made her beautiful. She wields it well. Seeing her for the first time at the Menagerie, it was her prowess in stealth that gathered his attention, but the potential for danger in her air is what had kept it. But he’s realized that it isn’t only that. It is everything about her. Her voice, her laugh, her posture, the way she licks her lips every other time she turns a page.

He understands the look now. It can’t be explained in words, one feeling is not enough to go into the depths of which it touches him. It is composed of fragments. Coffee, dark and bitter, but warm, drunk in the early morning hours of a stakeout while the sun comes up. Her hair twisting out of its braid like silks flowing freely in the wind. A mug of hot chocolate passed between them, his gloves off and their hands brushing together with a noticeable lack of revulsion. Sitting next to each other, thighs almost touching, as she laughs at Jesper until she snorts.

He doesn’t say anything. How could he? There is no way to quantify what this action, meaningless coming from any other person, does to him. It’s Important to her, the kind of important with a capital I. The kind of important you mark on your calendar. He can say the word in his mind until it's lost all of its agency, and know that still. She hasn’t glanced up at him, like he had when he’d first taken off his gloves, so possibly it is subconscious, but he hadn’t wanted her to say anything then, so he won’t say anything now.

In a way, it makes him think about the Ferolind. He had waited days, on deck or in his cabin, waiting for her to wake up because he couldn’t bear to look at her. He couldn’t see her undone without her permission, he couldn’t turn the boat around. He felt useless in his own hands. And then she had woken up and he had wasted days looking for an appropriate reason to talk to her.

He rarely waits like that anymore. It feels too juvenile, too stupid, and Kaz Brekker isn’t stupid. He knows when he doesn’t need to speak, though. So maybe his mind is swimming with words and feelings and all that stands between them and Inej are his lips, but he doesn’t say them. They gather as he watches her hair, shining in the light, fall across the map she is examining, but they do not need to be said. He no longer feels the same fear from his thoughts. Every minute since he stopped keeping himself from caring for her is a minute that the space between them becomes more malleable. And maybe she feels it too, maybe that’s why she let her hair down.

So he picks himself up along with his pen, reopening the log book. He flips the papers after each page of figures is committed to memory, right along with every single strand of Inej’s hair. The way some float as she exhales, the way they shift as she does, the dark-as-night and soft-as-worn-leather way they look.

He doesn’t quite remember getting lost in his work again, but something about the darkening pages and a certain flicker of the lamplight catches his eye enough to look up. Sure enough, the lantern is running out of oil, and Inej is slumped against the footboard.

Involuntarily his breath hitches, like choking on a hard candy that isn’t fully blocking his windpipe but sure is making breathing plenty painful. He can’t help that split second of fear that something terrible happened to her. That he was too caught up with numbers and figures and equations to notice someone slipping into his room and killing her. But then she exhales, and he can pull air in.

If he had any doubt in his mind, that moment cements it. He’s not making her go back to her room. He might have, at one point, but not tonight. Gently he pulls away her things, forming neat stacks on one of his crate-nightstands, taking a moment to admire a map she had sketched.

Maybe her doubtlessly groggy state is what enables him to be so bold, but he extracts another pair of pajamas along with a set of drawstring pants for himself, and nudges her ever so slightly awake. Her eyes half lidded as he hands her the clothes, his clothes, speaking enough words into the quiet room for her to know to put them on.

He turns quickly, hopefully not too quickly, to stare at a corner of the room with his back to her. He tries with all his heart not to pick out her movements, focusing instead on changing his own pants, and then folding the charcoal ones he had been wearing all day, and then putting them away. When he’s done, and sure she is too because he can’t hear fabric moving, he turns around.

She’s leaning back, eyes lazy and not tracking his movements, practically asleep again, in clothes almost identical to his. Of course, he knew that. Most of his clothes look similar, they’re easier to replace that way, and it makes suits last longer, but seeing her in an off-white combo, only shades lighter than what he is wearing, sends something through him.

He doesn’t want to look at her like this. She has had enough people look at her, enough for a lifetime, and she has said as much. And, within reason, he would never do something Inej didn’t want him to do, especially when it comes to herself.

He gathers up his second quilt, one he had procured after winter-cold attic nights had left his leg practically immobile for days, and makes to drape it around her. The mattress shifts with his weight, idiot, you should have walked to the other side of the bed, and she stirs.

“Kaz?”

“Hey,” He says, and if his tone could be described as soft even through it’s normal gravel then that’s nobody’s business but their own. He tucks the blanket around her, not daring to offer her the option to spread out, worried she’ll wake up enough to leave.

“The Bastard of the Barrel, tucking me into bed,” She chuckles quietly to herself, sleepiness written across her body. “Thank you.” She grasps his face in her hands, pulling it towards her and kissing his forehead. A second later her arms droop to her sides, her breathing evens out, and she’s fast asleep.

Kaz is frozen. His skin tingles where she touched it, pinpricks travel down his nerves, but he doesn’t move. It doesn’t sting. It didn’t make him want to give up his dinner. He just feels a little doughy, pushable, raw. It’s not, entirely, unpleasant. He can almost imagine the water lapping at his ankles is from a beach and not the harbor.

He sits back down.

Stunned. That’s how he would describe himself. Five parts of his mind jostling to present their case first, he can’t organize his thoughts. Why didn’t it affect him? It was unexpected, he didn’t anticipate Inej touching him, especially when she was so out of it. Dismissed, people have touched him unexpectedly, he’s thrown up. He hadn’t been the one to touch her, she had initiated. Similarly dismissed. He had been too focused on her face and the quilt, he hadn’t properly processed the sensation. Weak, touch had made him pass out and touch had made him wake up. The bar, they had been out drinking, all six of them. The sensical option was that he still had enough in his system to soften his senses like he had wanted in the first place. It was the whiskey.

Or it was Inej.

He goes back to his books.

—————

The first thought Inej has as she wakes up is that her eyes are itchy. That is, realistically, impossible, yet it remains true. Her eyeballs itch, wait, it’s not her eyeballs, it’s her eyelids. She opens her eyes. And that is how she is met with two things.

The first of which is the sun, it’s light shining on her relentlessly, exposing the cause of her irritated eyes. It’s blinding, she can practically feel her eyes contract, and then dilate as they adjust. And this adjustment is what brings her to her second discovery. Jesper Fahey, looking down at her from directly overhead, with a shit-eating grin on his face.

The second thought Inej has is about his positioning above her. The cot in her room has it’s head pushed directly against the window, and she sleeps with the back of her head facing it. So unless she rotated one hundred and eighty degrees in her sleep, he shouldn’t be able to look down on her like that.

And these things are what bring her to realize that she is not in fact, in her own room, but the room of Kaz Brekker. She sits up swiftly, pushing off the weight of a blanket that she definitely had not put on herself. Which is how she makes her fourth, and hopefully final, realization of the day: she’s wearing Kaz’s clothes. Jesper looks elated.

She shoves him, enough to push him away but not enough for him to make a racket and wake Kaz, a thing she does not want, and tries to piece the night together. She hadn’t been that drunk, as Jesper had pointed out, she does not like to drink in excess, so there has to be a perfectly logical series of events that got her here.

They all got back from the bar around eleven, early for them, and she had gone up the stairs with Kaz, making sure his cane didn’t slip through the spaces between steps. It had only happened once, but he had been drunk, and she’s made a choice to prevent him from getting a concussion. He had cleaned up, the way he had a thousand times before, although she had barely tried to resist watching him. And then they had worked, in their normal companionable silence.

There had been a break in there somewhere. She remembers the sound of Kaz’s laugh, a more frequent occurrence but never less treasured, and working on her map, and then… Kaz’s butt? She shoves that thought away, leaping out of bed and frog marching Jesper out of Kaz’s bedroom and into his office.

“What are you up to, Jes,” She hisses, still trying to regain her bearings. Her hair hangs loose around her shoulders, saints, her hair tie must have fallen out in her sleep, and she twists it, tucking it into her shirt collar, out of the way.

“Nothing, I swear.” Jesper holds his hands up, placating, but it does nothing to ease her mood. “Nina asked me to look for you guys, I didn’t know I was going to find you in the same bed.”

The smile is apparent in his voice, but she ignores it for the most potentially threatening piece of information. “Nina is looking for us too?”

“Yeah, she was checking your room while I got Kaz’s. She sent Wylan to wait downstairs. She and I were going to meet up here.” He wiggles his eyebrows. “Wait until she learns I found you together.”

“She won’t,” Inej says, letting her voice drop and stare harden, but a stray thought interrupts her. “Wait, you said she’s coming up here?”

Jesper nods jauntily. It’s annoying.

She pours all of her authority into her voice, “Stay here.” And then she slips back into Kaz’s room, snatching up her clothes and knives, before going back to Jesper.

“Turn around.” She twirls her hand, and he follows her directions, facing the wall with the world map. Normally she wouldn’t do this, but time is of the essence, and hopefully he will have the decency to be uncomfortable enough to listen to her.

She trades pants. “You are not telling Wylan.” She exchanges shirts. “You are not telling Mattias.” She shrugs her vest on. “And you are most certainly not telling Nina. You can turn around now.” He does.

She continues speaking as she fastens the latches and checks her pockets, putting knives in their respective spots, not even bothering with the names. “When Nina gets up here I will do the talking. You did not find me in pajamas. You did not find me asleep. And you did not find me in Kaz’s bed. Is that clear?”

Would it really be so terrible, her brain pushes, to have your friends know you fell asleep with Kaz. And no, of course it wouldn’t be. But she values her privacy, just as Kaz values his. Also, she doesn’t need Nina poking into whatever semblance of a love life Inej has more than she already is.

Jesper chuckles out a nod, but it's not enough. Inej slides Sankt Petyr, the one knife she had refrained from tucking away, in the space between his chin and neck. “Understand?” He nods more seriously. “Good.”

She pats him on the arm, letting some of her strength seep into it as she hears Nina starting up the attic steps. She wouldn’t hurt Jesper, not really. Even her threats aren’t serious, but Jesper has the loosest lips of the lot, and it’s worth it to know he’ll be too scared of talking.

Nina’s voice flows up the staircase, no attempt at volume control yet it doesn’t come out abrasive. She starts with “Jesper, did you find Kaz?” before freezing momentarily at the top step. “Oh! Inej, there you are. What are you doing up here?”

Inej can feel nervous energy on Jesper, he’s excited to watch her squirm making up an explanation. Or excited to see what she comes up with. Quickly she takes a short breath, squaring her shoulders into a stronger position. An imperceptible change, but it makes her feel better. Sankt Petyr is still in her hand, hidden from Nina behind her back, and that helps too.

“I ran out to do Kaz a favor this morning, but he was still asleep when I came back. I thought I’d just wait for him to wake up. Saints know he needs more sleep.” Nina clucks along agreeably while Inej hastens a glance at the little clock on Kaz’s bookshelf. Nine o’clock. Had they really slept that late?

“That’s when I found ‘em.” Jesper grins too widely and rolls back on his heels, his hands clutched tightly behind his back. She kind of wants to punch him, just to get him to stop acting so suspicious. Despite their teasing, she knows Jesper is good enough at undercover work for this to be theatrics, or at least lack of restraint.

She keeps Nina’s attention away from him with a question. “Why were you looking for us?” It’s risky, she knows, to ask a question when she has something to hide. Especially when she is still brushing the dregs of sleep from her mind. It’s late enough in the day, for most of them at least, where the thought of important business needing attending to is not impossible.

“We’re all going to get waffles. Can’t go without you two.” Nina shoots Inej some finger guns, swinging her hips. Some stress leaks out of Inej. Waffles sound really good. They sound like a break, and getting Kaz up sounds like a chance to get their story straight.

“I’ll go wake him.”

“Better you than I,” Jesper quips, and Inej shoots him a meaningful look as he and Nina head back down the stairs. She shuts both the door to Kaz’s office and the door to his bedroom, once she’s inside.

Now that her mind isn’t grasping at straws she can manage to observe traces of last night. Kaz’s room is familiar in all its forms. She’s seen it with him cut up on his bed and she’s seen it ransacked as he searches for a very specific and very important note.

On her side of the bed–not her side, the side she had slept on–is the quilt she had pushed off. But all of her books and papers are on his nightstand. The map she had been working on stacked pristinely on top. His side of the bed is considerably less tidy. Where her legs would have been, should she have extended them, are the ledgers he had been working with. She spots a pen and pencil on the blanket as well, more papers scattered around him. But none of that even comes close to how he is sleeping.

He is straddling the quilt almost, his right leg on top of the covers and his left underneath, tucked nearly under his chin from the way he is curling in on it. His left hand grips his pillow and his right is resting on an empty swath of sheets where the bed would be divided in two. His hair is tousled, not slicked back with water like normal, and she has the sudden urge to tuck a piece behind his ear.

She has seen Kaz asleep before, watched him even. Most often, at his desk. When his waistcoat was open, his tie loose, the top button of his shirt undone. His pen was always still in his hand, and there was doubtlessly at least a dozen books open and an ink stain somewhere. She could tell when it was coming, when he’d drop from exhaustion. She could hear the thump of his cane and the creaking of his steps through the ceiling of her quarters. Patterns built in her mind until she could tell the difference between him sitting down to work and sitting down to work only to fall asleep.

Second most frequent was during a job, and during jobs he keeps himself as immaculate as possible. That was the time to admire him. It was the way you would expect Dirtyhands to sleep, if you thought he was a human needing sleep at all. Asleep in his suit, his hair perfect and hat tilted to shade his eyes, his gloved hands resting pristinely on the head of his cane, looking almost awake. And she’d marvel at whatever could possibly have built him like this, strong, hard, resilient. Like an ornate wind up toy, you could never tell when he’d be up and off.

And there was that one time, the one he pretended never happened even though it was written clear as day across his body for weeks afterwards. The one with him covered in cuts and bruises, two ribs broken and a concussion, asleep on his bed against everyone’s attempt at keeping him up, his hand dangling off the mattress but still gripping his cane. She had watched him the longest then, sitting by his bed or looking through the window, watching, waiting.

She decides that she likes seeing him sleep like this. He’s just Kaz when he’s like this, no last name, legend, or nickname needed. His hair curls a little at the ends, one piece almost in his mouth that flutters when he breathes out. She should wake him up immediately, she knows. Let him get ready and give them time to walk to Nina’s choice café. But she also knows that she won’t get another chance like this, at least not for a long while.

Instead, she subtly searches for her hair tie amongst the blankets, thinking more about last night. She can relax herself into it, enjoy the lingering feelings, now that Jesper isn’t here.

Undoubtedly, her favorite thing had been the way the tension in his shoulders had loosened the second he heard the first latch of her vest pop. A few years ago it might have terrified her, but not now, not when it’s him. The release was a reliable trait of his, ever since they had started working the nights away. Almost as if she had trained him to respond to the sound.

His bed was by no means comfortable. She didn’t mind the hodgepodge foot and headboards, the firm and lumpy mattress, the way the thin window panes made one side of the bed slightly cooler than the other. It was larger than the others in the Slat, except for maybe Per Haskell’s, and had an actual frame, unlike the metal cots that the rest of them slept on, again barring Per Haskell. And despite the three sets of stairs he had to climb to get there, or maybe in spite of them, his rooms were some of the nicest in the Slat. Perhaps not in quality, but they were about as cozy as one could get in the Barrel.

She sits on the edge of his bed, letting the mattress sink gently, and looks at the quilt she had woken up with. Him having two blankets, that was another curious thing. One she had been unaware of. It was hard to get even one good quality blanket around here. Unless you were visiting a pleasure house, she thinks, bitterly. But it’s not one of those blankets. She fingers the thick material, feeling the batting inside and admiring the deep yellows and purples that have long since faded from their glory.

On her lap she can feel its comforting weight. It’s thicker than the one over his sheets, and briefly she wonders if he gave it up for her. That would be a stupid thing to do, a very un-Kaz thing to do. But it also seems exactly like one of his small, subtle, blink-and-you-miss-it, acts of care.

Vaguely, she can remember it from last night. Settling over her, comforting and warm. Working her arms out from under the fabric, reaching up and kissing his forehead like her father used to do her mother.

What?

Her throat suddenly feels clogged and fuzzy. Her cheeks become uncomfortably hot and she starts coughing. Choking on her own coughs, she pats her chest harshly, trying to stop.

What on earth did she do?

If she- if she invaded Kaz’s space- Saints, she doesn’t even want to think about it. How did he let her sleep here with him? How did he not throw her out of the window or down the stairs? Sure, she wants him to get better. Sure, their hands have brushed a few times, she's touched his face. But, Saints, kissing him? Even on the forehead. That's a line. A hard and fast line. One that she does not get to do away with whenever she pleases.

She can feel Kaz start to stir besides her, and seals her lips, trying to keep in her stuttering heart.

“Inej?” He asks, voice rumbling with sleep, but somehow it smooths the gravel over. “Inej, are you okay?”

She coughs again, smaller and more polite. “Yes, I’m fine.” He looks at her suspiciously, propped up on his side with his left arm, hair hanging in front of his eyes. “Really, I just had something stuck in my throat.”

He must accept that answer, because he plops onto his back, the mattress shaking briefly at the sharp change in weight distribution, and closes his eyes, seemingly rolling the features of his face in a way she does not understand. That is until his eyes open. The change from warm tea to alert bitter coffee is striking, and he hardly wastes a second swinging his legs over the side of the bed and getting up.

She watches him turn and squint at her and then the window, adjusting to the light. “Ghenzen, what time is it?” He asks, voice back to gravel. For a second she thinks he’s going to cross the room and look out the window, but he doesn’t. She busies herself with folding the quilt, trying to regain her composure.

“Just after nine bells,” she says. “You should get dressed.”

He grunts at first, and then whispers something along the lines of “Can’t believe I slept this late.” whilst turning towards the pipe on which he hangs his shirts.

“Nina came to get us for waffles.”

“She didn’t–” see us. Predictable, like her.

“No, but Jesper did.”

Kaz lets out a long suffering sigh. If Inej didn’t know him better, didn’t have a basic understanding of his and Jesper’s dynamic, she might be worried for Jesper’s life. She might be worried that Kaz was going to deflate one of his lungs. But she does know, and she can hear Kaz’s regretful affection in it. She smiles.

“I took care of it.”

“I have no doubt in your abilities.” He shakes his arm out, adjusting the cuffs of his sleeves on his wrists. “I have doubts in Jesper knowing when he should be afraid.” Inej doesn’t respond. That concerns her too, but there is no use worrying about it here. Instead she focuses on redoing her hair, spying her tie now that Kaz is out of bed and the blankets have smoothed.

This feels… oddly domestic. But also normal? For a moment she thinks about ducking down to her room, getting the oil she usually uses on her plait, but instead she goes to the basin and uses water. Kaz looks at her awkwardly, and then raises his right arm, over which his pants are draped.

She coughs again, small, polite, surreptitious, and walks into his office with her back to him. He comes in a moment later, somehow adjusting his suspenders while holding his waistcoat, suit jacket, hat, wool coat, and gloves.

“How long ago exactly did Nina summon us?” Kaz asks, while fastening his waistcoat.

“Around half an hour ago.”

“And how long has she been alone with Jesper?”

“Two thirds that.” Kaz grimaces. “You think he’s spilled?” Inej asks, quirking an eyebrow.

“He’s close at least. Let’s go.”

“Your hair.” She gestures to it, hanging loose around his face, still curling at the ends. She finds it endearing, but no part of Dirtyhands is supposed to make one coo. He sighs heavily. This morning seems particularly sigh heavy, but she can tell them all apart in tone, glad that none of them are ‘I’m about to drop of exhaustion’ or ‘I’ve been stabbed and I’m not telling anybody.’

“I’ll just wear my hat.” She can also tell that he isn’t obliged to that decision. It comes out more as a question, or like a dejected statement made purely for the want of getting to Jesper as soon as possible.

“We’ll be eating inside. Your hat will be off.”

“I’m the Bastard of the Barrel. I can keep my hat on indoors, societal practice be damned.”

“You can, but you don’t.” He sighs again, and she responds cheerfully, “Meet you outside!” before taking off down the stair rail.

While she waits she arranges with Anika to have her watch over the Slat, and tells Rotty to have some good intel for Kaz when he gets back, turning Kaz’s hat over in her hands all the while. She doesn’t remember grabbing it, in all likelihood he just slipped it into her arms when she wasn’t paying attention, but she likes feeling along the felt brim.

In the lining her fingers sense several small folded rectangles of paper. Some of it is money, she knows, but many are notes. Nothing particularly valuable, he loses his hat slightly too often for that, but it’s one of his habits that she enjoys seeing. Something she couldn’t imagine anyone else doing. Everyone's secrets are carefully kept in his head, but those he wants out are kept in his hat.

By the time Kaz has reached the bottom of the stairs, giving out the same orders Inej had not five minutes ago, she’s holding the door open, impatient only because the thought of waffles makes her hungry. He eyes the outdoors almost suspiciously, fixing his gloves and grabbing his hat, and then they take off down the street.

Nina is convinced that Tepik’s has the best waffles in all of Ketterdam. They might, they might not, but their waffles are pretty good. Inej knows that the quality is not why Kaz walks so quickly down the cobblestone streets, but it could be part of the reason. Inej lengthens her gait to stay at his side, choosing to walk along with him instead of over him. She likes the games their eyes play when she slips in between crowds of people, the way they find each other like magnets.

Tepik’s Restaurant has a surprising amount of glass for a business in the Barrel. And an equally surprising lack of damage. She supposes that comes with it being somewhat neutral territory, no matter how many gangs have tried to bully or bribe their way into ownership. It’s on the corner of one of the more oddly shaped blocks, and two of its walls are made up of floor to ceiling windows in green painted wooden frames. Even inside, it feels like you’re eating outside, pale sunlight working its way in.

She sees the instant in which Jesper eyes Kaz, quickly turning his gaze away and either starting up or resuming a conversation with Wylan. It’s no matter, she can see the knowing smirks and smiles, even Mattias bears one, raising his eyebrows at Kaz. Jesper is looking at a seemingly very interesting floor tile, but Nina looks as if she has just seen the perfect crust of egg and sugar wash atop an almond cake.

Kaz draws in a breath, more tired than harsh, and sits heavily in one of the chairs left open. She can tell by the angle of his shoulders that he is somewhat amused, settled into their fate, not that he’ll let anyone else know, but as long as she knows, it’s enough.

#soc #six of crows #six of crows fic #chart writes #inej ghafa #kaz brekker #ngl this is the best thing ive written in a while #but the more i look at it the more i hate it so i just have to get rid of it #anyways mac you provided me a lot of motivation even though a lot of wasn't on purpose #fic: can I watch you?#max.fic

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mysmpalley · 3 years ago

Text

Character Sheet: Foolish

Disclaimer: I am not claiming these are my characters, because they are not. This is a sheet for how I interpret them.

Name: Foolish Title: The Totem God Pronouns: He/Him TK Role: 50/50 Switch

Character info under the cut!

How I picture this character: [LINK TO ART]

---

~ General HCs ~

-Despite working at a casino, Foolish is terrible at gambling. Though, he has a good spirit about it; and makes it a way to make everyone around him have a good laugh. -He to play pranks on others. His favorites are just standing behind them until they notice and get jumpscared, or the classic "shake my hand but I have a little hidden shock button in it," but with his lightning powers instead. (Instead of shocking, it has a tickly buzzy feeling to it.) -He can change his height at will, since he is a god. He usually stays around 5'10 or so, but can make himself 20 feet tall if he really wanted to. Sometimes, Foolish makes himself a lot taller just to be silly. -Foolish gives free piggyback rides. -Being a builder, he loves to create little things for his friends and make fun mini builds around the SMP to make people smile. -He has slight claws. -Foolish is an animal lover. Since he is from the desert, based off of ancient Egypt, it's natural to him that he adores cats. He is constantly seen at Eret's castle visiting her many rescue cats. -He loves to joke around and be playful with friends, and will pull people into his mischief constantly.

~ Lee HCs ~

-Foolish is a very giggly lee. A common nickname for him is "giggles," since he just has a constant flow of sweet laughter, even before and after tickles. -He will deny being cute until the very end. -If he laughs hard enough, he gets the classic Windex bottle laughter. (In other words, his squeaky laugh) -Foolish gets the hiccups when tickled, and whenever he hiccups a little flash of harmless lightning sparks out as well. -He isn't ashamed that he likes to be tickled, and he's not afraid to make it known about how much fun he's having- but Foolish wiill claim that he's not ticklish, even while he's squirming and laughing his head off. -Foolish always tries to make the ler laugh while being tickled to attempt to distract them. -Cannot handle any sort of anticipation, he gets incredibly giggly. -Raspberries are his greatest weakness. Foolish cannot take a taste of his own medicine. -His tickle spots are: Hips, Sides in general and where they meet his Back as well, and right beneath his Underarms. -His fluster spot is his inner arms.

~ Ler HCs ~

-You probably expected it, but he is incredibly playful. -Foolish will make goofy noises and silly statements just to make the lee laugh even more. -Another ler who laughs with the lee! -He loves tickle games, and comes up with them on the spot. His favorite games depend on who the lee is. -Foolish uses his lightning as a tickle tool sometimes. It has a buzzy feeling to it, very similar to a raspberry. -Sometimes, Foolish makes himself taller and puts on a "tickle monster" role, just because he thinks it's fun, and it's effective. -He usually goes for more light/playful tickles- but if provoked, Foolish will not hesitate to be ruthless. -Loves to give nibbles, as he has slight fangs. -Foolish sneaks up on friends from behind to trap them in a a tickle hug. -Overall, just a very cuddly and goofy ler.

---

#ooc

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dollarstoreartsupplies · 2 years ago

Text

Hey so you know how you all hated this?

The only things in the room that aren’t white are the light gray speckles in the floor tile, the seven scrubbed-out-but-still-there scuffs in the wall plaster, and Stan’s reflection in the large, wall length mirror across from their cot.

Technically, they suppose, the mirror itself isn’t white either, it’s no color at all, but it’s mostly reflecting white so they’ll lump sum it as such.

(They remember reading an article at some point about mirrors reflecting more green light than anything else, so if they were feeling particularly optimistic they could say there was green in the room. But they don’t even feel optimistic when they aren’t being held in a fucking labratory like a rat in a cage, so, no. There's no green.)

Stan closes their eyes and thumps their head back hard against the (white) wall, and wish, a little stupidly, that they still had their hair. The first thing they’d noticed when they’d finally been left alone their first day here was the smooth, cold curve of their head; all their carefully cared for and neatly maintained curls buzzed neatly off to a barely there stubble. They know it’s dumb, they know that it’s not their biggest problem by far, but… they want it back. Even if it was annoying and hard to maintain and always fell in their eyes, it’s a part of them and they didn’t even get a say in losing it.

At least if it was falling in their eyes now it would break up the white white white of it all.

They’ve never even liked the color white. It’s too harsh; if the buzzing of fluorescent lights, even and constant and drilling slowly but steadily into the back of their skull, was a color. (There's fluorescent lights in here too. Two buzzy, bright panels right above their cot.)

Stan thinks, maybe, they’re going insane. Just a little. A reasonable amount of going insane for a human lab rat.

The loudspeaker hidden somewhere in the wall crackles to life with a feed-back screech. It happens every morning, an ear splitting way to track the days Stan hates more than, well, not anything, but most things. They could fix it, they could stop the glitch somewhere between the microphone and the speaker so easily it’s ridiculous. But they don’t. They haven’t for eighteen days, and they’re not going to start on day nineteen just because.

“Good morning, Subject A.” Dr. What-ever-the-fuck greets them, sunny as ever, “Sleep well?”

(Stan knows his name. He said it on the first day they woke up here, standing over their strapped down, struggling form and introducing himself like this was a work interview. If they wanted an excuse, no one would blame them for forgetting the details of such a messed up moment but Stan doesn’t forget shit.

They’re just not giving him the respect of using it until he gives them the respect of using theirs. They know they fucking know it.)

Stan hadn’t slept well. They hadn’t really slept at all for the past eighteen, now nineteen, days, but they don’t say that. They don’t say anything at all.

“Now, I’m sure you remember this little test. What's say we try again today?”

‘This little test’ was an empty soup can, a screwdriver, an eighty pound dumbell, and a lightbulb sat on a metal cart with a squeaky squeaky squeaky wheel in front of their cot. A blank faced man in a lab coat had wheeled it in when Stan ‘woke up’, like he had been doing every morning for nineteen days.

All they have to do is something. Lift the can, light the lightbulb, bend the dumbbell, anything.

They haven’t yet and they aren’t planning to. There isn’t anything they can do to stop the EEG tests or CT scans or blood draws, but they’re not giving these assholes anything they can’t find out themselves.

At first they’d tried to bribe them into complacency, better meals than paste-adjecent protein bars and comfortable sweats and promises of letting them go ‘soon’ if they comply, and when that didn’t work came the threats and nothing to eat for days, not even paste-adjecent protein bars, and a baton with a taser on the end dug into their side.

At this point Dr. Jackass just seems tired with them, and they can’t help but feel a little proud of themselves.

Say what you will about Stan Uris but they’re stubborn when they’ve set their mind to something, and they’re not letting this lab beat them before their friends can find them and take them home. They’re gonna cry about it, probably, when the lights go off later signally ‘bedtime’, but for now they just bite their lip, stare at their reflection, and say nothing.

“Come on, Subject A,” He sighs, slow and condescending, like they’re an unruly child, “Can’t you just play nice for once?”

They want to flip off one of the four security cameras staring them down from each corner of the room, but they don’t, they’re not going to give him the satisfaction.

“Alrighty. Well then, let's try something different today.”

Their reflection disappears, the mirror part of the mirror flickering out of existence to reveal another room. Stan blinks in dull surprise; they’d always figured the mirror was one-sided, it only makes sense they were being watched from the other side of it, but they don’t see the purpose in revealing that now.

Not until they actually look at the room on the other side; an almost perfect copy of the one they’re trapped in, but there's no cot, no squeaky cart with a soup can or screwdriver or dumbbell or lightbulb, just a tiny figure sat on the floor curled up over their knees. They’re pattering long fingers on the tops of their calves; nervous, out of synch patterns Stan recognizes. Why do they recognize them?

They’ve got on the same gray scrubs as Stan, but, they note a little bitterly, they still have their hair. A matted, frizzy mess of black curls that look so fucking familiar.

They realize, with a sudden, stomach dropping, world frozen still sort of terror that this familar haired person is tapping out bass tabs. E3, E3, A0, A0, A3, A3- Scotty Doesn’t Know.

“No.”

Richie doesn’t stop, but she switches tabs, Stacy’s Mom, she can never play one song to the end, not on the radio, not on her bass, not on her fucking legs when she’s scared and jittery and full of energy she can’t get rid of.

Richie.

Richie shouldn’t be here. Richie can’t be here.

“Recognize our new friend, A?”

She shifts, tilting her chin up on her knees instead of hiding in them, and Stan thinks they’re going to vomit. For the past nineteen days all they had wanted was to see their friends again, and there she is, Stan’s best fucking friend, and Stan has never wanted her further away.

If they didn’t know her so well, they aren’t even sure they would have even recognized her. There's something locked over her mouth, a thick, black mechanical sort of gag taking up half her face. (Something soft and nostalgic in the back of Stan’s brain almost wants to laugh, good for her, she’s been here a day and she’s already managed to piss them off so badly that they had to permanently shut her up; but it’s mostly overpowered by the part of them that wants to cry until they pass out.)

She blinks. Switches songs, something Stan can’t recognize. Her tiny, blind eyes are all bloodshot. Someone must have taken her glasses, because she’s not wearing them, and she never would have taken them off somewhere as unknown as here, not when she can’t fucking see an inch in front of her face without them. Stan’s always hated when Richie isn’t wearing her glasses, when they were kids they’d actually cry if she took them off (so she did, a lot) because her face looks so different when they’re gone. Smaller, younger, more fragile when it isn’t broken up by big, stupid purple frames.

“Why the fuck is she here?” This isn’t right, this is all wrong, they’re going to break something.

“Why don’t we try the test again?”

“No! Not until you let her go!” They jolt out of their cot without meaning to, hands bracketed on the cart like they’re going to throw it. Maybe they are. They’ve almost been here three weeks and they’ve never been this scared before.

“No, Subject A, that’s not how this is going to work. Try again.”

“No.”

The speaker rumbles with laughter, low, careful, threatening, and then he says, “Have you ever read The Whipping Boy?”

Stan has. That's why they feel like all the air has been stolen from their lungs.

Richie sits up a little straighter on the other side of the mirror, eyebrows twisted together as the lock on the side of her gag separates into two parts. She tugs it off with shaking hands, ‘What the fuck?’

Quickly, like someone’s going to take it back, she shoots a shaky middle finger up at the ceiling and throws the gag hard against the wall; a move so Richie that Stan wants to cry.

It should be nice, getting to see her face again, but it’s not. Richie Tozier is and always has been a pale, perpetually tired, skinny motherfucker, but it’s like someone has taken all that and amped it up to a cartoonish level of gaunt exhaustion. It’s something Stan’s been noticing and ignoring in their own reflection, but it’s impossible to miss it on Richie because it’s not supposed to be on Richie. How long has she been here if she looks like that?

“Try again, A. I’m not going to ask you again.”

Have they had her the whole time? Sitting just a room away for nineteen fucking days?

“Fuck you.”

Does she know Stan’s here?

“Okay. If that's how you’d like to play it.”

Richie starts screaming. Her room must be soundproof because they can’t hear anything, but her hands are twisted hard in her hair and she’s screaming.

That's why they remotely took the gag off, they wanted Stan to see this.

“Stop.”

“Oh, that’s not my responsibility anymore, Subject A. You caused this, so the power is in your hands to stop it.” And then he laughs. He laughs and Richie’s still screaming. Stop stop stop, “I’ve been told your friend is quite clever. I’d hate to cause permanent damage.”

Stan wants so badly to stop looking. There's nothing they want more than to not have to watch this, but they can’t look away. It feels like abandoning Richie, leaving her alone as she’s fucking tortured for nothing. Tortured for something Stan didn’t do.

The loud speaker screeches with feedback, “But then again. Up to you.”

Richie is crying. Richie doesn’t cry easy, even if she’s hurt she’ll just stare at her skinned knees or broken wrist and then later, when she’s alone in her room or curled up on Stan’s bed all her tears will catch up to her.

Stan’s probably seen it more than anyone else, but even then, she likes to hide, behind her hands or under a blanket or her face in Stan’s shoulder.

And right now she’s sobbing like it’s the only thing she knows how to do.

Sobbing and screaming,“Stop,” Screaming and sobbing, “Stop stop stop stop stop-”

The light bulb explodes.

Richie collapses in on herself, like a puppet whose strings have all of a sudden been cut from its cross bar. A spike of worry pins through their chest, she’s dead she’s dead she’s dead, but her whole body shudders into movement instantly, wracked with shaking, heaving sobs.

“Good job, Subject A.” The doctor congratulates and Stan’s so angry that nothing is white anymore. Everything is just red. How dare they. How dare they.

The air is hot and static and angry angry angry. Angry and buzzing and rattling the shattered lightbulb glass scattered across the tile, and Stan’s hands are burning. The dumbbell slams into the mirror. Break break break. Richie Richie Richie.

It doesn’t break, but it makes a cracking, horrible sound as it ricochets off the bulletproof material of the window. Richie flinches into herself even more, slowly unfolding her face from her knees and shouting a wavering, noiseless, ‘Fuck you!’

“Bring her in here.”

“And why should we do that?” The doctor asks, sounding genuinely curious.

The screwdriver shatters through the security camera in the upper left corner.

“Bring her in here right now.” Or they’ll kill them the next time someone comes in for testing goes unsaid.

It’s not actually a feasible threat, the doctors have got the ability to dampen their powers, if not shut them off completely: a collar that had felt like it was cutting off one of their limbs when they’d locked it around their neck as a warning. Right now Stan is angry enough to find a way anyway.

Something in their glare, aimed at one of the cameras and seething, must say it. Must say all of you will fucking die before you can get that on me and it will be painful because for the first time the other end of the loudspeaker is silent for a long moment.

And then: “Maybe if you behave.”

The window disappears back into a mirror.

“No!”

The reflection has gone warped, dented in the wake of eighty pounds of cast iron and seething telepath. They stare hard at their face, taking place of where Richie had just been sitting, curled up and hurting. Their reflection stares back, smeared and distorted, and they realize, haltingly, that they look… scary. Eyes wide and bloodshot and ringed with a blackness that hadn’t been there before. Shaking and on the verge of crying and dangerous.

All the anger boiling up inside of them crashes out all at once. Richie’s gone. Richie’s right there. They can’t protect her.

They just want to go home.

The next morning the lights come on, the cart squeaks in, and the loudspeaker screams to life.

“Good morning, Subject A.” Dr. Gray says, grinning audibly, “Sleep well?”

The reflective side of the mirror drops away and Richie’s hiding in her knees again, tapping tapping tapping, Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous. The new song is the only indication that this isn’t all a twisted groundhog day sequel. (Well, that and the dread.)

The gag is secured back around her head, but this time when it unlocks itself Richie knows what's coming, ‘Please don’t please don’t please don’t-’

The soup can crushes in on itself.

“Thank you, for your cooperation.”

It drops back to the cart with a soft clang.

“Bring her in here.”

“Earn it.”

As a one-sided compromise they leave the window visible on Stan’s side. ‘For good behavior.’ Gray had said, like he didn’t mean it.

They sit in white-noised, white-walled silence, watching the constantly shuffling Richie radio station shuffle her favorite playlists on loop, frantic and jittery and waiting for something to go wrong.

They wonder if they should feel bad for wishing they would close it back up. Being alone was so much better than whatever the fuck this is.

They just want to go home.

(Since yesterday something has been sinking in the pit of their stomach. Solid and noxious and inevitable.

Here's the thing: Even though Richie’s powerless, she has always made up for it with her intelligence. She’s the smartest of the seven of them, even if Stan’s never given in and said it out loud, their ‘guy in the chair’, their human translator for all the tech and hacking bullshit the rest of them couldn’t comprehend.

They have no doubt that the rest of their friends could smash their way in and drag them out of here with very little trouble, but Richie is the only one equipped to actually find a kidnapped telepath kept prisoner in an underground laboratory.

She’s more than the collateral the doctor is pretending she is. She was Stan’s ticket home.

And now neither of them are going anywhere.)

Richie and Stan are best friends guys they are BEST FRIENDS they are best friends they care about each other so much they’re so different but they’re best friends like in a scenario where you wanted something from Stan but they’re being stubborn and refusing to give it to you you would just need to torture Richie and they would lose their shit and give in immediately because they’re best friends guys they’re best friends that’s so important to me

#warning richie does get straight up tortured in this #fic #richie and stan are NOT having a good time in this one y'all just a warning #stozier #but like platonically #unless 👀#fem richie tozier #nonbinary stan uris #telepath stan uris #they're best FRIENDS

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deadcactuswalking · 4 years ago

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 09/10/2020

Okay, so as you know this show has been on a “hiatus” for reasons I explained in the last episode and I had been thinking of different ways to continue this. Eventually I came to the conclusion that it does not really matter if I skipped tens of songs, maybe even more than 100, because a lot of them don’t have lasting success and if I kept doing these massive blocks of songs from months ago I would pretty much get nowhere by the end of the year. So, I’m writing this on Saturday, meaning the UK Singles Chart updated yesterday, and I think it’s about time I get back in schedule. This week’s #1 is “Mood” by 24kGoldn and iann dior, and let’s discuss the new arrivals in the UK Top 75. Welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Dropouts and Returning Entries

So, how will this work? Well, it’s going to be pretty simple. No rundown of the top 10, no climbers and fallers, just reviews of the usually about 10 or so new songs that hit the UK Top 75. I’ll cover returning entries and drop-outs as well ever so briefly at the start of each episode, just for some additional clarity and information, I guess. This was actually a pretty damn busy week to start off with so we have a lot of drop-outs, some of which are pretty notable, like “Secrets” by DJ Regard and RAYE, “Fake Friends” by Ps1 and Alex Hosking, “Dinner Guest” by AJ Tracey and MoStack, Tion Wayne’s “I Dunno” featuring Dutchavelli and Stormzy, “Dancing in the Moonlight” by Jubel and Neimy and some other relatively unimportant one-week hits I won’t be mentioning here. Of course, there are songs that have been on the chart for months but I only recently covered like “This City” by Sam Fischer, “Kings & Queens” by Ava Max and “Don’t Need Love” by 220 KID and Gracey, as well as some gradual losses from the late Juice WRLD, those being “Smile” with the Weeknd and “Wishing Well”. Returning to the chart are “Real Life” by Burna Boy and Stormzy at #71, “One Too Many” by Keith Urban and P!nk at #57, “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac at #55 43 years after release because of this guy on TikTok drinking cranberry juice (That’s 2020 for you) and finally, “Levitating” by Dua Lipa at #30 thanks to a pretty good DaBaby remix. Now we have two album bombs to start this season off. Let’s go!

NEW ARRIVALS

#66 – “Always Forever” – Bryson Tiller

Produced by J-Louis, Teddy Walton and CAMEone

Bryson Tiller. I don’t really get or even know his music enough to spark any insight before listening, and to be transparent, no, I didn’t listen to that comeback album. Anniversary is a sequel of sorts to his debut album, Trapsoul, and I can expect just that, I imagine, from this very quick pre-release single dropped just a week or two before the album proper. This drowned-out, watery R&B style doesn’t usually work with me, especially when Drake does it, and Tiller’s nasal, high-pitched squeaky crooning here also does not fit this otherwise lovely production, with some fat bass 808s I really enjoy. The chorus is a mess of fleeting background vocal runs and the performance here while not embarrassing feels kind of lifeless and checked-out. Admittedly, some of the harmonies he hits in the third verse/bridge are pretty nice-sounding, but it feels wasted when the song just continues to flutter off afterwards with the same dull key patterns and frankly, this is just an uninteresting and clearly unfinished track barely under three minutes and never reaching a point where it feels worth listening to. If I were a Bryson Tiller fan, I would be pretty underwhelmed with this.

#65 – “Years Go By” – Bryson Tiller

Produced by Streetrunner and Tarik Azzouz

Well, here’s the opening track from the record, where Tiller has to make that impactful first impression, and with this reverb-drenched guitar melody in the intro and the distorted sound effects that start off the song proper, it starts off solid, and, I’m afraid to say, continues to be so. This obviously goes for a more direct trap-rap vibe with a skittering drum pattern that really bumps and a... pretty underwhelming two verses from Tiller here, who prefers to just kind of impersonate the Weeknd until the beat abruptly cuts out for pointless Auto-Tuned vocal riffing, and, yeah, this is just clumsy. The flows here are tired and messy, often clinging off the ledge of the beat, and even if I really like the cute synths in the outro, I can’t excuse this. Once again, it just seems unfinished, and lyrically on both tracks, he’s saying nothing of any substance. I guess he shouts out Jack Harlow and... Danny Phantom? He also seems to refer to himself as “Godtiller” by the end, as in Godzilla, because no-one’s stopping him from doing so. Sigh, next.

#62 – “Bet You Wanna” – BLACKPINK featuring Cardi B

Produced by TBHits, Mr. Franks and Teddy

You may be able to recognise a pattern here but no, I didn’t listen to this really short debut album by BLACKPINK either, pretty fittingly called The Album. This isn’t really a collaboration I understand or expected but it’s not that far-fetched, especially since BTS did collaborate with Nicki Minaj a year or so ago. The songs features the girls only singing in English over some finger-snaps that sound painfully fake and some demanding piano that is completely switched for the pre-chorus only for it to come back later and then technically in the chorus but covered in tropical-like percussion and some background squealing, only for Cardi B to interrupt with a surprisingly PG verse – you can really tell she had to censor herself here – and that’s all she does in the song. This actually is a fair bit more refined than K-pop I heard previously as it seems to at least stick to a musical motif which seems to be a pretty difficult concept for a lot of these bands. I mean, that’s probably just because of the Western producers on this song like TBHits, who’s worked with Ariana Grande before. It isn’t a headache like “Kill This Love” and I really love the vocal performance from who I thinks is “Jennie” here although the others seem to scroll through ugly distortion effects, particularly in their verse. I mean, it sure is listenable and honestly kind of a far cry from the earlier songs I heard from them, but it’s still not very good. Sorry.

#60 – “On My Mind” – Diplo and SIDEPIECE

Produced by Diplo and SIDEPIECE

So, in 1996, R&B girl group 702 released a pretty solid new jack swing jam as their debut single, featuring Missy Elliott, called “Steelo”. It was a minor hit in itself and even sampled the Police – the rock band fronted by Sting, I feel the need to clarify considering the current climate. It’s not a bad song, albeit perhaps overlong and unintentionally intimidating at times. You can tell Missy’s phoning it in a bit here, but she’s still as charming as ever here. 24 years later, we have “On My Mind”, a glorified house remix of the tune by Diplo and two of his buddies, basically. Is it any good? Well, yes. The sprinkling of cute synths in the intro combined with that leering vocal line really replicate the vibe of the original song, and it does that even better when a single vocal sample from the bridge is looped constantly under a pretty pounding bass and a typical four-on-the-floor house track. This song’s bridge of its own is incredibly pretty as well, to the point where the squawking and low-tone beeping don’t really bother me, especially when it just... crashes with buzzy bass drops that sound like a mix of a dubstep track and a car zooming past. It shifts up the entire song and honestly it works, it’s an effective climax, this is pretty fun, albeit lacking many ideas. It doesn’t really matter if those ideas are executed as well as they are here, so, thanks, Diplo.

#54 – “Rich Gnarly Dude Stuff” – 21 Savage and Metro Boomin featuring Young Thug

Produced by Metro Boomin and Peter Lee Johnson

Of course, it’s not actually titled “Rich Gnarly Dude Stuff” but I’ve got to at least try and keep this show clean. Now, I haven’t listened to many albums this year but 21 Savage and Metro Boomin’s collaborative album Savage Mode II is definitely one of the best of those few. Admittedly, it has a pretty lacklustre beginning and it doesn’t really make sense as a sequel to that Savage Mode EP, particularly because it’s trying to pay homage to a bunch of different styles of 80s, 90s and 2000s rap to the point of identity crisis, but it is one of the best album listening experiences I’ve had this year, with some absolutely killer production from Metro, the sheer brilliance of the Morgan Freeman interludes and 21’s improvement as a rapper being really on show throughout the record. “Rich Gnarly Dude Stuff” is one of my absolute favourites on the album, with the smooth as hell synths and that violin sample that is just hypnotic. 21 Savage slides on this beat and he actually sounds pretty slick with Auto-Tune here, especially over this production which is just beautiful; Metro really is the highlight of the record all things considered. In fact, 21 kind of loses me with his brand flexing and the weird empty spaces that he seems to compensate for by jumbling words together to fit the meter which is unfitting for the mood of the song. Thugger, however, I’m convinced can do no wrong. His upbeat, joyful inflections are in great contrast with his crooning in the second half of the verse, and even though he only really uses one flow through the verse, it leaves a good impression on me fast enough for me to dismiss that. Are they on-topic? Barely. Are they saying anything of substance other than some flexing, sex talk and threats? No, I mean, it’s 21 Savage and Young Thug, but the most important thing here is delivery and these guys have it in spades. I’m a lot more convinced that Thugger has hit men than YoungBoy Never Broke Again is all I’m saying. That being said, please don’t send your shooters, Mr. Broke Again.

#43 – “Runnin” – 21 Savage and Metro Boomin

Produced by Metro Boomin

After the gorgeous introduction from Metro and Morgan Freeman, you are met headfirst with the wrath of... a pretty Diana Ross sample. The way Metro flips this into this head-nodding almost Memphis-like trap beat makes it sound a lot more ominous and menacing though, and it really hits when 21 comes in with his opening bars that start off the project, giving you a basic rundown about what he’s going to do in the album only in the first verse: beat people up, buy cars, spend money on women who he only keeps around for sex and finally, shoot the opps. In fact, he calls his Draco a paedophile because “all of his opps gettin’ touched”, which is a questionable line. 21, are you saying your opps are all children? Regardless, 21 does have some pretty funny wordplay and punchlines, particularly in the second verse with a really clever line about biblical marijuana (Go figure). Basically, he grows his weed in the Garden of Eden, but “zaza” is really high-quality marijuana and also a name mentioned in the Bible. I don’t know if that was intentional or not but if it was a coincidence it at least adds to the lyrics of the song. I have to say though that the chorus is weak and tedious as all hell, and by the end of the song that sample has well-overstayed its welcome, making the song hit a lot less harder than I think was intended. Hey, at least it has Morgan Freeman on it.

#40 – “Lovesick Girls” – BLACKPINK

Produced by R.Tee and 24

So, here we are in the top 40, with more BLACKPINK and to my surprise, honestly. I figured that the song with the big western rap star would be here but I suppose this did have a video behind it – that was controversial in Korea because of how the Korean Health and Medical Workers Union objected to Jennie wearing a sexualised nurse outfit, because, well, sure. This time the lyrics are mostly in Korean, and it sounds immediately much more like what I’d expect from what 2020’s K-pop has to offer. There is a pretty clean guitar loop that the whole song runs off of, some great vocal performances amongst simple rap flows and a drastic shift into an English chorus with some 80s-like synths and admittedly a nice synthpop beat. I prefer this a lot to “Bet You Wanna” but as it is it’s just inoffensive. I like Jennie’s rap verse though. “Don’t want to be a princess, I’m priceless / a Prince not even on my list”? Come on, that’s kind of fire, at least for middling Korean electropop standards.

#38 – “Heart of Glass” – Miley Cyrus

There aren’t any production credits on Spotify, Wikipedia or Genius, mostly because this is a live performance from iHeartRadio Music Festival – however they’re still doing that in these times – that was just dumped on streaming and impressively got all the way into the top 40. To be honest, I can’t say I’m a fan of the original – it’s a well-written song flattened by weak albeit infectious disco production and whilst the groove is infectious, the song has just never clicked with me, so I’m not excited to listen to Cyrus’ cover but hey, anything to delay talking about back-to-back Drake features and D-Block Europe. I WAS excited however when it started with a rock breakdown, especially that drum fill, but it soon restarted to the groove that we all know the song for and one that again, I never was too fond of to begin with. Miley is energetic, raspy and almost growling here at points but the instrumentation is somewhat stiff, which again is a problem I have with the original. It also doesn’t replace the synth riff with an epic guitar solo as I kind of hoped. At the point where Miley drops into “na-na-na”’s and unintelligible yelling is when I just zone out. I really hoped this could have been better, but I’m not a fan.

#35 – “Come Over” – Jorja Smith featuring Popcaan

Produced by Izaiah and MadisonLST

It’s rare there’s a song on these charts that intrigues or excites me in the way this one does, not because it’s particularly novel or groundbreaking, but just because this is a new song from two artists I like but haven’t checked out much from, and I have yet to hear it so I’m glad it debuted this high. I’m happy for Popcaan too, he seems to be having a good year signed to OVO and all, even if I’ve never really tried to listen to his solo stuff. I’ve heard many features from the guy though, with Drake, Kanye, Pusha T, Gorillaz on “Saturnz Barz” and especially alongside Jamie xx and Young Thug on one of my favourite songs of all time, “I Know There’s Gonna Be (Good Times)”, and he does not detract from a single one of them. I enjoyed Smith’s debut album a fair bit and whilst nothing she’s released since has really clicked with me, I’m still excited to hear what she has in store. I really love the production here, even if it is a tad fragmented, especially with that awkward vocal sample, but the atmospheric and hell, even spacey dancehall beat really evokes dub. I also hate the way that vocal sample is manipulated to a nasal, pitch-shifted tone in the bridge, but I guess the chorus is really pretty. Popcaan is kind of obnoxious crooning on here but he flows when he starts really flowing... then he’s immediately interrupted by Jorja singing the first verse again for whatever reason, and, yeah, this song’s a mess. It’s so oddly produced that by the time the air horns, yes, air horns, kick in during the outro, you are left with no real idea of what you just listened to. Or at least I was.

#28 – “Mr. Right Now” – 21 Savage and Metro Boomin featuring Drake

Produced by Metro Boomin and DAVID x ELI

And now, Drake. Thankfully this is the better of the two Drake-featured songs we have here, but this is still a low point on Savage Mode II and definitely an unnecessary inclusion. The production here is actually incredible, with those sweet strings and a quiet vocal sample that is absolutely infectious. The issue here is 21 Savage cannot really do an R&B hook that well, and even when he’s in his element on a trap beat, his bars are non-existent and generic. That pre-chorus is just awful coming from 21. I hate to say it, but maybe Drake could have been more involved here other than the second verse, where he starts by just repeating what 21 said, and then continues to just be Drake, and I’m not sure about the general public, but listening to Drake being Drake is nothing more than monotonous at this point. The only interesting thing he really says in his verse is that he used to date SZA in 2008, which, according to SZA herself, is actually inaccurate by about a year, which is just... well, Drake being Drake. Also, I’m really sick of quarantine music already. You should always reflect on the experience before making art about something like this, and I feel like a fleeting reference to the pandemic with a one-and-done bar I’ve heard a couple times before already (“We in quarantine, but my M’s long”) just dates this slow and sloppy R&B cut even more. Calling it now: if Metro hadn’t produced this, this would be unlistenable.

#24 – “Outta Time” – Bryson Tiller featuring Drake

Produced by Nineteen85, Vinylz and 40

Well, I guess it’s time to test this hypothesis. I don’t think that Drake has come out with anything salvageable this year, mostly because he’s been releasing leftovers and branding them as such, and they still top charts. I mean, “Laugh Now Cry Later” is okay but that’s mostly saved by 20 seconds of Lil Durk being an absolute treasure. The way he croons gargled nonsense and follows it up with “Bring Drake to the hood, surround Drake around Drac’s” might be the funniest and best moment in pop music this year. This song with Bryson Tiller is nowhere near as amusing but honestly Drake mumble-singing over a pretty classy 90s-reminiscent R&B sample is usually quite pleasant... here he just sounds whiny and immature, and he’s pretty clearly recycling cadences and flows he’s already used. He also has zero chemistry with Tiller, maybe because they never interact on the song, with Tiller’s Auto-Tuned crooning saved for the last half of the track, mostly because I imagine it’s easier to get streams with Drake at the start. Honestly, I prefer Bryson Tiller’s part. Hey, I don’t like his voice, but over that sweet Snoh Aalegra sample, I’m not going to say it doesn’t work. This is the best I’ve heard from the album but I mean it’s not like there’s competition.

#21 – “Wonder” – Shawn Mendes

Produced by Shawn Mendes, Nate Mercereau, Scott Harris and Kid Harpoon

Really? Only #21? Okay, well, I suppose some Shawn Mendes songs are slow burners but considering how successful “If I Can’t Have You” and “Senorita” were right after release I did expect this new lead single to seep at least into the top 15, especially since the UK has a tendency to just let anybody in the top 20, but, hey, if the song’s good, it shouldn’t really matter. Much like “In My Blood” from the last album rollout, this is a ballad, although this is specifically a post-breakup ballad where he contemplates on his manufactured relationship with Camila Cabello. So it couldn’t get into the top 20 even with fake personal drama surrounding the single? Wow. Well, I actually kind of like the lyrical content here, especially the second verse where he briefly addresses toxic masculinity, and how it makes him feel like less of a man when he cries because that’s what society’s conventions and norms programmed him to feel. I would like it a bit better if it weren’t as on-the-nose and kind of clumsy as it is, especially since the rest of the song is just wondering what it would feel like to be loved by Camila Cabello and some dreary, post-breakup lines. The first verse taps into more profound and insightful territory to but it goes nowhere and I find it hard to care about this melodrama at all, even if it is backed by a pretty powerful choir arrangement. Much like “If I Can’t Have You” and some of his other tracks before this, especially “Mercy”, this feels like a pretty overproduced, underwritten angst jam with absolutely no teeth to it other than a performance from Mendes that goes into some belting territory but is overall too restrained to fit this kind of anthemic orchestral instrumentation and especially those drums. In conclusion, this is a waste of potential but at least it had potential to begin with, unlike...

#11 – “UFO” – D-Block Europe featuring Aitch

Produced by Cardo, Cubeatz and DY Krazy

People complain about the charts all the time, particularly the type and quality of music on it. This is especially true with the USA’s Billboard Hot 100 and I understand that chart has incredible flaws it hasn’t made up for, but at least it doesn’t have D-Block Europe every other week. I mean, a pretty great British rap song even ended up on the Hot 100 thanks to TikTok and DaBaby, that being “Don’t Rush” by Young T & Bugsey featuring Headie One. That proves that these recurring antagonists of REVIEWING THE CHARTS are not necessary; I like Young T & Bugsey. We could just replace these oversaturated whining idiots with those guys, but no, we have Young Adz and Dirtbike LB, and they’re here to stay. Oh, and even better, they’re here with Aitch, pioneer of the new “gentrified drill” genre. Apparently to Young Adz, this is a “different” song that could isolate their audience, but I just see this as pretty normal Young Adz moaning over guitar-trap beats. It’s not drill, but it’s not like this is all that different or interesting... like at all. Adz has this hilariously bad “ooh-wee” flow that just sounds ridiculous on this beat, and Aitch proves his status as the whitest man in UK rap – and this is the country that brought you Professor Green. The song isn’t even about spaceships or any type of unidentified flying object! It’s just about having sex with drug dealers, with the only reference to the supernatural being the intro where Young Adz says that this sex is apparently happening in space... for no reason. And Dirtbike LB, well...

I’mma cover my pain with these shades

Just as embarrassing as usual. These guys have got an album out this week by the way, with 29 songs and a full 91 minutes of this same garbage they’ve been pumping out mixtapes of for two years now. They’re still funny occasionally and never on purpose, but the humorous inflections and stupid lines are now so few and far between that it’s barely worth pointing any of that out anymore. God.

Conclusion

This wasn’t just a busy week to start off on, but also a week where I’m not left impressed by really any of this, even from the album I liked. Worst of the Week still goes to D-Block Europe and Aitch with “UFO” with Bryson Tiller picking up the Dishonourable Mention for both of his first two lousy tracks here. Other than that, well, I only really like “Rich Gnarly Dude Stuff” by 21 Savage, Metro Boomin and Young Thug so that runs away with Best of the Week, but I guess I’ll give the Honourable Mention to “On My Mind” by Diplo and SIDEPIECE, for at least being kind of fun if not anything else.

Here’s the top 10 for this week:

...and that’s all from me. Follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank for more garbage and hopefully I’ll see you next week.

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