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gladiatorcunt · 2 months ago

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- DIRT IN CHAINS | X.

i can’t wait for the nights with you, i imagine the things we’ll do

cw: kinktober prompt (feet), semi crack treated seriously (he just comes back and says footjob. now.), pseudo incest (step brother & step sister), no shelly or chris 💀, set in the 90’s with brandon lee’s eric, small-ish age gap (reader’s in her early 20’s), fem ballerina!reader, random kurt cobain crush mention, implied inappropriate behavior when reader was 18 and after (nothing explicit but it could be seen as done with certain intent), attempted non con mention (not involving eric or reader)

please do not repost, translate, or feed this work to ai

kinktober 2024

Body of my body, flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone.

If you serve a chunk of still bleeding meat to a gruesome stray dog, then that is love. If you toss a coin to a crow with a glint in its beady eyes, that too is love. Even when you scoff and grumble at the perceived inconvenience and continue your jaunt down the muddy alleyway. You are assuring an animal that you believe it deserves to have its hunger sated and tended to like a toothache. don’t be surprised when gangrene sets in around your ankles and wrists, bracelets made of red jade. They bite for the same reason that you sharpen their teeth and beaks with roadkill and gemstones. It is life’s greatest gift to ever be well fed, such neglect can open a void from which there is no escape. If only your heart could plug up the hole.

The most painful sentences in existence are hypotheticals that start with if. That's why this will be nothing of the sort, hunting season will be successful.

Your step brother Eric was shot about a month ago the night before halloween, and you’re coping by robotically moving through life as if it couldn’t happen to you too. It’s all too easy to succumb to the panic and the grief but you’ve never been wired that way, it’s safer for you to retreat into a cocoon of numbness.

You don’t want to think about where the woman he saved from being raped is, as happy as you are that she’s okay. Knowing any of that would only remind you of the knife Eric got thrown into his back before he was thrown from her apartment window. He lived in the same building and like the good guy your step brother was at heart, burst in the room with the best intentions.

His good deed got him killed, and all you’ve done is play his music on repeat as you rot in your bed. He’d want you to continue your ballet career, hell, he showed up to your recitals and performances more than your own mother. You always ignored how his presence made you feel simultaneously relaxed and confident but also so stressed you’d be worried about pissing yourself on the stage.

Wide smiles and long dark hair that glistened in the theater’s warm lightning, he would always be the one to stand up and whistle first.

Eric’s favorite ballet was your ballet company’s Swan Lake. He kept a picture of you as Odette in one of the pockets of his leather jacket.

Your parents had only been married 4 years, but you’ve changed a lot from the starry eyed 18 year old that mooned over your older step brother and tripped over your pointe shoes.

Your dad started teaching you how to play guitar before he left, when you were 5 and your chubby hands plucked at the wrong strings. Eric wouldn’t leave you alone when you told him the story, and spent an entire weekend getting you caught up on your missed lessons until you both had a swarm of blisters on your fingers.

Now you’ll never see him again, never get caught in the rain when you’ve begged him to drive you home and wish you could tuck a strand of his wet hair behind ear, never hump your pillow and muffle your sounds into your balled up fists because he’s staying in the next room and you have to be quiet.

You’ll never see him with his band again, caught in that weird space between a groupie and a supportive family member. He liked to embarrass you, make big shows out of looking directly at you and coming to the edge of the stage to poke your cheek. He’d ruffle your hair and your cheeks would be so hot, one wrong burst of electricity from the wires attached to their instruments and you’d go up in flames.

You never told your mom but you always wanted a brother, you should’ve known you weren’t gonna have him for very long.

Hangman’s Joke. God, you wish.

“Hey, peach, ya miss me?”

Hand on your heart you think you’re dreaming at first, but you’ve never really had any dreams where Eric was front and center. He haunts all your other ones, regular strange ones where you’re running around department stores and fucking Kurt Cobain but someintes he turns into your step brother, sometimes you fuck them both.

You shoot up in bed, the straps of your lavender silk nightie slip down your shoulders so you pull them back. It’s the middle of the night, and your vision is blurry, but when your eyes focus properly you see him standing in front of your bed.

It’s Eric, your brother, you don’t even care if there was a gas leak overnight that’s got you fucked up or if this reslly is a dream. You can’t pretend to be fine anymore if he’s right here in front of you, suddenly there’s an umbrella over your head in the pouring rain again.

“Eric, oh my god, what the fuck! How are you even- I mean- How the fuck are you alive?”

He sighs, tonguing his cheek and shaking his head. “I’ll tell you all about it later, I promise, ‘m tired, peach. Missed my girl, didn’t she miss me?”

It’s a little cruel because of course you have, but the dulcet tones lull you into nodding. You don’t want to cry, and you’re scared to reach out to touch him because of the chance that he might disappear. Eric’s haunted eyes soften, and he intertwines his bizarrely muddy fingers with yours. There’s warmth, and maybe it’s just your hummingbird heart but you feel a soft rhythmic thumping under his skin.

It’s different, slow as molasses, more like the chiming of a grandfather clock. But Jesus fucking Christ he’s real.

Your sham of a facade shatters as you bring your joined hands down to your breasts, forcing his knuckles to press into your sternum.

Eric pushes you back down on the bed, his knees dig into the mattress on either side of your hips. His stare is intense, dark and enticing as he reaches down to curl his hand around your calves.

“I used to be obsessed with uh, vampires, ain’t that a bitch?” He chuckles, massaging your ankles and staring off into space. “All that mysticism and unimaginable power and all I could focus on was the way they talked about their cravings. How they get hunger pangs like a normal fuckin’ and it’s bearable until it’s not, it consumes them like they’re boilin’ from the inside out.”

You suck in a breath, Eric’s eyes flick over to you immediately.

“Then I look at you and i’m right back in rehab, toes curlin’ at the thought of getting high again. I think I know how those bloodsuckers feel.”

“Eric- Don’t say that.” Your heart seizes up, but you keep yourself from falling off the ledge.

He kisses your ankle, his black lipstick leaving a stain as he leaves a trail of carnage up to your toes. His lips split wide on a fox’s smile, slipping his tongue in the crease between your toes and sucking each one clean, almost like he’s trying to eat your flesh off the bone. He nuzzles his nose into the sole and inhales deeply, taking in the dirt you didn’t wash off in the shower, the plastic hospital smell from your bath mat, your cherry almond scented body wash.

“Yes, all i fuckin’ need, right here.” He whispers, staring at you dead in your eyes.

He flicks his tongue out to taste the high arch of your foot as his hand caresses your still bruised toes. But they’re faded, you quit ballet a long time ago.

“You have pretty feet, y’know that? Always liked helping you lace up your slippers.” Eric laughs “You’d get so fussy about me doin’ them properly but you’d kiss my cheek after, all sweet on me.”

He lavishes every inch of both your feet with his tongue in broad strokes, making out with your toes because he can’t resist sucking them into his mouth one more time.

You moan, fisting your hands in your nightie, your step brother’s back from the afterlife apparently and the first thing he wants to do is get a footjob from his step sister.

Eric tucks his hair behind his ears so he doesn’t have to bother with it for right now, you can tell that this is like one of those moments on stage, he wants your full attention.

He’ll always have it.

You’re the one that pulls your feet out of his grip to slide them down to his crotch. You keep eye contact as you massage his clothed bulge with your toes, rubbing your heel into his balls and applying light pressure here and there.

You blink up at him, too innocent and too worn down by life already all at the same time, “Like that, big brother? Does that feel good?”

Eric grunts, wrapping his hands back around your ankles and pushing your feet further onto his cock.

“Yeah, peach, feels so fuckin’ good, holy shit. Just like that, keep doin’ me like that, baby.”

You bite your lip, nearly tearing through the skin in your efforts to make your newly risen step brother jizz in his ripped jeans. You wish you had psychic powers and had the foresight to know he was coming over, you would’ve put on those socks with the frilly edges and a red rose stitched on the white fabric.

But he’s so worked up from this already, he’s breathing heavily and rocking his hips forward to hump your feet. He’s grinding his teeth together, already so close to unraveling from how much of a little tease you’re being.

You hum and turn your right foot to ghost the edge of your toenail around the tip of his cock. He groans as he twitches and a bead of pre seeps through his clothes, you can trace the outline of his length so clearly you know he’s not wearing any underwear.

The look in his crazed eyes reminds you of all the times he’d take you to the attic of his loft, making up scary stories and playing guitar with you. When you turned 21 he surprised you with a cheesy golden heart shaped locket, with a picture of you two at your parent’s wedding, joking about how awkward you look with each other there. Eric’s penguin style suit and your agitated face that’s partially covered by gaudy turquoise puffy cap sleeves.

He chuckled and said that every time you look at it, you’ll feel nothing but happiness for what those two losers are about to experience.

Part of that experience is you curling your feet around his clothed cock while giving him just enough of a view of your hairy pussy, you forgot to put a pad on so there’s some blood trickling out of you that Eric is just so utterly enraptured by.

His groans are death rattles now, long and pain stricken, at some point he stops humping your feet and lets you worship him like this. Eric kneeling above you, drooling deep in the back of his throat at the sight of his baby sister caressing his painfully hard dick with her cute dancer’s feet.

Your mind is filled with all the pretty shoes you can put on and do this again, you just got a new camera as an early birthday present too.

“You can come if you promise not to leave again, Eric, I'll hunt you down and kill you myself this time.” You promise, digging the ball of your feet into his perineum.

“I crawled out of the earth back to you, didn’t I? Couldn’t let my sweet peach perform alone, she gets stage fright.”

He comes in his pants and you continue to gingerly move your feet along his length, soaking up the cum that wets your toes like a sunflower does sunlight at golden hour.

#kinktober #kinktober 2024 #eric draven #the crow #the crow (1994)#eric draven x reader #eric draven x you #eric draven smut #the crow x reader #the crow x you #the crow smut #pseudo incest tw #tw pseudocest #cw pseudocest #dead dove do not eat #⚰️.deaddove #kinktober smut #tw yandere

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piratefishmama · 3 months ago

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I Wish | Part 6

It was a clean sweep, the guys called it quick enough, which was disappointing for Eddie since he’d never come across a monster quite like the beast he had to play with, but no amount of quick thinking from his band mates could save them from the untimely demise of their characters.

They didn’t have enough spell slots, hit points were straggling, their potions mysteriously vanished, the weaponry they were sure they had in reserves had been used, and only one real lucky saving throw wasn’t enough to save them the following turn.

The False Hydra lurking in the cliffside caves of Rainwund snatching sailors, their ships, townsfolk, and livestock got them. Each and every one of them.

They knew what it was too early though, with Eddie’s flippant dismissal of characters his bandmates were supposed to know, his adamant insistence that no, the town was always that quiet the hell are you talking about, Gare?

Jeff made a spot on educated guess.

It still hadn’t saved them in the end, Dougie’s character lost first with a frankly dreadful saving throw, followed by Gareth’s own little gnome who lasted one full turn longer than he should have, and then finally Jeff himself, but he’d called it. Eddie knew his own friends back home wouldn’t be so quick to catch on, which was the only saving grace for this short jaunt into futuristic DND possibilities.

He could completely blindside his friends.

Probably for the best given this whole thing was meant to fit into a neat little segment on a talk show. Not to span across hours and hours of gameplay, they were already cutting it close to too long.

So, Eddie wrapped it up. With Jeff’s demise, Eddie rose to his feet, arms extending in a great sweeping arc “You fought bravely, oh daring soldiers of ill-fate, however upon this sorrowful day, the town of Rainwund was lost to the song of the False Hydra, it, and it’s victims, would be forgotten by the world and all who walk upon it. Perhaps one day, one fateful day, a new team of would-be heroes will find and defeat this deadly foe, but until then… I humbly bid you fallen soldiers, a peaceful journey to the great beyond.”

The lights dimmed, and for a moment, there was silence while set personnel found their places, then the lights overhead relit with the cameras refocused on the desk and chairs, where Jimmy had relocated.

“Everyone give a big hand to the members of Corroded Coffin!” Applause and cheers rang through the studio, over which he made quick work of reiterating album release dates for them, followed by a quick request of, “stay tuned after the break we’re joined by the cast of MARVEL’s new—” Eddie tuned him out for the rest of it, they were being guided off by stage crew, their segment was over, it was done.

The bubble of imagination popped, the activity giving Eddie a modicum of comfort was over and done with, and maybe he’d stretched it on just a little longer than necessary with peppered suspense, but he couldn’t hold off whatever came after anymore.

Steve met them behind the curtain, beyond the veil of stage lights and TV magic, he gifted the boys little Tupperware containers which they plucked from him as they walked by full of snacks he’d apparently pilfered from the catering tables, Eddie however, he gently manoeuvred Eddie into a side room out of the way with a chirped little “and you’re coming with me, hotshot.”

The room which was dressed up like some kind of fancy dungeon, had curtains pinned to the walls, fake candles flickering on tables, and in the middle, surrounded by chairs, was a table topped by a haphazardly drawn dungeon map and a few mini figs, it looked a little bit like a discount version of his drama room domain in high school.

“What’s goin on?”

“Jimmy wants to do a little opener introduction thing with you as the frontman of the band, it should have been filmed before but you were a little in your own head, so to make you feel better they figured it’d be best to do it afterwards. It’s nothing scary, it’s to go with your little DND thing out there, he wants to basically ‘walk in’ on you as a dungeon master, scheming with a few of your mini figurine things. Maybe throw in a little maniacal laugh for him to walk in on. Is that okay?”

“Oh, uh… yeah, okay, yeah that’s fine, I can do that” one last thing to do, not that it mattered much, but it was part of the experience! But then… thinking about it, “is there any point to that though?” Steve raised a single brow in question “I mean, I’m going home right?” The second brow joined the first and Eddie couldn’t help but panic a little. “I am, right?” He couldn’t imagine going through all that without the assurance that he was going home after it all.

What a wild thought, considering fame and fortune had been the goal for so long, just one interview and he was ready to throw in the towel, and it wasn’t even a bad interview. He just… didn’t feel the happiness he thought he would.

He felt… lonely.

His band were off with their snacks, hadn’t even looked back as he was guided away from them, his ‘partner’ had ditched him before the whole thing, he’d ‘blocked’ him, whatever that meant, and even the fun opener with the host wasn’t a whole band thing, just him. On his own.

All alone.

“If you want to, sure, just say the word. Didn’t you wanna experience this first though?”

“I guess…” Steve took one prolonged look at him, then snapped his fingers, the flickering faux candlelight froze, the sound from outside the room stopped, everything just. Ceased, and Steve dropped the mirage of normalcy he’d adopted to blend into the masses, returning to the damn near ethereal looks he’d had when he’d first appeared “Steve?”

“I’m not going to force you to experience something you’re emotionally done with, Eddie.” Steve stepped closer to him, just close enough to take his hand and give it a gentle squeeze of reassurance. His hands were warm, big… comforting… fingers smooth but they tingled against his skin, as if the digits themselves were wrapped in a magical field of energy. They probably were. They were an instant balm to his drooping mood in any case “If you’re done with this… if you’re tired, you can opt out, leaving this time behind wont hurt anyone here, you can go back home, and we can do something else.”

Gods there was just something so dangerous about Steve, not in the literal sense, although probably yes, in the literal sense too, but he was so… everything. He was everything. His eyes alone, the worlds most valuable golden trinkets couldn’t compare to the shimmer in those eyes of his, as subtle as it may have been, there were flecks of gold in that hazel-green hue. Eddie could have probably lost every single minute, second, millisecond of his available lifetime, just looking at him.

How did he ever think this man was just a random homeless stranger wandering in from the cold? Better question, how was he going to manage being even remotely normal around him going forward?

“I feel like, if I stay… I’m going to walk directly into like, the worst possible thing an it’s gonna make me feel like shit, what’s the odds of that?”

“Mmmnn” he squinted an almost pained expression, tilting his head just a little as he thought about it “ninety percent chance of a bullshit experience.”

Eddie took one more look around the room, then down to his aged and weathered hands clasped within Steve’s own, nodded in self-affirmation, and then met Steve’s eyes once more. “Steve… I wish we were home.”

With a twinkle of the golden flecks in his eye, a warm smile on his lips, and a snap of his fingers, the makeshift dungeon room melted away out of existence. He hadn’t witnessed this the first time around, getting to that time had been a black out, and then he’d woken up to it all. This time, Eddie got to watch.

He got to watch as the world reshaped, formed around them, he got to watch his hands de-age, the wrinkles of time worn into his skin disappearing before his very eyes, tattoos that’d marked his arms vanished until only the ones he recognised remained. His clothes returned, his body regained its youth and all the aches and pains that’d lingered in the back of his mind as a rockstar faded away.

And just like that, the trailer materialised around them. It was dark outside, as if nothing had changed. As if no time had passed. The smells, musty cigarette smoke, the faint scent of coffee, the pitter-patter of rain hitting the roof and gravel outside. He was home.

And Steve was still there, smiling at warmly him, as if he hadn’t just reshaped reality around them, as if everything was normal.

“Better?” His voice even sounded warm, like a heated blanket on a cold day, instant all enveloping comfort.

He wanted to say yes. Wanted to at the very least nod his head, but everything all at once was so very too much, everything he’d been working towards, that they’d been working towards, the band practices in Dougie’s garage, the ‘gigs’ at the Hideout, all the talk, the plans, the promises to themselves that they were gonna make it, they were gonna do something with their talents.

He’d hated it. He’d hated everything about it. He couldn’t even recall if Wayne had been mentioned during the whole ordeal. Was Wayne still around? Was he present? In his life at all? Had he just abandoned his uncle for deeply unfulfilling fame and fortune?

His next exhale came with a sob he couldn’t hold back, and instantly he found himself drawn into two broad arms and a strong embrace. “Oh, Eddie… hey, no it’s okay, I’m here, it’s okay, you’re okay” words uttered so softly into his hair, close enough to his ear that he didn’t have to strain to hear them over the opened floodgates that were his sobs.

He’d tried so hard, for so long with that one goal in mind. And he’d hated it. He couldn’t even stick around for a whole day without the promise that he could get the fuck out of there at any point, and even WITH that promise, he’d bailed early. He couldn’t handle it. He didn’t want it. After all that planning, all those promises to himself, to the band… he didn’t want it.

He was already too far into his life to plan for anything else. He wasn’t getting into college, he struggled to hold down normal jobs, not that he could even get one with his family name hanging over his head, with Al and his bullshit haunting him around every goddamn corner. People wouldn’t even hide their damn sneers, probably wouldn’t even interview him even if he did wanna work there, which he probably didn’t.

His life was one big dead end. How would he even face his friends? How would he even explain it to them? That he couldn’t, that fame wasn’t meant for him? That the cards of life would hand him the shittiest of deals if he stuck around for that draw?

He only vaguely registered Steve moving him as he spiralled, as he sobbed into the Genie’s shirt. The gentle guidance that took him from the living room where they’d rematerialised, to the chaos that was his own bedroom, and then onto his bed, ever so gentle in his manoeuvring that Eddie only realised they’d switched locations when Steve actually wrapped him in his own blanket, always with one arm around him. Never letting him go. Ever so attentive to his charge. Eddie chanced a look at him, his eyes wet, red rimmed, Steve looked perfect.

Of course he looked perfect. Not a hair out of place, his skin shimmering gold in the light. Perfect and entirely too soft in his attention on him.

“I—” Steve shook his head, his smile lacking in pity but drenched in sympathy.

“It’s okay, Eddie… I get it. This is a lot, what you’ve seen, witnessed, what you now understand about that life it’s a lot to take in. You’re going to hurt for a while, but you’ll be okay.”

“W-what do I even—even do now? I—I was gonna—the plan was always—I don’t have anything else, Steve… what am I gonna do?” His friends would be fine. They’d always be fine. They had options, parents who forced them to think of what ifs, of back ups for if the fame and fortune didn’t work out. Funny how it wasn’t because it wouldn’t happen, but because it would, and that it’d suck.

Eddie hadn’t even let Wayne try and make him think of back ups. Fame was it, stardom was the end goal, they’d be famous, and everything would be perfect. How naïve he’d been.

“Whatever you want, Eddie, you have a genuine Genie right here” he even motioned to himself, smile widening a little in a kind tease, before it softened once more just for him “but right now, I think you should sleep, we can go through the rules of Genie ownership in the morning.”

“Rules?” Eddie sniffled, lifting a blanket covered hand to wipe at his face, it was fine, his blanket had seen worse. God he was so tired all of a sudden. Probably the meltdown.

“Genies come with rules, Eddie, we come with guidelines. You kinda ploughed through with that big one right from the jump, didn’t really give me a chance to give you the run down, no harm no foul though, you’re safe, and you’re wiser. We can go through everything in the morning when we’re less frazzled.”

“Okay… but wait, my uncle, he’ll be home in the morning, he doesn’t—doesn’t know you’re here, where are you even gonna go?”

“Crone used to say that like the Fae—” Eddie wasn’t going to bring that up but he clocked it, the word snagged in his tired brain like a fish in a net, Fae, there were Fae? Fae were real? Steve continued undeterred “—‘my surroundings adapt to my presence’, like how she just blends into wherever she pops up, it’s weird, but it’ll be like I’ve always been here to him. He won’t even notice the difference. Nobody will. Just don’t send me back to my bottle, don’t tell me to go into my bottle. Don’t do that.”

“… Why?” Not that he would if Steve didn’t want to be in the bottle, but didn’t Genies just… stay in their bottles? Wasn’t that like, their homes?

“Cause you’ll lose me, I’ll lose you. I told you this already but…it's been a long day. Listen... sending me back to the bottle is equivalent to banishing me and you’ll never get me back again.” Maybe not home then, Eddie’s eyes widened, suddenly sobered by the idea of Steve just vanishing because he’d said something stupid. “I had a master last half an hour once because he told me to get back into the bottle to hide from his wife. I’m here, nobody will know what I am, nobody will think anything is wrong with me being here, won't even question it, don’t send me back… please?” Steve took his hands into his own, holding them tight in his warm, tingling grip “I—I don’t wanna go back.”

It was the least composed he’d seen the Genie since he’d met him what felt like weeks ago. It’d been a few hours. A few hours, and that was in another timeline, time didn’t even seem to have passed in his own.

He looked… desperate. Eyes wide, pleading. A smarter man might have questioned him, checked for loopholes, traps, anything nefarious a Genie might hide in plain sight, they were supposed to be tricksters after all.

But Eddie was not a smart man, he was also completely gone over those eyes. Tragic, really.

He sniffled once more, but nodded his head, eyes drooping, exhaustion catching up to him after his almost cathartic meltdown. “Okay… but where are you going to sleep?” If Genies even slept, it wasn’t like there were many options in the single bedroom trailer. Wayne had to sleep on a fold out cot in the living room for crying out loud.

“I’ll sleep with you, that’s fine right?” Oh.

A smarter man, would also probably just use his unlimited wishes to wish for a second bed, but again. Eddie was not a smart man.

“Yeah okay, that’s uh—that’s okay.” Eddie was in fact the least smartest man he knew.

Steve smiled brighter than the goddamn sun, and Gods both young and old, Eddie was so very fucked.

#PirateWrites #IWishFiclet #Steddie #No Upside Down AU #Genie!Steve #just imagine how big of a menace Eddie could be with THAT monster #considering it wasnt invented yet back then!

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infinitewarden · 10 months ago

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Just want to address something really quick: I've been seeing a weird increase in people who think Guardians age.

This is. Factually not the case and is indeed a very important plot point of Zavala's past.

Some other notable lore entries that talk imply it or outright state it:

A small band of humans emerge from the woods at Osiris's flank. Some carry rust-laden firearms. The one who leads them jaunts forward. "Stand up, old man." The words are slung over his shoulder, wet and heavy. "No." (5: Moths to Flame Part II)

Saladin Circa Dark Ages vs. Saladin at Present

Osiris (and Ikora!) Early City Era (~200 years ago) Vs. Osiris at Present

And, if you haven't set aside time to rewatch Zavala's story then there's this: He has remained the same through hundreds of generations.

It's not "headcanon" if you think otherwise it is directly in opposition to why guardians are the way they are and how they function. Genuinely I have no idea where this idea of Guardians aging came from but it completely defeats the purpose of many tragedies and driving forces Guardians face because of their unaging immortality.

#dude what the hell is happening this is basic guardian lore 101 #lore.exe #destiny lore #destiny the game #destiny 2 #lord saladin #osiris #zavala

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melithril · 2 months ago

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[Adar] Moments of Peace

♫ - Alone -Burna Boy

A/N: I haven't seen the finale yet, but I just thought everyone could use some comforting Adar content, because I know I do. Also, my brain just said 'braid that mans hair dammit' so enjoy!

Peaceful moments were sacred, especially in times of war. Few and far between were times in which you could relax, truly relax. Every time there was a semblance of serenity, something had come along to ruin it.

It was quite a dim day, raining outside and for the most part, slow. Your husband, Adar, had been away almost all of the day, and so you kept to your home and tidied up, doing some small household errands. Well, as much as you could do in the camp's quarters. It never truly looked clean after you were finished,which made you chuckle. Little tasks like this allowed your mind to wander, and today it was a nostalgic jaunt through your recent memories.

When times like this arose, your thoughts always travelled to Adar. For as long as you had known him, he was always kind and caring towards you, despite his past. This man loved you beyond words. A tortured soul, you knew the treatment he had suffered at the hands of Morgoth. The scars on his face were enough to tell you that. Though, in the beginning he feared you would be scared of him, that there would come a day you'd run. However, that day never came.

Marrying the leader of a band of orcs was not how you expected your life to turn out, but you were not complaining. Growing up, you were raised to believe orcs were bad, living for only violence and destruction. Since meeting Adar and being introduced to his children, you quickly realised that what you had been told was a lie. They were honest creatures, they and families and a delicate bond between each other. They were also fiercely loyal. The reputation they and was only because they were used as pawns by people like Sauron.

Your tidying was almost finished, and in perfect timing, your husband walked through the door. Snapping yourself out of your thoughts, you looked over to him as he made his way to the table, taking a seat.

You sighed, not unhappy to see him but not overjoyed at how he looked. Adar was tired, the weight of impending war and balancing the currently-stable ecosystem of his family was bearing down on him. He would tell you he was fine, and you knew he was lying.

"Adar," you called, making your way to your husband, who's head rested in hands. He looked up, and smiled, though his smile did not reach his eyes as normal.

"My love, forgive me," his gruff voice was quieter and more solemn than usual. "I did not mean to enter without greeting you. I have had a long day, and-"

You placed a finger to his lips, and he knew you understood.

"It's okay, you need not explain anything to me. Can I help you relax?"

Adar took your hand in his, pressing a kiss against the knuckles. In return, you cupped his face with both your hands, holding him gently as your fingers traced the scars on his face. Adar's eyes fluttered shut, still partially not used to how careful you were with him. He was always the one who acted headstrong, leading his people in battle and ensuring at all costs that they remained safe. He still was not accustomed to having the opposite at home. At home, with you, he could unwind and be his true self.

Your fingers wound into his long, dark locks, and Adar sighed with content. The feeling of your hands on him calmed his nerves, and he wrapped his slender arms around your waist, pulling you closer between his legs. His gauntlet and chest plate were cold against the thin fabric of your clothing, but you didn't care. Right now, your husband was your primary concern.

"Adar, come here," you took his hand again and led him to your bedroom, pulling him in and closing over the door. Sitting him on the edge of your shared bed, you undid his chest plate and moved on to his gauntlet, discarding them both by the bedside. You lay on the bed, beckoning him to lie down with you. In a vulnerable moment, one you rarely saw and cherished when you did, Adar collapsed onto you, arms around your waist and head resting on your chest. He lay between your legs, and you felt his whole body relax.

"I have you, you are safe here," you whispered, making sure you were as caring as possible with him. "I love you, Adar. I will always be here for you."

Your words calmed him, and he felt, for the first time in so long, at peace. His mind was cleared, and he was grateful to you for everything you did for him. Adar wasn't easy to live with, and the fact you had married him was even more of a mystery to him. He felt unworthy of you, he never felt whole enough or handsome enough. But, you stayed and reminded him that he was neither broken nor too far gone, and that his beauty lay inside, not just in his looks. Which, as you always put it, were a massive bonus.

"I love you, Y/N, more than I could put into words."

As you lay in silence, your hands fiddled with his locks again, occasionally placing a kiss atop his head, you wove a small braid into the side of his head, finishing it off with a tie you found on the bedside table. You weren't sure if he had noticed. Staring down at him, you were in awe. It happened a lot, you often were struck by just how ethereal your husband was, and how lucky you were to stand by his side and receive his affections.

"You are so beautiful, my love. Please, never forget that. No matter what happens outside of that door, in here, you are free of that. I will do everything in my power to see that you are well, and anything I can to remind you of the love I have for you."

A tear fell from Adar's eye, as he leaned up to look at you. To him, you were always his beacon of hope. The calm in the eye of a storm. He hugged you closer, the moment becoming emotional for him. Perhaps it was the release of negativity paired with the adoration he had been shown. Whatever the case, he sat upright and took you in his arms. You cuddled into his chest, and his warmth.

"You know, I-" your lovers voice was cut off as he stopped mid-sentence. Curious, you glanced up to find his hand on the side of his head, confused. "What is this?"

You giggled, realising he hadn't stopped for anything serious. "A braid."

"I am aware of that, my light," his voice had softened, and his mood had lifted a little at the humorous situation. "Why is it in my hair?"

"I don't know, I was fiddling with your hair and before I knew it, it was there. If it helps any, you look very pretty with it."

Your bashful smile sent his heart soaring, and he could no longer even pretend to be mad. Looking at you, he shook his head with a smile.

"Just what will I do with you, melda..." Adar's voice trailed off, and you felt it through your whole body when he called you 'beloved'.

Bringing you back to lean against the headboard of the bed, you nestled next to your husband and held his hand. He tilted your head up to look at him with his free hand, and he leaned in, brushing his lips against yours. Even after all this time, Adar had the respect for you to ask for a kiss, should there be a time you didn't want one. Not that such a scenario had ever happened thus far. You closed the gap, and he kissed you with passion. The kiss was soft and loving, despite the feelings laced behind it. Pulling away from your lips, Adar kissed your jaw and down to your neck, his teeth nipping gently, not enough to mark you.

"Y/N, I promise with everything I have you will always be safe with me. I will protect you and cherish you forever."

Your heart leaped, and you settled in with him.

"As will I, you, Adar."

Adar never did take that braid out.

Thank you for reading! <3

#rings of power #rings of power x reader #adar #adar x reader #adar imagine #x reader #imagine #one shot #adar one shot

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badnewswhatsleft · 11 months ago

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scanned the little patrick interview from kerrang winter 2023<3

transcript under cut:

Patrick Stump’s mum is a methodical accountant who likes to plan ahead and think things through. She would bestow this organisational wisdom upon her son when he was growing up. When his band Fall Out Boy got signed, however, thereby kick-starting one of the most exciting trajectories of the past 20 years, Mrs Stump quickly realised there were limits to what she could assist him with.

“She said to me, ‘I can’t help you anymore - you’re beyond my area of expertise,’” Patrick recalls with a laugh.

In the years since, there has been no end of through-the-looking-glass moments for Fall Out Boy, a litany of incredible achievements highlighted by the ever-growing shows the Chicago four-piece - completed by bassist Pete Wentz, guitarist Joe Trohman and drummer Andy Hurley - have played. It’s an upscaling Patrick admits he still can’t fully process.

“I’m probably never going to get used to it, and I think I’m at peace with that,” he admits, taking time out backstage at Hamburg’s Barclays Arena on the band’s epic So Much For (Tour) Dust jaunt, which recently visited the UK.

Thankfully, Fall Out Boy will be back on these shores next summer, having been announced as headliners for Download Festival 2024, alongside Queens Of The Stone Age and Avenged Sevenfold. The news has given Patrick cause to reflect upon the pivotal shows and tours that have made FOB the band they are today, with a self-deprecating appraisal of the good times and the bad, the tiny gigs and the Hella Mega ones.

“A lot of my life makes sense to me, where I understand the various points of what happened and why, but there are moments with the shows we’ve played that make no sense at all,” Patrick reflects. “You go to arenas and they have pictures in the hallway of all the big artists that have played there, then they’ll have pictures of us, which sticks out to me!”

THE BAND’S FIRST-EVER SHOW AT DEPAUL UNIVERSITY CAFETERIA, 2001 “We were playing with some pretty cool math-rock and emo bands. When we got out there, we were horrible - I mean really terrible - and there were about three or four people there. I can’t remember what our band name was at the time - it wasn’t Fall Out Boy, and we were tossing some names around. I remember suggesting one of the names we had in mind to the drummer in one of the other bands and him telling me it sucked. We had a guitar player who I’d only met the week before and I’ve never seen since. I hope he’s doing good things. I heard he became a bike messenger. I cannot imagine a humbler beginning for a first show!”

FALL OUT BOY’S FIRST GIG WITH ANDY HURLEY, 2003 “I think it was with Andy’s other band, The Kill Pill. Andy played in both bands that night. It was a bigger show for us, opening for [Florida melodic hardcore band] As Friends Rust, and we didn’t have a guitar player, so I was playing guitar. It was weird because we were playing some newer songs, which stood out, so it felt like we’d started to actualise the band. I’m a drummer originally, so I was picky about drummers. But when we played with Andy, it was the first time that it felt right. I remember saying to a friend of mine who was there at the time that we were still a bad band then, and she said, ‘You guys couldn’t see it, but even then, it felt like the beginning of something.’”

THE FIRST UK TOUR, 2004 “One thing I remember was going to a Mexican restaurant, ordering tacos, and being unable to describe the things that arrived at the table - and not in a good way. That first UK tour was with Mest, and it was surreal. I think that might have been the first time I’d ever left the States, so going to another country felt like a big deal. When I got there, I realised the UK is similar in a lot of ways - particularly thanks to our shared musical history. One difference was that the venues all felt so much more punk rock than those in the States, with an unhinged basement vibe, which surprised me but was also thrilling.”

HEADLINING DECAYDANCE FEST AT THE HAMMERSMITH APOLLO, 2007 “I look back on some moments and realise they were bigger than I noticed at the time. The other bands on that bill - Panic! At The Disco, Gym Class Heroes, The Academy Is…, Cobra Starship - were all bands we’d played with a lot before that and were friends with, so at the time I thought, ‘Every show we do is Decaydance Fest!’ Then that moment in time was gone and I soon realised that it was crazy that we were able to get all those people together to do that show. You don’t necessarily realise you’re part of a thing when you’re part of a thing, so when I think back now, I’m amazed.”

THE LAST GIG BEFORE GOING ON HIATUS AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN, 2009 “It was such a strange show. I had checked out at the time, and was busy thinking about solo stuff, but really I just wanted to make lots of music. One of the things that was crippling was making a record and then going on the road for two years to promote the record. For me, making records is what’s important, so the grind of having to make them so slowly was killing me. I was therefore in a bad space with the band. I think we were out with +44, and I remember Mark [Hoppus] shaving Pete’s head onstage. Pete had the famous haircut and that was the end of it. It was kind of a joke to do that, but it ended up proving to be fairly symbolic, as it really was the end to that whole moment.”

FALL OUT BOY’S FIRST GIG BACK AT SUBTERRANEAN, CHICAGO, 2013 “The whole thing happened so fast and so suddenly! We had a meeting in New York. The four of us met at our manager’s apartment and we talked about maybe getting together and seeing what happened. It was tense, actually, as we hadn’t talked to each other in a long time and there were all these old grievances - but there was also this sense that we were older and wiser. We put together some songs, and one of them was My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light Em Up). On the morning of the show, we appeared on a radio show and the whole station felt excited about the song. It felt like the beginning of a rollercoaster. That night, when we played Light Em Up, a song people could only have heard hours ago, the room exploded!”

CO-HEADLINING THE MONUMENTOUR WITH PARAMORE, 2014 “That was one of my favourite tours! Andy and I would do a drum-off, so we got to play together, which was a full-circle thing for me, as I had never got to play drums in front of people with the band before then - so that was fun! I remember thinking on that tour that we were really getting somewhere as a band. Our first show, we were a pretty bad band. For a while in the early days, we wrote better than we played, and we thought better than we wrote. But as time passed things really came together. That tour was a point where we felt that we were really getting somewhere. Plus, the audiences were great on that tour - incredibly excited and giving.”

HEADLINING WRIGLEY FIELD BASEBALL STADIUM IN CHICAGO, 2018 “When I was a kid, the height of my ambition was to play the [1,100-capacity] Metro in Chicago. I never thought in a million years that we’d get to play Wrigley Field - I didn’t even know that bands played there. It’s not a venue, it’s where the Cubs play. I’m still in disbelief that we’ve now played it three times! That doesn’t make any sense to me. The first time we did it was terrifying, but also familiar. We used to have an apartment in Roscoe Village, which is walking distance from Wrigley Field. I remember Pete and I writing [2003 single] Grand Theft Autumn/Where Is Your Boy together, then we went jogging around Wrigley, and a group of drunk Cubs fans shouted ‘Fucking losers!’ at us. Being inside that structure years later, singing that song, was therefore so surreal.”

HAVING A FREDDIE MERCURY EXPERIENCE HEADLINING READING & LEEDS FESTIVAL, 2018 “I think about that regularly. I’m not a natural performer. I used to act, so I could act as a character, but I couldn’t really be me and sing onstage - that never used to be comfortable for me. I have this very specific memory of This Ain’t A Scene, It’s An Arms Race. There was this part where I sling my guitar to the stage and I’m just singing and having the crowd sing with me. The way they responded at that point made me suddenly think, ‘Oh, I can do this!’ I remember running towards the audience with the microphone and the life that came back at me just blew me away. When you have an audience like that, you’re Freddie fucking Mercury! I think about that on an almost daily basis when we’re on tour. That song has a whole different life now because of my experiences at Reading & Leeds.”

PLAYING THE HELLA MEGA TOUR WITH GREEN DAY AND WEEZER, 2022 “I couldn’t have been more obsessed with a band than I was with Weezer in 1998-’99, when I was in high school. Then, years later, they’re your buddies and you’re playing with them and they’re playing some of your favourite songs ever. That is so strange. One of my musical origin stories was in fifth grade, when this kid in the middle of class beckoned me over. We snuck under a table, and he puts headphones on me and he plays Dookie. I was like, ‘What is this?!’ On that tour, Billie Joe Armstrong said I was a really good singer. I’m still recovering from that.”

#patrick stump #fall out boy #andy hurley #joe trohman #pete wentz #time capsule #read the charts #yaaay patrick crumbs <3 #biggest takeway is that he likes when audiences are excited #so if yall have GA standing tix to a fob show and all ur doing is standing there i will come to your location to shake you by the ankles.#/jk obviously but just barely.

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secret-smut-sideblog · 5 months ago

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Gold Satin Dreamer

Gale × F! Tav (named)

18+ rivalry, rough semi-public sex, dirty talk, possessiveness, aurum hot girl antics

Inviting his radiant wife to give a presentation at Blackstaff, Gale notices the longing gaze of his less than friendly colleague...

Masterlist

"Nervous, Dekarios?"

He leveled his gaze at his colleague. Organizing the papers on his desk for a countless time.

"If your 'betrothed' is as brilliant you've been rattling on about, I'd be nervous too." The cutting jest in his voice never tired.

The professor of Evocation had been something close to a rival at Blackstaff. The rest of the faculty waned from distracted to lovely. The head of Divination had actually come to know him as a friend, a calm presence that he sought on hectic days.

She popped her head in now. Eyes alight with excitement.

"She's just arrived, Gale."

Shit. He had planned to meet her at the gates.

"If you'll excuse me, I need to meet my wife." His voice clipped and pointed, straightening his robes.

"Oh, I'm not going to miss this. I've been greatly looking forward to meeting your accomplished spouse." He took up pace behind Gale, steps preening in their jaunt.

Gale hid his smile. Oh, he'd see soon enough.

They swept down the tower, Gale electing the long route over teleportation for his own satisfaction.

"Do you think she'd give a demonstration for my class as well?" Laurna whispered, taking up pace on his other side.

"Possibly." Hesitation bit at his words. "I don't want to push her."

"A wilting flower? I expected more from a hero of Baldurs gate."

"Ignore him. I'm sure she'd love to visit at the least."

He rounded the last stairwell, seeing her shape take form in the lobby.

Already, a small crowd had formed. She was still in her winter robes, head covered in a thick hood. But her radiance was hard smothered, and any new guest at the elusive Blackstaff Academy was regarded with great curiosity.

"Welcome, my love." He greeted her breathless, coming up to instinctually twine his hands around her hips, but remembered his setting at the last moment. Opting to take her hands instead.

"Hello, Professor." She smiled up at him, taking the remainder of his breath. "I'm tracking snow onto your pristine floors."

"Oh, pish posh." He scoffed. "Anything you track in is gracing our presence."

Fenrun snorted behind him, and Aurum's eyes flicked to his. The insufferable man fell quiet.

Immediate, he could see understanding glide across her eyes. Putting together faces to the context of his daily regailing when he would return home to her. Regarding the man with indifference.

"Oh, this must be Laurna." She turned to his ally, her hypnotic voice welcoming. Dropping her hood.

Aurum shed her cloak easily, in a lavender robe that swept behind her. Chest wrapped in a thick black band underneath.

Her golden hair unfolded behind her in a burning curtain. Just cresting above the base of her spine. Her slanted eyes lifted to stare pale otherworldly beauty into them.

He heard Fenrun take in a slow breath behind him, and felt a swelling of malicious pride in his chest.

Uncovered, she had cast the most powerful spell. And she knew it.

"Is there somewhere I could put this?" She offered sweetly, folding her cloak over her arm.

An attendant rushed forward.

"Of course, I'll keep this safe."

She smiled softly at him, handing it off graciously.

"Thank you, you're too kind." Her eyes poured serenity into the boy. He froze, the cloak nearly forgotten in his hands.

Gale smiled at him. Recognizing the same starstruck glitter in his eyes he had on that beach so long ago.

"Shall we?" She sighed, finding his eyes again. Smile twitching up in that mischievous tick that he adored.

"Oh, lets." He laughed.

She took his hand and swept forward.

Laurna chatted with her brightly as they walked. Heads turning and bodies pausing in a wave as she glided along. Her focus on her conversation and the pull of his hand.

Her power of awe never stopped thrilling his heart, but here it felt three times more potent. Swelling his chest. Peacock in his stride.

Fenrun followed behind, tail between his legs. His wounded pride not enough to disengage him from her presence.

He pointed out interesting landmarks as they passed. Speaking low in her ear. She would pause at these sights, tilting her head in interest.

At a statue of a drider, she drew forward. Softly touching along the marble.

He waited, smiling at her. There was something about touch. She always sought to feel that which caught her interest.

"My love, I'm not sure you're allowed to touch that." He teased.

"I'm being gentle." She stepped back and slid her eyes to him. "It's exquisite, and I like to touch exquisite things."

His heart jumped, knees threatening buckle.

Maybe she was too powerful.

"Where to next?" Her voice casual, sweeping back to his side.

"Ahem, if you're looking for exquisite, might I offer my classroom." Fenrun stepped forward, finally jumbling his bravado back into place.

She tilted her head at him.

"And you are...?"

Gale nearly barked out a laugh, having to smother it in a bite of tongue.

"Fenrun Deomat, Professor of Abjucation. A most esteemed welcome to you, our brilliant guest." He gave a suave bow.

She stepped forward, peering up at him. His breath held, bravado washing away again.

"Charmed. Aurum Dekarios, of Orndeir bloodline."

He stepped back, a spike of awed fear in his eyes.

She knew what that name meant. And she didn't reveal it lightly.

"Of course. A Sunlord... If you'll excuse me." His words came out rushed and breathless. Retreating back towards his classroom.

She watched him go, folding her hands behind her back. Glacial eyes cold in their follow, jaw tilted back.

"He reminds me of Lorroakan." She glanced at Gale. Her eyes returning to soft interest.

"Spot on." He tapped his nose.

She crinkled that genuine crooked smile at him, setting his heart fluttering.

"Your class?" She offered, glancing at the great clock on the wall.

"Ah! Yes!" He started, leading her by the lower back in a brisk walk.

"It was lovely meeting you, Laurna. Thank you for being a kind presence for my husband."

Laurna blushed, doing a little dance on her feet.

"It was heavenly, meeting you. You're... just as he described." Her voice soft in reverence.

Aurum waved as they departed, picking up pace with his fast clip. Long legs giving little effort.

He entered first, the usual rabble of noise picking up.

"Alright, I know you all have been very eager." He started, capturing their attention.

"Our guest speaker is here, now-" He held a stern hand in pause to the several hands that had shot in the air. "She has a very special demonstration for you all. I will remind you of your manners and the decorum befitting students of your caliber. Understood?"

A few heads nodded, eyes darting to the doorway in anticipation.

He sighed in rueful exhaustion, giving his students a loving glare. Eyes catching hers just beyond the doorway, beckoning her in a nod.

She stepped in, moving with all of the grace of a lily floating on a pond. Coming up to softly caress his hand in hers.

"Relax." She hushed, seeing the tension under his shoulders. "I agreed to do this. It's okay."

He released a tense breath through his nose, nodding. Wanting to kiss her, but settling for a squeeze of her hand.

She surveyed the gathered students with the same bright interest they studied her in.

"It's so nice to put faces to names, he speaks about you often." She began, stepping down from the podium.

Gale's breath held as she moved down to stand amongst them. Some rising from their seats, staring up at her with unabashed awe.

"Have you told them what I have planned?" Her eyes cast up to his.

"Oh, they insisted it stay a surprise."

She smiled, turning back to her flock.

"Well, this will seem lewd then." She laughed, bright wind chimes. "So bear with me."

She reached behind her, unclasping the band around her chest. Pulling it through the front of her robe. Taking a deep, satisfied breath. The false sun had been significantly cooled but still left a noticeable glow in her chest.

Several gasps rang out, those who weren't already standing rising to feet. Bodies moving forward, hands unconsciously raised to chests.

"This," She began, beckoning them to draw closer. "Is a fragment of an epic spell. How many spellcasters would you guess that takes?"

His favorite student piped up, a bright young man who reminded of a younger him. On tiptoes trying to see over shoulders.

"Hundreds!"

Her eyes caught his, smiling radiantly. She drew forward, the crowd parting for her. Taking his hand and encouraging him to the front.

"Very good. This spell took 194 spellcasters, all speaking at once."

"Now, I'd like to activate it for you."

Gale stepped forward, concern tight in his gut.

She held her palm up to him, tilting her head down in a bid of trust.

"I recovered this morning in preparation, I'll be okay." Her voice soft in assurance.

He relented, jaw still clenched. Nodding for her to continue.

"This is very dangerous magic, condensed in this way. A spell this large was never meant to be seated in a body, especially long-term." She explained, his students' eyes picking up their own concern.

"Miss?" The bright voice picked up in front of her.

"Yes?" She smiled at him. "What's your question?"

"Can I...?" He held his palm out in question.

Her smile widened, cupping her hand over the back of his.

"Of course. Tactile information is very important to me, too."

His palm settled onto her chest, letting out a little gasp.

"It's really warm!"

"It's a shard of sun." She offered, seeing the other students starting to form a line.

"Ohhh... that must hurt..." He hushed.

"It does. But not terribly."

"I'm sorry."

"You've nothing to be sorry for." She rubbed the back of his hand.

She allowed each student to take a turn, Gale's chest full to bursting with pride watching her. She was a natural with them, spellbinding effortlessly.

"Are we all prepared?" Her eyes moved over them, then up to him.

"Can you get the lights, Professor?" She winked at him.

He blushed, despite himself, and dimmed the room. Curtains magically drawn, lights snuffed out. Her bright chest the only reflection in eyes.

"Now, this spell had a very special component in its casting. You will hear more than just my voice, and it will get a little overwhelming, but do not be alarmed."

She paused, seeking understanding in the nods of heads.

"Okay, here we go."

She started in a hum, closing her eyes slowly.

Gale's eyes caught a figure who had slipped in the back, along side heads peeking in from the hall. A spike of shock when he recognized the shape in the dark.

The shard thrummed out of its stasis, pulsing out through her ribs. Her humming picking up into bright song, soaring up through the air. Light spread out through her shoulders, lifting wisps of her hair. Her voice picked up into a high sustained call, smothered light pushing out into the sunburst. A star of light hovering over her body again.

The voices came in, harmonizing into her sustained note. Following her back down through holy song. Dipping and weaving along her notes. The room filled with angelic reprieve. Climbing higher and higher.

When the church bells rang, she started to wind down. Pressing a palm to the burning light. Letting her voice drift down into a soft wail. A question, a request.

Her accompanying choir hushed with her, relenting to her call. Falling lower and lower, the sunburst retreating back under bone in response.

She closed her eyes again, ducking her head down. Moving through one more soft phrase before falling silent. Taking a steadying breath out through pursed lips as the room slowly went quiet.

He let her another moment of dark, knowing it took much more out of her than she let on. Wanting to go to her, to gather her in his arms. Decorum be damned. Then, finally, rose the lights again slowly.

"When an epic spell of this magnitude is cast," She began again, gently wiping her eyes with the edge of her thumb. "It calls on a terribly great power. It is done with intentions to gain, to control. To become something no sane person seeks."

Her eyes narrowed to deadly serious slits.

"It is a terrible thing to wield that power. It will pull the layers of your mind away. If there was any goodness in you to begin with, it will unravel it. It will unravel you to a singular goal. No matter the cost."

She palmed over her chest, speaking in a hush.

"It will feel worth it. The collateral."

The collective breath in the room was still held. Many heads now gathered, spilling in from the hallway.

"Keep mind of yourself, of your ambition. There are many great minds in this room, and that is a terrible thing to squander to the madness of that pursuit. Power like this is an insatiable, hungry thing. I promise you, it can never be fed enough. And the effort to keep it fed will destroy everything you could ever love."

"And if you still decide it's worth it?" Her voice dropped to a low warning.

"The collateral will find you."

She took one final breath out, then rose her eyes. An apologetic smile creased her face.

"Light is a heavy thing to bear. Forgive my dour presentation."

The air refilled the room, small nervous laughs picking up.

"No, the weight is warranted." The Blackstaff chimed in, drawing forward from her place in the back. "A fine lesson you've given today."

"Dismissed." She commanded easily.

The students filed out around them, tittering and waving goodbye to Aurum.

Only when the room emptied did she pick up again.

"I knew your father. I'm very sorry, Aurum."

"He was... he could have been a great man." Aurum hushed, pulling her wrapping around her chest. Gale took up behind her to attend to the hooks.

"You were a well-kept secret, I'm sorry there wasn't help for you in time. Things could have been quite different if we had gotten to you."

"I think about that often. But I'm not sure if I'd be here, as I am, with him..." Her eyes lifted to Gale's, brimming with love. "If it had gone any other way."

His heart ached, cupping her cheek softly. She leaned into his hand for a moment.

"But thank you, regardless."

Aurum smiled gently as the Blackstaff's hand rose to her chest. Pressing a soft palm.

She shuddered, her eyes squeezing for a moment before pulling away. Heavy with knowledge, giving her a sad smile.

"I must depart, but if you need to take another recovery, feel free to do so in my office. You can reach the Astral Plane there easily."

"Be well, Rosa'sune."

"Thank you. Bwaelan dro, uluvathae."

"Uluvathae, xiloscient."

He caught Fenrun's hungry eyes in the doorway, firmly fixated on her back. Giving Gale a spiteful glare, about to enter the room when the Blackstaff drew forward. Her body caging him out into the hall.

She cast Private Sanctum on the room as she left it, nodding at Gale with a knowing smile.

His ears flushed pink, but gave her a grateful smile regardless.

Aurum approached his desk, hopping up onto it. Tossing her leg over her knee.

"That wasn't too much, right? I didn't want to scare your students." Her voice falling vulnerable.

"That was... the best lesson my class has had in this room. I promise you that."

He came up to her folded legs, hand rising up her knee.

"Well, good then. Your colleagues seem lovely... for the most part."

A heat that had been simmering in his pelvis since that man's envious eyes had settled on her reared into a boil. His hand pushed up to her thigh.

"The way you denounced him. So casually..."

"What was there to appraise?" She smiled, her legs parting. Pulling him between with a loop of finger on the tie of his robes.

"A thoroughly unimpressive man. I've seen many of his ilk, and they have very little to offer."

At the word very, she cupped over his teaching robes. His half hard cock greeting her with a throb.

His hand slammed down on the wood next to her, breathing hard into her exhales.

"Keep talking." He urged. Pulling her robe down over her back. Unhooking the band once again.

"Oh, I'd love to." She purred, lifting her legs to curl around his hips.

"You know, I bet he's thinking about us in this room right now. About your hands on me."

He pulled her robe up over her hips desperately, groaning out when he saw she hadn't worn underclothes.

"Wanting to touch me like this, to see me strewn across your desk. Just outside that spell. Furious with envy."

She draped back, her breasts bouncing with the movement.

Precum pooled dangerously soon in his trousers, biting back in choppy breaths. Not even out of his clothes yet.

"Do you think he's imagining what I taste like? How wet my cunt is?"

She led him by the wrist to the heat between her legs.

He drew his fingers through her slick, leaning forward in a slump of shoulders at its power. Slowly pushing two fingers inside her.

She shuddered, arching back on his desk. Ribs rising into a curl as he pumped into her. Her voice coming out in needy moans.

"He could never be this good. No one could fuck me as good as you."

His eyes squeezed shut, focusing through the overwhelming drive in his pelvis. Nearly cumming in his pants. Realizing with haste that he couldn't bear much longer. Pulling quickly out of his trousers.

He slipped his fingers out and filled her with his cock in a fast thrust. Rocking her back on the desk.

She moaned out, legs curling.

"Please, harder. I want it to hurt. I want him to see me limp out of this room."

He nearly crumpled, his voice coming out in a desperate sound of affirmation. Flipping her onto her belly. Her full ass curling up high into his hands.

He slammed into her, bracing a flat hand on her lower back. Holding her down. The desk rattling hard under her. His body delirious with feral pleasure. The drive of his hips uncontrolled.

She gripped onto the lip of the desk above her, hips still pushing ever harder back into him. A sweet chorus of whimpers leaving her with every drive forward. Cunt starting to clench around him, a tight velvet fist constricting in a blinding suck of his cock.

"Please, please, it's so good." She moaned. "Fill me full of your cum, Professor."

He braced desperately down on her back. Needing her to cum immediately, he pulled her long hair up in a tight fist. Slapping her ass in a crack of his palm. Snapping down again and again until she came, her skin blooming red.

She arched back into him, rising on forearms. Shuddering out a cry of his name, cumming in hard tremors. Pleading cries of pleasure rushing through her throat. Cunt fluttering in rapid fire demands on his cock. Her cum pushing out in waves onto her backside with every thrust. Coating his cock as it drove into her.

She went limp under him as he lost himself. Driving into her in vicious pulses, gripping her hips in white knuckles.

"You're mine. You can only cum on my cock." He growled. Her hips squirming from the overstimulation, nodding under him.

"Yes!" She gasped out.

He fell forward onto forearms, driving as deep as he could go. Possesive wrath taking over his body, his mind.

"Mine." He growled, pushing her shoulders down into the desk. Fully holding her down, his weight and vicious drives of hips commanding her body in place.

"All for you." She gasped, going limp to his force. "To do with as you please."

"That's right." He growled, biting into her shoulders. Marking her so there was no mistake. The print of his teeth bruising into her fruit.

"You are not going to clean up when I finish. You are going to leave this building my cum running down your thighs."

"Yes! Please finish inside me!" She begged.

He gave two more long, indulgent thrusts, then lost himself. Hips driving in bursts as his cum filled her. The wrenching ecstacy driving out of him in waves. The total abandonment of control, his body gone. Her cunt clenching pulling in vicious sucking pulses.

He collapsed against her back, after shocks of shudders pushing through him. Cock throbbing inside her emptied.

"Please tell me you can come home soon." She gasped, boneless against his desk.

He laughed, kissing the bruises forming on her shoulders. "Soon. I have to run through some papers, but I'll be home to you as quickly as my magic can take me."

She let out a little dissatisfied whine, twisting under him to pout up at him.

"Don't you give me that look." He huffed. His resolve suddenly hanging on by a thread. Weak to her wide eyes and plush pursed lips.

"But I missed you all day." She sighed.

His heart spilled out of his chest. Falling over her in a soft puddle.

"No. No!" He held up his finger in a point. "Bad!"

She curled a mischievous smile inside of her pout. Eyes twinkling with salacious glee.

"You're too good at pulling my strings, you menace." He laughed and kissed her tenderly, cupping her face.

"Now go on, before I lose my nerve."

"Hmm, okay!" She chirped, hopping off of his desk. Pulling her robe back over her shoulders.

"Oh, wait!" She turned as if remembering something.

Reaching between her legs under the drape of her robe, she gathered a trail of his cum from above her knee. Popping it into her mouth jovially.

"See you at home!" She lilted, giving a little wave as she turned into the hallway.

He shuddered, leaning on his desk for support. By the Weave, she will be the death of him.

#see i can write them happy. also i Know gale would get off on his peers ogling his hot spouse #and. naturally.... i must feed the domgale enjoyers #gale x tav #gale smut #bg3 smut #lyrics from: lethal woman - dove cameron #screenshot by @foxtatodreams

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artiststarme · 1 year ago

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Things never really went to plan for one poor Eddie Munson. His fate was sealed from his very first breath, his life would be a tragedy. And so, the universe set out to make him suffer.

It was like all the cards in his life were stacked against Eddie. He was born to a Bonnie and Clyde type of couple with Bonnie running away from the commitment of a family as soon as she could. Dick Munson was all too betrayed by the abandonment of his partner in come and set to destroy everything he had left. He cut ties with his brother, turned to a bottle, and drowned the sounds of his son’s screams out with meth and benzos. It was only a matter of time before he was arrested from a robbery gone bad with enough drugs to keep him behind bars for life.

Poor Eddie was sent to live with the uncle he hardly remembered. He was thrown into a loving trailer in a town full of hate. The kids at school ostracized him the moment they laid eyes on him, his bruised eyes and shaven head spoke all too lowly of his character. If he were lucky, he’d only get a few jaunts and swirlies but if he weren’t, he’d arrive home with another black eye or limp to hide from Wayne.

High school wasn’t much better. Just like middle school, the kids and teachers alike hated him. He blew off school and started selling drugs underneath people’s noses to help Wayne with the bills that were drowning them. He did make some friends, other loners that craved friendship and togetherness they’d never received anywhere else.

It turned out that he was gay. He knew as soon as he saw Steve Harrington’s shirt come off in the locker room and knew he was fucked. He was already the outsider no one liked, it made sense that something else would come up to make him even more different than everyone else in the suffocating small town. The worst part wasn’t the fact that people might find out. It was the part where no one he would ever have a crush on would ever like him back, least of all Steve Harrington whom had girls falling at his feet and guys wishing to be him.

As if it couldn’t get any worse, his skipping school held him back and made him even more of a loser than before. Eddie truly felt like the dumb-as-shit trailer trashed that everyone always told him he was. So he stopped trying completely. He fell into a persona adopted from his favorite artists, focused on his music and DnD, and tried to finally enjoy his life.

Then he saw hell on earth in the form of Chrissy Cunningham’s twisted body hovering in midair and fracturing with horrific snaps. He ran like the coward the universe had trained him to be and made himself the prime suspect in doing so. Eddie knew that there was no possible way to go back to how things were before. As fucked up as his life had been, he’d still miss his early morning coffees with Wayne and campaigns with the guys. As soon as the cops found him, he would be as dead as Chrissy.

So, he followed the kids out of fear. He felt like he was living in some sort of fucked up lucid dream. His long-reigning crush was there shirtless in his battle vest, Nancy Wheeler was there with fucking guns (plural), Robin the band geek was handling explosives, and the redhead that lived across the street from him was hanging on the edge of life fully dependent on a Walkman blasting shitty pop music. What the fuck, how was any of this real? He didn’t fully believe it until he felt the pain accompanying the bat bites and heard Dustin’s cries begging him to stay awake. It was only then that he realized the universe had royally fucked him over once again.

He knew with his luck, or lack of it, that he wouldn’t be waking up from this nightmare. His eyes slid shut for the last time and all Eddie could think was at least things would be better now than they ever were before.

When his eyes finally did open to a hospital room filled to the brim with his uncle and new friends, a tear dropped from his eye and his chest lightened. From then on, he knew everything would be so much better.

It seemed the universe had decided to call a truce and abandon the tragedy that had plagued young Eddie Munson. From then on, he wouldn’t have fate darkening his days. With the Party at his side, Steve Harrington’s hand in his, and his uncle’s Garfield mug on the hospital side table, Eddie Munson’s life began anew.

#I really don’t know what this is #might be deleting this later but we shall see #I hope you guys enjoy it regardless!#stranger things #steddie #ish #steve harrington #eddie munson #fanfic #uncle wayne

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legilimens-library · 2 years ago

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May Showers

severus snape x fem!reader drabble

800+ words

Warnings/Tags: fluff, rainy days, cute couple shit, book nerds, thunderstorms, cuddling, married life, fem!reader

It was during a morning in early May where a flash of lightning strikes through the air, illuminating the quaint little space of the living room at Spinner’s End. The power had gone out not too long after you and Severus woke up for the day, announcing the arrival of an unforeseen thunderstorm. But, in all fairness, the both of you take such a delight in this sort of weather, seeing it as an opportunity to spend time together lazing about the house where you both would pick out a book and read to each other in front of the fireplace.

And that is where you find yourself currently, sitting atop a mountain of blankets and pillows as a sort of makeshift nest that took up a great portion of the floor. Even during the summer months, the rooms within Severus’s house remained frigid and drafty. But it was all the more reason to have a small fire going; the soft light of the embers’ glow coupled with the numerous other candles you placed throughout the territory as well as the heavy drizzle of rain composing a ballad from the ajar window, creating a cozy atmosphere.

Severus thought it silly when you first introduced the idea of “wasting time on something so trivial”, according to him anyways. But after coaxing him with promises of back rubs and your homemade cookies, he was immediately subdued by the prospect of sharing such a fond and comforting moment with you. After all, he could never have the nerve to deny any of your requests, knowing it always filled his heart with warmth and pride at seeing you smile whenever he indulged you.

Speaking of the devil, you heard the gentle thuds of the natural jaunt that could only belong to your dearest husband. You glimpsed up from the open tome that sat on your lap at the sight of Severus as he came to a halt in the entryway, making his presence known to you in a pair of grey sweatpants acquainted with the old Depeche Mode band tee you gifted him a couple birthdays ago. In his hands, they carried a small tray filled with a pile of the molasses crinkles you baked the other day and two piping hot mugs that could only contain the rich hot chocolate that Severus most definitely didn’t develop a hankering for until you showed up in his life.

“Looks like you started without me, my darling girl. Are you sure you even want my company?” His voice echoed through your head, feigning the tone of heartbreak when he sees you sprawled out on your mass of blankets, surely interrupting you with the old, tattered copy of The Hobbit that you’ve carried with you everywhere since you were a child.

“Well, I was only refreshing myself from where we last left off. I promise I haven’t jumped ahead of you, Angel.” You huffed in amusement at his words, but you didn’t have the heart to upset him. Putting the book aside, you stole his gaze again and reached up to him with your arms outstretched. Motioning grabby hands at the grumpy man who stood before you, you mimicked a pout to entice him further.

“Now come over here and cuddle with your wife, please.”

Blushing at the aforementioned nickname you bequeathed him with, Severus only chuckled and nodded at your sentiments, making his way around the room to place the tray on the nearby side table and settle behind you. Your breath caught in your throat when he wrapped his arms around your torso to pull you closer to his chest, resting his chin on your shoulder as he placed his lips upon your cheek to give it a delicate kiss.

Resting your head in the crook of his neck, you grab one of his hands and raised it to your lips to leave a small peck on the back of it. Severus rejoices in the sensation he feels when you lean back into him, a sigh of contentment escaping from his mouth.

While Severus scooted around to make himself more comfortable, you reached over to take a hold of your book and opened back to the page you had bookmarked.

“Shall we move on? Bilbo and the gang are just about to come across the trolls.” You inquire as your hand goes to turn over the next few pages.

“Wait,” he whispers under his breath. Looking over your shoulder, you look into his eyes to see a twinkle in those deep orbs as he scans over the rest of the words inscribed within the text.

Kissing your shoulder, Severus nods for you to continue and squeezes you closer to him as your gentle, melodic voice begins to regale him of the familiar tale once again, the storm outside brewing over in the distance as you both escape to the realm of Middle Earth.

#alan rickman #harry potter #severus snape #severus x y/n #severus snape x reader #severus x you #severus x reader #pro snape #fluff #legilimens library

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whencyclopedia · 2 days ago

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Red Horse's Account of the Battle of the Little Bighorn

Red Horse (Tasunka Luta, l. c. 1822-1907) was a chief of the Miniconjou Lakota Sioux best known for his firsthand account of the Battle of the Little Bighorn (25-26 June 1876) and his 42 ledger book drawings depicting the engagement. The account was given in 1881, the same year that Red Horse drew the images, which were rediscovered in 2016.

Red Horse Pictographic Account of Little Bighorn

Red Horse (CC BY-ND)

Little is known of Red Horse outside of his participation in the Battle of the Little Bighorn. He was a subchief, married twice, and had three children. In his accounts of the battle (there is another beside the one given below), his focus is on the event itself, not his participation in it, although he makes clear that he was in the thick of the fight. In 1881, Dr. Charles E. McChesney of the Smithsonian Bureau of Ethnology commissioned a study of Native American sign language and art ("picture-writing") which inspired the drawings of Red Horse and his account of the battle, which he gave using sign language which was then translated to English.

The best-known version of the account was published by Garrick Mallery in Picture Writing of the American Indians (1893) along with copies of some of the drawings, but these were not seen by many outside of the Bureau of American Ethnology, and the original artwork was sent to the Smithsonian Institution's National Anthropological Archives where they were carefully stored in drawers and forgotten, until Professor Scott D. Sagan of Stanford University, California, and his research assistant Sarah Sadlier (a Miniconjou Sioux) brought them to light in 2016 when they were featured in the exhibit, Red Horse: Drawings of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, at the Cantor Arts Center, California.

Today, the ledger drawings and account are more widely known and, like the Cheyenne and Arapaho description of the Battle of the Little Bighorn and Washita Massacre, Yellow Hair: George Armstrong Custer, present the Native American view of the battle and the wider conflict known as the Indian Wars of the mid- to late 19th century.

Background & Red Horse's Account

The Battle of the Little Bighorn is the best-known engagement of the Great Sioux War (1876-1877) and among the most famous in American history. Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer (l. 1839-1876), leading the 7th Cavalry, met the combined forces of Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho, gathered by the Sioux chief Sitting Bull (l. c. 1837-1890), near the Little Bighorn River in modern-day Montana. Custer and five divisions of the 7th cavalry were wiped out, and the US government retaliated by pursuing the bands of the Plains Indians, eventually pushing them onto reservations.

The battle was presented in the US press of the time as "the massacre of our troops", as though the 7th cavalry had been out for a jaunt one day when they were suddenly attacked and killed by "savages" for no reason. Actually, the Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and other nations had been trying to negotiate peaceful relations with the Euro-Americans since the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851. This treaty was never honored by the United States, and neither were the others, including the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867 and the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. Westward expansion in the name of Manifest Destiny would not be paused just because the Plains Indians had been living on the land long before the first Europeans reached North America.

Red Horse Depiction of Sioux Casualties at the Little Bighorn

Red Horse & G. Mallery (Public Domain)

Sitting Bull called for the great gathering at the Little Bighorn (known to the Natives as the Greasy Grass, and so their name for the conflict is the Battle of the Greasy Grass) to hold council with the other chiefs and try to find a way to defend their lands from the ongoing invasion. Custer had been sent to find their camp, kill the warriors, and capture the women and children to be held as hostages.

Although he had been warned by his Native American scouts that Sitting Bull's camp was larger – and had more warriors – than anyone had expected, Custer ignored them. He divided his troops to surround the camp – as he had successfully done at the Washita Massacre – and launched the attack, which would result in his death and those of five divisions of his cavalry.

Red Horse's account does not touch on any of these details but focuses on the battle itself. The details he includes match those of other Native American reports later given on the chaos of the conflict, including the one by the Sioux warrior Rain-in-the-Face (l. c. 1835-1905) and the one by the Oglala Sioux medicine man Black Elk (l. 1863-1950) given as Black Elk on the Battle of the Little Bighorn from Black Elk Speaks. Although Red Horse mentions Custer in his account, most of the reports make clear that no one knew Custer was on the field that day owing to the cavalry's swift attack and the dust raised by the horses.

Accompanying Red Horse's account were the 42 ledger book drawings of the battle depicting casualties on both sides, hand-to-hand combat, and each side leaving the field. Ledger art was drawings or paintings done on cloth or paper used in ledgers and was adopted by the Plains Indians in the 1860s. Previously, Native Americans of the region used hides (primarily of buffalo) for their art, but, as the US government systematically exterminated the buffalo herds to deprive the Plains Indians of their major food source, the animals became scarce, and so cloth or paper were used as canvas.

Lakota Chief Red Horse

D.F. Barry (Public Domain)

Ledger art of the Plains Indians depicts many aspects of everyday life including courtship rituals and hunting parties but primarily focuses on battles. The artist was always careful to depict the events in detail and so, as in the case of Red Horse's work, one can tell who the people are, what nation or band the warriors belonged to, and even, roughly, the locale and terrain. Taken together, Red Horse's account and artwork present one of the most interesting depictions of the Battle of the Little Bighorn extant.

#History #Sioux #GreatSiouxWar

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ineffablyendless · 1 year ago

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SMOCTOBER DAY 5: Mile High Club/I'd like that very much

Let's pretend I'm not awfully late to the party, shall we?

Monsterfucker bingo ticked: Claws, extra limbs, a lil bit of fangs

Rating: E

Ship:Hob Gadling/Morpheus|Dream of the Endless (Dreamling)

October 5th (Smoctober)

mile high club/golden/I'd like that very much

Monsterfucker Bingo

Fangs? Extra limb?

“You couldn't,” Hob pants, as he feels fingers and claws scrambling for the button of his jeans, pressed as his front is against the meagre strip of wall between the loo and the air-locked door. “Couldn't wait two more hours for us to get home?”

“Could you?” Morpheus purrs knowingly, whispered against his ear. There are no mirrors-nothing to indicate or show how hulked out Morpheus had become within the cramped confines of the airplane restroom (First class, but even that can only afford them so much)-but he feels fur in place of skin, and the chitter of too many teeth bitten into the stretched collar of his sweatshirt, digging for skin.

Another limb reaches past the band of his jeans, and Morpheus purrs once more to find no other hindrance to Hob's cock-rock hard, despite himself, Morpheus hadn't been wrong about either of their impatience, knows that his endearingly human partner has a libido to match his own, insatiable.

Hob moans softly as a single bone sharp tipped claw teases the slit of his leaking cock, before he brings up his arm to muffle his own noises, lest invite trouble for the poor, underpaid stewardesses. His palm, this palm, is rough with scars and callouses, almost as unforgiving as the inside of his own jeans, providing a satisying, delicious friction as the rest of the limbs Hob's awareness, two-no, three, entertain themselves by caressing the rest of Hob's lust-sensitive body; two hands pinching and flicking his peaked nipples, rucking up the hems of Hob's poor travel sweatshirt and another shoved down the seat of his jeans to tease the globes of his ass, dipping a teasing finger for the twitching hole in between: sore and open and wet from their earlier jaunt in the hotel room this morning, where Hob had laid Morpheus down and rode him screaming, full speed ahead, straight into the sunset.

The hand fisted around his dribbling cock pumps once, twice, thrice and pauses, and Hob is mortified to find himself keening desperately for the absence of friction, brought near to tears for the desperation. He is so, so close.

“Please,” he mutters, hips moving in circles for it's return, humping into slick channel of Morpheus' fist and the finger toying the rim of his gaping ass. He is near insensate with it. “Please please please please pleasepleaseplease,”

You do not seem to need anymore of my help to reach your peak, little one,“ Morpheus chuckles, and Hob only moans, feeling like an overeager puppy from his ministrations. ”Go on, chase it yourself.“

He feels feverish from lust, desperation, utter humiliation as he humps the unmoving fist, and the loving warm cup of his embrace on his ass. All the while he is pressed into the awkward slick plastic wall by what amounts to an upright, fanged weighted blanket, with a mouth void of breath and a slick, long tongue that dips, occasionally, to collect the sweat pooled in his collarbones like the rawest form of ambrosia.

Orgasm comes like the boom of thunder on a clear summer's day-startling-and relief like the invigorating storm. Morpheus purrs one last time, in approval, and Hob is released.

When he turns, the monster-in so many ways-has returned to it's fascimile of human skin, with his indigo starlight eyes and corpse-cold Ivory skin, licking the last of Hob's spends from between the webs of his hand, now returned to two.

”Better?“ Hob asks, teasingly, having gotten his breath back. The look Morpheus sends him is exasperated, humorous, as if he is the one who is meant to ask Hob that. He says instead, sighing: ”I cannot wait to come home.“

”I'll fuck you properly there.” Hob promises, reaching to wrap his arms around Morpheus' waist with a gentle peck to the tip of his nose, as if he had not just been brough to violent orgasm within the airplane bathroom. “Roses and candles, baby. We'll get to celebrate our anniversary properly.”

Morpheus sighs, melting happily into his embrace as he unlocks the restroom door. “I would like that very much.”

#dreamling #smoctober #mile high club #extra limbs #fangs #we all love eldritch dream here #Monsterfucker Hob Gadling #Im living vicariously through him #choice of fic #monsterfucker bingo

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mannequin-mark · 3 months ago

Note

You got a favourite musician or band?

Well, I'm glad ya' asked! M' favorite changes from time t' time, but I'd say right now it's Buckwheat Zydeco! His music's got such a fun jaunt t' it, y' can't help but bounce along!

youtube

#regretevator #mannequin mark #asks #ic

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jules-has-notes · 3 months ago

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2018 VoicePlay fall activities — maintenance, music, and merriment

Heading into the end of the year, VoicePlay gradually ramped up their schedule until they were running at a decent clip for the holiday season.

Say cheese!

It had been nearly two years since they'd taken their previous set of promo photos, and enough had changed — Earl's lush beard, Geoff's longer hair — that the boys decided it was time for some new ones.

On the following Saturday, J.None and his Paradigm pals teamed up with the Push Love Productions folks (including a future familiar face) for a "Come Out with Pride" event at Lake Eola Park. They performed both before and after the parade.

The next week the SoJam A Cappella Festival released a promo video for their upcoming event featuring VoicePlay.

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Over the weekend, J.None performed at a "night of spoken word and comedy" for the Pipol Angels Foundation, which provides funding for arts and education both locally and overseas. (Previous projects had provided new backpacks and school uniforms to students in the Orlando area, and helped a school in Trinidad build an additional classroom for its growing student population.)

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J.None rehearsing "No Role Modelz" by J. Cole with the band a few days before the fundraiser

Ready for their close-ups

A few days after that, VoicePlay convened at a local studio to film their laid back video for "Thinkin Bout You".

When you show up for book club, but a slow jam breaks out.

As the end of the month approached, Layne and Tony gathered a cadre of lovely ladies for the first episode of their new Princess Academy series.

Sing for me!

The first weekend of November took VoicePlay to North Carolina for the SoJam A Cappella Festival. The attendees consisted of high school and collegiate groups, including two young groups from Winter Park, and three groups from the University of Central Florida (Layne and Eli's alma mater) who swept the top spots in the competition portion.

The guys spent Saturday afternoon leading a workshop on the business of singing for a living, and a masterclass for some of the competitors. Then they headlined the evening concert, with local openers Transit Vocal Band.

In addition to performing and doing educational outreach, VoicePlay also got to see some old friends. Alfredo Austin from The Exchange was doing coaching sessions. Max Herskovitz, who had subbed for Layne several times, was leading workshops for the kids. Singer and sound engineer Tony Huerta was running the show in his role as CASA president.

When they got back home, the boys headed to the studio for their next music video, a dramatic medley of Queen songs.

Then they spent a couple weeks finishing off projects in progress, working on upcoming ones, and polishing their setlist for their Warm Up holiday tour.

Holiday ro-o-o-o-oad

Since the Disney World residency for Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party had passed to their pals in The Edge Effect, VoicePlay was free to embark on a slightly more relaxed holiday tour for the final month of the year. They traded a location close to home and four sets per night for just nine longer shows at a variety of venues across the country.

The first leg of their travels was a jaunt out west to Alto, New Mexico (via El Paso, Texas). As the name of the town suggests, it's quite high in the mountains, which can present a challenge when your job involves moving lots of air in and out of your lungs. Earl noted on Twitter that "7200ft above sea level was a real thing!"

When they got home, they continued the holiday spirit by filming their video for "This Christmas". It was the last remaining track on the "Warm Up" EP to get the visual treatment.

The next weekend the tour continued with a loop through the Midwest. The boys started in Findlay, Ohio, scooted up to Traverse City, Michigan, then hopped over to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Back at home, they got into a bit of a pickle for a festive Mission Impossible tie-in video. (Luckily, they didn't get blown up this time.)

The following week's tour dates were slightly more spread out. Saturday took the guys to Kilmarnock, Virginia. The next day, they scooted down to Newnan, Georgia, where they got to see their artist pal Leon King, who had drawn their adorable avatars for the pre-show spiel.

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A post shared by Leon King 🦁 (@leekiings)

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meet and greet in Newnan, GA — photos by Dawn Ortiz

Then they took a leisurely drive up to Waleska, Georgia before heading home. (Eli made some similarly hatted friends on the flight.)

Once they were back in Florida, they headed over to Kissimmee for a show at the Gaylord Palms resort. Because they were so close to home, some of their families came along.

They capped off their travels with a quick trip to a suburb of Chicago.

And to all a good night

Once they were finished spreading holiday cheer to others, the guys took some time at home with their own loved ones.

Then Earl got a head start on his New Year's resolutions by hitting the gym for a leg day workout.

With a couple weeks to rest, the guys prepared to hit the ground running in the new year. But that's a tale for another post.

#VoicePlay #traveling musicians #behind the scenes #long post #link-o-rama

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dustedmagazine · 4 months ago

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Dust, Volume 10, Number 7

Obsessed with Congo Funk in this month's dust

Without getting too deep into American electoral politics, let’s just say that we’ve been distracted lately. We’ve been mired in the slough of despair, frantic in our bargaining with god and lately, a feeling fresh breeze of optimism—it’s been so long, we hardly recognized it. But despite all that, the records keep coming, and we do our best to deal with them, not always with a fulsome 300-400 word review, but sometimes briefly, as here, in another edition of Dust. This month, we cover the run of it, from fictional characters that somehow participate in bands, to guitarists on synth holiday to vintage Swedish death metal reissued and more. Participants this time out include Jennifer Kelly, Byron Hayes, Bill Meyer, Jonathan Shaw, Christian Carey, Andrew Forell, Roz Milner and Ian Mathers.

Apifera — Keep the Outside Open (Stones Throw)

Four Israeli jazzmen take a jaunt through psychedelic rock and prog, incorporating trippy vocals and squalling synth runs into a space-age fusion. The musicians— Nitai Hershkovits on keyboards, the beatmaker (and evident link to Stones Throw) Yuvi Havkin, drummer Amir Bresler and guitarist Yonatan Albalak—have spent their careers crossing jazz with funk, hip hop and rock. Here they push it even further with vocal tracks that hardly sound like jazz at all. Trippy “Iris Is Neil,” for instance, delivers the title phrase in a keening vocal chant, as explosions of percussion go off like firecrackers on a string. Squiggles of synth, arcs of electric guitar reach for the epic, but in a manner more like Yes or ELP than Return to Forever. “Lucky Zoe” delves further into psychedelic pop, its wavery keyboards framing fanciful whimsies a la “Lucy in the Sky.” “Theodor Marmalade” thumps a funky beat behind flourishes of keys and vocal narratives about desert fauna. “Don’t you want to see the floating lights?” the cut inquires, and yes, I can just about make out strange, glowing objects in the sky. The instrumental pieces have a more conventionally jazzy feel; “I Love ECM” makes it case with light-fingered syncopations on rims and cymbals, liquid loops of bass and ice-chilled runs of electric keyboard. “Sera Sam,” at the end, brings on the trumpeter Avishai Cohen for a lyrical turn.

Jennifer Kelly

Majesty Crush — Butterflies Don’t Go Away

(Numero Group)

Butterflies Don't Go Away by Majesty Crush

A double LP or digital download from Detroit’s own Majesty Crush, the motor city’s answer to the sounds coming out on 4AD. With dreamy vocals by David Stroughter about being an obsessive fan or about bad relationships and a rhythm section kicking up a swirl of noise around him, Majesty Crush brings to mind about a dozen English bands without feeling particularly in debt to any specific group. Occasionally the guitar makes a really cool, almost crunchy sound, but mostly the music moves in the fog, blanketing the vocals in layers of distortion. They lack the fey lyricism of the Cocteau Twins or the dreamy harmonies of Lush but guitarist Michel Segal holds his own against Kevin Shields’s sheets of sound. Meanwhile, they invoke David Hinckley on “No. 1 Fan,” wake up with a bottle and a cigar in hand on “Brand” and dip into ambient spaces on three small interludes. The first half is made of their lone album Love 15, while sides three and four contain an early EP and singles, putting pretty much their entire catalog into one handy set. These Detroit guys seem unjustly forgotten, but thankfully Numero’s made their music easy to find.

Roz Milner

Dennis Callaci & Heimito Künst — First Light (Pass Without Trace)

Heimito Künst is one of many characters in Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives, a tangled multi-narrative epic. The enigmatic Italian musician who produced the sounds underpinning First Light has adopted Heimito Künst as his pseudonym, likely in reference to the knotty soundscapes he builds from organs, synths and field recordings. On paper, Dennis Callaci’s lyrics and vocals seem like an odd pairing for Künst’s oblique audio collages. Callaci is half of the long-running lo-fi pop project Refrigerator and has helmed the Shrimper label for over three decades. His signature mid-range nasal utterances, more spoken than sung, populate the extraterrestrial ecosystems of Künst like strange seedlings peeping up from beneath loamy soil. First Light serves as a bridge between the mysterious and the familiar, another worthy entry in Callaci’s discography and a port of entry into an unknown artist’s body of work.

Bryon Hayes

Buck Curran — The Long Distance (Eiderdown/Obsolete)

Buck Curran is a guitar devotee. He’s a fluent player, a custodian of historic instruments, a chronicler of esteemed players and a compiler of albums that pay tribute to others. But sometimes a guy just needs a change of pace; enter The Long Distance. Mostly competed in a single night, it’s Curran’s holiday from the guitar. Instead, he plays analog synthesizer, layering sweeping tones and helicopter-rotor cadences into something rather like a lost Tangerine Dream album. Curran explains in the album notes that each piece is connected to a memory of a person or place, which may explain the melodies’ intimations of yearning and melancholy. But if you’re not Curran, they might evoke other associations; this music could easily be repurposed for film soundtracks.

Bill Meyer

Rhodri Davies — Telyn Wrachïod (Amgen)

Back in the mid-20th century, kids motorized their bikes with clothes pins and playing cards. The customization might not have yielded much additional propulsion, but the sound was cool. It turns out that they were simply following in the footsteps of 16th century Welsh harpists, who attached brays (slips of wood) to their strings to get a loud, buzzing sound. Rhodri Davies has explored the harp’s options in all manner of settings — Fluxus happenings, minimalist compositions, rock bands, free improv ensembles, the list goes on. Recently he’s commissioned speculative recreations of instruments from centuries ago, which he then uses to play the sort of short, wheels-within-wheels pieces that he formerly played with instruments amplified to a Konono No. 1-level of distortion. On Telyn Wrachïod he turns to the bray harp, which sounds rather like a cross between a banjo and a sitar. Each of its 12 tracks is spiky but so engrossing that you might find yourself hitting repeat a few times before you move on to the next one.

Bill Meyer

Desultory — Darkness Falls (The Early Years) (Darkness Shall Rise)

The repackaging and re-release of underground metal’s extensive archive of hyper-obscure demos and records continues apace. Darkness Falls (The Early Years) collects three demos from Swedish death metal outfit Desultory, originally independently issued on cassettes between 1990 and 1992. The record’s principal interest is its documentation of the sonic flexibility that informed the term “death metal” in the early 1990s; there’s just as much lightning thrash in these songs as there is moldering morbidity, especially the four engaging tracks on the band’s first demo, From Beyond (1990). The title track is especially pleasurable, in its sprinting, bludgeoning fashion — and this reviewer notes the added benefit of the title’s reference to an excellent H. P. Lovecraft story (is that you, Cthulhu?). Swedeath completists take heed. For the rest of us, it’s a fun release, and of some historical interest. Its relative necessity is open to debate — but hey, we didn’t really need that reissue version of Pig Destroyer’s Painter of Dead Girls on “black ice with metallic silver glitter” vinyl, either. Maybe Darkness Shall Rise should get some points for only releasing four different product versions of Darkness Falls….

Jonathan Shaw

Devouring the Guilt — Not To Want To Say (Kettle Hole)

Devouring The Guilt is a Chicago-associated (meaning two members live there and one moved away but remains connected) improvising trio. The line-up is pretty classic — Gerrit Hatcher on tenor sax, Eli Namay on bass, Bill Harris on drums. And so are the trio’s roots. Hatcher summons a burly tone, steers mostly clear of extended techniques, and gives occasional nods to free jazz heroes like Archie Shepp, Frank Wright and Frank Lowe. These familiar parameters establish a framework to display their collective originality, which lies in the personal vernacular they’ve fashioned. Namay is an alternately pithy and seething presence, plucking spare, structure-defining figures or bowing a maelstrom of woody sound. Harris pushes back against expectations that the drums should push the music forward by punctuating his clearly articulated attack with lots of negative space. Hatcher situates lyricism in long, understated tones and vigorously masticated phases, but also navigates unpredictably through the tight corners and sudden gaps that the other two set up.

Bill Meyer

Carol Genetti / Peter Maunu — Gleaners (Amalgam)

No matter how you approach it, Gleaners will stretch your mind. Just what are Carol Genetti (voice, electronics) and Peter Maunu (guitar, violin, mandolin) gleaning? Not other people’s music, that’s for sure. Maybe the languages of long-extinct species, confidences exchanged between dusty appliances that come to life after the staff leaves the thrift shop, ideas about what instruments might sound like if you see them in pictures. Even when Maunu resorts to rock-ish fuzztones or Genetti exhales an unspooling coo, their co-creations are resolutely sui generis. Their partnership has been honed through years of regular performance, often with other Chicago-based musicians, which likely explains the brisk confidence that this resolutely abstract music exudes. Genetti is a ceramic artist as well as a musician, and the physical manifestation of this album comes in two forms. She made ten one-of-a-kind clay cases that you can mount on a wall; the regular CDs come in a folio adorned with close-ups of the art edition.

Bill Meyer

Dave Douglas — GIFTS (Greenleaf Music)

GIFTS by Dave Douglas

With sizzling guitar lines and a frontline horn duo of Douglas and James Brandon Lewis, you’d think it would be easy for this to be a mere blowing session. But it’s not. The music is frequently introspective and has a very ECM kind of ambience: it has this wide-angle sonic clarity where each instrument has room to breathe and let their notes slowly linger. The suite of Strayhorn songs in the middle doesn’t feel tired, either. Rafiq Bhatia’s chugging guitar keeps “Take the A Train” moving while Douglas and Lewis move in sync for the theme. When they stretch out, they’re sometimes playing against each other but always seem like they’re on the same page. Meanwhile Bhatia’s playing draws on Bill Frisell, making up for the lack of a low end with well-placed chords and sonic textures. These four make the music their own and it’s one of the year's most rewarding jazz records.

Roz Milner

Samara Lubelski & Marcia Bassett — Indexical/Rhizome (Relative Pitch)

Samara Lubelski and Marcia Bassett are both well-established members of the U.S. scene that engendered the moniker “new weird America” back in the early aughts. Both have CVs that stretch on for miles. Lubelski is best known as a star in the MV&EE solar system, while Bassett churns out murkier sound pools in a variety of projects, such as Double Leopards and Hototogisu. The pair have a long-standing partnership unfurling phosphorescent drone webs through guitar and violin. This is their eighth recording, and it presents two extended string seances that coax electric spirit whisps from unseen worlds. “Indexical” is the lengthier of the pair and features zoned out but controlled guitar howl from Bassett alongside Lubelski’s rapid bowing. The undulations intertwine to become a radiant lattice of sound. Alien timbres infect “Rhizome,” which sways between a noise-drone wall of sound and hushed electronic whispers. Both are live recordings, showing off the raw magic that this pair of string sirens can conjure.

Bryon Hayes

Joe McPhee With Ken Vandermark — Musings Of A Bahamian Son (Corbett Vs. Dempsey)

Joe McPhee’s been toting folders full of poems and brief musings to gigs for years, but in recent years they’ve assumed an increasingly prominent place in his performances. Now, he’s finally put 28 of them on record, punctuated with nine short soprano sax/clarinet interludes that he improvised with Ken Vandermark. Oppression gets defied, history acknowledged, but most of all, love gets its due. McPhee muses about folks from the neighborhood, jazz heroes that inspired him, old friends now gone, and the balm and galvanization imparted by music itself. Abstract but tender, the interludes amplify this sentiment, showing by example how much appreciation for life and fellowship can be invested in a few tones.

Bill Meyer

Kate Nash — 9 Sad Symphonies (Kill Rock Stars)

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On 9 Sad Symphonies, Kate Nash leans into her musical theater background, with skillfully crafted arrangements that incorporate classical orchestrations reminiscent of the film musicals from the 1930s-1950s. As on most of her albums, she tweaks her sound and musical partners, here working with producer Frederik Thaae. There is a sauciness to her lyrics, which even go so far as describing lunch breaks in toilets. All is not a lark. Nash seeks to exorcize personal demons on “Vampyre” and “My Bile '' is a bracing assessment of a broken relationship. 9 Sad Symphonies may have a bucolic surface, but the singer-songwriter ventures down dark pathways where stars of the Silver Screen would have likely feared to go.

Christian Carey

Occulta Veritas — Irreducible Fear of the Sublime (I, Voidhanger)

Occulta Veritas plays an avant-garde variety of black metal, long on complexity and idiosyncratic compositional sensibilities. It’s abrasive and disorienting, and not especially fun to listen to — which yes, that’s the point, but there’s a huge amount of this sort of thing circulating through the metal underground at any given point, and deliberately distancing music from listeners’ parameters for pleasure can be a tough prospect in that oversaturated context. For this reviewer, the record’s engagement with the theoretical concepts of Jacques Lacan (big-deal psychoanalyst, post-structural Daddy and important player in France’s academic politics of the mid-20th century) helps Irreducible Fear of the Sublime stand out. It’s pretty great that one of the songs is called “Metonimia,” since Lacan’s projection of metonymy along a diachronic axis of spatio-temporal relations fits the music’s tortured snarls and chaotic, off-kilter arrangements. The utterances want to go somewhere, but the structures those utterances are trapped in make meaningful progress a near impossibility. It would be even better to have a lyric sheet, to get more than just the tantalizing engagements with Lacan provided in song titles (“The Mirror Stage,” “Bound to Incompleteness” and so on). There’s an overheated quality to the record that’s additionally compelling: This is your brain; this is your brain on Lacan. But it would be useful to know what specific ideas accompany specific sounds and turns in the music’s syntax. Or is it all just sound and fury, signifying nothing?

Jonathan Shaw

J. Pavone String Ensemble

Reverse Bloom by Jessica Pavone

The current edition of Jessia Pavone’s String Ensemble is reduced to essentials. There are just three players including Pavone, who plays viola, Aimée Niemann on violin, and Abby Swidler switching between those two instruments. The language is likewise paired down on Reverse Bloom. The first two pieces (of four) emphasize long tones that hiss and sigh at a deliberate pace, evoking an uneasy state. “Obstructed Current” pushes against the prevailing vibe with jolting, energetic phrases that move joltingly out of synch. The closing piece, “Embers Slumber,” likewise explores contrasting elements, which resolve by settling into a deliberate, belly-breathing rhythm. The album charts a course towards a grounded state that’s not so much a happy ending as a sonic enactment of the honest word that gets you through.

Bill Meyer

Keith Rowe / Gerard Lebik — Dry Mountain (Inexhaustible Editions)

Dry Mountain by Keith Rowe / Gerard Lebik

Despite having his name on the spine, Keith Rowe did not play on this record. However, he did originate the process of sound (re)imagining that it presents, and his cover image of a wiggling digit raises the question — how deep does a fingerprint go? The score of Dry Mountain originated from the imprint Rowe’s gear left on a sheet of paper. Rowe and Gerard Lebik interpreted that score and then handed a recording of their performance to three visual artists, who created their own scores based on what they heard. These scores were then played by the group of electronics, string, and percussion players heard on this album while listeners drew responses to the music, which they then handed to the musicians, who played them on the spot. The further you get from the first piece heard, the further the music gets from Rowe’s sound world; in a reversal of Alvin Lucier’s I Am Sitting In A Room, the music gets segmented and defined.

Bill Meyer

D. Sablu — No True Silence (Yes We Cannibal)

No True Silence by D.SABLU

D. Sablu is a New Orleans punk lifer, late of Casual Burns and Feverish, but forced (or inspired or motivated) by COVID to strike out on his own. No True Silence is Sablu’s first full-length, and it’s a killer, a slaughterhouse frenzy of punk /garage/ hardcore and a little metal, all chopped up with chainsaws and spraying all over the walls. Indeed, you’ll have to stand well back from the player when you first put the record on, because it leads with “Bomber Stomp,” a two-minute assault of lumbering, heavy punk that sways noticeably as it comes down on the ones and twos. Sablu lets off a howl near the end that raises the hairs on my neck, because it’s so sulfurous and tortured. “69 Forever” lights a new wave hook on fire with a blowtorch; it’s catchy as hell but blows you back with sheer volume and aggression. The brief “World Peace” is pure, adrenalized chaos, drums galloping wildly, guitars flaring, bass buzzing and Sablu screaming “World pee-eeea-eace!” like a banshee. Fun stuff. Turn it up.

Jennifer Kelly

Mark Sims — Take Me Faster (Carousel Horse Records, Old 3-C Label Group, Anyway)

Take Me Faster by Mark Sims

Deindustrialization has hollowed out the Midwest’s economy, leaving shuttered factories and empty main streets all across the central American states. Mark Sims, a bricklayer when he’s not performing, sings with the soft, wry melancholy of a man left behind by tectonic shifts, finding solace in well-turned melodies and plain-spoken turns of phrase. It was fashionable half a decade ago to interview Ohioans in diners about their economic circumstances; Take Me Faster provides the same sort of snapshot of dislocation and disappearing opportunity.

For instance, in “Hold On To Me,” the narrator is driving long-distance to a job somewhere, trying to find a song on the radio and thinking about home. “Money comes and goes so quickly/I could work a million hours/and still be broke when I die,” Sims confides, against a radiant lattice of picking. The song is unassuming, and kind of perfect, a distillation of the struggle to stay connected and human in a low-wage high-uncertainty economy.

The songs are simply arranged, a mesh of Sims’ dusky, resonant voice and acoustic guitar, mostly, with a little synth in the background for texture. And yet, this is more than enough, as on the haunting “I’m Always by Your Side,” where Sims’ voice lifts up through the sadness, fluttering soulfully in the upper registers before drifting back to earth. These songs don’t pull any tricks or do any somersaults, but they’re satisfying all the same.

Jennifer Kelly

Jason Stein / Marilyn Crispell / Damon Smith / Adam Shead — Spi-raling Horn (Balance Point Acoustics/Irritable Mystic)

spi-raling horn by Jason Stein, Marilyn Crispell, Damon Smith, Adam Shead

The trio of Shead, Stein, and Smith first convened with the former two’s duo shared a bill with Smith. They recognized in each other a common aesthetic intent, a shared wish to improvise within a particular set of parameters; there’s no predetermined material, but a collective intention not to be confined to jazz. They’ve all listened closely to the great 20th century European free improvisers, and part of what they’ve taken from them is an intent to fashion their own language. There’s no soloing here, although occasionally someone will drop out if that’s what the music requires. And when they invite a fourth musician into the action, they participate as an equal contributor, not a featured guest. Marilyn Crispell’s associations with musicians as disparate as Barry Guy, Anthony Braxton and Joe Lovano reveal her to be an artist similarly concerned with fluent exchange, not ego-boosting display. But she’s also a stern bringer of velocity and complexity on this recording, which is the studio half of a single brief encounter which took place in Chicago in the middle of 2023. Dense assertion, abrasive texture, and bursting co-existence cohere into a seven-part sequence of collaborative invention.

Bill Meyer

SUSS — Birds & Beasts (Northern Spy)

Birds & Beasts by SUSS

Gorgeous hovering tones of pedal steel, guitar (with e bow), keyboards and synths coalesce in these cuts, each a glowing, vibrating meditation on the beauty and fragility of the natural world. SUSS, from New York City, explores many of the same haunted textures as Chuck Johnson and Pan*American, letting sustained notes linger in shimmering layers of slow-moving sound. “Overstory” encases picked acoustic notes in a translucent amber of pedal steel arcs and violin, letting the sound grow as slowly—and as enormously—as old growth forest. “Flight” follows a more pronounced rhythm than other cuts, its steady pulse of strumming beating like wings on a long trip south. The disc is not all sunshine, however. “Prey” lurks in ominous buzzes and hums of feedback, building threat into dark-toned dissonance and animal screeches into wails of guitar. The long closer, “Migration,” pulls taut with anticipation, its beat like a metronome, its melody unfurling in the wheeze of harmonica and the shifting twang of pedal steel. SUSS often gets tagged as cosmic country, but which country? Unearthly, luminous and beautiful.

Jennifer Kelly

Their Divine Nerve — Return of the Lamb (Staalplaat)

The Return of the Lamb by Their Divine Nerve

Dmytro Fedorenko and Jeff Surak have been collaborating for about 20 years now, but this first album as Their Divine Nerve appears to be the first time the self-described “Ukrainian-American noise duo” have collaborated on record at length. But right from the churning, thumping 14+ minute opener “The Infinity Book” here it’s clear that their long association has led to a certain sympatico comfort with each other. Whether on the more overtly aggressive shredding (not guitar riffs, actual shredding) of “Glowing Skulls” or the more pensive, droning likes of “Dignityphobia,” here the pair have arranged a rich, expansive (71 minutes on CD, plus about another half hour in bonus material on digital) feast for anyone looking to add some variety to their noise diet. By the time the CD thunders and shudders to a half with “Civilization Was Never Civilized” the listener may not know anything more about the titular lamb, but it’s clear its return is momentous indeed.

Ian Mathers

Various Artists — Congo Funk: Sound Madness From The Shores Of The Mighty Congo River (Kinshasa/Brazzaville 1969-1982) (Analog Africa)

Congo Funk! - Sound Madness From The Shores Of The Mighty Congo River (Kinshasa/Brazzaville 1969-1982) (Analog Africa No. 38) by Analog Africa

Mobutu Sese Seko was a murderous tyrant, but he changed African music forever when he invited James Brown to play Zaire 74, the three-day musical festival put on alongside George Forman and Muhammed Ali’s epic Rumble in the Jungle. American funk transformed an already vibrant musical scene like a chemical catalyst setting off an explosion of electrified, psychedelic soul in Kinshasa and Brazzaville. Congo Funk! collects 14 incendiary cuts from the 1970s and 1980s — culling from an original haul of over 2000 sounds — not a dud in the bunch and more than a couple of revelations. M.B.T’s eponymous “M.B.T.’s Sound” is one of the best on this two-disc set, all brassy swagger and intricate polyrhythmic percussion, as is Orchestre National du Congo’s full-throated celebration “Ah Congo!” with its wild call and response, feral sax play and unhinged drumming. Lolo et L'Orchestre O.K. Jazz’s “Lolo Soulfire,” sets up a Stax-like groove and lives in it, slouching and swaggering like Booker T in a fever. Fire.

Jennifer Kelly

Ricki Weidenhof — Church (We Be Friends)

Church by Ricki Weidenhof

A member of Pittsburgh avant-collagists Sneeze Awfull, Ricki Weidenhof examines a life of religious ambivalence and search for identity on their solo album Church. Working through a range of styles that illustrate and amplify those themes, Weidenhof produces an emotionally rich and sometimes challenging fractal mosaic. The wonderfully titled suite “Raptured in Formal Violence” contrasts liturgical solemnity and a babel of religious voices with jittering house to capture that mixture of dread and ecstasy the Church so often induces. At the other of the scale “Dreary Field” is an Arthur Russell inspired idyll of acoustic guitar and cello as Weidenhof singsof the past “I finished that game of hide and seek long ago/Only it was still at play/I remember the last place I had hidden.” “Extinction Meditation” begins in a similar vein, the religious and personal entwined with vivid imagery, before a chaos of multi-tracked vocals, distorted beats, and razor strings. A powerful, heartfelt record that deserves a wide audience.

Andrew Forell

Wormed — Omegon (Season of Mist)

OMEGON by Wormed

It’s hard to say anything meaningful about Wormed — pretty much everything about the band is absurd, or at least verging on it. To identify some key elements of the absurdity: the “vocals” of Jose Luis Rey Sanchez (appearing on Omegon, as always, under the appropriately throaty appellation Phlegeton — Sanchez is likely referring to the mythic river, but all I can think of is phlegm…), for whom the unappetizing term “throat fart” might have been coined; the sheer nuttiness of the band’s tech death wankery, which the band has actually moderated a wee bit for Omegon; the fact that Wormed have been at it since 1999, mostly developing a continuous narrative of a fictional cosmos, full of conflict among evil extraterrestrial forces, multiple timelines and a protagonist named Krigshu (some song titles from this record are indicative: “Aetheric Transdimensionalization,” “Gravitational Servo Matrix,” “Virtual Teratogensis”). You figure it out. Beyond the music — more tech than slam, but still seeking some sort of apotheosis of that quality death metal freaks name “brutality” — what’s most engaging about Wormed is the band’s ability to sustain the absurdity and to seem absolute serious about it. Maybe that makes the Spanish band especially well-suited to our times. Or maybe we just haven’t gotten the joke yet.

Jonathan Shaw

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