#jordan patterson band

[smashorpassgilf]

Before submitting, please check if eligible on this spreadsheet

60 y/o+ only

Detailed -> Under the cut or here <-

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Discord | Tumblr Community | Fave Poll Blogs

Submit via ask, one person per ask. You can submit with your own pictures. Photos must be of the person over 60 (55 if the person is 60-63)

If you are submitting two people, you must state if this is a couple or a VS poll.

Notifications are toggled off for this blog, please make sure to use the @ feature for propaganda.

"There needs to be more [x feature] on this blog!" Ok. Who do you like that fits that criteria? Please submit them.

If someone submitted to this blog has committed sexual assault or is a bigot, Links must be provided to news articles with proof of the accusation with proof. The National Enquirer, The Daily Mirror, US Weekly, Daily Mail, TMZ, are not credible. Proof of their words or actions is needed. Instagram is only reliable IF it is a direct post from the person. Zionists.in.music is not accepted. MORE

Submissions processing linked here

Top Smash: the Moon (96.2%) (3597 votes)

Top Pass: Charles the third (Round 1) (1242 votes) & Elon Musk (2061 Votes) with 2.4%

Highest vote count: Queen (a Bug's Life) 45.1% (15159+ votes)

Closest vote counts: Julianne Nicholson (Round 1) (266 votes) Stanley Pines (Round 1) (328 votes) Marcus Tullius Cicero (1615 votes) Anneke Wills (398 votes) An Olympic swimming pool filled by milking the cum from every certified smashable old man, on this blog (214 votes)

Taken anon signatures: 🐺, 👔, 🌿

[Discord]

Askbox is open. If no photos are provided, google will be used to find photos

Anon is optional, not required

One person per submission

Any gender

Must be over 60 years old

Both fictional and real people accepted

Objects are accepted if the item is over 60.

Both Live action and animated

Harkness rule for inhuman entities (of sexual maturity, of human or greater intelligence, can communicate with language)

Non-visual characters (audio only) can only be submitted with an audio clip submission (aka- vocal only CAN ONLY BE SUBMITTED with an audio edit)

Not allowed, reasons on spreadsheet ->

all Harry Potter & related

all real life politicians

Alexander Armstrong

Alice Cooper

Anthony Field

Axl Rose

Ben Miller

Bill Murray

Brian Cox (physicist)

Brian Cox (ACTOR)

Carlos Santana

Colm Wilkinson

Craig Ferguson

Dave Chapelle

Dave Mustaine

Hazbin Hotel & related properties

Helen Mirren

Hetalia

Iggy Pop

Jack Black

James Euringer/Urine

Jamie Lee Curtis

jay johnston

Jeff Bezos

JK Rowling & Supporters

John Cleese

John Dolmayan

Johnny Depp

Jordan Peterson

Kevin Sorbo

Leonardo Dicaprio

Marilyn Manson

Mark Hammil

Martin Freeman

Morgan Freeman

Morrissey

Neil Gaiman

Noel Fielding

Oh Yeong-su

Ralph Fiennes

Rammstein & Members

red hot chili peppers (band)

Rob Lowe

Rowan Atkinson

Ru Paul

Scott Patterson

Snoop Dogg

TLOU

team fortress (Timeout)

Tim Burton

Timothy Hutton

Zionists

Post last updated 27.Jan.2025

[jenplayssims]

1970s No CC Sims

Gallery ID: HawkeyeTARDIS

I made over EA's Parikh family! I think they have turned out as my favorites for this decade! Karan, Raj, Simran, and Karishma.

Also made over EA sims Sophia Jordan, Babs L'Amour, Cassidy Purdue, Ollie Purdue, and Andre DaSilva. The lore is that Ollie and Sophia had a fling and Andre was also a rival for her affection. Later, Babs, Cassidy, Ollie, and Andre formed a band call WooWho! Babs and Ollie later married. I speed ran all this EA lore when creating them, so relationships and milestones should be accurate.

(It's these guys, if you didn't know who I meant)

The other families are all my creation:

The Chang family: Tracy, Sue, Kimberly with Whiskers the cat, Russ, and Danny.

The Wilkinson family: Charmaine, Andre, Ron, Yolanda, and Antoine.

The Soto family: Cristina, Anita, Esteban, and Blanca

The Patterson family: Valeria, Kevin, Gary, Sandra, and Mark. Fun fact they are the first decades townie family I ever created. They are also made over and renamed sims from the very first family I ever played in Sims 4.

Enjoy!

1890s/1900s/1910s/1920s/1930s/1940s/1950s/1960s/1970s

[randomvarious]

Fiction Factory - "(Feels Like) Heaven" Steve Masters Presents: A Trip Back to the 80's Song released in 1983. Compilation released in 1995. Synthpop / New Wave

For a pretty brief moment there in the mid-80s, right in the middle of the whole synthpop boom, the Scottish group of Fiction Factory really appeared to be onto something that was quite good. And the funny thing about them was that they actually, at first, had no intention of being a band themselves. Members had tried that in the past and had grown weary of having to play too many concerts, so when the group was officially formed, what they really wanted more than anything else was to be one of those behind-the-scenes songwriting outfits who could work on and make music for other people. In fact, that idea is what had inspired their whole name in the first place: they would be ardent songwriters, whose constant output would resemble that of a factory, but the notion that they were an actual band would be pure fiction.

However, once CBS Records heard their demo, that dream of relative anonymity had been dashed. Despite Fiction Factory's protestations to the contrary, the label saw a band in front of them that could potentially make it. And so the trio of Kevin Patterson, Eddie Jordan, and Chic Medley ultimately relented and decided to enlist two more members in order to fill out their ranks: a bassist named Graham McGregor and a former drummer from the already pretty successful Simple Minds—although "Don't You (Forget About Me)" had yet to drop—Mike Ogletree.

And things ended up starting out okay for them. Fiction Factory would make their debut in 1983 with a single called "Ghost of Love," which would manage to chart at #64 in the UK and #49 in Germany. But then directly after that, they caught lightning in a bottle with "(Feels Like) Heaven," an absolute feelgood, nostalgia-inducing, sweet and sentimental-sounding, middle-of-the-road, massive, and classic 80s triumph that they had actually crafted in the span of about 36 hours.

Now, if you're an American, chances are that you may have never heard of Fiction Factory before, because despite "(Feels Like) Heaven" earning itself some burn on both US radio stations—tastemaking San Francisco DJ Steve Masters was a huge proponent of it, especially—and MTV, nothing that this band ever made sold all that well Stateside, and as a result, they never charted here in any capacity.

But over in the UK, and also throughout parts of Europe, "(Feels Like) Heaven" fared extremely well: it was #2 in Switzerland, #4 in Ireland, #6 in the UK, and #10 in both Belgium and West Germany too.

And it's just such a tasty little morsel of unbeatably dreamy 80s synthpop, driven by a perpetually fluffy string synth backdrop that gets some simple, lovely, catchy, chiming keyboard melodies that attempt to emulate the sound of a music box to float atop it; and Kevin Patterson offsets his deep vocal tone on the verses with very different falsetto choruses too.

But while this song's overall vibe might leave you thinking that it'd be a perfect fit for any sort of 80s coming-of-age scene where the typically shy teenage boy main character finally gets up enough courage at the prom in order to ask his crush for a dance, "(Feels Like) Heaven" is actually one of those songs whose lyrics tell a completely different story. It may give off an appearance that it's about being comfortably and deeply in love with someone, but a more careful scan of the lyrics actually reveals the song's subject matter to be the exact opposite. What it's really about is that exhilarating feeling of liberation that one might get after a bad relationship has finally come to a close.

Twisting the bones until they snap I scream but no one knows You say I'm familiar, cold to touch And then you turn and go, 'Feels like heaven'

And I don't know how many people have actually picked up on the winking irony that's within this song, but you can apparently find it on a whole bunch of comps that claim to be comprised exclusively of love songs. And I bet some wedding couples have chosen it for their first dance too 😅.

Unfortunately, Fiction Factory weren't able to really succeed with anything that came after this bop, though; no other song on their 1984 debut album really seemed to sound like "(Feels) Like Heaven" itself, and because of that, I think people who'd bought it were a bit turned off. And CBS were also probably left unsure of how to market them successfully too. The group would return the following year with Another Story, but neither it nor its corresponding trio of singles were able to chart anywhere, and in 1987, they decided to go their separate ways.

Synthpop bands were about as prevalent as oxygen throughout the entirety of the 80s, and while Fiction Factory probably aren't the ones who first come to mind when you think of that era's top groups, there's no doubt that, for a whole lot of Europeans, "(Feels Like) Heaven" is still one of the genre's most fondly remembered hits, overall. And while Fiction Factory may not have had much longevity as a group, this one big hit of theirs still seems to land them pretty healthy residual checks to this very day, which is probably a whole lot more than most other bands of their ilk can continue to say.

Listen to it on Spotify too:

[jpbjazz]

LÉGENDES DU JAZZ

JUNIOR COOK, UN JOE HENDERSON SUR L’ACIDE ?

“If you can’t say it in two or three choruses, you can’t say it.”

- Junior Cook

Né le 22 juillet 1934 à Pensacola, en Floride, Herman "Junior" Cook était issu d’une famille musicale: son père et son frère aîné jouaient de la trompette. Cook a d’abord joué du saxophone alto avant de passer au saxophone ténor durant ses études au high school. Un autre musicien originaire de Pensacola, le saxophoniste Gigi Gryce, avait également encouragé Cook à faire carrière. Après avoir terminé ses études au high school, Cook s’était installé à New York déterminé devenir musicien de jazz.

DÉBUTS DE CARRIERE

Comme plusieurs grands noms du jazz, Cook avait amorcé sa carrière professionnelle dans des groupes de Rhythm & blues. De juin à décembre 1957, Cook avait fait partie du groupe de la contrebassiste Gloria Bell. Par la suite, Cook s’était joint au groupe de Dizzy Gillespie, avec lequel il avait joué durant deux mois en 1958. Très nerveux à l’idée de participer à la répétition du groupe aux côtés de sommités du jazz comme Sonny Stitt et James Moody, Cook avait finalement décidé de s’éclipser en douce. C’est alors que le saxophoniste et flûtiste Frank Wess était allé voir Cook et lui avait demandé: “Where you going, junior?” Tentant de rassurer Cook, Wess avait ajouté que si Gillespie ne voudrait pas l’avoir dans son groupe s’il ne croyait pas qu’il était capable de faire le travail.

Après avoir quitté le groupe de Gillespie, Cook s’était joint au quintet du pianiste Horace Silver dont il avait fait partie jusqu’en 1964. Cook se produisait avec les Dell Tones au Théâtre Howard de Washington lorsqu’il avait rencontré Silver pour la première fois. Sous contrat dans un club de Baltimore, Silver s’était rendu à Washington pour entendre le saxophoniste Lou Donaldson qui se produisait dans un club de la ville. Cook était éventuellement monté sur scène avec Silver et Donaldson. Impressionné par le jeu de Cook, Silver avait fait appel à lui lorsque le saxophoniste Clifford Jordan avait dû s’absenter pour une semaine. Cook s’était officiellement joint au groupe de Silver en mai 1958. En 1964, Silver avait décidé de repartir sur de nouvelles bases et avait laissé le groupe entre les mains du trompettiste Blue Mitchell. Cook était demeuré avec la formation jusqu’en 1969.

Silver avait éventuellement formé un nouveau groupe avec le saxophoniste ténor Joe Henderson. C’est d’ailleurs Henderson qui avait enregistré la composition la mieux connue de Silver, intitulée ‘’Song For My Father.’’ Même si Henderson s’était vanté à au moins une occasion d’avoir personnellement donné des leçons à Cook, les deux musiciens s’étaient probablement influencés mutuellement. Comme l’avait déclaré un ancien saxophoniste ténor des Jazz Messengers de Art Blakey, “I always thought of Joe Henderson as like . . . Junior Cook on acid.”

Cook avait fait ses débuts sur disque dans le cadre de l’album Blue Lights du guitariste Kenny Burrell en 1958. Crédité sous le surnom de ‘’Junior’’ sur la pochette, Cook avait continué d’utiliser le sobriquet durant toute sa carrière. Par la suite, Cook avait joué avec Freddie Hubbard, Elvin Jones, George Coleman, Barry Harris, Walter Bishop, Louis Hayes (1975–1976), John Patton, Michael Tucker, Don Patterson, Woody Shaw, Clifford Jordan, Bill Hardman (1979–1989). Il avait aussi fait partie du big band de McCoy Tyner. Même s’il avait fait de nombreuses apparitions comme accompagnateur, Cook n’avait enregistré son premier album comme leader qu’en 1961.

Également professeur, Cook avait enseigné à la Berklee School of Music durant un an dans les années 1970.

DERNIERES ANNÉES

Après avoir entendu Cook jouer avec le quintet de Bill Hardman dans le cadre d’une collaboration avec le Jazzmobile, une scène itinérante qui présentait des concerts gratuits à New York, Nils Winther, le fondateur des disques SteepleChase, avait proposé au saxophoniste d’enregistrer une série d’albums. Le résultat de cet exercice peut être entendu sur les albums The Place To Be (1988), On A Misty Night (1989) et You Leave Me Breathless (qui avait été enregistré en décembre 1991 trois mois avant la mort de Cook ). Même si les quelques albums enregistrés par Cook comme leader auraient été une plateforme idéale pour exploiter ses talents de compositeur, il n’avait jamais vraiment exploité cette veine. Même si Cook ne s’était jamais intéressé aux balades dans le cadre de sa collaboration avec Silver, il s’était repris à la fin de sa carrière en enregistrant ses propres versions de classiques comme ‘’Pannonica’’ de Thelonious Monk ou ‘’When Sunny Gets Blue’’ de Fisher et Segal (avec le quintet du batteur Louis Hayes).

Au début des années 1990, Cook avait joué avec le saxophoniste Clifford Jordan. C’était un juste retour des choses pour Cook qui avait pris la relève de Jordan dans le groupe d’Horace Silver. Il avait aussi dirigé son propre groupe. Même si la qualité des enregistrements de Cook était souvent inégale, on a découvert récemment un de ses enregistrements de 1976 avec le quintet de Louis Hayes, ainsi qu’un enregistrement avec les Jazz Messengers d’Art Blakey dans lequel il se produisait au saxophone soprano.

Cook avait passé les dix dernières années de sa vie à New York, où il avait dirigé des jam sessions tout en jouant comme artiste-invité dans des clubs comme le Star Café, l’Augie’s, le Flamingo Lounge, le Paris, le Boomer’s, le Condon’s, le Fat Tuesday’s, le Sweet Basil et Joyce’s. Peu avant sa mort, Cook se produisait tous les lundis soirs avec le groupe de Clifford Jordan au Condon’s. Il dirigeait également son propre groupe.

Junior Cook est mort oublié de tous dans son appartement de Manhattan le 3 février 1992. Il avait seulement cinquante-sept ans. La santé de Cook s’était détériorée à la fin des années 1980 après avoir été victime d’une cirrhose. Cook laissait dans le deuil ses deux frères, Robert et John, de Pensacola, en Floride.

C’est probablement à la suite de son expérience avec les groupes de R & B et se son séjour dans le quintet de Silver que Cook avait développé son sens de l’improvisation. Selon le trompettiste Richie Vitale, Cook avait l’habitude de donner le conseil suivant aux jeunes musiciens: “If you can’t say it in two or three choruses, you can’t say it.” Au cours de sa carrière, Cook avait inspiré de nombreux musiciens de jazz, mais non pas en leur disant comment jouer, mais en montrant l’exemple. Si le trompettiste Valery Ponomarev se souvenait de la précision de Cook, le pianiste Michael Tucker le considérait comme son saxophoniste ténor préféré, et avait vanté tant la chaleur de son jeu que son remarquable lyrisme.

©-2025, tous droits réservés, Les Productions de l’Imaginaire historique

SOURCES:

‘’Junior Cook.’’ Wikipedia, 2024.

‘’Junior Cook.’’ All About Jazz, 2024.

‘’Junior Cook, 57, Tenor Saxophonist In Jazz Ensembles.’’ New York Times, 5 février 1992.

NERO, Courtney. ‘’Junior Cook: quintessential NYC hard-bop tenor.’’ Jazz Journal, 15 juillet 2023.

[sinceileftyoublog]

Hamilton Leithauser Live Show Review: 3/1, Old Town School of Folk Music, Chicago

Hamilton Leithauser

BY JORDAN MAINZER

On recent tour dates surrounding upcoming album This Side of the Island (Glassnote), Hamilton Leithauser has gotten the chance to expose his tendencies as a troubadour. He's the type of songwriter whose process isn't linear or chronological, who takes his time making records, storing past episodes and characters in his memory bank and notes app until they, for whatever reason, surface once again. 2020's The Loves of Your Life consisted of 11 songs each inspired by a specific individual. Conversely, based on the tracks released so far from This Side of the Island, it appears that there's less of a 1:1 relationship between subject and song. Rather, the folks that exist within the songs, whether real or fictional, feel familiar because they're at varying degrees of mid-life reflection and desperation, trying to survive in a country that's crumbling.

From left to right: Matt Oliver, Leithauser, Stephen Patterson, Greg Roberts

On Saturday at the Old Town School of Folk Music, Leithauser immediately revealed just how long This Side of the Island has been in the cards. Introducing album opener "Fist of Flowers", he said, "I recorded this piano when Obama was president...I was still optimistic." The statement carried more weight than a tossed-off quip. In Leithauser's songs, which he contextualized for the crowd, and in life these days, the political climate is always in the back of heads, informing how we interact with friends and strangers. You can picture the stoned lover from "Knockin' Heart" and the incorrigible woman on her 6th husband from "Off the Beach" bonding at a dive bar over their "live in the moment" attitude, less outwardly bothered by impending nuclear doom than are the meditative narrators of "This Side of the Island" or "What Do I Think?"

Oliver, Leithauser, & Patterson

Where does Leithauser land? It's a mix of these people. The teenage version of "Happy Lights", pulled over for drunk driving outside his father's house in D.C., gets off easy because the city had bigger problems. The 40-year-old counting his lucky stars, on "Ocean Roar", celebrating his birthday, is thinking about the late, great Richard Swift. Like The Loves of Your Life, This Side of the Island is somewhat of a family affair, co-produced with not just The National's Aaron Dessner but Leithauser's wife, Anna Stumpf, who previously contributed backing vocals to Loves. In his stage banter, Leithauser was honest about the location-based circumstances encompassing songs' histories and the warts-and-all looks inside him. What he was thinking and feeling, how wasted he was, it's all important. Because when he encounters the person having a rougher go of it than he is--even if his "rough go" is mere boredom or a few too many beers--his empathy shines. If it wasn't for the routine task of taking his daughters to the park in Long Island, Leithauser wouldn't have written "The Stars of Tomorrow", a Loves of Your Life standout about a Polish immigrant who approached him on a bench and spilled her guts. She claimed to be leaving her Mexican billionaire husband that night in a car whose make and model she misidentified. ("She kept saying, 'I'm taking this Ford;' I didn't have the heart to tell her, 'That's a Chevy," said Leithauser.) The woman kissed Leithauser and his daughters on both cheeks and, right then and there, gifted them a jar of pickled beets. He never saw the woman again. It's a story so maddening it has to be true.

Leithauser

The tricky situations Leithauser's characters find themselves in was perfect fodder for The Walkmen's ramshackle sound. On Saturday, he and his band (guitarist Matt Oliver, bassist Greg Roberts, drummer Stephen Patterson) returned to that aesthetic. Leithauser's wailing sneer and pedal-affected rhythm guitar and Oliver's fast picking showcased musicians giving max effort to squeeze every last bit of clanging echo from their instruments. Patterson's propulsive beat imbued "Knockin' Heart" with appropriate post-punk tenacity. Even the buttoned-up crooner jams of I Had a Dream That You Were Mine, Leithauser and multi-instrumentalist Rostam Batmanglij's collaborative 2016 album, slightly came apart at the seams. In fact, it was that record's "The Bride's Dad" that seemed most at home alongside Leithauser's newest material, in a post-Manning Fireworks 2025. Another true story, the song stems from Leithauser's experience at a wedding, witnessing an inebriated man giving a toast that included verses from traditional Scottish/Irish folk tune "Wild Mountain Thyme", only to be escorted out once done. As it turns out, the man was, indeed, the father of the bride, uninvited, but to Leithauser, a lovable loser. Leithauser wrote the song from the father's point of view. When, performing it, he sang the words, "For years and year I disappeared / Tonight I'm here and I'm giving my best," it may have been a raw, show-stopping moment from one of indie rock's unmistakable belters. But the persona of the bride's dad endures in any of us who have ever felt regret, who have conquered the unflinching urge to let it go, despite our better judgement.

Leithauser, Patterson, & Roberts

[wavehq]

enjoy limitless possibilities here in celestire islands, luke patterson ( julie and the phantoms ), where you can start the new life you've always longed for. make sure you read the checklist, as we'll be sending the discord link through ims! enjoy your new dream, ziggy!

( julie and the phantoms. jordan fisher, he/they, non-binary. )  ——-  hey, is that ( luke patterson ) hanging around ( astera beachfront )? i wonder what life is like for them, balancing working as a ( twenty-four ) year old ( dog walker ) and ( writing new songs )? they’re notorious for being ( passionate ) yet ( impulsive ), and i always seem to hear ( missing you ) by ( all time low ) playing whenever they walk past. they’re known around the islands for ( his band playing anywhere and everywhere since high school ), and they’re associated with ( when they laugh you’d swear you were on the verge of a happy ending, warm hugs, blasting music late at night, puppy dog eyes, never taking no for an answer ). last we spoke, they were telling me about a vision they had… something about their biggest regret being ( dying and never being able to achieve their dreams ), but it must have just been a bad dream. //  —  [ ziggy, 23, est they/them. ]

[jordanpattersonmusic]

Jordan Patterson - I AIN'T SORRY / #2 Song Demo Finished Arrangement

[creativeashproductions]

Elysium // Luke Patterson

Summary: The boys of Julie and the Phantoms need a hail Mary to dethrone Downslide from opening for Panic! At the Disco. While Willie is done to help his blue eyed crush and his friends there’s one issue: Willie can’t drive the bus. Moving a bench is one thing but driving an entire tour bus?  There’s only one person who can and Willie’s not sure where she is after year of no communication

Warnings: Swearing, angst, talk of death (it’s a ghost show, why is this a warning??), mention of assault, violence, and fluff.

Words: 11.5k

A/N: This is why I haven’t posted much in the last week. I’ve been writing this massive fic that I refused to turn into a series. My god, 11k words. I don’t think I’ll be doing this again. Enjoy and comment if you figured out who Rudy is!

Masterlist

There wasn’t much in the afterlife that you enjoyed after time spent in the limbo between the living and dead. Listening to songs before they were released lost its appeal just as much as dancing on stage with the ballet companies around the world, of being an unseen extra in shows and films being filmed.

Then you found a purpose a couple, well it could be more than a couple, years ago when you found a lost soul. William Young, Willie to his friends, had been sitting on the curb staring at the pavement entirely still as he had for two days.

The time from the last breath you took to walking the streets of Los Angeles was a blur in all honesty. The years bled together as you stayed stationary in a world that kept on spinning and changing, growing up. You had watched your friends hit new milestones you could only daydream about. Friends that graduated college and built new lives on the ashes of memories that included you.

Today’s walk was an attempt to escape your friends’ greying versions standing in front of a once vibrant sculpture. It happened every single year, but this one hurt the most. Listening to your friends recall stories of all the adventures you did together.

From being drunken idiots jumping off cliffs into that one lake the summer of freshman year. Or making a bonfire on the school’s roof with all the entryways blocked, rather stupid with the exits being blocked as well. Sneaking into concerts and stealing that one car that came close to sending you to boarding school.

The rebellion that still lived in you had mellowed in the five individuals with the adult responsibilities of family and work. Martha had removed all piercings but her lobes while Chase quit dying his hair colour. Jordan now had three children and a bought house.

Seeing the group no longer young had made your feet swiftly move from the memorial for a walk. The only thing that stopped you in your tracks was tripping over something in front of you.

“Ouch.” You hissed rolling onto your back with a moan of pain that faded with the sniffles.

Curled into his knees, sitting on the curb was a teenage boy about your age. Long hair curtaining his profile you found your eyes grasping the cracked helmet that spoke for itself abandoned by his side.

“Your kinda a hazard there.” You simply spoke sitting down next to the distraught teenager, “Heads up, I suck at comforting people.”

At his silence, you spoke once more, “I’m digging the tie-dye. Did you do it yourself?”

“This is some kind of stupid coma dream right?” The boy’s voice was husky from crying and disuse, “I’m probably in some kind of hospital with a tube down my throat.”

“I’d say yes, but it would be a blatant lie.” You spoke twirling a loose thread on your jeans while the stranger gazed at a spot on the street.

His dark brown eyes bloodshot as he remembered the car honking mere seconds before he heard the sound of a thud. He recalled struggling to breathe with his broken ribs and his screams being illustrated with bloodstains.

He remembered thinking how he had just bought that board a week ago with his allowance.

“Am I really dead?”

“Yes. We’re are a couple ghosts in a lively city.” You informed him with one handheld in the space between your ethereal forms. The teen hesitantly placed his hand in yours with a firm shake.

“William but call me Willie.” He softly told you, catching sight of the patch on your jean jacket—one of many from both when your grandma owned it and then when you did.

“I’m Y/N. Let’s blow this disappointment. I’m gonna teach you everything you need to know.” Brushing off the invisible dust on your jeans, you held your hand out to him, “We’re about to make the afterlife our bitch.”

A stark contrast to his former hesitance he immediately grasped your hand to tug himself off the curb. The forlorn skater didn’t question the board in your hand or how he could possibly even touch his own board. He didn’t wonder how it wasn’t in pieces like it had been when he first got hit.

That rebellion that ended your life flared again in the presence of your best friend with crashing Justin Bieber’s house. Of rearranging items in classrooms to freak teachers out and sitting in the cars turning the radio on and off. Haunting the living until the friendship fractured under the influence of a powerful ghost.

Caleb Covington had bewitched the skater with promises and extravagant gifts until Willie had taken the offer.

“He’s not like you said he was! I think you should give him a chance!” Willie cried following you around the place you had taken to be home.

“Willie he’s a bad guy! He butters you up until you give him what you want! That’s when you see his true colours. All he wants is your soul to power his magic and spread his reach!”

“I got to talk to my sister!”

“Your sister is five years old! It’s not Covington that gave you the opportunity. She won’t remember the experience as anything other than an invisible friend!”

“There are so many people at the Club that we can talk to. Aren’t you tired of the same routine and people we see?”

Willie’s pleading brought your full attention to the skater avoiding your gaze, “William Young…you took his offer.”

Willie tore his gaze from the art on the wall to find yours blatantly glaring at him with a bucket of random colour in your hand.

“The Club is going to France to tour around the country for a while. I’m dead, so I might as well make the best of it. Besides who gets to skate through the Louvre!” Willie beamed, watching as a small smile, found its way on your face at his excitement, “I’m sure Caleb would let you come to the Club tonight!”

“Willie, you are my best friend, but I’ve already seen the Club. It’s not my style, and I want nothing to do with it.”

That interaction was one of the very few speckled through the years when Caleb discovered who you were. No matter his offers, you never took the deal and when he saw how close you and Willie where he kept the skater busy. The Club didn’t appear in Los Angeles for a long time until Willie’s distance seemed too great to bridge.

“So, you need a way for the slot to be empty?” Willie asked the trio of ghosts all spread around the area.

Unfortunately for Luke, the only person they could get help from was from the very guy that placed them in a predicament. While Alex was the one spearheading the conversation with the long-haired skater Luke was glowering in his direction.

“The Orpheum was the thing we never got to do. We spent hours practising and performing with one goal-“

“Play the Orpheum and get distance from our parents. Well, at the time that streetdog and becoming legendary was my main focus.” Reggie recounted the feeling of suffocating in a house filled with fighting. A home he wished still stood, now dead all he wanted was to see his parents.

“We almost did it too.” Luke pouted relaxing his glare at the skater who openly sent apologetic gazes at Alex’s bandmates.

“So, we need to get rid of the opening band.” Willie nodded to himself, thinking about ways before he caught sight of the abject horror on the band. The skater’s eyebrows raised, “I know I deeply fractured the trust, but I’m not suggesting murder.”

“Okay. Good.” Reggie whistled relaxing his tense posture while Luke grumbled under his breath an insult that in turn got Alex’s arm into the guitarist’s ribs.

“Your best bet would be getting the bus out of LA. The band will probably celebrate the upcoming gig.”

“Could you make the bus disappear?” Alex hesitantly questioned shifting in his now vintage sneakers. The blonde-haired drummer flushed slightly under the endearing smile from the skater. The feelings create a confliction within Alex under Willie’s issue, leading them straight into a madman’s hands.

“I can move a bench, turn sirens on, but a bus is outside my paygrade.” Willie openly admitted showing his hands deep in his pockets, “The only person other than Caleb that has enough power-“

“-is he just as evil?” Luke demanded crossing his arms to glare at the male that had unfortunately caught the interest of Alex.

However, Luke couldn’t blame Alex for falling for this guy because well, Luke saw the teenage ghost’s appeal. Willie was attractive, but he wasn’t the type of person Luke would fall for. Plus he had initially made Alex incredibly happy, and Luke would never blame Alex for that.

“She is as different from Caleb as one can be. She uh…she taught me everything about being a ghost. Actually, found me where I died.” Willie cleared his throat as the guilt and sadness reared its head from deep within him. The guilt of leaving his little sister to grow up without him and the sorrow of not growing up with the girl.

It wasn’t often Willie allowed himself to remember the little girl, barely five when he died, who was always dancing. His little sister adored the colour purple and anything shiny and more than once Willie had let her dress him up. Willie’s greatest regret is that he’d never have that interaction with her. God, she’d be around his age now and in high school.

“Okay, so where is she?” Reggie clapped his hands, bringing the skater out of his thoughts and back into the present.

Luke saw the hesitation in Willie, “There’s a catch, isn’t there?”

“Kinda?” Willie trailed off bouncing on the balls of his feet, “I haven’t seen her in years now. Last time I saw her we fought about the whole joining Caleb thing? I’m not even sure if she’s still in LA.”

“Of fucking course,” Luke grunted shoving both hands in his hair taking a few steps away from the other ghosts.

First, he dies, then he gets caught up in some bullshit revenge plot, then makes a deal with the devil without realizing it, and now their one chance is going up in flames. Luke Patterson was livid with the universe and the shitty hand he had been dealt, but at least he had his friends with him.

“It can’t hurt to look for her?” Reggie innocently offered with a shake of his shoulders, “It’s not like we have any other option.”

“Did we ever even have options?” Luke hissed, causing Willie and Alex each to flinch with the different guilt they carried.

Alex was guilty of going to Willie for help when getting back at Bobby was the biggest thing. Willie was guilty of ignoring his instincts on keeping Alex as far from Caleb as he could be he just wanted to impress the drummer. It’s not like Willie had many options for dating, and well, Alex was the first to get his entire focus.

“Dude. Stop. No one saw it coming.” Reggie bumped his hip against the annoyed guitarist, “Let’s find this ghost and get our shot at playing.”

The quartet of dead guys didn’t have high hopes of finding the girl in question, but it seemed the universe took pity on Luke Patterson. Just two hours into their search on the edges of the city limits an individual was walking.

The person’s stature leaned against a smashed concrete wall of the skeleton of where a building once was. The only thing the group could make out was a faded jean jacket with splotches of colour. Her ankles crossed as her back leaned against the cement, oozed laid back confidence. Coming closer, Luke noticed the sunglasses perched on top of her head and the lips painted dark.

“What do you need Willie? I heard you were looking for me.” The husky voice drew Luke in the most. The lead guitarist of Julie and the Phantoms enamoured with the girl.

“How’d-“Willie’s question was cut off as you simply tapped your right index finger against your temple.

“How do you think you managed to get here?” You inquired pushing off the cement to stride over to the group. To Willie’s surprise, he was tugged into your embrace before swiftly pushed away, “Come on. We should head in before someone catches us.”

In the dark as much as the other three ghosts, Willie dutifully followed you past the pieces of cement littered around the area. Gasps of surprise sounded as the once empty space became filled with buildings. It was not as extravagant as the hotel the Club worked out of, but it was hidden from the living and dead eyes.

“Where did this come from?” Reggie gasped astounded by the people once hidden from his view, moving around the area. 

“This is Elysium. Don’t judge the name I lost the right in a poker game with Susie and Rudy. I’m Y/N.” You informed the group leading them to the gate where two people stood stoically guarding it, “Rudy was hellbent on calling it Valhalla.”

“This is Luke, Reggie and Alex.” Willie gestured to the awed trio of musicians only lingering on the blonde. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see the attraction between the skater and the blonde; finding a date in the afterlife was a lot harder than the living.

Nodding a greeting to the two ghosts, you lead the group to a building painted a pretty turquoise blue colour. The sign above the double doors a stark white with calligraphy writing simply stating Elysium Management. It was a building set up like an administrative office of three stories, and you led the group right up to the top floor.

“Just a heads up…Rudy is a little suspicious of people.” You admitted standing outside a door with a nameplate the only descriptor, “He’ll come off a little gruff and rude, but when you get passed that he doesn’t shut up.”

“I can hear you through the door dumbass.” The words were called out from the office door opening.

The man standing in the entry wore a crisp white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His honey-brown eyes lit up with a teasing look before it shuttered at the sight of four strangers behind you. Rudy had valid reasons to not fully trust people after the shitshow in his hometown when he was alive.

“And you’ve brought strangers.” Rudy deadpanned with a sigh concluding his sentence as he stepped back into the office. It appeared like the world repositioned itself on the young man’s shoulders once more.

“I should be done within the hour. We can go over everything.” You informed your business partner and friend. Receiving only a nod from Rudy, you closed the door to his office, cutting off the view from your guests.

“He’s..uh.”

“Standoffish? Rudy keeps his past to himself, all he’s ever revealed is that he’s from a town a few hours away.” You spoke, opening the door to your own office decorated differently from Rudy’s more sterile black and white aesthetic.

Your office had splashes of colour with vintage posters of both music and film framed on the walls—a plush couch in the corner with a basket of blankets next to it. Instead of sitting behind the dark desk, you chose the couch instead. As you settled in the corner, you flicked one finger bringing an extra seat over.

The motion shocking the three boys accompanying Willie who had seen the abilities himself.

“Okay so why did you want to search for me?” You questioned the skater leaning back in the seat.

“When did this all happen?” Willie countered gesturing to the office in a building settled in the middle of a ghost town. A literal ghost town.

“There’s an empty lot in LA that used to house an abandoned apartment building that Rudy and I both called home. Of course, it was torn down, and we kinda knew that there’s wasn’t a place that didn’t have the threat of being annihilated at some point.” The memories of those unknown days trickled into your mind among the more positive ones, “We wanted a home. A place to call our own.”

“A week or so later a skittish pixie of a brunette crashed into us full speed. Susie had a certain ability that Caleb desired to have under his thumb. There are so many ghosts he had manipulated into selling him their soul. Rudy and I both wanted to stop Caleb from having that chance for everyone.” You continued, “Can I show you?”

The moon shone through the light clouds as a duo wandered LA’s streets in different mental states. The only home you had known had been unceremoniously ripped down with no future plans in place. Your entire life had been in that apartment in a building you had once thought only you inhabited. You had been unaware that on a separate floor, Rudy had been dwelling.

The two teens in starkly different clothing grew close with each other through the whole being the dead thing they shared. The mission was to find another place too, use but the feeling of home being ripped away tore at their hearts. The apartment was a place Caleb Covington hadn’t been aware of.

Your thoughts threatened to turn darker as a force knocked you onto your bac—aA short brunette groaning in pain to the left of you. The girl was Gwen, who would become very important to both Rudy and you.

I’ve always been a little different than most people. I can move things short distances, but I developed a specific talent. I can get inside people’s minds to plant, remove or alter memories or simply talk and read their thoughts.

The sound of your voice in their heads freaked them out more than they would like to admit. The intrusive tickle of something in their brains unsettling as you made a more present entry so they could feel it.

“What?”

“This is why I can’t be anywhere near Caleb. The whole reason he gives people stamps and takes their souls is because of me.” You fully admitted clasping your fingers in your lap, “He couldn’t cope with the fear of another ghost leaving so added a stipulation to joining his Club.”

“How did you come to create Elysium?” Alex inquired leaning forward in his seat to rest his elbows on his knees. Luke and Reggie followed his posture as the anticipation built.

“Everyone deserves a safe place. A place as far away from Caleb as possible and we do so for free. No fee is required, and ghosts are free to come and go as they please. They are welcome as long as their unfinished business keeps them in this plane.”

It sounded like a sweet deal to the group of teens, but they had other commitments, “You can tell us more, but we need your help.”

The pleading in the messy-haired brunette tore at your heartstrings like the one time Willie brought you to his house. It had been shortly before your friendship fractured, a few years ago. He had brought you to a suburb for low-income families and straight to the backyard where a twelve-year-old year danced.

The dead skater boy and the rebel sat in the patio chair on the tiny porch nestled in the postmark sized backyard. A quintet of pre-pubescent girls danced on the lawn to some bubblegum pop song. The Young girl was submissive to a more confident girl even when the venue was the Young girl’s home.

“The girl to the left is my little sister Kayla. She’s twelve now, it’s been seven years since I died.” Willie’s brown eyes saddened at the dancer who had a spark of maturity in her eyes, “I check in every once in a while. These are Kayla’s friends. The bossy girl is Carrie, and while the band is a group, she is the unofficial leader of the band Carrie’s Constellations.”

 “She looks happy.”

“Kayla’s always been bubbly in personality, but she had questionable friends.” Willie outright admitted keeping his eyes pinned to the girl that had grown up in a blink of an eye. Her dark hair concealed by the gaudy purple wig; the colour assigned to the teenager.

“It’s nice that she still enjoys dance.” Willie finished reaching out to grab your hand in his and just like that Willie transitioned back into carefree, “I found this really cool skatepark I think you’d like.”

“We don’t have a lot of time.” Alex winced as the three musicians flinched as a sudden purple spark of colour lit up their midsections.

Like a tentacle, your mind reached into the quiet raven-haired boy with the leather jacket. Beyond the imagery of docile golden retrievers and steaming plates of food, you found the regret and fear in the boy. Stepping into a recent memory, you watched their experience at the Hollywood Ghost Club.

“You’ve met Caleb.” You sighed roughly pushing your index finger between your brows feeling the familiar ache.

“It was a stupid decision,” Luke spoke up, tearing his focus from the mysterious girl that ultimately had the power in her hands. The entire plan was weighing on the decision you would give, “Either we join his house band, or we don’t exist.”

“Hm.” You spoke as the kaleidoscope of colours in Luke’s eyes glittered under the sterile lights of the room. It was difficult to look away from the enthralling teenage ghost, but the emotion wafting off Willie was concerning.

“They died before they could perform at the Orpheum. We’re banking that getting the opening slot with giving them the push into crossing over.” The long-haired skater leaned closer, “I know we haven’t talked in a while, but I can’t do much.”

“So, you want to pull ’09 incident again?” You completely ignored the trio on the couch staring directly at the sheepish skater with raised eyebrows, “Only this time without the train?”

“Train?” Alex whispered, looking between the two long-time friends with interest and then next thing he knew Alex was in the backseat of a van crushed between Reggie and Luke equally confused.

Chicago, Illinois 2009

William Young and Y/N Y/L/N were complete hellions in the ghost world, creating havoc that fascinated the living population. The recent event being the highjacking of a van filled with drunk teenage boys. These boys had been the sole reason a young girl was recovering in a hospital with life-threatening injuries. The scene changed to a hospital room with Willie and Y/N watching a girl with massive bruising laid.

It had hit both Willie and Y/N hard catching the tail end of the new report, Willie thinking of how that could have been his sister. Even if Kayla was only five years old, having a sister set things more in perspective. For you it was a flashback to when you were alive and thus led you to the ICU room for the girl.

Slipping into her unconscious mind was easy but while the injured teen appeared peaceful to the hospital staff, she was anything but. The poor girl’s mind replayed the traumatic incident over and over like a movie; keeping in the shadows, you gently repainted the portrait with lighter and brighter images. 

For Willie, he watched as you wavered on your ghostly feet and smoothed out the features of the girl. The heart monitor subtly changing as the injured girl relaxed, and suddenly your interference heightened her chances of survival.

“I got it.” You spoke to Willie with a heated glare on your features and when the ghostly musician trio blinked they were back in the van.

Your hands gripped the van’s steering wheel with Willie turned in the passenger seat to watch a group of living boys scream. To the living eyes in the van, no one was in the front seats but whispered words spoke into their minds.

You’re going to go straight to the police and tell them what you did. You’ll hand over the photographic evidence and demand the worst punishment. You’ll leave the girl alone, or we’ll come back to finish our job. You will pay for the hospital bills if the family agrees. 

The boys trembled with the putrid scent of urine permeating the enclosed vehicle. The distant sound of a train echoed in the distance as the van stopped on the tracks. No matter how much the living boys moved the doors refused to open, and the windows remained unbreakable.

“WE promise!” The ringleader cried, slamming his shoulder against the door with the train’s bright lights illuminating the van.

“Let us go!” The other screamed, slamming his bruising hands on the window.

Alex was flinching at each slam of fists on the glass, leaving smears of blood. Knuckles broke from the window. At the very last second, your foot slammed the gas pedal taking the van millimetres from the train screeching on the tracks.

You and Willie stared at the stationary train lit up from the van’s headlights with the rhythmic flashes of the red and blue police lights. The van’s seat arrangement was different with the ringleader in the driver’s seat. 

The three ghost musicians standing unseen behind the duo but in the real world out of the dreamlike memory you knew.

Elysium, Present Day

“Holy fucking shit.” Alex cussed out of breath, leaning back on the couch with shaking limbs and fear in his bloodless veins.

Luke’s eyes blinked owlishly at the boy that he had once thought could never do something as terrifying and torturous. He was afraid to even ask the outcome of the life-threatening incident you did on the assailants.

“That is the reason for the train.” You barely glanced at the shaken trio to stare at who had once been your partner in crime, “Willie, I have responsibilities here. We just opened a new division for the children we house here.”

“It would take a few hours.” Willie pleaded, positioning his hands into a pleading position turning on his charm. The puppy eyes you had always struggled to say no to as if you weren’t the type of person easily capable of staying strong.

“We’ll do anything.” Luke pleaded just as much recalling the countless times he had charmed himself out of situations, “Please help us.”

“I’ll have to make arrangements with Rudy and Susie, but I might be able to pull some strings. I’m really sorry Willie, but I’m gonna need to erase your knowledge of this place. There are too many people depending on this setup.”

Outside the Orpheum

Outside the legendary venue, three out of four band members for Julie and the Phantoms walked up to the marquee. Hopefully, the letters for Downslide would be changed into their band name just under the main act. Everything was riding on Willie and Y/N’s capabilities. Trusting the skater was challenging to do and more so someone they didn’t fully know.

“Look, don’t worry, guys. Willie said he’d get us on that marquee.” Alex soothed his friends on each side of him. All three wearing concerned expressions at the place that hopefully was their last stop before crossing over.

“This is gonna work, right?” Reggie questioned with his hand confidently sliding into the pockets of his black jeans. The relaxed posture a juxtaposition to the anxiety and nerves on his flushed face.

“It has to.” Luke’s lips pursed into a pout with his words tinged with a dialect different from his best friends. The faint souvenir from the place he spent a few years growing up before moving to LA.

Luke’s words were highlighted by the groans of pain as that flash of purple courtesy of Caleb’s death stamp appeared. All three hunched over clutched their chests breathing through the pain; Luke was the first to unfurl his form.

“Whoa!” You gasped flashing underneath the marquee beside Willie. Rushing to give Luke support without even a second thought.

When the aftershock faded, the guitarist stood straight up with a thankful smile that boarded on adoration.

“Are you guys, okay?” Willie asked, keeping back with the swell of guilt that happened, seeing the familiar symptoms of post-shock. He had felt them a time or two in the time he had sold his soul to his unfortunate boss.

“Yeah, it’s nothing we haven’t felt before,” Alex replied, rubbing his hand over the baby blue shirt he had chosen today. His blue eyes doing their best to avoid looking into the puppy-like ones of the skater, “How’d it go?”

“Well, when that opening band wakes up, they’re gonna find their bus 200 miles outside of Vegas.” Willie proudly announcing turning on his heel to show off the Downslide jacket he took from the lead singer. His fist extending to bump yours instinctively before he did so with Luke.

“With no chance of getting back in time.” You snickered in response living on the adrenaline and nostalgia of the rebellion. With Elysium, you had turned around your life, “Meaning-“

“-there’s probably a promoter upstairs right about now freakin’ out.”

 “Nah. This is Hollywood, man.” Willie scoffed with a wave of his hand matching the one you supplied, “I’m sure he’s being very professional.”

As Willie finished his sentence up in the promotor’s office out of earshot of the ghosts stood a very pissed adult. His finger-wagging his finger with teeth clenched, his flushed skin a juxtaposition to the cheery blue Hawaiian style shirt. Frank Wolfe couldn’t believe how stupid his once opening band was.

“What do you mean the bus drove itself into the middle of the desert?” Frank questioned progressively growing more and more frustrated. His assistant Tasha casting concerned looks to her typically collected boss, “BUSES DON’T DRIVE THEMSELVES!”

Tasha flinched at the sudden loud growl of the sentence but more so as Wolfe starting slamming the phone into the cradle. Her fingers halting on her keyboard, going over the list of frequent acts. Unfortunately, the five acts had other commitments causing Tasha to fear tonight. The blonde lady was worried Wolfe could have a breakdown once more.

While Willie snickered to his own words, your eyes, not your mind, could read that Alex wanted to talk to the skater. With only a teasing jab of your elbow in Willie’s ribs you shuffled around the drummer to join Reggie and Luke away from the ‘will they won’t they’ couple.

“So, can you do me a favour?” Luke hesitantly questioned you with his inquisitive eyes a greener colour in the sunlight. His attractive eyes took your full attention with a simple tilt of your head, “Julie’s family means a lot to us, and could you keep an eye on them?”

“And Carlos,” Reggie interjected rocking on his polished pleather boots he had spent ages on finding for his rocker aesthetic back in the ’90s.

“-Julie’s little brother.” Luke supplied at the confusion painted clearly on your pretty features. His green eyes scoured your face as he always did that flushed both his and your faces red.

“Yeah, of course, I can.” You firmly told the two dead boys each standing tense in front of you.

You could easily see the love they held for the living family that had come to mean so much in such a short amount of time. Since first meeting them you had always gotten the feeling that their living years weren’t the best. For Alex, it was living in the ’90s as a young gay teenager during a terrifying time for the LGBTQ+ community. Reggie flinched at the raised voices, and Luke had longingly stared after the happy families milling around the Elysium.

“Did you ever find out what your unfinished business was?” Reggie inquired fixing a strand of his dark hair that had fallen onto his blemish-free skin. Your smile faltered at his question; nonetheless, you answered.

“I did.” The two words carried a sense of pain with them. Your eyes unfocused recalling the euphoric feeling of seeing the breathtaking white light of the peace exuding from the beyond and the agony of denying crossing over.

“How-“

“Hey! Y/N!” Willie called out to the young denim wearing ghost with his beaming grin, “Don’t go stealing buses without me!”

Luke swore he could see your laughter in the air, just as endearing as the smoky quality your voice carried.

“Don’t go glitter bombing criminals.” You returned as your best friend dropped his board to skate off to wherever he was needed. It was bittersweet to reconnect with him knowing that it could be the last time.

When Caleb found out, not an if but a when Willie had a hand in helping his desired band it was high chance Willie would be gone. Caleb was all too powerful, and when he was betrayed, it never ended well.

“I need to get back to Elysium. Susie’s arrival is tonight. Good luck with tonight.” Your words were accompanied by a hug for each of the boys. The one with Luke lingering the most, “I wish you could play for the kids.”

“Yeah. Me too.” The brunette, messy-haired boy’s words carried a hidden desire simply to be in your space more. The teenage ghost helps those in limbo while wearing a jean jacket with patches from many decades. The jacket creating an unknown time you had lived.

“Goodbye, boys.” You told the trio before you poofed away from the busy streets of Hollywood where the band had come full circle in death.

“Are you guys, okay?” Reggie inquired his best friends, forgoing his casual personality for the layers underneath. His blue-green eyes filled with only concern.

Alex and Luke shared a lingering look, “Yeah. We’re okay.”

The dining hall was filled with long tables and chairs populated by the ghostly forms of everyone currently living at Elysium. It was reminiscent of a British book turned film series of youth with magic abilities. The series had been a favourite of a former resident.

“Incredible.” Susie breathed staring at the joyful people having a place to call home. Making the limbo between life and death more bearable.

“We’ve done well. You smiled, wrapping an arm around her waist, “It’s so nice to have you back.”

Elysium was so much more than you could ever hope for. It kept growing and growing with more ghosts. Since the founding of the haven, new developments continuously happened with one resident’s unique ability.

Harvey had joined the haven a year into the founding bringing the ability to gift the residents with the capacity to eat. During his life, Harvey had been a renowned chef and the dream to make food it carried into his death. As long as Harvey cooked the food with his volunteer staff ghosts were able to eat it.

“Harvey has outdone himself again,” Rudy announced his arrival at your side with his arms crossed, displaying his corded muscles. The constellation of moles on his face standing on his pale creamy skin.

“Rudy!” Susie squealed, throwing herself into his arms with the same glee that came each time. Susie and Rudy since their first meeting had a special bond as chosen siblings who bonded over heartache.

Rudy had died, leaving his best friend and his strawberry blonde girlfriend in the living world back in their dark hometown. It was just one tidbit he had revealed throughout your friendship. The only physical connection to his living friends was the three picture on his desk of a group of people.

The first picture had a lean version of Rudy with his arms thrown over a Hispanic boy with a crooked jaw and glimmering brown eyes. The Hispanic boy had his arm around a pretty brunette girl with deep dimples and wavy brown hair. The two boys wore a sports uniform of some kind holding lacrosse sticks.

The second picture had Rudy and the Hispanic teen again but with a beautiful petite strawberry blonde. Along with them was a brunette with blunt chin-length hair and hardened features besides a shorter blonde male with blue eyes.

The last picture was of Rudy with the same Hispanic boy wearing graduation caps and gowns with two beaming adults. The male adult wore a tan shirt adorned with a star on his left pec and dark brown pants. He had to be Rudy’s father with similar features. The woman was of Hispanic descent with laugh lines, and thick dark curly hair pulled into a half do; obviously the Hispanic teen’s mother.

The pain in Rudy’s face each time he saw the pictures closed off a desire to ask him about the people.

“Hello, Susie.” Rudy chuckled, wrapping his arms around her small stature, “How was Europe?”

“Why don’t you ask the five newcomers I found before Caleb?” Susie teased gesturing to the ragtag of new ghosts immersed in conversations.

“Family?”

“A boarding school had a fire. Those five were in the fire when it happened and the only victims out of seven that didn’t cross over.” Susie’s tone faded into a melancholy tone with her small arms wrapping around her middle. Faded brown eyes staring at the younger of the five seeing herself in them.

“That’s terrible.” You whispered, staring at the table with one finger picking the patch of a band from the ’70s, “I can’t imagine how scary that could have been.”

“Yeah.” Susie softly spoke, pushing a strand of her hair off her temple just as equally sad for the way that death had no qualms of how it took.

The youngest ghost in Elysium had been a three-year-old toddler who passed over quickly when he was found by the deceased mother. The two had been separated at death and luckily shared the same unfinished business of finding each other.

“Miss Reynold’s has twelve spirits that finished their business.” Rudy softly informed his two partners. Soft smiles formed on their faces at the happy news of Elysium’s goal being accomplished again.

“May they find everlasting peace and serenity.” Your words intertwined with Susie in perfect sync of the motto coined after the first crossover, “I suppose the Serenity will begin planning?”

“Have the Serenity ever not performed their duty?” Rudy raised one dark eyebrow with a rhetorical question. E/c and faded brown met recalling the countless times Elysium had hosted a celebration for those who found their unfinished business.

“That is-whoa.” You gasped stumbling at the scream echoing in your mind accessorized with the vintage sound of a band.

Calloused hands grasped your shaking form from collapsing onto the ground from a proverbial psionic shove. Agony slammed your brain flickering into an old fashioned club filled with people in both colour or black and white attire. You caught sight of baby pink, deep royal blue and bright red suits. The pained screams of a skater in a dark room overtaking the music in the Club.

“No.” You whispered clenching your hands on your head, feeling the dread building in the pit of your stomach.

The joyful voices in the hall muted while your body flickered with the deep instinct to leave the haven for the one place that utterly terrified you. It was the familiar touch of Susie and Rudy that kept you from finding the one person that meant the world. Willie’s soul was on the cutting board, and Caleb obsession with performing was the only reason Willie still existed.

“Willie.” You whimpered tears rolling down your flushed cheeks, feeling the panic in the skater’s mind.

“Susie help me.” Rudy stonily spoke ushering the distraught girl from the busy hall into an empty room.

Your shaking body finding purchase on the plush sofa with Susie holding one hand in hers and Rudy brushing the sweaty hair from your forehead. It wasn’t often your psionic abilities left you in such a state, but the distance proved difficult.

“Shit.” Rudy grumbled frowning, “This is bad. Y/N, we need to get you to Willie. You’re flickering, and the distance isn’t helping.”

“You want to take one of Elysium’s strongest ghosts straight into Caleb’s domain? You know how much he wants her in his Club.” Susie hissed to the co-founder of the haven they had to take extraordinary measures to protect, “It won’t work! You’re throwing her to the dogs!”

“Susanne I wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t necessary. Besides, we always have a plan.” Rudy retorted narrowing his whiskey eyes at the younger girl, “I’ll take her to get Willie, but you need to stay here to make sure everything runs smooth.”

“Are you sure you can-“Susie cut herself off with a nod as Rudy displayed the reason he could do it, “Okay, yep, you can do it.”

Rudy came back into her vision in his signature position with one eyebrow raised, and his arms crossed. The reason why Elysium worked so well was Rudy’s ability to erase an object from the view of anyone. He could make himself invisible to anyone and in practice, developed it to hide items and location. With his ability, Elysium was permanently hidden to anyone outside of his power. Illusions were his unique ability.

“You aren’t the first person to doubt my capability.” Rudy informed the other ghost reaching one hand out. With his fingers caressing your temple, he snapped his fingers, transporting you and him away from Elysium.

The empty room of Elysium’s dining hall was exchanged for the business streets of Los Angeles, bringing an improvement in your body. Pushing away from Rudy, your eyes frantically scoured the unfamiliar area for any hint of Willie.

“He’s close.” You exclaimed closing your e/c eyes to focus solely on your sixth sense kicking in. Rudy’s gasp snapped your eyes open to see his eyes pinned on your feet where a glowing neon purple smoke wisped.

“What is that?” Rudy demanded crouching to touch it, but it was like nothing was there. His whiskey brown eyes meeting your confused gaze.

“I have no clue, but I feel like I have to follow it.” Robotically your feet started walking following the smoke through the streets.

Rudy was silent as you came upon a park swallowed by the darkness of the night with the moon barely showing through the clouds. The odd purple smoke the only offering of light so far from the path with street lights.

“Of course we have to go through a park.” Rudy grumbled, “Nothing good ever happens in wooded areas at night.”

Lifting your eyes from the smoke, you looked at a deeply unsettled Rudy lost in the past only he knew. His mind recalling traipsing through the forest with his asthmatic best friend in the middle of the night. The last night before the unknown took over his life. Oddly enough dying and returning as a ghost was the most normal with everything that happened with his friends alive.

“You can go ba-“

“We’re not splitting up,” Rudy growled plainly scowling at your hesitant features. Rudy’s slammed the door closed on his past life.

Sensing unease Rudy’s calloused hand reached over to slide into yours in platonic support. You continued your mission, unaware that three certain ghosts in breathtaking suits were searching for you. 

Alex, Reggie, and Luke, affected by the purple jolts, failed to find the one place where their plan B could work. What Julie hadn’t known was that the guys had a plan just in case the Orpheum wasn’t their unfinished business. The three would go to Elysium to accept their fate and ensure Julie believed they crossed over.

With no Elysium in sight, the boys returned to the Molina garage hoping that one thing would go their way: Julie would go straight to bed.

The glow purple smoke trailed through the city park into an older part of Los Angeles before it stopped. Where the smoke stopped was a vast empty space surrounded by trees.

“Well, that’s a little anticlimactic.” You grumbled crossing your arms, “Willie’s somewhere here. Do you think Caleb has an underground lair?”

Rudy cast an unamused expression at you, “From past experience. No, that’s not likely. He probably has an apartment downtown. An underground network of caves in the woods is more shapeshifter style but still not true.”

“One: You’re rambling. Two: What the hell kind of life did you have?” You questioned furrowing your eyebrows at his rather odd piece of information.

“An old one.” Rudy spoke, staring ahead, “Besides, I think we should check out whatever building is hidden from our sight.”

“Hid-“Your mouth halted when Rudy roughly gripped your shoulders to twist you to face the empty space.

“Close your eyes. Trust your senses.” Rudy spoke softly, “Or pay attention to the slab of concrete in the middle of an empty space with well-kempt grass.”

Your palm slammed your forehead with a resounding thump in the night with distance lights from surrounding buildings. Rudy squeezed your shoulders as he stepped to the side once more in turn, closing his eyes.

“Walk in my mind.” Rudy stated for the first time in your friendship, allowing you to look in his mind. Your hesitance was met with another squeeze of comfort in his calloused grip.

Your tired eyes closed as your mind timidly stepped into the rather breathtaking mind of Rudy, who felt guilt the most. While Susie’s mind was like a summer day spent at a lake with brightness and gorgeous field of flowers, Rudy’s mind was different.

It was dark in Rudy’s mind but not as if evil, but as if he had been touched by the darkness and painted permanently. There’s was the odd whisper of childlike laughter intermingled with the full adult laugh of a woman; the laughter overshadowed with the sound of funeral music. You felt the lose near that memory. Rudy’s mind was painful to be in and drowning in the feelings he had.

Your breath caught seeing a door you assumed was of his childhood room with a name you couldn’t pronounce for the life of you.

“My parents named me after my mom’s dad.” Rudy spoke through his mind with a soft smile on his face, “I couldn’t say it, so I called myself Mischief. I stopped using it when my mom died, and I went by a shortened version of my last name.”

Your eyes watched as the door disappeared, and the reason you were in his mind came back to the forefront. Your eyes watched the image forming of a vintage hotel rippling in the air before it solidified. The size reminded you of a castle, and it felt like you were storming it.

Without any more mental interaction, you stepped out of Rudy’s mind back into the real world. The very same hotel in plain sight to both Rudy and your surprised elation.

 “Honestly didn’t think that would work.” Rudy breathlessly laughed, staring at the hotel once hidden to them. A dark comparison to Elysium.

“How do we play this, Rudy?” You inquired looking over at him, “This is very different from stealing cars and scaring teens.”

“Easy. We blend in.” Rudy responded, holding one hand out to grasp yours in which you noticed your attire had changed, “Perks of illusion? I can alter our own perception of ourselves.”

“Oh, wow. That looks expensive.” You replied, staring at the diamond bracelet on your wrist matching the necklace you wore.

Rudy’s attire had changed from his normal button-up with the sleeves rolled to be layered under a charcoal grey vest and jacket. Sleek matching pants to his coat and the dark black-tie matching the elegant black dress you wore. He had taken pity on your footwear to fit your ability to walk and for the fancy place.

He even had diamond cufflinks that matched you, but the wedding rings on your fingers took you aback. Your widened eyes staring at him.

“Tonight we’re Mr and Mrs Martin,” Rudy spoke choking on the last name he gave as it was the upscale name toppled from his lips.

“Okay. This is a test of our abilities.”

“This is if our plan A of being invisible doesn’t work. The one thing we know for sure is that Caleb has never seen either one of us.” Rudy soothed your nerves with a half-smile,” Let’s get Willie out.”

Your arm slipped into the crook of his to walk to the front door, “I feel like a spy. I feel like that Naomi Roma-“

“It’s Natasha Romanoff. Have you ever seen one of the marvel movies?” Rudy demanded walking up the entrance with a pained smile, “You’re like my best friend and when he wouldn’t watch Star Wars! Never caught one of my references!”

“Okay! Sorry, we can watch the movies when this over.” You grumbled as your heels clicked in the foyer of the hotel. The inside made you feel like you were sent back in time to the roaring ’20s.

“Oh damn, this is nice,” Rudy whispered, staring at the chandelier in the extravagant lobby of the last place you wanted to be.

While on the outside the two ghosts appeared cool, calm and collected they were anything but. Both a wreck inside from the perilous errand they had done that could very well be the ending of Elysium. Rudy nudged you to begin finding Willie with your mind, but you didn’t need to.

That same glowing mist was on the ground pulling you in the direction of a dark hall away from the route to the Club. Rudy kept his eye out, a characteristic carried into the afterlife from his time with the FBI, as you followed the mist. The hall continued to get more and more dark as the walk continued.

 Finally at the end was a blood-red door.

 “I swear to god if he kills his Club members, I’ll lose it.” You hissed to your arm candy, “What if he’s really H. H. Holmes disguised as a former magician? His door is blood red!”

“Have you been using your serial killer colouring book again?” Rudy demanded stuttering his steps to place his whiskey brown eyes on you. The sheepish expression on your face was enough of a response to gain the look of disbelief could have sent you into hysterics had the time not been too serious.

With a grin belying the situation, you twisted your wrist to open the door to hopefully where Willie was being held.

“What a cliché. He’s keeping Willie in the basement?”

“Will you shut up!” Rudy hissed right back with a clenched jaw entering the somewhat unfinished basement. It was cold even to your dead standards where the cold didn’t bother that much.

At the bottom in front of a desk with only a small lamp as illumination sat a vacant-eyed Willie painstakingly detailing a fabric. The lush purple velvet fabric was bougie, to say the least, and rather outlandish for the skater.

“Willie.” You softly coaxed the teen to glance up from the fabric you found to be something Caleb would wear. Willie’s brown eyes barely met yours before they returned to the sewing needle in his hand and the tiny beads in the bowl.

“Caleb is actually forcing him to be his personal seamstress?” Rudy scoffed,d stepping right up by your side to look at the work.

Both trying unsuccessfully to coaxed Willie out of the stupor he was engaged in the sudden poofing wasn’t heard.

“Mrs. Young taught both Willie and Kayla how to sew. She’s quite the seamstress, reminds me of my old one.” Caleb wistfully responded with a smarmy smile on his face, “Well if it isn’t little Y/N and whoever she brought. Nice threads.”

“Let him go.”

Caleb’s index finger caressed the corner of his mouth so gently to ensure the stage makeup didn’t budge. His clear ocean blue eyes turning thunderstorm navy as his lips parted in such a bone-chilling sinister grin.

“Let him go? He tried to take my new house band from me. He thinks that those boys not crossing over is his punishment. I think that adorable but so very wrong.” Caleb shrugged, dragging his finger down the bicep of his puppet.

“What can we do to- “

“You see after he’s done fixing the tuxedo jacket I’m going to tie him up on the table and slowly strip away his soul piece by piece. No, Willie won’t get the quick and easy zap erasing him. I’ll personally see it’s the most painful thing he experiences and I’ll do so happily.”

“Willie! Wake up!” Rudy shouted, shaking the skater’s shoulder frantically with his focus never entirely leaving the mad man. The whiskey brown eyes panicking at the odd displaced feeling of reliving his living life.

“That won’t work.” Caleb chuckled crossing his arms, “It’s rather amusing you think you can beat me. I’m Caleb Covington! I’m persuasive enough for hundred of memberships to financially benefit the Club.”

“And I’m Y/N Y/L/N bitch.” You snarled viciously throwing your mind into the nefarious narcissistic mind of the washed-up magician. 

Caleb Convington had started to bore his audience with the same tricks at every previous show. The lack of interest depleting the attendance numbers and severely hurting the financials. So Caleb decided to broaden his talent by copying the likes of Harry Houdini.

He had a knack for both the dramatics and swindling his audience to be tricked by the illusions he created. The heightened popularity increased Caleb’s thirst for status and fame, so he overestimated himself.

Surrounded by adoring fans and journalists, Caleb had his assistant lock him in a safe with no key, to the audience’s knowledge, and push the safe into the river. Unfortunately from the infamous magician and escape artist the safe warped due to the material it as made out of. Caleb Covington died drowning in a safe at the bottom of the river.

You flinched feeling the emotion at the time Caleb had died and the feeling of disappointment at not leaving a legacy. Your continued your trek in the struggling mind of a man who viewed himself as invincible. You caught glimpses of a young Caleb with his family and the moments of tragedy that shaped him.

You saw his first taste of power in death and the content since the first time he erased a ghost from existence. It sickened you more as you reached the point where Willie came into Caleb’s path.

I’m unique, Caleb. Unlike you with the illusions and empty promises, I have real power that you could only dream of. Hearing your thoughts and planting my own words is just the tip of the iceberg.

Caleb screamed in response holding his aching head as you cruelly ripped every memory of Willie from his mind. The screams echoed not only in the basement but through the hotel the Club worked out of.

“Stop!” Caleb pleaded, shaking his head back and forth. The anguish was un-fazing to both the lucid people in the room. Rudy too busy trying to wake your best friend from the trance he had been placed in.

“I can alter memories. Remove them and even plant memories of my own design. You may take from people, but I give to people. I refused to give you anything.” You circled the man seeing double from outside and inside his mind.

I’m everything you wish you could be.

Your last action in his mind was searing a burn that flashed across his entire body from a nerve stroked. With the heat equivalent to magma in his veins, you burrowed to where Caleb controlled the souls. With a smear of your fingers, Willie’s soul was released from Caleb clutches.

“C’mon. Get Willie.” You told Rudy sending Caleb into an empty trance as if he was no more than a wax figure. Rudy eased the skater up from the desk while you exchanged Caleb to sit on the chair holding the needle, “We need to leave. I’ll get rid of any speck of Willie in memories.”

“I didn’t even get to punch the guy.” Rudy pouted, dragging his feet up the stairs away from the magician.

“That’s a good thing. I’m sure Caleb would be more pissed about his nose being damaged than losing Willie.” You scoffed helping the man urge Willie to walk up the stairs and then down the hallway to the entrance.

As you walked you brushed the minds of every individual in the building, all members in attendance, you gently removed all traces of Willie. By the time you reached the edge of the park, you had relaxed.

“We should get him to Alex, they didn’t crossover. I can still feel their imprint.”

“He’d be safer at Elysium to lay low.” Rudy replied, keeping on eye on the skater and on anyone he could see.

With only a nod, you ushered the ghost to teleport both the skater and himself back to the safe walls of Elysium. As he did so, you reached out with your mind to the blonde-haired sweet male in adoration with your best friend.

Clicking his place was easy enough for your draining power after the taxing bond with Willie’s absent presence. Instead of walking as you would generally choose you poofed on the cement pad in the backyard of a home. The surrounding skirt of the backyard encased with plants and flowers.

“Hello?” You called out in the darkness. The soft, mumbled words had your feet moving in the direction.

Standing in a circle mesmerized at the purple tattoos lifting off their skin was the boys of Julie and the Phantoms. The teenage beautiful Puerto Rican girl stood across from Luke with Reggie and Alex on each side.

“Alex?” You called out to the boy wearing a baby pink vintage tuxedo that complimented his skin and hair exquisitely. The outfit definitely screamed that Caleb had something to do with it, especially with the missing fanny pack.

“Y/N?” Luke gasped turning to see you in incredibly fancy attire matching his gorgeous blue suit modified to having no sleeves. The anticipation of eating at you to find Reggie rocking a red suit with butterflies on the fabric.

“I’m sorry you didn’t crossover.” Your words soothed the sad teenagers that had accepted their fate only to have no control again. An introduction was brought between you and Julie when the living girl elbowed Alex.

“Not that we mind but what are you doing here? How did you get here, and why are you dressed up?” Luke inquired, pushing his hands into his suit pockets, engrossed with your gorgeous appearance.

“Well when you crash a fancy Club with a narcissistic founder…any means to blend in is necessary.” You responded, “As for your second question.”

Your finger tapped your temple before continuing to speak, “I’m here because Alex deserves to know. You all do.”

The boy in baby pink frantically stepped forward, “What happened?”

“Maybe it’s best, I just show you?” Your brows furrowed to your own question accompanied by your lower lip being bitten by your teeth. The red lipstick not budging as it was an illusion as well.

“Hu-“Reggie grunted as he spiralled with his two dead bandmates into the scene that had sent you on your determined mission.

The rough action of being drawn into your memories as jarring as the first time and just as scary. The maniacal magician pacing the dark basement simply to heighten his dramatic speech. Alex’s heart clenched at the vacant look in the skater’s eyes with the faintest tinge of purple in the gorgeous brown.

“I feel like I got carsick.” Reggie moaned leaning over to clutch his midsection once you released the ghostly trio. Reggie would often gain a look of disbelief and horror from the blonde drummer, but his entire brain was centred on Willie.

“Rudy took Willie back to Elysium where he’ll be safe. If you want, you can join us.” The words were offered to both the dead and living currently in the room.

Opting out, Julie retired to her bedroom to calm down from the rush of performing at the Orpheum of all places. Besides she felt like going to Elysium was best for the three boys, and maybe they would move there. Julie would miss them, but she knew they’d always come back.

Susie was quick to hug you tightly as you stepped through the gates with the dead members of Julie’s band. The boys changed out of the tuxedos they had dropped off at a donation centre, Reggie had wanted to burn them. After living on the streets for a short while, Luke understood the need for clothing, so the clothing was taken to shelters.

“I’m so glad you’re okay. Rudy told me you overexerted yourself again.” Susie spoke with a deeply furrowed brow oblivious to the puppy dog look from the bassist in red flannel.

“If I didn’t, Willie would be gone.”

“You’re pale yet flushed cheeks. I can see you have a fever. You need to rest.”

“I need to soothe Willie out of the trance that psychotic prick put him in.” You scoffed shaking Susie’s hand off your shoulder to sidestep her, “I’ll rest when he’s fine.”

“I-“

“At least gab something from the cafeteria for energy.” Susie’s brown eyes dimmed at your typical brush off. The same routine of overusing your powers and not recharging correctly, “He’s in Cottage A!”

The boys were on your heels as you power-walked through the streets of the ghost city with one location in mind. The living streets with homes of all style and colours appeared passed the bakery, the school and the clothing stores.

“You can eat?” Reggie whispered as a little ghost girl licked an ice cream cone walked by.

“Harvey adored cooking for people when he living, so he continued in death. Harvey can make food for ghosts, and so can his staff if they work in his kitchen. His pastry chef provides baked goods to Flora’s Bakery and makes the best ice cream.”

 “Oh my god.” Reggie practically squealed wholly flabbergasted by the almost perfect place you created, “How do you pay for things?”

“We don’t. What Harvey doesn’t grow in his garden, he can make ingredients out of thin air. We all have some kind of job we do. Everyone has a role in fulfilling to keep Elysium running.” You simply spoke keeping your eyes on the cottage with the robin’s egg blue door.

As if he knew Rudy flung the door open elated to see you standing there. Both of you still wearing the illusioned attire. IN milliseconds he wiped the illusion away, returning you back into your street clothes.

“How is he?”

“No change.” Rudy replied, following your steps in the living room. The skater was staring blankly at the wall.

“Willie!” Alex cried, rushing over to kneel beside the boy that had so swiftly stolen his heart without him realizing. The emotion in his word didn’t get a microscopic flinch from the formerly so-called enemy.

“Everyone be quiet.” You demanded forcibly staring each person in the room down for a mere second. With the desired silence continued, you ignored the headache forming in your head to step into the skater’s mind.

William Young was screaming to be released by the prison of his own mind Caleb had forced him into. He had felt the restriction on his soul lifted and the mist of purple leaving his brain, but he was still stuck.

He could barely breathe with the weight on his chest. Willie didn’t like feeling stuck in one place as he was a wanderer at heart. It was a reason why he had joined the Hollywood Ghost Club with the promise of travel.

Willie come back

In his mind, the sound of your voice firstly grounded the young man as a mirage of your form flickered. Your eyes screamed worry while the smile was one of relief.

Caleb can’t hurt you anymore. Come home.

The spectators watching see your flinching wavering expression and the tensing of Willie’s facial muscles. Everyone sat on the edge of their seat as the two pairs eyes opened in synch of the yells of hurt.

What they didn’t expect was your eyes to roll into the back of your skull and you to collapse onto the floor.

“Y/N!” Willie cried, stumbling off the couch onto the cold floor where your body lay prone, “Wake up!”

It seemed everyone forgot the little detail of being dead.

 “She’s fine.” Rudy remarked, shaking your arm with such gentle care matching the four guys’ care in the room.

Your eyelids fluttered open under the bright lights of the unused cottage still waiting for an owner.

“Susie was right.” You grumbled allowing Willie to help you sit up against the blue velvet couch. Your mussed hair adorable in the eyes of the guitarist utterly enamoured with everything about you.

“She usually is.” Rudy mused, thinking of the many times she had proven everyone wrong, “She punched me for not bringing you home.”

“Gotta love her.” You snorted turning to face the four ghosts awkwardly gazing around the room. It was barren of personality with the lack of inhabitants. The yearning quickly found in the boys’ eyes, “You know this isn’t the only cottage in need of people.”

“What do-“

“You’re welcome to live here. I know you three live in that studio, but here you can have a real bed. You can eat and having your own place. You can come and go as you please.” You offered without looking, Rudy.

“I don’-“

“If you don’t want to live here, it’s okay, but the option is always there. Willie, we make plans for a skatepark-“

“Oh, you had me from the start.” Willie beamed tugging you into his arms, “I missed this. I missed you.”

 “Me too.” You murmured into his warm embrace equally relaxed at knowing he was safe again. Your eyes clashing with the soft blue had Ideas songwriting already filled with lyrics of a pretty girl wearing a jean jacket with patches.

The lyrics turned into songs both in the studio and the cottage that Luke, Reggie and Alex accepted in Elysium. It had been a spirited discussion with Julie on moving to Elysium, but the boys were always there when she wasn’t in school. Often Elysium hosted a concert for the residents with the visitation of Julie.

Your reciprocated attraction with the messy-haired hazel-eyed guitarist flourished into a serious relationship. Luke took on the role of teaching how to play the guitar and songwriting. Alex took of mediation while Reggie worked with Harvey.

Willie quickly took on designing the skatepark he taught at while also taking a position at the ghost school.

“Morning.” The soft whisper roused your sleep into the golden glow of the morning light and chirping birds.

The growling aspect of his voice coming from only just waking up. The sight of Luke’s bleary eyes was heartwarming.

 A year into moving into Elysium, Luke had asked if you’d like to move in as he was the only one in the original house. Alex had moved into the little cottage with Willie three months into the relationship while Reggie was going back and forth between Susie’s room and his own place.

“Morning.” You hummed leaning forward to kiss his cheek.

“You know I thought my life ended when I died. That I could never find someone and have a family. That I couldn’t share my music with the world. I was wrong.” Luke murmured as he cupped your cheek in his hand, “The band is growing more and more each day. I found the love of my life, and we have a family with everyone. I haven’t felt like I had had home for so long, but I get it now. You’re my home. I love you.”

Your cheeks warmed up at the adoration Luke displayed in his expressive hazel green gaze just as it had since day one. The awe fell from his lips before you pressed a kiss to his lips, only one of the many in the eons to come.

Tag List (PLEASE SEND AN INBOX TO BE ADDED! I CANNOT GUARANTEE YOU WILL BE ON THE LIST VIA POST COMMENTS!)

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[jaskiers-sweetkiss]

Sunset Swerve Masterlist

Jordan Moss and Luke Patterson have hated each other about as long as they’ve known each other so it’s no surprise that tensions immediately flare when 25 years after their untimely deaths the musicians of Sunset Curve and Apollo 81 are mysteriously brought back as ghosts. However, they need to band together to finally accomplish their life-long goals: to play their music for the world. (Graphic by the lovely @bright-molina​)

Chapters: 

Teaser

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Part 11

Part 12

One-shots: 

We’re Not Stalking, We Were Just Bored (Takes place before Part 10)

Finally, A Quality Education  (Takes place circa Part 9) 

[fifiweihao-blog]

KENDRA – TEEN IDOL (FALL SESSION) 2

FACEBOOK / INSTAGRAM / FLICKR / TWITTER photo by: Roman Kajzer @FotoManiacNYC

You can see the entire session here: KENDRA – FALL SESSION

TEEN IDOL

A teen idol is a celebrity with a large teenage fan-base. Teen idols are generally young but not necessarily teenaged. Often teen idols are actors or singers, but some sports figures also have an appeal to teenagers. Some teen idols began their careers as child actors, like Leif Garrett, Lindsay Lohan, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, and Hilary Duff.

The idol’s popularity may be limited to teens, or may extend to all age groups. Many teen idols are targeted for adults for nostalgia purposes.

There were teen idols before there were teen magazines, but idols have always been a permanent feature in magazines such as Seventeen, 16 magazine, Tiger Beat and Right On! in the United States, and in similar magazines elsewhere. With the advent of television, teen idols were also promoted through programs such as American Bandstand, The Ed Sullivan Show, Soul Train and in the UK Top of the Pops. Today’s teen idols have spawned an entire industry of gossip magazines, television shows, YouTube, and whole television channels such as E!.

Many American teen idols achieve "cross-over" success internationally; however, this list is not limited to American artists alone with some people such as German popstar Bill Kaulitz of the pop-rock band Tokio Hotel. In Asia, idols range from Japanese pop megastars Ayumi Hamasaki and Namie Amuro as well as Kana Nishino and Japanese music groups such as Momoiro Clover Z, Morning Musume, AKB48, and Perfume and Johnny & Associates boy bands Arashi, NEWS, KAT-TUN, and Hey! Say! JUMP among others while Chinese pop icon Jay Chou and Jolin Tsai, music groups F4 and Lollipop F, and South Korean singers BoA and Rain and music groups TVXQ, 2PM, 2AM, Beast, Shinee, EXO, Super Junior, f(x), 2NE1, BIGBANG, Wonder Girls, BTS, T-ara, Kara and Girls’ Generation are examples. In Latin America, idols ranges from Mexican pop stars Thalía, Timbiriche, Lynda Thomas, Magneto, Puerto Rican born Mexican Luis Miguel, Puerto Rican singer Marc Anthony, and the very popular Puerto Rican boy band Menudo in the 1980’s and 1990’s, and Paty Cantú, Anahi, Belinda. Ha^Ash and RBD in the 2000s and 2010’s. Besides, former Menudo member Ricky Martin, their chief rivals Los Chicos and former member Chayanne, Venezuelan actor and singer Guillermo Davila and more, to Argentina, where telenovela, Chiquititas, ushered in a new era of teen-idols for that country, including actors Benjamin Rojas, Felipe Colombo, Luisana Lopilato and Camila Bordonaba, who went on to form teen band Erreway, precursors to Mexican band RBD. In Spain, La Oreja de Van Gogh, Miguel Bose, Mecano and Hombres G all enjoyed teen-idol status. Even in the classical music field, a British-Chinese violinist Vanessa-Mae became the first "teen idol" in that category.

In the past, young sports icons and Olympic athletes during their competitive times were considered teen idols such as Jean-Claude Killy, Peggy Fleming, Joe Namath, Dorothy Hamill, Mark Spitz, Jim Craig, Nadia Comăneci, Mary Lou Retton, Michael Jordan, Dominique Moceanu, Michelle Kwan, Carly Patterson, Shawn Johnson, Nastia Liukin, Michelle Wie, Mia Hamm, Ryan Lochte, Michael Phelps, Missy Franklin, Katie Ledecky, Shaun White, Apolo Ohno, Simone Biles, Tom Daley, McKayla Maroney, and Gabby Douglas.

Early teen idols

The first known person to have been treated as a teen idol was Franz Liszt, the Hungarian pianist who, in the 1840’s, drew such a following among young women that the term "Lisztomania" soon came to describe the phenomenon. The kind of idolizing following Liszt drew in Europe would not be followed for several decades. Geraldine Farrar, American opera singer, had a large following of young women nicknamed "Gerry-flappers" in the early 20th century. Rudy Vallée, who became a major success in 1929 with hits like "Honey" and "Deep Night", may have been the first American popular singer to have been idolized by hundreds of teen-aged girls at sold-out concerts. He was also possibly the first popular singer to have a star vehicle created for him: The Vagabond Lover. Frank Sinatra, whose early career is often linked to his appeal to bobby soxers, is also regarded as having been amongst the first teen idols.

1950’s–1960’s

The great success of young rock stars like Elvis Presley and Pat Boone, film stars like Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, James Dean, Tab Hunter, and Sal Mineo in the 1950’s, as well as the wider emergence of youth subcultures, led promoters to the deliberate creation of teen idols such as singers Frankie Avalon, Fabian Forte, Frankie Lymon, and Connie Stevens. Even crooners like Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra were still considered idols and rather handsome. Actors Edd Byrnes and Troy Donahue and other artists deliberately cultivated a (safer) idol image, like Paul Anka.

Anka initially modelled himself on a particular generic type, the teen idol [who] carried on the process … of changing the image of male youth … from wild to mild, by providing a cleaner, more wholesome image of masculinity than that of the previous era’s rebellious rockabilly heroes and (working-class) so-called juvenile delinquents, like those in West Side Story….

Post-war teens were able to buy relatively inexpensive phonographs — including portable models that could be carried to friends’ houses — and the new 45-rpm singles. Rock music played on 45’s became the soundtrack to the 1960’s as people bought what they heard on the radio. The great majority of the music being marketed to 1950’s teens was being written by adults, but 1960’s teens were increasingly appreciating and emulating artists closer to their own age, to teen fashion, and to lyrics which addressed their own concerns. Their parents worried about their attraction to artists (and DJs) who were edgy and rebellious. Faces on magazines fed fans; fans buy records, see films, watch TV and buy fashions.

Marketing of the teen idol generally focuses on the image…. The teen idol is structured to appeal to the pre-teen and young teen female pop audience member and children in general…. [They] are commodified in forms and images that are relatively non-threatening to this young audience and to the ancillary market of parents… The teen idol never appears to be autonomous and therefore never appears to be threatening as an adult; he remains, as long as he is popular, perpetually childlike and dependent.

Some marketers turned to film and TV for fresh, attractive, ‘safe’ faces. Tommy Sands’s debut in a television film about the phenomenon, The Idol, made a teen idol out of Sands himself. Ricky Nelson, a performer of rockabilly music, also became a teen idol through his parents’ television series, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. Some young TV stars were being hustled into studios to make recordings; for example, ex-Mousketeer Annette Funicello became one of the first big female idols as well as the Lennon Sisters whom had cut out dolls and were always on the covers of the gossip magazines; another, Johnny Crawford of The Rifleman, had five Top-40 hits. In 1963, Luke Halpin made a big splash as a teen idol in the television program Flipper. After Bye Bye Birdie was released in 1963, Bobby Rydell became an instant teen idol.

In the 1960’s as situation comedies and dramas on television using child actors became more popular, actors Paul Petersen, Patty Petersen, and Shelley Fabares from The Donna Reed Show, Dwayne Hickman from The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, Sally Field of Gidget, Jon Provost of Lassie, Jay North from Dennis the Menace, Billy Mumy of Lost in Space (and later of novelty group Barnes and Barnes), Sajid Khan of Maya, and Keith and Kevin Schultz known as the "Schultz Twins" on The Monroes all became younger preteen idols and grew into being teen idols.

Likewise, Tommy Steele, the Beatles with Beatlemania, the Rolling Stones, and the Beach Boys were teen idols, especially during the earlier part of their careers, although they quickly grew out of that status. The Rolling Stones did it through a more rebellious image, the Beatles did it through their more developed (or "grown up") music. Similarly, Neil Sedaka had two distinct eras of his career, with about a decade in between: one as a teen idol in the 1960’s, and a later career in adult contemporary music. From the family band the Cowsills, Susan Cowsill, John Cowsill and Barry Cowsill became teen idols and were on teen magazine covers for many years. Many of the teen idols of the era were the sons of older, established stars; Dino, Desi & Billy were active as teen idols during the mid-sixties. The group included Desi Arnaz Jr (son of bandleader Desi Arnaz), Dean Paul Martin (son of singer Dean Martin), and Billy Hinsche (a mutual friend whose parents were not famous). Gary Lewis, son of comedian Jerry Lewis, fronted the Playboys during this era.

All of the Monkees became instant teen idols in the late 1960’s after their TV show became an overnight success, especially for Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones. The British born member of the Monkees Davy Jones was regularly featured in all time teen idol lists. In 2008, Yahoo Music named Jones the number one teen idol of all time, and in 2009 he was ranked second in a list compiled by Fox News. Davy Jones still to this day tends to win many number one’s and the top of the list in best teen idol contests.

Tiger Beat magazine, an influential teen music magazine, began publishing in 1965.

1970’s

After Davy Jones came Bobby Sherman and David Cassidy, who held the title of Teen Idols from the late 1960’s until the mid-1970’s. Both Sherman and Cassidy were actors on television and chart topping musicians in the pop-rock category at the time; with David Cassidy in particular enjoying immense international fame and success. Sherman was on hit TV shows Shindig! and Here Come the Brides among many others. Musical series such as Cassidy’s The Partridge Family, the animated series The Archie Show, and (to a lesser extent) The Brady Bunch integrated television and teen-pop music to significant success during this time frame. The Brady Bunch’s Barry Williams and Christopher Knight, as was tennis pro/actor Vincent Van Patten all were constantly in the fan magazines at the time. Actors Richard Thomas, Robby Benson, Peter Barton, Leif Garrett, Mark Lester, Jan-Michael Vincent, William Katt, and Jack Wild were the talk of the teenagers in the 1970’s as well. Musicians the Hudson Brothers were on many teen magazine covers for a number of years as teen idols. They had two shows on TV during the 1970’s and recorded many albums.

One of the features of many teen idols is that their fans (and, in some cases, the musicians themselves) tend to develop a distaste for the music once they became adults, and it is not much listened to by adults, except for nostalgia: the legacy of bubblegum pop. Teen idol performers in this category would include Shaun Cassidy, Leif Garrett, the Osmond Brothers (particularly Donny Osmond and their teen idol sister Marie Osmond), Andy Gibb, Tony DeFranco of the DeFranco Family, and the Bay City Rollers. Even modern classic hits and oldies outlets, which cover this time period, rarely play cuts from the teen idols of the era. A notable exception is Michael Jackson of the Jackson Five, who began his career as a teen idol along with his brothers, but whose individual career eventually evolved far beyond the limitations of that description and into super-stardom.

The Jackson Five were the first African-American music group to become national teen idols, appearing alongside white idols in magazines such as 16 and Tiger Beat.

1980’s

In 1985 actress Alyssa Milano from Who’s The Boss became a major teen idol and was dubbed "The Teen Queen of the 1980’s. In the mid-1980’s there was a group of young actors called the Brat Pack; the whole group collectively and separately became teen idols. They were Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, and Ally Sheedy. They starred in many coming-of-age films. The film that would help invent and popularize the genre was Francis Ford Coppola’s coming-of-age drama film The Outsiders (1983), which starred C. Thomas Howell, Ralph Macchio, Matt Dillon, Patrick Swazye, Diane Lane, Rob Lowe, Leif Garrett, Emilio Estevez, and Tom Cruise. The movie would receive critical acclaim, and would also become a box office success, and later a cult classic.

Actors such as Patrick Swazye, Matt Dillon, and Tom Cruise were teen idols who would later become successful A-list celebrities.

Actors Corey Feldman and Corey Haim also became teen idols during the later part of the 1980’s with films The Goonies and together The Lost Boys, Dream a Little Dream and License to Drive among other films. They were dubbed "the two Coreys". Before Corey Haim’s death in 2010, they did a reality TV show for two seasons (2007–08) on A&E named The Two Coreys after their 1980’s moniker.

Actor River Phoenix during his teen years became a teen idol during the later part of the 1980s.Phoenix’s work encompassed 24 films and television appearances, and his rise to fame led to his status as a "teen idol".On October 31, 1993, Phoenix collapsed and died of drug-induced cardiac arrest on the sidewalk outside the West Hollywood nightclub The Viper Room at the age of 23.

Australian-American singer Rick Springfield was regarded as teen idol from 1971, after releasing his solo début single "Speak to the Sky". His career matured over the next two decades with more hit songs. He gained further fame as a television series actor.

In the 1980’s, Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, caused a sensation in Latin America, nicknamed Menudomania that became compared to the Beatles’ Beatlemania.

Also painted with the Beatlemania brush was British pop group Duran Duran. Dubbed "the Fab Five", this group is recognized as pioneers in the then relatively new area of music video, that started with the Monkees in the 1960’s. Their exotic videos, such as Hungry Like the Wolf, being fixtures on cable channel MTV coupled with their exposure in teen magazines instilled them as teen idols in America and around the world though the majority of the 80’s. Another British pop band Culture Club were dubbed teen idols, with Boy George’s androgynous outfits that were copied by his teen fans and young adults alike.

At the end of the 1980’s, actor Kirk Cameron became a major teen idol teenage heartthrob. Cameron was best known for his role as Mike Seaver on the television situation comedy Growing Pains from 1985 to 1992. Also Scott Baio and Willie Aames of Charles in Charge fame found themselves regulars in teen magazines.

In popular music, the late 1980’s was the boom of teenagers dominating the music charts. Debbie Gibson became the youngest person to write, perform and produce a number-one single, "Foolish Beat", and also had many hits from her first two albums. Tiffany, another teen icon, became a pop sensation at 15 years old thanks to an aggressive marketing strategy. She promoted her debut album in shopping malls of the US. She is also the youngest person to have a debut album hit number one and have multiple number one singles from that album ("I Think We’re Alone Now" and "Could’ve Been"). Having become a household name, she had then-unknown band New Kids on the Block as an opening act for her shows. However, the sudden popularity of the New Kids caused their roles to be reversed. Gibson and Tiffany’s careers had stalled by the early 1990’s; so had NKOTB by the mid-nineties. The other boy band from Boston, New Edition was very popular with the teen set by the end of the 1980’s as well.

Madonna, was another example of teen idol and became a fashion icon between teenagers. Even, professor Joseph Straubhaar in the book Communications Media in the Information Society (1997) called a teen idol by 1992 year.

1990’s

The manufacturing of teen idols has been marketed more aggressively and with greater sophistication since the 1980’s. The rise of MTV in the 1980’s and the success of the boy bands of the 1990’s and 2000’s has continued to fuel the phenomenon. Besides a combination of good, clean-cut looks and a ubiquitous marketing campaign, such bands typically include a variety of personality types (e.g. "the shy one", "the smart one", etc.) Classic examples of "boy bands" include Menudo, New Kids on the Block, Take That, Backstreet Boys, and ‘NSYNC, all becoming the best selling pop groups of the decade. Hanson was initially marketed as such a band, but eventually outgrew this label to become a successful indie band. Female pop super star Mariah Carey, was very popular with teens in the 90’s decade. Christina Aguilera, Jennifer Lopez, Mandy Moore, Jessica Simpson, and Britney Spears, along with mega girl groups the Spice Girls and Destiny’s Child, also became very popular at the end of the decade. Other notable examples from the 1990’s are female R&B singers Mýa, Aaliyah, Monica, and Brandy. After Brandy’s television show Moesha went on the air, it brought her many teen fans and she was always on the cover or in the teen magazines for many years. Brothers Nick Carter from Backstreet Boys and pop star Aaron Carter were both teen idols in their heyday, as was, to a much lesser extent, sister Leslie. Robbie Williams of boy band Take That had teen idol status as did Ricky Martin during the Latin music explosion of the late 1990’s.

Many of the major teen idols in the 1990’s were from boy bands and musical acts. One major exception was the situation comedy Home Improvement ‘s Jonathan Taylor Thomas, who appeared from 1991 to 1998, but never embraced his stardom. Another major teen idol was Freddie Prinze, Jr. who skyrocketed to teen heartthrob status after starring in successful teen horror films.

The 1997 film Titanic made Leonardo DiCaprio a teen idol; during "Leo-Mania" his face appeared on many teen magazines. Other teen idols from TV were most of the cast of Saved by the Bell, Joshua Jackson and James Van Der Beek of Dawson’s Creek, Ben Savage and Rider Strong of Boy Meets World, Joseph Gordon-Levitt of 3rd Rock From the Sun, Jonathan Brandis of seaQuest DSV, Jared Leto of My So-Called Life, Joey Lawrence of Blossom (and to a lesser extent, Joey’s brothers, Matthew and Andrew), Jason Priestley and Luke Perry of Beverly Hills, 90210 fame, and Erik Von Detten of various TGIF shows. These actors were often found on the covers and pages of teen magazines during the 1990’s as teen idols as well. Sarah Michelle Gellar was a major teen idol in the late 90’s, as a result of her lead role in the popular television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Fraternal twin sisters and TV actresses Ashley Olsen and Mary-Kate Olsen were major tween idols, and as they grew up they later became teen idols during the 1990’s. After the movie Clueless, Alicia Silverstone found herself a teen idol. The comedy duo of Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell are also teen idols, in which they star in the Nickelodeon sketch comedy All That, their own sitcom Kenan & Kel, and the 1997 film Good Burger. Nickelodeon also produced The Amanda Show which featured Amanda Bynes as well.

2000’s

The Walt Disney Company and its numerous outlets (e.g. Disney Channel, Radio Disney and Walt Disney Pictures) have successfully developed a new generation of teen idols. In the early 2000’s, the company developed the careers of actresses and singers Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan, initially targeting youth and female teen audiences. While still teenagers, Duff became famous for her starring titular character in the Disney Channel teen sitcom Lizzie McGuire, and Lohan became famous for her starring roles in many successful teen movies, including Freaky Friday, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, Herbie: Fully Loaded, and Mean Girls. Other Nickelodeon and Disney Channel stars are also teen idols, including Jesse McCartney, Raven-Symone, Kyla Pratt, Ashley Tisdale, Vanessa Hudgens, Drake Bell, Josh Peck, Emma Roberts, Miranda Cosgrove, Miley Cyrus, Victoria Justice, Jennette McCurdy, Elizabeth Gillies and the Jonas Brothers.

In 2002, Canadian singer Avril Lavigne dominated the music scene and eventually became a worldwide teen idol. Listed at number 4 on Yahoo!’s Top 25 Teen Idols of all-time. Other teen idols are in the R&B and hip-hop realm, including JoJo, Ciara, Keke Palmer and Chris Brown.

2010’s

Disney Channel stars Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato, YouTube star Becky G, and The X Factor alumni Little Mix have come to be teen idols. Ariana Grande was a popular teen actress before gaining mainstream popularity as a singer and teen idol.

In Japan, more and more "idol groups" have appeared. In Japanese culture, persons called "idols" are media personalities in their teens and early twenties who are considered particularly attractive or cute and who will, for a period ranging from several months to a few years, regularly appear in the mass media, e.g. as singers for pop groups, bit-part actors, TV personalities, models in photo spreads published in magazines, advertisements, etc. One of the most successful groups is Momoiro Clover Z. Their performances incorporate elements of ballet, gymnastics, and action movies. During 2016, about 636 thousand people attended their live concerts, which was the highest record of all female musicians in Japan. The group has been ranked as the most popular female idol group from 2013 to 2016.

Since their rise to fame in recent years, pop singer and YouTube sensation Justin Bieber, country-pop musician Taylor Swift, boy band One Direction, pop rock band 5 Seconds of Summer, and girl group Fifth Harmony have become examples of modern-day mega teen idols who have achieved international success, known for their devoted teen female fans, as well as an adult fan base making them all international superstars as well as teen idols.

LINKS:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teen_idol en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_(person) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junior_idol en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_pop_idol en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_idol en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Japanese_gravure_idols en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_symbol en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pin-up_model en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrity_worship_syndrome

Posted by FotoManiacNYC on 2015-11-12 12:44:06

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[erica-rayann-fagan]

Musicians ... Band Camps collide with multi tasked and talented and gifted which means all and everyone for Volunteers for All Purposeful Christian Camps... Crystal lakes got fuel? Sorry its gonna get crazy but im crazy so if it don't make sense just know that it is going to... Ice Cube and Michael Jordan and LARRY BYRD. . and Ashton and Mila Kutcher... Jerry Jones and Aggasi and OJ Simpson And Rosie O'donnell ... People that may remember KIDS INCORPORATED.. SALLY FIELD AND TANYA TUCKER ARE U ALIVE ? GARTH BROOKS AND BROOKS AND DUNN..RONALD HOWARD AND DAN ACKROYD IS HE STILL ALIVE.. ALL LAMPOONS CAST MEMBERS.. JACK NICHOLSON AND I SAY THAT AGAIN... OWEN WILSON AND KEVIN COSTNER AND. COSBY CAST MEMBERS AND ROBIN GIVENS ? AND MATT UMMM WHATCHA LAST NAME AGAIN .. CHRISTIAN SLATER ... AUTHORS ANNE RICE AND CLANCEY GRISHAM PATTERSON SANDRA BROWN STEPHEN KING AND CNARLES BARKLEY .. MORGAN FREEMAN... SHARON OSBORNE HONEY IM TRYING AND WORKING ON IT... WHAT HAPPENED TO BARBARA WALTERS DIANNE SAWYER AND HELEN HUNT ... WHATS JULIA ROBERTS BROTHERS NAME AGAIN...NATE WALKER . CAST OF SCREAM SEQUELS AND SCOOBY DOO AND PETER BERG WHATS HIS NAME .. SOME YOUNG AND RESTLESS CAST MEMBERS AND RYAN LAVERY AND ALL SOAP STARS OF ANY PAST SOAPS ... PRIMETIME OR MORNING AFTERNOON'S . ANY DESIGNERS LIKE POPULAR IN THE 90s and Céline Dion..Mark Wahlberg and cast of The Perfect Storm and Bruce Willis and Wayans Brothers and Tyler Perry and Angelina Jolie and any SMALLVILLE CAST MEMBERS AND STANDBY https://www.instagram.com/p/CNBVtSXLGN1/?igshid=c227ad16w1kp

[sinceileftyoublog]

Live Picks: 3/29

Dream Theater

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Prog rock and metal. Devastating singer-songwriters. An instrumental master.

Dream Theater, Chicago Theatre

Distance Over Time, the 14th studio album from prog metal legends Dream Theater, was written in 18 days. Does that mean it’s focused? Of course not. The band is, as usual, instrumentally proficient and thematically all over the place. Opener “Untethered Angel” is a hard-charging rocker about a person trying to regain lost hope. “S2N”’s impressively complex time signatures is taken a bit too seriously when the band deliver obvious lyrics about social ills. Don’t get me wrong: the band’s heart is in the right place, “At Wit’s End” decrying the abuse of women. But some of them are plain lazy, “Barstool Warrior” juxtaposing the stories of such women and a man’s existential crisis as two sides of the same despair coin.

Listening to the moments of Distance Over Time that do work, you realize Dream Theater should have played it a bit more safe. “Paralyzed” is the catchy, short, effective rock song of the bunch. “Fall into the Light” is the quintessential cheesy new age enlightenment song, but it’s Ride the Lightning-level heavy. Perhaps the best on the record is the closer “Pale Blue Dot”, or how Carl Sagan referred to Earth from space. The most stadium-sized song on the record, it shows the band challenging the idea that we should feel small. If only on the rest of the album they didn’t get in the way of themselves.

5.9/10

Tonight at the Chicago Theatre, Dream Theater celebrate both Distance Over Time and the 20th anniversary of Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory, starting sets with new material and then playing the latter in full.

Thou & Emma Ruth Rundle, Subterranean

Baton Rouge metal monsters Thou’s latest release is Magus, a collection of the band’s typical sludgy, slow, doom metal instrumentation juxtaposed with Bryan Funck’s icy vocals. But it’s uncharacteristically hopeful. “We refuse to exist in our despair,” they sing on “In the Kingdom of Meaning”, one of many songs on the album that starts with more gentle, echoing instrumentation before delving into its usual sorcery. “We are the sages, reincarnated, up to our old tricks again,” sing a chorus of women on the witchy “Divine Will”. This isn’t to say the band have gone soft. They’re truly menacing on “Greater Invocation of Disgust”, and Funck truly inhabits the dogmatic hedonists he criticizes on “The Changeling Prince”. Live, the band should play heavily from the record, though they’re certainly known for grunge and 90′s indie rock covers.

We previewed Emma Ruth Rundle’s set at Empty Bottle last year:

“Singer-songwriter, guitarist, and visual artist Emma Ruth Rundle has released her opus. On Dark Horses, inspired by her move to Louisville and musical and life partnership with Evan Patterson of Young Widows/Jaye Jayle (who we profiled earlier this year), is about anxiety, dealing with pain, and escaping trauma, but it’s also about being enveloped by love. Its songs are sludgy and slow-burning, anthemic and emotional all at once. The verses chug and the choruses crash, the core band of Patterson on guitar and piano, Todd Cook on bass, and Dylan Nadon on drums providing tension between darkness and light. At the center of it all is Rundle’s weary, empathetic voice, addressing a loved one’s trauma on 'You Don’t Have To Cry', the perfect complement to Patterson’s baritone on love duet “Light Song”.”

Damiana, the collaborative project of local experimental artists TALsounds and Matchess, opens.

Cat Power, United Center

We previewed Cat Power’s set at Thalia Hall late last year:

“At this year’s Riot Fest, Chan Marshall played only the short title track from the not-yet-released Wanderer, what would end up being her first album in 6 years and first not on Matador (who rejected her album because they wanted her to sound more like Adele). Appropriately, Marshall signed with Domino for the album whose title references her very nomadic nature, whether personally or stylistically, and added the track 'Woman' featuring megastar Lana Del Rey that she claims is not a slight on Matador but we all know really is. Marshall 1, everyone else, 0.

Wanderer is quintessential Cat Power for better and for worse. Impressively vocal-forward, minimal, and slinky but also a little dragging, the self-produced record espouses a gentle anger. 'If I had a dime for every time / Tell me I’m not what you need / If I had a quarter, I would pull it together / And I would take it to the bank and then leave,' Marshall sings on the intro to 'Woman' before she and Del Rey harmonize over a 'Breakdown' beat. Even if she is firing shots, she’s also feeling empowered with Del Rey at her side. 'Black' is the story of someone who saved her during her mid-2000s time of addiction, guitars and layered vocals providing more strength in numbers. As with other Cat Power records, there’s a song or two with experimentation–like the auto-tuned vocals on 'Horizon'–but the album is mostly stark and concentrated on Marshall’s silky, warm voice. She notably covers Rihanna’s 'Stay', contextualized by a legendary story involving ex-lovers, broken hearts, and singing the song at a karaoke bar 16 times. But Marshall makes it her own.”

Massively popular folk band Mumford & Sons headline.

Bill MacKay, Hideout

Tonight at the Hideout is the record release for Fountain Fire, the latest album from local guitar hero Bill MacKay. As with other albums he’s made, the new record is incredibly varied. He layers acoustic, distorted electric, and slide guitars on standouts “Pre-California” and “The Movie House”, instrumentals that sound like they could back a lost country classic but live on their own just as well. And the requinto playing that pervaded SpiderBeetleBee’s “I Heard Them Singing” shows up again on “Man & His Panic”. But MacKay brings a couple new tricks, too. The fuzzed out playing on “Arcadia”, enveloping itself, becomes a noise track. On the other end of the spectrum, MacKay reveals something truly lovely: his singing voice, specifically on “Birds of May” and “Try It On”, weathered and emotive like the best of his forebears.

Forest Management, the solo project of local experimental artist John Daniel, & Miranda Winters (of Melkbelly) open. DJ Mariapaz Camargo spins before, between, and after sets.

[aaronmaurer]

Movies I Liked in 2020

Every year I reflect on the pop culture I enjoyed and put it in some sort of order.

Discussing film in 2020 is almost nonsensical. Theatres were shut down in most places for most of the year, shuffling release schedules and availability of titles in various markets, further fracturing an already-fragmented landscape. I personally love the movie-going experience – the darkened atmosphere, the massive screen, the ability to escape the outside world for a couple hours in the company of a room of strangers. Man, do I miss all of that. Yet I am exceedingly grateful to the creators and media conglomerates that decided to release some of their projects to streaming services and “virtual cinemas” during this unprecedented year. (Despite Wonder Woman 1984’s flaws, wow, was it nice to have a new action blockbuster to watch over the holidays.)

I toyed with breaking out stage/theatre projects separately, but at the end of the day, had those played on the big screen they would have still been considered, so I decided to keep everything together. This year more than ever I make no claims to comprehensiveness, and it seems even more futile than usual to rank these films, so here are 15 of my favorite films of 2020 listed in alphabetical order. How I wish I could have experienced these all on the big screen.

American Utopia (available on HBO)

Spike Lee’s film of the Broadway engagement of David Byrne’s American Utopia is right up there with Jonathan Demme’s Stop Making Sense, the gold standard of concert films (and I’m not even much of a Talking Heads/Byrne fan!). The brilliance of this tour-turned-Broadway show is the elimination of any stationary equipment – Byrne and his band, utilizing mobile instruments, perform choreographed movement to the songs (a mix of Byrne solo material and Talking Heads classics) on an otherwise bare stage. The arrangements of the songs themselves are warm and life-affirming, something we all needed more of in 2020.

An American Pickle (available on HBOMax)

This quirky comedy from writer Simon Rich stars Seth Rogan in dual roles as an immigrant in the early 1900s transplanted to modern day New York and his last remaining descendant. I wasn’t expecting much from the premise but found it to be a surprisingly resonant story about family and legacy with salient observations about modern conveniences and appreciating small pleasures. Rogan himself is really great in this, creating two very distinct and believable characters that in an alternate reality might be up for awards consideration.

Black Is King (available on Disney+)

Beyonce’s latest visual album has its origins in her Lion King role, but the material transcends that misbegotten remake (despite the occasional out-of-place audio clips sprinkled throughout). The visuals here are stunning, from the costumes and makeup to the set design and choreography, all in celebration of Black excellence and beauty.

Emma. (available on HBO, VOD and Blu-ray)

One of the last films I saw in theatres this spring was the latest treatment of Jane Austen’s Emma from director Autumn de Wilde. Similar to Little Women last year, I had no prior experience with the source material, never having read the novel or seen any prior adaptations (outside of Clueless, if you count that), but I found it absolutely delightful. The cast is terrific, including Anya Taylor-Joy in a role completely different than her other big turn this year in The Queen’s Gambit, and the production design & direction are impeccably sumptuous, creating the type of escapism that came to mean all-the-more as the year wore on.

First Cow (available on Showtime, VOD and Blu-ray)

Kelly Reichardt’s latest film is a moving meditation on unexpected friendship, ideas of masculinity and economic inequality set against the backdrop of 1800s Oregon Country. Poetic but not ponderous, First Cow is one of the most humane and empathetic portraits of man and nature I experienced in 2020.

Hamilton (available on Disney+)

Already a big of Lin Manual-Miranda’s race-bent musical about founding father Alexander Hamilton, I was still awed by this document of the original Broadway production. Director Tommy Kail adeptly films his own stage direction while capturing intimate moments through closeups and vantages that are unavailable to the live audience. And while I personally may have preferred Lin to sing more than sob through some of his Act II songs, the whole cast is phenomenal, especially Leslie Odom Jr, Renée Elise Goldsberry and MVP Daveed Diggs whose energy and charisma are palpable in his dual role as Lafayette/Jefferson.

Just Mercy (available on HBO, VOD and Blu-ray)

Although technically a 2019 film, Just Mercy didn’t receive wide release until 2020 so I’m including it here. The adaptation of lawyer Bryan Stevenson’s memoir about his fight for death row inmates is a powerful story of the ongoing fight for justice and rarely falls into “based on a true story”/biopic clichés. Michael Jordan brings dignity and righteousness to the role of Stephenson and Jamie Foxx is excellent as the wrongfully incarcerated Walter McMillian.

Kajillionaire (available on VOD)

The story of an insular family of grifters, Kajillionaire explores what it’s like to exist in a bubble and reconcile that with a growing understanding of the wider world. Evan Rachel Wood engenders immense empathy with her portrayal of the family’s daughter who has been raised without any real physical affection or affirmation and Gina Rodriguez exudes light and charisma as a woman who comes into their orbit and changes everything.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (available on Netflix)

Adapted from August Wilson’s play of the same name, this film contains a powerhouse performance from Viola Davis as the titular blues singer but belongs to the magnetic Chadwick Boseman in his final role. As Levee, a brash young songwriter and musician, Boseman fully realizes a portrait of a talented and demeaned Black man in America, trapped by circumstance and his own feelings of helplessness. It’s beautiful and gut-wrenching to behold, and makes his passing all the more tragic as we can only imagine the great performances that we’ll never get to see.

Mank (available on Netflix)

Mank, a biopic about Golden Age Hollywood screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, may be director David Fincher’s most conventional film yet, however that takes nothing away from the charm of its engaging storytelling and performances. As “Mank” works – or rather drunkenly procrastinates – on the screenplay for Citizen Kane, we get flashbacks of his relationships with William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies, which will provide the basis for his script’s thinly veiled characters.

Small Axe (available on Amazon Prime)

A series of five separate films from director Steve McQueen, the Small Axe series is linked by its exploration of the West Indian community in London. Exploring topics including the justice system, educational disparity and the unifying & life-affirming power of music, these films are each powerful and moving on their own but add up to a rich and beautiful tapestry of the complexities of immigrant life.

Soul (available on Disney+)

Soul is in many ways a spiritual successor (pun intended) to Inside Out, my all-time favorite Pixar film, envisioning life after death (or is that life before life?) as a strange and delightfully stylized realm where new souls prepare to be born. The audience surrogate to this world is a frustrated jazz musician who finds himself incapacitated the day of his big break. The stunningly rendered film is another example of the studio – and co-director Pete Docter – at its heart-rending best with lovely observations about passion, mentorship and being present to life’s small pleasures.

The Vast of Night (available on Amazon Prime)

An indie sci-fi flick set in 1950s New Mexico from first-time director Andrew Patterson, The Vast of Night pays homage to the likes of The Twilight Zone better than the current reboot of that show does. This surprisingly compelling movie creates a tangible sense of time and place and utilizes innovative shots and blocking to deliver something unique and artful, while still delivering on its genre promises.

What the Constitution Means to Me (available on Amazon Prime)

The final live communal event I attended before everything locked down last spring was the touring production of this Heidi Schreck play, and boy, was it a moving way to say a temporary goodbye to live theatre (even if I didn’t quite know it at the time). Later in the year, Amazon gifted us with a record of Schreck’s Broadway run, which loses nothing of its impact or immediacy. Using her personal history of debate contests at American Legion Halls as an entry point, Schreck explores how the Constitution has been used (and not used) to impact the rights of women (and other marginalized groups) throughout America’s history. Brilliant, heart-breaking and inspiring art.

Wolfwalkers (available on AppleTV+)

The latest wonder from director Tomm Moore (The Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea) completes his trilogy of films inspired by Irish mythology. The topics this time are the Wolfwalkers, an Irish variation of the Werewolf legend, and the clash of urbanization with the natural world. Vividly rendered in gorgeous traditional animation, this is one of the most visually splendid things I saw all year.

Bonus! Honorable Mentions:

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (Netflix)

Feels Good Man (VOD)

Palm Springs (hulu)

Sound of Metal (Amazon Prime)

Tenet (VOD, Blu-ray)

[jaskiers-sweetkiss]

Sunset Swerve - Part 1

Pairing: Luke x OC

Word Count: 2.1K

Series Summary: Apollo 81 and Sunset Curve had been rival bands since their creation, and their leaders, Jordan Moss and Luke Patterson, had despised each other even further. Things were just looking up for both bands as they get the opportunity to play at the Orpheum but a few bad hot dogs send Luke, Alex, Reggie, and Jordan to early graves before they get the chance. 25 years later the ghosts of Sunset Curve accidentally release Jordan from an old Apollo 81 demo and tensions between her and Luke immediately flare. However, they need to band together to finally accomplish their life-long goals: to play their music for the world.

Warnings: uhh some cursing, mentions of death (I mean, the main characters are ghosts)

A/N: I’m officially obsessed with this show and its characters and I would very much like my own hot ghost band please and thanks. Please let me know what you think and send me an ask if you’d like to be tagged in future chapters!

Teaser  Part 2  Masterlist

___

The relatively empty theater erupted into cheers when Sunset Curve finished their soundtrack. Jordan didn’t deign to join the venue’s staff in their congratulations; though the band clearly deserved the praise, she’d never admit it out loud. Sunset Curve were good, and if Jordan didn’t despise their lead singer so much she’d probably be a fan but that simply wasn’t the case. She and Luke had been rivals since grade school and it was only fitting that they both started their own bands and had been competing for venues for years. What didn’t make sense was that when Sunset Curve booked a headliner at the Orpheum, they recommended Apollo 81 as their opening act. Jordan could only assume Luke had done it to rub in the fact that they were headlining the Orpheum but still, the venue was a hotspot for record execs- Sunset Curve had given them a huge opportunity to go big.

“We gotta fuel up before the show, I’m thinking street dogs,” Luke’s proclamation was met with cheers from Alex and Reggie, and Jordan rolled her eyes, lifting off the column she’d been leaning against to go find her own band.

“Moss, you in?” Luke called from the stage and Jordan startled, turning to give the boy a look of bewilderment. “C’mon, it’s on me.”

Jordan narrowed her eyes suspiciously but nodded anyway, adjusting her cross-body bag as she made her way to the guys. She watched bemusedly as Bobby made a beeline towards the cute Orpheum employee.

“You guys are really good,” she complimented. “I’ve seen a lot of bands, been in a few myself. I was really feeling it. You guys too.” She said, turning towards Jordan and the girl couldn’t help but beam at the complement.

“That’s what we do this for,” Luke said, clapping his bandmates on the back. “I’m Luke, by the way.”

“Hi, I’m Reggie.”

“Alex.”

“Bobby.” The boy pushed Luke behind him and Jordan stifled a laugh.

“Jordan.” She introduced herself.

“It was nice meeting you guys. I’m Rose,” the girl introduced and Jordan began digging through her bag.

“Here’s our demo and a t-shirt,” she said, pulling them from her bag and offering them to Rose.

She kept a small supply of the merch on her at all times, anything to get their name out there.

“Geez, Moss. We offer you food and you try to outdo us?” Luke said, elbowing Reggie who looked confused for a second before offering up the merch in his hands.

“Oh! And here’s our demo and a t-shirt size beautiful,” he said with a wink, trying to outdo her and flirt at the same time. Jordan rolled her eyes.

“Thank you,” she gasped sincerely before slinging the shirts over her shoulder. “I’ll make sure not to wipe the tables with these ones.”

“Oh! Good idea!” Alex chimed in. “Whenever they get wet they sorta.. fall apart in your hands.”

Jordan snorted as the other guys blanched and the information.

“Don’t you guys have to go get hot dogs?” Bobby looked pointedly at the guys, silently urging them to leave before they could embarrass him further.

Luke grinned, hitting Bobby’s chest with the back of his hand as he leaned in towards Rose, “He ate a hamburger for lunch.”

The rest of the guys grinned as they walked out the venue’s back door. Jordan turned to smile apologetically at Rose and wave goodbye before jogging to catch up with the guys, her bag hitting her hip as she went.

When she caught up to them in the alley behind the theater Luke was going on about something cliche, wanting a connection with everyone through music or something. Jordan wanted to scoff but, well, she kind of agreed.

She and Reggie broke away from the group at the same time to hand out some of their t-shirts to the fans in line. They were in and out before the fans recognized them, resulting in them calling their names as the pair walked away.

“Great minds think alike, huh?” Reggie joked, bumping her shoulder with his own lightly as they caught up to the rest of the group.

Jordan laughed before furrowing her brow in confusion. When had Sunset Curve started treating her like she was one of them?

It must just be the exhilaration of playing the Orpheum, she concluded as they arrived at their destination.

“Uh, do you guys normally get your hot dogs out of the back of a car?” Jordan remarked, equal parts skeptical and disgusted as she looked down the ally at Sam & Ella’s.

“Relax, Moss,” Luke chided. “A hot dog’s a hot dog.”

Jordan rolled her eyes but followed them anyway, the four of them getting their hot dogs and crowing around the back of the Oldsmobile to add their condiments.

“It would be nice to eat somewhere where the toppings aren’t in the back of an Oldsmobile.” Alex acknowledged, accidentally getting pickle juice all over the owners’ jumper cables.

Once satisfied with their creations the boys plopped down on the sofa across the ally and Jordan perched on one end next to Reggie.

“This is awesome you guys. We’re playing the Orpheum!” Luke began to monologue as the guys looked at him with smiles on their faces. “I can’t even count how many bands played here and then got huge.”

Pride swelled up inside Jordan. Sure Apollo 81 was only the opening act, but they were still about to make their big break right alongside Sunset Curve. There was something poetic about it, two rivals about to achieve their dreams together.

“Eat up boys, and girl,” Luke added, grinning at Jordan. “‘Cause after tonight, everything changes.”

Like a scene right out of a movie, they all grinned at each other before taking their first bites.

Jordan grimaced at the flavor, remembering why she wasn’t a big fan of hot dogs.

“That’s a new flavor,” Alex said, sounding concerned but Reggie and Luke laughed it off.

“Chill man,” Reggie said nonchalantly. “Street dogs haven’t killed us yet.”

____ 25 years later ____

“Hey, what’s this Apollo 81 stuff doing in here?” Reggie called out into the garage.

The guys had just returned from the beach, their spirits lifted by their little jam session. Reggie had immediately poofed up to the loft, curious about what other items were left behind . Luke was sitting on his couch, lyric notebook in hand, inspired by his newfound ability to summon his guitar at will. Alex was laying across the couch with his feet in Luke’s lap, having just previously announced that he was considering taking up knitting to pass the time.

“Maybe Julie’s mom was a fan?” Alex answered, getting up from the couch to join Reggie in the loft, his interest piqued. Neither of the boys noticed the way Luke stiffened at the mention of the band.

Reggie nodded in response to Alex’s theory.

“I wonder what happened to them anyway?” He was sitting on the floor of the loft, the box in his lap as he rifled through some of the memorabilia- mostly flyers from their performances, from small open mic nights to the Orpheum. Reggie pulled out the Orpheum flyer. “Do you think Jordan survived that night? I mean, she was with us when we died but not in that weird room.”

“I don’t know Reg, I can’t see how she would’ve survived when we didn’t.”

“You think she’s still in her own black room? By herself?”

“That’s really depressing Reggie.” Alex deadpanned. “She probably passed on, y’know?”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Reggie brightened, returning the Orpheum flyer to the box and continuing to sift through it, Alex leaning over his shoulder as he did.

“Hey! Their demo!” He said excitedly, holding up the CD case. “I always secretly liked their music.”

“I think we all did,” Alex said thoughtfully, falling forward when Reggie poofed out from under him.

Reggie reappeared below the loft, making his way to the CD player left by their new band setup.

Before Alex or Luke realized what was happening Reggie had hit play on the machine and Apollo 81’s “Lost” was blasting through the garage.

“Woah! Reggie, people can hear that and Julie’s not here!” Luke exclaimed, jumping up from the couch to turn it off at the same time that Alex poofed down from the loft.

Before either of them could reach the CD player, something that could only be described as portal-esque opened up in front of them and the sound of the demo was drowned out by a feminine voice yelling “What the hell?!”

___

Jordan hit the ground hard as she was dropped from the portal. She didn’t even bother to stand up, instead letting herself fall flat on her back with a groan, her eyes shut.

What now? Another black room to sit in? She thought with a sigh. Death sucks.

“Is this how Julie felt?” A voice whispered.

The sudden awareness that she wasn’t alone startled Jordan and she quickly sat up, her eyes flying open only to be met with some of the last faces she had seen before she died.

She couldn’t help it, she immediately screamed and the guys started screaming too.

After a moment, the shock wore off (well, sort of anyway. She still had no idea what was going on) and the screaming stopped. Luke nervously offered a hand, presumably to help her up off the floor but she scowled and pushed it away, standing up on her own.

“Why am I back in your garage?” She asked, glaring slightly at the boys as if they were to blame, which they might’ve been. “And how the hell did you change the decor so fast?”

“Okay, well, it’s a little complicated-“ Reggie started but Alex put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

“Well, you remember when we died, right?” Alex said in a much softer voice than Reggie, and Jordan nodded.

“You mean when you fed me a poisonous hot dog before I could perform at the Orpheum.” She said, glaring at Luke specifically.

“Hey! If you’ll recall, we all ate those hot dogs and we all missed our chance to play the Orpheum.” Luke bit back, immediately becoming defensive.

“Man, I really thought the twenty-five years might’ve quelled their rivalry,” Reggie muttered to Alex and Jordan whipped around to face him.

“Did you just say it’s been twenty-five years?” She shrieked and Alex groaned at his friend’s lack of tact.

“Yeah,” Alex answered, glaring at his bandmates to shut them up. “We died in ’95 and it’s 2020 now.”

“You’re telling me I was alone in that room for twenty-five years?” She asked, her voice becoming louder and more aggressive as she went on.

“Bet probably cried the whole time like Alex did.” Luke snarked and Jordan’s expression grew livid.

“Okay, first of all, crying is a completely reasonable reaction to dying. And second of all, fuck you, you emotionless piece of-“

The song change from the CD player caught her attention and her face broke into a self-righteous grin.

“Were you guys listening to our music?” She asked rhetorically, eyes gleaming at the discovery.

Luke scowled, stalking over to the CD player and turning it off.

“Aw, c’mon, that was one of my favorites,” she whined, following Luke’s steps towards the player and hitting play. Well, she tried to hit play but her finger went right through it.

Luke laughed triumphantly and Jordan stuck her tongue out at him, crossing her arms like a petulant child.

“Oh, very mature, Moss.”

“Oh, I’m immature? Even in death you’re still a whiny, jealous, dickhead!“

“Please! If anyone’s whiny and jealous it’s you!”

“Should we do something?” Alex asked in a whisper, leaning towards Reggie but unable to take his eyes off the two bickering ghosts in front of them. They were like a train wreck.

“Nah, just let them get it out of their systems,” Reggie responded, sounding confident despite past experience with the two.

“You are so self-obsessed!”

“Are you kidding me? You’re the queen of self-obsession!”

“Oh my gosh, I can’t do this!” Jordan exclaimed. “I’m out! See you in hell, asshole!”

“No, Jordan, wait!” Luke called but Jordan had already poofed away.

He slumped to the ground with a groan, head in his hands. “I have to go get her.”

“I’ve got it,” Alex said, resting a comforting hand on his shoulder before poofing away himself.

“You don’t think we’ll actually go to hell, do you?” Reggie filled the sudden silence and Luke shook his head, poofing out of the garage as well.

Part 2

[junker-town]

Why 5 rookie receivers can and can’t keep balling out all season

Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports

A.J. Brown, Terry McLaurin, and Marquise Brown put up some impressive numbers during their rookie debuts.

Week 1 of the 2019 NFL season came with plenty of surprises, but one of the coolest was seeing so many rookie wide receivers show out. On Sunday, they even combined to set an NFL record. The league saw four first-year players reach at least 100 receiving yards, marking the first time three or more rookies have done so in NFL history.

In terms of yards, this year had the top three rookie Week 1 games in the past decade, including five of the top 10.

As exciting as these debuts were, a big question remains: can the five most productive rookie receivers keep this up all season long? Let’s take a look at why each player can or can’t.

A.J. Brown, Tennessee Titans

The second-round pick from Ole Miss led the Titans in receiving with 100 yards in a road win against Cleveland. He had three catches, including this nifty 51-yard gain:

Big Play A.J. Brown #TENvsCLE pic.twitter.com/isEELwM1Yi

— Tennessee Titans (@Titans) September 8, 2019

Why he can keep it up:

Morgan Moriarty: While Brown wasn’t the first receiver drafted this year — he was the fourth, in fact — his play on Sunday should be surprising. Don’t forget, Brown was Ole Miss’ most reliable receiver. From Bill Connelly’s 2019 NFL receiver projections:

No, when Ole Miss quarterbacks — be it Shea Patterson (before he transferred to Michigan) or Jordan Ta’amu — needed a completion, they knew to go to A.J. Brown. He not only provided pretty easy pitch-and-catch opportunities out of the slot, he also actually did something with those catches.

That should mean something, shouldn’t it? Metcalf is an exciting downfield threat and looks extraordinary with his shirt off. But he’s like a one-pitch reliever — an intimidating, Lee Smith-level one, for sure, but still a reliever. Brown was the staff ace. (And, to be fair, is not exactly chopped liver as a specimen.)

Brown finished his Ole Miss career as the school’s all-time leading receiver with 2,984 yards in just three seasons. With his steadiness under a number of Rebel quarterbacks, I don’t think he’s just a flash in the pan.

Why he can’t:

Christian D’Andrea: Brown thrived against Cleveland’s biggest defensive weakness, exploiting an uneven secondary that seemed shocked a man so wide could run so fast. More impressively, he put up a 100-yard game while playing only 43 percent of the Titans snaps. Sunday’s game was evidence he’s due for more targets, but it won’t be that easy.

Over the next two weeks, he’ll face much tougher defenses — the Colts and Jaguars — ready to derail his hype train. The rookie’s big performance came on a day the Browns focused much of their attention on limiting Corey Davis, who only earned three targets for no receptions that afternoon. Davis will see extra targets going forward as other clubs realize the Titans are more than a one-man band at wideout, and that’ll cut into Brown’s numbers as well.

Marquise Brown, Baltimore Ravens

The first receiver selected in this year’s draft, Marquise “Hollywood” Brown, helped the Ravens score the most points in franchise history on Sunday against the Miami Dolphins. Brown finished with 147 yards and two touchdowns, including this dope 83-yard connection from Lamar Jackson:

So pretty. Go ahead and watch that 83-yard TD from @lj_era8 to @Primetime_jet again. pic.twitter.com/jBEV3AKU71

— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) September 8, 2019

Why he can keep it up:

Morgan Moriarty: Brown hit his stride as a consistently productive receiver at Oklahoma during the Sooners’ 2018 season. During his final year in Norman, he had at least 100 yards receiving in six games. In the games that he had fewer than 100, he still managed to average over 10 yards per reception in all but one.

While Brown suffered a foot injury that kept him out of combine drills and his pro day, he isn’t showing any signs of that holding him back. On Sunday, he set an NFL record by being the first player to score two 40+yard touchdowns in his first game.

The Ravens do have a tough schedule ahead — including games on the road against the Chiefs, Steelers, Seahawks, and Rams— but even if Brown isn’t putting up huge numbers every game, I expect him to still be a reliable target for Jackson.

Charles McDonald: Like Morgan said, this is what Brown did in college. He got open deep, he took slants to the house, and did everything in between. Eventually, the Ravens will run into a team that decides to play a safety deep, but Brown should continue to rip off big plays throughout his rookie year.

There is going to be some variance with him this year, though it’s an encouraging sign that his first NFL game looked identical to his career at Oklahoma.

Why he can’t:

Christian D’Andrea: Brown took advantage of a Miami defense that seemed to forget he existed in stretches. Having career performances against the 2019 Dolphins is going to be a trend this fall. The Oklahoma star underwhelmed in the preseason while rehabbing his foot injury, sliding down the depth chart and then playing just 14 snaps in Sunday’s explosive debut. His struggles against the Ravens’ secondary in practice are more in line with what we can expect from him early on versus actual NFL teams this season.

Terry McLaurin, Washington

Washington’s third-round pick had a breakout season during his senior year at Ohio State, and on Sunday, he finished with more receiving yards than he ever had in a collegiate game. In his first NFL start, he totaled 125 yards on five receptions and had a nice 69-yard touchdown.

Scary Terry #WASvsPHI pic.twitter.com/6JgM0iwMzL

— Washington Redskins (@Redskins) September 8, 2019

Why he can keep it up:

Christian D’Andrea: McLaurin was on the field for 93 percent of Washington’s snaps Sunday and would have had a bigger day had Keenum not overthrown him on another wide-open route downfield in the second half. While he’s going to see more defensive focus as the most dangerous weapon in a depleted WR corps, he has the speed and separation to make things work. Keenum has his flaws as a passer, but his big arm and ability to throw the ball into windows deep downfield make this a sustainable combination.

Why he can’t:

Charles McDonald: The only thing that can get in the way of McLaurin having a star-making rookie season would be his quarterback. Case Keenum had a dynamite game to open the season, but given his track record, it’s fair to wonder if he can keep that up. McLaurin was lethal during the days that I was at Washington’s training camp, and that transferred right over to his first game. The sky is the limit for him, but quarterback play can absolutely end up hindering him.

T.J. Hockenson, Detroit Lions

The Lions taking a tight end at No. 8 overall might have worked out for them. Hockenson had 131 yards and a touchdown during his debut against the Arizona Cardinals. He owns a new NFL record, too:

#Lions TE T.J. Hockenson (@TheeHOCK8) has set an @NFL record for receiving yards in a tight end's first game with 124 yards, passing 49ers TE Monty Stickles' previous record of 123 receiving yards, which he set on Sept. 25, 1960.#OnePride

— Detroit Lions PR (@LionsPR) September 8, 2019

Why he can keep it up:

Christian D’Andrea: The Lions need weapons beyond Marvin Jones and Kenny Golladay, and Hockenson immediately stepped into that void to be one of Matthew Stafford’s top targets. The Iowa standout earned nine targets in his debut — as many as Golladay and second only to Danny Amendola. After burning first-round picks on limited returns from Eric Ebron and Brandon Pettigrew, there’s plenty of pressure on Detroit to make a Day 1 tight end finally look like a franchise building block. Hockenson has the chops to be that guy. Stafford will give him every opportunity to earn that spotlight.

Why he can’t:

Morgan Moriarty: The Lions took a risk taking a guy like Hockenson so high (in fact, Hockenson was the highest-drafted TE since Vernon Davis went No. 6 in 2006), and I’m not so sure it’ll pay off all season. Hockenson’s numbers were great, but he didn’t have production like that much in college. During his last season at Iowa in 2018, he put together just two games with over 100 yards receiving, and the year before that he had none. Those were the only two seasons he played in college.

Don’t get me wrong — Hockenson is a talented tight end, and a solid weapon for Matthew Stafford. But I think he needs a year or two in this system to get these types of performances week in and week out.

DK Metcalf, Seattle Seahawks

The draft’s biggest (and somehow, one of its fastest) wideout showed up in a big way for Seattle’s offense, hauling in four catches for 89 yards — more than double any other Seahawk’s receiving output. He also had the most receiving yards by a Seattle rookie receiver in a debut. The 230-pounder was dinged for a shallow route tree in college, but had no problem finding ways to burn Cincinnati’s secondary in a Week 1 victory.

Why he can keep it up:

Morgan Moriarty: Ahem —

DK Metcalf has somehow gotten bigger since last we saw him pic.twitter.com/DdkEZ2my6g

— Bunkie Perkins (@BunkiePerkins) February 11, 2019

His jacked physique aside, he was able to show off some real value to his game on Sunday, hauling in two third-down passes and making a couple difficult catches.

Not to mention he did all this after missing the Seahawks’ last three preseason games with a knee injury, and had surgery for it a few weeks before the season. That’s absurd!

Why he can’t:

Christian D’Andrea: Metcalf will get plenty of opportunities in a Seahawks offense that’s light on targets, but he doesn’t have much of a resume to fall back on. The burly wideout had only 67 catches in 21 career games at Ole Miss, finishing his final NCAA season with a 26-569-5 line in seven games. After battling injuries throughout college and into the preseason, there’s a good chance he fails to play a 16-game slate as a rookie.

That limited route tree is concerning, too. Metcalf wasn’t asked to get too tricky in his debut (and didn’t need to in order to find space against the Bengals). Better secondaries will swallow him up if he can’t diversify his downfield portfolio.

[brisbanemusic]

Weekend Guide: 23-25 June

Of note this weekend: there’re two really cool free, all ages gigs at Jet Black Cat Music on Saturday and Sunday - Cookin’ on 3 Burners and Big Scary. Both are playing at bigger, more expensive venues on other days!

Friday 23

Tuxedo Kitten at The Green Room: $5 entry, from 8pm. More info on FB

The Delta Crows at the Boundary Hotel: Free entry, from 9pm. More info on FB

KHAM, For The Wolves, Ravens Lair and Seven Day Mask at the New Globe Theatre: $10 entry, from 7:30pm. More info on FB

Old Semeil at Post Office Square: Free, ALL AGES, from 12pm. More info on FB

Broads (VIC) and Jordan Rochfort at the Junk Bar: From 7pm, more info on FB

Cameron Avery (WA/NY), Royal & The Southern Echo and JB Patterson at the Black Bear Lodge: Tickets $15.85, doors at 8pm. More info on FB

[JAZZ] Trilogy at The Sideshow: Free entry, from 7pm. More info at JMI, FB

[JAZZ] Andrew Butt Trio + at Doo-Bop Jazz Bar: Tickets from $15, doors at 7:30pm. More info at JMI, FB

FLOWERTRUCK (NSW), The Delicates and Cody Munro Moore (NSW) at The Foundry: Tickets $12.75, $15 on the door. From 8pm. More info on FB

Port Royal and Age Champion at HeYa Bar: Free entry, from 8:30pm. More info on FB

Those Rat Bastards at Crowbar: Tickets $12.25, doors at 7pm

Brief Habits and Crusch upstairs at Crowbar: Free entry, from 6pm. More info on FB

Accomplice Collective at Lock’n’Load: Free, from 10pm. More info on FB

Kings, Fragments, I, The Divide, Evacuation Plan, Strategies and The Atticus Exposure at the Brightside: $15 entry, from 7pm. More info on FB

Brendan the Bard and Pepper Jane at Rics Bar: Free entry, from 8:30pm. More info on FB

John Malcolm at Paper Moon: Free entry, BYO with corkage prices, from 5pm. More info on FB

[JAZZ] Kent St Cookers at JMI Live: $10 entry, licensed ALL AGES, jams from 6pm, band from 8pm. More info at JMI FB

Saturday 24

The Superjesus, Alex Lloyd, Transvaal Diamond Syndicate, The Sugar Shakers, Sametime, Faleepo Francisco, Venus Envy and Daryl James at the Hamilton Hotel: Free entry, from 12pm. More info on FB

The Jensens, The Ruminaters, Astro Travellers, CONCRETE SURFERS, Max Chillen + the Kerbside Collective, Romeo Moon and Pool Shop at The Foundry: $20 entry,  from 7:30pm. More info on FB

Swilo,Tides, Kaylah Truth, Velcro Raport and Kraznov at Woolly Mammoth: Tickets $13.30, doors 8pm. FB

Cookin On 3 Burners at Jet Black Cat Music: Free, ALL AGES, from 3pm. More info on FB

SixFtHick, Clever and HeeHaw at The Bearded Lady: $10 entry, from 7pm. More info on FB

The Hummin at the Boundary Hotel: Free entry, from 7pm. More info on FB

Arrivals, Malibu Stacy, Satellites, Sleepwell, and Worse for Wear at Fat Louie’s: Free entry, from 7:30pm. More info on FB

Empanic and Elba Lane at Rics Bar: Free entry, from 8:30pm. More info on FB

The Duke, Fugitive & the Vagabond and RUGGED COAST at the Zoo: $5 entry, from 8pm. More info on FB

Mammals, TH'FIKA and Big Creature at the Black Bear Lodge: RSVP at Rare Finds for FREE ENTRY, from 8pm. More info on FB FB

The Watchers, Dead Hand Blues, Down and Out and MORE at the Back Room: $10 entry, from 5pm. More info on FB

The VANNS (NSW), Buck Dean And The Green Lips and dave (NSW) at the Old Museum: Tickets $12, ALL AGES, from 4pm. More info on FB

The Sunday Bests and The Regulars at Reload: $10 entry, from 6pm. More info on FB

Deja Voodoo at Greaser: Free entry, from 9pm. More info on FB

 Sunday 25

Big Scary at Jet Black Cat Music: Free, ALL AGES, from 2pm. More info on FB

[JAM] CHURCH at The Bearded Lady: Free, from 5pm. More info on FB

[JAZZ] Cliff Draper (USA) at Can You Keep A Secret: Free entry, from 4pm. More info on FB

James Bunn & Dane Tutty at Crowbar: Free entry, from 5pm. More info at V FB

Brother Fox at Lock’n’Load: Free entry, from 3pm. More info on FB

Jesse Whitney at The Bearded Lady: Free entry, from 3pm. More info on FB