#ken is easy. rock has to make things difficult

[onasnowynight]

and since i'm also always thinking of him, kenichi's debut day would be january 30th, 1947, the release date of new treasure island

i prefer release date birthdays over "goroawase" birthdays (aka 6/9 rock day 9/6 kuroo day etc etc) so release dates are a lil important to me :)

[blindfoldsilk]

every so often, nanami wonders just how many have had the privilege of being in his exact position, and as much as he wonders, he has less interest in having an actual answer than he does in hearing that it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. it doesn't matter because none of them did it the way he does; none of them turn the strongest into a brainless, thoughtless whore beneath them, begging for cock like it's the only set of words he's ever known. gojo satoru isn't exactly difficult -- what with his vice-like, hypersentive cunt and the zero self control -- but nanami kento is no slouch either. he always puts in the work.

"easy now," he warns with low rumble, watching how the older man squirms, humping into the air, trying to catch nanami's cock back into his pussy. "do you have any idea how desperate you look, satoru?"

"don't care," gojo breathily retorts, lifting his hips up again and whining when nanami's cock drags against his clit. he has one foot on the floor for leverage, the other propped on the edge of the bed, his puffy, pretty cunt spread fully in open invitation. "nanami, please. please, keep fucking me. please."

nanami sighs at the inevitable throb of his cock, struggling not to pick up the pace of his leisurely strokes. he keeps trying to do something different for them, something drawn out and intense and collected, but thus far he's had little success. he keeps conceding, he keeps plunging right back in, and letting gojo ensare him between his legs and fill his ear with filthy, needy things, and maybe nanami is not exactly difficult either.

he thrusts tentatively against the gojo's swollen clit, and the older man whimpers, hands twisting helplessly against the bed as the wrists are bound tight in nanami's leopard tie. maybe next time he'll tie up gojo's whole body, he thinks. maybe he'll put a gag in his mouth so he's finally forced to shut the fuck up.

he pins back gojo's restless thighs and fucks back inside without warning. it's all tight, slick, addictive heat, and nanami grunts as he bottoms out, feeling gojo's cunt spasm around him, undeterred as always in his attempts to milk his cock. "fuck. you're so hopeless," he spits, rocking into a quick, heady pace, and he grits his teeth when gojo only nods, brows knit tight beneath the black, luxe blindfold, glossy lips parted with what can only be described as relief to finally be full again. "look at you, satoru. made for this, aren't you? made for my cock."

he's not even sure what he's saying but the words keep pouring out, nasty and dark and possessive, and he's almost unsure about whether they're appropiate until he feels gojo whimper into his mouth. "nanami," he pants. "yes, yes. made for you, made for your cock n'nothing else. wanna be perfect for you. keep fucking me."

and he knows, he knows it's just words, knows they're just on the verge of orgasm and drunk on lust, but it fills him with nearly embarrassing conceit. and he's privileged, that way -- that gojo opens himself up to him like this, in a way he's sure he's done very few times before with other people. it's what makes it so hard to control himself and not breed him stupid every single time.

"oh, fuck-" the sorcerer groans, nanami's pace leaving him little room to do anything other than spread his legs and spread for it, but his voice keeps slipping out regardless. "fuck- ken, don't stop. please, baby-"

he's cut off, slurred into mindless noises as nanami kisses him heavy and hard, tongue parting gojo's lips with the same timely thrusts of his cock splitting gojo's cunt, and it's always somehow too much when they go at it like this. maybe it's the curse of his six eyes, or maybe it's just gojo's seemingly insatiable hunger for the blond stretching him open, but he can never seem to keep his head on straight. he thought the binds might help; something to keep him distracted and distant, something to keep nanami from flexing under his hands and moving like broad, coiled muscle as he worked into the older man, but it failed, only succeeding in leaving gojo nothing short of desperate.

arching into nanami's weight atop him, mouthing at his throat and jaw. feeling as much of the other as possible.

a lack of touch, an absence of one sensation leaving room for more of another. he shakes suddenly, grounded back into his stupor as the blond's cock momentarily stills in him, pressed so deep gojo can feel his abdomen shift at it. he chokes out a gasp, thighs trembling, and tries to roll around the thick stretch. nanami pants against the sorcerer's mouth.

"there?" he asks, adjusting gojo's legs higher, hooking behind his knees. gojo answers with a wet whine. he can't stop squirming, can't stop throbbing between them, clit swollen with the subtle taps of nanami's pelvis each time he seats himself in the older man. it's maddening. gojo curses again, feels the blond move, and clenches so tight he thinks he might've forced nanami out.

"god, oh god, don't stop-" not that he has to say as such, not with the former salaryman already lining himself back into a tight push between gojo's folds, but- "please, ken. gonna keep making me cum."

"good," nanami grunts, hips snapping. "maybe you'll behave next time if you're still sore."

and gojo drops his head back with a moan, wrists tugging uselessly at the tie wrapped snug around them. the blond's everywhere; all over him, in him, around him. on top and beneath and within and gojo can't think, can only really keep himself conscious enough to feel. he knows he's making noises, maybe talking. knows it's all mindless. he tests his wrists again, feels nanami bite sharp into his thigh for it.

"so deep," gojo whimpers, earning another bite, a tentative release of one leg to fill the older man's mouth with fingers. he sucks, earnestly, and it's only with the silence of his own voice that he can hear how wet the blond has gotten him. he can feel the slick cool against his own skin, spread between his legs. every thrust is a lewd slap and gojo grinds his weight into it.

deep is more or less an understatement, but anything more precise and the sorcerer would be venturing into boring, overly descriptive details. deep, filling him to the brim, drilling closer to another orgasm, or every orgasm, or something gojo thinks he might know but is learning still; he sobs around nanami's fingers, milks him hard, shivering with it, and nanami grunts as his cock slaps out onto gojo's clit.

he goes, "easy, satoru," and holds himself there with his thumb, cock heavy and hot as it grinds across the older man's cunt, but easy is a cruel word to say when gojo is cumming so hard he feels tears bite his eyes. the abrupt emptiness only adds to his fervor, pussy cramping without something to tighten around and nurse, so he bites, as hard as he feels he's allowed. nanami winces, withdraws his fingers.

"be nice-"

"i told you not to stop," gojo begs, louder and breathless. "fuck, ken, if you don't fill me up-"

and then a shuddering cry, thighs shaking again, as nanami fucks himself back inside, steady and rough. he leans one leg over gojo's own, holds the older man's other flush to his chest and snakes his hips in full, dragging pumps.

what words could be for this, really... gojo feels his cunt mould for nanami's cock; swallowing every inch as it's stretched, sucking him back in with each torturous retract. the blond leans further, pins gojo's knee above his shoulder, presses their lips together in messy, loud pecks.

the older man can hardly move but he thinks it's a good thing; thinks he might break if he goes on like this much longer.

each thrust takes on an edge of delirium, nanami grunting into gojo's mouth as the sorcerer pleads - it must be pleading, he can hardly hear his own words - and spreads wider. there's an itching ache in his hips at the stretch but he can't find it in himself to care. the blond's cock keeps kissing into him, nudging the older man's womb; he can feel each slight swell between their stomachs, can feel himself hollow and need - immediately - more.

"there we go," gojo hears, "just like that, sweetheart. you're gonna take it-"

"-oh, oh my-"

"easy, satoru. take it-"

"ken-"

and nanami traps him close, pumps gojo into the bed as his hips still, moving only in time with each spill of his cock, heady heat branding into the sorcerer's core. cunt spasming, sheathing nanami's length. it's deep, spiced pain; liquid fever crashing through him; a break somewhere behind his eyes and a silent, infinite bliss.

until his breathing comes back, the first sensation aside from nanami's own, and piece by piece gojo collects himself to feel the blond humming softly, working his fingers in small circles between gojo's back and the sheets. the sorcerer hugs him loosely in return, still boneless but responding.

"honey," he hears.

"here," gojo whispers. "here, sorry."

"it's alright. you can stay quiet as long as you like."

so he does, for a few minutes. long enough for nanami to sit up with a warm sigh, pull out. gojo can feel the mess it makes, knows he's soaking the bed, but nanami merely ducks to kiss him there softly, lips featherlight and breath tickling as he soothes the tender ache in gojo's cunt with a few sweet laps of his tongue. it's merely for display, as the blond stands soon after and returns with a towel to wipe the older man off with. rougher than tongue but warm, and damp, and soon the only mess is the sweat between them both, and even then it's drying, seeping into their cooling skin.

nanami tucks himself back into bed, slots their bodies together. gojo kisses him, tasting, and nanami smiles into it.

[leam1983]

Atomic Heart - Thoughts

A few years ago, the idea of a gaggle of Russian devs comparing skillsets and going "Hey, we could beat Ken Levine at his own game, but with our own cultural sensibilities!" wasn't that shocking. A few years ago, Mundfish were just the one, single Russian developer most gamers could name. A few years ago, Atomic Heart was just a gaggle of weird pre-rendered footage that looked like a mix of everything and nothing, slathered in a thick layer of uchronic Gorbachev-era USSR lore. For most of us, it probably looked and felt a lot like "Russian Bioshock", to make an easy comparison, with in-universe TV screens playing snippets of Nu, Pogodi! - effectively Russia's charmingly passé take on everything Tex Avery and MGM Studios-baseed.

Now, though? I think it's safe to say the devs themselves and most politically-savvy gamers are feeling a fair bit of the ol' cringe, to be fair. Imagine spending more than seven years building a version of the USSR that never was, one where a mixture of technological miracles and a rock-solid policy of isolation turns Russia into a technological Atlantis in the mid-sixties. Imagine doing that while seeing your own Prime Minister lose his marbles to the hardliners in the Orthodox Church, to the point where he embraces some misbegotten Messianic grift and crowns himself the hero of a conflict he, himself instigated.

Ouch.

I'm writing this a few days after headlines coming out of some dystopian Sci-Fi hook are hitting the Canadian airwaves, starting with Russian immigrants seeking exile not just in America, but in Canada as well. After displaced Ukranians, we're seeing scared and confused Russian-nationals who, after facing the drift of their weak democratic institutions into irrelevance, realized exactly just who and what they'd voted for.

It's especially weird to play a game called Atomic Heart on the day that sees Vladimir Putin tear apart the Russian Federation's agreement to nuclear non-proliferation. It's an empty gesture meant to scare America and its allies into staying away, but the fact that he's gone this far and that he spent two hours this morning addressing the Duma in self-aggrandizement is, well...

It's surreal. It's scary, and it makes Major Nechaev's entry into the pantheon of square-jawed First-Person Manly Men of Adventure very, very awkward. Fairly more awkward, at least, than the game's effort at some form of English adaptation.

The voice actors do well enough, sure, but the things they say occasionally don't make a single lick of syntactical sense, even if you're taking into account the fact that someone's difficult job involved bending over backwards to make Russian colloquialisms sound natural in English.

Remember Tintin's Captain Haddock and his blistering blue barnacles? Well, the world has now been graced with Major Nechaev's Crispy Fucking Critters. You'll hear that one over and over again.

Crispy Critters!

The fuck?

Oh, it's still an adaptation, sure enough - there's substitutions that make sense where appropriate - but you also get the sense that there's something to the Russian sense of a Narrative Shooter's lead character that feels extremely alien to the Canadian that I am. Nechaev is petulant in responses and callbacks that don't warrant snippy behavior, and obedient and focused in ways that feel a little too literal in others. He'll swear like a sailor one moment and then try and make a pointed inference the next, he'll voice his boredom in intentionally tedious situations involving puzzle-solving and then take out his frustration on the first enemy he sees. It's like I'm piloting a Kvass-obsessed five year-old in the body of the Dudebro-iest of all Dudebros East of the Dniepr River - and he's meant to be likeable.

What is this, Bioshock for Gopniks?

Characterization aside, the basic hooks are as predictable as you'd please. We find ourselves in Russia the Victorious, with China being eluded to be just as insane in terms of observed progress and claimed societal contentment, while suspiciously little is said of the rest of the world. Everything's great, androids have made the Communist utopia manifest - and then everything goes to shit. As you'd expect.

As to why? Pick the usual plot vectors, mostly. Sabotage, greed, envy, Man's generalized hubris - they're all there and not quite as adeptly introduced and handled as the game seems to think. We're even given sequences involving an alternate Gorbachev pontificating on the dangers a haywire collective of laborer machines poses to the Party's ideals - it's the October Revolution all over again, except the laborers now run on 486 processors and some gooey and gloopy miracle substance called Polymer.

Suffice it to say, the ending, in my experience, proved to be unsatisfactory. The gameplay was serviceable, even if the only real innovation brought to the table is more or less cribbed from the Borderlands series and involves using a bit of glove-assisted telekinesis to Hoover in everything consumable and collectable with the push of a button - and difficulty levels aren't quite adequately calibrated. The Narrative difficulty has some teeth if you're not careful, Normal is fairly punishing and Hard, in some places, is strictly unfair. Gird your loins, SoulsBorne players, you're about to go Full Casual on this one - Normal is actually hard.

Oh, and the upgrade stations are run by Alexa's horny low-budget cousin. The first time you activate a NORA unit to sell some cruft or buy upgrades comes with a cutscene that shows you absolutely nothing, but that probably should still warrant an age gate, just to be on the safe side...

So, no spoilers given, but do I recommend Atomic Heart? Probably, sure - just... not now. Not in the late winter or early spring of 2023, at least. The entire thing feels poorly-timed and what would've been just dumb, brainless fun is now tainted by everything that's characterizing the news circuit, these days.

Maybe in a few months or years, we'll be able to imagine Major Nechaev stomping his boot on the neck of a certain wannabe spymaster with a thing for bare-chested nature hikes, and we'll be able to do so without any sense of unease.

Major P3, as he's otherwise known, seems like the exact sort of loose cannon to tell delusional self-styled potentates with their finger on Armageddon to go eat his shorts.

[purplerose244]

Irrational - Chapter 5: I love you too much

HELLOOOOOOO!!! 🤩🤩

Here comes the fifth day of @spacecampweek with what is probably my favorite fic of the bunch! Little song-fic but not really situation in a normal world AU, where Krel is about to confess his feelings in a special way! 💕💕💕

Enjoy!! 😙

Summary: Prom is here at last, a night of entertainment, of happiness, to celebrate changes and the future. What better moment for Krel to finally express feelings that have been hidden for so long? Time to put those guitar lessons to some use...

Read it on the AO3

It was happening. No more holding back, no more thinking rationally about his chances without concluding a thing. Tonight, everything was going to change.

Prom had turned out to be an absolute oxymoron to walk into, between his deep appreciation for parties and his unsettledness at dealing with other people of different temperatures – or ‘cool’, as they liked to call themselves. Everyone was dancing like crazy, that was very good, and everyone was talking loud about nonsense, that was very not good. Adding to the unpleasantries was the music playing onto the stage, something pulsing yet in a hardly dynamic way. If this was another night, he would have liked to teach these people what real music sounded like and propose himself as a DJ, to properly say goodbye to Arcadia Oaks High. Then again, in another delson he would have not worn these kind of flashy clothes – he had lost the chance to call this a normal night the moment he had exited his house wearing a bow.

There was a lot of movement in the middle of the room, and in the middle some familiar faces. He could spot Jim’s questionable moves while Claire was laughing loudly with red cheeks, he could see Toby doing some robot moves while Darci danced along him, he managed to notice Aja spinning all over, between a super smiling Steve and an extremely radiant Eli.

It looked like they were all having fun, so much fun. Krel wasn’t… not yet.

“Hey Clint.”

He almost snorted at the sudden voice.

“Mary, I know you know my name at this point.”

“Whatever Kurt, whatcha up to?” The queen of the bees appeared in front of him, all sparkly in her pink shock dress. “Hank got all handsy, Dean is being shy, and that cute guy from Arcadia Oaks Academy that snuck in is being difficult. I’m up for some juice and it looks like you’re up to something.” And the queen of gossip too as well. She grinned at him, clearly playful. “Could it be you’ll stop being a wuss, at last? That would be nice!” He didn’t deny it. for a second. Big mistake, her eyes immediately widened, like she got struck by absolute knowledge. “Don’t tell me-”

He covered her mouth, realizing midway there that there was no point, the music was so loud it silenced everything. Despite that, he couldn’t bring her to say it. Not yet.

“Perhaps… maybe.”

Mary’s eyes turned into stars. She quickly wiped his hands off her.

“O-M-G, finally, I’ve been waiting for this for so long! Ha, I knew you were going to be the one to do it, Darci owes me five dollars! So does Logan! Pff, why was everyone betting on the space dork anyway… hey, what’s wrong?” She was perceptive. It happened after knowing each other for a couple of years. “Cheer up Kai.”

He laughed again. His chest felt like it was exploding, but in a good way. Seklos and Gaylen, for how long he had postponed what he was about to do, blaming time, work and consequences? It was terrifying in a way that was almost pleasant. Maybe. Perhaps.

“I am fine.” He swallowed, because of course the moment he had scanned the entire party, he had noticed it right away. Or rather, he had noticed a lack of him. “He… he is not here though.”

“He’s probably still bummed that he got into that accounting college his grumpy dad wants him to go but still doesn’t know about the engineering one.” Krel was holding his breath about that one too. Seamus had promised to be roommates in that case. Was it going to be weird if tonight wasn’t going to turn out the way he wanted? Was he going to be awkward around him? “Alright, I can smell burning thoughts, hashtag stopbeinganerd! You’re telling me you’re going to do it and I wanna know how, where and when, and if you try to chicken out now, I swear I’m gonna smash your precious guitar!” She sure knew how to get him riled up.

For the first time since he had come to this decision, Krel smiled, thinking of the backstage, the phases he had prepared into his head. He looked up, shaking his head.

“I believe that would be counterproductive for my plan.”

Mary’s mouth popped open, and if that wasn’t satisfying.

“No.”

“Kleb yes, I am not holding back.”

“That’s gonna be the bomb but you better don’t swoon anyone else, you dang charmer! I have all boy dates tonight and I wanna keep them focused on me only!” She giggled, patting his shoulder. “Just go for it, okay? You’re cool, even when you’re being a nerd.” It was as good of an encouragement as he could get right now. “Just wait until your dorky prince charming arri- Oh this is too perfect.” She was smirking, so much her makeup was scrunching up a little.

Krel didn’t have to turn around to know. He did it anyway.

What a view. This prince really wasn’t above physical appearance as he had first thought when he had arrived in Arcadia, powered by his absolute intellect, rationality, and general annoyance towards social interactions with amoebas. It had taken him a while, a whole while, to accept that even someone like him could get this soft inside.

Give then right time, and the right person.

Seamus was radiant, with the black jacket and the blue tie, with the polished shoes and the pulled back hair. From the relaxed eyes the discussion with his dad must had ended without a punishment, and he was actually smiling. Everything, he was so absolutely everything it made Krel choke up.

Mary was arching an eyebrow, although she most likely know what was going on. The prince swallowed, almost choking again, trying to keep his composure as usual.

Failing.

“… and… and you are absolutely sure…?”

“What in the world, Ken, yes! Yes he is completely head over heels for you, yes if you confess you bet your perfect grades he’s gonna reciprocate, yes the moment he will hear what you’ve prepared for him he might as well take a ring out of his pocket and propose in the middle of the dance room!” He grabbed his shoulders, shaking him a little. “You two are the absolute worst! C-bomb has actual guts to ask Jimmy Jam out, Darci and her Tobypie went for it naturally, even Steve is an idiot sometimes but not at dating and Aj and Eli practically gravitate around him! But you!!” She grabbed his collar, her stellar eyes turning into black holes. “You two are pining messes that I’m absolutely done with! So, I swear, Krel Tarron, if you don’t get on that stage and finally confess, you won’t have to make plans for college because this will be your last dance. Ever.” She could had stopped the threat at his actual name. That alone would have done it. Mary gave him the ‘I’m watching you gesture’, before backing down into the crowd without getting her eyes off.

Krel swallowed, nodded, watching her disappear into the party. Despite the dread of being murdered in cold blood being quite intense and even impressive, it was quickly washed away, as soon as Seamus looked at his direction with those blue eyes of him. There it was, that urge, that need to impress him somehow. It was their thing, the fulcrum of their rivalry that hadn’t stopped, even after years. The need to make the other break their mask of pride and turn it into amazement.

Bold enough, the prince grinned, winking at him. The way the blonde gaped warmed his heart. Was that pink on his cheeks? The lights were too strong and colorful, it was hard to tell.

Was it important? Not really. It was now or never.

Making his way towards the stage was a challenge itself, luckily his dancing skills were not to be ignored and swirling around these random kids was pretty easy and entertaining. The band was playing a pretty energetic movement, there was a keyboard player going absolutely nuts and a drummer doing their best. There was definitely something that could had been done to improve the whole performance – perhaps a few remixes on a DJ board, just saying –, but they were really into it. It almost felt bad going up there and show his own abilities.

Then again, Krel didn’t care.

He had a mission. With that determination in mind he immediately went behind the curtains of the stage, finding familiar locks of blue hair monitoring the situation. Having Douxie as the responsible one was still unusual, even though the ripped off pants and the numerous studs all over his suit were more likely. It probably wasn’t enough for him, he was tapping his foot over and over.

Krel cleared his voice, the older one turned, turning the frown into a smile.

“Krel, how’re you liking the show?” He snorted.

“Fine…” He really couldn’t help himself, it was too easy. “Would be better with some metal rock in it.” The smile was gone. Krel snorted again.

“Really, you’re going to put salt on it like that? Zoe already gives me a hard time because I didn’t get the Ash Dispersal Pattern to play here, don’t you get in the way too!” He turned to the band with a frown, shaking it. “‘Your music might not be a good example for the students’, fuzzbuckets, how old do you think these kids are?? Besides, how is techno a better alternative? Those moppets, I swear…” He muttered something under his breath, a curse most likely, then he sighed. “Alright, I’m fine. Extremely salty, but nothing a drink can solve later. I’m guessing you’re here to ask me something?” Perceptive. All of his friends had to be with him.

“Something like that, yeah…” He breathed in and breathed out, he was absolutely going for it but it didn’t make any of this easier for him. “Alright, I need a favor?”

Douxie smirked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Oh yeah? You need a favor from this random guy who got nominated supervisor as cold comfort for not having his band play tonight? Little old me?” He snickered, shaking his head. “Should have thought before you came here to mock, shouldn’t ya?”

“Hisirdoux…”

“Nope, can’t let this one go, I’m out of patience tonight and I need to get at least one gratification. How about you apologize to me? I’ll even help, start with ‘You are the best guitarist I’ve ever known’ and… whoa, wait, what are you doing?” Was it a bluff? Krel was bowing already, but perhaps his brain was messed up tonight. “Dude, how are you actually doing it? What is this favor all about?” Oh. Right. He was the most prideful person on the planet. He had almost forgot.

Krel straightened up, shrugging a little. From the tone of the current song, it seemed that this band was almost done. He peaked from behind the curtain. Seamus was talking with Steve, giggling a little. The prince couldn’t help clenching his hand around the shirt over his chest. Ah, he wanted this, he wanted all of this.

He felt a familiar wave of warm. He turned back to the guitarist, and Douxie was gaping, blinking several times. It was probably clear.

“I want to make an exhibition.” His honey eyes widened.

“… yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“… alright then.” Douxie smiled, pointing at the backstage with his head. “Prepare yourself Lover Boy, I’m announcing you right after this.” If it wasn’t to preserve what was left of his pride, Krel would have hugged him. “Is it DJ Kleb time?”

Krel moved a few steps towards the back. He stopped.

“No,” He turned to the guitarist, smirking. “It is Krel time.”

 ***

 “Alright, give it up for ‘The Raise of the Titans’! Amazing performance you guys, can’t wait to properly see you on Wednesday!” Douxie always looked confident on stage, he was born to have the attention of a public. It was something he and Krel had in common. Right now though, there was only one look the prince wanted all for himself. “Hope you’re having a blast tonight! How’s prom going?” A cheer followed. “That’s great, because we have a special exhibition right now. A special song, for a special someone! Give it up for Krel Tarron!”

The wood under his feet made a sound after every step, it was drowned by the voiced in the crowd. It made him smile thinking how many people were going to be surprised by his presence, his appearance, and especially him appearing with a guitar instead of his beloved keyboard. There was a single stool in the middle of the place, with a microphone already adjusted for his high. He thought that really needed to thank Douxie after this, for everything, as he sat down with the instrument on his lap. He had accorded it while he was in the backstage, but out of habit he did it again, the sound reverberating into his mind. It was like a reality check, a call to the place, as he finally looked up to the public.

Aja looked close to crying, absolutely overjoyed. Mary was smirking so much her cheek looked like it was being pulled. Steve looked absolutely astonished. Toby was grinning impossibly wide. Eli had his glasses shining and a bit smile. Jim had amazed eyes over him. Claire looked ecstatic. Darci was giving him a thumbs up. Everyone was there, everyone.

And then there was him. Him, adorably confused and starstruck.

Krel grinned. I hope you are ready for this, you math blonde.

“This song is for a dear person to me. I have never been able to express my feelings properly before. I have never been particularly good at.” He let another note fill his silence, it made him smile again. “But I will not shy away from it, not anymore. I went through everything with you, high school, my problems, your problems, math and space and everything between,” There was no doubt, not anymore. “I want to go beyond now.”

His mind was peaceful, his body was burning. It felt like he had never been more alive before. His fingers knew what to do, that song was a part of him. He just took a deep breath, and let the music take over.

 I love you too much

To leave without you loving me back

I love you too much

Heaven’s my witness and this is a fact

I know I belong, when I sing this song

There’s love above love and it’s ours

‘cause I love you too much

 It used to be just him, his mind, and his sister. Them against the world, with a mother that wanted her to be proper, with a father that wanted him not to be him. Everything had turned out so badly at first without them, and so not badly after, to the point he had managed to make an actual life away from Cantaloupia. Then, the escape had become home. Then, it he had become the place where he had met the only guy that was ever going to make him feel.

It used to be just him, his mind, and his sister. Now it was him and his sister, friends and family, a home and the world, and so many feelings in between. This was the right place, this was the right time, this was the right guy.

It used to be just him, his mind, and his sister. Now he could hardly imagine himself without the blonde in the picture, the one that could cloud his mind and fill his heart.

 I live for your touch

I whisper your name night after night

I love you too much

There’s only one feeling and I know it’s right

I know I belong, when I sing this song

There’s love above love and it’s ours

‘cause I love you too much

 The two of them weren’t the easiest people to deal with, their lives weren’t the easiest lives to deal with. It had been because of a cruel game of destiny or a lucky shot from faith that they had found each other, Krel at Seamus’ door whenever he felt like he didn’t matter, and Seamus at Krel’s whenever he felt like exploding? Was it bad that in their worst some of their sweetest moments together were born? Was it bad that overwise they might had not become this much of friends?

They were living in a world that was cruel and unforgiving, with people even less likely to welcome them. Krel liked to think that by knowing each other, they had managed to overcome that obstacle, and meet also the people that were fine. That were okay.

They were okay. He was okay.

He had never forgotten that one moment of them, not once.

 Heaven knows your name I’ve been praying

To have you come here by my side

Without you a part of me is missing

Just to make you my own, I will fight

 The song was a tragically familiar one. During the worst of his pining, when he thought he was never going to be good enough for him, when he thought that he didn’t deserve to feel something this pure and breathtaking, this had always been the song. Shannon had taught him the first notes after she had gifted him the guitar after a curious sequence of events, and then Douxie had taken over teaching him all he had needed to know. It was all so familiar now he hardly had to think about how to move, where to put his fingers, if it was too strong or just okay. It was cheesy in a way he never thought he could possibly be, with feelings he never thought he could have.

Aja had always listened from her room, he knew she had even though she had never said it, because before going to sleep the same delson she had always come to hug him. Mary had always told him that playing a love song to cure his – stupid – pained heart seemed a little counterproductive. Maybe she was right. But even if everything was to end tonight, he didn’t care.

He liked love. He loved love. He loved Seamus.

 I know I belong

When I sing this song

There’s love above love and it’s ours

‘cause I love you too much

 Caught by the sudden burst into his chest Krel stood up, almost making his stool fall down. He didn’t care. Right there the crowd’s cheering came to his ears, and despite how much he wanted to scan the place and look for that familiar strawberry blonde mane in between, he forced himself not to. Not yet, not until he said everything, not until he was sure he had delivered everything he had inside. He shushed his mind and let the rest of his body sing.

 I love you too much!

I love you too much

Heaven’s my witness and this is a fact

You live in my soul, your heart is my goal

There’s love above love and it’s mine, ‘cause I love you

There’s love above love and it’s yours, ‘cause I love you

There’s love above love and it’s ours, if you love me…

… as much

 When the last note left his instrument, an urge to cry mixed to an absolute pride took over. He did it, he actually did it. In his mind the song was still echoing, beautifully in the open as it was always supposed to be played. He was drained and so, so happy.

Then, as his head finally allowed in something other than exhaustion, it finally hit him the amount of people that was watching, and how crazy there were going with that applause. It was reverberating all over, he was surprised he noticed it only now. Steve was holding onto Eli and Aja, every single one of them looked close to tears. Mary was shouting something to one of her current dates, pointing at the stage then back at her, probably something like “I know him, he’s my friend, he’s cool because I’m cool, good old Kevin”. Toby was jumping up and down, with Darci laughing and applauding. Jim and Claire were holding onto each other, clapping with fervor. It was good, everything was so good right now.

Finally, Krel allowed himself to look.

Right then, his hear broke.

He wasn’t there. Seamus wasn’t there anymore. No blue tie around, no lock of blonde hair, no red freckles in sight. There was no way this prince couldn’t find him, so…

He left. He didn’t stay for him. He didn’t.

“How about that, huh?? Krel Tarron, everyone!!” Suddenly Douxie was by his side, Krel didn’t look at him. It hurt. He thought it wasn’t going to matter, but it hurt. “He will be all over you for autographs and junk later, let him rest for a moment, and welcome the next exhibition of the night!” His arm was onto his shoulders. Krel didn’t move. He didn’t want to. Then he got a squeeze, and he looked up out of pure instinct. Douxie was still smirking, like his heart hadn’t just gotten smashed against the solid ground of the ballroom. He pointed to the exist and Krel, sighing, obeyed.

He crossed the next couple of performers, who patted his back telling him how good he had been. It didn’t feel like a proud moment anymore. It felt like a waste. The guitar was hanging onto him by the lace, luckily, he would have forgotten it on the stage overwise. Krel sighed, putting the instrument down as soon as he was behind the curtains. He could deal with this.

He didn’t want to, but he could. He just needed some time to-

His hold was callous and warm. The prince knew it so well he almost didn’t have to turn. He did. Seamus had his entire face flushed. He looked outstanding.

“Come with me.” His voice was low, almost fearful, and Krel could do nothing other than follow his lead. He was dragged along as they were staying as far away from the crowd as possible, going for the exit. If anyone had noticed them, Krel was sure Steve or Mary would have taken care of them. As soon as they were out of the room, it was silence. The school looked almost dormant like this, without lights around, the abandoned lockers circling the corridors.

It was going to be one of the last times, in this special place.

There was little time for that kind of nostalgia, as they didn’t walk for long anyway. Seamus seemed in a hurry, he was moving forward without a single word. It almost made the prince fear that he had gone too far and had made him mad. Some more uncharacteristic apologies brushed his lips, at least as a precaution, no matter how weird it was going to be.

They died into his throat as soon as he was pressed against the wall. The echo of the music was gone. There were only those impossible blue eyes getting closer and closer and-

Krel would have laughed. He would have laughed in any other occasion, because this guy was rough and prideful and used to be really bad at dealing with his anger issues. Yet he kissed with the outmost gentleness, like he was genuinely afraid of breaking him, like he was terrified that at any point something was going to wake them up from this dream. Krel wanted to hold onto this dream. He held onto him, hands reaching for his shoulders, then up into his hair. They were not fluffy at all. Again, he would have laughed if he wasn’t this overwhelmed by the fact that this was happening, that Seamus was kissing him and it was happening. The hold onto his mane must had woken up the blonde, as he moved forward with urge, breathing in and taking more.

It was marvelous. It was uncertain and clumsy and they were both really inexperienced at this, and it was marvelous. Slowly the timing was getting clearer for the both of them, because despite pride and their social skills they were instead really good at learning and understanding. The rhythm drowned them both, and it almost made Krel forget he had lungs. It got him there, the urge for air, and he let out almost a strangled noise when he got out of one last kiss.

Seamus was panting just as hard, if not harder, his pupils blown. Krel had never seen him like this, it was a whole new side. He wanted to know it. He really wanted this.

“Sea-”

“Shut it.” Another kiss that made him hum, it was sweeter than before. He almost forgot the words. When he tried to talk again Seamus promptly kissed him again. He completely forgot the words. “You said more than enough, now it’s my turn.” The blonde was smiling of that beautiful smile again. “I’m gonna make every single word count.” His hand went over his hair, caressing his brown locks like they were precious treasures to keep. The urge to cry came back.

Along with another desire, that made Krel come back to his senses and smirk.

Once again, rivalry.

“Aren’t you an overachiever?” Seamus hummed questioning, brushing their noses together. It was too good, the prince giggled. “There are exactly 212 words into my song.” It was too perfect. This wasn’t an out of the world experience, this was the natural consequence of their relationship. Seamus was holding him, and he really didn’t want to be anywhere else.

The blonde seemed taken back by his words, for almost a full second, only to laugh. He brought him even closer, breathing against his lips.

The world disappeared. Prom could wait.

“Better start counting then.” He lunged forward, a quick press closer to a caress. “One,” Another one, deeper but still quick, that made Krel naturally lean back. “Two…” This time it was proper, making him decide that he didn’t really need his mind right now. There was no issue, no invention in standby, no math problem to solve. He could allow himself this. “Three.” He could take every single part of him, as a reward in a way, as a present even more. Without a single remorse Krel laced his arms around his neck, deepening every following kiss.

They stopped counting after nine.

[meechibell]

Build Your Own Sims 4 EP Challenge

Uptown World Expansion Pack

*My entry for #BuildYourOwnEPChall by #SimsBogdy99

 The 3 models I made are wearing all black salon uniforms. Dressing in all black takes the focus off of the stylists and puts it onto the clients where it should be.  All of their other outfits are made with their favorite colors in mind and are heavily themed with a 1980's vibe because I'm kind of stuck in that era because the music, fashion, and hair were so cool... still cool. So on with the pack...

Welcome to Rockin Key, the home of some of the world's greatest musicians!  Rockin Key is where the rich & famous go to play, and the locals that keep it going play here too. Located 5 miles West of Del Sol Valley, it's easy to find... follow the endless sounds of great live music across the 5 mile bridge to Rockin Key... the city that never sleeps.  Rockin Key entertainment venues are open 24/7. 

 On Rockin Key you'll find many new venues & plenty of room to build with 15 new lots to build homes/businesses! Including new lot types such as hair salons, Day Care Centers, houseboats, indoor concert halls, and movie theaters.

  Rockin Key (new) Venues Include: -Santiago's Hair Salon - Sims can now visit Hair Stylists, Nail Techs, & Estheticians for a variety of services. Don & Jori and their team are here to help you be the best looking version of yourself. Remember, it's all about the hair!

-Rockin Key's Slice of Paradise Concert Theater - This is the largest new venue. This is where the biggest names in the sim music industry come to perform. It's always the hottest ticket in town.  

-Rhapsody Twin Movie Theatre - Sims can now take their family, or a date, to the movies! The Plaza Twin Theatre has a full service concession stand, and the movie popcorn machine is always popping to make sure the popcorn is hot & fresh. To wash the popcorn down they also serve fountain sodas, and there's a variety of candy to choose from. In each theater for all sims' comfort, they'll find recliner chairs with built in soda & popcorn holders. It's stadium seating so no worries about someone's head being in a sim's line of view while enjoying their movie. And for the kiddies there are booster seats available.

-Sunny Sushi Bar - Indoor & outdoor dining w/ live music nightly by Toffee Butler (piano) or The Dunk-a-noos (steel drum band), located next to the marina. -Moody's Marina - Here sims can buy/own a luxury yacht w/ hot tub & full bar. Yachts can leave port and travel the area. Sims can fish off of a yacht or they can now charter a fishing boat.

-Lil' Sponges Daycare Academy - Sims can now drop off their children at this Nautical themed, state of the art Daycare Academy for ages infant - 5 years old. This isn't just a babysitting service; as an Academy it has licensed teachers to teach age appropriate lessons while keeping track of each child's growth and progress in their speech, fine motor skills, gross motor skills and social skills. By the time these little sponges are ready to move on to Kindergarten at 5 yrs old, many will be able to skip right into 1st grade.

NEW CAREERS

 -Hair Stylist This career is for the sim that believes it's all about the hair. Once a customer has the right hairstyle, anything is possible! Hair Stylists can wash hair, cut hair, color/highlight hair, perm or straighten hair & blow dry hair. Top level Supreme Hair Stylists unlocks hair extensions that come in long, medium, short, & extra short (to add bangs/fringe to most hair styles already in the game) with each length also being in straight, wavy, curly, or braided styles, each available in all colors for both females and males, age teen-elder. Depending on the hairstylist's level will be the outcome of the hairstyle given, so sometimes with lower levels there may be mistakes and corrections needed that result in comedic reactions by sims/hairstylists.  

 *Supreme Hair Stylist Bonus: Becoming a CELEBRITY HAIR STYLIST: Once a sim reaches top level as a Supreme Hair Stylist, they will begin to gain notoriety and in time will reach "celebrity" hairstylist status. Once this is achieved they will start to receive celebrities/rockstars as clients, be asked to go on location to music video sets, and backstage at concerts, to work on musicians'/celebs' hair, and they'll hob-nob with the rich and famous. Also, a celebrity hair stylist can be Owner & Creative Director of a very successful hair salon w/ barely any problems. They'll even be given the opportunity to own a chain of hair salons if the first one is successful. 

 -Nail Technician/Artist 

A career for sims that believe a person can't be their very best without well manicured hands and feet. Services provided, how well and how quickly done, depends on the level of Nail Tech/Artist. Lower levels may either take longer or make mistakes such as wrong nail color or spills water on the client.  Once a higher level is reached the Nail Tech adds Artist to their repertoire and unlocks fun nail art & nail accessories. When a sim visits a Nail Artist the prices are higher, appointment is quicker, and you get to choose the color(s) of nail polish used on the sim, along with a paint design (flowers/hearts/holiday themes) and/or nail accessories such as glitter or rhinestones.  

 -Esthetician For the sim that sees other sims as walking Barbie & Ken dolls and helps them reach that status through ridding them of any and all body hair through artful waxing. Starting level can only provide facials, moustache waxing, & eyebrow waxing/shaping. They also provide skin treatments afterwards to sooth the red hot burning newly waxed fresh skin after peeling off a layer with the hot wax. Clients are taken to a private area (behind a curtain or door) for body waxing. Bikini waxing for female/male adult-elder is unlocked once an Esthetician reaches the top level as an Elite Esthetician.  

(Note on how I see the Esthetician career as working in the game... Once an Esthetician reaches "elite" level they can start body waxing clients, so the nude sim laying on the table will have blurred privates, same as when they shower, but we'll know the spot the Esthetician is waxing as the sim will make some kind of horrible scream and/or face due to the wax being ripped off which makes for funny game play. You see it too, right?

 -Hair Salon Owner & Creative Director  This career is the ultimate goal for most Hair Stylists... a dream come true. This career is best suited for the sim who has achieved the top level as Supreme Hair Stylist because they know what they're doing, what the salon needs, and more importantly what their employees and clients need. Even with all of their experience and knowledge in the hair industry, they still hit bumps in the road and make mistakes. Hair Salon Owner & Creative Director may also work well for other salon employees after a sim reaches either the Finest Nail Artist level or the Elite Esthetician level. They will run into a few surprise bumps that the Supreme Hair Stylist knows how to avoid, but they have a better chance of success than a sim that has no salon experience. With that being said a sim without prior salon experience who can afford it, can be a Hair Salon Owner & Creative Director; however, that sim will  have a much more difficult time in being the salon owner & creative director with more mishaps, unhappy employees, angry clients, and more stress than the Supreme Hair Stylist that becomes an owner & creative director. Their chance of failure with the salon closing down is 50% higher than that of a salon employee & 75% higher risk than that of a Supreme Hair Stylist.  Top level for Hair Salon Owner & Creative Director opens up the opportunity for them to expand into a Hair Salon Chain Owner.

-Professional Contemporary Music Artist This career is for the sim that wants to be a Music Idol & Pop Culture Icon. Those that seek after a career as a professional contemporary music artist include sims that have dreamt about success as either a solo pop or hip-hop artist, or as a member of a rock band, or a member in a popular boy or girl band. Their journey begins when they begin to practice singing and/or playing instruments. As their skill increases, they'll gain notoriety performing in venues around town until finally a big music manager contacts them after hearing them perform in a local bar and offers them an audition. If the audition goes well, they'll then be offered a contract with choices such as music genre & solo artist or in a band to begin their musical career. Once the contract is signed, the sim will start receiving dates for live concert gigs that you will be able to follow and play sim through the onstage performances as well as the backstage after parties. At top level the sim will become known as a "King/Queen of Music" which will unlock many new items made for a rock/pop superstar including clothing,  jewelry, big hairstyles, & other rockstar items themed after 1980's musical legends that are known for their music & iconic fashion styles such as George Michael (Wham!), Prince, Bon Jovi, Tina Turner, Cher, Run DMC, Heart, Janet Jackson, DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince, Cyndi Lauper, & Boy George (Culture Club).

 NEW ASPIRATION CATEGORY: TRADESMANSHIP 

NEW ASPIRATIONS: 

-Supreme Hair Stylist 

-Finest Nail Artist 

-Elite Esthetician -Hair Salon Chain Owner -King/Queen of Music

 NEW TRAITS: 

 FINICKY - A sim with this trait is extremely hard to please & they change their minds often too. Finicky sims are the customers that businesses, hair stylists, & servers have nightmares about. They want things exactly like they want it, and if it's not to their preferences, they'll throw a hissy fit refusing to pay for services. At the hair salon they're the client that will ask for a certain hair style or nail style, and halfway through they'll change their mind or when finished burst out in tears saying they don't like it. If they place an order over the phone, or in a restaurant, there's a good chance by the time it arrives, they'll no longer want it causing them to pout, complain & refuse to pay for it. If they enjoy an activity one day, they may hate it the next. If they have a romantic interest, they may lose interest faster than other sims. They may even become the runaway bride or groom. Their likes & dislikes change often because they are FINICKY. 

LEECH - A sim with this trait is outgoing, cheerful, & charming so making a new friend, or romantic connection, is easy for them & quicker than other sims, but once another sim befriends them they will become the center of the LEECH sim's world. A LEECH will only want to do things with that one friend or love interest, and they will expect the same from that friend or love interest. They want to do everything with ONLY that 1 person, and can show up at any time, & anywhere, uninvited to be with them. When not with their friend, they're calling them on the phone, even if they're at work. And if they see their 1 friend/love interest being friendly with anyone else, they will act out in sneaky jealous "accidental" actions towards the other sim who is "stealing" their friend's attention away from the LEECH, such as spilling a drink on them, or bumping into them hard enough to knock them out of the way, or causing them to trip, or pulling their chair out from under them. A LEECH will talk to anyone that will listen to them, and when they're really lonely they will visit their favorite hangouts to talk to the employees knowing as a customer they have to talk to them and be nice. The LEECH is often a Rockin Key business' nightmare client because they tend to hang around bothering the employees or other customers looking for attention.   Some leeches even ask for free things like a drink. The LEECH doesn't have the same obsession with their family members, only with that 1 special friend/love interest which may be their spouse. With family members the LEECH is known for inviting themselves to dinner, or on outings (and of course leeches always forget their wallet no matter who they're with); however, when they make that 1 special friend or love interest their family is relieved because they get a break from the LEECH that will now come around much less often, if ever, while in the other relationship. Breaking off a relationship with the LEECH is not pretty either. They will throw huge fits no matter where or how the break up happens. And don't be surprised if the sim that broke it off now finds themselves being watched with a telescope or being followed when they go out as the LEECH has a very hard time letting go & may pop up at any time just to say "hi" w/ a creepy smile as they walk away. They also may find that their mail has been stolen when the electric is suddenly shut off due to non-payment since the LEECH out of anger stole their mail, though they're unable to prove it to the police. 

 WALLFLOWER- This sim is a romantic at heart, creative, super sweet & friendly, but has trouble approaching other sims, especially strangers because they're shy. They long to socialize with other sims & enjoy going out on the town to different venues/events hoping to make a friend, or meet that special someone; however, once they arrive, they will stay seated and will not approach sims becoming a WALLFLOWER while they wait for sims to approach them. Once they become friends with a sim, they're charming, super sweet, & a bit more chatty, but still more quiet & agreeable than most sims. Being shy they are the exact opposite of a leech as they will often pay for others, and wait for their friends, or family, to call them to make plans as they don't want to bother anyone. If a sim they care about takes too long to contact them they become gloomy or will sit at home & cry alone wondering why that sim doesn't like them. When it comes to business owners, the WALLFLOWER is a favorite customer/client as they're so sweet they're always happy/content with the service provided for them. 

 COUCH POTATO - They live to entertain themselves from a chair or a couch whether at home, a friend's house, or a night out. They tire much faster than other sims & have to sit down more often if out and about. One of their favorite things to do is sit and watch tv which they also enjoy blogging about their favorite shows and movies. If sim also has an outgoing trait they can often be found out at venues that have entertainment, or activities that require or encourage sitting such as a bar, movie theater, park bench, laying out by a pool, library, or hair salon. These venues look forward to visits from their COUCH POTATO customers/clients as they tend to stay awhile, spending more money, so they don't have to get up and go back home after coming all this way. The thought, or sight, of physical exercise quickly drains their energy, and they may need to stop for a power nap whether they are at home, a friend's house, or out on the town.

  New Objects: 

-Hair extensions (4 different lengths/textures/all colors) & accessories (barrets, headbands, bows, scarves) for all ages -Hair salon accessories - couches/chairs, mirrors, work stations w/ stylists' supplies, shelves, hair products -Nail Technician manicure table & chair, client chairs, nail equipment  

-Nail art & accessories -Esthetician table & supplies/cabinet -5 piece drum sets (2 sizes adult & child) -Steel drums in 4 different sizes 

-Electric Guitars 

-Bongos (2 different sizes)

-movie popcorn machine

-soda fountain

-Recliner chairs with large built in cup holders

-Oversized Kites 

A Special Thank You... I'd like to thank my daughter ( #SparkleMuffin21 ) and my son ( #DarthDjoe ) for their help in listening to my ideas and giving me their own opinions on this challenge, as well as pretty much all my sim's creations. My grown children both play Sims 4, so I value their opinions, and appreciate the kindness/patience they've shown me as they often help me by sharing their opinions on my creations. This time around they gave me a lot of advice on what I should or shouldn’t include, and my daughter helped me with the naming of the pack & the name of the town for this challenge. Thanks kids! <3

[ninjakasuga]

Sonsal Celebration Year 2, Day 7

On the seventh day of the Sonsal celebration hosted by @boundforfreedomsonsal we have the prompt of peace. Something I’m sure many of us would have loved to have seen the Freedom Fighters get to enjoy when their respective series came to an end. Sadly the screw-ups of Archie Comics, Ken Penders well being Ken Penders, and a little of Sega’s own mishandling caused us to never truly see Sonic, Sally and Co. have their day of peace canonically. Luckily we fans can fix that.

PEACE: 

“...It brings me great pleasure to formally announce the end of the war started by Julian Kintobar, aka Dr. Robotnik, and perpetuated by his counterpart Dr. Eggman. Any and all allies of the two Empires created by these evil men have also been dealt with, leaving no one seeking to resume their mantle. Not only has this long, and difficult conflict finally over-.” Pausing in her speech, Sally took a lungful of air, but her smile never waned, as she also purposefully dragged out the pause to reign in the audience more. “All the nations of Mobius, be they any species of Mobians, or Humans have signed a hopefully lasting peace accord to not only end any potential future conflict but bring all the peoples’ of Mobius together as they never have before.” Despite prepping herself to keep her emotions in check, Sally found her eyes moisten but she kept a straight face, save for the smile widely forming as she couldn’t hide her joy. “We don’t have to live in fear anymore, and our world is truly free from tyranny. Everyone gathered here or not, thank you for your contributions. Now… LET’S CELEBRATE WE ALL EARNED IT!!”

At Sally’s last words, the crowds gathered before the stage in front of Castle Acorn hollered and cheered. After ten-plus years of living in fear of an evil scientist and his armies; the planet Mobius was free at last. Watching her people be happy made Sally’s heart glow with a warmth she didn’t know she needed. Bowing her head she turns from the podium and walks over to where her friends waited for her; especially a certain Hedgehog with a matching wedding band on his finger just like hers. As she wiped her eyes Sonic took a few steps to meet the distance, instantly his arms were around her for a hug and their lips met for a quick, but sweet and loving kiss.

Once it broke, her dear childhood friend, lover, and husband all rolled-into-one flashed one of his well-known grins. “Way past speech Sal.” “I started to nearly cry at the end.” She giggled, rubbing her eyes some more. “You’d think after all my practice I could have nailed it better.”

A familiar hand rested on Sally’s shoulder, with a soft southern drawl reaching her ears. “Aw heck Sally-girl, so you started to mist a little. Nobody will blame ya’ I mean fer’ Pete’s sake you did just announce the end to a nearly thirteen-year war we’ve been fighting since we were kids.”

Bunnie’s husband, Antoine moving to stand beside his wife, and as always holding her hand, gave a nod with his own smile. “Oui, as my dear beloved put it, no one would be zee upset at you being over the joy with the war’s end.”

Moving over a young two-tailed fox wrapped his arms around Sally’s waist, giving a squeeze before looking up so his gaze could meet Sally’s. A smirk mirroring Sonic’s adorning his face. “I think what we’re getting at Sally is, you did great, so don’t think you messed up the speech for getting misty-eyed.”

With a loud, merry chuckle Rotor merely crossed his arms as he walked closer himself, the old gang gathering once again. “I think I’m going to have to stand by the others in saying you did great Sally. Personally, even after my stint as a council member, I’d have choked up half-way through that.”

Unable to help herself, Sally giggled, enjoying the banter as she looked at her husband and friends with a playful smirk. “What is this, pick on Sally after her speech day?”

As if on cue, Nicole materialized from a nearby emitter, and reached over to pet Sally’s head. “Maaaaybe, we all just love you and wish you still are too hard on yourself. Your speech was lovely, to the point, but also if I may add, the start of the tears I think helped the audience accept this was ‘finally’ over.”

Looking at the faces of her dearest friends, Sally internally acknowledged they were right, and simply held her arms out. “Freedom Fighters… one last group hug? As a team?”

Without a word, the band of friends all formed a group hug with Sally at the center. A multitude of emotions coursing through each of them as their bond as friends and Freedom Fighters held them together and steered the course of their lives as much as the war that forced them to grow up so fast. One by one, not an eye was dry as happy tears began to leak from everyone and their mutual holding of one another tightened but never enough to cut off oxygen.

“D-do you think now that the fighting’s over we won’t see each other much anymore?” Murmured Tails in a soft voice as the thought crossed his mind. It was one that briefly flared when they first thought they won after Robotniks’ defeat. Of course, now things were so different than it was back then. He had his parents whom he was still making up for lost time with. Rotor still had family in the Tundra waiting for him. Sonic, Sally, Bunnie, and Antoine were married and could now start their own lives. Nicole was probably gonna be busy since she now had a bio-nanite living body and could have her own life beyond the administrator of the city and the nanite colony.

Reaching over, Sonic ruffled the head-fur of the fox he deemed his little brother affectionately. “Heck to the no there li’ bro. We all might do our own things for a bit but we ain’t gonna just treat the other like strangers.” Eye twinkling he eased from the group hug to wrap his arms around Tails and give him an affectionate noggie. “Plus don’t forget you’re big brother to Manik and Sonia. That means you’ll see us plenty since Sal and I are also on tap babysitters from time to time like you are.”

This seemed to assure the fox while smiled and wiped his eyes, his expression much cheerier now. “Heh, good point, us big brothers gotta help teach the li’ sibs right?”

“That’s the spirit!”

Giggling, Bunnie smiled at the scene of brotherly love and looked over to Antoine, a crafty, yet loving gaze sent his way. “Now that we know no boogie-man is gonna pop outta th’ ground. I’m all for enacting our plans for extended second-honeymoon Sugah-Twan.”

At the mention of this idea, the coyotes’ eyes twinkled as he held up his wife’s hand and kissed her knuckles. “Oui, oui  my love, I am how do you say..? ‘All-in’ on this idea.”

The rabbit’s own eyes sparkle with love and plans, lots of future plans. “Maybe we could start planning for our own li’ brood?” When her husband’s only response was to blush but nod his head vigorously, Bunnie laughed and leaned in to kiss him. “I love you, ya’ you big sweetie!”

“Going for kids already?” Inquired Rotor with a raised eyebrow, and a smile.

“We’ve been discussing it a lot, and frankly being a Mom is something I wanna be, so why not?” Bunnie giggles, her cheeks flushed as she rubbed her belly longingly. “I got all mah parts flesh again, and we don’t gotta fight, so dreams and rest of our lives here I come!”

“Speaking of extended honeymoon’s…” Sally walks over and hugs Sonic from behind. “That sounds like a wonderful idea.”

Nodding, Sonic rested his hands over hers around his waist. “Yeah, we didn’t exactly get to have one. Just a long weekend to ourselves.” Rubbing his chin, Sonic began to ponder on where they could go. With the planet free now, sans any areas in need of rebuilding the sky was the limit.

Then a thought hit him, with a grin he urges Sally to follow him. The two make their way over to another group of friends who were like they had been, celebrating. “Yo Knux’!”

Hearing his nickname, Knuckles the Echidna looked away from the discussion he was having with Vector and Julie-Su. Spying the Hedgehog and Squirrel-munk coming his way. “What’s up Sonic?”

“Can Sal and I borrow your island for our proper honeymoon?”

“Excuse me?” His spines bristled mostly on reflex to anyone mentioning doing, well anything with his island.

Knowing how easy it was for Sonic to antagonize Knuckles without trying, Sally interjected. “What he means Knuckles, is could we visit Angel Island and just… have our honeymoon there? We’d stay out of the way, we’ve just never, been there without some crisis going on. All the different biomes and vistas just scream to be explored and enjoyed.”

“Plus given it flies over the planet the views off the edge are gorgeous.” Quipped Sonic, who now clapped his hands together and bowed his head humbly. “C’mon Knux it’s the perfect place for newlyweds to get lost and have a good time.”

Covering her mouth, Julie-Su snickered. “Oh, you bet it is.”

Picking up on this, Sally smirked widely. “Oh? Maybe you can give us some tips?”

Running with the topic, Julie kept on still smirking widely if her cheeks were now a bit pinker. “Well, not per se Knuckles and I’s make out spots but I can recommend some. Although one mutual spot I must, ‘must’ recommend is this tiny waterfall that has a small spot where an overhanging rock creates this gap big enough for two people to stand inside without being constantly pelted with water. Hmmm..” Her cheeks brightened and her body fidgeted with the memory. “Nothing like standing under the falls with your man behind you, wailing-.” Putting a hand over his ears, Vector turned away, loudly and in a very grumble-y voice chanted. “La-la-la-la I can’t hear youuuu!”

“Walkers alive Julie!” Knuckles exclaimed his muzzle beat red as he gently grasped his girlfriend by the arm. “I don’t think anyone needs to know those details!”

Both Sally and Sonic snicker, and yet also mentally filed away this idea and would get the exact location from Julie later. Refocusing, Sonic reached over to pat Knuckles on the shoulder. “So joking aside, whaddya say Knux? It’s your call but it’d be a way-past cool favor. You know we won’t disturb anything nor go where we shouldn’t.”

“Please? We’ll owe you and Julie.” Sally added, trying to sweeten the deal with the cute-eyes routine and a pouty lip.

After just staring at the two with his usual impassive expression, Knuckles let out a long sigh but then smiled. “What the heck, sure. Consider it a done favor anyway since you guys helped bail me and the island out a number of times-OW!” At a sudden pinch, he looked at Julie. “What was that for?”

“They were gonna owe us a solid and you dismissed it? Knuckles, honey, my one and only…” She cups his face, and pinches his cheeks. “You always accept being owed a favor back! Think about the possibilities!”

“Ow, ow, ow sorry!”

Laughing, Sonic waved a hand. “Consider the favor still on, and thanks a million!” He insisted, figuring he should offer if to help Knuckles out of his situation with Julie in thanks for letting them stay on Angel Island.

“You won’t even know we’re there! Promise!” Sally quipped, giving both Echidnas a hug. “Thank you so much!”

Rubbing his nose, Sonic couldn’t help but smile as he looked around at his friends and the gathered crowds all celebrating. It took a long time, and probably more sacrifices than he would have liked, but finally, they had peace.

He closed his eyes, saying a silent prayer to the fallen, those he knew and those he didn’t. He wasn’t a religious sort but the departed were owed respect. He hoped they could rest easier now, just as those still alive could now truly live their lives to the fullest.

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 6, Number 9

New Bomb Turks

Late summer in the oddest year in memory, and we are still, improbably, deluged by music. The world, it seems, will go out with a bang and a whimper and a steady four-on-the-floor, and we at Dusted expect to have headphones on when it all blows to smithereens. This month’s Dust covers the usual gamut, from milestone ambient reissues to several varieties of improvised jazz, from eerie folk to honest punk rock, from surprising debuts to unlooked for but welcome re-emergences. Two hurricanes, a hinged and unhinged convention, wildfires, confusing hybrid school plans and scorching days won’t stop us, and they shouldn’t stop you either. Some days music is the only thing that makes sense. Listen along with Ian Mathers, Bill Meyer, Tim Clarke, Jennifer Kelly, Justin Cober-Lake, Andrew Forell, Ray Garraty, Nate Knaebel, Jonathan Shaw, Ian Forsythe and Patrick Masterson.

Aix Em Klemm — Aix Em Klemm (Kranky)

Aix Em Klemm by Aix Em Klemm

If there’s one word that probably applies to most fans of Stars of the Lid and its many peers and offshoots, it might just be “patient.” Which means the fact that Aix Em Klemm, the so-far one-off duo between SotL’s Adam Wiltzie and Labradford/Anjou’s Robert Donne, put out this stunning record just under 20 years ago and haven’t followed it up yet is probably regarded more as unfortunate than maddening. With Kranky issuing Aix Em Klemm on vinyl for the first time, though, and even saying of the duo “they still collaborate musically so new Aix Em Klemm recordings remain a possibility,” it’s a perfect time to both appreciate what they did actually give us and maybe just gently lament that there hasn’t been any follow up (yet?). From the reserved vocals that introduce “The Girl With the Flesh Colored Crayon” before it ebbs into beautifully reassuring drones, to the closing, improv-ed highlight “Sparkwood and Twentyone” (written and recorded on the day, after a year or more of trading tapes and mulling a collaboration), Aix Em Klemm stakes out its own unique place in the oeuvres of its creators and its transporting enough that a little over 40 minutes never feels like enough. Still, we can wait for more.

Ian Mathers

 Lina Allemano’s Ohrenschmaus — Rats and Mice (Lumo)

Rats and Mice by Lina Allemano's Ohrenschmaus

Pop the word Ohrenschmaus into a translator program and you’ll find that it’s German for “ear candy.” The choice of language makes sense, since the name applies to Canadian trumpeter Lina Allemano’s Berlin-based trio. But the imagery breaks down, since the music that she, electric bassist Dan Peter Sundland and drummer Michael Griener play isn’t sweet and easy. Allemano’s compositions are concentrated, full of events that are involving to follow and demanding to negotiate. One might expect the group’s configuration to leave plenty of room, but between the contrasting written events and the enthusiastic elaborations that the players work upon them, this music does not feel spacious at all. Griener shifts between skin and metal surfaces, and Sundland detonates flurries of activity, but the busyness of their activity never seems gratuitous. No, it’s just the thing to amplify the eventfulness of their leader’s fluent and wide-ranging playing.

Bill Meyer

 Jaye Bartell — Kokomo (Radiator Music)

Kokomo by Jaye Bartell

2016 Light Enough introduced me to Jaye Bartell’s pleasingly deep and measured vocal delivery and his elegant way with a tune, reminiscent of Leonard Cohen or M. Ward. There and on this new album, his words have the precision and droll humor of a writer sharply aware of the impact of a well-turned phrase. Kokomo takes its title from the faintly ridiculous and pathologically catchy Beach Boys song featured in the soundtrack to Cocktail. Bartell posits here that too often we live trying to bridge the gulf between our dreams and reality — and how tragi-comic this can be. Tellingly, Bartell’s music is sober and deftly played, but with a lightness to its step and a glint in its eye. (Look no further than the lovely, lilting “Sky Diver,” with its brushed drums and harpsichord.) He’s a smart, reassuring companion, someone who has gone the extra mile for his craft and doesn’t see the need to jump through hoops to catch your attention.

Tim Clarke

 Kath Bloom—Bye Bye These Are the Days (Dear Life Records)

Bye Bye These Are The Days by Kath Bloom

You might know Kath Bloom from her 1980s work with Loren Mazzacane Connors or from her spectral “Come Here” featured prominently in the 1995 film “Before Sunrise.” Her high flickering soprano, fluted with vibrato, is instantly recognizable, grounded in down-to-earth folk music, but tinged with otherworldly spiritual resonance. And oddly, her voice hasn’t changed much over the years. Up to last year (before the world fell apart), she was still performing periodically in Connecticut and Western Massachusetts, and now we have a new record from her, some 40 years past her Daggett Records debut. Here, her songs are gently shaped around her distinctive voice and twining dual guitars (she plays with fellow Connecticut musician Dave Shapiro of Alexander), yet not soft. They have a wiry idiosyncracy and a resistance to cliché, and the way the guitars work together is rather lovely. I like “When Your House Is Burning,” a song where the central metaphor—a burning house—is so precisely described that it may not be a metaphor at all, not a stand-in for musings on the value of connection, the fleetingness of stuff, but the thing itself. Bloom adds harmonica for the pensive “How Do You Survive,” a song about aging with grace and humor, and in her worn-in voices, the melody stretches out like spider web, transparent but nonetheless very strong.

Jennifer Kelly

 Catholic Guilt — This Is What Honesty Sounds Like (Wiretap)

Catholic Guilt really want us to get their honesty (there's no irony in the new EP's title This Is What Honesty Sounds Like). Authenticity has long been a vaunted (or derided) element of pop music, but the Melbourne-based quintet aren't posturing. They deliver straightforward rock with straightforward thinking, but that doesn't mean the music's easy. The group looks at the world with a mix of dismay and hope, as if they recognize that life is difficult but we don't have to let it kill us. The new EP leans into pop-punk, letting the upbeat approach direct the energy of the two standout tracks. “A Boutique Affair” looks at the challenges of increasing isolation as we age: “It's hard to make friends in your 20s / It's even harder to make 'em in your 30s / At this point I'm really dreading / The thought of making it to my 40s.” Vocalist Brenton Harris might wonder why we should bother growing, but he's determined to age loudly. Single “The Awful Truth” turns its pop guitars into rage as it looks at the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic church. By the time Harris says, “I can't wait to watch you burn,” it's clear that the truth may be awful, but at least it's honest.

Justin Cober-Lake  

 Cutout — Cutout (Driff)

Cutout by Jorrit Dijkstra, Jeb Bishop, Pandelis Karayorgis, Nate McBride, Luther Gray

The name Cutout implies removal, but that won’t get you very far in understanding this Boston-based jazz quintet’s music. Quite the contrary, Cutout’s performance dynamic involves judicious addition by a group of musicians who have made a long-term commitment to playing together. Alto and soprano saxophonist Jorrit Dijkstra and pianist Pandelis Karayorgis have been business and creative partners for years. They are the co-operators of Driff Records, all of whose releases feature one or both musicians, and they have shared several ensembles, including the large band Bathysphere, the Steve Lacy-themed Whammies, and Cutout. Trombonist Jeb Bishop, bassist Nate McBride, and Luther Gray often show up in these groups, and their smooth execution of sharp corners and sudden turnarounds reflects their shared understanding. What distinguishes Cutout from their other bands is the way they bring material by all five members into the set. Some of this album’s six tracks are single compositions, but others are sequential suites joined by improvisations. There’s plenty of dynamite soloing at work here, but the most intriguing turns come when one of the players elegantly links a couple of his bandmates’ compositions.

Bill Meyer

 Tim Daisy & Ken Vandermark — Consequent Duos: series 2a (Audiographic)

Consequent Duos: series 2a by Tim Daisy & Ken Vandermark

Ken Vandermark is a notoriously busy guy; in any ordinary year, the multi-reedist logs an extraordinary number of miles traveled, gigs played, records released and musical partners engaged. This 75-minute long recording braids together three threads of inquiry. It inaugurates the second volume of Consequent Duos, a shelf-full of improvised duos played in North America, mostly with Americans. And as with the other volumes of series 2a, it is a download-only release, part of a sequence of album-length recordings that may not be deemed to be major efforts, but that nonetheless don’t deserve to be filed away forever on some hard drive. Finally, it shares one night in Vandermark’s two decades and counting relationship with drummer Tim Daisy. It takes about ten seconds of any random selection from this concert recording, which preserves what went down one Sunday night in August 2011, to hear why these guys keep working together. The trust and empathy forged by playing literally hundreds of concerts together manifests in music that feels effortless, no matter how technically demanding it actually is. Whether it is the sound of drums being played at a galloping pace with the lightness of knitting needles while the baritone sax pops and roars eruptive masses of sound, or the bass clarinet leaping and trilling with joyous abandon while the percussion swings with dance beats that could get you arrested in certain countries, these guys know just how to make each other sound really good.

Bill Meyer

 The Dillards — Old Road New Again (Pinecastle)

The Dillards' influence on popular music outstrips their own fame (they might even be as well remembered for appearing on The Andy Griffith Show as they are for their proper recordings). The group became an important part of the development of country-rock, especially as they expanded the possible sounds of bluegrass. Nearly 60 years after their first release, they return with Old Road New Again. Only Rodney Dillard (sounding younger than his age) remains from the initial lineup, but he brings along a number of guests to fill out his act. Don Henley appears, and if “My Last Sunset” drifts into Eagles territory, that's no surprise, but Ricky Skaggs, Sam Bush, and others prove the act has plenty of flexibility left in it, whether cutting an original or reworking a classic like “Save the Last Dance.” The album winds down with “This Old Road” and a recounting of some musical history through playful allusion. Even as Dillard looks back, though, he thinks about new ways to push forward. Although the record could work just as reminiscence, the artists show more interest in what comes next.

Justin Cober-Lake

 Fire! Orchestra / Krzysztof Penderecki — Actions (Rune Grammofon)

Rune Grammofon · Fire! Orchestra - Actions (excerpt)

The Fire! Orchestra is not so much Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson’s big band as his big house, the place where he can bring his myriad interests together and invite them to interact. They have already taken on free jazz, krautrock and abstracted songcraft, so why not one of the earliest documents of post-third stream classical-jazz interaction? Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki originally composed Actions for Free Jazz Orchestra after hearing the Globe Unity Orchestra and handed it off to trumpeter Don Cherry to realize its first performance in 1971. Cherry’s imprint upon Gustafsson is deep; where do you think his long-running trio, The Thing, got its name? But this is no mere recreation. Some of Fire! Orchestra’s members weren’t even alive when the first version was performed, so the task is to find a way of playing the piece that makes sense now. So, they stretch things out, letting passages evolve organically. Special credit is due to the three-piece, whose contributions melt and glow.

Bill Meyer

 Ganser — Just Look At That Sky (felte)

Chicago quartet Ganser explores the bewilderment, claustrophobia and anxiety induced paranoia of the times on their latest album Just Look At That Sky. Brian Cundiff’s lockstep drumming anchors the record as Charlie Landsman whips out driving chords and intricate riffs that summon touchstones like Ian MacKaye, Thurston Moore and Rowland S Howard and push the songs to the edge of control. Spiky, equally detached and declamatory, Alicia Gaines (bass) and Nadia Garofalo (keyboards) share vocal duties working inside the kinetic rhythms to explore an interior world reactive to circumstance but seeking paths forward.  

Centerpiece “Emergency Equipment and Exits” demonstrates what the band can do when they stretch out and build layers of dread; Cundiff and Gaines drop into a propulsive groove as Gaines sings of parties past and now lost to the new reality: “Swallowing negative space/Like DB Cooper falling/Until I too am nothing/And it all seemed so big.” The tempo drops, a lonely keyboard riff, the song builds as Gaines intones “It’s a long way down” and Landsman’s guitar howls into the ether. The combination of exhilaration and enervation encapsulates the power that makes Ganser stand out amongst their peers working at similar intersections of post punk and art noise.

Andrew Forell  

 Godcaster — Long Haired Locusts (Ramp Local)

Long Haired Locusts by Godcaster

Possibly it’s the pandemic, though the trend seems to predate early 2020, but we have not heard a lot of over-stuffed, over-instrumented, over-the-top art-prog ensemblery lately. Godcaster, from Philly, busts the one-guitarist-on-the-couch paradigm wide open in this manic, Zappa-esque adventure. First of all, there are half a dozen musicians, augmenting the usual bass/drums/guitar with outre axes like flute, trombone and a variety of synthesized keyboards. All six of them lock into wiggy, hyper funky overdrive in opening salvo “Even Your Blood is Electric.” It’s a righteous groove, a tight and feisty disco extravanganza that mutated in the lab, but that sells it short and blurs the complications. Other cuts take the temperature down, but not the oddity. “Apparition of Mother Mary in My Neighborhood” feels like an almost pop song, though conceptualized by a 12-tone composer and interpreted in odd-numbered time signatures. Long Haired Locusts is too precise and earnest to be a gag, but an anarchist sense of humor pops up, as in the single “Don’t Make Stevie Wonder Wonder,” a Curlew-ish irregular jam punctuated with jump-rope chants. All these cuts have a lot of moving parts, a sense of play and a manic attention to detail, and if you’re sick of sad folksinger live streams, Godcaster could be just what you’re looking for.

Jennifer Kelly  

 Haptic — Uncollected Works (2005-2010) (Haptic)

Uncollected Works (2005-2010) by Haptic

Haptic is best characterized as a Chicago combo. Even though one or another of its members has lived out of town for roughly a third of their existence, the influence that such a situation has on their work’s pace only confirms that they are a band that needs to share space to get much done. The recordings on this DL-only collection of compilation contributions and curios dates from the first third of their existence, when Steven Hess, Joseph Clayton Mills, and Adam Sonderberg got together on a weekly basis. Heard end to end, these tracks don’t sound much alike. But whether the project at hand is framing a few piano noises with collected sounds, stretching out a bell’s toll, or patiently exploring the potential of signal corps training jazz, it sounds like the work of a common understanding about how sound can be molded and reframed.

Bill Meyer

 Boldy James — The Versace Tape (Griselda Records)

On his third album this year, Boldy James pairs up with Jay Versace, but despite a change in producers, there is little to distinguish the three tapes. After a long hiatus Boldy churns out music to flood the market, and every new tape causes head-scratching. Was it necessary to release this? As a stone cold pro, Boldy never repeats himself. He also never says anything new. His blueprint is all business talk with designer names splashed here and there: “First come, first serve, first through the third, no dealings \ Mama, I apologize, ain't mean to hurt your feelings.” When he steers towards Mafia references in his songs he sounds a bit archaic (but he already sounded retro when he first started in early 2010s). On The Versace Tape, as always, he raps like he’s not giving us the whole picture. He’s holding back, but maybe what’s left unsaid is the best part.

Ray Garraty  

 Madeline Kenney — Sucker’s Lunch (Carpark)

How big can a pop song go? This Oakland songwriter’s third full-length is boundlessly expansive without being particularly loud, the choruses swelling effortlessly, like a soap bubble blown to the size of your head. Kenney worked with Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack to produce Sucker’s Lunch and taps Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner, Boy Scout’s Taylor Vick and film composer Stephen Steinbrink for vocals. “Tell You Everything” is translucently gorgeous, layers of guitars, drum, percussion and saxophone shifting in iridescent patterns that never overwhelm its sleepy vocals. “Jenny” increases the friction, with a hard beat, surging synths and shoe-gazey gloss on the guitars, but sweetness in the vocals. Kenney’s subject matter is love and its complications, but she ends the disc in “Sweet Coffee” with a lucid purity. “I’m making coffee,” she croons in a breathy voice out of dreams, “Won’t you sit with me?” Sure, let me pull up a chair.

Jennifer Kelly

 Josh Kimbrough — Slither, Soar and Disappear (Tompkins Square)

Slither, Soar & Disappear by Josh Kimbrough

Writing an album in the spaces around an infant’s schedule is a delicate business, but Josh Kimbrough managed it quite well on this lovely album. His finger-picked rambles unfold like the slip-sliding time in a baby’s first year, a tumble of frantic activity interspersed with quiet, contemplative intervals. Kimbrough, a veteran of the North Carolina-based Trekky Collective, plays softly but with precision on acoustic solo pieces like “Sunbathing Water Snake” and “Giant Leopard Moth,” but his work really takes on warmth and resonance when he invites collaborators into his quiet, sunlit world. Blues-flecked “Two-thirds of a Snowman” gains an eerie glow from Andrew Marlin’s mandolin, which echoes Kimbrough’s licks in an upper register like the light hitting a shadowy corner. A sustained synth note in “Glowing Treetops” glitters like the surface of a pond—that’s Jeff Crawford of the Dead Tongues, who also play some bass—while gentle bent guitar notes zing like mosquitoes off its clear, cool liquid surface. Bobby Britt loops lush fiddle flourishes around this and other Kimbrough melodies; a rich, subtle blend of string timbres enlivens many of these tracks. The natural world also makes its appearance as well, most prominently in weather-haunted “The Shape of the Wind Is a Tree,” though the album’s light, clean tone throughout is like an open window. And yet despite multiple intermeshing elements, the album works very gently, light and soft enough not to wake a sleeping little one. “Simon’s Lullaby,” near the end, is beautifully communal, supporting Kimbrough’s clear, pensive guitar with the reassuring throb of cello, the bright promise of flute. Much of child raising is a solitary process, but Kimbrough’s meditation on it is not.

Jennifer Kelly

 Kimmig-Studer-Zimmerlin And George Lewis— Kimmig-Studer-Zimmerlin And George Lewis (Ezz-thetics)

Violinist Harald Kimmig, cellist Alfed Zimmerlin and double bassist Daniel Studer have been mapping out the possibilities of extra-idiomatic improvisation since 2009. They favor juxtapositions of raw and refined timbre, and in their roiling web of activity, the quicker a gesture passes, the more impact it seems to have. The Middle European trio matches up well with American trombonist/electronicist George Lewis, who is likewise devoted to making music spontaneously and unbounded by genre prescriptions or proscriptions. There are passages where it sounds like the four musicians have transcribed muttering and stifled laughter into musical activity. This incomprehensible vocal quality proves magnetic, drawing the listener ever deeper into the fray. While some might object to “chatty” improvisation, in this company, it’s a virtue.

Bill Meyer

Matmos — The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form (Thrill Jockey)

The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form by Matmos

Given the vigor with which Drew Daniel and MC Schmidt approach all of their work, it’s surprising to find Matmos’s new album, The Consuming Flame, to be somewhat lacking in cohesion. Like many of their previous releases there is a unifying concept — in this case, they corralled musical contributions recorded at 99bpm from 99 contributors — but it feels like the creative limitations they imposed on this project weren’t quite stringent enough. Inevitably, given the wide range of contributors (including Oneohtrix Point Never, Yo La Tengo and Mouse On Mars) and Matmos’s formidable technical virtuosity, there are plenty of satisfying passages that feature inventive vocal cut-ups, ear-catching beats and playful juxtapositions, but the presentation of these ideas within three continuous hour-long collages makes it hard to sift the gold as the music flows past. Bizarrely, the album’s presentation on Spotify is more listener-friendly, with each of the three discs broken down into digestible tracks that can be easily trimmed from the bigger picture to assemble your own collage of favorites.

Tim Clarke  

 Meridian Brothers — Cumbia Siglo XXI (Bongo Joe)

Cumbia Siglo XXI by Meridian Brothers

Eblis Alvarez, the sole musician behind the long-running Colombian space roots experiment known as Meridian Brothers, takes inspiration from like-minded predecessors in Cumbia Siglo XX for this electro-shocked take on coastal cumbia. Eerie blasts of jet-set synthesizer, buzzing funk bass and video game bleeps and bloops haunt the clip-clopping rhythms of these mad ditties. It’s like a Star Wars space port built on the verge of primitive villages, donkey tails swatting flies while lazer beams zip by. “Cumbia de la fuente” gene-splices syncopated hand-drum beats and traditional-sounding choruses with the splintered buzz of synth bass and glittery spurts of MIDI-generated arpeggios. It’s a hot tropical celebration lit by UFO glow. “Puya del Empresario” nudges a hip swaying cumbia rhythm to the foreground, but blares a rough-edged synth riff over it. “Cumbia del Pichaman” transforms Dusty Springfield’s “Son of a Preacherman” into a surreal technological marvel, buzzes and squeaks punctuating the offbeats like a DIY version of Zaxxon gone soft in the equatorial heat.

Jennifer Kelly

 Nas — King’s Disease (Mass Appeal)

Like all of Nas’s output in this century, King’s Disease, his 13th album, is pretty much unlistenable. King from the title here has two meanings. Every black man is a king (every woman is a queen) or should be. And second, it reminds that Nas is a king of rap, even though his royal days are long over. But even kings had to live on crumbs of their fame. With regard to the current moment in history, the album compels the listeners to unite and wear their blackness proud. Nas’ idea for achieving that? Just listen to his truisms and patronizing rants. On “Ultra Black” it’s “We goin' ultra black, I gotta toast to that”. On ‘Til the War is Won”, dedicated to women, it’s “May God gives strength to women who lost their sons \ I give all I have 'til the war is won.” All Nas gives to a black community is his bad music and maybe some charity. Every track here is to some degree about empowering black people, yet the only person Nas ends up empowering is himself. Every line on King’s Disease is disguised as virtue signaling, and the last thing we all need now is patronizing advices from rap millionaires.

Ray Garraty

The New Bomb Turks — Nightmare Scenario: Diamond Edition (Self-released)

Nightmare Scenario - Diamond Edition by New Bomb Turks

It would be understandable if, upon hearing the New Bomb Turks 1993 debut full-length, Destroy-Oh-Boy!, you thought to yourself, "They'll never top this." You wouldn't necessarily be wrong, but you'd be neglecting a much larger story and a key release in their catalog, 2000's Nightmare Scenario. With their debut, the Ohio quartet built a distinct machine out of familiar parts: cheap-lager-fueled thrash, butterflyin'-around rock 'n' roll swagger and barstool-philosopher lyrics. And with the possible exception of fellow buckeyes Gaunt, no other band at the time combined those attributes in quite the same way. It was as if America finally had its own Saints. The Turks would go on to make five more LPs over the next decade. Though lost in the shuffle a bit after jumping to Epitaph in 1996, the band were never going to become darlings of that label's skater boi base anyway. You certainly can't blame them for trying to reach a new audience nor should you overlook the output from that era. 2000's Nightmare Scenario, their third for Epitaph, is gritty, witty, and so full of Midwest blastitude you'd think it was year zero at Datapanik (or at least 1991). Yet to hear the album in its original mixes by Detroit studio guru Jim Diamond, newly issued for the 20th anniversary of its release, is all the more gratifying. It's stripped of that extra coat of paint found on the original, and it reveals what a decade's-worth of relentlessly plying one's trade in the punk rock free market will get you. The Turks were an absolute musical force by this point: they could still hit warp speed but could also swing with the best of them. And frontman Eric Davidson is in full possession of his vocal gifts (always a key aspect of the band's sound), nestling into the groove like a Funhouse-era Iggy or leading the charge as needed. The 20th anniversary Diamond Edition of the album is a nice reminder of just how consistently good the New Bomb Turks were and a nice splash of Pabst in the face for anyone who slept on that reality the first time around.

NOTE: Never above a little frat boy humor, the Turks were always much more about mocking those particular attitudes than ever truly embracing them. With that in mind 100 percent of the digital will be donated to Black Queer & Intersectional Collective bqic.net and Columbus Freedom Fund www.instagram.com/columbusfreedomfund www.instagram.com/columbusfreedomfund.

Nate Knaebel

 Siege Column — Darkside Legions (Nuclear War Now!)

Darkside Legions by Siege Column

Some thoughts that occurred on first listening to Darkside Legions, the new LP from Siege Column: Track one, “Devil’s Knights of Hell”: “Whoa, this is pretty nuts. Exciting — raw and barely coherent, but exciting.” Track three, “Snakeskin Mask”: “Okay, I get it. All this stupidity is just too frigging stupid. Enough, already…” Track five, “Funeral Fiend”: “Holy shit! I think this may be genius-level stupid!” And so on. The record keeps on doing that, and the listener (this one, anyways) keeps on generating phrases like “genius-level stupid” in an attempt to cope with the experience. Siege Column is constituted of two shadowy figures from somewhere deep in the chemically treated wilds of New Jersey, and for sure, this is music that could only come from New Jersey. I still can’t figure out if Darkside Legions is too moronic for words, or if that projection beyond words is the mark of some sort of greatness. Meanwhile, the next song is peeling out like a 1969 Chevelle that needs some serious muffler work, trailing empty cans of cheap domestic, wads of bloody paper towel and the smell of burnt hair. Yikes. Feel like I better catch up…

Jonathan Shaw  

 Smokescreens — “Fork in the Road” (Slumberland)

A Strange Dream by Smokescreens

A new single from LA’s Smokescreens is notably partly because David Kilgour took a hand in it, distilling the band’s jangly sweet sound in a Clean-like way, where the guitar comes coated in liquid clarity and everything else is drenched in beautiful fuzz. Even if you’ve been liking Smokescreens for a while, “Fork in the Road,” is something special, the thump of bass glowing quietly, the guitars cavorting, a synthesizer building dense shimmery textures, the chorus softly harmonized around a koan-ish verse. (How do you go straight at the fork in the road? ) The guitar solo two minutes in is worth the trip all by itself. If the upcoming album is anything like this tune, I’m in.

Jennifer Kelly

Matt Sowell — Organize Or Die (Feeding Tube)

Organize Or Die by Matt Sowell

Too often, the words “sounds like John Fahey” denote either laziness or a sparse descriptive vocabulary on the part of the people who utter them. But it cannot be denied, Matt Sowell sounds like he’s closely studied Fahey’s records, especially the less experimental ones of his Takoma/Vanguard period. There’s a similar melding of bluesy styling, compositional elegance, and emotional evocation. But Sowell’s motives are different. Where Fahey’s music looked at the snarl of personal memory and the blacker, deeper pit of his tangled subconscious, Sowell’s looks outward. Fahey tried to subdue demons within; Sowell calls out the devils of capitalism, and honors the purity of respect untainted by dollars or oil. Of course, since his music is purely instrumental, you can project whatever you want onto it. But in times like these, we need all the resistance and resonance we can get.

Bill Meyer

  Treasury of Puppies — S/t (Förlag För Fri Musik)

Treasury of Puppies by Treasury of Puppies

The Gothenburg duo of Charlott Malmenholt and Joakim Karlsson’s debut release as the Treasury of Puppies is lo-fi depressive but charming pop, recorded at the beginning of 2020. A Fairly short release, barely pushing past an EP length, it's in the vein of other Swedish underground releases of the past few years. The two trade chilly, spoken-sung vocals over a set of eight tracks, either buoyed by repeating, fuzzy guitars alongside field recordings, sauntering looped drums and hand-tampered tape sounds, or a layer of delayed static and fuzz churning under over drifting bells and slowly rotating keys.

Ian Forsythe

Trio No Mas — A Tragedy Of Fermented Undulation (Mars Williams) 

A Tragedy Of Fermented Undulation by TRIO NO MAS

Chicago has saxophonic tradition, and part of that convention is the expectation that the city’s saxophonists work hard. However you look at it, Mars Williams holds up his end. He’s busy on both local and world stages. In recent years you can hear him melding Albert Ayler and Xmas carols on a couple of continents, freely improvising with the Extraordinary Popular Delusions and playing not-just-old-memories rock and roll with the Psychedelic Furs. But it would seem that he has room for another band, if the situation is right, and that’s the genesis of this trio. Williams sat in with brothers Stefan and Aaron Gonzalez when the Texan rhythm section came through Chicago and then made a couple quick passes through their neck of the woods. This live recording, which is being sold as a download as Williams figures how to make up for not going on the road with the Furs this year, brings us to the other way that Chicago saxophonists work hard. Switching between several horns, he plays them all with a mix of vein-popping force and pyrotechnic fluency. The freres Gonzalez toggle between heavy lurching and molten streaming, pulling back every now and then to create quiet spaces in which Williams can tap into yet another Chicago tradition — the evocative chatter of little toy instruments. If you can handle the unbearable lightness of the no-physical format, this music brings plenty of satisfying heaviness to the sonic realm.  

Bill Meyer

 Various Artists — Total 20 (Kompakt)

Total 20 by Various Artists

Since 1999, each summer Cologne’s Kompakt label has compiled recent and new tracks from their roster. For fans of the label’s distinctive musical aesthetic — a shuffling, playful, pop-facing, experimental minimalist form of techno — the Total series seems a must-have, but the series has also served as an entrée into Kompakt’s world for curious newcomers, casual listeners and cash-strapped collectors. Total 20 maintains the high standards of its predecessors. Coming in at two plus hours and 22 tracks from stalwarts Michael Mayer, Voigt und Voigt and Jörg Burger share space with newcomers like Kiwi and David Douglas. This edition works as a soundtrack for in home dance sessions, concentrated listening and background for escaping the mope and drag of enforced isolation. The music itself is uniformly of high quality, but the sequencing is key here. Moments of elegantly constructed ambient minimalism (Soela’s “White Becomes Black”), euphoric vocal house (Kiwi’s “Hello Echo”) and high concept psy-trance (ANNA & KITTEN’s “Forever Ravers”) are interwoven with the familiar midtempo Kompakt sound. While it’s a lot to digest at first and may to some ears merge into an amorphous mass, Total 20 will lift your mood, shift your body and shake off your funk. Have a taste, you may find yourself grazing if not gorging.

Andrew Forell 

 Verikyyneleet — Ilman Kuolemaa (I, Voidhanger)

Ilman Kuolemaa by VERIKYYNELEET

 This new LP from Finland’s Verikyyneleet hits a bunch of the essential marks for hyper-obscure, one-man black metal: Difficult to pronounce and vaguely creepy name? Yep (translated from Finnish, Verikyyneleet means something like “tears of blood). Primitivist, kvlt-ish album art with lots of spindly, symmetrical, necromantical forms? Yep (pretty cool, too). Ghastly, croaked, semi-strangulated vocals and sweeping, epical song structures that likely attempt to represent the frozen forests of the Laplander landscape? Yep (see especially “Yhta Luonnon Kansaa,” which empties into another song called “The Great Scream in Nature”). But in spite of the degrees of familiarity struck by those various notes, there’s a compelling idiosyncrasy to Ilman Kuolemaa. And although Finnish weirdo Isla Valve — sole creator of the sounds — has been releasing music under the Verikyyneleet name since 2006, he hasn’t exactly been prolific: two demos in 2006, an EP last year, and now this LP. It’s all rather mysterious. But whatever the back story, the songs are really good. There’s a slightly smeared, off-kilter sound that adds to the strangeness. Is it 4 am and suddenly really, really quiet, wherever you are? Here’s your soundtrack. Light up some candles, turn it up loud and freak out the neighbors.  

Jonathan Shaw

 Young Dolph — Rich Slave (Paper Route Empire)

It’s not a little ironic that Adolph Thornton, Jr., 35 years old and some seven records into his career (not counting the endless mixtapes floating around), has peaked both in hard numbers — Rich Slave hit #4 on the Billboard 200 — and stylistically with an album that arrives after the Memphis rapper was supposed to retire from the game. When GQ interviewed him in May, Dolph was locked in and hanging out with his kids, marinating on his next move; with Rich Slave, he’s unlocked a socially conscious side of himself that, admittedly, was always bubbling below the usual braggadocio. Alongside guest spots from Megan Thee Stallion, established sidekick Key Glock and Chicago staple G Herbo, Dolph tweaks his usual template to speak to the moment in what is his most effective full-length deployment yet. There are a trillion rappers who work this hustle, but no one’s done it better this year.

Patrick Masterson

[royalflushstories]

Survey Results

Buckle up! This is going to be a long post.

So you know the survey we sent out a little bit ago? Well, it’s closed now, and here are the results. It’s a fair amount of raw data, but we’ve done our best to make it easy to follow. (For some reason, tumblr isn’t letting us enter charts? But we’ve broken the numbers up into easy chunks.)

Thank you to the 23 of you who responded. We’re glad you participated. :D

Your Favorites

The first part of the survey covered who your favorite characters were. Some of those answers weren’t very surprising, but some of them are definitely interesting.

Keep in mind, not all the answers in any given category will add up to 23, since there was the option to choose nobody. Also, sometimes people are in more than one category, so while they might not be the overall favorite in one category they do have another chance.

The Freddy’s Crew:

Mark was the favorite, with 15 votes. Amy and Ethan both had 2, and Tyler had one. Nobody else was voted for.

The Law Enforcement:

MatPat was the overall favorite, also with 15 votes. Gar came in second with 4, and Nate had 2. Nobody else had any votes.

The Mafia:

We have a three-way tie here for first place, interestingly enough. PJ, Jordan, and Luna all got 6 votes each. (At least we know Luna is safe from the death later on.) Wiggles (Ohm) had 3, and Sophie had 2.

The Faceless:

The tie for favorite Faceless goes to Terroriser and Thomas Sanders with 4 votes each, immediately followed by a three-way tie with Jack, Gar, and Crimson* with 3 votes each. Ohm (Wiggles) and Gab both had 2 votes, and Vanoss and Robin (Kostya) had 1 each.

(*Reminder: Crimson is the OC replacement for Cry.)

The Mob:

The favorite in this category is one of those extremely unsurprising ones. Jack had 18 votes. Sam had 1, and Rhett had 1.

The Fancy Folk:

Felix came in as the overall favorite, with 11 votes, but Marzia’s 6 is more than most other people got at all, so that’s not at all shabby. Crimson had 4, and Thomas Fischbach had 2. 

The Orchids:

Molly was, by far, the favorite here, with 14 votes. Minx had 4, Wade had 3, and JP had one.

The “Hard-to-Categorize”:

Technically, Dan had 8 votes and Phil had 7. However, one of you mentioned that Phil was tied with Dan for you in that category, which I’m going to count as an extra vote for Phil. So, once again, we have a tie for overall favorite, with Dan and Phil having 8 votes. Stephanie* had 2, and Jason had 1.

(*She wasn’t included in any of the categories, technically, but people wrote her in.)

The Mafiya (ish):

Thomas Sanders came in at a solid 8 votes, and Kostya (Robin) was close behind at 8. Rosanna had 5 (and to those who chose her as their favorite, my condolences). Buttons came in at 2, and, a bit surprisingly, Mir had 1 vote. I don’t know who you are, but I applaud your courage to put that on the survey the authors looked over.

Your Expected Deaths

Now, this second part was a bit harder to track, as you were allowed to choose as many people as you wanted from each category to say you were expecting them to die by the end of the series, but only one cause of death. Because of that, sometimes it’s difficult to pin down what cause of death people think is most likely to go to each character, but if there’s a clear trend it’ll be included in a note.

The Freddy’s Crew:

By far, you expect Mark to die--12 votes were cast towards that, with Tyler having 4 and Amy and Ethan both having 3.

As for the expected cause of death, 13 of you chose “protecting someone,” 2 chose “murdered,” 2 couldn’t explain the expectation*, and 1 chose “killed in a fight”.

By far, most of the “protecting someone” deaths belonged to Mark, but there was at least one person who assigned that to Tyler.

The Law Enforcement:

Most interestingly, the character most expected to die by the end of the series is Nate, with 11 votes. He’s followed closely by MatPat (7 votes), Gar (6 votes), and Patrck (5 votes). Whittaker has 2 votes, and Bob, Dlive, and Entoan all have 1 each. 

The most popular expected cause of death is “protecting someone” with 7 votes, followed by “killed in a fight” with 6. “Murdered” has 5, “had it coming” had 3, and “seeking revenge” had 2.

Only 1 person thought we won’t kill any of these people, and most of you selected multiple people to die.

The Mafia:

A great deal many of you seem to be expecting Jordan to die (9 votes). The same goes for Wiggles (Ohm) with 8. PJ has 5, and Sophie has 2.

“Protecting someone” and “killed and a fight” have close numbers (8 and 7), but it’s moments like these I’ll ask you to consider that those to categories can and do sometimes overlap. “Murdered” had 2 votes, “seeking revenge” had 1, and “had it coming” had 1.

The Faceless:

It seems a lot of you are expecting Robin (Kostya) to die. 9 of you, in fact. Just like 5 of you think Gar is going to die. Ohm (Wiggles) and Crimson both have 4 votes towards their expected demise, and Vanoss and Thomas Sanders both have 2. Moo and Terroriser both have 1.

As for the causes of death, “killed in a fight” has a whopping 9 votes. “Protecting someone” has 3, as does “murdered.” “Had it coming” has 2.

The Mob:

Only 8 of you thought someone would die in this category, which means 15 of you figured we wouldn’t kill someone. It’ll be interesting to see how that ultimately plays out, but you do all have a pretty good read on us now, so you may just be right.

6 of you think we’re going to off Rhett, and 2 of you think we’re going to kill Jack.

“Killed in a fight” has 4 votes. “Protecting someone,” “murdered,” and “seeking revenge” all have 1 vote each.

The Fancy Folk:

11 of you expect Crimson to die by the end of the series. Thomas Fischbach has 6 votes. Ken and Felix both have 2, and Marzia has 1.

“Protecting someone” is the most popular reason of death, at 7 votes. “Murdered” has 4, “seeking revenge” has 3, and “killed in a fight” has 2. This is the other time I wonder where categories overlap.

The Orchids:

Wade is the character most expected to die, at 5 votes. Krism has 4 votes, Minx has 2, and Molly and JP both have 1. 

“Killed in a fight” has 6 votes, and “protecting someone” and “murdered” both have 2 votes. “Seeking revenge” has 1, though it’s unclear who is seeking revenge and why.

The “Hard-to-Categorize”:

0 votes were cast here. None of you think we’re going to kill any of these people. That’s oddly trusting.

The Mafiya (ish):

Mir has 17 votes for his death. I don’t know if this means the other 6 people figured that expecting him to die was too hopeful or if they want to see him alive. Poopyhead McGee has 4 votes, Kostya (Robin) has 3, and Buttons has 2.

The reason of death “had it coming” had 17 votes, but only 16 were directed at Mir. “Murdered” had 2 votes, and “killed in a fight” and “seeking revenge” both had 1, and were both clearly attached to Kostya.

Additional Comments:

These are things that were added as causes of death that weren’t on the list. (These are not all the additional causes and comments.) If a particular quote was submitted with a name, the name has been removed for the sake of privacy.

I can’t help but think PJ is going overexert himself in this fight and he’s going to get sick again and actually die this time... which is exactly the kind of very mean thing I’d expect you to do after finally reuniting him as Sophie. And let’s be honest, if anyone in the Freddy’s crew is going to die, it’s going to be Mark because you WOULD make us go through his death twice

and

Robin will probably be out between a rock and a hard place in regards to his infiltration. Either he’ll try to protect someone and the Russian Mafia will kill him, or he’ll try to keep his cover and someone else will kill him - like other Mafia or the Police.

and

Honestly I really have no real idea on whose going to die. I just have a slight feeling that either Jack or PJ are going to die & it's going to be protecting the other, kind of poetic in a way.

and my personal favorite

Everybody gets to kill Mir 😈

[etjwrites]

OC Backstory Week 3 - Rivals

Has there been a rival in their past? What was their conflict about? 

Write about a scene in their past where the rivals face each other!

@yourocsbackstory​

Did I have any rivals growing up? Hah! You're making me cry I'm laughing so hard. See, the funny thing is, my best friend used to be my worst enemy. Guess I kinda have a habit of doing that. Anyway, there's a particularly amusing incident I remember from back before the frix sprite story I just told you guys. . . .Ken's shaking his head at me, so maybe I shouldn't. Nah, let's do it. Anyone got a picture of the forest we can put up while I'm telling this next one?

“The school report says you bit him. You bit him?” Bo bared his fangs at Nyss, wishing he was already an adult with an impressive growl. “Yeah, and?”

Nyss pinched the brow of his nose, ears and tail drooping. “We've discussed this so many, many times. Kenton is barely a few months older than you. He is not, in any way, shape, or form, responsible for P'rraa's passing!”

“He's human!” Bo spat back, and Nyss crossed his arms. “I wouldn't care if he were a Vyss'n, Bo. You don't go around biting people who've done nothing to provoke it.” Oh, but he had. Nyss didn't understand. Kenton was a stupid human, and it was so unfair that he was better than Bo at almost everything. Everywhere he went, people congratulated him on speaking Klia'an so well, and how great he'd done at recitation night, and on and on. He didn't deserve it. Any of it. Bo's father for a weak, fragile human? It wasn't a fair trade at all. “As it stands,” Nyss waved the parchment in his hands, “you're getting too old for a switching, and honestly, it hasn't even remotely changed your attitude towards Kenton, so after consulting with the Innah, we've decided to try a different tack.” Nyss looked up at the ceiling of their loft muttering “Lanae, give me strength,” and Bo had the sudden sinking feeling he was going to hate whatever his big brother was about to say. “On your school's field excursion to the kitterstone mines tomorrow, you'll be pairing up with Kenton on any assignments Teacher Illyia has for you.” “No!” Bo had been looking forward to visiting the mines for so long. And now he had to work with Kenton? It wasn't going to happen, it simply wasn't.

“Stay out of my way,” Bo said to Kenton after Teacher Illyia had explained their activities for the day. “But we can't complete all our assignments without working together,” the human protested. “That's your problem,” Bo said and grinned at him. The first task was easy enough, using the small nets they'd been given to pan for lumps of kitterstone worn smooth by the water in the shallow pools all around them. His pile grew and grew, but didn't seem to get any bigger than Kenton's who kept pulling the bright red rocks out of the swirling water as fast as Bo. Faster even. The human suddenly gasped, and Bo looked over to see Kenton clutching a beautiful blue rock. “Oh, you found a sapisz stone! Very good, Kenton.” Bo snarled under his breath at Teacher Illyia's over-the-top praise and flung his net aside. “Don't be mad,” Kenton said, and offered the stone to Bo, “we're a team. This is your find too.” “Told you to stay away.” Bo shoved at Kenton's hand and crossed his arms in a sulk, refusing to look when Teacher Illyia added their score to the tally she was keeping. Next they had to collect liphiz flowers from the brush growing around the mines, and while Bo gathered more than Kenton, the irritating human upstaged him yet again. Bo went to present one of his flowers to Seri, only to find that Kenton had already given his adopted sister a crown of the bright orange and purple blossoms. Bo flung his own on the ground and trampled them, not caring that Teacher Illyia swished her tail sternly and marked his and Kenton's score near the very bottom of the list. “Please,” Kenton pleaded after they received their third and final assignment, “please work with me. We did so well on the first task; if we try really hard, we can make up the lost points.” “I can do it. On my own.” But catching the fast swimming craunah in the stream which fed some of the mine's pools was easier said than done. They were see-through, which made spotting one difficult in the first place, and when Bo plunged his hand into the water, they squirted ink jets that hid them from sight again. He tried and tried and tried, coming up with only silt and rocks, his claws piercing leaves and driftwood but not craunah. His only consolation was that Kenton seemed to be struggling just as much. The human was up to his knees in the stream, ink-dark water gushing around him, and he appeared to be holding back tears. Bo gave up on catching the slippery creatures and started to jeer at Kenton instead. The human deserved to know what it felt like to fail at something for once. “Just stop!” Kenton finally yelled at Bo and dragged an arm across his muddy face. “I get that you don't want to help, but you don't have to make it harder for me.” “You think crying will make me feel sorry for you?” Bo laughed, and approached Kenton. “I might be the only person in all of Tribe Osinan who sees you for what you really are. Murderer.” He whispered the last word, so Teacher Illyia wouldn't hear. Kenton's bottom lip trembled, and he clenched his fists. “I lost my pa that day too,” he said, voice shaky and thin. “You don't have to be mean about it. It's why Seri stopped talking to you.” That was why? Seri had stopped coming over to play at Bo's loft because he refused to let Kenton trick him – like he'd tricked everyone else – into forgetting all the people they'd lost trying to help the worthless humans in Ethaba? “You told Seri to stop talking to me?” he growled, furious at the yellow haired human standing in the stream. “No! It was your own actions which pushed her away.” “Liar. If you weren't here P'rraa wouldn't be dead, and Seri would still be my friend. It's all your fault!” Bo sprang at Kenton and tumbled him fully into the stream, pushing his head under the water and scratching at him with his claws. Kenton shrieked, bubbles escaping his mouth, the muffled sound lost under his flailing and thrashing. The commotion must have attracted Teacher Illyia's attention, as moments later Bo found himself being pulled away and his arms firmly restrained behind his back whilst Kenton was dragged out of the water by Seri, crying and vomiting and bleeding from a dozen places. Bo shifted to try and escape, but Teacher Illyia scruffed him without hesitation, and he went limp in her grasp.

“This is the last day you will ever be in one of my classes – in my school at that! Nyss wants you to learn, he'll have to teach you himself.”

“He tried to drown him!?”

Even though Nyss was in the other room, Bo could clearly hear his oldest brother. He sounded very mad and horrified all at the same time. Bo supposed he had good reason, given that Kenton's adopted mother was none other than the leader of Tribe Osinan herself. “Innah, please accept my repentance on Bo's behalf. I assure you, nothing like this will ever happen again.” The low growl accompanying those words gave Bo the sudden certain feeling that he was not yet too old for a switching. He wouldn't outright attack Kenton again though. Rather than open people's eyes to the truth, all it had done was make them feel more sorry for him. And now Seri wouldn't even look at him anymore. He didn't think even two flower crowns would change that. From beyond the spinner-floss curtains, the Innah laughed gently. “Well, Healer Laedr patched up the worst of Kenton's injuries, and he's mostly fine now. Mild maiming does seem to be the best outcome, given the circumstances. We'll keep trying with Bo. At least he didn't bite him this time.”

Was that a funny story, or what? (It wasn't? Most children don't attempt murder to avenge their dead fathers? I'm scaring people, and my sense of humour's is badly skewed? See, now you sound like Laine.) (Oh, it's time for break? I wanna try the cut!) You're watching an interview with the famous Bo of Tribe Osinan on the Thorunn Crystal Broadcast News Network – don't change frequencies, we'll be right back!

@igotablankpage @musicofglassandwords @whatsanwritepocalae @elaynab-writing @sheabutterskyes  @alcego-writes @valdifarniente

00 - Intro || 01 - Family || 02 - Friends || 04 - Skills || 05 - Loss || 06 - Home || 07 - Free/Secrets

[ohakosubs]

Nuclear Gypsies (生きてるうちが花なのよ死んだらそれまでよ党宣言), 1985 dir. Azuma Morisaki

status: completed download here

translation notes (includes spoilers):

・The film’s english title is “Nuclear Gypsies” after the central subject matter, but the Japanese title is, as you may have noticed, much longer. The Romaji reading of the absurdly long title is “Ikiteru uchi ga hana na no yo shindara soko made yo to sengen”, which roughly translates to, “Declaration by the Being Alive is the Best - If You Die, That’s It Party” - “party” meaning a political party or faction. Going even deeper, the way “being alive is the best” is phrased alludes to the Japanese way of saying “silence is golden”, “言わぬが花” (iwanu ga hana), which in itself directly translates to “not saying is a flower”. Saying something is a “flower” in this way means that it’s “the best”, so in another way the first part of the title could be directly translated to “being alive is a flower”.  It is never made explicit why this is the film’s title.

・Rafute is a signature Okinawan dish, usually consisting of cubed pork stewed in awamori (very strong Okinawan alcoholic spirit), soy sauce, dashi and sugar. Nearly all the body parts of a pig are more or less commonly eaten throughout Okinawa, which explains Barbara’s quip about the pig ears. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafute

・The Okinawan song first sung by Shimabukuro (the character almost only seen on screen playing a sanshin and singing) and then referenced several times throughout the movie is “Juku no Haru” 十九の春 (”Spring of My 19th Year”). Commonly misthought of as a traditional Okinawan folk song (perhaps because it was “adapted” from a much older village song whose composer is unknown), the first recording of the song was released in 1972 and has since been one of the most widely known folk songs representative of Okinawa.  Though the lyrics tell a story from multiple perspectives, which make it a bit hard to comprehend, the song is about an older married man who plans to leave his wife for a younger woman from a brothel. The first 3 verses are sung from the perspective of the wife of the older man, and then the 4th and 5th verses are thought to be from the perspective of the man’s younger lover. The film only references the 1st verse and the 4th. 

・There are a few things to note when the Captain says “This is the best place in all of Japan. The Peoples’ Republic of Okinawa, settled on the waves”. The first is that he may be referring to the Ryukyu (former name of Okinawa) independence movement, which has been present since the US occupation after WWII; the second is that “settled on the waves” is a play on words from the name of the eatery that Barbara’s family (?) runs, “Nami no Ue” 波の上、or “on the waves”. 

・The Eisa festival is one of Okinawa’s biggest annual traditional festivals, held in late summer. https://www.visitokinawa.jp/information/eisa

・”Tokoyo-no-shima” is a mythological place from ancient Japanese folklore which conjures images of a “distant, otherworldly land”, and has the same connotation as “Heaven”, or at times, “Hades”. I believe the name comes from the story of Tokoyo, who sails to far off islands to search for her banished father. “Tokoyo-no-shima” is likely closely related to “Tokoyo-no-kuni”, which is the land beyond the living (like the afterlife, but not really sinister).

・Miyazato making a joke about wrapping things up in old newspaper and exchanging them for tissues refers to an old system in Japan where people could exchange things for tissue/toilet paper.

・Tadashi, an aspiring yakuza underling, refers to Miyazato as “aniki” 兄貴 which is a common way to politely address someone older or above you in rank (sometimes also of the same rank) within yakuza gangs. It translates literally to “(older) brother”, but I have avoided directly translating it to complicate the character relationships.

・A goza mat is a cheap mat made of rush, common in old Japanese houses.

・Kokusai Street (Kokusai-dori) is one of the main streets in downtown Naha, Okinawa. 

・Many references are made to a “hanba” 飯場 which can mean a construction camp, bunkhouse or living quarters for workers depending on the context. In Nuclear Gypsies, they refer to the poorly kept living quarters that plant workers live out of, so translations of the term stem from “plant workers’ living quarters”, shortened when necessary.

・Aiko tells the story of how she was named by referring to words used when playing Japanese rock-paper-scissors, “Jan-ken-pon”じゃんけんぽん. I won’t go into the details of the language used in Jan-ken-pon, but the phrase “aiko deshou!”アイコでしょう！is what you say when the first round yields no winners, and so another round is required (usually in quick succession). The phrase “aiko deshou” literally means “it’ll be a tie, won’t it!”, which ties in to Aiko’s story about her name.

・There is a section in the film where Aiko reminisces about all the people she’s met, beginning with the people at the living quarters she was at. The rhythm of her pattern of speech gradually starts to follow a simple possessive grammar that is easy to say in Japanese but difficult to capture in English - for example, “tsume-kami no Takeuchi sensei” 爪噛みの竹内さん puts together the verb/noun - “nail-biting” - with the name of someone - “Mr. Takeuchi”, more or less indicating that the thing that represents that person the most is said verb/noun; an easier example is “Sawa from Shinonome” - “Shinonome no Sawa san”. These get very complicated and Japanese-centric as Aiko goes on, and while I have tried to capture the bizarre nature of her monologue, there is not enough subtitle space to fully translate the multitude of strange expressions she uses to describe all these people, all of them unique. Moreover, her dialogue begins to multiply around 2-3 times and overlap over one another, making it near impossible to transcribe all the things that are being said. Where possible I have included 2 simultaneous dialogue lines in the subtitles, but otherwise I have chosen to only transcribe and translate the lines that can be heard more or less prominently.

・“Distribution of mementos” refers to “katami-wake” 形見分け, a Japanese custom of giving away the belongings of someone that has recently passed away to family members or others close to the deceased. 

・A fox’s wedding is a Japanese expression used to describe a sun shower. Where the term “kitsune no yomeiri” 狐の嫁入り is used, I have chosen to leave it in its literal translation rather than translate it as “sun shower”, as later in a pivotal scene where a sun shower happens, the characters refer to it using a different expression.

・At Aiko’s wedding, the “exchanging of nuptial cups” refers to “san-san kudo” 三々九度, a Shinto marriage ritual of exchanging sake cups between a newly wedded couple.

・When Ginko talks to Barbara about Maria’s future, she actually says something along the lines of her “living like a dog who’s being kept alive beyond its useful life”. This somewhat disheartening expression is “kaigoroshi” 飼い殺し in Japanese, whose kanji literally means “killing by owning”. The expression has come to mean someone who is being kept on a payroll despite not being utilized for their skills. I have tried to reflect this in the subtitles.

・When Miyazato mentions “hateful uranium”, the Japanese being spoken is “uraminyumu” 恨みニューム, which is a portmanteau of “urami” 恨み or “grudge, resentment, malice”, and the Japanese pronunciation of uranium. I couldn’t think of any appropriate ways of reflecting this play on words in English, so I have translated it normally.

・I could not find any reference to the Okinawan expression about hands and elbows mentioned by Tamae’s mother at the end of the film, so I’m unsure as to whether it’s real or not. Similarly, I could not locate any references to Shimabukuro’s ominous response “Higan-jirai jishiki, ichigan-jira ishiki”, so I am unable to translate it. It sounds vaguely Buddhist, or it may be some uncommon idiomatic expression - I have no idea, unfortunately. If anyone knows, feel free to get in contact and fill me in - I would love to know!

[isitgintimeyet]

The Ties That Bind

AO3

Previous

Chapter 13: A Fine Day

When you see someone putting on his Big Boots, you can be pretty sure that an Adventure is going to happen. -A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

So even the sexual fantasies of fifteen year old adolescent boys are finite, Claire reflected as they managed to clamber out of bed at a reasonable time the following morning.

“Do ye have any hikin’ boots wi’ ye, Sassenach?” Jamie asked as his head emerged from the neck of his shirt. “It’s a bonnie day and I’d like tae take ye for a walk.”

“I’ve some walking trainers in the car. Will they do or will I need full mountaineering gear? I reckon you’ve climbed a few mountains in your time.”

“Aye, I’ve bagged some Munroes, but no for a good while. Nah, the walk willna be too difficult, I’ll keep it easy fer a city slicker like yerself.” Jamie joked and headed out of the door.

Claire made her way downstairs to the kitchen, where she found Jamie with his arms wrapped tightly around a small white-haired woman. He kissed her cheek and let her go as she reached up, practically on tiptoes, and gently ruffled his red curls.

“Claire, you’ve no’ met yet, but this is Mrs. Crook. She runs this whole hoose and keeps Da and Murtagh under control, which is no’ easy. Mrs. C, this is Claire, ma girlfriend.”

Claire looked at Jamie, taken aback. In her head, she had practiced introducing Jamie as her boyfriend or partner or significant other but hadn’t plucked up the courage to broach that topic.

Jamie felt himself blush slightly. He wondered if that had been an error in judgement and that Claire would think it was too soon to attach these labels on their relationship. But, in truth, he thought of her as his girlfriend and wanted everyone to know. Besides, him having a girlfriend would make Mrs. Crook happy. He knew she worried about him being alone. Jamie returned Claire’s gaze and visibly relaxed as she smiled warmly at him.

“Hello, Mrs. Crook. It’s lovely to meet you, I’ve heard so much about you. And thank you for the delicious food. I can’t remember when I last ate so much or so well.”

“Och, look at ye. There’s nothin’ o’ ye. Ye come and stay here fer longer and I’ll feed ye proper. Tell ye what, I’ll gi’e ye some casseroles and the like from the freezer tae take hame wi’ ye. Jamie always heads back doon the road wi’ a car full.” Mrs. Crook leaned closer to Claire conspiratorially. “He’s no’ too good at cooking, ye ken. I remember when he tried tae…”

“Ah, Mrs. C, dinna be telling Claire all me secrets. We dinna want her tae go off me now, do we? Claire and I are goin’ fer a walk over at Loch Raibhachain. Have ye anything we can take fer our lunch and mebbe a wee snack or two?”

Mrs. Crook moved over to the fridge and looked inside. “Weel, there’s ham and cheese, chicken, fresh bannocks, grapes, tomatoes, a nice bit o’ chutney, pork pie, leftover sausage, apple pie...”

She stood back from the fridge and tutted. “I wish ye’d told me ye were after a picnic. I’d have got some stuff in fer ye.”

******

With the picnic safely packed in Jamie’s rucksack together with a tartan blanket, thermos of coffee and hip flask of whisky, Jamie and Claire set off for the Loch. Claire had tied her hair back tightly with no stray curls escaping, so she allowed Jamie to open the roof of the car.

The noise of the car and wind meant that talking wasn’t really an option. Neither Jamie or Claire minded. Claire rummaged in her bag and pulled out her phone. Looking around, she started to take photos of the landscape.

Jamie focussed on the road and thought about what he had nearly said the day before. He had almost told Claire that he loved her but changed his mind at the last minute. Now whilst he had no doubt that he did love her, he was unsure when to make that first declaration. He came from a family where love, affection and other, not so agreeable, emotions were freely expressed. Claire had never had that level of openness, always being more guarded with her feelings. Jamie would hate to make her uncomfortable or for her to feel obliged to respond in kind (although he doubted that would happen, as honesty was very important to Claire). He hoped he would know instinctively the right time to tell her.

Besides, he thought, smiling to himself, he really didn’t want his first statement of love to be uttered in the same breath as a fantasy about sex over a whisky barrel.

Claire caught his smile, reached over and stroked his thigh.

******

As Jamie led the way on the small path through clumps of gorse and heather, Claire tailed behind him. There were certain perks to following him, Claire thought as she admired his body from the rear. It was such a warm day, both of them had made the decision to wear shorts. Jamie’s legs were strong and muscular, dusted with red gold hairs. She loved to run her hands up those solid thighs. Perhaps that was an activity for post picnic time, a little reward for all this exercise.

With his long strides and seemingly limitless energy, Claire found herself slightly out of breath trying to keep up with his pace. She pretended to stop to admire the scenery. It was a  beautiful sunny day, the clear blue sky made the green hills all round them even more spectacular. There was nobody else in sight. It was as if they were the only two people on this path, on this hill.

Jamie realised she was no longer following him, turned around and sauntered back to her.

“Have I worn ye oot already, Sassenach?” He asked with a small smile of victory.

“Not at all, I was just admiring the view.”

“Ye’ve a glass face, Sassenach. I can tell when ye’re no tellin’ the truth. Would ye like tae stop here for a bite tae eat?”

Relieved, Claire sank to the ground. Jamie rummaged in his rucksack, unfolded the tartan blanket, placed it neatly on the ground and proceeded to unpack the provisions from Mrs. Crook. Packet after packet of delicious food emerged from the rucksack, enough for at least five people.

They ate enthusiastically until, with very full stomachs, they lay companionably side by side on the blanket, hands behind their heads.

“I think you’ll have to roll me down to the car, the amount I’ve just eaten.”

Jamie crunched an apple. “Aye, Mrs. Crook does spoil us all. And since her husband died and wi’ her only daughter living in Canada, it gi’es her a purpose, looking after us.”

Claire rolled onto her side to look at Jamie. “Do you mean the only thing giving her purpose in life is looking after men? Does that apply to all women or only ones that tend to you and your family?”

“Nah, Sassenach, that’s no’ what I meant at all. I dinna think that of ye and I wouldna expect it from any woman. But, ye ken, Mrs. Crook is from a different generation. Ye were trained as a doctor and that’s what ye always wanted tae be. Take that away and ye’d be cast adrift. Weel, it’s the same wi’ Mrs. Crook. She wanted tae be a wife and mother, wanted tae be needed. And isna that what we all really want?”

Claire placed her hand on Jamie’s chest. “I need you.”

Jamie leaned over and kissed her. “Aye, ye do, if only tae carry the rucksack. Come on, I’ve a wee place tae show ye. We can rest a while there.”

Reluctantly Claire got to her feet. She would have been satisfied lying there in the warm sunshine all afternoon. But Jamie appeared eager to show her this place. They continued further up into the hills. Jamie made a real effort to slow his pace down and tried to match her stride length. As they walked through a crevice in the rocks around them, Claire was entranced to find that they were suddenly at the head of a tiny glen, a stream running the length of it into a tranquil pool surrounded by rocks and boulders, before continuing its journey towards the loch.

“Here we are!” Jamie exclaimed triumphantly, arms outstretched, presenting the scene. “This was always a favourite place for me and ma family. We’d come up here, Da leading the way wi’ the picnic, Jenny and I at the back moanin’ aboot our legs achin’ and Mam in the middle encouragin’ us on. But ‘twas worth it when we got here. If it was warm enough, Jenny and I would go swimming doon there. Then, we’d come oot all blue and shiverin’ and Mam’d wrap us in towels and gi’e us hot chocolate and fruit cake.”

They made their way down to the pool. Jamie sat on a rock at the water’s edge. Claire joined him there.

“And Da,” Jamie continued his reminiscences. “Da would teach us how tae guddle fish. Jenny didna have the patience, but I got it jes’ fine.”

Jamie moved to lie on his stomach, his hand still in the water.  

Seeing the look of incomprehension on Claire’s face, he explained. “It’s an old Scottish skill, tae catch fish with yer bare hands. Ye have tae be very quiet and patient and wait for a fish tae come tae yer fingers, then ye can tickle its belly and grab it quickly. Shhh, now.”

Claire dared not move, scarcely breathing in case she made a noise to disturb the fish. Jamie lay still, the tip of his tongue peeping out from his lips in concentration. A slight movement on the surface of the water told her that he was lightly moving his fingers. She moved, her head now close to the water, as he shifted, ready for action.

There was a sudden frantic movement as Jamie splashed, soaking Claire with icy water. Instinctively she screamed.

Jamie rolled onto his back, laughing.

“Christ, yer face…” He snorted. “I’m sorry, Sassenach, I couldna help it. Ye were there sae close and my hand jes’ wanted tae splash ye.”

Claire wiped her damp curls off her face. “So, where’s the fish? Has it been scared off?”

“What fish?”

“The fish you were guddling - is that the word you used?”

“Sassenach, there wasna a fish. I dinna ken how tae guddle, neither does Da. I jes’ wanted tae play a wee trick.”

“Oh, you did, did you? Well, you’ll get what you deserve!”

Claire leaned towards the water, prepared to retaliate. Jamie quickly captured her arms and pulled her on top of him. He lifted his head to kiss her as she turned her head away in mock disgust. His kiss landed on her ear.

“You. Are. A. Brute.” She said crisply.

“Aye, I ken. And I’m sorry, truly. But yer face was a picture. Am I forgiven?”

Claire turned her face to his and gently kissed his lips. “I suppose so.”

Jamie wrapped his arms tighter round Claire’s back. “Claire,” he paused for a moment before diving in. “I love you.”

Claire pulled her head back and stared into his deep blue eyes. She knew that he spoke the truth, he did love her. The barriers around her heart - built up piece by piece, her parents’ deaths, the loss of Uncle Lamb, Frank’s betrayals - began to shatter.

“Jamie…” Claire whispered hesitantly. “I…I love you too.”

[ginnyzero]

My Fashion Connection

I’ve been trying to pin down lately why I love fashion and fashion design. Because I don’t love clothes and designing clothes and the choosing of fabrics because of the glitz and glam of high end runway shows and the glossy pages of Vogue magazine and adulation of famous design houses. Most of that I didn’t even know about until I went to school. I didn’t choose fashion because of any of those things. I really wanted to go into Computer Game Design because of games like Myst.

Growing up in a very small town in the middle of the southern tier of New York, fashion wasn’t anything that anyone in our town was interested in except the town pageant queen who had a ‘reputation.’ It’s dairy country. My town was and is much more interested in dirt bikes, hunting and fishing and kegger beer parties. There were a couple of families that were more well to do and worked at Cornell or IBM and thus wore nicer clothes but out of a town of say 50 to 100 people, there were more cows and farmers and retirees. It’s the type of town when two of the young people marry each other, the entire town becomes related.

My mother is a home sewer. I hate the term sewer in professional capacity because it has the connotations of a house wife sitting at home making amateur garments. My mother made a lot of my sister’s clothes growing up and when she started sending me to Christian schools with dress codes, she also made clothes for me. (Mostly jumpers.) Eventually she either got tired of sewing or felt that we needed to buy things to keep up appearances and she stopped. (This ended up with us shopping in budget discount overrun boutique shops. Yes. A thing. Family Dollar and Dollar General didn’t exist yet! And mother hadn’t discovered the “joys” of the Salvation Army and second hand or they simply weren’t close enough to shop at.)

In a tiny town, you have to drive almost an hour in every direction to get to anything that remotely resembles a fabric shop. Except, between our tiny town and the city of Ithaca we got lucky, because out in a nowhere more nowhere than our nowhere was a tiny fabric shop run by a petite old woman named Leona.

To get to Leona’s shop, you took this very twisty road over and through the hills and turned right when you finally hit another ‘major’ road. And then off to the left less than a mile was a huge stand of pine trees and in the middle of these pines was a dirt drive. You’d drive up the hill between these tall pines the rocks in the dirt crunching under your tires that opened onto a clearing on top of a hill that held a farm. Leona ran her shop out of her home, a one story mixture of a red roofed, white trailer with an add on to make it an L shape. The barn hadn’t been kept up and the red stain was fading and the barn was falling apart. You parked on the edge of the drive, hoped it hadn’t rained lately and it wasn’t pure mud so you could get back out. (If you got stuck, there was always the local farmer with a tractor and chains to pull you out.) You had to park on the edge because despite the fact the farm wasn’t an active farm, she rented out the land and your cars needed to be out of the way for the tractors to get through.

She had the shop in the add on built on the back of the trailer. Firewood piled up next to the screen door and cats lounged everywhere. Leona liked hoarding things so the walkway had gnomes, garden statues and benches and wheelbarrows and yes, there was a tiny garden windmill in the middle of the circular drive. If it was winter, salt crunched under your boots and you had to walk carefully across the ice covered mud slush. If it was spring or summer, there were flowers peeping up among the grass.

And once you crossed the threshold, warmth, Leona smiling with her curly short white hair and the measuring tape around her neck behind the measuring counter. Bolts and bolts of colorful and textured fabrics lined the walls and the blank spaces of walls over tables were old fashioned wall paper in dark red with ducks or cream and pink rose prints and warm golden colored wood panels. Painted sawblades provided decoration. The clock might have been a novelty item, a cow or a cat or even something with shears for the hands. I can’t remember. (There might have been all three.) It smelled mostly of sawdust, dust and in the winter, the sharp smell of a burning fire from the potbelly stoves. Leona’s help were also middle aged or older ladies like her and they weren’t quite as friendly, but they were helpful.

Leona stocked her shop by going down to NYC and buying overruns from the warehouses. (Overruns are fabrics that designers don't end up using and fabrics manufacturers make too much of because they predict more sales than they make. Most fabric retail stores are stocked by overruns.) She mostly had colorful cotton prints and upholstery fabric. There was a little fashion fabric and by the time I hit high school, she had things like stretch velvet. She mostly sold to quilters and people like my mother. Cornell doesn’t have a fashion design program, only a science textiles program, but she’d occasionally get students. Her hours were irregular. I don’t know if she ever turned a profit. She encouraged touching the fabric. (Though she didn’t like children taking bolts out of the shelves for good reason.) She didn’t mind that I wandered about away from my mother. She always remembered me no matter how much time had passed.

But every time I go into a fabric shop, there is still that bit of magic from going to Leona’s. When I returned from college, I wanted to go and show Leona some of my projects. She died before I got the chance and I still regret that.

Professional shops like Mood, Britex, B&J’s and to an extent the discount fabric warehouse that I used during college in San Francisco make me shake my head because the workers don’t always feel helpful. They don’t make you feel like every customer is important. They aren’t like Leona, as frail as she was, with her sunny smiles and slightly raspy voice, glasses, and cheerful attitude and love of textiles.

I also had Barbie. I’ve talked about Barbie and my love of Barbie. I would play with Barbie rather than with baby dolls. (My baby dolls took lots of naps according to my mother.) And I loved the clothing packs. I loved dressing and undressing her and trying new outfits out of the outfits I had. Barbie was a safe present to buy for me when I was growing up, because a) that meant my group of Barbie’s got new clothes and b) if this Barbie had different color hair or skin then I got more variety in my Barbies. (My favorite was the long red headed mermaid with the teal outfit. This was back when the tail was a “Skirt” you could take on and off.) I had maybe one Ken and I inherited a lot of clothes from my older sister who grew out of Barbie about the time I started getting interested. Some of them were homemade but I couldn’t get my mother to make more and she wouldn’t teach me how to sew to make them myself. (In fact, she said it was too hard and downright discouraged it. Guess who doesn’t really like sewing? Me.)

Today, I love Monster High and Ever After High, but if they’d existed when I was a child, I wouldn’t have gotten them because of my parents’ extreme dislike of anything related to monsters, ghosts or Halloween. (I am a November child people. This is ridiculous. Come on, I share a birthday with Bram Stoker. OKAY.)

And somewhere in that time, (1992 apparently, man, I was younger than I thought) when I was getting a pittance of an allowance and had saved money from Christmas, I had enough money to buy a new Barbie or a Crayola Fashion Design stencil/tracing kit. This was before Project Runway. This was before the idea that these Fashion Drawing kits were thought to be remotely popular. No one thought that little girls might like drawing clothes! (Go figure.) The Easy Bake Oven was still the biggest and most innovative thing for a girl’s toy. But Crayola came out with a stencil kit with a bunch of papers that had design outlines, and pattern rubbing plates and a light box. Everything in the kit was meant to fit in the light box. The light box was plastic, pink and ran on D batteries (not included bummer.) And I had just enough money to buy it or a new Barbie. (I think my only other difficult choice that compares to this was the Star Craft Battle Chest and something else and I chose the Battle Chest.)

(I can't believe I found a picture of that, someone is selling one on ebay.) Because, I mean, a new Barbie would only give me one set of new clothes, with this fashion design kit I could draw clothes, lots and lots and lots of clothes. I had always been an artistic child. I liked drawing. This had never really been encouraged except in the “here, have another set of colored pencils, pastels, watercolors, no lessons included.” So, here was Barbie in paper form! I didn’t have to take the clothes on and off. I could just trace what they had on the sheets or try to come up with stuff myself.

Pages of my Fashion Design Kit Now

I’m not going to say I was very good at it. The point was, I had fun, this was something to do that didn’t involve playing a game on the computer or reading a book or practicing my piano and I hadn’t gotten into writing at this age. So, from using this stencil, I started with encouragement of one of my friends, to try and make it more real life proportion and draw the figures myself (once again without any sort of drawing classes. The art classes at my school were a joke.) I bought sketchbooks and took them to school with me. I started writing because of this same friend.

It was frankly an escape. My allowance never grew bigger. So, it went towards buying new books to read, sketchbooks and replenishing my Crayola colored pencils. (Though Imperial ones were better but I only got those out of the colored pencil color by number kits.) I didn’t buy fashion magazines. The idea of fashion as a career wasn’t on my radar. I didn’t have a career on my radar. College was one of those, “I’ll think about it later,” things.

The girls at my school who were cheerleaders and liked fashion weren’t precisely my friends and felt like complete foreigners and strangers to me. I didn’t ‘get’ them. We had our groups and we stuck to them. Having arrived to this school after the groups were formed, I fit nowhere and living so far away from everyone else, there was no way that I could feasibly see to hang out with them after school in order to get to know them well enough to fit into one of the groups at all.

Magazines were a luxury in our house. Vogue never made it into the house ever. It took until after 7th grade and a major fight that we even got the newspaper. So by the time I hit eleventh and twelfth grade and college was ‘mandatory’ and I had a list of requirements for what college I could go to, I had to look through what the colleges offered versus what I was interested in and thought I could be good at. (Let me say that writing wasn’t considered because my mother was very anxious about me being able to have a ‘real job.’) And the practice test for the ACT in 10th grade came with this odd employment aptitude test thing to help you find the job that would be the right fit. (Goodness knows if it was remotely accurate.) Fashion design was in my “right fit” category. And between all the majors, there was a tiny college in Ohio that happened to have a Fashion Design degree under their Health and Human Services Major. And since the only computer graphics and gaming major I could find was at a Calvinist college in Michigan, I thought the Mennonite College in Ohio was probably a better idea.

I didn’t read fashion magazines. I didn’t know really how to sew. (Sewing lessons with my mother were a complete disaster.) I couldn’t make a pattern. I had absolutely no portfolio. There were three things I liked, writing, computer games and drawing clothes. And let’s be clear, I wasn’t that great at drawing clothes and my designs at the time probably weren’t that innovative. I had to make a choice and what very little information I could glean from the Ithaca Public Library (seriously, you’d think having Ithaca College and Cornell, the library would be better,) fashion seemed the way to go. It was a massive industry. It had to have work available after I attained my degree.

Oh to be that young and naïve again. Probably sheltered is the better term.

I was over a year and a half into my fashion degree at this tiny college when someone finally thought to clue me in that “to get a design degree you have to have an art minor.” Realizing that this was utterly ridiculous and that making patterns in ¼ of the size wasn’t really going to get me anywhere after trying to talk with one of the other students about whether or not we could really get work after going to this school, (I’m sorry, sweetie, I hope you realized I was trying to convince myself as well as you,) I transferred out and into the Academy of Art. (And this took another large fight.)

Where, I had a lot of credits but I essentially had to start from the beginning. So, having those credits wasn’t actually to my advantage because the numbers of credit hours earned made it appear that I had more experience than I did. This got me more scrutiny and really a worse college experience.

Let’s understand something, I grew up in New York. The Fashion Institute of Technology is part of the SUNY system of colleges. I was a New York resident. It would have been fairly cheap for me to go to FIT. My parents didn’t want me in NYC or at a secular school. Parsons was always out of the question because it’s as costly as Cornell and I understood that. FIT would have been an extremely LOGICAL CHOICE.

Oh well, I loved San Francisco. I loved the big city/small town feel of it and the ability to walk most places and the public transit. If it wasn’t so expensive to live there, I might still be there.

So, schooling wore away at me, but it didn’t dim my love of creating clothes. My love of creating clothes was never founded or predicated upon the idea that success was a runway show and a big fancy store and my name in lights. I didn’t want to be the next Coco Chanel. I didn’t know who she was and at the time I started drawing clothes, I frankly didn’t care. My going into fashion was me going “here is something I love and enjoy doing, can I make a job out of it? Yes. Yes. I can.”

No one can take that from me. I might get bored or tired, but you can’t take the love of creating away from me.

And by the way, I still don’t read Vogue. It’s out of date before it’s printed and 75% advertisements. I also still don’t care about a runway show or seeing my name in lights as a “name” of a brand. That’s not the fashion price point I do or understand. And that’s okay, despite the push by fashion schools to design for that price point and that should be your goal, there is a lot more to fashion than ready to wear. Maybe that gives me an advantage, maybe it doesn't. That's not my connection to fashion. Magical fabric shops, Barbie, Crayola, the joy of creating, those are my fashion connections. And those are a lot more tangible than a runway or a name in lights by my account.

[cirrocumulus-cloud]

I want to see Hide, Tsukiyama, Touka and Co. fall flat on their faces. Not because I hate them. But because otherwise they won’t grow and acknowledge the own pain that they have suffered because of Kaneki" This is, without a doubt the most illogical thing I've ever read. Failing does NOT equals to growth as a character. All you want is more suffering. Plain, cheap and simple suffering that doesnt serve any purpose.

Failing CAN equal character growth. God knows I’ve come out kinder and more understanding when it comes to weird quirks of people because I got bullied for eight years throughout my school life and totally failed at building a social circle. I grew to love myself more through constant failures at getting a job because at one point I succeeded and learned that failing is okay. Failure is so, so important. We learn from our mistakes, not from the constant ability to do things right the first time we try them. We learn by trying our best.

If I can admit that I came out kinder, more understanding and less hard on myself for enduring the failure that is not having friends, not getting a job and being considered an outcast for a huge portion of my life, then I can hold the fictional characters that I love to the same standard.

That isn’t bullshit, that is what life is about and how underdog stories catch the interest of so many people. We feel close to characters that fail because those characters can go beyond the wall that seems so huge that they might never see the world behind it.

An example: The entire first season of Boku no Hero Academia is centered around making us like Deku by having him fail at what the series is about - superpowers. At the start of the story he hasn’t got any, he’s failing at what makes the story unique and we want to protect and see him overcome his disadvantages due to it. (No, it doesn’t matter that this is a Shounen which I am currently comparing to a Seinen Manga, it only matters how the narrative treats failure.)

Midoriya’s failures set him up to grow beyond the edges of the box that tries to contain him. He has no social circle, no quirk and no way to go the way of Plus Ultra until All Might comes into his life and gives him a chance to prove himself. Which he does through hard work, blood, sweat and tears. BnHA starts with our character at rock bottom and excels at making us root for him through his charming personality and the fact that we see ourselves in him.

Tokyo Ghoul is making us see the side of the Save Kaneki Squad in a different way. The narrative doesn’t allow for Touka and Co. to function like underdogs in this scenario because they have to take the reigns to the plot by ignoring their status of being on the failing side of society due to being ghouls. The narrative has them push their way into the CCG and demand they work together because the stakes aren’t their own growth but Kaneki. The problem that comes with this is that the narrative makes them fall into neat little boxes to get the plot moving forward, said plot being ‘dig Kaneki out’.But! These are all characters who have suffered because of Kaneki and they don’t question it, which makes them inherently different from characters like Deku. We like Midoriya because he constantly questions why he is an outcast and why he is being bullied by Bakugou. Midoriya acknowledges the narrative that pushes him into this box: He speaks up against being an outcast from society, being bullied, being lonely. Deku isn’t afraid to call out Bakugou for the suffering that he has to endure, even if it leads to him getting bullied more and failing more. He isn’t even afraid to still show kindness to him, something that our cast doesn’t do for those who wronged them. (Or rather he’s terrified and does it anyway.) He is a character who prevails through failure by proving the narrative wrong. He can’t be a hero? He totally can, fuck who says otherwise, quirk or no quirk! Touka and Co. meanwhile do nothing to prove the narrative wrong. They all endured pain because of Kaneki and like always they ignore their own agony in favour of Ken. They keep themselves from failing by not acknowledging their own feelings that are so, so important to get out. We don’t see them break down in favour of themselves even once - if they do break down it is for Kaneki’s sake or because of him.

Hide downplays the fact that he is embarrassed by his own maimed face, Touka ignores the real threat that she might have to become a single mother, Tsukiyama hasn’t let himself feel agony over the death of most of his family. Yet Hide becomes starry-eyed when he proclaims he loves Kaneki, Touka breaks down over the concept of Ken not being in her life and Tsukiyama falls into a state of rage and tears because of the concept of losing Kaneki.

These are all characters who don’t bother to rebel against the narrative.They do not bother to rebel against the cage that keeps them stuck in an illusion of everything being alright if they can only get Ken back.

Here’s a concept: Getting Kaneki out is the easy part. Having him be redeemed in the face of society is the difficult wall that has to be overcome.

But these characters revolve so much around Kaneki that they do not see the suffering of the innocent population of Tokyo nor do they react to their own suffering. Characters like Touka and Co. keep their emotions down and that is never a good thing in Tokyo Ghoul. Mutsuki ended up becoming inherently violent because they never really got the chance to have Kaneki admit to being one of the parts responsible for their regressing character growth by abandoning them. Likewise it can’t be healthy for Hide to live just for Ken to the point that he keeps himself separated from Ken because he believes it to be the better of two options.If they fail, then they have to acknowledge their own pain. If Kaneki gets treated with resentment, then they need to overthink their worldview. I want them to fail in having humans and ghouls by united in such a downplayed way that boils down to “get my husband/best friend back” so that they realise their own feelings for once. They have to fail in some way, shape or form to realise that they need to hold Kaneki accountable for his actions. So that they can rebel against their own cage and let their pain and suffering come to light, to speak up against the failures that they endured because of Ken and grow more world-open and far-seeing because of it.They can’t keep on cherry picking whose actions are okay and whose actions are insane when they hold up Kaneki like a king but aren’t afraid to throw characters like Mutsuki under the bus. Worse yet, they deem their own pain to not be valid enough to show it to Kaneki, which isn’t healthy and will keep them from ever truly being eye-to-eye with Ken.

These are characters who need to fail to grow to think of their own feelings and pain as valid. I still stand by that.

[softfics9]

To: The One who Inspires Me

Fandom; VIXX

Main Pairing; Han Sanghyuk|Hyuk/Reader,  Han Sanghyuk|Hyuk/You

Side Pairings; None

Summary;  I'm writing you this letter because you're coming back and I haven't spoken to you in 4 years, so here's all my feelings on paper.

Genre; Fluff

Trigger Warnings; None

Author Notes; I originally was planning on doing this for Ken but that changed like a paragraph into the fic so yeah. Again this is written as a letter to the reader, the oc is gender non-specific and sexuality is not specified. This was supposed to be a two chapter work but I lost my inspiration so we have one. 

Beta’d; No

Cross-posted on; AO3

To; The One who Inspired Me.

I still remember the first day we met. You were so shy, looking down at the ground as if it was the most interesting thing you had ever seen. It was easy to see how nervous you were, with your hands clenched into fists, slightly hidden by the sleeves of your jumper. When our manager said your name you jumped, ears turning red as you realised this was it. I never will forget how scared you looked, the fear in your eyes was enough to make my heart break.

You introduced yourself to us again, although it wasn’t necessary, your tongue struggling to form the words and your bow so perfectly straight, an exact ninety degree angle.

We all introduced ourselves in turn, I was last, being the maknae. You took your time to observe all of our faces, nodding and obviously trying hard to remember them all. Our manager explained that you only had very basic Korean, you looked so embarrassed at this, like you wanted the ground to swallow you up. Since none of us had great English, we would have to use translation apps or English speaking staff to help us communicate. You swallowed hard, your cheeks now turning red to match your ears and the converse you wore on your feet. We all smiled encouragingly, even Leo-hyung, all the members would make sure you felt as comfortable as we possibly could during your stay.

You were taken away after introductions were finished, our manager was going to give you a tour of the building and organise your schedule. We went straight back to rehearsal, our debut was getting closer every day and it was very important we had everything perfect. Four hours later I collapsed on the ground with my other VIXX members, it had been a gruelling practice, drilling every point to be as clean as possible. I knew the air would be tense in the dorm tonight, it always was after days like these where our tempers grew short.

They told us that you had already gone back to the dorm to sleep, your flight had only landed this morning and you had been awake for over 40 hours.

In the car on the way back there wasn’t much talk, only asking what everyone thought of you, and how we felt about you being thrown into our lives at such short notice. Everyone noticed how frightened you were, and Ken-hyung made us all promise that we would do our best to help you feel as comfortable as possible. Of course we all agreed instantly, we all knew how you felt. As I looked out the window at the night scenery, I thought back to the conversation we had with the company CEO, when he told us you would be coming.

“They won an international contest to come to Korea and train like an idol for three months, by far they were the best dancer, best singer, and their visuals are nothing to be scoffed at either. You will have to make space in your dorm because they will be staying with you, and they will also be attending some of your dance and vocal lessons. Please make sure they feel welcome here, I have a strong belief they have all the qualities required to make it in this industry, just like you six.”

What were we to say to that, ten days’ notice of your arrival was all the warning we were given. It was a huge curveball thrown at us, but we were determined it would not distract us from our training. We were going to debut as a group and we were going to make our small little company famous.

When we arrived back in the dorm on the night of your arrival, there was a bright yellow post-it note stuck to the door. It looked like a child had written it with a shaky hand, but we understood that you must have been nervous and exhausted, the foreign alphabet difficult to grasp. There was only one mistake in your note, surprisingly enough, but we understood what you were trying to say.

“I have been instructed to take the furthest bedroom from the door as my own. I apologise if that has caused you any inconvenience. I will be awake for breakfast at 7am sharp. Thank you for accepting me, please look after me well.” I cooed at how cute you sounded, even in a note. Since you were my dongsaeng I swore to protect you as any big brother should.

We all went to bed almost immediately, I say almost because truthfully, we all peeked in to your room to check you were sleeping. The sight was enough to melt even the coldest of hearts, (I heard Leo-hyung aww softly). You were curled up in a tiny little ball, blankets clutched closely to your chest, and although there was still tension in your face, you looked more at peace then you had earlier.

I dreamed of you that night, the two of us were winning trophies for our debut stages, grinning madly and jumping around holding hands.

The next morning we were exhausted but also apprehensive of what the day would bring. But we didn’t have any reason to worry. As I entered our kitchen, I smelled the most wonderful things. You had made us all pancakes, with freshly squeezed orange juice and berries. My jaw dropped when I looked at everything, it was only 7.05 but you had it all basically finished. When you saw me standing there, you immediately dropped into your perfect bow, greeting me so formally I thought it was too much.

I very quickly told you that you didn’t need to be so formal, just honorifics would be enough for me. You blushed and agreed readily, and then apologised for any mistakes you might make when addressing me in formal language. Your sentences were halting, you seemed to have problems with certain words and mispronounced a few things. But I understood, I just smiled and nodded that it was alright. The other members joined us shortly afterwards, and you repeated the same bow and apology to them. N-hyung assured you we wouldn’t hold it against you, which you understood after referring to your pocket dictionary (which was adorable by the way).

After the awkwardness of the first few days, we all seemed to relax with each other much more. Your Korean improved very quickly, although it was still easy to tell you were a foreigner. But the language barrier didn’t seem to matter, not when we were laughing at the ridiculous charades Hongbin-hyung tried to do to get his point across, not when you had to keep asking Ravi-hyung to slow down when he spoke because you couldn’t understand a word he was saying. The difficulties in communicating faded quickly, as we developed ways of explaining without using complex words or sentence structure, and your notebook of new words filled up so fast we had to go out and buy you two more.

I understood why you were the chosen winner, even though your Korean wasn’t great, your talent was undeniably amazing. When you sang it was like listening to a choir of angels, so bright and powerful, and when you danced it was like watching music in motion. You could connect to a song and move in ways I hadn’t thought possible before, telling stories through your movements, leaving everyone speechless. You were breath-taking, I could never stop watching you.

You had a unique connection with each of the members of VIXX.

N-hyung acted like your mother, always making sure you had eaten and were getting enough rest, insisting you drank plenty of water and checking that you understood what was going on.

Leo-hyung was your rock, a silent companion when you were feeling so overwhelmed by the stress and the intense schedule, he made you feel secure and was your shoulder to cry on.

What you and Ken-hyung had can only be described as chaos, peals of laughter ringing through the air as he done his latest impression or decided a tickle fight was the best way to relieve some of your stress. I never heard a laugh as joyous as yours before, and I haven’t since.

Ravi-hyung was your musical mentor, when you eventually were able to understand him, he coached you through the rhythm and pronunciation of songs, often helping you with translations.

I was most jealous of your connection with Hongbin-hyung, you two always seemed to be off in your own world together, quietly discussing matters that I still do not know of. Two of the most beautiful people I had ever met, sitting together and smiling, it was enough to make anyone swoon.

But I feel like the connection we had was special, maybe it was because I was the closest in age to you, but you seemed most comfortable when you were with me (it might have been just wistful thinking on my behalf though). You always stayed with me late at night in the practice room to go over the dance again, or to practice vocals. We didn’t just work however, often our nights ended up with us both rolling on the floor in stitches over the least funny things. Sometimes we even went out to get lunch together, and those moments when it was just the two of us, were the times I felt most at ease with the world. You made me so happy, I could almost forget my looming debut deadline.

Soon enough though, the time for your departure arrived. It seemed like it had just crept up on us all of a sudden. One day the six of us were joking about in the studio taking a break, cracking up over your still often stilted Korean sentences. Then the next, we were all waving you a very tearful goodbye as you made your way towards the gate in the airport, you were going home. We didn’t know if we would ever see you again.

Even though you had made incredible progress with your language, and your dancing and singing skills were well up to scratch, CEO felt that the Korean people weren’t ready for an international idol just yet. We all cried that night, me more than the others, the last whispered words of “Goodbye Han Sanghyuk, remember me” floating around in my head. I hugged you so tightly I felt I would break you, but you squeezed back just as tight, expelling all the air from my lungs.

One week later we had our debut, gaining love from hundreds of fans, there was only one international fan. It was you, and it made my heart swell with joy to know you had watched us perform, you saw what all our hard work had finally come to.

I wish I had stayed in touch with you these last four years, but as the numbers of our fans increased, and our schedules became more hectic, I couldn’t find the time to search for your comments. I knew you were still there, or at least I had always hoped you were. I never forgot about you though, in times of great stress I would think of you. The way your smile reached up to your eyes and brightened up the whole room, how your laugh would stay echoing in my ear for hours after I heard it, the way you sang sad songs until your eyes filled with tears, and how you danced until you had nothing left to give.

Thoughts of you pushed me to better myself, you inspired me. I wanted to make you proud, wherever in the world you were.

So I’m writing this letter to you, after our manager announced you would be visiting us for one week after we finish our promotions for Kratos. I wanted to put all these feelings on to paper, so that you could read them and know my thoughts. There is nothing I want more in this world, than to see you again, and to rekindle the connection we had before.

I am slightly changed since we met last, I am a lot taller and stronger (fans have taken to calling me “ManHyuk” or sometimes even “The Incredible Hyulk”). My voice and dancing has definitely improved, and I am no longer afraid of my hyungs like I was before. I hope you still see me as who I really am, and I hope you have not forgotten me.

From; The One who (thinks he) Loves You.

P.S. You still owe me a coffee after you kicked mine over during one of your tickle fights with Ken-hyung, I don’t forget these things.

[jodyedgarus]

Who Didn’t Expect This Final Four?

gfoster (Geoff Foster, sports editor): Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s Final Four chat! After the chalk prevailed in the first weekend, the second weekend finally provided some upsets. In the Elite Eight, three of four underdogs won outright, and the fourth, Purdue, probably should have won — but Virginia’s last-second heroics and overtime win make the Cavs the lone No. 1 seed left in the tournament. What was the biggest surprise of the weekend?

jplanos (Josh Planos, contributor): I think we should just cede the floor to Neil, who can discuss his perfect Final Four choices:

Things are looking pretty good for my bracket in the @FiveThirtyEight office pool… pic.twitter.com/SShnREa7pU

— Neil Paine (@Neil_Paine) March 31, 2019

jakelourim (Jake Lourim, contributor): If you look at last week’s chat, that makes Neil Captain Obvious, right?

neil (Neil Paine, senior sports writer): I wish I could say I had a fancy analytical model to make these picks, but I spent an entire podcast segment saying I was selectively ignoring stats and picking with my gut. The most anti-FiveThirtyEight way to get a perfect Final Four possible.

jplanos: I think the big winner is Under Armour getting two Final Four teams, but Duke (the top overall seed) falling probably takes the cake.

neil: Yeah, Duke losing before the Final Four has to be the headline surprise, I think.

Although one could make an easy case that the Blue Devils were lucky to even make it as far as they did…

gfoster: Were you that surprised by Duke losing? That game had the smallest spread of the last four, and Duke had aggressively flirted with death against Virginia Tech and UCF.

jplanos: I wasn’t because Michael Avenatti called it, but the Blue Devils were the Icarus of the tournament. It felt like they trailed at halftime of nearly every game.

neil: This Duke team was fascinating because, in terms of talent, nobody can match that group. And when Zion was taking over, it was difficult to envision how they could lose. Yet they did not consistently play to their abilities, particularly in this tournament. Even in those close wins, they left you wanting more.

jplanos: Shoutout to Alex O’Connell getting the start and finishing with three total minutes. When was the last time a starter finished with less than five minutes played and wasn’t injured or ejected?

gfoster: The story before the tournament was that Michigan State got handed an awful draw because the Spartans won the Big Ten tourney and still got put in Duke’s region. Now I wonder whether it was Duke that got the bad draw.

Can Cassius Winston one-man-army his way to a title? We’ve seen versatile point guards do this before in March Madness.

jplanos: He’s this season’s Kemba Walker. He started off pretty tepid against Duke and then exploded for 20 points and 10 assists, with four steals and one turnover, which, when you consider the ball is effectively always in his hands and he was lined up against an on-ball hound in Tre Jones, is absurd. I came away extremely impressed.

neil: Winston also got some help when he needed it late against Duke. Xavier Tillman had 19 in the game, and Kenny Goins overcame a horrendous shooting game to make a huge shot in the final minute.

jakelourim: Winston really can do it all. He’s had to do so much since Michigan State lost Joshua Langford in December, and through the Big Ten season, Big Ten tournament and then this weekend, I kept waiting for the Spartans to run out of magic. But they haven’t. It seemed throughout Sunday that Winston always knew the right play to make, and Duke didn’t. What was up with Zion not taking the last shot(s) in the final minute?

jplanos: The RJ Barrett Show seemed like a suboptimal approach down the stretch.

neil: People were really killing Barrett for taking so many of Duke’s final shots.

jakelourim: I did think that Michigan State had the best game plan (outside of Syracuse and the 2-3 zone, which is unique) for slowing down Zion. Tillman was outstanding on defense and made himself a lot of money on Sunday.

neil: Barrett also missed the free throw he was supposed to make, and made the one he was supposed to miss.

Sheesh.

After the VT-Duke game, RJ Barrett joked about Ahmed Hill’s missed chance at the end of the game.

Tonight he had a chance to tie the game at the end, but in his own words “he missed it, sheesh” pic.twitter.com/U3Yn40RwWm

— Matej Sis (@MatejS247) March 31, 2019

gfoster: MSU tends to struggle in the third weekend: eight Final Fours now but just one title for Tom Izzo. Is Michigan State essentially the 1990s Atlanta Braves? Loads of playoff success and the one token title to ward off Geoff making Buffalo Bills comparisons.

^ Third-person alert.

neil: I think Izzo was motivated to take back the “best performance vs. seed expectations” crown from Jim Boeheim.

Izzo’s teams have a long history of exceeding expectations en route to the Final Four, but maybe that’s why they don’t win titles. Overachieving can only get you so far.

jakelourim: It has always seemed to me that the talent differential has caught up to Michigan State in some of those Final Fours. I thought it was interesting that Tom Izzo said privately before the 2009 title game that if the Tyler Hansbrough/Ty Lawson UNC team played well, Michigan State would lose. “There’s just more talent there,” Izzo said. (And MSU did lose.) But if the talent didn’t catch up to the Spartans against Duke, when will it happen?

jplanos: Zion was clearly gassed, but he also was unquestionably the team’s best option on offense. And then he … stopped getting the ball. I was surprised that Coach K didn’t dial up any isolations for him over the final possessions or demand some sort of clear-out.

gfoster: At least Duke has Zion and Barrett for three more years where they can continue to grow as upperclassmen and take home multiple championships…….

neil: LOL

jplanos: My question is: Can we still get a Zion cam? Can we watch the kid ink his shoe deal during the Final Four?

gfoster: It is frustrating we don’t get more college Zion. He’s so entertaining.

jakelourim: It’s fair to wonder if/when we’ll ever see another college player like him again, right, with the NBA apparently set to change the one-and-done rule in 2022?

jplanos: I can’t remember seeing a team win an Elite Eight game (or any NCAA Tournament game) having made just two free throws, like Michigan State did. **cue Sports-Reference search**

neil: It’s actually astonishing when you look at the stats of that game in general that MSU won.

Duke shot better on FGs, 3Ps and FTs and had more rebounds. The turnovers were the only main category where Duke lost, and they lost big.

jplanos: Full transparency: I was ready to call curtains when the Blue Devils had that 21-5 run in the opening half.

jakelourim: What was stunning to me was that Duke turned the ball over 17 times. (Back to the point of “If they play well, they’ll win” — they did not play well.) Michigan State is 342nd in defensive turnover rate at 15 percent, according to Ken Pomeroy, and that’s counting Sunday’s game.

neil: Which just lent more credence to the idea that the only team talented enough to beat Duke was … Duke.

gfoster: Let’s talk about what’s not as entertaining: Texas Tech’s defensive domination. The Red Raiders made Michigan shoot like my JV basketball team when the bench had been emptied in the final minutes. Then did a similar suffocation of Gonzaga, holding the Bulldogs and the nation’s most efficient offense to just 69 points.

jplanos: The Red Raiders indeed smothered Michigan and then turned the second half of their win over Gonzaga into a rock fight. To see the nation’s most efficient offense reduced to 32 second-half points and 16 total turnovers was really something.

neil: According to Ken Pomeroy’s ratings, Texas Tech is the nation’s best defensive team. The Red Raiders certainly played like it.

jplanos: If you had told me that Texas Tech would advance to the Final Four on a terrible Jarrett Culver shooting performance (5-of-19 from the field, 2-of-8 from three), I would have laughed in your face.

neil: Or that they would win despite Rui Hachimura having a pretty good game (22 points).

jplanos: It really seemed like the Zags missed the part of the game plan detailing turnovers. Texas Tech ranks 11th in opponent turnover percentage, according to KenPom, and lives by the deflection, especially on entry passes. It seemed like there were 10 bounce passes into the post that were immediate turnovers. YOU CAN’T POCKET PASS THIS TEAM.

jakelourim: (Just finished that sports-reference search, Josh: No team has won an Elite Eight game with two free throws or fewer since at least 2011.)

jplanos: You know who didn’t show up for the Wolverines? Two upperclassmen: Charles Matthews and Zavier Simpson.

Simpson finished 0-5 against Texas Tech with one assist and four turnovers. Not exactly what you’re expecting from a second-team all-conference player. And in the final game of his college career, Matthews had a team-high five turnovers and finished 3-9 from the field and 0-4 from 3-point land.

gfoster: Let’s put it this way and move on: Michigan’s performance in the Sweet 16 was the worst I’ve ever seen a basketball team play.

jplanos: LOL

neil: And you watched that UConn-Butler final from a few years back.

gfoster: I generally don’t like to talk about blown calls. But the Tariq Owens block play against Gonzaga was a pretty bad one to miss at a key moment:

Tariq Owens was out of bounds. Wow. pic.twitter.com/6QD8tK8OWi

— Kyle Boone (@Kyle__Boone) March 31, 2019

It was frustrating that it was never reviewed. Isn’t this exactly what replay in basketball is for?

jplanos: Not a great tournament across the board for officiating out-of-bounds calls.

Hmmm. Purdue’s Carsen Edwards was …

Out of bounds

Fouled

An unwitting co-conspirator in Tennessee getting jobbed#Sweet16 #MarchMadness #BoilerUp #GoVols

pic.twitter.com/yfvEF6Zyr4

— SBR Sports Picks (@SBRSportsPicks) March 29, 2019

jakelourim: Michigan’s loss to Texas Tech generated the Wolverines’ seventh-worst offensive efficiency rating of the KenPom era and fourth-worst under John Beilein.

jplanos: I don’t know what being put in a straightjacket feels like, but I imagine it’s similar to playing the Red Raiders.

gfoster: Virginia is now the betting favorite in the tournament at 3-2. Would you have guessed that the Hoos would be the lone ACC No. 1 seed to make it through? It wasn’t long ago when I was momentarily planning how FiveThirtyEight would react to a UVA loss to Gardner-Webb.

jplanos: I certainly wouldn’t have. If we get a Virginia-Texas Tech national title game, will next year’s NCAA Tournament even be televised? And will it set back college basketball 15 years?

gfoster: First one to 50 points wins!

neil: I think Virginia also benefited from a relatively easy path to Minneapolis. According to our power ratings, the rest of the South contained the eighth, 10th and 16th best teams in the Sweet 16.

jplanos: Considering the moment, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a more impressive baseball-style pass than the one Kihei Clark (A FRESHMAN) beamed to Mamadi Diakite for Virginia’s buzzer-beater against Purdue. That was a rocket.

What an incredible finish to regulation. Mamadi Diakite sends us to overtime after time expires, and (1) Virginia lives on against (3) Purdue!

(

: @marchmadness) #MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/1J7YIOJgSI

— TSN (@TSN_Sports) March 31, 2019

jakelourim: Virginia hasn’t been particularly impressive in any of its four games — not like the Hoos were during the regular season — but it does seem like experience and chemistry won out in the regionals after a chalk-filled first weekend. I keep thinking about the moment at the end of the Michigan State-Duke game when Xavier Tillman motioned for Cassius Winston to hurry down the floor and run out the clock. That’s a savvy move.

Watch Xavier give a quick nod to Cassius to "go" before the final in-bounds play. pic.twitter.com/eJciDOIhYb

— Eric Pratt (@MessengerSports) March 31, 2019

neil: (And we can really talk savvy when we discuss Auburn’s Jared Harper…)

jakelourim: Mike Krzyzewski talked all weekend about how minor injuries disrupted the continuity of his freshman-led team, and I could feel eyes rolling out of heads. But does a freshman core that’s only played a handful of games together have the ability to do that? I’m not sure.

neil: Right. It seems like a big legacy of this one-and-done era will be of mostly unmet expectations for these freshman-star-laden teams.

gfoster: We joke about how boring the Cavs are (and make no mistake, they are mostly drying paint basketball), but the Purdue-Virginia game might have been my favorite of the tournament. Before overtime, Carsen Edwards’s game was unreal. It must be discouraging to get that type of performance from your star in the Elite Eight and still lose.

jplanos: Edwards was a one-man wrecking ball the entire tourney and, frankly, it feels unfair that he had to lose. I think there’s a sound argument to be made that it’s less than optimal to have one player responsible for nearly all of your offensive production, but man was it entertaining.

In arguably the two biggest games of his life, Edwards put up 71 points on 47 percent shooting from the field and went 15-33 from 3-point land. The degree of difficulty on most of those shots was superhuman.

Also, long live Ryan Cline. That performance against Tennessee will get washed over because of Carsen and the excitement of the Elite Eight slate, but man…

jakelourim: It really was unfortunate that one of those teams had to lose. Because on the other side, you have Tony Bennett trying to exorcise his Final Four demons and erase the memory of last year. He has made a tremendously successful career out of coaching the pack-line defense and forcing opponents to take shots like the ones Purdue took Saturday night. And then Carsen Edwards goes and does that.

gfoster: Kyle Guy stepped up. If he doesn’t repeatedly answer Edwards’s threes with ones of his own, UVA is gone.

neil: It was unfortunate that Edwards started to run out of gas at the end of OT. He missed a heat check late — which he’d earned the right to take, given the previous bombs — and had a tough turnover on a pass out of bounds in the final seconds. He’d been so brilliant that you expected him to keep making the superhuman look routine.

jplanos: I usually abide by a never-trust-a-man-with-two-first-names mantra, but I’m willing to make an exception for Kyle Guy.

No other Boilermaker had more than 7 points in that game. Yikes.

jakelourim: Good point, Josh. Nobody else even took more than seven shots! And that’s including five extra OT minutes.

neil: Edwards personally scored 56 percent of Purdue’s total — which was the second-most points UVA gave up in a game all season.

jakelourim: He also scored more points than Coppin State and William & Mary did as TEAMS against Virginia.

gfoster: The last team in the Final Four is Bruce Pearl’s Auburn Tigers, who are the lowest remaining seed. A lot of people wrote off their chances of beating UK when Chuma Okeke when down. How do you think they will fare against UVA?

jplanos: I’d like to take this time to apologize for openly scoffing at Geoff picking Auburn to advance out of the Sweet 16. I even wrote it down in my diary and laughed!

jakelourim: This thought stuck in my head all of Friday night and Sunday afternoon: Remember how much of a spectacular mess Auburn was in the final seconds of its first-round game against New Mexico State? I did not watch that team and think, “Yeah, they’ll probably get to the Final Four.”

jplanos: This weekend was a big one for the EVERYBODY COUNTED US OUT crowd. I count all four teams citing it, which means, yep, that slogan remains undefeated.

jakelourim: Yes, we’re deep into “Why Not Us?” season.

neil: To your question Geoff, Bryce Brown and Jared Harper are going to have to keep scoring! The backcourt duo combined for 50 points against UK, with each taking turns taking over the game.

Special props to Auburn, btw, for avenging its 27-point loss at Kentucky from a few weeks earlier.

jplanos: I love that Virginia has to go through Auburn, a team with a style that must be anathema to the Hoos.

gfoster: Also this game served as a PSA against making banners where you openly mock injuries.

jplanos: If only we had known beforehand that Kentucky’s fan base has no limits…

jakelourim: Enjoyed that Bruce Pearl actually admitted to the popular strategy of “We’re going to get the ball to Jared and Bryce, and everyone else get the fuck out of the way.”

neil: It made sense. I am totally enamored with Harper in particular. He just has a sense of where everyone is on the court and what is the right play to make. Such a smart player.

jplanos: I think I fell in love with Auburn’s style this weekend. There was a slow-motion replay in the second half that captured an Auburn player swatting a Kentucky player’s shot at the rim while clearly mouthing “GIVE ME THAT SHIT,” and it was wonderful and emblematic of how the Tigers approach the game on both ends. Every play is a highlight to be made.

jakelourim: I also think this draw continues to favor Virginia. I don’t think Auburn is going to be the team to speed up Virginia in the semifinals, and in the final, neither Michigan State nor Texas Tech is going to bombard Virginia with unmatched athleticism, as Duke did in both of their regular-season meetings.

gfoster: So is that your prediction Jake?

jakelourim: Yes, my champion pick is still alive, so I’m sticking with Virginia.

jplanos: I like Virginia to advance and play Texas Tech, which will be … a game of basketball.

neil: I must keep my original predictions, so I’m taking UVA and MSU, with the Cavs winning it all.

gfoster: I’m riding Auburn!!!!! … for one more game. I think they do shoot their way past Virginia’s defense. And then lose to Michigan State in the final. And we all get our dream fulfilled of seeing more Tom Izzo dancing videos like this:

Tom Izzo… #FinalFour MOOD!@MSU_Basketball

#MarchMadnesspic.twitter.com/kvfGs8WOlO

— NCAA March Madness (@marchmadness) April 1, 2019

Check out our latest March Madness predictions.

from News About Sports https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/who-didnt-expect-this-final-four/

[goblinko]

Joe Biel – The Method Behind the Madness of Microcosm

I’ve know Joe Biel since the early 2000s. Joe rose out of the fragmented late 90s Punk Scene as an organizational power-house & created a personal DIY Punk Zine empire that continues to this day. While the aesthetics & tone of Microcosm were never my bag, I recognized that Joe was an empire builder despite the “keep it small” mentality of Punk, zines & DIY in general & I was very interested in this. I always felt bound by the rules of Punk, so much that I decided to drop out of the scene instead of breaking the rules. As I continued to pay attention to the scene, I saw Microcosm both following the rules on some level, creating new rules & then breaking the rules by growing rapidly & taking the business seriously. As Joe took slings & arrows for normal human foibles publicly & ultimately for breaking the rules, I was emboldened to take back the mantle of Punk & do things my own way as well. The issues of figuring yourself out, how your culture relates to you, how society treats you & what do we do & how do we do it on this Earth are all very important & especially if you’re running a business or really any project that is concerned with more than the bottom dollar, but has philosophical, moral & cultural elements - these things come up. David Ensminger interviewed Joe & here it is. x Sean

Joe Biel – The Method Behind the Madness of Microcosm

Joe Biel is a distinct kind of titan in the Do-It-Yourself community that has been a beacon of enterprising hope and a magnet of grave complaints; that is, he helped give rise to the 1990’s version of “xerocracy” – the loose-knit, thriving, democratic, and homespun network of fanzines that made global inroads for writers small and large, while his failed marriage became intensely scrutinized by Internet hordes.

Biel jumpstarted Microcosm, which initially acted as both a music label and raw amateur zine, in the mid-1990s. It roared to life during punk’s third decade in revolt, right as punk seemed to inject a new life code into millions of kids eagerly seeking cramped basement gigs and sweat-thronged rented halls from Cleveland to the Czech Republic. Microcosm was a major part of the dialog, action, and activism.

As CDs, cassettes, and Xeroxed self-publications became cheap and easy to distro, Biel became a force aggregator – he utilized the Internet to cut out the middlemen, took painstakingly time to develop sustainable business models that emphasized vivid content over mere profit, and formed a distro that became a lifeline to those seeking underground literary kicks. Plus, he helped pave the roads for zine symposiums and grassroots advocacy discussions across the land.

As chronicled in his new memoir Good Trouble, he navigated relationship woe, battled with his own undiagnosed Asperger’s, and attempted to cohere a collectivist approach, sometimes with intense personal pain.

This is a discussion that tries to peel back some of the layers of his life and a shine a light on the methods, memories, messiness, and occasional misery.

(David): First, you've attributed some of your success with Microcosm as a byproduct, in a way, of Asperger Syndrome; that is, you have analytical skill sets that help keep Microcosm afloat. Is part of that, though perhaps a byproduct of living in the industrial Midwest too, where they tend to instill strenuous work values?

​(Joe): Yes, I would say that my success is a Molotov cocktail of Asperger's, my difficult childhood, and my Cleveland roots. I think that each taught me fundamental survival skills that carried me before I really knew what was going on. ​I wasn't familiar with his music (or much about him at all) but the place that I stayed last week had a copy of Jay Z's Decoded and according to him, to be successful on the streets you need: 1) To be able to do math in your head, which I can do because of Asperger's. 2) To be a good judge of character. My mom and many other people in my childhood lied to me daily, so I learned to do this quite young. 3) To be able to make quick decisions. Opportunities weren't often presented to me, so I learned to think quickly. Growing up in Cleveland as the steel mills were losing their business to Japan, I developed a strong work ethic. I had a paper route when I was 12, worked at Burger King from when I was 14, and was managing a restaurant by the time that I was 20—while I was simultaneously working full-time to also launch Microcosm. In the 1980s, everything felt somewhat hopeless and meaningless, so I took that as a cue to do the things that were important to me instead of worrying about nuclear winter. I figured that I could at least create some tools for the next teenage kid who was born into a hopeless world.

(David): You spent a bit of time focusing on the music scene that immersed the city, from the Pagans to Integrity, but how would you say that music scene taught you lessons, or opened your eyes, in ways that you carried to Portland and Bloomington?

​(Joe): The punk scene was where I learned and developed morals and ethics when I was 15 years old. It disrupted—in the best way possible—my nihilistic youth of shoplifting and getting drunk and vandalism. The punk scene taught me that other people weren't selfish soulless demons and that they could care for me and about me. It also taught me firmly held politics, which I took to didactic extremes. The scene taught me that I liked reading and learning and about social issues. As a teenager, the scene taught me how to respect other people and why that was important. It taught me the value of protesting and fighting for the disenfranchised. In every way, those were the values that shaped Microcosm and are things that I still carry as important to this day.

(David): You say that punk led you to the politics of didactic extremes. What does that mean -- trying to live a "pure ideology" culled from impression of Crass records? But didn't punk, in very DIY ways, teach you about pragmatism -- getting things done, despite the odds?

(Joe): Because of my Asperger's, I was pre-disposed to didactic extremes. Punk was very nurturing of this kind of thinking -- e.g. RVIVR good, George Bush bad. Because I learn by failing and trying again until I achieve positive results, didactic thinking was very encouraged and I fell into a deeper and deeper slump of it until I became influencing other through that same spiral e.g. We used to sell the "Make Up is ugly" image but it doesn't leave a whole lot of room for individual thought or expression and the conflict in the message was really confusing to me when it began to upset people. Were they wrong? Was I wrong? Was it possible that we were both entitled to our own opinion? This kind of thinking was not happening for me until my 30s. Honestly, getting that perspective was important because previously I had been solely "getting things done" without always thinking things through. I could think quickly but I was doing that from a very young age before my views were quite formed.  (David): Like me, you grew up in the 'burbs, distanced and detached, though this was meant to provide us a life of relative leisure and quiet that perhaps our parents lacked growing up. Is the hidden history of punk in America, in some ways, carried on the backs of people like us, in basements and ranch homes, and not just by the inner city tribes routinely chronicled in books like Please Kill Me? ​(Joe): 81% of the population of Cleveland now lives in the suburbs and that doesn't even count the far-reaching exurbs, which have replaced farm land almost all the way to the next city in any direction. Those suburbs, in particular, were created directly out of xenophobic fear and racism. The eventual result was to hide the violence inside seemingly tranquil homes and allowing neighbors to deny that it's happening. While writing the book, I did quite a bit of research on the city's history and remembered that my former high school had a major scandal when a treasurer had either lost, stolen, or lied about over $20 million dollars missing from the treasury and successfully sued the city when he was fired. That is the legacy of the City of Cleveland and the people who escaped to the suburbs largely did it and carry it on by climbing on the backs of their fellow workers.

Nonetheless, I had other punks my age in walking distance and on my street and never felt disconnected by much other than the incredible planned sprawl of the city and its car culture nightmare. I knew kids all over the world, and the DIY venue that I was most involved with, Speak in Tongues, was on the far side of the city from me. I think it was the first place where I saw a car set on fire and learned not to go buy beer across the street alone or I'd be mugged. I feel like I got credit for my contributions, as there is even a book, Escaped to the Future by Ken Blaze, about that era of Cleveland, and I'm photographed and quoted in it extensively. But I did feel like the music that came out of Cleveland in the 70s, 80s, and 90s was better than elsewhere. Perhaps that was a product of my age and general enthusiasm, but when I listen to those records today, they still hold up even if they aren't household names. So, in some ways, The Unknown, Snarkout Boys, Grain, Cripple Kid, and Blue ... Max are my best kept secrets that no one cares about.

(David): No doubt, the racism embedded in Northern cities, especially in areas like housing, education, and policing, is a not-so-hidden scar of America. And you mention the violence of the 'burbs, which often goes unnoticed, or ignored, hidden behind the facade of "good homes." For me, it was molestation: for you, it was familial physical abuse and verbal degradation. When I attempted to tell neighborhood kids, they taunted me, so punk rock became my counselor. What people, or music, or magazine, first taught you to channel anger, cope with fear?

(Joe): My dad had two strokes in 1983 and became permanently confined to a wheelchair and incapable of speech or unassisted living so I did get a lot of comfort from neighbors who assumed that my grief and hardship was a result ​of that rather than the daily violence and fear in my home. Seemingly similarly to you, when I told people about how I was routinely beaten and that's why I was so defiant, they would make excuses for the situation. I think it was too ugly or uncomfortable for most people to really want to think about my disabled dad and I getting beaten when he couldn't even defend himself. So I dealt with it like most people do, by getting drunk every day. But by the time I was eighteen or so and began hanging out at the DIY punk venue Speak in Tongues, I can't think of another way to say it other than the format of open air expression there was really liberating for me in slowly exorcising my demons. Punk had been more ethereal for me before that. I had certainly been picked on in high school for reading Maximum Rocknroll and it was neat to see all of the global goings-ons but it wasn't real for me until I was physically in the thick of it several times per week. In my later teens, zines continued that trajectory of getting in touch with my feelings and what had happened to me by meeting others who did openly talk about it and that was cathartic obviously, but not nearly as much as being able to write out and express what had happened to me. Eventually I wasn't angry or afraid at all anymore. I didn't realize that was possible.

(David): One thing that has puzzled me over the years is the divorce of fanzine and zine culture: in the 1980s, I felt the underground print community, from Flipside to World War 3 Illustrated, felt like a crossover grouping. But when I tabled at the 2008 Portland Zine Symposium, I felt like the zine world—more illustration-based, personal, and narrative—and the fanzine—more reportorial, music-based, and conventional—had separated. When you tabled at Propagandhi gigs, did this seem to be the case as well, given your 1% analysis?

​(Joe): I may be partly to blame for this so I apologize. When we founded the Zine Symposium and also while seriously getting Microcosm off the ground in 2001, there was a certain sense that the music scene was well-documented and there were outlets and avenues for those fanzines, like record stores and punk shows. We cultivated the scene more around personal and individual expression about experiences and artistic takes on important historical moments. In many ways, I think that all of the founders and organizers were the ones who felt left out of the music scene as it was too macho and didn't often speak to our experience or current trajectory or interests. Ironically, Eleanor Whitney and I both had played in numerous bands but still felt this way, to some degree. Nicole Georges went on to perform as an even more serious musician than any of the rest of us, but I believe that she did it on her own terms, as she does everything. And she did fully document those moments in her zine, Invincible Summer, but it was more of a lifting the curtain than documenting the scene.

For better or worse, we were reacting against a legacy that wasn't interesting to us any more. I don't really know anything about contemporary punk or any kind of music. I own all of my records from the 80s and 90s and spin them when I'm making dinner, but that is a fully compartmentalized world from my zine making. By the time I was touring with Propagandhi in 2007-2009, most of the reading material that Microcosm and the band provided was about global politics. I don't think there was a single music fanzine unless a kid brought their own to a show. Right now I'm staying with Richard the Roadie who started this legacy by bringing AK Press books on tour with bands like Avail and Rancid in the early 90s. And by 2007, I think a lot of kids trusted their reading to Propagandhi even if they didn't have a stance on nonviolence or oil pipelines or Native American rights. I also have to cite Aaron Cometbus as majorly paving the way for making punk kids more literate and interested in subjects other than music.​

(David): You mention Aaron Cometbus, who created a hybrid music/art/narrative zine, as paving a way towards punk literacy, but you also take some credit for creating a schism of sorts between the music and art portions of the zine scene, simply by way of symposium structures, etc. For me, as someone in his 40s who still plays in three bands, I am a bit stunned that modern punk, or any modern music, does not play much of a part in your life. You call it a kind of compartmentalization, but might not others see it as abandonment?

(Joe): Punk continues to play a huge part in my life today. But you seem to be defining punk ​solely as music, which is kind of my whole thing: Punk has always been much more than just music. The music is a very small part of it to me.

(David): Speaking of AK Press, as well as PM Press, who also seem to follow similar models as Microcosm -- keep operations close to the ground, table at gigs and rallies, feature titles that are underground and political -- how would you distinguish yourself from them to a general audience? Perhaps your longstanding dedication to DIY manuals and books for bicycle advocacy, less emphasis on sectarian politics?

(Joe): In terms of spirit and editorial ideology I can see how all three look similar from the outside. We are all mission-based publishers rather than profit-oriented. I think the biggest differences are in development. The prices of Microcosm books, on average, are half or less of AK or PM and we manage 75% of our sales in-house while, to my understanding, they both develop for and rely upon their book trade distributors for the majority of their book sales. The result is that their books "fit in" better in the bookstores while we focus most of our effort on "the ground game," organizing our own author package tours and finding the excited readers for each book rather than relying solely on author or distributor. While we might all be interested in publishing the same book, Microcosm would do it very differently: smaller trim size, lower price, less conventional cover, and humorous subtitle. Our author royalties are also double the industry standard and we sell books to the authors at cost, taking more inspiration from Lookout Records than book publishers in our model. Granted, in 20 years we've lost zero books to either PM or AK but we have won several books that have submitted to all three and all of the books we've lost have been to Soft Skull when their pockets got deep. I respect the models of AK and PM but they are deeply different models, mostly because they follow convention quite a bit more.

(David): Throughout the memoir, your well-intended criticism of progressive, left-leaning, or DIY culture gets a bit more heated and pointed, whether it's the "echo chamber" effect they seem to embody, or their tendency, perhaps, to rely on emotional responses rather than reasoned analysis. In some ways, this reminds me of Paul Krugman's dissection of Bernie Sanders' economic platform, whose fuzzy math may not be much better than Republicans, though his ideals are. Do you feel like a bit of a heretic, even now?

​(Joe):  I have felt like my views have been at odds with my community's for my whole life so I'm quite comfortable challenging—and hopefully gradually reshaping—the views of the scene to be a better environment for every weirdo who wants to be a part of it. I stand behind my critiques and had many years to consider them and why things rubbed me wrong. I think an emotional response is appropriate and should be met with an empathic response but I think that people in the punk community have a harder time understanding the difference between that and attacking someone else, without really knowing what they want from that person. It doesn't do any good to pour salt into the wound if the only result is getting worked up without a hopeful chance at resolution, or even knowing what that would look like. It is with the same love that the scene was my only real family for most of my life that I raise these criticisms. Krugman's analyses of Sanders were disproven, to my understanding, so let's hope the comparison doesn't stick and I'm remembered instead as the loyal opposition, better arming the choir.

(David): You became mired in the gentrification politics of Portland a few times as the city shifted from a hip outlier of sorts to Portlandia, the stuff of legend—though San Francisco likely has now stolen the conversation and news. Do you think Microcosm could develop and thrive if you moved there today, right out of the Midwest, with your communal living and DIY spirit?

(Joe): At my reading event for Good Trouble at Powell's, someone asked me how Microcosm would be different if it never left Cleveland and I think about that a lot. Portland genuinely shaped Microcosm for the better, but the city is not what it once was. The once glorious DIY clubs Spurcraft and 17 Nautical Miles are now a trophy store and a bar.​

Portland now has the most population growth per capita and worst rent hikes​ in the U.S.  We have virtually no tenant protections so people are routinely served 30 day notice that their is rent is increasing by 50-300%​. It's such an epidemic that it's legal to camp anywhere in city limits and it will be the issue that determines the next mayoral election, as there are still no jobs. I see what our youngest staffers have to go through to make it work in Portland these days and I respect their determination and hard work. I no longer have eleven roommates or cheap rent but I am inspired and motivated by different environmental factors around me now. I'm not the kind of person who longs for the past, but I don't think that the Portland of today would have created the same Microcosm anyway. At the same time, there's also many reasons that I'm still there, though they are more personal, like it's the only place that I've ever felt like home and it's where the people who love me the most are. Will that last? I don't know.

(David): But many people might wonder, if Portland and San Francisco, once considered the most liberal bastions in the country, cannot effectively counter hyper-gentrification or democratize their housing market, what hope do others have? What lessons have you learned from Portland that might help others, right now, who are about to face similar situations in the near future? Immediate tenant organizing?

(Joe): I think "liberal bastions" is exactly the problem. In Portland, the liberals are often involved in the most passive racism of any citizen. Residents had absolutely no problem uprooting people of color from their historic neighborhoods when our population first boomed in the 21st century but once middle-class white people were being priced out of the same city in turn, they were legitimately outrage but couldn't seem to see the connection. I was featured on the front cover of our daily paper The Oregonian talking about this in 2007 and people literally ​laughed about the situation, saying that I was overstating the problem. No one would be laughing now when you rent a shed for $1,500/mo or spend $2,500/mo for an apartment. Of course the problem is that it’s far too late to offset or push back on the development or even slow it down. Naturally, my advice would be to keep an ear to the plight of people who don't look like you and stand up for them when they are suffering from gentrification to build a movement that can take care of each other. Listen to people's concerns who are more marginalized than yourself because while you might not have the same concerns you will likely have the same issues before too long. If we had done that we could have stopped it. People's refusal was really soul-crushing for me.

(David): In some way, even better than larger publishers, you have mastered the economics of scale—not simply through the trial and error of being a collective, or of being a DIY maverick, or by reading a million How-To books, but by understanding your audience. Yet, we have both seen the near death of print—the collapse of distros, the collapse of global outlets like Tower Records—and the rise of the Internet. What is the future of print? I know Amazon is planning brick and mortar bookstores, so is rejuvenation likely?

(Joe): I often tell the story of The Bell Curve which "hacked" its way into the New York Times bestseller list through advancing the appropriate number of copies through sales channels that "count" and putting the authors on every key daytime talk show that triggers stores to heavily stock a book. Inevitably the books were shipped and ​many were ​returned unsold because the book was developed for ​the industry, not for the reader. And it was racist. I feel like the entire industry learned the wrong lesson from this and now operates this way, trying to leverage books onto a list instead of for the people that love them deeply​

My strategy has always been to ignore things like Tower or Amazon or even trade distributors and create a parallel system to reach readers. Since day one and still true today, I consider each challenging narrative that Microcosm would like to tell next and then assess if taking that risk could seriously jeopardize us. If it won't, we do it even if there isn't much of a potential financial payoff. Because we're building the world that we want to see while most of the publishing industry is making one risky investment after another and wondering why they aren't paying off. The death of print is nothing but a media buzz phrase. 2015 was Microcosm's best sales years ever. It was also a record year for books in general with sales up $50M—and a record year even for indie book stores. But now post-recession technology floods the market with 4,000 new books every day.

Most of them are not developed titles, meaning that if you look at the books you can't tell what the benefits are that the books offer by looking at them for five seconds. It's just more static and noise for an already overwhelmed reader to parse. The recession taught us that people will treat books as a luxury item as they are forced to spend more and more hours of their day working. It also taught us that millennials read much more than previous generations and certainly more than we give them credit for. There are just too many books for any person who already has job to make sense of so each one sells fewer copies. After 20 years, I recently read a book about how publishing math and risks are supposed to work and I learned that I had accidentally hacked the system. My method wasn't better or worse; it was different and I think that's why we've been able to grow and evolve while most mid-sized houses are bankrupting or getting bought by majors. It's a very good time to be a small publisher because for the first time in Microcosm's history, we can do exactly what we want to do without having someone compete with us for a title and only about 1% of our titles have flopped because of mistakes that are now obvious. I think the future of print will be achieved through solid development directed at readers and fans rather than what I see most publishers doing, which is still developing for buyers of major retailers. Putting books into envelopes is the future of print for any small publisher that wants to stay in the game.

(David): I understand you don't necessarily miss the Tower Records stores, since the Internet creates a global exchange without the need for intermediaries, but I do recall seeing, with a profound sense of loss, the inventory list and money owed from my defunct distributor Desert Moon, which carried hundreds of titles, many of whom no longer exist. Yes, book sales are up, but music magazines have diminished. Do you have any suggestions for coping with the new world of publishing, or for those keen to create a new fanzine/magazine, in the age when books, or even mags, might be considered luxury, as you suggest?

(Joe): The Tower Records stores held a distinct advantage—it was a really key way to get zines and books to suburban kids who needed them most. We waffled quite a bit about selling to them when they came to us ​but ultimately thinking about the isolated kids who needed them was what sold me on it. So it's not that I don't miss the stores—in some ways, I do. But my point is that you cannot rely on places like Tower or Desert Moon. They aren't our friends and their goals were never our goals. They aren't the kind of place that we could ask to do any favors. I think Tower owed us $800 or something in the end and while they had the money to pay their bills, the bankruptcy lawyers fought over the money until it was gone instead. I built Microcosm to never rely on any one source of sales or income so we wouldn't tank when one place or another went under. And I think zines like Razorcake are built the same way, by having a loyal audience in a dedicated community that pays the bills through getting lots of small checks from lots of places. Refusing to put zines in envelopes is the biggest mistake that I've seen publisher after publisher make and outsourcing those jobs to fulfillment companies and relying on distributor and ad revenue is what swallowed Punk Planet too. A friend of mine from high school did their mail order for years and I talked to the publishers at the end and asked them why they didn't continue doing it out of their office. The answer boiled down to "We don't want to do that kind of work." But I think that kind of work is the difference between sustainable and not, and most dangerously it's when you lose touch with your roots over some illusion of becoming white collar.

(David): Your argument is that titles are flooding the market, a deluge, a gray-out, of sorts. Yet, I heard this exact same perspective from people like Ian MacKaye of Dischord in the 1990s/early 2000s, when pressing 7"s and CDs, basic documentation of music, became cheap and ubiquitous. Yet, that is WHY Microcosm could be started -- the mass democratization of print. Are you arguing that less books should be printed, less voices heard?

(Joe): I think that intentions matter most. I think that of the 4,000 new books being published each day, I think that the vast majority are done not to document or preserve culture but as attempts at commercialism or vanity—in the hopes of "being discovered," pride in the accomplishment of writing, or simply because so many people see writing a book as a lifelong goal—even when they don't necessarily have anything to say. Most of our publishing peers are commercial and struggling. Most authors that I meet are writing in the hopes of it replacing their job at any cost. You would be shocked how many writers are quite willing to write romance or mysteries because even when they have no interest in them, they know that these genres are what sell. So, to answer your question, no, if a voice has nothing new to add to a conversation I don' t think it should be heard because it drowns out substantial voices. Like any considerate person, I think figuring out what a person has to say is much more important than being heard. But as I said, if proper development was done on every book—looking at what's already out there and differentiating from it to offer something new and interesting—I don't think there is a limit to how many books should be published or would be well-received. My opinion is that fewer inscrutable books should be published that no one can quite figure out what they are or who they are for. You need to be able to know how the book is unique and what benefits it offers by looking at the cover.

(David): Your diagnosis of Asberger's ​Syndrome seem to illicit varied responses even from the people closest to you—you seemed mild in comparison to others, or simply just another phallocentric male with routine behavior akin to everyday power struggles. Why, in a community that supposedly relishes social justice, fairness, and equality, did people have such a difficult time? Broadly speaking, has the DIY/punk community done a poor job of addressing dis​abilities?

Trying to recall standout Aspie​ incidents for the book was difficult because before my diagnosis, behavior that would stand out to others wa​s totally​ natural to me. Often when I get the reaction "You don't act like so and so that I know who has Asperger's" I tell them about the time that I was fifteen before Catholic confirmation and as part of what I know understand was a bonding and socializing game, we were all supposed to share something about ourselves as went around the circle. My first turn I monotoned, "I like cake." On my second turn, I said, "My favorite color is orange." ​By the third time around when I said that, "My name is Joe," the counselor interrupted to say, "This exercise is more rewarding if you try a little harder, share, and don't act like a brat." This totally floored me as I wasn't meaning to be uncooperative and was completely following the rules as they were explained to me. I felt like an asshole but showed no emotion outwardly. I didn't know what appropriate sharing was until I was diagnosed at 32. I had hidden or created workarounds for many of the ticks and tells that I had exhibited. It did not mean that I had resolved the symptoms and problems. I have very dull mirror neurons, the receptors in the brain that cue a response to subtle and emotional communications that others expressed to me. Sometimes this was meaningless or harmless, but sometimes I could really hurt people's feelings and could come across as quite callous. Years later my ex-wife came to see my behavior as "emotional abuse" and while I believe that her pain was real, I was doing the best that I could with the tools that I had. For me the most hindering part of the disability was not being able to read people's expressions or nonverbal communications and hurting their feelings as a result. I've done years of work in cognitive behavioral therapy to learn how to pantomime and intellectually mimic what most babies are born knowing: how to read emotions and respond appropriately.

I think that understanding the highly nuanced complexity of how disabilities require special needs and are not simply a person choosing to be difficult does not mesh well into a didactic punk scene where things are right or wrong, good or evil. Intersectional politics are simplified into black and white halftones when the real world is quite gray and many kinds of privilege are not willing to be discussed yet. Strangers purport to know more about my life and motives than I do. Maximum Rocknroll, who has spent millions of pages printing letters arguing back and forth about who is and is not a Nazi has refused to run our ads or reviews or even engage with me about the situation. I don't think that anyone could reasonably disagree with me that DIY punk scene has done a horrendous job of understanding and addressing disabilities, just as it has historically with gender, race, and sexuality​.

Even after I was diagnosed, I could not tell you how many people​ still did not want to acknowledge that my Asperger's has tremendous bearing on my behavior and is the cause of failure in navigating so many emotional and complicated situations throughout my life. And that's what was really heartbreaking: The DIY punk scene was the only family that I've ever known and for them to have such an obvious and painful failing that has clearly affected so many people in situations like mine is heartbreaking.

C​onnecting it all together, I recently was interviewed by another Aspie businessman who expressed that he wasn't concerned if he offended someone by what he said or rubbed them the wrong way. And I feel like that's the difference in me because of my punk upbringing: While I lacked the ability for most of my life, I want to create a caring and empathetic world for everybody where we hear each other's concerns and act responsibly. I think it's important and groundbreaking for men to talk about their feelings.

(David): You say, “The DIY punk scene has done a horrendous job of understanding and addressing disabilities, just as it has historically with gender, race, and sexuality​." I agree wholeheartedly with the first, and that's why I penned a whole chapter on the links between deaf culture and punks in my new book, but are you suggesting that Punk Planet, Slug and Lettuce, HeartattaCk, and Maximum RocknRoll didn't explore gender, race, and sexuality? I recall sometime whole issues dedicated to the topics, like a Maximum RocknRoll "Queer" issue etc.

(Joe): Exactly. The fact that Punk Planet, Slug & Lettuce, HeartattaCk, and Maximum Rocknroll all have explored race, gender, and sexuality so thoroughly are the biggest indicators that punk is racist, sexist, and homophobic at large. Why else would a theme issue every few years on a topic like this be interesting or necessary in the first place? Of course, it bears repeating that it's only the outlier punk zines that focus on ableism. Does the existence of these zines disprove that the ableist discrimination in punk is real? Of course not. It just shows how much further subcultural understanding of the issues has to come and offers some guides of how to do so.

(David): Whether in terms of operating Microcosm, or in terms of grappling with the DIY community about conflict resolution regarding you supposedly causing "unsafe space," means you apply knowledge culled from experience, logic, history, and deep reading, rather than a DIY member relying on pure emotion and sensibilities reinforced in an "echo chamber" --  a DIY member who easily falls prey to ideas like: “Microcosm is not really a collective, and Joe is a rampant emotional abuser of women.”

(Joe): I think that what changed in the millennium is that punk​ identity politics established a new rule: people put up black and white ​rules that assume that remove fact-checking from an equation. I've deeply hurt people's feelings through my actions. But it wasn't because of my intentions that that happened and more often than not, I left those encounters deeply hurt as well. I was difficult and frustrating to communicate with because of undiagnosed Asperger's, not because I was intending to manipulate or exploit people. I learned from those mistakes, changed my behavior, and tried to resolve those conflicts. I cooperated with what was asked of me but in hindsight there isn't mechanism for resolution, just feeling good in the moment; winning the battle to lose the war. But the scene isn't equipped to understand that. Intersectional politics have been a huge struggle for many social movements so it's not a huge surprise. But it really hurts to think of how many other people this must have happened to through the last thirty years and how asking questions and fact checking vague accusations results in more bullying. Often times when I bump into strangers they know stories of me and attack or bully me as a result. When I point out this is bullying and abusive behavior, they make fun of me.

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