#leather vest review

[punkshort]

Swept Away | Chapter 2: Paradise

Pairing: sugardaddy!Joel Miller x f!reader

Chapter Summary: It's your first day in paradise and, to your surprise, you get along with Joel much better than you expected.

Chapter Warnings: language, implied age gap, alcohol and food consumption, sugar daddy/baby dynamics, fake relationship, slow burn, flirting, sexual tension

WC: 10.1K

Series Masterlist

It was way too early. You hardly managed to get any sleep the night before, the excitement for what was to come too much for you to fully relax. You kept getting out of bed to look through your bag, wondering if you packed enough or forgot anything.

Joel had insisted you only needed to bring personal effects and essentials. You had given him your measurements once all the papers were signed and he sent an assistant on a shopping spree to buy you all new clothes and accessories based on the activities and events he knew you would be partaking in. He didn't bother to ask what your own personal style was like, if there were certain colors or clothes you preferred, because you were playing a part. You were his fiancée, someone who would enjoy the finer things in life and not care about comfort over style.

But just to be safe, you packed a few clothes of your own with your toiletries, books, makeup, hair products, and other odds and ends you kept shoving into your bag, thinking what's the harm?

Joel was waiting outside your apartment at three in the morning sharp, right when he told you he would in a sleek, black town car. You groggily stumbled down the steps, hauling your worn out duffel bag over one shoulder and your purse on the other. Joel's driver appeared out of nowhere, startling you when he put a hand on your shoulder to take your bag.

"Thank you," you told him softly, the stillness of the night making you feel like you shouldn't speak any louder. He just nodded and opened the back door, your bag clutched in his other hand, and you slid inside.

Joel didn't even spare you a glance. He looked down at his phone, his thumbs typing out some mile long email as you got situated next to him and buckled your seat belt.

"Thought I told you not to bring much."

"Good morning to you, too," you replied. He sighed and finally looked up from his phone.

"Mornin'. My assistant bought you everythin' you'd need."

You shrugged as Joel's driver pulled away from the curb. "I wanted some of my own things."

Joel didn't reply. He just went back to his phone while you closed your eyes and slid down further into the soft leather seat.

"How long is the flight?" you asked with your head resting against the tinted window, watching the dark, sleeping buildings pass you by.

"Thirteen or fourteen hours."

Ouch.

"That's a long time," you replied with a yawn. Joel paused his tapping on his phone to look at you.

"You can sleep on the plane, but I wanna review our backstory before we land."

"I'll try, but I've never been able to sleep the way you're practically sitting upright on a plane."

Joel frowned. "There's a bed."

You whipped your head in his direction as the driver began to get closer to the airport, the bright lights from the parking lots and runways filling the front seat of the car.

"A bed?"

"Yeah, a bed. The hell you think this is? I ain't flyin' commercial."

Your jaw dropped when the car drove past the departures exit and continued on towards the runway.

"Are we flying private?"

"'Course we're flyin' private."

You continued to stare through the front window as Joel's driver slowed down to a stop, rolling his window down when he reached a barrier to speak with a man in an orange vest inside a booth. Then the arm went up and the car continued on its way, excitement coursing through your veins as he drove down the runway, past a handful of other private jets either being boarded or refueling.

A squeal slipped past your lips when the car stopped in front of your plane and Joel looked at you once again, unamused.

"Get it outta your system now 'cause when we get there, you gotta act like this is your lifestyle. No slip ups, y'hear me?" Joel warned, but even his grumpy tone couldn't spoil your mood now.

"Yeah, yeah," you said dismissively before practically jumping out of the car when Joel's driver opened the door for you. You thanked him and danced from foot to foot, waiting for Joel to get out so he could lead you to the plane. He pocketed his phone and stretched an arm out, silently requesting you join him by his side.

"Oh, it's starting already?" you asked as you approached the plane. The pilot and two flight attendants stood next to the bottom of the stairs with wide smiles and their hands clasped obediently at their waists.

"No, just bein' courteous."

You raised an eyebrow at him and grinned when he rolled his eyes.

"Good morning," the pilot said as you got closer and reached out to shake Joel's hand. One of the flight attendants nodded to you both and ascended the stairs so you could follow her. Once you got to the top, what you saw took your breath away.

The body of the plane housed several oversized chairs peppered around two long, curved couches, and as you walked by and ran your fingertips along one of the beige cushions, the fabric felt smooth as butter. Strolling right past the glass desk already fitted with a laptop, you gawked at the big screen TV against one of the walls, which was displaying various snapshots of what you assumed to be the Fiji islands.

"Wow," you breathed as you tilted your head back to admire the lights that adorned the ceiling. They were dimmed but along the middle of the ceiling was a string of red LED lights that cast the furniture in a hauntingly beautiful glow.

"Back there's the bedroom," Joel told you gruffly. You swiveled around to see he was pointing past the main living space to a small area with a closed door. "Bathroom', too."

"This is beautiful. Do you own it?"

He nodded and picked one of the chairs to settle in, but you couldn't stop looking at all the amenities. Purple orchids sat securely to each side table and along the back wall was a narrow counter with fresh fruit, bottles of water and juice, and baked goods. Popping a grape in your mouth, you continued to examine the inside of the plane while the flight crew got everything situated for takeoff.

"This is the softest blanket ever," you told Joel when you picked up a beautiful white blanket from the back of a chair. His eyes flickered over to you briefly before focusing back on his phone. Once the stairs were brought up and locked, you picked a chair opposite from Joel and buckled yourself in, wrapping the blanket around yourself giddily in the process. He gave you another look but you just grinned.

"C'mon, lighten up. Nothing bad is going to happen if you let yourself enjoy something."

"I enjoy plenty," was all he said in response. You sighed and stared dreamily out the window as the plane began to depart.

The sun hadn't even begun to rise so once you were up high enough and all you could see was black out the window, you slid the shade closed and settled deeper into the chair.

"Thought you were gonna sleep," Joel said without looking up from the laptop he had brought over from the desk.

"Can't now. Too excited."

He narrowed his eyes at you before sighing and glancing over his shoulder, confirming the flight crew was busy and not eavesdropping. He then closed the laptop and tucked his hand into the inside pocket of his blazer, pulling out a small, blue box you only ever saw in magazine ads or movies.

"Here," he said, opening the box to show you a radiant oval shaped diamond so big you could probably see it from space.

"Holy shit," you whispered, reaching an arm out from under your blanket to nervously touch the ring.

"Don't get too excited, it's just on loan."

"Still," you muttered, "I've never seen a diamond like this in real life before."

You gulped when he took your left hand and carefully slid the ring over your finger. He gently tested it, giving it a little tug to make sure it fit before withdrawing his hand. The circumstances weren't exactly what you imagined when you were little and a man slid a ring on your finger for the first time, but what the hell? A lot of things didn't work out the way you expected in life.

"It suits you."

"Another errand for your assistant?" you joked, using the pad of your thumb to twirl the gold band around your finger, getting used to the feel. The corner of his mouth twitched and he quickly rubbed two fingers over his lips, then cleared his throat.

"Suppose we can go over our cover story, then," he said, changing the subject. You dropped your hand to your lap and tried not to play with the ring.

"Okay."

"We met at an art gallery two years ago. We'll say a mutual friend was havin' a show and we first bumped into each other in front of the same piece. I noticed how taken you were with it so I bought it for you as a surprise. When it was delivered, you reached out to the artist for my number, and the rest is history." He told the story stiffly, in one long breath as if he had rehearsed it. When he finished, he fiddled with the sleeve of his blazer, waiting for you to comment.

"What kind of piece was it?"

His eyes snapped up to yours and he tilted his head.

"Why does that matter?"

"It matters because it's how we first met, Joel. This one piece of art will forever bond us. It will be talked about at our wedding and, on our anniversary, you'll commission the artist to make a new piece, inspired by the original, just for me. We'll hang them above our bed and one day our children will hang them in their own homes. They'll tell everyone who comes to their house the story of the paintings and our love. That's why it matters."

Joel stared blankly at you for a long moment and you feared you might have gone too far and pissed him off but, surprisingly, he leaned back in his seat with a low whistle and shook his head.

"Goddamn, that's... that's good."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really," he said, rubbing his chin in thought, not bothering to hide his smirk now.

"Abstract expressionism," he eventually said. "Something in the vein of Kooning. We'll say the title of the work is Red 42 and I got into a biddin' war with 'nother buyer but I would stop at nothin' to get it for you so I ended up spendin' twice what it's worth."

"How romantic," you grinned.

"Don't get ahead of yourself, sweetheart," he replied, making you giggle as the flight crew began to enter the cabin with warm towels and a tray of beverages. You accepted a bottle of water with a small smile of thanks while Joel just waved them off.

"Okay, so what else? Shouldn't I know about your family, at least?"

Joel shot you a stern look and you dropped your gaze. For whatever reason, he seemed particularly sensitive about sharing anything personal with you.

"It won't come up," was all he said.

"Okay..." you said slowly, picking at the plastic label on your water bottle. "Well, tell me about work, then. How you got started, how you became so successful. All that stuff."

"Stuff?" Joel repeated with his eyebrows raised. You shrugged.

"Yeah. Stuff."

He sighed and looked out his window and for a moment, you thought he wasn't going to share anything about that part of his life, either, until he spoke again.

"One of my first jobs was a doorman at the Ritz in New York. I didn't have any experience but I had a nice smile and I knew how to use my charm when I had to, so I did well."

You had to bite back a remark about his smile, not wanting to interrupt him, but instead filed it away to wonder later where that smile went.

"I had odd jobs here and there, waitin' tables, tendin' bar, the usual, but I really loved workin' at the hotel. It felt like... like I finally belonged. I liked talkin' to important guests. I liked it when they'd remember my name and tip me well when I told 'em a good joke or helped 'em out with directions or whatever." He scratched his chin, still staring out the window. "But I made the mistake of thinkin' I was one of them. Y'know?" His eyes flashed to yours and you just nodded.

"Well, anyway. I wasn't. I was poor. I didn't go to college. I didn't have connections. I had nothin' but this fantasy that I belonged with these people and one day I just decided to do somethin' 'bout it."

"What did you do?" you asked softly, unknowingly leaning forward in your seat.

"I convinced the general manager of the hotel to take me under his wing. Help teach me more 'bout the hospitality industry. All the little tips and tricks, y'know? Like, pretendin' to offer an unhappy guest somethin' for free when it was already free with their stay. Offer 'em vouchers to use at the hotel restaurants. Not enough to cover their bill but enough to make 'em happy. That kinda thing."

You nodded along, mesmerized by the distant look in Joel's eye and the small smile tugging at his lips as he spoke.

"So, one day, I come to find out that general manager who mentored me was doin' some under the table shit. Any time someone famous would stay, he'd tip off the right people and get a decent buck. He figured the hotel wins 'cause it gets publicity, and he wins 'cause he's gettin' paid, right? Well, the owner didn't see it that way." Joel readjusted in his seat and you realized in that moment that it was the most he ever spoken to you at once.

"The owner didn't like that the paparazzi would be houndin' his guests. Made them wanna stay elsewhere. So, he got a memo one day 'bout who was tippin' off the paps and suddenly, that general manager job was open, and I got it."

You blinked slowly, replaying what he just said before you opened your mouth to reply.

"You got your manager fired and took his job?"

Joel chuckled dryly. "He did it to himself. I just saw an opportunity and took it."

"Okay..." you said, deciding to move past it. "Then what?"

"Spent several years as the GM at the Ritz, then the Plaza, til I realized I was thirty and had already made it as far as I could workin' for other men. A hotel off Fifth was goin' bankrupt, so I bought it with a couple other investors. My - I knew someone in construction, got a good deal on alotta materials and such, refurbished the entire spot, rebranded it and... The Parador was born."

"You did all this when you were thirty?"

Joel shrugged as if it were nothing but you could see the pride in his eyes. "Thirty-two when the first hotel opened."

"Whoa," you breathed while rubbing your eyes. You could see the sun beginning to break through the clouds in Joel's window. "That's so impressive, Joel. That's, like, a real rags to riches story."

He picked his phone up and tried to hide his pleased expression. "Why don't you go get some sleep? Gonna be a long flight 'n you should be well-rested when we get there."

You nodded and yawned behind your hand. "Are you sure you don't want to use the bed first?" you asked, but you were already standing up. He shook his head and motioned to his phone and laptop.

"I got work to do."

You wandered to the back of the plane and pushed open the door to the bedroom with a surprisingly decent sized bed. You weren't sure if you were just over tired or the mattress really was the most comfortable thing you'd ever laid on because within ten minutes, you were out like a light.

With the time change, you couldn't be sure how long you slept, but when you awoke and cracked the shade to peer out through the clouds, the sun was high in the sky over the ocean. The sunlight reflected off the massive rock on your left hand and you took another moment to admire it before dragging yourself out of bed.

When you tiptoed back out into the cabin, your eyes immediately found Joel. He was standing up with his back to you with his cell phone clutched in his hands. You let your eyes travel lower and you realized at some point he had changed into a perfectly tailored, navy blue suit.

"Isn't it going to be hot when we land?" you asked. You didn't know much about Fiji but in the past week you did remember to check the weather, and from what you saw, the temperature was supposed to be hot and humid.

Joel swiveled around in surprise when he heard your voice, his gaze dropping down your frame and suddenly you felt incredibly underdressed in your baggy shirt and leggings.

"Don't matter. I'm here on business, I ain't here for a vacation," he reminded you, as if you somehow could have forgot. "There's a couple things hangin' in the closet for you. Go pick one out and change, then we can eat." He turned back around to focus on his phone and you frowned. You weren't used to someone bossing you around like he was prone to doing but you had to remind yourself you were being paid to be there and do a job. Without complaint, you slipped back into the bedroom and shut the door before opening what you assumed was the closet to review your choices.

Your eyes widened when you saw the sampling of clothes hung up for you. The labels read names of designers you only ever saw people in TV or magazines wear, and occasionally, Celine. Your fingers gently dragged over the soft fabrics, then pulled each item out to hold it against yourself, trying to decide before finally choosing a light blue halter dress that fell perfectly at your knee and laid it on the bed.

Next, you opened a drawer, thinking there would be purses or sunglasses, then blushed when you were faced with matching sets of lace lingerie. You remembered Joel insisted sex wasn't part of the deal, and you even signed a contract stating such, but why would he buy you such fancy underwear if he didn't expect to see it? And why was the prospect of him seeing it getting you excited?

You closed the drawer, deciding to use your own underwear, then continued to explore the rest of the dresser. You found a small purse that looked like it would pair well with the dress, as well as a small bag of toiletries and a hair brush. Once you were dressed, you sifted through the bag. Should you wear a full face of makeup? What do rich people do? Probably get enough facial peels and cosmetic surgeries so they wouldn't need makeup. Remembering the temperature forecast, you decided on some tinted moisturizer and one coat of mascara. You dabbed on some expensive looking lip balm with the pad of your middle finger before brushing your hair. It was a little flat from the nap, so you rummaged around the other drawers but had no luck finding a curling iron. Luckily, you remembered to pack one.

You opened the bedroom door and walked back out into the cabin, your eyes trailing all over as you went, looking for your bag.

"Joel?" you asked, and he dragged his attention from his laptop. When his dark eyes landed on you, his shoulders stiffened, then his gaze slowly raked up and down your body, taking in your new look. Your breath hitched in your throat under his scrutiny and you shifted your weight from foot to foot.

"Do you know where my bag is?" you asked, hoping he didn't hear the nervousness in your voice from the way he was looking at you.

"Hmm?"

"My bag? I need my curling iron."

He swallowed and forced his eyes back up to your face. "Under the couch, but your hair looks fine."

You leaned forward a bit and saw the strap of your bag under the couch, just as he said. "No, it's flat, I need to -"

"It's not flat. You look beautiful."

Beautiful? That was a big jump from fine.

Your eyes darted back and forth between him and the bag, wondering if you should obey. Ultimately, you chose to forget the curling iron and sat down across from him. He didn't give you the impression he was the type of guy who blew smoke up your ass, so if he thought you looked good - beautiful - then you did.

"Do you prefer pasta or salad?" Joel asked when he spotted one of the flight crew waltzing up behind you with a smile and a pad of paper in her hand.

"Uh, whatever you're having is fine," you replied. Joel nodded and ordered chicken salads with sparkling waters for you both and the attendant disappeared back into the galley.

"When do we land?" you asked, jostling your arm and holding it up. The dainty gold watch you found in one of the drawers slid around your wrist so you could check the time.

"Couple more hours. Glenn's supposed to meet us at the airport and give us a tour of the island before droppin' us off at our hotel. Then the plan is to meet him for dinner, 'long with all the others, I imagine."

"You mean, the other hotel moguls?" you asked, and he nodded. "Do you know them?"

"Most of 'em. There ain't much real estate left on these islands so I'm willin' to bet we'll see some heavy hitters."

Lunch arrived and you didn't realize how hungry you were until you smelled the chicken and your mouth began to water. When you took your first bite, you let out a little moan and rolled your eyes.

"This is the best airplane food I've ever had," you said, hiding your mouth behind your hand. Joel chuckled and took a bite of his own salad before swallowing and wiping the corner of his mouth.

"So, you like workin' for a production company?"

You glanced up at him in surprise. For some reason, you weren't expecting him to inquire much about your real life during this trip.

"Uh, yeah. It was fun, I got to meet interesting people. It was exciting to see how movies and TV shows get made. I kind of always wanted to work for a talent agency, though," you confessed before stabbing a piece of chicken with your fork and popping it into your mouth.

"Yeah? Why's that?"

His elbows were propped on the table between you, hands cupped together with his fork in between, dangling over his plate and giving you his full attention. His eye contact was intense and it made you nervous.

"I like the idea of getting to know someone well enough to understand the types of projects they would be good in while also finding a way to make a difference in their lives. Help them achieve their dreams, you know?" You gave him a shy smile, watching as he absorbed what you said.

"I can see you bein' good at that," he said after a moment.

"You're just saying that. You hardly know me," you replied before continuing to pick at your lunch.

"True, I don't know you that well, but I got a knack for readin' people. You're quick on your feet and you're a good listener. You don't let people steamroll you and you know your worth. And, you don't quit. You're determined. Probably to a fault." He stared at you, watching your face as you worked through several emotions at once before you slowly swallowed the food in your mouth and cleared your throat.

"You got all that from the brief amount of time we've known each other?" you asked softly.

"Yep," he replied, fighting back a smirk. "How'd I do?"

You grinned and looked down at your half eaten salad, trying to hide the embarrassment from your eyes when you replied, "not bad, actually."

When you were finished with your lunch and a crew member came to collect your plates, Joel picked up his phone and it was then you realized he hadn't looked at it once the entire time you were eating.

"Do you ever sleep?"

His glanced up at you with an amused look. "Occasionally."

"Workaholic, then?"

"You tryin' to get a read on me now?"

"Maybe," you said, biting your lower lip playfully.

He shook his head and focused back on his phone.

"Good luck, sweetheart."

When the pilot announced he was getting ready to descend, your stomach started doing flips and your hands shook when you tightened your seatbelt. It seemed all the excitement you harbored before had quickly been replaced with anxiety. Taking a few deep breaths, you closed your eyes and tried to control your nerves, but Joel could see right through you.

"You good?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just getting nervous."

"Why?"

You opened your eyes. "I'm worried they'll be able to tell I'm not like you. I don't know all of the trendy designers and artists. I don't know the names of the chefs at Michelin star restaurants and I can't tell the difference between boxed wine and a three hundred bottle of Merlot." The words suddenly came tumbling out as quickly as you were landing but you found it actually felt better to talk to him about it. "For all I know, this ring could be fake but I'd believe it's real because it's heavy and shiny."

"You don't gotta worry 'bout any of that. I'll handle it. You just smile and look pretty and pretend you're in love with me. That's all you gotta do, okay?" he said with a soft tone you hadn't heard from him yet. "And trust me, the ring is real."

You grinned and looked out the window, feeling a little better. At that point, the plane had dipped below the clouds and you could see the crystal clear ocean and the lush tropical islands below. You noted a few resorts you could see from your side of the plane but at the very end of the island was a massive piece of land covered in palm trees and other thick greenery.

"That's the spot," he said as if he were reading your mind. "That's the piece of land we're here to get."

You took a deep breath and recalibrated, shaking off the anxiety. Instead, you rehearsed your story in your head and mentally practiced your greeting and smile, boosting your confidence while the wheels of the plane touched down and you were jolted forward in your seat. The seatbelt dug into your hips and your fingers gripped the armrests while the plane slowed down and eventually came to a stop.

There was a fancy looking car on the tarmac and an older gentleman with a sizable belly and a full head of white hair standing next to it with his hands shoved into the pockets of his cargo shorts and sandals.

Cargo shorts? That couldn't be...

"Glenn," Joel murmured in your ear when he stood up behind you and peered through the window.

"That's the real estate guy?" you asked while he fixed his tie. He reached down and scooped up his wallet and phone with a nod and was about to head to the stairs when you stopped him with your hands on his shoulders. "Let me fix this," you said quietly, making sure the collar of his shirt wasn't stuck underneath his blazer. When you were satisfied, you ran your palms across his shoulders with a smile. "Let's go knock 'em dead, honey."

Joel rolled his eyes but before he turned away, you caught the wide smile stretched across his face. That's where it went, you thought.

"Glenn!" Joel's deep voice boomed from the stairs as he made his way down with you following closely behind. "How the hell have ya been?" he asked, extending an arm just for Glenn to grab it and pull him into a hug with a few slaps on the back.

"I've been great, Joel. Thrilled you could make it, I know you're a busy man and taking a month out of your schedule is tough," Glenn replied with a toothy smile. Then his eyes trailed over Joel's shoulder and he lit up when he spotted you approaching. "Oh, who's this?"

Joel turned around with a radiant smile that stunned you for a moment until you remembered it was probably all for show. He introduced you by name and ushered you forward, wrapping one arm around your shoulders lovingly while you stuck your arm out with a smile of your own to shake Glenn's hand. "This is my fiancée," Joel added, and it was impossible to miss the surprise on Glenn's face when he looked back at Joel.

"You're engaged?" he asked, the excitement evident in his tone. Joel grinned and nodded.

"Popped the question a few weeks back and she was crazy enough to say yes," he replied. This jovial version of Joel was throwing you off but you did your best to not give it much thought. Instead, you focused on your own little act: playing the smitten fiancée.

"It was on the beach in Santa Monica at sunset," you said, thrusting your left hand out for Glenn to look at your ring. He gave a low whistle and raised his eyebrows at Joel. "He knows I love the beach so much. I couldn't wait to come visit your beautiful island, I'm so excited to see it!" you gushed, wondering if you were laying it on too thick, but based on the sparkle in Glenn's eye, you were doing just fine.

"Well, come! Hop in and I'll take you around before dropping you off at The Greenview. Should only take an hour, then you can get settled in before dinner," Glenn said as he opened the backseat of the car for you to slide in. Joel followed after he gave his flight crew instructions on where to take your belongings and Glenn settled into the driver's seat with a grunt.

"How's Mary doin'?" Joel asked as Glenn pulled away from the tarmac.

"She's great, she'll be joining us tonight along with my boys."

"Joel mentioned you have six kids," you piped up and you saw Glenn nod his head.

"If there's one thing I've done right in my life, it's having those kids," he said warmly. You smiled, your nerves already put at ease. You were expecting an uptight, rich type, but Glenn seemed like the exact opposite. If it weren't for the expensive car, you never would have guessed he was wealthy.

"I can't wait to have kids of our own," you said dreamily, then risked a glance at Joel. He smirked and gently shook his head.

"You won't regret it. They'll take years off your life but, dammit, if it ain't worth it," Glenn said with a look at the two of you in his review mirror. "Maybe having a couple kids will loosen you up a bit, Joel. Don't tell me you brought suits to wear the whole time you're here."

Joel chuckled and took your hand in his. The touch surprised you given Glenn couldn't even see it from where he was sitting, but you enjoyed it all the same.

"Oh, you know me," was all he said, but Glenn tsked as he merged into traffic.

"It's way too hot for those kinda formalities. Tonight we're having dinner on the beach. You don't wanna get sand in those loafers, now, do ya?" Glenn teased. Joel chuckled and changed the subject while you gazed out the window, watching the cute little restaurants and stores fly by until the car turned and suddenly you had a fantastic view of the ocean.

"Oh, wow, look at the water," you breathed, squeezing Joel's hand. "I've never seen something so beautiful before," you added, unable to peel your eyes away from the white, sandy beaches and turquoise water. You heard Joel murmur in agreement next to you but you were too taken with the thick, tropical forests dotted with shocks of purples, pinks, yellows and whites from the hibiscus plants growing wild along the side of the road.

"I think island life will suit you," Glenn said from the front seat with a grin.

"I may never leave," you joked, making both men chuckle.

"Well, that settles it. You'll have to have the wedding here, Joel."

"Don't tempt me," he replied. You dragged your eyes away from your window to look at Joel, who gave you an appraising nod.

"I think she'll be good for you. Help you relax a bit," Glenn laughed before pointing out the restaurant where dinner will be held later that evening as he drove by.

"Guess we'll find out," Joel replied, his gaze lingering on you after you turned your attention back to the window.

Glenn dropped you off in front of a beautiful resort named The Greenview, which, like many other resorts you saw along the way, was built to blend in and mimic the exotic landscape around it. The main entrance was built like a tiki hut with a fake thatched conical shaped roof and rounded, wooden pillars complete with knots framing the exterior entrance. When you followed Joel through the doors, you found the inside was similarly designed. A beautiful waterfall feature was displayed prominently in the lobby and when you walked by, you spotted brightly colored koi fish in the small pond below.

Once Joel checked you in, a bellhop ushered you towards the elevator, explaining all of the amenities the hotel had to offer as he led you to your room.

"Here we are, the Dream House Villa," he announced before unlocking the door and holding it open so you could walk in first. You gasped at the stunning layout, barely registering anything the bellhop was saying. The decor, much like the rest of the hotel, was an island theme. The floors and walls were all made of wood, and the small foyer you first stepped into held a little waterfall feature with gorgeous mood lighting built in.

You remembered what Joel had told you about containing your excitement so you bit your tongue and waited until the bellhop left before you whipped around to Joel with a huge smile plastered across your face.

"Look! There's an infinity pool right outside!"

"I see," he replied, but he appeared distracted. Still, you continued to lavish praise about the ocean view and you mentally pictured yourself relaxing on the covered daybed outside with a frozen cocktail as soon as possible. When it became apparent Joel wasn't in the same mood, you dialed it back.

"I'm sure your hotels are much nicer," you offered, but he waved you off.

"I need new clothes," he grumbled. You frowned and wandered over to follow him into the master suite where he had flung open one of the closets to reveal mostly suits, just like Glenn had suspected. "I can't stick out, I gotta blend in and make myself more relatable. He's a lot more casual since the last time I saw him. I had no idea he turned into Jimmy fuckin' Buffet."

You chewed on your bottom lip and nodded. "Yeah, you're right. Let's go shopping before dinner."

Joel groaned and rubbed his jaw. "My assistant usually does this kinda stuff."

"That's okay, I can help," you assured him. "It'll be fun. I saw a bunch of places on the way here we could check out."

Joel seemed to consider it for a moment before he sighed and shrugged off his blazer. "Alright. Lemme change and I'll meet you out there in five."

You turned to leave but when he called your name, you spun back around. "Here, your bag," he said, holding it out for you to take. "The crew brought all our stuff in here, we can move your clothes to the other room later."

"Oh, right, thanks," you said, taking the bag. "I'll go check my room out while you're getting ready."

The second bedroom was easy enough to find as it was directly across the hall. Both rooms had an ocean view and although Joel had his own bathroom attached and a king sized bed, you would do just fine with the queen bed and a bathroom down the hall.

You dropped your bag on the oversized white comforter and wandered aimlessly around the room, opening and closing dressers and drawers until you noticed two flat circular buttons built into the end table next to your bed.

"Hm," you said to yourself before pressing the first one and jumping when you heard a soft whirring noise behind you. You laughed out loud when a television appeared from behind two wood panels in the wall, then pressed the next button and watched the blinds slowly close, blocking out all the natural light flooding the room.

"What're ya doin' in the dark?" Joel's low voice carried over from the door. You pressed the button again and the blinds went back up.

"Just checking things out. Ready to go?" you asked, your gaze traveling down to take in his new outfit: a white polo shirt and khaki shorts.

"Yeah. Good thing I packed my golf clothes."

You followed him out of the room and through the rest of the villa. "You golf?"

"Yeah, but I hate it. Only came prepared 'cause I know Glenn likes to golf."

"You might be the first millionaire who hates golf," you teased when you walked by him as he held the door open for you. He grinned and made sure the door was shut tight before falling in step beside you.

"I don't mind the drinkin' part afterwards," he replied, then gently placed his hand on your lower back, guiding you into the open elevator car. You stood in a comfortable silence while the elevator took you back down to the lobby and you waited off to the side while Joel went to the front desk to request a car.

"You sure you know what you're doin'? You know anythin' 'bout fashion?" Joel asked once you settled into the backseat of a town car and he had given the driver instructions to take you to the nearest shopping plaza.

"Not really, but I saw what Glenn was wearing. I'm sure we can find some good options."

He hummed and nodded before slipping on his sunglasses and looking out the window, effectively ending the conversation. You decided to use that time to pull out your phone and text Celine, letting her know you arrived safely.

Don't forget to send me pics!

How are things with Joel? Is it awkward?

You glanced over at him, making sure he couldn't see over your shoulder before replying.

Actually things are pretty good

He's not so bad once you get to know him

You rolled your eyes when Celine's next message came through.

Remember - you're only pretending to be his fiancée ;)

Then again, if I had a daddy who looked like him, I would try to make that fantasy a reality lol

The car pulled over and came to a stop in front of a strip of shops along a quaint looking road so you quickly told Celine you would check in with her later before the driver opened your door and you slid out, patting down your dress and looking around.

"Let's try there," you said once he joined you at your side. You pointed to a store a few doors down from where the car was parked. Inside the window, you could see male mannequins sporting trendy looking beachware.

When you opened the door, you were greeted with beautiful island music filtering through the speakers. The walls were painted a deep shade of blue, most likely chosen because of the resemblance to the water, and a hand painted mural of a beach with the sun glittering off the ocean was painted behind the register.

You began to sift through the nearest rack, pulling out various linen button downs and crochet shirts after confirming his size. Joel wandered deeper into the store to look at pants while you examined each article of clothing carefully. You were trying to decide if Joel could pull off bright purple when a young woman with big hoop earrings and a loose fitting paisley dress approached with a smile.

"Is there anything I can help you with?"

You gave her a cheesy grin and held up the shirts draped over your arm. "I'm shopping for my fiancé. We just arrived and the airport lost his luggage, can you believe it?" You gave her a devestated look which she sympathetically mirrored and stretched her arms out.

"Oh, gosh, I'm so sorry to hear that! Let me take those into a fitting room for you."

"Thank you so much, I'll find him and bring him right back."

You watched her sashay to the back of the store with the armful of shirts you had picked out before turning around just to find Joel standing on the other side of the rack.

"You're good at this," Joel said, sounding astonished.

"Good at what?" you asked.

"You're good at thinkin' on your feet and comin' up with these stories." He rounded the rack and, with a little smirk, gently pinched your chin affectionately between his thumb and forefinger. It happened so fast you didn't even have time to register it before he was walking in the direction of the fitting rooms with some shorts and pants slung over his shoulder. Trailing after him, you tried to ignore the fluttering in your chest, telling yourself his touch just took you by surprise and that's all it was.

You sat in a whicker chair outside Joel's fitting room, one leg crossed over the other as you fondled the ring on your finger and listened to Joel muttering under his breath on the other side of the door.

"Are you ever going to come out of there?" you asked. He shuffled around the room and swung the door open with a deep sigh.

"I don't know 'bout some of these shirts," he said, eyes flickering to a bunch hung up separately from the rest. "The neckline's too low, I don't wear stuff like that."

"Oh, come on! At least let me see what they look like on," you begged. "I like what you have on now," you added, pointing to the light blue linen shirt and relaxed fit khakis.

"Yeah, this ain't bad," he agreed, tugging on the material a bit before shutting the door. "I'll try one of these on and that's it," he called out. You could hear the rustling of fabric and the metal scratch of a zipper and you grinned at how easily the two of you fell into these roles you were playing.

When he opened the door a few minutes later, you were completely unprepared. He had chosen to pair a green crochet top with a pair of white shorts that fell right above his knee but your eyes were glued to the generous amount of smooth, tanned chest that was exposed from the plunging V neck.

Your lips parted as you continued to stare, watching the way the muscles and tendons in his neck twitched as he spoke. Shit, he was speaking and you had no idea what he said.

"Huh?"

Joel frowned. "I said, this ain't my style. At all. I look ridiculous."

"No, you do not look ridiculous, you look good," you immediately argued.

"I'm too old for-"

"No, Joel, listen to me: you look really fucking hot," you blurted out, still staring at his bronze chest. He fell silent and a moment later, you realized what you said and felt your cheeks flare with heat. Snapping your eyes up to his, you began to apologize.

"I'm sorry, that was probably inappropriate, Jesus Christ," you muttered, pressing the palms of your hands against your cheeks to hide your embarrassment, but he just chuckled and dropped his gaze to the floor. When he turned around to close the door, you noticed in the mirror his own cheeks were beginning to stain pink from the compliment.

Joel didn't say anything else about your comment but he ended up buying all the clothes you picked out for him. When you saw the V neck shirts being rung up, he shot you a wink. You grinned and shyly looked away, once again ignoring that excited feeling in your chest.

"Hope this dinner ends quick, I'm fuckin' beat," Joel grumbled at your side as he led you up to the host stand, one hand wrapped around the inside of his elbow and the other clutching a small, blue purse that matched the backless floor length dress you chose with blue palm leaves printed all over.

"You should have slept on the plane," you murmured, then gave the host a bright smile as Joel told him Glenn's name. He quickly ushered you through the restaurant and onto the beach, where a long table was set up and decorated with vibrant, gorgeous tropical flowers.

The seats were already filled by the other guests, who were sitting and leaning across the table to chat and laugh with drinks in hand.

"Alright, here we go," Joel told you before taking a deep breath and forcing a big smile and wave when one of the men caught his eye.

"Scott! It's been years!" he exclaimed. You smiled and loosened your grip so Joel could give the other man a welcoming hug.

After ten minutes of introductions, your head was spinning. You decided to keep it to one alcoholic drink that evening because you needed to keep a clear head and memorize who the people were that you were up against. Scott and his wife Tammy owned a chain of hotels in the northeast and appeared to be a little older than Joel. Harry owned a handful of exotic resorts mostly in Latin America but was looking to expand. He was accompanied by his husband, Ian, who was an artist. Jack and Lynne had a large footprint of three star hotels across America but as Joel told you later, their hotels lacked character. And finally, Zachary owned a string of hotels similar to The Parador but had a French motif. Zachary brought along his much younger girlfriend, Zoe, who seemed incredibly sweet.

"Down at the end, those two younger guys? They're Glenn's boys. The ones that'll take over for him when he retires," Joel said, jutting his chin in their direction. You casually glanced down the table and saw two men in their late twenties on either side of Glenn and his wife, Mary. You could see the family resemblance in their faces but one had dark, almost black hair, and the other's hair was dirty blonde.

"What are their names?"

"The blonde's Trevor, the other one's Brooks."

"Trevor and Brooks," you repeated softly to yourself, silently testing your memory as you went down the table, naming each person in your head as you went. Joel watched you for a moment before he leaned in.

"You're doin' great, don't worry."

You flashed him a smile and whispered your thanks right as the first course arrived.

For a majority of the meal, you smiled and laughed at the right times while you listened to rich people tell stories about their conflicts with private schools or run-ins with government officials, stories that made the conversations you have with your friends over dinner sound like they took place in a third grade cafeteria. Joel also remained relatively quiet with the exception of tossing in a quick comment here or there to be polite but when you looked at him, you could see the exhaustion in his eyes. It was no wonder he wasn't prepared when Glenn and Mary, who had just gotten done telling the table how they met in high school, asked to hear how all the couples met.

Great, you thought to yourself. We rehearsed this, it will be fine.

Scott went first, telling a funny and cute story about how he met Tammy in college. He had walked into the wrong class and he was too embarrassed to leave so he sat through a three hour lecture on women's studies. It only took him thirty minutes to realize he was the only man in the room and Tammy found his humility endearing. The rest was history.

Glenn and Mary exchanged warm glances at the story, gushing over them and saying words like fate and soulmate.

Next, Zachary began to boast about how he met Zoe, and the look on Glenn and Mary's faces slowly changed.

"It was opening night for The Barber of Seville. I had just sat down in my seat when this beautiful thing came through the curtain, absolutely convinced we were sitting in her seat. I said, 'Darling, I've had the same box seats in this theater since before you were born,'" Zachary laughed and the rest of the table joined in but you noticed Glenn and Mary only gave him tight, polite smiles as he continued.

"Well, I was taken with her, I mean, can you blame me?" Zachary joked, tossing his arm around Zoe's shoulders. "I insisted she stay and enjoy the show. By the end of the evening I was chartering my private jet to whisk her off to Italy that very night..."

Zachary continued to tell the table about Italy and all the expensive restaurants he took her to when Joel leaned into your side.

"We can't go with our story."

You whipped your head around to look at him, eyes wide.

"What do you mean?" you asked, panic lacing your voice.

"It's too pretentious. Look at them, they hate every goddamn word," he said quietly, snaking his arm around your shoulders so it looked like he was maybe talking about the food or how beautiful you looked. "We can't tell some story about your looks and my wealth. It's gotta be, fuckin'... I don't know. Warm. Romantic." He rubbed nervously at the back of his neck.

"I thought it was romantic..."

"Not enough."

"Okay, so what do we say?" you whispered.

"I don't know, I gotta think. Fuck," he grumbled, "I'm too fuckin' tired for this shit."

Unfortunately, Joel didn't have the luxury of time because Zachary finally finished up his long-winded story and Glenn's eyes landed on the two of you.

"Well, you told me how he proposed but we'd all love to hear how you first met," Glenn said, leaning forward, elbows pressed into the table with a sparkle in his eye. You glanced at Joel, your heart slamming wildly in your chest, and you knew immediately he couldn't think of anything new. He sighed and clenched his jaw before opening his mouth, about to launch into the only story you had talked about when you cut him off with a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"Oh, let me tell it," you said lovingly. You could see the confusion in his eyes as they shifted back and forth between you and Glenn and he slowly nodded before you turned back to your host.

"Joel hired me," you began, dropping your hand from his shoulder. "I was a nobody. Hardly any experience but he took a chance and hired me to manage the floor staff at The Parador Los Angeles. I was so grateful for the job that I would stay late almost every night just to make sure everything was perfect for our guests." You shot Joel what you hoped was a loving glance before continuing with your bullshit story.

"One night, as I was walking down to my car, I ran into Joel on the elevator. He was surprised I was staying so late and I explained we had a wedding the next day and I wanted to make sure the wedding party's favors were all set. Each room was supposed to get a box of Belgium chocolates but they melted in transport so I ran out to get fresh ones. Anyway," you said with a little smile, acting as if you were getting lost in a memory. Glenn and Mary appeared more and more delighted with each word. "I think it impressed him because after that night, I saw him almost every day. He would walk across the floor and wouldn't say a word but I caught him looking at me once or twice. Then, I got a call one day at the front desk, and guess who it was."

"Joel?" Mary asked excitedly. You nodded and leaned into Joel's shoulder.

"He asked me to come up to his office. I couldn't decide if he was firing me or giving me a promotion, but turns out, it was neither. He asked me to dinner and do you remember what I said?" you asked, turning to face Joel with a sweet smile. He was giving you a look you couldn't quite read and you just hoped you were doing the right thing.

"Uh, I think-" he began, but you waved him off and turned back to Mary. Fuck it, you were in too deep now, anyway.

"I laughed. I laughed in his face! I didn't believe him! Why would someone like him want anything to do with someone like me? I didn't come from a wealthy family. I didn't have connections or anything to offer. But he picked me. And every day since, I wake up and ask myself," you turned your head to gaze up adoringly at Joel. "How did I get so lucky?"

He pinned you with an intense stare and, without hesitating, Joel pressed his lips against yours so softly it almost made you gasp. He tasted like the wine he had with dinner and the hairs from his mustache tickled your nose. You giggled and pulled away, but not before dragging the pad of your thumb over his lip to remove your lipstick that transferred.

"Oh, that's just the sweetest story! Isn't it, Glenn?" Mary gushed, grabbing onto his arm with a huge smile. You tore your eyes away from each other to look back down the table. "It's like something out of a movie or book!"

"Goddamn, Joel, I didn't realize you were such a romantic. Now I gotta step up my game over here," he joked before pinching Mary's chin.

Harry and Ian were next to tell their story but you weren't listening. Your pulse was racing and your hands shook in your lap as your adrenaline began to wear off. Then, Joel's hand slid over your thigh, giving your leg a little reassuring squeeze as if he could sense your nervousness.

"You did so good, sweetheart," he whispered in your ear, making your skin prickle.

He could have removed his hand after that. No one was looking, no one could even see, but he didn't. He kept it planted there as if he were grounding you to him. Occasionally, he would laugh at something one of the other guests said or take a sip of wine, but his hand remained steady under the table. The longer it stayed, the more it became the only thing you could focus on.

Once dinner wrapped up and everyone stood, his hand finally dropped and you instantly longed for his touch again. On the way back to the hotel, Joel took a work call, which you tuned out. Instead, you spent the time telling yourself it was the wine and the jet lag that had you feeling fuzzy and excited.

In the elevator on the way up to your room, once you had some privacy, Joel turned to you and quietly said your name. When you looked into his eyes, what you saw caused your breath catch in your throat. He was looking at you with a tenderness you didn't think he was capable of and it made you swallow nervously.

"How'd you come up with that story on the fly like that?" he asked, his features softening and gaze only dipping from your eyes to your lips once.

It didn't mean anything.

"I-I don't know, it just came to me, I guess," you replied a little breathlessly.

It looked like he was about to say something else when the elevator doors slid open. He pressed his hand against the side of the car to hold the doors while you stepped out into the hall. He fell in step beside you as you walked the short distance to your room in silence.

"Thank you," he managed to say once he opened the door, letting you both in.

You shrugged as if it were nothing but on the inside you were preening, excited that you had managed to please him. When you entered into this unusual situation, you had no idea what to expect or how to behave, but considering how well the first day went, maybe you overthought things.

"I'm sure the original story would have been fine, too."

He nodded and tossed the keycard on the table by the door before strolling into the kitchenette for two waters.

"Wouldn't've ruined my chances, most likely, but I think the new story put me a notch above good ol' Zach, at least," he said with a grin and handing you a bottle of water. You took it with a small thanks and awkwardly looked around the huge villa.

"Well, you should try to get some sleep now," you told him, turning just in time to catch the way his eyes flickered over the soft curves of your body.

With a tired sigh, he nodded in agreement. "'Bout to fall asleep standin' up," he joked, walking down the short hallway between your two rooms, the both of you coming to a stop outside your doors.

"Okay. Good night," you said, not wanting to prolong the tension that was building up since you left dinner.

"Night."

You opened your door and gave him a quick smile over your shoulder before disappearing inside your room. You leaned against the door and took a deep, steadying breath in, then pushed off before going deeper into your room.

Before dinner, the two of you had moved all your things into your closet and you had the foresight to toss a pair of pajamas on your bed before you left. Shimmying out of your second dress of the day, you slipped on the lavender cotton tank top and matching shorts before grabbing your bag of toiletries, but when you reopened your door to go to the bathroom, you were surprised to find Joel on the other side with his hand raised as if he were about to knock.

"Oh!" you gasped in surprise.

"Sorry," he said sheepishly.

"It's okay, I didn't hear you."

He scratched his chin before pulling a white envelope out of his pocket and handing it to you.

"What's this?" you asked, taking it but not opening it.

"For you. For tonight. You did good, so..." he trailed off and stared at the plush carpet beneath his feet. Then it dawned on you what it was and your eyes widened in surprise.

"Oh, you don't -"

"I want to. You were hired for a job and you did it well, so you deserve it."

Your gaze dropped to the envelope, flipping it over in your hand before nodding.

"It's my pleasure," you finally replied, throat a little tight. When your eyes met again, that little glimpse of the softer side to him was gone and the cold blooded business man you first met was back.

"Alright, then. G'night," he said abruptly, then turned on his heel and disappeared back into his bedroom.

After you washed up and got into bed, you scrolled on your phone for a bit before sighing and looking at the envelope of cash propped up against the lamp on your end table, acting as a glaring reminder of what you were hired to do.

So why did you feel so conflicted taking it?

Please follow @punkshort-notifs and turn on notifications for fic updates ❤️

[zapreportsblog]

Girl I think we all need some poly ghostface where stu and billy are teasing the reader and talking about them like their not there, "i dont know...maybe if they asked ever so nicely for it, they would get what they want..." ;)) it can be smut or not idm. Love ur writing so much <33333

❝highschool detective on the case❞

✭ pairing : poly ghostface x reader

✭ fandom : scream

✭ summary : (y/n) is the new girl who just moved up from (hometown) she has a crazy fetish when it comes to serial killers having taken it upon herself to even solve unsolved murder cases - which she gets from her father. He was the top detective in his unit after all. Upon hearing about this ghostface killer she dives into detective mood grabbing their attention in the process

✭ authors note : I think we all are borderline psychotic when it comes to these two nibwits also thank you for requesting and I’m glad you’re enjoying my works so far :)

✭ slashers masterlist

Woodsboro High School buzzed with the energy of a new school year, and (Y/N) had just arrived, ready to start fresh in this unfamiliar town. As she stepped onto the campus, her presence stood out like a stark contrast to the other students.

She wore a leather trench coat that fell just past her thighs, giving her an enigmatic aura. Low-rise washed-out jeans hugged her hips, revealing a tattoo on her lower stomach. Her hair was styled in a pixie cut, and dark shades shielded her eyes, giving her an almost FBI agent-like mystique. Chunky boots completed her unconventional ensemble, and a crop top black vest shirt adorned with a rhinestone skull on the breast part added an edgy touch.

As she walked through the courtyard, students couldn't help but stare and whisper amongst themselves, wondering who this mysterious new girl was and what her story might be. (Y/N), however, seemed oblivious to the attention, her mind focused on something else entirely.

Reclining on a bench, she delved into the contents of her notes. In her lap lay a case file, weathered by time and use, filled with photographs, notes, and articles. It was the unsolved murder case from her hometown that her father, a dedicated detective, had entrusted to her once the trail had gone cold.

(Y/N) was determined to find answers and bring closure to the grieving families back home, even if it meant uprooting her life and starting anew in Woodsboro. The gravity of the task weighed heavily on her, and her fierce dedication to solving the case had become her driving force.

Throughout the day, students at Woodsboro High had been attempting to strike up conversations with (Y/N), but her terse responses and preoccupied demeanor made it clear that she had little interest in making friends. She was on a mission, and she had no time for idle chitchat.

At lunch, (Y/N) found a quiet spot to sit alone, her case file still in her lap as she reviewed the evidence once more. Lost in thought, she didn't notice Stu, one of her classmates, approaching from behind. He playfully wrapped his arms around her shoulders and said, "Now, what do we have here?"

(Y/N) stiffened at the unexpected contact but quickly composed herself. She turned to glance at Stu, taking in his appearance before responding with a raised eyebrow. "Aren't you a bit too old to not know about personal hygiene?"

Stu, looking slightly offended, discreetly sniffed himself and made a face. "Hey, I don't stink!"

Tatum, Stu's girlfriend, along with her friends Sidney and Sidney's boyfriend, also joined the group, curious about the interaction. Randy, another student, chimed in, intrigued by (Y/N)'s mysterious presence. "What's that you're reading?" he asked, peering at her lap.

In her usual blunt tone, (Y/N) replied, "A case."

The group exchanged puzzled glances, clearly taken aback by her straightforward response. Stu was the first to regain his composure, a mischievous grin forming on his face. "A case, huh? You're a detective or something?"

(Y/N) didn't provide any additional information, her eyes returning to the contents of the file. She was used to curious glances and questions, but her focus remained unwavering on her mission to uncover the truth.

Randy's curiosity remained unabated, and he leaned in closer, asking, "So, what's the case about?"

(Y/N) let out a sigh and put her notes aside, her expression serious as she shared a glimpse of her purpose. "I'm trying to solve a cold case from my hometown. It involves a young woman who was violently beaten and tortured."

Tatum raised an eyebrow, looking puzzled. "But if it's a cold case, why are you trying to solve it now?"

(Y/N) shrugged, her dedication evident in her reply. "It's just a hobby I enjoy."

Billy, who had been listening quietly, couldn't help but become more intrigued. He leaned in with a casual demeanor and asked, "So, you're into things like that, huh?"

(Y/N) met his gaze with a cool, unwavering stare. "Yup. I was raised watching the dangers of the world and even experiencing it."

The group fell silent for a moment, absorbing (Y/N)'s cryptic response. Her presence had added an unexpected layer of mystery to their lunchtime gathering, and they couldn't help but wonder about the secrets she held and the motivations driving her pursuit of a cold case.

Sidney, feeling a twinge of awkwardness, couldn't help but blurt out, "What kind of experiences are you talking about?" But she quickly realized the insensitivity of her question and immediately apologized, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment.

(Y/N) simply shrugged off the awkward moment, her demeanor unphased by Sidney's unintended bluntness. "No worries," she replied calmly before elaborating on her past. "I've seen quite a bit, to be honest. When I was three, I watched an unsub murder my mom right in front of me."

Sidney's eyes widened in shock, regret for her earlier question apparent on her face.

(Y/N) continued, her tone steady. "Then, when I was thirteen, I was kidnapped as part of a blackmail attempt against my father. He's a detective, you see. Since then, I've been to all sorts of crime scenes, helping him with his work."

Stu couldn't help but comment, "Wow, that's dark."

Billy, mumbling under his breath, added, "Wicked."

(Y/N) acknowledged their reactions with a nonchalant nod, as if her experiences were just a matter-of-fact part of her life. She had learned to cope with the darkness she had witnessed and embraced her role as an amateur detective, eager to make sense of the chaos around her.

Breaking the now oncoming silence (Y/N) decides to ask her own question, “So what’s fun around here?” Tatum taking it upon herself decides to reply back whiles filing her mails, “Not much honestly, though shopping is always on the table.”

But (Y/N) wasn't interested in the usual teenage pastimes. She leaned in, her eyes gleaming with curiosity, and clarified, "No, no, no! I'm talking murder cases here, blonde. Anything good?"

Randy, who had already labeled her as a weirdo, rolled his eyes, muttering, "Oh, no, not another weirdo."

(Y/N) couldn't help but give Randy a proud smirk, as if she embraced that title with pride. Sidney and Tatum, perhaps sensing the direction the conversation was about to take, excused themselves from the group.

Stu, always eager for attention, chimed in, "You know, Sidney's mom's murder was pretty wild. She was having an affair, and the guy must've gone crazy and slaughtered her."

(Y/N) listened intently, a crazed look in her eyes, and responded, "Yeah, now there's the good stuff. Tell me more."

Billy, with a hint of excitement in his voice, added, "There was also the murder of those two students not too long ago. It was pretty brutal."

"A murder, you say?" (Y/N) leaned in with an unsettling grin, her curiosity piqued. "Tell me about it."

Stu, relishing the chance to share a gruesome tale, went into chilling detail about the murder. "Well, my ex, Cassie, she was slaughtered. Her body was found strung up by her own organs in her front yard. It was... brutal. And her boyfriend, Derek, was found duct-taped to a lawn chair and drowned in the pool at her house. His intestines were out too."

(Y/N)'s eyes sparkled with a disturbing excitement as she listened to the horrifying description. She pressed for more information, asking, "Any leads on the killer?"

The boys exchanged glances and shook their heads. "No, not really," Billy admitted.

Randy added, "And Sidney, she was attacked a few nights after that. She said the killer was masked and wore what looked like a ghost mask."

(Y/N)'s grin widened at the mention of the masked killer, her fascination with the macabre evident. It seemed that the darker the story, the more it intrigued her. The group had unwittingly drawn her into their web of murder mysteries, and little did they know that her relentless pursuit of the truth would soon unearth secrets that would put them all in grave danger.

“Seems this town just got a little more interesting,'" (y/n) remarked with an eerie grin as the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch. She gathered her things and excused herself, leaving Randy to his own devices as he followed suit and left.

Now, only Stu and Billy remained alone at the table. Billy's eyes darkened, and a sinister glint danced in them as he leaned in closer to Stu. He asked in a hushed tone, "Should we go after her tonight?"

Stu, hyped up by the disturbing stories and (Y/N)'s unnerving interest in murder cases, couldn't help but share Billy's excitement. He replied with an eager grin, "Hell yeah."

(Y/N) returned home after a long day at Woodsboro High, finding a note from her dad, the detective, explaining that he would be back late, as usual. With a resigned sigh, she decided to unwind, slipping into comfortable sweatpants and a tank top.

She settled onto the couch, surrounded by an array of open books, articles, and her laptop, her research materials for delving into the recent murders that had captured her fascination. The room was dimly lit, the only illumination coming from the soft glow of her laptop screen.

Hours passed as she scoured the internet for any information about the brutal murders that had taken place in Woodsboro. (Y/N)'s determination was unwavering, her thirst for answers driving her to dig deeper into the dark mysteries of the town.

The hours dragged on, and fatigue began to creep in. Despite her best efforts, the weight of exhaustion overcame her, and (Y/N) eventually drifted into a fitful nap on the couch, her mind still haunted by the gruesome details of the unsolved murders that had consumed her thoughts.

(Y/N) woke up late at night, the room cast in darkness except for the faint glow of the moonlight filtering through the curtains. She glanced at the clock, which read 10:00 PM. Her dad still hadn't returned home, but she was used to his late hours.

Feeling hungry, she decided to order some food delivery to keep her going while she continued her research. As she dialed her order, anticipation for a late-night snack grew. She gave the delivery address and hung up, ready to return to her work.

Just as she settled back into her research, her phone rang, startling her. She picked it up, and at first, the voice on the other end played it off as a wrong number. But then they began asking personal questions.

"So, do you have a boyfriend?" the voice inquired.

(Y/N), her curiosity piqued, retorted playfully, "Why? You trying to ask me out?"

The person on the other line let out a smirk, their tone suggestive as they asked again, "So, do you have a boyfriend?"

(Y/N) decided to tease them with an equally suggestive response, "Perhaps." She was intrigued by the mysterious caller and couldn't help but engage in their unusual late-night conversation.

As (Y/N) found herself engaged in this mysterious late-night conversation, her curiosity only grew when the person on the other end suggested, "Let's play a game."

"What kind of game?" she asked, her tone laced with intrigue.

The voice on the phone responded, "I want to know your favorite scary movie."

(Y/N) didn't hesitate to share her interests. "Well, I really enjoyed 'The Craft.' It's a fascinating blend of witchcraft, teenage rebellion, and a dash of horror. The story revolves around a group of high school girls who form a coven and use their newfound powers for personal gain. But as their abilities grow, so does the darkness that haunts them. It's a captivating exploration of the consequences of wielding supernatural abilities and the complexities of female friendship."

She paused briefly before continuing, "Another one I really liked is 'Thinner.' It's based on a Stephen King novel and tells the story of a morbidly obese lawyer who's cursed by a gypsy and begins to inexplicably lose weight at an alarming rate. The film delves into themes of karma, guilt, and the unintended consequences of our actions. The slow, agonizing transformation of the main character is both terrifying and thought-provoking."

(Y/N) went on to describe the intricate details of both films, her passion for horror movies evident in her animated discussion. She shared her insights on the characters, the plot twists, and the underlying themes, displaying an impressive knowledge of the genre. The mysterious caller on the other end seemed intrigued by her enthusiasm.

The person on the other end of the line, after inquiring about her favorite scary movies, pressed for her name. (Y/N), however, wasn't so quick to reveal her identity. "Why should I tell you my name when you haven't told me yours?" she countered.

A sinister chuckle came through the phone before the voice replied, "Because I want to know the name of who I'm watching right now. Nice top, by the way."

(Y/N), far from being scared, merely rolled her eyes and glanced out the window behind her. She smirked into the darkness and said, "So, this is the infamous killer of Woodsboro? Would've expected better, but then again, you're just a small-town killer."

The voice on the other end of the line grew audibly offended, and they began to issue chilling threats. They spoke of slicing her open, just like they had done to Cassie, and leaving her hanging for her father to find. The threats were meant to intimidate, to strike fear into (Y/N)'s heart.

However, she remained surprisingly unshaken. Instead of cowering, she chuckled, a mix of defiance and amusement in her voice. "Give it your best shot," she taunted, her bravado unwavering. "I'm not one to back down from a challenge."

The late-night conversation had taken a menacing turn, and (Y/N) was about to find herself entangled in a perilous game of wits and survival with a cunning and ruthless adversary.

The next day at school, (Y/N) arrived with an unusual cheeriness about her. Stu and the rest of her newfound friends couldn't help but notice her upbeat demeanor, and Stu was the first to comment, asking, "What's got you so cheery today?"

With a mischievous glint in her eyes, (Y/N) replied, "Oh, you won't believe this. I've got video footage of Ghostface trying to break into my house."

The revelation sent shockwaves through the group, their eyes widening in disbelief. "No way," they chimed in unison.

(Y/N), however, seemed nonchalant as she waved off their amazement. "Yes way," she affirmed, laughing it off as if it were just another everyday occurrence.

Randy couldn't help but express his surprise. "I'm surprised you're not dead," he remarked, his tone laced with incredulity.

(Y/N) shrugged, her explanation casual. "My dad had our houses revamped before we moved here. Custom locks, gateways, and cameras. No one gets in unless they want them to. It's like living in a fortress."

As the group absorbed this information, (Y/N) decided to take a teasing turn. She smirked and declared, "Oh, this is going to be fun. I haven't been hunted like this in a while."

The reaction from her friends was mixed, to say the least. Most were creeped out by her unusual enthusiasm, especially given the recent unsettling events. But Stu and Billy, the true culprits behind the Ghostface mask, couldn't help but exchange sly glances. Their nefarious plan was in motion, and (Y/N) had just unknowingly stoked the flames of their sinister game.

Billy couldn't resist adding a chilling remark, his tone laced with dark humor, "I don't know... maybe if they asked ever so nicely for it, they would get what they want."

“What’s the suppose to mean?” (Y/n) remarks and billy shrugs it off “Who knows maybe the killer is somewhere watching you, after all you can never be too careful.”

[wrestlingarsenal]

Let's continue our review from yesterday of this tell-all exposé of the Hell's Angels tag team, published in the July 1969 issue of Inside Wrestling. The photos and text that I'm posting are taken from that article. Toward the end of the article, we finally begin to learn about the big secret the Dupree Brothers are hiding:

So this is their big secret?? That the brothers will cut each other's hair. That is not very shocking. What else?

So we learn that they can cut hair and sew on buttons -- big deal. I want my 50 cents back!

Does their ability to sew on a button imply that they are weak and can't fight?? Actually back in 1969, that is exactly what it meant! To have domestic skills was to be possibly queer, and to be queer back then was to be weak, incompetent, submissive, and cowardly.

So for the fans who could read between the lines, this article is absolutely calling them gay and poking fun at the sissies from start to finish. There is no blatant accusation of sodomy, which would've probably gotten them thrown in jail in 1969 (especially if they're brothers, as the article purports, which would be even more scandalous!)

Instead, the descriptions of their behind-the-scenes activities are meant to raise our Gaydar Alarms. Noting their physical contact in the photo, calling Ronnie the "Golden Boy", using the term "domestic serenity" which implies marriage, and calling their needlework "a little fancy." Noting that they are actually "not that tough" -- i.e., not masculine. Mentioning that Paul lived in San Francisco (perhaps you've heard what goes on there!)

Also, dressing them up as bikers -- icons of queer counter-culture. Even the title of the article, Hell's Bells, seems emasculating given that a "belle" is a pretty girl.

These coded terms and imagery convey to a savvy reader these big strong bikers in their tuff leather vests are actually a couple of prancing nancies, probably sewing and doing raunchy gay stuff all night long -- we just can't print that in a magazine in 1969.

It's interesting how the Hell's Angels could travel around sharing hotel rooms, could dress as explicitly gay as they wanted with their bleached hair and Village People clothing, could be outted by these magazines -- yet in the ring, they maintained this veneer of threatening, merciless, hyper-masculine toughness.

It's as if partaking in pro wrestling and joining a biker gang are two of the most daring, dangerous, hyper-masculine activities a man could do. Yet if we look with a queer eye and dig into the behind-closed-door activities, pro wrestling and biker ganging can be the very gayest pursuits for a man. This dialectic is exactly what makes me (and I suspect Chris Colt) love pro wrestling so much.

Posted below is the entire three-page article if you want to dig more into the subtle outting of these "partners" and their shocking secrets:

[tutyayilmazz]

The sheer number of older and more experienced professionals involved in Måneskin introduces a tension between the rock conventions that characterize their songwriting and the fundamentally pop circumstances under which those songs are produced. They are four friends in a band, but that band is inside an enormous machine. From their perspective, though, the machine is good.

The American visitor to Rome arrives with certain preconceptions that feel like stereotypes but turn out to be basically accurate. There really are mopeds flying around everywhere, and traffic seems governed by the principle that anyone can be replaced. Breakfast is coffee and cigarettes. Despite these orthopedic and nutritional hazards, everyone is better looking — not literally everyone, of course, but statistically, as if whatever selective forces that emerge from urban density have had an extra hundred generations or so to work. And they really do talk like that, an emphatic mix of vowels, gestures and car horns known as “Italian.” To be scolded in this language by a driver who wants to park in the crosswalk is to realize that some popular ideas are actually true. Also, it is hot.

The triumphant return to Rome of Måneskin — arguably the only rock stars of their generation, and almost certainly the biggest Italian rock band of all time — coincided with a heat wave across Southern Europe. On that Tuesday in July the temperature hit 107 degrees. The Tiber looked thick, rippled in places and still in others, as if it were reducing. By Thursday morning the band’s vast management team was officially concerned that the night’s sold-out performance at the Stadio Olimpico would be delayed. When Måneskin finally took the stage around 9:30 p.m., it was still well into the 90s — which was too bad, because there would be pyro.

There was no opening act, possibly because no rock band operating at this level is within 10 years of Måneskin’s age. The guitarist Thomas Raggi played the riff to “Don’t Wanna Sleep,” the lights came up and 60,000 Italians screamed. Damiano David — the band’s singer and, at age 24, its oldest member — charged out in black flared trousers and a mesh top that bisected his torso diagonally, his heavy brow and hypersymmetrical features making him look like some futuristic nomad who hunted the fishnet mammoth. Victoria De Angelis, the bassist, wore a minidress made from strips of leather or possibly bungee cords. Raggi wore nonporous pants and a black button-down he quickly discarded, while Ethan Torchio drummed in a vest with no shirt underneath, his hair flying. For the next several minutes of alternately disciplined and frenzied noise, they sounded as if Motley Crüe had been cryogenically frozen, then revived in 2010 with Rob Thomas on vocals.

That hypothetical will appeal to some while repelling others, and which category you fall into is, with all due respect, not my business here. Rolling Stone, for its part, said that Måneskin “only manage to confirm how hard rock & roll has to work these days to be noticed,” and a viral Pitchfork review called their most recent album “absolutely terrible at every conceivable level.” But this kind of thumbs up/thumbs down criticism is pretty much vestigial now that music is free. If you want to know whether you like Måneskin — the name is Danish and pronounced MOAN-eh-skin — you can fire up the internet and add to the more than nine billion streams Sony Music claims the band has accumulated across Spotify, YouTube, et cetera. As for whether Måneskin is good, de gustibus non est disputandum, as previous Italians once said: In matters of taste, there can be no arguments.

You should know, though, that even though their music has been heard most often through phone and laptop speakers, Måneskin sounds better on a soccer field. That is what tens of thousands of fans came to the Stadio Olimpico on an eyelid-scorching Thursday to experience: the culturally-if-not-personally-familiar commodity of a stadium rock show, delivered by the unprecedented phenomenon of a stadium-level Italian rock band. The pyro — 20-foot jets of swivel-articulated flame that you could feel all the way up in the mezzanine — kicked in on “Gasoline,” a song Måneskin wrote to protest Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. From a thrust platform in the center of the field, David poured his full emotive powers into the pre-chorus: “Standing alone on that hill/using your fuel to kill/we won’t take it standing still/watch us dance.”

The effect these words will have on President Putin is unknown. They capture something, though, about rock ’n’ roll, which has established certain conventions over the last seven decades. One of those conventions is an atmosphere of rebellion. It doesn’t have to be real — you probably don’t even want it to be — but neither can it seem too contrived, because the defining constraint of rock as a genre is that you have to feel it. The successful rock song creates in listeners the sensation of defying consensus, even if they are right in step with it.

The need to feel the rock may explain the documented problem of fans’ taste becoming frozen in whatever era was happening when they were between the ages of 15 and 25. Anyone who adolesced after Spotify, however, did not grow up with rock as an organically developing form and is likely to have experienced the whole catalog simultaneously, listening to Led Zeppelin at the same time they listened to Pixies and Franz Ferdinand — i.e. as a genre rather than as particular artists, the way my generation (I’m 46) experienced jazz. The members of Måneskin belong to this post-Spotify cohort. As the youngest and most prominent custodians of the rock tradition, their job is to sell new, guitar-driven songs of 100 to 150 beats per minute to a larger and larger audience, many of whom are young people who primarily think of such music as a historical artifact. Starting this month, Måneskin will take this business on a multivenue tour of the United States — a market where they are considerably less known — whose first stop is Madison Square Garden.

“I think the genre thing is like ... ” Torchio said to me backstage in Rome, making a gesture that conveyed translingual complexity. “We can do a metaphor: If you eat fish, meat and peanuts every day, like for years, and then you discover potatoes one day, you’ll be like: ‘Wow, potatoes! I like potatoes; potatoes are great.’ But potatoes have been there the whole time.” Rock was the potato in this metaphor, and he seemed to be saying that even though many people were just now discovering that they liked it, it had actually been around for a long time. It was a revealing analogy: The implication was that rock, like the potato, is here to stay; but what if rock is, like the potato in our age of abundance, comparatively bland and no longer anyone’s favorite?

Which rock song came first is a topic of disagreement, but one strong candidate is “Rocket 88,” recorded by Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythym band in 1951. It’s about a car and, in its final verse, about drinking in the car. These themes capture the context in which rock ’n’ roll emerged: a period when household incomes, availability of consumer goods and the share of Americans experiencing adolescence all increased simultaneously.

Although and possibly because rock started as Black music, it found a gigantic audience of white teenagers during the so-called British Invasion of the mid-1960s (the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who), which made it the dominant form of pop music for the next two decades. The stadium/progressive era (Journey, Fleetwood Mac, Foreigner) that now constitutes the bulk of classic-rock radio gave way, eventually, to punk (the Ramones, Patti Smith, Minor Threat) and then glam metal: Twisted Sister, Guns N’ Roses and various other hair-intensive bands that were obliterated by the success of Nirvana and Pearl Jam in 1991. This shift can be understood as the ultimate triumph of punk, both in its return to emotive content expressed through simpler arrangements and in its professed hostility toward the music industry itself. After 1991, suspicion of anything resembling pop became a mark of seriousness among both rock critics and fans.

It is probably not a coincidence that this period is also when rock’s cultural hegemony began to wane. As the ’90s progressed, larger and again whiter audiences embraced hip-hop, and the last song classified as “rock” to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 was Nickelback’s “How You Remind Me” in 2001. The run of bands that became popular during the ’00s — the Strokes, the Killers, Kings of Leon — constituted rock’s last great commercial gasp, but none of their singles charted higher than No. 4. Let us say, then, that the era of rock as pop music lasted from 1951 to 2011. That’s a three-generation run, if you take seriously rock’s advice to get drunk and have sex in the car and therefore produce children at around age 20. Baby boomers were the generation that made rock a zillion-dollar industry; Gen X saved it from that industry with punk and indie, and millennials closed it all out playing Guitar Hero.

The members of Måneskin are between the ages of 22 and 24, situating them firmly within the cadre of people who understand rock in the past tense. De Angelis, the bassist, and Raggi, the guitarist, formed the band when they were both attending a music-oriented middle school; David was a friend of friends, while Torchio was the only person who responded to their Facebook ad seeking a drummer. There are few entry-level rock venues in Rome, so they started by busking on the streets. In 2017, they entered the cattle-call audition for the Italian version of “The X Factor.” They eventually finished as runners-up to the balladeer Lorenzo Licitra, and an EP of songs they performed on the show was released by Sony Music and went triple platinum.

In 2021, Måneskin won the Sanremo Music Festival, earning the right to represent Italy with their song “Zitti e Buoni” (whose title roughly translates to “shut up and behave”) in that year’s Eurovision Song Contest. This program is not widely viewed in the United States, but it is a gigantic deal in Europe, and Måneskin won. Not long after, they began to appear on international singles charts, and “I Wanna Be Your Slave” broke the British Top 10. A European tour followed, as well as U.S. appearances at festivals and historic venues.

This ascent to stardom was not unmarred by controversy. The Eurovison live broadcast caught David bending over a table offstage, and members of the media accused him of snorting cocaine. David insisted he was innocent and took a drug test, which he passed, but Måneskin and their management still seem indignant about the whole affair. It’s exactly this kind of incongruous detail — this damaging rumor that a rock star did cocaine — that highlights how the Italian music-consuming public differs from the American one. Many elements of Måneskin’s presentation, like the cross-dressing and the occasional male-on-male kiss, are genuinely upsetting to older Italians, even as they seem familiar or even hackneyed to audiences in the United States.

“They see a band of young, good-looking guys that are dressing up too much, and then it’s not pure rock ’n’ roll, because you’re not in a garage, looking ugly,” De Angelis says. “The more conservative side, they’re shocked because of how we dress or move onstage, or the boys wear makeup.”

She and her bandmates are caught between two demographics: the relatively conservative European audience that made them famous and the more tolerant if not downright desensitized American audience that they must impress to keep the ride moving. And they do have to keep it moving, because — like many rock stars before them — most of the band dropped out of high school to do this. At one point, Raggi told me that he had sat in on some classes at a university, “Just to try to understand, ‘What is that?’”

One question that emerged early in my discussions with Måneskin’s friendly and professional management team was whether I was going to say that their music was bad. This concern seemed related to the aforementioned viral Pitchfork review, in which the editor Jeremy Larson wrote that their new album, “RUSH!” sounds “like it’s made for introducing the all-new Ford F-150” and “seems to be optimized for getting busy in a Buffalo Wild Wings bathroom” en route to a score of 2.0 (out of 10). While the members of Måneskin seemed to take this review philosophically, their press liaisons were concerned that I was coming to Italy to have a similar type of fun.

Here I should disclose that Larson edited an essay I wrote for Pitchfork about the Talking Heads album “Remain in Light” (score: 10.0) and that I think of myself as his friend. Possibly because of these biases, I read his review as reflecting his deeply held and, among rock fans, widely shared need to feel the music, something that the many pop/commercial elements of “RUSH!” (e.g. familiar song structures, lyrics that seem to have emerged from a collaboration between Google Translate and Nikki Sixx, compulsive use of multiband compression) left him unable to do.

This perspective reflects the post-’90s rock consensus (PNRC) that anything that sounds too much like a mass-market product is no good. The PNRC is premised on the idea that rock is not just a structure of song but also a structure of relationship between the band and society. From rock’s earliest days as Black music, the real or perceived opposition between rocker and society has been central to its appeal; this adversarial relationship animated the youth and counterculture eras of the ’60s and then, when the economic dominance of mass-market rock made it impossible to believe in, provoked the revitalizing backlash of punk. Even major labels felt obliged to play into this paradoxical worldview, e.g. that period after Nirvana when the most popular genre of music was called “alternative.” Måneskin, however, are defined by their isolation from the PNRC. They play rock music, but operate according to the logic of pop.

In Milan, where Måneskin would finish their Italian minitour, I had lunch with the band, as well as two of their managers, Marica Casalinuovo and Fabrizio Ferraguzzo. Casalinuovo had been an executive producer working on “The X Factor,” and Ferraguzzo was its musical director; around the time that Måneskin broke through, Casalinuovo and Ferraguzzo left the show and began working with the stars it had made. We were at the in-house restaurant of Moysa, the combination recording studio, soundstage, rehearsal space, offices, party venue and “creative playground” that Ferraguzzo opened two months earlier. After clarifying that he was in no way criticizing major record labels and the many vendors they engaged to record, promote and distribute albums, he laid out his vision for Moysa, a place where all those functions were performed by a single corporate entity — basically describing the concept of vertical integration.

Ferraguzzo oversaw the recording of “RUSH!” along with a group of producers that included Max Martin, the Swedish hitmaker best known for his work with Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears. At Moysa, Ferraguzzo played for me Måneskin’s then-unreleased new single, “Honey (Are U Coming?)” which features many of the band’s signature moves — guitar and bass playing the same melodic phrases at the same time, unswung boogie-type rhythm of the post-Strokes style — but also has David singing in a higher register than usual. I listened to it first on studio monitors and then through the speaker of Ferraguzzo’s phone, and it sounded clean and well produced both times, as if a team of industry veterans with unlimited access to espresso had come together to perfect it.

The sheer number of older and more experienced professionals involved in Måneskin introduces a tension between the rock conventions that characterize their songwriting and the fundamentally pop circumstances under which those songs are produced. They are four friends in a band, but that band is inside an enormous machine. From their perspective, though, the machine is good.

“There’s hundreds of people working and talking about you and giving opinions,” De Angelis said at lunch. “So if you start to get in this loop of wanting to know and control and being anxious about it, it really ruins everything.” Here lies the conflict between what the PNRC wants from a band — resistance to outside influences, contempt for commerce, authenticity as measured in doing everything themselves — and what any sane 23-year-old would want, which is to have someone with an M.B.A. make all the decisions so she can concentrate on playing bass.

The other way Måneskin is isolated from the PNRC is geographic. Over the course of lunch, it became clear that they had encyclopedic knowledge of certain eras in American rock history but were only dimly aware of others. Raggi, for instance, loves Motley Crüe and has an album-by-album command of the Los Angeles hair-metal band Skid Row, which he and his bandmates seemed to understand were supposed to be guilty pleasures. But none of them had ever heard of Fugazi, the post-hardcore band whose hatred of major labels, refusal to sell merchandise and commitment to keeping ticket prices as low as possible set the standard for a generation of American rock snobs. In general, Måneskin’s timeline of influences seems to break off around 1990, when the rock most respected by Anglophone critics was produced by independent labels that did not have strong overseas distribution. It picks up again with Franz Ferdinand and the “emo” era of mainstream pop rock. This retrospect leaves them unaware of the indie/punk/D.I.Y. period that was probably most important in forming the PNRC.

The question is whether that consensus still matters. While snobs like Larson and me are overrepresented in journalism, we never constituted a majority of rock fans. That’s the whole point of being a snob. And snobbery is obsolete anyway; digital distribution ended the correlation between how obscure your favorite band was and how much effort you put into listening to them. The longevity of rock ’n’ roll as a genre, meanwhile, has solidified a core audience that is now between the ages of 40 and 80, rendering the fan-versus-society dimension of the PNRC impossible to believe. And the economics of the industry — in which streaming has reduced the profit margin on recorded music, and the closure of small venues has made stadiums and big auditoriums the only reliable way to make money on tour — have decimated the indie model. All these forces have converged to make rock, for the first time in its history, merely a way of writing songs instead of a way of life.

Yet rock as a cluster of signifiers retains its power around the world. In the same way everyone knows what a castle is and what it signifies, even though actual castles are no longer a meaningful force in our lives, rock remains a shared language of cultural expression even though it is no longer determining our friendships, turning children against their parents, yelling truth at power, et cetera. Also like a castle, a lot of people will pay good money to see a preserved historical example of rock or even a convincing replica of it, especially in Europe.

In Milan, the temperature had dropped 20 degrees, and Måneskin’s show at Stadio Giuseppe Meazza — commonly known as San Siro, the largest stadium in Italy, sold out that night at 60,000 — was threatened by thunderstorms instead of record-breaking heat. Fans remained undaunted: Many camped in the parking lot the night before in order to be among the first to enter the stadium. One of them was Tamara, an American who reported her age as 60½ and said she had skipped a reservation to see da Vinci’s “Last Supper” in order to stay in line. “When you get to knocking on the door, you kind of want to do what you want,” she said.

The threat of rain was made good at pretty much the exact moment the show began. The sea of black T-shirts on the pitch became a field of multicolored ponchos, and raindrops were bouncing visibly off the surface of the stage. David lost his footing near the end of “I Wanna Be Your Slave,” briefly rolling to his back, while De Angelis — who is very good at making lips-parted-in-ecstasy-type rock faces — played with her eyes turned upward to the flashing sky, like a martyr.

The rain stopped in time for “Kool Kids,” a punk-inspired song in which David affects a Cockney accent to sing about the vexed cultural position of rock ’n’ roll: “Cool kids, they do not like rock/they only listen to trap and pop.” These are probably the Måneskin lyrics most quoted by music journalists, although they should probably be taken with a grain of salt, considering that the song also contains lyrics like “I like doin’ things I love, yeah” and “Cool kids, they do not vomit.”

“Kool Kids” was the last song before the encore, and each night a few dozen good-looking 20-somethings were released onto the stage to dance and then, as the band walked off, to make we’re-not-worthy bows around Raggi’s abandoned guitar. The whole thing looked at least semichoreographed, but management assured me that the Kool Kids were not professional dancers — just enthusiastic fans who had been asked if they wanted to be part of the show. I kept trying to meet the person in charge of wrangling these Kool Kids, and there kept being new reasons that was not possible.

The regular kids, on the other hand, were available and friendly throughout. In Rome, Dorca and Sara, two young members of a Måneskin fan club, saw my notebook and shot right over to tell me they loved the band because, as Sara put it, “they allow you to be yourself.” When asked whether they felt their culture was conservative in ways that prevented them from being themselves, Dorca — who was 21 and wearing eyeglasses that looked like part of her daily wardrobe and a mesh top that didn’t — said: “Maybe it turns out that you can be yourself. But you don’t know that at first. You feel like you can’t.”

Here lies the element of rock that functions independently from the economics of the industry or the shifting preferences of critics, the part that is maybe independent from time itself: the continually renewed experience of adolescence, of hearing and therefore feeling it all for the first time. But how disorienting must those feelings be when they have been fully monetized, fully sanctioned — when the response to your demand to rock ’n’ roll all night and party every day is, “Great, exactly, thank you.” In a culture where defying consensus is the dominant value, anything is possible except rebellion. It must be strange, in this post-everything century, to finally become yourself and discover that no one has any problem with that.

[sunnydaleherald]

The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Saturday, November 30

BUFFY: Honey, we need to talk about the invitations. Now, do you wanna be William the Bloody, or just Spike? ‘Cause, either way, it's gonna look majorly weird. SPIKE: Where as the name Buffy gives it that touch of classic elegance. BUFFY: What's wrong with Buffy? GILES: Huh.. such a good question. SPIKE: (Ignoring Giles) Well, it's a terrible name. BUFFY: My mother gave me that name. SPIKE: Your mother, yeah, she's a genius.

~~BtVS 4x09 “Something Blue”~~

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

you look so handsome in that sweater vest (Buffy/Giles, E) by guin_ramble

Just One Day (Buffy/Angel, M) by MeTheMermaid

[Collection] Omegaverse Exchange 2024 [2 works for BtVS/AtS, so far] (Angel/Angelus, E + Buffy/Faith, T) by unrevealed authors

[Collection] 2024-11: Wanksgiving the Third [2 works for BtVS, so far] (Buffy/Spike, E + Buffy/Faith, E) by unrevealed author

heavy is the heart that stands alone (Buffy/Faith, T) by Mistfire24

Spike's Secret (Buffy/Spike, T) by fizzy31funny

All Covered With You (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by Geliot99

All Covered With You (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by Geliot99

[Chaptered Fiction]

Shadowed Suspicion Chapter 351 (Jojo's Bizarre Adventure xover, T) by madimpossibledreamer

Sheriff of Sunnydale, Chapter 1/? (Mayor Wilkins, OCs, T) by Mingo (Wulf47)

In Every Generation, Chapters 1-2/2 COMPLETE! (Buffy/Angel, ensemble, T) by Taaroko

Thaumogenesis, Chapter 2/? (Angel/Cordelia, T) by thepunkmuppet

It's always blood, isn't it?, Chapter 3/8 (Buffy/Spike, M) by turzelque

Potential Friend: Season Two, Chapter 5/22 (Buffy/Angel, T) by srmcd1

In the Company of Witches and Slayers:, Chapter 187/200 (Willow/Tara, E) by VladimirHarkonnen (TheLightdancer)

Smoke and Leather, Chapter 12/? (Spike/OC, Buffy/Angel, Buffy/Riley, M) by EagleAlwaysFliesAlone

Miss Summers Goes to Washington, Chapter 5/? (Buffy/Faith, M) by storiwr

Fade, Chapter 3/? (Ensemble, M) by FriedaBerlinFan

For Science, Chapter 2/? (Buffy/Riley, Buffy/Adam, E) by mattilamb

The Buffy Chronicles: Life After Sunnydale, Chapter 5/? (Buffy/Spike, E) by sweetmelodykiss

Love Is the Ultimate L Word, Chapter 2/14 (Buffy, The L Word xover, T) by RavenclawSlayer

The Shadow Within, Chapter 3/? (Faith, F/F, F/M, E) by Fmfan1980

Sold Out, Chapters 9-10 COMPLETE! (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by Melme1325

Stories of True Love in Capeside, Chapter 2 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by CheekyKitten

The Office Hellmouth, Chapter 6 (Buffy/Spike, R) by Willow25

Comin’ to Town, Chapter 1 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by Melme1325

Incarnate, Chapter 24 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by Sigyn

The Science of Being Yours, Chapter 11 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by Maxine Eden, ClowniestLivEver

Lawfully Wedded, Chapter 2 (Buffy/Spike, PG-13) by violettathepiratequeen

Some You Lose, Chapter 21 (Buffy, Stargate xover, FR13) by lyapunov

A Man in Shadow, Chapter 6 (Buffy/Spike, 13+) by Zab Jade

Christmas at the Folly, Story 3: Third Generation (Buffy/Spike, 13+) by myrabeth

Lawfully Wedded, Chapter 2 (Buffy/Spike, PG-13) by violettathepiratequeen

[Images, Audio & Video]

Artwork: they’ll pull you out of your skin, and pour a god in (Cordelia, worksafe) by artsying-ifer

Artwork: Episodic art for BtVS 3x11 “Gingerbread” (worksafe) by revello-drive-1630

Artwork: take all that away and what’s left? (Buffy, worksafe) by lillbitdramatic

Artwork: “If we both know, then I’m not the only one thinking it…” (Buffy/Spike, worksafe) by o-cm-draw-o

Artwork: He is the blueprint (Spike, worksafe) by chillhypocrite

Gifset: [Willow's outfits by color] (worksafe) by clarkgriffon

Video: Drusilla's Diary entry 2 "Lots to Be Thankful For.” by Slayin It with Juliet Landau

Crafts: I made a scented candle based on Spike from “Buffy” (worksafe) by Pauldbraun_

Vampiricspikes Fanart thread (misc banners, worksafe) by Vampiricspikes

[Reviews & Recaps]

Essay : Managing fear of others . Exemple : Buffy Summers & Faith Lehane by Cailly_Brard7

PODCAST: Reporting Live From the Magic Box (S5E8) by It Stakes Two

PODCAST: S4. Ep18/19. Shiny Happy People/The Magic Bullet by Investigating Angel

[Community Announcements]

Posting AI Assisted Stories by Administrator

2025 [Spangel] Marathon Posting Guidelines by spangel-fanwork-marathon

Revamped IWRY Marathon 2024 — week four masterpost by iwillrememberyoumarathon

Flair Makeover Announcement by Training-Pickle-6725 [mod]

[Fandom Discussions]

All these years later, the biggest mystery of Angel the Series is how Kate Lockley survived her attempted suicide in Season 2 by coraniaid

watching some Angel again and I love it when a little bit of his Very old man comes out by johnsspacesuittight

[ask by coraniaid] Do you think Faith might have spent Thanksgiving 1998 with Buffy and her mom? answered by juanabaloo

I think to me my Faith lesbian timeline is in season 3 she doesn’t really get that she’s a lesbian by shewhosleepsalotincemeteries

Anya was originally conceived of only as a non-recurring antagonist (for Season 3’s The Wish) by coraniaid

buffy calling spike “william” when breaking things off with him is so sad bc it’s her way of recognizing the humanity in him by lesbianmarrow

Sometimes I think about how intensely Joss Whedon wanted us to believe that Riley was a good guy by softbrah

Sometimes I look at the notes of BTVS gifsets and see people saying shit like how the Angelus storyline should have never happened to Buffy by charlottenewtons

[Reactions and speculations about Buffy comics S8] by xaeyrnofnbe

Willow being afraid to go back home because she thinks everyone is going to reject her by magpie-trove

[ask by jazzmckay] character ask game: spike answered by thelaughingmagician

[anon ask] I’ve never watched Buffy the Vampire slayer, I’m curious what do you like about it? answered by femsolid

Bad Blood by Happy-Panic849

"Daddy issues" by brwitch

Rewatching has made me realise Spike was always a sexual predator by Mean-Dragonfly

Angel/Buffy watch question by jengafat

The nicest thing Xander ever did by clickyr

Buffy and Dawn first day of school by clickyr

Did you like Buffy's dress in the Season 1 finale?? by samof1994

How would yall rank these big bads? by Competitive-Grab8470

What lines live rent free in your brand? Mine is “yoooo meatpie” by The_budgetwolverine

Would Buffy have agreed to free Angelus in Season 4 of angel? by FoxIndependent4310

Unpopular opinion but I absolutely love Buffy’s micro bangs by buffylover98

Submit a link to be included in the newsletter!

Join the editor team :)

[icey--stars]

Born For Tragedy: Part 9

Series Index

She was tragedy. Nothing except death, fear and pain followed in her wake. When she was young, she was beaten. Now she’s the one doing the beating as an assassin. A mysterious stranger comes to her, paying an absurd amount of money for her to kill Beron Vanserra, and protect the eldest son until the job is done. She stumbles across a story much similar to her own, and knows what must be done.

a/n: alright, lets review cus its been a bit rq: eris and val have decided they will attempt to kill beron at the calanmai ball- three days after calanmai. valda plans to pose as a nobility for the ball. (and lady merle, eris's mother, will be making the dress :D) also val is eris's "personal servant" now lmao

WARNING: some light mentions of sexual preferences. also, eris is a bit affected by calanmai, and his advances are unwelcome. he snaps out of it quickly though :)

↢ 『 ☾ 』 ↣

Luckily, the servants in the Forest House do get Calanmai as a holiday, so Valda was free to wander the cleared out areas for the bonfires and celebration. The celebration in the Spring Court had been massive, and everybody everywhere went to celebrate. Around the manor, it was the biggest, as the Great Rite occurred there. She wondered how Beron does the Great Rite. Gods, it seemed wrong to think about that.

In the morning of Fire Night, Valda made sure she was strapped with daggers galore. Her identity would be hidden well amongst the crowd, so she could slip more weapons in. Especially since she didn’t plan on participating in the more sexual parts of Calanmai. She’d participated once, with some black haired male that’d been visiting from the Winter Court. It wasn’t a bad experience, per se, but it wasn’t that good either. She preferred choosing her partners, and taking the lead with them, both of which she couldn’t do on Fire Night.

“You don’t seem too ecstatic about this holiday,” Eris noted, walking up behind her. Valda turned mildly to see Eris dressed nicer than usual. A white dress shirt paired with a deep, blood red vest and black slacks. She had to admit he did look quite good. She was just dressed in a black turtleneck, black leathers and a knee-length skirt to hide her weapons.

“I spent forty-nine years in the place where this holiday was at its height,” Valda answered. “The Spring Court makes this much too big a deal.”

“Not traveling anywhere interesting?”

“No reason,” she responded. “Where would I go?”

“Fair,” Eris hummed.

“Where is the Great Rite held here?” She asked curiously. “I have yet to see a big cave.”

“Ah,” Eris said. “Seeing as the Maiden has been chosen the same for quite a long time, they do a chase instead of choosing at a cave’s entrance.”

That did make sense, but Valda felt a bit bad for Lady Merle. She was truly at the whims of her husband.

“I suppose you’ll have to complete the Great Rite the old fashioned way when you’re High Lord,” Valda chuckled. “Oh what fun. Perhaps I’ll visit to see the chaos. And you unhinged.”

“I will not be unh-”

“Tell that to the magic the High Lord faces. It’s nothing compared to the magic in the air normally,” Valda snickered.

Eris sighed in defeat. “Are you participating?” He finally asked, changing the topic after a moment of silence.

“No,” Valda stated. “I’ll watch.”

“Oh really? To think I would’ve guessed Prythian’s best assassin would’ve loved these types of parties,” Eris teased.

“Shut your trap,” she scolded lightly at his careless mention of her title. “I used to like them, now they just give me off feelings,” she admitted. 

Eris rolled his eyes. “My mother agreed to find a dress,” he admitted. “She’s very interested in who I’ve deigned to invite personally.”

Valda scoffed. “I’ll just morph my features a bit with some makeup and it’ll be a flawless show.”

A little flare of fire went up in the air, cutting Eris off. He grumbled. “That’s Hue telling me it's time to light the fires.”

Valda rolled her eyes. “Do enjoy your night, general.”

“You too assassin,” Eris winnowed away and Valda elected to slump against an oak tree to watch the bonfires be lit.

The sky began to darken and almost too soon, it was time for the Great Rite to begin. Valda watched the intermingling of fae from atop her little hill. She was able to easily catch sight of Beron and Lady Merle. The latter was dressed in almost nothing amongst the fire light. The “hunt” or “chase” as Eris called it, began. Beron was freed from whatever daze he’d been in when Merle began to sprint away.

That’s when the true celebration began as music lifted higher and higher than before, and fae began dancing, or some ran off into the woods for a bit of fun. One couple came a bit too close to Valda, so she wrapped her darkness around herself and winnowed a little ways down the hill. The wind shifted and she huffed as she lost the scents of the celebration and instead gained the oak, dogwood smells that she normally smelled out here.

There was a shift in the magic filling the air and everyone paused for a moment and accepted what that meant. The Maiden had been caught and spring had arrived. Valda snickered as she saw Jax struggling to manage three females vying for his attention. Ah, but Eris was probably worse, she guessed. She stood up a bit taller to try and spot the Autumn Heir.

“There you are,” a voice said from behind her. "I've been looking for you."

She tensed and whirled around, dagger already drawn from her thigh as she faced whoever had snuck up on her.

She did not expect a particular red-haired fae to be standing there, looking a bit more unkempt than usual.

Eris stalked forward, pupils blown wider than usual. Valda tsked and narrowed her eyes.

“Eris, I do believe you should be down there with the other celebrators.”

“I should be here with you,” he hissed. Valda knew that males, especially powerful ones, could be affected by the magic that filled the air on Fire Night, but she never imagined Eris Vanserra to be here, stalking towards her.

Valda took a step back when he got too close and he didn’t hesitate to take another two towards her. His eyes were fixed lower than her face and she knew exactly what the male was staring at on her chest.

“Get your head out of your ass,” she snapped, still holding her dagger in one hand.

“Oh but darling, I could make you feel so good-”

Valda’s breath hitched as Eris finally stepped into her space and placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Eris, take a step back,” she ordered clearly. “Or I’ll take off your hand.”

“What could a precious little fox like you do to me? I’ll take good care of you sweetheart.” Eris’s hand tightened on her shoulder and she wrenched it away from him.

Precious little fox?! She thought, appalled. Did Eris have alcohol? This could not just be the magic speaking. He didn’t say things like this.

“I’ll coax you into it…” Eris purred. “I’ll protect you sweet thing.”

Valda slapped his hand away with her free hand and bared her teeth. “Back off,” she commanded.

Eris took another step and Valda promptly held up her dagger at his throat. “I said no,” she growled. “Back off.”

Eris’s blown pupils stared at hers for a few moments before she pressed the blade a bit closer, taking a step to the side. “Snap out of it,” she snapped. “You are Eris Vanserra, the general and heir of the Autumn Court and you’re acting like a fool!” He reached his head forward as if he was going to kiss her.

She raised her other hand again and slapped him across his face hard. His head snapped to the side and Valda pushed forward again, forcing him back towards a tree trunk. How was she going to get this idiot out of this state or at least away from her?

Eris’s breathing was ragged and then a hand pushed the blade away from his throat and he looked at her. His pupils looked to be a normal size now, but he still looked incredibly, incredibly dazed. His knees were weak when Valda took a hesitant step back and he only just barely managed to catch himself.

“Have you snapped out of it, asshole?” Valda asked, threatening raising her palm again, prepared to slap him.

Eris raised a palm as a shield and curled his other hand over his mouth and chin. “Fuck,” he muttered.

Valda relaxed at that. It looked as if he’d come back to himself. “How much have you had to drink?” She asked. “That was incredibly odd.”

“It was,” he agreed raggedly, and stood up straight, not leaning against the tree trunk. “I apologize for that. That was… horrible of me.”

Well, at least he was sensible now. She sighed, and slid her dagger back into her sheath. “Does the magic normally affect you like that?”

“No,” he replied. “Not normally. I only had a bit of alcohol. Almost nothing.”

Valda nodded and hummed. “Perhaps you need to head back to the house to rest, Eris.”

His breathing hitched when she uttered his name and she narrowed her eyes. What an odd reaction. He finally looked up to meet her eyes properly. He looked, honest to the Cauldron—awful. The hand he’d raised as a shield went to rake through his auburn locks and the other unbuttoned the first button of his vest and shirt.

She heard the crunching of leaves behind her. Valda’s nostrils flared as she sent her darkness up as a shield.

It smelled intensely of arousal, so she assumed it was just a couple passing through. Eris, however, still refused to breathe properly, even as she softened the darkness around them. It floated slower and more… pillowy than before.

Eris wiped his eyes with his forefinger and thumb and then seemed to make some type of final decision as he leaned against the trunk again, but with more ease in his stature.

“Your darkness is different,” he said aloud, probably trying to shift the conversation away from him toward something else.

She sighed through her nose. “There are different types of darkness, Eris.”

“Tell me about it,” he urged.

She searched his amber eyes for a moment before finally deciding to just let the event in passing go. “It’s hard to describe,” she began. “There is darkness like the type I tend to use, the more rageful and terrifying darkness I can wield with an iron fist, and then there are the types that are softer and calmer. This is one of those types.”

He nodded briefly as acknowledgement. “I should go,” he coughed out.

She hummed. “Don’t make me put a knife to your neck again,” she stated. A warning, a threat, that should he decide to try and push his luck again, she wouldn’t be so merciful.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he purred and winnowed out. She huffed and pulled her darkness inside again, and shook the electrical tingle she felt going through her. It was odd to feel such a thing. That tingle centered around the points that Eris had touched her, most notably her shoulder. That tickling in her chest made a reappearance. She knew that magic didn’t fully create feelings of wanting, it only heightened them exponentially.

Which meant some very serious things. First, Eris clearly had something for her, which she wasn’t completely unaware of. She was well aware that she had some features that were desirable. He had many as well, and she knew it.

Second, it meant that Eris cared about her. “I’ll protect you sweet thing.” She didn’t know how to feel about that. She might’ve given Eris the clear indication that those sorts of things were prohibited, but in all honesty, she’d never had someone offer to protect her. The tingling on her shoulder increased tenfold when she considered the implications of that. He’d tried to kiss her; what the hell did that mean?

She shook her head and swore loudly. No, she needed these thoughts out of her headspace. She had someone very important to kill soon, and she needed her head about her for it. She did not need to get distracted by all the clear evidence that said that Eris cared for her. She needed it out.

Valda huffed as she entered the Forest House again, sitting on that bed and swiftly putting her daggers in their designated places.

One thought kept her awake for the entire night though.

Eris cared for, and she couldn’t help but care for him in the same way.

Whether that be just caring to kill off his demons and take the heat for it, or much, much more. Eris was a desirable male.

But she was an assassin. A killer for hire. She did not deserve to even consider the implications of liking Eris, or even the aspect of considering him a potential lover. She’d failed to protect her previous lover, and she did not deserve a second chance from anyone. Her failure rested squarely on her shoulders, and she knew that. She had to pay for it everyday. She deserved to love nobody.

Not even that somebody was an attractive heir of the Autumn Court and soon-to-be High Lord.

She grit her teeth at that thought. He was going to be a High Lord. He might pretend to want her around, but he could not be interacting with assassin rubbish like her for long. He’d get his wits about him soon enough. She just had to make sure that during the Calanmai ball, she had her head screwed on tightly, and was able to bolt and never give him the chance to try and keep her around.Yes, that would work, she decided in the early light of morning.

↢ 『 ☾ 』 ↣

TAGLIST (see post for getting added)

@bunnymallowo, @officiallyunofficialperson, @margssstuff, @rebloggiest-reblogger, @inpraizeof, @graciereads, @eos-princess, @imma-too-many-fandoms, @mali22, @sassybluebird, @bubybubsters,

THE URGE WAS TOO GREAT NOT TO ADD THE RHYS QUOTE IM SORRY LMAO

[a-trick-or-two-with-lepers]

Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert (NBC 2018) Breakdown and Review

Quick disclaimer: This is the second version of JCS that I've seen in full. I was introduced to the rock opera through the 1973 movie, and I'm not afraid to say that that is where my bias will always be, especially considering I'm more of a film buff than a theater nerd. However, I am aware that putting a feature-length film and a live recording of a performance on the same level for criticism is unfair, so I'll try to keep the comparisons to a minimum.

With that out of the way, here are my (slightly deranged) thoughts on NBC's JCS Live!

~Overture~

I can only imagine how hyped JCS enjoyers got while watching this live back in 2018. Not only is the live orchestra doing an amazing job, but the guitar players get their own time to shine on stage! This is so damn cool to see, because the guitar riffs are really what makes the song. When the "Heaven on Their Minds" riff began and we got to see one of the guitarists on stage just going at it, I knew I'd be in for a treat.

I'd like to take a moment to talk about the set design as well. One thing I know to be true about most JCS productions is that the set is almost always bare-bones - but in a meaningful way. The story relies more on the actions and emotions of its characters than the environment, which makes sense as Jesus and his compatriots were not necessarily wealthy. This remains true for this particular production. The staging is really impressive; you're never short of something or someone to look at.

Also... the outfits! I'm a sucker for leather, and this production has no shortage of it. The costumes, while aesthetically pleasing, show how much the ensemble in this play favor rebellion.

I love when casts are as diverse as possible - in ethnicity, skin color, body types, gender presentation, etc. This cast fits the bill, and everyone does a fantastic job in the overture. In fact, the ensemble this cast provides are just amazing in general. You can tell each and every one of them has oodles of experience under their belt. I have no complaints about any of their performances.

I will say, the flashing lights during the more chaotic bits were a bit much for me, but that's more due to my propensity to get overstimulated. Overall, the choices made in this section were top-notch, and I really can't be mad at any of it.

Enter: John Legend.

You know how I was really digging the costuming? Well...

Look, I understand that most productions have Jesus just looking like a normal ass dude with normal ass clothing, but was the grey shawl really necessary? Whatever, I'm not too put out by it. At least we get to see some John Legend tiddy.

It occurred to me during this part of the play that I am not a fan of live audiences. Once again, my easily overstimulated brain may be to blame, but I found myself wishing for most of the play that the audience would just quiet down. Nevertheless, I'm sure the cast was happy to be so outwardly appreciated.

~Heaven on Their Minds~

I'm gonna say this once and I won't say it again. THE MARKETING TEAM LEFT BRANDON VICTOR DIXON IN THE GODDAMN DUST. Seriously, every time I came across a video of this production on Youtube, his name was either not in the title, not in the thumbnail, or he was labeled as Tim Minchin. The poor guy is the main fucking character and nobody could be bothered to give him the credit he deserves. I understand that Legend is more famous, but seriously. That just rubs me the wrong way.

Anyway...

I'm back to loving the costuming. Judas' vest is so cool, and I love the symbolism of his tank being red. Honestly, any Judas in red has my heart immediately.

His performance here is good, but nothing I'm overly impressed by. I can understand wanting to save energy for later performances, though, and I'm definitely not offended by Dixon's singing. He's a bit stilted in his delivery, a little nasally in his vocals, and I sometimes have a hard time believing his performance. Though, I can imagine it's kind of hard to stay in character when you're struggling to be heard above the audience. I mean seriously! When Jesus did the bit where he reached out to the audience, the crowd got so loud that if I didn't know the lyrics to this song by heart I wouldn't know what Dixon was saying. It made me a bit mad, to be honest. I don't know, maybe that in itself is symbolic or some shit.

I do like Dixon's phrasing in some parts, especially when he sing-speaks the line "do you care for your race?" as well his sassy delivery of the titular line. I did not care for the way he sang "how put down we are," but he later totally nailed the original riff on "sour," which is one of my favorite vocal runs of all time. The way he interspersed the bits where he wasn't singing with spoken complaints was cute. He also did a really nice break at the "puh-LEASE" bit.

He really made the song his own. The last twenty seconds gave me chills. Dixon is clearly a very skilled performer, and though there were parts of his performance I didn't love, I overall really enjoyed watching him sing one of my favorite musical numbers.

One last thing about this part: I don't really like how Judas is singing directly to Jesus. A big part of Judas' characterization is that he is a sort of outcast-loner type, and his relationship with Jesus fails mainly because both men fail to communicate effectively. When Judas is literally expressing his concerns directly to Jesus, and Jesus outright ignores him, it makes Jesus come across as an unresponsive dick. Again, this is the first theater JCS I've seen, so I'm not sure how much of this is written in stone as part of the Broadway production. Instead of doing the right thing and researching that, I'm just going to judge the play based on how I initially responded to it.

~What's the Buzz / Strange Thing Mystifying~

I'm not sure if this is a constant in most JCS productions, but "What's the Buzz" feels too slow to me. It's a bit jumpier in the '73 version, but that may be because they were recording it in a studio rather than in front of a live audience. I will say, there's not much room for breathing in this song. Once again, though, the ensemble is doing a banger job.

I came into this not really having a strong opinion on John Legend. I really only know the one song from him ("All of Me," obviously). I've heard people criticize his performance in this, and while I'd much prefer a rock singer or seasoned Broadway performer in this role, I can't say I'm too offended by his casting. He's more focused on his voice than his acting. When it comes to musical theater, each line should be treated as its own and should portray a slightly different emotional tone. With Legend, all his lines kind of sound the same and seem to hold the same level of importance. He's also not very good at the kind of talk-singing that is usually present in this role. But, I can't deny that he sounds pretty damn good. I especially liked how he sang "Mary, oooh, that is good." Very sexy indeed.

Speaking of Mary! Who doesn't love Sara Bareilles? (No seriously, who? I just wanna talk...) I really really really love her dress, and her voice is just lovely. Very soothing and unassuming.

When Judas comes in for "Strange Thing Mystifying," he is once again portraying the perfect amount of sass and shade. I really missed the "hey cool it man :(" line from Simon, though. It's so adorable in the '73 JCS.

I really liked Legend's staccato "Who. Are. You." parts! Whoever made the decision to direct him like that knew what they were doing.

All around, there was more singing than acting going on from the main cast. In my opinion, this makes the characterization kind of weak, but it doesn't make the songs unenjoyable.

Also, I love the choreography here! Especially when they sing "when do we ride into Jerusalem?" Still can't top the '73 choreo for me, but that's a very high bar.

~Everything's Alright~

While I absolutely adore Sara Bareilles' voice, I wish she enunciated a bit more for this song, but that's just a personal preference. Her singing and her entire vibe is just so calming and gorgeous, and her runs are spot-on. Then we get to the little Judas and Jesus interaction.

In the original movie, this is the scene that made me realize, "Wow. These men really love each other." Every scene with Carl Anderson and Ted Neely is just so emotionally intense that it's impossible to look away. That is not really the case with Legend and Dixon.

Though they both sound good (for the most part), the desperation and emotional overflow is just not there. And I say for the most part because both Dixon and Legend struggle a bit with the higher notes. Dixon went for the belt, but was a bit flat. Legend opted to sing "when I'm gone" with a poorly sung falsetto, and it just. Does not fit. Whatsoever. It was a weak performance of a line that is meant to be fraught with emotion.

Also, by the end of the song, I'm pretty sure the point is supposed to be that despite Mary's careful ministrations, Jesus is still stressed and upset. But here? Nah, Jesus is just snoozin'.

Despite J and J's subpar deliveries, I enjoyed this song even if just for how Mary was presented.

~This Jesus Must Die~

Norm Lewis! I! Don't really... have a pre-formed opinion on him. So many people seem to, but I just haven't been involved in theater for so long that I'm a bit out of the loop.

Nonetheless, he is a wonderful performer. His vibrato is liquid gold. However, I was under the impression that Caiaphas is a role usually played by bass singers. Lewis is very clearly a baritone. I'm not sure I'm too happy with this choice, especially since he seems to struggle a bit with the lower notes. It's not nearly as noticeable as Legend's struggle with high notes, but I really wish we got to have a beautiful, gravelly bass voice in this role. Even without the inhumanly low tones, Lewis manages to make this role just as intimidating as it should be.

Jin Ha does a good job as Annas. I don't have much to say about his performance.

What I find particularly funny about this part is that you can tell who the stage performers are. Legend is a singer. He sings. These priests that have like, two lines each? They're PERFORMERS. They are taking their fifteen seconds of fame and milking them as much as possible, and I respect the hell out of it because it makes for some very enjoyable performances. The "What then to do about this Jesusmania?" guy killed it.

I love the costuming here as well - very cool geometric designs on the jackets.

Though I would love to say I fancied this version of the song, they didn't include the "Jesus is cool" line. And for that, this is my least favorite song in the production. (/j)

~Hosanna~

I don't have a whole lot to say about this one. It was good! Just a few little tidbits:

-Legend starting a crowd clap was cute

-This song works really well for Legend cause it's right in his register and he doesn't have to reach for any super high notes

-The key change is super cool! I LOVE Legend's runs during this part as well

-The last part where they all sing "SUPERSTAAAAR" was awesome and I can imagine them using that for a lot of cable advertisements

~Simon Zealotes / Poor Jerusalem~

First of all: Simon's cute as hell! Look at his lil' hair!

I just love when this role is played as the most energetic, chaotic, batshit insane guy you've ever seen. And I cannot express how delighted I am to see a role in this play being done by a rock singer! Erik Grönwell's performance here is my favorite out of anyone in this play so far. His belts are out of this world.

The ensemble can't be discounted here either, 'cause they sound freaking amazing. But I've already expressed my love for them.

Surprisingly, Legend's falsetto actually works well for "Poor Jerusalem." It makes sense, though, as this part is meant to be a bit gentler and more downtrodden. He sounds really nice.

Side note: when did they change the "but you close your eyes" line to "but you live a lie?" Is that just for this version or was it changed previously? I feel like it doesn't really add anything.

~Pilate's Dream~

Not much to say here either, it's a pretty short song. I will say I really like Pilate's outfit. The colors are reminiscent of '73 version, which is an immediate like from me. I also like how Pilate looked straight into the camera at the end of the song. Pretty impactful even if I know for a fact they went to commercial break right after that.

~The Temple~

Okay. I'd die for these guitarists. I love whenever they're on stage! They're killing it!

Anyway, I found it pretty funny that the temple-goers just started dumping glitter on the ground. I wrote in my notes "Slay ig," so, slay ig.

It's pretty cool too how the "temple" is literally just a huge cross on the ground. The slow movement of the camera makes this a languid realization, which is neat.

Speaking of which, I forgot to mention that the camerawork so far has been really good. I never feel like I'm watching something stagnant, yet I still feel like a part of the audience. Good job, NBC crew.

"My temple should be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves" is my favorite part of the original movie. It's so undeniably powerful, and Neely's rock-belt is just heavenly to listen to. (He performs it live, too, so I know it isn't just a trick of the recording studio).

Legend's version of this line? Eh, it was alright. It was honestly better than I was expecting. I was really worried he was just gonna sing it the way it was written and go for the falsetto, but he instead chose to stay in his range. He also has an intentional voice break, indicating a bit of emotion, which is nice to see. I don't know why he sings the "get outs" in lowercase; it's just kind of funny.

The lepers sound really good, but when Legend is trying to sing his part over them, I can hardly hear him. What I did hear, though, was like? Really good? Super rock-sounding. Hopefully we hear more of that later...

~I Don't Know How to Love Him~

No notes. She slayed.

Yvonne Elliman supremacy, but Sara Bareilles Mary Magdalene now has a place in my heart. I'm glad I watched this production if just for her, honestly.

~Damned for all Time / Blood Money~

What can I say? The priests are spooky, the lighting is badass, and Norm Lewis is the best singer here.

As far as Judas goes, Dixon is doing exceedingly well for how ridiculously hard this song is to sing. Carl Anderson owns this song in my heart, but Dixon is not disappointing. He makes up for the lack of insane belting by adding his own runs, and it works well. I wrote in my notes that "Brandon actually looks like emotions are happening," so, yeah. Also, the BICEPS! Needless to say, I was enjoying it.

~The Last Supper~

I forgot why I wrote "Aw, gay apostles" in my notes, but going back to it, I noticed how much hugging kissing was going on between these guys. Can't complain, love a good smooch.

Mary is also in this scene, which differs from the movie. And she shows her hospitality towards Judas, which is cute. I always wished they had Judas and Mary interact more in the movie.

Legend sounds good at the beginning. Once again, this song is well within his range, and his falsettos don't feel too out of place. However, they didn't put a pause between the "when you eat and drink" line and the "I must be mad" line, which I thought was odd.

When the accusations start flying, Jesus just. Doesn't seem mad. Judas does, and Dixon completely upstages Legend in this scene.

After the apostles sing a second time, and Judas starts dishing out the insults to Jesus, I feel like it should have been more one-on-one and personal. I would've had the apostles move further away or even leave the stage for this part.

Oof. Legend singing "Get out!" in falsetto was just... not good. When the audience clapped for it I cringed so hard.

Let's see if Legend can redeem himself with the next song...

~Gethsemane~

With how bad everyone made it out to be, I was expecting Legend to completely biff it here. But to my surprise, he really stepped it up here, in both terms of singing and acting. Obviously, it was nowhere near as impactful as Gillan or Neely's versions, but I could at least see that Legend was trying. This part made me recognize that he isn't necessarily a bad actor, he just isn't consistent enough in his performance for it to be believable that he is in character.

He displayed some really impressive rock-belting midway through the song, right around where most people usually go for the g5 note. It sounds so gravelly and crisp, and I really wish he used it more during this performance. Additionally, I am very happy that he didn't go for the g5. That part usually makes or breaks the performance, and with Legend I think we know which way the egg was gonna fall.

There were some good choices made here as well as some bad ones. He still did some nasty falsettos in the latter half of the song, which actually made me laugh. Seriously, who convinced him that was okay? I feel like this would have been a well-regarded performance without that.

Overall, I'm impressed. The weak points were weak, but few, and the strong points were really strong. It wasn't nearly as poor as people made it out to be.

~The Arrest~

The kiss was nice and tender. I like the way Jesus hugs Judas afterwards too, that was very sweet. For some reason it sounded like Legend said "Judas, must you betray me with a gay?" which I thought was pretty funny.

I like how the arrest was framed as a news stint, with reporters and mics and all that. It was also pretty neat how they interspersed the solo lines with ensemble lines.

~Peter's Denial~

Peter was good, but the real standout here was that guy with the phone that sang "But I saw him too, he looked just like you." God DAMN! They went OFF!! Can he play Judas next please?

~Pilate and Christ~

Pilate is really the one bringing the camp here. He ate this up.

~King Herod's Song~

Well. What do you want me to say here? It's Alice Cooper. Do you really think I am physically, mentally, or legally capable of criticizing Alice Cooper?

I'll spare you the fangirling I did in my notes app; just know I, as well as the audience, was very happy to see this man doing his thing.

Also, as a rocker, he actually made this song fit with the rest of the play, which is truly a feat.

(Still not as good as his episode on The Muppets).

~Could we Start Again Please~

Even though I love Sara as Mary, and Peter did a good job as well, I wish they included more ensemble in this song. I feel like it's more impactful that way as it shows that there were still people who believed in Jesus. Still, I'm so glad they decided to keep this song in most JCS productions because it's one of my favorites.

~Judas's Death~

Oh no, he lost the leather vest! I'm not complaining though... 😏

This is the part where I praise Dixon for his showmanship, 'cause this man just got THROWN and he KEPT SINGING! I found that to be very impressive. Though I will say, the increase in his emotional performance seems to cause his singing to suffer a bit. To be fair, it's an incredibly hard part to sing.

Aside from Jesus going bonkers in the Temple, Judas' reprise of "I Don't Know How to Love Him" is my favorite scene in the original movie. Did Dixon live up to my expectations? Well, considering my expectations were pretty low to begin with, he exceeded them.

This is seriously the best acting I've seen in the whole play. Dixon completely sells his performance. Consider me a proud and satisfied viewer.

Although, quick PSA to the audience. You don't actually have to clap every time a man sings in falsetto, mkay? Thanks <3

~Trial Before Pilate~

This song is notorious for its difficult timing considering it's just talksingtalksingtalk *BUM* talksingtalksingtalk *BUM* for a bit. This Pilate though? Yeah, he nails it. I was really impressed by his performance. Also, when he said "talk to me Jesus Christ," that was the most sexual tension I've seen in a stage play, wow.

I don't really understand what was going on in the flogging scene, because the ensemble members were just running past him individually, but Legend was selling it. It definitely looked like he was in pain, and the lashes on his back didn't look sloppy or rushed.

Another emotional crux of the play is when Pilate basically yells "DON'T LET ME STOP YOUR GREAT SELF DESTRUCTION!!" I was a little let down by this guy's performance of these lines honestly. However, he was virtually perfect the rest of the time so I can't really be mad.

~Superstar~

THIS. THIS IS IT.

For whatever reason, Dixon just decided to turn the iconic scale up to 1000. The diamond laced fit. The dancing. The footwork. Everything about this performance was absolutely incredible, and I am just ecstatic about it. I mean, the man was full on spinning on the ground while singing. Every run he did now has a permanent residence in my brain. If you decide not to watch this version of JCS, I understand. I don't blame you. But if nothing else, please please PLEASE watch this part on Youtube. You won't regret it.

In the words of a close friend of mine, he slayed, ate it up, left no crumbs, licked it clean, you could eat off that plate again.

~The Crucifixion~

There were some lines in here that definitely weren't in the movie, and again, I'm not super familiar with the broadway play so I'm not sure how much of this was changed for this version alone. Nonetheless, Legend did a good job here. I mean, attempting to portray Jesus dying on a cross is a task to be sure, and he accomplished it.

~John Nineteen: Forty One~

There seemed to be some resurrection imagery here, so, congratulations Christians. He did the rising. (I am not religious, can you tell)?

I love me a good curtain call. They're just so joyous.

So! Was this production worth two hours of me composing my thoughts on it into a Tumblr post approximately five people will read? You tell me. I certainly enjoyed my time with it, and I hope to do this with more productions. I'm looking forward to watching both the 2012 revival and broadway productions, the 2014 Swedish one, and the 2000 movie. Please let me know if you have any suggestions for others I might enjoy or that you would like to see a breakdown of.

[brainbuffering]

The Invisible Man and His Soon-To-Be Wife Manga Review (A: Iwatobineko T: Elena Kirilovna L: Vanessa Satone E: Kristina Korpus)

[ID: English Book cover of The Invisible Man And His Soon-To-Be Wife by Iwatobineko Vol 1. An invisible man in a pin stripe suit and polka dot tie sits on a plush green leather sofa. He reads a book in one hand, and holds the hand of the young woman next to him with the other. The girl has a red/brown bob cut, and wears a long black skirt with a matching black sweater-vest over the top of an untucked cream blouse. Her eyes are closed, and her spare hand grasps her skirt in her lap. Text in calligraphy underneath reads “we were meant to be together.” END ID]

I put this book as my most anticipated for 2023 and so when it finally came out I felt honour bound to write an immediate review! As I said before, I am always on the look out for new series with disabled characters in the lead and as a fan of goofy and cheesy romance this one did look promising! 

The story is a series of short comics following Yakou Shizuka – a young visually impaired/legally blind woman who works as an assistant at a detective agency – and her boss Tounome Akira – a dapper detective whose body is invisible. The series takes place in an 'anything goes' fantasy world that combines Furries, Elves and Aliens in a seamless melting pot. So if you're looking for a serious detective story, this is not the series for you. The "cases" exist mostly for humour's sake, without any sort of reward or character development put in place through them. 

Artistically the series stands out due to its use of sky blue backgrounds. Whilst it definitely makes for a visually pleasing alternative after reading lots of just black and white manga, it does equally feel like a little bit of a cheat's way out of drawing backgrounds. A stone I throw knowing full well that I live in a glass house. I do think that Iwatobineko did an excellent job of drawing all of Tounome's suits though, so if you're a fan of dapper men in dapper suits, it's definitely worth taking a look at. 

I love the concept of a person who cannot be seen falling in love with someone who cannot see. Whilst the series plays into the "I lack one sense so all my other senses are increased ten fold" trope I don't mind it in a fantasy setting, especially as it still presents Yakou's disability as something very real. It's interesting to note that the series only presents her disability as a problem for her in relation to how other people behave. She would not have had a problem walking to work if someone hadn't thoughtlessly left their bike in the middle of the road. If nobody had sat in her preferred spot then she'd never have sat down in someone's lap! It presents these things in a light hearted way, appropriate to the tone of the series, but still does – in my opinion – an honest job of pointing out that it is not always disabilities that are debilitating, but rather having to live in a world where able-bodied people do not take your needs into account.

I also appreciated how Tounome's invisibility was presented as often disabling. Whilst Yakou suffers from bumping into unexpected objects, Tounome is the one being bumped into by strangers. He also struggles to take care of himself sometimes due to not being able to see his own body, something that he and Yakou bond over. With only one volume out so far, we're only just scratching the surface of what sort of stories can be told but I think so far it's off to a strong start.

I am not visually impaired (although my MG does cause intermittent double vision so I suppose jury's out on that one) so I cannot judge in terms of whether the series offers good representation or not, however I was happy to see that Iwatobineko did their research. In the back material they talk about how they consulted numerous visually impaired people at the Kansai Student Library (http://kansaisl.web.fc2.com) before writing the series. This research shows through in the little things, such as Yakou's use of assistive technology in both her day-to-day life and her workplace. 

I appreciated that in the opening page when describing the world that these characters exist in we see not only a crowd of different fantasy races, but multiple disabled characters too! Including what I am going to insist is a cameo of Yuki and Itsuomi from "A Sign of Affection". 

I would add that the series does feature a "Dark Elf" and "White Elf" couple, where the male "Dark Elf" is the only recurring character with dark skin. Many before me have spoken of the inherent problematic nature of "Dark Elves" as a concept. The choice to use "White Elf" as the social counterpoint rather than "Light Elf" is perhaps a little troubling, especially since the series leans into the couple being seen as deviant in the eyes of elf society. The couple themselves are the manga trope of "Husband is a goofball who can't read the room, and the wife is a sophisticated beauty who will drag him away violently by the collar" so I don't feel as though they're falling into any particular racial stereotypes, but this is absolutely a "Your Mileage May Vary" situation that I don't feel qualified to speak on with any authority. I'd be very interested to hear the opinions of BIPOC folks on this one though! 

Other than the decision to go with "White Elf" over "Light Elf" (although I am still not certain which would be best and would be happy to take consultation on that one!) I felt as though the translation read very smoothly, and everyone had Very clear characterisation. The lettering was solid, and I enjoyed how different typefaces were used throughout to convert tone of voice. I felt as though it helped to aid with the characterisation and humour of the series. 

On the whole, I don't think that this manga is going to be any sort of game changer. It's a fun little series of sweet romance stories about an engaging couple but doesn't really go anywhere beyond that. Whilst I do want to see how their relationship develops, I am not routing for them in the same way I route for – say – Kyo and Tohru from Fruits Basket. If you're looking for a romance featuring disabled characters that has a little more depth to it than "I Hear the Sunspot" would probably be more your speed. 

However, true equality is that there are just as many light hearted romcoms about disabled folks as there are about able-bodied ones! Whilst I wouldn't say that you should rush out and buy the series immediately, if you're looking for some non heteronormative stories that explore romance between disabled people it is something I would recommend reading. 

I would give it a solid 3 stars in total! 

[screenmaven]

Film Share Sunday - with Banannasui

*update as of 10/27/23 I am no longer doing film shares do to a hectic time in my life, I do however appreciate anyone who has taken the time to join me in that spotlight. I may return to in the future, but for now I do not have time.*

I usually spotlight creators Top 5 Favorite Films each Sunday, via my SCREENMAVEN Instagram (now just starrymayx) but this week I welcome an extension of that to the blog. I love fashion probably as much as I love film, so it’s a two for one special when a film produces both.

I had the pleasure of connecting with one of my favorite fashion content creators Banannasui, and wanted to share her insight into why she highly acclaims these as her top 5 fashion films.

Charlie’s Angels (2000)

The 2000 Charlie’s Angels is fast-paced, flirty, lurid in both color and dialogue, and I feel like the outfits completely reflect that. The opening scene alone give us Cameron Diaz wearing the ultimate accessory that bridged the late 90s and early 00s: gradient sunglasses adorned with rhinestones (hers specifically were from Chloé). I remember reading that the costume designer had stacked up 3,000+ outfits for the movie, with each of the three girls having a wardrobe cultivated specifically for their character; Cameron is the all-American girl, Lucy is sophisticated and mature (her cooking muffins in a leather corset is amazing), and Drew is the scrappy rebel-type. Overall the movie is such a fun, campy feast for the eyes, but I think my absolute favorite outfits are the trio of glossy red white & blue jumpsuits they don on the racetrack.

The Bling Ring (2013)

God, it’s such a period piece of its time. A millennial’s period piece. The outfits aren’t ones I’d necessarily consider fashionable now, but (the year it came out) it was the pinnacle of it! The skinny jeans with pumps, the Uggs, the clunky jewelry, the scene of them walking out with their iced coffees wearing capes and vests and scarves and pencil skirts. All staples of that weird time period where office-chic infiltrated Polyvore boards. I love movies where the outfits are such a direct reflection of the person wearing them, it elevates the wearer to the point where you stop seeing them as the actor and start seeing them as the character. Especially when the one dressing them does their homework! Case in point, costume designer Stacey Battat said she bought every back issue of US Weekly from 2003 in preparation for dressing the cast, and then incorporated elements of the early 2010s as well, in order to make the time period of the movie feel more ambiguous. Although not included in the film, thinking of the outfits reminds me of a line from the famous Alexis Neiers phone call to Nancy Jo Sales: “..you saying that I wore six inch Louboutins heels to court with my tweed skirt, when I wore four inch little brown Bebe shoes.” It’s just so of its time.

Faster Pussycat! Kill Kill! (1965)

I love, love, love the outfits for Faster, Pussycat! It’s campy, visceral, with an appropriate amount of violence— you can see echoes of it in John Waters and Quentin Tarantino films (both of whom have cited the movie as inspiration). The outfits within the movie are very 60s, composed of simple shirts and jeans, yet are menacing, sexy, and striking. There’s no shortage of tight pieces and plunging necklines, yet the provocativeness doesn’t feel exploitative or demeaning. I like the idea of sex as armor in this movie, a notion expanded upon by Robert Ebert in a 1995 review. Despite the much exposed skin and cleavage, Ebert notes that the director, Russ Meyers, “from the beginning of his career and almost without exception, has filmed only situations in which women wreak their will upon men.” The trio of intimidating women in this film constantly leave behind a streak of havoc, literally snapping men’s spines and running them over with cars. They do all this whilst donning tiny tops, push up bras, hot pants, and bikinis, taking full control of their situations. It subverts the girly 60s look, both in attitude and appearance. Personally, I especially love Billie’s (Lori Williams) looks in the movie, in particular her iconic white hot-pants and polka-dotted crop top getup.

Female Trouble (1974)

I love 70s fashion, a lot. I also enjoy the garish vibrancy of camp, where the attitude of the story bleeds into the wardrobe. Female Trouble deploys all of that, served on a sickening platter of glitz and glamor. The John Waters film stars legendary drag queen Divine, and is chocked full of fashion references to the 50s and 60s, splicing decades of style together in a way that matches the pacing and overall attitude of the movie. There’s beehive hairdos and pastels, as well as brightly colored dresses, slick animal prints, heavy eye makeup, sequins, and fur coats. It’s very gaudy, very glamorous, and very much full of fashion inspiration. I actually originally found out about this movie due to fashion collections that took cues from the film, namely Miu Miu spring ‘15 and Adam Selman fall ‘15.

I love how despite the frivolity and outrageous storytelling that the outfits weave, they’re also very stylish in a wearable way. I mean, the orange transparent mini dress with a fur coat and sky-high hair? I’d wear it.

Blow Up (1966)

It’s a cult fashion movie, and for good reason. The movie takes place in the midst of the swinging sixties, and the clothing is accordingly immersed in the world of mod: flats with tights, kitten heels, a-line mini dresses, sharp lines and sleek ensembles that evokes imagery of both Twiggy in Vogue, and Edie Sedgwick in her iconic black tights and chandelier earrings (though of course, Edie had shrugged away the label of mod). It’s very much representative of its time, notably featuring a young Jane Birkin, as well as legendary model Veruschka playing herself. Some of the frames in the movie might as well have been pictures of collections from the iconic designers of that era, including Mary Quant, André Courrèges, and Pierre Cardin. It’s fun, simple glamor, encapsulating the time in which it was created.

I’ve always loved the style of this era of the sixties, and how it’s portrayed in Blow Up; simple mini dresses that accentuate attention-stealing pieces such as fur coats and red tights (which are timeless, even now). Nothing beats a barely there a-line dress to me, and they are bountiful in this movie.

I myself (screenmaven) absolutely love Blow Up!! That one is definitely on my film style list.

Thanks again, for sharing with me and my followers your insight into style through film.

Follow @ starrymayx on IG & banannasui for more great content.

[roseclothes]

Stella McCartney FW23

From Anders Christian Madsen's review for Vogue

Judging from the models’ stoicism in these pictures, it’s hard to believe that seven un-haltered white Camargue horses were running around the sand-strewn arena immediately to the left of the runway. They entered the Manège de l'École Militaire to a fanfare of Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode—“reach out, touch faith!”—wafting their long silvery manes as they galloped through the 18th century riding ring. They were joined by the horse whisperer Jean-François Pignon, who gently encouraged them to rear, run in circles and roll around in the sand. “There’s so much leather and feather and fur on the runway, especially in winter, and I just wanted to show that you can do it in a different way. You don’t have to kill anything,” Stella McCartney said after the show.

“It’s beautiful: the tailoring, the bespoke work. As someone who studied that for many years, you can’t get away from it,” she said, reflecting on those uniforms. “The relationship between the man and the woman and the horse and nature, it’s this kind of pull-and-push, and I think there’s a poetry at the center of it all.” McCartney applied her equestrian grammar to the Y2K language of her own fashion history, which she first re-introduced last season. The fusion materialized in skimpy hussar jackets, little cropped vests, deconstructed denim suits from another equestrian culture, and low-riding trousers that infused McCartney’s Chloé-era draped hip chains with fresh tack associations.

Those memories continued in dresses and knitwear that revived the horse print from her spring/summer 2001 collection for Chloé, albeit in a blurry evocation. McCartney’s ongoing rekindling with her own archives from her tenure at the house is timely—it’s what the kids want (just ask her teenaged daughter) but it’s clearly also invigorating the designer in new ways. Everything suddenly feels a little bit more impassioned in the house of Stella. Last season’s oversized blazers and coats were back today—as on many other runways this month—now adorned in the checks of horse blankets and some sculpted with the nipped-in waists of hunting jackets. As a nod to her family history, McCartney emblazoned her mother's horse photography on evening dresses, and the horse photography of her sister Mary on shirts—one worn by Pignon himself.

Asked to elaborate on the relationship between the collection and horses, McCartney smiled: “I guess the main relationship is that they’re alive and the clothes haven’t killed anything. There’s a celebration of everyone living in harmony together.” Next to an exhaustive list of the sustainable materials that made up the collection (too long to mention but accessible on her website), she enforced that philosophy in three new handbags created from state-of-the-art alternatives to animal leather: one from the plant-based, plastic-free and circular material MIRIUM; another crafted in croc-effect AppleSkin made from apple waste; and the first-ever bag made from a white version of the mushroom material Mylo.

[transfagholmes]

[ID: a tumblr post with a photo of three brown teddy bears in black leather gear, including trousers, vests, harnesses, metal chains, hats and the last one in a jockstrap with handcuffs, a collar and a blindfold. A banner above it says, "We reviewed your post and determined it needed a Community Label." There is an option to request a second review. End ID]

Not one of their cocks are even showing. Wtf?

[lesacollection]

Why Every Biker Needs a High-Quality Men's Biker Vest

For motorcycle enthusiasts, the right gear is essential for both safety and style. Among the various items in a biker's wardrobe, a high-quality men's biker vest stands out as a must-have piece. This article will delve into the reasons why every biker should invest in a premium biker vest, highlighting its benefits and essential features.

The Importance of a High-Quality Biker Vest

A biker vest is more than just a fashion statement; it's a practical piece of gear that offers numerous advantages. Here's why a high-quality men's biker vest is indispensable:

1. Protection and Safety

One of the primary reasons bikers wear vests is for the added protection they provide. Made from durable materials such as leather or high-grade textiles, biker vests offer an extra layer of defense against road rash and minor injuries in case of an accident. The robust construction of these vests can significantly reduce the risk of skin abrasions and other injuries.

2. Comfort and Versatility

High-quality biker vests are designed with the rider's comfort in mind. They are often tailored to fit snugly without restricting movement, allowing bikers to ride comfortably for long periods. Additionally, biker vests are versatile and can be worn over various types of clothing, making them suitable for different weather conditions and riding environments.

3. Storage Solutions

Many biker vests come equipped with multiple pockets, providing convenient storage for essential items like keys, wallets, and mobile phones. Some vests also feature concealed carry pockets for those who need to carry a firearm. This functionality ensures that bikers have easy access to their belongings without the need for additional bags.

4. Style and Identity

A biker vest is a key element of the biker's identity. It allows riders to express their personality and affiliation with particular motorcycle clubs or groups. Customizable patches and embroidery make each vest unique, reflecting the rider's journey and experiences. A well-crafted vest can also enhance a biker's overall look, adding a rugged and stylish touch to their outfit.

Features of a High-Quality Men's Biker Vest

When choosing a biker vest, it's crucial to look for certain features that ensure quality and functionality. Here are some key attributes to consider:

1. Premium Materials

Look for vests made from high-quality leather or durable textiles. Full-grain leather is particularly prized for its strength and ability to develop a unique patina over time, enhancing the vest's appearance and character.

2. Reinforced Stitching

High-quality vests feature reinforced stitching in critical areas to withstand the wear and tear of regular use. Double or triple-stitched seams provide additional durability and longevity.

3. Functional Design

A good biker vest should have a practical design with ample pocket space, adjustable closures, and ventilation features. These elements contribute to the vest's overall functionality and comfort.

4. Customization Options

The ability to customize your vest with patches, embroidery, and other personal touches is a significant advantage. Customization not only adds to the vest's aesthetic appeal but also makes it uniquely yours.

Choosing the Right Biker Vest for You

Selecting the perfect biker vest involves considering your specific needs and preferences. Here are some tips to help you make the right choice:

1. Determine Your Needs

Think about what you need from a biker vest. Do you prioritize protection, storage, or style? Understanding your priorities will help narrow down your options.

2. Try Before You Buy

If possible, try on different vests to find the best fit. A well-fitting vest should be snug but not restrictive, allowing for comfortable movement and layering.

3. Read Reviews

Check online reviews and ratings to learn about other riders' experiences with various vests. This can provide valuable insights into the quality and performance of the vest you're considering.

4. Consider the Climate

Choose a vest that suits your typical riding conditions. For example, if you ride in warmer climates, look for vests with ventilation features or made from breathable materials.

Conclusion

A high-quality men's biker vest is an essential piece of gear for any serious rider. It offers protection, comfort, storage, and a way to express your unique style and identity. By investing in a premium biker vest, you're not only enhancing your riding experience but also ensuring that you're prepared for whatever the road throws your way.

Explore the wide range of high-quality men's biker vests available at LESA Collection USA and find the perfect vest to suit your needs. Ride safe, ride in style!

[hillslicensing-blog]

Lightweight Choices: Top Leather Biker Vest Designs for Comfort

New Post has been published on https://ashipwreckinthesand.com/lightweight-choices-top-leather-biker-vest-designs-for-comfort/

Lightweight Choices: Top Leather Biker Vest Designs for Comfort

Benefits of Lightweight Biker Vests for Long Motorcycling Trips

Comfort, functionality, and safety are essential for lengthy motorcycle rides. A lightweight biker vest is necessary for bikers looking to improve their ride. This vest provides extra protection, storage, and mobility on lengthy trips.

Leather is used to make motorcycle vests because it is durable and protective. However, contemporary materials science has created other possibilities, including lightweight fabrics that retain leather’s protective characteristics without being heavy. These vests make it easier to move and feel less tired, which is helpful for long trips.

Comfort is a significant feature of a lightweight vest. Heavy leather might become too constricting, especially in warmer weather. However, lightweight vests are made from modern synthetic materials, lightweight leather, and breathable components. These materials wick moisture and improve airflow, regulating the rider’s body temperature and reducing sweat. Riders can focus better and travel more comfortably by remaining calm and dry.

Additionally, these vests have many valuable functions. Multiple pockets with secure closures protect personal goods in many lightweight vests. These can include wallets, phones, maps, tools, and hydration packs for biking. These pockets are strategically placed for convenient access while riding, preventing the need to stop or fumble dangerously.

Safety is another benefit of lightweight biker vests. They often have reflective materials, which improves the rider’s visibility to other drivers. This capability is crucial in low-light settings like dawn, dusk, and fog. Some vests have padding or armor in high-impact areas like the back and chest for further safety.

Highly versatile lightweight vests are suitable for riders who travel in different temperatures and terrains. Weather resistance is crucial for these vests. They can be used over jackets or thermal gear in colder climates for extra insulation. In warmer temperatures, the vests’ breathability keeps you cool.

These vests also sustain extended rides due to their resilience. Quality lightweight vests resist wear and tear for long-term performance. The vest��s resilience protects the cyclist from road rash and other accident-related skin abrasions.

Besides safety and functionality, lightweight biker vests are attractive. They can enhance a rider’s look and show personal flair with various designs and colors. This appeals to riders whose motorbike gear reflects their individuality and riding style.

Lightweight biker vests improve the riding experience as a whole, in addition to the benefits they provide to the rider. Low weight means less energy is expended managing the bike, which can improve control and prevent fatigue-related errors. Long rides require endurance, so mental and physical attentiveness are crucial for safety.

Lightweight motorcycle vests reflect the motorcycling industry’s shift toward ergonomic and rider-focused designs. Manufacturers realize riders require gear supporting performance, comfort, and safety. These vests are developed with significant study and rider feedback to fulfill high road safety standards.

Lightweight biker vests are a significant advancement in motorcycle gear. Riders benefit from their comfort, functionality, and protection during extended rides. As biking culture evolves, demand for such specialized gear will undoubtedly rise, driving manufacturers to innovate. Any rider wishing to improve their long-distance bicycling experience should invest in a lightweight biker vest for safety, style, and practicality.

Top lightweight biker vest reviews

Motorcycle aficionados must choose gear for comfort and safety as well as style. Due to its versatility and freedom on the road, a lightweight biker vest is essential. A nice vest can improve riding in cities or harsh terrain. This analysis examines some of the best lightweight biker vests, their features, benefits, and why they may be the perfect addition to your riding gear.

Traditional leather and modern synthetic motorbike vests offer different benefits. Thanks to material advancements, vests are now light, resilient, and able to defend against the elements and accidents. These vests provide substantial pocket capacity, adjustable fittings, and ventilation systems to meet riders’ needs in different conditions.

The Shift Recon Venture Vest redefines biker gear with adaptability and comfort. This vest’s sturdy textile chassis and strategically placed stretch panels give energetic riders a wide range of motion. The design cleverly integrates the ventilation system to optimize airflow and regulate body temperature on warmer rides. Its hydration-ready rear pocket lets long-distance travelers get water without stopping or unpacking.

Icon Stryker Vest stresses safety without sacrificing weight. Impact-protecting D3O armor is used in the vest. Usually flexible, this armor stiffens upon impact, giving excellent protection. The vest’s low-profile back protector covers the spine, making it safer than ordinary vests. A secure fit from the adjustable waist straps keeps the armor in place throughout rides and crashes.

Alpinestars Oscar Charlie Leather Vest is an excellent option for leather lovers who wish to stay light. The timeless beauty and durability of fine leather are combined with current styling. The vest’s perforated leather panels add style and breathability. This vest also has a snap-button front fastening and a rear panel that fits Alpinestars back protectors for added protection.

The Viking Cycle Denim Motorcycle Vest is a lightweight, affordable alternative. This excellent denim vest is rugged and casual, not “motorcycle gear” at first impression. It has several deep pockets for keys, wallets, and phones. This vest is popular since it may be worn over a T-shirt on hot days or over thicker items in colder weather.

Finally, the Tourmaster Synergy Pro-Plus Heated Vest addresses cold-weather cycling with innovative technology. Unlike standard vests, this heated vest gives controlled warmth across the chest and back via a digital controller. This function prevents muscular stiffness and fatigue during lengthy, chilly rides and keeps you comfortable. Lightweight and warm, the vest perfectly blends comfort and technology.

Different vests emphasize safety, durability, comfort, and style. Vest selection depends on riding climate, motorbike type, and personal style. Riders should examine these features and the vest’s build quality and material to ensure it looks beautiful and provides the protection and utility needed for safe and pleasurable riding.

Manufacturers design vests to meet modern riders’ diverse needs as demand for more advanced and versatile motorcycle gear rises. These lightweight vests lead this progression, giving riders several alternatives to improve their riding experience without weighing them down. A lightweight biker vest is more than just clothing it’s a rider’s armory, ready to face the road ahead, whether in urban or beautiful settings.

[denimbex1986]

'Andrew Scott looked typically handsome on Wednesday, as he attended the premiere of his new series, Ripley, in Los Angeles.

The actor, 47, beamed as he posed with his co-star Dakota Fanning, after receiving rave reviews for his performance in the show.

Andrew plays the lead role of the ruthless Tom Ripley in the Netflix adaptation, previously portrayed by Matt Damon in the 1999 version, The Talented Mr Ripley.

The Irish star looked dapper in an olive green suit, teamed with a white vest and black leather loafers.

While, Dakota, 30, dazzled in an ethereal white gown, with an asymmetrical neckline and floaty layered skirt.

The actress stars in Ripley as wealthy socialite, Marge Sherwood, famously played by Gwyneth Paltrow in the 1999 film.

Ripley was released on Netflix on Thursday and the first reviews have flooded in, with critics praising the 'work of art' visuals and Andrew's stellar performance.

The eight-episode series is the latest adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's 1955 crime novel, which inspired an entire genre of psychological thrillers.

Alongside Andrew and Dakota, the cast also boasts appearance from Johnny Flynn, Elliot Sumner, Maurizio Lombardi, Margherita Buy, and John Malkovich.

Set in the 1960s, it follows calculating grifter Tom Ripley as he is hired by the wealthy Herbert Greenleaf to travel to Italy in a last ditch bid to convince his wayward, jazz loving son Dickie to return home.

There, he is introduced to a life of wealth and privilege beyond his wildest dreams and endeavours to finagle his way into the comfortable lives of Dickie and his immediate circle of friends and lovers - with inevitably murderous consequences.

The Daily Mail's Christopher Stevens gave the series a five star review, as did The Guardian, saying: 'There is magic at work here.'

Andrew's performance received the most attention, with The Times writing: 'Scott, as you would expect, is outstanding — mesmeric as the polite, clever but ruthless psychopath.'

While the Evening Standard declared: 'Andrew Scott is a magnificent Tom Ripley, inhabiting that compellingly ambivalently malevolent outsider character so well.'

Andrew admitted Ripley was 'a heavy part to play,' telling Vanity Fair that he 'found it mentally and physically really hard. That's just the truth of it'.

'I feel like you're required to love and advocate for your characters, and your job is to go, "Why? What's that?" You don't play the opinions, the previous attitudes that people might have about Tom Ripley.

'You have to throw all those out, try not to listen to them, and go, "Okay, well, I have to have the courage to create our own version and my own understanding of the character."''

[homedekorideasuk]

Best Mens Leather Clothing Products

When looking for high quality men's leather clothing, look no further than Emiliano Zapata. As the premier brand for men's clothing, Emiliano Zapata has been crafting top-notch leather apparel for decades. Browsing their website at www.emilianozapata.com, you'll find a wide selection of buttery soft leather jackets, coats, trousers, and accessories that are built to last season after season. Some of their best sellers include cowhide bomber jackets, distressed leather blazers, and moto-inspired vests - all featuring top-grain leather and attention to detail. For pant options, their leather trousers come in an array of washes from rigid to distressed and are cut with a slimming silhouette. And no leather collection is complete without wallets, belts and other accessories.

Emiliano Zapata men's style clothing understands the desire of modern men to blend style and comfort. Their leather apparel manages to be both stylishly rugged and ruggedly stylish. With countless five-star reviews praising their superb craftsmanship and durability, it's clear that Emiliano Zapata is the premier place to shop for high-quality, investment-worthy men's leather clothing. Browse their site today to see their full assortment of buttery soft jackets, pants, and accessories to complete your look.

[gamingaccessories]

Best Mens Leather Clothing Products

When looking for high quality men's leather clothing, look no further than Emiliano Zapata. As the premier brand for men's clothing, Emiliano Zapata has been crafting top-notch leather apparel for decades. Browsing their website at www.emilianozapata.com, you'll find a wide selection of buttery soft leather jackets, coats, trousers, and accessories that are built to last season after season. Some of their best sellers include cowhide bomber jackets, distressed leather blazers, and moto-inspired vests - all featuring top-grain leather and attention to detail. For pant options, their leather trousers come in an array of washes from rigid to distressed and are cut with a slimming silhouette. And no leather collection is complete without wallets, belts and other accessories.

Emiliano Zapata men's style clothing understands the desire of modern men to blend style and comfort. Their leather apparel manages to be both stylishly rugged and ruggedly stylish. With countless five-star reviews praising their superb craftsmanship and durability, it's clear that Emiliano Zapata is the premier place to shop for high-quality, investment-worthy men's leather clothing. Browse their site today to see their full assortment of buttery soft jackets, pants, and accessories to complete your look.