#my best friend is going to wake up to so many unhinged voice messages and screenshots

[kiwichaeng]

sorry I didn't reply to your messages a supernatural fic consumed me

[coconutcordiale]

wasted + rooster please! congratulations 💝

golden hour

pairing- rooster x afab reader

warnings- 18+, unprotected piv, slight dumbification/degradation, light d/s, dom bradley, mention of oral (f receiving), completely unedited

length- 1.2k

an- thank you so much love!!! for the prompt "i know baby, i know" & many apologies for the wait on these celly requests. this was written in like....20 minutes. i have no idea if it's good or not

edit- realizing the next morning whatever took over my brain to write this was clearly inspired by @gretagerwigsmuse and the bradley & smart aleck cinematic universe (pls go read that it’s way better than this)

You don’t know how you ended up here. Mere hours ago, you were seconds away from killing Abby for making you go to the Hard Deck. Military bars all have the same kind of guy.

Now, your brain is melting out of your ears as you attempt to take in the gorgeous man above you, his sharp features glowing in the setting sun that filters through his salt-stained windows.

“Fuck,” Bradley groans from where he’s doing his best to bend you in half. “Feel so good, like you were made for me.”

That’s hot, your brain supplies as your eyes catch his biceps bulging where they bracket your head laid out on his pillow.

Shut up, you tell it, trying to keep some semblance of dignity in the face of having gone home with the exact kind of guy you swore you wouldn’t give the time of day.

You were excited when he first set down a fresh Jack and Coke for you at the bar, thinking this mustached man’s worn Hawaiian shirt equaled local instead of infantry. Unfortunately, his friends in khaki who kept trying to get Rooster’s attention quickly proved your instincts wrong.

It would’ve been easier not to end up in his bed if he didn’t look the way he does, brown puppy dog eyes so earnest and kind. If he hadn’t mentioned how much he loves to play Wordle, if his friends hadn't tried to coax him to the piano at least three times while you were there.

(If his arms weren’t threatening to break out of that old Hawaiian shirt.)

Your self-respect is getting shot to hell the longer you babble incoherent nonsense, breaking your gaze from his tan skin as your head lolls to the side, eyes going hazy and unfocused. He pulls all the way out to thrust back in again, slow and teasing, enough to bring you towards the edge again but not tip you over.

You know you’re whining, high-pitched and reedy, but you can’t find the wherewithal the stop any noises from tearing their way out of your throat.

It takes a Herculean effort to move your hands to his neck, tangling in those brown curls, wrapping your legs tight around his hips in an effort to ask for more, something your lips just can’t form right now.

Bradley grins, the edges a little sharp, a little mean as your pathetic whines must have gotten the message across. “Greedy little thing, aren’t you? Made you cum on my tongue and now you want more? Clench that tight cunt around my cock?”

Nodding desperately, you're feeling unhinged, your head bobbing up and down like a bobblehead. When you finally make yourself form actual words, your voice is wrecked. “Please – I need – ”

He catches your lips in a filthy kiss as those skillful fingers make their way down to your clit, stroking in strong, decisive circles. “I know baby, I know.”

Bradley speeds up and you get even louder, throat straining with the mewls leaving your lips.

“Cum for me,” he murmurs against your lips, cock hitting you just right on every thrust.

Your climax snaps through you almost immediately at his command, your back arching up into him and bringing him over the edge with you.

+

You leave the next morning before he wakes up. You can’t help it.

Sure, he’s hot, but you’re not actually going to date this guy. You just had a momentary lapse in judgment after seeing his deft fingers fly over piano keys, singing his heart out and so fully into the performance you thought the vein in his neck might burst. It was oddly endearing.

Every girl is a sucker for a guy who can sing. Serenades make logic and reasoning fly out the window. It’s totally not your fault.

So, it stands to reason that you nearly knock him down walking into the grocery store later that day. Because that’s the kind of fuck you the universe always has in mind for you.

“Hey,” Roos—no, Bradley, smiles, easy like you didn’t sneak out of his house without a second glance mere hours ago. He takes a look at the cold water bottle you have resting against your forehead, barely holding back his amusement. “Rough night?”

You want to glower at him but it’s hard to be mad at someone that looks like that under fluorescent lighting, turning away instead so you don’t have to stare at his unfairly beautiful face and remember what that ridiculous mustache feels like between your thighs. “Shut up.”

“I think you’re limping a little bit,” Bradley mock whispers as he follows you down the chips aisle.

He sounds way too proud of himself. You flip him off and he laughs, musical and happy despite the awkward circumstances. You can’t decide if you want to punch him or kiss him.

You and Bradley start talking at the same time, words rushed and overlapping.

“You snuck out before I got a chance to ask – ”

“Bradley, you seem like a nice guy, but I – ”

A tan arm reaches across you for a bag of salt and vinegar Lays and tossing them into his basket on the floor after you both fall silent. “You don’t like military guys.”

You freeze, mouth gaping open like a fish.

He shrugs. “It was pretty obvious last night.”

“I – yeah, I don’t – ” you stutter before pausing for a deep breath. “Not sure we’re a good fit, is all.”

Bradley nods. “I get it. I had fun with you though, and not just at my house. If you're willing to reconsider, I’d like to think I’m much more than my job.”

You purse your lips, wondering if your brain is actually broken as you consider taking him up his offer. He must catch on to your deliberation because he takes a step closer to you, big hand settling against your waist slow and gentle, giving you plenty of time to step away. Your feet are glued to the floor as you try not to sway into him and get lost in the spicy scent lingering on his tan skin.

“Breakfast,” he suggests when a few moments pass without you answering.

“It’s four p.m.,” you say warily.

He scrunches his nose like that’s inconsequential. “I’ll cook.”

“You know how to cook?”

He shoots you a withering glare and you smirk, pleased to have made him feel as wrong-footed as you’ve felt since he sat down across from you yesterday.

“Do you remember where my house is, or did you sprint out too quickly to notice?”

“I don’t remember saying yes.”

“You strike me as the kind of girl that isn’t afraid to tell me to fuck off.”

“So?”

He gestures at the lack of space between you with his free hand, where your body has betrayed you by leaning into his warmth. “This doesn’t feel like you telling me to go to hell.”

“It’s not,” you sigh, mouth twitching up at the corners despite your best efforts as you shove your basket into his hands. “Put my groceries on Uncle Sam’s bill.”

Bradley practically beams at that. “Of course. But you’ll have to come over to my place to get them, can’t have you sneaking off before I get a chance to play some Righteous Brothers for you.”

The picture that paints for you makes you want to melt. You’re fucked.

[flipwizardmcgay]

While camping out in the woods during their current mission, Riz decides to sweep the surrounding area. Fabian goes with him for protection.

On his fourth lap of the area, Riz hears a rustling behind him and sighs, turning.

“I thought I told you, I’m fine! You don’t have to keep checking up on me, Fabian!”

Said half-elf looks strangely sheepish as he shrugs, moving closer to stand under the tree Riz has perched himself up in. “Well, you can’t blame me. Someone did get kidnapped two days ago by a creepy version of themselves.”

Riz groans, sitting down on his branch and looking for a good place to jump back down. “You guys need to let that go. I can handle myself, plus, I’m not lying anymore! So no creatures made of lies can get me now!”

“Yes, well. Forgive me for being worried about my best friend, then.” Fabian huffs, and Riz pauses, the beginning of an alarm bell starting to go off in his head as he shakes it a little.

“So you’re admitting it?” he asks, smirking a little as he jumps down and stares up at Fabian, who looks briefly confused before shrugging.

“Slipped out, I suppose. Don’t make a big deal out of it, Riz.”

At the sound of his name, Riz freezes, whole body going tense for just a moment before he forces himself to relax, not wanting to alert the other person with him.

“W-whatever man. Hey, let’s get back to camp. Gilear and Cathilda must be almost done with dinner by now, and I’ve done so many laps that we’ve gotta be good, right?”

Fabian agrees easily (too easily) and Riz has to force himself not to run back to the campsite, to stay calm even as every bone in his body screams at him to get out of there.

When they do make it back, Riz forces his way over next to Fig, who’s scribbling in her songwriting notebook, and takes it easily, Fig’s only resistance being an annoyed, “Hey!”

“Sorry, just wanted to add something.” Riz says, handing it back with one finger placed so that it’s pointing at where he’s scribbled, ‘msg now’.

Fig’s eyes go wide when she sees, and Riz feels her instantly in his head. What’s going on?! Did you find something?! How come we can’t speak?!

That’s not Fabian he’s one of those nightmare duplicates he called me his best friend and then called me Riz I don’t want to tip him off because we need him to tell us where the real Fabian is Riz tells her, jumbled and panicked as he watches the thing talk easily with Tacker, the girl looking unfazed.

Fig looks at Riz, studying him for a long moment before nodding, almost imperceptibly, and turning to face Adaine, the two of them seeming to have their own mental conversation before Adaine turns to “Fabian” and her eyes glow a brief, brilliant, blue.

Once they return to normal, she turns to Fig with a panicked look, Boggy ribbiting softly in her arms, and Fig nods again and closes her eyes.

Riz watches the changes go over the group as Message hits them each in turn, subtle yet relieving.

Raug blinks before stepping closer to “Fabian”, wrapping his arm over its shoulder with a smile, tight and not meeting his eyes. Cathilda turns to face the thing masquerading as her employer, narrowing her eyes just a bit, hand going to one of her daggers. Tracker moves to stand in front of Kristen, still talking, while Kristen closes her book and stands along with Gorgug. Sandralynn takes a step back towards the van, helping a terrified-looking Gilear in.

And with a shout of, “NOW!” accompanied with the strum of a bass guitar, everyone springs into action, Raug and Tracker throwing the imposter to the ground and holding it there along with Gorgug, surrounded by Sandralynn and Cathilda, weapons drawn and pointed at it.

Riz pulls his Arcubus out of its holster and joins them, holding it directly at the imposter’s face.

“Where is he?” Riz grits out, voice almost hissed through the gaps in his teeth with how hard he was clenching them.

“Wha-who? Riz, I don’t-” it stutters out, making Fabian’s face look genuinely terrified.

Riz shoves his gun closer. “Don’t. You’re not him, don’t even fucking try.”

Almost instantaneously, the duplicate’s face changes, familiar features turning sinister and wrong and warped, and it bares sharp teeth in an approximation of a smile, voice now a horrifying familiar rasp, “What gave me away, Riz Gukgak? Did you recognize your romance partner?”

Riz feels bile rise in his throat, a tremble in his voice as he repeats, “What did you do with Fabian? Th-the same thing you did to me?”

“Why would I tell you? You have treated your romance partner very poorly, Riz Gukgak. I had thought you’d be more agreeable to this form.”

“Shut up!” Riz tells, feeling everyone’s eyes on him. “You’re not, and never will be!”

“Ohhhh, but you want, don’t you? Did I not tell you, Riz Gukgak, to do what it is you most want to do?” it asks, baring the sharp, terrible teeth, the approximation of Fabian’s mouth growing way too wide with its smirk.

“Right now, what I want most is for you to tell me where fucking Fabian is!” Riz hisses, pressing the barrel up to the thing’s throat, trying to quell the panic rising in his chest that they’ll know they’ll know they can’t know-

It’s smile grows impossibly wider, sharper. “Is that so? Well, then, Riz Gukgak, you may find your other partner where I left him in the woods to rest, like in the tales he so admires. I am surprised you did not notice before-”

Riz fires, taking off running as fast as his legs can carry him as the body goes limp under Raug and Tracker’s arms, scanning the surrounding area almost frantically for familiar white hair and dark skin.

He finds Fabian under a large oak, face down and looking so still and silent that Riz almost vomits with anxiety.

But when he turns him over, as gently and carefully as he can with his clawed fingers, he can feel a heartbeat under his fingers, see the rise and fall of his chest.

“Hey, man, wake up.” Riz says, shaking him a little harder than necessary, panic rising again when Fabian doesn’t so much as move.

He thinks back to what the creature had said, searching for some clue, something he’d missed-

“Like the tales he so admires-”

No. No, it couldn’t be-

But they knew so little of the Nightmare King and his abilities, and if a being made of lies that had been sent over and over again to torment him was possible, who was to say that being cursed to sleep until kissed wasn’t? And-and the thing had known, hadn’t it, the depth of Riz’s buried, ignored feelings, had called them ‘romance partners’ and had chosen Fabian specifically, and it couldn’t hurt to try…

And if it didn’t, who would know?

Riz bites his lip, realizing he was talking himself into it, and leans down, hesitating once more a bit away from Fabian’s (perfect, smooth) lips before letting himself press his own chapped, bitten ones to Fabian’s.

Nothing happens, and Riz feels a hot wash of shame as he pulls away, tears and nausea rising as he clenches his eyes shut and sniffles-

And then there’s a hand, strong and firm yet oh-so-gentle as it threads into his hair, tugging him back down to collide again with Fabian’s mouth, which was suddenly kissing him back with a ferocity that seemed to underlie everything Fabian did.

Riz feels more than hears the noise he makes, a yelp and a sob mixed together as he practically collapses into the body underneath him, his own fingers fisting in Fabian’s stupid letterman, shaking with relief and leftover fear and confusion.

Fabian’s smiling at him when they finally part, something soft and real that makes Riz want to sob even more, and whispers, “I do hope I’m awake, The Ball.”

In response, Riz jabs one of his fingers into Fabian’s chest, making the other boy yelp and shoot upwards, scowling.

“Oh, see if I kiss you again.” Fabian grumbles at Riz’s almost hysterical snort, rubbing at the spot.

“Oh, yeah?” Riz asks, feeling almost unhinged, giddy and wild, the whiplash of emotions he’d been feeling for the past handful of minutes making him dizzy. “Well, good thing it’s my turn.”

Fabian’s faux hurt look blooms into another sweet, soft smile, and Riz can’t help himself from kissing it.

(“Uh. Aren’t you going to tell them you actually were the one to wake Fabian with a Dispel Magic?” Gorgug asks Adaine as the rest of them watch the new couple embrace once more.

Adaine shakes her head, patting Boggy as she turns back to camp. “Only if they’re positively relentless with the story. But I like this much better than him after my sister.”

“Fair ‘nough.” Kristen nods, cracking her own smile. “Oh, man, I’d love to see their faces at the truth, though.”)

[thedaughterofkings]

regret nothing

This was technically written for Day Four of the @laurahale-appreciation week, that is Bickering Besties. But because I felt bad about not managing to write anything for the first three days, this not only has Stiles and Laura as besties, but also Alpha Laura, Hale Twins, AND Laura didn’t die, all squeezed into one 2k ficlet. And there’s Sterek of course, too! I hope you enjoy it! And go check out all the other fics written for this great new fest!

Derek regrets nothing as much as letting Laura go back to Beacon Hills alone.

Unfortunately she’s his elder - “By twelve minutes and don’t you forget that, Der!” - and his Alpha to boot, so Derek had had to remain alone in New York City while Laura went back to their old territory to look into the strange animal killings reported from there.

And now Derek has to suffer for his twin’s stubbornness. Because Laura? Befriended a pair of high schoolers the very first night she was back in Beacon Hills. And ever since, it’s been nothing but “Stiles this, Stiles that” with the occasional “Scott this” thrown in to mix things up.

Laura met them in the forest. At night. Where she was alone. Because Derek had to stay in New York City. Derek actually video calls her for once because Laura deserves to get glared at for that, but unfortunately she just laughs at him and says:

“I’m the apex predator, Derek, nothing out there would attack me. I was perfectly safe! Now the same cannot be said about tweedle dum and tweedle dee - Scott even has asthma, can you believe them?”

“I can’t even believe you,” Derek grumbles, but Laura ignores him and continues:

“So I heard them from miles away and decided to check up on them out of the good of my heart and Scott almost had an asthma attack when I reached them, but Stiles tried to attack me with a baseball bat - that’s what he was armed with, Derek! A baseball bat in the forest! What did he think he was going to find there? A bat? To bat away with his bat? A bat bat batting?”

And there Laura has to stop talking because she can’t stop laughing at her own terrible joke and Derek rolls his eyes and ends the call. But he sleeps easier that night knowing that Laura is still alive and well, which is not a given considering how Beacon Hills has treated their family.

The next few calls are similar to the first one. Laura calls to let him know that it looks as though there’s another werewolf at large and that’s how all the animals are killed, but at least she promises that she won’t go looking for it in the middle of the night again, and because Derek wheedles their “twinsies winsies vowsies” promise out of her (they were four when they came up with the name) he’s even inclined to believe she’s going to keep it. More concerning is that she visited Uncle Peter and that something was different about him, even though the nurse said there had been no changes. Nevertheless, Laura is sure that his scent has changed somehow - less rotten, is how she describes it and Derek believes. Her nose had always been the best, even before she became the Alpha.

Most concerning however is how Laura won’t stop hanging out with high schoolers. Not even Derek’s warning that she’s going to get arrested as a creeper deters her.

“Stiles’ dad is the Sheriff,” she says and laughs when Derek exclaims: “That just makes it even worse!”

Laura keeps collecting ever new strays, too, first Stiles and Scott, then Lydia and Jackson, and worst of all in Derek’s opinion, Allison Argent, Kate Argent’s niece. That phone call wasn’t a fun one; Derek shredded three of Laura’s throw pillows during it and Laura had to use her Alpha voice to stop him from booking a flight to the west coast immediately.

“She doesn’t even know about us,” Laura had said, quietly insistent, obviously willing Derek to listen. “She’s just a girl, who had to move into a strange new place and whose family is behaving weirdly. I won’t treat her as if she’s turned bad already, not when I might still do something to help her turn away from the dark side.”

“I thought the dark side had cookies,” Derek jokes weakly, but Laura just shakes her head grimly: “No, this one just has beetroot.”

Stiles is still the one she talks about the most, though. Apparently he doesn’t have many friends besides Scott and with Scott apparently in puppy love with Allison, Stiles has a lot of time on his hands suddenly and seems to want to spend it with Laura. Laura tells Derek of their coffee dates, and how they saw the latest MCU movie in the cinema last night, and Derek honestly thinks they are dating for a hot, scary second, until Laura denies it vehemently, with a loud “eewww no!” for effect. “He’s just lonely, I think,” she says, sobering again. “Scott is his best friend and he’s all but forgotten him because of Allison. Other than him he’s not close to many people; his dad is busy with his job, and his mum died years ago. Honestly, at first I mostly felt bad for him, but he’s actually a great guy. He’s funny and smart and sarcastic and a total softie beneath it all - you’d like him!”

“I doubt it,” Derek grumbles, but Laura refuses to drop it. She keeps singing Stiles’ praises and Derek honestly is a little jealous of the guy. He used to be the one Laura was closest to and he’s prepared to hate the guy just because he has stolen his twin sister. But then Stiles saves Laura’s life and Derek can’t even hate him anymore.

Laura is shot at by Kate Argent and Derek can’t sleep for three nights without his phone pressed to his ear and Laura’s heartbeat coming calm and steady through the line. The bill is going to be insane, but it’s worth it. Stiles is the one who finds her and gets Scott and Allison to steal the wolfsbane bullet needed to save Laura’s life. Laura tries to play it off, but Derek knows his twin and he knows it was close, that he almost lost her.

But Laura promises that she’ll be more careful from now on and insists that Derek should stay in New York and at least finish the semester. So when Peter wakes up and goes on a mad killing spree, Derek has to somehow get himself together enough to study for finals while worrying about the last two members of his family ripping each other apart - literally. The only thing keeping him somewhat sane are the regular messages from an unknown number that let him know that Laura is still alive and doing well. There’s also the occasional random remark upon everything from the history of male circumcision to questions about the New York Mets. Derek rarely replies, but he notes that each message is signed ‘Stiles’.

He did promise Laura to get through the semester, but she’s not here to stop him from rushing through his French Post-Revolution Literature exam, handing it in just after the half mark. His flight is leaving in two hours and he still needs to make it to the airport - his classmates staring after him in dismay because they are nowhere near finished yet isn’t his problem.

Derek arrives just in Beacon Hills in time to watch Peter rip out Kate Argent’s throat and to stop Chris Argent from blowing Peter’s brains out. There’s a group of teenagers huddled at the edge of the clearing, apparently armed with homemade molotov cocktails and in one case a bow and arrows of all things. While Derek is grappling with Chris, who is surprisingly strong for a mere human and slippery to boot, Laura tackles Peter and roars him into submission. Derek almost lets Chris go, the urge to submit to his Alpha is so great. Interestingly, he can see some of the teenagers react instinctively, too, either ducking their heads or presenting their necks. When he looks back towards Laura, she’s flashing her eyes at Peter and his flash back, red against blue and Derek lets out a deep breath of relief. Peter has accepted Laura as his Alpha. It’s something neither of them had thought off - with Peter in a coma when Laura became the Alpha, he hadn’t had the chance to build a new pack bond with her and, waking up, had been for all intents and purposes an Omega. Hopefully he’ll be a little less unhinged now that he is part of a proper, if small pack again.

Speaking of unhinged, Chris has renewed his struggles, apparently realising that all attention is going to focus on him now that Peter is under control. Derek just holds him still as best as he can and waits for whatever Laura has decided to do with him.

Laura ignores him to start with, heading towards the teenagers first, kneeling down in front of the brunette, who is white as a sheet but still holding her bow tightly, ready to lift and shoot at a moment’s notice.

“I’m sorry you had to see that, Allison,” Laura says softly. “She deserved to die, but I did not want you to witness her death, especially not like that.”

“She deserved to die?” Chris roars and Derek grabs him more tightly to stop him from attacking Laura with his bare hands. “She was my sister, you monster.”

Laura’s back straightens abruptly and she gets up again, stalking towards Chris and Derek predatorily.

“She was a mass murdering maniac, a cold blooded killer, and a rapist to boot. She murdered my entire family and you call me a monster? I know how much your daughter loves you and that is the only reason why you are still alive right now,” she growls, getting right into Chris’ space. “If you won’t listen to me, listen to Allison, but know that: the Hales are back and this is our territory, to protect from people like you and especially your sister. So tread carefully, very carefully. The real monsters here aren’t the ones with claws.”

Here she flicks her claws at Chris’ face, stopping just short of taking out his eyes, and Derek hears one of the teenagers cheer under his breath: “Yes, show him those claws, Laura!”

Then Laura turns to Derek and says: “Let him go, Der. Allison says she’ll keep him in line and I trust Allison.”

The brunette raises her chin defiantly and nods, obviously aware of how significant that is and not planning to disappoint Laura, so Derek releases Chris, who goes straight to his daughter and drags her away through the trees. Allison rips herself free, though, and runs back to throw her arms around Laura in a hug. Derek hears her whisper: “Thank you, I’ll talk to him. He didn’t know about Kate; I’m sure of it. And I’ll talk to mum, too.” Then she runs back to her father and leads him away.

Laura waits until they are out of sight and human hearing range and then drags Derek into a hard hug, mumbling into his neck: “I thought I told you to stick out the semester! Didn’t you have an exam today?”

“I did,” Derek defends himself. “I finished early; it’s not my fault if the exam’s too easy!”

Laura laughs and releases him just long enough to drag him over to the remaining four teenagers:

“Guys, this is my younger brother Derek, whom you all already know about.”

“It’s just twelve minutes, Laura,” Derek mutters, and Laura pinches him in the side.

“As I was saying, my younger brother Derek, and these are Scott-” A curly haired boy who is still looking after Allison and her father, as if they are suddenly going to reappear. “and Jackson-” A prototypical high school jock, who seems to be more than a little shell shocked, but also definitely very much in awe of Laura. “and Lydia-” She’ll definitely be prom queen, Derek thinks, but there’s a shrewd look in her eyes that makes him think that she’ll probably be valedictorian as well. “and last, but so not least,” Laura gestures dramatically and Derek already knows what’s coming because the only one that’s missing is Stiles, Laura’s new best friend. Derek has come up with all sorts of horrible visions of what he might look like, all to fit a horrible sister stealer, but all of them pale against reality. A buzzcut, lickable moles, and obscenely pink lips are the first things Derek notices, followed by the most gorgeous eyes he has ever seen, almost werewolf golden and with a twinkle that holds teasing promise.

“This is Stiles,” Laura finishes with a flourish.

And Derek thinks: “Oh god, he’s pretty.”

And Laura cackles in delight.

[scarffile0-blog]

Stephen Markley's Playlist for His Novel "Ohio"

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Stephen Markley's Playlist for His Novel "Ohio"

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.

Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Heidi Julavits, Hari Kunzru, and many others.

Stephen Markley's novel Ohio is a powerful and timely debut.

NPR Books wrote of the book:

"Ohio isn't just a remarkable debut novel, it's a wild, angry and devastating masterpiece of a book. Markley's debut is a sprawling, beautiful novel that explores the aftermath of the Great Recession and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a powerful look at the tenuous bonds that hold people together at their best and at their worst. [Ohio] is intricately constructed, with gorgeous, fiery writing that pulls the reader in and never lets go."

In his own words, here is Stephen Markley's Book Notes music playlist for his debut novel Ohio:

If I had to accuse myself of something it would be scattershot musical tastes over the course of a scattershot life. I forget how I encounter any given song or artist other than generally standing mid-stream of pop culture and trying to occasionally wade over to the fringes; I'm now almost always at the mercy of Spotify's algorithms because I don't take the time to seek anything out; I still have my entire massive book of CDs from high school, which is mostly 90s rap (Drag-On's Opposite of H20 anyone?). I can't really recall what I was listening to while writing the novel Ohio, but here's a list of what seems to have crept through my subconscious, possibly eking into the text in unexpected ways.

"The Stable Song" Gregory Alan Isakov

I've occasionally described Ohio as a ghost story where the ghost never appears (a designation I'm pretty sure I stole from Stephen King), but the novel is about being haunted--by people you've lost, decisions you've made, friendships you've forsaken. The characters each return to their hometown on the same night, and they all have on their minds and in their hearts something they've lost. This song, for me, always captured the essence of what I was trying to bring to the page, a sense of having drifted your whole life, but also having never truly left this one person, place, or moment.

"All Things To All Men" The Cinematic Orchestra, Roots Manuva

I stumbled across this due to the aforementioned Spotify algorithm, and I always pictured one character in particular, Bill Ashcraft, this drug-addled, alcoholic political activist cruising along to this song as he trips out of his head on LSD. It's a long, dense song that makes you feel like you're stumbling down a street corner at night, half-drunk, but with sudden vivid insight into the absurd joke of the political, social, and economic quagmire that is the American experience.

"Same Drugs" Chance the Rapper

I've heard people accuse this song of being schmaltzy, but if that's the case I gladly embrace it. I taught this to my students when we did a class on narratives in pop music because it's such a lovely, compressed, and efficient story about growing past another person and the nostalgia you feel for the bond that once existed between you. It has these little whimsical phrases evoking Peter Pan: "You must have lost your marbles"; "when did you start to forget how to fly"; "don't forget the happy thoughts;" "When everything we read was real and everything we said rhymed." It casts this whimsical note over our collective substance abuse, that you can only ever make it with someone if your tastes in self-medication align, and once that moment passes it can change everything between two people.

"Carry Me Ohio" Mark Kozelek

This one for obvious reasons, plus it namechecks rivers and landmarks I'm all too aware of from growing up in the area. Actually, I went through a number of titles for the novel before settling on simplicity for simplicity's sake, but this song sort of wakes you up to the poetry of that single word. It has something to do with the way your mouth moves when you say it, your lips going vertical, horizontal, vertical in rapid succession, and each sound is its own lost spirit.

"Darkness On the Edge of Town" Bruce Springsteen

A young woman once said to me, "I don't believe anyone can truly be a bad person if they love Bruce." That seems extreme, but I've never seen it proved wrong. People who only know Bruce from the big hits are missing a religious conversion in their lives. It's his darker stuff I've always been drawn to, and as a teenager dealing with the death of one of my closest friends, I found the most surprising respite in his music, which I basically listened to nonstop from 2000 until 2005. I love that he's this short story writer in a rock star's body and so many people across so many different classes, age groups, races, genders, and life paths see themselves in the tales dreamed up by this ratty-bearded kid from industrial New Jersey. "Darkness" was the first song of his I heard that made me sit up like, "What in the fuck is this?" Like many of Springsteen narrators, the guy in the song is wandering through his place in post-industrial America. He's keeping secrets, he's lost the woman he loves through some fault of his own, he remains defiant. Just play this and "Promised Land" at my funeral, please.

"All That You Have Is Your Soul" Tracy Chapman

During the gestation period of this novel I was hanging out with a young woman in my apartment and this song came on. She said something like, "Were you also a teenage girl crying with her friends at sleepaway camp in the early Nineties?" All I know is that as a guy trying to start for his high school basketball team in rural Ohio, I had to keep somewhat secret my abject love for Tracy Chapman and her brazenly unironic, head-melting tunes on justice, race, love, and loss. When writing the character of Stacey Moore, I had Chapman and that young woman in mind, because that night she said something else I really liked: "Sure, all you have is your soul, but we should all take at least a little bite of that shiny apple every now and then."

"Shelter From the Storm" Bob Dylan

This song has been sort of wrecked by its overuse as an anthem of the Baby Boomers' (see Cameron Crowe stuffing it into the end of Jerry McGuire), but Dylan remains, IMHO, simply one of the most mesmerizing writers of the Twentieth Century. I laughed and laughed at the literary world's hand-wringing after his Nobel win, and I laughed twice as hard when he plagiarized parts of his Nobel acceptance speech from Cliff's Notes, but it was nevertheless one of the most beautiful explications of what the journey of art, of literature, of creation actually feels like in the most tactile, heart-rending sense. Dylan is this utterly irascible, trickster figure, who will always defy and mystify his fans and critics. "Shelter From the Storm" describes the ramble we're all one, this bizarre, unhinged journey that never ends where you think it will, and maybe the one or two or seven people you meet along the way who are like, "All right, get in here. We'll make love and then go throw rocks at the trains passing in the night."

"Chonkyfire" Outkast

This is the final song on Aquemini, and it probably wouldn't make the top fifty in most fans' estimation of Outkast songs, but there's something inexplicable about the sound it creates. It's epic, it's full-throated, it's apocalyptic. My affinity for Nineties hip-hop mostly rests on the fact that that was the age I discovered this wild, uninhibited act of rebellion in musical form. I tended more towards the political or the lyrically interesting, but discovering Outkast, particularly Aquemini with Rosa Parks, SpottieOttieDopaliscious, and this final mind-blowing track--it felt like Indiana Jones figuring out the Grail was just these two guys from Atlanta.

"I Do My Father's Drugs" Joe Pug

Joe Pug's music served as something of a basis for the career of the character Ben Harrington, and I think he's one of the most underrated singer-songwriters alive. "My Father's Drugs" is one of his masterpieces, and though careful readers may be questioning my affinity for songs about drugs, this is really more about the cyclical nature of generations attempting to upend the status quo, of trying and failing, desperately, to change the conditions that have isolated, weakened, and demoralized us. It reminds me of protesting Dick Cheney's appearance at a Cleveland church in 2004.

"City of Refuge" Abigail Washburn

Abigail Washburn is one of those musicians you're almost afraid to tell anyone about because you want to selfishly hoard her honey and cigarettes voice for yourself. I don't even recall how I stumbled across 2011's City of Refuge, but it's one of my favorite albums of the decade. The title song and "Last Train" in particular always call to mind, for whatever reason, all the errant, directionless wandering of my mid-twenties, and that wanderlust definitely found its place within several characters of the novel.

"Youngstown" Bruce Springsteen

The original version on The Ghost of Tom Joad is, without a doubt, a masterpiece, but you really haven't heard "Youngstown" until you've heard him perform it live, say in Cleveland, Ohio, circa 2004 (same weekend as when I went to protest Cheney; sometimes the stars just align). When it's born into the world as a true rock song, it has a power and anger that the album version doesn't. It's not just that it's a story set in my corner of the world or that it so bitterly and accurately describes the sense of having the floorboards of your life and livelihood ripped out from beneath you a plank at a time by powers you don't control and men you'll never meet, but it bears a truly radical message. The narrator sings, "My daddy come on the Ohio Works when he come home from World War II/ Now the yard's just scrap and rubble/ He said, 'Them big boys did what Hitler couldn't do.'" I mean, Jesus Christ, talk about taking a full swing at the skull of the neoliberal order. What I love most about the song is its scope, traversing the history of a place from 1803 to the modern moment, watching the smokestacks rise and billow and then go clear. You can smell the coke and limestone, you can feel the rain coming down as the characters wander the scrapyard. It's a remarkable piece of literature and speaks to a universal story of exploitation that keeps repeating itself over and over again. How the story's always the same. It was that sense of history and fury and defiance that I always wanted to imbue this book with.

"Elevation" Hildur Guonadottir

The first civilian I gave the book to (someone outside of the long editorial process) claimed she read it in three days and was listening to this song as she blew through the final pages. It produced, she said, a pretty fantastic effect. Once I listened to the song, I honestly couldn't agree with her more. Very spooky.

Stephen Markley and Ohio links:

the author's website

Minneapolis Star Tribune review NPR Books review Wall Street Journal review Washington Post review

Ohio Magazine interview with the author Publishers Weekly profile of the author

also at Largehearted Boy:

Support the Largehearted Boy website

Book Notes (2015 - ) (authors create music playlists for their book) Book Notes (2012 - 2014) (authors create music playlists for their book) Book Notes (2005 - 2011) (authors create music playlists for their book) my 11 favorite Book Notes playlist essays

Antiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists) Atomic Books Comics Preview (weekly comics highlights) guest book reviews Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Books of the Week (recommended new books, magazines, and comics) musician/author interviews Note Books (musicians discuss literature) Short Cuts (writers pair a song with their short story or essay) Shorties (daily music, literature, and pop culture links) Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtracks) weekly music release lists

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Source: http://www.largeheartedboy.com/blog/archive/2018/09/stephen_markley.html

[gabriella-trujillo]

Social Media

By E

P completely left all social media the end of last year. Unfortunately I rely on both Facebook and Instagram for a decent portion of the sales and commissions of my illustration work, so it is difficult for me to cut that tie completely.  

I’m part of the very problem I detest about social media though – my desire to get away from social media is the amount of ads and promotions. This hypocrisy is not lost on me.

I genuinely miss having an easy way to interact with family members and friends. That said, the ease of sharing pictures, thoughts and sentiments doesn’t seem worth the price of my personal information being for sale to companies and intelligence organizations.

In a few days we may lose the internet as we know it altogether. Maybe it’s time we all consider dialing back how much we rely on social media… it may be “free” but we are paying in other ways. Everything is fighting for our attention and monetizing it. Everyone is distracted, all of the time.

Especially me.

Earlier this year, it came to my attention the likelihood of me having ADHD. I’ll have more details and information on it later this month, but it’s likely the case and the more I learn about it, the more it explains several aspects of my life. I started self-regulating my internet usage (among many other life adjustments) after reading other adults with ADHD’s advice.

I installed a Google extension that completely blocks my Facebook feed altogether. I can no longer aimlessly scroll through posts. But this also blocks posts that contain information I genuinely need in order to maintain friendships. An old friend-of-mine’s dog recently passed away. I wouldn’t have known this if I hadn’t looked at Facebook on my phone (where I don’t have the extension (but probably should)). I’m in this weird zone in-between being on Facebook and not… people assume I see their posts on there but I’ve actively turned them off. I can make posts to promote my freelance business, I can send and receive messages and I can look at specific folks’ profiles. The distraction aspect of Facebook is mostly gone for me, but my current set up has left me in this in-between world where it appears I’m there but I’m really not.

I hope that clears some things up if I’ve ignored someone close to me unintentionally.

I’m including an essay P wrote when he initially left social media that articulates why he’s no longer on it. I did the illustration.

Leaving the Party: Why I’m Cutting Ties With Facebook and Twitter

By P

Hello. My name is P_____ ______, and I work for Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. I provide these companies with engaging content that keeps the folks who pay attention to the things I say and do on their platforms interested and clicking. I also interact with the content shared by people I care to pay attention to, which is also important work. My work on these platforms makes these companies money. And while it’s true that I work for these companies — and believe me, I do a lot of work for them — I am not employed by them in any way. If you’re reading this essay, then you most likely work for some of these companies, too.

Here’s how it happens: The social media platforms created by companies like Facebook and Twitter not only allow me to see what the people in my respective networks share, but they also provide me with a detailed bird’s-eye view of what they do and how they interact with the platform — sometimes in real time.

When I write a tweet about a line of ten thousand mimes sneezing together in perfect unison, I’m working for Twitter because I’m participating. When my Facebook newsfeed informs me that my brother likes an article from The Onion, I’m working for Facebook because I notice. If I pay attention but don’t engage, it still means I’m working because I’m willingly exposing myself to advertisements. Eyes on feeds mean eyes on ads.

These companies mostly don’t care about what I do on their platforms, so long as I’m doing something. That’s why my job is easy. To them, me sharing a GIF of a sleeping puppy that wakes itself up with its own surprisingly loud fart is tantamount to me writing an impassioned Facebook status repudiating Donald Drumpf and the folks who made his presidency possible, though the fart puppy would certainly fare better online as far as the currency of favs and likes go.

I do important work for these companies not only by sharing and watching and interacting, but also by giving them unprecedented access to my personality profile and the world of the things I love and detest. My best friend could name maybe an eighth of my favorite bands, books, and movies, but Facebook knows them all by heart because I willingly typed that information into a box when I created my profile. These platforms also have the ability to comb through my tweets, messages, pictures, and status updates to glean even more detailed information about me. The companies I work for take the information they’ve learned about me and sell it to other companies, which then in turn use it to sell products and services back to me.

It’s a cycle of work and money, but I’m not granted access to the money part of things. Facebook didn’t cut me a check for “liking” the 538 things my girlfriend shared on their platform during our three-year relationship (this is the exact figure Facebook shared with me in a homogenous video featuring selected pictures of the two of us together). As of yet, Twitter has not compensated me for tweeting over 26,000 times since I created my account in 2012. I work as a freelance writer, and when I create content for other companies, I always agree to a deal through which I’m compensated for my efforts, usually on a per-word basis. The amount of free written content I’ve happily provided Twitter alone is staggering.

So, why do I work for free?

I don’t really know anymore, honestly. I mean, no, I don’t make money by choosing to remain aboard the social-media vessel, but I do get something: pure, uninterrupted distraction. Being active on these platforms makes me feel less lonely as a human being. I spend and waste an ungodly amount of time providing free labor for these companies because they manage to keep me pacified just enough to alleviate me from sadness and the drudgery of boredom, and because I frequently fear the challenge of doing something more meaningful with my brain, hands, and body.

Why become politically active in your community when you can just read what all of your friends who mostly believe the same things as you have to say about politics and popular culture on Facebook? Sure, I could take some extra time tonight to cook myself a new and interesting meal, but why not just look at pictures of the food the people I’m following on Instagram are eating? These platforms host the party, and I want to be a part of it. They provide unlimited access to entertainment, a distraction from my problems, and the notion that I have some sort of meaningful voice that gets heard in the online communities of my choosing.

Social-media platforms are also essential for creative types like myself wanting to market their latest endeavors — or so I’ve been told. “You have to use Facebook and Twitter to market your band, or else no one will book you. Your fans won’t know how to connect with you,” people tell me, and I believe them. But are they correct? Do I have to keep working as a music and blog promoter in order to be successful, or can I just be a musician and writer? The 610 people who “like” my band on Facebook can just go to my band’s website if they want to know what we’re up to, right? If someone wants to read my blog, can’t they just… read my blog? I fear that if I remove my social-media presence, everyone will forget about my band, my writing, and — well — me. I work for free because I’m lonely and need to be distracted, but also because I’ve been convinced that the significant part of my identity that purely exists online will perish and evaporate completely the second I leave the party.

If I’m being honest, I’m beginning to realize that the problems I turn to social media to distract me from are often caused or at least exacerbated by the very things from which I’m trying to glean relief. During the months before the election, it felt good to write tweets and status updates about how important it was to get out and vote for Hillary Clinton. She was up in the polls for most of 2016, but I spent the better part of last year fearing that not enough people would vote for her and save our world from a Drumpf presidency. Sadly, my fears were well-founded, and I am partially to blame, as it is horrifyingly clear now that my impassioned pleas over social media were mostly useless and that my actions did not constitute nearly enough action to make any difference whatsoever. Preaching to the choir is effective if you have a really big choir, but the amount of people on the internet who care about what I have to say is negligible. During the election, if I and millions of people like me had been more active in the real world doing real things — volunteering, making phone calls, knocking on doors, protesting, donating, attempting to have real, verbal conversations with people from the other side — we might not have an unhinged internet troll as our president today. I thought my work on social media was me doing something meaningful, but I was wrong. Statuses, likes, and retweets don’t determine presidencies.

I think it’s time to take a deep breath, look around the room one last time, and leave the party. I think it’s time to stop working for free. I think it’s time to take initiative, remove the obstacles of distraction and complacency, and attempt to do something urgent, purposeful, and real to address the horrific realities my country and planet face. I think it’s time to accept that proselytizing over social media is largely a fruitless endeavor. I think it’s time to recognize that I am nothing more than a commodity in the eyes of companies like Facebook and Twitter, and that they’re happy to profit from everything I do online, whether or not the content I create, consume, or disseminate is true or false or destructive. I think it’s time to try to live in the vast and dangerous physical world in order to cope with and enjoy a life brimming with elation and despair and everything in between.

P and I live a kind of whacky life that we want to share easily with our friends and family who care, but we don’t want to do that through Facebook or Instagram. This is why we’ve turned to Tumblr. We can be semi-anonymous. We’re aware this is still a social network of sorts, but its a blog first. At least that’s how we justify it.

For those folks out there who have happened to find us outside of our personal network, we’ve decided to keep our identities mostly anonymous. You could probably figure them out if you did some sleuthing, but I promise it’s probably not worth the effort. We just want to maintain some level of privacy in a society where that’s becoming more and more of a commodity. 

[leeicedtea]

I watched Ingrid Goes West and here are some thoughts

Did you guys all see Ingrid Goes West? Did you guys all do the thing that I did because I need immediate attention and everyone immediately should be able to address my need to connect about something right now, immediately? I enjoyed this film and its aesthetic and its general mission to creep me the fuck out, and now I’m going to talk about it. Here.

I realize that I’m playing into the very thing the film aims to cultursize. Cultursize is a new word that I made up just now (would you believe it) which means criticizing the culture of. The film takes some playful punches (and some very painful knee kicks too) at our obsession with the curated identities of Instagram celebrities. It begins with a slew of cliche and immediately recognizable Instagram posts from some made up celebrity named Charlotte, in that saccharine and falsely accessible voice we all know so well: “living my best life” “live laugh love” “travel the whole world just to be close to you” and that sort of thing. I’m paraphrasing. But you get it. It’s an instant laugh, because we want to assure ourselves we are far from this person. We are laughing because we “get it”...we are not Charlotte. Even though we are the reason Charlotte has those hundreds of thousands of followers. We are the reason Charlotte talks like that, because we crave it like hungry little hippos hoping for the heroin drip of someone’s “best life”.

After this short little intro, we get to the disturbing yet heroic opening scene where Ingrid, played by Aubrey Plaza, stalks Charlotte’s wedding from her car in real time.  We reveal she’s actually parked right outside Charlotte’s wedding. Having seen enough of Charlotte having a good time online, she stomps into the wedding and maces Charlotte’s pretty little face. IRL. Clearly an overly zealous fandom gone wrong. She is institutionalized and we begin our story. 

I’ll spare you the plot details, because with the internet’s general hate of spoilers, I imagine the three people reading this have already seen the film. Aubrey’s performance as the crazed and connection-starved lonely girl Ingrid is phenomenal. We see the curtain pulled to our less admirable internet stalking habits. While not as intense as her obsession with celebrities, we’ve all found ourselves opening social media to avoid being alone with our thoughts. The moment things go quiet, we open our phones for some consolation. Our Twitters, Instagrams, Facebooks... even CNN notifications at this point, are just the voices in our heads, keeping us from facing the fact that we’re alone. What this film does so well is capture the solitude and isolation that modern day social media has introduced into our busy lives. Ingrid runs to California like a rat in a cocain maze, hunting down her latest obsession Taylor Sloane. Instead of cocaine, she’s seeking a hit of connection that can be shared to her followers. 

Because even when she does befriend Taylor, played by Elizabeth Olson, their friendship is earmarked by the ‘grammable moments. This is no better illustrated than by the moment Taylor shares her deepest “secret” with Ingrid of opening up a boutique shop in Joshua Tree called “Desert Door”. Sharing secrets is a way to connect to someone, to feel vulnerable. But in this film, her secret is a currency to build her facade around. We see this when Ingrid overhears her sharing the exact same secret to a more famous Instagram celebrity at a party exactly word for word how she phrased it to Ingrid. We see that even Charlotte’s “real” moments of vulnerability are carefully crafted into bite size morsels. Like the 140 characters of Twitter or the captioned hashtags of Instagram, her secret is carefully crafted to feel intimate and shareable.  That is, after all, what draws Ingrid to obsess over Instagram models. While distant and removed physically, the way they share intimate moments of their life with their followers feels like they’re your best friend, letting you in on a secret that nobody else knows. Except hundreds of thousands of other people know, and they’re all liking and commenting with you.

The pacing of the film is on point, and the story stays one step ahead of the audience, just like your social media feed endlessly scrolls down to keep you occupied for hours. The writing keeps the stakes high and gripping, and Ingrid’s agency to drive the story forward out of her desperation to connect to someone is nicely done. For a film about a vapid lifestyle, it’s anything but empty. 

Unfortunately, the ending sells itself short when Ingrid records a viral video with no makeup on, revealing that she’s a fraud to her followers. This is after Taylor discovers she virtually stalked her across the country to Single White Female her way into her life, stealing her dog just to “meet” her being one in a list of many unhinged things Ingrid does to Taylor. This is after Ingrid's house of cards comes down, and she’s alone in a house full of ants in the middle of the desert with nothing but internet followers to talk to.  This video starts promising, and at first we get the sense she’s going to pull back the curtain to her fans and give up her addiction to Instagram once and for all. That would have been a strong and more emotionally satisfying ending. Instead, she videotapes her suicide and posts it on Instagram. 

Then, you can guess what happens from there. Her suicide is poorly planned as with most of the big decisions in Ingrid’s life, and therefore it doesn’t work. She wakes up in the hospital and finds out she’s gone viral. She’s surrounded by balloons and stuffed animals sent to her by her fans and when she opens her ‘gram, she reads thousands of uplifting messages and words of encouragement from people that watched her suicide video.

And she loves it. Here’s where I hated the ending, and you can disagree. Ingrid’s fall from Instagrace would have been more cathartic if she broke through to freedom on the other side. Publicizing her suicide was lazy writing, and having Ingrid feel joy at finding out she went viral is not a satisfying finale. What this film is missing at the end is a genuine moment to shake off the falseness of the world. The video tries to be that, but ending in a suicide attempt does nothing but take us back to the heightened Instagram world. It’s irresponsible to position her fame as a result of her suicide attempt, and even more irresponsible to position that as a win for Ingrid. I would have loved to see the version of this film where Ingrid posts a genuine video denouncing her account and telling the world her story of how she was a fraud and took her obsession too far. And then I would have loved to see that go viral and have her truly not give a damn about it anymore.

I would love to see that, because I would have liked to see a win for Ingrid. Instead, her “win” is just a sign that her pattern of unhealthy behavior is going to continue and she’ll never get the help she really needs. I suppose if this was a thriller, which is a genre it sometimes borrows from, that ending is appropriate. We can never get out, it seems to tell us, and that may be more accurate than my ideal version. 

In any case, this film is funny, creepy, and aesthetically appropriate for it’s subject matter. I’d give it a double tap.