#one of those forty minute indie shits

[bullet-prooflove]

You're The Sun To Me: Mitch Keller x Reader

Tagging: @kmc1989 @dolphs-darling @watermeezer @queenslandlover-93 @redpool

Companion piece to:

Love Song - Mitch doesn't expect to see you in his bar after all this time.

Clean - Mitch asks you why you're back in town.

Home - Mitch gets an answer to his question.

Sunshine (NSFW) - You've always been the sunshine in Mitch's life.

Georgia Peach (NSFW) - You get a little territorial when one of Mitch's exes comes sniffing around.

Rhinestones (NSFW) - Mitch reminds you of the night you met.

Her Name Was Lola - You meet Mitch's wife.

On the rare freezing days in Tulsa, Mitch struggles. The cold seems to set into his bones and the agony from decades of bull riding seems to flood his entire system. His muscles stiffen and he moves like an old man, every single motion filled with a devastation that makes him hiss through his teeth. It’s times like this that remind him how he ended up hooked on Oxy. Shit like Tylenol doesn’t touch the pain, no matter how much he takes.

He forces himself through the day, every minute ticking by like an hour until you show up fresh off the tour you’ve been undertaking in Oklahoma City. Jelly Roll has been playing a few indie gigs and had invited you to open for him. The two of you had met during a country music showcase back when Mitch was doing time and stayed close friends even after Jason's career blew up.

When you step through the door you take one look at Mitch and you know exactly what’s going on with him, despite how much he tries to hide it. You set up a stool behind the bar, coercing him into it with a fierce look. He knows better than to argue with you when you get a bee in your bonnet, especially when you’re coming off a forty one hour drive.  

You spend most of the evening doing the lion’s share of the work. You let Mitch pour a couple of shots when you leave the bottle by him but everything else is on you. At the end of the night, he watches you lock up before you draw him into the makeshift bed you’ve set up in the back. The ride home is filled potholes and sharp turns, things that will shake up at his bones, cause him even more pain and you know he doesn’t have it in him to face that tonight.

He can’t help but smile when he gets into that room because his baby, she’s done wonders with the air mattress, blankets and hurricane lamps he keeps stored away in there.

“You know Sunny, this shit is kinda romantic like.” He says as you begin to unbutton his shirt. “It’s not candle light and roses but it’s certainly something.”

“Next time.” You promise him, your gaze meeting his as you unfasten his belt and help him out of his jeans. “I promise I’ll romance the fuck out of you.”

He laughs as you help him down into the bed, tucking as many blankets as you can around him against the cold outside. He reaches for you, brushing a stray strand of hair back behind your ear as he looks into your eyes.

“You always take such good care of me.” He whispers, pressing a tender kiss to your mouth.

“I always will.” You murmur before you pull away and begin to undress. He watches appreciatively as you do, the fabric slipping from your skin and landing in a heap at your feet. There isn’t a chance in hell he can get it up right now, not with his pain level but he can still admire the beauty that God bestowed upon him.

“Gonna have to be cuddling tonight darlin.” He tells you as you climb underneath the blankets alongside him. “I don’t have it in me to give you a proper welcome home.”

“Good.” You whisper as you nestle in close, the heat of your body warming his skin. “Because I’m far too exhausted to ride you tonight.”

He chuckles as you bury your face into the curve of his throat, your fingertips tracing over the scars etched into his flesh from all those years of bull riding.

“Sunny…” He drawls as he closes his eyes, trying to focus on anything but the ache that seems to radiate through his entire body. “Will you sing me to sleep darlin? I’ve been missing the sound of your voice.”

You start to hum and he recognises the opening bars from Zach Bryan’s You’re The Sun To Me.

“You’re trying to make me fall in love with you all over again ain’t you sweetheart?” He mumbles as his cheek comes to rest upon the top of your head.

“Oh Mitch.” You whisper, tiling your head up so your lips brush over his grizzled jaw. “There ain’t no trying about it.”

Love Mitch? Don’t miss any of his stories by joining the taglist here.

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Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

[strangerinnastrangelandd]

I don't know what I'm doing here.

If my 18 year old self found out that I skipped out on a charity rave to make a Tumblr page in the year of our lord 2023 she would... Well, shed probably be cool with it because she was in jail waiting to sign my will to live over to the state of new jersey. She's probably ask me for a cigarette.

Any way I found this really beautiful journal last night in a garbage can while I was on my way out of a comedy show (btw rlly funny support indie comedians case comedy free at Abyssinia in philly every Tuesday night!) and it was brand new with the lilies" all across it. It made me miss drawing, scribbling little poems, feeling like I was leaving something positive behind. The last ten years of survival mode made me a really miserable person for a long time. If I had one wish, it would be to transfer my conscienceness into a newborn baby and relive life knowing everything I know now. Me now, in my sixteen year old body? I could be a doctor! I could be a drug kingpin! I could be invited to parties ! Here's how I imagine the difference would be;

current me : CM

young me: YM

CM: hey, let's ask lucy to hang out

YM: if she really liked us she would have asked already

CM: she just asked if you wanted to hang out at home room..

YM: I asked first clearly she hates me

CM: ok... Johnny asked if you want to go to the beach with blah blah blah and also blah

YM: I hat blah and blah and I had like two granola bars today I can only wear sweatshirts until I poop you KNOW this

CM: ok... We got invited to a party---

YM: I have soCIAL ANXIETY

CM: uh... We could go to *best friends house* and watch a movie?

YM: no I don't feel like putting pants on

CM: ok well I have plans with a friend so I'll just leave ya to it----

YM: I wish I had friends :/ no one likes me! I never get invited anywhere! I don't know what it is!!! *aggressively chews hot pocket*

-end scene-

I would do more of an intro post if anyone ever asks but for now this will be my little place to rant and post my pathetic doodles and snapshots. And also! I will explain at a later date but I made a gofundme kind of for shits and giggs and mostly out of desperation. I just got evicted seven days after moving into this room, owned by a man who wanted no background check or even a deposit. Yes I know it sOuNdS tOo gOoD tO bE TrUe I KNOW OKAY I GET IT- essentially the landlord is mentally ill, bizarely paranoid, obsessed with my social life to the extent that I face a ten to twenty minute inquisition about my actual plans for the day... I could go on, but it's a tale for another day. Anyway, I have to stay in Philly until October and I definitely want to get tf out of dodge the day they hand me those papers. All my money since moving here has gone to rent, deposits, food and fines to two different states. I've been able to get my license back for a year but I literally can't afford the fee, or a car to rent to take the driving test.

But hold on! This ain't a sad story kids! Because I've decided to get in on that #vanlife game. Not to TikTok or anything, just because... Well, I've been stuck between NJ and PA for ten years. I accomplished a lot I think, got clean off drugs and worked for several reputable rehabs, made some friends, heard some live music, met some cool strangers... But I want to see the world. I don't want to sign a lease every year and plan my vacations six months I'm advance. Life has proved time and time again that I'm just not cut out for it , mentally or physically. I guess someone else would see a therapist, go on antidepressants and make themselves adjust. I was on of those people. But freedom is so close I can taste it. I wasted my twenties and I don't plan on being forty regretting even more then I do now.

Fun game! Guess which girl is on drugs!

Any way, the go fund me. I found a pretty good RV my friend says he can fix up for $4000. I know even if I'm hired tomorrow I won't be able to even think about saving until I find a place to live so ya know what? Fuck it. Here's my change cup.

https://gofund.me/cacfe1eb

[moonrisecoeur]

🐕 ok baby im so sorry for this literal. giant list. BABY YOU SAID YOU WERE WEIRD ABOUT MUSIC, THAT YOU WERE ANNOYING ABOUT MUSIC, ECT ECT WHATEVER I FUCKING CHALLENGE YOU BECAUSE I AM NOT FUCKING!!!!! NORMAL ABOUT MUSIC !!!!!!!!!!!!! I AM DISGUSTING ABOUT MUSIC!!!!!

babe i even CATEGORIZED them bc theres so FUCKING MANY !!

also i did do cws on some songs i had concerns ab? the ones w !s are ones im super unsure ab. also aaaa u dont have to listen to any of these but,. u awaked the demon,, BEAST in me.

i have also fdhgkjdsfg listened to most of the songs in ur post but my brain is also mushy after listening to all of these and making this list so i shall. give thoughts Later. xoxo (its also late hehe)

my top faves <3 (if u like these i am skipping the making out part and going straight to fucking u)

this is your night - amber

no one ever really dies - mystery skulls

magic original demo - mystery skulls

these dont rlly have lyrics but i literally listened to them on repeat when i was writing the novel length asks to u so if u want ur brain to melt like mine while i was writing those...,, <3<3

(cw: a bit loud/high pitched and really weird music? ravey)

desktopbuddy - nanoray

dogwalk2000 - nanoray

dog bus (ft telemist) - metaroom

worm rave - metaroom

songs i feel ud like based on ur music taste ive seen (plsss tell me if u like them bc i will happily rec more i just feel bad w how long this list FUCKING IS)

until we get there - lucius

don't just sit there - lucius

wasting time - hoax

western medicine - hoax

into the blackhole - hoax

winter - daughter

the only exception - paramore

are you bored yet? - the wallows

don't you wonder? - jagged jaw

tonight is - jagged jaw

the comedienne - parenthetical girls

who'd have known - lily allen

somewhere only we would know - lily allen (this is a cover but god its my fav version so)

come to me - goo goo dolls (baby im ngl i think leon would love this song)

true love - coldplay

juliet - cavetown

lemon boy - cavetown (cavetown is a trans king please support his music <3 mwah mwah)

relax, take it easy - mika (ngl this one is a bit more of a shot in the dark buttt)

together - mystery skulls (same as above tbh)

these r from like 1 artist i rlly like but bby i am sure u will NOT like their music,, kinda like the nanoray and metaroom ones but like worse. !!WILL!! make ur brain melt. (trust me when i say i HANDPICKED thru their music,,,,)

kill screen - machine girl (!!!!cw: yelling! im only including this bc its one of my top FAVES. it goes so hard holy shit. if ur comfy with it listen from 2:55-end cus theres no yelling, its just such fucking GOOD buildup to the BEST part of the fucking song [3:18] i9ts literally. AHH)

post rave maximalist - machine girl (cw: has some sirens and airhorns? theyre not loud tho.)

freewill - machine girl

nine minutes and forty three seconds - machine girl (bro this album is like straight up not your alley this is the only song without screaming in it LOL)

cloud99 (as above mix) - machine girl

lilith - machine girl

cyan hardcore - machine girl

sin to win! - machine girl

IM OBSESSED W THESE AND THEY NEED MORE LOVE

my favorite color is you - revenegeinkyoto (!!!!cw: yelling--mostly exclamatories and parts of the bridge, the ending is a bit heavy w it tho--, yandere song, heavy metal)

don't go insane - dpr ian (THEREVE BEEN SO MANYT LEON EDITS TO IT AND GGGRRRRRR GRHHHH RHHHH that one part GURLL iykyk but ITS A GOOD SONG REGARLESS AHHHGGGHHHH)

the memory viewer - sugary sweet machines

talkative revolver city slicker (/or/) resume song - sugary sweet machines (these are 2 songs that (at their core) are essentially the same but are different enough that i pick them based on which im just feelin more,) (OK SO ALSO these r from the ost of an indie game and IDK if i can rec the game personally (i found it during a very dark part of my life) but the ost and esp these songs are hella banger and i really want the artist to get more love for them)

megatronic - powerman 5000 (cw: not yelling but heavily synthetic sounding? hard music xP)

benzie box - danger doom (THIS. GOES. SO. HARD.)

boys & girls - will.i.am (BI SONG? BI SONG?)

gekka no yasoukyoku - malice mizer (cw: not english) (THIS GOES SOOOO HARD its literally. so good. i try to avoid reccing songs not in english but this is too good to not)

cipher peon battle - pokemon colosseum (it makes me feel epic lol)

overrated but i love them

little dark age - mgmt (i literally make amvs in my head about re2 leon in my car while listening to this song i am obsessed. Obsessed.)

wasted summers - juju<3 (fuck ppl who hate on this honestly like can ppl not have fun with music? let indie musicians have fun !! hes literally making a song with his sister thats the sweetest shit ever!!!!!!!!!! also honestly this song kinda hurts if u relate ngl pookie)

rhinestone eyes - gorillaz (iykyk,, that edit introduced me to this song but it FUCKS !!)

take me to church - hozier (look. -foams at mouth- thats all.)

mary on a cross - ghost

idk where to categorize these :v

the wolf - siames (I LOVE THIS THE EVERYTHING THE ANIMATION THE DOGGIE !!! woof woof)

can't get you out of my head - kylie minogue

better off alone - alice deejay

hypnocurrency - deadmau5

gyrate - rezz

j-boy - phoenix

credits song for my death - vivivivivi

i would do anything for you - foster the people (i ALMOST put this in faves bc god i am,, obsessed w this song but, i feel like its bully material so.)

sit next to me - foster the people

the sweet escape - gwen stefani (look i always loved this song, but i have a leon edit of this song saved to my phone and i watch it Daily)

my love - justin timberlake (me and leon. i also have a leon edit to this i watch daily.)

bloody mary - lady gaga

you like early 2000s type music? cringe? this is for u bbg

(cw: cringe, ravey)

pretty rave girl - s3rl (PLSLSSSS I LOVE THIS SONG SO MUCHH GRRHHRGRRHHGHHDHDGSGDFSDFGGFHSD)

blame you - romanceplanet

bleed (runaway) - romanceplanet

lollipop (candyman) - aqua

ok this is stupid but im ngl im putting songs that make me think of leon in some way here (considering making my own playlist of stuff for him lmk if my taste is good enough boo ;* /j)

with you - linkin park (!!!!cw: yelling. (im including this bc i just want to say leon would fucking love this song. id make out with and grind on him at a house party to this song,, that is all). the yelling isnt super loud but the music is screechy during the parts so it might make u uncomfy? be safe if u listen boo, its alil on the harder side of songs)

cure for the itch - linkin park (cw: the beginning has a brief moment where theres a loud announcer? other than that this fucks, goes HARD.)

under the bridge - red hot chili peppers (WHEN I WAS LOOKING FOR,,, ROCK AND GRUNGE TO LISTEN TO bc i am obsessed with leon ehehe THIS SONG LATCHED ONTO MY BRAINSTEM,,,,,,thinking ab holding his hand while this plays on our mixtape while we drive to our coffeeshop date in raccoon city,,.,,,,u//w//u)

smells like teen spirit - nirvana (!!cw: screamy? i think? i cant tell if im desensitized to screaming in music or sm LMFAO its a song i scream when i sing it tho so) (also i KNOW this is a generic pick but it goes so hard!!!!!!!!!!!! leon Literally listens to this like its just canon)

talking in your sleep - the romantics (baby im so sorry i cant explain this one i also want to fuck michael afton and thats bleeding into my lust for leon)

no friend of mine - aimless device (THIS IS SO GOOD I WISH IT WAS MORE POPULAR)

hyena - aimless device

nobody's real - powerman 5000 (cw: its a lil bit hard of a song) (i cant explain this honestly leon would just listen to powerman and this would be his fave)

i'm not in love - 10cc (look look here ok listen to my vision. leon trying to convince himself hes not actually head over heels for you. i think its cuter with re2 leon hehe hes so cutie pookie BUT. [im not personally into aeon But..] PLEASE imagine him just laying in bed listening to this because hes still hurt over ada but hes falling so hard and fast for you. and hes scared. TERRIFIED even, <3 dont worry babyboy ill treat you so well)

yellow - coldplay

the scientist - coldplay

always in my head - coldplay (ok look i tried really hard to not put in so many coldplay songs but, listen. coldplay just feels so fucking aeon for you aeon enjoyers)

sweetest goodbye - maroon 5

sunday morning - maroon 5

my console - eiffle 65 (look. its Funny.)

separate ways (worlds apart) - journey

away from the sun - 3 doors down

here without you - 3 doors down

my precious - lifehouse

hanging by a moment - lifehouse

last child - aerosmith

jaded - aerosmith

turn up the radio - autograph

lullaby - the cure

last kiss - pearl jam (cw: kinda descriptive singing about the scenario of a loved one dying, brief mentions of religion) (he wouldnt relate to this song at all but i KNOW mans would cry to it)

(i could dig up more for this section but baby i do not wanna bore you with retro songs)

actually fuck i could put so many more songs period but this is probably already a 5 hr playlist atp eheh sorry

if u want i could make an actual playlist if u ACTUALLY wanna listen to ts so its not such a pain going thru dhjksdfhgsdkg (tho theres a few songs that arent on spotty bc its stinky :( )

🐕

the most hilarious part about this is that the only song on this gigantic list that i recognize is don’t go insane BUT NOT EVEN BECAUSE OF LEON i just like dpr ian he’s so pretty :3

also i think ill be able to put them into a playlist myself !! dw i don’t wanna make u go through the effort!! i shall attempt to listen to everything!!

[cryptke]

Hey,

How are you doing? I hope everything's going smoothly - as smooth as life can be, at least. You asked for updates on Blackbird as I read, and I'm kinda here to do exactly that, I think?

It took me a bit, I'm sorta in the middle of moving half across the damn globe (Australia, out of all places, because why not...), but I finally got to reading properly today, and just reached the Seattle chapter, wow, this book is twisted, and graphic. i love it. like thoroughly. I'm usually not the biggest fan of the 1st person narrative, but the way Edison narrates the whole story, alongside Xtians point of view, feeds off of each other so well without overindulging in senseless inner monologue or emotional outbursts... it reads super fluently and is super descriptive (which I'm a slut for, i love descriptions of all sorts, especially the lyrical kind - which, as a sidenote, you do so fucking amazingly), while bringing across Edison's worldview and self-percetion in a way that seriously had me like "yeah, yeah I get that", which is amazing writing and pacing on Fiegel's part, and perhaps mildly concerning on my part.

Telling an 8 year old girl you just kidnapped from a diner after shooting it to pieces, that you are a "serial mass murderer" is about as tactful as a tick sucking your blood, and it was also the thing that made me laugh the hardest. The scene where she had Nick (fuck him, honestly) by the balls, was a close second, that exchange amazing.

The whole scout-cookie-selling betrayal was bitchy as hell, on Nick and Co's part, and damn do i love the way the action scenes are written, especially with all those technicalities, it's like a little movie running in my head, and the whole concept reminds me a little bit of Leon the Hitman? if only distantly.

literally can't thank u enough for that recommendation, it reads like macabre poetry, and I will probably be re-reading it many times in the future. It's weirdly humorous at times, in a very gallow-humor typo beat, and the whole thing probably won't let me go for weeks to come.

This isn't exactly an MLA style essay, though the length might compare, and if u want, i can share my thoughts once I've finished it - which will probably be in a few hours, tops.

On another sidenote, I'm wholly and dyingly in love with the way you portray Daryl. I come back to read the three pieces you've written for him a lot (in desperate need for more), because I genuinely can't find anything quite like it for him. You make every scene, every detail, seem so alive and real, it's like you're actually writing down the lives of two real people in a very real world, has me at a loss for words. It's when you read something and you fall in love with it in a way that you'd preferably consume those words, have them engraved into your bones, or let them consume you so they just never leave you, because it's that fucking good...

kinda spitballing at this point - sorry for this overly lengthy, not-quite essay. sending lots of love and good energy your way!

please tell me, why in the *fuck* are you moving to australia? and when can i come down? i look smoking in a bikini

"amazing writing and pacing on Fiegel's part, and perhaps mildly concerning on my part." LOL. & yes, i remember in some sort of review that someone compared the theme of Blackbird to that of leon the professional's! more grotesque, obviously. but both still strumming up that older male/younger female codependency based on something that's neither romantic nor familial. also reminds me of american psycho for obvious narrative reasons.

i totally agree with your perspective on the book. dark, but almost like a dark comedy at parts. not entirely a tale of despair though it does carry a permanent shield of nihilism.

ANYWAYS, if it turns out you do like incredibly dark reads/horror genre in general, as it appears you do because of TWD/Blackbird, i have another rec. but like, this one is incredibly dark. very good but VERY horrific, depressing, etc. step up from Blackbird. extremely interesting social commentary. so lmk your thoughts on THAT

i am fucking touched at your words on my daryl portrayal <33 on and off again these days i'm working on the request you actually prompted. about the only thing i actually have time for. but: i love writing for him! and i love consuming non zombie au pieces that feature him. he is such an interesting dynamic to explore, i want to make him real and pick his brain. or, alternatively, climb him like a tree

i am doing okay though, thank you for asking <3 the last time we talked, i was just getting over a very massive depressive episode, but things are decent now. dare i say, halfway good. i have a love interest that could rival any of the shit i write about, and it's my birthday soon! i had a photoshoot for my fake id last night and then today i toured apartments so we're on a wave of big girl productive shit. not a lump of lethargic deadweight atm.

[goalieprotectionsquad]

✧･ﾟ: * July 2022 Harringrove Starter Pack *:･ﾟ✧

Thank you to Harringrove fans for coming together and creating this amazing fic starter pack and to our endlessly talented creators for giving us so much to choose from! Forty-one votes were cast and across the 119 nominations, the number of votes received by the fics overall amounted to 397 (!!!!). The chosen fics had a combined total of 126 votes. The doc with the list of nominees will stay active in case you want to check out the rest. 

Here are the 14 fics chosen by Harringrove fans as the best place to start for those looking to dabble in the community (you can also see these fics in the ao3 collection) - in alphabetical order:

◢ Billy Hargrove Needs a Nap - lilpeas [74,312; E]

It’s one thing to be a light sleeper in this shitty town that won’t shut up at night, but it’s another thing entirely to fall asleep on Steve Harrington’s shoulder during last period English.

◢ break (like waves) - @witchsickness​ [93,187; E]

‘We’re good together,’ Harrington says to the darkness above. Not a question. Matter of fact. He turns to Billy, a smile sweet enough to make Billy want to do something reckless. Something stupid. ‘I’m telling you, heartbreaker. We’re gonna be unstoppable.’

Billy wants to ask. If he means tomorrow. If he means just for the game.

Wants to ask if he means forever.

He’s never wanted anyone to mean forever before.

or; falling (in love), the hard way

◢ break up with your girlfriend (’cause i’m bored) - @the-copperkid [15,604; E]

@umissedconnections: Bambi eyes. m4m. i was rippin cigs in the sae p-lot. u made urself puke 2 make room 4 more beer. incredible? ur my hero PLS say ur into guys

* Steve finds he has a secret admirer who's continuously hitting on him via his university's Missed Connections Twitter account. // Tommy and Billy are the worst roommates ever.

◢ Cherry - @lazybakerart [58,061; E]

They’ve got ten minutes before Steve’s break is up and he has to go back to wishing for death with a smile.

◢ cherry pie - @brawlite and @toast-ranger-to-a-stranger [133,828; E]

Billy Hargrove lives for summer. Endless sunshine, heavily chlorinated pools, roaming ice cream trucks, and unencumbered freedom? There’s nothing better.

Even being stuck in Hawkins can’t ruin the summer for him. He eats it up, devouring every day whole.

◢ dried up, half full - @lymricks​ [60,016; E]

Steve’s been coming out here searching for a monster in the woods. He’s finally found one.

“What do you want, Hargrove?”

◢ falling for you in hawkins, indi-fucking-ana (series) - @lazybakerart​ [294,822+; E]

Billy gets his shit together. Steve figures some stuff out. They fall in love.

◢ in waves - @lymricks​ [45,095; M]

It’s March and it’s too cold for Billy to be shirtless and wearing shorts, but he hadn’t noticed until Harrington appeared and made him hold still. Harrington can’t seem to stop looking at the bruises. “What’s it to you if I miss a little school, Harrington?” Billy asks. He feels goosebumps rising on his skin.

“I don’t know,” Harrington snaps back, looking uncomfortable. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. Plant your feet, Billy wants to scream at him. I’m going to bowl you over.

◢ Incident at Castle Byers - @flippyspoon [3,639; G]

Will learns something about Billy Hargrove and feels a little less alone.

◢ Under the Covers - @toast-ranger-to-a-stranger​ [87,788; M]

Steve is (maybe) a little bit still in love with Nancy Wheeler and (maybe) trying to figure himself out-- between the night terrors and the babysitting and the general weirdness that is Hawkins, Indiana-- before he graduates.

Billy Hargrove fits in there somewhere (probably).

◢ when the bones are good - @un-buttoned​ [28,411; E]

‘So,’ Tommy says around a mouthful of fries, ‘what the fuck is the deal with you and Hargrove?’

And that’s really the goddamn question, isn’t it?

He wants to know Billy. Wants to know why he is the way he is. Wants to be able to figure out what the fuck he’s thinking when he looks at Steve like that, when he touches him like it doesn’t mean shit and like it means everything all at once. Wants to know why he talks so much shit, why he needs to fight, where all that fire comes from. Why he’s so volatile, why he’s such an asshole, how he can be so fucking mean and so fucking sweet in the span of seconds, at the same time, even.

◢ you’ll lose the blues in chicago (series) - @lymricks​ [101,188; E]

Steve takes a second to feel relieved it's not Dustin getting all sorts of arrested in places he shouldn’t be, then he goes back to staring.

It's Billy, who looks as good now as he did the last time Steve saw him: three years ago. He looks just as complicated, too. He’s got bruises on his face, a split lip.

The officer clears her throat, slowly, awkwardly, and Steve realizes they’ve been staring at each other for a while, now. He imagines, for a moment, saying that he doesn’t know this person, this stranger, pretending that Billy Hargrove was someone he used to know and kind of remembers, but--no, he’s not willing to sign for him, or whatever. To vouch for him. “Mr. Harrington?” the officer prompts.

Steve runs a hand through his hair. “Steve,” he corrects, a little absently. “Yeah, I’ll--yeah. Do you have a form, or something?”

Three years later, Steve Harrington signs Billy Hargrove out of a police station. This, it turns out, is only the beginning.

◢ you’re cold (and i burn) - @keroujack​ [55,919; E]

Move on. Let it heal.

Maybe that’s why Steve said yes when Max asked him to help move boxes out of Billy’s room after the dust settled. He could hear her voice. Too many. Too heavy.

Just like his wounds. His grief. Too many. Too heavy.

(Or, Steve steals the glass ashtray from Billy's bedside table and things start to go bump in the night.)

◢ Yourself or Someone Like You (series) - halfempty [792,802; E]

Maxine looked happy as they parted from Steve and walked down Main Street away from the theater. She slid into the passenger seat of Billy’s car. 'That was really fun,' she said. She looked at him like a gremlin and then smiled real cutesy. 'Did you and Steve hold hands in the popcorn?'

'I hope you had a real good time, I’m going to kill you in your sleep tonight,' Billy told her.

[damselofblueroses]

Bambi, Chapter 1

You are my Bambi, girl, I am your candy, tell me what are you waiting for?

Summary: As an archaeologist who works on the Ancient Greece, you were on the verge of excavations’ session. While you have been preparing your team, you learned that your institute decided on your team has to work with another team as they wanted the outcome as a collaboration. The head of other team was your biggest rival, a scumbag in your eyes: Byun Baekhyun.

You two were supposed to work together for three months, in a Greek Island, Chios.

Could you manage to not kill Byun Baekhyun for three months?

Content: AU, heavily Greek mythology, enemies to friends.

Warnings: Well, the story contains NSFW/Smut, please minors do not continue.

Note: This story will be four or five chapters if I will not change my mind in the meantime. It is inspired by my major; however, I do not have a complete knowledge on archaeology, I am a historian. If I will make a technical mistake, please let me know. I am willing to receive any kind of feedback; you are more than welcomed to drop a message.

Chapter One: UN Village

June, Incheon Airport

Along the curves of the hill

Rolling, rolling, rolling hills

As we climb there’s a broken streetlight

When I see one, I turn off the lights under it

Baekhyun was nothing but ready for the excavation.

You were more than ready for the session.

Both of you, were nothing but two leaders who hated each other equally.

You were eyeing each other with saying no words since your teams came together in the airport. Before this particular moment of departure, you refused to meet with Byun Baekhyun, putting aside meeting with him, you refused even dropping an e-mail in order to let Sunkyungwan Team about Sejong Team. You were clear and strict as fuck, even though two teams had to work together for three months, you had zero intention to get accustomed with the other team leader.

The weather was sunny, nice and warm, however because of you and Baekhyun, your team members were feeling like they were trapped in a fucking blizzard during the coldest winter.

You were aware of your team members had positive opinions of that scoundrel, especially the girls, as you had your first-handed experiences because of your stupid classmates, Byun Baekhyun was very famous of his abilities to cast a spell on women. The problem was he was also famous as a serial dater, serial killer type of men.

A bastard, nothing more nothing less.

“Indy,” one of your team members, Minseok, called you. Although, calling you as Indy was also a habit of Minseok, it was also an obligation for the others, you insisted on calling you by your nickname or your name, instead of calling you as sunbae. You did not like the hierarchical titles. “Should we move into the control point?”

“Yeah, if you are ready.” you replied, grabbing your luggage and the rest.

“I guess we have to alert Sunkyungwan people since we will fly together.” Hyesun pointed out, your eyebrows knitted.

“I guess,” you recall her words. “They also have this information, so we do not have to alert anyone, we are not their babysitters.”

Hyesun’s cheeks were blushing after you kindly scolded her, but she was clever enough to hold her tongue. Your dislike towards Sunkyungwan was not a secret as you used every opportunity to show it. You led your team to the kiosks, counting the heads automatically. You had six here, you were going to have ten more when you arrive to Chios whose coming from all around European universities. With thirteen Sunkyungwan students, the excavation was going to shelter almost forty members. It was going to be massive, you had to admit. You never had more than twenty students in the field till now, but you were going to lead an extraordinary team as Junmyeon craved into your brain’s folds with his hammer of words.

You wished to be with Junmyeon right now, you were more tense than usual. Junmyeon could put you in more stable mood, however you even did not think to name him while the executives were asking your possible candidates. He would kill you merciless, you knew it very well.

Eh, at least you got Sehun, Junmyeon’s brother in your team, he had a lot of similarities with Junmyeon even though he could be noisier than anyone you know, however you accepted him as your dongsaeng, as his precious noona and role model, you also knew how to put him in an order. Then you had Minseok, the eternal field-partner of yours. He was older than you, although he was engaged in a Ph.D. programme in abroad, he willingly accepted your invitation. You had four seniors, Shinhye, Yixing, Jongdae and Hyesun.

To your dismay, two of the seniors who you really could want in your team, Chanyeol and Kyungsoo were in that bastard’s team. You were of the fact that they were immensely close to each other, but you wished to have them in your team as their abilities were precious.

Especially Doh Kyungsoo.

You missed that fucking bastard who preferred to be with Baekhyun.

Life, you inhaled. It was not going exactly in the way you could ask.

“On your foot, soldiers.” you called your team around you. “Do you collect all the materials you will be in need of?”

“Yeah.” Jongdae cutely pointed to his tiniest bag. “I am ready to excavate.”

“Exactly you will need every tool you have.” Shinhye smacked her husband’s shoulder. Yeah, you had a married couple in your team, although you were a year younger them, you always regarded yourself as their big sister, if not a mother. “You are going to work too much, Dae. I have sleepless nights because of the burden on your shoulders.”

You could not help but burst into laughs after the look Jongdae gave to his wife. Those idiots, they were so lovely and instead of their endless scolding sessions, they were incredibly fond of each other.

Sometimes you wonder, how having your significant other by your side would be?

You slightly shook your head, quickly climbing out of this deep cliff.

“Let’s go!” you exclaimed, jumping to the air. “Sejong is ready for the session!”

Baekhyun was watching you with a disgusted expression.

“Move on, Baekhyun.” Chanyeol pushed his body to forward. “We will miss the flight, Goddamnit.”

“Give him couple of minutes.” Kyungsoo chuckled. “He is fucking the girl with his eyes, frankly, he is doing it unapologetically.”

“Which girl?” Chanyeol’s eyes widened. “Do you mean, that girl? You c-

“Of course, I am not.” Baekhyun interrupted Chanyeol, staring at Kyungsoo. “She can go and fuck herself.”

“Well,” Kyungsoo stood up, placing his book into the bag. “I guess, you are going to be one to fuck her, but maybe I am wrong.”

“In her dreams.” Baekhyun laughed. “If she can manage to dream something like this, but I do not think so. That little freak can put even the nuns into a shame.”

“She is beautiful to be honest.” Chanyeol said with no different intention but observing your features carefully. “Okey maybe not the hottest girl in the town, but she is pretty, and I heard she is very clever.”

“She is.” Kyungsoo approved. “But she kicked Baekhyun’s ass twice, so he cannot endure her presence.”

“She never,” Baekhyun grunted lowly. “Kick me or my proverbial parts!”

“Did someone talk about kicking some asses?” Jongin appeared out of nowhere. “I am in.”

“Shut up, Jongin.” Baekhyun rolled his eyes. “Let’s pick the team.”

The smile on Kyungsoo’s face irritated Baekhyun, he wanted to erase that fucking grin so bad, punching his face but Baekhyun had to hold his manners as the team leader. If they would be in their flat, he could already beat the shit out of Kyungsoo, at least he would try.

Baekhyun hated the fact that Kyungsoo had the exact past with you and him. Three of you entered the department together, instead Kyungsoo went to another university to pursue his master, in the end he testified every moment between you and Baekhyun.

That’s why he was smiling since he learned you were going to be the other team leader.

Baekhyun was aware of the close relationship between you and Kyungsoo, one of his best friends.

Quickly Baekhyun led his team to the control point, close to your team. He was avoiding from this step, however as the leader, presenting his fucking team to your team was his responsibility. When they arrived, he took a deep breath.

“Good morning to all.” his blood started to boil when you turned to him with a displeased face expression. Your eyebrows were knitted, your fucking lips formed as a thick line, your dislike was palpable and Baekhyun knew his own face was mirroring your feelings. “I hope you are fine, could you let me present my team to you?”

Baekhyun wanted nothing but cut the shit off.

“Good morning.” you answered between your teeth. Your voice sounded extremely creepy. “Yeah, go for it.”

You do not make a favour to me, bloody woman, Baekhyun thought but he put all his efforts to control his words.

“My name is Byun Baekhyun, I am going to lead Sunkyungwan Team this year.” he looked at your team members, quickly memorized their faces. “I really look forward to work with you, I wish a good session for us. They are my members, Park Chanyeol, Doh Kyungsoo, Kim Jongin, Kim Danbi, Lee Taemin, Lee Donghae, Kim Jonghyun, Kim Kibum, Lee Seungjo, Kang Seulgi, Im Yoona, Kim Taeyeon and Kwon Yuri.”

“You are like a troop, huh?” one of your girls smiled after Baekhyun finished his presentation.

“More or less.” Baekhyun smiled back to her. What a surprise to him was the transformation of your face. You warmly smiled to the members and bowed to each of them.

Baekhyun raised his left eyebrow, but he could not avert his eyes from your smiling face.

It was pleasant like a spring day and when you smile your eyes were shining.

“Thank you.” he heard your voice. “My team is not big as yours, Park Shinhye, Kim Jongdae, Zhang Yixing, Oh Sehun, Kim Minseok and Song Hyesun.”

“You forget yourself.” Minseok slapped his forehead and rolled his eyes. “Indy is going to lead Sejong Team as she has been leading us for the last two years, you can put your faith on her, she is the greatest.”

“Indy?” Jongin repeated your nickname with a surprised face. “Are you foreigner?”

“Do I look like?” you laughed and prevented yourself from flinching his forehead. He was such a cute kid. “That’s how my team call me.”

“Ah.” Jongin blushed and you could not control yourself anymore.

“But if you want, you can also call me as Indy.” you grinned like a Cheshire cat. “Everything must be equal for the teams since we are going to live together during a whole summer.”

“I would like to.” Jongin bowed to you.

“So do we need to add sunbae when we call you?” Kyungsoo asked.

“Have you ever called me as a sunbae, Doh Kyungsoo?” you coldly replied. “Did Sunkyungwan change your behaviours?”

“Gardens of roses turn to garths of thorns in a second.” Kyungsoo murmured but he was smiling to you, then he opened his arms, catching you off guard because you knew that Kyungsoo was not a huge fan of hugs. “Will you salute me as a good friend, or will I start calling you as sunbae?”

“Shut the fuck up, Doh.” you inhaled, but actually you were happy to see your still-working-on friendship. You moved to hug him, he held you tightly and lifted you to the air, then turned around himself, made you laugh like a 5-year-old girl.

Baekhyun did not like what was happening before his eyes. Kyungsoo had to be with Baekhyun, not hugging you for his fucking dear life, or lifting and turning you around like you were very dear to him. He hated sharing his friends with you, he already lost Junmyeon, he wanted to keep Kyungsoo and Chanyeol to himself. You should be fucking away from them, they were Baekhyun’s and only Baekhyun’s friends.

And there was another fragile issue that Baekhyun had been keeping in the deepest point of his heart and mind, like the palace of Nyx in the darkest part of Tartarus. Extremely delicate, horrendous, and even atrocious.

Baekhyun was aware of a strange presence was lying down beneath his hatred, dislike and continuous loathe towards you, there was a layer of curiosity, something could feed different layers and causing an earthquake in his life. Baekhyun knew that you were his biggest rival, but you became his rival by your talents and intelligence. He knew this and this piece of realization doubled his hate towards you.

The funny part was the things he did not realize. Baekhyun was full of confidence, he was capable of performing even miracles, however he never perceive the fact that you were also a miracle.

“So, what we are going to do?” Chanyeol asked to everyone with a huge, happy smile. Baekhyun fended himself off moaning, happy virus Chanyeol already sensed the chance of levitating the mood between the teams and playing along with it. “Are we boarding?”

“Yeah, let’s go.” one of your boys, Sehun, came close to Chanyeol. Baekhyun and you immediately glared them, noticing the chemistry between these two. Both of you wished to keep the teams apart from each other in order to reduce the obliged interactions between the leaders, but it seemed not possible even from the beginning. Baekhyun was cursing between his lips, you were swearing at the executive board in your mind.

“Indy,” Shinhye whispered to you. “Are you okey? You look like wanting to kill one of us.”

“Not you.” you answered without thinking, then registered to your words. “Ignore me, Shinhye, I am a little bit tense right now.”

“We got your back.” she blinked at you and held Jongdae’s hand. “Let’s start the adventure!”

What an adventure, you thought but silently joined them. Kyungsoo also was walking next to you.

“Why the heck you went to Sunkyungwan?” you spilled the bean. “I always believed you would stay in Sejong.”

“Yeah, that was my intention.” Kyungsoo was plain as always. “However, Sunkyungwan gives me more opportunities to secure my career, Indy.”

“I know.” you had to admit. Sejong was not generous as Sunkyungwan. “Sorry for my selfish words.”

“No worries.” he beamed. “It happens all the time, but I am really happy to work with you again.”

“Old but gold days, huh?”

“Well, it was not purely gold,” Kyungsoo followed the flows and ebbs. “Do you remember when we were almost expelled from the university?”

“Is there a way to forget those days?” you immediately took a look on Baekhyun. It was his fault, obviously. “We were shitting in our pants instead of the one who put us in that situation.”

“Come on,” Kyungsoo chuckled. “It was not only his fault, Indy, our hands were also crimson red.”

“Let me recall the memory, Doh,” you pinched his hand, he playfully pushed your fingers. “Excuse me if I am wrong, however that scumbag was the one who challenged you to confiscate the coin, because of your involvement into the incident, I had no choice but dragging your ass out of shit.”

“They caught two of us in the crime field.” Kyungsoo burst into laughs. “Professor Lee went ballistic and scolded us like we just killed a person cold heartedly.”

“And you could not see the reason behind it?” You were cutting Kyungsoo’s body with your eyes. “If someone tries to steal a coin from the excavation house during the session, I will kill them for sure. We were so lucky, the one who caught us was Professor Lee.”

“I heard you are strictest when it comes to excavation.” Kyungsoo assured you. “But try to not kill us.”

“The only one I am going to take down,” you shivered with the memory, Kyungsoo was already regretful to remind it to you. Well, maybe not so much because he wanted you and Baekhyun to realize the potential relationship you could have, and the easiest way in order to put you two in touch was making you angry. “That bastard if he will behave like the old days. We are not children anymore.”

“Have you ever been a kid?”

“Fuck off, Kyungsoo.”

“You did not change even a bit, Indy.” Kyungsoo made his statement. Obviously, you were going to keep this to yourself, taking his silent approval made you were more than happy. “You are still a pain in the ass.”

“And you are still a good boy.” you grinned, watching his lips formed around silent laughs. “Such a cute puppy for me, let me see your wagging tail.”

“I am sorry to interrupt your flirting session,” Kyungsoo turned to Baekhyun’s deadpanned face. “However, we have to move.”

“When you come across to a pretty girl,” Kyungsoo did not miss the chance of returning the favour. “You have to flirt with her. Wasn’t it your advice?”

“Yeah.” Baekhyun looked at you, then turned to Kyungsoo.

You knew what was going to happen.

“He said pretty girls,” you tucked the words in Baekhyun’s mouth before he could open his fucking damn mouth. “To my dismay, I have never been pretty to correspond the standards of Byun Baekhyun the Magnificent. I am crying for the lack of beauty almost every night, I mean living without Byun Baekhyun’s interests… Such a misery.”

Kyungsoo bit his lower lip in order to hold his laugh, Baekhyun’s fists were clenching but you did not stop there.

"Ah I almost forget to ask for the name of that little village, Baekhyun.” you directly looked at his eyes since ages. “Where the girl you desperately wanted to bless with your attention left you? UN Village?”

You immediately spin on your tiptoes, then slipped towards to Sehun, leaving two of them behind of you, refusing to look at back. In the meantime, Baekhyun was throwing daggers to your back, grinding his teeth, his jaw was extremely tensed. Before Kyungsoo could stop him, he swiftly came to your side, you felt his breath on your neck.

You shivered.

You fucking shivered and Baekhyun noticed that.

“You are playing with the fire, as always.” he whispered to your ear before someone could notice what he was doing. “Did you forget who was burning with fire, baby girl?”

He quickly disappeared and started to make such a fuss in order to gather his team members around himself. You were frozen, after years, you were frozen, you missed the little smile on the corner of Baekhyun’s mouth.

You were on the verge of screaming because of the frustration you had felt. You forced yourself to proceed, walked into the plane, helped your team in order to set their belongings and place into their seats, then you retreated your own seat. It was comfortable and you could easily snatch a blanket. Your wish became true, even quicker than you expected because Sehun, your wonderful Sehun, already brought a soft blanket for you. You smiled at him, actually forgiving him for building bonds with Chanyeol since they changed their seats in order to sit next to each other and weaved your legs around the fabric.

Your brain was in autopilot, you were lost in the horrible memories. You did not want to recall them, you buried them into the cemetery of your memory. You wished nothing but never remember that day.

The day in that village.

Baekhyun was mad at himself.

His face was clouded, for the first time he was silent and sitting on the farthest seat in the plane. He really wanted to be alone, and since being vocal about his feeling was so natural for him, he told his need to the team. They willingly let him to do what he wanted, as a result, he was looking out of window, hell if a person could see something out of a plane’s window, and he was cursing himself.

He knew it was going to be a chess play. Between you and him.

It has been always like the chess.

There was a bond between you and Baekhyun, even thought you two always refused it, you also were aware of that bond. You equally hated each other and if there was a thing which could make you happier than seeing each other’s downfalls, that was the opportunity of being the one who digs the other’s grave by their hands.

He was sure on he was going to be the one who sets your body on fire, then finishes you. He was sure on he was going to be the victor, the one and only champion.

When he kills you, erases your name for all eternity, when he condemns you with demnatio memoriae, he will calmly breathe again.

You were a pain in the ass, even when you were not around of Baekhyun, you had a place in his mind since that fucking day he met you. Your presence was like a tree, how much he could try, he could neither find your roots in his mind nor cut them all.

You were his enemy; he was going to treat you as you deserved.

There would be no turning back.

But…

He was mad at himself.

He made a wrong move while he was trying to disturb you, shake your cage in order to give you a lesson.

He also remembered.

The day in that fucking village.

[terreisa]

Love Down the Line: Chapter 2

The last thing Indie musician Emma Swan needs is a gigantic wrench thrown in the workings of her biggest tour to date weeks before its launch.  When her backing guitarist that caused the problem says she has the perfect solution Emma is skeptical but left with little choice but to accept.  Unfortunately she isn't really prepared for said solution to be former Rock Star and leading man of Emma's teenage fantasies, Killian Jones.  With no other options and a month of performing across the country ahead of her Emma just hopes she doesn't come to regret letting Killian onto her stage and into her life. 

Ch 1, AO3

~*CS*~

Portland, Maine- April 10th

Emma hadn’t intended to be late to rehearsal.  In fact, she wanted to be early to get a step up on Jones.  She figured just because she was doing Ruby a favor didn’t mean she couldn’t exert a little pressure on the guy at the same time.  By the end of a tour she was usually ready to kick everyone off the bus and finish the damn shows herself and she was good friends with Ruby and the others in the backing band.  Jones had to more than prove himself to her during the rehearsal turned audition.  He had to blow it out of the water.

Of course, that had been before she was the one showing up almost forty minutes late.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit,” she huffed under her breath as she ran across the parking lot, the guitar strapped across her back knocking her in the ass with every step.

“You’re late Miss Swan.”

Emma grimaced at the sound of her manager, Regina Mills’, voice.  The woman was scary on a normal day with her custom designer suits, red soled stilettos, and three hundred dollar haircuts that made sure not a single dark hair was out of place, or grey.  She was holding open the door for her with a look of extreme annoyance or impatience or disappointment.  It could have been all three but Emma blew past her into the building and down the familiar hallways towards the space she and the others had been rehearsing in for years.

“I know, I know.  Sorry-” she shrugged in apology and nearly dropped the three notebooks and handful of loose papers in her arms.  Hugging them tighter into her chest she kept moving, “The bug wouldn’t start and I had to call Mary Margaret to borrow her car and then there was an accident on the highway.”

“And why couldn’t you have carpooled with Ruby?” Regina asked cooly as she followed, clearly unmoved by her tales of woe.

Emma stopped dead in the middle of the hallway and spun to face Regina, “Ruby can’t be here.  She’s not supposed to drive with the pills she was given.”

“She is and she didn’t,” Regina said with a roll of her eyes, pushing at Emma’s elbow to get her moving again. “Some other woman who has the manners of a barn animal is here with her.  If you keep inviting people to rehearsals I’m going to start charging for the privilege, maybe even turn it into a VIP package.”

“It must be Dorothy,” Emma smiled, her first real one since Ruby’s practically world ending phone call. “Good for her.  And the only other person who should be here is that Jones guy Ruby swears is worthy of replacing her.  She said he’s a session guitarist, do you not know him either?”

She’d opened the door that led to the rehearsal space, looking over her shoulder as she asked.  Regina raised an impeccably plucked brow and settled her gaze behind her.  Turning towards the room she immediately saw who the stranger was and promptly dropped everything in her arms in shock.

“Careful there, Swan, if you’re anything like every other songwriter I know those things are worth more than their weight in gold.”

Emma could do nothing more than stare as Killian Jones set his guitar aside and crossed the room to pick up the papers and notebooks at her feet.  He gathered them all and tried to straighten them before handing them up to her, a crooked grin on his face.  It faltered a little as she continued to stare at him before he chuckled and scratched behind his ear.

Killian Jones was definitely not the random guy off the street Emma had been imagining, he wasn’t even a vaguely familiar face she’d seen in the halls of their rehearsal space.  He had been the lead guitarist and second vocalist for one of the biggest rock bands in the world almost fifteen years earlier.  His band, Realm of Jewels' second album had gone multi platinum, they’d played arenas and headlined festivals across the globe.  Rumor had it that their third album was supposed to be even bigger.  Then there had been a terrible accident and half the band was gone in an instant.  Killian Jones had survived but emerged from the wreck with one hell of a dragon, in the form of alcohol and pills, on his back.

As far as she’d known he was just another rock star that had gotten lost in the world because of his addictions.  Apparently the story hadn’t ended there.  No, it had seemingly kept going with him ending up in her goddamn rehearsal space looking bashful and hot as fuck.

“You’re Killian Jones.”

He blushed and it almost killed her, “Last time I checked.”

“Realm of Jewels,” she challenged, wondering if he’d shy away from his past.

“Once upon a time,” he shot back, a glint of humor in his eyes as his blush faded.

She hummed, “Rolling Stone called you a ‘not so hidden gem in the rock world, poised to be among the pantheon of rock gods’ if I’m remembering correctly.”

“Good memory,” he grinned, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “And that same illustrious publication said you were on the road to being the Stevie Nicks of your generation.  A bit belittling but not far off the mark.”

“Belittling?” She asked sharply, her hackles rising.

He held up his hands in defense, “Not in the way you think, Swan.  If I had written the article I would have perhaps said that you were a talent beyond compare.”

“Oh,” she said, deflating a bit but still on edge due to him being there at all, “um, okay.”

She glanced around the room, trying to find a way out of the suddenly awkward silence that had settled between them.  Tink Greene and Will Scarlet, the other members of her backing band, were huddled by the drumset, watching them with barely hidden awe, clearly star struck at being in the same room with the Killian Jones.  Ruby was sitting on the couch, whispering to the woman sitting next to her, who could only be Dorothy.  Emma caught Ruby’s eye and not so subtly jerked her head back towards the hallway she’d just come from.

“Emma-” Regina snarled as she started backing out of the room.

“I’d like a minute with my guitarist if you don’t mind,” Emma said through gritted teeth, giving Jones an insincere smile that had his own widening in glee.

“Oh, do let them go, Your Majesty,” Jones said with a laugh. “I believe we still need to discuss certain terms and conditions of this little arrangement.”

Emma opened her mouth to argue that nothing was decided when Ruby pushed her fully into the hallway with surprising strength in her uninjured arm.

“Are you fucking kidding me Ruby?” She hissed as soon as the doors closed behind them. “Killian Jones?!”

“So you obviously know there’s no need for him to audition,” Ruby said with a sly smile. “I mean you have seen him in concert four, no fi-”

She covered Ruby’s mouth with her hand, shushing her as she pushed her further down the hallway.  They only made it three steps before Ruby licked her palm, cackling with glee when she yanked her hand back, disgusted.

“It’s not gonna happen.”

“Come on.  He can play, he’s available and he knows the songs.  This is the best you’re going to get and you know it,” Ruby stated proudly, her grin smug.

“The best,” Emma muttered, shaking her head and trying to keep hold of her temper. “The best?  Jesus Christ, Ruby, the second he steps out on stage it’s not my show anymore, it’s his.  I have worked too fucking long and hard for that asshole to come in and take it all from me in some bid to reclaim his glory.”

“Oh, oh no, Emma, that’s totally not at all what this is,” Ruby whispered, her face pale and looking stricken. “He owed me, big time, and I obviously didn’t think about any of that when I called it in.  Look, don’t repeat this to anyone.  Like, anyone.  But Killian hasn’t played in public since he got out of rehab.  That he even agreed to do this is I think big enough for him.  He’s not looking to steal the spotlight.”

“Then why is he here?” Emma asked, slightly mollified but still seething.

“He misses playing for an audience but I think he has a kind of block or something about going for it on his own,” Ruby said softly.  She gave a half-hearted shrug, “I’m just trying to help out two friends in one go.”

The last of her anger drained away at the sincerity in Ruby’s voice.  It wasn’t often that Ruby was the serious one in their friendship but when she was Emma always paid attention.  If she hadn’t she’d have still been waiting tables at Granny’s Diner and only playing her guitar at barbeques and bonfires for their small group of friends at home.  She also wouldn’t have been able to call Storybrooke home for that matter.

No longer angry but still infinitely annoyed she tipped her head back and let out a sigh, “Fine I’ll give him a chance on two conditions.”

“Excellent!” Ruby crowed.  Emma dropped her gaze back down and raised a brow at her, “Whatever the conditions he’ll totally do it.  He wants this, just doesn’t know how badly he does until you start making him jump through hoops to prove it to you.”

“Oh, only one of the conditions is for him,” Emma said with a smirk.

Ruby’s eyes widened, “What?  Why do I have to prove myself?”

“You don’t.  I just want to know how you can call Killian Jones, one of the most famous guitarists-”

“Who you had a poster of on your wall,” Ruby broke in with wiggling eyebrows and a giddy grin, “and a laminated photo in your-”

“Who had a very public and very destructive drug and alcohol problem, your friend,” Emma continued pointedly.

Ruby’s grin faded, “He was in the same rehab facility as my mom.  Well, one of them.  On one of her bad days I went for a walk around the gardens to cool my head a little and recognized him.  Had a bit of a fangirl moment, if I’m being honest.  Not exactly my finest moment since he was there to get his life back together and I go gushing about how great I thought he was before it all went to shit.  I could tell he was humoring me until I started talking about gigs and asking him how to improve my playing, then his eyes kinda lit up and he started offering me advice and some tricks for the road.  So whenever I went to visit my mom I would also stop by to talk to him about music.

“After my mom decided she was done being sober, again, I still went by to see him.  He needed a friend and I guess I needed to believe that someone could actually follow through with getting clean.  When he got out we stayed in touch.  Just a ‘hi, how’re you doing’ text every so often.  Until, of course, the arm thing happened.”

“And you never mentioned it because…?”

“I wanted to but it seemed-” Ruby shrugged, “like an invasion of privacy, somehow?”

Emma nodded, getting what Ruby meant but still a little hurt that she’d kept it from her.  She’d only admit it on threat of death having met him but Jones had been her number one celebrity crush since she’d discovered Realm of Jewels in her senior year of high school.  Ruby was a witness to it then and clearly still remembered that embarrassing fact.  Then it occurred to her that there were dark parts of her life that she wouldn’t want shared with a fan no matter how close of a friend Ruby was with them.  She nodded again, fully accepting the truth of what Ruby had told her.

“I’m not going to go easy on him,” she warned, spinning on her heel and walking back to the rehearsal room.

Ruby laughed, “I would have been suspicious if you did.  So what are you going to make him do?”

“You’ll see,” she said cryptically with a grin before opening the door.

“Finally,” Regina muttered as they walked back in.  She pointed a perfectly manicured finger at Emma, “You may be a favorite of the owners here but we’re still paying for every minute this room has people in it.  So start playing or find somewhere else to work out your little grievances.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Emma apologized again, knowing that if there was something that pissed Regina off more than wasted time it was wasted money.

She felt Killian’s eyes on her as she greeted Tink and Will before moving to the piano.  It was like a phantom pressure between her shoulder blades that she was trying her best to ignore.  If he was trying to unsettle her she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction and if he was trying to figure her out she wasn’t going to make it easy for him.  When she finally had all her things set up how she wanted and ignoring him was no longer an option she turned to face him, valiantly trying to hide that she was still slightly shocked and unnerved that he was there.

“Ruby said that you’re a session guitarist now,” she began without preamble, hoping to gain whatever upper hand she could.

“I may not be hurting for cash, love, but a man does like to keep busy,” his voice dipped low at the end of his statement.  Paired with a raised brow and feral grin she had to hold back a snort of amusement at his innuendo.

“Not your love,” she shot back dismissively, “She also said that you’ve played on my albums?”

His grin faltered, “Aye.”

“And would you say you enjoyed the songs you recorded or were they just a forgettable few in a long set of recordings to… keep you busy?”

There was the sound of a violent snort and then a deep spluttering a cough that belonged to Will from behind her.  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Ruby rolling her eyes at her and Regina throwing up her hands in exasperation.  She kept her face impassive and gaze on Killian, pleased to see him fidget and scratch behind his ear in what had to be nervousness.

“Erm, well when I first recorded one of your songs I’ll admit I had no clue who you were and no interest in discovering more,” Killian admitted but instead of dropping his eyes he held her gaze. “Then I had the fortune of recording another one and found myself intrigued.  I’ve listened to everything you’ve released up ‘til now and I’ve enjoyed all of it, not just what I was hired to play.”

“Okay then,” she said as cooly as she could, despite the giddiness and disbelief running through her knowing that he liked her music. “Now I hope you don’t mind but I’d like to hear you play something.”

“Play something?” He repeated, flabbergasted.

“Just a few different songs,” she said innocently, “so I know you’ll be a good fit.”

His mouth opened and closed several times before he shot an incredulous look at Ruby.  Emma could barely hold in her laughter as Ruby shrugged and said nothing.

“Problem, Jones?”

He turned back to her, looking incredulous, “Let me get this straight, Swan, you can quote an article from Rolling Stone that was released well over a decade ago about my playing and you want me to audition?”

“Only if you want the gig,” she said with a shrug.

She could see the muscle in Killian’s jaw jumping, though she wasn’t sure if it was from annoyance or contemplation.  Either way it gave her a little inspiration.  While he continued to stew she pulled out her phone and did a quick internet search for what she needed.

“Fine, love,” he said, drawing her attention back to him.  He picked up his guitar and slid the strap over his head. “What would you like to hear?”

“Can you read music?” She asked with honest curiosity.

“I can,” he said warily.

“Good-” she turned to Ruby, “I need your Ipad.”

Ruby gave her a calculating look before slowly extracting the tablet out of her purse and handing it over.  Emma gave her what she hoped was a look of innocence before pulling up what she needed and handing it over to Killian. 

“Layla?  A classic-” he smirked and handed her back the Ipad, “and one I already know by heart.”

With that he started playing, amazingly, and Emma almost didn’t have the heart to stop him.  Almost.

“Whoa there, Jones,” she said loudly, waving her hands for him to stop.  He did with a discordant note and stared at her in confusion.  She handed back the Ipad, “I wanted you to play this.”

He looked at it and then back at her, his brow furrowing even more, “But I was.”

“No, you didn’t read the music-” she wiggled the Ipad at him, “You were playing the lead.  I want to hear you play the rhythm.”

“Ah,” he breathed, a look of bemusement and something that was too much like awe replacing his confusion, “I see.”

From there he played every unflashy guitar part she could throw at him.  He didn’t complain and his annoyance didn’t make a reappearance.  The others listened happily and even offered suggestions, though Regina had left with a disgusted huff after the fourth song.  They passed the tablet back and forth several times before she decided to end the teasing with one of her favorites.

Killian snorted when he saw her choice, “You do know that two great guitarists play on this one right?  Even playing rhythm on this one is an honor.  Although, the same should have been said for Layla, but I have enjoyed this little challenge.”

“Good to know,” she said, smiling. “I don’t want you to play rhythm on this one though.  If you don’t mind.”

“It would be my honor,” he hummed, handing her back the Ipad.

The chatter in the room fell silent as the familiar chords of While My Guitar Gently Weeps swept through the room.  Emma closed her eyes and let the music wash over her.  There was only one constant in her life and it was music, first listening, then playing, and finally creating.  It had never sent her back, never sent her to prison, and never forced her to send her child away.  As Killian played the last notes she felt the familiar pang of melancholy the song invoked in her but made sure the smile she gave him when she opened her eyes was genuine.

“Thanks.”

“Shouldn’t I be thanking you for giving me the opportunity?  I’ve never had to audition before-”

“Lucky git,” Will grumbled as he ambled by them, heading toward the snack table on one side of the room.

“Will Scarlet, drums, constant pain in the ass but our pain in the ass,” Emma commented lightly, batting away the Red Vine Will had tossed at her.  She hitched her thumb over her shoulder to where she’d last noticed Tink, “That’s Tink Greene, bassist, she’s small but she’ll knock you out if you mess with the current rotation of romance novels she’ll be bringing on the bus.”

Killian raised a brow at her, “I can’t quite tell by your tone but am I to believe I got the gig?”

“You had the gig as soon as she saw your pretty face and hot ass,” Ruby called out from her spot on the couch, causing Emma’s cheeks to heat up and Killian’s lip to curl.

“Yeah, well-” she cleared her throat, “We’ve, uh, already used up our reserved time for today and Regina won’t be happy if we stay late, even if we actually rehearse.  We’ve got a couple more weeks of rehearsals on Mondays and Fridays and then it’ll be almost every day until the tour starts.  If you need somewhere to stay just let Regina know and she’ll book the hotel room or whatever.”

“So I got the gig?” Killian pressed, his blue eyes glittering in mirth.

“You got the gig,” she sighed, rolling her eyes at his toothy grin. Then she let her features settle into what she hoped was a menacing look, “There’s some conditions.”

“Of course,” he said, nodding sagely.

“Your name isn’t going to be in any of the advertising, or brought up in interviews, and absolutely not on any of the damn marquees.  You’re being hired as a guitarist in my backing band, not as the feature player.”

He nodded again but with understanding, “Of course, I have no desire to upstage you or hijack the tour for my own needs.”

“Good,” she said, slightly surprised he agreed so easily. “This is also temporary.  Once Ruby gets the all clear from her doctor she’s back and you’re out.”

“As I wouldn’t want to keep a fellow musician, or friend, out of work I will happily step aside-” he gave a little bow that she refused to see as charming.

“And last, no groupies on the bus,” she added, fighting to keep her face impassive and the blush that threatened from pinkening her cheeks.

It had never been a set rule, in fact it was one they’d each bent a little one time or another, but a weird pressure built in the back of her neck at the thought of having to see and listen to Killian with some doe eyed fan.  Not that she cared.  She just didn’t want to get to know him that intimately, even if it was by proxy, when she barely knew him as anyone other than the rock star she’d had a crush in high school.

His jaw clenched almost imperceptibly before he laughed.  It didn’t sound forced or off but somehow Emma knew it was fake all the same.

“Understood, love.”

“Still not your love-” she held out her hand and his hand was calloused and warm when he grasped it, “Welcome to the band.”

[sunflower-swan]

Wolfstar Chapter 7

A/N: Here’s what you need to know: I created this story for Writer’s Month 2020. Every day is a new prompt, and therefore a new chapter. This is an AU Wolfstar where Remus is a tattoo artist next door to Sirius who manages a flower shop. James and Lily are alive in this universe and own a coffee shop across the street. And to make parts of the story work with the prompts, Remus is about 10 years older than Sirius. It also takes place more or less in present time, minus Covid-19.

This is chapter 7 of a multi-chapter work. If you’d like to start from the beginning, here is chapter 1.

Disclaimer: I don’t own these characters. I just like to play with them.

Day 7 Prompt: Hurt/Comfort

Rating: Mature

Word Count: 2094

Tags: original character death, angst, pining, hurt/comfort, language

Chapter 7

Sirius

Johnny Cash, “Hurt”

I wear this crown of thorns

Upon my liar's chair

Full of broken thoughts

I cannot repair

Sirius apparated to the secluded alley behind the shops, and strolled toward the tattoo parlor. As he walked he pondered what the next six months without Silas was going to be like. He would likely be spending more time with Remus. Other than James and Lily, who else did he have? Coffee at Potter’s Wheel might turn into the highlight of his day. It would at least guarantee he wasn’t alone in his misery.

What about that Logan guy? He was rather good looking, in a rough sort of way. If one was into that sort of thing. Had Remus called him yet? Maybe he could live vicariously through Remus in a relationship. That’s assuming Remus could let go of his crazy ‘romantic quarantine’ theory. Although, that might make him miss Silas more. At the very least, Sirius would hold tight to the memory of his last day with Silas.

After their shared morning shower, Sirius helped Silas get everything packed that he would need for the next six months. They worked together to prepare an early dinner and ate it in the garden. Then they sat outside until long after the sun had gone down just being together, and talking about nothing and everything.

He was so caught up in his thoughts he walked right past the tattoo parlor and the flower shop. It wasn’t until he was nearly a block away that he realized what he had done, and turned around to retrace his steps. Remus stepped out the front door as he drew level with the shop.

“Hey, Sirius.”

“Morning, Remus.”

“Get a portkey sorted?”

“Yep.” He pulled a fob watch from out of his pocket and held it up for Remus to see. “We’ve got about 10 minutes before it activates, so we had better hurry and get out of Muggle view.”

Remus nodded and set off down the sidewalk toward the apparating alley. Sirius fell in step beside him.

“So...did you call Logan?”

Remus scoffed and rolled his eyes. “No.”

“What?!” Sirius couldn’t believe he was being so obtuse. “Why not? He was clearly into you…”

Remus sighed. 

“...and he was gorgeous.”

They reached the entrance to the alley and Remus stopped. “Sirius.” He massaged between his eyebrows.

“Remus.” He said in a friendly mocking tone.

Sirius pulled the fob watch out of his pocket and held it out so Remus could place a finger on it. A few seconds later, he felt a tug behind his navel, and they were whooshed off to Sennan, Penzance. The outskirts at least. They landed about a mile south of the official View Point.

Portkey was not Sirius’ favorite way to travel. He much preferred apparating. At least with apparition, he could stay on his feet. As he could have predicted, upon landing, he found himself on the ground in a tangle with Remus.

“Shit! You ok?” He asked as he helped Remus to his feet.

Both men dusted themselves off and looked around. They appeared to have landed on a somewhat rocky outcrop. Luckily, they also landed on the grassiest bit of the outcrop, which made for at least a semi-soft landing. Salty ocean air invaded their nostrils, and the sound of ocean waves could be heard. Sirius bent over and picked the fob watch from off the ground.

“This is also our ticket home. But it doesn’t activate until 4 o’clock. I figured we could also grab a bite and check out the area.” He gave Remus a hardy pat on the shoulder and pocketed the watch. “What do you think?”

“Whoa!” Remus cried, balancing on one leg. He seemed to still be unsteady on his legs from the portkey, and the shoulder pat almost knocked him over again. 

Sirius grabbed Remus' arm to prevent him from toppling over. “Sorry!” he apologized. “Let’s get going before I really hurt you,” he added with a laugh.

Remus raised his eyebrows in agreement and the pair set off towards the path which they had landed near.

After a few minutes of walking in comfortable silence, Sirius decided to ask the question that had been nagging at him all morning. “Why are you not going to call Logan?”

Remus shot him a sidelong glance.

“Come on! You can tell me. I want to know why my best friend is determined to be miserable and alone.”

“I’m not miserable!”

“Tell that to your face.”

“Wait...I’m your best friend?” Remus neck flushed.

“Well yeah, dummy. One of them at least. Other than you, James, Lily, and Silas...who else do I hang out with?” Wow...that’s kinda sad, if you think about it. Sirius decided not to think about it. It was what it was.

Remus smiled and threw his arm around Sirius' shoulder. “Is it possible to have more than one best friend though? Doesn’t the term ‘best’ imply there can only be one?”

“Well, you see, James is my oldest best friend. And by extension, as his wife, Lily is also my best friend. You are my newest best friend.” Sirius glanced at Remus to see if he wanted to interject. When he did not, he continued. “We have coffee together everyday. You were the first person to whom I showed the letter from Silas, and you were the first person I asked to come with me today. Who’s your best friend then? Who is this person you’ve never mentioned as long as I’ve known you?”

They walked a few steps in contemplative silence; the wind whistling through their hair.

Then Remus chuckled. “Point taken,” he said. “Thanks for being my best friend.” His eyes and smile lit up.

Sirius’ breath caught as he observed the light in Remus’ face. Just as quickly as that sensation surfaced, so did another...shame. He felt his scalp prickle, and he winced on the inside. Fresh on the heels of a ‘best friend’ speech, while at an outing specifically for your serious boyfriend, is not an ideal time to get a swhooshing feeling in your stomach when your best friend smiles at you. Sirius reprimanded himself, and decided to bury those feelings until a later time. He also pulled away from Remus' arm around his shoulder.

The path was beginning to become more crowded with people as they neared the View Point. They could see a cluster of buildings ahead, presumably comprising the Visitor’s Center.

“You still didn’t answer my question.” Sirius pressed.

“What question was that?”

Feigning ignorance, I see. “Why are you not going to call Logan, and why are you determined to remain alone and miserable?”

“Oh, yeah…” was all Remus said.

Fine. Sirius thought, and decided to drop it. I’ll figure you out one day.

They continued the walk along the path until they came to the Signpost. It read:

‘New York 3147’

“Three thousand, one hundred, forty-seven miles away…” Sirius said. He took a deep breath and let out a heavy sigh. “Six...bloody...months.”

“It will be alright.”

“How do you know?”

Remus placed a hand on Sirius’ shoulder. “Because you’re my best friend, and I’ll be here for you.”

~~~~~

Three months passed without much incident. Life for Sirius continued much the same as it always had. Morning coffee had turned into the highlight of his day, as predicted. On his days off he would hang out with either James and Lily, or Remus.

Spending time with James and Lily usually centered around something to keep Harry entertained. Sirius didn’t mind because he loved spending time with his godson. Their outings often included something that involved animals. The kid had a natural inclination toward snakes that was a little strange.

Time spent with Remus was a nice break from toddler amusing activities. The first time Sirius suggested they go see an Indie film playing at the theatre around the corner, he had to practically drag Remus there. At the end of the movie, Remus conceded it wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be, but he still preferred a quiet art museum. 

He would write to Silas every two or three days to let him know what was going on. Silas would write back when he was able. He moved around a lot and was able to get out a letter about once a week.

Silas’ letters were always full of discovery and adventure. His team started out in Maine and were working their way through the forested region down the East Coast. Their main objective was to document observations of native American magical animals in their natural habitat.

Then Sirius didn’t hear anything back for a couple weeks. He was sitting with Remus at the Potter’s Wheel for an after work coffee.

“I’m sure everything is fine.” Remus had been attempting to reassure him for the past ten minutes.

Both men looked up at the peck peck peck at the window next to them. A tawny owl was flapping there with a letter attached to it’s leg. Sirius jumped up and ran out the door. His heart thudded in his chest. Finally! He took the scroll from the owl and it flew away. The untidy scrawl across the top was not Silas’ handwriting. Hair on the back of Sirius’ neck stood on end. It was addressed to him though. Unable to wait, he ripped open the letter, and read:

Dear Mr. Black,

We regret to inform you of a terrible accident involving Mr. Oleander. While on a field mission in central Maryland, his team was the victim of a Snallygaster attack. Mr. Oleander’s body was not found at the scene, and is presumed deceased.

Greatest sympathies,

Magizoologist Office, UK 

Sirius read through the short note again, and again, and again. His brain was unable to process or believe what he was reading. He slid down the window until he was sitting on the ground, and his tears fell upon the parchment. They fell upon the words that brought his entire world crashing down around him.

He was vaguely aware of handing the letter to Remus. A person on either side of him grasped him under the arms and pulled him to a standing position. He supposed he walked somewhere, because when he woke up, he was on a couch he did not recognize.

Maybe it was a nightmare. But whose couch is this? He felt the soft suede under his fingers and looked around. “Hello?” His voice was hoarse. He felt a wave of nausea as he moved to a sitting position.

Remus came into view, holding two teacups. “Hello.” He sat one on the coffee table, and kept the other for himself. “How are you feeling?” he asked, taking a seat in an eclectic mid-century modern chair across from the couch and crossing his legs.

“Like I’m going to be sick.” Sirius looked around for a wastebasket, or the bathroom. Anything so as to not vomit all over Remus or his furniture.

“Bathroom’s through there if you need it.” Remus pointed toward a door leading off from the room. ��Try the tea though. It’s Peppermint Ginger. Should help your stomach.”

Sirius reached for the tea and gave it a sip. Not bad. He didn’t want to talk, so he glanced around what he assumed was Remus’ flat above the Tattoo Lounge. One entire wall was a bookshelf filled with books, which he found unsurprising. The titles he could make out from the couch appeared to be a varied collection of artist biographies and histories, and Muggle fiction; J.R.R. Tolkien featured prominently.

On the walls hung artwork he recognized as Remus’ style, because he had one similar hanging in his flat that Remus had gifted him at Christmas last year. Floral arranging was an art in it’s own right, but the skill evident in these pieces was exquisite. Some were done in Muggle-style, while others in wizard-style. Even the Muggle-style pieces looked so real, like they could jump off the canvas and walk around in the room. His best friend was an enigma wrapped in a tough shell; a puzzle he hadn’t cracked yet.

“Want to talk about it?”

He squinted his eyes closed. Unbidden came an image of Silas on their last morning together. He shook his head, and the nausea reared its ugly head again. Clasping his hands in front of his mouth, he opened his eyes and looked at Remus.

“Ok,” Remus said softly. “How about a shower? Or a bath? I think I have some fizzy bath bombs.”

In spite of himself, Sirius let out a little chuckle. “Bath bomb. Definitely.”

A/N: If you’ve followed the story this far, then I’m going to warn you now so you can mentally and emotionally prepare yourself...Sirius is not going to handle this death well. The next few chapters are going to get pretty dark, but I PROMISE it will get happier. This has a Wolfstar endgame after all. ;)

Next Chapter: Chapter 8

[tervacious]

Since Everything is a Feminist Dissertation Imma blog about Shane Dawson’s palette for a minute

Nine times out of ten when you make a statement and end it with BUT, you have outted yourself as a hypocritical ass who should have the ovarios to say what follows the BUT without the opening statement.  Maybe this will be true for me too.

In agreement with most radfems I totally think the cosmetics industry is a clusterfuck of male entitlement and wealth being siphoned away from girls and women to men and male CEOs, etc etc, and I also think the sheer amount of product and time involved in placing thirty-five different products on one’s face to achieve a “natural” look is insidious and a perfect exemplar of what misogyny functions like on a daily basis, BUT

I’m a survivor of an extreme fundie xtian cult that controlled female behavior by emphasizing conformity, femininity, modesty, and lack of adornment/personality.  I did not like this even as a small child because I’m a loner, Dottie.  A rebel.  Which means I was a totally normal little girl who didn’t like being controlled and who fought back at every opportunity.

Which might explain why I’m a goth.  I’m also an artist, and I’m on this planet, as are you, for a very tiny amount of time, and if I want to spend a fraction of that time adorning myself and wearing lots of black eyeliner, by the goddess I’ll fucking do it.  And there’s nothing radical or feminist about that, any more than there’s anything inherently radical or feminist about not doing it.

I have a single small dresser drawer filled with makeup, and I’ve been eyeballing it recently because I should really pitch out and replace about 80% of it for age related reasons alone.

And thus we come to the Conspiracy palette by Shane Dawson x Jeffree Star, and also the mini palette, Lorde help me

Jesus christ, look at that.

I only buy one eyeshadow palette at a time and use it until it is gone or falls apart into dust.  The current state of the beauty industry is such that they are pressuring women and girls into buying palette after palette, some of them enormous, some small, but a grown-ass woman owning stacks of these things is not unusual anymore.  And new ones are coming out constantly-- to the point where there’s a whole part of beauty YouTube devoted to “the anti-haul”, in which people announce which makeup thing they will NOT be buying.  This is a sorry state of affairs, there’s no way around it.

I don’t collect makeup because that’s silly.  It’s a huge waste of money.  I watch otherwise sensible women hoarding vast numbers of eyeshadow palettes, and they use only one or two colors and that’s... just sad?  Apply that to the vast quantities of makeup products, to your lipsticks and glosses, to your pencils and correctors and corrector palettes and concealers and blushes and highlighters and contours and powders and foundations and primers and mattifiers and setting sprays and mascaras and a bunch of others things I forget, add a pile of false eyelashes and I don’t know, eyebrow merkins or some shit, and that’s what a well-appointed makeup afficionado is supposed to have in her arsenal.  And all those things can’t be just one-- you have to have multiples, for reasons.  But I honestly think the eyeshadow obsession is the worst, which is strange coming from me, because I adore eyeshadow.  

And yet in spite of this I have a black stand-alone eyeshadow pan, and one large palette that is cheap, made in China, not great but with a lot of weird colors in it, so I use that one when I bother, and a few pots of glitter.  My plan is to use it up or wait until it’s too old to use safely, and then pitch it/repurpose the case for something (it is literally the size of a laptop with a huge mirror in it so I can think of something), and get a new palette.  I only buy one at a time, and use it until it’s gone.  You know, like a rational person.

At first I’d decided when the time comes I’d get the Jawbreaker palette and mini, by Jeffree Star, because I loved the colors, but now I’ve changed my mind, because Shane Dawson’s not only has a case that matches my aesthetic, it also has awesome colors and, most importantly, BLACK.  I use black eyeshadow alone or to set my eyeliner, so I’m devoted.  And while all of these palettes have too many neutrals for my taste you can always use those for some kinda detail, and the Conspiracy Palette is my jam.  It’s really gorgeous.  Not gonna lie.

The documentary he made about the making of this palette is interesting on multiple levels-- there’s the process itself, which I didn’t know shit about until now.  There was the portrayal of his relationship with Jeffree, which was interesting and often pretty funny, and touching.  And from my chronic can’t stop writing feminist dissertations POV, the way women are the target of this business and yet completely sidelined was a real eyeopener.   Let me just mention this one part:

In the final episode when the palette is assembled, each pan glued into the box and then the box boxed up, there’s a song with a woman singing about how she’ll never be Prom Queen.  Shane is walking through the assembly line, emotional, because this is his project coming to fruition.  Jeffree is with him, and Shane starts crying, and Jeffree comforts him.  The song is clearly meant to be something Shane feels.

But the scene is of dozens of women, none of whom will be prom queen, none of whom are about to make millions of dollars on cosmetics, in white coats and hair protectors and goggles, busily assembling a beautiful object, which one suspects only a few of them will be able to afford for themselves though I can’t swear to that, it’s possible they are paid well, the place is unusual, Jeffree makes all his product in the United States, and I’m not inclined to jump to conclusions.  But they are anonymously and busily working, putting together this thing, meant for women, and no woman really had any functional input into this project at all.  This was, as everyone was joking, Shane and Jeffree’s baby.  A baby.  You know, the thing a man can never have.

I appreciate film making that reveals truth, even if it wasn’t intentional.

So other than that there’s not much to say.  You can watch the epic thing yourself on YouTube, it was entertaining (and good for me because I need to opt out of some of the heavier shit I’m always buried in, yet one more reason I fucking QUIT MY JOB and am now FREE,) but if you want a look into the way the business works on the indy end of the spectrum, not the old timey Cosmetics Corporations but the new one that Jeffree Star basically spearheaded and upturned large chunks of the old business model, I think this documentary is a good one for understanding exactly how marginalized women remain in a business that ostensibly is directed at us.

The reason I think women like watching men like Jeffree and Shane and whoever else do these things is because it aids and abets the lie that wearing makeup is all a choice women make.  The men are choosing, because men have zero pressure on them to do these things.  Women are taught to have affinity with men and to ignore their lack of affinity with us.  These bits of entertainment are a great brainwashing reinforcing device, to get us along for the ride, to hop in the car we never ever get to drive.  And none of it is intentional, which is the best part.  As smart as Shane is, the joy of being male is you just take things, casually, as your birthright.  You’re totally entitled to make a nine-hour epic following your friends and family, unapologetically, put it on the internet, and get accolades, including the one I’m writing right now.  You’re entitled to dictate the facts as if they contain a great truth.  You can be totally unaware of the impact your decisions have for the greater bad.  You can think you’re helping your sister-in-law through her crisis created by the very culture you are responsible for while mocking the women she blames for making her feel bad.  This set of films is a monolithic treat for a radical woman to confront.  And I hope, since there’s truth hidden in plain sight throughout, that a lot of other women and girls will see it too.  Will notice the few females scattered throughout the film, consulted in the most cursory way, knowing they have to perform or they’re replaceable.  I’m an Old, and used to seeing the real world, which has looked like this all my life.  I don’t know what a fifteen year-old will see.

Tati Westbrook also released a new eyeshadow palette last week I think, and since people think if she puts out a forty-five minute video she’s talking too much, she naturally did not film a massive docudrama showcasing her Eyeshadow Palette Journey or whatever I could imagine her saying.  Thus she was very much overshadowed by something that won’t appear for sale until tomorrow.  I have no doubt she’ll do well, but will she make twenty million dollars?  Will she do as well as she could have if she were a man?

Should anyone, off of what is essentially bullshit?   Pretty, gorgeous bullshit?  Of course not.  That’s the actual feminist conclusion, it doesn’t matter if a male or a female is profitting off of, essentially, the insecurities and desires for cool new things and to be hip and liked and looked up to, which all of us have to some extent in some arena.  I’m not immune to it either, ain’t lying again.  It’s always an unseemly pleasure to have someone half my age ask me what I’m wearing and where I got it.  Capitalism has conditioned all of us to associate material things with social acceptance and admiration, and if you are a materialist person like I am, that association comes very easily.

Anyway, that’s it, that’s the bit.  I have no doubt this thing will sell out in approximately two hours, which will happen without me because my old eyeshadow palette still works.  

[uta-no-fan-sama]

okay so your dress hcs were 10/10 and i realllllllly would love it if you could do an hc about starish finding their (female) partner's diary? (bonus points for satsuki haruka and tomochika and if the diary has romantic stuff in it)

Thanks for the ask, and I’m sorry for the delay, since I don’t have much time nowadays… ^^; I hope this makes up for it, though!

Haruka:

it was an accident

she swears it on her life

she was looking for a composition notebook and saw your diary

she didn’t know it was your diary

she just needed a blank notebook and she will emphasize it forever

she was going to put it down as soon as she realised it was your diary

and then she saw her name with little hearts around it

she turns bright red when she sees all the lovely stuff you write about her

the poor girl is so embarrassed

but so happy

all of her next songs show it

Ren even asked if something happened (aHEM) between you two

she couldn’t look anyone in the eye after that

Tomochika:

she’d actually forgotten you used a diary

and honestly she probably wouldn’t have realised when she picked it up

but then she remembers that was the notebook you write in all the time

so she thought, “Why not take a peek?”

and oh gods

“It’s her diary???”

this was gonna be good

Tomo barely read the first few pages and she’s a little embarrassed

because her name is right there on the first page

she literally cannot stop herself from reading

she’s on cloud nine for weeks

like Haruka, all her idol performances show a new energy

you’ve never seen her so animated and upbeat

and then she confesses that you’re the sole cause of her happiness–

“Even though the world has my songs, you’re the only one that has my heart. Forever and always.”

ahhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhh

[emma.exe will restart in a moment]

Otoya:

he’s seen you write in your diary before

of course, he’s curious as heck

but he knows it’s wrong to take it without your permission

he leaves it alone

…for like three minutes

poor boy can’t help himself

give him credit he tried

he turns into a literal pile of mush while he reads it

but when you’re back he tries to play it cool

of course you end up seeing right through him

if you ask him, he would confess to everything because he can’t lie to you

but really, can you stay mad at that face?

…later he asks you to write letters for him everyday so he can look at them when you aren’t around and smile because he’s so happy you love him as much as you do

he thinks he’s the luckiest person in the world to have you as his girlfriend honestly

Masato:

he sees your diary from across the room

and unlike Otoya, he actually leaves it alone

he doesn’t want to invade your privacy

(also, he knows he won’t be able to stop if he started reading it, and if he did read it, he would want to savour every word so it would take a long time and you’d probably catch him)

but he wouldn’t read it anyway

lies

Ren is the sinner here

he switches the cover of Masa’s notebook with your diary cover so Masa reads it by accident

Ranmaru probably helped him

(which explains the lingering smell of banana on the pages)

goddamnit Ranmaru at least cover your traces properly

but once Masato realises that it is, in fact, your diary

he panics “because he’s too far in to stop reading”

it’s the first page Masato and you know that isn’t your handwriting

you just want an excuse to read it blame Ren and Ranmaru all you want

surprisingly, he doesn’t get that flustered?

he’s just sitting there in the sunshine as he reads about how much you love him

Masato Has Reached Enlightenment

“Masa, why does your notebook have my diary cover on it?”

SHIT ABORT ABORT ABORT

he spends the next hour explaining that it wasn’t his fault

“The bananas explain everything! It smells like bananas!”

Natsuki:

“This is the Piyo-chan diary I gave her!”

you know Natsuki would do that

and you know you would use it don’t lie to me

“I wonder what she wrote in here~!”

unfortunately for you, Natsuki is humanly incapable of getting flustered

“Aww, she’s so cute~” is all you’ll get out of him

honestly he’s just too doting

he asks Syo to help him photocopy the diary so he can always see the sweet stuff you write

Syo is scandalised because privacy is a thing, Natsuki

Ai, being the oblivious robot he is, helps him after Syo leaves

Suddenly, Natsuki decides it’s a good idea to leave “reply notes” in your diary

he buys Piyo-chan post-its and gushes about your cuteness on them and leaves them after every entry

dear gods in heaven Natsuki

your diary isn’t even a diary anymore, it’s like two grade schoolers passing notes in class

you have another diary now that Natsuki absolutely cannot find

Ai finds it and gives it to him anyway

Satsuki:

“This is the Piyo-chan diary Natsuki gave her.”

he isn’t as pleased since he gets a little jealous

he actually decides to read it just to spite you

Because Natsuki gave you that diary

he loves Natsuki but still

when he starts reading it he gets a little embarrassed

he’s bright red but he threatened me so I can’t tell you that he was bright red

whoops

but by the time you get back, he’s fully recovered from that

“I didn’t think you thought so highly of me.”

“What?”

“It’s all here,” he says as he holds up the diary

cue tons of wolfish kisses

maybe more

g o o d   l u c k

Tokiya:

you never even told him you had a diary – somehow it just never occurred to you

Tokiya saw a book lying around that he’d never seen before

being the bookworm he is, he took it with him to read during his next tour

he put it in his bag without opening it to check

he’s on one of Saotome’s private jets (with Otoya and Reiji, honestly, who thought those two should tag along? gods, they’re so noisy why won’t they let me read in peace?)

he shakes his head and opens the book to see…

“Shit, is this her diary?”

well it’s too late now, may as well read it, right?

Tokiya? flustered? Nah, he loves reading about what you think of him

when he stumbles across a particularly… juicy detail, he’ll commit it to memory and bring it up later (or not, depending on what exactly it is)

meanwhile, you’re panicking because where the hell is my diary

when they land and reach the hotel, Tokiya calls you (as he promised he would) and tells you that he took your diary by accident

“…Did you read it?”

you can’t see it, but Tokiya’s grinning slyly, “Every last word.”

keep it PG, okay?

this is gonna end up like Fifty Shades of Tokiya Ichinose

Ren:

what, you think he’d pass up an opportunity this golden?

he doesn’t hesitate at all

he reads it so voraciously, you’d think his life depended on it.

he’s also so proud of himself – he can make you feel like this by just being himself?

he’s more of a cat than Cecil

like Tokiya, your diary won’t fluster Ren one bit

in fact, for a while he’s torn between teasing you about it and keeping it a secret

after a while, he chooses to keep it secret

that way, he can keep reading it without you noticing

though sometimes, he makes little innuendos which imply something, but they’re minor enough to be coincidence

he uses every bit of information to his advantage

you’ve been feeling lonely lately? somehow his schedule is already cleared for a date with you

he loves you to the ends of the earth and will shower you with kisses and affection to prove it

even if it means reading your diary to make sure you’re okay

Syo:

this tsun wouldn’t even dare trying

for one, he respects your privacy

two, he knows exactly how flustered he’ll get

Natsuki finds it and reads the first few pages aloud

Syo tries not to listen

but when he’s brought up as “the most amazing guy I could ever have”

yeah Natsuki isn’t reading anymore

Syo vaults himself across the room to grab it from him

and guess who the one reading it now is?

so much for privacy Syo Kurusu

eventually he calls Kaoru for help because his heart’s beating too fast

it may go into overdrive and he doesn’t want his childhood heart problem to revive itself

Kaoru calms him down while making unnecessary shipping comments

Ai thinks this data on Syo is interesting and saves it as “howtogetkurususyoflustered.docx” but all that’s there is a bullet pointed list with a single point – to give him your diary

he also notes that this improves Syo’s overall performances by roughly forty percent

accidental teasing ensues:

“Your body temperature rises significantly when you think about her. Why is that?”

“Shut uP YOU PRICK”

Natsuki joins in and it never ends

ever

Cecil:

he picks it up as soon as he sees it

it’s like he doesn’t know he shouldn’t touch it

he’s such a cat about it

he walks around like he owns the place more than Camus does

he commits every word to memory

and whoops there go your surprise date plans

you don’t find out until

he uses something in one of your entries in his song lyrics

you call him out on it later but his response?

he pouts and says, “But how can I keep myself from worshipping the poetry that my princess creates?”

how can you stay upset?

I hope that satisfied you, Anon~!

I convinced Indi to help me make one for QN and HE☆VENS too

Quartet Night | HE☆VENS

[discoattack]

Carhartt WIP April 2019: Femi Adeyemi - Fela Kuti Radio Show

“Music is the weapon of the future/music is the weapon of the progressives/music is the weapon of the givers of life,” Fela Anikulapo Kuti famously declared. Known for pioneering the musical genre Afrobeat, as well as being a multifaceted performer and instrumentalist, his shows at his Afrika Shrine in Lagos – together with his band Afrika 70 and later Egypt 80 – remain legendary. But Kuti was also one of the leading political figures of his era. A perennial agitator and human rights activist, which manifested itself through highly-charged lyrics and cover art, his barbed criticisms of the Nigerian government lead to multiple arrests. Kuti passed away in 1997, but his zeal for addressing injustice, and the crafted, vibrant ways in which he delivered those missives, lives on.

Today, the influence of his idiosyncratic sound can be found across a host of contemporary music spheres: there are samples in tracks by the likes of Missy Elliot, Nas, Common and Pete Rock, there’s House duo Masters at Work’s “Tribute to Fela” EP. It appears in the work of multifaceted DJs such as Antal, Floating Points and Hunee, as well as the electric piano nuances of Kamaal Williams’s work. Meshell Ndegeocello has covered his songs, which often ran close to forty minutes long, while French indie pop stars Phoenix have taken inspiration from his grooves and UK-Nigerian artist Obongjayar from his politically-fuelled pop sensibilities.

For Spring/Summer 2019, Carhartt WIP has joined the list of those eager to pay tribute to Fela Kuti, with capsule collection created in close co-operation with the Fela Anikulapo Kuti Estate, his former manager Rikki Stein and Knitting Factory Records. The designs take cues from his iconic album artwork, such as his 1975 release “Expensive Shit,” while also incorporating references to tracks like “Ye Ye De Smell” and the recording “Live In Detroit 1986.” These motifs are applied across a range of pieces, from graphic t-shirts and bucket hats, to shirts and caps.

To accompany the collection, the out of print “Live In Detroit 1986” album will also be re-released on vinyl, limited to 500 copies. Meanwhile, Carhartt WIP, Dazed and NTS Radio will once again collaborate on a short film, which sees London-based artist Akinola Davies to the Nigerian capital Lagos together with rapper Obongjayar. The result is the experimental “One Day Go Be One Day,” which takes cues from Fela Kuti’s spiritual roots.

To soundtrack this collaboration we asked NTS Radio founder Femi Adeyemi to prepare a Carhartt WIP Radio show featuring his favorite Fela Kuti tunes. As usual, we also sat down to chat with the London-born, LA-based creative about his relation to the Nigerian icon. For those seeking a deeper insight into the life and work of Fela Kuti, we thoroughly deeply recommend the documentary “Music Is The Weapon” which explores his lively Kalakuta Republic, his political struggle with British-colonizers and the local government, his musical outlook and his love of table tennis.

Tracklist: 1. Fela Kuti - Power Show 2. Fela Anikulapo Kuti & Afrika 70 - Mr. Grammarticalogylisationalism Is The Boss 3. Fela Anikulapo Kuti & Afrika 70 - Colonial Mentality 4. Fela Anikulapo Kuti & Afrika 70 - Yellow Fever 5. Fela Anikulapo Kuti & Afrika 70 - Excuse 0 6. Fela Anikulapo Kuti & Afrika 70 - Vhy Black Man Dey Suffer

www.carhartt-wip.com/de/journal/mus…i-on-fela-kuti

[brothermouzongaming]

Game Awards highlights

Highlights of the awards are as follows: Roger Clark (Arthur Morgan) won best voice actor, God of War stole Game of the Year from RDR2 as well as best game direction. Fear not, Red Dead did take the award for best narrative, score, and audio design. Celeste won best indie. Deadcells snuck away with best action game. Monster Hunter World took best RPG and...I agree but I also think Nino Kuni, Octopath, Pillars of Eternity and Dragon Quest 11 fans are rightfully mad. Dragon Ball FighterZ takes best fighting game. Fortnite took best multiplayer game, shocker. 

What I wanted to talk about were the announcements and trailers that came between the commercials and cringe-inducing antics of the event. There wasn’t a lot going on but what was announced was very interesting.

Atlas: Pirates and cannons do not excite me, seafaring and swashbuckling just does nothing for me. All that said...wow Atlas really looks impressive. Made by Wildcard and the team consists of many people who put Ark together. This appears to be a full pirate sim mmorpg that plans to hold 40,000 people on one server. Yes. Forty thousand. Is that MAG level hype? Yeah that and then some. This seems to be one of those situations where a game comes out, it flops, and another studio swoops in to capitalize on the disappointment (see Fortnite to PUBG, 2k to Live, FIFA to PES etc). That game I’m referring to is Sea of Thieves and Wildcard appear to be working hard on making the game Sea of Thieves should’ve been. You can watch a trailer here.

MK11: I am so conflicted by this trailer, lemme tell ya. The actual look of the CG trailer was nice, visceral, even cheeky at some points (awful big emphasis on weapons in that trailer). Another obscure and mysterious aspect of this game is time and how that plays into characters and the story potentially. New Scorpion is killed by Evil Raiden, only to be killed by Old Scorpion himself...hmm. Now that makes me think. It was a quintessential Mortal Kombat trailer top to...wait...is that 21 Savage playing in the background?? The song choice did not fit at all, it was like someone at NetherRealms plugged in their phone last minute to compensate for a glitched audio. Literally, anything would’ve been better, Wu-Tang, Freddie Gibbs, Earl Sweatshirt if you had to go the rap route. Yeah, I could be making a big deal out of nothing but I’ve also seen games make unnecessary focus on soundtrack and losing focus on the actual game. All in all, interesting. trailer here

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: Oh boy, oh fucking boy. X-men Legends (stick with me here) was the first of top-down arcade hero brawler type that really got my jimmies jumping. So when Marvel Ultimate Alliance came out it was something of a true actualization of what me and my friends thought up back when Legends came out. Two titles, both of which I owned and played through thoroughly unlocking characters and finding cheats. So imagine my surprise when initially I think this is the Marvel Avengers project by Square Enix. No! Wrong! Bad Chayton! It’s UA3 by...Ninja Theory?! What is going on? We got a little gameplay that unfortunately didn’t look too impressive. I’m still excited and with it being a Switch exclusive...I just have more reason to get one. trailer here. Speaking of reasons to get a Switch...

Joker joins the battle: Hi, huge Persona 5 fan here. Very excited to see our boy join the scuffle. He will be included as a DLC character (meh) but it raises some very interesting questions as to who else could be added. Goku confirmed! really cute trailer here

Far Cry “New Dawn”: This screamed Rage 2 to me. It is a cool idea to play so directly off the last released Far Cry title. I’m sure the games are going to be very different but the trailer seemed to take direct influence down to the shade of pink they used in their cooky-wacky post-apocalyptic looking setting. The game will even have you run into Joseph Seed and this is where I think it will diverge heavily and start to focus more on the Far Cry aspects of the game. Interesting villains as per usual but I’m hesitant. Even if it’s an expansion from FC4. trailer here

Rage 2: Now this is the post-apocalyptic open world I am looking forward to exploring. As I have stated before, Rage was underwhelming but had potential, this new trailer expanded upon what was already explored but didn’t really show off anything new. Regardless of the utter turmoil BGS seems to be in I am still excited to get my hands on this game and rip shit up .trailer here

Psychonauts 2: This is big, many many fans have been dying to see where Rasputin’s adventures take him. The look hasn’t changed much, but the polish of modern tech is doing wonders for the world of Psychonauts. We don’t get much info but just the glimpse is more than enough to get me thinking about the possibilities. trailer here

Dragon Age 4 teaser: this is a teaster trailer for Dragon Age 4... not much more to it. trailer here

The Outer Worlds: This is the big one, Obsidian are coming out the gate hard. In the wake of Fallout76 this was the last thing Bethesda could afford; for another studio to come along and do their games better than them. A space oriented RPG that appears to focus heavily on decision-making and character development. Two staples of Obsidian games that I can’t wait to take part in when this bad boy drops. With Obsidian being acquired by Microsoft I was concered this would be an exclusive but thankfully they can’t deny the PS4 audience, at least this time. Next gen (or title even) we might not be so lucky. trailer here

[betterdaysareatoenailaway]

The Way That He Sings: Remembering My Morning Jacket’s At Dawn

     So much of music to me now is about remembering. I can’t remember the last time I listened to or discovered a new band. I spend all my time now missing the feeling of discovery, rather than seeking to discover.       One of the things I miss most about the CD era is reading the liner notes and gazing at well-designed front covers. I know that people who grew up in the LP era roll their eyes at the smallness of the CD covers, but a smaller canvas doesn’t necessarily mean a smaller impact. Ask any stamp collector.                   One of my favourite albums of all time is My Morning Jacket’s At Dawn. I love everything about the album, from the eerily industrial clanging and humming that open the record (sounding almost like a factory gearing up for the day) to the sad, haunting carnivalesque instrumental that closes it. I love the songs, particularly “Bermuda Highway,” “Hopefully,” “The Way That He Sings,” “Xmas Curtain,”…shit I could name all of them except “Just Because I Do,” a baffling choice for a first single given that it’s the worst song on the album by a wide margin (most aficionados of At Dawn claim that the worst song distinction goes to the drunkenly shambolic and laboriously snail-paced “Honest Man,” but I love that fucking song, even if the main riff sounds like someone who learned to play guitar a week ago mimicking Jimmy Page).      I love the opening couplet of the album: “At dawn they rise again/they’ll haul you out to the street.” To me, a person who fucking hates working, “they” is the world, hauling me out to the street every fucking morning when all I want to do is stay home and write stories and songs and be left the fuck alone. Or do heroin in an empty room and burn every photograph in my memory.      I love how, like Soundgarden’s Superunknown, an album I hope to write about on here someday, each song gets its own accompanying photograph with handwritten lyrics in the liner notes. I love how one of the pages features lyrics for a song called “Chills” that isn’t on the album…a ghost track that only heightens the album’s strange otherworldliness. I love all of these things about At Dawn and I love things about it I can’t even begin to describe and I really fucking love that album cover. It looks like some kind of opera house situated in the middle of the Kentucky woods, songwriter Jim James’ stomping grounds, eerily illuminated in the ghostly dawn light, the kind of light you only see just before the sun pokes its head up over the edge of the earth. Kind of the opposite of Terence Mallick’s “magic hour,” an hour that only really has forty-two minutes. 

     Of course, most people’s favourite albums are ones that have personal significance, and At Dawn is no exception. In August 2003 I drove across Canada, from Brampton to Victoria and back, in three weeks with three of my best friends at the time, one of whom was a MMJ superfan (he even got a pair of MMJ tattoos on each bicep in Calgary). He’s on the far right in the above photograph. Ryan had an advance copy of It Still Moves, a fantastic album in its own right, but for me the zenith of MMJ’s haunting, reverb-soaked vision is and will always be At Dawn. When I hear James’ strange enunciation of vowels in the title track, or the pleasant hum of “The Way That He Sings,” or the Jamaican steel drums of “Xmas Curtain,” I can see us zooming through the inky darkness of the Rocky Mountains, particularly the B.C. mountains, where the night is full of strange echoes and glints of magic. Like driving inside and straight down that highway on the front cover of Matthew Good Band’s Beautiful Midnight, a good album in its own right, but blasting At Dawn instead, the van whooshing through the gullys and hills, part of our own echo as we moved through the silent pines, down down down...so weird how you can’t comprehend the contours of your own life until you’re looking back at them. The night we took the Coquihalla Highway from Kamloops to Hope, listening to At Dawn on repeat was a magical one, one of the great nights of my life. Sometimes I think some better version of me is still back there in those mountains where inky night holds dominion over all and At Dawn is the soundtrack fuelling my dimestore dreams.       I don’t give a fuck if that sounds cliché to you. Everything is a cliche sez that Guy Debord Society of the Spectacle theory, the one that says every possible performative stance a human can take has already been performed by those who came before us, leaving us only imitation instead of authentic experience. Being a heroin addict is a cliché. Being “sober and wiser” is a fucking cliché. Being an overgrown man-child hopping from one entry level job to another is a cliche. Being hyperaware of not wanting to be a cliche is a cliche.       I was afraid of being a cliché for so fucking long that I would deliberately miss out on things just so I wouldn’t get called out as one. Years later when I stumbled across something Beck said, it slapped me in the face with its realness and deadly accuracy: 

My whole generation’s mission is to kill the cliche...it's one of the reasons a lot of my generation are always on the fence about things. They're afraid to commit to anything for fear of seeming like a cliche. They're afraid to commit to their lives because they see so much of the world as a cliché. 

     For years I was too shy and too afraid to refer to myself as a writer, even though it’s the only thing I know I’m good at. In University I met all sorts of people who never read books but claimed to be writers and I bit my tongue around them all, afraid to make the same claim because I didn’t want to be seen as a cliché, some arrogant unpublished asshole who thinks the world is ignoring his towering genius. I haven’t submitted anything for fucking years not because I’m afraid of rejection but because to submit would be to confirm that I am actually a writer, something I still can’t fucking say with a straight face. But I’m working on it, so whatever. I like what I like and I write what I write.       I’ve been listening to At Dawn all day and I can’t stop crying and I can’t stop remembering. From the circular banjo sparseness of “If It Smashes Down” to the utterly majestic “Strangulation!” At Dawn is a record with singular meaning in my life and in the lives of those it has touched. I remember my friend Chantal telling me about listening to “I Needed It Most” in a parking lot at dawn (naturally) and crying. I remember that band Ladyhawk from B.C. (Not the singer Ladyhawke but the beer rock band Ladyhawk, famous in indie circles for their home run of a single “The Dugout” and to a lesser extent, the superior “I Don’t Always Know What You’re Saying”) writing a great description under the “Sounds Like” section in their old 2006 MySpace page, which said: 

That one day in summer when you get up really early for some reason and you happen to catch the sunrise and it's so silent out and the streets are all empty except for little squirrels and you almost start to cry because everything is so beautiful, that's what Ladyhawk sounds like.       It’s also what At Dawn sounds like. And what being alive sounds like. And what remembering feels like. 

[upalldown]

Idles - Ultra Mono

Third album of indie post-punk from the Bristol quintet produced by Adam Greenspan and Nick Launay

9/13

The Lowdown: In a year that’s seen the world burn physically, politically, and epidemiologically, getting into a debate about whether or not a rock band is phony feels as nostalgic as it does futile. However, this is an IDLES review, so that’s exactly what we’re going to do (at least for a minute). After the twin triumphs of 2017’s Brutalism and 2018’s Joy as an Act of Resistance vaulted the Bristol five-piece into the upper echelon of the British music world, the backlash arrived with bite that seemed to go beyond the music. Pick any IDLES profile from this album cycle, and you’ll inevitably see references to the recent charges and epithets leveled by fellow artists like Sleaford Mods (“their take on [political music] is cliched, patronising, insulting and mediocre”) and Fat White Family (“a bunch of self neutering middle class boobs”) and journalists like John Doran of The Quietus (“thirty-somethings pretending to be twenty-somethings acting like they’re representing teenagers while selling 180g tip on sleeve vinyl to forty-somethings”).

Warranted or not, other people’s preoccupation with political credibility seemed to overwhelm what made IDLES so alluring in the first place: the band’s brawny leftist politics, frontman Joe Talbot’s appealingly nontoxic masculinity, and raucous live shows that’ve earned a reputation for being some of the hardest-hitting in the business today. After absorbing flak for the last two years, Talbot is ready to give some back. On Ultra Mono, he’s added a new group to his list of targets. Now, in addition to misogynist lunkheads, pedigreed capitalists, and racist Brexiteers, Talbot’s taking aim at anyone who questions the sincerity of his oft-shouted convictions.

The Good: For anyone worried that the deluge of criticism and influx of resources might result in IDLES making some sort of stylistic overcorrection, there isn’t much time to fret. Opener “War” rolls in like a full tank battalion, bringing with it the circular-saw guitars and pounding cacophony that made the band post-hardcore hits to begin with. As usual, Talbot is at his most entertaining when he has a righteous target in his crosshairs; standout track “Model Village” is a devastating takedown of smug, scared Leave voters and the very British small-mindedness they embrace while “Carcinogenic” gives vicious voice to the slow-burning, ambient drain on mental and physical well-being associated with life in late capitalism.

While these sawed-off-at-a-shooting-gallery takedowns are satisfying, Talbot’s most interesting work on Ultra Mono continues his reckoning with grief, insecurity, and healing. While “Anxiety” builds to a frenzy that even Xanax couldn’t cure, the gray-skied “A Hymn” offers a more honest, impressionistic take on malaise than we’re used to seeing from IDLES. Taken in combination with the stellar closer “Danke” (which turns a Daniel Johnston quote into a frenzied self-care blood ritual), it offers a new dynamic that’s worth exploring.

Although most IDLES tracks live and die by the quality of Talbot’s street-preacher ravings, his bandmates have done their best to prove themselves indispensable. With the help of hip-hop producer Kenny Beats, drummer Jon Beavis and bassist Adam Devonshire discover an extra gear to the mad, pummeling engine at the heart of Ultra Mono. From drums that seethe with automated rage on “Kill Them with Kindness” to the shuddering fight-scene bass that propels “Reigns”, Beats leaves the band sounding sharper and more menacing than they did when he found them.

The Bad: So, about those haters. Despite shrugging off the impact of the naysayers to anyone who’ll listen, one listen to Ultra Mono makes it difficult to argue that Talbot isn’t at least a little bothered by some of the charges that’ve been leveled. A quarter of the tracks on the record are devoted to some variation on the theme of proving detractors wrong; they also happen to be the album’s weakest songs. Whether he’s getting defensive about his art on “Grounds”, exhausting himself to avoid cliches on “Mr. Motivator”, or pre-empting potential future criticism on “The Lover”, Talbot temporarily morphs into a singing, shouting version of that one Dril tweet. The material on Ultra Mono also takes a few ill-advised leans into some of critics’ legitimate complaints about the band; the admirable sentiment of “Ne Touch Pas Moi” is kneecapped by the nuance-free repetition of “consent!,” which is there just in case you needed Cliff’s Notes for a sub-three-minute punk song. This kind of shout-along sloganeering works way better in a packed and thrashing club than it does on the record, but it’s here anyway.

The Verdict: In a year more primed for principled shit-kicking political anthems than any in recent memory, the arrival of an IDLES record is undeniably cause for celebration. At its strongest, Ultra Mono offers a fresh set of urgent rallying cries for anyone interested in furthering workers’ rights, dismantling systemic racism, and knocking out a few Nazi teeth. The record’s missteps mostly come when Talbot finds himself on the defensive, a position that finds him turning out poison-pen responses to critics that probably felt better to sing than they do to hear. Maybe that’s the lesson here. After spending their third record preaching confidence in the face of adversity, all IDLES has to do is apply those same morals going forward. In other words: don’t talk about it. Be about it.

https://consequenceofsound.net/2020/09/idles-ultra-mono-offers-rallying-cries-for-a-burning-world-review/?new=true

[chpkns]

BEST ALBUMS 2018

Ok here we go again for 2018, shall we?

Hon. Mentions: Negro Swan - Blood Orange; Singularity - Jon Hopkins; Elsewhere - Ryan Hemsworth; Scorpion - Drake; Diplomatic Ties - The Diplomats; Some Rap Songs - Earl Sweatshirt; FM! - Vince Staples; Rally Cry - Arkells; I’m All Ears - Let’s Eat Grandma; Be The Cowboy - Mitski; Kamikaze - Eminem; Ye - Kanye West; KIDS SEE GHOSTS - Kanye West and Kid Cudi; Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino - Arctic Monkeys; Black Panther: The Album - Kendrick Lamar, et al; KOD - J. Cole; Culture II - Migos; Hive Mind - The Internet; God’s Favorite Customer - Father John Misty; Blood - Rhye; Both Ways - Donovan Woods; Songs of the Plains - Colter Wall

10) Swimming - Mac Miller

This one was tough. Malcolm James McCormick’s fifth studio album was barely out three months before he left us. It’s hard to evaluate Swimming in isolation of Miller’s untimely death at age 26. Especially since, in my mind, the album represents something of a turning point for the former frat rapper. Recorded in the wake of Miller’s high profile breakup with Ariana Grande and in the midst of public struggles with addiction, Swimming is full of heartache and soul bearing self-reflection. Sonically, Mac’s airy raps and crooning vocals float over jazzy beats and orchestral accompaniments, with help from Thundercat and Dev Hynes. There’s room for fun as well amid the melancholy - the more upbeat Ladders and What’s the Use? are sure enough to keep a dance floor moving. The worst thing about Swimming is really how good it is, and how it felt like Mac Miller was on the cusp on something great we’ll now never see. 

Highlights: Self Care, What’s The Use?, 2009, Ladders

9) QUARTERTHING - Joey Purp

Chance the Rapper’s Savemoney compatriot Joey Purp is like a breath of fresh air. QUARTERTHING’s 14 tracks, most clocking in at under 3 minutes, come fast and furious like Purp’s (mostly) un-autotuned flow. Joey’s full throated, almost Meek-Mill-esque, delivery gives the album a mixtape-like authenticity - notwithstanding the varied and expert production from the likes of RZA, Knox Fortune and frequent Chance collaborator Nate Fox. The opening 24k Gold/Sanctified, and Hallelujah just two tracks later, feel downright celebratory pairing Purp’s flow behind a blaring big band sound. Others, like Look At My Wrist and Paint Thinner, are Chicago Drill and house inspired, feeling like they’d be right at home in a sweaty club basement. Lyrically, Purp is a classic hip-hop storyteller and street documentarian, drawing from experiences in a former life selling drugs and the violence of his home city. This impressive studio album debut is more than enough to solidify Joey Purp’s place among an exciting new generation of Chicago rappers.

Highlights: 24k Gold/Sanctified (ft. Ravyn Lenae & Jack Red), Godbody (ft. RZA) [Pt. 2], Hallelujah, Look At My Wrist (ft. Cdot Honcho), Karl Malone

8) Golden Hour - Kacey Musgraves

Kacey Musgraves is clearly in the pantheon of artists that can’t release an album without it making this list (I rated Pageant Material #8 in 2015 and Same Trailer, Different Park #9 in 2013... both criminally underrated in retrospect). Musgraves continued to be a revelation with her third album. There was a great Ezra Koenig quote last year, where he talked about seeing Musgraves’ concert and being inspired by the clarity of her music: “from the first verse, you knew who was singing, who they were singing to, what kind of situation they were in”. On Golden Hour, she maintains that clarity, stretching a little more outside the traditional country sound into pop and disco-inspired melodies. I do miss the dry humour and rebellious spirit of the previous two Musgraves outings, I’ll admit. You won’t find any overt weed references here, but Kacey finds plenty of ways to remind us how few fucks she gives about the Nashville country establishment. Golden Hour also shows off some of Musgraves’ strongest songwriting to date - the sprawling Space Cowboy stands out as one of the best singles of the year in any genre. I’m probably in the minority in thinking Golden Hour is not my favourite Kacey Musgraves album, but it’s still one of my favourite albums of 2018.

Highlights: Slow Burn, Space Cowboy, High Horse, Love is a Wild Thing

7) Lush - Snail Mail

It’s about to become clear that there is a “women in indie rock” movement happening on this year’s list. The debut album from 18 year old singer-songwriter Lindsey Jordan is one of the most aptly titled records of 2018. Lush’s indie rock soundscapes are just that. Loud, full and richly textured. Jordan’s crystal clear vocals soar and float above her ringing guitar chords and riffs. The songwriting is perhaps what you’d expect from an 18 year old, full of heartbreak, confusion and teen angst. She does it well though. As the first chorus builds on Heat Wave, Jordan’s voice builds: “And I hope whoever it is Holds their breath around you, 'Cause I know I did”. The album’s standout track for me is Full Control which crescendos to a refrain of: “I'm in full control, I'm not lost, Even when it's love, Even when it's not.” At the same time, Lush exudes a maturity and a nostalgia that hearkens back to Snail Mail’s spiritual predecessors like Cat Power or Fiona Apple. Snail Mail was one of many reasons that 2018 gave me hope that there’s a future for indie rock and “guitar music” generally. I’m very much looking forward to seeing what’s next.

Highlights: Pristine, Full Control, Deep Sea, Heat Wave

6) boygenius EP - boygenius

The only thing that ever held me back from including boygenius on this list was my long held view that “an EP is not an album”. Well, since Kanye decided that 7 songs can be an “album” why not 6? Any album that has 6 songs as good as the 6 on boygenius EP would make this list! boygenius is the indie “supergroup” made up of Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and the holder of last year’s #3 album on this list, Julien Baker - all accomplished solo acts in their own right. Predictably, the whole is something greater than the sum of its parts. boygenius EP’s six songs are a tour de force amalgam of indie, country and folk (owing to the band’s cross-genre Nashville and Viriginia roots) full of raw emotion and grit. Dacus, Bridgers and Baker seem made to perform, and sing, together. The harmonies on this record make boygenius sound like an indie rock iteration of Destiny’s Child or an edgier, less twangy version of the Dixie Chicks. The songs do not hold back, with high highs and low lows. On Me & My Dog, the soaring chorus evokes an escapist dream: “I wish I was on a spaceship, Just me and my dog and an impossible view”. The emotional highpoint of the record might be Baker and Bridgers’ chorus on Salt in the Wound apexing with: “I’m gnashing my teeth, Like a child of Cain, If this is a prison I’m willing to buy my own chain”. I can’t stop watching live videos of these three - they seem so at home onstage together. As excited as I’d be to see boygenius become more than a side project, I’m equally excited to see what’s next for Bridgers, Dacus and Baker on their own.

Highlights: Me & My Dog, Stay Down, Salt In the Wound, Ketchum ID

5) DAYTONA - Pusha T

YUGH! Amid Kanye’s unhinged tweets, messy, disorganized projects, and Oval Office visits, DAYTONA, the 7 track album he entirely produced for G.O.O.D. Music veteran Pusha T, was one thing that gave us hope that Kanye hadn’t completely lost his touch (or his mind) in 2018. DAYTONA showcases both producer Kanye and King Push at the absolute peak of their talents. It’s amazing, in this era of Xanax-fuelled mumblerap, to think how long we’ve been listening to Kanye and Push do their thing. Lord Willin’ introduced the world to Pusha T in 2002 (alongside his brother Malice, as he then was, as the iconic rap duo Clipse). The College Dropout came out two years later. I still remember buying the CDs and wearing out my discman with both of them. It’s easy to forget that Kanye and Terrence “King Push” Thornton are both 41 years old! There’s something refreshing about two guys in their forties still being able to make a banging rap record about selling drugs and buying expensive shit. Push said DAYTONA was made “for my family...high taste level, luxury, drug raps fans.”  Those fans are well served by DAYTONA. After the beat comes in on album opener If You Know You Know, Push sounds like he’s speaking directly to his day one fans, raising a styrofoam cup to: “This thing of ours, oh, this thing of ours”. The album exudes the bravado of an MC on top of his game confident in the knowledge that he’s spitting bars on a classic. And we can’t forget the incendiary Infrared, the song that touched off a vicious beef between Pusha T and rap’s biggest star, Drake, ending after Push revealed in a diss track that Drake was hiding his son from the world. Almost 20 years on, Pusha T is still ready to go war, still “clickin’ like Golden State” and still wearing the crown as King Push. Long may he reign.

Highlights: If You Know You Know, The Games We Play, Hard Piano (ft. Rick Ross), Infrared

4) Honey - Robyn

I found myself slightly disappointed in Honey at first, largely because my expectations for Robyn’s first album in eight years were based on the high energy electro-pop brilliance of 2010′s Body Talk. What I should have realized is that, if Robyn were going to make another Body Talk, she wouldn’t have kept us waiting this long. Honey is not Body Talk - you won’t find another Call Your Girlfriend or Dancing on My Own among its nine silky smooth tracks. But it is no less brilliant. If I can forget that Beach2k20 exists for a second, it feels pretty darn close to a perfect album. Honey betrays a lighter touch for Robyn, perhaps more in tune with the sound of the moment. A little more euro house and disco tinged, Honey furthers the Swedish songstress’s long evolution away from the pop idol of her late 90′s past. Honey still embodies Robyn’s signature juxtaposition of electronic dance rhythms alongside themes of sadness, loneliness and heartbreak. And songs like Honey and Missing U can still light up any dancefloor. The highlight for me is the slow-building Send to Robin Immediately, which just swells over its Lil Louis sample as Robyn urges the listener into action: “If you got something to say, say it right away. If you got something to do, do what's right for you. If you got somebody to love, give that love today. Know you got nothing to lose, there's no time to waste”. In between albums, and while writing Honey, Robyn lived through the death of a longtime collaborator and a breakup and reunion with a romantic partner. The emotional toll of these experiences seem to shine through. Robyn told the BBC’s Annie Mac earlier this year: “When I wrote this album I think I was quite tired of myself writing sad love songs, but I did anyway and looking back on that now, I think it's OK for things to be sad. Combining it with something that's bright and strong and powerful is a way of finding your way out of the sadness.” 

Highlights: Missing U, Human Being (ft. Zhala), Send to Robin Immediately, Honey

3) Clean - Soccer Mommy

Clean, the impressive debut album from 20 year old Nashville singer-songwriter Sophie Allison, was the first album I heard this year that I 100% knew would be on this list. By the time Your Dog hits at the third track, I was completely enthralled. That song is so goddamn rock and roll with Allison sparing no mercy for the subject shitty boyfriend of the opening verse: “I don't wanna be your fucking dog, That you drag around, A collar on my neck tied to a pole, Leave me in the freezing cold”. Elsewhere, on Still Clean, Allison plays with gruesome animalistic imagery singing of an ex-lover picking her “out your bloody teeth”. There is a warmer side to Clean as well. Scorpio Rising, with it’s “bubbly and sweet like Coca-Cola” softness and lyrics about meeting up after dark and missed calls from your mother definitely remind you that Allison is a self-professed devotee of Taylor Swift’s early work (which should give you another idea of why I love this album). Speaking of T-Swift, the rollicking Last Girl almost mirrors You Belong With Me in describing the crushing insecurity of comparing oneself to a new partner’s ex, somehow pulling off lyrics like “I want to be like your last girl, She's the sun in your cold world and, I am just a dying flower, I don't hold the summer in my eyes” as if that were a totally normal thing to say. Beneath the upbeat riff of Cool, where Allison idolizes the cool girl “with a heart of coal, She’ll break you down and eat you whole” is the understanding that being that person won’t bring her the happiness she seeks. Acceptance of one’s emotions and insecurities is the core theme of Clean - that “You gon’ be like that” (as Allison put it to the Fader) and you’ll be happier once you accept you for you. In many ways, Clean evokes a similar vibe to the Snail Mail and boygenius entries further up this year’s list, as a scrappy “girl with a guitar” indie record and a tongue-in-cheek stage name. That sense of charming honesty is what, I think, makes Clean stand above the other entries on this list.

Highlights: Cool, Your Dog, Last Girl, Scorpio Rising

2) Lamp Lit Prose - Dirty Projectors

The first of our top two is another repeat offender on this list (a previous incarnation of the Projectors’ Swing Lo Magellan had #7 back in 2012 and last year’s eponymous Dirty Projectors was my 2017 #8). I loved every minute of Lamp Lit Prose - it’s almost a 1B for me on this list and was pencilled in at 1 for a time in the drafting process. This album has everything that was good about last year’s DPs record but is, ultimately, tighter, more fun, less weird and less sad. Dave Longstreth appears to have moved on (at least musically) from the emotions he was working through on Dirty Projectors, which was essentially an extended meditation on the breakup of his relationship with Amber Coffman and the band’s upheaval. With Lamp Lit Prose, his “new look” Dirty Projectors (with help from friends like Syd, Rostam and HAIM) have put together something a little more traditional (by Dirty Projectors standards) and a lot more listenable. Longstreth told Exclaim that this album, compared its morose predecessor, “is really about feeling hope again, finding the things that give us hope, that make us feel optimistic and joyful.” Lamp Lit Prose falls somewhere between the twangly, jam band atmosphere of the Projector’s Swing Lo Magellan and Bitte Orca heyday and the more experimental, electronic-infused vibe of the Dirty Projectors released 18 months prior. Longstreth’s guitar riffs are again front and centre, but the voice modulation and distorted electronic sounds are still there, albeit in a more subtle way. Four part harmonies bounce over the jazzy melodies and hopeful lyrics. Where he was mourning a lost love on the last record, here we see Longstreth “in love for the first time ever” on I Found It In U (a salvaged beat from his work on Solange’s last album). On Break Thru, the un-named romantic subject is held up as “an epiphany” with comparisons in quick succession to Archimedes, Fellini and Julian Casablancas. The horn-backed chorus on What Is The Time is the high point of the record for me - the kind of song that makes you want to raise your voice and join in on the hook. All in all, it’s just great to hear this band making fun music again. Lamp Lit Prose is upbeat, creative and simply a joy to listen to. I absolutely loved this album... but just not quite enough to edge out our number 1.

Highlights: Break-Thru, That’s a Lifestyle, I Found It In U, What Is The Time

1) ASTROWORLD - Travis Scott

IT’S LIT!!! I would have never predicted that a Travis Scott album would land here at number 1, but here we are. And I feel good about it. ASTROWORLD dominated my listening from its mid-summer release onward and, with each spin, I became increasingly convinced of its greatness. Travis is an artist that I’ve long found perplexing. Insanely popular among his legions of young fans, he embodies so much of the “new rap” ethos, the first genre of music where I’ve started to feel like I might be ‘too old’ to enjoy it. It was clear on his prior outings, Rodeo and Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight, that the talent and creativity was there, but the overall product always seemed messy, disorganized, unpolished. With ASTROWORLD, Scott finally has made his Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The album is named for a former Six Flags theme park in Scott’s hometown of Houston that was torn down a decade ago and still sits vacant. Previewing the title of the album, Scott told GQ last year: "They tore down AstroWorld to build more apartment space. That's what it's going to sound like, like taking an amusement park away from kids. We want it back. We want the building back. That's why I'm doing it. It took the fun out of the city." True to his word, the album’s 17 tracks are tied together by an overarching creepy, grimy sound. Listening to ASTROWORLD feels like walking through an abandoned theme park. Even more impressive is how Travis, as curator of the album’s varied guest list, bends the star studded guest appearances to his will, fitting them in perfectly to his dank sonic menagerie. The likes of Frank Ocean, the Weeknd, Swae Lee, Tame Impala and James Blake don’t overpower Scott’s vision but blend into the scenery, their talents employed perfectly by Travis in the role of ringmaster. Newcomers get some shine too, like Scott’s Cactus Jack labelmate Sheck Wes who gets a guest verse on NO BYSTANDERS and a shoutout to his ubiquitous single from Travis on 5% TINT: “We did some things out on the ways that we can't speak, All I know it was "Mo Bamba" on repeat”. And then, there’s SICKO MODE. Why is it that the best Drake song each year invariably comes from someone else’s album, even in a year where Drizzy himself releases a double album? The ASTROWORLD track list, at least initially, left out the featured artists, so hearing Drake’s voice over the opening notes of the album’s third track was the first time most listeners had any indication that the 6ixgod himself would be making an appearance. What a wonderful surprise it turns out to be. SICKO MODE, the album’s best track, feels like three or four different songs as the beat changes form and Travis and Drake pass the mic back and forth. The song’s Tay Keith produced final act (the “out like a light” part) is for my money the best two minutes of hip hop music made in 2018. ASTROWORLD succeeds on its grandeur, vision and consistency. Travis Scott set out to build something big and from the moment the bass kicks in on STARGAZING through to the mellow, string backed denouement of COFFEE BEAN, he succeeds at every turn. ASTROWORLD was 2018′s biggest, most creative, most sonically consistent and most fun album in hip-hop. In my estimation, it’s the best album of the year.

Highlights: STARGAZING, CAROUSEL (ft. Frank Ocean), SICKO MODE (ft. Drake, Swae Lee and Big Hawk), WAKE UP (ft. The Weeknd), CAN’T SAY (ft. Don Toliver)

That’s all folks. Thanks for reading and see ya in 2019.

[mysteryshelf]

BLOG TOUR - Burn One Down

    Welcome to

THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF!

DISCLAIMER: This content has been provided to THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF by Partners in Crime Book Tours. No compensation was received. This information required by the Federal Trade Commission.

Burn One Down

by Jeffrey A. Cooper

on Tour June 11 – July 13, 2018

Synopsis:

Retiring thief Jack Apple is offered a low-­risk, six-­figure payout to heist a medical marijuana dispensary from the feisty and impetuous Diane Thomas after Diane steals the robbery plans from her shady ex-­husband Alvin, hoping to beat him to the score.

Diane promises to stay out of Jack’s way but she can’t help interfering, forcing them to take hostages inside the dispensary when the robbery is interrupted by law enforcement, inciting a media circus that deteriorates into a full-­on urban riot.

To escape, Jack and Diane must negotiate the hostages, their agendas, an army of Sheriff’s deputies, the tenacious local news media, crooked deals, corrupt politicians, rioters, Diane’s shady ex-­husband Alvin, and their growing attraction to each other.

This little ditty about Jack and Diane is a fast-paced read that finds a few new wrinkles in a familiar genre. ~ Kirkus Review

Book Details:

Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Crime, Heist Published by: Indie Publication Date: June 15, 2018 Number of Pages: 271 ISBN: 978-­0­‐692­‐06952-3 Purchase Links: Amazon | Goodreads

  Read an excerpt:

Chapter One

We are all thieves and criminals.

Jack Apple had too much pride to let people look down him because he’d been in prison. Most people were hypocrites. Their own lawbreaking might not extend past trivial offenses like unpaid parking tickets or racing past the posted speed limit, but if right was right and wrong was wrong then Jack Apple was someone who believed that everyone breaks the law at one time or another. People justified their behavior based on their own personal sense of morality just like he did. It wasn’t his fault that he aimed higher than they did. But that part of his life was over. Thievery and criminality were all behind him now. Jack Apple was a changed man.

At least he would be after tonight.

***

Jack swung himself over the top of the twelve-foot stone wall surrounding Leo Dorsey’s home and laid flat across the top for a good look at the property. Leo Dorsey was the owner of Ledo Luxury Automobiles, a limousine and hired car service that fronted for a long list of illegal activities including drug trafficking, gun running, extortion, prostitution and probably about six or seven other things. As a rule, Jack didn’t rob people in the trade out of professional courtesy, but Leo had stolen money from a friend of his, so Jack would let that rule slide on this one. If he really was ditching the trade for good, this was something he needed to take care of first. He planned this job before prison and knew there was a decent chance Leo would have the $80,000 he still needed to open his new business. In the trade, they called that a win-win.

The business Jack wanted to open was a gas station, positioned on the lower right-hand corner of a busy “Y” street traffic pattern that fed into two distinct thoroughfares, and was a popular route for locals to access the freeway. In addition to the pumps, a small retail store sold cigarettes, lottery tickets, energy drinks and lousy coffee. A service area hadn’t been operational since the days when they used real steel for bumpers, but it was a space ripe for expansion. The property had just been listed, and Jack knew it wouldn’t be on the market long. It had everything. What was the old adage?

Location, location, location?

The word came this morning that Jack needed to move on the property. Other parties were sniffing around, ready to make an offer, and there would be no time to raise money.

While Jack had money stashed away from his recent ATM fiasco, there was still a lot of heat on that job, and that money would need to stay buried for a while. He needed a quick score no one could trace, no one would report, and that he could do alone. Hitting Leo Dorsey was perfect. It had to be.

A series of motion detectors captured Jack’s movement and flooded the area with bright white light. Jack jumped down off the wall and hid behind tall landscaped shrubbery, waiting for a response. Instead, an automated voice spoke from a speaker sitting on top of the stone wall, giving Jack a terse warning in both English and Spanish.

“You are trespassing on private property. Security cameras are recording your movements. There is an armed response to all trespassers. Leave this property immediately.”

Jack moved toward Leo’s house and saw a large man in an open window staring into the yard. It looked like Leo, but Jack remembered a slighter man, guessing that this version topped out between three hundred fifty and four hundred pounds. Leo had become very successful since Jack had seen him last, but it did nothing for his disposition. Leo was still a miserable shit.

“Idiots! There’s something wrong with that security system!” Leo shouted at two haggard employees who were clearly showing early signs of PTSD. “Why do the lights go on for no reason? There it goes again! What don’t you simpletons understand? Get it fixed!” The employees looked at each other, certain that Leo was talking about the other one.

“Boss, I…,” one hapless employee pleaded.

“Get away from me,” Leo interrupted. “I’ve had enough stupid for one day. I’m going to bed now. Try not to burn the house down before I wake up. And make sure those dogs go out again, too. I don’t want them shitting all over my floors again.”

“Dogs,” Jack whispered to himself, grimacing. “Why is it always dogs?”

Jack slipped through the garden and climbed up to the veranda outside Leo’s bedroom with a backpack full of safecracking tools while he waited for Leo to finish browbeating his employees and go to sleep. Leo’s nightstand confirmed his notorious longtime habits of pills and a three-finger glass of Scotch was still current, telling Jack that sleep probably wasn’t far away.

Jack stretched out his shoulder. His thirty-five-year-old body was sending him reminders that it wasn’t about to put up with the kind of abuse he’d heaped on it all these years for much longer. While he tried to keep in shape in prison, his long, willowy frame strong from years of street running and urban gymnastics, Jack couldn’t do anything about getting older or the damage that twenty-three hours a day of lockdown did to a body. His guilty conscience chimed in, reminding Jack of everything he had risked: his health, his family, his freedom, his youth. All for money. Things. Shit. When would it be enough? Would it ever be enough?

Doubt. Crippling, stifling doubt. This was why he was getting out. He’d already been arrested and sent to prison once, so he obviously wasn’t the master thief he once thought he was. Could he even make it on his own? Jack always worked with partners and recent history would seem to indicate that he couldn’t work without them. He’d nearly been bested by a 70-year-old hermit and his English bulldog two weeks ago.

It was reasonable to ask that maybe his time in the trade had passed. He heard Leo through an open window, talking in drunk guy loudspeak.

“You think I dunno what you think I dunno but I know what you think I dunno ya know?” Leo enunciated every syllable as an almost empty glass of Scotch dangled from his fingertips, then dropped to the floor without breaking. He stumbled to a large double-door safe adjacent to his changing area, his head foggy from drink and drug. Leo focused on the keypad, entering the combination numbers at a slow, deliberate pace, then he pulled open the door with his right hand. Jack watched Leo through a monocular as he wrote the safe combination in pen on his pant leg, thankful that the tools in his backpack would no longer be necessary. It was nice of Leo to save him all that work. Maybe he’d send him a fruit basket later.

“I’ll be right outside if ya need me, Boss,” Leo’s other employee said, assuring him as he shut the bedroom door behind him. Leo said nothing. He wasn’t assured at all.

“Lock th’ door!” Leo barked with a pronounced slur. He took off his Patek Philippe watch and put it in the safe along with the bankroll from his bathrobe pocket. Leo inspected it all with a listless shake of his head then closed the large double doors, pulling on the handle again to make sure the safe was locked. He turned, his beefy feet squeaking along the marble tile as he stumbled back to his bed and fell face down on the mattress, fast asleep before his head even hit the pillow. His snores were deep and guttural. It was no mistake Leo slept alone.

Jack waited through several minutes of uninterrupted snoring next to a window underneath a security camera aimed at the French doors leading to Leo’s bedroom. He picked the lock as he waited, sliding the window open with little effort and easing himself inside. He looked around, wary of alarms or motion detectors. Once he was confident he could move without disruption, Jack stepped forward and immediately set off a motion detector that turned the overhead lights on and lit the space with lighting dimmed for the evening hours. Jack moved back to the window, ready to bail out. He listened. Nothing. No sound. No movement. No one was coming. It was quiet except for Leo, who was fifteen feet away and snoring like a champ.

“Okay, no more surprises,” Jack whispered.

He moved into the large room with caution, gently walking past the bed straining under Leo’s sleeping body and toward the safe, where he zeroed in on the combination keypad and the numbers he’d scribbled in pen on his pant leg. Forty-two. Eight. Thirty-one. Five. Jack pulled the handle to open the safe door, but the door remained locked.

Maybe I entered the numbers wrong?

No. He wrote the numbers down exactly as Leo entered them. Jack tried the series again, re-entering the numbers one at a time and pulling on the handle, but the safe still would not open. This time the repudiation was accompanied by a message on a small LCD screen: BIOMETRIC ACCESS DENIED. Your BioMetric Identification has been declined for the second time. For your protection, the safe will be locked if additional biometric identification is refused.

Jack looked at the handle. At the top was a thumb pad with a painted-on thumbprint he hadn’t noticed during his previous attempts. The numbers he’d entered were correct. The safe didn’t open because it needed a thumbprint, specifically Leo’s thumbprint, to open the door. Jack wondered what the odds were of chopping Leo’s thumb off without waking him up. He sat, considering his options. Technology sure was making it tough for a fella to earn a living.

***

At close to four hundred pounds, getting Leo to the safe over fifty feet away from the bed was a challenge. Jack rolled Leo over on the bed and was startled to discover Leo’s eyes were wide open despite Leo being in a deep, sound sleep. Jack waved his hand in front of Leo’s face. Leo didn’t blink, and the snoring got even louder once there was no mattress to contain it.

Jack mapped out his strategy. An office chair on wheels, probably for Leo’s shell-shocked employees, would suffice for moving Leo across the marble floor. That part was easy. The challenge would be getting Leo into the office chair. It was like moving a Smart Car by hand.

Jack pushed Leo up off the bed and reached his hands around his barrel chest, clenching his hands together the best he could across Leo’s massive sternum. Jack bent his knees, took a deep breath, then pulled Leo to the edge of the bed. Leo greeted the move with a loud snort, then went back to a steady snore, his drugged eyes still open as wide as the sky.

“Pull him up, right into the chair,” Jack coached himself. He used the same strategy as before, which this time pulled Leo off the bed too fast. His momentum landed Leo right on top of Jack, who howled. Leo, for his part, wasn’t disturbed by the fall at all.

“You know, you’ve really let yourself go, Leo!” Jack wailed before pushing Leo off of him. Jack stood up, grabbed Leo’s arms and leaned back, groaning, using the remainder of his strength to hoist Leo into the office chair, which creaked under the strain. Jack backed away, hoping the chair would hold. It would be a long, slow drag to the safe otherwise.

Jack positioned himself behind the chair but struggled across the marble floor. The chair moved slow but steady, gaining momentum once Jack picked Leo’s legs up and pulled him instead of pushing. After a heroic effort from Jack and especially the chair, Leo was positioned in front of the safe. Jack caught his breath, hoping that he didn’t give himself a hernia.

The lock on the outer bedroom door clicked, and the door opened. Leo’s employees, having heard Jack’s howling, came to investigate. Jack swiveled the office chair toward the door, pushed Leo’s head forward and ducked behind Leo’s mammoth frame. The employees looked around until they saw Leo in the chair, his eyes still wide open, staring at them.

“You okay, Boss? I heard something. Everything all right?”

Leo, who was still sound asleep, said nothing. His snoring sounded like a growl, especially to these two. “Just making sure you’re okay, Boss,” the nervous employee said in his awkward rush to get out of the room.

Jack swung the office chair back around and stood up. He entered the series of numbers on the combination pad, then lifted Leo’s stubby hand and placed it on the handle, so Leo’s thumb pressed down on the biometric sensor. This time the lock on the safe clicked and the doors opened. Inside the safe were three $10,000 stacks of hundred dollar bills and the large roll of money from Leo’s bathrobe, which Jack estimated at around $3,000. He could hock the watch, too. It wasn’t a bad haul, even though it was far less than Jack was expecting.

Isn’t it always less than you’re expecting?

Jack took what there was and left Leo on the overworked office chair in front of the open safe. He went back to the window he entered through and got out as easy as he came in, even taking time to re-lock the window behind him. The motion detector lights clicked on and off as Jack climbed down from the second story veranda. That’s when Leo’s dogs, two female German Shepherds outside to do their evening business, saw Jack and started barking in a frenzy.

“Nope,” Jack said once he saw them at the bottom, waiting for him to come down. “No dogs.” He climbed back up to the veranda, content to find another way. The only people in the house were Leo’s employees who, from the sound of it, weren’t nearly as smart as the dogs. Jack slipped back into Leo’s bedroom, where Leo was still snoring heartily in the office chair that would be lucky to last the night. At the bedroom door, Jack heard voices in the hallway.

“Keep those dogs quiet before they wake him up!” The two employees were in a panic, apparently unaware of how deep and sound Leo slept after his bedtime snack of pills and Scotch. Their panic gave Jack an opportunity to get to a stairwell at the end of the hallway that he hoped would lead him outside. Jack listened first then moved quietly, soft-stepping his way down the stairs, peeking his head over the railing as he went. He saw the two employees at the stairwell door window on the first floor, so Jack slipped down another level to avoid them.

The stairwell emptied Jack into nondescript hallways of white concrete and white tile floors. The stairwell door locked behind him, so Jack had a choice of the single steel door ahead of him or a hallway that led off to the right. As Jack approached the hallway, the two German Shepherds sauntered around another corner from a hallway fifty feet away.

There was a moment of silent recognition. They all stood still, sizing each other up. The dogs looked at Jack, then to each other, then back to Jack. Everyone jumped at the same time. The dogs took off after Jack, who sprang into action, running down the hallway toward the door.

“Why is it always dogs?” Jack screamed.

Jack raced through the door and pushed it closed behind him. He didn’t suppose the dogs were smart enough to follow, but they figured it out, jumping up together to push open the door’s exit bar and continue their pursuit down the long hallway. The dogs, whose nails clicked like icy rain on paws that were slipping and sliding across the waxed hallway, were gaining ground. There were several doors along the hallway that Jack tried to open, but each one was locked. When Jack finally found an unlocked door, he got inside and pulled the door shut behind him, half a second before the snapping jaws of the German Shepherds took a sizeable bite out of him.

“Okay. Big dogs. Very big dogs,” Jack wheezed.

His hands felt around in the dark until Jack found the light switch inside the door frame, revealing the janitor closet that was now his safe refuge. “What did I ever do to a dog?” Jack panted, catching his breath. He opened the door slightly and saw a door leading to the outside thirty feet further down the hallway. “All right. I’ve been in worse situations,” Jack said. His voice activated the dogs, who barked as he shut the door. “I’ve never been food…”

The dogs paced back and forth outside the closet door, waiting for Jack to come out. They heard a sound; a scraping, grinding noise coming from deep inside the janitor’s closet. The dogs cocked their heads to the side, confused. The doorknob moved, and their ears perked up. The pin on the door unlatched, and the dogs sat crouched, ready to strike. When the door opened the dogs rushed in, then stopped all at once. From inside the deep janitor closet came the loud, abrasive growl of a stand-up vacuum cleaner that Jack parried out of the closet after them, and now was using to chase the German Shepherds back down the hallway.

“Ha-HA!” Jack jeered, quick on their heels. The dogs reached the exit door and jumped up against the bar to let themselves outside, but Jack wasn’t letting them off that easy. He went out after them, confident and mocking. “Mess with me, and you know what happens?”

The cord for the vacuum cleaner pulled taut and yanked out of the wall. The pitiful motor on the vacuum cleaner died down with a slow, agonizing, mournful wail. The two German Shepherds stopped to listen, then turned their heads around slow. Jack could swear they were licking their lips.

“Idiot,” Jack said. He jumped for the closing exit door, and the dogs were on top of him. One had Jack’s pant leg while the other held the bottom of Jack’s shirt. The shirt ripped when the dog tried to pull back, sending one German Shepherd onto her back, while the other dog tried getting a better grip on Jack’s pant leg. Loose for the split second he needed, Jack took advantage, getting inside and pulling the door closed, with the vacuum cord preventing the door from closing tight.

“Hey! Stop right there!” Leo’s two employees came through the first exit door and saw Jack pulling the exit door closed on the dogs.

Jack ran away. The employees were quick on his heels until they passed the exit door. The tenacious German Shepherds forced open the door at the exact moment the employees ran past, and the dogs sprang into action, jumping into the hallway and biting the first thing they saw.

“No! Him! Get him!” The first employee said as he was being mauled by the first dog.

“That one, girl! That one! Ow!” The second employee shook his free arm, pointing down the hallway. His other arm was firmly planted in the second German Shepherd’s jaw.

Jack’s only option at this end of the hallway was the window straight ahead of him. He pulled opened the window and looked out, craning his neck in both directions, but this was no time to get particular. Jack hoisted himself up and pushed through the window until momentum took over and he dropped ten feet to the ground. The soil was dry and loose, and Jack hit hard, flat on his back, before sliding down the sloped hill head-first and backward. The drop knocked the wind out of him, but Jack shook off the fall, spit dirt from his mouth, then scaled the twelve foot stone wall and jumped down on the other side. His pursuers knew Jack could still hear them.

“We know what you look like, pal! You’re on camera, dumbass! We’re gonna find you, you sonofabitch! You messed up bad, man, you messed up real bad!”

Jack ran for his life down the hill surrounding Leo’s house but couldn’t tell if the sounds he heard, of rustling trees, branches snapping, or running through fallen leaves was the sound of someone following him or the echo of the noise he was making all on his own. Jack turned his head to see the lead he had on his pursuers, but the night was dark, and it was difficult to see. What wasn’t difficult to see was the tree branch that caught Jack above the sternum when he turned back around, the one that clotheslined him flat to the ground. He slid down a steep, sloping hill, twisting and turning his body to avoid the rocks and tree stumps in his path before launching himself off an even larger, brush-covered hill.

Jack landed at the bottom of the hill next to a roadway, right at the feet of Diane Thomas, who stood next to her car like she’d been waiting there for him all along. Diane was dressed in black jeans and a black leather coat with a torn red t-shirt underneath. Her hair was long, with an easy, natural curl that fell over her flawless soft brown skin. Her necklaces and bracelets were tasteful; piled on but not overdone. Black boots were highlighted with metallic studs that covered the backs to the heels. She looked like trouble. Jack liked trouble.

“Something tells me you’re Jack Apple.” Diane stood in front of an idling muscle car, the headlights creating a silhouette that captivated Jack’s attention through his hazy thinking.

Jack asked, “Do I know you?”

“Not yet,” Diane said with a smile. “But you will.”

***

Excerpt from Burn One Down by Jeffrey A Cooper. Copyright © 2018 by Jeffrey A Cooper. Reproduced with permission from Jeffrey A Cooper. All rights reserved.

  Author Bio:

Jeffrey A. Cooper lives in Los Angeles, CA. His previous novel, “How to Steal a Truck Full of Nickels” was published in 2015. Jeffrey has optioned several feature film scripts and co-­created two shows executive produced by Emmy-­award winning comedian Louie Anderson.

Jeffrey lives with his wife, daughter, two rescue dogs, a rescue cat and a fish who all get along famously.

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