#pratt and light streets

[e-dubbc11]

Under the Pale Moonlight

Photos are not mine. They are courtesy of Pinterest/Google.

Pairing: Billy Russo x F! Reader

Supporting characters: Frank Castle, James Wesley, and Wilson Fisk

Warnings: Swearing, violence, guns, knives, and fluff.

Word Count: 4.2k-ish

Summary: Billy is unhinged, you’ve been taken and being held for ransom. He will not rest until you are found and he can bring you home safe, and you feel sorry for anyone who gets in his way

A/N: Based off of a little conversation between @qu1etwolf and myself. She said she would like to see me try and write something with Billy and his violent like tendencies but I still wanted fluffy elements to it. It’s a bit dramatic but I’m pretty pleased with what I did here and I hope you enjoy it!

As always, thank you for reading!  I appreciate it so much and comments, reblogs are welcome and encouraged. Don’t be shy to tell me your favorite part. 💕💕 💕

That night was cloudless and quiet at first.

The sky was so clear, you could see just about every crater of the moon and the stars that were sprinkled behind it sparkled like diamonds under fluorescent lights. From far away, you could hear the occasional dog barking that cut through the silence and you could see the dark shadows of the autumn foliage swaying in the gentle winds.

The musky sweet fragrance of fallen leaves danced across your nose while the cool breeze enveloped you as you walked down the street…alone.

He told you he hated when you walked alone…anywhere…any time of day. Billy didn’t like it if you went anywhere by yourself.

“You worry too much, baby. I’ll be fine.” You had said with a warm smile.

Famous last words.

When you came to, your head hurt and your body was resting on a metal floor, the empty space was completely dark, without windows, and every noise you made echoed throughout the room. It sounded like you were inside of a shipping container.

You weren’t bound or restrained in any way but you were scared and convinced that this had something to do with a deal that your father didn’t want to make involving the company he worked for.

Pratt and Whitney built aircraft engines and while your father didn’t own the company, he was responsible for bringing deals to the table. They build engines for civil aviation and military aviation and when your father declined a business offer, it was for a good reason.

Not too long ago, he had told you about a man coming to see him that wanted to do business and would not take no for an answer and you were convinced that it was someone involved with this man that was holding you captive.

But you didn’t know how far they were willing to go, to get what they wanted.

**********

He let out a yell that could probably be heard by people outside the building on the streets below.

His office was completely destroyed.

Fragments of shattered glass decorated the floor, his laptop landed upside down in the corner of the room, the cracked mirror and the broken picture frames were also casualties of the war zone inside Billy’s office. With his gun in one hand and your picture in the other, he stared down at your smiling face trying to figure out what his next move was going to be.

He needed to find you and was ready to burn the world down if it meant he could find you faster. Billy finally found love, someone who loved him but didn’t put up with his shit, someone that put him in his place when it was necessary, and someone that told him it was ok to let go. You said you would never leave, never abandon him, and he trusted you.

But you were gone, taken someplace that he had no idea where. He wasn’t going to rest until you were found, until HE found you. Billy needed you to be safe in his arms where you belonged and he wasn’t going to let anyone take you away from him.

Still holding the frame with your picture in it, he smashed the glass and removed it to put in his jacket pocket. Billy holstered his weapon and headed for the office door where he was cut off on the other side by Frank.

“Outta my way, Frankie. Now.” He said, rage dripping from his lips.

Frank held up a hand to try and stop him from leaving.

“She’s high profile, Bill. The FBI said they were handling it.” Frank said.

“Oh come on, Frankie! Those corrupt assholes couldn’t find their way out of a wet paper bag let alone find her! I should have been more insistent that she not walk alone and I’m gonna kill every single one of them, Frank. Every…single…one.” Said Billy.

The icy tone to his voice and his mouth twisted with threat let Frank know that Billy was serious. He didn’t care who he had to kill, he was going to find you and leave a trail of bodies behind him while he did it.

“I can’t stop you, can I Bill.” Frank said.

Billy’s eyes darkened and his lips curled back to reveal clenched teeth.

“You know me, Frankie. You think anyone’s gonna be able to stop me? Especially when it comes to her?” Growled Billy.

Frank looked into Billy’s eyes, they shined with unshed tears as he grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Well let’s go get her then, yeah?” Frank said with one side of his mouth curled up into a half smile. “You have a place to start?”

“Her father had a business card from the guy that came to his office wanting to make a deal, willing to pay cash, classic red flag. The card had an address on it. He said it sounded like the same guy demanding the engines in exchange for y/n.” Billy said.

Frank scoffed. “Pfft, not too bright is he. Well I think Lieberman can get her last known location before her phone went dead, so I’ll go to David’s and you go to that address, yeah?”

“Yeah, lemme know what you find out.” Billy said.

**********

They finally had enough of listening to you bang on the walls and call out for help. It took awhile but the doors opened, the early morning sun peeked through the crack in the door, they came inside and tied your arms and legs. They put a piece of tape over your mouth as well so they wouldn’t have to listen to you anymore.

The harder your struggled to free yourself, the tighter the ropes had become and you didn’t want to expel all of your energy. What did they want?

And why did they want aircraft engines? While he had more than enough money for the engines, he was a civilian and civilians don’t require large engines like that and your father could see right through that so he told them no.

They had also taken your watch.

It was completely dark inside the shipping container so you wouldn’t be able to see the time no matter how hard you tried but they took it from you anyway. It was the watch Billy had given you for Christmas last year, the one that he had engraved “Until the end of time. Love, Billy.”

You managed a slight smile with the tape over your mouth thinking about what he said when he gave it to you. When you looked at the engraving, he said, “It was between this and ‘nice butt’,” which caused you to burst out laughing.

You loved him so much.

There weren’t many things in this world that frightened you but you were very scared that you would never get to see Billy’s face again. It terrified you to think you would never get to look into his endless brown eyes again, lovingly scrape your nails against his scalp, or tell him that you loved him and to hear him say it back.

You needed to be in his arms again, to have his body be a warm cradle for yours, and for his soft lips to kiss you goodnight before you fall asleep.

You wanted it all back, you wanted him…forever. And he needed to know that.

**********

When he wanted to be, Billy could be very quiet. He was so light on his feet, sometimes you had no idea he was even in the same room until you turned around to see his handsome face smiling at you, then laughing because he scared you.

That skill came in handy when it was needed. When he arrived at the address on the business card, he didn’t know what to expect so he drew his weapon and went inside the building.

Slinking down hallways and creeping around corners, he checked the building from top to bottom and found everything he expected to find…which was nothing.

The building was empty.

At some point it had been occupied but looking around him, there hasn’t been any activity inside of the building in a long time. It was just an address. But who owned the building?

He needed to get back, tell Frank what he found, and to see if David had any luck finding the last location of your phone.

**********

You heard men arguing outside but you could only make out bits and pieces of the conversation.

“He said he wanted her moved.” One of them said.

Then you heard a different voice. “Well where are we going to move her?”

You heard the first voice again. “He doesn’t care where, just move her. She probably has to go to the bathroom anyway.”

That voice sounded familiar…”He doesn’t care where…”

It was killing you not knowing who “HE” was. Who could it be? And that voice, where have you heard that voice before?

Also, how considerate of them, you thought sarcastically to yourself…you hadn’t had anything to drink in hours so you didn’t really have to go. You didn’t even know how long you had been locked inside.

More talking…

“I cannot believe you didn’t get rid of her phone until you brought her here. Her boyfriend owns the best private security company in the city. You better hope they don’t track her phone or I’ll kill you myself.”

Before they tied you up, you had removed your jacket and tossed it into the corner. If they planned on moving you, hopefully they would be dumb enough to leave your jacket where it is so Billy could find it.

You felt it in your heart that he was out looking for you and when he does find you, he was never going to let you walk alone again.

**********

“The name, Bill. What was the name on the business card?” Frank asked.

Billy pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, concentrating really hard trying to remember the name your father told him was on the card.

“Wesley…James Wesley.” Said Billy. “Y/n’s father also said that they don’t want money, they want those engines. And why does that name sound so familiar, Frankie?”

Frank pressed his lips together in a straight line then hung his head before glancing at Billy again.

“Because he works for HIM, Bill. He works for Wilson Fisk…Kingpin.” Frank said softly.

Billy ran his long fingers through his ebony colored hair, hell burned behind his dark doll like eyes, and he had the acid burn of bitterness in his throat as he said, “Well then he’ll be the final body on top of the pile. She has nothing to do with this and he took her from me, Frankie and he’s gonna pay for it. They’re all gonna pay, so please tell me David found where her phone was last.”

He stared at Frank while putting his gear on and removed the picture of you from his suit jacket pocket to stash it behind his vest. Billy was ready to take out anyone who got in his way including the authorities.

“He did…down by the water where the cargo ships come in. Might be holding her in one of those shipping containers…told ya they’re not too bright. And you know I’m comin’ with you, yeah?” Said Frank.

Billy shook his head furiously.

“No, no, no, I can’t ask you to do that. You have a family, Frankie. I can’t let you risk yourself for me.” Billy said.

“And you’re part of that family, Bill so you’re not goin’ by yourself. Gimme some of that untraceable Russian ammo that I know you have and let’s go bring her home.” Frank said with a slight smirk.

“I love her, Frankie.” Billy said with a slight hitch in his voice.

“Well, let’s go so you can tell her instead of me.”

**********

They arrived at the pier under the cover of the clouded night sky. The ethereal glow of the moon peeked out briefly from behind the clouds before completely disappearing on the other side of the fluffy clouds.

The steady wind picked up a little faster down by the water as they stealthily moved through the cargo yard when they came upon a chair that had been turned over and the rocks underneath their feet had been disturbed. It looked like someone had been dragged from one of the containers, close to where the chairs were turned over.

“The door’s open, Bill…go check inside.” Frank whispered.

With his flashlight on, Billy stepped inside. You weren’t there but in the back corner, he saw some kind of black fabric rolled into a ball. It looked like it was hastily thrown there. When he picked it up, it unfolded and he recognized it immediately. Smiling slightly to himself, Billy knew you had left it for him to find.

“I’m coming, sweet girl.” He whispered to himself.

Frank stuck his head inside. “Russo, you find anything?” He asked.

Billy held out your jacket so Frank could see it. “She left it for me, Frankie.”

“The drag marks go that way.” Frank pointed in the direction they were already headed toward. “They probably didn’t move her too far…maybe in one of those buildings across the way.”

They suddenly heard some rocks shuffle along the ground, Billy and Frank turned and fired in the direction of the noises hitting two men right between the eyes. Billy didn’t even blink, he just continued walking, not bothered at all, and was careful not to leave any evidence behind.

Carnage was the only thing Billy left behind and Fisk was smart enough to scatter his men throughout the shipyard so Billy and Frank would have to check every building.

He prowled like a jungle cat, slitting their throats with his hidden blade, one right after the other, not looking back and moving on even before the body hit the ground.

Billy’s expression was blank, completely zoned out and he would not come back to reality until you were safe. Even Frank had a hard time getting through to him.

As he got closer to another building, Billy heard voices. He heard a woman’s voice, your voice. He listened intently as you spoke.

“What do you want the engines for, Mr. Wesley? You know my father is only responsible for bringing deals to the table and he’s not in charge of making deals himself, right?” You said with a sinister smile stretched across your lips.

“My employer knows that yes, Ms. Y/l/n. But we’ve tied his hands and yours.” He said with an evil smirk. “The man I work for wants to build his own planes for his spice import/export business.”

“Well if that doesn’t sound shady as fuck, I don’t know what does. You are even dumber than you look, Mr. Wesley.” You said. “Pratt and Whitney isn’t going to sell engines like that to a civilian. My father doesn’t care how much money you throw at them.”

The door opened and you heard a deep shaky voice coming from around the corner. “I think your father will do whatever it takes to get you back.”

Wilson Fisk came into view. He walked around the table and stood next to Wesley who was sitting across from you at a long table.

“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Fisk but I know my father isn’t going to give you what you want and I know that you’re not going to kill me because if I’m dead, you have no other bargaining chips.” You said.

Fisk gave you an evil smile. “You know who I am.”

“Of course I know who you are.”

**********

Outside were a couple of large SUV’s and they had some of Fisk’s men inside which Billy and Frank took care of, almost a little too easily. But Fisk didn’t know what kind of marines he was dealing with. They were trained to be silent, anticipate moves by the enemy, and to kill with zero hesitation.

Billy was covered in blood, his black clothing had a bright red sheen to it when the dim lights from overhead shined down on to it, and the front of his vest was slick with all of their blood. He acted like it wasn’t even there, like it was just a part of his gear, and if Billy had the time, he would have tortured and tormented all of them.

He would have done it slowly and with precision, to make them feel as much pain as possible for what they had done. They were just doing what they were ordered to do but that didn’t matter to Billy.

You always have a choice in life and they chose to do this, they chose to work for HIM. They took you away from him and now they had paid the price…all of them.

Frank and Billy left no survivors, they didn’t let any of them go, not even one to warn Fisk they were coming for him. They were left to bleed out on to the gravel beneath them, the tiny pebbles were painted red with their blood as it pooled under their throats where they fell.

Billy would make sure the last two would never leave the shipyard alive.

**********

“That’s it. Keep them talkin’, sweet girl.” Billy said in barely more than a whisper.

Close to Billy’s ear, Frank said, “She has a smart mouth, Bill. I can see why you love her so much.”

Fisk started to speak again.

“You think your boyfriend is out looking for you? Hmmm?” He said.

You touched your tongue to your teeth and gave him a sinister grin. “I know what you want me to say, Mr. Fisk. But you’re not gonna get it. What I am gonna tell you is that my guess is you kidnapping me is high profile to the FBI and as soon as they find their way out of that wet paper bag they seem to be stuck in, they’ll be searching for me. Sending Mr. Wesley in to talk to my father was just dumb on your part. You didn’t even try to make it sound legit.” You said with a laugh.

Frank chuckled. “You two really are made for each other.”

You could tell Wilson Fisk was starting to get angry.

“I have people all over this shipyard! I doubt they can’t handle ONE marine!” He yelled across the table.

“I’m sure Billy is waiting patiently for that phone call to come in to tell him that I have been found unharmed.” You said in a sarcastic and teasing tone. “He would never EVER get in the way of authority figures.”

Fisk made a motion like he was going to walk over and strike you when a figure dressed in all black shattered the flimsy glass by diving through the window.

Before Wesley could pull out his gun, the figure moved in front of you and pushed you away from the table when two shots came from the window. One bullet went into Wesley’s head, the other into Fisk’s chest and he collapsed onto the ground.

Clutching his chest, Fisk looked up at the figure who just shot him and they pulled the hood up away from their face.

It was Billy.

“I wanted you to see my face as I watch the life drain from yours.” Billy growled.

Coughing up blood, Fisk managed to ask, “H-how?”

Billy flashed that perfect smile of his but he had an evil twist behind it. He ejected the blade from his wrist and inched closer to Fisk’s face before opening his throat and twisting the blade so the wound wouldn’t close.

“How?” Billy asked. “You took what is most precious to me in this world, you took what was MINE. And you fucked with the wrong marines.” He hissed.

Billy removed the blade from Fisk’s neck and watched as his blood pooled on the floor underneath him and the light faded from his eyes.

Frank lifted his mask.

“You ok, sweetheart?” He asked, trying to catch his breath.

“You came for me too, Frank?” You asked.

“Of course I did. I wasn’t gonna let Bill do this by himself.” He said, cutting your hands loose. “I tell ya what, kid. I’m surprised he didn’t try and hit you before I jumped through the window, you have a mouth on you.” He said with a smirk.

Billy rushed to your side and fell to his knees. “You alright, sweet girl?!” He pulled you into a tight embrace, so tight that it made it hard to breathe and kissed the top of your head.

“I’m ok, Billy. Really, I am. Only slightly traumatized, I think.” You said with a warm smile.

Billy’s lips collided with yours, his long slender fingers tangled in your hair as he planted kisses all over your forehead and your cheeks before wrapping his fingers around your throat like a necklace and softly kissing your lips again.

“I love you…so much.” He said, his onyx colored eyes gazed at you like he hasn’t seen you in a week.

Tears pricked the back of your eyes and one streaked down your cheek before he brushed it away with his thumb. “I love you too, Billy.”

“I hate to break this up, but we gotta get outta here.” Said Frank.

On the way back, Frank and Billy told you exactly what to say when you walk into the police station. Billy held you close in the back seat while Frank drove, his heart was racing, and you felt the gentle rise and fall of his chest against the side of your face.

He came for you and killed everyone that got in his way, including the Kingpin of New York City. The rage in his eyes died down and the tension in his body relaxed as soon as he held you in his arms again. You were back with him, where you belonged, and if he had to, he would do it all again without hesitation.

Billy valued your life more than he valued his own, he loved you more than anything, and he would take on the entire city if it meant you would stay safe.

He flashed that perfect smile at you after he kissed you goodbye. You weren’t even gone for very long but you missed that smile and wondered if you were ever going to see it again.

“I’ll be back to get you and you’re never walking by yourself ever again.” He said with a wink.

No one has ever shown you the kind of love Billy has and he’s never known love by anyone which is why you always made it a point to tell him every day how much you loved him, how you felt safe with him, and how you would never abandon him like so many others had done before.

His chin rested on top of your head in the back of the car, as his fingers danced up and down your arm, soothing you and telling you he’d never let anyone hurt you again.

You didn’t want to but you had to tell him.

“Billy?”

“Yeah baby?” He answered.

“They took my watch…the one you gave me for Christmas.” You had said.

Billy kissed the top of your head. “I’ll get you a new one, my love.”

You leaned back to look up at him through your long dark lashes and pulled him in close to your face and gently kissed him.

“Until the end of time, Billy?” You whispered.

He just smiled his million dollar smile at you and replied, “Until the end of time, sweet girl.”

Before going inside the station, you paused on the sidewalk and looked up at the sky, painted black and navy with the moon cast behind the clouds. Tears welled up in your eyes because just a few hours ago, you weren’t certain you would ever see the sky again and you were incredibly thankful to be alive.

You weren’t sure the sun would ever kiss the high points of your face again or see the person you loved most that would rather watch the world burn than live without you in it.

Under the pale moonlight, you closed your eyes, and inhaled sharply. The lingering smell of salt from the shipyard still fresh as you took a deep breath in through your nose and then exhaling, watching your warm breath meet the crisp autumn air outside.

You took in the familiar city scents that you never wanted to take for granted again, fresh coffee, warm toasted almonds, and pizza slices hot from the oven. The sounds of broken bottles hitting the sidewalk, car alarms, and ambulance sirens were all music to your ears.

You were alive because he fought for you…and won.

Stepping inside the police station, you saw uniforms everywhere, they were carrying papers, rushing past you, and not giving you a second look before one stopped, looked at your disheveled appearance, and asked, “Are you alright miss?”

You stood up straight, nodded, and replied.

“Yes…I’d like to report a kidnapping. And a bunch of dead bodies.”

Tag List: @mindidjarin @saintmurd0ck @wheresthesunshinesblog @rafaelakelley @idaoftheburningmind @snowkestrel @xdervyxccgh @mattmurdocksscars @fakehappy27 @music-indie-tv @fictional-hooman @kayhi808 @munsonownsmyass @gijos @celestialams @idek-what-to-put @anastasianeedstoread @ratsys @k-marzolf @nutmeg17 @rosaleenablack @vaguekayla @qu1etwolf @danzer8705

Others that might enjoy: @itwasthereaminuteago @fluffyprettykitty @jvanilly @russosafehaven @mrsbillyrusso @imagine-a-fictional-boyfriend

If you’d like to be added (or removed from) my tag list(s) for the ever so handsome Billy Russo, just let me know and thank you again for reading! 💕💕💕 If I tagged you but you didn’t want to be, just let me know and I’ll never do it again.

[derelictlovefool]

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Author: Achilles, he/him & they/them pronouns

Status: Hobbyist, low writing activity

Writing: OC x Canon, Reader Insert, Original Fiction

Requests/Suggestions: Open

note: i'm a full time student so any requests I get will be done when and if I have time and they spark my interest!

Active in regards to fandoms & characters simply means most enthused about and interested in writing, inactive means least interested in writing but still willing if the idea sparks my creativity.

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active | inactive | semi active

Far Cry 5 | Supernatural | The Last of Us | Marvel | DC | Doctor Who | Sweeney Todd | The Witcher | Dying Light 2 | Z Nation | Inkheart | Bridgerton | Slashers | Outlast | Resident Evil | Overwatch | Undertale/Deltarune | Ib | TWD Telltale | Motor Crush | The Arcana | Kingsman

❝​🇨​​🇭​​🇦​​🇷​​🇦​​🇨​​🇹​​🇪​​🇷​​🇸​❝

active | inactive | semi active

Faith Seed | John Seed | Joseph Seed | Jacob Seed | Sharky Boshaw | Hurk Drubman Jr | Adelaide Drubman | Jerome Jeffries | Mary May Fairgrave | Eli Palmer | Grace Amestrong | Joey Hudson | Staci Pratt

Dean Winchester | Sam Winchester | Castiel | Charlie Bradbury ||| Joel | Tess ||| Wade Wilson | Tony Stark | Pepper Potts | Bucky Barnes | Steve Rodgers | Thor Odinson | Bruce Banner | Natasha Romanoff | Clint Barton ||| Harley Quinn

The Doctor (4, 9-15) | Jack Harkness | Rose Tyler | Donna Noble ||| Sweeney Todd | Mrs Lovett ||| Geralt of Rivera | Jaskier/Dandelion | Yennefer of Vennenberg ||| Hakon | Aiden | Lawan | Frank ||| Alvin Murphy | Roberta Warren | Addison Carver | Cassandra | Sarge | George St Claire

Mo | Dustfinger ||| Penelope Featherington | Benedict Bridgerton | Anthony Bridgerton | Colin Bridgerton | Eloise Bridgerton | Violet Bridgerton | Kate Sharma | Edwina Sharma ||| Jason Voorhees | Michael Myers | Bubba Sawyer | Brahms Heelshire | Thomas Hewitt

Eddie Gluskin ||| Ethan Winters | Karl Heisenberg | Alcina Dimitrescu | Donna Benniviento | Slavator Monreau | Mia Winters | Chris Redfield | Leon Kennedy | Ada Wong | Claire Redfield

Jack Morrison | Gabriel Reyes | Cole Cassidy | Genji Shimada | Hanzo Shimada | Mei ||| Sans | Papyrus | Asgore | Undyne | Mettaton | Queen ||| Gary ||| Calax Gothard | Domino Swift | Lola Del Carmen | Sonoya Vernilion ||| Asra | Nadia | Dorian | Portia | Muriel ||| Merlin/Hamish Mycroft

OC's: David Thorn (Slasher), Z (God Symbiote), Xander (Robot)

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Tropes I enjoy writing:

Variations of the Enemies to Lovers/Friends to Lovers | Childhood Friends | Neighbour across the hall/street | Mutual Pining | Devotion and Obsession | Making each other worse | Making each other better | Romance in Violence | Ride or Die Friends | Royal Guard/Gardener x Royalty | Crime Boss x Bodyguard | Dog Coded x Cat Coded | Fuck Love Triangles Make it Poly | Fake Dating | Meet Cute and more!

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— male/trans/enby/gn!reader (I'm here for the guys and gays)

— oc x canon, oc x oc, canon x canon, reader x canon, reader x oc

— sfw & nsfw

— platonic, queer-platonic, romantic, familial, etc.

— headcannons, one-shots, multi-parts

— AU's, crossovers

— gore, violence, toxic relationships, death/angst

❝​🇼​​🇴​​🇳​❜​🇹​ ​🇩​​🇴​❝

— fem!reader (There's thousands out there already y'know)

— genderbends

— pregnancy related topics

— self harm topics

— incest, paedophilia, zoophilia, necrophilia and any of that nasty crap

— non-con

— infidelity

— Characters I really don't know or care about </3

[dustedmagazine]

The Innocence Mission — Midwinter Swimmers (Bella Union/Thérèse)

Karen Peris sings in a piercing way that is also very soft. She draws you in with whispered confidences, the kind of intimate communication that stirs the little hairs in your ears. She mouths the words with a little slur, a slide, a lisp, so that you think of little children singing for joy, but the words themselves are complex and elusive, adult meditations couched in girlish simplicity. You’ll hear and connect with her voice first when you listen to the Innocence Mission, before you strain for the lyrics, before you catch on to the 1960s pop rock sway of the instrumentals. The voice comes first because it is so unusual, curling up like a kitten, fluttering away like a fledgling bird.

The Innocence Mission has been around for three decades. Formed around a couple — the now long married Karen and Don Peris — the band had a big major label start, recording their first three records on A&M. As the 1990s wore on, prospects for commercial dominance dimmed, but the band kept making music, on indies and self-release labels; Peris even recorded a charming children’s record in 2021, A Song Is Above the Lawn. This one is Innocence Mission’s 13th full-length, and it is a beauty, full of wistful dream pop arrangements and insurgent melodies that seem slight until you try to stop humming them.  

Consider, the opener, “Thread Is a Green Street.” It’s a 1960s-style girl ballad that might remind you of Vashti Bunyan’s Andrew Loog Oldham dalliance “Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind.” Both frame fragile, girlish voices in expansive settings, Vashti’s hemmed in by thumping percussion and brass, Peris’ by slow strummed guitars, slack tambourines and lots of echo. Peris is vulnerable and tender, a luminous spirit in cavernous space, yet when the light comes in near the end, in a billowing crescendo, she continues to outshine her surroundings.

The music has the same baroque pop lilt as the Clientele, a light touch but not exactly simple. Every element is sharp and distinct, the clatter of drums, the radiance of keyboards, the gentle buoyance of guitar, and yet they jostle together softly, a tipsy balance of exactitude and blurry grace. You might also draw parallels to Jessica Pratt’s urbane songcraft, though there’s a wide-eyed wonder in these songs that’s very different from Pratt’s knowing sophistication. Indeed, after half a lifetime in the music business, the Innocence Mission delivers its tunes with an uncalculated freshness, still innocent, even now.

Jennifer Kelly

[manysmallhands]

Favourite Songs of 2024: 28 - 20

Continuing the countdown as far as the door of the top 20! Previous entries can be found here, here and here. Now, we carry on...

28. Miso Extra - Slow Down

Miso takes more of a dance turn on her best song to date, a collaboration with DJ Boring (no it’s ok, he’s interesting) where the eerie bleeps and twitchy garage vibe combine with Miso’s low key drone to create something that sounds both hypnotic and creepily compelling. The lyrics might just be one verse repeated over and over again but ultimately that turns out to be a bonus, as you'll be wanting to sing along and it keeps things simple.

27. Tyler The Creator ft Teezo Touchdown - Darling, I

While much hip hop these days feels a bit bleak and cold to me, I was an instant sucker for this kind of sweet hooked, RnB flavoured groove that Tyler often favours on his new record. Darling, I is one of those things that I probably shouldn’t like so much, where our hero rather selfishly sets out why he’s incapable of committing to one woman, but it’s also a little bit sad when he admits that he’s dooming himself to a life of loneliness and even quite charming in its blunt self knowledge. All things considered, i'm calling it a bop.

26. Ava Max - Spot A Fake

The fact that Ava once had a #1 hit feels like a bit of a fever dream now but Spot A Fake shows that she can still turn out a banger in her pop auteurist, neo-Flashdance signature sound. “I’ve got a 6th sense when it comes to a bitch” she sings and it’s that sense of high melodrama and low comedy that keeps me coming back, that and the impossibly catchy tunes anyway.

25. Szou - Thinkin' Bout

Post Good Luck Babe it feels like only a matter of time before this kind of bubbly 80s pop rock begins to reemerge, set against the glossier version of the era that still tends to dominate. Szou, a tiny duo who popped up on my radio one night, use shuffling synths (somehow reminiscent of the Hill Street Blues theme?) and some controlled wailing in the chorus a la Laura Branigan for that peak 1984 vibe, adding some calculated TMI in the lyrics too to give it a touch of Chappell Roan. It manages the great pop trick of channelling a bunch of obvious influences but making them memorable enough to not feel too derivative and catchy enough to bring you back for more.

24. Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding - Free

Unlike last year’s megahit Miracle (eight weeks at #1!), Free failed to set the charts alight at all but in many ways it was just as good. A light, airy dance banger powered by its drum n bass break and flashing house piano, Free goes off hard into a soaring, skittering chorus early on and never really looks back from there. Calvin gets dragged for being basic but a better way to view him is that he’s mastered his craft better than any of his contemporaries: if it sounds like he could knock this stuff out in his sleep, that's cos he's just so good at it.

23. Jessica Pratt - Better Hate

After drifting off into the fog on 2019’s Quiet Signs, the big surprise this year was that Jess had brought some tunes back with her. Better Hate is one of the best examples of her eerie mid century folk pop, backed by twinkling keys and semi-comic woodblock percussion which helps to create a bit of a Disney vibe. Her distinctive baby-voiced coo feels more playful this time around and while the lyric here is somewhat enigmatic, the harmonies and melodic dance make this sound something akin to a party, albeit one that takes place in an undefined earlier epoch.

22. Tinashe - Nasty

Possibly the most ecstatically greeted #61 hit of all time, Tinashe’s viral sensation felt like vindication for the faithful but added a new lightness and snap to her catchy RnB template which stuck out sharply from the gloomier material of her past. Full of highly quotable catchphrases (including, quintessentially, "is somebody gonna match my freak?!"), Nasty may not have hit big but it did capture a moment this summer with attitude, humour and a surprisingly touching sense of yearning at its core.

21. Emei - Rabbit Hole 

This is another pick-up from evening radio, again from an artist that I knew nothing about. Rabbithole is an edgy pop banger: I like the the contrast between the early 80s synth stylings and the punchier, more modern production, and also the way it will stutter towards a stop and then explode back into life again. Much like Tate Mcrae’s ‘Greedy’ last year it gets a bit lost after the second chorus but (also much like Greedy) the twitchy bounce and energy mean that it doesn’t really matter all that much: all I want from this is more. I do have to say tho that when Emei (aged 25) says "oh my god i'm getting old", she owns me so hard that i shall probably have stop listening to her soon.

20. Cosmorat - Backseat Baby

I have recently started to conceptualise some of my listening as "hopscotch music" - songs that sound like the kind of thing you’d hear sung in a school playground - and Backseat Baby may be the clearest example of them all. It slouches along in a kind of elegant, restless groove punctuated by occasional jolts of comedic violence, but the key thing that holds it together is the repeated chorus of “NOT A CRIME IF YOU DON’T GET CAUGHT!”, chanted with the kind of malevolence you’d expect from a bunch of 12 year olds who you'd discovered playing with matches. Always fun, if in a slightly nervous way.

More tomorrow, maybe

[rockislandadultreads]

Libby Spotlight: History eAudiobooks

Graveyard of the Pacific by Randall Sullivan (read by Lynch Travis)

Off the coast of Oregon, the Columbia River flows into the Pacific Ocean and forms the Columbia River Bar: a watery collision so turbulent and deadly that it's nicknamed the Graveyard of the Pacific. Two thousand ships have been wrecked on the bar since the first European ship dared to try to cross it. Since then, the commercial importance of the Columbia River has only grown, but despite the construction of jetties on either side, the bar remains treacherous.

When Randall Sullivan and a friend set out to cross the bar in a two-man kayak, they're met with skepticism and concern. But on a clear day in July 2021, when the tides and weather seem right, they embark. As they plunge through the currents that have taken so many lives, Randall commemorates the brave sailors that made the crossing before him—including his own abusive father, a sailor himself who also once dared to cross the bar—and reflects on toxic masculinity, fatherhood, and what drives men to extremes.

Rich with exhaustive research and propulsive narrative, Graveyard of the Pacific follows historical shipwrecks through the moment-by-moment details that often determined whether sailors would live or die, exposing the ways in which boats, sailors, and navigation have changed over the decades.

King by Jonathan Eig (read by Dion Graham)

Vividly written and exhaustively researched, Jonathan Eig's King: A Life��is the first major biography in decades of the civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.—and the first to include recently declassified FBI files.

In this revelatory new portrait of the preacher and activist who shook the world, the bestselling biographer gives us an intimate view of the courageous and often emotionally troubled human being who demanded peaceful protest for his movement but was rarely at peace with himself. He casts fresh light on the King family's origins as well as MLK's complex relationships with his wife, father, and fellow activists. King reveals a minister wrestling with his own human frailties and dark moods, a citizen hunted by his own government, and a man determined to fight for justice even if it proved to be a fight to the death. As he follows MLK from the classroom to the pulpit to the streets of Birmingham, Selma, and Memphis, Eig dramatically re-creates the journey of a man who recast American race relations and became our only modern-day founding father—as well as the nation's most mourned martyr.

Koresh by Stephan Talty (read by Sean Pratt)

No other event in the last fifty years is shrouded in myth like the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. Today, we remember this moment for the 76 people, including 20 children, who died in the fire; for its inspiration of the Oklahoma City bombing; and for the wave of anti-government militarism that followed. What we understand far less is what motivated the Davidians' enigmatic leader, David Koresh.

Drawing on first-time, exclusive interviews with Koresh's family and survivors of the siege, bestselling author Stephan Talty paints a psychological portrait of this infamous icon of the 1990s. Born Vernon Howell into the hyper-masculine world of central Texas in the 1960s, Koresh experienced a childhood riven with abuse and isolation. He found a new version of himself in the halls of his local church, and love in the fundamentalist sect of the Branch Davidians. Later, with a new name and professed prophetic powers, Koresh ushered in a new era for the Davidians that prized his own sexual conquest as much as his followers' faith. As one survivor has said, "What better way for a worthless child to feel worth than to become God?"

In his signature immersive storytelling, Talty reveals how Koresh's fixation on holy war, which would deliver the Davidians to their reward and confirm himself as Christ, collided with his paranoid obsession with firearms to destructive effect. Their deadly, 51-day standoff with the embattled FBI and ATF, he shows, embodied an anti-government ethic that continues to resonate today.

The Windsors at War by Alexander Larman (read by Sophie Roberts)

At the beginning of 1937, the British monarchy was in a state of turmoil. The previous king, Edward VIII, had abdicated the throne, leaving his unprepared and terrified brother Bertie to become George VI, surrounded by a gaggle of courtiers and politicians who barely thought him up to the job. Meanwhile, as the now-Duke of Windsor awaited the decree that would allow him to marry his mistress Wallis Simpson, he took an increased interest in the expansionist plans of Adolf Hitler. He may even have gone so far as to betray his country in the process. And as double agents and Nazi spies thronged the corridors of Buckingham Palace, the only man the King could trust was his Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. But they faced a formidable, even unbeatable, adversary: his own brother.

The Windsors at War tells the never-before-told story of World War Two in Britain and America with a fresh focus on the royal family, their conflicted relationships, and the events that rocked the international press. How did this squabbling, dysfunctional family manage to put their differences aside and unite to help win the greatest conflict of their lifetimes? Alexander Larman, author of The Crown in Crisis, now chronicles the Windsor family at war with Germany—and each other.

[treuallahtreuvulieou]

Raw Business pages

Raw Business pages

The early Friday morning, Friday March thirty first ...

A fair Thursday, TBH Thursday along with A special Thursday surprise.... Friday The Art of War and the year 2012 none of the Above motion picture theatrical titles

Case load : Motion picture fiction and nonfiction orders imaginiction.. cross reference.

Business Founder legal Acquistioner by day and Super hero by night.. seems to right

War wrong and right , who wants to be Wrong.

Being Grown should show character growth

Business seems to be rather lonely A Super man counter without super friends ..

Justice League...

League of Justice Could use some one like me , my self reflecting super hero!

Time gone by after time came and went and G Letter 7 before one ... It's one twice A day accurately..

Ante meridiem?

Post and Past Meridiem

Same difference ..... Noted

A letter one and O letter fifteen

One plus five equals Six.. not Female sex ..

Oh with Business comes the gender bender , all Employees are A sex of gender among two .

31CA California Abbreviation.

Another Harbor Place Blue Water Water Blue Night into A 10 to 5 Enoch Pratt Free library above Pratt and Liberty.

In A City where pronunciation has been A problem my Entirety among some people speaking words and spelling Words and Sword can be rather hard to tolerate from others ...

Did sounds like dead !

Pizza is Pissa ...

A IZZ is A 988 Porsche.

An ISS is International space services , Special services and International Space Station.

Well an ISS could be an Emergency Policia call code if not it had to be A Porsche 911

An Enoch Pratt Free day directly below Hooters and Early morning just A few feet South at Divider line Between China Town Little Aikami and Little Italy at Bubba Gump shrimp company Business at Conway below between International Way

Supanos marks the Little Italy Spot , past the grape vine ....

So not interested in Alcoholics!

Water street Light Mercer and Grant .

Warren Association Terrorism Emergency Response, The Intelligence Business..

Maybe I should Request A Intelligence Quotient on my every quotation...!

Intelligent Quotes Become Famous in short time ! So famous some one should name them ..... One thing for sure Name or Fame A quotation could not spell it's own name and blessed it be with an Amen and value of mean .

Sitting 10:44 A little later looking at my designated location, J:DD or J:XXXXIV secured.. Roman X I and V Pythagorean 10 9 and 22 ...

Self to self, tubeyou communication YouTube...

Google Business.....!

In A Stare and an uneasy state of being, sitting at 311 Cathedral just below Mulberry, Basilica Just outside of sight .

My left the Archdiocese..

To my field of view Family Business.

In my Northern West general position legal Responsibility Enoch Pratt Free library

General Legal Part time hours say wait A short I am rather Early, Besides it's Friday Closing time is A 5 pm

Weirdly more than enough time not to blow off A Community and International Support Group meeting, Just be in Attendance if even for occupational professional reasons or an Alibi.

[asianartsblog]

AA&CC is proud to co-present…

Documentary Screening Nurse Unseen Tuesday, January 21.  Reception: 5:30pm Film+Q&A: 6pm to 8pm  Enoch Pratt Free Library – Central Branch, Wheeler Auditorium 400 Cathedral St, Baltimore, MD 21201 Free Registration: https://bit.ly/aacc-epfl-nurse-unseen

Join Towson University’s Asian Arts & Culture Center, in partnership with the Enoch Pratt Free Library, in a screening of the documentary, "Nurse Unseen", which examines the largely untold story of the Filipino nurses at the backbone of the American healthcare system. "Nurse Unseen" explores the little-known history and humanity of the unsung Filipino nurses risking their lives on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic while facing a resurgence of anti-Asian hate in the streets. "Nurse Unseen" seeks to explain why so many Filipino nurses left the Philippines to work in the U.S. healthcare system and why they have been so disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Enjoy a light reception of Filipino food prior to the film, and speak with "Nurse Unseen" Director, Emmy-award winning filmmaker Michele Josue, through a live virtual Q&A after the film.

[crunchity]

12 24 Songs of 2024

Another end of year list and another great year for music. So great I have decide to double my usual count from 12 to 24 (it is 2024 after all).

I was fortunate to be able to see 10 of the bands listed live this year - I hope 2025 is as good a gigging year.

Previous year lists: 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015

Anyway here we go (there is a Spotify playlist at the bottom) my favourite 24 songs released this year:

King Hannah: Big Swimmer

Waxahatchee (ft MJ Lenderman): Right Back to It

Bonny Light Horseman: I Wanna Be Where You Are

Sam Evian: Rollin' In

English Teacher: Sideboob

Alan Sparlawk: Not the 1

MJ Lenderman: Wristwatch

Ex-Easter Island Head: Norther

Cassandra Jenkins: Clams Casino

Rosali: Hills on Fire

The Cure: Alone

Bon Iver: SPEYSIDE

Merce Lemon: Foolish and Fast

Tucker Zimmerman, Big Thief: The Idiot's Maze

Hannah Frances: Bromwyn

Clairo: Sexy to Someone

Wild Pink: St Catherine Street

Soccer Mommy: Driver

Dummy: Sudden Flutes

Tapir!: Nail in a Wooden Truck

Allegra Kreiger: Came

Jessica Pratt: World on a string

Jane Weaver: Love in Constant Spetacle

Adrianne Lenker: Sadness as a Gift

[paulrennie]

Unpacking my Library • Corto Maltese • Hugo Pratt • c2000s

The Italian illustrator, Hugo Pratt, created the comic-book character, Corto Maltese at the end of the 1960s. He is an adventurer, in the grand manner, whose exploits play out against the backdrop of early 20C conflicts. A figure deriving from the great-game, Conrad, Buchan and with a bit of OO7 thrown-in....Hardboiled, but with a romantic soft-centre. The big theme is one of liberty, personal independence and autonomy deriving from PJ Proudhon and Samuel Smiles...it's definitely a dynamic form of liberty, absolutely aligned with the late 1960s.

Pratt's drawing style is a ligne-clair with a fat marker-pen style nib, and with the exaggerated contrasts associated with the pin-sharp lighting of cinema and fashion-shoot by Bailey. It's no accident that these comic-book story-boards are laid ot in the style of spaghetti western editing. The fourth-wall is broken by the dynamic POV and close-ups across the page-spreads. This style of art-direction later inspired Frank Miller.

Pratt combined the precision and accuracy of Herge's Tintin drawings; but added the visual excitement of New Wave cinema and a sort of street-style fashion energy. It's a kind of steam-punk before steam-punk, and with accurate military and mechanical detail.

Not surprisingly for this kind of figure, Corto, has a whole series of romantic female companions, who are each drawn in 1960s film-star style; shades of Dina Rigg as Emma Peel, Joanna Lumley as Purdey and Françoise Hardy etc etc.

In its original form Corto was syndicated and published across various European newsprint publications. These more-recent books present whole adventures in a coherent and high-quality format, and with some explanatory text. They bring a bit of added-value to the design, presentation and packaging.

From our 21C perspective, the great-game so described has an evident subtext of colonial imperialism and the exoticising male-gaze deriving from the prevailing cinema codes.

[andynortonuk]

ALAN THE INFINITE from Parabella on Vimeo.

Alan’s excited! It’s his first day at Lamin’8– a stale, grey, humdrum lamination company. Oh boy! If he buckles up, stays focused and impresses Gary, his unhinged boss, this might just be a job for life. But all is not quite as it seems, and when Alan accidentally unleashes cosmic, supernatural forces into the office, he realises that fitting in at Lamin’8 is going to be infinitely more tricky than he ever could have dreamed.

CREDITS Written & Directed by - Mikey Please & Dan Ojari Produced by - Mikey Please, Dan Ojari, Alex Holberton & Kev Harwood Executive Producers - Mikey Please & Dan Ojari, James Stevenson Bretton, Tom Stuart & Bart Yates Music by - Ben Please & Beth Porter @ The Bookshop band

CAST ALAN - Dan Ojari GARY - Baker Terry PREA - Theodora van Der Beek SUSAN - Jessica Rayner NEIL - Rob Carter SCIENTIST - Elliot Dear

Sound Design - Adam Janota Bzowski, Ben Please & Dan Ojari Sound Mastering - Simon Harris @ Offset

DOP - Simon Paul Camera Assistant. - Giles Warner Additional lighting - Mikey Please, Dan Ojari, Peter Elmore & Max Halstead

Lead Animators - Andy Biddle, Dan Gill, Steve Warne, Anthony Farquhar Smith, Mikey Please & Dan Ojari Animators - James Carlisle, Luke George, Rachael Olga, Nick Black & Angie Palethorpe

Puppet Design - Mikey Please Puppet Fabrication - Mikey Please, Adeena Grub, Rosie Tonkin & Thomas O’Meara Rigging - Robin Jackson Crowd Puppets design and fabrication - Adeena Grub and Natasha Wigoder

Set Design - Dan Ojari Art Direction - Dan Ojari, Emma Rose & Kat Simpson

Modelmakers - Katy Haggerty-Marks, Becky Weston, Rachael Olga, Nick Black, Luke George, Campbell Hartley, Emily Suvanvej, Millie Tennant, Adeena Grubb, Antonia Trister, Jack Pratt, Rebecca Howell, Steph Marshall, Natasha Wigoder, Beatriz Dominguez, Sofia Rodriguez Serrano, Maria Crus, Mireia Mendez & Brin Frost

2D facial Animation - Mikey Please Additional 2D - Mathias Sgard & Elliot Dear

Lead Compositor - Mikey Please Additional compositing - Mathias Sgard, Dan Ojari, Simone Ghilardoti & Tom Fisher Grade - Elroy Gaskin-Payne @ Onsight

Post Production Supervisor - Benjamin Lole Post Production Manager - Mira Valcheva Post Production Creative Supervisor - Quentin Vien 3D Modelling - Lisa George-Gilroy Rig Removal & 3D facial tracking - Elipse FX Production Support - Ali Albion

Recording Engineer - Robert Frank Hunter

Behind The Scenes Film - Joseph Eckworth

THANK YOU - Charlie Perkins, Matt Day, David Cann, David Lupsein, David Rodger, Katie-Mae Griffith, Lydia Larson, Cross Street Studios, Clapham Road Studios

A Parabella Studios & Blink Industries Film

[kartikdutt]

ALAN THE INFINITE from Parabella on Vimeo.

Alan’s excited! It’s his first day at Lamin’8– a stale, grey, humdrum lamination company. Oh boy! If he buckles up, stays focused and impresses Gary, his unhinged boss, this might just be a job for life. But all is not quite as it seems, and when Alan accidentally unleashes cosmic, supernatural forces into the office, he realises that fitting in at Lamin’8 is going to be infinitely more tricky than he ever could have dreamed.

CREDITS Written & Directed by - Mikey Please & Dan Ojari Produced by - Mikey Please, Dan Ojari, Alex Holberton & Kev Harwood Executive Producers - Mikey Please & Dan Ojari, James Stevenson Bretton, Tom Stuart & Bart Yates Music by - Ben Please & Beth Porter @ The Bookshop band

CAST ALAN - Dan Ojari GARY - Baker Terry PREA - Theodora van Der Beek SUSAN - Jessica Rayner NEIL - Rob Carter SCIENTIST - Elliot Dear

Sound Design - Adam Janota Bzowski, Ben Please & Dan Ojari Sound Mastering - Simon Harris @ Offset

DOP - Simon Paul Camera Assistant. - Giles Warner Additional lighting - Mikey Please, Dan Ojari, Peter Elmore & Max Halstead

Lead Animators - Andy Biddle, Dan Gill, Steve Warne, Anthony Farquhar Smith, Mikey Please & Dan Ojari Animators - James Carlisle, Luke George, Rachael Olga, Nick Black & Angie Palethorpe

Puppet Design - Mikey Please Puppet Fabrication - Mikey Please, Adeena Grub, Rosie Tonkin & Thomas O’Meara Rigging - Robin Jackson Crowd Puppets design and fabrication - Adeena Grub and Natasha Wigoder

Set Design - Dan Ojari Art Direction - Dan Ojari, Emma Rose & Kat Simpson

Modelmakers - Katy Haggerty-Marks, Becky Weston, Rachael Olga, Nick Black, Luke George, Campbell Hartley, Emily Suvanvej, Millie Tennant, Adeena Grubb, Antonia Trister, Jack Pratt, Rebecca Howell, Steph Marshall, Natasha Wigoder, Beatriz Dominguez, Sofia Rodriguez Serrano, Maria Crus, Mireia Mendez & Brin Frost

2D facial Animation - Mikey Please Additional 2D - Mathias Sgard & Elliot Dear

Lead Compositor - Mikey Please Additional compositing - Mathias Sgard, Dan Ojari, Simone Ghilardoti & Tom Fisher Grade - Elroy Gaskin-Payne @ Onsight

Post Production Supervisor - Benjamin Lole Post Production Manager - Mira Valcheva Post Production Creative Supervisor - Quentin Vien 3D Modelling - Lisa George-Gilroy Rig Removal & 3D facial tracking - Elipse FX Production Support - Ali Albion

Recording Engineer - Robert Frank Hunter

Behind The Scenes Film - Joseph Eckworth

THANK YOU - Charlie Perkins, Matt Day, David Cann, David Lupsein, David Rodger, Katie-Mae Griffith, Lydia Larson, Cross Street Studios, Clapham Road Studios

A Parabella Studios & Blink Industries Film

[hitchell-mope]

Hypothetical titles for season 21 of 88.

Born under Venus. Season premiere. Part one. Drummond and Odessa face a pregnancy scare which leads Findlay to getting a diagnosis of her own. First appearances of Wyatt Oleff and Sacha Carlson as Barnaby and Jonah Sullivan.

Something you should know. Season premiere. Part two. Not wanting to cause a fuss, Findlay tries to keep her menopause under wraps. But a new revelation from Drummond’s threatens to derail her best intentions.

As seen on tv. Maybelle, Aida and Jacob take three cases with parameters that are incredibly similar to tv shows like Party Of Five, Malcolm In The Middle and Full House.

Red light. Join Caine Christensen for a night on the town and a murder mystery involving hookers in New York City’s Red Light District.

Category four blonde moment. Findlay and Delaney team up with Skipper and Oswald to get the chairman of a prestigious school admittance board fired for not putting Theo on the waitlist because he’s got two white fathers even though they could’ve asked Lucia to put him on the waitlist for The Cabal Academy. Guest starring Sterling K Brown as Chairman Mitchell Kelvin.

Going in blind. Drummond sets up Jonah on a blind date with the great grandson of an old associate of his. There’s just one problem. Jonah’s exclusively interested in older men. And the blind date is his age.

Stupid o’clock in the morning. Between the hours of 1-4 am. The heads of The Five Families hold a meeting to decide how to proceed with the Winchester situation.

The vamp from Savannah. Thornton accompanies Lucia to a gallery opening held by one of her old friends. Guest starring Marisa Tomei as Kelsey Crewe

Run and repeat. The entire state of New York goes on Red Alert when Theo is kidnapped. Features the one episode return of Bette Midler as Mutter Alptraum.

The debate. Knowing that Jonah’s feeling left out. Barnaby tries to get Findlay and Sidney to lift the dating restrictions.

Traverse the psychology of the neurone flow. Solaris and Gideon band together when they get trapped inside Jones’s brain.

The NYPD choir. Midseason finale. Part one. The return of an old friend gets Findlay to rethink the “no dating” rule she gave to Jonah. Meanwhile. Thornton runs into trouble when he wants to revive the eponymous singing group for a charity gala. Guest starring Kumail Nanjiani as Vikram Claus.

Fairytale of New York. Midseason premiere. Part two. Thornton and Jacob try to think of a way to allow them to use the choir how they want. Meanwhile. Findlay and Sidney sit down with Jonah for an important conversation.

Church vs state. Findlay horrifies Jones, Jacob and Deucalion when she orders taxes on every religious place of worship in New York State.

A face to the name. Thornton is stabbed in the street. But Drummond knows exactly who did it. Guest starring Elliot Page as Morgan Ambrose, Hannah Waddingham as his wife Fairfax and Chris Pratt as Emerson Davenport.

The royal family. Tina’s brother Jasper (returning guest star Jack Whitehall) visits with the unfortunate message that Rani (Rhianne Barreto) and Aimee (Auli’i Cravalho) have run away from Balmoral Castle with their newborn son. Also guest starring Jane Horrocks as Nanny Manx.

Mutually beneficial. Jonah has gotten his first boyfriend. A middle aged, incredibly down on his luck Hugh Jackman impersonator that he met at a Dear Evan Hansen audition. Guest starring Hugh Jackman as Jack Hughes

Mother bears intuition. Delaney, Sonya and Kimberly try to get Findlay to calm down about Jonah’s new relationship. With very little success

Kiss me I’m Irish. Due to being physically attractive middle aged parents. Findlay and Sidney are chosen to go undercover in a swingers group. Guest starring Robert Sheehan and Tom Hopper as the Pike cousins.

Protection. Barnaby approaches Dr Corsica with an entrepreneurial idea that would benefit everyone with his lifestyle. Guest Jaeden Martell as Beckett Palmer.

Decisions, decisions. Barnaby and Jonah disagree on how to plan their 20th birthday party so much so that Findlay lets Drummond plan it instead.

Standards and practices. Findlay, Sidney and Drummond giving opposing, extremely contradictory and highly confusing safe sex talks to Barnaby and Jonah.

Nonniversary. Season finale. Part one. Sidney and Findlay prepare to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary. But a visit from Tina’s father, who by some insane coincidence was also their wedding planner, brings an unwelcome revelation about their marriage. Guest starring Tom Ellis as Lord Aled Bevan Carew-Downey.

I do over. Season finale. Part two. In the 500th episode. The Five Families go all out to give Sidney and Findlay the wedding they should have had 20 years ago.

[theadmiringbog]

What was football but barely legalized fighting?

--

It was Pratt’s duty to carry out policy, no matter what he thought of it. Ultimately, there was no question in his mind that American civilization was the superior one. The Army was on the frontier to clear the way so that the West could become a place where, as General Sherman put it, things could reassuringly “be counted, taxed and governed.”29 For Pratt to question that mission would have meant rounding a psychological bend, rejecting all of his schoolbook values, hymnal Christianity, and presumptions of American destiny. Pratt simply wasn’t prepared to do that.

--

She wept to see something so familiar again, but she also wept because soon other houses would be built next to the small homestead. Then there would be another settlement, and the country would be ruined.

--

the students only knew that a piece of their Indian selves had been taken away, one more profound than their clothes or braids. With their names went entire histories and inheritances.

--

November 6, 1869, is officially identified as the date of the first formal intercollegiate game, between Princeton and Rutgers, but it was just an unruly brawl between men who removed their velvet-collared coats to play “kill the ballcarrier.”

--

From the beginning, the American game differed from its British public school antecedent, rugby, in three major ways: its creativity, its violence, and its total lack of principle.

--

won. Scholar Frederick Jackson Turner would identify 1890 as the year in which America became fully colonized—if a frontier was defined as “the existence of an area of free land,” he argued, then it had vanished, replaced by settlements. Technology was fast outstripping the human body, and men no longer relied for their livelihoods on their ability to conquer the land. In the streets, mechanized vehicles vied with horse-drawn ones—sometimes with catastrophic results, as horses stampeded and trains ran off rails. Electrical and gas-powered apparatus gave off great bursts of light that illuminated fast-growing cities.29 But with urbanity came anxiety. When electricity was installed in the White House in 1889, President Benjamin Harrison and his wife were so afraid of the light switches that they refused to touch them. They left the lights burning all night, until an orderly arrived in the morning to douse them.30 America experienced a collective fear that mechanization could result in male atrophy and even effeminacy. Increasingly, Gilded Age young men turned to sport as an antidote for pervasive cultural weakening. If football was a game of excesses, its enthusiasts considered it well worth it.

Yellow highlight | Page: 109

It was the perfect contest for young men of a newly industrialized society. Camp rationalized that it was less a game than a “science” requiring intelligence, execution, strategy, timing, and collaboration, as well as strength. The football player was uniquely positioned to straddle the old and new worlds: he employed his body and yet he was able to intellectually grasp and employ new mechanics, methods, and industries. The game was therefore the ultimate teaching tool for a new kind of robust managerial executive. As historian David Wallace Adams puts it, football was “an ideal forum for creating the new American man—half Boone, half Rockefeller.”

--

In 1880, just seven thousand whites lived in the region. By the turn of the century, more than one million would occupy it.

--

When a land commissioner tried to argue a Shoshone chief named Washakie into farming his 160-acre plot, Washakie shouted back in frustration, “God damn a potato!”9

--

as school book say, genius capacity for taking infinite pain.

--

any student crossing the quadrangle who looked tall enough or wide enough was hustled to the field “to see if there is any football in him, or not,”

[newhologram]

“I write this eulogy while looking across one of the ten-lane freeways P-22 somehow miraculously crossed in 2012, gazing at a view of his new home, Griffith Park. Burbank Peak and the other hills that mark the terminus of the Santa Monica Mountains emerge from this urban island like sentinels making a last stand against the second largest city in the country. The traffic noise never ceases. Helicopters fly overhead. The lights of the city give the sky no peace.

“Yet a mountain lion lived here, right here in Los Angeles.

“I can’t finish this sentence without crying because of the past tense. It’s hard to imagine I will be writing about P-22 in the past tense now.

"Biologists and veterinarians with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced today they have made the difficult decision to end P-22’s suffering and help him transition peacefully to the next place. I hope his future is filled with endless forests without a car or road in sight and where deer are plentiful, and I hope he finally finds the mate that his island existence denied him his entire life.

“I am so grateful I was given the opportunity to say goodbye to P-22. Although I have advocated for his protection for a decade, we had never met before. I sat near him, looking into his eyes for a few minutes, and told him he was a good boy. I told him how much I loved him. How much the world loved him. And I told him I was so sorry that we did not make the world a safer place for him. I apologized that despite all I and others who cared for him did, we failed him.

“I don’t have any illusion that my presence or words comforted him. And I left with a great sadness I will carry for the rest of my days.

“Before I said goodbye, I sat in a conference room with team members from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the team of doctors at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. The showed me a video of P-22’s CT scan, images of the results, and my despair grew as they outlined the list of serious health issues they had uncovered from all their testing: stage two kidney failure, a weight of 90 pounds (he normally weighs about 125), head and eye trauma, a hernia causing abdominal organs to fill his chest cavity, an extensive case of demodex gatoi (a parasitic skin infection likely transmitted from domestic cats), heart disease, and more. The most severe injuries resulted from him being hit by a car last week, and I thought of how terrible it was that this cat, who had managed to evade cars for a decade, in his weakened and desperate condition could not avoid the vehicle strike that sealed his fate.

“As the agency folks and veterinarians relayed these sobering facts to me, tissue boxes were passed around the table and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. This team cares just as much for this cat as we all do. They did everything they could for P-22 and deserve our gratitude.

“Although I wished so desperately he could be returned to the wild, or live out his days in a sanctuary, the decision to euthanize our beloved P-22 is the right one. With these health issues, there could be no peaceful retirement, only some managed care existence where we prolonged his suffering — not for his benefit, but for ours.

“Those of us who have pets know how it feels when we receive news from the veterinarian that we don’t want to hear. As a lifelong dog and cat owner, I have been in this dreadful position too many times. The decision to let them go is never easy, but we as humans have the ability, the responsibility, and the selflessness to show mercy to end the suffering for these beloved family members, a compassionate choice we scarcely have for ourselves.

“I look at Griffith Park through the window again and feel the loss so deeply. Whenever I hiked to the Hollywood sign, or strolled down a street in Beachwood Canyon to pick up a sandwich at The Oaks, or walked to my car after a concert at the Greek Theater, the wondrous knowledge that I could encounter P-22 always propelled me into a joyous kind of awe. And I am not alone — his legion of stans hoped for a sight of Hollywood’s most beloved celebrity, the Brad Pitt of the cougar world, on their walks or on their Ring cams, and when he made an appearance, the videos usually went viral. In perhaps the most Hollywood of P-22’s moments, human celebrity Alan Ruck, star of Succession, once reported seeing P-22 from his deck, and shouting at him like a devoted fan would.

“We will all be grappling with the loss of P-22 for some time, trying to make sense of a Los Angeles without this magnificent wild creature. I loved P-22 and hold a deep respect for his intrepid spirit, charm, and just plain chutzpah. We may never see another mountain lion stroll down Sunset Boulevard or surprise customers outside the Los Feliz Trader Joe’s. But perhaps that doesn’t matter — what matters is P-22 showed us it’s possible.

“He changed us.  He changed the way we look at LA. And his influencer status extended around the world, as he inspired millions of people to see wildlife as their neighbors. He made us more human, made us connect more to that wild place in ourselves. We are part of nature and he reminded us of that. Even in the city that gave us Carmeggedon, where we thought wildness had been banished a long time ago, P-22 reminded us it’s still here.

“His legacy to us, and to his kind will never fade. He ensured a future for the entire population of mountain lions in the Santa Monica Mountains by inspiring us to build the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, which broke ground this spring.

“P-22 never fully got to be a mountain lion. His whole life, he suffered the consequences of trying to survive in unconnected space, right to the end when being hit by a car led to his tragic end. He showed people around the world that we need to ensure our roads, highways, and communities are better and safer when people and wildlife can freely travel to find food, shelter, and families. The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing would not have been possible without P-22, but the most fitting memorial to P-22 will be how we carry his story forward in the work ahead. One crossing is not enough — we must build more, and we must continue to invest in proactive efforts to protect and conserve wildlife and the habitats they depend on — even in urban areas.

“P-22’s journey to and life in Griffith Park was a miracle. It’s my hope that future mountain lions will be able to walk in the steps of P-22 without risking their lives on California’s highways and streets. We owe it to P-22 to build more crossings and connect the habitats where we live now.

“Thank you for the gift of knowing you, P-22. I’ll miss you forever. But I will never stop working to honor your legacy, and although we failed you, we can at least partly atone by making the world safer for your kind.”

[thebigbadspike]

@faiththesinfulslayer

Mr. Pratt was practically giddy when he got off the phone, glad the bloke on the other end couldn't see his excitement while they spoke about subbing for the English class today. He had gotten up extra early to make sure he had time to call around until he could find someone to take his day. It didn't take too long to get someone willing to fill in for him and just like that they were free to

Now that he was officially in the clear for the day he headed back towards the bedroom, slipping in beside her with a ridiculous grin on his face as he settled against Faith. He knew he wasn't getting back to sleep at all but she didn't need to be up yet so he'd let her sleep a while longer. He just held her quietly, playing out in his mind for the millionth time how the day would go.

Calling off and just heading out with her for the whole day. Driving until they found someplace halfway decent where they didn't need to hide. Being able to go somewhere- anywhere with her without fear of being caught. Free to hold her hand or wrap an arm around her waist as they walked down the street. Kissing here openly. His plans for the day weren't all that extravagant but it hardly mattered what they were doing, the fact they were out doing anything together made it all wonderful.

With a light touch he trailed along her arm until he found her hand, curling his fingers through hers. Soft kisses not intended to wake her were pressed along her neck.

[treuallahtreuvulieou]

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