#quite the contrast to ocean avenue

[crockadole]

Breathing - Yellowcard

[thenavysealkie]

A Chance Encounter || Marcus & Emilio

Parties: @thenavysealkie & @mortemoppetere

Location: Harborside near Hanging Rock Lighthouse

Timing: April, late at night

Content Warnings: Mention of war, blood.

Summary: Marcus discovers Emilio disposing of some mysterious remains into the sea just outside of the lighthouse. As the two men question each other, Marcus gets the suspicion that Emilio is more than he seems.

Being a slayer came with perks. One of the biggest, in Emilio’s experience, was the fact that, for the most part, the things he killed didn’t leave much behind in way of remains. Vampires exploded into dust, zombies dissolved into a goo-like substance. Cleanup was easy. Except, of course, for the times where it wasn’t. It was one of those rare creatures that didn’t clean up after itself, one of those things he had to get rid of to avoid being found out. And it was easy enough, really. He had the strength, even if his leg had seen better days. He could haul a dead thing off without much issue. 

But getting rid of it without being seen? That was often easier said than done.

He’d figured the lighthouse would be empty, this time of night. No one there to see him, no one to ask questions. It had been a risk, making such an assumption. And in this case, it wasn’t a risk that paid off. Emilio was dumping the last of the remains into the sea when he heard footsteps behind him the approaching stranger maybe not intentionally making themselves known but doing so all the same. 

Emilio tensed at the approach, the last of the corpse slipping from his fingers and into the waves. “I am taking out trash,” he said, unconvincingly. 

—

Marcus was at the lighthouse late one night, as it was often where he would go to clear his head. Things had been getting increasingly difficult for him the longer he was without his pelt. It pained him greatly to leave his old life behind in pursuit of the man who took the pelt from him, but he knew what would happen if he was without it for too long. Already, he could feel himself growing restless and unable to focus. If this went on for much longer, he’d never know a normal life again. 

Suddenly, the sound of something wet smacking against the rocks before tumbling into the sea. He feared that somebody may have fallen into the water. Suddenly, he was back at full attention, and moved quickly towards where he had heard the sound. He suddenly heard a voice call out “I am taking out the trash” just as he saw a man dropping something Marcus could not quite identify in the dark of night. 

“You’re… taking out the trash? Directly into the ocean?” Marcus asked tensely. He had been more prone to anger lately, and was trying not to fly off the handle. “You do realize there’s a designated place for garbage to go, right? The ocean isn’t it. So many amazing creatures make their home there. I mean, how would you feel if I dumped all my garbage in your house? Better yet, what if I took a plastic bag and suffocated you with it? You probably wouldn’t appreciate it!” Marcus had noticed he had begun to raise his voice towards the end of his rant, and hoped that the stranger didn’t perceive what he said as a threat. 

He then noticed the man’s hands had blood on them. At first, he didn’t think much of it, as the man said he was dumping trash. However, he sensed that this wasn’t just cow’s blood, or any other natural creature. This was something…different. Realization hit, as Marcus looked back up at the man with wide, fearful eyes.

—

It wasn’t the best excuse Emilio could have come up with. He knew that. This wasn’t the kind of thing he used to run into in Mexico. His mother was meticulous with her planning, always making sure to cover every avenue and prepare for every outcome. Emilio, by contrast, was more the weapon than the hand. A knife didn’t need to think; it needed only to cut. 

But things were different now. There was no hand guiding the knife anymore, no more Elena Cortez begrudgingly cleaning up her youngest son’s messes. There was only Emilio, and Emilio was bad at this. (Emilio was bad at most things.) 

There was never any hope that his excuse would work on the stranger, but the man’s anger was unexpected. Emilio blinked at the reaction, head tilting to the side ever so slightly. “I don’t think I would feel much of anything if you suffocated me with a plastic bag. I would be dead.” He glanced down at the water, where pieces of the remains he’d dumped had yet to be pulled away by the riptides. “It’s not plastic. It will… go away on its own.” If he were better at English, he might use the word biodegradable. But if he were better at English, he might have come up with a more convincing excuse to begin with.

Not that it mattered much, in the end. He saw the exact moment the stranger’s eyes found the blood on his hands and put two and two together. Even if he were better at talking, he wasn’t sure there’d be any hope of talking his way out of this now. Slowly, he raised his hands in a sign of surrender. “This doesn’t have to go badly for anyone.”

—

A hunter. Marcus may very well have been face to face with an actual hunter. He remembers losing one of his cousins to these types of people. They see selkies as prized game, as their pelts make for very valuable trophies. Jokes on him, he thought to himself, I don’t have a pelt to give him. Still, he felt it best to stay on the cautious side. There was no use in making any enemies with a person who probably knew over 100 different ways to kill him with just his bare hands. He needed to be tactical and de-escalate. 

“No reason for this to go badly, my friend” Marcus said with a nervous chuckle, “after all, it was just spoiled meat you were throwing out then you’re actually feeding the fish. Sorry I went off on you like that.”

Marcus observed the man for any kind of reaction, but he was hard to read. He just continued to look at Marcus expectantly. 

“Although, in the future I’d recommend wearing some kind of gloves to throw it out. As you can see, the blood gets everywhere otherwise. Also, it could hurt to plan out your meals so you don’t have to throw it all away, food waste is a big issue in this country. Just a friendly tip!” 

Still not much of a reaction from the man, although he seemed to have possibly let his guard down a little bit. It was still hard to tell. 

“I feel like maybe we got off on the wrong foot. My name is Marcus, I’m sort of new here. I don’t think we’ve met before. Pleased to finally make your acquaintance, Mr…”

–

The fear was hard to miss. There’d been a time when Emilio would have relished in that just a little, days when he was young and brash and thought that if he made people afraid enough, his mother might look at him with pride instead of disappointment. That had faded over the years, had been gone even before Etla fell, even before his mother was no longer around to be disappointed in him. 

The reasoning for that fading feeling had shifted, though. After Flora was born, people regarding him with fear had left him feeling a little guilty, like he’d done something wrong. After she’d died, though? Other people’s fear made him feel empty because everything did. He wasn’t sure he was capable of feeling anything else.

“Yeah,” Emilio agreed, eyeing the man warily. The fear would prevent him from doing anything in the moment, but what of after? Emilio had enough problems without the cops on his tail. Especially considering the fact that anyone who looked too closely at his situation was bound to see a million things that could easily land him in prison. Or worse. He needed to make sure that this guy wasn’t going to do anything stupid when they finished here. “Just feeding the fish.”

Gloves. There was something almost funny about the suggestion. In most situations, gloves were utterly useless to a slayer. This man just happened to have caught him the one time where they might have come in handy. “Appreciate the tip.”

He raised a brow as the man — Marcus — introduced himself. Did he really think Emilio would give him his name? “Em.” It was as much as he’d get from him. “Little late to be hanging around the lighthouse, isn’t it, Marcus?”

–

Late to be hanging around the lighthouse? Well of course it was, it was the dead of night. Marcus hadn’t been sleeping much as of late, and certainly hadn’t been able to sleep in his house. When all else failed, the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks was always able to help him sleep. He had been sleeping outside of the lighthouse more frequently, he should have known it wouldn’t be long until somebody noticed.

“Right, well I’ve had a bit of trouble sleeping tonight. I figured a walk by the water would help clear my head. The sound of the ocean has always been a good way to set my mind right.” 

Marcus did always find some selective honesty to be the best policy. Give the other person a piece of the truth to make them think they have all of it. And make that piece as benign as possible to avoid follow up questions. 

The truth was, he was most comfortable near the water because the water reminded him of home. Reminded him of his parents, the spot he would always swim at during his teenage years, and even more comforting memories from his time in the Navy. All of that was behind him now. He was dead to the world until he got his pelt back, then he would set everything right. And he certainly wasn’t going to let this guy get in his way. Maybe I should put the heat on him instead Marcus thought to himself. 

“How about you, Mystery Man?” Marcus asked sharply, “Awful late to be taking out the trash, don’t you think?”.

—

“This is a dangerous town for a late night walk.” It wasn’t a threat, but maybe it should have been. After all, Emilio needed some kind of reassurance that this man wasn’t going to cause problems for him in the near future. Right now, he had… bits and pieces of information, but nothing that could be used as leverage. Someone enjoying the ocean was hardly the kind of blackmail material that could entice them into staying silent about a potential felony. 

Maybe there was something he was missing. After all, the man hadn’t run screaming or pulled out his phone to film the interaction or phone the police. Any one of those options might have been a little more normal, given the position he’d found Emilio in. But here he was instead, making conversation.

Asking questions. 

Emilio didn’t care for that. 

“I work a night job,” he said, and it wasn’t entirely a lie. If Axis was his day job, then his slayer duties certainly counted as a night shift. “This isn’t really late for me.”

—

Marcus almost had to laugh at the notion of the town being dangerous. Sure, he had heard rumors of the town being filled with all sorts of dangerous supernatural creatures, but he had always figured those tales were exaggerated. Ironic, given he himself was also supernatural. Still, he assumed that anything the town could face him with couldn’t be as bad as what the Navy had put him through. Yet now, here he stood, looking death itself in the face. And not only did he not blink or flinch away, he was making conversation with it. 

In spite of his resolve, Marcus was certainly unnerved by the intensity with which the man looked at him. He was being studied, he could tell that much. He hoped that the man in front of him had just as hard a time reading Marcus as Marcus did with him. He wanted to know any potential adversaries that came his way with as much detail as possible. He decided to offer up more information to keep the conversation going. After all, befriending a hunter could certainly have its uses. 

“I see”, Marcus replied. “You know I sort of work a night job myself. Kind of. You see, I maintain the lighthouse” he remarked, gesturing to the towering structure behind them. “It isn’t like the old days where some guy just sits up there 24/7. It’s all effectively automated. But there is still somebody who has to be ready in case there’s some sort of malfunction. Somebody to come in and maintain the mechanisms that make it tick. That’s where I come in. Thankfully, my time in the military gave me plenty of technical experience. I’ve reverse engineered just about anything you can think of, you have to if something goes wrong in the field”. 

There it was. Once Marcus started talking he had a very difficult time stopping. He knew he was ex-military. Marcus wasn’t sure what the strange man could do with that information, but it couldn’t have been smart to let it slip. Here he was spilling his life story and he didn’t even know this guy’s name. 

“And what is it that you do for work so late at night?”, he finally offered. 

–

Ah, there it was. When people were nervous, they tended to talk. And nothing made people nervous more surely than stumbling upon someone dumping unidentifiable bloody meat into the ocean. 

Emilio didn’t stop the man from rambling. On the contrary — he stood in steady silence and listened to every word. The man was a lighthouse keeper, which made his presence at the lighthouse so late make a little more sense. Ex-military, too. He could use that, somehow. He was sure of it. Emilio didn’t have a lot of experience with military men, particularly not American military men, but he’d heard stereotypes mentioned at bars. Rigid, uptight. Sticks up their asses, a man down south had told him once. He wasn’t sure yet if this applied to the one in front of him now.

The man had the smarts to look a little sheepish at the flow of information, at least. Emilio got the sense that it hadn’t been entirely intentional, which only made it more useful. People telling you things they didn’t want you to know was always the sort of thing that came in handy when you let it.

“I’m a detective,” he replied, leaving out the fact that he was a private detective. If this man thought he was with the police, he’d be a little more likely to think long and hard before trying to do something stupid, like telling WRPD that he’d seen a guy dumping what might have been a corpse into the ocean in the early hours of the morning. And weren’t military men supposed to respect authority? If he thought he was a cop, maybe that would kick in, too.

–

A detective, Marcus thought to himself. A detective acting suspicious as all hell in the dead of night. He should probably know how this would look to anybody, nevermind to someone who’s been trained to sniff out bullshit. He seemed to know how to talk his way around trouble, so maybe the detective claim wasn’t false after all. Still, his responses were very short and curt. Almost like he was withholding information and only feeding him half truths. Marcus once again glanced at the blood on the man’s hand, illuminated by the moonlight. He’s probably gotten people put away for less. 

Marcus’s relationship with law enforcement was complicated. He understood the good that they provided to society and believed that many were just doing their best to make the world a safer place. But he also was all too aware of the gross underbelly of law enforcement. The corruption, the violent actions and denialism that border on gang activity, and of course, the racial profiling. It wasn’t something he liked to talk about, but Oregon wasn’t the bastion of progressivism many liked to think that it was. Still just as many racist assholes there as there were any other place. It was something that Marcus had just learned to deal with over the years. 

Suffice to say, Marcus knew when an authority figure couldn’t be trusted. And this guy was being extra sketchy. Cop or not, he still needed to be very cautious with his next words.Maybe he could verify that he was a detective in some way. Maybe he’d call WRPD in the morning and ask to speak to…

Who?

He still didn’t even know what to call this man. He hadn’t even been given a name to work with, fake or otherwise. He analyzed the man even more closely, as the man took a couple of small steps away from Marcus. Was that a limp? He hadn’t noticed it before, and the movement was quite subtle, but he couldn’t deny that he saw the man drag his left leg behind himself, and a very subtle wince danced across his face before he returned it to his previous stoney expression. 

“Pardon me, this may come across as rude, but, what exactly happened to your leg?”

–

It was a standoff, this thing they had going on. Two men trying to gain information on one another while giving away none of their own, both suspicious of each other but unsure how to make use of that suspicion. Emilio felt like he had less cards than the other man, at the moment, and it wasn’t a feeling he enjoyed. Like a cornered animal, he never made his best choices when he was feeling trapped. 

The detective line seemed to have done something, at least. As much as Emilio disliked the idea of anyone believing he worked for the police, it did sort of come in handy in this particular instance. The soldier stiffened just a little, something flashing over his face as he processed the information. Good. That meant he’d think twice about calling this shit in.

For a moment, Emilio was almost satisfied with the situation. It still wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. And then, the soldier opened his damn mouth again. Up until now, Emilio had felt… well, as ‘safe’ as an incredibly paranoid man in this particular situation could hope to feel. The soldier had nothing that could trace back to Emilio. But this? The limp was a distinguishing feature. And he hated that.

Nostrils flaring in momentary frustration, he tapped a finger against his thigh absently. “Old injury. From work.” He could hardly pretend not to know what the man was talking about. That would only make things more suspicious. “Prefer not to go into details. I’m sure you understand.”

—

There it was again. Very coy and frank. Trying to press this man for information wasn’t going anywhere. Instead of being adversarial, perhaps it would be more beneficial to befriend the man. It was certainly risky, as the chance of his true identity being discovered was more likely the more time he spent around him. But maybe he would prove to be a powerful ally. After all, hunters know how to track down supernatural creatures. It’s sort of their entire job description. If this man was who he thought he was, maybe he could help Marcus track down his pelt. Eventually, he figured, he’d be a dead man regardless if he didn’t find it.

Marcus softened his expression, and lifted up his shirt to show a large burn scar traveling down his left flank from his upper chest down to his navel. It was when he first joined the Navy and had bright dreams of making the world a better place. The disillusionment struck quickly for him, and he soon learned that violence was not always righteous. In fact, it was often for selfish gains for a party not even directly involved in the conflict. He remembered that night in the Persian Gulf vividly. Just as the conflict in Iraq was winding down, the regime in power sent out one final assault against the ships at their coastline. 

“Incendiary bombs. Hundreds of them. I’m lucky I was only struck by one, but damn one was definitely enough” for the first time in the conversation, he smiled and chuckled a bit. The topic at hand was certainly dark and grim, but it was somehow the most comfortable he felt during the whole exchange. “So I definitely do understand”. 

Marcus extended a hand in a friendly gesture, before remembering the other man’s hands were covered with blood and then awkwardly putting it back at his side. He continued to offer a soft smile to the stranger. “Forgive me for prying. I’m sure we’ve all faced our battles”.  

–

If Emilio had disliked the direction of the conversation before, he hated it now. The sudden switch from suspicious to friendly did little for his paranoid nature, leading him to feel as though he were walking directly into some kind of a trap. A trap to do what, he wasn’t sure. He never was. The paranoid delusions in his mind rarely offered concrete ideas of what a person’s endgame was, only that it was bad and wrong and dangerous. 

He tensed as the soldier lifted his shirt, eyes darting briefly to the scar before coming back up to meet the other man’s, narrowed and uncertain. What was he playing at here, exactly? Trying to lure Emilio into a false sense of security under the guise of leveling some sort of playing field? He didn’t like it, even if the information was filed away for further use. A war hero with battle scars. He must have been hiding something. 

“Wasn’t a bomb,” he replied, gesturing to his leg. It was the only detail he’d give, the only one this man could expect to get from him. The full truth, after all, was something so much stranger. Not to mention… identifiable. There weren’t that many slayers around who’d survived a bloody massacre in Mexico. If word got out, someone would put two and two together sooner rather than later. Emilio knew that.

Looking down at the man’s hand, Emilio made no move to take it. When it eventually dropped, he took an uncertain step back. “Right. What do you want?”

--

Aaaaand shut down. Marcus supposed that was to be expected. The man in front of him looked like he was a few more questions away from asking if Marcus was the one who put a chip in his brain to let the government read his thoughts. Talking to him would be like talking to a stone wall. He considered offering him a drink but had a suspicion the man wouldn’t take any kind of food or beverage from him. 

Wasn’t a bomb, eh? Well his leg is still in one piece so he supposed that made sense. If he needed to run, at least he knew he had an advantage. Marcus wasn’t making any headway, and feared he may have overplayed his hand trying to befriend the man. In that moment, he wanted to leave the situation entirely and leave the man to his own devices. It didn’t matter what he was so long as he didn’t come after him. He’d find another way to find what he had lost. 

And then came the question. “What do you want?”. Short and to the point. Just like everything else that had come out of that man’s mouth tonight. What did he want? He didn’t think they were really at that point in their relationship yet. Gotta start with the small stuff, like knowing each other’s names for instance. Well, either way he couldn’t really leave the question unanswered. 

“I’m sure you could understand my concern, a strange man dumping some unidentifiable meat into the ocean in the dead of night. But now that I know a little more about you, I see there’s nothing to be suspicious of.” 

There was a long pause as the men eyed each other carefully, something that they had already been doing plenty of. Marcus wasn’t sure he bought it, and quite frankly he didn’t think he needed to. He just needed a segue out of the conversation so he didn’t land himself in even more trouble. 

He nodded at the man, still standing stock still in front of him. “As you were”.

–

Nothing to be suspicious of. The guy didn’t seem like an idiot, which meant he was definitely full of shit. The question, of course, was whether or not there was anything either of them could really do about it. Emilio couldn’t ensure silence without killing the man, and he didn’t want to do that. He liked to make sure the people he killed needed killing and this man, aside from being in the wrong place at the wrong time and asking a few questions Emilio would rather he not have asked, hadn’t done anything wrong tonight. He wasn’t even undead, though that hardly meant he was human. He was just… a guy. Emilio wasn’t going to kill someone for that.

And, on the other hand, this man couldn’t prove Emilio had done anything wrong. He had no camera to document the interaction, no concrete evidence that would tie back to the detective. Even if he did, Emilio had been sure to provide him with as little information about himself as possible. The soldier had nothing that would lead back to Emilio, and Emilio had no reason to hurt the soldier. This was just… an awkward and unfortunate encounter. It didn’t have to be anything more than that. 

“Right,” Emilio said at last, deciding that that could be that so long as the other man was willing to let things lie. A hint of confusion flashed across his face at the command — As you were, what did that mean? How was he? — but he didn’t question it. Only nodded his head. “Sorry about the mess.” It sounded surprisingly genuine, considering the way the interaction had gone so far. “There’s fish that’ll eat it. Won’t be bad for them.” Wicked’s Rest had a nice variety of supernatural sea creatures who would, frankly, love the free meal. After a brief pause, he added, “You should be careful. Walking around out here at night. And in the lighthouse, too.” This town was full of things and people who’d take the guy out with a lot less hesitation than Emilio had shown tonight.

–

Marcus was a bit surprised that he got what he felt was an earnest apology from the man. He had told him to be careful, and Marcus felt a bit of comfort in hearing that. As if he wouldn’t be ambushed as soon as he turned his back to the man. As if the man genuinely cared about his safety. He nodded, “Thank you for the advice. You should be careful too. You look like you can hold your own, but you never know what could be lurking in the night. Especially if you plan on carrying more raw meat around town”. He chuckled a bit again, but promptly stopped when he saw the man in front of him wasn’t laughing along. 

He put up a hand as a sign of farewell and turned around to leave. The cool sea breeze blew across his face as he made his way back towards home. As he passed the old lighthouse, he looked up at the towering structure.  This town certainly did have an ominous air of mystery. It certainly could have its fair share of dangers. The only question Marcus needed to ask himself was whether these dangerous people or creatures would be friend or foe.

[asidesandbsides]

Starts With S, Part 6

Soul Survivors - Expressway To Your Heart / Hey Gyp

There's a little surface noise on the A-Side, but it mostly sounds nice, you can still hear most of those little musical details (and in this case, sound effects). I haven't heard this one in a while, and it is a little cheesy in its conceit, but I like the pre-chorus melody a lot. I don't know what to make of the B-Side, except that I don't like its title, though I understand from brief research that it's slightly less racist in context than you might think. It works pretty well as a piece of chaos soul.

Spanky And Our Gang - Lazy Day / (It Ain't Necessarily) Byrd Avenue

A jaunty bit of sunshine! I know I've heard this before, somewhere deep in my unrecovered memory. The sound quality of "Lazy Day" is a bit less than pristine, but it's still pleasant sounding, with lots of intricate harmony singing. "Byrd Avenue" is similarly a bit crackly. and song-wise of a similar caliber, which is to say it's pretty and fun, and maybe a bit goofier.

Spanky And Our Gang - Sunday Mornin' / Echoes

"Sunday Mornin'" isn't quite like the similarly titled Velvet Underground song, but it is quite a lot like "Lazy Day," which is to say it's got a lot of charming harmony singing, and is maybe a bit less goofy. The tag at the end is a neat trick. As for the B-Side, what an interesting way to learn that "Echoes" is an alternate title for the song better known as "Everybody's Talkin'." It's a pretty good version, and it has some seashore sound effects to go with that "skipping over the ocean like a stone" lyric.

Spanky And Our Gang - Give a Damn / The Swingin' Gate

"Give A Damn" is an underrated protest song, though I prefer and recommend the cover by Odetta. It's very affecting, and it has a much less busy arrangement. This side is a little worn down in comparison to "The Swingin' Gate," but I must say that they both sound pretty good. "Gate" is a solid song, but not as memorable. Incidentally, I once posted a youtube video of the Odetta version of "Give A Damn" on my facebook, and my mom immediately commented about the Spanky original, so I know this disc was well-loved and remembered by her.

Spirit - I Got A Line On You / She Smiles

We've got ourselves some electric guitar right here! Another one of those rave ups we like so much around here. The B-Side, by contrast, is a gentle ballad, which is a solid formula for a hit single. I think "She Smiles" is actually a touch more scratched up, but it still sounds good, with a touch of quiet grandeur.

The Staple Singers - Respect Yourself / You're Gonna Make Me Cry

A choice groove, though this copy of "Respect Yourself" sounds a little muted or worn down. Regardless, it's a nice bit of funk and gospel - social gospel, that is. "Make Me Cry" sounds a little clearer, but maybe this disc is just mixed a little quieter than some others? It's a slow soul ballad, and I like that sort of thing.

Edwin Starr - Twenty Five Miles / Love Is My Destination

"Twenty Five Miles" kicks a lot of ass, and this is a fact that should be more well-known. It's got a killer breakdown and drive to spare. By contrast, the B-Side is a thumpy ballad that I'm less fond of. Ballads should be more melodic. Maybe it's not as much of a ballad as I take it for, but regardless I'm not taken.

[oceanavenuebyyellowcard]

What’s up everyone!

It has indeed been awhile but I have not forgotten about this blog ! I have listened to lots of new songs since my last post searching for the perfect one to review. I’m proud to announce that the wait is over !So without further ado, please enjoy this review of Ocean Avenue by Yellowcard.

Arguably Yellowcard’s best track, Ocean Avenue is a fun punk rock hit that is sure to please any crowd. You may not realize it when you first hear it due to its bright vocalist and uplifting tempo, but this song is actually about a breakup. The contrast between its happy musicality and sad lyrics is actually quite interesting ! The lead vocalist sings, “There’s a piece of you that’s here with me. It’s everywhere I go, it’s everything I see.” Even though they are not together anymore, he still misses her. This is quite sad. Another fact you may not know: there’s a violin part in the chorus of this song ! It may be hard pick out from the crowd, but it does a good job at conveying some of the song’s more somber themes in the melody. How awesome ! Overall, the song takes us, the listeners, on a pop rock journey you won’t soon forget, and isn’t that what music is all about?

I hope you enjoyed this review. Be sure to suggest a song for me to review and you can get a shout out on this blog !

[allnightlongzine]

In the Wake of Grunge, a Rock Culture Clash

Kelefa Sanneh | Jan. 26, 2006 | nytimes.com

What does mainstream American rock 'n' roll sound like in 2006? On radio stations across the country, it sounds like two things at once. Sometimes you hear the never-ending aftershocks of grunge; plenty of nth-generation alt-rock bands are still following the trail blazed by Nirvana and others. And sometimes you hear the still-burgeoning sound of emo, the sentimental punk offshoot; plenty of fresh-faced, girl-obsessed boys are finding ways to woo listeners beyond the confines of the Warped Tour. This is a culture clash that's also a musical generation gap: the 90's versus the 00's. (Sadly, it's starting to look as if the current decade will never get a pronounceable name.)

You don't hear much talk about grunge these days, yet the sounds of the 1990's have endured, along with some of that decade's most perplexing fashion statements. (For starters: wool hats, worn indoors.) The veterans persist: Nine Inch Nails, Foo Fighters and Audioslave (formed from the remnants of Rage Against the Machine and Soundgarden) all find themselves near the top of the rock 'n' roll heap. And a horde of popular but unheralded bands continue to crank out hits by recycling the mildly disaffected sound of 90's guitar rock: Nickelback, Seether and all the rest. Right now, the Florida band Shinedown is responsible for one of the country's most popular rock songs, a vaguely Soundgardenish power ballad called "Save Me."

While neo-grunge hasn't quite gone away, emo hasn't quite arrived. In 2005, emo bands ranging from fair (Hawthorne Heights) to good (Fall Out Boy) to great (My Chemical Romance) enjoyed banner years and earned spots on rock radio playlists. But emo has yet to produce a block-busting, stadium-filling band like Creed or Linkin Park. And so instead of conquering the rock mainstream, emo bands have to share it with their more old-fashioned rivals. And because no subgenre is triumphant, mainstream rock seems a bit lifeless; there's a vacuum at the top. Not coincidentally, rock radio itself is in something of a slump. (In New York, K-Rock, 92.3 FM, recently rebranded itself a talk station, Free FM, during the week. Rock fans have to wait for "Free Rock Weekends.")

The latest emo band hoping for a blockbuster is Yellowcard, the clean-scrubbed, violin-enhanced group responsible for one of the best-selling emo CD's of all time -- which is to say, so far. The band's 2003 album, "Ocean Avenue" (Capitol), sold about 1.7 million copies, thanks mainly to the sing-along title track, which had a crunchy guitar line and a big, hopeful refrain: "If I could find you now, things would get better."

On Tuesday night Yellowcard came to Irving Plaza to celebrate the release of a new album, "Lights and Sounds" (Capitol), which suggests that the emo elite is a bit like triple-A baseball: apparently the only thing better than getting in is getting out. This is a CD meant to show that Yellowcard isn't merely an emo band, that its songs aren't merely odes to girlfriends real and imaginary. (As if there's anything wrong with any of that.) The band's singer, Ryan Key, told one interviewer, "We took the opportunity to show people that, hey, we like to make real music." Which tells you something, perhaps, about the inferiority complex that afflicts lots of emo bands.

In fact, that inferiority complex is central to the appeal of bands like Yellowcard. Compared to the brooding but swaggering men in a band like Shinedown, the members of Yellowcard seem appealingly boyish: lightweight, not heavyweight. In the howling sound of 90's rock and neo-90's rock, self-loathing is a constant. (That Shinedown song is written in the voice of an addict, begging, "Someone save me, if you will/ And take away all these pills.") But those raspy, slightly guttural voices and those swaggering guitar riffs also suggest aggression, even anger. By contrast, the music of, say, Fall Out Boy is more nasal than guttural, more awkward than angry. (Especially to anyone who's seen the music video starring a lovesick boy who is self-conscious about the antlers growing out of his head.) To listeners on either side of rock's latest generational divide, there's a big difference -- the difference of a decade -- between being a loser and being a twerp.

Among other things, "Lights and Sounds" is Yellowcard's attempt to split that difference. The violinist, Sean Mackin, has evolved into the lead string-section arranger. The band's music has gotten a bit slower and a bit more stoic. And Mr. Key is aiming for bigger themes in his lyrics, although his ambition sometimes leads him to write lines like "No one's hands are big enough to hold onto this fear." (It could be the tag line for a singularly inept horror movie.) The album includes a duet with Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks and a lame antiwar ballad, "Two Weeks From Twenty," which sounds suspiciously like Green Day; the lyrics echo the plot of the video for Green Day's "Wake Me Up When September Ends."

Luckily, Yellowcard is still pretty good at the thing it has always been pretty good at: writing sweeping, upbeat punk-rock love songs. At Tuesday's concert, the old hits got big roars, but so did the new album's title track, which is also the soundtrack to a Verizon Wireless commercial that was shown before the set began. (This decade's bands are even less shy about corporate sponsorship than last decade's bands were.) And although the new CD had been in stores for only a few hours, some of the other new songs also seemed like surefire sing-alongs, none more than the catchy lament called "Down on My Head," which may yet convert a few Nickelback fans. (As Yellowcard's accountants surely know, that's no insult.)

In a lot of ways, these twin traditions have lots in common, starting with loud guitars and plaintive lyrics. And it may be inevitable that the distinction between 90's rock and 00's rock will eventually get blurred beyond recognition. Bands like Green Day and Weezer were singing tuneful love songs long before the current emo boom, and they're still thriving now. And the emerging Orange County band Avenged Sevenfold is succeeding by pioneering an unlikely and intriguing fusion, drawing from emo while also embracing the swaggering look and sound of 1980's metal.

You won't find anything nearly so unexpected on the Yellowcard album, though you will find a hint of the anxiety that pervades the rock mainstream these days. Listen closely and you can hear the strain of a band struggling to sound as big as its aspirations. Listen even more closely and you can hear something else: the quiet sucking sound of a rock 'n' roll vacuum, waiting -- still -- to be filled.

A version of this article appears in print on Jan. 26, 2006, Section E, Page 5 of the National edition with the headline: CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK; In the Wake of Grunge, A Rock Culture Clash.

[yeojaa]

( ROSERAIE. )

What you had - so brilliant and beautiful and bright it was almost impossible to look at head-on - was what was tearing you two apart.  It was your love that would be your demise.  

pairing.  jjk x f!reader.

genre + rating.   my take on a hanahaki!au.  pretty heavy on the angst.  general.

tags / warnings.  mention of minor character death, breaking up, soulmates, angst, unrequited love, sick character (hanahaki), bittersweet, non-idol.

wc.  3.2k

beta reader(s).  my forever queens, @hobi-gif​ @snackhobi​!  you both bring such hope and joy (hahahaha) to my life!!!  and of course, the loveliest angels @joheun-saram​, @pars-ley​, and @ditttiii​ for reading through and giving me excellent feedback!

author note.  this is a part of @goldenclosetnetwork​‘s 23 | jungkook’s birthday project.  it’s my first time writing a hanahaki au so...  i have a lot of headcanons for it but i’m not sure whether it all came across in the story.  😰  eep.  anyway, please enjoy and feel free to leave any feedback.  i would love and appreciate it!  most importantly:  happy birthday, kook!  💖

Your parents were a young match.  Together from the tender age of eleven, they’d shared pieces of themselves readily, trading secrets in tree houses and blanket forts.  Nothing was held back - a childhood crush brought to life by playful ribbing and sugar-coated snacks.  Where your mother went, so did your father;  she was his light as much as he was her shadow.  Two halves of a destined whole, earnest and pure.  Friends first.  

It made perfect sense when they shared their dreams - the same one they’d had since they could remember - and it was identical:  swimming in the ocean with a faceless friend, families on their respective four and three-week long road trips.  They’d recognised each other immediately, felt the click the moment they stepped off the camper van.  Your father had called it cooties;  your mother said butterflies.

It didn’t matter that they’d never seen each other’s faces until that moment.  There was the spark.  Recognition.  The rest was history. 

Jungkook’s parents have been soulmates since the early 2000s.  His father had lost his wife - his first soulmate - exactly one year prior to their meeting.  He didn’t have his recurring dream until a fortnight before he met his wife.  Hadn’t expected it, either.  He’d been talking about his day in his local support group (it never got easier, he’d discovered) and he’d mentioned it in passing, glossing over the details of the vivid new pictures painted against his eyelids.  His second wife - his second chance - had attended after losing her son.  A complete chance.  Serendipitous. 

It wasn’t always simple, though.  The heartbreaking endings came just as often as the happy.  

There were people who lost their soulmates before even meeting them.  They’d never know they’d lost their first one until the next dream came - if it came.  If they were lucky enough.  

There were message boards and dating sites.  Places people stripped themselves bare and spilt their secrets to the world.  Desperate for love, they detailed their dreams and hoped that their other half was somewhere out there, reading those same words.  

Some, though, never found their special someone.  Life came at you fast and from all directions - or it never came at all, caught somewhere across the globe in the form of someone you’d never meet.  Those were the most painful circumstances, as if fate was cheating the system.  Here’s a love you know you have, but that you’ll never experience.  It was terribly cruel. 

(But when was life ever fair?)

There were stories about those that never found their puzzle piece and how it felt, whether it hurt.  Most said it was a quiet ache, something you never really noticed until you thought too closely about it, like a scar that had healed over or a loved one gone a long time.  Painful in an explicable way and only - luckily, miserably - softened by ignorance. 

Others spoke about it like death, missing an integral part of themselves.  It played a large part of their life, shaping and changing them with each passing day.  They couldn’t fully live without their person, even if they’d never met them.  It was simply the principal of the matter. 

You’d never quite existed in either camp.  You’d always wanted to find love but you hadn’t rushed it.  You figured you’d meet your happily ever after at some point.  Maybe at your work - caught between the shelves or returning an overdue book - or maybe out with your dog, walking the same route you took every day.  They’d show up one day.  You were sure of it. 

Love had a way of surrounding you. 

Your best friends - because of course the two of them would fall for each other (it was nauseating) - had found each other young too, on the grounds of the elementary school you all played on.  They’d been bonded since the beginning, secrets exchanged in art class and atop monkey bars.  You’d cheered them on the whole way, giddy in a way you couldn’t describe.  Being around it  felt like standing beneath the sun, scorching heat warming you all the way to the core.  It didn’t matter that you didn’t have it for yourself (yet). 

They’d come.  Eventually.  You felt it in your bones and later, you’d learn, in your shins.

He’d come around the corner fast as a bullet, headphones in and hood pulled over his head.  You’d barely have time to avoid him, poor coordination lending itself to disaster when only one of your feet would make it out of his path of destruction.  

BANG!  

It was something right out of a campy romance novel.  Guy goes jogging, runs headlong into his dearly beloved and nearly gives her a concussion.  He feels bad for her scraped knees and falls in love with her dog.  His morning runs become theirs and six weeks later, over a late night bite of contrasting gelato flavours - green tea for him, bubble gum for her - they fit the pieces together.

Jungkook’s the faceless boy you’d always dreamt of, one hand on the wheel, the other resting easily on your thigh.  He was the one with the slick black AppleWatch and long fingers.  You’d never imagined he’d be covered in ink, immaculate designs running the length of his forearm all the way back and across his shoulders.  In fact, you’d never thought about tattoos at all. 

You get your first and only one with him - intricate red looped around your wrists and over your pinkies.  Your own, very real string of fate, sealed and signed forever in rouge. 

He was your Prince Charming, your best friend, your bonafide soulmate.  You’d done everything together - skydiving, snorkelling, silly photos atop the Eiffel Tower.  He’d adapted to your distaste of onions and took them all, meticulously picking them out of stir fries and sauces until not a single sliver remained.  You’d learnt to tolerate his unbearably fast driving, white-knuckled and silent when he’d tear around corners too fast in a car too low. You fit perfectly, filling all the spaces he could never, keeping him whole even when he was broken.  

Your love was of fairy tales but it was better than that too.  Real.  Concrete.  Solid.

Until it wasn’t.    

The two of you had never had any other choice.

That’s what it feels like, at least.  He’d done his best - tried every little thing he could’ve possibly imagined - and it’d all amounted to nothing.  He’d gone through all the motions, explored every avenue, given everything he had.  It wasn’t working.  This thing he wanted with every fibre of his being, that he’d hoped for his whole life, just wasn’t working.  It wasn’t for him.

“I’m sorry,”  he cries, and he knows you know he means it.  You can read it between every line of his expression, tucked among the neatly scrawled india ink in faded red, underlining the passages you’d written together.  He is sorry.  He’d never meant to do this to you, nor you to him.  He’d wanted to give you it all - make all your hopes and dreams come true.

Sometimes, fate just had other plans.  

Because what the two of you had - so brilliant and beautiful and bright it was almost impossible to look at head-on - was what was tearing you apart.  It was your love that would be your demise.  

And he can’t bear to hurt the one he loves.  

He’d tried so hard.  Really, he had.  You had too, more than he ever deserved. 

There was simply no other option.  You’d always come up short.  You weren’t the one for him - not anymore - no matter how badly you wanted to be.  You weren’t the one meant for him.  You’d fumble for that ledge - held so impossibly high, just barely out of reach - before falling right back to where you began.  The bottom.  He couldn’t stand to see you there, brought to your knees once, twice, a hundred times.  

He’d lose count if not for the petals.

Little ones, at first.  Tiny pieces of silk you’d found on your pillowcase, outside the shower, in your water glass.  They’d been unassuming - reminders you could easily ignore.  

Then they’d grown, velvet softness that made it hard to breathe, that had him rubbing soothing circles over your skin, earnest vows winding like vines around your airways.  Neither of you had had any idea why it was happening.  You were soulmates - bound to each other and destined since the beginning.  Your love wasn’t unrequited. 

“We’ll figure it out,”  he’d said.  Sworn.  “We’ll get through this.”

Your heart had broken with each promise;  his had too, differently, but in perfect tandem.  

(Spring still came, steadily, with a rose garden blooming within your insides and freesias in your nose.) 

It wasn’t his fault.  You would never blame him, even when it was his fist that broke yours, splintered it into a million pieces that cut worse than the thorns in your lungs.  You knew this was just as hard for him.  He’d had to watch you wither away, even as a patchwork of flowers blossomed in the spaces he’d thought he could keep safe.  He hated it - could barely take it.  It kept him up all night, tears in his eyes.  Even when he slept - managed it, every few days - it’d prompt him awake in a cold sweat.

If he’d known then what had changed, maybe he could’ve fixed it sooner.  Maybe he could’ve saved you the heartache.  (Weeks later and during a coffee break with the new girl at his startup was not how he’d expected to find his answer.)

“I love you,”  you tell him, an ocean of sadness.  He loves you too, more than anything, more than there are stars in the sky.  He loves you with every part of himself - and yet he knows now that’s what’s causing this.  He loves you, but not in the right way.  Every touch he offers is wrong, leaving you bruised, broken, barely breathing.  It’s a disease - a venereal infection that seeps beneath skin and bone, settling within the marrow.  It changes you from the inside out, realigns your DNA until you’re mutated and miserable. 

The realisation is devastating:  his love causes more harm than it heals. 

So he stands there now, caught in the distance between you, eyes melancholy blue.  His composure is frayed, crippled beneath the weight of your circumstance.  He tries to memorise your face in these last moments - the colour of your hair, the shape of your stare.  How you sound in the morning - voice raspy with sleep, dust caught in your eyes.  The way you hold him close and the feeling of your eyelashes against his neck in the early hours.  

Jeon Jungkook doesn’t want this to end.  He doesn’t want to lose you, give you - this - up but he has to.  He has to, for you.  To give you a chance.  

Even after having so little - only five short years - you were about to lose the rest of your lives.  

You pack your bags - he helps, folding your favourite sweater (one of his, in truth) alongside your toiletries and undergarments - and you prepare to do the thing that you should never have to do.  You sign papers, dot I’s and cross T’s, and put all your treasured memories away into cardboard boxes to never be touched again.  You label them neatly and dress tape over edges;  Band-Aids meant to hold together the deepest wounds.

You’re going under by anaesthetic and he’ll be here, where he has everything he wishes he could give you.  A love he doesn’t deserve, within arms he wishes were yours. 

He wonders whether he’ll still feel the pull once it’s done or whether his heart will stay there, tucked somewhere beneath the dug up roots.  Whether it’ll be safe, undiscovered like a long lost treasure.  

It’s best this way.  He tells himself that - loops it on repeat until it’s the only thing he can think.  It has to be better.  For you, for you, for you. 

He knows he’ll carry you with him forever.  Like the air in his lungs, you’ll keep him going.  

He’s snapped back to the present, to the small hallway of the home you’d built together.  The traces of you are gone - all the photos hidden away, your row of shoes missing from beside his.  It’s strangely bare.  He knows it won’t last long.  She’ll be here next week.

Your hand pushes against his cheek, thumb caressing along the seam of his bottom lip, right where the freckle sits.  He’s a thief - a criminal, a sinner - when he dips his head, presses back into the warmth of your palm.  This isn’t for him to take but he does anyway, eagerly and with deep regret. 

“I love you.”  Your voice cuts through all the white noise and agony - a beacon in the night, guiding him home.  

He smiles, half-hearted and weak and not even his.  Every part of him screams at him to beg you not to do it, to accept him for the man he is - lost and weak and sorry.  He almost drops to his knees - fights tooth and nail against his aching limbs not to - and brings a hand to yours.  The red threads looped around your wrists fit perfectly together, the ends of inked rope caught around your pinkies matching when his fingers slot between yours. 

Don’t do this, he pleads, without words or hope. 

“I’ll love you forever,”  you tell him - promise like he had you.  “You’ll always be the brightest star in my sky, Jeon Jungkook.”

He almost cracks - seams near splitting, adhesive tearing from skin - when you return his smile and he can see how hard it is.  You’re already broken, all the pieces of your puzzle in terrible disarray. 

You’re trying, for him. 

“I’m so sorry,” he answers, because that is kinder than an I love you that doesn’t mean what you need it to.  Because you deserve better - you deserve it in the same way you mean it. 

So he’ll let you leave and he’ll pray this isn’t the worst decision of his whole life.  

“I’ll see you.”  

He hopes so.  He can’t bear the idea of losing you again.  He doesn’t think even she could fix him if he had to. 

“Be safe,”  he whispers, in a voice that stutters your stare and shatters what little resolve you have left.  He sees it in your eyes - all the crystallised parts of your composure turned to ash.  He wishes he could be sorry.  He’s not.  

“I love you,”  you repeat with an air of finality. 

Jungkook does the same:  “I’m sorry.” 

You leave, ushered into the back of your mother’s tiny sedan.  She helps you with your bags and your seatbelt, rubbing your shoulder carefully when baby’s breath slips past your lips and falls all over your lap.  She meets his stare when she climbs into the driver’s seat.  He tries to read her expression.  Understanding?  Resentment?  Gratitude?  

The car pulls away with a groan, disappearing down the tree-lined street.  Jungkook stands in the doorway for far longer than he should.

He’s moved on - settled down with the girl of his dreams.  Literally.  

She’s nothing like you, sarcastic and stubborn with a staunch refusal to ever come second best.  She laughs maybe a bit too loud, giving him shit when he orders in another car part.  She’d eat an onion raw, if she could, and takes showers hot enough to slough the skin from her bones.  They have a home together and in a year’s time, he thinks he’ll propose.  He’s not in any rush, though, because he knows she’s his forever.  

(Knows it, even though you’d once been that same shining star to him.  He has to believe it won’t happen again.  Life can’t screw someone twice, right?  Lightning never strikes the same spot or something like that?)

Still, he tries to forget the feeling of you.  

It isn’t as hard as he’d thought it would be.  The love exists as it always has, just differently, in the palm of his hand and not the space behind his ribs.  You’re his best friend and he is disgustingly, unbelievably lucky.  

He’d gotten his second chance.  Even if he’d once resented it, he had everything now.  

You still go for your morning runs and he still changes your oil because you’d never learnt how to.  His parents invite you for Sunday dinners;  you’re gracious enough to decline them.  You don’t see it as pity - you just don’t want to intrude.  (It isn’t your place any longer.)  You accept all the changes readily, without regret.  You promise you’ll go by one day.  

Your parents never speak to him.  He doesn’t blame them.  At the supermarket, on the street, in passing when he’s coming and they’re leaving - it’s radio silent.  

It’s been six months and you haven’t dreamt at all.  They’d hoped - prayed - that you’d find someone new after him, someone to treat you right.  You don’t mind, you tell them.  I’ll meet my special eventually, you say (again, again).

He wonders whether you resent them for it - their concern, perhaps a bit overbearing and offered with a heavy hand.  If you do, you say nothing, playing along each time they suggest you meet another friend’s son, another junior at your father’s accounting firm.  You don’t understand the sad way they watch you. 

“I’m sorry,”  he mumbles one night, seated at the neighbourhood cafe you’d frequented on your first date.  Your idea, because you loved coffee and, in your old words, this was your place.  The start of it all, where he’d knocked you hard onto pavement and stolen your heart in the process.

You don’t remember it now.  Not in the same way. 

This is somewhere you come for their great matcha lattes, where you waste a few too many evenings when you just want to get out of the house.  It isn’t the place he’d told you he loved you or where you’d resolved your first fight.  

(It’d been stupid.  He’d forgotten to pick up groceries for your first dinner with your parents.  You’d been so stressed you’d snapped at him, carrying tension into the rest of the evening.  He’d apologised with an almond croissant and your favourite green drink.)  

It’s like a wall has gone up, splitting your heart in two.  The part of you that’d once been Jungkook’s remains out of reach, caught behind a gate neither of you have the key to.  

“For what?”  You quip, a milk moustache presenting itself over the rim of your mug.   

Jungkook shrugs.  He can’t make you understand.  “Y’know,”  he mumbles into his red bean mochi bun.  It sticks to his teeth and coats them in soft white flour.  “Just— everything.”  It’s not enough, either as an explanation or an apology.  It falls terribly short, barely worthy of a participation trophy.  

“It’s fine.”  You say it every time, clockwork in response to the same apology he always gives - out of the blue and vague.

“No, but I’m—”

You level him with a glare.  It might’ve hurt once but now it settles like a scolding from a sibling.  He reminds himself this is how it should be, you there and him here - two parallel lines.  

The guilt never goes away. 

tag list.  @neverthefirstchoice​​ @youwannabelostandnotbefound​​​ @snackhobi​​

[henpendrips]

Top Ten #1 - Final Fantasy X (PS2)

Yup, it's this'n. So let's get right into it.

Boy, oh boy, Final Fantasy X. Is it the best entry in the series? No. Is it a better game than God of War 2? Definitely not. Yet as I struggle to write this summary, there is no other game that I can think of that would fit the #1 spot. And that's because, not only do I love the turn-based RPG genre, but... it was also the first Final Fantasy game that I really got into; from first coming into contact with it to finally buying and playing it for myself, a game that easily consumed five years of my life.

The story and world in FFX might be the most blatant in terms of points made, and as the last SquareSoft Final Fantasy, it also marked the end of an era, while being the start of another, more superficial and uninspired future for the series (with the MMOs and FF12 barely scootin' by, considering what was to come). However, that doesn't stop me being enamored with the two protagonists and the journey they go through: Tidus, the energetic blitzball superstar that functions as the audience surrogate; and Yuna, the reserved summoner carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.

While most previous FF games start out small, and opened up as you progress, FFX presents you with big questions right from the start, and Tidus' clueless ass is the perfect vessel for players to take in this adventure one step at a time. His own confidence and playful nature also helps set the audience at ease, rather than feeling lost amidst the chaos. But it is through Yuna that the story of this game moves forward; she is the reason the party (and through Tidus, the player), continue this journey, her pilgrimage across the land of Spira, in the hopes of achieving a means to stop the cataclysmic monster Sin. And that's also why Yuna is my favorite character in the entire franchise (Zack Fair is a close second), as her determination and drive are apparent even through her shy and meek demeanor when you're introduced to her initially; and given how, unlike Tidus, she DOES understand what her journey might entail, she is aware of the consequences that might present themselves, and how her faith is challenged every step of the way, really showcases a strength not just in the character, but the writing as well.

In terms of exploration and level design, while FFX might have been a big step forward for the series, shedding the pre-rendered backgrounds of the PS1 era, Spira is left quite linear and restrained. It's no FF13, thankfully, as you're allowed to revisit almost every area you go to, and after a later point in the game, unlocking an airship gives you free range on where to go, including some optional dungeons and secret areas. It's no grand expanse, but you're given plenty of reasons to explore every nook and cranny for sidequests, extra gear, and additional skills. The equipment mechanics are interesting in concept, the ability to craft and graft specific abilities to your weapons and armor, but given the limited models for it, and the existence of Celestial Weapons, like a lot of aspects in the game, it comes off more like a means to extend gameplay needlessly, as several other games of that time did.

The combat system, meanwhile, is undoubtedly my favorite in the whole series, because it embraces the fact that it's a turn-based RPG. I've never been too keen on the ATB, and have definitely disliked the real time/turn-based hybrids that are leading the franchise further and further away from its roots, but FFX knows what it is, and fully embraces it. Based on specific stats, the Conditional Turn-Based Battle (CTB) system places every participant in the fight on a specific order, and every action taken by a character will affect how subsequent turns play out. Spells such as Haste will accelerate and give a character more turns, crippling abilities will push enemies further away from taking their own turn, and with the ability to switch party members on the fly, you have an approach dedicated to the player controlling the flow of combat, by taking advantage of enemy weaknesses and impeding them from attacking at all, something that, as the game progresses, especially with optional superbosses, develops into quite the challenge that is still all in control of the player.

Probably the most distinct aspect to FFX combat, however, is how summons, called Aeons, act as their own characters, all with stats and abilities of their own. All of them are informed by Yuna's development, and spamming them will definitely leave your other party members lacking, but it's always thrilling to drop yor giant monsters on the field and let them lay waste to your enemies. This also provides you with the Summoner fights, where Aeons can't be summoned by both parties at the same time, and how several bosses can easily destroy your summon, leaving you to plan out when it is most appropriate to use them. A very nice touch that is in line with the story of the game.

The progression system in FFX also deserves a highlight. The Sphere Grid replaces the usage of EXP with AP, and each character is placed upon a giant grid with slots to fill up, so as to increase their stats and learn new skills. Special key slots keep your characters on set paths at first, but you'll eventually be able to cross characters onto others' sections, allowing you to increase each party member's usage beyond their initial limitations, while minimizing their weaknesses and shortcomings as character-locked roles. It's definitely another aspect of the game done to extend gameplay, especially given how you can customize the entire Sphere Grid for all seven characters, but after playing FF12, I'm much more content with a system that provides unique roles to characters, letting you familiarize yourself with them, and then expanding their arsenal and abilities later on. Seriously, if you want to play FF12, which I recommend as my fourth favorite FF game, play it on PC with a merged License Board mod, it'll be so much more satisfying.

And to close it off, given how most of the positives above also provide some detail on the negatives, the art direction in FFX is just the right amount of overly-detailed before going down Belt Buckle Avenue. There's an overall ocean theme to the designs, with a lot of spirals and natural patterns to the architecture, character design, and even the monsters, that I enjoy massively (and the PS2 limitations probably kept it from going balls-to-the-wall insane). There's an obvious jank when it comes to facial animations and how a lot of voice lines are delivered, but the emotional peaks are all there, a prime example of both the good and bad being one of the speeches later in the game, how the animation and delivery contrast immensely with all the other characters in the scene. And of course, how can you forget the ridonkulously catchy tunes such as 'Hymn of the Fayth', 'Challenge', and 'Otherworld' (the song that until recently, I still believed had been composed by Ramnstein).

With that, it's done. Years ago, when I first thought of which game was my all-time favorite, I definitely had a big thunk on whether it was God of War 2 or Final Fantasy X. But in spite of all that has happened since, the state of the games industry as a whole, and how I changed in terms of standards, taste, and preferences, putting FFX on the #1 spot of this list is not a regret. It defined me as a person, as an enthusiast, I'm very happy that it opened so many doors and how it motivated me to push forward as an artist for several years now. Also, Rikku with X-2 costume was top tier first waifu, fite me.

[littleredroseonthevalley]

Lady Kinsey’s Tombstone

Summary: Under captivity, Penny tells Oliver a story, about one of her ancestors.

Rating: T - Suitable for teens, 13 years and older, with some violence, minor coarse language, and minor suggestive adult themes.

Words: 1330

Notes: So, here am I. Does anyone play Heileen? That game is a gift that keeps on giving, let me say that.

After much crying and pacing around the too-small cabin, Penelope Kinsey finally quieted down.

She was offered certainly comfortable quarters, being locked down at the first mate cabin, and Oliver thought it should be better than whatever she had with the pirates, but she did not lay on the bed. In fact, she stood up in the middle of the room, looking off the tiny hatch window, at the dark ocean outside, in absolute silence.

Oliver managed to be the one responsible to watch over her in her captivity. She was a prized prisoner and a dangerous pirate, to be sure, but she was also a very beautiful woman amongst sea-hardened and ill-disciplined men. He feared for her safety, had anyone else taken the role.

Miss Kinsey was not very happy with him. Being instrumental on her capture, not to mention avoid mentioning his… dubious parentage had such predictable effect, but he was a weak man. There was something about her that drew him in like a mermaid’s song, and he was quite certain it had little to do with the blond, soft hair like Chinese fine silk or the sapphire eyes bristling with emotion and wonder.

No, that is not it. Oliver had seen Miss Kinsey deal with his father, the poise and elegance of her manners, the delicacy in with she held her goblet of wine and the light movements of her cutlery through her plate reminded him of Princess Augusta, from the one and only dinner he attended at St. James Palace. Reminiscent of so many other young girls he met in sojourns in Europe and America alike.

However, contrary to her regal manners, in stark opposition to the absolute silent women of the Royal Family, she faced her captors with a hardened spirit and the will of a lioness, maintaining her ground in spite of every circumstance.

Yes, that is all correct. The reason why Penelope Kinsey was so attractive to Oliver Cochrane was the opposition, the contrast of the society lady and the impetuous pirate. She seemed a complex character, someone he could learn a thing or two from, and that had been awfully rare in his military career.

Now, he faces an interesting dilemma. He holds a profound respect for the young lady, and so it hurts to feel her disappointment. Yet, earning back her good will does not seem feasible. Not if he wishes to retain his head attached to his neck.

The young lieutenant wants to set her free and let her go back to the pirates she seems so attached to, just to have the pleasure of chasing her again, but that will have to remain just a dream. He was strategizing how he was going about convincing the Admiralty Courts in London that she was just a bystander, and not a criminal, but even that was a stretch.

“Oliver?” Her soft voice breaks him out of his reverie. It was the first time that day she called his name, and the first time in weeks she does it with anything other than disgust. It pleases him more than he cares to admit.

“Yes?” He responded, looking up to her standing form. She still faces the ocean.

“Do you know a man by the name Adam Kinsey?” Penny asks, quietly. “He was a ship captain. He must have died not too long ago.”

“Captain Kinsey? From Liverpool?” He asks, curious about where the conversation was leading.

Of course, he knew Captain Kinsey. Not personally, the old man had passed away at a shipwreck in the Azores some thirty years earlier, but he was a well-known Navy man. Not to mention, his descendants had a quite profitable shipping business, with ties to the Hudson Bay Company.

“That is the one. You know, he was married to the daughter of a Bavarian count. A love match, they say. They married in the Netherlands, and then he took her to live in Liverpool, at a very comfortable house. However, soon he left her, as the sea called for him.

“She understood, of course, she was a Navy wife, but the comprehension grew thin, as the loneliness bloomed on her heart. Months turned to years, and all she did was look out the window, hoping her beloved would return to her. Eventually, she could not wait anymore and passed away, flanked only by her twin sons.

“Eventually, Captain Kinsey returned to Liverpool, hoping to see his loving wife and the two babies, but he was met with a tombstone and bitter men. He loved the woman and hoped to spend time with her, but when it came to choose, he chose his Navy life, and I daresay he regretted it.”

“How does you know such things?” The lieutenant asks, intrigued.

Penny turned to Oliver, looked into his eyes and smiled. “I used to hear this story when I was younger, from my parents. Adam Kinsey is one of my ancestors, I guess you could call that, and his story holds a lot of weight for me.”

“Oh.” It did make sense to Oliver, given her manners and behaviour. “That would make you…”

“Yes.” She cut him off. “The Right Honourable Lady Kinsey, or some other courtesy title I never bothered to use.”

The blond man scoffs. “I must say, this is an unusual situation for someone like you to be in.”

She joins in the mockery. “You can say that again.”

“May I ask how?” He asks, quietly.

Penelope sighs and sits down on the cot. “You see, Oliver, things are always the same. The season in London, the fashions of Paris, the balls in Vienna and the winters in Dubai. The dull conversation, marriage, business, the same people with the same surnames, doing the same thins day in and day out. It is always the same, how it ever was and ever will be. It suffocated me.

“So, I decided to be something more, do something more with myself. I wanted to be an actress, to know, to feel, to live more than one life. I left my parents’ home. I studied and practiced, I fought my way into the Royal Shakespeare Company, and I was very happy with it. However, it turns out I didn’t have what it took to make it there, so I tried other avenues, only to be met with failure after failure, disappointment after disappointment. Until I found myself here.

“However, I never regretted leaving my old life behind, and I never will. Not even if I had to suffer it all again, hundred-fold. Because my acting career is my Bavarian countess, it is what I want and love, and I’ll be damned if I end up like Captain Kinsey, alone and full of regrets.

“Alas, Oliver, you face such a choice, yourself.” She looks deep into his olive-green eyes and he feels a chill on his soul. “Whether you agree with your father’s goals and practices is of no object to me, nor is my fate as an individual is to you. What is indeed important is for you must decide if you will ever be your own man, or just someone else’s lackey. Know what you really want, and do it soon, lest you find just a tombstone to tell the story.”

The man’s jaw was set, his teeth grind against each other. He wanted to protest, but the woman soon lay down on the bed and turned her back towards him. Moreover, what would he say? That he did know what wanted? Who he was? If he really knew, he would not be having confidences with a pirate, now, would he?

Soon enough, the night turned into day, and soon his father’s men came for Penny. They would sink the Poseidon’s Revenge and bring them to England, for trial and certain execution.

Perhaps she was right. If he does not decide what he wants to be, and does it soon, he will find only a tombstone.

[anjumkhanna]

Anjum Khanna - Top 10 best places to visit in USA

I'm Anjum Khanna from India and I will share with you my best places in the USA where I visited. Pleasing Planet's movement specialists have scoured the States to present to you our main 10 underestimated, restored and incredible spots to visit in 2020. From normal marvels to enrapturing coastlines and exceptional urban areas, these objections guarantee enormous things this year.

1. California’s Redwood Coast

Lose all track of time (and cell signal) along California's Redwood Coast. Film buffs may perceive the district's scene-taking sceneries from Hollywood blockbusters like Jurassic Park, E.T. furthermore, Star Wars. In any case, the full marvel of California's 2000-year-old redwoods – some arriving at 20 stories high – is difficult to catch on any screen. Gaze toward the woodland shelter: that last 100ft of redwood development marks a long time since Redwood National Park was built up in California's tree-embracing win over logging. What's more, this year, in the festivity of their 100th commemoration, Save the Redwoods League is without offering passage to more than 40 redwood state stops each second Saturday of every month.

In 2020, another sort of greenery has been standing out as truly newsworthy as California presents the state-wide legitimization of pot. However, the draws of the Redwood Coast far outperform changes in this industry, welcoming explorers to accomplish a definitive California smooth with its peculiar shops, brewpubs, espresso roasters and calm cheerful hours.

2. Boise, Idaho 

Home to a lively expressions network, a blast of grant winning wineries and specialty bottling works and a socially dependable shopping locale, Boise is what cool resembles before the remainder of the world has made sense of it. Fun celebrations have large amounts of Idaho's capital from downtown's Treefort Music Festival (hailed as the new option in contrast to SXSW) to the Boise Brew Olympics and Punk in Drublic – a lovely marriage of underground rock and specialty lager. 

Being in closeness to an abundance of characteristic wealth, metropolitan experiences effectively progress into outside departures. Wander through the Boise River Greenbelt, a 25-mile park in the core of the city, or head into the encompassing mountains and lower regions for climbing, mountain biking, skiing and stream boating.

3. Chattanooga, Tennessee

When minimal in excess of a refueling break among Atlanta and Nashville, the nature-driven 'Noog has changed itself into a stronghold of raised Southern living. Outside lovers rush to Chattanooga for the absolute best stone moving in the nation, bunch climbing and mountain biking trails and wild rides on the Ocoee River – one of America's best positions for whitewater boating. 

Foodies, hopheads and nerds aren't a long ways behind, either. Chattanooga's revived midtown – focused on the $20-million makeover of the city's unique train station into a multi-reason nightlife and diversion objective (counting a top notch guitar historical center) – is overflowing with journey commendable New Southern food, refreshing distilleries and nerd satisfying web speeds. Meet the New South!

4. Florida’s Space Coast

Space the travel industry is a rising star, with 2018 set to check the dispatch of the world's first lunar the travel industry departure from SpaceX. Try not to need to lose your life reserve funds down a dark gap? Visit the following best thing, Florida's Space Coast: home to the Kennedy Space Center and the setting for innumerable notable dispatches including Apollo 8 – the world's previously monitored rocket to circle the moon – which praises a long time since launch in 2020. 

View satellite dispatches from Cape Canaveral and Titusville or visit the new ATX (Astronaut Training Experience) at the Kennedy Space Center, where wannabe space travelers can go on a mimicked mission to Mars. Proceed your amazing experiences with an evening time kayak in the bioluminescent waters around Merritt Island and watch settling ocean turtles on an eco-accommodating visit.

5. Cincinnati, Ohio Set among steep slopes with the scaffold throne Ohio River swashing its edge, Cincinnati has consistently been a looker. Presently brew, expressions and clever neighborhood advancement are giving it some strut. The new Brewing Heritage Trail recounts the larger story: how Cincy was a main maker through the last part of the 1800s, its residents swallowing 2.5 occasions the public normal. Today Rhinegeist and other present day lager producers have assumed control over the relinquished distilleries, a considerable lot of which are walkable in Over-the-Rhine, an old German neighborhood of lavish block structures, new restaurants and crazy shops. 

2020 invites another section for the city's creative symbols as the Music Hall commends its 140th birthday celebration subsequent to going through enormous redesigns, and the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company subsides into their new powerful exhibition space.

6. Midcoast, Maine

Single word says everything: 'Ayuh'. What could be compared to 'mm-hm', it's Mainers' typically eccentric and unassuming go-to answer. Is it valid, you solicit, that about 90% of Maine is forested (the most noteworthy level of any state), making it ideal for experience exercises and getting away from traveler swarms? Ayuh. Also, what about Midcoast Maine's wonderful sea exhibition halls and detonating foodie scene of art bottling works, neighborhood grape plantations and gourmet ranch-to-table cafés? It's not the tranquil woodlands it used to be. Ayuh. Indeed, 2018 will check the area's 70th Maine Lobster Festival and a transitioning as an inexorably energizing social focus of elite workmanship historical centers and exhibitions, isn't that so? Ayuh.

7. Richmond, Virginia

River City has flipped from modest to occurring, however the 'hello you all' friendliness remains. Scott's Addition, when an abrasive assembling region, drones with microbreweries, cideries and buzzworthy cafés, while the James River baits swashbucklers with whitewater rapids in addition to another 52-mile bicycle trail along its banks. 

Creative features incorporate midtown's splendid wall paintings, the eccentric Quirk Hotel (highlighting interesting plan components and its own craft display) and imaginative transitory shows at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The American Civil War Museum – an ongoing solidification of three separate Civil War locales – investigates Richmond's function as the capital of the Confederacy. One consistent? Patrick Henry requested freedom or demise at reenactments each Sunday in summer at St John's Church.

8. Kentucky Bourbon Country The territory of Kentucky is known for its moving slopes finished off with masterful pony cultivates, its wild commitment to school ball and, above all, its whiskey. The state's refining legacy runs profound, and those searching for a taste should make a beeline for Kentucky Bourbon Country, the brilliant triangle between Louisville, Lexington and Elizabethtown where this prepared soul becomes animated. You'll locate a luring organization of the nation's most notable refineries and first class eateries with whiskey motivated menus. 

Yet, this industry isn't so saturated with custom that it overlooks progress – create distillers are opening their entryways, long dead whiskey locale are being rejuvenated, and in 2020 the Frazier Museum will be named the official beginning stage of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.

9. Minneapolis, Minnesota

In spite of arriving on arrangements of 'generally moderate' and 'generally reasonable' urban areas – and in a state positioned the USA's most joyful – Minneapolis appears to be a piece overlooked. In any case, after its chance at the center of attention during the current year's Super Bowl, that could very well change. The city endeavored to tidy up for the large occasion, specifically with redesigns to downtown's primary avenue Nicollet Mall presenting awesome light highlights, craftsmanship establishments and creative social spaces. 

The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden likewise got a redo, with 18 new works by well known chiselers. Furthermore, Target Center, the city's NBA and WNBA field, got a fan-accommodating $145 million makeover. In the interim, new boutique inns and present day ranch to-table cafés (hefty on neighborhood fixings) are springing up with cool verve.

10. Southeastern Utah Arches National Park's colorful sandstone ranges. Island in the Sky's Colorado River-cut vistas. Landmark Valley's sky-puncturing towers. Southeast Utah's significant milestones have been firm top picks among voyagers for quite a long time. As of late, nonetheless, lesser-realized territorial destinations like the forested levels of the new Bears Ears National Monument have become hot-button news things because of political tussles in Washington, DC over securing characteristic and social assets. 

This tremendous quarter of the Beehive State holds numerous outstanding outside objections, from the lodging filled experience town of Moab and uncrowded Capitol Reef to the environmental Ancestral Puebloan vestiges of Hovenweep. Water has slashed the desert scene here, cutting the sandstone into alarming structures, for example, the pleasant Natural Bridges and huge Lake Powell. This is a quintessential Americana excursion nation.

Anjum Khanna launched his career as a freelance illustrator, and this started with covers of paperback books where he developed and displayed his penchant for realistic depictions of fantastic scenery. To achieve this, Anjum often used handmade maquettes and posed models for reference.

About Anjum  Khanna

Those who love fantasy tales and dinosaurs would be great admirers of the works of Anjum Khanna. After all, he's the author of the famous book series about dinosaurs coexisting with humans in a fictional setting. 

[grimelords]

I’m all caught up and presenting my August playlist just in time for September to end! Disco! Italo-pop! 90s gangsta rap! 3 hours worth of music for everyone!

Good To Me - THP: The most surefire way I’ve found to track down a great song you’ve never heard before is to look up every single sample on the Duck Sauce album. It has quite literally not failed me yet. This song is great, and being so used to the sped up sample in Goody Two Shoes this song sounds like the expanded chopped and screwed version to me which is even better.

Who Do You Love - THP: The other thing about THP is they’re extremely hard to search on Spotify because it thinks you’re trying to type ‘The’ and suggests 'The Beatles’ which is helpful.

Beleriand - The Middle East: I started rereading The Lord Of The Rings this month, and even got so deep in it that I started reading the Silmarillion for the first time and I suddenly remembered the time The Middle East wrote a song about Melkor and Angband and all that. Maybe the best Lord Of The Rings song I’ve heard almost exclusively for the drum work in the intro before it really settles into its Tolkein vibe.

Dead - San Fermin: I love this song but god I wish it were louder and more out of control. The sax sounds great but every other part isn’t nearly as turned up to 11 as it should be. The problem is that everyone in this band is such a professional they don’t know how to play like the maniacs this song deserves!

Tuesday Fresh Cuts - Bree Tranter: I’ve been looking up what all the members of The Middle East have done since they broke up and the best thing I’ve found is Rohin Jones writing music for a Dulux Paint commercial after the verse in Ninth Avenue Reverie about the guy who sniffs paint every night and dreams about being dead. Anyway as far as I can tell Bree Tranter is the one that’s had the most consistent and normal output since they broke up. This song is very much an ultimate night driving type song, except the lyrics are really not great but you can ignore that for how great it sounds, especially near the end when it really gets into a meditative state.

Ted, Just Admit It - Jane’s Addiction: Continuing my Jane’s Addiction phase, I really love this song. This is such a great brooding piece of music before it finally explodes into the declaration that sex is violent. Kind of a shame that it’s a serial killer song because he’s right about everything. Sex IS violent, the tv DO got them images, etc.

Fire Back About Your New Baby’s Sex - Don Caballero: I think this is probably Don Caballero’s most popular song, and with good reason. It’s among the most straightforward of their backward-ass songs and gives you a good grounding in how to understand the total chaos that is everything else they’ve done.

Ballad Of Circling Vultures - Pageninetynine: The entire last half of this song, when it slows down, is one of the best things I’ve ever heard. It feels like the entire mix begins to close in around you as it gets darker and darker before a door slams and you wake up somewhere else entirely.

You’ve Never Been Alone - Andrea Balency: I was watching this live video of Mount Kimbie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6co64HYurg and they’ve got like a full band now! They’ve been slowly expanding from a duo and I suppose it makes sense because their last album really sounded like a band playing in a room rather than two guys on computers. Anyway it turns out the woman in their band is Andrea Balency and this song of hers is very beautiful and you can see exactly why they asked her to join.

The Conspiracy Of Seeds - 65daysofstatic: I was going through Circle Takes The Square’s performance credits on discogs (very cool hobby) and found out they’re credited on this 65dos song and was shocked that I didn’t know that already. It feels like they pretty much split the song down the middle and did half each, which is great!

Spanish Sahara (Deadboy remix) - Foals: This song isn’t on Australian spotify as far as I can tell, so if you’re in the UK I think you can listen to this. Otherwise it’s on youtube for everyone here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk24ujPN4Lo This is probably one of my favourite pieces of music ever, it’s such a beautiful remix even though it’s not particularly far from the original. It just does the work of focusing the vibe down to a laser point. I love how mechanical every part of it is contrasting against the dreamy vocals and organ, until it almost feels overloaded with hats and clicks in the highest points before it focuses down again and introduces the bassline alone. Then the last section! The stabbing insistence of the synth driving the whole thing to a fever pitch.

T69 Collapse - Aphex Twin: I’ve never been huge on Aphex Twin because all his songs sound like you pressed the demo button on a keyboard and then turned the tempo way up but I really like this one, almost exclusively for the bassline the comes in in the second half after the big space-out breakdown. It’s groovy! It’s the most I’ve ever liked the evil man!

Kansas City Star - Kasey Musgraves: The Kasey Musgraves album everyone was going wild for didn’t really do much for me but this cover is so fantastic, the slight melody change she’s done to the chorus is such an improvement and really makes it soar. Also google is good because right now the 25th image result for 'kacey musgraves’ is a deviantart pic where someone’s photoshopped her to be extremely obese called Kollosal Katy. Not really related to the song but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Pyramids - Frank Ocean: A big group of friends and I went to karaoke a couple of weeks ago and the version of Pyramids they had didn’t even have the second half! If I can’t subject everyone to ten full minutes of me doing it badly then what’s the DAMN point?

Aqua - Eurythmics: I heard this song on NTS and was instantly in love with the lyrics. Don’t touch me, don’t talk to me, throw me in the water, watch me drown! It’s that simple!

gonk steady one - Autechre: I went and saw Autechre when they were here a few months ago and I’m still thinking about it because it was like a multiplayer dream. They insisted on total darkness and everyone just kind of stood still or sat down for the whole show in the dark while an endless wave of sound from another dimension washed over us all. Then eventually the music stopped and the lights came on and I never actually saw Autechre the whole time I was there. I’m still working my way through their fucking 8 hour long new album but this is an early highlight. I don’t know how to explain this but it sounds good. It sounds like music by and for aliens that we can listen to and understand a small part of.

Poor Kakarookee - Venetian Snares: I was listening to this song and thinking the other day there’s a certain subset of Venetian Snares songs that sound like that bit from Parks and Rec where Adam Scott is like 'could a depressed person do THIS?’ and is holding up his deformed little stop motion figure from the deformed little stop motion movie he’s making. This is absolutely one of those songs. It’s a great song but it’s one of those songs.

Future People - Alabama Shakes: For a long time the only Alabama Shakes song I’d heard was Don’t Wanna Fight because it was just so good I figured there was no need to go further, which it turns out was extremely wrong because this whole album is completely killer. I just can’t believe her voice. The album version is great but the live version really shows it off https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbR999N5MiALa 

Mia Mania - Giani Morandi: I rewatched all of Harvey Birdman a couple of weeks ago and finally looked up what the song is in this clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xkhqce43mA because it gets stuck in my head all the time, and the only version I could find is this one with vocals which sounds even better!

Capriccio - Gianni Morandi: Then I dug deeper and started looking up the rest of this guy’s songs and totally loved it. There’s nothing better than digging around and finding what you think is some obscure artists before looking them up and finding out they’re incredibly famous and like the Italian Neil Diamond.

Parli Sempre Tu - Gianni Morandi: This is my favourite of his just for the insane pitch shifted vocal at the start, what an insane piece of sound for 1964! I’m desperate to know how they made it.

Forgotten Children - Mouse On The Keys: I suddenly remembered Mouse On The Keys the other day and thank god. They’re an instrumental band that’s two pianists and a drummer that looks like its jazz because of the instrumentation but is really more like post-hardcore in execution.

Can’t Get Right - Ghost-Note: I normally don’t go in much for this sort of drum clinic type music for musicians only but the central groove in this is just so good. It feels like two completely different songs playing at the same time, except if that sounded good. I found it because the bass genius Mono Neon played on it, watch the video and see if you can tell which one is named Mono Neon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVw1b4gVYrU Also one of the guys seems to be playing a vibraphone that is a midi controller which I have never seen before in my life.

Shoot Myself - Venetian Snares: Venetian Snares has such a great melodic sense and it feels kind of underappreciated just because of how much his percussion is at the forefront of every critical appraisal. In songs like this where the drums are more restrained you can really feel the melody and harmony shine through, the layers of cascading synth lines piling up louder and louder before returning to the jazzy organ near the end is just such a beautiful moment.

Bad Boy - Den Harrow: This song sounds like an 11 year old wrote the lyrics and I absolutely love it. The best and most sexy lyrics: “Some dress Valentino, others wear t-shirts to show what a shapely bust they’ve got.”

Summertime - Barney Kessel: Barney Kessel the jazz guitarist that I only found out about this month did a bossa nova album when bossa nova was the biggest thing in the world and it’s so so good. He also does some very interesting playing on it that’s a lot closer to surf rock and rock n roll than anything else I’ve heard of his. This is also a good example of that thing when Stereo sound was brand new where every single instrument is panned hard left or right which is a treat in headphones.

Slice Of Heaven - Dave Dobbyn: It’s kind of a shame that this song never really gets better than the intro but when the intro is this good it’s fine. I remember this song from when I was a kid because it’s on the soundtrack to New Zealand’s first ever feature length animated film, Footrot Flats which I watched a lot.

Sailin Da South - ESG + DJ Screw: The hardest part about putting any one song from 3 N Tha Morning Part Two on a playlist is they’re not designed for that and it sounds awful and cruel to cut them off like that. So really instead of listening to this song listen to the whole album and turn purple.

Right Action - Franz Ferdinand: I think Franz Ferdinand deserve better than the sort of one hit wonder status they’ve got, because they’ve got a lot of great songs and this is one of them, and probably the danciest summary of the Noble Eightfold Path I’ve ever heard.

The Thing That Should Not Be - Metallica: I have done zero research but to me the 80s feels like the decade when HP Lovecraft and the Cthulu mythos really hit the mainstream. Dungeons and Dragons and all that. Anyway apparently Cliff Burton was a huge Lovecraft fan and they would all read his stories in the tour van which is a funny thing to imagine. Metallica have five or six Lovecraftian songs and the bulk of them were written after Cliff Burton died which is sort of touching in a way. Paying tribute to your friend by invoking the nameless horror that sleeps in R'lyeh.

Waters Of Nazareth x We Are Your Friends x Phantom - Justice: Justice’s new album is so good because it’s sort of halfway between a remix album, a live album and a Best Of. It’s essentially a studio live album, or maybe just a live recording straight from the soundboard with no crowd noise. Either way it’s great and leads to incredible three way mashups of their best songs like this one.

Mr Ice Cream Man (feat. Silkk The Shocker) - Master P: I was thinking about how you don’t really hear about Master P these days, but according to the first result when you google 'richest rappers’ he’s doing fine with a net worth of $227 million, which is more than Eminem. So good for him. Even if his music hasn’t really lasted I’m sure his many, many business dealings will leave him in good stead for the rest of his life. I’m just going to copy and paste some phrases from his wiki article here because it’s truly ridiculous: “He has since parlayed his $10,000 initial seed capital investment into a $250 million business empire spanning a wide variety of industries” “As a businessman, Miller was known for his frugality and keeping business expenses down and profit margins high” “He has since invested the millions of dollars he made from his No Limit record company into a travel agency, a Foot Locker retail outlet, real estate, stocks, film, music, and television production, toy making, a phone sex company, clothing, telecommunications, a jewellery line, auto accessories, book and magazine publishing, car rims, fast food franchises, and gas stations.” “Miller also has his own line of beverages, called "Make ‘Em Say Ughh!” energy drinks" “first rapper to establish a cable television network.”

The Party Don’t Stop - Mia X: Anyway via Master P I found Mia X, who sings the hook on Mr Ice Cream Man, and her album is actually good as fuck for an 80 minute No Limit album, mostly because it’s so packed with guests (it feels like everyone else on No Limit is on here, including guys with great names like Mo B. Dick and Kane & Abel, but also Mystikal and Salt N Pepa are here!) that you never get tired of the flow, and the production is nicely varied too.

Shut Up - Stormzy: This is like Stormzy’s biggest song and I’m dumb as fuck because I haven’t heard it until now when I was listening to Functions On The Low and found out he used it as the beat for this song. What an absolute thrill to see this perfect beat back in the limelight thanks to the man bringing grime back to the limelight!

All N’s - Mia X: I wanna talk about the beat on this Mia X song because it’s incredible front to back. (Lyrically this song is fucking great, especially the chorus) but the vocal synth bass sound is just amazing, and the hook melody is the damn 'there’s a place in France where the naked ladies dance’ melody. Every part of it’s insane.

Milk - Kings Of Leon: I got into a real groove this month and learned how to play this whole Kings Of Leon album on guitar for some reason. So now I’ve got that knowledge. But I forgot just how incredible this song is. It’s a testament to how if the music is good enough and the performance is good enough the lyrics can be absolutely anything. By the time he says “she’ll loan you her toothbrush, she’ll bartend your party” I’m already crying.​

listen here

[rotten-zucchinis]

On textual intimacy...

I misheard something something said to me a while back-- with amusing consequences [here]-- and it reminded me that most people have probably never considered the idea of textual intimacy. So I’ve been trying to figure out how to explain it.

Before I could write this, I ended up having to write a few other things which are only tangentially related, namely:

the relationship between consent and moral obligation [here]

the consensual and non-commutative nature of friendship [here]

the consensual and commutative nature of intimacy [here]

intimacy within the context of community (including relationships between an individual and a group) and “community ties” [here]

TLDR: Textual intimacy is a particular kind of intimacy that allows for the sharing (and sometimes creation) of certain kinds of very personal texts. Letter-writing is one place where textual intimacy might be relevant-- and my long history as a letter-writer still frames my experience with textual intimacy today. As a child and teenager, letters were the only medium available to me to continue some of my significant relationship (e.g., after a close friend moved away, in the days before internet things). At this point in my life, textual intimacy is a tool in my intimacy toolbox-- it’s one of the ways I do intimacy in some of my relationships.

What is textual intimacy?

Google tells me that other people indeed sometimes use the words “textual intimacy” but mostly in the context of literary criticism as a metaphor for a reader's close relationship with the text. There's also a book by that name about religious identity in autobiographical writing. So, it seems that textual intimacy in the way I mean it is very much something particular to me, or at the very least isn't something people generally seem to be talking about or naming.

As someone who makes sense of my reality by talking and writing—sometimes with others and sometimes with only myself— textual intimacy has been a big part of my life for at least 25 years. It’s not something I often talk about outside of the relationship contexts where it happens, and ironically enough it’s barely something I have the words to express or describe. But it’s also a very important part of how I sometimes relate to people and do intimacy.

Apparently I’m some variety of word-heavy zinester and blogger. I’ve created many texts (e.g., many of them listed [here] and [here] ). But that’s not what I’m talking about when it comes to textual intimacy. Things I write and put online are things that typically aren’t written with a particular person in mind. I might have an idea of my texts’ intended audience, but any relationships I have with that group would be at most a community relationship [explained here]: not a personal one. (So that means, it would be at most a casual community-type of intimacy involved.)

Now, that doesn’t mean that people can’t feel things because of what I (or anyone else) write(s)-- people can have relationships with content that doesn’t involve the content-creators [explanation]. And while I wouldn’t necessarily be okay with everyone reading the stuff I have on my blog and in my zines-- there are in fact certain people in my life I emphatically do not want reading these texts (e.g., family members... among others)-- for the most part, these texts are not “private” and reading them doesn’t require or specifically involve any kind of closeness with me. Having said that, these texts do share aspects of my personal experience which would create a certain type of (unwanted-by-me) proximity should they be read by certain people who have ongoing personal relationships with me offline (like the family members I don’t want reading them!).

Textual intimacy isn’t intimacy achieved via text-based communication. I don’t think any particular kind of communication medium necessarily defines any type of intimacy or how people can be close, even if some media promote certain kinds of sharing or interactions more than others.  Since a lot of online communication is via text, there’s a focus on text-based communication (i.e., the impact for intimacy of doing the talking by text-- texting, instant messaging, sharing conversations on social media platforms, etc.). But by-and-large, that’s not directly relevant to what I mean by “textual intimacy”. [1]

In contrast, textual intimacy is the intimacy that permits the sharing (and sometimes creation) of certain kinds of very personal texts. For instance, when I think about the sharing of such texts, these might be texts that I have created for a particular person to read-- sometimes primarily about sharing something about myself and other times more geared toward telling someone something that is specifically (presumably) to be meaningful to them. Alternatively, they might be texts I have created for myself, to figure something out or to express something about myself, my experience, my perspective, and then decide that I want to share one or more of them with someone, so that they can see or understand that part of me.

I’m not an artist. I’m a crafter. I work with words and I work with string. (I don’t claim any particular talent for either but that’s not the point.) But this idea of textual intimacy is a little bit like the intimacy involved in an artist (who has personal artwork) sharing that art with someone in the context of a personal relationships, or creating personally meaningful pieces specifically for someone.

It’s just that people seem to be much more inclined to do that with art of various forms than with words (or only with words that are conventionally “art”-- such as poetry or even fiction). At the same time, I don’t think of my texts as “art”, not even the ones that might hold parts of me.

For the most part, the kinds of texts that might be relevant to textual intimacy aren’t necessarily within the scope of regular daily activities, as they once were. For example, people don’t often [2] write letters and send them through the mail knowing they will take a while to arrive, and any response will be separated not only by time but also by any life events that happen in the meantime.

Often the limitations of any medium are central to its power. In the case of letters, the fact that they are extremely limited in what they can include means that the letter-writer needs to pick a tiny fraction of their experience to write about, and those kinds of choices communicate a lot on their own, about what’s important to someone. If you can only say a few things, what would you say?  

While textual intimacy isn’t really about the medium, I think looking at the (lost) art of letter writing is ultimately useful to explain where I’m coming from, because, for me, that’s where this all started.

Letter-writing and textual intimacy

I’m a letter-writer. It’s part of how I build certain types of personal relationships-- including some friendships and some relationships that aren’t really friendships (and which certainly aren’t romantic!) but that I can only really describe as casual QP relationships. It has been for the vast majority of my life.

Over the years, there have been parts of myself that I could only articulate or share in writing, and ways of connecting with people that have only been possible through temporally separated packets of written words. There have also been pieces of writing I have created which represented and held parts of myself-- which I have at times wanted to share with certain people. And there have been things that I have felt that needed to be said and that wouldn’t have “worked” or “come off right” in any other format. 

My letter-writing inclination-- the why, the what, the details and personal meaning of that kind of letter-writing, etc.-- is a little bit private in the sense that it’s not something I want to share widely on the internet. And I’m mindful that my description of textual intimacy might not make sense or might not resonate with anyone else’s experience without that information. Even still, the basic concept of letter writing as an avenue for textual intimacy is something I’d like to explore, if for no other reason than I haven’t seen it discussed elsewhere. 

I began learning the ways of letter-writing at the age of 8 by necessity when when my then best friend moved an ocean away, in the days long before (most people had access to) things like e-mail or instant messaging. There was no skype, and long distance rates meant no phone calls. We kept in contact for years through letters, on our own without any parental intervention. As teenagers, we didn’t have much in common anymore though-- I was growing up to be queer and she wasn’t-- but we still found ways to connect throughout most of our teen years until external barrier made that impossible (i.e., her new boarding school wouldn’t pass along my letters-- I found out later). There were also other long-distance friendships in my youth.

I’m not a woman, but at that time, I as a girl. And I feel like much of that letter-writing was gendered-- we were girls and those were girl-friendships that were both considered “socially appropriate” as pen pals, and also “not quite socially appropriate” because we carried on with them “too long” and took them “too seriously”. I don’t think anyone ever said that outright, but they were consistently surprised when I still received letters (and sent and received photographs), so I kind of avoided talking about it. (And maybe some perceived “impropriety” had something to do with the school blocking our letters... or maybe it was a disciplinary thing because she was “too rebellious”.)

Nobody else really took those relationships seriously enough. I felt that at the time (e.g., when I was 8 and people didn’t recognise what a big deal it was for her to be moving away), and that seems even more clear to me now in retrospect. But also *because* nobody took our connections seriously enough, I think it didn’t really occur to anyone to smack them down, not even as we got older, for being “too close” as girls (who weren’t talking about boys) and therefore for violating some of the norms of compulsory heterosexuality. Or maybe they just assumed we were talking about boys. (At the same time, I suspect that my always having had *very* strong one-on-one girl-friendships that my family thought were “unusual”... was one of many reasons they never assumed I was straight growing up.) 

Carrying on friendships like that when were weren’t involved in each other’s daily lives meant that what we chose to write about was all we had. And that we could talk about whatever we wanted-- whatever was meaningful to us, no matter what was going on in our lives. Since our letters were our only form of interaction, they were an ongoing series of moments over time saying “this is who I am and I want you to know”. My letters held parts of who I was-- parts that I gave to my friends in those moments. (And they were sometimes interspersed with other things too-- this is how I see you and I want you to know.)

I grew up doing that, and I never really stopped. And it became something very well-practiced, very natural to me.

So now it’s one of many tools in my intimacy toolbox, that I use wherever I feel it appropriate. 

Letter-writing as a tool in the intimacy toolbox

I’m weird and I’m intense. And (especially when I’m interacting with someone on a personal level), I’m so earnest that it often makes people who dontt know me well uncomfortable-- sometimes because they assume I must have ulterior motives when I don’t. I’ll say things in letters that people don’t usually say. Heck I’ll say things to people faces that people don’t usually say. But how and why I put ideas together isn’t usually what people expect. And especially when what I’m saying is strange, I like to explain why. And letters are good for that. But they’re also something tangible, something that exists beyond the moment of writing-- unlike spoken words which disappear with their very creation. 

The things I might want to communicate to someone-- about who I am or how I see them-- are not things I would want to be public knowledge. The vulnerability would be too great. I’m not willing to get personal with most people. For many reasons, there are so many parts of myself that I don’t want just anyone to know or even to know about. However, with a letter, there’s no plausible deniability. It’s there to revisit, as a record of what was said at one particular moment in time, and as something that could easily be shared with others who were not the intended recipient. So it requires a certain level of trust. And that’s part of what I’m invoking with the concept of textual intimacy.

The flip side is also a positive for me though when I’m very close with someone-- the permanence of a letter lets someone re-read it, when ever they want to revisit those words. And sometimes that’s important, not just to remember what they said, but to remember the feelings they invoked and to feel what they still do. And that’s another aspect of textual intimacy.

Another practical thing I like about letters is that function well as offerings and not so well as demands. People get to decide for themselves whether they will read a letter. (And while it’s certainly possible to enact coercive social situations wherein people might not feel like they have a choice, it’s usually pretty easy for people to ignore a letter if they want to-- and if it’s been sent through the mail, a “return to sender” doesn’t even require additional postage.)

Especially because I’m weird and intense, I like to give people the option of if and when they engage with certain things, especially when we are just getting to know each other and I don't necessarily yet have a good sense of what they do and don't want from me, of how much of me they want to know. I mean, it’s unlikely I’ll be giving someone a letter if I don’t have a reason to believe they would be willing to read it, but people typically have control over when, where and how they read letters— not just whether they do. And they can also stop (for a moment or indefinitely) if it’s too much. Consent is always a part of intimacy, and textual intimacy is no exception.

The take home...

There's a kind of intimacy that I can only describe as textual intimacy: it's the intimacy that permits both the sharing and the creation of certain kinds of personal texts. These might be texts that carry parts of the self or things to be said from one person to another— declarations of this is (part of) who I am or this is who I think you are or what I think you need to hear... and I want you to know.

Unlike the intimacy of spoken words which exists in fleeting moments of togetherness, textual intimacy involves sharing something over time and space. The vulnerability involved is different from the vulnerability of conversation, where someone can look away or become distant or change the course of interaction if it's too much or doesn't go as planned. The stakes can be higher for textual intimacy, with words that don't dissipate over time and which can't be changed once they've been given. The trust involved in different too— something given ahead of time, to be respected in good faith later on— unlike other interactions where it plays out in real-time.

That means that textual intimacy involves consenting to sharing something that can't easily or ever be taken back or altered. Superficially, that's no different from other ways of sharing personal information in the sense that even spoken words cannot retroactively be unknown. But on a deeper level, sharing a text is different from sharing spoken words or written (instant) messages because conversation— verbal or written— is always very directly constructed in context, in co-construction with any conversation partners, while more substantive texts are only indirectly co-constructed if they're co-constructed at all with their recipients. And that means the nature of what is being shared is different from what is being shared in conversation. It also means it's, in some sense, a more solitary intimacy— about connection rather than togetherness or closeness.

Textual intimacy has been a significant part of how I connect with people for most of my life. Often— though not exclusively— through letters, it's an important tool in my intimacy toolbox. I don't know if this is something I've spent so much time doing because there are other more conventional things that don't come so naturally to me (e.g., hanging out socially in groups isn't really part of my intimacy toolbox, and it isn't especially conducive to he building of personal relationships for me, or to moving from acquaintance to friend). Regardless though, I feel that textual intimacy occupies a unique space in my life and in my relationships. It's not something that can replace or be replaced by anything else, and it's something that can add dimensions to any existing relationship.

I can't be the only one who sometimes approaches intimacy this way. I'd be interested in other people's perspectives on textual intimacy and their experiences with it. And for people who find this a new idea, I'd encourage some exploration. Is there something you'd like to tell someone but haven't had the chance? Is there a part of you that you can't really articulate? Is there something you want someone to know?

Or maybe you have to be a writer for this to even make any sense. Words are my craft: texts are one of the only thing I have to make sense— of anything. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that they're also a powerful way to make connections. For me at least, textual intimacy is very much a thing.

Footnote

[1]   Since a lot of online communication is via text, there’s a social focus on text-based communication (i.e., the impact for intimacy of doing the talking by text-- texting, instant messaging, sharing conversations on social media platforms, etc.). There are so many words spilled about how instant messaging and the internet are changing how people do relationships! There’s the panic of “kids today” being “glued to their phones” and how Millenials and Generation Z-ers are [insert negative thing here] because they are doing [insert something about technology that Baby Boomers never did]. There’s the general panic about how technology is ruining relationships and mental health and undermining all possibility for human connection, etc. And in turn, psychologists and such have a lot of say on the topic-- mostly about how particular media and platforms are changing the way people interact and connect with each other, and what some of the consequences might be.

Psychologists are doing things like writing advice columns to help people communicate better by texting (e.g., [here] ) and studying measurable characteristics of relationships and theorising them in terms of thing like the psychological implications of things like anonymity and invisibility (e.g., [example]) in online communication, or theorising reasons why online interactions might lead to people sharing more “intimate” information than they would in face-to-face conversations (e.g., [example]) and ultimately concluding that golly-gee willikers, there can be intimacy in online relationships and relationships that include a lot of online communication (e.g., [source] ) or instant messaging (e.g., [source] )! But what I mean by textual intimacy is something quite different from intimacy achieved via text-based communications.

[2]  There are certain contexts where people still write and mail letters as a significant, regular form of communication. For instance, letters are often a major or main form of communication between people who are in prison and those on the outside. However, because of how those letters are treated— being read by guards, risking being seized for any number of reasons or having their content used against the receivers— the relationship between letter-writing and intimacy isn't quite straightforward.

[btsorpheus]

(j-hope 'Airplane' MV; March 6, 2018.)

III. THE UNDERWORLD

There’s a recurring motif in the works of several East Asian artists that I’ve noticed: that of the airplane and the transpacific flight.

Even as young Indonesian rapper Rich Brian recalls all of his initial struggles in moving to the U.S., he repeats four times throughout his song, “Flight,” that “flyin' 20 hours never felt so right.” 

Higher Brothers, a group of Chinese rappers, also draw attention to the physical journey they made to get to where they are in “16 Hours,” the first track on their second album, Five Stars.

BTS describes the same journey in J-Hope’s solo song, “Airplane,” and the group’s sequel to that, “Airplane pt.2.”

While Rich Brian and Higher Brothers spend a majority of their respective songs navigating the difficulties of the new world they’ve entered, J-Hope lingers in the plane itself. It’s a dreamy perspective: “Every day above the clouds,” he sings. “My feel above the clouds, check it above the clouds.”

(j-hope 'Airplane' MV; March 6, 2018.)

“Airplane pt.2” continues this sense of never quite touching down. “From NY to Cali, London to Paris.... From Tokyo, Italy, Hong Kong to Brazil,” the chorus never settles in a final destination.

Where “Airplane” loves the journey, “Airplane pt.2” is more difficult to place. It’s a song about BTS’s success as a result of the vehicle, with each rap verse tackling a different aspect.

RM’s rap verse takes on the temporary nature of flights and overseas trips. When you’re constantly traveling, there’s nothing to ground you or give a sense of consistency. There’s only the anonymous “hotel rooms” that exist “wherever in the world we go,” always doing the “same work.” Each destination could be swapped out for the last with no distinction. This anxiety develops into fears about their career (“One day it works out too well, then the next day I’m completely screwed”) and about his personal identity (“Who should I live as today, Kim Namjoon or RM?”).

By contrast, J-Hope’s rap verse continues the theme of “Airplane.” While RM dreads the repetition of the taxing flights, J-Hope revels in them. For him, being up in the air is a time for him to turn on “airplane mode” and “turn off all the concerns.” He doesn’t think of the destination, only the journey.

Suga’s rap verse is also focused on the flight itself, but he takes a more aggressive perspective. The many flights they undergo are just proof of their success--or as he puts it, “My passport is about to die from overworking.” Their careers are difficult (“I don’t know... how to stop”; “I don’t know... how to take some rest”) but they remain on top: “I don’t know... how to fail.”

Airplane

Orpheus is the great transgressor, the one who dares to make the journey that few Greek heroes ever can. The impossible quest of entering the Underworld even has a specific name--the katabasis.

Crossing oceans, even by plane, is no easy feat. Not only are the hours long (as Rich Brian and Higher Brothers helpfully point out), but the destination isn’t necessarily friendly. Eastern culture and Western culture can be vastly different, in manner as much as in language and food.

If the transpacific flight is to be taken as BTS’s modern-day katabasis, then it should be noted that there are key differences between their journey and Orpheus’s. For one, BTS frequently make this flight. For another, America isn’t exactly Hell.

But it is interesting that both BTS and Orpheus use the journey as an opportunity to display their power.

BTS and Lil Nas X performing “Seoul Town Road,” RM’s collaboration with Lil Nas X to remix the latter’s hit, “Old Town Road,” at the 2020 Grammy Awards.

When Ovid recounts Orpheus’s katabasis, he takes care to mention Orpheus’s influence over the Underworld as he sings for Hades and Persephone. His music “[makes] the pale phantoms weep”--phantoms who have already been tortured for ages, but are still moved by his song. Even the Furies, demon-goddesses of punishment, weep for “the first time ever in all the world.” Though Orpheus does not come from the Underworld, something about his music resonates with its occupants.

It is because of this feat that Orpheus is considered one of the greatest mythic figures of all time. Not many heroes have the chance or desire to enter the Underworld. Hercules, Odysseus, Aeneas (a mythic founder of Rome), and Orpheus are some of the few to do so, and Orpheus’s technique of using music to essentially tame the Underworld makes him unique among them. Hercules, the notorious strongman, forces his way in; Odysseus stays on the surface and merely brings the dead to him to converse; and Aeneas journeys through the Underworld but takes nothing from it.

While each hero is able to show his skill and bravery by emerging successful, Orpheus is the only musician among them, thereby proving that he is the greatest, most heroic musician in mythology. Who else could move Hades and Persephone to such pity that they could lack the “harshness to refuse him?” Certainly no one else has ever tried.

The katabasis is what cements Orpheus’s position as the greatest musician in mythic history. In a way, world tours do something similar for BTS.

A preview for the purchasable DVD recording of BTS’s 2019 São Paulo concert.

Their performance in São Paulo, Brazil, features an extraordinary amount of confetti and streamers, a multitude of fireworks, possibly water-jets, and definitely Jungkook suspended in the air encircling the stadium--a spectacle on the level of Disney and far-removed from anything the Superbowl could ever hope to put on. It’s a huge display for a group who claim to be “seven normal boys from Korea.”

Concerts and promotional tours are an impressive avenue to give fans the interaction that they crave, even if most can only watch them after the fact through a screen. But they’re also a tool for BTS to prove, over and over again, why they’re the K-pop group that’s always trending on Twitter, being invited to the Billboard Music Awards, getting their own special take-over on Jimmy Fallon’s “The Tonight Show,” and breaking records on YouTube. Many would believe BTS deserve to be there because they are the best, just as Orpheus deserves to be lauded as the greatest mythic musician-hero.

As RM, J-Hope, and Suga all recognize in “Airplane pt.2,” traveling around the world has become an essential part of their job. Their passports may look impressive, but it’s all just a day’s work to ensure they remain at the top of the music charts. Everything they do when they travel is to promote their group. Their recent trip to L.A. in early 2020, for example, had them doing a show with James Corden, rehearsing for and performing at the Grammys, and filming their music video for “Black Swan,” all in under two weeks.

Additionally, the simple fact that their music, which is sung and rapped overwhelmingly in Korean, is listened to worldwide is strange. Most people wouldn’t even dream of listening to a song in a language they don’t understand, but “ON,” a song from Map of the Soul: 7, entered the Billboard Hot 100 at #4, becoming the first K-pop song to break the top five on that list. Billboard chart rankings are specific to the United States, a country that doesn’t have a particularly large Korean-speaking population.

That BTS could succeed so thoroughly in a region that shouldn’t be particularly receptive to their music is a powerful, transgressive act.

It’s one thing to be successful in Korea, like the lesser-known but well-respected older groups SHINee and Wonder Girls, and it’s another to be the object of affection of the entire world.

Even John Cena, the pro-wrestler-turned-universally-beloved-personality, loves BTS. When asked by James Corden why he does, Cena answered, “They’re a Korean pop band, and they were the first Korean pop band to actually connect everyone throughout the world.”

A frequent claim that ARMY makes is that “BTS paved the way.” When an interview with Monsta X released on April 27, 2020, the group didn’t explicitly mention BTS when asked why they thought K-pop was so popular--and “BTS PAVED THE WAY” soon began trending on Twitter in retaliation.

A screenshot of Twitter trends on April 27, 2020.

Orpheus’s katabasis has persisted in the cultural consciousness in a more lasting way than those of other ancient heroes. BTS has gained more attention than other Korean artists.

Though neither Orpheus nor BTS are the sole champions in the endeavors they undertook, both are venerated above their peers.

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[bienready2122]

Romancing San Francisco [Chapter #2: Master Yamaguchi Teaches]

Part Two

Ace Yamaguchi Teaches

[Buck turns into a Friend]

◊

The climate was warm in the mid year of l968, a breeze from the inlet leaked through the city, and the Turtles, the Doors and the Beatles music were being played all over the place, alongside "Elvis' Comeback". Everybody dressed like Sonny and Cher, or the Momma's and the Papa's it appeared everybody except me that is; because of the fact that I enjoyed the manner in which everybody dressed, I wound up still very moderate.

The trees along a significant number of the boulevards particularly Dolores Avenue were polished green. I got some bread, and white spread-on cheddar, carried it to the dojo and put it in the cooler, I loved it, something new that I got here in San Francisco. Alongside a corner store that would make any sort of sandwich you needed mơ thấy rùa đánh con gì On account of the adjustment in climate from Minnesota to San Francisco, my dietary patterns were likewise changing, - to lighter nourishments that is, and less meats; - increasingly Chinese nourishments additionally; I truly couldn't have cared less for Japanese nourishments. Somebody acquired crude snake, or so it appeared with white rice in it, and offered it as a treat for us at the dojo one night, it more likely than not been Goesi, - yet that is a supposition, I can't recollect. In spite of the fact that I generally appeared to have a decent craving, after a chomp or two of the treat, I lost it for the remainder of the night; yet as I was stating, with all the strolling, and now working at Lilli Ann, the dress structuring outfit, and doing my Karate ordinary, my hunger was vivacious.

It was extraordinary to walk the night away along the sea front with my karate companions, taking a gander at the numerous flames along the Pacific Coast. The glow of the flames moved right to tactile faculties, smelling the consumed wood on the flames, each of the few of us, watching the gleaming of the flares, its flashes attempting to climb to the space rock belt; - as the shinning moon skimmed over the water right to the edge of the coast, as though it had its requests stop in that spot. I felt it was a decent time to be alive. I cherished the water; - the hints of the immense waves hit the banks of the coast. The white froth splattering about. My days appeared to be perpetual, loaded up with to such an extent

back in St. Paul, Minnesota, the Mississippi runs directly through the city, right down to St. Louis, and onto New Orleans; and you got it, right to the Gulf of Mexico. As a child I'd make light of along its saves money with my companion Mike Rosette. We were a remarkable group. We'd run in and out the caverns along the bluffs that paralleled the banks of the Mississippi; some of the time avoiding the alcoholics sleeping wheezing ceaselessly the morning or as once in a while it would be, the evening. In any case, this was unique, this was not the Mighty Mississippi, Mark Twain's safe house, as he so wanted to expound on, as I wanted to stroll close to as a child, - yet this was the Gigantic Pacific Ocean, what I caught wind of, read about and now was before. It was difficult for me to change in accordance with seeing such a lot of water. Much alone, not see a conclusion to it. It blew my mind, such as remaining before the Empire State Building gazing upward, or looking down the Grand Canyon. I needed to approach it just to state I contacted it, got wet; as though it was hallowed waters. Yet, at that point anybody from Minnesota would have done likewise I'm certain, or lied that they didn't, - from the start in any case.

Additionally, along the Mississippi, you'd consider rodents to be enormous as tycoons, or little pooches, here you seen white jellyfish, shaded shells, among a couple of things. To every other person it was entirely expected, to me I was enchanted. In St. Paul, they quit permitting fires in '63, such a large number of bogus cautions, and the fire organization, or stations became ill of running for each fire around. We used to consume our junk in 50-gallon drums in those days. After around six to nine months, grandpa would have me and my sibling tip it over and void it out into an uncovered opening, and cover it. Be that as it may, those days were gone to; alongside consuming the fall leaves, I loved that additionally, the fall-smell of the leaves, the sparkles, much the same as these flames. Thus observing the flames brought back recollections, despite the fact that the relationship was very unique, they had their similitudes.

"Buck," I stated, asking "The police don't take care of these individuals having flames, and resting the night away... smoking pot, or whatever?"

Buck took a gander at me unusual, "No Chick, it's simply the times...everyone disregards every other person here; or attempts to. These individuals are only here for a brief timeframe, in any case."

We stood and investigated the camps, the blazes, until we at last got drained and made a beeline for the dojo; it appeared it was the gathering place. In any event for me, since it was the place I would rest.

٭

The next night Gosei was training a class, there was around thirty of us lounging around the dojo, legs crossed tonight. I was there three weeks back when Big John, presently a first degree dark, had recently gotten his belt advancement to dark belt, at that point seven days after the fact, he was preparing with Buck, and was assume to go easy on the grounds that they were taking a shot at structure and method however Big John didn't concur with the constraints it appeared, and crushed Buck in the face. Presently seven days after that occasion, here we are preparing and getting ready for tonight, Gosei had all of us sit down after around twenty minutes, towards the dividers, and got Big John out to assist him with a show. I felt something would occur; it was noticeable all around.

About this time I was finding a workable pace ways really well. He was a little man, calm, however as quick as helping, and you just never recognized what was at the forefront of his thoughts, as though he was continually thinking. I've seen he tosses a great many mixes of punches and kicks, while exhibiting with Buck; I just never could get the camera to take brisk enough pictures, there appeared to be consistently to have a haze in them indicating the speed. At the point when the photos got created they by method for the haze, it was astonishing to look at the image and make sense of how to function around his blend. What's more, every time he accomplished something, he had flawless equalization. As I had learned throughout everyday life, is the key to life, in all things, physical, mental, otherworldly, and mental. In the event that one of those components were missing, I had an issue, or would have. Then again he was the most delicate individual on earth, and adored humankind in his own cautious way. What's more, knew by one way or another, the nature of a man, as he blended it in with his way of life; in other words, whatever was anticipated from the Japanese understudy, in Japan, was a bit much what he expected of Americans in America. Something I would get, not exactly knowing where I had acquired it from, yet as I would later on do some voyaging, I figured out how to modify in a few distinct nations with no troubles for expanded times of times. It is a mater of thinking. Regardless, and Goesi was the first to show this blend for my life voyages I would require after I left San Francisco

as Big John got into his position, and right now I was a Green Belt, prepared to get my Brown Belt quickly, so I knew a considerable lot of the moves that would happen, and had about 18 months of karate training added to my repertoire preceding coming to San Francisco, of which a couple of months were with the Master Yamaguchi. As I was stating Big John was in his position - and GoJo Ryu being a protective style of karate, somebody needed to begin thus Gosei made a bogus move, which means just to rouse his adversary; conceivable this is the thing that happened to Buck and John exploiting it since it was practice. Regardless, at that point it occurred: - Big John began tossing his long arms out, and Goesi got under them, around them, and must of hit him about multiple times simultaneously; for John fell into a corner attempting to push the punches away absent a lot of effect, which was another slip-up of his, Gosei cut him done like a major oak tree since he left himself open at that point, until he was nearly on his knees blends were going quicker than the eye could compute, at that point he pulled back and halted and bowed, left, and educated all of us on what to do straightaway. No one was discussing what occurred, yet I knew the subliminal of many were staying at work longer than required, mine was. I cherished it. I knew Goesi was specific on how his understudies utilized their insight into karate, and one exercise was - I assume, nobody minds the amount you know, until you show the amount you give it a second thought. What's more, Goesi indicated in every case the amount he gave it a second thought; and to be very straight to the point did as well, Buck.

٭

Buck approached me the following day and inquired as to whether I needed to head out to the Japanese motion pictures with him; he truly preferred the sword warriors, the samurais. I loved doing that, - that is going out to see the films and seeing the samurai moving, - I was in an alternate world, an intriguing contrasted with my St. Paul world. Matter of actuality, I would consistently hold a little enthusiasm for that territory, after San Francisco, additionally; just as Sumo wrestling of which I would go to one somewhere in the range of thirty years not far off in Japan; just as bullfights, I would go to in Mexico, and cockfights in Peru, and all issues of battle, I could ingest: - I even wound up in Argentina for a South American Championship fight some thirty after four years.

I think Goesi had asked Buck, - in dread I'd go off to some far away place - or go drink myself to death, to become a close acquaintence with me a bit. He was a genuine dad figure for me, in addition to a legend of sorts, and was ending up being a companion too. Thus we went. I like this specific one, or personage in the Samurai motion picture world, he was visually impaired and could utilize his sword like Yamaguchi could his hands. In case I'm not mixed up, when this Samurai cut a fly into. I think they had genuine great embellishments in Japan for that film; yet I preferred it. Buck enjoyed Edgar Rice Burroughs likewise, he had perused I figure each of the seventy or eighty of his books, to incorporate Tarzan, the Mars books, Venus ones and god realizes what else. I was unable to accept he perused all them.

I was taking in something from Buck, not just how to be a companion, and battle, however how it may be conceivable som

[notajinn]

Saw this on my dash through @fishphibian and am procrastinating going to sleep enough to do it.

Star Sign: Aries Height: Like 5′5? Sexual Orientation: Am a straight male Hogwarts House: I don’t watch/read this series, so instead I will substitute with:

Digimon Crest: Of the canon crests, Reliability. Even though I am often late, I believe one my stronger traits is helping when I’m being counted on.

Favourite Color: Orange. Best popsicle flavour, great fruit, one of my earliest favourite characters (Tails) is orange, and one of my earliest crushes (Sailor Venus) has an orange colour scheme Favourite Animal: I’m a sucker for crocodiles. Alligators are also good. Anything that looks like a dinosaur but is still alive is great. Also big on most kinds of cats, and due to where I live I’ve become attached to groundhogs Average Hours of Sleep: Well I should be sleeping right now. On work nights, like 6. Or if I’m stupid (like today?), 5 1/2. If I don’t need to work the next day, I will sleep like 9-10 hours

Favourite Fictional Character(s): So many. One that majorly stands out is Cisqua of Elemental Gelade, because the strangeness of that series being a shonen written in a shoujo style seems to make her shine the most outside of the main couple. Others I really enjoy include many Digimon characters (mainly Joe, Tai, Davis, and Rika), Sven of Black Cat for being this strange suave type despite the show’s contrasting tone, Ms Marvel (Kamala) for being the sole reason I read comics now, Wonder Girl (Cassie) for being an older character I enjoyed in comics and making me not ignore DC (even though she is not in Rebirth just yet), and quite a few OCs and OCs of friends since I used to be heavy into RPing. (Also obviously Tails as mentioned earlier, and probably Sonic himself and Nack if we’re talking that series)

Favourite Singer/Band: Probably Yellowcard? Though as time went on, they began to rely less and less on the violin. Which I respect in the sense I don’t want them to feel like a gimmick band, but...that gimmick is really the main reason I stuck with them over other pop-punk banks. Made worse by the fact that their skilled drummer left around the last few albums. I really wasn’t feeling their final album, but Ocean Avenue will also be a great song to me. Others I enjoy a lot include semi-local band Billy Talent, and Paramore back in the Farro-brothers days before they become too pop-y. Crush 40 is also great for cheesy music, and is the main reason I got into any kind of rock music. Lately I have also been a sucker for Casey Lee Williams, who sings nearly all the RWBY vocal tracks. Dream Trip: Not that big on traveling. Kind of afraid of airport security, truth be told. But what dumb weeb wouldn’t want to go to Japan at least once, right? Dream Job: Having had a brief stint at a non-profit, I’d love to be able to work for one full time in the Marketing field. Assuming full-time pay as well that’s solid

When was this Blog Made: God I don’t know. At least 5 years ago, maybe more How Many Followers: 154 for some reason. Hope to continue disappointing them! What Made you Decide to Make this Blog: School project for E-Marketing class. Which is hilariously outdated by now, as I imagine that class will always be no matter how much they update it since the Internet changes far too quickly

Well that killed 10 minutes. I should really sleep now. But if you too want to procrastinating, I can’t say I wouldn’t be interested in reading it. Not that I’d care or anything

[shirlleycoyle]

500-Million-Year-Old Worm ‘Superhighway’ Found Hidden in the Mountains

Earth’s deep oceans 500-million years ago, believed by some to be inhospitable to life at the time, were actually conducive to it, a new study suggests.

Back then, the planet looked quite different. Rising seas inundated huge supercontinents that would become the land masses we know today, making way for an explosion of new, complex lifeforms; a hallmark of this vibrant era called the Cambrian period.

During Cambrian times, in what are now the Mackenzie Mountains of Canada’s far north, a muddy ecosystem teemed with worms, crustaceans, and other ancient organisms. Some tunneled vast avenues beneath the seabed, forming a “superhighway” of tiny burrows. Others, earthworm-like predatory species, lurked in shallow vertical holes, waiting to snatch unsuspecting prey.

A snapshot of these moments was exquisitely preserved in the fossil record, to be stumbled upon millennia later by Brian Pratt, a geologist at the University of Saskatchewan who has studied this prehistoric environment for 25 years.

The Mackenzie Mountains in Canada where the shale samples were collected. Image: Brian Pratt

The discovery happened “years ago” on an expedition to the Mackenzie Mountains, Pratt told Motherboard on the phone.

“The sun came out, and I took a walk just down the valley where I hadn’t been, and saw this peculiar green rock,” Pratt recalled. “And I said, ‘Jeez, there are fossils of soft-bodied animals in it.’”

Pratt excised slivers of the shale rock and transported them to the lab. After dressing them with alcohol (“because that changes the contrast a little bit,” Pratt explained) he carefully placed the samples onto a flatbed scanner for imaging.

Then, in Photoshop, Pratt cranked up the illumination and contrast. “I couldn’t believe it,” he said, describing what he saw.

Some of the fossils were immediately identifiable as coprolites, or fossilized poop. They likely belonged to a predatory, “pretty substantial worm,” (up to 1.5 centimeters in diameter) that lived in holes beneath ground and hunted crustaceans and other organisms, Pratt said. It was was described in a paper that he and then-PhD student Julien Kimmig published to Palaios last year.

Shale samples containing pieces of trilobite (top) and coprolites (bottom). Image: Brian Pratt

The duo also found fossilized evidence of worm tunnels, some only a millimeter in size and others the width of a finger. These burrows penetrated almost every layer that was sampled, according to the new study.

The team’s findings were published in this month’s edition of Geology.

A cross section of one of the shale samples. Image: Brian Pratt

Immaculately preserved fossils, such as the famous Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rockies—a robust cross-section of an entire ecosystem—are believed by some to exist because of low oxygen conditions near the seafloor that halted decay.

So the discovery of a once thriving ecosystem here, demonstrating that some life did exist, warrants further research as “something [being] behind the preservation,” Pratt said.

“If you don’t see the evidence for animals living in the sediment, you assume they weren’t there,” he added.

One possible explanation is that clay minerals in the seabed interacted with the organic matter and stopped the decay.

In the meantime, Pratt is eager to analyze other shale deposits for evidence of life. “Maybe we’ll try to collaborate with some colleagues,” Pratt suggested. “And they’ll say, ‘Hey, why don’t you work your magic on these.’”

“The personal part, is the thrill of discovery,” Pratt said.

500-Million-Year-Old Worm ‘Superhighway’ Found Hidden in the Mountains syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[bethany69esda]

Tea with grandmother

In which i explore my thoughts through a story about a girl, her grandmother, and being a werewolf in college.

It is getting dark when you step outside, this Friday evening. You glance to see if you can find any stars in the sky, but the city lights block them all out, and the sun’s light still lingers. The edges of your vision glow a dull yellow, a combination of all the wavelengths weaving their way through windows, buildings, and cars. You take a glance back where you left, your dorm looks lifeless from the outside. Most of the blinds are drawn shut, and those that are open rarely have their light on. It is much the same inside, fluorescent hallways and closed doors. You return the focus to your task and cross the pedestrian bridge to get to the campus proper.

You have a meeting to attend.

The campus is pleasant, and the smell of orange blossoms and flowers fill the air. You aren’t sure what flowers create the smell, but it is fresh, and the desert air warms your skin. You take your time, strolling the palm-lined sidewalk. You are in no rush, and neither are they. As you head towards your destination, you come across your favorite spot. An isolated patch of land, with a stone fountain the birds use to bathe themselves. You stop to sit, sipping on your tea and listening to the gurgling. As you sit, you see a cat slip past the grate behind the bench where the bougainvillea grows. The cat winds through the thorny bush, dislodging a flowers. It pauses as it passes you, and for a moment you swear it nods at you. Either way, you nod back.

The sky is fully dark now, all traces of sunset have left, and darkness has settled. You get up from the bench, leaving a small piece of a pastry bought at Starbucks behind.  You say nothing, but the wind almost seems to whisper through the trees. You continue forwards, passing the orange streetlamps and tired students. It isn’t long before you reach the Union. Someone is playing guitar while a few students ignore them while doing homework by the neon glow of the pillars holding up the awning. You stop to listen, before continuing on your journey.

Now there is no one where you are, and empty avenue, the distant din of guitar and the glow of the lights behind you. You eventually reach the bus stop.  You cross the street to the amphitheater, a huge monument to an alumni long-dead who opposed the building as ‘wasteful’. They weren’t wrong. It is a veritable colosseum—in design anyways. The hallways have fine red carpeting, and original art on the walls. The stage itself is even worse. Plush velvet seats, engraved brass railings, adjustable LED’s on the floor to see the stage, and the chandelier. How gorgeous, all gold plating and fine crystals—not glass like most others—with electric lights placed to cast light throughout them. The worst part is no student can ever afford to attend a play there—not even the drama department preforms here. Only the rich and wealthy can mingle here.

But you did not come to attend a show. Not in your worn out jeans and converse, not with a t-shirt so badly faded you can no longer see the logo. No.

You walk behind the theatre. There are multiple lawns around it to keep it nice. Across the tiny road circling it, there is a denser collection of trees, bushes, and plants. They do it to hide the unsightly maintenance center where crews can monitor the water flow and take care of any electrical problems that the stage crew can’t. It also serves as an entrance to both the sewers and the underground tunnels throughout campus. You’ve only seen the doors once, a great black door in the lab basement you work at. The next day, yellow caution tape blocked it off. A week later it was bricked up, a stark contrast to the old concrete surrounding it.

You descend the slope to the maintenance outcropping. Next to the gate, a cat lay sleeping. You leave a piece of your pastry and climb the gate. Now inside, you hear the gurgling of flowing water echoing up the shaft. You go around the side, and before you is an old wooden door, worn sunlight and wind, faintly smelling of salt. You take the old skeleton key out of your pocket. The iron is warm from proximity to your body. You knock, and unlock the door.

Inside is a shack, barely holding together. The wood is bleached and warped by the constant spray, and the sun leaks in throughout the slats. In the corner by the window is an old woman. “I brought this for you grandmother” you say, handing over a different pastry. “Would you like me to make you a fresh cup of tea today?” “Thank you dear, the Calendula if you please. My arthritis is flaring up again” “Of course grandmother”. You heat the water on the small camping stove you keep here. The propane never seems to run out, good for you since it is so expensive to buy. You grab a handful of the flowers and place them in the kettle after the water heats. You let it steep in comfortable silence, the sound of waves and gulls fills your ears. You strain the tea through cheesecloth into a nice china teacup, gold rimmed with roses on the side. You bring the teacup with the matching saucer over to the woman, and sit yourself down next to her, bringing out your own tea.

“How are you doing grandmother?”

“Well enough I suppose, the pain flares up and then I can’t finish my embroidery. Those days have been flaring up quite a bit recently. On those days I sit and watch the kids play on the beach, or I listen to one of those audiobooks you set up for me. But enough about me, I’m old. Older than I should be I tell you. Wat about you? How are your studies? Last week you mentioned that boy you went out with, how did it end?

You smile wryly “About as well as I hoped. The boy lacked for conversation, and could only talk about the sport he plays. Nice enough young man, but dreadfully boring. My studies are going….I’m passing all my classes at least.”

The woman nods sagely “So many more these days don’t know how to have a conversation anymore. Why, you’re the only one I talk to. Oh, don’t give me that look. My neighbors are only concerned with the new shopping malls and all the new tech, and their kids only want to swim and surf. That’s just as good, the only thing that matters in school is if you learn—not the grade you get.”

“I don’t blame them. Anything to distract from the tedium in life, right grandmother? We all need to get lost, else we might begin to see the world around us.”

“You’ve always had a penchant for cynicism, but you aren’t wrong. In my days, it was still shopping and technology we lost ourselves in. For good reason too, with so much bad happening, it’s hard to deal with it. What’s really on your mind?”

You frown, she always sees through you, blind as a bat she may be. “You know me so well grandmother. It’s not just the moon that brings me here, but you. I’ve been thinking—“

“Well there’s your problem” You both chuckle, and you continue, your thoughts tumbling out of your mouth, the floodgates removed.

“And I’m not sure I can keep doing this. All this studying, the late nights in the lab, the courses. It starting to get to be too much. Between my family and my school, it feels like I’m always dealing with some sort of crisis. My sister’s depression isn’t getting any better, and I feel so helpless, she won’t take advice from anyone and is dead-set on burning her bridges. I still love her and care for her, but I can’t move her in with me, I can’t make it all better. I’m not sure if this is even the right degree for me, but science is all I know. And there’s no jobs with this degree, only teaching and research. I’m not sure where I want to go anymore. I guess just away from it all”

Grandmother was silent for a while, most of the time she just listens to you until the day comes where you have to leave. “My dear, you know the rules. I cannot tell you what happens that leads us here. I cannot say what will happen, because then it won’t. It’s very clear there. But I can say this: It will be ok. You will fail, over and over and over, but you will pick yourself back up, every time. You can’t cure this disease for your sister, it lies in her mind, her body, her life. You are doing what you can for you. We both know you weren’t the best in your youth, but you’ve so much progress with her since then. Just support her for now, love her unconditionally and don’t condone her self-destructive habit. A bad habit to manage the pain now only causes future pain, and she knows this. She will come to this realization on her own.” Grandmother pauses, sipping her tea and staring out the window.

“Science isn’t all you’ve known. Don’t lie to me. It may feel that way, but underneath that skin, you’re a wolf. It runs in your blood. You’ve known the rush of performance, of praise on a poem, of art made late in the night. You are a jack of all trades, a trickster, a politician, and a therapist. Anything you want to be, you can. Even an accountant” You both make a face of distaste, you hate dealing with numbers and an office job sounds dry, no matter how good the pay. “My point is, life has a funny way of teaching you about yourself. Just look at us, the same person, different ages, different times, and we can’t even talk about it. You will find your footing, it will take some time. And you have a whole lifetime to figure out who you are and what you want to be. And in the end, you will be ok. You will be here, by the ocean like you’ve always wanted.”

You smile, and wipe a tear from your face. “Thank you grandmother, it means a lot to me.”

She nods, satisfied with her answer.

“Now, go my dear. Your pack is waiting outside, I can smell the wet hair from here. I will see you next month”.

You embrace her, and open the door, breathing in the salt air.

“Remember my dear, college isn’t forever. Enjoy your time there.”

Grandmother’s final piece of advice drifts out the door as you close it, stepping into the warm summer night. You check your phone and see that it is just past moonrise. You glance up, and sure enough the moon is full. You step into the gathering of trees, your pack waiting for you. College may be tough, but right now you have a pack, and freshman to hunt. You bare your fangs and howl, a chorus of howls joining you before you tear off into the night, in hunt of fresh blood.