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navalcriminalimagines · 3 years ago

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I did a rewatch of Friends recently and this is completely inspired by Monica and Chandler. In season 5, ep 8, we see a thanksgiving flashback where Monica cooks Mac and cheese for Chandler and he tells her “you should be a chef” and what does she do for a living? She’s a chef 👩‍🍳 so yeah, this is where I got this fic idea. And there will be a part two!

Pairing: Rafael Barba x Reader

Warnings: young!Rafael, age difference, shitty father

Words count: 3k

Baker

October 1996

It was nice to have your brother and his long time best friend, Rafael, back in town again. After studying in Harvard for several years, your brother went to California for an internship and Rafael went to Miami, where some of his relatives lived. But now, they are both back in New York City and a lot of things have changed.

Except for your crush on your brother’s best friend. You were just a little girl when you first met Rafael and it didn’t take long before you’d tell everyone who’d listen that you’d marry him one day.

Despite being uncomfortable around kids, Rafael thought it was cute and would play along. When you were seven and Rafael was sixteen, he surprised you with a small plastic ring, bringing the biggest smile ever on your face.

But you weren’t a kid anymore. You were seventeen and you were pretty sure you were hopelessly in love with him. But of course, he wasn’t. Nope. He was in love with Yelina. And engaged. It broke your heart so bad, you almost threw the ring you kept in a jewelry box away - it was too small for you to still wear it. But you thought against it. Maybe things would be different one day.

It was almost Rafael’s twenty-seven birthday. You had been saving money to offer him a nice briefcase, now he was a junior ADA. But you changed your mind after seeing Rafael before his birthday.

“Rafi, hey!” You greeted him, surprised to see him at your brother’s apartment, which you were supposed to clean - you and your brother had an arrangement so you would make some money. After all, you were a senior in high school and the coffee shop where you worked didn’t pay very well. “What are you doing here?” You asked after hugging him and pecking his cheek.

“Your brother asked for my help on something he’s working on. I had some time to kill so I came early,”

“To empty his fridge?” You joked since he was eating some sort of leftovers.

“Bite me.” He smiled. “I skipped breakfast.”

“Do you want me to go all Mrs Diaz on you?”

He laughed at that, and intently watched you as you started to throw your brother’s trash away. “Will you ever be able to call her Catalina? She hates it when you call her ‘Mrs Diaz’.” He said, trying to sound like you.

“Probably not, and I do not sound like that.”

Since his plate was finished, he put it in the sink and started to do the dishes. “That’s my job.” You told him.

“Let me help, Nena.” Rafael had his back to you, so you didn’t try to hide the grin forming on your face. He had been calling you Nena (babygirl) for years and you loved it.

“Yelina’s lucky.” You just said. Maybe you were trying to hurt yourself, you weren’t quite sure.

“I’m the lucky one.” He answered and it felt like a punch in your guts.

You kept cleaning the apartment in silence while Rafael finished the dishes. “I wanted to invite you to my birthday party next weekend, but your brother disagreed.” He said, out of nowhere. You made a mental note to kick your brother in his genitals. “You can join us at my parents’ on that Sunday though. Mami will be happy to see you.”

“I’d love that but I work on Sundays.”

“You work too much for a senior, Y/N. Your brother told me you didn’t know what to do next year?”

“Oh god, Rafaelo. Not you, please.” You rolled your eyes. Your professional future had been a constant argument in your family for the past year.

“Fine, fine. But, I’m here if you need, okay?” He had moved from the open kitchen to you and he placed a comforting hand on your shoulder. You smiled but this conversation was over for now.

“Will Mrs Diaz be back in time for your birthday?”

He sighed and walked up to your brother’s desk, which he started to clean. “Unfortunately not. I’m happy she’s having fun in Miami, but it will be my first birthday without her. It’s weird.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Plus, I won’t have my cake.”

“Um,” you thought for a second. “Mango cake with coconut?”

He laughed. “Exactly.”

It hit you. Forget about the briefcase for a moment, you decided that you’d make his grandma’s cake for his birthday. But you’d need the recipe first. Another mental note: call Lucia Barba when you get home.

You and Rafael kept cleaning the apartment until your brother arrived and the guys immediately started to work. You had a shift starting soon so you left when you were done, kissing them both on the cheek. “Next time you let your hair in the sink, I’m kicking your ass, L/N.” You told your brother as you left.

The next day, you did call Lucia to ask for the recipe. “Oh mija. I’d love to, but Mami doesn’t have a recipe. She just bakes.” She told you.

“Oh,” you tried not to sound too disappointed. Last thing you needed was for Lucia to discover how hopelessly in love you were with her engaged son.

“Look, I’ll call her and see if she can give you guidelines. Will it work?”

“Yeah, totally! That’d be great!”

“Bueno. I’ll call you back. And Y/N, that’s very sweet of you.”

“I know he doesn’t like the idea of his grandma not being here for his birthday. Just want to do a little something.”

“You’re lovely. I’m sorry sweetheart, but I gotta go.”

“Yeah, sure. Thank you Mrs Barba.”

“I’m not going to ask you to call me Lucia anymore, seems irrelevant,” she chuckled. “Bye y/N.”

“Bye Ma’am.”

You considered looking for a Cuban cooking book, but you wanted the cake to be exactly like Mrs Diaz’s. And luckily, a couple of days later, your mother told you that she called while you were at school. She left a number to your mum and she immediately called back.

“Mrs Diaz, thank you for calling me.” You told her.

“Niña,” she said to warn you about the ‘Mrs Diaz’. “Lucia told me you want to bake Rafael’s cake?”

“Yeah, if that’s okay with you, of course.”

“You’re too good for my grandson.” She said, and you knew why she did. Catalina wasn’t a big fan of Yelina. She didn’t trust her, and thanks to your brother, you knew that she didn’t take the engagement very well. ��I would be a better wife than her for Rafael.’ You wanted to tell her.

She didn’t have a recipe, but Catalina gave you every info she could on how to bake the Mango cake. You wrote everything down, and thanked her multiple times before hanging up.

After that, you spent days trying to perfectly bake Rafael’s cake. All you had to know how it was, was your memory of eating this cake a few years ago and your family’s opinion. “Geez, it’s perfect already,” your brother growled. “You’re going to make me hate mangos and coconut for the rest of my life.”

But you tried again. And again. Until it actually was Rafael’s birthday.

You did buy the briefcase you set your eyes on a while ago, but put it aside. You knew that Rafael was having a birthday party on Saturday with his friends - and Yelina - but you weren’t invited thanks to your brother being the overprotective dumbass he was.

Before your shift at the coffee shop, you stopped by Rafael’s parents place to drop the cake. According to Mrs Diaz, it’s even better the next day, so that was perfect. “You actually did it!” Lucia welcomed you. “Rafi is going to love it.” She took the cake from you and put it in the fridge.

“It’s probably not as good as your mother’s,” you said and saw Rafael’s father coming from the living room. “Hola Mr Barba.” You greeted him.

“Y/N,” he said. “What is my son going to love?” He asked.

“Y/N cooked Mami’s mango cake, since she’s still in Miami.”

“You a baker?”

“No, no. It actually was the first time I'm baking something.”

“For my son?”

“Si,”

You had no Cuban, or any other origins that would explain that you’d talk Spanish, but you knew for a fact that Rafael’s father is more comfortable with his native language. Not that making him comfortable was what you wanted. To be honest, the man scared the shit out of you for years, until he finally warmed up to you. Rafael never clearly told you what was going on behind closed doors but he did say it to your brother and you were an idiot. “Will you be joining us tomorrow to taste it then?” He asked in Spanish. His invitation took you by surprise, as well as Lucia, from the look on her face.

“I’d have loved to, but I’m working tomorrow.” You answered in his native language.

“Bueno. Don’t let this make this an annual habit though, Rafael needs to grow up and cut the cords with his grandmother. He’s not a little boy who needs to be fed anymore.”

You watched Lucia rolling her eyes, but she stayed silent. You couldn’t do so. “It has nothing to do with that. It’s a tradition Rafael and Mrs Diaz had been sharing since he was little. Traditions are important, aren’t they? Would you stop eating turkey on thanksgiving? Aren’t you going to dress up in red and blue in two weeks for the fiesta? Don’t you enjoy this fireworks on the 4th of July?”

Lucia looked at you with eyes wide open. First because you were standing up against her husband but also because you knew a little about Cuban traditions. Mr Barba shrugged his shoulders and left the kitchen. “You should teach my son how to stand up for himself.” He said over his shoulder.

Of course, Lucia apologized for her husband’s behavior but it didn’t matter. His opinion mattered to Rafael but not to you. If you needed to teach something to Rafael, it would be this.

Sunday at the Barbas’ place

Rafael, your brother, Yelina and Alex were all hung over from the previous night and that wasn’t something Rafael’s father missed. What was supposed to be a celebration, quickly turned into an argument between the birthday boy and his dad. Before Rafael realized what was happening, his father had asked - or more like ordered - the guests to leave. Yelina tried to convince Rafael to come with them, but he felt like he needed to stay for a moment. If he didn’t, his father would take his frustrations on his mother and that wasn’t something he was going to let happen. “Come on Rafi,” Yelina whined.

“Yelina, I’m staying. You guys go. I’ll see you later,” he briefly pecked her lips, and went back inside the apartment. His father was still sitting in his armchair, and Rafael joined his mother in the kitchen.

“Lo siento, Mijo—“ she started to say and Rafael dismissed her with his hand.

“Not your fault, Mami.”

“You should look in the fridge. A little birdie dropped something that may make you smile.”

Puzzled, Rafael opened the fridge and saw a white box. “Here,” Lucia said, handing him an envelope, “it goes with it.”

Rafael took the box out of the fridge and opened it. His jaw dropped. “How did abuela—“

“Open the envelope, Rafi.”

He did.

‘This may not be your abuela’s but I hope I did a good job and that it would bring a smile to your sweet face. Happiest birthday to you, mi Rafaelo. Te quiero. :)

-Nena’

Rafael was speechless. He stared at the card for a very long time. With everything that had happened a moment ago, he didn’t dry off the single tear rolling down his cheek.

“She wants you to smile, not cry, Mijo.”

“Yo lo sé. It’s just—that’s the most thoughtful gift ever.”

He almost didn’t want to eat the cake and kept it forever if it was possible. But his mother handed him a knife. “Taste it and let her know how she did.”

“She did perfect, no matter how the cake tastes.”

Unbelievably, the cake was amazing. Probably better than his grandmother - not that he would ever tell her that. Rafael couldn’t help it but to eat two pieces in a row. His mother ate one and despite the tension, he offered one to his father.

“Y/N made it.” He told him.

“I know. This girl has quite a personality.” Rafael looked at his father, asking for explanations with his eyes. “I’m just saying that for a seventeen years old girl, she’s not afraid to speak up. I like her.”

Mr Barba didn’t say more after, but Lucia did tell Rafael, in private, what had happened the day before.

By the end of the day, Rafael had packed two pieces of the cake and went to your parents’ house. “Rafael! Happy birthday!” Your father greeted him.

“Thank you, Mr. L/N.” He smiled.

“We have a gift for you, but if I gave it to you without my wife, she’s going to be pissed.” Your father joked - but it was true.

“You didn’t have to get me anything.”

“No sense.” He patted his back. “AJ’s not here.”

“I know, but I would like to see Y/N. Is she here?”

“Basement. Is that the cake she baked for you?”

“Ah, um, yeah. I want her to eat a piece with me.” Rafael smiled, still not over what you did.

“Good. For what’s worth, we won’t be eating mangos and coconuts for years in this house. Y/N spent a whole week trying to bake it to perfection, and we were her Guinea pigs.”

It was more than he thought. Rafael felt his heart tightens in his chest. “I’ll go see her,” he said, walking to the basement, where you were doing your homework while listening to music. Your father made the basement livable for your brother years ago, and now it was your space. “Hey there, Nena,”

You jumped on your couch, obviously straddle by Rafael. You put your books aside and met him as he was walking to you. “Hey there birthday boy,” you hugged him like you usually did, but Rafael held you tighter and longer than usual. Not you were complaining, you actually enjoyed this as long as possible, burying your face in his neck and playing with the small hair in the back of his head.

“You are amazing,” he whispered, letting you go, but kissing your cheek before the physical contact was completely done.

“You liked your cake?” You smiled.

“Ay dios mio, Nena.” He growled. “First, the cake is fucking perfection, but the fact that you—did it. Bake it. For me.”

“I just wanted to make your grandma’s absence less painful.”

“You so did, Y/N.” He kissed your forehead. “Have a piece with me.”

He sat on the couch and took the two pieces out of the container. You quickly went to get spoons in the kitchen before settling next to him, so close to him that your knees were touching.

“You can never tell abuela but yours is better than hers,” he said, humming as he took a bite. It was his fourth piece and he couldn’t care less. “You should be a baker.” He said.

“Okay,” you answered, your mouth full of mango cake.

Rafael looked at you and chuckled at your reaction, without giving it a second thought.

“Mami told me you stood up against my dad yesterday.”

“Oh,”

“Y/N, even though I never had any doubt about your ability to stand up for yourself, I don’t want this to happen again.” He said, licking his spoon.

“But I—“

“I’m serious. I don’t want you anywhere near my father. Okay?”

‘For your own good’ he thought. ‘He can ruin many things for me, but not you.’

“As you want.” You said, finishing your plate. You have to admit that you were proud of yourself. The cake was really good.

When Rafael was done too, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Come here,” he wrapped his arms around your shoulders and made you lean into him. Being playful, he started to cover your face with kisses. You pretended to want to get out of his grip, but enjoyed every second of it. It was just a goofy game, until you turned your face to look at him, your head to press against his shoulder. You saw his green eyes going from your own eyes to your lips and then back up. You forgot how to breathe at this very moment.

And it didn’t help when he leaned his face and closed the gap between his lips and yours.

It started with a very chaste kiss, with closed mouths, until Rafael parted his lips, letting his tongue out. You didn’t waste a second before granting him access. The kiss became more intense, you could taste the cake on his tongue. Rafael’s hands never left your cheek and your hair and yours hung onto his sweater. This was everything you ever wanted and more. Rafael was soft but passionate. You hoped the time would stand still.

But Rafael pulled away, and you immediately saw regrets written all over his face. “Lo siento, Y/N. I shouldn’t—“ he stood up, breaking all physical contact with you. “Forget what just happened, por favor.” He started to walk towards the stairs.

“Raf—“

“It shouldn’t have happened, Y/N and it never will again.” He muttered. “I gotta go.” He walked up the stairs four by four.

It was probably better to never let him know that it was your first kiss.

#law and order svu #rafael barba #rafael barba imagine #rafael barba x reader #rafael barba x you #rafael barba fic #rafael barba fanfic #rafael barba fanfiction #law and order x reader #law and order fanfiction #young Rafael #wait for part two

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blysse-and-blunder · 3 years ago

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in lieu of a regular posting schedule,

please accept some irregular scatterings and impromptu blogging

1:30pm, sunday, oct 3, 2021.

playing catch-up here again. the last week+ has been a real one-- baby's first maybe-serious relationship did end in an abrupt dumpage the night before i had to lead my first tutorial, of the three tutorials i'm now handling this term! and i've been coping through a) being very busy and b) aggressively distracting myself with both media and retail therapy.

reading earlier this summer, my mom got me back into reading the mary russell mysteries, by laurie king. @dinosauriaawesome introduced me to these back in the day, but i only read the beekeeper's apprentice at the time-- something about the fact that their partnership turns into marriage threw me, as a concept? and/but/so i picked up the moor, king's return to the baskerville mystery (but with a twist!), and something about being dropped into the russell-holmes marriage in media res totally helps-- it's still just them, and i still love mary. spectral hounds and hauntings aren't usually my bag, but the fact that there's going to be an explanation, and that mary is going to be totally sarcastic at every turn, is helping me stay engaged. also 10/10 descriptions of scenery, as grim as dartmoor is i now very much want to witness it.

at the same time, i've been making progress on the mirror and the light, the book of three, and now the novel of heaven official's blessing courtesy of @viciousmerlin. more to report when i've been at it a bit longer but >:) >:)

watching sought out things that would make me laugh, that weren't romantic in the slightest, that my housemates would be interested in joining me on-- housemate d. and i holed up in front of the greatest showman (one of her comfort movies) and some stand-up by taylor tomlinson and gabriel iglesias; housemates m. and g. and i streamed ted lasso 2.08-2.10 together; housemate g. and i have been steadily knocking episodes of star trek: the lowerdecks and we're well into season two now. i could speak to each of these individually, i enjoyed each of them in their own ways, but it's enough to say now that-- ted lasso is objectively the best, those emmys are deserved, and lower decks has the kind of lovingly chaotic star trek energy that i haven't seen done so well since galaxy quest (and my favorite untamed trek-au fic, you know the one). every single time they refer to a character / plot point / gag from an earlier series, i fall in love all over again-- the spock + kirk carved into the bar of the most recent ep's dive bar felt like i was going to ascend.

listening i recharged my ancient ipod touch from 2014 last week, and have been reconnecting with the itunes library i had assembled back then. it's a distillation of my high school and college taste, but a lot of it still resonates-- or resonates more now-- and listening to it all has been a trip down memory lane, a way to honor or return to some of the core bits of myself, and an escape from my current spotify playlists with all the associations there. shout-outs to a few old ingrid michaelson songs for being way more intense about relationships than i usually care to get, which has been cathartic in its own way. this one is the most immediately relatable, though, and yes i know its a mid twenty-tens cliche but we're overlooking that.

youtube

playing not much to report here except that i picked up the ds again yesterday and sank a few more hours into ultra moon, i've lost the plot after completing the first stage of the island quest but i did catch a bunch of new friends and name one of them waldetrude, so really, i'm winning here.

making weird how a purse you got for free from your place of employment in 2017 can start to look kinda worn and shitty after nearly five years? the thin film of color on the vinyl is pealing and leaving odd white patches, so i've armed myself with some leather/vinyl pigment dye and, failing that, embroidery thread, and. well. it can look a lot worse than it currently does, but it can also look a lot better and the only way to find out is to try, right?

working on trying not to be just swept away in teaching-related prep and emails (emails, emails, emails), trying to fucking do something with this diss proposal outline i should have sent to the supervisor in august what the hell am i doing. deep breaths. deep, uh. breaths.

#in lieu of a commonplace book #ilcb #weekly roundup #which is a lie since this is like...every three weeks #at best #right now #Youtube

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argumentl · 4 years ago

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The Freedom of Expression Ep 1 - Haruna Fuuka files lawsuit against internet slanderers

*with Kaoru (K), Joe (J), Tasai (T) , who is a journalist writing for the newspaper Tokyo Sports, and Kami/god.*

Kaoru: Hi, this is Dir en grey's Kaoru. Have you heard of 'The Freedom of Expression' somewhere before?

Joe, Tasai : *noding*

K: I've a feeling we've done this before...

J: Thats right, yes...Its not a feeling, we actually did.

K: We are reviving the show we did on the radio station InterFM from 2015-16, on youtube this time.

J: Awesome

*applause*

J: I was really happy when I was first told about the revival.

K: I was also surprised *laughs*

J: Its not that you were made to revive the show though, right Kaoru?

K: The suggestion just came at me.

J: Oh really, like 'How about it?'

K: Like, 'Wanna tryy?' 1*

J: Ah, in a Kansai accent?

K:Yes yes

J: Like, 'Lets tryyy'..kind of thing...it started like that *laughs*

K: Yep

J: We did quite a lot (on InterFM). We even did a special edition

K, T : Yes, we did

J: We even made stickers

K: Brazil!

J:Yes

T: Ah, the live broadcast..at the Olympics

J: It was Dobashi san...Bishbash Dobashi san.

T: It would be good if we could do another live broadcast at this year's Tokyo Olympics.

J: On this You tube channel?

T: Yes *laughs*

J: A live broadcast might be a bit difficult legally, as for the Olymipcs *T laughs*

K: Um, thats *shhh*

J: Oh, its a secret!' *K laughing* Maybe if were are asked by Tokyo Sports..?

K: Yes yes...So, as to the freedom of expression...

Kami/god: Wait, wait, wait..I've come down too.

J: Oh, Kami?

K: He's saying it from himself *laughs*..I thought he would come if we beckoned him though.

J: Thats what usually happened. He was the kind of god that would come down after we called him, but now a god that comes down on his own accord.

K: Wasn't he like that before too? Should we keep him in reseve a bit more?

J: He'll want to appear, we can't help it?

Kami: You were forgetting about me!

K: We are not forgetting you!

Kami: You musn't forget your god!

*laughing*

T: We are not forgetting you!

Kami: Its not good!

J: You are always in our hearts.

T: Yes, he is.

Kami: Yes, thats it..you have to think like that.

J: But, you are not in the studio today, kami?

Kami: Oh..um, im just getting off a night shift..

J: A night shift?!

K: Ah, but it was like that before..

Kami: Right.

J: You are doing night shift work again? *Tasai laughs*

Kami: yes, thats right.

K: That was a while ago wasn't it, how many years ago?

J: Oh, is this the night shift season?

Kami: No, its..

T: You worked for ￥1000 per hour right?

Kami: Yes, yes...my hourly rate has risen a bit though. They were telling me 'Take a rest, take a rest', so my income dropped.

J: Ahh, its what they called a 'reformed working style', right?

Kami: Right

J: Its tough for you too, Kami.

Kami: *laughs* Yes it is.

K: He's the same as ever... so lets get started.

J, T: Please

K: Ah, by the way, Tasai san, as well as Bishbashi Dohashi san, wasn't there another person before (at InterFM)?

T: Yes..a beastly guy *K laughs* An old aquaintance of the listeners', a guy called Monster Hiranabe.

J: Its a strange story, but once when a certain celebrity died, Hiranabe-san called me up, and asked me if I had known the deceased guy...as soon as I said that I hadn't known him very well, he hung up on me straight away!

T: Thats awful!

J: He is awful

T: This very guy, Hiranabe, even got a promotion from the manager.

J: Eh? Promoted to what?!

T: To Director

J:Eh?! Really?

K: Is that okay??

J: No, it'll be terrible!

K: Right, lets move onto the main news...I'd like to get deeper into the concept of 'The Freedom of Expression'.

J: Right, so Haruna Fuuka has filed a lawsuit againts those who engage in 'internet slander'.

A tweet stated 'Both her parents created a failure'.

On Jan 14th, 18 year old Haruna and her mother filed a lawsuit at Yokohama district court demanding ￥2,654,000 in damages from a person engaged in spreading falsehoods which have damaged her dignity.

On the acknowledgement that these tweets went beyond what was deemed acceptable by society at large, on Nov 1st the internet provider was ordered to make public the persons name and address etc.

Haruna has been tweeting since the age of 9, giving her opinion at random about society's problems, and creating a stir. She now has over 200,000 followers and is fighting 10 years of slander. Kaoru, what do you think about this?

K: Well..I mean, naturally, you'd feel like that..

J: Hmm, but I don't know the details but..the name of the defendant has been withheld...well, its a common problem that as a person speaking in the public eye, you are going to get criticism along with praise...like a 'fame tax'. That said, how far do you go before honour is damaged? On SNS, you are of course free to express yourself, you can write what you want, but the issue is what constitutes damage to honour. This might be a very difficult area in which to draw a legal line, but on the other hand, if you don't draw a legal line, things may escalate out of control...Kaoru, what do you think?

K: Well for example, if banter between friends is written down...controlling that...Its best not to look at whats written in the first place.

J: Ah, the person in question right? By the way Kaoru, its a strange question, but do you search for yourself online?

K: No, not really. I hear things, the office staff will tell me.

J: Oh, if anything is being said?

T: In the world of fame its quite true, that even if 98 or 99 opinions out of 100 are good, the one negative thing will stand out.

K: Well, yes, its the bad things that..

J: On the other hand, from the writers' perspective at Tokyo Sports, how far are you willing to slander someone? You could write an article in a good or bad way..

T: Of course balance is important, but of course, if the courts want to complain to us, they can call us, and start an exchange, but in the case of slanders on the internet, its like, who do you complain to? So, if you ask celebrities, they will say Tokyo Sports slander is better than anonymous online slander because at least they can complain to our face.

J: Mm, absolutely. Just how far do we protect these tweets, these freedoms of expression? Its difficult.

K: Are these really 'expressions'?

J: Well, esentially, yes. When you say 'tweets' you think of nonsense, but really its media expressing things, or artists expressing things..

K: Yes, yes, you can get a sense of individual expression.

J: And this especially has the power to influence...

K: Yes, and people get swept up in it.

J: I think this is universal, but at the moment I think Japan is bit like a geyser, people will rush towards any incident and some will start complaining, I mean, I think its important to say what you feel, but its complaining without trying to solve anything, only satisfying yourself.

K: Thats it

J: Its sounds strange to say, but it ends like masturbation. If it turns into something towards a soloution its ok, but just creating thoughtless slander to satisfy yourself is questionable.

K: So its often said, if you continue the conversation only looking at the bad things, it can't be helped. There are also good people out there..you know, put more importance on those people. How to put it...its like we said before, if you focus too much on that one out of a hundred, its kind of rude to the other 99.

J: I see. Still this person has over 200,000 followers and its said she has been fighting slander for ten years.

T: She's always been a bit of a talking point online. I'll just search for her.

J: I also have Instagram, I do stuff to do with societal problems on The Dave Fromm show's youtube channel, and whenever I upload about it (on IG), my followers decrease! *everyone laughs* Outrageously decrease! Im serious, despite getting so far, that channel updates every week, and with every update my followers decrease. Maybe people hate reading about societal problems..*to Tasai* What did you find?

T: So for example there was that thing recently about regulating gamers to 60mins per session, she had quite a few things to say about that, playing vs learning etc.

J: I see..Young people do complain, well you can't really tell here, but on the other hand, young people these days, i know they would hate us old guys talking about this, but young people apparently have three main taboos. The first is talking about sex, they dont follow this, the second is politics, they don't follow this either, and the other one is, they don't like being made to talk about the kind of things that they really need to be talking about...there seems to be this kind of trend. So i think in this way...theres a chance Haruna is getting right to the point of this. But certainly, applying the law in a way that recognises infringement/damage to honour by way of personal utterances has the potential to lead to restrictions on the freedom of expression. Its a difficult play off, isnt it?

T: Yes, it really is

J: Obviously, when it comes to race, or racial discrimination, there has come to be rules concerning hate speech and so on, but how far can you regulate one-to-one slandering, or..how far can you protect the person being attacked? Should the country or the judiciary decide this? Its difficult.

K: Kami, what do you think? Are you there?

Kami: Well, I hear slanders towards me all the time *everyone laughs* Like, god tells lies, god is useless, or even that there is no such thing as god!

J: Ahh, i see. They deny you!

Kami: Yes, thats it. If I care about those things, I lose!

J: Do you search for yourself online?

Kami: I do. *everyone laughs* ..and whenever I do its only ever those things that come up.

J: Ah of course...Kami, you have an exceptionally good handle on social media dont you?

T: He's great

Kami: Ive got a good handle on it.

J: Do you use an iphone?

Kami: I have two.

J: God has two iphones! Thats brilliant.

Kami: Yep, I have two...im not allowed to use them while im working.

T: Does he have a contract? With his address and such?

J: I can't tell whether he's great, or whether he's not so great...

Kami: If i care, I lose...I prefer them to hate me, rather than to be indifferent to me.

K: Kami, what do you think about playing computer games for one hour?

Kami: If the kid is good at it, they should keep doing it.

T: I see, i see.

J: Ohh not sure about that. That seems a bit out.

Kami: No, i really think so. Skilled kids can carry on playing.

K: Should unskilled ones give up?

Kami: Yes, they shouldn't do it...When they play all day, and they just can't clear the level..that kind of kid.

K: Its a waste of time right?

Kami: Exactly, its a waste.

J: They should do something else?

Kami: Yes

K: You should quit if you have no talent for it?

Kami: Yes, yes, its talent.

J: Well, just getting off a nightshift must be tiring.

K: For us too, you know, we should try not to say 'stop it' too quickly...we have to keep it interesting.

Kami: It was interesting though, I was listening.

T: Oh thank you.

Kami: But don't tell lies about me.

T: If you thought it was interesting, you should write about it on your social media.

Kami: Yeh, everyone pretends on social media anyway, they won't know its me.

K: Well, that was the first episode of 'The Freedom of Expression' but, should I ask how it was..? *laughs*

J: But, being together again after a while was refreshing..

K,T: Yes, thats right

T: Im happy.

J: So am I.

K: Well, so we started in this vein....Tune in next time to see how it goes. So this time, only this camera, theres nothing here *gestures behind*, but if lots of people watch, we could go different places, increase our cameras. I still don't know about your fee, Joe.

J: Eh?! What do you mean? It says here my fee will stay the same!

K: I might have to lower it *laughs*

J: *coughs* You're only lowering mine?...But everyone please subscribe.

K: Yes please. Please look forward to next time. Thank you very much.

1* They are saying 'How about this?' in a Kansai accent, how to translate that??

#dir en grey #the freedom of expression #kaoru #薫 #tfoe #tfoe01

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freddiesaysalright · 5 years ago

Note

Since you’re KILLING US with the angst in Catching Up, could you do something fluffy where one of the guys (any honestly, but I was picturing Joe because it seems true to form) accidentally reveals in an interview you two are expecting? I would LOVE it! If you don’t have time, totally fine. I just love your writings!! 😘

Please accept this as my formal apology for the pain I’ve inflicted lol

You looked around at the studio once again, still amazed. It was your first time being there while Joe was doing an interview. All four of the guys looked good as a few makeup artists powdered their faces before the camera began rolling again. It seemed so glamorous.

When the countdown started again, you looked on, gazing at Joe with complete adoration. He was so cute in interviews. So charming and funny. And he always showed his appreciation for his castmates.

“And we’re back with the cast of Bohemian Rhapsody,” said the anchor. “Thanks again for being with us today, fellas. We’ve talked a little already about getting into your roles for this film. How were Brian and Roger with telling you about who you were playing?”

“It’s a bit funny,” said Gwilym. “They don’t do a very good job in telling about themselves. If I wanted to know more about Brian, I had to ask Rog.”

“And vice versa,” added Ben.

“Of course, they were both really helpful to me and Joe, who didn’t have our sort of guys to tell us about themselves,” said Rami. “Although, like what Gwil said, I think John and Freddie especially would have had an easier time talking about the others.”

“Roger helped me a lot with my accent,” said Joe with a laugh. “I still don’t think he was totally satisfied, but it was legitimately the toughest accent I’ve had to do for a part.”

They spoke some more about Brian and Roger and then the anchor changed the subject to outside Bohemian Rhapsody.

“I know Gwilym’s got another film coming out, and Ben, you’re about to start shooting your next project as well,” he said. “Rami, Joe, any exciting new roles coming up?”

“I’m in talks for a new project,” Rami said with a grin. “All I can say is that it’s a big franchise. But I can’t give anything else away.”

“Joe?” asked the anchor.

“Geez, I’ve been so worried about the baby, I haven’t even looked at other parts,” Joe said, running a hand through his hair.

It was like everything came to a halt as all eyes snapped to Joe.

“What?” said Rami.

“Oh, God,” Joe said as the color drained from his face.

Your hands jumped to your mouth to stifle the gasp. You weren’t supposed to tell anyone for another two weeks.

“Oh - wow,” said the anchor in a desperate attempt to recover. “We saw you just recently got engaged. Is there a baby Mazzello on the way?”

“Yes,” Joe confirmed with an uncomfortable laugh. “I wasn’t supposed to say anything yet, but I totally screwed that up.”

“Well, your fiance is here, right?”

“Yeah, she’s right over there,” he said, pointing.

“Let’s bring her out,” the anchor said.

The EP and some PAs grabbed your hand and took you to the right place to enter the studio. Someone got a mic on you haphazardly. One set a chair up for you next to Joe’s. You were shaking, shocked that Joe had let it slip and now even more surprised you were going on television.

“Welcome!” the anchor said warmly. “Can you tell us your name?”

“Y/N Y/L/N,” you said nervously. Joe took your hand.

“Hey, baby,” he said softly.

“Hi,” you returned with a smile.

“Congratulations!” Ben cried, and the others wished you well too.

“Thanks, guys,” you said.

“How far along?” the anchor asked.

“About ten weeks,” you replied. “I suppose it’s close enough to twelve.”

“Hope you’re not mad,” Joe joked.

“No, of course not,” you assured him. “I’m too excited to be mad.”

“We’ve got to go to commercial, but when we come back, we want to know more!” the anchor said.

When they cut, you looked at Joe started to apologize, but you burst into laughter.

“Joe!” you gasped, wiping your eyes. “You’re such an idiot, I love you so much!”

He smiled, leaning over to kiss you on the cheek. “As long as you still love me.”

“Of course,” you said with a deep breath, your giggling dying down. “I’ll love you forever.”

#joe mazzello #joe mazzello x reader #joe mazzello imagine #joe mazzello x you #BoRhap #BoRhap cast #bohemian rhapsody #borhap boys #borhap imagine #bohemian rhapsody imagine #queen #queen imagine #John Deacon #John deacon imagine #john deacon x reader #john deacon x you

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princessamericachavez · 6 years ago

Note

so, you're posts about critical role and you're ship have got me quite interested. do you have any tips on watching it for someone who knows next to nothing about it?

Hey! So I knew next to nothing about D&D when I started watching Campaign One, but I found that most of the rules are easy to infer as you watch them play and any other stuff you don’t understand is one quick google search away. Mostly, it’s pretty simple.

I suggest you start with Campaign 2, since it’s still on-going and it will let you participate more actively in the current fandom.

You can find all the episodes on Youtube. Here’s a link to a playlist with all of them so far:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byva0hOj8CU&list=PL1tiwbzkOjQxD0jjAE7PsWoaCrs0EkBH2

New episodes air on Thursdays on the Critical Role Twitch channel and are uploaded to Youtube on Mondays.

Don’t be too intimidated by the ep count or length. You can go at your own pace and, in my experience, the stories are so compelling that the episodes end up feeling short!

You can also find all of the episodes as Podcasts, so that might be simpler if you wanna listen as you drive or work or do other stuff.

Other things you might like to know about it before you start:

The show started as a homegame between the cast, who are friends irl, and halfway through their first game they were invited to livestream it. From then, it took off at a pace that still amazes the cast. Most of them are Voice Actors or Voice Acting Directors or writers, which makes them amazing storytellers.

Their first campaign is also on YT. It’s 115 episodes long and a lot of fun! I’m almost entirely caught up with it and also really recommend it, but maybe focus on one campaign at a time for starters.

The cast, btw, are all amazing and loving people. A quick basic guide:

Matt Mercer: the dungeon master, a soft loving soul, and an incredible storyteller. He loves his friends a lot and always tries to make their game/story in a way that will make them have fun and be happy even if people online might complain that it isn’t how they would’ve done it.

Marisha Ray: his wife, a total badass, CR’s creative director. She used to get a lot of hate for her character in C1 from some terrible people online but she never let that stop her from playing her in a way that felt true to herself, she’s also a very loud advocate for stopping online harassment.

Laura Bailey: she’s another badass, literal angel with a dirty mind, she’s married to Travis and they are adorable. Her first campaign character was Liam’s twins and they have a very sibling-like relationship despite not being related irl. Legend has it, the first time they all played together, Laura was the first one to go in full on acting and making voices and stuff and it pushed the whole cast to really immerse into the experience.

Travis Willingham: a wonderful soft jock with the heart of a nerd and strong heart-eyes for his wife. He’s the opposite to toxic masculinity. Also, he used to play a dumb barbarian in the first campaign so this time around he’s trying something entirely new for him and it’s delightful to watch.

Taliesin Jaffe: the closest thing you will find in real life to a fey creature, goth dad, his air is full of magic and his heart full of love and good advice. He’s really an amazing person all around. Also, probably, immortal. Used to play the smug tortured man in the first campaign, his old character also invented guns so you’ll see the cast side-eyeing him whenever they encounter fire weapons during the second campaign.

Liam O'Brien: this man is such a wonderful actor that loves breaking all of our hearts with his storytelling, he really loves tragedy but is also kind of a trickster himself? He is “twinnies” with Laura and bffs with Sam, they and the fandom constantly joke about being married.

Sam Riegel: a chaotic trickster god. Really though, this man is a comedic genius who lives to make people around him laugh and will rip your heart out when you least expect it. People like to joke about Bards being the worst class but his C1 bard was the stuff of legend. He’s an amazing player and actor. His current character is a rogue, like Liam’s C1 character, which is why you’ll see Liam gushing with excitement about Sam rolling stealth checks.

Ashley Johnson: Yet another badass lady. You might have seen her in that old movie What Women Want or more recently in Blindspot. She has the face of an angel but is a real undercover agent for chaos. She comes and goes because her show is shot in NY but you can tell how much brightness she brings to the table when she’s home. Her old character and Travis’s were bffs and this time she’s playing a Barbarian, so you’ll see Travis going wild whenever he gets to see her fight.

Brian Foster: He interviews the cast every Tuesday about the latest show, he’s incredibly funny and charming. Also, he and Ashley are engaged! People joke that he smells like cabbage (idk why?) but he’s amazing all around and part of the family. He doesn’t play in the campaign but has appeared in a few of the one-shots.

Dani Carr: An angel that works with the team, gushes over ships and banters with Brian during Talks Machina. She’s wonderful and sweet! Also she runs a preshow recap of last week’s episode to refresh everyone on the important stuff or fill in anyone who might’ve missed it.

The characters, well, I could speak forever about them but the real joy is getting to know them yourself. Here’s a quick line-up of them, though:

I hope you have fun watching! This is all I could think about for now but let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to know about!

#critical role #sofia's nonsense #Anonymous

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mittensmorgul · 5 years ago

Note

I don't mean to 'dog pile' but your recent discussions on s9 has brought up one of my few real peevs on the show. I recognize that the show has declared that without his Grace, Cas is human. I don't like it, but I understand that to be the case. But it doesn't make any sense? In s6 Cas says to Crowley, "I'm an angel you ass, I don't have a soul." And yet without his Grace he apparently has one? I go with it because that's what the show has declared even if i don't think it makes sense. Oh well!

Disclaimer for everyone who is not li-izumi and is reading this feeling sort of vaguely confused… I got this message yesterday, and had a very limited time to reply before having to run out and Adult™, but I sent a bunch of links to past things I’d written, which can all be found in my tags:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels%20and%20souls/chrono

and

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on%20the%20nature%20of%20angel%20grace/chrono

there’s some overlap between those two tags, but almost everything i’ve ever written about the subject is in there… I say “almost” because tumblr refuses to organize tags out beyond, I believe, the 5th tag, so if I rambled in the tags and then stuck the grace tags on at the end, it won’t filter into these searches… sorry… I did, however, put all the contents I had in these tags as of December 2018 into this ao3 post, which might be easier to read through, or might be more difficult to read through, and doesn’t include anything I’ve written after 12/2018…

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17019936

There’s also my tag for “Cas vs Humanity,” where I talk about all of this from another direction:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/you%20learned%20it%20from%20the%20goats/chrono

And for further reference, this is regarding the long back and forth I had with zerbe yesterday, here:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/190817337615/i-was-rewatching-s9-and-i-reached-the-ep-where-cas

I was originally gonna reply to this privately, but I think I did a fair job summing up my core thoughts on this in just a few paragraphs, so I’m posting it here as a sort of tl;dr for everything linked above… :’D

OKAY, NOW ON TO THE ACTUAL REPLY!

***

I don’t know if everything from that post back and forth with zerbe answered your question or just gave you more… or if any of those links I through at you in the chatbubbles yesterday helped…

But one more thing, which I’m not sure was included in any of those linked posts or not, but is something I know I’ve talked about in the past, including as recently as 14.19 when Jack was turning humans into angels, is the commonalities between angelic grace and human souls.

My theory since s4, since we first met Anna, has been that there is a core to the being of an angel that encompasses their “personalities,” for lack of a better word, and their thoughts and memories… and that this kernel of being is the “identity” of an angel separate from the “power pack” of the grace that encompasses their “mojo.”

The fact that Anna still could hear angel radio and was eventually able to access her memories of having been an angel even though she’d cut out her grace and literally been born as a human, with a human soul, was all the proof I personally needed that despite everything else they are, angels do have a nascent or primordial seed of a human soul within themselves that they can literally choose to nurture or not. And Cas, by his choices, has been nurturing that part of himself since s4.

And when Cas had the “power pack” portion of his grace cut out by Metatron, he wasn’t left “soulless,” in comparison to every other example we have of a soulless person on the entire run of the series. He was perhaps even MORE overwhelmed by his own human feelings than at any other time in his history on the show. His personality, memories, his preferences and emotional engagement with life, and the essential core of his identity wasn’t extracted when his grace was. So what was left? The show seems to be actively begging us to consider this, especially when Metatron stated directly that he believed he’d left Cas with the equivalent of a human soul in 8.23.

Cas had no wings, no “mojo,” but he had his entire personality, all his memories, everything that comprised his fundamental identity… but no grace.

The show has contrasted this by demonstrating the other way an angel can inhabit and then leave a human vessel– as that glowing cloud of grace– that incorporates all these “personality traits” and memories, etc. into the grace cloud. So clearly, that portion of an angel’s grace is somehow not the same thing as the “mojo” portion.

That leaves us to question what exactly Cas was at that point, and because of all of his other actions and choices during that time, the only reasonable conclusion I could personally arrive at was that yes, that was the equivalent of a human soul.

I mentioned Jack converting human souls into angels in 14.19, because before when I’d mentioned my theory of grace as stated above, folks countered or dismissed my theory because it apparently didn’t work in the other direction, of the potential for a human soul to have this “mojo power pack” grafted on to it, to make a human into an angel. But this is exactly what Jack did, so I feel even more content with my personal theory about what angel grace actually is, and how it functions, and how at the very center of every angel is this kernel of potential to nurture their very own human soul.

OH! And after going back and writing the long intro into this post and considering how the heck to actually tag this thing, I feel it’s important to also mention that 6.20, where Cas delivered that “I don’t have a soul” line, was written by Ben Edlund, who also wrote 5.14, wherein under the influence of Famine, Cas developed a craving for burgers that, in episode, he deflected HARD and blamed his sudden craving for red meat on Jimmy, on his vessel… but I always ALWAYS have read the fact he turned away, broke eye contact with Dean when he made that statement, as a direct deflection, as him deliberately handwaving the fact that Cas himself was “becoming more and more human” during s5, culminating with the near-complete loss of his powers by the time he wakes up in the hospital in 5.21 and could no longer deny the fact that he’d lost his angelic powers.

And for those who require Authorial Intent as proof of things like this, that’s essentially what Edlund said he was attempting to prove with that line.

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/159579521875/i-always-reserve-in-castiels-overall-makeup-the

“I always reserve in Castiel’s overall makeup the fact that there is an aspect of him that is purely flesh and purely human, which can function as it did in an episode before as a real Achilles’ heel, when he started to eat meat, because he just loved red meat. He couldn’t stop himself.”— Ben Edlund (May 6, 2011) in Supernatural’s “Cliffhanger Is Deeply Involved With Castiel’s Fate” (via justanotheridijiton)

I wrote in far more detail on that episode, and what it implied about Cas himself, right here:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/159772440305/514-same-cas-same-lizbob-was-laughing-at-me

I hope that covers it, but if not, please feel free to poke at it some more :’D

#spn 6.20 #spn 5.14 #spn 14.19 #on the nature of angel grace #angels and souls #you learned it from the goats #actual quote i just used elsewhere: Damn Ben Edlund #li izumi

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sonicawareness · 5 years ago

Text

The Best Albums of 2019

After listening to more than 2000 new albums in 2019, I’ve narrowed my picks down to The 20 Best Records of 2019.

I’ve included 3 essential songs from each pick, as well as a choice lyrical clip and a brief description of the album.

Noting beats actually LISTENING TO MUSIC! So don’t just read my thoughts: follow and listen to the Spotify playlist containing 60 songs from the top 20 albums:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5TWlfWoo54MQ5cYTMmB0RI?si=M_23L6DDRieVuA845A90Pg

01: Yung Gravy - Sensational

Aptly titled Sensational, this debut full-length is a thirty minute party that dances between the hottest trap beats, well-placed samples, and the young Minnesota rapper’s braggadocious persona and ridiculous raps

Hey Alexa, how many bitches can we fit in the Tesla?...Pull up in that Model X with your model ex!

“Whip a Tesla” • “1 Thot 2 Thot Red Thot Blue Thot” • “The Boys Are Back in Town”

02: TWICE - &TWICE • Feel Special EP • FANCY YOU EP

Nine young South Korean women radiate endless energy, bountiful bliss, and some of the catchiest songs to come out not only in 2019 but recent memory

Even when things go wrong, feelings out of control: lessons, to be sure. Be okay, all right! Even a crying face is glittering, filter and laugh! You can return to invincibility, right? Blow off, and we havin’ fun! [Translated from original Japanese]

“Fake and True” • “Breakthrough” • “Stronger”

03: Sublime with Rome - Blessings

Frontman, bandleader, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Rome Ramirez delivers his finest record to date: eleven heartfelt reggae-driven songs that are as well-written as they are masterfully recorded and produced

Watching you feel good tonight: it's your song up on the station, and we don't even know no words. I wanna hear you roll your R’s, singing Spanish in the car, “Dime algo hermosa tonight”.

“Wicked Heart” • “Light On” • “For the Night”

04: Bring Me the Horizon - amo

Cohesive yet genre-spanning (metalcore, hip-hop, electronic, and pop, to name just a few), the sixth album from the English quintet is an emotional yet insightful rollercoaster masterpiece

Before the truth will set you free, it'll piss you off. Before you find a place to be, you're gonna lose the plot. Too late to tell you now, one ear and right out the other one ‘cause all you ever do is chant the same old mantra.

“MANTRA” • “wonderful life” • “i apologise if you feel something”

05: Weezer - Weezer (Black Album)

Expertly produced and instantly memorable, the long-running Rivers Cuomo-driven California quartet is once again in top form, adding yet another fresh and unique — but distinctly Weezer — record to their extensive discography

Don't get mad at me, I'm just being honest. I should have lied, now you're mad at me? I'm just being honest. How 'bout from now on you'll write the script, I'll read the lines?

“Can’t Knock the Hustle” • “Zombie Bastards” • “Living in L.A.”

06: Big Data - 3.0

Like this sophomore album’s lyrical content — exploration of the impact artificial intelligence will have on humans and on the Earth — the latest project from producer, multi-instrumentalist, and mastermind Alan Wilkis is paradoxically dark yet bright; like AI, this album’s execution is equally flawless and Dangerous

I created a monster, it's out of control, it's going to take me...I didn't know what I was making...But now it's coming, coming for all of us!

“Monster” • “See Through” • “Evolution Once Again”

07: blackbear - ANONYMOUS

Vibrant yet dark, personal yet accessible, the fifth album from Mat Musto is a collection of 18 vulnerable, confessional songs told over slick electronic and hip-hop sounds

You drop the bag and ask me how my weekend was. I love that, though. You laugh when I make stupid jokes, and when I went to rehab, you didn't judge me that bad. I struggle with addiction probs, you always got my back. What am I gonna do the day that my drug dealer moves away? Whatever am I gonna say to my new plug? It just ain't the same.

“DOWN” • “HATE MY GUTS” • “DRUG DEALER”

08: Denzel Curry - ZUU

Hit-after-hit of hip-hop bangers pack this album’s half-hour runtime, with a plethora of guests joining the fray but never quite knocking it out like the young Miami native, Denzel Curry

First they mockin', now they hoppin', all on the wave, 'cause they see me poppin'. Big-big-big large pockets, they start flockin'. Here's what I say when they ass keep knockin'...

“RICKY” • “BIRDZ” • “ZUU”

09: DaBaby - KIRK / Baby on Baby

On his two 2019 albums, his first proper efforts after countless mixtapes and singles, DaBaby unleashes his signature, incessant vocals over relentless trap and modern hip-hop beats

Prolly heard I was broke from a broke nigga, prolly heard I'm a ho from a ho! I don't know what you know, I ain't runnin' from no nigga, let’s go!

“BOP” • “OFF THE RIP” • “Suge”

10: Bayside - Interrobang

On their eighth album, the Anthony Raneri-fronted New York natives sound refreshed, focused, and tighter than ever telling their trademark tales of heartbreak and healing

I love that music saved you, and Lord knows it’s saved me too, but songs never love you back, and you never know the person preaching to you...

“Interrobang” • “Prayers” • “Bury Me”

11: The Hold Steady - Thrashing Thru The Passion

Few frontmen can weave an album’s worth of compelling narratives, yet the Brooklyn band’s Craig Finn finds himself on the seventh The Hold Steady album once again delivering ten more engaging, interlocked tales over his band’s fierce guitar riffs and all-too-catchy choruses

Thanks for listening, thanks for understanding: tequila takeoff, Tecate landing.

“Entitlement Crew” • “Denver Haircut” • “You Did Good Kid”

12: Electric Guest - KIN

Sugary sweet, the third record from the California duo promptly polishes any rough few rough edges they once had to deliver a perfectly slick yet quirkily heartwarming collection of eleven easy-listening songs

I'm like, “this mothafucka might sue me, and that mothafucka might boo me”. I'ma keep on goin' to a better day, all this other bitterness can fade away.

“Dollar” • “I Got the Money” • “More”

13: Billie Eilish - WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?

Part punk energy without sounding even slightly punk, part emo diary without being a dashboard confessional, the debut record from American teenager Billie Eilish craftily bounces between genres, haunting sounds, and strange stories

If you think I’m pretty, you should see me in a crown. I'm gonna run this nothing town. Watch me make 'em bow one by one by one.

“bad guy” • “my strange addiction” • “you should see me in a crown”

14: The Cat Empire - Stolen Diamonds

The eighth album from Australia’s The Cat Empire is a full-blown dance party packed with catchy, clever songwriting and a room full of drums, horns, strings, keyboards, turntables, and bass

Operator, please, I can’t get out my head. Tell me where I’m going or where I’m being led. Tell me like an order, and order I’ll obey. Maybe I just thought you said, or did I did I hear you say, “We’re going to ([kill a man]) Kilaman-jaro, jaro…”

“KIla” • “Stolen Diamonds” • “Ready Now”

15: Dirty Heads - Super Moon

Co-frontmen Dirty J and Duddy B return to the beach for the seventh Dirty Heads album, borrowing sounds from across their entire discography of acoustic guitars and witty hip-hop to craft a surprisingly delicate record

I'm a flame, I'm a beacon that won't go out. In the dark, in the rain, I'm your lighthouse. When you can't stand the pain, hope you know now, I'll keep you safe, I'm your lighthouse.

“Super Moon” • “Lift Me Up” • “Tender Boy”

16: TENDER - Fear of Falling Asleep

Dark and uninviting, the second album from this London duo is an intimidating but rewarding listen delicately spiced with just enough hooks to keep you trapped in its atmospheric dreams

I’ll be looking for the scent when it goes cold. I’ve been trying to beat the maze with a blindfold on. I’ve been foraging through mud and sticks searching for that power that don’t exist.

“Closer Still” • “Bottled Up” • “Handmade Ego”

17: Logic - Confessions of a Dangerous Mind / Supermarket Soundtrack

Logic returns once again with countless rhymes delivered over his trademark breathless bars, frequently painting an all-too-vivid picture of a famous rapper struggling to comprehend the world around him

All these comments got me lost in my mind; all these thoughts that I'm having are not mine. I always post that I'm having a good time so my life looks perfect online...

“Homicide” • “Don’t Be Afraid to Be Different” • “Lemon Drop”

18: Tyga - Legendary

More than just a collection of hits, the seventh album from the Compton rapper is well-sequenced and effortlessly laced with hook-after-hook for Tyga to deliver his signature obscene lines about things he self-admittedly has too many [sic] of: money, cash, hoes, cars, clothes, flows

Hey, shut the fuck up, bitch, you know who I are. Point blank range, and I'm shootin' for the stars. You niggas subpar and I just raised the bar. You got Rollies on your wrist, this is Chopard. Slide on your block like a fuckin' go-kart, my nigga A&R, still got an AR.

“Haute” • “Lightskin Little Wayne” • “On Me”

19: The Chainsmokers - World War Joy

The third album in three years from Alex Pall and Drew Taggart (and no shortage of guests) is an easy, light collection of ten slick relationship-focused pop songs that find the duo largely eschewing their dance-centric history

You said, "Hey, whatcha doing for the rest of your life?" and I said, "I don't even know what I'm doing tonight". Went from one conversation to your lips on mine.

“The Reaper” • “Family” • “P.S. I Hope You’re Happy”

20: Bear Hands - Fake Tunes

Brooklyn’s Bear Hands returns with another collection of bright, bouncy songs that ever-so-slightly conceal the trio’s underlying sadness and struggles

I don't see how you think you can come to me, and bitch to me, lay out your problems, like ancient history, like I ain't got no other shit to do. I love you, baby, but my lips are turnin' blue.

“Blue Lips” • “Back Seat Driver (Spirit Guide)” • “Mr. Radioactive”

THE BEST ALBUMS OF 2019

Yung Gravy - Sensational

TWICE - &TWICE • Feel Special EP • FANCY YOU EP

Sublime with Rome - Blessings

Bring Me the Horizon - amo

Weezer - Weezer (Black Album)

Big Data - 3.0

blackbear - ANONYMOUS

Denzel Curry - ZUU

DaBaby - KIRK / Baby on Baby

Bayside - Interrobang

The Hold Steady - Thrashing Thru The Passion

Electric Guest - KIN

Billie Eilish - WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?

The Cat Empire - Stolen Diamonds

Dirty Heads - Super Moon

TENDER - Fear of Falling Asleep

Logic - Confessions of a Dangerous Mind / Supermarket Soundtrack

Tyga - Legendary

The Chainsmokers - World War Joy

Bear Hands - Fake Tunes

#best albums

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randomnumbers751650 · 6 years ago

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So, I'm writing this because I'm trying to understand psychological horror, focusing on two animes from last year: Angels of Death and Happy Sugar Life. I wanted to write this because I got inspired by discussions on the Netflix's Ted Bundy show, Explanation Point's video on HSL (which made me watch it), and because I made the mistake of reading AoD's prequel manga Episode 0. Spoilers abound.

Due to way I was raised, I have difficulty in understanding stories that villains are the protagonists. Why would anyone cheer for them? Sure, there are many logical arguments, like the attempt to understand how his mind works and the cathartic feeling of being able to do feelings you know you'd be wrong. I have a RP blog and I once talked to with a friend on trying to understand how musing an utterly despicable muse could be so cathartic and she wondered if it's because it allows her to vent her stress and negative feelings on fictional characters, instead of real people. Logically, it makes sense, but I still feel odd about it.

I first watched Angels of Death because I really enjoyed the portrayal one of my best friends in the RPC had of the protagonist, Rachel Gardner. I honestly think it was a well-written anime, Rachel telling Zack that they weren't tools and the climax with the building on fire were my favorite moments. AoD also had a great advantage because it was self-aware, the banter between Rachel and Zack was pretty hilarious, and Cathy and Danny were also evilly funny. I always wondered how AoD managed to get to be an anime and Ib not...

Also, another thing that AoD makes sure to show is that every single named member of the cast is a murderer, and the man behind everything judges himself God for the sake of an experiment. It shows Zack murdering people in flashbacks and enjoying every single minute of it. In fact, the biggest plot twist is that the apparently innocent Rachel is probably the most dangerous murderer of them, the moment when she tries to kill Zack in her floor was a moment that actually got me on the edge of my seat (said event was properly foreshadowed).

When I say all characters of AoD are well-written, I say this in a "technical" sense - given their backstories, they act in a way consistent to what they are. Zack had a really crappy childhood and turned into a murderer; Danny was bullied and indirectly caused his mother's suicide; Cathy is subconsciously guided by a desire to punish sinners that caused her parents' death; Eddie was rejected so hard that he saw killing what he liked as the only way to preserve; and Rachel also had a crappy childhood, but parents who hated each other and killing her father in self-defense just broke her, her emotionless insanity is what guides her death wish (funnily enough, it doesn't seem that Gray has anything but a god complex). In other words, while they might be nearly a caricature, they still show to act on motives that make sense for them.

The question that guides the series is "what does it mean to be human?" In the end, we all want to avoid loneliness, as Gray says to Danny while the building explodes. Danny had a really pathetic death - he was a "love to hate" villain, even if he had a childhood excuse, nowhere implies that we should sympathize with him, on the contrary, he's one of the creepiest waste of air type of characters - if we showed his portrait in the game, one could put a sub "Most Likely to be a Pedophile").

But then I decided to read the prequel manga. I hated it. A lot. The characters are nothing but violent dicks to each other, in a grand scheme to get the role of "angel" in Gray's experiment (I used to muse Dr. Danny in my RP blog, it was fun to protray him as a pathetic peepermaniac, but I lost my drive after it). It doesn't try to be nuanced or anything else, but I guess if the objective was to remind us that the characters were murderous scum, it succeeded. The effect was so bad on me, that made me question the entire point of AoD itself.

I thought about this for a while. In Aod, we're basically siding with two murderers and Zack's popularity is immense, he's a Chad of murderers. The question is why?

It would be easy to dismiss his popularity as an example of the "bad boy fantasy", mostly associated with women who latches on a "bad boy" type in hopes of "fixing him", but that alone is insufficient to explain (and although it's usually recognized as a 'feminine fantasy', I want to avoid any implication of sexism, even though I don’t doubt this has been discussed in woman’s studies).

At point a friend of mine linked me Explanation Point's video on Happy Sugar Life. Why is Satou, a murderer and near pedophile (near pedophile because she doesn't engage in actual sexual activities with Shio, but it's not less disturbing), a sympathetic character? I won't recap the entire video here, but Satou is sympathetic because of many factors, such as the fact almost everyone around her is worse (arrogant rapist manager, sadomasochist actual ebebophile Danny's long lost brother, lolicon, an actual succubus in human form, obssessed copycat stalker, mad artist - the only developed characters that save themselves are Shoko and Asahi (and not 100% in his case, his determination was his downfall) - I honestly dislike Shio because she's annoying), had a crappy childhood, and that she seems sincere in her feelings for Shio.

The issue, in the end, it's about the way it's framed. Lindsay Ellis has a pretty good video on framing, on explaining how Mikaela actually had potential to be a well-written character in the first Michael Bay’s Transformers movie, but it was ruined by the way she was framed - as mere fanservice, instead of a strong character. The same principle applies to Happy Sugar Life, just pay attention to the way Satou is framed, as a strong character, in “pure” love, flowers appears on the screen when she’s thinking of Shio.

Framing is one reason why HSL failed or, at least, lost a part of its power as a cautionary tale. In the last episode, the way her imagination exploded with images of what her happy life with Shio could be, sprinkled by sappy imagery. Even if Satou killed herself to save Shio as a way to defy her aunt, it still gives a mixed message.

If we apply EP’s argument on Satou to Zack, I think we have even better “case” for Zack. Let’s count the reasons why one should sympathize with Zack:

Antagonists (Danny and Cathy) are worse people

Strong and powerful, to the point of turning into a shonen protagonist when cutting rocks in the last episode

Has a code of honor, only kills people who are laughing

Has standards, refuses to accept godhood from Rachel

Enjoys what he does, he’s probably the most sincere character of the cast

Has a twisted sense of humor

Has a sad backstory, that offered the chance of following another path (but the old man died)

Recognizes he’s messed up

Ridiculously loyal to Ray in the end

We never get to see the PoV of his victims and when we do, the frame actually makes Zack sympathetic - for example, the woman in his flashback, we see her lying to him and him killing her for it - it’s a bad thing, but the scene is framed in a way that Zack is the offended party (it was his PoV anyway)

He’s hot - granted this only works for the anime, because in the game he was some sort of tall mummy gremlin

As another friend of mine said, when I brought this to her, in the end you’re kind of cheering for them to escape police and continue murdering others. And, in the end, they do get away - Zack (and Ray, to some extent) is never punished for his crimes, even though the ending is ambiguous most people believe they escaped anyway.

In HSL we have a similar situation: even though Satou killed herself, Shio is still irreparably damaged, preferring to live her “happy sugar life” in her head than the real world. In fact, HSL’s ending is one of the most hopeless that I’ve ever seen recently, that the entire surviving cast is apparently beyond repair (as worse as Shio worse is Taiyo - it’s quite rare to portray female on male abuse on such a realistic way, any other anime would make a semi-hentai scenario on him, but here, I wouldn’t be surprise if he died starving himself to death in his room). HSL’s ending managed to be much more hopeless than AoD’s ending.

But, returning to Zack, the way his story is framed makes him a sympathetic character. However, while I argue that Zack is a well-written character, he’s not a very realistic one for one simple reason: he’s too conspicuous to be a successful serial killer, he’s too loud and messy; actual serial killers are methodic people, they plan a lot to not leave clues. Meanwhile, Zack is dumb as a rock, which might add him being an escapist character another trait of him.

And that’s where the comparison with Ted Bundy enters. It might be a stretch comparing a fictional character with a real person, but I still think it has some merit. While I haven’t seen the Netflix series, I read the debate on whether it glorifies Bundy or not. Basically the way the series frames Bundy is an argument for the glorification, but the interview with the victims who escaped him and loved ones of his victims is an argument against it. But the fact remains that both have their fans.

If we criticize Bundy’s fans for not noticing how much of a pathetic and deranged person he actually was, why can’t we do the same for Zack’s fans? Well the fact that one is real and the other fictional might be one reason, and being fictional he acts as an outlet for our own frustrations and tendencies just as I discussed with my friend above, but I feel that alone is insufficient, there must be a further reason... but I can’t think of anything else. Otherwise an argument has the danger of turning into the fallacy “videogames make kids violent” sort of thing.

One thing that has to consider is that both AoD and HSL are psychological thriller/horror series. If Zack, Ray and Satou got caught, the shows would be lesser works of art, because one function of psychological horror is to challenge our perceptions of justice.

Horror challenges our perceptions of safety and we are used to the bad guys being punished in the end, it’s a safe assumption. Instead, in horror, the bad guys get away and might be sympathetic, making us sympathetic to their getaway. It’s horror in the sense our own safe perceptions of morality and justice are twisted upside down.

I could go on and approach the thorny question of whether AoD glorifies murderers and HSL glorifies yanderes with children, but this essay is already getting too big, so I leave it for another occasion.

#satsuriku no tenshi #happy sugar life #psychological horror #explanation point #more to the ted bundy debate

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zombee · 6 years ago

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@pitirres okay -

WNYC does really good stuff in general, it seems to me they build their products with their hosts (instead of building the products and asking the hosts to adapt)

2 DOPE QUEENS is a comedy podcast. great for laughs, hosted by two black women, and a hugely intentionally diverse line up of stand ups & guests

SOOO MANY WHITE GUYS is the spinoff of one of the hosts of 2DQ. host interviews non cis straight white men, excepting one token a season. i thought it’d be along the same lines as 2dq, peen jokes etc, and those are defo there - but i didn’t expect to connect with these guests so intensely, and be challenged in my worldviews. phoebe robinson is a masterful interviewer and gets better each season.

for pop culture, i like METIS IN SPACE, which is two canadian metis women speaking about indigenous rep of all kinds in sci fi/fantasy media. the definition of this expands as the seasons continue. they’re funny and perfect for someone like me who likes to learn about identity around nerdshit.

similarly PRETTY FOR AN ABORIGINAL is two australian ladies, but it’s much more of a traditional “let’s talk about the issues” podcast. still delightful though, and i picked it up because my novel is set in australia and i wanted to make sure i brushed up on multiple perspectives.

if you like steven universe, tamora pierce, or the queen’s thief series, su has the official STEVEN UNIVERSE PODCAST, tammy has TORTALL RECALL, queen’s thief has ATTOLIAN ARCHIVES. oh, and THE GOOD PLACE PODCAST (the official one) is fucking amazing

for pop culture, i like WONDERFUL!. a husband and wife talk about wonderful things they love. it’s a great pick me up, feel good show.

dunno if you count this as pop culture or politics, but i also am loving OH NO! ROSS & CARRIE where the hosts take on claims of the supernatural, religious fringes, and suchlike. they attended scientology classes and got acupuncture and visited a pet psychic, in the eps i’ve listened to so far, that sort of thing. they’re affable and skeptical in equal measures, and you can defo pick and choose based on your own interests.

similar is SAWBONES, a “marital tour of misguided medicine.” doctor and her comedian husband tackle all kinds of Bad Medical History, so not for the weak-stomached, but still technically rated pg-13 (no swears basically). the back catalog stuck to mostly long-gone ideas & topics, but recently they’ve moved into more, i guess, controversial? topics, and that might scratch your pop culture/politics itch as well.

so those are my more specific recs, but then here are my generals that i just Really Love and Think A Lot of People Should Listen To (originally typed on reddit hence the grammar lol) -

NARRATIVE/STORY BASED -

The Adventure Zone: The podcast that got me into podcasts. Three brothers and their dad, with varying degrees of Dungeons and Dragons experience, set out to fill time so one of them could take a leave of paternal absence from their more famous podcast, My Brother My Brother and Me. What starts as dick jokes somehow turns into this incredible, character-driven, thrilling, mindful fantasy epic. I wept through the last dozen or so episodes. And, they did a 2.5 hour finale, so they could end on episode 69. The duality of TAZ. If you struggle with the more purely sophomoric content on the first arcs, my rec is to start with arc three, Petals to the Metal.

Alice Isn't Dead: A truck driver searches across America for the wife she had long assumed was dead. In the course of her search, she will encounter not-quite-human serial murderers, towns literally lost in time, and a conspiracy that goes way beyond one missing woman. The American landscape is its own character, it's only three total seasons and we're three episodes into season 3. So good.

Welcome to Night Vale: Small desert town radio show, except the town is a hotbed of eldritch activity. Very Lovecraftian, except hysterical and not horribly racist (the opposite, in fact!)

Bubble: post-apocalyptic radio play. hilarious and scathing.

MUSIC BASED -

Heat Rocks - The Podcast: Two hosts interview a third party on their personal "heat rock," an album they have a deep love for, for whatever reason. I despaired that my lack-of-knowledge of albums before 2010 would hinder my enjoyment of this podcast, but then I realized I could just listen to them before the episode.

Dissect - A Serialized Music Podcast: Long-form version of the above. One season, one album; each episode, a song. First season is To Pimp a Butterfly, second is My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Third and current season is Blonde.

BARDIC GOODNESS -

The Myths and Legends Podcast: Writer and host stitches a narrative from myth/legend/folklore etc. Tells you about his research and where the versions differ, and is just generally a great writer and funny and engaging. Really took to heart crit and slowly expanded his repertoire beyond Western/white stuff, so there is some really obscure (for me) stories in there that I love alongside more typical Norse mythology or Arthurian tales or what have you.

Fictional Podcast: Same premise as above, but with classic lit. I don't ever want to read Dante's Inferno, but I for sure want to hear someone dad joke their way through fake arguments about the place of Greco-Roman allusion in a Christian text. Also pretty new, if you're like me and Have To Start At The Beginning No Matter What.

#podcasts #podcast recs

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hrhduchessoflancaster · 7 years ago

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Chapter Seventy-Seven: Closer to the Edge

Disclaimer: see Prologue xx Bea ________________________________________________________________

In the following week after Epiphany, Elle had resumed her activities in her office. She and Lisa discussed her upcoming solo engagements, such as the Brighton Youth Choir visit, and Ronald talked her through with the Invictus Games launch party that would be happening in a week’s time. In between meetings, she wrote and read about her research, even Skyped Melissa and Trevor a few times to get her opinion on this or that passage in the book.

Speaking of him, Elle recently discovered that he and Luc had recently moved in together. Trevor was so excited about it. He was making plans for when he completed his master’s degree for them to get married.

“ That's amazing, Trev!!”, exclaimed Elle on yet another Skype video call. “ I’m so happy for you and Luc!”, she said and could see Trevor grinning, slightly blushing on the other side of the screen. As if on queue, Luc walked behind him and, noticing Elle, smiled and waved at her.

“ How is the baby wait going?”, asked Luc, from behind Trevor.

“ It’s going great. I’m getting more tired and big but it’s amazing to feel this little human moving inside of me.”, said Elle smiling, receiving smiled from the men before her.

“ It must be magical…”, said Trevor.

“ It’s out of this world. I can’t wait to meet Nugget.”, said Elle grinning, her hands running circles in her belly.

“ Any names yet?”, asked Luc smiling.

“ A few. But since we don’t know the sex of the baby, we wait until we meet him or her to properly give it a name.”, said Elle.

“ I can’t wait for it!! And I think half the world population.”, said Trevor, making Elle chuckle.

“ Yeah… I know. Harry and I have received so many letters, postcards and gifts for our baby. And he or she is not even here yet!”, said Elle

“ Your baby is so blessed to have you. You’ll be amazing parents, Elle. I’m sure of that.”, said Trevor.

“ Thank you, Trev.”, said Elle, smiling. “ Listen, thank you so much for the talk but I’m meeting Harry for lunch, okay?”

“ Sure, darling. Talk soon.”, said Trevor. Elle said her goodbyes to both men, the picked her purse and coat up and left her office, walking the familiar to their apartment. Once she got there, different smells hit her senses; roast chicken, vegetables, spices and lemon.

“ Darling?”, said Elle, walking over to the kitchen area. In there, she found Harry with his back turned to her, apron around his waist, mittens in his hands, while he carried a tray of what she thought was roasted chicken, to the table.

“ Hi love. How was your morning?”, he asked her, smiling.

“ Great… Trevor and Luc sent their love. I’m going to Brighton soon for my next engagement.”, said Elle.

“ Oh… that’s good, Elle. I’ll be worried as always, but I’m happy you’re going.”, said Harry, taking the mittens of his hands and walking over to her.

“ Hello wife.”, she said huskily, placing his hands on her waist and leaning down to kiss her lips. Elle soon responded but interlocking her fingers in his neck and kissing him back.

“ Hello husband.”, she said, smiling as they pulled away from each other. During lunch, they laughed and talked about the most trivial things. About the wether, the rooms in the apartment that still needed fixing, their dinner plan, Elle’s book, Harry’s meetings.

Overall, it seemed 2017 had began well for Elle. Everything was falling into place. With one exception. Colin. Both MI5 and MI6 were working together with the Scotland Yard to try to find him or any connection he might have with the Freedom Movement. So far, next to nothing had been uncovered and, Elle was only let into as much. She was aware that her Majesty knew and followed up the investigation but she and Harry were mostly kept in the dark, ‘for their own safety’, they had told them. And all of this secrecy and suspense was starting to frustrate her.

************

In that coming weekend, Kate would celebrated her 35th birthday at a small gathering at her parents’ home in Bucklebury, Berkshire. Elle and Harry arranged with each of their private secretaries plus Ronald, to move a few of their joint engagements to the middle of the next week so they could spend more time with the family.

“ Harry? What can we get Kate?”, asked Elle.

“ I was thinking about a watch. Do you think she’ll like it?”, he replied

“ I think so… but I was thinking about something more personal. Maybe we could give her a photo album? With pictures of her, William and the children?”, suggested Elle.

“ I like it. And she loved taking pictures so it will be useful gift too. Oh, we could give her a polaroid camera as well!”, said Harry.

“ Brilliant! I love it.”, replied Elle. And off they went to buy Kate’s birthday present.

Kensington High Street seemed surprisingly deserted for that time of day but, along with Ingrid and Leo, the couple ventured the stores, walking hand in hand. They stopped first at Curry’s to buy a Polaroid digital instant camera for Kate. Then, they also decided to buy a few things for the house and Elle’s maternity bag. Baby Gap was one of those places and Elle went crazy on the toddler section.

“ I know I’ll probably buy more things later but, look at this, Harry!”, said Elle pointing to a few baby clothes. He laughed and nodded his head, smiling at her excitement.

“ I think those are a bit too big for Nugget, love.”, he said.

“ Oh, I know. But they are so adorable! Imagine Nugget in this cute little bear onesie.”, she said, making cute faces. Harry chuckled and grinned.

“ Our baby will be the cutest little one, in whatever we dress he or she in.”, said Harry.

“ Truer words had never been spoken.”, replied Elle grinning. As they shopped, Ingrid and Leo kept on the lookout. Their bosses didn’t know, of course, but there had been a few developments regarding Colin and the Freedom Movement.

Apparently, MI5 and MI6 were able to intercept a few messages between people previously linked to his family as well as the terrorist cell, and were in the process of tracking him down. This much they knew, Colin was still in England. And the RPO’s were taking every precaution not to run into him or having him come near Harry and Elle. Specially now that there was a newborn baby at risk too.

************

Colin had safely been able to lay low in Epping. The small town with a market background and rural ambiance had little to offer since most of its residents worked in London. His neighbours paid little attention to him and, so far, the news channels had not adverted his face. Though, even if they did, he was barely recognisable from who he had been. He had a mustache and beard now, dark circles under his eyes and a scar, a memento from his time with the Freedom Movement, that had torn his left eyebrow. Looking in the mirror, Colin tried to find a little piece of his old self in the reflection staring back at him. His eyes, which had been one of Elle’s favourite traits on him, had lost their shine and now looked a dull blue. He had also lost weight, which was visible but his apparent cheekbones. He left the small, clammy flat daily to get food, tools and the materials he needed to complete his plan.

To Dmitri and his minions, he was dead. No only metaphorically, but also physically. As far as he know, they thought he had died in the attack. And to be honest, Colin knew he was a means to an end to them. Dmitri would dispose of him as quickly as he got what he wanted. His life mattered little to the Freedom Movement. And because of that, he was able to escape. Had he been an important asset, faking his death would have been much harder.

Colin knew when and where they were attacking. All but a few details had been kept from him. He had spent the last month or so planning and scheming everything in order to save Eleanor. He cared little about the rest of them, the Royal Family. Specially Harry. If he had the chance, he’d take him out himself. But that was not what he was planning to do. His focus was her. His fiery lass. His Eleanor. He’d get to her. Take her with him. And no one. Nor the Freedom Movement, Harry, the Royal Family or any government agency would ever get to them.

“ Soon, my love. Soon we’ll be together again.”, whispered Colin, looking at the old picture of he and Elle he’d kept in his back pocket.

************

“ Now, I know most dads to be feel powerless and useless during birth. But that’s not how I see it. Or what hypnobirthing is about.”, said Helen to Harry. The couple and Helen were currently in their living room, having another class to prepared for Nugget’s birth. Elle, who had now mastered the breathing exercises and the physical exercises to help during labour, was very happy to know that Harry would also have a key and active role to play in their child’s birth.

“ A birth partner can be anyone, so long as you trust this person. But in this case, that role falls on you.”, continued Helen, looking at Harry. He smiled and kissed Elle’s temple.

“ What we’ll do today is teach you both how to create a metaphorical tool box, where all the techniques you’ve leaned, Eleanor, will be at your disposal and Harry will be the one to help you get to them and through them, whenever you need it during birth. Sounds good?”, she asked the couple.

“ Yeah. We’re ready.”, said Elle smiling. And so, Helen proceeded into showing them both how to breathe, centre and meditate in order to achieve a calm and relaxing feeling that would help Elle be focused and ready for the birth.

“ Also, your birth partner is there to protect and sooth you. Harry, I’ll teach you some massages you can do on Eleanor to help her relax and also some body stances you can take during labor to better support her.”, said Helen. Harry nodded his head and payed close attention to everything the woman said to him.

He was determined to be there for Elle and their child as much as he could. So if massaging, calming, soothing and protecting his wife was what he needed to do, he would strive to excel in those tasks.

“ That’s it. These two types of breathing will be very important for you both during the actual birth. For now. I want you to keep focusing on the core breathing exercise we’ve talked about. I’ll leave you another cd with hypnosis exercises that you can listen every time you want. Though I recommend you do it daily.”, said Helen.

“ Thank you, Helen. We really appreciate all you’ve done for us.”, said Harry smiling, shaking the woman’s hand.

“ Don’t mention it. It’s my job. And I’m happy to see you both improving.”, said the older woman. “ Until next week.”

Once Helen was escorted out of the apartment by Alfred, Harry and Elle sat together in their living room sofa and sighed. “ Now we only have a little over two and half months until the baby comes.”, said Harry, smiling, his hand on Elle’s bump.

“ I know. And to be completely truthful, I’m a little scared.”, said Elle looking down.

“ Hey…”, said Harry, lifting her head into his hand. “ Me too. This is our first child together. We’re bring a little human into this crazy world, but also into a loving and caring family. It’s very scary. But we’re together. Every step of the way. And we’ll figure out how to be parents just the same, together.”, he continued. Elle smiled, nodding her head, little head droplets falling from the corner of her eyes.

“ I love you so much, Major. So so much.”, said Elle, leaning closer to Harry.

“ Love you more.”, he said, leaning his head towards Elle, placing a his lips on hers. Not only as a reassurance that everything was going to work out for them and their child, but also as a reminder that whatever happened, they’d be there to support one another at all times.

************

As Elle’s 27th week came, it was time to go to Berkshire for Kate’s birthday. Her parent’s home in Bucklebury was incredible. A beautiful Georgian home, that even though it looked grande and lavish in its own way, made you feel cosy and warm. They ended up all driving together from Kensington in two cars, along with a few RPOs. When the couples arrived they were received by the door by a smiling Carole and a shy Michael.

“ Grandmama!”, shouted George as he exited the car, rushing to his grandmother, who awaited for him with open arms. Elle joined Kate’s side and they both smiled at the loving scene before them. Charlotte was walking hand in hand with William and Harry was soon at his wife’s side.

“ Welcome all.”, said Michael with a smile. The couples greeted each other and were shown in by the the hosts.

Later that afternoon, Charles and Camilla arrived, followed by Pippa and her fiancé, along with James. Together, everyone helped preparing the dishes and setting the table. George and Charlotte played in the living room with the family, as they took turns into watching the kids.

“ Uncle Hawy! Uncle Hawy! Come play with me!”, said Charlotte, tugging on his jumper. Elle smiled and watched from afar as the persistent little princess dragged her husband to the middle of the living room where she and George had set up their toys. Chuckling, she grinned and resumed her activities with a lasting smiled on her lips.

Standing up in one position, or just standing up for a long time, was starting to give Elle cramps in her calves, but she wanted to keep on helping, like everyone else. “ What are you doing still up, dear?”, questioned Camilla.

“ Oh… I’m almost done here. I just wanted to help.”, replied Elle with a tired smile.

“ You’ll do no such thing. You’ve already done more than enough. Go, take a seat. We can manage.”, the older woman said.

“ Are you sure? Because I can keep going…”, said Elle but Camilla was having none of it. Taking the utensils from her daughter-in-law’s hands, she took her by the hand and escorted her out of the kitchen.

“ Go and rest. I know you want to keep active and puts on a brave face, but I also know your legs and back must be killing you. I’ve been there, my dear. And nobody is going to judge you for seating down.”, said Camilla. Smiling, Elle nodded her head.

“ Thank you.”, said Elle, heading to the leaving room where Harry and the children were. She heard laughter and cheers as she approached it. The scene which presented itself to her was comical to say the least. Charlotte had put hair clips on Harry’s hair while George was currently on her husband’s back, as Harry walked on all fours around the room. Laughing out loud, Elle entered the room.

“ Aunty Elle!”, shouted Charlotte. “ Come play!”, she continued.

“ Oh darling. Uncle Harry will keep playing with you while Aunty Elle rests, alright? Your baby cousin is making aunty tired.”, she said to the little girl, while she too a seat on the nearest sofa. The children, ever curious, stopped playing, which gave Harry a rest, and came to sit at each side of her.

“ Aunty Elle?”, asked George, tipping his head to the side.

“ Yes, darling?”, replied Elle smiling at him.

“ When is our baby cousin going to be here?”, he asked her. Elle looked down at her baby belly then caught her husband’s eyes and they smiled at each other.

“ Very soon, darling. Your cousin is going to be born in April. That’s more or less 3 months from now.”, she replied.

“ Is that a lot?”, George asked her.

“ A little. It’s close to Gangan’s and Lotte’s birthdays.”, replied Harry.

“ Oh…”, said George, still a little confused with the time reference. The couple chuckled and smiled at the children. Suddenly, Elle felt a kick in her belly and let out a small giggle.

“ Why are you giggling?”, asked George.

“ Your cousin has just given me a small kick.”, said Elle smiling.

“ Really?”, said Charlotte in awe. “ Can I fell?”, she asked

“ Me too!”, said George

“ Of course. Let’s see if the baby will kick again.”, said Elle, placing their small hands to the side of her belly where she had felt the movements. Less than a minute later, she felt it again and the sibling looked at each other, then her belly, and finally to her face with awed expressions.

“ He kicked!”, exclaimed George

“ She kicked! It’s a girl!”, said Charlotte.

“ Uncle Harry? Is it a boy or a girl?”, George asked.

“ We don’t know yet, Georgie. But when the baby is born, we will.”, Harry replied.

“ I want it to be a boy. So we can play together.”, said George, making a face.

“ Girl!”, shouted Charlotte. And so the siblings continued to shout at each other, determined to have each their way, betting what sex their cousin would be. As they rushed to their parents to express their concerns and complaints, Harry took the opportunity to seat beside his wife.

“ Hello you.”, he said, placing a gentle kiss on her cheek.

“ Hey…”, Elle replied, her voice sounding a little fatigued.

“ Tired?”, he asked her, taking her feet in his hands and placing them on his lap. Elle sighed in content, as she adjusted herself in the couch, leaning on a soft cushion.

“ Mmm yes, a little.”, she replied. “ I realised I can’t stay up for a long time now. My back and legs won’t allow me.”, she said and Harry nodded his head.

“ I know, love. Let me help.”, he said, taking off her shoes and starting to massage her feet, ankles and calves. Moaning a little, Elle closed her eyes and smiled.

“ Good?”, he asked her.

“ Excellent.”, she replied. “ Best husband ever.”, she whispered and heard him chuckle.

“ I try, my love.”, Harry replied.

In the end, Kate’s birthday party was more a family reunion than a party. Harry and Elle was extremely happy she liked their gift, and she soon put it to good use, snapping shots of the guests. The mood was cheerful and light and both families were getting along very well; with Michael and Charles discussing organic food and environment protection, Camilla and Carole doting on the children and talking about the joys of being a grandmother, George and Charlotte playing all day long and the younger couples, plainly just talking about their lives.

“ So, when is the new royal baby due?”, asked James. Elle and Harry chuckled.

“ Mid April. I’m counting the days.”, said Elle smiling, a hand in her belly.

“ Congratulations.”, said James Matthews, Pippa’s fiancé.

“ Thank you.”, said Harry, his hands on top of Elle’s. “ We’re very excited.”, he continued.

“ Speaking of being excited, how’s the wedding preparation going?”, asked Elle and the couple grinned.

“ Wonderfully well.”, replied Pippa. “ Everything is order. Floral arrangement, catering, clothes, music, the reception. And we’ve decided on a place, a church quite near to here, actually, to get married.”, said Pippa.

“ St. Mark’s Church.”, said James M. “ Very low key, just a couple hundred of friends and family members.”, he continued.

“ Yes, and we’ve set it to the 27th of May. The invitations will be sent soon. We hope you’ll be able to attend.”, said Pippa, to Elle.

“ Of course! The baby will most likely be a month old by then, so there’s no reason not to go.”, said Elle smiling.

“ We’d be delighted.”, replied Harry, running his thumb on Elle’s hand, affectionately.

#FATES INTERTWINED #royalfanficcentral #royalfanficcollection #prince harry fanfiction #prince harry fanfic #phff #prince harry

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polyamradiotranscripts · 7 years ago

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ep.10 Polyamorous Parenting with Tikva Wolfe

polyAM Radio Episode Ten-Polyamorous Parenting with Tikva Wolf

[Begin Transcript]

[Sophie]: Hello everybody and welcome to polyam radio the best show on the internet about polyamory that weird relationship thing you do with lots of other people

["Crazy little thing called love" by Queen plays]

[Sophie]: hello everybody welcome to polyamradio my name is Sophie Last-Name-Redacted and I'm here with a very special guest this week why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself

[Tikva]: Hi I'm Tikva Wolf

[Sophie]: I use she her pronouns

[Tikva]: I use they them pronouns

[Sophie]: cool cool I gotta tell ya I am totally geeking out over here because uhh Tikva is one of my absolute all time favorite like polyamory heroes pretty much everything I know about polyamory that doesn't come from my own ya know personal foolish mistakes comes from Tikva's comic Kimchi Cuddles, I do wanna let listeners know that this is the second time that we've tried to record and just this morning my computer totally puked on me uhh so I am working with a spare that I rented from the library and uhh we're doing the best we can but all of my show notes all of my everything is gone so we're gonna make the best of a bad situation and kinda plow through this but that's what we've got going on over here so if it seems like maybe things are a little different this tim uhh that's whats up, so I'm guessing though that despite some potential sound quality problems that this is gonna be our best episode yet because we've got Tikva with us

[Tikva]: yay, yeah hopefully the technology will cooperate with us this time, if not we'll just have [uninteligable] conversation [laughs] [uninteligable] [laughs]

[Sophie]: yeah you caught me there's no podcast this was a trojan horse I just wanna talk to you and be your friend

[Tikva]: aww [laughs] again, this happens to me all the time [laughs]

[Sophie]: ya know somehow I believe that so our topic this week is gonna be polyamourus parenting but before we get started, Tikva why don't you tell everybody a little bit about yourself because ya know not everyone has internet stalked you like I have so uhh ya know they may not know every little detail or certainly they may not know anything about you and that would be a real shame so uh why don't you give us a little exposition ya know

[Tikva]: well I write a webcomic about polyamory which I really is just about relationships and my relationships happen to be in a polyamourus container umm I so I write largely just about my own life experiences and umm uhh people seem to think that it's relateable uhh I think that uhh the the medium of uhh comics is a good umm way to convey ideas and experiences because they happen in such a small little uhh snippet so there really easy to digest and it's really easy to convey uhh uhh an experience or umm like a complex idea in a way that is umm yeah just easier to digest

[Sophie]: yeah absolutely I think you're spot on ya know uhh I think comics are a really effective way of conveying a kind of slice of life ya know we always think about umm ya know maybe books and movies and other kinds of media but certainly even podcasts I mean it's hard to crank out good media on a reliable basis I mean I'm doing a podcast ya know one podcast for every ya know shove out an episode every other week I mean and you're cranking out what ya know two or three comics a week I mean that's

[Tikva]: well when I first started I umm I didn't think anybody would read it but I just started putting I always made comics about my relationships and I had a partner who uhh said you should write a you should write a webcomic about polyamory and I just started putting them online as a joke between us but umm and then all of the sudden all of these people were reading it but when I first started putting them up I had a bunch of them so I was just putting up like two of them a day so very quickly I had a lot of content in like the span of a couple weeks and then I calmed down and then I started making like I think for a while though I was making like one a day umm for quite some time and then uhh it went down to like umm like like two or three a week and recently I've been like writing a bunch of other things so it's been more like one a week umm yeah I've been working on a lot of articles and graphic novels recently umm so that's been taking up a large chunck of my time umm and it's it's amazing to me like remembering when I first started I was like I was a young mom [laughs] and, so I had a baby that I was watching all the time and I was also, ummm, I was also an art teacher at a camp so I was like doing that uhh part time but I so I was like writing these comics, like, at like two in the morning in the bathroom [laughs] it was just like a time that I had to do that umm which is why they look so shitty like go back and look at the original ones it's hilarious to me cause I'm like woah look at this but umm but yeah people like them [laughs] so I kept going, I'm still doing it

[Sophie]: yeah absolutely ya know you really have your finger on the pulse of what it feels like to be ya know in a polyamorous relationship and your comics uhh show showcase that very well ya know I remember a few weeks ago there was one that really spoke to me and it was uhh oh ya know my partner has this new partner I have a new metamour, I actually talked about this on the show, listeners might remember, but this new partner they're so or this new metamour they're so fancy and they're so put together ohh boy is that what they like is, oh man cause I'm just kind of a slob and ya know I'm ya know I'm pretty bad at putting myself together and getting all dolled up and everthing and uhh actually umm I'm going to try to do that later on today because today the day we're recording this listeners is actually my birthday so we're gonna try to go out later and ya know have a bit of a fancy nice evening

[Tikva]: it's your birthday

[Sophie]: yeah today's my birthday

[Tikva]: well happy birthday

[Sophie]: well thank you

[Tikva]: next monday is my birthday

[Sophie]: oh well happy birthday

[Tikva]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: I'm guessing that in a few months when this comes out we're both gonna get a lot of belated birthday wishes uh uh yeah I just I just really wanted to say again I really think you have your finger on the pule of what it's like to be in a polyamorous relationship ya know I don't think I've ever looked at one of your comics and gone oh that doesn't really resonate with me, even when it's dipicting situations that I've never been in uh it ya know it's really just incredible how it, uhh, how universal some of these feelings and experiences are

[Tikva]: thank you yeah it's I think its interesting that it cause I think of the comic as primarily as being about non-monogamy but a lot of people that follow it regularly are monogamous people who feel like it's helpful for them to and have uhh has uhh situations that are applicable to their relationships as well

[Sophie]: yeah ya know well we always talk about on this show that ya know this show is explicitly polamourous and it's very important to me that everything we talk about is through the lens of polyamory because frankly there's more than enough people out there giving relationship advice to monogamous people and with a monogamous perspective ya know stuff like oh well you'll find the one and everything like that uhh but ya know uhh I don't think that there's ever has been or probably ever will be even a single episode that won't have some good little nugget in there that a monogamous person could ya know take away and use and apply to their life right I always say that I think that ya know this advice is applicable to everyone ya know good advice is good advice and certainly not ya know all of it is applicable ya know things about ya know how do I interact with my metamor maybe aren't all that ya know uhh applicable but ya know uhh this show is explicitly queer too uhh just like your comic and I don't think that there's anything or I should say that I think that there are very few things in here that would not also benefit a straight person and I guess ya know another thing I wanna bring up is that ya know your comic is so intensly queer

[Tikva]: [uninteligable] queer [laughs] yeah I'm pretty intensly queer that makes sense

[Sophie]: well ya know a lot of the media we get is far from perfect and a lot of the queer representation that we get is uhh ya know really problematic and just uhh not the best and ya know this is something that's made by and for queer people and I think it's something that's really special, so Tikva let me ask you umm when you started out ya know you're a parent and you're polamourous and when you started out as a parent were you intending on ya know raising your child by yourself were you intending on uhh working with somebody else ya know as part of like a two person team or were you always planning on having a small polycule kind of ya know helping raise this child ya know how did that start out because I think for a lot of people umm ya know they have a child and then find themselves engaging in polyamory and everything and most of the time I think people don't really find themselves starting off of saying okay yes I'm going to have this kid and I have a team that's working with me ya know for this and we're all going to raise this kid as a polamourous situation together, I think that that's pretty uncommon so if I can ask, how did it start out for you, were people starting off involved with it or did you kinda rope people in as time went on because not that there's anything wrong with it but I think a lot of people find themselves getting roped into a family and that's ya know their introcution to it

[Tikva]: right yeah [uninteligable] that'll happen a lot even in just monogamous relationships because of step parents and things like that um which is actually how I started out as a parent I am a step parent umm that my uhh the person who I was romantically partnered with at the time and who is my co-parent and umm uhh and uhh one of the main characters of my comic umm he had a when I met him he had a son who was about eight from a previous maraige and umm that kid is super awesome he is not a kid anymore he is in college now umm but so I started out being a step parent and having all of those types of experiences sort of like umm I mean very similar to what a lot of people in monogamous relationships would have experienced being a step parent umm and I just happen to be polyamorous and we actually when we started our relationship I was openly polamourous and he identified as monogamous umm but we tried to find a balance inbetween those things so we sort of at first I was in other relationships and then we took a time period where when I wasn't in any other relationships at the time we took a few years where it was just us when I got pregnant myself umm because that was what seemed like it made sense at the time and umm then eventually the two of us just happened to get into a relationship with another couple who were polyamorous we all just sort of fell in love with each other so that we were just all of the sudden this quad and they loved our child we just sort of fell in this very sweet co-parenting situation where there were four adults to one baby she was about maybe one or two I think two when we met them umm we're not all together anymore actually not with any of those people anymore in a romantic context but umm what he he my original co-parent obviously still my co-parent and a very important person in my life umm and he ended up uhh feeling like being, romantically monogamous was important enough to him that he wanted to do that umm not with me, because it's something that is important to me to be not doing, umm so we we ended up finding that our relationship works better, at least for right now with the romantic elements, not there, and which is like worked out surprisingly well we sort of think like our, society sort of tells us that uhh the romantic part of the relationship is neccecary for you to be emotionally connected and like if the romantic part isnt there the sexual part isn't there then like its there's a problem or like theres a, like you're supposed to be mad at each other and all these things and I, don't think that that's true

[Sophie]: ya know, uhh, when we talk about polyamory and relationship anarchy and things like that it's important to remember that aside from being a gift, and a bottomless resource love is also infinitely varied and takes many forms some of these forms are platonic and we tend to call these people friends and everything uuhh some of them are romantic and we have other words for that but I think the term friend for some of the relationships that I have it's not the right word and I wish we had a better one uhh because the feeling I lo- the feeling of love I have for some of my ya know quote unquote friends is so intense ya know I would go to the ends of the earth for some of these people uhh even farther perhaps than some of my casual partners which feels weird to say but the reality is is that these people are your family, ya know that's who you've chosen to build your life around uhh and that's ya know a wonderful beautiful thing ya know and that doesn't mean just because a relationship is no longer romantic doesn't mean that uh a failure by any means ya know

[Tikva]: yeah

[Sophie]: we talked about breakups in a previous episode and uh ya know in those situations where a relationship ends that doesn't nececarily mean it was a failure and just because a relationship continues that doesn't mean it is a success there are a lot of relationships that continue uhh pretty much ad nauseum [laughs] and are in no way succeses at all and ya know I think that that's very important to remember uhh ya know there's a whole lot more to a relationship than it just continuing forever, so let me as you ya know uhh if someone's thinking about becoming a polyamorous parent or inviting someone into uh to help them parent and and kind of starting to have that kind fo polycule parenting structure or thinking of joining one themselves is thre any advice that ya know you'd want uhh that you'd want to give to them when they're just starting out

[Tikva]: mmmm, well I guess that there's so many variables I don't think that there's like one particular thing that would be like universally helpful but I think I keep telling people, cause I run a a polamourous uhh meet up group in the ashville area and umm there are a lot of parents in the group who want uhh resources about umm about polyamorous parenting and umm sort of like how do I, x, y, z, and a lot of the specific things that they bring up in the group are not actually neccecarily polyamorous questions they're more like they're more things that are about step parenting and things like that like combining families like kids who come from different parents like those kids getting along or not getting a long and things like that and combining households and sharing resources those types of questions and like and I think that there are I mean there are a lot of resources that exist that are not written for us but it doesn't matter [laughs] they're for there are a lot of resources out there for step parents and for for people who are combining families like in in a monogamous way but ya know like bringing in kids from another partner and things like that and so becdause there are a lot of reosurces that already exist for step parents umm I feel like we can just use those resources that already exist and take out the things that apply to us and our families and it doesn't matter that they're written for monogamous people because it's really just a lot of it is the same stuff concerning kids and like bringing in kids from other families and having, being a parent to a kid that is not from your body like these sorts of things like the same sorts of things can come up in a monogamous or non monogamous relationship so using the resources that alreday exist I think is a good idea and also there are new things coming out all the time umm I think doctor sheff, is a good resources doctor elizabeth sheff has done a lot of research into polamourous families and has written a few books on that topic umm

[Sophie]: is that chef like yes chef cut the vegetable chef or-

[Tikva]: of uh it's spelt s-h-e-f-f

[Sophie]: [laughs] okay cool yeah no I just thought our listeners might wanna be ablso to google that

[Tikva]: yeah look up doctor sheff she's done a lot of writing on polyamorous families based on reserach that she's done umm that spans decades so it's good stuff umm she wrote a book the polamorists next door which is helpful also I think just like one of the main things that can really help people who have any sort of difficutly just like having other people to talk to about it and umm so like being a part of a like a poly meet up group and maybe even if like maybe in your area if there's a poly meet up group and there isn't already a family specific subgroup you can start one, like anounce to the group like hey I'm a polyamorous family I want to hang out with other families maybe we could have like play dates or like um maybe we just hang out and talk about uhh like sort of form a support group around a specific topic can be very helpful

[Sophie]: yeah absolutely so the next question has to do with stigma uhh ya know families like ours and relationsips like those that we engage in aren't always the most widely accepted I guess I'm just wondering ya know for you how has ya know polyamorous stigma played a role in ya know your ability to have a family and make it feel like a cohesive unit and ya know feel like uhh ya know feel like you belong within a larger society

[Tikva]: umm I think it varies family to family especially depending on what where they live and who they're surrounded by what they're life looks like, I have been very lucky in my life to be in a part of the country that like is pretty open minded and surrounded by people who are also open minded my family is very open minded so I haven't had a lot of difficutly myself I'm very luck in that way, there was one incident in which a neighbor uhh like found out that I wrote a webcomic about polyamory and was very concerned and like called social services on us to like get to be investigated to see if any shady shenaigans were going on such as sex duneons in front of children and stuff like that which was obviously not [laughs] what was happening and like someone came to the house to interview us about that which was stressful and just because of the I guess it's not neccecarily a inherently stressful situation but it's pretty understandable that that would be stressful like social services suddenly showing up all things considered it wasn't as stressful as as it sounds [laughs] because umm the woman who showed up was very nice and she was very understanding and she and I was like woah this is so bizzare and umm she was like so you write this webcomic about polyamory I was like yes lets- I'll show you the one I wrote today it was like something about like my character Marco like [laughs] telling like saying something about like how it's okay to have the emotional experience that you're having she was like oh this sounds very grounded and good advice sounds like you're a great parent actually here I'm wasting your [uninteligable] [laughs] kind of like, it was funny because it was so bizzare and I didn't feel like I was in danger of losing my child or anything like that so like that part wasn't frightening but it was irritating that it was wasting this person's time and like this person who should be doing important work for other families that actually need the help was being wasted on this situation and becdause of beuracracy she had to come back a couple of times or at least twice something like that happened

[Sophie]: well and it's invasive

[Tikva]: sure yeah

[Sophie]: sounds like the neighbor was a real asshole

[Tikva]: yeah [laughs] I mean this person was like, uniformed because of stigma this person like heard the word polyamorous assumed that it meant umm like sexually uhh something some dramatic thing about sex and which it is also some people are have a lot of sex and that's fine but I'm not really [laughs] it was so funny like at the time my child was younger umm she's almost eight now she was like three at the time when this happened three or four or something like that and umm [laughs] it was like it uhh a moment in time where I the social worker was asking questions about sex she had all these questions about sex like you have sex uhh like uhh do you have orgies in front of children and those types of things and I'm like no like I'm at a place in my life where I just don't even have sex [laughs] like I'm a young mom like I just

[Sophie]: yeah if you're a young parent you're pretty much not having sex that's pretty much the end of it

[Tikva]: [uninteligable] like seriously like how many young parents like really have a lot of sex like I don't have time to have sex and [laughs] I, and and there's certainly nothing wrong with parents who do have lots of sex and do go to sex duneons and things as long as it's not in front of the kids but it was such a bizzare experience cause I like wasn't even having very much sex and like these questions it was just like it was very surreal and umm and funny but um but yeah so there's certainly a stigma around being polyamorous linking it to sexual deviance which in our culture which is so puritan still and afraid of sex can be problematic because then people make moral judgements about you based on sex which is like awkward if you are a person having a lot of sex or it's awkward if you're just aperosn having average amounts of sex and it's for me in times when I it was especially aggrivating to me when I felt people would say thin- like make little comments make little jokes about something along the lines of like like not neccecarily slut shaming but like something on that spectrum those types of jokes about being polyamorous at me [laughs] and my response internally would be like I'm probably having less sex than you monogamous person and just like have that response like I just always thought that was funny and it's something that still happens with people that i know like friends of mine people still make umm just uniformed little jokes cause they don't actually really understand yeah it's certainly annoying that there's such a stigma aroung sex in our culture umm in a way that like makes it weird if you're having too much or not enough sex ya know accoring to whatever, whoever's keeping track [laughs] there's a- people like think there's something wrong with you if you're having more or less than whatever is the appropriate average and like and the label polyamorous umm like certainly gives people like an assumtion a lot of the time about where you are on that which can be awkward for people who do have a lot of sex too because umm because there's this stigma so people I think it seems like a lot of polyamorous feel a pressure to like make themselves seem quote unquote normal when they talk about their relationships and like emphasize oh it's all about love and all this even though that's true umm I feel like there's this pressure to talk about it that way and sort of minimize the sexual component too which is also not good and like really whatever is nourishing for people in their relationships should just be fine and it's not anybody else's business

[Sophie]: ya know and I think it's very interesting when we're talking about it from our perspective because we're not just polyamorous, we're queer and certainly not all queer people are polyamorous but a lot of polyamorous people are queer and uhh ya know there is an aspect of added stigma there ya know we really are only what five years if that ya know from people having very public very heated and uhh kind of horrible conversations about whether or not any queer person is fit to be a parent at all ya know and ya know now it's getting to be more taboo to say that but ya know certainly we are not far removed from that so I think it's not at all surprising when we talk about the struggles that polyamorous people go through and when we talk about polyamorous queer people ya know people who are part of both of those groups are gonna face some added stigma and it's unfortunate but it is what we're dealing with right now so moving back into our main topic ya know I love where the tangent when but as someone who uhh sees myself helpfully going where you are in a few years ya know I just have so many questions ya know I uhh I'm not a polyamorous parent and I never have been like I said a minute ago I see myself going that direction but I'm not there now and so when I think of like benefits that come from it I can only really speculate and I guess some of them that come to mind for me ya know there's that old adage it takes a village to raise a child and the more positive adult role models you have as a child I think the better off you are and then of course if you are struggling with some sort of disability having kind of a team of people that are on your side and are helping you out and everybody's pitching in ya know a little bit can make it a whole lot easier than kind of trying to do it on your own but in your experience ya know aside from maybe those things uhh exactly ya know in your experience what uhh ya know what are the real benefits to a polyamorous parenting situation

[Tikva]: umm well for me like when I was talking about before when I was co-parenting with my my uhh with my partner and then suddenly there were four of us uhh and my child at the time was two that was amazing because it was during a time where I was, being a young parent is or a parent of a young child is difficult it's a huge life transition and I was tired all the time and it's just constant constant attention is required and so having extra people around or not extra but having more people around than just one othher person was extreemly helpful because not only did it relieve, it provided us with more time to be able to do other things like sit down [laughs] like pee by myself or hang out with my partner which is huge like you unless you like are in a position where you can you have like family helping you or you are able to get child care a lot of the time when you are raising a child with just one partner you don't really get to hang out with that partner ya know like it's which can be a big strain on the relationship and umm and like for like a lot of parents will just hang out when the kid is asleep but a lot of times when the kid is asleep you wanna be asleep so you just sort of there's a lot less time to connect to each other and it's important to have time away with each other and having three partners that are with people talk about umm like people who are imagining polyamory are like how do you have enough time to connect to theese people and it's funny like in that situation I felt like I had a lot more time to connect to all those people becdause the other people were there to be with the child sometimes and it felt like a really good windshield to have four adults to one child I was like oh because after two years of it being two adults to one child I was like oh this is like [laughs] four adults to one child seems like a really good ratio [laughs] and certainly things are different when there are multiple children and once children are old enough to start playing with each other it changes everything too umm I ended up later having a girlfriend who had a child who got a long with my child and that was a whole different awesome situation because I mean for obvious reasons like our children got a long with eachother so we could like hang out and have play dates for the kids which were also dates for us mom dates with each other, cause like otherwise a lot of time I had to like to go on a date with somebody I had to like arrange with my co-parent or like find child care somewhere or like my child was not yet in school at the time and so having a girlfriend who also had a kid who got along with my kid just made it so we could hang out and the kids were playing didn't need our attention constantly and so we could all hang in the same space and she and I were able to have a conversation and so that was really nice

[Sophie]: yeah and well I think ya know the more positive adult role models a kid has the better off they're going to be

[Tikva]: yeah for sure and also like a different examples of like different examples of how to be an adult I think is helpful to kids umm

[Sophie]: yeah ya know I think you're absolutely right uhh I saw this comic one time, I don't think it was one of yours it was ya know a guy at a bar talking to a girl and was like oh you're not like other girls ya know and she was like my dude I am an amalgamation of every girl I ever thought was cool okay and I think you can take that and extend it to ya know adults in that case and I think that ya know saying listen I am an amalgamation of every adult I saw as a kid and went wow they are incredible ya know they are well adjusted whatever I wanna be like them and I think giving kids the greatest diverstity in who to pick from in who they want to be like and to chose their own role models is very important so uhh ya know on this show we try to talk about both sides of the issue when it comes to polyamory and certainly ya know I'm very polyamours I love polyamory I think it's wonderful and certainly I think it's the best option for me personally but ya know sometimes there are some things about polyamourus situations that make them require a little more nuance and be a little more difficult to navigate when compared to a ya know monogamous situation so ya know are there any uhh kind of problems that in your mind fit that bill when we talk about polyamours parenting is ya know when we talk about poly or co-parenting is there any kind of extra things that you think come up that polyamorous people often have to deal with

[Tikva]: umm [laughs] the immidiate thing that came to mind was in regards to sharing holidays with like a standard monogamous family umm [laughs] I'm just thinking about one specific example so I'm just gonna say that so this upcoming valentines day I have a partner who had had an idea of planning this surprise thing to do together and then mentioned it to me like will you be able to come and do this thing with me and he doesn't live in the same city as me so he had to make sure that I would be able to actually be in the same city for it to work before hand so he said hey I want to plan this surprise thing can you come on valentines day and do this thing with me and I was like oh that's really sweet but I had already had the idea that my co-parent would want to be with his partner umm on valentines day I know that like that's more important holiday to him than it really is to me [laughs] so I had already like offered to watch the child and uhh so and my first thought was oh can you bring your girlfriend to this thing that you had thought that you and I would do together and like all of that like I just I mean I guess this isn't really a problem but like for somebody else like I thought that wholel situation was very sweet like if everybody involved really cared about celebrating valentines day like if things didn't work out like if once person had to stay in town to be able to be with the child because the other person really wanted to leave town I can just imagine a scenario where that would be difficult I think I don't have a good answer [laughins] to that question, I'm not immidiately thinking of anything that is inherently a problem that's like poly-specific although it's like it's interesting I brought up doctor sheff's work earlier she did a lot of reserach into poly families umm case she was looking for like she had the assumtion that there would be poly-specific problems to poly families and her reserach pointed to uhh actually that like the opposite polyamorous tended to be more have a lot more strength because of and be more resilient because of there being more adults around to be able to do things and that all of the problems that those families had were problems that already were problems anyway like are problems that monogamous people have to like none of the problems were she didn't come accross and new problems that were poly-specific is my memory from her reserach and I thought that was very interesting

[Sophie]: huh, that's very interesting I'll have to pick up one of her books, so were runnin a little short on time here so I think I'm gonna have you plug your stuff now if there's anything that you'd like to plug

[Tikva]: well I have two books that are out right now the first one is ask me about polyamory which is a compoliation of the webcomic that I've been talking about the Kimchi Cuddles webcomic so the first book is ask me about polyamory and the second book is sort of remenicint of the webcomic but it's a different sort of storyline it's based on people from my actual life so it's that it has that in common but instead of being a series of little comics it's one whole story it's the whole book so it's a graphic novel called love retold it's a polyamours love story and I have a new book that's coming out this year which is not written yet [laughs] well it's not drawn yet I've wrote it but so all these books are through thron tree press and uhh the third one that's coming out is based on a class that I've been teaching when I go to poly conventions which is about theraputic comic drawing and people really like the class it's sort of like a going through process that I have done for myself of uhh processing through my emotions through the use of comic drawing and I sort of I wrote a book walking people through the process it was really fun to write and I'm going to have a lot of fun drawing it and I think it's going to be an amazing book when it's finished and that one is called it's okay feelings I got you

[Sophie]: well you know Tikva I just wanna say I ya know I've been able to pull it together pretty well this whole time but I really have been geeking out over here not just because I like your comic and you're creating relateable content and stuff like that but ya know I have relationships now that are ya know that are still going that I genuinely believe are only still going because of your comic and because of things that I've learned from it and things I picked up along the way that you have kind of put out there and so your art is incredibly meaningful and incredibly powerful so it's just really important to me that you hear that and I'm sure you do all the time but I wanted you to hear it from me because I think that you create really really amazing content and I think it's important for you to hear that it helps people in a very real way

[Tikva]: thank you that's really meaningful I uh I mean I put things down on paper and it's helpful to me too cause I don't always know those things [laughs] just knew it in the moment I wrote it down so it's really helpful to me it's funny I have a snarky partner who's amazing but sometimes like sent me links to my own comics and like ya know [laughs] like god dammit

[Sophie]: that's really excelent so before we get going I just wanna remind our listeners that we have a patreon which you have the link to on your cover art you also have the link to our facebook page our twitter account and our email uhh which is an email address not a link and you can't click on them becdause it's an image that's how images look I'm told but you can type them into the search bar and go visit these places and boy would we ever appriciate it if you did and I want to give a shout out to our patrons thank you to Mitch hamilton, Marissa alexa mccool and ari stillman, thank you to Jade, thank you Vlad and thank you miles kataro, y'all are seriously awesome uhh that's all the patrons we have at the time when we're recording this so if you're hearing and you go what the hell I donated money and I didn't get a shoutout it's comin don't you even worry about it, if you're lookin to get your name on the show that starts at just one dollar a month a five dollars a month you get access to some bonus conent we've uploaded and at ten dollars a month you get all the episodes a week early and everything else from the other levels obviously ya know you're not gonna miss out on the bonus episodes for upgrading that would be weird but ya know I just wanna give all of our wonderful fans a shout out and a wonderful thank you because you all absolutely make my day whenver you listen to this and I just wanna say if you enjoyed the program that absolutely fills my heart and you should share it with at least one friend or partner this week just download it on their phone for them because they'll forget the name, I think it's catchy but ya know when you're just being told about it at the gym or whatever it is hard to remember so just do them that favor give them the gift of this show and my horrible sense of humor download your favorite episode on there for them and let them listen to it and if they like it then that's great and if they don't then thats not on you you're not repsonsible for their poor taste so yeah I think that's about it this time thanks again for oh and I also wanna mention we have advertising slots on the show email us to find out more information about that they start at just five dollars an episode so thanks again for listening and remember don't date your best friend's dad and don't date your dad's best friend

[Tikva]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: see ya next time folks

["Good old fashioned lover boy" by Queen plays]

[Announcer]: This show was part of the trans podcaster visibility initiative

[End transcript]

#polyamradio #polyam #polyamory #polyamorous parenting #kimchi cuddles #tikva wolfe #queer #trans #ep10

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deadcactuswalking · 4 years ago

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 24/10/2020 (Digga D, Justin Bieber, benny blanco)

Internet Money’s “Lemonade” featuring Don Toliver, NAV and Gunna finally hit #1 on the UK Singles Chart, and that’s today’s #1. Anyone else find it funny that NAV has a #1 hit in, well, any country? Anyway, welcome to REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

A lot of our new arrivals from yesterday are gone entirely, including “Parlez-Vous Anglais” by Headie One featuring Aitch, mostly because only the three highest-performing songs from an artist can be in the chart at one time, so “Only You Freestyle” with Drake returned at #44. As well as that, other notable drop-outs from the UK Top 75 are “Mr. Right Now” by 21 Savage and Metro Boomin featuring Drake, “5AM” by M Huncho and Nafe Smallz exiting pretty prematurely, “Over Now” by Calvin Harris and the Weeknd, “Wishing Well” by the late Juice WRLD lasting longer than I expected, and “Heaven on My Mind” by Becky Hill and Segala. The biggest fall for the week is “Laugh Now Cry Later” by Drake and Lil Durk getting hit with the streaming cut down from #18 and #42 and the biggest is for last week’s debut “i miss u” by Jax Jones and Au/Ra up from #53 to #39. The only other returning entry we have is that garbage “Papi Chulo” song by Octavian and Skepta back for seemingly no reason. That doesn’t mean we don’t have 11 new arrivals, though, so let’s get started.

NEW ARRIVALS

#69 – “Train Wreck” – James Arthur

Produced by Adam Argyle

X Factor winner and insecure homophone who somehow pissed Frankie Boyle off on Twitter in 2012 James Arthur is back with his latest single since his first comeback album which was surprisingly successful, even stateside, mostly because of soppy, unlistenable ballad “Say You Won’t Let Go”. So, what’s to be expected out of this frog-voiced adult contemporary lad today? Well, apparently this is actually not his latest single choice for that lead off of the fourth album and rather just a deep cut from his 2016 album Back from the Edge. It’s the sixth track on the album, it’s four years old and never had a single push so I can only assume... TikTok? I don’t know, I think everyone’s feeling like this year’s been a bit of a train wreck so is the song good? I don’t know, I think his belting is impressive but pretty aggravating with only the soft piano backing and it does sound like he’s straining himself a bit here. The pouring out of his emotions during the dark place he was in between 2013 and 2016 is pretty effective and admittedly I feel kind of bad for the guy but, man, you can tell this is the first song he wrote for the album as it feels pretty underwritten, with a lot of reliance on that chorus, which is powerful but not nearly enough as he wants it to be. He explores a religious angle in the first verse that goes absolutely nowhere. Looking at the comments on the Genius page and ignoring the ones saying “This is epic” or “Anyone here from Harry Potter TikToks?”, I can tell it’s helping people and if this really is impactful to his audience then all fairness to him, it does its job. I’m just not a fan.

#68 – “Heat Waves” – Glass Animals

Produced by Dave Bayley

I swear “trainwreck” and “heatwave” are usually one word. Huh. Glass Animals are an indie-pop project fronted by Dave Bayley and I’ve never felt the need to look into them, and whilst I always assumed they were big – especially this recent third album which did big numbers to mixed reception – I didn’t think they were “chart in the top 100” big, especially not too months after the album release when another single is clearly being pushed. It has got a couple remixes though, particularly a Diplo one, so I guess this is a good time to first check Bayley and co out. Maybe my definition of “psychedelic pop” is different to Pitchfork’s (who didn’t even like this album) but I didn’t expect pitch-shifted vocals put against trap instrumentals and 808s that drown out all of the musicality that goes into the watery synths and guitar picking under the pretty rough vocals here, saved by some cool melodic ideas and multi-tracking that sounds pretty good in the verses. That chorus is lazy and quickly loses its lustre though, and it is not nearly climactic enough for that point in the bridge where its cuts out and returns to work or have any impact at all. The lyrics are pretty fluffy and non-descript, apart from the refrain of “Road shimmer wigglin’ the vision”... okay, I understand why you pitch-shifted that one. Yeah, this is pretty garbage, as are these remixes, although admittedly I kind of enjoy Diplo’s future bass rendition. You can’t do much to make a badly-written song sound interesting as an EDM remixer. I listened to that “Space Ghost Coast to Coast” song out of curiosity and... just because your “ayys” sound more like “ehs” doesn’t mean your trap-rap is suddenly art pop. Also:

“Space Ghost Coast To Coast” combines bits and pieces of millennial childhood nostalgia with musings on school shootings.

Joy. Next.

#67 – “PMW” – M Huncho and Nafe Smallz

Produced by Quincy Tellem

The drill MF DOOM (in aesthetic, not ability) and some nasal-voiced idiot who is not selling himself well with that stage name make a collaborative album produced by Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em. Here’s their ode to Profit Margins and Wages. Okay, it’s just them trading bars over an actually pretty damn good trap beat, with a killer choral vocal sample and some skittering hi-hats with a high enough pace that it makes Nafe Smallz seem mildly engaged. M Huncho sounds fine here, but the chorus here is pretty rough for both of them, and it just sounds really awkward. I do like Nafe’s second verse here, the flows he uses are pretty catchy and he sounds alive for once. What do you expect me to say about this though? They don’t rap anything interesting, the trap beat is good but not particularly interesting and the performances are mildly entertaining at best. It’s not nearly as amusing as the last single I liked from Huncho, “Pee Pee”. I’m not surprised this didn’t debut very high, and I guess it’ll drop off next week like nothing ever happened.

#65 – “One More Time” – Not3s featuring AJ Tracey

Produced by Eyes Adoasi and Remedee

Well, this duo have worked together a bunch of times before, and are undeniably preferable to M Huncho and Nafe Smallz, even if I’m not necessarily a big fan of either artist. This seems to be a lead-off single for Not3s’ third record as well as an interpolation of Britney Spears’ “...Baby One More Time” with a pretty cute pitch-shifted female vocal acting as the main melody for the track... and, yeah, this is what I expect from AJ Tracey. There’s an obvious UK garage flavour to the track – it does feel like a modernised throwback – and AJ’s spitting pretty competently, even if his flow is pretty basic and at times janky. Not3s is even more janky in the pre-chorus but the harmonising on the chorus and flow on the second verse is pretty damn impressive and dare I say charming. If he wants to go into this smooth R&B-rap direction on this type of UK garage beat I approve fully and I would be excited for that upcoming album. It kind of reminds me of Jeremih, to be completely honest, and I’m not sure exactly where I get that comparison but he sounds great. The beat does feel like it stagnates, especially during AJ’s verse actually – it might be the weak link stopping this from becoming great – but it doesn’t overstay its welcome and the 8-bit sound effects during AJ’s verse do stop this from being boring, though I still prefer a fair few of AJ’s other singles, like “Kiss and Tell” with Skepta which the song immediately reminded me of. It could have actually done with no guest verse but I know Not3s needs that promo so I’m not complaining about this. I hope to see it in the top 40 soon.

#62 – “Perkosex” – D-Block Europe

Produced by Gwiz and Roki

“Perkosex”. Wow, and I thought these guys couldn’t get dumber. We have a third DBE album cut this week and I’m already impressed by the awful pun in the title and the fact that this is literally taken from a YouTube producer’s (FREE) Calboy/Polo G type beat. Classy. This is a more downbeat song for the duo, with two verses, kind of. In fact, there’s no chorus, just one verse from Dirtbike LB who actually starts off the song with some spoken word and pathetic “Ski” ad-libs – leave that to Young Adz, who fragments his verse with a pointless and awkward bridge, as if his verse didn’t fill up that quota anyway. We have an acoustic guitar, pitched-up vocal sample that comes in to waste time every so often, and actually cuts Adz’s verse in two. Both LB and Adz croon and mumble, barely staying on the beat, with Adz mumbling so much on his first part of the verse that I initially thought this was just an outro to a song that lasted one and a half minutes, but, no, there’s an extra minute to go and Adz adz nothing to the track that needed that second half of the verse. Neither of the rappers are any funny here, but at least LB compares his friends to terrorists and says he’s got shots in his mouth like a peppermint... I mean, he sounds more mentally stable than he usually does on these songs, I guess. The second half of that Adz verse starts off with either him barely staying on-topic or just a complete plot twist.

You signed up for a drug dealer, not a drug user

And the next line:

And one of my toxic traits is that I love too much

Again, classy. This is crap even by their standards and just straight boring. It won’t go anywhere, but knowing my luck it might be the Christmas #1. Next.

#60 – “Someone to You” – BANNERS

Produced by KOZ

More “indie pop” debuting on the charts, although this one is directly off of the success of Love, Victor, a Hulu original series based on the film Love, SImon that used it in its soundtrack and hence it’s here on the chart. This song has been on three of this guy’s EPs and is actually all the way back from 2017 so, yeah, we have some old cuts here. I have absolutely nothing to say about the song though. Sure, I appreciate the vocal harmonies in the post-chorus and the organic drumming but the vaguely folkish guitar sounds pretty trite, as do the hand-claps and the incredibly generic mish-mash of love song clichés in all of the lyrics here. I’m reminded of a lighter Biffy Clyro that happens to be from Liverpool instead of Scotland and, you know, have no grit or interesting songwriting to back the enthusiastic vocal delivery and repetitive, exhausting chorus. I’m not into this at all, it just reeks of a lack of effort or unique character to it. And I’m safe to assume that about this next song...

#59 – “You’re Mines Still” – Yung Bleu

Produced by Nate Rhoads

This song got big because of Drake on the remix and thank God for that because this Juice WRLD rip-off could never stand on his two feet anyway. The fake attempt at a half-hearted British accent drenched in Auto-Tune is an immediate turn-off – the dude’s from Alabama and sounds like he’s vaguely imitating an Afroswing singer – but so is this incredibly low-effort trap beat with barely anything other than a Sting sample from the exact song “Lucid Dreams” sampled, and it’s not like this is an uncommon flip, coincidence or even a sample that hasn’t been used in a bunch of rap tracks before. Watch out, Yung Bleu, or else Sting will try and sue your ass on BS counts of “plagiarism” until you tragically die young or get a Drake stimulus package big enough for you to pay off royalties and fines for copyright infringement. In fact, I’m convinced that’s the only reason Drake hopped onto the remix so he and his massive bank account can settle the incoming lawsuit and pay the legal fees for this guy, because he doesn’t contribute anything worthwhile to this trash either. Jesus, this is bad.

#58 – “Happiness” – Little Mix

Produced by TMS

We don’t have that album yet, but we have another low-charting promotional single, I guess, now that the last one dropped off from the chart entirely... last week. Little Mix are now noticing that maybe they really cannot perform that well without Syco so I guess they’re just throwing as many bricks as D-Block Europe claim to be selling and hoping one of them fits into the wall. I don’t mind the song for all it’s worth, to be honest, I mean it’s more of a fast-paced dance-pop song about love I can appreciate with some pretty great vocal performances from the girls here, especially who I think are Leigh-Anne and Jade. The chorus hits pretty hard and the fusion of 808s and trap skitters on the verses with a killer UK garage-inspired drum loop on the chorus... yeah, I can actually endorse this, albeit with some hesitation, especially since the bridge is literally just like 10 seconds of vocal riffing, which makes the song feel somewhat underwritten even if that final chorus, especially the lead-up to it, is pretty amazing and genuinely surprised me on my first listen. This is good, and honestly a lot better than I expected from Little Mix, so check it out if you’re interested, although sadly I doubt this’ll stick.

#29 – “Hold” – Chunkz and Yung Filly

Produced by Ransom Beatz

I can say the same about this, now that we’re in the top 40 here (first for both artists), mostly because Chunkz is pretty much a YouTube comedian and looking at these lyrics, there are now jokes. There is some ugly Auto-Tuned crooning over a pretty flat Afroswing beat and Chunkz’s delivery is similarly flat and it’s obvious he’s a comedian. You can just tell when rappers are also comedians and this guy definitely makes that obvious in his half-hearted “upbeat” delivery that sounds like a satire, but the problem is again that there are NO JOKES. Is the “airplane mode” line a joke? The use of the word “investments”? The egregious Spanish in the second verse? This weak-sauce instrumental? If any of these are jokes or an attempt at comedy, please let me stand corrected because I don’t know if Chunkz was chuckling to himself writing but none of this is funny or even entertaining. It’s pretty telling that the Genius page gave up on trying to distinguish the two rappers as well. Next.

#19 – “Lonely” – Justin Bieber and benny blanco

Produced by benny blanco and FINNEAS

Why is benny blanco credited as a lead artist while FINNEAS isn’t? Huh. Well, Justin’s back and leaving whatever the hell Changes was earlier this year right behind him, focusing on more introspective and personal tracks like... “Holy”, I guess. Well, for what it’s worth, this is better than “Holy” by quite a bit. It’s a pretty minimal ballad with some nice work on the keys from benny and egregious profanity from Bieber in the chorus. I do like the content though, and how he delves into Bieber’s regrets in his past, especially in the second verse although I feel like he misses the point here or at least doesn’t go in-depth enough for me to fully comprehend his view on the situation. They criticised things you did as an idiot kid because they were insensitive, immoral and at some times illegal, not because you were a child. Sure, the media and the press can be antagonistic, especially to easy targets – hell, it’s worse here than in the US or Canada – but it’s not entirely clear in the short verse here that he’s not just deflecting blame onto the “haters”. I do like how he talks about the downs that come with having so much wealth and fame at a young age and no idea on what to do with it other than reckless leisure activities and raking in the fandom’s love whilst he continues to drink-drive and lose his pet monkey, which he shouldn’t have had in the first place. He also talks about how the paparazzi and Internet comment trolls viewed his pictures of him with Lyme disease and immediately assumed he was doing drugs, which can be similarly said for Chadwick Boseman, who died earlier this year due to complications related to colon cancer at age 43. Yeah, this one digs pretty deep but I still feel like it could have used a third verse, especially since while Bieber claims to cite his wife Hailey Baldwin as his “saviour” this is his third or fourth time painting himself as the “comeback” of Bieber but now a more mature man, and none of those attempts have really succeeded so this seems kind of desperate on his behalf. Sigh, the song’s fine and honestly I appreciate it for what it tries to do but it falls short here and lacks the real dagger in the heart moment personally revealing songs about fame like this should have, although I’d admit it gets close. Now for our final entry, which has considerably less to talk about...

#18 – “Chingy (It’s Whatever)” – Digga D

Produced by ItchyDaProducer

Chingy? As in “Right Thurr”, “Holidae Inn” Chingy? Huh. From one look at the chorus, it just seems to be another threat but hey, Digga D’s back. I’m not sure if anyone wanted him back but here he is. He released an album last year. This wasn’t on it. I can’t actually remember this guy at all; I assumed this was DigDat so I expected some quality – I mean, no drill lyric can beat “white like Peter, brown like Cleveland” – but no, it’s Digga D, who made a song with Russ Splash last year that got in the top 40. I remember reviewing it, I remember not thinking much of it at the time. I don’t think much of this one either although I do have to admit I really like that eerie vocal sample, even if it is completely drowned out by the drill beat and the inconsistently-censored sliding on the beat from Digga D. He uses a pretty standard drill flow here though, and the verses are little more than oddly specific gunplay and flexing. He does actually interpolate “Right Thurr” by Chingy in this pretty good and catchy chorus – which I imagine is the only reason this is in the top 20 – as well as in the second verse, where he interpolates his other biggest song which already interpolated a Vine. Sure, I guess.

Conclusion

Not as good of a week as the last, although there’s still a LOT of British hip hop here, mostly sectioned between some indie-pop clunkers. In fact, I’m going to give Glass Animals the Dishonourable Mention for “Heat Waves” while Worst of the Week goes to “You’re Mines Still” by Yung Bleu and Drake on the remix for just being a horrible song all around. Best of the Week surprises me but it’s going to Little Mix for “Happiness” because, well, at least it has some damn energy to it unlike the rest of these songs. I guess the Honourable Mention can go to “One More Time” by Not3s and AJ Tracey but even that would be stretching it. Let’s hope for some good stuff next time, maybe some of that new Gorillaz album... pretty please? Here’s the top 10 for this week:

Big gains for “What You Know Bout Love” there, which is interesting. Follow me on @cactusinthebank for Tory scum baiting and I’ll see you next week.

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sinceileftyoublog · 4 years ago

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Another Sky Interview: Blunt and Faceless

Photo by Parri Thomas

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Four faces, obscured by pixelated, crystalized hues of brown, black and yellow: That’s what you see looking at the cover for I Slept On The Floor, the debut album from epic British band Another Sky. According to lead vocalist and lyricist Catrin Vincent, the anonymity works to their advantage. Playing a show at St. Pancras church in 2017, the band performed as silhouettes, perhaps to raise a middle finger to the listeners who kept asking whether the singer was a man or a woman, perhaps to make a point about what we all feel like in a lonely world. “As if we can scrape the color off the iris and still see,” Vincent speaks, referencing these hues on album opener “How Long”, her voice affected by hiss then wavering between her raw opera and sky-high pitch. Over the next 11 songs, Vincent continues to sing about the social plagues and insecurities that bind us all. Independent of the context that inspired them, again, the band’s anonymity works to their universalist advantage.

I Slept On The Floor doesn’t sound like a debut album in words or instrumentation, and to be fair, Another Sky had been releasing music for a few years before it. But it’s a remarkable first proper statement, culled from the best of their previously released and new material. Many of the best tracks do reference the double standard in society’s expectations of women. “Brave Face” was written for a friend going through a breakup, decrying those who consider hiding emotions the ultimate form of bravery. Naomi Le Dune’s spindly bass, Max Doohan’s skittering hi hats, and Jack Gilbert’s skyward guitar licks launch the song into the anthemic stratosphere, as if to give the subject the courage for emotional outpour. “Tree” opens with gorgeous guitar picking that quickly gives way to Vincent’s showstopping vocals. “Sing no words; they’re meaningless when they come from a woman,” she sings, before belting, “You’ll never take mine!” as the instrumentation builds to a breathtaking climax.

But Another Sky are at their most mind-bending when taking on the multitudes inherent in the human condition, the postmodern challenges to Cartesian thought. “I am still here, still happening,” Vincent sings on the title track, vocoded. On closer “Only Rain”, she ends the album with, “I am no one I know / I am nowhere I go,” delivered in layers like a Greek chorus. With steady guitar strumming and drums, she’s able to accept the uncertainty in life, or at least challenges to the ideal. You’re not supposed to sleep on the floor. You’re not supposed to fall out of love with people and in love with cities. The way things are isn’t the way things ought to be--you fight what you can control, embrace what you can’t.

I spoke to the band from their practice studio in London last month--they were predictably thoughtful, wanting to engage in conversation rather than answer questions. We spoke about the record, how the band’s already grown, and their ideas for their upcoming tour (which may or may not be happening given the UK’s new COVID restrictions). Read the interview below!

Since I Left You: What about the debut album is unique for the band in comparison to everything else you’ve released?

Catrin Vincent: It’s still songs from six years ago, but we made it way more coherent. We really thought about the album as opposed to the EP’s, which were groups of songs. The album could be more thought about.

Jack Gilbert: In a way, it’s the best of the last six years, in our opinion, of all we have to offer [laughs]. It’s a bit of a different experience listening to an EP than there is listening to a proper album that’s been constructed whose running order has been thought about and how the songs tie into each other. It’s our first time to show what we’re capable of doing long-form.

SILY: When “Life Was Coming In Through The Blinds” was released on its EP, as a listener, I wouldn’t have known that it would be a continuation of the previous track on this album, with the lines, “Still here, still happening.” Chronologically, we’re you working on a lot of these songs on the same time? Did you know you were going to find a way to make the old songs fit in?

CV: It’s funny, because “I Slept On The Floor” going into “Life Was Coming In Through The Blinds” was actually written after “Life Was Coming In Through The Blinds”. It was written as an interlude for a show at Village Underground in London. It wasn’t going to be on the album, and somehow, it’s become the title track because it feels so fitting. None of the songs happened on a chronological order. We found, over time, a way for the songs to fit together. We spent a lot of time on the order of the album to try to tell a story. We always wrote with an album in mind, I’d say.

JG: We had an idea for an album six years ago, so we’ve kind of been waiting to do one the whole time. The people we look up to make albums and are known for albums. We operate long-term in a lot of ways than a band doing singles, even though we’ve done that. We’ve always had this overarching feeling towards making an album.

CV: It was interesting lyrically. I had to piece together what the album actually meant afterwards. I was worried about that, that it wouldn’t have a common thread tying all the songs together. But actually, not thinking about what the album meant was the best thing that could have happened. The most honest thing came out, and I could look at it retrospectively for what I was thinking at the time. Coming up with a concept for the lyrics, if you come up first with a concept, you’re boxed, you’re kind of caged. We definitely thought musically about the album and how the songs would fit together there. That came live. Touring, we noticed which songs worked together. “Riverbed” always needed to be the third song. We always start the set with “How Long”, so it made sense to start the album with “How Long”.

Naomi Le Dune: And sometimes “Fell In Love With The City” was the second song.

CV: Yeah. That’s so true.

SILY: The interesting thing about the lyrics when listening to the record from front to back--they have a nice balance between being concrete and abstract. To what extent did you balance some autobiography with general or universal writing?

CV: I had a really hard time with it. The older songs I was using a lot of nature as metaphor, and that was unconscious. What I came to realize was that I was scared of saying things, and I didn’t like that. I really got into Phoebe Bridgers two years ago. The bluntness of her lyrics started to seep in, and I started to do that towards the end. It is autobiographical, but it’s not narrating certain events, in a way, which I’d quite like to get into as a lyricist. It was something I struggled with. What do you think of the lyrics: Do you think they could be more literal?

SILY: I wouldn’t say more literal. For instance, the album opens with the line, “As if we could scrape the color off the iris and still see.” You don’t entirely know where it’s gonna go. That first track speaks in those generalities. Whereas it’s a little more clear what a song like “Fell In Love With The City” is about or inspired by. The fact that it bounces back and forth between those two levels felt very organic.

CV: Cool! That is good to hear. I’m glad it works. I didn’t think about reviews and stuff.

SILY: As you shouldn’t!

CV: Exactly.

SILY: Everyone here has mentioned that instrumentally, the album was more deliberate in terms of how it was made. Listening to your discography from the early stages to now, this album does sound, simply put, a lot bigger. What were some of the musical influences that you took along the way to get the sound of this record?

Max Doohan: I think we embraced the live sound of the band more on the album than the EPs. We committed to recording several of the tracks live, which we hadn’t done before. We had the confidence that there was a certain power we would get when we would play together. Tracks like “Tree” and “Riverbed” and “Only Rain” were recorded completely live with minimal overdubs. For the most part, we tried to bring the raw emotion from the live show into the recordings. Before, we saw them as quite separate.

SILY: It allows the words to be more anthemic. How did you approach the interplay between the instrumentation and the lyrics?

CV: That’s a really good question.

JG: We’re always trying to lift Catrin. If that means we’re really loud or aggressive, we will be. It always comes from that place. The vocals are most important to it.

CV: That’s quite a recent thing, though, isn’t it?

JG: I guess so.

CV: Some of the songs, the music was formed. I like music coming first because then it’s like a puzzle piece. It’s a challenge. I have to figure out what the mood of the room is, what everyone’s feeling, and then write something to that. Sometimes, the lyrics inform the songs, like with “Avalanche”. I like having both worlds as a lyricist. I’m really lucky to be in a band where we’re all quite open to trying new stuff.

SILY: You mentioned “Avalanche”, a good example of a track that was written a while ago but still feels very current because of its words on toxic masculinity.

CV: I totally agree. It was actually quite freaky. “Let Us Be Broken” in particular freaked me out. We wrote that before Christmas, and then coronavirus happened. I was reading the lyrics, and I thought, “Oh my god, this sounds like it was written about the coronavirus.” But it’s about health. I was just really freaked out. I guess it is the mood of the world, and it’s largely been ignored just so people can live their lives without cognitive dissonance, so it kind of makes sense that it’s still current. It’s dealing with the wider world.

MD: Stuff that’s going on in the background has now been brought to the fore.

CV: The coronavirus especially brought a lot of these things to the forefront. People lost their jobs, had a lot of time to think, could only think. It feels fitting--that’s a horrible thing to say--I’d rather everything be great and our album not be relevant at all!

SILY: Generally and specifically, how have you been impacted by the virus as a band? Did you have to cancel a lot of stuff?

CV: We just carried on for a while, and we’ve written our second album, pretty much. We still should write a lot more and make it really good. We wrote a load of songs, and we carried on the back of that. But it’s only occurred to me today, because we did a Zoom gig last night, that you tour around your debut album. That’s how you promote it. I was like, “Shit, how are we gonna keep this going? What are we gonna do?!?” [laughs]

SILY: Have you thought about expanding the livestreams you do?

CV: I think prerecords are better. Next week, we’re gonna really focus on making some really nice visuals to go with a prerecorded show.

SILY: The cover art of the record is really striking. It reminded me of when you talked about the anonymity of your performance at St. Pancras, when you tried to obscure the band members.

CV: Definitely. The last lyrics on the album, on “Only Rain”, is, “I am no one I know, I am nowhere I go.” It plays into that vibe. The original melting face came from the artwork for “Avalanche” when it came out in 2018, so it was really cool to continue that.

JG: It felt fitting to us as a band. It’s very striking. That’s totally a reason why we did it, too. To make the album stand out visually.

SILY: That line on “Only Rain” you mention--the timbre of the music is a little bit lighter, and there’s an uncertainty to it. Are you accepting the uncertainty or still processing it?

CV: In my personal life, still processing it, but in that song, it’s complete acceptance. You’ll never quite know who you are because you’re constantly changing. I think you’re spot on there.

SILY: You’ve all answered in past interviews what your favorite song on the record is. Does that change a lot for you?

CV: It does for me, but you guys go.

JG: For me, it’s been “Only Rain” the moment we wrote it. The fact that it got on the album as the last song makes me love it even more.

CV: At one point, it wasn’t going to make the album. We kind of threw it on last minute.

MD: It was “Only Rain” for me, but it’s becoming “Riverbed”.

NLD: Mine is too.

CV: I think we just captured “Riverbed” so well. It’s one of my favorite songs to play.

MD: Especially because we haven’t been playing, but remembering that song during the live show and how powerful it is in the set.

SILY: Have these songs taken on a new life live? What’s your approach playing them: expand upon them or replicate them?

JG: A song like “Riverbed” has been around for a long time, and it became what it is on the album from us playing it live so many times. That is the result of us gigging it. It used to be a lot quieter and more relaxed. We started improvising the end, and it became really heavy. Because all these songs are quite old, most of them have that story. Obviously, as soon as you start playing a song live, it changes almost straight away.

CV: “Only Rain”’s gonna be that way. We haven’t played it live yet. Oh god... “Let Us Be Broken” is gonna be a challenge.

JG: It’s always interesting to see what happens to a song one you start gigging it. You just never know. Sometimes, it’s exactly the same, but rarely.

SILY: The instrumentation on the record is definitely complex. It’s a maximal-sounding record. How did your Zoom gig go?

JG: It was alright, it was just me and Catrin, acoustic. Although the album is big, we’ve done a lot as a band over the years. We always like the challenge of reinterpreting our music based on different scenarios. It was really nice to play our music on just acoustic guitar. You just hear a different side.

CV: It’s nice vocally, as well. When it’s a full rock band, it’s really difficult, because you’re just screaming into the void. Which is really fun! But when it’s stripped back, you can do a little bit more with the vocals. But definitely better full band. We missed you guys [talking to Naomi and Max] last night. We did. The stage wasn’t big enough. I’m glad you weren’t there.

NLD: I had plans anyway. I was busy.

CV: [laughs]

SILY: Where did you play?

CV: Banquet Records in Kingston.

JG: It’s like a really legendary record store just on the outskirts of London. They’ve been doing really good stuff with bands for 25 years. It was really great with the whole lockdown thing to do something with them. It’s always part of releasing an album in the UK--doing something with them. So I’m glad it happened.

SILY: Your sound is definitely unique. Do you feel like you have peers in the London music scene?

CV: Friends that we’ve taken influence from because we’re at uni together.

JG: There’s not so much a scene of bands that sound like us but around this band are a lot of friends who are musicians. I guess so. A few friends in particular haven’t released music yet--

CV: They will be!

JG: Maybe more in particular to what we do than other people we know. We kind of felt like we’ve been on our own, to be honest.

CV: We’ve felt like a little bit of an island, but it’s only now that we’re gaining fans and gaining traction. We want to make our own scene. I’m really into that. We want to produce other people and collaborate--we’re getting into collaborations, we’re getting into remixes. We want to find a scene. We’ve just been this island, floating along for so long. It’s hard--a lot of our friends have had a difficult time getting enough money to release. It is really difficult for musicians. We’ve been really lucky to be able to release through a major and have that budget.

SILY: You’re already writing the next album. Do you already know what it’s going to sound like?

JG: Just bolder and more confident is the goal from our end. We’re trying to simplify, but in a stronger way. That’s what’s in our heads. It might change before the album comes out, but so far it’s been, “Make sure there’s no fat.”

CV: Like steak. Slender.

JG: We were confident with the first album, but it had been built for such a long time, we didn’t know what was gonna work. Now we know what we are a bit more. It’s been fun to be like, “Let’s just do that because we want it.” Hopefully people like it as much as we do.

SILY: What else is next for the band?

NLD: Fame. [laughs] I don’t know, just been cracking to get out of lockdown.

CV: We are gonna go ahead with our tour socially distanced. We’re going to be the pioneers! No, we’re going to try to make it a really good experience and not just a gig, because everybody will be sat down.

NLD: We’re kind of used to limitations, aren’t we?

MD: We have to try to figure out how to play the album all the way through in one gig, basically, and tour that.

CV: Like a theater show, almost. Before we became mainstream--are we mainstream, I don’t know? But before we played festivals, we were performing at people. It might be quite nice to go back to that kind of vibe. It did change when we started playing festivals because we had to blow people’s faces off. Maybe now we can incorporate some of our slower songs back in, make it more dynamic.

NLD: If you give people a seat, they’ll shut up.

SILY: Do you normally have trouble with people talking during your gigs?

JG: No. Just at a random festival when you’re one of 200 bands, and people are just drinking. We’ve done hundreds of gigs like that over the years. We had to learn the hard way that some of our more intricate, delicate songs couldn’t be performed in those situations. Now, we’ve been given the opportunity to do that again. We’re quite excited about it. We’re trying to make the best out of it.

SILY: Have any of you been to any socially distanced gigs?

CV: No. Sam Fender did one two nights in a row. Some people are calling it a success. I like to sit down at a gig. It’s kind of my cup of tea.

SILY: More often than not, if the venue has seats, and it’s on a weeknight, my girlfriend and I will just grab a cup of coffee and sit.

JG: There’s almost an under-appreciation for the gigs where you can sit and take the music in properly. With this first album, it will be perfect for us to perform it in that way.

MD: You’re paying more attention. You don’t have sore feet.

JG: You’re not being bumped into. Less distractions.

SILY: What’s everyone been listening to, reading, or watching lately?

NLD: I’ve been watching Midnight Gospel. I don’t really listen to new music because we’re busy with the band, but the last thing I got was a band called Porridge Radio. I like that a lot. But I’m a bit behind at the moment. I have to catch up.

JG: Same here. Can’t really answer, but Catrin’s been going pretty hard.

CV: I’ve been going hard. She’s not new, but I discovered her during lockdown: Arlo Parks. [Asking Max] I think “Black Dog” is your favorite song at the moment, right?

MD: I think that’s the best song this year.

CV: And let me just grab my Spotify...you know what? Sufjan Stevens releasing an album and so is Keaton Henson.

NLD: Together?

CV: Not together.

MD: Phoebe Bridgers’ new album is pretty cool. I’ve been enjoying that.

CV: Ooh, an album that came out on the same day as ours and I’ve been obsessed with it: Victoria Monet[’s Jaguar]. The string arrangement is amazing, her vocals are amazing. It’s an amazingly produced album. I could go on for hours, so stop me...Lianne La Havas[’ self-titled], obviously. Julianna Barwick, her latest. Dream Wife[’s So When You Gonna...]. I’ll stop. I could go on a long time.

SILY: A lot of vocal-heavy stuff!

CV: That’s me!

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