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orangenfrottee · 4 years ago

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Hey ho there, feel free to ignore this and I hope I'm not bugging you as I awkwardly slide in here, but I must ask: if you had full creative control of the show, how would you run season 5? You can pick and choose whatever leaks you want to include.

Ah!!! Thank you for your ask <3 I might have spent a couple nights typing out my answer, but in short: I'd cherry pick old story arcs, bring back everyone I like and who doesn't run when they hear Riverdale's calling.

I'd definitely get some decent writers (I'm partial to Jane Espenson, but no idea if she'd be a good fit) and definitely some diversity. I might accidentally fire all men and then play up all their shitty recurring themes for fun as a weird inside joke between me and the show.

I think if they ever gave me creative control of the show it would swerf hard to the crazy and not leave that lane because honestly, i think that's what Riverdale does best.

So, where would I start...

Instead of giving season four a decent ending, I would start with an extra long pilot with the title 'previously on' where the best and most important bits of the teens' school lives is shown with a heavy focus on Jason and the Farm. Parallely, we get to see the lovestory of Chic and Charles. The episode ends with a few very short scenes of the prom where everyone's happy and pretty.

Then we'd start on the real season five. It's been seven years and our characters are older and more grown up.

The show would at first only present the present lifesbof our characters and the barest bones structure to keep as much a little mysterious as possible (but here I tell you what happened during timeskip, too).

Archie is often considered the main character, so let's start with him:

Archie went to the Army after school (though he didn't actually pass his exams and thus didn't graduate, Mr Honey was quite amused). On his most recent tour he met someone special: Eric, his new friend.

Archie was wounded in battle with a... giant mutated elephant with sharp teeth and hallucinogenic venom. Or something. He isn't really sure what happened, but he's got a huge new scar all over his torso. The abs stayed in tact, but oh his pride. During recovery he met new wheelchair user (and on occasion crutches) Eric who has trouble walking since his legs are misshapen/he only has one. Archie thinks Eric got maimed by the same elephant he was, but thinks it rude to ask.

For Eric I'm picturing Sabrina's Ambrose.

With his hurt pride, Archie can't stay with the military and decides to go back to Riverdale.

Eric doesn't have a place to go, so Archie invites him along.

They need a job and since Eric has a calendar full of sexy half naked firefighters AND since they both have abs, Archie decides that type of uniform is the perfect fit for them and trades his newly renovated and well running boxing gym against the old fire station Penelope Blossom owns. (Literally, they even meet at Pop's to exchange keys and sign papers Penelope brought that Archie doesn't even skim.)

The fire station is quite out of everything, but it has a huge pool Eric likes to swim in and a fire truck. To make ends meet Archie sells his sperm to the Greendale sperm bank.

Archie is of course in love with Eric but unfamiliar with the concept of bisexuality and struggles to identify his attraction for what it is. Eric is a foreigner to Riverdale (or is he?) and unfamiliar with the town's culture and quirks. Still, something going on in Sweetwater River seems to be related to him.

Archie and Eric share the Andrews' House - and in the house next door... live Gladys Jones and Polly Cooper!

After Jughead and Betty left for College Alice' horrid mom impulses settled on Jellybean who didn't stand back, grind her teeth and took it but instead broke Alice' teeth. Her and FP were not amused (though FP was also angry at Alice for being too strict). Alice moves out but stays as a journalist in town.

FP gets in trouble for being a brutal gang leader without a gang beating up criminals behind the boxing gym on tape. Not wanting to go to an illegal fighting club prison, he hides with Canadian Serpents behind the border. (Joaquin's identical twin brother and Ricky live there, too. They're happy there.)

Maybe he'd call once or twice with misleading wrong snake facts that have nothing to do with the current mystery of the episode but fit into perfectly by chance.

Jellybean was invited along, but she chose to stay because she thinks Riverdale is rad and the old Cooper House is luxurious as hell. Also, her mom came back to become the new Sheriff!

Nearly seven years in, Gladys still holds the position because no one legally qualified wants it and she manages to keep gang violence at an all time low for Riverdale. Plus, she and Mary Andrews are not exactly friends but able to work well together. When there's another serial killer running wild in town she has no problem with having another girlfriend of Mary who happens to be a skilled professional in the most relevant field take over for a bit. If needed, the Riverdale gangs are usually willing to add muscle to good causes, too.

Jellybean has left Riverdale for university and will only be present for holidays and breaks. She'd still be played by Trinity because I love her and honestly, real nineteen year olds look like fourteen year olds everywhere in the world. Also this gives the viewers 'Archie vision': he will always see his best friend's toddling baby sister in the young woman which makes her the only undatable (legal) female on this planet for him.

While attending Riverdale High she lead the Andrews Boxing Gym and made it the most successful gym in the area. It won't be a plot point in the show (apart from her being angry at Archie for just trading it against trash) but there will be framed newspaper articlesband the like in Gladys' house.

Around the time everyone graduated, Polly was released from Shady Grooves and is back to her old smart self - and really missing her babies! As Choni leave for whatever private college Blossom women have always gone to, Polly takes them and goes home - just to learn on the porch that not only did her mother sell her childhood home more than a year ago without anyone ever telling her, the college fund she never had gotten legal access to and planned to use for the twins is gone too and her sister left town without saying goodbye.

Gladys has always taken care of all the stray kids she found no matter how tight the budget was and now there's this young desolate mother with twin toddlers in front of her posh murder house she'd gotten for cheap and she has this new gig as sheriff. Of course, she takes them in.

They stay in Betty's old room at first, but they soon get to remodel the attic to give Polly her own room. At present, Dagwood has Polly/Chic/JB's old room and Juniper the one facing Archie's. (When Archie sees her in the room, he actually has a flashback once to when he and Betty used to be so young, but then Juniper turns her gead, stares at him really creepily and smiles weirdly. Archie will be somewhat scared from then onwards and be reminded of when everyone thought Polly might gave killed Jason. Juniper would murder.)

At first, Polly's a full time, stay at home mom, but once the kids are older, she starts working part-time: for Gladys.

It turns out they work amazing together. Gladys tends to jump to convenient conclusions and threatens violence way to freely. Also, she is intimidating as fuck.

Polly is everything she isn't: level headed (to a point, in comparison at least), brilliant at combining clues and steering people (remember how she infiltrated Thornhill and made Cheryl unknowingly assist in her snooping plans?). On top of that, she has these stepford smiles and all the ways to appear unthreatening drillend into her head. Honestly, she and Betty are quite alike. While Betty has the lockpicking skills and knows her way around cars, Polly used to be really into fashion (or something) and, with all her experiences at the Sisters, the Farm and Shady Groves, Polly knows psychology.

She started solving some of Gladys' cases at the breakfast table, but now she's officially a deputy or an advisor or something. They're essentially like FP and Jughead, just that Polly is an adult (and that she wouldn't be in a gang beating suspects up regularly).

(These characters would all be mostly in the background though.)

Veronica finally gained perspective on her relationship to her father and grew up. Hiram's cut out of her life for good. They won't ever interact. (In fact, Hiram either moved to New York or he had a minor traffic accident where he lost all of his memory for good and now lives as Ram Rod and works as a trainer at Penelope's newly acquired boxing gym. Everyone is confused about it but doesn't care to ask.)

Veronica is successful at whatever she's doing and doesn't plan on ever moving back to Riverdale, but maybe something is up at Pop's that requires her checking up on in person and she just happens to cross paths with Betty who is also just there for the weekend. And they haven't had quality time together for years, because it's so hard to stay in contact sometimes even with people you love so much you'd die to keep them safe.

If I could come up with something meaningful for them to catch up on emotionally, I'd have them sitting together in a booth at Pop's for a whole episode just talking (but I'm not that deep).

Veronica might be engaged, but we see it fall through without really getting to meet the guy. She mostly just talks to Betty about him on occasion but in a somewhat messed up way. Ultimately, she realises how she treats him in some regards like Hiram treated her and her mother. She wants to grow up further and not be like her father anymore. Since the fiance was only a trophy pawn, she breaks it off and concentrates on introspection/ maybe therapy for a bit.

Later that season her sister comes back and surprise: Hermosa embraced becoming Daddy.

(These would have to be restricted to two half episodes only, she definitely deserves story arcs that aren't about her dad.)

Careerwise: she has a couple businesses, maybe a restaurant chain or a franchise and she seems to collect startups. She reinvests a lot and has to travel quite a bit but can work remotely too.

Everyone seems to want FBI agent Betty and if I'd go that route I'd have her demask Charles as the fraude fake FBI who hires guns for hire and fake emergency teams while making up fantasy horror stories about serial killer genes to scare his biological family into killing each other that I wholeheartedly believe he is. But I also like Betty's interest in mechanics and would love for her to have a career in mechanical engineering. Maybe she switched majors at uni and now works for a company developing prosthetics. Maybe she tries to get Eric into joining a study. (I mean, prosthetic legs would help his work as a fire fighter...).

She's in town to visit Polly and the twins but after talking to Veronica she spontaneously stays in town. She can do her work remotely, really. The two of them move into a two bedroom 'shared bnb' (or whatever it was called in season two) and we finally get to see their friendship on screen.

Betty isn't in a relationship at the moment abd she's so into her work, she isn't looking for one either.

Jughead had broken up with Betty seven years ago and never really had a well working relationship after. He's grown obsessed with finding a way to recreate what he had with Betty.

Not in a totally creepy psycho way, he's simply not understanding that he might be sex positive and he had been in love with Betty, but he is ace and quite aro, too. It doesn't help, that he finds people sexually attractive on their online profiles just to be repulsed by the tought of even kissing them goodbye in person.

(I don't think tv is generally a fitting medium for this, but I guess he can narrate for himself and make it work.)

I guess he has to be an author. Obsessed as he is about finding love again (he wouldn't call it like that) he figures it had either been the location or the constant fear for his life. He chooses to return to Riverdale. He probably instantly moves with everything he owns to Riverdale (not that it's much beside a modern laptop, the typewriter and his camera).

Archie gives the great advice how Jughead is obviously still innlove with Betty, duh.

He of course runs into Betty some day, they end up investigating some random murder together and find themselves in familiar positions and kiss - but it just isn't there anymore. Jughead feels nothing and Betty isn't really into it either.

Veronica later points him in the direction of maybe not being allo (because she used to question herself as aro).

Funfact: Jughead would have failed graduation with Archie if Mr Honey didn't forge some records that weren't actually submitted from Stonewall (they claim all records were deleted during a power outage). Jughead knows and is deeply shamed.

Thornhill has been renovated! Toni is pregnant! Choni will be raising their kids (surprise, it's going to be twins!) in Cheryl's ancestral home. Choni are married and happy.

Toni has reopened the White Worm with Fangs somewhere at the Southside and yes, let's make her the official Serpent Queen. Let her work lots of social causes (remember toys for tots?), grey area rule bending for good and of course she works well with Gladys. I've seen talk about her being a social worker floating around and honestly, I think that works amazing. She's working the local cases (and a few unofficial ones) and I think she and Cheryl are registered foster parents. On occasion (like once) they'd be shown taking care of a random kid.

Cheryl used her College time to study two things: business and Riverdale town history. Remember how in season two she took so much pride in her ancestors because she believed them to be good people? She might be disillusioned but she is the Blossom heiress and her and Toni's as well as Jason's kids will one day inherit a better family legacy. She'll invest in Southside rebuilding projects, advocate for new town memorials, maybe rebrand some of the Blossom product lines. Something like that

She won't run for mayor yet, but she's definitely invested in (local) politics.

Of course the pregnancy was with artificial insemination, the donor was either an unsuspecting red head from the Greendale Sperm Bank or they use some of Jason's that has surly been saved to guarantee the Blossom line when everywhere was scary talk about sperm counts going down due to mobile phones.

In addition: the maple factories need worker bees! Cheryl has a few programs with Toni to get Serpents/random Riverdalians newly released from prison or just with bad luck into a steady job and a cushy appartement overlooking the ex prison on the Southside. Pop's is also participating. Ethel works as a landlady for said appartement complex.

Also, why not add a second Blossom-Topaz lovestory to underline this incest-adjacent show and bring back Toni's grandpa and set him up with Nana Blossom. XD

Then during this season's arc, the Blossom uncle's corpse will be found in the river and the mistery is whether the FBI will figure out who the corpse us and what happened or not.

I love Reggie. Since Varchie is unlikely thanks to Eric, him and Veronica rekindling their relationship would definitely be a possibility I'm into, but he also seems to have an interesting connection with Kevin and Fangs that could be built on.

He would definitely have a car he'd love very much and I think it would still be Bella.

I'm not sure about his career, but it wouldn't include his father's car dealership. Maybe he'd be a successful movie star just in town between movie shootings.

Kevin was doing something with musicals on Katy Keene, I think? Writing or directing? He was trying to nake it big, but some plans fell through. Now he's back in Riverdale. Luckily, they are just about to open Riverdale's first theater in the relatively newly built but forever closed prison. Next to the Southside Theater the complex holds a mall and the White Worm.

Fangs works full time as the manager of the WW that he co-owns with Toni. He meets Kevin again once he's back in town.

Sweet-Pea somehow ended up as a junior doctor at the Riverdale hospital. He spends all of his scarce free time at the WW.

Some of the background Pretty Poisons officially work for the police now. Different than Gladys, they are actually ccccc for the positions they hold.

Peaches works as a manager for one of Cheryl's companies. She's happily married and has a kid (or something).

How long in prison do you get in the US for standing in as the head figure of a crazy pen and paper cult that has literal murders committed in his name? As a blond white dude probably just parole? So honestly, once they actually bring his case to court (and they have nothing against him because anyone could have been under the mask at any one time and people know of different gargoyle kings) he's released of all charges. No one in Riverdale actually knows though since his case took forever, Bughead had already left Riverdale and Alice didn't step up to follow the case. No one wrote about it, so no one knows. They just assume that of course the guy will be locked away forever, he's guilty.

In reality, he and Charles have bought a house somewhere in a different street of Riverdale where they aren't quite known and have adopted a couple kids.

Charles meets Alice regularly for lunch and she thinks he's this workaholic FBI agent only living for solving crime. They play a long con game I don't know the goal of.

(They have been behind the tapes even if that storyline gets totally ignored. They pretend FP being in exile is their doing, but the tape responsible was just a random security camera in the area.)

Josie's plans in New York sadly fell through (I haven't seen any Katy Keene but I want her back)

Lot's of bonding scenes with her brother Kevin who's also back in town. The two share a flat and on occasion burst into song together. Since I've already invented the Southside Theater, maybe she'd find a job there, too.

Val and Melody stayed in Riverdale aftee highschool and made careers in town for themselves. Maybe Melody at city hall and Val as a marketing specialist at the farm, Riverdale's most outstanding new grocery mart. Half of all Riverdalians don't get the controversy of the name, the others either think it's brilliant or tasteless. (Kevin for example has repressed the nemories so gard, he doesn't get it. Josie is very protective and angry at Val for working there.) The store belongs to the eccentric redhaired Eva Everafter or whatever pseudonym Evelyn can come up with to thinly hide her identity behind.

Somewhere in it I'd throw in a few lines vaguely referencing older happenings like "I still can't drink tap water" and the very first time Veronica sees Archie again after seven years she identifies him through his ab muscles.

So in short: Archie would be very dumb, everyone else is just there.

Also: Pop's would serve 50% vegan burgers and milkshakes so I could dig in with gusto.

#riverdale speculation #riverdale fanfiction #riverdale #asks #arsenicpanda #fun #my writing #i guess

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begitalarcos · 5 years ago

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100+ Years of Horror

This is not a definitive list. These are just the films I believe every Horror fan should see at least once. I’ve excluded any sequels that I didn’t feel needed including. I hope you enjoy.

For @mechamag

1922 – Nosferatu

1925 – The Phantom of the Opera

1927 – The Cat and the Canary

1931 – Dracula, Frankenstein

1932 – Freaks

1933 – The Invisible Man

1934 – The Black Cat

1935 – The Bride of Frankenstein

1939 – The Cat and the Canary

1941 – The Black Cat, The Wolfman

1942 – Cat People

1945 - Dead of Night

1953 – House of Wax

1954 – Creature from the Black Lagoon

1955 – Night of the Hunter, Les Diaboliques

1956 – Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Bad Seed

1958 – The Blob, Macabre, The Fly

1959 – House on Haunted Hill, The Tingler, The Killer Shrews

1960 – 13 Ghosts , Black Sunday, Eyes without a face, Peeping Tom, Psycho, Village of the Damned

1961 – The Pit and the Pendulum

1962 – What ever happened To Baby Jane?

1963 – The Birds, Black Sabbath, The Haunting

1965 – Repulsion

1966 – Island of Terror

1967 – Wait until Dark

1968 – Night of the Living Dead, Rosemary’s Baby, Spider Baby

1970 – Mark of the Devil, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage

1971 – The Cat O’ Nine Tails, Let’s scare Jessica to Death, What’s the matter with Helen? A Bay of Blood, Play Misty for Me

1972 – Ben, Children shouldn’t play with dead things, Deathdream, Don’t torture a Duckling, The last house on the left, Night of the Lepus, What have you done to Solange?

1973 – The Crazies, The Exorcist, The Legend of Hell House, Sisters, The Wicker Man, Don’t look now

1974 – Black Christmas, Deranged, It’s Alive, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Vampyres

1975 – Shivers, Trilogy of Terror, Jaws, Deep Red, The Stepford Wives

1976 – Alice Sweet Alice, Burnt Offerings, Carrie, Eaten Alive, The Omen, Squirm, To the devil a daughter, The town that dreaded sundown, The Tenant

1977 – Audrey Rose, Day of the Animals, Demon Seed, Eraserhead, Exorcist 2: The Heretic, The Hills have Eyes, Rabid, The Sentinel, Shock, Suspiria

1978 – Damien: Omen 2, Dawn of the Dead, Halloween, I Spit on your Grave, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Jaws 2, The Legacy, Magic, Martin, Piranha

1979 – Alien, The Amityville Horror, The Brood, Phantasm, Prophecy, Tourist Trap, When a Stranger Calls, Zombi2, Nosferatu the Vampyre, Salem’s Lot

1980 – Alligator, Altered States, The Changeling, City of the Living Dead, Fade to Black, The Fog, Friday the 13th, Hell of the Living Dead, The House on the Edge of the Park, Humanoids form the Deep, Inferno, Maniac, Motel Hell, Prom Night, The Shining

1981 – An American Werewolf in London, The Beyond, The Black Cat, The Burning, Dead and Buried, The Entity, The Evil Dead, Friday the 13th Part 2, The Funhouse, Galaxy of Terror, Halloween 2, Happy Birthday to Me, Hell Night, The House by the Cemetery, The Howling, My Bloody Valentine, Omen 3: The Final Conflict, The Pit, Possession, The Prowler, Wolfen, Scanners, Blow Out, Ghost Story

1982 – Alone in the Dark, Basket Case, The Beast Within, Cat People, Creepshow, Friday the 13th Part 3, Halloween 3: Season of the Witch, Madman, Pieces, Poltergeist, Q: The Winged Serpent, Tenebrae, The Thing, Visiting Hours

1983 – A Blade in the Dark, Christine, Cujo, Curtains, The Deadly Spawn, Eyes of Fire, The House on Sorority Row, The Hunger, Mortuary, Nightmares, Sleepaway Camp, Videodrome, The Dead Zone, Twilight Zone: The Movie

1984 – C.H.U.D., Children of the Corn, The Company of Wolves, Gremlins, Night of the Comet, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Razorback, Silent Night Deadly Night, Firestarter, Starman, Ghostbusters

1985 – Cat’s Eye, Day of the Dead, Demons, Fright Night, Ghoulies, LifeForce, Phenomena, Re-Animator, The Return of the Living Dead, Silver Bullet, The Stuff, Cut and Run, The New Kids

1986 – Aliens, April Fools Day, Chopping Mall, Critters, Deadly Friend, The Fly, From Beyond, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, The Hitcher, House, Invaders from Mars, Little Shop of Horrors, Maximum Overdrive, Monster Dog, Night of the Creeps, Poltergeist 2: The Other Side, Rawhead Rex, Terrorvision, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Trick or Treat, Troll, Vamp, The Wraith

1987 – Angel Heart, Bad Taste, Creepshow 2, Dolls, Evil Dead 2, The Gate, Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2, Hellraiser, The Hidden, House 2: The Second Story, The Outing, The Lost Boys, The Monster Squad, Near Dark, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, Opera, Prince of Darkness, Predator, Stage Fright, The Stepfather, Street Trash, The Witches of Eastwick, Lady Beware, Fatal Attraction

1988 – Bad Dreams, The Blob, Child's Play, Dead Heat, Elvira Mistress of the Dark, Fright Night Part 2, Hellbound: Hellraiser 2, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, The Lair of the White Worm, Maniac Cop, Night of the Demons, Phantasm 2, Pin, Prison, Pumpkinhead, Return of the Living Dead Part 2, The Serpent and the Rainbow, Uninvited, Watchers, Waxwork, They Live

1989 – 976-Evil, The Church, Grim Prairie Tales, The Horror Show, Intruder, Leviathan, Night Life, Pet Sematary, Shocker, Society, Warlock, Dead Calm, The Forgotten One, DeepStar Six

1990 – Braindead, Bride of Re-Animator, Child’s Play 2, The Exorcist 3, Frankenhooker, Graveyard Shift, The Guardian, Hardware, IT, Jacob’s Ladder, Misery, Night of the Living Dead, Nightbreed, Predator 2, The Reflecting Skin, Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat, Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, Tremors, Two Evil Eyes, Arachnophobia

1991 – Body Parts, Cape Fear, The People under the Stairs, The Pit and the Pendulum, Popcorn, Scanners 2: The New Order, The Silence of the Lambs, Sometimes they Come Back

1992 – Army of Darkness, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Candyman, Demonic Toys, Dolly Dearest, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Innocent Blood, Sleepwalkers, Spilt Second, Man Bites Dog

1993 – Body Bags, Carnosaur, Cronos, The Dark Half, Leprechaun, Return of the Living Dead 3, Trauma, Kalifornia, Man’s Best Friend

1994 – Brainscan, Cemetery Man, The Crow, Death Machine, Hellbound, In The Mouth of Madness, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, The Stand, Wes Cravens New Nightmare, Wolf, Interview with the Vampire

1995 – Castle Freak, Demon Knight, Lord of Illusions, The Mangler, Mosquito, The Prophecy, Species, Village of the Damned, Screamers, Dolores Claiborne

1996 – Bad Moon, The Craft, The Frighteners, From Dusk till Dawn, Jack Frost, Scream, Tremors 2: Aftershocks, Mary Reilly

1997 – An American Werewolf in Paris, Anaconda, Campfire Tales, Cube, The Devils’ Advocate, Event Horizon, I know what you did last Summer, Mimic, The Night Flier, Nightwatch, The Relic, Quicksilver Highway, The Ugly, Wishmaster, Kiss the Girls, Se7en, Perfect Blue

1998 – Blade, Deep Rising, The Faculty, Ringu, Strangeland, Urban Legend, Vampires, Sphere

1999 – Audition, The Blair Witch Project, Deep Blue Sea, The Haunting, House on Haunted Hill, Lake Placid, The Mummy, Ravenous, Sleepy Hollow, Stigmata, Virus, The Sixth Sense, Idle Hands

2000 – American Psycho, Bless the Child, Blood: The Last Vampire, Cherry Falls, Final Destination, Ginger Snaps, Hollow Man, Ju-On, Pitch Black, Python, Versus, What Lies Beneath, The Gift, The Cell, Shadow of the Vampire

2001 – The Attic Expeditions, Brotherhood of the Wolf, Dagon, Jeepers Creepers, Mulholland Drive, The Others, Session 9, Thir13en Ghosts, The Devil’s Backbone, Frailty, From Hell, Hannibal

2002 – 28 Days Later, Blade 2, Bubba Ho-Tep, Cabin Fever, Dog Soldiers, Eight Legged Freaks, Ghost Ship, May, Queen of the Damned, Resident Evil, The Ring, They, The Mothman Prophecies, Red Dragon

2003 – Darkness Falls, Dream Catcher, Final Destination 2, Freddy Vs. Jason, Haute Tension, House of 1000 Corpses, A Tale of Two Sisters, Undead, Underwold, Willard, Wrong Turn

2004 – Alien Vs Predator, Club Dread, Dawn of the Dead, Dead & Breakfast, Exorcist: The Beginning, Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed, Godsend, Saw, Shaun of the Dead, The Village, Taking Lives, The Forgotten, Enduring Love

2005 – 2001 Maniacs, The Amityville Horror, Constantine, Dark Water, The Descent, The Devils’ Rejects, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Land of the Dead, Wolf Creek, Hard Candy

2006 – Abominable, All the boys love Many Lane, Black Sheep, Fido, Final Destination 3, Hatchet, The Hills have Eyes, Slither, The Woods, The Host, Silent Hill, The Tripper, Wild Country

2007 – 28 Weeks Later, 30 Days of Night, 1408, Grindhouse, I am Legend, The Mist, My Name is Bruce, Nature of the Beast, Paranormal Activity, Primeval, REC, Skinwalkers, Teeth, Trick r’ Treat, An American Crime, Rogue, Funny Games

2008 – Book of Blood, Cloverfield, Deadgirl, Diary of the Dead, Let the right one in, The Midnight Meat Train, Mirrors, Quarantine, The Ruins, Splinter, The Strangers, Eden Lake, Outlander

2009 – Case 39, Grace, The Haunting in Connecticut, Heartless, The House of the Devil, Jennifer’s Body, The Loved Ones, Orphan, Pandorum, Splice, Triangle, Zombieland, Carriers, Dread

2010 – Black Swan, The Crazies, Exorcismus, Frozen, Insidious, The Last Exorcism, Let me in, Primal, Tucker & Dale Vs Evil, The Wolfman, Troll Hunter, Devil

2011 – The Awakening, Don’t be afraid of the Dark, The Innkeepers, Livid, The Thing, The Woman, The Rite

2012 – American Mary, Bait, The Cabin in the Woods, The Devil Inside, The Possession, Prometheus, Sinister, Byzantium, Compliance

2013 – The Conjuring, Evil Dead, Jug Face, Mama, Under the Skin, Only Lovers Left Alive, Warm Bodies, Horns, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, Contracted, Stoker

2014 – Annabelle, As Above So Below, The Babadook, Deliver us from Evil, A Girl walk home alone at Night, Life after Beth, Starry Eyes, Tusk, It Follows, Goodnight Mommy, The Voices, Digging up the Marrow, When Animals Dream, Gone Girl ,The Remaining, Late Phases, Cub

2015 – Crimson Peak, Krampus, The Lazarus Effect, Maggie, The Visit, The Witch, Bone Tomahawk, Green Room, Regression, The Devil’s Candy, The Lure

2016 – The Autopsy of Jane Doe, The Belko Experiment, The Boy, The Conjuring 2, Don’t Breathe, The Eyes of my Mother, Split, The Forest, The Love Witch, The Neon Demon, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Raw, Train to Busan, The Void, What We Become, 10 Cloverfield Lane, A Cure for Wellness, The Shallows, Pet, Hounds of Love

2017 – IT, Get Out, Mother!, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Ritual, Thelma, Veronica, It comes at Night, Life, Gerald’s Game, Revenge, 1922

2018 – Annihilation, Halloween, Hereditary, Mandy, Mom and Dad, The Nun, Overlord, Possum, A Quiet Place, Suspiria, The House that Jack Built, Bird Box, Apostle, The Meg

2019 – Brightburn, IT Chapter 2, Midsommar, Ready or Not, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Us, I am Mother, Crawl, The Dead Don’t Die, Extremely Wicked Shockingly Evil and Vile, Glass

#begita #Horror #I'll probably add more #but these are the ones that come to mind first off

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matthewschueller · 5 years ago

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The 16 Best Things to Do in Portland Oregon - From a Local

Why Visit Portland Oregon? Advice From a Local.

Portland Oregon is a quirky, eclectic mix of crazy personalities and stunning natural beauty. Every time we fly back into Portland, we’re stunned by the view of Mount Hood overlooking the emerald green forests surrounding the city. There’s no place like it, and it continues to surprise us. The city is filled to the brim with evergreens, top-tier restaurants, green spaces, bike lanes, and unique neighborhoods. Just an hour from the coast or the mountains, the options for hiking and outdoor activities are limitless.

Besides the fact that Portland is basically a city within a giant forest, it has an interesting way about structuring its neighborhoods. Throughout the sprawl of the city, there are tons of neighborhood centers, each with its own unique personality and feel. What we love most about Portland is its irreducible attitude about not giving-a-shit about what anyone thinks about it. Portland is super weird, and it’s proud of that fact. From Voodoo Doughnuts, Powell’s City of Books (the world’s largest bookstore), to Darcelle’s (our personal favorite), anything here is accepted and loved as is!

Above that, Portland is an incredibly gay friendly city. Many have asked where the gay district Is in Portland, but really, we think the whole city is kind of gay. It’s awesome, and we feel totally 100% free and comfortable no matter what part of the city we’re in. Skip down to the 16th list-item below to see a bit more about the LGBTQ+ community in Portland.

It’s no surprise that Portland has become a popular destination for people from all over, and we’ve had many friends and family members ask, “What should we do in Portland? What should we see in Portland? Where should we eat in Portland!?" Well, we are here to answer all of that HERE!

Here are The 16 Best Things to Do in Portland Oregon

1. Get Lost in Powell’s City of Books

Powell’s City of Books is an iconic destination in Portland. The bookstore is 4 stories tall and takes up an entire city block. It holds more books for sale than any other bookstore on earth. It’s enormous, and you can actually get lost in there (I have)! On the top level, there’s an isolated room full of first edition and signed books, including original print copies from series like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. It’s amazing.

2. Eat as Many Donuts in Portland as Possible

We’ve all heard of Voodoo Doughnuts, and while this is a staple of Portland’s quirky eccentric attitude, these aren’t the best donuts in the city. Don’t get me wrong, we love Voodoo, but there are a couple Portland donut shops that have risen up above the rest over the last decade.

Pip’s Doughnuts

For something a little more classic, head to Pip’s Original Doughnuts and Chai. Known for having some of the most delectable chai in the greater Portland area, Pip’s offers donut holes topped with classic and seasonal custards and cremes. Whether you come in the winter for a rich Banana Custard and Salted Nutella doughnut or a little closer to spring to enjoy their Meyer Lemon Pear Butter doughnut, you will always be able to pair them with a perfect chai or matcha.

Blue Star Donuts

Blue Star crafts its donut creations out of a brioche base from scratch and pair that with fresh fruits, herbs and spices, even liqueurs. Whether your in the mood for something fresh like their Meyer Lemon and Key Lime curd creation, something rich like the Chocolate Almond Ganache, or a classic Old Fashioned (of which there are three varieties), Blue Star has a myriad of flavors that stem from the surrounding area to tantalize your tastebuds.

3. Shop on Nob Hill’s 23rd Avenue

Perched on the North West side of downtown, 23rd Avenue holds some of the best cafes and restaurants of the city. Stroll down 23rd Ave. and grab a coffee at Barista, browse unique gifts at Paper Source, check out the view on Restoration Hardware’s rooftop or find your favorite crystals at the small pop-in shops along the way. 23rd Ave is a beautiful neighborhood full of ornate victorian homes. Walking around the area is a treat, and this is a prime area for good shopping. One of our favorite places to grab a pick-me-up is Tea Chai Te. We love sitting out on their outdoor balcony overlooking 23rd Ave.

4. Have a Scoop at Salt & Straw

Their first storefront opened on 23rd Ave. and now Salt & Straw is pretty well known throughout the West Coast. With intense and crazy flavors, Salt & Straw typically boasts a line out the door and around the corner. Try their famous Sea Salt and Caramel Ribbon, Honey Lavender, Pear & Blue Cheese, or seasonal varieties like Bone Marrow & Smoked Cherries or vegan Coconut Milk with Cashew Brittle & Pandan! Everyone is welcome and encouraged to try as many flavor samples as they’d like while standing in line. Try them all!

5. Enjoy the View at Pittock Mansion

Pittock Mansion is a famously beautiful mansion overlooking downtown Portland from Forest Park. You can catch one of the best views of Mt. Hood from there, and in the Spring, the rhododendrons around the mansion are kind of magical. It’s one of the must-see places to anyone visiting! Pittock Mansion is best to visit on sunny days in the Spring, but is perfect for photography all year around.

6. Sip Lots and Lots of Coffee

This one is without saying. Portland has great coffee. Obviously, you have to try Stumptown. Their coldbrew is unbelievable—like nectar-of-the-gods-good. It’s chocked full of caffeine, so sip slowly! Check out their iconic location in the Portland Ace Hotel downtown. The lobby of the Ace Hotel is an iconic photo spot and an even better place for people watching. Other favorite coffee shops include Ristretto Roasters, Never Coffee, Heart Coffee, Barista and Good Coffee; just to name a few.

7. Find Some Peace at the Japanese Gardens

In the hills over downtown, the Japanese Gardens holds acres of rhododendron, blossoming trees and small ponds surrounded by bamboo. It’s a peaceful place to spend the day just far enough away from downtown. With views of Mount Hood, the famous Japanese Gardens attracts tourists from all around the world.

8. Stroll Down Mississippi Ave.

Mississippi Ave. is lined with some of the best restaurants and bars of the city. It’s really active any night during any part of the year, and is always bound to bring a good time. It also has a ton of cute trendy shops and cafes. Hanging out there is one of our favorite things to do on any given weekend! The food cart pod on Mississippi Ave. has cheap and tasty options including Matt’s BBQ and Little Conejo Food Cart. Our favorite spot to grab a bite on Mississippi is ¿Por Qué No?. This hugely popular taquería serves some of the best tacos and guacamole we’ve ever had. Food isn’t the only thing that has us coming back to this neighborhood, the bars are the best. Our favorites include Prost! for beer, Interurban for cocktails, and Psychic Bar for one of the most interesting witchy atmosphere’s we’ve experienced!

9. Eat at the Food Trucks

Portland’s street food culture also has made a name for itself. In the summer, you’ll see everyone out biking down to the food carts to grab Koi Fusion, Chicken and Guns, or Nong's Khao Man Gai. There are so many food trucks in Portland, we could do a whole blog just on which ones to try… and there are a lot we can recommend. Our advice, try as many as possible during your visit. The food culture here is just as good in the streets as it is in the sheets... or restaurants, oops.

10. Explore the Alberta Arts District

Few spots are more classically Portland than Alberta Avenue. The arts district is filled to the brim with Portland grunge. Graffiti stained walls, independent and bustling coffee shops, food carts and enough weed to get the entire state high. You can find yourself wanting to stick around Alberta Ave. for a while. Head to this neighborhood to admire the graffiti art, go bar hopping, or try any one of the incredible restaurants. We recommend Pok Pok, Pine State Biscuits, Proud Mary’s and Bamboo Sushi to start!

11. Hike in the Colombia River Gorge and See Multnomah Falls

The Columbia River Gorge is home to some of Oregon’s most iconic natural wonders. Located just a 30 minutes drive from downtown, Multnomah Falls is the most popular natural tourist attractions in the state. The historic falls plummet from the foothills leading up to Mount Hood and is perfectly framed by the iconic stone bridge located just in front. It’s a very short walk from the parking lot to the falls, but for those looking for a hike, there is plenty of trail beyond the falls. The Colombia River Gorge is full of adventurous trails that will lead you up paths to find countless waterfalls and epic views of the gorge.

Here are a few of our favorite hikes and views:

Hike in Oneonta Gorge —

Oneonta Gorge is itself a scenic canyon located in the Columbia River Gorge. The U.S. Forest Service has designated it as a botanical area because of the unique aquatic and woodland plants that grow there. There are four major waterfalls on the Oneonta Creek as it runs through the gorge. Middle Oneonta Falls can be seen clearly from a footpath and is very often mistaken for the upper or lower falls. The lower gorge has been preserved as a natural habitat, so there is no boardwalk or footpath through it as such. Thus, Lower Oneonta Falls can only be seen by walking upstream from the creek's outlet. Getting to the lower falls can require wading through water that, in some places, can be chest-deep, depending on the season and the relative amount of snow-melt. Bring your waders if you want to see the iconic lower falls!

Hike to Latourell Falls —

Latourell Falls is one of the easiest waterfalls to access while still having breathtaking height and power. Access from Portland takes you first to the Bridal Veil exit off of I-84E and then a quick double-back toward the city along the Historic Columbia River Highway. Park your car at the small lot and walk about 0.5 miles down the trail until you reach the falls. There is a 2.4 mile hiking loop if you want to enjoy the scenery around the area even more, see the falls from above and hit a second viewpoint at the Upper Latourell Falls.

Hike to Angel’s Rest —

One of the closest hike’s to the Portland metro area with rewarding views of the Columbia River Gorge. This is a moderately paced hike with clear paths, good elevation gain and is an easy day trip from the city. Due to its proximity this can be a slightly busy trail but is very peaceful at the early morning hours. If you want to secure your parking spot and have a climb with little disturbances definitely arrive before 9am.

Take Pictures at Vista House —

Vista House was built in 1917 on one of the most beautiful scenic points along the Historic Columbia River Highway. Prior to the construction of I-84, this building was intended as a place of respite and relaxation for those traveling along the highway. There is still an espresso bar with snacks during hours of operation, but the main reason to stop here are the breathtaking views in all directions.

12. Take a Day Trip to Cannon Beach — Haystack Rock

On one side of Portland you have the mountains, but on the other side is the beach! An hour and a half West from downtown Portland is Cannon Beach. Perhaps just as a popular as the falls, every traveler must plan a day to check out the Oregon Coast. You’ll find impressively wide beaches with powerful waves, along with striking cliffs and rock structures jutting from the water, like the famous Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach. Spend the day walking down the beach, sitting in the sun, and exploring the tide pools around the rocks. Pelican Brewing Co. at the edge of the beach is our favorite spot to hang out, grab a couple beers and watch the sun set over the historic Haystack Rock. We try to make it out to Cannon Beach at least a few times a year, we love it!

13. Drink All the Beers

Arguably, one of the best parts about visiting Portland is the sheer number and variety of breweries throughout the city. Honestly, you can make an entire trip centered around trying the beers here. We are regulars at 10 Barrel Brewing Co.’s rooftop bar in the Pearl District. We also love enjoying a local tap at Departures Lounge on the rooftop of The Nines Luxury Hotel downtown. Departures also has amazing sushi if you’re looking for a bite to eat! You’ll find us enjoying a local IPA but if hops aren’t your flavor try the local blondes, ale or stout! We have them all! Other great breweries to checkout are Deschutes Portland Brewery, Migration Brewing, Breakside Brewery, Rogue Brewery, Occidental Brewing, Baerlic Brewing, Ecliptic Brewing and many more!

14. Go Wine Tasting in the Willamette Valley

For every brewery in Portland there’s another winery outside the city waiting to help get your drink on. The Willamette Valley outside of Portland is known for its world class Pinot Noir. And really, the wineries are not far from Portland’s City Center. If you’d prefer to stay in the city, there are plenty of tasting rooms like Boedecker Cellars and Cerulean Wine. Our favorite wineries to visit just outside the city are Hawks View Winery, Domaine Drouhin, Brooks Vineyards, and Stoller Family Estate. Wander down to Willamette Valley Vineyards just an hour south of Portland for some of the best Pinot Noir the West has to offer. All of the above wineries have shipping available for those who’d like to bring some bottles home without the hassle of getting them through the airport.

15. Bar Hop around Portland and Drink the Night Away!

As a warmup, we’ve mentioned all the breweries and wineries to try around Portland. We’ve also mentioned some of our favorite bars along Mississippi Ave and the Alberta Arts District. Here are a few of our all-time favorite bars and shows around the city.

Scandal’s

This is our favorite gay bar to hang at. It’s a pretty relaxed bar, no fluff. It’s comfortable, not intimidating, and an easy place to grab a drink and relax. I love this place because of how welcoming it is, and the drinks are honestly super cheap!

Blow Pony

This is a hugely popular queer event held once a month in Portland. It is a riot, and things get crazy. For those up for a party, it’s worth coming to Portland just for this! Wear as little as you’d like!

Darcelle’s XV

Darcelle has a history with the city. As the oldest practicing drag queen, Darcelle and her girls throw a comedy show four nights a week that will leave you on the floor. We went here for our bachelor party and had one of the best nights of our lives. They are so sweet, take no shit, and will give you a show you’ll never forget.

16. Celebrate Pride in Portland

We love walking down Harvey Milk Street downtown, popping into Scandal’s for a bit and having a drink with friends. Portland is a big city, but still feels kind of small. The community here is super personal and extremely friendly. I remember my first time at Portland Pride and how I essentially just felt an overwhelming sensation of belonging. It’s tight knit, and people really look out for each other. The gay bars are scattered throughout the city, so it isn’t dominated to just one section of town. The free-spirited, anything-goes mentality is something I’ve only also seen in places like The Castro or the West Village. There are two gay beaches, one at Sauvie Island and another at Rooster Rock, in the Columbia River Gorge. There are also a ton of community and sports groups like the Portland Frontrunners, who I run with every Tuesday and Saturday.

More to Explore

#Portland #Oregon #Portland Oregon #LGBTQ+#LGBTQ+ travel #gay travel #gay Portland #PDX #what to do in Portland

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lexiconomine · 5 years ago

Text

summer lovin’ - billy hargrove

summary: despite nancy’s best attempts, you poke and prod until you score a date with the talk of the town word count: 6,771 pairing: billy x reader warnings: explicit language, sex, oral sex, cigarette use (only by Billy), excessive pet name use notes: reupload bc I ACCIDENTALLY DELETED the entire text block trying to edit the tags :( I hope this finds its way back into people’s sights o o f anyway I hope y’all enjoy pt2!

It’s not that you don’t know how to swim, or even that you aren’t a good swimmer. In fact, you were one of the best on your high school team back home. But your mission here wasn’t just to swim a couple of laps. No, it was to scope out this new guy in town that everyone and their mother are always talking about. The one you’d only ever had an up-close interaction with one other time.

He was right in front of you in the line to the drugstore counter, buying a pack of Marlboro Reds and a bottle of Coke. The smell of his cologne highly overpowered any memory you have of that day, but you’re able to recall noticing his curls and the low drawl of his voice. You’d not made eye contact with him until he turned around to leave, and he flashed you a sly smirk as he gave you a painfully slow once-over. You watched as he walked out the door, doing the same for him.

And in that one small interaction, you felt as if any effort you took to breathe afterward were futile.

“I’m telling you right now, you do not wanna get involved with that,” Nancy protested to you once before when you brought him up that same day, combing through her permed hair in front of her vanity. “I’ve never even interacted with him and even I know he’s had sex with half the girls in your class.”

“Uh-huh…”

“He was literally there for less than a year.”

You decided to hold any response you had. A short moment of silence passed before Nancy started up again, a gentler tone than the one she held in her previous statements.

“It’s just… you miss a lot when you leave right before Hawkins goes to shit.”

At this point, during peak summer season, you still don’t know what it is, exactly, that drew you so strongly toward Billy Hargrove; but you’re really not sure whether or not you want to find out. You know it’s not the obvious fact that he’s a huge flirt to even the fact that he is so gorgeous in every way imaginable. Perhaps it’s the way all of your childhood friends who had stayed behind keep telling you to stay away, that he’s nothing but trouble; and hearing that over and over began to make you realize that you want to be the judge of that.

And maybe that’s way you’re making it a point to send the most intense gaze his way every time you locked eyes during his scans. You’re trying so hard to provoke him. It’s a notion, a siren’s call to him, which you can tell he’s acknowledging by the that he slides his tongue along his bottom lip, the slightest hint of a smile forming, before placing his whistle between his teeth and repeating his scan.

Now that you can tell you’ve gotten his attention, you slide your sunglasses back onto your face to continue watching him more discreetly, lying back against the lounge chair. You notice a subtle pause in Billy’s movement, and you let the feeling of triumph wash over you as he begins to climb down from his lifeguard stand.

Hook.

You watch as he makes his way over to you, quite nonchalantly and with an arrogant air.

“Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but uh,” he starts up the moment he gets within your vicinity, “something tells me you’re here for more than just a tan.”

You swing your legs over to one side so that you can sit up facing him, looking up and meeting his gaze. Amused, you decide to entertain. “And so what if I am?”

“Well, that’d really be a shame, sweetheart. ‘Cause I’m stuck here ’til six.” Billy grows a flirty smile, the very one that you’d been warned about by just about every girl she knew from Hawkins High.

Line.

“I got time,” is the snarky response you had been waiting to say to him, confident that two can play at this game he loves to play.

It seems as if Billy is taken aback to this, letting loose a soft chuckle as his eyebrows cock upward, lower lip catching between his teeth to help suppress the laugh. God, those lips.

“Alright,” he nods, seemingly impressed that you decided to match the energy he exuded. His smile has the ability to make anyone weak at the knees. He crouches down to your eye level and leans in close—so close that you can feel the tension between the two of you thicken the moment his lips just barely graze your ear. It is at this moment that he speaks into your ear, low and gruff. “Hope you brought somethin’ pretty for me.”

…And sinker.

And with a wink, he straightens himself up, turns around, and begins making his next round of the pool deck.

Despite the apparent disappointed glares you can feel radiating from Nancy and Jonathan, you hoist yourself up from your seat with a cheeky smile, setting all your unwettables down in your wake. They can think whatever it is that they’re thinking. You can already tell that you are very likely to experience a fun night. They should be happy that you’re meeting new people instead of lounging around in the Wheeler basement eating all their food and sleeping the day away until Nancy returns from work (which, spoiler alert, most of the time she doesn’t).

“I have a date,” you taunt before making your way to one of the pool lanes and diving in headfirst to swim a couple of laps.

*****

“You know, it’s not too late to bail,” Nancy coaxes at a low volume with the mentality that somehow she was saving her best friend from corruption. However, this statement is only met with a scoff followed by a light giggle.

“Relax, Nance. I’m a big girl who can take care of herself. Swear it.”

Right on cue, you and Nancy both stuck your pinkies out and interlaced them, holding them that way for a beat.

“Please call if you need me to come get you.”

“Will do, boss.”

With that, you parted ways, and you watch as Nancy plops down into the passenger’s seat of Jonathan’s car. As they drive away, a low whistle creeps up behind you.

“Got a hot date?”

You turn on your heel to find Billy leant up against the wall, curls looking gorgeous as ever and his low-buttoned top being the cherry on top of the cake that is this beautiful specimen. Placing your hands on your hips and shifting all your weight to your left leg, you flash him a teasing smile. “Well, wouldn’t you like to know?”

Billy reaches into the pocket of his denim jacket and pulls out a Marlboro cigarette along with his zippo lighter. As he saunters over to you, his sticks the cig in his mouth and lights it, taking a light puff from it to get the tobacco burning.

“What do you say we ditch ‘im, huh?” He suggests, playing into the typical good girl with bad boy situation where he steals the innocent you from your high school sweetheart and shows you what a good time really is. Taking a long drag from his cigarette, he continues after he removes it and holds it between his pointer and middle finger, light clouds forming around his mouth and dissipating after less than a second. “Why don’t I show show you how a real man’s suppose to treat a doll like yourself.”

The smile on your face turns into something soft and sultry as you step toward him, closing the gap between the two of you. You press your chest up against his warm body, fingers barely grazing over his waistline. Watching as his tongue pokes out to glide along his lips, you speak, smooth and coy. “I’d like a movie.”

The rugged blonde raises his free hand up to you face, takes a stray strand of your hair, and tucks it behind your ear, leaving an excited burning sensation along your cheek. “Movie it is.”

Taking another drag from his cigarette, Billy begins to lead the way to his car, sliding his right arm around your waist to allow himself a firm grasp on your hip and using his left to smoke his cig. As you reach his car, he crosses in front of you to open the passenger door, allowing you to sit. You mutter a quick word of thanks before he shuts the door for you and enters himself. Once the car is started, there’s a brief moment where he eyes you once more and smiles to himself as he turns his attention ahead of him, murmuring, “So fuckin’ pretty.”

The car ride is casual, the both of you making nice small talk and flirting every couple of minutes. Compliments are exchanged, laughs are had; it is so much more comfortable than she expected. There’s much less pressure. But once you arrive at the mall, it seems as if date mode has officially turned on. Billy insists on paying for your tickets and popcorn because “What kind of date is this if I let you pay for your own things?” It is surprisingly very gentlemanly of him.

During the movie, though, is when it gets interesting. You’d both decided to watch the horror film that had just come out (for the plot, of course); and Billy wastes no time draping his arm around your shoulders, subconsciously toying with the ends of your hair while you watched on. About halfway through the in, though, the movie soon becomes background noise to the low chatters and whispers between you two.

“Not gonna lie, this movie could be nice if I wasn’t so distracted,” Billy begins, leaning his head closer to you so that you’re able to hear his words. Once he brings his head back to its previous position, you mirror his gesture to speak.

“Lemme guess, my fault?” You tease, feeling like you already know his tricks before he even uses them. The young man beside you lets out a light snort of laughter, nodding as if to indicate he’d been figured out. Although you already have an inkling of his next move, by God, was it fun to play along. “How so?”

Billy turns his head to look at the side your face, adjusting his body so that he can comfortably do so. You meet his gaze once you notice that he’d started to shift a bit, admiring how he still manages to look so good even in the shallow lighting coming from the movie screen. Darting out his tongue to wet his lips, he tested you, “You really wanna know, princess?”

“Try me.”

A small, flirty grin creeps onto his face, and he opens his mouth so as to speak, but his mouth looks like it’s moved before his brain. He takes a breath in and reveals himself. “To be completely honest with you, I’ve been thinkin’ about kissing you all day.”

Your breath immediately catches in your throat. You’re quite surprised to hear those words come out of that mouth. In a way, you consider weighing your options, thinking back to all the trouble Nancy said it would cause you.

On the one hand, you very well might end up just being another notch on his belt. You could give in and give him everything you have to give and then end up nothing but a one night stand to him, which, you keep in mind, you’re fully prepared for. Prepared for the looks from the Hawkins girls who dream of being in your shoes every time you go to the mall, the pool, the arcade, for the entirety of what’s left of this summer. Prepared for all of that and not even so much as a bat of an eyelash from Billy.

On the other hand, you could follow what all of your logical reasoning is currently telling you and not entertain this any more than a couple of kisses, leaving him with possibly the bluest of balls for the night. It would definitely save you the trouble of giving an essence of you to someone who would forget all about it come sunrise.

Of course, you know now is not the time to play coy after all that effort you’d put into getting where you currently sit at this moment; so instead of retreating to the safer option (because let’s face it, Billy Hargrove is a dangerous endeavor), you decide to say the words you know your entire being wants you to say.

“Why don’t you, then?”

“Yeah?” He purrs in response with that smile as he leans in toward you, connecting his lips to yours with a hunger you had not yet known before this. Your head spins when he reaches a hand up to caress the nape of your neck, slowly running it up to cup your cheek as if you are the most delicate thing in the world. His touch makes the most pleasant chills run down your neck and spine. You soon begin to feel lightheaded, like he’s taking your very essence with this one longing kiss that he leads like a waltz. It’s all too much.

You can clearly hear Nancy’s voice in your head scolding you a million times and then some, and you already know that this is the last thing you should be doing and she just doesn’t ever want to see you get hurt; but you can’t help but acknowledge how good it feels to be rebelling against her constant advising for once. Especially when Billy is right here, kissing you so sensually with such skill and finesse. Especially when the scent of him is currently etching itself into your brain as he slides his tongue into your mouth, warm and smooth. You let yourself surrender to your fantasies and follow in suit, your own tongue slowly circling his in a way that pulls a low-pitched moan from the back of his throat.

You feel like you’re going crazy with just this taste of him.

It feels like it’s almost immediately then that you have to force yourself away, him following the ghost of your movement before realizing you’d already gone. You lean into his ear, much like he had this afternoon, inhaling the mixture of his hairspray and cologne and traces of cigarette smoke. And in that moment, you’re fully aware that this might be the point of no return when you breathe into his ear, “Take me to your car.”

Somehow, someway, something clicks inside of the boy beside you because in an instant, he’s reaching for your hand, pulling you from the seat as he makes a beeline headed straight for the exit. You follow in suit, the both of you practically speeding up to a moderate jog. You reach the car within two or three minutes, yanking your respective doors open and slamming them without an ounce of a fuck given if they fall straight off the car.

The amount of lust in the air around you and him is almost paralyzing as your lips reconnected after what felt like an eternity. Hands quickly travel to places they’d been dying to be on for hours on end, resting so perfectly on every and any curve and edge they land on. You feel like you can lose yourself in him, the heat in the car building up with the sounds of his moans and his growls. You had never fit so well with anybody else.

Billy’s hand sneaks up your back, and his fingers entangle themselves into your hair, gathering a portion of it for him to grab onto. Almost immediately, you begin making haste of unbuttoning his shirt. He surprisingly begins to pull away from you, holding you at bay with the fistful of hair he’d obtained.

“Easy, kitten,” he coos, tracing his thumb along your lower lip with his free hand. He knows exactly what you want by the way you look at him with such longing and desire, but he’s got other plans. “Pretty little thing like you shouldn’t have to be in such a rush.”

The needy groan you let out elicits a sultry chuckle from him, the boy who has you wrapped around the tip of his little pinky finger. He yanks onto your hair, jerking your head back as he buries himself into your neck and the smell of you. The way he’s trailing slow, sloppy kisses down your neck and to your shoulder has you growing more and more fervid. Sex has got to be a legitimate talent because this boy has got it.

“Smells so fuckin’ nice,” he mumbles into your skin, deeply inhaling your scent. He then pulls away all too soon, leaving you feeling cold and filled to the brim with pent up energy; but he presses an eager kiss to your lips and lingers for just a moment, licking at your upper lip with a sigh that held the burden of a million different hormones coursing through his veins. He knows that he wants you so badly it hurts.

However, as much as he would love to rip all of your clothes off and defile you in the back of his Camaro (and as much as you want him to), you sense that he’s holding back some when he starts the engine and begins to drive away from the mall.

You straighten yourself, tucking your blouse back into the waistband of your jeans and fastening your seatbelt. As Billy drives, you note the way his jaw clenches and his grip on the steering wheel tightens every so often. “Everything okay, Billy?”

“Yep,” he answers nonchalantly, as if he isn’t currently sporting the demeanor of an agitated wild animal.

“Did I do something?”

“Yes, you did.”

“Oh.”

There’s a short pause between the two of you, the first real silence that is present all night. That is, until Billy speaks again.

“So that’s why I’m taking you to bed with me.”

Oh.

Somewhat of an awkward silence takes place for a couple of seconds, and he soon comes to the realization that maybe he should have asked you that instead of declared it. Unbeknownst to him, you actually don’t mind his assertiveness. After all, although you aren’t necessarily expecting your date to end on a rated-R note, you certainly aren’t opposed to the idea.

“Unless you don’t want to,” he starts up again, “I can just take you back to Nancy’s instead.”

“No,” you refuse, shaking your head to match your verbal expression. Sure, it might be growing late and Nancy might be waiting for you to return, but you don’t care. The absolute last thing you want to do right now is leave. “I want to.”

As much as the blonde tries to hide it, you can see a smile forming onto his face. “Okay then. My place it is.”

Sporting a smile of your own, you study the structure of Billy’s profile with the help of whatever light sources decide to become available to illuminate his face. For the remainder of the car ride to his house, you watch his face as he drives, as he mouths the words to the songs on the radio, as he concentrates hard on the dark backroad. Every so often, he meets your gaze for just a split second and teases you, saying things like, “Eyes on the road, creepy lady.”

“Are you sure it’ll be fine for me to be here?” You question as Billy pulls up to his home. You really don’t want to bring him any trouble. It’s quite ironic.

“Should be fine, sugar,” he reassures, leaning back in his seat to look at you. “My folks are always asleep by this time, so just make sure not to make too much noise.”

You give him a playful scoff, lightly swatting at his shoulder as he laughs at your reaction. After unbuckling your seatbelt, you open the car door. “Billy Hargrove, you are unbelievable,” you snort as you bring yourself outside of the vehicle, walking ahead of him and planting yourself right at the front door to wait.

He fumbles with his keys for a minute and jams one into the lock, turning it so that a click is audible, signifying access inside. With a light pat on your ass, he urges you to step in before him so that he can shuffle in right behind you. “In you go, doll,” he says, stifling a laugh at the tiny yelp of surprise you let out, earning himself a playful glare in response.

Shutting the door and locking it behind him, Billy then leads you to his room, which smells heavily of cigarette smoke and musky cologne—much like an extension of him. You plop yourself down on the edge of his bed, watching him as he shuts the bedroom door, locks it, and saunters over to his stereo.

“Now,” he prompts, pressing the power button to play his usual rock music at a moderately low volume. With a playful smile, he leans over you, and, using as little effort as possible from his fingers, pushes you so that you fall back onto the mattress before he crawls on top of her. “Where were we?”

“I think I can give you a refresher,” you giggle in response before wrapping your arms around his neck, pulling him in toward you to kiss him with every single bit of lust you can ever think to give to him. You resist every invasive urge to laugh when it seems like Billy is surprised beyond belief that you’d make such a bold move. He groans low as you claw at his jacket to get it off of him.

You feel hands plant themselves on your waist, feeling your curves as they travel up to pull your blouse out of your jeans. At the same time, you make your second attempt at unbuttoning his shirt, which he lets you do this time. In a matter of moments, Billy is already half naked and ready to give you anything you want.

“Someone’s a little hasty,” he teases, nipping at your lip before sliding your entire body up on his mattress toward the pillows. He grabs a fistful of fabric from your shirt, proceeding to pull your blouse up your torso as you giggle.

In the swiftest beat, he takes your top off over your head and unhooks your bras as he latches himself onto your neck, sucking harshly at the smooth skin. Once he tosses your garments to the side, he pulls back to look you over, causing your ears to burn and your cheeks to become freckled with pink.

“Oh, I love these,” he marvels, reaching down to cup your breasts and glided his thumbs over the nipples, eliciting a pleased groan from you. He slowly circles his thumbs atop the sensitive nubs, his tongue running along the perimeter of his lower lip in growing desire. As he presses a kiss onto the soft skin in his hands, he muses, “Fuckin’ amazing tits.”

He is so vulgar, and you love it so much.

After taking in the sight of your bare chest, he leans down to place kisses up and down your sternum and on your breasts, continuing to play with your nipples until you begin to squirm from his touch. Soon, he lets his hands travel down your abdomen to begin undoing your jeans.

“Let me taste you, baby girl. I bet you taste so good,” he whispers against your skin, so quiet and intimate. You’re surprised that you just barely heard it. The words that are leaving his mouth almost sound desperate, but you’d never thought he had ever had to beg for anything from anyone. From his mouth, a couple of needy pants can be heard as he looks up to face you, eyes pleading and aching to please you. “Please let me make you feel good.”

This is definitely a first for you. Never in your life had you ever had someone begging to please you; in fact, you often found yourself lucky if any of your partners would even consider returning the favor.

You find yourself wondering just how good Billy is at giving head, so much so that you can’t help but nod your head and breathe out, “Okay.”

Billy lets out a satisfied and eager moan as he immediately pulls the zipper of your jeans down and practically rips them off in one fell swoop. He then hooks his thumbs into the sides of your panties, admiring the color and texture of them. “These all for me, sweetheart?” He hums playfully before sliding them off carelessly.

Once you’re completely naked, he whistles, “Look at that… So pretty and wet.” He can’t help but stare, and it leads you to try to break the silence of your slight embarrassment.

“Like what you see?” You ask, resting your arms above your head to make your figure seem more appealing.

“Like it? I love it, kitten.”

The words that leave Billy’s mouth make you feel less self-conscious about this whole thing, makes you feel more able to let yourself just be in the moment. And this is such a great moment to be in.

At first, Billy teases you, scooting onto his stomach and making himself comfortable below your waist before planting slow kisses onto your inner thighs as he holds your legs apart with those calloused hands of his. Your body begins to quiver and twitch with anticipation, and you wish that he would just get on with it and stop playing his games. But, of course, he just has to make it memorable for you.

Soon enough, you can feel your body react on its own, your back arching in pleasure when, finally, he flattens his tongue and licks a long, slow strip all the way up your pussy. “Fuck,” you gasp, which pulls a short laugh from the face between your legs.

His tongue circles slowly all the way around the general area of your cunt, moaning lavishly at the taste of you before he flicks the tip of his tongue over that small collection of nerves that had been itching for attention all night. Just that one movement from him is enough to send you beyond the moon and all the way back.

You completely adore the feeling of his tongue licking you up and down, his strong hands holding onto you like you were a rare delicacy; and by God, he was about to indulge you.

The majority of his attention goes straight toward rubbing and circling his tongue so expertly on your clit, occasionally sticking it out all the way to lap up your taste, chuckling or moaning every time you swear or moan or gasp in pleasure. At one point, he pulls away for a fraction of a second and spits downward, letting a short stream of saliva run down your pussy before licking it back up in such a messy manner. You feel so dirty in the best way possible as you rock your hips against his tongue and beg him to make you come.

Billy lies his tongue flat onto your clit, following the lead you end up taking and finding the utmost of pleasure in the fact that you’re essentially getting yourself off on just a small part from his entire body. After a moment, however, he grows desperate to taste your sweet release, gripping you harshly by your hips and holding your waist down to the mattress as he once again takes the reins.

“Oh fuck, just like that,” you pant, gripping the edges of his pillow so hard that you swear your knuckles are turning white. At this moment, you’re beginning to see stars from how good he’s making you feel. “God, Billy, I’m getting so close.”

He hums in acknowledgement to your statement, taking it as a cue to continue doing what he feels he could do forever.

It feels like he’s composing the most complicated music onto your pleading body, his tongue doing wonders on you as he continues to eat you as if his life depends on it. You can feel your body growing more erratic by the second, tension building inside of you, and you don’t know how much longer you’re going to last. It seems that Billy is more than ready to push you right over the edge.

“Coming—,” is all you manage to push past the knot that forms in your throat, choking on your own breath as one of the most powerful orgasms you’ve ever had takes over you. You try your absolute hardest to not make too loud of noises, which results in squeals and choked moans as Billy licks up every last drop of you, slow and steady.

You pant slowly as he finally detaches himself from you, using his forearm to wipe his mouth and chin clean. A smug smirk forms on his face as he kisses his way up your body back to your lips, pressing a quick kiss onto them. “You taste absolutely incredible, gorgeous.”

All you can do is stare, awe stricken and lightheaded. You try to say something meaningful and worth something in this moment, but all you can get out of your mouth is, “You’re fucking fantastic.”

“I know.” “I take it back.”

Billy laughs, kissing you again because he just can’t bother to do anything else. You return the kiss, cupping his cheek in your hand. This one is a gentler kiss. A sweeter one. You like it, but you hope that doesn’t mean it’s over already.

Pulling away, you hesitate, but spoke nonetheless, “Do you have…”

As you trail off, he manages to catch on to what you’re hinting at, leaving you with no need to finish your sentence.

“Of course, sweet face,” he replies with the same smoothness and charm that landed the both of you in this very situation. He reaches over to open the drawer on his bedside table and pulls out a half empty box of Trojan brand condoms, pulling one out and setting the box back down on the table. As you watch him, he meets your gaze once more, making you feel more naked than nude when he gives you yet another look over.

“God, you’re so fuckin’ perfect,” he sighs, leaning down and crashing his lips back onto yours. You can taste yourself on his tongue; and out of all the times you’d kissed him tonight, this was by far the least put-together state you’d witnessed him in. But, of course, he snaps back into that old charm of his after he parts from you with a small nip of your lip and you wonder for a moment just how many women he’s said that to. Then, he gives you the same lusty look he’d shot your way many times before at the community pool as he removes his jeans and underwear, tore open the condom wrapper, and finally says the words:

“I’m gonna fuck the living shit outta you.”

That sentence alone makes you whine. Still riding from your previous orgasm, you press your thighs together to allow yourself some friction—any friction—as Billy slides the condom so skillfully onto his cock.

“No, no, none of that, princess,” he tuts, spreading your legs apart again to completely open you up to him. He pauses for a moment, marveling at the sight of you practically begging him to fuck you just by the furrow of your brow and your subtle pout. You swear you see him about to drool. “You don’t have to do a thing, pretty girl.”

With that, he slides his cock into your pussy so agonizingly slow as he growls in pure bliss, a flithy smile growing onto his face at the sound of the lewd moan that leaves your lips. You find yourself completely relishing in the feeling of connecting to Billy in a way many girls can only dream of. “Fuck, you like that baby?”

You can only manage to nod your head in response through all the fogginess in your head. Once he is all the way inside of you, he begins to pull out at the same pace, repeating the motion over and over again.

“Billy, please,” you plead, the tempo at which his hips grind against your pelvis and buries himself deep inside of you driving you completely mad. You almost want to cry out of pure frustration from the way he’s teasing you. You just want more of him, anything he’s willing to give you.

The young devil leans down onto his elbows for support so that he’s almost face to face with you, and you can feet his breath right on your cheek. Even the tone he holds in the way he responds is enough to make you lose your mind and the fucker knows it. “Please, what?”

And you can barely think straight with the way he’s working you, with his hands caressing your hips to guide you onto his cock. The way he moves seems like clockwork, a second nature to him, teasing you so well with his sinful hips and immaculate touch.

Between your whines and stifled moans, you reach a hand up to caress his face again, making eye contact with him no matter how hard it might be to keep concentrated. Your other hand joins, both of them now moving back to entangle your fingers into the smooth curls of his mullet. Soft and desperate, you beg, “Please fuck me harder.”

Billy lets out a tantalizing laugh. “That’s just what I like to hear.”

You can’t help but to let out a yelp of pleasure that is just a touch too loud as he picks up the pace of his hips. He immediately clamps a hand down over your mouth, shushing you in a way you never knew you could find sexy at all as he begins to slam his cock into you at a quicker pace.

“You want us to get caught, huh? Want my dad to barge in and find me buried deep in you while you just take it?” He presses, panting in between his words as he tries not to give into the ecstasy of being inside of you too much. “God, this pussy is fucking heavenly.”

Your eyes roll to the back of your head as you focus on the wonderful feeling of Billy stretching out your pristine, tight little pussy. You begin to feel like you could ascend above the clouds right into heaven. He lets go of your mouth, replacing his hand with his mouth as his hips hold their steady rhythm. This kiss is sloppy and messy, the both of you moaning into each other’s mouths while they bite and nip at each other.

Billy then rips his face away from yours, panting as he looks at your face. Sweat drips from his forehead down the side of his face, but he doesn’t falter. You start to think he has the stamina of an olympic athlete.

He slows after a while, compensating for it by grinding into you as deep as he possibly can. The room fills with the smell of sex and the sound of your pants mixing together with his. It is after a moment that you begin to feel a touch too selfish.

“Do you want me to do anything?” You offer, brushing away the strands of hair that are sticking to his forehead from his sweat. Pouting subtly, you continue. “I want to make you feel good, too.”

He shakes his head before pressing a kiss onto your forehead, insisting that he’s fine. “I’m almost there, kitten,” he reassures, biting down onto his lower lip hard to hold back some of his pants. Then, taking a deep breath, he returns to his previous speed to get himself off. Gasping in surprise, you hook your arms under his to plant your hands onto his sweaty back, feeling his muscles contract as he moves.

His broad figure looms over you, and you dig your nails into his skin, scratching to make up for all the moans and screams you want to let out so that he knows just how good he’s making you feel.

“I’m gonna come, baby girl,” he pants, trying his best to hold back from completely wrecking you like he actually wants to.

Just from hearing that statement, you let out an eager moan as your hands scramble to grab onto his face, pulling it down to your own to plant the hungriest kiss you’d ever given anyone. When you break the kiss, you hug his head atop of your shoulder, pleading into his ear in the sweetest tone Billy had ever heard in his life, “Come inside of me.”

With those words, Billy lets out a strained groan of Bure bliss and ecstasy right into your ear as he spills himself into the condom. He soon slows the pace of his hips, body twitching ever so slightly as he rides out the remainder of his orgasm.

“Shit,” he sighs, letting out a final deep breath as he pulls his cock out of you and plops down beside you, occupying whatever space was left on the bed. You follow his lead when he starts to slide under the covers. “I need a smoke.”

You giggle and reach over to the floor beside where you lie in bed, pulling his Marlboro box and lighter from his jacket and rolling onto your other side to hand them to him. He smiles slightly as he pulls a cigarette from the box and puts it in his mouth, dangling it in his lips in front of you and letting you light in before he takes his first drag from it. He then offers you a smoke from his cigarette, taking it between two fingers from his mouth, to which you reject, simply saying, “I don’t smoke.”

He simply shrugs before exhaling the smoke toward the ceiling as you set the box and lighter down on his bedside table. You turn back to find his looking right at you, admiring the features on your face.

“What?” You breathe, a shy smile on your face as you rest your head onto his pillow.

“Say you’ll come out with me again,” he requests, supporting himself by the elbow of his free arm to look down at you as he continued to smoke on his cigarette. You don’t even realize that the face you pull in response reads as confused and just a bit shocked. “I’m serious. I’ll take you someplace nice, like dinner or the beach or some shit.”

“Is the infamous Billy Hargrove asking me on a second date?” You tease with a playful gasp, knowing that part of his reputation included never going out with the same girl twice. Obviously, you hadn’t prepared for this possibility when you did your introspective option-weighing at the movie theatre.

He scoffs, unable to stop the laugh that leaves the back of his throat. “Fuck you.”

You watch as he takes another long drag from his cigarette, and you shuffle onto your stomach to make yourself comfortable, scooting closer to the edge of the bed to allow him more space. Peeking up at him through your eyelashes, you question, “You know I’m going back to Vegas after the summer’s over, right?”

All Billy does is shrug, not seeming to mind. “Doesn’t mean we can’t have a bit of fun with the time we got left.”

A soft hum leaves your mouth as you watch him finish off his cigarette and toss the butt into his trash. Surely another date with him wouldn’t be so bad. “Sounds like a plan,” you give in, letting yourself enjoy the possibility of having a summer where you don’t have to wait around for Nancy all day every day.

Billy smiles in triumph, leaning down to press a kiss onto your lips. You smile a bit, too, into the kiss, the sealer of the best night of your entire summer. So far, at least. When he pulls away from you, he strokes your cheek with the knuckle of his pointer finger, noting the way you almost lean into his touch and the warmth of his hand.

“Billy?”

“Yes, princess?”

“Please do not leave that condom on your dick.”

#reupload #stranger things #billy stranger things #billy hargrove #dacre montgomery #stranger things 3 #I will kiss him on his goddamn face #anyway I fucked this up bc I wanted to add a fuck count #where I count how many times someone says the word fuck #so #fuck count: 12

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arcisfoodblog · 5 years ago

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The next leg in our road trip of British Columbia from Whistler along the Sunshine Coast with stops near Sechelt and in Powell River.

Having decided to go for more extended stays on Vancouver Island, we treated this part of our road trip as pass-through, but we did stay 1 full day at each of the stops to at least be able to explore the towns, plan some hiking trips, and relax a bit.

The first 160km / 100-mile leg was from Whistler to Sechelt, which started with breakfast at Function Junction’s outlet of Pure Bread (1040 Millar Creek Road) which was also our go-to place for breakfast and pastries in Vancouver as there was one just across the street from where we stayed. No fancy coffee machines in the original outlet, but the slow drip is made with the same fabulous coffee beans, so we were well stocked with goodies for the 1½ hour drive to Horseshoe Bay to catch the 12pm ferry to Langdale.

As we had made the reservation back home, it was advised to be at the ferry terminal 60 minutes before departure. The process was very smooth, and we were directed to our priority lane and only had to wait 30 minutes before the loading of the cars started. The 45-minute boat trip over the Howe Sound passing between the Bowen, Keats and Gambier Islands is just beautiful.

As we still needed to catch lunch, we stopped in Gibson at The 101 Brewhouse and Distillery (1009 Gibsons Way) which was right along the Sunshine Coast Highway. No poutine or burgers, but we had some Fish & Chips with beer-battered Crispy Cod Bites, Chicken Quesadillas, as well as great Falafel taco with hummus and tahini. I had chosen the Smoked Brisket Melt, served on grilled rye, with sauerkraut, melted cheese, and sour cherry mayo. The beers that we tried were Vagabond Dry-hopped Blonde Ale, the award-winning Shingleroof Hefeweizen and super refreshing Tree Top Summer Ale which is infused with spruce tips and has a splash of lemon juice.

After a beautiful drive and stocking up in the local supermarket, we settled into our Airbnb, which was located a couple of kilometers past Sechelt’s town Centre. The Lighthouse Marina Pub (5764 Wharf Ave) was recommended both by the Airbnb owner as well as online. Due to the Pub part, there is a separate entrance to the right for legal purposes to accommodate families with minors. It’s called The Buccaneers, but inside it is still one place with one kitchen. The main attraction is the patio view from the patio over Porpoise Bay and the aerodrome, which was indeed pretty spectacular. The food was less so. My Taco-Spiced Halibut tacos were good, the nachos and pizza and a bit soggy due to the wet toppings. Regrettably, the kitchen had sent out a cheeseburger that was actually carbonized on the bottom. The smell was so strong that we already notice something was wrong before the burger even hit the table. We did get a new (and tasty) cheeseburger, and in the meantime, we killed some time admiring the views as well as the mesmerizing jellyfish that were floating in the harbor and the Canadian Geese walking around.

The next morning, after a grilled cheese breakfast at The Bakery (5500 Wharf Ave #101), we set course to the Smuggler Cove Marine Provincial Park, about 5 kilometers past Halfmoon Bay. The hike there was terrific, starting over a walkway through the marches and then when arriving at the cove (which is pretty secluded so that it where it got its name), we took the elevated loop past France Islet all the way to the land’s end looking out on Capri Isle and Grant Island and Thormanby Island.

All the hiking made us hungry, and we had a great late lunch in Sechelt at Shift Kitchen Tapas Bar (5760 Teredo St). The men had some Shift Classic burgers (cheddar cheese, thick smoked bacon, lettuce, tomato, pickle, red onion, shift special sauce) served with hand-cut Kennebec potato fries. Chantal had the Tuna Tataki (black & blue rub seared to rare, served on top of sushi rice and topped with sesame & wasabi soy sauce).

The next day, we had a 75km /45-mile drive to Powell River and wanted to catch the ferry between Earl’s Cove and Saltery Bay around noon, so we had time to catch some breakfast at Basted Baker (5685 Cowrie St #1). The Breakfast Sandwich and a Spinach and Brie Sandwich were tasty, but we are not huge fans of biscuits.

Some familiar faces when the Saltery Bay ferry unloaded at Earl’s Cove as Koen, Erica and Madouc were heading back to Vancouver after their stint on Vancouver Island…

Luckily, the weather did get better when we arrived in Powell River, and we first stopped for a round of quick tasters at Townsite Brewing (5824 Ash Ave). With a Belgian born brewmaster, Cédric Dauchot, the brewing styles were obviously very familiar to us (more so than other local attempts at Belgian-style beers), but he still managed to surprise us due to different varieties like their Zwarte Wheat, a Dark Witbier.

As they don’t have many food options, we checked in into our hotel (which was conveniently located above a supermarket and outlet of the Serious Coffee outlet) and the rest of the afternoon was filled by doing some laundry and relaxing.

Dinner was at Coastal Cookery (4553 Marine Ave), on the downtown marine mile, which has a great view on the Georgia Strait and excellent food to boot.

Backyard Beer Can Chicken (Double breast local Vancouver Island chicken, dry-rubbed and beer-soaked, homemade BBQ sauce, roasted potatoes, seasonal vegetables, spicy creole butter)

Beurre Blanc Mac and Cheese (Smoked gouda, aged cheddar, white wine butter sauce, crispy pancetta, fried sage)

Tuna Poke (Marinated tuna, sticky rice, cucumber ribbon, crispy wonton, edamame, avocado, mango wasabi)

Fort Berens Estate Chardonnay

S’more Smash (Vanilla gelato, house-made cinnamon graham cracker, chocolate ganache, marshmallow Brulé

Chocolate Peanut Butter Bar (Dark & white chocolate, peanut butter, graham cracker crust, salted caramel)

Needing to walk off the indulgent desserts from the evening before, we took the Willingdon Beach Trail. This trail is just north of the town center with some parking available along the road from the Powell River Forestry Museum. The forest trail is just next to the beach and is “littered” with historic lumber equipment, so it was quite informative as well. Afterward, we played a round of mini-golf and had giant ice-creams at Putters Mini-Golf Course (4800 Marine Ave).

After stocking up on local wines, beers, and gins at Duke’s Liquor (4493 Marine Ave), some laundry runs and reading on the balcony,

we had our last dinner in Powell River at the tiny and therefore incredibly busy Costa del Sol Latin Cuisine (4578 Marine Ave), which apparently was the first venture of the couple that later started Coastal Cookery. We had to wait 30 minutes for a table, but were rewarded with some excellent Mexican food, beers, and cocktails!

Elote Corn (Charred Corn, Spicy Yogurt, Crema, Cotija Cheese, Crispy Corn Chip Dust, Cilantro, Tajin, Smoked Paprika)

Habanero Lime Fried Chicken Bites

The Maverick (Marinated Flank Steak, Mexican Chorizo, Crispy Bacon, Chipotle Potatoes, Caramelized Onion, Fresh Guacamole, Crema)

Quesadilla De La Frontera (Corn & Black Bean Salsa, Roasted Chicken, Queso Mixto, Honey Lime Aioli, Pico De Gallo)

Around the World – British Columbia road trip (2019) – Sunshine Coast The next leg in our road trip of British Columbia from Whistler along the Sunshine Coast with stops near Sechelt and in Powell River.

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ontherockswithsalt · 6 years ago

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Midnight Margaritas -- A Halloween Jamko Oneshot

Summary: When Jamie and Eddie get to pretend for one night, can they be whatever they want to be? The truth has a way of coming out in the dark.

Rating: T (but like.. also language).

A/N: A festive Jamko oneshot circa season 8! Featuring a reference to a conversation from 6x04. I hope you enjoy!

“If I bring somebody, is it gonna be weird?” Jamie sneaks a glance at his partner out of the corner of his eye as he pours himself a cup of coffee.

Eddie swallows the first sip from her own paper cup. “Why would that be weird?”

His shoulders lift and he offers a cursory glance around the precinct break room. “I didn’t know if it was like a… bring-a-date kind of… party.”

“Shh--” Eddie’s brows dip as she hushes him and steps closer. “I only invited like, four people from the house.”

“Alright, sorry.”

“It’s a Halloween party, Reagan. You can bring someone, but they've gotta dress up.”

He feels one cheek scrunch with the displeased look he gives her.

Pointing one finger, she cuts him a warning glance he’s seen dozens of times. “If you’re coming, you’re dressing up. No exceptions.”

“I don’t really do costumes,” he attempts.

“Wear your uniform for all I care. But don’t be lame, okay?”

With a slight shake of his head, he lifts his cup to his lips. “I’m not wearing my uniform.”

“If you don’t want to wear a costume, why would you even come?” She questions him. “Take your date and go do something depressing like play putt putt golf.”

“You’ve asked me ten times in the last week if I’m coming, so I feel like if I don’t come, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“You’ll never hear the end of it if you don’t dress up.”

He merely manages an exaggerated eyeroll.

“Wait, who are you bringing?”

Stalling over another sip of coffee, he looks at her and arches one brow.

He can’t help but smirk when her gaze narrows at him and mouth opens, a slanted curve to her lips. “Who?” She wonders.

“You said it wouldn’t be weird. You’re being weird.”

The pinchy look on her face amuses him when she quickly shakes her head and insists, “I’m not weird.”

“It’s just Dana.”

“Ohhh…” She drags it out and leaves her lips parted for a beat before she averts her gaze. Then she sips thoughtfully from her coffee cup, nods and swallows hard. “Right, right. Law school Dana, cool. That’s… cool.”

All he can do is offer her a patient, but definitely judging reaction.

She lifts her chin and maintains, “I wasn’t weird. I said it normal,” before she flits her dark lashes in this way that makes his cheek twitch as she walks away.

***

“Oh look!” Eddie cries as soon as she opens the door to her apartment. Pretending to check an imaginary watch that's really just a gold plastic wrist cuff, she rocks back in the doorway. “You decided to show up at almost midnight.”

“Sorry! That's my fault,” Dana chimes in beside Jamie. “We had another party to go to. But I knew that was the one I'd want to ditch. So we hit that one first.”

Eddie seemed to have stopped listening and just slants a confused gaze at her partner. “So wait. Are you guys like… lawyers?” She peers down the length of him and tilts her head.

Jamie’s dark grey trousers and a coordinated, buttoned vest over a fitted white dress shirt and neat, red necktie, knotted at his throat apparently confuse her.

“Clark Kent and Lois Lane!” Dana announces.

The look that stalls on Eddie’s face makes Jamie sputter a tipsy laugh. “How--?” She starts.

Jamie uses his shoulder to push off the frame of her door. “Can we just come in?”

“Yeah yeah, come in.” When she turns, Jamie's gaze falls to the hem of the oversized white t-shirt she wears that engulfs her short frame. It just skims the back of her thighs beneath the curve of her rear end.

“What the hell are you supposed to be?” He wonders, following her to the kitchen, his date close behind.

Eddie moves to the counter where she clears off a few stray, empty cups and throws them in the trash. Then she looks down at herself, at the cherry red boots that climb over her knees and back up at him, lifting her hands as if it would be obvious. “I'm Wonder Woman.”

“Why are you wearing a New England Patriots t-shirt?”

“Oh. Someone spilled their drink on me and it soaked my costume,” she explains with a shrug. “I'm wearing the important parts.”

Jamie steps forward and adjusts the gold plastic headband that sits crooked across her forehead, wrapped around a mess of blonde wavy hair. “More like… Wonder Woman the morning after a pretty wild night.”

Unfazed, she glances to the counter to reach for a couple plastic cups from the stack near the blender. “What's a wild night for you, Reagan? Triple word score on an all-night Scrabble game?”

“I'm more of a Boggle guy--”

She simply lets out this exaggerated groan. “Dana how do you keep this nonstop thrill ride in line?”

“He really does go hard at Boggle,” she quips. “Can I use your bathroom?”

“Yep. Other end of the living room. The door with the purple lights around it.”

“Thanks.” The sharp heel of Dana’s black stilettos announces her exit from the kitchen.

“Would you like a margarita?” Eddie calls after her.

“Yes please!”

She grins up at Jamie. “I'm making margaritas.”

“They're the only reason I came.”

“Can we talk about this costume? Because it's a joke.”

He looks down to assess himself, then pushes up the plastic glasses on his face. “Clark Kent is a reporter. This is how he dresses.”

“You're not even--” She steps up to him and tugs down the collar of his dress shirt. “Doing it the hot way. This is supposed to be ripped open and the Superman shirt underneath. You're seriously just a dork in a suit. With no costume under it. What if you get a distress call and you have to go save someone?”

Jamie shrugs one indifferent shoulder and reaches for a tortilla chip from a bag on her counter. “Then you can go, Wonder Woman. In your invisible jet.”

“Obviously, I'll have to.” In her silver cocktail shaker, she adds a substantial pour of tequila over ice along with the lime juice mixer from a pitcher. She slaps on the lid and gives it a good shake then looks over at him.

He watches her for a moment, propping himself against her kitchen counter. “Where’s your lasso of truth?”

Her lashes lift and those stormy blue eyes hook him for a beat. He finds himself managing a hard swallow before she answers, “In my bedroom. Wanna go make it useful?”

“Shit,” he hisses the word in a laugh and turns his gaze away.

She shakes her head with a satisfied smirk.

“Make the next one stronger than that and then we’ll see how truthful I get,” he tells her.

“Are those your real glasses?”

“No.” He grasps the frame and pulls them off. “I don't wear glasses. These are fake.” Sliding them back on, he quirks an eyebrow at her. “Do you like them?”

Eddie's lips twist as she considers it, then pops off the cap of her shaker. “Maybe. Do you like my red boots?” She wonders, straining two margaritas into the salt-rimmed plastic cups she set out.

With a meaningful pull of his brow, he glances down her legs before he murmurs his tease of an answer. “Maybe.”

“Superman likes them.”

“Never heard of him,” Jamie manages, accepting the drink from her. “Thanks.”

“We're having an affair,” she says, treating him to a proud flit of her eyelashes. “But keep it quiet, he's got a girlfriend. And she's no fun.”

Jamie squints and he knows it looks more dramatic behind his drug store glasses. “Tell me more.”

“Eddie, I love your apartment.” Dana reappears by Jamie's side in the kitchen. In a black button down shirt tucked into a slim grey pencil skirt, Dana really does look like any other day at her office. But it was sort of a last minute decision to dress up together anyway.

“Thank you.” Eddie passes off the other cocktail to Jamie's date and makes her way past them. “You two brainiacs have fun.”

***

Jamie’s not entirely sure why he wound up at this party with Dana. She herself acknowledged that it’s not like they’re exclusive. But now and then, when she needed someone to bring around friends or he was bored, they reached out to one another.

But the past year with Eddie had been rocky and strange. Like this constant shift in balance to make sure they didn’t tip over the edge of something they couldn’t climb back across. She admitted, in a rush of genuine confusion, these sweeping feelings. Quickly backtracked, and then kissed him.

But the way she did it was like this lingering, tempting reminder that she didn’t need him. And when her lips slipped from his -- that night almost a year ago -- and she looked up at him, a thousand questions danced in his eyes while hers simply offered him a challenge to make her need him.

And fuck, her kiss sparked a flame inside him that refused to go out. But instead of dealing with it, they made excuses, assured themselves with false notions that they were on the same page. And now barely hang onto this precarious slippery slope and insist that they’ve got it under control.

Jamie’s just drying his hands in the bathroom when everything around him goes black, except for the tin on the counter that holds a flickering candle. “Eddie?” He calls out for her, almost on instinct as his eyes take a moment to adjust to the darkness.

He hears the protests from the party guests out in the living room and when he turns to pull open the door, he sees the whole apartment in the dark. Where there was once a TV playing music, strings of purple and orange lights, and a few dim lamps, now there was nothing except a few jars of glow sticks scattered throughout the room in neon green, pink and purple.

“Hang on. I’ve got it.” He hears Eddie’s voice from across the room.

“Jamie?” It’s Dana’s voice.

“Everybody okay?” He calls out.

“No, okay seriously. Now I’m scared,” someone else laughs.

“Let’s just all agree, no murder,” one of Eddie’s friends proposes to a dark room full of giggles. “Are we-- is everyone cool with that?”

“What if the lights come on, and somebody’s lying out dead on the floor?”

“Oh my god! What the fuck, Nathan? Who says that?”

“I’m just saying! This is like the beginnings of some horror movie shit--”

“Shut up, there’s like, five cops here nobody’s getting murdered.”

Just then the sharp beam from Eddie’s flashlight cuts across the room. “Or how about Wonder Woman’s here,” she speaks up. “It’s the breaker. I’ve gotta go flip it.” She directs her light near Dana where Jamie can see she’s still sitting with Kara from the precinct.

“Where’s your breaker?” He wonders.

Eddie waves the flashlight under her face and announces with an ominous tease, “In the basement.”

“No!” Another one of her friends shouts. “You’re braver than I am Eddie. I’d just make you guys sit in the dark.”

“I’ll go with you,” Jamie says, starting toward her.

“Can I help?” Dana moves to stand up and she says it in her typical polite way where she doesn’t actually intend to go with anybody.

“Do you have your phone?” Eddie wonders as she crosses the room with a lit candle and leaves it on the coffee table. “When we get down there, Jamie’ll call you and you can tell us when we’ve flipped the right one.”

“Alright, sure,” she agrees.

“Come on, Clark Kent. See this is when you would change into your Superman get-up!” Eddie huffs, exasperated as she grasps her drink and keys on her way to the door. “Missed opportunity.”

“You taking your drink?” He laughs.

She turns back and tips her cup to her mouth, the edge of the emergency light in the hallway catching in her eyes as she looks at him across the rim.

His cheek pulls up with a grin as he follows her, grasping the edge of the door to pull it closed behind him and murmurs, “Lush.”

She halts her steps right there in her narrow hallway leaving him to knock into her from behind. Chirping a surprised giggle, she bumps her ass against the front of his pants as she blocks him.

“Go,” he chuckles, holding onto her shoulders to shift her aside. But he intentionally wobbles her off her balance and she catches herself, heavy steps that click on the floor, as the wall keeps her upright.

Cracking up, she steadies herself against it. “Stop!”

“You sure it's your breaker?” Jamie wonders, turning to lead her down a dimly lit flight of stairs. “And not the whole building?”

“This building's so old, a lot of it is on the same circuit.” At the second floor, the hallway lights work and they descend another.

“How often do you have to go down to the basement to fix it?”

“Eh. Now and then.” She shrugs. “I could call the super and then wait all night in the dark, but I don't feel like it.” They come to another landing and find a door hidden under the lobby staircase. Crouching down, Eddie props her flashlight between her teeth and glances down to thumb through her keys.

Jamie reaches over and eases the light from her mouth and takes the drink from her other hand. “Got it?”

“Thanks.”

She gets the door open and it's another set of concrete stairs that descend into the darkness underneath.

Jamie ducks down, reaching out to slow her pursuit by her shoulder as he scans the cramped, musty space with the flashlight.

“I've never been able to find a light switch down here so maybe you can,” she tells him.

“My god, Eddie,” he rasps, his brow furrowed as he glances around what are probably multiple code violations and who-knows-what-else if he were to look under all the blankets and boxes piled throughout the room. “We gotta get you a new building.”

“No way, I love this neighborhood,” she insists. “You find a light switch?”

“I don't see one.” He steps closer, walking ahead with the flashlight when he sees the breaker panel on the wall. “That's okay, I can't look at that Patriots t-shirt anyway. It's better in the dark.”

“Ha!” She coughs, following in at his side. “It was an ex-boyfriend's.”

A grunt of disgust puffs out of him as he runs the light over the wall to find the subpanel for unit 3C. “Oh then that's extra offensive.”

“You gonna carry a torch for the Jets your whole life?”

“Yes.”

He hears the smile in her laugh. “Here’s 3C.”

Examining the plain panel of black switches, he wonders, “So nothing's labeled?”

“No.”

“Awesome. Let's just start flipping shit.”

“Why'd you bring her?” Eddie's question makes him pause a few caught-off-guard beats.

He looks at her. He doesn't ask Dana's name for clarification; he knows what Eddie's asking.

“I mean it'd be different if she were your girlfriend,” she goes on. “And you guys went everywhere together. But… or is she? Your girlfriend?”

“No.” He answers quickly. “I just-- she asked if I had plans and I told her about your party.”

“Right, my party. I didn't think you'd-- nevermind.”

“What, you don't like her? She's always been cool to you,” he reasons, but he knows this has nothing to do with her. “Right?”

Eddie blows out this sort of humorless laugh and looks up to distract herself at the circuit breaker. “Yes, Reagan. She's always been cool to me.”

He swallows hard and doesn't miss the flare of heat that stings his chest when he's this close to her. “Eddie, you know she's…” He exhales softly. “Intensely jealous of you.”

“Oh god,” she groans. “Don't. Why, because I get to spend so much time with you and witness you being a hero for twelve hours a day?”

“No, because she sees how I get when I talk about you,” he confesses. “Which… I probably do a lot, I guess--” He hears himself mumble the rest as he tilts Eddie's drink to his mouth and swallows what’s left in a hard gulp. “These are good. You have a future in bartending if this partnership goes south.”

“How do you get?”

“What?”

“How do you get when you talk about me?”

The near-darkness heightens everything else and he can feel his heart throbbing between his ears. “I don't know, Eddie. You know what I mean.”

“No I don't.”

“You want me to stand here in a fucking basement in the dark and tell you I care about you so damn much it makes me crazy? That I've never seen you look like more of a ridiculous mess than you do tonight and I can't stop thinking about how bad I want it? You don't want to hear that.”

“Want it?”

“Want you.”

She sucks in a playful gasp and he can see the blue in her eyes light up. “The lasso of truth,” she whispers. “Damn, my powers are good.”

“Shut up,” he laughs in this relieved exhale.

“So that's what it takes huh?” She muses. “No lights in a basement where you're pretending to be someone else and then, you can be honest with me.”

“I'm not pretending. I just-- You should know.”

She steps closer, pointing a finger at his chest. “And I do not look like a ridiculous mess--”

He hardly lets her finish before his head tilts down and his mouth falls on hers.

He's never kissed her like this before, with no hesitation, just giving into the gravity of everything that threatens to wreck them. He grasps her waist and closes a fist at the side of her t-shirt as she arches into him.

Easing away, she exhales hard and reaches for the glasses on his face. “Don't ever wear these again. I hate them,” she mutters, stuffing them into his pants pocket before she leans up and captures the kiss again.

She drags fingertips up the back of his head, lightly grasping his hair. The move makes him let out this uneven sigh before he denies it with the hard stroke of his mouth on hers.

An urgent whimper sneaks out of her just before he pulls away, his words a raspy breath. “Okay but can you wear everything but this shirt again at some point? Because I don't hate them--”

“How are you both a dork and a freak?” She exhales the question, then tastes his lips once more, adding a faint scrape of her teeth where she tugs. The heat pricks there at his bottom lip but he feels it pulse straight to his groin.

Just then, the harsh buzz of Jamie's phone vibrates through his pants. With a startled inhale, he shifts back, taking his hands off his partner before quickly feeling for the poorly timed device in his pocket.

“Hey--” He starts, then clears his throat. He lifts the flashlight and doesn't miss the pink in Eddie's cheeks as she tips her head down and nervously scratches beneath her gold headband. “Yeah we're just uh-- just trying to find the right one. None of these are labeled so give me a-- Yeah, she probably could sue her landlord.” He mutters his agreement and cuts his gaze over to Eddie who can't resist a roll of her eyes.

She helps him out, taking the flashlight for him while he holds his phone.

“How's--” And then he shoves over a few random switches. “Now?” He flicks and flicks and flicks to Dana's repeated No's.

After a few more unsuccessful attempts, the breaker resets and Dana gasps through the phone with a relieved “That's it!”.

Jamie confirms that they're good and lets her know they're on their way back before he ends the call.

“Wow, for just a modest reporter, you sure are a hero,” Eddie teases with an adorable scrunch of her cheek.

He shakes his head, exhaling his amusement and turns toward the stairs. “Can we go? There's probably a dead body down here.”

“Nice, Reagan.”

He leads her out of the underground space, ducking down to exit through the door and finally into some actual light.

When they reach the lower landing of the staircase, Eddie clicks her flashlight off and lingers there at the bottom. “Hey--” She starts and Jamie pauses his climb to look at her. “I know… you’re going home with her tonight. So--”

He shakes his head before she can either ask him not to, or give him the green light. “I won’t,” he tells her. “I mean, I plan on taking her home. But-- I’m not…”

Eddie stalls there with a faint nod as she considers it.

He points his chin to the back corner. “I meant all that down there.”

“I know.” The flick of a smile curves her lips.

A soft laugh puffs out of him and he turns to ascend the stairs. “These things happen when you work side by side with a beautiful amazon, shorty” he reminds her, echoing a theory she once had about her favorite superhero.

She sips a dramatic gasp, seeming to remember her own words. “I knew it all along.” Her steps stretch before she slaps his chest and passes him on the way up, musing, “You never had me fooled, Man of Steel.”

#jamko #jamko oneshot #yay halloween jamko!#jamie seemed awfully sentimental about Eddie's margarita making skills #in 9x02 #perhaps this is why

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lecameleontv · 6 years ago

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La série TV Un Soupçon de Magie (2015) avec l’acteur James Denton interprétant le Dr Sam. [Site officiel]. Titre V.O. : The Good Witch

La série est régulièrement rediffusée : Programme TV

Il avait déjà tourné en 2003 avec l’actrice Catherine Bell dans l’Ep. 8.18 de la série JAG, et il l’a retrouvera dans Christmas on Cherry Lane (2023)

Statut : terminée Nb de saisons : 7

1ère diffusion U.S. : 11 avril 2015 sur Hallmark Channel Promotion : Cannes 2015 - Christmas Con 2022 - Christmas Con 2024

Réalisation : Stefan Scaini (6 épisodes), qu’il retrouvera dans le TVfilm Perfect Harmony (2022) ...

Saison 1 : captures 1 - Saison 2 : Promo 1 - Saison 3 : Saison 4 : Saison 5 : autres photos/captures p1, p2 , p3 - Presse - Spécial Halloween Saison 6 : photos promos - Presse - Saison 7 : Presse - Promo 1 - 2 - Captures p1, p2, p3, p4, ...

Lieux de tournage : - Overfield Street à Hamilton (Ontario, Canada) - Cinespace Film Studios’ Kipling Avenue ( Toronto, Ontario) - Cambridge, Ontario

Pendant les tournages, l’acteur rentrait tous les week-ends chez lui, puis tournait un TVfilm pour la même chaîne à la fin de chaque saison et enfin rentrait dans sa famille.

Ses collaborations avec la chaîne Hallmark : - The Real West - Christmas on Cherry Lane (2023) et Happy Holidays from Cherry Lane (2024) - Perfect Harmony (2022) - Kiss Before Christmas (2021) - For Love and Honor (2016) - Paradis d’Amour (2014)

Actualités 2020 de la série : - octobre : tournage de la saison 7 - 03 mai : diffusion inédite de la saison 6 aux USA sur Hallmark Channel

Actualités 2019 de la série : - 01 novembre : saison 4 sur Netflix Fr - 26 juillet 2019 : promotion presse Hallmark d’Eté - 02 juillet 2019 : saison 4 disponible sur Netflix - 09 juin 2019 : diffusion inédite de la saison 5 aux USA sur Hallmark Channel - mai 2019 : promotion presse - 21 mars 2019 ; présentation des UpFronts

En France, la diffusion M6 s’est arrêtée à la saison 3. En attendant des nouvelles ... l’intégrale depuis la saison 1 a été rediffusée en 2020 sur W9.

Revoir les épisodes sur M6.

sources : imdb, hallmark-movie-fanatics, robnorthstar, et fangirlhome

“I specifically chose Good Witch because I had faith in Catherine and the [previous] success of the movie franchise. Desperate Housewives, I almost didn't take because at the time ABC was at the very bottom of the ratings and running Who Wants to Be A Millionaire four nights a week. There were no scripted dramas and after we came along so did Grey's Anatomy and LOST, but at the time I'd done two series for ABC, Philly with Kim Delaney and Threat Matrix, which I led, that only lasted one season each. When Housewives came up, I thought it sounded like reality television and almost didn't take it. That's why I can't say my eye is really that good. [...] I knew Good Witch would probably do well because the movies were so popular, And people love Catherine Bell, so Good Witch was established, otherwise you kind of assume with a new series that it's probably going to get canceled as most of them do. I felt pretty confident that viewers would respond. Did I have any idea it would be the No. 1 show on the network? No, but it's not a shock. [...] It seems everything on Hallmark is doing well. The movies are doing better than ever; When Calls the Heart's numbers were up, so we can't complain. We basically have over 3 1/2 million unduplicated viewers, which is crazy for basic cable. [...] It's a fun time to be at Hallmark. [...] People want something positive, I think they're tired of watching people being awful to each other and they can turn on Hallmark Channel and see people treating each other well and have a happy ending. I really believe that has a lot to do with it. [...] Bill Abbott came to me with Good Witch after I'd hosted the [ Hero Dog ] awards, Living here and traveling to Toronto to shoot the series is fantastic, so I don't do a lot other than Hallmark now. I have two teenage kids and [the show] allows me to be here. We go back to work in August and I get to come home every weekend. I do local plays, the 12 episodes of Good Witch (including the two-hour Halloween movie) and another Hallmark movie, so that's pretty much my year. [...] Right now, we are very blessed, and I can't complain. There are times I miss L.A. and I do miss the commute to Universal Studios because as an actor having the same job for eight years is rare. Now I'm flying two hours for work, but there are perks -- I don't have to pay for gas and I'm getting frequent flyer miles. “ James Denon le 27 juin 2019 - mediavillage.com

“It would be unseemly to complain about your show being cancelled after seven seasons, and I won’t. I’ve been very fortunate to have been on other long-running series, but Good Witch was special. The fans were so devoted to the show and I’m disappointed for them, but I hope they know how much the actors appreciated their vocal support. The cast was the nicest collection of wildly talented people I’ve ever been around. The producers treated us extremely well, and I’m happy to still have two movies to make with the network so I’m not saying goodbye to the Hallmark audience yet.” James Denton, 2021.

Son goût pour l’art musical est visible, outre pour Band From TV, dans : - Danse Avec les Stars. - Ma Seule Famille - Perfect Harmony (2022) - Grace Unplugged - Desperate Housewives

Alias Lyle dans Le Caméléon. Alias John Kilmer dans Agence Matrix. Alias Mike dans Desperate Housewives. Alias Peter Hudson dans Devious Maids .

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A post shared by Catherine Bell Fan (@catherinebellfan) on Mar 6, 2019 at 5:36am PST

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#james denton #good witch #un soupçon de magie #hallmark #M6 #w9 #soupçon de magie #sam #Dr Sam #stefan scaini #christmas con #Catherine Bell

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breakyrlegs · 6 years ago

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The 80 Best Albums of 2018

80. Beware the Book of Eli- Ski Mask the Slump God

For someone who has spent so much time living in the shadow of everyone’s (least) favorite Soundcloud rap quasi-martyr, Ski Mask the Slump God is one of the more audacious technical virtuosos out there. There’s no time to lose on Beware, so every second is a product of Ski anxiously shredding through ways to get your attention. There is no flow he’s afraid to try, no sound he won’t make.

79. 7- Beach House

Beach House have monopolized a space in the indie-rock sphere for about a decade now. Their dominance is no fluke, but after a few hard-hitters, I was worried that they might make the same album over and over again. However, just a week after the almost too obvious Depression Cherry, they dropped Thank Your Lucky Stars, a more lucid affair. It marked a new chapter. 7 sees them continue to be done with making dream pop for sweet, peaceful dreams...they’re now making music for all dreams, especially the ones that linger into the morning, the ones you have to ask around about to make sure they weren’t real. Corny? Maybe, but it’s nice to see a stubborn band add even more dimension to their seasoned sound.

78. El Hombre- El Alfa

What does it mean to be “el hombre”? There’s no straight answer but if I had to take a crack at it, I’d say it‘s when you spearhead an entire genre so hard that when you venture out of said genre, people complain about it, even though the song features Cardi B. It also could be when you make yourself sound like the most obnoxious cartoon mouse imaginable, yet still manage to spit out a slapper. He may be the king of dembow, but El Alfa can’t be pigeonholed. Whether his voice is a sputtering tour-de-force or a comically nasal squelch, this album is a celebration of the ridiculous. In the end, the best songs are peak dembow, where a cloying sample of El Alfa’s voice works itself into a tornado and thumps for what could be forever.

77. 777- KEY! & Kenny Beats

Kenny was a prodigal son who left hip hop with dollar signs in his eyes and his tongue sticking out, tempted by the call of #REAL #TRAP #SHIT. Key! was an artist who had existed on the periphery of the scene, paying his dues while earning the most visibility when tacked onto the end of a Father song. They are the type of match that would slip under the radar until you realize that not only do they bring out the best in each other, but they also tap into something quite glamorous. The beats bump, the melodies stick, the energy is so high, and Key! treats this like his magnum opus. He’s expressive, dynamic, and Kenny lets him do it without any gimmicks.

76. Soma 0,5 Mg- Taconafide

Maybe I’m a little biased, but I can’t understate how much this means to me. A Polish rap album that doesn’t draw on trends that fell out of favor eight years ago? One that is building its own lane and not just tangentially existing on the sidelines of the American scene? One that has not only one moderately funny song but a whole pack of well-thought out, extremely catchy bangers? No way. It’s too good to be true. Taco and Quebonafide carry themselves like they know that this is the album of a generation, that millions of Polish kids living their lives peering across the pond finally have something that is distinctly their own, and, more importantly, distinctly Polish. Dawaj dawaj!

75. Shadow On Everything- BAMBARA

It’s hard to talk dirt on an album that has all its instrumentation down to a tee. Sure, you can’t get by on technical efficiency alone, but when bellowing drums translate into something so menacing and a flurry of guitars create such a haunting ambient presence, you take no detours when you’re propelled into the darkness. These songs are packed with enough action to tell stories but really, they just set scenes. That’s for the better. BAMBARA circumvent all the pitfalls of making post-punk in 2018 by putting passion into everything, ramping up the chaos as much as they can.

74. Doomsday Clarion- Airport

The world of fragile, noisy Soundcloud electronic collages is a pretty funny one, but rarely does the humor feel as sharp as it does on Doomsday Clarion. Miranda Pharis compiles sounds that never cease to keep me amused, intrigued, and, most importantly, spooked. They also find a way to tie them together so that it feels like non-stop commentary. Halfway through this thing, when we are exposed to a tangent about how one of the songs excels at putting an unnamed Youtube commenter’s rabbit to sleep, at first it’s like “LOL random”, but then it starts to feel like a snarky dissection of underground culture performativity...and it makes me wanna keep reaching as hard as I did there. It’s the type of record that wants to make you sound like a fool, yet Pharis doesn’t scoff as much as they embrace and pay homage. These turbulent compositions are all the more essential for it.

73. Nasty- Rico Nasty

There’s a few things you learn on Rico Nasty’s thunderous entrance. Apart from her sixth sense for broke boys and fake bitches, the observation that hits the hardest is that she’s pretty...well...nasty. She’s also not even close to being interested in apologizing for her fame, and anyone who thinks she should because she’s done it by making extremely aggressive (and borderline mean) bangers is full of shit. If Nasty proves anything, it’s that nobody is going quite as hard as this, and even though that would be enough merit to rest on, she’s not going to stop there. The more tender and spacious tracks here are shockingly the ones that bite the hardest. For an album that builds so much tension from brash exclamations, that’s quite a flex.

72. Negro Swan- Blood Orange

For Dev Hynes, the transition from indie’s best networker to its most multifaceted social commentator has been a successful one. However, I feel like that label minimizes him, because his albums are not trying to tell you anything, instead acting as abstractly pointed containers for ideas and chunks of culture that mold together into something triumphant. His albums have always been celebrations that cut deep into the complexity of blackness, queerness, and history. Negro Swan is his most on-the-nose and also his most unapologetically happy. However, it’s not the concise statements that make the album but the gorgeous, subdued melodies that take charge before you can even touch them. It might lack the explosiveness of Freetown Sound, but there’s hardly a moment on this record that isn’t radiant or holds back on any of its charm.

71. In Another Life- Sandro Perri

It doesn’t take long until the title track on this album finds the groove that it will spend the next 24-minutes delicately unraveling. It is a dainty, sweeping groove based on a simple keyboard arpeggio that invites every other sound in the vicinity to flourish with it, like it’s hosting an open picnic. It paces around, disintegrating and advancing with time, but by the end, it’s exactly where it started. That’s the beauty of Perri’s work; to say he can milk an idea is an understatement. He can milk an idea to the point where you can’t even tell an idea’s being milked, silently highlighting the beauty that emerges with prolonged exposure.

70. Aura- Ozuna

It should come as no surprise that the most stacked summer album came courtesy of reggaeton’s most profitable powerhouse. It’s not even the extent to which these tracks go, but the sheer force with which Ozuna can continuously spin out them out, over and over again, like it’s absolutely nothing to him. For over an hour, it sounds like he’s doing no more than acting on his impulses, tapping into non-stop melodies and rhythms with confidence that it will all stick. Of course all these songs exist in the same vein, but there’s no comparing the twinkling romance of ‘Ibiza’ with the glitzy flexing on ‘Única’ or even the thumping pulse of ‘Sigueme los Pasos’, where he gloriously joins forces with reggaeton’s other king. There are 20 bangers on here, and the album only kinda drags. It can’t be this easy.

69. Famous Cryp- Blueface

It’s actually hilarious watching people get worked up about Blueface. “He can’t even rap on beat! How hard can it be to rap on beat?” Lmao, if you think rapping on beat is a prerequisite to making hip-hop, you’re as bad as the people trying to keep the impressionists out of art galleries just because they weren’t making hyper-realistic Jesus art. Yeah, I said it. Blueface is rap game Renoir. For real, it’s so much easier to rely on conventional technical ability than to tap into something that actually expands on a style of rap that should’ve been out of ideas a long time ago. Most importantly, if Blueface is such a hack, then how come he makes it sound so fucking good? How does he manage to rap like he’s racing the beat to the end of each bar, with his voice cracking every chance it gets, and still churn out songs with so much momentum? Why the fuck would he rap on beat? So he can sound like every wholesale G Perico/YG out there? Smh.

68. ASTROWORLD- Travis Scott

It would almost be irresponsible to leave the most quintessentially 2018 album of 2018 off this list. If you didn’t hear ASTROWORLD within a week of it dropping, you might as well have been watching telemarketing that whole week while 60,000 feet under the ground with no phone service. For all its lyrical gaffes, lack of personality, and unreasonably quiet NAV features, this album is pretty sick. We always knew Travis Scott was something of a curational master, with a taste for crafting rap albums that aren’t about him as much as they are apexes of the mainstream scene. However, when he came off as hollow before, ASTROWORLD has such an abundance of quality that you can’t even deny it. His ambition is easy to poke fun at until you find yourself returning to these songs again and again, marveling at each extravagant beat change or “STRAIGHT UP!” like it was your first time hearing it.

67. SR3MM- Rae Sremmurd

Just a note, I’m not referring to two solo albums that came with this (sorry Swaecation) because for all their charm, those were a bit harder to vouch for. Instead, I’m talking about the nine-track banger platter that got overshadowed by all the noise surrounding the “triple album.” Somehow, SR3MM was stealthily the well-rounded, adventurous album the boys had been promising us this whole time. Perhaps it’s because it is filler-free or because both of them (Swae Lee especially) have become absolute masters of their craft, having made so many seductive, irresistible tracks that at this point they could do it in their sleep. Or maybe it’s because there are so many imitators and it’s nice to have a burst of authenticity. There is hardly a moment on this album that isn’t an integral part of a refined rap song. They have so much more fun together. Sure, Swae is eclipsing, but I really hope they don’t break up.

66. Loma- Loma

When Cross Record established themselves as sublime folk masters on Wabi-Sabi, I didn’t think they needed the not-so-trendy and very, very normal input of Shearwater’s Jonathan Meiburg. I guess I was wrong. Turns out where they were once comfortable soaking in the hushed splendor, they are now compelled to be a bit more ambitious, to venture into louder places with more confidence. Thankfully, the newfound grandiosity does not come at the expense of any beauty; the vocal acrobatics sink into the spectral sheets of instrumentation just as smoothly as they did before.

65. Pastoral- Gazelle Twin

Gazelle Twin is a hard sell. There’s really no reason this uber-spooky electronic project where a woman in a mask chants and roars over industrial beats should be good. The look is cool and all, but this shit can be really off-putting if you’re not willing to have a little fun. Thankfully, the vibe is backed up by the production, which seems custom built to fill these songs with the bloodcurdling energy they project. If she’s not pounding her shrillness into you, she’s catching a sample at its most disorienting and looping it into further oblivion. It’s overwhelming yet so effective.

64. QUARTERTHING- Joey Purp

Now, I'm no purist who lives their life cowering under "DEATH TO MUMBLE RAP" bullshit, but if the status quo of hip-hop today can be critiqued for one thing, it's monotony. In a time where Drake can drop a 25-song album with, like, only ten songs where he actually sounds interested in what he's saying, it's refreshing to hear Joey Purp attack each verse like it's his last, with each hook falling into its groove like he was told at gunpoint to think of something catchy. If Joey Purp makes a song about something, he's going to approach the topic with purpose, almost likes he's aiming to make the definitive song about that thing. Here, he uses this essentiality to flex his versatility. QUARTERTHING is a record of confident experiments, songs that wander into unknown territory with purpose, capturing lightning in a bottle most of the time.

63. Le Kov- Gwenno

Gwenno is the type of vocalist who gets swept up by her songs rather than situating herself at the eye of storm. Her voice is a soft whisper most of the time, but the reverb on the drums accentuates each snare with a room filling quality while every dash of organ lingers and sustains. It’s baroque, it’s timeless, and, most importantly, it’s in Cornish, which I definitely thought was an extinct language. She could rest on that monopoly and still be fine, but she indulges instead. It’s an ideal combination of originality and refinement of an age-old style.

62. Drip Harder- Lil Baby & Gunna

When they’re not together, Lil Baby and Gunna aren’t that good. All of their solo albums at this point have been coated in filler, and when there’s a standout track, they usually both show up. That’s why it’s not surprising that the Young Thug proteges find their niche on Drip Harder, but it’s still shocking just how sharp, cohesive, and vital this sounds. The duo are moulding expressive, abstract melody-driven hip-hop in a way that hasn’t been as notable and of-the-time since Thugger and Rich Homie Quan did it in 2014. That pairing was more unlikely and exciting, but this one is more natural. Every moan, confession, and groove on here is impossible to resist, and the beats are some of the most intoxicating of the year. RHQ and Thugger crashed hard as a duo after they peaked, but I hope these two either stick together or use this as a launchpad for artistic growth. There’s so much room for it to grow, but for now, it’s more than enough to watch them carry each other’s weight.

61. Another Life- Amnesia Scanner

The hyper-saturated industrial dance music of Amnesia Scanner has now turned into hyper-saturated industrial pop music. As bizarre as that is to say about songs that are almost all led by grating synthetic vocals on the brink of becoming a deafening screech, there’s something conventionally attractive about the way these hooks form. Whether it comes in the form of a stuttering refrain or a massive #drop designed to elevate any scrapyard rave into the impending cyber-apocalypse, the pleasures here are simple.

60. Magus- Thou

It’s getting harder and harder for fans across the metal spectrum to agree on a canon. So much metal is being churned out at such a high rate, it’s becoming more of a task to pick out the gold from the clutter. Thou make a name for themselves with unmistakable grandiosity. Their sound isn’t the most challenging; the snarls have a soothing, ASMR-esque texture to them and the riffs are clean-cut, progressing with grace. For a band this prolific, it’s notable when they come out with something this refined. You can hear the effort in every idea, the precision in every new path they take. Magus might be the best entry point for metal’s most consistent stalwarts, a band who are much more interested in perfecting their distinct ambiance than embarking on well-meaning but slightly muddled genre-fusion.

59. abysskiss- Adrianne Lenker

As if Big Thief weren’t intimate enough. Adrianne Lenker takes her band’s prime descriptor (either “intimate” or “delicate,” depends on the day) and sees just how far she can push it before it gets uncomfortable. The staring contest that ensues on abysskiss is what you’d expect from one of the most hushed, intricate vocalists breathing into your ear with no more than a guitar backing her up. She definitely has the talent to get away with a mood piece, but no, abysskiss is home to some of the most devastating songs in her arsenal. At her best Lenker is lulling you into woozy trance, with songs that pack the visceral explosion of secrets. Such a sparse record has no right to be this intoxicating.

58. FM!- Vince Staples

You wouldn’t trust an elegant craftsman like Vince Staples to actually make an album that’s “no concepts, no elaborate schemes, just music.” He’s rap’s smuggest pundit, as well as the brains behind some of its most captivating music. So even though FM! is brief and blunt at its core, it still can’t resist being super clever. For starts, although Vince’s albums are often personal, they are seldom embedded with this much unshakable geography and West Coast inside humor. FM! is designed to sound like it’s playing on FM (get it) radio, and every time he cashes in on the gimmick with a new Tyga or Earl Sweatshirt snippet, his grin becomes more radiant. FM! thrives as a reminder that Vince can hop on any slender beat and ride it with ease, his listenability being the spectacle with the observations fattening it up.

57. Cellar Belly- Wished Bone

Those who know me might be shocked that a lo-fi twee album of any kind made it on this list, but Wished Bone are onto something. Sure, I’m a sucker for those staticy, soothing vocals and the delicate clicks and hisses that adorn them. If you’re going to celebrate the whimsical, you better make a full send. However, the beauty of Cellar Belly is not just the alluring sound but the amount Wished Bone are willing to do with it. There’s a sex jam called ‘Pollinate Me’ where they literally go “I am a flower, you are a bee.” Elsewhere, when ‘Seed’ abruptly turns into an itchy swing jam, I’m floored. Shouts out to delicate phantasmagoria; this is haunting in the cutest way.

56. mouth mouse maus- emamouse x yeongrak

This album is a colossal headache. Of course, anything that picks from the most lo-fi strains of nightcore and 8-bit is likely to make you feel a bit queasy, but mouth mouse maus is actually mesmerizing with the extent to which it sounds like a malfunctioning carousel in clown hell. Sure, this album is difficult to listen to and if you’re tuning in casually it’ll probably sound like erratic sludge. Yet there’s something heinous about just how fun it is. It’s not just fun in the random, unpredictable way but more so because it has you on the edge of your seat. This album tests you but you’re going to want to keep going, just to catch a glimpse at whatever tomfuckery comes next.

55. Elysia Crampton- Elysia Crampton

Although she likes to keep it short, nobody has epitomized the vanguard of electronic music in the past few years as confidently as Elysia Crampton. It’s like her sound is caught in this furious web where everything collides, with snippets of trap tripping over sturdy breakbeats that are embellished with a whiff of punk. It’s like an information overload themed fever dream that creates a world so dense it hurts your brain to think about. But it sounds so good with no frills. It’s a language so tempting to imitate, but even her peers can’t come close to this breathtaking chaos. This time, the grooves are as adventurous and subtle as they have ever been. It’s just as easy to be drawn in and just as hard to look away.

54. Freedom- Amen Dunes

Freedom is one of those rare sonic wonders that seems removed from any modern trends yet pushes the envelope far too much to be shrugged off as revivalism. Sure, Amen Dunes have influences and many of them come from a clearly defined school of rugged, classic Americana. However, Freedom is too musically nuanced and personal to function as any sort of nostalgia trip. It’s the album where a mastermind songwriter fully finds his voice after nearly a decade. Damon McMahon has made great albums before, but none of them have the urgency of Freedom. In that sense, it feels like it came out of nowhere, even though that couldn’t be further from the truth. The loudness with which he projects, this unmistakable need to be heard is what’s new; Freedom is an album that screams self-acceptance, magnifying the affirmative catharsis that comes after years of internalized trauma. You can’t deny the power of that, but even if you do, you have more than enough splendid melodies to gawk at.

53. Chris- Christine and the Queens

I get too close to putting Chris in a box. Impulse has me wanting to write about how this a masterclass in “queer pop,” because it’s so easy to oversimplify queer artists and bunch them together under the same umbrella. Although identity is at the core of her art, Chris is not an embrace of an identity as much as it is a rejection of the need to clearly articulate your identity or to have an identity that pertains to a set of rules. Chris finds eroticism in confusion, and in that sense, it is a stellar non-statement, with each sentiment drilled into your heart via Chris’s enveloping voice and the record’s colorful, addictive production. Vulnerability is rarely this convincing.

52. Now Only- Mount Eerie

On the surface, Now Only feels like six leftovers from the most gut-wrenching musical diary entry about death ever made. That would be fine, but this is so much more. Now Only exhibits a new lens with which Phil Elverum views his devastation. He knows he will never accept it, but allowing himself to grieve helps him approach a semblance of peace. The confessional approach is just as tear-jerking as it was before, but instead of lingering in Genevieve’s ghost, we are hearing someone who has found deeper meaning in this therapy. Musically, Now Only is more vast and ambitious, but the sentiment is just as awe-inspiring. It takes a lot of genuine pain to pull off songwriting like this, and after the mass catharsis that touring A Crow Looked at Me must have been, it’s fascinating to witness the depth and growth of some of the most intense emotions one can ever feel.

51. Only Love- The Armed

Maximalism and enigma is a tricky cocktail to pull off, but if there’s a place for it, it’s definitely in the hyper-saturated world of metalcore. There’s only a few ways in which these types of outbursts can go down, but when you’re doing as much as The Armed, it ends up being pretty spicy. This album is a non-stop catharsis where everyone is putting all the effort they possibly can into whatever noise they’re making. It seems spontaneous and turbulent, but there’s no way something this constantly earth-shattering isn’t carefully orchestrated. I would call this all-over-the-place, but all the action is streamlined and compressed so that, for all its shrieking and pounding, Only Love ends up being a pretty nice listen. That’s only from a sonic perspective though, because as an emotional experience, this is gut-wrenching, borderline hard to sit through. If you give it the attention it demands, Only Love’s childlike expression defies trends and subverts expectations.

50. Rich As In Spirit- Rich Homie Quan

What do you do when you fall off? It happens to pretty much everyone eventually. I don’t judge those who decide to cash in or rely on publicity stunts to get back into the public eye or even those who just stop trying. But Rich Homie Quan made one promise to us, didn’t he? He goes in on every song. He’s still goin in. He will never stop going in. Rich Homie Quan has been eclipsed by most of his former peers, but on Rich As In Spirit, he does exactly what he needed to do; stop worrying and hone his craft. You can hear the effort and emotion on just about every song. Rich Homie knows he’s gifted and doesn’t need to prove it. He’s always had a vastly underappreciated melodic grip and a penchant for churning out the most energy-fueled, heartfelt bangers. Rich As In Spirit magnifies that. Putting in effort doesn’t mean overdoing it. It’s refreshing to hear someone sound so much less jaded than his contemporaries, quietly outshining them in the process.

49. X 100PRE- Bad Bunny

Bad Bunny’s bellowing baritone used to be a couple things, but now it’s everything. As one of the most potent voices in pop music, his debut album was liable to slap, but X 100PRE concisely shows off the versatility that his singles hinted at. To say he stays in his comfort zone would be irrelevant because his comfort zone is so wide. He came up off the Latin trap wave, but now his prowess shines strongest on his ballads; the inspired optimism of ‘Estamos Bien’ or the sensual nocturne on ‘Otra Noche en Miami’. When he links with Diplo on ‘200 MPH’, it is just as mammoth as you’d expect, not because of Diplo but because the refrain is so fucking sticky. Even the songs where he does the most are far from tacky; the seamless switch on ‘Solo de Mi’ and the hilarious entrance of El Alfa on ‘La Romana’ show his curational eye. It’s one thing to have great ideas but it’s another to execute them so tastefully. Bad Bunny is Puerto Rico’s improvement of Travis Scott; his albums have the same sights and sounds, but twice the personality.

48. A Whole Fucking Lifetime of This- American Pleasure Club

You never know what you’re going to get from a Sam Ray project. One of the great gifts to have comes with the passing of time is the bleeding of Ricky Eat Acid’s mesmerizing ambient music into Ray’s lo-fi emo outlet Teen Suicide, which has now rightfully rebranded as American Pleasure Club. The cynicism has shed off with the name; A Whole Fucking Lifetime of This is still despondent and stressed out (I mean what do you expect with that title), but it’s a lot more genuine and the thrills it holds are a lot more heartfelt. It’s hard to think of a way to channel your emotions that Ray won’t try. This album mostly consists of illustrious sad ballads made from ingredients so delicate that it seems like the foundation could collapse at any time. That’s not to imply that it is unsturdy but rather that these sounds are strong enough to break free from the glue holding them together. Elegance has become Ray’s forte, but he makes sure every goosebump is earned.

47. KTSE- Teyana Taylor

The last and least anticipated of Kanye’s Wyoming albums ended up being the easiest one to love. Teyana Taylor had been sitting on a bed of potential for years before this dropped, but her most visible moments came in the form of uncredited features, reality TV, and Kanye music videos. Kanye’s gold mine of minimalist, sample-based production feels most at ease when it’s elevating R&B, and Teyana has the ideal disposition to lead the charge. She’s confident, unashamed, and empowered. These songs articulate pleasure in a way that is proudly hyper-sexual, but even though its lyrics read like erotic literature sometimes, the result is tasteful. Taylor composes herself on this album like a star waiting to burst, her raspy yelp stealing the show every chance it gets. But this album will forever be associated with Kanye, and in fairness, that’s fine. He saved the most sultry, glimmering beats in his arsenal for this, and it pays off on an album that unravels with masterful pace.

46. Kwaidan- Meitei

I haven’t heard anything else like this and I promise I wouldn’t say that if I didn’t mean it. Kwaidan is an anomaly, an album that orchestrates the most befuddling atmosphere without getting lost in its abstraction. Rhythms emerge from dust and the spoken-word croak (you’ll know it when you hear it) rides them with the grip of an MC. The juxtaposition of ancient and futuristic emerged when Meitei moved to Kyoto, a city where he knew nobody, and wandered around until the mood overwhelmed him. The bite of Kwaidan is rooted in this immersion; there’s no way you can make music this precise, creative, and original without fully buying into your surroundings. Many artist have tried (and failed) to capture the oh so fetishizable “Lost Japanese” aesthetic. Kwaidan epitomizes exactly what they were chasing. It’s hard thing to do right, but holy shit, it is rewarding.

45. Nothing 2 Loose- DJ Healer

There are three types of tracks on here. First, there are the more standard ambient ones, where lonely synths tread through densely layered pops and crackles. Then there are the ones which are led by a melting vocal sample (often a vocoder) channeling something disorienting and alien. However, the big guns come out when the record takes an absurd sample, whether it be a melodramatic melody or some ridiculous rambling about how “this is God’s creation...isn’t it beautiful,” and loops it over some equally theatrical breakbeats. This shit can be so funny, and it’s hard to tell if the hyper-spiritual aesthetic is tongue-in-cheek or completely earnest. Either way, it drills itself into the record enough to justify whatever it is trying to be, regardless of whether it’s a punchline or naked sincerity. This is one of the more haunting, incisive ambient techno albums in recent memory, built on ideas that are not only clever but extremely immersive.

44. Grid of Points- Grouper

Nobody has spent this decade cultivating a more distinct, mesmerizing aesthetic than Liz Harris. Grouper has become one of the most reliable operations in modern music. You know that you’re going to get little more than reverb-soaked piano and breathy vocals, but you also know that the wave of emotions will be overwhelming. Harris records these songs in a room alone, and I don’t think it could be done any other way. It’s astonishing how she is able to consistently do so much with so little, and I know that’s a cliché but fuck it. The warmth and comfort that radiates from these songs is priceless. Grid of Points is not as haunting as past Grouper, but it’s more ethereal and, as a result, more conventionally pretty. This type of allure is a undeniable fit. It shows a new angle of a simple formula that will suck you in with every last breath and smother you with its seclusion.

43. Daytona- Pusha T

Who is the 2018 Clipse? Rae Sremmurd? (lol I like this analogy already) Let’s ride with it. Daytona is like if Swae Lee, 12 years down the line, actually found a more compelling way to sing about going to the Bahamas and dunking a girl in a pool. Obviously, in this case, the Bahamas and pools are replaced by selling coke, but you know what I’m saying. Basically, Pusha T has every right to have peaked already, but instead his coke aficionado character has only grown stronger with age. Like, I can’t believe it took him this long to come up with the line “fuck it, brick for brick, let’s have a blow off.” However, it’s not really Pusha T’s words that form this album’s backbone; as the entry point to Kanye’s prolific (and pretty great) Wyoming Sessions, the real catch is how Pusha T is able to merge with these stuttering, soulful backdrops to turn coke-rap into razor sharp poetry. Pusha’s dedication to developing one thing over the course of his career has made his imagery as potent as ever; but the brevity and minimalism here will not waste a single moment. In a year where he temporarily took down pop rap’s radio Jesus, his true legacy builder was far more modest but much more premeditated.

42. Golden Hour- Kacey Musgraves

You ever think about, like, how there’s northern lights in our skies, plants that grow and open our minds. It’s kinda crazy that in Tennessee the sun’s going down and in Beijing they’re heading out to work. This is a real thing. Kacey Musgraves writes lyrics like she is a child realizing everything for the first time and marvelling, jaw agape, at how it makes her feel. All cynicism aside, it’s refreshing to hear someone so enthralled with it. Golden Hour is a collection of earnest meditations on the most simple phenomena, shit we take for granted. And while it’s easy to poke fun at the parts of this album that sound like earnest marijuana-fueled banter, it’s a lot harder to escape when the music is so beautiful and the sentiment is so genuine. There are moments on here where Musgraves underlines things like temporality of our most cherished relationships or how euphoria is always dissolved by the shock that it’s all going to end. This is some of the purest lyricism that exists, an album that frees itself from the alienating shackles of its country aesthetic to become one of 2018’s hardest things to argue with.

41. Slide- George Clanton

If you openly exploit the “vaporwave” tag for Soundcloud plays while lightly disowning the genre, you must be quite a cunning fucker. You better make sure that the music you’re making is not only post-vaporwave but a capitalization on the aesthetic that resonates with millions but earns the scorn of the critical masses. Slide is just that. It feels grand and important, like it’s the apex of the more cyber-persuaded strain of electro-pop lurking around the memescape. George Clanton is a meme god, an artist whose ambition justifies the more eye-roll inducing, needlessly fetishistic aspects of the subculture. The motifs in this album are not just extremely well thought out but all the more effective when they emerge in the form of blustering, explosive melodies. It’s very hard for them to fall into the background not just because they are beautiful but because you can tell he’s having fun. Slide ensures that there’s a wholesome time hiding behind every cloud of reverb.

40. Momentary Glance- Lisa/Liza

During a phase of grief, any creation is worthy of praise. The lore of Momentary Glance is clear-cut; overwhelmed by tragedy, Liza Victoria persevered through a biting winter to record these six songs. The despondent trance she falls into as she strums and chants is hypnotic, not just because of the prolonged intimacy but because the compositions are presented with all their raw imperfections, embellishments that suck you in instead of taking you out. Victoria’s vocals on this album act as a well of hope in the face of despair. There’s no right way to cope and no glory in suffering, so praising this album’s open wounds seems counterproductive. But when an aspect of your livelihood is snatched from you forever and you can’t bear how much you miss someone, an album that gets it like this is a warm blanket in a freezer, a beacon of empathy in the face of debilitating turmoil.

39. KIDS SEE GHOSTS- KIDS SEE GHOSTS

I’m not sure who needed this most. Was it Kanye, eager to balance out his ugly, legacy-ruining 2018 by making people finally talk about his music again? Or was it Kid Cudi, the tortured autotune godfather whose albums over the past decade had ranged from forgettable to holy shit i don’t even wanna think about it? Either way, KIDS SEE GHOSTS was the apex of the Wyoming sessions. It’s as if all the urgency spun into one concise project, where every segment showcases two genuine masterminds trying to bring out the best in one another. Kid Cudi especially treats this like the album he was destined to make, exhibiting warbles so seductive that you forget they were ever grating. He lends this album its emotional cruciality, with skyrocketing hooks that ache so hard and a tone so spot on it’s like he was saving it all for this.

Kanye takes this as an opportunity to showcase his curational genius. For a seven song album, many of these tracks feel like interludes not because they shrug off responsibility but because they take a form so unconventional that it’s almost distracting. Even the boldest ideas on here leave a great taste in your mouth, but in the end the dearest pleasure is Kanye’s rapping. Every time he opens his mouth he does so with vitality, something we haven’t seen to this degree since Yeezus.

38. 2012-2017- Against All Logic

Nicolas Jaar is a sonic virtuoso. While he’s proven many times that he can twist and fiddle through his most complex compositions, simplicity bears the most genuine rewards. As you may have guessed from the title, this is a compilation of sorts. It suggests that Jaar has been taking a crack at more conventional house music on the side for most of this decade, and needed an outlet to release it without disrupting the much darker, denser expectations of the Nicolas Jaar brand. It’s no surprise that he pulls it off. It’s hard to think of another producer who has a more nuanced grip on how grooves work and how to find glory in texture. That being said, I did not expect something this casual and accessible to reveal itself as Jaar’s forte. Jaar really is one for the intersection of soul and house. These songs all follow a similar formula where an old-school sample gets worked into a modest yet riveting pulse. However, what he taps into suggests that some of these sounds are much more compelling with the context flipped around. For the scribblings of a mastermind, this is unreasonably presentable.

37. Stadium- Eli Keszler

The moment on Stadium that has me sold iss not one of the ingenious blends of shuffling percussion and jittering plucks that come to define its sound. It’s at the end of a song called ‘We Live in a Pathetic Temporal Urgency’ (lol), where the thuds dissipate and we are left with a natural sound recording of what sounds like pop music playing on the speakers of the mall. It’s like it is beaming from a different planet, simultaneously grounding the album and inverting it into a much stranger endeavor. Keszler has orchestrated a platter of ear candy, sound porn disguised as psycho-jazz. Sure, the odd time-signatures and abundance of texture might grab the headlines, but the real kicker here is the lull that actively rests behind the music. I wish all glitzy technical showcases doubled as ambient mood pieces.

36. The Recurrence of Infections- bod [包家巷]

There’s an ennui that not enough people make art about. Nicholas Zhu (aka bod) would call it “the quiet hours of laborious coping that fall into the areas between work and sleep,” but I’d probably call it “chill time”. The Recurrence of Infections is a lot of high-strung aesthetically driven gobbledygook, but it’s fucking awesome. I actually buy into it pretty hard. Forget the fact that it’s a masterclass in sound design and think about what “laborious coping” would sound like. You probably can’t think of much, but that’s because you can’t realize your vision as well as Zhu can. Pianos that turn into crashes that turn into distorted growling that turn into robotic warbling...these are not the type of things you remember, but can easily relax with, if you tune out the real pressure. It’s a joy to watch this album unravel. It’s the type of thing you’ll want to tell people about without being able to explain why. But that’s ok. Come hang sometime.

35. The Invisible Comes To Us- Anna & Elizabeth

Anna & Elizabeth make musical period pieces. It doesn’t take long until you realize that this isn’t just a folk throwback; these are actually old folk songs, shit that was popping off in, like, the 40s. While the whole “old songs for new audiences” thing is wholesome, the magic is in where they go with it. The Invisible Comes To Us is exhilaratingly strange to listen to. Adorned by a seemingly ancient aesthetic, you’d think a modernization could get away with slapping some synths and beats on there and calling it a day. However, Anna & Elizabeth are interested in how this music would sound if its spirit was still alive today, if people still had good reason to write lyrics like “tell me jovial sailors, tell me true/does my sweet William sail among your crew?” but had the technology to throw some electronic embellishments on there. Every song sees a comically traditional tune come to a screeching synthetic halt, and even though that combination should wear thin, the execution is passionate enough to be chilling.

34. Whack World- Tierra Whack

The strongest gimmicks are usually the most frustrating. Whack World is a harsh epitome of this; it’s a project that suffocates itself with originality, but would it really ruin the illusion if some of these songs were a couple minutes longer? It doesn’t matter, because this album and the visual spectacle that came with it was enough to fit right into our zeitgeist and run laps around anything less casually ambitious. Of course, part of the appeal was seeing Tierra Whack trimming a poodle, prancing around a cemetary with muppets, and snipping the strings of balloons while snarling in a Southern accent. However, an album’s stellar presentation doesn’t always translate into such addicting songs. Whack World is fifteen great ideas taken at face value so that they never lose momentum. These tracks seem designed to get stuck on repeat, always finding a groove and savagely leaving cravings unfulfilled.

33. Twin Fantasy- Car Seat Headrest

It’s weird to throw this on here because these songs have existed for such a long time. However, newer resources sparked an overhaul we didn’t even know we needed, and boy, did it work out. Twin Fantasy is one of those records that is so painfully personal you feel almost uncomfortable. Immersing yourself in its tales of infatuation and self-awareness to the point where you’re basically watching Will Toledo gut himself and everyone around him shouldn’t be this fun. It doesn’t gain a new audience by straying away from the lo-fi, but rather by accentuating the musical and conceptual turbulence. The best songs on here are eager shapeshifters, growing bigger and bigger until they pop, or in the some cases, they reach the ten minute mark and start gyrating. Eventually, he’ll start doing things like convincing himself that he can’t be evil, not because he’s good, but because “evil” is a phony construct. It’s a drastic leap from fondly recalling Skype calls to declaring that he is incapable of being both human and inhuman. Or is it? Car Seat Headrest has mastered the smug grin that does bad job of holding back the tears, hitting you with enough unhinged emotion to justify its performativity.

32. Sorpresa Familia- Mourn

Mourn have had a lot of burdens to shake in the wake of Sorpresa Familia, and it almost feels like they could only have made this album with something to prove. It makes sense as the product of a fight for financial justice, as it also sees Mourn viciously slithering away from the buzzwords people use to define them and the marquee names writers like me automatically liken them to. However, they don't do this by changing their sound, but by upping the ferocity in their energy, the complexity of their arrangements, and the stickiness of their melodies.

The commitment to quality makes it easy to forget the label drama that birthed this record. However, Sorpresa Familia would not exist in this form without the rage and hunger for justice that marked its creative process. "At 19 years old we're signing our divorce," they growl at one point. Anyone who has gone through it knows divorce often becomes a blissful catharsis for the victim. Sorpresa Familia doesn't merely mark this catharsis; it proves that Mourn needed to loosen the shackles to make the most fully-formed record of their career.

31. Lush- Snail Mail

It’s odd to hear someone younger than me (I’m 20) rock a style that shouldn’t have too many ideas left in the tank. That being said, it’s especially wild when they do so with such grace, sounding like a seasoned vet in their prime. Lush isn’t brimming with new sounds, but somehow it manages to be the most refreshing indie rock record in recent memory. Maybe it’s because the songwriting is simple at heart but captures something so universal and captivating. Lush dissects the ambiguities of young love, both the frustrating rush of being swept away and the strength it takes to realize that the exasperation may not be worth it. It resonates with me, and I can’t imagine these sentiments falling short on anyone, at least when they are delivered by Lindsay Jordan’s absolute powerhouse vocals. The more emotional bits come in like a sustained avalanche, knowing exactly what to emphasize and what not to overdo.

30. Devotion- Tirzah

We’ll talk about Tirzah in a second, but let’s take a minute to gawk at Mica Levi. It takes a seldom-seen skill set to create some the most weirdly accessible pop records of the early decade and then go on to get an Oscar nod for a movie about Jackie Kennedy. Yet now, having produced Devotion, she’s ready to give her tasteful, haunting minimalism the charismatic voice it has always deserved. Mica Levi was never the best frontwoman, so enter Tirzah, with a sultry, conversational voice that can mutter and howl in the same breath. This is a partnership that has been bubbling since early childhood, and you can tell just how well these two understand each other’s creative boundaries. Mica will take a sparse loop and spread it wide enough for Tirzah to spit out vulnerable bars like nobody’s watching, like she’s catching herself in a scary moment of candor and embracing it.

29. Sweetener- Ariana Grande

Ariana Grande’s music had always one-upped her public person. She had been in marquee relationships before, but none as inescapable as this. It’s weird to look back on Sweetener, which was dropped during peak Grandsonmania, as this happy, beam of light sticking out after she witnessed a bonafide tragedy unfurl at her now-infamous Manchester concert. It was the sound of an icon in full control of her narrative, choosing to show resilience and overdose on bliss. Instead of being distracted by her newfound spot at the top of the A-list, she was inspired by the spotlight. That being said, context doesn’t make Sweetener. Ariana Grande has always had a penchant for the most irresistible, immaculate pop masterstrokes, and Sweetner is home to so many of them. Her vocal capacity has become practically superhuman at this point. Whether she is howling on ‘breathin’ or unleashing a phantasmagoric coo on ‘R.E.M.’ it’s hard to imagine a delivery that would suit these songs better. She has perfected the ballad, but she has also perfected the bop, and Sweetener shows that she can effortlessly blend the two.

Of course, tragedy struck again in the death of her ex-boyfriend/best friend Mac Miller. She broke up with Pete and unpacked everything with her biggest song yet. However, Sweetener will always stand out as one of the most crucial and enjoyable bubblegum pop records of our time, one that, for all its lore, continues Ariana’s tradition of putting the music first.

28. New Bodies- Tangents

I’m never one to judge an album primarily by its capacity to make me go “whoa!”, but if I was, New Bodies would probably top this list. Simply put, this is a technical masterstroke. The type of music Tangents make is pretty hard to classify; its sprawling instrumental flexing suggests jazz but the ingredients are electronic. It’s impressive enough to pull off something so unorthodox but to do so in a way that manages to summon emotion while simultaneously dropping jaws...that’s a whole new level. New Bodies rejects the need to find a groove, fidgeting and sputtering to a point where it can either unravel or chase a massive crescendo. More often than not, it chooses both. This album flaunts its pace, but the real calling card is the texture, which is product of rattling percussion that manages to stay so varied and complex while providing a sturdy backbone. It shouldn’t be possible to scatter strings, cymbals, beats, and samples so haphazardly onto each track and come out with seven genuine odysseys.

27. Galapagos- Wednesday Campanella

Wednesday Campanella aren’t quite subverting stylistic norms. Galapagos is chock full of drops, albeit interesting ones, and the songs rely on tried-and-tested formulas to drill the melodies in. However, skipping experimentation lets Wednesday Campanella to get straight to the point: unadulterated sonic bliss. Also, please don’t get me wrong. Wednesday Campanella don’t really sound like anyone else, even in the far-reaching, dense world of J-Pop. It’s hard to find any band that is so adamant on cramming this many glistening sounds into their music yet so capable of dodging busyness or being busy in the right way. Yet, for a group that does so much, it’s wild that they manage to have each element crafted with precision, whether it be a glittery synth sound shooting out of a vibe that would have never have called for it, or the vocals, which are always so high up in the mix that each breath is magnified. Sure, it’s not the most uncanny, but Wednesday Campanella stay surprising you with their audacious choices.

26. Room 25- Noname

Room 25 is birthed out of an entirely new set of circumstances. While Telefone was a Chicago album through-and-through, Room 25's namesake comes from the geographic ambiguity of two years spent living on the road. She sums it up nicely on "With You" where she raps "shared my life on Telefone, room 25 and 306, and 809 became my home.” Being thrown into the cutthroat touring process for two whole years is a unique and inherently transformative experience, and Room 25 captures this transformation in all its push-pull nuance, without sacrificing Noname's sharp eye for her surroundings. In this sense, Room 25 is excitingly personal. In the past, Noname the character has taken a passenger seat to Noname the narrator. Now she opens things up and focuses on her journey, and there's a lot of growth to be exhibited. It's an album with purpose, a moving snapshot of a coming-of-age worthy of all this great music.

Yet, for all the personality and reflection that comes out on Room 25, Noname's eloquent observations make for some of the stickiest moments on this album. When she ponders the hypocrisy of eating Chick-Fil-A "in the shadows" on ‘Blaxploitation’, she doesn't do so with a stern finger-wag but an onomatopoeic overcoming of sensation -- "mmm, yummy, tasty" -- kickstarting a flow that unwinds with her confronting the "thinkpiece" nature of her music head-on. However, these songs aren't thinkpieces. These are acute contemplations from someone with a lot to chew on. Room 25 sees a brilliant writer finding her outlet, taking in the world around her, and spinning it into her own extraordinary web.

25. Safe in the Hands of Love- Yves Tumor

Yves Tumor never seemed interested in stepping out of his mystery bag approach to making albums, mixing 8-minute long exercises in ambient noise with simple, concise soul jams. However, nothing he ever tries is derivative. Safe in the Hands of Love has too much distorted screaming to be labelled his crossover lunge, but now he seems ready to take his sonic ingenuity and apply it to something less abstract. Maybe that’s what happens when you get picked up by Warp, or maybe that’s just what Yves Tumor was planning this whole time. Either way, it doesn’t sound like any compromises are being made. Even the more anthemic songs like ‘Noid’ or ‘Lifetime’ reek of despair and restlessness, and the orchestral overtones that give the tracks their oomph aren’t exactly inviting either. More electronic tracks like ‘All the Love We Have Now’ and ‘Economy of Freedom’ are nods to past successes, but for all their electrifying grooviness, they embrace the same menacing grandiosity. The notion that nothing is off the table is all these songs abide to. Either way, these are some of his best.

24. OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES- Sophie

Sophie never seemed that interested in feeding into the consumerism celebration/critique/caricature her PC Music contemporaries so loudly owned. For every robotic bubblegum pop hook she crafted there was an avalanche of emotion bubbling underneath. OIL takes that emotion and puts it front and center, revealing the dynamic human behind the once elusive machine. Sophie is no longer milking the hyper-synth + squeaky balloon + pots & pans combo into oblivion, but when it shows up here, it’s stronger than ever. ‘Ponyboy’ and ‘Faceshopping’ make previous career highs feel staticy, and there is now a lot more space and fluidity in Sophie’s barrage of beats. While these tracks will pounce on you, the real glory emerges in the most fully-formed moments of Sophie’s career. ‘It’s Okay to Cry’ will wind you with its earnest sensitivity, ‘Is It Cold in the Water?’ is built off a synthline that is borderline heavenly, and ‘Immaterial’ illustrates her identity with elegance that can only be described as career-defining. Music can be a lot of things, but at its very best it is an outlet to channel your truest self. OIL epitomizes this phenomenon, amping up the excitement as Sophie continues to explore.

23. The Smoke- Lolina

When you first hear the tuneless, off-kilter wobble of The Smoke, it becomes clear pretty fast that this album isn’t that interested in sounding “good.” Inga Copeland sounds detached from the music, her voice approaching a mumbling groan while the plodding keyboards and beats don’t sound especially happy to be there. It’s about nothing, it feels nothing, and it doesn’t want you to feel anything either. But, *surprise*surprise*, it’s fascinating. Unlike her close collaborator Dean Blunt, Copeland doesn’t rely on confusion to make the gag work but uses it to carve out a world for her tracks to awkwardly flourish. The first two songs are basically weed out tracks, testing even those most committed to adventure. Once you’re sucked in, the real drama goes down. The husting, solemn ‘The River’ has such a firm grasp on its momentum it practically feels like a set up. The next two songs are particularly stunning, stepping outside of the pervasive flatness to embrace something far more delicate. It’s hard to find an album that rejects aesthetics so much but transcends being just kinda interesting. In that respect, The Smoke is a rare success.

22. Veteran- JPEGMAFIA

Peggy comes close to wearing out his welcome a few times on Veteran. Instead, he just exasperates you, like a jester who bites and claws before he scampers away. It’s hard to even know where to begin with his music, but the elevator pitch is in the instrumentals. They frequently tease you with stomach-churning samples that seem borderline impossible to turn into a beat until they hit their stride and become obvious. On ‘Real Nega’, it’s a guttural sample of Ol’ Dirty Bastard croaking and on ‘Baby I’m Bleeding’ it’s a echoey computer crash of a stutter that paces around for a whole minute before turning into the banger it is.

JPEGMAFIA ensures that listening to him is like tripping down an Internet rabbit hole, issuing somewhat agreeable hot takes about how Morrissey/Tom Araya/Varg deserve to die, how Pitchfork supports abusers (until it wasn’t cool), and...well...how he wants a bitch with long hair like Myke C-Town. He toes the line between sheer abrasion and accessibility, and the songs that do this best (‘Thug Tears’, ‘Macaulay Culkin’) seem destined for crossover success, because when he’s not hollering, he can sing about as well as anyone in Brockhampton. However, the most exciting thing is the notion that Peggy is a rapper who reflects music meme culture as much as he is a product of it, erasing the wall between the lurkers on 4chan and the artists they stan. #Edgy? Definitely, but I dare you to turn it off.

21. Joonya Spirit- Jaala

The most notable quotable I have read from Jaala is that the 4/4 time signature can go “fuck a dead donkey.” You’d think such a blatant contrarian might try a bit too hard to hit you with compositional gymnastics, and while there’s definitely some of that on Joonya Spirit, there’s a lot more passion. It’s rare to see something this proggy get caught up in such visceral vulnerability, with songs that confront anguish as the snide beast it is. One song has Cosmia Pay drained, wound up after being pet “like a dog.” Another takes the bare facts of a break-up and transforms them into a swaying hook. But between these outbursts, Jaala try to find the most convoluted way from A to B, constructing a self-imposed obstacle course. The journey bears gifts, to say the very least. While this can be a hard album to track, it’s elevated by an understanding of how to make the most out of its detours, with the complexity becoming a tool rather than a distraction.

20. Cocoon Crush- Objekt

Electronic music is progressing so that the machine engages in a tug-of-war with the human. Some artists even use their platform to pitch a manifesto where there’s no reason humans should make better music than artificial intelligence. It’s a valid point, but it undervalues a virtuosic understanding of sound as a sensory experience, as if an algorithm can spew out music that is meticulously crafted to make you feel. Texture isn’t all it takes, but when Objekt’s music spreads itself out like the satisfying percussive ASMR it is, I nut. It’s not like his music is milking its benevolence, but it brims with life. The callbacks, the vividness, the rattling fiber...it’s designed to evoke. As an album that fully appreciates the artistic potential of technology, Cocoon Crush rejects techno’s anatomy and builds its own habitat.

19. The Wolf of Grape Street/God Level- 03 Greedo

It’s much easier to think of 03 Greedo’s output as this flurry of spontaneity, surfacing in eagerly explored ideas and a landslide of hard work and charm. Nobody has earned his spot on this list more than 03, an eager poet who packs all the turmoil he’s ever experienced into each nasally, autotuned whine. He’s also shockingly talented. Amidst the nearly 50 songs on these two projects, which are admittedly super bloated, there are really only a few duds, all of which suffer on the basis of being undercooked, not misguided. What makes up for it even more is the notion that the excess is probably the point. Greedo makes bangers that range from the devastated (‘Prayer From My Lost’) to the needy (‘Bacc to Jail’) to the combative (‘Basehead’) to the absolutely savage (‘Run For Your Life’).

It’s all infectious enough to shock you with its productivity, and that’s probably for good reason. Shortly before God Level was released, Greedo was sentenced to a maximum of 20 years in jail. It was technically on gun and drug charges, but it felt like he fell victim of a system that always put him last. Seeing him pour his heart out so urgently can only tug at the heartstrings.

18. Double Negative- Low

Not gonna lie, I would have never put my money on Low to craft an album that sounds so ahead of its time. Maybe I was ignorant...when you spend your whole career being the face of your own niche, especially one as fragile and poignant as slowcore, you can only waltz towards perfection. Double Negative may be just that. It’s ambitious, creating most of its backbones from waves of static. But how the fuck do you sound so relevant after years of sounding so worn down? Where did this need to deeply innovate and challenge come from? Whatever they did, Double Negative discovers a whole new language within its glitches.

Low have completely overhauled their sound, but only emphasized their essence. The vocals cast themselves like heavenly beams of light onto these suffocating drones, the type of clash that is built to overwhelm. Double Negative takes strokes of such vehement abrasion and tweaks them until they sound exquisite. It’s hard to find an album so unique yet so logical, obscurely branching off from an exhausted genre towards a practically euphoric display of textural understanding.

17. Compro- Skee Mask

It’s not easy to penetrate the traditional IDM canon these days, especially now that Aphex Twin is still active, but fuck me if Compro doesn’t try. This doesn’t position itself as one for the purists; instead it’s a confident progression of an age-old form, an album that knows what ingredients make this experimental techno shit work, but has no interest in indulging. A Skee Mask song will set itself up with a gravity-shaking rhythm that bulges with enough texture so that when a groove comes to nest, it is punctured and complex, even if its beauty comes in conventional forms. The twinkle of the melody on ‘Rev8617’ or the icy, distant synth on ‘Soundboy Ext.’ are cast over ripples and breakbeats. It doesn’t feel like he’s creating a juxtaposition as much as he is balancing these sounds out, as if their splendor is highlighted with containment.

16. Cold Devil- Drakeo the Ruler

It shouldn’t surprise you that someone who has been taken to task by law enforcement based on the perceived authenticity of his lyrics prides himself on his intensity. It’s hard to keep up a shtick for this long, rambling about apparently miscellaneous characters like Mr. Mosley and Pippi Longstocking, while never forgetting to underline how you have your dick out like a “pedophile” or how you’ve been strangling snakes and you bathe with the apes. All the while, you end pretty much each track with a minute-long tirade where you take in your surroundings. It’s a lot, but for an album of seemingly low-stakes shit-talking, Cold Devil packs a ton of depth.

Crafted during an 11-month jail stint, Cold Devil projects the charisma, isolation, and precision that can only arise from such introspective circumstances. Yet, while tapped into ultra-realism, the most captivating part of sees Drakeo’s imagination running wild. It’s like he used the time to construct his own emotional lexicon, and while it’s the type of bogged-up conceptualism that you can’t really articulate, he’ll be fucked if he doesn’t try. What comes out is a whirlwind of ideas, each flourishing, albeit concisely, through a swamp of imagery and excellent rapping. Anyone who views this as a confession must be kidding themselves; it’s a vivacious expression that even the most observant couldn’t untangle.

15. You Won’t Get What You Want- Daughters

Anger, despair, dejection...these are all emotions that might sound contrived, especially in a context where they’re almost taken as given (*cough*cough*noise rock*cough). Fortunately, nothing feels fake about Daughters. Spreading their wings after eight years of silence, You Won’t Get What You Want sounds like the pinnacle of a decade of anguish rolled up into a ball and fattened up to sound as big as possible. You’ll notice a few things right off the bat: the drums sounds massive, the vocals are almost always approaching a scream, and every instrument seems to have the color tuned out of it. Daughters play like they are making themselves dizzy, launching into climaxes with brute force. Yet for all its density, it’s a wonder how music this outwardly menacing can transcend the bluntness of its elements to become somewhat inviting. That being said, there is nothing wholesome about the darkness that dominates this record, but Daughters make sure to tweak their pain into the most suffocating beast they can so that it’s almost conventionally beautiful. It’s hard to find a record that executes its niche so perfectly, an ambience that can only be approached after years of marinating in your ache.

14. Some Rap Songs- Earl Sweatshirt

It makes perfect sense to make music that sounds like what your friends’ make, but when the long-awaited Earl Sweatshirt album came out sounding like a logical follow-up to MIKE’s recently released Renaissance Man more than the sequel to I Don’t Like Shit I Don’t Go Outside, it was a little confusing. However much Earl may drown in his modesty and aggressively try to understate the potency of his music, his brand of cooped-up gloom comes with a midas touch. It’s hard to say whether Earl was hard at work for these past three years, or whether he spun out these 15 vignettes in a stroke of manic genius, but it doesn’t really matter either way. They’re here and it’s captivating as fuck.

Earl the operation is an outlet for Thebe the person, who is still easing himself into stability after an adolescence where he became something of a martyr to millions of kids (#FREE EARL). Of course, this is punctuated by the death of his estranged poet father, a disconnect that Earl has always struggled to grapple with. However, Some Rap Songs is wary of romanticising anything for the sake of a narrative. Instead, it jumps from dusty beat to dusty beat, a flurry of understatements that rarely stay around for longer than two minutes. Earl has always been eager to find his niche after a couple of regrettable teenage choices that risked contaminating his artistry. Even if the inspiration he takes is obvious, his energy can’t be channelled by anyone else.

13. The Whole Thing Is Just There- Young Jesus

For a band who could easily be described as a “philosophy bro jam band,” Young Jesus make it pretty easy for you to like them. This is a controlled exercise in pensive, intellectual emo, an album hellbent on making sure each groove throbs like it’s had its young recently ripped from its arms. The riffs don’t emerge as hooks but rather weave themselves through tunnels, fueling each crescendo. At the apex of it all is a shuddering plea for attention. Young Jesus channel the same catharsis as the emo revivalist except they don’t take the easy way out; their forte is their creativity and their pulse is their sensitivity.

All six songs here manage to fit in both moments of anthemic infection and utter disarray (the glorious kind). The segments that accentuate this album are defined by their space and tenderness, taking poignant philosophical observations and highlighting their consequence with emotional outbursts. It takes a style bent on nostalgia and pushes into an entirely new place, a feat that very few artists can pull off, especially with such volume and precision.

12. Have fun- Smerz

Smerz are like if an artist with talent, charisma, and pop smarts was approaching a fork in the road where they could pursue Top 40 glory or use their resources to lead the vanguard and make challenging, deconstructive electronic music. Guess which one they choose? The melodies that soar over the gritty, distorted beats could have been lifted from the bridge of a #1 R&B hit. Instead, they are spread over a tattered landscape, like a safari where you’re not gawking at animals but taking in an exhibit of quirky synth sounds and samples of speech that sound like they are lifted from a 3 AM drunk voicemail.

Have fun bounces between ethereal dizziness and stark percussive minimalism, but when the two combine, it’s a goosebump-inducing juxtaposition. Floating above the instrumentals-- which honestly could have been released on their own and still have made the lower-end of this list-- is either a deadpan cheerleader chant or a fluttering vocal harmony. Whatever Smerz do, they can’t stop creating music that the words “haunting” and “hypnotic” must’ve been invented to describe. They construct such an exclusive bubble where experimental techno and pop intersect, a fusion that needed to happen, that other artists have tried to do and came-out contrived. It pulsates with mystery, which is funny because most of these songs are about getting fucked up or, as Smerz would put it themselves, “basic bitch problems.” Their ominous gaze turns this charm into a manifesto. And why shouldn’t it? Music this serious yet unpretentious is a rare delight.

11. Honey- Robyn

Everything Robyn does, she does with conviction. She’ll look back on the empty spaces her lover has left behind without fearing her resentment. She’ll invite you to a beach party with casual assurance (“come thru, it’ll be cool”), but boldly winks to suggest that it might be the most transcendental night ever. She’ll demand forgiveness without begging for it, embracing submissiveness while knowing the absurdity of her demands. Is forgiveness even real? Is nostalgia hollow? Is it OK to be heartbroken? These are the types of issues Robyn deals with on Honey, an album that packs eight years of growth into 40 minutes, as if Robyn has been contemplating the scope of her influence and brainstorming the next best step.

Of course, Honey isn’t that calculated. It’s a record of audacious sensitivity, dissecting the simplest phenomena and matching them up with the perfect backdrops. The sex song (‘Between The Lines’) skips with a seductive sway, like a lab-constructed aphrodisiac. The club song (‘Beach 2k10’) is an anomaly, but walks with the confidence of a nightlife staple. However, the best tracks are the most fully-formed, tracks like ‘Honey’ and ‘Human Being’ feel like quintessential Robyn on steroids. It’s astonishing how good she is at this, and even when the record treads new water with suave, captivating disco cuts, Robyn owns whatever space she’s in.

10. Vibras- J Balvin

J Balvin is not the most emotive, distinctive, eccentric reggaeton artist, nor does he have the best voice or the most dominating presence. But he might be the most ambitious, and the most adept at making effortless smash hits, a thing he does on Vibras pretty much every time he tries. In a world where the top tier of Urbano Latino can get billions of views on YouTube and compete internationally with the biggest American superstars, J Balvin is the artist most excited to lead the movement, the most well-versed in its potential.

As the title suggests, Vibras is a record of concrete vibes. J Balvin is aware that a lot of his listeners will not go through the trouble of translating his lyrics, so he makes sure that even people who didn’t take Spanish in high school will grasp what he’s trying to do. All you need to know about ‘Mi Gente’ is found in the now-iconic stuttering vocal sample that starts the song, and the crux of ‘Cuando Tú Quieras’ is a similar sample being flipped into something sultry and seductive, functioning at just as high a level. Vibras seems masterfully curated, even if lots of the songs are anomalies. However, these anomalies don’t just stand out but elevate the power of the straighter, simpler reggaeton songs. ‘En Mí’ is a lovelorn ballad, ‘Brillo’ finds an unlikely pairing with ROSALÍA, who is at the peak of her melodic prowess, and ‘Machika’ ends the album with an almost overly lit EDM crossover. Everything works and it’s wonderful.

9. Bark Your Head Off, Dog- Hop Along

When Frances Quinlan unleashes her raspy, crackling yelp, you know important shit is about to go down. Hop Along have always specialized in a very particular type of drama. They have a penchant for telling stories with a candor that makes it feel like you’re eavesdropping, like you’ve stumbled upon a goldmine of gossip that you shouldn’t be hearing but are far too morbidly curious to plug your ears. The juiciness can come in the form of bureaucratic academia scandals, sexual overtones in the Bible, or the ever-so-relatable struggle of watching Watership Down expecting a kid’s movie, but observing a bloody festival of rabbit slaughter instead. The twists and turns are spot-on and frequently hilarious. If Bark Your Head Off, Dog’s ideas were expanded into prose, it would be a top-tier collection of short stories.

Amidst all the motifs surface nine expertly crafted rock songs that worm around with the utmost purpose, with each chorus/bridge/coda packing enough zest to fuel the whole track. Quinlan’s grip on these melodies is first-rate, as if she’s being swept up by something bigger yet going to painstaking lengths to ensure every tonal phase is spot-on. Bark Your Head Off, Dog is consistent to the point of near-perfection. It doesn’t take long for it to sink in that every song is a highlight, a beacon of emotion that capitalizes on every glimmer of melodic brilliance. Yet somehow, it’s impossible to predict where these songs will go. Often, strings or screams will emerge from out of nowhere, other times are doused in pure, saccharine pop music. Hop Along have mastered spontaneity to the point where nothing feels tacked on. There are so many dimensions to their sounds/stories that you’ll unpack something new with each listen.

8. Nothing Is Still- Leon Vynehall

Leon Vynehall is a practical musician. His last album was, literally, “designed to dance”; a myriad of songs at a streamlined, club-ready BPM that progressed with the pace of a night out. His fascination with multi-dimensionality in house music is abundantly clear. He’s always going to find a new way to be inventive, always ready with a brand new purpose.

Nothing Is Still tests house music’s limits with biography, each song representing a “chapter” or “footnote” in the life of Vynehall’s grandparents, particularly their emigration from England to New York City in the 1960s. Of course, this music is instrumental, so the introspection is all atmospheric, a hard thing to pull off. Thankfully, Vynehall comes up with some sky-scraping, impassioned music, channelling something very vivid. The ambient pieces on this album are textured and passionate. They must be immediate illustrations of the flood of emotion Vynehall experienced in the wake of his grandfather’s death, when he was fully gripped by the narrative, and decided to go down the rabbit hole. It’s oddly tangible, and even without the backstory, the distant grooves on this album could overwhelm you. It’s a bold feat to try and soundtrack something you didn’t directly experience, but the emotional depth packed in this electronic period piece can only be the result of extensive research and nights of curious catharsis. Taking your craft seriously is one thing; creating a record that brims with such sensitivity and personal importance without saying a single word is something else.

7. Harutosyura- Harunemuri

Whatever is being fused on Harutosyura, whether it be pop-punk and rap or hardcore and electronica, yields intense results. It’s not your standard foray into J-pop; Harunemuri are sure to make compact bubbles that writhe and spin before they burst, leaving behind a barrage of glitzy choruses and whines that sound like they’re at the end of an exhausting a potentially lethal chase. It’s chaos, but it’s also rich and entirely unique. Some songs will wear out a stunning riff before collapsing in a fit of aggression; others prefer to reach a screeching halt out of nowhere, only to come back stronger than ever to provide a new angle on their beauty. They will confuse you with the effortless strides they hit, especially because they sound like they are trying to cram every emotion they’ve ever experienced into one note. It’s too dramatic not to be entertaining and too action-packed not to constantly revisit. Even the most animated could only dream of channelling the flux of Harutosyura.

6. A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships- The 1975

It’s been steady growth for The 1975. In their early days, they were a subtly good indie-rock boy band who mostly sang songs designed to get teenage girls a bit too excited. I probably hated them without having heard any of their stuff. Then, they became this overly ambitious 80s glam-rock monster, packing many standard pop bops on their sophomore album, but filling the space between them with tracks that sounded like shoegaze/post-rock/gospel parody (to be clear, I thought it was brilliant). Now, they are one of the most outspoken, monumental bands of our generation, still silly, but absolutely drowning in good ideas. Without hyperbole, I think they are the most exciting thing to happen to the band format in a long time.

Their main thing is that they do the most. Even when the pleasures are simple, Matt Healy is yelling a bit too close to your ear, throwing out commentary that masquerades as ill-fitting until you realize it’s actually super clever and eloquent. The main draw, however, is how every time they turn the page, they land on a song that immediately traps you. Additionally, all these ideas are fresh and essential. The centerpoint is ‘Love It If We Made It’, a tabloid-esque collage of cultural commentary that woos you with its timeliness as Healy throws his entire voice towards a scream of “modernity has failed us!” The rest of the singles range from the best 80s-movie pool party throwback of the year, a rainbow of soothing horns and romantic ennui, a finger-wagging burst of 29-year old wisdom, and a smugly confused radio song. Deeper in the album lie cautionary tales on Internet death told by a robot, Bon Iver-ian swaths of autotuned warbling transformed into high-tier experimental techno, a nocturnal barroom jazz track...I could go on like this for paragraphs lol. The point is, everything they try works and everything that works sticks with you. For an album where a bunch of millenials spend an hour obsessing over the “digital age,” A Brief Inquiry has too much charm.

5. Knock Knock- DJ Koze

If I have to hear someone call DJ Koze some variation of “house music’s biggest prankster” again, I swear to god (haha). I know he can be pretty goofy, and there are many moments on Knock Knock that project this goofiness. Some of the vocal samples (“I need a little light here!”, “I know the future better than you know the past”) are kitsch for sure, but there is no understating this man’s profound talent. He will find a sample, find another sample, and mix the two into something hypnotic. I don’t know if he stumbles upon these grooves or if they are vastly premeditated through some process where he hears an old record, his ears perk up and, poof, a full-fledged house banger surfaces in his mind. He’s always been willing to push the envelope, but on Knock Knock he fully embraces his versatility and distinctiveness. Even the most random sounds he throws into the blender make absolute sense in the sugary, hyper-charged context they’re presented.

Not all of this will sink in quickly, but there are some clear hard-hitters. ‘Pick Up’ floods into the mix like a warm embrace from a long-lost friend, creating a vibe that could and should continue forever. Yet all it does is chop up two 70s soul songs and loop them into oblivion, carrying such a heavy emotional load while staying relatively stagnant. The fat, throbbing bassline on ‘Bonfire’ makes Justin Vernon sound dreamier than he ever has before. ‘Illumination’ is a steady build to an ultimately glorious release, a masterclass in the sly emergence of its drop. It’s all so glistening and nostalgic. There’s sniffs of rap, folk, R&B, techno but none of the paths diverge from the cohesive sonic wonderland. Some prank lol.

4. Aviary- Julia Holter

When do you decide to make your magnum opus? How do you figure out that, after your most accessible album and a whole decade of building your own distinctive take on baroque, your next project would be 90 minutes of the densest, most sonically ambitious music you’ve ever released? Aviary is the type of album you wouldn’t want to put out until you are totally ready. Thankfully, Holter has every reason to be confident in her abilities. She knows when to sustain a wall of noise and when to interject with a mutter or an instrumental collapse. She knows how to pile reverb-drenched choirs onto light orchestration and how to let her voice soar while maintaining the necessary space. To pull off a sprawling, abstract project like this, you need to be some kind of genius. I don’t use that word lightly.

Aviary is meditative. Crammed with songs that linger for as long as they do without hitting a conventional stride, the dynamism is contagious. You genuinely have no idea where each song will go and there is such an abundance of feeling that it’s practically impossible to take it all in. It’s a world that you can untangle, plowing deeper and deeper into it and getting lost in the spectacle. At one moment it’s stressful, and in the next, it’s meditative. The declarations are profound. It’s a rejection of cynicism, and a full-fledged embrace of the simplest, most overpowering emotions, taking pride in the capacity to be swept away. Have you ever fallen in love? Sometimes love can be bitter and toxic, but other times, it is something worthy of a welcome parade, something that will make you loudly weep while you’re clutching onto it. That’s the scope of Aviary, a record that has no qualms about melting into gibberish, as long as it is fully evocative.

3. Be the Cowboy- Mitski

Mitski writes songs with such a penetrating, inhospitable gaze that she practically begs you to feel uncomfortable, even if she radiates warmth and empathy. She’ll come thru with a track about how much she loves her non-existent husband, how for all of eternity it will just be the two of them together, how they are doing better...it goes on until you’re pressed to think it’s a joke, but if it is, then why are you on the verge of tears? Then you sit, ponder, and start considering what it means to “be the cowboy.” Is cowboy swagger one that swoops in on a literal horse, becomes an all-or-nothing imposition of hyper-dominance, and carries itself like it’s the only thing that matters? Or is the one that takes you to a diner after years of silence, Blue Diner to be precise, and suffocates you with a lull while quietly reminding you that it will always keep a part of you? Vulnerability is Mitski’s forte. Whether it’s cloaked in sarcasm, painfully earnest, or deeply internalized, hers is a narrative so potent that you can’t help but unload all your emotional burdens alongside it.

Be the Cowboy is the moment when you’ve revealed so much about yourself to someone that for a second, it’s actually terrifying how quickly and easily they could undermine your whole existence. It’s naked but unconcerned, taking pride in its ability to crumble. Somehow, there’s nothing forced about the painstaking introspection; Mitski is fully committed to baring her soul without simplifying it or suffocating in self-righteousness. It’s equal parts defensive and dejected. You can only be reminded about the impossibility of idealization so much before you start to get confused. But when it’s as outrageous and tortured as this, it stops being a statement and becomes a full-fledged celebration. It painful to to watch, but it hurts even more to turn away.

2. El Mal Querer- Rosalía

Sometimes an album comes along feeling like such a pinnacle of a movement while deifying any categorization. It’s like Rosalía as a concept has been around forever, taking in influence from so many times and places and feelings...but nothing has ever really sounded like this. “Flamenco-pop” is a feeble label for something that so frequently whirls into a trance, belting out unhinged cries of fervor and then, on the next song, lifting a melody from Justin Timberlake. It’s like everything is being re-contextualized on here, and the result is a record that exists in its own time and space, refusing to branch out in favor of planting its own garden.

Rosalía lives for melodrama, which could be cloying if she didn’t justify it so well. It’s like her voice is always on the cusp of breaking out into a 30-second howl, which holds even when she coos a top nothing but a faint drum or a car engine noise. It takes a deep appreciation of your culture and history to be able to sound so universal without simply pining for an older vibe. Rosalía is constantly finding a way to go beyond that, subtly slipping autotune into a crevice that traditionalists would leave uncontaminated, developing sticky hooks without basing the whole song around them. When your core is a developed movement like flamenco but your crowd is the Spanish mainstream, you need more than a pinch of experimentation. El Mal Querer goes beyond that, not leaving any strand of its influences unexplored. Rosalía examines the age-old beauty of the form from every angle she can, shaking it up and seeing how it explodes.

1. Die Lit- Playboi Carti

What does it take to be the album of the year? Well...clearly not lyrical substance, or curt editing, or biting social commentary. The prerequisites for quality are getting harder and harder to pin down. All I know is that Die Lit feels like the album that all the over-saturated glut was building up to/the culmination of the ideas set forth by boundary pushers like Future or Young Thug/the logical conclusion to the intersection between lean-soaked hedonism and fine art. Don’t quote me, but we might not do any better than this. At the end of the bloated tunnel, there’s Playboi Carti squawking into oblivion, deconstructing the style that birthed him over beats that could’ve been produced by, like, Oneohtrix Point Never or Ricky Eat Acid or something.

Playboi Carti is a trailblazer. The most common critique of him is that “all he does is ad-libs, he honestly can’t even rap, and what’s good with all that autotune?” Back to my point about this being the logical conclusion of trap; removing the filler between the ad-libs is a fucking genius idea, an assured embrace of what you do best. I mean, imagine if Migos just went “uhh!” and “mama!” and didn’t have Quavo’s uninspired autotune weighing them down...it happens sometimes, and it’s beautiful. Carti’s ad-libs can be as simple as “what?” or “bih!”, and they are usually presented like a highly calculated flick of emotion, like the mechanics for a precise accentuism. Plenty of guests show up on Die Lit, and none of them have any trouble carving a space in Carti’s world. This makes sense when it’s Thugger or Travis Scott, but it is especially potent when it’s Nicki Minaj and Bryson Tiller, people who rarely delve into this type of experimentation on their own. Carti is so infectious that everyone is eager to step in his space and explore how they can dismantle their own form.

All of it is a daring experiment, especially in the moments where Carti tests the limits of his style, seeing how long he can hold the silence before getting swept into a verse, measuring how layered his voice can get before it crumbles and melts. Give Carti credit where credit is due, but Die Lit would be nothing without its producers, especially Pierre Bourne, who constructs a hazy, awe-inspiring fever dream whenever he hops behind the boards. Not only does this steer hip-hop into the direction it needed to go; it takes notes from the masters of ambient techno, blending snippets of overwhelming synths or vocals into beats that any lesser rapper would have no idea how to ride. When you’re on the forefront of the most widely consumed genre, it’s a lot of responsibility. Die Lit is one of the most forward-thinking statements in the hip-hop yet. At this point, Carti and his team are incapable of producing a song that doesn’t test boundaries or warp seasoned assumptions about what works.

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