#so many good classic sound cues

[zincbot]

mario movie made me emotional more at 10

[sunalee]

jam to my heart — Jay

summary: The handsome guitarist set his eyes on you, and lucky for him, you did the same.

with: Jay (Park Jong-seong)

warnings: rockstar au!, enhypen as a band, jay is a smooth fella, he's charming enough to make my cheeks warm.

a/n: jay with a guitar is such a perfect sight i can't even ratiocinate. Some of the boys aren't metioned, but they're still part of this au.

“C'mon _____, let’s stay on the front so we can see them better!”

Ami calls you out, dragging you through the ’90s themed new pub you’re visiting, “Cords and Jam”. The place is really cool, with black and white checkered floors, red walls with various themed lamps, and posters of classic rock bands. The staff is very friendly, not to mention the drinks and snacks that make you want to spend your whole wallet there.

But the reason you’re here it’s the almost one-year hiatus, not having seen any live show since this period. You miss this environment, the thrill of waiting for the next band to perform, and even the sound check that the musicians do five minutes before the music starts.

Ami told you about this band tonight, Orange Blood. You haven’t heard anything from them yet, but they’re really known on social media for their impressive covers, skilled talent, and very, very, good-looks. 

Rock is great, but a handsome guy playing makes the experience one hundred times better.

She drags you to the front as you both get your bubbling drinks, fortunately not having too many people blocking your path. You don’t mind being in the back of the room, it’s even better to dance there, but you won’t lie, it’s so exciting being right close to the stage, even with the frenetic heartbeats that make you want to take another sip of the drink.

The band finally arrives, five handsome men in their twenties coming in front of the stage. The crowd shouts excitedly, you join them with your own hollering.

“Good night, everyone! I’m Jake, and we are the Orange Blood!” The blonde lead singer announces, a cheeky smile appearing on his face as he hears the crowd’s euphoric cheers.

The drummer, a dark-haired lad with side shaved haircut and looks of a runaway teen, taps four times the drum sticks together, a cue for the other instruments to start playing as well. On Jake’s left side, there’s the keyboard player and the bassist, the two with similar features and exhaling confidence. You heard around their names were Sunghoon and Heeseung. 

But it’s the guitarist on the right side of Jake who catches your attention; suddenly, he’s the only thing you can focus on.

Not only for his great solo at the beginning, but his very charming personality. The way his fingers pluck the strings with such mastery, as if it were as eyes as breathing, his built arms taken by cool tattoo shapes matching with his dark, medium hair, his thin and well cared lips that forms a pleasing smirk whenever he hears a praise from the female crowd. 

And when you hear his smooth, deep voice singing on his microphone, your legs almost give out.

It’s like this man put a spell on you, taking you to a place without time, space or circumstance, all your senses fixed only on him, mind navigating and daydreaming about different scenarios where he’s the main star, and you, his forever partner.

The show was a blast. Everyone had the time of their lives, and Orange Blood for sure would receive a lot of invitations after this concert. The mysterious guitarist wipes his sweating forehead after waving at the crowd, his black regatta clinging on his torso and making him look even more attractive. Unfortunately, he moves away with the rest of the crown, sparing one last glance before going.

That glance goes directly on you.

You don’t know what to think about it, your heart racing and mind numb from the unexpected moment, but before you can try to come up with something, Ami is dragging you by the hand again, leading you to the bar.

She tells you that she’s going to call her friend outside and would be right back. “Don’t accept drinks from strangers” was the last thing she said before leaving. You decide to order another drink, sitting on a free stool there.

You start wondering about what that gaze meant, the sweet flavor of your pinky lemonade helping your mind work even with the pub buzz. But you focus so much on your thoughts, that you don’t notice the main problem right in front of you, brown eyes staring at you with amusement.

“Pinky lemonade?  Sweeter than I thought you would be, huh?” That smooth, dreamy voice wakes you up, making your heart suddenly flips as you finally realize who just sat beside you. He gives you another one of his charming smirks, supporting his jawline on his hand while he extends the other in your direction. “Jay. A pleasure.”

“______.” Best say your name right away than rambling trying to come up with a sentence. “I-It’s nice to meet you too. You played amazing tonight.” You can’t help but blurt your thoughts. 

“You think so?” He tilts his head, looking even more interested now, his eyes following you like a cat gazing at its prey.

You bite inside your mouth, feeling uneasy but not in a bad way. “Yeah, totally.” You nod to your own sentence. Jay tries to hold back a chuckle. “Uh, shouldn’t you be in your dressing room after playing?”

“And lose the party? What’s the fun in that?” He questions, raising his pointer finger to call the barman. “Same thing she’s having.”

Now you can’t help your chuckle. “Are you a sweet man too?” Your interest wins your nerves, showing Jay your playful side that he’ll surely enjoy in the future.

“I don’t like getting drunk. Especially not when I’ve just met a pretty girl like you.” He flirts without shame, making you swoop into his charm so easily that you even forget that you came with Ami here. Not that she wouldn't support you, anyway.

“I don’t know If I should be flattered.” But you’re not hooked enough to be fooled. Whatever this man wants with you, you want to figure it out now.

He gives you a knowing smile, as he just reads you like an open book in front of him. His pinky lemonade comes just in time for his answer, his hand holding the glass but not taking his brown eyes off you.

He wants you to know that feeling too.

“You should be.” He answers honestly, self-confidence boosting around him. “ It’s not every day that I set my eyes on someone special.” He moves to click his glass with yours, taking his time to take a small sip of his drink before leaning close to you, gaze and smirk never faltering.

“And when I find someone special, doll, I don’t lose my chance.”

© sunalee 2024 — all rights reserved.

[bloodmoonmuses]

mediocre party crashers: the x-mas special! | mark lee

read part one here! genre: mark lee x reader, fluff

summary: Your message in a bottle has found his way back to you. You hope the tide wasn’t too bad. or You and Mark are reunited at a corporate holiday party.

Crashing parties has now become a hobby of yours. A real, habitual thing with methods and strategies and memories… From galas, to masquerade balls, frat parties and the occasional wedding, it’s safe to say you’re a pro. 

Your identity is something you’ve made malleable and mutable. Everchanging and morphing. Slowly shifting like a mood ring. You’re everyone and no one at the same time. You’re a paradox. And even in all the grandiose you’ve experienced, your absolute favorite type of party to crash was corporate holiday parties. They’re no-man’s land, really. The gaudy festiveness of them coupled with hollow smiles. The hum of a near broken radiator and a shitty karaoke machine. Lukewarm instant hot cocoa made with water instead of milk. 

The atmosphere is electric in the weirdest way- so palpable to be shrouded in such greyish mundanity. 

Tonight is no more different than many of your other outings. You and your partner in crime, Ningning, lock elbows as you wander around an office building. You had fought for an hour about what’s appropriate to wear to an office party (which resulted in you having to unpack Ningning’s understanding of an office siren. “-I wanna look hot!” she had said. To which you replied, “Time and place. We’re not amateurs anymore.”)

And so here you are, clad in an itchy sweater and pencil skirt, scouting out the scenery of some podunk town’s marketing firm. The manager has seemingly insisted on not updating any of the technology, filing cabinets lining the walls and chunky monitors on the cubicle desks. Tinsel has been strewn gingerly on a real fir tree, and plastic tablecloths cover foldable tables. Wrapping paper has been taped along the back of the cubicle walls to give the office a festive feeling. 

“Ugh,” says Ningning, as the two of you load up paper plates with homemade desserts. (Banana pudding for you. Caramel cake for Ningning.) “Fluorescent lighting.” Then, as if on cue, the bulb above her begins to flicker. Then she says, “Let’s mingle.”

You sidle up to a sharply dressed man, who you assume is the owner of the firm based on the wayward glances of the other attendees. He introduces himself as Doyoung and eyes you curiously. “Do I know you?”

“A friend of a friend… of a friend,” you say. “Here for moral support. How were the quarter four stats?” A classic diversion.

“Good enough for Christmas bonuses for the first time in three years. Finally bounced back from Covid.” Greyish mundanity, but the most beautiful variation of it. Will persevering through catastrophe. The human tendency to endure and endure together.

“Well, that’s good to hear,” you say. And you mean it.

“Cheers to the new year?” says Doyoung, extending a paper cup with snowflakes on it in your direction.

“Cheers indeed.” 

The night progresses with twinkling optimism. You like intertwining yourself in people’s life stories. Hearing about their kids, the new boutique that’s opening on the square, or how some of the upper management can be real assholes. Small talk and human connection. Contentedness wafting off warm bodies. 

“We were nearly snowed out,” says an older gentleman, who you’d think were cute if not for the hideous mustache adorning his face. He had just regaled you with the details of planning this highbrow shindig. “And who are you again?”

However, you’re too distracted to answer him, having now noticed a suspiciously young-looking guy assembling a cup of cocoa. As you walk up to the table, he shifts to the left, giving you access to the other side of it. Through your periphery, he seems familiar, but you can’t seem to place him.

“This might sound weird-”

“Do I know you? -” You begin speaking at the same time. When the two of you make eye contact, both of you are stricken with recognition. Mark Lee.

“No way. Preppie!” he exclaims, putting his cup down and scooping you into an embrace.

“Preppie? That’s what you remember me as?”

He pulls back from the hug and scans your features, almost as if to confirm his eyes aren’t deceiving him. “From that yacht party, like, a year ago. You never texted me back!”

“I didn’t text you back? You never texted me!” you counter.

“Here, I’ll show you.” Mark takes out his phone, scrolls for a bit, then shows you an unanswered text message from a year ago. 

July 25, 2023

Mark: Sooo…. How about that rodeo party? [unopened]

Upon closer inspection, however, you see your number is incorrect.

“It’s an 8 at the end, not a 9.” you respond, taking his phone and updating your contact without question.

“I thought you got creeped out or something,” Mark says, sighing in relief as enter the number. When you’re done, he asks, “How have you been? What are you doing here?”

“Fine. Good. Ning and I have basically hit up all the companies in the city this year, so we figured we’d try the ‘burbs. Gotta love a company Christmas Party.” He nods in agreement. “You look dapper,” you add. 

He’s wearing a slate gray suit and a holly-printed tie.

“A little overdressed. It’s my wedding suit,” says Mark. “You look…”

“Like a middle-aged salary worker?”

“I was gonna say cozy.”

“Right.”

Suddenly, Ningning walks up from behind, poking your ribs with her fingers. “ Hey, nerd, they’re gonna play Pin the Nose on the Reindeer! First place gets a $20 Target gift card!” Then, when she notices Mark, she says, “Oh! Hey, Bottle Boy.”

You glare at her. How does she even remember him?

Mark’s face twists in confusion as he asks, “What does that mean?”

“Nothing!” you shout. Mark shrugs and shuffles off to join the festivities. Before she can walk away, you yank Ningning by the elbow and whisper into her ear. “Ningning, you did read my journal!?”

“Perhaps I’ve been a part of one of his lifetimes- a message in a bottle finally surfacing on a beach’s shore. I believed in the existence of fate, but only for a night..” she says, mocking you as she recites lines from your diary like a monologue.

“You’re the worst,” you sigh, facepalming. You remind yourself to change the hiding spot for your journal…

“What happened with that whole situation, anyway? Hasn’t it been over a year?” asks Ningning.

“Gave him the wrong number, apparently.”

She scoffs, taking your elbow in hers once more. “You idiot.”

“I know.”

When you walk into the conference room where the game is being held, you notice Mark lingering in the doorway at the back of it. You make your way to him slowly, trying not to look too excited when you catch his eye and he promptly smiles.

“I’m dyingggg to see them play this game,” says Mark, watching as Doyoung gets a blindfold tied over his eyes.

Then, again, Ningning appears out of nowhere. “Don’t look up!” she exclaims to the both of you.

And, of course, the two of you do. Placed squarely above the door frame is a mistletoe, now glaringly obvious as you look at it with your neck craned. Mark stifles a cough and you feel the back of your neck heat up.

Mark looks at you nervously. “Uh, are you a mistletoe observer?”

“‘Mistletoe Observer’? Why are you asking like it’s a religious practice?” you ask.

Mark shrugs and says, “I dunno, man! Just trying to be respectful!”

“Respectful? It’s an arbitrary tradition. Are you a mistletoe observer?” you retort, half-joking. But Mark looks at you with such intensity, if only for half a second, that it knocks the air out of your lungs.

“I mean," he starts, already regretting his words and looking at his feet, “I’m not not a mistletoe observer…”

“You can’t keep saying ‘mistletoe observer’ and acting like it’s a thing.”

Mark pouts. “So we’re not about to kiss right now?”

You grab Mark’s stupid tie and pull him closer, giggling as the smirk is wiped off his face. 

Then you kiss him, melting into it like snow in the morning sun. Mark’s hands come up to grasp your face, deepening the fervor of the display of affection. You’re awestruck. Your message in a bottle has found his way back to you. 

You hope the tide wasn’t too bad.

When the kiss comes to an end and you open your eyes, you see and hear the rest of the partygoers cheering you on. Ningning has snapped a photo with her digital camera. Doyoung pipes up, still blindfolded and ready for the game.  “What’s happening? Are we playing the game or not?”

a/n: merry christmas and happy holidays! hope you enjoyed!

[lovelyiida]

interview shenanigans.

PRO-HERO KIRISHIMA x FEM INTERVIEWER READER

WARNINGS: suggestive content, vulgar language

MASTERLIST

WORDS: 1.1K

IMAGINING PRO-HERO KIRISHIMA COMING IN FOR AN INTERVIEW, tired as all get out. having done patrol the day before and the next day be jammed packed with interviews due to his successful victory.

hair still messy from jumping out of bed and straight into his chauffeur van, his spikes not leaning the correct way due to him sleeping on the window.

Kirishima was very tired, to say the least.

"alright guys, let's all do our best and make this very quick!" even though he was tired, he still kept up his cheerful attitude, how sweet. feeding himself a bite of his hard bagel and gulping down a whole double expresso coffee, the pro-hero burps. politely handing his trash over to the nearest assistant, he starts to scratch a rather important spot.

he couldn't help it, really, he didn't understand why he had to come into interviews wearing his hero suit. why can't they just do business casual?

the tight texture of spandex rubbing against him made him curse under his breath. he starts to really dig into that spot, letting out a satisfied groan, his eyes roll back and close in delight.

too into bliss, he didn't even know the cameras started to roll.

"excuse me, Mr. Riot?" you voiced out.

Kirishima's eyes pop open, snapping toward your figure.

your classy, business casual outfit displayed your figure well. light makeup with a well-kept updo, you smile awkwardly at him. cue cards in hand, you bat your eyelashes at him.

Kirishima lets out a dry chuckle, properly adjusting himself in his seat. "yes! sorry I was um...occupied, apologies." Kirishima says with a proper tone, you let out a small chuckle.

you give him an understanding bow, "it's great to have you here this morning, I'm sure you're exhausted after your victorious battle Mr. Riot." you smiled at him, he didn't understand why...but after hearing so many people say his hero name, it sounded so good coming off of your lips.

"oh, you have no idea, honey."

You laugh at his words, as he'd assume you really didn't have a single idea how tired he was. turning to the camera, you begin to start your opening statement for the interview.

the pro-hero started to linger his eyes on you more, you were damn hot. maybe it was cliche for pro-heroes to get with interviewers, as it wasn't an uncommon trope within the industry.

it's even known that many people practice becoming interviewers to inhabit the specific role of interviewing heroes just for this reason alone. maybe you were here under the same circumstances, he could really care less...he was just thankful you were here.

from your beautiful eyes to the way your thighs sit so pretty in that stiff-ass chair given by staff. he wondered how soft they'd feel if he gripped them as hard as he could. lingering further down to your legs, he'd wonder how they'd look wrapped around his waist as he pounded into you relentlessly.

he even loved how pretty your feet looked in those classic black heels, he's not into feet, personally. but maybe seeing your feet wrapped around a specific part of him could be an amusing moment in his life-

"Mr. Riot!" you yelled out.

snapping him from his thoughts, he lets out another awkward laugh. "so sorry... I'm just not myself this morning haha." a toothy grin shows on his face.

rolling your eyes, you hold your hand up. signaling to cut the cameras. Kirishima's eyes widen at the sudden change of attitude, the less professional one of course.

you let out a sigh and jump out of the chair, heading out of the camera's view and towards the exit. Kirishima's hands land on his face, fighting away a rather red blush.

fuck.

throwing his head back in embarrassment, he looks back up in the direction you went. letting out a deep sigh, he gets out of his seat with a tired groan. sleazily stepping out of the camera's way and out of the exit.

the cool crisp morning air rudely hits his shoulders, he lets out a shudder as he looks around for you. stepping around a corner, he sees you almost distraught. Cigarette in hand, you take in a slow inhale.

you look toward him, basically unfazed by his presence. stumbling towards him, you lean close and blow thick smoke in his face.

Kirishima breathes out, letting out a single cough as he fans away the excess smoke. "y'know that's bad for you-"

"fuck off," you spat at him.

"c'mon! I'm sorry, I'm just a little distracted by...you know" he mumbles. you stare at him for a moment before flashing him a smug smile.

"y'know Mr. Riot, word of advice...oogling at your wife at her place of work is very inappropriate," you seductively whispered in his ear.

there it is again, the way you say his name.

the pro-hero chuckles at this, sliding his hand around your waist he pulls you in close. "well I can't help that you look so fuckable" he growls in your ear, giving it a soft nibble with his sharp teeth.

you let out a soft moan, giggling you suddenly push him away.

"hands off Ejiro, what would the people think if they saw us like this?" you purred. "they would think that I have every right to take you right here right now," Kirishima tries to grab you again, but you quickly step away.

Kirishima growls, snatching away your cigarette in retaliation. Drawing his lips towards the small "bundle of joy." dragging out a slow puff before blowing it into the air.

biting the inside of your cheek, you snatch the cigarette back.

Kirishima chuckles at your cuteness, "I swear you're a bad influence on me."

"well, you put a ring on this bad influence, last time I checked" you retorted.

"mhm," he hums.

smiling, you look down at your phone and check the time. Groaning, you throw the cigarette on the floor and stomp it out. "hey! I just bought you those shoes, don't fuck 'em up!" he curses at you.

"honey, they aren't red bottoms, you'll live," you say back.

starting to walk away, you stop to turn back around, you show a sly smirk as more words enter your head.

"y'know Mr. Riot, if you're good this time, I'll let you give me a tour of your van again" you let out a not-so-hidden chuckle. the pro-hero gives you a mischievous grin.

turning back around, you begin to walk.

smack.

you jump, startled at the sudden sting of your ass cheek. Kirishima grabs your waist once more and growls into your ear.

"well, that's how it all started didn't it?"

just wanted to dabble into something a little bit more mature than what I usually do lol. anyways, keep those requests coming guys!! Finals are kicking my ass but I should be sending out messages to those who’ve requested by now.

⎯ lovelyiida ♥︎

[variousqueerthings]

smth I've been thinking about in terms of my reads of fraser in relation to the word "love"

so obviously im obsessed with "you must remember this" an episode all about falling in love with a title based on one of the most famous love stories in cinema (not only about that ofc) containing a scene where fraser -- who is more supporting in this episode as ray is the one actually In Love -- looks for cues on what love ought to feel like. How do you know you're in love? he asks

part of this is that the closest he's ever felt to another person is a woman he nearly died with who also probably definitely tried to manipulate him into not giving her up to the authorities, and he's wondering if he's in love with her, maybe fearing the idea of it considering she's anathema to everything he stands for + he feels like he fundamentally betrayed her by giving her up

that's another thought for another day, but does sort of connect to this in the sense that he's not really grown up with or experienced emotions that he would be sure can be classified as "being in love."

the things ive been thinking about the are... would fraser say he loved someone? as in, "i love you." whether it be platonic or romantic or just one of those things people say offhand...

and i really do struggle to See it. this is somewhat different to my most favourite headcanon that he's also loveless, this is just exploring the (potential lack of) vocabulary that he has to express his emotions with, and the access to understanding those emotions in the first place (there's an aside to this that i also don't think he'd be very able to vocalise what he does or doesn't like in kinky and/or sexual scenarios, but that's a whole other ball of twine to unravel)

on the one hand fraser is very very well-read and he's hinted at having watched at least a few classics (i like to imagine he's something of a classic film buff although he may also just have five or so movies he's watched on repeat), but the way he engages with language carries so many hallmarks of scripting i genuinely wonder what intentions they could've had other than him being neurodivergent (probably autistic). he's nigh-unfailingly polite in a way that's reminiscent of a storybook hero come to life more than "just" that politeness is a... polite thing to be, he stammers and loses words if there's interpersonal conflict (or the threat of such) he struggles with slang and sayings (i haven't gone too far into this, but i wonder if there's an analysis that looks at when he does know these and whether that could connect to the kinds of books he's read and people he grew up with, eg. his grandparents... but yeah, another day EDIT: I just rewatched the Pilot and he definitely knows "kettle of fish" but that could also be something from pilot!fraser that doesnt make it into the show-proper) and he can't easily adapt to various speech mannerisms, although by end s2 he does a very good ray impression, but that, again, is scripting based on close study.

He Basically Always Sounds A Bit Out Of Place (in fact his speech mannerisms uh... are very similar to mine. outside of the accent) because his way of engaging with the world is to learn about it from a book or a movie and to mimic it back

BUT LOVE. TO GO BACK TO LOVE!

what is love? many a book and film and essay and scientific analysis has been put out there in the world about the subject and i imagine based on some of his lines (about hamsters and the french and north by northwest i believe it was) that fraser has paid attention to many of them in an effort to figure it out and come up pretty empty

the idea that, fundamentally, love is kind of what you make of it is not a very useful conclusion to someone who needs to understand how things work in order to put them into practise -- fraser has a lot of book-knowledge and he has intuition based around things like survival and reading people in a particular kind of way, but he has no way of putting the vagueness of love-in-fiction-and-science into practice -- there's nothing concrete to point to, other than "this one time i almost died with this woman and i hear her voice still and hallucinate snow falling when i think about her and i feel guilty about what i did and now she's making me make promises that will allow her to use me however she wants and i want forgiveness and answers so badly that i'll do it"

it's not a word that i can imagine exists in his lexicon really, especially post-victoria, because the word itself cannot be connected easily to a precise feeling or action and its only point of reference is a woman who severely fucked with his head

but what does exist for him is said action. would he say "i love you"? i don't know. would he do more for ray than i think ray realises? yes absolutely. same, i think, goes for meg (who has her own "this woman reads to me as autistic" stuff going on). probably in later seasons same goes for the second ray -- things that go beyond his code of being to protect people as a general mandate and specify that these people are different to him

is that love? idk, you tell me, im as clueless as i read him as

but to say "i love you" i think he'd first have to feel like he understood it in some way, and that would be a difficult process. it would at the very least need coaxing. teaching. giving him a sense that he knows what exactly he's emotionally responding to

idk. some kinda fic called "what is love (baby dont hurt me)" would be fun

[ghostherlig]

i am very slow with writing atm with being sick and also my wrists are starting to hurt more now that it's getting colder- but here's some silly goofy random headcanons while im recovering!! (for johnny, kenshi, raiden, and kung lao) under the cut bc this really ran away from me- (collected over the course of this entire day as things popped into my brain, i apologize for the mass of words you're about to read :'))

johnny can play piano!! he has a grand piano that he really loves and he plays anything from classical to ost's to his own little tunes whenever he thinks them up- he has a recorder attached to it so he can remember them or maybe post his own song one day

(based off the previous hc) if/when kenshi is over/moves in he'll play at night and let kenshi listen in- but randomly johnny will transition what he's playing into the jaws or michael meyers theme and that's kenshi's cue to start running- because now the house is in hide and seek mode, and as soon as johnny stops playing, he'll be searching

kenshi used to play the violin growing up, but he dropped it once he was old enough and competent enough to commit himself to the yakuza- he can still remember some of the songs he used to love to play. he hums them from time to time and has been caught doing the motions of playing the violin before

kenshi loves animals but has an extra soft spot for cats and bunnies especially- he's a cat magnet in places where strays are common, they always flock to him (he for sure keeps catnip in his pocket when he can)

johnny loves his action and hero films but kenshi enjoys romcoms and horror- romcoms for the stories and drama, and horror films because the sound design usually slaps- he also can tell you what fruit or vegetable was absolutely destroyed based on the sounds alone

lao and raiden are way too good at Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes- raiden is on the manual while lao is on the bomb and they can crack the normal mode in like 45 minutes (they're a little slower when they swap places but they can still do it impressively fast (fastest speedrun time is sub 30mins)

johnny knows how to play mahjong after taking a role and having to play on-screen for five minutes- he wanted it to look authentic and thought "there's no better way than to actually play"- raiden and lao found out and now they're all trying to teach kenshi with specially made tiles with braille in the corners

kenshi is ridiculously good at poker- he brought a deck of cards with braille stamped on them and him and johnny played strip poker for a night- needless to say kenshi was smirking to himself as he switched his button up for johnny's

johnny can do pitch and diction perfect impressions of people he's heard talk for long periods of time- you can bet that a lot of his free time at wu shi was spent scaring his fellow champions by talking to them in liu kang's voice from behind a wall-

(based off the last hc) johnny only does it around people he knows well or as a party trick with different characters from pop culture- most often his power is used for evil though

raiden isn't a morning person and actually is super groggy in the mornings- the first thing he does on early days is take a cold shower to wake himself up

(based off the last hc) lao is a morning person and is usually the one to wake up raiden by ripping his blankets off of him- he's lucky he has survived this long, but he tells everyone that if looks could kill, raiden would have killed him long before he made it to wu shi

we all know kung lao eats for a family of five, but that man also naps like a divorced dad after an all you can eat buffet- he is OUT after he's done absolutely fucking up like five full plates of food

raiden really likes boba!! kenshi took him to get some after an errand run and he fell in love with the taro flavor- he also really enjoys winter melon and the regular thai tea

johnny always gets his boba with coffee- he doesnt really like tea flavors and no matter how many sips of kenshi's tea he has, he will always prefer his coffee

kenshi bought johnny a really nice espresso machine that he uses every morning- johnny didnt buy himself one before that bc he never thought he would enjoy making coffee at home and it was easier to just stop by the local cafe since they always had his order ready early- but he finds it really calming and really nice to slow his mornings down and make a latte before leaving for work

johnny, to return the gesture, bought kenshi a really nice kitchen knife since he knows the man really likes to cook- it sees a lot of use as it's a santoku that he basically uses like a chef's knife (it's his sharpest and most well treated kitchen tool, right next to his 8 inch cast iron)

kung lao owns maybe three articles of clothing with sleeves- all of them are coats for when it rains- oh and one hoodie that he stole from raiden that somehow survived when he went into his wardrobe and cut and hemmed all of the sleeves

when kenshi visits, johnny makes him coffee in the morning too but since kenshi doesnt always like the bitter coffee flavor he'll add some fun home made syrups- he has plain vanilla, but also has seasonal flavors like pumpkin spice, snickerdoodle, sugar cookie, white mocha, peppermint, etc.

kenshi LOVES mint chocolate flavored things- he especially loves the kitkat flavor and the pocky flavor, as well as ice cream- johnny CANNOT stand it, he's never liked mint outside of gum and even then he prefers cinnamon or clove gum (the first time kenshi kissed him he was confused bc he tasted like spices)

johnny keeps a jar of butterscotch candies on his desk for when he needs to brainstorm ideas- he finds he thinks better when his mouth is occupied (oral fixation haver)

(based off the previous hc) kenshi bought him some violet (the flower) flavored candy after he found out johnny always kept a stash- he also will refill the giant glass jar with butterscotch candies when he knows johnny is busy and will forget

(also based off the candy hc) lao and raiden also buy him hard candies- they get him ginger and lemon ones that johnny falls in love with immediately- he has two jars on his desk now, one for butterscotch and one for ginger

raiden really likes sketching and coloring- lao bought him one of those adult coloring books with mandalas and really intricate shapes and raiden finished all of it in like two weeks- he used to sketch in his free time and has an entire sketchbook dedicated to drawings of lao and his features (a lot of his arms, hands, eyes, and smile) it's hidden under his mattress

kung lao shaves his own undercut when it gets too long- normally cant let it grow out for longer than two or three weeks. sometimes, raiden will offer to do it for him so they can spend a bit of time together and just talk and be close <3

johnny definitely really enjoys washing kenshi's hair- johnny has a bit of a curl to some of his hair but he never uses the products he's supposed to or the methods he's supposed to when it dries- so it's pretty straight, but kenshi's is pin straight and doesnt tangle the way his does sometimes, so he really loves running his hands through it and has even convinced kenshi a few times to sit so johnny could put coconut oil in it for him

johnny loves coconut flavored things and purposefully buys ice cream bars that have coconut cream based ice cream- kenshi was unaware of this and was offered one and said yes thinking that it was vanilla- kenshi does not like coconut, so it was a very sudden and unpleasant surprise

kenshi cuts fruits as his way of showing love very often- he washes and cuts fruits for himself when he's stressed but preps it for others out of love and will often take apple slices, peeled oranges, cut melon (of any kind), or strawberries and grapes up to johnny's in-home office while he's working

johnny buys kenshi small gifts year round and goes crazy for the holidays and his birthday- he asked kenshi how he would feel if johnny bought him (technically them) a house back in japan- kenshi drew his line in the sand and capped johnny's gift prices at $2k per holiday/birthday (which he had broken before)

raiden keeps taxidermy bugs!! he always loved butterflies as a kid and his first framed butterfly was a gift from lao

please excuse any typos, it's later in the day now and my eyes are a little strained- i hope this was comprehensible, lol

[8beats-per-minute]

‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️MUTANT MAYHEM SPOILERSS ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVENT SEEN IT AND DONT WANT SPOILERS

Okay now with that out of the way, my thoughts on the movie

I really enjoyed it.

I went to see it with a few friends and one of them made a really good point. They actually act like teenagers. Like yes, it was kinda cringey at some parts but that’s because it sounded like something a teenager would say because teenagers are awkward.

I’ve had very stupid conversations with my friends that sound like the conversations in the movie.

I noticed that this movie did the “teen talk” a lot better than I’m pretty sure all other versions of tmnt (in my opinion), even better than rise I think. Most others sound like adults writing teenagers and it sounds good most of the time but others it sounds weird.

Now for the main reason I made this post: April and Leo.

I was kind of dreading this when I saw in the trailers Leo would be interested in her (2012 April and Donnie flashbacks) but it was well done. I am a bit tired of April being a love interest for the turtles but I think it’s important to include that April is black, plus size and has acne and how Leo described her as “the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen”. Unfortunately the qualities she has aren’t shown very often to be attractive because of bs beauty standards.

It’s late so I can’t fully explain what I’m trying to say so disclaimer in case I didn’t come across this way: I don’t think that being black, plus size or having acne makes you not pretty, you are, just society sometimes says that and society is stupid.

April and Leo are cute together and written well and there is no “one of them is obsessed and the other is leading them on” going on. The fact that they end the movie looking into TCRI is adorable to me. My fav investigator duo.

Also Leo is an absolute dork. The whole phone call scene: “it’s a date then!” “Wait what a date?” “Uhhh *cue fumbling and wrestling for the phone* uhh nothing bad service byeee! Who’s got no rizz now?” Like Leo you are bad at this oh my god. (Again awkward teenager stuff)

And his bothers teasing him was so funny. They did not let that slide and teased him at every opportunity. Classic sibling behaviour

The tease for shredder was fun and I can’t wait to see what they do with him and his backstory.

Best Splinter. I love him so much. I love his whole “hating humans” arc and how he paralleled superfly and how he CHOSE to not be like him.

Both superfly and splinter have a very understandable fear (that turned into hate) of humans and how they both thought that the best way to protect their families were to hold their family too tight.

While splinter hid from the world and his fear pushed him into hiding and laying low, superfly’s fear caused him to lash out and take out his anger in a destructive way.

But splinter getting a girlfriend at the end was so cute he deserves this.

Also side note: why did so many turtles almost get hit by cars in this movie? Specifically Mikey.

He almost got hit in the flashback, then in the garage, then in the final battle with the flying cars. Then Donnie also almost got hit, I think just before they were captured but I’m not sure.

When they had to leave the movie and walked home really sadly and kept looking at the humans longingly I legit almost cried.

I was kind of surprised they ended up actually going to school and everyone was accepting. I thought they’d be like “we don’t need humans to accept us cause we accept ourselves” but I’m glad they got to go to school. They deserve it.

Also April being super upfront with them about if they didn’t save her she’d probably be running screaming was so funny. Also how she was planning to release a story about them while knowing humans probably wouldn’t accept them was a very realistic thing.

I loved April so much by the way. The way she fucking chucked the news mic into the crowd was iconic.

The fight scenes were SOOOO AMAZING I LOVED THEM SO MUCH. The splitting between the 4 (I think) fights at the same time and every other fight scene were so well done. Them figuring out that they skills they learned for years actually work in a fight and how they’re awesome at it was adorable to watch. And the way in the beginning how they were using their skills to steal get groceries was great.

All the turtles up from every version are good fighters (in their own ways) but these versions are definitely up there with how skilled and how well they work as a team. Love them.

AND THE TURTLES SHARING A ROOM AND BUNK BEDS WAS ADORABLE. It’s so funny cause later they were like “yea we have so much space to hold the 6 or 7 other mutants in our house on short notice we have lots of space!” Which means they chose to share a room with is adorable and a little bit unrealistic lol.

It seemed like a pretty realistic movie and I have bullet points of the least realistic parts (excluding the mutant animals cause duh). And this is just me being picky lol, I still loved this movie and these are just jokes.

The fact that they wrote nice things on aprils locker at the end of the movie

(Pointed out by my friend). She went from being puke girl to April O’hero. They would probably stop teasing her since she was friends with the most popular kids in the city but the 2 most likely outcomes would be

1. They just stopped and then left the insults on there, maybe scratched them out

2. Wiped off the locker and never spoke of it again

No one writes nice things on other peoples lockers lol

The boys want to share a room

I guarantee if 4 teenage brothers had a choice between sharing bunk beds and each having their own rooms, they’d have their own rooms.

Imagine arguing with your sibling and you don’t have your own room to sulk and avoid them? By choice??? People need their own spaces. No matter how much I love my siblings if I shared a room with them it’d be chaos.

There would be one prank done in that room to one of their beds and that’d be the end of the shared room lol

The fact that everyone unquestionably liked them (especially at school)

Kids are assholes. That’s it.

AGAIN this is just things I thought were unrealistic in a funny way, it’s a kids movie so it’s not that deep.

This was definitely one of my favourite versions of tmnt (I haven’t seen all of them but still). It was a good mix of serious and goofy and I liked it a lot. I recommend seeing it, I want to watch it again lol

[ficitig]

I don’t specialize in one fandom, but I do read a lot! Here are my top MHA fics of this year. I did finally read a bunch of fandom classics this time, and so if you’re wondering if any of them are still worth your while these are the ones that caught my eye!

For Their Sakes is probably my favorite though if you just want to skip to that one. So many good contenders, but that fic changed the way I look at Hawks completely. From an “eh” character to, Love Of My Life

Aim For the Heart — 5K | Gen: In which One For All died at his brother's hands, but inexplicably, is reborn as Aizawa Shouta

All That Matters in the End — 269K | Gen: Midoriya Izuku and Aizawa Shouta are brothers. It changes... everything

Anyone — 244K | Gen: Imagine a world where your quirk determines your path and your worth. A world that has no place for a quirkless boy. Despite that, Izuku is determined to become a hero. Until he realizes no one will let him. So he accidentally creates a helpful (criminal) organization. And he (not so) accidentally steals One for All.

Beware Stained Glass Shards — 3K | EraserMic: The world is shattering around him, his life burning out from under his feet - but at this point, with the nerve of Oboro's death still raw between his ribs, with Shouta's absence an event horizon in his chest since the day he walked out, all Hizashi can do is feed the flames

Cardiac Arrest — 190K | Gen: All of the dead at Kamino Ward had been accounted for, sans one. One body had been pulled from the rubble, lifeless and limp, and taken away

Cheat Code: Support Strategist — 197K | Hatsume/Midoriya: After All Might gives Izuku a much needed reality check, he has to find a new dream. When he learns that the support course at UA offers an emphasis in Intelligence and Analytics, it sounds like the perfect new passion for him to throw himself into

Deku? I Think He’s Some Pro… — 191K | Gen: Izuku Midoriya goes home and decides that, even if he can't be hero himself, he can still help them with his analysis. Cue Izuku catching the attention of multiple heroes who are a little more open-minded and willing to see the potential in a quirkless kid

For Their Sakes — 312K | Gen: Ten years in the future, Hero Society has fallen and Villains have taken over the world. The seven survivors of Class 1-A (and Shinso) scramble to save what little they have left but after one last, fatal attack, they know they’ve lost. Their enemy is too powerful. There is no one left to save. Their only chance for victory is in the past, so to the past they travel. Unfortunately, there are some unforeseen side-effects…

It’s a Dangerous World Out There For a Kid Like You — 59K | Gen: Izuku had read a statistic in a magazine once. As few as 1 in 10 Quirkless children survived their first year out in the streets. Izuku was 15 years old

Little Liar — 149K | Gen: Deku was raised as a villain until, one fateful day, he manages to escape. All Might is there, ready to adopt and protect him, but there's a lot of ground work to make up

Lost and Found — 23K | Gen: When Izuku is eight, he makes his first real friend, the new transfer student Shinsou Hitoshi. As school and home life goes from bad to worse, Izuku and Hitoshi have only each other to rely on. That is, until they meet a tired man in an alleyway

Mild Mannered School Teacher/Adrenaline Junkie Vigilante — 136K | Fuyumi/Rumi: Fuyumi Todoroki was stressed. She was always the peacekeeper, the ice-quirk user who calms the hot-headed members of her family. What was she supposed to do when she was frustrated, and couldn't calm herself down? Go onto the streets and become a vigilante, of course

Negation — 19K | Gen: Passive Quirks are a bitch. Izuku is reasonably done with the situation

Paper Agency — 47K | Shinsou/Midoriya: Brand new U.A. graduate, Shinsou Hitoshi, has a lot on his plate between finding a job, looking for a place to live, figuring out what his relationship with his mentors is going to look like now that they're not teacher and student anymore, and why his civilian boyfriend, Izuku, is acting so damn weird

Something Still Remains — 3K | Gen: Aizawa Shouta is two years out of UA, and three years grieving the death of one of his best friends, when a stranger knocks on his door in the middle of the night

Summoning Problems — 4K | Gen: Izuku develops an inconvenient quirk. Hisashi Midoriya is not prepared

Throw Me a Goddamn Rope - Just Enough to Hang Myself With — 111K | Gen: All he did was walk Izuku Midoriya home. It wasn’t meant to turn into whatever mess this is

Tickets to the Todoroki Trauma Drama are Buy 1 Get 1 Free — 24K | Gen: When Fuyumi gets hit by a quirk that body-swaps twins, she wakes up somewhere else—despite the fact that her twin died a decade ago. That’s confusing enough on its own, but why is she surrounded by villains?

Viridian: The Green Guide — 272K | Kaminari/Midoriya: After his dream is finally crushed, Izuku isn’t quite sure there’s anything left for him to live for, but...he can’t exactly kill himself either, not without hurting the people he cares the most about. So, when he realizes that the quirkless can’t technically be vigilantes, it seems like the best of both worlds

[severalpossiblemusiks]

@lightineventide and I had a short discussion about understanding how to appreciate different music genres, sports, art styles, etc., and I figured it'd be good to make a big old post about how to understand each genre in it's own right, rather than comparing it to another genre. Which kinda falls into a life motto I have been developing: "you can find something you like in anything you look at, you just have to know what you're looking at". Cause once you learn to appreciate each different thing for what it is, all of the sudden you find yourself liking way more stuff than before.

So for music:

Rock, punk, and metal tend to focus on things like tempo, riffs, and look/attitude. So when looking for what makes a band or song appealing in these genres, those are probably the major cues you're looking for: do the riffs sound cool? Is the tempo something you can headbang or mosh to? Do you like the image they present? Of course with how many subgenres of punk and metal and rock there are, you can find more specific things to look for in whichever subgenre you're being introduced to. Elitists will often argue that a certain genre of punk or metal isn't "real" punk or metal for some surface level reason often repeating to the tempo/riff/look combo, among other reasons. But ignore these people. They're the equivalent of right wingers telling you why something sucks cause it's woke.

Classical and opera focuses on the harmonics and musical framework of the piece. Classical is almost a "meta" appreciation. Rather than just liking the music cause it slaps (though this is a very valid way to enjoy classical music), I found my appreciation for classical deepened when I found myself looking for how the music was presented. Of course this meta level of appreciation requires some knowledge of music theory and classical music forms (why a sonata is different from a concerto, which is different from a symphony, etc.). You can still appreciate classical without all the music theory meta, and I actively encourage you to enjoy classical outside of the meta analysis of the music, cause it beats elitists who think you need a BA in music to like Bach when you can also just go "music go weeee".

Jazz focuses on improvisation and phrasing. Most jazz tunes have a kind of pattern: you introduce the main melody of the tune, you play a verse and chorus, then you improvise around those melodies, and eventually you return to the main melody and finish the song. The improvisation in the middle is usually where the magic happens. Experienced jazz players can change keys a lot, reference other famous tunes (I think it was Charlie "Bird" Parker was a great fan of classical composer Igor Stravinsky, and would find ways to work phrases of Stravinsky pieces into his solos). Some kinds of jazz also feature a similar vibe to rap battles, where two members of the jazz group try to outdo each other in their improv sections (very common in bebop jazz and their "cutting sessions"). So to appreciate jazz it helps to notice when they go into the improvisation sections, and see how they change and adapt the original melody.

Folk music is about as "by the people, for the people" as you can get. A lot of the tunes are simple, the words can very massively, even having two totally different songs for the same melody (for example, "Red is the Rose" and "Loch Lomond" have the exact same melody, but wildly different lyrics). Folk is probably best appreciated when you know the history behind the song, if anyone knows what the history is. Folk songs are often steeped in local culture, so understanding a Scottish folk song will be greatly assisted by understanding Scottish history and culture, similarly flamenco will be best understood when you look into Spanish culture and history, cause these different elements of history and culture will affect the musical traditions and explain why the song sounds the way it does. I found I started to appreciate rap a lot more when I thought of it as a sort of modern folk song tradition: understanding the history of black Americans and the racism and abuse they received and how they used rap to touch on those subjects.

I can't think of more musical genres and traditions to use as examples, but I think this gets the idea across (hopefully). Each music genre is very different, and so to appreciate each genre properly you have to understand where they're coming from. And of course you can skip all of that and go "I like this cause it sounds cool", but for people like me who overthink their love of music, stuff like this can be very helpful, because sometimes you do just have to recontextualize your conception of music and cultures to get an idea of why it sounds the way it does, and that recontextualization can also help you find what you like.

Hope this helps somebody, and anyone who wants can reblog with their thoughts, additions, critiques, compliments, etc.

[searsage]

Skorri sat in place hidden behind one of the many pillars of the keep, across the hall she could see Lady Efrideet following suit, hiding in a similar spot behind a pillar just shy of the stairwell.

Her lovely ivory and bronze armor glinting gently where the stray light caught it, it made the singer's heart skip beats.

She looks beautiful and excited, just as excited as Timur, the warlock had been glowing for days, it was great to see his mind free of the stress that often plagued the him, never had he seemed so young.

Down the hall she could just make out lord saladin's silhouette, he was frowning like always but even skorri could see Timur's vigor had infected him as well, he too was invested in the mischief about to unfold before them.

It seemed everyone's spirit's were high, for once things were unexpectedly looking up for the iron lords.

Beautiful music filled the echoing halls of Felwinter peak, it shattered the dreary ambiance, Tchaikovsky's symphonies filled the silence, their notes chasing each other around in timeless loops.

The delightful trap was set and now all that was left was for the iron lords to wait, and to Skorri's surprise and Timur's pure delight they didn't have to wait long.

The drowned out sound of a bed chamber doors creaking shut could just be heard just trickling through the obnoxiously loud classical music, across from her skorri can see Lady Efrideet brimming with mirth and excitement, as lord Felwinter emerges from the staircase true to Timur's predictions.

She finds herself holding her breath as the curious iron Lord descends the staircase, his right hand is full of paperwork, no doubt charts and data sheets but he doesn't bother setting them down, instead the curious Exo immediately heads for the antique record player, there he hovers around it for a good while, curiously looking about, but obviously too infatuated by the machine to thoroughly scope the parameter for hiding iron lords or even question the suspiciously empty common space.

Eventually he reaches his hand out, metal fingers plucking the nail up and setting it back two tracks, his head tilted elegantly downward as he listened to the mystifying.

He looked like an artistic sculpture, standing so still near to the table, the machine who was all sharp edges and elegant posture, for once looked..at peace..

Fleeting light crept in from the windows, illuminating the thick faded fur of thr robe against his back and catching the horns of his well worn helmet.

He looked utterly radiant in his little moment of private peace, skorri could practically feel Timur's soul leaving his body, and silently hoped the man had the strength to go through with the prank he himself orchestrated.

Again Felwinter set the nail back, the exo had no doubt found his favorite song, his finger tapping against the table once, twice before the iron lord finally pushed away with all the reluctance of a sailor under a siren's spell, slowly vanishing into the nearby study, to no doubt deal with the moutain of charts wedged under his arm.

This was her cue.

Her heart slammed in her chest as skorri darted out from behind the marble piller, to her left Lady Efrideet was practically vibrating in place, quickly motioning for her to go forward before the iron lord returned.

Skorri swallowed her apprehension, if she was caught it was game over, with a brief scope of the room and hall leading to the study Felwinter had retreated to, she dashed forward swiftly closing the distance between her and the record player.

The moment her nimble fingers plucked the needle from it's track the melody adruptly died, instantly the room was all too quiet and Skorri felt her heart freeze under the weight of apprehension.

"Pssst!"

The singer jolted as a small sound jumpstarted her reflexes again, it was Timur, the man was waving wildly, pointing from the study door to her hiding spot, quickly she replaced the record, leaving the nail idle and carefully placing the pilfered record on the table, then she darted out of sight, sighing in relief as the shadow of the piller cast a cool concealing shadow over her.

Luckily for the songtrist she had made it just in time!

It was mere seconds before Felwinter's silhouette reemergred from the study, his peculiar ram helmit pointed towards the idle player

[adamwatchesmovies]

Doctor Sleep (2019)

Doctor Sleep is a sequel to The Shining 40+ years in the making. Taking its cues from the follow-up novel by Stephen King and the Stanley Kubrick classic, it’s a different but robust sequel nonetheless. Rather than try and recreate what worked about the first film (an impossible task, the 1977 horror classic is a one-in-a-million kind of movie), it tells its own story while paying homage to its predecessor and giving the fans what they want to see. Yes, it’s long at 152 but there’s an even longer director’s cut I’d love to visit sometime.

31 years after escaping the Overlook Hotel, Dan "Danny" Torrance (Ewan McGregor) is haunted by childhood trauma and struggles with alcoholism. When a young telepathic girl named Abra Stone (Kyliegh Curran) reaches out to warn him of a group who “Shine” and feed upon people with psychic abilities, he chooses to work with her to stop them.

Unlike The Shining, Doctor Sleep isn’t a horror movie. It’s more of a drama/thriller, with action-y bits coming in the later half and some horror sprinkled on top. For a good chunk of the story, we’re following a traumatized, ruined Danny Torrance trying his best to hold at bay the lingering ghosts of the Overlook Hotel while getting over his addiction, finding his place in the world and befriending Abra. There’s a lot of great material as Danny talks to his AA group about the way he relates to his father more than ever now that he is also a prisoner of the “demon in a bottle”. The way he and Abra’s childhoods differ make for great character-based moments.

And then come Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson) and the members of the True Knot cult. If there’s one area where the film bites off more than it can chew, it’s with the villains. There are too many of them and several wind up being nothing more than generic baddies but otherwise, they’re the kind of villains you love to hate. As Rose the Hat puts it, the “steam” they steal from other shiners tastes best when the victim is young, terrified and in pain. If seeing kids die is something you can’t handle, know that writer/director Mike Flanagan has no mercy regardless of his characters' age.

The members of the True Knot gang who are fleshed out make for great, complex characters. One of the best examples is Snakebite Andi (Emily Alyn Lind). Under normal circumstances, she would be heroic but when she joins a group of psychic vampires who prey on children just so they can expand their lifespans… the support your initially support for her evaporates. These vampires act high and mighty but when it comes down to it, they’re just as prone to petty emotions as the rest of us, which makes every victory Dan and Abra score feel extra good.

So far, none of this sounds anything like The Shining. Psychic vampires? That’s far removed from a haunted hotel. You’re right, but Doctor Sleep makes it fit. It isn’t merely people that can shine; it’s the dead - such as the ghost from Room 237 - and places - like the Overlook - too. What we thought was a haunted building is actually much more and if that makes you wish we could get just one more look at that iconic location, the film obliges. This is where it feels most fanboy-ish, as we get pretty much every single prop and shot recreated: the blood flowing from the elevator, the twins, the tricycle down those corridors with the weird carpet, etc. Before we start docking points, however. I’d like to see anyone who didn’t want - even a little bit - to see the Overlook again. That's what I thought.

What makes these references and recreations work is how well they’re done. We see Dan confront Lloyd (Henry Thomas), who says he’s merely the Overlook's bartender but looks strikingly like Jack Nicholson. It isn’t an exact match (obviously) but even this inconsistency works. It’s a twisted memory, a ghost held captive by the Overlook looking to use a familiar image against the now grown boy who narrowly escaped its clutches years ago. The resemblance is so uncanny and the flashback and callback scenes so well done (Alex Essoe does a spot-on impersonation of Shelley Duvall) they don’t feel self-indulgent.

While we didn’t need Doctor Sleep, Stephen King felt the characters were worth returning to. Based on this effort, it’s hard to disagree. This sequel is telling its own story AND giving us more of what we enjoyed before. The performances are strong, the characters compelling and the callbacks are so well done that it makes the overlong running time feel… merely long. (December 17, 2021)

[sumersprkl]

I finally watched Descendants: The Rise of Red and I am........... deeply baffled and confused by so many of the storytelling choices they made here........................... But I think *puts on tinfoil hat* they could be able to save it if they have the sequel they alluded to go something like:

Red, who grew up with an abusive parent and does not at all know how to be a good little sweethearted Auradon princess, goes through her "Mal breaks down from the pressure and goes back to the Isle" arc with the added complication that she's living with someone who is a stranger to her, and she has to be a disappointment to her mother AGAIN in horrible new ways.

Meanwhile, Chloe realizes that something is DEEPLY wrong with HER OWN home situation now. Maybe Cinderella isn't married to Charming, because she was grounded on the night of the dance (because of Chloe breaking the vase) and couldn't be there to fall in love with him. So Chloe goes to meet Red and convinces her to go back in time again to fix what they messed up the first time.

Blah blah, blah blah, plot, music numbers, fight scenes with way too many unnecessary flips and somersaults, a new wig for Chloe in every scene for no discernible reason. They save the day! They find a way to get Ella to the dance AND prevent the prank on Bridget! But because of what happened the last time, they decide to check that everything's fixed with the looking glass before they hop back to the present.

And they realize that everything has gone back to the way it went the first time, before they jumped back in time at all! Because it turns out that one single prank from a group of people who already hated her WASN'T the straw that broke Bridget's back. It was the fact that her best friend Ella got a boyfriend, married into money, and dropped her entirely, leaving her friendless and vulnerable in a world of people that hate her! Red and Chloe prevented the one prank at Castlecoming, but did NOTHING to prevent further retaliation, and if Ella went to the dance and fell in love with Charming, she doesn't bother to be there to protect or console her friend in the aftermath.

And now Red and Chloe know what they have to do: They have to save their mothers' friendship in order to save Auradon! Because love and friendship and support in hard times is what REALLY saves the day, NOT stopping a few horrible people from doing ONE horrible thing and then dipping out because it's all good now.

They go back to the present, Red tells her mom the truth of what happened, they hug (and the Queen of Hearts mourns the daughter that SHE remembers raising who she is never going to see again, but shh, this is a Disney movie so that bit's glossed over and tossed to people like me who think WAY to hard about the implications of kids movies). In this timeline, Ella and Bridget remember meeting Chloe and Red in the past, because it isn't immediately overshadowed by meeting the love of her life/losing her best friend. Everyone reconciles, and the moms tell their kids that they're proud of them.

Cue big sappy dance number that actually feels earned this time rather than being a payoff for absolutely nothing, and then some little thing goes wrong in the background of the dance number and this time either Red or Chloe gets to say the sequel-baity "Oh, you didn't think this was the end of the story, did you?" line while looking right into the camera. Credits roll to the sound of another China-Anne McClain cover of a classic Disney song despite the fact that Uma was barely in the movie because she's the only cast member who can actually sing.

THE END!

[angrelysimpping]

Okay so….this one is fucked. Like, you got all the other mush, this one is fucked. Enjoy! ;3c

M!OC x friend’s M!OC uwu

Warnings: stuckage; noncon; noncon turned dubcon; pseudoincest with implied past incest; use of the word “rape” used once

Aksel and Joaquim belong to 💜@inkyquince💜

Words: ~2.3k

(Good End Variant: Here)

For the first time in months, Danny’s tempted to tap into the entity’s power. Even when he’d been trapped under Aksel’s thumb, when Aksel had tried to break him, had fucked Danny dumb in an attempt to make him desperate enough to use the entity’s abilities, he’d held strong. Danny knew there was a chance of slipping, of losing control, of the entity forcing him down, down, down, until he could only witness the destruction the entity wrought while using his body as a vessel. Trapped, only able to watch how it would reward Aksel for freeing it, how it would hurt Joaquim for sticking with Danny. No, he never tried to wield the thing’s powers unless it was an absolute emergency.

But this was Danny’s breaking point. 

It was fucking humiliating. A little painful, too, but, really, it was more humiliating than anything. How does shit like this even happen? How did he get stuck under the bed? 

Well, apparently getting railed every night wasn’t the best for the bed’s support or whatever, but still! There was no way something like this could happen! Crawling under the bed to hunt down a missing ear stud, knocking his head on a support, and that being the last straw for the bed’s structural integrity? Collapse on Danny, keeping him trapped? Really? What were the odds?! Like something out of a bad porno.

Danny huffs a small laugh, mumbling “What are you doing step bro?”

God, those were such stupid videos. Still, Danny had jerked it to more than one of them. Apparently, one too many, his cock twitching in interest as a few scenes flit through his mind. The classic ‘stuck in a washing machine’ girl. Two brothers fooling around after one was only able to free the other from between half-closed elevator doors by fucking him out. 

A man caught in a wall, his boyfriend teasing him, licking over his rim, jerking him off. Sinking his fat cock into his trapped partner’s cute, twitching hole.

“Fuck.”

Stuck and also uncomfortably hard, now. Double humiliating. Maybe he really should try tapping into the entity. Surely he’d be able to control it, right? It wasn’t like when Aksel was trying to break him down. His emotions weren’t running…that high. So, it should be fine, right?

No, no, no. He should wait for Joaquim. He’d only gone out for a quick trip to the shop around the corner. He’d be back soon.

And as if right on cue, the door opened.

Face burning, Danny’s right about to call out before it hits him: he doesn’t recognize those footsteps. That’s not the sound of his lover slowly making their way across the small room.

“Oh, little vessel, what a sticky situation you seem to have gotten yourself into! Aren’t you lucky I found you again?”

Danny grows cold at the sound of Aksel’s voice, heart dropping through the floor as his efforts to free himself redouble. 

It doesn’t work. Of course not. But that doesn’t stop him from twisting and thrashing, refusing to give up. He’s so bent upon his efforts that he barely hears Aksel’s harsh laugh, doesn’t even hear him kneeling down behind him. It’s not until cool hands grip his hips and Danny freezes that he realizes how close Aksel is.

“Don’t touch me,” he growls, lashing out with his feet, attempting to kick the older man away. “Don’t fucking touch me you goddamn monster.”

It’s with delight that he feels his foot make contact, a soft oof from the cultist letting Danny know he’d at least hurt the fucker. His victory is short-lived, a hand snaking under him and grabbing his dick, hard.

White lights skitter across his vision, a wave of nausea sweeping over him. Worse still, he can feel the entity deep in the recesses of his soul, stirring, pricking its ears up as the call of Danny’s distress sings out to it. 

“Do that again whore, and I’ll give that pretty cock of yours a new piercing, got it?” Aksel punctuates his sentence with another harsh squeeze. Danny isn’t aware of the broken sound he makes, too busy struggling to breathe, blood pounding in his ears as he tries to keep himself together. 

When Danny remains still, doesn’t try to kick out or squirm away, Aksel’s grip softens. “There we go, princess. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Danny bites down on his bottom lip with the too-sharp teeth the entity gave him, easily piercing through the thin skin and filling his mouth with metallic, tangy blood. Still, it was that rather than provoke Aksel further. 

Those cool hands are back on his hips, thumbs digging into the small of his back as Aksel sighs, almost dreamily, behind him. “Been waiting to find you two again. Imagining it, finally getting you to break. Getting rewarded by that entity you keep pressed down.” In one quick, rough action, Aksel yanks down Danny’s jeans. There’s a beat of silence before Aksel’s cruel laughter fills the room again. “Lacy panties? Were these for my little brother? Shame he won’t ever get to see them, eh?”

“Shut up.”

Aksel’s laughter dies just as suddenly as it started, plunging the room into an icy silence.

“What did you say, whore?”

Danny doesn’t think, snapping back, “I said shut the fuck up you fucking-!”

The sound of ripping lace cuts him off, ruined tatters of the panties hanging limply from his hips as something hot and blunt pressing at his hole. The cavity of Danny’s chest fills with ice, the entity slithering out of the depths of his soul as his panic grows. All his willpower goes to shut the thing down, keeping it locked away, his body frozen in place and unable to move. Makes it all the easier for Aksel, pressing against the tight ring of muscle before it gives, head popping past the rim and allowing him to slowly sink into Danny’s ass.

Danny’s brain blanks as he’s forced open, trying to keep the entity under control as it thrums under his skin. He wouldn’t do it. Wouldn’t give in, wouldn’t let the entity take over, wouldn’t let Aksel get what he wants.

But,  that meant he couldn’t even swear as Aksel starts to fuck into him, hips slamming against his at a brutal pace. He can hear Aksel rambling, cruel words and vile filth spewing past his lips. It goes right over Danny’s head, words sliding off him like water rolling off his back. He can’t think, can’t move. He can only use everything in him to keep himself from letting the entity take over.

That is, until Aksel grabs his cock again.

“You’re still hard, whore. Knew my baby brother would find me a pretty, masochistic bitch.”

Joaquim. Danny’s concentration shatters. Joaquim was supposed to be back by now, but here Danny was, trapped under a collapsed bed and getting split open by Aksel. Was he okay? Had Aksel gotten to Joaquim first? Was he hurt? If Aksel was involved, then nothing good could come from it. 

The horns sprout before Danny can stop them, poking out of his hair and catching against the underside of the bed. The tail comes next, unfurling from the base of his spine, skin itching and burning as he tries to suppress it even as it springs forth. 

“That’s it,” Aksel growls, starting to pump Danny’s aching cock in time with his savage thrusts, “give in. Give me what I want.”

Danny sobs, the mark up the side of his body carved into him by the entity burning as he fights for control. He could use it, he knows he could. He could use his new tail to lash out, wrap it around Aksel’s throat and pull him off. But could he stop after that? Could he keep himself from killing Aksel? Danny had killed before but it was different then, on his terms. This? This wasn’t the same at all. This was a desperate struggle, one that he knew, deep in his bones, would leave him open for the entity to take over fully. 

“Aw, don’t wanna?” Aksel coos, stilling with his hips pressed flush to Danny’s ass. Idly, almost as if he were bored, he starts to grind against Danny, pressing deep inside him, making him squirm, tail thrashing uncontrollably. “Don’t wanna go under so I can play with the entity? Wanna play with your big brother longer?” 

Danny nearly stops breathing, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes, cock twitching pathetically in Aksel’s hand, dribbling thick precum over his knuckles. 

“You always love cumming on big brother’s cock, don’t ya? Dirty whore of a baby brother. And so greedy, never wanting to share with our other brother. Aren’t brothers supposed to share everything?”

Delusional. Danny thinks, vision going hazy as Aksel’s cock keeps grinding away at his insides. Aksel is delusional. Still, that doesn’t stop the heat pooling in his gut as Aksel keeps babbling, the entity’s control becoming a fraction of an amount weaker as the disgust, rage, and desperation inside him mixes with something else. Something Danny would never name. 

“And then you go and keep our brother all to yourself too. Bouncing on his cock every night. But we can share, you know. You know how to share, right? Papa would be so happy to see all his boys again, and you could keep my cock warm every night and Joa could suck it clean every morning. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

The tail wilts, fizzling away. It’s almost as bad as if he’d cum, as if he’d pressed back into Aksel and fucked himself on the monster. Because he’s close. Danny’s getting close, hurtling towards an end he’d rather bite off his tongue than admit to.

Aksel, lost in his own fantasy, doesn’t seem to mind that his actions are starting to push the entity away, rather than bringing it to the surface. No, he just keeps going, fisting Danny’s cock, thumbing the dusky pink head and making more of a mess out of the trapped man. “You’d look so pretty in my bed together, my two pretty baby brothers humping each other's brains out and begging me to come fuck them proper. To ruin their tight holes or ride their pretty cocks until their balls are nice and empty. Cute lil mouths ready for me to cum down the back of.”

“D-don’t-”

“Don’t what, princess? Don’t wanna share your big brother? Still just a greedy lil whore after all?”

“Y-yeah,” Danny nearly chokes on the word, tears dripping softly to the floor. “Don’t…don’t bring Joa, in-into it. Don’t wanna…share.” Shame burns his face as he speaks, brain sluggish trying to find the right words to steer Aksel away from talking about Joaquim. His Joaquim. His Kimi. His always. His to hold and love and worship and adore. Not someone for Aksel to use. Even as the heat in him grew, a familiar tingling in his balls sparking to life, he couldn’t stand Aksel’s fantasies of hurting Joaquim. 

“Want your big brother’s cock all to yourself?” Aksel’s lazy pace starts to pick up again, the grip on Danny’s pierced cock following suit. “Want your big brother to rape you day and night? Wreck you for anyone else? Shape your insides so only your big brother’s cock can fill you right?”

Danny tries to speak, tries to do anything that would make the shame that lights up his whole body dim, but he can’t. Everything is too much, too good. The hand on his cock, the thick dick carving him out. It would be heaven, if only it wasn’t Aksel doing this to him. If it wasn’t Aksel the one making his body respond like this, the horns from the entity subsiding and electricity tingling up his spine as he’s pushed ever closer to the edge.

“Gonna cum on your big brother’s cock, aren’t you? Gonna let me fill up your slutty ass and then keep begging for more? Such a brat, keeping your beloved big brother all to yourself but that’s okay, princess. You’ll learn to share eventually. But until then you’ll get big brother all to yourself, okay?”

Aksel punctuates his ramblings with a particularly harsh jerk to Danny’s cock, and it spells his end. Danny cum’s with a cry, spilling over Aksel’s hand and painting the ground under him. He nearly blacks out, knees giving way under him as Aksel’s thrusts become even rougher. If it wasn't for Aksel’s grip on his hips, he’d be fucked into the floor, Aksel chasing his own pleasure with no regard for the limp body under him.

The ringing in his ears keeps Danny from hearing most of Aksel’s continued ravings, weakly willing for the man to just cum already and let him rest. When Aksel’s stills, cock still buried deep as he cums, Danny almost sighs in relief.

Of course, that feeling is short-lived. Danny’s brain is still fuzzy, body loose and weak, as Aksel pulls him out from where he was pinned under the bad. He’s dizzy, exhausted, on the verge of passing out, but he’s still conscious as the shorter man crouches down next to where he lays. Danny could count each freckle across his face with how close he is, bright red eyes boring into Danny’s. Idly, he wonders if his own eyes are still brown, or if the tussle with the entity had left them purple for the rest of the day. It doesn’t matter, not when he’s too tired to even flinch as Aksel reaches out, stroking a strand of sweaty dark hair from his cheek. 

“Don’t worry,” Aksel murmurs, tucking the stray lock back, behind Danny’s ear. Then, almost tenderly, he traces the shell of his ear, over the piercings, and down along his jaw. “I’ll take you home now. Joaquim will be so happy to see you.” 

That’s the last thing Danny hears before succumbing to unconsciousness.

[schismusic]

THE DISCOGRAPHY PRINCIPLE, Episode 6: Kraftwerk - or, Electro-Shock for President

I've actually been sitting on this one for a really long time. It's hard to think of anything meaningful to add in the presence of History itself.

TIME Magazine had this cute cover out on February 8th, 1993 — a guy sits on his computer, his left eye is prosthetic and the cables from the CRT screen swerve and swirl towards a purple spiral in the background. Big title in the middle, CYBERPUNK, and right under there a small blurb that reads like an amateur Steam developer trying to make his generic-ass game set in twenty-seventy-something appealing to you. It's mesmerizing to think that the early 1990s were still a time where you could legitimately hope for a cyberpunk utopia without hearing your own personal Seinfeld laugh track in your head. Of course this devolved into one of the foundational bits of reading in my teenage years: Ondarock's biographic pieces about specific artists and bands. Eddy Cilìa — one of the deans of Italian music criticism — wrote one about Kraftwerk that at one point says the following (translated to English by yours truly):

"… if Kraftwerk's music is still to this day all bent forward, lyrics and visual concepts still taste more like modern antiques than they do modernity. Theirs is a vision of the future hailing from a past when it was possible to imagine prosperous and tidy days to come, with squeaky-clean cities, immense green spaces, eight-lane highways overruled by giant electronic brains. Before the petrol wars and microchips. Before Blade Runner. Before cyberpunk. Before we realized we were fucked. Those who know that unforgettable William Gibson short story, The Gernsback Continuum (off of Burning Chrome) will understand."

Cue the BBC using Kraftwerk's Musique Non Stop and Electric Café to soundtrack William Gibson reading some of the bleakest bits off of Count Zero (I'm gonna link the program here, but unfortunately the bits where the tracks play have been muted, so there's that). I don't even find it infuriating or distracting or inappropriate, even: at this point cyberpunk as an aesthetic is modern antique, whereas cyberpunk as a collection of themes wildly oscillates between the hopelessly romantical and the unfortunately timely. Both of these things very aptly describe Kraftwerk's Electric Café, the last record with the classic lineup of Hütter, Schneider, Bartos, Flür. Electric Cafè, or Techno Pop for either irredeemable zoomers or the unlucky few who worked with the band from 1982 to 1986, sounds like someone trying really hard to be relevant: Sex Object is like one degree of separation away from Depeche Mode, minus the inherent sexiness of Depeche Mode — as retroactively superimposed as it may be — and as such laughable, and not in a good way. Basically the entirety of side one (perhaps even The Telephone Call, if Computer Love didn't already exist) would go stupid hard if it had come out on, for instance, in The Man-Machine era. Unfortunately the record feels too thematically unsound to work the way a Kraftwerk record usually works, mostly because for the first time ever the band seem to take the concept with actual seriousness.

So many people focus on the supposed future-proof nature of Kraftwerk which in retrospect kind of feels a bit laughable — it's like when some of these YouTube guys allow the possibility that the work of a band like Boards of Canada "still sounds fresh". It's good, obviously, but can we really close our eyes and pretend like no one ever considers making intentionally warbly sounding electronic music in the year of our Lord two-thousand-and-twenty-four, where people are falling head over heels for the new Oneohtrix Point Never record? Kraftwerk is dated, because Gary Numan and John Foxx and Depeche Mode and Afrika Bambaataa and the Soul-Sonic Force and Cybotron and Model 500 and Aphex Twin and Autechre and Deadmau5 and Avicii and Skrillex and NERO and Caterina Barbieri and DJ Haram and Suzi Analog and so many others exist and have, in their own way, dated. That is exactly what makes Kraftwerk the greatest. Their studio production mostly wears its age with confidence: sure, if you want to be terrible to it you could argue it sounds like a bunch of Apple IIe terminals desperately fighting for their life in the bathroom after a night out at Taco Bell, but that would fundamentally miss the core point which is that they very clearly fucking knew that this was going to happen. And even their lyrical optimism is much darker than most give them credit for. Like, seriously, stop and think for a moment: science fiction in the 1970s was all about aliens, everywhere. Isaac fucking Asimov, robot dude par excellence, wrote a book about aliens for the first and, if memory serves, only time in the year 1972, and then never again. The highway was a gleefully old fashioned concept to be excited about, and so was the train — more so than the highway, actually. They hopped back onto the zeitgeist with Computer World, but again, it was minimal, barren, and the lyrics used to bite. The German version of the title track, for instance, loves to remind the listener that "Interpol und Deutsche Bank, FBI und Scotland Yard, Finanzamt und das BKA haben unsere Daten da" — they have our data there!

A while back there used to be this great blog on this site called One Week One Band where they once did a week fully dedicated to Kraftwerk which explains most of the shit I would be going on in this post, and does so in a much more interesting and accurate way than I could ever; obviously so, since I'm writing at 3:20am because I had a really rough Tuesday night which fucked up my sleep schedule into unrecognizability. Anyway yeah I'm not even going to try to actually get into the lyrics, mostly because I never really gave a shit, minus the funny bits about meeting Iggy Pop and David Bowie from station to station back to Düsseldorf city and that bit about how they want to fuck an up-and-coming starlet (Big Black really upped the sleaziness factor in their cover, actually making it sound more like Kraftwerk's backstage activities — at least according to Wolfgang Flür — than Kraftwerk's recorded output); the short version is that it's simply insane to me that nobody ever bothered thinking "goddamn, this is simply too shiny and chrome and polite to be serious, and how the fuck am I supposed to take the robot disguise seriously, maybe they're taking the piss somewhat?", which is extremely egregious given the very nerdy humor on constant display in their lyrics and song titles — Antenna, for instance, reads like a dirty poem on a trade school's toilet stall, and I don't think I have to add anything to Ohm Sweet Ohm. But what do you know: as some of you might have guessed I like nerdy humor that makes no sense and fails catastrophically at conveying any sense of zest and class and sexiness, because Kraftwerk never meant to be fucking sexy. They wanted to make volksmusik, i.e. a literal German translation of popular music. They succeeded.

In case you're wondering, my favourite Kraftwerk record changes depending which one I've listened to the most recently, but gun to my head I would probably say Trans Europe Express. I spent a lot of time listening more or less exclusively to the German language versions of some of these records, and it's weird using the English titles for me, but ultimately it makes more sense. If it is to be volksmusik, in this day and age, it has to be musik of all volk, and as such of all folks, and statistically speaking there are more people speaking English than German — at least in my personal social circle. Anyway, the thing about TEE could be this: the beauty of it is that it has everything in itself, but the real kicker is that none of that is made explicit to the fullest. All of the sequenced hopping synthpop, the melancholy melodies of New Romantic, the drive and danceability of hip hop, a certain sense of coldness that post-punk as a whole would make its own — see Ian Curtis's obsession with this particular record (and, on a slightly different note, how the surviving members of New Order would go on to sample Uranium, which if you ask me might rank as one of the hardest interlude tracks on any record ever) — are here but in very throwaway forms, i.e. they do not make the case for themselves. In the moment of their conception, they must have been seen as ad-hoc arrangement tactics, perhaps even as a holistic compositional approach: they are not their own justification, nobody woke up and said "I am going to make a whole record about this here technique", as testimonied by the change in mission statement right in the middle of the making. The band had been recording trains to see if they could use the inherent rhythm in their motion to make something danceable, but they realized it didn't work because they'd have to be sped up to unrecognizability; so, they dropped the field recording/tape loop idea and recreated the groove in the studio with conventional drums. On the other hand, cue John Foxx turning into a Ballardian neon-lit dandy for his solo debut, extrapolating on TEE's sounds to better delineate a colder, more anthropic, more impersonal, more atonal and (why not?) perhaps more violent European landscape.

Sure one might argue that their reference landmarks are predominantly European, predominantly focused on the classical era of music (1600s-1800s, very roughly), predominantly if not entirely diatonic, but their opus very clearly works — it very clearly has worked, over and over again — as a potentially ever-expandable theoretical framework. Their minimalism became the empty spaces it left open, the boxes it didn't tick. As much inspiration as Kraftwerk drew from funk, a slight increase of the funk coefficient on the part of black artists in the United States invented techno, hip-hop, electro. Kraftwerk didn't, themselves, change the face of contemporary popular music, they "simply" allowed other people to reshape contemporary popular music a hundred times over. It feels like a miracle to listen to this music in the current day and age.

[gravelgirty]

How I lost a month of work and health

This is not easy for me, but this is the situation. Buckle up, this is wild.

Our ex-roommate is a hoarder and has all of the mental health issues you may imagine. Among them is executive function disorder, the inability to make important decisions and procrastinate until it is almost/too late to do anything.

After 4+ years of threatening to move when we tried to get them to agree to a cleaning program so we could, you know, live in a healthy house, they found a new place to live. Cue worst moving company ever, that are so terrible they would make you feel sorry for the FAWLTY TOWERS cast if they contracted out to these misogynistic, lazy and ham-fisted movers and I won't name them because their employees have a disturbing history of holding your goods for ransom (extra fees out of nowhere) and actually threatening you if you hold your ground. Let's say the company name starts with S and rhymes with 'makeway' and leave it at that, ok?

Well, roommate had 2 cats rescued from the great outdoors and when they were kittens they were shy and skittish but they were somewhat socialized and gentle. But after about 4 years of living in a hoarder's classic labyrinth and losing every imaginable social interaction with humans, they went feral.

I tried to stop them from escaping the bedroom because the movers were leaving the doors open (another thing they ignored while they were busy breaking stuff).

Three of us wound up in Urgent Care that night; me, my kid and the roommate because these poor creatures thought they were fighting for their lives. I hold them no grudge.

Doc says if things don't improve in 2-3 days go straight to ER.

Well. My hand balloons up in short order and I can't bend my thumb at all. I dutifully pay for a Lyft (roommate is gone even if their things are still here) and this happens:

Diagnosis? Septic Arthritis.

This is a rare and scary condition. Cat bit through muscle, tendon sheath, tendon, and even impacted the BONE right at the thumb joint which is a spot almost impossible to reach with oral antibiotics. There's just not enough circulation for the drugs to do their work. So. To save my hand the plastic surgeon on call opens me up AND STRIPS THE SHEATH. I don't know how many stitches I even have.

They have me on a lot of antibiotics plus opiods for the pain and a shunt and tubes and all the good stuff.

Then they put me on vincomiacin, which is a common allergen. I woke up trying to take off my hair in the middle of the night. Like a hive of stinging wasps were under my skin. Cue IV benadryl for 2 nights.

I wound up paying $60 to get my hair cut short as a breath in vacuum when I was back on my feet because my scalp still hurts and is sore from the reaction.

I wasn't even the only person hospitalized in the largest hospital in South Puget Sound over a cat-inflicted wound. I was the 3rd. If you count the first night, I was the 5th. The winner was a woman who kept 4 unspayed cats in her house and thought she could wade in and break up a cat fight.

Priceless was the moment when the salty old nurse in ER muttered that at least I hadn't been bitten by humans, and it turned out she has Seen Things from the ambulance behind the mall on certain nights.

Ultimately, because I can't use the thumb without incredible pain and the mobility is toast, I'm off work until the 10th of November. I used up all of my employee sick leave and will have to muddle back to work and talk to HR about other options on getting some sort of emergency compensation to survive. Friends and family have been wonderful. They've helped with rent and offered rides, helped us get groceries, and all the things you need to make it through.

But I've lost my independence and it hurts, bone-deep. It's deeper than the injury.

We are facing a deep clean of the apartment because we love living here and we love the landlady and maybe if we'd been a harder a** about the hoarding this wouldn't have happened. Who knows. But lyft rides have cost us $200 and there will probably be more to come as I muddle through rehab and appointments and exams. I'm annoyed about the hair cut. I'm not feeling great about the ballooning weight and I am baffled that there is still a ton of stuff that isn't ours, waiting to be hauled out and the rental agency wants me to pay an extra $500 to re-word the lease (re: start over) because rental controls are on the ballot and they would make it hard for these jokers to sock me with admin fees if the new controls are met and I'm betting this is why they are trying to get the money NOW. In the meantime, the carpet needs to go because my kid has asthma and cat pee carpets aren't healthy for anyone. Not a word about the cleanup has been made from the person who caused this mess. I don't expect it, either. They are mentally ill and not capable of drawing the dots when it comes to things like this. Nor do they have the money. Hard lessons learned.

I'm not posting any of this to beg for money. Frankly, nobody I know has it to spare. As I sit at home I'll slowly work my way through my ko-fi page and try to sell more fiction, and art if my confidence levels go up.

But this is health care in America and I am considered one of the lucky ones because my co-pay stopped at $75 for the emergency X-rays and my pharmacy (Rite-Aid) is finding new and improved ways to keep us from getting our RX in a timely fashion, ran out of bandages, and my GP is tearing her hair out because she faxes meds to me and they simply don't read the faxes that come in.

There is no transportation assistance on my insurance--and I repeat, I am considered one of the lucky ones with a state job + benefits.

I'm applying for emergency assistance to see if there is anything out there because pride goes first.

My sister likes to say, "Life's a lesson, sometimes you're it." This is my lesson. Don't vote down health care. Vote up.

[ausetkmt]

Image: courtesy of Ricky Codio/Ricky Codio Photography

“The creation of Black Music Month was the brainchild of Grammy Award winning songwriter/producer and one of the architects of The Sound of Philadelphia (TSOP) Kenny Gamble,” schools Dyana Williams, the music industry veteran and celebrity strategist. The songwriter/producer—along with his partner Leon Huff—has created countless classics, including “If You Don’t Know Me By Now,” originally recorded by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes; “For the Love of Money” by The O’Jays; and Teddy Pendergrass’ “Turn Off the Lights.”

“When he established the Black Music Association in the late 1970s, we were a couple at that point; we had two children,” continues Williams, whose illustrious road to premier Black music advocate and tag as “the Mother of Black Music Month” began as a radio pioneer, holding her own on the airwaves during a time when women were woefully underrepresented.

It was a collective effort to that day on June 7, 1979 when President Jimmy Carter hosted the reception at the White House that made Black Music Month official. Williams, who played a critical role, describes it as “a coming together of various aspects of the music industry to celebrate and recognize this multibillion-dollar industry, not just the songwriters and the singers, people behind the scenes as well.” 

Williams' love of Black music, she shares, was sparked in her native New York City at a very early age. As a child, Williams learned how to dissect music. She grew up knowing where songs were recorded, who wrote them, who sang them, who played on them, who engineered them, who produced them and more. Later the daughter of Puerto Rican parents would mix and mingle with those same folks, even dating musicians as well as forming meaningful relationships with many other titans. City College of New York’s radio station WCCR gave her the first taste of what being a behind-the-scenes mover and shaker could be. 

“I was the music director. I had a jazz show, but I also availed myself of student funds to produce concerts to bring artists to the school,” she says. At a time when very few women were on the air, she took her cues from one legendary figure who is today best known for Mama, I Want To Sing!. “Vy Higginsen was on the radio at WBLS and she's the first Black woman that I listened to that inspired me to want to be on the radio,” shares Williams. 

Although radio no longer physically occupies as much of her time as it did throughout her life, even as she raised her three kids, Black music still keeps her busy. She is the president and founder of the International Association of African-American Music Foundation, which organizes conferences and educational symposiums as well as produces panels that communicate the vastness of Black music. In addition, IAAAM has honored many Black music greats, including Stevie Wonder, Patti LaBelle, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Babyface and L.A. Reid. She’s also a board member of the Nashville-based National Museum of African American Music (NMAAM), which recently honored Missy Elliott. TV One fans also recognize her as a frequent and trusted contributor to the network’s acclaimed series Unsung.

Even as Williams enters her 70s later this year, advocating for Black music is a personal mission and calling from which she can’t retire. And for good reason. “Black music deserves champions and advocates, and that's what I see myself as,” she insists. “Black Music is American music created in this country and exported culturally, but also economically. We don't tend to think of it that way, but the reality is that Black music is big business. I'm talking about not millions of dollars, but billions of dollars. We are the trendsetters. We are the weathervane so to speak. We’re the taste. We’re the flavor all over the planet. It is us and I see myself as a person who uses her platform, whether it's social media, whether it is talking with [journalists] to spread the word about the magnificence, the viability, and the power of Black music.”