#so much old internet history falling into oblivion again

[ardate]

I just learned Skyblog, massive french blogging platform from Back In The Day, is closing down today at midnight.

It sure is the end of an era, a very important one for me as it was one of my first experiences online, for fandom and personal stuff...

A chapter is ending and it's definitely more bitter than sweet, though it comes to nobody’s surprise. Can't just keep all this up for old time's sake.

[goldenretriever-nicknelson]

Vacation Part 2 ~ Prague [P.P]

Series Masterlist || Main Masterlist

A/n: Chapter 2 is here! I'm still working on 3 and I'll hopefully have it done in time for next week. I'm so grateful for the response from this small series and I'm excited that you all like it! This chapter has more angst in it and yes I was slightly inspired by To all the boys I've loved before haha.

Thank you to @eeyore101247 for beta reading this chapter for me at the last minute! I love you Lolo!

WC: 5.8k

Warnings: Angst, mentions of slut-shaming and bullying, high school sucks, mentions of Tony and grief but also cute romantic fluff cause we love to see it.

The end of the class’ time in Italy arrived too soon in Peter’s opinion. He’d had so much fun with you, he’d almost forgotten entirely about his plan. Almost. There was still a part of him drawn to MJ and still felt jealous when she was with Brad which started to happen more often.

And yet he always felt himself drawn back to you.

Peter sighed as he finished packing his bags, his head reeling from everything until he heard a knock on the door. Mostly everyone had left the hotel in a hurry but Ned had stayed with Peter.

“You got a package.” He handed Peter the wrapped package and looked at him with a furrowed brow. “Do you think it’s a bomb or something?”

Peter looked at his best friend in bewilderment. “Well I do now!”

“I’m sure it’s not.” Ned shook his head, eying the package carefully. Peter cautiously looked at Ned and back at the parcel in his hands. He knew this vacation had been too good to be true. He carefully looked at the writing and noticed a shield logo in the corner.

“It’s from SHIELD.” Peter spoke carefully as he opened the wrapping, he was hoping maybe for a cool badge or something but instead there was only a glasses case. Ned and him exchanged a look before opening the case.

There inside of the wooden casing was a pair of glasses, they looked mostly ordinary with a blue shaded tint to the lenses like the kind Tony would wear. Peter felt a strange kind of feeling as he looked at them, it was a mix of grief and disappointment, are these old glasses really the only thing Tony had left for him?

“Awesome!” Ned looked over Peter’s shoulder at the glasses. “Try them on!”

Peter thought about it before quickly closing the case and putting it in his backpack, shaking his head. “We’ll be late for the flight.”

“Oh you didn’t hear?” Ned gave Peter a look who shrugged in return. “We’re going by coach now. Mr Harrington said we got an upgrade to Prague.”

“What about Paris?!” Peter exclaimed, looking at Ned with wide eyes.

“Well Mr Harrington and Mr Dell kind of got into an argument about whether it was Prague or Paris we were meant to be going to. Turns out Mr Harrington was supposed to book Paris but he booked Prague instead.” Ned explained, shaking his head.

Peter sighed and furrowed his brow, a coach didn’t sound much fun but at least Peter didn’t have to worry about flying. He wasn’t sure if there were any romantic spots in Prague but it was nothing a quick internet search couldn’t fix. It’s not like his plan was going according anyway.

He grabbed his bags and walked down to where the rest of the class were already boarding a large coach.

Everyone was already seated by the time Peter got on. MJ was with Brad, Ned was with Betty and you were with one of your friends. The only free seat was next to Flash and Peter preferred the option of sitting by himself at the back, he could do with the peace and quiet anyway.

You gave him a smile as he walked past and he returned it before taking his seat, almost falling into it as the driver started down the road. Peter rested his head against the window and took out his earphones, noticing the case next to them. He played his music as he took out the case and looked at the glasses again.

He picked them up and tried them on, waiting for something to happen but nothing did. He laughed dryly and shook his head, going to take them off before he noticed a Stark industries business card at the bottom of the case.

For the next Tony Stark, I trust you. Say EDITH.

Peter read the message aloud and jumped as the glasses flashed blue, a female voice talking to him much like the one he had in his suit. An interface loaded in front of him, showing a scan of his face.

“Retinal and biometric scan completed.”

“Hello?”

“Hello Peter. I am EDITH, Tony Stark’s augmented reality security and defence system.”

Peter adjusted the glasses and smiled, Tony had given him an AI with access to all of his protocols. He almost couldn’t believe that he had trusted him with that kind of access.

“EDITH stands for even dead I’m the hero. Tony loved his acronyms.”

“Yeah he did.” Peter smiled fondly, remembering the time he had tried to make up some of his own but had never quite hit the mark.

“I have access to the entire Stark global security network including multiple defence satellites and backdoors to all major telecommunication networks.”

Peter looked around as screens loaded before him of what his classmates and teachers were up to on their phones including Mr Dell researching the history of witchcraft. Ned and Betty were texting each other even though they were sat together.

“Woah.” Peter couldn’t get over how cool this was to have all of this access at his fingertips. He looked over at MJ wondering if she was texting before changing his mind, knowing it would be wrong. His eyes landed on where you sat and your texts showed before him. Ned wasn’t the only one Betty was texting.

Y/n: I really like him.

Betty: I know but I’m pretty sure he likes MJ :/

Peter could feel his heart racing. He wanted so badly to tell you Betty was wrong but the truth was he didn’t know anymore.

You looked over at MJ and Brad, biting your lip before glancing at Peter. He quickly looked away from you, his eyes looking over towards MJ on accident. He didn’t see the way your face fell but he did see the last text you sent to Betty.

Y/n: Yeah, you’re right.

Peter sighed and put his head in his hands, wanting to scream into oblivion.

“Pete, everything okay?”

He quickly looked up at the sound of your voice and nodded, worrying that somehow you knew he had been spying. He tried to quickly think of something to say as you sat next to him, looking worried and saddened.

A moment’s silence passed between the both of you, neither sure of what to say. The only sound came from the chatters of the bus and the passing scenery outside.

“I like your glasses. Are they new?” You smiled, breaking the silence as you admired the new frames and the eyes underneath them. Peter slowly nodded and took them off.

“Y-yeah, they were a gift.” He gave you a small smile and put them back in the case. You noticed the Stark industries logo but didn’t say anything more on the topic. You knew how much Tony had meant to Peter.

After the blip when everyone returned to their old lives, you noticed Peter wasn’t the same person. He seemed sadder and lost, struggling to pay attention even in lessons he loved and sometimes he’d have to excuse himself quickly from the classroom. You had followed him once and found him on the floor, sobbing into his hands. He didn’t even register it was you that had hugged him until he looked up and mumbled an apology.

Seeing him that way broke your heart and the last thing you wanted to cause was more sadness for him when he was meant to be enjoying himself.

“I think they look good on you.”

Peter blushed and smiled, bowing his head shyly. “Thank you.”

You smiled back and nodded, deciding to listen to your music and handing Peter an earphone. He looked surprised at the gesture but took it anyway and listened to your music, a wide smile gracing his lips as you both shared the sweet moment together.

It stayed like that for the rest of the journey, both of you enjoying each other's company just as you had done in Venice. Peter couldn't get rid of the smile from his face until they stopped for a restroom break and he saw Brad and MJ holding hands as they got off the bus. His whole face fell which didn't go unnoticed by you.

Peter gave you a quick goodbye before going after Ned, in need of his best friend’s advice. You meekly said a goodbye before sighing and grabbing your things. Your eyes landed on a small journal on Peter’s seat that he must have left behind.

You know you shouldn’t have looked but the temptation was biting away at you. It was only just a peek, you told yourself. You smiled as you saw some doodles scribbled on the pages, chemical equations for something called web fluid (probably some cool science thing he was working on) and a section dedicated to The plan.

Intrigued of what the plan entailed you read ahead and with each written word the jealousy in your heart grew and the sadness broke your heart. Peter was planning to romance MJ with gifts and a whole speech he had written out in detail. Everything was planned and you were nothing more than a distraction. You even noticed that in one of Peter’s doodles he had written MJ or Y/n???

*~*~*~*

“I swear it was in here.” Peter sighed as he searched his bag for his journal, the one that held all his personal thoughts and feelings. Ned had tried to help him look but the mission was futile.

“It will turn up. Maybe you just left it on the bus.”

Peter nodded and sighed heavily, zipping his backpack up and throwing it back on his shoulders. He spotted a nice little souvenir for Morgan and paid for it before leaving the small store. He took a moment to look around where they had stopped since the rest of the group were taking their time and as he got closer to a small empty bathroom he could hear the sound of someone crying.

He gently knocked on the door to make sure that whoever it was was okay before being sharply told to go away. Peter felt even worse as he recognised your voice. He wondered what had happened since she’d been fine when he last saw her.

“y/n?”

“Peter just leave me alone, please.” Your voice cracked as you spoke, small sniffles escaping you as you sat on the edge of the closed toilet seat.

“You know I can’t do that.” He rested his head against the door and sighed softly, willing to wait for you until you came out.

“I’m trying to make things easier for you!”

Peter hummed in confusion before something slid out from underneath the door, his journal.

“Go be with MJ.”

“Y/n no..” He sighed and resisted the urge to bang his head against the door. “I-” He didn’t even know how to explain but he did know one thing. “It doesn’t matter what it says in there. I’ve had so much fun with you on this trip and I know now that you can’t plan everything, you can’t plan falling in love because it just happens.”

As Peter spoke he realised that his words were truer than they had ever been, he was falling for you and he couldn’t stop himself. He didn’t want to stop. He didn’t care about his plan anymore and yes it still hurt when MJ was with Brad but it was nothing compared to the happiness he felt when he was with you.

The world felt silent around the both of you as Peter’s words processed. You felt even more confused than before but you could also feel something else, hope. Peter listened to your breathing and the small sniffles that still came from behind the door.

“I’m gonna head back onto the bus. I got cookies if you wanna share.”

You held back a giggle and rolled your eyes fondly before opening the bathroom door and wiping your eyes free of tears.

“They better be chocolate chip.”

“Is there any other kind?”

You and Peter both laughed as you got back on the bus, already heading to the back together to find your seats. Peter put his journal away out of sight and smiled at you, taking out the cookies he had brought and offering one to you. It did nothing to ease the ache still in your heart but it did fill your stomach and no matter what you still liked being in Peter’s company.

*~*~*~*

The hotel for Prague turned out to be a lot better than the one they had stayed in during their time in Venice. Mr Harrington said that an anonymous someone had given them an upgrade which made Peter’s Spidey senses tingle. Maybe he was just being paranoid but he also knew that things like this were usually too good to be true.

Everyone was shown to their room, all except for Peter who got held back at reception by the lady at the desk.

“He said to leave this here for you when you arrived Mr Parker.”

Peter looked at her with confusion as he took the envelope, a familiar handwriting scrawled on top. His heart suddenly felt heavy but he pushed the resurfacing feelings of grief aside and nodded, making his way up to his room.

He could hear through the door that Ned and Betty were already inside making cutesy talk while soft music played. Whilst Peter loved his friends, he wanted to go somewhere quiet and open the letter. His mind had already decided where to go as he made his way towards the room number he needed and knocked.

The door opened to reveal your beautiful smile which already made Peter feel a sense of calm. He looked around for your suit buddy and sighed in relief as the room was empty.

“Can I come in?”

You nodded without hesitation, seeing the slight pain on Peter’s face and brought him to sit down on one of the comfy twin beds. He held the letter in slightly shaky hands and kept his eyes on it. You spotted the familiar logo on the envelope, the same that was on Peter’s glasses case and realised.

“Is that from-?”

“Mhm.” Peter nodded, keeping his lips in a tight thin line as he contemplated opening it. His mind was running a mile a minute with so many thoughts. He’d gotten the glasses from Tony and that was enough for him even if the card had been a bit of a riddle. He wasn’t sure if he could handle a letter too.

“Can you open it?” Peter looked at you pleadingly as he handed you the letter, his hands still visibly shaking. You hesitated before nodding and carefully opened the envelope, reading the letter aloud.

Dear Peter,

I’m writing this in case all goes well and we manage to restore normality, at least what once was. I know you’re going to do great things and maybe you’ll make mistakes along the way but that’s part of being human kid. God knows I made more than I can count.

I wanted to make your senior year as awesome as it should be so if you’re reading this then you made it kid. I don’t remember much of my last year of high school but I wanted to make sure you did so make the most of it and don’t worry about any extracurriculars on your trip.

I know you’ll make me proud Peter cause you already do. Now go have fun and don’t do anything I would do or anything I wouldn’t do. Remember the little grey area is where you operate.

Anonymous someone.

Peter laughed and sniffled as you finished, wiping his eyes as tears had started to fall. You quickly put the letter down and wrapped your arms around him, hugging him close.

“It’s okay.”

He nodded against your shoulder as a few more tears fell, his fingers clinging onto your sweater. Peter wasn’t sure whether to smile or cry more at the words from his mentor so he did both. He reread the letter again and again that night, feeling the weight on his heart ease. Tony had upgraded his class trip for him probably through Happy to make sure Peter had a nice time and he had also said he was proud of him. That hit Peter the most and it was what he needed to hear in that moment.

You both stayed like that for a few minutes as Peter’s breathing calmed, his tears reducing to sniffles. You rubbed his back comfortingly and played with his curls which seemed to relax Peter more as he stayed in your arms.

When you both pulled away neither was sure of what to say. Peter focused on clearing his face of tears and running a hand through his messy curls whilst you played with the sleeves of your sweater. You wished you could ask Peter to stay the night, after all your roommate for the trip had gone home with food poisoning.

Little did you know Peter was thinking the same thoughts, knowing Ned and Betty would probably still be in his room or go to hers. Sometimes they spooned and stayed up till late hours of the night talking, he wasn’t sure he could deal with that right now and he liked being in your company.

“Do you want to-?”

“Can I-?”

You both laughed as you spoke over each other, exchanging a back and forth argument of who should speak first. Peter insisted you speak and gave you a small smile.

You nodded and took a deep breath before looking into those familiar warm, honey coloured eyes. “Do you want to stay here tonight? There’s two beds and I heard there’s a Star Wars Marathon on tv.”

Peter’s smile widened, his eyes crinkling with happiness as he nodded. “I’d love to.”

The night passed by in a blur as you and Peter stayed up to watch his favourite movies, even having ordered some food from room service which had apparently also been covered by Stark industries. Just like in Venice, you laughed and joked and enjoyed each other’s company, smiling as you saw Peter enjoying himself.

There was still a hurt from earlier knowing how much he had wanted to be with MJ and you knew they would work together as a couple, you’d seen them in decathlon together but MJ seemed to be enjoying time with Brad and Peter was here with you. A warm flutter of butterflies exploded in your stomach as you met his gaze, he offered his warm smile and offered you some of his popcorn to which you nodded.

Maybe your chance wasn’t so dead after all.

Just as you were about to wind down for the night, it being way past midnight, Peter looked at you with a hesitant smile.

“Hey Y/n?”

You looked up at him in response, picking up some popcorn from your competition to see who could throw and catch the most in their mouths (Peter had won).

“I- um would you-” Peter stuttered over his words as they got caught on his tongue. He cleared his throat and you bit back a smile at how utterly cute he was. “There’s this big carnival tomorrow and I was hoping maybe w-we could go together?”

His cheeks flushed pink as he finally asked the question he’d been dying to ask all night, his eyes too scared to look at your reaction.

“Peter,” You walked over and cupped his cheeks, forcing him to look at you. He relaxed at seeing the wide smile on your face. “I would love to go with you.”

His smile widened to match yours and a wave of relief washed over him. “That’s great.” He gave a chuckle and blushed as you delicately kissed his cheek before getting into your bed for the night.

“Just to make sure I meant like a date.” Peter clarified, worried about getting put into the friendzone.

You giggled and smiled at him from your bed. “I know Pete. It’s a date.” You winked at him before turning off the light and laying back, ready to fall asleep with a wide smile on your face.

Peter smiled wide as he laid in bed, the sheets and mattress softer than the last one he had slept on. Everything finally seemed to be falling into place, it wasn’t as Peter had imagined but it was far better.

*~*~*~*~*~*

The next morning Peter woke up feeling more refreshed than he had felt in a long time. The sun was shining over Prague and even Peter felt brighter in himself. He looked over at your bed and smiled as he found you still asleep, snoring softly.

Peter’s whole heart leapt at the sight and he let out a happy sigh as he thought about last night. You had comforted him and held him and had even agreed to go on a date with him tonight. He felt like the luckiest human alive which made him want to do a little dance in his bed as he thought about it.

“What are you doing?”

Peter blushed and looked over to see that you were now awake and looking at him with an amused smile.

“Uh nothing.” He laughed and got out of bed, gathering the letter and his shoes. You giggled as you watched him accidentally grab your sneakers before switching them for his own. “I better get going. Don’t want Mr Harrington to call an emergency buddy meeting again.”

You laughed and agreed with a nod, remembering the last one at the airport when Mr Harrington had panicked the whole group when he thought Ned had gone missing only to see he was right behind him.

Peter smiled at you as he opened the door, “I’ll see you later?”

You nodded and smiled wide, “Don’t be late Parker.”

He shook his head and laughed as he left, an unwavering smile on his face as he headed back to his room. Peter didn’t notice Flash see him leave your room with a smile and his shoes in hand nor the phone recording him.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Peter took a deep breath as he stood in front of the mirror, brushing down his shirt as he bit his lip. “I’m not sure.”

Ned sighed and flopped back onto his bed. “Peter, this is the 7th shirt you’ve tried on! You look fine!” He knew as soon as he uttered the last word that Peter would rummage through his suitcase yet again for the perfect shirt.

10 minutes later, Peter was finally ready for his date, much to Ned’s relief. He watched as Peter gave himself a pep talk in the mirror, mumbling in the hopes Ned couldn’t hear him.

“Okay here’s the plan-”

Ned was just about to tell Peter enough with his plans before the door opened and MJ walked in.

“Hey losers.”

“Have you ever heard of knocking?” Ned looked at her and raised his brow. MJ shrugged in response and sat down on Peter’s vacant bed. She looked at him as he turned back to the mirror and tried to tame his messy curls.

“So you and Y/n huh?” MJ noted with a smirk, stealing some of the gummy worms that Peter had brought for the trip. He turned around so quickly, he almost got whiplash.

“What?! I-” Peter was at a loss for words, he knew news spread quickly at Midtown but how had anyone found out in one night. “We’re not really a thing yet.” He blushed and avoided his friends’ gazes.

“Oh really? Then why did Flash see you leave her room last night in the same clothes as yesterday.” MJ smirked again and threw a gummy worm at Peter who looked at her with wide eyes.

“I just- I stayed in her room last night.” He admitted, his cheeks burning red as Ned and MJ didn’t look convinced. “But nothing happened!”

Ned and MJ shared a sympathetic look as they saw Peter’s distress grow at the rumor. He picked up his phone and panicked as he saw the midtown gossip website showing a video of him leaving your room. Before he could panic anymore Peter quickly made his way to the other side of the hotel floor and banged on Flash’s door.

“Woah penis what-?”

“Take it down.” Peter didn’t disguise his anger as Flash opened the door.

“What?”

“The video you took last night Flash. Please take it down.” Peter lowered his voice and pleaded. He knew this would affect you as soon as you saw it and the last thing he wanted was for you to get hurt because of him. Not again.

“Why? Don’t want everyone to know you’re not a virgin anymore?” Flash smirked and laughed before noticing the anger grow once more on Peter’s face. “The video’s out of my control. Sorry dude.”

Flash closed the door, not sounding sorry at all. Peter sighed and leaned against the wall, resting his head back. Everywhere around him classmates were getting ready for the carnival, whispering behind his back and giving him looks, he wasn’t sure if they were impressed looks or disgusted ones but either way he didn’t like them.

Peter usually lied low so he could avoid things like this and stay out of the rumor mill. He hated rumors and he hated being a part of them even more. Just as he was contemplating messaging Happy to see if he could do something, he heard a door open and looked up.

You walked out of your room, looking as beautiful as ever and Peter swear his heart almost dropped out of his stomach at the sight as the butterflies ran rampant in his stomach. You looked around before catching his gaze and smiling.

“Hey Pete.”

For a moment, Peter forgot how to form words, too focused on how beautiful you looked as you smiled. His throat felt dry and his hands felt clammy to the touch.

“H-hi.” He finally managed to say, his heart racing as you smiled wider and giggled.

“I was just coming to meet you. Are you ready to go?”

Peter thought back to the video circulating his classmates phones and he assumed you hadn’t seen it. He knew he should’ve told you there and then but he didn’t want to ruin your date or hurt you so he kept his lips sealed.

He nodded and gave you a small smile, heading out of the hotel with you. Your hands touched briefly as you walked and Peter almost took your hand in his before pulling away as he chickened out. You tried not to show your disappointment and offered Peter a smile.

The streets of Prague were full of life and celebration, everyone wearing bright colours and dancing along the streets as loud music played. Peter allowed himself to be distracted at the joy of the city before your hand slipped into his, catching him by surprise.

You gave his hand a squeeze and smiled, “So we don’t lose each other.” It was partially the truth but you mostly just wanted to hold his hand. Peter smiled and nodded but you could tell something was wrong.

It wasn’t just the rumour mill that was getting to Peter, the loud noises and brightness was causing his heightened senses to overload. He began to feel on edge and his palms grew even sweatier than before.

“Peter are you okay?”

He looked at you and bit his lip, shaking his head slowly. You squeezed his hand comfortingly and nodded, seemingly understanding what needed to be done as you led him over to the Ferris wheel.

Peter sighed in relief as you and him both got seated, your hands still interlinked as the door shut to the cart you were in.

“I hate crowds too.” You admitted with a soft blush and met his gaze. Peter smiled softly and squeezed your hand like you had done to his.

The wheel moved slowly allowing you both to enjoy the moment and the sights of the city. Peter knew that he didn’t need to fill the silence or try to talk, you were just there for each other as you had been last night and the whole trip.

Music from the streets filled the silence of the night as you and Peter looked out at the stars glittering in the night sky. It was right as you reached the peak of the wheel that Peter finally broke the silence.

“I really like you Y/n.”

You blushed and turned to Peter, noticing the redness of his cheeks and the staggered breaths escaping his lips. He looked straight ahead for a few moments before he felt your hand grip tighter onto his and saw your smile from the corner of his eye.

“I really like you too Peter.”

He smiled wide, mirroring yours before noticing your face fall just as fast.

“But I don’t want to be second best.”

Peter’s heart broke at her words, knowing she was thinking back to his journal. He shook his head and quickly cupped your cheeks in his hands, meeting your gaze lovingly.

“You’re not second best Y/n. You never were and you never will be. The truth is I’ve always liked you but I just- I never thought I would be lucky enough to have a chance with you.”

You smiled at the genuinity in Peter’s voice and his warm brown eyes that pulled you in ever closer until your lips were almost touching. “Always liked me huh?”

Peter nodded and smiled wide, the blush on his cheeks becoming brighter as he looked down at your lips.

“C-can I kiss you?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

You smiled as Peter’s lips finally met your own, after years of pining and wondering what if. Peter’s lips were soft and tasted like the cotton candy you had shared earlier. Your lips were sweeter than Peter had ever imagined, if that was possible.

Neither of you wanted the kiss to end but you could feel the need for air increasing in your lungs. You were the first one to pull back, catching your breath as you leaned your forehead against Peter’s. He chuckled softly and smiled so wide that his eyes crinkled.

“Woah.”

You nodded and pecked his lips once more with a giggle. The blush on your cheeks was rivalling Peter’s now as you noticed the ride was soon coming to an end. Peter looked disappointed before quickly paying for another ride.

“I hope you did that so you can kiss me again.” You smiled coyly and looped your arms around Peter’s neck.

“Maybe.” He shrugged and laughed before leaning in to kiss you again but this time he hesitated as he saw the looks from some of his classmates. The reminder hitting him like a train.

“Pete? What’s wrong?” Your fingers played with the curls at the nape of his neck as the wheel started to move again. Peter visibly gulped and his mood fell as he looked back at you.

“There’s something I have to tell you.”

You bit your lip in worry and nodded, having a feeling you knew what Peter was going to say.

“Pete I know.”

“You do?”

You giggled and nodded again, kissing his cheek and leaning in close. Peter blushed and looked guilty, his eyes avoiding yours.

“You being Spider-Man doesn’t bother me.”

Peter’s blood ran cold and he quickly shifted away, laughing in pretend disbelief. “I-What?! No. I-I’m not Spider-Man!”

You looked knowingly at him and rubbed his arm, taking his hand back in yours. “Peter it’s okay, i think it’s cool.” You smiled but Peter still sat in denial, shaking his head.

“I-” He gulped and sighed, biting his lip. “Is it that obvious?”

“No but I’ve had a crush on your for a while now and I’m not dumb Peter. The glasses and the letter from Iron Man. And then there was Washington. I just know you Peter.” You blushed and fidgeted with your hands, feeling embarrassed to admit your crush even though you had only kissed him 5 seconds ago.

Peter smiled, finding it endearing that you knew him and had paid attention to him all this time. He leaned back in close to you and rested his hand on yours.

“Oh my god!” You gasped, laughing as Peter was taken aback at your exclamation. “I’m dating a freaking superhero!” You giggled with Peter before kissing him again. The kiss was even more perfect than the last as your lips began to learn and memorise each other.

*~*~*~*~*

The carnival livened up even more as the night went on. The music became louder and the people got more drunk, something that might have made Peter annoyed but nothing could ruin his mood right now. He could still taste the sweetness of your lips on his and he just couldn’t get enough.

You giggled as Peter kissed your lips again after winning you a gigantic teddy bear. He smiled wide and giggled with you, the sound like music to your ears. You hugged the bear tight to your chest after choosing to name it Spidey which made Peter blush.

“This is so amazing.” You remarked as you took a moment to enjoy the scenery surrounding you. Peter sat with you on a nearby bench and nodded, hesitantly wrapping his arm around you. He smiled as you leaned into his side with a happy sigh. The moment was perfect and Peter was sure nothing could ruin it.

You jumped a little as your phone buzzed before pulling it from your pocket. Peter smiled to himself as he saw Spider-Man was the wallpaper on your phone. You blushed and tried to quickly hide it as you opened the message from Betty.

Peter turned his eyes towards the street to give you some privacy, the last thing he wanted you to think was that he was reading your texts (again).

He only looked back at you as you slowly pulled away from his arms, clutching your phone in your hands and only then did Peter notice that Betty had sent you the video of him leaving your room last night. You were scrolling through the comments and Peter saw that amongst the nice or gossiping comments that were hurtful ones calling you names.

“Y/n I-”

You shook your head and bit your lip, quickly locking your phone. You noticed a group of girls from your class staring at you and giggling, whispering in each other's ears.

“I have to go.” You sniffled as you grabbed your bag and quickly walked back to the hotel, ignoring Peter’s calls of your name. He sighed and tried to chase after you but within seconds he had lost you in the crowd and maybe for good this time.

Taglist:

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Vacation taglist - @dragon-princess-21 @letssee2468 @lolooo22 @justwantstosleep @kickingn-ames @youvebeenlizzed

[frankics]

hello  all  you  lovely  lovely  people  !  thanks  again  for  applying  to  this  rp,  you  have  NO  idea  how  excited  i  am  to  get  this  going.  i’m  lily,  i’m  newly  20,  in  the  est  timezone  and  my  pronouns  are  she/her.  i  love  trash  tv,  my  puppies,  and  the  collected  works  of  the  greatest  band  in  history  (one  direction).  this  is  my  trash  daughter  frankie,  she  truly  belongs  in  the  garbage  but  i  love  her  so  much.  below  the  cut  is  my  long  ass  intro  for  her,  i  forgive  you  if  you  don’t  read  it  all  because  looking  at  it  now  i  wouldn’t  want  to  either  !  anyway,  if  you’re  interested  in  plotting  with  me  and  frankie,  hmu  on  discord  and  you  can  check  this  blog  for  some connections  i  would  love  to  see  !

( alisha boe, cisfemale, she/her, MUSE E ) — oh my god, i totally just saw FRANCESCA ARCHER walking through greenwich village! you know, she plays SKYLAR ELLIS on that new netflix show, the village? i can’t believe they’re already famous at TWENTY-ONE. i’ve watched all of their interviews, and they totally come off as IMPERTINENT and RECKLESS, but they can also be ROMANTIC and WITTY. based on their social media, i’d describe FRANKIE like ( worn out black high-tops, mischievous smiles, nails painted different colors, peach vodka, swimming in an ocean during a storm ) — totally makes sense that people call them THE SPITFIRE.

important links: bio. statistics. filmography. muse posts. social media. 

warning: death tw on the 5th bullet point!!

the frankie archer story begins in 1996, when her mother yasmiin moves from her home of somalia to brooklyn to pursue an art career. she moved into a tiny apartment halfway across the world, knowing nothing and no one, looking for inspiration. she found it in the form of lorenzo archer, her next door neighbor. they dated for two years, but neither family approved of the other as a match: yasmiin’s family wanted her to return to somalia, and lorenzo’s roman catholic family were not pleased about their son selecting a non-catholic woman. but lorenzo and yasmiin didn’t care, and got married at new york city hall with the court appointed witness. two weeks later, yasmiin was pregnant with frankie. 

francesca simone archer was born on june 9, 1999. she is a gemini sun, a scorpio moon, and an aries rising. she was named francesca for her grandmother on the paternal side, and simone after nina simone, the singer that was playing on lorenzo’s record player when they first met. her two siblings, nala archer and zahi archer, were born in 2001 and 2003 respectively. 

her childhood is generally quite happy. lorenzo and yasmiin were born to be parents and they love frankie, nala, and zahi endlessly, the type of supportive love that makes children thrive. frankie possesses a natural wit and excels academically, nala is the star athlete, and zahi is a wizard with watercolor. frankie loves the movies and decides she wants to be an actress when she grows up, so lorenzo and yasmiin enroll her in acting classes and improv camps. things chug along in the archer family beautifully. 

that is, until frankie gets a high school scholarship to packer collegiate institute, located in the affluent neighborhood of brooklyn heights. she takes it, of course, with her parents’ full support. but she is nothing like anyone else who attends packer, and for a 14 year old who wants to blend in, that is the worst possible thing. she is suddenly, painfully aware of her worn-out clothes, her used books, her strange mother with paint stains on her bleached out jeans. frankie lashes out, screaming and storming off and slamming doors. she and her mother are hurricanes and the rest of the family simply battens down the hatches. one day when frankie is 15, she tells her mother that this family is her worst nightmare. it is the last words she will ever speak to her mother. 

a few hours after, the archers get a call that yasmiin has been in an accident. it was a hit and run: a drunk driver t-boned her, and they’re rushing her to the hospital. when the family arrives, the doctors break the news that yasmiin is comatose and that things aren’t looking good. lorenzo refuses to take her off life support, insisting she’ll recover. she is in a coma for nearly a year and a half before he is convinced to pull the plug. 

and now, the part of the frankie archer story that everyone knows, the serendipitous hollywood beginning. she’s just a charming, talented, grieving, all-american girl from brooklyn, heading off to juilliard in the fall. on her 18th birthday, the first one spent without her mother, she attends an open call for a role in an indie film called thursday mourning. she thinks it’ll be a fun way to spend the day, or at least distracting enough. and then she gets the fucking part. 

long story short, the film blows up. it’s shown at venice, winning the golden lion and a prize for frankie as the most promising young actor in the festival. it’s nominated for four oscars, including a best supporting actress nom for frankie. she doesn’t win, but it’s created a path for her to do whatever she wants, acting-wise. she does three more films in the next two years, gaining a reputation as an indie darling before realizing that indie films don’t make all that much money. 

and she needs money, because her father is drowning in hospital bills from yasmiin’s death that he can’t pay. that’s when the offer comes through from her agent: a starring role in an ensemble cast netflix show called the village. she’s planning on throwing the script away. she’s not interested in any television show, much less a teen drama. she’s a serious actress and she certainly doesn’t want to be the next veronica lodge, made fun of on the internet by strangers with discerning taste. but with a little coaxing from her agent, she reads the script, and the role is good, the writing strong. so she takes the village, even though she wants to do movies more, even though she might get memed into oblivion. one episode will halve her father’s debt. 

frankie was tapped for the village because while she’s definitely not as famous as some of her other castmates, nor does she have the hollywood background, she has consistently received acclaim for her performances. the producers think it will bring them some clout with the critics, and she has a sterling reputation as a hard worker on set.

so that’s the basic bio of frankie! now onto her personality >:-)

first of all, and most importantly, if you call her francesca you are DEAD.

frankie’s described by the media as a spitfire, and she definitely lives up to that description. she’s not particularly patient with interviews or paparazzi, she has a nasty mouth and an acerbic sense of humor, and to the general public she probably comes across as quite guarded and private about her life. she got into this business to be an actress, not a celebrity. 

nevertheless, if she wanted to be a celebrity, she could probably be a pretty beloved one. frankie has a very charismatic, charming way about her, that probably lets her get away with more in the public eye than she should. there’s just something about that hollywood story that makes people relate to her and root for her. 

the number one defining characteristic of frankie is her passion. she throws herself intensely into everything she does, feels emotions too vividly, fights for what she wants. she cares so much about everything. acting is her main passion, her forever love. it’s why she’s so good at what she does: she’s not the most talented, she doesn’t have the most training, but she feels so intensely. it also makes her very emotional (classic cancer!) if you’re close with her

also because of this passion, she’s probably the most competitive person you’ll ever meet in your entire life. she’s like, slightly insane about it? she wants to win everything, but she hates losing even more than she likes winning. she’s the type to throw a tiny tantrum if she loses a game of uno. 

frankie’s always been bold, likes to live life on the edge, but it became something much uglier after her mother’s death. she’s reckless to the nth degree: doing her own stunts, drinking and partying the night away. she’s not suicidal, but in some ways, it’s like she doesn’t have a huge regard for her own life. 

in her private life, frankie is pretty different. it’s not so much that her negative qualities disappear -- she still swears like a sailor and is less than patient. but rather, the flaws become less apparent when you get to know her. she’s sort of a goofy little marshmallow wearing a giant suit of spiky armor. 

one of the most loyal people you will ever meet, because she throws herself headlong into friendships and relationships. she’s sort of an all or nothing type gal, so if you befriend frankie expect it to be a very close relationship whether you like it or not. 

she is kind of the crazy friend? she’s baby? like she’s absolutely the person who’s encouraging everyone else to do dumb shit, and she’s always coming up with ridiculous ideas and pranks. side note give frankie a prank buddy on set!

she’s really quite witty. she absolutely loves twitter, which is basically the only glimpse the general public would get as to who frankie is in private. her twitter filled with her dumb jokes and random thoughts. in another life, she might have been a twitter comic.

she is a hopeless romantic, which she will never admit to anyone in the world unless it’s layered under 100 miles of sarcasm. the only relationship she’s really ever known is her parents’ relationship, and they were madly in love til the bitter end. she desperately wants something like that, but hasn’t quite found it. she’s been in exactly one pr relationship, but nothing particularly real or long-lasting.

she loves fashion. her mother taught her to sew and she sketches and makes some of her own clothes. her absolute dream is to collab with a designer on a fashion line: some of her favorite labels are marc jacobs, jean paul-gaultier, sies marjan, and moschino! she’s also had a lot of positive press for her red carpet looks. 

she has a dog, who she loves more than anything! his name is duke, he’s a staffie rescue, and she brings him on set frequently. she’s lobbying to get him cast as someone’s dog. 

she’s playing skylar ellis on the village, and because this is literally so long you can find some info about skylar at these links: statistics, muse posts, social media. i haven’t finished writing her entire bio yet but here’s the rundown: skylar appears to everyone like the pretty princess who has everything she could ever want. her parents are rich, she’s beautiful and smart, and she has a perfect relationship with phillip. but on the inside, she’s drowning. her dad wants her to take over the family company but she wants to be a writer, and the worst part is that she’s good at writing and horrible at business! she’s always been content to go with the flow (aka, what her parents want) because things are good in her life, but after her encounter with james over the summer, she’s realizing that she is completely trapped in a life she doesn’t want in the least. now she’s a conflicted mess of emotion trying to figure out what to do. 

[wahbegan]

The Scary Asylum Trope (From Somebody Who’s Been Committed)

I can’t help but feel that the very loud and righteous voices of people with the best of intentions....who also have no idea what the fuck they’re talking about often overshadow those with a more nuanced and realistic view of the world because they’ve been through the shit. Especially on this site. In the real world, of course, both are drowned out by the man who both has bad intentions AND no idea what he’s talking about, but either way, the fact remains: people with first-hand experience of the ugliness of society saying shit nobody wants to hear, especially shit that makes the world a bit more morally grey and a bit more frightening than anyone would like to deal with are never listened to. 

 Although it’s often overlooked, I think we can all agree that the mentally ill and substance-addicted are among the most cast-off and overlooked members of society. Junkheads and crazies are already struggling to survive and nobody wants to give them a job, get too close to them, give them money, have them wandering the streets or coming into their businesses. Unlike other forms of oppression, one of the most insidious things about this is it’s opposed by almost nobody. “Don’t give that guy money, he’s a crackhead”, “stay away from that bum, she’s not right in the head, she’s dangerous”, “we can’t give you a job because of your history with substance abuse”, none of these statements are remotely controversial with the vast majority of people. A lot of people get angry when you say they should be or even suggest the mentally ill (not disabled, mind you, just ill) or addicted are even oppressed by society at all. Addicts, particularly. The general consensus is they ARE dangerous, they DO do illegal shit, they ARE unpredictable and unable to work reliably or have an interpersonal relationship with you, and most importantly...they brought this on themselves. This, of course, brings us to that great garbage bin of society’s dregs, the mental hospital.

Okay, so a bit of background. In Senior Year of college, I was alcoholic, cartoonishly depressed, and trying to deal with vague, unspecified shit that may have been trauma or a personality disorder or something I do not know, all I have ever been officially been diagnosed with is depression, but that doesn’t cover everything. I don’t know to this day exactly what’s wrong with me and I’ve gotten too old and used to it to really care enough to speculate. But long story short, one night I got too mouthy about a suicide attempt as I often do...to be honest, I think my crippling fear of the oblivion i believe follows death tends to manifest as loudly telegraphing my intentions to commit so that I have a chance to wake up even if I don’t chicken out at the last second...but anyway. My friend Vanessa came by my door and helped me down out of the home-made belt noose in my closet, and the cops were called. Cue being taken away in a cop car in handcuffs and 96 hours in a mental hospital without ANYONE believing any of my attempts to defend myself or even being put before a judge how’s that for due process ladies and gentlemen?

I won’t say what hospital I was in due to all the horrible shit I’m about to say about its character, but I WILL say when i first got there, many a joke was made about a then very topical certain someone who was known as a whistleblower and/or traitor depending on where you fall on the political spectrum who leaked a bunch of CIA and NSA shit. Oh, yeah, completely unrelated, did I mention I went to the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, VA? Just a fun tidbit.

Anyway, I know this is slow in getting to the point, so let’s cut to the meat of the thing. From Outlast (the good one), to Arkham Asylum, to Silence of the Lambs, Session 9, Halloween, to House on Haunted Hill (the bad but enjoyable one), to that story some kid in grade school and/or your older sister wouldn’t shut the fuck up about that had an escaped mental patient who apparently the staff had deemed wise to give a pirate hook for a hand, the common consensus is: mental hospitals are fucking scary. More specifically, crazy people are fucking scary.

In recent years, as we’ve all grown a little more compassionate and people give the mentally ill at least a few months or years before they decide your shit is too much for them to deal with and throw you out like a leper, there’s been very strong pushback against this. Particularly on places like tumblr and other random blogs and op eds around the internet. It’s easy to see why. Dehumanizing the mentally ill is not only offensive to people who CAN actually generally understand and remember what you say about us, thank you very much, it’s just lazy. People like Michael Myers (no not that one the scary one) and Joker, who would NEVER see the inside of a hospital due to their clear intelligence and control over their actions, are thrown in an asylum as a cheap plot device, and classifying a character as crazy lets you ignore pesky little things like “character motivation” and “consistent characterization in general, fuckwit”. People may even praise your character for lacking those things if they’re cuh-RAZY enough. Again, Michael Myers (still not that one) and Joker.

I’m a huge fan of the pushback against the escaped mental patient with a hook trope. Having been a mental patient myself, I can assure you that almost all ANYONE wants to break out of that shit hole to do is get some good fucking food, sleep in a real bed, and pork their significant other. Mr. Pirate Hook, in a realistic version of that story, may have jumped the teen lovers for their car just to drive it to the liquor store and then his girlfriend’s house.

The problem is, and this is the main point of this giant fucking essay, that there is now also considerable related pushback against asylums being scary places. Ironically enough, this is coming not mainly from certifiable and dangerous-to-themselves-or-others type people. This pushback is coming from very well-meaning young adults with anxiety disorders and/or depressive episodes who are very sweet and god bless them I just know for a fact have never EVER seen the inside of one of these fucking places. It is coming from people who don’t want asylums to be seen as scary places because they want the mentally ill to want to go to them. To help them, ostensibly, but a tiny little cynical “fuck everyone” part of me thinks it’s more like to sweep their mess into someone else’s room so they don’t have to fucking handle it.

Now, before I continue, let me stress that the place I was in was a bit renowned for being a terrible shit hole. I’m sure my experience would have been a lot nicer at a suburban 50k a day mansion rehab for celebrities in the hills of Los Angeles. You don’t condemn all hotels in the world because of one particularly traumatic stay at the bumblefuck nowhere clown motel next to the old graveyard (yes that is a real thing), right? And unlike hotels, there’s no such thing as an asylum critic. A lot of people do NEED to be hospitalized for safety, and a lot of people DO, through one method or another, find themselves better off by the end of their stay. And I’m sure the go-to solution for any and all of life’s problems isn’t “tranq them in the ass and throw them in an isolation room��� in EVERY hospital. But I get a sneaking suspicion it’s most of them. With that disclaimer out of the way, let’s continue.

Mental hospitals are the most terrifying fucking places in the world. Every time one of my well-meaning friends who’s never been committed says they think a brief hospital stint would do me good, I want to throw a blender at their fucking head. Every one of your relatively well-adjusted but probably on an anti-depressant or anxiety meds guidance counselor and social workers friends will list their good qualities until they’re blue in the face and tell you it’s not at all like the movies and there’s nothing to be scared of. It’s not like the movies, most of the time. Not exactly. But that resort and bond with people who have been through the same thing as you and time to work on yourself and group therapy and art class pitch they sell you on? Yeah, it’s bullshit.

Let’s continue with my story. When I was brought in from the main hospital, they first sent me to acute. I’ve been to county jail, and I’ve been to the acute treatment (read: high risk/high security) wing in an asylum, and I would pick county. Every fucking time. Bless her heart, my patient and long-suffering girlfriend at the time, who had been by my side for the whole process, was sitting next to me and holding my hand as they did the intake survey. They were at least compassionate enough or smart enough to know I would be a lot more placid and manageable with her around to let her stay for the intake process. Outside, the hallway was dark, one guy was on a prison-style wall-mounted phone, some dudes were playing cards, a woman was wandering up and down the hallway....and up and down and up and down and up and down the hallway. And from somewhere, someone was screaming. Not words. Just...screaming. Nobody seemed to do anything about it, see what she was screaming about. I don’t know if it was agony, misery, or fury. Maybe some combination of the three. On and on and on, with breaks seemingly only to get her breath back. I was in the acceptance stage at this point, and was busy shutting down emotional channels one by one and going into survival mode, steeling myself for my stay, but my girlfriend at the time...she looked terrified and broken-hearted. The thought of her leaving a loved one in this windowless pit (this wing, you see, was underground) destroyed her. I could tell. It would me, if I were in her situation. It is a traumatizing situation to be in. There’s no way out, nobody believes anything you say unless you tell them the worst, you can see that woman out in the hall passing back and forth and back in forth in the door window, and someone is screaming like she’s in Hell. Maybe she was.

The screaming was when I first realized an ugly truth and my morals were shaken into a grey zone: people who are mentally ill can be pretty fucking scary. Even if they’re harmless. I never saw that woman or found out why she was screaming. But in that moment, I desperately feared her and hoped I would never find out. It’s easy now for me to look back on her with compassion and pity and feel ashamed for my reaction, wish I could have helped her, but then...I was already in a fragile place. She scared me. And this leads to the next conclusion, even worse. You scare other people, and maybe it’s understandable that they’re scared. 

I deeply repress my anger. I have never in my life been violent or had the urge to be, and I don’t plan on changing that. But my anger is repressed. It can take a lot of battering before it shows itself...but when it comes out, it’s in a sudden, explosive, deep-throat scream worthy of a jump scare in a horror movie showing a protagonist is losing his mind and can’t be trusted any more. I usually only get about half a sentence out in this way before I scare myself, my eyes go wide with horror, I clap my hands over my mouth and run out of the room crying. But by then it’s too late. I got so drunk so often I forgot huge chunks of my past and have no idea what I said or did. I emotionally wounded people. I acted unpredictably. I asked to borrow a friend’s cigarette while she was DRIVING, and casually, with no warning, ground it out on my arm. My girlfriend often found me passed out through booze or asphyxiation or covered in blood. Crazy is undeniably scarier to live with than it is to witness, and I often get frustrated when it feels like people don’t remember or fully understand that. But...that doesn’t mean witnessing it isn’t fucking horrible. People were being perfectly rational to be afraid around me. Never afraid OF me, everyone who knows me knows of my physically gentle nature (with others) and desperate desire to be a good person. But they were afraid: afraid of my behavior when I wasn’t in control, of what reckless and insane shit I might do to self-destruct and/or inadvertently hurt people around me.

Thankfully, my intake survey and a nurse who noticed my relatively normal behavior both indicated I should be in the (above-ground!) high-functioning wing, so I was quickly moved there. I never figured out who that scream belonged to. But even in high-functioning...it wasn’t much reprieve. A woman shit the bed, a man fresh out of acute regaled us with stories of getting tranqed and thrown in isolation because he had barricaded himself in his room with all his furniture and berated the orderlies as they tried to force their way in about “you should really bolt the furniture down it’s a safety risk I could be killing myself in here” because he was bored. My only friend in the wing, who I really did like quite a lot and still do even though we fell out of touch, had a roommate who was always acting like she was just on the edge of doing something fucking stupid. Once, her husband smuggled her a shaving razor, which she whipped out in front of my friend, waving it around and threatening to kill herself. When my friend alerted the orderlies, this woman put it (IN ITS CASE I always feel I should clarify) up her pussy to hide it and feigned ignorance, resulting in my friend going to isolation. No tranq though. This was the high-functioning unit, after all.

Your one-on-ones with the psychiatrist were roughly 3-5 minutes in length and consisted of medication questions and asking if you were literally going to beat your head against a wall until you died in the next 15 minutes, otherwise talk about it in group. The more you insisted to this man that you were fine and shouldn’t be here and inquired about the legal status of your incarceration and when you could be released, the worse he thought you were. 

There were times to gather and talk about feelings. There was art. Some people were very good at it. Visiting hours. But most of the time was just...sitting. Sitting, bored out of your god damned skull, so bored you might just barricade your room with all of its furniture and laugh and laugh and laugh as the orderlies try to force their way in. The patient man doesn’t need to inflict physical torture to break someone. Isolation and boredom do things to the human mind, maybe sooner, maybe later, but...up there, I said hospitals make a lot of people better. They also make a lot of people worse. Then they have to stay for longer. When they’re finally released, they don’t remember how to live in the normal world and soon end up back inside. 

Just like prison. Make no mistake, the asylum is a prison. A prison where nobody believes a god damned word that comes out of your mouth. A prison for people nobody wants to deal with. A prison where they stick you with people whose crazy does NOT fuck with your crazy and you start to think maybe people are right for not wanting to deal with you after all. That’s the worst part of negative emotional reactions to symptoms of mental illness. How god damned much they remind you of yourself. The trauma I mentioned off-hand up there was that my ex from High School may or may not have abused me it’s complicated and fuzzy i don’t remember it’s not important. What is important is a new girl came in once who casually admitted to abusing her boyfriend. I backed away slowly and retreated into a private room, where my one friend had to comfort me. Later, the class clown, Mr. Barricade Tranq-in-the-Ass, made a rape joke in front of her. A rape survivor.

Everyone’s mind breaks in very similar ways, but for very different reasons and with just different enough symptoms and fears and psychotic hatreds that there WILL be people in your unit you fucking hate, whose crazy and yours grind on each other’s gears. There will be people you are afraid of, people you’re stupidly attached to for no reason other than they’re there and nice to you.

Throwing all these people in a hole and throwing away the key does not create an environment conducive to anyone’s mental health. Then, of course, there’s the treatment. Yes, like I said, if you’re willing to petition like 5 people about it and constantly remind them, you may get some good one-on-one time. You may get some good nuggets out of group therapy. You might make nice art. Mostly, though, they cut you off from the outside world and take you away from everything you love and put you with a bunch of potentially terrifying strangers and just fucking leave ya there. To rot. 

The problem with mental hospitals is the problem they’ve always had. No, obviously nobody’s head is in a cage and they don’t electrocute and lobotomize you, but the theory is the same. They want you to stop being crazy. But first, and foremost, they want to keep you there and keep you under control. That is the primary goal. Not treatment. Keeping you there and controlled. I suppose if you consider the history of asylums it’s quite humane, but I wasn’t joking up there about the tranqs in the ass.Everything from death threats to trying to pork another patient to getting too lippy with a nurse is treated with the tried and true ass-tranq isolation room. How long will you be in there? Who knows!! Until they remember they put you in there and/or the shit that you’ve smeared on the walls starts to smell. 

And all of this leads to the most horrible conclusion of all, the kind that makes people truly lose their minds if they think about it too long in that Lovecraftian/Poe kind of way where your hair turns white: maybe there is no right way to handle mentally ill people, and if there is, we sure as fuck haven’t found it yet.

The mentally ill are oppressed and deserve compassion. Love. Support. But we can also be terrifying to the mentally well, to each other, to ourselves...and forcing all of these people into a cage they don’t want to be in with strangers who they’re irritated with and scared of who are irritated and scared right back at them and leaving them in this weird, artificially constructed, regimented society until you deem them fit to leave is....ha. Well, it’s crazy!. And it is scary. And it can and often does make people worse. 

So please, don’t...don’t say mental hospitals shouldn’t be seen as scary or shouldn’t be used in horror. By all means, do it. But do it well. Look to Outlast. See, in Outlast, the set-up is very trite. Big asylum, patients escaped and massacred the staff. But you’re there on a tip that human rights abuses and clandestine experiments were being performed. Most of the inmates are doing vaguely unnerving shit but are harmless, just like a real hospital. Some are just fucking watching TV. And the game is never satisfied with “this guy’s crazy.” Walker, the ‘UGE FUCKIN GOI who everyone’s terrified of has awful PTSD and if you listen to his idle dialogue, is always muttering about containment protocol and stopping the spread of something. And by the end of the game, you realize he might not be as crazy as he seemed, and that the patients massacring the hospital staff was completely understandable and maaaybe even a little bit their own fucking fault. One guy, in an absolutely heart-wrenching and my absolute favorite part of the game, is just sitting broken in a burning kitchen talking about how this place took everything from them because nobody cares about a few abused or dead lunatics, so he’s gonna burn the whole fucking thing down.

You know what it basically comes down to? Most of the crazy people aren’t dangerous. Some are, but the ones that are have clear motivations. Crazy ones, but motivations. Almost like........ooohhh the point emerges REAL FUCKING PEOPLE! Make villains crazy. Well, all right to be honest, it wouldn’t hurt to slow down a bit on that, but I don’t want it to stop entirely. Depict asylums as the Hellish shit holes they are. But for God’s sake, just write mentally ill people like human beings. A human being you can’t understand isn’t the same thing as a non-human. Nobody does things for NO reason at all. If you’re writing a crazy villain, don’t make him evil because he’s crazy and the symptoms of his crazy are being evil; if you’re setting something in an asylum, make sure the horror doesn’t start and end with guys in straightjackets frothing at the mouth and screaming about how they want to fuck whoever’s walking past them in the aorta. 

I don’t want the truth about us, our condition, our capacity for harming those around us, or how fucked up it is how society treats us because it has no idea what the fuck it’s doing sanitized because it’s difficult to deal with and there are no clear good guys.

[linernotesandseasons]

My 19 Favorite Albums of 2019

       2019 is coming to a close. The entire decade is coming to a close. This list has been an increasingly comforting exercise the last few years. I guess this will be the eighth annual version of the linernotesandseasons favorite albums of the year list! Crazy how time passes. So here are the collections of songs that I used to mark my personal time & space this year. The lyrics that I learned by heart & sang out in dark & dirty rock clubs. I also made a spotify playlist with two songs from each album if you’re interested in listening along as you read. 

This year most of my writing focuses on when & why I fell in love with a specific album. Sometimes the history is important, building a base or connecting some threads, so when relevant, I have also included my history with when I fell in love with a specific artist. And finally, as has become more important to my music chasing brain in the last few years, why this artist or album is important to music right now. What they’re doing to leave a mark on the world, in whatever small space or way.

So without any further ado, here it is, in no particular order (unless you’re particularly knowledgable or fond of the english alphabet) my 19 (well actually 20 cuz freaking Big Thief put out two!) favorite albums of 2019. It’s been a pleasure.

BETTER OBLIVION COMMUNITY CENTER   /   Better Oblivion Community Center

    Spring 2019 in Denver was cold & breezy, sunny & exciting. I had spun the Phoebe Bridgers/Conor Oberst match-made-in-indie-emo-sad-folk-heaven record once through, but in late March I made a game time (like I bought a day-of ticket off stubhub at 6pm!) decision to drive down from work and see their show at the Gothic on South Broadway. I’d been up since 7am the night (morning?) before, watching opening day baseball live from Japan (on March 20th?!). Ichiro’s final game and I was feeling maybe a little emotionally fragile already. But anyway… Better Oblivion Community Center’s live show (they call them meetings) has all the potential to come off as cheesy or contrived. A recorded voice welcomes you, self-help-cult style, and invites you to “celebrate sound & light” & “travel the well worn pathways,” because “we are one.” A mystical backdrop gives a hint of what you’re in for (I didn’t know what I was in for...) with letters at the top reading “It will end in tears.” The band is brilliant, loose, & fun. They play all the songs. They play “Lua,” “Bad Blood,” & “Easy/Lucky/Free” from the endlessly varied Bright Eyes catalog. They turn Phoebe’s “Funeral” into a punk blast. They cover The Replacements! They wear shades and sing a song from lawn chairs! The show feels effortlessly cool and I feel like I’m part of something special again. Music has a way of doing that.

The record is perfectly equal parts Phoebe & Conor. From the opening lines, where Phoebe takes control with “my telephone it doesn’t have a camera” sounding for all the world like a gloriously mopey “Smoke Signals Vol. 2″ to the way Oberst sings the first lines of ethereal closer “Dominoes” sounding 100% like Cassadaga-era Bright Eyes. If you know & love either, you should know the other now. Phoebe carries a torch from early 2000′s emo with a sad-at-heart, genius songwriting style that emphasizes pinpoint autobiographical lyrics, a cutting, (even humorous at times) wit, and a teenage, feminist, internet, millennial heart. Oberst for his part has kept up a steady output since Bright Eyes, and (at least lyrically) doesn’t seemed to have cheered up much. Better Oblivion Community Center’s self titled debut feels fresh & catchy. While there is definitely an aching sadness in the duo’s songwriting, light hearted moments abound, and the writing often points to getting older, all hard work & growth. There is the bouncing outro to “Sleepwalkin’” where their voices rise in unison singing “Acting insane, playing it safe, I wasn’t sold on that plan anyways. Feeling afraid of making a change.” Or in the bright, rolling verses of “My City” where they go looking for “little moments of purpose.” But the one song I kept going back to; the one I recorded to cassette tape and played on almost every drive home from work at 4am through April & May, is the bittersweet closer “Dominoes.” Ironically, this one is a Taylor Hollingsworth cover (I think that’s him adding the random, spooky voice overs) but Conor takes the lead on vocals, singing a mostly lonely, hopeless tale, until the last verse when Phoebe cuts in. She’s “carpooling to kingdom come, into the wild purgatory.” Encouraging us to “Experience a magic rainbow, all you gotta’ do is follow. & if you’re not feeling ready… There’s always tomorrow.”

    “The world will not remember when we’re old & tired / We’ll be blowing on the embers of a little fire…”

BIG THIEF   /   U.F.O.F. & Two Hands

       2019 was the year that I finally finally got really really into Big Thief. A band’s band known for their live show (I still have yet to see them live) their following seems equal parts cult-y and universal. How a band that sounds the way they do, made it almost to the top of the indie-rock world is an exciting & inviting mystery.

This year, for me, the catalyst was “Cattails.” Released at the beginning of April, this song struck me and stuck with me, making its way onto almost every mix I made last Spring, Summer, & Fall (including this one for my Mom!) A real song of the year contender (& my #1 most listened to song of 2019 on spotify!), “Cattails” is a melodic, driving, beautiful tune, that finds singer & front person Adrienne Lenker marking Time (”riding that train in late June”) & Space (”going back home to the great lakes”) with grace & depth. There is a sacredness & mysticism tied up in a lot of Lenker’s writing and she refers to her writing experience with “Cattails” saying…

“It was one of those electric, multicolored waves of connectivity just sweeping through my body. I stayed up late finishing the song and the next morning was stomping around playing it over & over again. We thought why not just record it … & when James and I were playing it felt like a little portal in the fabric had opened and we were just flying. Listening back to it makes me cry sometimes.”

In truth, U.F.O.F. (the last f stands for “friend,” a way of humanizing the foreign) is a gorgeous record. Soft & gentle, full of songs about the constant tussle between things known & unknown. A real headphones-on-an-airplane record. And then, out of nowhere, Big Thief announced that they had a second (!) record on the way in the Fall. A dirt & earth twin for U.F.O.F., a special surprise gift for their burgeoning fan base. They announced Two Hands with the vicious single “Not,” a song very unlike “Cattails.” A brooding, ravenous rock song that made me remember why I love unhinged, well-written, unafraid rock & roll music. Another song of the year contender. If you’ve followed this blog the last few months, my well thought out comments to “Not” were “ohhhhhhhhhhhhh shit” & “oh my holy shit.” to the live version! But it was actually the second track on Two Hands that solidified Big Thief’s greatness for me. “Forgotten Eyes” is sonically similar to “Cattails” and rides the same effortless rhythm, driven by Lenker’s repeating guitar riff and James Krivchenia’s consistently impressive drumming. The riff seems to fall in & out magically, and the writing bookends “Cattails” with lyrics that speak to both a great pain & a great universal truth. While she wanders through homelessness & death, Lenker reflects beautifully on the life cycle we (& our planet, & maybe everything?) are all going through.

    “Forgotten dance is the one left at birth / Forgotten plants in the fossils of earth / & they’ve long passed but they are no less the dirt / Of the common soil keeping us dry & warm / The wound has no direction / Everybody needs a home & deserves protection…”

BLACK BELT EAGLE SCOUT   /   At the Party With My Brown Friends

    After finding Black Belt Eagle Scout’s debut album late last year, I soundtracked many a dusk, dawn, or midnight drive with her swirling vocals & entrancing guitar, usually in the cold & dark, through the early part of 2019. It made my 2018 favorites list, and her Larimer Lounge show in May was a highlight. I guess it makes sense then, that I didn’t truly fall for her sophomore album At the Party With My Brown Friends (released in August) until it got cold in November and I was able to take it out for some dark, snowy drives. Moody & serious at times, Black Belt Eagle Scout sounds every bit like the gray Pacific Northwest where front person Katherine Paul (KP) hails from. The lyrics are simple, repeating phrases, full of deep, important ideas. Family & friends. People & land. There are bursts of guitar coming out of rewarding slow builds, shredd-y, rhythmic, & melodic. Also, all the instruments on ATPWMBF are played by KP, and the drumming is fucking fantastic.

I have some sort of longer form writing building somewhere in the back of my mind about listening to music in cars, and both Black Belt Eagle Scout albums are perfect examples for that. I have always loved the feeling of having roads (highways or simply long straight dirt back roads) & music to listen to. In high school, we would sometimes get in the car simply to drive & listen to music (small town life ya know?) and I still relish any chance I get to take new (or old & long loved) songs & albums on road trips or just commutes around town. The time to sit with the songs, to focus on nothing but the words & melodies, instruments & voices, & the pull of the road, mystical & magical. Black Belt Eagle Scout’s songs have been a calming companion on a lot of drives over the last year, and I recommend you taking them out on a spin of your own. Drive to that coffee shop that’s 30 minutes away that you’ve been wanting to go to, drive out of town just to drive, alone with your thoughts & the road. You just might learn something about yourself.

    “& I wake up / I love you / Screaming loudly / Screaming softly too / Am I here? / My heart dreams…”

BON IVER   /   i,i

    Bon Iver is a long time favorite and if you’ve followed this blog at all, you know how much I love his albums and how much Justin Vernon’s Eaux Claires festival has helped shaped my musical timeline. Seeing 22, A Million (the record that precedes i,i) live in Wisconsin by the river for the first time, was something special. That record made my 2016 favorites list, but until this year, until i,i, my story of the music felt very insular. Special & secret for me, confined to very specific times & places. Only to make me feel certain things. It’s why I was hesitant to buy a ticket to see the Red Rocks show last September. Or why I questioned streaming the album early while I was on vacation in Holden Beach, North Carolina. I thought the songs were only meant to carry me back to the river, back to Wisconsin, back to the Summer. Back to a very specific, special place in my heart. But thanks to the wonders of spotify, and the Bon Iver crew just up and releasing the album a week early under the simple & generous guise of “wanting folks to have the album & learn the songs before the tour!!” I obliged and… YESSSS that’s how you do an album release in 2019! I had the album in my headphones as I ran and sweated on the beach in North Carolina, letting brand new songs transport me thousands of miles away.

i,i is a gloriously weird, perfected mess of a hit indie record. It’s everything I wanted the next chapter of the Bon Iver story to be. It feels personal & widescreen. Little moments stretched out and shared with family & friends. Lyrics about growth & hard work & life (& a few WTFs, it’s Bon Iver after all!) The gang’s all here again (the massive crew that worked on the album are all pictured on the record’s gloriously, weird inside gatefold!) recorded from Vernon’s home (April) base in Wisconsin, to Sonic Ranch in west Texas (also pictured in the liner notes) walking distance from our southern border. The sounds are all here again too. There are hints of For Emma’s Winter falsetto folk in the gorgeous acoustic guitar of “Marion.” There are the industrial swells & stomps, bleeps & bloops of bi, bi’s Spring in the warbling, green grass, warmth of “Holyfields.” Then there is the distortion, the choppy samples of 22, in the jigsaw glory of “iMi,” the way it starts & stops, all choruses & voices, real & programmed. Threads of new songs tied up with threads from long, long ago. There is a fullness to i,i, a generosity, a true front to back album, with hits & new favorites sprinkled everywhere. The second half blooms with the charging folk of “Salem” & “Faith” and the contentedness of closer “RABi.” These are songs that I will love for years to come. These songs make me happy. They make me think. They make me want to share them with friends. They make me want to work on relationships. Songs about life. Songs about true, unconditional friendship. As Justin said way back in 2015, when my journey with the Bon Iver story began “The story is history, nothing more. Only the music can rise anew. & it is gone as soon as it is sung. & so we sing again…” I am soo soo happy to sing again, with songs anew.

    “Living in a lonesome way / Had me looking other ways / Cuz I am lost here again / But on a bright Fall morning I’m with it / I stood a little within it…”

EARTHGANG   /   Mirrorland

      EARTHGANG’s major label debut Mirrorland comes in hot & dancing, a hip hop duo with a true tribute to Southern culture, and a whole world encapsulated in 14 tracks. My personal introduction to the EARTHGANG universe, came courtesy of a dusk till dark dance fest at Denver’s Underground Music Showcase on South Broadway back in sweaty July. Their energy was infectious, their stories hilarious, & their songs stuck in my head. Specifically the Young Thug featuring “Proud Of U,” a song that carries enthusiasm & positivity through to the end. Other standouts include colorful, bouncing opener “LaLa Challenge,” & the squealing horns of Atlanta hot spot, name dropping “Wings.” A concept album of sorts Mirrorland references “The Wiz” as a jumping off point saying,

“We thought about how, if we’re going to make a project sonically to rival The Wiz, we got to create another world for people to imagine & go to. You know when Dorothy got swept away and she met the Munchkins? That was such a beautiful thing. You could see Quincy Jones on the piano, just playing away. It’s really colorful. It’s really dangerous. It’s really trippy. It’s literally Freaknik Atlanta in the summertime—folks riding around in cars with big rims with paint on their faces.”

EARTHGANG was formed in 2008 by high school buddies Johnny Venus & Doctur Doc in Atlanta, GA.  It’s impossible to ignore Outkast comparisons and for their part, EARTHGANG does their best to keep up the Southern hip hop tradition. Mixing in bits of soul, blues, & jazz, Mirrorland plays like an homage, a soundtrack to the South. A real reminder that the album is not dead. These songs sound best played together. Also, that the hip hop group, or duo, is not dead. And finally, that touring and playing live shows is most definitely not dead. I probably still wouldn’t have heard about EARTHGANG if it wasn’t for their primo UMS slot (at the same Import Mechanics stage where Leikeli47 & Kiltro played!) and infectiously positive live show. Speaking of their live show, see y’all at Cervantes on February 3!

      “One time, one time for your baby moms / Two time for the hand in the candy jar / Holy Ghost showed up in my favorite thong / Three times in the car for the way we are / Another white man scared, another black man dead / Another rich man war, another red man bled / I been writing this album down way too long / When I drop my shit, pray it hit the toilet like lala, lalalalala...”

FRUIT BATS   /   Gold Past Life

    In the Autumn of 2013, my coworker Cassandra Disney at Mile High Organics played me “When You Love Somebody” by Fruit Bats (had that song already been out for 10 years in 2013?!) on one of her early morning work mixes, and I immediately put it on one of my favorite (if embarrassingly bro-folk heavy) mixes I have ever made myself. Discovering a weird/cool indie band in the vein of all my other loves (Band of Horses, The Shins, Modest Mouse, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, etc…) but more underground (!) was hipster heaven. I subsequently forgot about Fruit Bats for awhile, but was reminded with their graceful “comeback” album Absolute Loser in 2016. Although that one missed my favorites list, it gradually became a constant road trip companion; from the mountains of Colorado, through the great American Southwest, and even on some epic Mexican back roads. All alt-country, lost 70′s AM radio classics, and wistful, witty, & wise writing about highways and scenery. A true classic.  

I was therefore super excited for Gold Past Life (Fruit Bats’s seventh album?!) to drop on Merge Records this Summer, and fell in love pretty quickly on a late afternoon drive across the high road between Taos and Santa Fe, New Mexico back in late June. Swirling guitar, bouncy piano. and Eric D. Johnson’s piercing, clear, impassioned vocals. Fruit Bats sound timeless & effervescent. Upbeat guitar rock with some weird twists, and Johnson’s consistently bittersweet, humorous, & big hearted lyrics. Growing up, growing older, & grinning a wry smile at a golden world. After catching back to back beautiful Fruit Bats shows in Fort Collins & here in Denver at the Bluebird this September, these folks are the real deal. Long live touring bands, long live seventh albums, long live music marking time & space! Here’s to many more Fruit Bats albums, Gold Past Life will be car stereo classic for awhile.

    “Still waiting around for some mystical shift in the winds / So honey please, don’t go just yet / Cigarette fingers, a shake in the knees / A bit blue, kind of tired, but not broken… Anticipating a magical bend in the road / So hang on, take it slow / Your go bag is packed & your hangover gone / Another dawn at the edge of the known world…”

HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER   /   Terms of Surrender

    Durham, North Carolina’s Hiss Golden Messenger (folklorist, family man, & singer-songwriter MC Taylor & revolving crew) have become something of a mainstay on this music blog & in my car’s cd player over the last five years. I picked up a used (!), advance (!) copy of Lateness of Dancers in the $1 bin at a record store in Seattle, Washington. after having been passed a burned copy of his 2010 solo album Bad Debt by an old coworker. Lateness ended up on my 2014 favorites list. Two years later, Heart Like A Levee made my 2016 list, and the next year, Hallelujah Anyhow was one of my favorites of 2017! I referred to the songs on Hallelujah as Hiss “building a repertoire, creating a legacy.” This may seem like quite a bit of superfluous backstory, but believe me, it is essential to the story, a journal of the journey. Geographic art for a topographic heart if you will. But anyway, Terms of Surrender…

The title is cryptic, referencing (as Taylor puts it “what we are prepared to sacrifice in order to live the lives that we think we want”) and the songs are deep (& growing deeper) & timeless. Not so much timeless in the way Yola’s songs sound timeless (skip down a few albums on this list to read about Yola!) but timeless in the way the songs seem to seep their way into my bones and stay for years. Terms burst on the scene with the release of the first single “I Need a Teacher” back in stormy June. With bright, rolling guitar stabs courtesy of The National’s Aaron Dessner (whose upstate New York recording studio was home for the Terms recording sessions), “Teacher” is about “the search for infallible guidance in an ever-changing universe.” but it is also about everyday work. Dedicated every night of the tour to all the teachers in the room, a political statement wrapped up in the seemingly obvious sentiment of “Defend Public Schools.” See what I mean? Timeless songs written for the here & now. “Bright Direction” & “My Wing” are reminiscent of Hallelujah’s “Jenny” & “Darkness.” a 1-2 punch of driving, drifting major key numbers, written from a hillside in Virginia, high on mushrooms. They contain multitudes. With a murky middle (Brad Cook gets funky on “Old Enough to Wonder Why” & “Cat’s Eye Blue”) & the already canonical Hiss’ live fav “Happy Birthday Baby,” the back half of Terms spreads out the Hiss’ sound in new ways. New live favorite, the nostalgic “Down at the Uptown,” had me googling maps of San Francisco to find the mythical Uptown bar where Taylor first heard Patti Smith’s Horses.

In late October, Hiss played an absolutely glorious three night run at little Globe Hall over in Globeville, just Southeast of where Interstate 70 meets Interstate 25. I went to all three shows. The shows were special & career spanning; from “Jesus Shot Me in the Head,” to Dead covers (& a Jesus & Mary Chain cover!) to all the Terms songs.  I spent the Saturday afternoon before show #2, walking around the disappearing & rapidly gentrifying neighborhood in & around Globeville (& drifting across the highway into Sunnyside) listening to Terms of Surrender on my headphones. Thinking about the things I’m willing to sacrifice, thinking about the life I want, what are my Terms? After all, “It’s a real live world & I wanna live in it.”

    “Something drove me crazy / Love had me lazy / Backwards won’t get me to my destination / Move me in some bright direction / Looking to be captured, looking for my freedom / Oh, dreams will come to get you / So careful what you’re wishing / Your family might correct you / Your heart might take a pounding / Make sure you take a picture…”

JUNE JONES   /   Diana

    I can’t remember where I first heard of June Jones, but I’d like to think it was from one of my many Australian music friends (thanks Camp Cope, Julia Jacklin, Middle Kids, Courtney Barnett, Gang of Youths etc…!) The music community is a wonderful thing. June’s songs can be hard to explain, but Diana is an epic album that burns with a steady, stately drama. Most of the songs ride swelling synths and measured, 80’s sounding drums and center around June’s unique, emotive voice and head turning lyrics. Jones had fronted the Australian rock band Two Steps on the Water and written songs on the guitar for many years, but it’s pretty clear from listening to the writing and sound on Diana that these songs were meant for piano, synth, and a solo album. Her own writing. Her own words.

The album begins with the brooding “Rome From Afar” and the opening line “I got drunk again last night & I fell down outside the bathroom at my little sister’s party.” It then follows a dancing bass line into an apocalyptic nightmare of a world ending. “Meryl” is a gorgeous, autobiographical (?) song, an ode to “complicated” hard working women everywhere. There are parts of Diana that nod to it being a break up album, like in the gorgeously melancholic “Boulder Falling Slow” (”I am a boulder falling slow / You’re a magnificent spiderweb”) but I have been viewing it as just a complex, everyday life album. Jones lets her magnificent voice trail slowly over seemingly uncomfortable or awkward topics that she strives to make… not so. Sorry Alex Cameron, your “eating your ass like an oyster” line in “Miami Memory” is only the second best “eating ass” line this year after Jones’ “Look at You Go!” Her voice often belies the emotion in her lyrics, she works it up & down, and lets it stretch out over words, like in lonely closer “Sixteen Horses,” but she also sounds almost matter of fact at times. There is a moment in the piano led “Thorn” where she glibly throws “Have you seen the moon tonight? No, me neither, who cares about the moon when everything is dying?” over an understated horn trill. Everything is dying after all, but I want June Jones to sing it to me like an Australian Lana Del Rey or Matt Berninger. Trust me, you’ll be hearing more about June Jones in the coming years. Watch out.

    “I haven’t thought too much about family / Ain’t got no husband or a couple of kids / I’ve spent 26 years in this office / I said goodbye to my relationships a long time ago / What does the mayor of a small town heart do after she retires?”

JUSTIN PETER KINKEL-SCHUSTER   /   Take Heart, Take Care

     My long time music friend Adam over at songsfortheday had been trying to tell me about Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster for quite a few mixes with songs I loved from his 2016 release Constant Stranger. But it somehow wasn’t until I needed Take Heart, Take Care, that Schuster’s work hit me right. It didn’t feel like a light at the end of the tunnel, but more like a light in the tunnel, something lasting, a collection of songs lifting up & out towards a light. As Schuster wrote upon it’s release…

     “Here, I’ve fumbled my way, as always, and of necessity, into a collection of songs that hold a light to the joys & comforts of life not given up on, those that appear over time as we are looking elsewhere, to surprise & delight us when we need them most. Sure, it’s me, so there are glimpses of and nods to the dark, but the dark is not winning anymore. I simply mean to acknowledge its presence. To me, that’s the most fundamental job of songs, of stories, of all art — to be allies, friends, companions, when we need them most and it’s my hope that these songs can do that work in a world that seems to need it. If you are lucky enough to have something good to say, say it. Please. We’ll thank each other, now & later.”

So i guess it’s that second part that I have found solace in through my 20′s and into my 30′s. That songs (and stories & all art, but songs & albums seem to be my thing) can be allies, friends, & companions, and that sometimes (like Hanif Abdurraqib wrote in his brilliant collection of essays “They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us”)…

     “If you believe, as I do, that a blessing is a brief breath to take in that doesn’t taste of whatever is holding you under: say I Speak To God In Public and mean more than just in his house, or mean more than just next to people who might also speak to God in public, or say God and mean whatever has kept you alive when so many other things have failed to.“

Take Heart, Take Care is a straightforward, well written, indie rock album. The songs ring true with light & darkness, an uplifting take on growing older and finding “Plenty Wonder” still to be found in the world. Schuster played the Hi-Dive on South Broadway in November, the last show on the Take Heart tour. A show I had bought tickets for months in advance, and I found myself in a crowd of maybe 15 people, celebrating the songs of Take Heart, Take Care. Listening to a writer with something good to say. Trying all in our own way to hold our own. I have a feeling I’ll keep these songs with me for awhile.

     “Time is the mender / Whose strange mechanics yet untold / Bid us rise entwined together / So take heart, take care / Be true but beware / & honey we need not be scared…”

KARA JACKSON   /   A Song for Every Chamber of the Heart

      In only 10 minutes & 42 seconds, Kara Jackson creates an intimate, magical world with just her voice and a guitar on her debut EP A Song for Every Chamber of the Heart.  Four intricate & intentional songs, none longer than three minutes, finger picked slowly & methodically, Jackson balances a poetic, whimsical wandering with a steely focus on the craft of songwriting. These are the bones of songs, played honest & upfront, with no adornment. There is room for Jackson’s lyrics to really shine, all aching & wistful, yet practical. Like the way she balances “I have a crush, I have an ache” with “I know that love’s just a pain in the ass” in the bittersweet “Crush.” Her songs buzz with a youthful energy & teen angst. Wise beyond their years, finding their way in the world. As a songwriter and a poet, Jackson writes about race, activism, social justice, self, bodies, & humanity.

At 20 (!) years old, Chicago’s Jackson is... oh also a poet. The 2019 National Youth Poet Laureate (!) in fact, and it was her absolutely breathtaking writing about being a teenager that first caught my attention. She quotes Gwendolyn Brooks (pulitzer prize winning American poet) in her Ted Talk saying “write what’s under your nose.” She says that Brooks took the mundane and put it on a pedestal. That she understood there are “poems in train cars, poems on front lawns, & poems in microwaves & tea kettles.” An almost obligation to celebrate the ordinary. Ordinary folks celebrating similar ordinary folks. It’s the way that John Darnielle howls on The Mountain Goats song “Werewolf Gimmick” (track nine on 2015′s Beat the Champ) about “nameless bodies in unremembered rooms.” In his prerelease essay for Merge Records, music writer Joseph Fink wrote that the entire career of The Mountain Goats has been about “giving names to nameless bodies and remembering unremembered rooms.” and what a worthy cause that is. That thought has stuck with me for years and I have always loved the specificity of it. Whether it is Darnielle resurrecting historical characters real or fictional, or the way Lady Lamb (keep reading a few more albums down!) celebrates the specifics of her friends & family, in all the messy details. Written in song, remembered forever. It is also essential that all cultures have artists who look like them and think like them, as the ones doing the remembering.  It’s why it’s so important that Kara Jackson is the one doing the remembering for young black girls. The same way Eve Ewing did for her, and Gwendolyn Brooks did before that. I can appreciate the magic of the remembering, but I need to let them be the ones to tell the stories. Oh, speaking of appreciating, I bugged Jackson enough on social media and got a handmade PHYSICAL copy of the EP that I’m hanging onto forever cuz it’s probably gonna be like the next original pressing of Bon Iver’s For Emma! Thanks Kara!

      “Don’t take my pillowcase, that's my place to be alone / Don’t take my lamp from me, it helps me read about places I don’t know / Don’t take a lot for me to be on my own...”

KILTRO   /   Creatures of Habit

      My end of the year albums list usually has at least one local Denver band. The Lumineers way back in 2012, Gregory Alan Isakov & Covenhoven in 2013, Nathaniel Rateliff, Covenhoven (again!), & The Yawpers in 2015, Nina de Freitas in 2017 (hey Nina & the Hold Tight, new album in 2020 please?!), and Izcalli last year. Kiltro is a part Coloradan, part Chilean folk band that have been putting on one of my favorite live shows around town this year. The brainchild of Chris Bowers-Castillo, a native Coloradan who spent time growing up in Valparaiso, Chile, Kiltro is named after the Spanish word “Quiltro” meaning a mixed breed dog. A dog that Kiltro has taken for their logo. In their own way, Kiltro is a mix breed; both in the way they mix the sounds of South America with the folk music of North America, and also the way they mix organic, acoustic instrumentation, with electronic, looping sounds and effects pedals. Their live show is a masterclass in layers, with Bowers-Castillo adding loops of guitar rhythms (sometimes simply bare hands slapping beats on the top of the guitar) to steady bass & drums, until the songs swell & build into dramatic crescendos and almost EDM-influenced drops. The extended intros & outros are my favorite parts of their songs and the live versions (from their sweaty 2pm UMS dance party, to Lulu’s Downstairs in Manitou Springs) have stirred hearts & feet alike with dancing not usually found in the Colorado “indie-hipster” scene. Keep an eye on these guys and maybe come out to Larimer Lounge in January and witness the dance party for yourself!

      “Somewhere down the bank where the dogs go / Por la calle que te lleva a Curicó / & down the beach, where no others can find / Ni por agua, piso, coche, ni avión...”

LADY LAMB   /   Even in the Tremor

      As I have been writing this year’s favorites list, I’m realizing that so many of the albums I loved & learned, came hand in hand with experiencing the artist, and specifically that new album, live. Lady Lamb released Even in the Tremor, her masterful & moving third album, way back in April, and I had a Spring-y three weeks to learn all her intricate, visceral lyrics to sing back at her Larimer Lounge stop in Denver on the Deep Love tour. Maine by way of Brooklyn’s (by way of a bunch of other places) Aly Spaltro has always written songs for Lady Lamb like her hair’s on fire. Wailing & gasping about blood & guts & death over spiraling electric guitar, there is a realness to her writing that reminds me of the east coast emo I grew up on. But for all the blood red gore & messy heartbreak that colors much of the Lady Lamb discography, there is a light hearted tenderness as well. Tremor has songs written for & about friends, lovers, parents, & god. Quirky opener “Little Flaws” is a first-dance-worthy love song, while personal favorites “Strange Maneuvers” & “Emily” are odes to platonic friendships, mental health, & growing up. In the same way I wrote about Kara Jackson celebrating the ordinary, Lady Lamb has always celebrated specifics of people, time & space. Tremor’s characters are Spaltro’s real life people (Emily, Shervin, Kurt (Kurtie Bear), Isaac, & her Mom), and the places (the diner, the batting cage, Templehof Park, Midtown, Berlin, Montreal, Madrid, a fast food joint, the stage of a church, someplace upstate, Lavanderia & Graham Ave) are specific, varied, & globe spanning. Her stories are autobiographical and rewarding and the music is stirring, singer-songwriter rock & roll with some punch behind it. She is one of my favorite modern writers for her ability to not just tell a story, but to find wonder in the small things and to celebrate the ordinary. Like she tells Shervin, minutes before “Emily” closes the album on a gorgeous, uplifting high note, “No photographic artifact, but here is something better than that.”

      “There’s a picture that I found, my first car in the falling snow / Seems like yesterday I drove down into low tide / & Isaac snapped a polaroid of me pretending I was sinking, pressed against the glass pleading / I misplaced it but I’m looking... / When we are young, if only we could see beyond our fears where we are free / When we are lonely if only we could know that in our stillness we are growing... / All the portraits we collected, while we were running around in the desert / We were trying to seem fulfilled to rewrite our New York City narratives / But Emily we were utterly dejected / We took turns crying on the passenger side of America / Too clouded to be empowered by towering Redwoods... / When did we lose the ancient truths? / Is it what we’re born bending our bodies toward?...”

LIZZO   /   Cuz I Love You

      For much of 2019, Lizzo could be heard playing everywhere. The 31 year old Minnesotan’s third full length album Cuz I Love You, came out in April, after a busy three years of huge singles, consistent touring, & building a repertoire of songs capable of headlining arenas. When Lizzo finally exploded these last few years, it has been fun watching the whole world embrace her uptempo, bold, self-love anthems, and hearing them blaring from open Subaru windows in Cap HIll, from balconies & rooftops in uptown, and on the lips of countless joggers & bikers, loving themselves in the Denver Summer sun. I know for my part, I took Lizzo with me to the beaches of North Carolina & through the Southern mountains of Colorado, dancing, singing, & gleefully giggling along. Bottom line, the songs on Cuz I Love You are FUN! You try not to crack a smile as Lizzo romps through “Never been in love before, what the fuck are fucking feelings yo?” on the bouncing, brassy, vocal led, track one title track MOMENT. Or the way she makes up the word “accessorary” on the spot (“my ass is not an accessorary”) and then fires back with “Yeah, I said it, accessorary!” Lizzo has been an outspoken supporter of our generation’s version of the self-love, body positivity movement, and has put her money (and body) where her mouth is, inspiring legions of teens & twenty somethings to do the same. “Soulmate” is a loner anthem that finds Lizzo belting “True love ain’t something you can buy yourself / True love finally happens when you’re by yourself / So if you by yourself, then go and buy yourself another round from the bottle on the higher shelf.” The soulful slowdown “Jerome” is about being the bigger person and ending a relationship that isn’t working. Lizzo manages to actually address her own issues, focus on the work she needs to do (“I’m trying to be patient & patience takes practice.”) and still absolutely belt a singalong chorus that rhymes Jerome with “take your ass home.” Also, the deluxe version of Cuz I Love You tacks on three previous Lizzo singles that hadn’t found an album home. Those singles? “Boys,” “Truth Hurts,” & “Water Me.” Three songs totaling almost 555 MILLION plays on Spotify. With apologies to Ariana Grande & Billie Eilish (Billie see ya in a few months at the Pepsi Center!) Lizzo is the biggest superstar that I want on this list. And she 100% deserves every bit of it.

      “If I’m shinin’ everybody gonna’ shine...”

ORVILLE PECK   /   pony

      There is an appealing, theatrical quality to the dramatic country songs on Orville Peck’s debut record Pony. I spent my high school years growing up in small town Western Colorado so country music has been embedded in my brain since I was 11. I’ve gone through so many phases of loving it, hating it, loving it ironically, nostalgically, hating it for it’s sound, cheesiness, backwards politics, etc... But with Pony; these are true country songs written by a gay, masked cowboy anti-hero from.. Toronto? Maybe? Who is Orville Peck?!?! It’s like all the best parts of “country” music came together. And the mask? The fringe? All the packaging & theatrics? It makes it fun. Part Bowie, part Coheed & Cambria, part Grace Jones, part Ghost, part Brandon Flowers. Hollywood meets Vegas meets Carson City.

When I listen to Orville Peck’s songs it brings together so many feelings from my youth. From country radio & boxes of old country cds, to the dramatic side of theatre, play acting on a stage, dress-up, halloween, cowboys, loneliness, & the open road. From the tumbleweed roll & mournfully powerful coyote howl of opener “Dead of Night,” to the shoegaze rumble, autumn ride of “Winds Change.” Peck’s lyrics are honest & heartfelt, drawing on sweeping, western imagery, & idolizing the classic country ideal... the cowboy. Music marks time & place and Peck makes sure to reference the cities along his highway songs. Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Carson City, Kansas, a veritable Rand McNally road map of the American West. In the same manner as both Black Belt Eagle Scout albums, Fruit Bats, & Caroline Rose from last year, it wasn’t until a highway drive that I truly fell in love with Pony. It was a brilliant November sunset & still warm, but windy & changing, and we knew we had to hustle to beat the snow back to Denver. Highway 159 from the Southern Colorado border through Costilla County, on the way towards Fort Garland & then Walsenburg. Purple & Orange out the window to my left, Winter on it’s way. Peck’s songs sang with a heartache... a loss. a rhinestone loneliness that country finds a way to revel in. When “Kansas (Remembers Me Now)” statics out like a long lost FM radio. When “Hope to Die” fake ends at 3:30 and instead key change pivots like a washed-up Broadway starlet, shooting her shot on a dusty jukebox. When “Nothing Fades Like the Light” draws its last, peaceful breath, closing Pony like the last light of that November sunset. Thanks Orville, this one’s a classic.

      “Fell in love with a rider / Dirt king, black crown / Six months on a knucklehead hog / I like him best when he's not around / He gets me high, oh, big sky... Fell in love with a boxer / Stayed awake all year / Heartbreak is a warm sensation / When the only feeling that you know is fear / I don't know why, oh, big sky...”

RAPSODY   /   Eve

      Rapsody’s third album Eve is a masterclass on rap music, and the Snow Hill, North Carolina rapper sounds relaxed & loose, while still staying focused & on topic with an album that reads as, as Rapsody herself puts it “a love letter to all black women including myself.” She is at the top of her game right now, and these songs cement Rapsody as one of the premier rappers in an exciting field of rap talent both young & old.  

Each track on the album is dedicated to one of Rapsody’s personal heroes, and I am going to focus these words & my research for Eve (besides listening to it nonstop, which I’m currently doing now!) on those black women. Track one is for Nina Simone (”without Nina there’s no Lauryn Hill, & without Lauryn Hill there’s no Rapsody.”) and features critically important verses about black heritage & culture over Nina’s terrifying & sobering classic “Strange Fruit.” Rapsody is recognizing her legacy and the importance of heritage, but she is clearly claiming her spot in that bloodline. “Cleo” preaches standing up for yourself over a Phil Collins sample (between Cleo & Lucy Dacus, “In the Air Tonight” is getting some serious love this year!) and is named after Queen Latifah’s character in the 1996 movie “Set it Off.” From there Rapsody recognizes artists (Aaliyah), philanthropists (Oprah & Michelle Obama), actresses (Whoopi), athletes (Serena Williams & Ibtihaj Muhammed), writers (Maya Angelou & Reyna Biddy), models (Iman & Tyra Banks), and historical figures & activists (Hatshepsut, Myrlie Evers-Williams, Sojourner Truth, & Afeni Shakur). Bottom line, ALL of these women are essential google material (you’re reading this on your phone or laptop, google and give yourself a five minute refresher if there’s anyone you don’t already know!) While you’re at it, google the lyrics for Eve (and Jamila Woods’ equally incredible, equally name dropping LEGACY! LEGACY!) and listen along. This is an important time capsule document for Rapsody and it’s just a damn good rap album.

      “I am Nina & Roberta, the one you love but ain't heard of / Got my middle finger up like Pac after attempted murder / Failed to kill me, it's still me, woke up singing Shirley Murdock / As we lay these edges down, brown women, we so perfect...”      

SABA LOU   /   Novum Ovum

      When I listen to Saba Lou’s intoxicating sophomore album Novum Ovum, I am transported to somewhere magical & different. Maybe older, maybe out of place & time. Everything about Novum feels… classic. From the dusty, record-store-bin-find look of the out of focus cover photo, to the laidback natural way Saba Lou seems to dance along on top of a rollicking house band lifted from the 70’s. There are elements of surf rock, shoegaze, late night soul, and classic rock & roll on Ovum, but it is all driven by the singular writing & vocals of Saba Lou. In the liner notes of the record, a note can be found, claiming that this album is meant to be from the future. 2286 to be exact! Is a concept album?! Is it actually from the future & delivered to us by a time traveling band of Germans?!! Does it have songs about Star Trek??!! Maybe, mayyyybeee... & YES!

Yet to turn 20 (!), Saba Lou is a German born singer songwriter who has been making & releasing music since she was literally six years old! Novum Ovum is Latin for “the new egg” and features a hot four piece full band, and wonderfully fleshed out songs that bounce and swing with palpable energy. The lyrics span an awesomely wide spectrum from endometriosis pain (the title track obv) to a Star Trek mindmeld tune sung from the perspective of Gracie the pregnant whale (closer “Humpback in Time”)!! All in all, Saba Lou is an absolutely electric songwriter and her youthfulness & fervor are contagious. It’s the reason I love making this list every year, and what makes discovering new music so exciting. Can’t wait for the next one!

      “A brick wall around your placenta / Cut them all off from her mother blood / The hounds call for appassionata / A phoenetic paste for the fetal bud...”

SHARON VAN ETTEN   /   Remind Me Tomorrow

      Over the last few years I started the practice of making a draft favorite albums list in January and adding albums throughout the year, as I fall in love with them. This way I don’t forget the ones I loved in January & February, the ones that got me through the backend of the Winter. I’m able to track my year in music as it develops, a sort of captain’s log. A living, personal journal using music to mark time & space as I sprint my way through another increasingly faster, increasingly chaotic year. Sometimes, scrolling through the list acts as a comfort. “That album only came out this year?! OK, this year isn’t moving too fast, that feels like forevvverrrr ago!” Sometimes it helps to show me how much I’ve grown, how much an album has meant, or has helped with my mental & emotional growth. This year, the very first album I added to that list, the very first album that I fell hard & holy hell in love with... was Sharon Van Etten’s Remind Me Tomorrow.

A blast of energy. A weird synthy, pulsing red & blue darkness. Simultaneously club-y & indie rock vibey. Van Etten’s fifth album is supposedly written from a place of contentment. A marriage, a child, a life & happiness discovered. Less desperation, more introspection. I hear in her voice & words, how taking care of yourself, how striving to be your best self, can bring out the most powerful, most emotional art. She also isn’t afraid to let her voice go and I think her vocal performances are what truly take Tomorrow to another level. “Memorial Day” rides a haunting vocal loop & tumbles in nearly wordless, glimmering vowels, all ethereal magnificence. The chorus of the brooding “Jupiter 4″ spirals upwards & then rollercoasters, a late night drunken banger. But at the heart of Remind Me Tomorrow sits one of my songs of the year, one of my songs of the decade, “Seventeen.” I had heard it first live, way back in October 2018 in the rain in the mountains at Red Rocks. I got tipsy & wrote about it the day it came out, January 8, 2019, after a long, cold stretch working the night shift. This album & especially this song will stay with me for a long time. Sharon has taught me to keep working on myself. To look back in fondness. To think about how, with hard work, how much joy & peace & comfort await in my coming years. But she also taught me to lean into emotions. To embrace the ache of memories and the bittersweetness of growing up. Thanks for making this album Sharon.

      “Downtown hotspot, halfway up the street / I used to be free, I used to be 17 / Follow my shadow around your corner / I used to be 17, now you're just like me / Down beneath the ashes & stone / Sure of what I've lived and have known / I see you so uncomfortably alone / I wish I could show you how much you've grown...”

TIM BAKER   /   Forever Overhead

      I have a special feeling tied to the collection of intimate, swirling songs Tim Baker released this year from Canada. Forever Overhead carries a certain small town holiness, recognizable to those who grew up in small towns , but specific to his own personal, north-north-eastern-eastern “small” town, St Johns, in Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada. Growing up on the farthest coast of the Atlantic on the tippy, tippy point of Canada (seriously google it!), Baker fronted emo band Hey Rosetta! for four albums until striking out this Spring on his own with Arts & Crafts Records. There is a very Springsteen-esque bent to the way he writes about growing up somewhere (as someone) small & wanting to be somewhere very big and exciting. He captures the bittersweetness of growing up so perfectly. From the teenage romantic feelings in swaying opener “Dance” & the rousing “Mirrors,” to the friends & bars & singing found in the melancholic “Spirit” and the absolute hit “All Hands.” The latter is the core of the album, a bright, rhythmic guitar number that builds & swells with voices & instrumentation to a few huge, singalong choruses. A real song of the year contender. Baker isn’t afraid to let the songs go on journeys on Forever Overhead and they rarely finish where they begin. Horns & handclaps burst in at points, celebratory & fearless. The sexual tension of “Strange River” is lightened with a false start and a “sorry. In ‘D’” followed by a belly laugh, before restarting. The light & dark are present throughout Overhead and listening to these songs remind me of growing up. I feel like I’m being given a secret glance into Baker’s youth and the parts that mirror mine make me want to lift my voice in unison with those that understand. Sometimes small collections of well written & well played songs can do that, and to me... it’s sacred. Hopefully I get a chance to visit St Johns someday, and if I do, these songs will be playing as my soundtrack.

      “A boy in bed, all the windows wide / You can hear the hot rods running from the light / From the light, into the dark / That's all I wanted in my cousin's car / To listen to the wind & to the lead guitars / & feel the reckless running of your heart / Now is that gone or does that all remain? / Can I go back and have it all again? / Well now I know it, where I'm going / I'm going back behind the river / I'm going back behind the rain / Cuz no matter where you're heading / You end up where you’ve been...”

YOLA   /   Walk Through Fire

     It’s clear from the first minute & 30 seconds of Yola’s debut full-length Walk Through Fire, that this album is destined to be an all-time classic. She comes in slow & wistful with “wish I knew what you were wishing for...” over a soft wash of cymbals and mournful country-soul guitar. Then one minute in, her voice swells to gigantic proportions, seeming to lift the song right off the page, carried into another stratosphere, timeless & magnetic. That “Faraway Look” in your eyes.

From there, Yola (36 year old Yolanda Quartey from Bristol, England) takes her commanding voice through bluesy, fiddle-led country (”It Ain’t Easier” & the title track), and laid back soul (”Shady Grove” & “Deep Blue Dream”). Personal fav “Ride Out In The Country” became a backroads, summer anthem for me this year on multiple trips through Southern & Western Colorado. Through it all, her voice booms, whispers, & rocks gently, propelling the songs forward with warmth & light. Her lyrics are full of both dreamy memories & work-a-day stories about the challenges of life. It was fun this year to have different friends & family members get into Yola at different times, getting texts like “have you heard of YOLA??!!” Sharing songs, & collections of songs (like the ones on Walk Through Fire) is what makes making this list every year so fun, and I’m always excited to see what new, life-long favorites I will discover. See you in a couple months at the Bluebird Theater on Colfax here in Denver Yola!! Can’t wait!

      “A little shady grove / A memory long ago / A tale too old to know the ending / I gave it all away / It takes my breath away...”

[murderincrp]

PROFILE LOADED... 「ZHOU JIEQIONG」「SALVATORE」「EIGHTEEN」

“Eighteen-year-old MECHANIC and HACKER that goes by the alias ‘PIDGE’. Her allegiance lies with SALVATORE.”

✘ THREAT LEVEL LOW. NO PRECAUTIONS NECESSARY...

WARNING: PARENT DEATH, GUNS, CAR CRASH

[ BACKGROUND... ]

i.

zhou jieqiong is a born princess. she grows up in shanghai, her parents always having plenty of money to devote to their only daughter. she never wants for anything, and is raised in glamour and privilege. her father is the ceo of a successful security system company; her mother is a former supermodel. they both love their daughter more than the whole world, even though she doesn’t get to spend as much time with her father as she’d like, since he’s constantly busy with work.

( she didn’t yet know how to express it, but she loved them too, because they were her whole world. )

ii.

jieqiong is a prodigy, they quickly discover – multiple times, she’s caught trying to disassemble one of her parents’ many cars, or otherwise managing to bypass her father’s company’s firewalls and access the company’s top-secret files.

( little did she know just how dangerous those files were, as they recorded the company’s connection to a notorious korean gang, black lotus. )

iii.

when jieqiong is thirteen, the family moves to seoul. she doesn’t really pay attention to why – something about the company starting a new branch. it makes little difference to her. she’s been tutored in korean, japanese, and english since she had barely even learned to speak chinese, and she didn’t have any real friends in shanghai, anyway – just people who hovered around her, jealous of her natural beauty and talent.

she’s already a couple years ahead of where she should be in school, and starts attending a high school in seoul. she’s leagues ahead of everyone else in her class, and she likes it that way. she spends classes not paying attention, instead reading her own books on how to build robots and cars. teachers soon stop calling her out on it when they realize she can answer any question posed to her, and passes every test with flying colors.

she’s soon pushed one more year up, her parents wanting her to finish high school as soon as possible so she can start university. she ends up in the year under two boys who she quickly realizes are more like her than anyone else she’s ever met – they’re the ones behind all the hacking into the school systems, the ones the other students idolize for their daring and talent. jieqiong, talented though she is, is more skilled at working with her hands to repair or build a machine than at hacking into software, and she does her best to pick their brains about how best to do it, to learn from them and help herself improve.

( jeon jeongguk and min yoongi, whether they meant to or not, taught her the last bits of hacking knowledge that she needed to accomplish the mission she’d been planning for months. )

iv.

her father has become more reserved and secretive ever since they moved to seoul, and while jieqiong knows her mother’s worried that there’s another woman, jieqiong thinks it’s something much bigger than that. she managed to tap her father’s cell phone after practicing doing it to her own phone, and once she has access to his calls she hears sometimes confusing, but always intriguing conversations.

she picks up early on that whatever he’s doing has something to do with the gang black lotus. she recognizes the name from the constant news stories she hears about seoul’s gang wars that seem to always be going on, and she thinks she remembers seeing the notorious gang’s symbol in those encrypted files she managed to hack as a child.

so jieqiong, using the knowledge she gleaned from observing and talking to jeongguk and yoongi, hacks her father’s office computer from her own laptop, being careful to slip through the firewalls and security systems in ways that she knows from her classmates will keep her from being caught. or at least, she hopes she’s doing it right.

part of what she finds doesn’t surprise her: she’d already pretty much known her father was working with black lotus, supplying them money and protection through his company. any building protected by their systems, the gang has easy access to. jieqiong must admit, it’s a valuable asset for a gang to have. she herself knows how successful her father’s company is – according to his files, over half the city uses their systems.

what does surprise her is something she hadn’t suspected: her father betrayed black lotus. she doesn’t know why he did it – maybe to be honorable and do the right thing, maybe another gang paid him well, maybe the right person threatened jieqiong and her mother’s lives – but she can see it plain as day in his email records: he gave syndicate the same information, the same easy access to every building protected by his security systems.

he’s hardly even covered his tracks; he hadn’t even deleted the email. cursing her father’s stupidity, jieqiong’s fingers fly over the keyboard as she tries to cover it up, tries to hide what her father had done. she deletes the email, deletes the history, tries to cover it up with encryption and places a couple suspicious-looking emails in her father’s account, well hidden enough that he won’t find them, but that any black lotus hacker will. they’re actually empty, of course, except for a virus that will immediately be released upon any computer that opens the emails. she doesn’t expect the virus to stop them, of course, but hopefully they’ll slow them down enough for jieqiong to figure out some way of protecting her father.

( she failed. )

v.

her parents are together when the black lotus soldiers attack. jieqiong is home, still trying to find a way to completely erase what her father had done, to hide it from whatever hacker in black lotus might be looking.

she doesn’t find out that she’s too late until a police officer shows up at the door, their face that of someone carrying terrible news, who knows that what they’re about to say can’t be avoided, but they wish with all their heart that it could be.

they tell jieqiong that her parents have been murdered, her father shot while he drove to some social event and her mother killed in the subsequent crash. the police aren’t sure, but they suspect that the murder had to do with gang activity.

( jieqiong blacked out, and all she remembers of the hours following her parents’ deaths is an overwhelming darkness, a weight of guilt and pain that felt like it would crush her into oblivion, and the sound of her own screams. )

vi.

she tells the police everything they want to know: everything she found out, everything her father did, everything she tried to do to protect him. she hardly remembers the debriefing, hardly remembers how she showed the police her laptop, showed them the records of her father’s phone calls and the email she tried so hard to bury.

she drops out of school. she struggles to see the point of it now. she’s put under the police’s protection for her great skills with computers and her proximity to the man who tried to betray black lotus. her only relatives are back in shanghai, but the police agree that it’s too dangerous to send her back there. she’s put instead in a foster home, but hardly pays attention to the adults there. she spends her days in the house’s garage, where the man of the house has an old-fashioned vintage car that he lets jieqiong mess around with once he realizes her talent with mechanics. for a while, that’s all she does, taking the engine apart and putting it back together again until she grows bored of working on the same car over and over.

her “foster parents” try to send her to school, but she gets around it easily, instead wandering around the city with her laptop, piggybacking on any internet she can get and trying to collect her own information on black lotus and the people who murdered her parents. after several weeks, she’s growing impatient with the police, who seem to have made no progress whatsoever, and she soon begins nursing the idea of revenge, of tearing down black lotus herself, of avenging her parents by taking out not only the members who killed them, but by taking down the whole gang. she often finds herself fantasizing about the fall of the huge gang, about taking down all of them for the sake of justice after years of their tyranny.

( she knew the methods she’d like to use were far too violent to be truly condoned by “justice,” but she didn’t care. she wanted to watch them burn. )

vii.

it’s almost natural that she ends up in salvatore, the gang of “good guys” who work closely with the police, but are far more willing to go beyond the wall of the law to accomplish their goal of restoring seoul to its former glory. jieqiong doesn’t really care about that, though. she works for her own sense of justice, constantly pursuing her own goal of bringing the biggest and most powerful gang in the city down and watching it burn, burn as she has ever since they killed her parents.

( she knew she was being selfish, working for her own means like this. she honestly didn’t care. )

[ BEHAVIOR... ]

jieqiong is, first and foremost, highly intelligent. she’s often bored by those around her, but will rarely show it. she takes part in most conversations for the sake of collecting allies, and she does favors for people with the knowledge that she can call them in later, get them to work for her. she’s manipulative, but secretly so. she tries to be as nice as she can on the outside, only letting a handful of people know her true intentions, and even then never letting everything slip. she knows better than many that it’s a dog eat dog world, and she knows better than to let any one person know too much.

though she may think she acts primarily on revenge, being in salvatore for so long has its effect on her. while her main goal is still to bring down black lotus for good, she finds herself working truly for the liberation of innocents more and more often as time goes on. she imagines other children losing their parents to gang violence like she lost hers, and it motivates her like almost nothing else. she can’t stand the thought of allowing this senseless violence to continue even longer.

she’s stubborn, though, and selfish, and refuses to admit her own kindness and sense of justice even to herself. she tells herself over and over of her goal of revenge, staring at the image of black lotus’s symbol hanging on her bedroom wall by her father’s old pocketknife. she stabs it with her own knife every night before she goes to bed, and removes the knife every morning when she wakes up, revealing another hole in the too-familiar symbol.

even with her selfish motivations and habits of secrecy, not everything she shows to others is a farce. she truly is a lively person, which is part of what makes it so easy to be friendly with the ones she works with. she refuses to open up too much to anyone, but she’s always enjoyed having friends nonetheless, even if they are all boring most of the time.