#the wanting to go lie in a massive field at night kind of vibe

[eggmeralda]

guess who's getting deprESSED AGAIN ✌👌👍🙌👏

[roguesandsaviors]

The Past Always Comes Back to Haunt

Fandom: Solace, The Red Road

Characters: Joe Merriweather, Andrea “Andy” Dawkins (OFC), Phillip Kopus

Summary: Andy loves her job at the FBI. She is good at what she does. She keeps the lid shut on the past as much as she can. Even if one Phillip Kopus haunts her dreams. It seems that it isn’t only her dreams that he is going to haunt.

Rating: SFW

Warnings: Cursing, violence, character death

Word count: 3,469

Bingo squares filled: Cop, Unrequited Love, Angst

Author’s Note: The first of many items that will be submitted to the Jason Momoa and Jeffrey Dean Morgan Summer Bingo Challenge. This crosses off several squares for me and was the first idea that came to mind when I began brainstorming. It’s full of angst as a fair warning. The flow was a little choppy but I actually like the way this one came out. At the end of the fic, there is also a little aesthetic/moodboard thing I made. @robinreadsallthefanfiction

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I looked down at my hands. It didn’t register in my mind that the blood that covered them was my own. There was pain but numbness was overwhelming the pain. It was spreading further and further throughout my torso. They said that was common but I never thought that I would be put in that sort of situation. I could vaguely hear what was going on around me but it was muffled at best. There were more gunshots happening around me, though it was dying down. The world slipped a bit as my feet couldn’t stay under me anymore.

“Shit.” Strong hands pulled me back. “Come on Andy. you gotta stay with me. Do you hear me?” Joe’s face came into view. It was just as bad as I thought it was from the horrified look on his face. I did my best to focus on it even if it confirmed to me that I was dying. I wanted to be able to respond to the man but it was incredibly difficult. My body was fading from my control and I was fully aware of what was happening.

“Sorry.” I managed to get out. A pained cry left me as he pressed down on my wound. I could hear him apologizing and reminding me that it was necessary. He was going to try to stop the bleeding but it likely wasn't going to do anything. The medics wouldn’t get here soon enough. He refused to accept it even though I already had. This was it for me.

“No. No you don’t get to go like this. I need you around Andy. Sweetheart…” The word was odd coming from his mouth and broke through the muffled noises. He hadn’t said that to me before. “I’m not ready to let you go.” It was the last thing I heard.

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

Staring at the building, I was nervous. This was a huge change for me. Out of the mountains and into the city, out of the mess with family and friends into a government agency. These were massive changes, turning my life onto it’s head. I had wished my mom and dad goodbye of course, when I had left for the academy and let a few of my coworkers know. They had to know since I would be leaving. But I hadn’t told anyone else. I had just upped and left without a word to anyone else. It had been easier that way. No one would try to stop me, talk me out of the decision, guilt me out of it because they felt betrayed. It had been a hard thing to do. Especially leaving Phillip behind. Phillip, my best friend since elementary school. We had done practically everything together. We had been attached at the hip, even when his father had come into the picture. He had more or less lived at my house for close to two years when we were in middle school. 

Up until high school. That was when things began to change. I developed what I had hoped was a passing crush initially. He was my best friend. That was typical right? Most girls who had close guy friends ended up developing crushes. They went away though. He never looked at me lie that though. Never once. His eyes had been solely focused on one or two girls. Then came the mess of what he had become involved with. Things began to really change then. I never said a word but I didn’t agree with what he was doing, the mess that his father had involved him in. Even so, I kept my mouth shut and only voiced my concerns for his safety. 

We steadily grew apart despite my best efforts. I didn’t want to be involved in what he was involved with, which just made it harder to spend time with him. Not only that, but he was high more times than he wasn’t. Those were the times that it wasn’t enjoyable to be around him. It didn’t seem to bother him that I was pulling away though. Not as much as it did me. He occasionally made an effort but they become few and far between. He never let me date though. I tried once or twice just to see if I could get over the crush that I was stuck with. It never worked out. Phillip chased away the two boys that I had tried to see. 

After high school, it all spiralled out of control. He went  off while I stuck around. I couldn’t keep him out of trouble and our friendship didn’t seem to mean all that much to him anymore. That never dulled the feelings I had for him unfortunately. While he was doing his thing, I ended up with a job at the police station. It started off as secretary work before they put me through the academy for a year. I had wanted to make a difference, help instead of harm my community, help others that couldn’t help themselves. What I didn’t expect was the job to be a perfect stepping stone to get into the Bureau academy.

Phillip had just returned from Florida and his stint in prison. From my understanding, it had been a mess, related to things that I hadn’t thought that he was involved with. Nothing could be done about that from my end though. It wasn’t my business and despite the flame that I held for him, it was no longer my problem. I did my best to avoid running into him. It would have been awkward and uncomfortable. If he knew what was I going to do, he wouldn’t be happy. That disappointment and hurt would have bothered me, a fact that was ridiculous in and of itself. 

I had gotten through the academy with relative ease. My mind had been set and I had implemented a hard workout regime prior to my acceptance. My coworkers were more than happy to help out, keeping me on track. They were just as excited as I was to see me go.   

Now I was standing here, in front of the building in New York, trying to work up the courage that I needed to head in and meet my new partner. Supposedly he was a veteran, someone who had accolades for the various successes he had already accomplished on the job. That was a comforting thought as much as it made me nervous. 

“Building’s not going to move anywhere.” I, embarrassingly enough, flinched agt the sound of the voice that came from behind me. I turned around and of course it had to be my partner, Joe Merriweather. He was tall and lean, with a salt and pepper beard that suited the angles of his face. The suit hung off his frame a bit but it just accented how lean he was. I gave him a sheepish smile.

“No, I would hope that it wouldn’t.” I held out my hand. “Andrea Dawkins, Andy. You must be my partner.” He shook my hand, an amused smile on his face. He clearly knew who I was. There probably weren’t too many people that stood in front of the building and gawked. 

“Heard I was getting a rookie today. Nice to meet you Andy. Joe Merriweather.” I nodded. “ No need to be nervous. Com on, I’ll show you around.” He led me inside, not mentioning the embarrassing situation. 

I had been worried that I had made such a fool of myself that first day with Joe. Apparently, he hadn’t held it against me. He gave me plenty of opportunities to prove myself in the field and in the office. He was always encouraging without coddling me too much. He was a firm guiding hand that knew when to push and when to step in. He allowed me to work through things on my own where it was allowed and guided me through the others that needed a much more timely response. It was a workflow that had me less nervous and feeling like I was constantly improving. There was a routine there that was easy to fall into. It also created a comrodderie in between Joe and I. Sure partners got close and got together outside of work. That wasn’t unusual. We spent more time together than they did with their families. 

We did a little more together though. Joe was divorced with a kid that his ex had custody. From what I learned, they were on good terms, it just hadn’t worked out between them with his job. I didn’t have anyone in the city that I was close with and I didn’t particularly like to head home to visit my partners. Couple those two things and we ended up spending a decent amount of time together. We got along well and our friendship outside of work didn’t affect work.

Trips to the diner, movie nights, car rides upstate, we kind of did it all. It wasn’t just a fill in the time sort of deal. We had genuine fun. Some of our coworkers joke that we were a couple. I had never gotten that vibe from Joe. he had never said anything or had given any indication that he saw me as anything other than a friend. I wasn’t looking for a relationship either. I wasn’t over Phillip, even if we had never been together and I knew we wouldn’t be. It was that first love sort of deal, tough to let go of those feelings that had been around for so damn long.

Joe never asked why I didn’t go home often or about my love life. We had peppered each other with personal questions once we were comfortable with one another of course. We were partners, we had to know one another. Partners worked better that way. I didn’t want to keep secrets and I had no qualms in explaining Phillip but Joe seemed to sense that it wasn’t a subject that I was all that eager to talk about. He never pushed and never tried to delve deeper into the history there. I was thankful for that. It could have made things awkward. 

We were sharing some pizza, waiting on an observation of two idiots who were a part of an illegal arms trading ring. There was likely some drug stuff going on as well but we didn’t have the exact details. All in all, it was something that we both felt confident about handling. Low level thugs that could and likely would lead to bigger fish was the hope. Every investigation started somewhere. It was always the hope that the small things lead to bigger busts. The top guys could and wouldn’t be caught without guys like the ones we were watching going down first. 

I took a bite of my pizza and almost choked on it when I saw Phillip walk out of the building. God damn it.  Unconsciously, I slid lower into my seat. That was the last thing that I needed. He didn’t need to be recognizing me and blowing our cover. Not that he knew what I was doing for a living these days. I hoped. 

Joe immediately knew something was wrong. I could feel his eyes on me, studying carefully. 

“Which one is it?” There was no room for nonsense in his voice. He wanted answers and he wanted them right now. I swallowed hard and was silent for just a moment longer. 

“Red hanley. It’s Phillip Kopus.” The words felt acidic on my tongue. I hated having to admit it, having to expose Joe to that. It was actually worse than the idea of having to arrest Phillip. Which by itself wasn’t present. But I didn’t want Joe disappointed in me. My stomach churned and I set down the piece of pizza I was working on. I didn’t want to be any part of this but it wasn’t like anything could be done about that feeling. We were here. He was seen. It was our job to arrest those individuals. My hands were tied. 

“That’s Phillip?” Joe sounded a little surprised. I couldn't bring myself to look in his direction. I was too afraid to see the disappointment that I knew would be on his face. I closed my eyes and nodded.

“Yeah. That’s Phillip.” I had never wanted the ground to open up and swallow me whole more than I did in that moment. Hell, even Phillip ditching me to go with another girl to a school event wasn’t as bad as this. It was just beyond embarrassing. I had wanted so desperately to keep those two parts of my life apart. Especially since those two parts would clash horrifically. There wasn’t a need for them to ever end up meeting. Sure I hadn’t been involved with anything that he was. I had a clean record. That didn’t mean that people didn’t associated me with Phillip back at home. 

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise though that they did end up meeting up. I knew that Phillip didn’t exactly do things that were legal. He had a laundry list of charges already. I tried to keep tabs every so often even if we had no interactions. It was a peace of mind thing for me. My parents occasionally gave updates too. Judging how Joe reacted, he hadn’t done much digging. I didn’t know whether to be thankful or nervous about that fact. It could really end up going either way. 

I thought that Phillip was done with his father. Apparently, I was wrong. This was not going to be enjoyable in the least. Maybe, if he saw me, it would lessen the chances of shit going wrong. I would have to try and keep things as calm as possible. Something that wasn’t often the case when it came to busts like these. None of these guys liked to go down without a fight. I could have gotten sick at just the thought.

“You know…” I didn’t even want to hear what Joe was going to say and cut him right off. 

“It doesn’t change anything. We have a job to do. These guys have to be stopped.” I kept my voice firm as I spoke. I didn’t think that I would really be able to do it but I had no choice. I didn’t want him thinking that I was absolutely incapable either. A weak spot for the man wouldn’t look good.

“Right.” He didn’t sound convinced. That was the first time that I had ever heard him sound like that when it came to me. It made me more nervous but also more determined. No matter what my feelings were, no matter what I thought of Phillip, and no matter how much I wanted to protect him, I had a job to do. That overrode everything. This had to come first. It was one of the few times in my life that it was the case. I  wasn’t going to lose my job over this. He wasn’t worth it. I repeated that mantra in my head  a few times. Nor was it worth losing Joe. 

We had back up called. We had seen three guys but it was unclear if there were any more. They were still a few minutes out when Joe made the call that we were heading in before they arrived. It didn’t feel right. Maybe that was just because I knew Phillip was in there. I pushed away the concern and the heavy feeling. Joe was sure about it so I had to be too. He moved the car down the street a little bit and we quickly geared up. Our vests went on and guns were loaded. We checked each other before he gave me a nod. There was no point in delaying it anymore. Our back up was probably another ten minutes out. I wished they were closer as we made our way to the door.

I squared up and refocused myself. It was important that I wasn’t distracted. Our lives were on the line. It wasn’t only Phillip in there. There were other guys that would gladly see us dead. One wrong move and one of us could end up shot. That wasn’t anything that I wanted to see. Joe made sure I was set before he opened the door. 

It was quiet as we walked in. Two corners checked and there was no one around. My nerves were running high as we moved through the hallway. Shoulder to shoulder and side by side, we cleared room after room. It was a slow but steady pace. Missing anyone could cause a bullet to end up in our backs. We had to be thorough. We knew we were looking for at least three guys but at this point were expecting there to be a couple more. It kept us cautious. Still no one. It was almost like they had left. They couldn’t have though. We would have seen it. Their cars had been parked in our line of view from where we sat watching the building. They all had to be on the large production floor. Which would be a bitch for us. Bad guys, open space, potentially little cover. It all added up to a disadvantage for us. If it turned into a firefight, the odds weren’t in our favor. 

“You ready?” Joe had his hand on the door. It wasn’t like there was another choice. I let out a slow breath, keeping my gun elevated and steady. I nodded. 

“Let’s go.” He pulled open the door and we instantly moved forward. We caught two guys off guard. Neither of them were Phillip. That meant that he was around and could be watching us. It was a dangerous situation. 

“On the ground!” Of course they didn’t respond and jumped for their weapons. Joe fired off two rounds and I quickly followed suit. They both went down. The others would be warned by our shots, knowing about our presence. The element of surprise was out the window. We quickly found ourselves cover for safety. 

“Good?”

“Good.” Our back up was now less than five minutes away. We might be able to wait it out. That was the hope at least. Joe peeked around the corner of our cover.

“Backup should be here soon. Just gotta hold them off. Stay behind cover and make sure we don’t get flanked.” It was a basic plan but likely one that would keep us alive. I nodded and let out another slow breath. This was where the training kicked in. The rest of the world was shut out and focus was on following through on all shots while maintaining cover. 

“Easy enough.” I peeked around my own corner. Nothing. That meant that we had a couple more moments before things got iffy. It sounded like a couple of men were rushing towards us though. It was tough to tell from just the echoes of feet against the ground but there might be more men than we could really hold off on our own until our backup arrived. Another peek around the corner told me that at least three guys were coming around to my side. Great. That was fantastic.

“Got three over here.”

“Two on my side.” There were only supposed to be two or three guys here. This had turned into seven. Five total were currently against us. With backup still a few minutes out, we had to figure out the best way to survive this.

Shots began to fire. Bullets whizzed over our heads. A couple of them landed on the metal that we were using as cover, thudding loudly. I paused for a minute, trying to time my movements. When it sounded like I had a break in the fire, I leaned out of my cover and shot off a few rounds of my own. I didn’t hear any screams or shouts as I tucked back in. The likelihood of me hitting anything was slim then. I cursed under my breath softly. Joe seemed to have some amount of luck. I reloaded and shifted in my feet just a bit. 

Again, the motion had to be time. THis time the result was one of the guys going down. Joe had taken his two down.

The backup arrived. They were coming in from the other side of the building, behind the criminals. I could hear the door bust in and took that moment to stand up. I checked around the corner of our cover. The move was a mistake.

The pain radiated out from my abdomen. My gun dropped and my hands moved to my stomach. I could see Phillip’s shocked face and the gun dropping from his hands. 

[thetygre]

30 Day Monster Challenge 2 - Day #23: Favorite Bad Movie Monster

Alright, so most of these movies aren’t really all that bad; they’re just kind of ‘meh’. But they would have been a lot worse without these cool and/or goofy monsters.

1.       Jabberwocky (Alice in Wonderland 2010)

I am prepared to disclose that Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland was not horrible, but 60% of that opinion stems from the Jabberwocky. (The remaining 40%is 30% the other monster designs and 10% lesbian subtext.) The Jabberwocky has always been my favorite part of the Alice mythos (surprise surprise), and not to sound petty, but I have dropped Alice movies just for not including the brilling beast. Burton’s Jabberwocky might not be my favorite, but it has a lot going for it. The way they treat it is basically as Wonderland’s Tarrasque; a living WMD, a legendary kaiju, the ur-monster in a world teeming with dangerous and crazy creatures. The way it wakes up is even a direct nod to Chernabog from Fantasia; they are literally equating this thing to the Devil.

Second off; Christopher Lee.

Finally, when the Jabberwocky meets Alice to fight, he says this thing about meeting his ‘old foe’, ‘the vorpal one’, in battle again. It is made explicitly clear that he is talking about the vorpal blade, not Alice. And that just… I don’t want to say that that changes the entire movie, but yeah, it kind of does. The implications here are that the vorpal blade and the Jabberwocky have fought each other countless time before in the past. The history of Wonderland is just the history of a dragon and a magic sword fighting. Is the vorpal blade sentient? How many times have these two fought? This kind of transforms everything about the setting the movie has established for the last hour and a half. It’s just so filled with so much potential to me.

2.       Torgo (Manos: The Hands of Fate)

Y’know, when you’re in a dark place, you have to find your own light. A source of motivation, something you can cling to to pull you through to the other side. Maybe that’s a dream, a goal at the end of the tunnel, or maybe it’s a hero, someone you can look up to. I’m not saying that Torgo is a hero, but he inspires me. There are weeks at work where I just don’t want to get out of bed in the morning. I come home at night to an empty room and fall asleep alone. It gets hard, is what I’m saying. But you know who never stopped trying, even though he hated his job and was lonely too?

Torgo. That’s who.

Everyday Torgo gets up, throws on his blazer and hat, and he goes out there and busses a haunted motel for a boss he hates. But he does it, every day. And if Torgo can do it, you can too. So you’ve got to get out there and be the best damn lackey you can. You’ve got put in the work to make it to tomorrow. And when the good times roll in and come shining down on you, you take a minute to remember the man who helped you get here. Take a minute to remember Torgo, looking down on you from Cloud No. 9, shedding a tear.

3.       Radu (Seventh Son)

The Last Apprentice series is actually a pretty cool (and grim) series of dark fantasy/horror young adult novels, kind of like junior’s first Solomon Kane. The Seventh Son movie based on the series has piss-all to do with it, and its only redeeming features are some cool monster designs and Jeff Bridges. Of those cool monster designs, the stand-out for me is Radua aka Muslim Dragon Kratos. He’s one of our villain witches chief thugs, and is unnecessarily cool for a side-character. He’s got this whole Nosferatu Zodd code of honor thing, and wields these two chain blades and probably could have been the villain in his own movie.

Now that alone would have been a neat detail, but then he can turn into what I honestly consider one of the more interesting dragons in recent cinema. I talked before about how one archetype of dragons was of being these unholy, scavenger type wilderness monsters, and that’s kind of the vibe I get from Radu’s dragon form. It’s all lanky and feral looking. It has too many limbs, and it walks around like it doesn’t know how. It’s another unnecessarily cool design for such a generic movie, and it’s definitely worth checking out.

4.       Krakensaurus (Jack the Giant Slayer)

I don’t want to be mean and discount Jack the Giant Slayer as ‘discount Ray Harryhausen’, but thems is the breaks, as the saying goes. The movie is kind of charming in how earnestly it plays to being a 1960s fantasy movie, with princesses in pink dresses and warlocks with goatees and a rhyming leprechaun. The movies stop-motion monsters don’t really live up to industry standards, though. But I can’t sit here and lie and say that I don’t have a special fondness for the sea monster at the end. The movie’s penultimate scene sees our heroes trying to escape the warlock’s castle, so the villain summons a two-headed giant (or ettin, if you know your monsters) which looks suspiciously like one of Ray Harryhausen’s cyclopes. Trapped in a sea cave, the rhyming leprechaun trapped in a bottle (roll with it) summons a sea monster to deal with the problem.

Sometimes it’s the little things in life, like watching two weird looking monsters fight to the death. Our sea monster is a blue-green mixture of kraken and allosaurus, and I’m pretty sure its toy had more detailing than the actual moving model. When this guy showed up on the screen, six year old me was hype enough to punch through a wall. I spent the next week drawing pictures of him so I wouldn’t forget him. This movie has 100% more sea monsters and singing leprechauns than The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, and that almost makes up for its deficit skeleton warriors.

5.       Queen of the Lair (She Creature 2001)

Stan Winston was on the helm for this little lady’s monster design, and it shows. A mermaid queen, it’s hard to tell if her monster form is her real shape or just something she can morph into. Even her basic mermaid form is pretty interesting; the split tails remind me of sirens or tritons. Her monster shape, though, is pure Stan Winston gold. There’s more than a little bit of the xenomorph queen in there, between the crest and the fangs. Someone threw it into a blender with a sea serpent and a viper fish and what comes out is the most badass mermaid to ever slink across cinema. She rips people’s heads off, her tail is covered with bone spikes, and she can sing a siren song to summon up her mermaid swarm. Oh, and psychic impregnation powers. That part’s kind of important.

6.       She Creature (She Creature 1956)

Aforementioned sea monster queen was part of a series of horror films based on old b-movies, so this is the original She Creature. Even today, this is one of my favorite designs from the 1950s. Paul Blaisdell might just be the king of B-movie monster suits, and belongs up there with Ray Harryhausen in the great monster hall of fame. The she creature looks like the sum product of an orc, a lobster, and a scorpionfish. It’s a shame you only see her in monochrome, because her color scheme is a startling mix of green and pink. What I find most fascinating is the concept that this is supposed to represent some parallel evolutionary stage of humanity. This is supposed to be a different version of Homo sapiens that never left the sea. Stan Winston’s mermaid queen is great, but I would still love to see an updated and more articulate version of this design.

7.       Vampire Spawn (Van Helsing)

This raises so many questions. So the crux of Van Helsing is that Dracula needs Frankenstein’s monster to power a force-field that will allow his swarms of vampire spawn to survive past infancy. I bet you thought vampires reproduced by biting people, right? Well, apparently they also have egg-sacs. Just, massive, Aliens style egg-sacs full of bat/human fetus monsters hungry for blood. It’s so stupid that I love it. These things are horrible and adorable; they remind me of chupacabras. I want one as a familiar, or at least statted up for a tabletop roleplaying game. Just really try to avoid thinking about the whole egg-sacs thing and all the implications that brings to vampire mythology.

8.       Emperor Tyrannus (Attack of the Super Monsters)

I don’t… I don’t think I have the strength to really get into Attack of the Super Monsters. When I watched it, liquor was involved. Describing it reads like a parody of Japanese media that involves anime, men in monster suits, and giant robots meant to sell collectible toys. But it’s real, and the realest shit ever is Emperor Tyrannus. Emperor Tyrannus is literally a giant tyrannosaurus rex who is the evil mastermind of an underground civilization of dinosaurs. The dinosaurs talk, because shut up, and Emperor Tyrannus in particular talks with a villain voice that I just can’t really convey through text. I think the closest I can get is saying that he sounds like someone doing an imitation of Brian Blessed while having a stroke. Emperor Tyrannus shoots laser beams from his eyes that mind control the other dinosaurs into being evil, and watches them fight a hermaphroditic cyborg superhero in a drill/airplane. Look, you need to see this for yourself. I’m not doing this justice. Get your friends, find the DVD, and strap in for a wild ride.

9.       Witch Tree (The Last Witch Hunter)

The Last Witch Hunter is another guilty pleasure move where Vin Diesel brings what I’m pretty sure is one of his D&D characters to a movie and somehow ropes Michael Cain and Elijah Wood into it with him. Our villains are, in a surprising twist, witches that cook up some fairly grotesque magic. One of the creatures meant to act as the witches’ guardians is a magical sentinel, and it just goes so hard and so dark for what amounts to a stick golem. It’s the fine details that make this construct stand out. The extra limbs let it move faster and have extra attacks, the jawbones around the front form a crude mouth, and the branch rib-cage makes it look like something that used to be alive instead of something that was just magically summoned. There’s so much work poured into this one monster, and it’s definitely a treat to see it at the end of the movie. Rethink your golems, kids; treat yourself better.

10.   Giant Leeches (Attack of the Giant Leeches)

I used to be pretty intensely leech-phobic when I was younger (and by younger, I mean a couple of years ago), but even then I knew the giant leeches were lame. Incredibly lame. Like, honestly kind of pathetic. I kind of like them out of a bizarre sense of pity. Giant leeches should scare me, but these guys are just goofy. A leech isn’t a hard design; it’s a tube with a sucker on each end. But I am almost convinced that the person who designed these monsters had never actually seen a leech, or possibly even a worm. But the movie still treats them with all the dignity and awe of the Creature of the Black Lagoon. There are prolonged sequences of these guys swimming underwater, floating around like hungry garbage bags. These things are not, nor were they ever, leeches; they are some kind of aquatic octopus or confused anemone. That’s why they need our love, our protection; because they’re too stupid to survive by themselves.

[anneedmonds]

Facial In A Field

I had a facial in the middle of a field and I have to say, without any exaggeration or unnecessary embellishment, that it was one of the best facials I have ever had in my life. Perhaps it was partly due to the fact that I was at a festival with my kids (we’ll come back to that, I must have been mad) and the opportunity to lie still with my eyes closed was absolute heaven all on its own, but I think that mostly it was down to the highly proficient hands of my skilful Weleda facialist.

You may be wondering why on earth I would be at a festival with my kids: I asked myself the very same question approximately three minutes after arriving in the car park. As one child (Ted, two) screamed because we’d brought the wrong socks with us and the other (Angelica, four) repeatedly asked to see her new sleeping bag, like some sort of possessed battery-operated talking doll, the adults manhandled various large and heavy packages from the boot of the car onto the world’s smallest trolley.

People on social media always seem to make “festivals with kids” look fun. I’ve decided that they are either superhuman and find the whole thing easy or they’re completely and utterly mad and thrive on chaos, sweaty tents and dragging their small children around in glorified wheelbarrows. I suppose I just don’t see the point in festivals if each and every benefit of said festival is entirely obliterated by the presence of your children, who need constant entertainment, incessant feeding and who refuse to go to sleep. Ever.

And I suppose that I don’t even really appreciate the benefits of a festival full-stop, because a) I dislike camping and b) if I drink too much I get cystitis and cystitis does not mix well with festival toilets. Oh and c) I hate crowds and loud noises.

At ValleyFest, thankfully, there were very few crowds; if ever there was a “starter festival”, one to ease yourself in with, then this would be it. Just south of Bristol, set around a beautiful lake, it was more like a giant party than a festival – there was a friendly feel and a relaxed, sunny vibe. Yeo Valley were giving out free milk. There was a big tractor to help you take your bags up to the campsite. The loudest music stopped at 11pm so that parents could get some sleep. Loos were the type you get at weddings, with sinks and lights and so on, rather than the half-door monstrosities I’ve seen elsewhere. Best of all, Weleda (one of my long-time skincare brand favourites) were doing facials and hand massages and generally offering some much-needed respite and refuge to those in need of some TLC.

My sister and I virtually sprinted to the Weleda reception, so desperate were we to get ourselves into a horizontal position that didn’t involve an airbed. And the Weleda tent was like entering some sort of canvas sanctuary, one filled with skincare delights and gentle-voiced people. It was calming even with the booming of the bass from the main music stage, which was only a few dozen yards away. (A few dozen yards? Hark at me! This is how you speak at a festival.)

I started this post by praising the skill of my facialist and I shall praise her again; Megan had the hands of an angel. But a firm and thorough angel, not one of those ones with a soft and whimsical touch, not a weedy angel who administers facial movements with a whisper of a stroke here and a tickle of the nose there. (Can’t stand a tickle-touch, either in a facial or a massage. It makes me both uncomfortable and deeply annoyed. Tickling is such a waste of time. Don’t tease me, just get on with it.)

So yes, thankfully Megan wasn’t a tickler, the pressure was just right and – JOY! – she delved straight in with a massage even as she was cleansing my face! A cleanse with purpose! There’s nothing worse than a prolonged cleanse with eighty-five products, the sucking noise of cream being pressed onto skin punctuated by the frequent wringing out of the flannel right behind your head. If I’m going to be cleansed for more than a minute then I want the experience to have a sensory edge, ie an extra bit of massage that’ll make my eyes roll back into my head and send me into a state of unparalleled bliss.

It rarely happens, but it happened in my Facial in a Field. It was only a half an hour slot, which you’d think would be dire for your ability to relax, but I was in and out of consciousness for the entire time, and it felt like a week. I genuinely thought halfway through that the 30 minutes printed on the ticket had been a typo. It was sublime and more rejuvenating than a day in a posh spa. Half an hour! Thirty minutes! It takes me that long to remember the password for my online banking!

I often come out of a “branded” facial and feel a bitter disappointment that the focus of the whole treatment was on the products and not on the physical action. When the facialist applies four different masks, a scrub, five oils and all the time whispers the names of the products into my ear like some kind of subliminal messaging exercise. This is the Alvira scrub, the Alvira scrub, the Alviraaaaaaa….. But when a facial relies on very few products, it tends to become more about the handiwork of the therapist and not about ingredients. And this is what I prefer.

Last year I went for a very expensive branded facial (actually, a half an hour one again, I think it was at an event) and the products being used were all well over £150 each. I was treated to a running commentary about each one, what the benefits were, why it was being used, how it was being applied. I felt like saying “I never get to lie in silence with my eyes closed and be touched, just be quiet and rub my face!”

Which would have been rude, so I didn’t, but it was the biggest waste of half an hour. If I wanted to paste masks on myself with a spatula and listen to pointless chatter I’d do it at home. So well done Weleda for just choosing the most minimal product line-up and relying on skill rather than marketing spiel.

The products used in the Radiance Restoring Routine (which you could do yourself, albeit without Megan’s Magical Touch) are all massively gentle and gorgeous and have all, at one time or another, been included in my skincare favourites. Almond Cleansing Lotion (see my review here), Almond Soothing Facial Oil for massage and then Skin Food (see review here) used as a mask and then to moisturise. (I recently raved about Skin Food Light – you can read that review here, it’s a great alternative to the very rich and slightly greasy original Skin Food.)

I’ve whittled that product list right down to the bare bones, but I should point out that there were a number of extra twists and turns, including compresses using flannels soaked with Weleda bath milk (Rosemary to start, Lavender to finish) and eye de-puffers made from camomile tea bags. Nothing fussy, nothing outrageously priced and a clever use of their incredible bath milks.

You can find a list of Weleda advisors, all trained in this facial routine, on the website here. There’s no dedicated place to go in and have the facial (please make this happen, Weleda!) but if you put your postcode in it brings up your nearest Wellbeing Advisors. If you’re in Cheshire then – lucky you – your nearest might be the wonderful Megan. I would highly, highly recommend. If I enjoyed my treatment in the middle of a festival field, after a sleepless night in a sweat box and Basement Jaxx anthems thundering into my brain, imagine how much you’d enjoy it in a normal situation. Knowing that you didn’t have to return to three crazed small people who had raided the emergency cool box and eaten six jellies, four packets of cheese Doritos and eight Ella’s Kitchen breakfast pouches.

The website for ValleyFest is here and my verdict on it, overall, would be very good. Incredibly clean, really friendly, great atmopshere and lovely setting. Just leave the small people with granny. We ended up absconding on the Saturday afternoon after our facials because the kids had reached fever pitch and we couldn’t sit in our tents because they were too hot. Packing up and getting our stuff back to the car without the help of the handy tractor was a low point. We had to do a version of the walk of shame through the middle of the whole festival; me carrying Ted, a backpack, two food bags and a Trunki, Mr AMR looking for all the world like someone who had spent the past few hours fighting zombies in a post-apocalyptic swamp. Families stared as we dropped tent pegs, fought back tears and ushered toddlers along, trailing the bedraggled ribbons of a broken kite behind us. It was grim. At one point I thought my heart was going to fail, but it wasn’t as bad as the time I nearly died of exhaustion, so it doesn’t quite make it into the over-exertion hall of fame…

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[lindyhunt]

How to Actually Have Fun in Las Vegas (Hint: Avoid the Strip)

I know I’m painting things with an overly broad brush, but I’m just going to say it: Vacations are lies, and all travellers are liars. Consider what happens on vacation. We visit an alternate universe, like the fortunate frauds we are. This hotel is our home. This lifestyle? Ours. These complicated meals and breathtaking activities? We do this all the time. The more trips we take, the better we get at deception.

I’m reminded of this theory while in Las Vegas for the Life Is Beautiful festival: three days of music, art installations and roundtables that feature important people presumably hip enough to keep millennials engaged. On day one, I meet a fellow festivalgoer named Chris. He is covering Life Is Beautiful, too, and by my observation is friendly but not boisterous, with the general demeanour of a cool high-school teacher (and the wardrobe to match).

On day two, we find our way to the Indian restaurant-turned-media centre, and Chris disappears into the bathroom. When he comes out, he’s wearing shiny red tights, a silver lamé vest (unbuttoned, naturally) and an Electric Circus-approved amount of glitter on his face. This crowd doesn’t frighten him. It isn’t oppressive. It’s an opportunity, and he came prepared to be who he really is—or at least who he wants to be at a concert festival in Las Vegas.

It’s easy to associate Las Vegas with the adults-only dubious debauchery you see in movies and on television. But that reputation is getting a bit played out, isn’t it? And like the customer-satisfaction city it is, Las Vegas is wise enough to move with the zeitgeist. In this era of curation and gentrification—when millennial consumers are (so we’re told) interested in experiences and stories—rejuvenating parts of the city that were previously left to wilt in the shadow of The Strip has come about. The Downtown Project (helmed by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, who relocated the company’s HQ to Vegas’s old City Hall building in 2013) is the investment enterprise behind a lot of the urban renewal I’m here to see.

Photography Courtesy of Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority

On The Strip, it’s almost impossible to think (with all that’s being sold to you), but on Fremont Street—ground zero for this born-again downtown and home to Life Is Beautiful—things are disarmingly, well, beautiful. Here, the festival has splashed massive murals done by such giants in the urban-art movement as Shepard Fairey and Faile. There is a steampunk-y robot cuddling up to his human companion, a dizzy Linus van Pelt quoting hip-hop lyrics, and so much more. It’s as if Vegas got sleeved. Aside from a very flashy zip line attraction that lets you fly over Fremont Street amid blinding lights, what draws people to Old Las Vegas are the same things that bring people to any city: the bars, the restaurants, the character. Old Las Vegas feels real.

There are two aesthetic vibes competing for supremacy in Las Vegas—not counting The Strip (or the murals). It’s western (you’ll recall the giant neon cowgirl that used to kick her leg over Fremont Street before so many of the neon signs were retired) versus a kind of mid-century chic. The Triple George Grill in the Downtown Grand definitely falls into the latter category. It was one of the first restaurants to open in the early days of revitalization, but it feels like a dinner club out of Mad Men—or any other cultural product set in the early ’60s. (Think dim lighting, classic cocktails and simple American cuisine done perfectly.)

On the other side of that aesthetic divide is the Gold Spike. It offers co-working spaces by day in the “Living Room” and house-party vibes at night; there’s an extensive vinyl library, and the “Backyard” has oversized games while the bar offers boozy milkshakes in a homey environment. It doesn’t have cowboy boots and lassos on the walls, but it feels a little like a friend’s romper room, back when people called such spaces “romper rooms.”

If The Strip thrives on its overtly nihilistic ideation, the new Old Las Vegas feels like it was made for real people who actually live here. There’s this notion that I remember from my religious upbringing about how believers should be in the world but not of the world. Proximity to sin is unavoidable, but participation in it isn’t. Downtown Vegas feels like that. It’s Vegas but not. That’s probably why I like it.

Although maybe that’s the lie I’m living on this trip…. Yes, I��m attending an outdoor festival (Did I mention that I hate music festivals? No? That’s another story) in Vegas, but I am not of Vegas. Not the gambling, blinged-out, clichéd Grecian Vegas. I’m at this concert—in a field surrounded by looming hotels—watching Muse, Chance the Rapper and Gorillaz. None have earned a residency yet. And there’s no kitsch—only thousands of people swaying outside in the dry desert heat.

Photography by FilmMagic/Contributor/Getty

But unlike most of the other attendees, I won’t return to my parents’ bungalow or even to one of these downtown hotels. No, after each concert, I’ll head for The Strip. I’ll walk through a lobby that beeps and plinks and is dying to make me a winner. I’ll pass girls dressed like Halloween cops who pose with you for photos and then ask for money afterwards. And the next morning, I’ll eat more food than should be legal at a long, winding brunch buffet at Caesars Palace. I say I’m not of Vegas, but there is certainly enough evidence to the contrary. I can practically hear The Strip calling to me, reminding me that I watched LOVE, the Beatles-inspired Cirque du Soleil show. “Were you not entertained?” it asks.

But that lie, along with every other lie I tell myself, fades away every night at Life Is Beautiful. I am one of many who are bobbing their heads, trying to see around the giant in front of them. It’s a music festival, and it could be anywhere, in any open field. There is only love while I’m watching Lorde make the crowds ripple and bounce, as unaware as everyone that in 10 days, at a different outdoor concert, the tragedy of America’s deadliest mass shooting would tear so many lives apart. But on this day, the love feels real. And I realize I’m enjoying every minute of it.

No word of a lie.

(Life Is Beautiful runs from September 21 to 23 with performances by The Weeknd, Florence + The Machine, Arcade Fire, Miguel and more. You can buy tickets here.)

[solotheloso]

A BOON BARELY GIVEN - CH. 2

I strolled over the city sidewalk, passing beneath the towering pillars of streetlights and electric poles and past a hodgepodge of shop windows and apartment rows. The neon of store signage and the orange haze of the arc-sodium bulbs overhead blended into that odd, indistinct ambient glow that you can only find in busy cities and places like arcades. The city wasn’t so busy now, though; where normally there were the loud and churning masses of folk going about their lives-- heading from jobs and into bars or vice versa, at this time of the night-- there was nothing but the occasional lone pedestrian, head down and walking as quickly as the length of their legs would allow. I figured it was the feeling of the city that was doing it.

Even folk without magic in their blood can feel it when mana gets all riled up and out of sorts. It typically manifests as being prone towards recklessness or aggression, like on the nights of the full moon. This time things were a bit less ‘natural cycle’ and a bit more ‘this ain’t right’, so I guess it stood to reason that behavior would change accordingly. Even so, the city felt practically deserted and it creeped me out, logical or not. I feel safer in crowds, more for the anonymity of it than any perceived safety in numbers. Like this, I stood out. I took a breath and set my mind on walking. And the problem at hand.

I wasn’t lying when I told the sentinel that I could find the person that trashed the shrine. Well, not entirely. My talents don’t lie in finding things so much as happening across them. I would have chalked it up to luck years ago if it weren’t for the consistency of the thing. More than once I’d found myself wandering into an event or bit of information that led me down some kind of significant path. The problem-- one that had plagued me for most of my adult life-- was figuring out whether that path ended in satisfaction and a goal accomplished… or some kind of awful punishment. My auntie had told me once that I was someone who was destined for interesting things. That’s the word she used: interesting. Not great, or terrible, just interesting. Considering she had been one of the best sooth-sayers in the western hemisphere before her untimely death, I was inclined to believe her. So instead of dismissing every unusual event that happened to me as pure coincidence, I hedged my bets and tried to wrangle causality to my advantage. The best way I knew how to do that was to head problems off at the pass, get a drop on things. In that vein, I laid out the facts in my head and tried to make sense of it.

From what I knew of these matters, most large cities across world contained several shrines to the master of the sentinels, the Blessed Black. From what little mages have been able to get out of sentinels-- usually before a hearty pummeling or outright execution-- these shrines did something to soothe the massive turbulence in the mana field that comes from millions of people living in a close space. See, when you’ve got countless folk in such tight quarters, all dreaming, fighting, fucking and whatnot, things can get a bit… wobbly. I could never find any clarification on what kind of wobbly, but apparently it was bad enough that the Blessed Black-- whoever or whatever that is-- saw fit to maintain these shrines and smooth out the wrinkles, like some sort of janitor for reality.

Anyway, I knew from way back that this city in particular had five shrines, all equidistant like they were laying out a pentagram. I still have no idea whether that’s normal or not, but that’s not important. What was important was that toppling even one of the shrines meant that the whole damn thing was unstable. It just didn’t work quite right. I didn’t know why the sentinels didn’t just build another one, but apparently it wasn’t an option in the time we had left. My best guess was that, in the process of destroying the shrine, the culprit made off with something the sentinels needed to do their thing. They probably wanted the bastard caught for more than just revenge, if you asked me.

Which brings me to what I was doing wandering the streets in the small hours of the morning. As soon as the sentinel had left, I set out on foot from the old lot and towards the old city center. When I was speaking with it I had confirmed the general location of the wrecked shrine. ‘In old town, near the factory district’. That had only been a suspicion and a hell of a gamble at that. I had figured that the way the shrine construct was built, any weak points would reveal themselves as localized mana turbulence. Basically, anywhere there was a gap in protection, things would be less stable.

With that in mind, I had spent the entirety of yesterday simply wandering from place to place around the city in a loose grid, getting a feel for the ambient mana and trying to nail down exactly where it was worst. It was time-consuming but apparently worth it, given that it had convinced the sentinel of my value. My ability to sense and analyze mana was pretty exceptional among the mages I had known; I wasn’t sure that more than one or two of them could have pulled it off, given that for most the quality and stability of a mana field came down to gut feelings and heebie jeebies.

I kept my attention directed to the sensations as the city’s mana washed over me in an endless wave. My feet moved on autopilot. After nearly two hours doing little but pounding the sidewalk, I noticed that my surroundings had changed from ‘metropolitan’ to something closer to ‘dilapidated’. Shops and cafes and trendy high-rises had given way to deteriorated foursquares and corner stores that would have been called bodegas if they weren’t standing in the middle of cracked and weed-littered parking lots. The lack of time and money had given what few residents had stayed little incentive to keep up with property repairs, and the whole area gave off a vibe of unwilling neglect. The endless march of capitalism that had created the towering skyscrapers of glass and metal only a scant few miles away had left these folk behind. With almost no legitimate jobs and hardly anything in the way of services, I’d be surprised if more than one out of every ten had a real hope of getting somewhere better.

The streets were just as deserted in this neighborhood as they were in the city proper, so the only people I saw were the occasional pedestrian and loiterer. Despite my habit of wearing full suits, I was apparently considered inconspicuous enough to avoid incident. Or maybe it was just the night. Several minutes later my surroundings went from residential to industrial at a jarring speed and I found myself truly alone for the first time in a long while. Most of the streetlights didn’t work out here, so I had to rely on my natural night vision and the ever-present glow in the sky that came from being just outside a large city. It wasn’t long before I found myself standing in front of what looked to be an abandoned warehouse. A squat, sprawling structure of rusted metal and concrete, it stood alone, set far apart from its fellows in the center of a large dirt lot bordered by heavy duty chain-link and panel fencing. My instincts were screaming at me that this was the place.

I scaled the fence, my arms hauling me up and over the top with practiced ease. I landed lightly on the other side and scanned the building carefully. From my new unobstructed vantage point I could see a loading bay set into the building’s side, a gaping mouth at the end of a gentle downward slope that revealed the structure’s foundation was submerged at least ten feet below the surface of the lot. Dry, yellow grass and dessicated weeds sprung up at random from the dirt, making the whole place look like it had been caught in a long and vicious drought. I noticed with some trepidation that no plant life-- however withered-- grew within at least fifty feet of the warehouse itself. Either there was some bad mojo on the place or whatever they had stored inside had been particularly vile and leached into the soil. Neither option made me feel good about being here. I moved towards the building.

I barely made it into the dead zone before I started feeling the tingle of active magic. Just like with the sentinel, I resisted the urge to halt and kept moving. Magic was all about pure willpower, and for me the best way to assert my will was to act like I knew damn well what I was doing. I didn’t stop even when the tingling changed to a fierce burning, just gritted my teeth and put one shoe in front of the other. There was the briefest of moments where the power behind the guardian spells swelled up to such a massive crescendo that I was convinced I was about to die a stupid and undignified death, but in the very next instant all the sensations stopped and I passed into blissful normality again.

Cripes, was this the work of the sentinels? If so, I could understand why they were so dangerous. To a mage like me, the spells on this place caused a direct and very physical sensation of pain, but to a normal-- someone without the ability to sense and manipulate mana-- the discomfort inflicted translated almost entirely to mental anguish. Anyone entering the lot might feel uneasy even in broad daylight and decide to avoid the place out of simple prudence. Getting halfway might cause intense paranoia and a feeling of creeping dread. After all that, if they were foolish enough to keep going, I doubt they would be able to resist falling victim to a sudden and massive panic attack before fleeing in terror.

It took me a moment to shake off the effects of the spell. I loosened my tie and surveyed the warehouse again, now that I was up close and free of distraction. I was standing just to the side of the loading bay in front of a metal door, long gone to rust. A similarly worn sign just above displayed the letters ‘EMP--Y--S ONL-’. The door just made a cracking sound and barely budged when I tried it, so I gave it a swift kick right below the knob. With a shower of rust flakes and a tremendous klang, it politely agreed to be opened. The first thing that greeted me when I stepped across the threshold was an intense reek of dust and mold. Well, that and the pitch dark of the place. Out of reflex, I twitched my fingers in a familiar pattern and murmured an incantation. I felt a tingling in my eyes and the unforgiving darkness pulled back a bit, allowing me to discern first outlines and rough shapes, then eventually fine details. The night-sight spell was one I used fairly often, and though it would never match a spotlight in terms of pure visibility, it was far less conspicuous.

The space around me looked to be a break room. Narrow lockers lined one wall, benches a few feet away from them. Some of the locker doors hung halfway open and I could see an ancient, moth-eaten coverall hanging from a hook in one of them. On the opposite wall were pasted the heavily faded remnants of workplace safety posters. I doubt I could have read them even if the light were better. At the end of the room there was a door to a larger space and a kitchenette taking up the rest of the wall and the corner. The decor-- and the fact that everything was coated in countless layers of dust and mildew-- made it feel like the place had been closed prior to the invention of internet.

I passed through the far door and into the warehouse proper. It was an enormous space, much larger than I had expected from seeing the outside; the only indication I had that it wasn’t an endless ocean of darkness was the night sky peeking through dozens of tiny holes pocking the sheet metal ceiling and walls, evidence of decades of exposure and no maintenance. I carefully descended a metal staircase down onto the main floor. There I saw the outlines of an enormous, jagged mass of metal, all straight lines and sharp corners, piled from edge to edge.

It took me a moment to realize that it was all that remained of the metal shelving units that had once housed the cargo that the warehouse was responsible for. From what I could see, they had long rusted together, and I doubted I could budge any of the mound with anything short of a construction vehicle or high explosives. Something about the mess bugged me as unnatural, so I climbed halfway back up the stairs and peered out over the jumble again, this time focusing my mana into my eyes and temporarily boosting the night sight spell. It could be exhausting if I kept it up, but it proved to be worthwhile a moment later when I realized what had been bothering me. From this position I could see that the shelves were stacked with almost painstaking care. Knock out one and the whole shebang could come down on your head. My stomach fell as I noticed the center of the mound. It was piled higher than the rest, and I could see the barest glint of light filtering through the gaps in the shelves. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, feeling out the mana in this space. I rocked back almost immediately, momentarily stunned by the wave of uncanny energy that had washed over me. I’m not normally the type to complain out loud, so all I did was sigh wearily and take off my jacket. The things I do for profit.