#this makes me think of symphony!donnie | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

fearissorrowful · 3 months ago

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“You’re kidding…right?”

Well, being honest. Your first thought wasn’t ‘Hey! Let's house a bunch of killers!’ it was actually. ‘This sounds like a bad idea, screw it!’

Safe to say… you weren’t actually planning for it to happen, you kind of just assumed… otherwise.

ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁. . .ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁. . .ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁. . .ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁. . .ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁. . .ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁. . .ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁

Donni smiles at you. “What is the worst that can happen? You have a big house and I'm sure it's just cos-players looking for a place to crash.” he pats your back reassuringly. When you had offered a friend of yours a favor you weren't exactly planning on this. “Why am I doing this?” you mumbled to yourself, were you really about to devote yourself to this. One…two…- six people?

Your eyes stay glued to your phone as you think. “Y/N??? What are you thinking about?” Donni notices your silence and offers a hand, his eyes full of concern. Donni has liked you for a while now, in a friendly way. His friend Denies however had the biggest crush on you and was embarrassingly open about it, he was a huge geek who thought he was too hot for the cheerleaders, believing in the classic popular boy x nobody trope.

Which was all kinds of offensive to you.

“I’m fine… I’m just not sure, what if these guys are creeps! There are tons of weirdos that do cosplay, you know? - ah- no offense.” you ramble to Donni, your cosplay loving friend. He shakes his head. “Non taken, I see your point but these guys are legit. I mean…” Donni cuts himself off pointing at his phone, a picture he pulled up. “Look, they’ve been to every big cosplay event in existence… well besides this one.” he bumbles, excitement in his eyes. “Why… would they come to this one…it doesn't start till…” you glance at your phone's calendar. “It's two months away.” you groan.

“-Which is perfect! They are earlier birds. Imagine how responsible they are.” Donni says, waving his hands dramatically. Sometimes you related him too much to the ninja turtle Donni…but could you blame yourself? Your friend is Geeked out in a smart non smart way.

“Uh-huh…” you zone out, biting your lip as you eye the picture. Something felt…unsettling about it, yet you couldn't place your finger on it, not that Donni would even let you despite your obviously clean hands. “Fine.” you sigh, as Donni exclaims.

“I’ll host them for a few months up until comic-con. However they all must pay their fair share, it isn't easy owning such a large home.” you explain carefully, ignoring Donni’s dancing, it was already embarrassing enough sitting here outside of the school especially when it's over. “Thank you, thank you Y/N! This is going to be so awesome having famous cosplayers in your home! You won't regret it….I'm going to meet famous cosplayers!” Donni loudly mumbled the last part as he violently shook you back and forth out of thrill.

“Donni! Stop, I'm going to puke!” you screech trying to wriggle out of his grasp. “Ahaa- Sorry Y/N I’m just excited.” He smiles sheepishly. “I can tell.” you groan in response, rubbing your arms as he glances to the side. “Fricking turtle.” you lean back onto your elbows as Donni makes a small humming noise, possibly questioning your choice of words. “Who?” he questions obliviously. “You.” you sneer back before getting up with a small irritated smile.

“I'm heading home, arrange whatever it is with them and let me know.” you begin to walk off, only turning back to see Donni wave at you frantically with a large dopey grin. You laugh to yourself as you hop inside your vehicle, usually you walk but this week you dubbed yourself lazy.

Thankfully today was friday but too bad for you it meant you would be walking next week, if you had the motivation.

Plugging your keys into the ignition you listened as the pleasant sound of your baby roaring to life filled your ears like a symphony, patting your steering wheel as you peeled out of the parking lot and began to head home, until you didn't and took a turn into the market, no knowing when your guests would arrive you assumed it would be better to get food before hand and have them pay you back later. If they didn't like what you bought, tough luck.

Shrugging your shoulders, you let your car down gently listening to its engine quite as you hopped out from the vehicle, keys in hand. Taking your sweet time as you walked into the market, eyeing it's wonderful display from the outside, humming to yourself as you slipped on your headphones, mindlessly wandering the isles with a small cart, nothing too extreme in mind. Maybe you’d make dinner tonight instead of ordering something like yesterday?

It wasn't till you bumped into a wall of a figure did you realize you had zoned out, lost in thought. Looking up you notice how tall the man really is, not too taller than you but above average.

“Uhm- hi? Sorry-” you shuffle back awkwardly to give the stranger some space. They rub their neck, “N..no it's okay, my bad'' they quickly say. Clearly this person didn't interact with others much, you could tell. You’ve never seen them either and they looked around your age… probably going to a different school, though you highly doubted it considering how convenient your school was compared to others, the next closest being out of town.

The stranger eyed you briefly before the both of you were startled by someone else, leaning over the stranger's shoulder. Was it safe to assume they’re friends? “Ooohhh~! Who’s this cutie, frank?” the other stranger asked, ‘frank’ the guy he was leaning on as he began to loom over you.

Frank groans looking irritated. “None of your business Dandy, now shoo! We have things to look for.” Frank angrily grabs an item before stomping off, dragging Danny with him. You almost laugh, you would have if it wasn't for the sudden feeling of dread you felt, wash over you like an unpleasant order.

It wasn't till you turned back around to focus on what you had started did you get a phone notification. Looking down, you grab your phone, yanking it from the comfort of your pocket as you eye the notification curiously. It's from Donni, he had texted you and by the sounds of the multiple exclamation marks near the label of ‘IMPORTANT’ in all caps… it seemed pretty important.

Sighing you stand still, hopeful not to run into another person. Opening the message you are begging to read, your sweat dropping from your forehead as you silently curse under your breath. ‘IMPORTANT!!!!! Goodnews, they arrived just earlier today and are in town!’- Donni.

“Dang it, Donni.” you huff out, stuffing your phone into your jacket, now dragging your feet around the markets tilted floors. “Maybe… I should have ordered takeout…” you mumble as you facepalm. Why were they here already if they’re looking for a place to stay? Wouldn’t you plan that ahead of time?

Guess Donni was wrong, they are not as responsible as he thought so. With a small nervous flick of your wrist, you scan your surroundings, hopeful to make quick of your trip as anxiety gnaws at you.

You can't help but think….What if they are already there and I'm making them wait? You attempt to calm your breathing as you begin to rush around the store, your paycheck was definitely going to take a massive hit and you knew it. You’d bug Donni for extra cash later… or Denise.

With a small yelp you tripped forward, expecting to fall you slam your eyes shut and brace but instead are met with strong arms wrapping around your waist. As you're pulled up your eyes shoot open. “Falling for me already Doll face?” the voice rings out with a familiar tone. You feel your face flush with embarrassment. It was one of the guys you ran into earlier, you believed his name was… Danny?

“Uhm… no- I just tripped is all.” you squeak out as Danny playfully frowns. “I'm just messing with ya’ doll face. If you wanted to be in my arms that badly. You could have just asked.” he smirks again, seeming to not take the hint, you squirm slightly in his grasp becoming more uncomfortable with each second that passes, his gaze is on you… solely on you, as if the world had ceased to exist outside of his hold.

“Let her go, dumba*s” Frank smacks Danny, upside his head almost making him drop you. Danny’s smile twitches as he sets you down. “Me and doll face were just havin’ fun.'' His playful demeanor begins to fade. Danny and Frank glare each other down, not noticing as you slip away to cash out your gathered items.

“Phew… that was weird…” you groan to yourself, trying to stay low as you approach the check out desk, only to notice Frank and Danny were already there paying for their soda. You glance at them confused at how they had gotten there so fast… it was weird, since you had run into them the first time, it just seemed like you're going to keep running into them like some chile movie…

However you just shrugged it off as it is indeed a small market and you are not the main character to a romance film, denying to admit how attractive you found them was not step one to a blossoming romance… right?- slowly snapping out of your thoughts you approach the counter, the guys had been chit- chatting by the exit oddly enough, noticing you…which wasnt what you wanted.

The duo walk up to you earning the cashier's attention, the young woman cashier smiles at them even though she had just served them moments ago, it made you want to roll your eyes.

“Hi again sweetheart, it's funny how we keep running into each other, I’d say it's meant to be.” Danny smirks at you. He is attractive but the feeling of dread still didn't sit right with you, ever since meeting them. You shook your head, dodging his arm as it came to swing on your shoulder. His smile falters as Frank stands there awkwardly. “It's just a coincidence is all.” you say, mostly just self assuring yourself rather than the two men in front of you.

Danny chuckles. He’s possibly one of the smoothest flirts you’ve ment so far, it's oddly charming but horrible at the same time. Especially when you do not know these strangers other than their first names. “Don't be in denial sweetie.” Danny coo’s, leaning forward, but before he could continue the cashier clears her throat gaining his attention.

Frank glances at you. “He’s an idiot.” he whispers as you nod, making him chuckle. During this whole time though you failed to realize the cashier had already scanned and bagged your things until it dawned upon you.

Frank gracefully pointed to the already bagged groceries, you thanked him as Danny was still occupied by the cashier. You quickly slipped away, making your way to your beloved vehicle.

Hopping into your vehicle alongside your groceries, you try to plan out dinner. Not sure how much your guests would eat, you decided to rather make extra and save the un-consumed portions for leftovers.

#fear[is]sorrowful #artwork #fanfic writing #stories #horror #original writing #writing #my writing

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rottmntquotes · 5 years ago

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Out Of Commission

"Ooooohhhh yeeeeeaaaahhh! I can't believe Hueso allowed us to be the first ones to try his new pizza!"

A symphony of agreements was let out in response to Leo's cheer, followed by excited chanting as Hueso approached the table. Despite the cacophony the boys were creating, Hueso managed to fight back an annoyed sigh, setting his new pizza down on the table and watching as his best customers prepared to dig in. Before this could happen, however, Donnie got a call from April, who alerted them to a battle that was going on between two mutants in Central Park. Much to their dismay, the team was unable to gather the pizza to go, but Leo decided to take a slice and swallow it whole as they stood to leave.

"Can't let your kindness go to waste!" Leo shouted, stopping mid-run and turning around to swallow another slice. And another. And another. "Hueso, this pizza is super fucking good!"

"LEO! GET OVER HERE!" Raph ordered, huffing as Leo complained loudly. No more words were said afterwards, and the boys were gone in no time. Once they were finally gone, Hueso chuckled, gathering the remaining slices of pizza- which meant the two slices Leo was forced to leave -and taking them to the back to throw them away. Knowing that the pizza was good enough to feed any of the turtles was enough reassurance to Hueso that it would be good enough to feed everyone else.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I swear to bob, if we have to deal with those ferret mutants one more time, I'm going to use my Ōdachi to dig my own grave."

"You said it brother."

"I hear that."

"Don't have to say that again..."

Calming silence followed the brief conversation, and the boys sat on the floor in the main atrium before deciding to break apart and go to their rooms. For the moment, none of the boys had enough energy to take showers, so they collectively decided that they would take care of those necessities in the morning. As bedtime came, everyone seemed fairly relaxed, and the night went by without a hitch.

At least, for everyone but Leo.

"Ugh... stupid stomach... why are you so upset?" Leo whined softly, curling in on himself and shuddering. Teeth chattered rapidly and low growling echoed through Leo's room, accompanied by soft whispers that made Leo's eyes shift constantly in search of the sources. At one point, Leo swore that he saw a small child run past his room, and it aroused a side of him that he didn't even know existed. Low growls turned into loud hissing, and Leo crawled onto the ground, stalking towards his room's archway on all fours. With every step, Leo became more and more tense, his body instinctively preparing itself for a scuffle. Once he was finally at the archway, Leo crouched down, going silent and waiting exactly six seconds before racing out of his room, screeching loudly and yelping as he fell off the ledge of the sewer.

"WHAT'S GOING ON?! WHO'S THERE?!" Raph roared, shooting out of his room with a pillow in his hand. Donnie and Mikey ran out of their rooms as well, holding a paint brush and a snow globe respectively. No sight of an intruder was found, and Raph started to think that they had all dreamed the same thing.

That is, until Leo let out a loud cry of pain.

"Leo!" Raph, Donnie, and Mikey shouted in unison, hopping down and circling around their blue loving brother to see what had happened. At close range, it could easily be seen that Leo had broken his left arm, and twisted his right ankle, explaining his pained cry. Donnie went to work effective immediately, helping Leo up and handing the Slider to Raph, following his brothers back onto the ledge and leading them to the lab. Leo was then sat down on Donnie's resident cot, being distracted by Raph and Mikey while Donnie got to work on setting and slinging Leo's injuries. Granted, Leo did attempt to bite and scratch Donnie with every bout of pain that appeared, but other than that everything turned out fine. After being patched up, Leo was left alone in the lab, having been given a few pain pills to keep him stable throughout the night. Unfortunately, Leo's insomnia chose to strike that night, leaving him unable to get a good night's sleep.

The next morning, Donnie walked into the lab to check on Leo, raising a brow as he caught his twin sitting in front of a wall and mumbling. Nonchalantly, Donnie walked up to Leo, crouching down and trying to decipher what Leo was saying. Despite the close range, Donnie was unable to understand his brother's words. With a hum, Donnie gasped with revelation, snapping and focusing his attention on attempting to use their ever-popular twin telepathy. It took a good while, but Donnie was finally able to enter his brother's psyche, humming in surprise at the strange sights he was met with.

Unlike the normal bright and beautiful landscape that his twin's mind usually harbored, Donnie found himself in the middle of a foggy and dark swamp. The sounds of bubbling sent shivers down Donnie's spine, and he groaned in distaste as he realized that he was standing in some sort of dark sludge. The vegetation around Donatello was rotten and crumbling, the sky was smothered in heavy clouds, and any sort of wildlife present let out terrifying screeches in place of their normal chirps, squeaks, and sweet sounds.

"Brother... what has happened to you...?" Donnie whispered, forcing himself through the thick sludge and using his limited sense of smell to try and search for his brother's scent. The task proved to be difficult thanks to the messed up atmosphere, but Donnie soon caught sight of Leo. Smiling, Donnie moved faster, eventually managing to get next to Leo. "Hey, what's going on here? Why is everything so messed up?"

Leo whimpered, turning to face Donnie with a deep frown. The sight alone was enough to make Donnie sick, and the feeling got worse as Leo opened his mouth to say something, only to fall forward and begin hurling violently. This was all it took to drive Donnie out of Leo's psyche, and the Softshell backed away from his twin with the trademark speed of his species. Loud panting seemed to be all Leo needed to stop his staring, and he groaned pathetically, falling forward and shaking. Donnie- being the scientist he was -went into doctor mode immediately, checking all of Leo's vitals and cursing under his breath as every one of the tests proved to be spiking aggressively.

"Leo? Leo, can you hear me? Leo!" Donnie shouted, drawing Leo close and cradling Leo until he stopped shaking. "Leo...? Are you okay?"

An eerie silence was what Donnie received, and he held back a concerned huff, lightly gripping Leo's jaw to turn his face forward. As soon as the duo made eye contact, Leo hissed, moving like a viper despite his injuries and biting down on Donnie's shoulder, clamping down hard enough to make sure that he stayed attached to Donnie's shoulder. Screams and cries of pain and terror rang through the lair, drawing in the rest of the family. Raph went into action as soon as he saw what was happening, using one of his claws to loosen Leo's grip.

"Mikey! I need you and dad to pull Leo back! And do it fast because I have no idea how long I can keep Leo's bite loose enough!" Mikey and Splinter nodded, racing forwards and tackling Leo back, holding him down and doing their best to ignore the bits of skin and scales that were caught between Leo's teeth. "Keep him down! I'll wrap Donnie up!"

"No! We will not be able to hold him down for that long! Raphael, I need you to go into my room and look under my bed! There is a box labeled with a dragon's tooth, and I need you to grab it and bring it!"

"But dad-"

"DO IT NOW!" Raph squeaked, racing off to do as told. In the meantime, Mikey was following Donnie's instructions on how to patch up the large injury, and Splinter was using every bit of strength in his tiny rat body to hold his son down. As much as it hurt Splinter to watch his son suffer like this, he knew that feeling sorry for Leonardo and trying to talk about things was not going to work. Thankfully, before Splinter could drift farther into his thoughts, Raph returned with the box, sliding it next to Splinter and panting. "Good. Now hold your brother down."

"Master Splinter, what's going on with him?" Raph asked, his heart nearly stopping as he finally took notice of Leo's rapid heartbeat. Splinter shook his head, admitting that he did not know, much to his dismay. Two more seconds passed, though they felt like two hours, and Splinter was not surprised by the gasps of shock that he earned when the boys saw what was harbored in the box.

"This muzzle and these bindings should be strong enough to keep Leonardo stable. They are made of the strongest and finest material known in the Hidden City, and I have been saving them for a time like this." Splinter explained, scooting close to Leo and using a finger to press down on a pressure point to put Leo to sleep. "I never wanted this to happen, but I knew that it was destined to. You boys are growing up, and your animal instincts mixed with the ooze in your blood was bound to become a normal part of your lives."

"Wait, are you saying that this is because of us growing up?" Mikey asked, watching with slight disgust as the muzzle was placed on Leo.

"I am saying that it is likely. But we cannot know that for sure. I learned many of the things about raising you as children from books, movies, and TV shows. But there is only one person who is able to tell us more about the ooze and how it affects the composition of those it mutates..."

"Ugh... are we going to go to Draxum's apartment?" Raph asked, catching the beaker that Mikey threw at him; much to Donnie's horror.

"Yes." Splinter confirmed with annoyance. "We are going to Draxum's apartment."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"So you are saying that he simply started to attack the purple one out of nowhere?"

"Yes, Barry. That's what we're saying."

Baron Draxum snorted, putting a fist up to his mouth and snickering softly. Splinter and Raph sneered at Draxum's reaction, holding back choice words and leaving Donnie and Mikey to themselves. At the moment, Donnie was instructed to sit down on Draxum's refurnished couch, resting and trying to keep himself calm despite the blood that was still beginning to pour out in generous amounts. Next to Donnie sat Mikey, who was attempting to cheer Donnie up by regaling tales that happened between him and Todd. On the floor lay Leo. No sounds came from Leo, even as his eyes stayed wide open. His pupils were dilated, breathing unsteady, and though he would make eye contact with his family regularly, they each swore that it was like he wasn't even looking at them; rather that he was looking through them.

"Draxum, when you are done with your childish behaviors, we would appreciate it very much if you helped us understand what is going on here." Splinter hissed through clenched teeth, throwing his ears back to convey his anger. Draxum chuckled one last time before clearing his throat, looking down at Leo and humming.

"I hate to disappoint you, Lou Jitsu, but I must admit that this is something I am unable to help you with." Draxum admitted, feeling an odd sense of... something at the sight of one of his creations being in such a state. "Unlike what you might want to believe, the things you have described to me are in no way, shape, or form related to my ooze. And do be reminded that I spent years studying both the ooze and turtle species before combining them."

"Well then what are we supposed to do?! Who could we possibly go to that knows enough about the mystic types to help us?!" Raph groaned, letting a tense quiet befall the group before a loud gasp resounded between them. "No..."

"Raphael, we must."

"But father, she has done so many awful things to us! How can we trust her to help?!"

"We cannot, Donatello, but unfortunately she is the only other one we can go to..."

"If that's the case, then I would like to go as well! Let me say hello to an old enemy." Draxum rubbed his hands together, smiling darkly as he did so. "Let us go and try to bargain with Big Mama..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Alright, you know what to do boys. Look for Big Mama, and when you see her, do not engage. Keep her in your sight and keep us updated on where she is so we can join you."

"Yes, father."

"Got it pops."

"We'll find her, dad."

Splinter frowned and watched his healthy sons fan out through the Hidden City, his ears swiveling to better pick up the sound of Leo's labored breathing. A mustard coloured plastron rose and fell with each of Leo's breaths, and quiet wheezing drove spikes of pain and sadness through Splinter's heart. A heavy hand fell on Splinter's shoulder, and he turned to look up at Draxum.

"Do not worry, Jitsu." Draxum started, sitting down and staring at Leo's stiff body. "While your children may be stubborn, and reckless, and irresponsible, and make stupid decisions, and-"

"Are you trying to make me feel better, or insult my sons for the next half hour?" Splinter interjected, glaring at Draxum sharply.

"Right, my apologies." Draxum then moved his hand from Splinter's shoulder to Leo's neck, showing a rare display of affection. "While they do have all of those things, they have many other positives that outweigh the negatives. They are each intelligent in their own ways, strong in their own ways, perseverant, caring, sympathetic, energetic, and so many other things! They are all of these things, and not because of themselves. They are all of these things because of you, Jitsu. You have done a wonderful job taking care of these boys, and there is no one else who could have possibly-"

"DAD! DRAXUM! YOU HAVE TO TAKE LEO HOME!" Raph's frantic screaming startled Splinter and Draxum out of their conversation, and they stood up abruptly. In one swift movement, Draxum picked Leo up, holding the young turtle close and keeping a tight grip on the blue clad mutant. The duo stood still, looking around for any movements that would signify that Big Mama or her goons were nearby. The atmosphere was tense, and it took only one mistimed step for Splinter to throw a kunai at a nearby alleyway, smirking at the sound of the blade hitting even the smallest bit of skin.

"Draxum! Take Leonardo to the Candy Store!" Splinter ordered, knowing that Draxum was aware of what the order meant. In a split second, Draxum raced away, not turning to watch Splinter take down Big Mama's goons with little to no effort.

"Do not worry, blue one. We will find some way to fix you." Draxum assured, stopping and hiding behind a thick buildup of brush. More wheezing came from Leo, leading Draxum to believe that Splinter may have fastened the muzzle too tight. Out of an unexpected bout of pity, Draxum loosened the muzzle without second thought, doing the same with the rest of Leo's bindings. As soon as Draxum loosed the bindings surrounding Leo's legs, the mutant turtle screeched, easily sliding out of his binds and pinning Draxum onto the ground. The action was enough to shock Draxum into fighting back, and he used a vine to throw Leo out of the brush, his ears falling flat against his face as he watched Leo race off into the Hidden City. "This is not going to end well..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Where am I? What am I doing here? How did I get here?

Leo panted and whimpered with every step as he raced through the Hidden City, shocking each citizen with the sight of seeing a teenaged turtle running past them on all fours.

I have to find my family! Where are they?! Why aren't they with me?!

Blurry vision and terrible coordination accompanied Leo in his frantic search for his brothers and/or father(s), leading him to believe that he had been injected with some sort of virus or poison. Part of him didn't want to believe that he had been poisoned, as the last time he was poisoned he had caught on fire.

Why is everything so weird?! I can't see anything right! Raph! Donnie! Mikey! Splinter! Draxum! Where are you?!

All of a sudden, Leo felt two hands wrap around his waist, and he screamed at the top of his lungs, taking the time that his enemy was shocked to attack. With a bite to his assailant's arm, Leo kicked the enemy back, returning to his search for familiar faces.

Where are they?! Where is my family?! Where. Is. My-

"Well, lookie-lookie what we have here! My little champion turtley-boo!" Leo knew that voice, those words, that tone. It was Big Mama, but he couldn't see her! He could smell her, he could hear her, he could sense her presence, but all he saw was a blurry blob of lavender.

Big Mama... oh-ho-ho, wait until I'm done with you! When I get my claws on you, I'm gonna-

"Gunna eat... dump the... and keep... you see the... GOT YA!" Leo fell forward, coughing and whining as he attempted to even out his breathing. "Brothers... eat... keep at... don't you... hope..."

"Oh, you poor thing! You seem to be more woozy-frazzled than normal!" Big Mama chimed, leaning over to boop Leo's nose. A weak bite was sent in Big Mama's way, followed by a wheezy hiss. "And here I thought you were smarter and stronger than this."

I am! You awful Yokai! I'm not so weak that I can't fight you!

Leo gave another weak hiss, trying his best to push himself up. When he failed, Leo started to sob, taking notice of how weak his body had truly become. He didn't feel anything, he couldn't see anything, and his body was beginning to give up on him. Whatever this was, it was attacking Leo with a vengeance, and wasn't looking to give up until Leo was dead.

"Hmm, I must say that I am beginning to feel a bit of pity for you." Big Mama admitted, patting a finger on her chin as if thinking intensely. "Hey! I have an idea! What if I were to help you? I could help nurse you back to help, and in turn-"

"NO! No... don't... coin... flip..." Leo spat through his tears. Big Mama shook her head in disapproval, booping Leo's nose once more.

"Let Big Mama finish." The disguised Yokai then smirked deviously. "Now, I will help you, and in turn... you will fight in my Battle Nexus for the next year. You will be in my debt, and you will not be allowed to have your family help, or see your family without permission."

"Would... die..." Leo ground out, high pitched whimpers becoming more and more audible. "Rather... would... death..."

"I'm sure you would, young one." Big Mama giggled. "But I don't think your family would enjoy that very much."

No... don't do this...

"Just think, how would your brothers feel?" Big Mama hummed, putting her hands on her hips. "And your father, and your close friends? I'm sure none of them would be very pleased. Now, of course, none of them would be jumping up and diddly-down when they find out about the deal, but at least you'd be alive! To make it sweeter, I may just make it so that you can see your family twice a month for 12 hours each time! How does that sound?"

...

"Don't... can't..." Leo stopped, thinking over Big Mama's words and grimacing at how awful the truth was. "...Okay..."

"Good boy! Now, let us go and get you fixed up! Can't have a weak champion now, can we?" On any other day, the word Champion would have made Leo's heart soar, but now it just seemed like a mockery. The sound of grunting was followed by Leo feeling his body being lifted up. He had no strength to fight back, so he did nothing more than let himself be carried to Big Mama's Battle Nexus.

And, dear Pizza Supreme...

A nap really sounded good right now.

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So, yeah; I realize that I left out the others after the second third of the fic, but I couldn't really think of anything to use them for that wouldn't end with the whole "Family getting back together and learning a lesson about love and acceptance" trope. That would have completely ruined the original intention of ambiguity for the ending, so I shall leave it up to you to determine how they react/respond to learning about this deal.

*It took me a while to realize that I didn’t make it clear what was affecting Leo. In short, he has Belladonna (Nightshade) poisoning, and it was contracted by a new ingredient in Hueso’s pizza that was mixed in with the pizza sauce. The side effects were displayed throughout the fic, and trust me when I say that it took some time to think of how it would effect him - what with him being a mutant turtle with human DNA and all.

#RotTMNT #Rise of the TMNT #Fanfic #This Is An Experimental Fic #Sorry If It's Confusing #I Got Sleepy Halfway Through

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kathrinehastings · 6 years ago

Text

RaphaelxReader

Something to keep you warm

Today was one of the coldest days in a long time. Winter was at it's peak and you could feel the cold in your bones as you stepped out into the frigid evening air. You adjusted your scarf and shoved your gloved hands deep into your pockets, before moving off. You took a stroll to the nearest bakery and bought a huge, double chocolate cookie. You paid and walked across the street to Starbucks. The boys had never had Starbucks before and you wanted to surprise them. You knew them well enough to know (more or less) what they would like, so you hoped that your guesses weren't too far off. You got Mikey a classic "PSL", a lovely Caffe Misto for Donnie, Raph a Caramel Frappuccino and a good ol' Vanilla Latte for Leo. You ordered your usual and sat near the window, eating your warm cookie and watching the snow fall while you waited. You were so lost in thought that you hadn't noticed the coffee shop closing.

"Excuse me, miss?"

You jumped in your seat and turned to see the barista who served you with your order in hand. You made some incoherent noise and quickly swallowed the last of your cookie.

"Sorry," The barista smiled apologetically and placed your order down in front of you. "I don't mean to be chasing you out but were closed and my manager would like to lock up."

"I'm so sorry." You wiped your sleeve across your mouth to brush off any stray crumbs and grabbed the drinks. "I got... um, lost."

"It's okay." He smiled brightly and glanced down at your lips. "You've, err, you've got some..." He gestured to your bottom lip. He chuckled at your failed attempt at a second swipe and pulled out a napkin. "Here." He leaned over and gently wiped away the elusive crumb.

You blushed hard. "Oh... Thanks."

"No problem." He winked at you and walked over to the door, pulled it open and held it for you.

You mumbled a quick thank you and hurried outside, determined to avoid eye contact completely.

You walked along the street in the cold while sending Mikey a message to meet you. After a couple of minutes you turned down a familiar alley and stopped after the third dumpster.

You knocked the secret knock on the manhole cover with your foot and waited as you heard someone ascend the metal rungs of the ladder. The cover shifted and a pair of baby blues eyes stared back at you. "Ayyyeee." You drawled out "Ayyyeee." Mikey responded. "Took you long enough." "Starbucks." You said as you pointed to the cardboard cup holder in your hand. "Hold this please?" You handed him the tray and he slid down the ladder slowly enough to keep all the liquid inside the cups. You followed soon after, taking the tray again so that he could return the cover to it's proper place. The two of you chatted as you walked the short distance to the lair, having to smack Mikey's hand away from the tray every now and then. When you finally got to the lair, Michelangelo announced your presence with a loud, "(Y/N)'s here!", and you swear your eardrums were damaged after that. After greeting every one, You made your way into the kitchen with a trail of three turtles behind you, each one excited to have their first taste of Starbucks. You checked each cup and handed them to their respective recipients before pulling a large plastic tub out out your backpack. "What's that?" Michelangelo questioned while peering over your shoulder. You grinned and peeled the lid of with a triumphant, "Ta da!", once the brownies were revealed. "Finally!" Donatello commented. "You've been teasing us with how good your brownies are for months." "I know." You blushed. "I'm sorry it took so long." "Best day ever." Michelangelo sighed with a mouth full of brownie. "What's goin' on in 'ere?" You looked up at Raphael when he finally made an appearance and you couldn't stop the smile that plastered itself onto your face. "Hey, Raph." "Hey, (Y/N)." He made his way over to the counter and rested his massive forearms on the counter top. "Whatcha got there?" "Starbucks and homemade brownies." You replied. Your nerves were starting to rise, bringing your body temperature up with it. "Here's yours." You pushed the cardboard cup towards him as well as the container of brownies. "Thanks." Raphael picked up the cup and grabbed a brownie along with it. You grabbed a brownie too and took a bite out of it. Out of the corner of your eye, you could see Michelangelo snickering. You turned to him and glared. He simply grinned and bolted out of the kitchen. It was only then that you realised that the others had already left, leaving you alone with Raphael. Your eyes widened and you stared at the floor, panic rising into your throat. The others knew about your crush. You've had it for months and it was starting to get out of hand. It was fine for the first few weeks, but eventually it went downhill from there, and boy did you fall hard. You couldn't think straight when he was near and you caught yourself staring on multiple occasions. You couldn't even speak to him for too long and found yourself trying to avoid him whenever you could. Michelangelo had been pestering you about it non stop and Donatello had told you to "just tell him so that you can stop being awkward". "The worst that could happen is that he doesn't feel the same way. It's not like you'll die, (Y/N)." Donatello said as he tried to console you one day. But would they tell me to do it even though they knew he didn't feel the same way? You thought. They would want me to do it if they knew I'd get hurt, right? Raphael's deep voice broke you out of you reverie and your head snapped up to meet his gaze, quickly noticing that he had rounded the counter and was standing closer now. "Huh?" You questioned with as much grace as you could. Raphael chuckled. "I said," he took a step closer. "You're zoning out again." "Oh." You cleared your throat. "Sorry." He smiled and brought his hand up to your face. "You've got some..." "Oh." you pawed at your mouth, trying to wipe away the stray crumbs before he could. You didn't want a repeat of earlier. You wouldn't have been able to handle that. Raphael chuckled. "I think ya got it." You laughed and looked up at him, beaming at him once more. An imaginary symphony played in the back of your mind and time slowed down, allowing you to make the most of this moment. He has the most beautiful eyes. You thought, suppressing a sigh. "Err... Thanks?" You froze and the 'music' came to a scratching halt as time caught up with the scene in front of you; Raphael, smirking and looking very amused... At your expense. "Thanks for the coffee, (N/N)." Raphael winked at you as he left the kitchen, making the butterflies in your stomach come alive. You clenched your hands into fists and pressed them into your cheeks, silently fuming. Mikey came into the kitchen just as you were trying to shove your fist into your mouth. "Hey!" Mikey ran to your side, concerned. "What's wrong?" He asked as he pulled your hand from your face. "I was born." You dropped your head onto the counter top and groaned. "Everything went wrong after that." "I just saw Raph leave the kitchen with a huge smile on his face." "Probably because he was laughing at me." "What happened?" You mumbled some incoherent words into the counter top and when he didn't understand you had to force yourself to say it out loud, cringing internally at having to relive the moment. "I said that he has the most beautiful eyes." You repeated, feeling the embarrassment in your soul. "Rude." Mikey huffed. "What about mine?" "Mikey," You whined. "This is serious. I completely embarrassed myself." "I'm sure it wasn't that bad, (N/N). You just gotta pick yourself up and try again." Mikey took your hands into his own and leaned down, trying to get you to look at him. You sighed. "How many times do I have to try? A girl can only take so much." You had tried to tell Raphael how you felt. Multiple times, in fact. But every time there was always something stopping you from getting the words out. Whether it was an interruption caused by someone else or simply by your own nerves. It was always something. Every time you had built up the courage for it to go wasted and you were left feeling tense and frustrated. It was really starting to get to you. "Just one more time, (Y/N). Please?" Mikey begged, still holding you. You sighed, yet again. "Okay." You relented. "Fine. I'll do it." "There we go." Mikey beamed. "You're really brave, (N/N)." You frowned at him, suddenly suspicious. "Why are you so into this? What do you get out of this?" Mikey simply smiled. "I get to see my best friend happy." He grabbed your shoulders and started steering you out of the kitchen. "Now go." He handed you the container of brownies that you hadn't realised he'd taken. "Butter him up with these." After Mikey had unceremoniously shoved you toward the dojo, you found yourself around the corner and out of Raphael's sight while you psyched yourself up for the ordeal. "You can do this, (Y/N)." You whispered to yourself and took a deep breath, rounding the corner to meet your doom talk to Raph. Almost all of your courage flew out of the window the moment you stepped into the room. Raphael had had a wardrobe change in the mean time. All of his gear was gone and he had swapped out his 3/4 shorts for a large pair of sweatpants. He was using one of the many pipes passing through the room to do pull ups. You stood there staring. Hoping that he'd notice you so that he'd stop and drop down to meet you. But Alas, you were forced to watch as his muscles contracted and flexed, effortlessly lifting and lowering his body as if he weighed nothing. He looked so intimidating that you felt your mouth dry up and you had to resist the urge to try to slip away, unnoticed. You finally found your voice and managed to clear your throat loud enough to get his attention. He stopped, mid rep and looked down at you. You could see the beginning of his signature smirk form. You watched as he pulled himself and swung his weight forward. You couldn't anticipate his move and sucked in a breath. He released the pipe and dropped down, landing in crouched position in front of you. He rose to his full height and his smirk grew when he saw you inch backwards. His eyes sparkled behind his mask. "What's up?" His voice was low and menacing. Knowing exactly how intimidating he was. You let out the breath you were holding in a huff and punched his plastron playfully. "I'm taking these brownies back." You threatened. His face fell as you turned to walk away. "Wait," Raph grabbed your wrist and you allowed him to turn you around and pull you closer. "I'm sorry." He chuckled. "You're just so much fun to tease." You huffed again and looked away. "It's not funny." Yet the smile on your face said otherwise. You felt his fingers shift from your wrist to your hand. Your heart hammered away in your chest and you sighed a little, trying to expelled your nervousness.

"Raph," you started, avoiding eye contact. "There's something I've been wanting to talk to you about."

"Yeah?" You heard him say.

"I like you and-"

"I like you too, short stack." He said, his other hand moving to ruffle your hair.

You turned to look at him, surprised. You noticed that he had a smile on his face, not a smirk or a grin, but a genuine, heart warming smile.

"No," you looked down at your shoes and brought your free hand up to tidy your hair. "I don't think you get it. I like you Raphael." You cringed when you realised that you were about to use the age old kindergarten term for it. "I like-like you."

"I know what you meant, (Y/N)."

His other hand came to grasp your free hand and it dawned on you that you were holding hands.

You two were standing alone in a room, holding hands.

You had just told him that you liked him and now he was standing in front of you with that smile on his face, holding your hands as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world.

You melted on the spot.

What now? You thought. I said it and he hasn't said anything about it... So what now?

"Um..." You struggled to find something to say. He gave your hand a little squeeze and you looked up at him. "Raph, I-"

You were interrupted when Mikey burst into the dojo, breathing hard.

"Raph!" Mikey cried. "Leo said..."

He trailed off when he noticed your linked hands.

You could practically see the wheels in his head turning and you could see the change in his face when it clicked. He gave an awkward smile and you knew he had forgotten that you were talking to Raphael. You knew that he was sorry and you forgave him immediately. You sighed and looked up at Raphael. He was glaring hard at Mikey and you couldn't help but smile a little at how intense it was.

Mikey shrunk back and gave a pained smile. "Donnie spotted trouble. Leo told me to call you." Mikey backed out of the door and disappeared.

"Go." You told Raph, releasing his hands and steeping back.

Interrupted again.

You studied his face. He looked conflicted. He frowned and stepped closer, taking your hand in his once more.

"Leo said hurry up." Mikey's head reappeared in the doorway.

Raph dropped your hand and huffed, balling his own hands into fists and turned toward the door.

You sighed at the fact that yet another interruption stop you from telling him how you felt. He was going to walk away and you would have to wait in flustered frustration for another opportunity to present itself. But you were tired of waiting. You wanted to blurt it out so that it can just be over and done. You decided to make a spontaneous decision and take a step forward.

Maybe this is what Mikey really meant by brave. You refused to let anything get in between you and Raph in this moment. You were determined and, just like Mikey wanted you to be, you were brave.

You mustered up all the courage in your being and grabbed Raph's hand before he moved further away. You tugged on his hand and he stumbled a bit, not expecting it, and stopped in front of you. He inhaled, filling his lungs, wanting to ask a question. But he didn't even have time to open his mouth. You tugged on the tails of his bandanna, bringing him down so that you can capture his lips in a fiery kiss. You felt him stiffen but eventually he eased into it and he wrapped his arms around you, pulling you closer.

His lips weren't as warm as you thought they'd be, but then again they are cold blooded. Your hands traveled up his plastron and onto his shoulders feeling the firm muscle under his thick skin-

"Raph!"

You separated with a start at the sound of Leo yelling at Raph.

Raph groaned and released you, his hands lingering on your waist a little longer than necessary. "I gotta go." You nodded and smiled up at him. "We'll continue this conversation later."

He bent down to give you a quick peck on the lips and he was gone in the blink of an eye.

You walked out of the dojo and into the now quiet lair. You heard distant humming and recognised it as Splinter, but the rest of the lair was pretty much devoid of life. A quick search in the fridge yielded a juice box and the cupboard offered a packet of crisps. You made your way over to the TV with both items and you dropped yourself onto the couch.

"Y/N."

The packet flew up into the air and Splinter caught it with ease. You didn't even hear him come up behind you.

"Creamy Cheddar flavour." He opened the bag and popped a crisp into his mouth. "My favourite."

He handed the packet back and you took a sip of juice.

"So you and Raphael finally told each other, eh?"

You coughed and sputtered. There was juice all over your shirt and some of it probably came out of your nose.

"Oh goodness." Splinter frowned. "You should rinse that out. I'm sure Raph wouldn't mind if you borrowed one of his hoodie things."

You watched Splinter walk away, humming softly. You inspected your shirt and decided to take Splinter's advice.

While you were in the bathroom rinsing the juice out of your shirt you glanced up at your reflection in the mirror. The hoodie was huge, but you thought you looked kinda cute and smiled at yourself. Your mind wandered a bit and you thought about what the guys would think when they saw you parading around in one of Raph's hoodies.

Your smile faded when it dawned on you. Splinter did that on purpose.

"Dammit."

----

~ Bonus ~

The kiss made him weak at the knees and turned his brain into molasses. Wasn't he supposed to do that to you? He thought that he'd watched enough movies to know how this went but it was a pleasant surprise. He almost wanted to tell Leo to stuff it and let the rest of them deal with the problem just so that he could stay here and keep doing this. Almost.

______

There we go. Raphael’s one is done. Tell me what you think. Donnie’s one should be done soon since I started with him first, just need to complete the end bit. That’s it guys, see you soon.

KAT <3

#tmnt #tmnt 2014 #tmnt 2016 #TMNT 2012 #raph #raphael #tmnt raphael #tmnt raph x reader #raph x reader #raphael x reader #teenage mutant ninja turtles #imagine #raph imagine #raph one shot #oneshot #one shot

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tinymixtapes · 6 years ago

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Feature: 2018: Second Quarter Favorites

TMT’s Musical Innovation Summit, now in its 14th year, is the oldest meeting of its kind in the industry. Like last quarter’s summit, roughly 10 music professionals from TMT gathered in New York to discuss the latest musical breakthroughs and make predictions on which releases will spark future awe-inspiring innovations. To help make the predictions, we interviewed 45 random fans, 30 venture capitalists, and a handful of media who cover the music industry across the country to get their collective thoughts on what’s imminent. That list is then honed by eliminating long-shot candidates, followed by a double-elimination round to get rid of shitty artists. Nominees are thoroughly vetted, and the groups eliminate candidates throughout the process. Today, we are proud to present the results: the BEST 26 releases of the last three months (with a shortlist at the end). We predict that these releases will change music forever. --- SOPHIE OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES [Future Classic] [WATCH · READ] Now’s raw doubt flanges in this memory’s mercury, and we’re back in the basement dark, floor paved with silver marbles. We will shine a light on one, outline the floor with reflecting. I ask are you sure of this? and you say no, never not of any thing. You squeeze your foreign-feeling shoulder, slim quick doubt. Then you hold a marble up to your eye, unclipped cuticles before corneas, a silver pearl. It’s okay. Flashlight on. We gape. There is no neat sequence. No light is set Surface contorts seeing. The shining is bent in coils. There is no straight path, just what we can move into in this whole new world. Roll the flashlight, and it’s a world warping, brilliance refracted, reflections re-membering. The world we built in the dark teaches us how being between might be. Our un-insides, SOPHIE’s sound, teaches us that brilliance doesn’t diminish its self, that light and self and is what we call it. And you say call me Vivian. Becoming who we’re becoming, “no matter where I go, you’ll be here in my heart.” –Frank Falisi --- Playboi Carti Die Lit [Interscope/AWGE] [LISTEN · READ] The arrival of Playboi Carti’s debut album proper, following last year’s crucial self-titled mixtape, could seem like a mere victory lap, an easy cop-out that plays up to the well-established framework of overstuffed rap albums in the streaming age. What a pleasure, then, that Die Lit implodes that logic. The heady balance of mood pieces and out-and-out anthems that characterized Playboi Carti is further refined here, but even without that baggage, Die Lit is a success on its own terms, a flickering visage that compounds Carti’s most enticing impulses — barely-there vocals, Reichian repetition, knotty Pi’erre Bourne beats — with all the best facets of the album form. And if Carti is only incidental on the mic, the tracks left in his wake are anything but. Herein lies a set of real Ohrwürmer, the inner soundtrack to your day, long after the album subsides. The cloud bursts forth; lightning really does strike twice. –Soe Jherwood --- DJ Healer / Prime Minister of Doom Nothing 2 Loose / Mudshadow Propaganda [All Possible Worlds] [LISTEN · LISTEN] On DJ Metatron’s 2 The Sky, the anonymous artist threaded a Jake Gyllenhaal interview through intricate waves of house music that helped give rise to this enigmatic and highly gifted producer. This year, his efforts have come twofold, with a double release under two new monikers that plot the same channels of intricacy but through two very different means. In place of the Donnie Darko reflection that deepens the narrative of 2 The Sky is a 2002 Whitney Houston interview with Diane Sawyer, where the troubled singer discusses her drug problems and an unnerving sense of optimism that inevitably collapsed 10 years later. Essentially, the music that accompanies both of these otherwise unrelated samples is the atmospheric gel that binds them together; an actor speaking about his fascination with a perplexing story line, and a generational icon battling with herself, fighting to overcome the very thing that took her life. That disparity lies at the heart of this joint release, which merges two highly distinctive personalities while linking them through religious and personal overtones. Mudshadow Propaganda is perfect in its projection of minimal techno tracks that build on the traits of our secretive producer’s expired alias, The Prince of Denmark, while Nothing 2 Loose is almost confessional in the sincerity that it lays bare. But where both records celebrate the dexterity and imagination of a single producer, they also paint a picture of human existence at its most conflicted, from the carnal and the primitive to the haunted and the divine. –Birkut --- Grouper Grid of Points [Kranky] [LISTEN · READ] In seven tracks and less than 30 minutes, Liz Harris sought to take us nowhere. So she stranded us anywhere. Giving up on finding anything instructive or stabilizing in the passing moan of a stray vocal, the odd cluster of muted piano keys, or the occasional sharp gust of static, it became clear that the only place where anything “new” could happen was in a place where nothing old and familiar was left. “Where are we?” started to sound more like “Where aren’t we?” It might have been some heavenly shoreline where the water was the same perfect gunmetal color as the sky, but it might just as likely have been the vacant parking lot of some long-since-demolished Disneyland. It didn’t really matter. Anyplace we chose to stand and look from was just as good (or bad) as another. “Might as well call this the center,” we figured. Gotta start somewhere. –Dan Smart --- Seth Graham Gasp [Orange Milk/Noumenal Loom] [LISTEN · READ] A symphony of perversions and memories that ignites every time you rapid-fire through your Instagram stories. Refried beans left over from the camping trip you took to a closed beta somewhere off the coast of Spy Kids 4D. A million splintered renderings of classical text that you half-scrawled onto the back of your hand before you realized that you were actually just passed out on the keyboard again. Gasp is like a raw feed of how music itself operates in 2018; brief bursts of genius materializing right before us, only to be swept away and digested into something unrecognizably new. The entire sum of human history rubbing elbows with that ASMR video you had to rush to minimize before your roommate could ask you what the fuck you were just watching. A guy as unassuming as Orange Milk label head Seth Graham conjuring up untold universes of possibility from his home in Dayton, OH, his bank of MIDIs a window into our gentle, distraught, and hilarious world. –Sam Goldner [pagebreak] Klein cc [Self-Released] [LISTEN · READ] “Oh my god! Who’s actually going to listen to this?” asks Klein, lounging with friends, reflecting on her last EP, Tommy and a still-emerging network of diasporic black art and sound. A year and new EP later, cc sees Klein more comfortable in the discomfort, pushing further with her collages of confrontational intimacy. “You have to squint” as the voices build and spiral, like an endless loop of out-of-office replies, a pitch-bent dawn chorus, singing to each other, but listening too. Klein made us think: about blackness, about opacity, about femininity and Disney princesses, all at once. Feelings too, and a lack of language to convey them; anxiety, elation, mania, but less medical, sometimes an incantation, sometimes an exorcism. In cc, Klein created a space of unique and disarming affect and mood: a deeper, darker stage in the process of “me being my own therapist,” the sound of someone finding a plurality of voices, of listening to yourself. –Joel White --- Beach House 7 [Sub Pop] [WATCH · READ] Attempting to describe what dreams are seems like a task both impossible and pretentious. But, as it floats like a wandering mind, drifting from thought to thought with each track, 7 certainly feels like a dream. Alex Scally plays guitar, but it sounds like an unfamiliar squall from another universe. Victoria Legrand sings, but it comes out in French. Look at the clock, you’ll be unable to tell how much time has passed. You know, dream stuff. For a genre that gets its name from something as complex as the random images our brains send to us while we sleep, “dream pop” music can often be very formulaic. That’s why, seven albums into their career, it’s remarkable that Beach House have found a way to not only completely refresh their sound, but make perhaps their best album yet. Awash in a chaotic darkness that’s been lingering in different forms throughout their entire discography, 7 hurtles towards oblivion: beautiful, glorious, infinite. –Jeremy Klein --- Eartheater Irisiri [PAN] [WATCH · LISTEN · READ] I keep losing track of Irisiri; it keeps slipping away from me. This isn’t meant as the insult it might scan as. An elegiac spin on the cyber-cyborg-meat-machine kick that everything relevant is twirling toward, this series of sad little processed ditties and twisted car jams charts a swerve back-and-forth between evasiveness and directness. Its unnerving stuff, giving the impression of solidity while remaining impossible to hold. Flirting with hip-hop and electro-acoustic, bedroom pop and sexed-up sopping wet plastic, it keeps moving out of view, even as I keep returning to it. Listening to the album is like chasing an object out of reach, an object I desire without knowning, a body I want without seeing. Also, C.L.I.T. fucking slaps. –Jessie Jeffrey Dunn Rovinelli --- THE HIRS COLLECTIVE FRIENDS. LOVERS. FAVORITES. [SRA/Get Better] [LISTEN · READ] For a few decades now, raw musical aggression has been underpinned with a lot of unintelligible vocal sentiment. Just steam on in with howling, power riffs and punishing beats please. But what’s that on the edge of the blast radius, dashing in headlong through the smoke? Clear sentiments that uplift, testify, and provide some sharp kicks in heteronormativity’s floppy old dick? Yes please! Even with its closing remix section, the album’s corroded (and collaborative) essence remains triumphantly tight. The perfect way Lilium Kobayashi’s quick stomping techno pop take on “Murdered by a Woman” flits to “Wake Up Tomorrow” when this album is on repeat further dispels any sort of tacked-on/bonus trax superfluousness. The cultural constant of immediate, frothing punk rage is obviously not going anywhere. It’s essential to have an album, in fuck-this-shit 2018, where that rage is specifically righteous, even with its eternally itinerant self-laceration (i.e., humanity). –Willcoma --- Delroy Edwards Rio Grande [L.A. Club Resource] [LISTEN · READ] Delroy Edwards has made the funk (in its many different strains) the connective tissue of his intrepid, joyful, and often perplexing work. It’s an approach never as explicit as in his latest LP, Rio Grande. That might indeed be its greatest success. In Rio Grande, keeping the raw, hissy, determinedly idiosyncratic credentials that first introduced him to the world, Edwards lets the funk take center stage; sometimes riding grimy techno beats, other times pushing beyond the ridiculous-by-design minimalism of the grooves. The goal is simple: to provide his audience with interesting jams to dance to. Edwards takes pride in the anonymous efficiency of that pretense, as the name of his label L.A. Club Resource indicates. He is happy to be the reliable supplier of a service, the invisible demiurge leading patrons to delirium; slipping in some eccentric turns here and there for the kick of it, to the enjoyment of all but mostly because… why the hell not?. And, let there be no doubt, Rio Grande is the most effective toolkit he has yet assembled in pursuit of that goal. –jrodriguez6 [pagebreak] emamouse X yeongrak mouth mouse maus [Quantum Natives] [LISTEN · READ] Hey, not to bring this up here, but borders, am I right? Why do we even have these invisible lines dividing my side from yours? We can get so much more done without them, not to mention the added benefit of not having to split up families in real life as they cross the imaginary demarcations. Who on earth has the chutzpah to enact stupid shit like that? Not emamouse — no way. No, emamouse had the opposite in mind as she commented from her Tokyo base of ops, “What’s this thing keeping me out of New Zealand? An ocean? Screw that!” And thus, the BORDER between Japan and New Zealand was erased forever — whether through the magic of the internet or the ocean suddenly turning into a jello trampoline is anyone’s guess. But emamouse was no longer separated from NZ sound slinger/cartoon centipede yeongrak, and together, through the magic of Quantum Natives, mouth mouse maus was born, a sticky, gooey, sugary, epilepsy-inducing strobe blast of video-game grit and played-with-too-much pink slime from a plastic egg. Cookcook, in her review, inferred that utopias can emerge from collectivity, highlighting the compatibility of these two artists. I think what she meant was “Fruitopia,” which someone obviously spilled all over the mouth mouse maus backup hard drive. Remember Fruitopia? That was Coca-Cola’s own attempt to eradicate borders, except they were the borders between taste and… OK, between them and your money. –Ryan Masteller --- Félicia Atkinson Coyotes [Geographic North] [LISTEN] I once went to New Mexico but mostly stayed inside. Reasons why. Félicia Atkinson’s Coyotes, inspired by her own trip to New Mexico, maps a journey I may have taken, among other wonders. The crafted narrative and its exploratory form gestures toward an experiential unknown. Her travel log collages echoes, maps, receipts, dried leaves, sand stuck in the crevices of shoes, plaques, diary entries, signposts, mythology, spirituality, and the facts and facets of the land’s native and colonial histories into a total atmosphere, something approaching a direct translation of a lingering impression. It’s so effective and affecting, because the whole is actually a scrap: “a slip of paper, something/tiny & torn off/lifted by the wind” writes poet Christian Hawkey in Citizen Of. Atkinson lineates her memories into similarly moving verses. –Cookcook --- Pusha T Daytona [G.O.O.D. Music] [LISTEN · READ] DAYTONA by Pusha T is hard work. It’s this blurb being written at 5:20 AM on the 7-train to “the office” a day after having led 46 tweens on a non-stop four-day Boston field trip. It’s teaching about heterosexism and female empowerment, leading sixth grade field day, and handling logistics for eighth grade graduation in a single day. It’s your body feeling like a crash-test dummy on a Wednesday, having left in the early, early morning, putting in 12 hours of sweating gallons for money, and arriving home at 8:30 PM. It’s wearing Terminator shades on 125th Street talking Spanish to people you never met. It’s the endurance of confidence while facing every fear you’ve experienced — focused — diving straight into the freezing water. DAYTONA proves Pusha T and Kanye are relentless professionals that continue to transcend literary and sonic aesthetics in space and time. We need role models like these, forever. –C Monster --- DJ Koze Knock Knock [Pampa] [LISTEN · READ] Many publications have referred to Stefan Kozalla as a “trickster” or a “prankster.” While there are freckles of truth on the face of that assessment, much of his affability comes from his most mistaken quality: his earnestness. It’s what makes him such a delightful musicmaker. Being earnest, of course, is the perfect foil to the kind of negativist universalism that plagues the psychedelics/mindfulness landscape in which DJ Koze so often finds himself (and, also, finds himself). Koze’s House is perfect (see: “Pick Up”) and his plunder-pop turns weird into sublime and vice versa (see: the wails incorporated into “Scratch That”), but it’s his unpresuming and gracious approach to influences, samples, and collaborations that push this record into extraordinary territory. It’s not alien; it’s absolutely Earthly, and it reflects so well the modest subject that is Koze. After all, Koze never changes, except in his affections. –E. Fosl --- Elysia Crampton Elysia Crampton [Break World] [WATCH · READ] Elysia Crampton opens in media res, with a nativity. And then it revs up, restlessly — its machinic gears grind like plant medicine visions; water flows and burbles; disharmonic chords take us in unanticipatable directions. And through it all, the oscollo, the feline guardian of people outside gender binaries, oscillates wildly. Elysia Crampton’s maximalist approach takes it beyond the strings and cackles of 2016’s Demon City, yet Golgotha remains always present. Standout track “Moscow (Mariposa Voladora)” was inspired by Ofelia, a Bolivian mariposa (“femme revolutionary”), and it judders roughly, darkly. Crampton’s Aymara and trans identity are her displaced subjects, particularly in light of the gestural movement between her origins in Bolivia and her current home in the US. But this is not any straightforward folk music revival — rather, it’s a deconstruction that reconstructs. The difficulties and contradictions of critical theory, in particular writers such as José Muñoz and his exploration of queer brown-ness, are braided into the work. The first written reference to queers as mariposillas (“little butterflies”) is from Pedro Cieza de León, in the 16th century, in which he compares “sodomites,” subject to punishment by burning at the stake, to moths drawn to the flame. The suffering of our ancestors can’t be recuperated, but through art, we may yet dance grotesquely but triumphantly on the pyre. –Rowan Savage [pagebreak] The Caretaker Everywhere at the end of time - Stage 4 [History Always Favours The Winners] [LISTEN · READ] The late hauntologist Mark Fisher once cruelly noted that the OED lists one of the earliest meanings of the word “haunt” as “to provide with a home, house.” And now that we live in a world that has lost the very possibility of loss, we have also lost the one who can lose, cohabiting with oneself in the present’s presence. Ghosts no longer have a home to haunt in any case, and their yearning and lingering voices are consigned to a past that can never pass away. Although it is haunting and horrifying to behold Everywhere at the end of time’s fourth installment pass from memories to their source — what Kirby calls “the post-awareness stage” — perhaps we must be grateful that someone can forget (for (us)). For, the source of memory must remain, even after all memory has been stripped away from it, even though this source can never be aware of itself. Yet, this source is not, strictly speaking, an identity. What it may be I do not know, but The Caretaker allows you to hear, what, behind those eyes, devoid of any recognition of life; we hope, we plead to be someone who remembers us, yet the only bliss, as transient as it is empty, is the wry smile that, for an instant, says, “Do not save me.” –Evan Coral --- Lucrecia Dalt Anticlines [RVNG Intl.] [WATCH · READ] OK, Hoag. You wake up in 1925, in a different place but with the same objects. Lucrecia Dalt’s Anticlines is playing on the victrola. She sings, “Skinless others/ Oils on waters,” and you realize you’re in the same room as the killer. The only other person in the room is dressed exactly like you, and that person’s talking up the other place — the one you believe you are still in — saying, “I think you’d like it there.” Where again? Both places go out of view. Now possibly dreaming, in a time and place before flight, Gein or radio, you wait at a blue-dipped railway platform as trains roll by on their way to Oclupaca and Ortseam. You’re hoping to catch a ride to somewhere similar but elsewhere, more elemental, past the unseen concupiscence between thermosphere and exosphere, out there where you don’t have to wonder, anymore, what the toys do while you’re away. –Rick Weaver --- Tierra Whack Whack World [Self-Released] [STREAM] In the face of incomprehensible excess and stream-gaming nonsense, Tierra Whack — yes, that’s her real name — provides a grotesque yet charming response with the wonderfully weird “Whack World.” Rather than dragging the tempo or chopping the tracklist, the 22-year-old Philly rapper embraces something like a skip-button aesthetic of preview clips and non-member samples, unceremoniously cutting off her songs as soon as they hit the one-minute mark. With 15 songs in just 15 minutes — an absurdity further heightened by its surreal video — traditional payoffs are just beyond reach, forcing us to sit through a goofy, lighthearted romp of youthful innovation and bizarre genre play that includes everything from slow jams and trap bangers to country parodies and kids pop. It’s delightfully ridiculous and sometimes annoying af, but it arrives with undeniable energy and child-like wonder, bursting out confetti-like from a singular, captivating voice who’s on one of this year’s quickest and most unexpected come-ups. Blink and you’ll miss it. That’s the point. –ミスターおしっこ --- GAS Rausch [Kompakt] [WATCH · LISTEN · READ] I consumed the hour-long experience of Rausch, blaring through my headphones, as golden hour became twilight and the mosquitoes started biting. Luckily, my timing was great; 2017’s Narkopop, with its penchant for forlorn ruminations, ultimately owed a lot to its namesake: pop music. Now, those hopeful moments of liquid sunlight are far away. Rausch finds GAS staying true to its typically ascetic atmosphere, but any strand of accessible melodicism is replaced by shattering layers of dissonant drone upon drone, Doppler effect-synths, and percussive textures that pierce through it all — shimmering cymbals, palpitating kick-snare rhythms. As each funeral march bleeds into the next, the delirious effects of Rausch take hold. My arms are covered in bites, and temperatures still haven’t dropped below 90. For the superimposed intensity of Rausch, a more fitting listening environment couldn’t be created. –Rounak Maiti --- The Body I Have Fought Against It, But I Can’t Any Longer [Thrill Jockey] [LISTEN · READ] It’s so much to bear. We’re expected to carry more than our own weight. The pain and suffering of our past traumas, the present crises, the future uncertainties. More and more, any attempts to alleviate the pain, to share the burden, are undermined. All we ever wanted, all untenable. They demand purity (in lieu of that, submission by “privilege”), individuality, personalization, subscription. They won’t cry for us. Everything must be on you and you alone. Time will not notice you are nothing. You are already hatred as an abstract to someone else. The pull of the personal must end. The allure of ontology and self-indulgence must be shattered in the face of those who leer lewdly into its mirror and contort on the floor in false ecstasy. But it is a painful burden. “I lower my guilty-looking eyes. I’m afraid of looking people in the eye.” War is necessary and proper, to shatter illusions. But it’s all so much to bear. –Ze Pequeno [pagebreak] serpentwithfeet soil [Tri Angle/Secretly Canadian] [WATCH · LISTEN · READ] It’s crazy to think that soil is serpentwithfeet’s debut album. The queer, pagan singer, a former choir boy from Baltimore, emerged in 2016 with blisters, a set of mesmerizing slices of new age R&B delving into faith, superstition, and love. His voice and composition live up to the lofty themes; delicate and meandering, serpent recalled the acrobatic opulence of 90s R&B with brooding, industrial production from The Haxan Cloak. The most visionary artists are those who sound like nothing other than themselves and exhibit a gravitational aura that inspires imitation, lust, and disbelief. soil lurches and waltzes, while Josiah Wise, who prefers to go by “serpent,” remains fully exposed in the mix, employing innovative vocal stacks that whisper, conjure, and croon behind him like a choir of restless spirits. Despite the divine quality to serpent’s voice, which is at times shellacked with layers, often battling against static noise and its own quivering vibrato, the subject matter of soil is immediately relatable and quotidian: the navigation of a shifting dating landscape, the sublime essences of individuals, intimacy and grace in heartbreak, the projection of sorrow onto the world. serpent doesn’t want to be “small sad,” but “big, big sad,” to the point that he’s sure his friends are “tired of him talking.” The domesticity infects us all: How can we properly grieve? How can we redeem ourselves? The occult instrumentation falls away to reveal a queer individual who is merely describing their personal desires. –Ross Devlin --- Sara Davachi Let Night Come On Bells End The Day [Recital] [LISTEN · READ] I walked through the streets barefoot, clothed only in a robe. The bells were ringing, playing their ancient song, letting the world know that the night had begun. My feet were bleeding from the cobblestone streets, which is how they found me in the morning, just outside of town in the woods. I didn’t drink that night. The evening swept me up, and some tribal instinct forced me outside in virtually nothing. My neighbors looked and closed their curtain as I kept walking, holding the hand of the force that was dragging me. I remember parts like my head hurting and my eyes watering. I remember spinning in the center of town underneath a street lamp. I don’t remember why I left town and headed toward the woods. I don’t know why I left my house. I remember being woken up by the police and being embarrassed to face to my neighbors. They took me home and put me in bed, because the medic cleared me at the site. I’ve never spoken of it since, and I still clench up when the night comes on and the bells end the day. –Sam Tornow --- Jenny Hval The Long Sleep EP [Sacred Bones] [WATCH · LISTEN · READ] Roping in some of her favorite jazz musicians to explore ideas, Jenny Hval has managed to escape the noose of her recent collaborative concepts and delve within to produce yet another stunning act of imagination. The pure reach and weight of The Long Sleep is extraordinary. Hval moves across emotional ground with certainty and delicacy, capturing the subtlest of feelings. Like a soundtrack to a brilliant short, Hval plays with recurring motifs first presented in the “conventional” “Spells,” but then swerves genre expectations along the way, through the piano-led clap frappe of “The Dreamer Is Everyone in Her Dream” to the blissful title track drone. On “I Want to Tell You Something,” her presence is so powerful, as she attempts to express trance closure through an oblique narrative before realizing simple words are all she needs. Fecund, savage, and irresistible, The Long Sleep demonstrates once again why Hval is so intriguing. –David Nadelle --- Gemini Sisters Gemini Sisters [Psychic Trouble] [LISTEN] How does one describe something so beautiful and uplifting — a beacon of light in a shroud a darkness. I was wallowing deep in the muck and mire, desperate to claw out of it rather than sinking down into it. But that tar pit of sorrow and defeat is thick, and it cares not about your will. But I saw the light and followed it. It led me to two helpful, outstretched hands. Jon Kolodij and Matt Christensen met my palm with a hardy grasp and a hefty pull. And I felt the warmth of Gemini Sisters. The sprawling, uplifting sonic aura of the duo’s debut speaks to energy from whence Kolodij and Christensen are christened: the two having their daughters born on the same day of the same year (and those offspring being Geminis). It shows with the delicacy of their aural attack. It is spiritual, reaching toward the heavens to pluck the constellation and bringing its brightness to our darkest places. Right now, the flesh is weak and the mind wavers. But our essence remains pure and chaste. Thanks to Kolodij and Christensen, I have traded the hastened quicksand for a tether to the sprawling galaxy. –Jspicer --- Christina Vantzou No. 4 [Kranky] [LISTEN · READ] When you’re in a vehicle moving at a slow, constant speed, sometimes you can convince yourself that you aren’t moving at all. No. 4 moves me like that. I know how tired that metaphor is, and if you listen to gentle drones like “At Dawn” and “Remote Polyphony” and think I’m a hack for digging the spatial metaphor up once again to describe slow, deliberate music, I understand. But I feel that uneasy compromise between motion and rest deeply and at every strange, shimmering moment of the album. It’s in the bells of “Percussion in Nonspace,” ringing in a sort of dual presence and absence; in the little arpeggio that creeps up through “Doorway;” in the pitch-affected choral chant that closes out “Sound House.” Whether we interpret track titles as thematic hints or as mere word games, the names of the tracks on No. 4 suggest, along with the music, that Christina Vantzou wants to domesticate and eventually upend and denature space through sound. Usually a device for ordering abstraction, she turns that hackneyed spatial metaphor into one for abstracting order. This record moves at no speed, in no direction, and toward no goal, except maybe to suspend us temporarily in a kind of beauty without dimension, not far from terror. –Will Neibergall --- Kanye West ye [G.O.O.D./Def Jam] [LISTEN · READ] Just because an album sparks cathartic conversations doesn’t mean it’s good, and not all good albums invite candid dinner table discussions concerning their mercurial merits. Kanye, however, has just as big of a reputation for arousing furor as he does for leaving listeners speechless. Meanwhile, critics scramble for thoughtful words that won’t get them blacklisted for being associated with that black magic that has been infiltrating every aspect of daily life since Cain murdered Abel, thus birthing division. Calling ye a divisive document at TMT would be an understatement, and attributing its inclusion here to justifying countless hours of collectively unpacking just over 23 minutes of noise would obscure what ye actually contains: disturbing spoken word admonitions about premeditated murder, breathless bars on prescription drug addiction, ironic fantasies about butts of sex scandals, gorgeous gospel keys and beautiful dark twisted harmonies, celebratory reflections on fame and success, spectral arena rock vibes, and staggering room for growth cleared out by fear and love and loyalty. Regardless of our own individual feelings, ye keeps reminding us that this music shit that gets us through each day often requires plunging into dark places and reemerging with our own beacons of light. Believe it or not, I still love it, and like watching a bright-eyed child grow up in a world this dark, I’m terrified and excited for what’s next. –Jazz Scott --- The Shortlist: King Vision Ultra’s Pain of Mind, Shygirl’s Cruel Practice, Oneohtrix Point Never’s Age Of, Ashley Paul’s Lost In Shadows, James Ferraro’s Four Pieces For Mirai, Larry Wish’s How More Can You Need, Jon Hassell’s Listening To Pictures, Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement’s Red Ants Genesis, Parquet Courts’s Wide Awake!, The Carters’ EVERYTHING IS LOVE, Bernice’s Puff LP, Carla Bozulich’s Quieter, Pinkshinyultrablast’s Miserable Miracles, Duppy Gun Productions’s Miro Tape, DRINKS’s Hippo Lite, Valee’s GOOD Job, You Found Me, and Frog Eyes’ Violet Psalms. http://j.mp/2Kt2EKx

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frogsagainandagain · 7 years ago

Text

favorite lyric from every fob song

i’m so sorry this is so long please skip this is mainly for me to be able to reference

*songs with incredible lyrics throughout that it was extra hard to choose one or two

honorable mention: and maybe next time/i’ll remember not to tell you something stupid like I’ll never leave your side

calm before the storm: you said, between your smiles and regrets: “don’t say it’s over.”

switchblades and infidelity: walking out on the show is walking out on you/and walking out on you’s still the best thing that I ever did.

pretty in punk: well I’ve seen your boyfriend/and i don’t think he treats you right/but that’s none of my business is it?

growing up*: i’ve dried my eyes, now it’s “rushmore”/i’m deep with futures like chicago/no, glenview never meant a thing to me/she never meant a thing to me

the world’s not waiting (for five tired boys in a broken down van): we’re all “hasbeens” and “never-were’s”

short, fast and loud: good god i wish i was tall

moving pictures: where can I go when I want you around/but I can’t stand to be around you

parker lewis can’t lose (but i’m gonna give it my best shot): in the meantime just talking with my shoes/converse with my converse

tell that mick: stop burning bridges and drive off of them

dead on arrival: i know I’m not your favorite record/but the songs you grow to like never stick at first

grand theft autumn: you need him/i could be him

saturday: and i read about the afterlife/but I never really lived

homesick at space camp: landing on a runway in chicago and I’m grounding all my dreams/of ever really seeing california

sending postcards: when you go i will forget everything about you

chicago is so two years ago*: she took me down and said:/“boys like you are overrated. so save your breath." bonus: with every breath i wish your body will be broken again

the pros and cons of breathing: i want to hate you half as much as i hate myself

grenade jumper: living like life’s going out of style.

reinventing the wheel: i can’t wake up to these reminders of who i am:/a failure at everything… 18 going on extinct.

patron saint*: and when it all goes to hell/and when it all goes.

my heart is the worst kind of weapon: we are salt - you are the wound

it’s not a side effect: and think of all the places/where you’ve been lost/and then found…out/in between my sheets/in between the rights and the wrongs

our lawyer: we’re only good cause you can have almost famous friends

gin joints: i used to waste my time dreaming of being alive (now i only waste it dreaming of you)

dance, dance: joe trohman is lame

sugar: isn’t it messed up how i’m just dying to be him?

nobody puts baby in the corner: you look so good in blue

dark alley: joke me something awful just like kisses on the necks of "best friends”

atavan halen: i’ll be stuck fixated on one star/when the world is crashing down

sophomore slump*: cause i swear i’d burn this city down to show you the light

champagne: they say, “you want a war? you’ve got a war.”/but who are you fighting for?

i slept with: douse yourself in cheap perfume it’s/so fitting, so fitting of the way you are

sixteen candles*: she said, she said, she said, “why don’t you just drop dead?" bonus: so say what are you waiting for?/kiss her, kiss her

get busy*: i used to obsess over living,/now I only obsess over you

XO: to the "love”, i left my conscience pressed/between the pages of the bible in the drawer

snitches and walkers: show me a starry-eyed kid/i will break his jaw

the music or the misery*: it’s true romance is dead, i shot it in the chest then in the head. bonus: and if you wanna go down in history then i’m your prince bonus bonus: i went to sleep a poet, and i woke up a fraud

thriller: i can take your problems away with a nod and a wave/of my hand, ‘cause that’s just the kind of boy that i am

take over, breaks over: don’t pretend you ever forgot about me.

arms race: i wrote the gospel on giving up/(you look pretty sinking)

me & you: the best way/to make it through/with hearts and wrists intact/is to realize/two out of three ain’t bad/ain’t bad

hum hallelujah*: i thought I loved you/it was just how you looked in the light.

golden: and i knew that the lights of the city were too heavy for me

thnks fr th mmrs: get me out of my mind and get you out of those clothes

don’t you know: i could learn to pity fools as I’m the worst of all/and i can’t stop feeling sorry for myself

the after life of the party: put love on hold,/young hollywood is on the other line

tunnel of love: got postcards from my former selves saying: “how’ve you been?”

doldrums: you’re wrong/are we all wrong?

fame > infamy: “there’s too much green to feel blue”

you’re crashing*: the headline reads “the man hangs”, but the jury doesn't bonus: baby boy can’t lift his headache head

ringing in my ears: new york eyes, chicago thighs

ginasfs: threw caution to the wind,/but i’ve got a lousy arm

hard to say: but don’t get the wrong idea/we’re gonna shoot you

lullabye: when you wake up the world will come around

disloyal order*: what a match, i’m half doomed and you’re semi-sweet bonus: boycott love/ detox just to retox

i don’t care: say my name and his in the same breath/i dare you to say they taste the same

winona: bop bop ba dop

america’s suitehearts: why won’t the world revolve around me?

headfirst slide: i don’t just want to be a footnote in someone else’s happiness

(shipped) gold standard: plant palm trees on lake michigan before it gets cold/i gotta feel the wind chill again before i get old

(coffee’s for closers)*: i will never believe in anything again/though change will come

donnie: i’m the one/who charmed the one/who gave up on you

27: you’re a bottled star/the planets align/you’re just like mars/you shine in the sky

tiffany blews: dear gravity, you held me down in this starless city

wams*: what makes you so special?/i’m gonna leave you/i’m gonna teach you/how we’re all alone

nosebleed: goes to the desert the same war his dad rehearsed/came back with flags on coffins and said,/”we won, oh we won.“

west coast smoker: got my degree in the gutter,/my heart broken in the dorms of the ivy league

pavlove: i want to make you as lonely as me/so you can get, get addicted to this

the phoenix: wearing our vintage misery/no, i think it looked a little better on me

light em up: a constellation of tears on your lashes/burn everything you love, then burn the ashes

alone together: but i don’t think i’m coming home and i said/i’ll check in tomorrow if i don’t wake up dead

where did the party go: my old aches become new again/my old friends become exes again

just one yesterday: letting people down is my thing, baby/find yourself a new gig/this town ain’t big enough for two of us

the mighty fall: two’s a whole lot lonelier than one

miss missing you*: baby, you were my picket fence bonus: i will sing to you every day/if it will take away the pain

death valley: undress to impress/you can wear the crown but you’re no princess

young volcanoes: come on make it easy/say i never mattered (basic ik)

rat a tat*: i’m the lonelier version of you/i just don’t know where it went wrong \

srar: how’d it get to be only me?/like i’m the last damn kid still kicking/that still believes

the king is dead: the may never think and wonder why, dear christ/every time i see you i just want to paint the walls white

art of keeping up disappearances: erase the conclusion/but never meant to clear up/any of the confusion

hot to the touch: if it’s never been broken/can’t believe in it/now you’re just a problem/for someone else to fix

love, sex, death: but out of every pretty pretty miscalculation/you have got to be my all-time favorite

eternal summer: i can’t do this again/i need more oxygen

demigods: what if we were demigods?/they’d take to our knees/raging at the half of our sins

american made: when i was younger i couldn’t wait for the days to pass/now i know they’ll never last/and i just want my childhood back

caffeine cold: don’t breathe life into a monster then/complain when he destroys it all again

irresistible: too many war wounds and not enough wars/too few rounds in the ring and not enough settled scores/too many sharks, not enough blood in the waves

ab/ap: i think i. i fell in love again/maybe i just took too much cough medicine

centuries: heavy metal broke my heart bonus: we are the poisoned youth

the kids aren’t alright*: and i still feel that rush in my veins./it twists my head just a bit too thin./all those people in those old photographs I’ve seen are dead.

uma thurman: the end of the fucking song

jet pack blues*: did you ever love her? do you know?/or did you never want to be alone?

novocaine: if you knew, knew what the bluebirds sang at you,/you would never sing along

4th of july: you are my favorite "what if”/you are my best “I’ll never know”

favorite record: and i confessed, confessed to you/riding shotgun underneath the purple skies

immortals: i try to picture me without you but i can’t

hotel in nyc: a birth and a death on the same day/and honey I only appeared so i can fade away/i wanna throw my hands in the air and scream/and i could just die laughing on your spiral of shame

young and menace?? champion?? i’m sorry who?? what?? huh???

hold me tight or don’t: i got too high again/when i realized i can’t not be with you/or be just your friend/i love you to death but i just can’t/i just can’t pretend/we were lovers first/confidants but never friends/were we ever friends?

the last of the real ones: 'cause you’re the last of a dying breed/write our names in the wet concrete

7-9 legendary: i want to choke (u)/and get sick off of you/like secondhand smoke

alpha dog: i want to put the midwest home again

austin we have a problem: i gave you pretentious./i gave you indifference, but you only wanted undressed and defenseless. bonus: hey! everyone’s an underdog.

catch me if you can: oh dear lord,/please let me into heaven, for just an afternoon.

from now on we are enemies: a composer but never composed/singing the symphonies of the overdosed

guilty as charged: i got greater expectations than oliver twist

hand of god*: it’s not gossip if it’s the truth/i’m sick of always writing songs for you to slit your wrists to

lake effect kid*: i’ve got the skyline in my veins/forget your night times/summer love on a gurney with a squeaky wheel/and joke us, joke us/till lakeshore drive comes back into focus

mskwyditd (demo)*: we sold our souls in dark hotel rooms/we slip tongues and lie like “i will see you soon”

star 67: maybe we could talk this over/but i swear to god/and i’ll have this phone to my head.

we don’t take hits, we write them: and my life is holding our heads to this gun/you and your new boy think you can come in and keep me off, but you’re wrong

yule shoot your eye out: and all i want this year is for you to dedicate your last breath to me/before you bury yourself alive

#fall out boy #fob #fall out boy lyrics #fob lyrics #evening out with your girlfriend #take this to your grave #from under the cork tree #infinity on high #folie a deux #save rock and roll #american beauty/ american psycho #mania #reference #mine

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dfroza · 7 years ago

Video

youtube

track #8 off the album “hello i feel the same” by the innocence mission

‘blue & yellow’

accompanied by A poetic memory from my personal History beginning in 2010

44. knock

i know you hear the sound of me knocking at your door it’s so cold outside and i’d like to come in and talk sit by the fire and warm my thoughts we’ll unlock our ears to the sound of music as we connect our hearts over a glass of wine trying to make some sense of the craziness of life

i know it’s time for a change of season and i believe for good reason that you smile at me even when i’m not looking making loneliness a mere illusion a lie easily believed

it’s just that this door between you and me sometimes makes it difficult to see how this chaos will produce a symphony that will calm the nerves of the swirling clouds above piercing a hole through the static of the night revealing a sky drenched with stars a billion eyes of expectation inspiring to reach out for something much greater than we’ve ever seen

and now this change is beginning to overtake my thinking making it easier to see that most of life is temporary everything is dying to be reborn

(january 14, ‘10)

D. finding the significance in a smile

where do we go from here and to what cloud shall we toss significant things into the air?

letters tied to strings, carried on angel’s wings fall to the ground as written words i pick them up and stuff them in my pockets finding their meaning underneath stepping stones each day, another adventure below my feet one day closer to departure but will my arrival get there before the end? will i find significance before i breathe my last breath?

well, my heart already found everything it was looking for love broke its seams and i’m never looking back again i’m walking straight into it, with wide open hands you can take hold, and i’ll never let yours go this promise inside, where invisible strength is joy seen on the outside, coming through as a smile

(january 14, ‘11) dfroza

(my voice in poetry is how i gently knock upon your door, never as an intrusion of your privacy, but patiently waiting to be invited in…)

and these are a few of my Facebook memories from the same day in ‘11 while high up in the Colorado Rockies:

mt. sopris is gorgeous– as the morning woke up and the winter clouds rolled about its twin peak, sunshine broke through and bathed it in pure light

January 14, 2011 • Facebook

last night i was at mcdonald’s and i fell asleep in my car. about 3am i heard a knock, so i opened my eyes to see my car covered in snow, which startled me, then i rolled the window down to see a glenwood springs police officer. he told me a mystery person called asking them to check up on me. i was startled by that too, so i asked him to repeat himself. how interesting– now i’m wondering who the mystery person is?

[Sharon Bruinekool] Call your mom!!!

[Don Rozanski] i’m just writing lately– no phone

[Sharon Bruinekool] Get a message to her or your sister,ok??I love you~!

[Kelli Bruinekool Hansen] God is watching over you Donny, you could have froze

January 14, 2011 • Facebook

i believe the most significant place is found inside, but there also exists outside significance– let’s hear both in perfect harmony

January 14, 2011 • Facebook

joy is strength

January 14, 2011 • Facebook

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turtlecleric · 10 months ago

Text

I'm in Hell

SPOILERS FOR SYMPHONY CHAPTER 22 - THIS POST IS LONG YOU'VE BEEN WARNED

I'm so Unwell. I have never had any misunderstandings like the thing with Donnie, but I have been betrayed by someone who was my best friend for years, so this chapter... it's hitting me really, really hard.

---

When Leo first met Vi, he was studying her a lot. Remember the near-physical weight his scrutiny had felt like? You feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. ... like a pinned rabbit ... you see an obsidian edge beneath his smile that feels a little sharp as you lean into it.

And then later in her apartment:

[Leo talking] “…You know what really got me interested in talking to you?”

“What?” you ask, tilting your head.

“Donnie came back from talking with April and he was talking about you."

This is literally Vi and Leo's first time meeting - I don't think Leo started to really hate her until after she started coming to the Lair and he saw how Donnie reacted to her presence, but he mentions that Donnie talked about her already. It's framed within Vi's mind as him being careful with his family. He's the leader, he's careful around new people, he wants to make sure she isn't a threat, etc. But even though this is before the touch thing started, there could've been the seed of hatred already there depending on how Donnie spoke about Vi to Leo.

---

He [Leo] peers at you like he can read your life story where it’s written on your soul. ... “…You don’t have a lot of friends, do you?” he asks, his voice soft and yet cutting you all the same.

and this:

[Vi talking] “I had a lot of fun tonight. I’d… like to have more nights like this one. To. To have a family. If I can.” “You can,” he [Leo] says

He knew from the first fucking time he met her that she was lonely. That she wanted friends, wanted a family, wanted to belong. He knew that better than anyone else in the family, not only because of her saying this to him but also because of how well he reads people and how much time he spent with her. He's the only one who has seen her in her apartment, too, caught her in those few vulnerable moments in her home. I'm so fucking angry.

There are so many times in the fic that... I can't even articulate... here's some quotes early on -> "you hate how much you like this guy [Leo]" and "you smile when you see [the text notification is from] Leo" and when Vi is sick in the store she says "I miss Leo" and on and on. And that whole fucking time! He was!! UGH!!!

---

When Vi agrees to make Leo some bread so that maybe he can get some of Donnie's apology cookies he texts her "ttyl i gotta go rub this in donnie’s face" and yeah that's him being a little shit as always, but it's ALSO proof of him using EVEN THEIR PRIVATE TEXT CONVERSATIONS as ammunition rile up Donnie.

---

Hey look! Bits that hit different/hint at more going on/might be Leo's mask slipping!

“How long do we hafta wait before she ain’t a guest anymore?” Raph asks, causing you to snort a laugh.

“That’s up to Donnie,” Leo says, voice heavy with an undercurrent of meaning you’re not picking up on, causing you to look at him with a raised eyebrow. He smirks, reaching over to poke your cheek with his finger. “Y’know. He’s the one who met you first, and all that.”

…Something tells you it’s more than that, but he’s good enough at hiding it that you don’t feel comfortable calling him on it in front of the others.

...

you have no idea how you fit in [to the family], and Leo had all but told you that the space is here, ready and emblazoned with your name on it. You don’t quite see it yet, even if he apparently does.

...

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. It’s complicated,” Leo says easily, and it’s only just, but you pick out the thread of iron bars in his tone, ready to come crashing down if you push even a little too hard. So, you don’t.

“Okay,” you say easily, causing him to get that piercing look he gets sometimes, the one when he feels more like a ninja than a funny turtle man who tries to see how many cookies he can shove into his mouth at once and sends you pizza rat memes at four in the morning. “…Dude, we’ve been friends for like, a week. It’s cool that you aren’t ready to spill your guts yet, you know that, right?”

His eyes go sharp, but then he hums and smiles. You feel like you did the night you first met him, like there’s a test here and it’s in a language you don’t understand. It’s a bit uncomfortable, prompting you to grab your own drink and swallow a healthy bit of it just to have something to do.

...

[Vi talking] “…He [Donnie] seems lonely.”

Leo hums under his breath, cutting a portal that feels a little like home. “Well, lucky he has you, then.”

...

“Uh, I met her first,” Donnie says, scowling, while Leo just gives him a smug look.

...

You do, however, lean in while the others are occupied, whispering to Donnie, “So, ten dollars, which one of them tops?” and laughing when he chokes. You catch Leo’s eyes and give him a devious grin, spying him look to Donnie with a curiously blank look before shifting to a catty smile of his own when he looks back to you

...

“One portal home for a lovely lady,” Leo says as he steps through, his face going a little flat when he looks over your shoulder to Donnie behind you.

...

Leo is… astonishingly quiet for a moment, his face blank of anything for you to read as he stares at the piece hard. Then he looks up at you, and you see an unusually capable person that doesn’t feel like your best friend, even as much as it feels like the real Leonardo, here for the first time for you to see.

...

[Vi talking] “I don’t… I don’t like keeping secrets. Or lying. Not from people I care about.”

The weight of Leo’s eyes is almost physical. It makes you remember that he’s asked you to keep secrets, and your eyes snap to his, wondering if that’s the reason why he’s gone still like this. “I—I haven’t told anyone. About the ninja thing, or the Krang thing. I’d never—”

“I know,” Leo interrupts, threading his hand through your hair so he can cup your nape and press your forehead to his own. “I trust you.” You release a sigh of relief, nodding. “I’m just… thinking it might be time for us to repay that back.”

You blink, gaze darting between his eyes. “I don’t… what do you mean?”

“We’re a pretty close-knit family. There’s a lot of… baggage. A lot of history. A lot of stuff we haven’t told you. And it’s… it’s starting to feel a little disrespectful,” he says, looking a bit displeased. “You’re one of us. It’s only fair.”

---

We all know about the constant comments Leo makes about being Vi's "favorite turtle" and "best friend" in front of the others/in the group chat. He talks in Chapter 22 about purposefully draping himself across her and pulling her close, hugging her, scenting her, touching her in front of Donnie to piss Donnie off. But there's all these other little things that seemed so innocent at the time and now I'm losing my mind wondering about each of them, wondering - is that something he did with malicious intent? How many nice things were ONLY done to piss off Donnie? There are so many times that he compliments her - for example:

“What? I can’t compliment my bestie and her fine legs?” Leo coos, reaching over and flicking your nose gently.

“Leonardo,” Donnie warns, folding his arms.

And I remember, during my second read through after I finished Chapter 20, being so happy and grateful that Leo was pretty consistently giving her compliments, because she deserves to be complimented and taken care of and loved, because she deserves good friends who hype her up, and this WHOLE TIME-

(Side note - that time that Leo complains she smells like Donnie's lab, he shoves her away and she falls to the floor. First read, it's just Leo being playful. Second read, I wonder... is that a little bit of his frustration getting out of him in a physical way? He shoved her to the fucking floor, and then, once Donnie shows up, Leo pats the cushion next to him for Vi to sit by him. Then he wraps his arm around her and pulls her in close to smell her. But that's only after Donnie shows up.)

When Mikey takes Vi's So-Shell profile picture -> “Wha—?” you start, only to feel Leo leaning in to smoosh his cheek against yours, the distinct feeling of bunny ears brushing the back of your skull. Once again, this is in front of Donnie. Plus it's for her profile picture, so that means every time Donnie sees her So-Shell profile he'll see Leo in the picture, too. Leo was also famously the first like on her first So-Shell post and gets her to always leave nice comments/emojis on his thirst traps.

When she comes to the Lair to practice with her viola, Leo offers up HIS room first, and only once she declines does he -> “Ugh, fine, you are so boring,” he says, and removing his arm, he shoves at your shoulders hard and pushes you through the portal. (Pushing her onto the floor, pushing her through the portal... he's kind of rough with her in the beginning, and I figured it was just because he's haha silly funny turtle man, physical comedy, joking around whatever but... again I wonder. Is he letting himself be a little rough as a way to express his true feelings?)

God, all these little things that... might have an ulterior motive and might not.

It's around the time Vi gets bruised up by that guy at the coffee shop that Leo seems to start actually acting like a real friend, in my opinion. “…You don’t even get how incredible you are, do you?” he asks, causing you to roll your eyes. “You seriously don’t see it.”

The very next chapter he gets a glimpse of her being anxious over not being able to play, while she notices that he looks tired, invites him to listen to music and lets him sleep on her back, and in that chapter it says: you sit, quiet, letting him use you. My second read through, this line hit me hard because I KEPT noticing that she really does nothing but GIVE and I feel like she's constantly doing things to be useful to others. And now, as I'm skimming through a third time, it turns out that... yeah. Yeah. He was fucking using her. In Chapter 22, Leo says "then you reach out and touch me in a way no one has. You’ve helped me, even though I was just using you" and I'm thinking this is the moment that that really started. When she first let him sleep on her. And that's also the first time he churrs with her. After that, he gets her really nice sushi, and she thinks he's guilty for drooling all over for her, but I think maybe he was guilty because he's starting to realize how nice she is and how shitty it is that he's using her like that, even though he does continue those manipulative behaviors.

---

He sighs, his face going openly affectionate. “…You’re so…”

What he thinks you are, you don’t know, as he chooses instead to pull you into a hug. You go easily, seeking the comfort of his embrace, hoping he can feel in your arms that you truly do mean what you said.

“You know, instead of sorry, you should say—” Leo says, though as his face gets close to your throat, his mouth snaps shut and he goes still in a manner that reminds you a little of Donnie.

“…Leo?” you ask, going to pull back from the hug to look into his face only to feel his hands go tight on your back, holding you close while he dips his beak to your skin and inhales. When he does pull back, he’s got a look of shock on his face that he quickly schools into something more neutral, but barely.

This is where he smells Donnie on you for the first time, and the guilt he was starting to feel, the actual genuine affection he was developing for her, may have then been interrupted/overshadowed by his anger.

Vi was right to say she isn't gonna go back and examine every detail, because it's so fucking MUDDY! There are glimpses of true softness from him sprinkled throughout with him ALSO still hanging over her and doing shit that pisses Donnie off on purpose. And then of course the scene with Leo in the kitchen when he scares her, where we get the first big glimpse into his true anger about the whole situation, where we see him being sharp and cutting and dismissive and- I'm not going to paste in that whole scene, but he's so, so, SO angry. When she has that visceral, terrified reaction, he feels so bad (I do think he was genuinely, truly horrified that he scared her), but then he finds out that Vi and Donnie are (as far as Vi is aware) dating, followed by her telling him that Donnie misses touching his brothers, misses hugs, followed by Leo deciding to tell Vi about all the family secrets... so he's wrestling with this rage and jealousy, but he's also starting to really accept her as family (I think, since he shared the info about the Krang, about Lou Jitsu, about Casey, since he asked for her help)...

It kills me that, after that, he saw her trying so hard to help, like when she went to the library and got books on PTSD and fell asleep taking notes and she wakes up with a blanket covering her and a little blue heart on a note - he saw her doing that, on top of everything else she CONSTANTLY does for other people, for his family, and HE STILL, EVEN AFTER THAT, DOES SHIT THAT'S MANIPULATIVE. THE 4TH OF JULY PARTY, FOR EXAMPLE. “What she said,” Leo purrs, his fingers fluttering on your stomach as his eyes cut off to the side. He has a sharp look to his features that you’re a bit too drunk to dissect, so you just ignore it. He HAS to be looking at Donnie, here.

(Side note - we still don't know what Leo was doing when Vi was in the shower getting ready for the party... if anything. Maybe he really was eating cookies.)

It's at the end of the party that he smells sex on Vi, I think, for the first time. And the following chapter is when he starts avoiding Vi, and she goes to confront him and he says he's "Thinking about things. About what I want.” And THAT'S when he finally stops his bullshit. Ch 22 - "I stopped. Completely. After we talked in my room.”

---

I'm still working on fully re-reading Chapters 17+ until I make it back up to 22 and putting more thoughts into that post, but. Dear God. Sam is a genius and I'm so angry at myself. I had been so confused and angry with Donnie, when in reality he truly DID NOT KNOW about the misunderstanding between him and Vi. Meanwhile, as I'm fawning over Leo and so happy Vi has him and so grateful he's been such a good friend to her... he was the one using her, this whole time. I cannot believe it. I'm SICK with rage. I can't imagine how Vi could possibly... I can't... FUCK dude

#symphony #turtlecleric ramblings

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oneent-blog · 5 years ago

Text

Feature: 2018: Second Quarter Favorites

via WordPress ift.tt/2lRq7dZ

To help make the predictions, we interviewed 45 random fans, 30 venture capitalists, and a handful of media who cover the music industry across the country to get their collective thoughts on what’s imminent. That list is then honed by eliminating long-shot candidates, followed by a double-elimination round to get rid of shitty artists. Nominees are thoroughly vetted, and the groups eliminate candidates throughout the process.

Today, we are proud to present the results: the BEST 26 releases of the last three months (with a shortlist at the end). We predict that these releases will change music forever.

SOPHIE

OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES

[Future Classic]

[WATCH · READ]

Now’s raw doubt flanges in this memory’s mercury, and we’re back in the basement dark, floor paved with silver marbles. We will shine a light on one, outline the floor with reflecting. I ask are you sure of this? and you say no, never not of any thing. You squeeze your foreign-feeling shoulder, slim quick doubt. Then you hold a marble up to your eye, unclipped cuticles before corneas, a silver pearl. It’s okay. Flashlight on. We gape. There is no neat sequence. No light is set Surface contorts seeing. The shining is bent in coils. There is no straight path, just what we can move into in this whole new world. Roll the flashlight, and it’s a world warping, brilliance refracted, reflections re-membering. The world we built in the dark teaches us how being between might be. Our un-insides, SOPHIE’s sound, teaches us that brilliance doesn’t diminish its self, that light and self and is what we call it. And you say call me Vivian. Becoming who we’re becoming, “no matter where I go, you’ll be here in my heart.” –Frank Falisi

Playboi Carti

Die Lit

[Interscope/AWGE]

[LISTEN · READ]

The arrival of Playboi Carti’s debut album proper, following last year’s crucial self-titled mixtape, could seem like a mere victory lap, an easy cop-out that plays up to the well-established framework of overstuffed rap albums in the streaming age. What a pleasure, then, that Die Lit implodes that logic. The heady balance of mood pieces and out-and-out anthems that characterized Playboi Carti is further refined here, but even without that baggage, Die Lit is a success on its own terms, a flickering visage that compounds Carti’s most enticing impulses — barely-there vocals, Reichian repetition, knotty Pi’erre Bourne beats — with all the best facets of the album form. And if Carti is only incidental on the mic, the tracks left in his wake are anything but. Herein lies a set of real Ohrwürmer, the inner soundtrack to your day, long after the album subsides. The cloud bursts forth; lightning really does strike twice. –Soe Jherwood

DJ Healer / Prime Minister of Doom

Nothing 2 Loose / Mudshadow Propaganda

[All Possible Worlds]

[LISTEN · LISTEN]

On DJ Metatron’s 2 The Sky, the anonymous artist threaded a Jake Gyllenhaal interview through intricate waves of house music that helped give rise to this enigmatic and highly gifted producer. This year, his efforts have come twofold, with a double release under two new monikers that plot the same channels of intricacy but through two very different means. In place of the Donnie Darko reflection that deepens the narrative of 2 The Sky is a 2002 Whitney Houston interview with Diane Sawyer, where the troubled singer discusses her drug problems and an unnerving sense of optimism that inevitably collapsed 10 years later. Essentially, the music that accompanies both of these otherwise unrelated samples is the atmospheric gel that binds them together; an actor speaking about his fascination with a perplexing story line, and a generational icon battling with herself, fighting to overcome the very thing that took her life. That disparity lies at the heart of this joint release, which merges two highly distinctive personalities while linking them through religious and personal overtones. Mudshadow Propaganda is perfect in its projection of minimal techno tracks that build on the traits of our secretive producer’s expired alias, The Prince of Denmark, while Nothing 2 Loose is almost confessional in the sincerity that it lays bare. But where both records celebrate the dexterity and imagination of a single producer, they also paint a picture of human existence at its most conflicted, from the carnal and the primitive to the haunted and the divine. –Birkut

Grouper

Grid of Points

[Kranky]

[LISTEN · READ]

In seven tracks and less than 30 minutes, Liz Harris sought to take us nowhere. So she stranded us anywhere. Giving up on finding anything instructive or stabilizing in the passing moan of a stray vocal, the odd cluster of muted piano keys, or the occasional sharp gust of static, it became clear that the only place where anything “new” could happen was in a place where nothing old and familiar was left. “Where are we?” started to sound more like “Where aren’t we?” It might have been some heavenly shoreline where the water was the same perfect gunmetal color as the sky, but it might just as likely have been the vacant parking lot of some long-since-demolished Disneyland. It didn’t really matter. Anyplace we chose to stand and look from was just as good (or bad) as another. “Might as well call this the center,” we figured. Gotta start somewhere. –Dan Smart

Seth Graham

Gasp

[Orange Milk/Noumenal Loom]

[LISTEN · READ]

A symphony of perversions and memories that ignites every time you rapid-fire through your Instagram stories. Refried beans left over from the camping trip you took to a closed beta somewhere off the coast of Spy Kids 4D. A million splintered renderings of classical text that you half-scrawled onto the back of your hand before you realized that you were actually just passed out on the keyboard again. Gasp is like a raw feed of how music itself operates in 2018; brief bursts of genius materializing right before us, only to be swept away and digested into something unrecognizably new. The entire sum of human history rubbing elbows with that ASMR video you had to rush to minimize before your roommate could ask you what the fuck you were just watching. A guy as unassuming as Orange Milk label head Seth Graham conjuring up untold universes of possibility from his home in Dayton, OH, his bank of MIDIs a window into our gentle, distraught, and hilarious world. –Sam Goldner

[pagebreak]

Klein

[Self-Released]

[LISTEN · READ]

“Oh my god! Who’s actually going to listen to this?” asks Klein, lounging with friends, reflecting on her last EP, Tommy and a still-emerging network of diasporic black art and sound. A year and new EP later, cc sees Klein more comfortable in the discomfort, pushing further with her collages of confrontational intimacy. “You have to squint” as the voices build and spiral, like an endless loop of out-of-office replies, a pitch-bent dawn chorus, singing to each other, but listening too. Klein made us think: about blackness, about opacity, about femininity and Disney princesses, all at once. Feelings too, and a lack of language to convey them; anxiety, elation, mania, but less medical, sometimes an incantation, sometimes an exorcism. In cc, Klein created a space of unique and disarming affect and mood: a deeper, darker stage in the process of “me being my own therapist,” the sound of someone finding a plurality of voices, of listening to yourself. –Joel White

Beach House

[Sub Pop]

[WATCH · READ]

Attempting to describe what dreams are seems like a task both impossible and pretentious. But, as it floats like a wandering mind, drifting from thought to thought with each track, 7 certainly feels like a dream. Alex Scally plays guitar, but it sounds like an unfamiliar squall from another universe. Victoria Legrand sings, but it comes out in French. Look at the clock, you’ll be unable to tell how much time has passed. You know, dream stuff. For a genre that gets its name from something as complex as the random images our brains send to us while we sleep, “dream pop” music can often be very formulaic. That’s why, seven albums into their career, it’s remarkable that Beach House have found a way to not only completely refresh their sound, but make perhaps their best album yet. Awash in a chaotic darkness that’s been lingering in different forms throughout their entire discography, 7 hurtles towards oblivion: beautiful, glorious, infinite. –Jeremy Klein

Eartheater

Irisiri

[PAN]

[WATCH · LISTEN · READ]

I keep losing track of Irisiri; it keeps slipping away from me. This isn’t meant as the insult it might scan as. An elegiac spin on the cyber-cyborg-meat-machine kick that everything relevant is twirling toward, this series of sad little processed ditties and twisted car jams charts a swerve back-and-forth between evasiveness and directness. Its unnerving stuff, giving the impression of solidity while remaining impossible to hold. Flirting with hip-hop and electro-acoustic, bedroom pop and sexed-up sopping wet plastic, it keeps moving out of view, even as I keep returning to it. Listening to the album is like chasing an object out of reach, an object I desire without knowning, a body I want without seeing. Also, C.L.I.T. fucking slaps. –Jessie Jeffrey Dunn Rovinelli

THE HIRS COLLECTIVE

FRIENDS. LOVERS. FAVORITES.

[SRA/Get Better]

[LISTEN · READ]

For a few decades now, raw musical aggression has been underpinned with a lot of unintelligible vocal sentiment. Just steam on in with howling, power riffs and punishing beats please. But what’s that on the edge of the blast radius, dashing in headlong through the smoke? Clear sentiments that uplift, testify, and provide some sharp kicks in heteronormativity’s floppy old dick? Yes please! Even with its closing remix section, the album’s corroded (and collaborative) essence remains triumphantly tight. The perfect way Lilium Kobayashi’s quick stomping techno pop take on “Murdered by a Woman” flits to “Wake Up Tomorrow” when this album is on repeat further dispels any sort of tacked-on/bonus trax superfluousness. The cultural constant of immediate, frothing punk rage is obviously not going anywhere. It’s essential to have an album, in fuck-this-shit 2018, where that rage is specifically righteous, even with its eternally itinerant self-laceration (i.e., humanity). –Willcoma

Delroy Edwards

Rio Grande

[L.A. Club Resource]

[LISTEN · READ]

Delroy Edwards has made the funk (in its many different strains) the connective tissue of his intrepid, joyful, and often perplexing work. It’s an approach never as explicit as in his latest LP, Rio Grande. That might indeed be its greatest success. In Rio Grande, keeping the raw, hissy, determinedly idiosyncratic credentials that first introduced him to the world, Edwards lets the funk take center stage; sometimes riding grimy techno beats, other times pushing beyond the ridiculous-by-design minimalism of the grooves. The goal is simple: to provide his audience with interesting jams to dance to. Edwards takes pride in the anonymous efficiency of that pretense, as the name of his label L.A. Club Resource indicates. He is happy to be the reliable supplier of a service, the invisible demiurge leading patrons to delirium; slipping in some eccentric turns here and there for the kick of it, to the enjoyment of all but mostly because… why the hell not?. And, let there be no doubt, Rio Grande is the most effective toolkit he has yet assembled in pursuit of that goal. –jrodriguez6

[pagebreak]

emamouse X yeongrak

mouth mouse maus

[Quantum Natives]

[LISTEN · READ]

Hey, not to bring this up here, but borders, am I right? Why do we even have these invisible lines dividing my side from yours? We can get so much more done without them, not to mention the added benefit of not having to split up families in real life as they cross the imaginary demarcations. Who on earth has the chutzpah to enact stupid shit like that? Not emamouse — no way. No, emamouse had the opposite in mind as she commented from her Tokyo base of ops, “What’s this thing keeping me out of New Zealand? An ocean? Screw that!” And thus, the BORDER between Japan and New Zealand was erased forever — whether through the magic of the internet or the ocean suddenly turning into a jello trampoline is anyone’s guess. But emamouse was no longer separated from NZ sound slinger/cartoon centipede yeongrak, and together, through the magic of Quantum Natives, mouth mouse maus was born, a sticky, gooey, sugary, epilepsy-inducing strobe blast of video-game grit and played-with-too-much pink slime from a plastic egg. Cookcook, in her review, inferred that utopias can emerge from collectivity, highlighting the compatibility of these two artists. I think what she meant was “Fruitopia,” which someone obviously spilled all over the mouth mouse maus backup hard drive. Remember Fruitopia? That was Coca-Cola’s own attempt to eradicate borders, except they were the borders between taste and… OK, between them and your money. –Ryan Masteller

Félicia Atkinson

Coyotes

[Geographic North]

[LISTEN]

I once went to New Mexico but mostly stayed inside. Reasons why. Félicia Atkinson’s Coyotes, inspired by her own trip to New Mexico, maps a journey I may have taken, among other wonders. The crafted narrative and its exploratory form gestures toward an experiential unknown. Her travel log collages echoes, maps, receipts, dried leaves, sand stuck in the crevices of shoes, plaques, diary entries, signposts, mythology, spirituality, and the facts and facets of the land’s native and colonial histories into a total atmosphere, something approaching a direct translation of a lingering impression. It’s so effective and affecting, because the whole is actually a scrap: “a slip of paper, something/tiny & torn off/lifted by the wind” writes poet Christian Hawkey in Citizen Of. Atkinson lineates her memories into similarly moving verses. –Cookcook

Pusha T

Daytona

[G.O.O.D. Music]

[LISTEN · READ]

DAYTONA by Pusha T is hard work. It’s this blurb being written at 5:20 AM on the 7-train to “the office” a day after having led 46 tweens on a non-stop four-day Boston field trip. It’s teaching about heterosexism and female empowerment, leading sixth grade field day, and handling logistics for eighth grade graduation in a single day. It’s your body feeling like a crash-test dummy on a Wednesday, having left in the early, early morning, putting in 12 hours of sweating gallons for money, and arriving home at 8:30 PM. It’s wearing Terminator shades on 125th Street talking Spanish to people you never met. It’s the endurance of confidence while facing every fear you’ve experienced — focused — diving straight into the freezing water. DAYTONA proves Pusha T and Kanye are relentless professionals that continue to transcend literary and sonic aesthetics in space and time. We need role models like these, forever. –C Monster

DJ Koze

Knock Knock

[Pampa]

[LISTEN · READ]

Many publications have referred to Stefan Kozalla as a “trickster” or a “prankster.” While there are freckles of truth on the face of that assessment, much of his affability comes from his most mistaken quality: his earnestness. It’s what makes him such a delightful musicmaker. Being earnest, of course, is the perfect foil to the kind of negativist universalism that plagues the psychedelics/mindfulness landscape in which DJ Koze so often finds himself (and, also, finds himself). Koze’s House is perfect (see: “Pick Up”) and his plunder-pop turns weird into sublime and vice versa (see: the wails incorporated into “Scratch That”), but it’s his unpresuming and gracious approach to influences, samples, and collaborations that push this record into extraordinary territory. It’s not alien; it’s absolutely Earthly, and it reflects so well the modest subject that is Koze. After all, Koze never changes, except in his affections. –E. Fosl

Elysia Crampton

[Break World]

[WATCH · READ]

Elysia Crampton opens in media res, with a nativity. And then it revs up, restlessly — its machinic gears grind like plant medicine visions; water flows and burbles; disharmonic chords take us in unanticipatable directions. And through it all, the oscollo, the feline guardian of people outside gender binaries, oscillates wildly. Elysia Crampton’s maximalist approach takes it beyond the strings and cackles of 2016’s Demon City, yet Golgotha remains always present. Standout track “Moscow (Mariposa Voladora)” was inspired by Ofelia, a Bolivian mariposa (“femme revolutionary”), and it judders roughly, darkly. Crampton’s Aymara and trans identity are her displaced subjects, particularly in light of the gestural movement between her origins in Bolivia and her current home in the US. But this is not any straightforward folk music revival — rather, it’s a deconstruction that reconstructs. The difficulties and contradictions of critical theory, in particular writers such as José Muñoz and his exploration of queer brown-ness, are braided into the work. The first written reference to queers as mariposillas (“little butterflies”) is from Pedro Cieza de León, in the 16th century, in which he compares “sodomites,” subject to punishment by burning at the stake, to moths drawn to the flame. The suffering of our ancestors can’t be recuperated, but through art, we may yet dance grotesquely but triumphantly on the pyre. –Rowan Savage

[pagebreak]

The Caretaker

Everywhere at the end of time – Stage 4

[History Always Favours The Winners]

[LISTEN · READ]

The late hauntologist Mark Fisher once cruelly noted that the OED lists one of the earliest meanings of the word “haunt” as “to provide with a home, house.” And now that we live in a world that has lost the very possibility of loss, we have also lost the one who can lose, cohabiting with oneself in the present’s presence. Ghosts no longer have a home to haunt in any case, and their yearning and lingering voices are consigned to a past that can never pass away. Although it is haunting and horrifying to behold Everywhere at the end of time’s fourth installment pass from memories to their source — what Kirby calls “the post-awareness stage” — perhaps we must be grateful that someone can forget (for (us)). For, the source of memory must remain, even after all memory has been stripped away from it, even though this source can never be aware of itself. Yet, this source is not, strictly speaking, an identity. What it may be I do not know, but The Caretaker allows you to hear, what, behind those eyes, devoid of any recognition of life; we hope, we plead to be someone who remembers us, yet the only bliss, as transient as it is empty, is the wry smile that, for an instant, says, “Do not save me.” –Evan Coral

Lucrecia Dalt

Anticlines

[RVNG Intl.]

[WATCH · READ]

OK, Hoag. You wake up in 1925, in a different place but with the same objects. Lucrecia Dalt’s Anticlines is playing on the victrola. She sings, “Skinless others/ Oils on waters,” and you realize you’re in the same room as the killer. The only other person in the room is dressed exactly like you, and that person’s talking up the other place — the one you believe you are still in — saying, “I think you’d like it there.” Where again? Both places go out of view. Now possibly dreaming, in a time and place before flight, Gein or radio, you wait at a blue-dipped railway platform as trains roll by on their way to Oclupaca and Ortseam. You’re hoping to catch a ride to somewhere similar but elsewhere, more elemental, past the unseen concupiscence between thermosphere and exosphere, out there where you don’t have to wonder, anymore, what the toys do while you’re away. –Rick Weaver

Tierra Whack

Whack World

[Self-Released]

[STREAM]

In the face of incomprehensible excess and stream-gaming nonsense, Tierra Whack — yes, that’s her real name — provides a grotesque yet charming response with the wonderfully weird “Whack World.” Rather than dragging the tempo or chopping the tracklist, the 22-year-old Philly rapper embraces something like a skip-button aesthetic of preview clips and non-member samples, unceremoniously cutting off her songs as soon as they hit the one-minute mark. With 15 songs in just 15 minutes — an absurdity further heightened by its surreal video — traditional payoffs are just beyond reach, forcing us to sit through a goofy, lighthearted romp of youthful innovation and bizarre genre play that includes everything from slow jams and trap bangers to country parodies and kids pop. It’s delightfully ridiculous and sometimes annoying af, but it arrives with undeniable energy and child-like wonder, bursting out confetti-like from a singular, captivating voice who’s on one of this year’s quickest and most unexpected come-ups. Blink and you’ll miss it. That’s the point. –ミスターおしっこ

GAS

Rausch

[Kompakt]

[WATCH · LISTEN · READ]

I consumed the hour-long experience of Rausch, blaring through my headphones, as golden hour became twilight and the mosquitoes started biting. Luckily, my timing was great; 2017’s Narkopop, with its penchant for forlorn ruminations, ultimately owed a lot to its namesake: pop music. Now, those hopeful moments of liquid sunlight are far away. Rausch finds GAS staying true to its typically ascetic atmosphere, but any strand of accessible melodicism is replaced by shattering layers of dissonant drone upon drone, Doppler effect-synths, and percussive textures that pierce through it all — shimmering cymbals, palpitating kick-snare rhythms. As each funeral march bleeds into the next, the delirious effects of Rausch take hold. My arms are covered in bites, and temperatures still haven’t dropped below 90. For the superimposed intensity of Rausch, a more fitting listening environment couldn’t be created. –Rounak Maiti

The Body

I Have Fought Against It, But I Can’t Any Longer

[Thrill Jockey]

[LISTEN · READ]

It’s so much to bear. We’re expected to carry more than our own weight. The pain and suffering of our past traumas, the present crises, the future uncertainties. More and more, any attempts to alleviate the pain, to share the burden, are undermined. All we ever wanted, all untenable. They demand purity (in lieu of that, submission by “privilege”), individuality, personalization, subscription. They won’t cry for us. Everything must be on you and you alone. Time will not notice you are nothing. You are already hatred as an abstract to someone else. The pull of the personal must end. The allure of ontology and self-indulgence must be shattered in the face of those who leer lewdly into its mirror and contort on the floor in false ecstasy. But it is a painful burden. “I lower my guilty-looking eyes. I’m afraid of looking people in the eye.” War is necessary and proper, to shatter illusions. But it’s all so much to bear. –Ze Pequeno

[pagebreak]

serpentwithfeet

soil

[Tri Angle/Secretly Canadian]

[WATCH · LISTEN · READ]

It’s crazy to think that soil is serpentwithfeet’s debut album. The queer, pagan singer, a former choir boy from Baltimore, emerged in 2016 with blisters, a set of mesmerizing slices of new age R&B delving into faith, superstition, and love. His voice and composition live up to the lofty themes; delicate and meandering, serpent recalled the acrobatic opulence of 90s R&B with brooding, industrial production from The Haxan Cloak. The most visionary artists are those who sound like nothing other than themselves and exhibit a gravitational aura that inspires imitation, lust, and disbelief. soil lurches and waltzes, while Josiah Wise, who prefers to go by “serpent,” remains fully exposed in the mix, employing innovative vocal stacks that whisper, conjure, and croon behind him like a choir of restless spirits. Despite the divine quality to serpent’s voice, which is at times shellacked with layers, often battling against static noise and its own quivering vibrato, the subject matter of soil is immediately relatable and quotidian: the navigation of a shifting dating landscape, the sublime essences of individuals, intimacy and grace in heartbreak, the projection of sorrow onto the world. serpent doesn’t want to be “small sad,” but “big, big sad,” to the point that he’s sure his friends are “tired of him talking.” The domesticity infects us all: How can we properly grieve? How can we redeem ourselves? The occult instrumentation falls away to reveal a queer individual who is merely describing their personal desires. –Ross Devlin

Sarah Davachi

Let Night Come On Bells End The Day

[Recital]

[LISTEN · READ]

I walked through the streets barefoot, clothed only in a robe. The bells were ringing, playing their ancient song, letting the world know that the night had begun. My feet were bleeding from the cobblestone streets, which is how they found me in the morning, just outside of town in the woods. I didn’t drink that night. The evening swept me up, and some tribal instinct forced me outside in virtually nothing. My neighbors looked and closed their curtain as I kept walking, holding the hand of the force that was dragging me. I remember parts like my head hurting and my eyes watering. I remember spinning in the center of town underneath a street lamp. I don’t remember why I left town and headed toward the woods. I don’t know why I left my house. I remember being woken up by the police and being embarrassed to face to my neighbors. They took me home and put me in bed, because the medic cleared me at the site. I’ve never spoken of it since, and I still clench up when the night comes on and the bells end the day. –Sam Tornow

Jenny Hval

The Long Sleep EP

[Sacred Bones]

[WATCH · LISTEN · READ]

Roping in some of her favorite jazz musicians to explore ideas, Jenny Hval has managed to escape the noose of her recent collaborative concepts and delve within to produce yet another stunning act of imagination. The pure reach and weight of The Long Sleep is extraordinary. Hval moves across emotional ground with certainty and delicacy, capturing the subtlest of feelings. Like a soundtrack to a brilliant short, Hval plays with recurring motifs first presented in the “conventional” “Spells,” but then swerves genre expectations along the way, through the piano-led clap frappe of “The Dreamer Is Everyone in Her Dream” to the blissful title track drone. On “I Want to Tell You Something,” her presence is so powerful, as she attempts to express trance closure through an oblique narrative before realizing simple words are all she needs. Fecund, savage, and irresistible, The Long Sleep demonstrates once again why Hval is so intriguing. –David Nadelle

Gemini Sisters

[Psychic Trouble]

[LISTEN]

How does one describe something so beautiful and uplifting — a beacon of light in a shroud a darkness. I was wallowing deep in the muck and mire, desperate to claw out of it rather than sinking down into it. But that tar pit of sorrow and defeat is thick, and it cares not about your will. But I saw the light and followed it. It led me to two helpful, outstretched hands. Jon Kolodij and Matt Christensen met my palm with a hardy grasp and a hefty pull. And I felt the warmth of Gemini Sisters. The sprawling, uplifting sonic aura of the duo’s debut speaks to energy from whence Kolodij and Christensen are christened: the two having their daughters born on the same day of the same year (and those offspring being Geminis). It shows with the delicacy of their aural attack. It is spiritual, reaching toward the heavens to pluck the constellation and bringing its brightness to our darkest places. Right now, the flesh is weak and the mind wavers. But our essence remains pure and chaste. Thanks to Kolodij and Christensen, I have traded the hastened quicksand for a tether to the sprawling galaxy. –Jspicer

Christina Vantzou

No. 4

[Kranky]

[LISTEN · READ]

When you’re in a vehicle moving at a slow, constant speed, sometimes you can convince yourself that you aren’t moving at all. No. 4 moves me like that. I know how tired that metaphor is, and if you listen to gentle drones like “At Dawn” and “Remote Polyphony” and think I’m a hack for digging the spatial metaphor up once again to describe slow, deliberate music, I understand. But I feel that uneasy compromise between motion and rest deeply and at every strange, shimmering moment of the album. It’s in the bells of “Percussion in Nonspace,” ringing in a sort of dual presence and absence; in the little arpeggio that creeps up through “Doorway;” in the pitch-affected choral chant that closes out “Sound House.” Whether we interpret track titles as thematic hints or as mere word games, the names of the tracks on No. 4 suggest, along with the music, that Christina Vantzou wants to domesticate and eventually upend and denature space through sound. Usually a device for ordering abstraction, she turns that hackneyed spatial metaphor into one for abstracting order. This record moves at no speed, in no direction, and toward no goal, except maybe to suspend us temporarily in a kind of beauty without dimension, not far from terror. –Will Neibergall

Kanye West

[G.O.O.D./Def Jam]

[LISTEN · READ]

Just because an album sparks cathartic conversations doesn’t mean it’s good, and not all good albums invite candid dinner table discussions concerning their mercurial merits. Kanye, however, has just as big of a reputation for arousing furor as he does for leaving listeners speechless. Meanwhile, critics scramble for thoughtful words that won’t get them blacklisted for being associated with that black magic that has been infiltrating every aspect of daily life since Cain murdered Abel, thus birthing division. Calling ye a divisive document at TMT would be an understatement, and attributing its inclusion here to justifying countless hours of collectively unpacking just over 23 minutes of noise would obscure what ye actually contains: disturbing spoken word admonitions about premeditated murder, breathless bars on prescription drug addiction, ironic fantasies about butts of sex scandals, gorgeous gospel keys and beautiful dark twisted harmonies, celebratory reflections on fame and success, spectral arena rock vibes, and staggering room for growth cleared out by fear and love and loyalty. Regardless of our own individual feelings, ye keeps reminding us that this music shit that gets us through each day often requires plunging into dark places and reemerging with our own beacons of light. Believe it or not, I still love it, and like watching a bright-eyed child grow up in a world this dark, I’m terrified and excited for what’s next. –Jazz Scott

The Shortlist: King Vision Ultra’s Pain of Mind, Shygirl’s Cruel Practice, Oneohtrix Point Never’s Age Of, Ashley Paul’s Lost In Shadows, James Ferraro’s Four Pieces For Mirai, Larry Wish’s How More Can You Need, Jon Hassell’s Listening To Pictures, Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement’s Red Ants Genesis, Parquet Courts’s Wide Awake!, The Carters’ EVERYTHING IS LOVE, Bernice’s Puff LP, Carla Bozulich’s Quieter, Pinkshinyultrablast’s Miserable Miracles, Duppy Gun Productions’s Miro Tape, DRINKS’s Hippo Lite, Valee’s GOOD Job, You Found Me, and Frog Eyes’ Violet Psalms.

Feature: 2018: Second Quarter Favorites published first on medium.com/@buydigitalpiano

Posted by HomerAltizer on 2018-07-04 01:14:14

Tagged: , Uncategorized

The post Feature: 2018: Second Quarter Favorites appeared first on Good Info.

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mama-ghostie-61542 · 7 years ago

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The Hamato Chronicles Ch. 3

Rated M for Mature--Contains disturbing images, racial slurs, and images of war. PTSD trigger WARNING

If ya recognize it, it ain't mine.

Ch 3

Leo POV

After lunch, which was Marlowe’s mac and cheese, we decided to watch a movie. As per normal, Mikey wanted a horror flick, Raph wanted action, and Donnie wanted a documentary. But, we all agreed to let Lowe pick.

She held up The Princess Bride and started laughing so hard she was almost crying. Our brothers smiled and put the movie in.

Marlowe, propped herself on the back of the couch and said to Dad, “Hey Pop. ‘What about the ROUS’?”

Father smiled and leaned against the door frame. “’Rodents of unusual size?’ Hmm,” he said as he played with his tail, twirling it like a chain. “’I don’t think they exist.’”

After the previews, we heard Sensai yell, “’Everybody move!’”

We scrambled to get out of the way. Dad vaulted over the back of the couch and landed next to Marlowe, who hadn’t moved an inch. He settled in to watch the movie with a smile. We all watched as they would laugh about things like they were inside jokes.

Supper was pizza. We had a ball. The banter between all six of us was music to my ears. It was like an important instrument was missing from our little symphony. One by one, we went off to bed. At 3 am, when I got up to go pee, Marlowe was just laying down.

Don’s POV

I was woken up by a muffled scream at 4am. I met Father at the door to the lab. He seemed just as shaken as I was. The scream was most definitely female, so we knew it could only be Marlowe. The two of us ran into her room to see her thrashing on her bed and shrieking ‘NO’ and ‘Joey’. Occasionally, Marlowe would gag and we’d have to roll her to her side.

“Marlowe, you need to wake up,” my father whispered in his panic as he was petting her face.

I was whispering to her the entire time, “Come on, Sissy, wake up.” But it seemed to go on for hours. It was only maybe a minute but it sure felt like more. When her eyes finally fluttered open, she looked like she was going to hurl, so I grabbed her trash can and thrust it under her face. I was just in time. When she was finally finished, she slumped back on her pillows and sobbed. It kills me to see my strong big sister hurting like this.

Marlowe’s POV

I had gone to bed that night, after having a late night brawl with my survivor’s guilt and almost a whole pot of coffee. Suddenly, I was in the middle of another nightmare.

My world was a little fuzzy. I remember this place. This is where we were when our Gunny said to shoot those kids. Suddenly, I felt myself being thrown around and then Joey was in my lap asking me to watch over his little sister. There was so much blood. I tried to hold it all in. I knew what was coming next. Joey bled to death while we waited for the medics. I can still hear the blast coming. I can still feel the heat of the truck as he was blown next to me. I can still feel the hot of his blood on me, can still smell it. Even after the last 6 months it still makes me gag.

I woke up to Donnie holding up a trashcan for me, which I promptly heaved into. Pop was next to me, gently rubbing my back. After empting my stomach of the last two days of its contents, I started sobbing.

My father whispered, “Marlowe, what happened out there?”

“Dad, I only want to tell this story once,” I somehow managed to croak out, “so you had better get everyone up and here.”

Without us knowing it, Leo had gotten up and was standing outside the door. He went to get our other two brothers up while Don called April and Casey. In a half hour, April and Casey walked into the lair.

Donnie handed me a bottle of water.

“Thanks, Double D,” I said hoarsely.

Raph wrapped the couch blanket around my shoulders a few minutes later. “Are you sure you don’t need this, Squeaks? It’s kinda cold.”

He smiled and said softly, “And I’m not tha one shakin’, Marlowe Jean.”

I looked up to see Mikey squirming on the rug. “Angel, go.”

“But I need to be here for you, Lowe.”

“Just go!”

Mikey grumbled as he got up and stalked off in the direction of the bathroom, leaving Marlowe shaking her head. She looked up at April and Casey, “You guys have siblings?”

April said, “No,” while Casey just shook his head.

“I’m going to tell you two the unspoken sibling code,” Marlowe said as she started to tick them off one by one on her fingers. “One, I may love you to bits and pieces, but I am not required to like you. Two, I can beat you up whenever I want, but if someone so much as looks at you in a fashion I don’t approve of, I will kill them. Three, I reserve the right to despise whoever you settle with as no one will ever be good enough. And four, I also reserve the right to spoil any and all of your progeny to the point of rottenness and far beyond, stopping just short of sociopath.”

April and Casey sat stock still, for nearly a whole minute. Then Marlowe smiled and they started laughing.

After hearing Marlowe call the boys by their childhood nicknames a few times, Casey had to ask where they came from, “So about these nick names?”

Marlowe laughed, “I couldn’t say names or features when I was in BASIC or OJT. Uncle Sam likes to read the recruits letters from home and listen in on their phone calls. So, Uncle Pete and I worked out a system where we would use something from when the boys were little as a code name for each of them. When Leo was little, he was really accident prone and had an awesome speech impediment. He couldn’t say ‘Fell’ so it was kabong or kaboom. I started calling him El KaBong in my letters home. Raph was two when he finally started talking.”

Casey grinned, “And now he never shuts-up.”

“Watch it, Jones. He’s is still my little brother and I am still a Marine,” I replied, hotly, as I leveled a glare at the hockey mask wearing vigilante. “Anyway, he’d get so upset he would scream at the top of his lungs for quite a while if you didn’t immediately understand what he was meaning. He would get this squeaky, hoarse voice after throwing those fits. So, when I had to think of a code word for Raph, Squeaks came to mind. Sometimes, if he is exhausted or really sick, I can get away with ‘Squeaker’, but I don’t push it. Donnie had a huge independent streak when he was two. Every time we’d ask if he needed help his answer was always, “NO! Don-Don do!” In my letters home I shortened it to DD or Double D. Mikey has always been Angel. Guess that’s just the big sister thing. I mean, they are all my angels, but he’s always been my Angel.”

Everyone gathered on the couches in the living room, waiting for me to tell them what happened in Afghanistan. Raph sat one side of me, his arm around my shoulders in an attempt to calm the tremors that still wracked my body, while Don was on the other, holding my hand, secretly keeping an eye on my pulse.

My father sat down across from me, “What happened in Afghanistan, Marlowe.”

“I was out with my squad and my SSgt’s Gunny; a guy by the name of Johnson. He was a bastard; called me a ‘prairie squaw’ to my face quite a few times. Anyway, we were doing a patrol in this tiny little town, the kind where one well serves 6 or 8 houses. There were some kids outside, playing with water guns. I remember this one was mutagen green and neon blue. It was obvious they were just playing in the water when they would stop and fill their soakers back up. This Gunny ordered us to ‘Shoot those damned kids’. All four of us were floored. Caitie looked at him and asked, ‘Whaa’. She wasn’t sure she heard him right. Then he yelled, ‘I order you to shoot those damned towelheads in training. Nits make lice. Bet you’d know all about that wouldn’t you, Hamato’. I about lost it. I looked at him and said, ‘Sir, with all due respect, I respectfully decline to follow that order.” He started screaming at me; called me everything but an American Marine. Then he sent me back behind the lines. I was put on temporary restriction for two days and the paperwork for my discharge was started over my wording. There was a guy working supply for quartermaster company, Joey Loveland, who gave me a ride to regional. We were a few miles away from our destination when he yelled ‘Shit’ and threw me out of the cab of that deuce and a half. He was right behind me. He landed right next to me. I can still feel the heat of the blast; can still taste the sand and dust it kicked up. But most of all, I can still feel Joey’s blood on my hands and hear his screaming,” I paused and took a breath as tears ran down my face. “I can still hear him asking me to watch over his little sister.”

“I sat there, trying to keep him alive while screaming through the satellite phone for a medic when he said to stop. He said he knew he wasn’t going to make it, just asked me to take care of Brynnie for him. He died in my arms. Medics finally got there 10 minutes later, but by then I was in shock. I was sedated for three days because I kept trying to scrub his blood off when it was already gone. When I finally came out of it, my Staff Sargent was there and he told me that JAG wanted to talk to me. Turns out, my girls complained. There was no way to stop my discharge but that Gunny got in some big trouble. Come to find out, I had been put in for Staff Sargent half a dozen times when there was a slot and I had the points, but that Gunny kept turning it down. He kept saying that I wasn’t ready for the responsibility. Mind, I had been a Sargent for years, had all my points, was never flagged, and had never failed a PT test. It all boiled down to my gender and skin color.

When I got back to San Diego, I was in pretty bad shape. I couldn’t eat or sleep; I got put into inpatient observation at a VA Hospital there. A week later, I was transferred to a VA hospital in Pierre, South Dakota. Saw at least three Docs there. No one bothered to look at my address on record. It took me almost four months to get them to transfer me to a caseworker in the Bronx. After that fight, I had another month before I could see a Doc about my anxiety; that was more pills. I was lucky that Caitie got out right after me; she let me bunk with her until I found you guys again.

That was a complete stroke of luck. I was headed down into the tunnels on Humboldt and Sherman when I ran into O’Neil. I recognized her from the photos you guys emailed me. She asked how long I’d been home for. Told her I’d been looking for you guys for the better part of a month. She told me she would have you guys come here for a few nights the next week. Then she gave me the number to Pop’s cell. First thing I did when I got back to Cait’s was to lock myself in the bathroom and call dad.”

A/N-- Exact same version on ffn.

#tmnt leonardo #tmnt raphael #tmnt donatello #tmnt michelangelo #tmnt splinter #tmnt leo #tmnt raph #tmnt donnie #tmnt mikey #tmnt 2016 #tmnt bayverse #tmnt 2k16 #tmnt april #tmnt casey jones #the hamato chronicles

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theworstbob · 7 years ago

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yellin’ at songs: week 32

brief reviews of the songs which debuted on the billboard hot 100 the weeks of 16 august 1997, 18 august 2007, and 19 august 2017

8.16.1997

6) "2 Become 1," by Spice Girls

This is just a '90s R&B song! This song doesn't even have the courtesy to be kitschy! This is completely indistinguishable from the rest of the '90s R&B, breathy whispered vocals about sex. There's no -- "Be a little bit wiser, baby/Put it on/Put it on" -- okay. OKAY. Sure. I guess that's something. If your song has no other value, might as well throw quality actionable advice in there. I hope the next song is some milquetoast R&B beat while people sing lines like "Your stomach takes a while to tell your brain it's full/Don't have that third slice of the ‘za, baby."

51) "All I Want," by 702

Oh hell yeah, I love this. I love that this is a Missy Elliott track, and I also love that this group did the titular song for Pootie Tang. I am way into this. This is a breezy summer jam that hits all the Good '90s R&B buttons.

54) "To Make You Feel My Love," by Billy Joel

this sounds exactly like you think it would sound and is as pleasant to listen to as you think it would be and i'm just gonna bounce after 30 seconds because i get it, i see what he's trying to do here and don't want to stick around to see if he pulls it off

55) "Big Bad Mama," by Foxy Brown ft./Dru Hill

I don't disagree with this! I can't find any way to hook onto this, but I already called one thing a breezy summer jam because I didn't feel like thinking too hard about it, so I'm in a bit of a predicament here. Like, this song is OK. It has a memorable bass line, Foxy Brown's pretty great at her thing, and whichever member of Dru Hill showed up sure did the most singing of anyone in 1997!, but like I can see why we've left this behind. It's fine. No one needed this one unearthed, though. We've found some buried treasures, y'know? This is like finding a buried booklet of commemorative state quarters. Like, neat! But also, not even $15.

83) "Far from Yours," by O.C. ft./Yvette Michele

"I be the Chosen One/Beyond the Moet and Cristal/A son of King and a Queen/Therefore ability/For song run in my genetics/I gave ideas to L. Ron Hubbard to write books on Dianetics" ...Setting aside the major issues I have with this man's rhyme schemes, IS HE TAKING CREDIT FOR SCIENTOLOGY. IS THI -- IS HE SAYING THAT HE IS THE INSPIRATION FOR SCIENTOLOGY. What the fuck kind of boast. He's saying his raps are so powerful they inspired a crazy man to write books about bad science. I am flummoxed by this song. This would have been just another okay song by a rapper who honestly just seems like a normal-ass dude who somehow wandered into a recoriding studio, but HE'S TAKING CREDIT FOR L. RON HUBBARD'S IDEAS. WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF LUNATIC IS THIS MAN.

89) "Tide Is High," by Angelina

Someone went to the store and said, "OH BOY! Another new verson of 'Tide Is High!' I gotta pick up this new interpretation of this song, which is of course someone's favorite song ever because it's MY favorite song ever!" Also none of the back-up dancers in the video looked like they were trying their absolute best. They knew where they were. They knew it didn't matter. They took a few plays off and got that check. I have so much respect for those backup dancers. ROCK TO THE BEAT ROCK ROCK TO THE BEAT, ROCK TO THE BEAT ROCK ROCK TO THE BEAT and so forth

92) "Relax & Party," by Ivory

So I've been sick the past couple days, which is why this post is going up on Wednesday and why there's no Thing Journal for last week (SUNDAY DOUBLE) and real talk why this has been a weak edition of YAS so far, ‘cuz I'll be honest, I'm still in the doldrums. My back hurts, which is a fun side effect of getting sick in your late 20s, I've found. So I'm not. In a mood? Conducive to caring about this song. I'm sure this is OK, but honestly, right now, in this moment in which we find ourselves, me and this song, sharing the same space on this planet, I could not care less about the things it wants to bring to my life. It's a stupid song and doesn't do anything. It just goes on for four minutes. Great. Great! Hey, just release an album of that fucking bass line for fifty minutes, honestly, it's probably your best bet if you want me to at least respect you.

95) "Dancehall Queen," by Beenie Man ft./Chevelle Franklyn

So there are two different versions of the song "Dancehall Queen" that I could find. There is this one, but there is also one released more recently with Lady Sovereign as the featured artist. So I have a few questions about our beautiful ever-expanding dying universe: 1) What did Chevelle Franklyn do to get deposed? 2) Does Chevelle FRanklyn give input into the decisions Lady Sovreign makes? 3) Who gave Beenie Man the powers of coronation? As far as I can tell, he does not proclaim himself the Dancehall King. 4) How often does the Dancehall Queen title change hands? 5) Is there a library that has data on the Dancehall Queen history which I can look up? 6) What are some books on the Dancehall Queen succession which you would recommend? Let me know in the comments! Hit that follow button and LIKE THIS POST!

8.18.2007

28) "Me Love," Sean Kingston

This is like a song you enjoy if you've never enjoyed a song before. If you're someone who appreciates music and attends symphonies and has opinions on concertos, and you're approached with this song, you'll probably use snooty music language to say, "This is a delightful confection!" Or like, if your musical diet consists entirely of Gary Jules' cover of Mad World and songs of that ilk, if the only songs you've been allowed to enjoy in this life are Gary Jules' "Mad World" cover and other songs which could have been selected for the Donnie Darko soundtrack, and you hear this song for the first time, this is probably the most amazing thing you've ever heard. This would sound so revolutionary. But if you've even heard one other fun pop song, you know this is useless.

89) "Free and Easy (Down the Road I Go)," Dierks Bentley

it is good when things are nice! at last, a song that says what none of us are brave to say out loud

90) "All My Friends Say," Luke Bryan

I think a couple months ago I tabbed this as a semi-iconic Luke Bryan song, in the sense that it's a song I hear and immediately attribute to Luke Bryan, which is something I can't do for any Blake Shelton song. But like, this is the song that establishes Luke Bryan's persona -- he's a free-wheelin' sumbitch who's gonna drink too much and try not to drunk-dial any ex-girls. There's personality in this song, a hack and shitty personality, but hey at least he hacked up and/or shitted out an identifiable character. All Blake Shelton's songs are about a man who wishes things would either be better or remain the same, depending on how good they presently are. The song is garbage and Luke Bryan only ever got worse, sure, but it is undeniably a product of Luke Bryan’s particular brand of dunderheaded twanging.

100) "Can U Believe," Robin Thicke

There is a long list of things I need to do with my life. Near the top are items like "only wear a suit at your little sister's wedding," "learn the lttp any% nmg speedrun," and "write a whole good thing," you know, standard stuff, standard life goals, and then there's a million pages of things I will never accomplish. Nowhere on that list was "listen to Robin Thicke tell you that I don't know when someone's watching." I did not need to hear Robin Thicke tell me he was stalking me before I died. I could have learned the Blind script with this time. Maybe this is about God? But it's not even vaguley Christian, he just randomly starts saying you never know when someone's watching, which is only something anyone says WHEN THEY ARE PRESENTLY LOOKING AT YOU THROUGH A TWO-WAY MIRROR. Been a decade of garbage with this man, my gosh.

8.19.2017

(38) "You Da Baddest," by Future ft./Nicki Minaj

Beach Future is such a weird thing to consider. I'm on the record as being pro-Beach Future in general, it's not as random a pivot as the time Lil Wayne picked up the electric guitar and said "OH YEAH! THIS IS A THING!" but it's still hard to get the brain around the idea of Beach Future after, what, three years and roughly 20 albums of morose, despondent Future? All of the Future songs I know are about the nightmare of being Famous and codeine, and now he's dropped two songs that are just, "Yeah, man, chillax! Life's pretty breezy, friends, pull up a chair, let's just enjoy a sunset together!" I'm into it? But it feels like the world is imbalanced right now. Beach Future has completely thrown off my equilibrium and I am Scared.

(68) "Unforgettable," by Thomas Rhett

Ah. Balance! After making a surprisingly hot '80s jam earlier this year, Thomas Rhett just sort of bleats over an acoustic guitar for two and a half bland minutes. This song tries to turn the word "mangorita" into a stirring kick-off to its chorus, and while I recognize the enormity of the task it placed upon itself, that doesn't mean it didn't fail to accomplish its goals. "From your blue jeans to your shoes/Girl, the night was just like you/Unforgettable." I'D NEVER SEEN JEANS JUST THAT BLUE BEFORE. I NEVER EVEN KNEW THEY MADE BLUE JEANS IN THAT PARTICULAR SHADE OF BLUE. WHY, THEY WERE... DARE I SAY? TURQUOISE! ALL HISTORY'S SCULPTORS DEVOTED THEIR LIVES TRYING TO MOLD YOU

(85) "When it Rains it Pours," by Luke Combs

A lot of the reason I don’t mind Rascal Flatts and Keith Urban when we run through 2007 is because, when I was growing up, my mom would only listen to country music, and those artists are the ones I minded the least when we were on the half-hour rides to and from church. I forged deep and lasting connections with the dudes I minded the least of anyone else. This song is definitely "best song on the ride to church" quality. It has a Toby Keith-y sense of humor which is more or less agreeable -- I can't imagine any scenario that a waitress at Hooters is impressed enough by any customer at Hooters to leave their number, but here I am, complaining that my suspension of disbelief in a country song was interrupted -- and it's unique, I haven't heard a lot of "fuck her, she's outta my hair!" songs from dude country artists this year. It’s not “I’m Gonna Miss Her,” but what is? Once again, Luke Combs has made a song that's unique enough that I can appreciate its charm, but not so intriguing that I'm gonna seek him out on my own. I'll give his next album a spin, see if he takes the right lessons to heart, but the one he’s got out now, I think I’m good!

(87) "They Don't Know," by Jason Aldean

"Just another field/Just another farm/No, it's the place we grew up on." Jason Aldean is a multi-millionaire who owns several hundred acres of land in a major metropolitan area nad has the chutzpah to speak for the common man. Fuck this dude and fuck him for this Trump-vote of a song.

(88) "Honest," by The Chainsmokers

hey guys the chainsmokers made a song about how they're sensitive boys who're sad about breakup, wow what a fascinating new look for these cats, truly evolving as artists before our very eyes. see, this is the one where they go "whoa-oh." i don't think they've gone "woah-oh" in a song yet. this is a pony certainly capable of developing a second trick!

(89) "The Weekend," by SZA

"What kind of deal is two days?/I need me at least 'bout for of 'em" is one of the single-saddest lyrics 2017 has produced. This song is so good. SZA in general is so good, but I never had to deal with how good this song is, given how much there is to parse with Ctrl. When's the last time we heard from a side piece's perspective, y'know? When's the last time we heard how a booty call felt about being a booty call? We heard "Booty Call," which was about the act of engaging in a booty call, but we don't know anything about the booty call's wants and desires outside of that moment. I enjoy hearing this perspective on the events, hearing from the girl the '90s R&B dude has to apologize for seeing, because that's a person, too, that's a person who's alive and lives a life of their own. It took us until 2017 to get the side piece's take on things. What were the rest of us doing?

(90) "New Rules," by Dua Lipa

This is really enjoyable. Nothing terribly complex, just a "don't fuck your ex" jam, but it's confidently delivered (I get the sense that Dua Lipa is a much better singer than the current musical trends are going to let her be), and I love the subtle horn drop. Evidently, the producer of this song was also involved with "Bad Liar" and "Now and Later," so I'm getting on the Ian Kirkpatrick train. I approve! Great work, all.

(93) "I Wish I Knew You," by The Revivalists

oh wow fuck everything about this. where did this come from? why am i listening to this? did 13 reasons why drop another season? who wanted this. who wanted another indie band biting the hell out of franz ferdinand. they're not even biting franz ferdinand, they're biting all those bands that were biting from franz ferdinand a few years ago, except they're doing so nakedly, "the revivalists" is code for "we have no original ideas." way to revive 2013, yeah dude, it was so long since i heard the neighbourhood, i'm so happy you're reviving four years ago. also this willy wonka-ass muthafucka's hat is stupid. i'm honestly not sure i'm reacting to the song as much as i am the stupid goddamn hat in the music video. (also: i'm not into this song, despite the presence of a saxophone. i have limits. i'm not gonna go home with just any brass instrument, you guys.) white men ruin everything.

(94) "Every Little Thing," by Carly Pearce

Well, number one, it's a country music song with actual drums, so it's automatically starting with 95 points out of a possible 100. This is dope. "They say time is the only healer/God, I hope that isn't right/'Cause right now I'd die to not remember." Fuck, man. That is heavy. And this is a solidly-produced song, too, there's enough going on that the song feels rich and lived-in, but not so much so that it's distracting, it's definitely in the backseat wearing a seatbelt so the lyrics and what might be the saddest fucking voice in 2017 country music can drive in peace. More from this woman, and more from other women, look how good you are when you let women do things, country music!

(97) "Learn to Let Go," by Kesha

I think this is fine. I'm not as into EDM-lite Kesha as I am Kesha declaring her womanhood backed by a million beautiful horns, but this is fine! Three songs. Three songs is enough distance to start delivering back-handed not-criticisms. But no, like, I wouldn't mind this as the opening track to the album, this sets a tone and opens up the possibility for cooler things to come, but on its own, hey! It's just alright, and that's fine! I'm just glad Kesha's making music, y'know?

(98) "All the Pretty Girls," by Kenny Chesney

this song wasn't even released in 2016, what is it doing here, what, why would, i don't, how did we end up here? what do we hope to accomplish while we're here? did he just say "don't blow my cover on freedom night?" what is freedom night? i don't -- you know what country radio, you batted .400 this week. that's ted williams hype, right there. .400 is better than any of us ever could have anticipated, and i can appreciate that you got things as right as you ever possibly could. please tell me what freedom night is, though.

(99) "For Her," by Chris Lane

...adjust that number down to .333. i'm sorry. i saw the haircut and assumed edm, which you'll agree is a fair assumption to make. this dude sucks. he is trying his best with that falsetto but, and i hate to repeat myself, you can't make your own outsized ambition an excuse for your failure. know your limits. i'm sorry i was ever lukewarm about any kesha song. i kinda feel bad for saying those things about the revivalists' hat. this was a good week apart from the bro country! "For her I would walk a straight line/Wear out the soles of my shoes for her." WOAH! SLOW DOWN, BUDDY! LET'S NOT MAKE ANY PROMISES WE CAN'T KEEP, NOW! Careful! Girls remember things you say to them! Imagine how disappointed she'll be when every day she spends with you your shoes still shine as bright as they did the day she met you.

Who won the week?

Well, 2007′s best song was a Luke Bryan joint, so that’s out. Think we gotta give it to 2017. Four shitty country songs, yeah, but 1997 countered with Spice Girls and a Billy Joel cover of a Bob Dylan song, so those cancel out, and the cream of 2017 was much better than the best 1997 gave us this week. I’m still thinking about that Carly Pearce joint, that was really cool, and it anchors an earned win for 2017. THE STANDINGS: 2017: 12 1997: 11 2007: 9 Next week: keep your heart, Three Stacks.

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newyorktheater · 7 years ago

Text

Christopher Fitzgerald as Ogie

On Your Feet

Cristine Ebersole and Patti LuPone in the number from War Paint

As Americans celebrate our 241st Fourth of July, it’s bracing to realize that the most patriotic new show on Broadway is “Come From Away,” a musical about Canada.

But American patriotism on Broadway is not just a thing of the past, in musicals such as George M and Will Rogers Follies. Several current Broadway shows offer their own patriotic moments, albeit filtered through the 21st century. Excerpts below

Alexander Hamilton in Hamilton

America, you great unfinished symphony You sent for me You let me make a difference A place where even orphan immigrants can leave their fingerprints and rise up I’m running out of time, I’m running and my time’s up 􏰀 Wise up􏰀 Eyes up

Bandstand

A group of World War II veterans who’ve formed into a band rebel against the sponsors of a song contest

All they want to do is use our uniforms and wave us around like flags. We’re not props, Donny. We’re not for sale. We’ve already given them everything we got. We’re goddamn United States veterans, and these people wouldn’t know real sacrifice if it slapped ’em in the face.

The Schuyler sisters in Hamilton

ANGELICA I’ve been reading Common Sense by Thomas Paine. So men say that I’m intense or I’m insane. You want a revolution? I wanna revelation so listen to my declaration ELIZA/ANGELICA/PEGGY “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.” ANGELICA And when I meet Thomas Jefferson… I’m a compel him to include women in the sequel. ELIZA Look around look around at how lucky we are to be alive right now! ELIZA/ANGELICA/PEGGY History is happening in Manhattan and we Just happen to be in the greatest city in the world

Emilio Estefan in On Your Feet

(A record company executive has just told him to change his name and his music in order to “cross over” outside “the Latin market”) When I first got to Miami there was a sign in front of the apartment building next to ours. It said, “No Pets. No Cubans.” Change my name? It’s not my name to change. It’s my father’s name. It was my grandfather’s name. My grandfather, who we left behind in Cuba to come here and build a new life. Now, for 15 years I’ve worked my ass off and paid my taxes. So, I’m not sure where you think I live… but this is my home. And you should look very closely at my face, because whether you know it or not… this is what an American looks like. We’ll do it on our own.

Dawn in Waitress

Dawn is talking with her fellow waitresses about her personal profile for a dating site

Dawn: “Ecstatically alive, enthusiastically American, dynamic and witty, I am a woman of many passions, including a rare turtle collection. I love the History Channel. Jenna: Now that’s nice Dawn: Note: I have played Betsy Ross in 33 Revolutionary War Reenactments.” Jenna: ….Okay…. That’ll set you apart from the crowd – Dawn: I’m calling myself “NewDawnRising.”

Ogie in Waitress

Ogie has responded to Dawn’s profile.

Ogie: So I’ll pick you up on Sunday at 7? Dawn: Maybe? Ogie: Maybe! Maybe! There’s a reading at Rainard Park of the Federalist Papers. Dawn: How do you know about that? Ogie: I played Paul Revere in 42 Revolutionary War re-enactments. Well actually, 40 times technically I was the standby Revere but 2 times Paul was out – so I did actually play it, although one of those times I got injured halfway through, I had a bayonet issue– fell off my horse and had to have my spleen removed. Dawn: “One if by land, two if by sea…” Ogie: “…and I on the opposite shore will be!”

War Paint

Helena Rubinstein gets back in the cosmetics game

This is the time to reach my goal. My American moment. I hereby take a vow. I vow to win the heart and soul Of American women. This is my mission now. I’ll show them they have faces of power and resplendence, a backbone and a basis to assert their independence. When they achieve their rightful role, their American moment, equal and adored, that American moment will be my reward.

Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden make the most of war-time rationing during World War II

Through thick and thin, Manila to Berlin! Or helping defend our freedom from “the enemy within” – America will make it! No enemy can break it! With make-up made to take it on the chin! Necessity is the mother of invention! Brains and brawn! Brains and brawn! Dusk to dawn! Women win!

Hello, Dolly!

When the whistles blow And the cymbals crash And the sparklers light the sky I’m gonna raise the roof I’m gonna carry on Give me an old trombone Give me an old baton Before the parade passes by!

Fourth of July Patriotism on Broadway: Excerpts from Hamilton to Hello Dolly As Americans celebrate our 241st Fourth of July, it’s bracing to realize that the most patriotic new show on Broadway is “Come From Away,” a musical about Canada.

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desceros · 7 months ago

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sometimes i think about the future symphony "i should have married you" post you made and it makes me so sad but the other night as i was falling asleep i was struck with absolute agony by the awful idea of "i should have married you" because marrying her would have made her hamato and maybe just maybe then she would have been able to become a hamato spirit. and the brothers most likely would have been able to make contact with the hamato sprits like they do in the series. and because if he married her at least he would have been able to contact her spirit. hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh anyways thought i should share hope your day is going fabulously captain desceros

oh, this is awful. allow me to make it even worse :)

we’ve seen in the series that you dont actually have to have the hamato name to be ‘a hamato’ as april demonstrates. we’ve also seen varying levels of. hm. ninj-oscity? ninpo skills? from the boys. like raph and leo doing a ninja mind meld. just. just mikey.

and we’ve always seen that donnie struggles with ninpo the most.

his ninpo is mechanical. when he uses it at its most conscious level, we see it manifest as blueprints coming together. literal pieces, as if constructed with real material. when he panics or doesn’t go through this process, it’s a vague shape that isn’t as strong or as defined in purpose.

so let’s take this scenario you’ve brought to us.

viola-chan would have, unquestionably, been a hamato. and for that reason, i can definitely see her having a hamato spirit.

…..but i dont think donnie would ever be able to communicate with it.

mikey would be the most likely, since he has the strongest ninpo. but he’d be in high demand since he’s so strong, so i think it would tire him and i dont know how much time and energy he’d have to talk to anyone. not to mention the stress he’d feel when donnie would come to him like Hey Can I Talk To My Dead Girlfriend and mikey’s like…. dude i just got home from 24 hours of straight ass kicking i’m about to pass tf out.

and raph, i imagine, died not too long after viola-chan, so whether he could or not is moot.

leo. well. i dont think leo could communicate with viola-chan either. leo is rather avoidant when he feels guilty or ashamed, and (without going into too much of spoiler territory) he’d feel largely unworthy to talk to you, i think. and since we’ve seen that it takes an open heart to use the technique, it wouldn’t work.

and donnie. god. donnie would try. he would try so, so hard. he would try, hours upon hours, every free moment, banging his fists on his thighs as he’d meditate until he’d collapse. reaching out. seeking. already not as strong at this whole ninpo nonsense. unable to calm himself from the need to see you need to see you please just let me see you one last time please please please that would make it impossible to focus. he’d start thinking about tech that could bridge the gap. that’s how his ninpo works, after all. modeling his blueprint. so if he can design a machine that can talk to you. his ninpo can bring it to life.

but he doesnt exactly have a lot of time to dedicate to a personal project like that, let alone one so fucking insane in scale, so actually impossible to do. and as the time passes he grows more and more obsessed with thinking about it. yet simultaneously more and more sure it’ll never happen. i feel like his last moments, alone, bleeding, staring up at the rust-colored sky, he’d be smiling. because of course he he has some kind of death drone army set to go the moment his ninpo cuts off, and it’s one last middle finger to krang. …but also i think he’d be a little relieved. hoping his spirit will find yours and lavi’s.

(do they? who knows. no more hamato exist in that timeline to find out.)

#ask tag #symphony tag #symphony meta

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desceros · 7 months ago

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Hatred. That has to be the emotion Leo is feeling, Right?

Leo looks to the Tupperware of cookies next to his bed. Against his better judgement he opens it and pops one of them into his mouth. Immediately the buttery delight of sweetness hits his tongue. Making him swoon, making him cringe. "Too sweet." Leo clenches his hands into fists and presses them into his face. She is taking Donnie away from him, She is touching and taking what should be his to do based on birthright alone. He was the one who taught Donnie how to speak again, was the one who sat at his twins bedside as Donnie shook and cried and begged to be put back in that fucking hellish ship. NOT HER. She wasn't fucking here for any of it. So why. Why did Donnie have to go and choose her over him. What comfort could be found in some girl that Leo or anyone else in the family couldn't already provide. Leo is practically doing this chick a favor by allowing her this close in the first place, and She goes and breaks down every barrier this family has like its an Olympic sport. Healing them all like its easy. Like being helped could have been this easy all along. He should be bitter, he should hate her, and be doing his best to shut her out. Steer her away from the wounds Leo has diligently spent the past decade trying the guard. So why.

Why cant he stop thinking about her. The way she smells, the way she smiles. Why cant he help but want her close where she can be warm and inviting and so, so bright, And kind, trusting. so, so trusting and willing to do anything to be apart of this family. Leo can see it in her eyes. The little glints of past heartbreak and trauma that make her so pliable. Hell, he is half convinced that if April hadn't been the one to find her first she might have joined the first cult she bumped into. So desperate for belonging she would listen and trust any shred of friendship that was thrown her way. So desperate for belonging in fact, that when Leo touches her she accepts it like its nothing. Because what would Leo have to hide, right? He's old reliable Leo, your bestfriend. Totally not the type of guy to rub one out to you while your in the shower. Leo feels himself tense and grow wet at the memory. How the smell of her swirling with the steam in the air had intoxicated him to the point of damn near insanity. He had to do something about it. His hand pressed inside himself as he did his best not to leave a trace of the deed behind. Shame and euphoria heating him from the inside out. God its pathetic, Its maddening. She's fucking and taking his brother from him and Leo cant fucking stop thinking about how she might taste. How she might sound as he sinks into her, Imaging how she might tighten around him as he takes her by the throat and squeezes. His hands painting her throat in pretty blue bruises. He wants to hurt her, He wants to claim her. He wants her. God, he wants her. He wants to hold her close and protect her like he has been protecting the rest of them, with barred teeth and selfishness. He wants to sent her as his and mean it. Fuck, maybe he already does. Maybe he has been this whole time and has just never realized. Every touch, every caress, every teasing remark and every coy little twist of the knife, has actually been him craving something sweet.

Idk what happened the song started playing and I blacked out and then when I woke up I realized I had sent this to your inbox. Symphony Leo save me save me Symphony Leo

ohhhh that hit the spot

#ask tag #blurple symphony au #not my fic #does lines of this

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desceros · 11 months ago

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F!Donnie's reaction to the discovery of f!viola-chan pregnancy? *Gives you the biggest puppy eyes as possible as I sulk after reading chapter 19* I beg of you for some fluff before my heart can't take it.

[yelling as i walk around the dash with this fic in a makeshift hawking tray] come get yer symphony copium right here folks symphony copium we got yer symphony copium donatello/reader; female reader; rated m (lil bit of spice)

“You smell… really good.”

It’s a rare evening: Donnie’s actually in bed with you, no one got hurt today, everyone made it home, and with the success of the latest supply run there’d been food enough to go around. Your already-smiling face brightens further at his words, and you laugh as he presses close to burrow his face in your shoulder from behind.

“So you’re going to crush me into the mattress?” you ask, expecting him to make some kind of quippy retort about how he does that most nights anyway; but he doesn’t. He’s still smelling you, like your scent is intoxicating him somehow. “…Donnie?”

“Shhh,” he murmurs, his beak running over your skin, his brow furrowing as he concentrates. It’s a confusing mix; his intense study makes you a little nervous, but he’s holding you so gently and filling every inch of your personal space with himself, making it nearly impossible to think about anything else.

“Don? Is everything okay?” you ask after a moment, going to roll over to face him only to freeze when he clutches at your body and pins you in place, a low rumbling sound from deep inside his shell searing straight to the animal place in your brain that screams for you to obey your mate. Shivering, worried, aroused, you comply.

…He’s still scenting you.

“Donnie. Donnie.” Urgency fills your voice, and though you don’t move—not that you could, what with how he’s got his hand on your shoulder and his legs strategically on yours—you do put enough emphasis in your tone that he finally pulls out of whatever turtle-brain part of himself he’d sunk into.

“…You…” he starts, his voice something that sounds a bit like wonder.

“Donnie, for fuck’s sake, what—”

“You’re pregnant.”

This time, you freeze without his command. The word bounces around in your head—pregnant pregnant pregnant—and bruises the sides of your skull for how hard it hits.

“…Is that… Is that even possible?” you ask, trying to turn. Again, he puts pressure on you, not letting you move. He isn't on top of you, not quite, but you're not going anywhere. One part of you wants to scream in frustration, but you can also feel the way his weight calms the panic that you see just on the edge of your reaction, its gnarly tendrils ominous and bleak. “How is that—We can’t—?”

“Apparently we can,” he says, slightly muffled from where he’s still scenting you. “Fuck, you—you smell so good. I have to get up in a few hours. I’m supposed to be sleeping right now. All I can think about is fucking you while you smell like this.”

His hot words, combined with the way he uses his grasp on you to roll his hips against yours, make you keen into the dark air of his lab. Still, you claw your way back, refusing to let him melt your brain. This is—This is important, you have to—you’re fucking pregnant in the apocalypse, there’s so much you need to—

“Donnie, we have to—” you start, but he cuts you off by sinking his teeth into the curve of your shoulder, one hand sliding down to press low on your stomach as he arches into you again, then again. Fuck; he knows your body better than you do, and with a twist of his fingers he has you nearly begging for him.

“Yeah. We do,” he murmurs, talking about something completely different and, infuriatingly, still managing to set your blood on fire. “You’re so pretty. Always feel good. Amazing. You’re incredible.”

…Oh, you think, hearing it in the tremble of his voice. Feeling it in the way that his fingers go light on you, the way he’s curling around you more than he is crawling on top of you. The gentle, gentle, gentle weight of his palm against where it’s not just you inside your body anymore. The curve of his mouth against your skin between the wet kisses and nips where he's drunk on you.

“…You’re happy?” you ask quietly, uncertainly, and that, that’s what finally pulls him to you.

“Of course,” he says, like it’s an absolute not to be questioned. “Why wouldn’t I be? I love you.” Then, going still, he seems to consider that there might be an alternative reaction. “…Are you happy?”

You stare at the wall in front of you, mismatched and haphazardly scraped together. Just out of your hearing range, you know there are millions of hungry aliens looking to erase the very memory of you and the ones you love off the surface of the planet. It’s cold in the winter and sweltering in the summer. There’s almost never enough food. Only Donnie’s desalination machine keeps water from being an issue, and it’s a delicate, delicate heartbeat for the entire operation. Any day, you could die. Any day, you could lose him. Hope is a butterfly wing between you all; beautiful but gossamer-thin.

You roll over to face him. This time, he doesn’t stop you.

He’s—god. Happy doesn’t even begin to touch it, you think, cupping his cheek with your hand and tracing your thumb at the line where his mask would be if he were wearing it. You haven’t seen his eyes this bright in… in… maybe ever, you think. His mouth is frowning now, waiting for your reaction, tempering his own, but you can see the shape of where he’d been smiling stupidly a mere moment ago.

“I’m… worried,” you tell him, whispering softly between you. “I’m scared. I’m—I’m so, so scared. I’m shocked. I’m…”

Donnie puts his hand over yours, keeping your palm pressed to his skin. It’s all you need.

“…I’m happy.”

His mouth goes back to that easy smile, his forehead pressing to yours as he pulls you close. This close, you can see the way his eyes are a little wet, and, oh, oh, he’s—he’s so much more than happy. It’s contagious; his delirious joy spilling over and making you giddy with the very idea of getting to share something like this with him.

Sniffling, you press a quick kiss to his lips, laughing wetly when he chases you for more, tucking his face into your throat and inhaling deeply like he can’t stop. His hand finds your skin beneath your shirt, and his teeth find you again, the low rumbling churr of hunger intermingling with the light chirps of jubilation. He’s his own symphony of contentment, filling the lab and drawing from you giddy little laughs that tickle before the two of you fall to familiar whines and keens and mewls instead. Through it all, he's careful; gentle; worshipful; a reverence of you that makes you tremble even more than his sweet touch.

There will be time for the rest of it, you decide, letting his fingers coil with yours above your head as he slides inside on a gasped chant of love you love you love you that fills you to your very soul.

For now… you’ll just be happy.

#donatello/reader #my fic #rating: m #ask tag #symphony tag #NARRATOR VOICE: AND THEN NOTHING BAD HAPPENED AND IT ALL ENDED HAPPILY THE END. NO. CLOSE THE BOOK BEFORE YOU TURN THAT PAGE TRUST ME.#tmnt #rise

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