#this should be a damn missed connection on craigs list

[lookingforloaf]

to the trans person in front of me having problems picking up their estrogen at both CVS and Walgreens while I was trying to find needles for my testosterone that in a desperate plea of attempted connection I shouted HAVE A NICE DAY at like a customer service robot as I walked past;

sorry about that

[nightingaelic]

could you do Fallout New Vegas companion’s reactions to a Courier Six who is also the Lone Wanderer telling their stories from their time in DC? (bonus points for Arcade’s reaction to them hating the enclave, and if that would make him decide to keep his past hidden even longer, or if he would still tell them?)

The logistics and implications of this make my head spin. This is also super long, honestly I should just quit writing reacts and start writing fics OH WAIT

Getting the courier talking was a tough thing to do, but on nights where the moon was full and the coyotes' howls were miles away or at least behind some stout walls, on nights where they were a few beers in and they hadn't seen another living soul in a few days, that Mojave Express deliverer started to reminisce. That wasn't really the surprising part, though. No, the surprising part was what they would remember, fondly or not-so-fondly: A world apart from the desert, a continent away on another coast, and stories of life in a vault, a missing father, pure water and a Brotherhood divided.

Arcade Gannon: Arcade didn't mind these moods, at least when they first cropped up. He nodded along as the courier talked about living in their father's shadow, about feeling cornered by their own family's legacy. He hung on their words about living in the cradle of America's history, about Project Purity, all of the gritty details of modifying a GECK to bring water to a devastated wasteland.

Eventually though, the courier's memories soured, with the arrival of Enclave remnants in their life. Arcade folded into himself with every harsh word, every jolt of plasma that had disrupted his friend's world relived in horrific detail. They gestured angrily as they described their newfound purpose, their battle for power with the fractured Brotherhood of Steel at their back, and their smug satisfaction at the moments they were able to crack open Raven Rock and the Enclave's mobile base crawler and lay waste to their tormentors.

It took a few rounds of these stories before the courier noticed he shrank and grew quiet whenever they neared the end of their story about breaking into another vault to find the GECK. They stopped abruptly one night. "What's up with you?"

"Um..." Arcade scratched the back of his neck and looked away. "Nothing. Nothing, I just... have some personal experience with the Enclave, myself."

The courier sighed. "Yeah, there's a few people walking around the West Coast that have similar stories to mine. Arroyo's full of them, for one. Is it something like that?"

Arcade took a deep breath. "I feel... well, it's a lot closer to home, for me. Close enough to raise questions, so I don't talk about it much."

"Close enough to..." The courier twisted their face up in confusion for a moment, before realization set in and their eyes grew large. "You were... your... oh."

"Mmm-hm."

"Well, fuck me." The courier smiled and popped a cap off of another beer. "I've been doing all the talking, haven't I? Let's hear your story about working with the guys in power armor who ruined my life, right after dad did."

Craig Boone: Whenever the courier started up like this, Boone couldn't help but notice a familiar twinge of regret and self-doubt in their voice. It shone through most clearly when they spoke about their time with the Brotherhood of Steel, the men and women they'd fought alongside and lost during their struggle against the remnants of the Enclave. It was there, too, in their story about returning to the vault they grew up in, setting the chaos that had arisen in their wake to rest, but not being able to go back to the way things were.

Boone didn't pry. He knew that feeling well. Instead, he cracked open bottles of beer, liquor, soda, whatever they had on hand during their nights in the desert, and just listened. He'd done the same for Carla, when they were younger and new to each other and he couldn't get enough of her voice and how it flowed endlessly, easily, the way his never could. He absorbed it all now as he did then: The joy, the pain, the loss, the fear, the triumphs and falls and abandoned dreams that filled the courier up and drove them to travel west, beyond anything they had ever known.

That last part stumped Boone a bit, though. "Why didn't you stay?" he finally asked one night.

They looked surprised. "Stay? Stay where? I didn't have a home anymore."

Boone shook his head. "With the Brotherhood. Or some other settlement."

"Like Megaton?" The courier sighed. "I thought about it. Close to the vault, friendly people, easy work... I guess I just didn't want to wind up... stuck."

They flushed red and looked away from him. Boone knew why they were embarrassed, but he also knew the truth in their words.

Sometimes the courier cried after they had finished, though they did their best to hide it. Boone pretended not to notice. He was pretty sure they knew he was pretending, but he was also pretty sure that pointing it out would be worse than just letting it be an open secret between them. The silence between them endured, but something grew inside it and flourished. Some kind of deeper understanding.

Lily Bowen: The more the courier spoke, the more Lily made connections in her muddled mind. Of course they knew the basic layout of most vaults, they had grown up in one. Of course they were extra-sensitive to the Mojave heat, they had come to the desert from the cooler of the two coasts. Of course they'd been extra-wary around the super mutants or nightkin of Jacobstown, they had only known angry super mutants looking to grow their own numbers through any means necessary.

Their shared experience of growing up inside a vault reminded Lily of happier days, and she often asked questions about Vault 101 during the courier's stories. "Were you sweet on anyone inside your old home?" she asked, with a big smile befitting a proud grandma.

The courier blushed. "That's not very polite, Lily."

"Oh, I'm sorry, dearie."

"No, no it's okay." The courier smiled. "There was a boy who picked on me a lot, but I never figured out whether he did it because he hated me or liked me. His name was Butch. And there was Amata, my childhood friend. She was the daughter of the Overseer."

"Daughter of the Overseer?" Lily grinned. "I'm sure she was a lovely young woman."

The courier looked a little misty. "Yeah. She was. Probably still is."

Lily pulled a handkerchief that used to be a small tablecloth from inside her overalls and handed it over. "Maybe we can go back there together, pumpkin," she offered. "I always wanted to travel to the capital. We can visit your friends, see the sights."

"Yeah, maybe someday." The courier accepted the gift and blew their nose. "I've got some things I need to finish up here before I even think about wandering back east, though."

"Then let's make a list and do our chores," Lily said happily. "Number one?"

"Ohhhh, man." The courier smiled up at her. "I wouldn't even know where to start."

Raul Alfonso Tejada: Raul got a faint smile on his face whenever the courier started up like this, as if their memories reminded him of another place he had come from, another time. While they couldn't have more different backgrounds, pasts- hell, he had several hundred years on the courier, even if they shared the same road today- there was something in the description of the other roads they had walked that made him feel warm on a cold night.

"What's on your mind?" The courier asked him one night, when Raul's smile grew larger than usual.

"Nada, boss," he reassured them. "You're just a good reminder that I can change my mind about the future anytime I'd like. Tell me the one about that radio DJ again."

"Again?" The courier rolled their eyes. "Why? I could tell you a million stories about Underworld and all the ghouls that lived there, but all you want to hear about is Three Dog. You'd probably have more in common with the Underworld folks, honestly."

Raul nodded noncommittally. "Sí, but my favorite stories are about people who had to rise above bad situations and become someone uncommon. Anyone who's able to do that is either fighting for something great or running from something terrible. Sometimes both."

The courier shot him a skeptical look. "Three Dog's holed up in his radio station 24/7, he's not running from anything or out fighting for anything. All that stuff about 'the good fight' is a load of bull."

"Now, now, Six," Raul chastised. "Just because he looks like your average pendejo doesn't mean he isn't doing his part. You even told me his radio show is inspirational for the Capital Wasteland folks."

The courier held their hands up in the air and bobbled them, as if balancing an invisible scale. "The duality of man. Being an average pendejo, or convincing everyone around you that you aren't actually an average pendejo and can pull off miracles."

Raul laughed. "And which one are you, boss?"

"Eh, I'm still figuring it out."

Rose of Sharon Cassidy: Cass was never one for fixating on her own past, but she couldn't help but sympathize with the courier whenever they deigned to add onto their unbelievable story. It was hard enough for her to navigate her own damn life: She couldn't imagine being called upon to steer an entire area's destiny.

After another night of recalling their life inside a vault with their dad, then their unexpected loss of him right after being reunited on the surface, the courier stopped suddenly. "I'm sorry," they said.

Cass paused her swig of precious whiskey. "What?"

"I keep going on and on about my dad, and here you are not knowing what happened to yours."

"Eh." Cass took her drink and waved her hand around until the burning swallow made its way down. "S'loads of people in the wasteland without a clue what happened to their pops. I'm not special. In fact, I'd say it probably hurts a bit more, what happened with yours."

"Well, all the same." The courier sank deeper into their seat and examined their own bottle of spirits. "I feel like an open book, tonight. Anything you want to know about where I came from that I haven't already spilled?"

Cass thought for a moment. "Tribals."

"What about them?"

"Does the East Coast have them? You're not the first traveler I've met from there, but none of you have so much as mentioned any tribals out east."

"Mmm." The courier looked thoughtful. "I guess we do have them, though maybe not in the traditional sense. There's a mess of them in Point Lookout for sure, and at least one tribal group in the Capital Wasteland outright, but beyond that things are more... loose. Fewer intact families, fewer intact homes."

"Huh." Cass took another drink. "Maybe that's where my dad went."

She let the courier stew in the awkward silence for a bit before she grinned and reached out to smack them. "Just kidding. Keep going. I want to hear about that giant robot again."

Veronica Santangelo: Veronica usually sat and listened, spellbound, picturing a chapter of her order that had realized the very thing she kept trying to tell the Elders and made the ultimate sacrifice to follow their hearts anyway.

Well, maybe Elder Owyn Lyons hadn't come to the same realization as her, but he had had a change of heart that split his company and cut them off from almost everyone they had ever known. It had been five years since the High Elders had instituted radio silence toward their East Coast chapter, and so far there had been no attempts to re-establish contact.

Veronica prodded the courier for any info she could get about the Capital Wasteland Brotherhood of Steel. The courier let slip pretty early in their friendship that Elder Owyn Lyons had passed away, which wasn't unexpected. The man was 76 years old, after all. She learned on one particularly emotional night that his daughter, Elder Sarah Lyons, was also dead, something she wasn't sure even the Western Elders were aware of. That memory was clearly painful for the courier though, so Veronica didn't press for details.

"And the Enclave?" the Scribe asked one night, arms wrapped around her knees. "Are they completely gone?"

The courier grew cold. "Yes. I made sure of it."

"Right." Veronica nodded. "So the Brotherhood took over the air force base they were at. It must have been chock-full of tech and resources, if it was the Enclave's last stand."

"It was." The courier sighed and shifted in their seat. "And it woke up some of our brothers and sisters to their original mission in the Capital Wasteland. I thought maybe that selfishness had died with Liberty Prime, but... well, I didn't like it, so I left."

"Mmm, yeah." Veronica nodded again, sympathetically this time. "I know how you feel. Felt."

"Feel," the courier agreed. "I just wish there was more I could've done. Maybe there wasn't anything else, short of seizing power."

"You'd definitely get pushback for that in the Brotherhood," Veronica agreed. "But you might get that chance out here in the broader Mojave."

ED-E: At first, ED-E enjoyed the stories, trumpeting and cooing various beeps at the appropriate moments for emphasis. The one time the courier began badmouthing the Enclave, however, the eyebot waited until they had finished before playing back the first tape that Dr. Whitley had recorded before its trip.

The courier listened to the scientist's words from years ago, deflating slightly as it played out. When the tape had finished, they stood up and checked the eyebot over. "He sent you toward Navarro, huh?"

ED-E beeped affirmation, and the courier sighed. "But Navarro was already gone. I'm sorry. I guess I'm... well, me and the Brotherhood of Steel back east are responsible for your previous master's decision to send you away. Might be responsible for more, too."

ED-E beeped sadly. The courier pressed their forehead against the eyebot's metal dome in apology.

Rex: Well, surprising for most. Rex was not most. As soon as the courier got really into their recollections, Rex usually yawned and went to sleep. He stirred when he felt their hand reach down to scratch the ruff of his neck, or pat the glass dome that held his brain.

"Good dog," the courier said, through the veil of sleep. "You remind me of another pup that used to follow me around."

[megaphonemonday]

#PickUpPitch prompt fills - captain’s choice part 2

@alwayskels is the hero this fandom needs, even if we don’t always deserve her! Thank you so much for all the work you’ve put into PST and these campaigns!

The prompt: A continuation of Captain's Choice the last inning of the game and a bit of the dinner afterward.

(There’s still time to help @pitchstreetteam​ out by getting our message to Hulu and Craig Erwich before the ATX Festival. Write your letters and send your postcards and I’ll write you your very own fic! Just get me a picture of your mail before you send it off.)

read on ao3

“Breathe, mami. It’s just a silly game.”

Ginny shrugs off Livan’s arm, though she manages to stop pacing the length of the makeshift dugout. To him it’s just a silly game. To her team, too, for all they seem eager to win. For Ginny, though, there’s a lot riding on this silly game.

Namely: dinner—what might even be a date—with Mike Lawson.  

And it’s hers for the taking.

If her team can get its shit together, that is.

Maybe that’s harsh. They’ve definitely put up a good fight for all they’re basically Ralph Macchio compared to Mike’s Cobra Kais. Seriously. It’s like when Mike heard “celebrity,” his brain went, “retired pro athletes.” Maybe Ginny shouldn’t have let Amelia have such a say in her roster... 

LeBron James and Serena Williams can only carry the non-athletes so far.

Miraculously, though, they’re only down one run. But it's the bottom of the ninth, there're already two outs, and their only runner is still on first. 

Ginny comforts herself that at least she’s on deck. She’ll be the one to end this.

Even with Mike out on the mound looking mighty pleased with himself. He’s pitched the whole game and has made a comment every time Ginny’s come up to bat.

“I’m starting to think they’re paying you way too much, Baker,” he’d taunted. “This is easy.”

“Says the glorified backstop,” she’d thrown back, just before ripping into his next pitch, sending the ball sailing into a gap in left field. 

Of course, it doesn’t stop there. Their teams take it in stride, even if they are a little more confused than amused by it. Still, she can only imagine what he’ll say next. 

When Mike walks Kate McKinnon in four pitches, Ginny knows she’s about to find out. 

Sauntering up to the plate, she shouts, “Not so easy, is it, Lawson?”

Even with the shorter distance between the rubber and the plate, Ginny thinks that with the full sixty feet, she wouldn’t miss his eye roll. “Just focus on hitting it out of the infield, Baker. This might be your only chance all season.”

She bites back something about a drunk monkey warming up in the bullpen because Mike’s arm swings back and the ball is arcing towards her.

Ginny knows she should wait, shouldn’t swing at the first pitch, but there’s so much time. She can see the way the ball is flying, how it’ll sail through the strike zone at just the right height for her to swing through, send it sailing over the outfielders’ heads. It’ll be an RBI for sure, maybe two. 

And that’s all she needs.

So, Ginny does what she shouldn’t. Because damn it. She really wants to win.

The bat connects satisfyingly with the ball and Ginny knows she’s timed it just right because rather than pushing or pulling towards the corners, her hit sails right back up the middle. 

Right at Mike’s head, in fact. 

With a lot more heat than Ginny usually generates. 

Almost in slow motion, Ginny watches him drop to the ground to get out of the way, his glove coming up to protect his face. Then, she focuses on making it to first before either of Mike’s middle infielders pick up the ball and throw her out. 

Neither of them move, though. There isn’t anything to pick up.

Where’d it go?

Ginny’s still searching when Mike rises from the dirt, a cocky smirk covering his face. She can’t figure out why until he turns towards her and lifts his glove, showing off the neon yellow softball nestled inside. 

Over the umpire calling the game and the good-natured groans of her team, he saunters over, still grinning. Ginny just shakes her head at him, disbelieving. 

“Now, why can’t you pull off that kinda grab when you’re out at first?” she demands, annoyed that she’s lost, but willing to admit that Mike just made an amazing snag.

“Gotta keep you on your toes,” he grins, stopping not even a foot away from her. It’s closer than he usually stands and Ginny has to tip her head back to look him in the eyes. “Especially when you’re doing your best to knock me down.”

"Sorry about that,” she says, half sincere. “Looks like you earned that dinner, though.”

“I did, didn’t I?”

She watches him nod in consideration. It’s not that she’s expectant, except, well, she is. Mike was the one to put this bet in motion, and he’d made it pretty clear what he wanted if he won.

Ginny thought he had, at least. 

Because when he turns and shouts across the field, “Hey, Evans! You wanna do dinner? Baker’s paying!” and strides away, she couldn’t be more confused. 

What the hell? Did that really just happen?

Hours later, Ginny still hasn’t wrapped her head around it. 

Not for lack of trying, of course. 

She hadn’t read into Mike’s wager, had she? He’d been talking about her not Captain America before the game, she’s sure of it. Just because she made a joke—

Her overthinking is interrupted by her doorbell. God, she doesn’t want to talk to anyone, but when the ringing doesn’t stop, she grumpily goes to see who it is. 

The answer doesn’t do much to improve her mood.

Grudgingly, Ginny opens up and gives her team captain an unimpressed up and down. Arms behind his back, his flannel stretches across his chest. Broad as he is, she hopes he felt puny next to Chris Evans’ superhero stature. 

“What do you want?” 

Mike takes her in, arms crossed defensively over her chest and lips pursed, before he nods over her shoulder. 

“You gonna invite me in or are we gonna do this out here?”

“Depends on what ‘this’ is,” she replies, wary.

Mike rolls his eyes, which Ginny doesn’t feel is necessarily fair. Still, he reveals what he’s been hiding behind his back: a bag of takeout from Ginny’s favorite Chinese place. 

“This,” he says, shaking the bag for emphasis, “is dinner.”

“Dinner?” Without any input from Ginny herself, her arms unfold. She can feel herself softening. Especially at the sight of Mike’s slightly shy grin. Still, she can’t let him off the hook that easily. “Didn’t you already have dinner?”

He chuckles, shaking his head. “As charming a guy as Chris Evans is, he and I both knew there was only one person I wanted to spend the evening with.”

“You took my money, though,” she points out, in spite of how much she likes the idea of Mike being so obvious about her that even Captain America could see it. It makes her less uncertain.

Even if it doesn’t explain why he hadn’t just picked her in the first place. 

“Well, yeah. It wasn’t like I was gonna pass up a chance at a beer with Captain America.” His twinkling eyes just get to her. They always have. “Besides, you nearly took off my head today, I had to pay you back somehow.”

Ginny leans against the door, laughing. “I told you I was sorry!”

The rolling of Mike’s eyes this time is more fond than anything else and Ginny finally melts. She steps away to let him in. 

Mike doesn’t bother to go to the dining room. He’s been over too often to think that it’s anything other than extra storage for all the gear Nike sends over. Instead, he makes his way to the living room while Ginny goes to the kitchen for plates and utensils and more beer. By the time she gets back, he’s already cued up a movie on her TV—probably another from the long list he’s appalled she hasn’t seen yet—and spread the cartons out on the coffee table. 

They load up their plates and settle in to watch the movie. It’s mostly easy, something they’ve done together hundreds of times before. If Ginny sits slightly further from Mike than she usually would, though, that’s her business. 

Well, it is until Mike opens his mouth.

“Ginny,” he sighs, and that’s when she knows this is for real. Mike saves her name for only the most important occasions. He eyes the space between them, a frown furrowing his brow. “I'm sorry I didn’t pick you. It wasn’t that you weren’t my first choice, but...”

“But...?” she prods when Mike trails off.

“But,” he picks up, scrubbing a hand over his chin, “call me old-fashioned, but I wasn’t about to let you pay for our first date.”

She pauses in her chewing. “Is that what this is? A date?” 

If this is a date, then Ginny has to wonder what every other time Mike showing up with food had been. She’d like to think she would’ve noticed her first date with Mike Lawson was happening.

“Isn’t it?” he asks. “I mean, we’ve got dinner and a movie. Just because we’re in your apartment—”

“It is.” Mike’s eyebrows raise and Ginny feels the need to repeat herself. “It is a date.”

The smile that spreads across Mike’s face is only outshone by the one on Ginny’s. His eyes flicker from her mouth to her eyes, and Ginny can see him consider whether or not he should kiss her now or wait.

She, personally, hopes for the first. 

Unfortunately, he settles back into the couch cushions, refocusing on his food. 

Ginny tries to rein in her disappointment, but the smirking sidelong look he sends her tells her she doesn’t do a good enough job. She wrinkles her nose at him in response and he just laughs. 

It’s a warm, golden sound, and she can’t even bring herself to mind it’s at her expense. 

Anyway, it’s not like Mike’s the only one who decides when they kiss. 

So, she sets her half-finished plate on the table, relieves Mike of his, takes his face between her palms, and presses her mouth against his. 

He’s still laughing when their lips connect, but when Mike’s hands settle heavily on her waist, dragging her into his lap, Ginny’s sure that’ll change soon enough. 

She’d even be willing to bet on it. 

[theworstbob]

the thing journal, 5.28 - 6.3

capsule reviews of the pop culture things i took in last week. in this post: from a room, chi-raq, the intervention, all the beauty in this whole life, bone tomahawk, spades and roses, souvenir, spin, brooklyn nine-nine, blue velvet

1) From a Room, Vol. I, by Chris Stapleton: My thing with Chris Stapleton is, I have enjoyed his two albums, I have thought they were both Very Good, I think they're both fine examples of what country should sound like and understand their importance in keeping country music vital. I'd fall just short of calling either of them classics. Which is a weird space to be evaluating an album, where your main critique of an album is that it isn't an all-time classic, that you agree the songs are good and that a lot are great (and there's some great fuckin' songs, "Either Way" is just, yerrrgh, that's a toughie), but sometimes, it feels like there's some ingredient missing from the mix. I think it just feels too perfect. This man has a perfectly tortured voice, capable of translating any sort of pain and misery he feels, and he's using it to craft perfect country songs about country things like drinking and being in jail. It feels like he's content to do great things within the confines of the genre when he could be reinventing it, which, hey, fair enough, Chris Stapleton making really good country songs is a thing in this world I'm not complaining about, and if he never unlocks the potential I believe he has and only ever makes songs like "Death Row," I'd be cool with that choice.

2) Chi-Raq, dir. Spike Lee: Because I am ignorant of any piece of media that was made before 2003, I did not know what the Greek drama this was based off was about, so when I realized it was a film about women withholding sex made by the dude who made She Hate Me (this is an unfair comment because I haven't seen the film, but I'm pretty sure that's an unpleasant movie), I kinda prepped myself for an uncomfortable experience. And then the film ended up being fucking fantastic. The fact that the "no peace, no pussy" protest elicits a reaction of "Well, we have dicks. They love our dicks! Surely, if we just remind them of the fact of our dicks we'll put an end to this nonsense" is not just what would obviously happen should a similar protest occur in reality, it calls attention to the fact that so many problems facing the world are being caused by dudes who can't see past the apparent power of their dicks. (I will bring to the grave the belief that, if all the Republican presidential candidates held a joint press conference to tell Donald Trump he had a large penis, Donald Trump would have suspended his campaign and receded into the background.) But more importantly, this film has things to say about this country. It hits on everything, and it hits it hard. It calls out gang violence for bringing strife to black communities, then calls out the people who would use that strife to undermine causes like Black Lives Matter. It's a film stylized all the way to hell that remains grounded in reality because, what with the lists of names the film brings up (multiple lists, and nary a name repeated on any of these lists), it's impossible to fully escape reality. It's an astonishing film from a master director on a subject he's had to explore too often. (Also, Samuel L. Jackson having the time of his life as a Greek chorus.)

3) The Intervention, dir. Clea DuVall: I can never remember which character from Parks & Rec elicited this Perd Hapley line that has stayed with me forever, but all the same, some character asks Perd Hapley "Do you know what I mean?" and Perd responds, "I don't! But it had the tone and cadence of a joke." I have used that line to describe so many things where I respect the attempt at humor but don't ever laugh. This film is an example of what I'd use that line to describe. There's a lot of funny people in the cast, and there were plenty of comedic set-ups, but nothing like an actual joke. I think the film wanted to be a serious meditation on the relationships between these people (who were related in some convoluted way or another), so it tried to distance itself from the comedy, but it never took anything serious enough for the emotional moments to land with any impact. I wouldn't attribute this to the cast -- Melanie Lynskey is fantastic, and I completely forgot but Cobie Smulders can do goddamn work y'all -- more to the point that, hey, there's a low ceiling and low floow for movies about upper-middle-class white folks who only share quiet and emotionally difficult moments with other upper-middle-class white folks, and this film lands somewhere in the middle. I saw this the same day I saw Chi-Raq. Y'all tryna get away with pointin' a camera at some randos, and that's not gonna cut it.

4) All the Beauty in This Whole Life, by Brother Ali: On my personal Top 20 list for the year, I have this ahead of DAMN. It's 10% contrarianism, 20% homerism, 65% this is an amazing record by an amazing man, 5% no one at any point shouts KUNG FU KENNY. It's easy to make an angry political record. I think Rise Against is releasing an album this year, and it's already getting an A- and barely missing the Top 20, because times are shitty and it's easy to be angry. It's hard to look at the world as it is today and find things to defend, reasons to keep going. The most profound political statement to be made is that the world is fundamentally good and needs to be protected from those bringing it ruin, and Brother Ali makes that statement with authority. We'll have plenty of time and reasons to get angry in the coming days/months/years/decades. This is a record advising you to take a second to reflect on what's good in the world, the reasons hate came to be, what we can do to bring out the beauty, to explore what peace we can find before we start a war. It's powerful, amazing work.

5) Bone Tomahawk, dir. S. Craig Zahler: Not gonna lie: took a catnap in the middle of this one, very short, not even sure I was asleep, but definitely let the ol' eyeballs have a rest for a couple seconds. Didn't feel like I missed much plot-wise when I woke up, though. Probably missed a lot of beautiful shots of the Western hills (ok, THIS film is how you break in an HD display, I feel, nuts to Interstellar), but hoo boy, this film moved slowly! On the whole, the film was pretty great, I loved the way it built that town's community in just the one emergency meeting scene ("Look at the mayor when you're addressing him." "Yeah! Look at me!"), but there's a lot of time spent with gruff Westerners speaking softly about the great and terrible things they've done, and impeccably composed as those shots were, I can only be so interested in the things Matthew Fox has to say. (Also, hey there, central romance between a dude and a woman 22 years younger than him.) The film builds to the conclusion well, it picked up the pace a few scenes after my nap most regrettable, and I typically can enjoy a glacially-paced film now and then without sleeping, but if you have a worse attention span than me, this ain't rhe film for you.

6) Spades and Roses, by Caroline Spence: i do not remember how i came to add this particular indie singer-songwriter's ablum to my queue, but here we are, and this was fine! This was fine. I liked it. I rode on a bus and listened to this album, and I thought the young woman sang soft and sweet though potentially dark songs over gentle acoustic guitars. I cannot say I regret listening to this album, though I find myself unable to say much beyond that, because it was fine.

7) Souvenir, by Banner Pilot: I listened to this pop/punk album from an act I understand to be local after Spades and Roses, and one thing I should learn to do is try to pair albums better so that I'm not dealing with a change in mood this intense, so that there's a logical flow to the albums, some thematic link, not just "I added some shit to the library and I guess I'm listening to these today." Figuring thiis sort of stuff out is kinda hard, y'know? Like, I don't want to feel like I'm adding stuff to the library just to get it out of the way three weeks later, and maybe that colors my experience with albums like this or Spades and Roses, where they're fine but not necessarily something I feel I need to listen to twice, but if I come away from an album thinking I don't need to listen to it twice to get the full story, I'm not sure I'm being completely fair to the album. ...This review isn't so much a review of the album itself as much as it's a review of how I listen to music. C-. Needs a lot of improvement.

8) spin, by Tiger's Jaw: OK so I can tell ya right now I fucked up listening to this one. I was distracted, I had connection issues, I went grocery shopping and spent the majoirty of the grocery shopping twist asking myself what groceries I needed instead of what this album was doing for me, I did the thing where I treated music like background noise and not the thing I should be paying attention to. I thought the album was OK, but I could tell that it came to me on the wrong day, that maybe I should have put on something I'd heard before, and saved this one for a time when I could give this what it deserves. Bad week for me and my listening habits. Like, I do the thing with movies where I put the film on full screen and only check my phone to check the time, I need to find the thing for music that gets me to pay attention to music for more than one song at a time.

9) Brooklyn Nine-Nine s4, cr. Michael Schur & Dan Goor: I'm beginning to think this show would be the rare half-hour sitcom to benefit from a 13-episode order. This does action-comedy so well, but you can't really sustain the intensity of the action-comedy aspects of the show over 22 episodes, but then they have to fill the rest of the episodes with hangout-sitcommy bits that are very hit-and-miss for me. Once the show has a plot, it sings, but when it's doing its mystery-of-the-week thing what with A, B, and C plots so the entire cast has things to do, it can feel unfocused. I mean, hey, I watched every episode, I think the show is hilarious (I will sing Andre Braugher's praises until they can hear me from the moon), but I had to learn to deal with its inconsistency. Maybe not a Hall of Famer, but so many All-Stars never make the Hall of Fame, y'know?

10) Blue Velvet, dir. David Lynch: I saw this on Saturday night, and I'm still trying to process it. I'm actually not sure right now that I've seen a David Lynch movie before, which might explain why I feel so off-sync with this film; I've seen season one of Twin Peaks, but I'm otherwise unfamiliar with what he does, beyond a David Foster Wallace essay about the director. Perhaps I've become too desensitized to violence to understand what's shocking about the violence in Blue Velvet, or too many films derivative of Lynch to see what's uniquely Lynchian about Blue Velvet. I do see the central point and believe it's fascinating -- the only think keeping Jeffrey Beaumont from actually being Frank Booth is a sense of decorum, that Jeffrey needs to be Jeffrey to live in civilized society, but the only thing Frank does that Jeffrey only does reluctantly is Violence, and now I'm realizing this is Hannibal, that's where I saw this movie, was Hannibal, OK, OK, cool cool cool, but also, that theme of the darkness within, of people like Frank being everywhere, it resonates, because now we live in a world where we can remove ourselves from a sense of decorum and be Frank. To see Frank Booth in 2017 is to see the manifestation of a Twitter egg. So in the course of this review, we discovered that we are on this film's wavelength, and that the distance we had to bridge was created by seeing Lynchian works and living in the end times.