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farfromstrange · 8 months

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Do No Harm

CHAPTER SIX: "You Deserve To Be Happy"

Masterlist | Series Masterlist

Pairing: Matt Murdock x F!Reader

Summary: Foggy has a bone to pick with his best friend, and you decide to call Matt later that night.

Warnings for this chapter: attempt at humor, slight (very slight) angst, Matt's POV, mentions of sex, suggestive language, flirting, Matt being Matt

Word Count: 3.2k

A/n: I finally finished this chapter. I had more planned, but that would have made the whole thing too confusing. I also realized that I suck at finding the right chapter titles, but oh well. Enjoy this little fluff piece!

Read Chapter 6: "You Deserve To Be Happy" here on AO3

The air is brisk when Foggy and Matt step out of Metro General and into the night. Pieces of gravel stick to Matt’s shoes, and he can feel them digging into his skin through the thin soles protecting his feet from the wet asphalt. The wind resembles a leather whip as it brushes his heated cheeks. He can smell the odor of the city in every breath he takes.

Matt may hate hospitals, but every time he talks to you, the world turns a little quieter. All he has to do was focus on your heartbeat, the faintest hint of vanilla and salt that always lingers on your skin, and listen to the gentle melody of your breathing—your voice builds a bubble of safety around him, but now that he is no longer standing right in front of you, reality begins to seep back in.

Foggy, whose arm he’s clutching as they make their way across the street, stares at Matt with eyes the size of dinner plates. Matt can feel his gaze burning through the skin protecting his skull, right into his brain. His friend is trying to decipher what he’s thinking, but he struggles to process what happened in the past thirty minutes and what on earth caused him to behave the way he did.

The thought of you must have possessed him, he’s sure of that. You, and you alone. You were right there in front of him, and the part of him that craved some sense of normal took over when all he wanted was to stay away and forget this day ever happened.

Does he regret it? Matt wants to, but his chest hasn’t felt this light in a very long time. The truth is that the tiniest selfish part of him, the part of him that is a born masochist, wants to see you again. He wants to see you again because he knows that it will inevitably hurt him in the long run. Good things don’t happen to him without a cost. Though, when he thinks about it, he might as well end up hurting you, and he would never forgive himself if that were to happen.

He’s conflicted, but he’s also oddly happy. He’s excited. He feels… giddy. It’s a feeling he isn’t too familiar with, and he still has to decide whether or not he likes it. It is a contrast to the constant self-loathing and the darkness that surrounds him.

Foggy finally finds his voice again on the other side of the sidewalk. “Dude!” he says.

Matt flinches at his voice in his ear. “Foggy,” he warns.

“Dude!” he repeats, stopping to grab his friend’s arm.

“Foggy, don’t,” says Matt.

He can feel the blood rushing to his cheeks. If he sees him blush like a schoolboy with a crush, he will never hear the end of it. But after what Foggy witnessed back at the hospital, he is already one step ahead of his desperate attempts to prevent a tirade of endless teasing.

Foggy shakes his head. “What the hell was that?!”

“Listen–”

“Why didn’t you tell me you had a hot doctor friend that you met while I was dying?”

“Okay, Foggy, you weren’t dying, you dislocated your shoulder. And besides, how would I even know if she’s hot?”

“You always know! I don’t know if you can smell it, or–or if you have a built-in radar for attractive women with questionable morals, or if you just attract them because you’re a very good-looking guy. Either way, it’s not fair.” Foggy groans. “God, if you could’ve seen how she looked at you, Matt,” he says. “I don’t know if I should be jealous or impressed.”

Matt opens his mouth to respond, but he breaks off into an awkward chuckle instead. The blood in his cheeks has spread, and he knows for a fact that his entire face is red. Thankfully, it’s too dark for Foggy to notice. His ears perked up when he mentioned the way you looked at him, even though it shouldn’t matter to him. He knows you are beautiful because he sees you in a way someone with functioning eyesight could never, but he can’t explain that to anyone. He knows, and that’s enough.

“She stepped in front of a gun for a stranger who was high off his ass,” Foggy adds. “Who does that other than people with a death wish? Oh, and did I mention that you literally made her swoon after someone punched her in the face? She couldn’t take her eyes off you.”

“Foggy,” Matt tries to stop him again.

“No,” he says. “Why didn’t you tell me? I thought I was your best friend. Your wingman. The Maverick to your Goose. I deserve to hear all about your crazy love life! Especially if it’s a hot doctor who jumps in front of guns.”

“I–uh–” One hand clutches his cane while the other reaches to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Look, she patched up that bump on my head last week while you were getting your shoulder X-rayed, alright? We talked, but that’s it. I didn’t think it was important.”

“And you didn’t think a stranger offering to patch the reminder of your clumsiness up for free would be worth mentioning to your best friend?”

“She’s a doctor, Foggy.”

“A hot doctor who looked like she was undressing you with her eyes,” Foggy retorts.

Matt groans. “And how was I supposed to know that?”

“I don’t know. I told you, you always know. It’s fucking creepy.”

His groan turns into an exasperated sigh. “Can we just… walk?” he asks.

Foggy nods. He offers his arm, and Matt takes it gladly. His cane taps in a steady rhythm against the asphalt. The gravel underneath his shoes is still stuck there.

He’s not sure why it agitates him so much that Foggy is talking about you as if you are comparable to other women. You’re not. You’re in a league of your own, one that Matt isn’t sure he could ever reach. And you’re different.

Everywhere he goes, Matt encounters a variety of personalities, a lot of which he comes across often. While that’s not a bad thing, he tends to tune out those who overwhelm him for the sake of his sanity. Your personality can’t be sorted into a category. You’re unique enough to stand out from a crowd. Matt can’t put his finger on it.

Foggy can think of you what he wants, but he will never experience you the way Matt does.

“You think she’s gonna call?” Foggy asks into the silence that had settled in between the two of them.

Matt shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says.

“Do you want her to?”

For a moment, he’s rendered speechless. That’s the dilemma, isn’t it? Whether he wants you to call or not? It would be so much easier if he could just be honest.

“I don’t know,” Matt says again.

“I think you do,” Foggy answers. “You two would make a hot couple.” Sometimes, his mouth is faster than his brain. “Not in an “I want a threesome” kinda way, of course. That’s not—I mean, you’re a very good-looking guy. I’d think that if I were, you know, a woman or- or into you, which I’m not, but... I meant ‘cause she’s hot and you two together—well, you know what I mean.”

“If I say yes, can we talk about something else?”

“No, dude. I’m invested.”

“Liv isn’t… it’s not like that.”

“It’s never like that with you, Matt. Until two days later, and I walk in on you two naked with a bottle of whipped cream on your nightstand, and her name written in melted chocolate on your back.”

“Okay,” Matt interrupts him, “that was–” He tries hard not to smirk, but he fails miserably, “that was one time!”

Foggy shakes his head. “One too many, my friend. One too freakin’ many.”

“To be fair, I couldn’t see what she was doing.”

“I’m just saying,” Foggy says, “if you decide to go for it with Miss I-Jump-In-Front-Of-Guns-For-Fun, I wanna know so I can hype you up and make sure that I don’t barge into your apartment unannounced on a Friday night, at least not without a bottle of bleach to burn the pictures out of my head.”

His chuckle resembles a giggle when he opens his mouth to respond, “Alright, I can, uh, live with that.”

“Hey.” Matt can feel Foggy’s eyes on him. “You deserve to be happy, man.”

That wipes the smile off his face. Happy. He can’t remember a time when he was truly happy. The few times he was can be counted on one hand, and every time he found himself in a place of happiness, it ended up shattering like a fragile wine glass, spilling the maroon contents everywhere and scarring him for life.

Matt isn’t sure if he can believe Foggy. In his mind, deserving happiness is equal to walking the path of redemption until God decides to forgive him for his sins. He repents every day. He has prayed until his knees are bloody, and still, it is never enough.

Foggy continues, as if that one display of his never-ending devotion to his best friend wasn’t enough, “If this Olivia chick makes you happy, I think it’s worth pursuing. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Off the top of his head, there are several scenarios Matt has played with, and none of them have a happy ending. There are a lot of bad things that could happen, each worse than the other. But he can’t tell Foggy that. To him, Matt’s disdain toward being happy stems from a desperate need to self-sabotage because of his childhood trauma, and while that is true for the most part, he doesn’t know about the dangers of the second life he’s leading.

He indeed sabotages himself because it’s all he’s ever known, but there is a lot more that Foggy doesn’t know about. Matt has to protect him from the truth. He’s one of the few people Matt can’t stand the thought of losing. If Foggy knows, Karen will know, too, and that is not bound to end well for any of them.

His phone rings with the name of an unknown number later that night, long after Matt has returned home. He just laced up his boots when the silence in his apartment suddenly gets disturbed by his ringtone.

“Unknown number,” the automatic voice tells him.

Adjusting the tight black shirt that has seen better days, Matt walks over to the dining table to grab his phone. His fingertips search along the tabletop for the device. When he’s finally found it, he taps the screen twice before lifting it to his ear.

“Yeah, this is Matt,” he answers.

It takes him not even a second to realize who’s on the other end. Something about the way you breathe when you’re nervous strikes him every time. He can hear the faint sound of your heartbeat on the other end of the line. His eyes widen, and he drops the leather gloves he was about to put on.

“Hi,” you finally say. “It’s… it’s Liv. Olivia. From the hospital? You, uh, gave me your number earlier for the, uh, second time. I don’t know if you remember. I’m the girl who got hit in the nose.”

You’re cute when you’re nervous, he notices. He can tell that you probably don’t do this often, calling strangers who have given you their number. There is something oddly endearing about how awkwardly you act around people who aren’t your patients, but behavior like that often derives from a much darker secret. Matt knows all about that. For him, it was the day he lost his sight, his father’s death, and Stick’s relentless conditioning before he left him behind, and then years of self-loathing and wondering, “What if?”. What it has been for you, he can’t help but wonder.

He snaps out of it when he hears the uptick in your heartbeat. You’re anxious, and he’s been quiet for longer than he should have. He can’t stop his lips from curling into a soft smile.

“Yeah, I–I remember,” he says, his voice slightly breathless. The things you do to him without even trying… it’s not fair.

Foggy’s words come back to his mind. You deserve to be happy. He still isn’t too sure about that, but you make him feel things he can’t remember the last time he felt them, and it’s… exciting, almost.

You let out a little sigh of relief. “Oh, thank God,” you say.

Matt chuckles. “I wasn’t sure you’d call.”

“Yeah, me… me neither, to be honest.”

He appreciates your honesty.

“I’m sorry for not calling the first time. And, um, sorry for today,” you say. “I don’t usually get into that much trouble in one day.”

“Not in one day, huh?” He smirks.

Your laugh reminds him of honey. You laugh, and warmth spreads through his chest, wrapping its comforting hand around his heart and squeezing as tightly as it can.

“You’re my lawyer. Shouldn’t you advise me to plead the fifth?”

“That depends,” Matt answers, “Would your answer incriminate yourself?”

“Yes, very much so,” you say.

“Then you should plead the fifth in front of a judge, not in front of your lawyer.”

You laugh again. “I still choose to plead the fifth, counselor.”

You may be a threat to yourself, but that’s what he sparks his curiosity, and maybe a little bit of misplaced overprotectiveness. He doesn’t own you, but God, he wishes he did. Matt pushes that thought aside as quickly as it pops up.

You got into trouble not for the sake of getting into trouble; you got into trouble because that is just who you are. It’s an admirable quality that he can’t disagree with.

Matt chuckles, directing his unfocused gaze toward the ceiling. “Someone should teach you about the correct use of the amendments, Miss Clarke.”

“I’m well aware of my rights, sir,” your voice drops to an octave, resembling a sultry murmur.

It rolls over him like an avalanche, and the use of the honorific darkens his eyes. A fire starts to burn deep within his soul. The candle tips over, setting everything around it on fire. Matt feels on fire.

“Also,” you add, “It’s not Miss Clarke, it’s Doctor.”

You’ve got him. Hook, line, and sinker. You’ve got him trapped in a chokehold that he can’t escape from. Your foot is on his neck, but he doesn’t care. He would gladly get on his knees before you. Whatever is happening in his body, it’s the brightest inferno the universe has ever seen, and you’re holding the torch.

Matt exhales a hot puff of air. “Sorry,” he murmurs, “Doctor.”

“That’s better.”

“I didn’t mean to downplay your achievements.”

“I forgive you.”

“Thank you.”

A moment of silence follows. Matt realizes that he dug his nails into his palms. When he unclenches his fist, the sharp pain brings him back to reality.

You take a deep breath. If he closes his eyes, he thinks, he might be able to feel it brush against his skin. He’s dangerously and thoroughly obsessed with you.

He can hear the banging of metal in the background. The sound reminds him of an old, rusty locker in a locker room. You must still be at the hospital. Your hand brushes against the metal, he can hear it, and you take another breath.

“I, uhm–” you cut yourself off. The question on your tongue seems hard to utter.

Matt doesn’t think much. He opens his mouth, and he asks what he hopes you have been thinking about. He throws all rationality out the window, even though reality is urging him not to. “Would you like to grab some coffee with me?” he asks.

Your breathing stutters. Instead of your hand, your back is the next part of you that brushes against the metal of your locker. “I was trying to ask you the same thing,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper.

“I know,” he says with a smile. “So, would you?”

“Tomorrow?” you ask.

“Tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I’m free tomorrow.”

“Are you sure you shouldn’t rest your head?”

You shake your head. The softest brush of air moves against your phone’s speaker. “So far, I haven’t had any complaints about my head,” you answer.

The words go through his ears, through his enhanced hearing into his brain. They take a few seconds to process. Matt isn’t stupid, but this is a side of you not even he expected to experience. Not so soon, maybe not ever. You’re flirting with him. The way you do it is so exceptionally smart yet almost cliché in a way, but your uniqueness makes it so much more attractive.

He’s sweating, and it’s not even warm in his apartment. The blood rushes to his head. He’s drowning, but this time it isn’t because his senses are overwhelmed. He’s drowning because you’re holding his head underwater.

Matt’s lips part in a chuckle. It’s as dark as it is flustered. “You’re a dangerously intelligent woman, Doctor Clarke,” he murmurs.

“So I’ve heard,” you retort.

“Well, does three work for you?”

“Two-thirty and I pick the place.”

He’s about to have a heart attack. His plans for the night momentarily move into the background. “If that’s what you want.”

“Yes, that is what I want,” you say. “I’ll, uh, see you tomorrow then?” The slight crack of your voice tells him that it isn’t leaving you cold either, and that makes him feel a little better.

Matt nods and says, “Yeah. See you tomorrow.”

“Okay. Tomorrow.”

“Take care, Liv.”

He can hear you swallow. “I will,” you answer. “You too, Matthew.”

The way you say his name sends a shiver down his spine. “I will. Bye,” is the last thing he manages to say before the line clicks, and you disappear.

You came into his life without warning, and you started messing with his head. Matt is aware that you’re not doing it on purpose—how could you? Still, he can’t get you out of his head, and the phone call didn’t put him out of his misery. If anything, he has fallen into the deep end with nowhere to go. And it’s your fault.

You deserve to be happy. Sometimes, Foggy’s caring nature becomes a nuisance. He doesn’t want to hear the same statement over and over again, but it’s the only excuse he can tell himself to somehow explain what is happening to him.

Reaching for his gloves, Matt stretches his aching fingers. The crescent moon indentations on his palms only remind him of the smooth sound of your voice. It’s like a symphony that has a constant residency in his brain.

He wonders if he could be your muse. He made you laugh. He made you smile. He could do that every day. If he were normal, he could do it and not feel guilty. He doesn’t want to feel guilty for wanting this. Wanting you. And he doesn’t want to feel guilty for falling down the rabbit hole. It feels as if he found Wonderland in a world that also feels like a dystopian drama, but Matt doesn’t go to the movies, and he doesn’t know much about them either. He just knows that you are the closest thing to heaven that he could touch.

And maybe, after he has figured out what is happening in his city, he can learn how to lead a somewhat normal life with someone like you by his side–and maybe then, he can achieve the happiness Foggy always claims that he deserves but denies himself time and time again.

Matt Murdock is a masochist, after all. Self-sabotage is the only way of life he has ever known.

He slides the gloves onto his fingers. His phone lands in the backpocket of his jeans. The billboard in front of his window projects a luminescent disarray of colors onto his skin. He can still feel the blood rushing in his cheeks.

Going out now feels like the wrong thing to do after that phone call, but he can’t leave Hell’s Kitchen hanging. If he doesn’t go out, Claire will remain in danger, and she has already sacrificed so much for someone she barely knows. If he doesn’t go out, he’s not sure if he will ever be able to stop whatever it is that is keeping his city in shambles.

So, he pulls the thin layer of fabric of his mask over the upper half of his face, makes his way up the stairs to the rooftop exit that connects directly to his apartment, and steps out into the night, not as Matt Murdock but the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.

Tag List: @shiorimakibawrites @allllium @siampie @auroraslibrary @roseallisonparker @abucketofweird @thatonegamefish @capylore @kniselle @sumo-b98 @peachstarliight @danzer8705 @kakamixo @littlehappyperson @atemydadforbreakfast @stevenknightmarc @zheezs14 @shouldbestudying41 @kiwwia-wiwwia

#matt murdock #daredevil #matt murdock x reader #matt murdock angst #matt murdock fluff #matt murdock x you #daredevil x reader #reader insert #charlie cox #do no harm #doctor!reader

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slutqueensupreme · 4 years

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The worst part of living in Vienna rn is knowing that I can’t really get excited for fall bc there’s not really a Halloween here, meaning I have to suffer through alllllll that seasonal depression until Christmas time hits and I have to be depressed on New Years.....

Ugh it’s so exhausting, just get to the good bits.

Though, I must admit, visiting your ancestors’ graves the day after is probs wild when you’re still a lil drunk/hungover from the night before.

I really do loathe this country, this city... it’s just said all. The. Time.

I do be smiling when I see kids playing with their friends bc they’re still innocent, mainly and carefree and I’m happy that they can be.

And I do my best to laugh at the little silly things in the city that I experience all day, as if looking in as an observer of my surroundings instead of a member of society.

And those feelings of pure joy by dumb things; the fattest strawberry, the children on the Metros excited for school, the banter between old people who are complete strangers but somehow connect like that, the communal „bist du deppert?“ as the pedestrians watch someone make an illegal turn... all those feelings I feel I must grasp tightly so as to never let go, like my last memories fading.

Just to find some joy in the daily slow crawl, instead of putting all my joy into a holiday, since I can’t celebrate it properly. I just wish to have some fucking joy.

I realize that as I sit in self-loathing and pity, I miss those important mundanities. Right now, I hear the cars on the road driving over the tram tracks— oh, how great to have public transit so nearby! And that there are people getting home later, from what? Who knows? Could be nothing, but there’s people out tonight at 11 pm.

Crickets outside my window in the trees, the moth flitting about my bed side lamp, the bats that swoop in and out from the shadows into the light from the streetlamps where the most bugs congregate in the night.

It’s all so mundane and I have to sit and reach for it in order to grasp some joy, but the mundanities are infinite, and therefore so is my joy.

Allegedly.

But I lose it quick, the minute I once again become tethered by the curse of physical existence, that my actions have results, whether they are good or bad, I have to weigh them myself, and I am once again lost in the city all over.

And I think all over again, that this city is sad and lonely.

And if there’s a god the question I’ll have to ask them is why I have so little serotonin, that I must yearn for my joy, instead of simply make it myself?

#depression #what serotonin #im not like depressed #but like #i am #this was me just venting but it turned to some kind of lament #life is full of small mundane things and i get blinded by the daily hustle and forget #that a massive orange is full of joy

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thebastardmeteocrusherpilot · 5 years

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BASICS.

FULL NAME: Aaron Galaxicos. NICKNAME: Mr. Galaxicos and Gallybear ( bc Icantlose ;) ) GENDER: Male ( Cis ) HEIGHT: 6′5″ AGE: 55 years old ( During the events of Star Fox 64 - The age of Galaxicos can change depending on the verse - ). ZODIAC: Sagittarius SPOKEN LANGUAGES: Cornerian (native language ), Venomian, a little French.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.

HAIR COLOR: Black (try to hide the few gray hairs he has). EYE COLOR: Lime green. SKIN TONE: pink-orange (I don't know how to describe it aaaaaa). BODY TYPE: slender. DOMINANT HAND: right handed. POSTURE: Head raised, hands behind (grabbing his riding crop to hit you). MOST NOTICEABLE FEATURE: His bangs that hide his mechanical eye.

CHILDHOOD.

FIRST WORDS: “ Daang “ SIBLINGS: unknown (He doesn't know if his mother had more children after him). PARENTS: Jonathan Galaxicos (father, died when Aaron was fourteen years old) and Emma Galaxicos (mother, died of natural causes when Aaron was a soldier in the Cornerian army). PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT: Raised in a sloppy way. Jonathan barely took care of his son (except to educate him as a "true man") and Emma always took care of him, but without forming a stable mother-child relationship. Aaron grew up depending on other adults, children or himself. When his father died, his mother abandoned him to his fate to sleep with other men. From those years, Aaaron became rebellious until deciding to live in the big city and leave his home and mother.

ADULT LIFE.

OCCUPATION: Pilot and commander of the Metro crusher ( Verse 64/DLW ). CURRENT RESIDENCE: Meteo crusher / Venom ( DLW ). He lives on a small planet and always visits Sargasso Space station in ALW. CLOSE FRIENDS: Marshall Davis (best friend and right hand, ace pilot of the Meteo crusher), Captain Hook Silver, Delia Rhinophi, Moe Callin ( technical engineer of meteo crusher) and Osamu Kumo. RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Married with Theorisa Barbier ( deceased ). Several of his lovers are women of his squad like Ophelia Watson or Iris Halsey. (Open for relationships with other muses). DRIVER’S LICENSE: Renovated on Venom. CRIMINAL RECORD: Guilty of treason in Corneria and Venom. Forced to work in the empire.

SEX AND ROMANCE.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Bisexual, but with tendencies of repressed homosexual. ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Shows more romantic affection with women (it is difficult to open romantically with men). RELATIONSHIP TENDENCIES: Toxic relationship, totally abusive, manipulative and liar. He rarely teaches real love to certain people.

MISCELLANEOUS.

CHARACTER THEME SONG: Meteo / Can't Help Falling In Love ( His favorite song ) HOBBIES TO PASS THE TIME: To keep fit in a psychological way, Galaxicos spends his free time singing for the army, for private classes or himself, reading, training for self-care ( especially with stunts) and cooking. Marshall and Moe say it's best for him to get distracted and keep his mind clean. MENTAL ILLNESS: megalomaniac. Feeling guilty and self-loathing. Attacks of anger where he decides to physically hurt his soldiers and lovers or himself. superiority complex before his soldiers, but he feels inferior to his emperor. Unable to empathize with certain people. PHYSICAL ILLNESS: One-eyed in his left eye. Dark circles in his only eye.

tagged by: @illtaketheskyanyday

tagging: THE ONE WHO READ THIS.

#[ Tagg ]#/// im not sure if i made this well or somerhing idk im tired

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listoriented · 5 years

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“B”een There

done that.

So here ends my time playing games that start with the letter B. Thanks for reading! It's been three years plus change. Back in early 2016 when I pondered how the world might look when I finished another letter, I never imagined, even from that unsteady ground, just quite how different things would become (in terms of global political-psychological landscape) - though really all the top-down drama happened that year, and everything since then has just felt like the normalisation and ratification of it, this splintered-systemic madness, the post-parody, post-fake fake-real. Or whatever you want to call it.

Nor did I imagine that it would take me so long. But, life. I went overseas, moved houses, moved cities, went through a breakup, started a PhD, rode a bike, read some books, faffed around. I anxiously played hundreds of hours of Rocket League; I ticked off every achievement in Mini Metro; I spent too long trying to remember what I was doing in Stardew Valley. I reviewed some games over at Gamecloud, which wrapped up earlier this year. Time accumulated in a predictable but upsetting way.

Beloved demigod of gaming blogs RPS went through a full staff turnover, pretty much. It's weird, man. VR happened but remains a bit beyond my periphery, even if it gets brought up from time to time in the groupchat. Battle Royale games weren't a thing a few years ago, then they became everything, now they are still a big deal, the biggest deal, or maybe a large-medium deal, or just a large part of the background - I honestly don’t know how to quantify this. Steam's ubiquity has slipped markedly, through a mixture of managed negligence and increasingly aggressive competition. The inherent limitations of being bound to one commercial distribution system on one hardware platform have always been at the back of my mind, but I do increasingly wonder if my time would be better spent on a project that dug through other veins. The answer is, for now, that sometimes you've gotten keep doing the thing you said you were gonna do, if no other reason than because.

Tumblr, our home since 2016, has gone through its own shifts and controversies in this time too. They no longer seem to allow unencoded links (so no-one ever knows what they’re clicking on), it became less friendly to adult content, and as of today apparently Tumblr has been sold on to wordpress. I don’t really know the implications of this last thing.

Some Maths

I played fifty one games beginning with B. Of the forty-eight that I'd deem to have some notional metric of completability, twenty-four of those I (often in the most flexible sense possible), "completed". 50%: Not as bad as I'd expected, TBH, especially as that includes a couple of painful six/seven game streaks where I didn't finish anything.

Ceremonious Award Giving for Games Starting with ‘B’

It is always hard to pick favourites, and from any given vantage point they tend to change. Nevertheless, an act of self-canonisation is in order, as is tradition. Given the nature of this project, I do put a lot of value in titles that surprise me in one way or another. Batman: Arkham Asylum and Bulletstorm were equal Best Goofy Action surprises (it pays having low expectations, sometimes), with an honourable mention to Brigador. The Banner Saga was the most surprisingly thought provoking. Davey Wreden’s autoficitive The Beginners Guide gets the Anodyne Prize for Most Enjoyably Difficult To Put In A Box.

Botanicula was probably my Favourite (total) Revisit, or the best non-surprise.

B was a letter characterised by a few high-budget action series (of which my favourite part was Bioshock 2 (Minerva's Den)), held up by substrate of modest indie things of varying impact. My attention span was all over the place, too. We had a lot of short forays with little to say, but there was there were also more than a few wordier attempts at thought. I'm bad at judging what makes "good" writing, particularly of my own, which I oscillate between accepting and loathing, but I can tell you which games/posts took the cake for length and effort: Baldur's Gate for longest playtime; Burnout: Paradise for highest word-count (and longest gestation period); Battleblock Theater for the most time-consuming method of putting a post together; The Beginners Guide for the most times played through a game in order to try and parse it; Braid for the most external reading and referencing.

I think the most absurdly Expensive-at-purchase game here was Battlefield: Bad Company 2, which also gets the newly thought of I Can’t Believe It Still Has Functioning Online Multiplayer prize. I'm handing the Most Disappointing badge to Broken Age, despite (or because of) already having played it a bunch before attempting it for the list, though Before the Echo (fka Sequence) takes the Aquanox Award for game I inexplicably sunk the most time on trying to finish despite not really enjoying. I hold the Most Contempt for Breach & Clear. Black Mirror had the Worst Voice Acting, and it was also the Oldest Game here (2003), at least in terms of no-significant-alterations though depending on how you want to factor in remasters and remakes, you might alternatively give that prize to Broken Sword (1996) or Bionic Commando Rearmed (1988). Blueberry Garden was Purchased Most Long Ago, in 2009, though the Aquaria Trophy for Longest Unplayed Incumbent goes to Bob Came in Pieces, which I'd bought in 2010 then never installed (it's pretty good, it turns out!). However, the special Emotional Closure Award goes to Baldur's Gate, with which I already had nearly two decades of fond, scattered memories, before finally finishing for the first time during this project.

More Maths

When I started this letter I had 438 games in my steam library. Right now I have 1049 games, which is almost exactly three times the amount I had when I started this blog in October 2015 (~350). I've played 70 games total. A further 57 entered the list behind the marker, into the exempt scorched land of the already visited alphabet, which means we're at 127/1049 = 12.11% of the way through the list, which is a +7% increase on where we were at three years ago. That's not nothing. But at 2.5% per year, it's not a lot. Globally, the average human lifespan is 68 years.

Terrifying Implications For the Future

The maths says that the current terms aren't working, that I'm drowning in a heady mixture of my own relentless consumerism, hesitation, and procrastination from this task which is itself an avenue of procrastination - that at this rate I will probably die (or certainly give up) before even getting to the halfway point, and that we can't continue like this in good faith.

So I'm going to get a bit reckless, even change the rules slightly, in order to try and breathe new life into this thing. All games must still be played for at least an hour - yes, that one stands. But. BUT. I'm setting a hard time limit of one week, from one game to the next, post to post. For now at least. No more lofty words about striving to "finish" games as a rule rather than exception. It's quantity over quality (pretending for a second that quality was ever a concern) from here on out, business over pleasure, irreverence over lengthy considerations, scrapbooking over essays.

On the bright side, this means I can have a weekly posting schedule. Let's say Tuesdays? Tuesdays seem like a good day for posting.

A couple of other things:

List Oriented now has a ko-fi tip jar, just in case you, dear reader, enjoy this blog - or did before it went completely silent for the first half of this year - and feel like helping to pay for my caffeine addiction and/or encouraging me to keep going with this task.

Another thing I want to do is compile a list of links to good places for games-writing and other things that I like, because a) I feel like such a page would be helpful for me to keep a record, even if for nobody else; b) my conception of the internet is permanently stuck in 2008 but also; c) it's hard to remember where to look for good things on the internet, sometimes, these days, given our habitual over-reliance on various platforms to direct us to CONTENT. But one thing I want to include is a list of other places where people are doing this kind of list-oriented project thing. I remember a bunch of them sprung up a couple of years back when we gained a brief and relative flash of notoriety, though I’m not sure how many stuck at it. If you yourself are doing one, or you’re aware of any others who are, Let Me Know!

Anyway, looking ahead. C. An obtuse but interesting letter. Not so many of the big-hitters. A buuuuunch of city builders and management games, a few influential and/or janky platformers, more than a handful of puzzlers, some famed RTS series, a heap of question marks, a coupla interesting art things and a few uh *squints* Shooting Game. Happily for me, a lot of titles that I've not yet gotten round to giving a go, so this will be all...fresh.

I have a vague memory from when I got through A, of looking ahead to C and thinking at least it was a much more compact section than B, at the time, some light on the other side of what I'd already known would be a slog. But here we are three years later, and now there's fifty seven such games beginning with C, so there goes that thought. You'd think, having identified the consumerist-excess problem that catalysed this stupid thing, I would have stopped buying game bundles at some point, made this ridiculous project a bit easier for myself, a little more plausible for everyone else.

But, we must continue. It's a new day. A new letter. A new schedule.

The way is long and it is littered with videogames.

above: “celebrating” my “achievements” with a ‘b’eer

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extravagantliar · 6 years

Note

[ READ ] your muse reading something to mine .

acts of dominance // meme cache // inspired by lost in japan by shawn mendes

It starts as a phone call.

He’s not in the city and he forgot to text her that he was out on assignment, down on Capitol Hill demanding to be seen, asking all of the tawdry questions the younger staff is fearful of asking for risk of their job ( starting over isn’t the worst thing, he’s found out ).

But she calls him, and he’s in the lobby of a Hyatt Regency staring at his phone and reading off transcription of his voicemails. There are a couple from Bartrand, those end up being deleted before they can be played back — but he hovers over the accept call when she dials through, and he wonders if the second ring is too early to pick it up ( so much for the lack of fear, the lack of anything ). The phone vibrates against his palm, and he accepts the call, wedging the phone between his head and his shoulder — the lobby is too loud, too much and he steps off to the side, to the closing lounge and its connecting patio overlooking the national mall.

“Hey.”

“Hey! Are we still on —- ?”

“I’m at the capital.” It comes out far too rushed, “Last minute assignment to cover the —- uh, the…the horse in the hospital.” John Mulaney is the first thing that comes to mind when he’s standing on the outskirt of a crowded street, looking up at the mall down the next avenue. It was a last minute assignment, they had wanted someone senior and seasoned ( honestly he had been neither, but he had lived through more presidencies than many on the floor than others, and perhaps that was why his editor had asked him to cover the address —- as if Varric’s age would have him write a more tame piece, that joke was on his editor ). “It was terrible.”

“I— I didn’t know! Congratulations — and I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware you were writing political pieces now!” He hates the way that it sounds, he hates that he’s writing anything to do with the goddamn horse in the goddamn, fucking hospital. “I guess I’ll see you next week for drinks then —- ?” And he hates that more than anything, the casual way that she takes no offence of his fuckup, of the way that he self-sabotaged his last relationship with anyone who wasn’t Dorian ( who honestly sometimes was either too busy or too drunk to care that Varric took jobs away from it all, perhaps because Dorian had the same icy, unmitigated gall that ran through his own veins ).

He doesn’t know how to fix this, other than pulling delta up on his phone and clearing his schedule for the next day ( just the law library of Congress, and he was more than sure he had what he needed buried in his own legal library in his home ). “Nah, if you can give me an hour, I have a six thirty back home.” It’s bullshit, and expensive as he presses his thumb to the plate embedded in his phone and the payment clicks through ever being thankful for apple pay, and its multiple uses, confirming his seat back to New York. Part of the anxiety unclenches in his chest, “I understand if you can’t —-”

“Do you need a car to pick you up? I can have someone waiting.”

“I can just catch a car to the dive. Besides, I was the one who forgot to text you and let you know I was dealing with the depressing state of our depressive state.” It’s not really an apology, he’s still terrible at that aspect of anything, admission of fault — sure, apologies? Not so much. But eventually, that bubbles up. “I should have called you, Sid. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay! Honestly, I —- I almost forgot as well, sometimes things get away from us.” There is a pause, and he can almost see her smile, “Thanks for the apology Varric —- but I will be upset if you miss your flight.” She hangs up on him, and his phone blinks twice before locking and lighting up again, displaying the Delta placard emblazoned to remind him that he should already be at the airport.

Fuck, fuck, fuck & boy did he have it bad.

National Airport makes his home international airport look like a breeze, and it is smooth sailing until they taxi in and he crams his laptop back into his bag and does his best to scurry off towards the AirTrain stations, fumbling for his metro card to get ready to pay at Jamacia for his AirTrain fare and whatever he knows he’s going to accrue on the actual train back into the bumbling city, of course, he runs into foot traffic. They’re one of the busiest ports in the world. Eventually, he loses service, like he always does when they move into the underground, and getting a glimpse of service here and there from AT&T, picking off the rogue message from Dorian ( it’s a picture of him and someone he’s sure he’s seen before, maybe at Paulies or another midtown lurch that he cannot place, Ahvir is there as well — flipping him off for good measure ), a coworker asking about references and sources for the horse in the goddamn hospital and a text from Sidri —

‘See you soon — catching a cab now!’

He sails through the turnstile, swiping his card to check his ever bleeding balance, knowing next week he’ll be pouring more of his paultry earnings onto his MetroCard for good measure. His luggage had been nearly nothing — his laptop, and a few sets of clothes pushed into the depths of his work bag, allowing him to just step off the subway and head towards his destination. A text is tapped out and sent off as soon as he’s met with the artificial light of the city. Three blinking dots almost instantaneously appear, and he’s pushed as he stays watching them for a moment, waiting for something — but he crams the phone back into the pocket of his overcoat, and breaks through the crowd, beelining out from under the canopies and onto the concrete towards The Hanged Man.

Their meeting is mostly quiet by the time he arrives — she’s nestled at their same table they’ve been occupying for the last couple of months, and he’s fresh off two subways, a plane and an uber. At least one of them looked like they had their life together, shit. He moves through, pushing a few friendly faces aside, who ask where he’s been, and he blocks out the blaring of the national news in the background — the anchor talking about something to do with healthcare or the national interest, he’d rather have a drink and ask Corff to turn that slop off. But he sees her, and it’s better, a bit better ( he wishes he wasn’t as scruffy, that he had a spare moment to drop his bag off at his apartment and change — but this was worth it ).

“Hey! I was starting to think that you had missed my message, I texted you about drinks, and you didn’t respond, so I figured the Q train didn’t have service.” It’s a dichotomy — he looks like hell, and she’s perfectly coiffed. Perhaps, that’s what he gets for rushing back so quickly ( for something that is so obviously not a date, but something that he looks forward to every week and he’s loathed to break from that cycle ). “So I went ahead and told Corff just to get you your regular.” He dumps his bag under the table and leans back against the booth, it’s met with a laugh, and he smiles through closed eyes and a hand over his face.

“Bad flight?”

“Bad trip. Remind me to never take another piece on politics.” The scruff that’s high on his cheeks is more than annoying, and he finally lulls forward to meet her eyes. “Deadline was met, but I’m continuously reminded I’d rather write anything up op-ed pieces or go back to corporate law.“ She laughs, a hand snaking across the table to pat his own before she bubbles out an apology and launches into how her week has progressed. It’s encapturing, and he very nearly misses her request.

“Varric? You going to share what you’ve written about the — uh, what did you call him?”

“Horse in the Hospital, you’ve never seen John Mulaney’s Comeback Kid?” He’s met with a quizzical expression, an arched brow and he laughs before he pulls out his phone and queues up the Netflix special, adding it to the watchlist, “Okay, okay, so we’ll watch that later tonight.” Later tonight — he nearly freezes until he meets her eyes, a smile plastered onto her features and chin resting on interlocked fingers. A shit eating grin if he’s ever seen one.

( VARRIC ODGEN TETHRAS why are you so FUCKING bad at this? )

“Did you want to hear my shitty op-ed piece or not, Sid?”

#asteeledheart #is this nyc or kirkwall who fucking knows #it's modern

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burstbombbitch · 6 years

Text

INKLING IDOL.

❝ SILENCE TEACHES YOU HOW TO SING. ❞

Two years molded much of her previous, poor ways. Urged on by family and friends alike, the chrysalis --- once harboring an abrasive, infuriated child --- birthed a beautiful butterfly.

Her personality changed; a benefit to all, for she'd oft start fights to mitigate her own self loathing. Though not wholeheartedly for the sake of others, she opted to beckon bees with honey rather than vinegar and pursue a career in the arts --- song and dance, to be exact.

Contacted by a washed out talent agent, Xiuying spends these two years dispelling the shadow she cast and silhouetted herself with. With every penny she had to her name --- which dwindled rapidly, due to her desire to do this without her family's riches --- she put her name and her talents out for all to see.

It was degrading, at best. But she'd oft been reminded to smile, for she was in the spotlight and no one could know her struggle. Desperate to prove her metamorphosis to be true, she'd persevere.

Eventually, she breaks her borderline abusive contact with her agent. Forcibly, and much to her dismay, this results in his untimely demise, and the case is covered up.

Now, known as an idol, she performs across various cities and countries, taking temporary breaks to host a television show about improving in battle, as well as... shadier things.

THIS IS HER MAIN VERSE.

Unless your muse is a hermit or completely separated from the Nintendo scene, they have heard of her. It makes it a lot easier to interact with outside of first time things. Here's a sample of her songs if you're not sure your muse would or wouldn't like her music..

Verse Tag

QUICK SUPER JUMP.

❝ REACH FOR THE STARS. ❞

Inkling technology is far from perfect. Their respawn can be shut on and off with the flick of a switch. Their launch pads... well, a little tampering can send you going farther than ever intended.

This verse is specifically used for various fandoms. Yin will retain all knowledge and bring it back to Inkopolis, although by no means do other squids have to acknowledge or understand the tall tales she might be telling.

MULTIVERSE... VERSE. USED FOR ANYTHING UNSPECIFIC.

Verse Tag

MELODIC MENDING.

❝ SING WITH ME A SONG OF BIRTHRIGHTS AND LOVE... ❞

The resurgence of a species her birth father assisted in oppressing amassed an innocent curiosity. Seeing her adoptive father figure stress over the brainwashing and mass deaths of his people, she embarks down below to the Deep Sea Metro.

Upon hearing that Agent Eight was assisted by song, she came to a conclusion of her own: perhaps her own voice could save the sanitized.

Of course, this is met with resistance from her friends and loved ones, but despite her fears, what better way to learn than to throw yourself into the fray?

Verse Tag

UMBRAL ULTIMATUM.

"FEND AGAINST THESE DARK ARTS ALL YOU WANT, BUT YOU'RE NO HARRY POTTER."

To the human eye, Xiuying is simply a transfer student from the "far away" Vigrid, come to study ancient, magical myths. To those with access to Purgatorio, Inferno, and Paradiso, she is the ancient, magical myth.

A student of not only scholarly pursuits, but the lost Umbran Arts, she has dedicated herself to reviving the clans --- inspired only by the watch passed down through her family, its hands harboring her exact birth date and time.

A protector of humans, and self-imposed "divine intervention" betwixt the three realms, Xiuying goes about her days, practicing her magic and ensuring human safety --- within her ability, of course. Reminded oft of her own mortality, as she has yet to form a pact and thus relinquish her soul, she currently steers clear of conflict between angels and demons, lest little choice is given.

Messing with humans would have to suffice for fun, until then.

HER "HUMAN" VERSE!

Verse Tag

CONSTELLATIONS.

"I'M GONNA BE YOUR BUBBLEGUM BITCH."

Actively aggravating those around her, this rich child, set loose upon the world a mere six years ago, makes a name for herself through her ranked battles. Opting to go under an alias during her tournaments, Lady Charbonneau lives her daily life in this verse.

Drafted for a future war she questions constantly, Bonbon struggles, leaving her relatively anxious and depressed while waiting for her inevitable deployment. Of course, to display such weakness is unacceptable, and thus she bestows onto others the nasty persona she had created for herself.

If people weren't going to like her, it would be on her own terms.

Verse Tag

POKEMON.

"CHAOTIC DEMOLITION, WELL THAT'S JUST MY FORTE."

Ladled in ribbons from prior contests, the former competitive Sylveon vents her frustrations by besting her foes in beauty pageants. She desires more than lavish pillows and groomings, but her time in battles was decisively over, a la a trainer that opted to pamper her instead.

This doesn't quite stop her from venturing out on her own to pick on those that she can. Outside her trainer's watchful eye, Xiuying's recklessness is satiated only by the beautiful visage of beating both wild and battle-ready Pokemon. She isn't without the power to back it up --- her Hyper Voice is what rose her name her to fame back when she was first starting out.

She's not above harassing trainers, either --- her ribbons allow for communication, and she's never above letting others know what's on her mind. Screaming is what she's best at, after all.

Verse Tag

MISCELLANEOUS.

Just a collection of all of her remaining verses that either don't need too much explaining or aren't going to be that primary.

"WHAT SHE'S SAYING IS, SHE PUTS TOO MUCH EFFORT INTO EVERYTHING."

SMASH BROS. VERSE || Verse Tag

HOGWARTS VERSE || Verse Tag || Info || Mobile

SMT: PERSONA VERSE || Verse Tag || Info || Mobile

FIRE EMBLEM: THREE HOUSES || Verse Tag || Info || Mobile

INTO THE BORDERLANDS || Verse Tag || Info || Mobile

#✧.° ⦙ ᴘᴀsᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴇɴᴅ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡɪʟʟ ʙᴇ sᴛʀᴏɴɢ. — ❪ & saved. ❫

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m-b-obsession · 6 years

Text

Entry 1

This City makes you lose your mind. From the sun that never sets and wind that leaves ice on your bones that make them itch to the deep caves of metro stations with deafening musicians and smell of rotten waste mixed with overpriced coffee.

You love it. Everyone loves it. Indeed, it’s so poetic - the Capital of suicide, façade of pastel buildings covering the cemeteries of alleys.

This City teaches you to lie and hide, as if challenges to stay alive at all costs.

At first, you thought that blocked highways and streets at night are meant to prevent you from doing something you would totally regret. You got older - the reckless rebellious teenager died, decomposed and fertilised the ground for the chaotic self-destructive monster. Each obstacle is a test, merely a chance to accumulate the strength to dive headfirst to abyss.

You do everything to hate yourself even harder.

That’s how you end up awake way past midnight, naked, cigarette filter between teeth, last breath of life sucked out of smoke filled lungs, bony limbs so dry that skin starts to peel off.

Ink-stained, marked, scarred in every possible way but not enough to make you stop.

For once your body is full of colour, however you’ve never felt so blank.

Bruises are disgustingly yellow, perfect round shapes in the places no one meant to see. You hate yellow, you hate circles and you loathe perfection.

This is not what you have planned, right?

“All or nothing,” - you thought.

“Draw blood or don’t touch me,” - you wanted to scream.

But you kept saying it was ok.

(You wanted so much more)

You crave to be put on extreme, limits pushed to the horizon if not destroyed.

You want to forget the person The City made you become.

Marble quays soaked in radiation, soapy clouds, people with no muscle memory of smile.

You lost yourself the day you were dragged here and the North claimed you as his.

cross me out x

tick me done v

turn upside-down

he stays the same

#writers #writeblr #writer #novel #reading #journal entry #fiction #spilled words #words #prose #what have i created #short story #short fiction #spiritual #dark #imnotdepressed

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lunapaper · 4 years

Text

Album Review: ‘After Hours’ - The Weeknd

Dark, brooding and slick, The Weeknd’s sound in tailor-made for after hours listening, especially when paired with the Canadian singer’s oft-used tropes: empty sex, nihilism, fame and excess.

And he continues with this winning formula on Abel Tesfaye’s fourth album, this time set against the bright lights of Vegas and awash in an 80s vaporwave aesthetic. Though it can also double as a romantic post-mortem of sorts, devoting much of the record to examining his much-publicised relationships with Bella Hadid and Selena Gomez.

‘Alone Again,’ although celestial and pretty, is a rather dull choice for an opener. The title track’s sparse, nocturnal bass throb feels like something straight out of Vice City, with Tesfaye trying to make amends as he admits: ‘I was running away from facin' reality, uh/Wastin' all of my time out living my fantasies.’ On ‘Scared To Live,’ he sighs: ‘I’m the reason you forgot how to love,’ a rather cloying power ballad that has the balls to incorporate part of Elton John’s ‘Your Song.’

‘Save Your Tears,’ too, is shimmering pop schmaltz that only further proves Tesfaye just cannot write a love song without resorting to clichés, a crime he seems to repeat every album (Remember the atrocious ‘Angel’ from Beauty Behind The Madness?) A skittering drum n’ bass beat later fuels his romantic anxieties on ‘Hardest To Love,’ his self-loathing at fever pitch when he realises: ‘I don't feel it anymore/The house I bought is not a home/Together we are so alone.’

The melancholic ‘Snowchild,’ meanwhile, is cocaine-clouded nostalgia, Tesfaye looking back at his rise to fame through the lens of pop culture as he name-checks everything from Jay Z to Patrick Swayze to ‘Futuristic sex, give her Philip K dick.’ Though it’s pretty hard to feel sorry for someone who complains about a $20 million mansion they’ve never lived in…

The references also fly thick and fast on the shuddering ‘Escape From LA,’ evoking the image of a tragic Tesfaye bathed in the sickly glow of Vegas as he drags his feet down the strip, reminiscing about studio sex with a ‘cold-hearted bitch’ with ‘Chrome Hearts hangin' from her neck’ (a brand Bella Hadid regularly promotes via Instagram).

First single ‘Heartless,’ however, sees the singer quickly return to the braggadocious Weeknd of old, boasting ‘So much pussy, it be fallin' out the pocket/Metro Boomin turn this ho into a moshpit’ over groaning bass and stuttering trap beats reminiscent of 2016’s Starboy. ‘Blinding Lights,’ as well, mirrors the punchy, urgent beats of previous tracks like ‘False Alarm’ and ‘Secrets.’

Naturally, the novelty of Vegas soon wears off, resulting in a rather terrifying comedown for Tesfaye.

‘Faith�� has him confess ‘When I'm coming down is the most I feel alone,’ drifting further into a weightless, atmospheric void before crashing back to earth (‘I ended up in the back of a flashing car/With the city shining on my face/The lights are blinding me again’). The deceptively glossy disco banger ‘In Your Eyes’ tracks tears across its glowing dancefloor as Tesfaye realises too little, too late: ‘I tried to find love/In someone else too many times/But I hope you know I mean it/When I tell you you're the one that was on my mind.’

Yet it’s ‘Until I Bleed Out’ that provides a brutal wake-up call –‘I can't move, I'm so paralyzed/I'm so paralyzed/I can't explain why I'm terrified’- an eerie, sluggish nightmare that shifts in and out of focus. Though there’s no relief to be found, the vicious cycle at threat of continuing as the song meets an abrupt end, a desperate Tesfaye trying to tell himself: ‘I don’t need it anymore.’

Though After Hours ably (lol) combines all Weeknd eras thus far, it suffers from a certain aimlessness that’s plagued previous records. Its claustrophobic feel is fitting for the current isolation period, yet it doesn’t truly find its mojo until halfway through the record. Some motifs and lyrical turns also border on parody, even by Weeknd standards. After a while, the self-pitying does grate, especially when it’s such well-worn territory at this point.

As inconsistent as Starboy and Beauty Behind The Madness might’ve been, they didn’t contain nearly as much filler as After Hours does. Even with a dream team of producers at the help – including Illangelo, Metro Boomin, Oneohtrix Point Never, Max Martin and Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker - to create a murky, cybernetic universe, it rolls by in one flat expanse of sound.

In the end, despite any epiphanies The Weeknd has along the way, the story inevitably remains the same. And the music itself hasn’t really evolved all that much, either…

- Bianca B.

#music #the weeknd #after hours #new #reviews #albums #Bianca B

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ladyarjuna · 7 years

Text

Ditarph’s Character “About” Sheet: adjust as needed

QUOTE

“You must make Water of the Earth, and Earth of the Air, and Air of the Fire, and Fire of the Earth.The Black Sea. The Black Luna. The Black Sol. Here is the last of the White Stone, and the beginning of the Red.” – The Ripley Scroll

BASIC { Specifically for Manifester }

NAME: Karishma Natar-Pannikar, a.k.a. Takayama Hoshi NICKNAMES: Kerry, Several various hero identities including Sailor Haumea AGE: 16 BIRTHDAY/NAMEDAY: October 4th SPECIES: Human? GENDER: “fuck you” PRONOUNS: She/Her

FAMILY

MOTHER: Indrani Natar-Pannikar FATHER: [????????] PARENTS: Indrani Natar-Pannikar, Maiha Saitou, Warren Patel, Abby Patel, Jitendra Natar-Pannikar, Jitendra Natar-Pannikar (Wish-Spirit) FAMILY: Raised by mother and father until age 2, then by grandfather until age 12, then by Warren Patel and any parental figure she could find. SIBLINGS: Youngest/ only survivor SPOUSE: N/A [:3c] CHILDREN: none yet.

PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES

FACE CLAIM: Kotsu Masumi (slowly being phased out as I pay for more expressions and Do More Art) RACE/ETHNICITY: Indian/Brazilian mestizo NATIONALITY: American, with (forged) Japanese citizenship HEIGHT: 7′1″ WEIGHT: 315 lbs BUILD: Ancient Indus feminine ideal, only seven feet tall and stacked with muscle. HAIR: small of back length. FACIAL HAIR: N/A (DFAB) HAIR COLOR: Black EYE COLOR: Hazel SKIN COLOR: . #8C5138. If you have a good word for it please tell me? DOMINANT HAND: Ambidextrous, slightly favors right hand. ANOMALIES: 7′1″/ 214cm. Builds muscle incredibly quickly. Surgery scars. Resistant to poison. slightly denser than water. SCENT: Jasmine, fresh engine oil, burning steel. ACCENT: English pronunciation and diction, with New Jersey word choice. PHYSICAL DISABILITIES: None. LEARNING DISABILITIES: None (but see Disorders.) ALLERGIES: None. DISORDERS: Diagnosed with ADHD. Undiagnosed C-PTSD. Undiagnosed teleportitis. FASHION: Bold colors, function before form, showy. NERVOUS TICS: Bites/chews lips. touches own neck. Does martial arts practice. QUIRKS: Identifies with Godzilla.

LIFESTYLE

HOME ADDRESS: !)$# Anthem Avenue, Metro City, New Jersey RESIDES: Saitama Prefecture, Japan / Outside Normal Space BORN: New Jersey, USA RAISED: New Jersey, USA VEHICLE: Motorbike (currently ruined) PHONE: An iPhone, a burnphone, and a quantum-level wrist comm LAPTOP/COMPUTER: Home quantum distributed network “Bequerel”, Magitech Quibit -Laptop “Orbital Sunrise” PETS: Iris (Tibetan Mastiff), Wendy Go (Aegislash), Feuerbal (Torracat), Fortuna (Sylveon),

HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION: Juuban Metropolitan High School COLLEGE EDUCATION: Tokyu MAJOR: Engineering, Logistics, Law MINOR: N/A CAREER: Engineer, Rich Heiress EXPERIENCE: Ten years of making custom-order magic and mundane items to specification EMPLOYER: Self-employed YEARLY SALARY: “A fair few favors” / US$10.000.000 TRAINED IN: Metalwork, basic engineering, first aid, multiple natural and supernatural martial arts, survival OTHER: Will set timers for everything.

POLITICAL AFFILIATION: anarcho-socialist RELIGION: Hindu (Shaktism (Durga in particular)) BELIEFS: Extensive; ask IC. DRUGS: No. SMOKES: No ALCOHOL: Occasionally. DIET: Omnivore.

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Panromantic SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Pansexual MARTIAL STATUS: Married, in a polycule CHILDREN: six AVAILABILITY: Taken LOOKING FOR: Not really looking anymore.

LANGUAGES: English, German, Japanese, Greek, Italian, Draconic, Sanskrit, Standard Hindi, Tamil, Swedish, French

PHOBIAS: Existential fear, being left alone HOBBIES: Drawing, code making, cooking, metalsmithing... TRAITS: bitter, angry, brave, self-loathing SOCIAL MEDIA: Undernet: @hrhspaceprincess. tumblr: yer lookin’ at it.

FAVOURITE

LOCATION: Crown Arcade SPORTS TEAM: N/A GAME: Otta practice MUSIC: electroswing, 8-bit SHOWS: ????? MOVIES: Daikaiju movies RADIO STATION: InterFM FOOD: Bittersweet or spicy foods; Dosa is nostalgic BEVERAGE: Deeply brewed tea COLOR: Reds/Golds

CHARACTER

MORAL ALIGNMENT: Neutral Good MBTI: ENFJ MBTI ROLE: Protagonist ENNEAGRAM: 3 w2 ENNEAGRAM ROLE: The Individualist; balanced wings, social variant TEMPERAMENT: Phlegmatic WESTERN ZODIAC: Virgo CHINESE ZODIAC: Metal Dragon PRIMAL SIGN: Porcupine

TAROT CARD: The Star TV TROPES: Amazonian Beauty, Broken Ace SONG: Katzenjammer, Demon Kitty Rag

IDEOLOGIES: If one takes the bread from those who have worked for it, that is tyranny. The enemy is before you, your very home behind you, your cause is lost if you do not act: therefore, on desperate ground, fight. If one knows only themselves and not their enemy, they shall lose as often as they win. Yeah and as soon as you bastards come up with a good one-piece in 38/two extra heads I’ll be sure to buy one until then get off my dick.

Tagging: anyone else who wants to do it

#About #v: Manifester

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deehollowaywrites · 5 years

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It’s probably a little counter-intuitive to be offended when your favorite organized-crime shows fail to include racing plotlines. After all, given the persistent link in popular imagination between the Thoroughbred industry and criminal activity, be it Sicilian Mafia or Mexican cartels, we should be grateful when critical darlings choose not to depict racetracks as crime-ridden locales and participants or personnel as corrupt denizens of a specifically American underworld.

Right?

Exhibit A: Boardwalk Empire. Let’s get something out of the way up-front: I’m absolute trash for this show… but this show is, by and large, equally trash. Its increasingly disorganized structure and desperate offing of major characters aside, the writing decisions around Arnold Rothstein are interesting. Rothstein is famous for his alleged participation in criminal conspiracies, such as fixing the 1919 World Series, and his tendency to rub his sticky fingers all over sports extended to a serious Thoroughbred habit (including investing in Havre de Grace). Does the show ever feature this? Nope. At a time when racing was unarguably corrupt and in a setting thick with tracks, Boardwalk manages to feature the Brain without delving into his vice of choice. It’s hard to imagine that Nucky Thompson would have no interest in forging a connection between his operation and the four-footed money of New Jersey and New York, given his avarice for literally everything else. It’s a missed opportunity to use racing as any number of suitable metaphors. If Americans are really so obsessed with the rise and fall of families, biological and criminal, there are few sports more suited to that framework than racing.

Prestige television loves crime in part because it’s a useful lens for examining just about every facet of American life and culture. Sports media (despite what some people think) is the other side of that coin. Put them together and you get unstoppable, occasionally profound entertainment. For every coalition of corn-fed American sportsmen, there’s a mirror universe of bookies, arm-twisting, and rigged losses. TV almost always leaves horses out of that equation, despite the majority of crime-centric shows being set in cities with racetracks. Graceland, a deeply stupid and entertaining show about superfox Feds throwing RICO parties at their LA beach house, managed to set an episode at Gulfstream Park without actually using racing as a focal point. The Wire doesn’t go to Pimlico, although a discussion of how Baltimore’s track has historically shaped neighborhoods seems well within that show’s scope (especially given recent news). Apparently writer Ed Burns wanted to do a season about horse racing, a fact I wish I didn’t know. Magic City, another of my trash faves, decided to pull what I consider the coup de grace of Mafia plotlines with a marriage of Jewish mobsters and unions, set the story in 1950s Miami, and completely disregard Hialeah Park. Every hue of minor and big-time scandal has tinged the real world of horse racing, from drug traffic to wire fraud to kidnapping. So where is the sport within these shows that interrogate, to exhaustion, the endless ingenuity of illicit enterprise?

(Where is the sport even as a normative pastime characters might enjoy? Bryan Fuller may have cornered the market here.)

Exhibit B: The Sopranos. The Pie-O-My arc! Aqueduct features, interestingly; no one can convince me that a Jersey mob boss wouldn’t be grabbing hunks of Monmouth pie on the regular (or that my angriest husband Johnny Sack wouldn’t be foaming at the mouth if Tony and Ralphie showed up at Aqueduct without his say-so), but then, “Pie-O-My” and the rest of the arc aren’t about Thoroughbreds as a DiMeo family revenue stream. Even if Tony is suddenly hip to the concept of racehorses as cash cows, this isn’t an impulse that comes up further in the series after the arc’s conclusion. Hesh Rabkin’s loan-sharking, Chris and the sports book, and the Crazy Horse all feel much more integral as recurring sites of Soprano money-making, whereas Aqueduct is never anything but set dressing. There’s no pre-existing infrastructure, no notion that Tony’s father and uncle would’ve hooked tentacles into the metro New York racing scene years before. The arc is about Tony’s mid-life crisis (spoilers: every arc of The Sopranos is about Tony’s mid-life crisis), about the droit de seigneur-type relationship Tony employs with his minions, about yet another female effigy of Tony’s self-loathing and tormented maternal projections. It’s James Gandolfini cradling one more fragile, beautiful daydream in his brute palm, only to clench his fist a little too tightly.

It’s so good. Practically ideal. Of course it’s my favorite of the series’ arcs because all of the Soprano Touchstones are present, but Pie-O-My and the emotions she stimulates exist in a bubble. Once the bubble is popped (or in this case, burned to the ground), Tony and the show move on. The humiliated boss gets rid of every scrap of his equine-shaped weakness. The hoofprints vanish. Is it ultimately a satisfying use of Thoroughbreds in media? I’m ambivalent.

(“Whoever Did This” is typically listed among the best episodes in the series, while fans will tell you “Pie-O-My” is merely ok.)

It isn’t that I necessarily want to see depictions, accurate or soap-styled, of all the creative ways horse racing has been party to or the vehicle for crime. It isn’t even that my sensibilities are starving for pretty ponies on my screen. It’s that the gap seems obvious and glaring… that racing, like every sport, is a cache of mores and idiosyncrasies just aching to be applied along lines of race and gender, opportunity and deprivation, physical space and emotional landscape. Racing will likely never get its Friday Night Lights (or even its Pitch #RIP #gonetoosoon). With Luck as the lone abortive outlier, American television operates as a miniature of American popular interest. The characters in-universe don’t have racing on their radar, even when it’s clear that they would, according to the laws of their fictional realm.

Who can blame them? Their real-world analogues aren’t handicapping the Fair Grounds card either.

#diana's writing #Urban Hayseed

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chorusfm · 6 years

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PUP Announce New Album; Share New Song

PUP will release their new album, Morbid Stuff, on April 11th via their own imprint label Little Dipper in a partnership with Rise Records. Today they’ve debuted the new single “Kids” and pre-orders are now up. They’ve also announced some new tour dates. Track Listing * Morbid Stuff * Kids * Free at Last * See You at Your Funeral * Scorpion Hill * Closure * Bloody Mary, Kate and Ashley * Sibling Rivalry * Full Blown Meltdown * Bare Hands * City Tour Dates 3/26/19 – Calgary, AB @ Commonwealth 3/27/19 – Edmonton, AB @ Starlite 3/29/19 – Vancouver, BC @ Wise Hall 4/3/19 – London, ON @ Rum Runners 4/9/19 – Bristol, UK @ The Fleece & 4/10/19 – London, UK @ The Garage & 4/11/19 – Leeds, UK @ Community Room at Brudenell Social Club & 4/12/19 – Glasgow, UK @ Cathouse & 4/14/19 – Paris, FR @ La Boule Noire & 4/15/19 – Dunkirk, FR @ Les 4Ecluses & 4/16/19 – Brussels, BE @ AB Club & 4/18/19 – Berlin, DE @ Cassiopeia & 4/19/19 – Hamburg, DE @ Hafenklang & 4/20/19 – Cologne, DE @ MTC Club & 4/21/19 – Amsterdam, NE @ Upstairs @ Paradiso & 4/25/19 – Boston, MA @ Royale # ^ 4/26/19 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel ^ 4/29/19 – Philly, PA @ Union Transfer # ^ 4/30/19 – Pittsburgh, PA @ REX Theater ^ 5/1/19 – Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom ^ 5/3/19 – Pontiac, MI @ Crofoot Ballroom ^ 5/4/19 – Chicago, IL @ Metro ^ 5/5/19 – Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line Music Cafe ^ 5/6/19 – Lawrence, KS @ Granada Theater 5/8/19 – Dallas, TX @ Trees ^ 5/9/19 – Austin, TX @ The Mohawk ^ 5/10/19 – Houston, TX @ Rockefeller’s ^ 5/11/19 – New Orleans, LA @ One Eyed Jacks ^ 5/13/19 – Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West ^ 5/14/19 – Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle ^ 5/15/19 – Asheville, NC @ The Grey Eagle ^ 5/17/19 – Washington, DC @ The Black Cat ^ 6/7/19 – Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall # ^ 6/19/19 – San Diego, CA @ The Irenic ^ 6/20/19 – Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom ^ 6/21/19 – Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom ^ 6/22/19 – San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore ^ 6/24/19 – Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge ^ 6/25/19 – Seattle, WA @ The Showbox ^ 6/27/19 – Boise, ID @ The Olympic ^ 6/28/19 – Salt Lake City, UT @ In The Venue ^ 6/29/19 – Englewood, CO @ Gothic Theatre ^ 7/1/19 – Santa Fe, NM @ Meow Wolf ^ 7/2/19 – Phoenix, AZ @ Valley Bar ^ 7/3/19 – Santa Ana, CA @ Constellation Room ^ # Diet Cig ^ Ratboys & Milk Teeth Toronto, Ontario’s very own punk powerhouse — PUP — are proud to announce their new album, _Morbid Stuff_, set for release on the band’s brand new label Little Dipper, in partnership with Rise Records/BMG on April 5, 2019. Produced, recorded and mixed by Dave Schiffman (Weezer, Cass McCombs, The Mars Volta), Morbid Stuff is everything that PUP fans have grown to love about them, but dialed up to 11. It’s gang’s-all-here vocals, guitarmonies, and lyrics about death. Lots of them. The album’s visceral, wildfire first single, “Kids,” can be heard HERE. “‘Kids’ is a love song from one nihilistic depressive to another,” explains Stefan Babcock. “It’s about what happens when you stumble across the only other person on the face of this godless, desolate planet that thinks everything is as twisted and as fucked up as you do. And thanks to them, the world starts to seem just a little less bleak. But only slightly – it’s still pretty fucked up to be honest.” This Spring, PUP will embark on a North America, UK and Europe tour in support of Morbid Stuff. Pre-sale tickets will be available tomorrow, Jan 16th at 12:00 PM local time at www.puptheband.com, and $1 of every ticket sold through the presale will go towards The Trevor Project, the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ youth. Sign up NOW through 11:30 AM local time tomorrow at the band’s website to receive the presale password. General tickets are on sale Friday, Jan 18th at 10:00 AM local time. See below to find a show near you. In addition to album pre-orders, which are available now HERE, you can also pre-order “The PUP Morbid Stuff Annihilation Preparedness Kit,” which includes a CD or limited edition colored LP, a long sleeve shirt, a backpack with sewn-on patch, custom band aids, a waterproof container, and a multi-tool with fork, spoon, etc. A very limited edition version of the Annihilation Preparedness Kit also comes with a real full-sized inflatable boat. Yeah, you read that right. Get yours HERE. Formed in Toronto five years ago, PUP — comprised of Babcock, Nestor Chumak, Zack Mykula, and Steve Sladowski — quickly became favorites of the punk scene with their first two, critically-beloved albums, winning accolades everywhere from the New York Times to Pitchfork, from NPR and Rolling Stone, and more. Their last album, The Dream Is Over, not only debuted at #1 on the Billboard “Heatseekers” chart, but also catapulted them into international waters, selling out shows across the world throughout 2016. With _Morbid Stuff_, PUP grew up, then doubled down on everything that made you love their first two albums. Fitting to their ethos, their new album takes the dichotomy of fun and emotional wreckage in their songs and blows it up, projection-style, onto the biggest wall possible, teetering between gleeful chaos and bleak oblivion while wielding some of the best choruses the band has ever written. It’s also a pretty intense foray into singer Stefan Babcock’s fight with depression, an album dressed up with heartbreak, broken dreams, self-loathing, and castigating yourself for thinking you matter enough to even bother hating yourself. And in perfect PUP fashion, taking responsibility of his own depression lead him to….laughter. Admitting his depression allowed him to laugh in its face, and the result is that marriage of darkness and joy that made PUP who they are, but in a brand new way. Indeed, despite its dark subject matter, at times _Morbid Stuff_ is funny as hell, even in the music. Often times a heavy barrage of hardcore is coupled with a light, folky guitar that lives quietly in the background. Rollicking choruses disappear into nothing but a hopeful group chant, echoing through until the end of the song. PUP’s rage isn’t pure rage anymore; it’s rage being taunted by the reality that the rage is its own fault. It’s all the fury and celebration you’ve come to know, but rooted in understanding of where that fury comes from. It’s the most insightful, sweetest, funniest, sickest, angriest, saddest and most inescapably desperate collection of songs they’ve recorded to date. If their self-titled record was the fuse and The Dream Is Over was the bomb going off, _Morbid Stuff_ is your family sifting through the rubble, only to find you giggling while you bleed to death. --- Please consider supporting us so we can keep bringing you stories like this one. ◎ https://chorus.fm/news/pup-announce-new-album-share-new-song/

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rahulkaveeshwar · 7 years

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Your City your Rules!!

It does seem a nasty bit of Title for this writeup here. But that’s just what I meant to say. While Indore is struggling hard to lift the shield of Swach Bharat Sarvekshan 2018 again having proudly done in 2017, this post is just a mention on how many changes in the democratic system of this country has reflected upon the citizens.

For curious pupils, to know how Indore did manage: 1. Your garbage, our rules.. Door to door collection of garbage Non and Bio both, so you have to get up from your wool loathed couch to dump the can.

2. If you have an urge to relieve, and a public toilet is nearby, omitting it’s use ain’t an option, the facility is right there near you, hence it’s self explanatory.

If you see, these two steps [with others involved in bits or chunks] being the crucial in developing knowledge and awareness about cleanliness [but Taxes extra] then this can make any city reach the No.1 Spot easily. Though everyone had to pay a huge timeless price[‘Swach Bharat cess’ if your remember]

But here’s what I have to say. This could have been achieved ages ago, it was just in the purview of ignorance in the Indian Urban/Rural Demographic and unstable political coordination which led to inaction, Ask yourself WHY?

The answer lies right within you... It didn’t matter. Period.

We didn’t bother at all, while the country and it’s tier2/3 cities were developing and gaining pace to match with the Metros, who apparently were unaware about how much dung they themselves were making every subjective year, Government was busy in solving political crisis, just to bring marginal change in the Political stability, HINT: take a peak in the history.

While it’s just not about cleanliness, the innovations that should have happened in Indian subcontinent subsequently went to other majorly rich economies, who are not really celebrating, are they? Now that we have the access to technology/resources with a young, open, united minds of the country, things aren’t building pace.

The young minds try to pitch in the investors/stakeholders/consumers. Briefly:

Investor : wants to eat more equity, take the sweeter side of this pie. Stakeholders : needs value, better wages, concurrent work schedule, demands, workload division, prospects. Consumer : mostly unemployed youth/ under skilled users utilising their resource in using the platform but willingly abandoning for simpler options.

This was the same problem back then, the government was rather supportive but didn’t had adequate cash flow, also don’t forget leg-pullers and ‘Log kya kahenge’ which ultimately led to poor workforce, low risk-potency, unequal behaviour, so people only got involved in Demographic increase.

On a concluding blabber, we are uniquely window shopping, there are ample of startups in many corners of India likely to unfurl their flags in open air, but no one’s interested in them until it solves their major problems of DAILY LIVING. It’s still ineffective yet Swachh Bharat Campaign is.. you need to get up every morning to dump. One has to bring forth the bigger ideas of innovation not just delivery apps or restaurants/pubs with chics and Romeos slurping artificial juices or eatery joints for selfies.. to mark acceptance in public.

If this is what brings us to the core of the problem, then it should be stated like; “”Uncivilised people in the past who fortunately got somewhat civilised by evolution at minimal pace shall show inability to spend/risk on anything until it’s not forced, Taxes in short”” If they do, then economy will rise and India can dream of being Tax Free.

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rudimentaryrecollections · 7 years

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Stockholm 26 - 27 August 2017

On the train from the airport I drink some German grain liquor I bought duty-free. I have roughly a two hour journey to reach the AirBNB, and Liss has been out drinking herself.

I am confused once I try to transfer between trains, as parts of the station are closed. I walk the streets of Stockholm central. Rats flit across the street, as do young people on a fun night out. I eventually find the entrance to the metro station and get my next train. From this next station I catch a bus. I befriend a middle aged Swiss woman on the bus, who wonders why I am going to her quaint, non-tourist area of town. She reccommends I go skinny dipping in the nearby lake in the morning.

My stop is in a quiet suburb. I walk towards the AirBNB and Liss meets me on the footpath. The building reminds me of university accommodation, bedrooms with shared bathrooms and living areas. We catch up for some time. She tells me of her travels in Sienna and Rome, and of the sustainability conference in Stockholm.

Actually it's a bit awkward in the morning because I can't remember some of the things we talked about the night before on account of the grain liquor, and I have to clarify somethings she has already told me.

We go for a walk in the forest nearby. We come across an apple tree, and Jess climbs it and picks some for our breakfast. I'm a bit dull and slow from a hangover and forget about finding the lake as we navigate through the forest. But we stumble across a cafe and get some cinnamon scrolls and drinks.

When we get back to the AirBNB the next lot of guests are waiting for us so we quickly clean the room and get the bus and train to central. We lock Liss' bags in a locker and check where the coach terminal is, as she catching a bus to Oslo at 11pm.

We split up, me to drop my things at my hostel for that night, and her to try get a problem with her sim card fixed. I have some more of the grain liquour when I get to the hostel and I feel like I'm back to my true self.

I am cracking good jokes, making conversation flow the way I want it and taking the right initiatives when I am back with Liss. We walk around Stockholm, she has been there for about a week, so she gives me what I call a semi-guided tour – her pointing out things to me, however she does not especially know anything about them.

We want to go on an aquatic bus but it is fully booked with the weather so good. We have some falafel at an outdoor square. It is the worst falafel I've had in Europe, really dry and with what tastes like pasta sauce which seems like an odd choice. I am later to find that this is the standard spicy sauce in Sweden for falafels. Once I figure this out I stop buying falafel in Sweden.

We walk through 'Gamla' or old town, then go to a jazz bar to join a Couchsurfer meetup. I tell Jess to go in when we get there as I realise I need to go to an ATM. When I return she is talking with three men from the meetup, and I am forced to sit some distance away from her at the bar, from how packed the place is. This does not bother me, as it gets more and more packed throughout the evening until we are packed in like sardines.

I talk mostly to a strange dark skinned man who I think organised this meetup. He lives and works in Sweden but says he was born in New Zealand. He talks very quietly and his accent is hard to understand, so I do my best to humour his conversation as I throwback beers with a thirst. I was warned Sweden would be very expensive. In stark contrast to Czechia, a cheap beer here costs 65SEK (10AUD). Some more people come for the meetup and I befriend them as they join my end of the bar.

We are there for two hours before the blues band that is playing starts, and as soon as they do I jump up to dance. I lose myself to the music and edge closer to the stage. A slow song starts, and behind me a Russian man from our group offers his hand to Jess to dance, which she takes.

Actually I get a bit jealous, which is a feeling I loathe but can't seem to eliminate – but the feeling does not last for long as a lady offers me her hand and I slow dance with her. When the song finishes I bow and thank her and she goes back to her male friend. A more energetic song starts, more my vibe. I make room for Liss in front of me and we share a playful dance.

This is our last dance, as Jess has to leave to catch her bus. We say farewell to everyone and the Russian man Ogor decides to come to the coach terminal with us. He goes to get his bike and Liss and I start running as if she will miss the coach if she doesn't, but really to try lose Ogor. He catches us and we jaywalk and jump railings in spite of him.

There are some things I'd wanted to talk to Jess about, but Ogor sits between us at the terminal.

Liss decides to get on the coach half an hour before it is due to depart, despite Ogor's objections. I kiss her goodbye, and at this moment I suppose Ogor finally realises that he isn't in. Liss plans to visit the UK and Irelancd next year for a few months, so we agree to catch up then.

I'm euphoric as I catch the train back to the hostel, listening to rap music and singing along with the lyrics.

People drive their done up cars around the streets in Vastalatan, where my hostel is. Perhaps done down would be more accurate. These cars are well calculated shit boxes. The panels are all dented in, the engines are loud, and the back end of the car is so low that it drags on the ground if there is the slightest of the slope. I am amused, how are these things street legal here? Perhaps they're not.

The next day I wander into the public library. The main room is a beautiful, timber, cylindracal chamber. There are three levels of shelves which line the walls with books. I slowly walk to the city centre. There is a truck driving around the streets with loud (bad) party music playing. It's cargo are drunk students. I see them disembark at a park and start a challenge. Two teams compete in a relay. They have to run with a dead fish through a pond, kiss the fish at the far end, then run it back and hand it to their next team member to do the same.

I explore the city some more, taking photos today, which was not on my mind the day before. Most of the supermarkets have self serve salad bars here, so I eat healthily. Come the evening I'm wondering what to do. I'm sort of done with Stockholm, and I feel like going north before city hopping back south to Prague. It is hard to book last minute hostels outside of Stockholm. They are either fully booked, too expensive, or don't offer check in at an hour I can arrive. So I have the bright idea to get a night train. I look at the trains and choose a destination that is a full night's journey away, buying a second class ticket to save some cash.

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theunfoundletter · 7 years

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KNC

Nostalgia. It’s always an excellent idiom for company. It doesn’t require a plan nor can booking.

As much as city life can be loathed for its numbing demand for regular commute splashed with routines, nostalgia comes handy.

My school was very close to my house. Just 15 minutes by bus or car. There were no metros then. Thankfully. But I never liked the fact that my school was so close. I was always, always the first one to get off the school bus. Just when it everyone began settling in, with a packet of chips or jokes to share, it was time for me to say bye. I hated it. All my life.

Then, I moved to college. It was perfect. 16 kilometres away from home. I had no school bus to ferry me down to college. The route, however, was safely familiar to me. My dad’s office was on the same route and we’d go regularly while I was at school. Still, I clearly remember. The day I took a local bus to college; by the way, I had to change two, to get to college and back home. But that day, was in its own strange way, liberating. Suddenly, I felt in charge of my decisions. It might seem laughable today to many. Most of us might’ve taken bigger decisions in life until now. Many might’ve moved cities or even countries. But this was a little victory for me. I did not share it with anyone. Probably, because I was to ashamed or embarrassed to talk about such a trivial thing then. But today, I’m glad I didn’t. I’m glad because I didn’t let anyone’s interpretation of my experience dilute the sanctity of it.

Each day, I would enter college at 8am. Happy. Satisfied. Sometimes gleaming with pride. I would head straight to the cafeteria. Our classes started at 9.15am. I would sit and eat. Sometimes with friends, sometimes by my self. I felt happier on days I was by myself. Those three years were blissful, powerful and strengthening. They gave me perspective - not just towards the things I studied, oh so dearly. But also towards myself. I think that’s when I started growing. Mentally, emotionally. I don’t like going back to college now. Or maybe, I go when there aren’t any students. I’m unable to enjoy the idea of sharing what I experienced with anyone. Not the cafe. Not the amphitheatre. Not even the affection of my professors - who either remember me as one of the graduates, or have even forgotten. I want to keep them in my memory the way it was.

Kamla Nehru. Stays in my heart.

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ashwinraghu · 7 years

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Eight Impressions from Albania

Limar

This is Mani, the forty-something schoolmaster of the village of Limar in the Zagoria Valley in southern Albania. Limar has 21 families still living in it, and, in the only school in which Mani teaches, 8 students. Cimi and I had reached Limar after an all-day hike along the valley of the Zagoria river, crossing it on a beautiful stone bridge that was built by the still-remembered local ruler from the early 1800s, Ali Pasha of Tepelene.

The school in which Mani teaches is just behind the church building in the foreground. To get to the nearest paved road it is either a trek of a few hours accompanied by mule or horse, or, for the few who are lucky enough to own or have access to a rugged Mitsubishi or Toyota 4x4, a rocky 90 minute drive through a ten-feet wide path rutted into the mountains.

In the winter when there is six feet of snow or in the rains in late summer when parts of the trail start washing off, those thin paths cut into the mountainsides become almost impossible to pass. Except for coffee beans and flour to bake bread which they buy in sacks and transport by mule from the nearest town at the start of every winter, the people of these villages are entirely self-reliant. Every house - including Mani's who put me up for the night - grows tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, onion, white beans. They will also own a few sheep and perhaps a cow for milk, yoghurt, cheese, and only on the rare occasion, meat. Along the fences or on raised rods in the garden, vines of grape with which they will brew raki at the beginning of autumn, the strong local alcohol drunk in small shots - right from seven in the morning sometimes, as strong accompaniment to the day's first strong coffee.

Improbably on the night I was there, all of the above ingredients seemed in harvest. This was the meal Mani's wife had put together:

Mani's two children have left the village. In contrast to most families in the region whose next generation only manages to find unskilled, informal work in nearby towns to get by, his children have left for bigger things, their father's schoolmaster ethic behind them perhaps, to go to University in the capital Tirana, the son to study Finance, the daughter Teaching.

With the turning of time there would be one less family - at the very least - in the mountain village of Limar.

Cimi

"What will happen in the next generation, Cimi?", I asked as we walked on the next morning, leaving Limar's schoolmaster and its locked-shut church (more on that later) behind us.

"Village finish maybe", Cimi replied, without having to think too much about it. "Or maybe if proper road come...", although his shrug suggested that he thought that an improbability.

Indeed Cimi had been pointing out emptied-out villages and hamlets all through our wander across these valleys. Part of the reason for this emigration is to do with recent history: until 1990 Albania was behind the iron curtain and largely closed to the outside world. Part of the government's policies -- implemented via ID cards and endless check-points -- dictated that people had to live and die in the village where they were born. Cimi, now in his late thirties so until turning a teenager under Totalitarian rule, spoke of growing up in a family of ten children, in the winter not enough woollens to go around, his parents subsistence farmers whose surplus if any was bought by the state, and given little other scope for expanding their income.

When Communism fell in 1991, not only did many rural people emigrate to towns and cities, emptying out villages like Limar, almost a million out of the country's three-odd million went abroad, to the nearby countries of Greece and Italy first, later to Germany, the UK, and even America, far away.

Cimi though did not want to leave. He knew enough stories of friends and siblings abroad struggling for decent work and to be paid fairly that he decided to stay. He only had seven years of school: the minimum mandated under Communist rule. Then he became a shepherd, internalising every path and creek in these valleys. In Permet, the town where he lives and where I stayed for a few days, there are new houses coming up on the edge of town, most of which, he says, are being built by people who moved to Greece to work. In this remittance-driven construction opportunity he along with some of his brothers have found work as builders, and in the warmer months, a relative prize of 30 euros a day guiding tourists and hikers through his patch of the country.

Bidaai

Perhaps this Communist-era closedness became so internalised after a point, a self-fulfilling prophecy that gave rise to a self-censorship, that has led to keeping this small European country off the map even in the 21st century. In my fortnight there I did not see - apart from a few groups of German tourists here and there - foreigners of any sort until I reached the capital (and even there only a few), and certainly nobody of a different ethnicity. To say I stood out is an understatement. So imagine my surprise when while walking on the street I was greeted sometimes with shouts of "India - India!" and more often with "India - Bidaai, Bidaai!". What did this hindi-sounding Bidaai mean? That night at schoolmaster Mani's house after that sumptuous dinner I found out. I was called excitedly into their living room where this whole rural Albanian family, Mani, his wife, and his seventy-something mother sat glued to every subtitled word of a Zee-TV soap opera, complete with mother-in-law, daughters-in-law and servants in the background, improbably opulent house, ultra close-ups of fear and loathing all accompanied by a thunder-and-lightning background score.

"Bidaai!", the wife cried out to me as they made space on the sofa, pointing at the television and looking at me for reaction. "India!".

A quick perusal later of its wiki page unearthed this by way of synopsis:

“Sapna Babul Ka...Bidaai is an Indian soap drama that aired from 2007 to 2010 on STAR Plus. It tells the story of a father and his two daughters. Ragini and Sadhana are cousin sisters. Sadhana's father's only dream is to see her in the form of a bride. Living in the Sharma household, she manages to win over both Ragini's and Prakash Chandra's heart. However Ragini's mother, Kaushalya is hesitant to due the difference in skin complexion between the two”.

The whole family had by now turned to me, expectantly. "Yes, of course, Bidaai", I finally managed to grin in response. How could I not know it?! And so I watched an episode of Sapna Babul Ka...Bidaai in rural Albania, them hanging on every word of the Albanian subtitles and chuckling at the proceedings for the next twenty minutes.

Men of an older generation spoke equally about Raj Kapoor packing the movie houses. One night after many rakis and Gzuar!s the seventy-something waiter at the crumbling guest-house I stayed in in Gjirokastra, Shamsi, burst into a gap-toothed Albanian-accented rendition of "Mera Jhootha Hai Japani, Yeh Pathloon Englishthani ". He went on talk about how during Communist times most Western fare was prohibited, and Albania itself had no film industry to speak of. India - and China who were close ideological friends for a time - had provided a lot of this Balkan state's entertainment needs.

Not to say that a lone Indian traveller in 2017 is mistaken for someone from the movies or a television soap, but there was no doubt that these movements of the world had created in the minds of Albanians a positive impression of India and Indians, reflected in those cries of delight and recognition rather than negativity or suspicion as I walked along the streets of their towns and villages. I remembered my fortnight in Greece a couple of years ago, of facing intense glares and unfriendliness on the Athens metro. It took a day or two of wandering about to see that their associations of brown-skinned single men were of Indian and Pakistani illegal labour, scrap-pickers and asylum seekers walking the streets, increasing pressures - or so the perception went - on a country already in financial crisis. Hadn't the Greeks too enjoyed watching Raj Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan once? They must have, but clearly those happy images of south Asians had been replaced by newer, less positive ones. --

Not that it never happened in Albania: it did, once. As I waited for a bus back to Gjirokastra one hot afternoon a shared taxi slowed down, then, the driver gesticulating with a wagging forefinger at me, came to a stop a bit further ahead. The kid waiting at the bus stop next to me got into the car with no problems, but as I started the driver stepped out to ask where I was going. Gjirokastra, I said. And where had I come from? England, Anglais. Indian from England. "No Anglais! No Anglais!", he said. Turisti, I said. I'm a tourist. "Kaa Turisti?!" he exclaimed, throwing his hands up, What Tourist?! He shook off his sunglasses and ran his forefinger along his cheek. "Anglais No!", he said again, You don't look like you're from England. Then with a final wave of both hands, he drove off. It left me feeling flummoxed. A racist, I thought, this man was being racist towards me. The shared-taxi had sped away and the road was now empty. I looked around, and spotted the sign for the village across the road: GORANXI, written in the Latin script that Albania uses, and below it the village's name in Greek: Καλογοραντζή. We were twenty kilometres from the Greek border, on a highway that led north to Tirana and further out of the country. This very stretch of road had probably seen its share of asylum seekers over the last few years, on their exhausting trudge from making landfall in Greece, through the Balkans and central Europe to the promised lands in the North: this same taxi driver had probably been asked, and now felt complicit or compelled to assist in getting them across this small country caught in the middle. I took the personal affront far less personally after realising this, rebranding the incident in my mind as one that was not quite, or far more than just a straightforward case of racism.

Different strains maybe, but the same global currents that had got me those shouts of recognition of "India! Bidaai!" had got me the cold shoulder from this taxi driver on the Greece-Albania highway. I got on the next bus which arrived five minutes later.

Continued here.

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