#(moved to a new thread for tracking c: )

[loggiepj]

one day

Summary : Just a short fluff.

The scary thing about falling in love — it had a funny way of sneaking up behind your back when you least expected it. It would claw its way into your heart, build a fort there, take a big portion of space, and probably, either if you're lucky or unlucky, would stay there forever.

At least that's what Wanda felt when she first saw you.

It started when you and your family moved into the house just next to them. It was a rainy Sunday afternoon. Wanda and her twin brother, Pietro, were just fourteen years old. She could tell you were around the same age as well.

You were totally drenched as you helped your parents drag stuff after stuff into your new home.

"Y/n/n, hurry, you're going to be sick!" your mother called out from your doorstep.

Y/n/n. Y/n/n. Wanda could immediately tell your nickname suited you.

You wore a simple white shirt with a colorful rainbow printed on the back, making Wanda wonder about something. You laughed at your mother's scoldings as you carried in your arms a baseball bat, a cassette player and what seemed to be a huge telescope.

What struck Wanda speechless was the way you looked different. And there's something about your smile as you smiled back at your mother that made Wanda's heart skip a beat.

The word beautiful wasn't always in Wanda's vocabulary until that day. It was as if everything else seemed ugly and dull in comparison to you.

You had Y/e/c eyes and y/h/c hair tied in a bun. She immediately imagined how it would look like without the hairtie, how it would feel in her hands when she would thread her fingers through it. She wondered if you'd be okay with her brushing or caressing your hair until you fell asleep.

Wanda didn't even realize she was staring until Pietro made a comment about a drool he saw on her lips. He ended up with a small bruise on his arm that day from Wanda's punch.

Later that night, Wanda didn't even expect they'd have visitors as she came running down the stairs for dinner. But when she immediately saw your face, she stopped on her tracks. Frozen.

It turned out their ever kind and hospitable mother invited the new neighbors for a dinner. A sort of welcoming present.

Wanda's eyes went to send daggers towards a snickering Pietro, immediately knowing he was the one who suggested the dinner this time.

When your mother introduced yourselves to each other, Wanda couldn't stop repeating your full name inside her head, swearing she could have said your name out loud.

Wanda acted different that evening, not when she was seated next to you. She could even pass as stupid, when you asked for the bowl of mashed potatoes near hers yet she gave you her own plate instead.

Before she slept that night, Wanda made a comment to her brother about something weird with the food and what it was doing to her stomach.

It took her a moment to realize that the weird thing she felt inside her were butterflies fluttering all along.

Of course, you'd go to the same school she and her brother went to. It was the nearest one in the neighborhood. Wanda and Pietro rode their bicycles to get there every morning.

Wanda tried to avoid interacting with you, not because you were too pretty for her liking, but because she didn't want you to know how she was treated in the school, or at least by the evil classmates that she had, Natasha, Yelena and Maria. From how thick they put their makeups on, they could be mistaken as seniors.

"Oh, it's the witch again," Natasha sneered the moment Wanda entered the classroom. The joke made everyone laugh. Well, everyone except you.

When your eyes met, Wanda wanted to just run away and disappear from shame and everything. But she had to attend the class or she'd fail that year.

"Beware of her, Y/n/n," Yelena added as Wanda made her way to her seat. "She'd put a curse on you when you say something bad about her."

Wanda tried not to listen. She had grown immune to all the teasings about her.

It started when she went as a witch for a Halloween event back in grade school. Every girl that time were either a princess or a fairy. She was the only one who wore differently. And it wasn't even the beautiful sexy kind of witch, but the one with the green face and pointed nose.

Her brother was unscathed. But of course, he was a boy. Of course, he'd be safe. Unlike her, he was popular with kids. If it weren't for Pietro, she'd be bullied physically by her peers and not just with words.

"That's okay. I love witches," you said back with a smile, making Wanda turn her head towards you.

That must have been the first moment she fell in love with you.

You were different as years passed by. You talked to Wanda as if she wasn't weird. You even biked to school together with her and Pietro. You excelled both academically and in sports, making you popular in just a short time. But what made you more popular that Wanda would hear your name whispered in the school's comfort room or even the library was how you only liked girls.

That made Wanda wonder if all your lingering looks at her she swore she saw meant something. The electric touches. The awkward stutterings whenever you two were left alone by Pietro in their house some days you three decided to watch a horror movie together. And mostly, the way you'd come to her rescue like her knight in shining armor whenever the evil three were present and bullying her.

But she knew she wouldn't ask you out. She wouldn't risk losing your friendship. Especially when she revealed to you that she liked girls too after some guy named Vision asked her as dance partner in your junior prom and she declined, making you ask her why.

For years, Wanda stayed on the sidelines as she watched girl after girl threw themselves at you. She had gotten used to it, how you return their advances yet not too far as meeting their suspecting kisses. She thought her feelings were gone until you finally went out with a senior and dated her for a good couple of months. That must have been Wanda's first heartbreak.

Yet she didn't know she could be any happier than what she felt when news of your breakup spread out so fast.

But Wanda still didn't make a move.

Until it was senior prom. Wanda wasn't looking forward to attend it at all.

"But sis, it's our last year," Pietro insisted. "We wouldn't get to do this when we finally head to college."

"Come on, Piet," Wanda replied, turning the page of the book she was reading. "It's not like I'd miss anything special. Besides, I don't even have a dress and prom's two days away."

Pietro sighed. "You know Mom could always make a way for you when you just asked for it."

"Ask for what? What did I miss?" Your voice made itself known, making Wanda tear her glance away from the book to look at you as you entered then sat on the floor beside Wanda's bed.

"Wanda's not attending prom," Pietro confided, making Wanda threw the nearest pillow at him.

"What?" you asked, then you looked at Wanda. "But it's our last year, Wands. You wouldn't want to miss it."

As much as she'd miss hearing you call her name like that, she'd rather stay at home than watch dancers on the dance floor while she'd be left alone on the bleachers.

"That's what I was trying to tell her," Pietro said as he made his way out the door. "Now I have a party to attend to. And you," he pointed at you, "have a lot of convincing to do."

Then you and Wanda were left alone.

"I know what you're going to say," Wanda muttered as she opened back her book. "And my word is final. I'm not going to attend the prom when those cruel stepsisters of Cinderella are present."

You softly chuckled as you stood. Then you made your way to her cassette player where a cassette tape that you made and gave her last Christmas was already inserted inside. You smiled as you hit the play button.

Wanda's favorite song began playing. She had listened to that song on repeat for days now.

You walked towards where she was sitting then held out your hand.

"Can I have this dance, then?" you said with conviction.

"W-What?"

You smiled. "Would you do me the honors of being your first prom partner?"

It rendered Wanda speechless.

"C'mon, no evil stepsisters are invited in this room," you added.

She softly giggled as she finally got off the bed and took your hand.

It was the dance of her lifetime, nothing comparable to any prom there was in the world. You and Wanda danced and danced for what must have been an hour.

When a slow song came into the background, Wanda swore the tension thickening when she caught you staring at her lips and almost leaning closer towards her. She could even feel the wonderful warmth exuding from your body as you both pressed against each other.

Wanda swore that could have been her first kiss. But Pietro suddenly entered the room, complaining how the party ended so quick.

When you finally had the courage to ask Wanda out, she felt like she had grown wings and she could fly. It was as if you had finally heard her whispered prayers and opened your eyes to see her — the one who will willingly love you until her dying breath.

In a sea of people, you were the most gentleman and sweetest person she had ever known. You took her to see the movies. Then afterwards, you brought her to your backyard where a candle-lit dinner was prepared. You both watched the stars that night. And Wanda had a chance to see how huge the craters were on the moon through your telescope.

Wanda couldn't forget her first kiss with you.

It happened when you two were baking cookies for the school's charity event. She didn't even know she had chocolate left on the corner of her lips from having to taste test the first batch. All she could remember was how you nonchalantly wiped the thing off her mouth with your thumb after which you sucked it clean.

You let out a small moan, too soft she thought she was only imagining. You had no idea, of course. Completely unaware that two darkened eyes followed the tip of your thumb as you took it off your mouth. Not seeing how Wanda was biting her lower lip from said action, stopping herself from doing anything stupid. You were totally oblivious of the effect you had on her.

And Wanda couldn't control herself anymore as she pressed her lips on yours. It seemed as if time stopped as she pulled away and watched your surprised state. And when apology was already on the tip of her tongue, you pulled her back and kissed her. You kissed her the way she deserved to be kissed.

Wanda learned how soft your lips were that day. And how perfect yours and hers fit against each other as you made out all afternoon. How she learned that tongues had the most amazing muscle in the world.

For which she had concluded later on.

"Y/n/n," Wanda moaned one night with your head between her legs. It was when you and Wanda stayed in a hotel as you headed to visit the University you both were planning to attend. Pietro was just in the other room.

"Please don't stop, please don't stop..." Wanda held your head, grinding herself shamelessly against your face. You had no plan on stopping anyway after you made her come for the nth time that night. At least, Pietro's scoldings the following day about how he wasn't able to sleep well from all the noise were all worth it.

Years later and it was still Pietro's complaints when he and his family decided to spend the holidays with yours. To be completely honest, Wanda expected you and her would be alone when Pietro offered to take your twins to go sledding and not even five minutes after they had left the driveway, you and Wanda were shedding all of your clothes off in haste, hungry mouths drinking each other.

"Hey," Pietro called, snapping his fingers in front of Wanda. "I can see the drool all over your mouth."

Wanda blinked, her hand instinctively went to wipe what wasn't there. When she saw Pietro holding his laugh, her hand curled into a fist as she punched his arm.

"Ow! That hurt!"

"Well, you deserved it!"

Pietro complained as he massaged his arm, "Well, it's also not my fault you're ogling your eyes at our new neighbor."

"Ogling? I wasn't ogling—"

When Wanda attempted to go closer towards her brother, Pietro immediately ran out of her bedroom, screaming for help.

Wanda shut her bedroom door with a loud thud as her eyes went back outside her window. You were still standing, drenched in the rain, as you waited for your father to untie more boxes you'd be carrying inside.

She knew then from that moment on, you'd be important in her life. And she was going to make you hers one day, even when it would probably take her years.

[crowcaws]

Inspired by a twitter thread i saw, I, Australian and certified dumb of ass, will now list every main American state and what I associate it with/what I think it's about/famous for WITHOUT GOOGLING. These thoughts will be stated as fact regardless of whether or not they are true.

Alabama - Banjos. Reese Witherspoon lives here. Shares a border with Florida for some reason. Fifteen people live here. I'm glad i'm not allowed to google because i feel like i'd find things i don't want to know.

Alaska - Mountains. Balto. State flower is a tree of some kind. The roads are just the tyre tracks in the snow of the vehicles that came before whispering "trust me". Kodiak is here, where Pitbull famously said 'keep fucking around, we'll be on the moon next.' I think this is where Mulder and Scully got fucked up by a brain worm.

Arizona - Desert but not the Las Vegas kind. The granyon canyon. State flower is a cactus. State bird also a cactus. Bella Swan got fucked up in a dance studio here. It seems very scenic.

Arkansas - The name of this state makes me think of rusty old utes and that's it, that's all I've got. "Pickup trucks" or whatever. Grow up.

California - The great Lucille Bluth once said, "I'd rather be dead in California than alive in Arizona" but personally I think i'm with Michael on this one. California has Hollywood and an ok tourist beach. Green Day are from here. San Francisco seems cool though, I like how it looks like a city designed specifically to kill skateboarders and cyclists. State flower is a grand theft auto PS2 disc. Population: more than Australia.

Colorado - Mountains. Elks and Deer and Eagles and Giraffes on ski slopes. Much domestic tourism, have never once heard of anyone from outside the US specifically visiting Colorado though idk. Verdict: America's New Zealand.

Connecticut - The dry weetbix of states. I think of monopoly but I can't remember why. State flower is a dandelion that has been stepped on. Biggest export is men's office attire, specifically brown two piece suits and those short sleeve button ups. I only found out today that there's a C in the middle of Connecticut I always thought it was 'Conneticut'.

Delaware - Delawhere the fuck is this state I have no idea. Probably still cooler than Connecticut. Famous for combination fast food chains and buildings that clearly used to be a pizza hut (you can tell by the roof). Idrk what Cracker Barrel is but I can tell you the employees spawn here.

Florida - Biscayne bay. Manatees. Shaped like a sock, or something else. Famous for hotels, motels, and holiday inns. Would be a fun state if not for the fact that every politician in charge of it is fucking it up so so bad. One of the few places in the USA where you can see the Southern Cross constellation. Miami Dale forever RIP Logan Horseman.

Georgia - peaches. atlantis. brisket. no other thoughts detected, moving on

Hawaii - Famous for killing James cunt Cook which is honestly a deserved and certified W for Hawaiians. Plagued (and I do mean plagued) by tourists, including Australian Prime Ministers ignoring national emergencies.

Idaho - Sleepy. Things don't happen here but when they do they happen so much because nothing happens here. National flower is probably like a daisy or something so so normal.

Illinois - Chicago bean. It's dark and we're wearing sunglasses. WatchDogs the game. Famous for girlbosses who kill their husbands. Population 11 millions.

Indiana - Rainy probably. Honestly I only remember this state exists because of Stranger Things, which I understand this is like someone saying they only remember Australia exists because of Crocodile Dundee but look. Population: At least 10.

Iowa - This is such a place to be from if you're moving to the big city because all the other waitresses at the diner back home said you got a voice worth payin for and you finally stopped letting your papa tell you what to do. Famous for crop duster planes. State flower is long grass.

Kansas - Famous for scarecrows, wheat and the like. Probably fun at Halloween actually. Great place to fake an alien sighting. I just remembered Dorothy is from here. Population: Yes.

Kentucky - Fried chicken. NASCAR. Speedway. Derby. State flower is a blown out tyre on the side of the road.

Louisiana - Very wet but in a pretty way. Birthplace of the Saxophone. New Orleans is officially the strongest reason I would ever be tempted to set foot in this country. New York wishes she was this beautiful. Famous for the Vampire Diaries spinoff The Originals.

Maine - Next to Kentucky. Lobsters are from here which means there's water, but don't ask me where. Famous for The Vampire Diaries. State flower is a rose, beautiful but generic, like a YA protagonist.

Maryland - Rural but in a manageable way. I think of letterboxes with the family last name on it. Grandmas love it here. Hairspray the musical.

Massachusetts - Ohhhh Legally Blonde. Boston. Harvarb Law. The colour brown. When pronounced it's a very nice name for a state actually.

Michigan - I reference 'can't have shit in Detroit' almost daily but I know almost nothing else about Michigan.

Minnesota - Mini Soda. Also a good state name. No idea what's here, deer or elk or beavers. There's no way to know for sure.

Mississippi - I like this state name less but only because it's hell on the lisp i battle to mask. It's named after a river. It's on the coast. Next to Pennsylvania.

Missouri - A lot of M states happening here. This place is famous for nothing. I don't know what the capital city is but it's definitely a place you move to for your job instead of like. On purpose. Population: 3 million. It's in the middle somewhere.

Montana - This state's main export is horse girls, very Saddle Club coded. It's on the Canadian border, but it shouldn't be like that. It should be in the middle. Hannah Montana's dad was all Nashville but he's basically from Toronto. Fucked up if you ask me.

Nebraska - When I think of Nebraska I think of those depressing Walmart carparks where there's nothing for miles except for the Walmart and one lady pushing a flatscreen in a trolley to the dodge ram she parked 600m away from the entrance so it won't get dinged by other car doors, because god forbid her utility vehicle show signs of wear.

Nevada - viva rock vegas (the flintstones). There's a salt lake here but NOT a salt lake city. That's somewhere else. I think there's motorsport here. NO WAIT THERE IS because i saw charles leclerc on the sphere on tv and he was so wide and i laughed so hard i choked on my own spit.

New Hampshire - What the fuck is New Hampshire that's not real. I thought it was like some beach suburb in New York state. What the fuck. Regardless. I bet you could pull up to the side of the road in New Hapshite and buy an avocado no questions asked. Probably like the USA's Byron Bay.

New Jersey - Everyone from here says it's bad. It makes me think of t shirts with a longer sleeve t shirt underneath and 2000s pop punk music. Gerard Way.

New Mexico - High School Musical is set in Albuquerque. High School Musical is also the only reason I can pronounce Albuquerque. This state is famous for High School Musical.

New York - She's talking over the rest of you and for what? Wall Street? Ugh. Kinda like the Melbourne of the USA.

North Carolina - I feel like cowbutch lesbians do numbers here for some reason. You could disappear into the hills with a woman in a tank top and assless chaps here if you were brave enough. Men do live here but they're treated like a new cast member on the fifth season of a sitcom, this one's for the girls.

North Dakota - Dakota is Carolina's femme girlfriend and they're in love.

Ohio - This is like that town in Cars that lightning mcqueen gets stuck in and the tourist cars are like oh we're only here because of a wrong turn. Yeah. You might find fireflies here though. Also Ohio is for Lovers or something.

Oklahoma - Swear word for Christians. Absolutely nothing happens here and if it does i feel like it involves chasing livestock.

Oregon - Prairies. This is where the Prairies are. Famous for the people who died while trying to be Not In Oregon.

Pennsylvania - Famous for The Office. And Dracula jokes. That's all i've got.

Rhode Island - Famous for winning Miss United States with the flaming batons routine in Miss Congeniality starring Sandra Bullock. Very small state. Possibly the smallest one but who's to say.

South Carolina - If north is for the lesbians, south is for the gays.

South Dakota - As above.

Tennessee - Country music and whiskey and line dancing, which is actually kinda hot when goth girls do it. Overall, Tennessee is the USA's answer to Gympie, which is a question that nobody asked. Overall i just think of the colour brown. Famous for Hayden Penterre. Penetentiary. Pendulum.

Texas - A South Australian would say Texas is famous for it's adorably small cattle farms. Lucky for me, i am not South Australian. This is the state that other states call redneck and racist to hide the fact that they are also redneck and racist, perhaps more so. Contains two of the main cities to name boys after. Dave Strider lives here. (Sorry for the Homestuck jump scare so late in the game.)

Utah - Salt Lake City. That bass pro shop monolith was here. In general i think of the colour orange. Home of the Hellmouth Sunbeams.

Vermont - Vermont is a state in the same way the spleen is an organ. Population: Zero.

Virginia - Is this not the same thing as Vermont?

Washington - Famous for Bella where the hell you been loca. Twin Peaks is probably set here idk i forgot all parts of the show that were not log lady. White House. Effervescent.

West Virginia - From the lyrics "Mountain mama. Take me home. Country road" we can determine that West Virginia has Mountains, Milfs, Homes, and Roads. I know nothing else about West Virginia.

Wisconsin - Wiscaaaansin. Whis-cahn-sin. There are definitely elks here. That 70's Show is set somewhere beneath the surface of this place. Population: grandparents and elk. I feel like you could get fucked up by a creature here if you're not careful. It's got trees and lakes and shit creatures love those. I think Yellowstone is somewhere around here.

Wyoming - Great lakes? Great lakes. This state is actually all lake. Idk. I like the name though, the verbiage of it all. Wyoming my way downtown. State flower is an empty wrapper blowing by down the street. Population: 800,000. Definitely a place you could go missing and never be seen again.

[tac0tesseract]

Glitch Time

“The Boy King is weak,” said High Priest Ay to the general, Horemheb.

Emma shot the priest and he dissolved into dust.

No, that was after.

There were realities where Kira hadn't found them in time, realities where she'd died while out scouting or had never been on Ecates at all. Oddly, there were no realities wherein their little squadron of seven had ever been prepared for the Naiki attack; each and every time, they were caught in varying degrees of surprise.

Emma watched the facility burn, watched the researchers flee as floe worms burst from the ice to devour them like grapes. She watched instances where Marsh and Sarah failed to eject in time. “I can bail you out again, like I did with the worm,” Emma said over private coms to Daughter, “But this time I want something in exchange.”

Emma shot the priest and he dissolved into dust.

None of that happened.

She shivered in the cockpit, blinking in a vain attempt to focus sundered vision. Chaos raged all around her but most of her consciousness was sinking into the Lich's velveteen waters. It was impossible to process time without Sam, but here she was trying to do it all by herself anyway. She had to.

The threads of time were so silver, so beautiful, so cold. Emma reached for one, pulled; Knell began to move faster. That was in the future.

The hammer fell, the hammer fell, the hammer fell.

There were no words in any human language for how horrible the sound was. The Tokugawa caved like an empty soda can and there was nothing left of JW to even scrape out of it.

She jumped.

She jumped.

She jumped.

The hammer obliterated the Lich and turned Emma into human paste instead. She drank deeper, pulled a new thread, engineered a reality where the Demolisher was now meters away. This time, Thresher could react. The hammer never fell. She was back at her soul vessel.

Emma shot the priest and he dissolved into dust.

No, not yet. Breath came ragged; she convulsed in the cockpit. Emma fumbled the threads and the missiles landed and now her mech was missing an arm and she was crying laughing screaming and she couldn't move and she couldn't move and she couldn't move and she couldn't see and she reached for the threads she had to hold the threads she had to pull the threads her team needed her where was Sam where was Sam when was Sam why wasn't Sam here?

A hand caressed Emma's face. She looked up. The field was a ruin of burning bodies. She watched herself, in the third person, lift the Unraveler and fire.

Emma shot the priest and, finally, he dissolved into dust.

The battle was over.

She couldn't even rely on GANDALF to take her back to safety. That, too, she had to do by herself – but by now she was deep underwater. Sound and vision came muffled. She followed on mental auto pilot behind Harvester's blurry outline, only able to track him because he glowed so bright. Somehow, that got her back into the maintenance bay.

Once there she managed to power the core back down, but thereafter vacillated between raving and catatonic in the cockpit, clutching her ankh amulet in both hands. Until today, she could have counted the number of times she'd had to glitch time like this on both hands and still have a few fingers left over. Ostensibly, that was why her boss had wanted to print a Lich in the first place, but...Emma had never had to use the core like this twice in one day, let alone twice in one month. Today, she'd done it twice in as many hours.

New threads of reality kept flowing past her eyes. She didn't know how to make it stop. No wonder Sam felt so exhausted, living like this. Tears flooded in the longer she watched. The facility and the people inside of it were safe – that was the most important thing, she knew. But it was far from perfect. The generator should have never taken a hit. Actium and Black Baccara should still be standing. That mysterious Monarch chasing Knell should have never gotten away.

The core was out of power now, but maybe...maybe once it was recharged, she could try again and get it right...

For now, all she could see were a thousand-thousand realities, none of which were her own. She saw everything she could have done different. She watched deaths on repeat. She saw angles of existence normally invisible to human eyes, and hidden truths spoken of only in the Lessons. This happened every time she used the core, but...it'd never lasted this long before.

Emma laughed, and cried, and, somewhere in the remaining depths of her fraying consciousness, prayed desperately for it to stop.

[moolamixtape]

Thoughts on Splatune 3!

I wanted to share some of my thoughts on the soundtrack of Splatoon 3 now that we have the final composer credit for each track. This is my perspective as a musician as well as a fan of the lore!

Ryo Nagamatsu carried this soundtrack HARD man. There were six composers total and he did a third of the tracks, including everything by C-Side which came as a shock to me. I genuinely thought those were all Toru Minegishi, who has apparently stepped up to a supervisor role since Splatoon 2 and is less involved in the making of the soundtrack itself.

The new composers—Toshiyuki Sudo, Yumi Takahashi and Sayako Doi—also did a lot of heavy lifting this time around too. Takahashi caught me way off guard, especially when I found out she is responsible for all three DLC Squid Sisters tracks. Apparently she has inherited them from Shiho Fujii, who only contributed Wave Goodbye for this game.

Takahashi was able to capture Fujii’s essence while adding some cool harmonic ideas that we haven’t seen from the group’s almost satirical J-pop discography. I think she’s the best out of the new team members at writing chord progressions and strong hooks, and I’m really looking forward to new Squid Sisters tracks if it means she’s behind the wheel!

She’s also a really tight funk arranger, and one of my admittedly few correct predictions was that she was responsible for the vast majority of the lobby tracks. They all reminded me of her tracks from Animal Crossing New Horizons, especially with their mellow chord progressions and laid-back feel. Takahashi’s lobby tracks have energy but don’t carry too much momentum, keeping the tension low and the groove up front while switching occasionally to a more lush and complex progression on the bridge. She is everything I love in a composer lol

Sayako Doi also had my attention when I found out what she was responsible for. She’s only been with Nintendo for about four years now and barely as any individual track credits to her name. As it turns out, she did all of the Alterna map themes as well as the Tableturf soundtrack. All of the Tableturf tracks are intentionally camp and I think they did her sort of dirty by making that a good portion of her contribution, but the variety in her RotM tracks almost makes up for it. She seems more sound design-focused than Takahashi and it sounds like she focuses more on the overall feel of her tracks than the theoretical details behind them. I’m curious to hear what she might contribute for Side Order!

I said before that Minegishi is moving up to a directorial role as many game composers do, and he contributed significantly less this time around musically. He mainly handled the stage themes in RotM, a couple of which I thought were by Sudo and Nagamatsu. With Flying Colors is marked by orchestral sample spam, which I thought was Nagamatsu’s signature sound, and Ride or Fry sounds like Sudo’s Deep Cut compositions. Minegishi did both!

I don’t know what the best way to do this is on tumblr but I guess I’ll just share this now and edit it later? I wish it was more intuitive to make a thread or something I guess I’m just twitter monkey brain

[hms-no-fun]

hey can you just generally ramble about your terezi (and (terezi)) choices? I am interested in your process for her characters this chapter.

yeah! naturally i have a lot to say about a lot of things so spoilers for godfeels 3.2 A1 solo below the break!

let me just start this by saying that (Terezi) has been the BIGGEST pain in my ass of the entire core cast since beginning godfeels 3.

getting A1 out the door in general has been something of a nightmare, in part due to inconvenient irl circumstances but also because this track had a LOT of heavy lifting to do. Double Album is an ambitious project --too ambitious, arguably, considering how much time it takes to write (lots) and how little it pays (nothing)-- and this first glimpse into what's to come needed to do a lot of recapping prior events, moving pieces around on the board, clarifying character motivations, giving everyone a reason to be staying/going, and setting up several hefty dozens of plot threads in both major and minor ways, all while simultaneously being entertaining enough to read that old and new readers alike don't just get bored and peace out before we even get to the stuff that this story's actually about.

i think on balance A1 is going to wind up being sort of an odd duck among the tracks for this reason. i've been thinking of it as sort of a pilot episode, very much in the mold of the pilot of LOST whose very minimal flashbacks belied the load-bearing structural centrality that the flashback device would come to occupy in the series. but it's also a pilot episode for a series that's already three seasons in, which just further complicates the logistical job it needed to do. here again i took inspiration from LOST (get used to this comparison, btw-- everything from chapter 8 onwards has been/will be heavily inspired by LOST in theme and structure), where the season openers always had to pull double duty of cleaning up the mess from whatever bomb dropped in the season finale to completely change the status quo AND giving the core cast time to acclimate to the new status quo in a way that sets the audience up for what this season's gonna be about. it's a fun and punishing challenge that takes a lot of trial and error. there have been so many versions of A1 that all conveyed largely the same information in completely different ways to wildly different ends.

i'm glad i put that work in, because i'm really proud of how A1 ultimately turned out. i think it accomplishes the goals i set out for. and in a serial work like this you just don't get a chance to redo your first episode. if this part didn't work, if every character wasn't utilized with absolute precision, everything that followed would be at a disadvantage. i feel more confident in the future of this side of the story than i did when i first started writing it. but it was hard!

and at the center of that challenge was (Terezi), the character whose desire to go with Silverbark is easily the most obvious of the departing cast and yet simultaneously the most mysterious. i have a document for every writing project where i save cut material just in case, and the one for A1 is over 8000 words. of those, just shy of half are scenes involving (Terezi). because ever since the start of gf3, she's been a delightful, infuriating wrench in all my plans. it's easy enough to understand why she would want to go with Silverbark, but what does she feel about it? how does she feel about what she did to June, what June/Risk did to her, or about the state of Earth C today, and especially about the medicated domestic 30-something Vrisrezi who've just shown up out of the blue?

i wrote the dream strangulation scene in 3.1 chapter 1 knowing it would put a dent in her and June's relationship that would be a pain point through the rest of 3.1, but i'd always planned for them to get on better terms before the end (until Vrisrezi showed up, at which point all that progress would be painfully backpedaled). but as soon as she left the house, (Terezi) completely closed herself off and refused to come to the table again. throughout gf3 and especially chapter 8 i tried to find ways to let her talk about what was on her mind, and she just wouldn't. the Host-intruded memory of them getting into an argument watching Consort Jerry Springer and the birthday flashback where (Terezi) eats leafs both wound up defined in their conflict by (Terezi)'s own silence, her refusal to say what's really bothering her. even as she opens up some in the latter scene, she remains infuriatingly closed off to Risk and us. the question she thinks she's answering is why she's uncomfortable on Earth C, but the question June and Risk are really asking is, why am i not good enough to make this place feel like your home?

this is a dominant theme of Divergence Syndrome-- characters ensconced in noise looking for silence, or characters sick of silence hurtling mortally towards cacophony. the strict meaning of silence vs noise change depending on the person. all the circus flashbacks are moments where characters just can't quite bring themselves to say the thing they really want to say. silence and noise, secrets and truth-- you might draw some comparisons here between this theme and the concept of Voidthought as introduced in A1. i try not to push my hand when it feels like characters don't want to be accessible. it's easy to want to give everyone center stage all at once, but it gets to being too much very quickly. you've got to pick your battles, give everyone their moment when the time is right, when you and they both feel ready for it.

but with (Terezi) i genuinely was like. hey. tell me the thing you really want to say. give me something to work with here. i'm trying to understand how you got here from where we left you in gf2. were you just lying when you said you loved how unpredictable June was? were you lying to Kanaya when you said you liked how boring Earth C was compared to Alternia? what changed in those eleven months between gf2 and gf3 and why didn't i see it until it was too late?

and she just WOULDN'T. every time i've tried to get her talking it felt forced and wrong. she only talks in narration when she wants to. she refuses to humor her guilt even to herself. i wrote a complete version of the scene in Dave's room where Silverbark is much, much meaner, just to try and get a rise out of her. but it was so out of character, it was too much, too forceful. you just can't drag secrets out into the open like that. not with a Mind player as stubborn as (Terezi).

that scene was for me, really. i needed to write it because i was mad at her. i won't share it here because i think quite a lot of it will end up recycled in some form down the line. i don't exactly want to give the impression that (Terezi) is a distinct entity, because none of these characters are. it's more that i see the narration itself, and each characters' varying awareness of it, as having strict rules and boundaries. there's that moment at the end of A1 where Vriska pops into the narration just to say, actually no i don't want my feelings on display right now. i'd planned to have a whole lot of prose there! but when i wrote that interjection, it felt right. it showcases a different form of closing one's self off-- where (Terezi) is doing bullheaded self-harm in her silence, Vriska there is being mature and recognizing that sometimes you just have to let things go. good characterization in this story isn't just about dialogue. every word you read is a function of character in some form. 3.1 was narrated largely by VV. 3.2's narration/structure is what i've been calling "paramniscient epistolary" --basically a roving narratorial eye that can take the form of disconnected third person narration but give way to direct influence from characters whenever they desire. the epistolary part will make more sense come future tracks. but all of that is to say that yeah, to let that device be honest in what it is, to really fulfill VV's promise of letting these characters have genuine agency, i need to be willing to step back and let them be obtuse sometimes.

the original version of that scene between (Terezi) and Silverbark broke rules i didn't yet know, and it taught me a lot about what this story wants to be. gf2 was so much about June expositing her every thought, having revelations, working through shit, coming to terms with her Self. gf3, at least so far, is the opposite. (Terezi)'s lack of answers, her refusal to self-examine, is a protest against the kind of sincerity that June often embodies.

the horror of encountering a Terezi who's well-adjusted and happy is that for (Terezi), it feels inevitable. like a death sentence, a sword hanging over her neck. it's proof that if she ever got what she wanted, she would have to lose so many of the things that she still feels are essential to her Self. i think she tried to force herself to get better in gf2, under the assumption that simply being with someone you love who loves you is enough. but getting better requires work. i don't like the pervasive idea in fiction that couples getting together is the Solution to interpersonal problems, because it's not. it can help! but when you're accustomed to being alone, it's easy to stay alone even when you share every waking moment with someone else. i think Terezi is proof to (Terezi) that getting better takes work, and she despises the notion that she needs to do that work, that this version of her "getting better" is obviously preferable to who she is now. it's revealing that she imposes parentheses on herself so immediately upon meeting Terezi. it's worth noting that when Vriska tries to talk to (Terezi) in the A1 solo, she doesn't use those parentheses.

i think (Terezi) knows that if she even started to have a conversation about all this stuff, she'd lose. there are so many little moments where you can see her resolve shake a little. her harshness is a manifestation of instability. to open that door even a crack is to consent to demolishing the whole house. so she closes herself off altogether. she tells Terezi she'll kill her if she speaks to her again, and when Vriska begs her to seek help, (Terezi) spits in her face.

infinite credit to janet girlpillz for all the art in A1 solo but this panel especially. it took a lot of work to get the mood and tone just right. i cannot overstate how lucky i feel to have her in my camp. this moment would be nothing without her.

it was important for me that the impact of this particular patooie be almost entirely on (Terezi). Vriska's shocked, yes, but in the way of being interrupted mid-sentence more than anything. i wanted to see the moment right before Vriska can emotionally process what's just happened. nonverbal, not overly emotive, surprised, taken aback. but not mad. not sad. not angry. it's (Terezi) who's angry. Vriska laughs it off pretty fast once the fluttersled departs, because she sees the gesture for what it is. it's not really about her or for her. it's (Terezi) kicking the dog to chase it away, maybe because she thinks its for the dog's own good, or maybe because she just doesn't want the responsibility of taking care of a dog, except she IS the dog and she might not even know it.

as to (Terezi)'s turn towards "Justice," i'm not even sure she really believes it. does she actually think June is guilty of a crime? or is this just an extremely elaborate means of tethering her fate to the woman she used to love? and in fact, is that love truly in the past tense for her?

right now, (Terezi) and the rest of the crew are in a state of transition, carried forward by the high-stakes manic momentum of chapter 8 into a new life with new rules without really knowing what that actually entails. i think their commitment to any idea of their role in that future is highly precarious, especially as we proceed out of that manic phase into what will, eventually, become the new normal. right now their motivations are all hypothetical, contingent, abstract. that is not enough in the long term. it will take something real, something personal, to get them not just to stay in Silverbark's company, but to live there. Silverbark has sown the seeds of these in each of her conversations with the core cast. but to paraphrase VV, their ultimate reason for choosing to do what they will do is theirs to decide.

it wouldn't take much to shake (Terezi) out of her present self-destructive funk. it's just that there aren't very many things that could, and most of them are on Earth C. the question for me going forward is, what will it take to transform (Terezi)'s present verve for becoming "a detective" from an elaborate larp into a genuine career conviction? she can't maintain her delusion of moral superiority without that. (Terezi)'s a real piece of work but i don't think she enjoys lying, even and perhaps especially to herself. but she is a serial lifelong liar-by-omission. the currency of her deception is silence.

and that's something that (Terezi) and Silverbark have in common.

my final note (dear god does this woman ever shut up) is on the characterization of Terezi. she obviously doesn't get many lines in this chapter, and that's interesting. I have a hard time imagining that even a medicated 30-something Terezi is particularly good at holding her tongue. part of it is just sheer practicality. there are ELEVEN characters with speaking roles in this chapter, and of those Terezi is the least... i don't want to say "important," because she IS important. least relevant, maybe? none of this interpersonal drama has anything to do with her. when you think about it, Terezi is in a similar position now to the one Silverbark was in when she returned to Earth C. older, wiser, fundamentally different, while simultaneously stepping into the role her less mature younger self occupied in all these people's lives. i think she recognizes that the only thing she can do in this situation is cause trouble, so she mostly avoids contributing altogether. her home base in the scene is Vriska, until at last the space opera drama mamas fuck off to their Very Important Story and she can safely make jokes again. wow, what a bitch. let's go get omelettes.

it'll be interesting to see (when we get to it, which will be a long time from now) how Terezi fits in with Jane and Karkat, and on Earth C in general. how will the media respond to her? how will culture at large respond to her? jesus christ man, it's gonna be such a fucking mess.

anyway, those are some rambling thoughts on Terezi and (Terezi)! i hope your thirst is sated, or at least that you didn't drown.

[currentlyfckingurmom]

Beneath the Wreckage (part 3)

Chapter Three: Nightmares of Our Past

“Again.” Her feet are bloody in the pointe shoes. “Again.” Her face is blank. “Again.” Her muscles are screaming. “Again.” A wince flashes on her face. “Sloppy. You must show no weakness, Arina. Again.” She slips back into a perfect mask of neutrality with practiced ease. “Again.”

Again.

Again. 

Show no weakness.

Do better.

Be better.

You are a weapon. You feel nothing. She is nothing to you.

Again.

Blood. Gunshots. Nothing.

The scene changes. Madame B is still there. There is a girl kneeling on the ground with a cloth bag over her head, concealing her identity. “You’re losing your edge, Arina. Do better.”

Madame B removes the bag. Unmistakable red hair. Enchanting green eyes. A silver pendant hanging from her neck. “Kill her.” Arina’s mind is screaming at her to put down the gun, but the metal weapon raises through the air anyway. Her finger tenses and a gunshot fills the room. Natalia collapses, blood pouring from the center of her forehead and all life drained from her eyes. “Good, Arina. Remember who you are.”

Arina shot up in bed, gasping for air. Her hand pressed on her chest, trying to force the oxygen into her lungs. Sweat was dripping down her forehead, her heart racing a mile a minute.

She finally got a breath in, and immediately choked on a sob. Her hands were shaking and her mind was foggy.

Again. Never.

She climbed out of bed and stumbled to the floor, tucking her head between her knees. She drew in sharp, jagged breaths as she tried to calm her breathing. 

Show no weakness. Shut up.

If she didn’t get her breathing under control, she feared that she would pass out. Arina established a steady pattern of shaky breathing, only for it to falter as more memories haunted her mind.

Remember who you are. Fuck you.

She stood up on shaky legs and stumbled into the hall toward the nearest bathroom. She fumbled with the light switch as she closed the door. Arina had always hated the dark.

She turned on the faucet and splashed her face with cold water. The hot tears were replaced with new ones as soon as they were washed away. She turned off the sink and sat on the floor. She leaned her head back on the wall and closed her eyes.

Twenty minutes later, Arina stood back up and trudged to her bedroom. She always slept with a lamp on, so there was no need to turn on a light. She glanced at the clock; it was about four in the morning. She got roughly two hours of sleep— typical. She knew she wouldn’t fall back asleep, so she got dressed.

She silently made her way through the bunker toward an old mission room. She was especially careful as she passed the room Natasha was staying in, which was directly next to the mission room. Natasha had gotten the other single bedroom and Yelena was stuck with the bunkroom, mostly because she was the youngest and they said so.

Arina closed the door behind her and stood in front of the bulletin board. Blurry photos, maps, threads, and articles in many different languages decorated the board. It had been years and Arina still hadn’t tracked down Madame B, but if anyone could find her, it would be Arina. What’s that saying about the apple and the tree?

Boxes of files lined the wall and loose papers covered the table in the center of the room. To anyone else, the room would look like a pigsty, but to Arina, it made perfect sense. She spent most of her time in that room. She couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t breathe. She just needed Madame B gone for good.

Natasha woke several hours later. She didn’t move from the bed; her abdomen was throbbing and her head was pounding. She made a mental note to never get shot in the stomach again.

A faint noise caught her attention. Anyone else might’ve disregarded it or failed to notice it in the first place, but Natasha was a trained spy. And trained spies don’t ignore mysterious sounds.

She climbed out of bed and opened the bedroom door, looking both ways down the hall. She didn’t see anything, so she closed the door behind her and waited. She heard the shuffling of papers from the next door down, so that’s where she went.

Natasha entered the mission room and her eyebrows immediately raised in shock. Arina bent over a stack of papers, highlighter in mouth, and brows furrowed in concentration was not what Natasha had expected to find.

“Uh, what are you doing?”

“Nothing, just working on some old files,” Arina lied smoothly.

“Are you sure? Because this seems like a little more than ‘some old files’. Some might even use the word obsessive,” Natasha said, gesturing to the files and papers covering several bulletin boards and part of the wall. 

“It’s not obsessive. You try living in a bunker for four years, it gets kinda boring.”

“It’s seven in the morning, why are you doing this right now?”

“Like I said, bored.”

Natasha stepped closer to the nearest bulletin board and when she realized what Arina was working on, her heart dropped to her stomach. With wide eyes, she asked, “Arina, why the hell are you trying to find Madame B?”

Arina hesitated before answering. The truth didn’t matter. “She’s been working for him this whole time. She’s been moving around. You’re the one who took down the Red Room, and I don’t want to risk any loose ends.”

“How can you even be sure? There was no mention of her in Dreykov’s database and nobody’s heard from her since we were teenagers! You’re hunting ghosts, Arina.”

“Because I just know, Natasha! I know her and I know that she’s still working for the Red Room—until you blew it up, at least. Do you really want to risk her putting it back together, or starting some new program? You have no idea, Natasha! I can’t just let her walk around.”

“Stop acting like I don’t get it, Arina! I was there with you, remember? The only thing I don’t understand is why you’re so obsessed with Madame B. She was just a trainer, and not the only one, either. What makes her so important? So dangerous?” “Just stop, Natasha! You don’t know what you’re talking about! This is none of your business. It doesn’t matter.”

“Look...you’re free, Aria. The Red Room is gone. You don’t have to worry about this anymore. I just don’t want you to drown in the past, that’s all.”

“It’s not the past, though, Talia. I can’t escape it. I live with all of it, every single day of my life. If I’m going to keep going, then something needs to change.” Arina’s voice broke as she spoke, and tears filled her eyes. “Killing Madame B won’t fix everything, but maybe I’ll sleep a little better knowing that she’s dead. I know you get it, Natasha, so please, just let me do what I have to do.” She hastily wiped the tears dripping down her face and spun around to look at the board, avoiding eye contact. 

“Okay,” Natasha said quietly. “Just don’t get yourself killed. Not when I just got you back.”

She is nothing to you.

“You didn’t get me back.” The words spilled from Arina’s mouth before she knew what she was saying, and they tasted bitter on her tongue. “I just mean that-”

“No, I get what you mean. I’m gonna go wake up Yelena,” Natasha said before turning around and leaving the room, clearly upset. Natasha had never been able to hide her emotions from Arina.

Arina collapsed into a chair and ran her hands down her face, muttering ‘fuck’.

You feel nothing. The cold grip of the familiar words echoed in her mind as a blank expression overtook her face. She rose with a sigh and went to the kitchen to make some breakfast.

Natasha walked down the cold, concrete hall of the bunker with a slight limp. She knocked on the metal door before opening it and walking inside. There were bunk beds lining two of the walls and Yelena was in the bed in the furthest corner.

“I’m up, I’m awake,” the blonde mumbled as she sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

“Morning,” Natasha said as she sat down on a bunk across from Yelena. Her tone seemed to give nothing away, but Yelena knew Natasha better than everyone. Well, almost everyone.

“What’s the matter with you? Trouble with your little girlfriend?”

“Shut up, she’s not my girlfriend. And nothing’s wrong, it’s just bringing up a lot from the past. Between the Red Room, freeing the Widows, and seeing her again…” Natasha trailed off as she shook her head and clenched her jaw.

“Yeah, I get what you mean. It’s a lot for me, too,” Yelena said with a small, comforting smile. “But we’re okay. We’re together and we’re just fine.”

“We’re just fine,” Natasha repeated with an unconvincing smirk.

As Natasha and Yelena neared the kitchen, the sound of “You Give Love A Bad Name” filled their ears. They shared a look with furrowed eyebrows and kept walking.

They got to the kitchen and saw Arina standing over a pan of pancakes, nodding her head to the beat and silently mouthing the words.

Sensing their presence, Arina said, “Morning, guys. Pancakes are almost done. If you want something else, that sucks for you because I wanted pancakes.” She never even looked up from the pan.

Natasha shook her head with a smirk. A lot had changed, but Arina’s mood swings certainly hadn’t. It probably had something to do with the deep psychological conditioning and torture she had endured, but ignorance is bliss, so Natasha refused to think about that.

Arina plated the pancakes and set them in front of the other two women. After putting Natasha’s plate in front of her, she hesitated before saying, “I’m sorry about this morning. I shouldn’t have yelled.” She turned around and went to the other side of the kitchen before Natasha had the chance to respond. Yelena looked between the two older women with raised eyebrows, but ultimately decided that her pancakes were more important.

Nobody spoke until breakfast was over.

“So, Arina. Natasha says you can replicate the Red Dust,” Yelena said.

“Replicate the what?”

“Red Dust— it’s what she calls the counteragent for the Red Room’s chemical subjugation. I said you might be able to replicate it because you worked with chemicals for a while,” Natasha clarified.

“Oh, yeah, I can try. No promises, though,” Arina said with a shrug.

“Why were you working with chemicals? Weren’t you a Widow?” Yelena asked.

“I was assigned to guard a scientist for the Red Room. I don’t know what exactly she was working on, but it must’ve been important. I protected her and helped her with stuff around her lab. Although, she was a Widow, so she didn’t really need me to protect her. I spent almost two years there, so I learned a few things along the way.”

“Did we know her?” Natasha asked.

“I have no idea. I’d seen her going to Dreykov’s office a few times, but that’s it. I wasn’t allowed to know her name. Should we head down to the lab?”

“There’s a lab in this place?!”

“Of course there’s a lab, Lena. Where else am I gonna cook my meth?”

Series Masterlist

[greypetrel]

What about a Raina heist AU? c:

Hi Mo! :D

Ok this has been FUN and perfect for her, LOL. And gave me the excuse of rewatching Ocean’s 8 which you know what, is a nice movie. It also gave me *ideas* for other Aus but COUGH I’ll finish the current fics before even thinking about it.

Anyway, sorry for the waiting, it has been *a week* and this required more planning than I initially thought. Particularly because… It’s not a genre I’m so comfortable with. xD But! I hope it will be fun anyway. :3

Tis the prompt list

A Brand New Box of Matches (🎶)

18. Heist

When Merrill was contacted, the job was advertised as easy money.

Just a small job, all she needed to do was hack a security system, move some cameras around, record a void corridor and substitute the recording to cover up for other people, guide them through an heist. Easy as pie, and for the ridiculous sum of money such as what her contact, RandyDowager offered?

Except, they wanted to meet her in person.

Nothing personal, RandyDowager wrote. But he and his partner cared to meet everyone in the team, before hiring people, and wanted to work face to face. No loose threads, a professional quirk that they wouldn’t have subsided from.

Merrill had to think about that.

She was good at what she did as a side hustle, in the night and out of her two jobs. Part of her talent, and the reason why nobody had ever caught her was that she was good at covering her tracks, and never had anyone saw her. Total anonymity was her shield.

The first answer she typed was a firm “No, thank you”.

Except.

Except she froze there, index at three millimetres from the enter key, ready to send, but not able to. He talked about half a million. A sum of money that would have settled things up for good, for her, and still left her something. Being seen was risky. Very risky. But that money could mean the end of working two jobs and a normal life. And maybe a holiday.

Her finger shifted on the Delete, she typed five letters.

Pressed send.

I’m in.

---

Working from a different environment, in the end, wasn’t half bad.

At first, Merrill had been worried that she would have felt overwhelmed and observed. And sure, the desk she was given was in the open space of a large loft, and old pub that was abandoned and converted into an habitation. Only the old rooms that guested people were closed and reserved to the inhabitants, but for the rest everything was done together.

She stretched on her seat, to relax a little and unwind her shoulders before trying to tackle a string of code that was particularly complex.

Around her, preparations were feverish: they weren’t running out of time, and there was still time before the gala, but her employers, it turned out, were perfectionists.

“How’s it going?”

Raina closed the door behind her kicking it with a foot, as per her usual, one big bag full of groceries hanging from each elbow, cigarette between her teeth and her sunglasses still on. She was like that, loud and able to just fill the room with her presence. Easy-going with everyone, always a joke at the ready, and she never talked about herself. Not for real.

How did she and Varric -RandyDowager, the owner of this place and financer of the heist- met? They would spun a convoluted history that changed every time they were asked. Once Varric found Raina under a trashcan as they were children, and hid her in the attic. Another time, Varric was a powerful wizard deprived of his power, and Raina was his familiar, a raccoon that he turned into a human with his last spell. And so on and so forth, the only recurring elements were Varric somehow saving Raina, and Raina somehow being a raccoon of sort.

As for the other members of their gang, they were all arrived there through common misfortunes. It was Varric who had all the contacts and set up the gang, save for two friends of Raina: Anders, an activist with a perch on explosives, and Isabela, a smuggler that could find them anything they need through “a guy she had”.

As it was, Merrill felt a little like the outsider, at times, as everyone fell into easy banter, mocking each other and laughing over it. As they reharsed how Raina would have slipped the idol they were aiming at inside Sebastian’s jacket, the pair bantered a lot, with the prince -prince!- complaining that the rogue was too handsy, Bela snorting that yes, she really was, Anders mocking him that he wished she was handsier, and Varric reproaching Anders not to scare Choir Boy. It all concluded with Fenris dead-panning a dry joke that ended all the rest, or launched the rest of the group in a wilder banter and laughters.

Merrill joined, sometimes, when she was there between shifts, or early in the morning, or at night. She was welcomed to a guest room above, if she needed, and she was also given, after a couple of weeks, a spare key. Truth to be told, it was more her own shyness keeping her away and not trying to get in the group. And, she had probably the most serious work to do before hand: hacking the security system of the mansion they had to infiltrate was a careful job, with its own code Merrill had to carefully unpick, string by string. It was clearly done by a professionist… But luckily for the operation, so was she.

And so here she was, trying carefully to find a way to bypass the third firewall without having it flare the rest of the system, and trying not to get too distracted by Raina putting away groceries noisily in the kitchenette behind the old bar counter, in front of her. She did her best.

It wasn’t the easiest of task, since the woman was loudly humming under her breath - an old 80s song, she guessed from her preferences alone, since it wasn’t really clear what the song was supposed to be. Merrill’s eye flashed up, noticing that, as usual, it was mainly junk food. She spotted her sliding two packs of beer in the fridge, which she closed with a foot behind her, as she slipped a pack of matches into a drawer and took the hugest pack of crisps she ever saw from the counter. The way her hip moved to close the drawer, as she moved and opened a cabinet, had Merrill blushing and returning to focus on her work with a purpose.

She was hired by her and Varric, it wasn’t the moment to… To think that her boss was tall and strong and buff, and the way she couldn’t hit a note but still kept on singing anyway, putting effort and heart in it was cute. They way she smiled at Merrill and always tried to involve her in a conversation, was cute. It really wasn’t the time. Furthermore, it was her first big heist, the first job she did in presence, and with all that was at stake, she just wanted to concentrate on doing her best, first and foremost.

As she started tapping on the keys with renewed effort, trying to get her mind back on track, the big living room started to be filled. Varric hopped down the stairs, shuffling between some papers as he made his way to his armchair. Anders followed suit, yawning aloud and scratching his head -his sleep cycle was all over the place- and plopping heavily on the couch, face down with a deep groan.

They made small talk, as Raina brewed coffee. Some laughter rose, everyone greeted Sebastian and Bela in choir, as they entered through the door. Bela was saluted by Anders as the saviour of the day, since she brought Starbucks for everyone. Which brought Raina to complain aloud, because her coffee was delicious and he was so ungrateful she couldn’t even believe it, with all the love she poured in every cup! The last to arrive, Fenris rebuked that love couldn’t savage dirty water, which was mistaken for coffee, this far south.

The whole group started a huge debate about coffee, then, as the cups were distributed.

Merrill zoned out, tho: she sent her code, and some new string had appeared on the monitor, something new which she never saw. She bent forward, taking a pen to munch it slightly, as she concentrated. She was close, but to what? Custom made codes were always the worst and the best, and this was surely a challenge. She had to move carefully, tho, unless-

“There’s fume coming out from your ears, you know?”

She jumped on her chair, gasping. Turning around, there was Raina standing beside her, a lopsided smile on her face as she looked at her with two starbucks cups, one in each end.

“I- Uh, sorry, I was… I was concentrated and didn’t see you coming.”

“I should get more effort, then.” She chuckled, stepping even closer and depositing a cup on her desk, beside the notebook she took notes into, and turning it ever so slightly. “Brought you coffee. Flat black, no sugar, right?”

“Y-yes, thank you.”

“How’s it going? Looks like the Matrix, here.”

“I’m making progress, I think?” Merrill answered, happy to reach a topic she was more at ease with. “I bypassed the fifth firewall, now there’s this new strings, but I think I am close in accessing the actual system. I have to find what it is and what it does, and I think that will be it.”

“You did it?” She asked, surprised.

“Well- Yes. I think so. It could just be a way to trick me into making an alarm sound, but I’m very careful. It’s always more complex with custom-made codes, and this one was made by someone good, but-”

“What does it mean?”

Raina asked, pointing her right hand on the desk and bending forward, squinting her blue eyes to look at the screen better and read the code on it. She seemingly didn’t care if the movement gave Merrill a too close view of her decolletè that deranged her train of thoughts all over again.

“I- Uh- Well-” She blabbered, forcing herself to move and say something -her eyes were up there- and trying to gain some professionalism back again. “- I still- I still am not so sure. It looks like a password bypass, but it’s not a crittography system I’m used to. I’ll leave it like that until I can decode it, I have a simulator on the laptop and- and-”

She would have gone further, but Raina sighed. It wasn’t loud, but it was there. She shifted on her spot, straightening her back again and taking a long sip from her mug, looking at the monitor with a slight frown. Merrill shifted on her chair uncomfortably, not understanding what she did wrong.

“Did I say something wrong?” She asked, nervous.

“Uh?” The rogue snapped from her thoughts, returning to look down at her with the usual bonariety, after a moment of surprise. “No, Daisy, you’re incredible and you’re way further with the timings that we ever hoped. Good job, and thank you.”

She switched the cup from her left hand to her right, and with the left gave her a pat on her shoulder. She kept the contact, too much to be casual.

“I was just thinking that it would be nice if you’d spend more time with us all there, if you want.” Raina continued, her voice without, for some reason, the usual assuredness. “We’re a bunch of idiots, but we’re all nice idiots. Or so I hope!” She laughed, hard and loud, again too loud to be casual about it.

“I… If I don’t bother you…”

“You don’t, Daisy, really. We’ll all be glad to have you.” Her hand gave a squeeze on her shoulder, before letting go. She stepped back, clearing her throat. “Well. Some more than others.”

And with that, hiding her cheeks blushing by turning her back to Merrill, she walked back to the couch and left her to mull over what just happened. There was a choir of compliments at her, which the Rogue batted away easily with some witty remarks, before plopping down on the armrest of the armchair, legs spread wide without a care in the world.

Work, first. Merrill had a job to do, from which depended her future. She could pay for Tamlen’s bills, with those money, and stop working two jobs.

But maybe, she could give it a try, and socialize more.

After all, working in presence, and not from home and the security of anonymity wasn’t all that bad.

---

“Excuse me, miss.”

The voice called again, full of irritation from the opening of the wardrobe little stall. Merrill hissed silently through her teeth, quickly slipping her headset off and leaving it on the side of her laptop, on top of a folded fur bolero that didn’t fit on any of the hangers. She quickly stepped to the opening, donning her best smile. It came off full of nerves, and the man who was waiting for her with his haughty wife rose a white eyebrow at her.

“Pardon me, sir. Would you wish for your coats back?”

“Of course, we would.” The lady scoffed, with the most annoying voice Merrill ever heard. “We’ve been dinging the bell non stop in the last five minutes, we understood this is not the bathroom. We’re not stupid, you know? We’re not wardrobe staff.”

Merrill took the tags with the numbers from her gloved hand and smiled at her, resisting the urge of telling her off and bragging about how she had an MA in Informatical Engineering and highly doubted of the lady’s intelligence, now. But, her task was otherwise, she had to get back to the computer as soon as possible, and she needed to attract the least possible attention. So, she quickly looked for the hanger labelled with the corresponding numbers and made a quick way to give the coats -well, one coat and the hugest fur around, a heavy coarse thing that was surely just for show than for anything else.

After hearing a couple complaints more about the service in this place and youths these days that just made her antsier and antsier, the couple finally left, and she could rush back to the chair and her true job for the evening. She put the headset back again and pressed the key to speak.

“Raccoon? Raccoon do you copy?”

She asked, frantically, tapping keys madly to get a hold on where she and Bela were. They moved around and- Ah.

“Copy, Daisy, we’re here. We lost you a minute, all on track?”

“Clients. All on track.”

She zoomed in through the cameras, in time to see the duo tying the three guards that found her when she had to leave them alone. The two women seemed to be faring well, but she could ask directly, instead of trying to make sense of unfocused details. She pressed another key and jumped to another camera. And another.

“Are you fine? Raccoon, Captain?”

“We are, Daisy, thank you. They weren’t expecting us to put up a fight.” Isabela answered, huffing through her mic. “Just hot and bothered, I supposed it won’t be a problem.”

Some commotion, and Bela launched an “Ouch!”

“Ignore her, Daisy, we’re fine.” Raina scoffed, grumpily. “All clear, outside?”

Another camera and- Oh, shit.

“No, Raccoon, it isn’t clear.”

“What?”

“Ten security agents coming your way from the study, and five more heading towards the stairway up from the ballroom.”

“Shit.” Raina hissed. “Can you find us an escape route?”

“Wait-”

Merrill started to press frantically keys, jumping from one camera to the other in a frenzy. If any other person would have arrived to ask for a coat, her friends would have been caught red-handed. She had to move quickly, tuning out the two bantering in her ears between them, discussing over a solution that involved jumping from the window, and whether it would have left them able to run away. Left, right… And the more she looked, the more she saw the agents coming closer, blocking one access to the aeration system after the other…

… The more she realized that it was over. They would have been caught. The only solution was to play over it and at least save themselves. The whole heist was organized to steal from Varric’s brother the one piece of another heist that framed Raina and sent her to 3 years in jail. And the idea of Raina back inside a cell, suddenly was the first thing she felt she didn’t want. The debt she had to repay could wait some more, she didn’t care. But Raina-

“Raccoon.” She said, at last, heart beating fast.

“Daisy?”

“Put the idol back and turn left outside the door.”

“What the-”

“Now.” She exclaimed. “Please.”

Raina stood silent, for one, two, three seconds… And then she heard a loud sigh.

“Come on.”

She wasn’t happy. But turning momentarily to the camera to Bartrand’s room, she could see her running back to the safe box, putting the idol back in and closing it. With a sigh, she returned to spy on the guards. Close, but losing time checking every room, on the floor, and the ones below slowed down by the guests.

She guided the two women out and left, down a corridor. Told Isabela to enter the library and slip in the goods lift. It was there since the old times, when there was another dining room instead of the library, and Fenris had opened it, infiltrating in the former days as a member of the staff. Raina, instead, she had staying in the corridor, looking confused, very close to the stairway and walking inward as she came up there from the ballroom just recently. She played the part with her usual charm, acting terribly confused when the guards that found her told her she wasn’t supposed to be there. Add the elegant two piece set, the silken white shirt that left enough to be imagined, the diamond collier, and a wig of long, firey red hair, the faked Starkhaven accent, and it wasn’t long before the guards were convinced that she was just the Nth rich lady that didn’t think boundaries were there for her as well.

She chirped her outrage in not being able to go where she wanted, but let them guide her back on the stairs, and redirected on the story where the guests to the gala were allowed. With a last “My father will hear of this, lads!” she was back down, and on safer ground. Headed to the bathroom where they had hidden a backup dress just in case she needed a quick change. Like now.

When the guards entered Bartrand’s private room, they only found three colleagues, unconscious. And the only person who was seen on the upper story was nowhere to be found. Sebastian Vael, the one the redhead had come with, acted positively out of himself at the preposterous accusation that his friend, such a gracious and proper lady, could do such a thing. The cameras wouldn’t have shown anything but void corridors, after all.

Nobody noticed, in the confusion, that the kitchen staff gained an extra waitress. A tall one, with short cropped hair, maybe with too much make up for just a waitress, but who could really care?

Merrill slipped her headset off, disappointed by how the evening had turned out. The plan was for Raina to slip back in the ballroom and hide the idol in a special harness inside Sebastian’s jacket. Because no one would have searched Starkhaven’s prince without his consent, not in an elegant gala dinner in the house of a distinguished member of the merchant’s guild in Kirkwall.

And yet, the idol was back where it had been for the last three years and a half, the plan had failed.

All that work, and for nothing. Merrill left the headset on the laptop when Isabela confirmed she arrived safely in the kitchen, and that was it. She ended the evening as the wardrobe girl, gained at least other ten classist remarks, and stopped by the HR office to get her paycheck for the evening, as every other person of the staff… Except, of course, for Raina.

There was that, she thought, as she tied her scarf around her neck better and made her way to the small flat she had rented. Not to the loft: that was for four weeks from now, for safety.

It would have been a long, long month.

She couldn’t wait to see Raina again, and yet she didn’t want to face her and see the accusation on her face. Hear her say it was her fault. Not that. Anything but that.

She felt very stupid with her own silly crush.

---

Merrill entered the old pub in a rush, breathing heavily through her nose.

She didn’t even stop to properly dress: she was still in her pjs, a pair of leggings and a loose shirt. Didn’t wore her socks and just slipped a pair of shoes and a coat on her arms, and rushed there.

Because when she opened her bank account, six months after the failed heist, there wasn’t just her office paycheck, but also the half of a million that she was promised for the job. And she had no idea how it even got there.

“Daisy?” Raina asked, surprised, looking at her from behind the old bar counter, equally in her pjs, hair in disarray pointing everywhere on her head, a fuming mug of coffee in one hand and a moka -a gift of Fenris “For my palate and the greater good”- in the other.

“I- Uh-” She panted, short of breath after running all the way there. “The- The money… I- What??”

Raina blinked twice, contracting her eyebrows until realization stroke her.

“Oh! Oh yes… That was your paycheck. Why? Was the sum wrong? Did I enter a zero less?” She asked, seemingly ill at ease. “Shit don’t tell me I inserted the wrong sum- Uuuuurgh!”

She groaned, leaving her mug on the counter and turning to the other side of the counter, putting the moka under cold water in the sink to cool it down quicker.

“I told Varric that he should have sent the money himself, but no! I could do it on my own! And look at that!”

She kept grumbling aloud, unscrewing the two pieces of the machine and arming to set it ready to brew some more coffee. Merrill closed the door behind her, walking to the opening that lead behind the bar as she caught her brain again. By the time she got there, Raina had successfully filled the sink with grated beans, and put the moka back on the stove, switching it on. The air smelled like coffee, and Raina crouched down between raised knees, rummaging through the cabinet of sweets. She did look like a raccoon, Merrill had to admit, and the image made her giggle.

“The sum was right.” She admitted. Raina turned back, eyes wide and mouth opened in a oh. She sighed heavily and plopped on her butt, and Merrill continued, blushing because she found the other too cute. “I just was thinking… Where does the money come from?”

Raina turned, raising up back again and righting her tank top better on her bust. It had a stylized face of a raccoon and “Trash Panda” written in red all around.

“Why, that was your paycheck. You worked hard and even agreed on not keeping anonymous, it’s only right you get paid.”

The rogue shrugged, crossing her arms under her chest and leaning her hip on the counter, looking at her with a doubt. Merrill frowned at that.

“Yes, but… I know Varric has money, but… But those are too much-”

“Don’t you need to pay the hospital bills for your brother?”

“Y- Yes, but…! But the heist failed, and- And it’s too much for me, and- I made you leave the idol down!”

Her voice was starting to get shrill. Fantastic. But in front of her, instead of getting angry as Merrill supposed to, Raina smirked, eyes growing sharp.

“Do you think the heist failed?”

“I- What?”

Raina laughed. This laughter was a genuine one, the boisterous, loud one that shook all her body and usually dragged others to laugh as well. But now, Merrill was too puzzled to laugh, and could only stood there, at the edge of the kitchen corner, looking at the other slapping a hand on her thigh.

“Oh, it didn’t fail. Yes, the idol is still there… But it wasn’t the only target, you see.”

“What?”

Raina smiled, stepping forward towards her.

“You see, we had thought that if the security was on alarm, an escape plan would have required us to leave everything down and run. So, we devised a plan B. A heist inside the heist.”

She stepped forward, casually, swaying her hips purposefully. Merrill felt her mouth dry.

“See, when all the security ran to catch us, alarmed by the nice guys we fought, Varric, Anders and Fenris entered the house from a fireplace in the old nursery. Conveniently close to the study with the bigger safe with goods that dear old Bartrand may have forgotten to declare in his taxes.” She explained, very casually. “A secret passage that not even Bartrand knows of. Because dear old Bartrand never looked below him. Never cared to look down… At the passage that leads from Darktown right into his house.”

“Secret passage?”

“Oh yes. Most old mansions in Hightown have them. My mother’s house had one. Old escape routes, a defensive system of sort. They work also the other way around… If you know how to open them.”

“I…” Merrill felt, suddenly, very left out. “… You didn’t tell me.”

“Of course not!” Raina snorted. “You were on the frontline, everyone saw you there. In the worst-case scenario of you getting caught, you needed to know only of plan A. I would have taken the blame for it, and the real heist would have slipped out of your shoulders like water under a bridge.”

Raina stopped in front of Merrill, uncrossing her arms. Close. A little too close.

“Are you angry at me?” Raina asked, weirdly vulnerable.

“I… Why would you have taken the blame? We were all in there…” Merrill looked up, frowning. She understood why she didn’t have to know. The reasoning made sense and she was grateful for it, but that part… That part left her ill at ease.

“Because I wasn’t anyone before jail. I don’t have a degree, I was passable as a waitress a best, and never could keep a regular job for more than a year. I have three years in prison on my shoulders, which make me…” She looked up, searching the right word. “Unemployable? Difficultly employable? Whatever.” She shrugged, dismissing the fact as if it was nothing. “You, tho? You have a future. You have the titles and the brains for something that’s not trying to scrape by and bribe Aveline to close three eyes on you because she owes you. You have a way out, and…” She shrugged again, crossing her arms back on her chest, shoulders slouching forward. “… and you’re always so kind and nice. You deserved a way out.”

Merrill didn’t know what to say. Because of the words and the thought, so caring for a person who had such a strong façade of “Anything goes”, like nothing in this life really mattered much to her. Because of the way she avoided her eyes now, looking to the side in a pose that screamed that she was on the defensive. She didn’t want her to feel inferior, not to her.

“I had fun.” Merrill blurted out, effectively having Raina turn to look at her. “I… I never was good with people. During university Tamlen was sick, and… And I just studied, without making many friends. I always say the wrong thing, or at the wrong time, but here… Here I had fun. It was… I felt at ease, with you all, idiots as you may call them… As you may call us?” She prodded, shily.

“How, you’re not an idiot.”

“Neither are you.”

They giggled, the air turning awkward, all of a sudden, the distance between them too little, and at the same time, way too much. The loft was quiet, it was still fairly early for everyone to be fast asleep. Merrill was waited for in the office in an hour, and she was running late. Right now, tho, she couldn’t care less.

“So.” Raina cleared her throat. “Are you angry at me?” She asked again, with a smaller smile right for her. A smile she never saw her turning to anyone, with something shy in it. Utterly adorable.

“A little. Next time, maybe tell me everything, ok? I’m not fragile.” She smiled, in spite of her best option, leaning minutely forward. Doing more felt wrong, but-

“Next- Oh.” Raina blushed, all the way to her ears, as Merrill stepped forward and brushed her fingers on her elbow. “Oh. I- Uh- Well-” Another nervous laugh. “I’m sorry? Should I- Can I do something to fix it…?”

It was, indeed, utterly adorable, how this force of a woman, so assured and so talented -in spite of how she spoke of herself, she was resourceful and clever, like all raccoons were- let down so much and appeared so vulnerable and young. Merrill smiled brightly, looking briefly down at her lips.

“There is one thing…”

It was early morning, her bank account was full of money, she had not made the heist of a lifetime fail, and she felt brave.

She hopped on tiptoes and kissed Raina.

She tasted like coffee.

Like real good coffee.

[still-single]

Records I Am Glad to Have Found in 2023: Part 1

Instead of rufflin' whatever (feather) maybe it's better that there's just a place where I can tell you that my life is better for having found these records and having them within reach. Maybe you might wanna reach for them as well. Up to you! Maybe feel fortunate that I want to engage with Tumblr at all, but the 16 or so accounts who said (anonymously) that they miss my review content may get a kick out of all this, and see where my head's at now.

New records, not-new records, things I bought, things that were sent to me, things I bartered for. Fair play.

First up, this Beau Wanzer record that I wrote up a while back. I feel exactly the same about it. It's new as of January and there aren't many releases out there like it at the moment. Undead, shufflin' Beau hours. One of my favorite DJs and electronic musicians in Chicago, he really does not seem to walk any path other than his own.

Al B. Sure! - In Effect Mode LP (Uptown/Warner Bros., 1988)

Growing up in my early teens, two songs from Al B. Sure!'s debut album were more or less inescapable: the masterful slow jam "Nite and Day," and the more uptempo quasi-diss track "Off On Your Own (Girl)." I never owned the record (why would I, this always seemed like a "why buy the cow" situation), and it never seemed to turn up used, something I better understand now.

This thing is great! It's short, mindful of our time and Al's. Side 1 contains four slow jams (the Nite! side), kicking off with the classic "Nite and Day" (so much rooftop glare and World Trade Center fixation in the vid) and cascading down into the whisper/falsetto/snap percussion ballad "Oooh This Love Is So" (kinda like an older brother NKOTB slow jam, really well arranged, FM synths cresting over top with some tasteful guitar buried underneath). His take on Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly" is doctor's office soft, but works where the Fugees' take doesn't, as Al seems to know there's no improving on the original, and he's lucky just to put it in his framework. "Naturally Mine" is like the shadowy flipside to the majesty of the opener, and doesn't come close, but also doesn't need to; the Teddy Riley guitar work does a lot on its own.

Side 2 (the Day! side) turns on the lights for some more uptempo New Jack Swing template jams. Opener "Rescue Me" sounds like two songs that were somehow merged into one, but that may just be the tonal difference between the intro and verse structure.

"Off On Your Own (Girl)" is neatly, nearly perfect, with quiet, pressurized syncopation, Al's bellyache storytellin' (sits by the phone a lot, it seems), and a delivery, particularly in the chorus, which says so much more than the title states. I'm particularly enamored of his switching between judgmental sing-speak/orchestra hit stress and his bracing falsetto. On the stremf! He even throws us a Slick Rick impression in a bridge. Last two tracks seem interchangeable but that's fine; you don't serve surf after the turf, even if you're coming in hot with bass pounds.

Uptown is generally a welcome sign of quality for this time and place; from Al to Heavy D., Guy to Jodeci. Andre knew what was up. Cool cat logo too.

Honestly there are probably other Al jams worth seeking out, and of course his performance in New Jack City when he fingers Ice-T as a narc with those Bert eyebrows of his. Most people don't hit this sort of success right out of the gate, and that's the needle he threads so effortlessly here.

Ron Morelli – Heart Stopper 2xLP (L.I.E.S., 2023)

Ron was one of the first people I met when I moved to NYC in 2000, and for a while I was regularly having lunch with him, Steve Roche, Adam Paterson, and Matt Smith at the Uptown Juice Bar in lower Manhattan, when we were all working in some sort of office and/or dot-com capacity, going to ABC No Rio and the like. I'd fall in and out of that orbit for a while over the next 6-7 years, as bands formed and broke up, people worked up their DJ chops, etc. At some point Ron moved down to Philly and was grinding in a more formal club DJ capacity before coming back to NYC and starting L.I.E.S., living in the trap, and working at A-1 in the East Village. It wasn't easy, even in that orbit, to find the L.I.E.S. releases, but the quality was always there.

I fell off a bit due to life and the like, missed a lot of Ron's Hospital output (as well as a lot of later L.I.E.S., again due to life stuff; the last one I gripped from the initial run was Florian Kupfer's Lifetrax), and last I knew he had relocated to Paris. Living in Chicago has given me more of an opportunity to interface with house music as it happened, with proximity to the records and DJs in clubs, to where it started to click with me. Heart Stopper retains this same sort of focus, drilling down on the repetition and stress/release of the foundational cuts of the initial era. My fave here is "Tangled Trap of Love," a big nod to Master C & J's "Face It," but I've found myself putting this record on and letting it roll to the close more often than most I've favored this year. Didn't make it to the Podlasie Club back in May, but I did appreciate this (paywalled) interview in the First Floor Substack, the guy I remember so well playing stoically to the bozos up front, dialing down style to the horizon where it meets substance and accepting nothing less.

(Doug Mosurock)

[plethomacademia]

for the fake fic game!!

title: north star

tags: first time

Answering these!! Title: North Star

Tags: first time, astarion/dark urge, two vulnerable people trying to slightly lower their walls, bad impulse control meets profound memory loss

Summary: After Maeve and Astarion have sex for the first time, they try something new: having an actual conversation.

Snippet below cut bc I said the c word like three sentences in. The North Star would be later when they talk about finding their way if they don't go to Baldur's Gate but uh I went too long.

Maeve raises her arms above her chest, the arch of her back causing every sharp pine needle and root to seem to come out of the ground beneath her. She leans into the scratch of it, lets the pain of tiny cuts mix in with the throbbing her her neck and her cunt, the ache of her back, and the satisfying soreness in her scalp. For the first time since she can remember, it is enough and she finally feels a sense of calm.

Her partner clears his throat. He is sitting up, vegetable matter threaded into his curls. "So, do you think he will be able to cure us?" When she raises her eyebrow in question, he rolls his eyes. "The druid. It seems like a lot of effort, killing a whole pack of goblins on the off chance he will be more useful than the rest have been."

They have seen a whole parade of would be saviors since their adventure had began: a lesser druid, a hag, a devil, a mysterious figure that haunts their dreams. All of them have fallen short and she understands his insinuation: if all of them couldn't save them, why would this druid be any different?

She does not hesitate to answer. "No." He starts to reply and she cuts in, "But, yes it seems like a waste of time but consider, Astarion. Best case, he can cure us. Worst case, he owes us."

"You're forgetting the actual worse case, darling." He pauses for effect and she thinks of actors, of stages, of plays that she almost remembers watching. He might fit on one, if he practiced more. "We could be killed."

"We seem quite difficult to kill so far. No, I think the actual worst case is we manage to kill the druid while we kill the goblins. Then we will have done all that work for nothing."

He laughs, a full bark of a laugh that she has not heard from him before. "Gods, imagine. You know, the others would say it was for the greater good or something."

"Well, they aren't here so we don't have to pretend, do we?"

He looks down at her, not at her bare breasts or torso or legs or even his teeth mark on her neck, but at her. She looks at him as well as she can under moonlight filtered through trees and for a brief moment, they see each other.

He glances away and when he looks back, his smile is sharp and his eyes are guarded. She feels her face do the same.

"That we don't." His red eyes move as if to track down her body now but she doesn't feel them on her. A stage direction. A transition. "Your blood has invigorated me quite thoroughly. Perhaps there's something better we can do with our tongues than prattle on?"

[dianessunflower]

Art in The Good Fight (2017-2022) - Part 2

part 1 here:

this part 2 is mostly about s6, because i think you can really track what the art is doing for story and character. so, let's get into it!!

still mad the new partner Ri'Chard took away this beauty, but they're forgiven for 603's art history references.

in the scene with the Dr, Diane mentions Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, originally attributed to Pieter Bruegel the Elder (oil on canvas, c. 1560). it's in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels.

this is absolutely fascinating, because the composition of the painting is original—to give prominence to the 'low' subject matter, being the agricultural figure, rather than Icarus, to whom Diane is drawn. this is called 'Mannerist inversion' (yes i screamed, i'm a nerd).

this piece is brilliantly used this ep. Icarus, small, drowns unnoticed by everyone else. death happens all the time, and we move on. i'm reminded of Diane's sane little corner. the world is oblivious to the tragedy of hubris, concerned only with themselves. seems apocalyptic...

which leads me to my next point. behind the Dr is a Jean Andran engraving of a painting called Winter, part of a Seasons series now in the Louvre by Nicolas Poussin from the 1660s. and what does it depict? the flood. 100% premonition of impending death.

i love that *someone* has done their NY homework and seen that Guggenheim Hilma af Klint exhibit (i am not jealous at all), because also in the Dr's office is af Klint's Tree of Knowledge, No. 5 (Kunskapens träd, nr 5), from the 1915 W Series.

for various reasons, af Klint was for a long time ignored in favour of Kandinsky, Mondrian, Kupka etc in modern Western nonrepresentational art (also her queerness 🍵). her work has two overlapping levels, one biographical and one relating to the history of humanity.

the Tree of Knowledge series is part of her series of 193 Paintings for the Temple, which was af Klint's vision for the future as given to her by a spiritual medium, to depict 'the immortal aspects of man'. hence, she uses iconography from Christianity and Hinduism.

each piece in the Tree of Knowledge series is a variation on a theme, a tree with a heart-shaped crown. and there's a progression to the biblical allusion to Genesis symbolising innocence to fall from Grace, but there are also organic forms and ornate details.

the Tree of Knowledge (of Good and Evil) is usually paired with the

symbol of the Tree of Life, and in af Klint's work, signals binaries melding into unity. but the tree also signals Buddhism (the fig tree), the Tau/life force, the Arasa Maram in Hinduism.

the colours have meaning, yellow for female and blue for male. put them together and it becomes green, and the colours have become purer. this is No. 5, so the white radiations that were pale rose-coloured in No. 4 are now inverted.

af Klint probably knew Rudolf Steiner's colour meanings—yellow as spirit, blue as soul. green as the lifeless image of the living, peach-blossom the living image of the soul. white as the soul's image of the spirit, black as the spiritual image of the lifeless (cf swans).

the 12 sections in the top lotus leaf crown seem to represent the zodiac, months. also, there's a multi-coloured, lobed 'cross' in the small box middle-right, which maybe suggests the first awakening of the higher self?? compare this to the unity of colourful two birds in the bottom circle. there's a lot to be said about how this art represents how humans navigate their smallness in the world.

as seen on 604 in Diane's office, this is Street Musicians, by the American artist Norman Lewis (oil on canvas, 1948). part of the post-war movement.

from 605, i have identified some of the pieces Ri'Chard chose for the office, and they were clearly chosen for reasons. (unfortunately i couldn't find Liz's but i love the home decor and don't doubt this was also carefully chosen.)

this is by Kara Walker, known for room-size tableaux of black cut-paper silhouettes. her work illustrates the origins & legacy of slavery in the American South. i suspect there's a Civil War reference too. the 1994 piece riffs on Gone With The Wind (MOMA).

i really love this one. this is Holy Mountain II by Horace Pippin, a self-taught artist post WW1. he was influenced by Edward Hicks, a Quaker minister who painted interpretations of Isaiah’s biblical prophecy of world peace and harmony in nature (Peaceable Kingdom, c 1830-32).

though the gatherings seem tranquil, the Holy Mountain series is very dark. poppies, soldiers, grave markers, a limp body hanging from a tree... Holy Mountain I refers to D-Day, Holy Mountain II to Pearl Harbor Day, & Holy Mountain III (Smithsonian) to Nagasaki.

so there are parallels between WW1/Civil War, but it is also very Eden-esque. i rather like that the pastoral figure in a white dress with the yellow cheetah is the centre focus. all very biblical, which fits right in with Ri'Chard's style. Pippin himself stated that,

"'Holy Mountain' came to my mind because the whole world is in such trouble, and in reading the Bible (Isaiah 11:6) it says that there will be peace in the land. If a man knows nothing but hard times he will paint them, for he must be true to himself, but even that man may have a dream, an ideal and 'Holy Mountain' is my answer to such dreaming."

i was thinking about how much gold Ri'Chard brought into the office in the context of his Brand™ (1 & 2 old decor, 3 & 4 new, but none identified yet oop)

there are other etchings in the Dr's office: top: 'Rotherhithe' by James McNeill Whistler from the Thames Set (1860, V&A) bottom: 'Clearing a wreck on the north coast of Cornwall' by Thomas Rowlandson (c 1809-1822, British Museum).

Dr Dude likes ships that's all i can say 🤷‍♀️ but actually i think there's something interesting about all the Flood references in the Dr's office, like Diane is drowning. possibly, there's a subtle allusion to a very famous painting, Le Radeau de la Méduse, by Théodore Géricault (1818-19, oil on canvas, Louvre).

this is an icon of French Romanticism, depicting the aftermath of the wreck of the French naval frigate Méduse, which ran aground off the coast of what is now Mauritania on 2 July 1816. what's so interesting about this painting is that it presents ordinary people, rather than heroes, reacting to the unfolding drama. as Christine Riding says, the painting represents,

"the fallacy of hope and pointless suffering, and at worst, the basic human instinct to survive, which had superseded all moral considerations and plunged civilised man into barbarism."

by 607, Diane's office art has changed to a piece called Three Tumblers by Daniel Clarke (2018), perhaps a reference to her revolving office bar. also did we notice her flower obsession has dulled a little? but there are still orchids all around the office. i'll leave you to google the meaning of the original Greek word 👀

elsewhere in the office, FIRES abound on the digital screen in the conference room. flood, fire…and?

where there's a mansion, there's sure to be art (609): Asher Brown Durand, Landscape—Scene from "Thanatopsis" (1850, Met); Max Ferdinand Bredt, In the Courtyard of the Harem; John Frederick Lewis, Intercepted Correspondence (1869).

in 609 when same sex marriage is overturned (and Christine Baranski's acting chops is on full show with her shocked face), the image on the tv screen is Witch burning in Regenstein, Saxony-Anhalt, 1555. It's a wood engraving after an original printed on flyleaf (Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg).

frankly there's a lot of misinformation about witch trials, not least of which is that they happened a lot later than most people think (ie. not the medieval period). the early modern period 16-17th centuries were the height of the European witchcraft trials.

and it was an ongoing, systematic persecution that resulted from the targetting of Christian heretics and Jews throughout the 14th century, and gradually both the church and scholars became more and more obsessed with demonology. it was really about the 'other', the concern about the loss of a certain way of life.

Diane, of course, calls herself a wench, so i think it's interesting that her s6 arc eventuates with her heading up a female-only law firm in DC working on women's rights and Roe v Wade. i dislike the way that the word 'witchhunt' is misappropriated like other historical terms in modern contexts, but it's probably fair to call the current backsliding on women's rights a witchhunt. so i love this double meaning.

finally, i wanted to return to how Diane's office art tracks her journey. the Surrealist art was the tone of the show throughout. but the violence seeped into the everyday and everyone just got used to it. hence the second painting is war (contrast the flowers).

but then Diane chooses to stop PT108. almost immediately, a bullet lands on the realist painting of a woman (where does she end up? in Washington DC fighting the good fight for women).

the violence doesn't end there. and then the office literally explodes & you can see a painting is off-centre. which seems like a good metaphor for where the world is at.

so yeah, the progression in Diane's office from Peony Girl to Post-War to a painted version of Chris is just chef's kiss. the way it tracks her psyche in s6? i'm obsessed.

[celaka]

just to clarify a few things regarding threads / replies:

when transferring threads from my old blog i post them in a new thread instead of reblogging. i don’t want to be associated w my old blog, it just gives me an icky anxious feeling for some reason v_v sorry if that bothers anyone, just bear w me for a bit 

replies to my opens are also moved to a new post for easier tracking. tumblr sucks at showing notes, even then i tend to lose threads in activity since they pile up pretty quickly. just let me know if i missed your reply and i’ll go hunting for it (please wait a week or two before doing this though, my replies always run on untagged queue)

i learned that i really struggle with first time meetings, purple prose and long threads in general, it might take a while for me to get to them. i tend to prioritize simpler, shorter threads so i don’t get too stressed with the amount of drafts i owe. please don’t take this personally! if we have a lengthy thread i have yet to get to, i’d totally be down to start new smol threads so we always have stuff going

i am still shit at writing starters, especially closed ones because i overthink... a lot and i have this ridiculous fear of accidentally godmodding your muses sfhjd. i try to like starter calls when i see them but if not, feel free to send in memes and specify muse(s) or reply to my opens anytime, i’ll get back to them when i can c:

sorry for the rambles! i don’t want people to misunderstand and it’s never anything personal. i just have a lot of issues that i’m too ashamed to disclose but i’m trying my best so i hope this helps fdjsd

[this-week-in-rust]

This Week in Rust 468

Hello and welcome to another issue of This Week in Rust! Rust is a programming language empowering everyone to build reliable and efficient software. This is a weekly summary of its progress and community. Want something mentioned? Tweet us at @ThisWeekInRust or send us a pull request. Want to get involved? We love contributions.

This Week in Rust is openly developed on GitHub. If you find any errors in this week's issue, please submit a PR.

Updates from Rust Community

Official

Announcing Rust 1.65.0

Project/Tooling Updates

rust-analyzer changelog #154

IntelliJ Rust Changelog #182

This Month in Rust OSDev: October 2022 | Rust OSDev

This Week in Fyrox

Cap'n Proto - Generic Associated Types

Gitoxide - Cloning the Linux kernel in under a minute

This week in Fluvio #48: The programmable streaming platform

Observations/Thoughts

Scoped threads in Rust, and why its async counterpart would be unsound

34 Must Know Terms for Embedded Rust Newbies

what if pointer properties were in the rust type system

mmap(1Tb): A Rust arena allocator (ab)using Linux overcommit

Contributing to Rust: Bootstrapping the Rust Compiler (rustc)

The ‘Viral’ Secure Programming Language That’s Taking Over Tech

[FR] Rust par le Métal : move, clone, copy (series)

[FR] Rust par le Métal (Annexe) : Les bases de nombres (series)

Rust Walkthroughs

Tauri vs. Electron for Tray Apps

Running Rust in AWS Lambda with SAM — Part 1

Tower, Episode 2: calling a Tower Service

Writing an eBPF/XDP Load-Balancer in Rust

Floating Point Arcade

[video] Cost-Efficient Rust in Practice, Rust Tokyo

Research

Can Rust-wrapped C++ offer performance and stability benefits?

Miscellaneous

Lynx Joins AdaCore and Ferrous Systems to Bring Rust to Embedded Developers

[video] RUST 1.65 - let-else statements - new language feature!!!

[video] The Rust Programming Language for Game Tooling

[video] Bencher—Catch Performance Regressions in CI @ Rust DC, September 20, 2022 w/ Everett Pompeii

[video] Impractical Rust: The HATETRIS World Record @ Rust DC, October 18, 2022 w/Dave Freiberg+Felipe Suero

[DE] Programmiersprache Rust 1.65 führt Generic Associated Types ein

[DE] Ferris Talk #12: Web-APIs mit Rust erstellen

Crate of the Week

This week's crate is enum_delegate, a crate to replace dynamic dispatch with enum dispatch.

Thanks to Devin Brite for the suggestion!

Please submit your suggestions and votes for next week!

Call for Participation

Always wanted to contribute to open-source projects but didn't know where to start? Every week we highlight some tasks from the Rust community for you to pick and get started!

Some of these tasks may also have mentors available, visit the task page for more information.

FOSDEM 2023 Rust devroom CFP

If you are a Rust project owner and are looking for contributors, please submit tasks here.

Updates from the Rust Project

396 pull requests were merged in the last week

(almost) always use ObligationCtxt when dealing with canonical queries

fix(generic_const_exprs):fix predicate inheritance for children of opaque types

make cpp-like debuginfo type names for slices and str consistent

track where diagnostics were created

rustc_metadata: encode even less doc comments

add multivalue target feature to WASM target

allow use of -Clto=thin with -Ccodegen-units=1 in general

lint against usages of struct_span_lint_hir

stable Lower lint level for read_zero_byte_vec

reduce span of let else irrefutable_let_patterns warning

suggest use .. to fill in the rest of the struct fields

better error for rustc_strict_coherence misuse

correctly resolve Inherent Associated Types

don't silently eat label before block in block-like expr

interpret: fix align_of_val on packed types

make proc_macro_derive_resolution_fallback a hard error

make underscore_literal_suffix a hard error

normalize types when deducing closure signature from supertraits

miri: implement condvars for Windows

miri: initOnce: synchronize with completion when already complete

rewrite implementation of #[alloc_error_handler]

remove bounds check when array is indexed by enum

stabilize the instruction_set feature

implement std::marker::Tuple, use it in extern "rust-call" and Fn-family traits

futures: do not require Clone for Shared::peek

libtest: run all tests in their own thread, if supported by the host

rustdoc: fix merge of attributes for reexports of local items

rustdoc: make Item::visibility computed on-demand

bindgen: add support for the "C-unwind" ABI

bindgen: add the --override-abi option

bindgen: allow callback composition

bindgen: wrap unsafe function's bodies in unsafe blocks

clippy: add allow-print-in-tests config

clippy: add new lint let_underscore_future

clippy: extend needless_collect

clippy: fix ICE in redundant_allocation

clippy: fix unnecessary_join turbofish in suggest message

clippy: improve needless_lifetimes

clippy: move needless_collect to nursery

clippy: shrink missing_{safety, errors, panics}_doc spans

rust-analyzer: add "Convert match to let-else" assist

rust-analyzer: add config for inserting must_use in generate_enum_as_method

rust-analyzer: extracted method from trait impl is placed in existing impl

rust-analyzer: generalize reborrow hints as adjustment hints

rust-analyzer: show signature help when calling generic types implementing FnOnce

rust-analyzer: fix the length displayed for byte string literals with escaped newlines

rust-analyzer: async trait method for unnecessary_async

rust-analyzer: fix reference searching only accounting substrings instead of whole identifiers

rust-analyzer: make custom expr prefix completions to understand refs

rust-analyzer: fixed local shadowing the caller's argument issue

rust-analyzer: lower unsafety of fn pointer and fn item types

rust-analyzer: migrate assists to format args captures, part 3

rust-analyzer: scip: generate symbols for local crates

Rust Compiler Performance Triage

A relatively noisy week (most of those have been dropped below, and comments left on GitHub), but otherwise a quiet one in terms of performance changes, with essentially no significant changes occuring.

Triage done by @simulacrum. Revision range: 822f8c2..57d3c58

2 Regressions, 2 Improvements, 3 Mixed; 3 of them in rollups 39 artifact comparisons made in total

See the full report for more details.

Call for Testing

An important step for RFC implementation is for people to experiment with the implementation and give feedback, especially before stabilization. The following RFCs would benefit from user testing before moving forward:

No RFCs issued a call for testing this week.

If you are a feature implementer and would like your RFC to appear on the above list, add the new call-for-testing label to your RFC along with a comment providing testing instructions and/or guidance on which aspect(s) of the feature need testing.

Approved RFCs

Changes to Rust follow the Rust RFC (request for comments) process. These are the RFCs that were approved for implementation this week:

crates.io token scopes

Final Comment Period

Every week, the team announces the 'final comment period' for RFCs and key PRs which are reaching a decision. Express your opinions now.

RFCs

[disposition: close] RFC 3283: Backward compatible default features

[disposition: close] RFC: Rust SemVer 2

[disposition: postpone] Add named path bases to cargo

Tracking Issues & PRs

No Tracking Issues or PRs entered Final Comment Period this week.

New and Updated RFCs

[new] Create an Operational Semantics Team

[new] Add a --compile-time-deps build flag to cargo build

[new] RFC: Anonymous Associated Types

Upcoming Events

Rusty Events between 2022-11-09 - 2022-12-07 🦀

Virtual

2022-11-09 | Virtual (Cardiff, UK) | Rust and C++ Cardiff

Introduction to Rust Atomics

2022-11-09 | Virtual (Darmstadt, DE) | betterCode

betterCode Rust

2022-11-09 | Virtual (Malaysia, MY) | Rust Malaysia

Rust Meetup November 2022 - a couple of lightning talks

2022-11-10 | Virtual (Budapest, HU) | HWSW free!

RUST! RUST! RUST! meetup (online formában!)

2022-11-10 | Virtual (Nürnberg, DE) | Rust Nuremberg

Rust Nürnberg online #19

2022-11-12 | Virtual | Rust GameDev

Rust GameDev Monthly Meetup

2022-11-15 | Virtual (Nairobi, KE / New York, NY, US)| Data Umbrella Africa

Online: Introduction to Rust Programming | New York Mirror

2022-11-15 | Virtual (Washington, DC, US) | Rust DC

Mid-month Rustful

2022-11-16 | Virtual (Vancouver, BC, CA) | Vancouver Rust

Rust Study/Hack/Hang-out

2022-11-17 | Virtual (Amsterdam, NL) | ITGilde Tech-Talks

Introduction “Rust” an ITGilde Tech Talk delivered by Pascal van Dam

2022-11-17 | Virtual (Stuttgart, DE) | Rust Community Stuttgart

Rust-Meetup

2022-11-21 | Virtual (Paris, FR) | Meetup Paris - École Supérieure de Génie Informatique (ESGI)

Découverte de WebAssembly

2022-11-22 | Virtual (Berlin, DE) | Berlin.rs

Rust Hack and Learn

2022-11-24 | Virtual (Linz, AT) | Rust Linz

Rust Meetup Linz - 27th Edition

2022-11-29 | Virtual (Dallas, TX, US) | Dallas Rust

Last Tuesday

2022-11-30 | Virtual (Munich, DE) | Rust Munich

Rust Munich 2022 / 3 - hybrid

2022-12-01 | Virtual (Charlottesville, VA, US) | Charlottesville Rust Meetup

Exploring USB with Rust

2022-12-06 | Virtual (Buffalo, NY, US) | Buffalo Rust Meetup

Buffalo Rust User Group, First Tuesdays

2022-12-07 | Virtual (Indianapolis, IN, US) | Indy Rust

Indy.rs - with Social Distancing

Europe

2022-11-15 | Tampere, FI | Rust Finland

Rust Meetup in Tampere

2022-11-16 | Paris, FR | Stockly

Rust Meetup in Paris - hosted by Stockly

2022-11-23 | Bratislava, SK | Bratislava Rust Meetup Group

Initial Meet and Greet Rust meetup

2022-11-24 | København, DK | Copenhagen Rust Group

Hack Night #31

2022-11-30 | Amsterdam, NL | Rust Nederland

Rust in Critical Infrastructure

2022-11-30 | Lille, FR | Rust Lille

Rust Lille #1

2022-11-30 | Munich, DE + Virtual | Rust Munich

Rust Munich 2022 / 3 - hybrid

North America

2022-11-10 | Columbus, OH, US | Columbus Rust Society

Monthly Meeting

2022-11-15 | San Francisco, CA, US | San Francisco Rust Study Group

Rust Hacking in Person

2022-11-29 | Austin, TX, US | ATX Rustaceans

Atx Rustaceans Meetup

2022-12-01 | Lehi, UT, US | Utah Rust

Utah Rust meetup

Oceania

2022-11-09 | Sydney, NSW, AU | Rust Sydney

RustAU Sydney - Last physical for 2022 !

2022-11-22 | Canberra, ACT, AU | Canberra Rust User Group

November Meetup

If you are running a Rust event please add it to the calendar to get it mentioned here. Please remember to add a link to the event too. Email the Rust Community Team for access.

Jobs

Please see the latest Who's Hiring thread on r/rust

Quote of the Week

Meanwhile the Rust shop has covers on everything and tag-out to even change settings of the multi-axis laser cutter, but you get trusted with said laser cutter on your first day, and if someone gets hurt people wonder how to make the shop safer.

– masklinn on r/rust

Thanks to Anton Fetisov for the suggestion!

Please submit quotes and vote for next week!

This Week in Rust is edited by: nellshamrell, llogiq, cdmistman, ericseppanen, extrawurst, andrewpollack, U007D, kolharsam, joelmarcey, mariannegoldin, bennyvasquez.

Email list hosting is sponsored by The Rust Foundation

Discuss on r/rust

[theultimatefan]

Kitman Labs announces Performance Intelligence Deal with Danish Superliga Club, FC Midtjylland

Kitman Labs, the global enterprise SaaS company providing the only single, centralized operating platform for performance intelligence in the elite performance industry, today announced a new deal with Danish Superliga club, FC Midtjylland. This deal makes FC Midtjylland the fifth club in the League to subscribe to Kitman’s proprietary, multi-solution advanced operating system, iP: Intelligence Platform. Other clubs adopting the platform include: Aalborg Boldspilklub, Aarhus Gymnastikforening, FC Nordsjaelland and Viborg FF. All five clubs have now been onboarded, the technology has been deployed and will be in use throughout the 2024 season.

In all instances, the clubs have adopted the full suite of Solutions including: Performance Medicine, Performance Optimization and Talent Development. The platform combines medical, performance and talent development data into a single, interactive system that yields actionable intelligence to support specific performance outcomes while providing a complete, comprehensive view of each individual player within the team.

“We are pleased to continue to work with progressive and insightful football clubs the world over. These five clubs - representing close to half of the Danish SuperLiga - show how we can customize each program to support the bespoke needs and objectives of each organization within the League,” Kitman Labs CEO Stephen Smith said. “ Whether it's ensuring a heightened level of regulatory compliance related to personal and medical data or systemizing the most effective talent development pipeline, our technology - combined with the Team’s expertise - has been designed to address the most critical operational needs and objectives of teams and leagues within global sport.”

The Intelligence Platform allows us to gather all of the Club’s data and make it easily accessible to all relevant departments. This applies to everything from training planning to talent development and treatments in the physical sector,” said Sven Graverson, Sporting Director, FC Midtjylland . “With Kitman Labs, the data is available in real time and ensures that there is a common thread from Guldminen to the first team with better insight into the individual player, efficiency of the work process and integration of data into the decision-making process.”

Kitman Labs has an established track record of working with top Leagues and teams across a variety of sports at the professional and collegiate level including, soccer, American football, basketball, and rugby. The company's technology has been used by some of the world's most elite sports organizations, such as Bayer Leverkusen, Malmö FF, and Columbus Crew.

This new business launch follows other recent business strategy moves Kitman Labs has undertaken. That includes the successful close of a $52M Series C funding round led by Guggenheim Investments, a global asset investment and advisory firm with more than $259 billion* in assets under management and two strategic acquisitions of The Sports Office and Presagia Sports, both made in the last two years. The combined companies represent the industry’s largest network of elite and youth organizations (700+) and created the industry’s largest dataset of talent, performance, and medical data for all stages of the athlete lifecycle.

[plungermusic]

“Excuse me for asking… but are you taking the Michael?”

Maybe Plunger have spent too long on the fringes of the blues scene, where everybody is in deadly earnest about what they do (even when you wouldn’t think so…) consequently we approached this album in a wary, “is it all an ironic pose?” state of mind. In our defence Brits do seem to have a problem taking country music entirely seriously (think Hank Wangford or the elevation of comedian Rich Hall to Maverick festival headliner) but Robert ‘Hacker’ Jessett and Anne Gilpin (the backbone of Morton Valence) are self-professed lovers of American roots music, so perhaps we shouldn’t doubt their bona fides. 

The eleven tracks of their eponymously-titled eighth album range considerably further than the borders of what might be thought of as ‘country’, although there’s more than a dash of that in the opening acoustic-led, slow waltz Summertime In London, the mid-paced Poco/Nitty Gritty boogie of I’ve Been Watching You / You’ve Been Watching Me with its twangsome Tele and Loretta/Conway two-way conversational vocals, the Nashville music-box waltz Bob & Veronica’s Big Move and the train-track bustle of Mary’s House, with its suspect lyric delivered in a Gram-and-Emmylou-move-to-Kilburn-style). 

Borderland flavours spice the bobbysox 50s plaint Like A Face That’s Been Starved Of A Kiss (cracking title, by the way) and the latinate slink of Me And My Old Guitar, reaching a peak in the almost full-on tango stop/startness of It Isn’t Easy Being An Angel, while hazy stoner vibes thread through the melancholic A Town Called Home and the rolling toms, bass line and mellotron wash of Together Through The Rain. There’s more trippy haziness plus a bit of Britpop quirk in Jim: where half-mumbled vocals, electric piano and tremolo-heavy hollow-body mix in with the faintly psychedelic swirl.

Surprisingly, there’s a full Byrds/Buffalo Springfieldesque bout of bustling folky Haight-Ashburiana in Brand New Morning: an urgent 6/8 beat from busy drums and bass (Jamie Shaw & Josh de Mita respectively) topped with a twin-voice harmony rapid-fire lead in a very 60s “New dawn” lyric, some Curved Air fiddle twiddles from Dylan Bates and building swirls of Hammond and piano accents (courtesy of Guy Jackson) all make this Plunger’s favourite track.

Justifiably credited with ‘an idiosyncratic songwriting style’, that could apply equally to their vocal stylings: Robert’s ranges across the country-blues spectrum from a very passable, smooth, soulful Ray Sawyer timbre in the opener via stonery drawls and the aforementioned mumble in Jim to a Waitsish delivery in It Ain’t Easy Being An Angel; Anne has a much less obviously ‘country’ style, more Slick/Driscoll 60s arthouse psych-folk, with a more spoken, clearer enunciation and tone, while the pair’s harmonising is often a bit approximate but that rather suits the often conversational approach... and this is Tufnell Park not Tennessee, right?

There’s some lovely instrumentation throughout: BJ Cole (who produced) adds lashings of pedal steel to several tracks, whether mournful as in the opener, coruscating highlights in I’ve Been Watching You… or lush washes like Together Through The Rain and his production touches add depth (like the heavily phased sha-la-las and surprise synth burst in Like A Face…); Amir John Haddad adds accomplished Mexicali acoustic lead flourishes to Me And My Old Guitar; Robert brings a splash of harmonica (rather un Countryish Young style in the opener, and a Do Not Forsake me Oh My Darling meets Last Of The Summer Wine in Bob & Veronica...) while Dylan Bates’ violin also contributes country lines on Bob & Veronica’s Big Move and gypsy fiddle trills, slurs and pizzicato on It Ain’t Easy…

Branding their defiantly English oeuvre ‘urban country’, Morton Valence pretty much pull that off (at more than one point Plunger found themselves recalling sleazy saloons in Camden’s Badlands c.1985!) which makes Morton Valence a pleasing and entertaining listen… 

… even if we still can’t shake the niggling suspicion that there’s an artful North London tongue poked firmly into their post-modern cheeks.

Morton Valence is out tomorrow (18th November 2022) on Cow Pie Recordings 

[polhsub]

Keyup sdl2 rust

KEYUP SDL2 RUST CODE

Gtk.o-cflags := $(GTK_CFLAGS) $(VTE_CFLAGS) To: qemu-devel +Cc: Gerd Hoffmann, Anthony LiguoriĬompile sdl.c / sdl2.c depending on CONFIG_SDLABI instead ofĬompiling both and have version #ifdefs in the source code.ģ files changed, 6 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)ĭiff -git a/ui/Makefile.objs b/ui/Makefile.objs ` (11 subsequent siblings) 12 siblings, 0 replies 14+ messages in thread 9:16 ` sdl2: rename sdl2_state to sdl2_console, move to header file Gerd Hoffmann 9:16 sdl2: fixes, cleanups and opengl preparation Gerd 9:16 ` Gerd Hoffmann

KEYUP SDL2 RUST CODE

* sdl: move version logic from source code to makefile.Sdl2: Work around SDL2 SDL_ShowWindow() bug Sdl2: Use correct sdl2_console for window events Sdl2: move keyboard input code to new sdl2-input.c Sdl2: rename sdl2_state to sdl2_console, move to header file Sdl: move version logic from source code to makefile Sdl2: fixes, cleanups and opengl preparation. Merge remote-tracking branch 'remotes/bonzini/tags/for-upstream' into staging ( 16:43:42 +0000) Patches series other than adding the two fixes from Max. So, here we go with the sdl2 pull request, no changes to v2 ` (12 more replies) 0 siblings, 13 replies 14+ messages in thread 9:16 ` sdl: move version logic from source code to makefile Gerd Hoffmann All of help / color / mirror / Atom feed * sdl2: fixes, cleanups and opengl preparation.

[ruairimcallisterx]

Continued from here from @lucas-lowell

If there was one thing that Ruairi loved, it was fairs, carnivals and all things of that variety. He loved the atmosphere. He loved the food. He loved the games. All of it. It was just a great time. Maybe he loved it so much because when he was growing up, he was essentially deprived of all fun things. But who really knows? The Irishman was standing around, eating a funnell cake when he noticed someone with a camera. His eyes followed where the camera was pointing and it seemed like it was at the caramel apples. Ruairi turned his head backs towards the person and noticed how far away they were from the crowd in general. He could read people very well, considering his occupation. Maybe he could help the guy out.

Funnel cake in hand, he wandered over towards the caramel apple stand and got in line. A few minutes later, he ordered one of the apples and was making his way towards the man with the camera. He stepped in front of it with a grin before he watched the guy quickly turn away, "Nah, you're fine." He said and glanced down the apple, "I uh, bought t'is apple and realized I didn't want it. You want it?" He asked, smiling softly.