#And how horrific it would be for her to have been unable to write/release music about Something

[please-picturemeintheweeds]

I just really keep going back to the intimacy of songwriting (and performing). And how twisted that could get as a diaristic child songwriter who also was participating in the pop culture industry.

[tabloidtoc]

National Enquirer, November 16

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Jeffrey Epstein’s madam Ghislaine Maxwell’s nights with Prince Andrew and teen Virginia Roberts Giuffre

Page 2: Brad Pitt kicked married galpal Nicole Poturalski to the curb after getting flak from his ex Angelina Jolie -- Brad’s relationship with Nicole hit the skids after Brad decided he needed to shore up his image during his ongoing custody battle with Angie and his focus right now is to get his dad image back on track and give Angie no more ammo to fling back at him

Page 3: Tiger Woods’ romance with Erica Herman has gone off course over legal troubles and wedding pressure and bickering over where to live and Tiger is so fed up he’s considering ditching his nagging girlfriend in Florida and moving back to his native California -- Erica’s been pressuring him to put a ring on it ever since she moved into his Jupiter Island mansion and that’s something he just won’t do and she’s already taken over his household buying new furniture and remodeling the master bath and building a new closet and hiring a gourmet chef -- California is looking better and better to Tiger who only moved to Florida to play on its tough Bermuda grass which helped improve his swing but now Tiger’s ex Elin lives in Florida with their two kids 

Page 4: Miranda Lambert is scoffing at ex Blake Shelton’s newly announced engagement to Gwen Stefani and she’s convinced Blake’s third walk down the aisle has failure written all over it because she thinks Blake’s bad to the bone and this marriage will wind up being a total disaster and after the hell Blake put her through Miranda can’t imagine his life with Gwen would be any different, lifelong bachelor Simon Cowell has had a change of heart since his horrific August accident and he’s finally ready to tie the knot with baby mama Lauren Silverman -- after spinal surgery to repair his broken back the entertainment mogul feels lucky to be alive and walking and the one constant in his difficult rehab after surgery has been Lauren and he wants to pay her back with a ring 

Page 5: Train-wreck Wendy Williams’ wacky behavior has TV producers scrambling behind the scenes to find her replacement after her unhinged performance on a recent episode of her talk show where she slurred her words and rambled incoherently -- there had been a hope a chatfest helmed by Nick Cannon could be a safety net should the daytime diva who spent a stint in a sober living house last year not be able to continue hosting but plans for that were pushed back after the comic made anti-Semitic rants in a podcast -- they also tried Jerry O’Connell when Wendy was out for three weeks last year but he tanked with viewers -- Wendy’s a mess and it remains to be seen how long producers will be able to put up with her problems before they decide to pull the plug 

Page 6: Grey’s Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo hinted that she may be making her final rounds -- Ellen who has starred on the show since 2005 and makes $20 million a year admitted she’s considering slipping out of her scrubs after the current season 17 but her departure could spell the end of the beloved series and show creator Shonda Rhimes has said it’s unlikely the show could continue without her but Ellen has also expressed her desire to spend more time with her husband and their three children

Page 7: Mariah Carey’s brother Morgan blasted her memoir as filled with lies and distortions and he’s considering legal action -- the book called Morgan and sister Alison her ex-brother and ex-sister and Mariah wrote Morgan had a long history of violence and when she was six he slammed their mother into a wall -- Mariah also wrote her siblings and mother were heartless in terms of dealing with her as a human being and once she got famous they started treating her like an ATM with a wig on but Morgan is fighting back and looking to hire a lawyer

Page 8: Reese Witherspoon’s marriage to Jim Toth is in the muck after the stunning collapse of his new business venture and tensions are mounting in the Hollywood power couple’s already troubled union now that the streaming service Quibi crumbled after less than six months leaving content acquisition president Jim out of work while Reese’s star continues to rise and there’s a real balance of power that’s been building up and that’s put a serious strain on the relationship -- living in quarantine added to the stress between them as Reese has been holed up with her two kids with ex Ryan Phillippe Ava and Deacon and her son Tennessee with Jim at the family’s ranch in Malibu

Page 9: Dementia patient Kenny Rogers cut his three adult children out of his $250 million will and now sources fear the late country legend could have been tricked into signing the document -- Kenny left everything to his 16-year-old twins sons with fifth wife Wanda and the will also stated it was his intent to specifically exclude his daughter Carole with his first wife and son Kenny Jr. with third wife and son Christopher with fourth wife and their issue as beneficiaries of his estate -- Kenny Sr. would never disown his own children according to the source especially since the singer’s son Kenny Jr. is incorrectly referred to Kenny Rogers III throughout the will -- the wording is not like Kenny Sr. and something is not right and his older kids are thinking about contesting the will 

Page 10: Hot Shots -- Kate McKinnon shot a Saturday Night live skit in NYC, Sophia Bush hit the road in L.A. with her co-pilot pup Maggie, pregnant Jinger Duggar Vuolo in Venice with daughter Felicity, Heidi Klum walking the streets in her native Germany, Snoop Dogg saluted young rappers as he accepted BET’s I Am Hip Hop award 

Page 11: Unwitting Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler once dabbled in the secret sex cult NXIVM -- the organization masqueraded as a self-help group but in 2017 it was exposed as a pyramid scheme for founder Keith Raniere who forced high-ranking female recruits to become his sex slaves -- in 2010 Jen and Gerry who were dating at the time wound up at one of the introductory seminars but they were turned off by the level of commitment expected and never returned -- they thought it was just a networking opportunity and had no idea what they were getting themselves into, cash-crunched Gwyneth Paltrow is facing hard times like everyone else and is looking to change her free-spending ways -- the belt-tightening caused by the coronavirus pandemic has even hit her lifestyle empire Goop causing her to shut down the London branch and make hard choices for the future -- Gwyneth may be worth $100 million but she and husband Brad Falchuk spend money like it’s going out of style on private jets they use on a whim and they own a fleet of fancy cars and pay steep salaries for staff who are at their beck and call 24/7 and it’s all draining their bank accounts -- they’re looking at making cuts across the board from personal trainers and chefs and drivers to the masseurs and beauticians who come to their house several times a week -- plus the couple believe it’s a bad look for them to be living so high on the hog when the rest of the world is suffering during the pandemic

Page 12: Straight Shuter -- Angelina Jolie spent years developing her own version of the Hollywood classic Cleopatra and now she’s livid that Gal Gadot has stolen the Egyptian queen -- Angie’s dream was to play Cleopatra the role that made Elizabeth Taylor an icon and it was to be the part that won Angie an Academy Award for Best Actress and now that’s over thanks to Gal who will be playing the Queen of the Nile instead, after ABC scrapped plans to honor Regis Philbin with a prime-time tribute Jimmy Kimmel insisted on honoring Regis on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, MSNBC talking head Rachel Maddow is fleeing New York for her Massachusetts farm after hanging a $2.3 million price tag on her NYC pad but Rachel didn’t want potential buyers looking through all the personal stuff at her apartment so all the personal pictures and books and clothing and everything else was shipped out and replaced with staged furniture, Ariel Winter and her dog (picture) 

Page 13: Ailing Joni Mitchell opened up about how she’s still struggling to get back to her old self five years after a debilitating brain bleed -- after Joni was found unresponsive in her Bel-Air home in 2015 she said she was forced to relearn everyday tasks because the aneurysm took away her speech and her ability to walk and although she’s showing slow improvement she hasn’t been writing or playing the guitar or the piano, Randy Travis is defying all the odds as he plans the greatest comeback in country music history as he is making amazing progress after suffering a massive 2013 stroke that most believed would end his career forever and he was given just 1% chance of survival and even after he pulled through doctors believed he would be bedridden and unable to speak -- instead his grueling rehab efforts have miraculously put him on the road to realizing his dream of returning to the spotlight -- some of his motivation is financial; last year he sold his Nashville home and released his memoir which was fueled by his need to pay medical expenses after years of not being able to perform

Page 14: Hollywood Hookups -- Channing Tatum and Jessie J have split again, Cole Sprouse and Reina Silva dating, Kate Beckinsale and Goody Grace split 

Page 15: Ariana Grande is raising eyebrows with her raunchy new record Positions -- the former squeaky-clean Nickelodeon star who has been dating real estate agent Dalton Gomez spouted off X-rated odes to an unnamed lover on the LP, six months after sidelining her marriage to former quarterback Jay Cutler Kristin Cavallari admitted there are good days and bad days but insisted it’s been nice to be able to focus on herself and figure out who she is now and what she ultimately wants out of life, hotel heiress Kathy Hilton is joining The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills as a friend of the main cast which includes her half-sister Kyle Richards

Page 16: Crime 

Page 17: On Drew Barrymore’s talk show a psychic guest channeled the spirit of one of the host’s former in-laws but the man in question is very much alive -- medium Anna Raimondi told Drew she sensed the aura of a judge causing Drew to burst into tears and named David a relative of her ex-husband Will Kopelman claiming he’d passed but Judge David Kopelman is alive and still going strong -- Will slammed Anna was a submental hack and said he was surprised that Drew chose to give oxygen to someone like that

Page 18: American Life 

Page 20: Cover Story -- Prince Andrew is desperate to quash explosive testimony by his pedophile pal Jeffrey Epstein’s accused madam Ghislaine Maxwell but the socialite’s second secret deposition is torpedoing his return from royal exile -- after Ghislaine danced around details of her relationship with the disgraced Duke of York in testimony released a few weeks ago Andrew is sweating bullets about her second grilling under oath which contains details of their intimate friendship and nights with Epstein’s teen sex slave Virginia Roberts Giuffre 

Page 22: Don McLean viciously slammed ex-wife Patrisha Shnier as the worst person her ever knew but in their ongoing war of words she maintains he was abusive to her -- Don is still bitter over a 2016 domestic incident at their home in Maine that landed him behind bars and led to divorce after 30 years of marriage

Page 26: Matthew McConaughey confessed he nearly turned his back on Tinseltown to be a wildlife guide like late Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin -- he made a splash in a string of blockbuster rom-coms in the ‘90s and ‘00s but he was eager to move on to meatier movies and even passed on a $14.5 million paycheck in 2010 to seek more substantial roles and the struggle left him considering other careers such as a wildlife guide, Jamie Foxx has been crushed by the death of his beloved sister DeOndra Dixon who was born with Down syndrome

Page 28: Good Catch -- Bachelor stars who are still up for grabs -- Jon Hamm, Owen Wilson, Drew Carey

Page 29: Benicio Del Toro, Ryan Seacrest, Matthew Perry, some stars seem to say I do at the drop of the hat -- Larry King, Jerry Lee Lewis, Billy Bob Thornton 

Page 32: Olivia Munn was caught on camera flashing what looked like engagement bling on her left ring finger as she exited a gym following a morning workout in Los Angeles but she reportedly broke up with boyfriend Tucker Roberts last year leaving fans wondering who bought the stunning sparkler 

Page 36: Health Watch 

Page 42: Red Carpet -- Michelle Pfeiffer 

Page 45: Spot the Differences -- Allison Janney on Mom 

Page 47: Odd List 

[happymetalgirl]

March 2020

Wow, March seems like such a bygone era, time doesn’t mean anything anymore with so much turned upside down (especially in the music industry) in the throes of the pandemic going on right now. One of those things was me losing my punctuality with this blog. While I haven’t been on top of my writing, I have certainly been listening as much as ever, with plenty to talk about this month, so better late than never I suppose. Here are the albums I listened to during March.

Code Orange - Underneath

I just wrote about the Pittsburgh metalcore juggernauts’ highly anticipated fourth full-length, but I’ll summarize again what led me say that Underneath is a good album, but not as good as the breakthrough album whose high bar this album was always going to have a hard time clearing. The band go all in on the industrial elements that accented Forever on Underneath, as well as push their luck on the more melodic, alternative metal-oriented hardcore tracks, which came with some growing pains, the latter more than the former. And I really think that they probably are just growing pains with the band getting more comfortable with this expansion of their sound, which (contrary to what the many zealous 10/10 reviews are saying) I think the band will get significantly better with if they keep this trajectory going into their next album.

8/10

Body Count - Carnivore

I really have tried to focus on the positive aspects of Body Count’s music, the fearless, topical, confrontational lyricism and the capacity the band has to generate a good hardcore breakdown, but the band really do seem to be unable to get out of this one-dimensional rut they’re stuck in, with Carnivore simply a few shovels deeper in. The band’s appeal tires very quickly with Ice-T’s recycling of lyrical themes and his band’s repetitions of generic hardcore tropes. They come through with a few moments of intensity, a sick breakdown or two, but the positive, hopeful moments are too few and far between. I would think that with not a whole lot of competition and a hip hop icon behind the microphone that Body Count would have the capacity to do more for rap metalcore, but they seem stuck in a cycle I do respect the stances Body Count takes against injustice, and I want them to be a more prominent, important voice in metal, but they have some climbing to do to get there.

4/10

My Dying Bride - The Ghost of Orion

The grand masters of gothic death-doom don’t ever really steer too far off course, rather they sometimes just take their foot off the gas, as they do on The Ghost of Orion. It has all the elements of any beautifully melancholic My Dying Bride album; the slow and burgeoning guitars, the downtrodden vocal melodies juxtaposed with bursts of growled anguish, and the melodrama of vibrato-laden strings; but it’s all arranged and conjured without much tangible passion or pain. That’s by the standard of the band’s pretty solid discography though, so with that considered, it’s by no means a terrible death-doom album, it just won’t be converting anybody or getting anyone more excited about My Dying Bride and death-doom.

6/10

Warp Chamber - Implements of Excruciation

Brutal death metal can often seem pretty one-dimensional, and it often is, but in the hands of a band who really has the ambition to make more of it than just some guttural rumblings from all the instruments involved, the genre can really take on a wholy new monstrous form, its horrific, deathly instrumentation heightened by the melody and the compositional nuance that a competent band can bring to it, and that is exactly what Warp Chamber do on their debut album here. Full of cavernous growls and ceaseless low-register battery, it can seem, at face value like just a regular brutal death metal album, but when the band starts breaking out the winding tangents and manic solos that, again, just heighten the chaos and compliment the brutality. It’s more than just regular-ass death metal, and I’m glad to have heard this debut. I hope Warp Chamber has more in store.

8/10

Loathe - I Let It in and It Took Everything

Do you love Deftones? Maybe you do. I do. But I don’t think either of us love Deftones as much as Loathe loves Deftones. I’m goofing right now, but Loathe really do channel their Deftones fandom real hard when they’re not in full hardcore mode or getting eccentric with the segues on this album. And it does offer a great combination of styles, with angular, low-tuned modern metalcore noise riffage juxtaposed pretty strongly against the gauzy shoegaze that immediately hearkens to that facet of Deftones’ music. The band struggle to get the flow just right on certain songs and across the album in general, with some pretty inconsistent songwriting, but it’s definitely outweighed by its still somehow immersive quality and the strength of the individual pieces going into it.

7/10

Earth Rot - Black Tides of Obscurity

The Australian band brings forth some more of the tried and true modern death metal a la Bloodbath, Carnation, and modern Cannibal Corpse, but with enough eerie, blackened oddity throughout the songs to keep the journey from being too homogenous. It’s these moments that both give extra life to the bludgeoning, but at-times basic, modern death metal the band is conjuring and kind of disrupt the flow of that muscly death metal. At times I do wish the band would chose to focus one or the other more exclusively, but if this pushes Earth Rot further into this kind of stylistically ambitious death metal, I appreciate the stepping stone this album acts as.

7/10

Myrkur - Folksange

After riding a pretty strong wave of critical adoration for her contribution to the growing wave of atmospheric black metal that culminated in the respectably sonically unique Mareridt in 2017, Myrkur’s Amelie Bruun has taken a step back to refocus or recalibrate artistically. As the title suggests, Folksange finds its creator rewarding herself for her contributions to black metal with a return to her love of Scandinavian folk music, and you can tell she loves it on this entirely folk-music-based project devoid of any black metal elements. I may not have been as head-over-heels as a lot of critics were about her black metal albums, but I certainly appreciated her folk-inspired ambient take on the genre, especially the unique sonic pallet of Mareridt. I liked those albums quite a bit, yet it is clear that the sound on Folksange is her forte, which makes sense if Scandinavian folk has been a longer-standing passion than black metal for Bruun. The instrumentation is absolutely beautiful and Bruun’s angelic voice fits so perfectly with it, but Folksange is more than just superficially aesthetically gorgeous. The songs (old and original) are written and arranged with such a natural knack for the style that makes it such a serenely enveloping experience that stands as Myrkur’s best work yet. I highly recommend it.

8/10

Old Man Gloom - Seminar IX: Darkness of Being

The famed supergroup’s first of two releases planned for this year after the loss of Caleb Scofield sees them dabbling around in an experimental array of genres that all the members have some sort of significant experience and specialty with. From post-metal of the sludgy, Isis-esque variety to the more noisily esoteric, Sumac-esque variety, to distinctly post-hardcore-influenced stylistic diversions, the band’s wide-reaching sound takes all sorts of twists and turns along their most recent experiment with the members’ varying pedigrees and influences guiding the music on quite the unusual nomadic trek. From the repetitive chord progression of the opening track to the album’s noisy finishing tracks (one of which features what sounds like rocks tumbling down a shaft of some sort for an extensive period of time), the band let their adventurers’ instincts guide them as they wander through their own experiment through the interplay of their members’ various styles. It’s weird, and not super polished, but it’s certainly fixating.

7/10

Candlemass - The Pendulum

After further cementing their relatively unchallenged status as the kings of epic doom metal with The Door to Doom about a year ago, Candlemass have offered up a quick little demo-focused EP with one new fleshed-out song, the title track, which takes them to the faster, more Dio-era-inspires side of their sound with the grand, soaring operatic vocals on the chorus and the relatively fast (by doom standards) guitar rhythms on the verses (think “Paranoid” or “Children of the Grave’). I love the very Dio-esque delivery of the word “fools” at the end too, very fitting. The demo track “Snakes of Goliath” slows it back down to Ozzy-era Sabbath worship in typical Candlemass fashion, the riffs and arrangement pretty respectable for a supposed demo track. The other full-length demo, “Porcelain Skull”, by contrast, does feel much less compositionally fleshed out and more like an actual demo piece. The other three demo tracks are just little instrumental studio doodles that don’t really add anything to the EP. If this EP could be interpreted as any kind of power move, it’s that Candlemass at demo level have just such a sharp compositional intuition for grand Sabbath doom metal and can pretty much nail it in their sleep.

demo-level 7/10

Igorrr - Spirituality and Distortion

I was definitely looking forward to this album big-time after the gloriously unashamed weirdness of 2017’s Savage Sinusoid filled a massive void I felt was needed in my metal bank. By contrast, Spirituality and Distortion is such a reserved project it feels either shy or cowardly from the usually hyper-eccentric band. The greater absence of the vocals of Laurent Lunoir on the album highlight also just how much character he brought to Savage Sinusoid through his zany performances. Without his vocal wildness across the album, the attention on Spirituality and Distortion is then directed to the significantly timid production and electronic finagling that doesn’t measure up to that of Savage Sinusoid.

6/10

In This Moment - Mother

*Sigh* In This Moment is one of those bands who I think really do show a lot of potential but just can’s seem to reach it. They get a lot of unnecessary shit for Maria Brink’s sexy stage presence and generally theatrical aesthetic and live show, but they do have the capacity to produce emotive alt metal ballads like “Whore” and bangers like “Big Bad Wolf” that give some insight into what heights they could potentially reach if they were much more consistent. I was hoping that Mother would be a solid rejuvenation/comeback after the benign disappointment of 2017′s Ritual, and while it’s certainly different, it’s not better. Mother really tries to take on this big, enveloping sound, and biblical, post-apocalyptic feel, and it can sort of carry it for a little bit and be temporarily immersive until the band needs to go full force. When it’s just some fancy eerie atmosphere and Maria Brink’s sultry vocal delivery, it holds up okay, but when the horribly synthetically produced arena-booming instrumentation really comes in and breaks that immersion, you remember that it really is all just trite alt rock whose lofty flair is all a facade.

4/10

Mamaleek - Come and See

Undoubtedly the most wildly experimental album to grace my ears so far this year, I was not expecting such a forceful avant-garde project from Mamaleek so relatively soon after Out of Time, but damn I’m glad I got it! The anonymous brotherly duo have always taken black metal on quite the far-off journey whenever they bring it along on one, ever making it their mission to create something one-of-a-kind with their work, and Come and See has to be their most enthralling album yet. Ramming together the transfixing manic anguish of their blackened experimental noise with the angular dynamism of jazz and even some blues rock in a musical particle collider, Mamaleek have made a truly one-of-a-kind album, and that’s even by their standards. I’ve mentioned before that I tend to like my jazz pretty rowdy and aggressive (like my metal), and the chaos that Mamaleek already generates with their brand of black metal is perfect to trim with and infuse with the angular dissonance of traditional jazz at its more energetically extreme. While the array of chaotic sounds may make Come and See their most intangibly black metal album, the ethos of that root genre pierces through by way of the harshly shrieked vocals just as much as the new jazz elements do. I really might just have to do a full-length review on this one because there is so much going on here that is worth admiring and I can’t stop loving it.

9/10

Phalanx - Golden Horde

This album came out a few months ago and has been making some pretty significant waves on Bandcamp, and for good reason. The relatively young band on their second release ever do showcase a pretty good knack for groove and death metal brutality, balancing slow, thick, tasty groove and blasting death metal without falling into metalcore breakdown clichés or death metal clichés. The three-pronged vocal attack the band touts isn’t quite as dazzling as they might think it is (with the abundance of talented vocalists capable of shapeshifting through a variety of metal vocal techniques), but I do think it would be cool to hear them use that approach with all three vocalists acting more simultaneously to more effectively convey the chaos of the war-related lyrical themes they focus on. Nevertheless, this quarter-hour taster is a great starter for them and definitely worth checking out. Hopefully it’s a foreshadowing of the blossoming of a bright new act for death metal.

7/10

Regarde Les Hommes Tomber - Ascension

I’ve been seeing a lot of praise being thrown this album’s way, and I honestly can’t disagree too much with that it is a pretty damn good album. It is very reminiscent of the Numenorean album Adore that I praised so highly last year. Like Adore, Ascension is an atmospheric black metal album that could easily hook your typical dude who hates Deafheaven and blackgaze and makes a really big deal about it. The band’does well on Ascension to avoid the reliance on generic post-rock guitar reverb ambiance that turns so many people off from blackgaze, working together a lot of unique sonic twists that don’t usually find their way into ambient black metal and channeling direct, cutting, yet humanly vibrant instrumentation that’s backed by raw cries of agony very similar to what Numenorean was doing last year. Perhaps this is the new way forward for atmospheric black metal and blackgaze. If so, Regarde Les Hommes Tomber are doing well to lead the way.

8/10

Deadspace - A Portrait of Sacrificial Scars

I already offered my praises to this album at length with my long-form post dedicated to it, but I’ll give it another shout for its brilliant, bittersweet sending off of the seemingly tireless Australian band. Deadspace give their oppressive/depressive sound the added magnitude and glory offered by choir and orchestral elements with more tact than most bands that use those elements regularly. I really am surprised that the band have decided to split up at such a high point in their artistry and I wish there could be more from them, but I have to respect their decision to end it here, and A Portrait of Sacrificial Scars is a great note to end on.

9/10

[hydrospanners]

A-Z on the writing meme because I need to know absolutely everything immediately.

WELP okay but just remember you asked for what’s about to happen. meme is here. most of this is under a cut cause i’m longwinded as hell.

A. If you could rec a piece of music to accompany one of your fics, what would you pick? Why?

Um I absolutely was vibing to Lips by The xx when I wrote a wish your heart makes and you should too.

B. Who’s your favorite side-character from something you wrote?

I feel like the answer here is supposed to be Doc because he is not The Main Character in the game but also I have written about him and from his POV so much it feels unfair to call him a side character at this point. So instead I’m going to say this random woman named Cherita who was just trying to make a midnight snack for her pregnant wife from a little eggstra. I thought she had a lot of character for someone I pulled out of my ass for the sake of an outside perspective.

C. Get any good comments on your stuff this year?

I am thirsty for praise and I feel every single comment is a good comment but I think the one that sticks out to me is when I wrote a wish your heart makes someone said something like “if you like doc at all you have to read this” and I don’t remember who it was or where they said it but it really stuck with me!!! If that was you, thank you!!!!

D. Any drawings or pictures that had a big influence on your writing?

No!!! I feel guilty about this answer somehow but it’s true. I think it would be a fun challenge to try to write a piece of fic inspired by someone’s art so I may play with that idea next year (Editor’s Note: it was still 2k18 when I wrote the answer for this one) but for 2k18 the answer is no. :(

E.  Who’s your favorite main character you’ve written?

I feel like this answer is obvious but it’s my girl Rea. I’ve reincarnated her as an Inquisitor and a Pathfinder but the OG Jedi Knight is still my fave.

F. What stories are you planning for the future?

I won’t pretend that a lot of planning goes in to my fic. I normally only write short bits so it kind of goes like this: I have a concept, I write the bit I fixate on, and then it sits in my WIPs for five years until I get motivated during some Fictober or something to finally finish it.

I will say I do have serious designs to finally finish the second chapter of the things you do for love are gonna come back to you one by one as that one is a little more complex than stuff I usually write. I have plans to do some kinda flashback-y thing that finally lays out The Velaran Backstory in clear and obvious terms after years of hints and tidbits I’ve been peppering through my fic. I also have a thing planned and kinda partly written about the first instance of horrific violence in the lives of all the Knight’s companions. Also I have a long series of AU vignettes that glimpses into universes where Rea is a Sith or Kira never made it off Korriban or Rusk remained a pacifist or where Rea never joined the Jedi after losing her family the second time. Stuff like that.

G. Where do you think you grew the most this year?

Structure? I’ve been really working on trusting my reader to bridge some gaps and not letting myself get caught up in details that are important for me to know to write the next part but that don’t necessarily need to be in the story. I think I’ve really tightened up my game where trimming the fat and staying focused are concerned.

H.  How do you write? Paper, pen, computer? Music, no music?

My fic writing process is very different from when I am trying to write original stuff and is even kind of different depending on the mood I’m going for? I always write fic in Google Drive cause I write fic from a lot of different machines and need the easy cloud saving.

My ideal condition for fic writing is listening to instrumental music or ambient sounds playing through headphones either in a coffeehouse or the library or when I am at home completely alone. Angst and smut are best written at night with the lights low and warm. Comedy and fluff are best written in the late afternoon/early evening after one single alcoholic beverage (any more than and one I am drunk and no longer capable of writing).

Realistically though, I usually write in whatever time I have. Mostly at work. My job requires me to sit at a desk and wait for things to happen. Since I start work at 5am, things usually aren’t happening. Even with me going out of my way to create new work for myself and excel at what work I do have, I have a lot of downtime. I spend it writing fic. I get interrupted too much to have the focus I need for original writing, but fic writing is much easier so mostly I write my fic at this bland little desk under the terrible fluorescent lights with lots of noise and interruptions, occasionally playing a thematic playlist very quietly in the background.

I.  What’s your favorite work you did this year? Why?

This is a very tough question. Surprisingly, I published a lot of things that I really liked? ([not pictured: me high fiving me for finally allowing myself to state that I like my own writing]) I think I’ll go with when the wicked play if I have to pick just one. Relative to my other work I think it’s very structurally sound and thematically focused and pretty efficient with its characterization and imagery without ever getting too sparse. Also I’m a slut for examining the commonplace nature of violence and brutality in the Star Wars universe.

J.  What are the best jokes you told this year? Any jokes you thought were funny that people didn’t catch? Vice-versa?

I’m gonna say the pun I used as the title for bars and stripes. Honestly the whole fic is a joke and I like it and I don’t care if anyone catches it or not because I know that I am hilarious and no one will ever convince me otherwise.

K. Who have you killed this year? Why did they have to die?

No one, I think? I don’t think I even mentioned any specific off-screen deaths except for shit from the decades old Tragic Backstories. Not even Valkoriate. I’m not an especially murderful writer, maybe because I haven’t had to deal with a lot of that kind of loss in my own life. Mostly I write about things that are somehow adjacent to my own emotional state/journey. That’s why I fixate a lot on the weight of duty and moral philosophy and the nuances and complications of relationships, of how you can hurt someone and be hurt by them and still love them and how messy yet fulfilling the whole thing is. Thankfully--for me--not a lot of grieving the dead in there yet.

L.  Which character did you most write about this year, and why do you like ‘em?

Pretty sure it’s Rea. Maybe Doc because of the Docember thing I squeezed in at the last second but I’m still pretty sure it’s Rea. Pretty sure it always is.

There’s a particular kind of release I get from writing her because her whole sloppy person is a part of me that doesn’t often see the light of day. I won’t say she’s aspirational because I like who I am and I don’t have any special destiny or Force powers or anything to save me when the consequences of living like she does catch up. But there are pieces of her that I admire, pieces that are still part of me that I have a hard time expressing, and spending time with her gives me a little more strength to unlock those dark musty corners of who I am, I guess? Writing Rea makes me a little more bold, a little less apologetic, a little less prone to overthinking and anxious fretting and a little more prone to doing. She makes me feel strong enough to ask for the things I want and confident enough to feel like I deserve them.

Also she is a damn good time, even when she’s falling apart.

M. Meta! Have any meta about a story you’re dying to throw out there?

Of course I do. I could ramble for hours about the story behind any single one of my stories. Aren’t all of us creative types like that??? Don’t we all love to talk about what we were going for and why we made the choices we did??? What we liked and what we think needs improvement??? Why we wanted to make the thing we made in the first place???

I could ramble about this for hours and honestly the possibilities are overwhelming so I am not going to go into any detail and just say yes. Obviously I am willing to ramble about the story behind every single story I’ve published but there’s 63 of them so if there’s something specific you want to hear about you’ll have to ask about the specific one!!!

N. Anything you were planning to write that never got written?

Nothing will ever be “never got written” until I am dead and unable to write. I am still going back to WIPs from 2014. I am rewriting garbage exercises I wrote in 2013. I like to think everything in my WIP folder will eventually be moved to my Published folder and I am going to keep thinking that until I am physically incapable of writing.

O. Do you believe in outlines? Show us one!

I believe in them very much and yet I do not practice them usually. I rely on them more with my original work which is longer and more involved and doesn’t already have a convenient structure to follow in the form of 300000 hours of video game. Most of my fic is really short, just a single scene or so. I usually start out by writing the moment that inspired me to write the fic and fill in the before and after. I do have an outline for the second half of the things you do for love are gonna come back to you one by one but I don’t really want to share it for something that isn’t written yet!

P. What are your pet peeves in other people’s work?

This question makes me kinda uncomfortable so here we go with some disclaimers: I write the stories that I want to read or that I really need to tell to satisfy something inside of me and I assume other authors do the same. I don’t want to say anything here that might have a chilling effect on someone exploring some idea they really need to explore, even if it’s tired or cliche or offends my own tastes. Writing is very personal and I think everyone should tell the stories they want to, whether anyone else likes them or not.

That being said, I am always desperately wishing for more media about close, intimate friendships and familial bonds. As someone who isn’t interested in sexual or romantic relationships, it makes me weep basically every time I read a story about characters who are friends or family that give that kind of relationship all of the value and weight and nuance that you see romantic relationships getting. It is a very special kind of feeling to see that it is possible for people to value what I have to offer them as much they might value someone who will romance them and sleep with them. It is very validating to see the possibility of emotional intimacy with people outside of romantic/sexual partners.

But I would never want anyone to feel bad about or stop writing their romances and their smut. That stuff speaks to people and that’s what fic is about. Telling the story that speaks to you. I want everyone to write what they want to write and if that leaves gaps, well that’s why I started writing fic in the first place. There was a story I needed to read and no one had written it yet, so I did it myself.

TL;DR Genfic & friendfic & familyfic is the greatest gift anyone could ever give me, but no one should write to satisfy other people. Always write for yourself first and foremost.

Q. Quote three bits of writing you read his year. Can be your writing, or not.

I keep little quotes everywhere--index cards and sticky notes scattered among all my belongings, snippets on my phone, untitled documents on every cloud service there is, random word docs hidden amongst my many hard drives--but the only ones I can find right now are from @meonlyred‘s Dark Horse so please enjoy three bits from that fic that I loved:

They remained sitting on the floor, Rossa leaned against him, eyes staring into the distance. Her silence might as well have been weeping.

I just love how I can feel the vacant, numb quality of her despair in this line. How it feels more poignant for its lack of drama.

“You're an idiot and I hate your hair,” Jonas said over the rim of his glass.

I mean.... Do I need to explain this?

He had never believed in happily ever afters. Not for him, at least. But the cruelest thing about being with Rossa was that he had begun to believe that maybe, just maybe, it was possible.

Closing his eyes, Theron didn’t expect to open them again.

This little snippet still punches me in the gut no matter how many times I read it. It’s so relateable and so Theron and so painful.

R. If you had to rewrite one of your stories from scratch, which one would it be? What would you do to it?

I don’t think I’d rewrite any of them? At least half of my fic has been completely rewritten once or twice before it ever gets published so I mostly have it out of my system before anyone else sees it.

S. What’s the sexiest thing you wrote this year?

a wish your heart makes. It may also be the saddest thing I wrote this year which I consider an achievement. (I was asked for smut but I literally do not know how to write just smut without anything else going on in the story.)

T. Themes, motherfucker, do you have them? What are they?

The importance and nature of family (it is what you make it and not what you were born with! but sometimes you get lucky and get to choose the one you were born with!)! The cost/impact of violence and war! Failure and coming back from failure! The nature of what is right and what is wrong and how much responsibility any one individual bears for the moral direction of their society!!!!

I don’t think I’ve ever written anything that didn’t include at least one of these concepts and most of my stuff deals heavily in at least two of them.

U. Any stories that took a abrupt u-turn from where you thought they were going?

Yep! I was trying to make a stupid joke about a haircut when I started making take back what the kingdom stole but in working my way backward from the joke I ended up with a heartfelt exploration of my character’s past emotional trauma, her character growth, and the nature of friendship and forgiveness.

V. Which story was the most viscerally pleasing to write? Tell us your narrative kinks.

I don’t know that I would necessarily call the sensation pleasing but, once again, the things you do for love are gonna come back to you one by one was probably the story that made me feel the most, that I was the most connected to. It hit on every single one of the themes I find compelling and I really got to play with telling the story in the white spaces, which is something I really love. I’ve been working a lot on trusting my readers and not over-explaining and I think this story really saw the impact of that work, stylistically. It’s peak self-indulgence honestly.

W.  Who are your favorite writers?

Does this mean like authors of original published works or fic writers????? How am I supposed to choose???!!!! Either way my reading habits this year have been abominable. I have really been going through some shit, lifewise, (not bad shit but emotionally consuming and time consuming nonetheless) and I had to let the reading go a little bit.

I have been really into NK Jemisin though. Her stories are complex and challenging and there is so much poetry and power in the straightforward way she tells them. I also was obsessed with the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. The characters were so textured and real with such clear voices and the relationships and ideas were so complex and compelling, yet the story never got weighed down by the heft of the subjects. She has a very light touch as a storyteller that makes her work so easily digestible without making her tale any less impactful or profound.

As for fic…. I’ve got about forty million fics bookmarked, waiting for me to get around to reading them and I am the worst kind of person because I have not yet read any of them. I’m behind on reading one of my very favorite fics right now. I think I’ve read a total of like ten fics this year and straight up probably only read that many because I was doing a bit of beta’ing.

I’m gonna do better in 2019 and I’ll get back to you on all the good shit I’ve read then.

X.  What’s your least favorite work of this year?

crapshoot. It was a really old concept that probably would have been better as visual art than a fic but my artistic talents were too limited so I wrote it instead. It could probably stand a little more meat and a lot more polish, but I don’t have the time to try and turn every goofy image in my head into a fictional masterpiece.

Y. Why did you write? For fun, for a friend, for acclaim?

For fame and fortune obviously. It’s why most of my fic is about a super popular ship in an enormous fandom.

Or, y’know… not. I write for fun and because I have to. Because there are stories inside of me I want to tell, ideas I feel compelled to explore, things I need to say. It doesn’t matter if anyone else hears them or likes them; I need to get them out of me. Also it’s a really great way to work through my own emotional turmoil at a safe distance, so I can engage with what vexes me without being consumed by it.

Z. If you could choose one work and immediately finish it, what would it be? How would you end it?

the things you do for love are gonna come back to you one by one. It’s the most self-indulgent thing I’ve written probably but it means a lot to me and if I knew how it ended I would have finished it months ago. D:

[lady-une]

BSD Ch3

Guys I am so damn tired, but I did it! I started the chapter earlier today and it just flowed right out of me. I dont really have much to say, its actually getting kind of hard to see my screen with how tired I am. As always, like, comment, and share. Help me reach someone else who doesnt know about me and my work! Comments really help me grow and fuel me to write more! Think of them as the batteries in the energizer bunny, they just help me keep going lol.

He thought their love was eternal, that nothing would be able to break them apart. He put his trust and faith in the man he loved with all his heart. The one man he thought would never hurt him, did it in the most horrific way possible. How will he move on, having to see the man who broke his heart day in and day out. Having to see him smile and look at another the way he once did him. If had known this was his destiny all along, he would never had started on this path to begin with.

Word count: 4182

Theme: Angst

Rating: Mature, SMUT, Drinking

Pairing: Kwon Jiyong x Seungri

Master List

Chapter 1

The past couple of months since Seungri came home from the army were complete hell. He did his best to not let anyone catch on to his suffering but Seunghyun and Daesung could see it behind his fake smiles. They saw the way he always looked the other direction when Jiyong was with his girlfriend, the way he would leave the room when they would get too close for comfort. Seungri always found a way to dodge the many invites sent to him for dinner, he didn’t want to get to know the woman who had replaced him. He tried not to hold her responsible, he tried to like her he really did but he just couldn’t find it in his heart to be ok with how things were.

With the comeback set to release in a month the group was in full promotional swing, they were scheduled to appear on different variety shows and they were gearing up to record some music videos. The maknae was currently sitting in the back of the van on his phone typing out his feelings, the many nights of searching ways to get over an ex had turned him onto a discussion board where he read that if he wrote the feelings out it would be a way to purge said feelings. So, he had taken up to writing them out on his phone, sometimes the words would flow right out of him and sometimes they didn’t. The words didn’t always make sense, there were days where they were pure gibberish and other days they were almost like lyrics. The lyrics to the song of his heart, all the pain and anger was there and if he were to find the right beat they would be an amazing song.

The schedule for the day had them spending the whole day with the cast of Running Man, it had been such a long time since they were all together on a show. Yoo Jae-Suk announced them as the special guest and then came the standard questions about how excited they were for their comeback, they asked Seungri how things were for him in the Army, they asked Youngbae how life as a dad was treating him, and finally they asked the question on everyone’s mind, was Jiyong going to marry his current girlfriend. Seungri knew this question was going to come up and he did his best to not let them see how the question affected him but deep down inside he feared the answer. At night he would stay up tossing and turning in the guest room thinking about how that day was going to come. How he would handle it, some nights he imagined Jiyong coming to his senses and begging for Seungri to forgive him. Then other nights he would imagine Jiyong living happily with his wife and children, those were the nights he cried the most.

The episode today called for the cast to be split in teams, they had team lion being led by Jong-kook and team moth being led by Kwang-soo. The two cast members took turns picking members for their teams out of the remaining cast and the Bigbang members. By the end of the picking it was Seungri being on the same team as Seunghyun and Jiyong. The game was like capture the flag but with name tag ripping. Everything was going great until it came down to Jong-kook protecting their flag, and Jiyong and Seungri waiting in the dark for a member of the opposing team to make a move.

The two were huddled under a desk in a dark room with a perfect view of Jong-kook, both were breathing heavily and Seungri’s senses were on fire being so close to Jiyong. The scent of his body wash filled his nostrils, he was still using the same one he had bought for him years ago. His heart ached, his fingers twitched to just hold Jiyong’s hand. Shutting his eyes, he tried to take some calming breaths and to gain control of himself. It was of no use, he hadn’t felt Jiyong in so long that without him knowing it his finger had moved as if it had a mind of it’s own. It slowly brushed up against Jiyong’s soft skin causing the leader to damn near jump out of his skin. Seungri quickly moved his hand away and apologized, thankful for the lack of lighting because he was sure his cheeks were tinted a red shade.

Jiyong was embarrassed by the way he reacted, he just wasn’t expecting the maknae to do anything. Jiyong looked at the corner of his eye to watch the maknae move his hand as if it had caught fire from touching Jiyong. When in fact it was Jiyong who felt like he was on fire from the contact. When was the last time I had even touched him? Jiyong thought, the last time he saw him prior to his release was the night he broke up with him. The kiss on the cheek was the only contact he had with the maknae, he was a mess of emotions that night. Outside of that the last time he had touched Seungri was the day before he enlisted. The two had spent the whole day locked up in Seungri’s apartment. They laid on the couch watching their favorite movies. They took a long hot bubble bath together and shared a glass of wine. That night they made love until neither of them could move from their spots on the bed. For a brief moment Jiyong allowed himself to enjoy the closeness of Seungri’s presence, the maknae was doing everything in his power to never be alone or near Jiyong. Jiyong understood why, it was easier for him to stay away and it was better for Seungri to stay away. Jiyong’s heart didn’t ache like it did now to hold Seungri when he wasn’t near him. But Jiyong couldn’t do it, he was with Soo-min now and couldn’t do that to her. He had come this far and needed to stick to his decision, in time things won’t be this hard. That’s all they needed, enough time and things will go back to the way they were.

A commotion from the hallway brought both of the members attention back to the game. Jong-kook was currently trying to hold off Kwang-soo and Haha who were both trying to reach for his name tag and the flag. Springing to action Jiyong and Seungri rushed at the two opposing members and began to fight for name tags. Jiyong was laughing and it mixed in with Seungri’s laughs. The two members had succeeded in ripping off Haha’s name tag but were struggling to get Kwang-soo’s name tag. The tallest cast member was rolling on the floor with Seungri laughing and their bodies were a in a tangled mess on the ground. Seungri could feel Kwang-soo’s hand snaking its way up his shirt trying to grasp onto the name tag.

“Hyung help me! Save me!” Seungri called out to Jiyong who was standing there watching the two roll around.

Jiyong hearing his maknae’s plead for help he jumped in and grabbed onto the hand that almost had Seungri’s name tag. Kwang-soo yelled out for help but had no one left from his team to aid him. With Jiyong holding onto Kwang-soo’s hand Seungri was able to easily rip off his name tag ending the game and earing team lion the win.

Getting to his feet Seungri didn’t even think before jumping into Jiyong’s arms and Jiyong held him close as the two hopped around laughing. When Jiyong realized what he was doing he pulled away slowly while still laughing to not let on the awkwardness of the interaction. Seungri who was very much enjoying being in the arms of the man he loved felt another blow to his heart.

As the cast and production crew got ready for the closing scene Seungri reached in his pocket and pulled out his phone. He had received a message earlier in the game but was unable to answer it. Opening it up he saw that it was from Mino and he was wondering if Seungri wanted to go out for some drinks later. Drinks sounded better than going home and crying into his pillow again, plus it would maybe help him get over the pain he was filling from today. Being this close and having so many interactions with Jiyong was taking a toll on him emotionally. Send a quick response to Mino he let him know he was just finishing up with the running man cast and where they were shooting. Mino’s response was even quicker, letting Seungri know he was in the area and could easily pick him up.

Sitting in the dressing room the members began to change back into their clothes they wore to the recording. Everyone was in good spirits and tired, Daesung was laughing about something Kwang-soo had done earlier in the day and Seunghyun couldn’t help but get caught up in the laughter. Seungri smiled as he listened to the story and turned back to the counter for his phone. As he reached down he caught Jiyong staring at him but Jiyong quickly diverted his gaze.

It had been awhile since he had seen a smile like that on Seungri’s face, it was a smile he had missed. The smile of Seungri being content with how things were at the moment, a smile he often had when the whole group was together and able to be themselves. He couldn’t help but be captivated by the smile, Seungri the was the sun that drew Jiyong in after all. Soon enough the manager came in and asked if everyone was ready to head off and they all nodded. The van pulled up and Youngbae hopped in followed by Daesung and then Seunghyun. Jiyong looked back to Seungri and was about to ask him what he was waiting for when a black sports car pulled up. The bright lights flashed and Jiyong saw Seungri smile before walking towards it.

“Seungri!” Jiyong called out, “Where are you going? The van is right here.”

“I have another ride.” Seungri pointed to the dark mysterious car.

“You just got out, we don’t need any scandals right now! Especially with the comeback set to be released! Can’t you just stay out of trouble for once! I don’t have the energy to be cleaning up your messes!” Jiyong was pissed, what made Seungri think he had the luxury to go out making a mess.

Suddenly the driver side car door opened and out stepped a figure, with the way the lights were shining in Jiyong’s eye he wasn’t able to make out who the figure was until it stepped in front of the light.

“Ri-ah are you coming?” Mino called out to Seungri. There stood dressed to the nine’s was none other the Song Mino, the man had his hair slicked back and wore an all black ensemble with his shirt unbuttoned at the top to reveal some of his chest.

What did he call him? Jiyong asked himself as he glared at the man.

“Yes, I am!” Seungri responded before turning back to the glaring Jiyong, “Don’t worry about me hyung, I can take care of myself. Plus my messes are in fact now just my messes, you don’t have to worry about cleaning up after me. You dissolved that responsibility the night of Youngbae’s baby shower.”

“Seungri!” Jiyong shouted and moved towards the maknae to stop him from leaving.

A firm hand gripped on Jiyong’s shoulder stopping him in his place. Looking behind him ready to rip the limb from whoever decided to be stupid trying to stop him, he noticed it was in fact the eldest member. Seunghyun dug his fingers into Jiyong’s shoulder and glared at him before turning his attention to the younger men.

“Mino-ya, make sure you have our Seungri home at a decent hour. We have an early morning music video shoot tomorrow!”

“I will hyung!” Mino smiled up at Seunghyun before walking to the passenger door and opening it. “Your chariot awaits sweet prince.”

Seungri covered his face with his hands and laughed before walking to the car and getting in. Seunghyun didn’t let Jiyong go until Mino had driven off with the beloved maknae.

“What the fuck was that hyung!”

“I could ask you the same thing Jiyong! You have no right to be telling Seungri where he is allowed to go!”

“The hell I don’t!”

“You don’t! you lost that right when you broke that poor man’s heart! You continued to lose that right the more you flaunt your relationship in front of him!”

“I am still the leader!”

“That you are, but even the leader doesn’t get to control a grown man’s every move. You lost this one, it’s time for you to reap what you sowed.”

Seunghyun turned towards the van and climbed in leaving an angry Jiyong to watch as the tail lights of Mino’s car disappeared around the corner.

That night as Jiyong laid in bed next to his girlfriend he couldn’t shut off his mind, he tossed and turned thinking about Seungri and Mino. When did they become so close, close enough for Mino to come and pick up Seungri. For them to be joking around the way they were. Turning to the side he pulled his blankets up and clutched them close crossing his arms, just what were they doing right now? Where did Mino take Seungri? All the tossing and turning had woken up Soo-min, turning to her side she tossed her arm over Jiyong.

“Oppa? What’s wrong?” She asked in her tired voice dragging Jiyong from his racing thoughts.

“Nothing, just work. I’m sorry I woke you.” Jiyong turned around and pulled her close so her head would rest on her in his chest. Closing his eyes he pushed all thoughts of Seungri out of his mind and concentrated on the woman in his arms and his need for sleep.

The next morning Jiyong arrived on set and looked around, Youngbae was sitting in a chair chugging the coffee in his glass no doubt needing it after a long night recording and then going home to his son. Daesung was stretched out with his head in the lap of the eldest member, he had his arm thrown over his face covering his eyes from the bright lights. Seunghyun had his sunglasses on and his head propped up on his arm that was resting on the arm of the chair. Carrying his coffee and he walked around looking everywhere for Seungri, yet he was nowhere to be found. Sitting down next to Youngbae he turned to the tired dad.

“Where is the maknae?”

“Not sure, he hasn’t come yet.”

“I see.”

“Why don’t you call him?” Youngbae suggested as he let out a yawn.

Jiyong pulled his phone out, angry that Seungri was already causing problems.

“Put the phone away, Seungri knew we had an early morning shoot, he will be here.” Seunghyun said from his spot on the couch.

“This is why he shouldn’t have gone out last night!” Jiyong seethed through his clenched teeth.

The two were caught in a staring contest, neither one was ready to give it up until the door opened and in walked in Seungri’s manager with a bag of clothes.

“Where is Seungri, he told me to bring him some fresh clothes.”

“What do you mean fresh clothes? Didn’t he go home?”

Before Seungri’s manager could answer, in walked the missing man of the hour. He had his phone up to his ear laughing at whatever the other person had said. Jiyong stared him down, how dare he be laughing and smiling when Jiyong had no idea where he was or if he was going to show up.

“I’m not sure how long we will be shooting it today. Diner? Yeah sure I think we will be done by then. Ok I will call you then.” Seungri smiled at his phone before shoving it in his pocket and taking his sunglasses off.

Seungri looked around the room at his hyungs, all of them were smiling except for Jiyong who looked as if he was ready to fight someone.

“Morning.” Seungri said with a cheerful voice.

“Good morning indeed, did you have fun last night?” Seunghyun responded with a wide grin on his face.

“I did, we had a lot of fun.”

“Obviously since you didn’t go home last night.” Daesung added as he sat up on the couch.

“Stop, it wasn’t like that. We just went out for some drinks and went back to his place to watch a movie and share some wine.”

“Don’t be shy, Mino was dressed very handsomely last night.” Seunghyun wiggled his eyebrows at Seungri before giving him a wink.

Seungri covered his eyes a light pink blush crept up his chest. Jiyong hated it. Jiyong was angry before but now he was downright pissed! He stayed out all night drinking and didn’t even bother going home! He wanted to take the boy to a back room and give him a proper punishment. Jiyong sucked in his breath, where did that train of thought come from. Things weren’t that way anymore for him to be able to do that.

“Glad you could finally show up, we have lots of work to do.” Jiyong said before storming off into wardrobe.

The music video being shot today was for their flower road song they had released when Jiyong and the others were still enlisted. It was going to be a colorful music video with them dressed up and serenading their parts to girls as they each took turns in different gardens. Seungri being in a better mood thanks to Mino being a great friend and distracting him from the stress that was Jiyong and their failed relationship. Seungri was quiet the charmer when he wanted to be and was doing just that with his stand in girlfriend for the music video. When it wasn’t his time to shoot a scene Jiyong would catch glimpses of the two sitting with their head close together laughing and chatting. The girl had a permanent pink blush on her face being so close to Seungri. The stress from Seungri was causing problems for Jiyong, he was messing up his parts of the song and not following the director’s orders.

Seungri noticed that Jiyong was having problems and was confused why the almighty G dragon was having issues. Grabbing his fake girlfriend’s hand Seungri lead her away from the current shot and out of eye sight from Jiyong.

Jiyong wasn’t sure if Seungri had left due to the fact he knew Jiyong was struggling because of him or if he just got bored and wanted to move away from the constant shouting. Either way Jiyong was grateful and finally able to finish his portion of the garden scene.

The rest of the night was shooting group shots of them singing parts of the song. They each took turns performing their parts and it was as if nothing had changed, they were Bigbang again doing what they enjoyed the most. Jiyong danced around Seungri as he sang his parts, the maknae was dressed with black trousers and a see through black shirt that had specks of silver interwoven into the. Every time Seungri moved and hit a certain light his shirt would sparkle like little small diamonds were embedded in it. Jiyong felt his heart do it’s own little dance at the sight of Seungri performing. Spinning away from camera Jiyong let out a large sigh, he was going down the wrong path again with his thoughts.

Eventually the director called it a night and members thanked everyone for their hard work before going into wardrobe and getting undressed. Jiyong wasn’t in wardrobe when Seungri was getting dressed today for the shoot, it was when Seungri was pulling up his pants and turning away from Jiyong did he notice the purple mark on shoulder blade. Blinding red rage coursed through Jiyong’s veins. Grabbing his shirt from the hanger he pushed his head and arms through before walking towards the clueless Seungri and grabbing his arm.

Seungri was caught off guard as he was going to button his shirt when Jiyong grabbed his hand and dragged him towards the bathroom. Jiyong pinned him in between the sink and himself before spinning him around so his back faced him and pulled the shirt down.

“Hyung what are you doing?” Seungri asked as he looked in the reflection of the mirror to see Jiyong scanning his shoulder.

“I should be asking you that! Look at this mark on your shoulder! How could you let him mark you like that! What if someone else had scene? This would have caused problems for everyone! Didn’t I tell you that I don’t have time to cover your scandals up anymore?”

Seungri pushed back from the sink making Jiyong stumble backwards. Pulling his shirt up he looked at Jiyong who was scowling at him. Seungri began buttoning his shirt as he talked.

“Just as I told you before, you don’t need to worry about me. I can handle my own problems, they are my own and I don’t need your help fixing them. I am a grown man with my own businesses, I was doing fine without you the whole time you were gone and I will continue to be fine now that I am out and you have your new girlfriend.”

Jiyong didn’t miss the way Seungri said girlfriend, the way his said the title was as if it was a curse word, full of poison and hatred.

“So since you are a grown man you are just going to go whoring around town then? Just throwing yourself at any man or woman?”

“Do you really think that lowly of me? For all the years we were together do you honestly think that I would just chance it and sleep with anyone?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

Seungri allowed his arms to drop to his side, so this is how Jiyong really thought of him. If he had thought of him this way, then how did he ever love him? I guess he never did love me, Seungri thought to himself. If Jiyong truly did love him then he would never had cheated on him nor left him.

Jiyong wasn’t blind, he saw how his statement had hurt Seungri. He wanted so much to reach out and to pull Seungri into his arms and apologize for saying such hurtful words. But that damn pride wouldn’t let hm. Before Jiyong could say anything else a large banging came at the bathroom door followed by Seunghyun’s voice.

“I swear to god Jiyong I will kill you if you are doing anything to Seungri! Let him out right now before I bust this door down!”

Just as Jiyong was opening his mouth to say a smart-ass response about how Seunghyun doesn’t have the strength a ringing sound came from within the room. Jiyong watched as Seungri pulled out his phone and read the text message before putting it back in his pocket and walking past him. Jiyong grabbed onto Seungri’s arm stopping him.

“Where do you think you are going we aren’t finished!”

Seungri shoved off Jiyong’s hold, “If you must know I have plans, and according to your thought process it’s a date with my new fuck buddy. So just leave me the fuck alone!”

Jiyong tried to grab onto him again but Seungri shoved him back and unlocked the bathroom door leaving a very pissed off Jiyong holding onto the sink for support.

“Hyung I am heading out first.”

“Ok Seungri, you and Mino have fun.” Seunghyun said as he waved goodbye to the maknae.

“Seungri stop right the fuck there!” Jiyong shouted as he made a move to run after Seungri.

Again, it was Seunghyun who stopped him blocking his path.

“I told you last night you lost any right to that man! Go back to your girlfriend and leave Seungri alone, let him find his own peace and happiness. The poor guy deserves nothing but that after everything you have put him through.”

Seunghyun turned and walked over to Daesung, putting his arm around the angelic man’s shoulder the two walked out of the dressing room. Youngbae came over to Jiyong and put his hand on his shoulder trying to comfort his best friend. All Jiyong could do was watch the two walk out of the room.

“That use to be me and Seungri.” Jiyong whispered.

“Yes it was, but you decided that wasn’t enough. You made your choice, now you have to live with it. Let the maknae go, he doesn’t deserve any of this. He never did.”

Youngbae moved away and walked out the door leaving Jiyong to think about the choices he has made.

NEXT

[upalldown]

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - Ghosteen

Seventheenth studio album from the alternative rock band self-produced by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis is the final part of a trilogy of albums following Push the Sky Away (2013) and Skeleton Tree (2016)

10/13

The 2016 documentary One More Time With Feeling is, first and foremost, a film about a person getting back to work after an event of unimaginable trauma. In this case, that person is Nick Cave, the work is the recording of the album ‘Skeleton Tree’, and the event of unimaginable trauma is the horrific accidental death of Cave’s 15-year-old son Arthur in July 2015. “It was not an act of courage or anything” Cave later told the journalist Chris Heath, “it was just that I didn’t know what the fuck else to be doing. All I knew is that what I do is work, and that kind of continues. I think I knew, fundamentally, that if I lay down, I would never get up again.” Throughout his career, and certainly since he quit drugs in the late 1990s, Cave has got up five days a week, put on a suit, headed to the office and worked.

Something else, though, was going on with One More Time with Feeling. Why did he put himself through the experience of having the director Andrew Dominik document the very worst time of his life? Some suspected a ruse to avoid promotional interviews – this is folly, had Cave retreated from interviews for the rest of his life, absolutely everyone would have understood. No, something in Cave as a person – and as an artist – was changing, and it manifested itself in an urge to share and a compulsion towards the communal. To change in significant ways is not an uncommon reaction to grief and trauma, and Cave has been lucid about the “elastic band” or trauma, continually binding him and his family to that atrocious day in 2015. The film was the first sign of this change, and the second was the tour that followed Skeleton Tree. Watching those shows, the provocation towards the audience that typified Cave’s performing career became something else entirely – combativeness melted into communion. This continued with the launch of the Red Hand Files – a mailing list in which fans send questions to Cave and Cave selects those he wishes to answer (with answers ranging from the flippant to the forensic and heartbreaking). And then too, across 2018 and 2019, we had the ‘Conversations with Nick Cave’ events where fans were encouraged to, in Cave’s words, “ask me anything.” “Nothing can go wrong” Cave observed of the high-wire spontaneity of those fan events, “because everything has gone wrong.”

And so, announced via the Red Hand Files just a fortnight before release, we have Ghosteen, a double album. Cave has gone back to the office, he’s put the suit back on, and he’s knuckled down – recording the album across last year and this in Los Angeles, Brighton and Berlin. “The songs on the first album are the children” explained Cave in the album’s promotional materials, “the songs on the second album are their parents”. The two albums are stylistically distinct – the first are songs, the second are spoken-word poems over electronica soundscapes – but I don’t think that’s what Cave means when he refers to the ‘children’ and ‘parent’ relationship. We’ve no idea of course, but given that the same image of Jesus lying in his mother’s arms reoccurs on both of the albums would suggest the poems acting as creative spur for the songs.

For obvious and understandable reasons, the extent to which Skeleton Tree represented a stylistic break with Cave’s back catalogue went underdiscussed – it sounded like a creative breakthrough, and on the evidence of Ghosteen Cave is treating it as exactly that. Why was that record such a stylistic departure from the Bad Seeds’ previous work? For one thing, Warren Ellis’ electronics that had crept into 2013’s stunning Push the Sky Away were suddenly front and centre – the main meal. Similarly, Cave’s lyrics deviated heavily from his traditional maximalist Southern gothic conquests. In their place came something more elliptical, closer to modernist writing in their fragmentation and eschewing of narrative. It’s testament to Cave’s pedigree and discipline as a writer that he can flit from one mode to the other and produce work of such quality (that’s what you get for heading to the office every day).

At times, Ghosteen appears almost in dialogue with its predecessor, and this is no bad thing. Opener ‘Spinning Song’ seems to have itself spun from a line on Skeleton Tree – “the song, the song, the song it spins since nineteen eighty-four.” The gorgeous, revelatory Ellis backing vocals seen on ‘Girl in Amber’ are replicated all across this album, to beautiful effect.

As the vast bulk of Skeleton Tree was written prior to Cave’s tragic loss, it’s on Ghosteen that we have the first real document of Cave the writer working through pain and grief. There’s an embarrassment of riches here, and emotional gut punches land hard and fast from the outset. He writes on ‘Sun Forest’ of “a man mad with grief”, of “everybody hanging from a tree” – it’s an astonishingly vivid portrait of the fever that grief can be. I don’t often cry at music – just one of those things, doesn’t seem to happen – but on two separate occasions, at two different points on the record, I found myself in tears. Filling the void of loss and of grief is, though, nothing new in Cave’s work. Cave’s father, who introduced him to literature, died when Cave was just nineteen. “I see that my artistic life” he explained in 2001 “has centered around an attempt to articulate an almost palpable sense of loss which laid claim to my life.” I’ve long agreed with the writer John Doran’s point that a helpful way to understand Cave’s writing is to “picture a youngish Nick Cave unable to subdue the voice of his beloved father…asking ‘is this really good enough Nick?’”

Writing in the Red Hand Files, Cave explained that following Arthur’s passing, ��we all needed to draw ourselves back to a state of wonder. My way was to write myself there.” Ghosteen begins to make much more sense in this context – the lyrics are dense with imagination. Cave as fantasy writer, striving for the victory of wonder and the imagination over the horror of things as they are. This fits, too, with the album’s artwork resembling something from blockbuster fantasy cinema – mythology and kitsch in blinding technicolor. The most striking expression of Cave’s push towards wonder is the recurrent motif of horses (also present on the artwork). Horses are mentioned repeatedly across the album, and appear as a lens through which Cave jousts with his views on wonder and creativity. “We are all so sick and tired of seeing things as they are / horses are just horses and their manes aren’t full of fire / and the fields are just fields and there ain’t no Lord.” Better, this seems to ask, to find the wonder in the horses than to give in and be resigned to the purely literal. “We all rose up from our wonder” he croons on ‘Night Raid’, “we will never admit defeat.”

God on this record, as is always the case in Cave’s work, is very much in the house. Jesus lies in his mother’s arms, priests run through chapels, Jesus freaks are out on the street. It’s no surprise though that Christian imagery pulsates harder than it has done in Cave’s writing for decades here at the point when he is most concerned with wonder – Cave has long linked the religious impulse with the creative one. In his 1996 lecture ‘the Flesh Made Word’, Cave explained that “Christ shows us that the creative imagination has the power to combat all enemies, that we are protected by the flow of our own inspiration.” That other messiah, Elvis, also makes a cameo on ‘Spinning Song’ – where 1985’s ‘Tupelo’ saw Cave depicting the creation myth of Elvis’ birth, here it’s the bloated anti-hero who ‘crashes onto a stage in Vegas’, Elvis of the later years, the fall from grace(land). Falling and rising happens a lot on this record, “a spiral of children climbs up to the sun” on ‘Sun Forest’, whilst on ‘Waiting For You’ bodies become “anchors”, bodies falling “that never asked to be free“. I don’t want to dwell on quite what it is that Cave evokes here.

The closest sisters to Ghosteen are Cohen’s You Want it Darker and Scott Walker’s Tilt – like both of those artists, Cave is in the small pantheon of songwriters who can claim genuinely revelatory late periods. Warren Ellis’ electronics – picking up not just from Skeleton Tree but from the film soundtrack work on which he and Cave have been moonlighting – here are at their most dominant and at their most astonishingly beautiful. The arrangements are often sparse and percussion is barely existent, occasionally pattering in and out of view absent-mindedly (one wonders if Jim Scalvanos got proficient at chess during the recording). Where once the Bad Seeds were marked by their bombast, now their sound is as elusive as Cave’s writing can become – Ellis’ synthesizers glow and swell, and occasionally like on ‘Galleon Ship’ they wail like the top notes of anxiety. It underlines the extent to which this is music made by someone in the aftermath of the unspeakable. On Skeleton Tree Cave’s voice was a often a rasp, pushed to breaking point and for very obvious reasons sounding under strain – these cracks were, of course, how the light got in, but it’s a delight to listen to Cave on this record delivering a career-best vocal performance. The weathered baritone is more powerful than ever, and the most affecting moments on the album see Cave creasing – making itself small – into a tortured falsetto.

Of the three ‘parent’ songs, the strongest is ‘Hollywood’. Ellis’ electronics here are at their most malevolent, and Cave alternates between vocal registers to suggest two different stories being told – one of Kisa, forced to bury her child, and one of another person (Cave?) fleeing to Hollywood after a tragedy (Cave has spoken in interviews of considering relocating to Los Angeles, Brighton carrying too many memories). There’s absolutely nothing redemptive about this album – why would there be? – but one moment offers hints about what comes in place of redemption, which is a roadmap through the worst of it. “I think my friends have gathered here for me” sings Cave on the gorgeous ‘Ghosteen Speaks’, as his friends the Bad Seeds chime a celestial choir around him, “I think they’re here for me.” It’s all we can ever ask from anyone.

On One More Time With Feeling Cave railed against the empty platitudes that surround the language of grief – on the album’s title track, he’s found something succinct and beautiful to say about grief, and I’ll leave the last word to Cave, back in the office, working through pain. “There’s nothing wrong / with loving something you can’t hold in your hand.”

https://www.loudandquiet.com/reviews/nick-cave-the-bad-seeds-ghosteen/