#I had a NEED to make things ‘ surrealist’ by like adding shit in there with no thought

[horseshoemybeloved]

And yknow what I do rag on my old art a lot and like, my old art is obviously worse than my new stuff cus of learned and improved but,,,this one,,,, soft spot for her,,

[maxwell-grant]

Have you read the short story Norvell Page wrote as a wedding present for a Big Name Fan about Dick and Nita's first meeting? Any thoughts on it? My main is that Page does not go where you expect him to based on that description.

I did! Actually it was one of the first Spider stories I read. And yeah, to an extent, it's absolutely not what you'd expect from something set in The Spider's world. And on the other hand, it's absolutely what makes the most sense for these two characters. Because, yeah, Norvell Page could have done what he usually does, and written some over-the-top action where Dick and Nita happen to meet during it.

But no, that wouldn't work. Because, for all the turmoil and chaos in The Spider, for everything that he and Nita go through, there are many times when, sturdier even than Dick's resolve is their love for each other, the deep understanding and affection that carries them through hell itself time and time again.

And so, when it was time to showcase how such a romance started, Page wisely deviated from his usual narrative style, and instead told a very, very intimate and personal story, a long and extended conversation between the two, and more importantly, between Page and the reader. Between The Spider, and You, peering into The Spider through the eyes of Nita van Sloan.

I think for a start, it's an interesting coincidence that this meeting takes place on a cruise ship, and it involves Dick rescuing Nita from suicide. I say this because Margo Lane's first meeting with Lamont Cranston, in the pulps, was stated to have taken place on a cruise ship, and of course, the first time we see The Shadow in the pulps, he's rescuing Harry Vincent from suicide, and both Harry and Margo are The Shadow's main supporting characters. I'm not saying it was intentional, but it's an interesting fact. And more so because Dick doesn't really rescue Nita.

Her scarf whipped in the wind on deck, and it blinded her... and a hand touched her arm, and a voice spoke to her.

"If it's intentional, don't let me stop you," the voice said, "but you're heading straight for suicide."

Nita looked then at the stop toward which, blindly, she was going, and it was a chain barrier beyond which was the sea. And she looked at the man who had stopped her and it was Richard Wentworth. And his words had been a shock to her.

"You wouldn't try to dissuade me from suicide?" she asked.

Wentworth's brows were tilted whit a hint of mockery, but his eyes were very grave. "Every man is master of his own soul, and hence of his body," he said. "And your eyes are wide open and awake. So it would be a considered action. I'm not sure, under those circumstances, that I would have a right to meddle in another's business."

Nita said, "I think you can help me."

Wentworth shook his head. "Only you can help yourself," he said, "but it may be that someone else could help you find the way."

The whole text is a great example of how wonderfully realized of a character Nita van Sloan is in ways so unlike the typical pulp or superhero girlfriends at the time, because the text is written from her perspective, and half of the text reads like an extended character breakdown of who Nita is as a character and person. And the other half of the text is almost entirely comprised of Dick Wentworth spouting philosophy and talking in-depth about his reading of her and what's upsetting her, talking about God and fate and so on. And like so many other attempts to explore serious theological/psychological/philosophical/etc concepts explored through pulp fiction, half of it is bullshit, and half of it is fascinatingly disturbing and thought-provoking bullshit.

"Self-contempt," Wentworth's words were very quiet now. "Is second only to self-pity among the greater sins. Self-analysis is a dangersous thing. You need so much charity. And any person who is advanced enough to think about himself at all is apt to be over-stern in his judgment of himself."

He said to her, "If you don't honor youself, who will honor you?" And, a few moments later, "There is conceit in ruling others, but none in mastering yourself." And, "There is no arrogance so great as self-righteousness."

Nita clashed with him violently, "You are being self-righteous in judging me!"

Wentworth laughed. "I am speaking only truism. It is you who judge yourself, not I." He was serious, then. "My dear," he said, "I would be presumptuous to try to teach you. No man can teach another. But one who has been along that same trail would be less than a man if he failed to mark certain signposts and certain places where there is water to drink so that another, traveling that same road, may know where another struggled and what he has learned. But, as no man can travel a road for another, so no man can teach another. You must work out your own salvation."

"That sense of separation between the inner and outer self," Nita rushed on, "between yourself and the world ... while you were talking, I could almost feel that difference disappearing. The feeling is gone now, but ..."

"All progress is three steps forward and two back," Wentworth said, slowly, "and this is good because thus all ground is three-times covered and triply learned."

And I should probably clarify by this point that, it's not so much Dick Wentworth talking in this story, as it's Norvell Page himself. In fact, he admits as much in another letter he had sent to his readers that he was prone to talking philosophy by this point.

There was a time when the burden of writing just one more Spider seemed too much to undertake. (After all, the magazine is in it's ninth year!) But I never feel that way any more. I know now that the Spider actually does help people; that there are those who appreciate his idealism even though it is expressed in violence.

Especially in the last half dozen Spiders, beginning with the 100th I believe, I have tried very earnestly to teach a little of the philosophy and faith, of which we all need so much in these days.

Here's the thing about The Spider: It's not that the character is mad. Well, okay, he IS mad, I don't pull these over-the-top maniacal cartoon meme descriptions out of thin air, but that's because he lives in a batshit insane disaster horror world where there IS no sane response other than joining the carnage to overcome it. It's not just that Wentworth who is a madman. It's that Norvell Page was a mad man, and Dick Wentworth was Norvell's Page alter-ego, by the man's own admission.

Friends have informed me that I moved about the company as one in a trance: there were some who were concerned about my health, so oddly did I behave. Of course, only my body attended that occasion. My mind was entirely engrossed in Dick Wentworth's big problem - back in my study on a sheet of paper stuck in my typewriter

I did not dream that night; in the morning I restlessly paced my floor thinking, thinking, thinking. I sat down at the typewriter, stared at the words and the keys. Suddenly, as if by magic, Dick Wentworth seemed to move of his own volition. My hands raised, my fingers literally flew over the keyboard.

No matter how ridiculous it seems, I will always feel that Dick Wentworth, creature of my own fabrication, guided me through that tough scene.

No two people can live together without being influenced by each other to some extent. So constantly has Wentworth been in my mind, it is as if we were roommates - partners in everything.

Page has talked about how close of a connection he feels to the character, about many ways he's emulated his mannerisms, even some pretty embarassing anectodes where he claims to have "accidentally" used the character's "indomitable will" to scare waiters or drawing connections between The Spider's cast and real people he's met. Others who met him remarked that he talked of the "Spider" characters as though they were members of his family, or drinking companions.

Even before I got into The Spider, I had heard of rumors that he used to present or discuss stories in his office by putting on a cape and jumping from desk to desk, swinging a yard stick in his hand, and I can't find any source that confirms it, but I don't doubt it in the slightest. A lot of pulp writers had really weird lives, and Page was no exception. He was a journalist who frequently dug into his newspaper clippings for grisly stories to incorporate into narratives. I mean, just look at the dude's eyes, he's seen some shit.

When he was 3, his mother fell down a manhole while they were walking down a Chicago sidewalk. Norvell, terrified, thought she had dissappeared and never quite got over the experience.

When he was a little older, according to some family members, his parents had tickets for the Titanic and escaped disaster when Norvell begged them to cancel the trip for reasons unknown.

Norvell again played a hand in the family's escaping disaster when, one Christmas the family home caught on fire. Candles on the tree had been left burning. He quite arguably saved everyone's life. Waking first, he threw his mattress out of his window, grabbed his infant brother and sister and ran screaming through the hall as he went back to jump to safety. His screams woke his parents who then jumped to the mattress themselves.

Norvell lied about his age and experience to the Norfolk "Observer", claiming to have been writing for Richmond's "Times Dispatch" and was hired there.

His father managed Thomas Edison & Hugo Wurlitzer's ad accounts, and had always encouraged him to write, envisioning him as another Poe, whom his Great-Uncle had worked with as an editor

It is rumored that, in NYC, while at the "World Telegram", he became involved in fellow editor Varion Fry's effort to rescue artists and scientists from occupied Europe. President of the American Fiction Guild, he edited their newsletter for some time. Among his closest friends were fellow writers Ted Tinsley and L. Ron Hubbard and Surrealist painter Max Ernst.

WRITER'S REVIEW 35.08: Norvell W. Page, whose bloodthirsty Spider novels would do justice to Ghengis Khan, demonstrated his bloodlust the other day by accidentally killing a sparrow.

He wrote until 1943, when he abruptly stopped without warning. He dissappeared, for all intents and purposes, from both New York, the arts world and the pulp world for good.

His wife of 20 years, Audrey, had died and this, along with the U.S. involvment in WWII, led to his returning to VA where he would go on to be an intelligence worker in the Truman, Kennedy and Eisenhower Administrations.

He died suddenly of a heart attack in August of 1961.

Surviving family members do not know where he is buried.

I think this is a story that Page might have told differently had he written it earlier in his career, before he got tired, before he underwent his depression and loss of weight that caused him to briefly stop writing pulps all together, in a time period before the World War had cast an oppressive miasma on the world. In a time period where most of the horrifying nightmares he infused into the stories were really just that, nightmares, that he didn't live long enough to see turn into prophecies.

Because that's another thing about The Spider that makes the character more than just a batshit vigilante: As over-the-top as the stories were, a lot of them also inevitably turned out to predict some form of catastrophe in real life.

Written with an eye to the horrors festering in Germany at the time, The Mayor of Hell now reads as an infernal vision of the Homeland Security Act.

The poisoned products found in The Red Death Rain and The Pain Emperor call to mind the Tylenol killings of the summer of 1982, and the hundreds of poisoned products cases that followed.

Bio-terrorism plays large in the Spider mythos, with bubonic plague in Wings of the Black Death, rabies in The Mad Horde, and cholera in The Cholera King foreshadowing the Anthrax scare of 2001. The same could be said of the terror gases from Kingdom of Doom and Green Globes of Death and the nerve gas attack in the Tokyo subways in March of 1995.

Masters of the Death Madness unfolds as a nightmare meditation upon suicide, which has become one of the principal weapons of modern terrorists. One scene involves suicide bombers.

Another scene chillingly presages the Jonestown massacre of 1978: a grand procession lines up to drink from a bowl of poisoned wine while surrounding gunmen pick off anyone who refuses to drink.

The modern reader will recognize the psychological and sociological effects of a citizenry living under the threat of terrorism, so chillingly evoked by Page: the grating loss of safety, the imminent threats lurking in familiar objects, the way security can no longer be taken for granted, the kind of skittishness that empties a building at the first sign of an unknown white powder.

The eeriest of all the modern terrorist parallels appears in a novel called The City Destroyer, originally published in 1936. It features a set piece involving the collapse of a fictitious gigantic building, supposedly the tallest in New York City, called “The Sky Building.” When it fell, it wiped out five city blocks and claimed 1,000 lives. And perhaps it’s worth noting a further parallel that occurred in the 1970’s, when Pocket Books tried to revive the Spider; they repackaged him in a paperback series, striving for an image of what was then cool and thrusting Richard Wentworth into a contemporary setting.

When Pocket Books reprinted and updated The City Destroyer in 1975, the collapse of the Sky Building was replaced with the collapse of the World Trade Center - Stuart Hopen's essay on The Spider

Regardless of how much reality Page was infusing into his stories (because, again, he took a lot of his material from newspapers) or how much he foresaw intentionally or not, writing The Spider definitely took it's toll on him, and as the magazine neared it's final stretch with him on the helm, certain parts did began taking a more philosophical or religious tone, as more of Page's own beliefs, more of Page's attempts to use it as a vehicle to do good, began to bleed through the page.

And ultimately I think that's also what the story of Dick and Nita's first meeting is about, sort of an extended analysis not just of Nita, who Page himself said was a character he conceived as "the epitome of womanhood" and everything he thought admirable about it, but also of Wentworth's own character, and the things Page wanted to get through in his time.

Religion crept deeper into the series with each succeeding year. By all accounts, Norvell Page was a man of deep faith and spirituality who just happened to be writing the exploits of a hero whose idea of mercy was a bullet in the brain instead of the stomach.

In the 100th novel, Death and The Spider, Wentworth battles Death itself - or so it seems - and on Christmas Eve, he is shot so badly while protecting the President from assassination that everyone believes he's dead - including himself.

Dead or not, he forces himself to fight on, sustained only by reciting the 23rd Psalm over and over again.

Nita laughed and accepted a cigarette. "I don't know how to thank you."

"Don't," Wentworth's voice was sharp. "I told you I am only a channel. Don't confuse me with the Source."

It stopped words on Nita's lips, and it gave here a new respect and a new and sudden attitude toward this man beside her, this man who could laugh and jest with everyone about him, and who could teach like a very oracle ... and who carried about him such a sense of dedication to high purpose. He might seem apart from the world, but he was utterly and completely of it.

Nita said, half-laughing, half-serious, "May I like you? And may I admire your ... adjustment?"

"Don't envy my adjustment," he grinned at her. "Have one yourself." He snapped flame to her cigarette with his lighter, and his lean, strong hand was steady and sure as his eyes, as his voice. He was speaking to her but he was looking at the lighter. "I have found my mission," he said quietly.

[danetobelieve]

Hail Mary || Marley and Winston

When: 20/10/2020 Who: @detectivedreameater & @danetobelieve Where: The Police Station Summary: Bloody Mary gets bloody annoying! Warnings: n/a  

Winston was once again working late. No surprises there. They found that the job was more time consuming then what they had been sold but they weren’t complaining. Keeping busy stopped them from worrying about … well everything. It was dark outside of the window of the breakroom as Winston slipped in to make themselves a hot drink that would keep them going. The mirror on the opposite wall to where Winston was stood held a slightly dirty visage of Winston and they weren’t completely thrilled with how exhausted they looked. Yawning, they scooped up a mug of coffee and turned at the sound of the door behind them opening. “Oh,” Winston flashed Marley a quick smile, “hey marley, are you doing okay? Working late?” 

Things had calmed down for a minute finally, but Marley found relaxing just wasn’t her style. There was still so much to do, so much to prepare for. Even with Tommy dead and Roy on his heels, they still needed to be careful. Methodical. Being home alone felt...strange. But Roy or any one of his other goons could come after them at any time, so staying with Anita also wasn’t an option. So it was the precinct, instead. Marley looked up from the file she’d been staring at for ten minutes and realized she’d zoned out, shaking her head. It was time for some more coffee. She grabbed her mug and headed for the break room-- everyone else, save for the nightshift boys downstairs, had gone home for the day long ago. So it was a surprise when she heard Winston’s voice, stopping in the breakroom doorway. “That’s Detective Stryder to you,” she said once she’d recuperated, frowning. But she wasn’t really mad and her voice reflected that. Winston was one of the only people here who she let see her soft side. They’d wormed their way in somehow. She gestured at them. “Alright, hand over the coffee. Quit hogging it.”

Laughing gently, Winston finished pouring their own coffee and added a generous helping of sugar to it. Something told them that they would need the sweetness to get through tonight. They still had to work out how to convince Agatha that the disappearing man on the footage hadn’t found some way of hacking all of the cameras or they had to accept that it was a losing fight and take matters into their own hands. Either way it was easier said then done. “Oh my apologies detective, I should’ve known better then to address you with your name.” The nice thing about not being the intern was that you could get away with a little more. Besides they had an understanding with Marley and their relationship was certainly better then it was with many of Winston’s other colleagues. “Here you go,” they said passing over the jug of coffee before turning to glance in the mirror once more, “you’re working late tonight, I didn’t realise you were on a shif-“ their sentence fell short as they caught sight of something in the mirror. 

“Thank you,” Marley quipped, rolling her eyes. The door shut behind her and she hardly even noticed. Made her way over towards them, taking the pot gratefully, ready to shoot back her lame excuse when Winston stopped mid-sentence. They were looking somewhere and Marley turned to look, too, but stopped short, coffee pot in hand. She froze. There was someone else in the mirror. “Don’t move,” she said to Winston in a low voice, slowly moving to set the pot down. She inched herself between them and the mirror-- the figure in the mirror-- hoping she hadn’t seen them yet. But in the next moment, hands were reaching through the glass. “Oh, shit!” she hissed, jumping back as a hand swiped for her. “Run!”

Freezing in place. Winston had learned enough in their time within the supernatural world to learn that sometimes you just did what you were told by other people who were more experienced then you. Marley was one of those people. For a moment there was nothing. Marley inches towards the mirror and Winston’s heart hammered in their chest. Then Marley jerked backwards. It was like something out of a surrealist painting and Winston couldn’t help the high pitched yelp that escaped their lips as they jerked backwards. “Oh fuck, what the hell!?!” Winston could feel the sweat beading on their forehead as they headed out of the door of the break room and into the deserted and dark hallway. “What- what the fuck?! Mirrors?! Are mirrors not safe now??” Winston was wondering just what was safe now as it felt like the list was growing much much shorter as time plodded on. 

Marley followed Winston out quickly. She slammed the door shut behind them and held it in place for a moment. Whatever that thing was, she hoped it couldn’t phase through walls. Glancing back at Winson, she tried to stay calm for a moment, wracking her brain for knowledge of any creature she knew that traveled through mirrors. Too bad she couldn’t think of one. “Fuck if I kno--” she started, but was cut off mid sentence when a cold, slimy hand wrapped around her wrist. Her head swiveled quickly back to the door, expecting to see it open, or perhaps the hand coming through it or under it or something-- but instead, she saw that same woman, now reflected in the breakroom door’s window. Marley’s instincts kicked in and she turned intangible, yanking her hand away through the gnarled woman’s, stumbling backwards. “That’s not normal!” she breathed, putting her arm out and shoving Winston down the hallway. “Keep running!”

Yelping again as a hand that almost seemed to be dripping with damp wrapped around Marley’s wrist, Winston was about to try and help when Marley seemed to just phase through the hand. That was something that they would discuss later. Who knew that Marley could quite literally ghost you? Stumbling slightly as she shoved them further down the hallway, Winston wracked their brain trying to think of what the fuck this could be. The truth was that there really wasn’t that much that would explain this. They hadn’t heard of anything that would do this. “It’s definitely not fucking normal,” Winston said as they sprinted away from the door and into the now deserted bullpen of the precinct. How was she managing to reach them out of glass? It was weird, it didn’t make any sense that she could just appear in glass. What even was she. “Have you upset something that lives in glass?” Winston’s brain was racing, trying to solve this problem before it got worse. “I think, I think we’re okay.” They turned and reached over to scoop up a tablet that was sat on one of the desks, hoping that the internet would have something to offer. As they did they spotted the reflection of the woman once more, she reached out of the reflective surface of the tablet and grasped past Winston, swiping at Marley.

“You know, I generally upset a lot of people,” Marley huffed as they ran, making sure to keep herself close to Winston in case the crazy mirror lady popped out of nowhere again. “But I usually try to avoid pissing off crazy mirror women!” Each window showed their reflections, and Marley felt the hair on the back of her neck prickling, arms tingling. “We need to get back to the bullpen, I need my weapon.” As the skirted around the corner, Marley came to a stop, realizing that, perhaps, this was a mistake. How many reflective surfaces were there in the bullpen? Too many. Way too many. Winston made a grab for the tablet and Marley reached out to stop them, too little, too late. “Winston, no--” the clawed hand grabbed her wrist once more and yanked. Marley stumbled forward, shoving Winston away, and watched in muted horror as her hand disappeared into the tablet surface. “What the fuck!” she shouted, dropping the thing-- and her arm went with it, as if stuck inside. She turned herself intangible again, but her wrist remained stuck. “Get it OFF!” she shouted stepping on the thing and yanking. “Get it the fuck off!”

“What is it about crazy mirror women that makes you prioritise not pissing them off?” Winston was sure that the sarcasm wasn’t helping but defence mechanisms weren’t exactly made to be helpful. Weapons sounded like a good idea although Winston wasn’t sure what good it was going to do against reflections but there was a reason that Marley was the fighter and not Winston. Winston however realised their mistake too late. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck.” That was all Winston could think to say as a slimey hand reached out of the tablet and pulled Marley’s wrist into the tablet. Marley seemed to be struggling to get out but whatever it was that she was trying to do Winston could see that out wasn’t working. Fortunately it was tech, this was tech. Winston knew tech. Winston lived and breathed tech. They could do something about this, of that they were completely sure. “This is probably going to hurt and I’m really sorry about that,” reaching out Winston willed a pulse of magic through the tablet, they weren’t sure if this would work but they were hoping that whatever it was gripping Marley’s wrist would be forced to let go. Wrapping their hands underneath Marley’s armpits Winston hauled hard and pulled hoping that Marley would’ve been dislodged. 

“I just don’t want them ruining my good looks,” Marley said back, though her voice was strained. Her arm was inching further and further into the tablet and she really didn’t want to think about what might happen if it reached her shoulder. “Just do it!” she growled when Winston proclaimed what they were about to do might hurt-- because whatever it was, it wouldn’t actually hurt her. Not at night. The pulse went through and up her arm and into her head, before shooting down her spine with a jolt and she tugged, feeling Winston grab her and pull as well. With one large heave, her foot braced against the tablet, her arm came free and the two went toppling backwards, crashing into a desk. Marley shook her head of the daze, reaching out and grabbing Winston, hauling them up. “We’re leaving,” she called out, shoving them towards the stairs, “get in the stairwell! There’s no reflections in there!” She could process later that whoever this women was, she could touch Marley at night, and whoever she was, she didn’t seem interested in Winston. That was probably a good thing. Marley didn’t feel much like having to protect a kid again. 

“Let’s hope that won’t be a risk,” Winston grunted as they hauled Marley free from the tablet before crashing backwards into a desk. A dull pain lanced through Winston’s back as the desk collided with their shoulder blades.  Groaning, Winston was about to disentangle themself from Marley but she was already pulling them off the ground and pushing them towards the exit. Despite the ache of their recent collision with furniture, Winston knew that there was some sound logic in heading for an area with no reflections. Maybe they would be safe there. Though Winston wasn’t sure if this was something that they would be able to wait out or if they were going to have to undertake some form of action to try and keep them safe. Either way they weren’t sure that they wanted to find out either option. Something told them that waiting this out might not help. Panting, Winston wiped sweat off their brow after they had pressed the door to the stair way closed. “What. The. Fuck?” 

Marley collapsed into the hallway, pressing her back up against the door even as Winston threw it closed, leaning her head back against the cool metal panel. Every noise echoed so loud in the stairwell, but they had recently painted the railings matte and the walls were brick. She turned her head to look at Winston, still panting slightly. “Yeah, I was just about to ask you that,” she exhaled, running a hand through her hair. She moved away from the door finally and glanced around, double checking. “You’re the wizard here, and that was definitely some crazy ass magic shit.” She held up her arm, checking it, pulling the sleeve down-- but there was nothing strange about it. Just the marks from Morgan that were slowly healing and normal skin. She looked over at Winston and gave them a morbid half-grin. “Think she’s just collecting hot women cause she’s lonely?”

“I don’t have any answers,” Winston had been trying to think of what the fuck that could possibly be and had not come up with anything, “I’ve never come across anything that fucks with reflections, well apart from this weird hall of mirrors but that just pulled me into a mirror realm and it was more like the mirror itself was magic rather then something literally pulled me into it.” Winston sighed gently and shrugged. “I prefer the term spellcaster but fine, wizard, whatever, crazy magic shit or not I have never ever met something that could do that before and if it can just pluck people out of thin air whenever they go past a reflective surface….” Winston had to admit that they had no clue why it was targeting Marley. “Somehow your attractiveness or how perceived to be attractive you are doesn’t seem to be what would make you a target, but I don’t know for sure, who can tell for certain.” Winston chewed on their lip. “Besides, it’s not like you really want to spend the time with her there.” Winston pulled out their phone and tapped in a few searches to do with mirrors. Gulping at the result. “I’m only getting one repeated result here and I really don’t think it can be right. Of all the things that I expected to be a tale, well the only thing I’m getting is bloody mary….” 

“It was a joke, kid,” Marley said, exasperated. She huffed, stepping away from the door, glancing around. How were they going to get out of this? Winston was talking, but Marley wasn’t really listening to them. She needed to figure out how to get them out of here, because it wasn’t like they could just stay in this stairwell forever. Perhaps she could call someone to come cover some of the windows in the main hall so they could run out, but phones had reflective screens, and pulling one out would be-- “Hey! Woah, put that away!” she shouted, slapping the phone from Winston’s hands and shoving it in her pocket. “Screens, kid!” she gestured wildly, running a hand through her hair. “Phone screens are reflective and I don’t think I’ll fit into a phone if she tries to drag me in again.” She then looked over at WInston again, rubbing her head. “Okay, seriously? Bloody Mary? That can’t be right.”

“Okay well I make the jokes and you’re the competent person that stops us from getting killed…” Winston would’ve laughed but there was a bit much on their plate. Winston bit their tongue, doing their best not to chastise Marley for slapping their phone from their hand. “That’s expensive, you don’t slap phones. Is this why all of the tech that we give to the detectives and officers always comes back looking like it’s been put through the laundry?” Winston was pretty sure that some of the time it actually went through the laundry. Frowning gently, they wracked their head. Not being able to use anything that had a reflective surface was … not great. “I guess if it would happen anywhere then it would be here, the real question, at least the real one that I want answering is …. Well why is … Bloody Mary after you exactly?” Winston tried to remember who Bloody Mary was, the problem was that she was so remarkably vague and so very shrouded in folklore and superstition that Winston wasn’t sure that they’d ever heard an account of the tale of Bloody Mary that made sense on more then a single occasion. “

“Hey, my jokes are funny,” Marley said, frowning. She paced through the stairwell again, looking it up and down. There was no point going to the roof, but did they risk heading downstairs and into the lobby? “You know, it could be that our job is demanding and sometimes we get into physical altercations, but sure, laundry,” she grumbled, rolling her eyes. “Phones are replaceable, relax.” People, however, were not. She looked back at Winston, giving a pause. They were mumbling about Bloody Mary and why she was here and why she was after Marley, but it didn’t really matter to her. She’d been chased by a demon, what was some stupid mirror ghost compared to that? She rolled her shoulders. “How about we ask those questions once we’re out of here and away from her?” she said, heading down the stairs, “C’mon, we’re gonna have to just make a break for it. If we go through the lobby, there’s only the exterior windows and the one computer screen we have to worry about. I think if we stay low and move quickly, we can make it outside.” 

Winston bit their tongue from making another snide remark. It probably wasn’t going to make things better and there was only so much ‘humour as a defense mechanism’ that could be excused. “I am sure that some of the reasons are that your job is demanding and you find yourself in physical altercations, but the truth is that I’ve found one too many pairs of headsets that have definitely got excessive water damage and look like someone forgot to take them out of their pants before they washed them.” Sighing gently, Winston was about to say that the phone might be replaceable but that was no reason to treat it badly, but again decided better of it. “You think that we can make it outside?” Winston was chewing on their lip, they wondered if there was something that they could do that would prevent the surfaces from being reflective. “I’m sure I could work out or design a spell that would prevent the surfaces from you know, reflecting, it’d only take me like thirteen maybe fourteen hours tops…” something told Winston however that Marley wasn’t going to go for that. 

“Well, I don’t do that, so don’t look at me,” Marley shrugged, “i don’t know, ask Greg. He seems like the kind of person to do that.” She glanced back at Winston, already halfway down the stairs. “Are you serious? You wanna hole up here for that long? What happens if she gets in somehow? What happens if you get hungry or have to go to the bathroom or you get hurt? We can’t afford to wait. We need to get to a car, cover the mirrors, and get out of here. Who knows, maybe she even left. Gave up on us cause she can’t get to us.” As if they would be so lucky in this town, but Marley wasn’t willing to hedge a bet on that. “Once we’re out, you can figure out a spell. Alright?”

“I wasn’t blaming you, but you know… what’s the saying … if the shoe fits right?” Raising an eyebrow gently, Winston decided to drop it. This probably wasn’t worth the fight that it required. “I mean, I just know that it is the…” Winston swallowed, perhaps now was the time for courage and not for caution. “Okay, okay, you’re right, let’s go and sneak out of here and hope that we don’t get caught by this terrible … thing. Flexing their fingers Winston looked left and then right as they cracked the door to the stairwell open. “Okay, well I can’t see anything so let’s go.” They pushed it open just wide enough for them to slip out and then in a low crouched position Winston began to creep out of the staircase. Heading towards the lobby, Winston prayed that they weren’t going to get caught. “Thirteen or fourteen hours was kind of conservative anyway.” They whispered as they headed past the first of their obstacles, a very nice looking window that overlooked the carpark. 

Marley nearly rolled her eyes, following the kid out, keeping low. “Gee, really building my confidence here,” she mumbled quietly. Kept her eyes on each place she thought a reflection might show up, hoping she was right and the ghost was going to leave them alone. Bloody Mary. Ugh. That was going to be shitty if it was true, if she was real. They were nearly to the front doors when Marley felt a chill. She barely had time to glance back over her shoulder before hands reached around her neck and pulled. “Fuck, Wins--” she tried to call out, tried to turn intangible as fast as she could, but before she knew it, her head and shoulders were swallowed by the glass window. The figure-- Bloody Mary-- still had such a tight grip on her neck, Marley could barely breathe. She jerked, trying to yank away. The world around her shimmered with a distorted wave, rippling out. She felt as if her lungs were filling with ice. Whatever this place was, it wasn’t good. She pulled back hard, planting her hands firmly on the window sill, pulling harder. 

It all happened too fast for Winston to really do that much. They swallowed in fear as they saw Marley get yanked through the window and knew that this time there was little to no chance that they would be able to pull her free. There was just too much reflective surface and she was already halfway in. Trying to breathe, they focussed on the window, focussed on the reflective surface before extending their consciousness out from them and into the glass. Muttering a few words of an incantation, they waited for a moment. For a second they saw the glass ripple before it wobbled and ejected Marley from the window. Panting, sweat beaded their brow but Winston wasn’t done, cracking the glass, they watched it shatter and forced it to evaporate into as many tiny pieces as they could possibly manage. There wasn’t much more they could do until they could study this thing further. Rushing forward, they pulled Marley to their feet and out of the building getting as far away from any reflective surface that they could see. “You okay?” they panted.

Marley gasped heavily, sucking in a large breath when her body broke free from the glass, pulled by some otherworldly force out. Magic, she supposed, as she fell to the ground and saw Winston muttering something. Before she could say anything, a loud crack rang through the hallway as the window shattered into a million tiny pieces, evaporating away. Shit, that sure was handy. Hands above her head to try and cover her face, Marley moved stiffly, only to be yanked up by Winston. What a strange turn of events. They sped into the parking lot as fast as possible, away from the building, before they finally stopped, panting for breath. “Oh, yeah,” she exhaled, giving them a thumbs up, “peachy keen. Love being choked out.” 

As they moved away from the police building, Winston prayed that they would be able to get to the CCTV footage and deal with it in time. After all this would look very questionable if anyone not in the supernatural loop were to see it. “I’m not going to kink shame you but I didn’t think that you’d get that much of a kick out of a near death experience, but each to their own I guess.” Winston couldn’t help the smile as they looked around them at the mess they’d made. Captain Maynard would be very pleased.

[fantastica-daily]

Richard Elfman on his new bizarro comedy - Aliens, Clowns & Geeks

By Staci Layne Wilson

When it comes to cult science fiction movies, Forbidden Zone stands tall. Richard Elfman's 1980 Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo vehicle was a one-of-a-kind film zooming down on a one-way street to a whacky conclusion that’s stayed in the minds of schlock cinema fans ever since. His latest film, Aliens, Clowns & Geeks is an equally wild and expressionistic indie featuring Austin Powers' Verne Troyer in his last role, promising that Aliens, Clowns & Geeks is the antidote to mainstream and a breakneck cure for the run-of-the-mill.

“I was fortunate to have my dream cast on this one, including Verne Troyer (Mini-Me) as my demonic clown emperor–his final film role,” says Elfman. “Our ninety-minute film has seventy-five minutes of driving music by my brother Danny (Elfman) and acclaimed animation composer, Ego Plum Guerrero. Along with Danny’s to-die-for clown and alien music, Ego added a Latin element with the band we play with, Mambo Demonico.” The score was composed by Danny Elfman, who wrote the theme song to The Simpsons, the music to The Nightmare Before Christmas and did the singing voice of Jack Skellington, and won six Saturn awards.

"Eddy Pine (Bodhi Elfman) is a jaded actor dealing with the cancellation of his series," reads the official synopsis. "To complicate matters, he wakes up with the key to the universe stuck up his ass. Apparently an alien Clown Emperor (Verne Troyer) is in hot pursuit of this, as are his rivals, the Green Aliens. Professor von Scheisenberg (French Stewart) and his comely Swedish assistants, the Svenson sisters (Rebecca Forsythe as Helga, Angeline-Rose Troy as Inga), come to Eddy’s aid. If only Eddy hadn’t fallen for Helga, and then the aliens manipulate his mind to confuse her with Inga! And when the mad little Clown Captain (Martin Klebba) steps on the gas and shifts his spaceship into fourth gear, all hell breaks loose.”

We had the opportunity to sit down with Richard to ask him about his movie.

Q. To what do you attribute your enduring interest in clowns? And why do you think they’re so fascinating to people in general?

As I’ve always said: “To be born a male redhead is to be born into a clown suit.” Hence my carrot-topped brother Danny and I have always had a fascination with clowns. Coupled with our wicked sense of humor and a love of the horror genre, it was an easy morph into thoughts of creepy clowns. Just like dolls and puppets—yes, I’m speaking Anabelle—clowns can have something “surreal” about them.  Bill Skarsgard’s Pennywise really nails it. And I laughed my head off at Killer Klowns From Outer Space. (And we have honk-honking shit-load of killer clowns in my new film).

Q. How did the idea for Aliens, Clowns & Geeks come about? Is it similar to The Forbidden Zone?

 Joined-at-the-hip. Yes. And no. Forbidden Zone is basically a surrealistic “human-cartoon” set to musical numbers. So I was working on Forbidden Zone 2, a thematic extension of FZ but on a much grander scale. I did a successful crowd-funder to develop the project, then, with the help of my producers, raised about half the budget. They asked me if we could do something quick (and cheaper) in the interim to keep the momentum going.

So I basically locked myself in my roof-top writing garret with a box of cigars and many bottles of whiskey and banged out my Geeks script over the next three weeks.

Geeks is utterly zany and music-driven, but it’s not a “singing musical” so to speak like FZ. It has surrealistic elements, thanks to my insane special effects department--and a little help from Hieronymus Bosch—but I would describe Geeks having cartoony elements rather than being a total “human cartoon” as FZ was…if that makes any sense. (And please don’t try!)

 Q. Tell us about the multiple roles played by your family – and do you have role as well? What was it like working with your family – any funny stories?

My son Bodhi Elfman—a serious dramatic actor with 100s of credits--did a great comic turn as Eddy, the lead; a bitter out of work actor who wakes up with the key to the universe stuck up his ass. He also played the ass-kissing clown (literally) on the space ship plus the green alien network executive who orders the destruction of Earth. My wife Anastasia played multiple roles, everything from a nun to a carny slut. She also danced and choreographed the cabaret burlesque numbers as well as played a clown…until she got sick from the chemicals inside the clown mask and had to throw up—after we got the shot, of course--committed trouper that she is. When I met Anastasia she was a ballet dancer with a “day job” at a horror fx shop. She can dance with a broken toe but seems to have developed a sensitivity to certain shop chemicals.

I played a clown as well and almost threw up from laughing. I must say Geeks was a fun show to work on (my greatest joy is creating a sense of fun) and the actors and crew had serious trouble keeping from laughing as I directed in insane clown attire. What a fucking visual!

And brother Danny—what can I say? As an independent (hence lower budget) film maker it helps when your little brother in Mozart.

Q. Tell us how you ran away and joined the circus.

Actually, The Grande Magic Circus--a French musical theatre company. 1971, I was twenty-one, visiting the Festival of New Theatre in Montreal. I ran into a scruffy Parisian street troupe. They had something though, a charisma, an élan, whatever-- it attracted me. Director Jérôme Savary needed a percussionist—et voila, that was me! I persuaded them to give me several minutes onstage at the festival doing my comedy/horror piece set to an Eric Satie’s Gnossienne. When I “killed” the pianist in a pool of blood the audience was shocked. And they loved it!

Then, back in California, I went to see Marcel Carne’s masterpiece Les Enfant de Paradise , a three hour film set in the Paris theatre scene of the 1830’s. I exited the theatre, stopped, turned around and went back in and saw it again.

A few months later I received a letter from Jerome. Peter Brook, famed director of London’s Royal Shakespeare Company was backing the Magic Circus in a large Paris theatre. Would I like to join them? Bloody hell!! Hence, I ran away and joined the “circus.”

Q. Tell us something about your time with the Magic Circus, how it influenced you and also how your brother Danny Elfman joined the show.

I might say that working with Jérôme Savary was perhaps my single greatest influence. The troupe had classically trained actors from the Comedie Francais as well as more Avant guard performers. Jerome was a genius, his material had a sense of Absurdism that really struck me. I would later develop this absurdism in my own fashion. Certainly with my own troupe, the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo (later Oingo Boingo). By the way, my film Forbidden Zone was essentially our Mystic Knights stage show set to film.

Danny—several days out of high school--showed up at my 5ème, Rue Descartes doorstep with his electric violin. The company violinist was from the Paris Opera. Jerome liked to improvise. The opera guy couldn’t deviate one note from the written score. I believe my brother is Mozart reincarnated. He could follow any improvisation and got the job and toured with us for the summer throughout France. He and I opened the show with him on violin, me on percussion—the first music Danny Elfman ever wrote.

Q. Any other interesting experiences that you and Danny had there?

We were in a Basque town near the Spanish border. If I may digress, I am four years Danny’s senior. I went to a high school in Crenshaw (Boyz in the Hood), Danny ended up at a school with no guns. I was a tough boxer. Danny might be described as a bespectacled science nerd. So it’s Friday night, the audience was really rowdy and restless. My “street sense” knew it was just a matter of time before the fights broke out. We had an Argentine fellow in the troupe, “Katshurro,” nicest fellow. Drunks in the audience picked up on his accent and shouted terrible Spanish insults about his mother. Katshurro stopped mid-performance, his eyes bugging out of head, and he dove right into the audience swinging away. All hell broke loose. Everyone was fighting, sets crashing down. Danny’s glasses got knocked off. Well, and not for the first time, I managed to get Danny out of trouble with both his glasses and violin intact.

Q. Tell us about the cast you assembled – which includes Verne Troyer in his final screen performance. What was he like? Who does he play in the film?

I really had my dream cast. Along with my son Bodhi we had lovely kung-fu kicking Rebecca Forsythe, versatile Angeline-Rose Troy who not only played Rebecca’s sexy Swedish sister, but donned prosthetics to play poor Eddy’s junkie/whore “Mom from Hell.”

Professor von Scheisenberg was played impeccable veteran French Stewart (Third Rock From the Sun). Another great vet was George Wendt (Cheers) as Father Mahoney. Six foot six comic Steve Agee (Sarah Silverman Show, Guardians of the Galaxy) played both a tough cross-dressing bar owner and a stuttering dufis in a chicken suit. Nic Novicki (Boardwalk Empire) played his nasty little-person boss. I was really blessed with a great ensemble to work with.

And, of course, Verne Troyer, our megalomaniac Clown Emperor. What a wonderful talent to work with! He was funny on set, insisted on doing things in spite of physical limitations and he gave us hilarious comic improvisations. Little body. Big spirit. I will certainly miss him.

Q. The music is by Danny and you also have great animation… please give us some details what it’s like to create worlds through music and manufactured imagery.

Danny, along with my band mate--award winning animation composer Ego Plum (Guerrero)—really gave it to us. Seventy-five minutes of music in a ninety-minute film. ♪ ♫ La, tee-da and a boom boom boom! ♪ ♫  Music is essential to everything I do—especially setting the tone of my films. I even play music before I start writing.

As soon as Danny saw our surrealistic Bosch dream sequence and goofy clown rocket ships he agreed to do the score…after he stopped laughing. I play percussion in a quirky Latin band, Mambo Demonico, led by Hollywood’s top tv animation composer, Ego Plum. He and Danny work with the same people, including Oingo Boingo lead guitarist Steve Bartek, who subsequently has done every one of Danny’s film arrangements. Steve and the original Oingo Boingo members all played on our sound track. I must brag that we do have great fucking music!

You know, Danny was a bespectacled science nerd growing up, basically stayed out of trouble. That was my department. Oddly, he wasn’t really into music. No bands, no concerts, no big music collection. Life is funny how things turned out. I showed him a rough cut of Geeks, he laughed his ass off and offered to do it. Yes, I’m very lucky to have “Mozart” as my little brother!

Q. Who is Aliens, Clowns & Geeks for? Do you think movies like this are more likely to find a mainstream audience?

Forbidden Zone may be a “cult” movie but it still plays all over the world--after forty years. Just this past month FZ played festivals in France and South Korea. Geeks is certainly not for everyone—no one falls in love then dies of cancer. But it will find an audience I am sure. Anyone who had fun with Killer Klowns From Outer Space, liked Rocky Horror, even What We Do in the Shadows in terms of a quirky, wicked sense of humor. I also think it will play well in mental asylums…it certainly shall send people there in any case.

Geeks doesn’t fit into the scheme of “modern films.” Actually, the shooting style and underlying three-act story structure harkens back to classic comedies (says the son of a former English teacher turned novelist). The trappings though, are insane and off-the-wall. You might say it’s just my own, goony creation. Love it or hate it, the humor is balls-out outrageous, definitely not for everyone--no one dies of cancer. Geeks is simply meant to be fun for essentially the genre audience.

Q. What’s your proudest moment associated with making the film?

Proudest moment? Maybe finally paying the actors. People say I’ve embraced the indie spirit. I don’t know how much I “embrace” it, so much as am fucked by it, having to work on such a modest budget. Although I’ve been a “hired gun” and directed scripts written by others, Geeks is really the first time since my 1980 Forbidden Zone that I’ve really done purely my own vision. Per John Waters, well, I’d hope he’d have something strong to drink and/or smoke and then laugh his ass off watching it! That’s what it was like creating the film: Drinking scotch and smoking cigars in my rooftop writing garret, laughing my ass off! The green aliens have a totally high-tech ship, except for the automotive steering wheel and four-on-the-floor to shift gears. For the clowns we went for an absurdly updated version of Flash Gordon. And when our tiny clown emperor takes possession of an earth body, he has little dummy of the earthling sitting in his lap, their heads connected by electrical wires. Absurd and ridiculous, and that’s my middle name.

Want to see a double feature of The Forbidden Zone and Aliens, Clowns & Geeks? You can! They will play at The Regency in L.A. as part of The Valley Film Festival on 1/30/21. Get tickets here.

Look for our review of Aliens, Clowns & Geeks here soon!

[san-station]

A Quiet Place AU / ATEEZ (Post-apocalyptic)

Chapter 4

↝Word count: 5028

Description: In a world full of silence and dangerous creatures seeking for blood, a group of friends have to survive for their own good and find the safe place they've heard about months ago.

Pairing: OC x San

WARNING: cursing, mention of death.

A/N: This is longer than I thought omg!!! Hope you like it~

・・・・・・・・

Zoom out in the end of the world.

The most beautiful dark blue sky above us resembled a surrealistic painting with all the stars gathering in their own shinny and sparkly sea.  When most of the lights of the world shut down, the light of the dying stars made us all company illuminating the obscure path in our struggle, they were our faithful guide through the days we survived in the vast woods, shimmering and testifying death, cries and love. It was sort of romantic if you could forget half of human race was gone and you could actually concentrate in finding some love life. But it was not the fucking moment, Joong. The night terrified me, it was, in the first place, the one that brought destruction on Earth with that wonderful meteor shower more than a year ago. 

I ran a hand down my washed face, my elbows were resting on the roof cornice and I was just admiring the incredible and mysterious view before me. I felt refresh, with no blood spots printed on my clothes or skin, but at the same time my guilt flowed through my veins spreading pain all over my pores, they were actually screaming "it's your fault!" every ten seconds, and deep down I knew it was. 

Jongho and Wooyoung sat on the wooden table from the basement where we had dinner five minutes ago, every couple of weeks we had dinner on the rooftop of the building so, we moved the table easily and soundlessly and ate like everything in the world was okay, just that it wasn’t. The place was decorated with some Christmas lights on the iron poles that created a false ceiling with vines, the outdoors made a familiar mood, we had an indoors garden in college and I used to stay there with Haerin after practices to meditate. A pile of wood was in the middle of the floor keeping the place heated with a huge bonfire for the nine of us. A blast of wind made my dark hair dance a crazy and esoteric choreography on my shoulders while I took a deep breath. 

So… quiet… 

If we were outside, we’d need to talk through sign language to protect us from the monsters, Jin and Misuk taught us when they found a book for learning them in one of the places we stayed a long time ago. Quietness was the realistic manner to talk since there was no other way faster. Yeah, we could write something but it was useless in a live or die situation. We dominated the sign language after three months of hard work in the woods, communicating will always be the only way to understand each other fluently, so on the rooftop it was a must. The only sound around was made by the fire flares.

A whole warm palm rested on my left shoulder, I jerked upright in surprise and veered to face Yeosang’s eyes. My eyebrows knitted as I was already stepping aside. Yunho’s legs swinged above the building’s cornice as he counted the stars in his mind, from time to time he grimaced. Hongjoong was at the other corner of the rooftop next to San, they were talking in signs about today’s argument but I looked away, not wanting to think about it anymore. Yeosang was starting to move his hands.

“I haven't been thinking straight lately, to be honest…” he began slowly. My deadpan expression stiffed him and started again. His brown eyes pierced mine with sadness and guilt, I can't lie if I said it wasn't killing me inside. 

“Ji, I just want to apologize, ok? Give me a moment...” I stared at him for a few seconds, I scanned his face and took a mental picture of his features. He was freaking handsome, and I never realized it, not even when there were a lot of people crushing on him in college. Perhaps Yeosang was the little man with an ice heart that took the whole Misuk’s death deal as a misogynist, or it could be just me being such a bitch for taking care a little about our murdered friend as a personal thing, but it actually was a personal thing. Not only for me, for all of us. 

Well, maybe not all of us.

“Misuk was a good friend and I know we’re all gonna miss her, but life goes on, don’t you think?” he added with a final little smile, he was begging, I could feel it. 

“You’re not making it any better” I signed and glanced at Seonghwa going over Wooyoung and Jongho to thanked them about the food. Wooyoung winked at him and signed some kind of joke I couldn't catch.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what do you want me to say…” He lowered his head and I left out a sigh. The anger faded away from me, Yeosang was a good man, I knew that, he was also intelligent and reasonable, so he was right. After our death, the world will keep going, so is everybody’s life. The pain will remain for those who had a strong bond, but life goes on and on, we managed to do it after all as our normal lives vanished progressively in front of our eyes. 

My right hand reached Yeosang’s jaw and made him look up with wide scared eyes. 

“Don’t worry…” I gave him a little smile while my hands moved, “life goes on, right? Just don’t be so careless when I die” then, I patted his shoulder and turned again to my main position, maybe I would see a shooting star and wish for all of us to wake up from this nightmare.  Yeosang opened his mouth astonished and articulated “shit” while he walked away and sat next to a happy and full Mingi and a smiley Yunho on the cornice. Although they wanted to cheer us all with their cute smiles and jokes, deep down they were suffering as much as we exteriorized that and it broke my heart to see the masks they had to wear, not because they needed to, but for us to not worry more than we already were. 

After five minutes, we decided to go back to the basement. Seonghwa offered himself to clean the mess, like he always did. He liked things neat the way he wanted so no one opposed. 

    In the basement the air was thicker with San staring at me as he wanted to strangle me. His green eyes felt like shots that crossed every inch of my skin. As for the rest, Mingi was trying to make Yeosang sing a lullaby to sleep, Yunho was drinking with Jongho some beers and taking care of the little one as he cried Misuk’s death on the couch. Hongjoong and I were resting in one of the basement’s corners, the one that had our names engraving in the wood wall. 

      San’s eyes narrowed sharply when we made eye contact for the tenth time that night, and I, immediately, looked away. However, I could feel his gaze, judging every move I made ready to shout, or modulate the words “I told you so”.  The words never came. He just looked at me from his place, seated among the fire to embrace the warm flares of the little chimney inside the basement. Wooyoung came out of the bathroom, ran one hand through his parted blonde hair and sat between the mullet boy and me. 

"Yo, guys, I recommend you to use the other bathroom at least for tonight… I wouldn't enter that place, is a nightmare", he whispered dramatically shaking. I scrunch my nose as Hongjoong giggled. Wooyoung wrapped his arms around me and I melted into it. I needed comfort and he always cared about giving it to the people around.

“Little Jiyeong, give me a smile”, he croon in my ear and the hair in the back of my neck jerked. I shook my head. 

“I’m not in the mood, Woo, but thanks for worrying”, my fingers touched his strong arms around me, I squeezed them for a bit after Wooyoung let me go. 

“You know… It’s kinda tough the way you close yourself so much that even Hongjoong can’t pass through the walls”, he murmured. Hongjoong sighed and my body tensed as I looked away. It wasn't on propose, if I felt like it, I would get into that shell, built a wall between everyone and everything and would just stay there for a whole month if I needed to. Life wasn't fair because now I wasn't even allowed to zoom out in the end of the world, fuck this.

Wooyoung tilted his head against the the wall full of scratches created by the sharp point of the Swiss Army knife that Hongjoong had since we met. Hongjoong and Wooyoung started a conversation where I wasn't invited, or maybe I was, but my mind was in another place.

Suddenly, Yeosang approached to our spot and looked deep into my eyes, his features seem so tired and sharp it could cut me if I stared too much longer. He extended his hand to me, he had venous hands that used to play the guitar when we took a break of dance practices, I liked them, they were pretty captivating. 

I reached Yeosang’s hand and stood up with his help. From the corner of my eyes I could see how San stood up as well and walked next to us as Yeosang approached us to the room they shared. When we got inside the comfy and warm room, San closed the door and Yeosang told me to sit on his bed. I turned to see one mattress with light green sheets and a plushie on it besides the black sheets mattress next to the bathroom wall, so I rested on the corner of the light one and grabbed the plushie between my hands. Yeosang gave a quick and alarmed gaze to San, who only stood there with arms crossed over his chest and a annoyed face.

Yeosang started to speak softly. 

“I don’t want to talk about the elephant in the room, but we almost got kill twice because of him and his impulsives ways of getting Misuk’s attention…”, I bite my tongue to stop myself from interrupt him right away.

"And we think Jongho has to be inside for at least a month if we don't want him to go after what he thinks is left of Misuk's body", Yeosang continued after a soft sigh. My hands squeezed the plushie and San looked at it for a second after our gaze met. What was left of Misuk’s body….

"You know he can't be here for that long knowing we have to move and keep looking", I speak lowering my gaze to stare at the animal, it was a cute puppy dressed in white and light brown colors. I never got in their room before, I never had to. It smelled of sweets and kinda sour; walls showered with pictures of their love once, some pages of newspapers talking about the day of the meteor shower and more. The place scream for a little more of light, but they only had a cute lamp on top of the desk between the beds. It felt kind of cold, but at the same time the smell of San and Yeosang made it more familiar and cozy.

"We can manage to look for ourselves, Jiyeong", San rolled his eyes and sighed, his cheekbones popped out due to the lack of light and he seem so tired and sleepy… not that I worried about it, though.

"If you wanna tell the poor heartbroken boy to stay here instead of going out and help us to find the safe place we've been talking about for months, be my guest, San", I jerked up abruptly and motioned to go out of there, but San wrapped my right arm with his right hand a little too tight for my pleasure and whispered: "don't… we need to talk about this now." 

“He will only listen to you or Hongjoong, but Joong also thinks is the best for him if he keeps helping us”, Yeosang was now inches away from my face, his gaze looking deep into my soul while I looked between him and San. 

“My answer stills the same, guys. A friend just died, we can’t hold people down just because they could be a little disturbed about the news”, I spatted and threw the plushie to its bed.  

“And then, make us all kill”, the dark hair boy spoke almost in a whisper but he knew we heard him.

Yeosang groaned and straightened his back, his eyes now piercing mine, barely painfully.

“Maybe someday you’ll realize that every single mistake has consequences. Her death is on you, Jiyeong. This could slow us down a couple of days and-”

“A minute ago you were sorry, now you’re an asshole spitting shit at me like if I wasn’t aware of what just happened. I was there, you idiot...”, I interrupted him with sharp voice and clear the lump that was starting to form in my throat. “If this is gonna be our routine, don’t talk to me again, Yeosang.”  

 He stepped back, eyes a little shocked and taken by surprised. Then, he muttered “This is gonna be all your fault, Jiyeong” and left the room with rage, leaving me with the devilish boy. I looked down at San's hand and he let me go, although my skin was burning from the contact and it started to inch. I didn't back off, neither walked out of there. Yeosang was mad again and the last thing he probably wanted, was to see me around. San was staring at me so determined that I felt the need to hold his sharp gaze, unwilling to back down till one of us won the battle, it was a war between air and a strange connection we couldn't cut so easily. The right side of his lips turn up, a bit amused. Seconds later, he grasped his throat and lower his gaze. 

"I'm sorry", I was taken aback by the statement, I’ve never heard San apologizing, not even when he bumped into Lucas while dancing and almost ruined the performance; not even when Seonghwa prepared a full plate of healthy breakfast for Yeosang because he needed the energy to go haunting and San ended up eating the half of the food thinking it was for him. Not even when he and Jin were fighting and, as the dance class tried to stop them, San misstep in the congestion of hands and bodies and fell on top of me, causing me to have a sprained ankle that held me for two weeks.

 What the fuck was that? 

"What the fuck…" I murmured, making San scoff and rolled his green eyes. His lips almost showed a smile, almost.

"I know, right?", our shoulders brushed as he walked next to me and sat on the light green bed, taking the plushie between his hands. "I know the things I say hurt… but you know I'm right. Although, Yeosang is just mad at you as we all are. Not because all of this is your fault, we’re mad because we care about you."

I sat next to him.

"Keep going", I said, encouraging him to continue, somehow I was enjoying this. 

He huffed and turned his face to see me, now he was smiling. I lowkey missed his smile, it was beautiful to be honest; on stage, he used to smile when people screamed his name, he vividly enjoyed the attention he was given but after not being able to fully express yourself with no more than your hands, you'll close yourself up… we all did. 

"When you guys returned, I'm not gonna lie…", he sighed as his shoulders relaxed a bit. "I was kinda mad at you for taking such a stupid idea and I know I can't make you think clearly once it's stuck in your brain." He wasn't wrong, my stubborn ass liked the ideas I had, sometimes they were the worst choice I would ever do, but they worth it… didn't they?

"You were three hours late, Ji… Jongho, Yunho and I were just ready to look out for all of you if it wasn't for Joong and his trust on you. You’re so stupid...", he then spatted a little harsh. Where was that smile again? I cleared my throat and looked at a specific blank spot on the floor.  

"And after all, here I am, right?", I shrugged and gave him a little smile with sad eyes. Yeah, Misuk's death was pretty bad but they were right, we had a purpose, we needed to fulfill it as quick as we could. 

Suddenly, I felt San's strong arms around my shoulders as he hide his face in my neck. I tensed up and panicked inside. That kind of gestures never happened before,  we never hugged… never. Was he really that worried? 

“I’m so mad right now…”, he whispered as his arms tighten around me. “What if you guys were gone by now and the last thing I did was yell at you for being so stubborn? I will never forgive myself…”

"San, that's because you're an asshole…", I chuckled lightly, he stayed silent. "And it's okay… we're gonna be okay", my arms wrapped his waist and he pulled me closer. His whole body radiated warmth, his soft and calmed breathes caressed my sensitive skin and I shivered once again. "San…", I whispered as he run his hands up and down my spine slowly, my back was on fire now, everything burnt as if we walked next to the sun and the flames touched over my clothes, sticking them into my flesh and bones. It sounded painfully bad, but was extremely pleasant.

"I know you hate me, I hate you too…", he scoffed and let go off me. "But you can't just… die, okay?", he said in a smooth voice, almost endearing. That was weird, the frowned on my face tensed him and he looked away from my face to the plushie on the bed. He grabbed it and then mumbled: “At least not when we had an argument and you can’t apologies.” 

I softly chuckled and bit my lower lip to stop the word “asshole” from coming out, it was his nickname after all. I left his side and was about to walked out when his voice stopped me.

"By the way, can you not hold Shiber like that again? It feels he's about to die", he referred to the plushie in his hands and my throat got dry. Was it his?! Who the fuck is this guy?!

    “Right… Sorry, ‘bout that”.

      I left the room with my face slightly blushed. I let out a breath that I didn’t think I was holding, he’s an idiot. I past the rooms right to the living room and saw Seonghwa still washing the dishes. Yunho and Mingi were curled up at the sofa asleep, Hongjoong and Yeosang were nowhere to be found, and Wooyoung entered Jongho’s and Mingi’s bedroom to watch out for the younger boy. My impulsive self decided to slip my arms around Seonghwa’s waist and rest my cheek on his back. San made a point, what if the creatures would’ve heard us and none of us wouldn't’ have made it? The guys would’ve looked out for us just to realized how dead we would’ve been.. And just because Misuk and I wanted to collab a little more, so going and doing risky stuffs would give us a little more of the adrenaline we had near the house. And then was Yeosang... I knew the idea was mine and Misuk took it as a free pass to go outside the house limits. Our turn to go for supplies was changed when Jin died, so we had a whole month inside the limits and Misuk was being a pain in the ass. Would Jongho be like that if we locked him up for that long?

    “I’m so sorry…”, Seonghwa froze as the words left my mouth, I closed my eyes filling my nostrils with his viril scent and let myself embrace the warmth of his body. He was like a brother to me, we were the same age -as Hongjoong- and I felt closer to them than anyone else due to that one time when we had a performance together and spent a lot of time next to each other, eventually we became the best of friends. They helped me with my paintings, I helped them with any of the tasks they had in their music major. They knew that when I got clingy, something very bad was happening to me. 

“I should’ve listen to them and stay here, Hwa…”, I shut my eyes harder, it made me dizzy when the white spots appeared, but it kept the tears from falling, and no, I wasn’t in the mood for let them see me crying, it was really hard to keep it cool  though. “Why am I so stubborn…? Misuk would be alive if it wasn’t for me. I’m such a bad influence in here, you would be better without-”. Seonghwa turned around in a blink and covered me with his arms. 

“Shut up, Jiyeong, don’t you dare continue that sentence…”, he rest his head on mine while I hold him as close as I could. I held a large part of his shirt in my hands, wrinkling it and slightly holding it up so his back was a little exposed. Seonghwa apparently didn’t care about the cold air caressing his bare skin, he worried more about the tears that slowly wet the cotton cloth covering his chest.

“You are aware that we all made that decision, right? We all are part of this mess and yeah, if maybe you both wouldn’t have gone with me, Misuk would have been probably alive, or not. We don’t know that… Maybe it could’ve been me instead but... ”, he sighed. His hands started to pushed me even though I didn’t like the idea, so I grabbed him tightly. “Jiyeong, look at me, please”, his voice was, once again, as smooth and tender as always. Finally i jerked my head up and looked into his blue eyes.

“You just make those images of Misuk change into you being the one laying there, Seonghwa... “, a soft sob escaped my mouth and a could hear a door open followed by a couple of steps that stopped abruptly. 

“I- I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to do that, Ji…”, Seonghwa kissed the top of my head and, one more time, pushed softly for me to see him. My eyes were puffy and redness decorated them with a pink flush on my nose. 

“I may have been brave out there, I may have been all serious and mature, but you can’t realized how afraid I was…”, after a hard swallow, I liked my lips and sighed. “I keep hearing her flesh and bones being crashed by those teeth, Hwa.”, I sniffed and faced him for real. His blue eyes were a little glassy and he seemed sad, I know he wanted to be strong for the both of us, but man, that was hard. His thumbs brushed the tears aways from my cheeks.

“You usually locke your feelings because you’re afraid of being judged, we are in a place where we don’t have time for that”, no one will ever understand how Seonghwa’s gaze could make you zoom out of the place you were and feel so at peace. My breathing normalized progressively as my little sobs faded away. He felt familiar and comfortable. “If you want to cry, do it. It doesn’t matter if you’re alone, but it’s better to let all those feelings out there than keep them until you explode.”

“I feel… weak.”, his eyebrows knitted and he scanned my face looking for more answers. “I couldn’t help her and I let her go to that birdhouse, it was me...”, my fists lost their grip and I took a step back. “No one else can die like that, Seonghwa. We can’t let that happen.” The taller boy took a deep breath, which caressed my face after he released it. His strong hands grabbed my shoulders and made me stepped forward.

“You are strong, Ji, emotionally speaking. Maybe your body is not fit for lifting a car, but you are strong for lifting what was left of Jiyeong after those monsters left and bury her…”, he came closer and lower his forehead to mine, his hands lowered as well and we interlocked our fingers. Everyone who wouldn’t know our relationship could say we were dating, but that's the way we reassured ourselves that we were not alone. It was the same habit with Hongjoong. 

Another steps were heard and then, a door was closed a little too hard.

“I wanted to honour her life, at least keeping the rest that was left of her in a place where we could visit if we come over again…”, my head was spinning and I looked down to our intertwined hands, they were clean but hours ago they were just filthy with burgundy liquid, brown and wet dirt and my salty tears. We arrived sweating from all the dirt that we moved to bury Misuk’s body near the place she was killed, we told no one about it, except for Hongjoong because it was too risky and it wasn't easy as well to go all the way down the rooftop with a half dead body. 

“You are brave, you are strong and nobody can tell you the opposite, ok?”, Seonghwa grabbed my face between his hands and squeezed a little. That made me laugh for a second and I sniffed once more. He really wanted to motivate me, no matter how cheesy he was.

“Now, go to sleep” , he patted my head and gesture with his head to my bedroom. I hesitated for a second when I realized how cold that room must’ve been, should I sleep in there knowing that was the last thing I was going to do? Misuk’s scent when she was alive would mixed with his decomposed smell. My heart beated in my ears as a second lump reached my throat.

“Hwa… Could you…?”, I never finished the question ‘cause he was giggling at me. He put a hand down my back and leaded me to the bedrooms.

“Yeah, Ji. I wouldn’t mind the company”, he then stopped and went to the sofa, lifted a little the blanket that covered the two big boys and turned off the living room’s light. “I’ll tell Hongjoong to join us and cuddle as much as you want”

“I don’t… cuddle”, I mumbled staring the floor, a little embarrassed to admit anything.

“Hm… So, no cuddle”, he nodded deadpan serious and I open my eyes with some dramatically fear on them. 

“W-Well… Maybe I want to cuddle but fuck you tho”, I whispered while my fist collided with his chest.

    A grin showed up in his face and we walked to the room I shared with Misuk. Jongho was surprisingly there cuddling with San and Wooyoung. The three of them sleeping on Misuk’s bed made the scene more nostalgic than cuter. Seonghwa squeezed my shoulders and I finally grabbed my pillows heading out of there to enter Honjoong and Seonghwa’s bedroom. Hongjoong was there, listening some music from his iPod. When he saw us, he gave us a little smile and patted a free spot on his bed for us to lay down. 

    “I was waiting for you, and I must confess that I’m a scared of this power. Knowing you damn well will be the death of me”, he giggle as fast as his smile fade away. His face softened. “I- I didn’t mean that…”

    “Just shut up and cuddle, you big dumbass.”, I groaned and let myself get cosy with the mullet boy and the raven boy. They hugged my waist as I grabbed their arms and pulled them closer. That way, they met Morpheus a couple of minutes later, while my mind wondered and repeated the scenes from the afternoon. We were ready to move on a week later when we found out that the safe zone was pretty close. After five months of seeking for some help and finally acknowledge that the place that Jin found out a couple of days before he was attacked, was way up North through the deserted city, 10 or 11 miles from where we stayed. On foot, it was gonna take us three days with some break times in the middle, but the great news were that we were closer than ever. He would be proud. Him and the others that left our side in our crusade, we would finally reach Wonderland. Perhaps it was all a dream, some cheesy rumor for those who still had some hope inside their helpless bodies. And, yes, we were those with hope and helpless bodies ready to die for a rumor, fuck off. Desperate actions are made in desperate times.  

    “Try to close your eyes, Ji”, Seonghwa’s raspy voice alerted me when I was so self-absorbed by my one thoughts. “I know it’s hard but we’re here for you”, he closed his eyes one more time and tighten his grip on my waist. Suddenly, Hongjoong’s hand caressed the exposed skin of my stomach and whispered.

    “No one would harm you, not when we’re around”

    “You just quote Sweeney Todd?”, I asked with a grin in my face.

    “Goodnight, Jiyeong”, he smile and kissed my shoulder. 

    “Night, guys”

    And so, my eyelids felt heavy, my breath slowed down and soon after I was dreaming, dreaming about safety, a place where no one would get hurt or murder, a place where we would be happy and carelessly free. Well, those dreams would crash out pretty soon, but I wasn’t aware of that, any of us were.

(...)

Masterlist

[turquoisewave]

hey sira ..... about that post with the time periods with sinbad and treasure planet and all that ..... WHAT WAS GOING ON? you said you wouldn't rant about it in the tags so i sent this ....... i need answers ..... TT_TT

Alrighty so the main way I know about it is because I learned about the decline of mainstream 2d animated films in the US so I’m gonna be covering both, partially using a copy/paste of a rant I made months back. All info under the readmore:

HOKAY SO, this isn’t all the factors and it’s not everything it’s just what I remember. I tried to fact check this mess and I think I changed any inaccuracies but I COULD BE WRONG.

So, animation in the 2000s, why it was the way it was and why a lot of films went under-appreciated. One thing you gotta remember is that while animation is a creative field, the companies in charge of them are businesses. And businesses will almost always go for low risk/high reward shit. This means, if there’s something tried and true they’ll stick with it. This is why studios often modeled works after other studios (funny talking animals, white gloves, black eyes with that lil white slit, musical shorts like Silly Symphonies, Happy Harmonies, and Merrie Melodies which yes were all by different studios), or in direct opposition of other studios (don bluth going darker with themes to contrast disney’s cuteness, bugs bunny’s trickster personality to contrast mickey’s nondescript Good personality, etc).

But there’s only so long you can do the same stuff before people get tired of it. Most animated feature length films had the same formula: a retelling of an old tale with musical numbers and cute sidekicks. And they started not doing so good.

However, animation at this time had grown in leaps and bounds. Digital coloring and compositing, merging of 3d effects, big studios run by huge companies, and a track record for being profitable as fuck. At the time the companies didn’t want them to go under so they decided to try to get Innovative. Cause that’s how they’d stayed afloat when things went bad before.

They weren’t going to stray from adapting though, too many unknown factors in original stories (which would also require more workshopping and pre-production). So, they’re still adapting old stories. However, they’re pulling from different sources, and in the case of Disney giving them a twist.

Atlantis was inspired by Journey to the Center of the Earth mixed with the myth of Atlantis, Treasure Planet was of course Treasure Island but Pirates in Space (which is one of my favorite nonsensical aesthetics), Dreamworks SKG (their 2d animation dept) went super old school with myths and legends (Sinbad, Prince of Egypt). And both studios went ham on trying to be innovative with the tech at their disposal.

There’s another reason why they went so hard, besides of course being artists. I said before that at the time companies didn’t want their 2d departments to flop, but as time progressed a new alternative began to become prevalent: 3D animation. And this became a huge threat to 2D studios.

Important to note in this regard is the advent of Pixar in the mid 1990s. 3D animation had come a long way from its clunky, surrealist roots. And with the success of movies such as Toy Story and A Bug's Life, it proved itself to be an upcoming profitable medium. It wasn't just the animation though, Pixar had amazing storytellers and directors. And this shit was new, not directly based on an old Grimm Fairy tale or something. In short their whole package was amazing. Dreamworks started being active around this time too and added fuel to the 3D animation fire. Granted Shrek was based on fairy tales, but in a way that was a subversion and became incredibly iconic for it.

At the time Pixar was independent from Disney but working in contract with them. And the success was more than welcomed. As always in capitalism, the question of profitability comes into question. Traditional 2D animation, especially at the high framerate disney was known for, is expensive af to make. Often if directors and producers are not careful, a budget can really run away from you. For example, Toy Story only cost 30 Million USD to make. Treasure Planet cost 140 Million USD. (granted that's because of the combination of 3d and 2d elements. But Lilo and Stitch was almost strictly 2D and still cost more than Toy Story at 80 million USD.) Also, Disney also kinda oversaturated their market. They released a fuckton of straight to dvd sequels (which Disney himself was avidly against) which kinda degraded the overall quality of the Disney 2d animation brand.

There was also competition from other factors. The early 2000s saw the Harry Potter boom, and Lord of the Rings came not soon after. Those of course siphoned off a lot of attention. They were part of pre-established series. The experimental stories that Disney was doing at the time, i.e. AU versions of literary classics, fell flat because the target audience was not familiar with the origin sources, and those that were weren't interested in "kids movies" They had no fucking clue how to market them, and the target audiences didn’t know to look for them.

Lilo and Stitch actually met with success, because 1) they marketed the hell out of it and capitalized on Stitch's mascot-like status and 2) it was more rooted in the kid demographic rather than that awkward kid/teen straddle the other two had. But even Lilo and Stitch couldn't save the Orlando animation studio when Disney finally decided to shut it down. They concentrated the last of their 2D animation studios in Burbank, California. Pixar's contract with Disney ended in 2004, and Disney tried to capitalize on the success of 3D with their own films, Meet the Robinsons and Chicken Little. Both were uh...the Meet the Robinsons wasn't too bad but Chicken Little was like...trying to hard to be a hacky version of a Dreamworks movie Ratatouille was released by pixar independent of Disney which is a neat thing to note. And of course met with success Meanwhile 2D kept falling behind, and whenever it flopped like with Home on the Range it was just another nail in the coffin. Disney renewed its contract with Pixar, and after the release of The Princess and The Frog they switched gears to focus solely on 3D animated feature length films, relegating their 2D staff to tv shows. Granted there's some great shows like Gravity Falls etc but, the fact that they've given up on films is disappointing. But the numbers don't lie. Tangled was its biggest success in a long time. And then Frozen came and blew it out of the water.

tl:dr - People were tired of seeing grim fairy tales stories retold with musical numbers and sometimes talking animals. - Studios tried to use different sources for adaptations and put cool spins on them and incorporate new technology.

But it didn’t end up working in their favor and 2D animation declined because:

- success of studios that were using 3D animation (though credit can also be given to their pre-production staff/writers/storyboarders) - competition from other growing franchises, in some cases Disney cannibalizing its own profits (Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean) - Cost effectiveness of 3D vs 2D - Changing of fads and appeal to audience - Inability to market movies properly to target demographics - Studios actively sabotaging their 2d studios to have an excuse to tank them and focus on 3D work.

So yeah, that’s all I got. I’m definitely missing some nuances here though feel free to correct me whoever sees this.

[calumbringbackthewatermelonshirt]

Music for the Soul

a/n: wow, yet another piece that was supposed to be a one shot but I got carried away with.

Cal had officially decided his soulmate sucked. Who in their right mind played the cello at all hours of the night, especially some fucking irish dancing sounding tune? Sure the way the music skipped and danced, seemingly alive was beautiful, but at 2am? On a night when Cal had and early tour promo the next day? Hell, the only reason he’d be interested in finding her would to tell her that this shit wasn’t okay. Eventually she slowed it down to a soft melodic tune, something sweet and sorrowful. It sounded like something out of a movie soundtrack, and executed just as perfectly. Still, every once and awhile, she would stop and repeat a specific few bars over and over again until she could play them at quadruple the correct speed. While Cal may have been pissed at her timing, he had to give her credit where it was due. The discipline of her playing, the emotion conveyed through her music, it was like living art. It was all he could think about as her sorrowful tune lured him into sleep.

In your opinion, your soulmate had some weird fucking taste in music. The songs were just strange. They were, as far as you could tell, bass lines for the most part. All of them were decent, composed of a few deep notes hitting in repetitive patterns, occasionally switching to a more powerful rift. They weren’t bad, but they weren’t your taste either. To you, it sound like a pop/rock sort of mix, songs played on the radio probably. You weren’t sure though. Your musical knowledge was severely limited, seeing as you almost exclusively listened to the same types of classical music you played. The tunes were catchy, though, often implanting themselves in your brain with no hope of a resolution to a song you didn’t know. They distracted you as you played, and you found yourself adding them into your own songs. It was pretty fucking annoying. Especially when you were onstage. Once, you even caught yourself adding one of the basslines into a Beethoven, having to improvise so you didn’t embarrass yourself in front of Carnegie Hall. But, sometimes, you would pick up your own upright bass and pluck out the same tunes that ran through your head all day.||

“It feels good to be back in New York.” Luke was breathing in the smog of the city, the smell of hot dogs from the vendor across the street.

“What makes New York all that special, huh, Luke?” Cal, personally, didn’t give one fuck about the city either way. He did appreciate how easy it was smoke in this city, however.

“I don’t know man. I guess I just love the energy. The vibes, ya know?” Luke pulled a face as he spoke, raising his eyebrows up and down. Calum gave him shit often, but it was all in the name of friendship.

“Listen. I got all of us tickets go see a concert at Carnegie Hall. Y’all need some culture.” Ashton had been scrolling through places he wanted to visit on his phone. Being in this band took him all over the world, but Ashton barely got time to travel.

“Bro, why? No offense, but that’s not really our scene. How about we try and visit a club of some sorts instead? Discover the next big thing?” Michael was being truthful. Classical music really wasn’t their scene.

“Classical music is quite beautiful if you take the time to listen, Michael.” Cal kept thinking about his soulmate, her own music resonating in his ears. Her music, classical music, truly was beautiful.

“What the fuck, Cal? Since when are you some musical snob?” Luke was confused. He really didn’t know much about his dark haired band member.

“Oh, fuck off, won’t ya?” Cal took another drag of his cigarette, exhaling the smoke out of his lungs as he gazed at the skyline. He hadn’t ever told anyone about his soulmate. Everyone had their own versions of discovery. Some said their entire worlds turned to color as they touched for the first time, some had tattoos that matched the same in their partners, some even having necklaces that matched their significant others. Cal loved his, though. It really fit him, he thought. A few unlucky people didn’t have soulmates, destined to be alone. Cal had, for the most part, convinced everyone in his life the same was true for him. They were sorry for him, pitiful. He didn’t care, however. Cal knew, and while he had no intention of finding his soulmate, he was still content to listen to the soft melodic tunes flowing from the strings of his soulmate’s cello. ||

“Again? A-fucking-gain?” Your best friend, Emily, was freaking out. For no reason, in your opinion.

“Yes again. They somehow found the decency in their hearts to invited me back after my botched attempt at Beethoven. I can’t believe I let that fucking bassline get to me in the middle of a performance.” You were still incredibly angry with yourself. You prided yourself on your professionalism, your dedication and perfectionism. So when you let a few fucking notes corroded into a symphony like that? It was fucking wild that she let it happen.

“Bitch. This will be the second time in two fucking months you’ll have played Carnegie Hall. At twenty. You’re not even old enough to drink, and you’re selling out the most famous concert hall in the United States. Fuck you, bitch.” Emily took a sip of her coffee. The two of you had attended Julliard together, had been roommates all four years. Emily had been a surrealistic painter, however, as opposed to your musical capabilities. The two of you posed a nice contrast to each other, her flighty and always down for adventure, while you were studious and always considered every decision carefully.

“Whatever. I’m just ready to go on the tour. People just don’t appreciate the arts like they used to. This is pretty much a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I’m hella excited. I even did a little shopping and got a few dresses.” You had splurged a little, sure, but it was totally worth it. Like you had told Emily, this was a once in a lifetime thing. You were damn sure to make the most of it.

“You’re still going to the concert with me tonight right?”  Emily had been blabbering on nonstop about this concert for weeks. Normally, you would have insisted she take someone else, especially this close to such an important concert. But, for reasons you couldn’t explain, some strange feeling had said you need to be at the concert, persistent and foreign to anything you had felt before. So you had told Emily that you would go with her.

“Yeah. I mean, I said I would. What the name of this band again? I keep forgetting.” You didn’t really care about the band, but it was supposedly sold out at Madison Square Garden. You figure that you had a decent chance of meeting your soulmate among almost twenty thousand people. Especially with that damn feeling you couldn’t shake. It made you start thinking about everything, all the variables and potentials. Without noticing, you started absentmindedly tapping out the bass line you soulmate was playing on the table with your nails. Emily noticed and smiled a little. She had already been lucky enough to have found her soulmate already, and while you had resisted as much as possible, she was always trying to help you find the one.

“5 seconds of summer. I really think you’ll like them, even though they’re not exactly your scene.”

“Wait, I think I’ve heard of them actually. Aren’t they that one band with the song young-something?”

“Youngblood, dumbass. I thought you were going to listen to some of their songs.”

“I’m sorry this Bach is really kicking my ass. I should get going, actually. I need to practice some more before tomorrow night.” You gave Emily a quick hug and walked to where your car was parked on the street. Maybe you could find the time to listen to a few tracks, at least.||

“Well, well, well. Here we are. Madison Square Garden.” Luke was standing in the middle of the stage, looking out over the stadium that would soon be filled with almost twenty thousand people.

“Madison Square Garden, sold out.” Ashton corrected Luke. They deserved it after everything.

“You good, Cal?” Michael, Luke and Ash were all standing together in the middle of the stage, but when michael looked over and their fourth bandmate, he found him sitting almost dejectedly against an amp. Michael studied his bassist for a moment, taking in the furrowed brow and almost scowl on his face.

“Hmm? Yeah, yeah, I’m great. Madison Square Garden.” Cal stood, brushed himself off and walked to join his other bandmates in the center of the stage. He had been finding himself thinking of his soulmate more and more each day. Sure he had always wondered about her, but why couldn’t he get her out of his head lately? He was starting to get concerned that it would interfere with performance tonight. She hadn’t even been playing much lately, and yet she was in his head more than ever. ||

“Why did I let you convince me to wear this? It’s not me.” Emily and convinced you to wear a tight and short blue plaid skirt, doc martens, and a white tube style tank top to the concert. She had even done your makeup and hair.

“Shut up, you look hot as fucking hell.” Emily was really paying attention to you. She was bouncing on her heels with anticipation, and was even more excited for being first in line. She had dragged you out here about five hours prior to when the concert door opened and the line had just started forming behind the two of you about an hour ago. Still, if it made Emily this happy, you supposed it was worth it. The concert was supposed to start in less than half an hour, but all you really wanted was to be at home, running though pieces on your cello. Instead you settled for fingering through them and humming the melodies softly to yourself. It was barely audible, but as you closed your eyes and concentrated in the music, your expression slowly slipped into a smile. ||

Cal couldn’t quite figure out why, but he was nervous. For the first time in about a year. His feelings had been all out of whack lately. No matter how hard he tried, Cal couldn’t stop thinking about how nervous he was for the show tonight. He was sitting with his head in his hands in the dressing room when it started. The melodies of Bach, Beethoven, even a few du Pre. They weren’t the same as before, though. No, this time, his soulmate was singing. Her voice was soft, like she didn’t want to be heard, but Cal could still tell there was a sort of power behind it. This voice made him feel the same way that hot chocolate on a cold day did, warm and safe. It lit him up from inside, calming him and wiping out any nerves that he felt, leaving mere shadows of the butterflies in his gut. Cal’s lips curled up, and he stood. Cal had never felt more excited to get up on stage. As he did, he couldn't help but sense that you were in the crowd, watching him, perhaps even dancing as he sang. It gave him a different kind of rush, the type that alcohol nor sex could. When he was on stage, all the other boys could tell there was something different to his performance that night. Something more energized and excitable. Tonight, passion reverberated through the basslines he played. ||

@marshmallowtraver

[gingervsblondie]

Blondie Goes Latin (1941)

2:27 AM, Thursday, 12 December

Y’all ready for this, buh buh buh bah bah bah ok let’s watch a Blondie.

2:28

Welp, in looking this one up to watch it, I’ve spoiled for myself that this one features Dagwood dressed as a woman. Let’s see how I feel about that once it’s in context.

2:31

Watching it on Prime again for better picture quality, but I’m not falling for their tricks a second time so I skipped the 4 minutes and 20 seconds (nicenicenice) of inexplicable preview footage spoiling the rest of the movie.

Although I’ve already spoiled that Dagwood goes Dragwood so who cares anymore.

2:44

GOT MY SNACKS LET’S GET STARTED

2:46

The usual theme song’s back, and it’s just occurred to me: The lyrics go

“Life with us is fun and crazy,

Baby Dumpling, (read: Alexander Hamilton Bumstead) us and Daisy

What a family

Incredible

Bumstead-able”

Now I know that later on, Cookie Bumstead, their new daughter, will be introduced. I wonder if they adjust the theme song when that happens.

2:56

Starting off strong with a pretty basic continuity error. Dagwood, with shaving cream on his face, runs outside, realizing he’s packed his razor into his luggage which he gave to the cab driver. As soon as he’s outside, the shaving cream is gone from his face.

HOLY SHIT I SPOKE TOO SOON. It wasn’t a bad continuity, it was a good visual gag! He runs into the postman, as per usual, and when they get up, the shaving cream has swapped over onto posty’s face!

Apologies to Blondie Goes Latin. They did a good and I assumed it was a bad because I guess I don’t think highly enough of the standard of production in the Blondie film franchise.

3:01

AND they followed it up with a SECOND solid visual gag! The posty puts his hat and mailbag on Dagwood, goes into the doorway, and runs towards Dagwood, either to get the shaving cream back onto the right face or just out of pure vitriol and malice. He misses, we hear him crash, and the camera cuts to the cab, which is flipped on its side.

That got a full laugh out of me.

3:04

AnD ThEn ThE ShAvInG CrEaM swaps over to the CaB DrIVeR’S FaCE!!!

3:06

AHB*: Mommy, is Mr. Dithers going with us too?

Blondie: Of course, dear, he’s taking us along as his guests.

AHB: Why?

Blondie: Because he needs a rest.

AHB: Why doesn’t he take Mrs. Dithers?

Blondie: Because Mrs. Dithers needs a rest.

AHB: I don’t get it.

Man they always go so hard with the infidelity angle in these fuckin’ flicks.

*Alexander Hamilton Bumstead

3:08

There’s a character Wikipedia tells me is named Manuel Rodríguez, played by one Tito Guízar. So this could be some more (relatively) positive representation, like that guy in Servant Trouble.

3:12

Manuel Rodríguez fuccin immediately seducing Blondie. Nah yeah this is accurate representation.

3:20

This movie got me AGAIN, this time with a kinda surrealist goof. So they’ve found out that Dagwood has to stay behind to close a deal, but Blondie, AHB and Daisy are going with Dithers. Dagwood and Blondie start crying at the thought of being apart. Daisy cries, and how they got that shot I’ve no idea.

At first Dithers is telling them not to act that way, but then he starts crying too. Then Dagwood meets a man at the door who’s there to tell them “All ashore that’s going ashore,” and HE starts crying too. And then as the ship’s whistle sounds, it cuts to this:

3:24

Man and another good goof, Dagwood looks at Blondie and AHB and says he’s gonna shut his eyes so he can remember them just as they are now while they’re apart. Then he runs out the door, immediately crashing into someone.

Is this movie genuinely funnier than usual or am I just in a better mood?

3:28

‘Nother laugh. Dagwood fell while carrying a bunch of drums (in a series of misunderstandings that will eventually lead to him in Dragwood playing the drums with a band that the film is currently introducing, and which is actually kinda interesting and likeable so far) and slid clear across like 20 feet of floor.

3:30

There’s a singing quartet in the band that sounds exactly like the Let’s All Go To The Lobby song.

3:32

The female lead of the band is called Lovey Nelson, and I think I’m in love with her. She’s sassy af.

3:34

I think Michael Jackson might’ve plagiarized some lyrics off Blondie Goes Latin.

3:36

Upon the development that Dagwood’s playing the drums in this, I considered noting that it would be harder to edit that into a Whiplash parody than that one I did with Hop on my YouTube channel.

But then Dagwood did an intense drum solo for like 45 seconds and now I’m not so sure.

3:44

ALERT, ALERT, SENTIENT DOLL, I REPEAT, THERE IS A HAUNTED DOLL IN THE MOVIE, SOMEONE CALL A PRIEST, OR ELSE JUSTIN MCELROY, EITHER WILL DO

3:45

So you’re saying that you don’t have rhythm.

BUT LISTEN WHAT YOU’RE DOING RIGHT THERE-

This Blondie is a musical and I’m down.

3:47

Oh God they’re holding on the doll for soooo loooong

3:58

Alright sun’s getting real low, (Future Euan note: wow, great Avengers: Age of Ultron reference, past Euan.) by which I mean it’s 4 am and I’m gonna go to bed and finish this in the morning.

1:36 AM, Friday, 13 December

Back to it! Looking forward to this given how much I enjoyed it last night.

1:38

Dithers: Falls

Blondie: “Oh, Mr. Dithers! Here’s a drink for you.” Hands glass of water.

Dithers: Drinks, then scrunches up his face in disgust “Oh, that’s water isn’t it?”

1:42

Tito Guízar is now singing in Spanish. It’s interesting, cause it feels totally out of place. Like when Ben Platt sings at the end of the first episode of that show The Politician; it’s clearly just “This person can sing so we better let him sing.” Not so much in a bad way though. Like he’s doing what he’s good at and I like that it’s a bubble of a different culture inserted into this white suburban family sitcom I’m inexplicably exposing myself to.

1:46

This movie’s fuckin’ neat. Blondie’s listening to the song and gets sad cause she misses Dagwood, so she goes out on the deck of the cruise ship that this is all happening on. Tito Guízar follows her out, (I’m pretty sure they’re in front of a projection background) and she says she liked the song but didn’t understand a word of it, so he offers to sing it again in English. And now he is!!! I like that.

It also reminds me of that one creepy Aardman short tho.

1:51

Oh but then Blondie starts singing with him, and it gets to a point where they’re singing simultaneously but Blondie definitely hasn’t heard the words yet. So it morphs from a realistic enough scene to musical rules where people sing at the same time when they’re on the same page.

1:53

HEY how come it hasn’t come up yet in past movies that Penny Singleton (Blondie) can sing this well? Like the intro song is basically just talking, but she can sing.

1:58

Hey, a Dagwood sandwich! DAGWOOD SANDWICH WATCH 2019 that’s what I do when those show up, right? Been a while since one of those has shown up! It, um… fuck, it actually looks pretty good I’d probably take a stab at eating that.

2:00

And the crossdressing begins. Lovey needs Dagwood to get to the orchestra and play the drums, but Dagwood knows he’ll get recognized by Blondie or Dithers or AHB. (He’s not supposed to still be on the boat.) So Lovey opens her closet and hands him a dress.

2:02

Haha, the Dagwood sandwich is actually a plot element. A steward brings it away on a tray down the hall and Blondie sees it, adding to other clues she’s gotten that Dagwood’s on board. There’s a great overly dramatic shot of the sandwich coming into focus as he walks it towards the camera.

2:05

Blondie just barrelled the lens so hard that I felt her looking into my soul.

2:07

This movie continues to be a full on musical. Blondie’s singing the same song from earlier, but without guitar-man there, just on her own sadly. I wonder if this keeps being a thing in later movies or if this is just the one musical Blondie movie.

2:11

Welp, Dagwood’s crying at the emasculation of wearing a dress.

Coooool.

2:13

I like Lovey’s singing. Ruth Terry’s the singer/actor who plays her, looks like she did a lot of movies.

2:15

The quartet had a nice little choreographed routine during this song. I liked it. I like this one you guys! Maybe you should watch it???

Never thought I’d get to that stage with a Blondie movie.

Future Euan Note: I cannot in good conscience recommend the viewing of any Blondie feature film. Statements made within a Blondie watch are subject to fits of madness and delusion.

2:18

Wow um. Blondie said to guitar-man the sentence “Will you do me a favour? Make love to me.”

I mean I talk about how hard they go in these movies with adult relationship drama, but there’s something so direct about “Make love to me.”

2:20

Blondie’s trying to make Dagwood feel bad by making a show of being involved with guitar-man.

Dagwood’s arc better end with becoming a strong independent woman who don’t need no Blondie.

2:25

Man okay but there’s an extended dance sequence and it feels so long and it’s making me want this to be over.

Penny Singleton’s a decent singer but a crap dancer.

Maybe that’s unfair actually. She’s kind of in character and needs to convey intentions and that. Not easy to do when you’re also performing a choreographed dance routine.

I just can’t stand when they play the sound of tap-dancing over an actor who’s clearly not tap dancing.

2:31

Welp. That wasn’t how Dagwood’s arc ended.

2:33

Hehe, they had a satisfying pay-off to earlier gags. First, they had Dagwood run into a steward, the way he does with the posty every movie. Then, just like posty, the steward tried running into Dagwood to get even. But he misses, goes down one of those big ole cartoon ventilation pipes, which leads him to the music hall where he shoots out a grate and penguins across the floor like Dagwood did earlier. Double pay-off.

THEN Dagwood’s being chased by sailors, so he goes down the pipe, penguins as well, as crashes into the steward a second time.

2:41

Recently, for my annual Christmas watch, I watched It’s a Wonderful Life, but for the first time I watched the colourized version. It was really weird seeing this movie I’d watched in black and white on a VHS tape on an old CRT for the first time in full HD on a big TV, and also with the extra dimension that colour lent it.

It���s gonna be some time before we’re gonna be able to do that to any of the Blondie movies, because

A) Nobody’s going to meticulously go frame-by-frame painting in a Blondie movie, and

B) I doubt somebody saved the masters, so these movies probably don’t and won’t exist in HD.

Just gotta wait for upscaling technology to advance real fast, and then for some kind of automated colourization process to get invented. But you know, once those things become possible and accessible, I’ll be on the forefront remastering Blondie.

2:46

And that’s the end of Blondie Goes Latin. An above-average Blondie, and an out-of-the-ordinary one. There were laughs-a-plenty, a crying steam whistle, a creepy-ass haunted doll, Dagwood in Dragwood, and a handful of solid musical numbers.

My Dagwood Sandwich Rating is: a really pleasant sandwich. Like a posh one you’d get at a food court when you’re on vacation. With spices and shit. And you don’t know what the bread is called but it’s not the usual kind of bread you have at home and it’s a bit tough but the sandwich is good. Hell yeah.

[hollyplays]

The Roundup: October 2018

This year is going by too slowly. I wish this was the November Roundup. Then it’d be closer to Smash and also Christmas. Then it can slow down, though, cuz I like winter.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey: Starting big this month. Assassin’s Creed has done a lot of course correcting the last few years, but Odyssey may have corrected too far for me. The story here is enjoyable, and so is the stealth combat, but every single thing they put in between me and either one of those things is miserably frustrating. The game is constantly adding quests to my log without prompt or explanation, so I have no motivation or desire to complete them. Combat is floaty and repetitive and even assassinations have been reworked. I don’t mind that stabbing a dude in the throat isn’t a one-hit kill, but it’s such a huge departure from every other Assassin’s Creed game. The end result is really frustrating and makes what should be the best part of the game mediocre. There’s no shields to force you to dodge and counter (no in-game explanation for this, btw. every enemy will have a shield, but you don’t because fuck you.) but the prompts telling you when to dodge or parry are so tiny you’re lucky to even notice them, let alone hit whatever buggy ass timing window the game expects of you. Anyway. All that would be forgivable if the story was good enough, but there’s so much filler in between story beats. It starts to feel like a chore.

Spider-Man(PS4): Now this is a game. Insomniac knew exactly what I wanted out of a Spider-Man game and hand-delivered it to me. Dynamic but forgiving combat, an emotional story, Arkham-style stealth missions, The Sinister Six, all kinds of unlockable suits. I played the shit out of this. Hell, I got the Platinum trophy. My one complaint is that getting the platinum can be a bit grindy, as you have to go to every district and stop like 20 crimes in each one, but I put on a Spotify playlist in the background and had a ball doing that too. I hope they’re saving Venom for the sequel.

As Above, So Below: I’ve seen this three times now, and somehow every time I see it I expect it to be mediocre, but it never is. It’s not the best horror movie I’ve ever seen, but it’s conceptually intriguing and scary as hell every time I watch it.

Sorry To Bother You: This should win Best Picture but it won’t because there’s no justice in the world. You can safely watch the trailer for this movie, but do yourself a favor and learn NOTHING ELSE about it. Just watch it. Be aware that it is an anti-capitalist surrealist comedy and then just sit down and inject it into you. I need to watch it a few more times to really wrap myself around it but holy shit is it good. On a technical level alone, it’s a fucking masterpiece.

Medium Cool: I got the criterion of this in a bundle with some others for super cheap and I almost feel bad about it, cuz this movie earns its price tag. Medium Cool blends documentary and fiction so well it’s hard to see the difference, if there even is one. The “story” is interesting enough, but Medium Cool’s real strength is as a snapshot of Chicago, 1969. This is a must-watch IMO, but definitely watch the special features or do a lil research before hand or the first act might lose you.

Design For Living: This movie’s cute as hell. It isn’t To Be Or Not To Be, but that’s not a reasonable bar for any movie, even a Lubitsch. I enjoy the 1933 polyamory rep, and I was surprised at how much genuine agency the female lead has. Also, is it just me, or is the main girl going off and getting married a HUGE trope in screwball comedies?

Tampopo: Tampopo is a little weird, but more than that, it’s perfect in every way.

Eighth Grade: I remember when ‘what’ came out, Bo Burnham said he wanted to do more creative things and less comedy. If Eighth Grade is the caliber of thing he meant, I hope he never does comedy again. Devoid of any over-arcing plot, Eighth Grade serves as a picture-perfect snapshot (or snapchat, eh millenials?) of the titular time period, and that means it is exactly as cringe-worthy and hard to watch as it sounds. It took me two days to watch this movie, because the embarassment was just too much. But don’t do that. Sit down and watch it all the way through. Also, I can’t believe Grover from Kicking & Screaming gave me dad feels. What the fuck.

Apostle: I don’t know what to call this genre. Is this a horror film, or a thriller? Idk. Anyway. Apostle is kinda like The Crucible, only in The Crucible the real monster is The Evil That Men Do, and in Apostle the real monster is The Evil That Men Do and Also That Gimp Lookin Thing and also The Earth. I enjoyed this movie, but I would have enjoyed it a lot more if the torture had been a little more tasteful.

Inside Llewyn Davis: I’ve been saying it “lou-ellen” all this time but there’s no L there, so egg on my fuckin face. This movie is one of my favorite Coen brothers I think. And not just because there’s multiple fluffy cats.

Ant Man & The Wasp: Turns out having one script and not a Frankenscript of three will do a lot of good. This movie was really good, except that the romance between Scott and Hope still feels really forced. Also it has the biggest bullshit science factor of any movie ever made, and it’s little jokes about it don’t make it easier to suspend my disbelief. 

Tucker and Dale vs Evil: I remembered really loving this when it first came out, but it really falls apart in the last act. I know the whole ‘half hilbilly’ thing is a genre trope and that’s why they did it, but it just feels unnecessary in a movie packed full of genre tropes. A real less is more situation.

Wandersong: This game is cute as hell. I didn’t beat it for whatever reason, but I really loved it. The art design is wonderful, the soundtrack is sweet and catchy, and you get to sing. This is a really good palate cleanser and happy game.

Dead By Daylight: I got this for free with PS+ a few months back but I didn’t get around to playing it until recently and I wish I had. I’m not sure if I want to call it ‘good’, because it’s such a unique experience that I find it difficult to compare it with other games. The closest thing to it is Evolve, which I never played. Pick this up while it’s on sale and try it out. It’s really, really fun.

[dezembergirl]

Hangover

the last part of the Paradise Series (prior part)

I really want to continue writing, especially now that I have more free time, so if you have a prompt, idea or wish for something you’d like me to write drop by in my Asks and I’ll make sure to write more stories!

Also, this is not limited to the Norwegian Skam, I’d love to write something for Charles/Manon, Incantava or any of the other!

as always dedicated to @nonibanoni‘s idea <3

Fandom: Skam

Pairing: Noorhelm

Summary: the morning after William’s night out ended on Noora’s dorstep; featured Noora, Pancakes and a hell of a hangover

originaly posted to AO3

Sunday came with clear skies and a headache the size of five rounds of shots paid for by Chris. He rolled onto his stomach and padded the nightstand for his phone. In the darkened room the brightness of the display felt like a stab to his skull and he squeezed his eyes shut again.

The pounding in his head kept at a steady pace and pulling one of the pillows over his ears only intensified the sensation. His mouth tasted like a badly mixed cocktail of vodka, gin and the lingering stench of cigarets. In conclusion, he felt like a piece of shit and the thought of doing school work, which he had delayed until the last weekend, made him want to curl up in bed and stay there for at least another 12 hours.

He let his heart rate calm down before he attempted sitting up and risking another glimpse at his phone to look at the time - ten past eleven. He ran his hands through his hair, getting rid of the worst of the tangles and deciding that he was in dire need of a mirror and a toothbrush. And he must have really been out of it because it was only when he pressed his head against the pillow in one last attempt of blocking out his hangover that he finally noticed the familiar note of lavender. Dumbstruck, he inspected the other side of his bed and although it was subtle, there was a slight indentation in the mattress. It made sense now, she must have closed the blinds and been the one to plug in his now fully charged phone either last night or after she woke up.

On that thought, he jumped out of bed - if you could call stumbling onto one’s feet jumping - and the sudden flight of panic carried him down the corridor and toward the main living room. His mind was already flashing back to the first time she had slept over at his apartment and fled without so much as a note the next morning. The fact that he was not entirely sure how she had ended up in his bed in the first place did nothing to calm the rising sensation of dread in his stomach. He might have done or said something incredibly stupid.

Thankfully, that particular train of thought did not continue because when he stepped into the kitchen there she was, bent over the opposite counter scooping flour into a measuring cup. She had twisted her wet hair into a bun and he recognized the t-shirt that clung to her hips as one of his. He slumped against the door frame and traced her movements while she mixed the flour and milk. Now that the pounding in his head had receded he was left with a sensation of numbness that gave this whole experience a surrealistic touch. Noora was actually here, preparing pancakes in his kitchen and humming a tune he could not place at that moment. He would have most likely remained like that for longer, had Noora not turned around with the mixing bowl in her hands, ready to start pouring the batter into the pan.

Her eyes widening slightly and she stopped mid-motion, almost as if she had forgotten she was not alone. And for a moment, William felt the panic reignite before her open mouth curved upwards and she crooked her head to side.

"Good morning,“ Noora tugged at her bottom lip and he felt his head spin.

"You’re still here.“

"Yes,“ she said matter of factly and moved to set the bowl down next to the stove top.

Deciding not to push his luck with whatever stupid thing he would come up with next he pushed off of the door frame and joined her at the counter. Noora turned to face him and obliged a little peck before pressing a firm palm to his chest.

"You definitely need a toothbrush,“ she tapped the glass and packet of Aspirin next to her on the counter. "And this.“

He dissolved the Aspirin in as little water as he could manage and drowned the whole thing in one go. His face must have shown his disgust before he could fill the glass with more water to wash away the vile taste because Noora giggled and gave his cheek a pinch. He chuckled and despite her protests pulled her into an embrace to kiss both her temples. "Thank you for this.“

"Well, you still had flour and one carton of unexpired milk. So yeah, I had to take advantage of that, especially since Eskild hasn’t gotten groceries since Wednesday and the shops are closed until tomorrow. So not that selfless, really.“

"Still, this is really nice.“

"But,“ she angled her head away from him. „You'll only get some if you go take care of this,“ her fingers pushed along his jawline and into his hair „situation first.“

He leaned his forehead against her collarbone with a muffled groan. Defying his expectations she did not smell like her usual lavender body mist but the much darker sent of his own body wash. He liked that smell on her, he decided. But when he nuzzled his nose deeper Noora squealed and pushed him away before he could attempt to put another kiss on her exposed neck. "I said toothbrush.“

The tiles in the bathroom were coated with water drops and the humid air clung to every surface and his skin. Noora could not have been up for long as the mirror was misted over and he grabbed a towel to get a better look at his reflection. He supposed it could be worse, his skin creased around his eyes but the dark circles should be reversible with some moisturizer and hydration. In his haste to get to bed yesterday he had not bothered to brush through his hair before showering and now the longer strands had tangled into a sizable knot in the front. He grabbed his toothbrush from next to where the one, he had given Noora to use a week ago, lay and went to work.

Now that his mouth tasted more like peppermint than cigarets and his hair had conformed to an acceptable shape he threw on a fresh hoodie and checked his phone. There were no unread messages and only two new emails with his Uber receipts. He pushed it into his hoodie’s front pocket and joined Noora in the kitchen. She had turned up the radio to the morning program and flipped the last pancake over in the pan.

"Feeling better?“ she added the thin piece to the stack of already cooked pancakes and flicked off the stove.

"After a kiss, I will,“ she raised her eyebrows but allowed him to press her up against the counter. His hands found her waist through the t-shirt and he moved to kiss her.

"Did you brush?“ she tilted her head to the side.

"Of course,“ William took a deep breath in and breathed the resulting air into her face.

"Oh my god,“ her mouth dropped open and then quickly closed as she pushed away from him with a flash of laughter. "You’re disgusting.“

He took the plate of pancakes and the only jar of jam in his cupboard - strawberry - and joined her at the table. She had already set out the plates and a glass of orange juice for each of them.

They ate in relative silence except for her protests when he would reach to squeeze her thigh and she would swat him away with a playful smile. William was by no standard a slow eater but he had barely finished his first pancake when Noora was already spreading the jam and folding up her third one. She had strawberry marks in both corners of her mouth that strangely enough reminded him of her red lipsticks.

"Are you in a rush?“

"Huh,“ she looked up and darted her tongue out to clean the jam off her lips. "I just have to write the article that’s due tomorrow. And I didn’t even finish the introduction yesterday. So yeah, kinda.“

His expression dropped and he swallowed the piece of pancake to cover of his disappointment. "You didn’t have to stay you know.“

"Well, you were so disappointed last time,“ he bit his lip.

“I didn’t mean to pressure you into staying or anything,“ he said.

"It’s not like that,“ she dropped her fork and gave him a smile. “I just didn’t think it would have been smart to leave you alone last night.“

“Come on, it wasn’t that bad. I can remember most of it.“

Now her smile had turned into a full-blown smirk. “So you do remember drooling onto your pillow?“

“I did not do that,“ he felt the heat turning the tips of his ears red and rearranged his hair accordingly. Most of last night had come back to him, but there were blurry spots left. He just had not expected to hear something like this.

“I mean, it was kind of cute,“ she was tugging at her lip again and twisting the sleeve around her wrist. “But I’m guessing, this not how you usually get girls into bed?“

He groaned and rubbed at his temples. „What else did I do?“

The crumbs and bits of jam left on his plate suddenly became very interesting. He knew Noora was enjoying this and he supposed he deserved that. He remembered driving home with her and getting into bed but god knows what else happened before and in between that.

“Well, for starters you drunk texted me,“ he scoffed and Noora only laughed and ticked each event off on her fingers. “Then I found you half passed out on my porch at like 2 am and you called an Uber. You showered and we went to bed.“

“That’s all? We didn’t like, you know …,“ he trailed off not sure how to properly mold his concern into a question. He would not be able to forgive himself if he had fucked it all up after weeks of being so careful. She did not want to take whatever this was between them any further than making out in his bed and though he admittedly desired more of course, he would always respect her wishes. He loved cuddling with her, kissing her senseless and making her laugh. It gave him an odd sense of satisfaction.

“Oh umm, not really. You were out in seconds and yeah you drooled but I already told you that.“ Noora had pushed the sleeve of his shirt all the way up around her elbow and her complexion had turned from pale to light pink.

His chest deflated with relief and he pushed the last piece of folded pancake into his mouth. Noora took the plates and put them in the dishwasher together with the mixing bowl and measuring cups. Despite the Aspirin he still lagged behind in speed as he helped her clean up the kitchen and start the dishwasher. After making sure the surfaces were spotless Noora got her bag from the sofa and made to lace up her shoes.

“You’re leaving?“

“The essay thing, remember. I sadly wasn’t joking about that,“ she fiddled with her hair ties and pulled the knot on her head apart to let her still damp waves fall down past her chin.

“I mean I did offer to help you with it yesterday. I wasn’t joking about that either.“

“I’m serious William I need to finish this today.“

“I am too. You can write it here, I have some work to do as well. So as long as you don’t distract me I won’t keep you from your work either.“

“I didn’t even bring my laptop or anything,“ her backpack already swung over one shoulder, Noora stared at him with that familiar look in eyes that could pass for annoyance. She was seriously debating his offer.

“You can use mine, for now, I won’t need it until later. And then mail it yourself when you’re done.“

Noora stayed quiet and pushed her bottom lip in and out of her mouth.

“What’s your assignment?“

“Heart rhythms.“

“Okay, so my brother went through a couple of months was he was dead set on studying medicine. Because you know it’s very prestigious to be a doctor and whatnot. Anyways, he bought a couple of books he never opened and they're still around here somewhere.“

Noora considered him with narrowed eyes for a moment, probably deciding that this was way too elaborate to be a lie and finally lowered her backpack back down.

“Okay,“ she drew the word out and William wasn’t sure if she was annoyed with him, herself or the situation in general.

“Great,“ he reached for his laptop on the coffee table and put it down next to her.

True to his own word, his brother kept a small collection of medical books in one of the half-empty storage cupboards. He surveyed the titles and picked out a 2014 edition human physiology textbook.

Noora had settled down on one end of the couch, encircled in an impressive amount of paper and markers she must have produced from her bag in the two minutes he had been gone. She was bent over a black and white copy of different EKGs and a heart diagram.

“So, you are staying then?“ William dropped onto the couch next to her.

“I guess so. But you’ll have to make me hot cocoa later,“ she looked up from her notes and he was relieved to find any traces of her prior annoyance wiped from her features.

“Of course.“

He cupped her jaw and pushed his fingers into her loose hair before dipping down for a kiss. It made his chest swell with heat and his skin prickled with the excitement of having her all to himself for the rest of the day. Noora hummed against his lips and laced her hands around his neck to pull her body closer to his. In the end, she was only inches away from fully straddling his lap and the kiss had turned from innocent to something completely different in a matter of seconds.

One of his hands rested on her hips and the other had pushed his shirt halfway up her stomach before he pulled away with a painful groan. His own body protested when he gently disentangled himself from her and she came to rest on the couch next to him with an exasperated sigh.

„Why did you stop?“ Noora combed through the mess he had made of her hair and wiped over her pink and slightly swollen lips.

„Because,“ he reached over for his laptop and typed in his password before handing it back to her. „We agreed on no distractions, and you,“ he gave her one last peck „are extremely distracting.“

„Ass,“ she made a show of swatting away his hand, but ultimately did not protest when he pulled her legs across his lap and started to trace patterns against her bare skin.

He had never thought it possible that a Sunday filled with school work into the late evening hours could be this enjoyable.

[onceuponamirror]

Drabble prompt: SweetVee - Canon au - post-high school - Veronica visits her mother's home town Riverdale for the first time and meets Sweet Pea. Perhaps she gets lost and stumbles into south side? Maybe she's hosting an event and he's working catering? Do thy meet via her newfound Riverdale friends?

a/n: i took some liberties. also, had way too much fun with it. also, what is this

summary: There are always things that bubble. Laughter, anger, attraction— champagne, most of all. In those golden, floating bubbles are the thoughts she should avoid, things she shouldn’t dwell on, tries not to, guilt to stamp out.

It never really works.

[ao3]

.

.

.

She has a headache. 

A headache that may be more accurately qualified as a migraine; more precisely a pre-hangover; more exactly as a tsunami of roughly a decade’s worth of pent up frustrations. 

This whole night is awful—a joke, if she’s being honest, all these preening people, money fluttering down from the heavens, playing with people’s lives as they always do. 

She just needs to get away, away from the glittering chandeliers and bubbling drinks, and stalks out of the ballroom in search of liquid salvation. Veronica crosses through the lobby and finds the hotel bar empty, just as she’d hoped. Daddy had practically rented out the whole venue for this fundraiser, which means she’ll be left undisturbed in any other part of the hotel.

Veronica slides onto a stool, allows herself a moment of eyes-wide-shut careful breathing, and then opens a look onto the bartender. “Martini. So dry it makes me think of climate change.”

“Think that would probably be the opposite. Rising waters mean more storms,” the guy behind the bar says, throwing her a skeptical look. He’s clearly wearing the hotel’s uniform, but pairs it with a ridiculous beanie that she’s quite sure would never fly anywhere else but this absurd place. 

He adjusts the cardboard box in his arms, which clinks with the movement. “But I’m not the bartender. You’ll have to wait.” 

Veronica inhales sharply. “Tell me. Does anything in this post-surrealist town run at normal speed?” 

He looks back at her, as if unsure if he appreciates the joke. “No,” he says flatly after a moment, and then disappears behind a kitchen door, which swings after him. She stares at it, her head gives a pound, and she decides she doesn’t care. 

She throws her legs off the stool and slides down, a decent drop to the floor for her, and cuts around the bar. She’s been drinking champagne already and all those bubbles tend to rise right to her amygdala, something her mother would sneer at as a dangerous combination. 

Of course, except having taken the bar exam, she’s never tended a bar itself. But she’s been mixing drinks since she was thirteen and filled with an impetuous desire to prove something—and she’s preferred mixing her own since sixteen, for reasons she doesn’t hold dear. 

Even in her heels, it’s a bit of a reach for the better gin, but she manages it, her bracelets jingling with the effort. She’s just begun shaking the ice when the kitchen door swings back open and a tall—quite tall—guy appears through it, blinking when he sees her behind the bar.

He’s wearing a similar hotel uniform as the beanie-clad scowler, and his neck arches as he takes her in, folding his arms at once. Like his predecessor, he seems to regard her with inherent suspicion, but there’s something different as he runs his eyes up and down her form, lingering on the sequins on her dress and pearls around her neck.

“I was told there was someone waiting for a drink. Guess they didn’t wait,” he says after a moment. Veronica rolls her eyes and finishes with the shaker. 

“Women get nowhere when they’re too patient,” she replies with a sarcastic flutter of her eyelashes, reaching for the gin and adding it to the mixture. 

The guy pushes off the wall, pulling the vermouth off its higher shelf with no difficulty. She supposes bartending is an apt position when one is as tall as the model skyscraper in the Time’s Square FAO Schwartz.

He hands it to her, and then his posture immediately returns to crossed, studying her carefully, as if watching and waiting to see if she actually knows what she’s doing. 

It’s only when she’s nearly prepared the martini and turns to him and says, “Olives?” in her most expectant voice that he breaks into an amused look. He reaches across her, picks out a toothpick from one container and stabs three olives at once, and offers her the skewer with a slightly mocking bow.

She carves an eyebrow his way, and accepts the offering, dropping it into her glass. Veronica then draws her clutch bag open, fishes out two tenners and snaps it shut, putting it back under her arm. 

Lips and eyes lifted, she reaches up and tucks the bills into his uniform breast pocket as she walks past on her way to the other side of the bar, sidling back onto her stool and sipping gently at her drink.

After a long moment, the bartender decides to move, putting away the bottles and passing her a small napkin for her drink. “You’re pretty dressed up,” he says, running a rag up and down the counter. “You’re here for that fundraiser in the ballroom, I guess.” 

Only Veronica herself has been known to spit the word fundraiser with such contempt—years of resentment over cancelled recitals and forgotten performances in lieu of some event her parents neglected to tell her they were attending—don’t waste your time pouting, mija, it’s unbecoming—and she rests an elbow on the bar, appraising him. 

“Unfortunately, indeed I am,” she agrees, sipping again at her drink. Not bad, she thinks, trying to remember when she last shook her own martini.

For the first time, the bartender smiles. It’s an appealing look, and then it shifts, clearly a darker thought taking hold. Veronica is surprised to hear herself think it does nothing to diminish his attractiveness. 

His uniform runs high along his neck, but there’s a dark spot peeking out along the brim of it, and she realizes it’s a snake tattoo.

Veronica stares at it, and wonders with gleefully morbid curiosity how furious Daddy would be if she brought home a bartender with a neck tattoo.

“It’s so fucking stupid,” he mutters under his breath. “They’re tearing down people’s homes for a fucking golf course.”

Veronica runs her tongue along her teeth, considering her words. He obviously doesn’t know who she is, or he wouldn’t be saying that to her. Or—perhaps not in such a confiding tone. 

“I take it you’re not in favor of progress,” she says, tilting her head at him. 

His smile runs thinner. “It’s nice that they keep coming up with new words for ugly bullshit. Progress,” he adds sharply, raising his eyebrows. “My grandma’s trailer makes way for progress.”

She pauses, sipping at her drink, perhaps to stave off a sizable pang of guilt. Truthfully, the past couple of years, Veronica has made an effort to not think too hard about her father’s business deals—she knows it puts a sour taste in her mouth, and she’s chosen her own profession, independent of his, for a reason. 

She’s just here to smile pretty for photos, not dirty her hands, even if that feels harder to justify in the face of the one across from her. 

It’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong. 

A thought she’s sat with for months, as long as she’s known about Daddy’s plans to demolish half of the town he grew up in—out of spite, she’s fairly certain—her lips pursed against voicing it, afraid of her father’s wrath for hearing it. 

Ever since she announced she wanted no part of Lodge Industries, that she would forge her own path, her father has treated her like an outsider, a stranger, a betrayal he took personally. 

And perhaps, in the angry, neglected heart of her, that’s how she meant it. 

“Listen, I agree with you. But from what I hear, development is already underway,” Veronica sighs, putting down her martini. The drink is as bitter as the truth. “I’m sorry. Really, I empathize. I just don’t think there’s anything left to be done about it.”

But the bartender just shakes his head at her, wearing a wan grin. “People like you always say that.”

“People like me?” Veronica repeats, offense tinged on every word. “You don’t know me.”

Though if you did, your argument would be stronger, she admits to herself, holding down a sigh as her finger traces the dew on her glass. 

“Look at you,” he scoffs, gesturing vaguely at her glitzy outfit and pearls. “This kind of town—these kinds of lives—must just look like something on a map to you.”

Veronica frowns, running her eyes across his face, something about his words uncorking a long-buried thought in her chest. 

Eventually, he shrugs. “And there is still shit to be done about it. We’re protesting the groundbreaking tomorrow, me and a bunch of buddies. Everyone in the trailer park agreed not to move. So we’re not giving up, even if we have to shell out for some fancy lawyer.”

“That’s her,” a voice from across the room sounds, and it’s the beanie-wearing guy from before, pointing right at her. A blonde woman about Veronica’s age with a notepad offers him a far more thankful smile than necessary, her hand squeezing at the interloper’s arm—Veronica can practically see his blush from here—and then beelines straight for her, ponytail bouncing. 

“Miss Lodge, I’m Betty Cooper, with The Riverdale Register,” she says without preamble, shoving her hand out to shake, which Veronica does, shocked into habit. “I was wondering if I could talk to you for a few minutes regarding your family’s plans for demolishing Sunnyside trailer park in favor of needless gentrification. Do you realize you’ll be uprooting roughly thirty families with nowhere else to go?”

The bartender scoffs loudly, as if it’s an inadvertent sound, staring at Veronica in a completely new light. Certainly not one that happens to be flattering. His expression is practically florescent. “Unbelievable,” he says blankly. 

Veronica blinks at him before forcing her gaze back onto the reporter. “I’m—I’m not associated with the company business. I’m just a lawyer.”

“But you’re Veronica Lodge. You must have an opinion,” Betty insists, a type of intrepid concentration in her eyes Veronica recognizes and, truthfully, respects. 

The bartender is shaking his head at her, disgust on his face, and for some reason—Veronica can’t stand that. And he was right, of course, right about it all, about what Daddy is doing. It’s—it’s—

“It’s awful,” she says before she can think on it further, sitting up straighter in her stool. “My opinion is that it’s awful.”

Betty’s mouth falls open, pencil comically poised against the notepad, and then seems to snap out of it, a dangerously excited gleam in her eye. “Are you saying, on the record, that you stand with the local protestation of the demolishment and gentrification of Riverdale’s south side?”

What will Daddy think?

What will Daddy do?

And then—

Fuck him, she thinks. 

Veronica raises her neck and sits at her full height, recrossing her legs. 

“Yes,” she says clearly. “In fact, would there not be an obvious conflict of interest in personally representing the interest of Sunnyside trailer park, I would offer to do it. In lieu of that, I am more than happy to make the right calls so that this inevitable court battle gets handled by the best in the business. Pro bono,” she adds, throwing a sharp, pointed look at the incredibly stunned bartender. 

Betty’s eyes flick from him to the other guy, who has moved next to her, all trading expressions of shock. 

“That’s very kind of you,” she eventually manages to stammer out. “Would you be willing to set aside some time for a formal interview with The Register to discuss plans for fighting your father?”

Realizing the full weight of what she’s just done and feeling neither guilt nor shame about it, Veronica’s conscious feels clear for the first time in—well, perhaps, ever. 

It’s a feeling she didn’t know how badly she craved, a weight she had no idea was so heavy until it was gone, and she revels in it now, like she might float right out of her skin. 

“I would be happy to, Betty,” she says cheerily, and then twists in her seat to face the bartender, reaching back into her clutch bag for two of her business cards and offering one up to her. 

“We’ll set up a lunch.” Then she turns to the bartender. “You’ll need one as well,” she says, passing it to him, and he takes it with surprisingly nimble fingers. 

He lets out a breath, his expression wholly wide and wholly unreadable. 

Veronica slides off her stool, throwing back the rest of her drink and settling it firmly on the counter. “Call me tomorrow,” she says, and he nods, once. “I’ll need your name, to know who to expect.”

“Um, it’s…Sweet Pea, actually,” he says, after a moment. Veronica gapes, and then a laugh bubbles out of her. 

“Oh, god. That’s going to make Daddy even more furious,” she says on a sigh, grinning. “Well. Talk to you then, Sweet Pea. We have a lot of work to do.”

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[sending-the-message]

Creepy Kids from my Career as a Case Manager Part 1 DuShaun by creepykids

DuShaun J (Shaun for short) was a 15 y.o. black kid with an IQ in the Superior/Very Superior range. He lived in a trailer park outside a small town about 70 miles south of Chicago with his mother and her shitbag boyfriend. His file noted that the boyfriend was a felon and was certainly abusive to both DuShaun and his mother. The file painted his mother in more sympathetic colors but I was pretty skeptical. Shaun had fewer disciplinary issues at school than I would have expected. His only run-in with the cops seemed to have been a time he was caught spray painting the side of an abandoned, burned-out Dairy Queen on the edge of town and the cop had let him off with a warning (and made an astonishingly positive assessment of the quality of Shaun's work as an aside in the report). For one of the few black kids (demographics on the town list it as 91% white) in a broke-ass small town going to a shitty public high school to be that smart and stay under the radar somehow was pretty impressive.

He would have gone completely under our radar too, except teachers had begun to notice that he was coming to school sporting visible injuries (black eyes, lacerations, what looked like cigarette burns on his right arm) and had sometimes seemed to be in a daze. Statements noted that he had always been thin to the point of looking emaciated.

When I arrived, the trailer was a shit show (did I even need to say that?)--the only thing in the living room that didn't look scavenged from a dump in a post-apocalyptic wasteland was a brand television (with a ps4 attached) that was planted right in front of the beat-to-shit dark brown recliner where Shaun's mom's boyfriend (Dave) clearly spent most of his waking hours. The trailer smelled like old meat and cigarette smoke. The millipede that scurried across the wall as I was talking to the mom (Wanda) looked happy and fat--it's nice when families take good care of their pets, I think.

I knew Wanda was 32, although her face was so haggard and pitted she looked much older. She had probably been stunning, once, and I think she was probably highly intelligent although the intelligence was buried under years of trauma and mountains of heroin. Dave (41, white, never handsome, now flabby and dead-eyed) made faces while Wanda expressed saccharine, maudlin sentiments about Shaun. Dave used several racial epithets in a short conversation and also repeatedly speculated that Shaun was "probably a faggot." I didn't bait him, since he'd have taken it out on Shaun later, but I took some pleasure in the fact that it clearly made him uncomfortable when I gave him absolutely no reassurance or approval. (I'm a big, medium handsome white dude, not at all flabby.)

Shaun's bedroom was tiny, and the only furniture in it was a twin sized bed. It was impeccably neat, and the hideous green and brown carpet was clean. It's unprofessional of me, but I could barely pay attention to Shaun for a few minutes because I was mesmerized by the drawings he had done on his wall.

His walls were covered in urgent, explosive drawings of fantastic figures--mostly anthropomorphic, though many had wings and tails and animal heads--in different poses. Some were clearly dancing, some were holding spears or swords, some were flying or kneeling in prayer. They reminded me of cave drawings, or perhaps like if some savages had somehow traveled forward in time and been exposed to Klee and Basquiat and then gone back to their own era to have a second go at the walls in Lascaux. First taking in those walls was like jerking off during a fever dream. We are always told to look for something--anything at all--that a kid is halfway good at so we can use it to open a dialogue but this was more than that; looking at Shaun's work I was fairly certain I was looking at a work of genius.

Shaun was staring at me with big, brilliant eyes. Perfectly poised. Amiable enough but clearly diamond sharp. I was absolutely certain that he'd see me leading with something like "Boy howdy them's some nice drawings you got here!" as artless and hamfisted. He'd be polite but it would destroy any chance at trust. So instead I shook his hand, asked if I could sit on his bed, and explained a few of the concerns his teachers had expressed to lay out the reasons for my visit. Shaun sat on the floor and took it all in.

I assumed Dave was listening in (I could hear labored breathing outside the thin bedroom door, for one thing) and I really didn't need any info from Shaun about his relationship with his parents anyway. Living conditions would go in my report. I could see some of his injuries (healing black eye, a definite burn on his left arm) and they'd go in the report. No need to ask Shaun to piss in a cup--I was sure the kid was clean as a whistle. As soon as we had any reason we could piss test the mom and Dave and they'd be just as dirty any day of the week as they were now. The main thing was building a rapport with Shaun so we talked about sports and school. I asked him about the skateboard I saw in the corner (he was an avid skater) and we talked about music. He was surprised and dubious when I told him I liked Tyler the Creator too, and was clearly astonished when I said one of the reasons I liked him was that he had grown up from a smart, funny, glib kid who didn't give a fuck into an intelligent man with real shit to say.

"Yeah," Shaun said, "and now a lot of folk who used to fuck with him don't like him any more. He doesn't give a fuck about THAT either, though."

"Yeah, what did he say once, 'Anybody who's mad at me I don't make jokes about hurting women anymore and don't still squat in my dead grandmother's house can fuck off,' or something."

"Yeah," Shaun said and smiled, "petty little dick-riders hate transcendence."

We talked a little about his artwork, then. He asked me if I'd ever heard of the Dictionnaire Infernal, and I said that I had. It was kind of a catalog of demons--a hierarchy of hell. He nodded, and said he had seen a "fucking trippy" edition online illustrated by a French guy named Breton ("But not the famous surrealist guy, like I thought at first, just some boring dude who only did that one good thing") and that he'd had dreams about it. In the dreams he saw demons of his own. Demons and devils and spirits that his grandfather had told him about that were apparently mongelized constructs pulled from voodoo and African folktales and old Southern ghost stories. He had always been a good artist, but he said when he painted these dreams he felt he was on some next level shit.

He asked me which my favorite was, and I pointed to a leaping figure, bouncing high with his arms raised over his head in exultation. It looked like he was wearing a big amulet and he had a stag's head with huge, intricate antlers.

"Yeah. He's Joy. I like him too. That one down here, though..." he pointed a long, elegant finger at a horrible thing with big feathery wings and the face of a bird who appeared, somehow, to be shrieking, "that one's Vengeance. You don't wanna see that bitch--lady, excuse me--you don't wanna see that lady."

"She's like a banshee?"

"Yeah, kinda. But I think banshees s'posed to show up when you're already doomed? She fuckin' brings doom with her."

"Do you have titles for them?"

"Not gonna get titles. These are too personal. These motherfuckers gonna get names. Haven't named them yet either. Naming a thing is serious business--once you name something, you gotta be ready to own it."

I really wanted the conversation to keep going, but I had other appointments and had more than enough information.

Shaun clearly had a little more to say, though, so I stood up slowly but did not move toward or even look at the door.

"When me and mom were still in Chicago, before we moved down to this pit, I used to run with this kid Tariq whose family was Muslim. Real Muslim, not hood Muslim. And his pops told me once, when he found out I was an artist, 'There is an old story that on Judgment Day Allah will call the artists before his throne and place one of their artworks in front of them and he will tell them to bring it to life. If they cannot bring it to life--and who, but Allah, can?--they will be condemned.' I think about that a lot, every time I make something."

I wasn't sure what to say. "That's really beautiful," I said, and then added, honestly, "I don't know what else to say about that."

"Yeah...I guess not," he answered evenly, although I got the sense he somehow felt sorry for me.

A couple of months later, I had a dream (I guess it was a dream) that brought Shaun back into my thoughts in a big way. It was one of those dreams where I dreamed that I had just woken up in bed. My apartment was shaking and rumbling, at first like a train was going past outside but then instead of subsiding the shaking got harder and harder and I realized something huge was crashing around in my front room. I was too terrified to go investigate so I just sat up in bed as the crashing and rumbling grew closer. My door swung open and a huge, black skinned man jumped into the middle of the room. I tried to scream but couldn't and I tried to move but I couldn't. I realized the man had the head of a stag with enormous, gorgeously intricately curved antlers. He calmly turned on my light and stood in front of me: massive slabs of muscle; dazzling, ivory white horns with mesmerizing curves and curlicues; thick, sinewy legs terminating in cloven hooves, and the head of a stag with glistening fur and chaotic but infinitely kind eyes. He didn't smile at me--I'm not sure how a stag would smile at you--but those eyes were full of such kindness and such joy there was no need. He danced in the middle of the room and despite the crashes and the shaking the dance was hypnotic, soothing, and I felt myself drifting back to sleep as the Great God Beast leaped and spun.

As it happened, I had taken some time off starting the next day, but when I was back at work a week later I asked if anybody had heard anything about Shaun. I was not at all surprised to be told that I should update the file to reflect that his current whereabouts were unknown (with friends back in the city was a safe guess, everyone agreed) and that he had packed a bag in the middle of the night and left a note for his mom asking her to please not bother looking for him until she got her own shit together.

I was a little more surprised to learn that Dave was in psych care after a suicide attempt the night after Shaun bugged out of town.

"You're shitting me," I said to my supervisor as she filled me in.

"Hand to God. Most fucked up thing. Maybe he...felt bad?"

"Fuuuuck," I answered.

I don't like cops. But like I say, I'm a white dude with short hair who's in good shape and wears his polo shirts tucked in, so cops usually do like me. Having a rapport with cops comes in handy for me, and more important for the kids I work with. So I called one of the cops who had been involved with responding to Dave's suicide attempt or whatever-the-fuck it was. Cop was a dude named Joe, and Joe suggested we grab a beer because he'd need a beer or three to tell the story.

I had about half Joe's attention as he guzzled his second beer--the other half of his attention belonged to the blonde bartender with big boobs who ruffled what was left of Joe's hair every time she walked past. That was fine. One thing I've learned is that getting information from a cop is like buying pot from some shitbird campus dealer in college--you always have to spend an uncomfortable amount of time pretending you like them before they give you what you came for. Joe finally took a breath and gave me the Product: "So me and my partner show up just ahead of the EMT's. And that's good because neither of us wanted to do any kinda CPR or whatever on that piece of white trash, which was double true when we walked into his filthy bedroom and smelled that he'd pissed himself. Like a lot. Like, bro, I've never seen a grown man piss himself that hard and I've had drunk duty at the county fair. Fuckin blood everywhere, too. That old boy had really done a number on his arms. Multiple deep cuts. Don't know how he stayed conscious long enough to make 'em, don't know how he stayed alive long enough to get medical help either.

So the kid had just gone missing the day before. This guy is a known shitbird who we figured was knocking the kid around. I'd have bet money he killed the kid and buried him somewhere and then for some reason--maybe a combination of his fine Christian upbringing and whatever his last fix of heroin was cut with--he just freaked the fuck out with guilt and decided to end it. So I made sure he was in cuffs with a guard posted at the hospital.

When he comes to, he tells us this bullshit story about how some kind of fuckin woman with saggy tits and a head like crow came dancing this crazy dance in his room while he was sleeping in the middle of the afternoon. Wanda was at work so he was home alone and this bird-head bitch is just jumping around and he is too scared to yell or even move and he feels like he's having a heart attack and she's, like, feasting on his fear. And then finally she stops and looks him dead in his eyes and opens her mouth--beak, whatever--and just screeches. Said it's this awful, high pitched noise like a tornado siren that just goes on and on and he's shaking and crying and the more he sobs the happier she seems and then he says the head changes from a crow head to just being the head of an old woman with long, tangled gray hair and now she's grinning at him and still making the exact same shrieking noise and that's when he lost it. Grabbed a pair of scissors from beside the bed and went to work on his arms while the old woman kept screaming."

"Fuck," I said, sipping my Dewar's.

"No shit. Two weird things. First one's minor--Davey boy doesn't recall calling 911, although someone did make the call from his cell phone."

"Weird," I said.

"Yeah but I mean, the dude clearly had some kind of psychotic break plus he was probably fucked up on H. So who knows. But the other fucked up thing is--I mean it's a trailer park so surprise surprise, a lot of the neighbors are home midday. Several of them say they did hear noises coming from the trailer while all this was going on. Screeching noises it's hard to imagine a human being making."

"Heroin's a hell of a drug," I deflected.

"Yeah. Hell. When your vic is fucked up on drugs and also going nuts and your wits are a bunch of slackjawed white trash who are ALSO fucked up on H and probably drunk on top of that....Anyway, bro, I give no fucks anymore. The mom got a call from the kid, said he was in the city and doing okay. I didn't necessarily believe her when she told me, but then the kid called the station himself and we asked him to come back or let us know where he was exactly and he asked if we thought he was stupid but then he faxed us a copy of his social and his school ID so we're satisfied. Plus you have to figure a kid who has the presence of mind to take important paperwork with him when he hops town has a good shot of coming out the other end. So there's that."

"Yeah," I yawned, "there's that." And I threw down enough money to cover our drinks and wished Joe luck with his new friend the bartender and he winked at me and said "Yeah, bro," as I walked away.

[amariemelody]

5 Things Meme

I was tagged just this Tuesday (an eon ago) by @hobbitsaarebas for this meme. So sorry that it took so long, Hobbit, and thanks for thinking of me always! 

I tag @afro-elf, @zetsubonna, @platonicharmonics, @indi-flying-with-dragons, and @the-omniscient-narrator. Have fun if you like, loves! 

Here we go, under the readmore! :D 

5 Things You Can Find on My Blog 

Note: I don’t post very much to my Tumblr blog here, but still!

1.) Positive, uplifting, pro-black content, especially pro-black women & girls content. Hell, you can see that in my blog’s headers. Gotta take care of your people; gotta love your people. And then you start and continue to love yourself. ‘Tis vital for a healthy heart, soul, and identity. 

2.) Shippy things! Mostly Marvel! I ship the hell outta SamSteve, SamBucky, SamSteveBucky, RhodeyTony, etc. I don’t quite consider myself an active black gal Marvel blogger because of how little I post, but I do hope I post a lil something that some people like and enjoy-I know I certainly like and enjoy those things. 

3.) Links to my AO3 fics. I...don’t quite have a large fanbase. Haha...hah...hahaha...hah. -lolsobs- So as soon as I finish editing and posting to AO3, I gotta excitedly head over here to my Tumblr blog to post the good news! I only write stories about and with characters of color, especially. Feel like I’m doin’ the fandom lord’s work and I love, love, love it! 

4.) Just about anything I find hilarious.It could be yet another meme, videos, joke posts, etc. Ya’ll can usually find that under the “I iz HOWLING”, “I iz CACKLING” or even “I’m done” tags. Yep, yep! :D

5.) Correspondences with my friends. I love, love, love, love getting tagged/mentioned by them (can ya tell by me doing this? Haha!) and I strive to return the favor in kind. I love when they reblog things from me and I reblog things from them. I love hearing kind, encouraging words from them-it never fails to brighten my day. You can find a lot of this under my tag “Chitchat with friends” and “Being tagged by friends is WONDERFUL!” 

5 Things You Can Find in my Room or House

1.) Romance/erotica books. Comic books. Romance/erotica books. Graphic novel books. Romance/erotica books. African American-centered books. Romance/erotica books. Educational and classic books (ex. I love and read the shit outta Cyrano; I’ve re-read it 4 times so far.) And now I also have fucking nursing books right now because I had the brilliant, dumpster fire idea to go to nursing school. Fucking hell, Amarie. Fucking hell. What were you thinking. 

2.) My wittle Windows Surface RT tablet! I got her as a surprise Christmas gift from my friend’s family just this January! I gave her a pink screensaver (wallpaper), and so I thusly named her “Pinky”! (Her freakin’ charger had to be replaced, tho. And I gotta take her to Geek Squad ‘cause her keyboard acting up next...grrr...) 

3.) Posters! I’m a huge, huge black gal nerd and proud of it! I have 3 Spider Man posters (well, one is really a calendar from my 13th birthday party, but shush), a Sailor Moon poster, a Lego Batman movie poster, a Transformers: Bumblebee poster, a Monster High poster, a Marvel characters poster, 2 Falcon (Sam Wilson, baes) posters, and finally one Tuskegee Airmen poster!! 

4.) Makeup. Uhh...I’ve been told that I have a pwetty face shape and I’ve been told that I’m pretty good at using makeup to softly highlight my features. Uhh...I get compliments. That’s all I know. ‘M just here. 

5.) More books. 

5 Things I’ve Always Wanted to Do

1.) Travel, travel, travel! Especially wanna go to Paris, France (I’m a huge ass romantic sap). And recently, I wanna go to Disneyland and spend a whole mortgage payment and then some just to finally hug Princess Tiana. 

2.) Write at least, ehh...30 to 50 fanfictions. Wanna make a whole library for you all. 

3.) Take a ballroom dance/waltz class. I wish to whirl ‘round and ‘round the ballroom. 

4.) Play Super Mario Kart Brothers, or whatever the hell it’s called. I’ve never owned a game console (I be broke & so I’ve only ever had books and Sims on my PC), so that’ll be a novel experience for me! 

5.) More traveling. 

5 Things That Make Me Happy

1.) Thinking hopefully about the future. Honestly, it’s the main thing that keeps me going. I think about what a mostly great career I’ll have as a nurse (I’ve always wanted to go into healthcare, but never even dreamed that I’d be an RN). I think about my lil chute-chute of a car that’ll be all mine. I think about my time that’ll be all mine. 

2.) Watching cartoons, especially old ones from my childhood. Ya’ll, prolly about 98% of what I watch is literally cartoons. I’m learning not to beat myself up about that/call myself immature. Like...if that’s the worst thing I do to cope with life right now, then ain’t nobody getting hurt. 

3.) My wittle entitled white boy of a cat, Dante. Sweet baby boy has gotten me through many a hard day and night. 

4.) Music, music, music! 

5.) Reading 

5 Things On My To-Do List

1.) Finish my physical and shit for my clinical packet at school. 

2.) Pharmacology homework 

3.) Fundamentals of nursing homework 

4.) Speech class homework

5.) Clean the goddamned house 

6.) Sleep (Fuck it, we need a 6th one) 

5 Things You May Not Know About Me

1.) I have a vivid, surrealistic imagination. One of the most common complements I get on my fics is along the lines of “This was so vivid that I could picture everything so clearly! I could smell that scent, I could see them dancing!” or “You painted such bright, beautiful pictures in my head-I could see and understand everything so easily! It was like I was right there in the scene!” 

Yeah, it was just like that for me, too-I saw it like that in my head, too. I just have the ability and desire to translate that onto the page in black-and-white. So thanks a ton!

The...slight problem that this causes, tho? I can’t turn the strength of my imagination off...and so I can’t watch horror movies. I am 25-years-old and I can’t watch horror movies and I don’t think that’s going to change any time soon. It’s all just as real, just as vivid, just as valid to me and I take on the emotional tones of the movie just as easily as if I were watching Brandy’s Cinderella or Rugrats in Paris: the Movie.

I become terrified & affronted when I’m tryna listen to music on YouTube and a fucking ad comes on first for a horror movie and I smash that “Skip Ad” button as quickly as I can-lately, it’s been It and I just...ugh. Ya’ll, not everyone can handle horror movies. 

It’s not kind. It’s not good. 

2.) Umm...I wanna cuddle Bucky Barnes. Like, if I could cuddle Bucky Barnes one day, my life would be complete and I’d need no more fulfillment. Just...lemme cuddle Bucky Barnes and all will be right in my world. 

3.) I am an avid tea drinker! I especially love to drink tea when I’m working hard-be it at writing or homework! I drink plain English breakfast tea, lemon-ginger tea, Constant Comment tea, Jasmine green tea, plain green tea, English black tea, french vanilla tea, and just about every other kinda tea you can imagine! Yep, yep! 

4.) I grew up and still live in the south, but I got my parents’ northern blood. So I love, love, love, love, love and prefer the cold. You can betcha ass that I’ll get up a 5am in the morning just to go for a walk in the freezing, pre-dawn morning. It’s like a soft, soothing winter wonderland and I love it! 

5.) I am a proudly self-professed romance sap...but I couldn’t give less than a shit about sci-fi. I’m just...not a sci-fi person. At all. You gotta put some black folk up there in them stars before I think to care. 

Well, then! That was quite a long and enjoyable meme and I hope you all had fun! Thanks so much again to Hobbit and much love to one and all! :D 

[scrawnydutchman]

Why Craig McCracken is a Genius

Anybody who follows my work as well as my most frequent postings and discussions knows that I LOVE animation. I sincerely and confidently say it is the greatest art form in the world, simply because in one way or another it’s every art form combined. It’s drawing, painting, acting, film making, special effects, literature and music all at the same time, and while cartoons get the unfortunate shove as being nothing more then non-intellectual “kid’s stuff”, the field has produced some of the finest achievements in art of the 20th century as well as the 21st so far. But much like any art form, the field is only as great as it’s artists and what they bring to the table. There are many great animators and animation directors that any enthusiast can point to for inspiration like Rebecca Sugar, Lauren Faust, Genndy Tartakovsky, Don Bluth, Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Hayao Miyazaki, Sitoshi Kun, and of course the most obvious answer Walt Disney. While I have great admiration and nothing but respect for the artists above, I’d like to take a moment to appreciate the genius of the man behind the shows I bring with me throughout my childhood and even adult life. The creator of such shows as Powerpuff Girls (which incidentally he collaborated with Faust and Tartakovsky on), Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends and Wander Over Yonder, Craig McCracken.

Make no mistake; there is a reason this man is so heavily respected and regarded in the current landscape of western animation, and you know a McCracken cartoon when you see them. But what exactly makes his work stand out? What is it about the cartoons McCracken has produced and directed that makes it so accessible to such a wide audience of kids and to an extent adults? How is it that whenever I put on an episode of Fosters or Wander Over Yonder I’m immediately put in a good mood and am enthusiastic about life? Well, after watching and studying his work I think I can boil it down to a few elements which, incidentally I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts before.

1. Beautifully Simple Character Design

Aesthetically speaking, what do the Powerpuff Girls, Bloo from Fosters Home and Wander all have in common? The answer of course is that they are deceptively simple designs that all take a very minimalist approach. So many household names from cartoons are memorable but their designs can often be so complex that if one were to try and draw them from memory, even as a skilled cartoonist, they’d have just enough trouble that they may forget a few key aspects of the design. With McCracken’s designs you can draw them likely in less then 2 minutes, especially ol’ Bloo from Fosters Home. You just draw a little pac man ghost with little flipper arms, circular eyes, a grin and a straight line at the bottom and you’re done. One might think these designs are very limited because of how minimalist they are with how you can express them, and if you’re feeling particularly like a snobby Jackass you might call it lazy. But in truth these design choices are the most practical you can get as they give you all the essentials of the character with nothing superfluous. First, because of how quickly you can draw them by that very nature they are also SEVERAL times easier to animate, and with the added aid of glorious modern day technology (when it’s not crashing that is) producing high quality entertainment quickly has never been easier. Second, all the essential parts of the character are there. Each character in a show is a distinctive shape not replicated by any other character, meaning that if you were to put them in a silhouette you could easily recognize who is who. Also, the whole art of animation is expressing character and personality through motion, which is where the acting part of the field comes in. Just by mannerisms, typical distinctive poses and even the very nature of their walk cycles we know exactly what kind of person each character from these shows is. We know the Powerpuff Girls are only innocent on the surface level and in truth are actually quite violent and gruesome (unless you’re watching the new horrendous show that completely misses the point of what makes the original so great), we know Bloo from Foster’s Home is a mischievous egotistical little trickster who is always causing trouble and we know Wander is a happy go lucky optimist who only seeks to bring happiness to all. Sometimes the best way to go is to not think too hard about it and let the main points of the character come through with no additions holding them down or distracting from the point.

2. Creative Yet Broad Show Premises

*This is my new favorite Gif*

I have to imagine each one of these shows had beautifully smooth pitches to get them funded (except maybe Powerpuff Girls because of the violence) because they have such imaginative and original premises that can be summed up so quickly to anyone who wants to watch and they leave themselves open to so many different types of stories.

*A boy visits his Imaginary Friend at a Foster Home where he and many other Imaginary Friends go on all sorts of hijinx or adventures, along the way saying goodbye to imaginary friends who find a new home*

or

*a superhero parody where a bunch of seemingly innocent and adorable little girls are actually quite violent and aggressive, and the show plays off of superhero stereotypes while also challenging typical gender roles*

Done. Great simple premise with unique concept not explored before. Take my money.

I’ve said before that it’s important for a show to have an easy to grasp premise, especially for children, because the easier it is to understand the more accessible it is to a larger audience. Plus because of the broad nature of the summary you can tell any kind of story you want between episodes. Premises like these  have story ideas that just write themselves; it’s why the family sitcom of middle class family with idiot father and hot overcompensating wife exist, because everyone can relate to having a family and the dichotomy of a couple where one is the straight man putting up with the ceaseless antics of the other. Wander Over Yonder is a  particularly good example of this because quite honestly all you need to know is “A couple of do-gooders wander the galaxy making new friends and incidentally run into an incompetent arch enemy a lot”. It’s basically just Road Runner but it takes place on a new planet every episode. 

3. Color!!!!

Craig McCracken KNOWS how to use color. It gives all of his shows such a warm inviting feeling because it’s all so bright and either blends nicely or makes decent contrast. This may seem like a minor point, but You’d be amazed how quickly a bad color palette can ruin a show for an audience. the color choices of these shows immediately attract the attention of the viewer with it’s positive vibes and satisfying placement. Plus each character has a color scheme appropriate to their personality (or more accurately they contrast, appropriating a common theme in McCracken’s work; polar opposites hanging out with each other). The goodhearted reasonable and well behaved Mac is red, but his mischievous trouble making fun loving imaginary friend Bloo is, well . . . . blue. The happy-go-lucky Wander is orange, but his logical and pragmatic best friend and steed Sylvia is blue. The leader Blossom is pink, the innocent Bubbles is baby blue and the tough tomboy Buttercup is green. They remain consistent with these choices and much like the contrast of these characters physical appearance it makes it all the more apparent that the characters themselves contrast too.I don’t know what else to say about it, but just TELL me you don’t watch the intro to Fosters Home and get all hyped up in the process!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZiB_S9VpiU

4. Surrealist Humor

One thing you’ll notice about these shows is that they aren’t afraid to be weird, Fosters especially. They take every chance they can get to have something surreal happen only to play it off moments later like it never happened. I think that’s always been a great strength of McCracken’s shows. A huge part of comedy is playing with expectations: nobody ever gets a laugh out of something predictable. But another great and common aspect of comedy is stark, jarring contrast. I once read a WONDERFUL book called The Humor Code by Joel Warner and Peter McGraw, that was all about studying what makes people laugh, and they brought up a theory in the book that comedy is all about violation + benign. Something is jarring to our senses but we quickly find out it’s actually nothing to be afraid of. Hence why being tickled by someone we love makes us laugh: it’s a violation of our personal space, but we know our loved one wouldn’t actually hurt us. But it wouldn’t be funny if we tickled ourselves because it’s not a violation, and it isn’t funny with someone you don’t trust tickles you because the violation isn’t benign. This can also happen in reverse: something that initially lowers our defences turns out to actually be harmful or annoying or bother us in some way. I’m not necessarily saying this is the be all and end all of comedy as it’s only a theory, but I think you could apply it to McCracken’s work. His cartoons are littered with moments where a character does something strange or random or out of the ordinary and nobody bats an eye, or maybe it’ll shift in perspective about how large the situation at hand is. An immediate example that comes to my mind is the episode of Wander where a planet is attacked on a huge scale by a destroyer of planets called “Buster” . . .which actually when you zoom out it turns out it’s an adorable little puppy just playing with a ball. Humor is largely subjective, but if you ask me . . that shit is funny.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ5QRrAosQo

Conclusion

McCracken

 has been making numerous contributions to the field of animation throughout his career and has gained notoriety for the shows under his belt . . and rightfully so. He understands pure and simple what cartoons are all about: simple, down to earth, easy to access entertainment that’s fun and leaves you in a good mood. Some television can be considered junk food like reality tv shows (cheap to produce, quick to make, advertised well but loaded with garbage), and others can be considered fruits and veggies like Breaking Bad or The Simpsons (they make you a better person and challenge your sensibilities), but sometimes all you really need is a light simple snack. One that’s colorful, sweet, and maybe even a little nutritious. McCracken delivers in his work with original premises, accessible characters, bright inviting colors and a delightfully weird sense of humor. God bless ya, Mr. McCracken!

[josiebelladonna]

The first time I wrote to Ben it was a few days after Soundgarden had played Superunknown in full at SXSW in Austin, back in 2014. I was in hell of a head space at the time--like my anxiety was real bad and I couldn’t speak to anyone about it because my mom had her own shit to deal with, my dad was getting sober, and overall, no one seemed to “get it” what was going through my mind at the time. It was the same random, painfully intrusive thoughts playing over and over again to the point where it was starting to drive me batshit insane. And if you’re curious as to what those thoughts were, I don’t even remember now, but they were just weird “what if”s that didn’t make sense.

I felt like I was literally going crazy. Career counselors weren’t helping. People telling me to get a job weren’t helping. If anything, pressure onto me to find a job added fuel to the fire and.. felt a little cruel, especially once you consider I was on my knees begging for help from these people.

But anyway, I was coming out of a second intense bout of depression that coincided with the winter months, although in retrospect I had had been dealing with it much longer than that; it just so happened to increase when the darkness incrementally spread out over the Northwest. I think there were a couple of days I actually considered checking into the psychiatric ward of the hospital, because I do remember my logic at the time was “what do I have to do to make you all listen to me? what do I need to do to show you all that I’m serious here? that I could very easily die from this? if my anxiety doesn’t kill me, then your pressuring me to be like everyone else will?” I literally remember thinking that a number of mornings: I seriously am going to live another day? Mind you, this was a few months before Robin Williams committed suicide, but even then, people still wouldn’t listen to me.

But the only thing that was keeping me out of the hospital was music and in particular Ben’s music. I played his album In Deep Owl nightly, from the day it came out on August 27, 2013 and all through that difficult winter. I remember playing Collide while in my room all alone, wrapped up in a sweater and a blanket to protect myself from the cold (the room I had at the time was separate from the house, in what was known as the “mother in law” building; the unfinished floor was solid stone, so it served as heat sink in the summer and an pool of frozen solid ice in the winter time, and that winter was the coldest on record: -25* F around Christmas).

I’d fall asleep to Keystone. Neverone Blues shone a light on my broken mind. Loose Ends was my anthem for feeling like time was passing me by (it still is, too). The Train You Can’t Win--in the vein of Audioslave’s Light My Way, Metallica’s Wherever I May Roam, Megadeth’s Good Mourning/Black Friday (and also Hangar 18)--was like a guiding light in the existential darkness, like he was telling me to not give up, to claw out of the hole if I need to.

Another thing I’d do was frequent his Facebook page: I finally turned on notifications because I didn’t want to miss him. It was funny, too, because every time I logged on, he was always at the top of my feed.

And then I’d listen to Hater. Oh, my GOD, I’d listen to Hater! in particular the 2nd because it has my favorite song, Uncontrolled. I’d post a link to it but Youtube doesn’t have it anymore, and the site I frequented for both Hater albums (and also for a short lived, jazzy/Morphine-ish Matt Cameron project called the Tone Dogs), Grooveshark, is now totally defunct.

My fantasies about Ben around this time were getting really weird, too, almost dreamlike. Prior to then, I’d fantasize about things like stroking his belly and holding him close to me to keep me warm; around this time, I’d have that same fantasy but we’d be doing it in a shark tank. Or a beach on Mars. Or underwater. Weird, surrealist environments like that.

It was also around this time I did my Superunknown 20 drawings, drawings to accompany each song on Superunknown. And I was in school on top of that. If it sounds like a lot, it was a lot, but I needed it to get away from myself.

Initially, I wanted to get in touch with him because I had made a couple of drawings for him that I wanted to give him as my way of telling him thank you. I told my mom I wanted to do that the summer before, and since I couldn’t hardly reach out to people for anything much less finding out where he is because everyone I asked always came up short, she and I finally put our heads together and we were finally able to find him via the white pages of Bainbridge Island and an online person finder (I couldn’t tell you what it’s called if you asked me, but all I remember is it cost about a dollar to look up somebody).

I was finally able to sit down and write to Ben on St. Paddy’s Day, right after my writing class final and three days after they played Superunknown in full. It took me three days to write it because I was writing in pen and I had to be careful not to say something off-kilter lest I be like Stan. I remember introducing myself to him, telling him that I was an aspiring artist and future MFA, and I’m a child of divorce and a patient of clinical depression and suicidal thoughts, but I was lucid enough to keep it together and to keep myself from going sideways. I told him his music helped me through the darkness, and also my parents’ divorce and my moments of loneliness. My words were a bit stilted, robotic even, but.. can you blame me?

I think the worst thing I told him was I find him to be a beautiful soul. I remember telling that to him on his Facebook page a couple of times, too. Whenever I wrote a comment on his page, it was always sweet. I’m just a sweet girl who loves boys, and her big beanpole of a boy in particular.

I sent my letter to him--three full pages, front and back--about a week before my 21st birthday, soon after they came home from South America and right before Ten Commandos took off.

The day after I completed my letter, I messaged Matt because he was on Facebook (I don’t know if he still is, I haven’t been online since the week before the 2016 election) telling him that I wanted to share my art with him. I bring this up because about a week after I mailed off my letter, a picture popped up on Alain Johannes’ Instagram of Ben, Matt, and Dimitri Coats congregating in a dining room: Ben’s sitting at the table with a concerned look on his face and Matt and Dimitri were like.. awestruck. I hope you can see my logic here.

Speculation or not, allegedly or not, that picture gave me a clue that I must’ve struck a chord with not only Ben, but Matt, Dimitri, and potentially Alain, too, because he was right there.

Anyways, this is merely the first installment of the nirvhannah shepherd chronicles: stay tuned for more xoxo

[sillymovietrailer]

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

This is a bit of a nostalgia treat for me, as I strongly suspect my particular love of silly trailers may have come from this particular one.  I... well, my brother really, had this film on VHS, and it started with this before the main film (remember when VHS’s did that, the early ancestor of extra features?).  I watched that tape, and inflicted it on friends, so many times growing up, and always made time for the trailer at the start, never fast-forwarding through it or anything.  I think what impressed me was the idea that you could do that, have a trailer that works as it’s own separate sketch in its own right.  I was a little too young to know first hand the old style cinema restaurant ads of course, but I still got the joke.  Ah, memories, eh?

Now this is what made the Pythons huge on both sides of the Atlantic.  From all accounts, the filming of this was a nightmare, start to finish, operating under a shoestring budget (partially funded by the bands Genesis, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd!  Really!), in cold, damp Scotland wilds, with them having to wear woolen jumpers spraypainted silver to represent chainmail.  When they’re interviewed about it, it comes off as this horrific ordeal.  And yet, somehow working with these limitations, true comedy gold is achieved.  Partially I think that’s due to how well they pull off the Middle Ages setting; you can’t make something that looks so photogenically manky with a multi-million dollar budget, you need to be working with sod all amongst actual sod.  In many ways, it is a pretty accurate take on the age (”He must be a king.”  “How can you tell?” “He hasn’t got shit all over him.”), with the odd surrealist interlude of course.  Details like the Killer Rabbit may seem very random until you find out that there’s a surprising amount of medieval art showing bunnies being truly vicious bastards!  There’s that influence of Oxford/Cambridge education again, they know their stuff (Terry Jones would later do a few documentaries on medieval lives).   On the same point, any issues they had with production they were able to turn around and make jokes out of; the coconuts, one of the most memorable aspects of the film, entirely came from lacking any funds to have horses.  Even the fact that the only titles they could really afford would be plain white text on a black background they managed to turn into a riff on Ingmar Bergman style European films.

On top of that though, this is just well done droll comedy, having utter madness happen around them, but with the main characters being so prim and proper in the face of it, selling even matters of having “Ni” said to you as a true threat.  In some ways there is a bit of a backlash, as it’s become so ingrained in geek culture; it’s a running gag in D&D circles how easy it can be for a session to become a quote-a-thon for this.  However, it does still endure, again partially down to the setting, as it is in a way kind of timeless, the jokes all still work, there are few specific references that you need to know to get the gags.  It’s why it has lead to the Pythons’ later careers, the musical Spamalot (I got to see it with Peter Davison as King Arthur!), an extended gag in Ready Player One (I really hope they can make it work in the film version), even a collectable card game when I was growing up.  I was in Trafalgar Square, ten years ago as of the 23rd of April, for the World’s Largest Coconut Orchestra event, followed by an open-air screening of the film introduced by the two Terries.  Good night that was, and I still have the coconuts somewhere.  With all that though, there’s something interesting about the legacy of this one, in terms of the different sides of The Pond.  In the US, this is often seen as the Pythons’ crowning achievement, the thing people most think of when Monty Python is mentioned.  However, in the UK, that honour belongs to their next project, which was first mentioned in the publicity for this as “Jesus Christ, Lust for Glory”...