#Spooky Tooth Productions

[thebutcher-5]

Vampires (1998)

Benvenuti o bentornati sul nostro blog. Dopo aver fatto diversi articoli sull’animazione e la Disney, siamo tornati a parlare di live-action e questa volta l’abbiamo fatto con uno dei registi europei che nell’ultimo periodo si è dimostrato veramente abile. Il film in questione è Inexorable. La storia parla di Marcel, uno scrittore divenuto famoso dopo aver pubblicato il suo primo libro,…

[intheholler]

what do you think of all of the people being scared of appalachia? i don't know if this is recent or not, but currently i've been seeing a ton of shit online like "never go to the appalachian mountains, it's so dangerous", and i just don't understand it. my family's lived in appalachia for forever, and none of us have experienced anything paranormal or endangering to us. you're one of my favorite blogs on here and i'd just like to hear your thoughts on it

first off, it means a lot that i'm one of your favorite blogs and im really happy i can contribute something to your experience here :') thanks so much for being here <333

but ok so.

my thoughts on it are many. it's been bothering me a long time and i've been meaning to get it off my chest. this will be long and probably ranty, so it won't hurt my feelings if anyone skims lol

lemme preface this little diatribe by saying the obvious: folklore is an integral part of any culture. the mythos of a place/people is tied directly to their histories and unique experiences and struggles and they are enriching. this is true of appalachia too.

oral folk traditions especially are incredibly historically appalachian.

i mentioned in a post i made yesterday about murder ballads, how the purpose of these was to warn kids away from doing dumb shit and getting lost in the hollers--falling down cliffs n mineshafts and shit at night. gettin got by wildlife.

it spooked us safe. they served a purpose, and once you got old enough to realize they're as real as the tooth fairy, they just become enjoyable and nostalgic. because they're you're culture.

probably every mountain kid has stories about haints n boogers that were told to them by their grandparents, and they grow up to tell them to their own kids, and so on. some of it stuck with me because i grew up with the folklore.

by that i mean, i'm a whole 31 year old woman and i still avoid looking out a dark window at night cause it gives me the shivers. i still get spooked when i hear a big cat yowling in the woods. but the difference is i know there's not really haints out there crying--it's just a product of my childhood. ghost stories are fun.

the problem comes in when someone outside the culture gets their hands on appalachian oral folk traditions. then, it becomes a familiar problem: outsiders cherry picking appalachia and harming us with the mess they make rifling through it all.

it's all about the surface level and the visuals. they all love a good aesthetic blog, run by some local from out west or some shit who's never stepped foot here.

but as soon as the spooky photo filters come off and the real life marginalized person is left standing there just out of frame, we go back to being disgusting examples of what not to be. decrepit churches n buildings are aesthetic and quirky until they stop being on a pinterest board, and then they just become damning images of an impoverished region who deserves to be laughed at.

now, not to holler 'splain you--this is more for anyone not from here who might read this: it's been a systemic issue for decades; there were literal government campaigns to demonize us to the rest of the nation so they could garner support to cut into our mountains and exploit our labor and resources.

well, they were fuckin successful, and we have been falsely made out to be this homogenous nightmare of a place--"welfare exploiting" maga country who deserves everything we get, and nothing we don't.

by going so far as to take appalachian folklore that we tell each other and picking out the "aesthetic" stuff--the haints and general paranormal--they are pruning what they like from our culture--the safe things, like ghost stories--for their own aesthetic use.

but not only that, they are using it to demonize us… yet again.

'appalachia is scary. it's full of things that will kill you. don't look out the window at night cause a booger will get you.' only they don't call them boogers cause they ain't even from here. ask them what a haint is and they'll ask if u mispelled 'haunt.'

it gets even worse when you consider that so much of it has roots in native american culture, and how that continues to be exploited and misrepresented.

i'm not even innocent of that. a while back i had to check myself because i made a comment on here about ~spooky appalachia~ ignorant to the fact that what i was commenting on was actually a deeply important cultural and spiritual element to local indigenous tribes. my comments were harmful by my failure to educate myself and know better, thereby saying things carelessly.

my point being--i'm from the area. i should have known better.

when outsiders start saying the kind of shit they say about what they think they hear in the woods without even knowing where such an idea comes from, they're disrespecting a displaced, abused and exploited people, harming real cultures just for clicks without even knowing. that's on top of the damage they're doing to greater appalachia.

it's fuckin gross.

i think my favorite one i ever seen was this middle aged white lady going through her pristine mcmansion somewhere in suburbia, pulling the million curtains and locking the million doors, going "nighttime routine in appalachia!! 🤪🤪"

i could be wrong about this particular person--i didn't check their other tiktoks because im sick of them accounts and tired of giving them the benefit of the doubt--but it immediately came off as a transplant because:

1) mcmansion, 2) i dont know nobody here that locks their shit down like that (not locking up could even be argued as a part of my local culture, a reflection of our deep sense of community and trust in our neighbors).

and then the comments was all like "i don't know how you guys live there" and it actually broke my heart and pissed me off because even if--especially if--you're one of us, why the fuck are you harming us for likes? why are you turning people against us in a brand new way?

and to the transplants that do this--why?

you're not even from here, you moved here to this place you hate and made it worse just so your front porch would have a nice view, and are now benefiting socially from perpetuating bullshit about us?

you buy up all the land, land we often had no choice but to sell in the first place to survive instead of passing it on to our families, land we originally took from the indigenous peoples your content comes from.

you overdevelop it and turn it unrecognizable to make it more like the comfortable cities you come from. you gut a mountain town of its local businesses and cultures, you price people out of their homes...

...and then once you settle in all cozy like, you go tell everyone else how scary it is? how you can't trust the hills? like it's a cool paranormal bravery badge to wear? fuck off entirely.

so idk, in short my personal thoughts are: i personally enjoy a little myth as a treat, because the folklore is a part of the gothic, a part of our culture and a part of my childhood. i don't (intentionally) wield it as a weapon or use it as a pedestal to get the weird brand of attention that people like them are after.

and those who do this can get got by them haints for all i care.

[beomie3]

pumpkin latte - k.th

bf!taehyun x reader

summary — you spend the night in; carving pumpkins, watching horror movies, and making halloween themed lattes with your barista boyfriend <3

wc — 2k

content — cuddles, kisses, tooth rotting fluff ^_^

✩ this is fic 1/5 of my halloween spooky series!

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october; the month of all things spooky, spicy, enchanted, you name it. but you couldn't deny it was most especially the month when people your age loved to go out every night and party, doing god knows what.

but for you and taehyun, october was the month you spent afternoons decorating your apartment with all kinds of adorable fall decor, cozying up on the couch afterward with lots of snacks to binge your favorite scary movies. maybe cuddle up in bed later with some hot tea and talk about your days, stare into his starry eyes.  

the point is, the two of you didn't feel the need to go out and be social. as homebodies, staying in with one another was more than enough to make your day special. just in the comfort of one another; you in the comfort of his baggy clothes and him in the comfort of your arms. it was just perfect. most especially during the fall season.

it was so perfect, in fact, that you had developed little traditions over time; pumpkin carving competitions, knitting cute scarves and hats for each other, baking cookies, brewing fall-themed comfort drinks.

that was one of many pros of having a barista boyfriend; he knew every single recipe to exist. and he had made you a plethora of lattes over the years. but your absolute favorite had always been his pumpkin lattes. crafted to perfection, you could almost taste his love in every sip. 

tonight, you had his favorite butterscotch cookies in the oven as you waited for him to get home from work, lighting some fall candles to prep the apartment for your hardworking boyfriend <3

at the sound of his key in the knob, your heart practically lit up, a smile spreading across your face when you saw his glowing face come around the corner and into the kitchen with two large pumpkins in each of his arms.

"taehyunnie!!" you run around the kitchen island, arms outstretched to help him with a pumpkin, hugging his baggy sweater once his arms are free.

he smelled of coffee and warm cinnamon rolls, the scent of working in a cafe all day. it was your favorite scent in the world.

"two pumpkins for our competition which i'm beating you at, by the way," he kisses your forehead in between words, each hand gently squishing your cheeks together so you can't argue back.

when you seem you're about to say something, he catches your words with his soft lips instead, gently pressing them to yours. a clever way to win a nonexistent argument. you pull away after kissing his lips, a glint of mischief in your eyes. 

pumpkin carving competitions; one of your and taehyun's favorite fall activities that you always looked forward to. you have exactly one hour to carve your pumpkins, and then you send photos of the finished product to your friend group, having them judge who won. the winner got to pick the movie after. it never got old. 

although, in the grand scheme of things, the winner or loser of the competition doesn't matter because both pumpkins always end up on the windowsill, happily flickering like the warm glow of your love. 

it isn't until he's at the sink, sleeves rolled up to his elbows washing his hands that you get him back, hugging him from behind and standing on your tip toes to blow cool air in his ear. he shivers against you, a small shriek leaving his mouth as he laughs. 

"okay maybe i'll let you win," he turns around once he's dried his hands off with a towel, smirking down at you. 

"we'll see about that," you snake your arms around his neck, just to grab a cookie from the platter that was on the shelf behind him, taking a bite and then turning around to start brewing the coffee for your lattes. 

his eyes lingered on you, smile growing on his lips at your teasing gesture, throwing the towel over his shoulder before going to help you. he just couldn't contain his love.

snaking his arms around your waist, he hugged you tightly, chin on your shoulder, gentle eyes on your working hands. i love you against your ear with the warmth of his breath brought a sparkle to your chest, and you swore your heart couldn't fill with any more love.

the scent of coffee swirled into your nose as you helped one another prepare the lattes, his soft hands guiding the small cup of foam over your mug to make a cute design of a kitty. clinking your mugs together, you took a sip, already melting into your favorite warm drink, laughing into your mug when taehyun sported a white mustache on his top lip from the foam, leaning over to lick it off with a gentle kiss to his lips.

~

"three...two..." you intensely stared at each other from opposite ends of the table, pumpkin carving utensils in hand as you readied yourself to carve the best pumpkin in existence, your boyfriend finding your determination the cutest thing in the world. 

"one!" you shouted and quickly got to work, brows furrowed as you focused on the design you carefully etched into the pumpkin. the reason he loved this so much was to observe you, tongue caught in your teeth as you precisely carved, just wanting to watch you forever. 

and taehyun being taehyun; naturally gifted at everything he does, was a very skilled pumpkin carver. he got to work, determined to carve you your favorite animal because he knew it would make you happy. 

but of course, one hour was a long time to go without getting up and having some sort of physical contact with your boyfriend because looking at him from afar was only so fulfilling before you just had to go hug him. 

you both took small breaks, dancing to music in the middle of the kitchen or sipping on the remainder of your lattes, feeling a little dizzy after he spun you around a little too much. 

the hour passed by and it was time for the grand reveal, sitting on taehyun's lap with his hands cupped over your eyes as he counted down from three. revealing his masterpiece, a grin spread from cheek to cheek at the cutest carving of you and him as kittens snuggling under a heart that had your initials in it. you could almost tear up at his thoughtfulness. 

he was distracted by your pumpkin; the carving of your friend group as little animals, finding it the cutest thing in the world. he found it adorable how you carved him as a squirrel, beomgyu as a bear, soobin as a bunny, yeonjun as a fox, and hueningkai as a penguin, 100% sure they'd immediately vote for yours when you sent your photos in the groupchat, and that made him happy. 

your phones repeatedly dinged with messages from the boys, hearting your picture and complimenting you on how cute their animals are. beomgyu texted asking why his animal was a bear and not a cool tiger, soobin sent a picture of himself with a bunny filter on, and kai texted: awe taehyunnie's is so cute! his being the only vote for your boyfriend's pumpkin. your friends always supported and gushed over your relationship, wanting nothing but the best for you. 

you and tae laughed, replying to some of the boys' messages and ultimately sending them a selfie of the two of you with your pumpkins, sure to send another one later with what they looked like in the windowsill. or they would all just come over and see it for themselves tomorrow, as they all agreed upon in the group chat. 

after placing a faux candle in each of your pumpkins and displaying them in the window, you ran outside, hands intertwined together as the cool october breeze blew your hair back, feeling nostalgic as the crisp air smelled of bonfire and evergreen trees.

the warm glow coming from the window was enough to make you wrap your arms around the tall boy before you tightly, standing on your tiptoes to press a kiss to his nose, his bright smile illuminating the evening and you swore your love for him could never ever end.  

~

although it was your pick for the movie night, you still let the cozy boy beside you have some say, holding three dvd cases out in front of him as he closed his eyes and randomly picked one.

his pick made you jump up in excitement because this film was one of your favorites and you claimed it was super scary, when in reality you knew it was just to make taehyun hold onto you tighter (and he would anyway).

cozying up with some caramel kettle corn and seconds of your favorite pumpkin latte, warming your hands with the warm mug, taehyun draped fluffy blankets over you and plopped back down on the couch next to you. 

you snuggled into him, breathing him in, taking in his warmth. he was simply your comfort boy, serotonin flooding your brain with every breath you took. relaxing into him, the muscles in your body slowly unraveling until you were completely still and relaxed. 

the sound of his laugh when one of the characters in the movie did something stupid was your favorite sound in the world, looking up at him with a giggle of your own, watching the star-shaped lights that draped from the ceiling reflect in his large glassy eyes. straight, dark brown hair parted over his pretty eyebrows. he couldn't have been more perfect.

of course, popcorn was sent flying in the air several times because your boyfriend was prone to getting jump scared, hiding his face in the crook of your neck and barely peeking out an eye when the scene got too scary, clutching your hand tightly.

“it’s okay tae it’s only a movi- AHH!” obviously, you were just as prone to jump scares no matter how many times you’d seen the movie. but it’s okay because hugging your comfort boy under the warm blankets reminded you that you were safe, always.

~

the movie had ended and although you were only a bit sleepy, taehyun picked you up and carried you to the bathroom to start your night routine so that you didn’t have to walk, gently setting you on the counter.

brushing your teeth and doing your skincare together had always been one of your favorite parts of the night, always feeling lucky that your had a boyfriend with the brightest smile and most beautiful skin on the entire planet. and of course, he shared the details of his routine with you.

“wait- i made you something,” his eyes light up as he suddenly remembers something and quickly runs out of the bathroom, returning with his hands behind his back.

shutting your eyes, something you feel you’ve done countless times in anticipation for his surprises, you feel him tuck your hair behind your ears and situate a soft pressure around your forehead.

“i knitted this for you…” you open your eyes at the sound of his soft voice and see for yourself in the mirror that he had knitted you a fluffy black headband with tiny cat ears on it to keep your hair out of your face. “…i hope it’s helpful.” he smiles at you in the mirror.

your cheeks grew pink with how much you gushed over his mere thoughtfulness and innocent gesture, melting over the fact that he put much time and effort into knitting this, considering how tedious and time consuming it is.

your eyes said it all; how grateful you were to have such an amazing person like kang taehyun in your life. you hugged his neck, peppering his face with kisses as he scrunched his nose. “i’ll have to knit you one too, so we can match.”

at the sound of that, your boyfriend’s large eyes lit up in excitement, smile beaming right into your heart. he helped you with the rest of your skincare, gently rubbing various lotions in for you and squishing your cheeks like he always did. snuggling into bed together, you ended the night with cuddles, deep talks and staring into his dreamy eyes until you couldn’t hold them open any longer.

his love truly felt like a cozy fall night in, warm blankets, star shaped fairy lights, the soft glow of jack-o-lanterns from your window sill, and best of all, pumpkin lattes.

🐿️<3

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a/n — thank you for reading pt. 1 of my halloween spooky series!! 🐻 is up next :) comment if you would like to be added to the tags list if you aren’t already!! stay tuned ^_^ 🎃

tagslist: @love-be0m @izzyexe @mhasimp666 @alialialisstuff @beomnioa @cherryynoir @caaaptaaainamericaaa @airax1

©beomie3

[r3dblccd]

TAG PEOPLE YOU'D LIKE TO KNOW BETTER!

tagged by: @irrwicht

tagging: @formorethananame, @luneblush, @temporalobjects, @weedzkiller, @r4bidog, @hishedonism, @mxldito, @ovilis, @vienrose, @unavernales, @dozenrozez, @frxgmcnts, @finalsurvivorgrp, @caelcstis, @dcrkfcngs

favorite color(s): Red, purple, but I like all colors

favorite flavor(s): I have a huge sweet tooth, so I'd say chocolate and also fruity flavors like bananas and strawberries.

favorite music: Honestly, I think I can say that I listen mostly everything. I've come to the conclusion that I don't really care about the genre, if I like a song, I like it and that's about it. And that's why my playlist is a mess, especially when I put it on shuffle lmao

favorite movie(s): It's so hard to pick, there are so many good ones! But I recently watched Tokyo Godfathers, that one automatically jumped in my top favourites. I also really liked Grave of Fireflies (even though it's quite a heavy movie), Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, The Handmaiden (let's go lesbians, let's go), Perfect Blue, Everything Everywhere All At Once, The Jigsaw franchise (and honestly, I think the 10th movie might be my favourite), The Fear Street Trilogy, Coraline, What We Do In The Shadows, Train To Busan

Honorable mentions: I think Gremlins is starting to grow on me, especially the second movie because I love that the production team didn't take it all too seriously, I do like when some movies are self-aware how silly they actually are. Also shoutout to The Sadness. Am I ever going to watch that movie ever again? Probably not, it was a very disturbing movie. But this is not your usual zombie movie, if I can even call it a zombie movie, which surprised me? Like, it definitely does have those elements of the apocalyptic zombie genre but turned it completely over its head by making the infected actually aware of the things they're doing but not being able to stop it. Again, it is a disturbing movie, it's not for everybody. I personally don't see myself watching it twice. Plus, finding out that the director has said something like that he wanted to focus more on the "fun and the gore" other than anything else in a Q&A did sound quite sussy to me given the heavy topics and the ways the movie could be interpreted. Idk, as philology and literature major it just keeps getting confirmed to me that most, if not all works of art, no matter in what form, have something to say and they deeply reflect the time in which they were created, and there's always the subjectivity of the viewer who interprets it in their own way (like hell, even the superheroes in movies these days most likely take a whole lot of inspiration from Greek mythology, if you really think about it). Some people have mentioned that the director might have answered the way that he did as to not stir up controversy since it was at a festival, but I can't say for sure, I wasn't there to see the interview myself and this is already getting really long so I will stop now, you can make your own conclusions.

favorite series: Courage the cowardly dog, The Scooby-Doo franchise, Are You Afraid Of The Dark (I'm talking about the 90's series, I haven't watched the 2019 revival). Do I remember anything from them? Kind of, it's been a very long time since I've watched them. I kind of want to rewatch them because of it. But they sparked my interest in all things spooky when I was a kid so I feel like they deserve a place here. Some of my other favourites include: The Untamed, Serial Experiments Lain, Steins;Gate, Semantic Error, Another, My Roommate is a Detective, Wellington Paranormal, What We Do In The Shadows, Hellbound and Sweet Home (I do recommend reading the webtoons of those two, though), Death Parade, The Silent Sea, Color Rush, Squid Game, My Beautiful Man, Good Omens, Our Flag Means Death, Alice on Borderland, My Name, Yellowjackets, Theatre of Darkness: Yamishibai

last song: Ruler Of My Heart by BL8M & Rubyeye & Unknown (Till The End) by AKUGETSU (Alien Stage OSTs) (tw for blood and a bit of gory imagery in the MVs for anyone who wants to check them out). Also can I also just talk about the 1st Anniversary Remixes of those two songs too!!! (here and here, audio only). Just *cheff's kiss*, I love those songs so much, I want to eat them. The story all these animations is quite interesting, the animations themselves are very well done too. How can I describe it. The story kind of takes that deadly game trope (like, let's say in the Hunger Games and Alice in Borderland), but make it about people being forced to be in a singing competition against each other to survive and they are being judged by aliens. From what I know, I could be wrong, the main way of storytelling is through the MVs on the VIVINOS YT channel so it does require a bit to analyze (there is a bit of a additional info on the official website and on the wiki, I'm sure), so if any of that sound interest you, I would recommend checking it out

last series: Choco Milk Shake

last movie: The Cat Returns

currently reading: So Long, And Thank for All The Fish from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books. I'm so happy of how much progress I've done on reading those books compiled in one huge book, I'm halfway through the series now. And honestly I want to read it for as long as I can because I really enjoy it, it's so fun, I love the absurd situation the main characters fall into while the big question of the meaning of life, the Universe and everything looms over them. This would definitely go in one of my top books I've read I'm sure.

And I also have to mention the webtoons that I'm reading because I love them very much too: Hand Jumper, The Blind Prince, Lore Olympus, Zombie X Slasher (I don't know in what kind of direction this one would go, but so far so good!), Everything is Fine, Flawed Almighty, Homesick (I love love LOVE this one! The art style and everything is great), Never Ending Darling (I know that it's gonna end in like 2 days officially once the last episode is available to read for free, but damn, what a ride this was. The concept of this webtoon is terrifying), Omniscient Reader, My S-Class Hunters, ZOMGAN (also quite an interesting and honestly refreshing way of making a story about zombies), Nocturne and The Guy Upstairs

And special highlight to: There Are No Demons. This webtoon? An absolute nightmare fuel. I find it very interesting that the artist Nemo Nullus makes 3D models first and then draws over them. I wasn't so sure how to feel like it when I first saw it, this was the first time I've seen anything like it on webtoon, but I quickly grew to like this art style, the kind of weird realism and uncanny valley really add to the stories. And the stories themselves are very scary because these are things that could actually happen, and have most likely happened in real life too, especially that first story with the stalker. This webtoon has made me feel things no other horror/thriller webtoon has made me feel, I feel like I want to crawl out of my own body when I'm reading it, really.

currently watching: Nothing in particular, just random YT videos. I do have some shows to catch up on that I already mentioned here.

currently working on: Mostly focusing on studying a bit more for my exam on monday. But once I'm done I'll be back to doing more stuff here, hopefully ���️

[daymies]

“Grr, stupid kids! You made me look bad!”

Beginning Notes - Hey guys, before you start reading, this is the first fic I had written a while, some nice criticism will be great. Another thing, I'll be adding YOUR original characters to this story! Make sure to DM your OCs in my discord sillymies#0696

One last thing, this story will be LONG... so stay tuned. Check out my social media for drawings and comics (along with some extra scenes) for this fic! And, of course, for more content for our favorite two characters, Streber and Kevin. I hope you guys enjoy the first chapter; I already have an extra two chapters written already; however, they are heavily edited during this time. The next update should be up by tomorrow. (This is also posted on AO3)

———————————————

October 1st, 2012 Monday 6:00 PM

"KEVIN!" "KEVIN! KEVIN!"

Oh great, not those two again.

Today is the first day of October, which meant Halloween was coming soon enough. A holiday that employees that serve the public can't certainly enjoy. Unfortunately, I had the pleasure of being the only guy who sold candy in this crappy town. As a result, this business was almost busy. My two best customers– If I could even call them that, viewing, I give them free candy every day waddled themselves here.

I sighed, "What'll be kids?"

Ugh, I don't know why I asked! I already knew what they wanted! But these two do love Bocadins. I don't blame them; they're delicious. I'm not entirely sure why they don't use the actual name, but whatever.

"Can we get a candy can? Please, Kevin!" "We'd waited all year like you said!" "Yeah! It's finally the spooky month!"

Right...

Kevin's Flashback

The Candy Club shop had existed for a while. Funny enough, I never thought I'd work at this place. Jeez, I didn't even think I'd be the only employee in this dead-end job. In middle school, I remembered when this building was under construction. I had to be around fourteen when everybody realized a new business was opening in this tiny town. I was definitely an eighth-grader when this happened. I don't have the best memory. By the time I reached sophomore year, it had finally finished production. With a small town and low labor, it was bound to take a few years to complete.

After Candy's Club's grand opening, the place was frequently packed, visited by everybody I knew. Literally.

It was next to my high school and a couple of neighborhoods. So it was bound to get heavy traffic. If I had to be honest, I always dreamed of visiting the place, but I couldn't. Of course, it didn't help that my walking route to home, school, and my best friend's place forced me to walk in front of the business occasionally. So it was almost every day I walked past it.

I remember the first day I visited. I wasn't a huge fan of candy. Scratch that. My parents were heavily against it, so I couldn't form a strong opinion on it. So I never really knew whether or not I would've had a sweet tooth in my younger years. Now in my early twenties, I can finally say I love sugary food, which, if you haven't noticed, includes candy.

Radford was honestly the one who took me for the first time. He'd just turned sixteen and applied at the local theater we used to visit during our free time. The place he applied at wasn't JUST a theater; it had an arcade and was pretty cool. Radford was the one who mainly spent all his allowance and time there.

Anyways, he got the job. No surprise there. Radford knew the owner due to how frequently we visited. He had a great relationship with the guy. Man, Radford didn't even have to go through the struggle and process of an interview. He was hired on the spot when he asked. What a lucky guy...

Radford was more than happy when he realized he was hired on the spot. The first thing he did was excessively call me. Even though Radford smiled joyfully when we met, my parents weren't. They were upset with the bill they got from the calls from Radford.

We'd typically celebrated things by, well, hanging at the theater/arcade, but Radford wanted to change things up. To be fair, I don't think you should celebrate the news of your brand new job at– well, your new job location. With the theater being a no-go, he wanted to try out the new candy shop with me. The one that everybody in our high school went crazy on. The Candy Club.

I was excited. But I had to pretend I didn't want to. What if my parents saw it? I freaked out, knowing my parents would've grounded me for something so small.

"Come on, dude, you gotta at least try it. Your parents aren't even here. What are you so worried about?" Radford could tell I was nervous when we walked closer to Candy Club. But, of course, Radford being the worst friend I ever had, found this funny. Jerk.

"You know my parents can sense when I did something wrong! They're like super crazy freaks–! Oh crap, I shouldn't have said that. What if they heard?!" I could visually remember how I looked around my surroundings just in case one of them was watching me, but not a single figure. That didn't even matter to young me. He was still feeling uneasy.

I was an extremely paranoid kid. I didn't have abusive parents; they were sweet but heavily overprotective, and they could've been harsh at times too. I was the only child they had, so that could be why they were so weird sometimes. They were against anything considered unhealthy, like pizza, burgers, or whatever. Obviously, that included sugary substances. For most of my life, I was on a strict vegan diet.

Man, I remembered when I had my first bite of a burger. It was so delicious. Radford took me all around town, trying out different fast-food restaurants. Grills & Boys had to be my favorite restaurant at the time! It's a shame it wasn't like it used to be before.

I think today; I still might be a little paranoid. Not as much as before, thankfully.  But I still kept up with eating vegetables. I had to maintain my figure somehow; it's not every day you see some good-looking guy down the street! Right? I'm kidding.

I worry a lot; it's the one thing I'm known for. Radford constantly has to remind me to 'calm the fuck down,' but what does he know? His life was much smoother than my miserable one.

"Dude. You're the super crazy freak. Come on." He mocked. He found my terrified outbursts funny. But, like I said, Radford didn't take me seriously. Even today, he's still basically the same person.

He forcefully dragged me to the candy shop, ignoring my complaints whenever I mentioned what my parents would do to me if they found out. After that, which would've been nothing, I was just all talk.

My parents wouldn't have done anything necessarily wrong to me. The worst thing they could've done was a long boring lecture about how sugary foods can kill me. Just the usual on what their speeches were usually about.

When we entered the place, we were greeted heavily by the only employee who worked before me. To get this straight, no, I wasn't the first to work at Candy Club. I'm glad I wasn't the first employee at this shit establishment. I would've been more disappointed if I had worked here since the beginning it was built.

"Hey! Welcome to the Candy Club! Where your satisfaction is our treat!"

At the time, previous Candy-Club employees had to say this 'slogan' whenever someone entered the store. That has never changed. It's required for all employees to say once a customer comes in. But I don't do it. I refuse to say it because I find it so stupid.

Radford was the first who started talking to the guy. It looked like they knew each other, once again, not even a surprise. Radford liked speaking to people. I didn't.

"Hey, Dennis! Did you get your latest shipment in?" Radford asked, pushing up his glasses as they were clearly a bit too big for him. I never knew why Radford wouldn't get actual glasses that fitted his face, but whatever. He was a weird guy. He still is, actually, now that I think about it. Radford doesn't even wear actual glasses anymore. I'm pretty sure he has contacts. He didn't even need authentic glasses, so he replaced them with 3D glasses, nerd.

At the time, Radford had a sweet tooth, constantly chewing on some type of flavored gum. Back in high school, that's all he ever ate throughout his school days. Now? Not so much. Let's just say he frequently visits our local Dentist in town now.

I'm not entirely sure how Dennis, you know, the first ever Candy Club employee, and Radford's friendship began. Still, I can just guess that Radford was his best customer, considering all the sweets he bought had the Candy-Club logo on them.

"Just got it earlier this morning! Who's ya new friend there?" Dennis responded and pointed right at me, not knowing who I was. The town was small, so sometimes everybody knew each other, but I wasn't as social as Radford back then. Few people knew me. Not like I cared. I much preferred that way!

Up until when I became the new guy who sold candy in town. Fucking Dennis... I shouldn't have listened to him.

"Oh, this lame guy? Come on, dude, introduce yourself!"

Radford was a much more talkative person. He was more playful, open, and much more of an asshole than me. But, we had similar traits, and we were both... Never mind, I lied. We actually don't have anything in common. He was the one who spoke to me first back in middle school. Radford never even left me alone; he was so talkative. How we met is a story for another day.

I glared at him, irritated by the name-calling. Lame guy... you're the lame guy, Radford.

Dennis was— gazing at me. He seemed like a friendly guy. He had blonde hair and had to be older than us by a couple of years. At the time, I recalled rolling my eyes and giving out a huge groan. I wasn't the best at introducing myself to new people during my teen years. Now that I'm in my early twenties, I am even worse at talking to new people. So it's Radford who gets me to chat with somebody new.

"Kevin," I said, this being all I managed to tell Dennis.

"Nice to meet ya, Kev. Say, what's your favorite candy–?"

Why did he care? If you could compare Dennis and me, we're both entirely different. It's clear Dennis enjoyed his job, interacting with customers, and everything this job had to offer. Me? Not so much. Sure, it was nice to talk to people without forcing a conversation. Still, I soon realized anybody who came through that glass door would verbally abuse me for no reason. That's business, though! Great.

I cut Dennis off midway through his sentence, "I don't like candy. Not really my thing." I told him, crossing my arms. I frowned at him. Dennis was probably around 19 years old when I first met him. I don't talk to him now. He's closer to Radford, not me. I do see him occasionally, but it's just awkward.

I heard a loud sigh. The sigh came from nobody else but from Radford. "Come on, man! Kevin has never had candy before. He doesn't even have an opinion on it! He has no say in anything half of the time!"

I sneered at this as I crossed my arms and looked away from the duo. I was pissed. Yeah, it was true, but it wasn't like I wanted everybody to know about it.

"Is that true? Huh. Say, Kev, grab a scoop of those fruit gummies. I'd think you'll enjoy them." Dennis said, now he too was crossing his arms. But he wasn't upset. He remained happy the entire time, which I respected about Dennis for a long time. Dennis was still annoying, though.

It's not like I was a downer all the time. I just genuinely had no idea how to respond or even react to things.

"It's Kevin. And where? there's a lot of candy in here."

Dennis' head pointed to the left side of the place.

"Top row, pink bin."

Dennis was an asshole, too. I knew he was messing with me when he was facing the bin on the tallest shelf of the store. See, sixteen-year-old Kevin wasn't the tallest person at the time. I was a 5'4 kid, pretty much considered short at the time. I grew taller since then, but Radford continued to tower over me. I continued to glare at Dannis. He should know why I'd be pissed off.

"I can't reach that."

They both laughed with each other, with Radford being the loudest in the room.

"No worries, Kev, that's on me! I'll get it for ya!"

"Whatever," I said, turning my head away so I didn't have to face these two. Radford was already annoying on his own, and adding Dennis? They were even much more irritating and more menacing than these two stupid kids right in front of me—

Oh no! Oh crap! I forgot they were still here!

Dammit, Kevin! You need to quit dozing off on the job! This is how you get your candy stolen! You're lucky these two aren't 3 miserable preteens who wore hats!!

"Hey, err, Kevin? Are you okay?" Skid was the first to ask. He seemed concerned, but I could tell he was mainly curious about why I had been staring at the wall for a good minute.

"Yeah! You were looking at the wall for a while! Are you sick, Kevin?" Pump was more considerate than the other. Well, they both are, but Pump was typically the one who usually acted.

Huh, I forget they both are good kids. I just wished they had stopped pouring through my store, screaming at the tops of their lungs. They're not bad kids. Hell, they're the only two decent human beings who don't entirely make fun of me.

Lila and Pump's mother told the truth when they said these two kids were the purest and most excellent boys. But god, how destructive they were.

"I have some medicine the man in the van gave us!" Pump shouted, taking some mysterious bottle out of his backpack.

What the hell?

"What? What are you two talking about?! Give me that!" I completely ripped the bottle out of Pump's hands and tossed it in the trash.

"Stop talking to strangers, you two! Don't you know how dangerous that is? Where'd did you even get that from!"

These two are oblivious! How aren't they dead yet?! I can't even imagine what their parents must deal with at home! I'm glad they're not my kids! I'll never be a dad.

I groaned as I reached to grab the two pieces of candy I had saved for these two earlier today before they ran out. After pulling my hand from behind my desk, they both practically had stars in their eyes when they realized what I had.

My glare soon faded away. I smiled. It was nice to see happy faces on people. Especially innocent children. I can tell why Dennis loved this job. But, listen, I don't hate these two kids. But, as I said, they sometimes are too loud and dangerous.

I gave these two a long genuine smile. Then, with the two pieces of candy I had, I dropped them into their hands.

"Remember, they're called Bocadins. Call them by their real name next time, will ya?"

"Whoa! Thanks, Kevin! You're the best! And we will!" They said to me both at the same time. Jeez, it's like their heads are telepathically connected.

"Yeah, yeah. Now go away." I said, my smile now fading quickly. I squinted at these two. That was enough socialization for me today.

Instead of walking out of my store, they just stared at me! What the hell could they possibly want now? They got what they wanted. Why are they still staring at me? They could be so weird sometimes!

"What? What do you want?"

Pump and Skid looked at each other and started giggling. They were whispering pretty loudly to each other. A ton of 'No! No! You tell him! No, you!' Okay, now these two were getting on my nerves already.

"Tell me before I kick you both out."

They continued to giggle as they both finally turned to face me. Whatever it was, it was obviously so important.

"Did you hear, Kevin? There's a new haunted house! You should go!"

"Yeah! You'll like it, Kevin!"

Not that important, apparently. Sighing, I gave the two one last smile for the night.

"Sorry, kids, those things aren't for me. Now go away, please. I'm tired. I had a rough night last night!"

They looked disappointed. Of course, since they're Skid and Pump, they looked at each other, and a smile suddenly formed quickly.

"Oh well, let's go, Pump!"

"Oh, okay! Let's go see the new guy!"

New guy? What new guy? Was this the second thing they would tell me if I agreed to go!?

"New guy? What are you two talking about?"

I tried to get an answer from these two, but they were already running out of the store! Why are they so quick with things?!

"Bye, Kevin!!!"

That was the last thing they said before I stood there, confused. What new guy can they possibly be talking about? Who would even move to this town?!

———————————————

End Notes - Hoped you guys enjoyed it. I'll be taking suggestions throughout the story! Remember to check out my social media for more content for the story!

[twistedtummies2]

The Devils I Know - Number 15

Welcome to “The Devils I Know!” For this spooky time of year, from now till Halloween, I’ll be counting down My Top 31 Depictions of the Devil, from movies, television, video games, and more! We’ve reached the Top 15! Today’s Devil can be summed up thusly: if rock is the Devil’s music, he’ll prove it. Number 15 is…Dave Grohl, from Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny.

“Pick of Destiny” is, in my opinion, one of the best musical comedies of the past couple decades. I’m not sure how well it was revered in its own time, but he seems to have gained a significant following over the years, if nothing else, and I think it’s well-deserved. The movie was made as a cinematic vehicle for Jack Black and Kyle Gass, playing their respective characters of J.B. and K.G. (a.k.a. Jables and Kage), from their duo band Tenacious D. The story tells of two wannabe rock stars who go on a quest to find the mythical Pick of Destiny: a legendary guitar pick (no, seriously) formed from one of Satan’s own teeth. Unbeknownst to them, Satan himself is trying to find his lost tooth, also, as apparently he has plans to take over the world. However, he can’t do it till he is complete again.

Inevitably, after many colorful and bizarre encounters, the duo do, indeed, encounter the Devil, played by former Nirvana drummer and founder of Foo Fighters himself, Dave Grohl. Upon retrieving his lost fang, Satan prepares to first kill the rockin’ pair and then enact his plans for world domination…but Jables challenges the Devil to a rock-off, a challenge the arch-demon cannot decline. If the Devil wins, Kage’s soul and body will belong to him (and only Kage, because Jables threw him under the bus there). Otherwise, Satan shall be banished back to Hell…and be forced to pay the pair’s rent at their apartment, because hey, might as well make the most of that bargain, right? The rock-off with Satan – a song called “Beelzeboss” – has become one of the most popular and beloved scenes and songs from Tenacious D. It’s easy to see why: the song is, in a way, a modern, raunchy reimagining of things like “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” with the fate of a soul hanging on a musical competition with pure evil. Much like that song, the Devil’s section is a grandstanding production piece, while Tenacious D.’s is more simplistic and heartfelt…ironically, however, for this same reason, the Devil actually WINS the competition, and it’s only by pure luck that Kage and Jables are able to beat him after the fact. I really love that comical twist on the formula. Grohl’s Devil is only onscreen for about five minutes, but they’re the best five minutes of the entire freaking movie. The musician is completely unrecognizable in the makeup and costume, which actually only adds to the power of his performance. Underneath it all, he plays and sings his heart out. There’s no subtlety to this Devil in any respect, but that’s really what makes this Satan a lot of fun: it’s like a cartoon character brought to life, and I say that with all the best connotations. The “Beelzeboss” number has been reprised live in concerts for Tenacious D. a few times, with different performers playing the Devil, but none have been able to match the intensity and pure fun that Grohl delivers in the movie. For many, this remains an iconic depiction of the King of Evil…and coming from a movie that ends with the two heroes turning his broken horn into a bong, that’s probably as hilarious as it is ironic. I, for one, wouldn’t have it any other way.

Tomorrow, the countdown continues with Number 14! HINT: He’s a Trans-Siberian Menace.

[topknotstrunk]

Review Everything 2023 Roundup:

Stuff that got a proper review:

Review Everything 18 - Avatar: The Way of Water

Review Everything 19 - Werewolf by Night

Review Everything 20 - Kakegurui Twin

Review Everything 20 - Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death & Rebirth

Review Everything 21 - The End of Evangelion

Review Everything 22 - Evangelion 1.11 You Are (Not) Alone

Review Everything 23 - Evangelion 2.22 You Can (Not) Advance

Review Everything 24 - Aggretsuko Season 5

Elemental Official Trailer

Review Everything 26 - She-Ra and the Princesses of Power Season 2 Episode 5

Review Everything 27 - Dead End: Paranormal Park

Review Everything 28 - Owl House Season 3

Review Everything 29 - Knock at The Cabin

Review Everything 30 - Sweet Tooth, Season 1

Elemental Official Clip Followup

Review Everything 31 - Good Omens Season 1

Review Everything 32 - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

Review Everything 33 - Everything Everywhere All at Once

Review Everything 34 - Don’t Look Under The Bed

Review Everything 35 - DC League of Super-Pets

Review Everything 36 - Pompo the Cinephile

Review Everything 37 - The Deer King

Review Everything 38 - Smile

Review Everything 39 - Blue Beetle

Review Everything 40 - Barbie

Review Everything 41 - Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Movies I watched that haven't gotten a review yet:

Elemental

Nimona

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

The Mario Bros. Movie

Blue Eye Samurai

Hilda Season 3

My Little Pony Make Your Mark Chapter 6

DC Super Hero Girls: Season 1

Inside Job: Part 2

The Lightbringer Series by Brent Weeks

Elfquest the Hidden Years issues #1-14

Two Sentence Review Catch Ups:

Escaping Twin Flames: Internet cults are spooky and the fact that people are not taught lateral reading so they're on the rise is just as spooky. Forcing people to be trans is horrifying. 6/10

One Piece Live Action Show: Dropped after a few episodes. The acting is corny but the visual effects are fine, at least as far in as I watched. 4/10

Bee and Puppycat: Part 1: Put on hold after Episode 12. I don't understand how the voice acting and animation got worse when they switched from an indie production to a big scale one. Bee in particular sounds so tired and blase in almost every line delivery that it makes her sound bored which makes me feel bored watching this. ???/10

Hoarders Season 12: Hoarders is a guilty pleasure of mine. Nothing deep, it's just interesting to me. 5/10

You can find my further attempts to catalogue the visual media I watched this year on my Letterboxd, MyAnimeList, and for books I've got a Goodreads.

[mieldentalaesthetics]

Guarding Your Dental Health on Halloween: A Trick-or-Treat Survival Guide

Halloween, a season teeming with spooky costumes, delightful treats, and a dash of the macabre, is an eagerly anticipated occasion for revellers of all ages. Yet, this festive time can pose a peculiar challenge to your dental health. As Halloween's arrival draws near, it's crucial to master the art of enjoying delectable sweets while safeguarding your pearly whites. In this article, we'll explore valuable strategies for keeping your teeth in tip-top shape during Halloween, with insights from our trusted dentist in Peabody.

Picking Treats Prudently:

Whether you're out collecting goodies or handing them out, exercise caution when selecting your treats. Opt for candies that are less harsh on your teeth, such as sugar-free options or dark chocolate. These choices are less prone to cling to your teeth, reducing the risk of cavities.

Timing Is Everything:

Rather than nibbling on Halloween treats throughout the day, it's wiser to indulge in them as part of a meal or right after. Mealtime promotes increased saliva production, aiding in the removal of sugary residues and reducing the duration your teeth are exposed to damaging sugars.

Stay Hydrated:

On Halloween, water can be your teeth's closest ally. Keep yourself well-hydrated and rinse your mouth after enjoying sweets. Water is a natural cleansing agent, effectively washing away food particles and acids that could harm your tooth enamel.

Bypass Hard Candies:

Steer clear of hard candies that could pose a threat to your dental well-being. These candies have the potential to fracture or chip your teeth, potentially leading to painful dental emergencies. Opt for softer candies as a safer alternative.

Brush and Floss:

After partaking in Halloween's sweet offerings, it's imperative to adhere to your regular dental care regimen. Brush your teeth for a full two minutes using fluoride toothpaste and floss to eliminate any lingering particles. Prioritizing excellent oral hygiene is essential, even on Halloween.

Embrace Sugar-Free Gum:

Chewing sugar-free gum can stimulate saliva production, helping to neutralize acids and reinforce tooth enamel. This makes it a handy tool for maintaining your teeth's well-being throughout the Halloween celebrations.

Visit Your Trusted Dentist in Peabody:

Regular dental check-ups are the linchpin of maintaining your oral health. Paying a visit to your trusted dentist in Peabody ensures the timely identification and management of any dental issues. Moreover, you can receive personalized advice on how to protect your teeth during Halloween and throughout the year.

Halloween is a time of enchantment and delight, but it also provides an opportunity to be vigilant about your dental health. By following these recommendations and seeking counsel from dental experts like dentist Peabody, you can relish the festivities without dental apprehensions. Remember, sustaining a regimen of excellent oral hygiene and making wise choices regarding treats are pivotal to preserving the health and vitality of your teeth, not just on Halloween, but every day. Here's to a Halloween filled with enchantment and dental well-being!

[sunsetdi38]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Lemax® Spooky Town® Sugared Pumpkin Candy Shoppe.

[britishassistant]

So Yuu has:

- Mad-scientist Uncle

- Muscular God Father

- Cat-loving Grandfather (1/4)

- At least 7 different groups of admirers and potential suitors

- Deadbeat Bird Dad (notice how he's at the bottom)

So what about Sam?

Anonymous said: Sam probably found out about Yuu’s existence when they were like five or six. Divus was babysitting on Yuu’s parents anniversary and Sam was dropping off this week’s bottle of expensive wine and grape juice for some reason and oh shit, there’s a small child that looks like Crowley sitting next to Crewel with a bunch of Evil 101 textbooks and a half empty cup of juice

@pancake-mix said: I’m sorry for bombarding you with my asks. But I just thought of this. Sam hears about a human child Crewel had and probably met when Yuu wandered into his Black Market looking for a restroom or something. They talk for a bit and Sam takes a shine to Yuu and now Yuu has another encentric Uncle 🤗 that offers Yuu discounts or occasional freebies whenever Yuu visits his shop since Yuu lives of a minimum wage paycheck that they probably don’t get since they get kidnapped left and right. Just a little word of advice. Don’t ask Uncle Sam where he got the goods from 🤭

Anonymous said: I saw you mentioned that Sam has a bar in the Villain!Yuu story and I got intrigued. Sam maybe runs a cheap, but excellent bar that both Yuus visit in their respective aus. In both, he’s a informant on the side as his ‘friends’ got eyes and ears everywhere, but The Perfect’s Sam got extra incentive to keep his drinks cheap. Especially when it’s Yuu and Yuuken are visiting together. The villains just seem to flock when that happens and leave a little less than sober. He’s also a group of seven elders that take up his illegal poker table in the back that pay premium for information on shenanigans.

Thank you for the asks, dear anons and @pancake-mix !

Sam is the black market tycoon in this AU! He’s the go-to guy when the supervillains or league of evil need something that’s hard to get! He started out very young in the supervillain business, and has fought tooth and nail to establish himself as he is today—the fact that he’s on the board already is a sign of how vital he is to the League of Evil.

He has a chain of stores throughout the city known as the Mystery Shops. To ordinary people or superheroes, these shops are your standard corner store, maybe a little better stocked in the grocery and home goods department, but no more than that, certainly nothing suspicious about them beyond their slightly spooky black and purple skeleton decor.

To supervillains and minions, however? The stores host a variety of “specialty items”, hidden in a different manner in each store. In one you can ask a clerk for the online order you made and they’ll go to the back and bring out whatever evil goodies it was you bargained for. Another has a separate section for the villainous wares whose entrance is disguised as an out-of-order disabled bathroom. In a third, the tears of mermaids, newt tails, cyclops eyes and dark matter are right there on the shelves alongside toothpaste, cucumbers, and bin bags, all protected by a certain sound playing on loop on the shop’s PA system that makes non-villain eyes slide right over the odder wares and onto the more benign products.

Sam himself juggles visiting each of the branches he owns and managing his hole-in-the-wall bar, known as Mr.S and Friends. It’s a popular place for the young and old alike, as the drinks and food are cheap but tasty compared to other places in the city. There’s seven elderly regulars in the back who are always playing poker and placing bets, but no one knows exactly what on...

It’s not often that he’ll be unable to obtain something, but he has a policy of personally going directly to the villain who ordered it with an apology, and the closest alternatives available that will produce the same results. It’s a policy that helped him keep his volatile customers happy and discourages stealing from his stores alongside his...other defenses.

It’s also how he met Yuu for the first time, as they answered the door one time when he was bearing bad news to Divus Crewel about an ingredient for his latest monster, and Divus was babysitting experiment #Y26.

His first instinct was to ask where Divus had stolen ten year old Yuu from. Divus was not amused.

Little Yuu was more curious about Sam’s shadow and how it kept moving without him. They ended up playing hide and seek until it was time for Sam to leave.

When Yuu moved to the city once they got older, and stumbled into Mr.S and Friends with Yuuken while looking for a place that would serve food at 1AM, they both had a moment of Spiderman pointing at each other, before they ordered food. From then on, Yuu and Yuuken made Mr.S and Friends their regular place when getting drinks and food out after work.

Sam’s more like an oddball older cousin to Yuu rather than an uncle! He’s fond of them, but he’s just as likely to prank them as he is to help them, especially if they’re trying to ask him for information. He is glad that they’ve brought in so many new customers to his humble little bar since they made it big time as a reporter, even that merfolk trio whose restaurants are his competition...

He knows they’re all supervillains, but if he can get them spending more money in more places he owns, then he’s perfectly happy!

[palbabor-writes]

The Gap in the Door

1: Cold 

Pairing: Shigaraki Tomura x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Adult language, SFW, imma say it’s rated T for Teenz, also F for fluff 

Word Count: 4643

“Watch out. The gap in the door... it's a separate reality. The only me is me. Are you sure the only you is you?”

- P.T. by Kojima Productions

Notes: This thing is like, tooth-achingly sweet. For me, at least. Most of the other stories that I’ll post this week are gonna be nice and spooky/angsty, for that Halloween spirit, ya’ know? But, I figured let’s start with the treat before the trick 🎃

Not beta edited, so any and all mistakes are mine, and mine alone.

Cold /kōld/ noun

a common viral infection in which the mucous membrane of the nose and throat becomes inflamed, typically causing running at the nose, sneezing, a sore throat, and other similar symptoms.

You wake, sneezing. 

Your throat protests the sudden spasm and you gulp heavily, a sharp pain echoing across the back of your mouth. Lifting a hand to your neck you sit up, your comforter falling from your shoulders. It’s dark and your apartment is quiet. Leaning back against your headboard you chance another swallow, flexing the muscles of your throat. You wince, as that same pain shoots down your neck. Fuck. 

Groaning, you lift your legs from the sheets, pressing your feet to the floor. Great, just great, you think bitterly, padding out into your hallway. Since moving to Japan you had largely avoided any major allergies or colds. Looks like your time has run out.

Flicking on your bathroom light, you kneel by your sink, fingers tugging a large, plastic caddie toward you. You dig through the various bottles and containers, hunting for something that will ease the burning in your throat. The best you can come up with is an old box of Tylenol. Shit, you think, shaking out the last few pills, it looks like you’ll need to go to the store in the morning. 

Clutching the precious pain relievers into your palm, you stalk into your kitchen, turning on the lights as you step onto the tiles. Snagging a glass, you pour yourself a serving of chilled water and slug the pills into your mouth, easing their passage with a quick swig. They sting as they travel down your throat and you wince again. There’s nothing you hate more than a sore throat. You always found yourself swallowing impulsively and frequently, as if the pain would miraculously dissipate with the next gulp. 

Clinking the glass back on the counter, you open a few cabinets, hunting for your battered teapot and electric kettle. You’re just plugging in the kettle when you hear your front door creak open. You turn your head at the sound, fingers coiling beside you. 

“Hello?” you call into the void, hoping it will answer back with Tomura’s raspy voice. 

He steps into the living room, his eyes already narrowed, searching. “What are you doing up?” he asks, catching sight of your bedraggled form. 

“Making tea,” you supply, switching the electric kettle on at last, muscles relaxing at his familiar presence. 

“At 3 am?” he queries, shrugging his trench coat off his broad shoulders and heading toward your bathroom. You think about calling an answer after him, but another deep swallow has you rethinking that tactic. It would really suck to have a sore and hoarse throat come the morning.

You hear the shower running and shake your head. At least he’d asked you a few, cursory questions. That was nice. For him. 

Lifting up on your toes, you snag your small collection of tea bags, selecting a light chamomile and replacing the tin. Your kettle is just starting to beep when Tomura returns. He’s shirtless, his new sweatpants hanging low on his hips. His hands are scratching at the back of his head, sending small droplets of water across your mats. 

“So,” he continues, eyes lifting to yours, “what’s with the tea?” 

“Sore throat,” you supply, plopping the tea bag into a mug and pouring the boiling water over the sachet, watching it rise to the lid. You lift the cup to your nose and sniff at the fragrant aroma. 

“You sick or something?” he asks, pulling a stool out and perching against your counter. 

“Looks like it,” you grouse, lifting the tea bag out of the hot water a few times, watching the color shift to a pleasing sun kissed, golden. 

“Since when?” he’s watching you closely, his head cocked. 

“I don’t know, since a few hours ago? Sometimes colds just happen. It’s not really something you can predict.” You look at him appraisingly and arch an eyebrow. “You look, um, a little confused about that. You one of those people who never gets sick or something?”

Tomura shrugs, eyes drifting from you as he props his chin on his palm. “Always had access to a doctor.” 

You laugh and your throat tenses again, making you grimace. Tomura is unamused and rolls his eyes at your response. 

“Ooh, that’s fancy. Not everyone can say that,” you tease, taking a hesitant sip of your tea, the scalding liquid easing some of the lingering pain. A silence stretches between you, but it’s not uncomfortable. The two of you have long since adjusted to the other's presence. 

“He worked with my...Sensei,” Tomura expands, his voice low, almost too hushed to hear. You blink, surprised he’s elaborating on his thoughts. 

While he has opened up to you a little more in the last few weeks, he’s never told you much about his upbringing. You sensed that his childhood wasn’t, well, normal. How could it have been? His quirk was activated by touch. Even if he has a family, there was no way that that manifestation had gone, uh, well. 

“So, a personal doctor, that’s...yeah, I guess you weren’t really given a chance to get sick,” you take another sip of your tea and remove the tea bag, slipping it into your trash. 

Tomura is quiet again. His eyes are staring off into the distance, the red unfocused, as if he’s remembering something. 

Sighing, you blow against your mug and walk past him, stepping onto the mats of your living room. He doesn’t follow, but he does shift his position, twisting so his back is braced against the counter, facing you again. You flop onto your couch and lean against the cushions, clearing your throat after you take another scorching drag of your tea. 

“Did you...eh, do you have medicine?” Tomura asks. His face is stuck in an odd scowl. It’s like he isn’t sure of the words and he’s testing them out. You smile. “Yeah, I took some painkillers. I’ll have to get the stronger stuff tomorrow.” 

His jaw tenses again and he huffs out a sigh. His eyes lift to study your face for a moment. “You should sleep,” he murmurs, a light blush creeping across his nose. You try to hold in your grin and distract yourself with another swig of chamomile.

“Once I finish this, I will,” you assure him, eyes bright with your unspoken appraisal. His stilted behavior is kinda adorable. Not that you would tell him that. God, no, that would be a mistake of enormous proportions. He’d likely ignore you for the rest of the night, if not longer. 

He nods at your response and stands, crimson eyes still fastened onto yours. He opens his mouth, but shuts it quickly, another scowl etching across his lips. Without a word he pads into your hallway, heading toward your bedroom. You cough out a laugh and wash the remains of your mug back, savoring that warming sensation a final time. 

You sit on your couch for a while, your mug cooling between your fingertips. Tomura never ceased to fascinate you. Every time you think you’ve got him figured out, he turns on a dime, his personality shifting, surprising you. Tonight is no exception. He seemed...softer somehow, like he’s unsure how to voice his uneasiness with the foreign predicament you’ve found yourself in. 

You lift yourself slowly, stretching on your tiptoes as you stand. Placing your empty mug on your media cabinet, you walk toward your hallway, switching off the living room light as you pass. 

Your bedroom is cool and dark. 

You can just make out Tomura. He’s splayed across your sheets, his hands balled in that familiar manner, quirk contained by his clenched fists. His eyes open when you shut your door and he watches you step toward him. Your knees dip the mattress as you climb across the surface, stopping when you reach his side. You sink into the sheets, tucking your legs under the covers and pulling your comforter up to your chin. 

Tomura tilts his head to rake his eyes over your exposed face. You smile weakly at him, another sharp stab of pain racing along your throat. 

Your eyes are drifting closed when you feel his arms around you, tugging you toward him. While this isn’t unusual, Tomura has long since established himself as Japan’s number one fugitive and cuddler in your books, you move away from his embrace. He sucks his teeth loudly and you look up at his irritated expression. 

“Stop. I don’t wanna get you sick,” you tell him, shaking your head at his ire. He pulls at you again, lifting you effortlessly against his bare chest. 

“Tomura,” you warn, pushing against his hardened grip. 

“Go to sleep,” he grunts, digging his nose against your hair, his arms still locked around your back, fingers curling back into his palms. You sigh and try your luck again, squirming against his hold. 

“Ugh, really?” you question, letting out a sigh of agitation as your efforts are quelled once more. 

“Really,” he mimics, only loosening his arms when he’s satisfied you won’t try to pull from him again. You shake your head and let your cheek fall against his skin, the reassuring warmth of him seeping into you. His arms lower to the sheets and he locks his chin over your head, his own eyes finally closing. 

In a few minutes, both of you are asleep. 

******

A strange smell lifts you from your disjointed dreams. Wincing, you sit up. For a moment, you think you might be feeling better, then a well timed sneeze has you second guessing that diagnosis. Nope, still sick. You run your tongue over your teeth and shift your comforter away. 

You’re alone in your bed. Your fingers trace across the side of the sheets that Tomura slept on. They’re still warm, he must have only just gotten up. Standing, you swallow heavily again and sniff back the sinus pressure that rushes to your temples. As you dig in your closet for a jacket, you catch a whiff of that odd smell again. 

Your nostrils flare as you try to deepen your inhales, but the passageways are clogged. It’s no use. You can’t get a read on it. 

As you pass your living room, you give the space a quick glance. The late morning sun is peeking playfully through your screen door and your console is playing the main screen music on the tv. It sounds dull, like a bad recording. Yeah, you think, popping into your bathroom to snatch up the Tylenol bottle, you definitely have a head cold. 

Ick. There’s that smell again. 

You pause as you enter your living room, searching for the source. Tomura isn’t on your couch. While that isn’t odd, on the whole, it’s not exactly normal either. He’s usually in one of two places when he’s in your living room: perched at your counter, or lounging on your couch. You peek into your kitchen and feel your jaw drop.

Tomura is standing beside your stove. There’s a pot resting on one of the burners and he’s poking at the contents doubtfully, wooden spoon stirring intermittently. It takes you a minute to process this image. Blinking, you shake your head and look again. Nope, it’s him alright. 

Tomura Shigaraki is standing in your kitchen and appears to be attempting to, uh, cook? As he stirs the spoon across the pan again that smell wafts up. Ah, cooking had felt a bit strong. Besides, you reason, Tomura burning something at least feels a little more...normal.

“What’s that?” you ask and he turns, his eyes flashing. He doesn’t offer any explanation, he just twists back to the stove, a dark scowl spreading across his face. You walk to him and lean over his side, peering into the pot. 

It looks like he’s found some of your chicken stock. There’s a small assortment of vegetables mixed in, some carrots, badly chopped onions and what appears to be some frozen peas. You tilt your head, checking the level of the gas burner. Yeah, it’s set way too high. 

You glance up at him, “I’m going to adjust the burner. It’s too hot, so it’s catching some of the carrots.” He grunts and steps away, a red blush seeping across his nose and cheeks. 

With a practiced ease, you lower the heat to a simmer and lift the pot up for a moment, shifting the contents. “All in all, it looks pretty good,” you tell him, sniffling as the strong aroma hits your nose. “Mind if I put some more stuff in it?” 

Tomura snorts at that and shrugs, his eyes not meeting yours. “Do what you want.” 

You smile at him and lift a hand to his arm, fingers tracing along his bare skin. He sighs at your touch, his eyelids drifting closed, shuttering his tense embarrassment. 

Stepping past him, you grab your glass from the night before and fill it with some chilled water, popping the final set of Tylenol into your mouth. He watches as you swallow the pills and cocks his head, his pearly hair falling to one side. 

Setting the glass back against your counter, you give him another long look and walk to your fridge. You grab a few ingredients: cold chicken, celery and extra broth. 

Tomura circles to you as you set your selections down, curious. 

Moving to your dry goods cabinet, you snag some spices and seasoning: ginger, thyme, rosemary, turmeric, salt and pepper. You chop the chicken and grab a small skillet, firing up another burner and heating it until it loses its pink center. As the chicken is cooking you chop the celery and start to add the seasonings to Tomura’s original attempt. Once the chicken is cooked through, you toss it in and add a dash of extra broth, sliding a lid over the contents. 

Tomura hovers close by as you work, his eyes shifting from you to your preparations, seemingly fascinated. You let out a shuddering cough and he steps closer. Involuntarily, you lean away from him and turn to scrub your hands clean at your sink. He waits, letting you dry your hands on a nearby cloth, before repeating his movements. He’s close enough for you to feel the heat radiating from him. You shiver at the sensation and look up at him. 

He looks...concerned? You’ve not seen this expression before. His eyes trace your face, the red subdued, tamped down, the irises almost looks garnet. 

“How long does it need?” he asks, jerking his head toward your stove. You tear your eyes from his and sniffle, another cough rising in your throat. “Should- hem- should be ready in thirty minutes, give or take. Don’t turn the heat up,” you warn, lifting your eyes back to his. 

Tomura nods and tilts his chin toward your living room. “Go lay down,” he rasps, his voice low and even. 

“I’m ok-” you begin, but he steps closer, peering down at you critically. 

“Don’t argue with me (Y/N), go lay down.”

Smiling at his insistence, you lift your hands in supplication and he lets you pass him. Before you settle on your couch, you step back into your bedroom, snatching up a spare blanket from your closet. When you return to your living room, you’re surprised to see Tomura sitting on your couch. He gives you a passing glance and lets out a shallow breath, fixing his attention on your tv, using your console controller to select a game. 

“I thought you wanted me to lay down,” you question, one brow arched. He looks back to you and his eyes narrow. 

“I do, come on.” 

You let out a coughing laugh, earning yourself a disgruntled glare. “Stop acting like an idiot,” Tomura grumbles, rolling his shoulders agitatedly. 

Plopping beside him, you tuck your cold feet against the cushions. He grants you a quick peripheral glance and lifts his hands, clearing space for you on his lap. Your eyes widen and you swallow thickly, the pain in your throat momentarily forgotten. Well, that’s a, um, different solution. 

Tomura heaves a heavy sigh at your hesitation and you can feel his frustration rising. Not wanting to provoke him further, you quickly lay down, stretching your feet out and gingerly resting your cheek against his thigh. 

Tomura tenses for a moment, his sudden movement entirely involuntary. You twist your head at the tremor but he stills your motion, leaning over you, his white hair curtaining the two of you. 

“Sleep,” he grumbles, his eyes resting on yours, the red glowing in the bright light. You nod silently and he pulls away, refocusing on his game. Your eyes drift closed and you shrug your blanket higher, savoring the warm, content sensation that is pouring into you.  

You must have passed out pretty quickly. 

The next thing you remember is someone lifting your foggy head and then everything is blissfully blank again. It’s not until you hear a gravelly voice calling your name that you stir, eyes bleary, wincing against the afternoon sun. 

Tomura is sitting, cross legged, in front of you, a bowl of soup resting in his four fingered grip. He’s redressed, his usual black shirt and pants dark against your mats. You sit up, the heels of your palms pressing into your eyes, a sharp pain hammering against your head. 

Tomura’s red gaze fills your vision as you blink back your exhaustion. He lifts the bowl, re-focusing your attention. “Eat,” he orders, shifting the vessel into your cold hands. You nod and lean back into the cushions of your couch. He stands and regards you, his eyes flicking across your pallid face. 

“You said you needed medicine?” 

You pause, lowering your spoon back to the chicken soup before answering. “Yeah, I only have painkillers...nope, actually, I just ran out of those too. I’ll go out after I eat-”

“No,” he replies, his voice sharp. You look up at him, your head already tilted in confusion. 

“What do you mean no? I need something stronger than what I have...ick, had. Plus, this cough is only going to get worse if I ignore it. I can’t-”

“I’ll get it.” 

You gape at him. “What?” you ask, bewildered, thinking your clogged ears have misheard him. 

“I’ll get you the medicine,” he sighs, his eyes meeting yours. 

“Tomura-” you begin, but he cuts you off, standing. “Eat (Y/N), I’ll be back.” 

“You can’t, what if someone sees you. It’s like, 4 in the afternoon, you never go out in the-”

“Fuck, stop arguing with me. I know what I’m doing, I’m not fucking stupid. What do you think I do when you’re not around?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t want you to-”

He ignores your rebuttal. “You think I walk around with some giant sign with my name on it or something? No one is going to notice me.”

“But, you don’t-”

“Goddamn it,” he bites out, red eyes flashing dangerously. “Do you want the medicine or not?”

“I was going to say you don’t even know what I need, Mr. I’ve never been sick before because I had a personal doctor at my beck and call.” You don’t mean to snap at him, but he’s starting to piss you off and your head is pounding. 

Tomura glares at you and he lifts his phone up for your inspection. You blink, eyes squinting at the bright screen. It looks like he’s done a little research while you were sleeping. There are several pictures of various cold medicines and each has a small line of text underneath, listing the uses and side effects. 

“Pick something,” he growls. You can tell that he’s trying to contain his anger and you feel a little guilty for snapping at him. He is trying, you think sullenly. 

“You didn’t need to do all that...I mean, ugh, sorry,” you amend and point to two of the medications. He twists the phone back to his face, tapping on the screen a few times before lifting it back to you. 

“Just these?” He shows you your two selected medications and that the others have been removed from his digital notes. You nod, lowering your head and biting your lip. 

You know that he must have his ways of getting around. But, you can’t help that nagging worry that itches along the back of your mind. No, he’ll be fine (Y/N), you think. Remember how hard it was for you to find him on the fucking internet? Without those creepy hands of his, he’s practically an enigma.  

Tomura stands and looks down at you. “Eat,” he reiterates and you dutifully dip your spoon back into the broth. He gauges you silently, but turns when you lift the spoon to your lips, sliding the hot liquid into your parted mouth. 

He lifts his trench coat from a kitchen stool and threads his arms into the sleeves, sparing you a final glance before pacing down your walkway, toward your front door. You hear it open and shut, the lock turning with a decided click. Sipping another spoonful of soup you decide that your additions to the broth at least took the edge off the burnt carrots.

******

Tomura returns an hour later, a plastic bag rustling in his grip. A light rain had started soon after he left, so his hair is damp, clinging to his shoulders. He shrugs off his soaked trench, leaving it in your hallway, knowing you dislike wet clothing dripping on your living room mats. 

You must look worse, because he eyes you gravely before stalking into your kitchen. 

You hear your fridge opening and closing and a glass tapping down on your counter. A few moments later, he’s back in front of you, pressing a glass of water into your hands. 

“One is a syrup. The other is a pill,” he informs you, tossing the plastic bag beside you. You clear your throat roughly, “Thanks.” He sits next to you, his shoulders tense. 

“You ok?” you ask, worry creeping into your subconscious. You’ve never seen him like this. It’s like he’s vibrating with some unseen energy. You know it’s likely a mixture of apprehension and concern. Still, they’re not emotions that you’d usually associate with him. 

He seems unsure, and you can tell he’s trying his hardest to hide his discomfort from you. Naturally, in tried and true Tomura fashion, that means he’s going to be sullen. Annoyance and anger are usually his go-to moods when he’s uncertain. 

“Are you going to take them or not?” he questions, his voice clipped, sharp. His eyes lift to meet yours, the red dark and turbulent. 

Yeah, he’s definitely on edge. 

Huffing out a soft exhale of exasperation, you flick your hand into the bag, pulling out the first box your fingers land on. 

It’s the syrup. Twisting the lid off, you portion out the recommended dosage and slug the thick liquid back, shaking your head against the slimy texture and biting flavor. Tomura’s eyes widen at your reaction, the red losing some of that underlying aggression.

“Does it taste bad?” 

Shrugging, you replace the bottle in its original box, slipping it back into the bag. “It’s disgusting, but it works. This stuff always makes me loopy, so, uh, sorry if I pass out on you.” 

You lift the final box from the plastic. This medicine is mostly used for migraines. It should knock out that pounding in your head pretty quickly. Cracking the packaging open, you slip the pill bottle out and pop a single tablet into your mouth, taking a quick swig of water to wash it down. Sighing, you lean back again. Here’s to hoping that this stuff would clear this cold out of your system.

Tomura is still observing you. You turn to him, curling your feet under your legs. “You should eat. You’ve been dealing with me all day, so I know you haven’t,” you press, lifting a hand to his dripping hair, fingers trailing along the strands. He narrows his eyes at your order, but leans into your touch automatically. 

“Fine, go lay down,” he commands, titling his face into your palm. You grin, amused by his duality, and trace your thumb along the scar on his lip. His gaze darkens, tempted, but he leans back and your hand falls to your lap. 

“Go,” he insists, standing, waiting for you to do the same. You gather your blanket around your shoulders and do as he asks, shuffling past him and into your bedroom. The autumn sun is just beginning to slip beneath the horizon and its hazy glow bathes your room in a low light. You sigh, unhooking your blackout curtains and pulling them closed, dousing your room in a comforting darkness. 

As you curl into your cool sheets you can hear Tomura moving around in your kitchen. With a low exhale, you burrow your face into your pillow, the medicine starting to course through your system, lulling you into a dreamless sleep. 

******

You shift back into consciousness as Tomura turns you to him. He intertwines his long legs with yours, settling heavily against you. His arms are tucked to his chest, palms facing toward him, fingers curled. His head bumps against yours and you have the distant sense to tilt your face away. Tomura dislikes this and unwinds his arms, his fingers urging you back to him. 

“Just because I took medicine doesn’t mean I’m not contagious,” you warn, keeping your chin down, trying to avoid him. He grumbles at that, a low rumbling echoing along his chest. His hand lifts and cups your chin letting his rough lips capture yours, pressing you open. You gasp and pull away, but he follows, his lips urgently seeking yours. 

“Tomura-” you scold, but he silences you with another kiss. You can’t help your moan, trying to ignore the warmth that is coiling in your core and shake your head, slipping him from you. 

“Stop that,” he grouses, voice rasping against your parted lips. He won’t let you shift away, his strong thighs pinning your legs down, instantly tensing and stilling your halfhearted attempts at escape.

“I already told you, I don’t want to get you sick,” you pant, trying to ignore his incessant touch. It’s not an easy task. Part of you doesn’t want him to stop, while the rational, logical side is warning that if he’s like this when you’re sick, just imagine how agitated he’ll be if he catches this cold.  

“I don’t care,” he murmurs, lips gliding against yours again. He’s soft, not seeking anything other than your caresses. He’s not pawing or groping at your curves. Instead, his hands are resting beside your jaw, fingers teasing along your smooth skin. 

“You say that, but how would you know? You told me you’ve never really been sick…mmm...this shit isn’t fun, Tomura…” 

He’s not giving up, his forehead pressing against yours. He cups your face and sucks against your lower lip. You sigh at the rough sensation, exasperated, and, at long last, give in, returning his kiss, your hands drifting to his hair. Tomura hums, finally satisfied, and lifts away, his eyes latching onto yours. You groan at the loss of his lips, but don’t lean toward him. Instead, you distract yourself by running your fingers across his face. Smoothing against his coarse skin, touch delicate and featherlight. 

He closes his eyes, sighing contentedly and rests his forehead against yours, his arms curling back to his chest. “Sleep,” he grunts as you lift your hands away from him.

“Hey,” you call and he opens his eyes again, vermillion scanning your face, waiting. “Thanks, for today, I mean...” 

He exhales and presses closer, his breath ghosting across your skin. “Go to sleep, (Y/N). We’ll see how you feel in the morning.”

Notes: He’s so cute y’all. (.づ◡﹏◡)づ. 

If you wanna see more of their interactions I have two things for you: 

1. Look Upon the Light - This is the main story I’ve written for the two of them. The moments in The Gap in the Door start after Chapter 7: Polaroid. 

2.  Send me some requests or themes, if you want! I’ve got another few chapters written for them, some are SFW and some are NSFW. I’ll add tags and triggers as needed and on a chapter by chapter basis. So, lemme know whatcha think! My ask box is open atm. 

[peaceoutofthepieces]

Sink Or Swim

tag list: @cleocc @feeling-kinda-so-so @hopelessromanticvirgo @dreamy-slytherin @adora8 @lockerfivethreefive @painfully-oblivious @poeticinemaa @jjustonemorething @saraben00 @wedarkacademia @coolguyssyndrome @hischbabe @suckerforsobbe @tayspots @starmansander @theah0lt @zoenneforever @invisibleme @chibibanane

~^~

Tuesday, 18:47

Song: EDEN - how to sleep

Lucas seizes up as the front door opens, gathering himself up and pushing to his feet. If he does it naturally, he can probably slip to his room without his father protesting too much. He can probably excuse himself with homework. He won’t have to interact, not properly.

His plan would work perfectly, in normal circumstances. Normal circumstances just usually don’t involve running into a moving skeleton three steps into the hallway.

He’s mildly embarrassed by the squeak he lets out, and by the pitch of his voice as he screeches, “What the fuck?”

His father curses under his own breath, moving the skeleton flapping in his arms out of his face, and mutters, “Language.”

“Dad,” Lucas sputters as the dummy is shoved into his hands. “What the hell is this?”

Hugo ushers him back into the sitting room, following behind with shopping bags hanging heavily from his hands. He dumps them on the coffee table and takes the skeleton out of Lucas’s arms to prop him up on the couch, watching them with a gaping, toothy grin. “Halloween decorations.”

Lucas bites back the urge to sarcastically thank him for stating the obvious and chooses to further his question. “Why?”

After the scoldings Lucas has gotten over the past few weeks, watching his father turn to him with his hands on his hips is a rather nerve-wracking thing. The smile on his face, however, turns out to be the most disconcerting. “So we can decorate.”

“We?”

“I thought it would be something nice to do together,” Hugo shrugs.

Lucas blinks at him. He feels the need to tread cautiously. He’s very worried that he’s somehow being played, in an oddly surprising way. “But...Halloween is in four days.”

“Exactly.”

“Everyone else has had their houses decorated for weeks.”

“Yeah, but we’ve only been getting moved in. We have the best excuse.”

Lucas continues to stare at him.

Hugo sighs, rubbing his hand over his brow, gesturing at the skeleton. “Do you have to be such a moody teen over everything? I bought a skeleton, buddy.”

The old nickname softens Lucas a little bit. Just a little. He looks at the skeleton once more. Flimsy, about three-quarters the height of Lucas, black smudges dotting his gray-toned bones. The right number of ribs, missing a tooth (with another cracked), eye sockets deeply sunken. Just on the realistic side of cartoonish.

Lucas asks, “What’s his name?”

His father grins proudly. “Tim.”

“Tim?”

“Same as one of my old-coworkers. Piece of work himself. One of the know-it-all types. Even worse than a moody teenager.”

Lucas can’t help it. He snorts. “Poor Tim.”

His father waves a hand at him. “Well, he’s a member of the household now. A blessedly silent member.”

Lucas raises his brows. He examines the skeleton once more, then leans forward and gently picks up its left arm. He presses the small button on the inside of its wrist.

Tim’s eyes flash red as his jaw drops open in evil, mechanical laughter.

Hugo jumps and curses under his breath again and Lucas lets out a laugh, delighted. He leans back in to grip Tim around the waist, picking him up and drawing that same arm around his shoulder, playing with the skeletal fingers. It’s unexpected. To be turning to his father with a grin, to feel the remnants of laughter settling cosily in his stomach. He likes it, and he likes the soft smile that lightens his father’s eyes, and he likes the comfort of the small space when it lacks the tension and the animosity of the previous few days, of the past week.

He asks, carefully, “What else did you get?”

His father beams. He moves to the bags on the table and begins pulling banners out of the way, followed by a packet of bats and pumpkin lights and various other witchy products. Lucas feels his pleasure grow at each new item and nods approvingly.

“Good idea?”

Lucas nods, humming. “You’ve definitely had worse.”

The man accepts the jibe with nothing more than a small shrug. “You happy enough to take an hour to do it now? I’ll start hanging these around the place and you can get Tim situated. Maybe somewhere around the door?”

“Sounds good,” Lucas agrees. He grips Tim’s arm tighter and carries him out into the hallway, making sure to press the little button once more as he passes his father. He chuckles at the swears he receives in response.

It’s almost therapeutic. Even as the desire to let Tim’s bones scatter on the street grows, there’s something simplistic and soothing about decorating the place. Something that makes it feel a little more like it’s his. A little more like a home. It helps that he loves Halloween. He loves the spookiness, the eeriness, the beauty in the horror. It’s satisfying, watching the angry little pumpkin faces emit a stunningly bright glow. There’s a sort of poetry to all of it, he supposes, to the veil around the world becoming foggy, to the masks people wear becoming visible.

There’s an artistry, too, that he appreciates more than anything. The sharpness, the otherworldliness, the darkness. The meaning under it all, of the in-between.

Beauty in the horror.

He supposes there’s a little beauty, too, in doing it together. They work together to hang the string-lights up in the hall, and the silence isn’t strained or uncomfortable. It’s companionable, filled with little huffs of laughter as one or the other gets caught, or trips, or drops the line. The usual simmering anger that sits in his chest is entirely absent, just for these few moments.

“You used to love Halloween when you were a kid,” his father says suddenly, and Lucas glances over at him. “Your mom always avoided buying stuff she thought would scare you, but you never flinched at any of it. You wanted all the weird loud things that used to make Kes bawl his eyes out. The only things you didn’t want were the spiders.”

Lucas laughs at the idea of little Kes, terrified, and Lucas enjoying scaring him as he had with his dad today. He remembers how his friend would retaliate, finding the biggest fake-spider in the place and sneaking up to set it on Lucas’s shoulder. He’d only stopped at the age of twelve, when Lucas had given him the silent treatment for a week in response. “I did notice you didn’t bring any of those back.”

“I do pay attention, sometimes. I also remember that you liked it most because of all the sweets.”

“You could have just brought back a cake,” Lucas agrees lightly, shooting him a grin.

“Yeah, but we couldn’t have shared that. You would’ve eaten it all yourself.”

Lucas laughs quietly, realising he can’t argue, that there’s plenty of proof in the past to refute anything he would say. There’s a calm that has settled over him, and he relishes in it.

For a moment.

“Hey, Luc,” his father starts slowly, and some of the tension in Lucas returns. “I know this hasn’t been easy for you. It’s a big change, and a bad age to be making it, and I don’t know how many times I can apologise for it before you’ll forgive me.”

Lucas tacks his end of the lights to the wall and listens carefully.

“I should be making it easier for you, but I think it’s pretty obvious that I just have no idea how. It used to be so easy for us, too, you know? I used to know you so well. Now I keep stuffing up.”

Lucas slowly lowers his hands to his sides and turns to face him. “Dad,” he starts, but the man shakes his head.

“I was harsh on you the other night. And the week before that. I know that. I just don’t know what else to do. You don’t let me in. I can only react to what I see. And maybe I overreacted, but I only do what I think is right. I think what worried me most, about the weed, is that it didn’t surprise me. And now, I know, it’s probably natural to all of you nowadays and it might not surprise many, but it’s more that—well it didn’t surprise me that you managed to hide it from me. It was just another nail in the coffin.”

“I don’t hide everything from you,” Lucas says quietly. “You surprise me a lot more often.”

“I know,” Hugo says, just as gentle, abandoning his task to turn to Lucas too. “I know, buddy, and I am sorry. I’m trying to do better. But I need you to try with me.”

Lucas swallows thickly, averting his gaze to his feet for a moment. There’s a war going on in his chest, the childish urge to hold onto this leverage over his father and the desperate desire to give in, to claw for some semblance of harmony. Beyond all of it, canceling out all the rest, is the whisper that whatever answer he gives won’t matter. The harmony could never last, and he’s stupid to hold onto that tiny bit of hope, a tattered little shred he hadn’t even realised he held.

But it’s this little whisper that strengthens his resolve, that makes him return his gaze to the man before him and give a tiny nod.

“Okay. I will. Promise.”

His dad squeezes his shoulder, and none of his anger returns at the contact. He leans into it, and he lets himself hope.

Hugo lets him go and moves to tack up the middle of the string-lights. “So as it’s my proposal, I feel like I should make the first move, and say if you wanted to have a few friends or something over for Halloween, that would be okay.” He pauses. “You have friends here, right?”

Lucas huffs. “Yes, I have managed to make friends here. But everyone will be going out for Halloween. They know I’m not allowed out, so they probably already have plans, or whatever.”

The realisation settles in that this may very well be true, and it’s another sting settling in his heart. He’s still too invested, much too invested, and he still hasn’t figured out what to do about it. Managing his emotions felt a lot easier when he was pretending—even with himself—that he didn’t have any.

Now every time he sees Jens without him, he aches, and when he sees Jens with Jana, he breaks, and when he sees Jens at all, he has various emotions that he really doesn’t want to think about in such close proximity to his father.

His father, who is currently frowning at him in genuine concern. “You really think so? Surely good friends would make the effort to include you.”

Lucas thinks of Jens messaging him about meeting up even while thinking he was in a different country. Of Jens dragging him to the party a few days before that. Always of Jens.

He directs his gaze back down to the ground and shrugs. “Maybe. But I wouldn’t ask that of them. I haven’t even known them that long.”

Hugo sighs and makes his way back to the kitchen, leaving Lucas to stand alone for a moment before following. They hang up half a packet of bats before the older man says, “A curfew is still kind of a punishment, right?”

Lucas whips his head up to look at him. He’s focused on the bat in his hands, unwilling to look at his son and the excitement suddenly building in him. “Yes, definitely. Better than grounding, really. More embarrassing. Will definitely get me laughed at.”

“So, say, if you wanted to go out with these friends of yours. That would be okay, as long as you’re back by midnight?”

Lucas nods quickly. Much too quickly.

Hugo’s eyes narrow. “Midnight’s too good, isn’t it?”

“No, of course not, midnight is super lame.”

“No, make it ten.”

“Ten?” Lucas tosses his hands up. His dad turns to look at him, now raising his brows in challenge. “Eleven,” Lucas counters.

The man considers him. “Ten-thirty. Final offer.”

“Midnight was your first offer!”

Brows are raised further.

Lucas blows out a breath and turns on his heel to collect more bats. “Ten-thirty.”

It takes ten more minutes of hanging decorations before Lucas chances asking.

“So, does this mean I can have my weed back?”

His father stares at him. “Buddy, I might not be able to stop you from smoking it, but I can’t just give it to you. I have some parenting skills, you know.”

“It could be bonding! We could share that too.”

“Nice try. Give me that orange tinsel. We’ll give Tim a little sparkle.”

[sexycraisinthanos]

I’m gonna infodump about my favorite movie

Rise of the Guardians

It’ll be under the readmore, but TL;DR: Watch Rise of the Guardians and read the books

Rise of the Guardians is a 2012 animated film released by Dreamworks. The story is childhood figures (Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Sandman, and Jack Frost) trying to defend the children of earth against Pitch Black, (The Boogeyman) 

It’s based on a book series called Guardians of Childhood, written by William Joyce. Who, if you don’t know, writes children’s book. Guardians of Childhood is more of a “Young Adult” series compared to his other Guardians books (The Man in the Moon, Sandman: The Story of Sanderson Mansnoozie, and Jack Frost are all part of the series, but they are picture books.)

He’s also written other books you may be familiar with.

The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs and A Day with Wilbur Robinson 

Sound familiar?

Maybe you’d recognize them as their movie counterparts, Epic (animated by Blue Sky Studios) and Meet the Robinsons (animated of course by Disney)

Also Rolie Polie Olie, which was a favorite Disney Jr cartoon growing up for me, and was also a book series. 

I could honestly go on and on about William Joyce, his work was a part of my childhood a LOT (even credited for working on some of my favorite films like Buddy, Robots, Toy Story, and A Bug’s Life) and that’s probably why I love ROTG so much.

I read all of the Guardians books and own all of them save for Jack Frost and The Art of Rise of the Guardians and the books are not cheap, but what books are? I have HARD COVER BITCHES. Half of them were gifts and I also own the ROTG DVD.

The art in the books (all drawn by William Joyce himself) is really good (this is my favorite art from the books)

And the animation in the movie, as expected from Dreamworks, is beautiful. 

You get to see all their unique homes and they’re such varying types of environments. Of course, you have the North Pole, where it’s chaotic and wonderful. Just look at this concept art 

And then you have the Tooth Palace, where the Tooth Fairy does her work

It’s very obvious that there are some Indian inspirations in the design because Tooth herself is actually Middle-Eastern (in the books it’s explained in depth more and one of my complaints about the movie is that they whitewashed her even though her concept art in the ending credits shows her with brown skin)

The Warren, where the Easter Bunny paints his eggs

Which is something you never really think about because people only focus on the North pole so seeing so much thought put into it is really nice

We never see where Sandy works/lives (in the MOVIE. But the GAME on the other hand lets you explore EVERYONE’S homes and that’s a whole nother story)

We DO however see Pitch’s lair and

it’s rightfully spooky. When you actually see the scene play out in the lair, you get all confused and don’t know which way is which and it always unsettles me which is GOOD because that’s what it’s SUPPOSED to do

What’s really unique about ROTG is that there’s a source material (and as of now there are eight books (five novels, three picture books) and the series isn’t DONE yet) and instead of turning the books into a movie even though the plot is literally RIGHT THERE, they took the source material and turned it into a prologue. The movie takes place about 300 years after the books do and since the books are supposedly still ongoing, and William Joyce was CONTINUING to write the series while the movie was in production. (Three books have come out since the movie came out.)

I love how challenging that must have been for William to try to include stuff from his previous books in the movie AND to try and link the movie to his newer books despite some continuity errors (also worth noting that he has written a book about Santa and his wife, but Mrs. Claus is YET to be seen or even mentioned in the movie) but I appreciate the effort he put into it and I can’t wait to see what else he’ll come up with.

The characters look a BIT different from their book counterparts

Jack is voiced by Chris Pine and his voice is WAY TOO DEEP and the creators can’t agree on an age for him (book age is 14, but he can age himself up and down to a certain point and some producers said they imagined him 17 or 18) and (imo) I think Jack’s design was pretty lazy (a blue jacket with brown pants) compared to everyone else’s. I mean you have North, who is 

BIG

His design is based more on the worldly Father Christmas than the Saint Nick/Santa that we know. 

When he’s not in the Pole he’s wearing his big red fur coat and a cossack hat

Because he’s Russian

I’m pretty sure he canonically was raised by bears but that may have just been me imagining it. His book appearance is way different because when we meet him, he’s not Santa yet. So he’s still young

Of course, as the books go on, he looks like Santa

Bunny has the most drastic character change from his book design, as depicted by this fanart (which i couldn’t find a credit for that wasn’t pinterest so if anyone knows please tell me)

And there’s a CANONICAL reason why he looks so different (two actually)

Once they put Hugh Jackman in the role, they wanted a more dry Australian ranger-type design for him, and then the robes got in the way because of how he was moving, even when they changed him to just a lab coat, so they decided to forgo clothes altogether

Fun fact about Bunny. He’s a Pooka, a shapeshifting folklore creature that can turn into either a rabbit, goat, cat, dog, or horse. (or even a human with animal like features) Which actually gives a lot of people the headcanon that Pitch uses the souls of all Bunny’s dead people (yep he’s a sole survivor) as Nightmares

But he’s a different kind of Pooka. He’s an alien technically. And this breed of Pooka CANNOT eat chocolate because it does things to their body. Like giving him six arms. Or making his ears into helicopter propellers. 

This is relevant because he uses chocolate in battle multiple times. So the canonical explanation for why Bunny looks so different is that he ate too much chocolate and it permanently changed his body.

Which I love. I could go on about him but all the characters are interesting

Tooth has probably the second most confusing design

She’s based off a hummingbird with dragonfly wings, which aesthetically makes so much sense, but in the books she has regular feather wings. I also don’t like how weird her proportions are. Her feet are tiny nubs, her head is too big for her body (her body is actually pretty nicely designed it’s just every other part of it that bothers me) and I already mentioned the whitewashing

PITCH on the other hand had the biggest glow down compared to the books

He’s just wearing a black robe and, apparently, he doesn’t even have sleeves, which you can’t even really tell because it’s just all smudgy and shit

I mean I guess that’s the point, that he looks like he’s clothed in shadow, but it’s frustrating to look at especially compared to his book design where he’s wearing a FABULOUS coat

Meanwhile Sandy has the PERFECT character design

He’s just ROUND and wears a bathrobe made of sand. Like it’s not even that different from his book design (his hair has more frills than the book version) because it’s such a perfect design and I love how he’s animated. You can’t see it that well because the gif quality, but the sand also sparkles and it just makes it so fun to watch on screen 

The movie itself has its share of flaws. (the movie likes to pick and choose the rules it wants to follow about its universe, a huge plothole, and some cheaply constructed arguments between characters that really just make me annoyed because I don’t want to see the easter bunny making a child cry I want to see him get into a fist fight with Santa it’s like you don’t even KNOW your demographic) But I love it and there’s SO MUCH I could talk about. There are characters in the books that weren’t in the movie and there were characters in the movie that weren’t in the books (because they weren’t born yet but IRRELEVANT) 

It was a HUGE flop despite critics praising it. Like 8,000 people lost their jobs over it that’s how big a flop it was. But it’s such a dear movie to me and it’s clear that William Joyce holds this series close to his heart (dedicating it and the movie to his late daughter) which makes sense because it’s based on stories he told her when she was young and I’m so honored that he chose to share these stories with us. I just love the series and I should do a re-read at some point

[passionate-reply]

This time on Great Albums, I talk about an album that actually isn’t older than I am for a change! Enter the spooky, haunted forest of The Knife with me, and find out why it was Pitchfork’s Album of the Year in 2006! Full transcript after the break.

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! Today, I’ll be tackling an album that’s more recent than anything I’ve done on Great Albums before, but it’s still old enough to start being considered a classic: The Knife’s Silent Shout, released in 2006, and hence seeing its fifteenth birthday in 2021. Silent Shout is a bit special to me, insofar as it was an album I loved as a teenager, back when it was still pretty new, and it was probably the first album I really fell in love with that wasn’t significantly older than I was. I was quite surprised when I eventually learned just how beloved Silent Shout is among music aficionados. This album has been lauded in critical circles, recommended as a “patrician” essential, and even considered one of the greatest electronic albums of all time! So, what’s the fuss about?

Before Silent Shout, The Knife were significantly closer to a conventional electronic pop duo. Their biggest claim to fame was the track “Heartbeats,” which scored some exposure after a cover of it was featured in a TV ad.

Music: “Heartbeats”

I like to think that “Heartbeats” contains the seeds of what’s great about Silent Shout, with its grinding synth backing and vocalist Karin Dreijer’s affecting wail. But its indie-pop brightness is something distinctively absent from their follow-up. Contrary to what might’ve been expected from an up-and-coming pop act, the sibling duo hunkered down in the studio and set about making something stranger and more exotic. On the technical front, they stripped the production down to its bare essentials, using just digital rhythms and two synthesisers to achieve everything we hear on the album. Stylistically, they took their sound into moody, atmospheric territory, imbuing it with this eerie, claustrophobic ambiance. It’s the musical equivalent of Frankenstein emerging from Mary Shelley’s mind, while the dreary “Year Without a Summer” had poisoned the world around her.

Music: “Silent Shout”

The title track here is also the opener, and introduces us to the frightful world of Silent Shout without mercy. This track is dominated by a powerful contrast of sound: low, thrumming bass, and these quick, but delicate and meandering synth arpeggios, carrying a distinctively Scandinavian flair. This bewitching synthesis of musical ideas makes sense in light of the diverse influences of the two siblings who made up The Knife: Instrumentalist Olaf Dreijer was strongly influenced by dance styles like house, trance, and progressive techno, as well as ambient electronic music, whereas vocalist Karin Dreijer was interested in guitar-based popular music, as well as the distinctive folk traditions of their native Sweden. Not unlike the Pet Shop Boys, they’ve got a wide gap between their influences, but that only serves to intensify the uniqueness of their work, which strikes listeners in a way the constituent musical parts of its heritage never could. Perhaps the most significant sonic feature of the album, though, is the extreme electronic distortions of Karin Dreijer’s voice.

Music: “One Hit”

If raw and everymannish vocals make music feel more in line with our everyday reality, the shocking and monstrous ones on *Silent Shout* render it a truly otherworldly work of art. While many people are quick to decry the “fakeness” of electronically mediated vocals--despite the fact that all art is, of course, artificial--I think Silent Shout proves, more boldly than anything else, just how uniquely powerful this musical tool can be in the right hands. Once you get past the sheer sonic force of the vocals, and their peculiar, skin-crawling timbres, you’ll find that most of the lyrical subject matter is actually painfully quotidian. “One Hit,” for instance, is told from the perspective of an all-too-normal “monster”: a domestic abuser, extracting and enforcing femininity and domestic servitude through the force of violence, dealing in “one hit, one kiss.” Sex, gender, and exploitation based upon them are among the album’s most central themes, and expressed harrowingly on tracks like “Na Na Na”:

Music: “Na Na Na”

Perhaps moreso than any other track on the album, “Na Na Na” is rendered borderline incomprehensible by vocal treatment--a trait magnified by its obviously meaningless title and chorus. But “Na Na Na” does have real lyrics, which tell the story of a life mediated by reproductive anatomy, defined by the rhythm of menstruation, coming from within, and the constant fear of sexual violence from without. It’s a tale of hidden anxiety, and experiences that go unseen and unspoken despite how common they are, making the haze of inscrutability laid over them all the more poignant. It’s clear that these issues are of high importance to Karin Dreijer, who has publicly described themself as “genderqueer,” despite both members of the band being remarkably sparing with all personal details. In another of the most striking vocal performances on the album, “We Share Our Mother’s Health,” Dreijer even gets to sing a duet with themself, and embody two distinct characters at once.

Music: “We Share Our Mother’s Health”

“We Share Our Mother’s Health” can be read in the light of gender and sex dynamics, as well, particularly if you’re willing to read its twin narrators as representations of masculinity and femininity. Personally, though, I think that’s a bit too easy, and really, a bit too cisnormative. I think the album is more interesting if we embrace the fundamental uncertainty of identity, and the transgressive queerness of it all. That said, I prefer to think of “We Share Our Mother’s Health” as a piece about capitalism--the endless toiling and scrounging for more material comfort and security, and the emptiness left behind when that proves to be no pathway towards true happiness. Besides, it’s not like sexism and the class struggle don’t feed off of each other in the end. This track’s sense of cacophony, with voices nearly battling to drown each other out, shows its more strident, aggressive, and downright angry side, which it delivers as powerfully as it does those moody atmospheres.

Silent Shout is the perfect title for this album, given its emphasis on voicing internal and private laments that go unheard--and voicing them with this terrifying sense of primal scream catharsis. While I initially wasn’t overly fond of the album art, it’s grown on me a bit now that I’ve seen it blown up to a larger size. This central disc shape is certainly evocative of a record or a CD, and its industrial-looking lattice structure, with a mottled, grimey-looking texture, helps conjure the impression of machine-age ennui.

I think a lot of the enduring appeal of Silent Shout is its sense of mystery. A lot of that mystery is deliberately crafted iconoclasm, and part of the art--while promoting the album, The Knife were photographed wearing sinister, elaborate beaked “plague doctor” masks, and their live performances from this period shrouded the band in darkness to obfuscate their appearances. They’ve refused to accept awards for their music or attend award ceremonies, including one memorable incident in which they sent costumed representatives of feminist organisation Guerrilla Girls in their stead. After Silent Shout, the duo created an opera based on Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species in 2009, and released one more studio album in 2013: Shaking the Habitual.

Music: “A Tooth For an Eye”

Shaking the Habitual received mixed reviews, and so far, has proven to be the siblings’ final work together, though they remain active as musicians independently, with Karin Dreijer recording under the moniker “Fever Ray.” Part of the great myth of Silent Shout is the fact that nothing else in their discography really quite approaches its specific sound, and sharp precision of conceptual focus. It’s like the album is tailor made to stand perfectly alone, outside of context, perhaps even outside of genre.

For many of us, this great legend of lightning-in-a-bottle genius is infinitely alluring. But I’ve never really bought into it too thoroughly myself. I obviously adore Silent Shout, and I think it’s a Great Album. But, unlike many people who have showered it with praise, often claiming that they don’t enjoy “electronic music” overall, I’ve always been interested in a lot of heavy, angry, creepy synthesiser-based music, and so I never thought too much of listening to this and liking it. People praise Silent Shout for being unlike anything else, but I think it sounds like a lot of post-industrial dark wave, like Attrition or Chris & Cosey, and its themes of feminist rage feel like a strong parallel to that of more recent stars of noise music such as Pharmakon and Lingua Ignota. But that’s not to devalue what Silent Shout does achieve! I think it *is* a unique album...in the way that a bat is a unique animal. Much as bats are not the only creatures who fly, but stand out for having developed that ability despite their mammalian heritage, Silent Shout doesn’t actually take direct inspiration from the earlier music it sounds the most like. It ended up there through the aforementioned eldritch alchemy, combining trance and folk and Kate Bush to get something new. That’s still something worth celebrating! Silent Shout needn’t be a perfect enigma to be a stirring masterpiece of an album.

My overall top track on Silent Shout, which I bet will be a popular choice, is “Forest Families.” It’s equal parts bleak and strangely anthemic, defined by both the unease of adapting to a plainer and harsher existence, outside the bounds of society, as well as the release that music itself provides to so many of us as we seek comfort. Since music is so important to me, I’m a real sucker for music about the importance of music, and it feels particularly well-placed on an album that’s a cathartic listen in so many ways. That about wraps this one up; thank you for watching!

Music: “Forest Families”

[aion-rsa]

All Things Must Pass Remaster Brings Out George Harrison’s Voice

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

A new remaster of George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass highlights why it was such an important record. Not just as an album, but of the time it was made. Besides the lead guitarist for the biggest act in showbiz history, it boasted players and a producer who each made an impact on the course of modern music. It’s been celebrating its 50th anniversary for a while now and it’s earned it. It was the first triple album by a single artist in rock history (the Woodstock concert album, released six months earlier, included a compilation of acts), and set the standard for longer long-playing albums.

Harrison set quite a few standards, including the first rock benefit project, The Concert for Bangladesh. As the Beatles guitarist, he demonstrated melodic and harmonic possibilities which hadn’t been explored in rock and roll, often changing the entire feel of songs with a single riff. As their in-house tonal experimentalist, his sitar-led songs didn’t just use the eastern stringed instrument as an exotic guitar. They captured the structure, atmosphere, tonality and shifting rhythms of Eastern music. The opening of “Love You To” can barely be classified as western commercial music, but had a universal appeal. As the band’s somewhat lesser-known songwriter, Harrison composed musical standards which eclipsed even the mighty songwriting team of John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

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The consistent hitmakers made for a competitive compositional atmosphere in the band. “I had such a lot of songs mounting up that I really wanted to do, but I only got my quota of one or two tunes per album,” Harrison admitted on The Dick Cavett Show in 1971. Even after a new arrangement was worked out for the group’s output, Harrison had quite a backlog of songs when the Beatles broke up. At least two of the best known songs from All Things Must Pass were written in 1966.

While still in the Beatles, Harrison released Wonderwall Music, which was a soundtrack to a film, and Electronic Sound, which saw him as one of the early experimenters on the synthesizer. According to the press statement for the remaster, George, along with Ringo Starr and bassist Klaus Voorman recorded fifteen songs at EMI Studios on the first day, May 26, 1970. The demo included “What Is Life,” “Awaiting on You All,” and “My Sweet Lord.” The next day Harrison played 15 more songs for co-producer Phil Spector, who covertly recorded them. The songs “Everybody, Nobody,” “Window, Window,” “Beautiful Girl,” “Tell Me What Has Happened to You,” “Nowhere To Go,” and “Don’t Want To Do It” never made the album. The whole session did come out on the bootleg Beware of ABKCO set.

The 50th Anniversary re-issue of All Things Must Pass includes versions of “Mother Divine,” and “Cosmic Empire,” which have never been officially released. The official music video reveals “Cosmic Empire” as a melodically catchy piece, with an instantly recognizable acoustic guitar run, and a change into a deep blues false ending.

You can see the video here:

The Wall of Sound

The deluxe 50th Anniversary Edition is executive produced by Harrison’s son Dhani, and his first order of business was to pull back on Spector’s reverb-heavy production. Spector was the man Lennon brought in to produce the song he’d written for breakfast, wanted to record for lunch and have out for supper: The Plastic Ono Band single “Instant Karma!,” which Harrison played on. Spector also produced the final mix of the Beatles’ Let It Be, as well as Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band and Imagine albums.

Spector was a legend in the studio. He created the “Wall of Sound” with the top session players of the early 1960s, and Harrison tasked him with doing it again with the current cream of the musical crop. This included two of out of three members of the band Cream. Ginger Baker drums on a jam, and Eric Clapton’s guitar gently weeps all over All Things Must Pass. Crying on the inside over his unrequited love for George’s wife Pattie Boyd Harrison, Eric was getting ready to wail about her on Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. Harrison co-wrote “Badge” with Clapton for Cream’s Goodbye album, and played on Derek and The Dominos’ debut single, “Tell The Truth” backed with “Roll It Over.” Spector recorded it. It went so well, much of the band stuck around to be bricks in the contemporary Wall of Sound.

“Phil was in full control of this whole bunch of musicians playing,” Voorman remembers in Simon Leng’s book, While My Guitar Gently Weeps. “We played all at the same time – we didn’t record one on top of the other; it was all six people playing acoustic guitars and five keyboard players playing the piano all at once. It was crazy!”

The Players

To fill seats in the rock orchestra, Harrison dipped into the players he’d been on stage with since the waning days of the pre-breakup Beatles. Harrison, credited as “Mysterioso,” toured with Delaney & Bonnie and Friends. He was a backing guitarist beside Clapton, in a band which included Dave Mason, Bobby Whitlock, Carl Radle, Jim Gordon, and Leon Russell, who would prove invaluable for The Concert for Bangladesh.

Also called in for sessions were Procol Harum’s Gary Brooker, Badfinger’s Pete Ham, Tom Evans and Joey Molland; Spooky Tooth’s Gary Wright, sax player Bobby Keys; and trumpeter Jim Price. Besides Starr and Gordon, drums and percussions were played by Alan White, who was then the drummer for the Plastic Ono Band and would go on to drum for Yes, and Phil Collins. Peter Frampton played guitar on much of the album. Nashville player Pete Drake played pedal steel. Drake pioneered the use of the talkbox, and Frampton caught it first-hand during sessions before using it as the hook for his hit “Show Me the Way.” John Barham, a pianist and arranger who had worked with Harrison’s sitar guru Ravi Shankar, wrote orchestral scores.

Keyboardist and longtime Beatle associate Billy Preston is a major influence on the album. All Things Must Pass is a spiritual celebration. Harrison set up a small altar in the studio, and devotees of the Hare Krishna movement brought the players vegetarian food. Harrison was as much a spiritual student as a musical one of sitar maestro Ravi Shankar. The same could be said of Preston.

The Songs

Harrison made a special study of the structure and composition of gospel music for his work with soul singer Doris Troy, who he produced and co-wrote songs with. He delved further to co-produce Preston’s fourth studio album That’s The Way God Planned It, and wrote “What Is Life” for it. George also co-produced Preston’s fifth album Encouraging Words, which came out two months before All Things Must Pass, and included versions of the title track and “My Sweet Lord.”

You can hear several versions of the Beatles running through “All Things Must Pass” on bootlegs. Though not as many passes as the famously unreleased “Not Guilty” got. It might have been too pointed a self-reference for the group to deal with. The title comes from a passage of chapter 23 of the Tao Te Ching: “All things pass, a sunrise does not last all morning. All things pass, a cloudburst does not last all day.” It is more philosophical than spiritual, but is as uplifting as its chordal ascension. “Beware of Darkness” is lyrically devotional and cautionary, but its structure is a mystery of faith. It’s all over the place harmonically, as the key aimlessly wanders into melodic transcendence.

“Awaiting On You All” is one of the most blatant spiritual proclamations of the album. It describes Japa Yoga meditation, the repetitive chanting of a mantra, which is mystical energy itself, inside sound. “Chanting the names of the Lord and you’ll be free,” explains the lyrics. Though Harrison does get in a dig at the Catholic Church. “While the Pope owns fifty one percent of General Motors, and the stock exchange is the only thing he’s qualified to quote us,” the last verse opens. Harrison’s deep understanding of the spiritual music he was producing was most fully realized on the album’s most recognizable song.

“I thought a lot about whether to do ‘My Sweet Lord’ or not, because I would be committing myself publicly and I anticipated that a lot of people might get weird about it,” Harrison wrote in I Me Mine. Towards the end of the Delaney & Bonnie tour in December 1969, Harrison heard and fell in love with Edwin Hawkins’ piano-driven, modern gospel rendition of the 18th century hymn “Oh Happy Day.” Inspired by the joyful energy, Harrison wanted to merge the buoyantly devotional “Hallelujah” invocations with the “Hare Krishna” Maha Mantra of the Hindu faith. The subconscious mix evoked some not-so-instant karma when Harrison was sued for “unconscious plagiarism” by the royalty owners of The Chiffon’s “He’s So Fine,” which could be interpreted as a devotional invocation.

“My Sweet Lord” is also the song which best establishes and exemplifies Harrison’s signature, post-Beatles, slide guitar playing.

The album’s opener, “I’d Have You Anytime,” was co-written with Bob Dylan when Harrison spent the Thanksgiving 1968 weekend at Dylan’s home in Woodstock. They also co-wrote the song “When Everybody Comes to Town.” Harrison played on Dylan’s April 1970 New York City sessions for the album New Morning, performing uncredited on several songs, including “If Not for You,” the second of All things Must Pass’ vagabond troubadour trilogy. Dylan had spent a lot of time off the road after his motorcycle crash of 1966. Harrison encouraged the reclusive artist to make his comeback performance at the Isle of Wight festival in 1969. “Behind That Locked Door,” which comes later on the album, is part of that encouragement.

The Beatles passed on including “Isn’t It a Pity” on Revolver, so George gifts us with two fully realized versions of it for All Things Must Pass. The 50th Anniversary box set includes an even more “downtempo version,” with Nicky Hopkins on piano. “Wah-Wah” was the first song recorded for the album, which is fitting because it was written on the day Harrison walked out of the “Get Back” sessions. It’s a great, angry song, in the tradition of “Taxman,” though not as pointed as Lennon’s “Sexy Sadie,” or “How Do You Sleep,” which Harrison played on. “Let It Down” has some great vocal backing by Clapton and Whitlock.

Hearing Clapton’s opening guitar screams squeezed through his wah-wah on “Art of Dying” makes you wonder how the Beatles rejected it in 1966. Although the lyrics George brought to the band at the time might have sealed its fate: “There’ll come a time when all of us must leave here, then nothing Mr. Epstein can do will keep me here with you,” Harrison admitted singing at his bandmates in I Me Mine. “Art of Dying” is the hardest Harrison rocks on the album and Spector lets the band explode. Coming after the intimately amorous “I Dig Love,” it is suspense reincarnate. Listen for Phil Collins’ bongos on the remix.

Harrison brought “Hear Me Lord” to the Beatles when they were recording at Twickenham Film Studios in January 1969. It is as confessional as anything Lennon cops to on his debut album Plastic Ono Band, but primal in an entirely different way. “Apple Scruffs” is Harrison’s personal gift to the group of fans which used to camp outside the Apple Corps offices for a glimpse of the four when they was fab. Performed live by a solo George with Beatles roadie Mal Evans tapping along, it is acoustic fun with a wild and wayward harmonica.

The Jams

But not as much fun as the band had after Spector went to bed for the night. Harrison initially thought it would take just two months to record the album, but had to take a break in the middle to care for his mother, Louise, who was ill with cancer in Liverpool. Louise bought George his first guitar and encouraged all things musical, including allowing the early Beatles to rehearse at their house. She passed away in July 1970. 

Bored with the lag time, Spector was drinking heavily, bracing himself with Cherry Brandy just to sit in the booth, and ultimately breaking his arm in a fall. He left the sessions in July 1970, and Harrison produced overdubs at London’s Trident Studios and Apple Studios. But most of the album’s backing tracks were recorded onto eight-track tape at Abbey Road, with the musicians normally playing live.

When Spector left the studios, Harrison and the other musicians would jam into the early hours. “Thanks For the Pepperoni,” pulls the toppings off Chuck Berry riffs. It was recorded along with “Plug Me In” on July 1, 1970, with Harrison, Clapton and Dave Mason on guitars, Radle on bassr, Whitlock on keyboards, and Jim Gordon on drums. “Out Of the Blue” must get its title from how it comes in. It sounds like the band was in the middle of a fun run, and someone rushed to turn on the tape. But listen for Voorman’s lead guitar part.

“I Remember Jeep” is named for Clapton’s dog, and Preston and Baker bring out the jazz while Harrison’s Moog playing breaks traditions. “It’s Johnny’s Birthday” is a mockup of Cliff Richard’s song “Congratulations,” which the band warbled to Lennon for his 30th birthday. These afterhours jams were the kinds of musical driftwood routinely collected by bootleggers before box sets made them standard extras.

Demos and extra tracks, like “Mother Divine” or “Nowhere to Go,” underscore the greatest flaw of the original album: George’s vocals. Even gruff, weak and not-yet-familiar with the songs, Harrison’s voice is a beautifully emotive instrument. During their solo careers, he and Lennon drenched their voices with effects. Even Spector complained in production notes how Harrison’s voice is buried on too many songs. The new mix brings the voices forward. It doesn’t completely take away the reverb, because some of it is artistically correct, like the slap back echoes which evoke a specific sound. It is very well used on “Going Down to Golder’s Green,” an outtake which finds Harrison channeling his inner Elvis. One of the deluxe editions of the All Things Must Pass reissue includes a 96-page scrapbook evoking the time.

The album cover shows Harrison at home in Friar Park. Photographed by Barry Feinstein, George is surrounded by four garden gnomes, which could be taken as an in-joke on his days with the Beatles. All Things Must Pass was released Nov. 27, 1970, as a triple vinyl album. To accommodate the extra disc, Tom Wilkes of Camouflage Productions designed a box with a hinged lid, similar to the packaging of classical music and operas. It is presciently fitting, as the record is a modern masterwork of a timeless artist.

All Things Must Pass 50th Anniversary Edition will be available on Aug. 6.

The post All Things Must Pass Remaster Brings Out George Harrison’s Voice appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[writerwrites]

Spooktacular Halloween | 07

Pairing: Stucky x Reader

Summary: Thirty-one days with your spooky season obsessed boyfriend… Are you sure moving in together was a good idea?

Word Count: 1.2k

Warnings: Fluff, tooth-rotting domestic fluff, implied sex but not written.

A/N: This is a daily mini-series for the Spooktacular Halloween OTP Writing Challenge. I ship Steve with happiness and that’s all this will be. | Thank you @thefanficfaerie​​​​​​​ for the prompts. I have some double posting to do but I’m doing my best to catch up. | Header/Gif by @whimsicalrogers​​​​​​​ | Divider by @puppykei​​​​​​​ | As always, jammies.

“There’s absolutely no way in hell this is going to turn out all right, Steve.” Bucky clapped his hand to Steve’s shoulder, looking at the array of ingredients decorating the kitchen island. “I mean, it’s one thing to have seen my mom make her famous pumpkin pie, another to have had her teach you how to do it. Now you’re running on memory fumes with the former and hoping that we don’t burn the house down?”

Steve shrugged, tugging at the strings of a ‘kiss the chef’ apron he only ever wore to grill. He’d never been a baker, but loved being in the kitchen and loved learning. After a night of research he really thought he’d recalled exactly how Mrs. Barnes used to make her pie. It had always been his go-to dessert at Thanksgiving dinners with Bucky’s family and no one ever complained about how big of a slice the scrawny kid took. Eventually they’d make two and let Steve take the leftovers for himself. They almost never lasted more than a day or two, no matter how hard he tried. “You’re not going to dampen my spirits on this one, Buck. I really think I’ve got it down and she’s been so tense with work and my getting hurt on that botched mission. The last thing I want is for her to think that we’re worried someone’s going to go after her.”

“But we are.” Bucky groaned, tugging at the strings of the apron and retying it for Steve. “I’m just trying to get you to lower your expectations a little. Besides, you have a professional and authentic taste tester to help you get it right.”

Steve pulled Bucky around to the counter, pinning him there as he crashed his lips to his best friend’s. Steve’s hands tangled in Bucky’s hair as Bucky pushed his hips forward and rubbed himself against Steve. At that moment, the pair of them wished they hadn’t waited all day to get the dessert going, preferring the taste of each other to pumpkin. By the time Steve pulled away Bucky’s lips were puffy, red, and wet. The sight alone was chipping away at his desire to be productive for the evening. With a hum and a smirk he asked Bucky, “Mmm, is your palette cleansed then?”

Biting his lip and nodding, Bucky pulled Steve closer, slipping his rough hands under the apron. “Go on then. Don’t let me slow down your process.” An almost comical dance ensued, Steve moving around the kitchen and Bucky nuzzled into him, attached at his hip- or back- or whatever part of Steve he could get his hands on. His bright blue eyes moved over Steve’s calculated gestures for the pumpkin pie and, as offered, he’d lick this and that off of his lover’s finger. A soft hum passed his lips at the rich pumpkin and spice hit his tongue. Memories of Steve’s hands rubbing his thighs under the table at Thanksgiving dinners flashed behind closed eyes. Holding Steve closer, Bucky pressed his wet lips to the curve of Steve’s neck, the carnal need for him now obvious as it pressed hard into Steve’s backside. “How long does it have to be in the oven?”

Hardly any attention was put into the oven’s timer as the dessert was set on the hot rack within and Bucky pulled Steve to the couch where they collapsed into each other’s arms until you came home. You were relieved to get in at a decent hour, humming a little love song to yourself as you pulled up to the house. Your eyes glanced at the two motorcycles parked together next to your car’s spot in the garage and back to the decorated front yard. The quaint house at the end of the street, your neighbors would soon learn, always went all in for the holidays. This one in particular, would always be the must see.

With a smile on your lips, you kicked off your shoes in the mudroom and thought about how you were only a week into October and your boyfriend was likely to ask to cover the house in some techy light show before the end of next week. Making a mental not to text Tony not to give in to any such requests from his favorite Avenger, you looked around for your boys. Then you took a restful sigh and were hit with the scent of the season. From the mudroom you could have sworn Steve had lit the best smelling pumpkin spice candle he could find. You took in deep breaths as you walked into the kitchen, surprised to see the oven on and no one around.

It wasn’t until you were stealing a peek inside that the boys turned up. Steve’s hair dripped onto your neck as he tickled your sides. “Hey, no sneaking around!” You cooed as you started to turn into his frame to find Bucky standing to the side, leaning against the counter. His wet hair was pulled back into a bun and he donned black Halloween pajama pants with little white ghosts and not a single other thing. “Well, that’s a hell of a welcome home.”

You winked at Bucky, who said nothing, just admired the way Steve nuzzled into you how he had earlier. “We were just making you something special. Still haven’t figured out dinner though. What would you like, pumpkin?”

It was Bucky’s gaze that met yours, the both of you crinkling your noses as the kitchen erupted in laughter. “Well, since it’s your first day getting off work at a decent hour, why don’t I make the meal?” Your mouth bobbed open, still not wanting him to feel like he had to work to fit into this dynamic. “It won’t be anything impressive, but how about some grilled lemon garlic butter chicken?”

The thought alone made your mouth water and you ran your tongue across your lips, a little gesture that didn’t go unnoticed by the super soldier. Closing the space between the pair of you, Bucky kissed you softly, “Hell of a welcome home.”

“Hell of a welcome home.” Steve repeated, hugging you tightly.

“Now, why don’t you two grab some beers and relax. Where’s the rice cooker?” Like a well-oiled machine the three of you set out on the rest of dinner, turning on some music, sitting at the bar top, helping Bucky even when he insisted you stop. Even when you did, you still hounded the guys by pulling them into little dancing sessions to The Ronettes until Steve put on Halloween tunes, “Oh no, he’s going to start singing.” Bucky teased with a cheeky grin at Steve.

“Then we better eat dessert first, I think.” You joined in as Steve feigned offense at the comments from his lovers. “Don’t worry, big guy. We’re gonna save the pie for last.”

Everything Tags: @tom-hlover​​​​​ @marvelouslytrekking​

Marvel Content Tags: @xxloki81xx​

Bucky Content Tags: @caplanbuckybarnes​​​​​

Chris Content Tags: @inlovewithfictionalcharacters​