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easyfoodnetwork · 4 years

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The Exhausting Work of Staycationing

When leaving the house is impossible, cocktails, caftans, and karaoke are all the vacation you need

Carmen Maria Machado is the author of the bestselling memoir In the Dream House and the short-story collection Her Body and Other Parties, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. She’s writing from the Philadelphia home in which she’s sheltered and convalesced since March.

Two weeks before the city of Philadelphia went into lockdown, I was in an airport in Ixtapa, Mexico, staring at a travel advisory about the coronavirus. It was early enough that the sign was asking if you’d recently traveled to China or Italy; early enough that it was small and had come off a laser printer and was taped near our airline’s check-in desk.

We’d spent the week at a resort on the Pacific coast with a fellow writer couple, taking our first real vacation — our first travel experience without a restrictive budget or attached work or other obligations — in our adult lives. There’d been a break in my book tour schedule, and I took it. I wanted to read, eat seafood, see the ocean, and swim in an infinity pool, and I’d done all of those things. I even had the patchy mix of a tan and sunburn to prove it.

I did thousand-piece puzzles and re-watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy and read books and stared into space.

I’m a speculative writer and a hypochondriac. I’ve written stories about pandemics; imagined their slow and terrible creep, the way they stifle and challenge. Still, back in February we had not been to China or Italy. We flew home. We hugged our friends goodbye and declared the vacation a success. Let’s do it again next year, we said. When we unpacked, everything in our suitcases smelled like vacation: sunblock, salt, chlorine. I inhaled every piece of clothing before I put it in the hamper.

You know what happened next, of course. Coronavirus crested and broke on our shores and we, Americans — leaderless, stubborn, foolhardy to the end — were uniquely unsuited for thriving or survival. The welcome pause in my travel schedule turned into a monthslong quarantine that has not yet abated. My wife, Val, began to work from home. I did thousand-piece puzzles and re-watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy and read books and stared into space. I talked on the phone with my girlfriend, Marne, who was quarantined with their aunt and uncle on Long Island; I read out loud to them from Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, a few pages at a time. Our ancient beagle mix, Rosie, went from overjoyed with our presence to vaguely neurotic, shadowing us everywhere we went, unable to be left alone for even a moment. Still, we were luckier than most. We were safe, able to do our work from home. Plus, our house had enough space that we didn’t want to murder each other.

We decided to pull a new tarot card each morning.

A couple of months into lockdown, I was approved for some long-awaited ankle surgery. A few weeks later, a post-op complication with the incision felled me. My doctor put me on hardcore antibiotics that kept me awake for days and made me manic. (“Maybe I can sleep like this,” I’d apparently insisted to my horrified wife, twisted into a bizarre pretzel on our living room couch; I have no memory of the incident.) I was also prescribed a wound-vac, which turned out to be a medical fetish object that relieved pressure on the incision through a gentle sucking organ; the experience is not entirely unlike being seduced by an octopus. I made jokes about “fresh, organic Carmen juice” and watched liquid move through the tube and listened to the creature’s gentle burbling when everything was quiet. A few weeks later, I was given a skin graft that had been grown in a pig’s bladder. It was thin as tissue paper. My doctor told me I still couldn’t bear weight on that foot, and I had to continue to use my mobility scooter to get around. I left the appointment in a terrible mood, blasting System of a Down at full volume.

It was Marne’s idea to pitch a staycation. It’s a hateable word, as overused and near-meaningless as “self-care.”

As my infirmity stretched on and on, my girlfriend decided to temporarily move in with me and my wife to help out. “I guess it’s like Big Love over there?” their aunt asked. It was certainly specific enough of a scenario to be prestige TV: polyamorous writer dykes and their internet-famous geriatric hound riding out a pandemic and a climate-change-worsened heat wave in a rambling Philadelphia Victorian.

This was how Eater found me: Did I want to go camping and write about it? asked a very nice editor. Did I want to do a road trip? Maybe stay at a cabin in the woods? It’s the new American vacation; socially isolated, iconic.

We were tempted. We spent time scrolling through listings for beach houses and lake houses, but the necessary elements — within a reasonable driving distance, dog-friendly, scooter-accessible, on a body of water, and affordable — seemed impossible.

“Vacation-style eating” included lobster rolls with a side of hound.

The Death Card on day 1 signaled a time of transition.

It was Marne’s idea to pitch a staycation. It’s a hateable word, as overused and near-meaningless as “self-care.” And it has a distinctly American flair to it: our inability to take actual breaks, the way we accept lack of real vacation the way, say, Europeans never would. And how does one create a true staycation? That is, a vacation from home that feels genuinely relaxing and separate from the everyday grind, not just an excuse to binge seven seasons of The Great British Bake Off?

Val and I had our recent perfect vacation as a kind of platonic ideal. I loved the understated luxury of the experience: I swanned around in caftans and bathing suits, swam, ate well and always al fresco, read a ton, was good about staying off the internet, and was generally oblivious to the apocalypse inching towards us (that is, mostly stayed off Twitter and turned off New York Times news alerts). This both translated easily to a staycation — outfits, reading, and staying off the internet were well within my grasp — and not at all. We don’t have a pool. We’d have to cook ourselves. The outdoors are full of mosquitos, and getting to them required me to climb down flights of stairs with one functioning leg.

Val, on the other hand, had primarily enjoyed our trip’s lack of responsibilities: no cooking meals, no walking the dog. Her staycation version of this was doing everything she wanted — puttering around in the backyard, harvesting produce from her plot in the community garden — and nothing she didn’t. Marne had different ideas: They wanted to make something. Their idea of a vacation was buying a new cookbook and trying a bunch of different recipes. Everyone agreed on one thing: We wanted to be able to swim, or something akin to it.

I ordered a self-inflating adult-sized kiddie pool from the internet. An ice cream maker, too, and David Lebowitz’s The Perfect Scoop (recommended by Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen) and a portable projector to have a drive-in movie experience in the backyard. (My idea; as a child, drive-ins were one of my favorite parts of summer.) We agreed on a set of principles: to stay off social media as much as possible; eat frequently and well; do our own personal activities that we enjoyed and come together when we wanted to. We would share the cooking, make one night a takeout night, and have brunch on Sunday.

And we decided to pull a single tarot card each morning, as a way of bringing ourselves into the day. Val is a long-time tarot enthusiast; I am generally suspicious of woo-woo but find tarot to be a pleasing intersection of art and the language of the subconscious. And of us love the act of ritual. So yes, we said. Tarot it would be.

Cheap flip flops and pool lounging (here, by Marne) are part of the normal summer excess.

On day one, Marne pulled the death card, of course. The deck is the Carnival at the End of the World, and the death card is a scythe-bearing skeleton on a dead horse upon a hill of decapitated heads. Marne barked with laughter and then, slightly freaked out, left the room to collect themselves. Val had to explain that, unlike in the movies, a death card was rarely bad. It was powerful but positive. It was about transitions, changes. Exactly the sort of card you’d expect to kick off a move from the harried hours of real life to a true break.

But we weren’t ready, not yet. The house was a mess, something I knew would impede me from enjoying vacation fully. We’d ordered a new bed frame a few weeks before that should have been assembled, but it was missing a necessary piece; said piece had only shown up the day before. So the bed needed assembling, too. Oh, and there was dog hair everywhere: lining the couch cushions, floating like tumbleweeds across the hardwood. I realized that this was the piece of vacation I missed the most: arriving in a new, clean space with your responsibilities wiped clean. Not having to fuss about details because someone else has fussed about them for you. But that sort of vacation has evaporated into the ether, so we agreed to just power through a final act of cleaning and organizing and assembling, and have our vacation start at happy hour.

We hardly noticed the strange smell that was developing in the backyard.

And it did. At 5 p.m., I made us a batch of cocktails — bastardized Pimm’s cups, complete with cucumber, mint from Val’s garden, and dried orange slices. I put on Taylor Swift’s Folklore, which had dropped the day before. Then we made dinner: corn risotto, whose page in Cook’s Illustrated we’d dogeared and been salivating over for days; seared scallops; and fried artichokes. We got slightly tipsy and marveled at the recipe’s fussiness: pureeing corn cob milk with fresh kernels and then squeezing the liquid out of the resulting pulp. Val shucked, Marne made the rice. I hyper-focused on my task, pressing the mixture down with the back of a spoon, staring at the measuring cup. It was the first time in a month that we’d all cooked together, and the process felt light and almost labor-less. The jumbo scallops sizzled and browned and looked restaurant-elegant; the artichokes seared beautifully.

It was as fine a summer meal as I’d ever eaten. We sat at the dining room table with the windows open; replaced the fading sunset with the light from an overhead fixture. After the food was gone, we moved from subject to subject. Marne maintained that while the risotto was delicious, corn is best served on the cob. We meditated on the true meaning of the Death card we’d drawn. Was it about using up the week’s leftovers? Finishing assembling the bed? We moved on to the topic of ejaculation (comma, my ex-boyfriends, comma, their ex-girlfriends). After dinner, we watched two episodes of Steven Universe — aptly, the ones that introduce a polyamorous character, the Gem Flourite — and climbed into bed feeling very satisfied with ourselves.

Marne made biscuits for Sunday brunch.

Saturday morning, we sat in my office and drank coffee and drew the emperor. This deck’s version of the emperor is a eyeless gentleman elephant standing on a mountain of tusks. It is considered a sign of stability and material wealth. It made sense, then, that we remembered to make a batch of milk-chocolate-raspberry ice cream so that it would be ready in the evening. It made sense that a particularly beautiful cream-and-cocoa silk chiffon caftan that I’d ordered a month ago from Jibri arrived in the mail, and I put it on with nothing underneath. It made sense that we ate leftovers — practical! — and then made our way outside, where I read Jennifer Egan’s The Keep beneath a fringed umbrella and Val and Marne blew up the inflatable pool and paddled around, insisting I join them while I demurred. It made sense that we ordered out for dinner, and could not decide between New England-style lobster rolls and bright summer salads (corn, grilled peach, and scallion; watermelon and feta), from Philly summer pop-up Anchor Light, or Lebanese plates and dips (from Suraya: hummus and baba ghanoush and labneh and tabbouleh; charred runner beans and fried cauliflower in hot-mint yogurt and lamb kebabs and crispy batata harra), so we ordered both. We sat and ate and Val and Marne went back in the water and I finished reading as the light bled from the sky. We hardly noticed the strange smell that was developing in the backyard. We went inside and our ice cream was waiting.

Watching Twister in the backyard

When we woke up on Sunday, I opened the bedroom door (shut to preserve the air conditioning) to a smell like I’d never experienced before. It smelled like a moose had climbed three flights of stairs only to die in our hallway. The odor permeated every floor of the house.

I closed the door and went back to bed like a woman with the vapors. Val and Marne ventured to the backyard, where the tiniest tentacles of the smell had begun the night before. Flashlight in hand, Val rooted around under the crawlspace and discovered a decomposing squirrel. It felt like an omen, or maybe a metaphor, or maybe a giant fuck-you from a year that won’t let up. In bed, I began to call wildlife removal services, all of which were closed on Sundays, prohibitively expensive, or too far away. “This doesn’t happen at hotels,” I said, staring at the ceiling.

Val smeared vapor-rub under her nostrils like a coroner and crawled under the house to retrieve the squirrel. She bagged it and walked several blocks away to our old apartment building, where she disposed of it in the dumpster. She came back and filled every floor with shallow dishes of white vinegar and baking soda and coffee grounds. She showered. We drew a tarot card. An inverted eight of wands. A wreathed and naked woman upon a pangolin over a scattered pile of sticks, and a cosmic imperative to take a break. The smell faded.

We knew we needed to get into the mood for day three. Brunch, we agreed. I pulled together a bloody mary — homemade horseradish vodka, EPIC Pickles bloody mary mix from central Pennsylvania, pickled okra, cornichons, dilly beans, and a strip of bacon — and made a tomato salad with whipped feta. Marne made biscuits, and we ate until we were full. I took a long, hot nap in our sunroom and then went to the living room, where we watched Gourmet Makes videos from Bon Appétit. It was supposed to be outdoor movie night, but we couldn’t do it; we were exhausted. In bed, we watched Birds of Prey projected against the far wall. “I just want to watch women beating up some men,” Marne said, and I could not argue otherwise.

The setup was practically nothing: a cheap pool ordered from overseas, barely cool hose water, a postage-stamp-sized city backyard.

On Monday, we drew an eight of pentacles: an omen of plenty, represented by a baker and a trio of puffins and a tray of rolls for sharing. We prepped another batch of ice cream, this one my suggestion: roasted banana. While it churned, we took a moment to mourn our last day. Marne and Val were determined to get me into the pool. I hesitated — I couldn’t get my bad ankle wet — but eventually I slipped on my waterproof shower sock and crawled into the water with Marne, then Val, with Marne supporting me like a human chair.

I confess that I’d been skeptical of the pool. If lying in an adult-sized inflatable pool was as lovely as getting in an actual pool, everyone would do it, right? When I’d ordered it, I was reminded of my grandfather asking my 6-year-old self if I wanted to go in a “Cuban swimming pool” before dunking me into a large bucket of water.

And yet, it is astonishing what water can do. The setup was practically nothing: a cheap pool ordered from overseas, barely cool hose water, a postage-stamp-sized city backyard. But we were in our suits and slathered on sunscreen and it felt, for a few hours, like summer. Not the unique misery of 2020’s summer, but other summers with their normal excess and low stakes and abundance, their cheap flip-flops and pool afternoons and water ice and late sunsets.

We stayed there floating, laughing, talking, until the sun went. Dinner was Beyond Burgers — the best of the meatless proteins we’ve tried — with aged cheddar and caramelized onions and avocado and chipotle aioli on toasted buns. We polished them off and they were perfect; the sort of thing you wanted at the end of a summer day. Then we had a sundae bar: homemade hot fudge with bourbon, fried peanuts, homemade whipped cream, and large marshmallows toasted over the flame of our gas stove. This, all over the weekend’s two homemade ice creams; a perfectly decadent end.

Outside, it was dark. We flipped on the string lights and set up the projector and screen against the neighbor’s fence. Then, we watched Twister, a perfect summer drive-in-style film about human arrogance in the face of natural disaster. Oh, and the indescribable appeal of Helen Hunt. But mostly the human arrogance thing. Val slipped me popcorn; Marne sat near our feet. A few blocks away, a dead squirrel rotted in a dumpster. We enjoyed our pleasures even as we were trapped by a country that can’t get its act together. We ate and laughed and mourned our lost summer and laughed again. And what’s more American than that?

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2Q7xXiB https://ift.tt/34bXKys

When leaving the house is impossible, cocktails, caftans, and karaoke are all the vacation you need

I did thousand-piece puzzles and re-watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy and read books and stared into space.

We decided to pull a new tarot card each morning.

It was Marne’s idea to pitch a staycation. It’s a hateable word, as overused and near-meaningless as “self-care.”

“Vacation-style eating” included lobster rolls with a side of hound.

The Death Card on day 1 signaled a time of transition.

Cheap flip flops and pool lounging (here, by Marne) are part of the normal summer excess.

We hardly noticed the strange smell that was developing in the backyard.

Marne made biscuits for Sunday brunch.

Watching Twister in the backyard

The setup was practically nothing: a cheap pool ordered from overseas, barely cool hose water, a postage-stamp-sized city backyard.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2Q7xXiB via Blogger https://ift.tt/329dEqu

#Blogger #cooking #Eater #food #recipes

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mst3kproject · 7 years

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Panther Girl of the Kongo

Panther Girl of the Kongo comes to us from Republic Serials, whose logo was mocked over and over every time it appeared in front of Radar Men from the Moon. It stars Phyllis Coates from Invasion USA and Myron Healey from The Unearthly and The Incredible Melting Man. It's also got giant lobsters for its monsters, and oh, yes, this is every bit as unbelievably silly as it was in Teenagers from Outer Space.

Our heroine is Jean Evans, wildlife photographer and vine-swinging Panther Girl! She and her crew are looking for a lion, but instead they find a giant crawdad that wrecks their camera! Understandably concerned (giant arthropods in the 50's were normally a sign of radiation), Jean calls up her friend Larry Sanders, a safari guide. Together they discover a truly diabolical plot: mad Scientist Dr. Morgan has discovered how to mutate arthropods into giants! What's he doing with them? Well, it just so happens that he's also found a hitherto unknown diamond mine, and is determined to scare the natives away[crustacean needed] so he can claim the land and have the gems all to himself.

There are thirteen episodes of this and almost all of them contain a furniture-smashing fistfight scene. I'm amazed they didn't run out of Jungle Hut props.

Let's get the technicalities out of the way first. Like Radar Men from the Moon, Panther Girl of the Kongo is designed around a series of cliffhangers – every episode must end with the hero and/or heroine in mortal peril so that the audience will come back next week to find out how they escaped. The answers are usually not exciting: at the end of Episode One (The Claw Monster!) Larry is knocked out by members of the evil Returi tribe while Jean is menaced by a crawdad. At the beginning of Episode Two (Jungle Ambush!) it turns out Larry was only momentarily stunned, fights off his attackers, and saves Jean in the nick of time. At the end of Episode Six (High Peril!), he appears to be about to fall onto spikes, but in Episode Seven (Double Trap!) we see that he actually lands well away from them. And so on.

The monster effects are... well, they're awful, but they're entertainingly awful. The crawdad attacking the miniature camera is pretty great, as is the one that's shown 'growing' by putting successively larger crawdads in a miniature cage! The giant puppet claws that reach out from behind rocks and trees to menace people are utterly hilarious – and of course we never see any blood on the 'injuries' these cause. And man, if you think the crawdads are stupid, wait until you see the movie's truly abominable gorilla suit. We saw better-looking shit in Season 11 Bigfoot movies!

There is a lot of stock footage here. Critic William Cline described the plot as functioning ‘to move the heroine from one piece of stock footage to another’. There's a sequence in which Jean promises some guests film of the strange creatures she's discovered, but adds that it's on the same reel as some of her other footage, which they'll have to wind through first. This is an excuse so that we can look at a bunch of documentary animal footage showing creatures like giraffes and cranes that definitely do not live in the jungle. There's a totally unnecessary recap episode. ��Jean's elephant friend Beela exists almost entirely in stock footage, and the same stock footage every time she appears (to be fair, this would have been way less noticeable in a weekly serial than it is watching the whole thing in a day). All the vine-swinging is from the earlier serial Jungle Girl, and is clearly a man in a dress and a wig! At least they matched the costume.

But we all know by now that what I love talking about in these pieces of antique media is their politics, so let's take a look at the political situation presented to us by Panther Girl of the Kongo.

We are shown two tribes, the Utanga who are Jean and Larry's hosts, and the Returi who work for Dr. Morgan. Do I need to specify that both are totally invented? No? Good. The prop and costume department gave these two peoples distinctly different looks, but these are designed less to suggest different cultures than to establish who are the 'good' and 'bad' Africans. The 'good' Utanga are a little Westernized. They wear textile clothing without much embellishment beyond Chief Danka's beads and feathered headdress, and live in houses with domestic animals such as chickens. The Returi, on the other hand, wear 'leopard skins' with body and face paint and jewelry made of bones and teeth, carry weapons everywhere, and seem to be a more nomadic hunter-gatherer tribe. The treatment is intended to dehumanize them, making them the obvious 'bad' guys.

The two tribes seem to coexist peacefully. As in Voodoo Woman it's the white people who have brought trouble with them as they seek resources. Voodoo Woman hinged on Dr. Gerard's quest for power and Marylin's for gold, while Panther Girl of the Kongo concerns Dr. Morgan's interest in diamonds. The gems are quite useless to the local people who own the land, but very valuable to Morgan. He can't ask permission to mine the area because he doesn't want to have to pay taxes or fees on his finds, so instead he sets out to steal the land. In order for him to get the resources he needs, the natives must be either driven away or enslaved.

The monsters are intended to frighten off the Utanga. With the Returi, Dr. Morgan employs a different approach – he keeps them compliant by providing them with a 'tonic'. Exactly what this is, we're never told, but it's addictive and mind-altering, making those who take it more obedient and less concerned with their personal safety. I expected this to be a plot point somehow, but it's never returned to. It is reminiscent of a number of situations in real-life history: the fur traders would give the Native Americans alcohol in exchange for beaver pelts, and the British would sell the Chinese opium for tea. Now that they're under his thumb, Dr. Morgan can have the Returi do a great deal of his dirty work, while blaming the violence on the 'primitive tribe' who don't know any better. When one of the Returi men is shot and hurt, he is simply abandoned despite his friend insisting that he needs help. In Dr. Morgan's mind the natives are either tools or inconveniences.

There's a thread of the White Saviour trope in the story, too. While Dr. Morgan considers himself the master of the Returi, Jean and Larry seem to think of themselves as the protectors of the Utanga. Jean says that with the monsters running loose in the jungle, the men of the village would rather stay home to protect their families than go out and hunt the creatures down, so the latter job is left to the white people. Indeed, Morgan's men are counting on this – they believe the Utanga will depart at once if Jean and Larry are killed and therefore no longer able to protect them. Later the Utanga actually do flee en masse, and the white people have to promise protection to make them come back. The government and police force who will solve the problem if Jean can only find proof against Dr. Morgan are also white – history would suggest that they're Belgians, but they speak with British accents. I guess the writers didn't research anything else, why would they bother to get that right?

In this case, I really don't think any of this is social commentary. It's much more superficial than it was in Voodoo Woman, and I get the idea that it was written this way because somebody just figured that was how things worked in Africa.

Another thing I find kind of interesting about the series is how, despite the jungle and savannah setting, Panther Girl of the Kongo often feels like a western. This may be mainly on account of the 'mining' plot – trade diamonds for gold or silver, give the two tribes faux-Native-American names instead of faux-African ones, and shift us from the jungle to the desert, and the whole 'chase the locals away from the undiscovered mining site' plot would work equally well. When we see a larger settlement than the Utanga village, many of the sets have a very 'wild west' feel to them, possibly even being hastily-redressed leftovers from a western movie. There are certainly plenty of shootouts and barfights that would be right at home in a cowboy movie, and probably contribute to the 'western' atmosphere. Such a story could even keep up Jean's friend-to-animals persona, having her hang out with bears and feral horses instead of lions and elephants. 'Coyote Girl of Nevada'? Why not?

The ease with which this could be done speaks to something else: the formulaic nature of the story. It's made of tropes, pieced together into a plot that would use (as Cline noted) as much of their stock footage as they could. The only reason it's a jungle story rather than a cowboy story was because they happened to have the jungle footage on hand. If they'd had stuff left over from Radar Men from the Moon instead of Jungle Girl, it might well have been a space story instead ('Rocket Girl from Venus'?). Panther Girl of the Kongo was the sixty-fifth serial Republic had produced, and like Disney with its princesses, they pretty much had their formula down.

But that's not necessarily a bad thing. If you just sit and watch it, Panther Girl of the Kongo keeps the animal footage and jungle peril coming steadily enough to keep you from getting bored, and the story is reasonably engaging. The monsters and gorilla suits aren't believable for a minute, but they're amusing, and the bite-sized serial format means you can watch a couple, get tired of it, and come back to it later, when the title cards will kindly remind you which heart-stopping cliffhanger you left off on. Each episode has a mini-plot that contributes to the overall narrative while also feeling acceptably self-contained, and Jean is a fairly capable heroine, saving Larry's life almost as often as he saves hers.

It’s not art. Indeed, it’s clearly a sort of assembly-line product, but I can see how this stuff made money.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #panther girl of the kongo #guys in gorilla suits #boy are we in africa!#50s #giant arthropod hours

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voidwaren · 7 years

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Whale Song

So, uh. At one point, I had written more of an after-story bit, but then realized it was getting out of hand and cut it from the original. And then kind of expanded it, despite it not technically being a sequel.

This takes place sometime after Warren is Strange. Canon unless I actually write a sequel, I guess. Not sure how I feel about the way I went about it so things could change. Might finish it one day, who knows.

When Warren wakes up, it’s to something that sounds vaguely like a large cow either giving birth or being probed—neither of which he wants to witness, so, naturally, he doesn’t open his eyes immediately. The sounds continue to invade his ear space; not too loudly, but enough that he can definitely hear something.

Was it Senior Prank Day? Did someone bring a cow into the dorms as a prank? Warren thought you were supposed to do that to faculty, not necessarily the student body. Most schools didn’t really have a dorm system, though, so maybe that’s why they chose the dorms. Or maybe there’s another cow in the school, running rampant and shitting everywhere. Chewing things, like cows do. He kind of hoped that was the case. That would be interesting.

No, wait. That’s too deep for a cow, isn’t it?

Warren closes his eyes tighter, concentrating on the sounds. Cows … well, moo. This is more like a wooohuahuahua kind of noise. Maybe it was a bull being probed? Or a llama?

Wait, that noise sounded distinctly like a dinosaur. What?

What sounded like both a cow and a dinosaur? Was that reverberating he was hearing?

What the hell?

Warren wasn’t awake enough for this, and lying in bed playing guessing games wasn’t helping. With a quick stretch of one arm into the air and a groan that’s echoed by a cowasaur call, Warren pulls his legs from his sheets and rolls out of bed—literally—then both jumps out of his skin and consequently falls flat on his face when he steps on, then stumbles over, a body sprawled out on his floor.

Really?

“Augh!”

Well, it was a live one, if that ungodly noise was any indication. The taste of carpet in Warren’s mouth keeps him from being happy about that right in the moment, though.

“That was my ankle, Graham! Mothershitting ass! Did you break it?! That hurt, you fat fuck!”

“Nathan!” Warren pulls himself up from the carpet’s musty embrace, twisting around to face the culprit of his fall. Nathan sends daggers at Warren from where he sits clutching his bare ankle. “What the hell are you doing? I thought I locked my door!”

He did lock his door. He remembered doing it the night before after Max had left because he didn’t want Nathan barging into his room before he’d woken up for the day, like Nathan had started doing. Because Nathan didn’t sleep enough, which meant Warren didn’t need to, either. Knocking, apparently, was no longer a necessity. Unless, of course, it was Warren going to Nathan’s room.

Of course.

“You did,” Nathan confirms. He’s looking down at his ankle and probing it with a thumb. Warren did not break it. He probably didn’t even sprain it. He probably didn’t even bruise it! It was totally touch-and-go. “I unlocked it.”

“With what?” Warren asks incredulously, his tone rising in pitch. Nathan, rather than giving an answer, just stares at him. Warren tries reason first, despite the fact nothing else was following suit. “A key? Where did you get a key to my room?”

Nathan continues to look at him like he’s stupid. “Off your desk, dumbass.”

“You took my only key into my room? When?”

“God, are you still seriously having trouble with time? It’s been forever since you had your loop issue. I was just here yesterday.”

Yes, yes he was. Warren hardly went a day without seeing Nathan at some point, and it wasn’t just because they lived in the same place and went to school together. There had been a stall when Nathan had been at risk of prosecution, after the cops had found binders of Rachel’s pictures in a room built with Prescott money, but, with a lack of good evidence (Warren was refused the whole story, but Nathan, thank God, had thought ahead of the game and destroyed incriminating evidence that would have possibly pegged him with Rachel’s murder, despite Jefferson’s attempt to frame him. There had apparently been more to it involving Max’s powers before they had vanished completely, but that story Warren still didn’t know, either.) and a convincing donation from his family, Nathan was allowed to walk free without so much as a mark against him.

The week and some that followed left him incredibly unstable, with the accusations and the probing and the claims of his scheme being “legendary” courtesy of the media hawks that tortured him. He was sequestered to his therapist under firm orders, but returned to the school before long. Warren had visited him, but, now that he was back to living across from Warren, Nathan was around Warren almost as much as he was with Victoria.

If you had asked Warren if he ever expected Nathan Prescott to want to see him previous to his … episode, he would have thought you were having an episode. Or trying to make a joke. It was unprecedented, to say the least.

Warren sighs. “You took my room key. Yesterday. My only key to lock my door from the outside.”

“You weren’t planning on leaving, obviously. You didn’t even notice it was gone.”

That was so not the point. Nathan knew that. Warren knew he didn’t care. Ugh.

“Why are you lying on my floor? Right here? There’s plenty of space elsewhere! Why where I can step on you? What is that noise?”

“Hey, bitch, look around. You left piles of shit everywhere, did you want me rolling all over them?”

Warren glances behind him, and then has to admit Nathan’s right. Max had been helping him with a project that required more artistic skill than Warren possessed (he could draw decently, but other forms of art he lacked in), and Warren had been too beat to clean everything up before going to bed once she’d left. Still.

“You could have moved something. How was I supposed to see you if you were right by my bed?”

“By using those things in your moronic skull called eyes?” Nathan suggests spitefully. Warren rolls his in response.

“You were asking for the chance to get stepped on by being there, that’s all I’m saying.” With a huff, Warren pulls himself to his feet to start gathering things up. “What are you even doing in here, anyway? And, seriously, what the shit is that? It sounds like a Antican orgy.”

“Have you never heard whales before?” Nathan asks, but the way he says it makes Warren feel like he had missed a crucial part of adolescence by not having heard whales before.

Warren frowns, then shakes his head in disbelief. “Whale song? Why are you listening to that?”

Nathan doesn’t answer. He’s looking right at Warren—still holding his ankle, God—but he only stares. Then, he reaches up and taps his forehead twice. Oh.

“Oh,” Warren echoes. “Bad day? Shouldn’t you call your therapist?”

Again, Nathan doesn’t answer him. He doesn’t look at him, either, but he’s scowling. Then, something crosses Warren’s mind, and his insides seize up suddenly enough to make him inhale sharply. Nathan looks back in question.

It takes a second for Warren to compose himself and ask, “You didn’t, like, see anything. Right?”

“Do you really think I’d be sitting here calmly if that happened?” Nathan asks slowly, then, quietly, but still loud enough so Warren can hear, “Jesus, how did you even get into this school?”

Warren gives him an unamused look, which Nathan sees but remains unfazed by. He did have a point, though. If Nathan had seen something, he’d probably still be in his room right now freaking out. That, or waking Warren up, which Warren hoped he’d do either before or instead of panicking.

“Right,” Warren mumbles, scrubbing his hair back, then bends to start cleaning. “Sorry.” A picture falls from the stack as he’s picking up, and it flutters its way within Nathan’s reach. Nathan, being who he was, picks it up without asking and looks at it.

“Cocktease totally took this one, it’s got her bullshit hipster pixie thumbprint all over it,” he declares.

“Stop calling her that,” Warren pushes, not for the first time. “She’s civil to you, why do you have to be such an ass back? You don’t do this shit to Victoria, right?”

Nathan looks offended. “What kind of asswit question is that? Vic isn’t a cock tease.”

“Yeah, well, neither is Max.”

“The shoe still fits, stop pretending it doesn’t.”

“No, Nathan,” Warren says firmly, dropping the armful of art supplies onto his desk with a whump. “She never led me on, you fucking know that. Have you even been paying attention? Max and Chloe were just with us the other day, or do you pretend they’re just a couple more voices in your head that need to be ignored?”

The look Nathan gives Warren is reminiscent of a Nathan from another loop, and Warren can feel his insides freezing. Warren agrees—that was too far. Warren averts his gaze to his calendar on the wall. “Sorry,” he says quietly. “That was mean.”

Nathan ignores the apology, which is a bad sign. “I don’t give a fuck what Dyke One and Dyke Two are doing with each other,” Nathan says dangerously. “I will say ‘I told you so’ though, because I fucking told you so.”

“Stop calling them that,” Warren mutters, but he’s lost any steam he had a moment ago. This was just Nathan Prescott. Different from the Nathan Prescott in the failed loops, but Nathan Prescott all the same. Three weeks of bonding over catching a murder didn’t change that.

There’s nothing between them but the continued whale song as Warren shuffles through his closet and finds his clothes for the day. He pulls a jacket out along with his usual shirt-and-jeans ensemble, because it’s starting to get damn cold outside. Arms full of fabric, he finally looks at Nathan again. Nathan is looking at his phone.

“Can you go?” Warren says. “I don’t wanna spend all day in my pajamas.”

Nathan glances up from his phone, bored, then looks back at it again. “So get dressed.”

For fuck’s sake. “I’m planning on it. I’m not getting naked in front of you. Leave.”

“No. I’m not going to look.”

“Prescott. Come on.”

“I’ll cover my goddamn eyes if you’re going to be such a bitch, god.” And, before Warren can say something and tell him that’s not going to cut it, Nathan raises a hand and presses it over his eyes, his phone deposited on the floor next to him. Warren continues to stand there.

“How can you throw gross names around when it’s Chloe liking girls, but then ignore the implied prejudice when it involves you directly?” Warren asks, anger rising. Nathan drops his hand, and he’s glaring when it falls.

“I don’t give a fuck what kind of person Price is actually interested in screwing. I’d call her what I want even if she didn’t want to munch carpet. Sometimes the shoe actually fits.”

Warren gives Nathan an exaggerated look of disgust, because, honestly, that did sound like Nathan. That didn’t make it any less awful. Nathan’s eyes narrow dangerously in response, and his hands curl into fists.

“Don’t get mad at me for assuming you had a problem with gays,” Warren says, ignoring the warning signs flashing in his mind to stop. Cease and desist. Bad idea, bad idea! What happened to the Warren who only deliberately picked fights when he was defending someone? “With the way you talk, anyone would come to that conclusion. You wouldn’t even get in the water because the ‘homos’ were in it.”

Nathan’s mouth flattens until it’s a thin line in his face. Warren finds himself unable to stop, maybe because he kind of missed the feeling of dying. Or maybe because he was just a fucking sixteen-year-old moron who was letting his testosterone get the better of him, which was the more likely option. “I’m just saying, I wouldn’t be shocked if you did care and you were only saying otherwise to argue with me about it.”

“I just fucking told you, I don’t care.” Nathan stands up and stalks over to him, his bare feet thumping ominously on the floor. Warren’s arms tense around the clothes he’s holding, wondering if they’d make a good cushion for the blow if he managed to get his arms up fast enough.

But Nathan’s arms aren’t raised, and the fists his hands are in are still by his hips. Tense, but not poised for a hit. Warren doesn’t raise his arms fast enough, anyway, before Nathan’s encroaching in on his personal bubble, not unlike the time he head-butted him. Warren flinches, but the blow doesn’t come.

What Warren doesn’t expect—because, seriously, fast and furious action is way more up Nathan’s alley—is for Nathan’s hand to snap up into his face and latch onto the back of his head, pulling his head back and up, dangerously close to Nathan’s scowling face. There’s not even time to blink. It’s a closeness unexpected enough that Warren still anticipates the head-butt and almost bites his own lip off when it gets caught between his suddenly-clenched teeth, a motion between inhaling a breath and shutting his mouth before he says something stupid and makes it worse.

He’s not scared—this might have scared him before but once you’ve faced down an ungodly tornado a handful of times, you gain a lot of nerve—but he does not want to start a fist fight. Not really.

Nathan holds him close enough that Warren’s pretty sure not even a jelly bean would fit in the space they had left. He can feel Nathan breathing on him, and, okay, now he’s freaking out. Just a little.

It totally looks like he’s going to kiss him, Warren’s brain supplies in a moment of useless distraction. He knows a few people who would probably love that.

“I. Don’t. Care.” Nathan hisses each word slowly, firmly, in a low, low voice. His pupils are blown wide and there’s a burning anger within them that Warren hasn’t seen since the Jefferson incident. Like there’s some war happening in Nathan’s head that only he sees and only he can hear, and both sides are fought by him alone. His nails dig into the back of Warren’s head, and then he pulls away and returns to Warren’s bed, dropping into it instead of onto the floor and turning away before it without another word.

Warren’s mouth hurts. He thinks his lip might be bleeding.

He’s such a wild mess of confusion in that moment that all he can do is stand and stare.

It wouldn’t be not the first time he’s been kissed (thank God). It wouldn’t even the first time he’s kissed a guy (the year he turned fifteen was a wild one, and sometimes D&D campaigns got a little too exciting—but they don’t kiss any differently than girls anyway, not in Warren’s experience, so he doesn’t really get the big deal), but Nathan Prescott? Max might actually die of laughter when he tells her. Chloe would die if she caught wind.

Fuck. Should he tell her? He tells her a lot, but this might be too far on the scale of embarrassment to admit.

This was going to get him for a while. Dicklord probably knew that, too. Fuck him.

Why was this even bothering him? It was a scare-tactic Nathan had used. Was he really so desensitized to Nathan’s threats that his mind immediately went down the gutter instead of where it should go?

Warren drops his clothes, pushes the thought away, and he starts to strip. Nathan doesn’t turn around, not when Warren’s hesitating with his thumbs in the waistband of his boxers, not when he pulls the new ones on so fast he nearly trips himself, and not when Warren’s finally pulling on his jeans and reaching for his jacket. He doesn’t move, and he doesn’t say anything.

He doesn’t even turn around when Warren grabs his phone off his nightstand and leaves.

Warren knows Max is hanging around the photography lab today, probably with Kate and Stella, so that’s where he heads once he’s out of the dorms.

On his way there, he passes Victoria and her posse, who are no doubt scheming something that would put Mean Girls to shame. Victoria glances over at him as he passes, then does a double-take, and the next thing he knows she’s got his jacket in her fist with an iron grip.

“Where’s Nate?” she asks him before he’s even finished stumbling over his sudden stop. She looks back the way Warren came. Warren tries to shrug her off, but that doesn’t happen.

“I don’t know,” he answers, still trying to shrug her off. “I left him in my room. Maybe he went back to his room. Somewhere in the dorms?” he tries, because that sounds like a big enough ballpark to be right about. Victoria doesn’t like the answer, though.

“Why isn’t he with you?”

Warren stares at her. She isn’t kidding, not with that expression. “Why would he be with me?”

“Because he’s not with me?” Victoria says like it’s obvious. Warren can’t quite believe what he’s hearing. Behind them, Courtney and Taylor watch them, their hands covering their mouths like they’re smothering a laugh.

“Huh? How is that weird?” Warren asks. “He’s alone all the time.”

“Oh, god,” Victoria spits in disgust. She finally drops Warren’s arm, and he pulls it closer to himself the moment it’s free. She whips a phone seemingly out of nowhere and starts tapping on the screen. “You’ve only been riding his back for weeks. You were a distraction, dumbass,” Victoria says when Warren’s still looking at her in confusion.

And that clicks it in place for him.

Oh, fuck. The whole reason Nathan was in his room in the first place. Warren had gotten caught up in the argument, he hadn’t—shit. Way to be a friend, asshole.

Victoria’s in the middle of saying something when Warren turns and walks away, but he wasn’t listening in the first place, so he doesn’t know what it was she was saying. He hears her yell in protest when she realizes he’s leaving before she’s done, but he ignores that, too.

When he gets back to his room, he almost expects Nathan to have left, but he’s sitting on the bed with one of Warren’s Stephen King books (Under the Dome—the hardcover edition. Yeah. Nathan could knock him out with that if he wanted.) perched on his crossed legs. After placing his finger on the page he’s open to, Nathan looks up, both eyebrows raised.

“Victoria ratted you out, but I thought you’d take longer,” he says.

Warren shrugs, stepping into the room and shutting the door behind him. “You underestimate my conscience. Sorry I totally bailed out on you.”

“Don’t worry,” Nathan says, reaching to Warren’s nightstand and taking the photo of Max’s that he must have put there. He places it in the book and shuts it. Warren waits, hands in the pockets of his jacket, for Nathan to pull himself from Warren’s bed and give him a smirk that was far from sunny grin. Warren feels his heart drop. “You’ll be making it up for me tonight.”

“I have plans tonight,” he protests. It’s Vampire Night at the drive-in. He was going with Chloe, Max, Kate, and maybe Stella. He’d been looking forward to it.

“Sucks to suck, then, doesn’t?” Nathan says nonchalantly.

“Nathan, come on.”

“Nope, you dug your own damn grave. We need a ‘tender tonight.”

“You want me to handle alcohol?” Warren asks, making a face. “I’m the youngest person at the school, how is that a smart thing to do?”

“You’re a sneaky little shit, that’s how. No one will suspect you, either, since you look about seven.”

Okay, Warren’s offended. “I do not! I’ll be seventeen in, like, three weeks!”

Nathan tilts his head. “Excuse the fuck out of me,” he says, like he’s impressed. “Didn’t know that.”

“I’ll help you at the Halloween party,” Warren promises, but Nathan rejects the compromise with a shake of his head.

“No. Logan’s doing it then.” Nathan’s eyes drop to the floor, searching around. For what, Warren doesn’t know. “He’s got ideas for it. If you want to fight him for the position, be my guest, but you’re not getting out of tonight otherwise.”

Warren makes a quiet noise of frustration just as Nathan bends down and grabs something from under Warren’s bed—his shoe, with his sock crammed into it. “You’re such a Grade-A asshole,” Warren mutters, scrubbing his hand over his mouth.

“Watch it, teenybopper,” Nathan warns him, settled back on Warren’s bed as he puts his single shoe on, “I’m leagues above you on the totem pole. Don’t piss me off or you’ll regret it.”

For some reason, that comment stings Warren like nothing else Nathan has said that morning. Warren glowers at him, watching as he looks for and locates his second shoe, then stands up to face Warren once it’s on his foot. For a moment, as he straightens his jacket over his sweater, he doesn’t slouch.

Please let me not be finished growing, Warren thinks bitterly, noting that Nathan is taller than him. Then Nathan returns to his usual hunched slump and they’re the same height again. Nathan scrutinizes Warren for a beat, then reaches out to grasp Warren’s shoulder and pull him out of the way of the door.

“You have a little something on your lip,” Nathan says has he passes Warren with his head down, then he’s out the door and gone.

Warren presses his fingers against his lip, finding dried blood on them when he pulls them away again.

“C’mon Graham,” Trevor begs, leaning heavily on the bar (nothing more than some high, long tables covered in tarp and cloth, which wobble under his weight) with his cup pushed up into Warren’s face for the third time that night. “Fill ‘er up!”

Warren takes the cup from Trevor’s hand and chucks it in the over-filled trash can by the edge of the bar, wiping his sticky hand on his jeans and ignoring the whining noise Trevor gives him when he realizes he’s not getting his cup back.

“Water?” Warren offers instead, holding a bottle up.

“No, no way. There’s plenty of that right there.” Trevor turns and points a hand at the pool, which is flashing with all the lights in the room.

“Don’t drink the pool water, dude,” Warren warns him, but Trevor’s already slumped off dejectedly. Warren watches him go. He’s pretty clearly more than just drunk, but Warren doesn’t think that’s unusual for the setting.

No, he thinks, flinching when a memory of Kate’s video from a past loop flashes in his mind, it’s not. It’s not at all.

Warren decides he really, really doesn’t want to be here.

Someone falls in the pool. Then someone else decides they want to go in, too, and suddenly four people are throwing themselves into the water. A few people squeal from the sidelines when they get hit by the spray. The music nearly drowns their cries out.

Warren checks his phone. It’s almost ten—the movie marathon has been running for two hours now. Warren wonders what he missed already, and what else he’s going to miss as the movies play well on into the early morning, possibly ending with a showing of Nosferatu. He hates Nathan right now.

“You don’t look like you’re having much fun,” a voice says, startling Warren into dropping his phone. It’s Alyssa, leaning on the bar with her head cradled in her hand. Warren sighs in relief, unsure of what it was he was even afraid of in the first place. It’s not like he was getting paid for this.

“I’m not,” he confirms, loudly, because mother of Vulcan the music was booming. “Vortex Club parties are only good in moderation.”

“Very true,” she agrees with a nod. “Haven’t seen you at one lately, though. I went to the last one myself.”

“I was at the last one,” Warren corrects her.

“Wouldn’t really count that. You came in with that girl and left, like, five minutes later.”

Warren hesitates in confusion.

Right. To get Victoria, and the last four—no, five (four?) times he went never actually happened. Shit.

“Must have been thinking of a different time,” Warren mutters, which isn’t a lie. Then, when Alyssa frowns at him, continues at a volume she can hear him at, “I guess I haven’t been to one since school started. Being trapped back here is my actual issue.”

“How’d you get stuck doing this, anyway?”

“Prescott.” Warren rolls his eyes. “I owed him.”

Not totally true, but he did fuck up that morning pretty bad, and he still felt bad about it.

“You two are close now. It’s so weird, considering. Nathan’s such a tool.”

“Say it again!” Warren calls, laughing.

“Are you, like, perpetually indebted to him or something?” Alyssa asks, throwing Warren through a loop. He blinks.

“What?”

“You’re not actually friends,” she says, like it’s not a question.

“Uh,” Warren says, his brain stumbling over her words. “No, we are.”

Alyssa doesn’t look convinced. “How? Doesn’t he call you names? He still calls Max names.”

“That’s kind of a Nathan-brand thing. Max hangs out with him, too, sometimes. I think they’re considered friends.” Ish. Definitely ish.

“I don’t think he’s ever called Victoria anything. I thought they were friends. Are they dating?”

Nathan claims they’re not, but he’s called her names before. Just not the same kinds he uses on everyone else. He’s called her gorgeous more than once, among other flattering names, but Warren knows what Alyssa means. It didn’t really bother him, though, the fact Nathan still called him “Gayram” and various insults. It’s when he was doing it to be overly nasty that Warren pushed against him. The other names were okay. He certainly didn’t want Nathan calling him gorgeous.

Max didn’t care, either, and Chloe just shot them back when Nathan used them on her.

“Victoria’s different,” Warren says with a shrug. “It’s not an issue.”

“Did Victoria also catch a creepy psycho murder with him?” Alyssa asks.

Okay, what was the point of this? Yes, his friendship with Nathan was wholly uncalled for and still kind of confusing, but it was there. Warren had saved Nathan from getting killed (not that anyone knew that part) and Nathan had helped Warren catch Jefferson before he could kill anyone else. Nathan had believed Warren when his story had been told, when he could have just as easily been the risky psychopath everyone accused him of being. Nathan had let Warren cry on him, that was real friendship! But how did he explain that to all the people who didn’t get it?

Why did it even matter so much?

“It’s not like that, Alyssa,” Warren finally says after a moment of thought.

“I just don’t want you to get hurt. You’re a good guy, Warren. Nathan is…”

“A long drop and a short stop,” Warren mumbles to himself with a grimace.

“What?”

“Nothing. Thanks for being concerned, but it’s okay. I’ve got Chloe behind my back, anyway. She’s a force to be reckoned with.”

“Who?”

But Warren waves his hand quickly, indicating it didn’t matter, and Alyssa, thankfully, accepts that.

“Got anything stronger than beer back there?” she asks. Warren frowns and kicks open the cooler, picking out one of the bottles with a black cap. Black cap meant not-soda. It didn’t tell him what it meant aside from that, though.

“Uh,” he says, twisting the bottle open and giving it a sniff. He winces at what hits his nose—definitely not beer. “I don’t know what it is, but yes.”

“Hit me.”

“Soda?”

“Straight.”

Oh, ugh. Warren could barely handle beer, and beer is as far as he has gotten.

Grabbing a clean Solo cup, Warren tips the bottle until the liquid—he couldn’t tell what color it was with the constant flashing lights, but it looks dark enough to resemble the bottles of cola—fills the very bottom. Was that a shot? Was that more than a shot?

There was a way to tell. Something about fingers. God, could he feel more underage right in this moment? “Youngest student at Blackwell Academy” felt like such a far cry from praise right now.

He gives it to Alyssa anyway, who knocks it back in one gulp and sets the cup back down.

“Another.”

Warren refills the cup again and slides it back, but Alyssa slides it towards him again as he’s twisting the cap back on the bottle. “One for you,” she tells him, then reaches in to pat his arm and leave. Warren puts the bottle back in the cooler and stares at the cup. Dare he?

Yes. Because fuck Nathan Prescott.

“That had better be your first fucking drink,” a new voice calls at him just as he’s tipping the liquid down his throat. He startles, chokes, and slams the cup down on the sticky makeshift bar, trying not to gag. His eyes water from the burn. “Jesus fuck, pussy much?”

Speak of the devil.

Warren tries to clear his throat, but it only makes it feel thicker. And people drank this crap willingly? Nathan waits—surprisingly patiently—while Warren tries to regain the ability to speak.

“What was that?” Warren gasps, and he sounds like he just finished drowning.

“Dunno,” Nathan answers. He’s got a slight lilt to his mouth, and his posture is relaxed rather than slumped, like he just finished doing something that relieved all his tension. Drugs? Sex? “I don’t stock this booze. How much have you had, Graham?”

“That was my first.” And his last. Yikes.

“Good. I don’t remember telling you you could drink what you served.”

Warren drops his elbows on the bar and scrubs both hands through his slightly sticky—how?—hair. “This sucks.”

“Boo-fucking-hoo. Life sucks, kid.”

Warren snaps his head up, “No, not you, too. Stop. I’m not a kid.”

“Is that what you were thinking when you were choking on that?” Nathan sneers, flicking a finger at the cup Warren had left on the bar.

“Shut up, Nathan,” Warren says. Grabbing the cup, he throws it on top of the trash can and watches it bounce onto the floor instead. Whatever. When he looks back to the bar again, Nathan’s still there, watching him. “What?” he asks apprehensively.

Nathan doesn’t answer right away. His eyes scan Warren, centering in on his eyes like he’s trying to find something there. It makes Warren uneasy as hell.

“That was your only drink?” Nathan asks.

“Yeah, I just said that. I didn’t drink anything else.”

“You poured it?”

“Yes?” Warren frowns, glancing around the area behind the bar with his arms out. “There’s no one else here. I’m the only one pouring drinks.”

Nathan nods, like this information is satisfying, then turns around and leaves without another word. Warren calls after him, but he’s already too far away to hear.

The night goes at an ungodly slow speed. Warren spends the entire time regretting that shot—his throat throbs like he has something lodged in it, and clearing it only made it worse.

People start to trickle out an hour before the party officially wraps up, and Warren ends up wasting most of the time asking Max for updates on the marathon from his phone, which is now sticky from being dropped on the gross floor. When it’s clear no one else is up for drinks—because there’s, like, six people still going, and one of them is the DJ—Warren decides it’s time for him to vacate the disgusting, hot bar area. He’d come to the party without a jacket, knowing it to be warm inside from all the bodies, but stuck in a corner with no way to escape the lights like he had been? Sweltering.

Warren wanders to one of the poolside areas, where the benches are set up, and starts to relieve his torso from the T-shirt he had layered over a thermal.

“You’re still here, Graham?”

Warren pulls his head from his shirt to find Trevor standing before him. He seems slightly soberer than he did two hours ago. He’s also half-naked and soaking wet.

“Still not technically off duty,” Warren explains. He wraps his shirt into a ball and sets it on the bench, enjoying the slight drop in temperature. “Don’t blab to Nathan.”

“Dude, lips? So locked up right now.” Trevor nods his head as if agreeing to his own statement.

“Thanks.” Warren wasn’t sure how much he could actually trust Trevor’s word when he was clearly at least half-baked, but he didn’t really have a choice. Besides, what could Nathan do?

“Yo, you look hot.”

“What?” Warren looks up Trevor, startled, then realizes he means temperature-wise. “Oh. Yeah, it’s really fucking hot in here.”

“Take a dip,” Trevor says, gesturing to the pool like Warren wouldn’t know what he meant. “I did. Feels awesome.”

Warren glances at the soaked jeans that adorned Trevor, then down at his own clothes.

“Pass. Been there, I’ll live without a second go.”

“No, no. I insist, it’ll help. It’s a huge rush, totally worth it! Take your shoes off.”

“What? No. I’m fine here.”

“Bro, come on.” Trevor grabs both of Warren’s shoulders and pushes until Warren’s knees give and he thumps down on the bench directly behind him, then stoops down and starts removing Warren’s shoes.

“Dude—” Warren starts, but both his shoes end up off as Trevor takes one in each hand and practically yanks them off.

“Whoa! We throwin’ Graham into the pool? Hell yeah!” Warren looks up from Trevor to find Justin grinning down at him, also half-naked.

Oh. Oh, no.

“Wait—What? Wh—” Warren’s cut off by hands gripping the bottom of his thermal and removing it from his person in one fell swoop. He just barely has time to fish his phone out of his pocket and toss it on the discarded clothing on the bench before Justin’s picking him up in a bear hug he can’t struggle out of and throwing him into the pool—without letting him go.

Trevor was right about one thing: it did cool Warren off immediately.

Warren breaks the surface of the pool, gasping, then scrapes his wet hair from his face and kicks to the side. The water in the pool rocks with the motion of Trevor jumping in and, once Warren’s got an arm hooked on the edge and he looks back, both Trevor and Justin are treading water and pushing each other.

Warren leaves them to it and busies himself with peeling his wet socks from his feet, which Trevor hadn’t removed. They don’t make it anywhere near his clothing pile when he throws them at the bench, but they’re in the relative area, so it’s good enough.

By the time the DJ wraps up and Nathan emerges from the VIP area with Hayden, Warren’s engaged himself in a game with Trevor and Justin as the judge for their contest. What he was judging was beyond his scope of understanding, since the guys were alternating between jumps, flips, and doing things underwater that Warren couldn’t even see, but none of them were particularly concerned. Warren gave them random scores each time they asked and they either didn’t seem to realize it or didn’t care.

“The fuck are you doing in the pool?” Nathan asks the moment he notices.

“Swimming,” Warren retorts, then ducks when Trevor jumps a little too close to his head. “I was melting.”

“I threw him in,” Justin offers. Nathan shakes his head slowly, squinting in disbelief.

“Whatthefuckever,” he announces after a moment. “Party’s over. Get out.”

“Do we have to?” Trevor asks from where he’s dog-paddling circles around Justin.

“Actually, I want in,” Hayden announces from beside Nathan, then immediately starts to strip. Warren takes the moment to wonder why he keeps getting involved in late-night pool sessions with half-naked teenagers. “Look out!” Hayden says, just before he’s doing a cannon ball in. Warren’s whole body rocks with the waves it creates in the pool, and Hayden’s already cackling when he surfaces. When Warren looks back, Nathan is gone.

“Where did he go?” Warren asks before he can really think about what it is he’s saying.

“Bathroom, joint,” Hayden answers him, from much closer than he’d been a second ago. He surprises Warren by ducking down and grabbing him around the legs, flipping him over his shoulder and backwards into the water. Warren splutters when he comes back up.

From there, it’s just a mess of rough-housing and water-loss from the pool. Nathan’s back and watching them from the sidelines by the time Warren’s lungs scream for a time-out. Warren pulls himself out and sits on the edge, giving Nathan a wave he doesn’t return.

“You look like a wet dog,” Nathan comments. Warren ignores it.

“It’s a bloodbath in there. How does he have so much energy this late at night?”

“Speed,” Nathan answers nonchalantly and, yeah, that makes sense. Warren should have guessed. “He’s been riding it all night.”

Was that normal? What was the lifespan of that kind of stuff? Warren knew the side-effects and lifelong risks, but that was about the extent of his drug culture. Thanks, public education.

“He’s making me tired just watching him.”

“Do you want some?” Nathan asks, and when Warren looks up he looks genuinely curious. His eyebrows, usually set closer together in a negative expression of some sort, are relaxed. His whole face is relaxed. Definitely stoned.

“Uh, no,” Warren says quickly. Nathan shrugs.

“Suit yourself. Did Hayden do that?” Using the toe of his shoe, Nathan probes a spot on Warren’s side. When Warren looks to see what he means, he realizes the area is a deep red.

“That’s going to bruise,” he mutters, pushing Nathan’s shoe away and pulling on the skin to look at it. It’s likely there are more like that elsewhere on his body. He wasn’t much for physical entertainment.

“You’re bleeding.”

“What?” Warren twists around, looks at his hands, his arms, his chest. “Where?”

Nathan crouches down and grabs Warren’s chin, turning his head and probing Warren’s lip with the thumb of his opposite hand. It comes away red with blood.

“Aw, shit.” Warren sticks his tongue out and, sure enough, detects a coppery taste beneath all the chlorine. He scrubs the area with the heel of his hand.

“Gross,” Nathan comments, still holding Warren’s chin. “You look like The Joker.”

Great. His face must not have been wet enough to dilute the blood when he did that, so it smeared right on his skin. At least Nathan was speaking his language. Nathan releases him as Warren moves to stand up, grimacing at how awful wet jeans feel.

“Where are you going?” Nathan asks.

“Bathroom. Toilet paper.”

“None left.”

Warren groans. Seriously? “I hate parties,” he mutters, then, louder, “Alright. I’m going back, then.”

“Good. Party is over.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Trying to ignore the wetness of his soggy jeans, Warren collects his belongings, throws one last look at the pool, where Hayden has Trevor in a headlock, and heads out of the gym. When he reaches the outside, he nearly releases a very high-pitched, very girly scream.

“Fuck, it’s cold!” he half-screeches, curling in on himself just outside the building. His pants were his worst enemy right now, and he wanted to take them off immediately.

“Yeah. Almost November.”

Warren startles, then looks to find Nathan just behind him, standing there idly with his hands in his pockets.

“What are you doing?” Warren asks.

“Leaving.”

“Can you do that?”

Nathan shrugs. “Don’t care.”

Well. Okay, then. No point in arguing that.

Warren decides it’s best to just leave Nathan to his own devices and prepares himself to sprint to the dorms. After some serious pep-talking in his head and a count of three, he goes for it, and subsequently regrets all the choices he made that day, all the way to the entrance to the dorms. Once inside, he scurries into the showers, shivering heavily, and throws the shower on hot. When he looks back to the sinks, he’s jump-scared by the fact Nathan is again there, breathing heavier than normal.

He might have screamed.

(He screamed. Just a little bit.)

“Did—did you run here?” Warren asks, clutching his chest like he’s worried his heart’s going to break free. Nathan, mostly unfazed by the short, almost-comedic scream, just looks at Warren like he’s insane.

“You ran, dumbass,” he says, like that explained everything.

“Uh, yeah, because I’m soaking wet and it’s fucking freezing outside. You’re not even a little wet.”

Nathan looks down at himself and nods. Warren, feeling the heat starting to come from the shower, decides he can deal with Nathan after he’s warmed up, and goes in. He strips out of his wet jeans and boxers while he’s in there, throwing them out the curtain to slap onto the tile floors, and soaks in the heat for a good fifteen minutes. He’d have stayed in longer, but with a second strain of running water filling the room, the water pelting down on him suddenly turns to ice, and he shuts the water off with a yelp.

“Nathan!”

“You were taking too long.”

Warren sticks his head out the shower, using the curtain as coverage, and glares at Nathan. He’s standing next to one of the sinks with the water on, running over … are those his clothes? Yeah, Warren realizes when he finds them missing from where he put them, they are. Okay.

“I was going to do that.”

“You’re naked,” Nathan points out.

“After I was done.”

Nathan shrugs. “I did it.”

“Well, yeah, but you didn’t have to.”

Nathan shrugs again, then shuts the water off and digs in the pile of fabric occupying the sink. Warren watches him, wondering what it is exactly that he’s doing, then understands a second later when Nathan’s launching Warren’s underwear across the bathroom. Warren just barely makes the catch.

“Stop being naked,” Nathan tells him, and Warren can only make a noise that he hopes conveys his annoyance before doing just that. When Warren comes out, he starts the process of wringing the water out of his jeans. His shirts and socks remain forgotten on the floor. Nathan continues to watch him from where he’s leaned against one of the walls, seemingly content not to be doing anything else.

Warren sighs, suddenly feeling the weight of tired the night has made him. “Shouldn’t you be with Victoria right now? Usually you’re with her after the social gatherings that involve drugs.”

“She’s busy right now.”

Warren tries to think back to the party. Did he notice Victoria leave? She was at the party, he remembered that much, but she wasn’t there when the pool incident started. “Busy?”

“Victoria’s been experimenting,” Nathan admits. Embarrassingly, in his exhaustion it takes Warren a second to realize Nathan’s not talking about science.

“New drugs?” Warren guesses while wringing the water from his jeans.

“Girls.”

Warren feels his eyebrows shoot up in surprise before he can reign them in. “Oh,” he says plainly. Nathan starts tapping his heel against the tiles of the floor. “YOLO?” he suggests, then winces, declaring that to be a product of his fatigue.

Nathan just snorts. “Says the walking contradiction to that statement.”

Point. Even if it was only kind of true.

Oh, wait. Wait a minute.

“Is that why you got so pissed off before?” Warren asks, the puzzle pieces in his brain suddenly slotting together and giving him more of the potential picture. Nathan gives him a blank look. “When I told you to stop calling Chloe and Max dykes,” Warren clarifies for him.

“Oh. When you thought I was going to kiss you,” Nathan says simply, then nods. “Shut you up good.”

“Dude, you got way up in my bubble. I could have counted your teeth if I wanted to. Take me out to dinner first next time if you’re going to pull that kind of shit.”

Nathan cocks his head. “Why? Want your first kiss to be a winner, princess?”

Warren wants to get angry at the assumption, but it’s too easy of one. He knew Nathan would assume that, and he was too tired, anyway, to do more than let out a breath through his nose. “Oh, ye of little faith.”

Nathan snorts. “Almost punched you instead, then thought the shock factor would work better to get my point across.”

“Wow,” Warren mutters, “guess you did make the point.”

“Heat of the moment.”

“Remind me never to play gay chicken with you.”

A lapse of silence falls between them. “That had something to do with it,” Nathan confirms. Warren has to backtrack to realize what he’s talking about. Man, swimming was exhausting. “Made me mad, because I’d never treat Vic like that.”

“Yeah,” Warren says, bending to toss his socks in the sink and rinse them of their chlorine water, “that seems to be a reoccurring theme.”

“Hey,” Nathan says angrily—or, kind of. Not in his usual angry way. It was a different anger. Nathan was a complex specimen with varying shades of ire. “Victoria has done a lot for me, for a long time. She didn’t judge me where the rest of you fucks did.”

Warren lifts his hands up. “Whoa, I didn’t say I had a problem with it. Yeah, I’d prefer it if you didn’t go full asshole on my friends that also happen to be your friends sometimes, but I’m not upset you don’t treat her—er, like us.” It showed he could be a good, loyal person, if anything. Maybe not necessarily to Warren, but to someone, and that kept him from being solely self-driven, like so many people whispered him to be.

Nathan continues to watch Warren with narrowed eyes. “I’m fine with how you treat me when you’re not doing it to hurt me,” Warren tells him slowly. “It’s not like I expected otherwise.”

This makes Nathan frown, but if he was going to do anything more, he’s stopped when a slow shuffling sound suddenly comes from the hallway, followed almost immediately by someone entering the showers. It’s a guy Warren has seen around campus, but, despite school being in session for the past two months, has never actually met. He’s obviously half-asleep—not only his walk gives him away, but he blinks blankly at Warren, taking in his lack of clothing and overall wetness in confusion, then looks over to Nathan and scowls. Nathan looks to the side, like he’s pretending the guy doesn’t exist.

“Whatever he’s payin’ you,” the guy says at Warren after he’s seemed to have time to process, his voice sleep-gruff and his speech slow, “it’s not enough. Go back home.”

Nathan’s head whips in the guy’s direction, his body picking up from the tile wall in an instant fighting stance. “The fuck did you just say?”

Warren, despite his brainy attributes, has absolutely no fucking clue what was happening.

The guy looks at Nathan warily. “You can’t bring your lackeys into the dorms like this. You’re not above the school’s rules, Prescott.”

“Hah!” Nathan barks, and it’s like he’s completely sober. Warren jumps, the sharp sound echoing off the walls of the bathroom. “I am the school’s rules, bitch. I make this shit town; this school is mine!”

The guy takes a step back.

“Um,” Warren interjects before someone can start something serious. They both turn to look at him. “I go here?”

The guy frowns, then squints at Warren. Didn’t he normally wear glasses?

“I don’t recognize you,” he says.

“I’m Warren,” Warren tries weakly. “Warren Graham? Room one-oh-nine?”

The guy just continues to look at him in confusion, then finally shrugs. “I’m not awake enough for this shit,” he says, then, rubbing his eye, turns and shuffles back out the door.

Warren and Nathan watch him go, Warren with one hand on Nathan’s arm, afraid he might try to follow.

“Who the hell was that?” Nathan asks once he’s gone.

“No idea. I thought you’d know him. He knew you.”

“Everyone knows me. I’m infamous, comes with the name.”

Warren releases Nathan’s arm. “He didn’t seem to like you much,” Warren says, taking his wrung-out jeans. They were still so wet, but that was denim for you.

“Comes with the name,” Nathan repeats, and Warren decides that subject should be closed.

Grimacing, Warren sticks his legs in and pulls his wet jeans up. Not a favorite feeling of his, nope. He glances over at Nathan as he’s picking his shirts up, wondering why he’s so quiet, then realizes Nathan’s looking at his phone.

“What time is it?” Warren asks, even though his own phone is right by the sink.

“Almost two,” Nathan replies without looking up. Warren pulls up the mental schedule of vampire movies he’d made when Max had told him what was going to be playing when. Shadow of the Vampire? Yeah, that sounded right, that should be the one playing now.

“Are you going to bed?”

Nathan makes a noise, but Warren can’t tell if it was a scoff or a thoughtful noise. “Nope.”

“You wanna watch a movie with me? Black Sunday? Old classic.”

Nathan takes his time with his answer, tapping away at the screen of his phone. Warren’s debating putting his damp socks back on for the trek back to his room instead of his shoes when he answers, “As long as it’s in my room.”

On that sweet projector of his? Oh hell yes. Don’t have to ask Warren twice.

“Deal,” he says, grinning. “I’ll bring the popcorn.”

He brings the popcorn, and Nathan’s already downing a beer when Warren slides in, bag in hand. He rejects the offer when Nathan holds one up in question, then settles on the couch and gets comfortable. Nathan throws himself onto the other end and sprawls out once the movie’s set up and playing. Warren gives the movie most of his attention as it plays, but he does notice Nathan splitting his attention between the movie and his phone. If it were anyone but Nathan, he’d make a comment about it, but he’s too tired to incite the potential battle it might bring about.

Really, he’s too tired to be doing much of anything right now.

He shifts the popcorn bag in his lap (Nathan didn’t want it on the couch, and he wasn’t going to hold it), then shifts his position when it doesn’t wake him up enough to keep his vision from blurring.

The last thing he remembers is going in for a handful of the popcorn only to find the bag gone, and then there’s nothing.

Freezing rain pelting against his face, roaring winds screaming in his ears. People scrambling and panicking and running for their lives. They had been warned and they had ignored. Now, they had no escape.

Warren can’t hear, he can’t see. He can’t breathe.

This wasn’t right. This wasn’t where he was supposed to be.

This wasn’t the same.

Why wasn’t this the same?

It’s cold inside, the air is wild, and Warren knows he has to stay where he is. Because he can’t go somewhere else. Because if he does, something might go wrong. If something goes wrong, it might be the end. He wasn’t ready for the end.

This isn’t where he’s supposed to be.

This isn’t the same.

He wasn’t ready.

Not the end.

Not the end. He wasn’t ready. Not yet.

The train hits him, and he screams.

When Warren wakes up, his heart is jackhammering in his chest, filling up his ears with the noise of its drumming. It’s dark, wherever he is, and he can’t see anything. There are too many bursts of white against his vision to see. He can’t stop gulping down air. He doesn’t know where he is.

Something is pushing him. No—holding him. There are hands gripping his arms to his sides at the very top, right before they turn to shoulder. The grip is tight, almost painful, and one side is released when he rushes his hand up and grabs it with a sweaty grip. He can feel the hand clench into a fist, but it doesn’t pull away.

Max?

“Breathe,” he hears as his heartbeat starts to slow and the pounding in his ears starts to lessen. The spots fade, slowly, and Warren is able to pick out parts of a face. “Fuck, Warren. Hey. Slow down, you’re awake. Breathe.”

Nathan.

He was in Nathan’s room, Warren realizes as the previous night floods back into his memory all at once. With it comes soothing, instantaneous relief, and he sags back against the couch bonelessly. Nathan’s hands follow, even when Warren releases the grip he had on the one.

“Nightmare,” he croaks with a mouth that feels like it’s filled with cotton.

A real nightmare. Not the farce of one. Not another time-loop. He was still going forward, not back. The storm wasn’t coming. It had already gone.

Shit.

“Yeah,” Nathan says. His voice is low—not quite a whisper, but not exactly a normal volume. Warren takes another deep breath. “I managed to come to that conclusion.”

Warren looks to the projector—it’s turned off. That’s why it’s so damn dark. The blackout curtains are shut tight. Does Nathan ever let light into his room that’s not artificial?

“What time is it?” Warren asks, then grabs the hand of Nathan’s that’s still gripping his shoulder way too hard. “I’m okay, really,” he insists.

Nathan doesn’t look convinced. Warren thinks he might have woken Nathan up from his disgruntled appearance, not unlike the time when he had first knocked on Nathan’s door. Or the second time—which was Nathan’s first. Because the first time wasn’t in this loop.

Loop.

Timeline. Reality? There were no more loops. This was it, and this was … real? But that didn’t make the parts that were erased fake, did it?

God.

“You don’t look okay.” Nathan’s voice stirs Warren from his mind, and Warren kneads a knuckle into his eye to try and mask the fact he was lapsing into his periodic existential crises.

“Sorry,” Warren mutters. “Tired. Nightmares fuck me up, but I really am okay. I swear.”

Nathan leans back from where he’d been looming over Warren, still unconvinced. “Was it the storm?”

Warren nods, seeing no reason to beat around that bush. What else would it have been? Nathan’s frown deepens, but he doesn’t say anything. He stands up from where he’d been kneeling beside the couch and vanishes from Warren’s view. Instead of watching him, Warren digs around for his phone to find the time.

Nine. He’d slept about six hours? That sounded right. Max had also continued texting him, but he’d get around to answering those later, since she was probably asleep herself after a night of awesome Vampire goodness. Warren hadn’t even stayed conscious enough to finish the movie. He drops his phone onto his chest with a sigh and throws his arm over his eyes.

“Are you going back to sleep?” Nathan asks. Warren shifts his arm to find him looking down at him.

“Nah. Never can fall back to sleep after those.”

“You have them a lot?”

“Not anymore.”

This isn’t what Nathan wanted to hear, apparently, because now he looks angry at Warren. “You had them a lot before?”

“Uh,” Warren starts, pulling himself up into a sitting position. “I mean, yeah. Especially right after the loop was broken. I was never sure if I’d wake up and find myself back in it. I think nightmares are a pretty normal reaction to something like that.”

“You never told me.”

Warren just stares at Nathan, who’s looking more upset by the minute. “Um, yeah, because you were busy trying not to go to jail. Nightmares aren’t nearly as important as reality.”

“You should have told me,” Nathan insists.

Now Warren’s starting to get upset. “Why? What could you have done? They’re nightmares, dude, from an incident in my life that I will always question myself about the authenticity of.” He could talk to Max about this, because, even though she didn’t live the loops, she had her time powers, and she was able to help him when he started to question if he hadn’t just lost his marbles for a while there. Nathan, though? That was a different story.

Nathan looks pissed. “I would have wanted to fucking know. I do want to know.”

“Okay, fine, I’ll tell you about that shit, if that’s what you really want. I don’t get why you want to know so badly, though. It’s just extra annoyances on you.”

“Oh, I don’t fucking know, Graham,” Nathan says, “maybe because I’ve spent my whole life dealing with the idea of questioning the legitimacy of things going on in my head? But what do I know about that kind of shit, right? Man, mental illness. What an enigma.”

… That was a good point.

“Oh,” Warren says after a moment. Nathan just glares at him. The silence lapses between them like a thick blanket, and Warren only feels worse the longer it lasts. “I’m sorry,” he says finally. “I really just didn’t want to add onto your problems when you already had hell to deal with.” And he’d known what it was like to have problems at the worst of times. He didn’t wish that on anyone.

Nathan makes a noise, somewhere between annoyance and mocking. “You’ve been my problem since you nearly broke down my door and told me to get my head out of my ass before I ruined my entire life.”

Another good point.

“Doesn’t mean I wanted to keep being one,” Warren asserts.

“Should have asked me before you went and made decisions for me,” Nathan says harshly, and finally Warren starts to catch on. “I don’t do one-sided transactions,” Nathan continues when Warren just looks at him. “If you’re going to help me, I’m going to help you.”

“I don’t help you, though,” Warren says. “Not anymore.”

Nathan gives him a patronizing look. “You’re a moron, Graham,” he says slowly, then, after shaking his head, “Get up. I’m hungry.”

Warren blinks, the sudden halt from the argument jarring. “But—”

“Shut up. Conversation is done. Two Whales, bitch, chop chop.”

Warren has no choice but to get up from the couch and follow Nathan’s demands, because each time he tries to do otherwise, Nathan shuts him down. He doesn’t even let Warren get a word in edgewise until he’s back in his own room and Nathan’s barging in, fully dressed in warm clothes, before Warren even has his shirt on.

“How do you do that so fast?” Warren exclaims, yanking his sweatshirt of choice for the day over his head.

“Efficiency,” Nathan responds as he opens Warren’s Under the Dome copy that he’d been reading yesterday and replaces the photo he’d used as a bookmark with a sticky-note taken from Warren’s desk. Warren just catches sight of it before Nathan shoves it in his pocket—it was a photo Max had taken of Warren while he was in a fierce session of WoW, the one where he’s gnawing on his lip and only illuminated by the glow of his computer. He had been too in-the-zone to notice her taking it, and she had claimed that’s why she took it.

Warren’s phone going off distracts him from his thoughts, and he forgets about the picture completely as he goes to see who it is.

“Max and Chloe are going to the diner,” Warren announces, and Nathan scowls.

“You have got to be fucking with me. Can I go anywhere without running into the Dyke Duo?”

“Nathan,” Warren warns, but Nathan only rolls his eyes.

“Not going to call them that to their face,” he declares, like he’s giving in to Warren’s demands. “Today,” he mutters, then turns to grab the door handle.

“I heard that!” Warren calls, but Nathan’s already out the door.

#Life is Strange #Warren is Strange #Warren Graham #Nathan Prescott #Drabble

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shenanigumi · 7 years

Text

So I finished Kyoto Winds…

Here’s the comprehensive review I promised!! Keep in mind that I haven’t always paid the closest attention (as my first priority eventually shifted to managing the walkthroughs, since I can replay them anytime), but I’ll do my best to be accurate.

As usual, I’m biased as hell so you’ll want to take a lot of this with a grain of salt, but here we go, with the longest post ever…

Overall

On the gameplay – having been expecting to get to choose the route at the beginning, the fact that I had to navigate all the options and pick accordingly was a surprise, but not an unwelcome one. I’ve always been a fan of choice-based gameplay, so really, the only sticking point I hit was Souma’s route. As you may have noticed, I had a bit of trouble figuring out which system of choices was required for me to get to his second appearance. Other than that, everything turned out fine, although the sheer number of options was a little bit overwhelming at first. | 4/5

On the art – fantastic, as always, although there are a couple CGs that look a little funny to me (for instance, I don’t think Kazama’s Ikeda CG looks much like him). I am admittedly also not a fan of the costume recolors in most cases, but it’s not like it gets in the way of my enjoying the game. Additionally, Demons’ Bond also seems to have influenced the Yase backgrounds. We all know how I feel about Demons’ Bond as it relates to Hakuōki, so I’m not too enthusiastic about the parallels, but that’s an entirely different story. | 5/5 – odd-looking CGs and a palette swap I don’t particularly like aren’t enough to knock a point off

On the translation – …ouch. Noticed a huge amount more typos, clumsily written phrases (like using ‘gruff’ to describe someone’s hands), faulty formatting, incorrect dialogue tags, out-of-place swearing (particularly concerning the word ‘bitch’), and plain OOC dialogue (especially from Amagiri) compared to the original. I also hear that Iba’s dialogue wasn’t well-handled either, and it makes me wonder about the accuracy of the ‘new’ lines as well. I don’t have a lot of faith in this one, so I’m going to say the original translation was definitely, and markedly, better. In part because it distinguished between “the Demon” (Hijikata) and “the demon” (Kazama) instead of inexplicably capitalizing the common noun ‘demon’ so it’s possible to confuse the two. Or ‘fury’, for that matter. Yeah, that just makes no sense to me. | 2/5

On the soundtrack – a few tracks are good, and most unremarkable, but on the whole I’d rank it roughly equivalent with the original. I am also a fan of the soundfont; electric acoustic is my jam. I’m also getting a distinctly Demons’ Bond vibe from a lot of them, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does tend to melt into the background so that I can’t really tell the difference between several tracks at first listen. Not that it’s a big deal, but the original stood out a little more to me, I guess. | 3/5

Now, onto the routes! Please note that though the ratings I give the new routes are based exclusively on this game, the ratings I give the six old routes are in comparison to the same routes in the original game, with 1/5 being much worse; 3/5 being about the same; and 5/5 being much better.

Hijikata’s Route

Hijikata’s the same Demon Commander we all know and love, only his relationship and dynamic with Chizuru are fleshed out a little more. Chizuru’s role as his page is given a little more of a spotlight, as is her exact role as his page, and her place in the Shinsengumi as a whole feels a little more solid because of that development. Since the game ends before they reach Edo, they’re not exactly a couple, but since his Memories of Love are included, we see Hijikata’s feelings as well. Overall, this route strikes a good balance, and a believable platform for eventual romance. Which, of course, is ideal on any Implied Canon route. (I was Not Ok with Yamazaki’s death and burial at sea, though. Like… my heart.) | 4/5

Okita’s Route

Okita hasn’t changed a bit, but the reasoning behind his actions is made a little clearer, and his brotherly adoration for Kondou is also stressed a little more. As a character, he feels a little more complete, and I was able to understand his actions a little better without having to guess at his motives (for instance, he repeatedly asserts that he doesn’t like it when other people make inferences about how he or Kondou feels). Because of that, his dynamic with Chizuru also got a little more development, and although the game ends before they’re involved, I can already see the basis for their relationship in the sequel. While OkiChi admittedly felt a little bit sudden in the original, this half-route did a good job of slowing down and zooming in so we can see the shift a little more. Or at least, I could. Maybe it was because I was looking for it. | 4/5

Saito’s Route

THIS IS WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT. This? Right here? Perfect improvement over the original route, adding to all the right places without taking anything away. It includes just enough extra background on Saito and Chizuru and how the two of them interact to make the ship believable. Their relationship is made softer without pulling either of them out of character, and the extent of their compatibility explored. Saito offers just enough reassurance, and Chizuru is just conscious enough of her place in the relationship and in the Shinsengumi, that their development reads as very natural. Excellent. Not much else to say, just like Saito. | 5/5

Heisuke’s Route

Hoo boy. Not a lot of new content and no new CGs, but it’s not like you can do much to improve on Heisuke’s route, anyway, since it was hands down the best in the original. The few things they did add fit in well with the original flow, nothing felt out-of-place, and I was actually enjoying myself quite a bit thanks to all that wonderful HeiChi… until Sen intervened in the conflict between Kazama and Heisuke. Rather than offer herself as the mother of Kazama’s children to spare Chizuru, like in the original, she instead threatens to banish him and his entire clan for interfering with the affairs of humans. However, quite generously, she offers him amnesty if he agrees to leave Heisuke and Chizuru alone. I was… angry. Still am, in fact.

But it’s not just because I ship KazaSen; really, it’s not. It’s because altering that scene threatens the integrity of the entire plot, when you consider that Kazama will eventually join Heisuke and Chizuru in rescuing Sen. Furthermore, her authority to banish an entire clan of demons is never explained, and her threat makes no sense anyway, considering that Yase has literally worked directly for the imperial court for centuries, so she has no business telling Kazama to stand down for allying with the Satsuma. Basically, retconning that scene makes no sense, and plotholes of that magnitude have never sat well with me. I had a bitter taste in my mouth for the rest of the route, which thankfully didn’t last much longer. | 3/5 – the adorableness of HeiChi barely manages to even out the fact that my faith in the plot has been materially damaged

Harada’s Route

Yes. Good. Wonderful development between the two of them, and although there aren’t too many additions until the route split, their relationship is more firmly established—and earlier on—which makes me a little bit more okay with the more mature direction their relationship is headed. Moreover, Harada’s reassurance that Chizuru is just a normal girl and not a monster was sorely needed in the original, and I’m relieved to see that kind of closure here. Otherwise, it was largely unremarkable (in a good way), other than the fact that Shiranui talks a bit more about Takasugi. Which, by the way, was awesome; I still consider TakaShira canon until proven otherwise. | 4/5

Nagakura’s Route

Definitely sweet and enjoyable! I played this one first, so I didn’t actually get all his scenes till I focused on the walkthrough, but there were so many d’aww moments, I lost count. Honestly, they really amped up the sweetness between the two of them (including modifying some of his In Days Past to be a little more romantic), and that kind of mutual innocence is really refreshing since Nagakura’s so… ya know… suggestive. But something feels like it’s missing, and I can’t quite put my finger on it. I think it might be Toba-Fushimi, honestly; I was fine up till then, but the last couple chapters feel kind of rushed in a way I can’t explain. Still a good route, though! | 4/5

Sanan’s Route

I… really don’t have a lot of feelings about this one. I wasn’t really expecting to, considering Sanan is my least favorite, but I expected my lack of feelings to be related more to that than the fact that there’s really not much to say about it. Like, there are still a lot of inconsistencies in his personality since so many of the scenes early on are accessible on all routes, and I can’t really get a solid grasp on who he is or what his relationship is to Chizuru. The best thing I can say about his route—other than that Kaoru makes an appearance—is that Chizuru’s feelings are at least clear. | 3/5

Yamazaki’s Route

He may not appear much in the beginning, but once he starts showing up a little more often, it’s priceless. Although the relationship doesn’t have a lot of time to develop, for some reason, it doesn’t feel rushed or incomplete. Somehow, they managed to devise a pairing that doesn’t need a lot of development to be believable; they’re simply naturally suited to one another from the beginning. The dialogue and narrative can get a little saccharine at times, but I was honestly eating it up. Especially when he was holding her hand. Who’d have thought that Yamazaki, of all people, gets the closest to becoming half of a legit couple with Chizuru within the span of the first game alone? | 5/5

Iba’s Route

I… ugh… just please get him away from me. As I’ve said, you’d have to work really hard to find someone with whom I’m less personally compatible, and because I already find it difficult to put myself in Chizuru’s tabi, I could not for the life of me get into his route at all. The man’s as Mary a Sue as you’ll find anywhere. The Long-Lost, Somehow-Forgotten Childhood Friend of Chizuru, whom she miraculously remembers throughout his route, Iba is Gallant and Pacifistic and Really Nice All the Time. In fact, he Can Do No Wrong, is Inhumanly Selfless, and wants nothing more than Chizuru’s safety and happiness at any given time. He’s also On Really Good/Personal Terms with All the Captains because he also used to frequent Shiei Hall for undisclosed reasons (other than being the son of a dojo master himself—oh yeah, and he’s a master at his style of swordplay, by the way, although he’s never killed anyone because of his Incorruptible Pure Pureness).

So basically, the dude’s already wormed his way into everyone’s hearts long before the route even starts, and that just strikes me as unfair. Basically, the route relies on their pasts to create chemistry and the foundation for a ‘believable’ relationship, instead of showing how they’re suited to one another in the present. Honestly, he creeps me out more than a little. Of course, independently of his character, the plot itself is fine—if a little bland at times. I don’t exactly appreciate the reused/paralleled backgrounds from Demons’ Bond, or the random demons’ arms that just kinda come out of nowhere and don’t seem to have an apparent purpose beyond being attached to Takeda and Iba (why are they even in Yase? how come they weren’t destroyed? what the fuck?), but those are personal grudges. Anyway, yeah, definitely not my favorite. | 2/5

Souma’s Route

After the amount of heartache I had trying to get his route, I remember swearing that he’d better be the best ever. I wasn’t particularly disappointed. Souma’s like… Heisuke’s mirror image, in a way. Both are awkward oblivious sweethearts, but Heisuke’s more fun-loving, while Souma is serious to a fault. In the same way I love Heisuke and HeiChi’s dynamic, Souma and SouChi strike me as very similar. They support one another, learning and growing together, throughout the route. It’s really refreshing to see Chizuru in a different ‘kind’ of relationship, too, considering that she’s Souma’s ‘senpai’ (well, his mentor in being a page) as opposed to being one of the captains’ inferiors. There are also quite a few backstory moments in this route, which I appreciated, although a few of them read as a little bit contrived; I’d have preferred they spread it out a bit. Also, Fuck-and-Run Miki makes a great antagonist, and I’m pleased to see more of him—although I was a bit disappointed to find Kazama once again assuming the same basic role as he does in Saito’s route. Like, can we have more Heisuke’s-route-esque ‘reluctant rivalrous allies’ banter? | 4/5

Sakamoto’s Route

Okay, so… I kinda love this guy, and it’s not all because he resembles Shiranui. He’s an interesting character, and it’s nice to have a route with someone who isn’t affiliated with the Shinsengumi but isn’t also trying to kidnap Chizuru. The thing is, although I wouldn’t say the ship feels forced, Sakamoto moves really fast, like probably faster than Harada fast, considering he’s technically got the first chronological kiss CG—just not on the lips. It’s also a little less clear how, when, and why Chizuru becomes interested in him. It might just be the fact that I like the character enough to let it slide, but I didn’t have any trouble suspending disbelief long enough to squeal at their cute moments. Even though I wouldn’t say it was an incredible route, it was honestly really interesting, because it follows a completely different path than I was used to, departing from the usual set of choices. (Also, any route with more Shiranui is fine by me. I’m a shallow girl with obvious motives; so sue me.) | 4/5

Kazama’s Route

Better than the original for sure, but that’s not exactly saying much. I do like that there are actual options for raising Kazama’s affection prior to the split, because it makes the entire concept of him having a route make much more sense. I can’t say that Chizuru’s reasoning in choosing to follow him specifically makes any more sense than it did before, especially considering that she could easily have chosen to accompany someone else (I’d have chosen Shiranui, to no one’s surprise). Speaking of which, I’m also not entirely sure how I feel about Sen taking them both to Yase without the slightest suspicion about Kazama’s prior intention to abduct her, or the fact that she doesn’t instruct Amagiri to chaperone, but I can live with it because it looks like there’ll be some semblance of an actual plot this time. Meaning that Kaoru and Kodo are in league to resurrect the Yukimura clan through furies, and Kazama and Chizuru are out to stop them. Considering that Kodo’s death felt like an afterthought in Kazama’s original route, I’m all for this change. I still don’t ship KazaChi in the slightest, though. I just… can’t. | 3/5

Final Assessment

Average Meta Score (art, OST, etc.): 3.5 / 5 Average Route Score: 3.75 / 5 Verdict: Pretty Damn Good Overall [Shenanigumi Approved – Except KazaSen’s De-Canonization]

From disappointment to elation, I’ve felt it all across the board, and shed more than a few tears at varying points (and this is before I even explore the bad endings). If you don’t have this game and you’re waiting to see whether you feel like getting it or not, I don’t have any advice for you. Whether or not it’s worth it to get the game or even the system is up to you, but I hope that was enlightening!

#shenanigumi plays #shinkai #shinkai spoilers #characterization essay

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instantdeerlover · 4 years

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The Exhausting Work of Staycationing added to Google Docs

The Exhausting Work of Staycationing

When leaving the house is impossible, cocktails, caftans, and karaoke are all the vacation you need

I did thousand-piece puzzles and re-watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy and read books and stared into space.

We decided to pull a new tarot card each morning.

It was Marne’s idea to pitch a staycation. It’s a hateable word, as overused and near-meaningless as “self-care.”

“Vacation-style eating” included lobster rolls with a side of hound. The Death Card on day 1 signaled a time of transition.

Cheap flip flops and pool lounging (here, by Marne) are part of the normal summer excess.

We hardly noticed the strange smell that was developing in the backyard.

Marne made biscuits for Sunday brunch.

Watching Twister in the backyard

The setup was practically nothing: a cheap pool ordered from overseas, barely cool hose water, a postage-stamp-sized city backyard.

via Eater - All https://www.eater.com/21347041/summer-2020-staycation-carmen-machado

Created August 19, 2020 at 09:26PM /huong sen View Google Doc Nhà hàng Hương Sen chuyên buffet hải sản cao cấp✅ Tổ chức tiệc cưới✅ Hội nghị, hội thảo✅ Tiệc lưu động✅ Sự kiện mang tầm cỡ quốc gia 52 Phố Miếu Đầm, Mễ Trì, Nam Từ Liêm, Hà Nội http://huongsen.vn/ 0904988999 http://huongsen.vn/to-chuc-tiec-hoi-nghi/ https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xa6sRugRZk4MDSyctcqusGYBv1lXYkrF

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tanya-ali · 7 years

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Interview: Kate Miller-Heidke

In a way, 2014 has seen Australian singer-songwriter Kate Miller-Heidke come full circle. Her first two EPs, Telegram (2004) and Comikaze (2005) were independent – as most first releases are – but it wasn’t long before she got snapped up by Sony Music, releasing three distinctly different albums on the major label over seven years. Now, she’s an independent artist once more – albeit with a decade of experience under her belt – and her highly anticipated upcoming record O Vertigo! is set to be one of the most impressive releases of the year. It’s a different experience for Kate, and an exciting one at that. As release day creeps up, Kate feels understandably “good”, but at the same time “it feels a little bit like jumping off a cliff”, though she’s found herself “so busy that I haven’t really had a chance to dwell on it too much”.

Sony Music has been replaced as the main supporter of Kate’s work by an army of enthusiastic fans. Kate’s crowd-funding campaign through online platform Pledge Music was an undeniable success, and it’s not hard to see why. Each time I’ve seen her interact with fans after shows, I’ve been floored by her sincerity, and it only takes a quick glance at her Twitter page to see that she often engages with fans over social media. “It’s something that I always make an effort to do… I think it really makes sense. Not just because I’m a ‘niche’ artist, who can’t rely on commercial radio or any of that sort of thing, but also because I like it and I get energy back from it. It’s amazing getting to hear people’s stories about the music: it’s… I hate the word ‘humbling’, but if I used that word then I would use it there!”

The Pledge campaign involved a range of rewards from the usual (CDs, t-shirts, concert tickets) to some that lead to a “really unprecedented level of band interaction”, such as the opportunity for fans to receive a phone call from Kate wishing them happy birthday (“so, so joyful and fun to do”), or even have her play an intimate concert at their house. “I’ve just done two (house concerts), we’ve got another one next week – I think that I put up five in total – and yeah, they’re amazing. Kind of scary in a way, because I think the audience number is capped at 40, and when there’re only 40 people in a room, you’ve got time to see the whites of everyone’s eyes… It can be terrifying! And also, you know, the pressure for the person who bought the gig to like it. But – I don’t know, so far they’ve all been really lovely people.”

Having seen Kate play live a number of times, I don’t think anyone could be disappointed. “Yeah, I hope not. It would be very awkward if they complained,” she jokes, and despite the impossibility of the hypothetical, I can’t help but agree.

Although O Vertigo! is Kate’s first independent full-length album, the recording process for the album surprisingly wasn’t particularly different from her previous experiences. “I think actually, due to the unexpected and overwhelming success of the Pledge campaign, the process for recording this album has been very similar to what it was for any of the other ones. Because it went so well, I basically ended up with the same budget as I ever had on a major label. So that aspect of it was quite familiar, I mean I had the luxury of seven weeks in a studio which I think is a long time for an independent artist, so I didn’t skimp on anything.”

This record is also independent in another sense. Last year, at a People of Letters event during the annual Sydney Writers’ Festival, Kate and her husband and long-time collaborator, Keir Nuttall, presented heartbreakingly honest and moving letters delving into their working and romantic relationship. In Kate’s letter, she spoke about how the early stages of writing for this album saw her begin to move away from co-writing with Keir. By the end of the major tour they did for Nightflight, Kate’s third record, it was clear something had to change. “Keir and I had sent each other, like, insane. We were working too intensely together for too long I think, and both of us knew we needed something different. So I decided to write the bulk of this record entirely by myself. A lot of it out of the house, ‘cause we have this tiny apartment – that was part of the problem, we could always hear each other – so this time I spent a lot of time walking, singing into my iPhone like a crazy person in public.”

On Kate’s previous records, it had been “sort of like a 50-50 split” between her and Keir, and “Keir co-produced everything”. This time, Kate was the co-producer, and while Keir “still wrote some things but it was more like an 80-20 kind of delineation. I mean, he didn’t play guitar on everything either, he played it on a few things.”

This shift has led to Kate feeling differently about the songs on O Vertigo! in a couple of ways. “I had a lot more… obviously I’ve always had ownership of everything I’ve done, but this time there was a bit more creative responsibility I guess – no one else to defer to, or say, ‘What do you think about this?’ In some ways, it’s more like I’m on the line. But in other ways, I don’t know, I feel more confident than I ever have before so I kind of don’t give a shit. I do think it’s some of the best work I’ve ever done, and that’s all I can do, you know?”

There’s no doubt that O Vertigo! is a stunning, accomplished record. One thing that strikes me about it is the diversity of the tracks, something that has been apparent on all of Kate’s previous albums, but is more pronounced this time around. Songs like ‘Drama’, featuring hip-hop extraordinaire Drapht, starkly contrast with serene, aptly-named closer ‘Bliss’. I certainly can’t choose a favourite just yet – can Kate? “Well, I like them all, now… But I think I really like ‘Yours Was The Body’. I really like playing that song live too.” I saw Kate perform ‘Yours Was The Body’ live on the Sydney leg of her Heavenly Sounds tour last year, and it was, for me, the stand-out among the new tracks she played that night. The song is instantly memorable despite being so understated – “it almost feels like it’s already been written before”, simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar.

Another thing that’s noticeable on O Vertigo! is its lack of cryptic lyrics – this is the result of a deliberate effort on Kate’s part to cut down on the metaphors in her writing. This direct approach is interesting, and rare – so often, songwriters strive to do the exact opposite. “I think I was really getting off on some early 90s power ballads, and just the directness – I wanted a direct vulnerability to come through on this record, and I wanted it to be immediate. Nightflight was very thickly veiled in metaphor and it was very subtle, and very complex I think in a lot of ways – songs like ‘Devil Wears a Suit’ and ‘Humiliation’… This time I just, I think there’s a power that comes from being vulnerable, just laying it out on the table, and that idea was floating my boat, so that’s what I did.”

There are definitely early 90s vibes coming through on this record, in the best possible way, and Kate cites artists such as American singer-songwriter Martika as a major influence. “’Love… Thy Will Be Done’ was a song that I would kind of hold up as a template. I was also listening to new versions of that same theme, like the new Tegan and Sara record – well, not that new anymore – Heartthrob a lot. And sort of arty pop like Kishi Bashi, Kathleen Edwards made a beautiful record I listened to lots. I listened to lots of Yma Sumac, who’s a wacko Peruvian opera singer. Just the way she uses her voice is crazy and amazing, distinctive…”

Kate was listening to and drawing inspiration from “a fair bit of opera as well” – but she certainly hasn’t always been able to appreciate the art form. “It’s funny, but I never really learnt to like opera until a couple of years ago. My voice suited it and I thought some aspects of it were beautiful, but it’s only in the last couple of years that I’ve really listened to it for pleasure, at home.” This could have something to do with her role as the British dancing girl in the English National Opera’s production of The Death of Klinghoffer in 2012, a role she’s reprising with the Metropolitan Opera in New York this year. “I think it was a direct result of that. The people that were in that cast kind of pointed me towards some great recordings. I think just being a part of such a world class production was very inspiring.”

It’s common knowledge that Kate studied opera at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, but her passion for music began a long time before the prospect of pursuing it through tertiary education was even on her radar. “I always loved it, I was obsessed with it. I used to come home from school and put on my mum’s records every day, and talk about music and sing incessantly to the point of driving everyone around me crazy. I don’t know, I just loved the sound of my own voice!” Although it’s hard to imagine Kate’s voice could ever have been less than impressive, she is ever-modest, saying she just sang “so much that eventually I sort of got good at it.”

It wasn’t opera that first grabbed her interest performance-wise – it was musical theatre. “When I was a kid I fantasised about being Cosette in Les Miserables - for about two years I just walked around singing ‘Castle on a Cloud’.” And this dream almost became a reality, as Kate “nearly made it in the auditions too when it came to Brisbane, but I got dumped at the last two: they told me I was over-acting,” she laughs. “So I missed out!”

Needless to say, musical theatre is one of Kate’s all-time influences. “Particularly from the 50s and 60s – things like West Side Story. In fact, all of Stephen Sondheim’s musicals.” Another is Joni Mitchell, who had a major impact on Kate’s songwriting from a young age. “She’d be the other (all-time influence). That’s kind of how I learnt songwriting… or tried to!”

Last year at Sydney Writers’ Festival, I noticed that Kate was set to speak at a number of events – including the aforementioned People of Letters. I caught many of the events she was involved with, and while most of them had a clear focus on songwriting, it was eye-opening seeing her speak about her art and thoughts in a setting other than an interview. While she seemed comfortable having the focus shifted from singing to talking in the discussions I saw her participate in, she doesn’t always enjoy it. “Look, I think it depends. Sometimes I feel like I don’t know why I’m being called upon to speak so much – I don’t feel qualified, you know? And I feel like it’s not my area of expertise. And I’ve certainly fucked it up, like going on (ABC’s) Q&A the second time, you know… I should have just stuck to being a bloody musician!” But events like People of Letters and Women of Letters are exceptions: “those are kindred spirits and the emphasis is still on the art – the art of letter writing. It’s when I’m called upon to speak about subjects that aren’t art, is where it’s dangerous.”

Kate’s mention of that infamous episode of Q&A rekindles the frustration I felt when watching it live. How did it make any sense putting a musician on the panel of a budget special, and expecting them to make a meaningful contribution? In Kate’s blog post about it, wittily titled ‘A Fish Called Qanda: Spewin’, Hey’, she explained the show’s producers had assured her that there would be a question to her about singing, and another about bullying on reality TV shows, and though she “was hoping to talk about marriage equality and refugees, those weren’t on the agenda… Still, I felt fine talking about singing and reality TV bullying”. However, “As anyone who saw it knows, we didn’t move on and the entire show was about Labor and unions and budgets and interest rates”. Personally, I found it so frustrating that a moderated panel show like Q&A allowed the situation to arise in the first place.

When I have heard Kate speak about current affairs in the past, it’s obvious she has so much to say that is valid and so important, but on this episode of Q&A they never gave her a chance, and in the process effectively discouraged other musicians and artists from going on the show or attempting to have a say. “I try not to actually speak about it because it just… like, rips out the stitches,” Kate says, half-jokingly. Though she mentioned she doesn’t feel “qualified” to speak about issues other than music, I see losing intelligent, passionate and articulate voices like hers as a loss for the wider Australian community.

The most recent Australian tour Kate embarked on was last year’s Heavenly Sounds tour, which saw her and Keir play intimate, acoustic shows in churches and cathedrals across the country. “It was lovely, it was fantastic. I’m a fan of that whole umbrella of concerts – and yeah, getting to sing in some of the most beautiful architectural places in Australia was amazing!” The recent tour led to an increased awareness “of how important the physical dimensions of the theatre, or the church or whatever are, how much of an impact that actually has on the experience of the audience. It’s huge, and actually I read about it in David Byrne’s book, ‘How Music Works’. He was saying how absolutely crucial it is – maybe even as important as the music is – just how the room’s laid out, because audience members have all these different senses that can be stimulated in all sorts of different ways.”

Kate’s played at a lot of the venues she’s visiting on her O Vertigo! tour before, such as Brisbane’s The Tivoli, The Athenaeum Theatre in Melbourne and The Quarry in Perth, and they all “have a special sort of ambience” that is bound to positively affect her upcoming shows. These shows will see the live debuts of “a bunch of brand new songs that no-one’s heard yet” and the support slot will be filled by one of Kate’s “favourite Australian bands, Sweet Jean – I would recommend not missing them!”

On the O Vertigo! tour, Kate will be accompanied by Keir and John Rodgers, “this crazy musical genius from Brisbane, he’s a multi-instrumentalist: he plays violin like you’ve never heard before, and also piano and guitar, and a bunch of stuff”. Punters can look forward to hearing “great, delicate arrangements” of songs from the new record, “and possibly a new cover!”. There will also be, of course, some ventures into Kate’s fairly extensive back-catalogue – ultimately, an “emphasis on the new stuff, but really a mixture”.

At one point during our chat, I hear a male voice on the other end of the line. Kate sounds distracted for a moment, and is then quick to apologise that Keir just walked into her room – and it's at that moment I realise that what’s most loveable about Kate is how genuine she is. The added freedom of being independent has given her a level of comfort that’s clearly contributed to her renewed sense of confidence in her work, and it’s as much of an absolute pleasure speaking with her as it is listening to her music or seeing her perform. Kate probably wouldn’t be sold on the idea of taking the world by storm – but armed with a strong sense of identity, an excellent sense of humour, and the stellar body of work that is O Vertigo!, she just might find herself doing it anyway.

Originally published March 13, 2014 for the AU review: http://www.theaureview.com/interviews/kate-miller-heidke-melbourne

#writing

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easyfoodnetwork · 4 years

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When leaving the house is impossible, cocktails, caftans, and karaoke are all the vacation you need Carmen Maria Machado is the author of the bestselling memoir In the Dream House and the short-story collection Her Body and Other Parties, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. She’s writing from the Philadelphia home in which she’s sheltered and convalesced since March. Two weeks before the city of Philadelphia went into lockdown, I was in an airport in Ixtapa, Mexico, staring at a travel advisory about the coronavirus. It was early enough that the sign was asking if you’d recently traveled to China or Italy; early enough that it was small and had come off a laser printer and was taped near our airline’s check-in desk. We’d spent the week at a resort on the Pacific coast with a fellow writer couple, taking our first real vacation — our first travel experience without a restrictive budget or attached work or other obligations — in our adult lives. There’d been a break in my book tour schedule, and I took it. I wanted to read, eat seafood, see the ocean, and swim in an infinity pool, and I’d done all of those things. I even had the patchy mix of a tan and sunburn to prove it. I did thousand-piece puzzles and re-watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy and read books and stared into space. I’m a speculative writer and a hypochondriac. I’ve written stories about pandemics; imagined their slow and terrible creep, the way they stifle and challenge. Still, back in February we had not been to China or Italy. We flew home. We hugged our friends goodbye and declared the vacation a success. Let’s do it again next year, we said. When we unpacked, everything in our suitcases smelled like vacation: sunblock, salt, chlorine. I inhaled every piece of clothing before I put it in the hamper. You know what happened next, of course. Coronavirus crested and broke on our shores and we, Americans — leaderless, stubborn, foolhardy to the end — were uniquely unsuited for thriving or survival. The welcome pause in my travel schedule turned into a monthslong quarantine that has not yet abated. My wife, Val, began to work from home. I did thousand-piece puzzles and re-watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy and read books and stared into space. I talked on the phone with my girlfriend, Marne, who was quarantined with their aunt and uncle on Long Island; I read out loud to them from Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, a few pages at a time. Our ancient beagle mix, Rosie, went from overjoyed with our presence to vaguely neurotic, shadowing us everywhere we went, unable to be left alone for even a moment. Still, we were luckier than most. We were safe, able to do our work from home. Plus, our house had enough space that we didn’t want to murder each other. We decided to pull a new tarot card each morning. A couple of months into lockdown, I was approved for some long-awaited ankle surgery. A few weeks later, a post-op complication with the incision felled me. My doctor put me on hardcore antibiotics that kept me awake for days and made me manic. (“Maybe I can sleep like this,” I’d apparently insisted to my horrified wife, twisted into a bizarre pretzel on our living room couch; I have no memory of the incident.) I was also prescribed a wound-vac, which turned out to be a medical fetish object that relieved pressure on the incision through a gentle sucking organ; the experience is not entirely unlike being seduced by an octopus. I made jokes about “fresh, organic Carmen juice” and watched liquid move through the tube and listened to the creature’s gentle burbling when everything was quiet. A few weeks later, I was given a skin graft that had been grown in a pig’s bladder. It was thin as tissue paper. My doctor told me I still couldn’t bear weight on that foot, and I had to continue to use my mobility scooter to get around. I left the appointment in a terrible mood, blasting System of a Down at full volume. It was Marne’s idea to pitch a staycation. It’s a hateable word, as overused and near-meaningless as “self-care.” As my infirmity stretched on and on, my girlfriend decided to temporarily move in with me and my wife to help out. “I guess it’s like Big Love over there?” their aunt asked. It was certainly specific enough of a scenario to be prestige TV: polyamorous writer dykes and their internet-famous geriatric hound riding out a pandemic and a climate-change-worsened heat wave in a rambling Philadelphia Victorian. This was how Eater found me: Did I want to go camping and write about it? asked a very nice editor. Did I want to do a road trip? Maybe stay at a cabin in the woods? It’s the new American vacation; socially isolated, iconic. We were tempted. We spent time scrolling through listings for beach houses and lake houses, but the necessary elements — within a reasonable driving distance, dog-friendly, scooter-accessible, on a body of water, and affordable — seemed impossible. “Vacation-style eating” included lobster rolls with a side of hound. The Death Card on day 1 signaled a time of transition. It was Marne’s idea to pitch a staycation. It’s a hateable word, as overused and near-meaningless as “self-care.” And it has a distinctly American flair to it: our inability to take actual breaks, the way we accept lack of real vacation the way, say, Europeans never would. And how does one create a true staycation? That is, a vacation from home that feels genuinely relaxing and separate from the everyday grind, not just an excuse to binge seven seasons of The Great British Bake Off? Val and I had our recent perfect vacation as a kind of platonic ideal. I loved the understated luxury of the experience: I swanned around in caftans and bathing suits, swam, ate well and always al fresco, read a ton, was good about staying off the internet, and was generally oblivious to the apocalypse inching towards us (that is, mostly stayed off Twitter and turned off New York Times news alerts). This both translated easily to a staycation — outfits, reading, and staying off the internet were well within my grasp — and not at all. We don’t have a pool. We’d have to cook ourselves. The outdoors are full of mosquitos, and getting to them required me to climb down flights of stairs with one functioning leg. Val, on the other hand, had primarily enjoyed our trip’s lack of responsibilities: no cooking meals, no walking the dog. Her staycation version of this was doing everything she wanted — puttering around in the backyard, harvesting produce from her plot in the community garden — and nothing she didn’t. Marne had different ideas: They wanted to make something. Their idea of a vacation was buying a new cookbook and trying a bunch of different recipes. Everyone agreed on one thing: We wanted to be able to swim, or something akin to it. I ordered a self-inflating adult-sized kiddie pool from the internet. An ice cream maker, too, and David Lebowitz’s The Perfect Scoop (recommended by Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen) and a portable projector to have a drive-in movie experience in the backyard. (My idea; as a child, drive-ins were one of my favorite parts of summer.) We agreed on a set of principles: to stay off social media as much as possible; eat frequently and well; do our own personal activities that we enjoyed and come together when we wanted to. We would share the cooking, make one night a takeout night, and have brunch on Sunday. And we decided to pull a single tarot card each morning, as a way of bringing ourselves into the day. Val is a long-time tarot enthusiast; I am generally suspicious of woo-woo but find tarot to be a pleasing intersection of art and the language of the subconscious. And of us love the act of ritual. So yes, we said. Tarot it would be. Cheap flip flops and pool lounging (here, by Marne) are part of the normal summer excess. On day one, Marne pulled the death card, of course. The deck is the Carnival at the End of the World, and the death card is a scythe-bearing skeleton on a dead horse upon a hill of decapitated heads. Marne barked with laughter and then, slightly freaked out, left the room to collect themselves. Val had to explain that, unlike in the movies, a death card was rarely bad. It was powerful but positive. It was about transitions, changes. Exactly the sort of card you’d expect to kick off a move from the harried hours of real life to a true break. But we weren’t ready, not yet. The house was a mess, something I knew would impede me from enjoying vacation fully. We’d ordered a new bed frame a few weeks before that should have been assembled, but it was missing a necessary piece; said piece had only shown up the day before. So the bed needed assembling, too. Oh, and there was dog hair everywhere: lining the couch cushions, floating like tumbleweeds across the hardwood. I realized that this was the piece of vacation I missed the most: arriving in a new, clean space with your responsibilities wiped clean. Not having to fuss about details because someone else has fussed about them for you. But that sort of vacation has evaporated into the ether, so we agreed to just power through a final act of cleaning and organizing and assembling, and have our vacation start at happy hour. We hardly noticed the strange smell that was developing in the backyard. And it did. At 5 p.m., I made us a batch of cocktails — bastardized Pimm’s cups, complete with cucumber, mint from Val’s garden, and dried orange slices. I put on Taylor Swift’s Folklore, which had dropped the day before. Then we made dinner: corn risotto, whose page in Cook’s Illustrated we’d dogeared and been salivating over for days; seared scallops; and fried artichokes. We got slightly tipsy and marveled at the recipe’s fussiness: pureeing corn cob milk with fresh kernels and then squeezing the liquid out of the resulting pulp. Val shucked, Marne made the rice. I hyper-focused on my task, pressing the mixture down with the back of a spoon, staring at the measuring cup. It was the first time in a month that we’d all cooked together, and the process felt light and almost labor-less. The jumbo scallops sizzled and browned and looked restaurant-elegant; the artichokes seared beautifully. It was as fine a summer meal as I’d ever eaten. We sat at the dining room table with the windows open; replaced the fading sunset with the light from an overhead fixture. After the food was gone, we moved from subject to subject. Marne maintained that while the risotto was delicious, corn is best served on the cob. We meditated on the true meaning of the Death card we’d drawn. Was it about using up the week’s leftovers? Finishing assembling the bed? We moved on to the topic of ejaculation (comma, my ex-boyfriends, comma, their ex-girlfriends). After dinner, we watched two episodes of Steven Universe — aptly, the ones that introduce a polyamorous character, the Gem Flourite — and climbed into bed feeling very satisfied with ourselves. Marne made biscuits for Sunday brunch. Saturday morning, we sat in my office and drank coffee and drew the emperor. This deck’s version of the emperor is a eyeless gentleman elephant standing on a mountain of tusks. It is considered a sign of stability and material wealth. It made sense, then, that we remembered to make a batch of milk-chocolate-raspberry ice cream so that it would be ready in the evening. It made sense that a particularly beautiful cream-and-cocoa silk chiffon caftan that I’d ordered a month ago from Jibri arrived in the mail, and I put it on with nothing underneath. It made sense that we ate leftovers — practical! — and then made our way outside, where I read Jennifer Egan’s The Keep beneath a fringed umbrella and Val and Marne blew up the inflatable pool and paddled around, insisting I join them while I demurred. It made sense that we ordered out for dinner, and could not decide between New England-style lobster rolls and bright summer salads (corn, grilled peach, and scallion; watermelon and feta), from Philly summer pop-up Anchor Light, or Lebanese plates and dips (from Suraya: hummus and baba ghanoush and labneh and tabbouleh; charred runner beans and fried cauliflower in hot-mint yogurt and lamb kebabs and crispy batata harra), so we ordered both. We sat and ate and Val and Marne went back in the water and I finished reading as the light bled from the sky. We hardly noticed the strange smell that was developing in the backyard. We went inside and our ice cream was waiting. Watching Twister in the backyard When we woke up on Sunday, I opened the bedroom door (shut to preserve the air conditioning) to a smell like I’d never experienced before. It smelled like a moose had climbed three flights of stairs only to die in our hallway. The odor permeated every floor of the house. I closed the door and went back to bed like a woman with the vapors. Val and Marne ventured to the backyard, where the tiniest tentacles of the smell had begun the night before. Flashlight in hand, Val rooted around under the crawlspace and discovered a decomposing squirrel. It felt like an omen, or maybe a metaphor, or maybe a giant fuck-you from a year that won’t let up. In bed, I began to call wildlife removal services, all of which were closed on Sundays, prohibitively expensive, or too far away. “This doesn’t happen at hotels,” I said, staring at the ceiling. Val smeared vapor-rub under her nostrils like a coroner and crawled under the house to retrieve the squirrel. She bagged it and walked several blocks away to our old apartment building, where she disposed of it in the dumpster. She came back and filled every floor with shallow dishes of white vinegar and baking soda and coffee grounds. She showered. We drew a tarot card. An inverted eight of wands. A wreathed and naked woman upon a pangolin over a scattered pile of sticks, and a cosmic imperative to take a break. The smell faded. We knew we needed to get into the mood for day three. Brunch, we agreed. I pulled together a bloody mary — homemade horseradish vodka, EPIC Pickles bloody mary mix from central Pennsylvania, pickled okra, cornichons, dilly beans, and a strip of bacon — and made a tomato salad with whipped feta. Marne made biscuits, and we ate until we were full. I took a long, hot nap in our sunroom and then went to the living room, where we watched Gourmet Makes videos from Bon Appétit. It was supposed to be outdoor movie night, but we couldn’t do it; we were exhausted. In bed, we watched Birds of Prey projected against the far wall. “I just want to watch women beating up some men,” Marne said, and I could not argue otherwise. The setup was practically nothing: a cheap pool ordered from overseas, barely cool hose water, a postage-stamp-sized city backyard. On Monday, we drew an eight of pentacles: an omen of plenty, represented by a baker and a trio of puffins and a tray of rolls for sharing. We prepped another batch of ice cream, this one my suggestion: roasted banana. While it churned, we took a moment to mourn our last day. Marne and Val were determined to get me into the pool. I hesitated — I couldn’t get my bad ankle wet — but eventually I slipped on my waterproof shower sock and crawled into the water with Marne, then Val, with Marne supporting me like a human chair. I confess that I’d been skeptical of the pool. If lying in an adult-sized inflatable pool was as lovely as getting in an actual pool, everyone would do it, right? When I’d ordered it, I was reminded of my grandfather asking my 6-year-old self if I wanted to go in a “Cuban swimming pool” before dunking me into a large bucket of water. And yet, it is astonishing what water can do. The setup was practically nothing: a cheap pool ordered from overseas, barely cool hose water, a postage-stamp-sized city backyard. But we were in our suits and slathered on sunscreen and it felt, for a few hours, like summer. Not the unique misery of 2020’s summer, but other summers with their normal excess and low stakes and abundance, their cheap flip-flops and pool afternoons and water ice and late sunsets. We stayed there floating, laughing, talking, until the sun went. Dinner was Beyond Burgers — the best of the meatless proteins we’ve tried — with aged cheddar and caramelized onions and avocado and chipotle aioli on toasted buns. We polished them off and they were perfect; the sort of thing you wanted at the end of a summer day. Then we had a sundae bar: homemade hot fudge with bourbon, fried peanuts, homemade whipped cream, and large marshmallows toasted over the flame of our gas stove. This, all over the weekend’s two homemade ice creams; a perfectly decadent end. Outside, it was dark. We flipped on the string lights and set up the projector and screen against the neighbor’s fence. Then, we watched Twister, a perfect summer drive-in-style film about human arrogance in the face of natural disaster. Oh, and the indescribable appeal of Helen Hunt. But mostly the human arrogance thing. Val slipped me popcorn; Marne sat near our feet. A few blocks away, a dead squirrel rotted in a dumpster. We enjoyed our pleasures even as we were trapped by a country that can’t get its act together. We ate and laughed and mourned our lost summer and laughed again. And what’s more American than that? from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2Q7xXiB

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