#its gary holt...

[the-rippers]

[someguywriting]

Gary Holt + Kirk Hammett, plus various others

[kenpiercemedia]

Slayer Adds One Final Date to its Summer Festival Itinerary

Slayer Adds One Final Date to its Summer Festival Itinerary

The Press Release: Last week, Slayer – Tom Araya, Kerry King, Gary Holt, and Paul Bostaph – announced that they plan to return to the concert stage for the first time since they concluded their Final World Tour in November 2019, to headline two summer festivals, Riot Fest and Louder Than Life. Today, the band announces they’ve added one last U.S. 2024 festival date, headlining the Aftershock…

[x--daughters-of-darkness--x]

NERVOSA Announces New Album 'Jailbreak'

Thrash metallers NERVOSA will release their fifth full-length album, "Jailbreak", on September 29 via Napalm Records. This will be the first NERVOSA LP with guitarist and founding member Prika Amaral on vocal duties, and it will showcase the band's new lineup completed by Michaela Naydenova on drums, Hel Pyre on bass and Helena Kotina on guitars.

Following the standalone single "Endless Ambition" with "Seed Of Death", NERVOSA serves up a second taste of what's to come. Starting off with a beautiful, epic intro, "Seed Of Death" features philosophical lyrics that explore questions about the never-ending cycle of life, grabbing an omnipresent issue relevant to all of us.

Amaral on the new single and album: "I'm very happy with the result of this song and our new album. I always wanted to have a song like this but it never happened for different reasons and now we can finally make it happen. Also, we were able to take even more risks and do new things. With two guitars, the doors open to a whole new world of possibilities. In fact NERVOSA had two guitars in the beginning, but then we decided to go with one guitar for logistical reasons, since it would be easier to move with one less person for tours. Now NERVOSA has a much bigger structure that allowed this addition, and we are really enjoying this moment of the band. The process of writing this record was the most fun and brought the most musicality, enriching the band."

Kotina adds: "I think 'Jailbreak' is NERVOSA's most revolutionary record, both musically and lyrically. It was a very challenging process but at the same time very constructive. We were able to take care of every detail until we obtained the best result."

Among its various themes, "Jailbreak" explores messages of breaking free from everyone and everything holding you back from doing exactly what you want to do. It encourages the listener to be proud of who they are, and to trust in themselves and the strength that lies within them. The album kicks off with charging "Endless Ambition", a track previously released in early 2023 that acted as a first harbinger for everything that is about to come on the album. The track immediately showcases the incredibly powerful attitude and talent of Amaral as frontwoman. Raging "Suffocare", which deals with several aspects of toxic relationships, and "Ungrateful" continue on the path of the intense opening track. Relentless title track "Jailbreak" attacks with a thrash metal chorus and roaring guitar solos. As a very special treat, NERVOSA spices up the intense track "When The Truth Is A Lie" with none other than an impressive guest contribution from legendary EXODUS guitarist Gary Holt, while INFECTED RAIN/DEATH DEALER UNION vocalist Lena Scissorhands provides another strong guest feature by lending her voice on "Superstition Failed". "Elements Of Sin" features some of the album's most insane guitar work and thundering vocals, before uncontrollable closing track "Nail The Coffin" seals the 13-track album with a forceful thrash banger.

In true NERVOSA style, the album's lyrical themes comment on our society in a direct, critical manner, with messages delivered through intensely fast-twitching, raw soundscapes. On "Jailbreak", the band continues their powerful collaboration with Martin Furia, who produced the four-piece's successful previous records.

"Jailbreak" track listing:

01. Endless Ambition 02. Suffocare 03. Ungrateful 04. Seed Of Death 05. Jailbreak 06. Sacrifice 07. Behind The Wall 08. Kill Or Die 09. When The Truth Is A Lie (feat. Gary Holt) 10. Superstition Failed (feat. Lena Scissorhands) 11. Gates To The Fall 12. Elements Of Sin 13. Nail The Coffin

NERVOSA 2023 is:

Prika Amaral - Vocals and guitars Helena Kotina - Guitars Hel Pyre - Bass Michaela Naydenova - Drums

Photo credit: Gregory Dourtounis

[josiebelladonna]

me: *makes art that i’ve been making since i was a kid that’s only matured and developed with me and has gotten praise from incredible people*

“nope, this just isn’t good.”

me: *writes erotica that is true to me and my personal kinks in all its wordiness and complexity*

“nope, this isn’t sexy. this 100 word x reader drabble with breeder kink with very little description, horrible grammar, and no indication of what the author is feeling other than ‘i’m having fun’ is 100000000x sexier and is the best writer ever.”

me: *has a weather station, keeps a weather journal because it’s interesting and regular journaling just enrages and eventually breaks me*

“why? we have advanced instruments for forecasting, why bother?”

me: *attempts to show my drawing process, through video and photographs*

LITERAL. CRICKETS.

me: *bakes fucking bread and a cake, makes meatballs; first loaf was spot-on; rye bread was underproved but delicious and warm; meatballs and cake were heavenly and i’m being sincere about that*

“cool. thx for sharing.”

me: *talks about stuff i want to learn how to bake like spanakopita and soufflés*

me: *shares testament’s sharing of the ginger snap cartoon i made of them*

me: *shares soundgarden’s sharing of a cartoon i made during a bad time in my life—i actually wound up disliking that one because of the time period but it was still something special*

me: *talks about gary holt and rob cavestany liking my exodus and death angel drawings*

me: *talks about chris, lars, joey, alex, eric, and jeff, and how i love these men with all my heart for their kindness to me, especially chris and alex*

me: *does three art challenges for october, one of which was something particularly challenging (goretober)—goretober and witchtober were my own prompts, too!*

me: *writes 1.1 million words*

me: *goes on a weight-loss journey*

me: *does own illustrations to accompany my writing, by hand, no less*

me: *participates in nanowrimo every year since 2018 except last year, and wins every single one—hell, the 2018 one, i was literally traveling while i was writing it*

me: *Irish exits out of all social media except ig because i am literally giving you motherfucking imbeciles the world and i’m lucky to get a thank you*

“awww, what’s the matterrrrr, are you feewing negwected? are you making money? hey, where are you going? come back. are you okay? we need you. are you okay? ARE YOU OKAY?” *starts throwing shit* “ARE YOU OKAY???!!??!?!?!?? YOU SHOULD BE GRATEFUL!!!!!! get a job, loser. you don’t care, do you, little bitch.”

i also get this nonsense a lot:

“check out this artist! reminds me of your art!”

*looks absolutely nothing like my art, or it does sort of, like i can see the logic*

“sorry, what does this do for me besides cheapen art, mine as well as that person”

[rebelrayne]

[⭐] = faves | Hamish is listed under Season 6

take a risk | henrik | teen | alternate universe [a gift for @/justtuesdays]

Isabel Romero had never taken a single risk in her entire life. But when she finds an incomplete bucket list, she's determined to prove that she can be adventurous and spontaneous. With the help of her best friends, Shannon and Henrik, she's ready to cross off the last three items, come castle or behind a waterfall.

we do but friends don't | bobby | teen | villa

“I don’t want to do this,” Jordyn said, her voice cracking with every syllable. She’d grown to be fond of all four of the people standing there, although she was most definitely closer with Lottie, Gary and Bobby. Truth be told, she liked the old Hannah better than the one standing in front of her. Hannah seemed less than genuine when she returned and it only angered Jordyn to see her with Bobby when he deserved the world.

[⭐] but lately... | seb | teen | villa

Seb isn't overly emotional. He's not a sticky sweet guy who loves a big romantic gesture, or someone who would pick up a bouquet of roses on the way home. But lately... There's something about Valerie.

ho ho ho or whatever | seb | teen | alternate universe [a gift for @/whatisreggieshortfor]

Inside the bustling, busy city of Liverpool, there comes a tale you certainly never learned in school. A record store sits on Paul Street in the heart of the town, and here, my dear reader, is where the start of our story is found. Ask any of the townsfolk, they’ll tell you the same: “There’s no place like home by the fire on Christmas Day!” All the windows of the stores are flocked with care, but there sat one store with its window display bare.

[⭐] 11:59 pm | tom | teen | post-villa [a gift for @/0shewrites0]

He starts to walk over, his heart rate racing faster with every step closer. He pulls his phone out and peeks at the time. 11:59 pm. It’s almost time. He had a speech prepared, but it’s since been wiped from his memory. He cannot remember even one syllable of that speech.

hey sweetheart | oliver | teen | post-villa [a gift for @/queen-of-boops]

When Oliver sends Maeve on a scavenger hunt on her birthday, she's led by familiar faces and letters Oliver wrote to his future wife.

model santa | youcef | teen | alternate universe [a gift for @/whatisreggieshortfor]

Santa isn't real, right? But if that's the case, why is he claiming to be Youcef's father?

part of our world | tom | teen | alternate (disney) universe

The town of Villa Rosa, North Carolina seems like a normal place. The people live ordinary lives, the kids go to school like anywhere else, but the truth? It’s the most evil, vile place in the world. The Disney characters were ripped from their stories and sent to the one place where they no longer had their happy endings: our world.

someone better suited | dylan | teen | villa/post-villa

Dallas Holt is down on his luck but when he has the opportunity to enter the Love Island Villa in exchange for $20,000? He’d be stupid not to take it. The only catch? He’s not entering as himself; he’s entering as “Dylan.”

sterling mckenzie, inc. | valentina | teen | alternate universe

Welcome to Sterling McKenzie, Inc. Paper Company, where career dreams go to die! But at least the boss is cool, right?

the other side | james | teen | alternate universe

Was it really happening? He had to have been dreaming. He wasn’t big, rugged and buff like Hazeem. He couldn’t be cool and collected like Kobi. He’d never be as handsome as Dylan. There’s no way he could ever be charming or suave like Youcef… He was just… him?

define: falling | hamish | mature | alternate universe [a gift for thesepromises]

falling /ˈfôliNG/ verb 1 : to descend freely by the force of gravity. 2 : to come by chance. 3 : to pass suddenly and passively into a state of body or mind. Serena Wallace hates Hamish Kent… Or maybe she’s falling in love with him.

end game | elliot | mature | villa [a gift for @/mrsbsmooth]

For those of you following along at home, this is the part of the story where the female love interest rejects the male protagonist so harshly, he should recoil and retire to a life of loneliness and solitude. But lucky for us… Elliot is two things: one, he can’t take a hint when slapped in the face with it, and two, he hates to lose when he doesn’t understand what went wrong.

[⭐] fast car | hamish| teen | villa [finale night rewrite]

Acacia had the opportunity through his television screen to make him fall harder and harder without lifting a finger. He watched her look across the lawn and twist her face into the most hideous expressions– nose scrunched, tongue poked out, eyes crossed– but Andy didn’t laugh. The time she ran onto the challenge platform and did a clumsy cartwheel only to fall flat on her bum as she fell into a fit of giggles– Andy didn’t laugh. How she would create a different facial expression on pancakes every morning, hoping for even a faint tug at his lips– Andy didn’t laugh... But Hamish did.

[⭐] holidate | hamish | mature | alternate universe [a gift for @/caitkaminski]

When Cece Singh gets the idea from her Aunt Priya to bring a Holidate to all of their holidays, she knows just the right guy for the job. The only rules? 1) You'll be one another's plus one as long as you're single. 2) Leave no Holidate behind. 3) No catching feelings.

let's play | elliot | mature | alternate universe [a gift for @/whatisreggieshortfor]

Elliot lifts his head slowly, his Adam's apple bobbing as if he was swallowing every inch of his fears. Flipping a switch, his expression quickly turns mischievous – a crooked smirk she’s never seen on his face and that bloody dimple on the left that she’s always wanted to press her lips to. “Well, I’m not one to back out of a game.” His voice is smooth as velvet, another first in hearing his tone sound so alluring. He quirks a brow, hand cupping her face as he leans in close enough for his scent to surround her in a dizziness that could only be cured by his lips on hers. “I do quite like to win, as long as you want to play?”

sinderella | hamish | explicit | alternate universe

He tugs her into the cloakroom, quickly pressing her back to the closed door. His fingertips delicately trace her jawline as his lips pull into a wicked smile. It should be a crime how intoxicating the scent of lemon and bergamot is on his skin. Leaning in, he dips his head, kissing her neck and sending a shiver down her spine. Greedy hands grip into her waist and yank her into him as he whispers into her ear, “So does Cinderella have a name?”

[⭐️] the checklist | ivy | mature | post-villa

When Ivy gets dumped from Love Island, Nicky and Seb invite her on Doom & Gloom to explain her checklist and where each of the criteria came from.

[ulkaralakbarova]

A hard-nosed cop reluctantly teams up with a wise-cracking criminal temporarily paroled to him, in order to track down a killer. Credits: TheMovieDb. Film Cast: Jack Cates: Nick Nolte Reggie Hammond: Eddie Murphy Elaine: Annette O’Toole Haden: Frank McRae Albert Ganz: James Remar Luther: David Patrick Kelly Billy Bear: Sonny Landham Ben Kehoe: Brion James Rosalie, Hostage Girl: Kerry Sherman Algren: Jonathan Banks Vanzant: James Keane Frizzy, Hotel Desk Clerk: Tara King Lisa, Blonde Hooker: Greta Blackburn Casey: Margot Rose Sally: Denise Crosby Candy: Olivia Brown Young Cop: Todd Allen Thin Cop: Bill Dearth Big Cop: Ned Dowd Old Cop: Jim Haynie Detective: Jack Thibeau Plainclothes Man: Jon St. Elwood Ruth: Clare Torao Policewoman: Sandy Martin Bob: Matt Landers Cowboy Bartender: Peter Jason First Cop: Bill Cross Second Cop: Chris Mulkey Parking Lot Attendant: Marcelino Sánchez Road Gang Guard: Bennie E. Dobbins Road Gang Guard: Walter Scott Road Gang Guard: W.T. Zacha Prison Guard: Loyd Catlett Prison Guard: B. G. Fisher Prison Guard: Reid Cruickshanks Duty Sergeant: R. D. Call Hooker: Brenda Venus Hooker: Gloria Gifford Torchy’s Patron: Nick Dimitri Torchy’s Patron: John Dennis Johnston Torchy’s Patron: Rock A. Walker Gas Station Attendant: Dave Moordigian Security Guard: J. Wesley Huston Cop with Gun: Gary Pettinger Bar Girl: Marquerita Wallace Bar Girl: Angela Robinson Witherspoon Bartender: Jack Lightsy Henry Wong: John Hauk Interrogator: Bob Yanez Leroy: Clint Smith Gang Member: Luis Contreras Cowgirl Dancer: Suzanne M. Regard Vroman’s Dancer: Ola Ray Vroman’s Dancer: Bjaye Turner Indian Hooker: Begonya Plaza Film Crew: Original Music Composer: James Horner Producer: Lawrence Gordon Editor: Freeman A. Davies Production Design: John Vallone Director of Photography: Ric Waite Editor: Mark Warner Writer: Walter Hill Casting: Judith Holstra Editor: Billy Weber Producer: Joel Silver Sound Editor: John Dunn Sound Editor: Tim Mangini Sound Re-Recording Mixer: Donald O. Mitchell Costume Design: Marilyn Vance Sound Editor: Teri E. Dorman Supervising Sound Effects Editor: Richard L. Anderson Sound Re-Recording Mixer: Rick Kline Executive Producer: D. Constantine Conte Sound Re-Recording Mixer: Gregg Landaker Makeup Artist: Edouard F. Henriques Makeup Artist: Michael Germain Supervising Sound Effects Editor: Stephen Hunter Flick ADR Editor: Mark A. Mangini Stunt Double: Terry Leonard Stunts: Nick Dimitri Writer: Roger Spottiswoode Writer: Larry Gross Writer: Steven E. de Souza Set Decoration: Richard C. Goddard Hairstylist: Dagmar Loesch Stunt Double: Vince Deadrick Jr. Stunts: Tony Brubaker Special Effects: Joseph P. Mercurio Stunts: Bruce Paul Barbour Stunts: Larry Holt Stunt Double: John Sherrod Stunts: Jerry Brutsche Stunts: Billy C. Chandler Stunt Driver: Conrad E. Palmisano Stunt Coordinator: Bennie E. Dobbins Gaffer: Carl Boles Stunts: Walter Scott Movie Reviews: John Chard: You switch from an armed robber to a pimp, you’re all set. A hard as nails cop reluctantly teams up with a wise-cracking criminal temporarily paroled to him, in order to track down an escaped convict cop killer. The mismatched buddy buddy formula exploded onto the screen here in a ball of violence, profanity and pin sharp one liners. It also launched Eddie Murphy into 1980s stardom. Directed by Walter Hill and starring Nick Nolte alongside Murphy as part of an electrifying black and white double act, it’s unrelenting in pace and bad attitude. It could have been so different though, with the likes of Stallone, Reynolds, Pryor and Hines attached at various times for lead parts, it now is written in folklore that Murphy got the break and grasped it with both hands (he was actually fired at one point mind!). Thankfully the problems behind the scenes were resolved to give us a classic of its type. A big success for Paramount it paved the way for more choice same formula pictures in the decade, but few were able to be so course and daring with the racial divide explosions. Murphy is outstanding, quick as an A.K. 47 in vocal d...

[metaladdicts]

JEFF HANNEMAN's Widow Shares Her Opinion On SLAYER Reunion

Kathryn Hanneman, the widow of SLAYER‘s late guitarist Jeff Hanneman, has voiced support for the band’s choice to regroup this autumn for a few headline performances at festivals, marking five years since SLAYER concluded its “farewell” tour. After concluding their last world tour in November 2019, the band, comprising Tom Araya (bass, vocals), Kerry King (guitar), Gary Holt (guitar), and Paul…

[thephotopitmagazine]

SLAYER ANNOUNCES ITS RETURN TO THE CONCERT STAGE

SLAYER ANNOUNCES ITS RETURN TO THE CONCERT STAGE Band Will Headline Main Stage Sets at Two Major Festivals Riot Fest • Louder Than Life     For the first time since the band wrapped the last concert of its Final World Tour back in November 2019, Slayer – Tom Araya/ bass & vocals, guitarists Kerry King and Gary Holt, and Paul Bostaph on drums – announce they will return to the stage this fall,…

[the-rippers]

[thekillogiceffect-blog]

SLAYER ANOUNCE 2024 REUNION

SLAYER has officially reunited and will return to the live stage in September. For the first time since the band wrapped the last concert of its world tour back in November 2019, SLAYER — Tom Araya (bass, vocals),Kerry King (guitar),Gary Holt (guitar) and Paul Bostaph (drums) — will return to the stage this fall, headlining two major festivals, Riot Fest and Louder Than Life. Sep. 22 - Riot Fest - Chicago, IL Sep. 27 - Louder Than Life - Louisville, KY GET TICKETS: https://www.slayer.net/ #music #news #reaction https://louderthanlifefestival.com/ https://riotfest.org/ Source: https://blabbermouth.net/news/its-off... My Social Media: patreon.com/thekillogiceffect https://www.twitch.tv/thekillogiceffect https://www.reddit.com/user/TheKillog... https://www.tumblr.com/thekillogiceff.. thekillogiceffect.weebly.com https://www.facebook.com/thekillogice... twitter.com/KillogicFilth vk.com/thekillogicefect

[feverinfeveroutfic]

chapter five: too many secrets

“i talked for hours to your wallet photograph, and you just listened; you laughed, enchanted by intellect or maybe you didn’t. you remain, turned away, turning further every day...” -”the world has turned and left me here”, weezer

New Year’s Day came about and while Sam was up to her eyeballs in homework on her part, she had one thing on her mind all the while, and that was the drawing there in her journal. Even as she made her focus primary on her schoolwork, the burgeoning mountain it had become by the end of October and all the way into Christmas. One thing that she couldn’t stop thinking about was the weeks before, shortly after Alex’s thirty-third birthday, where the whole city received news that some buildings in New York may have been laced with something nefarious. What it was, they had no idea.

Sam returned home to the apartment right as another round of rain fell over her head. The nightmares laced in heavy metal lyrics became reality within a matter of weeks.

It was then that heavy metal seemed both timely and without a place in the world anymore. And yet, she yearned for that darkness again. She needed to hear Metallica again, to hear Megadeth, Slayer, Testament, Exodus, Death Angel, and of course Anthrax again. She needed Joey’s high operatic vocals there at the forefront. The power and the passion, paired with the darkness of James, Dave, Eric, Scott, and Gary Holt’s lyrics all rolled into one. Men with no country or not, she yearned for the darkness, for their own black rain, because in a time such as that, it gave her a dose of much needed comfort. With school constantly on her back, comfort felt like such a luxury at that point.

She ducked into the safety of her apartment and she noticed Alex seated there on the couch with a look of fear in his eyes.

“Get this—it's anthrax.”

Sam gaped at him.

“The actual—disease?” she asked him, and he nodded his head at her, complete with a grave look upon his face. She stepped over to the couch for a better look at the television screen on the other side of the room.

It seemed as though the news went on forever since that day back in September: the mere sight of it made her relish in the power of innocence, in escapes to her journal and her books as well as back outside to the sunshine; granted, she and Alex were away from where the Twin Towers used to stand off in the distance. But that sight before her, the news that the very disease itself, anthrax, had found its way into New York City as a means to terrify everyone there, sent chills up her spine in no ways they ever had before then.

“Oh, my god,” was all she could say. “It's real.”

“It’s very much real...” His voice trailed off. “It’s weird how real it is, too.”

“What’re they gonna do?” she wondered aloud. “They’ll probably get in a bunch of trouble because of their own name.” She thought about Dan Lilker, and she wondered where he had gone off to: an old friend and comrade whom of which felt like a mere specter off in the distance at that point. He was the one who brought the band name to Scott after all.

“I have no clue,” Alex confessed to her with a shake of his head. “I hope that it won’t be anything major, to be honest.”

“That’s the hope, anyway,” she pointed out as she took her seat next to him. But even as she sat there for a few seconds, she bowed her head and shook it about.

“What’s the matter?” he asked her as she clambered back onto her feet. She then stooped down and picked up the remote control. She flicked off the television and turned to him.

“No,” she told him.

“No? No what?”

“’No’ to all of this, Alex.” She nibbled on her bottom lip. The flood gates had opened right then: she had to persist. The persistence was within her after all. “You know what? Fuck fear and all this darkness and depression. I was in a car accident that almost killed me. A good friend of mine committed suicide and left behind three children. I lost an old boyfriend to a bus accident in Sweden. Every single day is precious. Let's live it like it’s our last, baby.”

He sighed through his nose and then he nodded his head at that.

“Yeah. Let's just—live our lives. We might as well, after all. You and I have each other and we have school.”

“Zelda’s got her new record coming out,” Sam continued, “—let's relish the ever-loving shit out of it.”

“Relish the ever-loving shit out of my trio, too,” he told her with a sly smirk across his face.

“You guys are actually gonna do something, not just jam?” Her face lit up.

“Yeah. Just a cover album, but it’s an album nevertheless. We might be doing it the same way that she did. There are very small labels around here, but I'm thinking releasing on the Internet is the future.”

All of that happened back in the beginning of October and the threat of anthrax over their heads never went away: if anything, it merely persisted in the same fashion that Sam had persisted on her part. She worried about Alex and his trio finding those spores in the rafters of their recording studio or in their jam spot not too far from their apartment. There in their own backyard and very real as they watched reports of farmers succumbing to it.

By New Year’s Day and a very somber round of Trans-Siberian Orchestra shows where everyone up on stage wore black arm bands in honor of the thousands of people who had died in the whole cataclysm, she and Alex were eager to hear Zelda’s record in full, polished form.

Thirteen songs. Fool’s gold for the world.

Over Christmas, Sam broke down and bought them a big boxy computer with red trimming which they hooked up in the guest room, at least for the time being.

“We might have to find a bigger place,” Alex told her as he took his seat in the accompanying chair.

“Or you might,” she pointed out.

“True. But this is your computer, though—I ain’t taking your computer, Samantha.”

“What would you do, though?”

“I’ll save up for my own,” he vowed, curt. “That’s the only promise I can make, especially in a time like this.”

He seemed a lot shorter on emotions lately, and Sam had no idea if it came from the state of the world or the fact that he was away from home more and more with his trio and his own schoolwork to tend to, and every time she found the opportunity to ask him, something else always came up. As a result, the tension just built and built until New Year’s Day, when Zelda was supposed to upload her new record at sunrise, and it never came. At least according to Alex.

By the time Sam awoke that morning, right after sunrise, she caught the sound of something banging in the next room. She rolled over in the bed and she climbed out, and she ambled across the hall to the guest room, where Alex was shaking the dial-up modem about so as to wake it up, but Sam knew that wouldn’t do much of anything to help it if their connection proved to be their problem.

“What the hell is going on?” she asked him. He turned to face her, complete with his face twisted in frustration and anger.

“Alex? What're you doing?”

He turned back to the computer screen, and then he backed away from the desk. He pressed his hands up to his eyes and gave them a good hearty rub. She wondered as to when he woke up, especially since whoever was up first put on a pot of coffee for them: she missed that fresh aroma there in the hallway.

“I can’t take this anymore,” he confessed to her with a shake of his head.

“Can’t take what anymore?” she asked him.

“This! Living here. Being a married man as well as being a student and a full-time musician. I can’t do this. I can’t.”

It was right then that Sam couldn’t take it anymore herself. She shifted her weight before him and then pressed her hands to her hips.

“You know, I've been meaning to ask you what your deal has been lately, Alex,” she started, and then he lowered his hands from his face. He was still angry: if anything, he was growing angrier by the second.

“Really, what has been your problem lately? I know the world sucks right now but don’t let it eat up what we have between us, though. That happened with me and Cliff and look what happened there—”

“I need to get out of this apartment,” he interjected in a loud voice, the loudest she had heard him speak in literal years. “I need to get out of here, especially since there’s this really cool place over in Brooklyn that we might be performing at more in the future called the 55 Bar. It's way the hell over there and I don’t feel like taking a long-ass subway ride just to do a two-hour stint. Yeah, this is New York, but still.”

Their marriage was set to be voided in June, but Sam wondered if that could be changed.

“I can’t take living here,” he said. “It’s too much for me. Living here is too much.”

“Do you wanna move to Brooklyn?” she snapped. “I can help you move to Brooklyn.”

“Please do,” he retorted with a glare and his arms folded across his chest. “I would very much like that. It would get me far away from here.”

She stopped right in her tracks, and she fumed up into his face for a few seconds before she doubled back out of there and into the kitchen. She walked over to the coffee maker and she began to load it up: careful not to break the carafe, she filled it up with cool water. Once it was full of water, she set it down on the counter next to her and then she cupped her hands underneath the faucet and she splashed the water over her face and her neck.

She let it drip down the side of her face and her neck, and she shook her head about as if she was headbanging at a metal show.

She then picked up the carafe and walked back to the coffee maker; she poured in the water and then closed it and pressed the button.

Perhaps that was too harsh of a reaction on her part, especially when the stern expression upon his face only made it all the more evident. They were both stressed out beyond belief, and it was beginning to take a toll on their friendship if nothing else. Sam shook her head and knitted her eyebrows together, and she turned around in time for him to walk into the kitchen himself. She lifted her head and looked on at him with tears brimmed on the rims of her eyes, and that in turn made him raise his own.

“What’s wrong?” he asked her, concerned.

“What’s happening to us, Alex?” she asked him with tears in her voice. “What is happening to us?”

He then sauntered over to her, and his face fell with every step.

“I don’t know,” he confessed. “I've been going off and lashing out lately and I realize that I seem like a complete asshole right now. But please keep in mind that even I have my breaking point. And I feel like I’ve long reached it, too—the dial-up being a bitch a little bit ago did anything but help. If anything, that just lit up the fuse and set me off. It's just—you know, everything going on right now.”

“It’s all getting to you and me both,” she replied with a shake of her head and a tear streamed down her face.

“Yeah. Plus, we’re having to keep more secrets now, what with Eric and Belinda and whatnot.”

Sam then bowed her head and let the tears fall. It was their first big fight in years and she remembered how painful it was for her to butt heads with him, especially since their first impression of one another was less than favorable.

“Come here,” he coaxed her in that gentle, round tone of voice she was more than familiar with from him. “Come here. Come here—I'm sorry, that was the wrong thing to say to you.”

She leaned in closer to him and she put her arms around him. His body was soft and warm, just like how he should be for her. He leaned down a bit and kissed the side of her neck: those soft cherry lips pressed down on her own skin. She gazed into his face and those deep eyes, so penetrating and intense and yet so soft and soulful at the same time. Being mean wasn’t in him. He was too kind of a man to do that, especially towards her.

He did in fact, reached his breaking point.

“You know I love you, right?” he whispered to her. “I love living with you, just—not here.”

“You want it down in Brooklyn,” she whispered back to him.

“I do. I really do. But I love living with you, though. I love waking up and seeing you right next to me every morning.”

She sniffled and she stroked the side of his face and the soft skin there.

She couldn't exactly admit that back to him, still with tears in her voice and rested upon her eyelids, but she did in fact run her hands down the curvature of his spine and down to the small of his back and his hips. His warm body, still shapely and precious to her. She leaned her head against his chest to hear the heart that beat inside of him. She pressed her own body closer to him, all so she could better feel the slight, incoming softness in his belly.

Alex leaned his head in closer to her own: Sam expected to feel his hair to cascade around her to act as a curtain to protect her from the rest of the world, like in his old car on the side of the road after she had found out Joey loved another woman. Instead, she took a glimpse up at his face and she rested her hands on the sides of his head.

“I want you to grow your hair out again,” she whispered to him. “I miss your long beautiful hair.”

She closed her eyes and she leaned in closer to his lips. Smooth like ripe Rainier cherries straight off of the tree branch, as pure as the very first day she saw him as a young boy.

“I want you to grow your hair out again,” she repeated. “Call me vain and dumb, but I want your hair. You look so sexy with long hair.”

“You’re not vain—and you are most definitely not dumb, either,” he assured her. “You just know what you like.”

He treated her to another kiss on the lips, followed by another one on the side of her neck.

She ran her hand down his chest and onto his stomach: so soft there, like a little pillow coming in over his hips. She liked the softness on him as well. The fullness and roundness of his face paired with the softness and silkiness of his long black curls; it all reminded her of the soft feeling of home.

The coffee maker beeped out to tell them it was done brewing. With another kiss from him, they took out their coffee mugs and poured it in: she took creamer like she always did and they both took their spots on the couch to enjoy it before they returned to the spare room and the computer.

Even on the dial-up connection, they were able to access Zelda’s new album right there before their eyes. And since they had the next five days off, they could spend most of it listening to Zelda’s solo album, which came back much fuller and stronger in sound; they could spend most of those five days listening to Joey’s crooning voice over her biting, sarcastic lyrics to her drumming, as powerful and strong as ever, and to a couple of songs where she wound up singing herself.

“So abrasive,” Sam remarked with a nod of her head. “Abrasive and—weirdly poppy, too. Like, I wasn’t expecting it to have kind of a happy groove to it.” Alex had played the guitars on the album, but she wondered if Zelda had asked some other people to join in on her: she recognized him in the background, but there was more color added to it. More than what Alex himself had done during that week-long session.

“She actually has a pretty nice voice, too,” he added as Zelda belted the title track, which also included the looping nylon string guitar sound that Sam had done for her without Alex’s knowledge: her voice was raspy and low and slightly off-key, but there was something there. She could in fact be a singer if she so wished in the future. “Like the love child of Christina Aguilera or Britney Spears—all those little pop starlets from the last couple of years—with like Patti Smith or Courtney Love. That raw, punk edge but I could actually genuinely see her singing ‘Like a Virgin’, though.”

Sam giggled at the thought of Zelda singing to Madonna.

She brought up that thought to Marla when she saw her after school one afternoon the week before her thirty-sixth birthday, and of course Marla had a laugh out of that.

“Have you listened to her album, though?” Sam asked her.

“I have, yeah! I never thought a protest album could be so fun-sounding.”

“Fun and yet so sarcastic. I like this side of Zelda, to be honest.”

In fact, the more she thought about that album, the more Sam took comfort in Zelda’s album, especially when she thought about her own responsibility as well as the threat of anthrax trapped inside the apartment building around her. But she didn’t want to think about that at the moment. Sam thus set her old book bag down on the floor, right before her feet, and she took out her textbook as well as her notebook and a pencil for a round of copious notes for her main geology class.

“Jesus,” Marla remarked as she poured herself a cup of coffee.

“Yeah, you’re telling me,” Sam told her. “School has just been nothing but studying, reading, and writing papers lately. I have almost no time to do anything else—in fact, I had a hard time coming here to visit you, Marla.” She set the book down on the kitchen table next to her and ran her fingers through her dark hair. But then she turned back to Marla, especially when she remembered that she had gotten that book about nuclear science in the two years before.

Those two years before felt like a whole lifetime ago. A lifetime before the towers fell down and the threat of the disease riddled the neighborhoods around them.

“What about you?” Sam asked her right then.

“What about me?”

“You know, I’m still going to school—finally, after all this time—and Alex is graduating in June. Makes me curious about one of my good friends. I just think about you falling in love with the nuclear world.”

“I might not just waste my time with school altogether,” Marla confessed with a shrug of her shoulders and a sip of her coffee; Sam could tell that she was exasperated by the mere mention of that. “Too many hoops to jump through and I've learned more just from reading about the nuclear world and also the caveats about it, be it disasters or mere incidents, all in books, all on my own, that I ever would in a class to be perfectly honest with you, Sam.”

“And then what?” Sam asked her, curious.

“What what?” Marla asked her.

“What would you do with it?”

“Not sure,” Marla confessed. “I can just do what you, Bel, and Alex all do and expand my horizons more and more. I'll figure something out. I get people asking me those questions all the time, the whole ‘what’re you gonna do?’ nonsense, and it does fuck all to help me—I never thought I'd hear it from you, Sam.” Sam frowned at the look in Marla’s eyes, and it dawned on her right then.

“I guess I'm reaching my breaking point, too,” she told her, to which Marla knitted her eyebrows together and frowned at that.

“Why is that?”

Sam closed her eyes and she shifted her weight right on the spot. She clutched her pencil in one hand. She knew that she had to get to work, but Marla had already asked the question.

“Okay. But I want you to keep this as a secret, though. I told Zelda about this already, but she vowed to keep it under wraps, though. I don’t want you to tell Belinda or anyone else about this.”

“What’s going on?” Marla demanded as she set down her coffee mug on the counter behind her; she then pressed her hands to her hips. Sam closed her eyes and hesitated for a few seconds.

“Alex and I are ending our marriage,” she told her in a single breath. “It’s set to be nulled after he graduates in June.”

A long silence, and then Sam opened her eyes and looked on at the wide-eyed expression on Marla’s face: the bubblegum pink color of her hair accentuated the depth of her eyes. Even though she had dyed her hair for as long as Sam could remember, she could see the lines of age and time upon Marla’s face: the main giveaway was the fact that Marla’s eyes seemed quite a bit deeper in her skull than normal. The stunned expression on her face only added to their depth.

“—why?” she sputtered out.

“We don’t work as a married couple,” Sam explained. “We realized it the day we got married and went on our honeymoon. We made a horrible mistake getting married—we're best friends and that’s it. We had been planning it for months on end, too. It's gonna happen soon and the reality of it is hitting me every day it feels like. I don’t know what he’s gonna do and I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

She sighed through her nose and then she sank down in the chair by the edge of the table.

“My hope is that it doesn’t kill your friendship,” Marla confessed to her.

“You’re telling me,” Sam said with a shake of her head. “We had our first fight as a couple on New Year’s. Not a good sign for starting off a new year, and not a good sign for us altogether.”

“Couples fight all the time, though,” Marla pointed out. “If you love someone, you’re going to butt heads with them at one point.”

“We still love each other, too,” she continued, that time in a lower voice. “We just—don't work as a couple.”

“Wow. Bel and I always thought you guys would look so adorable as a couple. Really, you guys are cuter than holy shit. I get all soft inside whenever I think about you guys.”

A soft click emerged from behind the front door right then, and Sam knew that Belinda had come back home.

“Not a word to her about it, though,” Sam whispered to her.

Belinda stepped inside of the apartment and she flashed both Marla and Sam a smile.

“Guess who I ran into on the way home,” she declared.

“Who?” Marla called out as she picked up her coffee mug again. Belinda stepped away from the door and a short man walked in right behind her. He wore a ball cap over a blond haircut that was growing back in the form of slight waves, all around the base of his head and behind his ears. Sam recognized his deep eyes, as well as his button nose and the little scar over his left eye, even with his blond hair.

“Hey, Lars!” Sam declared, and she hurried over to him and threw her arms around him. His face lit up at the sight of her.

“Hi!” His voice had grown higher and squeakier since the last time she had seen him. “Oh, my god—I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever. It's been way too long.”

“I was taking the bus home and I heard him talking to someone right behind me,” Belinda explained as she hung up her purse next to the front door and then closed it behind him. “I recognized his accent but the blond hair threw me.”

“It throws everyone,” Lars assured her as he adjusted the bill of his cap. “I needed a little change of pace, though—I think we all did, to be honest.”

“I like it, though,” Marla called from the kitchen.

“Yeah, I do, too,” Sam added. “It fits your eyes and your complexion really well.”

“Lars, would you like some coffee?” Belinda offered him.

“I really would like something to eat, if it’s not too much trouble,” he told her.

“Gladly,” she replied with a twinkle in her eye. Lars then returned his attention back to Sam.

“What’s happening with you guys?” she asked him. “I hardly ever hear Metallica anymore.”

He cleared his throat and then his face fell. She frowned at the downtrodden look upon his face.

“Is everything okay?”

“It’s... it’s a little bit complicated,” he told her. She shook her head.

“It doesn’t have to be, though,” she encouraged him. He ran his fingers over the tip of his nose and then his little lips: she noticed the tan line on his left ring finger and she wondered if everything was okay on a personal front for him. “Take your time. Is everything okay marriage-wise? You and Skylar are getting along fine?”

“Oh, yeah—as a matter of fact, we had another baby last year—a little boy named Layne.”

“Aw, congrats!”

“Thank you.” Lars nodded and he showed her a sweet little smile: those cheekbones as full and reminiscent of apples as ever. “Anyways, I just took off my ring out of habit—it's easier to drum without it on.”

“Oh, I see. But what about Metallica, though?”

“The short version is—we've been fighting a lot lately. And I mean, a lot. In the last year or so, I thought for sure we were finished—between Jason leaving and our starting families and whatnot. James also literally just got out of rehab and he’s been going off at literally everything, to say in the least. I swear to god, Sam, the man has become a loose cannon since he got back. My own brother is almost unrecognizable now. So, I basically came here to get away from it for a bit, but I'm supposed to go back soon, though.”

“Oh, my god,” Sam breathed out, and she rested a hand on his upper back.

“I have my worries that this might be it for us, to be perfectly honest,” he confessed to her; she could see the pain in his eyes, especially as he blinked back the tears. “I watched Metallica rise up from nothing and I fought for us. I would do anything for James, and also for Kirk and Jason, just like I would’ve done anything for Cliff and also for Dave. To have it all come crashing down in a toxic pit of animosity would honestly destroy me. If Metallica is finished, then I am finished. I already feel my heart breaking at the thought of it...” A break emerged in his voice right then.

She nibbled on her bottom lip and she put her arms around him. It was the least she could do for him, especially since they were back in California and she was there in New York. She held him close to her, much like how he did just that for her the night after Cliff was killed. They held still there in the middle of Marla and Belinda’s living room as Marla and Belinda were preparing an early dinner of sorts behind them, out of sight and out of mind for a good long minute. Sam then held back and looked into Lars’ face and the reddish tone to his green eyes.

“Thank you,” he told her in a near whisper. “Words cannot say how much I have been wanting a hug from someone—and someone who isn’t my wife, either. I mean, I love Skylar, but—”

“You want something else,” she followed along, complete with a gentle stroke of his back and shoulders. Belinda then scurried into the room, right behind them, and Sam pursed her lips at the mere sight of her.

“Something else I noticed from the bus,” Belinda started again in a low voice. She opened her purse and delved through it for something.

“What’s that?” Sam asked her; she ambled closer to her, and then she took out a Polaroid photograph from the bottom of her purse. Sam took it for a better look; Lars strode on behind her with his hands tucked in his jean pockets and he rested his chin upon her shoulder for a look at himself. It only looked like a photograph of two people down on the street, right next to the stoplight.

“What am I looking at?” Sam asked her. Lars reached around her for a gesture to the couple on the corner.

“See those people on the corner?” Belinda nodded to the photograph.

“Short hair,” he muttered. “Stout body, too.”

“Zelda and Zetro together down the block here,” Belinda declared in a low voice, to which Sam gaped at that photograph. “I have no idea what was going on there but I saw them together and I had to snap a picture because you wouldn’t’ve believed me if I told you about it.”

“Oh my god,” Sam breathed out. Belinda padded back into the kitchen to help out Marla a bit more with dinner. Lars parted his lips at the sight of Zelda and Zetro on the corner: he had changed a great deal since Zelda and Frank’s wedding the nearly two years before, in that he had cropped his dark hair short, up to his shoulders, and he had put on more weight in that time. But Sam recognized him, however, and Zelda’s grinning face next to him only bestowed her with more questions than answers.

“So many secrets,” was all she could follow that up with.

“God damn secrets,” he groaned, and with a nervous snicker to boot.

[kenpiercemedia]

Slayer Announces Their Return to the Concert Stage

The Press Release: For the first time since the band wrapped the last concert of its Final World Tour back in November 2019, Slayer – Tom Araya/ bass & vocals, guitarists Kerry King and Gary Holt, and Paul Bostaph on drums – announce they will return to the stage this fall, headlining two major festivals, Riot Fest and Louder Than Life. Continue reading Slayer Announces Their Return to the…

[forbidding-souda]

Yo Mod Souda! How are you?? (ﾉﾞ⌯'⌄'⌯)ﾉﾞ*。⋆💓

Helllo!! I'm speedwriting again. Extremely extremely bored right now - i'm staying with my grandparents bc my grandma is sick (she's fine) rn and they're not home so I'm like?? in this house alone and it's like UGH. I finished two books since I've been here.

I can tell you about my grandparents. They're white (i'm mixed) and ever since my dad got with a native american twenty years ago my grandma has been reading books about our tribes and its history (and she still orders books about it) and whenever she comes over she reads the native books my mom has. My mom uses the spare room as a library, and she collects books about our tribe. And ever since i came out as gay (4? years ago), my grandma has now been reading books about queer history. My grandpa is retired now (and his birthday was yesterday!!) and he's just taking care of my grandma. She just got her leg removed because of cigarettes so she has a prosthetic she's learning to walk with. My grandpa worked in the AC business or whatever for liek forty years - he got like a masters in ac unit construction. They've owned this house since my dad was 1, so it's an old + clustered house. My grandma is 1st generation german american. and my grandpa is just liek celtic white. it's funny actually because the celtic white genes makes my dad, who had very dark brown hair, have a blond + red beard. And even now, my mustache is blonde and I have!?!?! black hair. Idk how that works but. if i can ever grow a beard i'll do a beard reveal (i kinda got the johnny depp facial hair going on while my dad has the gary holt).

-Mod Souda

[encounterthepast]

If you enjoy this please follow @RussInCheshire on twitter for his regular threads on UK politics.

As it’s the weekend, let’s start #TheWeekInTory with a frivolous and jolly story about our own govt deliberately starving hundreds of thousands of children...

1. In May, Boris Johnson promised “nobody will go hungry as a result of Coronavirus”

2. He then denied school meals to the 600,000 poorest children

3. So Marcus Rashford ran a campaign to get the govt to feed children, which - just think about that: he had to *campaign* for it

4. Then Boris Johnson congratulated Rashford on his campaign to overturn the cruel policies of, erm, Boris Johnson

5. And then 3 days later, Boris Johnson refused to feed those kids during school holidays

6. So this week Labour organised a parliamentary vote about it

7. And 322 Tories voted against feeding hungry children

8. Vicky Ford, the Children’s Minister (who you’ll be surprised to hear neither looks nor sounds like a ludicrous Dickensian villain) went ahead and voted against feeding children

9. Tory MP Jo Gideon voted against feeding children. Jo Gideon, in case you didn't think things could get any more unbelievable, is also the chair of "Feeding Britain", a charity that campaigns to end food poverty and hunger in the UK.

10. Tory MP Paul Scully waved away the grumbling parents of kids with grumbling tummies, and said “children have been going hungry under Labour for years”, seemingly forgetting Tories have been in power for a decade

11. Tory MP Ben Bradley, who once had to apologise for suggesting sterilising the poor, said feeding children will simply “increase their dependency”. On food. Yeah, wean the little bastards off it. It’ll do them good in the end, which will be around 3 agonising weeks.

12. At this point, pause to consider that MPs get their food and drink subsidised. A £31 meal in a parliamentary restaurant costs MPs £3.45. In 2018 this subsidy cost the taxpayer £4.4m. I can’t find any record of Tories like Ben Bradley voting against this.

13. Pressing on: Ben Bradley also said “Some parents prioritise other things ahead of their kids. Small minority, yes... but some do”. Yes, and a small minority of Tory MPs have been arrested for rape. Should we send them all to prison?

14. Also, Mark Francois voted (by proxy) to keep kids hungry. Not related to the previous item. Why would you think that?

15. Tory MP Nicky Morgan said the govt voted to starve 600,000 children cos a Labour MP called a Tory MP scum. And that’s not a scummy thing to do at all.

16. Tory MP David Simmonds said Marcus Rashford’s experience of poverty in secondary school “took place entirely under a Labour government”. Rashford was 11 when Tories came into power, making David Simmonds are rare example of an ad hominem attack on yourself

17. Simmonds then said Labour’s parliamentary vote was “all about currying favour with wealth and power and celebrity status”. He might be right – the govt managed to unify Gary Linaker and Nigel Farage in condemnation of their denial of food to kids

18. Brandan Clark-Smith (who voted to starve kids) demanded “more action to tackle the real causes of child poverty”

19. So at once, the govt cut minimum wage for furloughed people. They now get 2/3 of the money the govt says is the absolute minimum it is possible to survive on

20. And then it was revealed that low-paid workers who have to isolate due to Covid can claim £500. Yay!

21. But if they’re told to isolate by the govt’s contact tracing app, they can’t claim anything. Un-yay.

22. Long story short: the govt cannot spend £120m feeding children. But it can spend £522 on the Eat Out Scheme, which its own report said contributed “negligible amounts” to the hospitality economy, and Boris Johnson admitted drove up infection rates – especially in the North

23. Those infection rates caused the govt to move Manchester into Tier 3

24. So the Mayor of Manchester asked for a £90m support package (1/6th of the money the govt spent causing the problem in the first place)

25. The govt said no, £60m

26. The Mayor said, how about £65m?

27. The govt said no, £60m

28. The Mayor said ok, fine, we’ll take the £60m

29. And then govt offered Manchester £22m, and then went to the press and said the Mayor was "being unreasonable"

30. The negotiations were led by Robert Jenrick, who recently set up a fund for the poorest 101 towns, then awarded his town £25m even though it is the 270th poorest, and therefore not even eligible

31. £25m is £237 per person

32. Manchester gets £7.85 per person

33. Robert Jenrick gave Manchester (2.8 million people) £22m

34. Robert Jenrick gave Richard Desmond (1 person) £45m

35. The talks broke down when the govt wouldn’t spend an extra £5m

36. The govt plans to spend £7m vitally rebranding "Highways England" to "National Highways"

37. Manchester Young Conservatives tweeted “Boris has lied about helping us in the North. It’s time for him to go". Don't look - they deleted it. Suspect somebody had a word.

38. Meanwhile the govt said Manchester will get the £60m after all, and chaos continue to reign supreme

39. But that £60m is brief reprieve for the Tories of Manchester, as a govt report said Tory seats in the North of England (the so-called "Red Wall" seats) can expect to lose at least 4000 jobs *each* as a result of Brexit, even if we do get a deal. More if we don't.

40. The govt rushed to begin its first airport Coronavirus testing, a mere 211 days after mandatory airport testing was begun in South Korea

41. South Korea has had 8 deaths per million

42. The UK has had 665 deaths per million

43. More airport news, as the govt finally accepted Brexit will cause “up to 8-hour delays at passport checks” and asked the EU to allow UK citizens to queue at EU-only lanes. Like we did when we were in the EU. But we aren’t now. So tough.

44. A senior diplomat said, “Having grown up in Brussels, Boris Johnson values the ability to travel freely to the continent”. You’d think Boris Johnson would foresee this problem when he led the campaign to stop that freedom.

45. The independent reviewer of Terrorism Legislation said the UK “will be increasingly unable to cope” after Brexit, as we lose access to EU data-sharing agreements

46. And a No-Deal end to UK/EU scientific collaboration will leave London with a £3bn annual deficit

47. In the space of 38 days, the govt announced the £100bn "Operation Moonshot" to solve Covid; then cancelled it; and then re-launched it again after it was found they’d accidentally continued to pay over 200 private consultants up to £7000 a day to work on it.

48. So this week, Boris Johnson said Moonshot would continue, but it’s goals “would take time”, which is the literal opposite of what he said it would do when it first announced it, and makes the entire thing absolutely pointless

49. And now it’s been admitted that Operation Moonshot would be quietly folded into the existing £12bn Test and Trace programme, and the £100bn has vanished. Apart from the bits the Serco consultants took for doing… nothing.

50. But Boris Johnson said the Test and Trace programme was “helping a bit”, and “a bit” is the least you’d expect if you’d spent £12bn

51. And then the £12bn Test and Trace programme fell to its lowest success rate so far, identifying only 60% of at-risk people

52. Local councils, with no additional funding, are tracing 98% of cases

53. A quick sweep though other epic successes you may have missed (or deliberately blocked out): Equalities minister Kemi Badenoch declared that it should be illegal to teach about inequality

54. The Cabinet Secretary said the report into “vicious and orchestrated” bullying by Home Secretary and Dementor Priti Patel “may never see the light of day”, cos if you have a report that vindicates you, you definitely sit on it as long as possible

55. And the appeals court unanimously overturned Priti Patel’s policy of removing people from the UK without giving them access to legal process or justice because – and I’m paraphrasing the judges here – what the fuck, Patel? What the actual fuck?

56. Undeterred, she announced plans to make rough-sleeping “grounds for removal of permission to be in the UK” and "denial of legal aid". So if you’re too poor to have a home, you must pay for a lawyer or she’ll shove you in the sea

57. After an unnamed Tory MP said it “looks bad to be handing top jobs to your friend and old boss”, Charles Moore, Boris Johnson’s friend and old boss, withdrew as next BBC chair.

58. The new favourite is Richard Sharp, the - yep - friend and old boss of Rishi Sunak

59. You’ll be amazed to hear this: Richard Sharp is a major donor to the Tory party. These little coincidences keep on happening

60. The govt decided to prevent EU citizens from having physical proof of their right to live in their own home

61. Grant Shapps threatened to “seize control of Transport for London” to save it from financial ruin at the hands of Sadiq Khan, who – the bastard - achieved a mere 71% reduction in the debts caused by his noble predecessor, Boris Johnson

62. Matt Hancock, facts at his fingertips, told MPs from Yorkshire their constituents could go on holiday abroad

63. But not in the UK

64. And then that they CAN go on holiday in the UK

65. But can't leave Yorkshire

66. He then said “I'll get back to you” about the details

67. A cross-party report found “the UK’s foreign policy is adrift”, that it lacks “clarity, confidence and vision” and that Britain is “absent from the world stage”. All of which is very soothing, as we move into the govt's proclaimed goal of a post-Brexit Global Britain.

68. And we can all relax: the govt is finally supporting culture in the UK, specifically the Nevill Holt Opera, which performs private operas, and is owned by Boris Johnson’s friend (and - jaw on floor! - Tory donor) David Ross, who is worth £700m so really needs the money.

69. The Nevill Holt Opera only functions in the summer, so thank god it has been prioritised with £85,000 to “maintain operations” in October.

And now, in honour of the opera, the fat lady can sing, cos I’m off to drink myself into oblivion. Join me.

We live in interesting times.

[josiebelladonna]

i’m actually glad i made the decision to go on hiatus for a few reasons.

number one is obvious: the generation that was on here is driving me up the wall. i’m going to be 30 next saturday and i’m actually starting to feel better about my sexuality than i did when i was questioning it at 25 (not that much, but better than it was, though: before i couldn’t hardly move some days), so of course i want erotic content and content catered to my demographic, and away from this overly sanitized environment that is tumblr in 2023. (corollary of this: this site is more unwieldy than facebook now, and that’s sad. that’s just sad. a place that was built on freedom of expression away from the judgments of the blue monster has now become the very thing they were against.)

really, once you unlock sexuality, you can’t stop it. mark my words, kids.

and even though i genuinely believed that no one would miss me, instead—it was the weirdest thing—almost immediately, i noticed a pushback against the whole “my mutuals are perfect in every way possible and we’re all positive and everyone can go to hell if they slightly disagree uwu” mindset (i know this because i poked my head in yesterday to turn off tumblr live and i saw a post on my dash that made me wonder, and I went through the fanfic tags just out of curiosity). i’m starting to see people say “yeah, criticism is necessary. everyone is entitled to their opinion. what happened to this?” which is undoubtedly my whole grievance about this stupid, immature, overly saccharine collective mindset, aside from just my being in a different headspace and finding it both impossible to coexist with and inhuman—i associate these fucking posts about mutuals with hazing, with making it seem like i don’t belong here or like i have no right to be here, usually because i see them in junction with “NO CRITICISM ALLOWED!” in the world of fanfic. it’s hazing and it’s probably worse than straight bullying because of its insidious nature. and listen, there really is a way of doing it: what happened with me was purveyors of this mindset were basically hazing me, blocking me and getting the news out that i’m somehow a bad person all because i have a different opinion (LOOKING AT YOU GREEN DRUIDESS AND TEMPLE). nevertheless, cue the flame wars, which i find that i am (thankfully) missing but i had a feeling they were coming, especially when i saw that post talking about “ao3 etiquette” a second time and op had the balls to make a big point that any and all criticism is not allowed.

number two: as the seasons grey, blood & chocolate, love is not enough, and like blood from a stone are getting huge, especially blood & chocolate. like it surprises me how big these fics, especially that one, are getting. love is not enough and like blood from a stone have been slow to take off, but when they finally did, it’s been remarkable to me. as the seasons grey, i’ve been sharing on instagram so, just like with now it’s dark, everyone is seeing it. and when i say everyone, i mean everyone.

since i announced my hiatus, i have gotten follows from mutual accounts to guys like alex and stu hamm, and i’ve gotten likes from dave lombardo and gary holt of all people. it’s only a matter of time before things really take off. you put good in, you get good out, as they say.

and number three: if you follow my art blog, or me on instagram, you’re probably going to see my mermay drawings for this year. the prompts drop tomorrow, and tbh, i’m a bit nervous.

yesterday, i was talking to lili (sweetness-doesnt-touch-my-face on here, msladymidnight on ig) and she had posted a really beautiful poem In dedication to kurt and layne and nobody except me liked it, and it really upset her. i was telling her, just out of comfort, that engagements had dropped off a great deal with me. like, “i thought people wanted raw honesty.” i’m heading into mermay with this in mind, like i’m really not getting my hopes up because this could be a disaster.

so what do you do when you have 700+ followers and a dashboard that, despite following a metric fuckload of blogs, is hit and miss most of the time? well, you talk about it, of course. if things take off, i won’t distance myself, and i could never do that anyway.

but sometimes… tumblr.

you need to listen. you need to learn. and sometimes… you just need to shut the fuck up and let people be different from you.