#like whatever do what u want but i think its a disservice to him and also just weird

[smoft-demons]

If you aren't busy could you try writing about an mc that looks identical to Lilith and maybe even has a similar name example: lily, Lillian etc. (If you can, maybe mc that has a similar personality with lilith) And Ofc its platonic. (sorry if you don't understand, I barely ask on tumblr(⁠´⁠-⁠﹏⁠-⁠`⁠；⁠)

Also! It can be fluff or angst (if you can't write all of the brothers lucifer, belphegor and Beelzebub would be fine(⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍⁠)

Mc can be gender neutral! (You can choose whatever format you're comfortable with)

Ofc if u don't want to its fine, i just saw your requests open

Sorry if this is too long(⁠╥⁠﹏⁠╥⁠)

Sure! No worries about it being too long, it gives me lots to work with :)

First request yay! Hope you like it

MC’s name is Lily

Lucifer:

Lucifer double-takes when he first sees you. He knew your name in advance, but looking at you, seeing the resemblance… it shocks him.

He keeps a straight face, however.

It becomes increasingly obvious that he has a soft spot for you. It grows softer and softer as he gets to know you.

When you harmlessly disobey him, he can’t help but let you off. Lilith was a bit of a rebel too, and you look just like her when you’re trying to be sneaky

He loses it when you put yourself in danger! You remind him so much of his baby sister, who he gave everything he could for… and he’s supposed to keep this blasted human alive, so help him he will succeed! It’s a matter of pride—and also trauma.

All that is there, but still Lucifer makes an effort to pay attention to the differences between Lilith and you. Few as there may be, he will not cloud his own judgement by thinking of you as the new her.

And he will not do you the disservice of acting like you’re someone you’re not.

When the ancestry reveal happens, he’s not exactly surprised. It’s still great news, but… not shocking!

He’s already had his crisis about not being unfair to you by acting like you’re a replacement, so he’s actually pretty good about not saying anything hurtful along those lines.

Beelzebub:

He can’t bear to look at you at first

I mean really, how he’s grieving his sister plus how he’s missing his twin… what’s he supposed to do? You’re in Belphie’s spot, and you’re called Lily, and you’re even acting like her… his heart aches

Good news tho, he definitely won’t eat you

He feels AWFUL for scaring you that one time, about the custard

And that conversation when he opens up to you about that impossible choice he had to make about who to save? He won’t admit it to you or to himself, but a big part of why he asked you who you would have chosen is that he hopes you can give him some insight into what Lilith would have chosen. If she would have made the choice he did.

Once you’ve become good friends with him, he does make an effort to not confuse you with his sister… but it’s hard for him, especially if you look and act like her. He’s really trying!

He would want to hug you for hours after having nightmares of falling. It helps him feel like maybe he’s not a total failure of a protector

He’s giving Mammon a run for his money in terms of being protective of you.

Beel finds himself conflicted after the big reveal. He’s overjoyed to have Belphie back, but he’s so angry with him for hurting you, and also he’s so upset with himself for not realizing Belphie was trapped in the attic the whole time, and ALSO he’s struggling with keeping you separate from Lilith in his mind, similar and genuinely connected as you are, and that makes him feel even more guilty because he genuinely does love you just for yourself. He feels like it’s very mean to you if he lets himself be distracted from that.

This is further complicated by you naturally falling into the role of his baby sister. He loves having you in that role, but it’s hard. A bit triggering. He’s working through it!

All in all, he’s a good big brother. He’d be overjoyed to hear it if you tell him that.

Belphegor:

Learning your name sends him spiralling. He was thinking of this exchange program as a betrayal to Lilith’s memory, he thought Lucifer had forgotten about her, he thought Lucifer didn’t care, but he chose a human named LILY?? Is this him being manipulative, is this coincidence, does it mean he HASN’T stopped caring, does it mean he’s trying to replace their lost baby sister with some human?

Belphie can’t figure it out.

He hangs onto his hatred. He carries out the first steps of his plan

When you meet him, he just… stares. You look like her…

He refuses to cry about it! He sticks to the script, lying to your face as planned, summoning all the hatred and resentment in his fallen heart.

But… you keep coming back. Not just to update him about your pact collecting, but also… just to chat? Checking on him, bringing him small snacks and things that fit through the gaps in the door, telling him about what his brothers are up to, reminding him that Beel misses him terribly and no one has forgotten about him

He’s finding it hard to keep hating you. In all honesty, he’s grown fond of you! But he has a plan and he’s sticking to it! You’re NOT his sister, and nothing short of a miracle can convince him to let go of his resentment!

In timeline A, after the first jailbreak, he never gets around to harming you. He can’t figure out if it’s due to laziness, lack of opportunity, fondness for you on his part, or not wanting to make Beel sad. This becomes irrelevant of course, after Diavolo imprisons him

In timeline B, you’re sent back in time to see how he got released. You open the door, he offers you the hug, you accept.

It’s… nice, for a long moment. Gentle and warm and comfy.

And then he regains his determination, going ahead with his plan to kill you. He gets as far as “Finding it hard to breathe?” before he looks at you. Expecting to feel sadistic satisfaction at seeing a human face screwed up in pain like that. But… you look like his baby sister.

You look just like his baby sister, and you’re scared and hurt. His baby sister… panicking and tearful, because of HIM

He can’t do it

His grip relaxes. He doesn’t let you go, but he’s no longer hurting you.

He’s shaking.

You feel… moisture in your hair. Your throat is bruised and bleeding from his claws digging into your skin. You’re wheezing through your crushed airway. Your brain is flooded with adrenaline. Your prey terror hasn’t let up, as the demon who was threatening your life is still holding you, and he’s CLEARLY still unstable. But, maybe crying from guilt is safer than cold determination to murder you…?

At this point, the others rush in. Mammon tears you away from Belphie. Beel is frozen in horrified confusion. Belphie is having a breakdown on the floor.

Diavolo and Barbatos fill everyone in. Belphie can’t even look at you, he feels so awful.

As you both heal, you get closer. You become real friends. You learn what aspects of the Belphie you knew from the attic were lies, and the surprising amount of things that were true. With everyone’s help, Belphie really digs deep and commits to finally unpacking his trauma and his survivor’s guilt and his grief.

Once you trust him enough—and he trusts himself enough—he takes every opportunity to spoil you. He’ll cuddle you whenever you want, he’ll make sure you don’t get any nightmares, he’ll share his food, he’ll even let you wake him up for dumb things without getting mad at you.

______

I didn’t have many ideas for the rest. I had some for Mammon, but nowhere near as many as for these three. I might add the Mammon ideas as a short bonus later, if I have the energy or any more inspiration.

[joz-yyh]

DDMonth ▪️ Day 5: Wounds ❤️‍🩹 TITLE: Acta Est Fabula Ch. 11 - (Preview) SUMMARY: Crimson Court AU. It’s time for the viscounts annual banquet and the boys are not so fortunate to escape unscathed. No beta. Read at your own risk. RATING: MATURE (blood/violence) PAIRING: Bounty Hunter x Flagellant WORD COUNT: 1,583 A/N: (If you're interested in reading Acta Est Fabula from the beginning, click the link to go to Ch. 1)

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

“Ah, there's our main course! You're just in time, boy.”

This damming scene, Damian almost can't believe it's real, to see his worst fears imagined, manifested here, now. 

Tardif and the fiendish patriarch are locked, one side holding the upperhand, the other impaled upon its forelegs.

The flagellant moves without thinking, hoping this was a nightmare he could wake from, if only he dispelled the illusion. 

“Ah, ah, ah – not another step,” the viscount warns, teeth chittering, growling out his next words, “or I'll run him through.”

At Tardif's pained whimper, Damian stops, their despicable gourmand putting pressure on torn flesh to illustrate a point. 

“Do we understand each other?”

Damian wants to tear the malignant smirk off the bloodsucker's face and while he may not be within range to do so, Sebastian might be. He just needs to keep him talking, distract him long enough for the reptilian to make his move.

“Let him go,” the blonde nobleman snarls, playing along with this sick game.

“You're in no position to make demands,” their enemy counters, “Same goes for your croc there. One wrong move and your human goes pop like a souffle.”

As much as he's against the idea, the flagellant issues the command, prolonging their standstill in an effort to save Tardif's life.

“Sebastian … stay.”

“Good,” the viscount chuckles, “Now maybe we can have a polite conversation.”

What irony, the gregarious glutton carrying both knife and fork within his hands, tenderizing the very man he holds hostage.

“What shall we discuss?” 

The visage of compliance gives him time to think. The viscount may have intercepted Sebastian, but he had no knowledge of Pierre, Damian hoping the insect hybrid will return soon, giving them the opening they need.

“Would it please you to know I celebrated the baron's passing? Afterall, we both carried a certain distaste for him.”

His black eyes are fixated on Damian, expecting a rise out of him, dredging up old wounds, but the vagrant nobleman gives him nothing, perpetuating his cold stare.

Not to be deterred, the viscount continues, determined to break his spirit.

“A constant source of indigestion that one, I was grateful to the fool who dispatched him, but imagine my surprise when the baroness told me it was the work of a hunter, but seeing as you're here, we both know that's not entirely true, now is it?”

“The baroness is loyal to no one, but herself,” the flagellant reminds him, “You should know this.” 

“Yes, I thought myself too valuable to warrant this disservice, but then, I never expected you to be a danger either. Tell me, whatever did you do to recruit a hunter into your coup?”

“Damian,” Tardif grits, glaring daggers at his attacker, “kill this bastard already. Tired of hearin’ him talk.”

“Quiet, meatbag,” the gastronome snaps, “know the peril you're in.” 

Forelegs are shoved in deeper, the hunter using hands to block the ligament's advance, but the bloodsucker outweighs what strength he has.

“Hurt him again,” Damian warns, claws growing lengthy, gleaming with intent, “and I will not be so civilized.”

The haughty parasite laughs at his threat, a bloody neckerchief erupting into his mouth. He may be a fat old coot, but he's been around the block long enough to read between the lines. 

“You always were a devious sort, a hazard to yourself. Now here you are, playing with your food. Though, I suppose I can see the appeal of taking a human pet. Perhaps, I should try it for myself.”

He strokes Tardif’s cheek with his fork, tilting it up with the help of three iron prongs, his long tongue swirling out from between his mandibles to taste him. The human flinches back, offering what resistance he can while being pierced in both shoulders, the appendage lapping at the blood trickling down from his mouth.

“You try my patience,” the flagellant hollers, diverting the viscount's attention with a spat of disgust, “Either you tell me what you want, or I rip out that vile lamprey you call a tongue.” 

The slimy extremity beats a hasty retreat back into his lecherous face hole, proceeding with their negotiations.

“Preservation,” the bloodsucker says, “I let you go, you let me go. A truce.”

“You would betray the baroness,” Damian prompts, “You know the penalty is death.”

“So it is, but I'd rather live to eat another day then die here in this hovel.”  

“He's lyin’,” Tardif growls, struggling against his captor, “don't trust him.”

“Learn your place,” the viscount barks, “Your liege is speaking.”

Tardif hates how he's reminded of the Order, that this same fallacy of rank and superiority is echoed here, showing how much he cared for social hierarchy with an explicit curse.

“Fuck ye!” 

It's all he can manage, even the slightest motion causes a sharp rebellion of ache, his grip fading, slumping against the imprisonment of pretarsus stakes.

“Oh dear, seems we're running out of time. Your hunter is losing a lot of blood.”

“Mark me, I'll see you choke on it if you so much as breathe one word to the courts.”

“Of course, my word is my bond,” the viscount agrees, looking a tad too smug about their deal, already eating his dessert before it's been served. 

“That leaves one last thing.” 

He’s curious as to why the flagellant is smirking, of what other issue they’ve failed to cover, inconvenienced by compromise.

“And what's that?”

“How much footing you're about to lose.”

It's Damian's last warning before the gourmet is assaulted by a deafening hum, Pierre's supersonic wings disabling the viscount, the wig-totting glutton putting claws over his ears to escape the pain. 

Sebastian is the next to leap into action, biting off the very limbs that keep the wounded warrior barred into submission, the bloodsucker having a new reason to scream, beg for mercy as blood gushes out across broken cement, painting it a new shade of red.

Reptilian jaws munch down on the stringy appetizer in his mouth, the viscount staggering back, falling on his well-rounded abdomen, spilling dramatic tales of woe.

He drags his body in search of sustenance, leaving an erratic trail of blood behind, stumbling upon the scorched limbs of one of his dearly departed guests. He quickly gorges himself on it. A corpse or overturned supper, he'll take whatever scraps he can get his hands on to benefit his selfish regeneration.

Rather than cut the head off the serpent, Damian goes to his lover, patting a clammy cheek, stirring him awake. The human blinks, but he is unseeing, his pulse growing faint.

“Tardif, Tardif look at me. I need you to drink this.” 

The vampire bites open his wrist, letting the severed vein splatter drip drops onto the human's bottom lip.

“M’fine,” he grumbles, turning away, refusing the help, fighting with delirium.

“You must. You've lost too much blood.”

At Damian's vehemence, the hunter obeys, sucking the fountain of life-giving crimson into his mouth, gaining an appreciation for it, his enthusiasm increasing as his vitality does.

“There you go. That's it.”

The vampire sighs in relief, satisfied when the human accepts, aiding it into his mouth, watching him swallow it down.

Mortal wounds suture, vampiric blood accelerating his recovery, the gruff warrior able to use his arms again, raising them to curl around the wrist he suckles on.

Only when he's sure Tardif is well enough does Damian turn to his croc, imploring his assistance.

“Sebastian, stay with him. I'll finish the rest myself.”

The croc seems worried about his master's state of mind, but inherits the task. Pierre too hovers back, keeping close, protecting those he holds dear.

Now Damian tends to unfinished business, following the scrawled drags of blood to where his enemy cowers, Tardif's words echoing inside his head, a mentoring companion.

‘Better to have a weapon than not.’

The blood that cascades down his hand coalesces into a blade, shiny, long, visceral as he aims it at the disgraceful wretch who dared harm his love.

“What will you run out of first,” Damian taunts, a degenerate snarl, “Limbs or corpses?”

The scavenging viscount is still stuffing himself full, sporting two new limbs, freshly grown as they glisten with stolen red flesh.

“Stay back! I am warning you!”

If the loathsome insect intended to sound threatening, Damian felt nothing of the sort, a glint catching the flagellant’s eye, an ornate scabbard laying amongst the rubble, an idea coming to him like a vision. Clearly, it's owner no longer had any use for it, the nobleman picking it up, tossing the sword in the bloodsucker's direction, the weapon clattering next to his gaudy reach.

The viscount is taken aback, eyeing the blonde nobleman, not making a move. Similarly, Damian draws out the inevitable climax, giving himself more cause to enjoy it.

“Go on, pick it up. I'll give you a fighting chance.”

The insect remains skeptical, thinking surely this must be a trick, not about to fall for such an obvious trap.

“Hurry now,” he insists, “before I change my mind.”

With that looming threat, the foppish bloodsucker claims the weapon, skittering to his feet, aiming it back at Damian as quickly as he can.

“A true madman,” the viscount laughs, a haughty pompous gloat, “Allowing me to recover, handing me a weapon, you might as well have signed your own death warrant!”

“Is it madness, to know that when I kill you, it will be because I was the better man?”

{End Preview}

[rox-of-iu]

just another one of the many, many NPC Shen Yuan AU's out there

this one is an author SY in PIDW, bingyuan flavoured very briefly about it under the cut if u wanna

ok like i said i'll go over kust the brief basic stuff cuz I'm not good with words. but basically its sy dropped in pidw like, mid endgame ig, with already blackened protag and no system. so he's like, this might as well happen and goes to vibe and explore bc he's been dropped with the basic necessities to live for a bit. after some time he realizes he's in PIDW and after the initial outrage decides to capitalize on it and uses knowledge from his days spent editing the pidw wiki for fun. so he's running along having fun cataloguing things into several bestiaries and herbals (and cartography stuff etc just compiling worldbuilding) and decides to publish them with an actual success and he becomes a bit of a well-known author in the encyclopedia scene. so he's living out his best life, traveling from place to place, using his meta timeline knowledge to stay clear of the places that are plot-relevant at the time, happy to stay clear out of the path of his blackened blorbo.

that is until someone publishes a binghe biography that is so bad and so 'conquests' focused that he cant help but write his own (leaving out too personal things that he's sure lbh wouldn't want out there) under a pseudonym as a deliberate critique of the other one, which he even clearly states in the prologue of it (that the work is a disservice and disrespectful to the lord and wives alike and much more flowery vitriol, just letting his old angry commenter out)

so its published and it doesnt actually do half-bad because over the years of writing he has gotten pretty decent and that's it for a while. Until it gets to the demon lord. it gets brought to his attention by his court which takes care of notifying him of any possibly slanderous works (lbh doesn't actually care that much about stuff like that but they insist on it and its less tiresome to just let them do whatever than to keep telling them off) so they're like, there's one book, which isn't technically, a critique of the lord, but does criticise the other one which sings praises to him to all heavens so?? technically? (lbh knows of the first one but thought nothing of it bc it was mid and mostly inaccurate but again, he doesn't acre about that stuff rly) so they hand it over and he skims through it and slowly realizes that there is a lot of things that no-one or just a select few should have any idea about so, ok much more concerning than any bad portrayal of his person, even if nothing actually too-secret didn't get exposed in it. its about the principle. so he first conducts a search of his palace and his circle of people if the author is any of the people around because, who else could know about all this (trying to ignore the stuff that no-one except from him should be aware off) but it turns out with no results. so he orders his people to try to find them but the lands are vast and there's authors of plenty so of course that is also almost impossible.

what i think would be funny tho is if liu mingyan was like can I take a look/help, skimmed through it and was oh yeah I've seen this before and is able to trace it back to sy because he used unconsciously a modified phrase from his previous world that is not at all common here that he already used in one of his previous works (or maybe in an angry review of a novel, to scratch that forum commenter itch, that'd be maybe more probable for my to come across) so she notices that immediately because the first time she saw it she was left puzzled so she was sure it has to be most likely the same person again. and so bingge is set to go get his man hsdakhj

idk rly about the rest, maybe he finds him in a forest sketching down demonic beasts so he shapeshifts and a demon hound to get to him and spy on him (idk if he can but he's op so I say he can) or maybe he just comes over and invites himself him Idk. and the plan at first was just to squeeze the information out of this pesky scholar of how he knows about the shit he knows so he doesn't have to stress about it, but the plan turns into "ok new plan I'm keeping this one actually" sajdhkh and i didn't really think of what of next so thats that, whatever floats your boat is next cuz this is already a few days old so new brainrot took its daydream place haha xD

......wait thsi was supposed to be brief why is this wall of text here how did this happen (also I'm not rereading it so if it doesn't make sense I'm sorry lol)

[mukuberry]

saw a really good post about a character's history of getting sexually assaulted until it ended with "but when other character forced himself onto them it wasn't sexual assault because it was done out of love not power" ???????????? what. actually im being specific now this is about alien stage i think when ivan forced himself onto till it was undoubtedly sexual assault. u can like ivan and still acknowledge this... i love ivan but theres no talking ur way out of what he did because of his 'intent' or whatever. it actually perfectly highlights why till is unable to accept ivans love because ivan time and time again repeats till's abuse onto him (both physically at the start of their relationship and now bordering on sexual abuse at the end). it shows how fucked the world they live in is, they dont get to enjoy pure healthy love because theyve never been shown pure healthy love. they are doomed to hurt eachother in an attempt to be heard because thats all they've known, even when they try to fight against it they end up hurting eachother in another way. Till to ivan has always represented freedom and rebellion and fighting back even when its hopeless, it makes sense that in that final moment that ivan is hurtful towards till because hes finally taking back power, that is the hope till has given him his entire life but has never been able to actually do until now. Ivan has learned to fight and take what he wants as the hope Till gave him, but Till does not enjoy fighting and only fights because he has no other option, he wants to feel love that is kind and soft and bright. Regardless of it being out of love for Till and it also being ivan's way of selfishly fighting back, at the end of it it's Till once again being stripped of his power and autonomy, and it is once again Till being sexually assaulted. It shows how incompatible they are in the situation theyre in, and denying what it is feels like a disservice to the writing..... i cant tell if people are just trying to find a way out of saying what it is so they can keep viewing ivan in a pure light or if its something else, but i promise you can still like and sympathise with him without ignoring what he's done.

[mariailoveyou-guerin]

personally I don’t care bc Michaela is pretty and the queer community deserve this what my problem is they better not downplay discredit disrespect or Don Francesca love for John dishonour because he’s man or it’s not as passionate or whatever and or Frannie is a lesbain so she loves a woman more then John NOPE both should have get insane great love and love story from/with Francesca the crazy Bridgerton type of love John deserve it bc he gives that to Francesca and they high key made it seem like they was gonna downplay dishonour do disservice to Francesca great love for John after she met Michaela or after their kiss scene which I didn’t like since her story is 2 parts fist part about her having 2 great loves and that you can find great love a 2nd time and that ur first love dosent

mean less passionate less great or less romantic or epic bc of ur 2nd love and I think Victor and Hannah deserves to play that storyline it’s so beautiful and they would be incredibly in it! And it’ll be disappointing and disservice to all the amazing chemistry they’ve shown this season by just throwin away their whole love story before it’s even fully started or throwing away Fran love for John especially after she was bold and declared to the world her fam and queen it would be inconsistent disrespectful to both their characters and the actors who put in so much work! and I truly believe we can get the 2nd part in her story about the infertility stuff and her wanting to be a mother with John that way we can also not only get more John yes plz go more Victor don’t want him ever going but at least give us him for 5-10 years but also justice to Fran great love for John and story about wanting to be mother it’s perfect that way everyone gets their perfect story and book back to life and a community who isn’t shown and they get to feel seen and represented both sapphic loce but also the infertility problems and the people who find 2nd great love but who’s 1st love was equally as great and not less epic of worthy of being shown! Please do this SHONDA JESS PLEASE BRIDGETON NETFLIX PLZ!

they already downplaying disrespecting discrediting John and Francesca love for him because he’s a man by saying she’s a lesbian oh they just so nasty I feel sick they just have black men and go bc what even?

trying to erase her bisexuality it’s nasty y’all say u want rep then do this for bi girls its weird arent y’all ashamed

[tiistirtipii]

My rant thoughts on the Our Skyy 2 trailer as someone who has watched all the shows and the original Our Skyy and wants to write down all my thoughts so I can come back to them later and laugh about how stupid I was or be amazed by my own genius..

Warning: I wrote a lot!

I was SO excited when Sia Dai started playing in the very first second! For those who don’t know Sia Dai is the ost of the original Our Skyy and it’s an acapella song by 5 U which slaps. I thought they might use a different song but its nice to have the same one. Plus I’m sure we are going to get more songs overall. With so many singers in the cast I’m going to be surprised if GMMTV doesn’t capitalise on it. And with so many characters who play guitar 🙄 I’m sure there’s going to be plenty of musical scenes. It wouldn’t be a GMMTV show if somebody didn’t pull out a guitar.

The Eclipse I am beyond excited to see Akk and Ayan again. They have taken over my every thought for over half a year now and I’m sure I’ll love whatever I get from Our Skyy. But what the hell is going on. They’re in cowboy hats? masks? The leading theory which I agree with is that Wat is making a film and they are acting for him. While I would have been very happy with AkkAyan being cute with each other for 2 episodes straight, these boys deserve to have a bit of fun. We barely got to see them as just boyfriends, without the pressures from the school. I lowkey don’t give a fuck about Kan and Thua but for the sake of my own enjoyment I will pretend like Thua never did what he did. I wish it was all AkkAyan though, they’re the only ones I care about. It would be cool if we got a discussion between Thua and Akk or Ayan about it since it got rushed over in the show but I don’t think its likely. I want Akk and Ayan to be deliriously happy and in love even if its in the form of cowboy shenanigans. I still hope the earring theory is true although it does look like Ayan is wearing two earrings in the trailer. Thua does get punched in the trailer which made me very happy. Akk’s face at 1:16 is the only thing I’ve been able to think about since I saw it. It is now my pfp. I can’t wait to give GMMTV all my money to buy one of those solstice hats. Luckily my sister was with me for emotional support when the trailer released, I might have cried. They mean so much to me and I’m not sure what I’m going to do when they’re gone.

Bad Buddy I’m so excited to see Pat and Pran again! I don’t actually mind Pat’s hair although I’ve seen a lot of people hating it. I think its hilarious that he stole Korn’s hair and it would be funny af if that was something the characters actually did because they’re bffs not just because of how the actors look. It’s sad theres no InkPa but it would be a disservice to them to just squeeze them in on the side. MilkLove deserve more which is why I hope 23.5 is coming soon. I’ve seen PatPran in the trailer described as sluts and I have to agree. What’s with the finger thing Pat? It was a hell of a jumpscare to see that right after Akk and Ayan’s cute cowboy moment. BUT! I didn’t notice at first but I think Pran is wearing a Nong Nao sleeping mask which is super cute and also definitely a chance for GMMTV to sell more stuff. I look forward to seeing Architecture and Engineering gang shenanigans and I am praying for WaiKorn in whatever form they are willing to give me. That scene of patpran lying on top of each other really reminds me of the ‘do you want to be friends” “do you?” moment from the first Bad Buddy trailer, the poster for which has been my header image from the moment I first knew what Bad Buddy was.

Vice Versa PUEN AND TALAY 😭 FRIEND CREDITS 😭😭😭 I miss friend credits so much but don’t think we are going to get them again. Maybe some version of it with Tup and Tou but it won’t be the same. I hope we get a glimpse of how the characters in the other universe are doing but I also don’t think it’s likely. Puen and Talay were very cute in the trailer. They’re sitting with a kid, could it be their son? a random kid they abducted? They are engaged it would make sense for them to be the couple to get married (if a couple is going to get married). It does look like they’re living together and are still dorks in love. Puen wearing the friend credits shirt and Talay wearing the helmet makes me miss them. I really hope the episodes have colour names like the original show and hopefully the same level of amazing detail as well. It’s what Vice Versa deserves for being GMMTV’s most detailed and underrated show.

My School President When I watched the Our Skyy trailer from GMMTV2023 I was not expecting to care so much about msp. Back then I couldn’t give a fuck about whatever stupid high school show these kids were going to be in. I was a cynic back then, I wasn’t expecting msp to be such a sweet and wonderful breath of fresh air and for Gemini and Fourth to put their all into Tinn and Gun. I’ve been listening to Saliva non-stop recently and all the songs are so good. There were already theories floating around that msp would have a body swap episode but the truth is even cooler. It looks like they’re doing a soul swap, Tinn and Gun, Sound and Win, Tiw and Por and Pat and Yo have swapped actors. The question is how much is going to change, how much of the show are they going to recreate like this? It’s a fun idea, I can understand why msp fans are disappointed though, they don’t really get new content and a lot of people wanted to see them in university. UNLESS! it’s all a misdirect and Tiw is filming something where Tinn plays as Gun ect.. but remembering the OffGun Our Skyy episode when they swapped bodies it would be on brand for GMMTV to some kind of swap in one of the episodes. Also why are they at the NLMG school? I saw a theory say it’s a crossover with Vice Versa and they’re in an alternate universe but I doubt its that intricate. It was probably just easier to film there. Fourth as Tinn in Gun’s dessert shop wearing the glasses is SO cute. I can’t wait to see Fourth do his best at playing our head over heels simp Tinn. And for those thinking the scene at the end of the trailer is going to be a kiss, there is no way that isn’t one of Tinn’s many delusions. I hope we get a bit of TiwPor, they deserved more time in the actual show and I still think if would have been great if they were secretly dating the entire time.

Never Let Me Go These episodes look like they’re going to be very interesting!! It looks like Palm and Neung might travel to the past? They are wearing a lot of interesting clothing and are in interesting locations. You would hope they get a chance to chill out and be regular teens but that’s unlikely. If it is a time travel plot I’m sure it will be a lot of fun. They’ve got brain and brawn and a lot of dedication to each other. Their forehead leaning moment at the end of the trailer is beautiful, I can’t wait to see that scene.

a Boss and a Babe Even if it hasn’t finished yet I already adore Cher and Boss and I’m sure the Our Skyy episode will be as fun and enjoyable as the show. I saw some people theorising that they might get a body swap because there’s a scene of Cher wearing a suit but I think its more likely to be him goofing around. It’s nice to know that even when the show ends there will be some more of them.

Star in My Mind I’m not particularly fond of Star in My Mind, it was cute but kind of boring but seeing adorable established couple Khabkluen and Daonuea in Sky in your Heart was one of my favourite parts of that half of the show so it will be nice to see some more of that. I wonder what will happen with their friends and the vague side couple stuff that seemed to be going on, especially considering that Winny and Satang are quite popular now. I wonder what the situation is with all of their friends yelling at them to kiss, maybe a proposal but they’re still in university so I doubt it. I’m sure it will be cute.

Tale of a Thousand Stars This is the one I’m least excited for, I didn’t really love atots it wasn’t particularly interesting to me. I was disappointed we didn’t get to see Tian’s proper return to the village, using his teaching skills with the kids and seeing how having no/little contact for so long affected their relationship. So hopefully these episodes will provide some of that.

If you made it to the end congratulations, share with me your theories if you have any, I’m so so excited for this show.

[lepidopteragirl]

not to sound like a homophobic straight guy but begging on my hands and knees for ppl to let cq have meaningful platonic relationships that can mean just as much as his romantic relationships and acknowledge that cq's desperation for a romantic partner is. um. unhealthy. like i love to meme about cfiances wedding as much as the next guy but, like lets first address his need to jump into romantic relationships to an unhealthy degree with little to no support system outside of them!!! and that platonic relationships can be just as valuable and important as romantic ones. btw

[wickedpact]

I love your thoughts about Joe and Nicky and fear vs. faith. Especially with Nicky, because as mysterious as he is in some ways, I definitely think he's a very well-developed character if you know what to look for. He's very subtle, but his kindness and faith (in a higher power, God, whatever that may be) is what made him stand out to me immediately when I first watched the film.

i love nicky A Whole Lot bc of how he is kind & how thats handled in the film

cause u know, all of the OG squad are kind, really,  but nicky just kind of sticks out in that regard-- i dont want to say hes the kindest or the most compassionate bc i feel like thats kind of a disservice to the others, who are all ridiculously compassionate & selfless & so on-- but nicky’s got like. this empathy, that the others dont have, where hes just kind of always putting himself out there & considering how other people feel-- from nile to the little girl in s sudan to even fucking merrick

& the fact that his empathy isnt in any way linked to him being gay or feminine or whatever, and that its also not linked to him being ‘innocent’ or naive.

you know, like, nicky’s kindness isnt a side effect of some other trait or a necessarily intrinsic part of who he ‘is’. its something deliberate and pointed about him that he constantly seems to be engaging in, constantly thinking to himself ‘how do these people feel, and how can i help them’ (or harm, in the baddies case lmao) & i love that about him and how this enduring kindness is such an important part of who he is, and hes never mocked or looked down on by the others or the narrative for being that way -- and joe at least seems to admire that, about him

and i dont know. hes very genuine despite everything hes been thru that could have hardened him to ideas like kindness & faith & empathy. its admirable

[consumedkings-archive]

i. too close to stars ✤ wesley brooks x elliot honeysett

words: 1.7k

prompt:  “why are you looking at me like that?” taken from this list!

rating: rated p for Pining, lmao

warnings: mentions of blood, like blood being all over ‘em, uh. lots of elliot pining. and then ruining things for herself : ) wes belongs to @risenlucifer thank u for letting me love on ur boy!!!!  (ಥ﹏ಥ)

There’s blood everywhere.

It should be troubling. It should be—the taste of it floods her mouth and she’s wrenching her shirt out in the river, soaking wet and cold down to her bones. Late Autumn light kisses her skin where the blood isn’t smeared, and Elliot’s fairly certain she’s gotten a most of it out of her hair after an unfortunate plunge into the river.

“Ugh,” she says, dropping her shirt on the ground and wiping the back of her hand across her cheek. “I’ve got it in my mouth.”

Beside her, Wes laughs—the kind of laugh that’s a little hysterical, like they didn’t just plunge someone’s poor jeep into the river after barely scraping out of one of the Cult’s outposts with their lives nearly untangled. Nearly undone. Nearly—

“You’re gonna make it worse,” he tells her, hoisting himself to his feet and closing the little bit of distance between them. “Stop scrubbing. Give me the shirt.”

“I just got the blood out of it.”

“Honeysett,” Wes chides, and she huffs, holding the wet shirt out to him. He takes it, flicking some of the water out of it before he starts using it to mop the dried blood off of her face, one hand holding her jaw while the other works diligently.

This close, she’s reminded—painfully—of how handsome he is. His brows furrow at the center of his forehead, and then smooth out; the corners of his mouth tick upward in a smile whenever their eyes happen to meet, while she stands obediently by and lets him fuss over her.

Too handsome, she thinks, almost bitterly, eyes flickering down to the cupid’s bow of his lips for a second. For a place like Hope County. What’s a guy like him doing here, anyway?

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

His voice jolts her out of her thoughts, and she feels the flush immediately crawling up her neck and into her cheeks. Wes arches a brow, lofty and casual, despite the way his words are a clear call-out of her gazing.

“I’m-I-I’m not,” Elliot manages out. Fuck fuck fuck fuck get it together Honeysett, fuck, come on.

Wes hums. “You’re not?”

“L—” She feels her lip pout a little. He’s teasing her, she realizes too late, drawing a nervous little laugh out of her. “I’m not looking, I’m just—I can’t move my head, you know, your hand and—”

“Uh-huh.”

“—and you’re making fun of me,” she finishes after a second, watching the way the corner of his mouth ticks upward, his eyes glittering playfully. “Aren’t you?”

There’s something a little rueful about his expression. He finishes mopping the blood off of one side of her neck, his hand steady on the juncture between her shoulder and neck, calloused fingers spreading warm against her skin. She’d long ago shucked her deputy’s shirt in favor of something that didn’t restrict her with buttons, but now there’s more skin than usual available to be touched and she feels exposed.

“I’d never,” Wes replies after a moment of thoughtful respite, “make fun of you, Elliot.”

His eyes aren’t meeting hers, not quite, and she thinks it’s better like that because maybe if they were making eye contact she could be bursting into flames.

“Not true,” she protests weakly, watching him wring the wet cotton out, rivulets of rusty red sprinting down his forearm. “You make fun of me all the time.”

“I poke fun at you.” He lifts his chin a little in defiance of her assertion. “That’s not the same.”

And now he flashes her an actual grin, this one with teeth, and his eyes do lock with hers and—ah, yeah. The flood of heat straight to her face makes her quickly turn away, reaching down into the river to splash her face and scrub at whatever blood might still be in her hair. He seems content with her wordless response—perhaps because she’s sure her blush can be seen from space, it’s so nuclear-hot—and leaves her to complete the look of wet dog.

It takes about ten more minutes of dunking and rubbing before she’s sure she’s got most of it out, and when she trudges back to where Wes is sitting in the sun, he’s still wearing that expression of amusement.

“What?” Elliot asks, her mouth turning into a frown. “Deputy Brooks, mind sharing with the class?”

“Just think it’s funny,” Wes replies.

“What’s funny?”

“How you were like “I’m not looking”, as you were lookin’.”

“I—” Elliot stifles a sound of frustration, which only serves to throttle the sound on its way out, making it more obvious than ever. “Listen here, buddy.”

“All ears.”

She plops onto the ground next to him, wets her lips as she tries to think about how she wants to say the thing she’s trying to say. Easier said than done, as such things often go; it’s no less difficult with Wes’ eyes on her, landing heavily, but this also isn’t new. It’s always felt heavy when he looks at her—like there’s nowhere to hide.

“I can about hear the dial tone going off in your head,” he says to her, not unkindly.

“Well, look,” she huffs, wringing water out of her hair—it’s getting long, and she’ll need to chop it soon, but for now it’s just a minor nuisance—before she shakes the water off of her hands. “Maybe I was looking.”

He blinks, like her answer isn’t what he’s expecting. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” She kicks her legs out, propped back on her hands against the soft, warm earth, the sunk Jeep shimmering beneath the surface of the deepest part of the river. All things considered, the day is a pretty one—warm enough to get doused in river water, and quiet enough that if she closes her eyes she might be able to trick herself into thinking they aren’t in a metric fuckload of danger all the time. “Maybe I was looking, and—you know, I think that’s fine.”

Wes barks out a laugh and says, “So are you gonna tell me why you were giving me the big doe eyes?”

“I was not!” Elliot snips, but she’s smiling in spite of her embarrassment. “I don’t even know how to begin giving someone doe eyes.”

“You do it all the time,” he tells her, bumping her shoulder and tilting his head to look at her. There’s a little moment where his eyes flicker, she thinks down to her mouth, and the flush crawls up her neck and into her cheeks again. “Give me doe eyes.”

“Do not,” she mumbles, fixing her gaze elsewhere. On something, anything that isn’t Wes and his eyes and his Seeing.

“Do it to Joey, too. When you want her to share her food—”

“Um, that is strategy.”

“—but I like it best,” he continues, drawing her eyes to him again, “when you give them to me.”

Ell pauses. Her chest feels a little tight, and there’s panic rising tight and hot in her throat, but it doesn’t matter in any way that counts because she doesn’t think she could look away if she wanted to. And she doesn’t.

After a second, she asks, “Why?”

Wes exhales through his nose a little. “Feels like you want something,” he says after a minute, eyes searching her face, “from me.”

It’s a bad idea, continuing down this little thread, but the self-preservation is gone and Elliot plunges on impulsively, “What if I do?”

Maybe it’s the sunlight or the feeling of coming down from an adrenaline high or the taste of blood in her mouth, but her stomach wrenches with something red-hot and cruel when Wes looks at her and says, “You’d just have to ask, Ell.”

What do I want? She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know how to say it, or how to ask, or where in her mind to go looking for the things that would make her happy—

(Except she does, she does know what she wants from Wes, because it’s not the first time she’s thought about it and certainly not the first time she’s been caught looking—)

—and it feels a little hopeless, a little dreadful, to be sitting there and thinking that she could be so close to feeling a shred of comfort if she really wanted it and being unable to follow through.

There’s not a lot of time to dwell on it, not beyond opening her mouth and feeling her brows knit together, because the sound of distant gunfire and shouting has their attentions snapping back up to the road.

The moment is broken; the magic is gone; the clock has struck midnight. Wes pulls himself to his feet and then grabs her hand to haul her up, and he says, “No rest for the wicked.”

It’s hard not to feel the stinging realization she has done herself a disservice again, that her panic and pain have paralyzed her from something that could be good, but like any poison in her body she swallows it down and she smiles.

“Especially not for a couple of sinners like us,” Elliot agrees. They set off across the field, skirting the river and climbing up the slope to where the ground turns into black tar pavement, heat radiating off of it in waves in the late afternoon heat. When she looks down the road, she can see the source of the shouting; a couple of resistance members, and Eden’s Gate stragglers, tied up in a mini shoot-out of their own.

Wes rolls his shoulders and says, “I mean it, you know,” which pulls her eyes back to him.

He’s looking at her. Of course he is—in the way that he does, making her feel seen. It’s enough to make her stomach wrench with that feeling again, and she realizes that it’s longing she’s feeling, welling inside of her, filling her up like a wineskin.

You’d just have to ask, Ell.

“I know,” she says after a moment, a little smile coming onto her face. “I believe you.”

He nods once. It’s a short gesture—a brief end to the conversation that she imagines he will now leave for her to pursue when she would like to. Wes never pushes her, not really, not in the ways that would make her shut down; this time is no different.

“Alright, Deputy Honeysett,” he announces, attention razer-focused again, “what say you we get back to work?”

“That’s Junior Deputy to you.”

“Don’t you think you deserve a promotion?”

“I’d like to refrain from taking on more responsibility, actually.”

Wes flashes her a grin, bumping her shoulder playfully with his before he sets off. And for just a little while—for just a moment—Elliot feels like everything might just be alright.

As long as he doesn’t catch her looking anymore.

[fieldsofplay]

Favorite Albums of 2020

25. Dehd – Flower of Devotion

Rather than look back on the shit year that was 2020, lets keep our eye on the hope of the horizon.  Speaking of which, Dehd herald much of what’s to come on this here list.  While as previously mentioned a shit year for most everything besides presidential politics, 2020 proved to be a great year for good old fashioned guitar music.  Could I be accused of curling up with my version of musical comfort food? Perhaps.  But starting off with Dehd, we have a type of band that used to be everywhere and now seems to be almost nowhere.  Jangly lo-fi guitars, perky drums, and straightforward unadorned singing.  About five years ago you couldn’t throw a rock in Brooklyn without hitting a band like this, but now that that fad is long gone.  I’m glad that Chicago’s Dehd are still carrying the torch.  

24. Perfume Genius – Set My Heart on Fire Immediately

I’ve always liked Perfume Genius, but for whatever reason Set My Heart on Fire Immediately is the album that took him out of the realm of casual background musical encounter to something I sought out.  Chamber pop has never really been my thing (except for those couple summers where Grizzly Bear was totally my jam), but here the torch songs catch fire by the compressed force of Michael Hadreas’ longing.  This record also pulls off the impressive feat of each song gradually morphing just a bit from what proceeds it, so that the whole record sounds similar and yet each song carves out its own little generic niche, the whole thing united by the quivering power of that pleading voice.  

23. 2nd Grade – Hit to Hit

If you ever found yourself wondering what Guided by Voices would sound like if they wanted to be Big Star instead of punk rock Kinks, we now have the answer, and it’s Phily’s 2nd Grade.  In the noble tradition of Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes, Hit to Hit’s 24 tracks breeze by in a mere 41 minutes and 8 seconds.  An earworm sunny melody, a quick guitar hook, a second verse (maybe), and poof, each song is gone before you could ever miss it.  You would think variation would be difficult working within such tight musical corners, but while each song clearly shares common DNA, there is actually a lot of variance here, from weepy country ditties (“Bye Bye Texas”) to overdriven stompers (“Baby’s First Word”) though they all tend to orbit the same (big) star.  

22. Tame Impala – The Slow Rush

I’ll be the first to admit that The Slow Rush isn’t my favorite Tame Impala record, not by a long shot.  Having said that, this album still feels like it got short shrift this year (not that anyone can really complain about that in these here times).  If we never knew that Lonerism or Innerspeaker or Currents existed, I wonder how much people would be head over heels for this album.  “One More Year” “Is It True” and “Posthumous Forgiveness” are all top notch Impala jams.  Seems like this album is the soundtrack for the chilled out summer hangs that we never got to have, and thus it’s fitting that it seems condemned for the ash-heap of history rather than the late-night come downs we never got up to.

21. Against All Logic – 2017 – 2019

Ah, speaking of complicated musical relationships, I can never seem to chart a clear course with Nicolas Jaar.  The music he puts out under his own name never seems to do much for me, but I dug his collaboration with Dave Harrington as Darkside, and I really love most everything he’s put out as Against All Logic.  While admittedly not a great year for house music—normally a liberating genre of communal interconnectivity, now a cruel reminder that we all live in Footloose—a banger remains a banger, and 2017-2019 is full to the brim with them.  While I honestly can’t remember the last time I went dancing, I’ll still crank up “Fantasy” and bop around my living room, literally dancing by myself (lets be honest, something I would have done pandemic or no).  

20. Fiona Apple – Fetch the Bolt Cutters

Fetch the Bolt Cutters has had a lot of great things said about it this year, so I don’t really have to add that much.  What I will say is this is perhaps the most interesting percussion I’ve ever heard on a record.  There is percussion all over the place, but almost none of it in the form of full-kit drumming.  Fiona always used the left hand on the piano as the rhythmic center of her songs, but here there is drilling, tapping, rapping, patting.  The phrase DIY gets tossed around all the time (and almost never applied to big money, big label Fiona) but to me the most impressive thing about this record is how it always sounds like she is sitting at a rickety upright piano in the corner of a living room, while everyone congregating around keeps the beat by tapping on pots and pans, the walls, whatever is at hand.  I’ve truly never heard anything like it.  

19. Advertisement – American Advertisement

Godbless Seattle’s Advertisement. So long as there is cheap beer, old shitty cars driving with the windows down, and the U-SofA, there’ll be bands like Advertisement.  Straight out of the vein of Cheap Trick and the more recent White Reaper, Advertisement play power pop with the emphasis on the power.  Sometimes this type of music gets called sleazy, but honestly I don’t get it.  I think its probably because you can imagine it playing while Wooderson drives around Austin looking for redheads. While we rightfully cancelled the song of summer this year, “Upstream Boogie” would have gotten my vote, perfect for backyard bbqs and cannonballing into creeks.  

18. Nation of Language – Introduction, Presence

I didn’t set it up this way, but if Advertisement has a diametric opposite, its probably Nation of Language.  Where Advertisement is all frayed edges and foam, Nation of Language is as buttoned up as those terrible sports jackets people wore in the early ‘90s.  While its not as good as my beloved Black Marble, those bands share enough DNA to make me a big fan of this synth pop gem.  It’s not as dark as the cold-wave Black Marble, but it does share that bands fondness for stark baselines and crisp arpeggios.  If you’ve ever envisioned your life as a scene from a John Hughes movie, Nation of Language could easily be playing in the background.

17. The Soft Pink Truth – Shall we Go on Sinning so that Grace May Increase?

Indulge me in a moment of naval gazing.  Every year as I put these things together I reach a point where I’m lack “damn, this album is this low on the list?” And the point at which that thought enters my head is usually indicative of how good a year for music it was.  Now 2020 wasn’t a good year for anything, and I probably spent the least time of any year listening to music, new, old, whatever.  For the most part I just listened to the Grateful Dead and ambient albums.  However, for my idiosyncratic tastes, 2020 was actually a pretty fucking incredible year for new music, as evinced by the fact that this album is all the way down at 17.  

Earlier on in 2020 as I was bombarding my poor local music text thread with yet more of my inane musings, I think I declared this a top 3 album of the year.  And I wasn’t lying!  “Pretty” is often a dirty word in aesthetic appreciation, but this is certainly the “prettiest” album of the year in the best sense of the word.  From the Drew Daniel half of Matmos comes Shall we Go on Sinning so that Grace May Increase?  A record that is somehow simultaneously deep house and feather light, so much so that it needs its own dumb internet music writing moniker—shallow house? wide house? vacation house? (actually kinda like that last one).  With vocals from Jana Hunter, Angel Deradoorian, and Colin Self (with whom I wasn’t previously familiar) this thing will simultaneously make you want to tap your foot and drift off into the clouds.  This is album is like the prayer Madonna sang about all those years ago.  

16. Kurt Vile – Speed, Sound, Lonely KV

It’s not at all surprising that if Kurt Vile decided he wanted to go country western he’d be really fucking good at it.  First of all, he’s an exceptional acoustic guitar picker.  Secondly, his voice, while always befitting his hazed out urban rockers, has just enough twang to it that in retrospect it always sounded a little bit country.  This record also gives me room to offer up an homage to the late great John Prine, for whom the EP is essentially a tribute.  Vile covers two Prine songs, dueting with the man himself on “How Lucky.” Saying goodbye is never easy, but on Speed, Sound, Lonely (both the album, and the song more or less by that name) Vile manages a fitting tribute to a lost legend.  

15. Lomelda – Hannah

The reviews of Hannah really did Lomelda a disservice.  Sure, they were glowing, but they made it sound like this was some weepy milquetoast singer songwriter affair, when it’s actually a knotty album full off elliptical piano and fuzzed out electric guitar.  Its 14 tracks hurtle by, largely due to the fact that almost all of them are under 3 and a ½ minutes.  Things really get going with the second track, “Hannah Sun” with is squiggly synth effects and driving acoustic strums carrying on Hannah Read’s musings.  It’s an album of relentless forward musical movement even if the vibe feels like it’s always looking back over its shoulder.  Basically this album is what emo would sound like if it wasn’t made by the worst people in the universe.  

14. Shabaka and the Ancestors – We are Sent here by History

Jazz! Another great year for jazz (Asher Gamedze’s Dialectic Soul and Keefe Jackson, Jim Baker, & Julian Kirshner’s So Glossy and So Thin are with a strong group that just missed the cut).  In the midst of an excellent jazz renaissance (you gotta use super annoying words like “renaissance” when talking about jazz) Shebaka Hutchins remains my absolute fave of the bunch, and We are Sent here by History is probably my favorite thing he has put out so far.

13. Waxahatchee – Saint Cloud

While I really liked Waxahatchee’s low-fi emoish debut—American Weekend—I’ll readily admit I wasn’t much about the popier albums that followed, frequently jesting, honestly, that Allison was my preferred musical Crutchfield sister.  All that changed for me with Saint Cloud.  I’ve certainly drifted far off into country and Americana as I’ve aged, and it appears the same came be said for Katie Crutchfield.  These songs have a giddyup to them but they never break out into a gallop, allowing the strength of the melodies to carry them along across the plains, with just the right hint of twilight.  Saint Cloud is the sound of Patsy Cline if she played to roadside inns rather than the Grand Ol’ Opry.  

12. Neil Young – Homegrown

This was the hardest album to place on the list this year.  For starters, should it even count? Clearly I say yes.  While some of these songs have been available for over 30 years, as an album, Homegrown was a “new” release here in 2020, even though it was originally slated to come out in ’75 between On the Beach (my personal fave Neil record) and Zuma.  As a pure piece of music, is it better than most, if not all, of the records that follow? Of course yes.  But what does a new Neil Young record mean in 2020? As a thought experiment its fascinating.  Do we value this album within the musical context of 2020 or 1975? Fortunately, it’s an even more enjoyable listen than it is a thought experiment.  From the first strums of “Separate Ways” you’re like “oh shit, this is the vintage stuff.” Gentle amber acoustic numbers (“Try”) share space with electric stompers (“Vacancy”).  The best thing you can say about Homegrown is that if Neil had originally decided to release this instead of Tonight’s The Night, it would have fit right in amongst his unimpeachable run from Everybody Knows This is Nowhere up through Zuma.  A classic is still a classic, no matter what year it finally sees the light of day.  

11. Destroyer – Have we Met

Ah Dan Bejar, boy was I wrong about you.  I kinda got into Destroyer’s Rubies, I loved his contributions to Swan Lake and The New Pornographers, but yet when Chinatown started really making waves, I just couldn’t do it.  It was soft rock! I hate soft rock! I hate everything about it!  This preconceived notion wasn’t helped by the fact that I saw him open for the War on Drugs in Pontiac once and he was so drunk he could barely stand up and had to read his own lyrics from a sheet.  And yet, for some reason I never really gave up on it. I can’t tell you why exactly, but two summers ago Chinatown just slowly became my go-to for early morning / late afternoon strolls. I found comfort in giving myself over to its pillowy soft embrace / cheating on my own aesthetic judgments.  Now that I’m card-carrying Bejarhead, I greeted Have we Met with open arms, and I was not disappointed.  The synths glimmer, the guitars add just enough punch, and his lyrics remain sharp as ever.  Its fitting that this was the last concert I saw before the iron curtain fell.  The one thing I had always turned my back on ended up being the last memory of dionysian group enthrallment I had to carry with me out into the desert of social isolation.  Come back soon Destroyer, come back soon, everyone.

10. Deeper – Auto-Pain

Ladies and gentlemen, get ready, because post punk is back! I always say my favorite genre is ‘sad songs you can dance to’ but post punk is a close second.  When I was in college post punk underwent a bit of a renaissance in the form of Interpol (back when they were still good), Bloc Party (ditto), Franz Ferdinand, and a whole slew of British one hit wonders (Maximo Park, Futureheads, Art Brut, the Bravery).  Fortunately, as is always the case, what’s old is new again, and stark melodic bass lines, angular guitars, and moody introspective speak-singing are back in full force.  Of the three post punk bands gracing this here top ten (Deeper, Fontaines DC, and Crack Cloud) each has its own little slice of the generic pie.  Fontaines have the deep gloom of Interpol/Joy Division, Crack Cloud ripple with the staccato energy of Gang of Four, and Deeper have the wiry dancieness of, well, Wire. So long as leather jackets and black and white photography remain cool, there’ll always be bands like this, and thank god for that.  In a true sign o’ the times, I learned about this band from some random girl’s Tik Tok in my for-you feed.  She repped five bands, two of which are in my top three, so I was like, sure I’ll give this band Deeper a go.  God bless the internet.  Finally, Deeper get bonus points for naming a song “This Heat,” who I’ve been spending a lot of time revisiting this year, and whose spikey guitars are all over this record.  

9. The Flaming Lips – American Head

There are few things as satisfying in art as being genuinely surprised by a beloved artist you had given up as culturally dead.  Since putting out their last masterpiece (2009’s Embryonic) the Lips have put out a string of good, if inconsequential, albums that befitting the ethos of the band could best be described as half baked (The Terror, Oczy Moldy, and a series of collaborative experiments).  Basically, they had reached that dreaded nadir where I was no longer interested in listening to their new output (cough The National, cough cough Arcade Fire).  So what made me give American Head a chance? That reader, is the point of art criticism! I can’t remember how the blurb on pitchfork read exactly, but I knew it referenced Tom Petty and a return to a preoccupation with more Earthly concerns—namely ‘70s heartland rock.  Well, this sounded intriguing, and boy was I not disappointed.  Sure, the Flaming Lips have already reached their sell-by date twice over (first in 1992, immediately followed by their MTV reinvention on 1993’s Transmissions from the Satellite Heart; and then again in the late ‘90s with the departure of guitarist Ronald Jones, followed by their creative pinnacle, ‘99’s symphonic masterpiece The Soft Bulletin), so it shouldn’t be all that surprising that this band could rise from the dead a third time.  Only, for the most part, they didn’t.  I guess I’m not surprised that American Head failed to reach a broader audience. Most people probably aren’t even aware that they are still a going concern, and after the failures of the last decade it makes sense that most weren’t interested in more tunes from the Oklahoma freaknicks.  But for those willing to give the band another chance, American Head easily delivers their best album since Embryonic, if not all the way back to Yoshimi.  Mixing ‘70s Americana with the star gazing of Soft Bulletin’s “Sleeping on the Roof,” the Lips deliver their best album in decades by foregoing the parlor tricks and returning to what they do best, taking trips to distant galaxies while keeping their feet firmly planted in the soil and songcraft of Oklahoma.

8. Cut Worms – Nobody Lives Here Anymore

This one is pretty easy.  Do you like George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass? If yes, listen to Nobody Lives Here Anymore and revel in this double album’s upbeat acoustic rock mediations.  If no, well there’s plenty of other good stuff out there.  Not quite as metaphysical or orchestral as All Things Must Pass, Nobody Lives Here Anymore still manages to hit that rockabiliy-pop sweet spot that Harrison used to mine.  I’m not quite sure what the definition of “troubadour” is, but it feels safe to call Cut Worms a troubadour, which is certainly better than his terrible stage name.  

7. Cigarettes for Breakfast – Aphantasia

Similar to Cut Worms, Cigarettes for Breakfast also involves a simple influence equation.  Do you pray at the altar of Loveless? If so, Aphantasia is just the record for you.  Sure, it’s a bit of My Bloody Valentine paint by numbers (“Breathe” even features the same squally guitar noise [it’s really hard to try and describe My Bloody Valentine effects ha] as “Soft as Snow (But Warm Inside)”) but when you’re as into shoegaze as I am, that’s never really a bad thing.  Plus, I’m being a bit unfair.  Everyone with textured tremolo heavy wall-of-sound guitars and cooed vocals is going to inevitably be compared to MBV, and Cigarettes for Breakfast do enough to chart their own course.  Perhaps most interesting is the musical journey this record charts.  Its loudest moment is its opening, where pummeling guitars more reminiscent of Sonic Youth with a touch of Dinosaur Jr. rip across hardcore style drumming. From there each song becomes a little more ambient, until closer “If Someone Could Help Me, Please” more or less floats away on its shimmering sheets of beautiful noise clouds.  In this sense, it bears a resemblance in structure, if not in sound, to Deerhunter’s Cryptograms, another album I spent a lot of time revisiting this year.  A shutout here is owed to the fine folks at Radio K, who had me diving for my shazam as this thing ripped across their airwaves.  So long as there is college radio, there’ll be a new crop of kids discovering via Kevin Shields that the electric guitar contains endless sonic possibilities.  

6. Fontaines D.C. – A Hero’s Death

The second entry in our top-ten post punk trio is A Hero’s Death by Fontaines D.C.  I’ll admit, on first blush it’s kind of a dumb band name (I just assumed they were some hardcore band from Washington DC chasing those Dischord Records glory days), but when you learn that the “DC” stands for Dublin City, it all clicks, as this band is sorta inescapably Irish in the way that James Joyce is.  Now this fact at first was also off-putting—if I went the rest of my life without ever hearing the Dropkick Murphy’s again I’d be quite content—but eventually it becomes integral to their sound, and not just because of the brogue in Garin Chatten’s vocals.  “Love is the Main Thing” is an incredible song in many ways, most notably because of the hypnotic quality of the drumming with its counterpoint between riding cymbal and staccato toms, but perhaps in the main (*wink*) for the way it manages to connote the weariness of a grey urban environment without ever being explicitly about it.  Just as Turn on the Bright Lights managed to perfectly capture New York in 2001, A Hero’s Death to me is the aural equivalent of a dense urban center like Dublin, especially after nightfall.  

5. Imaginary Softwoods – Annual Flowers in Color

It should come as no surprise that I listened to A LOT of ambient this year, and to me there was no better electronic record to chill the fuck out to during this insane year than Annual Flowers in Color.  I absolutely loved Emeralds’ Does it Look Like I’m Here? and was devastated they never followed that gem (*wink*) up.  In the immediate aftermath of the demise of Emeralds Mark McGuire’s solo albums got a lot of attention, but apparently the person I really loved in Emeralds was Imaginary Softwoods’ John Elliot.  Annual Flowers in Color is like if Dead City’s, Red Seas, Lost Ghosts were waiting in the departure’s lounge of Eno’s airport.  At the heart of the album lies the 10 plus minutes of “Another First/Sea Machine.” I could listen to this song forever, and on some particularly WTF 2020 lakewalks I more or less have.  Chunky synths, arpeggios that drift off to infinity, ‘80s soundtrack nostalgia.  I could live in these Softwoods for the rest of my sonic days.  

4. Pottery – Welcome to Bobby’s Motel

In another moment of nostalgia for my college years, Pottery are a welcome return to weird ass experimental Canadian bands.  They don’t sound anything like the Unicorns, but in spirit Pottery kind of remind me of them.  I’ve spilled a lot of digital ink here and elsewhere bemoaning the fact that Pitchfork (or perhaps, me) isn’t cool anymore, and to me no band embodies this more than Pottery.  They take a bunch of fun disparate elements—Talking Heads dance art rock, periodic weird pitch shifted vocal effects, hazy deep purple style guitars, and Queen style machismo disco—throw them into a witch’s cauldron, and come up with something off the wall that sounds like nothing else but is also instantly familiar.  This is the type of thing Pitchfork would have been all over in 2007, but instead now they’re too busy chasing conde nast clout clicks.  Oh well, nothing gold can last. But enough negativity, this here is a celebration of the joy of new music, and no new band embodies that unbridled joy like Pottery.  Along with Fontaines DC, this is the band I wish I most could have bopped around to with a bunch of sweaty strangers in the 7th St. Entry or Turf Club.  You can just imagine the call and response vocals and funky grooves getting the people moving.  Oh well, hopefully we’ll soon all be rocking the vaccine, they can breeze through town, and I’ll be the first person on the dance floor embarrassingly pumping my fist a half beat behind the rhythm.  

3. Pure X – Pure X

To paraphrase Same Elliott in the Big Lebowski, sometimes there’s a band, and well, sometimes there’s a band.  For me this year, that band was Pure X.  I absolutely loved their debut Pleasure way back in 2011, when lo-fi reverb heavy slow guitar music (ie, Galaxie 500) was all the rage. Their follow up Crawling up the Stairs was so bad I didn’t even bother listening to Angel, though perhaps that also owed a decent amount to just how terrible the art on that record is.  (I’ve since remedied this mistake; turns out that record rules).  Being that as it may, I can’t particularly tell you what drew me in to this year’s self-titled album, a full nine years after Pleasure first graced the stage.  In one sense it’s probably because Pleasure is one those albums that just never went out of my rotation.  Whenever the fahrenheit tips past 90 and the walk to the bodega is a few blocks longer than you’d like, that record always hits the spot.  Maybe I just knew this was the record I needed this year.  Either way, from the first bars of “Middle America” I was hooked.  The guitars crash over you, but never in a threatening way. Rather, they envelop you like a weighted blanket, comforting you in their sonic embrace.  Nowhere is this more true than on “Fantasy,” easily my favorite song of 2020 (especially since this was a year entirely devoid of dance floor bangers).  If this album came out in 1999 rather than 2020 I would have hit the repeat button on my discman and listened to this song forever.  

2. Crack Cloud – Pain Olympics

Pain Olympics is the answer to the question that no one asked: what if Arcade Fire’s (back when they were good) communal uplift was paired with Gang of Four’s stark anthem’s of industrialism’s collapse?  While on first blush this might sound like your standard album of punkish fist pumping angst, from when the female vocals (sorry there are too many people in this band for me to be able to figure out whose who) come in on opener “Post Truth (Birth of a Nation)” Pain Olympics reveals itself to be a very strange animal (likely a unicorn of some sort), especially as little orchestral swirls creep into the mix, giving it an almost Judy Garland (in hell) quality.  This subtle genre pastiche is given its best effect on stunner “The Next Fix.” That song starts out as an elastic spoken-word call and response addiction rumination, at the minute mark it starts to segue into a vocoded chill raver, then some horns crop up out of nowhere, then a spoken word passage, then at the two minute mark a chorus of voices come in, doing their best Broken Social Scene in the truest sense of the phrase.  This is perhaps one of the strangest records I’ve ever heard, but what is strangest of all is just how beautiful it is.  Crack Cloud are not for everyone, but if you really give it a chance, the returns are limitless.  

1. SAULT – Untitled (Rise) / Untitled (Black Is)

You cannot tell the story of 2020 without SAULT, which is why this pair of records is here at the top, even if under the influence of sodium pentothal (lets be honest, veritaserum) I might lean more towards Pain Olympics.  In June, the “anonymous” London project put out Untitled (Black Is), and then quickly followed that gem up with September’s Untitled (Rise).  Perhaps more amazing still is that these two albums, released so close together, have unique personalities.  Black Is is more pop/R&B whereas Rise has a dancy, electr(on)ic feel.  I lean more towards the latter, but honestly, both albums are so overstuffed with amazing moments that it’s borderline unbelievable that one outfit could put out so much amazing music in such a short span.  While these records would chart high even if sung in Hopelandic, there’s no escaping the social import of the lyrics.  One need look no further than Black Is’s “Don’t Shoot Guns Down” for the 2020 dance party at the end of the world.  As if that weren’t more than enough, it finds its analogue on Rise’s “Street Fighter,” and that’s SAULT in a nutshell: two albums in constant communication with one another, and more importantly, with the state of the world.  Guns down.  Don’t Shoot.  Let’s dance.  

[prosecutors-gambit]

u dont have to answer this but ur right abt n*r*m*ts* and you should say it!!!

im glad people agree! because I’m not doing anything better right now, im going to share some more extensive thoughts towards phoenix and his character specifically.

going to put it under the cut because. i have so much to say. spoilers for the trilogy ahead

i’ve already talked about how i think its weird to think about romantic relationships between kids because well, they’re kids. it’s verging on creepy no matter who it is. 

and in this case, the who is (western) nrmt shippers who are either a) cool or b) dangerously close to f*jyoshis. unsurprisingly, f*jyoshis are the last people i want to see thinking about two young boys who are shipped as adults. but that aside lets get to my other, sperate point about how i think it’s terrible for both of their characters

so for phoenix. he is an incredibly trusting and loyal character, dedicated to helping people he feels have no one else to care about them, largely due to the classroom trial. I think it’s more interesting if he saw miles in the newspaper, saw how alone he looked, and thought theres a person who needs someone to be there for him, and im going to do what it takes to be there. yes it helped that he knew miles before but personally i believe that’s what allowed him to recognize the loneliness in like, a newspaper photo, instead of that connection being the entire reason he changed career paths.

Suggesting that phoenix became a lawyer just because he still had a crush on miles an entire decade after he disappeared paints nick in such a weirdly obsessive light and i prefer to think of it as just like, this need to help people in whatever way he can. While he’s studying to become a lawyer he meets and dates dahlia/iris and the whole dahlia thing aside he definitely did like iris. its such a disservice to think that the entire time nick was with iris he was just thinking about miles. iris is such an interesting character and his time spent with her is a really important part of who nick is and i dont like how thats normally glossed over in favor of nrmt. 

Furthermore, to quickly talk about miles. i think the unnecessary feeling line is,,, um. not about romantic feelings. kind of a hot take i know. i could get more into this but suggesting that the unnessesary feelings are romantic overshadows his trauma, which he is reminded of by seeing phoenix. their friendship then is painful to recollect, even though it was definitely important to him. 

tldr its creepy to think about kids kissing and being in a relationship and its more entertaining story and character-wise if they start to have crushes on each other after meeting again in court. the prosecution rests their case.

[braverytaught]

anyway i promised i’d talk about my reaction to cog and like, idk who cares, but i’m here on my soapbox anyway

obviously don’t fuckin read any farther if u haven’t seen it, i’m going in hard with the spoilers

i’ve talked about the mcg cameo and we’re ignoring that

they did dumbledore so fuckin dirty

they did queenie so fuckin dirty

the whole plot was a confusing and kind of pointless-in-and-of-itself setup for the next three movies, which i understand is necessary in some sense for a very long story like this, but if you can’t make a movie’s plot enjoyable and understandable as its own being, then you haven’t done a good job. cog’s primary function cannot be to lay the groundwork for movies that haven’t come out yet; it has to stand on its own, and i’m not sure it does

grindelwald’s kind of a joke

if you’re going to make nagini a character (and we all know the issues with that in the first place), you could at least bother to give her a personality

they did leta dirty too, she deserved more than a one-movie character arc

i don’t think tina’s characterization was badly done, but i do think she deserved more time, and they did a really bad job of showing the status of tina and newt’s relationship in the intervening nine months imo

i don’t think credence joining grindelwald is a bad story choice, but i do think it was handled incorrectly. they should have played into the “i’m being persecuted and i feel alone and scared and he may have used me but so has everyone else in my life and he seems to care about me so i’m going to go with him because i think he can keep me safe” aspect instead of reducing it to “he can tell me my real name”

on the bright side i continue to adore newt and his creatures, and i think eddie redmayne’s acting is fucking fantastic

credence being dumbledore’s secret long-lost much-younger brother is about as farcical as voldemort having a secret daughter with bellatrix lestrange

more under the cut. i’m about to go into highkey analysis mode.

queenie

yeah i’m fucking mad about this. the closest i came to crying in the entire movie was because i was so upset about what they did to her character. not bc it moved me but bc it pissed me off. queenie goldstein is smart, capable, and empathetic. i was so happy to see her again -- for about five seconds, until we found out she’s enchanted jacob so she can marry him without his consent? what the fuck? and then she spends the rest of the movie with no other motivation than to be with a man? she’s apparently so stupid and blind that she would join grindelwald, genuinely thinking grindelwald’s going to create a world where muggles are allowed to marry witches no problem? grindelwald’s manipulative tactics are blindingly obvious, and yet the woman who has spent her life learning how to read people and manipulate them in turn for her own protection can’t see that she’s being played? 

fuck that. that’s not the queenie goldstein i know. and i’m not cool with her being turned into the “woman who makes bad, stupid, blind choices out of her desire to be with a man, because that’s all women really want, i guess” trope.

the only way i can see her joining grindelwald is if she followed credence, to protect him, and was a double agent from the start. 

grindelwald

not even getting into johnny depp as a person, he’s clearly the wrong person for this part. it would’ve been better to keep the percival graves persona going than to turn grindelwald into a bleached rat who has apparently never seen the light of day. colin farrell was the perfect example of a seductive villain. grindelwald as graves was confident, persuasive, compelling even after you realized he was the bad guy.

grindelwald should have stayed that way even after he showed his true self or whatever. they kept telling us that he was seductive, that he couldn’t even be trusted with a tongue or he’d turn every guard to his side, and yet? i saw nothing of the sort? johnny depp’s grindelwald, both his acting and the character design, screams “i’m the big villain and you should hate me because i’m sleazy and creepy.” but that’s not how you gain followers. tom riddle was charming and handsome and persuasive; it was only after he gained power that he slowly became the inhuman creature we think of as voldemort, and that was after everyone was too scared of him to defect. grindelwald should have been smooth, should have been charming, should have showed a real ability to connect with the people he wanted to convert. and, you know what? he should have been handsome. he should have stayed jamie campbell bower tbfh. people follow a pretty face. 

the point is he seemed like a caricature, an obvious villain. not somebody i can believe could genuinely win so many people over to his cause. you can’t just tell me he’s seductive and then make me watch pasty johnny depp make vague, empty speeches the whole time. not good enough.

dumbledore

i mean, i don’t have a problem with jude law. i think he did a pretty good job. so there’s that going for him. 

too bad they were off with.....pretty much everything else.

i’ll stick with my two biggest complaints, i guess. the first is that it makes no sense for dumbledore to be out here talking to anyone who asks about his sister and his relationship with grindelwald. the whole thing in dh was that nobody knew he’d ever been affiliated with grindelwald -- his oldest friends refused to believe it. it happened over the course of one summer, they kept their plans secret, and it ended in disaster. and we know dumbledore never talked about that shit, not till he fuckin died. so why would some ministry dude be able to waltz in and say, yeah, we know u and grindelwald were close as brothers, and why would dumbledore respond that they were closer?? why would he ever disclose that??? that was secret fuckin information my dudes

same with ariana. i get the spin on empathy, but i don’t see him just casually bringing up his sister to leta. maybe i’m wrong on this one, idfk, maybe he would use ariana as an example to relate to a hurting student -- but i have a hard time imagining him bringing it up like that. it’s his shame. seems to me like another one of those things he’d avoid mentioning unless he absolutely had to. 

and then. then there’s the whole fuckin grindelwald relationship thing in the first place.

i get that they’re trying to correct themselves. “you calling dumbledore gay without making any real references to it in canon does not count as representation,” we said, so now they’re making it real clear. but, really? really? you think dumbledore would look into the mirror of erised and see the current grindelwald? you think grindelwald is the deepest and greatest desire of his heart, and not, idk, his family, whole and unharmed? you think his love for grindelwald defines him more than any of his other motivations? no. bullshit.

as far as i can tell, they made dumbledore’s gayness central to his character in this story -- which is just as bad as not acknowledging it at all. because his relationship with grindelwald doesn’t define him, it certainly isn’t more important to him than his grief for his family, and he has plenty of motivation and character that doesn’t stem directly from his encounter with grindelwald, so (as tempting as it might be for mediocre storytellers) to spin his entire characterization in the fantastic beasts arc around the fact that he was gay for grindelwald when he was 17 is not only a disservice to his character, it’s also just shallow writing.

[alluran]

rain

klancetober day four read on ao3

Keith picked up his phone and blinked against the unwelcome brightness. He turned over in his bed, the sound of the blankets shifting and rain muffled against his window a warm comfort on his day off.

He slid his thumb across the screen and held it up to his ear.

“Why aren’t you responding to any of my snaps?”

“Lance, if I’ve seen one picture of the picture of the rain on your window you took with that camera, I’ve seen them all.”

“Yes, and you haven’t even sent a ‘ur hipster trash’ with your spelled as u-r because you know it annoys me or ‘that’s real evanescence of you’ or something. Inquiring minds want to know if you’re dead or possessed.”

Keith chuckled softly. “Not possessed or dead.”

“Oh, don’t tell me I got you sick from last week?!”

“No, just a headache. Weather change, my body is garbage, the usual.”

“You work out at ungodly hours of the day and at least eat healthy most of the timeish. Your immune system should be like indestructible.”

“Well now I’m just thinking about the possibility of someone not cleaning off the equipment at the gym and getting plague. Thanks.”

“No problem, Red.”

Static crossed the line as thunder rumbled in the distance. “I guess I should let you rest.”

“It’s almost gone now, so it’s fine.”

More static crossed the line, probably from Lance switching his phone to his other side and cradling it between his shoulder and ear. “Bup, bup, bup. You’re off the hook this time, but you’re the reason I have all of this film to use as I wish-”

“A terrible idea really, I should have made you sign some sort of moderation contract.”

“Har, har.”

The rain picked up its assault on his bedroom window, the waning light blocked out by the clouds. Keith peeked through his blinds as lightning flashed behind the clouds. “We should really hang up before one of us gets electrocuted.”

“Ooh, if we do, I call dibs on the superhero awakening.”

“I’m not sure that’s how that works.”

Lance hummed into the phone, so incredibly close it had the hair on the back of Keith’s neck standing up. “I’m just putting it out there into the universe in case that’s exactly how it works. Super speed would be pretty wicked.”

“I’ll talk to you later, Kid Flash.”

“Not if I catch you fir- Wait, you didn’t say catch.” Lance groaned into the receiver. “Please hang up to end my suffering.”

“That’s pretty Evanescence of you.”

“You would know. Later, man.”

Keith listened to the soft blips signaling that the call had ended and set his phone back on the nightstand, letting himself fall back into his bed.

Keith watched out of the large cafe window, covering his smile with his drink as someone’s umbrella turned inside out with the next gust of wind. He’d been there so many times, he ultimately quit buying them two years ago. It was decided he was unequivocally the place umbrellas went to die. So he was really taking a drink in solidarity.

“Hey. This seat taken?”

He rolled his eyes as he lowered his cup. “You know if you keep wasting your terrible pickup lines on me, it’s going to ruin any shot you have of your ridiculous coffeeshop au.”

“I’m fine, thanks for asking. How are you today?”

Keith huffed and tipped his head in the direction of the window. “Ready for this to break. It’s been three days.”

“Right?!” Lance plopped down into a chair and stretched dramatically. “Hard to enjoy my hipster camera if the air is humid and the leaves are wet.” He shuffled his feet under the table, the toes of his shoes ghosting against Keith’s. “In response to your previous statement - there’s literally just the employees and the 70-year-old lady that comes in here all the time to knit in the corner. I don’t think I’m her type. I’m not an AARP member.”

Keith snorted into his cup and tried his best to hide his cough behind the sleeve of his jacket when an employee glanced at him over the espresso machine. “God, Lance.”

Lance laughed and took a long pull from his drink, steam still curled a little off the surface, Something Keith could smell had too many espresso shots and was heavily sugared. Lance seemed to catch onto his brief interest in his drink and slid it across the table.

“Did you want to try it?”

“I’m going to pass, I don’t plan on going into a diabetic coma or vibrating through walls.”

“Hey, the lightning hasn’t hit me yet.”

“A true disservice to humanity at large.”

“Eh, the day is still young.” Lance shrugged, reclining back into his seat. He crossed his ankle over his knee, foot bobbing to the easy listening station they’d heard repeated 223 times by now. He got into it, like he was hearing it for the first time as the beats and words settled over their table.

Keith looked out the window, watching cabs whiz by and people trying in vain to duck the fat raindrops. Because he was settling comfortably into his old age, Keith thought not for the first time that morning, that it wouldn’t have been so bad if the humidity would break.

“How’s your mom?”

“Still wondering when you’re going to become weirdly obsessed with our attic again enough to clean it. Yours?”

“The usual. Excited to decorate the house with my nieces and nephews. Wondering if she’ll ever get another grandchild.”

“Not so subtle hint, huh?”

“Marco’s already had two, she keeps giving him the eyes and saying, “What’s one more, mijo?” in that soft mom voice she sings in.”

Keith smirked into the last sip of his drink. “And what does he say?”

“That that’s what she and papá said when me and Rachel were conceived.”

“Has she started to ask you and Rachel yet?”

“Thankfully, in my mom’s brain Rachel, Luís, and I still kind of file as too young, but that’s always subject to change. It’s more of a family joke than anything serious. She loves the littles she has and wants us to do whatever we want, so long as we’re happy and safe.” Lance swiped whipped cream away from his top lip with his tongue. “What about Krolia? Does she ask you about having kids.”

Keith snorted. Lance lunged across the table and knocked his elbow off of the tabletop, he seethed at Keith under his breath, “You know what I mean, asshole.”

“No, to answer your question. Krolia doesn’t ask about grandchildren. I’m sure she’ll get a laugh about you asking first though.” Keith tapped his empty cup against the table. “Gotta admit, this is sort of a weird turn in conversation.”

“Yeah.” Lance’s mouth tipped up bashfully as he scratched the back of his head. “Dunno, guess I’m just going through one of those single slumps where I weirdly talk about adult things like the weather or a sale on sensible shoes and settling down.”

“At least that gets you one step closer to that AARP membership if you decide to ask that woman for her snapchat code.”

“You’ll be the first person I don’t offer my senior discount to, Kogane.” Lance stood up to throw away his empty cup and held his hand out for Keith’s.

“Oh, thanks.” Keith gave Lance his cup. As Lance stepped away, Keith noticed the older woman smile into her knitting project before she glanced to Lance then down to him.

When Lance returned he was tapping away on his phone. “Hey, so Hunk just messaged me. He’s back and Pidge is on her way. How about we return our youth and vitality with some Mario Kart?”

Keith stretched in his seat, his joints popping pleasantly. “Are you going to not talk to me for three days if you get caught in another blue shell explosion again?”

“Yeah, probably.” Lance nudged his elbow into Keith’s side and grinned as he opened the door. “But that’s the spice of this relationship, babe.”

a/n: some of these prompt fills are only going to be loosely involved, but I hope they’re still enjoyable.

This goes along with the headcanon that Rachel and Lance are twins. Luís is the youngest after Lance and Rachel because I could have swore Lance said in an episode “My older brother, Marco, my older sister, Veronica, and younger brother, Luís.” Unless people were figuring in the weird time thing space does and that it now makes Lance younger. I like the idea of Lance getting to be a big brother.

also, lemme know what you think, please! I’m kind of struggling with knowing my audience and finding what works or doesn’t. I won’t post it. it can be anon. I just want to make sure I’m doing things you guys are chill with. I want this to be a good space.

[mrmichaelchadler]

Thumbnails 11/2/18

Thumbnails is a roundup of brief excerpts to introduce you to articles from other websites that we found interesting and exciting. We provide links to the original sources for you to read in their entirety.—Chaz Ebert

1. 

"CIFF 2018: 'The Hate U Give' and 'Widows' on the Red Carpet": My interviews with filmmakers Steve McQueen and George Tillman Jr., author Gillian Flynn and actors Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez and Amandla Stenberg at the Chicago International Film Festival, published at Indie Outlook.

“There’s no question Tillman Jr.’s film would make an essential double bill with Carlos López Estrada’s ‘Blindspotting,’ another powerful illustration of modern-day prejudice amplified shamelessly by our president. ‘What I want to illuminate for audiences is the importance of having empathy instead of sympathy, of having understanding as well as the ability to listen to each another,’ Tillman Jr. told me. ‘We must have the tough conversations provoked by this film, and I’m very excited for audiences to take it all in.’ Among the most potent truths illuminated by ‘The Hate U Give’ is the tendency for white people to mistake ‘color blindness’ as a form of acceptance. Having been open about her own sexuality in recent years, Stenberg told me that the importance of acknowledging one’s identity extends far beyond the realm of race. ‘Whether it’s your blackness, your gayness, your trans-ness or whatever it is, I think it is always so important to acknowledge the components of self that make us us,’ stressed Stenberg. ‘The premise of ‘I don’t see color’ is one that rests upon the idea that we live in a post-racial or post-identity society, which is not true. When we relate to one another and see, hear and regard each other, I think it’s really important to be inclusive of all the different facets of self that contribute to one’s own experience. You have to make sure that when you are seeing someone, you are seeing them not despite of who they are, but including and because of who they are.’”

2. 

"The Many Faces of Women Who Identify as Witches": Including Deborah Kampmeier, the exceptional filmmaker pictured above, in an article by The New Yorker's Naomi Fry. Catch the exhibit at NYC's ClampArt before it closes on November 24th.

“In her portrait series ‘Major Arcana: Witches in America,’ which will be shown at the ClampArt gallery, in Chelsea, beginning October 4th, the photographer Frances F. Denny seeks to explore the figure of the contemporary witch beyond the cultural chestnuts that have shrouded and obscured it. In the course of the past two years, Denny, who holds an M.F.A. in photography from the Rhode Island School of Design (where I taught her for a semester a number of years ago), has travelled in California, Louisiana, and along the East Coast, taking the portraits of dozens of women who identify as witches. Her subjects are of diverse age, social class, and ethnicity, and practice a range of rituals, often drawing on ‘mysticism, engagement with the occult, politically oriented activism, polytheism, ritualized ‘spell-work’ and plant-based healing,’ according to Denny’s exhibition notes. Among them are ‘self-proclaimed green witches, white witches, kitchen witches, hedge witches, and sex witches.’ The series as a whole aims to avoid easy formulas and, instead, to exhibit the heterogeneity and individuality of modern-day witches, Denny told me recently, adding, ‘I’m not pinning these women down.’”

3.

"Fare Thee Well, Filmstruck": Our critic Monica Castillo eulogizes the irreplaceable streaming service in her latest Tiny Letter newsletter, which you can sign up for here.

“I don't need to tell you the news has been bad lately. But to lose a source of comfort in these trying times? It feels especially cruel, almost personally so. Last week, Time Warner pulled the plug on FilmStruck, the streaming service that offered treasures from the TCM vault and the Criterion Collection. As far as I know, there is no other streaming service that takes programming and extras so seriously. FilmStruck started the season after I began at The New York Times. It was exciting news to cover, and I felt especially attached to FilmStruck because of the timing. I picked movies from its collections after work to de-stress. Later, I came up with ideas on how to cover some new discovery I just HAD to write about. I cried my way through the early films of David Lean during a few rough patches, and I threw on old favorites like the movies of Peter O'Toole while doing chores to keep me company. FilmStruck proved the streaming world wasn't all bad news for classic movie fans, but that it could be a curated resource useful to diehard cinephiles and newcomers alike.”

4. 

"The Halloween Tree": Andrea Thompson revisits the 1993 animated gem at The Young Folks.

“Yes, Halloween has lasted, but everything mentioned above is mere window dressing. What has kept this holiday going is one of the universal truths of humanity which unites us all, and that is our fascination with fear and the individual horrors that shake us to our core. Few movies understand this, but the Emmy-winning 1993 TV movie ‘The Halloween Tree’ does. I discovered this little gem as a kid because I had the childhood most writers have, the kind with a nose fully inserted in a book. And the author of many such books was one of the great masters of sci-fi himself, Ray Bradbury, the author of the novel of the same name, as well as other books such as The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, and Fahrenheit 451. For the film adaptation, Bradbury actually penned the screenplay and serves as narrator, which means much of his poetic prose is preserved. The movie takes place on Halloween Night, and follows four preteen kids, Jenny, Ralph, Tom, and Wally, all costumed up as a witch, a mummy, a skeleton, and a monster respectively, and eager to join their best friend Pip. As ‘The Halloween Tree’ puts it, ‘Some say that on the day he was born, all the soda pop bottles in the world fizzed over. Pipkin, who could yell louder, sing better, and eat more popcorn. Pip, the greatest boy who ever lived.’”

5. 

"'Bohemian Rhapsody': A Disservice to Freddie Mercury": Solzy at the Movies critic Danielle Solzman eloquently explains why the hotly anticipated biopic is a missed opportunity. 

“While the band’s popularity is the large focus of the film, it’s hard to discuss Freddie Mercury without knowing what we know about his sexuality. There were the rumors in the tabloids during the band’s heyday. The film doesn’t ignore it per se. There’s a montage of clips where Freddie and personal manager Paul Prenter walking into gay clubs. Even though we see him clearly hitting on guys, there’s not much outside of the relationship with Paul and even Jim Hutton (Aaron McCusker). This is it. Nothing to say of Freddie’s relationship with radio DJ Kenny Everett (Dickie Beau). There’s not even any sex scenes between them! I liken it to social media in that they’re only showing us what they want us to see. The biggest worry obviously has come true. It really does a disservice to the singer. When Freddie receives his AIDS diagnosis, the moment is not as emotional as it could be. This is a serious disease that killed many people. It led to his passing at the age of 45 years old on November 24, 1991. Here it is, the film misses an opportunity to have a bigger focus on his battle with the disease. To make matters worse, Freddie was diagnosed two years AFTER the Live Aid performance and yet as they rehearse for the gig, he opens up about his battle with AIDS! If you’re going to tell the story, tell it the right way.”

Image of the Day

Chicago's indispensable "cine-club," Filmfront, 1740 W. 18th St., is celebrating its first three-and-a-half years of free film and education programming with a fundraising party on Saturday, November 3rd. For more information on the event, visit Filmfront's official Facebook page. You can make a donation here and sign up for its monthly newsletter here. Also be sure to check out my article on Filmfront from 2016. Poster courtesy of Jacob Lindgren.

Video of the Day

The streaming platform Kanopy recently teamed up with the Goethe-Institut to showcase 48 acclaimed German features on its streaming platform. View the complete list here.

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