September Leaves
Josie got pregnant.
She’d met a man at a music venue. Both of them were musicians and they were touring in different bands, playing this joint. She only knew him for two days. They got talking and they liked each other and then they slept together one night.
He left the city two days later to go elsewhere on his tour. And Josie didn’t know she was pregnant until a month afterwards. It was quite a shock. She didn’t think that would ever happen to her …
At first she didn’t want it. She was only 23. And didn’t have much money. When she told her bandmates about it they all clapped and whooped and that made her think differently.
This was in the 1970s. Way before communication across the globe was as easy as the internet has made it. And so Josie couldn’t get in contact with the father. She wanted to tell him. But didn’t know how to get in touch with him. She knew his band’s name [September Leaves, was their name] and that was about it … And she remembered him saying that the band were headed down to England. Leeds and then London, to play.
But she had no method of looking up what venues he’d played in.
Two months went by. Josie was still pondering whether to keep the child. During this time, she was still singing with her band. I.e., the nights were still fun. Music, young people, dancing.
So she was consistently in a good mood and so she decided to have this baby.
Her band mates were real heroes about her. With her. They supported her along. As they travelled around in the van they made sure she was comfortable.
After about seven months she had to cease playing with them. So she went back to stay with her folks in Glasgow, until the baby would come.
The ninth month was a November. Josie was glad that the baby was going to be a Scorpio: she’d always been attracted to Scorpios. She wondered what the kid’s personality would turn out to be. And she still didn’t know whether it would be a boy or girl. She wondered whether it would look more like her or the father.
She went into labour on the 10th of November and went to hospital.
The baby came out stillborn.
It was a girl. She was completely still when they pulled her out.
Josie tried singing for a few more years. But, her baby’s death had locked itself in with her music. Folk songs couldn’t help her deal with the grief. And, indeed, she never learned how to cope with that loss. It was too painful. … She got a job working in a supermarket. And then worked in a restaurant, and a cinema for a while. Never had any other kids. … As far as she knew, the father, the drummer in the band September Leaves – never found out that he’d ever gotten her pregnant. That he had a dead child.
Josie looked up September Leaves when the internet arose in the 21st century. They were a band from ‘76 to ’78. Folk rock genre. They never really achieved much attention (not that Josie’s band ever did either) and there wasn’t much material to see.
There were a few photos of them playing live. Here and there: black and white photos. Of the band on stage: and in one of them she could see him – the father/drummer – in the background. But the image was grainy and it was hard to see his face.
These days, Josie will occasionally go to see her daughter. Buried in a small kirkyard, not far from where Josie grew up. She puts flowers there and sits on the nearby bench. Josie will wish that she could go back in time and never have met that man. There were so many chances that might never have happened. That the profound sadness that has been in her heart for decades may never have been there. And then she says Bye to her child and leaves the cemetery and goes home.
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It is frankly absurd to me that people think Iger is a lesser evil than Chapek
Let’s talk about this cuz folks need to know the score
People think of Chapek as the bigoted one, but remember Iger ran Disney from *2005* to *2019*
That means years upon years of diversity crushing was done under his watch
Every complaint Alex Hirsch ever had about his time at Disney? That was under Iger’s reign
He was no hero of diversity, in fact he kept it back, either through the Disney culture he created or through inaction to remove bigots like Ike Perlmutter (at least until golden goose Feige threatened to walk). He did do some shit, but so half-assed and most real progress was at the very end of his run
Most of Disneys “first gay character” bullshit happened under him
There was that completely fucked up shit with that 4 year olds grave
He single-handedly brought on the age of excessive reboots, sequels and general franchise and nostalgia we all suffer from today (we might have always gotten here, but he was the one who showed Hollywood just how profitable it could be to completely abandon creativity)
Under him, theaters were bullied into using their most and their best screens for Disney produced films like Star Wars, marvel and the remakes, making it even harder for any other mid-budget films to break through than it already was
Speaking of the remakes, Mulan 2020 did its filming during 2018, firmly under Iger’s reign, meaning he must have okayed filming in a part of china where genocide was actively being committed
The MCU became the most financially successful franchise of all time, while the people who wrote the comics it was based on got scraps (if that) from their work being utilized
He bought Pixar, lucasfilm, marvel and 21st century fox and subsequently robbed most of them from what made them worth buying, including of course laying off thousands to reduce the massive debt
he got a package in 2018 of 2000 TIMES that of a custodian worker (meaning they’d have to work for 2000 years just to make the same amount of money he made during that one year)
Meanwhile, 1 out of every 10 full time workers at the Disney parks was homeless in the two years prior, and 2/3s didn’t have the money to pay for food
There was a movement a few years back when apparently, the royalties for movie novelizations stopped coming for authors—specifically authors who’d novelizations were written for fox films such as Alien
Apparently Disney wasn’t honoring their contracts after purchasing fox
This was known as the #disneymustpay movement
Iger also directly set up the Disney+ model that caused Chapek to lose money on it.
Because the model was not his idea, it was just the Netflix model of spend, spend, spend.
I’m not interested in cutting a man like Chapek any slack, but it *must* be said that while he did a terrible job leading Disney, Iger handed him a no-win scenario with the newly launched Disney+ and so, so much money being poured into it; billions upon billions in debt thanks to the M&As, (*especially* the 71 billion dollar merger with Fox) a network of Iger loyalists, a board full of Iger’s friends, and simply a Disney so huge it’s practically impossible to successfully govern effectively.
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10 YEARS AGO TODAY, ON NOVEMBER 21ST, 2012
DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC ✨
THE BEAUTY & JOY OF ENDLESS & PURE MAGIC IN THIS WORLD 🌎
WELL
THIS IS A STORY ABOUT THE MOST MAGICAL ADVENTURE & TALE OF ALL THAT TALES THAT YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD OF
A LONG TIME AGO
A YOUNG BOY 👦
NAMED JACK
FINDS OUT HE IS NO LONGER PART OF THE LIVING WORLD
& HAS AASCENDED TO A NEW FORM OF LIFE
A DESTINY
A MYTH OF CHILDREN'S FOLK TALES
YOUNG JACK HAS BECOME
THE MYTHICAL FIGURE KNOWN AS
JACK FROST ⛄❄
& ONLY THE MYSTICAL BEING KNOWN AS THE MAN IN THE MOON 🌙 ✨ KNOWS WHY HE IS LIKE THIS NOW.
NOW.....
300 YEARS LATER
A DARK FORCE ENTERS THE 1 PLACE IN THE WORLD 🌎♥. WHICH HOLDS ALL THE HAPPINESS OF CHILDREN'S JOY IN THE ENTIRE WORLD 🌎 ALL YEAR LONG.
A MAGICAL PLACE KNOWN AS TO SOME AS
THE NORTH POLE ❄
HERE. THE GREATEST TOY MAKER 🧸🪀🎁 & BEARER OF GIFTS 🎁 TO DELIVERY JOY & PEACE ON EARTH 🌎 LIVES IN THIS HUMBLE HOME OF MAGIC
HE HAS GONE BY MANY NAMES OVER THE CENTURIES, HIS STORY HAS BEEN TOLD THROUGHOUT HISTORY
BUT ONLY 1 IS THE MOST KNOWN NAME OF ALL.
THEY CALL HIM
SANTA 🎅 CLAUS ALSO KNOWN AS NORTH
& NOW A UNFORSEEN DARKNESS COMING FROM THE DEPTHS OF CHILDREN'S FEAR 😨 & NIGHTMARES IS BACK TO TAKE HIS VENGEANCE UPON THE CHILDREN OF THE WORLD 🌎
AND BATHE IT IN DARKNESS FORVER.
ONLY 1 NAME COMED TO MIND WHEN IT COMES TO A MONSTER 👹 OF SUCH BAD INTENTIONS COMES TO MIND.
ALL CHILDREN WILL ONCE AGAIN FEAR HIM
FOR HE LIVES IN YOUR DARKEST FEARS AND UNDER YOUR BED 🛌 AT NIGHT
THEY CALL HIM
THE BOOGEYMAN 😈
BUT HE PREFERS YOU CALL HIM.
PITCH BLACK ⚫
NOW ..... THE TIME HAS COME TO UNITE LEGENDS OF CHILDHOOD DREAMS 💜 & HOPES IN THE WORLD 🌎♥. TO SAVE THE DAY
& RESTORE HOPE TO THE HEARTS 💕 OF ALL THE CHILDREN 👦🏻👧🏻👧🏼👦🏼👧🏽👦🏽👧🏾👦🏾🧒👦🏿👦🏿👶🏿👶🧒🏽🧒🏾🧒🏿🧒🏼🧒🏻👶🏽👶🏼👶🏾 TO BELIEVE IN
HEROES
SANTA 🎅 MUST BE TOGETHER HIS OLD FRIENDS OF CHILDREN'S STORIES THAT ARE VERY REAL & ARE ABOUT TO SAVE YOUR LIVES
FROM AUSTRALIA 🇦🇺 COMES THE RABBIT 🐇 WHO DELIVERS HOPE & NEW BEGINNINGS TO CHILDREN EVERYWAY ON A CERTAIN DAY IN APRIL THAT REPRESENTS
RESSURECTION
THE EASTER BUNNY 🐰 ALSO KNOWN AS BUNNYMUND
FROM THE MAGICAL PALACE OF CHILDREN'S TEETH 🦷 NOT FAR FROM SANTA'S WORKSHOP IN THE NORTH.
SHE DELIVERS JOY & SOME MONEY 💰 FOR GOOD LITTLE BOYS 👦 & GIRLS 👧 WHO DONT WAKE UP WHEN THEY HAVE A TOOTH UNDER THEIR PILLOW FOR HER TO RECEIVE & TAKES CARE OF THEIR DENTAL HYGENIE
THE TOOTH FAIRY 🧚♀️ ALSO KNOWN AS
TOOTHIANA
FROM HIGH ABOVE WHERE THE AURORA BOREALIS LIES AKA THE NORTHERN LIGHTS 🌌
A MAN WHO CONJURES UP GOLDEN MAGIC SAND ⏳ TO GIVE CHILDREN GOOD DREAMS TO SLEEP UPON 💤 😴 & REST EASY KNOWING THAT THEIR HOPES & DREAMS CAN COME TRUE. IF THEY BELIEVE
THE SANDMAN ⏳ ALSO KNOWN AS
SANDY
WHEN ALL 4 OF THESE HEROES OF LEGENDS COME FORTH
TOGETHER THEY ARE ....
THE GUARDIANS OF CHILDHOOD
BUT THEIR TEAM IS NOT YET COMPLETE...
FOR 1 MORE MEMBER WHO MUST BE WORTHY OF RECEIVING THE JOY & WARMTH OF A CHILD'S BELIEF IS IN NEED OF BECOMING A GUARDIAN IN THE MAKING
THE YOUNG JACK FROST ⛄❄ WILL JOIN THE BIG 4
WITHER HE LIKES IT OR NOT
HIS DESTINY TO SAVE THE CHILDREN OF THE WORLD 🌎 FROM THE EVIL FORCES OF PITCH BLACK IS ALWAYS BEEN HIS MISSION IN LIFE.
THIS IS HIS TIME
THIS IS THEIR TIME
TO RISE
FROM DREAMWORKS PICTURES ANIMATION PRESENTS
BASED ON THE BELOVED CHILDREN'S BOOKS 📚 THE GUARDIANS OF CHILDHOOD. WRITTEN BY THE CREATOR, WILLIAM JOYCE
SANTA 🎅 CLAUS IS MORE THEN A LEGEND
THE EASTER 🐣 BUNNY 🐰 IS MORE THEN A FABLE
THE TOOTH 🦷 FAIRY 🧚♀️ IS MORE THEN A FAIRYTALE
THE SANDMAN ⏳ IS MORE THEN A DREAM
PITCH IS MORE THEN A NIGHTMARE 😈
&
LAST BUT NOT LEAST
JACK FROST ⛄❄ IS MORE THEN A MYTH
MY NAME IS JACK FROST ⛄❄
& I'M A GUARDIAN
HOW DO I KNOW THAT?
BECAUSE THE MOON 🌙 TOLD ME SO
SO WHEN THE MOON 🌙 TELLS YOU SOMETHING......
BELIEVE IT ❄✨ - JACK FROST ⛄❄✨
HAPPY 10TH ANNIVERSARY TO 1 OF THE GREATEST ANIMATED FILMS OF THE 21ST CENTURY EVER MADE
DREAMWORKS
RISE OF THE GUARDIANS 🎅🐰🧚♀️⏳⛄❄🎄🎁✨
#RiseOfTheGuardians #DreamWorksPicturesAnimation #TheGuardiansOfChildHood #WilliamJoyce #JackFrost #SantaClaus #TheEasterBunny #TheToothFairy #TheSandman #TheBoogeyman #LegendsUnite
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As someone who only took an interest in Taylor Swift’s music off the back of her last two records, it didn’t feel right for me to review her latest album, Midnights, with the content of it being so rooted in Taylor’s own (pun intended) folklore. Therefore I turned to the biggest Swiftie I know, my friend Daniel, for his thoughts on the new record from his favourite artist.
The response I received, was not what I expected. Enjoy!
Midnights by Taylor Swift
The greatest musical talent of the 21st (and any other century) re-emerged this week like a Victorian Tory leader, doling out 13 tracks of musical genius. Because capitalism doesn’t sleep, Taylor Swift’s latest offering comes in multiple different versions offering a range of assorted bonus tracks too. However for the purposes of this review, we’re going to stick strictly to the main course.
Across the main 13 tracks, Midnights has its merits but is ultimately a mixed affair with two clear standouts. Really though, it has be viewed in the context of her entire career for two key reasons. Partially because Taylor Swift is an artist of such stature that all her works are only a facet of her greatness. Also, because I came up with this really strained historical analogy that I’m keen to force people to read.
Hear me out - Taylor’s entire career has become a microcosm of the American Imperialism she has personally come to represent better than any other recording artist. Having completely conquered country music she has, since her early career, constantly launched sorties into other genres of music. Some of these have been incredibly successful - 1989 for example, her invasion of Pop music, was very much her D-Day. In a singular motion, she flexed her infectious melodic chops and established herself as a global mainstream chart superpower.
More recently, her lockdown records Folklore and Evermore were successful attempts to colonise a sadcore, folk-rock sound. Much like Yankee dollar imperialism, she turned established figures of the genre – Justin Vernon and Aaron Dessner - into mere collaborators as she expanded the horizon of her Kingdom.
Reputation on the other hand, was her Vietnam. Taylor drafted a whole inner circle of celebrity friends and totally transformed herself in a pursuit of unbridled commercial and critical success. The result was so catastrophic she made a whole documentary about it, Miss Americana, which is a story of failed military adventure on par with Ken Burn’s epic documentary on the wars in Indochina.
Midnights then is her attempted beachhead into a genre of music best described (by me – an idiot) as ‘Thoughtful Synthpop’. It bears a lot of similarities in sound to Reputation, minus a drum machine and all the out of place EDM drops. Also, it has several songs such as Question…? where if there were no voice distortion effects, it would basically be a spoken word piece - similar again to Reputation tracks such as I Did Something Bad.
However, content-wise it’s much more confident and honest. Lyrically, it’s a continuation of the themes from Folklore and Evermore, which focus on loneliness and longing, trying to capture the darkness and the hope that accompanies the middle of the night. Similar to those lockdown offerings, Swift has also co-opted artists like Lana Del Rey and HAIM - natives of the territory she looks to conquer – turning them into mere subjects in the Tay-Tay quest for musical supremacy. The results are delightful.
Lavender Haze and Anti-Hero are standout tracks, with Mastermind a creditable bronze medal. Bejeweled has received a fairly brutal reception from other (real) critics, and perhaps sounds like it could be lifted straight from Reputation. That said, it is a fun track which works alongside Karma to add a bit of rhythm to an album that otherwise risks getting too relaxed. And that perhaps captures the main feeling of this album – it all feels a bit subdued. In fact, the penultimate track Sweet Nothing is so chilled, it’s basically DOA.
With Midnights, Taylor Swift is engaging in a subtle exploration of yet another musical genre. Its best two tracks would struggle to make her Top 20 songs and its worst tracks, whilst not awful, will probably be forgotten. It represents that Taylor’s realm has entered the most dangerous phase of historical empires – an age of contentment. This album is fun sure, but if Taylor wants to continue to rule the world, her next album will probably need to be better.
For now though, she’s still the Queen and therefore I’m still feeling a strong 10/10 – bow down.
Words by Daniel Swain (@theschweinviour)
Listen here
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Michael John Carley, Autism-Schmautism...In the End, Darius McCollum was Poor and Black, Exceptional Parent Magazine (December 2018)
On October 5th, Darius McCollum, the autism world’s previously-unending sideshow, was sentenced to life inside a New York State psychiatric facility. No, he was not relegated back to Rikers island, or any other “normal” prison, as had been the case for the majority of his adult life. He was this time sent to the kind of place where our most dangerous, disturbed, and marginalized individuals are secretly warehoused to endure horror after horror without witness, until the unmarked, mass grave on Hart Island prematurely, and slowly consumes their trauma-ridden, dissociated selves. Darius’ remarkable story of rotating in and out of the prison system for 38 years came to a halt on the worst side of the turnstile. Autism-Schmautism: He is black and poor. We were fools to think this story would end in a restorative manner.
He almost made it. His brilliance, and the subsequent media coverage had all but ensured that he would not slip through the cracks like other poor, spectrum or non-spectrum African-Americans. Darius had a shot because he was noticed. But the final nail came, comic/tragically, from an African-American judge; one who justified ending Darius’ life because Asperger’s Syndrome, to her, is a “dangerous, mental disorder.” In the words of Darius’ lawyer, Sally Butler, “The sweetest guy in the world, never committed any violent acts, never hurt anyone, is going to be held in a hospital with people who slaughter people.”
Judge Ruth Shillingford hasn’t yet apologized with the standard, Kavanaugh-esque backtrack of, “Ok. Maybe I could have used a better choice of words.” But she will. Too many of us have this same “dangerous, mental disorder.” Darius drew a different kind of bigot.
The success rate on appeals is very low. He’s gone.
***
Darius McCollum, as most spectrumfolk know, couldn’t stop stealing subway trains and taking them on joyrides. His first arrest came when he was 15, and over close to the next four decades, he was caught and sentenced over 30 times.
But by his estimation, he was not caught thousands of times.
Like innumerable spectrum children, young Darius had a “thing” for trains. As a fellow spectrumite myself who works in the field, I’ve long thought it funny how the clinical world overthought our too common fascination with rail travel. The simple truth of why we love trains has not to do with the trains themselves…it’s the track. We don’t have to make any decisions about going left here, or right there, thanks to the track. We don’t have to read between the lines, or interpret a thing, as we would driving a car. The track has already determined our destination and our route. Furthermore, we have full control over the speed of the journey. For folks like us? That’s heaven.
How was this possible, though? How could one man, however Houdini-like, sneak into the driver’s seat so easily, time after time after time? Amidst our modern paranoia of mostly imagined terrorist threats looming around every corner—our FOX News hysteria—how did Darius manage so easily to take over the controls while we were the passengers? Well, Darius was brilliant. He not only knew the ins and outs of the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) ten times better than any MTA employee, he knew the employee timetables, and how the MTA’s Human Resource department operated. He knew the trends, and the procedures, and he was also gregarious. Darius McCollum really is the sweetest guy you’ll ever meet. So when he’d arrive on the scene in a stolen uniform, and tell the scheduled driver “I just got a free day, man. Lemme help you out.” The uninformed, overworked and underpaid MTA employee usually said, “thanks, man,” and laid back on a welcomed break.
No passenger, it should be noted, was ever hurt when Darius was driving. Not one passenger was even aware that, driving their subway train or bus was someone other than a trained MTA employee. Lastly, Darius’ routes were always finished on time.
***
More than two decades would transpire thereafter that first arrest before we’d hear his name. For us, it all started with a Harper’s article from 2002—Jeff Tietz’s The Boy Who Loved Transit. In the opening paragraphs, Tietz introduced us not only to a train thief, but also a brilliant forger, who brought letters to crews “signed” by MTA managers, dictating that the crews allow “Mr. McCollum” to inspect their safety protocols. Tietz also showed us a concerned outsider, who always attended MTA workers’ union meetings and rallies. Finally, Tietz pointed out to us that Darius only attempted to steal these trains, buses, and equipment. After all, he returned everything he stole. Darius’ behavior originated not in contempt. He loved the MTA, and all its inner worlds.
But despite a diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome, one that should have explained his lack of criminal intent, he got idiot judge after idiot judge—monsters of an unfair, impotent, racist, and arcane criminal justice system in New York. To them, Darius was too intelligent, too polite, and too “white sounding” (as one judge put it) to both have a disability and not have control over his actions.
I first met Darius around that time. He was out on parole but at high risk for going back. People put high hopes that my new organization, GRASP, could help. GRASP was the first real peer-run (i.e. run by people on the spectrum) organization in the autism world, and later grew to become the largest membership organization in the world for adults on the spectrum. That all said, we didn’t have much of a budget, and we weren’t a services organization—we had no contract with the city. The type of help that Darius needed wasn’t complicated, but it was intensive. He needed talk therapy with a shrink that really knew their Asperger’s, peer support, perhaps some Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, some trauma-based therapy, a gym, and a Microsoft Excel class. He came to one GRASP support group meeting, but given his relative stardom, he had a hard time feeling like a part of the group. So he hung out in our office with me on several occasions. I’d work while he’d read. We’d talk. We’d go for walks. We got to know each other.
***
Everyone on the spectrum is different. On one end you might have someone non-verbal, who may never experience a reciprocated sexual relationship, or hold down a steady job for long. But this same individual could in fact be quite happy if surrounded by the right supports and attitudes; as measuring happiness by the capacity for speech is one of the infantile mistakes we used to make in the autism world. Why so stupid? Because on the other end of the spectrum you might have someone very verbal; maybe with an IQ of 180—we have all these famous people diagnosed in retrospect such as Einstein, Beethoven, Edison, Jefferson, Emily Dickinson, every famous mathematician…—whom everyone expects to be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company someday. But because no one explained to them how the social world works, their loneliness intensified until they became a suicide statistic. You can’t dumb this stuff down. We’re complicated.
I hadn’t yet seen anyone whose level of “juice” resembled mine—More functional than most in many capacities, I present well. But I was also inundated with spectrumites who were/are way smarter than I. So while better than most at hiding my cluelessness, until then I had always felt somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, with no real parallel.
Darius McCollum was the first and only time I’ve ever sensed someone whose spectrum gifts and challenges instinctively reflected mine. Four months apart in age, diagnosed at virtually the same age, both only children, our internal makeup seemed identical. Darius didn’t present like me, but I knew that if you took away the experiences of being stabbed repeatedly with large scissors when he was in second grade, the horrific prison rapes and beatings, the lifelong trauma, the brilliance…and that if you then took away my educational opportunities, and blatant white privilege…he was my mirror. People thought I was talented—more talented than I really was—and so I got scholarships that allowed me to divide whatever intelligence I had into many different directions, thus creating a more well-rounded individual…than Darius, who had real intelligence that few wished to recognize, and who in lacking those opportunities directed everything he had to trains. I ended up with an Ivy League Masters degree. Darius didn’t graduate high school.
We may have gotten close—It felt that way; the ease was both inexplicable and beatifically jarring. But I’m not sure. It’s hard to tell when the relationship was never equal; for in addition to both our racial instincts, I was to be the mentor, and he the mentee.
***
By this time, everyone was writing about him. Whether it was the New York Times, the London Times, or every news station…By 2004 Darius had racked up an impressive media portfolio. There would be a play, and a documentary—interpretations of Darius’ life made by people that were not out to exploit him—Good people were always on his side. There was talk of a movie starring Julia Roberts…
However, my main mission with him was contrary. I wanted to try and get him to stop seeing dollar signs from imagined film deals, to stop being addicted to the media attention. In my opinion, this was his real challenge. For in addition to withstanding the temptation to steal more trains came the devaluation of what he would do with his life if he wasn’t stealing trains. It’s difficult enough for ANY ex-inmate to get excited about trying to start a new life…when you’re a convicted felon (very few jobs hire folks with prison records) with no job training, money, or education. Being black just decreases your chances even more. I began running interference to try to de-celebrity his life a little.
And just so you know, of course he would have been a perfect hire for the MTA. But they wouldn’t have him. We tried. We tried the MTA, we tried the MTA’s transit museum (where Darius could be a tour guide), we tried the transit authorities of other cities, we tried Amtrak… But Darius, in his “career,” had shamed these folks. He had shown that their security procedures were a joke, thus pissing off Homeland Security and driving their insurance rates through the roof. Later, the MTA would rebuff our criticisms and escalate the divide even further by demanding re-payment on any possible movie deals. In addition to Darius pinning them down, MTA officials dug themselves a deeper hole by reacting like the petty, insecure bureaucrats they might have always been.
(Speaking of Homeland Security: Darius, in his infinite kindness, had even welcomed a visit from them during one of his jail stints, asking nothing in return. And they, after absorbing much information and consultation that Darius was more than happy to give them, free of charge, about how easy it was to skirt the MTA’s procedures…gave him nothing in return. Again, we are discussing the sweetest, most childlike, least streetwise guy in the world. Today, he is still proud of that meeting as he feels he served his country.)
By then, many media outlets were calling me to reach Darius (who struggled to maintain a consistent phone number), and I was trying to rebuff them. That time would be Darius’ longest stint outside prison. And when he fell off the wagon per se, he did so repeatedly thereafter. Over the ensuing years he would get out and almost instantly get caught taking another car or bus for a joyride. In the absence of access to real supports when he would be out, being a celebrated train thief was the only life he could see. He might not have been wrong.
During those years he also made bad decisions, about people, money, and especially legal representation. Stephen C. Jackson, the celebrity lawyer who gained fame during the Tawana Brawley case, rushed to Darius’ side and filled him with promises of millions. But when Jackson (now deceased) quickly saw that the fame he sought wasn’t forthcoming, he then abandoned Darius without officially dropping his name as Darius’ representative. What this meant was that when Darius, on more than one occasion, would show up from his cell for sentencing or a hearing, that he sat alone in court. The judge would ask where his lawyer was, and Darius could provide no explanation. But because Darius, in the court’s mind, couldn’t represent himself (because of his Asperger’s, the courts deemed him incapable of the decision to switch lawyers), he was then sent back to jail for months, even years once, until a new hearing could be rescheduled. Herein, my power of attorney was worthless.
GRASP didn’t have the means to help, but larger organizations like Autism Speaks and the Autism Society of America (ASA) could have. But neither organization would touch Darius McCollum with a ten-foot pole. The excuse was that they didn’t like the way Darius was using his Asperger’s as…an excuse, and that this made everyone on the spectrum look irresponsible. But to me, this was the excuse—to not have to acknowledge the punishments not fitting the crimes. If people really thought Darius deserved to be raped and beaten for taking subway trains on safe joyrides…I just couldn’t believe that. But I grew to believe that as a poor, black man, Darius for them was a lose-lose proposition. These orgs’ gutlessness did not have justification, but they did have explanation.
My prison visits felt more and more like spankings. I’d arrive, furious with him over the most recent arrest, and I’d lay into him. But at the end of the visit we would have worked it out. I once broke policy, and facilitated an interview with him for Caren Zucker and John Donvan’s book, In a Different Key (I trusted Caren, whom I knew from her days at Nightline when she produced some really fine autism coverage). I laughed in solidarity at the finished book, where they quoted my first words to Darius when I brought them to Rikers…in which I distinctively used an expletive. Donvan had inquired after the visit why I was so harsh with him, and rather than explain that neither Darius nor I came from finishing school, or that this was just the way we showed we cared, I answered in an acknowledgement that maybe it was wrong of me, but that “I visit him.” For at the time, no one else really was.
But then Sally Butler became Darius’ (seriously) pro bono lawyer. And he finally had a real chance…because he finally had a real hero.
***
Forget the nightmare center that Darius will go to (Kirby, or Mid-Island, according to an old colleague), our regular prisons are increasing in violence. Author, Shane Bauer, went undercover for Mother Jones as a $9 per hour Louisiana prison guard (an experience he recounts in his new book, American Prison) and took away a wealth of terrifying information. In a recent interview, Bauer stated that when he was being trained, he was instructed that the proper procedure for when prisoners were stabbing each other, was “to yell, ‘Stop fighting!’ and that’s it. We should not get in between them. We are not going to pay you (the guard) that much…if those fools want to cut each other, than happy cutting.”
And does anyone still think that you can go through long prison experiences without being raped? Are some people still capable of such denial? Unfortunately, yes. We are that naïve, or dumb, or complacent. And it’s mostly the law & order crowd—those who demand punishment, punishment, punishment, even when they acknowledge that punishment (even as a concept) really doesn’t work—that heartily approves of our “nudge nudge, wink wink” relationship with rape. We are complicit in this manner because we want to believe that we live in a society that does not condone rape. But it’s nonsense. We don’t just condone rape, we willingly use it as a coercive tool, and the proof doesn’t lie in drunken college parties. The proof of our societal need to never eliminate rape lies in our prison system.
“According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, around 80,000 women and men a year are sexually abused in American correctional facilities. That number is almost certainly subject to underreporting, through shame or a victim’s fear of retaliation...To tackle the problem, Congress passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act, signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2003. The way to eliminate sexual assault, lawmakers determined, was to make Department of Justice funding for correctional facilities conditional on states’ adoption of zero-tolerance policies toward sexual abuse of inmates…But only two states — New Hampshire and New Jersey — have fully complied with the act…The Justice Department estimates that the total bill to society for prison rape and sexual abuse is as high as $51.9 billion per year, including the costs of victims’ compensation and increased recidivism. If states refuse to implement the law when the fiscal benefit is so obvious, something larger is at stake…Compliance does not even cost that much. The Justice Department (also) estimates that full nationwide compliance would cost $468.5 million per year.”
— “Why We Let Prison Rape Go On”
Bozelko, Chandra. The New York Times. April 17, 2015
***
This past year, after 38 years of in and out, it was time to roll the dice. Darius’ health had been deteriorating—He has gained tremendous weight and is experiencing rapid hearing loss. His brilliance has become less accessible, having slowly drowned in accumulated trauma.
In January, Sally scored a major victory: she got the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office to finally admit that Darius was not a criminal. But because of how the court still contextualizes non-apparent disabilities, Darius, in order to become relatively free, would have to plead not responsible by mental defect. And there was a big risk herein. As Sally wrote: “If Darius is determined to be dangerous, he will be confined in a truly horrific locked facility for the criminally insane perhaps for life.” But if the judge were to determine that he was not dangerous, he would be “civilly committed for intense treatment with the goal of returning to society with services available to him.”
In talks at the time with the Puerto Rican government on an autism consulting contract, I began looking into a side project of building a treatment center on the island, one that would use Darius as a pilot for low-risk, non-violent offenders with diagnosed non-apparent disabilities. Everyone’s been saying “there’s no proper care available,” even though what Darius needs is not brain surgery, and since no one else was doing it…I dreamt of him taking that Excel class, going to trauma-based therapies, and helping to repair houses in Puerto Rico’s still-reeling infrastructure, one with no transit system—Yes! There would be an ocean between Darius and temptation, if not also a warm, loving populace that would welcome him. The courts would save a ton of taxpayer money and stop enduring the bad public relations. Sally forewarned that getting the powers that be to allow him to receive his treatment outside state lines would be the challenge, but I was confident. It seemed a no-brainer.
I wasn’t alone. We all figured the odds were good. Who in God’s name would sentence this good-natured child to more torture?
But again, Sally and I being white, we forgot that Darius was black.
***
I’m guessing that at best, only 3% of the people that read this article will be African-American. It’s not that I don’t have black readers. As a white writer, I’m confident I have more than most. But for African-Americans, I would imagine that this material, like any material about Darius, reads like the box score of a game African-Americans already saw, participated in from start to finish, and in which their team got its ass kicked. There’s nothing to be learned, and only more heartache to be gained from reading. Maybe as some “militants” might say, everything really is about race. Maybe everything isn’t about Darius’ autism, nor fiscal variations (I especially have professed in the past that everything revolves around economics)…I’m white, so I can’t go there completely, but I could argue that maybe the Judge Kavanaugh hearings weren’t about women if, as a New York Times article reports, 53% of white women were in favor of his confirmation. Maybe the wonderful #MeToo movement will at some point have to address the buried complaints that many men of color, in corporate settings, have about the sexual harassment they’ve endured from many white, female supervisors. Maybe the LGBTQ community will someday acknowledge that a stereotype exists of them all being wealthy liberals—when most are actually poor (and therein, contain many people of color). Maybe the #MeToo heroes can see that while they risked their career track to report harassing bosses, that when this occurs to women of color in factories (that I’ve worked in), that for her and her family that woman doesn’t risk a delay in promotion, she risks homelessness. Maybe even our nation’s bipartisan era isn’t about Trump, but is still about Obama? After all, one look at the farcical complaints many Republicans had about Obama during his tenure, when compared to their silence regarding Trump’s unending list of proven lies? This nation’s divide isn’t about Republicans and Democrats at all…And then there’s Judge Shillingford, pictured on Google images at many NAACP functions, who simply may have seen a Darius we never saw; one who didn’t have the intelligence we knew of, or the indisputably kind nature. Maybe she saw a person who was incapable of a productive life given the right supports…because of his skin color. Maybe she knew better.
Having raised white children in predominantly black, Brooklyn neighborhoods, I can confess to you that every once in a while, a fellow white would let slip their belief that we were throwing our kids’ safety under a bus to prove our liberalness. The truth was the opposite—Because of the trust we’d extended by living there my boys were protected by those communities. The black on black shit is what will astound you.
(“Sidebar, your honor?” An old contact of mine works closely to [but not in] the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office. Not to go spy-novel herein, but this “source” felt that Shillingford will not be reprimanded for this ruling or her language. She may actually be rewarded. My contact’s theory is that the Shillingford’s “shortcomings” regarding her knowledge and feelings about developmental disabilities, are well known by the Brooklyn DA, Eric Gonzalez. Shillingford may have been set up to take the bullet for a DA’s office that has wanted this ending for Darius all along. And this would make sense; for Gonzalez’s office seems intent on preserving a progressive aura; yet in the case of Darius McCollum has never negotiated in good faith.)
Whether you are African-American, Spanish, on the spectrum, LGBTQ, or Muslim…any minority will always feel doubt about their way of doing things, even if that way is brilliant. And any majority will have supreme confidence in their way of doing things, even if their way is so dumb it’s beyond repair. Unless we are all educated otherwise, that’s simply how majorities and minorities think.
***
I can’t compartmentalize Darius McCollum as the screwup twin brother who couldn’t stop breaking my heart, or as the African-American who only had a chance in our dreams. Darius will perhaps best be categorized as the human being who consciously made us face our capacity for cowardice and inaction. For I could cry at will, in gratitude, for the fact that I was raised on this one notion: If in the course of your job, you have to turn a blind eye to a giant injustice? Then it is time to look for another job. These days, this concept feels more than lost. Judge Shillingford cowardly stated in her sentencing that her “hands (were) tied.” Bull. The judge is a bigot, perhaps twice over (though I can’t make that call). Because she is both a female and an African-American, and I am a white male, I will grant that she had it harder than me—I’d bet a limb on it. But the end result matters too.
I know I’m angry. And in my anger, I erroneously feel it’s my duty to look upon her, and maybe Gonzalez, as garbage human beings. But I think the real duty for us all is to acknowledge that they are not alone.
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books i might wanna read when i don’t have 67123576512 other things to read or whatever if you’re curious you can just google the titles because i didn’t save all the info in my notes app
Voices from the Chinese Century: Public Intellectual Debate from Contemporary China
The Crooning Wind: Three Greenlandic Poets
Untrodden Peaks and Unfrequented Valleys
Crude Chronicles: Indigenous Politics, Multinational Oil, and Neoliberalism in Ecuador
In the Shadow of Islam
The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution
Seeing Like a State
White Skin, Black Fuel: On the Danger of Fossil Fascism
Memory and the Mediterranean
Losing Earth: A Recent History
Cosmic Liturgy: The Universe According to Maximus the Confessor
Karlamagnús Saga: The Saga of Charlemagne and his Heroes
The Sinner and the Saint: Dostoevsky and the Gentleman Murderer Who Inspired a Masterpiece
Icebound: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World
Panpsychism in the West
Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System
Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature
The Savage Frontier: The Pyrenees in History and the Imagination
Winter Pasture: One Woman's Journey with China's Kazakh Herders
Babur Nama: Journal of the Emperor Babur
The Singer of Tales by Albert Bates Lord
Slavery and Empire in Central Asia
The Adventures of Sayf Ben Dhi Yazan: An Arab Folk Epic
The Travels of Ibn Battutah
I Burn Paris by Bruno Jasieński
The Book of Dede Korkut
The knight in the Panter’s SkinTravels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuściński
Deep Sea and Foreign Going
Big Dead Place: Inside the Strange and Menacing World of Antarctica
The Story of the Mongols Whom We Call the Tartars
The Journey Of William Of Rubruck To The Eastern Parts Of The World
Recollections of Tartar Steppes and Their Inhabitants
The Expedition of Cyrus by Xenophon
Xenophon's Retreat: Greece, Persia, and the End of the Golden Age
From Samarkhand to Sardis: A New Approach to the Seleucid Empire
The Gobi Desert - The Adventures of Three Women Travelling Across the Gobi Desert in the 1920s
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon
Forbidden Journey by Ella Maillart
The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code
The Many Worlds of Hugh Everett III: Multiple Universes, Mutual Assured Destruction, and the Meltdown of a Nuclear Family
Cycles of Time: An Extraordinary New View of the Universe
The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South
No Less Than Mystic: A History of Lenin and the Russian Revolution for a 21st-Century Left
Philosophy and Real Politics
Writing East: The "Travels" of Sir John Mandeville
Poetry of the Taliban
Cabool by Alexander Burnes
Warrior Saints of the Silk Road |
The Place of the Skull by Chingiz Aitmatov
Starship & the Canoe
Nauru Burning
Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World
Death Is Hard Work
The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics
A Grain of Wheat
Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming
Annals of the Former World
So Long a Letter by Mariama Bâ
The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World
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Russia playlist
Gorbachov! Tear down that wall.......and turn up this Russia playlist!
The Cossacks are dancing to this one and the yaks are singing.
Russia, Siberia, Moscow, St Petersburg and a cold war.
It’s all here in this Russia playlist.
Hit play: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-iHPcxymC18F7oDKY8zH1IOplzHM05MY
We begin the journey in Siberia and make our way across Genghis Khan territory towards Omsk and beyond. We have a look at Chernobyl, Ukraine for a look around and make our way up to Moscow,
We finish up this playlist in St Petersburg.
Hope you enjoy it.
RUSSIA
001 FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE 007 OST - Main theme
002 Ozzy Osbourne - Crazy Train
003 The Beatles - Back in The USSR
004 Iron Maiden - Mother Russia
005 Sisters of Mercy - Dominion / Mother Russia
006 Ramones - Cretin Hop
007 Sting - Russians
008 Russkaja - Peace, Love & Russian Roll
009 Robert Simon Thomas - Troika (balalaika)
010 Jello Biafra, The Guantanamo School Of Medicine - We Created Putin
011 The Cult - Siberia
012 Mastodon - Siberian Divide
013 Yes - Siberian Khatru
014 Pesnokhorki Barnaul - Cossacks songs of Siberia
015 Diablo Swing Orchestra - Siberian Love Affairs
016 The Kills - Siberian Nights
017 The Night Flight Orchestra - Siberian Queen
018 Altai Kai - Traditional Siberian music
019 Vallenfyre - My Black Siberia
020 Skyhooks - Jukebox In Siberia
021 MISERY INDEX - Siberian March
022 Wooly Mammoth - Mammoth Bones
023 Grumbling Fur - Siberian Priest
024 Iron Maiden - Genghis Khan
025 Trans-Siberian Orchestra - Night enchanted
026 The Locust - Live From The Russian Compound
027 ACCEPT - Russian Roulette
028 Cavalera Conspiracy - Genghis Khan
029 Diaframma - Siberia
030 Renaissance - Mother Russia
031 Echo & The Bunnymen - Siberia
032 Dschinghis Khan - Genghis Khan
033 Bad News - Warriors Of Ghengis Khan
034 The Hu - The great Chinggis Khan
035 Shah - Escape
036 Ray Stevens - Surfin USSR
037 Ramones - Locket Love
038 Heirs - Russia
039 The Dillinger Escape Plan - Hero of the Soviet Union
040 Natalia Albychakova - Takhpakh
041 Svetlanas - Go Fck You Self
042 Maloletka - Irkutsk Path
043 Kuban Cossack Choir - The hat all around
044 The Lords of the New Church - Russian Roulette
045 Paul Lay Trio - Irkutsk
046 Elvis Hitler - Rocking Over Russia
047 Russian Circles - 309
048 Thylacine - Irkutsk
049 Valeriy Voloshin and gruppa Pyatiletka - Irkutsk
050 DEVO - Cold War
051 Güiro Meets Russia - It's Not The World, It's You
052 Powerwolf - Nightside of Siberia
053 Altai Kai - Oilo oilo altai
054 Arkona - Yarilo
055 Depeche Mode - People Are People
056 Gorky Park - Bang
057 Igor Stravinsky - The Rite of Spring, Part 1- 3 Game of Abduction
058 Martika - Toy Soldiers
059 Transvision vamp - revolution baby
060 The Stranglers - No More Heroes
061 Gari Gari - Russian gypsy music
062 Russian Sailors - Dance Yablochka
063 Manic Street Preachers - Revolt
064 Elton John - Nikita
065 Krokus - Russian winter
066 Prince - Ronnie Talk to Russia
067 Soviet SOunds - Baikal-Amur Railroad
068 Genesis - Land of Confusion
069 Duran Duran - Planet Earth
070 Today Is The Day - The Russian Porn Ballet
071 Nytt Land - Ballad of Gjallarhorn
072 Rotting Christ - Ветры злые - (featuring Irina Zybina)
073 Metallica - Blackened
074 Anneke van Giersbergen, Árstíðir - Russian Lullaby
075 Der Kommissar - After the Fire
076 Czas relaksu - Andrzej i Eliza
077 korobushka - Folk Russian
078 Peter Gabriel - Red Rain
079 FEAR - Bomb the Russians
080 Rush - Heresy
081 RUSSKAJA - Energia
082 Megadeth - Peace Sells
083 King Crimson - One More Red Nightmare
084 Sodom - Nuclear Winter
085 Bruce Cockburn - If I Had A Rocket Launcher
086 Talisman - Hey you Horses!
087 Styx - Cold War
088 Grateful Dead - Throwing Stones
089 Gimines - Kai armonika tyliai užgros
090 EXHUMED - Coins Upon the Eyes
091 Mastodon - The Czar
092 CCCP - American Soviets
093 Sapce Rockit - Supersonik Elektronik
094 Septic Flesh - The Eldest Cosmonaut
095 Quicksand - Cosmonauts
096 Arkona - Zimushka
097 Abracadabra - Damned Dances
098 Pink Floyd - Two Suns In The Sunset
099 Prince - 1999
100 Trololo Guy - Sean Sell Duck with Fake Subtitles ( Buffalax Style )
101 Armonika - Gromatele Parašiau
102 Diablo Swing Orchestra - Vodka Inferno
103 Accept - Balls to the wall
104 Killing Joke - New Cold War
105 UB40 - The Earth Dies Screaming
106 RAMONES - Bonzo Goes To Bitburg (My Brain Is Hanging Upside)
107 TCHAYOK - Zavarka - Mi-minable
108 COH - Soii Noir
109 Vircator - Tunguska
110 Scorpions - China White
111 Tears For Fears - Everybody Wants To Rule The World
112 The Stalin - 解剖室
113 KAIRA - OХ РA
114 Alexander Robotnick - Ce n'est q'un début
115 Tunguska Electronic Music Society - Alpha Kawu
116 Arkona - Odna
117 Cist - Antisceptic
118 Sabaton - Nuclear Attack
119 Leningrad Cowboys - Katjusha
120 PRONG - Rude Awakening
121 Imperial Age - And I Shall Find My Home
122 Так - пела метель
123 Fear Konstruktor - Nonexistence
124 Oneohtrix - Russian Mind
125 Police - Every Breath You Take
126 dEpEchE modE - Two Minute Warning
127 Ultravox - Dancing With Tears In My Eyes
128 Sigue Sigue Sputnik - Love Missile F1-11
129 Metallica - Fight Fire With Fire
130 David Bowie - Heroes
131 woven hand - my Russia
132 Survivor - Burning Heart (Rocky IV OST)
133 Forest - As a Shade Above This Land
134 Tesla - Modern Day Cowboy
135 Colossus Form - Son Of Nature
136 The Flying Lizards - Russia
137 Djivan Gasparyan - A Cool Wind Is Blowing
138 Iron Driver (feat. Pasha Mrachek) - Prisoner of time
139 Pussy Riot - CHAIKA
140 Boris Alexandrov - Катюша (Katyusha)
141 DEVO - Going Under
142 Motor - Yak
143 Nuclear Assault - Nuclear War
144 Edward Artemiev - Station (Solaris OST)
145 Soviet Valves - Puritan Blues
146 Verasy - Polet
147 FAVALLI - Yuri Gagarin
148 Wolfmother - Cosmonaut
149 Yuri Gagarin - Psychological Discontinuity
150 Witchfinder General - Soviet Invasion
151 Korrozia Metallah - Russian Vodka
152 Russkaja - Kosmopolit
153 Dio - Gypsy
154 The The - slow train to dawn
155 Blues Pills - Gypsy
156 Rush - Red Lenses
157 Corey Hart - Komrade Kiev
158 Master - Metal Doctor
159 Howlin Rain - Phantom In The Valley
160 ARKONA - Liki Bessmertnykh Bogov
161 Pitchblack - IHATEU
162 Ozzy Osbourne - Killer of Giants
163 Scorpions - Wind of Change
164 Yat kha - Chorumal Bodum
165 Nadezhda Babkina, Russkaja Pesnja
166 Ramones - Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
167 Russian radio - red flag
168 Manicure - Atomic Summer
169 The Dillinger Escape Plan - The Threat Posed By Nuclear Weapons
170 Love Among Freaks - Berserker
171 ARIA - HERO OF ASPHALT
172 Temnozor - Fatherland
173 Walknut - Motherland Ostenvegr
174 Weird Al Yankovic - Now That's What I Call Polka!
175 Underworld - Underneath the Radar
176 Skyclad - Polkageist
177 Helloween - Russian Roulé
178 John Coltrane - Russian Lullaby
179 Julian Cope - russian revolution blues
180 Rodrigo y Gabriela - The Russian Messenger
181 Kate Bush - Babooshka
182 ВИА - Чаривни гитары
183 Mastodon - The Last Baron
184 Hovert – Omyt
185 Minsk - Consumed by Horizons
186 Kypck - Stalingrad
187 Def Leppard - Gods of war
188 Black Country Communion - Big Train
189 Sabaton - Stalingrad
190 Doomsquad - Russian Gaze
191 Soviet Soviet - Human Nature
192 Murray head - one night in bangkok
193 The Korgis - Young n Russian
194 Chelsea Light Moving - Communist Eyes
195 Helix - Champagne Communist
196 UDO - Train Ride In Russia
197 Mr Weebl - Russian Dancing Men
198 Jamie Jones - Siberian Express
199 They Might Be Giants - Sold My Mind to the Kremlin
200 Ed Khuild - lolololololololol
201 Sepultura - Itsari
202 Vy Pole - Enormous
203 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Fifteen Feet Of Pure White Snow
204 Gogol Bordello - Gypsy Auto Pilot
205 Buffalex - Horse Eat My Nipple
206 Municipal Waste - Wolves of Chernobyl
207 Drudkh - Cursed Sons II
208 Chernobyl - A song for the fallen
209 Russkaja - Hometown Polka
210 Toxic Holocaust - Out of the Fire
211 Hail Caesar! Soundtrack - 19 Soviet Man
212 The Blow Monkeys - The Man From Russia
213 The Devil's Blood - The Anti-Kosmik Magick
214 Orchid - Cosmonaut of Three
215 Vergeltung - Cold War
216 KYPCK - Alleya Stalina
217 Cabaret Voltaire - Calling Moscow
218 Red Army Choir - Polyushka Polye
219 Iron Curtain - Ready To Strike
220 Porcupine Tree - Russia on Ice
221 Sigue Sigue Sputnik - 21st Century Boy
222 Al Stewart - Roads to Moscow
223 The Rolling Stones - Sympathy For The Devil
224 Soviet Soviet - ecastacy
225 KREMLIN - Will You Feed Me
226 AC/DC - Heatseeker
227 ANJ - Gorbachev
228 Katyusha (Катюша) - Aleksandr Marshal & Valeria Kurnushkina
229 ARKONA - Stenka Na Stenku
230 Black Obelisk - The wall
231 Skyclad - Catherine at the Wheel
232 Pussy Riot - Kropotkin-vodka (Kill the sexist!)
233 Brian Eno -- Stedelijk
234 Zola Jesus - Siphon
235 Insect Inside - The First Shining of New Genus
236 MR. ZIVAGO - Little Russian
237 The Real McKenzies - Midnight Train to Moscow
238 Red Army OST - KGB
239 The Toasters - Night Train to Moscow
240 Thy Catafalque - Urania
241 The Apogee - Hieronymus Bosch
242 Sabaton - Panzerkampf
244 RUSSKAJA - Barada
245 Oneohtrix Point Never - KGB Nights
246 Faith No More - A Small Victory
247 Mike and the mechanics - A Call To Arms
248 Michael Jackson - Stranger In Moscow
249 Blondie - Contact In Red Square
250 Rammstein - Moskau
251 Pseudogod - deathwomb
252 KGB - Subway Sleepwalker
253 Igor Butman Big Band - Moscow at 3am
254 Genghis Khan - Moscow
255 Demon - Blue Skies In Red Square
256 Type O Negative - The Profit of Doom
257 COH - Red Square
258 Cougars - Red Square
259 Ray Conniff - Moscow Nights
260 INDIANS IN MOSCOW - Indians in Moscow
261 Radio Moscow - 250 Miles
262 Kingdom Come - Crown of Moscow
263 Powerwolf - Moscow after dark
264 U.D.O. - Decadent
265 System Of A Down - Störagéd
266 Closure In Moscow - Pink Lemonade
267 VIBRATORS - DISCO IN MOSCO
268 IRA PETROWA - MOSKAUER NÄCHTE
269 Visage - Moon Over Moscow
270 Farmers Market - Red Square Dance
271 Wonderland - Moscow
272 Courtney Pine - Red Square Gagarinesk
273 Stray Cats - Storm The Embassy
274 German Shepherds - Communist Control
275 Moloko - Radio Moscow
276 March of the defenders - Moscow
277 Takako Nishizaki - Podmoskovnye vechera( Moscow Nights)
278 Simple Minds - Moscow Underground
279 The Spotnicks - Moscow
280 The Russian Jazz Quartet - Journey from Moscow
281 Bob Crewe Generation - Miniskirts In Moscow
282 MODERN TROUBLE - FLY TO MOSCOW
283 Gorky Park - Moscow Calling
284 BB Gabor - Moscow Drug Club
285 Doe Maar - De bom
286 Manicured noise - Moscow
287 Russkaja - Ras Dwa Tri
288 PLANET P PROJECT - Armageddon
289 Clan of Xymox - Muscoviet Musquito
290 Gogol Bordello - 60 REVOLUTIONS
291 Uriah Heep - Gypsy
292 Living Colour - Cult Of Personality
293 The Hollies - Russian Roulette
294 Kenny Ball and His Jazzmen - Red Square
295 Frank Chacksfield - Under Moscow Skies
296 Thomas Dolby - Eastern Bloc
297 The Redskins - Kick Over The Statues
298 The Alchemist - Moscow Mornings - Sunrise
299 N.O.T.A. - Moscow
300 Svetlanas - Where Is My Borscht?
301 Against Me! - Russian Spies
302 James Horner - Gorkij park (Gorky Park 1983) OST
303 Hetalia Russia - Moscú
304 Roberto Jacketti & The Scooters - Moscow Nights
305 Ram J Holder - The Blues in Moscow
306 Ivan Rebroff sings Russian folk songs - Moscow nights
307 Jethro Tull - Crest Of A Knave Said She Was a Dancer
308 Men At Work - Its a Mistake
309 Skeewiff - Moscow Mule
310 The Clash - Ivan Meets G.I. Joe
311 Captain Sensible - Glad its all over
312 Ulfdallir - Steel Armor
313 Arkona - Oi Ti ne Vecher (Oh Not That Evening)
314 Lena Katina - No Voy A Olvidarte
315 JOHNNY M5 - Moscow Nights
316 Eddy Huntington - U.S.S.R.
317 Selsius - Moscow
318 WINTERUS - MOSCOW
319 Mr. Zivago - Love in Moscow
320 Brutto - Moscow Calling
321 Udo Lindenberg - Moskau
322 Aliza Kashi - Moscow Nights
323 Angelic Upstarts - Last Tango In Moscow
324 ASIA - Russian Dolls
325 Blaze Bayley & Thomas Zwijsen - Russian Holiday
326 Kate Bush - Breathing
327 Roger Waters and David Bowie - When the wind blows
328 Roky Erickson & The Aliens - Sputnik
329 Moscow - Orange Juice
330 Ivan Rebroff - Cossack Patrol
331 Alexandr Gradsky - Как молоды мы были
332 James Horner - Gorky Park - Following KGB
333 B.T.R - Moscow City
334 Gogol Bordello - Hats Off To Kolpakoff
335 CCCP - Sputnik [Cosmos]
336 Russkaja - Go Sputnik
337 Red Spektor - Cosmonaut
338 Bald Red Lady - Cosmonaut
339 Ulver - Russian Doll
340 Hawkwind - Sputnik Stan
341 Bad Acid Trip - Putin Fears Pussy
342 Queensryche - Operation Mindcrime
343 Dark Tranquillity - Arkhangelsk
344 TOTAL REJECTS (This Night) I'm Going To Be Destroyed
345 Manic Street Preachers - The Next Jet to Leave Moscow
346 Billy Joel - Leningrad
347 Victor Smolski - The Heretic
348 Boney M - Rasputin
349 Type O Negative - Tripping A Blind Man
350 Leningrad Cowboys - Leningrad
351 Accept - Stalingrad
352 Russian Folk Music - Russian Winter
353 Cavalera Conspiracy - Rasputin
354 Kontrust - Rasputin
355 Bersarin Quartett - St. Petersburg
356 Folkearth - From Volga to Bosphorus
357 Anastasia - Rumor in St. Petersburg
358 Retox - Soviet Reunion
359 Fireside - Let Rasputin Do It
360 Mastodon - Oblivion
361 St.Petersburg Ska Jazz Review - Volga River Boat Man
362 THERION - The Khlysti Evangelist
363 The Mountain Goats - Evening in Stalingrad
364 Rage - Soul Survivor
365 Indigo Girls - Closer to Fine
366 ARKONA - Slavsia Rus
367 Russian Folk Music - Kalinka (balalaika)
368 Catch 22 - The Decembrists Song
369 Joanna Stingray - City of Lenin
370 Aria - Attila
371 KAUAN - Khurum
372 Balalaika Ensemble Wolga - Cossacks Dance
373 The Liminanas - Russian Roulette
374 Vasiliy Shumov - Porridge
375 U.D.O. - I GIVE AS GOOD AS I GET
666 Russkaja - Change
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-iHPcxymC18F7oDKY8zH1IOplzHM05MY
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I noticed something interesting about Raya And The Last Dragon that I also saw in the new Lost in Space series and the last Star Wars trilogy.
Now there have been female villains throughout entertainment history but as of late, there has been a sub-current of storytelling in which you have women who serve as the rah rah girl power hero... and normally in these plotlines you have the man as the total fuckup. Woman good man bad, or so the trope goes. But noep... not in these cases. Now you're seeing rah rah girl power and oh my God woman you're a facepalm-level fuckup in the same storyline. Then there's the men in the middle who prove to be competent.
This is important to watch because there is a certain widely-believed "fact" of male versus female development in real life. Basically in reality men are perceived as being the best and worst in terms of competence. I'm talking about the male variance hypothesis. Men dominate the genius and dumbass ends of the intelligence spectrum. When you translate this theory to story telling, you often see men as the most heroic and competent and also the most pathetic characters. Women lie in the middle.
As of late, however, an equally valid and provably true reality has begun to find its way into story telling: there are also Apex women and Nadir women as well: the really competent and heroic women and the really pathetic villainous female losers, often clashing with each other. With male characters stuck in the middle. This also happens in real life.
It is interesting to see this in story lines, and I'm seeing it more often as of late. Welcome to the 21st century, folks. We don't have flying cars but we have a sea change in how writers portray men and women, and the winds are shifting toward balance.
The last three Star Wars movies were a disaster, let's get that out of the way. Kathleen Kennedy screwed that pooch with no condom or lube and not even a fucking reacharound and left the franchise tyrannosaurus wrecked on the train tracks like a Ford Pinto that butted heads with a freight train. That said... as we know, the top hero was a woman, Rey. But the worst most pathetic character in the show, the loser who stood apart in the ninth level of character development hell, was also a woman... Captain Phasma. Even as a villain she flew like a lead balloon, a total fuckup. Poe hung around the middle to top in terms of competence while former sanitation worker Finn was in the middle and actually he also had some heroic moments. Neither of them sank anywhere close to Phasma's level of fail.
In Lost in Space the top doers in the show were the women. Little Will Robinson was mid tier (in my opinion, your opinion may differ) but often fell behind Maureen and Judy (again my opinion) in prominence, except he had the Robot backing him up, which pushed him closer to top tier (of course he was supposed to rise to top tier in the future but the series isn't going to get there). But who's the absolute most pathetic? Smith... this time a woman. And I mean she really scrapes the bottom of the barrel. Not that she's poorly written, far from it! ... but... damn.
Raya follows this pattern but quite outstandingly. Raya is the heroine, titular character and the savior of the world, and the dragon who saves the world with her is also a woman. Go girl power, right? Not so fast. Without going into details let's just say Raya's Mary Sue card went up in flames from the word go. Then her female rival goes and fucks up on a level so bad that it's just plain shocking to behold. This same dumbass woman then comes back later and capitalizes on her fuckups and almost causes game over for everyone. This villain is a perfect translation of everything you see in toxic masculinity tropes into female form. Then there is one top tier male that is pulled from the story early on, and then one male who does a heel-face turn and rises to the level of a competent sidekick and another young male who is kinda okay. No male in the entire story are as pathetic as the (as I count it) three true villains who are all female.
It is quite interesting to see the variance effect genderflipped like this. Once is a coincidence... but three is a pattern. In my opinion? Writers are doing this unintentionally in a push to be edgy and unique. And it is worthy of being noticed.
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Repost from @expansive_sound_experiments • PEG Interviews Latvian Singer Songwriter Visual Artist Waterflower Waterflower has a history of creating experimental music and music videos. Her live shows are audio-visual and rich in soundscapes, created by the artist's signature vocals, synthesizers (using real plants to generate sound), and digital sampling. Her latest album, Balta Gaisma (White Light) is a step towards pop-music. While not leaving her experimental leanings behind, she embraces 21st Century pop, exploring the cadences of Hyper-pop and PC Music. These songs range from the haunting Dawning to the guitar heavy Chemtrail, via the LGBTQA+ positive message of Find It! and Palm vs Palm - a track composed with capacitive synths attached to plants. It is nominated for two Zelta Mikrofons awards: Best Experimental Music Album and Best Album Design. Waterflower has toured extensively, but unfortunately had to cancel a large tour of Asia due to Covid. On her travels she has met her hero Brian Eno, and appeared at Positivus Festival, Manchester Folk Horror Festival and Ladyfest Tallinn. Link https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/waterflower/love/ YouTube: Love https://youtu.be/dDp_46uhJeU Purchase the Vinyl album on Bandcamp.com https://waterflower.bandcamp.com/album/balta-gaisma click highlight “Waterflower” 2 listen 🎧 2 #podcast on @spotifypodcasts #artistsoninstagram #blogger #newmusicalert - #music #genre #song #songs #melody #hiphop #rnb #pop #love #rap #dubstep #instagood #beat #beats #jam #myjam #party #partymusic #newsong #lovethissong #remix #favoritesong #bestsong #photooftheday #bumpin (at New Hampshire) https://www.instagram.com/p/CNGaNKSFSts/?igshid=2cokvxja5qcf
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2020
2020
The Chats - The Clap
Easy-peasy punk rock album
Loving - If I am only my thoughts
Charming sun-dappled folk-pop, clean, gentle melodies
Steve Spacek - Houses
iPhone/iPad recorded, latino and jazz accented dance/house beats
Ghali - DNA
Total Flop and failed expectations. Mishmash of bland and frivolous lyrics and arrangements.
King Krule - Man Alive!
Alienating, violent, romantic, anguishing, doomed, noir / jazz, post-punk, soul, dubstep, electronic, garage rock, hip-hop
Justin Bieber - Changes
Disappointing comeback - boring r&b with zero sex appeal and cheesy lyrics and all-the-same songs
Guided by voices - Surrender your poppy field
Unusual time signatures, song lengths, and baroque-prog structures - mature rock and sometimes pixie / 80s dreamy
Corrections - Simply Activities
80s new wave and post punk nostalgia - cheesy vocals at times - first half more solid than second
Swim Mountain- If
A lovely mix of indie and funktronica, synth pop, r&b
Caribou - Suddenly
Sly and sofishticated sound design flits between uk garage disco and more - some tracks way less strong than others
Grimes - Miss Anthropocene
Mix “Ethereal nu metal”, ambient, dance, electronic, drum’n’bass, country - is violent and dark but sexy, delicate and dreamy
Porridge Radio - Every Bad
A dissonant lush indie rock sometimes dreamy sometimes dark and ironic with mantra-litany dusky lyrics from peaceful to desperate
Four Tet - Sixteen oceans
Wind instruments, synths and drum patterns gradually fade to calming ambient sounds, intense and meditative but also danceable and powerful
Kamaiyah - Got it made
Short, stripped-down, bubbling keyboards and drum-machine handclaps. NO current rap trends. windows-down bass-rattle record of one person’s confidence in her own sound and charisma
Poolside - Low season
Funk percussions, retro synths, pop and disco influences + indie vocals
Morioh Sonder - Is this psychedelia?
Surf pop and psych rock, dreamy post punk influences, danceable and whimsical
KEYAH/BLU - Sorry, I forgot you were coming
Perfect blend of rap, rnb, experimental pop, dark rhythms textured electronics, intimate tales
TOPS - I feel alive
Pop, radiant and 80s romantic with a contemporary experimental palette
The Chats - High risk behaviour
Classic old-school pure punk / cheerily undemanding fun
NIN - Ghosts V: Together
Buzzy ambient, melodic hooks, emotional palette of sounds
NIN - Ghosts VI: Locusts
Together’s opposite, anxiety-inducing, despairing horns, breathing and devouring sounds.
Roger and Brian Eno - Mixing Colours
Feels like a balm for these anxious times
Fiona Apple - Fetch the bolt cutters
Handclaps, chants, makeshift percussion, echoes, whispers, screams, breathing, jokes, dog barks, rattling blues. Contains no conventional pop forms. freeing and powerful.
The Weeknd - After Hours
Satisfying collision of new wave, dream pop, R&B, synth-pop nostalgia
BC Camplight - Shortly After Takeoff
Jazzy eighties rock with some icy funk and electronic pop, painfully personal and uneasy but so self-deprecating it speaks like your best friend
Rone - Room with a view
Deft splicing of beats-based electronics and dance music with classical influences. 21st century baroque chords, snatches of conversations, speeches, children’s voices
Other Lives - For their love
Bluesy acid-rock, dreamy meditation sounds, eerie string-crescendos, music for the afterlife
Lil Uzi Vert - Eternal Atake
Drill-influenced rapping, melodic crooning, trends-aware hip-hop beats, untouchable pop sound production
Squarepusher - Be up a hello
Frantic breakbeats littered with echoes of classic jungle, hardcore, and drum’n’bass, ’90s drill’n’bass, glitchy 8-bit chaos
The Orielles - Disco Volador
Cosmic, playful, funky dreamy indie pop, shuffling organs, woozy guitar, shimmy-shimmy hand percussion
Portico Quartet - We welcome tomorrow
Perfect dreamy sequel of ‘Memory streams’
Charlie XCX - how i’m feeling now
Quarantine creation / 2020 romance manifesto of club-pop, trap, k-pop, video game sounds, fuzzy synths and crackling bass
Holy Fuck - Deleter
Trippy, psychedelic tapestry of euphoric escapism, ‘90s dance, glitchy beats, airy vocals, experimental electronics
Luge - Luge
Energetic and playful avant-garde and quirky math rock, zolo?
Good With Parents, Triple Stephens - Comments & Reflection
Playful indietronica synth pop + classical instruments
Wishing - None of this was your fault
Lo-fi indie, ambient, slowcore w/ fragile lyrics
Bibio - Sleep on the wing
Indie folk treated like ambient / a gorgeous soundscape of strings, guitars and flutes, feelings of loss, hope and escape. Perfect picture of tranquil countryside memories
Piotr Kurek - A Sacrifice Shall Be Made / All The Wicked Scenes
Electroacoustic experimental, meditative-ritualistic atmospheric music / conceived for theatrical performances
Military Genius - Deep Web
Meditative ambient, retro-futurist soundscapes / hypnagogic pop, dark, abstract and mysterious / early ‘70s folk interjecting jazz-brass sections
Jockstrap - Wicked City
Melancholy waltz and winsome ballads, fluttering strings, soft piano glissandi mixed with gnarly and distorted hip-hop beats, buzzing guitars and synths / cherubic vocals, pcmusic-style manipulated at times
Georgia - String Token
Experimental ambient electronic, minimal, melodic, futuristic, hypnotic and grim
EVOL - Madball Manners
Lingering experimental rave electronic, hardcore, techno
Upsammy - Zoom
Playful, sampling, abstract IDM, ambient techno, melodic and rhythmic, surreal, futuristic, sparkling synths and billowing pads
Tomasz Kunicki - Muzyka dla Świątyń
Playful and abstract IDM, glittering synths, obscure pads, glitchy and bleepy
Tomasz Kunicki - The sound is gone, where did it go, I have no idea
Very bassy and very dubby IDM, atmospheric ambient and loopy electronics
Kate NV - Room for the moon
80s new wave, progressive electronic, synth pop, cornucopia of melodies and genres. Wriggling synths, chirping flutes, warm baselines, jazzy sax, woodwinds, marimba. Russian girly vocals cartoon theme-song-like.
Khruangbin - Mordechai
Psychedelic / funk rock with some soul, dub, lounge, poolside disco - exotic and atmospheric
Dalai Lama - Inner world
Chanted mantras rhythmically woven into wafting new-age flutes, chimes, strings and free-form guitar picking.
K-Lone - Cape Cira
Tropical ambient house, warm, lush, soft. Zen yet bouncy rhythms. Digital and analogue recordings, at times feels like you’re underwater.
Arca - KiCk i
Experimental industrial club rhythms with reggaeton and folk influences
The Beths - Jump Rope Gazers
Sleek and personal indie rock, romantic ballads, more sentimental and slow than the previous album
J Lloyd - Kosmos
Tasteful soul and funk pop in 25 tiny tracks, charming low-key, rich textures, good vibes
Julek Polsk - Tesco
Dissonant, ominous, dense, post industrial ambient, noise, sound collage, deconstructed club music
Taylor Swift - folklore
Folk/chamber pop, indie folk, bittersweet, mellow, melancholic ballads
Bill Callahan - Gold Record
Contemporary folk, warm and deep vocals, pastoral, peaceful and melancholic
Mura Masa - R.Y.C.
Indietronica, post-punk revival, catchy indie/synth pop, early 2000 EMO, lots of hip collabs
Fontaines D.C. - A Hero's Death
Post-punk, indie rock, art punk, gothic rock, raw deadpan male vocals, darkish and melodic
RAMzi - cocon
Tribal House, ambient dub, balearic beats, downtempo, hypnotic and tropical
Auguste - Indust
Experimental ambient electronic + field recordings, glistening and splintered sounds
Paul Blackford - Betamax
Dreamy and hypnotic trip hop, downtempo, synth wave
A.G.Cook - 7G
49-track archival collection of sketches, cover versions, volatile lab experiments, divided into 7 discs. a glimpse at the whirring cogs beneath hyperpop’s pristine casing.
Clap clap - Liquid Portraits
Experimental musical tapestry and collage / high-energy concoction of unpredictable and wavy rhythms, exotic vocals and heavy, relentless bass and drums / UK Bass, ambient dub, footwork + far-flung field recordings
E.M.M.A. - Indigo Dream
Progressive electronic, ambient house / 80s melodic atmospheres, goosebump-inducing synths, whimsical melodies and classical leanings
Leif - Music for screen tests
Performed live @ Barbican as a 54min session ambient / drone film soundtrack (Andy Warhol's Screen Tests)
Crack Cloud - Pain Olympics
Post/art/dance punk, experimental rock - energetic, anxious, apocalyptic, dark, male vocals
Document - A Camera Wanders All Night
Post-punk, noise rock, past-hardcore, distorted and raw male vocals
Keisuke Matsuda - Clumsily Back Up
Experimental electronic with playful hummed vocals, lo-fi beats, melodic, youthful, dreamlike
Coi Leray - Now or Never
Gen-Z superstar, melodic flows, bouncy trap, energetic killer lyrics
The Ophelias - For Luck
Artful, string-laden indie-pop EP, grungy dream-pop, a quarantine remake and a Joni Mitchell cover
Romare - Home
Deep house, UK Bass, groovy and detailed sonic palette + soul and funk influences - dancefloor highs and after party wind-downs
Mulatu Astatke, Black Jesus Experience - To Know Without Knowing
Ethio-Jazz, Cuban, funk, reggae workout + rapid-fire rap or Afrobeat drums
Good Doom - Spider Temple Valley
Experimental psych-wave, gentle and peaceful lo-fi, dreamy and oozy with flute, sax and field recordings
Ralph Kinsella - Abstraction
Dark ambient experimental / instrumental electronic
IDLES - Ultra Mono
Post-punk, garage punk, hardcore, noise rock, raw male vocals, dense, energetic, angry, political
Mild Orange - Mild Orange
Alternative, Indie rock, dream pop,
Skinshape - Umoja
Experimental psychedelic rock - afro beats - afroswinig - funky - world music
Vulfpeck - The Joy of Music, The Job of Real Estate
Mixed bag of funk, jazz, soul, self-indulgent? classical reworks, progressive electronic, melodic and uplifting, groovy drums and bass lines
OPN - Magic OPN
Manipulated and sequenced archive radio and sounds collages as interludes, uncanny processed voices, poppish trope ballads, art pop, sentimental and surreal, dense, progressive hypnagogic electronic and more
Pa Salieu - Send them to coventry
Combined dancehall, Afrobeats, hip-hop and grime. Scattered drums, stop-start energy, handpicked words and rhymes. skips from trap trills to baile breakdowns.
Mama Ode - Tales & Patterns of the Maroons
Classic hip-hop album with jazz, funk, blues and reggae influences. Creole Sega Rap Roots music, afro-drum patterns and grooves
Tony Allen, Hugh Masekela - Rejoice
Live sessions of unique fusion of afrobeat and swing-jazz with lyrics in English, Yoruba and Zulu
Miley Cyrus - Plastic Hearts
Pop rock, 80s synth-rock, grit and freewheeling sense of fun, rough-hewn panache of vocal performance, bittersweet eclectic and sentimental / collabs with rock idols
2019
LCD Soundsystem - Electric lady sessions
Live recording with some new wavy covers
Harry Styles - Fine line
Not catchy / mediocre pop
Boothe - 8 or 9 Walled Room
10 minutes of playful electronic and soft vocals
Good with parents - Good with parents
Clever indietronica synth pop, fun + ironic + millennial + sax
Taylor Skye - Kode fine & sons
Synth, beats and pop vocals
Famous - England
Wonky pop punk mixed to electronic sounds and raw spoken vocals
Orville Peck - Pony
Simple pop rock Johnny Cash style ballads and 80s
Sassy 009 - Kill Sassy 009
Distorted electro pop with strong vocals + post-punk notes
J-Walk - Mediterranean Winds
Jazzy electronica with glassy synth pads cheesy and chilled out
Mattiel - Satis Factory
Punky garage rock strong female vocals
Ross Backenkeller - Come Around
Country dreamy and melancholy guitar and vocals
Legss - Writing Comedy
Art rock and a dark underbelly of post-punk + topnotch spoken track and electronic sounds
BEA1991 - The Lost Demo EP
Trip-hop with Bjork-style vocals
BEA1991 - Brand New Adult
Chamber folk and yacht rock meld with R&B and trip-hop
Matt Maltese - Krystal
Lo-fi flowy bedroom pop breakup album
Faye Webster - Atlanta Millionaires Club
Folk-pop, mellow and melancholy soul with an r&b tinge
Infinite Bisous- Period
Soothing and warm bedroom night album
Achille Lauro - 1969
Trap changed into rock with romanticised lyrics
Jerkcurb - Air Con Eden
Indie-psych and retro Americana, atmospheric, sensitive, wobbly
Octo Octa - Resonant Body
Breakbeats and house bangers
ALASKALASKA - The Dots
Jazz fusion, disco rhythms and high-gloss art rock
Orphan - Yijoda
Glitchy and sharp electronics + ambient-atmospheric sounds
Honeymoan - Body
Avant-garde pop tapestry of beats and synths with playful vocal
U-Bahn - U-Bahn
Traditional new wave DEVO-moulded, Hypnagogic pop, art-punk, some vaporwave synth sounds
Hail Conjurer - Erotic Hell
Obscure and raw Finnish black metal
Ride for revenge - Chapter of alchemy
Quality black metal with long and short tracks pretty smooth
Boys Age - Neverchanging, Neverending
Lo-fi, slow-tempo, soul, r&b, mellow tracks with sad very low vocals
MorMor - Some place else
Indie-pop with sweet synths and delicate vocals
Felicita - hej!
Overproduced pop dance hits broken down into harsh and jarring staccato melodies, hissing ambient and screams
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Ghosteen
Endlessly giving and complex meditation on mortality and our collective grief, scored by synths, pianos, and electronics
Portico Quartet - Memory Streams
Ethereal keyboards, hypnotic grooves, layered post-rock textures mixed with electronic, ambient and magnetic jazz build-ups
Charles Rumback + Ryley Walker - Little common twist
Mellow and pastoral folksy guitar melodies and soft drums + ambient tones, drone electronic
Shadowax - Nikolai Reptile
Effervescent techno and mutant bass jams
The Rhythm Method - How do you know I was lonely?
Ostensibly witty and warm pop songs from hip hop to indie and electronic about romance and millennial youth
Martin Dupont - Accident of Stars
80s kinda goth new wave full of electronics, guitars synths and clarinets
Raime - Planted
Latin American and Chicago footwork influences merged with alien sounds, half-heard voices, dark and rhythmic bass and percussions
Sunn 0))) - Pyroclasts
Sunn 0))) - Life Metal
Slow-motion drone feels like a religious ritual / pipe organ and cello, guitars webbing together the space between notes
Special Request - Vortex
Breakbeat barnstormers and house epics, with room for bleep, electro and gabber
Caterina Barbieri - Ecstatic Computation
Oscillating sequencers, rhythmic pulsations, cascades of synthesiser melodies echoing dance music/new age
Battles - Juice B Crypts
Playful electronic wizardry, dense array of beats, bleeps and squelches, loopy keyboards and guitars, ecstatic vocals
Haruomi Hosono - HOCHONO HOUSE
Home-recorded aesthetic, funk shaped into minimalist space-age lounge music
Florist - Emily Alone
Thoughtful, calming and melancholic, full of hushed, enveloping guitar sounds and gentle vocals
Spencer Radcliffe - Hot Spring
Alt-country, indie falk americana, very relaxed,pastoral and wry poetics
Ciamkam - Play-doh Dog
Noise ambient / screeching, dissonant, surreal, ominous
Equiknoxx - Eternal Children
UK soundsystem style, reggae groundings, earthy dancehall with a vast range of puzzling vocalists
Eh hahah - Fissure
Experimental deconstructed electronic, sound collage, glitches and post-club music
Upsammy - Wild Chamber
Lucid shades of IDM, bleep techno, perky synths and frazzling hi-hats, polyrhythmic drum patterns
Otik - Blasphemy
Fresh, vibrant, dark experimental club music, techno + dance + electronic
Shanti Celeste - Tangerine
Tech / ambient / deep house, breakbeat, rhythmic and mechanical yet dreamy
Bez - Banki Mydlane
Dream pop, shoegaze, noise pop, space rock, reverberated female vocals + spoken word
Yu Su - Roll with the punches
Ambient dub, downtempo, tribal ambient, sampling, mellow, atmospheric with female vocals
Drive45 - Dried up
Bitpop, Artpop, indietronica, quirky and playful, androgynous vocals
Lala &ce - Le son d’apres
French hip hop, trap, cloud rap, alternative b&b, dancehall / sparse dark and ominous, warm female vocals
Leif - Loom Dream
Tribal ambient / ambient techno + field recordings / pastoral, ethereal, atmospheric
deathcrash - Sundown (a collection of home recordings)
Slowcore, drone ambient, post-punk, fragile male vocals
FEET - What’s inside is more than just ham
Post-punk, indie-rock, dance-punk, sarcastic, playful, technical, male vocals
Coi Leray - EC2
Trap, hyphy, pop rap
Ariwo- Quasi
Dub techno, afro-cuban jazz, ambient techno, chants, programmed beats, pulsating relentless rhythms and percussions, loud sax
Floating Points - Crush
Strikingly melodic and elegant, cinematic, frantic and distorted rhythms, shuddered synths, vibrant breakbeats, sampling, UK garage nodding
Jacques Greene - Dawn Chorus
Bittersweet, sad but triumphant, mix of experimental electronic and lightweight techno + field recordings, hazy sampled textures, distorted drones + disco house + percussions + spoken word
Men I Trust - Oncle Jazz
Indie electronic, minimal, chillout downtempo, dreamy female vocals, jazzy
Raveena - Lucid
R&B, soul, experimental, pop, groovy, jazzy and dreamy, with some field and spoken words recordings
2018
Shit and Shine - Very high
Lazy hippie funk with slowed rnb vocals
Saloli - The deep end
New Age-inspired delicate only-synth music
Adrianne Lenker - abysskis
Guitar and sweet and warm vocals
Ever ending kicks - Ideas relayed
Sweet lo-fi similar to the previous two
Negative Gemini - Bad Baby
Solid synth pop with dreamy intimate vocals
Okay Kaya - Both
melancholy bedroom-pop sarcastic and harsh lyrics
Trust Fund - Bringing the Backline
Witty yet melancholy self-aware pop-rock
Jockstrap - Love is the key to the city
A fusion of Bossa Nova, 1930s Disney-esque orchestra, and coarse electronica
Noah Cyrus - Good Cry
Pop and rnb debut album with a bit of gospel and melancholy
Carla dal Forno - Top of the pops
Alternative indie electronic, subtle instrumental backdrops with plaintive vocals
Lala Lala - The lamb
Alternative/Indie rock with grunge tones and personal and warm vocals
Diamond Thug - Apastron
Progressive but dreamy pop, graceful vocals
Denh Izen - Storage Solutions
Dark and charming sounds with warm and distorted vocals, desperate but calm
Imperial Triumphant - Vile Luxury
New York Jazz mixed with top-notch black metal great for a sci-fi dystopian movie - especially Cosmopolis
Oliver Coates - Shelley’s on Zenn-La
Beat-oriented electronic music, sublime cello and synths
Dylan Carlson - Conquistador
drone-metal imaginary Western mostly solo electric guitar
Project Pablo - Come to Canada you will like it
Dozy laid back deep house with jazzy chords and subtly swinging drums
Ryley Walker - The Lillywhite Sessions
Dave Matthews Band tribute with proggy folk, primitive guitar, free improv, Chicago jazz-rock on darker tones
Grouper - Grid of Points
Empty room, piano and voice slip through your fingers like water
Kali malone - Cast of Mind
Glacial synth tones mapped to acoustic woodwind and brass
Likes - New Pedal
Short tracks of fun glitch / hypnagogic pop
Jake Tobin - Fifth Thought
Fun and whimsical take on classical sax sounds and guitars
Jake Tobin - 135
Avant-prog / jazz fusion / romanticism / off-kilter melodies / psychedelic chords with the emotion and aesthetic of bedroom pop
Twig Twig - Darkworld Gleaming
Experimental pop, whimsical instrumentation, lo-fi uplift, beats and loops
George Clanton - Slide
Cult 2020s electronic born from vaporware influences mixed with whispery chillwave and downtempo R&B, feels like a 90s rave in an open field, no irony
Good Doom - Mood Life
Unique, very chill, dreamy sound, incorporates world music, trip hop beats, lo fi bedroom pop, krautrock and noise
Ex:Re - Ex:Re
Husky and mellow ambient pop, dream pop? Lethargic and melancholic
Zaumne - Emo Dub
Minimalistic ominous and repetitive ambient house with ASMR-like spoken words
Ehh hahah - And the weather so breezy, man, why can’t life always be this easy?
Progressive experimental electronic, deconstructed club music, EDM, bubblegum bass, playful yet dark
Kate NV - для FOR
Progressive electronic, ambient, new age, minimalist, surreal, otherworldly and playful. wet, fleshy bleeps; bubbly, liquid noise
Leon Chang - re:treat
Mellow lo-fi hip hop, downtempo, electronic, future bass, sampling
Coi Leray - Everythingcoz
Pop rap, trap, hyphy tunes, powerful + well produced
Domenique Dumont - Miniatures de auto rhythm
Sophist-pop, balearic beat, chillwave, dreampopish, soft female vocals, lush, summery and rhythmic
Big Joanie - Sistahs
Pretty standard textbook indie-rock, post-punk with female vocals
Darto - Fundamental Slime
Haunting and spacious, deep male vocals, intriguing eerie melodies, dream state lullabies + sax and spoken word bit
Old Maybe - Piggity Pink
Chaotic post-punk, unusual time signatures, strong shouted female vocals
Brad Mehldau Trio - Seymour Reads the Constitution!
Elegant and melodic modal jazz - post-bop album, fragmented but coherent, ever changing time signature and tempo
2017
Ross Backenkeller - Bardo
Folk indie guitar melodies with honest and gentle vocals
Maruego - Tra Zenith e Nadir
Italian trap with disillusioned and ironic lyrics + cool collabs
Nervous Condition - Untitled
Forceful drums, wails of sax and commanding vocals - mix of experimental rock, post-punk, no wave, jazz
Powerplant - Dogs Sees Ghosts
Synth punk, garage punk fast and fun
Wool & The Pants - Wool & The Pants
Experimental r&b / soul / hiphop vibez pretty smooth and lo-fi
TOPS - Sugar at the gate
Soft rock tunes, vintage atmosphere, fuzzy, honey-dipped songs
Slothrust - Show me how you want it to be
Covers album with grungy sounds and good arrangements
Rone - Mirapolis
Misty synths and heavy bass lines, dreary and melancholic industrial electronics, packed with doomed vocals of all sorts of guests.
Ada Babar & Kasra Kurt - Nino Tomorrow
Weird pop and experimental DIY with MIDI keyboards and guitar, playful lyrics, video game menu music
Good Doom - New Shapes for you
Evocative, dreamy and atmospheric melodies, warm at times, chilly, spooky, grungy, dark at others, synth buzzes, glitchy drums
Phoebe Bridgers - Stranger in the alps
Atmospheric ballads for sad times, deeply personal stories of heartbreak and loss
Florist - If Blue Could Be Happiness
Indie folk, soft and atmospheric, pure gentle quiet and soft female vocals about understanding light and darkness. Swooping guitar, dots of piano notes, gentle beats that recall Simon and Garfunkel
Wishing - Heat Death
Ambient pop, lo-fi indie beats w/ soft vocals that make you feel things you haven’t felt in a while
Martyn Heyne - Electric Intervals
Ambient in the broadest sense, calm instrumental downtempo guitar-centric with electronic flourishes
Equiknoxx - Colón Man
Vivid and tactile masterful sound design, syncopated loops, wonky and scintillating rhythms
American Pleasure Club - I blew a dandelion and the whole world disappeared
Lo-fi acoustic guitar with raw male vocals
Andrea Laszlo De Simone - Uomo Donna
Progressive pop, baroque/psychedelic pop + field recordings / bittersweet and pastoral
Drive45 - Have you seen me?
Bitpop indietronic, glitch pop, sequencer, dance pop
Drive45 - System Format
Bitpop indietronic, playful video game sounds
Leon Chang - bird world
Bitpop electronic, sequencer, videogame music, future bass / uplifting mellow and playful
dynastic - SPACE/SUMMER
Glitch hop, electronic bubblegum, kawaii future bass, mellow and uptempo, cheesy sax, chaotic sounds + dance floor dnb
Darto - Human Giving
Spacey experimental electronic mixed with post-punk, warm tones, 80s synths, soft melodic vocals + spoken bits
Pregnant - Duct Tape
Indie/art/soft rock, electronic, brilliant pop tunes, dreamy yet rhythmic
2016
Ever Ending Kicks - Music World
DIY colourful dreamy hazy songs
Mild Eye Club - Skiptracing
Low-key folk dreamy with 60s 70s vintage links
Loving - Loving
Easy and dreamy pop melodies, wavy, warm and mellow
Lala Lala- Sleepyhead
Alternative/Indie rock with grunge tones and personal and warm vocals
Gruff Rhys - Set fire to the stars
Soundtrack to the homonym 2014 film set in the 50s - soft romance rock, jazz-inspired, elegant and familiar
Oliver Coates - Upstepping
Deep house, techno, footwork blended with sharp and experimental classical strings
Garden Center - Garden Center
Erratic pop music, fun and playful electronic sounds, silly vocals
Raime - Tooth
Ominus and gloomy sound of dub, electronic and post-rock / stripped down to the flesh
Amiina - Fantomas
Violin, cello, drums, percussion, metallophone, harp, ukulele and electronics fused in a contemporary classical post-rock gentle melody-focused experimentation
Jake Tobin - Sorta Upset
Short tracks of experimental rock, avant-prog - eclectic and dissonant, technical and manic
Jake Tobin - Accidentally on Purpose
Post-modern experimental pop, jazz influenced sounds, off-kilter saxophone, silly humour
Vanishing Twin - Choose your own adventure
Swathes of percussion, exotic drum beats and funky guitars merge into a cosmic blend of reverberating bleeps with jazz skits / heady voyage across sound influences
Good Doom - Hug
Good Doom - Naps
Both off-beat lo-fi with a rock twists, spacey, fuzzy, grainy sounds
Zeal & Ardor - Devil is fine
Top notch black metal merges African-American spiritual slave music and some electronic beats and sounds
Shield Patterns - Mirror Breathing
Haunting vocals and sensual cello, clarinet and piano, all wrapped up in ethereal synths
Ashley Henry - Ashley Henry’s 5ive
Complex and uplifting post-bop jazz, imaginative flare, delicate and soothing piano
Florist - The Birds Outside Sang
Lo-fi indie, ambient-dream pop,sparse, minimalist keyboard leads bordering on chilly drones + intimate and personal songwriting
CBMC - OOR
Acustic lo-fi bedroom pop with an airy tone and somber feel but still feels fresh and lighthearted
Told Slant - Going By
Slowcore indie pop/folksy emo, ‘intimate spaces in which small town kids write memories of touch, togetherness, loss, love, depersonalisation’
Kate NV - Binasu
Art pop, progressive electronic, sequencer, joyful grooves but also atmospheric and ethereal sounds, eclectic and dense, melodic female vocals
Zaumne - Przezycia
Minimal ambient techno with a couple of spoken word bits
Mauno - Rough Master
Enticingly and eclectic indie rock, smooth vocals, strings and moody guitars, delicate piano, powerful drums
Susso - Keira
Tribal house, tribal ambient, folktronica, Mande music, rhythmic and powerful chants
Phern - Cool Coma
Psychedelic pop, lo-fi, mellow and playful
Hellier Ulysses - Ulysses Hellier
Experimental rock, math rock, jangle pop mixed with post-punk, technical, lo-fi, uncommon time signatures
Brad Mehldau Trio - Blues and Ballads
Deceptively sweet-sounding jazz album, songs are played with variations and every phrase is a cliffhanger - gracefully executed + bonus of my fav song <3
2015
Adeodat Warfield - Pacific, Missouri
Synth pop with electronic beats, vaporware notes
Ross Backenkeller - Rare Please
Folk indie guitar melodies with honest and gentle vocals
Grimes - Art Angels
Immaculate and authentic, synthetic and unreal but also super pop, folk, and dance / POST-art pop?
Jake Tobin - Third and Fourth Thoughts
Short tracks of weird avant-prog where the vocals follow the melodies all the time
Florist - Holdly
Vocals move slowly and sweetly through gentle meditation sound and soft guitars
Starry Cat - Starry Cat
Indie pop, lo-fi indie, wavy and shaky, bitter-sweet and personal male vocals
CBMC - FOOTWEAR
Acustic lo-fi bedroom pop with a somber feel but still feels fresh and lighthearted nearly asmr-like vocals
Wishing - To Forget
Lo-fi indie slowcore, fuzzy synths + acoustic sounds mixed with short electronic tracks / lyrics are whispered and very intimate
Oren Ambarchi - Live Knots
Two very long live recorded tracks of propulsive drumming full of tensions and releases + droning notes, plucked strings and mournful guitar
Juxta Phona - we will not be silence
Ambient, electronic, minimal melodies over crisp, tactile beats
Khruangbin - The Universe Smiles Upon You
Psychedelic / Funk rock, rhythmic and jazzy, tropical warm and peaceful
Red Sea - In The Salon
Indie experimental rock, psychedelic pop, math rock, melodic yet uncommon time signatures
Eyeliner - Buy Now
Synth-pop/funk - vaporwave / instrumental, melodic, uplifting, lush, futuristic / great bass lines!
2014
Ricky Eat Acid - Three love songs
First half found sounds, experimental electronics, fuzzy piano loops. Second half IDM beats and keys, choir-like vocals / “might be the sound of music having a dream within a dream about music”
Jake Tobin - Torment
Jake Tobin - Life as a Clerical Error
Weird dissonant mix of avant-prog, art punk and jazz fusion but in an amazing way
Richard Dawson - Nothing Important
Brittle, crudely amplified nylon-string acoustic guitar, experimental drones, folk sketches, imitation field cries, and free jazz diversions
2013
Ever Ending Kicks - Weird priorities
Sentimental chill instrumental and colourful with gentle vocals
Gruff Rhys - American Interior
John Evans-themes concept album - witty folk oriented retro-futurist music
Michael Andrews - Spilling a rainbow
Well-crafted pop tunes, nostalgic and lighthearted memories of folk rock with a dash of avant-garde electronic haze
Pill Friends - Blessed Suffering
Lo-fi indie/emo noisy and raw with existential and stark male vocals
2012
Told Slant - Still Water
Lo-fi/bedroom-punk with folksy guitars and delicate vocals as if they could break down in tears at any moment
2010
Hype Williams - Find out what happens when people stop being polite and start gettin reel
Ypnagogic vortex of incredibly canny hard to pinpoint music with distorted spoken vocals
Zach Hill - FACE TAT
Constant restless drumming, squiggly melodic instrumental hooks, mosaics of disconnected noises, fuzzy sounds and vocals
2008
Amplifier Machine - her mouth is an outlaw
Half-improvised ambient - drone - experimental - electronic - post-rock
E. Bandel, Victory & Good Hunting - s/t
Classical, piano, folk, melancholic, haunting
2007
Seabear - The ghost that carried us away
Indie/folk multi-instrumental dynamic floating sound, warm melodies, calm and gentle vocals
HEALTH - HEALTH
A masterful noise/experimental rock with elements of post-punk, drone and electronic - disorienting rhythms, tempo-shifting, noisy outbursts
2005
The Darkness - One way ticket to hell
Hard / glam rock ballads and pop tunes
2004
The Emperor Machine - Aimee Tallulah is hypnotised
Mix of electro euro disco, post-punk, krautrock, sci-fi scores, jazz-funk. Thick dance rhythms and mind-altering synths
2002
ESG - Step Off
Sweet soul with a punk attitude, jazzy sassy vocals
Hella - Hold your horse is
Non-stop, indie-audio assault / Nintendo music / midi and electronic beats / head-spinning leading drums, very fast guitars
1998
Eels - Electro-Shock Blues
elegantly sad grief and death themed album, deeply personal, yet brilliant pop tunes, post-grunge, jazzy arrangement, archive sounds, electronics
Duster - Stratosphere
Bashful slowcore lo-fi experimental space/indie rock
1975
Bobbi Humphrey- Fancy Dancer
Funky jazz with forms of world music, soul, club music and pop
1973
Kevin Ayers - Bananamour
Progressive pop, art rock with mix of soul, r&b, reggae - choirs and country type ballads
1972
Kevin Ayers - Whatevershebringswesing
Experimental new age prog rock, semisweet tunes, lighthearted, skewed sounds
1970
Kevin Ayers - Shooting at the moon
Experimental, progressive, avant-garde, rock with jazz influences, sound recordings, excellent songwriting
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So Rick Riordan Presents is a fucking amazing synergistic thingy that gets great stories the press they need. These books—most of which are about non-eurocentric mythologies—would never have gotten as many eyeballs on them without Riordan’s name attached and that would suck, because they’re AWESOME.
In the Before Times, last year, the kids and I would go through audiobooks like popcorn while you’re watching a movie because we were in the car ALLLLLL the time. This class to that class to that lesson to this playdate to that program. Audiobooks all the way. But since March, our audiobook time has dwindled, which is why it took us an embarrassingly long time to finish Tristan. There just kept being things we needed to do instead of listen to the book. I regret that, because this is a GREAT book.
Tristan’s story is filled with Black American folk heroes like John Henry, High John the Conquerer, and Brer Rabbit, as well as some truly stunning metaphorical monsters — Fetterlings, Bone Ships, and Uncle C. It’s exciting and scary and sad and triumphant. Truly fantastic. And through it all, Tristan’s grief over the death of his best friend pushes toxic masculinity aside in favor of a real story of love and loss. It’s a 21st century book for 21st century kids and it’s one of my favorite books I’ve read this year.
We can’t wait for the sequel!
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City Under the Sea - Re-Review #30
Some holiday this is! Here is a happy little family, doing your standard underwater holiday in a rented sub, fighting over ipads and whatnot, and not really knowing what they’re doing because they’re tourists! That’s a bit of an assumption on tourists - sorry, many tourists are quite wise - and not my everyday thought on tourists... this family however, definitely fit that mold.
Can I just ask though, 1. does anyone else find the logo on the rental sub hilarious? And 2. does anyone else get reminded of that fish from ‘Shark Tale’ (2005) that looked a little bit like that I think? Anyone, or is that just me?
Oh look, a big red exclamation mark! Now, I’m not an expert, but when that symbol appears on my car dashboard, the manual says to stop driving immediately. And look, it’s even got a little amber circle! Should so stop driving... piloting... whatever method driving a sub is actually called. I can’t think whist I’m trying to watch comic Gordon moments.
But yeah... point being, they drive on for a while first... foolish. Just saying.
Have they not taught this girl that pointing is rude? Eye spy is such a traditional stuck on the motorway care game as well. Playing it in the Amazon when you are not from there - just to say - definitely leaves an unfair advantage. I think that is the only time I have ever lost so bad at eye spy (and I mean, really, how do you even really lose eye spy?).
Don’t worry! International Rescue are on the way! Because, you have made it onto Thunderbirds are go, so there can’t be fear of you dying. That doesn’t happen here, folks. This is an escape from the real world (much needed right now as I’m sure we all know... which reminds me, I need to finish writing some irrelief2020 prompts... sorry, off track). Let’s move on to talk about Gordon.
You know, I really don’t know what Lady P sees in him... he’s such a... slob? I mean, maybe that is why he and Parker don’t get along so well.
“Aren’t you going to pick this up?”
“Of course I was! You don’t think a responsible member of International Rescue would leave trash lying around do you? Who do you think I am?”
“A slob comes to mind.”
Yeah, thanks for agreeing with me, Kayo. That makes me feel better about (not) insulting Gordon myself.
“Wow.”
“Go ahead. Just say it.”
“Gordon Tracy, you are a secret slob.”
“Oh, the wrappers? What can I say? Scott’s always at me about my room. This is my own personal domain.”
It’s also a rescue sub... but hey, who looks at whether there’s rubbish on the floor of the International Rescue sub when they’re being rescued? Really, what does it matter in the long run when he’s going to save their lives?
This city looks so so freaky. Whenever they were driving through it I was just like... shivers. Bay City must have been a greeeaaat place to live. I bet Lady Penelope has great memories of the Creighton-Ward building.
“Just follow my lead, Parker. I spent many a summer playing hide and seek in these walls.”
“Bit different with ha giant crab ship nipping hat your ‘eels.”
“Don’t worry, Parker. I always won.”
Oh...kay. She actually does!
“But the monster!”
“That’s not a monster. It’s the mechanic.”
You know, I think they’re two very similar things at the moment. Considering at this point we knew very, very little about The Mechanic, i think it was perfectly reasonable to think such. After all, he doesn’t really speak, and he attacks people and he has a bit of a temper, and he’s quite obviously... well, the bad guy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-TbQnONe_w
You know, that’s just in case anyone wants to start a post on character theme songs within the 21st century, specifically 2020 - you know, I think that would actually be a great way to take our minds off of everything... please someone do that for me!
This guy really does have some serious tech, and the worst part is probably that he knows so well how to use it. He uses it like an extension to his own body (principles of martial arts here, guys, a skill worth having let me tell you) and acts like he’s completely in sync with it. Really it’s like he lives and breathes with those meccas. And that ship looks unsettlingly like a crab... don’t blame me if I make sure to look at them twice in the future You know. Just to be sure.
“But you don’t even know how to operate Thunderbird Four... Don’t scratch it! And be careful! Ah, Brains is gonna’ kill me. Woah! I didn’t even know it could do that!”
Um... you were saying, Gordon?
And, actually, I think it will be Scott who kills you before Brains when he sees the state of Thunderbird Four’s interior. After all, if he’s that fussy over Gordon’s room, he’s going to be a tyrant over anything IR related.
“Don’t worry, Brains can get mad at you for something else.”
I can imagine there’s quite a list.
“Unbelievable.”
Thunderbird Four is not Thunderbird Shadow... Please remember that for Gordon’s sake, Kayo. Although, maybe in her hands it is a little more like Shadow. Definitely appeared so.
“Don’t ever scare me like that again.”
“FAB. I’ll come up with some other way.”
You can bet she will.
Anyhow, back to the subject, I think Gordon does enough damage to Thunderbird Four without needing anyone to help him, so lets just discount this whole sea chase of Kayo’s.
But let’s so so not because it was awesome! I mean, as much as Gordon would love to claim that no one else can pilot Four, I don’t think Kayo (or Scott for that matter) do a bad job at all. I mean, she managed to give the Mechanic a run for his money and he’s a nasty character, so I think that really does mean something.
“You three get to the crash site.”
“Wait, you three? Underwater rescue is my thing.”
“But sneaking up on bad guys is her thing.”
“You have a point there.”
And that’s Virgil’s point proven I think.
Sherbet looking at the fish! I mean, I suppose that’s to be expected as it’s not natural for a dog to be quite that far underwater.
Hell, Parker really does have good driving skills. If I could drive half as well as he can through an old abandoned building which if half-decaying and underwater then I would be incredibly impressed. My best skill level is being able to park perfectly in one go like once a week every week most. You know what, I think I might just employ Parker for myself. Anyone have his contact number?
That past of Parker’s really does make a difference! The Mechanic’s face was such a sight to see. He got away - of course he did, he’s obviously the new series main villain and connected to some big plot twist with The Hood, so we couldn’t kill him off yet, that would just be a really bad use of an interesting (though slightly chill-provoking) character. Besides, I think he’s pretty hard to kill, but Parker gave it a pretty good go, so he’ll have to have a medal for trying and count that as good enough. Honestly, The Mechanic seems indestructible, much like another family we know... Yeah, that combination is going to go down swimmingly when they meet. It will be like two rhinos butting heads. Although we do have to wait a while for that, so let’s get back on subject.
“This won’t be the last time The Mechanic tries to get The Hood out of prison. The GDF needs to be on their guard.”
“Where The Mechanic and The Hood are concerned, everyone should be on their guard.”
Well said Lady P.
“Have time to make that Dad a hero?”
Oh yeah, and back on the subject, the final note is: what a great holiday that was. Real holiday of a lifetime.... Hooray for the happy family who got to see Thunderbird Four in action to rescue them from the very, very, terrible bad guy. Who are shaken up, but will probably be okay and oh there we go! Magically okay because they get to ride in Thunderbird Two, all the way to Antartica to see the Penguins!
So, I’m not sure it really works like that - ‘curing’ PTSD and shock I mean... but I do agree that Penguins can make everything feel better. They hug, brilliant creatures that they are.
Anyone want to know a fact? I’m sharing it with you because it’s my work-based knowledge - when penguins huddle together, they keep moving (waddling) whilst they huddle so that eventually the penguins on the outside of the group end up on the inside and so on. They’re so smart that they can realise the penguins on the outside of the huddle will get cold unless they rotate and they’re smart enough to realise that if they keep rotating, the penguins from the inside who then go on the outside, will be warm enough by that point (from being on the inside) that they won’t get cold because of how quickly they can keep waddling around each other. It’s absolutely brilliant. If you get the chance, definitely meet penguins.
P.S. You can thank me later for the penguins
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I have been toying around with A LOT of WIP ideas recently and I’m not really sure where I want to focus my energy or which ones I want to add to my WIP list or make intros for. So I figured I’d make a masterlist of all of my ideas that I have a rough plot and character list for so y’all can peruse! If there’s one that jumps our at you, a few you like, or any that you have questions on please please flood my inbox! There’s no better way to get me jazzed about a WIP than to send me asks! I’m putting them under the cut since there’s so many!
NIGHT TWELVE: Vi crashes into enemy territory and is taken in by the army. She's given an assignment: win the heart of the wealthiest woman on the planet to procure war funding. But she's already fallen in love with her superior officer.
DAVID’S PEAK: In the small, Oregon town of David’s Peak people are being mysteriously abducted, and blame is placed on possessed park ranger Diane Atwood. She has a choice: prove herself innocent by finding the real culprit, or say goodbye to the friendly voice in her head.
YOUNG DEMONS: After failing her first spell Cecily Young swore off magic. Her power is building, brewing. The repressed magic is manifesting as a hurricane set to destroy Louisiana in a month's time. She must find a way to expel the magic in time, without tearing herself apart in the process.
THE GODLING TRILOGY: Lea is the firstborn child of Morpheus, making her the most powerful godling in a millennium. Which means she’s the perfect scapegoat for Zeus to send to do his dirty work. Including murdering the ancient being known as Nyx, who’s determined to plunge the modern world into eternal night.
BERSERKERS: Gal pals turned fearsome warriors. When the clique dons their fur coats they gain the strength of the animals they wear. It’s time for revenge on selfish exs, bigoted teachers, and abusive parents,. That is, if the consequences don’t catch up to them first.
THE BLITZKRIEG BREAKER: When Teddy’s clock repair shop becomes both the epicenter of a magical war and the London blitz, he is tasked with keeping a strange device out of the wrong hands. In a world filled with demon dogs, falling bombs, and a mysterious shapeshifting witch it’s hard to know which threat to focus on.
HELL’S EMPTY: Sometimes, the dead get restless. There are a few who manage to slip through the cracks and back into the world of the living. On autopilot, the soul takes the first available body and become a zombie. Over time the body, incompatible with its new soul, will begin to decay. Desperate to live, but falling apart, these creatures seek new fresh bodies to enter, even it means killing to get them. Luckily, hell, like any good business, has a lost prevention specialist. And she’s ready to go hunting.
WASTELANDERS: In a post apocalyptic wasteland, a team of two girls band together to fight to survive. When crossing the desert from ration station to ration station they encounter a man on the side of the road, he claims that his car was stolen with his young daughter inside. The two girls venture to find the lost girl in a no holds barred rescue mission through deadly dive bars, life or death road races, and russian roulette tournaments.
TRAGEDY ANNE: Anne, a bandit known for terrorizing the rich folks of Round Rock, caught wind of the local mine owner’s plan to blow out the dam. Even if it means washing out Round Rock in the process. Anne wants to save her hometown but no one will listen to a lying, cheating thief.
SOUL: SOLD: Six years ago Jac sold her soul to a demon so that she could say goodbye to her mother. But now her contract is up and she only has a week before she becomes a demon herself. The plan: find the family heirloom, use it to barter with the crossroads demon, and avoid damnation at all costs.
AMELIA BRIGHT PETSITTER TO THE ABSURDLY RICH: Amy loves her job: nice houses, free food, and cute puppies. But when she’s accused of stealing jewelry from a rich client everything falls apart and her reputation is destroyed. She has to prove her innocence. Hopefully, before the super hot CEO she’s dogsitting for returns from a business trip.
THE TEMPEST PROTOCOL: Mira’s mission is to study the defunct pleasure planet which orbits a black hole. But the mission is overturned when the owner of the planet returns and kidnaps Mira’s team. Mira has to rescue her crew before they are all swallowed by the looming void or murdered by the psychopathic resort owner.
THE ELECTRIC PIGHT - Winona is an archaeologist that studies the fallen society of the 21st century. When her brother returns home severely injured, she’s determined to use old world medicine to save his life even if she has to travel for days to find it. But the way to the city of old is guarded by militiamen, cannibals, and rabid dogs. Winona’s attempt to save her brother and prove her theories right might kill her first.
WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD - Bee has been demon of the month over nineteen thousand times. She’s assigned a meager corruption mission and saddled with a newbie demon. Now, she’s determined to prove to Satan that she doesn’t need a partner. She has to find a way to kill her ‘husband’ without it looking suspicious. All while corrupting the perfect 1950s suburbia around her.
HELL FIRED - When one of the groundskeepers for the underworld goes on maternity leave her coworker has to find a suitable replacement. So they set up a reality show competition and the last person standing wins the role of right hand man to Hades’ right hand man. Which is sort of an honor.
ARTEMIS AND APOLLO - Agent’s Artemis and Apollo have been working together for nearly twelve years. He’s the impulsive rogue and she’s the one who actually gets the job done. But now that she’s getting married he’s worried the agency will realize his incompetence. Instead of fighting it, he’s determined to make their final mission together the wildest ride possible.
FUN FUN AT THE BOARDWALK - Daniel works at the Santa Cruz boardwalk and knows for a fact it’s haunted. The giant stuffed animals have started to roam at night and recently, one tried to kill him. He has to round up a team to help him fight back but first, he has to make people believe him.
VIENNA - After being exposed to radiation from the sun an astronaut returns to earth to find that she is imbued with starlight. She’s recruited into an organization of mutants and tasked with rounding up others like her. But the more she uses her powers to render outside threats inert the more she risks burning out and turning herself into a black hole.
10 PERFECT DATES - Katherine Day’s website claims she can set up the most romantic date possible just for a small fee of $200. Rory, an investigative journalist, is determined to prove this offer a scam. So they buy 10 and ask Katherine to be the one to join them on these so-called ‘perfect’ dates. Rory thought this would be a disaster worth writing about, but the only problem is Katherine herself seems like the perfect person for Rory.
SOUL SEARCHING - A witch and her disembodied wife search for a body that can house the wife’s soul. The witch becomes a spiritual guide to people in comas, entering their minds and helping them through to the other side to open a space for the wife to have a body again.
CRITICALLY MISSED. After the death of David’s father he invites all of his childhood friends back to his childhood home for a reunion game of dungeons and dragons. When they start to fight they are interrupted as they are pulled into the game. The old friends are forced to fight off giant spiders, ogres, and long buried resentment. If they die in the game do they die in real life? And is an epic takedown worth risking your brother’s neck?
These ones don’t have titles yet so I’m just gonna give some comps so you get the vibe:
WES ANDERSON x THE HALF OF IT - Mindy’s life is going exactly how she wants. She has perfected her waffle recipe, a successful b&b, and no friends. But when her mom decides to get remarried Mindy is faced with the reality that the world goes on without her even when she constructs an eden for herself. So she enlists the help of a childhood friend to teach her how to deal with change.
STRANGER THINGS x PARANORMAN - Ryann drowned, and was resuscitated minutes after being declared dead. Now the kid sees ghosts: unmoving, unblinking figures staring at a singular location. Ryann must discover why the spirits are back and what it is they want that’s in the Courthouse.
TOMB RAIDER x UNCHARTED - The Bloodright Chalice is the last unrecovered piece of known treasure, and Kel is determined to find it. With the help of a tagalong history nerd, she must fight off mercenaries, navigate perilous terrain, and withstand the draw of a magical artifact.
KICKASS x DAREDEVIL - Kimberly Price is trying to be the hero her powers deserve, but her moral ambiguity keeps leading her off track. Upon discovering an underground crime ring, Kim discovers her big break and that the mob boss, a mutant like her, can break any bone in her body with his mind.
INCEPTION x ARRIVAL - Dr. Parson has been having dreams recently of waking up next to a woman who he doesn’t know and she claims to be his wife. His new research partner on the particle accelerator is revealed to be the very same woman he’s been dreaming of since the beginning of the project. He knows more about her than he should and it feels like an abuse of power, but he cannot help but fall in love, or rather stay in love. But how can he be honest when it would paint him as insane and ruin both his relationship with her and his plans for the project?
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Welcome to My Dark Side (2)
Sequel to ‘Time of Our Lives’
Tony Stark has done his best to fit into the 21st century by embracing his new role, new family, and even his new nicknames. Determined to become a hero worthy of calling Peter Parker his life partner, everything seems to be going better than he could have hoped…until Tony’s efforts to help Peter uncover the truth behind his parents’ death put everything he knows and loves in terrible danger. In the face of absolute darkness, how can love and life survive?
(STORY CONTAINS ENDGAME SPOILERS)
Read on AO3
“You have breakfast yet?” Tony eyed the six year old perched on a stool at his breakfast counter. Her responding expression was beyond her sparse years, little mouth drawn into a serious frown, brows furrowed, dark eyes humorless with their intensity. “Guess I should ask if you had anything good for breakfast, instead, right?” Without waiting for a response, he turned back to his cupboards, plucking two bowls, two spoons, a carton of milk and a box of cereal out before precariously balancing his bounty back across the kitchen to the counter.
Morgan immediately perked up at the sight of the sugary breakfast treat that Pepper tried very hard to keep away from her growing daughter. The fact that she had dumped Morgan on him this morning because she had an early morning conference call with someone in Japan just meant that Tony had a chance to spoil her, and spoil her he would. Tony couldn’t bring himself to look on her as a daughter no matter what genetics said about the matter, but he’d always wanted a little sister and Morgan Stark was special in every single sense of the word. He loved that kid and he’d happily murder anyone who even breathed on her wrong.
Morgan examined the box of cereal carefully as Tony prepared their meal, amused by the sugar-covered pieces of processed grain in the shape of tiny arc reactors and corresponding red and gold iron man helmet-shaped marshmallows. “Let’s not tell your mom about this, huh?”
Morgan cocked her head at him, providing him with a half smirk as she chewed.
“Yeah, okay, don’t know what that means. Kid, you’re the most cryptic six-year-old I’ve ever met.” He enjoyed a few spoonfuls of his own bowl before he thought to ask, “Happy’s taking you to school in a bit, right?” Pepper hadn’t said anything about Tony playing chauffeur, but he also hadn’t been paying much attention when the mother and daughter had arrived early that morning either. Pepper could count her lucky stars that he didn’t require a lot of sleep and that he was still almost obsessively focused on the puzzle that Fury had presented to him after the fundraiser or he’d likely have been down for the count like most of the civilized folk in Manhattan at that hour. As it was, he’d been deeply ensconced in his workshop with something that was going to benefit his future plans with Peter...a project he’d had to artfully hide from Pepper before she connected the dots and realized something he’d rather she not know.
“Mhm,” Morgan barely afforded him a grunted response around her heaping mouthful of cereal. It really was a shame how Pepper fed this kid. Cutting sugar out of her breakfast food regimen was un-American. School plans settled, the two fell into a companionable silence, eating their cereal and glancing over the graphics of the Old Man on the box from time to time. Some kind of idle statistics about his do-gooding and IQ adorned the back. The IQ was off by twenty points. He was going to have to make them fix that.
Tony didn’t realize Morgan had finished her cereal until he looked up from the box to find her staring at him with that same intense expression. “You okay, Maguna?”
“How come you and daddy are the same?”
Tony almost spit his cereal out. Somehow, he managed to swallow it in a gulp and stall for time with a little coffee as he coughed and sputtered on the soggy grain and milk. “Uh, well, it’s just genetics kid. You and the Old Man are a lot alike, too.”
“Um...no. You and daddy are just alike, TJ.”
“Okay...well...there’s an explanation for that...”
Morgan pursed her lips and raised both brows at him, moving to a kneeling position on the stool so she could lay across the counter and reach out to place her hands on his face. “You look just the same. And sound just the same. And your fingers are the same. You’re the same as my daddy.”
Yeah, okay, so she was a Stark and he really should have seen this coming. He could almost pity Howard in this moment if this gave him any clue about what he’d been like as a six year old. Christ. Tony cleared his throat, searching for something to say to explain it all away. Instead, all he could do was stall for time. “How did you figure this out, Kid?”
“Miss Friday helped me.”
“Seriously? What do you have to sat for yourself, Fri?”
“You told me to assist in Morgan’s education whenever possible, Boss.” Tony let out a long sigh, that had not been what he meant. “She asked me about your fingerprints and voice analysis and how they corresponded to Mr. Stark’s so I provided her with detailed comparisons of both.”
Tony tapped the back of the little girl’s hand on his cheek with his finger. “You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?”
“Cause I am.”
“Mhm, and what made you think to compare my fingerprints and voice with your father’s?”
“My teacher said everybody has a voice that is just their own and not like anybody else in the whole wide world but you and daddy sound just alike. Sometimes when you put me to bed I close my eyes and pretend you’re him.”
God, she was actually trying to kill him, now. Tony felt his throat constrict as he plucked her hands off of his face and gave them a tight squeeze. “I’m not your daddy, Morgan. I wish I was because you’re so damn smart and beautiful and amazing, but I’m not. You’re right, though, I’m not you’re brother either. I just....I really need your mom and everyone else to believe that I am so can this be our little secret and I promise that sometime real soon I’ll sit down and tell you everything, okay? For now...believe me when I tell you that your daddy is out there watching everything you do and he’s so freaking proud of you kid. Whenever you see a rainbow or a shooting star or something crazy good happens to you out of the blue, that’s your dad telling you how much he loves you.”
“3000.”
Tony blinked away the tears in his eyes, clearing his throat and abandoning the counter to tidy up. “Exactly.”
“Boss, Happy is here to pick up Morgan for school...” Saved by the AI.
“You hear that, Maguna? Get a move on or you’ll be late. Wait...I want a hug first. Yep, that’s the stuff right there.” He buried his nose in the little girl’s hair for a moment and gave it a good ruffle with his fingers before he let go. “Be good and kick butt in school, okay? Love you, kid.”
“I love you too, TJ.”
“3000?”
A pause. “2005.”
“Ouch.”
~~~~~
“I’m still not sure about this.”
“What’s not to be sure about, Beautiful? I’ve thought of everything.”
Peter turned back to the holographic read outs with a long sigh. They were blueprints of the old Oscorp labs, or at least what little information Tony had been able to hack his way into at Shield, along with a few other reports that looked like weather and topographic readouts of the area. Peter knew that this was their best bet, but he didn’t like it. He didn’t think he could attribute it to his Spidey Sense, or Peter Tingle as the rest of the Avengers had taken to calling it (thanks to May). No, it didn’t feel quite the same. There was no sense of impending danger, just a heavy blanket of foreboding that was threatening to choke off his air supply. Tony obviously didn’t feel the same, so maybe he was just being silly. Or maybe he wasn’t.
Peter was supposed to tell May that he was going on a spring break trip with Tony, MJ, and Ned. While MJ and Ned were actually going to go to Florida to live it up, he and Tony were heading to upstate New York to infiltrate Osborn’s lab. Ned would be armed with a special Stark Phone that Tony had outfitted with the tech to provide realistic synthetic substitutes of Tony and Peter. If May or Pepper sent texts, they were going to get varied and believable responses meant to replicate the young men’s actual speech and text patterns. If they called or video chatted, a variant of the BARF technology was going to provide a realistic computerized response that would again fool the older women into thinking they were both in Florida living the good life by utilizing actual noise pollution and visuals from Ned and MJ’s vacation. The guilt of leaving May at the airport thinking they were taking Tony’s private jet to Florida when they were instead flying headfirst into danger...it was almost suffocating and he couldn’t ignore the worry any longer. “What happens if we’re not back in a week, Tony?”
“If we’re not back by the time that MJ and Ned have gotten back, than Friday is going to reveal our true destination to May, Pepper, and Fury so arrangements can be made.”
Funeral arrangements or just rescue mission arrangements? Peter wanted to ask, but he knew better than to say any of that out loud. He and Tony rarely fought, but Peter knew that nothing made Tony angrier than mentioning their own mortality. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Because Peter wasn’t sure at all. He’d heard Tony’s argument a hundred times but part of him still felt sick at what they were planning to do.
“Your parents are out there. They’re alive. We don’t leave men behind. Besides, if there is something big and nasty coming than we need to know what it is and how to stop it. I refuse to do what the Avengers did and just sit around waiting for the Big Bad to come knocking down our door. We’re not going to be surprised again, Peter. Whatever this bad thing is...we’re going to identify it and even after we close that gateway...we’re going to be ready for it because there’s no guarantee that closing the gateway will end the danger. None.”
Peter could only nod slowly. “Yeah, okay. No, you’re right. Of course you are. I’m just...I’m nervous about getting my hopes up and visiting another world and just...everything.”
Tony laughed, reaching out to tug Peter across the room and into his arms. His lips ghosting against the younger man’s, breath hot against Peter’s mouth as he embraced him, “We had sex in two different times, Baby, now we get to consummate parallel earths. Tell me that’s not hot as fuck.”
“Depends on the parallel earths.”
Tony snorted a laugh as he nuzzled into Peter’s neck and nipped at his ear, “You need to stop worrying. We’re superheroes, Baby. Arguably the two best superheroes on the planet.”
“Only because Thor is off world with the Guardians...”
“Honestly, you and Thor. If I didn’t know better, I’d be jealous.”
Their conversation died off as the Quinjet came to a quiet landing. Peter held onto Tony for several more seconds, eyes closed, breathing in the scent of the older man in an attempt to calm the frenzied beating of his heart. Finally, though, he gently pushed himself away and tapped his watch to engage the Ironspider suit.
Several things became apparent to Peter as the two descended the ramp from the cloaked jet plane. This was clearly going to be even more difficult than Peter had thought. Fury hadn’t been lying when he said that Shield had sealed the lab in an attempt to prevent anything from the Gateway from breaching the outside world. From outward appearances, it looked like the entire building had been encased in a giant block of cement. “Uh, so...”
“Don’t worry, I had the Iron Legion working on our way in for the last twenty-four hours. Believe it or not, inside this cement, there’s another layer of titanium. Anyway, it took six suits, but we have a way in. Follow me.” Iron Man circled the building with Spidey close on his heals. The moment they turned the corner, Peter could see the suits. It appeared that they’d concentrated their repulsers into a succession of laser-like beams that had sliced a rectangular chunk of cement and metal to reveal one of the doors on the blueprints. “I’m leaving them on guard duty while we’re gone. Friday will make sure that nothing comes out of this facility until we get back...and if by some miracle something gets by, she’ll radio the New Avengers. You don’t have to worry, Pete.”
“Famous last words.” It was in times like this that Peter found himself missing Mr. Stark. Tony just hadn’t experienced the level of failure and defeat that Mr. Stark, or even Peter, had. He didn’t know to expect the worst, but Peter did. He cast a wary glance at the Iron Legion, biting his tongue as Tony moved for the door.
It came open with a pop, the musty smell of stale air, dust and mildew washed out around them. Peter only got the smallest whiff before he felt the filtration system in the suit come online.
The interior looked like nothing but darkness. No light could penetrate from the concrete and titanium covered walls, so there was nothing visible beyond a few feet into the entry. It wasn’t as if Mr. Stark hadn’t thought of those concerns a long time ago. Something as mundane as darkness was hardly any match for Iron Man. Lighting and night vision had been built into the earliest models of the suit, after all. As Iron Man stepped into the abyss beyond, that tech came online to illuminate the area around him and several feet in front of him. A similar array of artificial illumination ignited on the Ironspider suit as well. Gulping back his fear, Peter reached out to close the door behind them and they were bathed in black.
The entire facility was filthy, awash with dust, debris, and cobwebs. Out of the corner of his eye, Peter caught sight of what he could only assume was the corpse of a fallen Shield Agent, but he did his best to avoid looking at it for too long. Still, the momentary glimpse of the skeleton was burned onto is retinas. “Tony...”
There was something wrong with that sight. The body. As much as he wanted to avoid looking, he couldn’t help but glance back towards it. “Tony, if the building is sealed...how is that body not mummified...”
Tony was already bending over it to examine the bones as the oddity of the body struck him as wrong at almost the same time. “I think these are tooth marks...”. He held up an ulna, running an armored finger over the grooves on the bone. “These are definitely toothmarks. Friday says they appear...humanoid.”
Peter certainly hoped that Tony couldn’t hear him gulping in fear behind his own mask....but with the sensitive comms, he probably could. “Tony...what are we locked in here with?”
“I don’t know. Let’s just...be careful, and hope that Peter Tingle of yours is on point tonight.”
“Spidey sense.”
“Hmm,” Tony reverently replaced the bone and stood, brushing off his gauntlets.
“I prefer the term ‘Spidey Sense.’ “
“Give me one good reason why I should call it Spidey Sense, Baby, because that name isn’t nearly as funny...”
“Because you’re the only thing that makes my peter tingle.”
Tony had to brace himself against the wall to support himself as he laughed. “God, Beautiful, every time I don’t think I could love you more...you go and drop one of those gems on me. Damn.”
Peter’s response was lost on his lips. He felt the telltale warning of danger shiver down his spine as he caught sight of movement just at the periphery of their location. There wasn’t time to warn him, there was really only time for Peter to fire a quick line of webbing at his lover and tug him back as something dark and terrifying lunged from the shadows. Peter could swear he could hear it moaning the word ‘meat.’
“What the fuck...” A repulser blast bit into the wall inches from the creature, scorching its arm and the tatters of what appeared to be clothing and once more driving it back into the shadows before either hero could get a good look at it. “Well, at least we know what ate the bodies...”
“Yeah, Tony, that’s not nearly as comforting as you think it is.” Even worse, perhaps, were the observations from both Karen and Friday that the creature had no heat signature and wouldn’t be visible on infrared. Now their trek through the building was much more careful and calculated. There were signs of the creatures everywhere. Claw marks on the walls, ransacked rooms, shattered furniture, the little skeletons of rats and mice and anything else unfortunate enough to have been sealed into the lab with them. It was only the knowledge of the Parkers’ distress call that kept Peter moving through the corpse of the once thriving laboratory. His parents were alive. They’d escaped this place, and so would he and Tony. They just had to.
At least Tony seemed to know where he was going. He’d studied the blueprints much longer than Peter and had no doubt pinpointed precisely where a lab with a dimensional gateway would be located. Neither man mentioned the occasional sound of shuffling footsteps, the soft grunts and moans, the momentary glimpses of shifting shadows. There were clearly more than one of those things in there with them, but for the moment, they were hanging back. Maybe Tony had scared them with the repulser. Or, maybe as with many of the hunters in the animal kingdom, they were stalking their prey and waiting for exactly the right moment to strike.
The Gateway didn’t look anything like Peter had imagined it would. Shows like Stargate had always made them out to be large and imposing, a shifting, whirling mass of colors housed within an intricate metal or stone structure that provided it shape. This portal was anything but.
Peter could barely make it out without one of the specialized lenses of his suit. To the naked eye, it appeared as little more than the somewhat fluid appearance of very hot air on a humid July day. It was in that subtle wavering of the light that the slightest glimpse of a world beyond their own could be captured...but never long enough to make anything out. A quick sweep of the area showed that the portal was being maintained by a strip of metal along the ground that was joined to a large and imposing computer. While Peter had been examining the Portal, Tony had been taking stock of the technology.
“They cut off power to the lab in the hopes that it would cause the Gateway to close. It didn’t, which means that whatever is powering this portal isn’t coming from our dimension anymore.”
“That’s comforting.” Peter reached out to touch the shimmering air. As his finger hit the air, the tip of it vanished. He felt nothing. No pain, no tingling, no disconnection. Nothing to suggest it was a portal to another world besides the fact that the tip of his finger had vanished before his very eyes.
“Peter, stop poking the portal. It has a radiation signature...”
The young man withdrew his hand quickly, glad that Tony couldn’t see what he was certain was a guilty look on his face. Neither of the men had withdrawn their suits since entering the laboratory. The air inside the lab was breathable, if their read outs were any suggestion, but also so stale that it would likely not be pleasant for either one of them. Besides, with those monsters running around, it seemed smart to have some kind of protection on hand. Now, with what looked like a radiation signature emanating from the portal...the suits were staying on for the foreseeable future.
Tony was busy patching one of the main computer terminals into a handheld arc reactor to allow him to reboot and access the information they both hoped was still accessible on the hard drives while Peter was pacing the lab like a nervous animal in a zoo. Just like a nervous animal in a zoo, he could feel what was an indeterminate amount of eyes trained on his every movement and his inability to know where they were or what they were planning was making his every instinct scream warnings in his head.
Desperate for some distraction, Peter started to look more closely at the room itself. It looked as if the place had just been abandoned in the middle of a shift. There as a mug of coffee by one terminal with what appeared to be dried contents of a cup still housed within it. A stack of granola bars and food from what must have been a break room vending machine sat next to a swath of complicated equations that Peter picked up and shuffled through silently. Not everything was immaculate, however. A few desks had been upturned. Chairs broken. There were bullet holes in the wall near the door and the door itself had clearly been forced open from the outside by organic means.
“I think...I think after they sealed them in here, my mom and dad must have gathered some supplies and tried to stick it out in here. But um...whatever’s out there...it must have wanted them pretty bad.”
Tony glanced up from the computer, the expressionless mask of his armor giving Peter no hint as to what was going on in the mind beneath.
Peter’s foot met with something on the floor and it skittered forward. Upon closer inspection, he recognized an old school camcorder with a tape still housed inside. “You um...you think you can make this work?”
Tony had already Jerry-rigged a thumb drive to the computers’ memory to download any and all information he could. Waving Peter over, he took the camcorder and in a matter of minutes had it once more powered up, tape rewound.
For several seconds it appeared to be a tape recording the team’s initial attempt to establish the Gateway. Then, the scene cut out and a familiar face came into frame.
She was a little older and much less put-together than she had been the last time that Tony and Peter had seen her, but there was no mistaking Mary Parker for all that she and Peter resembled one another. She was dirty, sweating, tired, but still very much alive as she addressed the camera.
“If you’re seeing this, than that means you came back for us...which...all due respect, Fury, but that was stupid. I told you we’d be okay if you sealed us in here, that we’d figure something out...and we did. I think. I hope. No, I’m sure that we did.”
A loud sound shook the frame and with wide eyes Mary glanced off camera where Richard was shouting “Hurry up, Mary, we don’t have a lot of time here.”
“Right. Right. We can’t stay here, Fury. The anomalies are...they’re not like we thought. They appear to have higher brain function, an ability to communicate. They’ve displayed a remarkable ability to reason and hunt and now that they know they’re trapped in here with us...that we’re the only food supply left...they’re pretty determined to eat us. So uh....it’s time to go. And since we can’t get out of here through the door....we’re going to use the Gateway.”
“I’ve had a little bit of time to work on the math. I think I understand how this thing works at least as well as the men who built it...which arguably isn’t very well.” She held up the swath of complicated equations that Peter had seen on the desk nearby. “It’s all here. I’ll...leave if for you. Hopefully...hopefully it‘ll still be here for you.”
Another loud sound, a curse from Richard, and Mary paled considerably. “I’m sorry...I’m sorry I’ve got to cut this short. I...I can’t shut the Gateway down because it’s not being powered by our dimension anymore. Unless or until we find the power source, this thing is open for good...but I can change the world it opens up to. We’re not going to the world where these things originated...but beyond that. I don’t know. I’m going to try to make it home, Fury. But if we don’t...you keep your promise and you make sure my baby boy is taken care of, you hear me. You owe us that.”
The sound of wood splintering, of those creatures hissing and screaming and moaning. The camcorder dropped, still recording and slid against a desk, catching the image of Richard and Mary Parker as they ran through the Gateway to the screams of the monsters they left behind.
Peter closed the camcorder, hands trembling slightly. “Tony...if those things are as smart as she says...why aren’t they coming after us?”
Tony hazarded a glance towards the broken door and rubbed the back of his neck with a gauntlet. “I don’t know, Beautiful, but I don’t like it.”
Peter considered it for a moment. “Maybe they’re trying to get out again...”
“I don’t care how scary they are, Peter, there’s no way they’re getting past the Iron Legion.”
“So...when they can’t get out the door and they realize that we’re the only food source...”
Tony cursed, “Yeah. I think the ones we can hear are sentries...”
“They’re watching to make sure we can’t get away.”
“‘Fraid so. Or hoping that when we get done here we’ll leave them an opening to get out.”
Peter was already gathering the papers his mother had left behind, stuffing them into a briefcase he’d found discarded beneath a desk. He threw the camcorder in with it and after a moment’s hesitation grabbed the handful of granola bars as well. They probably didn’t go bad, right? And he might get hungry later. “What I don’t get...is why they didn’t go through the portal, too. If they’re smart and they’re hungry and they’ve been surviving in here for over a decade....why not try that other world out?”
“Because your mother was smart enough to leave it open to a location they wouldn’t be able to utilize, Pete. Radiation signature. Whatever is on the other side of that portal is deadly for them...at least as deadly as it would be for us.”
“But my parents...”
“They didn’t go through to that world, Pete.” Tony gestured to a read out near the floor where a long alphanumeric sequence could be seen. “You can see most of the readout on the video. It’s not the same. After your parents went through...they must have found a way to redial the Gateway and make sure it emptied to someplace...innocuous.”
Peter didn’t know if this new made him feel better or worse. “Okay...so...what’s our next move...” His words died on his lips, replaced by an anguished cry brought on by what felt like the pain of being set on fire. His Spidey-Sense had never felt like that before. It had never been so strong that it was excruciating, but as his gaze moved from Tony to the doorway and he caught sight of what had triggered the tingle...Peter completely understood.
His Spidey Sense was right.
They were so totally and completely fucked.
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Saukko Karjalainen
Mutated by fallout from the Chernobyl disaster nearly a decade Before WWIII, Saukko was discovered as a pup by an old pensioner couple who found him by a river in central Finland, standing up and catching fish with a handmade spear. The pensioners had been among the hundreds of thousands of citizens forced to flee Finnish Karelia after the Winter War in 1940, and were still bitter over the experience. Saukko was raised on stories of Karelia before the Russians came, so when Finland began mobilizing after The War, he was the first of the Beast Folk to volunteer for the newly energized Karelia Brigades, and went on to become one of the heroes of the Karelia War.
The Karelia War
Most of the nuclear weapons used in the brief war were duds, but enough were launched that the world's political and financial capitals were still flattened. Decentralized federal nations recovered fairly quickly, as state or provincial governments were still largely intact and able to step in to maintain some degree of order; the same could not be said for strongly centralized "communist" and "socialist" nations, which descended into immediate chaos once their governmental heads were cut off. The Soviet Union collapsed overnight, and what military forces had escaped destruction were left with no leadership or direction, because they hadn't been prepared for an attack and weren't trained to have individual initiative.
Finland, on the other hand, had been waiting half a century for this sort of thing.
Although awash in fallout, Finland was otherwise unscathed by The Bomb. The government sealed the borders and told the rest of the world that Finland had been heavily damaged and was no longer able to interact with its neighbors; most of its neighbors were on fire, so no one bothered to fact-check the story, leaving the Finns free to begin a massive military buildup without interference. Six months After, the Finnish military stormed eastward and easily captured land as far as Lake Onega and the White Sea, including the Kola Peninsula and all of traditional Karelia. The population of the area had not fared well under Soviet rule, and a majority welcomed the freedom and higher standard of living promised by the new Greater Finland; there were pockets of fierce resistance, but most of the Soviet forces in the region simply abandoned their posts and equipment.
The ruins of Leningrad were easily captured. The Finns announced that it was being renamed Pietari Kaupunki and would be used as a base of operations to build up forces for an eventual attack on what was left of the area around Moscow; to this end they would expel all of the surviving Russian citizens and fortify the city during the Winter. Nationalist remnants of the Soviet military used this as a rallying cry, and began massing forces in western Russia; when Spring came they launched an all-out assault on Pietari Kaupunki... and discovered that it had been abandoned.
They had time to move in and set up their own base of operations before the entire city exploded around them.
One of the Karelia Brigades had used captured Soviet weapons to rig the city for demolition, then moved out disguised as fleeing refugees. They had withdrawn just far enough east to hide in the surrounding region and wait for the single largest Soviet army still in existence to bottle itself up in a burning city on a narrow peninsula; when a Finnish army swept in from the west and forced a ruinous retreat of the surviving Soviet forces, the hidden brigade cut the fleeing columns to pieces. Western Russian military capacity was crushed, and in short order all of the former Soviet satellite states rose up and declared themselves independent. Individual Soviet soldiers for the most part realized that it was better to be a new citizen of Ukraine or Lithuania or Kazakhstan than a Soviet corpse, and nearly all of the Soviet forces remaining in the satellite states either defected or just walked away. The USSR was no more, and Greater Finland was born.
From my Adorable Creatures universe, which grew out of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles And Other Strangeness RPG campaign from the late '80s. It's set in the early 21st Century of a world where WWIII happened in 1995, and wasn't nearly as bad as everyone had expected. It was still terrible, hundreds of millions of people died, but it turned out that the vast majority of the world's nuclear weapon stockpiles... were fake. Politicians in the great powers had requisitioned trillions of dollars for defense spending over the decades, but had spent it on the same things politicians throughout history have spent taxpayer dollars on: ale and whores. Missile silos were top secret party caves for top military brass, with endless beer and nachos; nuclear missile submarines were underwater casinos for the rich and not-so-famous; strategic bombers were kitted out for Mile High Club joyrides for wealthy campaign donors; many of the real missiles and bombs had warheads made of carboard and aluminum foil and filled with sand. Enough warheads were real that most of the world's major cities got at least one airburst, and national capitals and financial centers were targeted for big enough saturation attacks that they were destroyed, but by Day Two it was obvious that civilization had been wrecked but hadn't completely collapsed.
In the aftermath of The Bomb, the whole world learned what Japan had known since 1945: All Radiation Is Mutagenic. Many humans began developing bioenergetic powers and became superheroes and/or supervillains... and many began mutating into animal-like forms. Millions of animals worldwide also began mutating, growing into larger, more bipedal versions of themselves, with functional hands and human-level (or greater) intelligence. These Beast Folk were common enough that most of the world's nations, both surviving and newly formed, were quickly forced to acknowledge them as citizens to prevent mass uprisings.[/bq]
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The Resistance #2
The Resistance #2
AWA Upshot Studios 2020
Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Illustrated by Mike Deodato Jr.
Coloured by Lee Loughridge
Lettered by Sal Cipriano
J. Michael Straczynski teams up with Mike Deodato Jr. and together they plant the flag for a new universe of heroes and villains for the 21st Century. As governments around the world put pressure on newly-super powered individuals, a few of the so-called "reborns" band together to demonstrate they won't take oppression lying down. Welcome to the Resistance. Hope you survive the experience.
I love and I hate this book in equal measure over the fact that Governments around the world would behave in the manner we see here. In our real world we see day in and day out how the men & women in power have been tainted by that power and act in such a way that makes me want to put a bullet in each of their foreheads lol. For one moment around that table when he wants to manipulate the already established, well yeah that cemented it for me. Still that I have such an impassioned response to the story already is a testament to just how damn good a writer that Straczynski is. Also we are collectively seeing just how easy it is to create a supers universe which works in so many numerous ways instead of what we’ve seen being done elsewhere.
I love the way that this is being told. Right from those first few panels on the opening page my mind was snatched into this scientific mode that made me thrilled to see this happening here. Straczynski knows his audience and knows what he can do and how far he can take it and that is why he’s so beloved. The story & plot development that we see here through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented beautifully. We are meeting folks fast and furious here and instead of this feeling crammed together or overcrowded if you will it all has this great feel to how it’s told. The character development is interesting, again from the kid and his doctor to Feyodor, who sigh is as dreamy as dreamy gets in comics, and so many more are flash fleshed out and it is done in a way that I’ve never seen and never expected to see done so incredibly well. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing twists & turns, revelations and more we see how everything needs to work together to create the books ebb & flow.
I have been a huge fan of Mike’s work as an artist for many years. So if you haven’t noticed it yet when creators work on a project they really like, are invested in (yes it’s true too) or just attached to something that makes them happy we see an uptick in their work. I mean dayum I think this might be some of his best work I have ever seen. The linework here is exquisite and how we see the varying weights and techniques involved in bringing out the attention to detail is simply mindbogglingly good. The utilisation of the page layouts are brilliant and stunning to behold, the way backgrounds are incorporated within the panels bringing us depth perception, scale and that overall sense of size and scope of the book is stupendous. How we see the angles and perspective in the panels shows a masters eye for storytelling. Lee’s colours on top of the linework is simply divine. The man is incredibly talented when it comes to colour and his knowledge of hues and tones within them makes him a master at his craft as well.
This has the potential to be one of the most amazing series around. Sure this is a limited run but we’re already seeing a spin-off story and the world that’s being created here is one that surely cannot and will not be contained. When creators are told to let their creative juices run free, unfettered, this the result, mind blowing storytelling.
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