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kombuuuu · 8 months

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Miles (42) “that’s my baby” Morales.

You weren’t sure what happened.

One second you were running through the field, weaving through opposing team members, watching the ball at your feet and the goal ahead of you. Crowds of people cheering for your team, for your number.

And the next second, a sharp pain was kicked into your foot, and suddenly it could no longer hold your weight. Chin smashing harshly into the ground below you, only thing keeping your teeth from shattering being the mouth guard protecting them. And the crowds no longer cheering — a collective harsh breath being settled into eerie murmuring.

You pushed up by your hands, turning to sit, and the ringing in your ears made way, like an amp being pitched too loud and screaming in protest.

There was blood on you, from where — you couldn’t tell. And the dulled hum of far shouting could be made out through the fog. Cotton stuffed ears straining to understand.

The lights of the stadium were harsh against your eyes, and you tracked the movement of a flashlight the best you could.

A medic was above you, shining brightness over your view to check for concussion. She said something, hurriedly gesturing to your foot. And the pain that came from another medic touching it made you cry out.

You saw the flash of a red card, and a stretcher being pulled towards you.

But most importantly, you saw your boy. Your lover making his way over with a stressed look over his pretty features. Only to be stopped by security. You watched him shove his stadium issued VIP ID card towards them and rush passed the moment allowed to do so.

You were on the stretcher now, being carried toward an ambulance. Your hearing was coming back, the ringing not gone but quietened.

“Stay awake. Can you do that for me?”

You mumbled back, a splutter coming from the blood coating your throat and the mouth guard was gently taken from you.

Please don’t ruin this.

—

“You ever do that shit again, I’m beatin’ your ass.”

You snorted, punching your dads arm lightly in jest.

“Oh yeah? You gonna hurt me cause i’m hurt?”

“I’m gonna make that bastar—“

“She didn’t mean it!”

“It was a red card! Totally purposeful!”

“Nuh uh!”

He laughed, a throaty chuckle infectious to you.

“Don’t you ‘Nuh uh’ me, young lady.”

“Dad!”

A knock played at the door, bringing your attention to the shadow just outside. Your dad beckoned them in, calling to the door with a “Come in.”

Miles stepped inside, bowing his head respectfully to your dad before he made eye contact with you. And the worried shine in his eye was an immediate tell for your dad.

“I’ll give you two space.” He smiled at you softly, patting your shoulder and nodding at Miles as he rounded the door.

It was silent for a moment. Miles staring at you with an expression you couldn’t quite make out.

“Miles?”

As if your voice was the beckoning of a siren to the nearest fisherman, he was striding over to you in an instant. Calloused hands guiding your face left and right, examining your injuries and the bruises that coated your soft skin.

You stuttered a quick laugh, watching him fret over you quietly. “It’s not that bad, baby.”

“She did that on purpose.”

The sigh that left you was a fond exasperation. “Miles, she slid.”

“Into you.”

“The ground was wet!”

“Her fault..”

“Wha—!?”

He leant down. Kissing you sweetly, a quick thing — more to shut you up than anything. His love for kissing you was just a bonus.

He spoke against your lips, closed eyes and lovey smile.

“Ya’ tough though.”

You smiled back, a huff of a laugh leaving you, and Miles felt your cheeks warm under his touch.

“Yeah, whatever.”

“That’s my baby.”

#໒꒰՞ ܸ. .ܸ՞꒱ა #across the spiderverse #miles morales #spiderman across the spiderverse #miles morales x reader #earth 42 miles morales #spiderverse x reader #miles x reader #earth 42 miles morales x reader #miles my beloved #miles molares #miles x you #miles morales headcanons #miles morales prowler #miles morales x you #miles g

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deathstench · 1 month

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Formed ten years ago, DEATHSTENCH released three albums and many eps.. The "Massed in Black Shadow" album was a great obscure and dangerous one..The crown of their sacrifice was their collaboration with Bon Masters Phurpa. John Paul Whetzel and Darea Plantin spells behind this interview.

“Blood Moon Divination” was your latest release. It was released in a limited amount of copies and only in Tape format. Why this choice?

We have always preferred analog releases. We view physical copies as something that should be appreciated.. Let's face it, it's the 21st century, and people do most of their listening through some sort of streaming service. If they like it, they most likely pirate it. We understand this; Our physical releases are intentionally designed for coveting.

We put a great deal of energy into each release. In our past special editions, we have included ritual accouterments that correspond with each album, such as shards of human bone and incense we made specifically for the intent to conjure with the dead.

You have released three albums. Please tell us the concept behind each one and the process of the recordings…Each release turns out to more noisy and dark forms..

To be precise it's four albums, and numerous collaborations and splits. Our releases are not in any sort of chronological order, from conception to the final product takes its own time dependant upon the haste of that particular record label. We record basically the same for each album, building upon a structured theme. Our music is built on layers of sounds from instruments, traditional and otherwise, that we record with either handheld devices or microphones connected to an audio interface which we use to record our percussion and amps.

Each track on "Blood Moon Divination" is an audial ritual recorded and released during each specific Blood Moon in the tetrad cycle of blood moon eclipses of 2014-2015. Through that span of time, these celestial vibrations were available as they were being released on several streaming platforms, including Black Metal and Brews and Repartiseraren. A tetrad of lunar eclipses is extremely uncommon. This was only the eighth of such cycles in over two thousand years. We compiled them together for a physical album that we chose to release during the first exclusive total solar eclipse the United States had seen in over two hundred years. Eclipses, both solar and lunar, are considered to be very inauspicious events throughout the world. As an omen of war, the Talmud regards "If the face of the moon is as red as blood it is a sign that the sword is coming to the world."

"N.O.X." is a transcendent four track journey that starts out violently with the lo-fi black metal track OXEX DAZIS SIATRIS, Enochian for "Vomiting The Head of Scorpions" and slowly transforms itself into a less chaotic discord that concludes with the meditative piece "Mysterivm Tremendvm". N.O.X. or "The Night of Pan", is a mystical state that represents the stage of ego-death in the process of spiritual attainment. The Greek word Pan also translates as All, as he is a symbol of the Universal, a personification of Nature; both Pangenetor, "all-begetter," and Panphage, "all-devourer". Pan is both the giver and the taker of life, and his Night is that time of symbolic death where the adept experiences unification with the All through the ecstatic destruction of the ego-self. In a more general sense, it is the state where one transcends all limitations and experiences oneness with the universe.

"Nekro Blood Ritual", our second album, was designed specifically for its cassette release and is broken into two sections: Conjuration Rites and Burial Evocation. This album focuses on conjuring the dead and the desecration of human remains. This is by far our most atmospheric album; most of the tracks are rely heavily on field recordings and stygian synthesizers to evoke the abject darkness. These songs are reminiscent to the "Incantations in Dead Tongues" era of our work. There are only two conventional (for use of a better term) songs on this album, "Nekrobloodritual" and "Desecrating The Host" the latter being a harsh black funeral doom dirge for the departed.

In our debut album, "Massed in Black Shadow" we utilize all of our influences through the years. Incorporating elements of death industrial, dark ambient, doom, and black metal, and hideously transforming and conjoining them into a writhing mass of absolute filth, a sound truly all our own. The final track, titled “Bastards of the Black Flame” can be considered a motto to us, as it is exactly who we are. The byproducts of an unholy union between some of the most violent forms of music, in both sound and ideologies.

DEATHSTENCH collaborated with Phurpa. How did this Union take form? Are you interested in the theory of empiricism in Bon Religion?

In 2012 Alexei Tegin had discovered our music from our debut album and contacted us. Both Phurpa and ourselves operate with the same meditative qualities regarding our music. Although our sound derives from different spectrums, they coalesce quite vividly. "Evoking Shadows of Death" fuses our ultrasonic vibrations and harsh atmospheres with the harmonious chants and deep, droning reverberations of their tantric voice. These two tracks are designed to help the chod practitioner tap the power of fear. This transformation does not fall spontaneously, as grace, upon the listener: the practitioner must engage in the process. One must take steps to transmute through the aural plane and, through a process in which they must actively participate, requiring utmost concentration and mental stamina. This mystical experience is achieved, not bestowed.

Empirical reasoning has no place in esoteric practices and the occult. These objects are neither phenomena (empiricism) nor human constructs imposed upon the phenomena (idealism), but real structures which endure and operate independently of our knowledge, our experience and the conditions which allow us access to them. Some things cannot be reduced down to empirical measurements.

Thanatology and satanism are your basic influences. How do you define satanism and how death in your personal path?

Deathlore has always intrigued the both of us. There is absolutely nothing more final than Death. Every single one of us will die, as Death does not discriminate. Dying, death and how human beings respond to the inevitability of their mortality and cope with the reality of loss can be viewed from a wide range of perspectives. Our intent has never been to elaborate on our practices or rituals to any audience. Even the altars we allow you to see are set up specifically for public viewing. While they are still symbolic of what we would normally produce for our own rituals, the intent isn't there. It's merely superficial. Our personal altars and rituals will always remain clandestine, as all witchcraft should be.

“Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.” ― Lao Tzu

I would like to hear your thoughts and if you are into the systems of O.N.A & Temple of the Black Light in theory and praxis as Traditional satanic approach you unveil through your works . Satanism is such an elaborate construct; Atheistic, LaVeyan, theistic, there are so many paths. Satan has always been symbolic with the quest for Knowledge, of opposition to arbitrary authority, forever defending personal sovereignty even in the face of insurmountable odds. Our path cannot be defined by one simple ideology.

We have absolutely no affiliation with these groups.

Does DEATHSTENCH ever perform live?

We are very selective in our live performances. The last show was in Portland, Oregon way back in 2015 when we opened up for MGLA, Weregoat, and Sempiternal Dusk. Alan Dubin (of Gnaw, Khanate) and Billy Anderson, whom we have long collaborated with, did a sort of dueling vocals approach to our fifteen-minute audial assault on an beyond-capacity crowd. This show was recorded by Mateo from Greysun Records who also released it on his label in 2018.

Necromancy is an Old Art Like Time.Ancient Greece had deep roots also in this Subject. Are you familiar with the Ancient Greek Mysteries?

Yes, we are familiar with some of the Chthonic mysteries highlighting mortality and the briefness of life, and the spirits of the blessed dead. Though, like most true paths of esoteric knowledge, not much is truly known about the intricacies of these rituals, having been sworn to secrecy and then lost to the Sands of Time. It has been suggested that communicants would drink Kykeon infused with the psychotropic fungus ergot which helped the initiate to reach a fuller understanding of their purpose in life and to shed their fear of death and this, then, heightened the experience and helped transform the initiate. The same can be said of the Huichol in Mexico, who eat peyote at the completion of long arduous pilgrimages in order that they may experience in the journey of the soul of the dead to the underworld. Death worship and eschatology are celebrated by all cultures throughout time, most with the use of hallucinogens.

I would like to hear your thoughts on these words: “This being true for the ordinary Universe, that all sense-impressions are dependent on changes in the brain we must include illusions, which are after all sense-impressions as much as “realities” are, in the class of “phenomena dependent on brain-changes.” ― S.L. MacGregor Mathers, Goetia the Lesser Key of Solomon the King: Lemegeton, Book 1 Clavicula Salomonis Regis

In contemporary education, the emphasis has been on the psychomotor and the cognitive, namely reading, writing, and arithmetic, at the expense of the affective, namely, the emotions, the sensual, the intuitive, and the imaginative. Priority has been assigned to the verbal-intellectual skills. Anything else tends to be shelved or boxed and put away as ephemeral, esoteric, or mystical, each of these terms being used in a pejorative sense.

Consider for a moment the human sensory system. To the scientific mind, the senses are perceived to act as a kind of data-reduction system. The problem with this concept of the senses is that we do not respond to all that is potential sensory input. Perception is quite a selective process, attending to only a small fraction of so-called reality.

To some extent, scientist or artist, everything we perceive is "illusory," since to perceive anything at all we must use our imaginative capacity for fantasy.

What can we expect from DEATHSTENCH in the near future?

We have a few albums waiting in the shadows including collaborations with Sektor 304 and LINEKRAFT, as well as another full-length album incorporating both Billy Anderson and Alan Dubin. Time is relative, and there are no promises as to when any of these releases will see the light of day.

#DEATHSTENCH #zazen sounds #dark experimental art #ritualistic expression #dark ambient #esoteric black metal #death worship #audial witchcraft #occult black ambient #ritual music #death industrial #death ambient #black ambient #ritual ambient #occult magazine #indie zine #metal zine #band interview

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sushi-rollss · 2 years

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triple hall trouble

shinonome akito - project sekai

crack, fluff

desc; reader + rui + tsukasa causes hell to break loose in kamiyama, an in panic mode, a cringe capture scene + flustered akito :>

“Hey! Get out of the way!!” Shrill voice echoing as you sped through the busy students crowding the school halls.

“W-Woah! Watch where you’re going!”

You barely dodged the poor dude as the remote controlled cart you rode was able to react in time before an accident could happen. You curse the person behind the controls, should have foreseen this coming from miles away when the three of you collectively let Tsukasa handle the wheel.

“Dumbass Tsukasa! Don’t just ram straight into people! Learn to steer the wheel properly!”

“I’m trying, okay?!”

You shouted to your blonde friend who was fairly struggling to keep up with you, whilst managing the cart at the same time. Rui was running beside him, amused by how well his new creation is working. Of course, only the three of you would be smart enough to test this high speed cart of his in a cramped up school hall, instead of an empty field.

“Fufu, the engines are working splendidly, Tsukasa-kun. I think it’s time to amp up the boosters, don’tcha think?”

“W-W-What?! You want us to go faster?!”

“Rui! I don’t think my eyelashes can keep up with any more speed, they’re gonna fly off!”

That was certainly a concern, but that’s nothing compared to the speedy hall monitor rushing to catch up to the three of you. You peeked back to see a pissed off An, complete with a dark aura surrounding her, running your way.

“GUYS! CODE RED! AN’S HERE!”

“Abort missio—!”

You desperately warned but to no avail, she caught up to the boys before you knew it. Wait a second, since when was An this fast? Did she recently join the track team or something?!

“You three again! Couldn’t you have chosen a better time and place to commit your heinous activities?!”

“Ouch, that stings-!”

“Ah! Ah! Please spare us!”

You watched in horror as An smacked the two boys in the head. She was beyond stressed, you can almost see the wrinkles forming on her pretty face. It’s kinda funny to finally see them getting a piece of their own medicine but then you remembered you weren’t exactly innocent either. Now’s not the time to be watching them, you should find a way to escape too———wait, if Tsukasa is out of it, then why is the cart still speeding?

You whipped your head to the front in panic. Two oblivious students leaving their classes were directly in your field of movement; unbeknownst to them, a clash is bound to happen.

“Augh, can’t believe we still have three hours of lessons after recess.”

“You speak as if you’re new to school, Akito.”

“Yeah, yeah, but it’s still tiring, Toya.”

‘Oh heavenly sakes, why of all times!’ You grumbled mentally at how they failed to notice the loud screeching of the cart tires heading their way.

“Hey! Move away!!” Shouting as loud as you can to grab their attention, the colours drained from their faces when they realised the current situation. Alas, it was too late, you could barely catch a glimpse at their faces before you were almost at eye-to-eye distance of impact. It happened so fast, fear finally creeping up to you in the final moments.

‘Is it finally my time to leave for heaven? God, please forgive my sins for all the times I skipped my classes and homeworks,’ Inwardly praying and closing your eyes, you accepted your fate.

You felt a firm hit to the side of your cart and your body was forcefully lifted by strong arms grabbing you by your underarms, saving you from tumbling along with the cart that was kicked away. Realising you felt no pain, you opened your eyes, only to meet a pair of golden irises staring—no, glaring into your soul.

“Eh?” You squeaked, though he shut you up with a snarl.

“You only have 5 minutes to explain yourself.” He growled, eyebrows furrowed in anger. It was a big contradiction to how gently he was holding you, a hand under your arm stretching to hold you firmly by your backside and another in the curve of your waist, balancing you on your feet.

“U-Uh I actually-” Trying to think of any excuse, you looked past him to his dual-haired friend for any sort of help or bail.

“Um, Akito, maybe let her calm down first?”

“Like hell I’m letting her calm down when she almost wrecked into us!”

Well, that backfired, he seems even more furious now. Just when you were about to make up a reasonable excuse, you heard An screaming to Akito from across the halls. Bad luck at it’s finest, why must she arrive now?!

“Akito, hold onto her for me, don’t let her escape!

He immediately took action and squeezed his hand on your waist tighter, keeping you from slipping away. Your frightened face was met with an evil glare and a sneer, he knew exactly where this was going. You’re not going anywhere as a punishment for your crime.

Overwhelmed by panic, your brain almost short-circuited yet you did the only thing you could think of to catch him off guard. Besides, he had a cute face anyway, that’s killing two birds with one stone! Swiftly, you shut your eyes and pecked him on the lips, long enough to stun him and loosen his grip on you.

“M-Mmh?!” His muffled voice was in obvious shock, his eyes almost jumping out of their sockets.

Just as you expected, both of his hands fell to his sides in disbelief. Taking the chance, you zipped past him and ran as fast as you can. In those exact moments, you still managed to slip a flirty line from afar though,

“Next time, I’ll make you reciprocate the kiss!”

He was visibly flushed, a hand covering his lips where it happened as he stared at you, just in time to see you winking back at him before leaving him in the dust with Toya.

In the distance, An was hot on your trail while Akito still stood in utter silence from shock. Toya looked at him in concern, it’s not everyday you see the ginger get flustered to the point where he’s too stunned to speak.

“Akito, you okay there?”

“…” He was bright red to the tip of his ears, painting his pale skin in a burst of colour.

“Akito?” Toya placed his hand on his friend’s shoulder to snap him out of it.

“S-Shut up, I’m fine. Let’s go.” He grumbled, back to his strong guy act despite his demeanour giving it away. Plus, he almost tripped on his own feet on the way to the cafeteria.

That was definitely not how he expected his first kiss to be.

#project sekai #akito shinonome #project sekai x reader #project sekai colourful stage #tsukasa tenma #an shiraishi #toya aoyagi #rui kamishiro #kamiyama

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danielpowell · 11 months

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So the game makes a point that Roxanne's contributions and innovations have been overwritten and you don't even realize that her work touches every aspect of the Vandelay campus- every track employs her energy production like the hydroelectricity running through the underside of several levels, the geothermal energy of the volcanoes during the R & D tracks, the steam power likely also from the heat of the lava vents, the biofuel of the trash compactors and composting in many bot models, and it even theoretically employs sonic energy thanks to details like the vacuum tube amps and the harmonic fields which is

#mel talks hi fi rush #also she doesn't have a wiki page which is incredibly ironic

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mack-anthology-mp3 · 11 months

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Aotearoa Music Month

It's almost the end of NZ Music Month, here are my personal favourite Aotearoa artists and a few song recommendations :)

(If you listen to one song from the list make it Old Peel)

Aldous Harding. Words cannot explain the sheer bonkersness of Aldous Harding. One of her earliest songs shares the name but seemingly little else with Titus Groan, the gothic-fantasy novel by Mervyn Peake, and the music video for 'Lawn' features her in a prosthetic lizard tail. Performing live, she often stares straight ahead as though she is not quite sure why you're all looking at her. Her songs, sometimes joyous (The Barrel, Fever, Lawn), and sometimes yearning (Pilot, Party) sometimes just bored (Ennui), are all unmistakably her. Her last few albums have been produced by PJ Harvey collaborator John Parish, and her band includes multi-instrumentalist H. Hawkline (Cate Le Bon collaborator). 2022's Warm Chris was my favourite album of the year, I listened to it almost everyday for two months, the standout line (from 'Fever' being 'the weather/opened up like a birthday card' which is just beautiful. Her best song, though, I think is 'Old Peel', a 2021 single in which the percussion is Harding banging on a coffee mug with a stick. And she does this live as well.

2. The Beths. The Beths are one of those wonderful indie bands whose music all sounds so cheerful but the songs are all about the crushing weight of your insecurities. They've released 3 studios albums and an EP, but I reckon their debut, Future Me Hates Me, is their best one - standout tracks are the title track, 'Happy Unhappy' and 'Uptown Girl'. Their sounds is a mix of contemporary indie pop (lots of chirpy backup vocals) and classic indie rock dirt, especially on 'Future Me Hates Me', though their new stuff is pretty heavy live. They also use a lot of the old NZ made amps and gear that was made here in the 60s and 70s when it was too expensive to import stuff( ask any adult who was in a band here when they were younger and they'll probably have one). 'I Want to Listen' from last years' 'Expert In A Dying Field' is really lovely, if you aren't in the mood for songs about not knowing if you're lovable cos they've got a fair few of those.

3. Voom. Voom are probably on the lesser known side, but their 2006 album 'Hello, Are You There' is right up there with Grandaddy and Built to Spill. It's one of those albums with like 17 songs but some of them are less than a minute long. Beautiful indie rock, full of classic stuff like 'Jimmy's Got A Boner' 'My Friend Satan' and 'I'm Leaving Forever'. The best song on the album is 'B Your Boy', which I could listen to for a very long time, and we're going to cover it in my band and I'm so excited. It's just a perfect song.

Those are my top three (at the moment) honourable mentions are -

Reb Fountain - I saw her live. It was scary. I loved it.

Marlon Williams - last year he invented a genre, Māori disco pop, wrote the most danceable song of the year (My Boy), and played bongos on 'Come To Me' (Björk cover) live.

Vera Ellen - Some nice pissed off indie rock. 'I Want 2 B Boy' is very cool.

Pickle Darling - very vibey bedroom pop, lots of delightful little tunes. Also they work at a record store in my hometown and is always really friendly when I'm in there :)

Tiny Ruins - I'm not the most familiar with their stuff but one of my friends tells me to listen to them all the time so they must be good. Indie folk.

The Clean - Dunedin sound band, not super familiar with them but they have a song called 'Point That Thing Somewhere Else' which sounds like Sonic Youth but somehow even cooler.

Dimmer - 'I Believe You Are A Star' sort of like Portishead, by ex-Straightjacket Fits musician Shanye Carter. loudest show I've ever been to.

This one song called 'Gaskrankinstation' by the Headless Chickens, it's hella dark but pretty damn cool. post-punk.

Special Mention to Flying Nun Records, the actual coolest record label.

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theramblingsofadork · 6 months

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Okay—~⭐️!!

I promised I would share about some of my AU for Dr. Starline-or, how things could have gone a bit earlier in his life, and even though I’ve decided to rework a few things to make sure I’m making the story as good as I can make it, here’s a bit of it.

(…WHO AM I KIDDING, THERE’S A LOT OF IT.

But please give it a read anyways! I promise it’s good!)

I don’t really have a name for this AU, yet (if anyone has any ideas, please let me know!) but it takes place before the IDW comics, probably by a few years at least.

⭐️ Premise: Dr. Starline enters a competition of inventors and innovators with the hopes of using it to gain Eggman’s attention, and finds something there that he was not expecting to.

As I have it, Starline is not quite the level of mad doctor we see of him from the comics quite yet.

He’s still poised and a lone wolf, sometimes trying to mimic Eggman in his way of thinking, but hasn’t reached the level of “try to murder hedgehogs with a bomb” or “Operation: Remaster” yet.

So.. still redeemable.

At this point, he’s already attempted to get the Doctor’s attention multiple times over the years, but has had little luck each time. However, this completion has a big tech name backing it, and he expects Eggman will be closely paying attention to it as a result of it. A perfect opportunity to get him on his radar.

While there, he meets Rivet, a sly and energetic cat inventor who he seems to naturally click with. And over the course of the prelims, a surprisingly friendly rivalry grows between them to get into the competition and win the top spot.

⭐️(Side Note: This is because Starline’s not too worried about losing to her, but he admires her tenacious spirit considering her origins were largely non-technological.)

Unsurprisingly, they both get in, and it’s announced that those who made it in are now going to have to form teams. Of course, Starline— having his ego, as well as a reluctance to work with others due to his upbringing being comprised of him being bullied and treated poorly for his interests—isn’t thrilled.

But, not ready to give up his dream yet, he does his usual, “What would Eggman do?”, and decides to team up with people who he thinks might have the most potential and be the easiest to manipulate into doing what he wants.

⭐️ (Side Note: He does not have his hypno glove at this point! That would make things too easy.) (.. Despite him probably having it before the warp topaz in canon. MOVING ON!)

This lands him on Rivet, her brother Charge, a tiny rat named Hex, his bulldog friend Lug, and a firefly named Cello.

Starline assigns himself as the leader of the group, due to his elevated knowledge and experience in the three fields they’re working with— robotics, chemistry, and biology. But as he attempts to get them on board to.. essentially let him run the whole show, tensions and conflicts quickly mount as they begin to push back.

At his wits end after a few days of arguments and fights, he ends up confiding in Rivet and Charge to ask for their insight, seeing as they themselves have been a team for a very long time. The Amp Twins explain to him what teamwork actually is and how to accomplish it, which Starline realizes is a completely foreign concept to him because he’s always worked alone.

Despite his ego hating having to make sacrifices to get this team to work, Starline gives in and takes their advice by changing his tactics. Tracking the team down one by one to talk to them and try to understand why they’re fighting him.

To his surprise, it works! He lets them express themselves and in doing so, discovers that.. these people aren’t so different from him. All of them have great skill, but have been hurt in a similar fashion as he was, and are here, just trying to accomplish their dreams.

The conversations make him sit with his thoughts. He empathizes with them. Encourages them, because that’s what he himself wished someone had done for him. And.. while the depth of his reasoning for doing so is still very much selfish and because he wants to win, he still finds he’s also being.. genuine.

Needless to say, he reluctantly gives up some control to let the others bring their ideas to the table, and his plan works. They all end up working.. surprisingly well together, and even end up teaching him a few things.

Huh. That’s new.

Over the next few weeks that pass, Starline slowly grows more and more relaxed, softening up around the edges as he experiences what having a good supportive group of like-minded people around him is like.

They.. appreciate him. They.. respect him. They treat him well.

And he’s.. not used to this. Not used to people wanting to hear his ideas. Not used to being able to have scientific debates with someone who understands what he’s saying. Not used to being dragged out of the lab by a cheerful purple cat to join her and the others for a dinner in the town. Not used to his smiles being real.

By end of the competition, they’re all quite close as a team, working together in comfortable tandem.

Starline at one point even admits to himself that he actually would consider the group to be.. his friends. They make him feel welcome and appreciated like no one ever has, which is—at the depth of who he is as a character—what he has always wanted and yearned for.

But.. there is still the matter of Eggman.

One thing I want to establish very firmly is that, while Starline opens up more to the others and has moments of being a genuinely sweet person, he is still very much an Eggman fanboy whose dream of working by his side one day has not disappeared.

This is his struggle. His Achilles heel, so to speak.

Because throughout the whole competition, Starline never actually tells the group WHO his inspration is.

They know he has one. They know that’s why he’s here; to gain the attention and recognition of the man by winning the competition. They’ve heard his excited rants about this ‘genius’ and all the brilliant and inspiring things he’s done.

But they don’t know it’s Eggman.

At first Starline keeps his fascination on the downlow, only because he knows he’ll be working with people in the competition who have been affected by the Doctor, and doesn’t want to sabotage his chances of winning. But as he meets the others and gets closer and closer with them, it becomes more about fear and guilt.

He doesn’t want to admit it— Him? Afraid? Guilty?? Never.

But.

What if they were to find out? They’d turn on him for sure. He’d get dumped by the group, just like before when he was growing up. Shamed and left isolated and alone.

Again.

By getting too close, he’s caught himself in a trap. He’s torn between two different lives he could lead. He finds himself slowly beginning to question which one he wants more.

It makes him hesitate when they ask him to form an official team with them after the competition is over. Prevents him from being able to be as open and honest as he might like. Keeps him from being closer to Rivet like he knows they both want.

And even though they know there’s hesitation there, they (particularly Rivet) never stop trying to reach out to him.

Eventually though, the truth does come out and he has to finally make a drastic choice..

…But I think I’ll leave that bit for next time ;)

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foggyxrayspecs · 1 year

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Hi yes if I may request a blurb: maybe smth where Cub watches a movie (maybe horror) where after watching it they get super high alert and protective of yelena bc they think it’s real? If this makes no sense then you can ignore it lmao

Thank you for the prompt, awesome person! Here's how this might play out. Warnings: dark-ish, sub-themes of human trafficking, heavy pet play Word Count: ~600

Excerpt: It’s nighttime, and you and Yelena are in your usual spots. She’s reclining back on the couch with her legs stretched into your dog bed. You are lying in the comfy bed with your head on Yelena’s feet. You yawn wide, extend your arms straight out in a big stretch, and then wrap them around her ankles. She wiggles her toes, acknowledging your movement. You turn your head and playfully bite them softly through her socks and then nuzzle them with your cheek. You both settle back to watch a movie.

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Growl. Scowl. Prowl.

It’s nighttime, and you and Yelena are in your usual spots. She’s reclining back on the couch with her legs stretched into your dog bed. You are lying in the comfy bed with your head on Yelena’s feet. You yawn wide, extend your arms straight out in a big stretch, and then wrap them around her ankles. She wiggles her toes, acknowledging your movement. You turn your head and playfully bite them softly through her socks and then nuzzle them with your cheek. You both settle back to watch a movie.

You find it hard to track the dialogue, so you have trouble keeping your eyes open. You doze for a while until your ear perk as the music from the movie starts building. You open an eye and take in the TV; a blonde woman slowly walks through an industrial park, on her guard. The scene cuts to a shadowed figure moving after her.

You roll to your knees and knuckles, a low growl in your throat. You duck your head as the music gets louder and shift back in the bed to keep in contact with Yelena.

As you narrow your eyes, the blonde on the screen gets visibly more agitated as the sinister figure gets closer and closer. You glance at Yelena, who watches the movie, no doubt cataloging contingency plans and escape routes. You look back to the blonde on screen and again to your owner. You whine.

Yelena looks down at you and raises her eyebrows. She glances back to the TV, then grins at you. “You want to bark, mm?” You turn to her and give a quick couple of licks on her hand.

“Speak!” You round on the television screen and bark as loud as you can while the blonde actor starts running across the field of vision; the shadowed figure now yields a knife!

“Speak!” You bark as the shadow follows the blonde woman; she circles and ducks behind an industrial trash compactor.

“Speak!” You bark as the shadow is lured into a trap and is tipped back into a trash compactor. She hits the switch to activate the machine. Oh, no! The shadow grabs the shoulder of the blonde and pulls her with him.

A few moments pass until you hear a clang of metal on metal. You stare, transfixed, as the blonde emerges from the trash compactor, the knife now in her own hands. Unconsciously, you begin to wiggle your backside in excitement.

Yelena startles you as she grabs you around the waist and pulls you back to hug your body back to her. “Good cub. Good speak.” She rubs your throat and then kisses your head three or four times in rapid succession.

Yelena scritches your head absently, then leans back on the couch to watch the rest of the movie. You eye her still feeling amped, then grab your blanket with your teeth and put one hand on the couch cushion. Yelena lofts an eyebrow then pats her chest, and you waste no time climbing up and settling yourself across her lap, covering her. “Oof!” Yelena softly exhales. You keep your eyes on the screen while surreptitiously looking around the room for shadows.

For the rest of the night, you were constantly checking the doors and windows and standing guard next to Yelena, insisting on accompanying her everywhere she went. You keep vigilant watch while you nudge your head under her hand pets.

When you try unsuccessfully to follow her into the bathroom, she understands what’s happening. She looks at you, shutting the door with you on the outside. “Yep, we’re going to take a break from scary movies.”

#security measure blurbs #scarlettwlw #widow au

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thassa · 4 months

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Some good things did come out of my large breakdowns I had a few weeks ago.

I've never had much faith in myself in regards to my goals, and I gave up on a lot of things that mattered to me. Music, art, social work. I struggled with impostor syndrome my entire life, and suffered from low self esteem due to the struggles that came with growing up with undiagnosed ADHD. I always felt like I tricked people into thinking I was smart because I could never do things consistently. And I pretended that I just didn't want to do those things anymore, when in reality I didn't think I deserved to do them, because I wasn't actually capable.

I realized that if I wanted to be happy, I needed to give myself more credit and be willing to make mistakes. I am allowing myself to realize I'm lovable, I'm likeable, and I didn't trick my friends or loved ones into caring for me. I'm worth having a job that makes me happy, and I'm worth pursuing my passions. I played my bass guitar for the first time in years the other day, and even though it wasn't much, it was... unbelievably cathartic.

For the first time in a long time, I'm making some new years resolutions and planning long term goals. They include:

- Starting therapy. I have been more stable the last couple weeks- I am trying to be kinder to myself and practicing grounding techniques for when work gets overwhelming, but I feel like I need to have an outlet to talk things out. I have reached out to a few therapists and am waiting to hear what their availability is like to schedule consultations.

- Get back into bass and art! I ideally would like to get an upright bass and join the local community orchestra, but I don't think that's going to be realistic for a while. That doesn't mean I can't play, though, even if it's for myself. I need to actually get my bass guitar and amp set up, but in my downtime I've been sight reading some music and practicing the rhythms. I also have been trying to draw more. Ideally, I would practice the basics, because I want to refine my style more, but as long as I'm creating I'm happy.

- Networking with the new marketing director at my current job. While the customer service aspect of my job sucks at times, I work with a supportive team and I know if I ask my boss, she'd support me trying to learn and grow, and who knows? Maybe I'd be able to shift gears from my current position.

- Finish taking this marketing course through Coursera, and maybe get a couple other certifications along the way. I'm on track to finish the Coursera course in six months, but I'd like to get it down to three, if possible. It's pretty easy to finish a week's worth of modules in a day as long as I have the spoons (and now that I'm back on my ADHD meds, it should be easier)

- Once I'm further along in the course and have more formal training, I want to reach out to the chorus my wife volunteers with and offer to do their social media. I know it's something they don't have a lot of time for (and it could use improvement), it would be good experience for me, and it would get me volunteer experience in two fields I'm passionate about: music and the LGBT community.

And as for my long term goals, they include:

- Getting a job in marketing, ideally for a company that specializes in music or audio

- Finding community in music. Be this getting an upright bass and joining an orchestra, or playing folk music with my wife and our friends, or whatever. Music used to mean so much to me, and while I don't want performing to be my full time job anymore, I want it to be a part of my life in some way, shape or form.

- Finding community in the arts again. I feel like I made some good headway last year, but my insecurities kept me from doing more. I also want to pursue more physical art. I enjoy doing digital art, but I'm definitely harder on myself than I am when I use a physical media. I place a lot of pressure on myself to make it perfect, which leads to my style being sanitized.

- Improve my executive functioning skills. I'm slowly getting better, but therapy will help

I haven't had a long term goal since I got married, bought our house and graduated college, which has lead to me just kind of floating around. I feel like these goals reflect what I've been missing and I'm excited to pursue them!

#sorry for the long post but this is my vent blog! i can post what i want!

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mywifeleftme · 2 months

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309: Junior Kimbrough // All Night Long

All Night Long Junior Kimbrough 1993, Demon Records (Bandcamp)

“Crawling around in the dirt. Crawling around in the dirt between the rows of blooming, blinding white cotton in the field to the side of Junior’s old country juke, and this woman, Lord she must have been sixty, she was out there crawling around in the dirt, with me, I’m not lyin’! Both of us out there in the sun, drunk on white lightnin’ in the middle of the day! And it was a Sunday! Amps turned up all the way inside the shack, drums making the floorboards boom, you could hear it fine. Yeah out there in the dirt.”

That’s how Robert Palmer, an eminent rock critic turned filmmaker and music producer whose 1992 documentary Deep Blues sped along the rediscovery of Junior Kimbrough, opens his liner notes for All Night Long. It reads like a white New York Times writer trying to summarize a scene from True Detective in the voice of Toni Morrison, but there’s nearly always some degree of authenticity fetishism in prose about the blues. Palmer describes Kimbrough’s juke joint performances as orgiastic rituals, a head full of voodoo and a belly full of moonshine, sweaty, droning, folks drawn to the shack like moths to a light that could destroy them. It’s that thing that whites have found alluring and repellant about Black music since they first encountered it, the way it seems to provide something people desire in their gut without asking moral permission to do so.

youtube

Not having been by Junior’s place, I can’t really speak to Palmer’s assessment of the scenes (maybe he’d’ve described a college club in Provincetown called Hedonism in similar terms, who knows), but he made the right decision “producing” these recordings as little as possible. Kimbrough’s music does feel like something completely unreconstructed, these endless trudging jams with their reptilian pulses closer to African trance music than the tidy verse-chorus structures imposed by physical singles. He plays at ear-bleeding volume, unmindful of feedback, with a bone-dry tone that wouldn’t be out of place on a noise rock record. These are horny moan-songs about feeling good (often in the near-abstract way you get to drinking right before the spins hit) and staying out, though there’s a throbbing vein of violence and despair at the bottom of it.

Chances are my local Blues Society parents would have some trouble with his “You Better Run,” a bleak-humoured seven-and-a-half-minute nightmare about a woman pursued by a knife-wielding rapist. Kimbrough delivers it like one of those brimstone sermons about the perils of sin, only here there’s no sin implied, no God or Devil present, just this stalking, inevitable wraith, this thing that desires you as hungrily as a yawning grave. Kimbrough rescues the woman in his car towards the end of the song, but as he drives her home he drily warns her he might decide to rape her himself, only for her to reply that he won’t have to because she loves him. It’s a grim joke, but one that no doubt got a huge reaction from his regulars the same way the nastiest shit talk in a diss track gets people going—it’s the daring they applaud, the swagger of being badder than a bad world.

309/365

#blues #electric blues #delta blues #junior kimbrough #r.l. burnside #robert palmer #juke joint #'90s music #vinyl record #music review

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