Quick sneak peek of my piece I did for @asmozine!! Pre-orders are still open!!  💄✨

IT’S MY PARTY AND I’LL CRY IF I WANT TO → STRAWBERRY LEMONADE

TAGGING → Fraser Macintosh & Lemon La Bouff ( @lemonlabouff )

TIMELINE → August 14th, 2021

SETTING → Lemon and Carter La Bouff’s 20th Birthday Party

SUMMARY → It’s the La Bouff twins’ 20th birthday party, and the speak-easy 20′s theme is perfection. Everything goes according to plan until Lemon has her first kiss during a party game of all things, and she and one of her oldest friends end up shoved in a closet so that, thankfully, the tears she sheds afterwards aren’t seen by the public. When you play a mashup of Suck N Blow and 7 Minutes in Heaven, anything can happen.

Fraser would've been excited to attend Lemon and Carter's birthday no matter what, but the speakeasy 20's theme had definitely been a huge draw; it gave him a great excuse to dress up in a plaid suit with a bowtie, suspenders, and even a hat, even though that last one didn't stay on for long. After all, the Macintosh hair was too beautiful to hide. It wasn't until a big circle of people signing up to play Suck N Seven Minutes started forming though that his jacket was also tossed to the side. He would've been surprised that something like a kissing game was happening at a party of the La Bouff's, but then again, the party had been advertised as debaucherous, so why not?

He shuffled into place along with everyone else, bumping shoulders with the birthday girl as he did so. She started off the game, facing away from Fraser and passing on the playing card to the player on her other side, and from there, one person to the next passed on the card using only their lips. This version had a fun twist, where whichever pair fumbled the card had to spend seven minutes in the nearest closet, doing whatever they wanted. Fraser couldn't help grinning as the game continued, his eyes scanning the circle excitedly to see who'd be the first two who dropped the ball. When it was some people halfway across the circle from them, he joined in with everyone else laughing or jeering as the two headed off to the aforementioned closet.

"I'm sure I'm like the millionth person to tell you this party is awesome," Fraser laughed, turning to Lemon to make some conversation while someone nearby counted down seven minutes. "How many more games like this are there going to be? Because I didn't exfoliate my lips for nothing."

As much as Lemon liked to believe that every party she and Carter had ever thrown were the most perfect events to ever be curated by “visionaries such as themselves”, she was absolutely certain that they all vastly paled in comparison to their 1920’s themed 20th birthday party. The La Bouffs had really splashed out on giving the twins the perfect vintage speakeasy experience right down to a live band playing modern music in the style of music from the 1920s and a bar that served real moonshine cocktails “for the guests over 21”.

Plus everyone was actually more than keen to go along with the recommended vibe of debaucherous, which was perfect considering Lemon had no intention on actually participating in any of the risque games she’d come up with to give the party that trashy great gatsby 2013-esque vibe herself. The closest she planned to actually participate was by sitting in the circle for  Suck N Seven minutes and daintily sip bourbon from the fancy flask she’d bought to wear in the garter that had come with her glittering white flapper dress while everyone else did all the kissing and lord knows what else in the closet. She’d even specifically practiced the game enough times at home alone to ensure that she wouldn’t accidentally slip up and have to kiss anyone.

“More like the millionth and first person to tell be how great this party is, but feel free to say it more times.” Lemon said, dramatically flipping her hair over her shoulder as she jokingly basked in the praise. “There are a few more games coming. Do you have any one in particular you want to kiss tonight? I’m sure I could rig one of them to work out in your favor.”

"Am I also the millionth and first person to tell you how much this look suits you then?" Fraser tried again cheekily; it was true, Lemon in that dress with her hair flung over her shoulder was basically an art piece. "Because I thought I looked good but you somehow almost look as good as me. Kudos." Maybe by the end of her birthday, he'd tell her that she looked even better than him, but that felt unnecessarily kind, especially when the present he had brought her would probably put everyone else's to shame.

He considered her question for a few more moments, then shook his head. "Nah, not really. I'm an equal opportunity kisser. After all, luck works in mysterious ways. Everyone here deserves the chance. Thanks, though. What about you? Any games rigged in particular for the birthday girl? You can tell me, I can keep a secret," Fraser joked. He was pretty sure that the answer was no, but ribbing Lemon was always fun. It was definitely more fun than waiting for the seven minutes to be up.

“Probably! I do look like such an amuse-gueule, don’t I?” Lemon struck a couple of silly poses to showcase how great she looked before elbowing Fraser hard in the arm. “Dream on, Chere. There isn’t a person here tonight that could ever hope to outshine me and as cute as your bowtie is, you could never.”

Even though Lemon knew full well that Fraser knew her well enough to know that she’d never rig a game so she’d have to do anything with any of her party guests, she couldn’t help but meaningfully look over at Romeo Dubois and let out an exaggerated sigh. Despite having ice in his wine like the grossest trainwreck alive, Lemon really understood how Gatsby must’ve felt staring out at Daisy’s green light, so close but so far away from what he wanted the most. “You already know my biggest secret and unfortunately that’s something I can’t even rig.” Looking away from Romeo before she felt anything other than complete happiness over her success of a birthday party, Lemon pulled the flask out of her garter and took a sip before offering it to Fraser. “Want some?”

"I don't know what an amuse-guele is but if that means that you look like you showered today, sure," Fraser joked, underplaying how gorgeous his friend was partially for humor but also because compliments had to be worked for. When she elbowed him, he gripped his arm and let out an exaggerated "Ow!" and laughed to cover up the fact that it actually hurt a little bit. "Hey, don't damage the goods! I get that your beauty is feeling threatened but bruising me won't make me less awesome."

Fraser fought the urge to roll his eyes so hard at Lemon's theatrics that his eyes actually strained. He knew she had a crush on Romeo but that he didn't mean he liked it. The dude was weird and somehow let the fact that one of the coolest girls alive was into him just pass him by. "Yeah, well, it's his loss. Chalk it up to bad taste -- because seriously, who drinks wine with ice?" Fraser asked, his nose wrinkling.

He burst out into a smile at the sight of the flask and nodded. "Fuck yeah! Now it's a party!" Fraser wasn't sure what was in it but any alcohol was better than none. "Cheers to you, birthday girl! May no one make a baby in the closet of your party," he joked as he took a hearty sip and the door of the closet opened and the couple came back out, visibly rumpled.

“It’s french for party snack, you imbecile.” Lemon laughed, rolling her eyes in reaction to Fraser’s antics. “Must I remind you that denial is not only a river in Egypt.  I could never feel threatened by you, but especially not tonight. Not even Snow White herself could convince me that I’m not the best looking person here.”

Lemon wrinkled her nose a little in distaste, because really who DID drink wine with ice in it? But refused to actually comment on the matter because in her opinion it was rather distasteful to secretly diss the one you love, no matter how bad his taste really was.  

“Oh disgusting, don’t jinx my party!” Lemon squealed, snagging her flask back before realizing that the closet couple had come out and definitely had been doing more than just perusing the coats in there. Once the couple sat back down, the person that had dropped the card smugly passed it on to the next person and the game began again where they’d left off. Lemon elbowed Fraser one last time for good measure. “If someone gets knocked up in there, I’m directing them right to you to blame.”

"Don't call me an imbelice, ya dobber," Fraser laughed right back, shaking his head at her. He wanted to argue further, but the truth was that Snow White herself couldn't hold a candle to Lemon tonight, and it wasn't just her look. It was how excited she was for her party written all over her face. All he really could say was, "Historically, it'd be the Magic Mirror trying to convince you, not Queen White, but if you say so, birthday girl."

Fraser tried his hardest not to spit out any of the alcohol as the flask got snatched away, and his forehead crumpled in confusion. "Hey!" he blurted, swallowing hard. "You better let me get another sip later, that was actually pretty good shit." He fought the urge to elbow Lemon back, not wanting to leave the birthday girl bruised. "If someone gets knocked up in here, it's entirely a result of your debaucherous theme, not because of anything I did! If you direct them to me, I'm going to encourage them to name the baby Lemon. Luckily it works for whatever gender."

There was a close call between two party-goers with the card but with some crouching, they were able to keep the card going until it got closer to Fraser. He took it from the girl on one side of him and winked at her, and when she gave him a flirty face back, it made him think that maybe she was someone worth talking to after this game was over. After all, it was a party! It was the perfect time to talk to a new beautiful girl. He turned to Lemon with the card, but then a chuckle that was stuck in the back of his throat from flirting with the other girl disrupted the surface tension and he felt his top lip connect to Lemon's.

His eyes opened wide in surprise but as the card dropped, he let himself turn the lip touch into a slight smooch, because why not? It was a party! And it may have just been a peck but it sure was fun, especially as everybody ooooohed and awwwwed and pushed them to the closet, opening the door for them and slamming it shut, leaving them alone in near darkness.

“Don’t be an imbecile then.” Lemon responded breezily, waving away the semantics of his response away with another eyeroll and a flip of her hand. Fraser clearly knew what she meant so who cared if she hadn’t said it quite right.

Lemon grinned  at Fraser’s protest when she took her flask back. She’d “borrowed” it from her grandfather’s personal stash and it was easily the most expensive and best tasting alcohol there. “The theme is not debauchery. The theme is 1920s speakeasy, the suggested vibe is debaucherous, there’s a difference. You’re the one actively speaking a baby into existence on them, so if you’re going to encourage them to name it Lemon, I’m going to tell them to make the middle name Strawberry. Then it’ll have all the correct acknowledgments attached to it and it’ll match.”

Lemon watched the game go around in amusement, at least until it got closer to her and the amusement turned into focused determination to not drop it on her turn. Luckily…or rather... Unluckily, she didn’t have a thing to worry about on her turn because instead of the cool touch of the card pressing against her lips, it was the warm lips of one of her oldest friends.

Lemon felt like her blood was turning to ice water in her veins as Fraser made it more of a kiss than just an itsy bitsy gross lip touch they could spend the next seven minutes in the closet giggling about. It was officially her first kiss and NOT the way it was supposed to go. After backing out of kissing Myles earlier in the year, Lemon had decided that her first kiss would be strictly reserved for the boy she actually loved and as much as she loved Fraser as a friend, he was simply not Romeo.

As soon as they got shoved in the closet Lemon had no idea what to do other than burst into tears. Not loudly in case anyone close could hear them but enough to make it more than clear to Fraser that absolutely nothing in the in the closet would be matching the aforementioned debaucherous party vibe.

"Lemon Strawberry. Sounds delicious... and like they'll be teased for the rest of their life," Fraser laughed, faux-shuddering at the very thought. "They might as well go by Strawberry Lemonade or something else that sounds like it's from a children's television show." He was probably thinking about it too much and he wondered if maybe they were talking a baby into existence; he decided that if they did, he wouldn't feel guilty. It'd just be further proof of how awesome he was, that he could make a baby without having to be physically involved at all.

Unfortunately for him, something was about to happen to make him feel solidly un-awesome. He didn't think a kiss between friends could possibly be a bad thing, especially when that friend was as cool as Lemon usually was, but by the time they got pushed into the closet, it was obvious that she didn't share that sentiment. She was crying like her husband had just gone off to war and it left him feeling too many things at the same time. There was concern, obviously, because if a friend was sobbing, any sane human would be concerned.

But more than that, there was annoyance and major insult that, all together, felt a lot like hurt. Fraser didn't spend a lot of his free time wondering what it'd be like kissing Lemon but once it happened, he figured it was something they'd enjoy, or at least be able to laugh about. He knew he wasn't her precious Romeo, but he also wasn't the short weird art kid from the Isle that she'd kissed already either, and from what he knew, she didn't weep when that one happened.

He was hoping something closer to the concerned end of his emotional spectrum would come out when he did finally get over the shock of her tears enough to talk, but what actually escaped him was something like "What the hell are you crying about?! You'd think I slapped you or something. It was just a kiss, Líomóid! It's kind of the whole point of the game! Get a grip." He didn't mean to sound so angry, but he felt rejected, and by someone he wasn't even out to get! The fun he'd been having with her at the party had died and was like a heavy beast was sitting in his chest now. Fraser turned away from her with crossed arms, not able to handle looking at her tears for one more second.

“I’m crying because you ruined my birthday!” Lemon yelled back, dramatically stomping her foot like a character in a movie to emphasize her point. What right did Fraser have to be angry at her for getting upset? It wasn’t his first kiss that had been thrown away in front of so many witnesses. It wasn’t his 20th birthday that would forever be tainted by losing a game she’d specifically come up with to make EVERYONE ELSE look kinda trashy. As far as Lemon was concerned, Fraser had won the freaking lottery, He’d gotten to kiss her!

Lemon used all her strength to turn Fraser back around to face her. “What are you, a five year old? You don’t get to turn  around when I’m mad at you! I’m crying and it’s your fault because YOU couldn’t play a stupid game right, so now you have to look at me.”

He was glad to be facing away from her, because otherwise Lemon would've seen Fraser roll his eyes at her claiming he "ruined" her birthday. She still might've heard his huff, but to be fair, he wasn't trying to be quiet. She deserved to know she sounded ridiculous, and if she was going to stomp her little foot at him, then him huffing at her was more than called for. After all, what kind of party was made worse by kissing the hottest person in the room?

But then she tried to get his attention and got him to face her again and he couldn't hold in the annoyance any longer. "You're calling me a five year old?! Seriously?! You're the one sobbing because, what, you accidentally kissed the best guy at the party? The only reason anyone should be kissing after kissing me is because they didn't get to kiss me longer, so get over yourself. It was just a stupid game and you're the one deciding to cry about it, not me, so no, I don't want to look at you. In fact ---"

Fraser cut himself off and moved towards Lemon, picking her up and spinning them around so she was facing away. "Now just stay there for the rest of the seven minutes, fuck."

Lemon let out a loud scream of rage when Fraser picked her up and faced her away like SHE was the one acting like a poorly behaved toddler now. She turned right back around and put her hands on her hips angrily. “Quit it! You’re not the best boy here by a LOOONG shot! If anything you’re the WORST boy here and I couldn’t have gotten stuck with a worse first kiss if I TRIED! And considering the applications I got in January, that’s saying a LOT and that’s why I’m crying. Because You’re the worst!” Then because Lemon couldn’t think of a better way to end it, she turned right back around and crossed her own arms this time.

Fraser hadn't been expecting her to yell but people yelled plenty back home in his part of Dunbroch, and yelling back was how someone showed that they weren't backing down, which he wasn't, so he yelled back and didn't stop until she did. He was way too fired up to just roll over and take her weird ass breakdown, because he hadn't done anything wrong, so when she turned back around, he rolled up his sleeves, ready to roll with whatever dumb punches she dropped. Saying he was the worst was a terrible start on her part, because if there was one thing Fraser knew with all his heart, it was that he was truly the best at everything, kissing included. The more she prattled on, though, the more things started making sense.

"UGH!" he groaned, walking around Lemon so his back was against the closet wall and he could face her again without spinning her around. "What are you saying? That you, what, didn't kiss the short art kid?" The anger on his face dissipated for a moment as he took in the fact that Lemon lost her first kiss at a party, during a dumb game, which definitely wasn't on brand for her. But then he realized that she was disappointed about him as a first kiss when he was clearly a better option than anyone else she could find, and his forehead creased again. "I'm sorry your first kiss wasn't how you wanted it to go but I didn't know it was your first! And it's not my fault that you lied about that! And I know I should apologize, but I'm a hundred percent an upgrade to that guy, or any other guy who applied to your weird kiss resume thing! So just... quit crying, okay? Please?"

He let out a sigh and his shoulders crumbled forward. "It was just a game anyway. A lot of people don't even count games, so we could just say it doesn't count. Besides, it's not like I gave you a real kiss anyway."

“Yes! Obviously I didn’t kiss Myles. Why would I ever be this upset if I had kissed someone before!” Admittedly Lemon probably still would’ve cried in the closet if she’d kissed ten boys before this. She hated doing anything that she didn’t have written down to the minute in her planner. But still. “I know you didn’t know but that still doesn’t give you the right to yell at me for crying! I’m upset and you’re screaming at me! How am I supposed to stop crying!”  

Lemon sniffled hard, actually attempting to stop crying but at this point it was too late and her tears weren’t going to be stopping for a minute. She really hoped it would at least be before it was time to come out of the closet, luckily after years of watching her mother look like an absolute lunatic after crying jags Lemon had always made it a point to only buy waterproof eyeliner and mascara, so if she could get it together she probably wouldn’t look that wrecked when they left. “It was a game but I count games and so do a lot of other people so it counts to me. Lips touching like that is totally a real kiss, what are you talking about?”

Fraser snorted at the 'obviously', not feeling the need to point out once again that she'd lied about her whole insane kiss application thing and thus it wasn't 'obvious' at all. "I don't know, you're asking me to make sense out of a crazy woman's brain!" She did have a point though and so Fraser let out a heavy sigh, shaking his head. "Fine, fine, whatever, consider my screaming done. It's just..." He didn't know how to tell her how insulted he really was, so he just didn't. He let himself trail off and kept shaking his head, not sure what to say.

Besides, seeing Lemon all sniffly and sad did kind of send a solid, genuine pang of regret through him. He kind of wished he could go back and change what happened, but for all he knew, Lemon would've gotten upset and counted it as a kiss no matter what, just because it wasn't what she'd expected. "It's the people who don't kiss people outside of games who count them," he tried, his tone way softer than it'd been a minute ago. "Once you're out there in the real world, kissing the actual guy you want to be kissing, you'll realize this one didn't count at all. It can be erased from history then."

He couldn't help but crack a little bit of a smile at her last question and he shrugged a shoulder. "Lips touching is just lips touching; you wouldn't call hands brushing past each other 'holding hands', would you? Kissing is more than a brief graze. I mean, we weren't even touching each other anywhere, and we were standing way too far apart. A real kiss would've left you swooning, not crying. Especially if it was from me." He paused but then curiosity overcame him. "But uh, why didn't you kiss Myles? You did that whole application thing presumably to avoid situations like this and then you just... didn't?"

“I’m not crazy!” Lemon huffed, stomping her foot again. If she hadn’t been so genuinely offended by the insult she might have gotten smug about Fraser backing down from yelling at her, but at this point she felt like it was the least he could do to still be able to be called one of her best friends by the end of the night. 

Once Fraser softened his tone for her, Lemon genuinely tried to actually listen to him and maybe believe what he was saying. But she still wasn’t buying it, especially when he insisted that if it was a real kiss from him she would’ve been swooning but that was more best friend exclusive pettiness than an knock on his skills of persuasion. 

“It just didn’t feel right. I don’t know?” She shrugged, briefly glancing around the closet to see if there was something she could dry her face with before giving up and  delicately using the side of her finger to try and dab some of her tears away. “It was like how none of my plays have been working lately. I planned it all out so perfectly and got so close to getting it done exactly the way I wanted it, but I like knew it still wasn’t actually right so I didn’t actually end up going through with it.  Plus he really is kind of short so it felt a little stupid too. But don’t tell anyone I told you or it’ll make Romeo’s height difference kink sound valid.”

Fraser raised his brows at Lemon's huffing, as if she was just proving his point about the craziness, but he didn't delve into that deeper. He didn't think he needed to, especially since he got the feeling that he'd hurt her feelings with that comment and he'd done enough damage that night as was, even though he still refused to think of the kiss thing as his fault. In any other circumstances, Lemon kissing him wouldn't be a bad thing for either of them, and he was sure of that, even though they'd obviously never prove it one way or another.

He noticed her looking for something to wipe her tears on and he sighed, pulling a handkerchief out of his pants pocket and handing it to her wordlessly. It was the one he'd had in his jacket pocket earlier and he'd wanted to hold onto it, although he hadn't anticipated it'd be for this reason. He really did feel bad for Lemon the more she explained. It was the curse of the perfectionist, and that was a curse he understood well. She got him to laugh a little bit with that last comment though and he shook his head through the chuckle.

"Don't worry, that secret dies with me, mostly because height difference kinks are stupid in the first place. Men who need height to feel like a 'man' next to their woman are wildly insecure." Fraser cleared his throat and smiled awkwardly, shoving his hands into his pockets. "I'm sorry that your plans aren't as perfect in execution as they are in your head, both writing plans and kissing plans. That's what happens when your brain is better than the real world. Do you want... a hug?" Offering that felt a little weird but he also wasn't sure how else to comfort her and they probably had a few minutes left locked together in this torture chamber anyway.

Lemon gratefully took Fraser’s handkerchief with a small watery smile and dried her eyes as much as she could without rubbing them before folding it and awkwardly keeping it in her hand since she wasn’t sure what else she was supposed to do with it because handing it back seemed a little gross.

Lemon didn’t mean to laugh at Fraser’s response to her comment about Romeo’s height kink since she WAS in love with him and still kind of upset but a small giggle slipped out anyway since it was exactly the same thing she’d thought about it but had been mostly too nice to say. “You’re so right.” Lemon agreed before lifting an eyebrow at Fraser’s slight pause before the word hug. In a moment of either genius or insanity an idea popped into Lemon’s head in a flash. She pulled her flask out of her garter once more and took a big mouthful of the bourbon she’d only been using for sipping thus far before passing it over to Fraser. “Actually could you kiss me? Like for real this time? Well not for real real, but you know party real?”

The tension in the closet didn't disappear immediately at Lemon's giggle but it definitely dissipated enough for Fraser to take a small sigh of relief. So long as he hadn't totally ruined her night, or their friendship, they could make it through the rest of the party. "I'm almost always right," he added with a half-smile, glad she wasn't above admitting Romeo's  'you must be this short to ride this prince' thing wasn't weird. He'd never expect her to flat out badmouth the dude, but laughing at him was a good bonding moment, as was sharing a drink. Fraser took the flask grateful and raised it in tandem with his eyebrows before taking a big gulp.

The bourbon was still in his mouth when Lemon asked for a kiss and before he could perform a spit take which would be extra disgusting given their enclosed status, Fraser took a hard gulp to make sure all the liquid went down. "You've got to be shitting me," he said, shaking his head. "I mean, this is some sort of weird trick, right? Because your face is still slightly damp from me party kissing you before and I don't want to give you an excuse to hate me for longer than necessary." He expected her to burst out laughing, or admit it was a strange joke on her part making fun of him for wanting a hug or for fucking up so badly in the first place. It was the only reality that made sense, although his lips absentmindedly rubbed together for moisture as if his brain was preparing him for the slim to none chance that she was actually asking for what it sounded like she'd said.

Lemon’s nose scrunched up slightly in response to the rejection, she had of course expected it since it WAS a really strange thing to ask after the hissy fit she’d thrown barely minutes before hand. But their time in the closet was running out and now that she’d decided she wanted to do it, she wanted it done as soon as possible. “No, It’s not a trick! I mean it!” She insisted, using his handkerchief again to try and make her face less damp from crying. “You already got my first party kiss that may or may not have counted, so you might as well get the real one while we’re here?”

Fraser eyed Lemon suspiciously, his eyebrows furrowed as he tried to figure out whether or not he could trust Lemon's sudden shift. He didn't think she'd take it this far if it was a joke, but he also had a hard time believing she suddenly deemed him worthy when just a few seconds ago kissing him had been some sort of nightmare. The more he thought about it though, the more sense it made; after all, he knew he was better than just about any other guy she could find for this, and she already felt like she'd lost her first kiss...

The second he decided to take her up on her offer, he sighed, hoping it wasn't just the bourbon that made them both think this wasn't a bad idea. "Fine, fine, if it'll get you to shut up," he said, half-grumbling as if she'd asked him to do something far more tedious than kiss a beautiful girl. Before she could really say anything back to that, he took her cheeks into his hands and brought their faces together, some force behind it as he hastened to make sure this actually happened. Once they were in each other's space, he let his more experienced lips guide hers through an actual kiss, the kind he was sure girls wrote home about when they were lucky enough that it happened to them.

Lemon was all ready to tell Fraser that he didn’t have to kiss her if he was going to be a little bitch about it, but before she could even open her mouth it was already a little busy being kissed. Wide eyed, she instinctively wanted to push him back just for being so rushed about it, but she managed to resist the urge for long enough to realize that maybe it was for the best. She’d already backed out of one of her grand kiss schemes before, it would be even more embarrassing if she had the freedom to chicken out of the second one too. And even though she wasn’t at all sure what made someone a good or bad kisser, she could at least tell that it wasn’t an entirely unpleasant experience and a few seconds into it, managed to relax enough to close her eyes and just let it happen without trying to take control as she was wont to do with anything else in life.

Fraser's eyes had closed as soon as his lips had made contact with Lemon's, but he could still feel the hesitancy on her part. He wasn't one to pull back or quit though, especially not when he was doing this at her request in the first place, and when that hesitancy passed, it was almost like a sense of calm took its place. It was a calm that, ironically, excited him to his core, the kind of calm that, in his experience, only came with the really good kisses.

He was so used to Lemon fighting with him for the heck of it that it was weird that this felt so normal now, and he pushed some of her hair back as he deepened the kiss, lingering as long as he could and only pulling back when he needed some air.

"There. Happy now?" The snappiness he wanted in that comment was diminished significantly by the smile he didn't even realize he had on and the fact that he sounded a bit breathless, but beneath the sarcasm, he really hoped Lemon had gotten what she'd wanted out of that. If she hadn't, he'd actually maybe feel a little guilty, because he'd sure enjoyed it.

Lemon was surprised at herself when the first thing she wanted to do when Fraser finally pulled away was POUT.  It was a good kiss and kind of left her feeling a little dazed but was it good enough to allow Fraser to get a big head about and let him lord over her for the absolute rest of their lives? Not really!

Putting on her best unimpressed look, Lemon shrugged casually. “I mean, I guess I am. I’m not exactly swooning but if that’s what gets em going, okay.” She knew she was being a jerk by pretending that she hadn’t been at all moved by the kiss. But with the way she and Fraser generally operated, anything other than forcing herself to burst into tears again was absolutely unacceptable. “Merci beaucoup, for helping me get that out of the way, I guess.”

Fraser wasn't waiting for a swoon necessarily -- swooning at a kiss that happened in a closet of all places was so far from Lemon's brand that even he couldn't take it personally if she didn't -- but he was waiting for some sort of reaction to let him know she'd liked that as much as he did. It didn't feel particularly conceited to think of himself as a good kisser. After all, he'd gotten plenty of positive feedback in his day. However, when all he got in response was a shrug and an "I guess", that same feeling of rejection from when Lemon had originally burst into tears prickled around him like a particularly itchy sweater.

He shoved that down though, like one might shove down an adverse reaction to a particularly itchy sweater if it was a gift from a loved one, and just rolled his eyes at her. "It works on normal girls, so I guess I should've seen this coming," he shot back. "But yeah, yeah, you're welcome. Maybe now the next time you kiss someone, you won't turn into a freaking water park. In fact, let the next guy know he should send me a fruit basket as thanks." He smiled despite himself, clearing his throat as he heard a countdown starting on the other side of the door, probably marking down the time they had left in the closet.

Lemon rolled her eyes at the normal girls comment but smiled back at Fraser anyway. “I’ll be sure to let the next guy know.” Obviously Lemon was certain that the next guy would be her beloved Romeo, a theory that warmed her heart so much that before the count got too far down, she wrapped her arms around Fraser in a tight embrace.

“I do really appreciate you for kissing me again even though I cried and it doesn’t count. You’re such a good best friend to me.” Lemon admitted, pressing her cheek into his as she let all of her words come out in one big rushed blur to make up for how genuinely she meant it. Then she strategically waited until the countdown was done and the door opened before letting Fraser go, just so it looked like they’d been doing more than screaming at each other for most of the past seven minutes.

The hug that he'd originally asked for finally came and it nearly caught him off guard with how quickly it came to him but luckily Fraser caught Lemon in his arms in time and squeezed back. Them being the same height meant they were face to face again, in a much different way than a few moments ago though, cheek to cheek, and Lemon's words reached him quickly, privately, and unexpectedly earnestly. It made a weird lump form in his throat that he wouldn't be able to explain even if he tried.

"You're a good best friend too," he confessed in a near-whisper, as if saying it too loudly would make up for the fact that he didn't say 'I know' or something else like that. He wanted to add a cutting and inaccurate comment like 'even though you're a shit kisser' but not as much as he wanted to just stay in that moment a few seconds more, and then the door was open and he let go of her with a grin as they made their way back into the fray.

Chatting with Austin’s Shitbag

~Doomed & Stoned Interviews~

By Shawn Gibson

In his never ending quest to find the filthiest bands from around the world, Shawn Gibson brings us face-to-face, virtually speaking, with frontman Keith Young from Austin, Texas trio SHITBAG. The band dishes out a harsh blend of crust, grindcore, hardcore, and sludge, a sound you may already be acquanted with if you've heard their new EP Burden on Transylvanian Recordings. (Editor)

SHITBAG - BURDEN by SHITBAG

So why are you a Shitbag? What's the name all about?

I guess when I came up with the name, the thought was that Shitbag was a person I didn't want to be and I lived in fear of becoming. It's a catchy two syllable band name. (laughs)

Oh very catchy!

Half of it's just taking the piss right?

Oh yeah.

People think it's great or they think it's really fucking stupid.

I love the name Shitbag. It grabs your attention. It is so fitting for your style of music, the sludge-grind duo.

Definitely. The idea was to get a very dirty sound from the start. The name stuck with me. You can tell from some of our earlier releases to hone the sound but you can see that it's falling into place. I think we were zeroing in on the sound on the album we put out last year.

Which was 'Furnace,' right?

Correct.

Your latest release 'Burden' is out now.

Yes, that's now through Transylvanian Records.

Awesome, they are a good label! I have definitely heard of them and have some of their artists' music. So is 'Burden' your third release?

I guess it's our fourth, if you count the first EP. We don't really push that one out anymore.

Furnace by Shitbag

'Furnace' is a really good album! I think I bought all your digital albums on Bandcamp.

Oh, thank you.

I definitely fell in love with the sound! "Emasculator" is a great sludge song from the record Can you tell me a little about that one?

It is about castration. The riff was a fun thing I kind of threw out there. I told Eli our drummer this is in 4/4 and he said" it is absolutely not, I can try to play along to it anyways." As usual, he did. the different pieces kind of fell into place. The bass guitar always stuck out to me on that one. The speed of the song and the mix we got on those recordings allows the bass to shine through I think. Also, I think that might be one of my favorite vocal performances off of Furnace as well.

Who all is in the band and what roles do they have?

So I play guitar and vocals. Eli Deitz plays drums and Eric Prescott plays bass.

I would say 'Burden' sounds heavier than 'Furnace.' Can you tell me about your guitars and the set up you use for writing and recording?

Oh, sure!

What are you using to get that Shitbag sound?

So first off I think it's worth noting that we recorded Burden at a different location and we had more power at our fingertips. The guitars definitely did get beefed up. For the first two releases I had been playing a Randall RH 150 with a Randall 150 amp head. It gets this really nasty distortion right out of the box, you don't need a distortion pedal, which is pretty convenient. It wasn't reliable at high volumes. That was becoming a problem more and more playing alongside Eric, as he was playing an "O-R something" Orange head and also running that through an HM2 and some fuzz stuff in front of it, as well. He gets a very loud, snarling bass tone.

He's covering the low end, but there's an intersection where the guitars and bass compete when we are playing live. So I needed something that I could crank up just to keep up. The Randall wasn't cutting it. May of last year I purchased a Sunn Coliseum 880. That was great but I needed to beef up my cabinet setup. Before I had been playing out of a Laney 4x12 with two different Celestion speakers and an old Marshall 2x15. The Celestion speakers are just not cut out for running something like a Coliseum880. At 4 ohms I think it's already at 230 watts.

Oh, wow!

That is when I moved up to a Worshipper 4x12. It's an Intown establishment, and some good friends of mine run it. They got me a new cabinet in 8 to 12 weeks. Kinda crazy to think about from what I heard from Dillon at Worshipper they had good business during the pandemic.

That is great! I love to hear that everyone's keeping up the practicing at home.

Yeah, It definitely has a silver lining. I got a 4x 12 and I'm trying to remember what speakers are in it. My technical knowledge of that stuff is a little limited, I'll be honest. I went with Dillon's recommendation. I told him what I was using currently, this is what I want out of it. I already have a 2x15 cabinet so I don't need a whole shit ton of low end power coming out of the 4x12. He kind of went with something that had the right profile and could handle 320 watts. After that was the matter of finding a distortion pedal, because Sunn Coliseums don't really have a built in distortion the way a Randall does. For a while I was a really great distortion pedal that does all kinds of great stuff the Earthquaker device's grey channel.

It has six different clipping presets, clipping diodes, and you can do just about everything from straight up gain to kind of a fuzzy effect to full-on Moss clipping diode, which does the whole balls to the wall heavy metal thing. Great diversity on that pedal but it wasn't quite hitting the right spots. I went to a Boss HM2 and was very reluctant to do so because I know everyone does those. I ran that with a Graph equalizer like I would any distortion pedal. I made it not sound like I'm playing in tuned riffs. That's my equipment set up and how it evolved from Furnace to Burden.

Awesome, thank you. Something that attracted me to Shitbag's music is the sludge is the jelly and the grind is the peanut butter that makes this great Shitbag sandwich. There are moments in your music that it is as thick as swamp mud, then the next it's firing out like bullets out of an AR-15!

Hell, yeah!

Cordycep by Shitbag

With that being said you have a song like "New Day" that's grind as fuck, clocking in at a minute long, just blasting through! Then you have songs like "Rogue Furnace" that's right up the sludge/doom alley clocking in at 15-minutes, 20-seconds. Shitbag has a really great balance between different styles in your music.

Well, thank you!

What bands influenced Shitbag's music?

Yeah, so I think the time I was getting into sludge and doom in my college days and I came across Primitive Man.

Oh, yeah!

I grew up listening to death metal and shit like that.

Me too!

The way they threw that together with just oppressive doom sound. It was something I had never heard before. I instantly heard that and said"this is the future." I don't want to shit on anything but Black Sabbath has been around 50 years and that sound has been around 50 years.

Newer and current bands are still using that sound, yeah.

Maybe I shouldn't disparage it, right? Even the stuff I'm drawing influence from is 30 years old now. Maybe I shouldn't say it that way. I think it's a matter of pervasiveness rather than how old something is. There are a lot of bands in the sludge/doom canon that are like, "Black Sabbath, hell yeah!"

You can find lots of music that was coming out of the death and grindcore scene in the '80s, '90s, and 2000s that had very slow, lurching oppressive moods. To me, it's not so much a matter of the notes that are being played or the rhythms, it's the atmosphere. So yes Primitive Man, God Flesh, they are a big one. I'm a big fan of Assuck, Dystopia, and Grief. Then a lot of older death metal shit, too. Napalm Death, Eric and Eli loved Entombed. Full Of Hell is tight as shit, too!

Yes they are! By chance have you heard of Clinging To The Trees Of A Forest Fire?

Oh yeah, yeah.

I thought you might, being they were before Primitive Man. Great shit, as well!

Every band of theirs that the members of Primitive Man have been in that I have checked out, I have been very much into.

Vermin Womb, Many Blessings...

John put out an album with a death metal band called Black Curse last year that I thought was fucking phenominal!

I'll have to check that out! I like just about everything across the board, personally.

You are mentioning that we're striking this blend, we are not even playing the same genre through the whole EP. It's kind of like there's moments where it's one thing then there's moments where it's another. I think the more important thing is that it sounds like a cohesive thing. I hope we manage to do that.

You do! Shitbag has it's own sound that is unique to you guys!

Well, thank you!

I stumbled upon Shitbag's music on Bandcamp on Fathers Day. I saw the song title "Fathers and Sons" off of Burden and thought, "That's no coincidence -- I need to check this band out!" I was wondering if you can tell me a little about that track?

The song is about grappling with father and son relationships that are, I don't want to say estranged but you know trying at times. That was something that was a really big deal for me over the past year and a half, cause my mother passed away at the end of 2019.

I am sorry to hear that!

Thank you. When you have a death in the family like that, there is a lot of time for reflection that comes about. That's where the concept came about. I would not say that it's entirely autobiographical, there is definitely some exaggeration in there. We had the music for the song written and we couldn't figure what to write the lyrics about. I was just spitballing ideas and concepts to Eli. That was the one he said, "Yeah, I'm not really a fan of this draught but this is the concept to go with. Keep going with this."

Historically, I think I have been a weak lyricist. I would not call myself good by any means. We definitely made that part of the writing more collaborative process. Like the music has always been with us. We ironed out the words with each other so it felt a lot better. We came out with something more polished.

I understand completely.

A little graciousness opens yourself up. I think it's true with lyrics, as well. You probably don't have people say that to you very often, I imagine. I think it's especially true with lyrics when you're trying to make something that's personal and vulnerable. Having someone say, "Hey I would word that differently!" YOU MOTHERFUCKER!

Exactly. (laughs)

Take a step back from the initial knee-jerk response and just let it sit. You can really go places with that. I think lyrics are different just because people are not accustomed to making themselves vulnerable in that way.

What bands from Austin and surrounding areas that are heavy and you love to see them play or play with?

Let's see... Zyclops, really fucking great! There's bands like Glassing, Inhalants, Portrayal Of Guilt.

Yep, familiar with them.

There's a band called Godshell, they are new. I saw them play at a house show in North Austin in a living room full of people younger than myself. A crowd that was young enough to make me feel old. They played an outstanding fucking show! Those guys are rad live! There's also Metal Abortion, who is a pretty fun noise core band that Shitbag has played with a couple times. They put on a hell of a show and they have some crazy fucking records, too!

We have had the pleasure of playing many great shows with Desist on account of Shitbag and Desist being the two "Austin sludge" bands. Lucas is an outstanding vocalist and an even better human being. I don't know if Desist has been active through the pandemic but word is they have shit in the works. Another band forming a major constellation in the Austin shit-verse is the crusty blackened thrash outfit Vacha. Every show we've played with them was a fucking barn buner. I have nothing but love for all those dudes! Special shout out to Carlos for his God-like endurance behind the kit.

What makes Shitbag laugh? What's funny to you guys?

Oh, man. Eli and I have decided that a good way to get around when I bring a riff and don't know the time signature, is that we count everything in one. There 's no more time signature.That's a fairly recent joke. There are times at practice instead of playing a Shitbag riff with the distortion and everything balls out, I will go to the clean channel and push on the wah pedal and play with a funky staccato thing.

Hell yeah!

I think everyone else finds it annoying.

I have always enjoyed when the one guy in the band during practice either gets funky or jazzy, one of the two.

There is also something that Eli does that is fucking histarical. He never warns me he's going to do it. We will be in the middle of a song in the intense parts of the song he slips in the ba-dum tiss like a joke was told. When he nails it it's really a special thing.

Well, Keith that is all I have for you. Thank you again for your time!

Thank you very much, Shawn! The cassettes are available through Transylvania Recordings and Bandcamp. They are up for pre-order. I am not sure when those pre-orders will be in. There are some delays.

Several bands and labels having a tough time with vinyl getting pressed and shipping, too.

If you order the cassette you will get it eventually. I hope there is new music to announce in the near future.

We hope so, too!

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I got a BUNCH of X-Men related asks in fairly rapid succession - I think from multiple people though - so I’ll just put ‘em all together here.

Anonymous said: Does a metaphor need to be perfect in order for a story to work? You’ve pointed out the problem with the X-Men’s civil rights metaphor, but a lot of people still connect with them anyway so when does the metaphor not work?

It causes problems but certainly it doesn’t inherently break a story.

Anonymous said: Honestly, it’s weird they brought Xavier back when he became so out of focus and irrelevant over years I'm fairly certain no readers even remembered he was still alive when they actually killed him off. Remember Schism? Tell me it doesn't read like even Logan and Scott forgot.

He hadn’t been the headmaster since 2003! Which itself seems like a very deliberate choice on Hickman’s part (and you can no-prize it that the real reason for his absence is that that’s when he really started working on what would become Krakoa).

Anonymous said: Thoughts on Days of the Future Past movie? I know you don’t like X-Men, but I still think that one was pretty great. Sadly, in retrospect rather then new begining the franchise it was its real end, but still a good, heartfell story and I like how complex and non-formulaic it was compared to most superhero (including X-Men for that matter) movies.

Liked it a lot at the time, wouldn’t ever recommend it knowing what we now know, and I remember thinking “why did this take off while The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was lambasted given they were about equally dumb fun” (the silly thought of an immature young man, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was much better).

Anonymous said: Ever seen that Gifted show? One of the saddest things about it was that because they were using all the good mutants in the movies, the show had to make such deep cuts they had to use a numbers filled off expy of freaking SUNSPOT-when most of those mutants in the movies are just extras who get killed off in between sequels.

Nope, but that is an extra shitty/hilarious layer to the frequent “you can’t use them because of the movies!” TV limitations.

Anonymous said: How come Moira Mactaggert never tried in any of her later lives to expand her operations outside the X-verse? Why not work with Tony Stark or Reed Richards or even Hank Pym to avert an Sentinel AI uprising? Or try to get her hands on a Cosmic something or Infinity whatever?

The former is because she definitely wouldn’t trust humans in this (and rightly so, any of those guys would inevitably make it ten times worse), the latter I guess she just wasn’t able to manage it. Interesting what she might have thought of House of M though, since that’s basically what she would have presumably done with such power herself.

Anonymous said: Reading first arc of Ultimate X-Men, isn’t it amazing how many intruiging changes to the classic X-Men status quo happen only to be immediately shown to be fake outs? And Magneto’s backstory (well, the one big part everyone remembers) naturally gets changed, therefore Millar updates it with… Nothing. He’s just a complete piece of shit just cause (but he and Xavier were still friends cause that’s how it was in 616). Also, Millar actually does „sending Sentinels against Magneto“ unironically.

Ultimate X-Men from Millar was such an oddity, especially given Hickman ended up drawing on notions from it for HoXPoX. The main signifier for things to come I think was that all the relationship stuff happened off-panel, which made perfect sense for The Authority as celebrity super-people but none whatsoever for the X-Men, the first sign he wasn’t changing for anyone. I think there was a flashback suggesting Magneto still went through the Holocaust though, wasn’t there?

Anonymous said: Since you enjoyed it, did you grow any affection for any of the New Mutants from that Hickman arc? A criticism is that they all come off pretty one-note in it, leaving little impression. You obviously don’t have experience with the team outside of it anyway, but you can see how Ewing wrote Sunspot in New and USAvengers for comparison.

I enjoyed it well enough but it and they didn’t much stick with me.

Anonymous said: You've voiced your dissapointment with most of the X-line not really comitting to the new direction (I hear X-Force is trying tho), but was it any different back with Morrison's X-Men? To my knowledge, all that translated to other titles, including the other main book, was wearing black and yellow leather.

Fair, but A. That was a failing then too, and B. Even if it didn’t work out, they put Joe Casey on Uncanny and I’d certainly say that counts as trying.

782

Your ten favorite movies

Movie number one: Two for the Road (surprise surprise) 1) Who's the main actor? Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney. 2) When did it come out? Pretty long time ago. It came out in 1967 if I’m not mistaken. 3) What's the genre? Romantic comedy and drama. 4) Do you know where it was filmed at? Yeah, as far as I know the whole film was shot on location throughout southern France. 5) How old were you when you saw it? I don’t actually remember the exact year anymore, but it was either in 2013 or 2014, which makes me 15 or 16 when I watched it for the first time.

Movie number two: Good Will Hunting 1) Who's an actress in this movie? Minnie Driver, and she did such a fantastic fucking job with her role.

2) Out of 10 stars you'd give it? 9.5. The part where Robin Williams and the actor playing the math teacher handle their differences was a bit blah for me, but the film was otherwise perfect. 3) Did it have a surprise ending? I wouldn’t call it a surprise. It was a well-deserved ending for the main character and I’m sure everyone who’s ever watched this movie rooted for such an ending as well. 4) How long was it? Around two hours? idk I never checked. 5) Did you first see it in theatres? Hahahaha definitely not. It came out five months before I was born. Movie number three: A Clockwork Orange 1) What's this movie rated? Like, in terms of parental advice or its score? I’m not sure so I’ll put both. The film in all its unedited glory got an X rating which is real fucking understandable given that, in my opinion, this was Kubrick’s most intense work; though in my research just now they were able to tone it down to R after Kubrick edited out a certain scene. As for its score, it holds an 87% in Rotten Tomatoes and 8.3/10 on IMDb. 2) Did critics approve of it? Critics definitely approved of it as a piece of film, but I’m sure it was very uncomfortable for the viewing public. 3) Who were you with when you saw it? I watched it on my own. I didn’t know what it was gonna be about, so I was in for the shock of my life when Alex and his droogs broke into the first house. 4) Did this movie make you cry? No but it made me feel uneasy. 5) Who are five actors/actresses in this movie? I only remember Malcolm MacDowell, who played the lead character. I’m honestly not familiar with the other actors. Movie number four: Revolutionary Road 1) Is the main actor your favorite actor? One of them is - Kate Winslet. I’m alright with Leonardo DiCaprio but he isn’t my favorite. 2) Do you know how old he is? Kate Winslet? Not so sure, but I think she’s like 45. 3) Did this movie make you laugh? This movie is not to be laughed at lol 4) Last time you watched it? A few months ago before they took it out of Netflix forever, ugh. 5) Are you the appropiate age to see it by yourself? Yes. And I would rather watch it by myself, because it’s a lot to take in. Movie number five: Gone with the Wind 1) What made you mad about this movie? The racism that surrounded the film makes me angry. For example, the actress who played Mammy (Hattie McDaniel) was the first black actor to be nominated for an Oscar, but she wasn’t even allowed to attend the ceremony where she was nominated in. It took one Clark Gable throwing a fit and threatening to boycott the event for the higher-ups to finally agree on Hattie attending the Oscars. 2) Was it based on a true story? It was based on real historical events, but the story itself wasn’t real. 3) Do you wish it was real in any way? It kinda was. 4) So what's it about, anyways? This is really not one of those movies you can explain in one sentence lol but uh rich privileged southern belle gets entangled in the Civil War, marries thrice and never for love, everyone around her dies, and once she’s left alone we see her fend for herself and start building a life of her own. That doesn’t even do the movie justice and if you really wanna know, best to watch all four hours of it. 5) Did they make a video game out of this movie? OMG no, that would be in such poor taste. Movie number six: Room 1) Did this movie bore you at any time? Not at all. It had me invested from start to finish. 2) Was there a kiss scene? I don’t know, I don’t think so. 3) Who was the protagonist (main character)? Brie Larson plays the lead role, but I’ve forgotten her character’s name, or if she even had one. 4) Have you seen this movie more than once? Absolutely. This was my favorite film for a brief period and I watched it everyday then. 5) Last time you saw it? 2016, probably. Movie number seven: Roman Holiday 1) What is this movie's genre? Romantic comedy. 2) Are there any kid actors in this movie? Nopes. 3) Where did it all take place? A biiiiiiig chunk of the movie was shot on location in Rome.  4) Who was the biggest star in the movie? Gregory Peck. Swoon. Fun movie fact! This was Audrey Hepburn’s feature film debut, and originally the studio was to give her a much smaller billing at the start of the movie compared to Gregory. He had an inkling Audrey was gonna end up super popular once the film got released, so he told the studio to give her equal billing, which technically made her also the big star in the movie alongside Gregory. He wasn’t wrong. 5) What year did it come out? 1953. Movie number eight: Requiem For A Dream 1) Main actor and/or actress? Oh dude, a lot. This movie didn’t fuck around with its cast lol you had Jared Leto, Ellen Burstyn, Jennifer Connelly, and Marlon Wayans. 2) Is this a one-time only movie? I have no idea what you mean by this. 3) Is it a sequel to anything? Nopes. 4) How much money did it make? Bruh I don’t know lmao? I’ll have to Google that - Wikipedia says it made $7.4 million. 5) Favorite part? It’s not my favorite part because it makes me happy, but for me the most memorable scene was when the mom was at the peak of her addiction and her refrigerator came to life. The montage in the end also gave me goosebumps. Movie number nine: Carol 1) When did you first see this movie? 2015. It was one of the factors that made Gab and I reconcile as friends, so I’m super thankful that this film allowed us to bond. 2) Did it take a second time for you to like it? Not at all. I was in love with it from the very beginning. 3) Does it have a happy ending? Yes. 4) Who would you recommend it to? People who want an LGBT film with a happy ending. 5) What's its theme song? It doesn’t really have one, but its score was composed by Carter Burwell. OH I just remembered Billie Holiday’s Easy Living was featured prominently in one scene, but it’s not really the movie’s theme song. Movie number ten: Portrait of a Lady on Fire 1) Do you still have the movie ticket? I think mine is still with Gabie, if she kept it. 2) Favorite part? Everything about this movie was beautiful. I loved when Héloïse’s dress caught on fire, when Marianne was drawing Héloïse in her sleep, when Marianne finally saw her vision come to life, when Marianne attended the exhibit and saw the painting of Héloïse...and that final fucking scene. 3) Were there any songs you knew in this movie? Nope. I don’t remember if they played any songs. 4) A quote from this movie: “In solitude, I felt the liberty you spoke of. But I also felt your absence.” and “Do all lovers feel they’re inventing something?” 5) Were the main actors/actresses a perfect match or not so much? Yes they FREAKING WERE AAAAHHHHHHHH Random Questions 1) Which one have you seen most on DVD? Gone with the Wind, but only because it’s the only film in this selection that I have on DVD. 2) Which one have you seen most in theatres? Other than Portrait, I didn’t get to catch these in the cinema. 3) Did your parents like any of them? They haven’t seen any of the movies I picked. 4) Which one did you see with your best friend? Carol and Portrait hahahaha, both lesbian movies. She was the one who made me watch them in the first place too. 5) Would you see #1 again? Over and over again. I will never grow tired of it. 6) Is #4 a movie you can only watch every once in a while? Yes, super accurate. The subject matter is very heavy to begin with, so pair that with superb acting and you’ve got yourself a movie that’s hard to get through. 7) Was #5 hard to understand? Only because it’s sooooo long and there are so many plots and subplots. Also, as someone who has never actually read about the Civil War in full detail, it has also hampered my understanding of some of the events in the movie. 8) Did you see #2 the day it came out? I didn’t see it until like, 18 years after its original release. 9) Do you have #3's movie ticket still? I never had it to begin with. 10) Are there any sequels to these movies coming out? As far as I know, no. 11) Does your best friend like #9? Gabie’s very in love with it. She once kept count of how many times she had watched it when it first leaked on the internet loooool and if I remember correctly her watch count peaked at 126. 12) Did #10 have horrible special effects? No. 13) Who directed #6? Lenny Abrahamson. 14) Did #8 scare you? Absolutely. I needed a long-ass break from everything after I finished it lmao. 15) Does #7 have a better effect at night? No. The effect has been the same for me whatever time I watch it.

Webcomic Recommendations No One Asked For:

I......... Spent 2 hours putting together a list of my webcomic recommendations, with summaries and reviews, because I was reworking my blog... And really I don’t think anyone ever goes directly on to my blog proper, so it feels kind of foolish to have that there where no one will see it, so I’m actually going to post it as well:

Webcomics are honestly just so tight, and there’s such a vast variety of them that there’s something for everyone, if not a few somethings for everyone! I’m personally all about indie games, but if there’s another indie market that I feel like the internet has created a space for it’s comics. After I started writing this I realized I have a uh… Lot of recommendations. Also, I may be an idiot for not using the author’s own summaries???

Regularly updating:

KILL SIX BILLION DEMONS - A comic about a college girl, Allison, given mystical powers beyond her understanding, and thrust into a celestial world filled with angels and demons, where the lines of good and evil are blurry at best. With the help of friends she meets along the way, she must navigate her new powers, and save her boyfriend from forces that would destroy existence. Kinda dark thematically (with very rare and minor gore), but a great comic if you love action, fantasy, and fantastic art. One of my favorites.

AWFUL HOSPITAL - Another one of my favorites. After her child becomes terribly sick, and doctors tell her that there’s nothing that they can do, a mother wakes up in a mysterious, otherworldly hospital. She must navigate this confusing and sometimes horrifying hospital to save her child and get home, and on the way, she makes many odd friends and unknowable enemies, and learns that her child’s sickness may be part of something larger. This comic is funny, has cool action, a unique format, and lots of great, though ghastly, character designs.

GUNNERKRIGG COURT - A coming of age story about two girls, Antimony and Kat, as they try to find their place in each other’s lives, and the two clashing worlds that surround them, the massive technological complex that is their school and home, Gunnerkrigg Court, and the forest across the river, where magic and fantastic creatures thrive, under the watchful eye of the trickster god Coyote. Another great one for if you like fantasy, but is usually a lot lighter, with a peak of intensity about equal to… Like, Scooby Doo on Zombie Island, I think. I’ve only gotten into this one pretty recently, but it’s good.

PARANATURAL - After his family moves to his dad’s old home town, Max discovers that he has magical powers, and becomes part of the Paranatural Activities club at his school, a group of students and their adviser who all have magical powers, and use them to protect the populace from ghosts, as well as investigate the many magical mysteries of the town. This comic is great, and mostly focuses on action and comedy. The art is a very colorful cartoony style, and the characters are drawn very… fluid, rubbery. The best way to put it is that the artist has really put a lot of effort into making characters consistently as expressive as possible, and that good old Disney/Looney Toons/Tom & Jerry stretchiness makes for very good visual comedy.

HOUSEPETS! - Another one of the earliest webcomics I ever read! Housepets is… largely a comedy comic, following the lives of anthropomorphized pets in a small neighborhood. They go on adventures, and live the fun yet complicated lives of an open society of people with unbelievable amounts of free time. However, sometimes there are bigger drama/adventure arcs, which are really good! A lot of the times amazing art or cool action are what draw me into adventure stories, but I just think the plot of this comic can be really good and surprisingly deep for a humor comic. And it’s still loose enough, and in the newspaper comic style that you can usually jump in very often (not every strip, mind you but in pretty small arcs) without feeling like you’ve missed a ton. Long too, lots to read, recommend.

STAND STILL STAY SILENT - SSSS is a comic that takes place 90 years after the end of the world. A zombie-like virus with strong mystical qualities has wiped out not just human, but much of the world’s mammalian life. In Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, and Denmark), in spite of the virus, society continues to exist, and most people live normal, happy lives. Our comic follows a research team, formed on a hairstring budget to travel into the infected zone, collect information on the virus and state of the fauna there, and, secretly, to collect books to sell back home. A great fantasy adventure drama that updates very often, and has really good art.

CUCUMBER QUEST - In spite of order this is actually the last one I’m writing, and I’m tired, so I’m going to copy the book one summary from Amazon:

What happens when an evil queen gets her hands on an ancient force of destruction? World domination, obviously. The seven kingdoms of Dreamside need a legendary hero. Instead, they’ll have to settle for Cucumber, a nerdy magician who just wants to go to school. As destiny would have it, he and his way more heroic sister, Almond, must now seek the Dream Sword, the only weapon powerful enough to defeat Queen Cordelia’s Nightmare Knight. Can these bunny siblings really save the world in its darkest hour? Sure, why not?

Cucumber Quest is good, the art is colorful and bright, all of the characters are relatable and real, including the villains, there’s cool adventures sequences and plot, and it’s a very fun comic. There’s humor and love and struggle in the comic, and it’s very well done.

GIRL GENIUS - Girl Genius follows Agatha Heterodyne, up and coming mad scientist, on her many adventures to save herself, her friends and the world if it’s along the way. It’s hard, however, competing with an entire world of mad scientists, as well as the Heterodyne legacy, one filled with chaos and bloodshed up until recently. I like Girl Genius a lot. It doesn’t move through the story very fast, but there’s a lot of solid world building, and more importantly, very intriguing sci-fi action and adventure happening inside of that world! I’m also pretty sure they do a radio show or podcast or something with additional Agatha adventures on top of the comic.

SUPERNORMAL STEP - After leading a life as a drifter after the death of her father, Fae is pulled into an alternate world where magic is real. There, she tries to find her place in life, master the magic that the world around her runs on, and get home to plain old earth in one piece. Lots of cool action, every character has really got their own style of magic. I can honestly tell you that it’s good, but I read it over such a long period of time that it’s got a pretty vague impression in my head.

ATOMIC ROBO - Robo is a skilled an dedicated scientist. He’s also an atomic robot built and raised by Nikola Tesla. Atomic Robo follows the titular character on the many adventures of his life, from WWII to the present. As the head of Tesladyne Industries, Robo is dedicated to researching the outlandish, the weird, the impossible! And when the world calls on him, he and his Action Scientists defend it from giant monsters, cosmic anomalies, and mad science. Atomic Robo is great if you love action, robots, monsters, humor, and velociraptors duel-wielding uzis. Highly recommended.

DUMBING OF AGE - As the title would imply, Dumbing Of Age is a pretty standard coming of age comedy! Starring a wide cast of likable and complex character, DoA follows a group of college freshmen as they learn more about themselves, and grow beyond the bubbles that they were raised in. I think the underpinnings of the comic are pretty strongly on humor, but there’s a lot of drama, and conversations about meaningful things too. There are lots of varying depictions of drama, depression, anxiety, and the ways people deal with pressure, and fear. But there’s also a lot of love and friendliness. It’s a good comic, and probably the only solid slice-of-life on my list.

MANLY GUYS DOING MANLY THINGS - This comic follows The Commander, a bio-engineered super soldier sent back in time to run a temp agency. This particular temp agency specializes in reintroducing particularly brutish video game, comic, and movie protagonists back into normal polite society. Duke Nukem isn’t much of a man for customer service, however. Later on the comic drifts more toward Commander’s personal life. (So slice of life, but with a buff, and actually surprisingly sensitive and forward thinking, super commando from the future.) Has been in a bit of a slump in terms of updates recently, but they still happen.

GRRL POWER - Sidney, a slightly hyper nerd who works at a comic shop, stumbles upon an artifact that gives her a variety of superpowers. After being exposed, she becomes a member of the government’s brand new super hero organization. This comic is a lot of fun, with some cool superpowers and super fights. Lots of humor, very consistently, in any given scene. Sadly, it is a bit fan service-y, though in the grand scale of things it’s not the worst offender (though definitely the worst you’ll see on this list).

SWORD INTERVAL - This is a pretty new one for me, but it’s great. At some indeterminate point in the past (potentially as far back as the civil war, if not farther), the earth became exposed to monsters and magic in ways that it wasn’t before. Humanity still exists and survives, but plagued by supernatural forces. Our main character is Fall, a very new monster hunter, who after years in witness protection, has decided to track down and kill the Hierophant, the powerful monster that killed her parents. Sword interval does a lot of really cool fantasy stuff, with new takes on classic monsters, and magic and monsters in settings that we don’t often see them in, out in the open in present day. It’s something I wish we could see more. Good action and art, particularly character design.

BACK - Abigail is back. From the dead? From a very long sleep in a box underground? She doesn’t know either. She doesn’t know a lot of things. What she does know is that she’s got two guns, is nearly indestructible, and is prophesied to go north to the capital and end the world. With the help of the young cleric Michael, who supplements her absolute lack of all knowledge and common sense, Abigail fights her way through the kingdom, and past the kings many superpowered deputies. Back is cool, back is funny, and sometimes has some good action. I wouldn’t consider it one of my favorites, but it’s a comic I started and I’ve kept up with, so that’s saying something.

MARE INTERNUM - Not very long yet, and I only recently read it, but Mare Internum is really good. I don’t want to spoil it too much, honestly, especially because it’s so short, but it’s a sci-fi adventure comic about being trapped, underground, on Mars, and finding life there. The art is great, the story so far is well written, and the dialogue is good. I really don’t want to spoil it, but there are some great concepts in it and you should read it.

OPHIUCHUS - A very new comic about an ancient stone guardian who is whisked away to another, far off world. Here, he is employed to help two of this world’s denizens defeat the blight that has corrupted and destroyed their once almost utopian world. The art for this is really good. The comic is not currently long enough to comment on much else, but it seems interesting, sci-fi with a touch of fantasy.

Slowly Updating:

AVA’S DEMON - Ava’s Demon is about a girl, Ava who has spent her entire young life haunted by a ghost that torments her, before finally making a deal. The ghost, Wrathia, will help her become a normal girl, with friends and a normal life, but first, Ava must track down the ghosts of Wrathia’s most powerful allies, and help her dissolve the massive interplanetary empire that is TITAN. Ava’s Demon is amazing. The story is good, but I think the comic’s greatest strength is absolutely stunning and polished art. Strong recommendation.

THE PROPERTY OF HATE - RGB is a self-described monster, a sharp dressed man with a TV for a head. However, he’s looking for a hero to guide on a quest. RGB whisks our young protagonist, the Hero, to a world that exists beside our own a world completely fueled and inhabited by our creativity, our stories. RGB protects the Hero from these dangers, guiding her on a mission unknown, through a world that, although mystical, seems to have lost its hope.

HE IS A GOOD BOY - Slow but large updates. This comic follows the life a sentient acorn, Crange, after the death of his parent (a tree) to a lumberjack. Crange is kind of a bit of a loser, and stumbles around his world of sentient rocks and bugs getting into all sorts of trouble and hijinks. These hijinks almost always result in someone’s death, which Crange is impressively unphased by. HIAGB is fantastic, in my opinion. The art is great, the humor is great, especially the visual comedy, and the story is good. However, it gets real dark, and gory. But if you’re fine with that, it IS a (dark) comedy comic, and a good one.

THE LAST HALLOWEEN - One Halloween, the darkness opens up, and monsters pour out from the seams between our world and theirs. Approximately 7 billion monsters, in fact. Mona, a young girl and horror fanatic finds herself thrown into a world of chaos and horror, on the run from her own monster, and forced to look for a way to save the world, with the help of ghosts, zombies, vampires, and even monsters themselves. In spite of the fact that this comic can be VERY dark, I think one of its big hooks is humor and likable characters, on top of great art and plot. I really like it. This comic maybeshouldn’t be on the slow update list, but the artist is just picking up speed after a long hiatus, so…

ROMANTICALLY APOCALYPTIC - The apocalypse happened, and Charles Snippy missed it. Humanity was wiped out in a war against it’s own, ever-present AI, and Charles Snippy, a scientist/tour guide without the implants made it out alive, only to wander alone this is until he meets Zee Captain, an ever positive, gender question mark, maniac who wanders the wasteland with their insane assistant Pilot. Snippy, Captain and Pilot wander the wasteland, facing off against monsters, raiders, and the laws of physics in a mind warping and illogical adventure.

On Hiatus:

DERELICT - Like a surprisingly large number of comics on this list, in Derelict, the world has ended. A strange Miasma travels the world, killing billions, and bringing with it gargoyle-like monsters who fear the daylight. However, the world goes on, in a small, broken way, and our story follows a scavenger in this new world.

HELVETICA - So, you die, and then what? Well, life goes on. This is what Helvetica learns, after he dies and reemerges into an afterlife that seems shockingly similar to the world of the living, with work, pressure, responsibility, danger, and just plain old boring life. Except everyone is a skeleton. Helvetica is very resistant to accept this new life in death. This one is pretty short so far, and hasn’t updated in a while, but it’s good.

VIBE - Hasn’t update in a year and a half, but what’s there is good (Honestly, it’s super sad it hasn’t update, I like it a lot). Vibe follows Baron, a young shaman, a spiritual master who is able to expel negative emotions (bad vibes) from the human body. Only those emotions then become monsters, who a shaman must fight to complete the process! With the help of his Loa (they’re like familiars), he navigates life as a teenager, and his increasingly complex and dangerous life as a shaman. I really like this comic. There’s a lot of very cool and dynamic action, and the artist makes great use of a ton of bright colors.

THE ABOMINABLE CHARLES CHRISTOPHER - This one hasn’t updated in about a year, but what’s there right now is good. Charles Christopher is a Sasquatch, living in the woods on the edge of society. Though he himself is fairly soft, and simple, the wilderness around him is full of anthropomorphized animals who go about shockingly human social and professional lives. The comic follows Charles Christopher as he interacts with the world of these animals, and becomes tangled in a vast spiritual quest.

POWER NAP - Hard to know exactly where to put this one. It’s currently VERY slow updating. Power Nap takes place in a world where the majority of mankind is reliant on a drug that allows them to live 24/7 without sleep. However, there are those who are allergic to the medicine, who live their lives out of sync with their peers, protected by the government, but effectively second class citizens. However, in a sleepless world, over-saturated by virtual reality, the human subconscious has found ways to seep into reality.

THE FANCY ADVENTURES OF JACK CANNON - I want to start this out by saying this comic is probably dead, without a 100% resolution. However, it’s currently 492 pages, and a LOT of the storyline covered in that span was resolved. Such that, if they’d wanted to, I could’ve seen the author wrapping it up. I digress. Jack Cannon is about a kid moving to a new school, where he finds the bullies are able to hack reality. Somehow immune to hacks, Jack fights the bullies, and in doing so, puts himself on the stage of a worldwide battle against hackers. Lots of really cool action in this, one of the first few webcomics I read.

Complete:

HOMESTUCK - If you’re here, you are probably at least aware of Homestuck. It’s about a bunch of goofy awkward teen friends who get sucked into a cosmic (video) game, with the fate of the universe at stake, but you know, they’ve still got that teen angst. Time travel is involved. It’s a very long, fun, and dramatic comic which is heavily influenced by RPGs and point and click adventures.

THE ADVENTURES OF DR. MCNINJA - The pressures of being a doctor AND ninja are immense, but on either front, you can trust that Dr. McNinja is the man for the job. Born into an Irish ninja family, Dr. McNinja longs for a life where he can do medicine in peace, but finds himself constantly pulled into a string of action packed adventures, fighting giant monsters, bandits riding velociraptors, and dueling radical interdimensional kings. This one if fairly long, a bit over 1800 pages, but it’s really good and well done. Again, there is a lot of both action and humor (I’m big on that), with some surprisingly meaningful and well-done story arcs in spite of how silly the premise is.

REMIND - This one is about a girl who lives in a lighthouse on the edge of a town whose main draw is the “Lizard Man” legend that her own father made up. However, after her cat one day starts walking on two legs and talking, claiming to be one of many said lizard men, they both go on a journey to discover the truth. This one was OK. The story and sci-fi elements are both alright bot not great. But it’s not super long, so if you have the time, maybe read it.

On Writing by Stephen King

My first (and surprisingly not last) nonfiction book of the summer

I grew up reading fiction because it always seemed more fun; I loved getting lost in other worlds.  But I’ve been trying to branch out my reading tastes, and honestly, I think I’ve been missing out.  And if there’s one nonfiction subject that I will always want to read more about, it’s the craft of writing.  I love reading about what ~real~ authors have to say about writing: their tips, tricks, and philosophies.  How their little writerly minds work. I’d heard about On Writing a few years ago, but I didn’t seriously consider buying it until this year after a classmate recommended it.  So I picked up a copy of the 10th Anniversary Edition (which I think tells a little something in and of itself, but I’ll get back to that) and set to learning about writing.  WARNING: This review is going to get long.  I love to write about writing, what can I say.

I think that this is a pretty valuable book for someone just beginning to think about writing seriously, which is the position I find myself in now.  I really appreciated getting King’s honest opinion on things, an incredibly successful author who doesn’t seem to hold much stock in caring if his work is taken as “literary.”  Personally, I found King’s views on things very comforting.  As an undergrad, there was always a little part of me that was somewhat intimidated by my creative writing courses.  My stories were not strange or deep or meaningful enough, I thought. They were too easy to understand, too accessible, too easy to enjoy.  I think that King does an excellent job of pointing out that for many authors, making your work “literary” is not how writing should work, and that as a beginning writer, you should work with what you can rather than worrying about whether it will be considered “intellectual.”  At least, that’s what I got from it, because that’s what my fears are.

King starts with a tidy biography of his early life; how he began writing, what the influences behind his writing were, what people shaped his career, etc.  I enjoyed this part because I like to learn what make writers tick, but I admit that that the next few sections of the book, where we get to his tips for writing, held my attention more.  Maybe that’s kind of rude, but I doubt King would care much.

First we learn about the “Toolbox,” or the basic things that every writer should have handy.  For King, this mostly boils down to vocabulary and grammar.  Like any good creative writing teacher, he warns against passive verbs and adverbs.  Language, style, and length all go in here.  The best little nugget I took away from this section: “I’m convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing.”  Fear to use bold verbs, to portray accurately, to tell the truth.  That definitely holds true for my own writing.

Next was the main part of the book, “On Writing.”  I found this section the most informative/helpful.  There are so many great tips to take away from this section for writers new to the whole writing thing, from the necessity of reading above all else (other than, you know, actually writing) to when, where, and how long to write on a daily basis.  There are at least around fifteen things in this section that I want to touch on, but I’ll try my best to keep it short(ish).

As I just mentioned, one of King’s first pieces of advice in this section is as follows: “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”  To this end, King goes on to describe his own reading and writing habits, reading whenever possible and writing 2,000 words a day basically every day.  This helps keep his story and characters “fresh” and “exciting” for him, and he encourages beginning writers to set a similar schedule to his: pick a time to write (preferably the same time every day, and, for King, preferably the morning) and then set a goal of writing 1,000 words every time you sit down in this space.  King encourages creating your own writing space, a place with a good desk, good light, and a door to close out the world with.  

I think that this is really great advice for a beginning writer, as this has the double effect of actually getting you to write and also making the whole writing thing feel official.  I do agree with his decision to point out early on that all writers are different: some can write thousands of words in one sitting, some labor over the same ten words.  But I suppose this book is marketed more toward people interested in commercial writing, where writing and publishing regularly is the goal, so having a system of getting out tens of thousands of words a month is probably a good idea. You also can't know what kind of schedule works for you until you try.

One thing I really loved about this book was his straightforward approach to those big, scary things called plot, symbolism, theme, etc.  In fact, King does not believe that plot has much to do with a writer’s job.  “The job of the writer is to give [their stories] a place to grow (and to transcribe them, of course).”  Rather than trying to figure out every single plot point of a story in advance, King advises beginning writers to just write.  The story will come: “Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world. The writer’s job is to use the tools in his or her toolbox to get as much of each one out of the ground intact as possible.”  I love this idea of stories already existing in you; you just have to find them.  This takes so much pressure off of someone just beginning to write.  You already have what you need, and now you just need to work with it.  This doesn’t make the job any easier of course, but it does make for a better mentality, in my opinion.

Similarly, King warns against getting too hung up on symbolism and theme.  As King points out, “symbolism doesn’t have to be difficult and relentlessly brainy.” And as for theme, “starting with the questions and thematic concerns is a recipe for bad fiction.”  This is something I personally get really caught up on. In college, I would read all these incredible novels and marvel over how intricately put together the book was, how incredibly talented the author had been to create a work that could draw so many interpretations and subtly touch on so many important themes and allusions. And let’s be real, I don’t think I’m ever going to write the next Scarlet Letter, but to even get close to something like that… I wanted to figure out how to do it.  But King reminded me that I was going about it all wrong. Perhaps this is a claim that works best for writers who want to write commercially successful fiction like King’s rather than literary fiction, but I think it’s a good reminder for us average beginning writers that sticking to the basics (aka the writing part) is what leads to a successful story.

This brings me to another interesting thesis in King’s book: “While it is impossible to make a competent writer out of bad writer, and while it is equally impossible to make a great writer out of a good one, it is possible, with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out of merely competent one.”

Wow.  Quite a statement.  At first I kind of fumed about this.  What do you mean not everyone can be made into a great writer?  Shouldn’t we be wary of building up these “possible” and “impossible” situations? But the real reason for my fear and anger at this statement was simple: I did not want to hear that I might never be a “great writer.”  It has taken some time for me to reconcile with this idea, but perhaps the thought of being a good writer isn’t so terrible after all.  Being “good” doesn’t mean settling if you’re putting hard work and dedication into it, as King says.  And how many of us can really be expected to join the ranks of the Hawthornes, Woolfes, Morrisons, Austens, and Borgeses (Borgess?  Borges+s?  Borges’s? You know what I mean…) in our writing careers?  There’s nothing wrong with wanting to write something that even your favorite author would praise (we all fantasize about it, don’t lie), but it’s important to keep realistic goals and expectations when it comes to writing.  Trying to make a living from a creative career can be unforgiving.

There’s so much more I’d like to touch on, but since this is already over 1,500 words, I’ll end it with this paragraph.  The only thing I really took issue with is that this book was first published in 2000, and I think that a lot has changed in the last seventeen years.  The way King got into writing and publishing stories seems like a much different world than what I know, though perhaps I just haven’t tried to publish stories as much as King did as a teen.  At one point, King recommends subscribing to writers’ journals and buying a copy of Writer’s Market, which I subsequently went and looked up on Amazon.  But isn’t my quick search kind of the issue here?  Do people really use these things anymore?  King also advocates for writing your entire story/novel before showing it to anyone (preferably your “ideal reader”), so I suppose this means that he does not support the structure of workshops that most MFA programs utilize.  But if you’re like me, you don’t have an “ideal reader,” and getting into MFA programs and other types of workshops is one of the few ways to meet people that might become your first readers.  I feel like getting an MFA is just expected of anyone serious about writing nowadays.  Perhaps an updated 20th Anniversary edition could answer these burning questions?  (The real question though: how has it already been almost 20 years since 2000?  Jesus.)

9th February 2017

Wow. I have done a pretty terrible job of keeping up with this blog. I’ve done a pretty terrible job of a lot recently. I am 26 years old. I do not have a card. I do not have a phone. I do not have a passport. I do not have ID. I do not live anywhere. I do not have a job beyond a music project I call Crywank. I’m trying to remember what I’ve done since I last blogged but it’s largely a blur. I know I went to Manchester and hung with Rose. I’ve been missing her a lot since leaving the house-share so it was nice to go out dancing. We also had an awful hangover day following. I am pretty sure we watched a lot of stuff, but nothing I can really remember... My mind has been pretty wild of recent. I guess it’s hard for minds not be in the current climate. I find it harder to even have opinions though. Everything seems so fallible. Definitions are changing all the time. The current trend seems to be people calling angry right wingers ‘snowflakes’, which I understand the reasoning behind considering how that language is used by them, but it also makes me uncomfortable I think purely because it’s a term I’ve been on the receiving end of a lot. I keep thinking about gender and class and race and religion. I keep trying to make charts finding out which areas connect. I’ve been watching Adam Curtis documentaries which has been interesting. I watched Hyper-Normalization the other day after Mat from Elvis Depressdly posted it on twitter. I really like Adam Curtis and I enjoyed this dock. ‘The century of the self’ is another I would recommend.  I spent a night at my parents house and played some cards with my friend Paul, my Dad and my Brother. It still weirds me out going home. It’s huge bursts of nostalgia. I always fear I’m about to be quite rightly shouted at for wasting my life. For making nothing with the opportunities I’ve been given. I played a lot of a game ‘This War of Mine: The Little Ones’. I got super addicted to it and stayed up most of the night playing it. I didn’t realise the characters you played as could kill themselves and got really upset when my last survivor did. It is 5:37am and I am making a coffee in my hotel room. I have gotten really bad at sleeping again. When I stay over at peoples houses it takes me a long time to go to sleep. I feel like a ghost walking around their house making noises. I wish I could sleep. It usually gets to the point each night where it feels too late for sleep, and I should just hold off trying again until the next day. I’d like to stay in bed all day tomorrow but you have to leave the hotel at 10. Oh I also went trampolining at europe’s biggest trampoline park, which was horribly exhausting. I genuinely thought I was gonna die, my heart was beating so fast and I could feel my pulse in the tips of my fingers. I swear I am so unhealthy. I also watched the royal rumble. I really enjoyed the event, but not the rumble itself. I could say more but I’ve not slept and my eyes are sorta tripping out now. I’ve been getting trippy eyes a lot recently. Acidy flashback sorta stuff. It’s pretty weird.  I went to V rev to catch up with my friend charlotte in manchester as well which was nice as I hadn’t seen her in ages. I saw Dan but it was super brief. I woke him up in the studio. He is about to move out, it sounds like a lot of drama has been going on in regards to the building, maybe we’ll speak about it at a later date as i don’t wanna cause any legal trouble. Dan is now living somewhere else though I believe now. Neither of us have phone and the last email he sent me was mostly about the cool robot coffee thing he got served by in a shop. It could easily just be dan being impressed by a self-service costa coffee machine though, who knows? I get to see him on sunday which will be nice. He can no longer do the bradford show which makes me sad. The recording is still on though! I came early to Glasgow to go see Slowlight and Min Diesel which was fun. I also so a band from Norway who took a shine to me once they realised I had weed and was nice enough to share. I can’t remember their name though, I’ll have to look through facebook event history. It was super nice getting to see my friend Beth perform again, and I hung out with Tam and Craig from Benjamin Blue who I toured with last year which was nice. We tried a game of monopoly but we didn’t have the power to make it through a full game. The next day was my show which was really nice. I saw a lot of friends and met a lot of nice new people also. I was paid well and the crowd where very sweet. I wish I had merch though, Ill get it sorted one day. I played with Lovers turn to monsters again and it was probably the best time I’ve seen Kyle. I think a lot of Crywank fans would really like his music. I also played with the eagertongue which was interesting. They knew a bunch of people from my past which made me feel a bit silly and paranoid but they where very nice and it was cool to share a bill with a noise act. The next day I went to go see Chrissy Barnacle perform which was amazing as always. We also saw a Glasgow Taiko group called ILK I believe which was really interesting. And a sort of vaudeville two piece act who I enjoyed and hated in equal measures, which I guess is better than indifference in regards to lasting impression, but not necessarily the best impression.  Me and Boab then got drunk and had pizza and this was cool. The next day I went on an epic four hour walk around Glasgow and hung out with Nyla and Kim at theirs. It was nice having a rest day. I cooked a sunday roast (even though it was monday, i told myself it was sunday the whole time though and only realised it wasn’t right now), and then we spent the night listening to cool music and watching documentaries. It was really nice and relaxing. A much needed evening.  Yesterday a group of us went to a pub quiz, we came third, but we lost two drawing teams by a point. We were so close, although I feel like I wasn’t much pub quiz help (I nearly got everyone to put a few incorrect answers down). The team name was “jet fuel can’t melt quiz teams” which I thought was pretty great. Then after the quiz me and Chrissy darted to the hairdressers to Kapils show. The first band weren’t really my cup of tea. I guess I could tap my toe to it, but it was also pretty indulgent. The second band where so gnarly though, it was their last show so I’m super buzzed I got to see them. They were called op, I’ve not listening to their recordings yet but you can search them here: https://oppt.bandcamp.com/ We then darted back to catch the last 15 minutes of Rapid Tan who where super cool.  Yesterday I spent a lot of it online being slow and boring. I then eventually made it to an improv night which I really enjoyed. I saw my friend Leo and watched some interesting (and occasionally difficult/noisy/bad) improv. There was some cool visuals there and a nice inclusive atmosphere. I played percussion for the scoring of a mario kart tournament which I enjoyed. It’s rare I get an opportunity to play the drums. I’ve spent the rest of the night laying around sweating all over this hotel bed and not sleeping and blogging and chatting to people and being gross and pathetic and stupid loser and writing things I may regret. Who knows. I bubble with paranoia a lot. Sometimes I think everyone is awful, and I don’t know if I think this is awful or ok.

INTERVIEW: Beth Kweeday

Interviewed by Ella Fradgely

Beth Kweeday is an artist based in Liverpool studying fine art at Leeds. Her striking digital pieces feature sexual imagery to The Simpsons, and are available to buy as prints or on other items here.

How would you describe your art practice / yourself as an artist? My art practice is definitely digital art, I used to hate digital pieces because I used to not be able to see much of an artistic element to it and found that it wasn’t a good way of working. I had a graphics tablet sat in my drawer for months before I decided to try it out, and even when I did I hated it because I didn’t understand it! I’m so happy I stuck with it though because it’s been the best outcome possible. To describe myself as an artist I would definitely have to say I’m a stubborn artist, I do things how I want to and very much sculpt my work to how I see best (which is probably why I don’t do uni work very well). I know what I like and how I like it done! How did you find your focus on sex based illustrations? It’s amazing to see artwork celebrating sex work and sexuality! Thank you! I’ve always been a big fan of sexual art, I was always drawn to works by Elizabeth Isley and various tattoo artists like Curt Montgomery and Sewp who use a lot of sexual imagery and knew that was the path I wanted to go down. It took a long time for me to find the confidence to, and it wasn’t something I started doing until my second year of uni despite doing art for years before. I had no idea it would do as well as it did, and I’m so happy that it has become such a huge part of my brand as an artist. It’s so important to me to be able to show my respect for these women who inspire my art so much through my illustrations, as a lot of my pieces are based on women in the sex industry. How have you found the response to your work by tutors and peers? Me and my tutors have butt heads a lot over my work, with me doing a fine art course I understand that they want me to step outside my comfort zone a bit but I think they need to respect that sometimes that doesn’t always work well with certain things. For example, I ended up withdrawing from my interim show because a tutor suggested I blow my illustrations up to a large scale and then lay them out on the floor. And given the basis of my work, it just didn’t sit right with me. I found it really rude, in a way? I don’t know, maybe it was just my stubborn side coming out again. My peers have always been so, so supportive. My course-mates were equally as shocked as I was when I told them about someone suggesting my work be on the floor! I receive a lot of love from everyone around me when it comes to my work, which is really wholesome and uplifting. My boyfriend is my number one fan and has supported me so much with my work, my shop and even does the occasional post office run for me. I have no complaints! Your colour palette is so gorgeous, so sensual and minimal! It’s amazing how you have build such a recognisable look to your work through it. How did you come to it and would you ever explore other colour palettes? Thank you so much! I used to be absolutely terrified of colour, and on some level I still am! I have always wanted to be a black and white tattoo artist, I’ve always only wanted black ink tattoos myself and until recently that’s all I had. Pink was never my colour either, but I accidentally put a pink background on a piece I was working on when I first started drawing digitally and I fell in love with it. That one happy accident has now turned into a staple piece of my whole brand! Through this lockdown I’ve tried using other colours, I am so inspired by @exotic.cancer on instagram and her use of colour in her works but it just didn’t feel as me as my classic black & pink!

Your shop is amazing, I especially love your notebooks. Do you have a favourite item on there and how do you find the experience of running it? Thank you so much! I definitely love my phone cases, I never would have thought that I would be doing anything like it a couple years ago. Opening the shop was so scary, the constant “what if it doesn’t do well” and “what if nobody buys anything” kinds thoughts were trying to hold me back but I was really struggling for money and I thought I may as well give it a go. I had no idea it would do so well so soon, it definitely has bad weeks and good weeks in terms of sales but it’s the best thing I ever did. Nothing could have beat the feeling when I got my first international order, I couldn’t believe it! Now every time I get a new order I’m so excited to see where it’s going to. It certainly needs tidying up and updating a little bit, I’m hoping to have my own website within the next couple months instead of doing it via Etsy so that’s pretty cool. One of my favourites of your works are your drawings of shiny leather boots. What software do you use to create your drawings? I use Procreate on my iPad! This came from my goal to be a tattooer, I have a few friends who are tattoo artists and it was all of their recommendation and it’s been the best thing ever. I used to use a graphics tablet with I set up to my laptop with Sketchbook Pro but this has helped me with my drawings techniques a lot better. What’s your favourite drawing of yours? I love my first butterfly pieces that I did, they did really well and what started my trademark butterflies. I love my Simpsons/song lyrics ones too! I definitely want to carry on that series. And I really like my BDSM Is Not An Excuse For Murder piece, I remember reading about what was happening in the Grace Millane murder trial last year and becoming so enraged by what I was reading so I reacted it to it in the only way I knew how and the reaction was overwhelming, in a good way though!

Does music ever influence your art practice? Yes definitely! Sometimes I’ll be sat doing nothing and a song will come on and there’s my drawing. My Simpsons song/lyrics ones actually came from my petty arse reacting to hearing a girl slag me off in the background of her boyfriends Instagram story saying “Beth makes crazy girls look bad” whatever that’s meant to mean. And it reminded me of Paramore’s I’m Not One of Those Crazy Girls and there it was, and they just kept coming from there! My Girls Girls Girls piece which is actually on my own phone case was inspired by Motley Crüe too. Do you find artwork is a good platform to discuss politics? Oh yes absolutely, I’ve learnt so much through artists discussing their political views via their platforms, such as Florence Given. Plus I love a good anti-Tory artwork, I link it with my own as and where I can! It’s important to remind people of things like this as much as possible, even if it means writing Boris Johnson Shags Crisps in the sky every once in a while. I love your trademark butterflies, have they always been a part of your practice and do they symbolise anything for you? The butterflies where a very spare of the moment thing, I remember I finished a piece and was thinking that it just needed something else and I couldn’t for the life of me think what it was and then I just thought I would give it a go. I think using them within BDSM based work is cool because it’s almost like two opposites, you have something so delicate and fragile resting on something most people (unfortunately) deem as aggressive, and obscene. Kind of saying it’s important not to judge a person on their sexual preferences too, just because someone, particularly a woman, is into this certain thing, doesn’t mean that she is any less of a woman than someone who isn’t. If that makes sense.

Who are a few artists that inspire you and your work? (Can be artists of any kind not just visual) My main inspirations are digital artists and tattooists, such as ripbambi, skyeknotart, exotic.cancer, chimaera, my good friend Molly (titzandbitzz), the sad amish tattooer, I love Alex May Hughes and her gold plated Simpsons pieces, she was one of the main reasons I started doing my own. Your Simpson’s drawings are so iconic, do you have a favourite that you’ve done and why do you think they get such an incredible response from people? Thank you! I love my Fuck Boris and Fuck the Tories ones, as well as my lyrical pieces too. I just love the Simpsons so much and I started doing those pieces just as a bit of fun and to keep my work a bit different to the more sexualised pieces. I had no idea they would do as well as they have been doing! Bouncing between sex and the Simpsons is my ideal career in art and it’s something I plan on doing for a very long time. Finally, what are some ways we can support you as an independent creative during these difficult times? To be honest, every like/comment/share I get on a piece is to me a huge support. I understand that buying art is not always an option for some people, I try and keep my prices as low as possible as I want to be able to cater for everyone. I am so lucky to have really understanding customers, as this pandemic has been a strain on my shop but everyone’s been so patient and helpful. Instagram is a great way to show support for an artist, I myself try to share as much art as I can. I’ve been introduced to so many amazing artists just by seeing a piece shared on someone else’s story! It helps a lot and it’s so easy to do