People should be more afraid of asexuals, because they’re the only people that are immune to one of the seven deadly sins

So you had two asks about La Squadra being toddlers, but what about them being old/older men? Maybe in their 40-50's or as senile old people. And my mind ain't exactly wondering there, but what do you think they'd be like as dilfs?

I managed to find an old post where I was asked what they would be like as old man: here it is! You also reminded me that I had once written about them as parents in general, and I could have sworn I published it, but I ended up finding it at last in my drafts, so I'll make sure to queue it after publishing this ask!

That just leaves the question at the end, ehe... I will try to do these from the perspective of a young adult, probably a friend of their child(ren), while they themselves are in their forties and fifties.

Risotto: His sheer size and deep voice are already enough to set the butterflies aflutter, so the way he wears sleeveless shirts and dirty overalls at home is almost too much. He is best observed in the garage where he enjoys quietly working with power tools, and nobody can look at his work table without imagining him sweeping off the clutter to make room for them instead...

Formaggio: He ages so gracefully he looks like he could still be in his thirties, but the way he cracks open a cold one while giving clever responses and showing at least basic knowledge of just about any topic introduced hints at decades of experience in a variety of areas. Whenever he playfully manhandles his spouse in the kitchen, guests cannot help but chug their own cold beverages in vain.

Prosciutto: Never seen without his signature dress shirts and crisp trousers, and when he's around, the temperature always drops enough that all unnecessarily noise and frolic dies down. Most agree they would not want to live with him as their father, the bar is just too high in that respect, but nobody would mind him in a hotel chair with a bourbon in his hand and ordering them to get to work...

Pesci: At first he seems nothing special, especially because he's not much respected by his children, but as soon as he easily lifts something that he ought to struggle with at his size, and tells you how much he think it weighs by touch, the magic begins, and those who have gone on fishing trips with him on the weekend and watched him reel in that big bass are now smitten for life.

Ghiaccio: Whenever you meet him, he's either preparing to go for a run or has just returned from it all sweaty and glistening, and no real decrease of stamina to show for it. Going to the gym with him is a rite of passage; he will explain every machine and challenge you to various feats of endurance. Spotting is obligatory, and many hit the showers afterwards in greater frustration than they began.

Melone: That one anon ask of "your dad looks gnc af" sums him up perfectly, he is so impeccably and unabashedly A Look and An Icon that all his various issues are easily buried in a tidal wave of gender envy and lust. His children are so confident and well-educated when it comes to sex that their friends can only imagine what a wealth of experience could be gained from the fountain head.

Illuso: He always lets his luscious long hair down at home, physically and metaphorically, and exudes such minor soap opera antagonist vibes that his heckling his children and spouse come off as almost entertaining, a good example of how much people forgive to a pretty face and a nice tall figure. He's not above teasing his guests either, and you will either hate him for it or want to kiss him.

Sorbet: He's not conventionally attractive and seems to love his plants more than his children, but he has a certain Addams Family aesthetic about him that carries his dry wit and odd ways perfectly, especially when he's trimming his bonsai or is outside gardening in the shade in special gloves and up to his neck in dirt. You are welcome to indulge his obscure opera obsession, but watch out.

Gelato: That one extremely friendly dad that claps you on the shoulder and shoves a drink into your hand as soon as (and even before) you hit drinking age, and is always two seconds away from hugging you and kissing you on both cheeks in a fit of camaraderie and general mirth. Watching him grill sausages and cook in a big outdoor cauldron permanently changes your brain chemistry.

I recently just finished watching the colour purple, a movie centred in Georgia as a social commentary of normalcy on life.

Well as normal as a day in the life of an Atlanta pedestrian can be, juxtapoxistion, maybe, take that as you will.

When I say “life” I mean, race, gender, and environment, the subjective jelly inside of our donut which dictates our flavour.

I’m kinda like popmerknickle

There’s an idea that the “jelly” of life is separate from the donut, and that’s so fatal to the causation of real trauma people experience everyday. You can’t define your life’s experience with a thesaurus no matter how hard you try to in your tinder profile. In the same way this thiny veiled film of outwards perception doesn't begin to summarise the joy of taste that is you.

The sanctity of your flavour must be kept sacred babe.

However, we still try to define life’s experiences, under hegemony right. This is where we get theory from, this is where we get nuanced subjective experience in the framework. Metaphorically speaking, the social relations you make in your day to day life, the act of caring for yourself or others, the complacency of normalcy you partake in whatever way defines your act of “life”.

It’s important to ask what our sense of “normalcy” within community contributes to. I’m under the impression that we’re all flowers, one of my friends is a tulips that sparkles blue, one of my friends is a dazzling yellow chrisanthemum, I’m a cactus.

The way we water each other and ourselves changes because we’re not all the same flower, we have different needs, different ways of watering each other situated around those needs, my photosynthesissss, needs a cuddle night sometimes and that’s okay.

And although our inter-communal interactions can be beautiful, ignoring the reality of how they came to be is a disservice to the love given to me. If I did that I’d only be watching myself grasp in failure and agony at a sliver of an aesthetic of love I’m comprehending on their surface.

I’ve been thinking a lot about trauma and what that means towards community, because we’re so much more than just the good moments of our lives right, we’re also the horrible, the beaten metaphorically or even literally generation who are coming to an age of adulthood. With that maturity comes the ability to form your own reality. As someone who’s had a shonen father and yandere mother who lusts for my downfall. The sanctity of chosen relationships has never been this cemented in my life. Afterall we don’t choose our circumstances, we’re born into them.

Loki is the marvel fandoms ho, ship him with anyone and it will, against all odds, somehow work.

Although I myself wouldn’t call Loki a hoe, because I realy like him as a character, I totally understand what you are talking about in the terms of fandom, and yeah, you are right! Loki in a fandom is a 100% hoe, I came across such unexpected, plot-unrelated and incomprehensible ships with Loki, which surprised even my filthy mind.

It is a very interesting phenomenon actually, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot. For Loki is not the only character who gets such reputation - many fandoms have that one intriguing, alluring character, for whom the majority of fans lusts, and who becomes a part of multiple ships (many of which are quite illogical from the canon’s plot point of view). Like Sans from Undertale, Dismas from Darkest Dungeon, Tom from svtfoe and so on, I’m pretty sure everyone can call a few characters from their fave fandoms.

And I’ve been wondering, why does this happen? What makes us want to see this single character in relationship and in a specific one (consider that each one of us believes their counterpart to that ‘heartbreaker’ character to be the one and only possible love interest, people can kill you for their otp!).

I’m not smart or something, but I think that when a character catches our attention (like Loki does, it seems that people can’t just be indifferent towards him, we feel something for him), we fall in love with them to some degree. We are interested in them, we like them, and as a result - we want them, because desire is human’s natural manifestation of the interest. It’s the same with objects - we don’t want to just look at something beautiful, we want to buy it, to have it, to own it. And since we can’t physically see, touch, have or even interact in any way with fictional characters we are interested in (as in real people, our brain can’t actually tell a difference, especially with such realistically portrayed characters as Loki), I believe we do it through other fictional characters from the same universe. And since we all are different and our love and romantic relationships concepts and patterns differ, we do it through different characters as well. Maybe it is easier and more satisfying for us to associate ourselves with one or another character, and so we choose them to ‘woo’ our fictional love interest. Or, reversed, to get metaphorically laid by this character we desire.

Call me big brain or dumb, idk, these are just my thoughts. Because I think this realy is very interesting. We spend a lot of time in these fictional worlds, and everything we do even here is as complicated, as it always is with humans. And isn’t it wonderful?

As for my own Loki-hoeing affairs, I am thorki stan, because their relationship seems interesting, arousing, I like their story, dynamics, all of the hate and love and passion flying between them. I love how different, yet close and intimate they are, how they can be such excellent counterparts to each other, how their traits and features are almost painfully antagonistic in their nature, and what kind of allience they could have together, their strong sides combined, and weak spots covered by each other. I am a crazy aesthete, and I simply LOVE how they look together, their palettes and bodies and faces and voices complementing one another. I’m truly in love with the idea that your partner is not your missing part, but your complement, that together you make something new and qualitatively different, and I have found it for myself in Thor and Loki ship. I’m aware that their relationship is far from healthy, but hey, that’s what fantasy is for - shipping beautiful, imperfect, wretched hot dudes.

And yeah, not to be horny on main, but I’m also kinda into those overpowering, dominating ‘do you yield’ kind of things, so thorki is my fav. Thank you for coming to my ted talk

Can you liveblog the Mein Teil making of? Thank you!!

How many of these were from the same person? It doesn't matter but it is funny

Okay Mein Teil Making of liveblog

Sidenote I once rated all their performances if that interests you

I will try not to mention Zoran

Till looks good with that face distortion somehow

I was obsessed with the story of Armin Meiwes as a young teen. It's fascinating, and so easy to reason yourself into not thinking he really did anything wrong once you learn it was done with consent and the consent was key (when others before Brandes met up with him to mess around and turned him down he didn't push it because the willingness was super important to the whole point etc). I'm not. That's not me saying I approve.

Have you noticed that pretty much all of the stuff people don't like morally about this video (the slapping and blowjob, primarily) don't properly make it into the video? They aren't in it enough for it to actually have been necessary. The slapping is so choppy that there was no reason to actually hit him at all.

"This song is very homoerotic" and then he gets a woman to do the Lustful Acts with Till? Shameful. Cowardice.

Jonas would be Disgusted

The little ja from Till is very cute though.

Also? Porn AU

Till looks so nervous

Zoran please stop stroking her. We know you were excited and couldn't sleep please keep it to yourself.

I can never decide if I like this denim jacket on Richard. It looks silly especially with the collar doing that but it's just so cute

And he's a sweetheart his lisp is so strong here

I'm not even watching the slapping it's so unnecessary and he's crying a tiny bit and Zoran is being so odd about watching it back

Paul seeing his costume and thinking no this isn't good enough and fixing it is such a Paul thing to do. He wasn't wrong.

I hope he bought her some more of the makeup

Something about Richard being picked up and manhandled like a mannequin in a Primark kills me but also... :)

I think I know why he did wrestling as a teen

Genuinely I am not even going after Zoran for the usual stuff I just on an artistic level do not understand why we needed Tills scenes to be this soggy attempt at sex and violence it's genuinely, through no fault of his or her own, the worst segment in the entire video. It just... Abandons the disconnected dissociative feeling of the rest of it and has him doing whatever gets a certain persons rocks off

They should have stuck with the collar and distortion it was... Very nice

I'm not gonna say it but I do not agree morally

Is that a clove

You know, I've always wondered why Richard didn't smoke cloves. He smokes those American spirit yellow ones now For Health (presumably) but cloves do fit the aesthetic he's going for during working hours

He just watched till get and presumably give a blowjob, lit up a cigarette, and is talking in breathy tones you cannot tell me he wasn't getting off on it

"it was very important we were alone for this blowjob that barely even makes it into the video"

Unlike all the other directors the way he goes about his crush is not very good it's quite bad actually

Paul and Oli both having their scenes based in Japanese dance styles is interesting and I do think that was a good move

That one bit of his hair sticking up fuck how does he never escape looking silly?

Don't care for the spit fountain

Why does he say stop complaining in English when the guy was speaking in German does it just have a better vibe?

It's very cute either way I like Richards flirting concentration faces. You can hear him go hhhhh as he looks at the guy just before they turn to compare. And the camp little hands when they turn back also

Paul does some good faces huh

"I didn't have to change my ways, I just did things the way I normally do them"

As in all of their videos, only a few may look good at once. Today is Richard and Schneiders turn, with Till and Flake also looking Pretty Good.

The way Richard is looking at Zoran is so full of what now registers as distaste

Zoran is right here about it being brave for them to have put themselves out there like that and I will allow him some space to be wanky about art because they're the ones doing it. The fact he/it focuses on Schneider in a way that makes me crave an autobiography from schneider/all of them because clearly there's a Something there beyond him just being very androgynous and therefore suited

What he stole from us by giving Till a female angel he made up for with Richard's whole wrestling thing. Entangled. Homoerotic.

Schneider does an incredibly Till face when he's checking the blouse

I'd love to know how consciously connected to this whole thing growing his hair out was

Maybe Richard... Should do more wrestling

Richard and his double kissed but that footage was not left in the final video. Zoran strikes again.

The ja is so cute Why did Richard and Till both do a similar and very cute Ja in this video?

Schneider this entire video:

He's sure he won't be doing much, just be a bit more woman. Given the way Rammstein tends to portray women... Yeah I mean. Yeah.

I would like the full uncut footage of Schneider and Richards parts for uh it's for a project it's super secret you won't have heard if it but I do need that footage.

What happened fifteen years ago, Richard?

Poor baby :(

Zoran still creeping behind the camera

Thighs

Maybe Zoran and I aren't so different unfortunately

I would have loved to see how schneider and the others reacted upon seeing his part

One of them he was tucked so naturally...

How did they act when they saw him on his back legs akimbo I have got to know

He's so bashful

I'm sure they've seen it before

The eye contact.

He is so tickled

Oli is very much acting as if nothing is wrong, maybe to a greater degree than how he is usually

Olis control over his own body really sells his whole performance it almost makes me not detest the toe thing

Paul is complaining and wishing to Influence again and I understand this impulse well

Was Sweden particularly bad for that?

He suits his hair long and down like that

Flakes eye-smile gave it away but everything he says in this is just my favourite

He makes eye contact with the camera just after the dude says chimeras and oh.

I hope he understands that he is incredibly pretty. That's why he's a ballerina I have to assume

"it's rare to dance with as much commitment as I did" I will drop to one knee and hold out a ring do not try me flake

Zoran is doing that thing directors do where he's trying to justify something he chose for purely horny reasons. Ask Jonas about the tongues I'm sure a lot of artistry is involved

I'm being uncharitable it is an overarching theme and I am the one giving the mud fight that significance

But I mean come on now, the mud fighting.

Till is talking so softly is he okay

Is there any better feeling than hearing them talk about how they're getting on better as a group than ever? I think no.

Schneider is me watching the mud fighting

Richard and Tills little bits of fighting you can catch here and there are especially good and I just. Look. Listen. Look and listen. They should wrestle each other for a video for Let's Go. They fight and wrestle and then...

I love this living song metaphorical soup coming from Paul

Richard so gently pinning flake down...........

As a drummer, I simply refused

Insert the quote and out the original Feeling b drummer being incapable of doing anything if it was good

Oli genuinely seemed more comfortable almost naked and covered in make up which actually makes total sense in general and for him huh

The way Till shakes his hair out like a dog kills me it's second nature to him look at him go

I want them to watch the making ofs for Mein Teil and Keine Lust and react to them because a lot of what they're saying is pretty much what they've been saying over the past couple of years about the new album.

Flake is Helping Richard. Flake in

Okay no see so have you watched the video for All the Things She Said/Ya Soshla s Uma by tatu? Or like that fuckinn that one Tom Holland thing where he's in the rain being slutty or whatever?

This isn't wrestling this is wrestling. And very tender.

They're so much more gentle with their wrestling than I feel most people would assume they'd be? Or I just think that because I have siblings and there is no holding back when you first fight those fools.

Puppies!

That kiss sure was awkward huh

Mein Teil is a very good video and making of if you remove Till's main part and Zoran being unnerving.

I’ve been thinking for a long time what my take on the Seven Deadly Sins would be, cause it’s always fun to think up personifications of various concepts, and I think I’ve settled on what mine would be.

For me, they would each be associated with a certain color, a certain animal which they would share some features with to make a kind of human-animal hybrid, and a certain time period/aesthetic that exemplifies the sin.

I might draw them in the future but I’ll wait till after my semester is done, for now I’ll go into more detail on each sin under the cut if you want to look:

Wrath

Color: Red

Animal: Bear

Appearance: Viking warrior

Gluttony

Color: Orange

Animal: Pig

Appearance: French aristocracy before Revolution a la Marie Antoinette

Greed

Color: Gold-Yellow

Animal: Black Widow

Appearance: 20’s gangster

Envy

Color: Green

Animal: Wolf (I’m thinking of a lone wolf that is jealous of a pack, metaphorically)

Appearance: Envy as a sin doesn’t have as strong of an image as some of the other sins, so I’m thinking either 50’s suburban mom or dad, or college-aged modern-day yandere

Lust

Color: Blue (like blue velvet)

Animal: Goat

Appearance: 70’s disco dancer

Pride

Color: Purple

Animal: Peacock

Appearance: Ancient Roman Emperor

Sloth

Color: Gray

Animal: Sloth, obviously

Appearance: Haven’t come to a concrete decision, I’m thinking maybe Dark Ages era priest? Idk, I was thinking he would intentionally have the laziest design, lol.

“If you could design an entirely unique method of divination, what would it be? How would it work?”

I have some more traditional cartomancesque ideas for divination, as well as my Latin runes, but that’s not what this question is about. A unique method.... hmm. I would want it to be something that I feel really drawn to, and I’m still nailing down my aesthetic, so it’s hard to know where to begin.

Something that I’ve always been drawn to is travel. I have a wanderer’s heart, and a lust to be on the road, to go somewhere new, even if it’s just taking the scenic route to somewhere familiar. So what immediately comes to mind is divination via road maps. I’m not sure how it would work, but I’m picturing something similar to looking for images in tea leaves or coffee grinds.

I think it would be specifically for future guidance, rather than relationship or career etc readings. Finding out what a place you will be going to has in store for you. (Such as returning home for the first time in years.) Deciding where to go next, literally or metaphorically. Perhaps you could put pins in the map, connect places with string and see what images you get. Or look at the map through some kind of kaleidoscope. Or even just look for pictures in the road layout. Who knows! Maybe I’ll figure it out.

CONFESSION OF JUST ONE MAN. 07/??.

There was a small *schlick*. An incomparable sound which could only be made when a good, kind of heavy blade met a porous, thick fabric, breaking it yet still showing some resistance by how healthily dense it was. It was the part which made this sound a bit of a teeth gritter. The other, smoother part was because of the liquid which broke out under every layer of meat. You are so used to see a human body in science classes, it is a bit unreal, but also familiar when you open one up in real life.

It wasn’t the first time I opened one, I did it a lot. At times. Mind you I am not one of those sickos who gets too much into their own fantasy, have some sick compulsion. My line of cleaning showed me enough red flags so I could avoid my own.

She was one woman, just like all the other ones I hated. There is this whole shenanigan about men having mommy issues, I am not arrogant enough to think I am any different. Whatever the source, I just enjoyed cutting women. Hypocritical ones, ones who had an attitude. I didn’t like to touch kind ones, brave ones. I liked to touch those who were constantly rude for no reasons, bitches who would talk behind people’s back, ignorant ones who were not smart enough to see the grand scheme of things, stupid whores who were just good at spreading their legs and bearing children as garbage as them.

I like silence, I learned that soon enough. And since this is my comfort zone, I sometimes take the luxury to cut the vocal cords before or paralyze them like in this case, or I can always wear a very powerful noise cancelling headset. When I feel like a fighter, I do it with them bound by the extremities, and feel every twist of their body to escape. When I feel lazy, I just paralyze them and do as I please, like living, breathing doll. This is the only release all the hate inside me can afford, and nobody, nothing can waste it.

Listening to her breathy whisper of pain is like music to my ears, a sound I allow while I finish opening up her clothes. It feels more personal, when people are clothed. Clothes are part of your personality, of their life, if you remove them, they just look like nameless animals. This is not what I want. I like to feel the weight of their existence, and how I can tear it apart. The best part is when their attitude give in. For the strongest warriors, it is the split second when their wall break because of one sharp pain, and then they come back to having this sort of mental wrestling with me. It is only one-sided though; their eyes widening as I cut is enough for me to know that I won.

I like to lacerate the torso first, open it up and play with the wound as I cut deeper, like eating some steak tartare. I wear gloves to take care of my hands, but I still wear my everyday clothes; like I said, it feels more personal. When maybe it is not; in reality, she doesn’t know me, and I don’t know her. She is (maybe) more than the whore she was being so nasty to her coworkers and I am (I know it) more than a man holding a scalpel and having fun like a child with some food. I dig my nail through my gloves inside her wounds, a glop kind of sound echoing through the cold, dark room as her flesh tear, compared to how it was sliced so neatly earlier. I can make up the bits of meat stretching, like a bit of chewed gum, I should find a better comparison. And before I know it, by my curiosity and thoughts of finding a good food metaphor to this, I didn’t realize how wide I just made this one. Her body trembling gave it away and I let it be; the paralysis must be wearing off, but when it does entirely, she’d be unable to fight anyway.

Sex is always a subject which fascinated me. How desire makes us civilized beings back again to our bestial roots, and how with our wide intellect, we just made more sordid ways to satisfy our lowly lust. I don’t know where this comes from for me. Maybe I have my own inclinations and an underlying lust under my balls who just need a once per two months of emptying. Maybe it just comes in my tendency to observe thoroughly. Or maybe it is because my big sister raped me when I was a child. Who knows, whatever source doesn’t change the outcome, like I say.

Her body is one society would consider very nice, although it is not personally my type. Her stomach is flat. She is slender, with a bit of an hourglass shape. She has no big curve, her legs are slender and her breasts are just disappointingly pointy. Seeing how disgusting the masses are to adore such a weak appearance, I have no regrets when I cut off one of her nipple, almost deaf to her gagging. I dump more ice cold water on her face to keep her awake. It feels satisfying, like I am being efficient at what I do. It is the same feeling of a job well done. The second one, I tear off. And I roll them under by fingers as she bleeds out, feeling their unique texture, it is like they just became a stress ball in the palm of my hand. I squish them, trying to make them flat like pancakes. Obviously it doesn’t work. Still entertaining to do. Liberating. To think of something and act upon it. I sew the holes. And the little balls of threads give me some cathartic, trypophobia kind of feeling. A come back with my sterilized needle again and again. Too much. Too many times. Like I’m trying to replace her breasts, which are supposed to be attractive, with some sort of monstrous, obsidian black and spiky extremities.

I go upwards and meet her eyes. She hates me, so, so much. Sometimes, their eyes have such a bullying feeling to them I feel a bit of fear, like it digs right into my self-esteem, maybe I am masochistic to let those linger through me and not hide their sockets after such encounters. My knife goes to the side of her mouth, slicing it so her cheeks  open, and I can see her whole, perfect and crimson with blood denture. I find it so much more appealing than her skin with way too much foundations. Even all the rubbing I did didn’t take off her makeup; it just make women less beautiful I say. Of bad taste those bold colours were. I thought her eyelashes were fake, turned out when I plucked them they were real. Though the crayon to the eyebrows was so thick, tearing off all the hair didn’t get the lines off.

But then I waited too much. Too much preparation, when in the thick of it I cannot wait anymore. Murderers can take their sweet time of torture, but there is so much I can do; I just want to get what I was looking for. And it is to undo her to her deepest parts, have them rupture for me and against her will.

The tip of my blade is tickling her clitoris, and as she moves her legs, her bottom clothes just slide on the floor, like a woman being prepared to be made love to. She screams, and I smile without realizing actually. It is only the tip, which I roll around, the cold steel molesting her most sensitive spot. Our face grow closer, and she is too paralyzed, already thinking about the pain to even think about spitting in my face. But I maintain the eye contact, so strongly she cannot look elsewhere but at me.

Like I was giving a good, quick and rough fisting, my arm gives a sharp hit, only my hand is holding a scalpel, and I tug it deep inside her damn vagina, until you almost cannot see the hilt, in one damn go, without even getting my hand dirty by touching her. I let go as she spasms on the table. I dump more ice water on her before she passes out. Her intimate parts twitch, like she was just pleasured. And I go grab another scalpel. I make a move I could even call cool, and a slice in the air as if I was fighting, back and forth, precise and strong. And I watch so closely as blood spurts from her mutilated, shaved crotch, and her clitoris just slices open, too much of a mess for me to make up if I can see some sort of nerves, or anything more interesting than that little clump of skin. I shove two tips of index fingers in, spreading it like a doctor checking his patient’s genital health. And then I push directly inside the wounded button, like a lover who wants to feel the very nerve of his woman. I am satisfied with the sensation I find, but disappointed at the spectacle. I shake my hands, remove the gloves, and put a new pair on, just after stabbing that lovebud, deep enough so my scalpel stays up; I need to keep my tool readily available. Soon enough, the first blade is moving upwards, slicing everything open while my mind probably hallucinates juices flowing all over the place; it is impossible there was this much, yet this how I remember and will remember. And I prefer it like this. It makes a very fond memory.

That is what I think about most. Not their face, their name. I make this pitiful attempt to get close to them, because I am sure it will work every single time. But what I only remember is how deformed they were, how sick they make me, how angry I feel when I think about how this body can be liked by people.

I do everything so clean, although it is a body being open. And soon enough does she loses enough blood to die. I still have my fun exploring some parts when I am satisfied martyrizing her womb and co. The organs and stuff. This type of things everyone has heard or seen in any gory story, why would I bother? It wouldn’t faze anybody, and it didn’t faze me. Gave me a kind feeling, but nothing so notable as what I play in my head. Whatever if one day I stop doing it, I did it at least once. Who else can say the same? I got the best. Even after her death, my hands keep digging inside her thighs, and every piece of torture I realize source by starting from there. It makes something of some morbid star, dark and bloody. A beautiful masterpiece. Maybe I should refine my aesthetic, make more pleasing pictures for me to wonder about in my spare time. My mind even became amused if I could maybe, find a baby in there, and squash it like a crunchy cricket inside a cooked egg. Yet I found nothing. Too bad women too far in pregnancy do not interest me.

And when the full silence finally falls, I am alone. Because there were two before, and now I am on my own, with an object beside me. And since I am so cozy in, I don’t mind getting a little bit crazy. I like to cut her in pieces, because she’d be too heavy. I don’t care what I use, though I like the dirty and messy gashes of flesh rusty saws make, like you cannot tell if it was cut or tore. And the gore looks like it just exploded on its own, the unclean extremities making some sort of bouquet if I may say so myself. I like to take those parts, and smash them as hard as I can against the wall. I am never satisfied, even as they open up under me and blood stains bits of my cheeks. I don’t care about my appearance anymore, and there is only this loud THUD repeating over and over again, quicker and quicker. I can grab her severed head, smash her face against the concrete wall, and drag it as it leaves a gruesome trace, painting the material like I’m the new Francis Bacon.

I cannot see my face when I do that. It feels great. Violence. It is so stupid, stereotypically male… and I just let myself fall to it like an ignoramus. For one moment. At times, I will stop, my mind telling me it is enough. I’d look at the gash of her flesh, her limp body all mushed by my whole dominant strength beating her, playing around like a kid with too much anger playing baseball… and then I start again. Because it is not enough. I take momentary breaks when my muscles strain, and then I do it again. I cannot see her. I cannot take the thought that she still looks like herself when I stop. I want the magic to happen, to have all of this shit unrecognizable. I want the overwhelming feeling of a job well done. And just like how I plunged in her fuck, I’d satisfy my satiety until I see how she looks like if I were to take out all my energy… and even more, if the result doesn’t look good.

And I never end up satisfied. Her broken skull still looks like a skull. The finger that flew out of the room still look like a finger. And nothing can help me. Nothing can satisfy me. Those women have no souls, they cannot fill anything except give me the climax my anger needs. In the end, besides that mush of meat, I can perfectly make up her and it doesn’t go away. Yet I feel just as alone, with nothing besides me. A weakness this curse of being a human able of thoughts and feelings gave me. I won’t be one of those jackasses who says they are of marble. Self control and composure don’t mean you do not have emotions, and mine bangs my organs every living moment. I remove my gloves and my fingers trace on all that shit on the wall. So roughly I actually hurt myself and opens up my skin. It burns, like I just fell on concrete and was grated like some piece of cheese.

I was born like this. I don’t care about the how or why. Might as well just go with it. I don’t care.

… I have another, if you want.

Are there any ideas for what you like to see in a fanfic for 'gallirae'? I want to try writing this couple and having some prompts you would enjoy might help me write it better. Thanks! - Your rarepair exchange match

Hi rarepair exchange match! I’m really glad to hear from you! My request had some details but I probably could have written a more comprehensive letter. Here is a very long long letter, hope it’s not intimidating.

Also, if you read these prompt ideas and then get inspiration of your own that’s different, that’d be fine! That’s kind of what happened with me for my exchange fic, I started off thinking about fulfilling specific requests but then my own ideas kicked in, and I’m debating how much of them to use.

Prompt ideas:

They meet early in their careers (can be canon divergent since Sloane doesn’t recognize him, or implication of memory loss). Gallius Rax would be a persona that Galli is still trying to construct, a few years into his direct service. As a newly appointed commander in the Naval Intelligence Agency, he quite outranks Sloane, who is still a cadet, but he’d be 20, and she’d be 24 or 25. They’re stationed together in some assignment (perhaps even the one where Sloane witnesses a sea before a storm, which “Rax reminds her of”), and Rax disguises his rank and Sloane ends up treating him as a peer or social subordinate because he’s younger, even trying to play the mentor, because he clearly lacks discipline and social skills. This might bring out his rebellious side because it reminds him of the anchorites’ strictness. He’s had to obey Palpatine completely but this makes him want to push back where he can. But even with Rae’s staunch loyalty to the Empire she also chafes against immediate authority, and they can bicker and squabble but eventually bond, particularly upon learning they both joined the Empire to escape poverty.

Set after Book 1, between 1 and 2 or early Book 2, before things go downhill -- they attend the opera together. If you like elegance/extravagance as an aesthetic, feel free to play that up. Since Rax’s character seems very much inspired by Erik from PotO, it might be amusing if they survive a PotO parody event (ie. the chandelier drop. would the Star Wars equivalent be popping the Mon Cala ballet bubbles?) that isn’t actually planned by Rax. Maybe it could veer into hurt/comfort territory, where Rax hadn’t imagined Sloane would panic faced by a chaotic mob, the way she does in canon in the peace talks.

The other prompts are probably fast-paced since the fic isn’t very long (though you can take ideas in them and make them more introspective), this one’s more relaxed. I’d be into a story where they’re ruling the Empire, or more likely the First Order, together. Established relationship or an “it’s complicated” co-Emperors with benefits thing. Since Sloane prefers cold showers and Rax, liking comfort, would probably favor hot baths, their preferred water temperature could be a mild conflict, ie. he’s trying to get her to bathe with him, she’s trying to get him to swim somewhere, something like that.  

And just to be thorough, I’ll list some traits I particularly like about them!

Character Traits: Gallius Rax

messed up from the strict Jakku cult upbringing and Palpatine’s manipulation and abuse

worship of music and opera and narrative as a guiding structure to his life, definitely has a spiritual vibe but he scorns denominational faith

adores theatricality and dramatics, but, like in the sea-before-storm metaphor, represses his own intensity and is often furtive and avoidant

likely a maladaptive daydreamer, since he was always “chasing after stories”

often relishes, trickster-like, in causing unpleasantness. a nasty, naughty boy, as Palpatine says. I headcanon it’s partly a coping mechanism; he started down his villainous path under extreme duress, so he makes himself enjoy being evil. unlike with Palpatine, the villain he’s emulating, he seems tense and insecure

subconscious imposter syndrome, his persona of Gallius Rax is very fake

pretentious, extravagant tastes, likes to talk in metaphors

we never found out what was up with that tattoo or brand on his palm but he has a creepy tattoo or brand on his palm

Character Traits: Rae Sloane

dedicated to the Empire, but by the time of the Aftermath books has been struggling with her convictions

definitely ambitious, wants to rule, wants to be in control

she has a lot of professed ideology but it’s very often hypocritical, driven by impulses and emotions that she rationalizes

headcanon: she has borderline personality disorder, rather in the same way people headcanon this for Anakin (so if mental health issues interest you)

kind of nosy, likes to research and snoop, loves libraries

a “if you want something done right, do it yourself” type

imagines influential figures in her life as “retinue of ghosts” and metaphorically (or not) hears their voices. this also hints at a touch of morbid weirdness under her pragmatic exterior

a good but not great boxer and physical fighter. is buff. proud of her long hair

has a history of making enemies in the Empire by being combative and willful

comes from a lower class background on Ganthel, joined the Empire to avoid working in factories and shipyards

snarky, able to gossip and crack jokes, not really severe and uptight for an Imperial, but more than a civilian

has a bit of a romantic admiration of space, finds the sight of it comforting, compares it to a child’s blanket, the Death Star and other spacecraft without windows are tomb-like

Relationship Traits:

in canon I think they are ideologically codependent — Sloane relies on Rax being her evil counterpart to make her feel like the good guy. Rax, being obsessed with theatrics and performance, draws validation from Sloane as his ideal audience member and central character in his narrative

“fellow outcasts” — both of them definitely don’t fit in in the Empire, which probably has to do with their poor backgrounds and how classist the Empire and its Emperor are

Rax as a smooth, seductive, but always sinister presence that Sloane admits to being tempted by, she willing uses more suggestive language about it

even though Rax is seductive it’s very passive, he’s less open about admitting lust or attraction, commitment and vulnerability and openness are scary

Sloane is more of an active pursuer but she indulges her anger, not her attraction

both of them waiting around for the other to show interest

they’re overwhelmed and overstimulated by each other, and too proud to show it

OUAT Rewatch: 1X02 - The Thing You Love Most

How in Merlin’s tree trunk did this post end up being longer than the one for the freakin’ Pilot?!

I better watch it, or this is gonna be one wordy rewatch!

If you want to join in on my rewatch train and hear my thoughts, head below the cut because this is another long one! (Here’s what to expect if you do: Fawning over dynamics, getting lost in sexy ladies both on their own and together, fanfiction bunnies a plenty, and a squigin of analysis! Bring a shaker, because there’s hardly a pinch of salt here!)

Chugga, chugga, chugga, chugga, TWO TWO!

Press Release Regina does everything in her power to force Emma out of Storybrooke and out of her and Henry’s lives forever. Meanwhile, the chilling circumstances of how the Evil Queen released the curse upon the fairytale world is revealed. General Thoughts Following up the pilot, a remarkable - practically flawless - episode was a hard task and this episode delivered! It kicks off right from where we ended last time in the present, and we get a cool change of perspective in the past. Speaking of which, let us start off in the past. I love the transition between Regina in the wedding hall to her castle and immediately, we give her some people to talk to and set up her power dynamics. Not only do we get to see two servants, but people closer to Regina’s level, and that’s so important as an audience member to get a feel for her strengths and weaknesses going forward and to paint a picture of someone who has truly exhausted every resource to get what she wants. That makes the twisted tragedy at the end of the episode so much more complicated, though no less evil. Of course, Regina comes out of this episode with so much development. The moonlit scenes (both by the fire pit and in the castle) with Henry Sr (Whose identity was one of OUAT’s greatest twists) spoke to how Regin’s lust for revenge has eclipsed not only her sensibilities of right and wrong, but the love that others in her life (most notably Henry Sr. himself). Finally, I want to point out the scene between Rumple and Regina, because it was so close to being my favorite dynamic of the episode. There’s a level of comfortable tension between the two of them. You can see it in the way that Regina’s not surprised when Rumple asks for more in his deal, and despite Rumple’s silly and insane antics and requests, she’s able to hold steady. Their relationship also contrasts the scene with Regina and Mal. In that scene, Regina was able to take what she wanted. In this scene, she must relent and gagree to Rumple’s terms, and that speaks to the matter of sizing up Regina that I mentioned before and in a way that doesn’t skimp on character development for either Mal or Rumple. In addition, the scene just made me laugh. Fuck! Robert Carlyle is too fucking good! Now let’s blast to the present! The opening is really delightful and gives off a feeling of something being both familiar and new, and it’s a great metaphor for the waves that Emma is already bringing to Storybrooke. In fact, the whole episode - characters and stories - show a shift. Everyone acts just a little closer to either the direction of their character arcs (Ex. Emma and Archie) or to their fairytale selves (Ex. Regina, Rumple, and Archie), and it’s played very subtly. Just like the tick of a clock. Not gonna lie, I laughed hard during the famous apple tree scene. Between Emma’s satisfied smile, the way Regina freakin’ wooshed from her window to go investigate, and how Regina was screaming had me cackling like a hyena. However, in addition to being funny, we also got some more characterization out of Emma, namely impulsivity and external fearlessness. What I mean by external fearlessness is how while Emma is afraid of intangible things like forming connections and trusting, a threat like an intimidating person is a lot less scary to her, and she has no trouble taking Regina up on her threats. I feel that these traits are expanded on, but given a suitable level of retention throughout the rest of the series. Insights I immediately realized how weird it was that we had an actual voice-over intro to the show in Season 1. I totally understand why it disappeared after the curse broke, but just remembering it again was like a cup of cold water to the face. Also, I really wish that we could have somehow had the narrator who did the intro as well as the famous “previously, on Once Upon a Time” be an actual character a-la “Into the Woods,” or hell, make him Isaac or an older Henry! Of course, keep Andrew West, but maybe a Henry who is the Apprentice’s age! XD Between this episode and the pilot, I notice so much pop music in the show’s soundtrack! In later seasons, apart from the rare instance of “Only You” and a couple of 80’s songs at Roni’s or the arcade, we really don’t get instances of contemporary tracks. I’m stuck between that being important or not. On one hand, the change to classical could reflect on the reformation of Storybrooke to its fairy tale origins with the end of the curse and the return of magic, but the contemporary music, at least here, also goes along with the theme of things changing in Storybrooke, and for the better. ALSO, along the lines of music, I couldn’t help but notice how the lyrics of the song specifically resonate with the specific character on screen as they’re sung (Ex. “Don’t be shy” to Mary Margaret, “Don’t wear your fear” to Emma, and “Let your feelings out instead” to Graham’s car and Archie). Neat! Aesthetic stuff that pleases me: Regina’s outfits in this episode are all among my favorite (And her hair in the flashback - high ponytails are the way to go if you’re a fairytale character!), Emma’s bug (So, I won a model of her bug in an auction at NJ con last year and I was sad to see a gray dent in the middle, and just now, I saw that same dent in her bug in the show! I’m so happy), Emma in that tank (How the hell did I not realize I was bi until nearly a year after I started this show?!), The smoke when characters poof around (It looks so good in the beginning of the show - no offense to later seasons - I like the smoke there too, but this smoke is so puffy and like a mix of cotton and its accompanying seeds as they flutter in the breeze), and Lana’s makeup (I normally don’t pay attention to makeup, but with the lighting of this episode, I couldn’t help but notice it) I also really wish we had an episode about Regina’s apple tree! Along those same lines, we see Regina with a horde of baddies, and a lot of them have really cool designs. I’m not saying we needed their stories per se - sometimes a minion can just be a minion - but I wish we could’ve seen a bit more of them. These are some of the “darkest souls,” after all. This episode really made me think about how I felt about Maleficent and the consistency between the character we see here as well as in bits and pieces throughout Seasons 1 and 2 and the one who reappears in Season 4. Now, obviously, we see her story out of order, as Lily not only was already gone but in a meta-sense, not created yet (Some would call it a retcon, but I agree with the perspective suggested once that retconning isn’t really a thing on OUaT due to the non-linear timeline method of storytelling and Mal’s motivations - while somewhat set up - aren’t loosely defined at this point in the series). Some things not evaluated on - the horse, most notably - give me pause, though as to its importance. Arcs I’ll be honest: I’m not exactly sure how to expand upon this section. Here’s my best attempt. Emma journey of belief - I’ll elaborate on this a bit, but Emma’s journey with belief is tied to her relationship with Henry, and as their relationship developed here, as did Emma’s journey. However, as I will also mention, she has a long way to go. The power struggle against Regina - This episode painted a much more elaborate picture of Regina and her power dynamics with others in her life. We see her acting as mayor and the levels of influence she holds over the whole town. The corruption of Storybrooke is clear to all but the most naive. At the same time though, she is not infallible, and those who choose to stand up to her are indeed victorious, but give rise to a Regina who is not only more vicious, but also more sinister and calculating. Favorite Dynamic Emma and Henry! I feel like this episode shows their dynamic even better than the pilot did. Here, they get a bit more banner, and while there’s an intense push-and-pull still there, we get to see more of Henry’s likable and precocious traits and how they mix with a jaded, but less-so Emma. They also get a lot of funny moments! Between and Henry owning up to sending the hot cocoa, more or less demanding Emma walk him to school, and throwing the apple in the hammiest fashion, I could hardly keep a straight face. But more than that, I feel like there’s a good mix of Henry explaining himself, but also not letting a moment of character building drop in his grasp, and not only does he ensure that, but every character that brings him up does the same (Specifically, Archie). Also, Henry’s much more self aware here. Now that the threat of Emma going is averted for the time being, he’s able to express his own understanding of her doubts and build on that logically without letting his belief falter. I love when Regina’s trying to convince him that Emma’s a conwoman and he’s just having none of it. All of this just makes the scene where Regina sets Emma up to hurt Henry by dismissing his beliefs so tragic, especially because it comes from this honest and caring place on Emma’s part. She wants to look out for Henry’s well being, and yet her words are twisted, undoing any good that could come of her well-meaning intentions. When the scene is resolved, it’s not a step in Emma’s journey of belief, per se (She’s very clearly lying about the fairy tale world being real), but in her relationship with Henry, and that’s revealed to be one and the same. I also want to point out the specialness that is their relationship based on the conversation that Emma and Mary Margaret share. Mary Margaret brings up a good point: most everyone who knows and cares enough for Henry are under Regina’s thumb. She controls their livelihoods and make it near impossible to do too much to act in Henry’s best interests. However, Emma, an outsider who is not dependent on Regina (At least at this moment), exists outside this paradigm and is the only one both in a position to and fearless enough to create the change in Henry’s life that will actually improve his situation. It creates a meaningful reason for Emma to remain in Storybrooke and adds a unique challenge to Emma’s usual instinct to not - as Sidney says - “sit still.” Writer A&E are once again at the helm of this episode! Right now, as I work with two episodes, I consider their main strengths to be their depictions of character relationships of all kinds (With one weird exception that honestly surprised me). As for weaknesses, as I know I’ll be expanding on this in due time, overambition. There’s so much set up in this episode as well as the one before it, and while most (within the scope of only these two episodes) gets meaningful resolution, there are some elements that don’t. Rating 10/10...I was conflicted about what to give this episode. It’s great. It’s very fucking great, and a Golden Apple - however repetitious from my last episode. However, this is a rewatch, and with a rewatch comes the acknowledgment and recognition of unused potential of story elements in hindsight, and this episode does show a lot that was never truly acted upon. In addition to background events and characters, some story elements like Emma and Henry pretending to be non believers don’t come back. That having been said, that unused story potential only holds in regard to smaller character and story elements, things that I want to be built on, and that’s a weak criticism at best. The important story elements - the main story points and the integral characters - are treated well by this episode. There’s nuance and charm galore added to our central cast and the story propels us from the powerful pilot into a well-written continuation. So, I took away its * and left it as a 10/10. Flip My Ship Swan Queen - I love the bickering so much! Regina calling Emma “dear” had me giggling like sparkly Rumple after eight cups of coffee! Oh damn, and those intense looks at the hotel! AND the freakin’ apple tree scene! That tension was so thick, you could only hope to cut it with a chainsaw! Dragon Queen - Regina and Mal’s scene is a long and strong, and while I don’t start really feeling it with them until Season 4, I do still love the connection between them. That only friend line implies so much history, and knowing at least the start of their connection really gives extra meaning to that line.

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()

...So much for keeping these rewatch pieces short, am I right? Hope you liked them and thanks once more to the fine folks at @watchingfairytales for putting this rewatch together! Season Tally (20/220) Writer Tally for Season 1: A&E (20/70)

Leigh Dissects YA fiction: Fallen Kingdoms (Chapter Nineteen- Chapter Twenty-two)

Chapter 19 - Limeros

“I think you have the potential for greatness, even if you don’t believe it yourself.”

The fact that Magnus literally means “great” in Latin makes this mini-splooge even more annoying.

“Are you sure? [...] I think you’re lying.”

“I’m not. What I am sure about is that I’d like you to leave my chambers.”

The way this is worded makes it seem like Magnus could be answering her question of “are you sure” when he’s actually saying he’s not lying. I feel like the editor should’ve caught this.

“I grow lonely.” Again she walked slowly around him. Her gaze felt weighted and uncomfortable. “And I know that you’re also lonely.”

What the fuck is up with this family?

“The same thing that I suggested to your father when he was not much older than you. I’m offering myself to you as a lover.”

White people.

“You’re old enough to be my mother.” “Age can be an asset, Magnus. With age comes experience. You are young and, apart from that maid and perhaps a handful of other meaningless girls, you have no experience.”

“You have no idea how much experience I have.”

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

“Sharing a mistress with my father doesn’t sound like a very good way to help strengthen our father-son bond.

I’m……

She kissed him until she realized that he wasn’t kissing her in return. She stepped back and looked up at him with confusion. “Is there a problem?”

Uh, you’re boning his dad????????

“I suppose for someone already lusting after his own sister, I’m not all that surprised.”

Drag him.

Here comes a rather long quote.

“My younger sister Jana was gifted with sight - a rare thing for a common witch. Within herself, she held the ability to read the tales the stars can tell. She believed in the prophecy, passed down from generation to generation, that one day a child would be born who would hold elementia within her greater than anyone since the original sorceress, Eva - she whom my kind worship as you worship your goddess [...] Sixteen years ago, Jana saw the birth heralded in the stars. Lucia’s birth. Together, my sister and I combined our magic to increase its power tenfold in order to locate her, knowing she would need our guidance one day when her magic finally awakened within her. My sister perished in the quest, but I brought Lucia here to Limeros to be raised as a princess… and as your sister.”

In ONE paragraph, we erased the need for the prologue so WHY is the prologue in this book still? The only difference between the prologue and this paragraph is that the prologue shows us Sabina killing Jana, whereas here, Sabina just saying Jana died. Given that Jana’s death only raises more questions that I know won’t be answered (why would Sabina kill the person who could teach Lucia the other two elements?), this whole thing is a jumbled mess of choosing tropes, cliches, and aesthetics over good writing.

“She’s not your sister.”

Cool motive, still incest.

[Sabina] lashed out and hit Magnus again. He snarled at her; his fist was so tight that Lucia was certain he would strike back. If Sabina was not a woman, she was certain he wouldn’t have hesitated.

Fellas, if a woman has hit you TWICE, you have the right to knock her ass out.

[Sabina’s] skull shattered against the hard surface [...] “Your… air magic… it’s even stronger than I thought.”

HOW IS SHE STILL ALIVE WITH A SHATTERED SKULL??

Her brother’s attention was on the door - now fully open. Standing there was her father.

With all this commotion and fighting, NOBODY heard anything until their father showed up? You were SLAMMING people around??

Chapter 20 - the sanctuary

In recent months, he’d despaired that he was wrong and had been following a girl who held no magic within her.

But before today, wouldn’t he know she was at least a witch, even if he didn’t know she’s a sorceress? He’s known she has magic for a while now.

It was another elder, Danaus. While all Watchers held the same eternal youth, the same level of beauty, Ioannes had always felt that there was something dark and sinister about Danaus lurking just beneath the surface. Danaus had never done anything that went beyond the unspoken rules of the Sancturary. But there was still… something. Something that Ioannes didn’t trust.

Perhaps it’s the fact that he’s named for a figure in Egyptian mythology and we can’t have the one explicitly black character be anything but sinister, dark, and shady.

What he’d discovered had to be protected. At any cost.

So he’s not going to tell his bosses that Lucia is an awakened sorceress because of SUBCONFLICT!

Chapter 21 - Paelsia

[...] to prove to himself that it couldn’t be Princess Cleiona.

How does Jonas know her full name? I get Magnus knowing it because they’re both heirs but Jonas is a peasant so what reason could he have for knowing the proper name for a foreign princess.

“A sixteen-year-old spy? Who is also a princess? Please.”

ToG is scared.

How bold and disrespectful she was - this princess who saw no harm in coming to the same place where she’d caused such pain and suffering.

Again, Jonas proves he’s the only relevant character in this story.

“What better than to have the king’s own daughter if the negotiations go awry?” Jonas said.

DEADASS THE ONLY SMART CHARACTER HERE. I know the author won’t put CEO in actual danger that she lowkey deserves to be in but if someone a bit more daring wrote this book, CEO being a hostage is exactly how this book would play out.

Chapter 22 - Paelsia

Time for hands down the WORST chapter in the book, where CEO finally is confronted by my angel son Jonas.

She would make sure that the old woman would be sent money and gifts for coming to their aid last night.

So a random old white lady gives you dinner and tells you some boring exposition and you’re going to shower her with riches but you’ll do nothing about the countless impoverished PoC you’ve seen? Cool.

“I’ll stay for a while. And I’ll do whatever I can to find information on this Watcher you’re convinced is hiding out somewhere in this land.”

LITERALLY, Nic just said what I suggested chapters ago, which SHOULD HAVE been the first plan. The only reason he didn’t figure this out earlier is because the author needed CEO to be there for the exposplooge ugh

“Very well. Have it your way. You can be the hero.”

Because we’ve got to let the man be the hero and think of this obvious solution. We couldn’t have CEO decide to send him to Paelsia when they were still in Auranos because then we’d have to acknowledge that men and women can be heroes in different ways and well, this book can’t have such nice things.

“Are you saying that you care for him? That his death might cause you pain?”

“Let him go right now!”

“Why should I?”

YES JONAS DRAG THAT BITCH

She had to remain calm so she could negotiate with this heathen.

You let his brother be murdered so you could keep your clean reputation.

“I can give you plenty of money if you spare his life.”

His expression turned to ice. “Money? How about fourteen Auranian centimos for each case of wine? Sounds fair, doesn’t it?”

BODIED

“You won’t get far, but you can try. It would be a moment of bravery for such a cowardly girl.”

She glared at him. “If you think I’m cowardly, you know nothing about me.”

YOU LET HIS BROTHER DIE BECAUSE YOU WERE TOO MUCH OF A PUNK ASS BITCH TO STOP YOUR DUDEBRO

“And I was wrong not to stop [the murder] when I had the chance.”

Yes, hello, that’s called being a coward.

“Shocking,” he said. “Maybe there’s more to you than beauty and a shallow personality.”

There’s really… not.

“I’ve heard what happens to girls who are kidnapped by savages.”

This book is literally so racist.

“Is that really what you think of me? A savage? How Auranian of you. I could just kill him, you know. I’m bargaining with you because I’m no savage. Unlike you and your friend who killed my brother.”

Mortal Kombat voice: finish her!!!

“Now take that blade away from his throat or you’ll be very, very sorry, you scum-sucking son of a pig.”

Again with the racism.

Also, very, VERY.

What she despaired about wasn’t that she’d fallen into the clutches of a savage boy who was willing to kill without a second thought.

BUT HE JUST HESITATED TO KILL YOU

“I’m surprised you’d even bother to use my royal title. It’s obvious you don’t respect it.”

You’re not his queen, he has no reason to respect you, you helped KILL his brother.

“That term [savage] seemed to bother you. Why? Are you afraid it’s true? Or do you consider yourself more refined than that?”

He literally just told you that he’s above being a savage, you racist clump of white garbage.

“I’d think someone like you would relish any chance to spill blood.”

This entire chapter is one racist line after another.

Here’s another long passage.

A brown rabbit darted in front of them and into a meadow with tall grass - surprisingly green for this otherwise faded, dreary landscape. She didn’t ask any more questions. She knew he wouldn’t answer them. And she didn’t want to risk losing her tongue.

Finally, fooled by her suddenly calm demeanor, Jonas let go of her arm long enough to wipe the back of his hand across his forehead.

Without a moment’s hesitation, she bolted away from him, feet quick as the rabbit’s as she left the path and burst into wide, grassy meadows.

Yes that entire section just metaphor-splooged all over this book, comparing CEO to a rabbit in a ~faded, dreary landscape~ running off to a grassy, green place. It wouldn’t be so bad if the author hadn’t LITERALLY compared her to the rabbit. We get it. You read a sparksnotes on metaphors and decided to put one in your book, even if it doesn’t serve any purpose.

[...] she stumbled, fell, and slammed her head against a chunk of stone protruding from the earth.

Yeah, no she’s dead. What’s up with these characters and surviving blunt force trauma so easily?

This girl was a snake.

Every time Jonas drags CEO, I just wanna smile.

He couldn’t deny that she was lovely… maybe even the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen.

Jonas honey I’m so sorry this author wants you to be a splooge victim too.

Long passage alert

Then he felt her throat for a pulse. There was one.

“Too bad,” he breathed, although part of him was deeply relieved. He studied her face, pushing the silky hair back from it. She was tiny, a foot shorter than him and at least seventy pounds lighter. Her pale lavender dress was made from the finest silk - he’d never seen anything like it before. She wore tiny blue sapphires in her pierced ears and a green stone ring on her finger, but that was the sum total of her jewelry. Smart, since any flashier jewelry to go along with her fine clothes would have undoubtedly made her more of a target for thieves. Her face was free of the paint Laelia wore, but her cheeks were still bright and sun-kissed and her lips the color of roses. Unconscious, she didn’t seem nearly the cold, manipulative, rich bitch he’d fully decided she was.

My poor baby, my innocent sunflower angel, my sweet Jonas just spent a long ass paragraph having to splooge over CEO because we can’t have one man in this story not splooge over her. Someone save Jonas from this white hetero trash fire.

Just as he’d begun to think she was harmless and vulnerable, the beautiful snake had managed to sharpen her fangs.

Stop this.

She got up awkwardly, keeping the dagger trained on him, and retreated to the other side of the stone wheel that she’d fallen over.

HOW is she only walking awkwardly after hitting her head on a STONE????? She should be DEAD.

“But I’m planning to cut you if you come any closer.”

The girl’s tongue was a thousand times more dangerous than any weapon in her possession.

Because she said she’d cut him? EDGY!!!!!

He increased the pressure on her throat and stared down into the face of the girl who’d stood by her fiance’s side as his brother bled to death.

So he’s choking her to death, which she deserves, but we know she’s not going to die. However, if this turns into a romance later on, I’m giving up on YA books.

“All you look at me is something evil. But I’m not evil.”

Wow CEO it’s almost like you call him a savage every chance you get. So that’s cool but him LOOKING at you wrong is a problem? Cool.

At first glance, she appeared so small and fragile - but the princess possessed a fierce and fiery core that could burn anyone who got too close.

All she’s done since Jonas met her is whine, be a racist, hit her head, and threaten to cut him.

She was lucky she was only dealing with a bit of dizziness after knocking herself out. It could have been much worse.

She was unconscious after hitting her head on a stone and the author thinks the only problem she’ll have is being dizzy. If this comes back later on as a problem for CEO, I’ll give it a pass but it currently feels like bad writing.

“You are a horrible savage for keeping me here. My father will have your head for this.”

WHAT the FUCK

Jonas took hold of her throat again and pressed her up against the wall.

Stop teasing me and just KILL her already.

“And I’m not an evil bitch who rejoices in the deaths of others.”

You let an innocent man die so people wouldn’t know you’re not a virgin.

  In Black Orpheus, Brazil and Carnival become the backdrop to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. In one of the more tragic love stories in Greek mythology, Eurydice is bitten by a snake on her wedding day and dies. Determined to bring back his love, Orpheus heads to the depths of hell to plead for her life. He is granted the chance, being told by the lord of the underworld that he can free Eurydice — he must walk back to the surface and she will follow, but if he looks back before they reach the light, she will fade away forever. Right before he reaches the surface, Orpheus — concerned that his love is having a hard time keeping up — turns back, watching her fade back into the darkness.

Black Orpheus brings this story into the contemporary world, utilizing the carnival as a metaphor for the supernatural world. Death, brought to life by a man in a skeleton suit, is pursuing Eurydice, and Orpheus — for as long as he can manage — tries to fight him off. Building on a classical idea of heaven and the afterlife, one that predates Christianity, the film does not offer love, forgiveness or belief as a saving grace. As noble and true as Orpheus’ love is, it cannot overcome death. Love is a part of life, and maybe the best part of living, but it still cannot help us transcend our mortality. Perhaps this is what’s so powerful about Jesus, as he taught that the capacity to love (and forgive) would ensure some kind of immortality. The film doesn’t ignore this completely, allowing love to live on through song.

Sex plays a pivotal role in this world, and it is portrayed as much through the environment as the actions. Romantic desire is conveyed through music, the sweetness of Orpheus’ song a symbol of his desire. Music is an art form of the spirit, and it becomes a perfect vehicle for communicating love. You can’t hold a song in your hands like you can a body. Rather than sensuality related to touch, this one is related to listening and feeling. The bossa nova rhythms that the film popularized reflect this sensual coolness. The music is warm and inviting, romance built on trust rather than lust.

Radically, Black Orpheus also portrays sex without shame. Sex is an expression of love, as much as it is a fun pastime. The aesthetics of sexual performance are intertwined deeply with carnival. Sex is a playground for adults while also being a celebration of love. Courtesy of the costumes and music, the environment is one that is a celebration of life and sex. As the myth itself is about the cyclical nature of life and death, sex plays a pivotal role in this circle. Unlike some more puritanical films that draw a line in the sand between the two, this film embraces sex as multiplicitous. This somehow makes the love more noble, because it is not confused with lust, and sex becomes a celebration rather than a symbol of it.

EVERYBODY’S PICKIN’ UP ON THAT FELINE BEAT, PART 33

Still not dead!  I’m just saying, this would have been a lot easier if I didn’t decide that this story suddenly needed to grow a plot.

Part 1.  Part 2.  Part 3.  Part 4.  Part 5.  Part 6.  Part 7.  Part 8.  Part 9.  Part 10.  Part 11. Part 12.  Part 13.  Part 14.  Part 15.  Part 16.  Part 17.  Part 18.  Part 19. Part 20.  Part 21.  Part 22. Part 23. Part 24. Part 25. Part 26.  Part 27. Part 28. Part 29. Part 30. Part 31. Part 32.

Title: everybody’s picking up on that feline beat Author: Sorrel Fandom: Fallout 4 Rating: Mature Warnings: None Relationships: Deacon/Female Sole Survivor Series: Part 3 of everybody wants to be a cat

  They creep into an abandoned building a few doors down from the Plaza and set up on the second floor, moving low and slow to avoid being spotted by either of the half-asleep guards patrolling slowly around the block.  Hancock’s better at keeping quiet than Deacon would have expected, considering the man’s run-and-gun style, but maybe he learned a thing or two when he was kicking around the Commonwealth with Whisper.  Even old dogs, etc.

  Once Whisper’s satisfied they’ve found the right spot, Hancock wanders off to explore, waving away Whisper’s hissed reminders to stay quiet.  Deacon raises his eyebrows at her, but she just tips him a shrug and kneels down to start unpacking her armor, so he decides to defer to her greater experience and does the same.

  They gear up with easy familiarity, Deacon tightening the straps on her chestpiece while she does up the buckles on her wristguards, and then Whisper turning around to return the favor, going to her knees and doing up the laces on his boots since he can’t bend over that far with the combat vest on.  Normally they don’t wear this much gear—Whisper prefers freedom of movement over being bulletproof, and since he has to keep up with her Deacon’s more or less come to see it her way—but normally they’re not going in this hot, either.  Whisper’s decked out heavier than he is, since she’ll be at the front drawing fire, but there’s going to be enough bullets flying around that neither of them are willing to take any chances.

  Once she’s kneeling in front of him, however, she doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to get back up.  By the time she’s finished ‘adjusting his ammo belt’ for the third time he’s half-hard and trying not to squirm, darting glances at the door to the hall where he can still faintly hear Hancock moving around.  Not that they haven’t fooled around with witnesses handy a truly inadvisable number of times, but this feels- different.  He still doesn’t know the lay of the land between her and Hancock, and this’d be a bad way for the ex to find out about the new guy, if that’s the way of it.

  “Quit it,” he finally hisses, and she laughs soundlessly at him and gives his thigh a final friendly pat before straightening creakily to her feet, moving awkwardly under the weight of unfamiliar gear.

  He picks up her weapon and shoves it into her hands before she can get any more clever ideas.  “You be careful with that,” he says, nodding to the fully-modded shotgun Hancock loaned her, since even Whisper had to admit that her rifle probably wasn’t going to cut it for this one.  “Bet that thing kicks like a mule.  You’ll be bruised to hell tomorrow if you don’t handle it right.”

  “Teach your gran to suck eggs,” she says, with a look that says she catches his metaphor loud and clear.  “I know how to handle a shotgun.”

  He slides his own rifle back into its holster and raises his hand defensively.  “Don’t get grumpy with me.  I just want to see you in one piece on the other side.”

  Her annoyed expression softens, and she darts a quick glance at the hallway to make sure the coast is still clear before she darts forward to press a kiss to his cheek.  “Right back atcha, partner,” she murmurs, then dances back before he can decide he doesn’t care about Hancock after all and reach for her.  “You ready to do this thing?”

  He grins down at her, the fading curl of lust mixing with the heat of adrenaline to leave him pleasantly flushed and on edge.  Is it wrong to love your work?  Definitely not, when it’s this much fun.  “Always,” he assures her.  “Don’t forget to make some noise.”

  She grins back up at him, mischief dancing in her hazel eyes.  “Oh, I think I can manage that.”

~*~

  When you get down to it, this op isn't all that different from ones they've run with Glory.  Which isn’t a surprise; on the rare occasions they’ve had the luxury of extra backup, Whisper tends to lean towards her little pincer maneuver, in one variation or another.  Mind you, she’s usually on the other side of the equation, but hey, Deacon’s flexible.  And in all fairness to their Angel of Destruction, it takes a lot of bullets to keep up with the kind of distraction Glory can dish out.  Hancock could probably use the help.

  “We’re in position,” Whispers murmurs in his earpiece, and Deacon’s sharp ears pick up the faintest scuff of a booted foot against the cobblestone.  It’s easy to picture Hancock, crouched just behind her, his own shotgun at the ready.  “How’s it looking on your end, Johnny?”

  He glances down at the pair of cooling bodies slumped at his feet, all that remains of the guards posted up at the back entrance.  “Rocking and rolling, Livvy-love,” he chirps, just to hear her snort of amusement.  “I’m ready when you are.”

  “Awesome.  Be ready to go on my signal.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “Oh,” and he can hear the grin in her voice, “you’ll know.”

  For a moment, all goes quiet, and Deacon, who has a fine-tuned sense of self-preservation and a lot of experience with Whisper’s sense of humor, braces himself.  Then, through his earpiece, he hears the splintering crack of a door being kicked open, following in very short order by a shout of alarm, the blast of shotgun, and the much louder blast of a hand grenade going off in close quarters.

  Deacon grins to himself as he pulls out his rifle.  Time to earn his keep.

  It’s a hard fight, but not the worst he’s been in, by a long shot.  Things do get a little dicey when all the commotion turns out to be loud enough to draw the attention of the cohort on the upper levels before they’ve quite finished clearing the ground floor, but nobody gets shot, which is all that matters.

  Well.  Nobody on their side gets shot.

  Well, nowhere important, at least.

  “Four hundred years, this thing’s lasted,” Hancock’s saying in a mournful voice, as Deacon makes his way back down from a sweep of the upper levels.  “Seen me through more than my fair share of firefights, and that’s a fact.”

  Whisper makes an annoyed noise under her breath.  “What’s your point?”

  “Ten goddamn minutes with you and I’m catching a bullet where a patch ain’t gonna cut it, that’s my point.”

  “Right, what was I thinking.”  Deacon can picture her eye-roll as clear as if he was standing right next to her.  “You know that was just a replica, right?  It wasn’t actually worn by John Hancock, American revolutionary.”

  Hancock’s scowl is audible.  “How the hell would you know, anyway?”

  Deacon peers over the balcony railing, to see Whisper kneeling next to Hancock, wiping the last of the blood off her hands with a spare rag.  “You kids having fun down there?”

  “Hancock’s just bitching because he doesn’t know how to duck.”  Whisper closes the medkit up with an exasperated look at Hancock, who totally misses the entire byplay in favor of craning his head to peer at the bullet hole in his arm she just finished stitching.

  Deacon smothers a snort.  “Well, it’s all clear up here.  Looks like everyone who’s anyone came down earlier when the party got started.  Place is a ghost town.”

  Whisper’s grin is so satisfied it’s almost postcoital.  “Now that’s what I like to hear.  You mind getting our shit from the hidey-hole?  I want to check out the lay of the land, and this one needs to let the stimpak kick in.”  Hancock starts to sit up, an outraged expression on his face, only to get shoved back down by Whisper.  “Yes, you,” she tells him.  “Don’t be a hero.”

  Deacon bites back a smile and tips an imaginary hat with the backs of his knuckles.  He’s not used to seeing Whisper fussing.  It’s oddly sweet.

  “I’m on it, boss.”

~*~

  Hancock’s nowhere to be found when he gets back ten minutes later, but he finds Whisper setting up in one of the back rooms, the one with no exterior windows and the really niche torture dungeon aesthetic.  The bodies are gone, but the smell of death lingers like a really oppressive shroud.

  “Nice place you’ve got here.”

  Whisper twists around just enough to smirk at him.  “I thought the meat hooks in the corner made for a particularly gruesome touch.”

  “Yeah, really sets the scene.”  He drops their packs just outside of the doorway and steps inside, carefully avoiding the still-wet smear of blood from where she dragged the bodies out into the hall.  “Where’s Hancock?”

  “Going through the den upstairs for any interesting scav.  Figured one of us should make some caps off this shitshow, and we’re going to be too busy to haggle anytime soon.”

  “Hey, if you’re waiting for me to argue, you’re gonna wait a while.  The man got shot in the line of duty, the least we can do is see he gets a decent paycheck out of it.”  He leans against the doorway and folds his arms over his chest.  “How’s our timeline looking?”

  Whisper finishes shoving a chair into the corner and wipes her forehead off against her sleeve before rolling it up to check her Pip-boy.  “We’ve got about ten hours left,” she says.  “Figure, two or three to get there and get in position, want to be there about an hour early, give another hour of leeway just in case they make good time coming over the bridge, so…”

  “Five hours,” he finishes.  She nods.  “Huh.  Flip you for first watch?”

  “Fuck that, I already told Hancock he’s taking care of it.  We’ve got a hard day tomorrow.”  She crosses the room, looping her arms around his neck and grinning up at him.  “We need our rest.”

  “Rest doesn’t seem what you have in mind,” he murmurs back, but it’s hard to pretend like he minds when he’s already got a hand hooked around her hip, his thumb rubbing against the fraying fabric of her jeans.  “You got designs on my virtue, partner?”

  She laughs huskily into the crook of his neck.  “That a problem?”

  He must hesitate a second too long, because she leans back, blinking up at him in surprise.  “Is it a problem?”

  Well, nothing for it.  Might as well go all in.  “Depends.  Is it going to be a problem for Hancock?”

  He can see the exact moment she figures out what he’s asking, because her vaguely hazy look of confusion morphs into a snort of undignified laughter.  “Oh, god no,” she says, grinning a little loopily up at him.  “No problems on that front, trust me.  Worst that happens is he gets high and wanders in to workshop your technique.”

  He can’t quite hide his shudder.  “That’s not as reassuring as it probably sounded in your head, pal o’ mine.”

  Her grin picks up edges around the corners, and she leans up on her toes, presses her mouth to the hinge of his jaw.  A second later, he feels her teeth scrape delicately, crosswise against the stubble, and a shiver goes down his spine without any input whatsoever from his higher brain functions.

  “Guess we’ll have to lock the door,” she murmurs against his skin, and he grabs her by the hips and pulls her up to his mouth, drowning his worries in her familiar taste.

  For tonight, at least, he doesn’t have to think about anything else.

Chapter 2: Irradiated Bananas

“Bullshit.” The word came quickly and unanimously from all three of us. Tabitha was clearly not expecting this response, and her expression quickly turned to a frown. She looked behind her, at the computer, then back at us. A moment or so passed with a silence so uncomfortable that I felt the urge to say anything to make it end. Thankfully I was stopped from saying something hasty and dumb by Tabitha finally responding.

“You don’t believe me? Fine, get on the tables then.” She gestured to the tables that had come out of the ground, and we got onto them, seeing no alternative. I barely managed to fit inside without taking off my sunglasses and almost considered doing it for an easier experience, but didn’t. I wasn’t giving up looking cool no matter what. Very quickly I felt a whooshing feeling, for want of a better descriptor, and I wasn’t where I had been anymore. And it surprised me, because for all intents and purposes, I felt like I had actually moved. So obviously, I began testing the limits of the machine. I burst into a series of awesome, indescribable karate moves, the likes of which have never been seen and would make men weep and woman lust for my… okay maybe I’m getting carried away. The point was, I tried everything I could to break the machine as soon as she connected me to it. When I had finally given up, a glance upwards after I had flopped to the floor in tiredness revealed the other three to be staring at me.

“Should I even ask?” Tabitha said, staring at me with an expression that just screamed tired mother.

“Tryna break yo’ shit, fool.” I replied, before passing out for a moment. When I came to, I hadn’t moved at all, and nothing had changed. I did say it had only been for a moment. “I don’t get it!” I said as I did a cool-ass backflip type thing. Which is to say, I rolled backwards, got stuck slightly, fell onto my side and sheepishly stood up. “So, you weren’t joking? We’re really in some kind of life-replicating simulation?”

“Of course I wasn’t joking!” Tabitha replied, indignantly. “This technology is next level. If it hadn’t been for my mentor, this tech wouldn’t have existed. I-” Tabitha continued to talk, but my mind already began to wander. The technical aspects never mattered to me, it was more the potential of what could be done with technology like this. I could live on an island for the rest of my life. I could spend my life in a video game! This possibility was-

Tabitha

Forgive me, but I feel it necessary to hijack the narrative here for a moment. As the subheader says, I’m Tabitha, the girl who was talking in the story a second ago. Honestly if you somehow didn’t manage to catch onto that, I can’t imagine this bit of the story entertaining you much. However, if you’re interested in spatial-temporal mechanics, then I can guarantee that you’ll be very happy with this-

Cool Guy

BOOOOOOORING!

 Look, there’s some important stuff, and there’s some unimportant stuff. The important stuff is the stuff I’ll end up being re-told in the near future, and the rest of it can just go on Tabitha’s blog or something. The point is, I daydreamed for like half an hour as Tabitha went into an unnecessarily large amount of detail on stuff that I feel like neither of the other two even remember. To avoid this chapter just being nothing but people talking, I’m going to move the “plot” forward slightly by not including the part where everyone stands around aimlessly as the computer started up, and just stick to what happened after.

 “Okay, so do you know the game Apocalypse VII?” Tabitha asked us, half-rhetorically. Part of my whole aesthetic had come from the fictional greaser gang that was in the series, the Cellar Serpents. They wore leather jackets and had a no-nonsense attitude, so obviously I wanted to be exactly like them. Seth, on the other hand, was more of a hero-martyr type kind of guy, always taking the nice path no matter how boring it got. One of the best things about the Apocalypse series was how varied the choices were. You could work for the enemies who originally hated your guts, or you can kill them all. Or maybe convince everyone to work together so nobody dies. Or, if you felt like it, you could just go off and kill some zombies. I was aware that Amy had played it as well, but her methods of playing games like that where you have free choices was… odd, to say the least. The last time I’d seen her playing, she’d created a brothel of every character you can romance in the game. The weird part was how tender she had been in the creation of it, making sure all the characters were well-fed and watered.

“Of all people, why are you asking about video games? You play farming simulators and tycoons.” Seth remarked, and I had to hide my personal feeling of being attacked. Micromanagement Tycoon was a game I had spent a LOT of time on back in the day.

“Well, it just so happens that this machine, given a game’s world, can recreate it on a much more realistic level.” Tabitha pushed her glasses up the crook of her nose as she said this, as Seth gasped audibly in excitement.

“Ymeanwecngointopoclypsevn?” Seth said without a breath in between words. It took me a moment to process his question as being you mean we can go into Apocalypse VII? Tabitha nodded, and it was if a human firework had been lit next to me. Seth literally exploded.

Seth

No I didn’t!

Cool Guy

Seth metaphorically exploded. All I could do was watch as he bounced around, occasionally glancing over to Amy and Tabitha, who returned my uncomfortable expression.

“Are you done?” I asked as he finally began to slow down. He nodded, but his eyes still shone like an excited dog’s eyes. Tabitha had turned away, tapping away at a keyboard she had magically materialised out of nowhere. I would have marvelled at the technology more, but instead I tried doing it myself. I wasn’t sure which hand gestures caused things to materialise, so I found myself doing nothing but waving my hands around aimlessly as I tried to make something happen. I gestured up, down, and all around, doing a strange dance in a vague attempt at being a super-cool hackerman.

“CG, what the hell are you doing?” Tabitha asked, and I looked up to see that I was once again being watched by everyone.

“I wanted to make a keyboard appear.” I replied simply, before turning back to my efforts. Maybe it was the hand signs? I tried devil horns, holding my hands like there was an invisible guitar, and the shocker, but nothing worked.

“You don’t have admin privileges.” Tabitha said, her head in her hands, and I finally stopped, sidling over to Amy as Tabitha turned back to whatever she was doing.

“So, what are you gonna do first?” I asked, half-whispered. The less Tabitha knew about what we were going to do in there, the better.

“Well, first off, I’m finding Franklin and bringing him everywhere with me. I don’t know how carrying stuff works in this game and the last thing I want is to have to lug guns everywhere.” She replied, reminding me about the half-robotic companion you could get in the game. “Then, I’m gonna go to the Whiteguard and sign up. I’m gonna nuke everything I can.” I hadn’t even considered the possibility of nuking things, but the prospect excited me. I could go full Cellar Serpent, complete with a badass hairdo and shades. Well, I already had the shades, but that only added to the excitement. “You?” She asked, turning to me. I didn’t just wanna seem like I was copying her ideas, so I frantically thought of something to say that would be even MORE awesome, and totally befitting of someone like me.

“I’m going to… try the cuisine of the apocalypse.” I finally said. Balls, that wasn’t a very good excuse. Her eyebrow raised, but I quickly changed the subject. “Won’t the nukes break the simulation, anyway?” I asked, and Amy shook her head.

“Weren’t you listening to Tabitha? This stuff is a LOT deeper than your basic simulation. It’s powered by…” I found my mind wandering again as Amy spoke, this time about what the apocalypse’s food would taste like. Probably regular meat, but irradiated. Wait, don’t bananas have a minor amount of radiation? I wonder if radiation tastes like bananas.

Amy

Dude, you have ADHD.

Cool Guy

Look, I can’t help it if everyone around me is boring. And I still want to know whether bananas taste like radiation, or if radiation tastes like bananas.

 But anyway, Amy went on to most likely repeat what Tabitha had said that I had now conveniently missed twice, and would most likely not hear a third time until I had learnt the hard way exactly why there was such a specific difference. But hey, doing things like this has worked for me in the past. Why wouldn’t it keep working in a trans-dimensional situation?

“Voila!” Tabitha cried suddenly, bringing me out of a rousing thought-train about bananas and radioactive spiders, and I glanced over. Slowly but surely, the horizon, which had been dark with some faintly-glowing stereotypical computer lights, was now brightening. Well, I say brightening, but the image that was beginning to come in was more… earthy and dull than that. The price to pay for your games becoming owned by a triple-A company, but hey, at least I didn’t have to wait too long between instalments, and I’ve played games with worse stories.

“Holy shit, it’s happening.” I said, not able to comprehend much else. I had never played a game in VR before, not even with a flimsy plastic piece of cardboard that strapped my phone to my face in eye-burning closeness. This was next level, and then some. I could smell what the wasteland smelt like. I could hear what it sounded like, feel what the wind rushing through the landscape felt like. I could even taste the earthiness of the land… since the four of us ended up suspended in mid-air, causing us to all fall a few feet downwards. I wasn’t sure whether anyone else had landed flat on their face like I had-

Tabitha

No, we pretty much all landed on our feet.

Cool Guy

-but I quickly recovered, pushing myself back up in one of those aforementioned awesome gestures. Looking over at the other three, I could see that our clothes hadn’t changed at all, but thankfully, were all outfits that we could have probably grabbed somewhere in the game anyway. Hell, you could dress up like a psycho clown and hunt for giant moths, I was pretty sure that some basic pre-nuke clothing wouldn’t turn many heads. One thing that was quickly noticeable, however, is that while the videogame characters could easily walk around in a leather jacket all day, it was insanely hot in the wasteland. I took off my signature jacket, sighing as I could feel my overall coolness rating drop by a few hundred percent, and tied it around my waist, which pretty much dropped my coolness to zero percent. Everyone else, however, seemed to be content to stay in the outfits they had been in, not seeming to care about the weather at all. Even Tabitha, in her lab coat, was barely registering the heat, instead running around the environment with a handheld device, looking excited every time it went ping at something. And ping it went, over and over. Ping ping ping, as she ran around the area we had landed in, scanning rocks and sand and little patches of shrubbery. Eventually she reached us again, and the device went pong. She frowned and shook it next to her ear, and the rattling from inside was audible even over the wind.

“What’s wrong with it?” Seth asked, and she looked up at us.

“It’s more like what’s wrong with us. We’re not nearly as safe as I had hoped we would be.” She replied, taking out another device. For a moment I thought she was going to do another weird technical thing, but all she did was take a stylus out and write a few notes down. Right, not everything had to be super futuristic.

“And that means?” Amy asked, trailing off her words in that way of asking the other person to continue speaking. Tabitha was quiet for a moment, before looking up at me and Seth specifically.

“Try not to die.” She finished, turning away and looking over the horizon. Immediately, Seth and I looked at each other, smiles growing as we quickly knew what we were going to reply with.

“Are you saying that if you die in the game…” I began, and Seth was quick to finish as I saw Tabitha visibly bristle at the beginning of the sentence.

“…you die in real life?” Seth finished, barely able to contain his laughter long enough to finish the sentence. Tabitha turned back to us as if she was going to start yelling at us, but seemed to think better of it as she sighed, turning away again.

“Yes.” Her words dripped with irritation, but the serious nature of what she was saying still reached us. Luckily, I knew I was too cool to die. That, and I’d played this game enough times to know where to stay away from. Before either of us could say anything else, Tabitha spoke up again. “Let’s head that way. I’m picking up large amounts of people converging over there.” She put away the retro-looking device with a long antenna (you know, the kind of one you need to push down before putting it away) that I hadn’t seen her take out, and began to walk. Everyone else started following her, except for me. The sense of smell that this world had hit me with was making me very aware of a specific kind of smell. One of ripe fruit. I grinned, and yelled out to the rest of them as I rushed forward.

“It smells like bananas!”

Hyperallergic: Kendrick Lamar Goes Back to Bangers

Most rappers claim to oppose haters, but in the two years since To Pimp a Butterfly came out, Kendrick Lamar’s been listening to his detractors attentively. Whenever an artist releases an ambitious, challenging project that defies immediate parsing and denies the listener instant gratification, a select coterie of fans bitch and moan. Where’s the real rap, they demand. Where are the hooks, the beats? What’s all this dreamy jazz noodling? Why couldn’t he just have recorded an album of bangers? Why couldn’t he have recorded my own personal fantasy of what an accessible Kendrick Lamar album sounds like? Out since April, the new Damn is that album. The aesthetic strategy is so straightforward it’s shocking: Lamar plays bangers. And boy, do they bang. Damn is simple, tough, and direct like nothing in his catalog, muscling into abrasive beats and addictive loops that would sound commercial if not for a style of spare crunch currently absent from both rap and Top 40 radio. Kapow!

Several months after its release, Damn still sounds strong. It successfully points Lamar in a new and welcome direction, at a time when critically acclaimed stars are expected to make each album count as a statement and a change of pace. Besides last year’s outtakes collection, his two most recent albums, Good Kid, m.A.A.d. City (2012) and To Pimp a Butterfly (2015), were long, thorny, endlessly multifaceted, almost novelistic epics, whose messy narratives found Lamar slipping into different voices and perpetually circling back on himself over music whose stark, grand, through-composed beauty fit the semi-tragic tone — Good Kid in the way its coldly expansive electrobeats frame several pained, weary, chirpy voices around Lamar’s centralized own; Butterfly in the way the beats leave space enough for a whole live jazz ensemble, lending the music a magically breezy, liquid fluidity while also functioning as a built-in racial metaphor. These are albums you could spend months getting lost in the details, and they take time to open up, although once they do, Good Kid’s everyman story and Butterfly’s political invective will be yours to savor. Critical detractors were few — the idolization that greeted Butterfly in particular, which affirmed idiotic myths about art’s power as a sacred transformative force, does an artist no favors. But charges of strain and pretension popped up, and Damn answers these. The album’s fiery force simulates the purging of pent-up frustrations — his own and his audience’s both. Ambivalence over his anointment as a generation’s voice of protest, over his success in the entertainment industry, over his own frequently miserable mood, and especially over the present political nightmare, a subtext that frames, hijacks, and demands response from any active artist in 2017 — these factors and more, shallow and profound, inform Lamar’s decision to go hard.

Play 10 seconds of “DNA,” whose clickity drum track and hypnotic guitarish electroloop throb with a rage all the scarier for being so calm and contained, and marvel at the sheer aural power, and how tenaciously Lamar spits his rhymes and grits his teeth. I’m skeptical, though, about Damn’s power as a gesture. Musically, there’s no denying the hot simmer of “DNA,” the mocking piano figure on “Humble,” the percussive oomph that defines the album. To mistake musical directness for conceptual strength is to subscribe to a tiresome valorization of overt force, tied to codes of masculine defiance. Failure to bang sufficiently is cited frequently enough as a flaw by well-meaning rap fans that Damn in places feels like a capitulation, an easy bone thrown to the audience while Lamar spins his wheels. His voice — high, piercing, and congested — was made to babble and chatter and run off at the mouth, to cram bunches of rhymes into frantic run-on sentences, to quaver with anxiety and jitter while adjusting the tempo, to cry out in pain. Reciting regular iambics in the rhythmically steady “Humble,” he just sounds uncomfortable, maybe bored. Skidding over a murky vocal sample, “Feel,” whose every line begins with “I feel like,” teeters on the edge between song and skeletal song concept. Masculine defiance suits neither Lamar’s weedy timbre nor his style of cerebral brooding; politically I’m not sure it’s an appropriate response to the state of the union. Externally imposed standards often whip an artist into shape but just as often produce misbegotten results, and if he’d gone all the way with it, the album would be intolerable. In fact, one of Damn’s strengths is that he doesn’t — within the more straightforward template, he keeps messing with form, tweaking hooks and adding irritants, always getting stuck on undue complication. Damn fascinates for its vision of a performer caught nervously between presentational modes, determining in each moment how closely to adhere to convention. Once you’ve adapted to the album’s austere, almost empty shape, behold a trickier, more imaginative listen than is initially evident.

The most engaging moments on Damn sweat with palpable tension, as the conflicted Lamar gets stretched in multiple directions. Typically, so-called conscious rappers focus on how political events constrain ostensibly personal realms, but Lamar, oddly, is more detached than that. His songs address societal patterns on a macro level, with his own subjective presence an afterthought. At his best, the music benefits from the contradiction between his scope as a lyricist-observer and his individuality as a performer. “Loyalty,” a song he was born to write, deploys sampled vocal squeak to approximate deeper soul popcraft; the circular beat grows in hysteria over time, as the pitch-corrected sample becomes so increasingly aggravated that it can’t inhabit the R&B cool of Rihanna’s guest vocal. Lamar spends the song interrogating, chewing on, and finally affirming a value — loyalty — that means more under desperate circumstances than in places of privilege. “Lust” terrifies — a haunting minor-key guitar figure crawls over shifty scratch percussion for two choruses and a verse until suddenly substituted by a scraped violin, mimicking the same chord progression in a chilling shock moment. “I need some water/something came over me/way too hot to simmer down/might as well overheat,” he drones, nailing the eerie feeling; later, when he impersonates a lech asking, disingenuously, to only put “the head in,” the extent to which desire correlates with self-hatred is unclear. The next song, “Love,” resolves the dilemma: buoyant, swaying electrosoul bleeps, softer synth color, and guest singer Zacari’s sweetly affectionate chorus catch Lamar in an uncommonly cheerful mood. Elsewhere his looped keyboards sound more automatic, but always there’s a sense of unease. These beats pound like hearts pound, shiver like spines shiver. It’s the same mood that pervaded Butterfly, but where on that album it coexisted with relaxed, lyrical beauty, few other elements spoil the mood on Damn (“Love” is an exception). Tonally, this is the definitive Kendrick Lamar album. He’s refined his craft down to its quintessence.

Simultaneously direct and nuanced, Damn thrills and unnerves. I’d rather an ambiguously fascinating album than a flawlessly boring one, and so would Lamar. He’s recorded a searing study in the inner structure of confidence.

Damn (2017) and To Pimp a Butterfly (2015) are available from Amazon and other online retailers.

The post Kendrick Lamar Goes Back to Bangers appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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