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thefossilwhale · 3 years

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signed the saw

mind blind. button x kent, 1.8k words. inspired by this ask about the ROs helping button manage a panic attack (so, cw for depiction of a panic attack/extreme anxiety). sabrina wiseman is unsurprised to find that undercover work is stressful.

The ceiling is dotted at long intervals by waning light bulbs, whose dim halos have a way of blurring the hall’s few distinctive features. Sabrina’s eyes have trouble focusing, anyway. There is grey, and there is brown, and there is the black shape of Kent’s shoulder half a stride ahead, leading her around the next corner.

This stretch of hallway was the biggest obstacle when planning the mission. Relatively deserted, with little chance of interruption, but it was at least a few minutes’ trek between point A and point B, and they needed every second.

Right now, they happen to be perfectly on schedule, and Sabrina is grateful for the dead air. She just needs a moment to collect herself, to align her breathing with Kent’s brisk pace down the hallway. One breath for every four steps, following his lead, and she’ll be back to herself by the time they round the next corner—which is coming up now, she realizes, as Kent takes an abrupt left. That’s okay. One more breath, and she’ll be fine.

She steps through the doorway, which she hadn’t noticed Kent opening, and forces herself back to alertness. The room is small. It’s as sparse and poorly lit as the hallway, with no visible evidence of the files that Kim had emphasized were mission critical. Swallowing another spike of panic, Sabrina opens her mouth, but Kent is faster.

“This isn’t the room,” he tells her.

“Okay.” She presses into the wall at her back and takes another breath. “So why are we stopping?”

The tremor in her voice is answer enough, and Kent is kind enough not to acknowledge it as he turns to close the door. “We can do our job in five minutes, if we have to. We can’t do it if you’re not at your best.”

If it were anyone else, she’d bristle at the suggestion and stride back into the hallway at double the pace. But Kent weights practicality at least as heavily as his concern. From his mouth, the words are simple fact: neither of them can afford her distraction, but they’re a good enough team to manage a detour.

Kent meets her eyes briefly, a small smile teasing the corner of his mouth that she can see. She barely registers it before his focus snaps back to the doorway.

His diverted attention is appeasement enough for Sabrina’s pride, and she lets herself sink. Not to the floor, just the few inches it takes for her neck to fall back between her shoulders, cradling the crown of her head against the wall. Her hands, clasped behind her crumpled back, feel cold and sickly on its lukewarm surface. Her eyes are pointed at the ceiling, but they scan aimlessly without seeing. She screws them shut and waits.

This place needs a makeover, says Nick, who had for several minutes been indistinguishable from the thousand other nervous hums in the back of her mind. How many ceiling tiles do you think aren’t stained? Twenty bucks says it’s five or less.

If there were any windows, she knows he would ask her about the weather instead. But his impression of the space is only as good as her own hazy, stuttering glances, and though he tries, there is little among the blank walls and shadows to latch onto. Still, she opens her eyes and looks up.

He must feel her unease resurging as she takes in the room once again, because his next words come in a rush of thought faster than he could ever speak them aloud: Wait, no, I can already tell that won’t help. Don’t humor me, okay? If I’m not helping, I’ll be quiet.

Nick is, of course, physically incapable of producing any noise in his current state, so he does technically keep that promise. But in the past week, Sabrina has come to understand what it means when someone calls her mind “loud.” Her own anxiety is familiar to her, slowly building and fuzzing the edges of her perception, but Nick’s mind has never felt so foreign. It is deafening in its wrongness, its intrusion. He is terrified.

It doesn’t matter whether he voices it; Nick is worried someone will find his sister having a panic attack somewhere they’d kill her for trespassing, and she would be lucky to die on the ugly floor of that boring hallway because it would mean she at least made it out of this room, whose shadows are growing thicker and more tangible until they seem to press against her throat. Her body falters under the weight of two consciousnesses as their respective panics converge. The wall at her back is painful with its rigidness, its press against her spine, its wrinkled and uneven paint.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Sabrina is struck by a sick inevitability. Of course she couldn’t do this, after Nick warned her, after she insisted. Of course her worst mistake would be to play at field agent, and of course she would bring her brother and Kent down with her. If she could think or breathe, she might wonder if Nick felt vindicated by her failure.

“Sabrina?”

Kent’s voice is closer than it should be. She feels him at her right side, between her and the door he’s supposed to be watching.

A hand comes down on her shoulder, gentle as the voice that follows. “Sabrina, look at me.”

She shakes her head, but the scrape of her scalp against the wall is unbearable. She winces and lurches forward. The shaking motion grows tighter, jerking her chin to either side in frantic protest. I can’t open my eyes right now because any visual input will be the straw to break the camel’s brain, and then I’ll really be inconsolable and we’ll either die here, or worse, make it out as failures, is what she wants to tell him, but the words won’t form even in her mind. She screws her eyes shut tighter and finally halts the motion of her chin, holding it angled away from him. Please please please understand.

“Should I not…” He trails off, removing his hand—but it doesn’t go far. When he clears his throat and tries again, she can still feel it just barely hovering above her shoulder. “Is it okay to touch you? Yes or no.”

Sabrina tries to hum her assent, but the flat “hmm” that leaves her nose communicates little. Instead, her left hand escapes from behind her back and reaches for Kent’s wrist. She presses his hand once, firmly, back to her shoulder, where it offers a comforting squeeze, so brief she nearly misses it, before sliding to her forearm. His free hand follows suit, and he pulls her forward off the wall. She only catches herself when her head meets his shoulder.

The darkness as his body shields her eyes is a relief, and the first thought she has in its clarity is to wonder how much of her weight he would bear, if she stopped holding herself upright. Her arms, folded across her stomach, form an awkward barrier between them—one already crossed by the steadying hand he has placed lightly at each elbow, the tilt of her face towards his neck. Leaning against him, with his nose at her ear, she feels the rhythm of his breath, deep and deliberate. It takes a few moments for her own body to match it. After three full breaths shared between them, her mind quiets enough for Nick to resurface.

Okay, Button? His relief is tangible, though she’s not sure how much of it is her own.

She nods—a motion that, in the crook of Kent’s neck, feels embarrassingly like a nuzzle—then answers aloud. “Fine now.”

Mumbled weakly as they were against Kent’s shirt, the words must have been barely audible. Still, his nose dips to her cheek as he nods in acknowledgment, and he takes one step back. Sabrina’s arms slide out of his loose grip to hang at her sides. Studiously avoiding his gaze, she can’t tell what he’s looking at as she turns towards the door.

Kent doesn’t move. She waits, scanning for shadows, before calling softly over her shoulder. “Time to go?”

“If you’re ready,” he says evenly. “We can afford two more minutes, I would guess. It hasn’t been long.”

She hums noncommittally, and Kent steps beside her. Their arms don’t touch, but the space between them is so slight that she would barely have to move if she wanted them to.

Nick?

Don’t you dare, he warns, managing to sound both cheerful and stern. If you try to apologize for what just happened, I’ll start singing the Ghostbusters theme again, and I won’t stop until you’ve thwacked yourself on the head a few times for me.

Apologizing is one thing, Nick, she says. Self-flagellation is a bit harsh.

I agree! So don’t apologize, and I won’t enforce it.

Nick can’t hide a thing from her anymore, and though she knows his lighter mood is genuine, it’s clear how shaken he is. Does he always get that worried, when she has an attack? These circumstances were admittedly exceptional, but how much of that helplessness was her own?

I’m just glad Kent was here, says Nick, nudging those questions into some hidden corner of her mind. He’s all right.

Yes, he is. He’s looking at her, too. She won’t return his gaze, but she feels it on her and thinks he must be gauging whether she’s really recovered. But there is no tension, no intent in the small space between them. Kent is just… looking. Trusting her to watch the door. Thinking something that she’s sure she could never even begin to guess.

“I’m ready,” she tells him, and grabs his hand—knowing that he won’t outwardly react (it’s Kent), but still not looking, just in case. With one tug on his arm, she leads him forward and poises her free hand over the doorknob, waiting on his confirmation.

“Good,” comes his always inscrutable voice in reply. “Let’s go.”

Kent takes the lead again when they return to the hallway, and Sabrina slackens her grip on his hand, slowing her pace just enough that she’ll drop it as he pulls ahead. When his arm stretches uncomfortably behind him, he doesn’t slow down. Instead, he pulls on her hand, with just enough strength that she has to scramble to avoid tripping over her feet. The momentum carries her back to his side.

“Let’s go,” he repeats. His tone is neutral, but he squeezes her hand once as she matches his pace.

A light bulb flickers above them, scattering the shadows. For a moment, the hallway is as indistinct and menacing as when she’d retreated into that room. Kent’s hand is in hers, though, and he doesn’t miss a step. His outline is clear even in the waning light.

They round the next corner.

#oc: sabrina wiseman #sab x kent #my writing #hewwo everyone i hope this is believable as kent and not just some guy!#also i know what you're thinking and YES i made the space as boring as possible so i wouldn't have to describe it #mind blind #i keep writing abt sab having mental breakdowns.... i promise sometimes she is stable #also um! no title bc this is a snippet that turned into a fic on a whim and i just want to post it already <3 #edit: it is several weeks later and i have returned with a title.

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icollectyoursins · 3 years

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How the villains listen to Call Me When You Want (Montero) by Lil Nas x (little NSFW)

Dio thinks it’s stupid, doesn’t get it. Very bad. Downvote. Turn it off. I need to plot murder.

Santana... what the fuck is this? So confused. Kars likes it, though, so he has to listen to it. It grows on him.

Wamuu has not listened to a single song in his life and does not understand any of it, but if it makes you happy.

Eisidisi and Kars regularly fuck to this song. No, I will not argue this.

Kars has made this the new Pillar Men opening song and plays it where ever he goes. Sorry, that’s just life. It’s his song now. He will absolutely ride that stripper pole to hell.

DIO, again. A slut, as we all know. His younger self was a fool. It is a lovely song and will bone to it, in fact Vanilla Ice! Get over here!

Kira does not like it. Kinda. There’s a time and place for it and it almost never comes up in his life. He’s more into slow jams, so not his vibe, but won’t deny that it can get him in the mood.

Doppio is forced to listen to it. The boss will not let him play anything else. He guess he enjoys it, the video makes him blush.

Diavolo has mixed opinions. Does he make Doppio listen to it on repeat? Yes, but does he like it? Who knows? He listens to it in the way that someone who self-flagellates whips themselves. He’s trying to build an immunity so he can’t be seduced by it. What can I say? He’s a freak.

#jojo villains #jojos listen to stuff #kind of crack

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swordlesbean · 4 years

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Do you think she's proud of her scars, or self-conscious? How would she react to seeing the Catra-induced ones now that she's dating Catra?

Adora grew up in the Horde, so I don’t think she’s particularly self-conscious about anything related to her body, including scars. But as far as how they impact her emotionally, I think that depends on the circumstances in which they were received.

Scars don’t always have a deep meaning. Adora was a rough and rowdy, slightly clumsy little kid and remains the same as an adult. She’s bound to have a bunch scars she doesn’t even remember getting from training mishaps, playing and wrestling with Catra, etc. She doesn’t even think about those. With scars she got in a memorably dumb way (such as this silly stuff I made up), she doesn’t pay much attention to them unless someone asks. Then she gets awkward and embarrassed, and because she’s a terrible liar, she isn’t able to make up a convincing cool story and just has to tell the shameful truth.

Scars can also function as a badge of honor and success. The scars she got doing something badass and awesome, she’s proud of them and points them out and brags about them to the point that eventually everyone is like WE KNOW and asks her to please stop telling the same stories.

Scars can be symbols of failure too. Considering Adora’s history of looking to be punished for her mistakes (both real and perceived), she prefers to be left with scars, so they can act as a physical reminder to do better and be better next time. She’s frustrated and a little resentful of the way She-Ra’s body self-heals, so when Adora returns to her own form, she’s without so many of the marks she thinks she deserves. Obviously, this isn’t a very healthy mindset, and when she fixates on scars that remind her of things that went wrong, it can easily drag her into an anxious, self-flagellating blame spiral.

For the Catra-induced scars, I think her biggest priority is making sure Catra doesn’t feel guilty about them, which means she's not as focused on thinking about how they make her feel. If she’s alone and in a particularly low mood, she sees them and thinks about how she almost lost Catra and all the ways she feels like she let her down. Though all of that baggage will lessen over time as they talk and support each other.

As I’ve mentioned, I like the idea of Adora having a scar from the Failsafe (and I guess while we’re at it let’s go with one on her side from where she got sliced and poisoned). My current headcanon is that, at first, it does bother her. It’s one of the few she’s uncomfortable about and doesn’t want anyone to know, but it’s easy to hide considering it’s location. When she looks at it, it reminds her of the things she got wrong in the last days of the war: letting Shadow Weaver manipulate her again, pushing her friends away, hurting Catra with her choices, being so willing to sacrifice and so easily accepting her death as the final outcome.

But when Catra inevitably sees the scar and finds out how Adora feels about it, she helps Adora see it from a different perspective. Let it remind her of what she got right: choosing her friends, choosing Catra, choosing herself, choosing to want and to love and to live. Those are the choices she made that saved the universe. So when she looks at the scar, let it remind her that she loves and is loved, and she can save everyone without sacrificing anything.

#Anonymous #adora #chicks dig scars #headcanon

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joelmillerthirstqz · 4 years

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From this prompt: Joel meets y/n and he makes it his MISSION to fuck her. Throw in a daddy kink if you’re brave

(I did, with ten thousand character-intensive caveats. Porn with obligatory plot, is there a tag for that? Anyway have some suspiciously assertive Joel)

---

Joel moves throughout the rooms of his house, picking up one occupation after the next, bored around one in the afternoon and faced with the reality that he neither remembers nor knows what to do with actual free time, safety, and space of his own. Tommy and Maria had brought some kind approximations of traditional housewarming, but much of his home was furnished by the previous resident and he sat there overwhelmed by spatial possibility. For all his griping about Ellie’s perpetual stream-of-consciousness chattering, the silence roared in his ears like he’d been dragged downstream.

Do people just go drink now? Just talk to each someone to pass the time? he thinks to himself, frustrated. By the time he could legally go to a bar, he’d been twenty-one and Sarah had been three, her mom long gone. He hadn’t spent time alone since the outbreak—always Tommy or Tess and others in between nearby. Acute problems to solve, no time for chronic reflection.

Tommy brought a lone box of possessions from his apartment with a case of cheap beer the night Sarah’s mom left, hanging around more tangibly than any other family had and often taking Sarah to school once Sarah was old enough. Tommy joked that it was more like Joel having two kids to deal with; Joel ribbed him for perpetually flirting with the very clearly married moms of his niece’s classmates.

Joel gulps a breath, self-flagellating with the idea that he hadn’t been able to protect Sarah when Tommy and Maria so clearly deserved to have their own child, forgetting as ever that his brother executed the soldier that shot Sarah before he could get to Joel—without a blink.

Wonderful. That’s what you do alone with your thoughts for two seconds. Jesus, Joel, he grumbles inwardly.

He’d been dragged to so many damn things since settling in Jackson and didn’t know what to do when it was his choice, so he looks outside. If Ellie’s light is on, he’ll go awkwardly try to make conversation, see if she’s okay. If she’ll be caught in a forgiving mood; if not, if he’s really pushing it.

Joel’s boots thud softly on the flagstone they’d carefully laid together, a path for her to get up to the house without soaking her sneakers through. Tonight, though, she’s gone or playing dead, so he sighs and shrugs a coat on, headed for the Tipsy Bison.

————

Joel spent a nontrivial amount of his time lately fending off interested parties in Jackson.

It was just cuffing season, he dismissed—encroaching fall making people a little weird. Since he’d begun to settle in, slowly accustoming himself to having Ellie out of his sight often and a normal couch in a house without shattered windows, he’d slowly accepted more public interactions. He’d grudgingly shoulder into town meetings, quiet until Tommy or someone else would put a question to him like he had a fucking clue.

Joel went on patrol, helping some of the greener residents learn to keep themselves safe. Unfortunately, it meant more people caught sight of him. Joel was used to prowling through quarantine zones swollen with cowering masses plainly terrified of him, which left him minimally prepared for reactions he thought he’d stopped evoking long ago.

The people whose breath hitch when they first notice him, the longing stares when he’d finally break and smile or laugh—they’d gotten embarrassing enough for him to avoid certain places.

Whenever Joel seems like he’s about to not comply with her wishes, Maria frequently threatens to tell the women who ask her in lewd tones if Tommy has a brother the truth—he does, and how about I introduce you?

The truth was he didn’t feel capable of starting anything with someone who’d ask where he’d been. Joel didn’t want to remember, even if he’d finally pinned the picture of himself with Sarah at a soccer game up next to the blooming collection of pictures in his living room with Ellie, Polaroids in Jackson blooming over nearby wall space every few weeks. People who wanted honesty to go with their peaceful existence reminded him too much of Tommy’s near-fatal optimism, and he felt like it would be too dishonest to start anything with anyone who still lost sleep over distasteful things done to survive. Delightful first-date baggage, in his estimation.

At the Tipsy Bison, he edges in by the drinking patrol nearest the door, welcomed gruffly and responding the same. It was nice to be recognized without raw fear or calculation as he entered, and Joel warms enough to drop his coat over the back of his chair, his rust-colored flannel’s buttons parting over the shirt beneath it as he moves, listening to Eugene tell some inflated war story with an almost-cold beer.

“Alright, fuck this. Knuckle up, asshole, I’m not doing this on patrol tomorrow,” Joel’s ears perk up at the sound of your chair clattering backwards as you stand. Joel recognizes you from the newer batch of arrivals, clearly deemed capable enough to join an early patrol just days after your arrival.

“Jesus, settle the fuck down,” one of the younger patrolmen grouses, standing up. Alex. Oh, the dumb kid.

“Nope. Now or never,” you insist.

“Listen, I’m not hitting you,” he sounds unapologetic but tries to portray himself as the reasonable party. He’s wiry, and Joel’s seen him fend for himself, but his posture doesn’t belie cool confidence.

“You clearly have some doubts, so let’s get into it,” you urge, agitated beyond belief. He’d been needling you about perceived skill, something about not growing up having to field dress animals, and you’d fucking had it. He was going to make a point on patrol and get someone hurt, and you were not carrying bodies back into Jackson because of some ego or misplaced crush.

He taps your shoulder mockingly with a closed fist, a gentle little motion, trying to smile playfully.

You hook him across the jaw, staggering him before taking a knee to his stomach as he tries to right himself.

“More, or you’re finished?” you ask.

Joel fully sits up in his chair. He hasn’t seen anything like this in Jackson. Glancing over both shoulders for his brother, Maria, and finding a clear coast he watches the outcome with interest, sipping his beer with an upturned mouth.

You’re cute, or appealing, or some reflexive word Joel hadn’t used in years, pushing hair out of your eyes as you regain your center.

Alex tries to sweep your legs out, successfully swiping one and getting a knee to the diaphragm for it as you land.

“Okay, fuck, I’m done,” he grunts and you rise easily, offering him a hand.

“Good,” you mumble, letting go the second he’s righted. You look around a little chastened by all the eyes on you, deciding to forego another round.

“I’m going to bed before we do this again,” you nod at Alex, and the rest of the patrol group you recognize in turn.

Joel eyes you as you depart, beer polished off and goodbyes waved, coat gripped in his fist to be flung on once outside. He knows your name, had seen you near the stables and conversing with the patrols. Hearing you speak, despite the context, maybe because of it, let him confirm something he’d been suspecting when he caught glimpses of you before. Never having had the right circumstances or raw spare time to devote all his energy to taking someone to bed, he steels himself to confirm it.

He trots after you, tugging his jacket back on and finding his way to the four-story hotel the town had spent arduous time clearing, stripping of spores, and making hospitable enough for people new to Jackson. Joel ended up leading a lot of the effort himself, vaguely proud to be doing something other than dismantling things, stretching old skills. Your little corner balcony faces off of one side, a nice view of the town unfolding as people begin to switch lights on for a sooner-than-yesterday sundown. You’re appreciative of a strange little luxury—not sure when the last time you stood with your back to a door without anticipating some infected would burst through.

You lean your elbows on the railing, a flask of whisky tipping in your fingers as you watch Jackson light up, a lone figure’s long strides coming into view down the broad street. The night is cool against your skin, but the little shiver the breeze causes feels affirming.

You’d always loved the fall, and Jackson’s soft sounds of life feel unreal enough that you could never sit here just sobering up before bed. It would leave you too wired, buzzing with the anxiety of certain impermanence. Reconciling this liminal zone with the gnashing horror just beyond it wasn’t something you’d take on without help. If Jackson was only a passing reprieve, you had to make yourself calm enough to enjoy it.

Joel halts below where you’re standing, hands on his hips pulling his jacket open as he looks up at you.

You’re instantly sheepish—you’d guessed in whatever patrol hierarchy there was, he was rather important. And you’d just visibly beaten someone down.

“Alex okay?” you call.

“He’ll be peachy. Not here for that,” Joel retorts, low drawl pleasant.

“Well,” you shrug, gesturing to the two mismatched chairs on the balcony with your flask. “Allow me to be a gracious host.”

He smiles and looks down for a moment. Even a couple of stories above him, you can see his height, start to assess his proportions because you’re too tipsy to be a human fucking being about your first interactions in a good place. You quickly add up a sum: his legs are long, shoulders broad, hair long enough to tug on. His frame suggests complete capability and you have a dire need to test it.

Aw, fuck.

“Y’know, I’ve got real glasses for drinking that,” Joel insinuates before he can tell himself to shut the fuck up, or to stop harassing newcomers, or any other sensible thought.

“Fair enough,” you call, closing your flask and holding a finger up to signal that he should wait.

When you arrive downstairs, boots poorly laced and denim jacket barely enough for the chill, Joel’s leaning on the veranda of the whole structure. You suppose its fair to gawk in appreciation so you do, assuring yourself you could have chosen not to.

“Look, I’m not going to ask what this is, and you won’t ask why I’m saying yes, okay?” you say softly when you’re a couple of feet from him.

Joel raises his eyebrows, feeling untethered. Some corner of him expected to humiliate himself to death so he could go home and fall asleep barely after dark, anything to shut himself up until he was occupied again. His heart speeds a little at your reply, hand on the back of his neck as he pushes back onto both feet.

“I’m close,” Joel offers, hand down towards the street, fists quickly in his own pockets. You pull your bottom lip inward, looking at his profile, wanting to hear it again, lower, helpless.

You pass the walk in tense but not unpleasant silence, glancing at each other until you reach his porch and he edges in to unlock his door.

Turning on lights as you toe off your boots and follow him inside, you watch how he moves, past the need for any type of persuasion. He returns from the kitchen with two matching, unchipped short glasses and a cylindrical glass of amber liquid.

“Trade?” Joel asks setting the bottle down and closing an open window. Your mouth quirks.

“That’s a nice custom. It a Jackson thing?” you ask, tipping your flask into his glass as he returns and pours from the bottle for you.

He laughs, sharp hazel eyes jumping up to you and back down, hand running over his beard.

“Not sure. What else would you do?”

You drop onto one of the two couches, arranged in the way that says people actually spend time here together. Joel gets onto his knees to build a fire, definitely a necessity, though kind of needlessly sweet for the occasion.

“This?” you tease, gesturing between the two of you. Joel joins you on the same couch, heat radiating into the space around you, well before the spark in the fireplace could catch enough to reach you.

You take stock of each other in comfortable silence, and a slow grin moves from one side of your face to the other. You finish your drink with a tinge of shyness, setting it down as he does the same.

You have no warning before his mouth is on yours, hands on either side of your face. It’s achingly good to be kissed with complete attention, luxury of time changing the entire tenor of kissing another person. You’re grounded to who’s holding you, mouth accepting him as Joel leads, guiding your jaw where he wants it with the flat of his palm. Joel moves slowly, plenty of time for you to reciprocate his motions though you begin to shift closer, scant sense of rhythm keeping you from straddling his hips.

The taste of him and your anticipatory haze keeps you fixed on the kiss, his hands sliding lower and beginning to move you towards his lap.

You try not to break the kiss with a smile, but it happens anyway and he looks up curiously. You sit back on your heels and tear through the buttons of your jacket, tossing it over the back of the couch and stroking fingernails through his beard before beginning the kiss again. Joel tugs you closer by the hip, urging you into his lap. He scans your face intensely, pulling you fully against him and letting his hands run the expanse of your back.

You can feel how rough his hands are through your shirt, so your fingers fly to his to work the buttons of his flannel.

“Christ,” you roll your eyes, exposing a second shirt underneath. He chuckles warmly in his chest, your foreheads bowed together a moment.

“C’mon,” Joel mutters, broad hands under each of your thighs as he rises with you wrapped around him. A segment somewhere in your brain shimmers, clicking with the novel experience, a knockout strike in the lane of neurons igniting to remember their roles.

“Where’s c’mon?” you ask incoherently between kisses, moving your mouth to his neck so he can answer. You think regretfully that it’s probably substantially warmer down here, fire catching nicely.

“Upstair—” Joel cuts off, your teeth nipping his pulse point.

You feel his heart jump against your mouth and your chest at once. You kiss him slowly as he takes you upstairs, stopping halfway up. He pushes you against the banister and deepens the kiss, hard length made clear. Shifting you closer to his waist once you resume, Joel’s hands creep a little higher, fingertips edging up as they dig in.

As you reach his bedroom, you have one hand hooked in the bottom seam of his shirt, ready to pull it off as he tries to set you down. Joel grunts when you tangle his broad shoulders in it, getting free and discarding it agilely. He bears down on you under dark lashes, chest rising and falling noticeably. The chill upstairs dissolves quickly as you twine together, hands running over his chest. It’s impressively broad and defined, thickening line of hair leading into his jeans.

You strip out of your two shirt layers with a casual roll of your upper body. Joel’s rapt eyes dragging over every rib leave you feeling exposed until his hands cover your breasts, mouth on your neck. You try to tug the rest of him towards the bed by the belt loops, but get frustrated and try to unclasp his belt instead.

Joel stoops to claw quickly at his boots, both thrown one handed before coming to rest against the wall. He hasn’t taken his eyes from you as you rise to slip your jeans down, one hand already curled back around your waist. He spreads his other hand across your abdomen, callused fingertips making you shudder appreciatively. Shoving you back, Joel gets to his knees with one of your legs hooked over his shoulder, grasped in his palm, kissing down your thigh. His free hand still moves over the rest of you.

Your mind is blankly focused on the rasp of his beard inside your legs. If you were honest, head wasn’t a frequent priority after the outbreak, sex usually a time-sensitive stress fix—for everyone. Add to that the average skill of the college peers you’d fucked before and, well, you’d only ever mildly enjoyed it.

Joel sucks your clit into his mouth, hard, and you arc off the bed. He moves without an ounce of uncertainty, shifting and roughly positioning you for the best angle as he goes. Being pursued like this, by a person who squarely checks boxes you didn’t know were empty left you wet enough to take him the moment you’d been out of your pants. His tongue pushes inside of you, followed quickly by one finger and then another, static but wonderful. You writhe on the bed at the feeling, low hum of a chuckle skittering across your sensitive skin.

One hand in the sheets, your other makes it into his hair. You grind against him without being able to help it, riding the stretch of his fingers as his tongue laves forceful circles around your clit.

“Fuck,” you try to grit out, embarrassed by the disassembled breathiness of your voice. It’s more a sigh as he curls his fingers within you, hazel flicking up to watch your reaction. You paw at his shoulders blindly, wanting him closer, wanting to fuck him, trying to pull back from him to tell him. He’s deadset in his focus, teeth softly grazing you in reply to your attempt.

“Can you just—” Joel grumbles, rising,“—be good for one goddamned second—” he yanks you towards him by your ankle.

“This where you want me to tell you to make me?” you tease, sitting up in his lap and wrenching him closer with your legs.

He huffs a small laugh, making to kiss you, but you hold him back.

“I want you to make me, okay?” You say seriously, grasping the hair at his nape to emphasize it.

Joel leans forward, biting your lip with care.

“Alright,” he confirms, hands around your jaw. You taste yourself on him, and a near-growl ripples through him, evident through his chest pressed against yours.

You duck away from his kiss, not caring to get his jeans off before getting a hand around his cock, your mouth enclosing the tip before you can register how much there is to take.

“Christ,” he breathes, eyes shut, face turned towards the ceiling. As your hand becomes slick enough to work over his shaft, his hands stabilize in your hair, bunching. You feel him flex in your mouth as he parts his lips and tugs on your hair, hauling you up level with his face.

“You don’t get to end it now,” Joel smiles, mouth almost against yours. You smile at the rough motion, hot interest skipping down your spine. His opposite hand is running over your chin while he composes himself, far closer than he’d wanted to be at this point.

You bite his fingers, pulling two deftly in to suck and keeping his gaze. His pupils darken and you feel a surge of pride at the same time as you feel him shove you back onto the bed, tearing his jeans off and finally joining you. Joel covers you, kissing you roughly and pulling your thighs around his hips, on his knees. He sheathes inside you without resistance, groaning and bowing his head at first. Even ready, he stretches you noticeably and you gasp at his first experimental thrusts, dragging your hips up to his each time.

You rise up to meet him, nails dug into his shoulders for traction, meeting his thrusts.

Joel hisses more in chastisement than discomfort at it, smacking your ass curiously.

“You know I’m not delicate,” you say close to his ear, snapping the lobe between your teeth unnecessarily hard.

“Shit, ow—” he grumbles, smacking you harder. You moan at the feeling, spread over his lap and trawling nails down his back. You tug where you’ve latched on, moving lower and biting his neck. He does it again, rolling his hips as you clench down on him. You scrape your teeth over his shoulder. Joel hits you again, force of it stinging how you’d hoped.

You provoke him to continue, pulling his hair, hard, and biting the skin over his collarbone.

Joel fists your hair and tugs back hard, exposing your throat to him even as you keep riding him, spanking you with almost musical timing. You almost draw blood scratching your nails out of his hair to the nape of his neck, grinning from your forced angle as he pants under you.

Joel leans forward and nips carefully over your larynx, clamping down hard on tendons just next to it. It’s a brash spot to suck a bruise into, and even the less visible parts of your body would surely be screaming on patrol in the morning.

You cry out, nerves and instinctive reaction to teeth near your neck making your heart and your cunt clench.

Joel flips you without effort, pressing a palm against your lower back to shove you into the mattress. You feel him strike your ass, once, twice, three times, and then his fingers are at your entrance, coaxing your hips to tilt up. He brushes his knuckles against you, leaning over to breathe into your ear.

“Here?”

“What did I just say?” You retort, appreciative of his caution but entirely sold on the possibility that walking will hurt tomorrow.

Joel doesn’t reply but you can see him roll his eyes from the corner of yours as he swats your cunt, hard, sensation shattering across your skin. You moan and he takes the initiative to do it again. Your shoulder blades pinch together around his hand, veering up with it. You turn your face entirely into the bed, muffling moans and faux-objections as he works, tenderness rising to the surface of your skin.

You feel Joel’s hands harshly grasp handfuls of your ass the second before he thrusts into you again, the force pinning you to the bed. He fucks you hard for long minutes, sweat building between you enough to make his hands slip. Joel’s forearm slides around your front and pulls you back against his chest.

You immediately claw at his arm, grateful to anchor yourself to him directly, pushing your hips down against his as he falls back to a gentler pace. His mouth reaches your shoulder and your hand flies to his hair again, straining to kiss him. Maybe it was weird to seek him like that—could still be a fantastic, unattached fuck—but Joel kisses you with this unerring focus that already makes you hope it will happen again.

“Takin’ me perfectly,” he drawls, some enunciation falling away with his blood coursing like this. You want to keep hearing him, so you nod and resume kissing him.

“More delicate than you thought? Need a break?” Joel taunts, and your eyes narrow as he speaks low and close, still thrusting shallowly.

“You want it hard again?” Joel teases, fingers skimming your stomach to roll your clit between them his thumb and index. It pinches and you suck in a breath, your hips floundering against his patient rhythm.

Your eyes spark and you decide to push.

“Yes, daddy,” you mock, almost sneering at him.

A dim recollection of a girl he’d briefly seen after Sarah’s mom left dusts itself off, and he reconnects dots that drifted apart from disuse after the outbreak. Joel raises his eyebrows at you and tips his head as if to say, “Well, alright then.”

You’re on your hands and knees before you can react, his hand spanning across your collarbones, bracing you against his repeated impact. Joel’s breathing becomes ragged each time he slides home, folding over you again to spill an endless wave of questions into your ear. His fingers are smoother across your clit now, drawing soaked concentric circles as you hitch.

“That’s it, baby girl,” Joel punctuates with a snap of his hips.

“You gonna come for me just like this?” Again.

“Come around my cock like a good girl?” Again, rough.

You moan, dropping to your elbows as he pounds into you, orgasm building inside of you spilling over to his fingers’ stimulation, a low groan meeting yours. You’re past words and shivering on the edge of climax when he taps your jaw.

“Focus up, c’mon,” he rumbles in your ear, demanding your attention. The pressure of his length against the tension inside of you has your vision blurring at the edges.

“Tell me,” Joel demands, pulling out halfway.

“Yes! Please, please,” you hear yourself sound panicky at the threat of losing his touch.

“Not what I asked you, baby,” he goads, nipping softly across your shoulders. His hand hasn’t stilled, and you know your eyes are rolling with the distracting pleasure of it.

“Yes, yes I will, please—”

“Tell me what,” he slips in an inch, voice shaky with thin control, fingers flexing where they meet your skin.

“Come for you, please don’t stop,” you plead, trying to shove your hips back to to meet his.

“That’s it, baby girl,” Joel murmurs and you break, quivering against his fingers and fussing with effort and relief. Your cheeks and mouth bloom red as your eyes droop with the onslaught of endorphins, still cresting as you feel Joel’s hips snap in quick succession, burying himself deep and making the best, most broken noise you could have hoped for. Even deep in your own fog, you reach for him, finding his mouth as it seeks yours again, aftershocks rolling through him.

Joel rolls onto his back, tugging you along one side. You don’t much enjoy being pinned if you weren’t also being penetrated, so the intimacy of lying there like lovers with someone you’d barely glimpsed, much less talked to, was unsettling.

Joel laughs like it’s easy for him, face lighting up with the motion, hand stroking your hair behind your ear.

“What?” You ask, propping yourself up on an elbow.

“Just surprised you said yes,” he clarifies. “I’m don’t—this isn’t a usual Wednesday for me,” he clears his throat.

You analyze his expression for a second, looking for the deceit and just finding something genuine and suspiciously shy for having nearly spanked you to orgasm minutes ago.

“You don’t accost every vulnerable newcomer and ply them with good whisky?” You prod, draping yourself over his chest, an easy negotiation of legs happening without either of you needing to acknowledge it.

“Bourbon, and, just the ones who start fistfights, really,” he teases, hands drifting over you, hungry warmth reaching his eyes as the afterglow begins to recede.

“Come downstairs?” Joel asks, like you weren’t tangled up in his bedsheets, surrounded and willingly captive to whatever he wanted.

“That was the original plan,” you protest, peering around for his shirt and slipping into it.

He smirks and kisses the tip of your nose, pausing and tipping your chin up to kiss you properly.

God damn it, you think. Oh, god damn it.

#joel miller #joel x reader #joel miller x reader #the last of us joel #the last of us #the last of us fic #the last of us ii #the last of us 2 #asks #filled prompts #prompts #joel/reader

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tothedarkdarkseas · 3 years

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The song Most Aborted Father for Murdoc.... Ohh boy.

"Sometimes I feel like a cigarette

I'm wrapped in paper

and I'm suffocating to death"

"I don't want to be a cigarette anymore

So please just put me out

All day and night"

I've always been interested with the idea of Murdoc usually sex as an unhealthy coping mechanism, either by letting people use him because that's what he thinks he "deserves", or because sex is what's expected of him. But this kind of sounds like his break, like him finally saying out loud that he doesn't want to live that life anymore.

Rather than sex, he'd rather be hurt.

First, I love this song! I've definitely felt like it had a Murdoc aura in the past; some lines I also think could apply to Stuart, notably the title and reference to "I'm the Most Aborted Father in 18 counties, 18-- nationwide, I guess" (I'm sure Murdoc has some unknown children of his own, but I don't interpret unrecognized fatherhood to be as significant a part of his character as it is for Stu) and the allusion to having all of his nicotine sucked out, which makes it sound as though he's been drained and is resentful of the thing leeching off him. However, the overall mood of the song is much more Murdoc, as is the conclusion of begging to just be put out.

I like your interpretation! I tend to feel of two minds about Murdoc's sexual dysfunction, and while there's some fascinating content exploring the intersection of his self-worth and sexuality, I lean more toward Murdoc choosing his mistakes knowing they're unproductive, and not necessarily being powerless at the mercy of his reputation-- for my own personal characterization, I see Murdoc as "using by being used," if that makes sense. That isn't to say I think he's always happiest this way, and I absolutely think that self-flagellating desire to be hurt was shaped by an intolerant and abusive upbringing (inside and outside of the home) and I'm sympathetic to it, but I guess it's like... I never view Murdoc as acting from obligation, I still view him as acting from craving. The very same craving a smoker has for nicotine, actually, on the topic of this song. I see it more akin to an addiction to something bad for you: a smoker doesn't really want to quit because they stop enjoying it, but because they become too aware of how much damage they're doing to keep justifying it. Until they do it again, that is. I've loved smokers and you probably have too, so you know even knowledge, even pain, even regret doesn't often stop it. I see Murdoc in the later phases as looking at his relationship with Stuart in a similar way. (But if the codependence, fear and sexual dysfunction was a lit cigarette to their shared body, Plastic Beach was a molotov cocktail in the throat of it-- that is to say, damage Murdoc can't undo, therefore his approach to Stuart and the terms on which he occupies space with him fundamentally changes. That's really the point where I see Murdoc having an unhealthy, but arguably unavoidable sense of obligation.) ((Edit: Actually, I’ve said something similar in the past but I think it’s relevant here and could help clarify my muddy babbling: younger Murdoc’s attitude is defined by a bitter and class-heavy notion of owing nothing to the world, while older Murdoc sees himself indebted to only Stuart in the end.))

#headcanon posts #music junk #thank you!#ajjdoc 4ev

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letitrainathousandflames · 3 years

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I was struck with one of those low moods out of the blue due too, uh... being neurodivergent, I guess? Anyway so I googled “how to snap out of a low mood” and clicked an alleged mental health website and I shit you not, the first tip is

[ID: the words “enjoy yourself” written in black bold letters over a white background]

And I’m like. WELL SHIT! I DID NOT CONSIDER THAT AT ALL, NOW DID I?? SO THE SOLUTION FOR ME TO GET RID OF THIS LACK OF DOPAMINE AND THEREFORE FINALLY BE ABLE TO ENJOY MYSELF IS - GET THIS - TO FUCKIN’ ENJOY MYSELF! WHO WOULD’VE KNOWN??

WANNA STOP FEELING MISERABLE?! WHY, SILLY, JUST ENJOY YOURSELF!

Edit: before this gets any traction in the self-deprecating blogs, let me get one thing straight - I have been through depression. The bad, ugly, type. And I fought tooth and nail, and had the support of therapists, psychiatrists, and, after a period of adjustment, my family as well, to get through the shithole that is depression.

This is an isolated incident in my very happy life in which I’ve made tons of progress.

Don’t use this joke post for your “I will never get better” and “I’ll never feel good again” mental self-flagellation cycle. It isn’t healthy. It may seem like a funny coping mechanism but it is neither funny nor coping.

You matter. You are unique. You will be better. Stay strong. Take care. Know that you are loved.

#GOOD EVENING INTERNET YOU SINFUL REFLECTION OF HUMAN HUBRIS

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dustedmagazine · 3 years

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Slept Ons: The Best Records of 2020 That We Never Got Around To

Tattoos and shorts! How did we miss the Oily Boys?

It happens pretty much every year. After much fussing and second-guessing, the year-end list gets finalized, set in stone really, encapsulating 12 months of enthusiastic listening, and surely these are the best ten records anyone could find, right? Right? And then, a day or a week later, someone else puts up their list or records their year-end radio show, and there it is, the record you could have loved and pushed and written about…if only you’d known about it. My self-kick in the shins came during Joe Belock’s 2020 round-up on WFMU when he played the Chats. Others on our staff knew, earlier on, that they weren’t writing about records they loved for whatever reason — work, family, mp3 overload, etc. Except now they are. Here. Now. Enjoy.

Contributors include me (Jennifer Kelly), Eric McDowell, Jonathan Shaw, Justin Cober-Lake, Bill Meyer, Bryon Hayes, Ian Mathers, Andrew Forell, Michael Rosenstein and Patrick Masterson.

The Chats — High Risk Behavior (Bargain Bin)

High Risk Behaviour by The Chats

Cartoonishly primitive and gleefully out of luck, The Chats hurl Molotov cocktails of punk, bright and exploding even as they come. They’re from Australia, which totally makes sense; there’s a sunny, health-care-subsidized, devil-may-care vibe to their down-on-their luck stories. Musically, the songs are stripped down like Billy Childish, sped up like the Ramones, brute simple like Eddy Current Suppression Ring. Most of them are about alcohol: drinking, being drunk, getting arrested for being drunk, eating while drunk…etc. etc. But there’s an art to singing about getting hammered, and few manage the butt-headed conviction of “Drunk & Disorderly.” Its jungle rhythms, vicious, saw-toothed bass, quick knife jabs of guitar frame an all-hands drum-shocked chant: “Relaxation, mood alteration, boredom leads to intoxication.” Later singer Eamon Sandwith cuts right to the point about romance with the couplet, “I was cautious, double wrapped, but still I got the clap.” The album’s highlights include the most belligerently glorious song ever about cyber-fraud in “Identity Theft,” whose shout along chorus buoys you up, even as the dark web drains your savings account dry. The album strings together a laundry list of dead-end, unfortunate situations, one after another truly hopeless developments, but nonetheless it explodes with joy. Bandcamp says the guitar player has already left—so you’re too late to see the Chats live—but it must have been fun while it lasted.

Jennifer Kelly

Oliver Coates — skins n slime (RVNG Intl)

skins n slime by Oliver Coates

2020 was a year of loss, of losing, of feeling lost. Whether weathering the despair of illness and death, the discomfort of displacement or the drift of temporal reverie, English cellist Oliver Coates creates music to reflect all this and more on skins n slime. Using modulators, loops and effects, Coates employs elements from drone, shoegaze and industrial to extend the range of the cello and conjure otherworldly sounds of crushing intensity and great beauty. Beneath the layering, distortion and dissonance, the human element remains strong. The tactility of fingers and bow on strings and the expressive essence of tone form the core of Coates composition and performance. If his experiments seem a willful swipe at the restrictions of the classical world from whence he came, the visceral power of a track like “Reunification 2018”, which hunkers in the same netherworld as anything by Deathprod or Lawrence English, the liminal, static bedecked ache of “Honey” and the unadorned minimalism of “Caretaker Part 1 (Breathing)” are works of a serious talent. skins n slime is an album to sit with and soak in; allow it to percolate and permeate and you’ll find yourself forgetting the outside world, if only for a while.

Andrew Forell

Bertrand Denzler / Antonin Gerbal — Sbatax (Umlaut Records)

Sbatax by Denzler - Gerbal

Tenor sax player Bertrand Denzler and drummer Antonin Gerbal released this duo recording last summer which slipped under the radar of many listeners. Denzler is as likely to be heard these days composing and performing pieces by others in the French ensemble ONCEIM, playing solo, or in settings for quiet improvisation. But he’s been burning it up as a free jazz player for years now as well. Gerbal also casts a broad net, as a member of ONCEIM, deconstructing free bop in the group Peeping Tom, or recontextualizing the music of Ahmed Abdul-Malik along with Pat Thomas, Joel Grip and Seymour Wright in the group Ahmed amongst many other projects. The two have worked together in a variety of contexts for a decade now, recording a fantastic duo back in 2014. Sbatax, recorded five years later at a live performance in Berlin is a worthy follow-up.

Gerbal attacks his kit with ferocity out of the gate, with slashing cymbals and thundering kit, cascading along with drubbing momentum. Denzler charges in with a husky, jagged, repeated motif which he loops and teases apart, matching the caterwauling vigor of his partner straightaway. Over the course of this 40-minute outing, one can hear the two lock in, coursing forward with mounting intensity. Denzler increasingly peppers his playing with trenchant blasts and rasping salvos, riding along on Gerbal’s torrential fusillades. Throughout, one can hear the two dive deep in to free jazz traditions while shaping the arc of the improvisation with an acute ear toward the overall form of the piece. Midway through, Denzler steps back for a torrid drum solo, then jumps back in with renewed dynamism as the two ride waves of commanding potency and focus to a rousing conclusion, goaded on by the cheering audience. Anyone wondering whether there is still life in the tenor/drum duo format should dig this one up.

Michael Rosenstein

Kaelin Ellis — After Thoughts (self-released)

After Thoughts by KAELIN ELLIS

To be sure, “slept on” hardly characterizes Kaelin Ellis in 2020. After a trickle of lone tracks in the first months of the year, a Twitter video posted by the 23-year-old producer and multi-instrumentalist caught the attention of Lupe Fiasco, quickly precipitating the joint EP House. It’s a catchy story from any number of angles — the star-powered “discovery” of a young talent, the interconnectedness of the digital age, the silver linings of the COVID-19 pandemic — but it risks overshadowing Ellis’s two 2020 solo records: Moments, released in the lead-up to House, and After Thoughts, released in October. It doesn’t help that each album’s dozen tracks scarcely add up to as many minutes, or that the producer’s titles deliberately downplay the results. And some, of course, will judge these jazzy, deeply soulful beats only against their potential as platforms for some other, more extroverted artist. “I’d like to think I’m a jack of all trades,” Ellis told one interviewer, “but in all honesty my specialty is creating a space for others to stand out.”

Yet as with all small, good things, there’s reward in savoring these miniatures on their own terms, and After Thoughts in particular proved an unexpected retreat from last fall’s anxieties. Ellis has a poet’s gift for distillation and juxtaposition, a director’s knack for pathos and dramatic sequencing — powers that combine to somehow render a fully realized world. As fleeting as it is, Ellis’s work communicates a generosity of care and concentration, opening a space for others not just to stand out but also to settle in.

Eric McDowell

Lloyd Miller with Ian Camp and Adam Michael Terry — At the Ends of the World

At the Ends of the World by Lloyd Miller with Ian Camp and Adam Michael Terry

Miller and company fuse the feel of a contemporary classical concert with eastern modalities and instrumentation. The recordings sound live off the floor, and give a welcome sense of space and detail to the sensitive playing. Miller has explored the intersection between Persian and other cultural traditions and jazz through the lens of academic scholarship and recorded output since the 1960s. With this release, the performances linger in a space where vibe is as important as compositional structure. The results revel in the beauty when seemingly unrelated musical ideas emerge together in the same moment, with startling results.

Arthur Krumins

Oily Boys — Cro Memory Grin (Cool Death)

Cro Memory Grin by Oily Boys

The title of this 2020 LP by Australian punks Oily Boys sounds like a pun on “Cro-Magnon,” an outmoded scientific name for early humans. It’s apt: the music is smarter than knuckle-dragger beatdown or run-of-the-mill powerviolence, but still driven by a rancorous, id-bound savagery. The smarts are just perceptible enough to keep things pretty interesting. Some of the noisier, droning and semi-melodic stretches of Cro Memory Grin recall the records made by the Men (especially Leave Home) before they decided to try to make like Uncle Tupelo, or some lesser version of the Hold Steady. Oily Boys inhabit a darker sensibility, and their music is more profoundly bonkers than anything those other bands got up to. Aggro, discordant punk; flagellating hardcore burners; psych-rock-adjacent sonic exorcisms — you get it all, sometimes in a single five-minute passage of Cro Memory Grin (check out the sequence from “Lizard Scheme” to “Heat Harmony” to “Stick Him.” Yikes). A bunch of the tunes spill over into one another, feedback and sustain jumping the gap from one track to the next, which gives the record a live vibe. It feels volatile and sweaty. The ill intent and unmitigated nastiness accumulate into a palpable force, tainting the air and leaving stains on your tee shirt. Oily Boys have been kicking around Sydney’s punk scene since at least 2014, but this is their first full-length record. One hopes they can continue to play with this degree of possessed abandon without completing burning themselves to down to smoldering cinders. At least long enough to record some more music.

Jonathan Shaw

Dougie Poole — The Freelancer's Blues (Wharf Cat)

The Freelancer's Blues by Dougie Poole

A cursory listen might misconstrue the heart of Dougie Poole's second album, The Freelancer's Blues. When he mixes his wobbly country sound with lyrics like those in “Vaping on the Job,” it sounds like genre play, a smirking look at millennial life through an urban cowboy's vintage sound. Poole does target a particular set of issues, but mapping them with his own slightly psychedelic country comes with very little of the postmodern itch. His characters feel just as troubled as anyone coming out of 1970s Nashville, and as Poole explores these lives with wit and empathy, the songs quickly find their resonance.

The album, though it wouldn't reach for pretentious terms, carries an existential problem at its center. Poole circles around the fundamental void: work deadens, relocation doesn't help, spiritual pursuits falter, intelligence burdens, and even the drugs don't help. When Poole finally gets the title track, the preceding album gives his confession extra weight, a mix of life's strictures and personal limitation combining for a crisis best avoided but wonderfully shared. The Freelancer's Blues comes rich in Nashville tradition but finds an ideal fit in its contemporary place, likely providing a soundtrack for a variety of times and spaces yet to come.

Justin Cober-Lake

Schlippenbach Quartett — Three Nails Left (Corbett Vs. Dempsey)

You might say that this record has been slept on twice. The second recording to be released by the Alexander von Schlippenbach, Evan Parker and Paul Lovens (augmented this time by Peter Kowald) was released in 1975, and didn’t get a second pressing — on vinyl — until 2019. So, Corbett Vs. Dempsey stepped up last summer, it had never been on CD. But this writer was so stumped on how to relate how intense, startling, and unlike any other free improvisation it was and is, that he just… slept on it. Until now. Even if you know this band, if you don’t know this album, well, it’s time you got acquainted.

Bill Meyer

Stonegrass — Stonegrass (Cosmic Range)

STONEGRASS by Stonegrass

Released on the cusp of a tentative re-opening for the city of Toronto after two months of lock-down, this slab of psychedelic funk-rock was the perfect antidote to the COVID blues when it arrived at the tail end of a Spring spent in near-isolation. The jam sessions that became Stonegrass were also a new beginning for multi-instrumentalist Matthew “Doc” Dunn and drummer Jay Anderson, who reignited a spirit of collaboration after a decade of sonic estrangement following the demise of their Spiritual Sky Blues Band project. Listening to these songs, you’d never know they spent any time apart. The tight, bottom-wagging jams on offer are evidence that these two are joined together at the third eye. Anderson’s grooves run deep, and Dunn — whether he’s traipsing along on guitar, keys or flutes — is right there with him. There’s enough fuzz here to satiate the heads, but the real treat here is the rhythmic interplay. Strap in and prepare to get down.

Bryon Hayes

Bob Vylan — We Live Here EP (Venn Records)

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Bob Vylan flew under the radar in 2020 successfully enough that when someone nominated them for the best of 2020 poll in Tom Ewing’s Peoples’ Pop Polls project on Twitter (each month a different year or category gets voted on in World Cup-style brackets, it’s great fun and only occasionally maddening), most of the reaction was “is that one a typo?” Nobody had that response after listening to “We Live Here” — my wife also participates in the poll, so we just play all the candidates in our apartment, and Bob Vylan was the first time both of our jaws dropped in amazement; the song got played about ten times in a row at that point. Bobby (vocals/guitar/production) and Bobbie (drums/“spiritual inspiration”) Vylan’s 18-minute EP lives up to that title track, fireball after fireball aimed directly at the corrupt, crumbling, racist state that seems utterly indifferent to human suffering unless there’s profit in it. Whether it’s the raging catharsis of the title track or the cool, precise hostility of “Lynch Your Leaders,” Bob Vylan have made something vital and essential here, that very much speaks to 2020 but sadly will stay relevant long past it.

Ian Mathers

Working Men’s Club — Working Men’s Club (Heavenly Recordings)

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It’s been evident these past few years that I’ve retreated from music and committed myself to the slower world of books as a way of giving my mind a break from the accelerating madness outside, but I could never really leave my radio family the same way I could never really leave Dusted. Another great example why: A fellow CHIRP volunteer played “John Cooper Clarke” in a December Zoom social I actually managed to catch, and I’ve been addicted to Working Men’s Club’s debut LP from October ever since. The quartet hails from Todmodren, a market town you won’t be surprised upon listening to discover is roughly equidistant between Leeds and Manchester; the album screams Hacienda vibes in its seamless integration of post-punk signifiers and dancefloor style. It’s easy to bandy about names from Rip It Up and Start Again or even The Velvet Underground in 12-minute closer “Angel,” certainly one of the most arresting tracks of the year, but the thing that struck me immediately is that this was the record I’d always anticipated but never got from Factory Floor — smart, aloof and occasionally calculated, yet still fun enough to play for any crowd itching to move. Until the community of a dance party or Working Men’s Club live set is once again possible, patience and a fully formed first album will have to suffice. You’ll have to imagine the part where I corner you at the party to rave about it, I’m afraid.

Patrick Masterson

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caltropspress · 3 years

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FEEDBACK LOOP #4: Armand Hammer & The Alchemist’s “God’s Feet”

As a child I introverted and drew pictures while my mother prayed to Jesus reading King James scriptures.

—Ras Kass, “The Evil That Men Do”

The dark and evil passions of his soul, His secret plot, and sordidness complete, His hate, his purposing…

—George Marion McClellan, “The Feet of Judas”

Bury the Bible at my feet, A testament at my head. If my dear father should call for me, Tell him that I am dead.

—Nelstone’s Hawaiians, “Fatal Flower Garden”

1. James Joyce apostatized from his Catholic faith but continued to dig it for its rituals. That was an aspect to it he could tolerate and utilize for his art, as if his indoctrinated mind could fully renounce it if he wanted to. ELUCID’s first raps were recorded in a church—hallowed ground for some; narthex reverb, and nothing else, for him. Organized religion is “totally manufactured…a tool of control,” he’s said. Still, he concedes “the Bible is a beautiful book…if you remove the spirituality.” He renders its rolling paper pages into something worth uttering. Smell the burning coals and incense.

2. “Blow that horn fast, we been read’ to go. When that horn blast, the dead is coming home.”

woods sings first, but ELUCID’s singing voice, to paraphrase Jupiter Hammon, is a penitential cry. I turn the radio knob to 89.9 FM on Sunday mornings when I go for groceries in Passaic. WKCR’s Amazing Grace plays raw gospel, which is what ELUCID emulates here: where the more hideous the voice gets, the holier the expression becomes.

The song structure is raw and unblunted, too. The refrain cuts for 80 seconds before a single verse, like Bashō in its brevity, staggers us. The Alchemist and Earl Sweatshirt co-production is muted: soft keys and Mark tree accents. They leave space to let God in.

3. White is not a color!

In Franco Rosso’s Babylon, the titular Babylon is—among much mayhem—the cops with the no-knock warrant—the abhorrent clampdown on the sound-system. The guns of Brixton need blazing (or at least a knife to the gut, courtesy of Brinsley Forde). “Racial tension” is only a euphemism for murderous oppression.

4. And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon The Great, The Mother Of Harlots And Abominations Of The Earth. (Revelation 17:5, KJV)

When Mississippi John Hurt sings “Make Me a Pallet on the Floor,” he’s humbling himself—subordinating for the sake of adulterous love. The pallet is on the floor, and it’s soft and low. The sinful sweet-talk, he knows, signals risk: shoot, cut, stab. There’s no tellin’ what she might do. But the Book of Revelation offers an Armageddon glimpse of what she’s capable of. When accounting for behavior, though, who’s really the whore?

5. “So the story goes…”

The pallet is full of pestilence and plague—of lice, roaches, scourges. It doubles as a coffin, or a cooling board. Son House sang of his love “laying on the cooling board” on “Death Letter Blues.” The pain of “her Judgment Day” seemed to rack him, and the “10,000 people…standin’ around the burying ground” felt it, too.

In Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, the stable buck Crooks—the sole Black man on the ranch—associates only with the horses he tends to. Crooks’ bunk is a “long box filled with straw, on which his blankets were flung.” He’s segregated from the other workers, surrounded by harnesses and the sound of halter chains. Crooks, whose nickname carries the weight of criminality, “reduce[s] himself to nothing” when a white woman apocalyptically threatens him with a lynching.

6. For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand? (Revelation 6:17, KJV)

Milton William Cooper’s Behold a Pale Horse is, of course, a blessing and a bane. A dog-eared and spine-cracked hood classic on 125th in Harlem. But Wise Intelligent has recognized the limits of it. In its hip-hop adoption, the failures and shortcomings show through. Like on 2000’s “Horsementality,” where Kurupt barks a litany of adverbs including “ultramagnetically,” and it’s on “We Are the Horsemen” that Ced Gee looks beyond God to complain “the universe bothers [him].” You’ve got Canibus’ needlessly excessive 666 wordplay and Kool Keith’s “gamma data” and “galactic horse” super-scientifical madness. ELUCID, though, deals in the concrete, disregards the conspiratorial. He “find[s] the spirit getting lifted,” in a decidedly non-Keith Murray manner. When he beholds the white horse that comes forth conquering, we’re reminded of his anticolonialism, not black helicopters and chemtrails.

7. “In the blink of an eye, the faithful go where they are made whole. / …the dead coming home, prepare a table... / Leave your freshest linens.”

God’ll have you feeling welcome, invited, only to leave you to the cops for violating the Sabbath. He’ll roll up on you like, Wilt thou be made whole? (John 5:6, KJV). Like, Motherfucker, do I look like I want your help? He’ll convince you your disability deserves a miracle, crap on crip culture, and then chastise you about “sin” while he spits ableist fictions.

8. “Singing murder ballads. / Looking for a body.”

Harry Allen, in his eccentric and alchemical liner notes for the Anthology of American Folk Music, pens a summative headline for “Fatal Flower Garden”: “GAUDY WOMAN LURES CHILD FROM PLAYFELLOWS; STABS HIM AS VICTIM DICTATES MESSAGE TO PARENTS.”

There’s a foreboding to, arguably, every Armand Hammer recording—an educated guess, or a warning. (Aw shit!—you got a red dot on your head, too.) The mood is pervasive, like lily-white hands in murder ballads. One can find comfort in this consistency. It’s a proven fact ELUCID is up on that folk tradition shit: He hammers out danger. He hammers out a warning. What the song does is make the killing, the revolution, irresistible.

9. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. (1 Corinthians 15:25, KJV)

What do God’s feet do exactly?

Does He still keep His Timbs on? Does He pirouette spin in a pair of Timbs? Is it haram to show the sole of your shoe?

If you read Corinthians, the feat of God’s feet suggests a more Old Testament-style HIB violator—a brutal and vengeful supreme being on the bully pulpit letting you know what’s what. Or maybe it’s not so wrathful. Maybe God’s feet are just a power move—the aggrandizement of the Godhead at the expense of the masses: “The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool” (Isaiah 66:1, KJV). We’re used to getting stepped on. The back alley boot stomp. We mortify our flesh, self-flagellate. And we keep coming back for more. But why? “God’s Feet” speaks of a return, but it’s more a recidivism.

Images:

The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem (detail), by David Roberts (1850) | Screenshot from Franco Rosso’s Babylon (1980) | Mississippi John Hurt, Folk Songs And Blues cover art (detail), Piedmont Records (1963) | [Dr. Richard Burr, an embalming surgeon in the Army of the James demonstrating the procedure on a dead soldier] between 1860 and 1865 | Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (detail), Viktor Vasnetsov (1887) | The Crucifixion, panel from the Isenheim altarpiece (detail), Matthias Grünwald (1515) | Anthology of American Folk Music liner notes (detail), ed. Harry Smith (1952) | Screenshot from Franco Rosso’s Babylon (1980)

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fierceawakening · 4 years

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https://fierceawakening.tumblr.com/post/611759395302457344/more-on-accountability-and-cancel-culture

Now that I think about it, I suspect that the thing I mention (that people sometimes have predictable automatic reactions to things) is why the empathy discussion had me in such knots. Because the situation I had in my mind was something like this:

Low Affective Empathy Lou really likes (maybe has a crush on, maybe wants to be friends with) High Affective Empathy Harriet. Lou cares about Harriet, so even if he doesn’t react right away to Harriet’s feelings, he remembers to use acquired cognitive empathy skills to think about her intense expressions of emotion that tend to baffle him in the moment.

When Harriet does pat attention to him, she tends to guess his feelings and say nice things. Sometimes she’s off base, but usually he feels cared for and supported. This is one reason he wants more of her attention more of the time.

He sees that something is affecting Harriet’s mood, and asks about it. Harriet seems affronted, as she thinks the issue she’s coping with “obviously upsets people,” and feels Lou’s questioning seems “cold.” She says that she wouldn’t treat him that way, as evidenced by her supportive comments.

Lou finds this unsettling and unfair. He wasn’t trying to be inconsiderate! But he’s stil confused, and he’s not going to get much out of Harriet who is even more emotional now and therefore even less likely to thoroughly explain.

So he goes off and thinks very carefully about why Harriet was an irrational emotionball earlier. He reasons that he might be upset in a similar situation, or that even if he wouldn’t, it’s similar enough to a situation in which he has been upset that he can understand It. He returns to Harriet ready to empathize. (Actually, currently empathizING, cognitively at the very least.)

Harriet already has hurt feelings, though. The hurt feelings don’t go away just because Lou gave an explanation. She may feel so uncomfortable with the whole thing she can’t even hear his explanation, because that happens when people get defensive. Or even if she does, she may respond with “you’re making sense, but that doesn’t make me want to be friends with you, because my feelings are hurt.”

THAT’S the kind of interaction I had in mind. The vibe I get from “don’t reject me just because I have low empathy” posts isn’t “I want you to know a thing about how I work.” It’s “stop feeling hurt that I said something I could probably have predicted you’d find callous.”

Which sounds like “stop having feelings, they’re getting in my way.”

Which is not a way I want someone I’m close with to act around me, so I say “I’m not going to get close.”

Which then, “how dare you shun people like me.”

And I’m just... but this is predictable? Even if you have trouble understanding how high empathy people work, you can surely at least notice the pattern, however irrational, and think about how you might say things differently to not fall into it?

That’s what makes the other position seem selfish to me. Because it parses as teh exact same thing:

“Because your neurotype is privileged and mine is not, you should feel bad about yourself when you react in predictable ways. This means you owe me reparations. In this case, lack of shunning.”

Which is basically forced social interaction. And no one likes to be forced into that.

And reminding someone that they’re privileged doesn’t fix that? Even in the best case scenario, where they admit you’re correct, they’re gonna have a hard time liking you and it’ll show.

#the empathy discussion

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elialys · 4 years

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Ten(too?) x Rose - How to Baby Proof Your TARDIS

This is a gift for @lastbluetardis as part of the Secret Santa (@dwsecretsanta) exchange ^^ The title pretty much says it all. Don't expect anything from this except cavity inducing domestic pregnancy fluff.

Writing this, I could literally not decide if this was Ten x Rose, or Tentoo x Rose in their new TARDIS a few years down the line. Whatever works for you, I guess :D

Happy holidays ♥

[READ IT ON AO3]

HOW TO BABY PROOF YOUR TARDIS

The straw that finally breaks Rose’s aching back happens that night, when she tries using the loo adjacent to their room, and the lid simply refused to be lifted.

No matter how much she pulls, huffs or puffs (with an increasing amount of loud cursing), the bloody thing will not budge, for reasons unknown to her. From what she can see, there is no obvious mechanism that she can snap off, and no Doctor around to tell her what he’s done – and more importantly, how to undo what he’s done.

The thing about being thirty-five weeks pregnant is that she needs to pee.

Often.

It also means that if she doesn’t get to do it in the proper place in the appropriate amount of time, there will come a point when her body will go ‘tough!’ and pretty much make her pee no matter what.

Which is why Rose waddles away from their bedroom, making her way to the next available bathroom as swiftly as she can manage in her state…only to find the toilet just as inaccessible.

Now, the other thing about being thirty-five weeks pregnant is that if she gets remotely upset (and the prospect of peeing herself in the next two minutes is definitely upsetting) she will respond in one of two ways: wrath, or tears.

That night, she does both.

The way she hollers his name is quite terrifying, even to her own irrational ears. For one thing, she sounds exactly like her Mum does on a bad day. She also sounds like someone about to commit a murder.

Wherever he’s been, the Doctor hears her call well enough. Unfortunately, she’s too livid and desperate by then to be impressed in any way by how quickly he reappears, nothing short of tripping over his own feet as he staggers into the small room.

His panicked expression only worsens when he takes her in, tearstained face and all.

“What is it? Contractions? Spotting? Vitamin deficiency?”

“I need to pee!” she barks at him, pointing at the closed lid. “Open that bloody thing up!”

“Oh,” he says, having the nerves to just stand there and blink for a moment, until her nostrils flare and she fixes him with a glare so intense that he startles back into action at once. “Oh! Of course, just a tick!”

“I don’t have a tick,” she snaps back, miserable, as big, fat tears stream down her face, along with an impressive amount of mucus from her nose.

His screwdriver is already out and buzzing away at the lid, soon leading to an audible CLICK.

“There you go!” he exclaims, bravely beaming at her, although there is unmistakable terror in his eyes, well aware that he’s mucked this up.

She points at the door, sniffling and swallowing down more gunk in the process. “Out,” she whispers, and that soft, furious word seems to terrify him more than any shouting.

He does not argue, swiftly leaving the room, having the decency to close the door behind him, allowing Rose to do her business on time – and in the right place.

“I’m sorry.”

His voice comes muffled through the door, and she has no problem whatsoever picturing him as he must be, pretty much splayed all over the wood, already self-flagellating for upsetting her.

Now that her desperate urge to urinate has been dealt with, she feels immensely better, and a lot more rational – as well as a tad embarrassed. How much crying, snotting and peeing can someone manage in a day, exactly?

“We’ve talked about this,” Rose reminds him thickly, blowing her nose with toilet paper.

“I know.”

“It’ll be months before she’s big enough to move around on her own, let alone find herself near a loo.”

“I know.”

Rose sighs, finishing cleaning herself up. She takes some time at the sink to splash cold water on her blotchy face, looking as blotted and uncomfortable as she feels.

When she opens the door, he’s moved, leaning back against the opposite wall. He looks like a puppy who’s just been kicked.

“Is that really what you’ve been up to all night?” she asks him, more softly. “Baby proofing the TARDIS?”

The Doctor doesn’t answer, but the way he ruffles the hair at the back of his head is telling enough.

To be fair, he’s been good for a long time. Months, even.

He’s been protective of her, obviously, and the way he’s been insisting on doting on her from the moment they found out she was pregnant has been both endearing and frustrating. She regularly gets annoyed with the way he seems to think she cannot perform simple task by herself anymore (including wrapping a towel around her own body after showering), but she cannot stay mad at him for long when he keeps on looking at her as if she was the most mesmerising being in the universe.

Unfortunately, he’s become more than protective and attentive, these past few days.

He’s become paranoid.

She’s partly to blame for it, as she’s the one who suggested they tried out one of those Lamaze classes her Mum kept badgering her about…which had not been a success.

They’d both felt terribly out of place amongst those cooing couples, especially after the Doctor told one of them that their birth plans involved taking Rose to the soothing waters of Lusthion III in the Tresush Cluster, known for their naturally numbing properties, at which point they all started looking at them the way most regular people did.

Awkward social interactions aside, the instructor made the mistake of reminding everybody that it was never too early to start making a checklist of their home, in order to determine what could be a possible hazard for their child.

The Doctor obviously took it as a challenge.

“Did you know there are three-thousand-six-hundred-and-forty-nine ways for a child to get harmed on this TARDIS?” he’d asked her a couple of days ago, once he was done with his thorough inventory.

He’d looked slightly crazed by then, having obviously imagined in great details how their offspring could get hurt in every single one of these ways.

“Is at all?” she’d antagonised him instead of thinking up something sensible to say that would have calmed him down. “Thought it would be more, to be honest, seeing how children can literally hurt themselves just by walking from one end of a room to the other.”

That stupid remark had put a fire under his arse, for lack of better word.

They both know from his constant blabbering of facts that Rose should have entered the nesting phase of her pregnancy by now. And yet, while she sometimes feels compelled to work on the nursery some more, the Doctor is the one who’s been reorganising the entire TARDIS for the last two days.

It hasn’t been all bad, as he did get rid or fixed some implements that had been a danger to them both for years – including loose wires and other exposed mechanical hazards.

Rose began losing patience a few hours ago, when he started putting carpet all over the floors.

“Carpet?” she’d asked. “Carpet?”

“It’ll be softer on her little hands and knees when she starts to crawl.”

How he could be so endearing and infuriating at the same time was beyond her.

“She’s still getting oxygen through an umbilical cord,” Rose pointlessly reminded him. “It’ll be a while before she crawls.”

“Well it’ll be softer on your toes, then. You’re the one who’s always complaining about having sore feet.”

That’s when Rose had gone to bed, too achy and uncomfortable to attempt to reason with him again, aware that there was nothing much she could do or say when he was in that mood.

She’s drawing the line at toilet lids, though.

She walks to him, now, reaching up to cup his face. “Doctor,” she tells him calmly, her own bout of hysteria having receded for the time being. “I need you to get it together. You can’t expect me to be the only sane person on this ship. ‘m way too hormonal to pull it off.”

He scowls at her. “I am fine.”

“Yeah?” she asks with a scoff. “How did you lock all those toilet lids, exactly?”

“Magnetism,” he explains at once. “I gave both the lid and the seat strong magnetic properties by tinkering with the spin of their electrons.”

She blinks at him.

“Ah,” he concedes, tilting his head. “I get how that could be seen as me being somewhat irrational.”

“Somewhat?”

“Fine. Unreasonably irrational, then.”

She trails her fingers from his cheek to his hair, shaking her head a little. “Look, ‘m not against you being protective and taking precautions. I love that you’re thinking about all that stuff, when all I can think about lately is how many fried pickles I can eat before it makes me wanna spew. But I almost peed my pants tonight.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, swallowing hard.

She caresses his hair. “I know,” she says, before giving him a soft kiss, her protuberant belly pressing against his chest. “Can we wait until she’s born and mobile before we turn every toilet into giant magnets, though?”

“Sounds fair,” he says, briefly nuzzling her nose with his.

“You can make it up to me by feeding me,” she informs him.

“Ah,” he says again, tugging at his ear, before he starts wriggling out of her embrace. “Why don’t you…get changed first, eh? It’s a tad chilly tonight, I’d say you need another layer.”

As he spoke, he managed to escape her hold, slowly moving away from her.

“What have you done to the kitchen?” she asks.

Surely he knows better than to mess with her food.

“Nothing!” he splutters. “Much.”

She glares at him.

“Five minutes,” he tells her. “That’s all I need.”

“Fine,” she says. “But if I find out you’ve done anything to my pickles, ‘m moving out.”

She’s barely done talking that he’s dashing out of the corridor.

Rose follows with a waddle.

#doctor who #ten x rose #tentoo x rose #dwsecretsanta #ficandchips #fic of mine

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brazil-also-loves-rwby · 5 years

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Oscar & Ozpin - Soul Bind OneShot

This is an old work revised - Ozpin, how exactly are our souls going to 'combine'?

Oscar admired the view of Atlas, protected from the cold wind that roared outside through the window. It was late at night and everyone was asleep. Only he remained awake, his mind too filled with doubts and insecurities to be able to rest in peace. Being this way, he'd descended into the living room, where he would not disturb his roommates with their mental conversations.

In those moments Oscar could almost see Ospin in his reflection in the glass. His expressions, his moods and even his mental voice became more obvious, more different from his own.

"Like I said, it's a long, exhausting process.” Ozpin let out a resigned, sad sigh.

"But how exactly does it work?" Oscar pressed. Both remained tense for a long moment, while Ozpin chose the words he wanted to say.

"The process of integration starts the moment I reincarnate. The beginning is always the same: fear, doubts, constant concern for one's own sanity. Fortunately, we did not take long in this situation. There was a person once, centuries ago, that I could never convince that he was not crazy. Ozinburg was completely convinced that some grimm had possessed him.” Oscar trembled at the shadow of memories and feelings that Ozpin let slip along with those words. "It was dark times. People believed that discipline and self-flagellation could purge ones body of evil and prevent grimms from approaching. I tried to stop him several times from hurting us, but one day he went too far and I was reincarnated again.”

- I'm so sorry. - Oscar murmured.

"It was a long time ago, but thank you anyway.” Ozpin made the equivalent of a mental cough to compose himself and followed. "After that, we reached the 'recognition' phase, so to speak. That's where we are now. We learn about each other. Our desires, dreams and goals, as well as our likes, dislikes and mannerisms. At some point, we will have learned everything we could over each other and our conversations will become less and less frequent. It will not be necessary to ask, for we will already know exactly how the other feels.”

- That does not sound too bad. What next? - Ozpin sighed once more.

“It is at that moment that the assimilation begins. Because our minds are so similar, we end up deciding the same thing without thinking. Our tastes stop colliding: if you do not like coffee, but I absolutely love coffee, over time the stronger feeling will prevail and you would feel my satisfaction in drinking coffee instead of your own distaste. Barriers begin to become thinner and we’ll begin to find it difficult to define where one feelings begins and another ends.” Oscar swallowed, but Ozpin kept talking. "When someone calls your name, I answer the call. 'You' becomes 'us' and in time 'we' becomes 'I'. Who controls the body becomes irrelevant, since both would use it in the same way. We will never be one single person, ones voice will never go silent, but it becomes natural.”

- I understand it now. - Oscar leaned his head against the glass, letting it cool his skin. - I always imagined that I would just ... fade away. But now I see that when you reincarnate again, part of my personality will continue to stay with you.

"Yes." Ozpin agreed. “I have always reincarnated in similar minds, as the god of light has established, but this does not mean the are same. Like Ozma, I've been a lot more foolish. Like Oswald, I've been completely in love with Remnant's women's, as Osborne…”

- Wait. - Oscar interrupted, physically spreading his hands to hold the reins of the conversation. - What do you mean by that?

"Oswald was VERY attached not only to the pleasures of the flesh, but also to the adventure of conquering a lady and causing her to fall in love with him. I believe it was the only time I could describe one of my companions as a narcissist.” Ozpin sounded exasperated, and that made Oscar laugh. "I was no stranger to being described as 'gallant' or 'gentleman,' but that was too much. This trait of Oswald was so strong that I think it took me another two reincarnations to finally be able to look at a beautiful woman exposed skin without immediately being plagued by libidinous thoughts.”

Oscar even pulled the air to question more just to hear Ozpin's measured and indignant response and have fun with it. But Ozpin's annoyance was enough to make his memory raise the surface. Oscar remembered what it was like to be sitting next to a woman close enough to feel the heat of her skin. The euphoria of imagining what kind of expression that stern woman would look at him if he slid his hand under the table and squeezed the firm, soft flesh of her white thigh...

- Were you really THAT kind of guy?! - Oscar exclaimed, suddenly surprised and shamefully excited by the feelings and sensations that the memory passed to him. Adolescents, after all, are easily 'impressed’. -Thank the gods that you could hold back that kind of thinking.

"I could hold back that kind of thinking in my next incarnations.” Ozpin corrected and Oscar could feel that he was as uncomfortable as himself. “Ozwald, o the other hand, was not a man of just thinking.”

- Please do not tell me he really did it ...

This time Ozpin purposely pushed the memory back to Oscar. The red and astonished face of a beautiful blonde woman, twisted in fury and outrage. The memory had a sense of satisfaction and victory from taking such expression from a cold and composed woman.

- I hope you guys got a pretty slap for it. - Oscar shook his head.

"A punch, actually, that was followed by several others, I must add. This little event gave me control over our body for several weeks, since I refused to talk to Oswald for a few days because of it.”

Oscar laughed quietly and they remained in a comfortable silence for a few moments. Oscar felt calmer now, having talked so openly with Ozpin for the first time. Both of them had a hard time learning how to trust, but now that all the secrets were gone, the future did not seem so dark. As Ruby always said, they would find a way. In this line of thought Oscar felt that Ozpin was restless in his corner of their head. He waited, knowing that soon the former director would say what he had in mind.

"I was analyzing our situation.” He finally said carefully. "assimilation should have already begun, at least in its early stages, but it is not our case. We understand each other, but our thoughts and feelings remain apart most of the time. Personal.”

- And you think you know why. - Oscar guessed.

“Yes. You see, never before have so many people at the same time learned of my reincarnation, and few of those who knew have done so before the integration took place. Miss Rose ..." Oscar was startled by the mention of Ruby in the matter. “...Became careful to refer to both of us and this habit spread to all others.”

- You're right. Everyone says 'Good morning Oscar, Ozpin' to us. I remember one morning when she was responsible for making breakfast and she handed us a cup of coffee with milk. She said 'I know you dont like coffee Oscar, so I prepared it with milk ...'

“So you and Ozpin can reach a middle ground.” Ozpin completed. "That's exactly the point of my theory. We are constantly being treated as different people, so it is more difficult for our emotions to blend. For example, strong emotions such as admiration and affection would be the first to 'leak' and begin to affect me, but you are managing to keep them almost completely away from me.

- What do you mean by that? Oscar asked, feeling his own face warm and Ozpin's low-pitched laughter echoed in his head.

"I meant that, by my calculations, we do not have to worry about it in the near future.”

#rwby #oscar pine #ozpin #ozma

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astargatelover · 5 years

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Watching The da Vinci Code for the first time - A documentation

- About to watch The da Vinci Code for the first time. It’s about 3AM. Back of the DVD says the movie’s almost 2h30 long. Will approximately be going to bed at about 6AM. I gotta be crazy.

- Back of the DVD also says (translated from German): In the middle of the night the (…) is (…) Langdon (TOM HANKS) in the (…) director was murdered. His (?) (…) that of the Vitruvian Man (…) is the first horrible clue (…) and symbols. At the risk of his life (something something) Langdon – and from then on it’s a normal description, it’s just that that part is obscured by the library stamp. So I can confidently say I totally know what’s going on in this movie! *serious nod*

- Third highlight of the back of the DVD: Ian McKellen, grumpy-looking monk dude and a guy looking like Palpatine. And the Louvre.

- Also in the movie: Some German I don’t know (but yay!) and Paul Bettany. He’s cool; I really liked him in A Knight’s Tale.

- Let’s get this show on the road!

- …gotta update my media player. One sec!

- There we go. …where’s the always-on-top button? Ah, found it! Light’s off in my room; cinema time.

- Music’s already nice in the menu.

- Audio: English. (More nice music.) Subtitles: (Hey, they have Turkish on offer!) Off.

- (They even have subtitles for the trailers. But no extras. Am miffed. What kind of bare-bones DVD is this?!)

- 20 minutes after the first “about” up there: Play movie.

- Fancy title cards.

- Dude running. He’s gonna die; I know that much.

- Paul!

- *sigh*

- Oooooh, it’s Robert. That’s a lot of applause.

- (Btw, in case you didn’t know: I have watched Angels & Demons because I love Ernesto Olivetti a crazy amount.)

- I like Robert. Awesome presentation.

- Also like Tom Hanks. He’s great.

- Accents, y’all.

- Latin? Latin. Italian? No, definitely Latin.

- Ouch. Self-flagellation. Ooooooouch. Some religious people are crazy.

- Dude, you can barely stand. I’m a sadist and I don’t want you doing that to you.

- We’re only 10 minutes in, my goodness.

- Claustrophobia! I relate to that.

- Just let the dude take the stairs.

- Wow.

- Priests.

- Have I mentioned I’m not a big fan of catholics? Nothing personal.

- Also: Autistic Langdon, symbology special interest.

- French.

- Sophie! Heard of her.

- Strange happenings.

- Oooooooooh.

- French lady. I don’t speak French.

- *window jump scare*

- We don’t trust the police guy.

- Conspiracies!

- Fuck.

- “Once he starts, he doesn’t stop.” He’s like Javert.

- Climb out the window?

- More French.

- Oooooooh! They’re so tricking them, aren’t they? They’re not dumb.

- Bye bye!

- I’m sorry for Sophie.

- (I saw that part where her grandfather got shot years ago.)

- Here we go with the anagrams.

- Eidetic memory (pretty much) - firms up my autism headcanon.

- Can you even get that close to the Mona Lisa irl?

- Tom Hanks has a really nice nose. xD

- Langdon’s so good with anagrams.

- It’s like a scavenger hunt.

- Ooh, Musketeer symbol.

- Chase music!

- Flashback with crazy meetings.

- A smart! I get to bop someone now.

- Ooh, Les Mis.

- Backwards! That’s impressive.

- She’s so gonna make it.

- She made it!

- Bye bye, mirror.

- Paul’s looking angry.

- Someone got stabbed. I sense guilt.

- More dead people.

- Holy water.

- A nun.

- A rose line.

- Is he gonna kill her? She seems nervous.

- MORE FRENCH.

- Red light zone.

- (It’s raining outside. Kinda sets the mood.)

- You stay away from that dude, nun.

- Saving a junkie?

- (Sophie’s a really nice name, btw.)

- He rambles when he gets the chance so much. Really reminds me of special interests. (And in case anyone takes issue with that, I should know. I’m autistic. I have them.)

- My parents just watched Knightfall. Now I know some about the templars’ fall.

- Sophie didn’t know they were supposed to protect the Holy Grail? Really? Huh.

- Moooooore French.

- Please don’t die, nun.

- That’s some scar under his eye.

- Those look like some anger issues.

- It’s the grumpy-looking monk dude.

- Seriously, I understand more Latin than French.

- “Blood is being spilled” as he’s spilling wine, that’s great.

- Freeeeeeeeeench.

- “I don’t think he liked me very much. He once made a joke at my expense.” I relate to this guy so hard on the autism level.

- It’s the German dude.

- That’s some system they’ve got at that bank.

- You call that a rose?

- I’m with Langdon here. Safe passage?

- Aww, poor guy. I’ve got claustrophobia, too, and I haven’t even got a traumatizing event behind me. (I read that somewhere.)

- I like the driver.

- A lot. Nice one with the watch.

- Langdon, you look sick. Please don’t die, y’all.

- JESUS CHRIST.

- Poor Sophie. </3 Woah.

- How tf did that truck get there?

- That bullet. Smaaart move. *thumbs up*

- Ouch.

- Bye bye again.

- Do I like the police captain? I don’t know.

- The tea convo. xD

- Is Langdon like this in the books? I hope he is.

- How old is Sophie? *googles Audrey Tatou* (Ooh, Amélie!) *checks when movie was made* ‘bout 30.

- Yaaaaaas, Ian.

- Also please don’t die.

- (Both my faves in Angels & Demons die. I’m vorbelastet and can’t find a good English word for that.)

- Jesus was cool.

- Those helmets. Feathers!

- “Not even his nephew twice removed.” xDDD

- Is that paisley? *googles* It is. Nice!

- Just in case you’re wondering, I am typing this as I watch the movie. I’m not saying I’m not missing anything, but I like multitasking.

- *googles The last Supper* Wow, no cup.

- Genital symbols.

- Wombs open towards the ground, though. People with them aren’t constantly doing handstands.

- Have I mentioned one of my favorite movies is Dogma, which postulates that Jesus had siblings? I’m liking this conversation.

- “Companion meant spouse.” My gay ass likes this.

- If that is Mary Magdalene, though, which apostle is missing? Been wondering this for years.

- Scions. I like this.

- I’m all for sex positivity.

- Your time’s kinda running out, guys.

- Almost halfway through, now.

- Do you seriously believe they’re murderers?

- Why do you wear your police thingies like a blind man’s band?

- Was overall expecting a bit more running in this movie, I guess.

- Poor Sophie. This is a lot to take in.

- Beating someone up with crutches! Yas!

- Like, ouch.

- Do you happen to have a secret passage under your house? Would come in real handy.

- Oh, Zürich! Man, accents. Barely understood that.

- Frehehench.

- In my personal experience claustrophobic people aren’t generally fans of planes. That might just be me, though.

- Still don’t know Paul’s character’s name.

- We are leaving the country.

- That haircut. On the dude with the grumpy-looking monk.

- Does Jesus having a family beside his parents somehow make him less holy? *shrug*

- FRENCH.

- Police brutality?

- “Please”? Seriously? I understood that much and you’re a dick.

- This is, like, some Order of the White Lotus stuff.

- You need a mirror? You can’t read it otherwise? Huh. Well, I guess it’s just easier.

- I really like Lee.

- How many more ways can I angrily write French? (I don’t have anything against the language per se. I just don’t understand what they’re saying and that irks me. There aren’t even subtitles for that. I feel like there are supposed to be subtitles.)

- (It is nice, however, that they’re sticking to the languages they’d actually be speaking. I wonder if it’s all German in German.)

- Yo, police. Be more subtle. You could have laid a trap.

- “You can start with him.” Hm! xD

- “I could run them over.” !! Man, this is great.

- This is like a fucking magic trick.

- You know what, I wanna watch that again.

- The DVD did not like that, so now I get to look at the “pick scene” menu. At least there’s more nice music.

- Just out of curiosity… *checks* There are 24 chapters and I’m at the 16th.

- I can understand more French when I concentrate on it, but I’ve been too annoyed about it so far.

- Never had French at school, btw. But have a bit of a talent for languages. When it comes to those I can sometimes cobble meaning together from context and existing knowledge.

- “The French cannot be trusted”, sounds so ominous.

- As a fan of Angels & Demons, I am very interested in what the Vatican has to say about all this.

- Told ya we don’t like planes.

- Naww, Sophie. Arm pat, yas.

- How do you accidentally fall into a well feet first? Hmm…

- Saved by pigeons, wow.

- Paul’s eyes are super blue.

- Is he gonna get killed?

- What an old-ass phone.

- I’m worried about that newspaper.

- How they’re keeping the identity of the teacher secret is A+, shooting-wise.

- “Your identity shall go with me to the grave.” Did he know he was gonna die?

- Nice one!

- Is the second movie this long? *checks* Not quite.

- Seriously. Unnaturally blue eyes.

- Shoot-out.

- I can kinda see where Lee’s coming from. Don’t agree with the method, but…

- Did a shoulder-shot really kill him?

- See? Nope.

- I think I do kinda like the police captain.

- Have I mentioned my attraction to side characters?

- Oh, that tiny wound on her neck. I like the attention to detail.

- And those stained glass windows! Pretty.

- His mind! Wow.

- I wanna see this scene without music and special effects, though, to see what Sophie and Lee see. Must be pretty weird. xD

- Dramatic musiiiiic.

- Police captain coming through! Yas.

- Robert’s like “What is happening?”

- Man, those poor policemen with the screaming dude in the back of the car.

- Can’t resist a challenge, can you?

- It’s hecking dark behind that doorway.

- Can they get away with getting rid of all the villains half an hour before the movie’s over?

- Now she’s all Ghost Whisperer-like.

- I like the way it sounds when she calls him Robert.

- (Doing some more googling. Ah, it’s Leigh. I see.)

- Who are these guys? Something bad’s happening.

- Flashbacks and MORE FRENCH.

- Wonder if Robert and Sophie use the formal you in German. It wouldn’t fit.

- Sophie’s world is kinda falling apart.

- (She’s like Bethany in Dogma. Don’t know if anyone here even knows Dogma, but I love it.)

- Family reunion! Who put those onions here?

- See? Robert and I agree. Why should a family make Jesus less holy?

- I really like this friendship. I hope they’ll meet again.

- Checking if she can walk on water. xD

- Hey, it’s the Eiffel tower! And it’s playing light house.

- Blood.

- What? What is it?

- Wow.

- This music is real nice.

- 7 minutes of credits.

- Again, though: The music is nice.

#the da vinci code #robert langdon #dan brown #tom hanks #sophie neveu #long post is long

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