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kenny-the-ken · 1 year

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Aged up readers, Y/N is 17, Kenny is 18. All in high school. Mentions of drugs, alcohol, sexual themes and strong language. NOT FOR MINORS!! I hope you all enjoyed my first fic, it was written while running after my 2 year old who throws WAY too many tantrums so sorry if it wasn't my greatest work!

Kenny watched you from across the classroom, he watched how you twiddled your pen between your thumb and forefinger, how you the tip of your tongue darted out of your mouth as you concentrated on what you were writing. Your perfect y/h/c hair flowing in soft waves that cascaded down your back. He had fallen, and he had fallen hard.

Both of you were inseparable, the best of friends, you did everything together, albeit not much, because neither of you could afford to go a lot of places. He loved nothing more than laying down beside you in your bed with his arms wrapped tightly around your waist, you were the one of the only people that knew he was Mysterion, you were one of the very lucky few who had seen him without his orange parka hood suffocating his face. But the most important to him, you were the only one to remember, the first time he died in front of you, you were shattered to a million pieces, your heart completely broken, and the only thing that could ever fix it was Kenny coming back alive, not like that could ever happen.

But it did, and when you heard a small knock on your front door all those years ago, opening it to see those beautiful blue eyes and fluffy blonde hair standing smiling at you, your face covered in smeared black lines of mascara, he knew.

"Kenny?" You uttered, rubbing your eyes as if you were hallucinating, a glove clad hand reaching to cup your tear stained face, he just simply looked at you, tears now welling in his own eyes.

"You- You remember?" He asked, you giving him a small nod as his answer. You smiled, tears still falling down your face.

"Of course I remember, Kenny! You got hit by a bus and everyone shouted about how you'd been killed and then called them bastards!" You responded, before he grabbed you with both hands, saying nothing but pulling you close to him for the tightest hug you'd ever had.

"I'm so glad you remember. No one else does."

That day will stay forever engraved in his mind for as long as he was destined to be on this earth for. And he knew, he knew you were his one true soul mate. Yeah, Kenny had been with plenty of girls before, but none of them made him feel how you did, normally so confident in asking girls out, he was known as a flirt, but he had never been confident enough to ask you out. That was until today.

"Put your balls in your purse, Kinny!" Eric said to him, exiting the class watching you walking in front of him. He was half listening, half in a daydream about how good your ass looked in your jeans.

"Kenny? Hello? Earth to Kenny, are you even listening to us?!" Kyle said, waving his hands in the air in front of Kenny's face.

"Hey dude, I was getting a good view there!! Fuck you, man!" Kenny exclaimed, sighing as he seen you turn the corner in the corridor.

"Dude, you seriously gotta ask her out!" Stan said, the other two boys nodding in agreement.

"How, man? I don't have any money to take her places, what am I supposed to say, 'Hey Y/N wanna come to my house and see my shit bedroom, my mom and dad screaming at each other and our meth lab?!' She'd never go for a guy like me, dudes. And she deserves better than me." He said his head bowing to stare at the tiles of the corridor. His life really was a mess.

"And that's where the broship comes in, dude!" Eric exclaimed, the other boys staring at each other in confusion.

"I bet you $70 you won't ask her out by the end of the day!" Eric said, knowing Kenny couldn't pass up on money like that.

"And if you do, then the money will come in handy for a date right?" Eric said, a shit eating grin plastered upon his face.

"Fine." Kenny replied, saying nothing else before walking off to find you.

There you sat with the other girls, chatting about god knows what and eating your lunch. You could feel a pair of eyes burning through the back of your skull as you turned round, there he stood, your prince in an orange parka. You couldn't see it because of his hood, but he was smiling at you, and was that a blush on his cheeks?

You had serious love and feelings for Kenny, and you always had, but you knew he was a player, he had been with a lot of girls throughout the years, and he never ever chose you, maybe he just didn't see you that way.

He was nervous, a small bead of sweat trickling down his forehead. He made his way over to you.

"Is it hot in here, or is it just being so close to you, girl?" Kenny flirted, causing a small blush to spread along your cheeks.

"What's up, Kenny?" You asked, offering him the half of your sandwich, he normally didn't have much food to eat, so you liked to help when you could. He great-fully accepted the kind offer and then bowed his head slightly, taking on a rather unusual mannerism for him. Normally he was so confident and cocky, but right now, he looked like he might pass out.

And he felt like it too!! Maybe he could just die accidentally and come back tomorr- No! He has to do this! It was now or never.

"Can I- um... can I talk to you about something?" Kenny asked, his gloved hands fidgeting together.

"Of course, Ken, we can talk about anything together! Do you wanna head somewhere more private?" You asked, as he simply nodded in reply, taking off a glove and offering his hand to you.

"I rolled a joint I didn't get to smoke before school today, wanna dip and go to the park?" Kenny questioned, his eyebrow quirking, hoping you'd be down.

"I have Mr Garrison's class after lunch so fuck yeah I wanna dip. My mom isn't home as usual, said she was going to get drugs last night and hasn't came back, so we can go smoke up at my house if you want? I've got frozen pizza!" You exclaimed, a large smile on your face. You could never pass up quality time with Kenny, you both knew that.

"That sounds like absolute bliss, babe. But when we smoke up, I really do need to talk to you about something." He stated, your hands now fully intertwined. As you guys approached the double doors of the school you passed Eric, Kyle and Stan, the three boys staring at you both, wide eyed and mouths wide.

"Hey, fuck you Kinny!" Eric shouted, handing him $70. "Make it last! God knows when you'd be able to get $70 again, Kinny!" He shouted loudly, the blonde boy smirking and flipping him off on his way out the door.

"Fuck you, dude! I'll text y'all later." He shouted back, the doors finally closing behind you both.

The walk was long and cold to your house, since you lived in the same part of town as Kenny, and the school bus wasn't running, since technically school was still in session. During the walk Kenny had shedded his jacket, putting it on you instead, making sure you didn't catch sick and kept warm in the never ending snow that resided in South Park.

Soon enough you were both in your bedroom, the window cracked slightly as Kenny sparked his lighter, taking a long, slow drag of the joint before passing it to you.

"So, what did you wanna talk about? Has your dad gone psycho again?" You asked, taking a few drags of the joint and passing it back to Kenny, your hands grazing slightly, and when you two touched, it felt electric.

He shook his head no. "No, for once it's not my parents." He laughed out, smoke coming down his nostrils.

"Then what's wrong, Ken?" You asked eyebrows raised as your studied your best friends face. He had a light dusting of freckles, soft, pale skin and the most perfect, light pink lips and of course you couldn't forget the adorable little gap in his teeth when he smiled at you. You were in love, you had been in love with him for as long as you could remember.

His hands were ice cold, the blood not reaching them due to the speed his heart was beating at.

"I um... I-" He stuttered, his cheeks a deep shade of crimson, as he quickly puffed on the joint you two shared, passing it to you, he should've asked if you had any vodka here that he could take a shot of, a little Dutch courage, but it was too late, he was already sitting here, your full attention on him as he became a stammering mess.

He took his gaze away from you before he said it, he actually had finally said it to you, and he did so as quickly as the words would come out of his mouth.

"Do you maybe wanna, I don't know, bemygirlfriend? I mean, only if you want to! If you don't, I totally understand, I wouldn't wanna be with me either, I mean, you deserve the world and I can barely afford to feed myself-"

You cut him off by grabbing the front of his t-shirt and pulling him towards you, your lips crashing against one another. You had waited for this since you were younger, you had always dreamed of being his, being his girl. And now you were!

His eyes fluttered closed, melting against you and wrapping his slender arms around your waist, pulling you closer to him on the bed. He had dreamt about this, he had wanked about this! More than once! He'd thought about how your boobs looked without any clothing covering them, how your nipple would feel in his mouth, how hard he could slap your ass, how tight you would feel around his coc-

You both parted ways, panting as you did, a string of salvia connecting your mouths. Both of you were blushing profusely, and Kenny shifted on the bed, feeling the tightness in his jeans starting to bother him.

"I've wanted to do that since the fourth grade." You said, almost in a whisper, only for Kenny to hear.

"Then let's go use this $70 fat ass gave me and I'll take you on our first official date!" Kenny said, a small smile on his lips as he kept his arms wrapped tightly around you, as if a gust of wind could blow you away from him.

"I love you, Kenny McCormick."

"I love you too, Y/N, and I always have." Kenny sighed, the relief he felt come crashing over him. He no longer had to keep it a secret, he loved you, and you loved him, and that was all the mattered. You made him want to stay alive, you made him happy, and you made him whole. I guess soul mates really do exist.

Hey guys!! I really hope you enjoyed this fic, I just kinda banged it out and I haven't checked any spelling or typos, so I'm really sorry about that, I just hope you all enjoy it. Kenny's a cute lil fluff, and I love writing for him, but I'll write for anyone from South Park so if you guys have any suggestions or requests please do send them my way!!

#kenny mccormick #kenny mccormick smut #kenny mccormick x reader #kenny south park #stan marsh #stan south park #eric cartman #kyle south park #kyle brovlofski #south park #south park x reader

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yuri-is-online · 3 months

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My brain is whirring in the blender right now so here are the things I think twst characters would find interesting/horrifying

Atom bombs. Why would they need atom bombs? Wars were either fought with magic or swords if lilias backstory is standard war procedure. And in endless halloween, leona tells a (fake) story about a terrorist group on a yaht party or something that attacked with a magic cube. Also that whole moment with Oppenheimer where he didn't know if igniting that bomb would set off a chain reaction that would ignite all the other bombs and basically destroy the world. AND HE STILL FUCKING DID IT.

Gun. Same reasons as the atom bombs.

French revolution and the reign of terror. What do you mean 40,000 were executed and over 300,000 locked up in the time span if a few years? Why did the "french" switch between so many governments so fast? Who the hell is napoleon?

Russian revolution and Anastasia. that revolution was MESSY. But imagine telling leona or someone about how everyone thought that princess Anastasia and her brother escaped execution cause they couldn't find their bodies with the rest of the royal family. So all these middle aged women just started coming out being like "I am Anastasia", and one of these women was eventually accepted as Anastasia. Until they found out that thr royal family were submerge in vats of acid after they were killed, and because children's bones aren't quite solid, the just. Melted in the acid.

The whole mystery of those villages getting up one day and dancing themselves to death and we still don't know why.

Medieval torture devices. Like the crowd cage or when you get covered in honey and sent away on a boat to be eaten alive by bugs (jamil throws up)

The black plauge. Just. The black plauge.

Early Industrial revolution working conditions. I think even azul would get uncomfortable with those.

Mansu Musa going on tour and giving away so much gold that he collapsed entire economies.

The cold War. "Yeah so the US and the USSR were in a war-not-war because of paranoia of nuclear atom bombs but they couldn't actually go to war because if they actually went to war that would just be the end of the world so they just had a massive dick messering contest. Oh yeah! That's actually why we got the space race!"

The space race. ("The fucking moon in the sky!" "Yes azul, the moon in the sky. And Mars. And there are satellites that literally went to the cold cold edge of our solar system" "...why are you guys insane?")

American prohibition laws and the outlawing of alcohol that everyone hated so much that the government legalized alcohol again and now we have this thing called moonshine.

Mexican revolution and the solid century where their presidents just kept getting assassinated.

The greatest night in pop "we are the world". Just as a treat for the pop music club.

The entire age of exploration honestly. "What do you mean half your world didn't know the other half of the world was there until a few centuries ago?" "Oh you're gonna shit yourself when you find out what Europeans did next"

What the Europeans did next.

The world wars. Lilia has a fucking stroke while listening to it. But some of it was funny! Not really but yk! A polish bear loading an artillery Canon, an unsinkable cat, that British guy that carried a bow and arrow and played bag pipes when the nazis found him only to be the most unkillable yet unserious guy ever, a US naval captain that literally FLOODED HALF HIS SHIP on D-Day just to tilt that bitch back so they could hit the Germans better, and the US just converting a spare ship into a massive ice cream machine is pretty fucking hilarious.

The coups of the ancient past. I don't really remember who but I think this Indian (?) Prince literally threw his brother out a window, dragged him back upstairs, only to throw him out again for good measure is fucking hilarious.

The mono Lisa wasn't famous until this Guy™ stole it from a museum. The museum employs didn't even realize it was gone until someone asked where it went 💀

The way we name our countries tbh. Most of them translate to some ancient language (Spain translates to "rabbits" and Columbia is "dove"), but twst really has countries like. "Scolding Sands ✨️ and Queendom of Roses ✨️. So our country names are probably really weird to them. Especially the full country names. Do you know Hong Kongs official name? It's long as shit.

The first chainsaw was invented by two socttish doctors in the early 1800s to help with childbirth

I have many more historically rambling I could go on but this shit is getting long.

If anyone at any point wants to ramble about history they are very welcome to do so in my literal dms and not just my ask box. I love history and I love talking about it!!!

I think out of all of the things you listed the atom bomb, the space race, and the Cold War would probably be the what I think the various twst boys would find most interesting. Even in the history of our own world those things were extremely unusual, the sheer scale of something like a world war is really hard to grasp and I doubt Twisted Wonderland has had a similar event. I think the concept of such a thing would really scare the cast, though I imagine Idia, Leona, and Lilia would be grimly impressed at just how creative people can be when it comes to destroying each other. Magic isn't required to make a mess of things, sure they already knew that but oh wow. Now they're really thinking about it.

Now you know who would want to talk about all of these things? Professor Trein! He'd be really interested in learning anything and everything Yuu can remember about the history of their world. As an educator it allows him better insight into his student, and as a lover of history he gets to learn a lot of new things no one else knows.

#<3 asks #twisted wonderland

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homomenhommes · 2 months

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THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … February 29

It's Leap-Day, February 29, the day added to our calendar to make the adjustment for all those little extra seconds each day which don't fit into out existing regular calendar. Beware of women who might want to propose to you. If you turn them down—and you probably will—you are expected to buy them a gift!

A better suggestion is to hang out with your best butt-buddy and play a game of naked leapfrog. Who knows? Maybe he will propose to you, and you can settle down and play house—and all the other indoor and outdoor activities gay men love, such as Hide the Wiener, Handballs, Cross-country rutting, Muff Diving and the old favorite, Camping. The occasional eating out will be an added treat.

1938 – Superman aka Kal-El aka Clark Kent was born on this day (maybe). Superman only celebrates his birthday on February 29th, which explains why he can look so good even though he's pushing 80. It’s a handy way to explain why a guy who has been fighting crime since 1938 doesn’t appear to age.

February 29th, 1988 was Superman’s “official” 50th birthday celebration, marked by a special edition of Time Magazine and a nearly unwatchable “comedy” special that aired on network TV. More importantly, February 29th is the date that “For the Man Who Has Everything,” one of the greatest Superman stories ever told, takes place, which is clearly marked as Superman’s birthday.

Whatever Kal-El’s actual birthday would be on Krypton depends on how you want to interpret the intricacies of the Kryptonian calendar. A Kryptonian “year” is known as a “zetyar,” which is equivalent to roughly 500 Earth days. By the reckoning of the Kryptonian calendar, Kal-El was born on 38 Eorx 9998. The weirdness of the Kryptonian calendar might offer a possible explanation here, so maybe 38 Eorx 9998 fell on the equivalent of February 29th on Earth. Then again, it’s best not to think too hard about this.

On the other hand, Clark Kent’s birthday would have to be the day his foster parents found his rocket. Superman: Secret Origin by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank put Clark Kent’s birthday on December 1st. Some comic book accounts place it in October, while others put it on June 18th. June is significant since Action Comics #1 has a June, 1938 cover date. You can’t put too much stock in that, though. Because of the weirdness of comic book cover dating practices (they were competitively dated months in advance), it probably actually hit newsstands in late February or early March of 1938. Also, there was no February 29th in 1938.

We are not trying to suggest here that Superman is gay. Far from it, but many of us as gay teens surely hoped he was, imagining him naked and jerking off to the idea. (I, for one, used to get great pleasure out of drawing him sans pants and with an enormous erection! — Ted)

However, Superman's son, Jon, is definitely gay. He came out of the closet in Superman - Son of Kal-El #5. He has fallen for a human named Jay with purple hair and extra powers such as the ability to walk through walls.

1948 – Willi Smith, cofounder of the WilliWear company, has been called "the most successful black designer in fashion history." He favored natural fabrics and unconstructed clothes since they are more practical for the average consumer. "Models pose in clothes," he said. "People live in them."

Another leap-year baby, Willi Donnell Smith was born in Philadelphia on leap-day. Smith took inspiration from his parents and grandmother, who always dressed fashionably despite being on limited budgets. After studying commercial art, Smith enrolled at the Philadelphia College of Art to study fashion illustration in 1962. He soon realized, however, that he wanted to be a designer.

He earned two scholarships to the Parsons School of Design in New York in 1965. Soon after arriving in the city he began doing freelance work for the designer Arnold Scaasi and the Bobbie Brooks sportswear company. In 1967 he quit school to pursue his career full-time. By 1969 his name was on the label of clothing made by Digits, a sportswear company.

Willi Smith continued doing freelance work until 1976, when he entered into another business partnership, this time with Laurie Mallet, with whom he co-founded WilliWear. Smith and Mallet had met in 1970, when both were working at Digits. After leaving Digits, the two went their separate professional ways, Mallet working primarily in importing textiles and clothing.

WilliWear got off to a modest start. Mallet financed a trip to India so that she and Smith could buy materials and create their first collection. They used the only fabric available, cotton, and, unable to find buttons, designed wrap-around coats. Thus, their initial twelve-piece collection had what would become hallmarks of Willi Smith designs--natural fabrics, a relaxed, comfortable fit, colorful and eye-catching material, and a reasonable price tag.

Smith's eclectic, whimsical, and inventive designs attracted the attention of fashion editors and buyers from department stores and clothing chains such as TJ Maxx. Customers responded favorably, and the fledgling company soon became established in the industry.

Smith's style has been described as "street couture," a designation with which Smith quibbled. While acknowledging that he was acutely aware of what was being worn on the streets of America, he emphasized that he was not designing "for young people who like to look alike," but rather for people who wanted "real clothes" but with a sense of designer fashion.

At first WilliWear produced only women's clothing, but in 1978 the WilliWear Men line was added.

Each year Smith spent several months in India, working on fabrics and designs. On a trip in February 1987 he contracted shigella, a parasitic disease that causes dysentery. His health declined rapidly, and he was hospitalized with pneumonia in April. Two days later he died. A subsequent autopsy revealed that he had AIDS. The news came as a complete surprise to his business partner, Mallet, who said that she had "absolutely no clue" that Smith had AIDS. She described Smith as "fragile" and said that coworkers "were used to him not feeling well, not coming to work." If Smith knew the nature of his illness, however, he did not disclose it to them.

By the time of Smith's death, WilliWear was selling over 25 million dollars' worth of clothing a year. In addition to his retail ventures, Smith occasionally worked for individual clients. For example, he designed suits for Edwin Schlossberg and his groomsmen when Schlossberg married Caroline Kennedy in 1986. He also designed clothing for Spike Lee's film School Daze (1987).

A commemorative panel for Smith is part of the AIDS quilt. He is also remembered in a list of gay black AIDS sufferers in the poem I Speak: A Poem for the Millennium March by Keith Boykin, which the author read at the Millennium March on Washington for Equality on April 29, 2000.

1972 – Pedro Zamora (d.1994) was a Cuban-American AIDS educator and television personality. As one of the first openly gay men with AIDS to be portrayed in popular media, Zamora brought international attention to HIV/AIDS and LGBT issues and prejudices through his appearance on MTV's reality television series, The Real World: San Francisco.

When his mother died when he was thirteen, he went into denial by throwing himself into his schoolwork, and by having promiscuous sex. He was an honors student, president of the Science Club, captain of the Cross-Country team, and as one of the most popular students in Hialeah High School, was voted Most Intellectual and Most All-Around. His mother's death inspired him to become a doctor, but he replaced her presence in his life by becoming sexually active with many male partners.

He was ignorant of safe sex, as the only AIDS education he received was in the seventh grade from a man who did not present the disease as a legitimate threat to him, but as something distant that only afflicted societal undesirables like prostitutes, drug addicts and homosexuals. Things such as sex and condoms were never mentioned, and thus Zamora never identified himself as someone at risk.

When he was fourteen, his father, suspecting his son was gay, had his brother follow him when he was supposed to be going out with a group of friends, only to find Zamora with his boyfriend. Zamora admitted his sexual orientation when his father confronted him. Hector, rather than being upset, was concerned over the homophobia to which his son might be subjected, but affirmed that he would be supportive of his son.

In his junior year of high school, Zamora donated blood during a Red Cross blood drive, and received a letter saying that his blood tested "reactive", though it did not specify for what, as the general screening was for a variety of viruses and infections. Zamora decided to be tested, and on November 9, 1989, the results confirmed that he had HIV.

He decided to graduate from high school before he died, though he did not give much thought to his health, as he was still in denial. He graduated high school in 1990, a year early, but five months later, he suffered a severe case of shingles that covered the entire right side of his body and face. With medication, the condition subsided after two months, but it inspired Zamora to join a Miami-based HIV/AIDS resource center called Body Positive, where he met others with HIV and AIDS, and educated himself about the disease, learning how to lead a positive life with it. Soon thereafter, he began to talk about his condition to others to attempt to raise awareness about the disease in his community.

Zamora decided to make a career as an AIDS educator. He began to lecture at schools of all levels, PTA meetings, churches, and anyone else who would listen, traveling the country, sitting on the boards of various AIDS organizations, and hoping to use what time he had left to prevent others from sharing his fate.

At the age of 19, his work came into national focus when Eric Morganthaler wrote a front page article about him for the Wall Street Journal, resulting in talk show interviews by Geraldo Rivera, Phil Donahue and Oprah Winfrey.

Though Zamora was gay, he chose to not make that explicit point to school children, preferring to emphasize to them that he got the disease through unprotected sex, so as to underscore the fact that both homosexuals and heterosexuals could contract HIV.

On July 12, 1993, he testified before the United States Congress, arguing for more explicit HIV/AIDS educational programs, saying, "If you want to reach me as a young man - especially a young gay man of color - then you need to give me information in a language and vocabulary I can understand and relate to."

In 1993, Zamora met a fellow AIDS educator named Sean Sasser during a gay/lesbian march in Washington D.C., when both were involved with other people, and they became friends. The constant travel took its toll on Zamora, who at times was so tired that he was forced to cancel speaking engagements.

In mid-1993, Zamora learned that MTV was casting for the next season of their reality TV show, The Real World, which would take place in San Francisco. His best friend and roommate, Alex Escarano, convinced him to put together an audition tape, arguing that he could reach more people simply by living in The Real World house than through the cross-country travel that exhausted him. Six months later, Zamora was informed that he had been chosen to be a castmate on the show, beating out 25,000 applicants.

The Real World: S.F cast

Zamora and his six castmates (Mohammed Bilal, Rachel Campos, Pam Ling, Cory Murphy, David "Puck" Rainey, and Judd Winick) moved into the house at 953 Lombard Street on Russian Hill on February 12, 1994. While the producers informed the other six housemates that they would be living with someone HIV-positive, they did not tell them who it was.

Zamora informed his roommate, Judd Winick, that he was the one with AIDS by telling him he was an AIDS educator, and the rest of the cast by showing them a scrapbook of his career as an AIDS educator.

Sean Sasser had been living in San Francisco for a couple of years, so when Zamora moved into the loft, he and Sean began dating. Zamora asked the show's producers for permission to go out without cameras, so that he and Sasser could get to know one another in a more natural setting. The producers allowed this, and the two young men fell in love. Sasser proposed to Zamora, and the two exchanged vows in a commitment ceremony in the loft. Their relationship was nominated for "Favorite Love Story" at the 2008 Real Worlds Awards Bash.

Zamora's health continued to deteriorate, however. Although he was able to participate in activities like parasailing during the group's trip to Hawaii, the cast grew more worried about him nonetheless, often covering up for him during their weekly "confessional" interviews with the producers by telling them that Zamora was doing fine when they knew otherwise.

The cast moved out of the loft on June 19, 1994, and the first episodes of The Real World: San Francisco began airing a week later.

Wishing not to subject his family to a slow and prolonged death as had occurred with his mother, Zamora stated his wish not to be kept alive by artificial means. Hospitalized and unable to speak for almost a month, being fed intravenously, and becoming unresponsive, his family honored his wishes, and withdrew life support, including medication, food and water. Surrounded by his family, Zamora died on November 11, 1994, the day after the final episode of The Real World: San Francisco aired.

U.S. President Bill Clinton credited Zamora with personalizing and humanizing those living with HIV—especially to Latino communities—with his activism, including his testimony before Congress. His romantic relationship with Sean Sasser was also documented on the show with the two getting married on air; their relationship was later nominated by MTV viewers for "Favorite Love Story" award. Zamora's personal struggle with AIDS, and his conflict with housemate David "Puck" Rainey is credited with helping to make The Real World a hit show, for which Time ranked it #7 on their list of 32 Epic Moments in Reality-TV History.

1988 – Joel Kim Booster is an American actor, comedian, and writer. He is best known for his Comedy Central Stand-Up Presents stand-up special.

Kim Booster was born in South Korea and was adopted by a white American couple as an infant. He was raised in Plainfield, Illinois in a conservative, Evangelical Christian family and was initially homeschooled. He went to public school for the first time when he was 16, which he described as his "first time being around non-religious people." He knew he was gay from childhood but kept it a secret. His senior year in high school, his parents found out he was gay by reading his diary where he had described his sexual encounters with other boys. Kim Booster moved out and began to couchsurf until he stayed with a family friend.

He studied theater at Millikin University for his bachelor's degree.Living in Chicago, he took a job as a copywriter and began to perform in theater and write jokes after work. Kim Booster began his stand-up career in an unconventional fashion by opening up for plays in Chicago's theater scene. He then moved to New York in 2014 to pursue a career in comedy. He performed a set on Conan in 2016. He then appeared in his own Comedy Central Stand-Up Presents special in 2017. Kim Booster has also written for the shows Billy on the Street, Big Mouth, and The Other Two.

Kim Booster often talks about his sexuality in his stand-up. He has stated that he knew he was gay before he knew he was Asian.

"Me too!"

1988 – Svend Robinson becomes Canada's first elected Member of Parliament to come out as gay.

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cleoselene · 1 month

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nine favorite albums in no particular order,

tagged by @an-ivy-covered-summer (thank you I love to ramble about music)

Portishead - Dummy - This is probably my favorite album of all time? It's perfect to me. It makes me feel so good, physically and mentally. It's the quintessential 90s album, the definitive trip-hop album, and always makes the list of "25 Albums You Should Own On Vinyl" for a reason. It's immaculate and it spawned a slew of imitators who never ever got close to this kind of quality. I think people also don't appreciate hop much trip-hop/downtempo has influenced today's pop music. SZA's latest album especially felt super trip-hoppy, so did elements of Midnights.

Massive Attack - Mezzanine - if there's one other trip-hop album you should pick up, it's this one. This album benefits greatly from Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins' ethereal vocals. Every song on this is amazing. When I was playing this album for a friend about a decade younger, he said "oh this is the album with the music from all the movies." lol. Indeed It's been licensed to hell for a reason!

Tori Amos - Scarlet's Walk - Okay I set a rule for myself that each artist would only get one album in this list to avoid putting up nine Tori Amos albums, but Scarlet is my favorite. This road trip across America immediately after 9/11 is one of the first albums to... if not criticize the US response to 9/11, because it was really too early for that, but to be very, very wary of what the response would be. It's an album that expresses sympathy for a wounded nation, while also acknowledging the nation's sins. I think this is one of a few Tori albums that was too high concept for the mainstream audience, but Tori has never been for the mainstream audience, anyway.

Taylor Swift - evermore - Of all the Taylor Swift albums, it was reputation that brought me to the dance and Red that made me fall madly in love. But evermore is her best work. It's perfecting upon the formula she came up with in folklore. Which, don't get me wrong, I love folklore, but with Taylor's obsession with being "sonically cohesive" it's kind of a bummer of an album? I appreciate how the vibes of evermore are more varied. Also, "ivy" is the most beautiful song she's ever written.

Green Day - American Idiot - This album doesn't need much description, it's so well-known, but nothing really compares to how hard this album hit during the height of Bush Era Hell. As a 26 year old when this came out, it felt like my generation was getting our mainstream protest music, finally.

Paul Simon - Graceland - This album won the Grammy for Album of the Year for a reason: it's soooo good. I know there's a lot of drama/controversy surrounding it, but I always felt Paul approached his love of African music from a genuine place. It's such a good midlife crisis album, I understand it now more that I am in midlife than I did when I discovered it at age 12. And the bass line for "You Can Call Me Al" is fucking legendary, isn't it? PS - Paul Simon is the greatest songwriter of all time.

VNV Nation - Automatic - Why was it so hard to pick a VNV Nation album? I really kind of wanted to put last year's Electric Sun in the mix, but I need to let that sit with me before I add it to a list like this. This is the album that brought me to the dance: "Gratitude" is an all-time fave VNV song of hopefulness. "Control" is the dance club banger to end all dance club bangers. I loooooooove this band. I wish there were more futurepop bands out there, tbh, it's SUCH an excellent genre.

Lana del Rey - Norman Fucking Rockwell! - This is Lana's best. It's not really even close. This is one of the best albums of the 21st century. The way "The greatest" so perfectly encapsulates the Trump-era nihilism... I DO want shit to feel the way just like it used to. Kanye West IS blond and gone. We DIDN'T know that we had it all. :( The ache of nostalgia in our current very painful times hits perfectly on this record (WHYYYY don't I own it on vinyl yet??)

Puscifer - Existential Reckoning - So hard for me to pick a Maynard project and not pick TOOL, but Puscifer has become my favorite of his three bands. Existential Reckoning is similar to NFR! in that it captures the political moment. Maynard has never seemed particularly political in his music until this record, which is pretty interesting. ER seems to be advocating for a return to rationality over ideology, of moderation over extremism, of science over faith. It takes a very humanist approach to looking at life in 2020. "Apocalyptica" is probably the craziest song because it sounds like it was written about COVID, but it was not, in fact was written just a few months earlier. "Bedlamite" is the coda to the album that promises hope: It's gonna be all right. When they did this album Live at Arcosanti and sang this song while the sun rose behind them, four days before the 2020 election and Maynard crooned that it would be all right, I looked at my roommate, and I said, "it really is, isn't it?" And we both got kind of overwhelmed. And then a few days later, it was. Trump lost.

I went into way detail >_> told you I like rambling about music

tagging: @swiftzeldas @emmaswanned @brightnshinythings @mariacallous @ouijawaydidhego

#meme

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twinflamin · 2 years

Text

Camera shy

Mason Mount x reader shot

Summary/Request: reader and Mason are invited to do a photoshoot for Calvin Klein

Disclaimer: Fluff, sexual tension

You walked out of makeup in your dressing gown and slippers, keeping yourself warm as you were only in an underwear set. You barely had any makeup on, the artists had only done a few touch ups, giving your skin a healthy glow. They had lightly blow dried your hair, and everything else was all naturally you.

The studio was set with a plain white backdrop. The crew were finishing up the final last touches with lights and camera equipment. You sat yourself on your chair that had your name on your back as you waited for the shoot to start, and waited for your co-model, Mason Mount to arrive.

You hadn’t met him, but you definitely knew who Mason was. A heartthrob of the UK and you were definitely on board with what his fans saw in him. Your friends all witnessed your bashful and excited reaction when you got the call, asking you to be in a Calvin Klein underwear photoshoot with him.

You were both seen as two of the greatest role models of the year, at such a young age as well. Mason with being one of the top youngsters in football, and yourself with your rapid climb to fame with singing and performing your music. And being seen together on a Magazine cover would most likely break the internet, twitter trend, all the above.

Mason walked onto set in his dressing gown. You quietly thought to yourself how you couldn’t wait to see what was underneath. He walked past the crew, and took his seat right next to you. You found confidence and spoke to him first,

“I can’t believe this is the first time I’m meeting you and were about to do a photoshoot together”

He laughed with a smile, “I know right, never mind in our underwear”

When he said that, a struck of nerves hit your stomach. You fancied this boy and he was about to see you, a lot of you, and even touch you whilst you were only in a pair of panties and a bra, it was nerve wrecking. But then again, this was also work, and you both had a job to do. Pushing your feelings to the side, you nodded to him,

“Have you ever done anything like this before?”

He nodded, “I’ve done shoots for football and a few other things, but nothing like this” noticing down to his lower half, referencing to the pair of boxers was all he was wearing under the gown. “What about you?”.

“I’ve modelled a little and done some shoots for my music, but same, not like this”. You did the same as him, pointing at your dressing gown, you both laughed, nerves slowly fading.

“Your definitely gonna have to help me if I get stuck” he shrugged, he was nervous.

You reached out a pinkie finger, “Only if you do the same for me”. You smiled, wanting him to be comfortable. He sent a warm smile back, and hooked his pinkie around yours, “Deal”.

One of the crew came over to you two and said they were ready to begin. They offered to take our dressing gowns for you. Mason took his off first, and he had nothing to be shy about. He was only in a small pair of white Calvin Klein boxers, your eyes briefly roamed his arms, chest and abs, very careful of being caught, quickly flashing your eyes further down to were a noticeable bulge pushed against the boxers.

Mason looked at you and you quickly tore your eyes away. You untied the front slowly, and shed your gown, your only shield for your nerves was now gone. Your chest wasn’t huge, but you weren’t little either, the white material flaunting the roundness of your breasts. As the cool air of the studio hit your skin, you felt your nipples slightly harden, showing through the fabric. The underwear that sat on your hips was a thong, and displayed everything you had, a light plumpness to your hips, thighs, and your bum was beautifully on display.

There was no point in trying to cover yourself with your arms, as everyone would be seeing you like this for the next few hours, so you resisted. You looked up to Mason, to see his head swiftly change direction to the wall. Had he been staring at you too?

The photoshoot began, you and Mason were instructed how to hold each other and where to look and touch. You would’ve been enjoying it a lot more if it wasn’t for all the cameras and eyes.

Moving from pose to pose, the director then had an idea. He had you two face each other, closer than you had before. Chest to chest, almost nose to nose. You had nowhere else to look but into Mason’s eyes. You had your arms wrapped around his neck, reaching on of your hands to the back of his head, feeling through he light buzz of hair, tickling and burning your skin.

Mason’s hands took a hold of the lows of your waist but not your hips, not wanting to hide the Calvin Klein logo along your panties. They lay flat and spread against your skin. A final touch of the pose, Mason tucked a couple of fingers under the sides of your panties, a very sexy touch to the pose. You looked passionate and lustful for one another, what the Calvin brand was all about.

You were both breathing heavy, both close to almost breaking from the tension you had held for each other since you first met. Mason’s eyes shifted down to your lips and back to yours eyes. He knew it would be inappropriate to make a move during the shoot, but he couldn’t escape the idea of wanting to kiss you. He gave your waist and hips and light squeeze, making you inhale sharply at the gesture. He smirked at your reaction, that he had this effect on you.

You pulled on his neck to bring his face closer, your foreheads touching. Your noses lightly brushed, both of you scanning across each other faces, looking into your details, your freckles and scars. You both wanted to feel more of each others skin on yours, and slowly forgetting about the photoshoot. In your own little bubble.

“Yes perfect! Hold it there!” the director exclaimed

And that you did, holding on tight, taking him all in.

#Mason Mount #mason mount one shot #fluff #mason mount imagine #mason mount imagines

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bookgeekgrrl · 4 months

Text

My media this week (7-13 Jan 2024)

the addition of this disaster boy was delightful

📚 STUFF I READ 📚

🥰 Second First Chances (Kedreeva) - 92K, steddie, canon-divergent Ladyhawke AU. Very well-written, exactly what it says on the tin. Very enjoyable.

😊 Murray Mysteries (Knöves Storytelling) - "full-cast audio-drama style re-imagining of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, set in the present day. Mina Murray is an unemployed twenty-something, jigsaw puzzler, and brand new Podcaster. Her life doesn’t exactly make for interesting content. That is until her best friend Lucy falls mysteriously ill and Mina’s boyfriend Jonathan loses contact on a work trip to Romania…" Very creative, very queer, very enjoyable!

🥰 ship-to-ship combat (pomeloquat) - 76K, SuperBat - "Clark, in an attempt to make some spare cash, unintentionally stumbles into the world of superhero fanfiction, becomes a prolific writer for Gotham's OTP, and tries his best to fend off rival fans who want him to convert to superbat instead." - extremely funny and delightful identity porn fic

🥰 Tension and Tonic (Zenaidamacrouras1) - 78K, cellist!Bucky/artist!Steve, one night stand that develops feelings. Mostly hilarious, with some fantastic characterizations, especially of the supporting characters. Fic does go to some pretty dark thoughts very briefly but ultimately the vibe I ended up with was much more on the funny side of the scale.

💖💖 +41K of shorter fic so shout out to these I really loved 💖💖

A Letter from "Crawly" to Azirapil (mostlydeadlanguages) - Good Omens: Aziraphale & Crowley, 486 words - actual cuneiform on actual clay tablets, 'translated'. Our boy Ea-Nasir gets a shoutout. Fan makers are amazing.

veracity (pomeloquat) - DCU: SuperBat, 3K - a group of Metropolis criminals give Batman some truth serum to find out how to deal with Superman & get more than they bargained for. Absolute hilarity. Fantastic related art.

📺 STUFF I WATCHED 📺

8 Out of 10 Cats - s22, e11

QI - series S, ep3, 5

D20: Fantasy High: Sophomore Year - BONUS "Fireside Chat with Brennan & Friends

D20: Fantasy High: Sophomore Year - BONUS "Making Chungledown Bim (with Lou Wilson)"

Finding Your Roots - "Fathers and Sons" (s10, e3): LeVar Burton & Wes Studi

Hollywood Reporter Actors Roundtable 2023

The Holdovers (2023)

D20: Escape From The Bloodkeep - "The Tomb of Ultimate Evil" (s2, e6)

D20: Fantasy High: Junior Year - "Summer Scaries" (s21, e1)

D20: Adventuring Party - "Yaaath Queen" (s16, e1)

All Creatures Great and Small - s4, e1-7 (😍😍😍)

🎧 PODCASTS 🎧

The Sporkful - Ozempic Isn’t So Great For Fat People, Says Aubrey Gordon

Pop Culture Happy Hour - All Of Us Strangers

Up First - Congressional Funding Deal, Israel and Lebanon, Lloyd Austin Fallout

Today, Explained - Pirates of the Red Sea

How To! - How To Keep Caring Amid Endless Crises

Shedunnit - Whodunnit Centenary: 1924

Switched on Pop - The case of the missing vocals, and other listener questions

Vibe Check - Look to God, Not Monica

ICYMI - The Nine-Month Cruise Heard Round the World

Code Switch - Everyone wants a piece of Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy

Outward - Raquel Willis is in Bloom

Ologies with Alie Ward - Ethnoecology (ETHNOBOTANY/NATIVE PLANTS) with Leigh Joseph

Pop Culture Happy Hour - Baldur's Gate 3

NPR's Book of the Day - Roxane Gay fleshes out her strong 'Opinions'

99% Invisible #565 - Mini-Stories: Volume 18

Just One Thing - Be Kind

Not Another D&D Podcast - D&D Court: Sibling Rivalry Edition (w/ Ify Nwadiwe)

Dear Prudence - A DNA Test Revealed a Secret Sibling. Help!

What Next: TBD - Boeing’s Max Mess

⭐ Endless Thread - The Minnesota Timberwolves score NBA fandom in Brazil, but there's a kink

You're Dead to Me - History of Kung Fu

Today, Explained - Hollywood’s secret musicals

⭐ Hit Parade - And the Grammy Goes to… Edition

Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - Copycat Brands

🎶 MUSIC 🎶

'80s Soft Pop

The Golden Age of Boy Bands

Presenting Britney Spears

Def Leppard's Greatest Bites

Best of '80s Adult Hits

Covers & Remixes

Singer-Songwriter Classics

Red Hot Chili Peppers

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cyarskj1899 · 1 year

Text

Sent from my iPhone

20 - 1615 - 1110 - 65 - 1

MUSIC

The 25 Best Rage Against the Machine Songs

From funky, radical bombtracks to incendiary covers, here are the rap-metal masters' finest moments

DAN EPSTEIN, ANDY GREENE, KORY GROW, DANIEL KREPS, HANK SHTEAMER

WHEN RAGE AGAINST the Machine emerged in the early Nineties, there was no other band even remotely like them. They not only fused rock with rap at a time when there was a stark divide between the two genres, but their radical lyrics called for a political revolution during the supposedly peaceful decade after the Cold War and before 9/11. This was a time when most bands were looking inward toward their own pain, not outward to the struggles of minorities in America and people living under oppressive regimes across the globe.

“It was one of those rare instances when the planets just lined up right and the alchemy of musical magic and history just poured out,” Chuck D recalled of Rage in 2016. “I saw them in concert [early on], and what I remember most is how wiped-out the crowd was afterwards. I had never seen a place destroyed; sweat and blood on the walls. The fucking tables were turned over and rafters pulled down. It was crazy. They’re the Led Zeppelin of our time.”

Rage broke up in 2000 and left behind just three albums of original material, but those songs aged remarkably well during the chaos and tumult of the past two decades. And when they announced a reunion tour, which finally kicks off July 7 after several pandemic-related delays, tickets sold out with remarkable speed. There’s no hint that they’ve recorded any new music, but they really have no need to. They somehow created the soundtrack for our time a quarter-century ago. Here, we count down their 25 greatest songs.

‘Darkness’ (1994)

MICK HUTSON/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES

One of Rage’s earliest and most incisive songs, “Darkness” first showed up on the band’s self-titled 1991 demo tape before it got a major-label makeover — complete with one of Morello’s most chaotic, acrobatic solos — for its inclusion on the soundtrack to 1994 Brandon Lee movie The Crow. Originally titled “Darkness of Greed,” the song, which toggles between mellowed-out jazz funk and steely metallic groove, likened the spread of AIDS in Africa — and the U.S. government’s “procrastination” toward stemming the virus — as genocide. “They say, ‘We’ll kill them off, take their land, and go there for vacation,'” de la Rocha whispers on the track. —D.K.

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‘How I Could Just Kill a Man’ (2000)

MICK HUTSON/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES

On “How I Could Just Kill a Man,” Cypress Hill’s first single and first hit, rappers B-Real and Sen Dog traded verses about “takin’ out some putos” with a Magnum and making young punks pay. Their funky tableaus of terror built to the sort of wanton observation that would make any mother shudder: “Here is something you can’t understand — how I could just kill a man.” When Rage Against the Machine covered the track for Renegades, de la Rocha took all the verses for himself while Morello and bassist Tim Commerford (or “tim.com,” as he billed himself on the record) ratcheted up the noise to deafening levels on the chorus. “The first Cypress Hill record and [Public Enemy’s] It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back were two of the biggest hip-hop influences on Rage Against the Machine,” tim.com later told Rolling Stone.Rage might not have killed a man, but they definitely laid a few speakers to rest with their rendition. —K.G.

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‘Maggie’s Farm’ (2000)

BRIAN RASIC/GETTY IMAGES

Bob Dylan was saying goodbye to the folk world when he wrote “Maggie’s Farm” in 1965, and it’s very tempting to read some of the lyrics as an angry kiss-off to folkies who wanted him to remain stuck in the past. “Well, I try my best to be just like I am,” he sneered. “But everybody wants you to be just like them/They sing while you slave and I just get bored.” When Rage tackled the song for their 2000 covers collection, Renegades, they were also at a crossroads of sorts. Communication lines between members were breaking down, and when de la Rocha sang “I ain’t gonna work at Maggie’s Farm no more,” he might as well have been putting in notice that he was done with the band itself. —A.G.

‘War Within a Breath’ (1999)

FRANK MICELOTTA/GETTY IMAGES

“War Within a Breath” closes out Rage’s final LP of original material, 1999’s The Battle of Los Angeles, and it’s somehow fitting that these are the last notes we’ve heard to date of the band’s unmistakable sound. It’s an extremely on-brand tune that touches on everything from the Zapatismo movement to the Palestinian Intifada. Simply put, it sums up the entire Rage ethos in three and a half minutes. “Every official that comes in, cripples us, leaves us maimed,” de la Rocha roars. “Silent and tamed/And with our flesh and bones, he builds his homes/Southern fist, rise through the jungle mist.” —A.G.

‘Settle for Nothing’ (1992)

MICHAEL PUTLAND/GETTY IMAGES

Rage’s self-titled debut was more or less a 52-minute onslaught, which is why “Settle for Nothing” — the album’s most understated track and maybe the closest thing the band ever did to a power ballad — stands out so starkly. Over an eerily somber riff with shades of Metallica’s “One,” de la Rocha narrates the inner monologue of a desperate kid who chooses the cold comfort of gang life (“I’ve got a nine, a sign, a set, and now I got a name …”) over the trauma of a broken and abusive home. His voice rises to a livid howl (“Death is on my side … suicide!”) as the band blasts into a sinister Black Flag–meets–Black Sabbath wallop. The delicate filigree of Morello’s clean-toned solo suggests a warped spin on cocktail jazz — a quietly arresting sonic lament for the grim cycle of violence the song portrays. —H.S.

‘Microphone Fiend’ (2000)

FRANK MICELOTTA/IMAGEDIRECT/GETTY IMAGES

Rage kicked off their covers album, Renegades, with an ultra-heavy rendition of Eric B. and Rakim’s hip-hop anthem “Microphone Fiend.” Where the original sampled Average White Band’s funky guitar intro to “School Boy Crush,” Morello summons his own devastating wah-wah fury for Rage’s version, while bassist Commerford does most of the heavy lifting in the riff department. De la Rocha edited the lyrics to give the tune more of a rock chorus, and in a rare show of hip-hop humility, he side-stepped the lines Rakim wrote to shout himself out. The makeover translated to a direct rap-rock hit showing how smooth operators really do operate correctly for a heavy E-F-F-E-C-T. —K.G.

‘Calm Like a Bomb’ (1999)

FRANK MICELOTTA ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

“Hope lies in the smoldering rubble of empires,” spits de la Rocha on this blistering highlight from The Battle of Los Angeles,perfectly summing up the RATM ethos in a single line before setting his sights on the global plight of the underclass. (“Stroll through the shanties and the cities’ remains/The same bodies buried hungry/But with different last names.”) And speaking of smoldering, “Calm Like a Bomb” finds Morello offering up a veritable master class in the use of the DigiTech Whammy pedal, conjuring impossibly sick and searing waves of undulating noise from his guitar. —D.E.

‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’ (2000)

EBET ROBERTS/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES

Rage Against the Machine were opening up for U2 on 1997’s PopMart stadium tour when they first played Bruce Springsteen’s “The Ghost of Tom Joad.” The original recording is a somber tale of urban poverty that Springsteen delivers in a hushed, resigned tone, but Rage present it like a lost song from the Evil Empire sessions — complete with a crushing Morello riff that bears little resemblance to the folky source material, yet still fits perfectly. The version worked so well that Rage kept it in their live set until they split three years later, making it the most-played cover song in their live repertoire by a huge margin. It also appeared on their 2000 covers collection, Renegades. And in 2008, Morello guested with Springsteen and the E Street Band to play a more traditional version of the song. Morello even became a temporary E Street–er in 2014, when Steve Van Zandt had to miss a tour to film his show Lillyhammer. The idea of Morello playing in the E Street Band would have seemed pretty far-fetched circa 1997, but time can make strange things happen. —A.G.

‘Born of a Broken Man’ (1999)

FRANK MICELOTTA/GETTY IMAGES

One of the most emotional and evocative songs in the RATM catalog, this standout track from The Battle of Los Angeles finds de la Rocha musing on the mental-health struggles endured by his father, the influential Chicano artist Beto de la Rocha. With Morello’s guitar ringing like a mournful church bell, lyrics like “His thoughts like a hundred moths/Trapped in a lampshade/Somewhere within/Their wings banging and burning/On through the endless night” are unforgettably haunting — but so, too, is the younger de la Rocha’s defiant mantra of refusal to suffer the same fate. “Born of a broken man,” he insists, “Never a broken man.” —D.E.

‘Wake Up’ (1992)

STEVE EICHNER/GETTY IMAGES

In six funky minutes, Rage Against the Machine unpack decades of institutional racism within the U.S. government on “Wake Up,” a deep cut off their self-titled debut. De la Rocha lambastes former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and his policies, condemning the way the government targeted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for protesting Vietnam and claiming it murdered Malcolm X “and tried to blame it on Islam.” “He turned the power to the have-nots,” the singer says, “and then came the shot.” The track ends with de la Rocha screaming “Wake up!” eight times in a row (a climax that, taken out of context, fits perfectly in the final scene of The Matrix) and a quote from King: “How long? Not long, ’cause what you reap is what you sow.” —K.G.

‘Year of tha Boomerang’ (1996)

GIE KNAEPS/GETTY IMAGES

“Year of tha Boomerang” marked the first preview of the band’s much-anticipated sophomore album, having been featured — as “Year of the Boomerang” — on the soundtrack for John Singleton’s 1994 film, Higher Learning, more than 18 months before Evil Empire’s release. Inspired by a quote from French anti-imperialist Frantz Fanon, the song offered a crash course on the “doctrines of the right” that de la Rocha would further rage against on Evil Empire: imperialism, the oppression of both minorities’ and women’s rights, and genocide, all punctuated by Morello’s screeching riot-siren riff. —D.K.

‘Sleep Now in the Fire’ (1999)

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE/YOUTUBE

One of Professor de la Rocha’s greatest social-studies dissertations, “Sleep Now in the Fire” traces how American avarice has decimated Third World countries, as well as marginalized people at home. “The party blessed me with its future,” he sings, playing the role of a Washington bigwig, “and I protect it with fire.” When the chorus comes with its elastic Morello riff, de la Rocha sarcastically encourages the oppressed peoples he’s singing about to “sleep now in the fire.” Later, he ominously catalogs the legacy of imperialism, slavery, and deadly force underlying the American myth, vowing, “I am the Niña, the Pinta, the Santa Maria/The noose and the rapist, the fields’ overseer/The agents of orange, the priests of Hiroshima.” In 2000, the band shot the song’s video on the steps of the New York Stock Exchange (without permission) and in one portentous moment, the camera captured someone in the crowd holding a “Donald J. Trump for President 2000” sign. In 2020, Morello joked, “I would say that we are karmically entirely responsible [for Trump running for president], and my apologies.” —K.G.

‘Maria’ (1999)

TIM MOSENFELDER/GETTY IMAGES

Marrying one of Morello’s weightiest riffs to one of de la Rocha’s most vividly devastating portraits of injustice, this Battle of Los Angeles deep cut demonstrates how the band just kept sharpening its attack all the way through its original lifespan. De la Rocha tells the story of Maria, a Mexican woman smuggled into the U.S. as “human contraband” and put to work in a sweatshop, where she finds herself at the mercy of an abusive foreman. Eventually she chooses a grisly suicide on the job over being treated “like cattle.” The song frames Maria as a kind of martyr figure, her story a constant reminder of North America’s long cycle of oppression and exploitation: “And through history’s rivers of blood she regenerates/And like the sun disappears only to reappear, Maria, she’s eternally here.” The song makes masterful use of dynamics, dipping down to a hush as de la Rocha recites the prior lines, and then explodes into a full-force stomp, with Morello’s swaggering, irrepressible guitar line symbolizing Maria’s phoenix-like rebirth. —H.S.

‘Vietnow’ (1996)

NIELS VAN IPEREN/GETTY IMAGES

Before Fox News brainwashed a generation of TV viewers who Alex Jones then pushed down the Q tunnel, Rage Against the Machine took aim at the insidious presence of right-wing talk radio on the Evil Empire cut “Vietnow.” With microphone fixed on Rush Limbaugh and the duplicitous Christian right, de la Rocha throws lyrical barbs like “Let’s capture this AM mayhem, undressed and blessed by the Lord,” “Terror’s the product you push,” “The sheep tremble and here come the votes,” and, on the chorus, “Fear is your only god on the radio/Nah, fuck it, turn it off.” The final single from Evil Empire, “Vietnow” served as an AM/FM foil of sorts to The Battle of Los Angeles’ first single “Guerrilla Radio” three years later, a track that demanded the listener “Turn that shit up.” —D.K.

‘Bullet in the Head’ (1992)

LINDSAY BRICE/GETTY IMAGE

Rage wrote “Bullet in the Head” just as America was declaring victory in the Gulf War, a conflict that Americans watched in real time on CNN and supported in overwhelming numbers. To de la Rocha, the made-for-TV war was a sham designed to benefit the military-industrial complex, and anyone who bought into it was a zombie brainwashed by the media. To put it another way, their brains had been hit with propaganda bullets. “They say jump and ya say how high,” he screams on the song. “Ya gotta fuckin’ bullet in ya head.” When introducing the song at an early concert, he made his point even clearer. “This song is about being an individual, about searching and finding new information,” he said, “and using your strength as an individual to attack systems like America who continue to rob and rape and murder people in the name of freedom.” —A.G.

‘Down Rodeo’ (1996)

GIE KNAEPS/GETTY IMAGES

This Evil Empire highlight uses Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills’ glitziest shopping district, as a launching pad for de la Rocha’s bitter musings on consumerism, wealth disparity, and socioeconomic segregation: “So now I’m rollin’ down Rodeo with a shotgun,” he raps, before delivering an even harsher follow-up: “These people ain’t seen a brown-skin man since their grandparents bought one.” Filled with bracing couplets like “Can’t waste a day/When the night brings a hearse/So make a move and plead the Fifth/‘Cause you can’t plead the First,” and harnessed to a powerful, swaggering groove, “Down Rodeo” also features some synth-like glitch bursts from Morello’s multi-pronged guitar, which prods the music until it finally gives way to de la Rocha’s anguished whisper. “Just a quiet peaceful dance for the things we’ll never have,” he laments as the track fades out. —D.E.

‘Freedom’ (1992)

LINDSAY BRICE/GETTY IMAGES

With one of the best guitar riffs this side of Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi, “Freedom” calls for the release of Leonard Peltier, a Native American activist serving two life sentences for the deaths of two FBI agents in 1975. Peltier has always maintained his innocence. “Freedom, yeah!” de la Rocha screams at the end of the song before sarcastically revising the lyric to, “Freedom, yeah right!” In the song’s video, during the breakdown, the group displayed the words “We demand and support the request that Leonard Peltier … be released. Justice has not been done.” “To me, the reaction to the music and things like the ‘Freedom’ video are very encouraging,” de la Rocha said in 1996. “I know that some people look at us as just rabble-rousing or ranting or whining. But I think a lot of that reflects the cynicism that people have when it comes to dealing with political problems.… What we are trying to show is that people can make a difference … that we aren’t all powerless.” —K.G.

‘Testify’ (1999)

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE/YOUTUBE

“Testify” was the opening salvo from Rage’s third LP, The Battle of Los Angeles, which Rolling Stone deemed as the Best Album of 1999. Originally titled “Hendrix” when the song debuted live due to its usage of a “Purple Haze” chord — “I recently found out that Jimi Hendrix used to play a song called ‘Testify’ when he was a backing musician for the Isley Brothers. It all comes full circle,” Morello later quipped to Guitar World — “Testify” later transformed into an outlet criticizing the impending 2000 presidential election, a showdown where both candidates — George W. Bush and Al Gore — seemed to spout the same capitalist ideology. The song’s music video, directed by documentarian Michael Moore, reflected this pre-election anxiety; eerily prescient, the clip also concludes with a quote by Ralph Nader, who later played an unfortunately crucial role in the 2000 election, as the presence of the Green Party candidate is often blamed for throwing the presidency to Bush. —D.K.

‘Take the Power Back’ (1992)

LINDSAY BRICE/GETTY IMAGES

This funky blast from Rage Against the Machine went Public Enemy (and the Isley Brothers) one better, not only encouraging us to fight the powers that be, but reminding us that the power was actually ours in the first place. Three decades before the 1619 Project, de la Rocha decried the Eurocentric teachings of U.S. schools — “One-sided stories for years and years and years/I’m inferior?/Who’s inferior?/Yeah, we need to check the interior/Of the system that cares about only one culture” — over the fiery interplay of Brad Wilk’s slamming drums, Tim Commerford’s slinky, slap-driven bass lines, and Tom Morello’s stabbing chords. —D.E.

‘Bombtrack’ (1992)

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE/YOUTUBE

Rage Against the Machine wasted no time getting down to serious business on their self-titled 1992 debut, opening the proceedings with this confrontational track. Though the official video for “Bombtrack” would salute the guerilla group Sendero Luminoso (or “Shining Path”) for its 13-year fight against Peru’s oppressive U.S.-backed government, the hard-grooving song itself lays out the band’s stance in broader terms, pledging solidarity with all indigenous peoples who have been abused, exploited, and slaughtered on the altar of imperialism. “Enough/I call the bluff/Fuck Manifest Destiny,” Zack de la Rocha cries. “Landlords and power whores/On my people/They took turns/Dispute the suits/I ignite and then watch ‘em burn.” —D.E.

‘People of the Sun’ (1996)

NIELS VAN IPEREN/GETTY IMAGES

Inspired by the 1994 Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, “People of the Sun” prophesies a new day for the descendants of the Aztecs, invoking the civilization’s final emperor — “The fifth sun sets/Get back/Reclaim/The spirit of Cuauhtémoc/Alive and untamed” — while serving up angry reminders of both Spain’s 16th-century conquest of Mexico and the racism-driven Zoot Suit Riots of 1940s Los Angeles. Clocking in at only two minutes and 30 seconds, “People of the Sun” is the shortest song in the entire RATM catalog, but its compact burst of furious intensity makes it the perfect opener for 1996’s Evil Empire. —D.E.

‘Guerilla Radio’ (1999)

TIM MOSENFELDER/GETTY IMAGES

When guerrilla wars waged throughout the Latin American world in the Eighties, many of the combatants used underground radio stations like Radio Venceremos in El Salvador to communicate and show solidarity with each other. The leadoff single to Rage’s 1999 LP, The Battle of Los Angeles, draws a direct comparison between those guerrilla radio stations and the band’s own efforts to build a fan base when Top 40 radio and other mainstream outlets never went near their work. The song came out just as the 2000 election was beginning to heat up, and it castigates both of the major candidates. “More for Gore or the son of a drug lord,” de la Rocha raps. “None of the above/Fuck it, cut the cord.” The song concludes with a furious call for a revolution. “It has to start somewhere, it has to start sometime/What better place than here, what better time than now?” Had Rage stuck around through the post-9/11 era, things could have gotten really interesting. Sadly, Rage’s guerrilla radio network was silenced not long after this song hit. —A.G.

‘Know Your Enemy’ (1992)

MARK BAKER/SONY MUSIC ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

“Know Your Enemy” remains one of the most fiery moments in the whole Rage catalog: a quintessential pairing of a killer, upbeat Morello funk-metal riff with a furious de la Rocha anti-authoritarian manifesto, marked by lines like, “Cause I’ll rip the mic, rip the stage, rip the system/I was born to rage against ‘em.” (In case the object of his ire wasn’t clear, he later adds, “What? The land of the free? Whoever told you that is your enemy.”) Musically it’s one of the most diverse tracks in the band’s early canon, sporting an almost festive-sounding slap-bass-driven intro and a moody bridge featuring a memorable guest shriek from Tool frontman (and old Morello pal) Maynard James Keenan and percussion from Jane’s Addiction drummer Stephen Perkins. But the song’s brilliant climax comes around four minutes in, when Commerford’s bass grinds out the verse riff, Morello’s guitar comes in blaring out in an uncanny approximation of an emergency siren, and de la Rocha grunts “Come on!” as the band comes slamming back in — the perfect soundtrack to any act of, to quote one memorable line, “D, the E, the F, the I, the A, the N, the C, the E” you could possibly conceive. —H.S.

‘Killing in the Name’ (1992)

GIE KNAEPS/GETTY IMAGES

In 1991, four white LAPD officers severely beat Rodney King, a Black man, while arresting him; when a jury acquitted those officers of using excessive force, Los Angeles exploded in riots. Zack de la Rocha channeled his outrage into the lyrics for “Killing in the Name,” a funky update of N.W.A’s “Fuck tha Police.” “Some of those that work forces/Are the same that burn crosses,” he chants repeatedly, condemning police racism and a cycle of above-the-law violence. He drills down on these themes as the song escalates, shouting “Those who died are justified for wearing the badge/They’re the chosen whites.” The song builds and builds until de la Rocha hollers, “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me,” 16 times in a row, topping one of history’s most incendiary protest songs. “After our second show ever, we had record-company interest in the band,” guitarist Tom Morello later recalled. “So these executives were coming down to our grimy studio in the San Fernando Valley.… I remember one of the executives squeaking after [‘Killing in the Name’] was done, ‘So is that the direction you’re heading in?'” —K.G.

‘Bulls on Parade’ (1996)

GIE KNAEPS/GETTY IMAGES

Rage Against the Machine called their second LP Evil Empire, and many of the songs focused on American foreign policy. On “Bulls on Parade,” de la Rocha, accompanied by an ingeniously minimal Morello riff, aims his fire at the hypocrisy of D.C. policymakers. “Weapons not food, not homes, not shoes,” he roars. “Not need, just feed the war cannibal animal.” He also calls out politicians who pretend to be pro-family, but actually have a “pocket full of shells.” Near the end, Morello blasts off a career-defining guitar solo in which he replicates the sound of a record scratching. Taken as a whole, the track is perhaps the finest distillation of the the sonic Molotov cocktail that is Rage. Fittingly, one of the all-time great “Bulls” performances took place outside the Democratic National Convention in 2000, months before the group originally broke up. “Brothers and sisters, our electoral freedoms in this country are over so long as it’s controlled by corporations,” de la Rocha said before starting “Bulls on Parade.” “Brothers and sisters, we are not going to allow these streets to be taken over by Democrats or Republicans.” —A.G.

IN THIS ARTICLE:

Rage Against the Machine,

Tom Morello,

Zack de la Rocha

MUSIC

MUSIC LISTS

By Taboola

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whoiwanttoday · 1 year

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When I was a kid there was this big push suddenly to make Halloween costumes more visible so kids weren't hit by cars. It always felt a bit like bullshit to me because I knew a lot of kids as a kid and I didn't know a single one who was hit by a car. Not any day much less Halloween. As an adult I realize that perhaps that wasn't the greatest sample size but also we went out Trick or Treating alone by like the age of 7 so if our parents were that concerned they could have left the house but it was a time when parents didn't do that. I mean, they left the house, they just didn't remember they had kids half the time and we would get up, go outside, and they might notice in a few days if we ever made it home. The solution the parents in my neighborhood came up with was to get these bright silver reflective stickers and put them all over our costumes. It was fucking ridiculous and I remember telling my mom then entire point of being a ninja was not to be seen, no one would think I looked like a ninja if I was covered in reflective tape. Then my mom said the third meanest thing she ever said to me, "No one was going to think you looked just like a ninja either way". Anyway, being clever like we were we just took the stickers off of each other once we left the house and our parents being inattentive didn't even notice there was no reflective tape by the time we got home. They also didn't notice that we watched Halloween 3 on TV and that was a movie about kids our age getting murdered on Halloween and boy just the theme scared me shitless. Anyway, this is a lot of talk about a post that isn't about Halloween, it's about visibility. It's lesbian visibility day which means it's time to shed some light on those stealthy lesbians. Probably my favorite stealthy lesbian is @kat-eleven (along with @wildflagsure who is so committed to remaining in the shadows she hasn't posted in 5 years despite still reading my blog but that's because she always says she must remain hidden and tricksy in Dolos' honor) who is always walking places, like to her home or the store or her dad's house so is in extra danger. So we want to get both of them more visible. First of all, everyone send messages encouraging @kat-eleven to wear bright orange vests and high visibility tape today because I don't know any lesbians who have been hit by cars but the irony of it would be too much to bear today of all days. Second, I am posting Alysha Newman who is not a lesbian which is why you can easily see her in these pictures but is known to be loved by lesbians, so my hope is lesbians see this post and wear bright clothing. Stay safe girls. Today I want to fuck Alysha Newman.

#Alysha Newman #blonde #Athlete #whoiwanttofucktoday

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 3 months

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More stand-up hours that I’ve watched in the last few days:

Mark Watson – WIP (Access Festival 2024)

Well, I understand what he’s doing better than I did a few days ago. Last week he did about 20 minutes at the end of a mixed bill set at the Access Festival, which he started by saying he’s not doing a new show this in Edinburgh year so he doesn’t have much, and then he proceeded to do a bunch of really funny material – and not old material, because I hadn’t heard it before and some of the stories were about things that happened very recently – that was even all sort of loosely around one theme, the way a person working on a new show would do.

He did a full hour at Access Festival yesterday, where he explained that he is doing a new show this year, and is even going to go to Edinburgh to perform it, but is going to bill it as a WIP in Edinburgh. That makes way more sense – the reason he has a bunch of new stuff that’s good and seems connected is that he is actually writing a show, he’s just not promising it’ll be done by August. Though I don’t really see why not, since it seems in perfectly good shape right now for that timeline. Also he said he’s planning to perform it in other places before August, so I don’t see why he wouldn’t just call it a proper show. Look, I don’t really know what Mark Watson is doing with his life or why. But he has some quite funny stories that I hadn’t heard him tell before his year.

The loose theme is a very 2024 one, about crumbling connections among individuals and institutions, and how this can lead to straight-up denial of reality, in our advanced technological age. It’s a pretty good theme. Also he’s got some new stuff on a topic he’s covered before, which is in defense of his phobia of thunderstorms, and I’m always up for more defense of that. It is fire in the sky and that is a rational thing to find scary.

It really was good. There were a couple of references to his first marriage that I found a lot less funny than I would have a year ago, now that I’m aware of why that ended, and I think he should maybe just stop talking about that topic altogether. Please stop reminding me of why I’m mad at you when I’m trying to ignore that and enjoy your work, Mark. I am trying to ignore it because it’s technically a personal matter and I have decided that how much I like you can outweigh a personal matter like that, Mark (also probably lots of my favourite comedians have done shit like that and just haven't admitted to it, so if I start unravelling this thread of giving up on comedians over infidelity in their personal relationships then I might not like where it goes), but the more you bring it into your work the less true that becomes.

It’s smart and well written and it made me laugh, I think it’s on track to end up better than last year’s show Search (probably not quite better than This Can’t Be It, but few things are better than that one), and if you hear Mark Watson tell people he doesn’t have a new show this year, just know that he is, for reasons I don’t understand, lying. Although I do have a guess as to the reasons, I’m remembering Shaparak Khorsandi’s 2023 show that got streamed from Edinburgh when she said she was only doing it parttime this year “But I didn’t bill this as a work in progress show because I am not a wuss.” So everyone ignore Mark Watson being a coward and try to also ignore any other distasteful things about him and maybe you’ll enjoy his show this year anyway.

Joe Wells – King of the Autistics (Access Festival 2024)

It’s fun that Access Festival seems to be a mix of things. Sarah Keyworth did their 2024 show, which they’ve been workshopping for a while and have just finished work-in-progress-ing and are about to tour. Mark Watson did new WIP material. David O’Doherty did a greatest hits of some of his recent stuff. And Joe Wells did his 2023 show, King of the Autistics.

This is only the second thing I’ve seen Joe Wells do, aside from his I Am Autistic special that was recently released on Go Faster Stripe, and I enjoyed both of them. A little bit of material from I Am Autistic was recycled in this one, but not too much of it, and the stuff I heard twice did seem funny enough to worth using again.

This had a lot of musings about what it’s like to be expected to be an autistic spokesperson, myths and stereotypes around autism, things he’s sick of the media expecting autistic people to be. He made a joke at one point about how absurd it is that he’s been compared to the very different comedian Fern Brady just because they’re both autistic, which is true, but actually, now that I look at that sentence, it could also describe Fern Brady’s current material. Luckily they both have uniquely funny and interesting things to say about that. And personally, as an autistic person who also works with autistic people who are at a range of parts of the spectrum, and also works with autistic kids’ parents and autistic kids’ (other) therapists and engages every day with the various ethical debates about what all those people’s roles should be and what a system should look like – as a person like that, I personally find this topic interesting enough to think two different comedians talking about it is not too many.

Daliso Chaponda – Access Festival 2024

He didn’t do a lot of material in the first 15 minutes of this show, he was sort of just chatting and doing a Q and A thing, in a way that I didn’t find particularly entertaining. Then he made a comment about disliking anti-religious comedy “like Ricky Gervais and Stewart Lee”, and I by no means think Stewart Lee is perfect, but grouping him in with Ricky Gervais for any reason at all is just ridiculous (even if technically accurate, still a ridiculous comparison to make), I sat there for a few minutes being annoyed at him for that before I realized I’m not actually enjoying this show anyway, so I just turned it off. You don’t have to keep watching things if you’re not enjoying them.

That was the third reference to Ricky Gervais that I've heard at this year's Access Festival. All negative. Daliso Chaponda complained about him for being an atheist, Joe Wells mentioned him on a list of atheists who unfortunately suck even though the concept of atheism is cool, and Sarah Keyworth made a joke about his transphobia that was really quite funny, everyone should see their 2024 show if you can. Surprisingly not the only comedian-on-comedian potshots at the Access Festival - I think Joe Wells took one at someone whom I think was meant to be Olga Koch, which was such a weirdly unexpected target that it was slightly funny.

Pete Heat – Access Festival 2024

I decided to try treating Access Festival like a regular festival, and pick one comedian whom I didn’t already know and try watching their stuff, because the joy of a festival is discovering something new. He turned out to be a magician. I turned this show off after only about ten minutes as well, because he was a magician. Sorry to be judgemental, but he was a magician. I'm trying to be more open-minded and enjoy more experimental stuff in comedy, but I have to draw the line somewhere.

Elis James – Rhacs Jibiders (2015)

There was a bunch of talk on the 2015 radio episodes, by John and Elis, about how Elis had written a Welsh-language stand-up special and performed it in a few places and filmed it for the BBC. I was curious to see what it was like, so I looked around a bit but couldn’t find it. Then the other day, out of nowhere, @oxymoronish sent me a folder that had all Elis James' stand-up specials in it, because @oxymoronish is the best. Thank you for that, you cool person.

I'll be honest and say it was pretty much entirely the novelty that drew me to be interested in this stand-up special. Performing in a language that's estimated to still be spoken by fewer than 100,000 people in the world is a hell of a USP. Arguably too niche a USP to base an entire career on, which I guess is why he had to also cultivate the interest in 1950s communist and trade unionist leaders. Good way to broaden his appeal a bit.

Watching comedy in a language I don't understand, so I'm not just leaving subtitles on but actually relying on them to have any idea what he's saying, was less annoying than I expected. But that's because I expected it to be really, really annoying. It was definitely still a bit annoying. Kudos to the multiple people on this website who enjoy comedy in English despite it being a second or third language. And having said that, it is kind of impressive to hear Elis James talk in fluent Welsh and remember that he's built and entire career based on public speaking in his second language.

The actual material was mainly about growing up in a rural area that was almost but not quite a farm, interacting with townies and farmers, living in a rural area where everyone knows everyone, getting mildly bullied by children and musicians, how weird sex education is when you're 14, and making fun of roller coasters. All performed by a guy who's about five-foot-six, sporting floppy blond hair and a collared shirt. I can see why he and Josh Widdicombe get along so well. I mean that as... I mean, it's not the highest of compliments if someone is trying to advance the great art of stand-up comedy, but I commend him for all he's done for the art of preserving a Celtic language, and at least he didn't do any card tricks.

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incorrectjane-andthedragon · 1 year

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The Mysterious Message: A Fic

I imagine this one taking place when Jane and Gunther are Dragonblade-age.

Summary: When a large amount of unusual runes are discovered, Jane and Gunther must work together to try to understand the message.

When Gunther pulled her aside and asked her to speak to him in an empty closet without warning, it took all of Jane’s self control not to respond with a retort, and laugh in his face.The grave look on Gunther’s face gave her pause. This was very out of character and very serious.

“First, you have to promise that you will keep this secret. My father cannot find out about this under any circumstances, and he may hear of it if you share this information too freely.”

Jane nodded. “I promise.”

Gunther reached into his pocket and pulled out a neatly folded piece of musty paper.

“My father recently had a meeting with another merchant, who has a young child. Due to the adults being busy, the child was handed off to me to watch during the meeting. She was playing with a ball, and the ball rolled into a room my father accidentally left open and hit a bookshelf. This fell out.”

He looked at her expectantly. She took the paper from him and unfolded it.

She gasped.

“Well?” Gunther asked after a pause. “What do you think?”

She stared at him, and then the paper again, shock rendering her speechless.

The paper was covered in dragon runes.

Several minutes later, in Jane’s room, she poured over the runes, copying them as best she could on a separate sheet of paper so Gunther could return the original before his father suspected anything was amiss. She mentally sorted the runes into categories as she copied, ranging from I already have this rune memorized to I couldn’t translate this if you held a blade to my throat.

Tragically, the majority of the runes fell closer to the latter category. She’d have to discuss that with Dragon when she saw him soon.

She finished copying, exhaling sharply and standing up, brushing her hair out of her face and pumping her hands up and down to alleviate the cramping that had begun from all her fervent writing.

“So, what do you think?” Gunther asked slowly. He was twitching slightly, like all his pent-up questions and anxiety were writhing beneath his skin. She felt the same way.

“Well, the good news is I have already identified some of them.” She started pointing out the known symbols. “This one means love. This one means happiness (or some variation of happy). This one means mountain.”

“That’s it?”

“Do you want to try? Let me know how far you get.”

“Fine, fine. Are you going to speak to Dragon about this?”

“He will most likely be our greatest help.”

Gunther grimaced. “Can he keep a secret?”

“If I make him promise, then yes. I hope.”

Gunther’s grimace deepened, but he nodded and picked up the original paper, seeing as he had no other options.

“I have to put this back, my father will be home soon. Let me know what you find.”

“Shortlives and their tiny hands are unsuited for writing runes.” Dragon announced after squinting at the paper in torchlight for a long time. “Whoever wrote this botched centuries of language so badly it’s offensive to dragons!”

“Calm down, I copied them as best as I could, and I’m certain they didn’t mean to ruin centuries of-centuries.” Her eyes widened as she finally saw the reason the runes were so hard to decipher.

“What? Did the two headed snake that sometimes comes around slither by you?”

“Look at the runes on the walls around us, Dragon.” Jane lifted up her torch, illuminating the ancient symbols that surrounded them. “They were carved by your father before your hatching, three hundred years ago.”

“Languages do not stay the same for three hundred years. If there’s someone out there, still using runes, then the language has adapted in some ways for the modern world.”

Dragon was stunned into a very brief silence. “Are you saying all of this, everything we’ve decoded, over all these years…is obsolete?!”

“Of course not! Some of these runes remain unchanged, look! It says mountain, and love and happy-Dragon?”

Dragon had an unfamiliar, almost frightening look in his eyes. He looked like he wanted to set someone on fire and then sob over their remains.

She knew she wouldn’t be harmed by any potential outburst, but she couldn’t guarantee anyone else’s safety. The thought chilled her.

“Dragon? Dragon, what’s wrong?” Use your words instead of your flames.

“It’s hopeless.” He spoke slowly, gathering his thoughts, sounding miserable in a way she’d almost never heard. “For all this time, these runes were my connection to the world of dragons. I thought if I ever met another dragon, maybe they would help me communicate. But if they’re outdated…it’s hopeless. I’ll never befriend another dragon. I’ll never join them. I’ll never understand.”

He dragged his claws against the stone out of anger, then lowered his head until it was practically touching the cave floor.

She rushed to his side, hugging his head. “Oh, Dragon, no.”

“I’m so sorry,” she continued. “I know it’s hard, but there will always be someone out there who will want to be your friend. When we find more dragons, I’m certain there will be plenty of them who will want to hear your stories, and listen to your jokes. Maybe, if there are dragon scholars, they will love to hear your insights on older runes. They’ll care about you, I promise.”

She affectionately scratched the scales on his cheek a little. He sighed and closed his eyes.

“There’s still so much more to learn.” He said quietly.

“And we can do it together.”

“Did you learn anything else about the runes?” Gunther panted between blows as they sparred.

“Not now,” Jane grunted. It was difficult to focus on sparring on someone while trying to have an intellectual conversation with them. “After this.”

He smirked a little. “Not letting anything get in the way of victory, I see.”

“Focus!” Sir Theodore shouted from nearby.

They both fell silent, and back into the familiar rhythm.

Jane explained her theory about modern runes to Gunther as they took a break between spars. (For the record, he had won that round. She tried not to be overly bitter and decided that giving him more information would serve as a good show of peace and cooperation.)

“That makes a lot of sense,” He said with a nod. “But have you deciphered any more of it?”

“Dragon and I have come to a standstill when it comes to translations, but he’s scouting out more runes in his caves now. Hopefully that will give us more possible reference points.”

He nodded again. “I have a theory of my own to propose.”

“Please share.”

“The way the paper is written…the format reminds me of a letter. There’s very few runes at the very top, then paragraphs-do runes come in paragraphs, normally?-beneath that, then a sentence at the end. Like a send off.”

“I had noticed that too, but I got distracted with the translations themselves.” She lowered her voice. “Do you think it was a letter addressed to your father?”

“Believe me, if he could read dragon runes, I would know it. He would secretly brag to me about it, and would have me- nevermind.

“If not to your father, then who? Who wrote it? Who received it?” Jane’s eyes widened. “What if we tried to find evidence of who sent it, an address? Then we could send our own message to them!”

Gunther snorted. “I’m certain that would go well. ‘Greetings, Jane and I are two Kippernian knights you’ve never met who found your encrypted message hidden away. Would you be so kind and tell us what that’s all about? Best regards, Gunther, Jane, and Jane’s Dragon.’”

“Yes, I see your point.” Jane said, feeling like she was pulling out a thorn stuck in her skin. She sighed. “We should focus on the translation for now.”

Gunther nodded, but he looked a little disappointed that he himself couldn’t do more.

Come on Gunther, think! He told himself as he walked through the courtyard. Clearly your father has to have some kind of connection-or interest, at the very least- in the contents of the message. And it had to get in his house somehow. Was it interesting enough to steal? Or was it sent to him?

It was stolen, most likely. Why would he receive something he couldn’t read?

I wish I could write messages my father couldn’t read. I could have dozens of pen pals, and he could never know what we say. He smiled a little despite himself, thinking of how red his father’s face would get at the sight of his son conversing in code, creating something he couldn’t touch or own.

That’s when it hit him.

There’s only one other person I know of who my father tried to own, tried to hide away everything about her.

My mother.

There was a sudden, powerful gust of frigid wind. It blew his hair in his face, forcing him to brush it out of the way, to turn his head upward slightly as he cleaned himself up.

Up in the sky, clearly visible, was a cloud in the shape of a dragon, soaring north.

A strange feeling rose inside him. He smelled something in the air now.

Mother? He asked silently.

As I watch my own children play around me, I think about her. She would most likely be a mother now, bearing that Kippernian man’s offspring. I try to picture her with her babies, but it’s surprisingly difficult. The child’s face is shrouded by fog. In my head, she has not aged a day, even though it has been quite some time since I last saw her.

She stopped responding to my messages. That was the first sign something was amiss. Even though we wrote them in the runes everyone in the family knew, I sense her husband had somehow decoded them, or at least made a substantial effort to stop them.

It makes me feel strange, not knowing what became of her. I was not as close to her as some of her other family members, but I love her and wrote to her regardless.

She’s…perseverant, from what I remember of her. No matter what life threw at her, she would find a way through it. I genuinely believe she is out there somewhere, maybe even trying to find her way back to us.

One of my children calls me over. I go to him. A strong, frigid wind gusts through, blowing my hair in my face and forcing me to move my head around a little. Then I see it.

A cloud, in the shape of a sword.

A strange feeling rises in me. Some say our dragon-riding ancestors learned to divine bits of prophecies in the shapes of clouds as they flew in the skies. Even fewer still believe that we descendants still have this ability.

Being cynical, I hardly believed.

But now?

I understand, as clearly as if she herself had written the words in the sky.

She had a child. A sword-wielding one, or one who possesses traits associated with the symbol of swords. I shall have to ask someone for advice at once. I should go to her father. He would move heaven and earth to find even the smallest trace of her again. Especially if that trace exists in a grandchild.

We spoke fervently for hours. Even the most superstitious of my relatives were hesitant about my idea, but eventually I won them over. “It’s the only way,” I told them.

They relented.

We’re going to Kippernia.

Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 Read on AO3 if you prefer

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inconveniently-discorporated · 1 year

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Finally started TLOU and man, this shit hits hard. (I don't think these are spoilers?)

It's the littlest details that get me. The way the infection signs (all metal-craft and official) are all aged and withered -- this isn't just "a new normal", this is and has been life for awhile. The way Joel needs his bag back -- such a little thing, but you really don't think factories are producing the little plastic bags so many of us take for granted in our day and age? They're not, that's why he needs it back.

The parallel of humanity -- the way such deep human kindness is shown to the little kid, in a "just look at the flowers Lennie" kind of way. The way it's contrasted immediately with the military executing people for trying to illegally come and go in a way that used to be so, so free such a short time ago.

And what a time for this to come out, especially for those of us who were just kids when 9/11 happened. Sarah asking if it was terrorists. The world is not so nearly unrecognizable, but in many ways it is. It feels angrier and more isolating, and it feels like many people are quite okay with increasingly more violent tactics to protect themselves and quarantine against "diseases", only instead of a fungus it's things like books and gender affirming care and bodily autonomy. It strikes me that this world is feeling more and more like one where the answer is swift and immediate "justice" by way of death, it hits that fear deep down.

But what gets me the most are two very prominent words: curfew, and quarantine.

I love reading about etymology, because within every word is a very deep and very storied past of the things my ancestors went through to get to where we are today. I recently learned about both of these words, when I was writing Every Day Another Step Away (Good Omens, 14th Century).

The word curfew comes from the phrase "cover fire". It was a word for the ringing of the bells, after which it was mandated that people had to cover their fire for the night and bank it for the next day. The intention was to prevent devastating incidents where houses and villages would burn to the ground. It was a rule created from a place of suffering, with the intent of surviving.

The word quarantine comes directly from the plague -- yes, The Plague. Italy, during the black plague, instituted a rule where incoming ships had to wait for thirty days before coming on shore. It was, at some point, determined that this wasn't enough, and therefore increased to forty days. Thus, we get quarantine. Again, it comes from a place of great human suffering, but the key to it all was the will to adapt, overcome, and survive.

These words are so embedded in our lexicon that I don't even know if anyone would think to question where they came from, or how they tell the stories of generations upon generations that fought before them for the opportunity to live another day. These words are scars, age old ruches of flesh where there were once gaping wounds that threatened to put an end to us altogether.

And that brings us to the very beginning of the episode, with the (?) epidemiologist who wasn't afraid of a bacterial or viral pandemic, because in every single case, the outcome has been this: humanity won. Perhaps worse for the wear, but we survived all the same.

And so, in TLOU's universe anyway, the world's greatest battle yet is underway, to see if they can keep the fire of the human spirit alive. Damn. What a fucking emotional rollercoaster, and it's only just the start.

#human connections #the last of us #interpretations #when you're lost in the darkness #etymology

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rabbiteclair · 2 years

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smaller writing comments on Lycoris Recoil:

I really feel like somebody needed to pull Yoshi aside and go 'uh listen the kid is inhumanly good at dodging but going from there to 'her genetic destiny is to be the greatest assassin ever' is kinda a stretch. hear me out: Olympic-level dodgeball champion'

I will give the show credit for having it clearly not convince everyone, but it's still really funny to me that their idea for covering up a like 30-minute live national broadcast of their secret schoolgirl hit squad graphically murdering people is to basically have somebody stumble out on stage afterward and yell 'SIKE. h-haha, you really bought it huh? no this is just our cool promo movie.'

in turn it is even funnier that everybody involved was like 'problem solved. we were gonna kill all of these girls since they've been compromised, but there is no way anybody will see through our airtight coverup'

I refuse to believe that Chisato 'hyper-competent blonde gunslinger in red clothes whose main character arc is about her moral stance against killing people in a world that pressures her to do so, but actually just wants to be a lovable goofball' Nishikigi isn't a giant Vash the Stampede reference

I also find it pretty funny that in a show that was clearly angling at least partially toward a yuri audience, the two female leads' relationship stays a bit ambiguous, whereas the two middle-aged guys have a relationship that's about as explicit as it can get without one of them turning to the camera and narrating it.

I read an explanation for a lot of my complaints about the themes that I find fully believable, and it is: the show was pretty popular, so it's almost definitely getting a season 2, so they reset everything to the status quo to enable that

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buttherainbowhadabeard · 9 months

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He IS The Voice

On Monday night, the new music documentary ‘John Farnham: Finding the Voice’ aired on Australian free-to-air television.

Now, I’ve been a fan of his since I was a kid, so not much was new to me. I knew he started young and fresh faced (gorgeous, in fact. Still is really) and that there was an awful lull in his career when radio stations and record companies wouldn’t give him a chance. Nuts. Anyway.

He came back, bigger and better than ever, and the rest (as they say) is history. He’s been legend / GOAT status for decades here, but revisiting all of his music again, in more detail, has been such a joy. He’s not played on the radio as frequently as you’d think these days.

Since Monday, I’ve been re-downloading and playing all of his greatest hits again. As you can imagine, the playlist is long. ‘You’re The Voice’, ‘Age of Reason’, ‘Pressure Down’, ‘That’s Freedom’, ‘Burn for You’, ‘Playing to Win’, ‘A Touch of Paradise’, ‘Every Time You Cry’, ‘Reasons’ etc etc.

However, it’s his incredible live cover of The Beatles’ ‘Help’ with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra that I’ve had mostly on repeat (the video of it on YouTube is simply joyful). I truly think it’s one of the best covers / arrangements of a popular song that I’ve ever heard, and one of the greatest examples of John’s INSANE vocal abilities.

(It’s also worth bearing in mind to that this was his encore after a 2+ HOUR SHOW. The fact he could still sing well at that point, and like this, still blows my mind).

I’ve seen a bunch of vocal coaches watching it recently too and losing their minds over how effortlessly and enthusiastically he tears this song up. The amount of soul and grit and power he puts into these words gets me every time.

He also exhibits that typical Farnham energy, fun, passion and charisma that he has in spades. Whether you’re watching him perform live or interviewed on the TV, the man honestly feels like a friend.

Every part of the rendition is epic, but at the 4 min 35 sec spot in particular, he does a playful run which makes me grin like an idiot!

I still feel so lucky that my dad & I were invited to his The Age Music Victoria Hall Of Fame induction in 2015. He was meant to do a song or two but ended up playing for about an hour and a half, and he was so pitch perfect and so funny!

When we all heard that he had to have emergency mouth surgery late last year, we all held our breath and prayed (no, I’m not religious, but it Farnsy!). There’s such cruel irony in a singer getting throat cancer. It’s been a long recovery, but the recent news from his sons that he is cancer-free and up and about (literally singing and dancing around the house) is the best news.

Being an Aussie, we obviously know John Farnham inside and out and we’re beyond proud of him, but it always saddens me a bit that he never got the international recognition he deserved in his heyday. It seems like a lot of Brits and Americans are only just discovering him now and honestly, he runs rings around most of their “legends”.

John Farnham is Australia’s best kept secret, even though we’re more than happy to share him with the rest of the world!

#johnfarnham #johnnyfarnham #farnsy #australian #singer #songwriter #performer #entertainer #legend #icon #help #thebeatles #cover #live #yourethevoice #hero #halloffame

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sinceileftyoublog · 10 months

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Pet Shop Boys Box Set Review: Smash: The Singles 1985-2020

(Parlophone)

BY JORDAN MAINZER

“It’s in the music / It’s in the song,” sings Neil Tennant on Pet Shop Boys’ “Vocal”, a 2010s club banger about the power of a communal groove. It’s a simple, but appropriate summation of their new box set Smash: The Singles 1985-2020. A collection of 55 remastered tracks, from the band’s “Imperial Phase” to their surprising late-career critical success, Smash makes the case for the London synth pop duo as some of the most concisely affecting pop songwriters of all time. Though each track sounds crisp and timeless, the set’s improved audio quality is secondary to the strength of the collection as a whole, one that puts the the band’s idiosyncratic, lesser-known songs on the same pedestal as their massive hits.

The casual music fan and non-PSB-diehard is likely familiar with, at the very least, the ever-relevant “West End Girls”. A perfect slice of deadpanned, Thatcher-era pop, it’s a predecessor to Pulp’s “Common People”, a satire of our penchant to fetishize those of a different socioeconomic status. That the band’s tone isn’t obvious is perhaps their greatest trick--from the get-go, they fully embraced commercialism while singing about the suburban hellscapes brought upon by capitalism (“Suburbia”) and society’s swindlers (“Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money)”. To Tennant and Chris Lowe, though, this wasn’t hypocrisy: It was the perfect melding of the minds, the former’s pop songwriting chops with the latter’s artistic, experimental edge. Take “Love Comes Quickly”, which wouldn’t hit as hard without its Reichian choral background, panning synths, and Tennant’s croon-to-falsetto from which you can trace a direct line to the likes of Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor. Ditto the band’s inspired disco-ifed covers of songs from other genres: Brenda Lee’s “Always On My Mind”, the whistling synths emulating pedal steel guitar, or U2 and Boys Town Gang mashup “Where The Streets Have No Name/I Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”.

What you perhaps come to appreciate most about Pet Shop Boys from Smash is how many of their club-conquering songs take place in intimate settings. For every horn-inflected, Latin pop jam like “Domino Dancing”, there’s the unspoken infidelity of “So Hard” or the paranoid obsession of “Jealousy”, lovers waiting for the other to come home from being out. On the surface, “Se a Vida É (That’s the Way Life Is)” sounds basic, but it’s a thoughtful reflection on the complications of life and how they change as you age, all atop a brass section, strummed guitars, and percussive drums from SheBoom. And even on a certain dance song like “I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind of Thing”, the narrator spends most of the time in their own head, thinking about their journey from getting out of their comfort zone to letting loose on the floor.

Of course, at the heart of the band’s introspection is an unavoidable societal context. Pet Shop Boys came to fruition in an age of state-sanctioned homophobia, governmental response to AIDS met with, at best, a shrug, and at worst, demonization. Tennant came out as gay in a 1994 interview in Attitude magazine, and before that, his references to his sexual orientation in song were somewhat veiled. On early religious satire “It’s a Sin”, Tennant laments being blamed “for everything I long to do / No matter when or where or who”. The stunning, whispered eulogy “Being Boring” is about a friend of his who died from AIDS; sullen, he sings, “All the people I was kissing / Some are here and some are missing.” You can hear the difference in songs with similar themes after Tennant came out; on “I Don’t Know What You Want But I Can’t Give It Anymore”, he theatrically leans into the jealousy, chanting over wailing backing vocals, “Is he better than me? Was it your place or his? Who was there?” And while the famously understated Lowe has never publicly come out, it’s long been speculated that his added verse on “Paninaro ‘95″ refers to an ex lover who passed from AIDS. The band’s inclusion of this version over the original on Smash speaks volumes, given the disgusting rise of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation today.

Ultimately, what allowed Pet Shop Boys to continue succeeding, as society’s attitudes and tastes changed, is their adaptation. A diss track like “Yesterday, When I Was Mad” represents Tennant at his most bitter, chiding critics. “You have a certain quality, which really is unique / Expressionless, such irony, although your voice is weak,” he sings, putting himself in the mindset of a stuffy journalist unamused by a track like, say, “Left to My Own Devices”. Over two decades later, on “The Pop Kids”, Tennant adopts a different mindset rife with humility thinking about the band’s early days: “We were young but imagined we were so sophisticated / Telling everyone we know that rock was overrated.” It’s those very rock-oriented elements that, ironically, comprised their best later-career tunes. Ali McLeod’s guitar and BJ Cole’s pedal steel stand out on “You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You’re Drunk”, a moment inspiring to polymaths like Death Cab For Cutie guitarist Dave Depper. The Smiths’ Johnny Marr provides guitar on “Home And Dry”, whose additional snares and seaside synths fit alongside Tennant’s autotuned vocals on the band’s most wistful track. And acoustic guitar from Tennant himself buoys “I Get Along” and the Xenomania-produced “Did You See Me Coming?” They’re the type of songs that make you think were age truly nothing but a number, you’d be looking at a second collection of eternal songs in another 35 years.

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fantomcomics · 1 year

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What’s Out This Week? 3/29

Spring has sprung, our spirits (and the pollen count) are high, and our 25% Figurine Sale is still going strong til 4/1!

A History Of Modern Manga HC - Insight Editions

The history of manga is inextricably linked to the social, economic, political, and cultural evolution of Japan. Essential to the daily lives of its inhabitants and to its economy, manga is one of the drivers of the international development of one of the world's largest economies. How did the manga market reach one billion copies annually in less than half a century? Who are the major players in this incredible expansion? Discover, over the pages and years, the major events and artists who have marked the history of modern manga in this new, updated and expanded edition.

The Ambassadors #1 (of 6) - Mark Millar & Frank Quitely

Imagine you could gift superpowers to six people. In a world of eight billion, who do you choose? Join six of the greatest artists in the industry for an enormous story about ordinary people from around the world explaining why it should be them.

Big Guy & Rusty The Boy Robot TP - Frank Miller & Geof Darrow

Front and center, America! Here comes action! Here comes adventure! Here comes The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot-a roller-coaster ride through the minds of Geof Darrow and Frank Miller, the tag team that set you reeling with their hard-hitting series, Hard Boiled! Everything you remember about being thirty-eight-years-old and watching monster movies is right here, but with all the magnified detail that you always wanted to see.

Don’t Spit In The Wind #1 (of 4) - Stefano Cardoselli

One man's trash is another man's living. Since earth became inhospitable, humanity escaped ages ago to live in a space station floating above the atmosphere. Now Travis and his crew of garbage men are tasked with cleaning up mountains of toxic waste, working for a company called Atomic Bros INC., to create a "Clear World." But when one of Travis' crew members goes missing near an old nuclear facility Travis' job becomes a bit more complicated.

E-ratic 2 TP - Kaare Andrews & Brian Reber

Recharge complete! The teenage hero with superpowers that only work for ten minutes a day is back to save the world again as he navigates even more pressing perils: young love, bullies, a broken family and the gauntlet that is high school. This time, young Oliver Leif is teamed with a barbarian princess who claims to be from another dimension. Spinning from the pages of The Resistance, E-Ratic combines electric action, teen drama, and pure comics fun.

Everything Sucks: Real Gamer Hours One-Shot - Michael Sweater

Do video games cause violence? No, but they do cause Noah to smell absolutely horrible from playing an MMO for three days straight. Can Calla break the spell, or will she get trapped by the sweaty paws of King Crushskull too? Includes a foil cardstock cover and a sticker sheet!

Fart School HC - Mel Stringer

Mel is excited about moving to Brisbane and starting art school! She imagines collaborating with other creatives, honing her craft, and becoming an accomplished artist. But it turns out that art school isn't quite the same in real life. Can Mel finish college with her love of art still intact?

Festival Of Shadows: A Japanese Ghost Story GN - Atelier Sento

Every summer, in an isolated Japanese village, a celebration known as the Festival of Shadows takes place. The villagers are entrusted to assist the troubled souls or "shadows" of those who died tragically, and to help them come to terms with their deaths and find eternal peace. Naoko, a young girl born in the village, is given a year to save the soul of a mysterious young man. She develops strong feelings for her shadow-a handsome young man, an artist-but he seems haunted by a terrible secret. She has a year to find out what happened to him, to help him come to terms with his past, and if she fails, his soul will be lost forever. As the year goes by, Naoko finds herself teetering between the worlds of the living and the dead. What is the terrible secret that seems to be haunting her shadow? And could she be risking her own life to help someone who has already lost his?

Superstate TP - Graham Coxon, Hellen Mullane & Alex Paknadel

The Superstate is everywhere, and its authority is absolute. Yoga Town is a city divided. While they wait to leave the earth, the 1% can bend reality to their will, they live in a consequence free world where anything goes. Meanwhile, the masses are pacified by a drugged out, government mandated digital dreamscape while they wait to perish on this dying planet. But there is still hope, for angels roam the earth. With their help, maybe some rebellious spirits can start to make a change. Experience 15 surreal and disturbing tales of rebellious fembots, celebrity turkey shoots, violent astral projection and an all-new take on the TV dinner.

Granite State Punk #1 - Travis Gibb & Patrick Buermeyer

Zeke has just gotten released from prison and is now living in the last place he ever wanted to be... his dead parents' house. For years, he tried to drown every ounce of the memories of this place and his messed-up childhood. Zeke is now forced to confront it and the revelation that his past is filled with the occult, punk rock, dark magic, and its connection to New Hampshire's most historic landmark, The Old Man of the Mountain.

I Hear A Sunspot: Four Seasons GN - Yuki Fumino

Kohei Sugihara, college student with hearing loss, and Taichi Sagawa, his ever-optimistic former classmate, met in a chance encounter that ignited an undeniable spark that would eventually blossom into love. Now it's spring and as Kohei nears graduation, his search for a job begins. Meanwhile, Taichi finds himself in charge of someone new at work. Life is busier than ever, but all in all, things seem to be looking up for the pair. That is, until the sudden appearance of Ena, one of Kohei's old flames.

Indigo Children #1 - Curt Pires, Rockwell White & Alex Diotto RADIANT BLACK meets THE DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH in this action-packed sci-fi/mystery epic as journalist Donovan Price hunts down the extraordinarily gifted INDIGO CHILDREN after their mysterious disappearance fifteen years prior.

A Journal Of My Father GN - Jiro Taniguchi

Yoichi Yamashita, spurred by a call informing him of his father's death, thinks of childhood. He returns to his hometown after a lengthy absence during which time he has not seen his father. As the relatives gather for the funeral and the stories start to flow, Yoichi's childhood starts to resurface. The Spring afternoons playing on the floor of his father's barber shop, the fire that ravaged the city and his family home, his parents' divorce and a new "mother." Through confidences and memories shared with those who knew him best, Yoichi rediscovers the man he had long considered an absent and rather cold father.

The Karman Line TP - Dennis Hopeless & Piotr Kowalski

It's all sex, lies and betrayal on a reality show streaming from the International Space Station until the crew receives a message reading "ABORT MISSION AND GET HOME NOW." Things unravel quickly as they find their shuttle damaged and a crew member dead. They'll have to fight to survive and escape... with cameras recording everything.

Kaya Book 1 TP - Wes Craig

After the destruction of their village, a young girl with a magic arm and a fighting spirit is tasked with delivering her little brother to a faraway safe haven. There, he's destined to discover the secret to overthrowing the all-powerful empire that destroyed their home. Starting out on their journey, they'll face lizard-riders, monstrous beasts, and secrets that could tear brother and sister apart.

Lady Baltimore: Dreams Of Ikelos One-Shot - Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, Bridgit Connell & Abigail Larson

Lady Sofia Baltimore, accompanied by an array of formidable companions, continues her war against the Nazis in an occult alternate Outerverse. High in the frozen Italian alps, a mercenary sorcerer has revealed a dangerous magical artifact. German forces will use it to obliterate Allied forces who stand against them . . . unless Sofia and Imogen can take possession of it first.

Heartstrings: Melissa Ethridge & Her Guitars GN - Steve Hochman, Frank Mariffinno, Manuela Pertega & Kate Samuels

Melissa Etheridge's Heartstrings takes you on a journey through her growth and life as a musician, as it reveals the untold stories behind some of her favorite guitars, each one of them exciting, significant, and dear to her heart and music.

Mister Mammoth HC - Matt Kindt & Denis Pendanx

Mr. Mammoth is the world's greatest detective and the kind of person you don't forget. Being a seven-foot-tall pacifist who's covered head to toe with an impressive collection of horrific scars makes quite the impression. But he might be losing his edge. He can't seem to solve his latest case and he's distracted with a strange obsession with a soap opera actress who doesn't even know he exists. His new case holds clues that might finally unlock the secret of his traumatic childhood. The question is: is he solving a crime-or planning one? Mr. Mammoth is the first-ever original graphic novel from Matt Kindt's all-new imprint, Flux House, which features crime, science fiction, and humor stories, all told in startling and untraditional ways. For Mr. Mammoth, Kindt is joined by internationally acclaimed artist Jean Denis Pendanx, who's making his U.S. debut!

Monster Tag Team #1 - Konstantine Paradias, Gerardo Gambone & Neil Vokes

It's a brand-new series in the vein of classic team-ups and two-in-one comics - this is MONSTER TAG TEAM! Two monsters - one rampaging story - all horror! In this debut issue called "Wolfe And Bat" - mortal enemies and clashing world powers collide in an over-the-top monster battle royale! In a Cold War that's gone occult, the international terror organization WARLOCK schemes to destroy human civilization. Faced with this new breed of unstoppable sorcerous criminal, West and Soviet agencies put their two best creatures on the case: Jesse Walker, a CIA-trained werewolf and Vlad Dracul, KGB's top vampire, team up to destroy WARLOCK's chief Magister before he can unleash Fimbulwinter on humanity. This issue comes with four covers - Main by Copper Age legend Neil Vokes, Corpse Crew homage cover by Buz Hasson & Ken Haeser, Painted cover by Mark Sparacio, and a special 100 copy Century limited edition!

Songs Of The Dead: Afterlife TP - Michael Christopher Heron, Andrea Fort, MJ Erickson & Nick Robles

Bethany is a necromancer and a hero. Along with her companions, Elissar and Jonas, she has finally found the rumored Covenant. Her perilous journey has brought her to the last bastion of the necromancers, but resurging prejudices have them in shambles. Can Bethany unite them in the face of escalating tensions? Or will the coming war shatter all of her dreams for a peaceful future?

Vince Staples Presents Limbo Beach GN - Bryan Edward Hill, Chris Robinson & Buster Moody

“Every kid has the same story. Wash up on shore. Enter the amusement park. Get superpowers. Why are you so different?" Join fan-favorite rapper Vince Staples, Bryan Edward Hill (Batman & the Outsiders; Titans), Chris Robinson (Children of the Atom), and Buster Moody (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) on an adventure into the mysterious Limbo Beach, an island theme park ruled by adolescents with unique abilities! Follow the newest member of the Wunderlosts, a band of misfit teenage raiders, on a journey to discover the truth about the park - and himself - in a tale that is equal parts Lord of the Flies and The Warriors.

Welcome Back, Aureole GN - Takatsu

Bright and sociable Kazu and the sober and serious Moto have been best friends since childhood. Even if they drifted apart in junior high, they still understood one another better than anyone else. But in their second year, Kazu began to think of Moto as more than just a friend. And as much as he wanted to think it was just a misunderstanding, it became clear to him that his feelings were all too real...

WesterNoir GN - Dave West, Gary Crutchley & Matt Soffe

Josiah Black thought that he'd done it all - cowhand, gun slinger, drifter and sheriff - but then he kills Jim Wilson and takes on the role of monster hunter. Monsters that only he can see. They Live meets Deadwood in this tale from the old wild west.

Whatcha snagging this week, Fantom Fam?

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