#like minus music and ambiance

[kastanik]

If I had to give an unhinged description of the dungeon music themes (minus mini dungeons) from the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in words cos I've been on a LoZ high lately.

Inside the Deku Tree: It's dark and hollow, but somewhat calming as the Great Deku Tree is a guardian that watches over the forest and its children, plus it's also dimly lit enough in defiance of the darkness and to help you not walk into spider webs if you just so happened to be arachnophobic. The in and out of the ambiance kinda reminds me of breathing during grounding meditations, and also reminds me of the Great Deku Tree's grim situation and him breathing his last breaths with its sad but comforting tone.

Dodongo's Cavern: It's dark, but now you're sweating because of either the lava boiling below you, or the booby-traps are keeping you on your toes, or you feel uneasy as you hear random echoes as you walk down the seemingly empty halls. This is a recently abandoned mine originally sealed shut. Not unlike a horror video game if you ask me.

Inside Jabu-Jabu's Belly: The dungeon name should explain itself, you're inside the belly of a giant fish deity the Zora worship named Jabu-Jabu, who you are acting as his human doctor to. Performing surgery on a fish via a classic Zelda game dungeon is very delicate work, folks! We can clearly hear Jabu-Jabu's sickly state in the form of his irregular heartbeats in the soundtrack, but I can't be the only one that hears the muffled sounds of the tearing open of skin and electric sounds of jellyfish, right?

Forest Temple: The definition of the forest has ears. It's more like traversing a thick rainforest than it is you traversing a haunted castle. The chanting we hear can be either the spirits that should have long since passed haunting the place singing back at you, or it's the wildlife that also inhabits the place. Or both.

Fire Temple: Controversial first edition aside, you can literally feel the heat with this track. From the heat that makes you sweat buckets and make you faint at best to forcing yourself to endure heat levels that should boil your skin off at worst if not for the Goron Tunic. In fact, you're in an active volcano. We hear tribal music, not unlike what we hear when we enter Goron City. And the chanting in the background, whether in the first version or the final version, we know this place to be the place of worship. Personally, I prefer the final version because it's the one I grew up with and it frankly fits a lot better with the fire theme. Did I mention it's boiling hot in there?

Water Temple: When you first walk in - or should I say, swim in with the help of the Zora Tunic - it sounds like it should be raining lightly or you'd hear little streams of water. I personally love the rain, as it makes me feel calm, and that's what this track makes me feel at first. Then I'm like "okay, but what's the catch" and as I hear the rest of the track, I realize, "oh, the temple is hard to navigate and there's danger afoot here." Remember, still waters run deep. The surface of water is mysterious, alluring, and even shows you your reflection.

Shadow Temple: Just like how mysterious and deep water is, so is darkness. The place has a sort of darkness that's foggy and makes you stumble around a lot. The choir reminds me of someone falling down. Into the abyss? Who knows? What we do know is that whether you have both the Lens of Truth and the Hover Boots, one or the other, or none of the items at all, you're inevitably going to fall. A lot. And those bongo sounds... You hear them in almost every dungeon track, but seeing that the boss's name is Bongo Bongo and he obviously plays a giant bongo when you eventually fight him, I think it's important to point something out. It makes you wonder if this boss knows of your movements and what you intend to explore this particular dungeon to do and is anticipating your arrival to his part of the dungeon. It's the uneasiness you feel and can't shake off even if you wanted to, as though someone is watching you even if they're not physically there. And you can't be absolutely sure who's watching you if you're surrounded by shadows and torture devices at every turn. And that's only a part of the horror.

Spirit Temple: Probably has to be my favourite track of Ocarina of Time, dungeon-wise. You can tell as you walk in that it is a place of grand importance, like where people obviously go to pray and worship. It's a track that leaves goosebumps on your skin. It's also a track I can see one gracefully dance to. The temple itself is as majestic and alluring as its theme, but sometimes, what you see or hear isn't always what you get, as there is tension underneath it and it also has its fair share of danger, whether it be the enemies or booby-traps. Or the fact that the Spirit Temple also served as the big bad's hideout before conquering Hyrule. It would make you a little uneasy, but unlike the Shadow Temple where you can't shake off that uneasiness until you defeat the boss and get outta there, you can shine light on that uneasiness.

Ganon's Tower: I'm still playing this level as we speak and my memory is a little shot. But as far as the soundtrack is concerned, you can already tell this is Ganondorf's theme remixed into a dungeon theme and you're on your way to end the madness of the evil king once and for all. And you can even feel it changes as you explore and climb the aforementioned tower to meet him face to face where he plays the organ. Like I said for Bongo Bongo, Ganondorf knows you're coming to get him.

#legend of zelda #ocarina of time #game music #been on a zelda kick lately #and watched a lot of zelda theories lately too #so i guess that's what inspired me to write this about the dungeon music

[stew-chan]

Platinum on Alan Wake 2 first run :^)

Total time: 30hrs

Score: 9/10

Overall I very very much loved this game :) horror games aren't usually my favorite because I'm super easily scared but I'll tough out numerous jump scares for a really good story.

The game story is a fun mix of "what's real what isn't", an actual continuation of the Alan Wake story, a tie in to Control (2019), and maybe some commentary on mental health?

I was a huge fan of the original and most of Remedy's games so I'm probably a bit biased but based on a huge amount of original music from various artists (a bunch of new songs by Poets of the Fall/Old Gods of Asgard especially) , the absolutely beautiful scenery, the ambiance, the writing, and fun gunplay, and the intertwined parallel campaigns each with unique gameplay elements from the other this game is an easy 9/10.

the minus one is from the huge difficulty jump during boss fights feeling like a balancing issue. I could travel through the normal parts of the game fighting and maybe die once or twice from wandering into a bad situation. during boss fights however it feels like you don't have time to use full heals or reload because the bosses are aggressive and constantly in your face and kill you pretty quick.

overall I really enjoyed it. I played this game pretty much constantly from the moment I got it and finishing games is pretty rare for me. highly recommended but definitely play the first game first (and maybe check out Control too for not just a great fun game but for FBC context in this game)

#Alan Wake #stew review #i have to figure out how to get ps5 screens to my computer so i can add some to this #ive got some but having to do this at like 4 at a time through the app is lame as hell #add some kind of wifi ps5 to pc screens or saves transfer feature please

[thebandcampdiaries]

Shitting Glitter presents: "Damn Skippy Baby"

September 2023 - Shitting Glitter has recently released a new studio work named "Damn Skippy Baby." The full-length album features ten songs, each highlighting the band's diverse sound. The music is a powerful blend of electronic music and rock, channeling the immediacy of the former and the relatable melodies of the latter. The opening song, "Microscope," is a fitting introduction to the mood people can expect from the album. The band combines synthesizer landscapes with heavier and darker rock aesthetics, creating a truly intriguing blend. The second track, "February 29," brings in a more melodic and organic atmosphere, combining acoustic guitars, synth ambiance, and electric guitar riffs over an edgy beat. "The First One" offers a more ethereal and introspective sound, with a beat that tips the hat off to 90s trip-hop while retaining a contemporary alternative twist. "Ex-Communicate" leans more heavily towards the band's electronic component. This song is particularly insightful because it highlights Shitting Glitter's ability to stay catchy while experimenting with sound design and drum machine beats. The following tune, "Black Magic Marker," is a nearly psychedelic number with a darker twist and some haunting tones. The clean guitar melodies are almost surfy, giving the track a bit of a 60s twist that juxtaposes the synthesizers in the background.

"Spirit Butter" is perhaps the record's most diverse and experimental number. This track has an otherworldly aura to it, highlighting a modern new-age twist. The song "Stacked" is even more unexpected, with vocals diving into the spoken word and rap territory over a trippy instrumental. "This Song Is Free" returns to the band's catchy vibe, combining relatable lyrics with an industrial rock vibe. "Sistere" is perhaps one of this release's brightest, most melodic songs. The tune feels like a truly emotional ballad, with a bittersweet sound and lyrics that are very powerful and insightful.

Last but not least, "There Is No End" is (ironically) a great conclusion to the album, offering a final goodbye that showcases the band's versatile formula one last time before closing the curtains.

This track is highly recommended to fans of artists such as Chvrches, Dead Rituals, Minus The Bear, Tegan & Sara, or Beth Ditto, only to mention a few. Learn more about Shitting Glitter, and do not miss out on "Damn Skippy Baby," now available on Spotify and other streaming services.

#indie rock #alternative #electro-rock #shitting glitter #damn skippy baby #Spotify

[success-and-corruption]

Gauze Album Review

Because some people want my thoughts on DEG albums I will be reviewing them so I figure I would start with their first full-length one. Please leave a comment on your thoughts on this album and my review.

Track 1: Gauze -mode of adam- (it's actually GARZE -mode of adam-)

This track is okay for what it is. It starts out very dark with circus music but then it becomes fast and hectic. Altogether I don't think it really sets the tone for the rest of the album.

Track 2: Schwein no Isu

Chair of the pig. This track definitely fits with Gauze in my opinion. I really like the opening guitar riff and the bass complements it very well. The German matches the track numbers on the back of the album which I appreciate. My boy Die wrote the music for this song so that's always a plus. I also always love some gang vocals. "Geist seele wille zelle, geist seele wille zelle"

Track 3: Yurameki

Now this song really cements the fact that Gauze is a VK album. Written by Shinya this one perfectly captures that early DEG sound. It's also nice to hear Kyo's clean vocals throughout the entire song. The instruments all work well together as well and I don't think there's much awkwardness with the transitions in this song. Yurameki is one of my favorite songs on the album.

Track 4: raison detre

First we had German and now we have French. Raison detre (or more properly Raison D'être which means reason to be) is a fun track and one I used to know how to play on the bass. The electronic beat and the sound of the guitars get me so pumped despite the... less than positive lyrics. A+ guitar solo.

Track 5: 304 -Goshitsu, Hakushi no Sakura

This song is good in that it's very different from the other tracks on the album. It's dark and Die plays acoustic in this one which is typically associated with a more calm style but this song is fast paced and the music video for it is beautiful visually but the way that the members portray mental illness is not really that accurate. Additionally I think that vocally this is one of Kyo's weakest work on the album.

Track 6: Cage

I actually do know how to play this on the bass and in fact it was one of the first songs I learned when I picked up the instrument. It's also I think one of the few songs that doesn't have the bass in standard tuning, instead it's in drop D. Cage starts out with a calming music box playing the melody of the chorus and then it quickly transitions to a faster tempo with a killer bassline with a bass solo throw into the mix. We all know it. We all love it. This song is very fun even though Kyo sings about a person being abused by their mother and in turn abuses their girlfriend. The transitions could have been a bit smoother in my opinion. It's still a great song to listen to and play on the bass.

Track 7: Tsumi to Batsu

I really don’t like this song very much. The guitars are boring and too repetitious and although I don’t expect anything different from Kyo lyrically (meaning I don't expect any happy lyrics) but these lyrics just don’t do it for me. It's an okay song for what it is but it's definitely one of my least favorite DEG songs in general. I much prefer the remake.

Track 8: Mazohyst of Decadence

This song is surpisingly one of my favorites on the album and another song I know on the bass (but really the bass is super simple in this one). As most people most likely know the lyrics are from the viewpoint of a fetus being aborted. I will not be getting into the abortion debate for obvious but everything in this song just works. The guitars in the beginning, the baby going from laughing to crying, Kyo’s vocals during the chorus. The ambiance and slow tempo really work to paint a very hopeless landscape and that tone setting is what I think DEG does best with their longer songs.

Track 9: Yokan

BOP ALERT. This song definitely deliberately placed after Mazohyst to cheer the listeners up. Yokan is a song in which the instrumentals don’t match the lyrics. The guitars, bass, and drums all paint a bubbly and energetic picture while Kyo sings about a guy no longer loving his girlfriend and mistreating her because he no longer loves her. The lyrics are a very stark contrast from the instrumental part of the song but that's DEG for you. Like Yurameki I think this song is a great way to showcase that VK sound. Didn’t the Yokan single get released like a week before Gauze? Weird. 

Track 10: Mask

“While its members have promised us peace, they have led us to war heedless of the platform upon which they were elected.” 

This was a snippet from Charles Lindbergh in his Des Moines speech in 1941 in which he blames the British, Jewish people, and the Roosevelt administration for leading the USA into WW II. BIG yikes. I think this song is about how people shouldn’t just follow orders for the sake of following orders which was the central theme of the Nuremberg Trials in which the Nazis were being tried as war criminals. Or maybe it's just about a corrupt government? Sorry for the history lesson but I felt that the context was important to understand the song. On to the musicality of the song: this song took awhile to grow on me because it seemed kind of messy and like I couldn't ever catch a break. It just keeps going... but eventually I learned to appreciate it for what it is. Again not really my favorite song but it's also not a song I think about very much.

Track 11: Zan

Kyo’s breathing and laughing set the stage for this song. The song itself is rather jarring and in my opinion a bit hard to listen to. I much prefer the remake but this is not a bad song. Not really much to say about this one other than it's definitely the heaviest track on the entire album.

Track 12: Akuro no Oka

What a song. I really love all of it and I also know how to play this on the bass minus the solo. This song feels like a story in music form and I love Kaoru’s hat in the music video for it. The wind sound Die's acoustic strumming opens the song and continues throughout the song as Kaoru, Toshiya, and Shinya play. When I listen to it I can feel the gloominess and sadness that this song portrays through the instruments and Kyo's vocals. This song was written in A minor I think so it makes sense that it would sound sad. Kaoru's guitar solo is melancholy and Toshiya's bass solo provokes some sort of emotioanl response from me. I think it’s a perfect way to end this album.

Track 13 (?): Gauze -mode of eve-

This is technically part of Akuro no Oka but it’s definitely different. Not much to say. It’s spooky and Kyo counts down in English. 

Bonus time!

Of course I have the limited edition

Bonus track 1: I’ll (single version)

I have this single as well and I like how it’s the same size as a Gamecube game disk. With that out of the way, I think this song really doesn’t fit with the overall mood of the album but the bassline sure is catchy. 

Bonus track 2: Jealous (single version)

This song fits the mood of the album more, but not quite. I also have this single. I haven’t listened to this song in a long time so I don’t really have much to say. Sorry. 

Overall this is a very promising first full-length album and a great introduction to early DEG and their past VK style. In general I enjoy their heavier stuff but this album is just a good time all around. I rate it 8/10 because some of the songs just don’t do it for me. 

That’s it! My first ever album review. I want to hear your thoughts because I’m sure many people will disagree with me. 

#dir en grey #gauze #album review #please comment your thoughts

[materializingthedisembodied]

Thoughts on immersion vs. presentationalism?

A very complex subject, thank you! I tend to think, at the outset, that every theme park land/ride has a degree of presentationalism to it, in some sense - that is, you as the audience member or participant are being directly addressed by the experience in order to give you context or bits of a story - but some are near absent of that, minus a ‘narration’ element almost entirely in their pure form. In this light, consider Pirates of the Caribbean as it opened in 1967 - an experience of pure montage and mood, from an outdoor New Orleans style building, to a indoor waterway and beach, to a bayou at night, to caves filled with skeletons, to living pirates, in the space of 10 minutes. And not one whit of it was explained or given a plot! It is a memorable, bewitching, sensory delight of an attraction and is stronger for the inexplicable juxtapositions of its’ flow and unfurling - nothing feels out of place, but there is no reason for what happens given to you, either.

The Haunted Mansion straddles the line between pure experience as immersion and presentational storytelling - the Ghost Host is talking directly to you, but he is not clarifying much of anything, he is part of the experience, mood and tone of being a human exploring a haunted house, and he is an unreliable narrator, sparingly present as the attraction goes on.

For a purely presentational experience, you have two opposite theatrical attractions - Muppet Vision 3D, which tells a clear story to you by design and characters addressing you as an audience member, but in a way that is of a whole cloth as part of the muppet experience. You are living it, as far as it goes, not being told a story about it or something being shown to you as a lesson. The opposite side of that coin is Soarin’, better executed when it focused on California instead of ‘The World’, but in both cases there is no sense of you having a fantastical adventure - it is a movie in a theme park and no amount of lovely scoring or seat motion can disguise that. It is a travelogue and there is no immersion in what you are seeing - your mind can wander to the fact you want a Churro or to ride Grizzly Rapids next, during it. It never convincingly brings you out of the mindset that you are watching a film in a theater that is just a few steps up from your local IMAX, tech-wise, really.

I personally prefer immersion, but theme park design based on that can also fall flat - look at Cars Land, which is massively immersive, but when it relies on the cartoon car characters, it does not connect with me as a basis for the whole setting. It has more going for it than that, of course, but at its’ core it is a setting for gags about if cars were like people. No matter how lovingly translated and designed, the core concept can still fail to delight in person. For the most stark example of that, consider the unholy meld of immersion in a (film, comic book based) specific universe and high presentationalism of a story that bogs down the visceral thrill of the attraction, as well as being far weaker than the attraction it supplanted - Guardians Of The Galaxy: Mission - Breakout. Short version, it stinks, even as it melds both styles of theme park attraction, resulting in a dull cacophony of noise and style that needless clutters the joy of falling down and shooting back up while exciting music plays, and strips away the spooky ambiance and sense of dread that Tower of Terror artfully wove into the timeworn ride system of the drop tower.

[janetbrown711]

“I ask myself what did I do to get as far as I’ve gotten…”

Evelyn Covey had practically planned out her life for the next couple of years. Sure, she was just in seventh grade, but that meant she was close to highschool, which is close to college, which is close to the rest of her life, and soon enough she’ll be dead. Planning everything out in her life hadn’t been her first idea, but her mom and dad insisted she and Eric plan things out. After all, they were heirs to a pretty large fortune, they had to be careful what they did. 

Basically, Evelyn planned to be head of the yearbook committee in middle school so she’d easily climb up the ladder in high school to be head by, at the earliest, sophomore year, then become head of the student council by at least junior year. Senior year would be more reasonable but, as her mother put it, “my children are exceptional, not reasonable”. She would also be head of the dance team and become a master of point ballet so she’d be several years ahead of her class by the time she gets into Julliard and before she knows it she’s Prima Ballerina just like her mother. Also, at some point soon she was supposed to start dating, but only rich boys that were approved of by her mother. 

Along the way, she was supposed to make friends with powerful people’s children and use them to her advantage. For the most part, Evelyn was good at that, with a few exceptions (Odette Jefferson, for one). Evelyn had a pretty tight squad and was pretty well-liked, and she was even cool with Eric and his sporty guy friends who were supposed to help him with his future. 

However, there was one friend that was completely unpredicted and probably a liability in the eyes of her mother, and her name was Hazel. 

Evelyn had no idea what really drew her to Hazel. She was the cousin of one of her dad’s business partners (and a very powerful one at that, but for reasons beyond Evelyn’s knowledge, she and Eric weren’t close to) but she knew she definitely wasn’t rich like Selena. She was nervous and kinda dorky. She always wore a scrunchie with a messy curly ponytail. She was naturally beautiful, which was all the odder as Hazel didn’t even seem to notice it. In fact, Hazel seemed to always be hiding in a sweater of some sort. Needless to say, Hazel was nothing that Evelyn was used to. Maybe that was it...

She knew that her mom would probably not approve of their friendship, but after the fall formal dance, Evelyn found herself hanging out with Hazel more and more. They didn’t have the same lunch, but Evelyn would find her after school and they’d chat for a little bit, and Evelyn sat near Hazel whenever possible during science and PE. She knew it was suspicious, especially to her friends, but Hazel was just... enticing. 

Her smile, her eyes, her laugh, the way she drummed her fingers on her desk when she was thinking, the way she would just ramble on and on until she caught herself... she was... 

Evelyn thought Hazel was cute, but she didn’t admit that to herself often. It didn’t matter, she had ‘the plan’ to think about. Grades, friendships, eventual relationships, her whole future couldn’t fall apart because Evelyn thought maybe that one girl was kinda cute. 

However, despite the little warning voice inside her head, she had invited Hazel and her cousin (Hazel never went anywhere without Selena) to her and Eric’s 13th birthday party. If anyone asked, Evelyn would say Selena was the daughter and future heiress of Louie Inc. and despite not being big in the social circles, she was still important and her cousin was just a tag along. Eric knew better, of course, but her friends (and more importantly, her mother) bought it. 

Anyway, that was how she got to the present moment; at her house eating pizza with her group of friends- plus Eric and Selena- with Hazel in the corner on Evelyn’s window seat, reading something on her phone, and the rest of her friends gossiping and playing games while also posting to Duckigram.  

“Enjoying the party?” Evelyn asked, taking a bite of her pizza. 

“O-oh yeah! Totally!” Hazel blushed and laughed. “J-just a little tired is all.”

“I get it,” Evelyn gave her a smile, which seemed to relax her. “Selena’s kinda a natural, I didn’t expect her to click with all my friends that well, since she doesn’t really know them and all,” Evelyn commented. 

“Oh yeah, she’s very amicable like that,” Hazel nodded. “She just chooses not to get involved in popularity contests- n- no offense or anything-!” Hazel bit her tongue. 

“No, it’s cool, I get it,” Evelyn chuckled. “I get a little tired of it too sometimes, but I find my own ways to cope.” Hazel nodded in tired agreement. 

“Here- you wanna go outside?” Evelyn stood and set down her plate on a nightstand. 

“Y-you wanna leave the party?” Hazel glanced over at Evelyn’s friends. 

“Psh, they’ll be fine. We’ll breathe just for a minute, it’ll be fun,” Evelyn offered her hand. When Hazel glanced at it, she realized how stupid the gesture was and was about to pull away when Hazel took it and Evelyn helped her up. The two snuck out of the room and eventually made their way to the balcony. The night air had done exactly what Evelyn had hoped, Hazel seeming to relax in an instant. 

“This is pretty cool,” Hazel said, remarking on the fairy lights wrapping around the ledge, giving the balcony a nice soft glow. 

“Thanks,” Evelyn said, going to the rail and leaning on it. Hazel joined her. 

“You can practically see all of Duckburg from here,” She said, eyes shining like diamonds as she looked out. 

“Yep yep,” Evelyn found herself lacking anything else to say, so she just took a deep breath. 

“Are you okay?” Hazel asked, which made Evelyn blush a little. 

“Yeah, I’m just a little more tired than I realized,” She chuckled. 

“I feel you,” Hazel nodded. 

“You know, I think you should consider yourself lucky that you weren’t born into all this. There’s so much politics involved in every single friendship and party, it’s honestly one big headache,” Evelyn rubbed her arms and leaned more on the ledge. “I can’t even count the number of times I’ve just sat and wondered what the heck I’ve ever done to get as far as I’ve gotten... It’s hard to tell what’s real and what isn’t.”

“W-well I’m sure it’s not all bad. I mean, you do have a lot of friends. That’s nice,” Hazel said. 

“It’s hard to tell if they’re genuine or not though. A lot of my friends were simply formed because of our parents,” Evelyn said. “Not you though! You’re a lot different than most of my friends.”

“What do you mean?” Hazel questioned. 

“Not in a bad way-! I-i mean... you’re actually pretty cool. I choose you to be my friend, you know?” Evelyn cursed internally. Hazel smiled a little. 

“T-thanks. You’re pretty cool too,” Hazel said. Evelyn felt her heart give a flutter. 

“Thanks,” She smiled. They looked at each other for quite the moment, before returning their gaze to the city. Evelyn took a sip of her soda.

“You know... you’re really pretty. Have you ever been told that?” Evelyn asked, realizing it was a pretty stupid question to ask someone only after she said it. 

“I mean- outside of my dad and great aunt and uncle and Selena? No, not really,” She said, scratching the back of her neck. 

“It’s true, you’re really... really pretty,” Evelyn glanced at Hazel, but their eyes met, and they went back. 

“Thanks,” Hazel smiled more. “You’re really pretty too.”

Evelyn felt her heart do a summersault. 

“Th-thanks,” She said, turning her face away as she felt herself become a blushing mess. 

There was a moment of silence between the two, minus the ambiance of the night and the background music of the party not too far away. However, it wasn’t unbearable, in fact, it was relaxing. Just two girls enjoying each other's company on a cool Friday night... 

“Evelyn..?” Hazel asked. 

“Yes?” Evelyn responded, turning to her. 

“Y-you don’t... I-i mean... Do you...? I-...” Hazel couldn’t get the words out. 

“What do you mean?” Evelyn tilted her head a little. Hazel glanced at her before shaking her head. 

“N-nevermind. Forget I asked anything,” Hazel shook her head. Evelyn decided it was probably best she didn’t push and left it at that, taking another sip of her soda. 

“You know... I’ve never really been to a birthday party outside of my family,” Hazel said. 

“Oh?” Evelyn said. 

“Yeah... and I know that sounds a little stupid, but... I’m not the best at making friends... so... I just want you to know... I appreciate you. A lot,” Hazel said, facing Evelyn. 

“I appreciate you too Hazel,” Evelyn said, suddenly aware of how close they were. She looked into Hazel’s eyes and Hazel looked right back. 

“Y-yeah... I get really shy and quiet around people, a-and you’ve really helped me reach out and grow, even if it’s j-just a little. I never would’ve dreamed of this last year,” Hazel said, leaning in a little.

“You’re really cool Hazel, I’m lucky to know you,” Evelyn replied. Hazel blushed a little. 

Just then, Evelyn closed her eyes, leaned in, and kissed her.  

To her surprise, it felt good. Really good. It was better than any kiss Evelyn had ever had before. Those countless dares she had taken with her friends were nothing compared to this.

However, right after the moment passed, both girl’s eyes snapped right open, and they jumped away from each other in shock. 

“H-hazel- I-”

“Hey, Evelyn, where’ve you- oh hey Hazel. What’s going on here?” Eric appeared on the balcony door right on time. Hazel turned away. 

“Nothing much,” Evelyn cleared her throat to quickly get a grip on herself, though her heart was pounding a thousand miles a minute. “We were just about to head back, right?” she said, turning to Hazel. 

“Y-yeah,” Hazel said, still not able to look at her. Evelyn’s smile fell. 

‘Great job Evelyn, you just screwed up the best friendship you’ve ever had,’ Evelyn facepalmed internally. Silently, the three of them went back to the party and Evelyn did her best to act like it didn’t happen. 

It wasn’t easy though, as a voice in the back of her mind kept screaming at her. 

‘You’re such an idiot. Hazel doesn’t like you like that! Now she hates you.’

‘You can’t like Hazel, this isn’t with the plan. Mom will totally kill you.’

‘What the hell is wrong with you?! Who kisses a person they barely know?’

‘You can’t risk your future like this.’

‘None of your friends would approve.’

‘How do you even know what love is? You’re thirteen. You can’t like someone like that, especially a girl.’

‘Mom is gonna kill you.’

‘That was a mistake.’

‘You’re such an idiot.’

Evelyn wished she could just turn her brain off. 

Eventually, Hazel asked if she and Selena could leave. Evelyn managed a nod, expecting that. They left not long after that, and it was safe to say the rest of the party felt like a waste. Evelyn’s mind was eating itself alive and she wished she could take back the whole thing. 

But Evelyn knew she couldn’t. Sooner or later... this was going to have to address itself again. The thought wasn’t comforting; it only got her thinking about how her friends and family would react, which filled her soul with dread. 

So for the present moment, it was a lot easier to deny the truth. She just... couldn’t risk what she had built; what she was going to build. She had her whole future, she couldn’t just... drive it all off the rails. Not right now. 

She was just confused... there wasn’t anything really there. And even if there were, it couldn’t be worth it... right? 

Evelyn took out her phone and gave Hazel a quick text. 

“I’m sorry for everything” and sighed. She hadn’t meant to screw this up so badly... 

Hazel read the text but didn’t respond. 

Evelyn pressed the phone against her forehead, cursing herself for being an idiot. 

Evelyn added: “We can pretend it never happened if you want”

Hazel started to type, but after a long moment, stopped. Eventually, she gave the message a thumbs up. Evelyn groaned internally. She hated this, she never wanted to make Hazel feel bad, and yet... she sighed. 

Then again... maybe it’d be easier this way. Evelyn could just move on and pretend it never happened. Their regular old friendship would return in no time and everything would be fine and as planned. Evelyn would just play the part she was always meant to, and she’d move on and everything would just be okay. After all, she was only 13, none of this meant anything. 

“Evelyn, you good?” Eric asked, noticing her worried looks. Evelyn glanced around to see if anyone was paying attention to her, which no one was. 

“I screwed up,” she sighed. “But I’ll fix it, it’ll be fine... it has to be,” she muttered the last part under her breath. Eric gave her a sympathetic look but didn’t push further than that, which was good. Evelyn wasn’t sure how well she’d be able to hide this from him. He was her twin after all. 

That didn’t change anything though. This whole... Hazel thing was against the plan, so Evelyn would just pretend it never happened, keep being her friend and move on. 

She had to.

#evelyn covey #eric covey #my fics #hazel duck #ducktales #dt ocs #gay fic #my ocs

[luci-four]

I freakin adore your writing, like the use of themes and emotions are conveyed so well 💕 you’re a seriously talented writer >///< also I was wondering if you could write a belphie x insomniac reader? I hope you have a nice day or night

A/N: Thank you!!! Sometimes I feel like I take all the themes and flowery language a bit too far so it means a lot that you like it!!! I hope this one works for you ♥

Sleepless Nights, Midnight Flights. {Belphegor x Reader/MC}

Roaming the house at night felt like it was as close to a blessing as Belphegor was going to get.

He felt refreshed, now that he slept as much of the day away as he could; his brothers either asleep or confined to their rooms made the middle of the night feel so free to him.  

The air around him was cool and crisp—it felt nice to just stand in front of an open window and let the slight breeze caress his face. Every room in the house felt as though the air had stood still, some parts thick and heavy that felt as though someone had accidentally opened up a different reality, others light and airy without the pollution of people to ruin it that felt as like it’d be a sin to make the slightest of sounds when surrounded by it.

Sounds—that was probably his favourite part of the night, minus the fact he could be physically alone—there were no sounds. Well, that was a lie, but the sounds that came out in the dead of night were peaceful, ones he no longer registered as sounds and simply as part of a feeling deep within his chest. The occasional cry of a night-dwelling bird, the croak of a toad, the screaming of bugs-- he thought they were ridiculous, but maybe they were just enjoying the feeling too—they were all so soft, blending together to such a nostalgic melody. Just one sound out of place would tip him off.

The creaks of the boards beneath his feet were gentle, his eyes wide to see through the hallways clouded in the shadows—now that Beel was asleep, he was going to grab a snack; his ears perked at the faint sound of furniture scratching against the floor followed by the slightly louder exclamation of pain towards MC’s room.

He tiptoed to their door, listening to the low music playing in the background as they swore at some unseen inanimate object. Laughing to himself a bit, he tapped his knuckles gently against the wood and called to them in a whisper.

“MC?”

“...Yes?”

“Are you... alright?”

Through the door came sounds of struggle; MC grunted as though they had been climbing over things, scrambling, cursing following loud thuds. Belphie could tell they hit the door fairly heavily before swinging it open.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” They leaned against the door frame fairly lax to come across calm and collected before rushing to smooth out their disheveled appearance.  

Belphie tried to keep his laugh quiet, having to cover his face within his hands for a moment just to calm down. The sight of their flushed face and embarrassed rambling made his heart skip a beat, and he couldn’t hide his smile.

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yeah!”

“Then what is it that you’re doing, exactly?”

Looking past them, he could see their furniture tossed around with no rhyme nor rhythm to their placement; shelves and chairs, dressers and the couch, even their bed had taken up any sort of walking space within their room. It was obvious they had to climb over (and through) everything just to get to the door. He could see a piece of a bookcase peeking from behind the door, telling him they had to shove it to open the door.

“I’m... practicing feng shui.”

“At three in the morning?”

“Harmonizing your energies is an activity with no time restraints.”

“Don’t think that’s right.”

They giggled this time, folding into themselves a bit to keep themselves quiet, their hand gripping the door.

“Are ya sure?”

Belphie shook his head with a smile, gesturing to the mess behind them and feigning a disappointed look once they locked eyes with him.

“Disappointing.”  

“Listen!” They bit their lip to keep from laughing again, “Okay okay, so I might have just been... rearranging the room.”  

Their face dropped and they covered their mouth, eyes wide with sudden realization and a mix of regret and embarrassment.

“Oh no, did I wake you up? I’m so sorry! I didn’t realize I was being so loud, I tried to keep quiet each time I hit my shin on something or when I--”

“Hey, hey.” He gestured to calm them down, “I was already up, you’re fine.”

Resembling something of a confused owl, MC’s head turned to the side, their expression now an innocent bewilderment that Belphie had to look away from due to his heart leaping out of his throat.  

“Watch out, I’ll help you move it all back.”  

Now, Belphie didn’t enjoy entertaining the idea of manual labour in the middle of his serene time alone, but he was willing to admit spending the time with them was... interesting, to say the least. The dumb jokes they kept mouthing off, over-enthusiastic gestures, there were even a few times they couldn’t help but jump up and down with excitement. Despite their hyper movements and “go go go” attitude, Belphie noticed the exhaustion creeping up behind each flutter of their eyes.  

“Done and done!” MC cheered, “Thank you, Belphie.”

“Mm. Going to sleep now?”

“Nah, I’m feeling pretty good, now! If you’re tired you can go to sleep, I don’t mind--”

“I’m not,” he smiled gently, “Do you wanna go somewhere with me?”

“Go... somewhere?” They seemed nervous. “Isn’t it too late to go anywhere?”

“We won’t leave the house, it’s fine. Do you want to go?”

They pondered for a moment, he assumed they were still nervous—he certainly was. Alone—completely alone, he has to add—with MC was... tempting. Sweet, and just out of reach; he could almost taste it, and them.  He started to play with his hair, twisting a few strands between his fingers; he was fidgeting. Anxious, jittery, would they give him an answer already? Any answer would be enough to make his heart burst anyway--

“Okay, yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah! Let’s go!”

Belphie exhaled with a smile, holding his hand out for MC to grab rather enthusiastically before heading through the realm of the quiet once more. A finger to his lips to remind them to hush, floorboards creaking with the tiptoed steps, the very soft, murmured giggles bouncing off of the surfaces.

The small gasp that escaped MC was adorable. The way they ran to the railing of the balcony, leaning over it to embrace the wind—he knew the feeling all too well. Freedom. Peace. Happiness. They turned back towards him and leaned their elbows against it while he crossed his arms and leaned as well.  

The two of them just... existed. The gentle breeze, the soft sounds, just the feeling of the presence of one another was ethereal. Seconds, minutes, hours—Belphie didn’t know how much time had passed, and he didn’t care. Moonlight bouncing off of their form, shining in their eyes, enveloping the space around them; Belphie laid his head on his arms and broke the silence with a calm voice.

“So, tell me. Why were you up?”

Their laugh had been a little regretful, something about it sad and tired.

“I’m up a lot of the time, just not as... perky.” They answered, rolling their head to stretch out their neck. “Insomnia. Nothing new, tonight I was just extra energetic.”

“Ah,” Belphie closed his eyes, “I know how that can be.”

Silence once again. Understanding, acceptance, companionship. The air was as light as ever, the sounds a dull hum in the background. Moments passed once again, so comfortable that Belphie hadn’t noticed the lights start to rise and the creatures grow quiet.

“You know...”

Their breathing, his heartbeat, his hushed voice—the only sounds left around him.  

“I like being awake—at night, at least.”

He started his thought; he needed to finish it. Tip of his tongue, words gearing up, ready to be spoken. The air between them was so still, open, ready, willing—all to hear what emotions he had to say.

“It’s quiet, peaceful. I get to enjoy myself. I get to breathe. I get to be alone.”

They’re looking at him now, the moonlight that once lit up their eyes now paled in comparison to the shadows the rising lights cast upon those irises. He can feel their expectations, he needs to speak, but how can he while he looked at them?  

The peace Belphegor got in the middle of the night was sacred; the ambiance of the time was refreshing, a beloved feeling near and dear to the demon’s heart. The occasional cry of a night-dwelling bird, the croak of a toad, the screaming of bugs; the still air-- some parts thick and heavy that felt as though someone had accidentally opened up a different reality, others light and airy without the pollution of people to ruin it—this air, this time, when everything stood still and everyone had slept, was the most serene, happy, and calm times of Belphie’s life.

“But... I wouldn’t mind being alone with you.”

#obey me! #obey me! belphegor #obey me! belphie #obey me! drabbles #om! belphegor #om! belphie #om! drabbles #swd: obey me #swd: obey me! #not gonna lie idk WHATS happening with tumblrs keep reading #its messing up big time for me so lemme know if yall can even read the piece?? lmao #i tried like 7 times to fix it at 2am #and said fuck it im gonna schedule it anyway LMAO #belphegor x mc #belphegor x reader #om belphegor

[worrywirt]

The music video for There There by Radiohead is a masterpiece and here is why

So, as many of you might know already, There There and Nude are my two favourite songs by my favourite band, Radiohead. They are two very unique songs that move me in different but equally intense ways. But what makes There There extra special to me is the video, which managed to combine basically all the things that I love: spooky forests, little animals in clothes, hollow trees with winding roots, references to fairy tales and literature and a dream-like, voyeuristic atmosphere. I am first going to analyse the song itself, then how combined with the video, it is one of my favourite pieces of media I have ever seen.

Lyrics here. As the song starts off, it already feels like the listener is dropped inside a weird, intense primal world. I love percussion-heavy music and when I first heard it, the use of tom-toms and alienating, hardly recognisable sounds already reminded me of one of my other favourite artist’s best-know song: Björk’s Human Behaviour. I can’t really explain it if you don’t hear it, but both have this hypnotic, primal quality that beckons you in right off the bat. Then Thom’s mournful voice sings: “In pitch dark/ I go walking in your landscape/ Broken branches/ Trip me as I speak”. Not to go all A-Level English on his ass because let’s be honest, Thom’s lyrics are often nonsensical and vague, but I love this verse so much. It goes perfectly with the instrumental, starting off in a way that is like the start of a story; the words painting you a picture that is both dreamlike and frightening. To me, it describes falling in love in a way: “I am walking in your world, and I don’t know the way, and it’s all new and confusing and dark and sometimes I say the wrong things but I am still exploring, and it’s beautiful”

After this start that frankly hits you in the chest like a basketball in year 9 PE, we are treated to a combo attack with the lines “Just 'cause you feel it/ Doesn't mean it's there”. In classic Radiohead fashion, all the perceived optimism from the first verse is denied from us, basically saying “just because you feel a connection, it doesn’t mean it’s real”. Trust issues central. But it can also be interpreted to mean emotions in general, which is usually how I (a very emotional person) interpret it: feelings technically aren’t real. And the way you perceive the world while you are Going Through It™ is not always correct. No, everyone doesn’t hate you because their world isn’t centred around you: stop obsessing. It’s okay. There, there. (This is also reinforced later on with “someone on your shoulder”, basically saying it’s just your brain playing tricks.) Additionally, some think it’s referring to a dream, which would fit thematically with the music video.

The next verse to me is about the temptation of a bad decision while Going Through It™. Yes, it would be very easy to do the wrong thing, to go off this path that is making it really hard to get up in the morning: but it would also ruin you. I also interpret “don’t reach out” as coming from the siren (i.e. surprise, surprise: depression) – it wants you to self-destruct, to be a “walking disaster” but that, however tempting, is the wrong thing to do. The use of “we” also works with the “someone on your shoulder” line, and to me (however cringy that sounds) it means that music will always be there for me and help me work things out. It can also be applied to the relationship angle: the couple are in the same boat (/ship), and if one of them does something self-destructive, it will affect both. Both of these options work with the “Why so green and lonely? (…) Heaven sent you to me” lines. It’s interesting because the religious interpretation on Genius always annoyed me – Radiohead are the least religious band ever! This is the only religious reference I can think of from the top of my head, minus “angel” in Creep – but because it’s so rare, maybe it has a reason to be here? Maybe it IS about God after all, but I don’t really think so. Also, to me the imagery of “green and lonely” and the nautical “siren” and “shipwreck” have a much bigger weight visually than “heaven”, so they negate the religiousness in my eyes. I think it’s about two broken people finding each other, but also finding it hard to figure out how to fit together. They’re thinking that it might be a lost cause and destruction is right around the corner, but the best they can do (is good enough) is try and be there for each other while they head towards their ultimate end. Very comforting in a twisted way, which is Radiohead’s specialty.

So, let’s talk about the VIDEO!!! I’m writing this after an HQ version was FINALLY released on their website, so I’m going to use screenshots of that because oh my god, it’s beautiful. 

We start off with the “pitch-dark landscape”, more-or-less just as I imagined it while listening to the song. Although it is kind of drab and boring at the start, this only emphasises the magical quality of what it becomes later, as our protagonist Thom (I’m going to call him by name but I’m obviously referring to the character, not the real person) heads deeper and deeper inside. Oh, how I love forests in the dark. Nothing else has the same perfect ambiance.

Thom is walking in a way that matches the rhythm and the dreamlike atmosphere of the song, i.e. somewhere between an alien who just learned the way the Earthlings walk and the exaggerated, slightly sped-up movements of a silent movie star. We already know he has an affinity towards both bowler hats (Lotus Flower video) and pantomime-like acting (ANIMA) so this is truly on brand. He then sees dark clouds pass at a breakneck pace (again, the dreaminess of it all... chef’s kiss), then confused and lost, heads back into the forest which this time looks a lot less boring and “real” then at the start. The dark clouds can be interpreted as a warning of things to come (“stay out, not safe”), which he ignores or just a sign that something is off and we’re not in Kansas anymore.

So as he turns back, we’re treated to my first Favourite Moment: Thom finding the beckoning yellow light and deciding to follow it. The way he is acting suggests both curiosity and sneakiness, like he suspects the thing emitting the light is much better than his original destination (if he had a destination at all). 

I love the way the light is illuminating his eyes here, it again reminds me very much of old movies (and Morticia Addams in the 90s movies, but probably because the filmmakers also took inspiration from the same well)

Oh my god, just look at this shot. Beautiful. Lothlórien who?? I only know magical glowy Radiohead forest. Because yes, we’ve obviously crossed the path between realms the minute Thom decided to pursue the yellow light (which can also be connected to the “siren singing you to shipwreck” in the lyrics). This is now the land of magic and fairy tales, and strange things are afoot. 

Again, I gotta stop analysing for a moment and just note that the amount of serotonin this gives me would fuel 10 people for a year. For anyone who doesn’t know me well enough, animals in little clothes living in little well-arranged dwellings inside a tree are in the top 5 things that make me happy, and combined with Thom Yorke Radiohead peeking in the window like an innocuous tourist… and the warm light illuminating the miniatures… perfection. Okay, moving on.

Thom is exploring this strange world of anthropomorphic animals like an awkward giant, without seemingly anyone noticing him. This adds to the alienation seeping from the music: this is a weird and wonderful place but you don’t belong here (sorry for the Creep reference, swear it was not intentional). He first saw a pair of squirrels, chilling in their house; then a big banquet; then a cat wedding (power of 3, the fairy-tale number). If we are going with the dream metaphor here, these might be alluding to things happening in real life, especially the wedding as he actively walks away from it, but this is just a speculation. Mostly it just shows that these animals are living in a happy little community and we love that for them! But it also make me feel like this is a coping mechanism for our protagonist here. Apparently Thom (the real one) got the idea for this video from a children’s TV show called Bagpuss: I had a look and it’s the tear-jerkingly comforting and nostalgic stop-motion series that everyone needs one of in their lives (I have several, both English and Hungarian). The subtitle “The Boney King of Nowhere” refers to a song in episode 2 about a king who wasn’t comfortable on his throne: according to this link, this resonated with Thom, who found himself on a pedestal he never wanted. (It’s kind of funny that a little kid’s song about a king’s bony ass has such a sick name though). He also wanted the original creator of the show (Oliver Postgate) to animate the video but he declined. Anyway, the "fifties East European genre animation, overlaboured and naïve” aesthetic, to me, symbolises comfort and warmth that our protagonist doesn’t feel at home in.

So off he goes, into the dark heart of the forest. Also, important to note the patch of fog that keeps showing him the way: is this the siren’s song physically manifested, pulling him away from the warmth of community? (”don’t reach out, don’t reach out”)

He then climbs up and sees a golden coat on a tree inside some kind of ancient ruin. This to me immediately brought to mind the Golden Fleece from Ancient Greek myth, which was the fleece of a magical ram that hung on an oak tree. It signified kingship, linking back to the subtitle. Thom sneaks to the tree, looks up at the ravens (7 of them: another fairy-tale number) and when he sees they are sleeping, tries on the coat. I found it interesting how at this point the coat looks quite ordinary, drab and brown – possibly a metaphor for a decision that you know is bad but you do it anyway; and by the time you realise it actually didn’t feel as good as you thought, it is too late - he listened to temptation (the sirens). He even takes the boots from inside the tree, which reminded me of SO many of the folktales that I grew up on: it’s not enough that the bad sibling did this one bad thing, they even did ANOTHER bad thing, which cements the listener in believing them to be irredeemable and worthy of the awful fate the tale has in store for them. The ravens (birds of death and in this case agents of justice) wake up – Thom has a little “oh shit” close-up and then start running for his life in his new attire.

Addition: another theory I found interesting among the comments is that this place is Limbo -  “

The gothic look of the ravens chasing Thom with the rising full moon is such a huge contrast to the warm, comforting glow of the stop-motion animal town, but it makes sense with the crescendo of the music and it’s dark and menacing cacophony: “we are accidents waiting to happen”. This was Thom’s mistake: and now there is no turning back. (Quick note: his running here reminds me once again of the Human Behaviour video – I am working on another similar essay that concentrates on how Radiohead and Björk are mirrors of each other so look out for that). 

He thinks he is saved for a moment by the magical seven-league boots (another folktale reference) but it is only a false hope. He gets his punishment and turns into a tree by what we can assume to be a painful and terrifying process (I love his facial expression so much). The ravens arrive and we realise that this is most likely how the previous tree met his or her fate. The cycle continues. He is now the Boney King of Nowhere.

One of my favourite mental images is people taken over by nature: not in a decomposing way but more like a Hanahaki disease way. Thom turning into a tree reminded me of a couple of things: one, my other favourite piece of entertainment Over the Garden Wall, which is very similar in tone to this video (if I ever meet Thom, I genuinely only want to ask him if he’s ever seen it and if yes what his thoughts are on it). SPOILERS for OTGW: the Beast turns lost children into trees and uses oil from the trees to keep his lantern alive, which is basically his life source – in this case the tree-person seems to be the living beating heart of the forest. The way the tree-curse is transmitted also reminded me of how the lantern was (nearly) passed down to Wirt. Basically, it is an inheritable burden. Two, and this isn’t my interpretation but I thought I’d mention it: Daphne & Apollo, wherein Daphne hides from Apollo’s sexual advances by turning into a tree. This doesn’t really fit the tone of the scene in my opinion, because Thom’s transformation is an involuntary punishment; but it kind of connects to the other reference to Greek myth, Odysseus and the sirens (both chasing after women, or the impossible dream). Three: Dante’s Inferno, in which the second ring of the seventh circle is the Wood of Suicides where “the souls of the people who attempted or committed suicide are transformed into gnarled, thorny trees and then fed upon by Harpies, hideous clawed birds with the faces of women; the trees are only permitted to speak when broken and bleeding”. Whomp whomp, it was a suicide metaphor :/ And it wasn’t a dream, it was Limbo - a thematic preoccupation of the band, so not impossible.

A comment I found relating to this: “After death you have to cross over. He got distracted by the nice and shiny shoes and jacket (don't reach out), hence the siren that leads you to shipwreck (Odysseus). When you want to enter the spiritual realm you have to be able to leave the material world behind or you shall not pass. He was distracted, got caught and changed into a worldly tree (he was still to attached to the material realm). The so-called reality we live now is the dream. (Just 'cause you feel it doesn't mean it's there). He remembered that he died and came back to this illusion. We are stuck in a lift....” I really like this interpretation of Thom’s downfall being too attached to materialism/ fame & fortune. I wonder what he meant by “came back to this illusion”? Also, who are the animals in this scenario: aspects of Thom’s life or other people, stuck in Limbo/ every-day oblivion?

This wouldn’t be the first or last time Radiohead explores the concept of death, so I don’t think it’s far-fetched. And it fits with the lyrics too, as I’ve discussed briefly above: this is what happens when you listen to the siren (the fog, the light) and stray away from the cute animal town, Thomas! I’m joking because it is kind of a bummer to end it on this, but I just love how dense and layered this video is. Most of their videos are top-notch but this one just hits a really sweet spot for me, so yeah! 2500 words! I’m glad you came along, pardner! Goodbye till next time!

#radiohead #thom yorke #there there #the boney king of nowhere #bagpuss #otgw #sorry I didn't go into the sonic side of things I just don't know anything about it #music theory is a scam

[ashcraftscrap]

Digging a Little Deeper

In my last post I made a list of all the topics that I enjoy enough to feel they have a shot at becoming my brand, so to speak. I talked a little bit about Writing and why I think it’s going to end up being my primary focus...

Writing has been a long term passion of mine, probably the longest lasting with the exception of animals and nature. I also think it would be the best outlet for all the various things that I enjoy, because then I can work on individual books that cover the topics I love even if I don’t love them enough to make a career of them. Writing gives me the freedom to jump around a bit, to dabble in a little bit of everything without losing focus.

...but I neglected to talk about anything else in the same kind of depth. Why do these other topics have a shot at being my brand? What about them do I like, and more specifically if they did become my brand, what kind of content would I be making? These are rather general topics, so let’s go over them one by one the same way I did with writing:

Art (in various forms)

I’ve done all sorts of art from drawing and painting, sculpting, and photography all the way to glass blowing, jewelry making, and woodworking. I have basic sewing knowledge, I’ve played with resin a little, and I’m up for a DIY project pretty much anytime be it to improve my wardrobe or the space I live. I’ve discovered through my many years of trying different types of art here or there that as fun as two-dimensional art (drawing, painting, photography) is and can be, I prefer working with three-dimensional creations. Something I’ve wanted for years (about a decade now) to do is create dolls of my characters to use in photography that can act as the illustrations in books I write. If I were to make art my brand, it would be an adventure of trying new things and sharing my various creations, probably with a focus on these dolls and making art for my books, the secondary focus being on DIY projects for my wardrobe and home.

Animals

I love pretty much all animals (’cept wasps lolz) and I really love learning about them and sharing what I know. I think it would be a meaningful thing to get educated and share that knowledge, and I would be very humbled to get the opportunity to do something important and help animals however I can. One thing I’ve always wanted to do, but simply have not had the time nor means to do so, is volunteer at a wolf-dog shelter about an hour or so away from where I live.  Another direction that I feel I could easily go is getting into betta fish and/or ball python breeding. I’ve often had bettas present in my life, and I’ve almost always wanted a snake, particularly a ball python, so both creatures are something I’ve on-off considered breeding as a hobby, if I ever had the opportunity. I don’t know if I’d make a career out of it, I’ve never looked into it as anything more than a hobbyist, but I would definitely not be mad if it went that way.

Reviews (Books, Shows, and/or Movies)

My favorite genre, my bread and butter, is high fantasy, but second to that I probably read philosophy and supernatural fiction the most. When it comes to movies, I’m a big Disney fan, but my favorite types of movies are stop motion, hand-drawn animation such as Studio Ghibli or older animated movies, and I’m not sure what I’d call them, but films that implement puppetry and less CGI and such, films like The Neverending Story, the Dark Crystal, etc. Shows I enjoy range from drama and romance to comedy and horror, and I’m not ashamed to admit there are some really great cartoons and anime out there. I’m a theater geek and was a techie in high school, so I get nerdy over set design and ambiance and soundtracks, and would undoubtedly talk about that background stuff too. I don’t think I’d make a very good reviewer, but I think it sounds like a lot of fun, and I’d like to do it for the sake of the fun alone whether it becomes what I’m known for or not.

Video Games

I strongly doubt that this would become my brand/focus, but I really love video games and think no matter what direction I end up going in, I’ll likely still make Let’s Play videos and maybe even video game reviews just because it’s something enjoyable and fun to do. I strongly prefer playing games with my fiance and friends like Don’t Starve Together and Minecraft, but I also like playing games on my own too. I particularly like medieval-style RPGs, slice of life games like The Sims or those silly dating simulator games, and Nintendo, most particularly the Legend of Zelda series and Pokemon.

Gothic Subculture & Fashion

If I had the luxury of having enough money to truly express myself with complete and utter vanity, I would do a huge wardrobe rehaul and deck myself out as badass as It’s Black Friday. Everything would be black on black on black, and I’d live in my dark little black on black on black world with minimal if any color. However, my wardrobe currently is nothing spectacular and my fiance could not stand to live in all black the way I could, so I don’t think I’m in a position to dive into this world all in the way I’d like to. I strongly doubt it’ll become my brand, but rather it’ll be the primary aesthetic I strive for and will likely slowly develop over time.

Philosophy (Neo-Paganism) | Gender Studies (minus feminism)

Both of these topics are things that I have learned a great deal about and have personal, life-changing experiences within. They are also highly personal, controversial things to talk about, and don’t always jive well with people. There’s a particular crowd that these things get discussed with, and while I am a part of that crowd and am not afraid to talk about these things, I’m probably just going to leave my opinions about these things in places where they are more appropriate to discuss them, like Quora. Because I’m so passionate about them, I will likely talk about them in time, but I just don’t know if I’m comfortable attempting to make a career out of either thing. If I do, I think I’d be a lot more inclined to talk about philosophy and spirituality than I would about Gender. Even though I don’t know if I want it to be my main point of focus, I do think it’s important to share my opinions and perspective on these very personal things, perhaps by writing books about them at some point. I guess we’ll just see how much people hate me sharing more about this side of me haha

Music

As much as I love music, I know it won’t be my brand. The most I do regarding music is post good music to my instagram. I don’t play any instruments, and I’m not tone-deaf or anything, but regardless of that, at my very best my voice is simply average, so it’s not like I ever imagined I’d be making music. I might write some songs if I think I can even do that, but one this is for sure - I will talk about good music here and there, especially since my favorite genre (gothic metal) is fairly niche and deserves a little bit of a shout out.

The Furry Fandom

In my previous post I said that my prediction for the topics that are most likely going to be my brand are Writing, Animals, and Art. Well the furry fandom is pretty much made up of animal-loving artists of all kinds and sorts, writers included. So needless to say, I could very easily end up becoming a furry influencer, since it encompasses a good portion of the things I love doing, and is the fandom I’m most involved with as well. I wouldn’t be mad in the slightest if this ended up happening, and I have a hard time believing that my followers won’t end up being made of majority furs anyway. If I had continued my list beyond the top 3 predictions, the furry fandom would have been the fourth listed for this reason.

Hunting | Gardening | Food & Cooking

I’ve learned a lot about the food industry, and I’d like to learn a lot more and be more proactive in changing my lifestyle for the better in order to get away from all the processed, typical American diet shit out there that’s tainting our food. So basically for years now I’ve had this vision and goal for my lifestyle. I want to be a hunter, then I want to go vegetarian (may even vegan idk) with the only source of meat I consume being my own personally hunted game, or I guess maybe locally sourced meat from ethical farmers and such. I’d also like to learn a lot of skills that a good for a hunter to know, like leather-working, taxidermy, and skeletal articulation so that I can utilize all of the resources, not just the meat. I’d ideally like to have my own goats for milk, otherwise only drinking nut milk (preferably homemade), and my own chickens for eggs. I’d like to have a small farm where I grow as many of my own fresh ingredients as I reasonably can, and with all those good and healthy resources, I’d like to become a better at home chef. I’ve just never had the land or money to do all this with, so I’ve kinda put that goal on the back-burner while I focus on my career and finances first. Undoubtedly, however, I will learn more and talk more about this stuff as I get closer to accomplishing these goals, cook more, and hopefully get the money and means to learn more about it and actually become a hunter.

#ashcraftblog #blog #ramble #about me

[dentalrecordsmusic]

RIOT RIOT RIOT Fest: A Retrospective (Sept. 13-15th)

Words and photos by Ari Jindracek.

Anyone who has spoken to me since the Riot Fest lineup was announced could tell you, probably with a grimace, how excited I was for Riot Fest. The ones I talked to more would probably mention the acts I was looking forward to in the next breath. A music festival for the music I love, in the city I love? To say I was looking forward to this would be a gross understatement. However, I was not prepared, at all, for what Riot Fest would actually be like. 

The first thing you need to know about Riot Fest if you've never gone is that it's not just about the shows. There are carnival rides. There are people on stilts. There is more free Pedialyte than you can drink. There's a sculpture of John Stamos made of butter for reasons I can't begin to fathom. The official name on the stage dressings was Riot Fest and Carnival, and that's pretty apt: I was basically going to a carnival for three straight days. Did I ride the rides, you ask? No, because it was 5 bucks for one go on the Tilt-a-Whirl. The ambiance, though, was really fun to be a part of. That probably contributed to Riot Fest being the only fest where I've ever made connections with people. I got two phone numbers (three if you count fellow editor Cae Rosch as someone I met at Riot Fest, even though we'd talked online beforehand) and a business card for someone's Etsy store, and I chatted less at length with probably a dozen people. There was a real sense of kinship in the crowd. People would actually save your barricade spot, and, during Microwave on Saturday, a clump of people actually helped me fight my way forward in the crowd. Maybe it was just my crowds or my blind luck, but I felt supported at Riot Fest, both by my fellows in the front rows and by the staff who gave me extra cherry Pedialyte because I said it was my favorite. 

People don't go to Riot Fest just because of Butter Stamos, though (at least, I don't think so). I, like everyone else, was there for the music. At the barricade before shows (and oh, was I at the barricade), people would sometimes ask each other, "Who's your band?" Mine was Senses Fail, who, in an expression of love or maybe good publicity, were playing two sets as a way of compensating for the Chicago date they were forced to cancel during the polar vortex earlier this year. The other acts I wanted to see above others included Frank Iero and the Future Violents, Against Me!, Rise Against, and Glassjaw. I planned around these six sets; about half of the bands I cover here were bands I saw because their set was on while I was camping a stage. This is not the only approach to Riot Fest, and it probably isn't even the best, but it's the one I took. Due to the sheer volume of bands I saw, I will focus only on the ones I found most notable since if I wrote at length about all of them, this review would be a 20-page essay. All sets were excellent in their own way, even if they weren't my favorites; at no point did I wish I was seeing another set, though. Every band I saw, though hugely different, was stellar. They wouldn't be on the bill otherwise.

On day one, I missed the first band at the Radicals stage by minutes; I don't often miss openers, so I felt awful, but the dispersal of the crowd after the set left me a wide-open spot leaning against the barricade. Here I met my first Riot Fest buddy (shout out to Salem) and saw Anti-Flag, whose music I had not heard at all before. They immediately cemented themselves in my good books, not only because their music was terrific, but also because they talked at length about the current political hell America finds itself in with a conviction that their crowd was going to change it. I almost started crying during their speech about gun violence, and again when they talked about how distraction politics are screwing over disadvantaged communities. I also collected from them my first ever setlist, by bartering for it with my first ever band guitar pick. (The setlist has a chunk ripped out of it, which is why the person next to me was willing to trade it. Their loss.)

Senses Fail was the next band up, but I'll talk about both of their sets at the same time. After spending my time at Radicals stage, I bounced around the festival a bit: I grabbed some merch and a giant funnel cake, then tried to watch Dashboard Confessional but couldn't get a spot that wasn't behind the light and sound tent, where people were having drunk conversations. The next set I saw, my last of day one, was Glassjaw. I was lucky that they were playing Worship and Tribute because that's the only one of their albums I've listened to enough to know any lyrics. As this was an album play set timed almost exactly to the length of the album, there wasn't a lot of time for the band to interact with the crowd. Glassjaw played a steadier set rather than a harder set, as is their style. To my memory, there wasn't a lot of crowd surfing or moshing (although this might not necessarily be true; I was in the outskirts of the crowd). Trappings aside, the album was amazing live. The crowd clearly knew the words to the songs -- one perk of knowing the exact setlist ahead of time -- and the mix of long, sustained notes with the rich instrumentals was stunning. 

The second day of Riot Fest, I got to Douglas Park comfortably early (aka, before the gates were opened) and headed for Rebel Stage as soon as I could. This was 11AM. I would be camping there until about 7PM, minus a short bathroom and water break. The first band on Rebel Stage was Monarchy Over Monday, which was a notable act to me for two reasons. First of all, they were all high school students and the youngest band at this year's Riot Fest. Second, the head of my department at work knows their parents. (The head of my department was there. Let me tell you, it's a bit weird to see your boss's boss's boss in overalls and a band shirt while she tells you how to properly break in your new Docs). I'll admit I wasn't expecting Monarchy Over Monday to shred, but they wouldn't be playing Riot Fest if they weren't good, and they were very good. The only thing I thought they were really lacking was stage presence, but that was only to be expected since they didn't have the longest history of big shows to pull from. They're good and I'm sure they'll learn. 

The Rebel stage stayed pretty low-key until just before The Damned Things came on. Like, I would bet, a lot of the other members of the crowd, I'd heard of The Damned Things as the side project of Fall Out Boy members Joe Trohman and Andy Hurley. Beyond this, I went in aware of all of one of their songs, and I'd pulled that from the official Riot Fest playlist. (Honestly, I was only prepared for 3, maybe 4 of the sets I saw at Riot Fest. I didn't know anything about anyone. It's hard to research bands when your default is listening to the same album on Spotify until you wear it out). I can easily say that I enjoyed watching The Damned Things more than I've ever enjoyed a Fall Out Boy show, and that's without the emotional investment and the lyrics in my head. The band played hard and the crowd went hard. The frontman chatted and joked with the audience (I can remember that he played matchmaker for a friendship between two dads who had never met) and the music, including that one song I knew, was fun to hear, to clap along with, and to sing when possible. 

The colossal crowd stuck around for Microwave next (I barely remember their set, so focused was I on not falling over as I tried to claw my way back to the spot I'd asked someone to save while I got water and then over as I fought my way back to the barricade) and then Senses Fail. Now, I've been listening to Senses Fail with the fervor of obsession, on the day of writing this, since August, with breaks of a few days at the most. I'm not the best at learning lyrics, but I could sing at least the chorus of every single song they pulled out over two sets. Three of their members keep liking my tweets. You could say I'm biased in Senses Fail's favor as I write this. But, with two high energy, high caliber sets, how could I not be? On day one, they played all of Let It Enfold You, one of their most popular albums, and on day two, the remastered version of their first release, From the Depths of Dreams; the popular single "Can't Be Saved" was also featured on both days. 

The stage show featured Buddy Nielsen doing dances that clearly marked him as a dad, but, like, a cool dad, and twirling and throwing his microphone with such confidence that I never once worried he'd drop it. I will not pretend to be unbiased in my analysis of Senses Fail’s set. I have been listening to their music in days-long bursts since July. I had tickets to see their canceled show over the winter. Senses Fail’s sets were the ones I was most looking forward to, and I was not disappointed. True, like Glassjaw, they did not have much time to interact with fans. Beyond introducing the band and a few songs, there was hardly any audience interaction (I managed to interact with the band, though, since I was at barricade; during one of the songs on From the Depths of Dreams, I gave frontman Buddy Nielsen a little wave and he waved back at me in abject confusion). I can hardly remember looking anywhere other than back to see if I needed to hold anyone or up at the dervish that was Buddy Nielsen for the two sets. 

Everyone on stage looked like they were having the time of their lives; I would routinely catch them smiling bright, though they’d usually get back into their music before I could get a picture. It wasn’t just a good set musically, it was fun to watch and fun to be a part of. I happened to make friends before Senses Fail on both days, too (shout out to Salem and Jace), so I was enjoying the show with people I knew. In my crowning moment of Riot Fest glory, I got a hand on Senses Fail’s day two setlist; I ended up sharing it with my new concert pal, because I’m a nice person, but I don’t think I have ever cherished a piece of paper more. If Senses Fail had played on Sunday, too, or any other day after Riot Fest, I would drop anything to go see them (as of writing, they’re still on tour, so go see them and record a video for me if they play “Blackout”).

The final act I saw on day two was Rise Against, the only band on the lineup I’ve covered before. This marked the third time I had seen Rise Against in a single year, and it was, for obvious reasons, drastically different than the other two sets of theirs I had seen. What I remember most isn’t the songs they played -- singles, mostly, as one does at Riot Fest -- but the way they talked about their hometown of Chicago. Frontman Tim said that he grew up near Douglas Park, the site of the festival, and later talked about writing “Swing Life Away” (my favorite Rise Against song) in a neighborhood near the one I currently live in. As a resident of Chicago, I always love hearing people talk about it and hearing the joy with which the frontman of the band talked about his home, which had come out to support him in a big way, was more powerful to me than hearing “Savior” again. The music was great, obviously. The music was just not what I was thinking about; I was thinking about my place in time, at my first music festival in the city I consider my home.

On the third day, I arrived early again, got water, and made a beeline for the only stage I had not yet spent any time at, the Rise stage, to camp out for Frank Iero and the Future Violents. I got there maybe fifteen minutes after the first people were admitted for the day and couldn’t get a spot at the barricade. Two bands (Ultra Q, which I had heard of in former incarnation Mt. Eddy, and highly-sensual ska band Save Ferris) played beforehand, but the crowd didn’t thin as people, myself included, craned their necks, searching for the Future Violents’ uniforms. The crowd was different than the acts I had been front-and-center for on the previous two days: they were louder before the band actually came on, cheering for the band members as they came on stage to check their levels, and more subdued for the first half of the set, refraining from mosh pits and crowd surfing entirely, despite the cutthroat wave of people trying to get as far forward as possible, crushing me and the others in the second row. The crowd turned around when the band played “Medicine Square Garden,” my favorite song of the Frank Iero solo era, and the crowd surfing became nearly constant. It was almost dangerous; I saw someone get kicked in the face, and I wrenched my shoulder trying to hoist a crowd surfer into security’s arms. The band had middling audience interaction, somewhere between Rise Against and Glassjaw, but the crowd would’ve gone wild with or without it, so in love were they with the band.

Despite knowing very few songs by Against Me!, I was amped to see them. I caught their set at Wicker Park Fest last year and live close enough to Laura Jane Grace that, in theory, I could pass her on the street. After the Future Violents set and, you know, the other two days of Riot Fest, I thought it might be prudent for me to chill in the back of the crowd and not fight my way into the pit, especially since I was not prepared to sing along. Despite the fact that this was also a packed set -- the band was playing not one but two big-ticket albums, Reinventing Axl Rose and Transgender Dysphoria Blues, and this was after they had played two albums the night before -- the band took their time between songs for Laura to reiterate that Riot Fest was her favorite festival two or three times, and their set was even over early. A well-oiled machine of punk rock, they drove through the albums with finesse, excellent musicianship, and help from the screaming crowd. The only weird thing about the set was that, halfway through, a chunk of people peeled away to go see the B-52s, which wasn't about Against Me! but about how Riot Fest schedules their acts. I've known for some time that I need to know way more about Against Me!, but after having the time of my life singing along to "True Trans Soul Rebel," which is one of the handful of their songs I remember, I know that next time an opportunity comes around for me to catch one of their sets, I'm going to be ready. 

This was where my Riot Fest adventure ended for the weekend. I had intended to check out Taking Back Sunday, but when faced with the choice between sticking around and getting home at midnight only to wake up for work at five the next morning, I made the choice that got my blistered feet out of my brand new Docs faster. I regret that on and off, but I had experienced so many things in three days that I am still overwhelmed by it. In trying to remember even my favorite sets from Riot Fest, I just get a blur of things in my mind: reaching over the barricade for a setlist, holding up crowd surfers, feeling like I was about to cry and laughing like a freak with adrenaline; meeting eyes with performers, shaking hands with new friends, waiting for unfortunate amounts of time to fill my crumpled water bottle so I could turn it into cherry Pedialyte. There's a reason why people from all over come to Riot Fest, and it's that, within that blur of memories, I know I had the best time of my life. I'm already looking forward to next year's lineup.

Ari Jindracek needs to know where Buddy Nielsen got that shirt with the flowers on it, like, two weeks ago. You can find Ari on Twitter.

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#ari jindracek #riot fest #riot fest and carnival #live review #senses fail #taking back sunday #dashboard confessional #against me! #glassjaw #microwave #frank iero #frank iero and the future violents #Laura Jane Grace #save ferris #the damned things #monarchy over monday

[h4ppy-kn1ght]

One through One hundred

LOL…ok i’ll do these first then EVERYTHINg else.

7. Do you have any pets?

Yes, I currently have one- it’s a three-legged dog named Baci.

13. What talents do you have?

I wouldn’t really say I do outside of casually drawing and food making

32. How big is your house?

It’s about 2,500 sqft - one floor so it’s ok but not really that big or spacious

Thanks for asking

—————————

1. What is you middle name?

NO NO NO

2. How old are you?

Early 20s

3. When is your birthday?

12/13

4. What is your zodiac sign?

Sagittarius

5. What is your favorite color?

Maroon usually

6. What’s your lucky number?

I can’t say I really have one tbh

7. Do you have any pets?

8. Where are you from?

Brazil (Rio)

9. How tall are you?

two inches above average for what I am

10. What shoe size are you?

7.0-7.5 US at most

11. How many pairs of shoes do you own?

At least in the double digits, hopefully not more than 25 pairs of shit?

12. What was your last dream about?

I actually don’t remember!

13. What talents do you have?

14. Are you psychic in any way?

No  lol

15. Favorite song?

I have several, mostly weird/niche

16. Favorite movie?

I have several, mostly weird/niche (yes its the same answer as 15)

17. Who would be your ideal partner?

I never thought about it because I don’t really know what I need.

18. Do you want children?

Alot of the time, not really- but I’m also too young/busy with myself to want it now

19. Do you want a church wedding?

Not really,unless my partner really wants it.

20. Are you religious?

Not really :/

21. Have you ever been to the hospital?

A good amount of times

22. Have you ever got in trouble with the law?

Nope

23. Have you ever met any celebrities?

Not that I know of- at least the mainstream limelight sorta way.

24. Baths or showers?

Showers easily

25. What color socks are you wearing?

I’m not wearing any atm but the last pair i was wearing was like- black and white?

26. Have you ever been famous?

no….? 

27. Would you like to be a big celebrity?

Depends for what reason but sure, why not

28. What type of music do you like?

Electronic, ambiance, indie, rock, musical-like kind of- really depends

29. Have you ever been skinny dipping?

no and i dont plan to lol

30. How many pillows do you sleep with?

One.

31. What position do you usually sleep in?

Fetal/one my side or on my back usually, stomach too sometimes

32. How big is your house?

33. What do you typically have for breakfast?

Usually something with eggs and milk- I have been really inconsistent with what I eat for breakfast atm

34. Have you ever fired a gun?

Yes 

35. Have you ever tried archery?

No 

36. Favorite clean word?

uhhh…? Cocoa? I dont know LOL

37. Favorite swear word?

Faggot

38. What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without sleep?

21 hours..? I was doing hw overnight.

39. Do you have any scars?

Very tiny amount but nothing noticeable unless you’re trying to find them actively

40. Have you ever had a secret admirer? 

yeah.

41. Are you a good liar?

Not really

42. Are you a good judge of character?

Depends, wouldnt say I own the truth

43. Can you do any other accents other than your own?

Not unless its bad so not really

44. Do you have a strong accent?

Some people have told me I have one but i dont think so

45. What is your favorite accent?

I wouldnt say I have a favorite its not something I care about actively- I know the ones I dont like though.

46. What is your personality type?

I dont really know I feel like people have a different perspective of that and idk who i really am usually

47. What is your most expensive piece of clothing?

I had a jacket from Ferrari but idk what happened to it- not sure 

 48. Can you curl your tongue?

Yes

49. Are you an innie or an outie?

Thankfully innie

50. Left or right handed?

Right

51. Are you scared of spiders?

No

52. Favorite food?

I almost never have a problem with milk-related food

53. Favorite foreign food?

Alot ..? really depends on my mood but sushi usually works for me

54. Are you a clean or messy person?

I’m personally very hygienic and my room imo is well kept- not OCD organized but theres nothing on the floor  and it has a sense of order

55. Most used phrased?

Really can change so idk - just depends on the season really

56. Most used word?

uh/idk/fuck/shit i think is what i abuse

57. How long does it take for you to get ready?

Really depends but assuming im showering and trying to look nice about 45 mins at worst?

58. Do you have much of an ego?

No

59. Do you suck or bite lollipops?

Suck and then bite when its too small

60. Do you talk to yourself?

Rarely and its usually about shit i need to do- thats it really

61. Do you sing to yourself?

Not USUALLy  but yeah

62. Are you a good singer?

no lol

63. Biggest Fear?

Failing 

64. Are you a gossip?

depends but yeah i can be sometimes

65. Best dramatic movie you’ve seen?

idk I thought inception was very dramatic

66. Do you like long or short hair?

Depends, if the long hair isnt well kept/cleaned it might as well be short imo

67. Can you name all 50 states of America?

Probably not because I forget most of them

68. Favorite school subject?

P.E

69. Extrovert or Introvert?

Introverted 

70. Have you ever been scuba diving?

Yes, I dont care for it

71. What makes you nervous?

Being shat on I guess and treated poorly or anything that’ll fuck me over

72. Are you scared of the dark?

Depends, if the area has sharp objects/cockroaches, creepy noises yeah

73. Do you correct people when they make mistakes?

Depends but usually no unless it really bothered me or they want to hear me

74. Are you ticklish?

Depends but yeah i dont like being tickled it is not comfy

75. Have you ever started a rumor?

No lol

76. Have you ever been in a position of authority?

Not really

77. Have you ever drank underage?

Barely 

78. Have you ever done drugs?

No

79. Who was your first real crush?

Some ginger who literally had ODD and hurt me badly after I showed interest back

80. How many piercings do you have?

one pair is closed up , so just one pair.

81. Can you roll your Rs?“

Yeah

82. How fast can you type?

Id say above average , probably enough to type for a job or something

83. How fast can you run?

I have no idea tbh

84. What color is your hair?

Dirty blonde/almost brown

85. What color is your eyes?

Greyish seagreenish blue

86. What are you allergic to?

Nothing as far as I know

87. Do you keep a journal?

No

88. What do your parents do?

They’re both in the medical field

89. Do you like your age?

Idk not really? so far its lame?

90. What makes you angry?

Some shit i aint gonna talk about, but in a more personal sense usually being shat on, lied to upfront, etc

91. Do you like your own name?

It’s ok ..? idk if it deeply reflects me

92. Have you already thought of baby names, and if so what are they?

Not really LOL

93. Do you want a boy a girl for a child?

With how shit the world is idk , seems like an L either way and im scared of having an ugly one

94. What are you strengths?

Id say I can tolerate more than normal people and my patience can be really plentiful usually. I dont get easily offended even if i dont agree usually

95. What are your weaknesses?

I think people influence my mood throughout the day, which really sucks, im also sensitive and i feel excluded usually

96. How did you get your name?

My mom thought it was a strong name

97. Were your ancestors royalty?

No

98. Do you have any scars?

39 already asked this, cringe

99. Color of your bedspread?

Grey :)

100. Color of your room?

Very tinge of color but it looks pretty much grey and expresso minus the lil decor everywhere…

thank yuo

#question #aboutme #long #fuckoe

[harddrivetrash]

I Finally Played Layers of Fear: Inheritance (Slight Spoilers)

I know that a lot of people have played the base game and this DLC. I know I’m very late to the party on this one. However, as of 8:36ish pm on October 28th, 2018, I finally did it. Naturally, given my shit overworking brain, I have a myriad of thoughts on this. I should start by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed both Layers of Fear and the Inheritance DLC. I absolutely fell in love with the music, atmosphere, story, and storytelling techniques utilized in this piece of art - all of which is enhanced by the nature of the medium. However, I didn’t love it as a horror game. 

The first time I played Layers of Fear was almost a year ago and I remember feeling very scared in the beginning - likely from anticipation and having my expectations for horror games been set by Amnesia: The Dark Descent. I played it with a friend and we were both prepared to jump up from the keyboard at any second from sheer terror - but that didn’t happen. Very quickly, I came to understand how this story was being delivered to me and I began to really analyze every aspect of the experience. I became slightly less scared, but I still felt fear, and that fear was consistent throughout the tenure of my first playthrough.

The story of Inheritance was that of the main protagonist’s daughter, who experienced the events relayed in the main game as a young girl. Going through specific vignettes of those events from the perspective of the child was different from the main game. The shift in perspective is reflected in the way the first person camera moves (seeing as she does not walk with a limp) and flashbacks through which the story is told. i really loved those differences (not to mention seeing some of the DNA that would later appear in Observer)

That said, I wasn’t scared of the Inheritance DLC. I went into it after playing the base game and I expected to be disturbed rather than terrified. I expected a personal story told through the use of abstract vignettes in a non-linear sequence. This is precisely what was delivered. There was a great tension instilled in the atmosphere, and some of the jump scares and environmental ambiance (notably, the brief silences) did make me feel afraid, if only for a moment or two. Instead of feeling afraid the whole time, however, I felt sad. This story brought sense of closure and resolution for the father/daughter relationship and I felt that the daughter’s action of burning the house down was just and fitting. I got the “Let Bygones be Bygones” ending (which I assume is one of many) and it just felt right. It felt like a proper end to this sad story of a broken family. 

I’d give this DLC a 9/10, because it is a very fitting add on to the base game that does not retract from the story of the main game and is not required to fully experience the base story delivered by the developers. It is separate but definitely related content that was just quality until the end. I was emotionally affected by this and I love it. Just minus one point for not scaring me shitless.  

. 

#horror #videogames #video games #games #pc games #pc #pc gaming #layers of fear #scary #spooktober #review #halloween #creepy #steam #steam games

[happymetalgirl]

5 Albums I Missed in 2017

I was pretty pleased with the thoroughness with which I covered the output of metal in this blog’s first year last year, all other obstacles that popped up considered.

This year has already been better; I’ve covered more music and in more depth, and I’ve had less in my way this year it seems. I was trying to do this piece in a more extensive series, or just one monster post, around June. But metal had a substantially prolific mid-year and my own academic obligations of course reared their head again, so after pushing it out again and again, I decided to just trim it down to one regular post.

These are just a few albums from last year that I either didn’t hear or just didn’t didn’t get around to writing about.

Steel Panther - Lower the Bar

I was kinda-sorta planning on giving the album a listen. I had always respected Steel Panther for their commitment to their very comedic act of satirizing one of metal’s most widely acknowledged embarrassments (80′s hair metal), but I never really followed them too closely because I thought their act wouldn’t be around for long. And the repeated release delays their fourth album suffered from cast an unfavorable light upon it and led me away from it.

Buuuuuut, fast forward to this year and the band’s guitarist, Satchel, has the joke police knocking on his door for naming a guitar effects pedal the “Pussy Melter”, and simply out of principle for my not wanting to see comedy needlessly suffer, I decided to listen to Lower the Bar, with my expectations exactly where the album told me to place them. And honestly, I was pretty entertained throughout the course of the album. Yes, the subject matter is obviously juvenile, but that’s kind of the point: to take the piss at all the dumb hedonism and comically goofy masculine posturing that metal likes to not talk about having happened 30+ years ago. And the piss the band takes is an accurate, no-spray stream right into the bowl; the mockery they make of hair metal is clearly a loving one, a parody coming from fans, well aware of hair metal’s ridiculousness, of the groups who spearheaded the genre. The performances are tight from the glamorously narcissistic guitar solos to the glorious quasi-operatic vocal highs, and the consistently well-constructed lyrics that take the band’s light-hearted joking beyond toilet humor and middle-school-tier sex jokes and into a condensed comedic embodiment of all that was wrong, and all that was intoxicating at its time, with hair metal.

Adrenaline Mob - We the People

Post-Portnoy Adrenaline Mob still aren’t exactly hard rock or classic heavy metal heavyweights at this point, but We the People was an album whose strongest moments (“Til the Head Explodes”, “King of the Ring”, the indulgently heavy “Ignorance & Greed”, and the extremely Dio-esque “The Blind Leading the Blind”) have stuck with me since its undercooked political message left me with simply not enough I felt like I wanted to say about it. The band have MVP Russel Allen’s emphatic vocal presence to thank for what character this album does have, despite its basic and often formulaic writing (especially in its first half). I had seen so many people hail this as a stunning ascension from what their first two albums brought, but I honesty didn’t hear what was so special about this album, and I still don’t really. After the death of bassist David Zablidowsky, I just didn’t feel like detracting from what silver lining of critical praise the band could look to for comfort after losing Zablidowsky so tragically.

Venenum - Trance of Death

I arrived about a year late to this debut album’s party, and it was the first album that made me want to really make this piece, not because its a particularly ground-breaking piece, but because it fills the space it does so thoroughly. 

Trance of Death is a mostly blackened death metal project, but with its black metal influences coming largely from nihilistic ambient black metal and DSBM. Taking death metal into more depressive territories without diluting its power, Veneum debut with one of the most oddly ambient death metal pieces I have ever heard, and they make their appeal not simply on the tokenism or mild novelty of the sound. Trance of Death is magnificently written and complete with strangely eerie black metal ambiance that sounds more rooted in death metal grandiosity than psychological torment, readily armed with fierce riffs that jolt away from the dark serenity of, and even proggy pieces like the instrumental second installment and the sprawling third installment of the titular trilogy of songs that comprises the album’s second half. There exist even hints of doomy sludge at some moments on the album. It’s a perplexing, but thrilling listen, and I wish I had heard it sooner, because it has distracted me from many albums this year. 

This is the kind of debut most bands hoping to carve out their own niche hope to achieve, one that both presents their sound in a fascinating manner, but without expanding all their creativity and leaving plenty to be explored on what’s to come, which I will definitely be looking forward to.

Ne Obliviscaris - Urn

I had heard so much ranting and raving over Ne Obliviscaris in the years before this album, and I decided to see what all the hype was about earlier this year after seeing the accolades Urn had received. So when I heard what I thought was some pretty standard progressive metal with flashes of black metal on Urn, I had to figure out what I was missing, it had to be something.

After repeatedly not being convinced of its apparent genius I took a lot of time away from it and came back again earlier this year, ultimately to similar results. Not entirely as epic as it’s convinced it is, Urn is certainly not short of theatrical bombast and instrumental proficiency, but it throws all its ingredients in the same bowl at the same time and mashes everything together in a recognizably messy and undazzling soup of proggy bits and death metal with a dry personality. It reminds me of Rivers of Nihil’s new album this year, minus the thrilling energy and the emotional diversity that helped a physical copy of that album into my collection. Urn is like the shy version of that album. The two-part song that leads the album exemplifies the album’s dilemma, reeling in hazy progressive death metal strangely droning and devoid of direction. And it only gets a little bit better on the closing song pair.

Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper

I wanted so badly to discuss this album when it came out, but October was a turbulent enough time for me last year, and being that Mirror Reaper was born out of and mournfully embodied the tragic loss of drummer Adrian Guerra, and in such a unique way, I had to give it time and even by the end of the year I hadn’t really found the word for it. And to a great degree I still don’t. It’s a slow and incredibly sorrowful album that doesn’t necessarily cultivate a type of patience while listening, but demands it. It’s a single 83-minute opus and one built of solidarity and fortitude in the face of grave tragedy. And in a fitting manner, its lyrics don’t gush tears theatrically or even turn Dylan Desmond’s focus inward. Its melancholy and its focus on the slowness of time that the music matches and the coldness that brings all to a frozen standstill of mournful petrification reveal an honesty in the approach to this album’s creative process and Dylan Desmond’s approach to Bell Witch’s present and future.

On one hand, I grappled with feeling like I was disrespecting this album by relegating it to this list, but on the other I wanted to express how much it’s come to mean to me now. The death of a bandmate is a traumatic moment for nearly every group that experiences it, but in a band of only two members, the casualty that leaves the other alone yields a different aftermath. I wasn’t really much of a Bell Witch fan before this album, but the strength with which it stood its ground in tribute to Guerra was something I couldn’t ignore and eventually became enraptured by. Having already been on the creative trajectory of focusing on mourning through funeral doom metal, having a close and personal real life experience of loss has certainly made Bell Witch’s already-somber dirges more gut-wrenching to the point of being uncomfortable. But the strength with which Mirror Reaper approaches such a close death, it’s impossible not to admire and I can’t say enough to do its solemn beauty justice.

#steel panther #lower the bar #adrenaline mob #we the people #venenum #trance of death #ne obliviscaris #urn #bell witch #mirror reaper #2017 #music #metal #albums #new music #heavy metal #hair metal #comedy #hard rock #death metal #blackened death metal #progressive death metal #dsbm #ambient black metal #atmospheric black metal #doom metal #funeral doom

[mauveviolet]

Plssssss write Elio and Oliver years down the road meeting up again, Elio is a student st the same university Oliver teaches at and I need a lot of angst in my life, slowwwww burn. Pretty pretty please

AN: Here it is, the prologue of a PROJECTED 10 chapters. Might be more might be less! Sorry this took so long! this has not been Beta'd, sorry for any mistakes! Please enjoy, anon! And yes, i stay consistent with a chosen last name for Oliver, haha."Concrete Trees" -Prologue"Mama. Mama, I said I’m fine.”I spin in my rolling chair idly as the cellular takes up the broad of my hand. I catch the foggy, almost mundane grey light outside of my apartment window one, two, three times before I come to a sudden halt with the skid of a sock, and I stand up dizzily. “I miss you to, Mama. But it’s only been a few days, you must at least try to last the semester. Just this one, okay?” She mumbles.I bounce on my toes over the boxes that scatter my floor. Porcelain keepsakes pile in one with paper wrapped securely around them while in the other clothes seem to reach the ceiling. The ultimate privilege to nabbing my own apartment in New York as a student was the ability to make my own messes. I’m an adult, I told mama, she has nothing to worry about in terms of keeping the place neat and tidy, and while I’m sure I will, some of the things she doesn’t know won’t kill her.“I’ll be home for Hanukkah, I’m sure I’m not the only one here who’s far from home in a place like this. Maybe you should get together with a mom from Germany who sent her son away to New York, too.” I giggle as I rip my phone from my ear abruptly to keep from her cries from hitting me to loudly. “I’m just joking. This was 100% my choice and you know that. We’ve been through this hundreds of times. Everything will be alright, I’ll find another 22 year old who’s too far from home somewhere around here. Maybe they’ll be from Italy.”I pad over to my large window that poses as a portal to what seems like an alternate reality, one with cars in every free centimeter of the hot pavement and people of every race and religion wandering the street aimlessly. If i looked a little too far to my right, I’d be peering straight into someone else's apartment, which doesn’t sit in my stomach well, so I opt to keep my right curtain closed, both for my privacy and the mystery person both feet from me yet, in the grand scheme of things, so far away. I’ve never been so far in the air in my life, minus that dreadful plane ride, if you can even call it that. It’s a huge death tube, I think, but the others around me treated it as if it was normal. The conversation lasts for what seems like hours. Some “highlights” being my grocery list, how much money I’llnspend on tourism in the next year, all those fun things. But at least by the time our talk has ended, my apartment is less of an apartment and moreso a home. The ambiance is red and orange to match the lamp in the corner, there’s a little couch and TV set by a rug all my own, and shelves upon shelves of books I couldn’t emotionally bare to leave in Italy stand at the walls, along with pictures of my family at every corner.“Oliver went to Columbia,” my mama says, finally. Lastly.I swallow. I know Oliver went to Columbia. I pretend I haven’t thought about that so many times it’s burnt a hole through my skull.“Yeah, I know. Last time I spoke to him he said he said he, uh,” I pull on my shirt collar.“Went to work at another school. In another state. Illinois, I think.”“When was the last time you spoke to Oliver, Elio?” I feel the heaviness of the curious pity within her voice like one feels lead pass through their bloodstream. Unfavorable… in the least. “I’m going out, mama. I need to eat in the next week, I should get started on those groceries.”The pause, that evidently only lasts a moment, drags on until she finally responds.“I love you, Elio. Stay safe.”“Always, mama. I love you too.”After deciding it was to humid to shove a jacket over my shoulders and trudging outside in just a black shirt and jeans, I ask myself as I sit on a damp park bench with paper grocery bags sat politely next to me, if I am forcing myself to think about Oliver rather than if it is worth it to think about him. The past was the past when I was in Italy and the past remains the same in Manhattan, but I feel his energy in everything that moves; I feel something coercing me into the thought of him. Life here is chaotic and beautiful. I learned that from Oliver, and because at 17 his worlds mended to me as words do at that age, he lives in the bleeding red light fractured through the water on my eyelashes. He lifts the cruelty from honks and yells of frustrated and busy people. I’m unsure if it’s comforting or not.I decide that due to the increasing rain (and my sheer stupidity in not correlating humidity with storms) that it’s time to aquate myself with the New York subway system, as reluctant as I am. Hands full and swerving around people left and right, I realize how crowded and cluttered it is, but it’s also so exciting to see such a staple in culture unlike mine. Oliver must have rode these everyday before he received a car. I’m riding a mile or two in his shoes.I wait for the subway, now. I shuffle my ticket between my fingers, pressed to the wall furthest from the track ledge. I had taken one glimpse of that sickening fall and had eagerly conjoined myself the furthest thing from it, as if nowhere was far enough to keep myself from falling in.There's a boy a foot away from me, but he stands in front of the ledge. No fear consumes him as it does to me. His leg jitters in a pair of huge sneakers and off white jeans (maybe coveralls?), shrouded in a soft flannel and a green bookbag covered in mini pins and keychains, one that looks like a row of hanging dice on rainbow beads that spell “Percy.” One says Columbia on it- in fact, multiple do. A returning student.How much older is he than me? From behind he looks no different than me; curly brown hair but cut short, a little taller but just as thin. His head swivels left and right eagerly, as if the Eastbound train will emerge from the Eastern terminal. He’s not afraid of the ledge because, like a seasoned New Yorker, the ledge has gotten to know him.I find it peculiar that I think so hard about strangers, but sometimes you can tell so little about a person by how they look and you’re forced to sit and wonder. I knew all about Oliver and even yet, I still sit and wonder so strongly about him.Where was this boy from? Was he American? European? Or maybe Canadian? I’d never met a Canadian, but I hear the land is a conglomerate of Ireland's fields and New York’s buildings. Some canadians speak a french many would say is “botched” though I’ve never really heard it, and some of the more interesting ones speak english like I’ve never heard before. It’d be cool to meet a Canadian.When the train pulls up, the station comes alive again as people scramble to catch a seat and they squeeze through the doors. He’s the first one in, but I let the mass push through; I don’t mind standing. I hobble through to one of the only handles left, near the back of the subway car. To my disdain there is a couple here displaying affection I wouldn’t call publically appropriate, and an older man already passed out asleep. If i stretch on my tip-toes, I can hear a saxophone playing on the other side of the train but only barely see the player. However, my eye catches the boy again. I notice now how freckles fleck the entire surface area of his face and glasses frame his cheeks. He plays a gameboy with concentration I’ve only seen in my father, which is a feat. At the first stop, that concentration fades, and he notices my staring. Instead of being weirded out (as, admittedly, I would be) he hesitantly motions for me to sit in the spot next to him now unoccupied. I accept, placing my bags on my lap and crossing my legs, making a point not to stare at him more than I already have. But curiosity gets the best of me. “You… you go to Columbia?”He looks at me, almost surprised that I had actually opened my mouth.“Yeah… why?”“I’m a first year.”“A freshman?”I scratch the back of my neck. “Yeah, that.” He boots his Gameboy up again. “I’m assuming you aren’t American. You look like a deer caught in headlights.” He’s extremely casual for someone I wouldn’t have met had I not stared at him so indecently. “Italian. But my father is American. I’ve never been here though, so, yeah… Italian.” “What brings you to Columbia then? No good Italian schools? What’s your major?”I didn’t know what to expect when I sat next to this boy, but I can’t say I’m surprised. “Double major in Anthropology and Philosophy, and a minor in Music.” He still doesn’t raise his head from his game. “That’s a real boatload. I’m just doing Integrated Technologies and a minor in education.”“Education? You want to be a professor? My father is a professor, he did the same things I’m doing actually.”“I’d love to be a highschool teacher.”I visibly gulp at the sound of that. I can’t imagine having to stay any longer than I did in a school full of sweaty teenagers. Hell, I was one once, I don’t think I’d want to go back.“Oh, uh,” he interjects.“I actually know what professor you’re likely to have if you’re completing an anthropology major.”“Hm?”“Yeah, he’s quite strict in how things are taught according to my buddies, but it’s the sign of a good teacher. He loves when people interact with him in class; he hates a boring class. He won’t have it. But don’t goof off…I don’t know much- anything, about you, so I don’t know how you’ll fare with that. I wouldn’t be quiet if you were in his class but don’t be slack.”He sounds like an okay guy. I’ll be with people like me, it seems. “What’s his name?”“Professor Bishop. You’ll know him when you see him. Tall, blonde, and stubbly. Younger than most of the professors. You’ll know him when you see him.” My face goes Appalachians snow white and a stack of apples are moments away from hitting the subway floor. “What’s his first name?”“Uh, I’m not sure. Ollie? Owen? Oliver- Yeah, that’s it. Oliver… You okay dude?”

[leftfics]

It’s One of Those Days

Dream Daddy, VegaMarch fic. Rated T for sexual suggestion (there is nothing explicitly sexual or intended). WC: 2532

AO3 Link

“Nah, nothing’s wrong. I just… wanted to make sure. Nothing big happened today?” Lucien cautioned. “Not a thing, son.” Oh. Lucien thinks he understands now. It’s one of those days.

He heard the jingling of keys, the muted crack of the door, and then the dragging of feet. Lucien was on the couch, scrolling through his phone as his dad returned from work.

“Hello, Lucien. How was school?” came the rehearsed question.

“Fine, dad,” came the automatic response. But something about the way his father merely hummed, dropping his work bag soundly by the foot of the stairs, pulled Lucien’s attention just the slightest. “How was work today?” he cautioned, “Everything go alright?”

“Yes, of course. Nothing particularly eventful transpired today,” Damien replied as almost a question. Lucien was still wary about that answer. His father sounded sincere in saying nothing upsetting had happened, yet held himself with a stature that suggested everything but.

“You sure? Kevin is giving you space? Leonard didn’t try to fix something out of his pay grade again, did he?” Lucien sat up on the couch, looking over the back of it to see Damien standing listlessly at the kitchen island.

“No, not at all. In fact, most of the troublemakers were quite docile. Sharnelle from work even brought donuts in today. She saved the dairy-free one for me. Why? Is something wrong, son? It’s rare to see you so invested in my boring world of computers.” Damien cracked a wry smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Nah, nothing’s wrong. I just… wanted to make sure. Nothing big happened today?” he cautioned.

“Not a thing, son.”

Oh. Lucien thinks he understands now.

It’s one of those days.

Quickly, Lucien tapped out a text. Locking his phone screen, he hopped off the couch to go to his dad. He righted the slumped-over work bag, slipping out Damien’s water bottle to place in the fridge. Keys went swiped off the dining table and placed in the bowl by the door.

“Did you eat yet, dad?” Lucien already knew the answer, walking over to the pantry to search for a few ingredients for some classic comfort food. “I was gonna make pasta for tonight.”

“Thank you, dear.”

Lucien frowned just the slightest, away from Damien’s line of sight. His father was wearing out fast. These noodles would need to cook accordingly. Damn, why can’t water boil right away? He broke the pasta into the water, covering it loosely before turning around to see Damien sitting at the island, gaze a million miles away. It didn’t seem that his dad was going to snap out of it any time soon, not on his own.

Remembering how his father occupied his free-time in the past few days, Lucien silently slipped upstairs to the library in Damien’s home office, shuffling through the books that were strewn across his desk. Lucien scanned the titles, finding a crinkled paperback, pages soft with use and bent just the slightest from every read. Oscar Wilde’s A Life in Letters. It was safe and something his father could read on even the worst of days.Especially on his worst days. Damien could probably recite every entry by now.

Lucien jogged down the stairs and slipped the book near his father, barely sparing Damien a glance as he went back to watching the pasta.

“It’ll take about half an hour,” he said in lieu of explaining himself.

The only sounds in the kitchen were of the bubbling water and scuffs of wooden spoon against a metal pot. Lucien wouldn’t have been worried on a regular day, but this wasn't one. Lucky enough, he heard their sliding door click about, signaling that someone was coming in.

“Hey Lucien, hey Damien,” Ernest greeted, toeing his muddy shoes off and tucking his bag underneath the island.

“Oh! Ernest, I didn’t realize you were coming over, dear boy. Let me get you a snack, do you want something to drink?” Damien shot upright and went for the fridge but a pale hand stopped him.

“Don’t sweat it, dad. Ernest is my guest. I’ll handle it.” He turned to the smaller boy. “You want anything, bro? I’m cooking pasta, it’ll be done in a bit.”

“Nah, I’m fine man. I can wait.” Ernest sat at the island adjacent to Damien, pulling his laptop out of his bag. “Hey Damien, do you wanna listen to this track me, Sita, and Pablo have been working on? I was gonna show Lucien but, uh, you can listen if you wanna. Or whatever.”

“I would love to, darling. You said you collaborated with Carmensita and Pablo? What project is this?” Damien certainly sounded interested, but Ernest could tell that behind his eyes, the man was using up what little energy he had left to be invested. Damn him.

“Sita’s dad was talking about getting some new ambiance music for his store, he asked if we wanted to help out. I’m more of a lyric guy, but Sita and Pab looked really excited so I agreed to collab.” Ernest tugged at the edges of his hood, looking away from Damien’s inquisitive eyes.

Lucien had asked him to come over and help cheer up his dad. Ernest liked Damien enough, and he’s been over often, even a healthy handful of times where Lucien wasn’t in the house. Damien was as much Ernest’s friend as Lucien was, and if there was anything Ernest prided himself over, it would be how much he cared about his friends.

“Anyway, here’s Wonderwall.” It wasn’t Wonderwall.

What came out of the laptop was low synth, some expert guitar picking, and what sounded like a record crackling. Eventually, a steady, jazz drum beat kicked in, adding a bit of pop to the mix. There weren’t many lyrics, but what was there sounded like a sound clip from some classic Hollywood film. Casablanca, Damien thinks.

“This is beautiful, Ernest. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything quite like it,” he hummed.

“Thanks,” came the mumbled reply.

Overall the music was incredibly calming, washing over the still, late Thursday afternoon. The three of them were a regular Edward Hopper, locked in a moment of time. Lucien was watching the pot, Ernest was working on some homework, and Damien was glossing over his book.

Ernest shared a couple looks with Lucien, glancing quickly over at Damien to assess the situation. He wasn’t completely sure what to do in times like this and Lucien was being no help.

“Are you in a talking mood, Damien?” he asked.

“If there’s something on your mind, son, you needn’t hesitate with me.”

“No, it’s not that. I’ll talk if you wanna talk. I don’t have a ton to say, but I’m, like, being considerate and shi—uh, stuff.” Ernest threw a glance to Damien before darting back to his paper. Damn, he hated math.

“I’d like to hear about your day. Unfortunately, I can’t guarantee I’ll be a very good conversation partner.” At least Damien was being honest with himself.

“Yeah, I can do that. Uh, lemme see. So dad dropped me and Lucien off at school. Lucien went to his early class, and I hung out with some people at breakfast in the cafeteria. Sita came in later when breakfast was about to end, OH, but it’s okay! ‘Cuz she had her pill speaker with her! And…”

Lucien stopped listening for a second to pull out his phone, scrolling through his contacts to find the last piece to their puzzle.

Wrestle Dad

L: hey are you out of the school yet

H: ? Yes, I just came home. H: It’s quiet, is Ernest with you?

L: ye he is. im making pasta for dinner, you should come over too

H: Is something wrong? Are you all okay?

L: we’re fine. nothing bad, don’t freak out, hugo. it’s just dinner

H: Alright then, I’ll be there shortly. Thanks for cooking, do you want me to bring anything over?

L: np. bring garlic bread if you guys still have some. dad doesn’t eat it, but regular humans do

Read 5:36pm  

“... so the bell’s about to ring but I can’t stop dancing now or I would lose! But Sita just picked up her speaker and started walking down the hall to her class, so obviously I had to follow her, but I couldn’t stop dancing. I ended up walking all the way to her class, but I finished the song just before the bell rang. Then I had to run out and get to my class before the teacher got angry. It was pretty funny, and I got five bucks out of it.” Ernest continued.

Lucien started draining the noodles, half listening to Ernest, half trying not to burn himself as the steam came up and fogged his entire face. He placed the noodles into the sauce and stirred the carbonara thoroughly, complete with his favorite greens and a healthy serving of vegan meatballs.

“Food’s done,” he called, nodding at Ernest to get him to help set up the table. They moved over to the dining table to set it all as the sliding door clicked again, signalling Hugo’s entrance.

“Hello everyone. It smells great in here, Lucien,” he greeted, slipping off his shoes and heading straight to Damien. “Good afternoon, love. How was work today?” he asked into Damien’s temple, leaving whisper soft kisses there.

“Uneventful, dear. I received a donut, although.” Damien turned his head slightly to plant a welcome kiss onto Hugo’s lips, wrapping his arms as best he could around the teacher from their position.

“Sounds eventful to me, cariño,” he returned somewhere in the region between Damien’s mouth and his chin.

“Disgusting!” Ernest fake gagged and Lucien placed his hand over Ernest’s eyes.

“Fathers, in front of our salad?”

“There’s no salad on the—”

“Think of the children! Of the pasta.”

“Alright, you two, knock that off. Overdramatic children don’t get garlic bread.” Hugo waved the tupperware of reheated bread menacingly at the kids, unwrapping himself from Damien but leading him to his seat, all the same.

He could tell immediately why Lucien had given him the impromptu invitation. Damien was wilting when he came in. Hugo held his hand as he took his seat next to Damien, squeezing it gently but making sure not to have a hint of pity in his eyes. He wasn’t sad for Damien, he just wanted his boyfriend to be happy again.

They ate at their normal volume level, minus one voice. Damien chimed in the best he could, but as it was, he was running on reserves. Not even his portion of the meal was as big as it usually is.

Days were discussed, teasing remarks thrown back and forth. It was normal, comfortable, almost routine. Most importantly, it was safe, it made Damien feel safe, having his family all in one room, the grounding presence of Hugo’s hand on his. His energy might have left him, but so were the clouds fogging his mind.

After dishes were cleared, the Vega boys offered to clean up, Lucien retreating off to his room and Damien still sitting where they had left him. Hugo caught that thousand-yard stare and turned to snap Damien out of it.

“Go upstairs, hon. I’ll meet you when we’re finished down here,” he punctuated with a soft peck under Damien’s jaw. He received a nod in reply, watching with sad eyes as Damien slowly made his way up the stairs.

“Is he gonna be okay?” Ernest asked quietly, focused on the dish at hand.

“Of course, mijo. It’s not the first time this has happened, and it won’t be the last. The important part is that we are there for each other. Damien has always helped us, even from the day we first moved here. I can only hope that one day we can repay him.” Hugo sighed as he continued scrubbing a bit of dried pasta stuck to the pot.

“Damien likes us, doesn’t he? Then I think we’ve repaid him plenty. But I still like doing nice things for him and Lucien. They’re, like, our best friends.”

“They really are, kiddo.”

After the dishes were complete, Hugo dried off his hands and climbed the stairs to get to Damien’s room. He entered, seeing Damien sitting at the head of his bed, knees pulled up and gazing straight ahead. The only reason Hugo knew Damien acknowledged him was because of the slow turn of his stare and the faintest uptick of his lips.

“Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get you changed into something more comfortable.” Hugo approached Damien, gingerly picking up his hand to lead him onto his feet, slipping the glasses off his face. He started by shuffling through the drawers and finding some loungewear for Damien.

First, Hugo slowly began unbuttoning Damien’s polo, untucking it from his jeans and lifting it over Damien’s head. Immediately, Hugo leant up to kiss at the crook of Damien’s neck, trailing onto the strap of his binder and ending at the edge of his shoulder.

The binder itself was the next to go, Hugo gingerly peeling it off, trying not to move too roughly. Hugo trailed his hands down Damien’s ribcage and rubbed gently, helping the muscles acclimate to the lack of confines. He turned Damien around and massaged at his neck and back.

“Does this feel okay, love?” he whispered onto a pale shoulder.

“Perfect, my dearest,” Damien hummed back, lolling his head to one side. Hugo definitely took that opportunity to cover his mouth onto that spot.

He grabbed the shirt he picked—one of Hugo’s own, actually—and threaded it onto Damien. The messy ponytail on Damien’s head was carefully plucked off, Hugo regathering hair to put it into a loose bun.

From his position behind Damien, he slipped his arms around Damien’s waist and went to pop the button of his jeans as he rest his chin on the taller man’s shoulder. Once unbuttoned and unzipped, Hugo placed a finger on the waistband of Damien’s boxer-briefs as a way of asking permission.

“Would you like me to take it out?” he whispered gently, stroking across the waist band. He felt Damien nod his head, and that was all Hugo needed to quietly take out his packer, setting it aside and then helping him step out of his jeans. Hugo bent down to help loop Damien’s feet through his lounge pants, stopping to kiss at the tops of Damien’s thighs as the pants were pulled up, cinched around the waist.

“Do you need anything, cariño?” Hugo let his lips ghost over Damien’s lips, chin, jaw, and throat, waiting patiently for an answer. His hands were at Damien’s hips, tracing soft, warm circles with his thumbs. He was almost worried at how long it was taking Damien to answer, but at the feeling of two arms coming up to wrap around his shoulders, Hugo relaxed.

“Hold me, my love. I just want to hear you breathe.”

Hugo led them back to the bed, still on top of the covers but snuggled close together. He had Damien’s head on his chest, the both of them curling into each other. Hugo’s free hand came to rest on Damien’s back, swirling around in meaningless shapes. His lips were firmly planted on the crown of Damien’s head, and he listened until their breaths were in sync.

“For you, mi amor, anything.”

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