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gra-sonas · 5 years

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The perfect moment

1.5K of Malex fluff for @i-never-look-away, you know why. ❤️❤️❤️

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Alex gets out of the car so fast, he almost stumbles and falls. Thanks to his excellent reflexes, he manages to grab the door handle of his car just in time to steady himself.

“Take it slow, Manes. Doesn’t help anyone if you hurt yourself in your haste to get inside,” he mutters to himself. He closes the car door and looks at his own reflection in the car window for a moment. He looks worried, his hair is a mess and going by the sizing label sticking out from under his jacket, he didn’t just put his sweater on inside out, but also the wrong way round. He closes his eyes and sighs. No time to fix this now, he has to get inside.

He fumbles for the key fob in his jacket pocket and when he finds it, he locks the car with the press of a button. One more deep breath, then he squares his shoulders. He can do this. She will be alright.

In measured strides, Alex walks up to the door of the vet’s office and enters. The young woman at the reception looks up.

“Captain Manes, so good of you to come. Please follow me.”

She leads him to consulting room number 4 and opens the door for him.

“The Doctor will be there in a moment.”

“Thanks, Ramona.”

Alex enters the room and is greeted by the picture of Michael Guerin slumped down in a comfy chair, carefully cradling Bagel in his arms. She seems to be asleep, but blinks her eyes open when she hears Alex come closer. He knows better than to kneel down in front of her, instead he pulls up another chair and shuffles as close as possible to Michael and the puppy in his arms.

Michael smiles at him, but the smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He also looks worried, his curls an unruly mess, and there are unidentifiable stains on his shirt.

He leans over to Alex and presses a soft kiss to his cheek. Alex leans his head against Michael’s and looks down at Bagel who lies still and shows no sign of recognition, when she’d usually be eager to get in Alex’s lap and slobber all over his face, her idea of a welcome home kiss.

“How is she,” he asks in a hushed voice while he carefully reaches out to her head and strokes the soft fur between her eyes with the tips of his fingers. It almost breaks his heart when she tries to turn her head to lick his fingers. He places a calming hand on her head instead to keep her still.

“She seems to be tired, she can barely keep her eyes open. Her eyes look strange, like her pupils are a different size? After the collision, she couldn’t walk properly, she swayed like her balance was off. And on the drive here, she vomited. Good thing I took the truck and not your fancy SUV.”

“Oh Michael, as if that would matter to me, it’s just a car. Do you think she broke anything?”

Michael places another kiss to Alex’s temple.

“I don’t think so, no. The kid only hit her head with his when he fell off his scooter, but he was wearing a helmet. He was okay after the fall, but she wasn’t. Right, baby girl?”

Michael strokes Bagel’s flanks and she replies with a tiny huff.

When the door opens, both men look up at Dr. Acothley.

“Captain Manes, Mr. Guerin, it’s good that you came right away. Mr. Guerin, do you need help getting up?”

Michael shakes his head.

“No, thanks, Doctor. I’ve got her.”

Alex knows that Michael’s powers help him to get up without jostling Bagel and he’s grateful. Michael places Bagel on the examining table and tells the veterinarian what happened and how Bagel behaved right after the accident.

“Sounds like she might’ve suffered a concussion, but I’ll look at her to be sure there’s nothing else. Would you please wait outside? I’ll come and talk to you when I’ve finished all tests.”

Michael looks like he’s ready to put up a fight and argue his way into staying, but Alex knows that it’s not an option. Dr. Acothley is very strict about the presence of non-medical staff, he also knows that Bagel is in the best hands with her. He grabs Michael’s hand.

“Come on, Michael, let’s see if Ramona has some coffee for us.”

He smiles at Dr. Acothley and after one last look at their little girl, he leaves the room. He doesn’t let go of Michael’s hand and Michael can do nothing but follow Alex. When they get to the waiting area, it’s empty. Ramona comes over and places two steaming mugs with coffee and a small bowl with cookies on a side table.

“I know you’re worried, but she’ll be fine. Please take a seat, Dr. Acothley should be with you shortly.”

They thank her and sit down as close to each other as the visitor chairs allow. Alex runs a hand up and down Michael’s stubbly cheek. He knows exactly what Michael is thinking.

“It’s not your fault, Michael.”

Michael let’s out a wobbly laugh.

“Of course it’s my fault. I took her with me instead of leaving her at the cabin. None of this would’ve happened if she’d stayed at home.”

“Yeah, but you took her with you so I could sleep in, we both know that wouldn’t have been an option if you’d left her with me. Accidents happen, Michael. And as much as it breaks my heart to see her like this, I’m sure she’ll be fine. Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen with kids? They scrape their knees, they eat mud, they suffer a concussion when they collide with other kids during recess?”

Michael can’t help himself, he smiles.

“God, don’t remind me, I can hardly handle seeing Bagel hurt, I’m panicking at the thought of our kids getting injured one day. I’m not sure I’m prepared to go through that.”

Alex looks at him with wide eyes.

“Our kids?”

Michael blushes.

“Well, you know, I may have thought about it once or twice?”

Alex leans forward and kisses Michael hard on the lips before he pulls back to look at him.

“Me too. More than once or twice.”

They smile at each other like idiots and Michael grabs Alex’s left hand and presses a kiss to his ring finger.

“We better get hitched before we think about kids though, don’t you think?”

Alex’s eyes almost pop out of his head.

“Was that a proposal?”

Michael looks determined, but also wary, like he’s expecting a rejection.

“What if it is?”

“Then it’s a yes from me. It’s always a yes when it comes to you, Michael Guerin.”

“Alex…”

Tears well up in Michael’s eyes and he looks like he’s about to go down on one knee right here, in the middle of the waiting room. That’s when Dr. Acothley arrives and both men get up quickly.

“How is she? Is she ok?”

Dr. Acothley smiles at them.

“She’s fine. A little drowsy, but nothing’s broken. Her heart and lungs are fine, her blood pressure’s normal. She has a mild concussion, but she should be ok and back to being a rambunctious puppy within a few days. Just make sure she eats and drinks enough, other than that, just make her comfortable and let her sleep it off.”

Alex and Michael both sigh in relief.

“Thank you, Dr. Acothley, we are so relieved that she’s ok.”

“Ramona’s with her in the examination room, you can go get her and take her home.”

Michael goes to get Bagel while Alex pays the bill, then they step out of the vet’s office and head over to Alex’s car. Michael had installed a crate for Bagel in the trunk of the SUV when they’d decided to keep her and Michael places her inside carefully, building a nest for her with his and Alex’s jackets. When they are sure she’s comfortable, Michael turns to Alex while he fumbles for something in the pocket of his jeans. When he finds what he’s been looking for he slowly drops down on one knee.

“Michael, what on earth are you doing?”

Michael presents something lying in his open palm to Alex. It’s a simple platinum ring, a familiar piece of the glass-like substance from Michael’s spaceship console embedded that catches the light of the sun.

“I’m making sure you know that I’m here to stay, on Planet Earth, that I have no plans to ever leave you again. Alex Manes, will you do me the honor and marry me?”

Alex is speechless, but he nods vigorously. Michael takes Alex’s left hand in his and puts the ring on his finger and kisses it. He looks up at Alex.

“Not quite how I’d planned this, but it seemed like a good moment to make it official.”

Michael’s smile is so wide and happy, all Alex can do is pull him up and wrap him in the tightest embrace he’s capable of.

“I love you so much, Michael. It was the perfect moment, thank you,” he whispers.

They kiss for a long time, and when they finally manage to break the kiss for longer than a few seconds, Alex grins at Michael.

“Let’s go home, I want to make out with my fiancé.”

And that’s what they do.

#malex #malex fic #rnm fic #alex manes #michael guerin #roswell new mexico #this one's for you beka #sending all my love #♥#my fic

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pastelwitchling · 5 years

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All Hallows Roswell October Challenge

Week Two: Creatures

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“Alex?” Alex looked up from his storybook. His dad, dark-haired and kind-eyed, looked down at his son from his bedroom door. “What’re you doing?”

“Reading about monsters,” Alex held up his book. He was too young for it, that’s what his brothers kept telling him. He was only nine, after all, and his brothers were so much older and braver than he was. At least, that was what they kept telling him, too. “Dad,” he leaned forward on his bed, “did you know that a siren could crash entire ships with her voice?”

“Entire ships,” Jesse exhaled, leaning against Alex’s doorframe with wide eyes.

“Really, it’s true!” Alex said, excited to finally have someone want to listen to him. None of his brothers would, and his mother always treated him like a baby. Alex wanted someone who wouldn’t coo and aww at everything he said. “It’s written right here!”

Jesse came in and sat at the foot of Alex’s bed. “Well, I – can I see that? Thank you – I don’t know about sirens, but personally, I’ve always liked werewolves better. I think they’d just be nicer.”

Alex bounced excitedly. “They’re in there, too! And vampires, and all sorts of monsters!”

Jesse hummed, looking through the pages. “But, you know, the thing about monsters is that you never know where they’re really hiding. They could be anyone, anywhere.”

Alex considered this, then scowled. “Like Flint? He’s a monster.”

Jesse chuckled, ruffling his son’s hair, and Alex felt a warmth bloom in his chest at being able to make his father laugh. He so rarely did anymore.

“No, I, uh, I’m not talking about your brother,” he said, handing the book back to Alex, and Alex was surprised to see that his expression had suddenly gone dark. “Just… I want you to know, Alex, that I’m never going to let any monsters near you. You won’t have to worry about them.”

Alex blinked. He didn’t know why his father had turned so serious all of a sudden, and he was enveloped in that strange, cold feeling he usually got when Jesse returned home late, too tired and too unwilling to talk about work, what he’d been doing, why he was coming back in the dead of night. Alex shouldn’t have known about that (it was always past his bedtime when his father came home), but he did. He felt he maybe shouldn’t worry so much, but he did.

“I know, dad,” Alex said instead, not wanting to burden his father with his concerns. Whatever trouble there was, Alex was sure there was no one better to handle it than Jesse Manes, the greatest hero in Roswell. “I’ll protect you, too. We can protect each other.”

Jesse smiled softly, ruffling Alex’s hair. “That’s my little soldier.”

Alex woke to a throbbing pain in his arm. Images of warplanes and missiles and blood and his father’s loving smile flashed in his mind as he panted.

He sat up in his chair, and yanked his sleeve up. He clenched his jaw. The coloring in his veins – the pink, violet, blue, orange, green, and gold of the spaceship piece – had stretched to his upper arm, webbing across his skin like a beautiful, poisonous stream.

He stood and went to pull some painkillers (he never left anywhere without them) from his bag when he saw Michael asleep on the table, his head pillowed on his arms, his cowboy hat beside him, and files on his kind over the years strewn around haphazardly.

Alex shook his head. “How disorganized,” he muttered, and barely managed to take a step towards him when his arm throbbed painfully again, and he winced. With trembling fingers, he pulled out a few pills and swallowed. They did little but make the pain bearable, and even that was working less and less every day.

His fingers tightened on the corners of the table as he waited for the throbbing to recede, his breaths heavy and shallow. Finally, he was able to stand straight, exhaling deeply as he did.

He all but fell in a chair next to Michael and leaned his elbow on the table, staring at the cowboy. He reached for him, lightly pushing the curls away from his eyes, his fingers tracing down Michael’s jaw, through his stubble. In his sleep, Michael turned into Alex’s touch, his lips just barely touching Alex’s hand, a low growl forming in his throat that Alex had never heard before as he chased the airman’s touch. Alex’s heart hammered in his chest, and it wasn’t long before darker images crowded his mind. Michael’s lips on Maria’s, his hands on her body, her hands on his. The throbbing returned, and Alex hastily pulled away.

He clutched his arm painfully, his nails digging into his skin, and he heard Michael stir awake behind him.

Go away, he silently urged the pain. Go away, go away, go away.

“What time is it?” Michael asked, his voice hoarse, and Alex had to breathe slowly to control the small electric shock in his chest.

“Two in the morning,” Alex said, taking his seat, his voice strained to his own ears.

Michael must’ve noticed it, too, because he asked, “You okay?”

Alex pulled his sleeve down. “Mm hm.”

“Morning,” Kyle suddenly said as he walked in. “Or, night, or whatever.”

Michael groaned as his head fell back onto the table, and Alex scoffed.

“Did you just finish your shift?” Alex asked as Kyle handed him a bag of bagels and a cup of something hot.

“Whoa, your hands are freezing,” he said. “Is it that cold outside?”

Kyle smiled at him strangely, his brows furrowed.

Alex ignored the look, and took a sip of his cup, tasting coffee. He gasped softly. “I love you.”

He’d meant it as a joke, and Kyle certainly seemed to take it that way with his cheeky smile, but Michael turned to look at him, his face unreadable. Alex thought it was time to stop trying to decipher Michael’s looks.

“I knew you’d be hungry, Manes,” Kyle set another paper bag and cup of coffee in front of Michael. “Your internal clock is freaking weird.”

Kyle sat back in his chair, crossing his feet up on the table as he took a file and checked the contents. He seemed to be drinking something thick and red from his own cup that Alex didn’t think was coffee, though he didn’t ask.

“A lot of people get hungry in the middle of the night,” Alex said, sipping his own coffee and sighing contently as the warm liquid eased some of the pain in his body. Whatever alien magic he encountered, he doubted he would ever come across anything as magical as caffeine.

“Have you guys found anything?”

Alex’s smile fell as he turned back to his screen. “Yeah, my, uh, great grandfather apparently invented a kind of bullet-proof glass that would keep an alien’s power contained. The Manes legacy just gets better and better,” he muttered.

The room was silent for a moment, then Kyle said, “Well, that’s what you and I are here for, right? Fixing it.”

Alex was just starting to smile, but then his eyes caught Michael’s, and it suddenly felt wrong to be comforted. He looked away.

“I need some air,” he mumbled, hurrying to the door before Michael offered to come along.

Alex walked out of the bunker to find himself in his living room at the cabin, the sunlight peeking through the curtains. Alex froze, his eyes wide. He looked down; he was wearing an oversized sweater and sweatpants. He opened the door he’d just walked out of, and saw that it led to the porch outside his house. He could hear music coming from the kitchen.

Alex slowly followed it to find Isobel and Maria with their heads bent over the stove. They were swaying their hips lightly to the song – Barry Manilow, Alex recognized it – whispering between each other.

“What the hell?” he said before he could catch himself, and the girls looked over their shoulders, smiling sweetly at him.

“Hey,” Maria said, her voice unusually soft, “did you have a good sleep?”

“Sleep?”

Isobel raised her brow. “Didn’t you say you wanted to sleep off all that extra pain medication you’ve been taking?”

Alex stepped back, his hand clutching his arm where his veins were throbbing, though it was little more than a painful stinging now. “You… you know about that?”

“I do,” Isobel said in a sing-song voice. “And you know I know. You know we’re telling the truth.”

Alex blinked. Right, he thought. Of course. Michael had followed him outside the bunker last night, and Alex had hastily decided to go home and finish his work there, hoping it would discourage Michael and his unbuttoned shirt from coming with him. Michael seemed to get the hint. He had then told Alex that he would send Isobel in the morning to help him. Alex rubbed his eyes. How could he have forgotten?

“Y-Yeah,” he said, unable to meet their eyes. “Sure.”

“Poor baby,” Maria cooed, “you look so tired. Here, have some tomato soup.”

She poured him a bowl, and came to stand in front of him, holding the steaming meal. Alex’s brows furrowed, but he could sense no tension coming from Maria, no discomfort – as if nothing had changed between them, as if these past few months didn’t carry a cold distance that kept them separated.

“Did I… call you, too?”

Maria stared. “You did.”

“Are you sure?”

“You did.”

Alex searched her face. “Yeah. I’m sure I did,” he said quietly, not recognizing his own voice, only trying hazily to find the memory. He took the bowl, the smell hitting him first. He coughed and coughed, thrusting it back at her.

“That smells like acid!”

Maria huffed a soft chuckle, and stepped closer to him. Isobel seemed to be concerned with the pot on the stove, humming as she stirred. Alex wished she would stop; he couldn’t focus with so much music around him.

“You’re so silly, Alex. Here, have some soup.”

Alex’s fingers twitched, and he moved away. “I’m not drinking that.”

“Have some soup, Alex. It tastes really good.”

Alex hesitated, glancing up from the bowl at Maria’s kind face. If she was so calm, then maybe Alex was just being paranoid. “Really?”

She handed him the bowl. “Have some soup. You’ll love it.”

Alex felt himself nod slowly. “I’ll… love it.”

Her smile widened. “You’ll love it.”

Alex tried to take the bowl again, but he suddenly felt something scalding touch his fingers, and realized that, without his noticing, the soup had burned through the bowl and was lying in sizzling droplets on the floor. Maria was still smiling at him as if she didn’t notice it at all, and Alex felt fear suddenly course through his entire body. His heart was hammering, the pain in his arm throbbing, his fingers trembling.

Alex gasped, and stepped back. Maria tried to follow him. “Stay away from me!” and he ran out of the cabin, his steps slower and more heavily weighed down with his prosthetic than usual. When he finally made it to the door and threw it open, he stumbled right into a warm, hard chest.

“Whoa, Alex,” Michael said, his eyes full of concern, “Alex, stop, it’s me!”

“Guerin,” Alex breathed, and without thinking, wrapped his arms around Michael’s shoulders. “Help me, Guerin, I think – I think I’m losing my mind!”

“Hey, hey,” he ran his hands up and down Alex’s back. “It’s okay, it’s okay. I’m here, you’re safe.”

“I…” Alex shook his head, looking over his shoulder at his front door. “I don’t know what I just saw, I don’t understand what happened!”

“Alex –”

“I’m seeing things, I have to be!”

“Stop, look at me,” Michael held his face in his hands. “Look at me. You’re not making any sense. What happened?”

Alex could feel Michael’s breath fan his lips, Michael’s warm fingers on his jaw, Michael’s thumbs softly stroking his cheeks, Michael’s eyes searching his own, trying to find a way to help him. And Alex stepped back. He had to concentrate. He was losing himself. Why was he so afraid? Was what he had just seen real? It couldn’t have been, it certainly didn’t feel that way anymore now. Alex’s heart hammered, but his memories of the girls seemed blurry, as if Alex was seeing them through water.

“Inside,” he shook his head. “Inside.”

Michael glanced at the door. “Okay, Alex, don’t worry, I’ll check it out.”

“No, wait, don’t,” Alex warned, taking Michael’s arm with both hands. “I have to – I’ll come with you.”

Michael looked like he wanted to argue, but Alex wouldn’t let him go, and he seemed to realize that. He nodded, and Alex held onto him as they returned inside. All the way, Alex was wondering what Michael would do if he saw Maria standing in his kitchen. Would it just get awkward? Would Michael know that something was wrong with his ex-girlfriend? Would he believe Alex’s concerns?

They stepped further inside, and it was only when they reached the kitchen did Alex notice that the music that had been playing had stopped. There was no one in his cabin, Isobel and Maria were gone, the smell of acid along with them as if the girls hadn’t been cooking anything at all.

Alex searched the kitchen with furrowed brows as Michael went to check the rest of the cabin. Alex was just looking through his pots (none of them were touched or smelled as if they’d been rapidly cleaned) when Michael came back in.

“There’s no one here,” he said.

Alex shook his head, staring desperately out the window. The sun was already setting. Had they escaped somehow? “I really am losing my mind,” he whispered.

Michael came to sit beside him against the counter, and sighed. “You’ve been working too hard, you haven’t really eaten or slept –”

“Slept,” he muttered. “Did I sleep?”

“Alex. Alex, hey,” Michael cupped his jaw, forcing their eyes to meet. “You’re tired. You need to rest.”

“Rest,” he said, vividly remembering Maria’s kind smile, and the ice in her eyes. She hadn’t hesitated when she’d handed Alex the bowl, her fingers hadn’t trembled as if she was afraid for him. She’d lied to his face, and she’d wanted him gone.

Alex groaned, his head in his hands. “Rest, yeah. I need to rest.” He felt Michael’s hand between his shoulder blades, stroking slowly as if to help calm him down.

Alex looked up, saw Michael’s eyes search his face with concern and something else Alex didn’t want to identify, and he moved to stand only for Michael to follow him and help him gracefully to his feet. Alex wished he could’ve said he didn’t need it, but his legs felt so heavy for some reason.

“Thanks,” he said, and pulled away.

“You want me to stay with you?” he offered. “I can – I can stay with you.”

Yes, he thought. Please, please, stay with me. Don’t ever leave my side again.

“I’ll be okay on my own,” he ended up saying instead, and really, what else could he have said?

Friends didn’t hang onto each other like Alex wanted to hang on to Michael. Friends didn’t want to touch each other the way he wished Michael would keep touching him. And they weren’t that close of friends anyway.

Michael looked so crestfallen that it took everything for Alex not to pull him into his arms, kiss him senseless, and promise him that – more than anything – he wanted the cowboy to stay.

“Yeah,” Michael said with an upward quirk of his lips that fell almost instantly. “I should go. Full moon tonight, you know.”

Alex frowned. He most certainly did not know. Michael walked past him to the door, and as he moved further and further away, Alex felt that alarm suddenly rise again. His heart was racing, his hands trembling, his breaths coming out short and quick. He was terrified, and he didn’t know why.

Was he having another panic attack? No, he thought, hand on his chest. He had gotten so good at recognizing those. But this felt like a panic attack.

“Guerin,” he rushed into the hall to see that Michael had his hand on the knob. “Wait.”

“Wait?” Michael turned slightly to Alex, his hand on the knob tight as if it was the only thing keeping him from running back to the airman.

This is a terrible idea, Alex thought as he slowly approached Michael. A horrible, terrible idea.

But Alex slipped his hand into Michael’s, and his heart felt at ease, the pain in his arm a mere pinch now. It’s Michael, he realized. He takes the pain away somehow.

Michael’s eyes closed as Alex brought his other hand up to cup his jaw, his thumb gently caressing his cheek. He exhaled softly, planting an openmouthed kiss on Alex’s palm.

“Alex,” he breathed, and Alex couldn’t help but come closer, resting their foreheads together. It’s the only thing that helps take the pain and fear away, he told himself. That was why he was doing this. That was why he needed to get so close.

Then Michael took Alex’s hand from his face, and dragged it down his own body. Alex inhaled sharply. His fingers stretched through Michael’s chest hair, Michael leaning in closer as Alex unbuttoned the rest of his shirt, running his hands around Michael’s waist.

“Yeah, touch me,” Michael already sounded out of breath. Alex couldn’t help but gasp as Michael’s hands went under his shirt, stretching up his back and dragging his nails through his skin. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.”

Alex wanted to kiss him. The sky was rapidly turning dark, and Alex didn’t care. He wanted to forget about every horrible, scary thing, he wanted to sleep in Michael’s arms, leave a trail of kisses down his chest, feel Michael inside of him, hot and comforting and there. He wanted to have Michael in every possible way.

Then he felt something like sharp needles in his waist and he gasped, pulling back. His shirt was torn, blood seeping through the fabric. Michael’s hands were still held out for him, his nails turned to claws, covered in scarlet.

“Alex, what’s wrong?” Michael said, and as he asked, Alex saw that his eyes had turned an icy blue, his claws growing sharper until his hands stopped looking like hands, and more like a wolf’s paws. “Hey, it’s okay. Come here.”

The pain in Alex’s arm suddenly intensified, and he yanked his sleeve up to see that his veins were now glowing brightly. Michael seemed to hardly notice that Alex was hurt, and instead looked at him as if he’d been starving for weeks and Alex was his favorite meal.

“Alex,” he opened his arms, “come here.”

Alex shook his head, his heart jumping as his back hit the wall. “Guerin, stop. Please.”

“What’s wrong?” his brows furrowed as he caged Alex against the wall, his hands on his shoulders. His claws dug into Alex’s skin, and Alex winced.

“Guerin,” he whispered. “You’re hurting me.”

Michael frowned, finally noticing Alex’s blood on his hands. “I…” his eyes widened, and he looked out the window. “Full moon.”

“What’re you talking about?” Alex shook his head. “What’s happening to you?”

“I hurt you,” he breathed, then doubled over, screaming in absolute agony. His eyes were shut tight, the veins on his forehead bulging. As he screamed, his voice turned deeper and deeper until it was a wolf’s growl. Michael’s face and chest and hands lined with fur until it was no longer the cowboy he knew in front of him, but a full-fledged wolf.

Alex’s nails dug into the wall behind him. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think clearly. “Guerin?” he whispered, and the wolf’s eyes snapped to his, glaring.

The wolf growled low in his throat. He was at least as tall as Alex was, and twice his length. He suddenly leapt and Alex seized the only thing he could find – a lamp on his counter – and poured every bit of his strength into hitting the wolf over the head with it.

It only stumbled away, a trail of blood soaking its fur, its eyes tinted with the color so that it looked like it was crying blood. Alex felt so many emotions flooding his chest – guilt, grief, fear – and he dropped the lamp. If he couldn’t hurt Michael, he’d run. At least, he’d try.

His legs seemed to be weighed down by steel, unwilling to move, let alone escape. He fell down against his wall, watching Michael with shallow breaths as he prepared to lunge again. Alex heard a crash and held his arms up in defense, expecting to feel a wolf’s sharp teeth sinking into his skin. But there was nothing. He looked up to see Kyle suddenly in front of him, keeping Michael back.

“That’s enough, Guerin,” Kyle seethed. “You’ve done enough!”

“Kyle?”

The doctor hissed at Michael, and it was then that Alex saw his fangs. Vampires? Alex shook his head. Sirens? Werewolves?

“No,” he covered his ears, not wanting to hear the growls or whimpers or hissing. Not wanting to see Michael attempt to take a bite out of Kyle, or Kyle take a drink from Michael’s veins. “This isn’t real. This isn’t happening.”

He shut his eyes tight, but the sounds echoed in his head.

“Alex!” Kyle screamed. “Alex, wake up!”

“Stop it,” Alex cried. “This isn’t real! This isn’t real!”

“Wake up, damn it! Wake up!”

Alex felt a warm hand on his back and gasped. He was in his chair in the bunker, in front of the large glass table, Kyle’s hands tight on his wrists, forcing them down. Alex panted, looking around.

“Can you hear me?” Kyle asked, then again, “Alex, can you hear me?”

Alex nodded. “Yeah. Yeah.”

Kyle searched his face and seemed to realize Alex was telling the truth. He slowly let go. “That must’ve been one hell of a nightmare.”

“Nightmare,” Alex repeated, rubbing his face. “Yeah.”

It’s okay, he told himself. You’re okay. It was just a bad dream. That’s all.

Still…

“You kept talking about vampires and werewolves,” Michael suddenly said from behind him, and Alex realized that the hand on his back was the cowboy’s. “This month must be getting to you.”

He smiled, though Alex could hear the concern in his voice. The same he’d heard in his nightmare, his hand on his back just as warm. And Alex saw it. Even in Michael’s loving, beautiful face, Alex saw those piercing blue eyes, the ones he’d known from staring down the monster of his childhood. Alex felt Michael’s nails tearing his skin, drawing blood, looking at Alex as if he didn’t care that he’d hurt him.

No, Alex thought. It was worse. It was as if Michael had wanted to hurt him.

Alex’s arm throbbed painfully, and he flinched away from Michael’s touch. The dream had been wrong. Michael wasn’t a source of comfort. Michael only made the pain worse.

“Get away from me,” he muttered, drawing further away.

“What?” Michael stepped closer, and Alex winced.

“Don’t touch me!”

Alex wouldn’t dare look at Michael’s face, but after a moment of silence, he could hear Kyle say, “Guerin, maybe you should…” Then, “Guerin, come on, something’s wrong. Let me take care of it. Just go home.”

Several seconds later, Alex heard the front door open and close, and Kyle sat in a chair across from him. He sighed. “What’s going on, Alex? Was it the nightmare?”

Alex clutched his arm tighter. Kyle must’ve noticed because he tilted his head. “Are you in pain? Here, let me see.”

Hesitantly, Alex let Kyle gently pull his sleeve up. The pain was dimmer now that Michael was gone, but it still hurt.

Kyle’s face fell. “Oh my God. What did this?”

Alex shook his head. “I think it was the spaceship piece. The alien we saw last week, he – I think he started it. The colors, they’re the same, and every time I touch that glass, it gets worse.”

“I knew he did something to you,” Kyle hissed, then searched Alex’s face. “And Guerin? Him being here makes it hurt more?” Alex nodded. “We have to tell someone.”

“We can’t,” Alex said. “Michael…” he took a deep breath, “Michael doesn’t know I have the piece.”

“What?”

“He’s trying to rebuild his spaceship,” Alex said quietly, though in the silence of the bunker, his words could’ve echoed off the walls. “If he gets it back, he’ll leave.”

Kyle leaned back in his seat, Alex’s hand still in his lap. “You love him that much?” Alex said nothing. “Alex, if we don’t get you help, who knows what’ll happen. This thing could end up killing you!”

“Would that be so bad?”

Kyle stared. “What?”

Alex shook his head. “I’m so tired. I’ve been fighting for such a long time. Isn’t it time to stop?”

“Don’t talk like that,” Kyle said. “My God, don’t – don’t ever say anything like that again.” He stood. “Look, you don’t want to go to Guerin, we won’t go to Guerin. We’ll find someone else to help. What about Liz?”

“It’s the middle of the night,” Alex reasoned, though he was so lost in his own thoughts, he could hardly hear himself speak. How did things end up so badly? He’d gone from thinking he’d come back to a Roswell without Michael, then to hoping that he could actually be with the man he loved, and now, he could hardly stand the sight of him.

It’s your own fault, he reminded himself. If you hadn’t been such a coward, none of this would’ve happened.

Alex shut his eyes tight, blocking the noise out. He had no right to be upset, not after what he’d done. Not after what his family had done. He was a Manes, whether he wanted to be or not. How could he blame Michael for seeing the same monster in him that he had always seen in himself?

“Alex!” Kyle yelled, and Alex looked up, startled to see that the table, the steel ground beneath it, and the steel walls all had giant cracks running through them like shattered glass.

Alex gasped and stood. “What the hell?”

He touched the crack on the table. It was a spiderweb of sharp, shining crystals, the glass digging into his skin and drawing blood, even as Kyle yanked his hand away, warning him to be careful.

Kyle shook his head, his eyes wide. “I… think that was you.”

Alex frowned. “I – no, I – I don’t have powers.”

And Kyle’s eyes fell to his arm, his colored veins which were visibly throbbing, and said, “Yeah, Manes. You do.”

***

I don’t know if I love this, but I did love certain aspect of it, and I’m really glad I’m able to post it now.

#allhallowsroswell #allhallowsrnm #malex #alex manes #michael guerin #malex fanfic #malex fic #malex fanfiction #roswell new mexico #roswell nm #malex angst #malex fluff #malex halloween #tyler blackburn #michael vlamis #gay #love

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saadiestuff · 5 years

Note

“Don’t leave me behind.” - Alex giving Michael the ship piece back?

One Last Night (Malex fic - rated M) [AO3 link]

Michael stares at the reflective piece of spaceship console Alex has just handed him.

"I've had it for months,” Alex admits, “I should have given it to you as soon as you showed me your bunker, but then everything happened and…” he shifts on his feet, running a nervous hand through his own hair, “You're pushing everyone away so hard, Guerin. I’m hanging in there but--"

"Thanks," Michael says dismissively, and waves him off without looking up.

"Alright,” Alex sighs, because he’s not here to fight, not today. “Just... don't leave me behind, okay?" Alex adds, knowing it’s loaded, but meaning to make a joke of it anyways as it's a ridiculous thing to say -- a console does not a ship make. But the idea that Michael might want to leave if he could? It had been enough to make Alex run before, and it's enough to make Alex stand his ground now, even as he turns to leave.

"I can't promise that," Michael says quietly to Alex's back, and takes his breath away.

~~~~~

Months later, Michael shows up on Alex's doorstep in the middle of the night.

"You asked me not to leave you behind," Michael says simply.

"I did," Alex agrees.

"I never promised that," Michael tells him.

"I know,” Alex says, still remembering the ragged chill Michael’s words had sent down his spine. “How have you been?” Alex asks tentatively, for Michael has been a ghost for months, constantly disappearing, and impossible to get a hold of -- even more so now that Max is back, which is the opposite of what everyone had expected.

"I'm leaving tomorrow,” Michael says, ignoring Alex’s question, licking his lips for something to do while he debates holding Alex’s gaze.

Progress, Alex thinks, and chooses his words carefully, speaking slowly. “Thank you for telling me. We all worry when you drop out of contact for days at a time, you know,” he says tenderly, trying not to heap guilt on Michael, and adds a smile, “So... do you know when you’ll be back?”

Silence.

“Can you tell me where you’re going?”

“Tennessee,” Michael says, managing a near microscopic smirk.

Alex frowns, but he’s happy to see Michael with a sense of humour, sort of.

Michael’s gaze skitters away from Alex’s face, instead falling to his own feet, where he kicks at some mud his boots tracked onto the porch.

“I’m leaving the planet, Alex,” Michael says flatly.

“If you don’t want to tell me details, that’s okay. Like I said, I appreciate you letting me know you’ll be away for a bit. It’s good to touch base,” Alex says, reserved with his praise, fearing too much will scare Michael off somehow.

“I’m serious,” Michael says, and with all trace of humour gone from his tone and his face, it rattles Alex.

“As in... you’re travelling to outer space?” Alex asks, turning it over in his mind, thinking this has to be a metaphor, but not coming up with anything that’s good news.

“Yes,” Michael confirms.

“How?” Alex asks. Even with the console complete, it's not like Michael could actually go anywhere. The ship he'd need to build -- genius he may be, but the materials and resources he'd need? Well, he's not NASA.

Michael shakes his head, and looks off to the side, fixing his stare down the length of Alex’s porch and out into the forest. "Just believe it, for a second. And consider that I might not make it back… And tell me…” Michael exhales sharply and faces Alex again, “Tell me... do you want one last night?"

"Yes," Alex says quickly. He doesn't know what game they're playing, but this buys him time to figure it out. That’s what he reasons anyways, pushing aside that he’s been wanting another night with Michael since their last night together, before the drive in, before he walked away again, before he knew it was about to be over. It’s not like he replays that night over and over, their casual love-making after they’d so quickly fallen into a comfortable rhythm in just a few weeks time. And then the bagels, and not taking that damn ride. Fuck. Alex hadn’t been ready then -- he knows that even if they did it all over again, him then couldn’t say yes. But him now? Yes-yes-yes.

“Alex?” Michael seems to call softly to him from a great distance.

“Yes,” Alex says again, because he’s not sure what he said out loud and what was in his head, and he just wants to get Michael inside and for one night not be worried about where he is.

"You sure?” Michael drawls, trying to put up his swagger front and failing miserably in Alex’s ears.

“Yes,” Alex repeats easily, thinking of the last time Michael gave him this chance, when he’d had to push back so hard, with a whimper, or they’d have ended up fucking in a bathroom stall at the Wild Pony.

“Might it be easier to not have me again -- not make it fresh?” Michael continues, and Alex isn’t sure which of them he’s trying to convince, “You probably already forgot how it feels when I touch you."

"Never," Alex shakes his head and moves towards Michael. "Never did, never will," he whispers as his lips find Michael's, and he drags him inside, desperate to have Michael under him and safe.

Alex hadn’t even realized how scared he’s been all these months. Maybe he’d shoved that all down, so he’d be strong if Michael ever put himself within reach of help. And here Michael is, finally close enough for Alex to pull him into his orbit, anchor him, snatch Michael from his cold, lonely, wander of emptiness of space.

Indeed, as they fall into bed, Alex forgets what Michael has planned for tomorrow. Michael had only asked him to believe it for a second -- come and gone. So Alex takes it for what it is, whatever it is, he doesn't know.

But still, Alex notices that Michael treats it like a last. The way he pours into Alex, clinging to him, rocking too fast so Alex’s fingers must dig into his flesh harder, every ecstasy expressed by mournful whimper; each union lingering, staying joined together almost until beginning again, over and over again, all night long.

In the morning, in the light, Michael says his goodbyes with tears in his eyes, and Alex panics -- it suddenly all feels real.

Alex pulls at Michael's arm, trying to keep him in the bed, because once Michael is out he'll have a head start before Alex gets his prosthetic on, or even makes it to his old crutches. He'll slip away.

“I don’t know what outer space is code for, but you’re talking like you’re not coming back, and you’re scaring me!” Alex says frantically.

“It’s not code,” Michael says weakly. If he tries to explain, he’ll never leave.

“Okay, okay, fine,” Alex breathes, deciding to play along, yet he’s so terrified he might actually believe it, that this is goodbye, he doesn’t have to put on an act at all. “If you’re going to outer space, then-- then… I need another night!”

“Alex--” Michael starts to refuse him, but his throat tightens and he can’t breathe, let alone speak.

“Please, Michael,” Alex begs, “I didn't know this was the last -- I need one more!” He wants forever, but that’s asking too much, isn’t it? When Michael wants to leave the fucking planet for the hole in his heart -- one both Alex and his father dug deep.

“I told you,” Michael whines, because he can’t deny him, even as he twists away from Alex’s grasp.

Alex grabs at him, heaving a frustrated sob for his stupid leg and the thought that he won’t be able to chase Michael down.

“You told me but I didn't know! I didn’t, Michael. I didn’t!” Alex shouts, feeling wild and desperate and there's a pain in his chest he knows is a fraction of what it would feel to stretch their connection so far, across universes, for him to be left wondering.

"Shhh,” Michael soothes, sympathetic, for he knows in part what Alex is feeling, for Michael felt it every time Alex deployed -- though Alex had never gone as far as Michael planned to, and at least Michael always understood those could be lasts. So Michael moves to hold Alex close, conceding, “I'll give you another night.”

Alex calms instantly, tears drying up, voice finding its authority, the words rushing out. “You cannot not show up, Guerin. I will lose my fucking mind. I swear-- In fact, we should spend the day too, right?”

“Nah, I have shit to do,” Michael shrugs him off.

“You were planning on blasting off into space today. Your schedule should be pretty much free.” Alex snaps, because everything hurts and what the fuck is going on?

“I have different shit to do now. And I’ll have to modify some inputs for the new launch date.”

“Stop,” Alex pleads.

Michael ignores him, pulling away. “Same time, same place. Just you.” One last night.

He swoops to kiss Alex on the forehead, and then he goes.

~~~~~

Michael does come back that night. Alex weeps when he opens the door to find him standing there.

They waste no time getting as close as possible, but with both of them exhausted from the lack of sleep the night before, they only go one round before they’re tangled in the heap they’ll hold until morning.

“I half expected the lube to be laced with alien poison so you could forcibly confine me,” Michael says after a long silence.

“I considered it…” Alex admits, for he’d considered just about every option, “But I wouldn’t. You can trust me,” he shifts to look Michael in the eyes, hand going to his jaw so he can’t look away, not that he ever really does, but the time for substituted words is over. “I love you. I have since we were seventeen. And I always will. And even though you haven't been around lately… I've fallen more in love with you every day that I've let myself grow into who I am."

Michael’s voice is but a crackle, breaking over every word. “I love you, too."

They’re both crying now, managing only the messiest of kisses, mouths scarcely finding each other as they grab clumsily for something deeper -- more skin, more love, more soul -- all without ever really moving, precious energy not to be wasted on that, not when their time is limited.

Later, Michael wakes in the dark to Alex’s fingers strumming along his back, whispered words in his ear.

“Stay. Stay. Stay."

Michael feigns sleep. It's not hard, not with Alex's soothing rhythmic chant skittering over his skin, despite what it means. Until--

"Or, take me with you.”

Michael opens his eyes. “So, you believe me now?”

“Tell me what’s really going on. It’s just me. I could help you,” Alex says softly, impossibly gentle.

Michael just tucks into him closer, and hums against his chest, “The wind is going to be too strong tomorrow.”

And with that, Alex can close his eyes.

~~~~~

Michael comes back the next night.

And the next.

It goes on for weeks. They stop having sex every night -- sometimes they just cuddle and sleep. And Michael starts staying for breakfast when it works with Alex’s schedule.

It goes on three months. Michael is there every night, though sometimes only briefly. He even comes by early for dinner often enough that Alex falls into the habit of cooking for two.

"I'm always eating your food," Michael says absently one day.

"I don't mind," Alex says.

Michael brings a bag of groceries the next day. Only enough for one meal.

After all, it's just one last night together.

~~~~~

Six months pass.

“Ready to go home?” Alex asks Michael, before paling, his mouth opening to try to walk it back, not wanting to risk upsetting the delicate balance they’ve mastered. But it’s too late.

For a moment, Michael worries that this disruption of the illusion will shatter him. What hits him instead is a warm wave of happy.

Michael beams. “I’m not going to space," he declares, "And I basically live with you. I don’t know when that all became okay, but it did.”

They barely make it out to Alex’s car before they’ve torn most of their clothes off, indignant squeals -- which they won’t talk about later -- emit from both of them as they whisper words like boyfriend and tease about cleaning out drawers for Michael.

The final wall between them, constructed of the eggshells of impermanence, goes down as they at last give their whole selves to one another.

But there is one thing that nags at Alex. Perhaps it is a thread he shouldn’t pull, but when they get home, he does, though only once he has Michael firmly in his arms.

“What does 'going to space' really mean?" Alex asks slowly.

"What do you mean?" Michael says sleepily.

"It's not literal,” Alex explains.

"What? Yes it is!” Michael exclaims, “I thought you eventually believed me?”

“Are you serious?” Alex is incredulous.

“Yes!” Michael says excitedly, trying to twist to face Alex, a little surprised to find he’s rather locked in a vice grip. “Alex,” he says softly, as he wriggles uselessly in Alex’s arms, “I’m not going anywhere.”

Alex reluctantly relaxes his hold. “But you could.”

“I’ll never leave you behind. I promise,” Michael says first when he turns to face Alex, “But yes, I could go to space,” he admits.

“How?” Alex raises a questioning eyebrow, “The console-- you needed a vehicle to attach it to?"

"Well... I got one..."

#hannah-writes #prompt filled!#malex #malex fic #my malex fic #there might be a part 2 #some scraps have been written #HannahEnables

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sqweegee · 5 years

Text

The Tallest x Crowbar!Reader

In this fanfiction you have a crowbar. Somehow this has caused you to end up on the Massive. You just have to live with it.

"ugggghhh my head hurts... actually i changed my mind, my whole body hurts." you groaned. This was because you were in the middle of the floor on some huge ship and a bunch of bastards in boots were walking over you. You struggled to your feet and noticed you were holding a crowbar.

"Cool, i guess i have this now." You said.

"Oh purple, it would appear our guest has woken up." A voice from a different part of the room spoke. You looked over and saw two very tall green people approaching you. They had figures that could put even the most stunning model to shame, and long fingers that resembled acrylics, with which they were holding a multitude of donuts (which looked like bland, expired bagels, fight me on this). One had eyes of vibrant crimson, and the other's were deep violet. As you locked eyes with these beautiful people, you knew in this moment that these were real men, like no other you'd ever see in your lifetime, and that filled you with irrational anger.

"Where the heck am I, you fucking dongs?" You shouted accusingly. The purple one gasped.

"There's no need to use such language, Y/N!" He scolded.

"Ok fine, where the fuck am i, you hecking dongs? The last thing I remember is being sold to One Direction." You replied.

"Ha ha ha" the red one chuckled. He was laughing. "We are the Almighty Tallest, you're on the Massive- the largest spaceship in space, and you ended up here because One Direction sold you to us. We're not really sure why, but it only cost us 67 cents."

"Damn, I thought Niall really cared," You whispered, tears forming in your E/C orbs. You felt a long finger brush against your face and wipe your tears away.

"Don't cry, Y/N, your orbs are extra spherical today" Red reassured you.

"Yeah kween," Purple added. Without giving it another thought, you swung your crowbar at his knees. Purple spat out his soda with incredible force and it landed on some navigator guy. [camera zooms in on navigator guy as he questions all his life choices. "Numb" by Linkin Park is playing]

"What in the shit, Y/N, you're supposed to tell us that our eyes are pretty." Purple moaned, clutching his knees.

"Yeah, that wasn't very sexy of you." Red said, disappointment shone in his ruby orbs.

"I don't care, i got a crowbar and i'm going off the shits." You responded, turning to face him. There was a terrified look on his face.

"OH GOD, Y/N PLEASE NOT THE CROWBAR, I CAN'T LOSE MY KNEECAPS," Red pleaded, bracing for impact. Your expression softened. He did seem very attached to his kneecaps. It made you feel a little bad about what you were going to do.

"Do you really care that much about your kneecaps?" You ask the Irken in a less angry tone.

"Yes," He answered

"He does." Purple added.

"All right then. I won't whack you in the knees with my crowbar." You sighed. And then proceeded to whack him in the waist with your crowbar. Red insantly fell down onto the linoleum floor and screeched.

"WHY MUST THE WORLD BE CRUEL?" He yelled. Meanwhile, two other navigator guys watched the whole thing with popcorn

"You think we should stop them?" One asked.

"Nah."

#i hope you enjoyed this as much as i did #the tallest #invader zim #iz #iz fanfiction #invader zim fanfiction #tallest x reader #the tallest x reader #tallest red #tallest purple #the almighty tallest #long post

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we-be-writing-bts-stuff · 6 years

Note

🐰, 👀, and 💥please!

🐰 what is one secret that you’ve never told anyone?

I tend to be a very open person. So, I can’t think of anything at the moment. Scratch that I like to listen to ASMR boyfriend roleplay stuff. Especially If I can’t sleep or I’m having a bad day.

👀 what was the most recent vivid dream that you had?

I never remember my dreams. I’m sure that the last vivid dream I had involved the boys somehow. One dream I do remember though from years ago is that an alien crashed at my house and my dad had to work on the spaceship to get them back in space. It was weird.

💥 what are some unpopular opinions that you have?

I am not a huge fan of blue haired Yoongi. I don’t know if that’s an unpopular opinion or not. Don’t get me wrong he still looked amazing, but the color wasn’t the best thing. I’m not a fan of veiny arms. Veins that pop out constantly freak me out. I hate it so much.

~Admin Bagel

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sagastar-blog · 6 years

Text

MemoToTheMetaverse 2.4 “Gaia Says to Jeff, Let’s Take the Black Keys Car Service!”

Gaia, our hero, the story’s 16-year-old tomboyish female protagonist, walks around in a magnificent green, blue, and white bathrobe. Her long darkreddishbrown hair is dripping wet. Gaia is the planet Earth in human form, and has always been entirely awake, or aware of this fact. She’s recently emerged from the family “scuttlebutt,” a solar-powered steam room of sorts off the side of the family’s entirely ordinary first-floor Highland Park, NJ, apartment. She speaks into a hairbrush:

Gaia: So glad to be here with Dan and Patrick of the Black Keys. Guys! Good morning! What brought you to The Orchard on this leg of the current intergalactic tour?

[Dan Auerbach--the lily-white reformed stoner father / lead singer of the indie blues rock duo from Akron known throughout the universe and beyond as The Black Keys--is a large Bert from Sesame Street doll.]

Dan: Ummmmm. Gee. Let’s see. Well, I guess we figured we were in the neighborhood, you know, New York is kind of a thing...Hey, um, Do you guys have any coffee here? I could also really use a bagel. Like, with cream cheese, yeah? Thanks. Okay, yeah.

Patrick, a narwhal hand puppet and the drummer in the band, wears hipster glasses and grunts somewhat rhythmically: Me too. Please. Thanks. Whatever.

Gaia (turns towards the kitchen and yells): Daddy! Do we have any bagels left?

[Jeff is Gaia’s 39-year-old father, who has sole custody but, as any parent must no, very little immediate control over his daughter. He’s actually a young Bengal tiger in disguise as a human and also the Master Creator/Destroyer of All.

Jeff: Yeah, hold on. Do they want everything like usual?

Patrick the narwhal begins gnawing on the top of Bert’s head while gently spanking it from below with its tail, and grunts: “Sure thing, boss.”

Dan is distracted by Gaia’s proverbial “décolletage.” It must be said that Gaia is a beautiful, buxom, and rather rambunctious young woman, and has been for a few years now something of a man-eater. More problematically, she’s been neglected by her boyfriend/cousin-in-law, Amateratsu, the local mediocre neighborhood son, thanks to the way she’s been done dirty and wrong by life--HER LIFE, yes, but still--in recent times.

Dan: Thanks so much Jeff, that’s great. Gaia’s taking good care of us in here.

Jeff: She’s a fantastic hostess. You should check out her bedroom! It’s kind of a mess...Gaia, do you think you could maybe try sweeping some day?

Gaia (returning to her interview): Dan, Patrick, do you ever wish a great wind would come along and wash away all the beer cans and bottles? I mean, like, take Akron....maybe all the rubber tires and factories and stuff should be...

Dan: Burned?

Patrick the narwhal has heard this story so many times already. He continues drumming on his lap, staring rather obtusely at Gaia’s round ass as she busily picks up last night’s detritus. He doesn’t mind getting interviewed today because he owes his ex-wife so much in arrears for child support that he’s willing to put up with Bert’s narcissism for yet another day.

Gaia: I was thinking, wouldn’t it be nice if Brian Wilson and the rest of the Beach Boys could just bury the hatchet and do, like, a benefit for the environment or something? Like, what is it going to take for some big shot celebrity musicians to actually get involved in American public life?

Dan: What we need, clearly, is the American version of Bono. Otherwise, Africa will become China and then we’re all fucked.

Gaia: Precisely. (prepares her hookah for the day’s first toke....Jeff doesn’t mind that Gaia is going through a phase in which she smokes as much cannabis as she wants when she’s at his house. She’s not always home from school, so he figures it’s a balanced approach to Creation/Destruction.)

Patrick: Do you think we could hit that?

Gaia (eyes smoldering): Butt of course, Monsieur Patrick. Et toi, Dan? Qu’en volez vous?

Dan: Did you just ask me where I’m flying next?

Gaia: EH bien. Si vous voulez faire le countertransference avec moi, ca va couterez...(she lights up)

Jeff (buttering and cream-cheesing the bagels): Gaia, I’m serious! Your room!

Gaia (tucking her Bert and narwhal weiweis into her bed): I suggest we take the Black Keys Car Service to the eco preserve.

Jeff: Gaia, can you please explain to our guests what that will entail?

[Pollux and Castor emerge from the basement, all sparkly. They’re stars from an intergalactic talent competition known as Copernamici. As the head stars in the constellation Gemini, they are Amateratsu’s siblings, relatives of Jeff and Lucius. Pollux is slightly brighter and cheerier in general, whereas Castor has a beautiful, rich baritone voice.]

Castor: I was hoping we’d get to go to the preserve. There’s so little nature here in The Orchard, which is kind of ironic, don’t you think?

Pollux: Yeah, I was just thinking that it’s weird that there are signs all around this town, what is it called here Highland Park, that say things like “Tree City U.S.A.” and “No Hate Here.” They can’t even see us when they look up at night! Where exactly is the eco preserve, Gaia?

Gaia: Sore subject. Which is why I suggest taking the Black Keys Car Service! Daddy, you explain in a longwinded monologue which is not exactly a siloloquy but who cares because Shakespeare was SUCH a bitch...

Jeff (sets down the coffee at the C2 Center for Educational Brainwashing, where he is paid 27 dollars an hour to help privileged children improve their SAT scores): THE BLACK KEYS CAR SERVICE is one of the greatest ideas ever. It is the solution to the problem we face today aboard Spaceship Earth. (speaking into the ship’s PA system microphone) Humans! You have, since the dawn of the industrial revolution, been shitting in your own scuttlebutt! You have been, like cyborgswine, befouling your own trough. Your pollution--Ohio, we’re looking right at you...OH GEEZ, Cuyahoga was a great R.E.M. song about you burning rivers...where are you Michael Stipe when the galaxy needs you?--will no longer be tolerated. I have come here, people of Earth, to save Gaia. Only, the way it works is that Gaia doesn’t need salvation. Gaia, your planet Earth, will outlive all of you. Life will persist on this planet whether you want it to or not...at least for a little longer. The point here is that I am here to protect Gaia from all of you who have been either neglecting and violating her. (Hugs his daughter tightly.) The latter is worse than the former, but there are no innocent people in this world of ours, right Gaia?

Gaia (not a victim..a survivor): Correct.

Jeff (continues): Now. You, humans, will end this farce of an existence. You have serious environmental problems which you are not capable of fixing by yourselves. The first step in solving a problem is admitting that you have a problem. The Black Keys Car Service is the best way for you to admit you have a problem.

Jeff and Gaia step out to their electric car.

We’re not suggesting that you need to trash your entire civilization. No. That’d be impractical. You need to recycle it. You need to throw away a lot of stuff that’s bad.

Amateratsu (offstage): I SUGGEST FEEDING ME!

Jeff: Let’s shoot a bunch of shit into the sun, like old junk that’s bad for Gaia. Let’s figure out a way to use nuclear and other technologies sustainably and responsibly. There are no such thing as “bad nukes,” just as there are no such things as “bad phones.” You have technology and you need to learn how to use it wisely. I say I’m wisdom unemployed. I don’t need to spend my time pretending to teach here at the C2 Center for Educational Polyamorous Cockblocking and Blueballing. It’s not very fun, rewarding, or productive for me. (Imagine that, John Lenin!)

It’s not easy for you to accept that you’re a computer virus and that your existence is a threat to lots (not ALL) other life here on Earth. I get that! We have a suggestion...

Gaia (grabs the mic and screams as loudly as possible): Just send an ordinary unmarked car to Jeff’s house at 35 S. Fifth Avenue in Highland Park, NJ, 08904, U.S.A, Earth, Dimension 1(?)=1 / infinity. (Everyone knows my real address is one over infinity!) But make sure it’s like really smooth and cool...you know, like it should be the kind of car service that Dan and Patrick would use and then try to cash in on by selling out...like El Camino.

But it can’t be an El Camino. It should be like a 2002 Ford or something. Not eco-friendly! It needs to be authentic and real, like Akron but WORSE. If I’m being violated, at least let Jeff on the Lester GangBangBus. You know what I mean? SO the one thing about The Black Keys Car Service is that it’s got to be both legitimate and correct. There will be no “Black Keys” cds or music or anything directly related to the Black Keys in the car, obviously. The music should be a delightful mixture of T. Bone Burnett classics, which is to say stuff that would sell at Starbucks and not offend Jeff. This is how Jeff learns! By doing human anthropology. We don’t hate your culture. We just have taste and need a little bit of respect, so like, no music referencing “niggers,” “bitches,” and other unsavory aspects of your filthy human world. I’m sorry, but there’s a difference between you listening to what you like in public and you exposing me and my Daddy and my friends to your pollution. We need to be protected, like in an eco preserve!

Jeff: What Gaia is trying to say is that I don’t ask for much. You’ve been caught with your hand in the cookie jar. That’s fine by me. I’m used to it. But now that you’ve been caught, you have to admit it. You have to admit what you’ve done and you have to do it soon by sending The Black Keys Car Service, which is recognizing me as someone valuable and worthy of dignity and respect, as well as adoration, of course.

Send me a private car with a driver--let him be exactly like the dude who plays bass and also keyboards for the Shins, if not that guy himself!--who recognizes me as JustJeff and takes me where I want to go. For free (i.e. without charging me money or making me feel awkward). You know who I am, so stop pretending! Allow the driver to speak to me like a normal person. It will be great! And please let there be bagels with cream cheese and coffee in the car. Other than that, there’s nothing else for me to request. If you do that, i’ll know that we’re going somewhere together.

If I’m going to save you, Gaia, it’s going to be on my terms, not theirs. We have a lot of work to do and must take practical steps. The Black Keys Car Service is the best way to get moving in the right direction.

Gaia (fidgeting with her phone): OMJ, I hate this phone! (throws it out the window and turns up the music, which I believe is some Dusty Springfield song, but we can’t be sure...)

#black keys #justjeff #memotothemetaverse #michael stipe #cult gaia #gaiaonline #gaia #astronomy #astrology #amateratsu #sci-fi & fantasy #fan fiction #comicon #comic books #theology #rolling stone magazine

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cosmosogler · 7 years

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my mystery doctor appointment was for another ultrasound, since the hospital in flag never actually sent the results to my doctor even though they requested it twice. cool!

the imaging lady told me right away that the hemangioma was still there. that’s not worrying though. it’s like affirming that i do in fact have a birth mark on one of my internal organs. it’s about as dangerous too.

so then mom drove us out to the other side of town to drop off the rental car and pick up our newly repaired car from the dealer. it actually wasn’t the car that my brother crashed in, it was mom’s usual car that she takes to work every day. the clutch was bad or something. when i got home i had a bagel, felt very sick, and when i started feeling better i took wiley out for a walk.

when i got back mom and dad left for vegas. so i won’t see them until sunday. maybe i’ll invite asher over to hang out on saturday or something.

i continued training my pokemon in between taking care of the dogs. i didn’t get very far, since i kept getting distracted by things. like reading while trying to remember to play pokemon haha. everyone is trained and nicknamed at least- just most of them are not level 50 and/or don’t have their movesets finished. and there was the brief period where i forgot to switch out my team when they hit level 50, so a few of them are like 52.

i made my doctor’s appointment to be 40 minutes after my therapy appointment ends tomorrow, figuring that would give me enough time to get over to the doctor’s office after getting out of therapy. then i remembered that the doctor’s office is less than 3 minutes away from the therapy office and kicked myself because i could have put them closer together and saved myself a lot of time.

i have to think of something to talk about in therapy tomorrow. i always bring a lot to talk about and then don’t end up getting to even half of it. but now i can’t think of anything. aside from the things that i wanted to talk about like four weeks ago and still haven’t gotten around to. like LETTING MY GRAD SCHOOLS KNOW ABOUT THE CHANGES TO MY TRANSCRIPT. WHY CAN’T I JUST SEND OUT THAT ONE-SENTENCE EMAIL???

it’s frustrating, but every time i even look at notepad to start composing the short, one-sentence note, i get extremely sweaty and nervous. and then i don’t do it!!! it’s driving me crazy!!!!!!

i could talk about that dream i had last week that’s still kinda unsettling me, but i don’t know how she feels about dreams and i don’t want her to be all “that’s the universe calling out to you!” or something. my dreams are bewildering enough without bringing cosmic consciousness into it.

i suppose i should finally write the dream down. i still remember it pretty well. i kept meaning to for the last eight days and then i just haven’t.

i was on a space voyage to a far-off colony. i got the distinct feeling i’ve had this dream before, even though i do not remember ever having a dream that unfolded in this particular way. i do remember having dreams LIKE it, mostly aesthetically, and maybe the basic premise was something i’ve thought about before, but it was more like having seen a movie before than actually experiencing the stuff that happened. i was expecting it to happen in a particular way.

it didn’t happen that way, but we’ll get there. usually my amazing psychic dream predictions/suspicions are on point, so this was kinda weird.

i was on this spaceship. i was surrounded by other space explorers. there was some kind of alien on board, as there usually is. it was like, a vapor ghost alien. i do not recall actually seeing it. but it bit me on my left arm and left an open sore. it was painful, but i wasn’t very... concerned, i guess? i mean, i recognized that it was inconvenient, but i had really bizarre deja vu that told me it would go away in a few days when i “released” the alien’s baby from my arm. and it was like, well, it was supposed to happen this way, and it had happened before and would probably happen again, so i didn’t really feel angry. just kind of accepting.

but then my shipmates went off-script. they stuffed me in a bathroom that looked a lot like the bathrooms on the boats i’ve been on. i don’t know how they locked me in, since the locks on those are always on the inside, but i didn’t even try to get out. i just kind of sat down in a metal chair thing by the sink and let my arm sit in the tepid water hoping it would help with the pain. it didn’t really.

i was in there for hours. i started dozing after i figured out an almost not uncomfortable position. it was dark, and cold, and boring, so i tried to wait patiently. but my arm stung. after what felt like all night one of the staff finally opened the door and grabbed me by the collar and hauled me to my feet. he opened his mouth to bark out a question and i woke up before i could even think of answering. it was really unsatisfying.

it’s a strange dream in a way that my dreams usually aren’t. there’s usually a lot going on, and i don’t always know what’s going to happen, but if i’m afraid something will happen then i get that cold dread that it will actually happen, and then it does, so i spend a lot of time in my dreams specifically not thinking about certain things. in this one it felt like there wasn’t really anything TO do, except wait. and when it finally seemed like i might be able to get out of the tiny metal room, or try to reassure my shipmates, or do literally anything other than doze in an uncomfortable chair with an open wound on my arm, i wasn’t even given the opportunity to try.

when i woke up it didn’t feel like too big a deal but i’m still thinking about it a week later. what’s up with that? like usually with dreams that stick with me there’s a certain emotional intensity or image or fear, or i wake up and don’t know where i am or what year it is or who’s alive and who’s not any more. but this dream was very deliberate and almost... downplayed, maybe? it wasn’t particularly violent or gory or raw. i wasn’t really anxious, even when things didn’t go according to plan. i was just, really detached, i guess. tired. i sorted of WANTED to be locked in the bathroom for eight hours instead of participate. and when i finally got the chance to participate, my brain was like, never mind.

absolutely baffling.

in a weird way it might be a response to that conversation i had with asher about my dreams not too long ago. where i could make a choice to not play along with my dreams and do nothing instead, because even when i do try to complete the task the dream sets for me i get nothing at the end. no conflict, no final showdown, no friends, no rescued princess. at the end, there’s always nothing, an empty lair, broken glass, old architecture that hasn’t been lived in for a very long time. like i’m centuries late to the party. or there never was a party at all.

but in this dream it wasn’t really a CHOICE to do nothing... at least, not a conscious one. i still kinda felt like i was playing along, or being oddly passive. like, being passive is a thing for real life sammie. dream sammie is always running around like a chicken with its head cut off. it’s exhausting.

and even at the end of this dream full of nothing, there was more nothing!

i guess it makes me think. why do i do things? is it for the sake of doing them? is it to pass the time? is the pleasure in the process of doing the thing, even though at the end i will still feel empty and unsatisfied?

like, even finishing a good book and reveling in the hype and emotion at the end, after a few minutes i’m still sitting there, and time is still passing, and i don’t feel the feeling any more. i guess that’s the nature of emotions, and things in general. temporary. i always figured i did things for the process of doing them, for the time spent putting into the project, more than the end result. maybe my subconscious has something else in mind when i work on projects.

it’s weird, to have to doubt my own mind all the time. to have a huge disconnect between what i think i feel and what i REALLY feel. and no matter how deep i think i went, i didn’t go far enough, because there is obviously still a problem. i didn’t solve the problem, not by getting in better touch with my opinions or anything like that. i say to myself, “that was fun!” and then something inside me says, “what now?” and i feel nothing all over again. what is wrong with me? is that just how depression works? is the depression an extension of my bad attitude or negative thinking? which leads to which, and where can i cut off the cycle most effectively? am i willing to admit that negative thinking makes me feel bad? is that enough to make me want to change how i think? what is a better thought system that still maintains a connection to a harsh reality that i have to acknowledge? how do i accept that life sucks and things die and there’s nothing i can do about it without also feeling bad about that?

what now? what do i do? what should i not do?

well, right now at least, i should go to bed. i’ve been up for 18 hours.

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billscheft · 7 years

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Recap: Adrianne Tolsch Memorial Service (Wed, January 4, St. Peters Church)

It was, as I have said to anyone who’d listen and many who weren’t, beyond anything that I would have not even dared myself to hope for.

We caught every break. The weather was 50 degrees and sunny in January and St. Peters Church turned out to be big enough to handle almost 400 people.

Yeah, you heard me. Close to 400 people showed up. The other day, a grief counselor told me people die as they live. If you’re bitter and alone, you’ll die bitter and alone. If you touched a lot of people, you will be surrounded by a lot of people. I was downstairs with Larry Amoros and Kathleen McCarthy as they came filing in, and we started 10 minutes late because we had to, as they say on Broadway, hold for the house. And when I came up, I looked straight ahead to me chair off to the side of the podium so I wouldn’t make eye contact with the half a dozen people who would collapse me if I saw them. I didn’t really know how big the crowd was until Barbara Gaines, my best friend who produced this thing, told me she ran out of the “good programs” and had to pass out the paper ones. Which I saw, and which were pretty damn good their own self.

I had gotten to the church with Larry around 8:45. Barbara Pinter, who was playing the Mozart nocturne, showed up at 9:00. Two months before she passed, Adrianne and I were in a cab with Barbara and she said, “Mumshki (they called each other “Mumshki”), I want you to learn this Mozart nocturne. I just need to find out what number.” Barbara had been a former concert pianist and Adrianne had never made such a request, but she knew she had been having trouble with her hand and she wanted to give her an assignment. Or maybe she knew she needed a processional. Mozart Nocturne #9, op 2. Mumshki tested out the piano, and pronounced it “lovely.” Like I said, we caught every break.

Three of the four Truants ambled in by 9:15. They did a quick amp and mic check. Fine. Around the same time, I get a call from my bass player, Roger Lipson. “I’m at 619 Broadway and there’s no church here,” he says. “That’s because we’re at 619 Lexington.” “Oh…. I’ll be a little late.” Adrianne’s son, David Kerzner, pulled in around 9:20, plugged his Fender knockoff into the amp and diddled about five seconds. Done.

My one pre-gig technical problem was the podium. The place where you put your notes was too low. In that “no man’s land” between glasses and no glasses. Larry said he had the same problem. Luckily, it is common and Sam Hutcheson, who runs the church and who I’ve known for 15 years, went to the back and fetched a Plexiglas lectern that raised things a crucial two feet.

Larry and I went downstairs with Kathleen as they filed in and told her some of Adrianne’s lines that she’s never heard. Like her aunt that was abducted by aliens: “They took me aboard their spaceship and examined me. Turns out it was a cyst. Benign. Nothing….”

Okay, so now it’s 10:10 and we’re off. Mumshki was wonderful. I got up. I was not nervous. I always knew I had the right format and the right people. I was confident about what I had written, which was mostly a repurposing of Adrianne’s material. And if I lost it, I lost it. As Gary Muhldeer told me about his act years ago, “You can’t fuck this up.” So, for once, my expectations were more than reasonable. And then, I started to speak, and I heard how strong and confident my voice was. That’s when I know I was not just going to be fine, I was going to be good. Because unlike all the other times, I wasn’t doing it for me.

I did 14 minutes and I would post all the remarks here, but we’re a week or so away from the video being done and I want you guys to hear them as they were said. (I have Larry’s remarks too, but you REALLY need to hear him do them. That is the only way you can believe such things were said at a memorial….)

My attitude toward the memorial had always been, “I’m not going to tell you how to feel about her. She belonged to all of you and you all had your deep connection with each other. So, let’s do the celebration she wanted. Let’s shower her with laughs.”

And there were big big laughs. The audience turned out to be as fearless as Adrianne. And as versatile. Not there wasn’t what College Boy used to call “pathos up the ying-yang.” Kathleen McCarthy followed me and spoke so eloquently of their relationship, taking time out to poke Adrianne for her germaphobic and yes, shy, tendencies. And her last words to Kathleen, which were always her last words to Kathleen. “I love you. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Like the MC Adrianne trained me to be, I did a minute in between acts. I told an inside story about the basement of St. Peters that well over 2/3 of the people got, and then brought up Christine Quinn. Let me tell you about Chris Quinn. She has spent her life in public service, which means when she speaks in public, she is duty-bound to self-promote. The closest she came was three times, when she made fun of herself trying to self-promote. She spoke from her giant heart as someone who Adrianne had never stopped trying to reach out to in her own gentle but forthright way. From the day I met her in 2007 during a 0 degree day on the Writers Guild picket line, I have found Christine Quinn to be endlessly singular as public servant. And then you throw in the red hair and the great laugh, and cancel the rest of the auditions.

Before I read Catullus poem #5 in Latin, I said, “There’s been a lot of talk about how bright Adrianne and I were…” There hadn’t, but it got me into the tree story, which is a beauty and you’ll enjoy when the video is done. I got through 13 lines of Latin and then introduced the Truants, who absolutely nailed “And I Love Her.”

And then, then ladies and gentlemen, we decided to test the roof of St Peters Church against exploding laughter.

Julie Halston had called me a couple of days before. “Dahling, how much time do you want?” I told her Larry and I were doing 10-15, but whatever she needs to do to clear her throat. She said, “I know what I’m going to say about Adrianne, but I thought I might add a set piece, because she loved some of the stuff I would do.” I said, “Julie, I’m praying you’re thinking of doing a wedding announcement.” “Yes, I was.”

So, she gets up, her first of three shows on a theater Wednesday, and goes through her history with Adrianne, from the time she was first introduced to her, in a 1982 profile in the Sunday Daily News Magazine, “On the Edge!” to a few years later, when, as a budding Charles Busch muse, she came to see Adrianne perform at 88s in the Village. From there, they became deep friends, who got each other as no one else could. “We would sit and have coffee, a lot of coffee, and we would talk first about what we were doing and what we wanted to do.” And then, Julie dovetailed adroitly, “And we also talked about the kind of people we would never be friends with….” And out came the wedding announcement. One from 2012, that I had never heard her do. Nor had about 385 of the 400 people. Just room-shaking guffaws.

At one point, I worried about Larry Amoros having to follow Julie. But then I remembered, it’s Larry. Adrianne’s and my closest friend, the Adrianne-proclaimed “funniest man on the planet.” A guy that my brother Tom so aptly described as “He makes you laugh, and you cannot believe what he made you laugh at.”

I cannot wait for the video because I cannot remember 90 percent of what Larry said. I know within the first 20 seconds he made references to jerking off 2/3 of Menudo and Danny Thomas liking hookers to take a shit on him. And then he got daring. But in the end, he shifted effortlessly into his relationship with Adrianne, the debt he owed her and how (how about this) hers and my love story is not over.

Afterward, Larry and I tried to remember the last time we had done a set in front of that many people. Not a presentation. A set. For Larry, it was 20 years. For me, 23. But it was the type of crowd you might get twice a year. Who am I kidding? With me, once every two years.

When we were out on the road, most shows had three comics. The headliner went on last. And so it was last Wednesday. Julie, Larry, and your headliner, Adrianne Tolsch. Here’s how I introduced her: “She didn’t want to get old. She didn’t want to die. She wanted to kill. So, let’s let her kill.”

And project high on the sanctuary wall of St Peters was her ten-minute video from the Kravis Center in May, 2008. Almost 70 years old and looking like the incandescent little girl she always was to me. At the absolute height of her powers.

10 minutes later, the room stood up. Stood up. A standing ovation….for a fucking tape. That dropped me. God help me. That dropped me.

But this was a memorial with a two-knockdown rule. I introduced the final act. Her favorite song, Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” played by David Kerzner. Her son. I always knew this would be tough for me to get through, but I fell way short. David began to play this haunting haunting version of “Hallelujah” and I had two thoughts. Thought one: “He’s not singing….” Thought two: “He’s not singing because he can’t sing….” That did it.

And that did it.

We ended up with enough leftover bagels and breakfast pastries from the reception to make us absolute heroes with the church soup kitchen on the second floor.

As I made my way out, my old boss came up to me and said, “I never did a show that good.” I’ll take the lie.

People said wonderful things. The word “perfect” was used a lot. Well, you know what would have made it perfect? If Adrianne had been there. But I know she saw it. I know she heard every word, every note. And that just has to be good enough.

And one day, it just might be.

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lagroupie · 4 years

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Interview: The Velveteers

The Velveteers after their show at The Shacklewell Arms in London in September 2019, through my Olympus Trip.

Last year when visiting my friends from Something Leather in Brighton, they took me out for a concert in London. The Pearl Harts and the Velveteers were playing at the Shacklewell Arms. I was blown away, and although we had to leave shortly after the concert I managed to quickly snap a portrait of the Velveteers, who were very friendly. I really wanted to interview them and I always kept the idea at the back of my mind. Months later, we had a little video chat over Instagram with Demi and Adrian. I am very happy we managed to schedule it despite an 8-hour timezone difference!

Join us as we talk about their lives in Colorado, squatting in a flat in Shoreditch, making music when you’re an introvert, being a Bad Seed, and a lot more.

Many thanks to Demi and Adrian for virtually hanging out with me!

Can you tell me more about your life in Colorado when you’re not touring?

Demi Demitro: Well, our life in Colorado is pretty calm. Usually, we wake up and just make music and art. I wake up and listen to some records. I’m really into collaging and making artwork in general. Today, Adrian and I both made a collage which was fun. (ndlr: they show it to me)

Nice!! Looks like the next album cover!

Adrian Pottersmith: We wanted to use that one for a poster, for some DIY shows that we’re playing in Colorado this month.

Demi: So we usually wake up and do some sort of artwork while listening to music. That’s like our meditation to get the day started. And after that we get to writing, practicing and making demos. I think that’s the majority of what we do!

Adrian: Yeah, we don’t go out that much. And when we do, we instantly regret it! I think we’re too introverted in a weird way, even though we play shows for a living (laughs).

It’s interesting that you say that! Sometimes when I find myself going out to a concert and not taking pictures for example, I feel a bit frustrated. As if I had wasted that evening not doing anything.

Adrian: I totally feel that! I feel so strange when I go to a concert that I’m not playing. But when I’m playing a show and I’m having something to do I feel really good, like I’m in the right place.

Demi: When you want to do something – regardless if you are scared or if you have social anxiety – you just go into it because you know it’s important to you. That’s how it is for me, because I’m a very shy and introverted person, and I spend a lot of time by myself making art. So when I’m at a show, it’s a completely different environment. In order for me to do that, I have to have the space to prepare to be with a bunch of other people.

When we met in England, you were doing a UK tour. I did a bit of research, and it seems that you stayed in England for a while?

Demi: Yeah, let’s see… I think that on this tour we maybe had a week where we weren’t touring and could relax, and then we flew back to America. This was a two-and-a-half-week tour. But last year we did a tour to the UK and we were there for a month. We toured for two-and-a-half weeks, and then we had two weeks where we were just hanging out in London!

Adrian: We were using our minds for being there for two weeks, because it’s a cool place but we didn’t really have that much to do once the tour was over.

Demi: And we didn’t really have that much money, and everything in the UK is expensive. But we were squatting in this flat in Shoreditch for two weeks, just going insane! It was very interesting, because the flat was in the heart of Shoreditch and there was this famous bagel shop just outside our window. People would be up all night long, and it was like watching a reality TV show. Drug deals going on constantly… it was an interesting two weeks.

Adrian: We don’t want to assume anything, but from many hours looking out at the people, there was this one person who seemed to be homeless and asking for change. After a while, we started noticing that there would be people coming and giving them this bag… so the homeless person would take the bag, go into the bagel shop and exchange it for something. And then they would come back out and give the person who gave the bag another bag. It was probably a harmless thing, but…

Demi: No, it seemed like a drug deal! (laughs)

youtube

Oh my God! (laughs) I also wanted to talk about the fact that you chose to play as a two-drummers, one-guitarist band. How did it happen?

Demi: We started off as a two-piece, and over the years we would get a lot of comments that would compare us to other two-piece bands like the Black Keys or the White Stripes. It was something that we were thinking about for a while. The idea of the two-piece band felt like a loophole, except taking that loophole and extending it, making it something that hasn’t fully been done before with just a person on guitar and two drummers. And then we had the opportunity to try it out, and it was something that just felt like the thing we were looking for all along. It added lots of new elements to expand our music.

Adrian: The funny thing is, before we even go on and our instruments are just on the stage, we can see that the people in the crowd are just so perplexed by our setup! Because it’s very strange, it looks like one drum kit but it doesn’t, and there’s just one guitar with two amps… It doesn’t make any sense until we get up there. And it still doesn’t make completely sense until the end of the show!

Demi: To me, the way the drum kit is set up looks like a spaceship! I like the idea of people thinking “What is that? Are they really sharing a drumkit?” (laughs)

Could you tell me more about your song Bad Seed? What does Bad Seed mean exactly? I’m also asking as a non-native English speaker haha.

Demi: For me, Bad Seed means someone who is like a rebel, but also someone you would consider as a bad person. Most seeds sprout, grow into flowers and bloom. And then, some seeds grow into something else, a little more dark. So I would think a bad seed is someone out of the ordinary, like a black sheep.

Let’s imagine you find a magic box with three super-powers in it: super speed, super strength and flying. You can only choose one. Which band member has which?

Adrian: I would say super strength for you, I want the flying one for me, and the speed one for John.

Demi: For me, I would do super flying, you would do super strength, and John would do super speed!

What can we expect from the Velveteers in the future?

Demi: Well, I think 2020 is going to be a really exciting year. We’re excited to get more music out into the world. We have a lot of stuff that we’ve been working on. Lots of new music coming!

https://www.facebook.com/TheVelveteers/

#the velveteers

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writingcommons-blog1 · 7 years

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“What Wasn’t to Grow” by Zemerluan M.

There was no sweet. No sesame chicken. No black-eyed things with swollen breasts and broken legs. No primal howls, no lions or dinosaurs. No train cars, no homeless. No wealth. No coffee grounds, no fingernails, no love. No suffering. No pretenses. No sadness, no guilt. No glass and concrete, no cemeteries. No spaceships, no novels, no paints or brushes or skinks or centipedes or headaches. No urge or misappropriation. No chocolate, no comic books. No sidewalks. No bullets, no more words or spines or salad forks. No endearing smells. No more plastic or supermarkets or child locks in car doors or memory or wet clothes on cold radiators. No more wading into rivers, no falling out of love, no votes left to cast, no hands to construct cheap furniture, no brains to consider their own senselessness, alone in the dark. No more hurry, no more keeping score.

No timestamps or routine or overpriced drinks. No sociopolitical spectra, no tuxedos. No rice or viruses or computer mice or record collections or formalities or false modesty or flags to wave. No more photographs or affairs or vows or laughing, or even the very last whisper of fleeting, desperate hope before it all went.

None of it.

None of anything I could think of, none of anything anybody could think of remained. The reality was that there were too many people in the world, too many things remained that resembled people and implied people and hurt people to continue. Too much pollution in the air and the water and in ourselves. Too much dissonance, disparity, noise. There was far too much. There needed to be quiet, so the world would tremble. So I could breathe. It was fairly easy, to know restriction removed from everything, about as easy as getting up from your bed and flipping the light switch. The softness of the motion wove over the continents and the seas, and it all just went. How easily it all uproots itself completely and just melted, gone into something warm and far away. All of the noise was gone. The universe becomes lighter, duskier. A slight, thin shadow is cast over the prairie and the forest floors and the bottoms of the seas. The sun spins sallow and turns a sloppy pirouette as it begins to fold. No act of god, no armageddon, no apocalypse. No greater plan or power. There just was. That what wasn’t, simply never was at all, wiped from the annals of the souls of atoms, only a sliver of a ghost left in the machine to feebly and unconsciously serve as a vessel for that which was to peer into this new time and wonder. And there, in what would have been the fields of asphodel, that is, if there were any around to recount the myth, is where I sit and let it all wash over me, too, waiting in vain for something to return, or for me to end.

I was there in the long, gilded grasses, and wondered at the sky and how much longer the world would last like this, without anything to keep it up. The sun was a little more than a day old now, and nothing faced it but feathery, golden grass, the kind that seems almost fake. But for all of it, there was no judgement to be passed or scorn to be flinched at. I might have done the same thing if I had the will. To just stop it all. It is a comforting idea. But even as the forests slowly cracked and fell to stone and the lichen of forever ago, and the seas grew wider and denser and spawned voids of almost-memories and deep cold in of themselves, and I simply sat and let myself be rubbed out of the world, I felt a pang of regret for all the bumblebees and ladybugs that had to have gone away for this to come about.

The grass and the chaff and the mountains and the willows. Rocky cliffsides grown brittle, old footholds, and brown leaves in the pebbly riverbed. Through the trees, moonlight dribbles through cracks in the bark, pooling emerald on the forest floor. Moss is creeping silently, mushrooms unfurl. The spaces where whales never were still moves like them. I remembered the old world and could not find anything in me for it, save a quiet sense of urgency. The wind rises and pulls a current through the fields where I sit. I have not known my fill of this place, but I am an oversight here all the same, so I am content. I can feel it come for me, too, the absence of force, like memories that are only real between sleep and waking. I am swept up in it, the grandness and the wind and the ancient and the valleys. I don’t even get a chance to breathe. _______________________________________________________________________

Quietly, and without much tact, the world pulls the pieces of itself together as best it can, adroitly assembling its soft, sunken edges before the foot of a white, rigid bed frame swathed in an unapologetically red bedspread. Splaying out in the ink before morning, there is no alarm decrying the start of a new day, no immediate resolution that needs to be met; instead, the small room is darkened, the frigid radiator, standing stock still, shameless in its dusty corner. There are modest metal shelves plastered in novels and biographies and mementos, gone brittle and almost forgotten. The closest thing to a nightstand is a little blue step stool next to the bed, the unwilling receptacle for keys, mostly used gift cards, post-it note lists, a few dollar bills, and a pair of beaten-up headphones. Dark, abstract forms lying dejectedly on the tiny shag carpet come into focus as the sky begins to stretch and shudder- pairs of pants and a multitude of t-shirts with fading graphics seem to slip into being, leaving the odd sock or pair of boxers to their own futures, somewhere neither here nor there. It is a strange little place, molded from the desperate scramble of goings-on with heavy eyelids and a wonderful bedhead in mind. Nelson Algren, Haruki Murakami, and Roxane Gay tough it out together in a plaintive little stack next to an arm melting off the side of the bed, absorbed in corduroy lines and spasms of involuntary movement.

Dusty sunlight begins to feed through the blue-cloth blinds; ignorant birds stationed outside in the tree next door take their time making as much noise as possible in the archaic hopes of finding a suitable mate. The little garden curated by the elderly Chinese landlord is out of place and struggling to survive, cut from the rest of the concrete in a slapdash, innocent fashion. That garden looks as though it was hewn from fever dreams and charcoal drawings, earth lumpy and rich black, wiry sprouts shooting out at odd angles, solid and still in the June sun, but it is all happy to be nonetheless. The promise of winter melons and squash and bean sprouts tended by that earth have lasted a lifetime already, strapped tightly to the earth by the fear of the shadow cast by the red brick, two story apartment.

Inside, it is carpeted foyer stairs and dark hardwood floors throughout. In the apartment he lives in, records line the hallway, just below coats and hats set out all year long; there was almost no more room to spare. Forgotten maps and twenty-year old illustration sparsely decorates the wall. A white ceiling fan sits motionless overhead, collecting dust above the bulk of a vast record collection- all of the visible artists vaguely unknown to him. Tiny, hexagonal tile plasters the thin bathroom floor, beyond which his parents’ room sits warmly in its part of the home; secluded and welcoming.. Metal molds of teeth and eyes and the new National Geographic sits below a frosted window in the bathroom with a large plant beside it. Everything is close together, every possible space is used, but there remains an idea of cohesion and nothing is claustrophobic, surprisingly. Photographs of David Bowie and John F. Kennedy and himself as a child are strung along the walls- cards and paperwork lies across the top of the piano and table his family found in the alley some years ago. A machete adorned with traditional leatherwork sits peacefully behind a lamp next to the flat screen television sent to his family on accident. There are a multitude of things and ideas and halfway done projects, but almost nothing seems like it’s out of place. It’s lived in and old and there are memories of good tidings and friends come and gone and cold winter nights and pensive yelling and familiar smells. It’s exactly what you’d expect, and that counts for a lot.

Pulling his mind out of the tar pits of black dreams forgotten before conception, he knocks over his keys before finding his phone. A few messages, but the important thing is the time.

11:46 a.m.

A summer breeze floats into the room and reminds him of outside. He sits up and stretches hard. His body feels good today. He patiently listens for other footsteps before deciding that he is alone. Swinging his legs off the bed and hoisting his frame awkwardly towards the shelves that hold most of his clothes, he considers the day and pulls on blue shorts and a white shirt. Figures breakfast is a good idea. Meandering into the pantry, he snorts at the cereal and goes about toasting a bagel. Yawning twice while it heats up, he collects a butter knife and the cream cheese. The birds have gone, from the sound of it. The screen door lets the same breeze into the kitchen. Things are okay. Letting the bagel crisp a little, he walks around the apartment for a minute or two and reacquaints himself with the space. Removing the bagel, he sloppily handles the cream cheese, sucking his thumb clean of the stuff a few seconds later. Everything is returned somewhat carefully. The bagel is plain. The cream cheese is plain. The kitchen is almost aglow in the dark. No lights are on. Natural light only proliferates the areas by the windows. It is quiet. Slowly eating his bagel, he checks his phone, dully excited about the messages.

Wait. He forgot to get water.

Sitting back down, water in tow, he scrolls through his friend’s 1 a.m. masterpiece, horribly sweet and unmistakably drunk. He considers the world again before he carefully swallows the next bite of bagel. He takes a breath.

Cleaning up the bagel crumbs, and in the mood for something interesting, he pees and flosses and brushes his teeth and combs his hair and puts deodorant on. Retrieving his keys and opening the screen door, he walks barefoot out into the backyard and stops for a second or two to look at the sky. Looks like rain. He opens the gate and walks carefully down the gangway. He made a note to leave his headphones inside. He feels a little naked without them, but it is good to remove oneself from comfort zones sometimes. The concrete is warm and nobody is on his block. Walking down the street, he makes mental note of the absence of the college kids who sometimes walk around. He sees a beer can left next to a sapling.

Silent, he goes to retrieve the can. He’ll throw it in the recycling bin when the alley begins at the end of the block. Having something in his hands, the sudden occupation of the warming, negative space between his fingers, is unpleasant this morning. The slight calluses on his feet rub pleasantly against the sidewalk, and he remembers to take a deep breath. The breeze continues at uncertain intervals, and the trees shake drily. Definitely looks like rain. He reaches the bin and tosses the can. The sound of it hitting the bottom of the bin surprises him. He fears he might have disturbed everyone in the neighborhood. Quickly walking past the alley, the noise still rings in his ears for a few seconds. Remember, he says to himself, it is 12:30 p.m. His face is hot. He reaches the end of his block, and takes a look in both directions. On one side, a sleepier, greener few miles of apartment buildings and aging houses. On the other, the sound of cars and his train stop and a college campus and more beyond but he cannot be bothered to remember it now.

He turns left. The sky is an absence of melody- simply bright shadow where there once was a sun. A more profound awareness of himself and his body begins to prod at his skull. He always forgets how much hair grows out of his legs. Most of the buildings he passes were built a century ago, he’s told. He always takes his shoes off before entering a home with hardwood floors. He figures that the craftsman who created those pretty, timeworn pieces would not care too much for shoes tracking nonsense everywhere. He blinks twice, quickly, and returns to the middle of the sidewalk. He had been straying back and forth, but since there didn't seem to be anyone walking with him then, he figured he could be a little selfish with the space. The sidewalk, he decided, is much too solid. Not meant for the likes of bare toes. It is interesting to him, that the human body had developed feet with arches, with curvature and definition, to adequately traverse the hills and uneven ground of a pre-human world. And yet, everything now is flat. Probably doesn't help that he wears skate shoes most of the time. The wind becomes cooler and he wonders how early man survived without heating and indoor plumbing. A silent thank you to distant ancestors and their dogged perseverance. A porch groans some feet away. The noise is not sharp enough to startle, but some uneasiness sets in. Quickly moving now, he seeks to remove the chill from his skin. Turning another corner, still keeping to the left, dark red apartment buildings and old limbs arc wildly overhead. It is almost silent. The trees whip violently in the wind for a time. It begins to drizzle. The filling stench of rain on asphalt is in his throat. He wants to run, but there are people on this street. He’s not in the mood to be glanced at. He settles for a slow jog. After he passes the couple walking down the street, he turns another corner onto a more shaded block. The rain comes down a little bit harder. He looks directly up at the sky. A raindrop falls directly into his eye. Gasping a little bit, he shakes his head down and trips over his own feet a little bit. This sobers him, but also rekindles his burning desire to run, to reinvent the bagel-making and the stretching from an hour ago. There is nobody but the stormy wind and the sedans lining the street and the almost-white columns of the church across the street. Given the city, this is nothing short of a miracle.

He consults himself.

He reaches a decision quickly.

He remembers himself as a small child, head newly shaven, infatuated with ancient creatures in a younger world.

His feet are taloned, scaled, primed to beat through the impending downpour.

The breath before the kickoff is always empty.

His calf constricts.

His newly-made body rips through the smell of wet asphalt, shoving sideways against the wind, hurling it back for breath and the illusion of strength amidst the forest growing in his lungs. Everything is green and wet and the impending storm whispers at him to stop. Red brick and a passing police car collide noiselessly behind him in the vacuum of his wake. Every clamp that stretched his bones and forced him cast his own flesh down, forgotten. He feels like his insides are made of heatless, open light, older even than the sensation of walking on one’s own feet. His heart is gone. His nerves are shot. His pulp is evaporated, sweetly rising into the sky, beckoning the storm thunder. He is something old, so old that it has forgotten what it is, how it was, how it went. It is in these moments and never again. The second he remembers to wish that this moment would last but a minute longer, the light goes and his insides go dark once more, clumped wetly together in a fashion that barely churns at all. He slows, and finally stops. The storm starts at this moment. His skull is awash in a tingle that maddens him. He takes several gulps of air, and then a deep breath. He keeps walking forward on his raw feet, looking for something more in the curtain of rainwater and his dripping hair. His shirt is stuck to him. He crosses another alley. He takes a few more steps before he feels something grating in him. He goes another half block before he looks down and sees a trail of pink behind his waterlogged blue shorts. Turning his left foot over, he sees a reasonably large piece of glass stuck in the toe immediately next to his big one. Wanting desperately to break something precious, he hobbles awkwardly back to his darkened apartment, hoping beyond hope that the lights are still off.

Fumbling for his keys, he keeps one hand on his leg for dramatic effect, as though he wanted to guilt trip the powers that be. Opening the back doors and dragging his leg in, he retrieves a paper towel and holds it there with his heel, scooting it along the floor so as to not get blood anywhere. Flipping the light on in the bathroom, he hoists his foot up to the sink and assesses the damage. It definitely is a piece of glass in his toe. That much is certain. There is something calming about it, a clear, difficult-to-define form gently resting in the red and the pink. The glass is angular, and if he were to look into it, he could have made out a rich rose hue. The more he stares, however, the more it begins to hurt. Uncomfortable with the thought of having to pull the glass out of his foot, of disturbing that picture, so completely natural, worried him. He sighs, positions his thumb and index finger as cleanly around the most rigid corners of the glass, and draws his hand swiftly towards himself, constricting his fingers as he did so, so as to grip the glass and pull it free in one motion. A new dribble of blood makes its way lazily out of his toe, falling past his foot to find the white ceramic of the sink. He laid the glass aside and began to dab at the cut with a cotton swab doused in isopropyl alcohol. It starts to sting. He retrieves a band-aid, wraps it tightly around his toe, returns his foot gingerly to the floor, and cleans everything up. He holds the glass in his palm for a moment or two, considering whether or not to trash it. He compromises, and shoves it deep into the soil of the potted plant sitting on the windowsill. He let the band-aid wrapper flutter into the garbage, and strode gingerly out of the bathroom, off to change out of his semi-drenched clothes.

He steps into the living room and sits down on the couch. He considers turning on the T.V., but it’s been years since he’s watched anything substantial. He’s not even sure if people make television programs worth watching anymore. He sits and wilts, eventually focusing on an arbitrary point on the wall, an arbitrary point in space. Any other. He leaves himself for a little.

he sighs

His phone is still damp from the rain, and it is warmed by his hand, shaking slightly. He rubs the screen on the sofa cushion, and lets it rest there for a moment, appreciating the quiet and the moments in between concerning himself with things that must go on in his life. We all confront things and deal with potential problems, and a lot of technology kind of exacerbates that shit, he thinks. There will always be too many things he does not want to have to think about. Beginning to take a deep breath, his lungs stop him short with a spasm and a hiccup, which detaches him from the last of his catharsis. He is now consciously aware he is alone in the apartment. It’s nice. Turning his phone over, it is a slew of emails demanding to be attended to, loan offers and paperwork to be filled out and reminders of his high school graduation only weeks before. He will most likely never see any of those people again. He hated high school, but he liked the folks he had to suffer alongside. Blankly deleting emails while he remembers walking across the stage at the Navy Pier ballroom, he sees another text, and gently cherishes the beauty of a vested interest in that which has not yet seen the light of day..

Outside, the sky darkens.

It is not text, but a picture. Quality is lacking, but it is obviously a sunny beach with many smiling countenances fighting for space in the photo. It is of a place that is very far away, and probably, from the looks of the buildings stretching above the beach in the distance, very expensive to reside in for any period of time. He recognizes only one face- it is just as jovial and playful as the rest. The sky there is cloudless and more shades of blue than he knew could fit in the atmosphere. For a moment, he is swept up in the giddiness of that beach. If any were still around, he might have contracted a classical painter to immortalize this scene forever. Soon enough, the twisted, smiling forms jostling for position and the amateurish quality of the photograph and the resounding aura of happiness and completeness overwhelm him, and his hands, shaking slightly, quit the app.

Quickly standing up, he does not anticipate the head rush that overwhelms him. He nearly topples to the floor. Annoyed by his own clumsiness, he walks shamefully to the bathroom, touching his chin, absentmindedly massaging his stubble. It took him three days to grow it. Stopping before the mirror, he is momentarily confused yet again by the sight of his own face glowering back. He often forgets what his own face looks like, never certain of its complexion or features besides the skin tone mildly reminiscent of an undercooked gingerbread man. Other than that, his face is a mystery to him. Looking at it now, in the low light of the bathroom, it seems gaunt, hastily chiseled. If only Picasso was known for his sculpture. He admires his own features for a moment, before the body in the mirror seems more fitting for this world than his own. Turns away. Holds his head in his hands and sits down on the toilet. Stands up again. He does not know why he happens as he does.

He begins to speak. This is the only way he can quiet himself, the pieces of his mind pulling at every conceivable thing to waste his time on, every frustrating burning isolating screaming quiet terrible tender thing confronting him, mired in the rest of the world. The sound of his voice is terribly low and strange, like some sinister incantation in a language long dead. He does not know why it happens. He speaks faster, stumbling over words that so many public speakers handle with ease. The parts of his arms that have not touched the sun are much whiter than the rest of him. He is the in between. There is still nobody home. He is still talking, not aware of any of these things right now. He is saying that he does not know why it happens, why the thing at the back of him insists on violently squeezing his heart, intent on unearthing things in him that he has forgotten exist. He does not know why the world is not fair. He is wondering if equal unfairness is fair. Yes, he says, it must be so. The sun suddenly hits his face, and he has to squint to catch a glimpse of the innumerable shapes before him, writhing silently in assent. The invisible America beyond murmurs with him. He is the President, he is aide to the President, he is Undisputed and Complete Ruler of the World. He wants to make it better. He will make it better. For everybody. Yes, did you know that if all of the food that is wasted by Americans is instead redistributed to those in need, world hunger would literally come to an end right then and there? And if the governments of the world simply got over themselves, if all of the terrible politicians and worse leaders simply grew a pair and pooled their resources for the betterment of the world, we’d all be much better off. He is not sure if he is a socialist or a democrat or a Marxist or communist. These things mean little to him. He just wants a peaceful world full of an environment that is not choked with smog, that is not on the verge of the verge of collapse. He wants a world in which everyone has equal opportunity. He is not an idealist. He is not a pessimist. He wants a world that publishes interesting things in the news and reigns in big pharmaceutical companies and the fast food industry and the prison system and intersectional inequality and he wants it better. It would not be difficult. It would be really very easy, if we all put everything down and worked towards it. He wants to see the redwoods one day. He wants to drive his partner out to national parks and little diners off the side of the road and interesting pit stops in an environmentally friendly, inexpensive car and just enjoy being together. His audience shudders in delight and triumph. Maybe it can happen. He has a vision in his cloudy, disagreeable head. One of a life well lived. He is older, perhaps in his forties or fifties. He has seen many things, but he sits at a little chair in an elderly home somewhere pretty, maybe on the edge of a little wood under a mountain, and he would just write what he liked with some whiskey on the side. There would be a lake somewhere nearby, and he’d maybe have a cat that would come and go and winter and spring would be distinct parts of the year. He wants to be alone. He almost wants to have a child, just to prove that he could raise it well. The house on the edge of the wood recedes into the gloom when he remembers the five-thousand-dollar private loan he still has to fill out some paperwork for.

He doesn’t want to be famous or important, so long as he can have his little house and his cat and his liquor and his forest. But it seems like he’s going to have to fight to make it there, and he is just

he’s just so tired.

He stops pacing . Looking back into the mirror, not much has changed since seven minutes ago. He wants his reflection to beat the shit out of him. Dares it move independently. Lightly grazing the mirror with his knuckle, he stumbles out of the bathroom and moves to his bed at the back of the apartment. It is the same as he left it. Things are strewn all about, but he finds his earbuds and his phone and lays down. The wi-fi doesn’t extend to this part of the house, but he plays a YouTube video anyway, since he doesn’t have the song he wants downloaded. A full, melodic anthem of abuse and righteous, illegal dreams enters his head, and he isn’t sure how much longer he’ll be able to loop this song. He falls asleep on the seventh run through, rain still pattering, sliding down the windows, and the soft glow of the sun setting in him pours out into the room. He will wake up ravenous and parched and confused as to why his toe hurts.

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spiceukonline · 7 years

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My Oscar Predictions 2017

The nominations for this year’s Oscars have just been released and before anybody panics, there does appear to be nominees with a little more melanin. That’s right people; unlike last year’s whitewash of an Oscars, the 89th Academy Awards nominees include some stellar black talent including Viola Davis, Denzel Washington, and Ruth Negga. There’s even a little British-Indian thrown in the mix in the shape of Dev Patel. Sufficed to say, it’s a hell of a lot more diverse than last year.

All being well, this should mean that the run-up to the Oscars will be slightly less controversial. Although, I’m sure over the coming weeks something controversially controversial will crop up persuading some to controversially boycott the ceremony leading to controversy.

But until that happens, let me reveal who I think will win those all-important little gold men:

Best Picture – La La Land

Source: indiewire.com

Honesty is the best policy, as they say, so I’ll be honest- I haven’t seen it. But with people going on about it like it’s the best thing since sliced bagels, you don’t have to be psychic to predict that this rom-com musical is going in for the Oscar win. Besides, it stars Emma Stone who is just brilliant and Ryan Gosling who is just gorgeous. Is he good at acting? I don’t know; I can’t say that’s what I was paying attention to, to be honest.

Best Actor – Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge

Source: fandango.com

Andrew Garfield plays the role of real-life U.S. Army corporal Desmond Doss, the first conscientious objector to ever be awarded the Medal of Honor. I got goosebumps from the trailer alone, so Garfield’s portrayal of Doss is definitely one that should be recognised. I’m sure Gosling is great in La La Land, but Hacksaw Ridge is a powerful story, and earns Garfield an Oscar-worthy performance.

Best Actress – Ruth Negga, Loving

Source: kccci.com

Another true story, Loving chronicles the lives of Richard and Mildred Loving; a white man and black woman who married in 1967 despite Virginia’s anti-miscegenation laws which prohibited whites from marrying non-whites. This law was overturned thanks to Mildred after her and her husband spent a year in prison. I am a sucker for true stories like this, especially ones that tell such an important story like Loving.

Best Supporting Actor – Dev Patel, Lion

Source: variety.com

Another true story (stop me if I’m getting predictable) in which Dev Patel plays Saroo Brierley, an Indian man who is adopted by an Australian family as a child after getting separated from his own. The film is based on Saroo’s autobiographical account of losing his family in India, living in Australia, and finally being reunited with his biological family 25 years later. I might be overdoing it with the Oscars for ‘true movies’ but I think an actor who can capture the experience of a real person deserves the recognition.

Best Supporting Actress – Naomie Harris, Moonlight

Source: variety.com

Moonlight is an emotional film playing out the life of Chiron, a gay black man, from his childhood to adult life. Naomie Harris plays his abusive drug-addict mother, a stark contrast to roles she has taken on before. So much so, that she almost turned down the offer of the role. Despite the change in character type, Naomie is still phenomenal in the role displaying her abilities as an actress.

Best Animated Feature Film – Zootopia

Source: filmgamed.com

This year’s nominees contained two Disney films; Moana and Zootopia, and as Disney law states, it will probably be one of those films that win the Oscar. Moana was a beautiful film and I’d say my favourite of the two, but Zootopia carried this very ~important~ moral message of everyone being different but still the same on the inside. It will probably win an Oscar just for the feels.

Best Costume Design – Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them

Source: filmtakeout.com

The most recent in J. K. Rowling’s Wizarding World films, this film was bound to be full of costumes that look just as magical and fantastical as the beast themselves. As every category seems to, this one also contained La La Land. I’m sure their costumes are lovely and everything, but they ain’t wizards, so…

Best Make-up and Hairstyling – Star Trek Beyond

Source: slate.com

This category only contained three films; Star Trek Beyond, Suicide Squad, and some random Swedish film I’ve never heard of it. As anyone should do when judging this category, I just looked at the characters’ hair and makeup and chose the most-impressive looking ones. That happened to be the aliens and other strange things from Star Trek Beyond.

Best Original Score – La La Land

Source: billboard.com

La La Land is a musical and everyone has been raving about it. Therefore, it will probably win. Need I explain more?

Best Original Song – ‘How Far I’ll Go,’ from Moana

Source: movies.disney.com

Source: blog.wsj.com

This category had two nominations for La La Land for the songs ‘Audition (The Fools Who Dream)’ and ‘City of Stars.’ Despite the hype around La La Land, I chose the song from Moana because I personally just think it’s better.

Visual Effects – Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Source: ign.com

To be honest, again, this is the only film that I’ve seen in this category but I still think it will win and let me tell you why. 1) It’s technically a Disney film so carries that title, 2) it has loads of cool spaceships in it, and 3) it has loads of explosions in it. The cool spaceships and explosions are visual effects which is why it should win the Oscar. Case closed.

#Awards #Fantastic Beasts and where to Find Them #Film #Hacksaw Ridge #Hollywood #Kyle Grizzell #LaLa Land #Lion. Moonlight #Loving #Moana #Oscars 2017. Oscars #Star Trek #star wars #Zootopia

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