#anyways at least my love for vampire weekend has been represented

[babymetaldoll]

Danger Days - Chapter one: “Nobody puts Baby in a corner”

Pairing: OCx Matthew Gray Gubler + My Chemical Romance. I know. Weirdest mix ever.

Summary: MCR has only one more drummer audition before they have to start touring again. None of them knows their last chance is a girl. Matthew Gray Gubler's girlfriend.

Word count: 5,4K

Warnings: Cursing, and funny shit so far.

A/N: Ok... I don't know if you'll ever read this shit, but I am in love with this story. So, I'll start posting it.

Masterlist

Chapter one | Chapter two | Chapter three | Chapter four | Chapter five | Chapter six | Chapter seven | Chapter eight | Chapter nine | Chapter ten | Chapter eleven | Chapter twelve | Chapter thirteen | Chapter fourteen | Chapter fifteen | Chapter sixteen | Chapter seventeen | Chapter eighteen | Chapter nineteen | Chapter twenty | Chapter twenty one | Chapter twenty-two | Chapter twenty-three | Chapter twenty-four |

::: Los Angeles, October 13th, 2010 :::

There are many ways to be locked down: quarantine, jail, or long trips. But being locked down with pretty much strangers has to be the worst. Or weirdest. Or more exciting, depending on how you see it.

Frank Iero walked fast. He was late. In his defense, Iero was always late. He didn’t try to make it on time today because he didn’t want to tour. But they had to. He just wanted to stay fucking home for a while. That’s precisely what he had said to the band when they saw the schedule for the following months. He was tremendously worn out. But he had to. The thing that made it all worse for him was knowing they had to get a new drummer, ‘cos Bob was out of the picture, and they didn’t have a replacement yet. They had tried a few guys out there, but they didn’t seem to get it. It wasn’t just playing the songs. It meant being part of it. Whatever that means.

They only had one more option on their list, and they were all hoping it would work, ‘cos they didn’t really have a lot of time to find someone else.

Ray was sitting on the floor in the practice studio, playing with his guitar, all alone in the place. It was early, and he knew it. Well, he was on time, but he knew everybody was always late for rehearsal.

- “Hello?”- a brown-haired woman walked in with a tall, thin guy and smiled- “I’m Joey. I’m here for the drummer audition.”

It sounded more like a question than a statement. Ray stood up and shook her hand, smiling.

- “Ray Toro, nice to meet you.”- he looked at the guy and shook his hand

- "Matthew Gray Gubler, my pleasure."

- "I’m sorry the rest of the guys aren’t here yet,"- Ray apologized as Joey looked around and sighed. She hated it when people were late.

- "Maybe we can go get a coffee"- Matthew suggested, and the young woman nodded- "I saw a place just around the corner."

- "Do you want one?"- she asked Ray

- "Yeah, sure"- he said, confused by her unexpected gesture.

- "How do you drink it?"

- "Lots of cream, lots of sugar"- Joey smiled and nodded.

- "Ok, Mr. Wolf. We’ll be right back"- Ray chuckled when he noticed she had gotten the Tarantino joke and watched her and who seemed to be her boyfriend walking out the room.

- "Are you sure you wanna do this?"- Joey frowned and looked at Matthew after he just shot the question while they walked out of the coffee shop.

- "What?"

- "Don’t get me wrong, it’s just that you don’t know any of those guys"

- "Yeah, I know, but they are a professional and major band! This could be great for my career"- he nodded and stared at his girlfriend, cupping her face with a hand and looking right into her eyes.

- "I just don’t want you to feel discouraged if you don’t make it"- he whispered.

- "Why wouldn’t I make it? You said I’m an excellent drummer, I’ve worked with many great bands, I’m good at my job!"

- "I know you are the best drummer, Yami"- Matthew quickly answered, trying to rearrange his words- "I’m just trying to say do your best, I know you are gonna be great."

He held her hands as he stood in front of her and looked into her eyes sweetly.

- "I’m just scared those guys are gonna break your heart."

- "Come on! If they don’t like me, it’s their loss."

Joey would say those things, but she was a nervous wreck inside. She wanted the band to love her. She needed the job, her career as a drummer really needed a boost, and since her last band had broken up, she only got small recording sessions and a few backup gigs with some bands. But that was it. Working with My Chemical Romance was just what she needed.

- "So, where’s the drummer?"- Gerard asked and looked around- "I hate when people are late, it’s rude! It shows you don’t care."

- "You just got twenty minutes late"- Mikey quickly said and raised an eyebrow at his brother- "So shut up."

- "Wait, he has a point"- Frank added and looked at Gerard for a second, who was walking around the practice studio playing with his hair- "We can be late, we are the band, he can’t be late, he is auditioning."

Ray was about to correct his friend when Joey and Matthew walked into the room.

- "Hi!"- she said and smiled- "Here’s your coffee"- Joey walked to Ray, and he thanked her immediately.

- "How much is it?"

- "Dude, don’t worry, it’s just coffee,"- meanwhile, Gerard, Frank, and Mikey shook Gubler’s hand.

- "Nice to meet you, Joey"- Frank said and looked at the guy in front of him, thinking he seemed familiar- "Wait, did you play a gig with Mellon Collie last week?"- Matthew frowned and shook his head, while Mikey turned to Joey and asked.

- "Can you get me a coffee too? I take it black with almond milk."

- "Make that two!"- Gerard said, raising his hand, and Joey looked at Ray, not getting what was going on.

- "So, Joey, we checked at your resume, and to be honest, it’s pretty impressive,"- Frank said and grabbed the sheet of paper from upon an amplifier- "You’ve played with some great bands, like the Distillers."

- "Thanks"- Joey said and smiled, but Frank raised an eyebrow at her, not getting why she had answered.

- "She is Joey"- Ray explained- "He is Matthew, her boyfriend."

- "Hi"- Joey waved, and the whole band looked at her astonished- "Yeah, girl drummer, I know…"

- "I’m sorry, I just… Joey didn’t sound like a girly name"- Frank apologized and cut her a short smile.

- "Don’t worry, it is not the first it happens"

Joey lied. It was the first time it happened. It was uncomfortable ‘cos it made her feel the band wasn’t expecting to audition a woman for the position. Maybe they didn’t want her. She thought her resume implied she was a girl, but apparently, it didn’t.

- "So… well, you’ve worked with amazing bands"- Frank repeated- "Why do you wanna work with us?"

- "Well, I admire your work. I think touring with you represents a significant challenge in my career. And mostly because I don’t have a job, and I really need one right now."- the band looked at Joey in silence until Mikey chuckled. At least he got the joke.

- "Tell us more about you,"- Gerard asked as he lit a cigarette and kept walking around the practice studio- "You can sit down if you want."

Joey nodded but didn’t move, she wasn’t feeling comfortable in the room, and a part of her wanted to stay on her feet and close to the door, ready to run away.

- "I’m from Seattle, so grunge was my biggest influence growing up. Ever since I was six, I wanted to be Matt Cameron or Jimmy Chamberlin… or Kim Gordon"- the young woman made a pause and sighed. She wasn’t feeling the love.

- "I studied music at Berklee after my first band experience, mainly because my dad said if I wanted to be in music, I had to have proper education."

- "Tell us about the bands you’ve worked with"- Ray asked.

- "I’ve worked with Dashboard Confessional; we did a small tour last summer. On the road, I’ve been with Julieta Venegas, she is an amazing Mexican musician."

- "You toured with Vampire Weekend"- Matthew added and looked at his girlfriend.

- "Right! When their drummer broke his arm. That was a fun tour"- Joey added and smiled- "Well anyway, in the studio I’ve recorded with Fiona Apple, Brody Dalle, Amanda Palmer, some small jazz bands I met in college, Johnny Lang… I’ve tried to work as many different musical genres as possible."

The band nodded and stayed in silence. Neither of them knew what to say.

- "So… do you wanna hear me play?"

- "Yeah! Sure"- Ray smiled at her, and Joey walked to the other room, at the other side of the glass, and say behind the drum set.

- "What did you prepare?"- Ray asked as Joey put on the headphones and nodded.

- "I have three songs for you to pick: “It’s not a fashion statement,” “Famous last words,” and “House of wolves.”

She looked at the band talking to each other as Matthew stood on a side and smiled sweetly. She knew things weren’t peachy so far, but she tried her best to get the job. She really needed it 'cos she was running out of savings, and she had no other job prospect but a few commercial jingles.

- "Wolves"- Gerard answered, and Joey nodded. Joey took a look at the drum and sighed. She was left-handed, and the drum was someone right-handed. Jo didn’t want to make a fuzz and change it, 'cos she felt the band wasn’t already into her. But at the same time, she wanted to kick ass and show them how good she was.

- "Just give me a second."

Joey stood up and rearranged the drum. Gerard looked at Ray, annoyed but making his best not to show. Mikey was stuck at his phone, barely paying attention to anything around him, and Frank stared at Matthew, trying to remember where he had seen him before.

- "Ready?"- Ray asked as Joey sat down again and tried the drum.

- "Yeah, much better, sorry for wasting your time"- Gerard looked at her, feeling she knew he was annoyed, and tried to change his bitchy face. It was too late for that anyway.

Joey started playing and just focused on the music, making her best. She had rehearsed the songs for weeks and even added a solo. She heard all the live versions she could and was sure she was doing a good job.

- "I don’t know, guys"- Gerard texted the band so Matthew would hear them.

- "I like her"- Ray answered

- "That’s your cock talking"- Frank answered and chuckled- "She ain’t bad, but I don’t know if she works for the band."

- "She sounds cool"- Mikey said out loud- "Maybe we could jam a little with her."

Frank and Gerard turned to him with widened eyes, surprised and embarrassed he had answered his comments aloud, so Matthew could hear.

- "Yeah, I saw the text, but talking is faster"- Gerard had to turn around to hide his face, red of anger against his brother, and make his best not to look at Matthew, who nodded and got the hint.

- "I’ll wait outside."

Frank stared at Mikey, who stood up and looked at Joey playing eyes wide shut, making her best to give a good impression. At least it worked with Mikey and Ray.

- "Thanks for making us look like an asshole"- Frank argued and huffed- "What was wrong with answering the fucking text?"

- "Dude, grow up…"- that’s all Mikey answered and stayed in silence until Joey finished the song.

She raised her eyes from the drumset and stared at the band, pretty scared of their reaction. Mikey and Ray smiled at her, while Gerard and Frank were serious and totally… annoyed? Bored? she couldn’t really figure it out.

- "Do you want me to play anything else?"- the young woman asked, afraid she was gonna get a cold no as an answer. Gerard was about to do it until he saw his brother walking over and grab his bass.

- "Wanna jam a little?"- Joey quickly smiled at Mikey, thinking maybe he liked her job, which was always a nice feeling, especially when trying to get a job.

- "Yeah! Sure!"

They played Destroya and improvised for a while. Ray joined them, and the three of them actually had fun for a good twenty minutes jamming.

- "That was pretty good"- Gerard said as he walked over and put on his dark glasses- "Unfortunately, we have to go."

- "Where?"- Mikey asked, surprised- "We had a clear schedule today."

- "Yeah, well, we totally forgot about an interview, and we are running late, so…"- he made a pause and looked at Joey.

- "Sure, I have to get going too, I have to reach the studio in an hour so…"- she stood up and shook Mikey and Ray’s hand- "Thank you so much for your time, I had a lot of fun with you."

- "Thank you for coming!"- Ray quickly answered- "I’ll walk you to the door."

- "Don’t worry, it’s just there anyway"- Joey smiled and turned to the other two guys- "Sorry for taking so much of your time. I hope you have a good day"- she shook their hands too, and they nodded with a sympathetic smile.

- "You too"- Gerard whispered.

- "And the answer is Criminal Minds"- Joey said and smiled at Frank, who looked dumbstruck- "See ya!"

And the young woman walked out.

- "Fuck! that’s it!"- Frank grumbled, and no one got why- "That’s where I’ve seen that guy."

- "What?"- Gerard asked him

- "Her boyfriend is on that tv show"- but it seemed it didn’t matter to Gerard one tiny bit.

- "Oh… who cares anyway…"- Mikey turned to his brother and punched his arm.

- "Did you have to be so annoying?"

- "I wasn’t annoying!"- Gerard nearly yelled, feeling insulted.

- "Dude! you were rude at her! and she did nothing to you!"- his brother was about to his him a lecture, but it seemed it was going to be useless, Gerard wasn’t even listening.

- "Oh! Come on! I wasn’t!"

- "Yeah, you were,"- Ray added and teamed up with Mikey- "You were a bitch, and she noticed."

- "So what?"

- "What if she felt bad about it? or what if she is pissed with us?"

- "If she is pissed, she is pissed! do you care?"

- "Why are you so mean? she was great!"- Mikey was surprised by his brother's attitude.

- "Yeah, she was good, but are you actually considering having a female drummer?"- Ray and Mikey looked at him in shock.

- "What the fuck is your problem with her being a girl?"

- "I don’t have a problem if she is a girl, a boy, or a cat. I’m just saying she is not the right choice for this band."

Ray and Mikey kept looking at him, confused. He had never been such an ass before

- "Come on, Frank, back me up here!"

- "I agree"- Iero simply said- "She was a good drummer, but… what are we gonna do with a chick on tour?"- Ray couldn’t believe his own ears.

- "Seriously? she was awesome! Perfect timing, great improvisation, and she had the ear to follow every single fucking curveball we threw her."

Gerard knew Ray was right, he heard it too, but he just didn’t want to work with Joey. Why? he didn’t know. He just looked at her and thought she couldn’t be on a bus with them, or on stage with them, or anywhere with them. As simple as that.

- "My vote is no"- he sentenced.

- "She is the best we’ve had"- Mikey argued right away- "And I’m saying yes."

- "Nope, I’m with Gerard"- Frankie claimed- "I just don’t want her in the band."

- "You fucking assholes, I’m saying yes, and it’s a tie!"- Ray felt he was five years old, calling that conversation “a tie” and arguing under those stupid terms with his friends.

- "Great! so that means no!"- of course, Gerard’s childish answer made him feel a little better about himself.

- "Seriously? What the fuck is your problem with her?"

Mikey asked his brother and stood right in front of him, just to push him to answer with the truth.

- "You said you wanted to make a fantastic show. You said you wanted to do something no one could ever expect from us, so we made this album that we love after years in the studio. It’s completely different than anything we’ve made! Do you know what would also be something no one could ever expect? having this amazing female drummer!"

- "But why her?"

- "‘Cos she is the best we’ve seen!"- Ray stepped into the conversation, trying to make some sense from Gerard and Frank.

- "Dude… I don’t know"- Iero whispered- "She was good, but… wouldn’t it be weird to have a girl on the bus with us?"

- "That’s what keeps you from saying yes?!"- Ray was honestly shocked- "Because you won’t be able to fart and walk about in your underwear?"

- "I wasn’t planning to stop any of that…"

- "Then?"

- "I don’t wanna have problems with my wife!"- Frank finally assumed and sighed- "I’ve had enough of that shit already"- the band stared at him in silence. Mikey was the only one who spoke his mind.

- "Wuss."

Matthew walked in silence, holding Joey’s hand until they reached his car. She sighed and sat at the passenger seat, thinking she didn’t want to call her parents and ask for another loan. The last time she had sworn to herself, it was never gonna happen again.

- "If they don’t hire you, it’s their loss"- Gubler finally whispered and looked at his girlfriend with a sweet glance- "You are awesome, and everybody knows it"- Joey sighed and cut him a short smile.

- "Thanks, Akumu."

- "And besides, they were assholes."

- "I know!!"- Joey waved her arms, absolutely upset- "That’s so disappointing 'cos everybody said they were so nice!"

- "Are you gonna call Tucker?"

- "I don’t know"- the young woman whispered and sighed- "He was so excited, and I don’t wanna disappoint him"

- "You did your best, Yami… maybe they didn’t want to work with a female drummer"- Joey thought about it for a moment and nodded.

- "Could be. I did my best anyway. Maybe they were all having a crappy day. Anyway, can you drive me to the studio, please? pretty, pretty, please?"- Matthew laughed and stared at his girlfriend with a warm look in his eyes.

- "Only if you kiss me first"

- "That’s blackmailing"

- "Maybe, but I’m driving, I make the rules"

- "Damn… fine! but just ‘cos I’m late"

Joey giggled and leaned in to kiss Matthew, who caressed her cheek slowly.

- "It’s gonna be ok, I promise"- he whispered, trying to comfort his girlfriend, and she nodded. She knew he was nice to her, but she still felt her life was totally out of focus.

- "Hello?"- Joey picked up her phone as she walked out of the studio after recording for the day. She was working in a small studio recording jingles. It wasn’t much, but at least she wasn’t selling drugs to survive.

- "How was it?"

- "Tucker, hey…"

- "So? When do you start? did they love you? of course, they did!"

- "Yeah… well…"

Joey didn’t want to tell his friend and break his heart. Tucker was so excited Joey was auditioning for My Chem ‘cos he knew the band for years. And though he had offered Joey to introduce her first, she refused, decided to audition under her own terms. Which sucked.

- "What?"

- "I don’t think they liked me"

- "What are you talking about? you are fantastic!"

- "You know it, I know it, but I don’t think they got it…"

- "What did they say?"

- "Nothing really, just… ok, just don’t tell them I said this, ok?"

- "Cross my heart and all that shit, what happened?"- Joey rested her back against the wall and sighed.

- "Gerard had a bitch face the whole time like he hated the guts out of me, and I don’t know why! then Frank wouldn’t even look at me, nothing, he wasn’t there, so I’m guessing neither of them wanted a female drummer, 'cos they all thought I was a guy."

- "Why?"

- "Apparently, Joey is a guy’s name"

- "So you didn’t put your real name in the application? brilliant!"

- "What for? So they can’t spell it? Anyway, can you imagine Mikey thought I was an assistant or whatever and asked me to go get him a coffee when we got there? They thought Matthew was auditioning and ignored me the whole time!"

- "Shit can’t be right! they are not like that"

- "Well, in the end, Ray and Mikey were the nicest. We jammed and had fun for a while, playing a few of their songs. But neither Gerard nor Frank even looked at us. It felt they hated me."

- "Maybe they were having a bad day, but they are very nice people."

- "Maybe… anyway… thank you for your support."

- "What are best friends for?"

- "Getting beer?"

- "Right, when are we getting beer?"- Joey smiled and sighed.

- "Next time I’m in New York or when you come to this shitty city."

- "If you hate Los Angeles so much, why don’t you move?"

- "‘Cos I’ve got my life here, I guess."

- "You know it’s just ‘cos you are dating that nerd

- "I happen to love that nerd!"- Joey laughed and shook her head, thinking Tucker didn’t even know Gubler and he already knew he was a nerd- "Anyway, gotta go, I have a class in an hour."

- "Are you taking a class?"

- "No, dude, I’m teaching in a community center in Santa Monica."

- "Aren’t you lovely! I’m proud of you!"

- "Shut up!"

- "As long as you don’t teach them to drink as we did when we toured together."

- "Hey! I’m no longer 20!"- Joey argued, laughing- "I’m a role model for those kids now!"

- "Yeah, sure! Talk to you later!"

Tucker hung down the phone and walked around his house for a minute. He loved that kid. He met her when she was still in college and toured with Thursday for a few dates with her old band. She was like a little sister to him. And it hurt to think she was wasting her talent in shitty sessions with shitty bands when she could be doing something better with her skills. Something meaningful. And it honestly made him angry to think his friends had been mean to her.

- "Hey, dude!"- Gerard picked up the phone, excited to see Tucker’s name on the screen.

- "Hey! why were you an asshole today?"- Gerard frowned and took out his sunglasses. He was in his backyard smoking, and he was not getting what his friend was talking about

- "Sorry, what?"

- "You were an asshole today with my friend"

- "Dude, I’m gonna need more information"

- "I asked Joey to audition for your band because I thought you would value her talent, and you ignored her?"

- "I didn’t ignore her… wait!"- Gerard wasn’t getting what was going on- "You know her?"

- "Of course! for the last… shit, I don’t know, like five or six years, we toured together, I taught her a lot, she is like my little sister!"

- "Yeah, she is an excellent drummer, but… I don’t feel she is suitable for the band."

- "Why?"

- "‘Cos… she has tits"- Gerard whispered, and Tucker made one long eternal pause.

- "Wow… ok, I see why she said you were an asshole."

- "She did?!"- Gerard felt so insulted he clenched his fist.

- "And she wasn’t wrong. I’m so sorry I asked her to go to your audition. It was a waste of her time."

Tucker hung down the phone and dialed Frank. He knew he had been pretty hard on Gerard, so he made his way to stay calm and not yell, at least not right away.

- "Ho, man!"

- "Hey Frank, listen, my friend, Joey was today auditioning for your drummer position. How was that?"

- "Joey? The girl? Do you know her?"

- "Yeah, I set the audition for her, actually. She is one of my closest friends, so how was it?"

Frank looked around at Ray smoking next to him in a small bar, then took a sip of his beer and decided the best thing to do was clear: lying.

- "She was awesome. Too bad the position is already taken 'cos she was real good"

- "I see, and that’s why you acted like an asshole?"

- "I didn’t!"- Frank knew he was busted

- "Dude, she told me everything. You didn’t even look at her!"

Ray’s phone hummed, and he read the text Gerard had sent them: “The chick is friends with Tucker. She sold us.” Toro chuckled and looked at Frank red in anger, trying to explain to his friend why he had been mean.

- “Too little too late”- Ray typed and sent the text. Mikey read them and chuckled while he ate a bowl of cereal and milk back in his house.

- "They deserve it for being assholes"- he said out loud and sighed.

He looked around at his home and realized he was talking all alone. His wife wasn’t around. His wife was never around anymore. But that was something Mikey didn’t want to think about, not then, not never.

- "Can you believe that bitch?"- Frank turned to Ray as soon as he hung down with Tucker- "She called our friend to snitch on us."

- "Well, you kinda deserved it"- Ray simply answered and sipped his beer- "You and Gerard should apologize to her."

- "No way, can we just let it pass?"- Iero was honestly upset as he lit another cigarette and remained in silence for a moment- "She was excellent, I give you that, but I don’t fucking want a girl in the band right now"

- "To avoid arguing with Jamia?"

- "Yeah! Shit has been hard lately, and I don’t want her to be threatened by anyone anymore"- Ray looked at his friend, nodding.

- "We should all talk about this seriously, we only got a week before the first show, and we have to rehearsal with the new drummer."

- "I know"- their cell phone hummed again, and they all read the exact text.

- "Meeting in my house now"- Gerard sighed as soon as he read his brother’s text. He surely knew what it was all about, and he had no intention to continue that argument, though he had absolutely no choice.

- "I hope Mikey at least asks for pizza"- he stood up and walked inside the house- "Honey, I’m going to Mikey’s"- he announced as he walked into his wife art studio and found her working on a collage on her desk

- "Say hello to your brother from me, hey! can you pick something for dinner?"

- "Sure, I’ll see you later"- he kissed her lips and cut her a short smile

- "Wait, turn around"- she asked, and he slowly moved over- "What happened?"

- "Nothing"- Lynz raised an eyebrow and waited for the honest answer- "We just had a bad audition for a drummer this morning. It turns out she was friends with Tucker Rule, and he called me an asshole for being mean to her."

- "Were you mean to her?"- Gerard made a long pause and stared at his wife’s expression change- "Why did you do that?"

- "I don’t know! I just didn’t like her!"

- "Was she right?"

- "Yeah"

- "Was she nice?"

- "Yes"

- "Was she hot?"

- "No! definitely not!"

- "Then what was the problem?"

- "She is the best we’ve had so far, but I don’t wanna turn everything we’ve been working on into “they are working with a girl” and get the attention away from the music."- Lynz nodded as she listened to her husband’s words.

- "You are making it seem like no one had ever had a female drummer or musician on stage before."

- "No, it’s not that, it’s just that…"- Gerard thought his answer carefully- "We haven’t, and we are so deep into the spot I’m afraid it will impact our show the wrong way"- Lynz made a pause and stared at her husband’s face

- "What did the band say?"

- "Frank is with me, and Ray and Mikey disagree."

- "Why is Frank with you?"

- "‘Cos he thinks having a girl on the bus is weird."

- "I was the girl in a band, and it wasn’t weird at all!"

Gerard knew that would be the subject in the conversation eventually as soon as he started talking about this with his wife.

- "I think you are acting kinda selfish and a little sexist."

- "No, we are just trying to do what’s best for the band."

- "Do whatever you want. I’m just giving you my opinion."

Gee felt Lynz was judging him. And he knew he would never win that fight.

- "I’m gonna talk about it with the band"

- "Ok, see you for dinner"- Gerard kissed his wife again and walked away feeling like a douche.

Had he been an asshole with that girl?

And besides, Gerard had lied to his wife when she asked if the girl was hot, ‘cos he actually thought so. He would never admit it in front of her anyway. And neither in front of anyone else. Never.

Matthew waited for Joey outside the community center, where she taught drums for kids in need as a way to keep them from being in the street and teaching him a new skill. He thought that was amazing and felt pretty proud of his girlfriend for giving the community her time and knowledge. He waved at her as she walked outside and cut her a big smile.

- "Hey! I didn’t know you were picking me up today!"

- "I wanted to surprise you and cheer you up!"- Joey leaned over and kissed Matthew sweetly.

- "Thank you so, so much!"

- "I’m the best boyfriend. I know."

- "What’s the plan?"

- "Wanna ask for Chinese and watch a movie at my place?"- it was a bit disappointing plan ‘cos that was pretty much every day in their routine, but Joey smiled and nodded.

- "As long as I pick the horror movie tonight, sounds perfect."

After a few minutes of driving, Matthew turned to his girlfriend and whispered.

- "I forgot tomorrow we’ll have table reading. We are gonna start shooting this week. I’m sorry I won’t be able to hang out so often."

- "Don’t worry, you have to work, and I need to get a new extra job ‘cos it’s obvious and I didn’t get the MCR shit…"- her cell phone interrupted her as she spoke. An unlisted number was calling- "Hello?"

- "Joey… Svein… björn...dottir?"

- "Yes?"- her last name was mispronounced entirely, but she was pretty used to that.

- "Hi, I’m Ray Toro, from My Chemical Romance."

- "Hey, Ray! How are you?"- Gubler wide opened his eyes as he turned to his girl for a second. She was honestly surprised the band was calling her.

- "Good! listen… I hope I’m not interrupting."

- "Not, it’s cool"- Gerard turned around and walked the other way just ‘cos he didn’t want to see Ray do what he was about to do.

- "Great, the band and I were talking, and we want you to come to the studio tomorrow to do a second tryout… do they even call it “tryouts”? more like an audition, I think."- Ray started rambling as Joey wide opened her eyes in shock.

- "Sorry, what? do you want me there again?"

- "Yeah, so we can jam a little, try a few new things. We are having trouble deciding on one drummer, so we need a bit more info. Besides, we couldn’t finish today so… can you come tomorrow at ten?"

- "Noon"- Frank said, thinking he didn’t feel like waking up early to meet that chick.

- "Sorry, at noon"- Ray corrected, embarrassed.

- "Noon…"- Joey had absolutely nothing to do at noon, but she wanted to make believe she had a life- "I think I can move a few things… to meet you."

- "Awesome! See you tomorrow"- Joey turned to Matthew as soon as she hung down and nearly screamed.

- "They want to see me again!!! I can’t believe it"- the young woman jumped on the seat completely excited- "I thought they hated…"- but suddenly, it hit her.

- "Congrats, Yami!!"- Matthew yelled and grabbed her knee, which was all he could do, considering he was driving.

- "No, it wasn’t me. It was Tucker."

- "Did you call him?"

- "He called. I didn’t want to tell him about the shitshow I was through this morning"- Joey grabbed her phone again and looked for the last number that called.

- "What are you doing?"

- "I’m canceling. I’m not gonna go if they are only doing this ‘cos my friend forced them."

- "What?! no! just go and kick their asses!"- Matthew quickly grabbed the phone from Joey’s and hid it in his pocket, far from her reach- "You are going tomorrow, and you are proving them wrong."

- "I don’t want to! Akumu! Come on! it’s gonna be embarrassing and awkward to see them knowing Tucker called them to get me a second chance!"

- "No! It’s gonna be awesome ‘cos you are gonna kick ass!!"

Joey whined for another while, honestly trying to get out of that awkward situation. But by the time they reached Matthew’s, he had convinced her she had to do it.

#matthew gray gubler #my chemical romance #fanfiction #babymetaldoll writes #mgg #criminal minds #frank iero #mikey way #i never thought I'd post this #gerard way

[bronanlynch]

bi-weekly update

it sure has been a wild time here and tbh I had enough to do one of these last week and just. didn’t?? for some reason?? anyway

listening: the Promare soundtrack went on sp*tify recently so I’ve been on Promare soundtrack lockdown over here. I know Kakusei is the iconic Promare song but Inferno (the opening song) always makes me tear up??? love to experience emotions about a movie in a reasonable and normal way. so anyway my standout track from the OST is Piromare because I am so very not immune to sad soft piano renditions of a motif that is usually triumphant/cheerful/etc

reading: I have, for once, read a bunch of books. I got a giftcard to my favorite local indie bookshop for Christmas and finally got around to using it to buy two books I’d been looking forward to, Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson (bi polyam Dracula retelling, kind of) and Winter’s Orbit by Everina Maxwell (gay arranged marriage space opera)

Dowry of Blood was very satisfying to me, someone who has lots of opinions about how vampires ought to be sexy and also terrifying, and I really enjoyed this specific take on vampire lore. also the formatting/pagination was really really cool and reminded me more of poetry books than prose usually does. for the first couple of pages there’s only text on one side of the page and then there’s one line on the back of a page and it hits really hard. extremely good and cool printing choices. would def recommend, but it is also explicitly an exploration of getting into and then out of an abusive relationship so. warnings for that in addition to the murder/blood warnings

also look at how sick this cover is (by Marlowe Lune, an artist whose work I really like in general)

I previously read Winter’s Orbit when it was on ao3 as an original work (called Course of Honour) and it was really cool to read a familiar story that I uh. read several times on ao3 but with added layers, because the author added a bunch of worldbuilding and an entire overarching higher-stakes political plot. I really really liked the added worldbuilding, and for the most part I enjoyed the new plot stuff, though at times I felt like it distracted from what I liked the most about the original, and there was one specific scene that was taken out that I was disappointed about. fave thing about the worldbuilding is when something is referred to by normal familiar words (like pigeons or bears) and then the actual thing is like, a fucking dinosaur that only vaguely resembles the word that’s used for it. very fun

also slightly mixed feelings about the framing of empire in the book, since there is some discussion about the consequences of imperialism and the resolution of the plot involves getting more rights and political sway for colonized planets. but the majority of the plot is about preserving an unjust status quo, and the representative of one of the colonized planets is working for the interests of the empire so that they can appear unified in the face of a larger-scale potential threat, which I’m not sure I love. and I also didn’t really care for the way the resistance movement (whenever it came up, which wasn’t often) was portrayed. so. on one hand yes there is a message of ‘empire bad and we should maybe try to be less Like That’ but on the other hand sometimes it did feel like the imperialism was an under-examined backdrop for a romance. like don’t get me wrong, I love the romance, I love the characters, it’s just that some of the politics didn’t quite do it for me and I think I just wanted More of things that just. weren’t the focus of the story

warnings for discussions of abusive relationships in this one, except this time it’s backstory for one of the characters, not something that’s present in the central relationship. and for all of the things that I wasn’t quite satisfied with, the parts of the book that are about like, learning how to be a person again after being in a situation where you’re not allowed to be yourself are still very well-handled and hit me real hard.

I also read a whole bunch of KJ Charles because sometimes all my brain can handle is marathoning romance novels, but I’m not gonna talk about all of them because this is already long enough (have not read the new one that came out today yet though that’s what I’m gonna do after this)

watching: Supernatural season 13 is incredibly boring and bad in ways that aren’t interesting or fun to talk about so I haven’t watched any recently. I did watch the first episode of Lupin, and really enjoyed it! will definitely watch more, though slowly because it takes too much of my brain to marathon it, partially because I know just enough French to almost not need the subtitles but having to read and also automatically trying to translate as I’m listening takes more brain energy. love a good heist though, and it has some good social commentary on race and class and crime

also the main character is very good. fucking superb you funky gentleman thief

playing: still making my way through the last mission of Knife of Dunwall. I made a bunch of progress since I whined at my friend about how hard it was and they told me to just stay in the building that has places to hide (the one you have to make your way through as Corvo, so I already know the layout, which helps lol) instead of the one that’s falling apart with nowhere to hide. who would have thought.

have also watched my roommate play lots of games and have thoughts on those too. Final Fantasy games (or at least the ones I’ve seen anything from, which is 7, 14, and 15) really appeal to me on a character/aesthetic/plot level but the gameplay looks like it would be bad for my brain. and yes all of those have very different gameplay but they would all be not fun for me in different ways. my roommate showed me like an hour of cutscenes from 14 last night that was basically a movie of tropes I love but holy shit I could never play a game where I have to wait for other people to be ready to also play the same part of the game before I can advance the plot

they’ve also been playing Persona 5 Scramble/Strikers (I don’t know which one the S stands for and at this point I’m too afraid to ask), which I do intend to play myself some day. it’s a sequel to Persona 5 with the same characters and damn they really nailed the feeling of seeing your friends again after not seeing them for a while, both in terms of. I care about these characters and am happy to see them again and also, they haven’t seen the protagonist in a while and they’re so happy he’s back and it makes me very soft. would love to reunite with friends whom I haven’t seen in a while

making: haven’t worked on cosplay but we did make some very tasty tortellini soup last weekend, and then last night we made fish & chips which was a lot easier than I was expecting and turned out pretty well? we just used frozen fries instead of like. frying them ourselves but we did make some very tasty lemon-garlic green beans

writing: well. I have a couple of things I’ve been noodling away at for a bit, and then a couple days ago I had a little bit of a breakdown and wrote 3000 words of angst in one sitting for an entire different new fic (Persona boys having a miserable time), and then yesterday decided to get in on a thing in The Untamed fandom of people writing short ““boring”“ domestic oneshots, and I love domesticity so I wrote one, which various reviewers have called “very sweet” and “a callout post” (it is both of those things)

I’m also organizing an event for P5 trans content because someone was shitty to one of my roommates over a trans headcanon and I got so pissed off that I’m running a prompt week now. love to have reasonable emotional reactions to things that happen in my life. why would I think about my actual problems when I could get petty and spiteful over someone saying that a fictional character couldn’t possibly be trans

#this one is real long i'm sorry #contains pictures of food under the readmore #tuesday no problem extended universe #dreaming.txt

[tariandlenasmusicblog-blog]

My Mistake: An essay about IGOR, Flower of the Bride, and closure

The funny thing about getting older is that you don’t fully appreciate how removed you are from a version of yourself until you look in the mirror. Sometimes that mirror is literal, and you get to explore all the grooves, bumps, and sharp angles that reflect a body in flux. Other times, that mirror is figurative, and you get caught in a staring match with a phantom self with the emotional heft of a lifetime of joys and regrets. I’m struck by a similar feeling when sitting and listening to Father of the Bride and IGOR back to back. The gap between the two albums feels like the gap between the self I once was and the self that I am becoming; between yearning and something approaching peace.

Let’s start with IGOR, Tyler The Creator’s new album. The stark pink and monochrome artwork is fitting for an album that marries tenderness with an abrasive whiplash. Starting with “IGOR’S THEME”, Tyler’s strategy is to set the tone with thick distorted synth chords, sweet, high-pitched vocals and a tight breakbeat to before breaking into soft piano chords to mirror that contrast. The only lyrics on the track are “riding round town/make ‘em feel this one”, which feels appropriate. The feeling he’s communicating is clear: the heartrending tension of a tortured type of romance. The story on the album seems to be one of unrequited or rejected love, which forces the protagonist (the eponymous Igor) into finding a form of resolution, however unsatisfying it might be.

The production on the album is gorgeous: the drums are crisp; the synths are overwhelming one minute and delicate the next. The album is stacked with guest vocalists from Playboi Carti to Solange to Charlie Wilson to Kanye West, but they are all subsumed into Tyler’s larger symphonic vision which, to my surprise, does not feature his signature gravelly rasp very often. Instead, we hear his voice pitched up on “EARFQUAKE” and “RUNNING OUT OF TIME”, singing (sometimes atonally) with great vulnerability and strain. Even on more conventional rap tracks like “A BOY IS A GUN*” he peels back the layers of distortion and anger that used to mask his longing, opting instead to beg “don’t shoot me down.” He’s scared and vulnerable. He still lashes out on “NEW MAGIC WAND” and “WHAT’S GOOD”, but even there his anger sounds justified and earned where it once felt gratuitous and underdeveloped.

The album closes with three of the most tender, direct songs that he’s ever written. “GONE, GONE/THANK YOU” starts with a cherubic voice almost rejoicing that “my love’s gone” before that elation descends musically (and lyrically) into a depressed resignation. That musical descent may be the most beautiful moment of Tyler’s career, and unwinds the tension built throughout the first nine tracks on the album. Jerrod Carmichael, his occasional interlocutor on the album, steps in briefly to proclaim: “I hate wasted potential/That shit crushes your spirit,” before the track concludes with a sarcastic thanks for poisoning the protagonist from ever wanting to love again.

After a brief, almost meditative repetition of the mantra “I DON’T LOVE YOU ANYMORE”, the album concludes with its showpiece: a classic anthem of longing in 6/8 time called “ARE WE STILL FRIENDS?” Tyler evokes about 50 years of soul music in his own way, pleading for any kind of meaningful connection with the person he just cannot quit. It is revelatory in its catharsis and flips an entire career arc of obsessive rebellion on its head by being as conventional and relatable as possible. No, Tyler cannot sing, and this track exposes that fact more than any that come before. Somehow, that adds to the charm. He sounds like you or I in the same position, bleating atonally along to a kind of invented karaoke for one.

Despite this relatability, however, IGOR does not hit me in the way that I expected. It feels very much like an album built for a past version of me: a confused, deeply emotional guy who did not really know how to love but tried hard anyway. It’s the best, most mature album Tyler has ever made. It might be the best album of the year. But when I listen, I am not drawn in. Instead, I feel a glassy distance akin to reading heartbroken letters a past me once wrote to another. (Yeah, I did that in preparation for this essay. Yeah, it was weird.)

I feel precisely the opposite when I listen to Father Of The Bride by Vampire Weekend. Billed as an album of questioning and commitment in the shadow of parenthood, the double-album hits me like a sucker punch to the face. It is as harmonically rich as IGOR, but the sugar rush is delivered in a more conventional, familiar package of jam-band acoustic guitars, skyscraping choruses and baroque codas. The band sounds more like The Band than ever before, largely abandoning their Afropop fakery for a melange that sounds earnest and reflective of a newfound confidence in Ezra Koenig’s songwriting.

That confidence is carried over to the lyrics. Gone are the precious reflections on Ivy League life, and in their place is a sense of wonder about the beauty of life, and the fear of its impending collapse. “Big Blue” is about being overawed by the vastness of the world, and about how confusing that vastness can be, while “Unbearably White” is a tender reflection on emotional distance and how it can wreck relationships. Koenig and co. aren’t afraid of swinging for the fences with cinematic string arrangements on “Rich Man” or lighter-waving ballads like “Jerusalem, New York, Berlin”.

Not all of it works. Two of the three collaborations with Danielle Haim, “Married in a Gold Rush” and “We Belong Together” are sickly-sweet, sounding more like outtakes from the Cheaper By The Dozen 2 soundtrack than comfortable in 2019. The autotune and djembe at the beginning of “Spring Snow”, meanwhile, sounds like Vampire Weekend-by-numbers.

But when it does work, it’s the best music that the band has ever produced. “Harmony Hall” is a near-perfect pop song with a piano that sounds like it was cribbed from a 1989 WHAM! song and the catchiest chorus I’ve heard in years. “Bambina” switches from razor-sharp indie-pop to a hymn a step removed from Pachelbel’s Canon, yet the change of pace between the two feels like a reflection on the devotional absurdity detailed in the lyrics. The stretch of songs from “My Mistake” to “Flower Moon” is superlative: elegant, whimsical, silly, and depressing all at once.

It’s precisely those songs that knock me off my feet, and those songs that expose the distance between where I was and where I am headed. The contortions and wrangling of the past have been replaced with a gentler form of acceptance about the absurdity of life. The biggest questions about who I am and where I’m headed are at least grounded in a sense of perspective. I know I am not alone in sometimes feeling alone. I know that our collective existence is precarious, and I still choose to live as if the important conversations in my life can be resolved by burying my head in the sand. I’m flawed, but I’m alive, and I’m trying. When I look back at that spectral mirror image that IGOR represents then, I feel peace. Life now feels more like “My Mistake”: it’s gentler, more reflective, and underpinned with the subtle echoes of the regrets that I will never displace. Those are the regrets that made me. I don’t have the answers to how to live and love well. I probably never will. But the Earth will keep spinning in its own, blocky, clip-art kind of way. Perhaps that’s the point.

#music blog #fotb #igor #vampire weekend #tyler the creator #personal essay

[diningpageantry]

tag game(s)

anï (i’m too exhausted to do three separate posts but i was tagged in three tag games over the past few days and i’d forgotten to do the last few games i was tagged in and i feel super guilty so here they are in one go)

i don’t know who to tag to do these rn because my brain is dead i am emotionally exhausted and i’m writing a fic that’s about halfway done so i’m gonna say tag anyone who wants to be tagged for any of these. i’m so sorry that i’m dead, i will be back alive again after may 10th, which is my AP exam day

six questions challenge

tagged by @simon--speaks

rules: answer the questions, then tag 9 people you want to get to know better!

Q1: Relationship status?

single bby

Q2: Favorite color?

maroon !

Q3: Top 3 ships?

snowbaz (wow) and uh. wow. idk who else. i wanna say my own ocs matchstick and summer (is that allowed? i’m making it allowed)

Q4: Lipstick or chapstick?

whenever i get to this question in any ask i freeze up because i use a tinted chapstick so i don’t look dead but like. it can also be seen as a lipstick because it has pigment. but. chapstick.

Q5: Last song I listened to?

Run by Hozier

Q6: Last movie I watched?

uhhh i watched like. 5 minutes of the emperor’s new groove a few days ago, and watched a documentary about obscure houses like 10 minutes before that. so. i’m gonna say the house documentary.

21 questions

i was tagged by @simon--speaks, @angelsfalling16, @wo2ash, @alixanderthequeer, @sharkmartini and @bazypitchandsimonsnow

rules: answer 21 questions then tag 21 people

nickname: anï, munchkin, menina, and my hebrew name is elisheva

height: the doctor says i’m 5′3.5″, but they can’t put fractions on IDs so according to the state i’m 5′4″ and i cling to that

last movie i saw: see above (so like. funky houses)

last thing i googled: (next town over) movie tavern. i’m not saying where it is exactly bc hah i don’t wanna be stalked but. i was looking at movie times because they have $5 movies every tuesday

favorite musician: frank iero. love that funky rat man and his funky music too (i’m gonna see him for the second time next month because i made the executive adult decision to say fuck it to my seizures and go see him anyway)

song stuck in my head: i don’t have one rn but usually it’s a song by the killers (when you were young is a usual one)

other blogs: none, actually! i didn’t delete my old tumblr purely bc i’m a nostalgic dumbass, but it’s a completely different login and it’s inactive so i don’t count it.

followers: 1,666 (originally i wasn’t gonna share the number but it hit this last night and i was like heh. nice)

following: 231

amount of sleep: 8ish hours! (spring break bby)

lucky numbers: 7, multiples of 3 (only in cases of knocking), and multiples of 2 (only in cases like volume)

dream job: writing and illustrating books! i have a variety of dream jobs within art, and even within the subcategory of books, but my top dream job is creating inclusive/diverse children’s books that represent a variety different ethnicities/races, religions, abilities, and identities so that children can see themselves represented in media

what i’m wearing: a black turtleneck, a bra, and marvel boxers. that’s it.

favorite food: soup in general. i make a kick ass matzo ball soup

language: english, conversational portuguese, i know a small small bit of japanese (i should know more given i was raised being taught it but i always struggled with it), and i know some spanish. i also plan on teaching myself ASL.

can i play an instrument: yes! i’ve been playing violin since i was 2. i wanna play guitar and i know some chords but i have small hands so it’s hard to find one that’s the right size that isn’t a shitty children’s guitar, and i sing! i’m an alto

favorite song: hnnghg please don’t make me pick................ i’d have to say choke on one another by death spells

random fact: so like. if you didn’t know already, i’m an LGBTQ+ youth activist on a national scale. i disappear on occasion because i’m doing something or another, and sometimes i post about it on my blog (speaking of i have exciting news that i heard, but at the same time, i’m pretty much booked every weekend from middle of next month until middle of july), but........ i hate networking. i loathe it. if i never had to network again, i’d be thrilled. networking is my absolute least favorite thing because i struggle at everyday conversation, much less networking with people at least 10-20 years my senior. sure it’s usually free publicity and i get great connections, but god. at what cost? and like.... it’s always after a really emotionally taxing event, so i’m already drained and then wow here’s a room full of adults who want my 18 year old input. please. just let me steal a cupcake then leave.

describe yourself in aesthetic things: dye stained fingernails and necks. cranked open windows during a spring shower. dried tears and breaking laughs. coffee stains and milky tea splashes. trembling fingers, writing instead of speaking because you’re too afraid, and finally breaking free--running through the rain. scabbing blood, fresh piercings. knowing you’re loved and not saying it because it doesn’t need to be spoken. the smell of a new canvas, paint splattered jeans, and art school sweaters. black skirts with docs, then fairy lights and soft blankets hidden behind sharp profanities and harsh disgust. the unexpected. the unknown. the ever-changing, unstoppable force of the shifting tides. 

carry on questions

tagged by @goodbyedandelion, @isthisisagoodkiss @wo2ash, 

1- favorite type of scone? 

cranberry orange! one of the farms a county over has a market and they sell them there and they’re to die for (altho, i found a sour cherry scone recipe that i’ve perfected and my family loves them so they’re a close second now)

2- london or la?

i’ve never been to london, but i’m gonna have to go with london. i went to la last october to present in an awards show for my organization and i lowkey was underwhelmed. i’m very much a gloom and rain kinda person, and it was too dry and sunny there. although, i did think the huge succulents were sick as fuck. but yeah definitely london. i’m planning to spend a semester abroad there in a few years for an illustration program

3- kissing in a forest or holding hands under the stars?

i’m afraid of forests because we have a lot of wildlife and i don’t want to get mauled by a bear don’t mind me holding hands under the stars :)

4- jeans or suit?

suit suit suIT SUIT suit. i love wearing suits. my chest doesn’t cooperate and my hips always hate them but god i do love suits.

5- loose hair or pulled back hair?

mine looks better loose, and my sides/back are shaved but the top reaches my ears, so it gets annoying sometimes and i pull it up to keep it out of my face

6- vampires or dragons?

i wanna say both. i used to say “yknow a dragon but in human form would be hot” then i got called dragon fucker for like two years so out of pure spite i’m going with vampires.

7- what saying do you wish could be a spell?

(this one’s a very specific reference so hear me out) “i’ve got to go pee on her”  used to disorient and confuse the speech of the person casted upon. it’s one of my favorite quotes from scott pilgrim vs. the world (my favorite movie ngl) when scott’s brain can’t figure out two different sentences and he just says that. it’s so good and just fuckin weird that i love it.

8- which carry on character would you go on a coffee date with if you could?

depends tbh! if we’re talking date date, then penny because i would wife penny in 0.5 seconds, but if we’re talking friends getting coffee then 10000000% baz because i’d talk activism and identities with him

9- favorite carry on quote?

“he told me we would be stars” (i don’t have my book on me so i could be getting the line wrong), but it hit so hard for me. like it’s clear how davy manipulated lucy so much that she fell into it and couldn’t crawl out. it’s such a powerful message of control from those who are charismatic enough to hold it, and how sometimes we aren’t weak enough to let go.

10- how excited are you for wayward son?

lemme paint this picture: i started hyperventilating in the hallway when i found out, and then cried an hour or two later when my friend texted me that he preordered me a signed copy. like. i’ve been pre-planning how to get home from college to come and pick it up (okok the 24th is also my dad’s birthday so i’m. um. “coming home to visit him”, of course) because i’m just SO EXCITED to read them again in a canon way :’)

#anï rambles #tag game

[ralfstrashcan]

I call bs on that Downworlders-appealing-not-serious-Statement from Izzy in 3x06

Here's why.

Warning: Contains extended talk about how sex is referenced on the Show, so probably nsfw? But nothing graphic.

“I think the reason why I find Downworlders appealing is because those issues prevent things from ever getting too serious.”

Without context this statement can be interpreted two ways:

1) She is secretly scared of a committed and serious relationship and so just dates Downworlders so she doesn't have to worry about things getting to intense.

2) She isn't interested in a committed and serious relationship and Downworlders are the easiest way to have some kind of relation where both parties are aware that it's not going to go anywhere serious, so she doesn't have to deal with the fact that her partner gets overly invested which would lead to complications and possibly hurt feelings.

I honestly don't believe it's 1) because Izzy isn't the person to get scared of anything that affects her herself (meaning she'd of course be scared of her siblings dying a horrible death, etc.) She is incredibly courageous and one of the strongest characters on the Show, she is brimming with self-confidence and in contrast to Jace's it's 100% genuine and not to cover up some complex and twisted self-esteem and self-image issues. She is passionate, in fact her passion is probably her most defining character trait. So to think that she's scared of a committed relationship is just odd. Also, taking her relationship with Meliorn into account, it was clearly not going anywhere serious, but she obviously cared for him (and he cared for her) so if she was scared of any kind of commitment and her goal was to avoid getting feelings involved and eventually hurt (which is exactly what happened in S1), that wasn't a success, and she must have known that even before it all fell apart. Did she seem overly concerned during her affair with Meliorn, angsting over her attachment to him? No.

Whether you go with option 1) or 2), they both imply that Downworlders are the easiest (if not the only) source to access casual relationships / hook ups. And that's simply not true.

Let's take a look at the Shadowhunters' sex life. There's not overly much to go on, but there is enough.

- Alec: Zero sex life before Magnus, though that has probably to do with him not being outed and homosexuality being extremely frowned upon, so he's not really representative. He does check out Jace and some other Shadowhunter Dude in 1x12 though, so there's that.

- Jace: We see Jace rolling around in bed with Kaelie once and out on a date / friendly evening with four Seelies (both in 2x07). Besides that he states in 3x02 that he's been with tons of people (and it was never serious). So, a promiscuous Shadowhunter with loads of no strings attached sex.

- Lydia: Lydia's been engaged to John, and after he tragically died (RIP John, I so ship you with Lydia in any and all AUs) she decided that “in this line of work, the only thing worth falling in love with is the work itself” as she tells Alec in 1x08. There's nothing known about her sex life, but she was willing to marry Alec, knowing that nothing would ever happen between them, so she was either expecting him to be fine with her having an affair on the side or she was okay with the prospect of never (again?) having sex in her life. Of course she was probably still mourning her love and also she's incredibly ambitious and wanted that Institute no matter what, so I think the fact that she didn't prioritize sex in her life plan doesn't necessarily mean she's generally not that interested in having sex or that the society she lives in would condemn a sexually active person.

- Raj: Yeah, it pains me to even think about that, too. Whatever, for Science! In 2x04 he mentioned (talking about a corpse with its heart torn out, srsly, that guy) “I thought I was having a rough weekend. [...] I'm just saying, I've been in his shoes before. Except my demon's name was Kathy.” so he clearly had some relation with that Kathy person that ended in a broken heart (or bruised pride) for him. Also, considering that Raj is pretty racist towards Downworlders and dating Mundanes is forbidden I think it's pretty likely that Kathy is a Shadowhunter as well. In 2x08, which doesn't take place too terribly long after 2x04 he claimed to have been “this close to lining up a three way.” Disregarding the fact that I find it hard to believe he'd find one person willing to get with him, let alone two (sorry, I just hate him and his douche-y attitude and I can't imagine you wouldn't notice those after 3 seconds of talking to him and would be instantly turned off) wasn't that at Max's Rune Ceremony Party? Where there were exclusively Shadowhunters invited, hosting warlock excluded? So this indicates that a) after a short amount of time after a failed relationship / whatever he was open for a sexual adventure and b) Shadowhunters participate in threesomes, something that you probably wouldn't easily and openly mention in a reticent society.

- HELL EVEN ALDERTREE admitted to having dated a Downworlder and was also hitting on Izzy, which, considering she's younger than him and his subordinate should be frowned upon in an uptight society.

- Aline: In 2x15 it is mentioned that she was secretly seeing a girl named Carolyn and since they were in Alicante this Carolyn is most likely a fellow Shadowhunter. Also since that relationship is talked about in past tense it has probably ended. So she has a dating life.

- And then there's Izzy herself, of course. On-Screen she's only ever been in a relationship with Meliorn, but in 1x06 Maryse declines her offer to marry in Alec's place, saying “You can't do this. You and your Downworlders have seen to that.” referring to the tons of affairs with Downworlders Izzy has had. Not to mention Izzy's comment about jewels in 1x04. There's also the fact that she openly hit on Simon in 1x02 and when Alec rolled his eyes she commented “It passes the time.” Whether she meant flirting or the resulting possible hook up is anyone's guess, but I don't think I'm seeing things when I say it could very well be both... considering she and Alec both talked about Simon as 'it' in that scene (which, rude). So long story short, Izzy too has an active sex life.

Of course dating and casual hook ups isn't the same, but. Since of all known Shadowhunters there are apparently several with an active sex drive and associating with Downworlders is pretty frowned upon, associating with Mundanes is absolutely unacceptable because they can't know about the Shadow World and at least dating is apparently no problem between Shadowhunters, I find it pretty reasonable to assume that hook ups between Shadowhunters are fine as well.

(Taking into account that “Nephilim love once, fiercely” it would make it even more logical that everything that's not True Love is casual, thus making it even more plausible that not-serious relationships between Shadowhunters aren't uncommon. I'm personally not a fan of that line (see here somewhere at the end if you're interested) but the line is canon and therefore deserves consideration.)

Conclusion: Downworlders aren't the only source for casual hook ups.

This, of course, brings up the question why Izzy would choose to hook up with Downworlders at all if she could bed other Shadowhunters just as easily, without commitment being an issue, especially because associating with Downworlders kinda ruins your reputation. When Maryse explains in 1x06 why Izzy can't take over marrying for Alec she says “You can't do this. You and your Downworlders have seen to that. You can't possibly attract the caliber of husband who could help us restore the honor to our family name.”

Of course Izzy is rebellious and doesn't care what other people think of her, but she's not stupid. She knows that falling out of favor with the Clave can have serious consequences and upholding the Lightwood Image is important, a calculated move, a leverage, an insurance. So why would she do it anyway, if it's not out of necessity?

Because it's political. She is very pro-Downworlder from the start, she's interested in their ways of life (that butterfly thing in 1x05) and she's against the narrow-minded, racist ways most Shadowhunters display. This explains why she is simultaneously more interested in Downworlders and less interested in Shadowhunters.

To claim that Izzy just dates Downworlders because it's easier (or because she's scared, which, again, pffffff) takes that whole political and revolutionary aim out of her character and that's just reducing this action to something self-oriented instead of something she does with the awareness that it sends a certain signal to Shadowhunters of her and the older generation. It's really not called for, contradicts canon in my eyes or at least doesn't really make sense, and I really don't like it.

Also, just something to think about while we're talking about Izzy's sex life, more specifically all her alleged Downworlder Conquests.

- Vampires: The fact that she asked Raphael in 2x10 if being a Vampire has made him uninterested in sex implies that she doesn't know being a Vampire doesn't necessarily equal no interest in sex, so she probably never hooked up with a vampire.

- Warlocks: Remember that flashback from 2x18 when Magnus said he'd loose all his street cred if his people found out he “let a Shadowhunter spend the night”? And we're talking about spending the night at his home, not sleeping together. Makes it sound as if Warlocks kinda hate Shadowhunters and want nothing to do with them. So it's probably not Warlocks either.

- Werewolves: Before Luke became the Alpha I got some seriously Anti-Shadowhunter-Vibes from the pack as well (still do, honestly, but because of Luke the pack mostly behaves) so I find it hard to imagine any of those wolves would be willing to hook up with a Shadowhunter. Then again, Maia hooked up with Jace and she doesn't really like him. Then again, this could be a Maia-thing.

- Seelies: Can we talk about the fact that Seelies are like the Sex Tourists of the Downworld? They seem to only leave the Seelie Realm to get their mack on. Anyway, I clearly remember that one Scene in 1x03 where this dialogue happens

Alec: Downwolders are slaves to their impulses.

which, to me at least, implies that Izzy first and foremost mingles with Seelies. This dialogue could of course be because she was with Meliorn at the time, but consider that while Alec had to marry, Izzy was declared the one and only Shadowhunter with “ties to the Seelies” who could possibly convince the Clave that the Seelies aren't on Valentine's side. If Meliorn was just the latest of her flings who happened to be a Seelie I don't think that would make a good enough argument with the Clave; also why wasn't Jace also considered a Shadowhunter with ties to the Seelies? Because I don't believe that Kaelie was the first ever Seelie Jace has been with.

- Mundanes: First off, Mundanes aren't Downworlders, so there is that. Secondly I honestly doubt she has a dating / sex / whatever history with Mundanes because the way she says “Shadowhunters don't date Mundanes” in 3x04 sounds to me as if Charlie is the first Mundane she interacted with. It makes sense, because Mundanes aren't allowed to know about the Shadow World. (Simon in 1x02 was an exception because he was already involved in Shadow World business.)

Of course talking about “Seelies” or “Seelies and the occasional Werewolf” instead of “Downworlders” in that Scene mentioned at the beginning doesn't have the same nice ring to it, so I get why it was scripted that way. Still. Ugh.

#shadowhunters #3x06 #isabelle lightwood #5 cents on canon #or more like #50000

[clodblogs]

Otherkin interview

I was able to have a chat with Luke and Rob from Otherkin before their Cardiff show, talking about writing songs, Idols, and Brittney Spears.

What inspired you to become a band and write music?

“I think we were all just really just musical when we were younger and all really into bands” Luke reminisced, “going to gig and going to concerts and it’s something that you gravitate towards and want to do because it looks like the funnest thing in the world and it is.”

“Yeah, I mean I played in bands since I was 11 years old and pretty much never stopped so. I guess it’s all I know really.” Rob was able to show off his music ability, “It’s either that or sports so and the football team didn’t want me so.”

“Star goal keeper” Luke added, not sure whether to tell more about his sporting past.

“I was actually quite a good goal keeper, but let’s not get into that” Rob was quick to boast.

What’s your favourite song you’ve ever written?

“I think, my personal favourite is a song that’s called “Yeah, I Know” I like that song a lot” Luke was quick to point out, with Rob agreeing with the answer.”Yeah, just because, I guess it’s a bit of a different sound from a lot of the other things we do, and I’m not gonna say it’s an unusual song, but it definitely works really weirdly. There’s no real chorus and there’s no verse” Luke explained the make-up of the song.

“Yeah, well we were drunk when we wrote it, but I can’t remember how we wrote it, ‘cause it’s a really weird song” agreed Rob. “And it seems to be a fan favourite too.”

“We always tend to leave it pretty late into the set so it, it tends to get pretty, pretty rowdy. Which is the way we like it.” So you know how to react when you hear this song.

What’s the meaning behind your band name, and where did it come from?

“This is actually a question for Connor, our guitarist, because we had been looking for a band name for I’d say about six months, and it was awful” Luke was quick to pass the blame. “Yeah, we tend to be really bad at naming things anyway. We have a song of ours, called Enabler, which we played for about a year and a half before it got released which we used to call ‘Slow and Heavy’ because it was, slow and heavy. That was the name for a year and a half.”

“It was actually when we went into record the album, we were forced to give it a real name.” Rob confessed.

“People actually wanted to keep the name ‘Slow and Heavy’” Luke didn’t sound too pleased at some members contribution.

Rob continued, telling the story of how Connor “found an article in a magazine basically, that said the word ‘Otherkin’ and we didn’t do any research into what it meant, and we were like yeah, that sounds great. Then found out it was this crazy online subculture, who constantly message us asking if we’re representing them. We’re not.”

“It’s a bunch of goth kids in America, basically, who are on twitter a lot. They are!” Luke added, to help us understand the youth culture they unknowingly represent.

“They all think they’re half animal and stuff. They’re not, they’re quite obviously humans.” Rob added.

“They’re actually quite nice. They’ll say stuff like, we like the music but what does this have to do with Otherkin. And we never really have a good answer.” So if you wanted to do some research yourself by contacting the band, Luke has warned you about their not-so-good answers.

“Yeah, we’ll take the piss and say that sometimes we are representing them.” Rob joked. “ People seem to hate that subculture, like they fucking hate it. If you look at twitter, they hate it. It’s always like fuck Otherkin, those guys are dickheads, so it’s never about us, I think.”

“Yeah, it’s hard to know. But we’ll always re-tweet it” Luke laughed, so if you ever give a bad review they won’t be 100% sure it’s for them.

What is a song that you wish you wrote?

“I love, ‘Tomorrow Knows’ by the Beatles, that’s a fucking dandy song, and that would have been a pretty cool feeling to have written that song.” Luke was quick to comment. “Toxic, Britney Spears.”

“Yeah” Rob was quick to agree.

“Yeah, actually I would have liked to have written that song.” At this point Luke looks regretful of his first answer.

“Yeah, made a lot of fucking money from that song” Rob agreed. “Final answer, Toxic,” Rob confirmed.

What style of clothing do you try to go for?

“I think like, well we quite obviously dress in a certain way, but I think it’s just, I don’t know, I think quite a lot of the bands that we look up to, like the Ramones and the Libertines (well I do anyway), it’s just sticking to classic leather jackets and we just kinda stick to that.” Rob answered, looking down at his own black jeans and leather jacket.

“It’s very easy to wear as well, you know” Luke added, also looking at his outfit choice today.

“If everything you own is black, then you don’t have to put much effort into it. Exactly” Rob laughs, pointing to my outfit of a black tshirt and black jeans. “The perks of it all.”

“I’d hate to be in the Vampire Weekend or something, where they have to have a new polo shirt every day, and a new cardigan. Whereas we can wear the same clothes every day.” Luke thought of the horror of owning more than two shirts.

“What, are you trying to start beef with the Vampire Weekend?” Rob warned.

How do you feel about the role that the internet plays in the music industry?

“It’s destroyed it, but it’s also kind of, opened up a lot of opportunities I guess.” Rob said after a few moments of thought.

“Yeah, it’s a double edged sword, in the way. As in, I guess the way it used to be in the 80s and 90s, where that you would have a very small minority of bands that would get elevated in a way that you could ever get to hear about them. Whereas, at least now you know, people in Argentina could have hared of us, whereas, if we hadn’t been elevated back in the 90s they would never of hared of us. It’s democratised.” Luke said, giving an insightful thought into the internet music industry.

“People in Japan and Jamaica. God bless the internet I guess.” Rob added.

“It’s really democratised the music industry in a way. And it is beneficial for bands, who don’t have a lot of main stream appeal, because they can get out and tour and make enough money by selling stuff through the internet, like merchandise, and what not, or promoting for themselves. Whereas those bands would not have stood a chance 20/30 years ago. So it’s cool from that perspective.” Luke added.

“But nobody pays for music anymore, so.” Rob was able to draw a negative from the internet. “ So that’s kinda shit. Just the reality of it I guess.”

Name a band or artist that you think are underrated

“Yak” Luke was very quick to suggest.

“Yeah, Yak is a good one.” Rob was quick to confirm. “They’re fucking amazing, we’ve seen them a few times. I get why they don’t get the main stream appeal, because it’s pretty heavy stuff. It’s amazing, but it wasn’t a very busy show, which is sad to see.”

“I feel like, they’re not really a band that are not necessarily underrated, because I’d say the reviews of their album are really strong so, they’re just underrated by the public I guess. And they deserve to be, deserve to be known.” Luke added.

“The band Idols. We actually met, the bassist last night.” Rob added to the list of underrated bands.

“Yeah, he’s pulling pints. Really nice guy, they’re off to play with the Progedy this week.” Luke pointed out, so they’re not that underrated then?

“They’re about to not be underrated, they’re playing huge gigs now.” Rob amended his previous statement.

What’s your favourite and least favourite venue to play at?

“It’s called Jimmy’s in Manchester” Rob pointed out with little hesitation.

“Yeah, it was pretty shit. It was only open and they were really unequipped. It would probably be a really nice venue to play in,” Luke added, just in case anyone who works there sees their bad review.

“It was a bar with a stage essentially,” Rob said, painting a more vivid picture of the venue.

“Yeah, I think they’ve improved it now” Luke added.

“That place was shite, the one in Sheffield. I mean, we’ve had a few exceptionally shit gigs,” Rob reminisced about their Sheffield gig.

“At The Rocking Chair, well that is not a good venue. And we’ve played two soul destroying gigs there. And we’re pretty used to like, playing to nobody, but these were extremely difficult gigs. It’s like literally no one at one of them.” Luke added,” So yeah, there are two answers for worst venue. Best venue.”

“Best venue. Paradise in Amsterdam, it’s pretty good. It’s an old church, that they’ve changed. That’s like what, 2,000 +” Rob suggested, pretty quickly.

“Yeah, we played a festival there,” Luke added, clearly remembering the amazing impression that the venue had for him.

“I’d say Europe as well, they just do everything.” So I can guess where Rob wants to spend more time touring.

“Any places in England that are pretty good?” Luke asked the question I was ready to know the answer for.

“We played the Deaf Institute the other night. I’d never been there before. Especially since we played a shit gig the night before in Manchester, so that was actually an amazing show. They had a fully vegan menu as well. That doesn’t happen very often.” So there you have it, any vegan Otherkin fans know the gig to go to.

Could you describe your process of writing songs?

“There isn’t really a process,” Rob shamefully admitted.

“Yeah, we just stand in a room with our instruments on us and play things and if it works it works, if not we just, bicker for a bit then hope something good comes along” Luke joins in, giving us an insight into the inner workings of Otherkin.

“Oh, you should see the fights” Rob jokes, and by the smirk on his face I guess he wins most of them.

“No, it’s very democratic.” Luke was quick to amend his band mate’s comment. “If someone has an idea they play it, if other people enjoy it then they join in.”

“If no one likes it, they don’t join in. They just won’t play along” Rob jokes, they both laugh, evidently enjoying the extremely democratic process.

“Maybe someday we’ll get fancy, and go to a studio and write songs there.” Luke dreams.

“But for now we’ll just thrash it out in a room together. Hopefully not forever, because there are definitely better ways of writing songs than how we currently do it. All of us just blasting music as each other, trying to decide what to do.” Rob joins in.

“We don’t really have the patience to sit down with acoustic guitars and write songs. We do that the odd time, but the majority of the songs that we do are done by just being in a room.” Luke remembers the evidently painful times he has actually attempted to write a song.

“I wish there was a formula; it would be a lot easier if there was.” Rob joins in on Luke’s dream. “We’re drunk sometimes, that helps. But sometimes we’ll just write the shittest songs. We’re just faking it basically. Sometimes songs just come out and you’re just like yeah cool.” Rob tells me.

“We’ll let you know when we have a proper answer.” Luke assures me (I still haven’t received one though)

What have been some of your biggest challenges as a band so far?

“I’d say cracking in was the start, because we’re Irish, it’s quite tough,” Rob admits. “We don’t get to tour here as often as English bands; because they can tour then just go home. Whereas we have to do a three week shift, which means we’re playing on a Monday night gig, when sane people play on the weekends. It’s a lot easier to sell out a Friday night show than a Monday night show. But, I think, luckily its started to change. We had an amazing Reading-Leeds, we played it last year.” Rob said, a little more positively than he started.

“Yeah, it seems to be getting better.” Luke agrees. “I know we’ve done some tours that have been really grim. It’s one of those things where the English bands we’ve played with, we toured with the Amazons a while back and they said they���d done the tent that we’d been in four times. That was our first time being there. So it’s quite difficult for us, because we’ve probably spent the same amount of time being in a band, but spent a fraction of the time in England which is where we try to be.”

“But, we’d sell pretty big shows in Ireland, but that’s because we play there often. Whereas, over here, this is our first time in Cardiff, especially since we’ve got an album out.” Rob continued.

“Which is mad, it’s mad considering we have an album out but it’s just the way it is.” Luke states.

“And especially when you’re in Ireland there’s essentially three cities you can play in. Whereas where, there are fucking like, 29 or something. Everyone is like, bigger than Dublin, which is the main city in Ireland.” Rob admits, not bothering to name all 29.

“So I think that’s been our biggest challenge, us trying to crack the UK.” Luke returns to the question after some consideration. “And even still trying to crack the UK, like we could do a show in a certain city in the country and get nobody and we want to be at the stage now where we want to be able to know where we’re going to draw a crowd. It’s just difficult to be, in Ireland. We just have to be expecting that things are happening over here when we’re not here. At least in Ireland we know how well we’re doing there because we live there, we can’t do that in the UK. That’s the biggest challenge.”

“There’s probably a way better answer, but I can’t think of one right now.” So I take it that Rob isn’t too keen on the answer that he gave.

“Song writing?” Luke suggests, laughing.

“Song writing! Yeah, Jesus. Playing instruments, that’s a good one.” Rob adds, maybe a little too enthusiastically.

What’s a popular music opinion you have?

“I don’t particularly like the Beatles.” Rob happily admits.

“ Yeah, that’s really unpopular” Luke is obviously still sore about this subject.

“No, I appreciate the fact, like I know that they’re a very influential band, but I was never a Beatles person. And I’ve met people who are the same, so I know it’s not just me.” Rob defends his opinion.

“He doesn’t really like Radiohead, which is bad.” Luke adds, still clearly appalled by his band mate’s music choices.

#music #otherkin #band #boys #cardiff #welshclub #irish #ireland #clwbiforbach #clwb #ifor #bach #gig #concert #reading #read #blogger #blog #tumblr #interview

[karenhikari]

Family Life-13. Interesting Turns

Yes, I know, I'm late agai but what else is new? Don't worry, I know exactly how many chapters I promised, and I swear you'll get them, despite my two-weeks delay. Believe it or not, I still know what I do.

Anyways, the thing is I jus started classes today (don't ask me why I dido so on Wednesday, I wonder the same thing) and that's why I'm acting a little crazy right now, never mind me. You'll probably get the chapters I'm missing during the weekend.

This chapter was edited yesterday at 12:00 am, so it much likely will have some mistakes, please act as if they don't exist, my sleep-deprived brain thanks you. I really hope you enjoy this!

Throughout the years, Robert Lightwood had learned that you couldn't always trust your gut when it came to first impressions, especially not if there existed the possibility that your opinion was biased. It happened that, on some occasions, only time could tell the real nature of people, and someone you trusted whole-heartedly could backstab you while someone you eyed with contempt had sincere intentions.

Ever since Magnus and Alec had taken Max in, Robert had lived by that knowledge, when it came to his grandson, at least. He'd never had any problem whatsoever with Max's species. Quite certainly, he knew his grandson was a downworlder and quite certainly he didn't care.

He'd had, truth to be told, various issues when it came to Magnus, issues that included his species, his gender and also who Magnus was as a person―but time had taught him better. Hell, time kept teaching him better every day.

Despite all his big talk about changing, Robert had to admit that it hadn't been easy. Accepting Max had been easy; welcoming him into their family was merely instinctive.

On the other side, fully accepting the mix of downworlders and shadowhunters that his eldest son had chosen as a life hadn't been simple, it hadn't come as naturally.

Right then, almost five years after Max's adoption, Robert could honestly say that he'd gone a long way.

For starters, the mental barriers that he'd spent so many years building between those strange people that he called downworlders and himself had long-since come down, faded on the edges, until downworlders and shadowhunters were only people―truth to tell, he could mention quite a number of shadowhunters that had acted worse than some downworlders, himself included.

Though, there was a keyword―some. Over the years, he'd met several downworlders ―Alec mostly worked with the downworlder and shadowhunter relationship, after all―, but only some of them had stuck around the family enough for his son's children to call them "aunts".

One of them certainly, was Catarina Loss, a fellow warlock, and though it was probable that Robert's opinion when it came to warlocks was biased, as half of his family consisted in them, he had other good reasons to like Catarina―Caty, like he called her.

Catarina was responsible, kind. She was a committed and caring nurse, had been for centuries; she knew how to handle children and how to react to an emergency.

There was, also Maia Roberts, whose last name he only remembered because it was practically his own name. The werewolf girl was alright too, for the most part―for all the strange-looking blue skin and snowy white hair, Catarina couldn't grow claws and fangs out of thin air ―she probably could, with her magic, but Robert preferred to ignore that fact―, which certainly represented a threat for the children.

However, claws or not, Maia was kind and had a gentle smile, she was always ready to help and she was respectful. Maia was the kind of girl that did things the right way and followed the rules―Robert liked that of her.

Then… then there was Lily Chen.

Robert didn't like her, end of the story. Period.

He'd tried, for nearly five years he'd tried. Everyone but him seemed at ease with the vampire. Alec laughed and rolled his eyes when she spoke, Magnus teased her, the kids, even Rafael ―Rafael, who'd been terrified of vampires when he'd entered the family― adored her, Isabelle and Clary went shopping with her because, in their words, she needed to stop dressing like she was still in the thirties. Hell, even Catarina and Maryse seemed fine with her, but he simply didn't find it in him to make amends with her, especially when it was she who was a potential threat to his grandsons.

Lily, on her side, seemed to sense Robert's repressed groan each time he saw her, and, in return she didn't hesitate to let him know, in her own mordant, sarcastic and I'm-better-than-all-of-you attitude until Maia had to nudge her, signaling the vampire to shut up that, while she wasn't welcomed by him, she only tolerated him because Alec asked her to.

He'd talked about it with Alexander, too, but that only made his son shoot him a warning glare whenever he and the head of the New York vampire clan were in the same room, as if Alec expected him to make a scene for it. Frankly, that would have been the prospect five years in the past, but it wasn't anymore, that was the whole point of it.

"It's not that she's a vampire, Alec, I swear," he'd told his son one night, as they stood face-to-face in the kitchen of the apartment Alec had been sharing with Magnus for years, after Max's fourth birthday party, to which Lily had attended.

"It's not that she's a downworlder, you mean, it is that she's a vampire," Alec snorted.

"I just mean… Look, Alec, she's dangerous, that's all I'm saying, she―"

"As a matter of fact, so are you and so is Magnus and so am I" he pointed out. "There's a gunroom in the Institute, for the Angel's sake, and you seem fine with Mom or Jace being around the children. Jace, of all people! So say it, you're against Lily because she's a vamp."

"Alec, I only meant to―"

"Dad, I get it, you mean well. And sure as hell Lily can be heedless and too straightforward, but she has a good heart."

"Son, you certainly know her better than I do, but you ought to―"

"I trust my children around Lily just like I trust them around Isabelle," Alec replied setting his wineglass a little too hard on the kitchen table. "And if you are confident in my abilities to judge people, you should trust her too."

And with that, Alec had left Robert alone in the kitchen, deciding to end the conversation before it was transformed into an actual arguing, yelling match included.

Quite honestly, their relationship had been become better over the years, but sometimes it still felt as if they were walking on eggshells―a wrong move, an inconsiderate word and all their hard work would go to waste.

Robert hadn't dared bring the matter up again.

Not until that day.

It had been a long week ―who was he kidding, it had been a hard month― for Magnus and Alec, so he had offered to keep the boys for the weekend, giving the couple a much needed time away from being parents, just the two of them, two people in love. They were still young, after all, and the Angel knew raising kids was hard enough without things that suddenly burst in flames, courtesy of their young warlock and his untamed magic.

According to the plan, Alec would drop the kids at the Institute, where Robert was to pick them up and wait for Clary to open a portal to Idris for them. Normally, Magnus would be the one to do that, but that day he was busy with a client.

That wasn't the problem―it all started to go wrong when Alec called him, ten minutes after the time he was supposed to call him to tell Robert, signal that meant he was already at the Institute, waiting for him.

"Dad, I'm sorry for making you wait" he said without a greeting, sounding out of breath. "There's been a situation with Maia's pack and I won't be able to drop the boys off. Lily has them now, she―"

"Why not Jace or your sister?" Robert complained.

"They're on a mission and Magnus is busy. Cat's at the hospital. There's only Lily" his son retorted, presumably rolling his eyes. Robert groaned. "Dad, be nice, you don't even have to talk to her, just say thank you and she'll be off."

Robert was tempted to huff. Seriously, his son acted as if he were going to pull a crucifix and shower Lily with holly water every time he saw her.

Little did Robert know, however, that Alec had actually spent fifteen minutes on the phone already, telling Lily to bite her tongue and not say any of the things that would make him roll his eyes if he were with her. In fact, Alec said it would be better if she just kept her mouth completely shut.

"Fine" Robert said. "But for the record, I would prefer it if it were Maia the one who dropped the boys."

"That I know, dad" Alec said, then hung up.

He could be civil around the vampire, Robert decided with a sigh, even if there was no one else around to make sure they didn't jump on each other's throats.

―*―*―

As things turned out, he actually had to talk to Lily, and not exactly under the best of circumstances, though, to be fair, it wasn't the vampire's fault. Lily, true to her word, hadn't caused any problems. It was more of a shadowhunter's fault, and not Robert precisely.

When Robert finally arrived to the Institute, after Alec had called, he found out that Lily was already there and, instead of the original plan, which was Robert opening the door for her, letting the children in and then closing said door again, Lily had entered the Institute to say hi to Clary.

Well, still, he could be civil around her, either outside or inside of the antique church.

He supposed that, first of all, he needed to find Clary and then, wherever his daughter-in-law was, Lily Chen and his grandkids would be too.

However, he had only started looking for Clary when he came across a disturbing scene.

The first person he recognized was Lily, her long, black hair being an unmistakable trademark, her sharp fangs bared in a clear warning: don't come any closer.

For once, though, Lily's eyes were not focused on him, but on someone else.

Now, Thomas Hightower* wasn't someone that Robert was close to. They had never spoken much, despite them being contemporaries, except, maybe, when they shared the same thoughts about downworlders, which made it even more unsettling to find Thomas there, a strained smile plastered across his lips, a look of contempt placed in his eyes as they focused on Lily.

Glaring, Lily tightened her hands around the children and rolled her eyes.

"For the last time, let go of the children and I'll take them to the Inquisitor" Thomas was saying, his voice kept low, his back slightly hunched over, as if he were considering merely snatching Max away from Lily's grip and running away.

"The last time sounds good enough" Lily retorted. "I have strict orders to give the kids away to Robert Lightwood only, and last time I checked, you were not Robert Lightwood, so get the hell out of here."

"This is ridiculous, outraging!" Thomas said, almost screaming. "No shadowhunter would ever trust his children to a filthy vampire!"

"Don't tell me" Lily snorted. "And what about a filthy shadowhunter?"

Lily made a throaty sound then, straightening her back slowly, to make the threatening length of her fangs even more noticeable.

That was the moment Robert stopped listening to their argument, his attention caught up in his grandchildren―firstly, he noticed Max, the weight of the small warlock supported by Lily's hip, one of her arms located firmly around his waist.

That wasn't what Robert saw, not really―it was the way Max kept turning his head from Thomas to Lily, back and forth, every time one of them said something, his hands turned into tiny fists around the fabric of Lily's shirt.

Then there was Rafael, oh Rafael. Robert couldn't stop the pang of guilt that overcame him once he saw the young boy's expression―he looked terrified, his teeth biting into his lower lip, his left arm placed stiffly around Lily's waist, his hand clutching the side of the vampire. He breathed heavily, eyes focused on Hightower, confusion, hurt and fear flashing across his eyes.

In return, Lily's right hand laid on top of Rafael's head, her long fingers absentmindedly playing with the boy's dark longs―gently, almost tenderly, a way of letting him know that she was there, that he wasn't alone.

Yes, both his grandchildren looked terrified, but it wasn't of the vampire that looked every ounce as intimidating as she could manage―Lily's whole body was bracing for a fight, her shoulder blades tense, her movement too slow, given the rigidness of her muscles. Her jaw was set tight, her head thrown back.

Yet, her hands weren't as stiff, her touch on the children was gentle, reassuring.

Yes, his grandchildren were terrified, and it wasn't because of the vampire he'd labeled "dangerous" long in the past, but because of a shadowhunter―a shadowhunter with no claws or abnormally long fangs but a false smile and a contemptuous glare. And they had sought shelter behind a vampire, of all creatures.

Even the most foolish child isn't wrong and sees hypocrisy where the cleverest man does not; a child instinct is infallible, Leo Tolstoy had said.

'I trust my children around Lily just like I trust them around Isabelle' Alexander had said, and, suddenly, Robert understood why. There was Lily Chen, sarcastic, mordant Lily Chen, head of the New York vampire clan―protecting his grandchildren, who she didn't have to care for but did.

"Enough" Robert ordered, barely raising his voice as he stepped forward.

"Oh, Inquisitor, I'm so glad that you're here! I was trying to explain this fil-this vampire that she shouldn't even be inside this building."

"I'm glad to be here myself" Robert nodded, sending an icy smile in Thomas' direction. "Concerning you other words, Thomas, has it even occurred to you that there's a reason she's allowed inside? She's a family friend and she can come and go as she pleases" at his statement, it was hard to tell who seemed the most surprised, if Lily of Thomas. Though, truth to tell, the vampire made a better job disguising her astonishment.

"I... I understand, Inquisitor" Thomas said. "But it's merely common sense not to allow vampires into―"

"This is not your Institute, and these are not your rules" Robert cut him off. "In fact, I see why Miss Chen is here, but I still don't understand why you are."

Thomas' breath got caught in his throat, Robert could tell that much as the other shadowhunter seemed incapable of forming a word to reply.

"Inquisitor―"

"Get out, Thomas, and keep your opinions about my family to yourself."

"I can't believe it" Hightower finally said, giving Robert a disapproving look as he inspected him from head to toe. "It is true. You've become one of those downworlder-adorers! You are a disgrace to the Lightwood name, you and your faggot of a―"

"I won't repeat myself" Robert interrupted sternly. "Get out."

With an outraged huff, Thomas turned on his heels and left the place. Robert didn't turn to his family until he heard the hinges of the door rustling as it closed.

"Talk about unexpected appearances," Lily said with an amused smile.

"What are you talking about? You were expecting me" Robert pointed out matter-of-factly.

"Some things were still unexpected" the vampire argued. Robert couldn't have agreed more.

"Are you alright?" he asked instead, adding after a second-thought, his eyes focused on Lily. "All of you?"

"We're just fine" the vampire brushed off. "For the record, I had it all under control. I'd like to see him try to put a finger on me. Or on them" she concluded, pointing to the children with her head.

"That I see" Robert nodded. That was the moment Max decided that the man in front of him was in fact his grandfather and not another unwelcomed shadowhunter.

"Grandpa!" the small warlock squealed, trying to break free from Lily's grip, his chubby arms outstretched for Robert to pick him up.

"Hi there, Blueberry" Robert smiled, trying to take Max from Lily's arms without touching her―not because he was disgusted by her, but because he was ashamed to be that close to her after the way he'd treated her. "I'm happy to see you too."

"Go say hello to your grandfather" Lily said, turning to Rafael, who was still eyeing Robert warily. Instead of doing what he was told, Rafael looked up to Lily, an inquisitive look in his eyes, silently asking for Lily's approval. She nodded, and just like that, Robert had Rafael's arms around his waist. He wrapped his left arm around the boy's shoulders.

"Rafe" Lily said after a while, once the three of them were facing the vampire again. "Don't give me that look, he was not going to hurt you guys. I wouldn't have left him, you hear that? Over my dead body."

"You are already dead" Rafael relied in a small voice.

"Even more so. I'm not planning on dying again anytime soon. Believe me, it's no fun," Lily said in tone more gentle than Robert had ever heard her use.

"He was being mean" Max uttered after some silent second.

"He was" Lily nodded, squatting to see Rafael ―who now stood to Robert's left side, his arms still around his grandfather's waist― in the eyes. "Some people are just jerk-idiots" she corrected herself, as she caught Robert's warning glare. "Some people are idiots, okay? But who cares? You just keep doing what you're doing" and with that she leaned down, pressing a kiss to Rafael's forehead.

Sincerely, one moment Lily was on his good side and now he needed to have a serious talk with the vampire about her use of language while she was around the kids. It seemed like Lily Chen couldn't stay away from trouble.

"You'll be alright" the vampire said then, standing up. "Now, give me a kiss" she ordered, this time to Max, as she turned her head, offering the warlock her right cheek; Max happily complied. "Take care of yourselves and have fun at Idris."

"Miss Chen" Robert started, before she had the time to turn on her heels and leave with no other words. "Thank you," Lily laughed.

"Don't call me that!" she snorted. "Miss Chen! No one has called me by that name in, what, seventy years? I'm Lily for you, Inquisitor or not."

"Well, Lily, I―"

"If you call me 'Miss Chen' one more time I'll call you Mister L. forever and ever and, trust me, a century is a very long time, let alone eternity!"

Robert was tempted to roll his eyes. One time. One time he wanted to apologize and thank a vampire for her services and no―she had to keep interrupting him for nimieties. That was why he disliked vamps―they couldn't keep any formality.

And this was the head of a clan, for the Angel's sake.

However, when he turned to look at her, her smile seemed kinder and the mischievous glint in her eyes was just that―mischievous, but not malicious.

"We'll settle for our given names, then" Robert said.

"Sounds fair" she nodded, still grinning. "Well, you're finally here and I'm supposed to meet with Maia soon, so, we'll see each other around" Lily offered, raising a hand to wave goodbye at them.

They had never done this whole greeting/farewell thing, Robert dwelled on suddenly. Most of times they merely ignored each other.

"Certainly" he nodded, thinking that, of course they'd see each other―at the kid's birthday parties, at work, on every family gathering.

They had been family for years and it had taken a bigot and his big mouth for him to realize it.

Life did take some interesting turns, Robert thought as he watched Lily turn on her heels and care-freely exit the Institute ―her black locks, a strand painted red, not as bothering as it had been before―, he ought to know that by then.

I want to say that I enjoyed writing this chapter a lot. Working with Robert, surprisingly enough, has become quite fun and heart-warming, at least when it concerns this story. Working with Lily was surprising―I didn't know what she'd want to do next. I hope it doesn't seem OOC.

*1: If any of you, by mere chance (I had to go back and make sure I was writing the correct name myself), recognizes the name, Thomas also appears in "The Simplest of Answers" well, actually, he's only mentioned because he'll probably be my bigot OC from now on.

This is all for now, I really hope I can get the two missing chapters out during the weekend―I swear they are already written, but I still have to transcribe and edit.

I love you all and read yo soon!

#TMI #Born to Endless Night #Fanfiction #Family #Lightwood-Banes #Alec Lightwood #Malec #Magnus Bane #Robert Lightwood #Rafael Lightwood-Bane #Max Lightwood-Bane #Lily Chen

[traciesbookspot]

In this thrilling new Night Rebel series set in New York Times bestselling author Jeaniene Frost’s Night Huntress world, sexy and ruthless vampire Ian finally meets his match!

The Rule Breaker…

Master vampire Ian is unrepentant, shameless…and every shade of wicked. He’s made one too many enemies in his two centuries of existence, including Dagon, a demon who now lays claim to his soul. Ian’s only chance to escape Dagon is to join forces with a Law Guardian, but he’s never been able to abide by the rules for long.

The Law Maker…

Veritas’ normal role is police, judge, and jury to reprobates like Ian. But she has her own ax to grind with Dagon, so if she can use Ian as bait…well, all’s fair in law and war. As they scour supernatural hotspots to perfect their trap, Veritas soon realizes Ian’s carefully cultivated, devil-may-care roguish image hides something much more powerful. And Ian discovers Veritas has shocking secrets of her own. As they’re drawn to each other with a passion as intense as their peril, either love or justice will prevail. But each will have devastating consequences.

  About the Book

Shades of Wicked by Jeaniene Frost

Series Night Rebel Book One (Part of the Night Huntress World)

Genre Adult Paranormal Romance Urban Fantasy

Publisher Avon Books

Publication Date October 30, 2018

Purchase Your Copy Today! Amazon  |  Avon Romance  |  Barnes & Noble  |  Google Play  |  iBooks

Shades of Wicked by Jeaniene Frost – Excerpt

This had better be the right whorehouse.

It didn’t look like the seedier brothels I’d recently been to. This three-story structure could pass as the meeting place for an elite social club. Despite its unexpected prettiness, if I had to wade through another flesh-fest only to turn up empty-handed again, I wouldn’t be responsible for what I did to my quarry when I finally found him.

To vent my aggravation over weeks of fruitless searching, I kicked the door open. Politeness had been wasted at the last several establishments anyway. No smart proprietor willingly gave up a well-paying client, and I’ll say one thing for the bordello-loving vampire I was after: He obviously paid well.

To my surprise, I didn’t see anyone in the elegant foyer. Brothels usually had several prostitutes lingering around the entryway to welcome new customers. I was further surprised when I didn’t hear sounds of carnal activity coming from the upper floors of the house. I pulled out my mobile and checked the GPS pin. Yes, this was the right place. What’s more, it certainly smelled like sex, once you got past the choking scents of various perfumes and colognes.

But where was everyone?

Faint vibrations in the floor made me stride toward the hallway. Ah, so the party must be downstairs. I followed the strongest scents of perfume until I found a staircase that descended two floors. It ended at a locked door that I also kicked in. No point in being dainty now.

Noise blasted out. The basement must have been soundproofed for me to miss it before. Now, I wished I couldn’t hear what was going on. A boisterous chorus assaulted my ears, repeating over and over. Thunder and Blazes, the favorite opening song of the former Barnum and Bailey circus.

And I had walked into a circus, I saw now, although one without any real animals. About a dozen naked women and men frolicked on the ground, doing woefully inadequate impressions of the creatures their full body paint represented. No work ethic, I thought when three faux lions appeared more interested in petting each other than in more realistic fights for dominance, and don’t get me started on how they ignored the two faux gazelles that walked by them.

The dozen or so prostitutes dressed in clown suits showed more dedication for their roles. They emerged from a fake car in the far corner of the room, some falling forward in rolling somersaults once they exited, some tripping each other with comedic exaggeration, and some blowing up balloons into explicit body parts that they then graphically connected.

An eruption of fireworks yanked my attention to the other side of the room. They were going off around what looked like a throne, haloing its occupant in a blaze of sparks, fire and smoke. The mini pyrotechnic display was so bright, I couldn’t make out the enthroned person’s face, but when he called out, “Act Eight will now begin!” I heard a distinct English accent.

Then the smoke cleared enough to show a tall man wearing a blue circus-ringleader jacket. The smoke still concealed him from the waist down, but I didn’t need to see more to know I’d finally found my target. The vampire who’d blazed a trail through a dozen whorehouses in only two weeks had a face as beautiful as an angel’s, not to mention that his fire-and-umber hair was as distinctive as his looks. When he got off the throne, revealing he wore nothing beneath the ringleader jacket, I realized those weren’t Ian’s only notable attributes.

For a moment, I stared. What vampire in his right mind would pierce himself with silver there?

I was the only one shocked by the silver piercing through the tip of Ian’s cock. Everyone else stopped what they were doing and rushed toward him. Even the glitter-covered acrobats leapt from their swinging perches near the ceiling, gracefully landing near the pile of limbs that now formed around the red-headed vampire.

It wasn’t enough that I had to be burdened with a vampire so mentally deficient that he’d willingly given himself a case of perpetual cock burn. He also had to be depraved enough to indulge in carnival-themed orgies. I wasn’t about to find out what the rest of Act Eight entailed. I made my way to the growing flesh pile and began flinging people aside, taking care not to throw them too hard. Their heartbeats meant they were human, so they couldn’t heal the way my kind could.

“What’s this?” Ian asked in an annoyed manner when I reached the bottom of the bodies. Then he let out an appreciative noise when I yanked him up with none of the care I’d shown the other people.

“Why, hallo, my strong blonde sweeting.” Now he didn’t sound annoyed at all. “Are you the surprise I was promised?”

Why not let him believe that? “Sure,” I said. “Surprise.” And I grabbed him by the cock. I had one more thing to verify before I went any further.

Ian chuckled. “That’s the spirit, poppet.”

I dropped to my knees. I wasn’t about to do what he thought. Still, this act allowed me to zero in on my goal with the least amount of resistance from him. Once I got a good look at the smoke-colored brands near the base of Ian’s groin, I released him. Only one demon branded people with these particular markings, and it was the same demon I’d been after for thousands of years.

“Ian,” I said as I straightened. “Say good-bye. We’re leaving.”

He laughed outright. “I don’t think so. You might be lovely, but two’s lonely, while a dozen is a party.”

I gave a disparaging look around. “No great loss. The clowns were fine, but none of your faux animals fought each other or even attempted to jump through the fire rings.”

At that, he gave the animal-painted prostitutes an accusing look. “You didn’t, did you?” Then, his eyes suddenly narrowed as he looked back at me. “Wait a moment. I know you.”

We’d only officially met once before, so I hadn’t thought he’d remember me. Someone with his tendencies had to have crossed paths with vast numbers of blonde women.

“Veritas, Law Guardian for the vampire council,” I confirmed. Then my hands landed on his shoulders. “And as I said, you are coming with me.”

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Tour Wide Giveaway

To celebrate the release of SHADES OF WICKED by Jeaniene Frost, we’re giving away a paperback copy of Once Burned, the first book in the Night Prince series, to one lucky winner!

GIVEAWAY TERMS & CONDITIONS:  Open to internationally. One winner will receive a paperback copy of Once Burned, the first book in the Night Prince series, by Jeaniene Frost. This giveaway is administered by Pure Textuality PR on behalf of Connie Suttle.  Giveaway ends 11/9/2018 @ 11:59pm EST. Limit one entry per reader. Duplicates will be deleted.  CLICK HERE TO ENTER!

    About Jeaniene Frost

JEANIENE FROST is the New York Times, USA Today, and international bestselling author of the Night Huntress and Night Prince series, as well as the Night Huntress World novels. To date, foreign rights for her novels have sold to twenty different countries. Jeaniene lives in Florida with her husband, Matthew, rarely cooks and always sleeps in on the weekends. Aside from writing, Jeaniene enjoys reading, poetry, watching movies with her husband, exploring old cemeteries, spelunking and traveling — by car. Airplanes, children, and cook books frighten her.

Website  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  |  Goodreads  |  Amazon

    This promotion is brought to you by Pure Textuality PR.

  Blog Tour: Shades of Wicked by Jeaniene Frost In this thrilling new Night Rebel series set in New York Times bestselling author Jeaniene Frost’s Night Huntress world, sexy and ruthless vampire Ian finally meets his match!

[theconservativebrief]

Since Steven Spielberg’s 1975 film Jaws first ushered in the era of the summer blockbuster 41 years ago, sharks have been among summer cinema’s favorite perennial villains. They rank right up there with the alien from Alien and Sadako from The Ring in terms of habitually recurring evil forces with a single-minded purpose: to destroy everything in their path.

There’s something so elemental and irresistible about the shark movie that over the course of the past few decades, it has become one of Hollywood’s most well-trodden paths to terror. The genre now spans a wide range of films, from classics like Jaws and Deep Blue Sea (yes, Deep Blue Sea is a classic) to serious indie projects like The Reef to sillier D-movie affairs like the Sharknado, Mega Shark, and Shark Attack franchises. And if you’re among its many fans, you know that the only thing that can cure shark movie fever is more shark movies.

A friendly shark chomp from The Last Shark (1981).

Lucky for you, there’s always another shark movie on the way. The genre’s newest man-eating — or in this case, Jason Statham-eating — entry swims into movie theaters this weekend, with the opening of the tongue-in-cheek mega-shark movie The Meg — just days before the sixth and final installment in the Sharknado franchise arrives with Sharknado 6: It’s About Time.

The poster for Shark Exorcist (2015), in which a Satan-worshiping nun summons a demon to inhabit the body of a great white.

But why sharks? Ordinarily, the prospect of watching Statham try to survive an oceanic disaster scenario would be only a so-so draw for moviegoers. But if you throw in a battle to the death against a giant megalodon — the huge prehistoric shark which has, in recent years, outsized the great white shark in terms of appeal — then obviously, we’re hooked.

In real life, sharks are mainly non-aggressive creatures who barely resemble the evil killing machines they morph into onscreen. They’re anything but an unstoppable force — humans kill a staggering 100 million sharks each year, or 11,000 sharks every single hour, a jaw-dropping statistic that mainly results from the high demand for shark fin soup in some parts of the world. You’re statistically more likely to die from a lightning strike or a toppling vending machine than from a shark attack.

So why are we so fascinated by shark movies, even though they barely represent reality and their plots tend to be incredibly repetitive?

Oh, there are so many reasons.

This scene from Shark Attack 3: Megalodon (2002) has become an internet-meme mainstay.

You may believe sharks are limited to the sea, but you are wrong.

Thanks to the magic of cinema and the relative ease with which a shark fin can be CGI’d to pop out of something and move ominously toward the viewer, we don’t just have sea sharks. We also have sand sharks. Avalanche sharks. Sharks in a sharknado! Sharks in a sharkcano. (That one really happened.) Sharks in a blizzardnado! Sharks on land! Sharks in shark lake. Sharks in swamps. Sharks in the bayou. Sharks in apartments! Sharks at Sea World! Sharks on the Jersey Shore. Sharks at the Golden Gate Bridge! Sharks at the supermarket! Sharks in Japan. Sharks in bathtubs and puddles. Even sharks in the sky.

Just your routine apartment shark, as seen in My Super-Ex Girlfriend (2006).

Megalodon takes out the Golden Gate Bridge in Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus (2009). A shark takes to the skies in Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus.

Much like the 2006 Samuel L. Jackson film Snakes on a Plane relied on the surprise factor of slithering reptiles wreaking havoc at 30,000 feet, a crucial component of shark movies is sharks’ seemingly inherent knack for appearing where and when you least expect them: Just where are the sharks going to be lurking today?

Spoiler alert: They are everywhere.

If you don’t think your average shark is a super genius hell-bent on avenging the atrocities perpetuated against its species by the human race, you’ve never watched Jaws 3-D (mama shark seeks revenge against SeaWorld for killing her baby), Jaws 4: The Revenge (shark seeks revenge against Lorraine Gary’s character Ellen Brody, ostensibly for killing its shark family but more broadly for the sad and rapid demise of the entire Jaws franchise), Mega Shark Versus Crocosaurus (shark seeks revenge on Jaleel White for Jaleel White’s entire acting career), or Deep Blue Sea (shark seeks revenge against scientists for experimenting on it).

To wit: Please enjoy the following GIF from Deep Blue Sea, in which a shark holds a stretcher-bound Stellan Skarsgård captive underwater so that it can throw him against an underwater window in order to spite his grieving girlfriend:

Deep Blue Sea (1999). Yep. That happened.

I mean, come on, who among us hasn’t wanted to throw Stellan Skarsgård against a window? Bring on the shark uprising!

The shark can do what no other villainous horror movie creature really can: In addition to engaging in epic bite-offs against other creatures, it can combine with those other creatures to create animalia supervillains. Sure, Hollywood will invent a demonic vampire here and there, but you can’t really give a demonic vampire tentacles. That’s simply not the case with a shark. In the world of shark movies, if you create an undead demon sharktopus, that’s just the first act.

Would you like your shark with one head or two? How about three? Would you like an actual prehistoric mega shark? How about a giant robot shark?

Spidey-shark concept illustration by Calene Luczo

Few, if any, animals have enjoyed such creative big-screen depictions as the noble shark. There are demonic sharks! Sharks with tentacles! Zombie sharks! This shark-horse! Ghost sharks! A shark that walks on land! And coming later in 2017, there will be flying sharks controlled by Nazi zombies!

In other words, if part of the fun of any shark movie is rooted in the nervous anticipation of where and when a dangerous shark might appear, a significant number of shark movies up the ante by combining their shark threats with other things. Not only does this approach allow the sharks to travel farther and kill harder, it ensures an endless supply of shark movies, because Hollywood will never run out of shark-based combination hazards. Killer koala shark from Down Under? Done.

Shark movies can be as minimalist or as full-scale as you want or need them to be.

As Blake Lively illustrated in 2016’s The Shallows, shark movies can be a one-woman-versus-one-shark show where the shark is a threatening but largely implied presence. They can involve just two people facing off against a small but deadly herd of sharks (47 Meters Down, Open Water), a tiny ensemble of stranded swimmers trying to avoid getting picked off one by one (The Reef), or a full-scale cast with big-budget shark action like Shark Night 3-D or Dark Tide.

The giant shark from last year’s The Shallows wasn’t even huge by shark movie comparisons. Javier Zarracina

And one of the best things about shark films, regardless of their scope, is that shark size has no correlation to shark excellence — as anyone who actually saw Shark Night 3-D or Dark Tide can attest. The bigger shark doesn’t always have the better bite. In fact, films like Open Water and The Reef can succeed without showing any sharks at all. Believing they’re there is all that matters.

On the other end of the spectrum, the first appearance of a shark — it’s always bigger than you were expecting, no matter the film — never gets old:

Jaws (1975).

This is a pretty obvious reason, but it remains the most compelling of all. Stories pitting man against the terrors of the deep have always been a mainstay of human folklore, from the biblical fable of Jonah and the whale to nautical tales of the great kraken, from Moby Dick to The Old Man and the Sea to Lovecraft’s tentacle monster Cthulhu to Disney’s Pinocchio.

Super Shark (2011).

Each of these narratives involves great sea creatures that provide opportunities for heroes to face their fears, come to terms with their humanity, and, you know, be manly men who fish and hunt and conquer the wilderness.

But as formidable opponents, many of these sea creatures lack a significant, shall we say, bite. Giant squid generally stay too far below the surface to really pose a viable threat to humans. Even a big swordfish is no match for a skilled modern fisherman — and the swordfish wouldn’t want to eat you anyway. As for whales, the bigger they are, the more peaceful and harmless they seem to be. Even the ones with teeth are passive and don’t really want to hurt you (unless they’ve been subjected to lifelong animal cruelty).

Sharks, by contrast, are big. They have teeth — sometimes really big, really sharp teeth! They come into the shallow parts of the ocean where humans like to swim and play. Because they are drawn to loud noises and activity in the water, it’s possible, if not probable, that they could be lurking in the water where your loved ones are splashing around. They’re durable and intimidating, and even though in real life sharks are almost never aggressive toward humans, the biggest ones have the power and the potential to chomp you in two.

The Last Shark.

In sum: Like all man-versus-nature tropes, man-versus-shark movies — and man-versus-sharks-versus-other-creatures movies — can reveal important truths about human nature and serve as fascinating, in-depth character studies. Unlike most other man-versus-nature tropes, they do it with a side of terrifying, razor-sharp teeth.

Sharks combine mankind’s desire to conquer nature with its fear of and fascination with the mysteries of the ocean. Even in this modern age, when we’ve been able to plumb the depths of the seas, we still know surprisingly little about sharks. Jaws’ famous description of a shark’s “cold, dead eyes, like a doll’s eyes” in the film’s USS Indianapolis monologue (which was based on the real sinking of a US World War II Navy ship and subsequent shark attacks on its sailors) is still a testament to how unknowable they are.

In essence, in fiction if not in real life, sharks are the perfect scary force of nature: an ever-present threat waiting to happen, in a deep blue setting that humans are still learning to navigate.

But when all is said and done? As with all great horror movie villains, ultimately we’re always rooting for the shark.

Original Source -> Why we love shark movies

via The Conservative Brief

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