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mellowwillowy · 8 months

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Teasing (Bullying) Yan! Eldritch Horrors/TricksterS' Cock

(*peaces out after making them jealous*)

CW: GN! God Reader (mentioned as male and female), mentioned breeding,Bullied cocks (RIP Erickson), "what happens when you accidentally touch their pee pee" :D ps: don't mind the names.

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- You were only doing what you usually do, your hand inside the bathtub feeling his tentacles until you were actually feeling something else.

- You did not realize it until you finally touched something hairy, there's no way a slimy tentacle has that right?

- Your left hand went to feel another thing in the hope of finding his tentacle. Bam bam, you got his tensed thigh instead. You could have sworn you heard him hissed slightly from the contact.

- "No looking back."

- That was the deal you had with him. You got to relax with him in the tub but you were not allowed to turn back. Why? Because he knew his face would be peppered by kisses non-stop if you were allowed to look at him.

- You decided to act dumb and kept on feeling it, squeezing and tickling it every now and then.

- He didn't voice any of his discontent and only stayed silent while occasionally twitching when you teased one of his veins.

- You wiggled on his lap, teasing his boner with your plump ass while humming to yourself.

- "Your tentacle isn't that large this time hm?"

- You did not even bother to stroke his ego (both literal and), even worse, you start to compare his sizes with his brother's.

- "I never knew he has larger tentacles than yours. Perhaps his tentacle would be waaaay stronger in both squeezing and penetrating?" (Penetrating, what?)

- He stayed silent but you could feel his hands feeling your shoulder blades, peppering your wet neck with kisses before it turned into hickeys and bite marks.

- You squealed a bit at the contact and pain, relishing in the sting of it.

- "Are you competing for the power of your bites with his? I can give you the win if you want~"

- Another splash of oil to the burning fire. He may be silent and demeaning, but angering him will have you faced with something even worse than the worst.

- "Ahh, I remember how one of my devotees used to go crazy and mark me, hard. Here." You pointed to the place where your follower bit, "Mmh, he even drew a lot of blood to the point I thought he was some kind of vampire or he was trying to bring me with him to death."

- Rest assured, that man had long been sent his way driven to madness as the man bit himself to death. His teeth were all shaped into sharp rows of shark's teeth to make him feast himself easier, all done by himself under his influence.

- "I promise you that I'll reserve you the best place in the lake."

- He licked the blood he drew clean, relishing in how tasty it tasted in his tongue.

- "I'd rather not demonstrate just how much it's capable of binding you to me for eternity. Even if this body could not conceive, a miracle is still a miracle, no?" (works both F/M)

- He knew you were acting dumb, but who was he to confront you about stuff that he had known you would never admit about?

- "What can this little thing do to me? Break my bones? Can it even crack me?"

- "Rest assured that it can birth me genuine happiness of seeing my offspring inside you." (Be it a male, female, or intersex, it'll work either way~)

- You wiggled your ass on him again, this time you let go of his cock and feel it with your ass instead, "Then how about you show me just how mighty the King in Yellow is?"

- He was mighty, all evident in the bulge of your stomach filled with dripping cum. You whined when he pushed the leaking cum back into you before lining his cock to your entrance again.

- "Stop acting like a damn innocent virgin when you are nothing but a god that is turned on by my degradations."

- Don't worry, HAITA will be there to pamper you with his never-ending praises of worship.

Hastur (HAITA - ???)

- You were only cuddling with him under the weighted blankets, shutting yourselves away from the cruel cold.

- Your hand was ruffling his fluffy air and then moved to his back, hugging him tightly.

- He responded by pulling you closer to his chest, nose nestling on your head while his leg wrapped around yours.

- You moved your hand to feel his chiseled chest before turning away from him, turning yourself into a small spoon.

- Noel who was oblivious to this whined a bit, his arms wrapped around you tightly.

- You chuckled and moved your hand to bring his leg to wrap it around your leg. Boom. It's his crotch (How? Don't ask me).

- He immediately hissed at the contact, body jolting forward as your hand made contact with his member.

- You were certain you were feeling something you shouldn't have and as though you were trying to confirm it, you felt it by rubbing it up and down, his meat slowly getting harder.

- "Dear... not there..." he whispered into your nape, lip feeling your bare neck while leaving a trail of kisses.

- You knew you should let it to but you were feeling rather 'needy', wanting more of his reactions and whimpers. So what did you do? You let go of your hand and grind your ass around his hardened cock instead.

- "Dear... what are you doing...?"

- "It feels cold if I don't snuggle myself closer to you." And that was a fucking lie.

- Just how convenient was it to have his meat ground by your ass? Was your ass freezing and in need of heating itself with his cock? If so, he wouldn't hesitate to help you.

- His hands put you still in place as he started grinding his member against you, rubbing himself with your ass? Had he lost all his feelings of shame like his brother? (Erickson slander time)

- You relished the way he needily used you, something he doesn't do that often. You could feel his cock growing larger as his breath grew raggier. You could feel him panting into your neck while his grip tightened around your waist.

- You lived for this, to see and feel your adorable lover getting all flustered over the slightest sleight of hand. Just how sensitive was he that a mere touch could turn him this needy?

- "Mmh... faster... wanna feel warmer..."

- He complied and increased his pace, lip bitten to prevent his moans from slipping out. Grunts echoed in your ears as you started rubbing your thighs together.

- "So good hm? Just like someone I remember although... who was it again?" Your mind drifted to find the identity of the person who you said was similar to him, unaware of how his jaw clenched at the mention of someone else. Who was it? Someone he had not personally had their bones crushed into pieces? Perhaps he should start checking his journal again...

- "Ahh... It's that one crazy devotee. Come to think of it, what happened to him?" Your statement did not help him at all and instead made him brim with rage and jealousy. How could someone of a low-life be allowed to grind their disgusting thing onto you?

- Oh no no, he would never be angry with you. He could only be furious with those who deemed themselves worthy of feeling you even just for the slightest. Could you imagine what happened to their fingers and anything that touched you?

- "It seemed like you were out of your mind. Even I myself could hold back so why couldn't you?"

- Unlike his usual calm or flustered facade, his pace increased and it grew rougher. He felt the need to prove himself that he was allowed to do more and better than those dust, of course, still mindful of his power to not accidentally hurt you.

- "This damn pant is in the way..."

- Also him asking you non-stop if you were OK after you two had done the deed... "Are you alright? Did I go too hard? Should I get you an ice pack? Oh no no, of course I should! Please wait!" (King of Aftercare...)

Noel (NUG/???) - Trickster

- You two were twirling around in the middle of the air with cosmic glowing below you, performing your favorite waltz while fooling around with him. The two of you jumped like a rabbit while occasionally wrestling each other like bulls.

- All were fun and joy until you locked him into the wrong position. No, it wasn't wrong, it was inconvenient. The two of you cackled before you tried to pull away from the position, hand on the place you shouldn't be.

- "Oof-" Erickson groaned the moment your palm held onto something soft of him. You paid no mind and held the soft surface even harder, making him double immediately. (RIP baby trapping)

- You immediately let go when he double, examining him closely before you realized it was his cock that you gripped earlier judging by how he was cupping it. You could have sworn you saw his soul leaving his body for a moment.

- "Did that hurt so much?" You patted his back, "Or are you just being a lil wussy?"

- Erickson shot a glare at you with a tear in one of his eyes, "Why don't you have a feel of it? Better yet, who would even enjoy this?"

- You thought to yourself, "There are though. Some of my devotees once offered themselves to be kicked right into their nuts." You were not wrong, but you were talking to the wrong person at the wrong time as well.

- "They said something like they have no use for it since they could never do me anyway." You shrugged your shoulders, grinning stupidly at his face. Your followers cared not about your gender, they only cared about you gracing them with your appearance and smile.

- Erickson gritted his teeth in annoyance, he planned on breaking their legs one by one again this time. (RIP Noel's leg)

- It wasn't like he was oblivious to everything just like how he presented himself to you. Oh no no, he was way more than that. Could you even count how many pitiful souls were sent to the Church for purification? Noel was there dusting them after Ollie wrung them like dirty cloth, squeezing blood out of their body for the Gods to drink later.

- Of course, he and Noel did not even bother to drink it. Such a disgusting thing going inside their throat? They'd rather drink the blood of other beasts.

- He had to make sure he wrung more of them again after this. His priority now was to give you a taste of your own words.

- He caged your body that was sitting despite the two of you were not on any ground. He was smart enough to tie you with his ties first just in case you threw yourself down to run away. Both your wrists were tied into one, his hand holding your wrists while his knee feel your sex.

- "I wonder what your devotees thought of you, whether they saw you as a maiden or a respectful God, they would never know how much of a whore you are." He hissed as his mouth rested on your neck, peppering it with bitemarks, drawing blood only for him to drink.

- You looked down into his crotch, eyeing him in worry.

- "Ya' think that would stop me from railing you? I ain't a wussy, baby. An effeminate would never be that wussy." He pulled you by your ankles, his clothed crotch feeling yours, "My junior is still capable of producing more Juniors after all... but ah, even if your body could not conceive, I'll find a way and fuck this body of yours until a miracle happened." (Both fem and male works...)

- His words burnt, but you knew he had always been the burning one. Always using your weakness against you but who were you to complain?

- "Get ready for lots of icepacks, no, not for me but for you~"

- He might not be able to win against Hastur in the competition of filling you up so much but that doesn't mean he did not fill you to the brim <3

Erickson (YEB/???) - Trickster

ᴀꜰᴛᴇʀɴᴏᴛᴇꜱ:

OC used: ???, Noel, Erickson

Reader:

Fox Reader :Fox reader is a deity that appears as a Man and Woman, mostly as a Man when meeting devotees. Fox Reader's gender is questionable but is depicted as feminine. Nonetheless, their body could never conceive until a miracle happened *it happened* Unlike Cat Reader who is intersex, Fox Reader's body is questionable thoroughly. For Male Readers, I'm aware that Omega? can get pregnant? Sorry, I just really wanna write breeding shits- Pink colored text = +Jealousy

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ducklooney · 29 days

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do you think Uncle Scrooge loves (in a romantic way) Brigitta? If you do tell me why/or give proff, because i really like them as a couple.

Sorry for the late reply, but I agree that Scrooge and Brigitta are very much for each other. Well, usually Scrooge avoids Brigitte because he thinks she might steal his fortune, which is not the case, because Brigitta MacBridge only wants love from Scrooge. She does not need wealth as she is a business woman herself. However, Scrooge as a bastard duck always thinks that someone wants to take his money and is a bit unbalanced. Still, there are moments when Scrooge really loves Brigitta. This is shown in particular by the comic "Zio Paperone e la formula della ricchezza" from 1995 by the writer Carlo Panaro and the artist Romano Scarpa. Scrooge and Brigitta go to China in search of treasure, but Scrooge keeps bothering Brigitta and wants to run away from her. Their dynamic between the two of them is very funny and comical. However, it happened that an Asian couple of them arranged that at the end of the treasure hunt it was actually love between Scrooge and Brigitta, and Scrooge was later fascinated by how Brigitta was very good at dealing with money affairs. There is also this article that talks about it: https://www.lospaziobianco.it/panaro-formula-ricchezza/

Yes, translate Italian into English on Google Translate.

You have a comic and "Secret of the Incas" from 1996 by the writer Byron Erickson and artist Giorgio Cavazzano where Scrooge and Brigitta (plus Donald and his nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie) go on a treasure hunt, with Scrooge being greedy and Brigitta not. Eventually the two are together again and Scrooge realizes that Brigitta only wants him and nothing else.

Yes, unfortunately many people don't like Scrooge and Brigitta together since Brigitta supposedly annoys Scrooge all the time in the Italian and other European comics which is not the case. To me, their relationship reminds me of Pepe Le Pew and Penelope Pussycat from Looney Tunes, but you end up with Penelope loving Pepe even though she ran away from him before. So similar with Scrooge and Brigitta but they still love each other in the end. And their comical relationship as well as Brigitta chasing Scrooge reminds me of A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare.

I would also mention the comic book "A Tale of Two Biddies" by writer Giorgio Fontana and artist Marco Mazzarello from 2017, where it is about the conflict between Goldie and Brigitte over Scrooge, until they finally realize that Scrooge is a bastard duck who only thinks about money. But in the end it happened that Goldie admitted that her love with Scrooge was only a love of convenience and past and said that Brigitta deserved Scrooge very much. It says that the love between Scrooge and Brigitte makes sense as well as being the love of the present. By the way, I like both couples (Scrooge and Brigitta and Scrooge and Goldie), but I have to say that I like the relationship between Scrooge and Brigitta more and that they are very comical and partly reminiscent of the quarrel between Donald and Daisy. Although again it depends on how and who thinks for whom. Everyone has the right to their opinion.

And yes, Carl Barks preferred Brigitta to Goldie, even though he didn't invent Brigitta (Romano Scarpa invented her), and thought she would fit well in his comics, so Romano Scarpa even drew Scrooge and Brigitta to Carl as a gift Barks.

It's just an opinion and I recommend that you read those comics if you can and I'm sure you'll like them. And sorry again for waiting for my reply, I've been busy the last few weeks.

And yes, happy Easter!

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bellafemme · 1 year

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Billboard interview.

Why Lana Del Rey Is Opening Up About Her Family on ‘Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd’

There is, in fact, a tunnel under Ocean Boulevard. Though a few online spectators suspected the tunnel, which inspired the name of Lana Del Rey’s album Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, out March 24, might be located in Myrtle Beach, S.C., Del Rey recently revealed that the underground tunnel is actually in Long Beach, Calif. — not far from Los Angeles, where Del Rey has lived for the last six years.

The singer-songwriter’s use of SoCal iconography has been a cornerstone of her songwriting for over a decade, from Born To Die’s (2012) depictions to old Hollywood glamor to Norman Fucking Rockwell’s (2019) allusions to Venice Beach. While it’s present on her new project as well, Del Rey admits she is not quite as focused on “world building” as she once was, and instead is “living from the neck up,” focusing her craft on more lyrically driven and intimate songwriting.

Del Rey’s Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd discusses unrevealed details and stories about her “family of origin,” especially in songs like “Fingertips,” which she says “tells everything about everyone from day one.” Just weeks before its release, Del Rey – who is Billboard’s 2023 Women in Music Visionary honoree — talks about creating the album in her living room, and why she is ready to talk about her family.

How did your new album begin to take shape?

Mike Hermosa, who produced the majority of the songs on this album, would come over to my house, and I would hear him in my living room playing piano. He’s not even a musician full time. He’s a DP, a cameraman. I would hear him play, and I’d be like “can I record that?” or I’d sneakily record something. Eventually I asked if he could just keep playing, and I could sing. Then, every Sunday when he wasn’t working, he would just kind of noodle around, and I would sing. That’s how we wrote the first song: “Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd.” I knew right away that I really, really liked it. I enjoyed how casual writing with Mike was. He didn’t have a dog in the race. He wasn’t interested in anything beyond just playing. It’s fun that the entire album didn’t feel like we were making one until the end when Jack Antonoff came in and was like “I really like this. Can I put something on top of this?” When Jack comes in, you know you’re making a real record.

Do you feel this casual approach to songwriting was able to open you up creatively?

This process was almost like automatic singing. I just knew exactly every word to sing for everything he played because the chords were perfectly arranged. I think my overall feeling when writing this album was just, “wow, I got lucky.” Also, I realized that, even when I’m seeking so many other things in my life, music really seeks me. It’s like a little bird following me around. Somehow when I didn’t want to make music, I was presented with the best collaborators I’ve met. I just had them in my living room. I realized music is the one thing that constantly shows up for me, even when I’m looking for something else.

Since you were singing so automatically, as you put it, did you go back and edit, or did you leave it as is?

There was a lot of editing, because it was mostly a stream of consciousness, but every now and then I’ll have a complete song come to me fully formed. The song “Fingertips” I created in one sitting, voice memoed it, and sent it to [the producer and composer] Drew Erickson. He came back to me the next day with a full orchestra. Again, I just felt so lucky: lucky for the songs, lucky for these producers, lucky for the project.

You have Jack Antonoff coming back on this record. He’s worked on so many major albums in the last five years, including two of your own (Norman Fucking Rockwell and Chemtrails Over the Country Club). As someone who has worked with him so often, what’s his secret? Why does everyone want to work with him?

He can play anything on any instrument. He can fit the right instruments and melodies to any idea you’ve had. I think he plays something like 16 instruments. For us, it’s definitely very collaborative. I think probably out of any projects he’s worked on, he would say I give him the most direction. It’s funny because I recently heard all of his records he made from when he was in high school, and I still hear so much of what he’s done on Taylor [Swift]’s new record from that high school record. He’s just prolific. It’s absolutely wild to watch. That’s why it’s so fun because you really get to create any sound with him. He’s also a girl’s guy. He gets it!

He’s also a featured artist on the album too. How did that come about?

I was done with the album, and he came in for a couple days. We sat there, and I said, “let’s just play the piano.” I can make a song out of anything Jack plays. That’s actually how Norman got started too. He just plays and I just sing. He started playing something and then I was thinking about his fiancée [Margaret Qualley] who I just can’t live without! I love her. I started singing “he met Margaret on a rooftop / she was wearing white / and he was like / ‘I might be in trouble.’” I asked him what he thought we should say in the second verse because with him and Margaret it was a “when you know you know” situation. He had the idea to sing about what you should do when you don’t know. He started singing, and I told him he should just sing it on the record. It was really fun.

What overall themes did you try to capture in this record?

Family of origin is the overall theme. I think with Blue Banisters I wanted to capture this idea too, but I flew it under the radar. I was trying to address some criticisms that I had heard said after Chemtrials… mostly that people don’t know much about me. I didn’t promote that theme of Blue Banisters at all intentionally. In this album, I got to really finish my thoughts and get super specific, which I was not comfortable with completely before… I do list my grandpa, my brother, my dad, my Uncle Dave. In the song “Fingertips,” I sing “Charlie stop smoking / Caroline will you be with me / will the baby be alright? / Will I have one of mine?” I think I was able to open up about this because Mike was so casual to work with. All in my living room. It allowed for that. “Fingertips” tells everything about everyone from day one until now.

Are you nervous about being so forthcoming about your family in this record?

I was. I was so uncomfortable. Then, by the grace of God, I felt completely unburdened.

Your father, Rob Grant, is releasing an album on Decca Records on June 9, and you’ll be featured on two songs. Has he always been musical?

My dad has always played piano and he sang when he was younger with my uncle who’s a traveling organ player for Emmylou Harris and Buddy Guy. They wrote country records back in the day. I don’t know how and when it came to him. But I think he just decided he wanted to record it. And [my manager] played it for Decca Records, and they loved it. I’m not talkative when it comes to myself, but you will learn so much about me in hearing him. It gives so much context to the family.

How Lana Del Rey Became ‘Completely Unburdened’ For Her Most Personal Material Yet

Lana Del Rey practices "automatic singing." Using the improvisational songwriting technique, she lets her voice carry over accompaniments, not commandeering where her words or melodies take her, accepting all ideas she has in the moment and editing them later. Lately, her voice has led her home, back to memories of her childhood in Lake Placid, N.Y., and to ruminations on relationships with her family and the divergent paths they’ve taken. That subject underpins her upcoming ninth album, Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd (out March 24). Del Rey, 37, says she hesitantly began to unpack this subject matter with her previous album, Blue Banisters — but now, she’s ready to dig deeper. “At first I was so uncomfortable,” she says of the more personal material. “Then, by the grace of God, I just felt completely unburdened.” As a singer-songwriter, this year’s Visionary honoree has embodied that word for over a decade. Her 2012 major-label debut, Born To Die, made her a star and defined music’s Tumblr era, as a young Del Rey toyed with both the romantic and the darker sides of the American dream. Her “world building,” as she calls it now, for her early work created a collage of beautiful and disparate images, pairing hip-hop aesthetics with references to the Kennedy family, Elvis Presley with John Wayne, and old Hollywood glamour with biker gang grit.

Since then, Del Rey has pushed musical boundaries — seamlessly peppering an album with features from Stevie Nicks to Playboi Carti (2017’s Lust for Life), reworking a Sublime cover into a contemporary Billboard Hot 100 hit (2019’s “Doin’ Time”), for instance — while achieving both critical acclaim and commercial success. She has earned six Grammy nominations and holds the record for most No. 1s on Billboard’s Alternative Albums chart. And somehow, each week, it seems a new song from her vast catalog gains traction on TikTok. (“West Coast” and “How To Disappear” are two recent breakouts.) Younger artists often cite her as an inspiration — including Billie Eilish, whom Del Rey now calls “my girl. It makes me feel comforted that music is going in such a good direction.”

Since 2019, you’ve released four albums. Is it fair to say you have more creative energy than ever?

I think it might look like that! It’s funny because I keep telling people, “I haven’t worked in three years,” but really I just haven’t done shows in three years. As soon as I start getting ready for a show, that’s when it feels like work.

How has your process changed since Born To Die came out?

Eleven years ago I wanted it to be so good. Now, I just sing exactly what I’m thinking. I’m thinking a little less big and bombastic. Maybe at some point I can have fun creating a world again, but right now, I would say there’s no world building. This music is about thought processing. It’s very, very wordy. I’m definitely living from the neck up.

Can you remember what it felt like creatively when you were just starting out?

I think back to the beginning, being in New York. I would just go to a little deli by Grand Central and all you had to do to sit at the table for hours was buy a black coffee. I remember thinking, “I’m doing it. I’m living it.” It was all very thrilling. I was so psyched back then.

You recently featured on Taylor Swift’s “Snow on the Beach.” What was collaborating with her like?

Well, first of all, I had no idea I was the only feature [on that song]. Had I known, I would have sung the entire second verse like she wanted. My job as a feature on a big artist’s album is to make sure I help add to the production of the song, so I was more focused on the production. She was very adamant that she wanted me to be on the album, and I really liked that song. I thought it was nice to be able to bridge that world, since Jack [Antonoff] and I work together and so do Jack and Taylor.

Who do you consider to be a visionary?

Joan Baez. I sang with her recently. She gave me a challenge: She said, “Go down a little road and look for a left turn and find my house [in Northern California]. If you find it and can play ‘Diamonds and Rust’s’ high harmony, I’ll come to Berkeley with you and sing.” So my sister and I rented a car and searched for the house. I was very nervous. I don’t play guitar that well, but I learned the first three chords and sat across from her, [and when] we stopped playing, she was like, “Great, I’ll see you at Berkeley.” And another visionary to me is Cat Power. I had heard that she would run offstage when she wasn’t feeling it or just turn her back to the [audience] and keep playing. That’s when I knew I could probably do this.

#lana del rey

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kelsochronicles · 7 months

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Tag 9 People You Want to Get to Know Better

Thanks for the tag @the-kingbo

Favorite Color: Green, kinda like olive green but a bit more rich in saturation

Currently Reading: Say Yes by Scott Erickson

Last Song: Dragons by Drew Holcomb

Last Series: Ahsoka

Last Movie: Kiki’s Delivery Service

Sweet/Savory/Spicy: Savory

Currently working on: I’m all over the place lol. Mostly character practice portrait studies from Horizon

Since I’m still relatively new here and figuring out who I know that’s also on Tumblr I won’t have 9, but I tag: @nerd-artist @meg-noel-art @hartlesshart @foibles-fables @boobaloof @maggierosestudio @mehoymalloy @sorbetowl (if y’all want to partake!)

#tag chain #also sorry if you got tagged already

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ducktoonsfanart · 2 years

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The Three Caballeros Ride Again, Mermaid Daisy Duck and The Golden Helmet (classic versions, redraw of these covers and paintings and Donald Duck comics by Carl Barks and Don Rosa)

A long title, but what's there is. Well, after a long time, to publish something, albeit belatedly, related to anniversaries.

The first drawing represents a redraw of a comic cover by Don Rosa and one of his best comics, 2000’s “The Three Caballeros Ride Again”. He drew in his own style, although not very perfect, where the famous three caballeros (Donald Duck, Jose Carioca and Panchito Pistoles) travel around North, Central and South America in their adventures. Here you can see how they cross the Arizona desert and Mexico (cacti can be seen there). Yes, Donald is in a hurry to drive his car under number 313. I definitely recommend this comic to everyone who hasn't read it yet.

Certainly the three of them love adventure.

Another drawing presents Daisy Duck as a mermaid. I know Mermay is over, but I don't care, so I'll post it for Merjune (two words mermaid and the month of June), or Toon June. I took the classic version of Daisy Duck, but I threw the bow out of her. Certainly she is waiting for her beloved to come on the rocks around the sea shore.

The third drawing is a redraw from Carl Barks' ingenious drawing "The Golden Helmet" based on the comic book of the same name, which came out on May 20, 1952, so this year is the 70th anniversary of the comic. Donald Duck and his nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck are searching with a valuable artifact that can help rule all of North America. I've done this before: https://ducktoonsfanart.tumblr.com/post/672580051030753280/king-donald-duck-king-with-his-nephews-i-will

Certainly, in addition to Donald and his nephews, the museum's curator and two of Donald's villains (no, they are not Beagle Boys) are in search, and they are Azure Blue (reference to Olaf the Blue, actually to the famous Eric the Red and his son Leif Erickson), and Sharky. It's not exactly how it turned out, but I drew in my own style, mostly connecting classic versions from cartoons and connecting it with the style from comics.

Yes, and this was done on the occasion of Daisy’s birthday which is June 7th and on the occasion of Donald’s birthday which is June 9th. I wish them a happy birthday, albeit early!

Yes, just to note that the universes in the Carl Barks and Don Rosa comics are not the same, but different, although Don Rosa referred to Carl Barks, he made differences in his comics, especially in characterization.

Of course, I hope you like these drawings and these ideas and there will be more.

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lmttn · 10 months

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Gabriel Knight 3: Day 1 Complete

After my initial post about Gabriel Knight 3 (which was itself just me restating a few Tweets I made about the game), I figured I'd keep writing about it until I'm finished with it. I guess this will be like a really abridged camcorder let's play, but maybe less focused on the game itself (For example, I don't think I want to reveal too many huge plot spoilers.) and more on my own thoughts on the game and maybe also the graphic adventure genre as a whole.

Before I start, maybe I should first talk about my own history with the point and click adventure genre. It's not very long. When I was a kid I played a little bit of Nancy Drew: Curse of Blackmoor Manor (2004) with my mom, and I thought it was really difficult and none of the puzzles made any sense and then I went back to playing Battlefield 1942 (2002). Not long later, after getting GameTap (points to anyone else who had it), I tried a few of the many old adventure games on the service, such as the first couple King's Quest games and some of the Myst games. You could probably guess how well those went for me.

It wasn't until last year, at a point in time in which I really felt like I had played everything I thought I wanted to play, that I decided I'd give the genre another shot. It was a good opportunity to explore what I had realized was a huge blind spot; I love old PC games, and this was once a marquee genre for the platform. The first game I played in this excursion was LucasArts's Sam & Max Hit the Road (1993). I just thought it was okay. I really liked Sam and Max as characters, but I wasn't that invested in the world they inhabited or the mystery the game saw them solving. In addition, I really couldn't recall a single puzzle in the whole game. That might be a good thing, since that means none of them must have been particularly infuriating. Next, I tried Full Throttle (1995), also by LucasArts. I didn't finish it because basically nothing about its story, world, characters, or gameplay grabbed me. It's allegedly extremely short, so for all I know I might have seen the majority of the game before quitting.

Up next was Sierra's The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery (1995), which I'm just going to refer to as Gabriel Knight 2 or GK2. I was interested in it because it seemed like the polar opposite of the other two games I played. For one, it was by the other major graphic adventure publisher. But it obviously ran way deeper than that. GK2 was very different in terms of tone and presentation as well, being a dark paranormal mystery in a contemporary setting, played by live actors.

I ended up finding GK2 to be immensely charming. Gabriel Knight and Grace Nakimura, the game's dual protagonists, quickly became two of my favorite characters in the medium. The writing and acting were campy, but nothing felt forced or insincere. A couple of its puzzles were pretty frustrating, but they were worth powering through to see the next part of the story. Also, it had to be among the most homoerotic games to be released by a major publisher in the 1990s. Metal Gear Solid wishes. If you're reading this and you haven't played it, I highly recommend it.

Which finally brings me to Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned (1999). I first tried it right after finishing 2, but was scared off by its interface, which may have been designed by aliens. I'm not going to retread what I talked about in my initial post about the game, but trust me: it's fucking weird.

One of the most confusing things about GK3 is how it starts. The game's opening cutscene gives absolutely no context as to why Gabriel is getting his ass on a train in France. That's because the actual intro is in a prologue comic, which was included in the game's box, but bizarrely isn't included as a digital extra in the Steam/GOG re-releases of the game. Thankfully, it has been uploaded elsewhere.

Heartbreakingly, Dean Erickson did not return to reprise his role as Gabriel. Instead, Tim Curry—who voiced him in the first game—was brought back to play the protagonist. Erickson knocked it out of the park in GK2. He had a more convincing Louisiana accent than Tim Curry ever will, and he was significantly more capable of portraying Gabriel at his most serious. Curry's portrayal, on the other hand, is really over-the-top. Unfortunately, Joanne Takahashi, who did a fantastic job as Grace in 2, didn't return either. I can't comment on her replacement (Charity James) just yet, as Grace has had very little presence so far in my playthrough.

As I said in my initial post about the game, Gabriel Knight 3 used a completely original engine. It was probably going to be used for more than just this game, but GK3 ended up being Sierra's final adventure game. It's a shame because it's a really fascinating engine that, weird interface aside, opens up a level of fully 3D exploration that other graphic adventure games didn't have. Instead of pre-rendered backgrounds, everything is 3D: characters, environments, and all the little objects that inhabit them. The level of detail is pretty surprising, as some of these areas are quite big. You have a freely controllable camera that moves independently of the player character. In the two images below, you can see the same area through two cameras. The first is the default angle you see when you load into this area. In the second, I pulled the camera back as far as it let me:

Obviously, the ground textures have not aged all that well, and some of the skyboxes depicting distant mountains don't look too great either. The level of detail, however, is pretty impressive. All signs and posters in the world are fully legible, and the texture filtering is good enough that they actually still look very smooth when you zoom in on them. I should've taken some pictures of them to illustrate this.

The interiors look (and run) way better, and they also do a better job of showing off the level of detail this engine is capable of. You can pick up that crumpled piece of paper in front of the trash can. It's so useless that it doesn't even get added to your inventory, but it still has a whole animation and voiceover dedicated to it.

Gabriel Knight 3's game sections are divided very concretely. The game's "chapters" are presented as days, which are split blocks of hours. For example, Day 1 of the game is split into 10AM-12PM, 12PM-2PM, 2PM-4PM, 4PM-6PM, and 6PM-10PM. Thankfully, there is no time limit or real-time clock. Instead, essential story progress is what moves you from one time block to the next. As the title suggests, I just finished Day 1 of the game.

Day 1 has the notorious cat hair mustache puzzle. It is, to put it lightly, fucking stupid. To make matters worse, it is the first major puzzle in the game. I can't even imagine how many people bought this game in 1999 only to never see past this part.

While its tale of vampires, missing babies, secret societies, hidden treasures, and seriously unconvincing Scottish accents has me intrigued so far, GK3 lacks the camp charm of its predecessor. Jane Jensen can obviously still write convincing characters, and her sense of humor still shines through occasionally, but this game is way more stone-faced than 2 so far. But all in all, so far so good. If I can get through a puzzle so bad it has its own Wikipedia article, I should be able to comfortably get through the rest of Gabriel Knight 3.

#gabriel knight #3dfx #adventure games #point and click #point and click adventure #sierra online #windows 98

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boricuacherry-blog · 1 year

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At circa 9:00am on June 16, 1994, the body of Kristen Pfaff was discovered by her friend Paul Erickson in the bathroom. Outside in a U-Haul were all of Pfaff's belongings as this was the day that she was to move to Minneapolis to be near old friends. She was tired of Courtney Love and wanted to leave the Seattle drug scene. Pfaff had completed drug rehab and wanted to start her life over. She had also reunited with her old band Janitor Joe.

The last person to see Pfaff alive was Eric Erlandson, who visited her cira 8pm the night before. Sometime later Pfaff drew herself a bath and allegedly shot up heroin.

When Pfaff's belongings were returned to Janet Pfaff, Kristen's mother, Janet discovered that some pages were ripped out of her diary. The pages that were ripped out and missing were for the week that Kurt Cobain went missing.

Pfaff's autopsy was performed by Dr. Nikolas Hartshorne, Courtney Love's longtime friend who had also announced that Kurt's death was a "classic suicide."

Janet Pfaff has publicly stated that she does not accept the official explanation from police on how her daughter died.

#kristen pfaff #kurt cobain #courtney love #eric erlandson

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lizzygrantarchives · 1 year

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Interview Magazine, February 14, 2023

FRIDAY 12:30 PM JAN. 13, 2023 LA

LANA DEL REY: How’s it going, sweet girl?

BILLIE EILISH: Lana, dude. Thank you for thinking of me. I am absolutely stoked out of my fucking mind.

[Laughs]

You were my lock screen on the first phone I ever got.

Oh my god.

I knew for months before I got my first iPhone that it was going to be that fucking photo of you with the bee on your lip.

You know what’s funny? That bee picture was for Interview Germany.

No way. I remember showing everybody. I grew up homeschooled, but we still had…

I’m so fucking jealous of that.

It was pretty tight, but we still had talent shows even though we didn’t have a school. I was all up in the talent show singing your stuff.

What?!

Dude, come on.

Do we have any footage? [Laughs]

Oh yeah. I sang “Brooklyn Baby” at the last one I did. I’d film myself covering your songs and pretend that I was gonna blow up on YouTube from them, and then they’d get two views.

And you did.

No I didn’t! [Laughs]

Well, later in life. I remember seeing the first videos of you singing and I said to my managers, “She’s the one.”

Oh my god.

I was like, “This is the girl. She isn’t just talented. You can tell she’s kind.” It didn’t feel like you were aspiring to be anything. It’s crazy to have that magical quality.

Lana, please. We’re here to talk about you, for the love of god. You’re putting out another album [Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd]. How are you feeling? Are you dreading it? Are you excited? Are you nervous?

All of it, as usual. At first, I was super excited because I started it with Mike Hermosa, a DP and cameraman who, as far as I knew, was not a musician. Every Sunday morning, he’d lie around and play these licks on his guitar. One day, I was like, “Do you think I could record that?” Then I’d sit down and start singing. After five months we went into the studio with the guys I know from Echo Park, like Drew Erickson, Benji, and Zach Dawes. Later, I found out they were composing for all these great people like Weyes Blood and Father John Misty and Pink Floyd. Mike was like, “I’ve never been in a studio, so I don’t really feel like I should be a session player.” And I was like, “I know it’s a lot to go into that ISO booth and play what we have been playing for fun, but just try it.” Then Drew would come in and record these beautiful strings. I would talk about wanting a little bit of a spiritual element and we talked about working with Melodye [Perry] and Pattie [Howard] and a couple of women who had toured with Whitney Houston, which was just unfathomable to me that I could be in the same room with them. So that started building one element of the sound for maybe one-fifth of the album.

Amazing.

For those nine months, I was as comfy as could be. Then, things started leaking and I wasn’t sure how. It brought back all this weird tension of, “I know it’s not about money, but what else are they seeing if they can somehow transcribe all the words in the song?” I started getting nervous about peripheral things, and then I told everyone I wanted to wait until August because I wasn’t feeling ready. Then, as things started to leak, I thought, “You know what? It has been done for a year, so I’ll just move ahead with it.”

Wow.

I feel differently on different days. It’s all about the process, not so much the results. Now, I feel good about it. The shoot we just had, that was the biggest production I’ve ever been on and it went so well. I was nervous about the interview, because when me and Mel [Ottenberg, Interview’s editor-in-chief] talked about it, I was like, it could only be only Billie or John Waters. When they said you wanted to do it, I was so happy.

I can’t believe you even thought of me. But dude, this has been done for a year?

September 2022 was the very last song I wrote. It’s a song called “Margaret,” about Jack Antonoff’s fiance [Margaret Qualley]. I was like, “You know what? I want to write a song for him.” It lands right in the middle of the album. It’s funny, this album felt totally effortless. When I did Norman Fucking Rockwell!it was about world-building, whereas this was straight vibing.

I love that. You can hear it in the music that you’re feeling yourself. It feels like you’re comfortable. You sound like you’re surrounded by good people. I would love to hear, specifically with this album, and also in general, how much of your writing is based on reality or fantasy or other people’s experiences. That was one of my biggest inspirations from you—your storytelling abilities and your ability to write from a character’s point of view. I find it a lot easier to write a song if it’s not about my life and if it’s not true. [Laughs]

Which is funny because they sound like they’re straight from you. Last night, I had a conversation with my friend Jack. Something had happened when he was in New York and he was telling me about it, and we were kind of worried. He was like, “I know you get it because you’ve gone through dot-dot-dot. You’re so brave.” I laughed and I was like, “Brave is the last word I would use to describe myself.” So much of my life is sitting at my metaphorical desk alone and writing. But with this album, the majority of it is my innermost thoughts. Some of the songs are super long and wordy like “Kintsugi” and “Fingertips.” I was almost nervous to send the voice notes to Drew Erickson.

Yeah.

I’d go on a seven-minute rant with a repetitive melody. It would be exactly what I was thinking about, mostly family and whether everything was going to pan out alright in the end. I had been reading so many articles that my father and I followed up on over the last ten years about the discovery of telomeres and the extinction of death and how we’ve always been edging towards this point in science where that would be a possibility. With my dad and my brother and sister all living together, that was on my mind. So much of this album is based on the concerns or hopes in my mind. With past stuff, I would talk about the garden of evil and good and bad, but I really was meeting some characters. Like they used to say, “When girls got to Hollywood, they were fresh off the boat.” I didn’t hear that term until later, but I did meet some people that I thought were really cool who were like, “Do you want to go to the Guns N’ Roses concert?” And I would be like, “Yeah.” Then, somehow I would be sitting in a garden and I would see David Lynch behind a red curtain with a cigarette. Some of the people I was hanging out with, I found out later, were unsavory characters, and so they played a part in the writing.

Right.

For instance, when I got to L.A. I was mostly touring. I didn’t know that many people. It took me a long time to figure out where my roots were. I had a lot of random experiences that I wrote about, and at the time, they made me really happy because I was like, “I’m not just watching someone else live their life, I’m living my life,” which was new for me because I’ve always been so shy. I don’t write well when I’m not happy, which is funny because there is a blue tone to the songs. It was like 90 percent reality. I think the storytelling vibe that people get is because I was just in awe of the things that were going on. Coming from a farming town, L.A. was never a possibility. My brother and sister and I always say, every time we drive through a perfectly symmetrical palm tree lane, we feel like we’re on a set. Maybe it was my lens on how heightened everything felt. God, I’m very long-winded. I just recently realized that I talk a lot.

[Laughs] I love it. I feel like I’ve never listened harder in my life. I feel like a student.

That makes me so happy. The one good thing about listening to this class is that I’m a trustworthy teacher. If anyone ever wants to learn how to get through a storm and know that all things pass, I can teach that class. [Laughs]

Yeah, man. You’ve also been doing this for so long.

I was just thinking about that.

I’m really curious, and you can feel free to say fuck off, but you are so romanticized online, specifically different eras of you and your music and your visuals. You were always the coolest of the cool in my world, but I was wondering if having older versions of yourself romanticized later in life might give you this feeling of, “When I was doing that, you guys did not give me that same validation and gratification.”

Yes. I was thinking about this last night actually, if it’s better to be initiated into that club where it’s like, “She’s wonderful,” right away. Once things grew on YouTube, I expected that there was going to be this very niche lane where I knew that I could thrive, but it didn’t really go that way. I quickly shifted right into the middle lane where everyone could see it and could hear the music. As soon as that happened, I knew I was in for it, but I didn’t know to what extent. In the beginning, I was following the mantra: “It’s all about how you feel, not about what other people think.” I had never thought that one day Bruce Springsteen would say something like, “I think she’s one of the most beautiful American songwriters” after Sasha Frere-Jones said, “Change your name, change your face, and try a new career,” and Jon Caramanica was going off about whatever—this was in The New Yorker and New York magazine, and I lived in New York. [Ed. note: The previous quote cannot verifiably be attributed to Sasha Frere-Jones. You can read his 2012 New Yorker piece on Ms. Del Rey here.” All of a sudden, I was walking down the street as I always did, and people would throw elbows at me. I was like, “Oh my god, no way did that actually happen. Someone recognized me and gave me a shove.” Or in San Francisco, I was eating at a bistro and a woman threw a book about feminism at my face. I thought I was completely in for it. I thought that all I could do was just keep touring. So, I toured for nine years and kept my head down. I didn’t think anything could ever get elevated to the point where, for instance, Interview magazine would say, “You’re on the cover.” Even still, it’s like, “Really?”

No way.

When things shift radically in your life you have to almost want to have a radical perspective shift. You can’t force it, but if you stay calm, all of a sudden, it comes. I know that the process I went through is not the process a lot of people went through. Everyone gets their fair share of think pieces, but there were definitely some 60-page articles about me being the face of feminine submission and the pro-domestic whatever. That was quite tough, because at the time, I was just trying to figure things out. Now, you hear a lot of singer-songwriters and rappers talking about how things really are in their lives, and a lot of it is super messy. And everyone’s like, “The storytelling is amazing, and I love that they’re baring it all.” I always felt with me that there was some catch-22 and I wasn’t sure what it was for a long time. Then, I cracked the code and realized they were tapping into the fact that there was something a little weird and different going on with me, but I didn’t really know that. And so it actually was a blessing because I got to figure out what they were tuning into—what they said was so dark—that I didn’t see. I was like, “What are they seeing in this shadow side that I’m not seeing?” That opened a door for me to think about the way everything had gone from when I was little up until now. And so, that was a very shrouded gift.

It’s so fascinating to hear you talk about that. I relate to so much of it. And also, this was all happening to you in such a different time.

The era was definitely different. I remember talking to friends at that time where they were like, “Are you afraid to make one misstep?” I was like, “Yeah, I do feel like one wrong step could ruin everything.” That’s why I was very tentative and didn’t talk too much. Whereas now, people have all these brand deals and things where it doesn’t really matter if something goes wrong, because there’s always the next thing.

But also, they don’t ever let anything go. You literally can’t make a single mistake ever. No matter what you do to redeem yourself, it doesn’t matter. They decide that’s who you are and that you deserve death.

Right. I think that also, people are being a lot more careful with what they say. I remember my first big interview with Rolling Stone for Ultraviolence. He asked me about the song “Sad Girl.” Where it goes: [sings] “I’m a sad girl, I’m a sad girl, I’m a sad girl.” He said, “At 29, don’t you feel uncomfortable calling yourself a girl?” I was like, “You mean instead of?” And he said, “Well, a woman. I mean, you’re like 30.” I was really caught off guard because I wanted to talk about how I mixed my own album with this guy Robert Orton. Then, I said, “Well, what about that Jennifer Lopez song [‘Girls’] or the Beyoncé song ‘Girls Run the World’? I think she’s older than me.” And he was like, “That’s different. That’s a fun song.” I don’t feel like those kinds of questions get asked anymore. For me, it was trial by fire. It’s definitely a different era now.

I have trouble remembering this when I feel very hated and disliked.

Which is such a crazy concept to me with you, but yes.

Well, you should know that in my eyes, you could do no wrong. But I have this inevitable feeling of, “Oh, everyone hates me.” With the world of TikTok and social media, there is a level where it’s kind of true, because there are these videos. I’m lying in bed last night, and I go on TikTok because I’m falling asleep, and I just want to be mindless for a second, watch some funny videos.

Totally.

I keep scrolling and I’m thinking, “Billie, put your phone away. You’re getting tired.” Then I swipe to the next one and it’s a video with millions of likes and it’s something about how I’m a horrible person. And all these comments are like, “I’m so glad that you guys are seeing through her.” And I’m like, “Damn.”

That is so hard for me to fathom. You know what I think? It’s always the nice ones. [Laughs] I feel you’re almost—I don’t know what the word is, not impermeable, but it’s almost like there’s a shield around you. I think that’s because you have revealed so much that there is nothing to say about you. With me, if people feel like there’s a veneer, there’s so much to reflect off of that. I’ve never read anything crazy about you until, of course, anytime dating comes into the picture, that’s whenever things get crazy for me, but then it goes away. But I always felt like there’s just such a warmth there between you and your family. It just made me feel like you’ve got that shield.

I do. It’s really true. You need to shut up about me because you’re being too serious. [Laughs]

I’m going to stop.

Also, you should know that any time you ever felt like any part of the world was against you, nobody else thought that. Because I find myself thinking everybody hates me when really, that’s such a tiny sliver of reality.

It can definitely limit your beliefs in terms of what the future holds. It’s like, “Is the way people talk about me going to change the way people relate to me every day?” Because every day is still so normal for me. I mean, there are things that are not normal, but I wanted to have the same encounters and be able to observe people in a coffee shop the way anyone would. If your circumstances are negative, of course you have to accept that, but it’s so important to not focus on a negative situation that you don’t really have anything to do with. It’s a ride that you’re on, and you have to just keep on tuning in to what you want.

Right.

Sometimes what I wanted was to move and be in the Midwest, and that clashed with what people thought was right. I had to dig really deep into my gut and be like, “Do you really want to do this? Do you want to make a career change?” Because I love to sing, but it’s been, like, 16 years or something. I felt like I had made this deal with the press, that because I hadn’t given very much information, I was entitled to a certain amount of privacy. But what was interesting is that it had the complete opposite effect. But it was so important for me to maintain this feeling that I could still go rogue, and I could still fucking have my ear to the streets and be at the same clubs as all my friends on the East Side.

Getting back to your music, I want to know about the album artwork. I want to know about where you were and what was going on and how you thought of the title.

Mike Hermosa and I, the first song we wrote was, “Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd.” I was spending a lot of time in Long Beach and I had read that there was a tunnel sealed up under the Jergins [Trust] Building. All of the mosaic ceilings were still perfectly preserved, but no one could get in. I had also been listening to a lot of Harry Nilsson. He has this song called “Don’t Forget Me.” That sentiment plus this man-made tunnel that was sealed up but was so beautiful, I liked the idea of putting them together. I knew right off the bat that that was going to be the title. The artwork is by Neil Krug, who’s done a lot of my covers. My original cover was nude, then I thought about it, and I was like, maybe not right now, because there are some other things I want to do where I feel like that could get in the way. For each shot, we were really specific about the idea and the mood. He took 65 shots in a row and we used every single one of them, because I told him I didn’t want him to just shoot, shoot, shoot, I wanted to take my time and think about what I wanted to express in my face.

They’re so beautiful. I don’t know which one is the cover, but I saw a bunch of the shots.

That’s the other thing. At first, the title was definitely going to be Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, and then I fucking panicked and I went to Neil’s house and said, “I know this is fucked up, but I’ve changed the title. It’s going to now be called, ‘Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd Pearl Watch Me on Ring a Bell Psycho Lifeguard.’” He was like, “What the fuck?” I was like, “I’m not telling anyone. Just mock it up.” He mocked it up, but we realized that maybe it was a bit much to have six titles in one. Then, he was like, “This is reminding me of a format that I’ve always wanted to play with. What if we just used one title, but then we filled the rest of the page with everyone who’s featured and everyone who engineered it?” He mocked that up on the portrait shot and I was like, “You did it.” That was a really psychotic day because I was like, “Am I willing to literally burn everything down to the ground by having some strange, nonsensical title?” But that’s a really good lesson because even with the nude photo, it was like, I might not have used it, but there’s definitely something there. The idea behind it was, instead of being exposed for things that weren’t true, I wanted to reveal something about myself that I actually thought was beautiful, but in the end, I got nervous about doing that because I was like, “Is this an artistic inspiration that came to me or is this a reaction to something I feel is critical about me?” I never liked to do anything in response to something that’s fear-based or based on what people think about me. I don’t know if that’ll ever come out, but if it did, I would just want to make sure it came out when I thought it was super fun and not because I had to show something to people. That part of the process was a little tumultuous, because I was feeling open, but then I closed down again and wanted to play it safe. But the good thing is that the songs are so wordy that if you listen to them carefully, they’re revealing in the same way the photo would’ve been. I was like, “Okay, I’ll let the songs do the talking for now.”

Yeah, man. You really paved the way for everyone. People have been trying to look and sound like you since you first started. I talk about this with Finneas [Eilish’s brother]. You changed the way the music industry hears and sees music, and you changed the way people sing.

[Laughs] That’s amazing because you do that.

It’s because of you, dude.

The only thing that matters is that I like it and that you and people in your world like it, because for me, it’s about separating the wheat from the shaft. Tapping in with good people and letting that be your North Star. Actually, the text you sent me out of the blue—I don’t even know how you got my number—was on one of the craziest days where I was sitting in front of the Burbank Airport watching the planes take off, which I had never done before. I was sitting on the side of the road because that day I had to make a really important decision. I was feeling really nervous about it, because I’m always the kind of person who doubles back on my important decisions. Then, you literally texted me saying something like, “I love you, and without you, I wouldn’t have been able to do certain things.” I texted my friend Anne, and I was like, “I made the right decision because Billie texted me.” I thought I needed to hear something completely different from someone else, and I got this awesome synchronicity that let me know I was in the right place at the right time.

Wow.

I will also say, in terms of everyone who’s paved the way for me, the way Cat Power delivered her songs in the ’90s and in the early 2000s, and even now—we’ve toured together and I’ve told her so many times, “I should be opening for you.” I was a high soprano, which you can kind of tell in the way that I talk, but her low tones, I would practice them the way she sang that song where she’s like, [sings] “Bay-be-doll.” I was like, “Oh my gosh, I could sing like that.” I realized I had a low register too. And when I learned that she played a big concert in New York with her back turned to the audience, that was when I realized I might have a chance. Then, I watched this documentary when I was 20 called The Devil and Daniel Johnston with my boyfriend at the time, Artie Levine, and seeing that Daniel was super different and he had a bit of a cult following, I realized there might be a chance here. I definitely had my muses, but it was so much later on in life because I didn’t move to New York until I was 18, and that was when I first heard anything other than Eminem, country, and NPR. All of a sudden, I got a fucking crash course in music.

Everything you’re saying is blowing my mind out of my skull. You will never understand how much of an impact that you have had on me in my life.

I definitely won’t, I can promise you that. But you know what? If it did anything for you, how amazing is that? Because you actually like what you do.

God, dude. Okay, well, I have to go, but I just want to say that I am always going to ride and die for you. I’m so excited about this album. I’m telling you right now, you’re the coolest of the cool.

That is hilarious.

Well, you need to shut the fuck up and listen.

Here’s the thing. It’s good to know that the coolest of the cool can still be so messy because it’s like—

It doesn’t matter.

There’s no competition. Your life is your art. I just feel lucky that you said yes, because I couldn’t see it any other way.

Thank you for thinking of me at all.

It’ll be such a blessing to look back on when this prodigious girl—woman—reminded me of the fact that there are so many ways to look at things, and that it’s all a matter of perspective. The only thing that matters is that the people that you’re obsessed with, like the way I am with you, love your stuff too. It’s such a beautiful place to start creating from. Thank you for that.

Thank you. Oh my god.

Our little flattery interview, but honestly, that’s how it is. It was always you.

Originally published on interviewmagazine.com with the headline Lana Del Rey and Billie Eilish Fall in Love, and in the March 2023 issue of Interview with the headline Lana Del Rey by Billie Eilish.

#2023 #Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd #Interview Magazine #Billie Eilish

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nofatclips · 9 months

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Grapevine by Weyes Blood from the album And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow - Director: Rick Farin and Claire Farin

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piasgermany · 3 months

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[Album + Video] Grace Cumming veröffentlicht neues Album "Ramona"!

Anders als bei ihrem selbstproduzierten Debüt "Refuge Cove" (2019) und dem Nachfolger "Storm Queen" (2022) arbeitete die in Melbourne lebende Künstlerin Grace Cummings für ihr neues Album "Ramona" mit dem Produzenten Jonathan Wilson (Angel Olsen, Father John Misty, Margo Price) zusammen und schuf einen aufwändig orchestrierten Sound, der die Tiefe und den Umfang ihres stimmlichen Könnens voll zur Geltung bringt. "Ramona", das am 5. April über ATO Records erscheinen wird, behandelt Trauer, Selbstzerstörung und emotionale Gewalt und verleiht Cummings Musik dabei eine neue Größe.

“In the past I’ve been caught up in worrying about whether I’m being too emotional or over-the-top, but this time around I decided not to filter any of that out”, so Cummings. “My only intention was to be myself, which meant being extremely vulnerable in my writing and my vocal performance, without going back and editing myself later on.”

Das Album entstand in Zusammenarbeit mit einer Reihe von Gästen, darunter die Harfenistin Mary Lattimore und der Streicherarrangeur und Multiinstrumentalist Drew Erickson (Weyes Blood, Mitski, Lana Del Rey), mit Cummings an der Gitarre und am Klavier und Wilson an der Gitarre, dem Schlagzeug, dem Banjo und der Orgel. “I wanted everything and the kitchen sink on this record, to make it as big and dramatic as possible and show a whole range of colors.”

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Auf den Songs gibt es ruhige, schöne Momente, aber auch etwas Soul und einige Teile, die fast schon opernhaft sind, unterstützt von Cummings ungezügelter Theatralik als versierte Bühnenschauspielerin. “I wrote that about watching a friend of mine play with their little boy and thinking how beautiful it was, and questioning any other part of life that isn’t as good as that”, erzählt Cummings über die erste Single "On And On", die bereits jetzt zu hören ist.

Tracklist "Ramona": 01. Something Going 'Round 02. On and On 03. I’m Getting Married to The War 04. Love and the Canyon 05. Work Today (and Tomorrow) 06. Everybody’s Somebody 07. Common Man 08. Without You 09. Ramona 10. A Precious Thing 11. Help is on its Way

Live: 16.05.24 Offenbach - Stadthalle * 19.05.24 A-Wien - Arena Wien * 20.05.24 Berlin - Columbiahalle * 21.05.24 Berlin - Kantine am Berghain 02.06.24 Mannheim - Maifeld Derby 03.06.24 München - Import/Export (* als Support für King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard) Booking in D: Powerline Agency

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#grace cummings #ramona #ato records #album #video #live

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upalldown · 7 months

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Mitski - The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We

Seventh album from the New York-based Japanese/American synth-pop singer songwriter produced by Patrick Hyland

11/13

Back in September of 2019, Mitski had finally had enough. She left fans stunned and concerned when she announced that her Central Park performance, scheduled on the 9th of that month, would be her “last show indefinitely.” People took to online forums, trying desperately to decipher Mitski’s cryptic use of ‘indefinitely’, and speculating about the potential causes of this bemusing decision, and more importantly, the potential effects.

Thankfully, Mitski would clarify soon after, to a collective sigh of relief, that her departure from the music scene would not be a permanent one. She initially reasoned that her five years of non-stop touring had left her exhausted and entirely untethered from any semblance of a real home. She would later clarify in a tweet that her efforts to thrive in the music industry had made her both disillusioned by and numbed to the experience. “I sense that if I don’t step away soon, my self-worth/identity will start depending on staying in the game, in the constant churn,” she said.

That Mitski had become numb bears repeating. She herself pointed out that by becoming devoid of emotion, she was missing the key ingredient of all her music: her feelings. And so, despite all of the recent accolades she’d received for her stunning and dripping-with-feeling fifth album, Be the Cowboy, and her attendant rise to the fame and ever-growing fanbase, Mitski would make good on her words and dip into a self-imposed dormancy. For her, the accolades were a curse. Her ascendency to the throne only added pressure for her to maintain her successes, and this quickly cast a shadow of self-doubt over every project she attempted to make.

Fans would just have to wait.

At some point during her hiatus, Mitski realized that she was still contractually bound to release another album for her label, Dead Oceans. And, long story short, she would finally re-emerge in late 2021, three years the wiser, with the shocking announcement of a new full-length, Laurel Hell. The album title itself referred to the large thickets of laurel bushes spread across the Southern Appalachians, where people have become stuck in their massive tangles and never made it out alive. More tellingingly, however, is that ‘laurel’ also means recognition of an award or achievement, and, given its pairing with ‘hell’, it provided a clear-cut indicator of her mindset at that point. The music reflected this idea as well, and while it was warmly received—the album even spent a week atop the Billboard charts—you could tell that it was the product of a different, more nuanced Mitski who was at least trying to care less about the reception it got.

And this brings us to Mitski’s new release, the compellingly titled, The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We. True to the name, the album is dark and brooding; a rumination on lonely love and the havoc and agony it can generate. Mitski faces the love in her life head on, highlighting both its redemptive and destructive qualities. To augment the desolate longing of her poetic, otherworldly laments, Mitski has fashioned a striking sonic evolution from the edgy synth-pop that’s preceded it. This is Mitski as a forlorn country troubadour, conjuring the analog soundscapes of 70-era Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt, as well as the later releases of Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood. A more recent spiritual touchstone is the moody, dreamy Neko Case classic Blacklisted.

Mitski spoke recently in an interview with BBC Radio 1, and she indicated that she worked on the album with orchestrator Drew Erickson, who conducted its arrangements by gathering a team of top guns (some of whom have played on actual Disney soundtracks) in Los Angeles and laid down the orchestral parts there. Mitski set out all of the choir parts herself, with a total of 17 voices utilized; 12 in Los Angeles and five in Nashville. In the latter city she stayed and recorded her parts with a proper ‘Nashville’ band and studio. The confluence between the high and lonesome and the cinematic creates a brilliant, beautiful, and heady aesthetic, and Mitski stands in front of it all, displaying a fervor that (re)establishes her as the preeminent singer-songwriter of her generation.

The Land is Inhospitable and So Are begins with “Bug Like an Angel”, which is also the first single released from the record. It’s a bold and deeply moving dirge, which begins with her plaintive acoustic strums and reverbed vocals almost recalling Guyville-era Liz Phair at her softest. Mitski coos, “There’s a bug like an angel stuck to the bottom of my glass / with a little bit left / When I was older I learned I’m a drinker / sometimes a drink feels like family.” This is followed immediately by an explosive and surprising choir echoing, “Faaamilyyyyyy!” which then recedes, allowing Mitski to ask, “Did you go and make promises you can’t keep?” The choir then rejoins her as she alluded to those broken promises: “They break you right back / Break you right back.” And this, if you’re wired a certain way, will send literal shivers down your spine. Mitski’s performance here is both daring and confident, affecting and devastating, and she invokes a graceful empathy in her haunting delivery.

Second single “Heaven” immediately establishes the ‘Nashville’ in her Nashville band, as a slow drum shuffle is met with soft acoustic guitar strums and the lonesome wail of steel guitar. During the BBC 1 interview, Mitski described “Heaven” as a “classically romantic song… seeking to cherish the small amount of time you have with the one you love.” The song depicts Heaven as, ‘Well, let’s leave the world outside of our room for now, and enjoy this beautiful love we have’.

“Heaven”‘s lyrics are paired perfectly with song’s countrified lilt, which is steadily encroached upon by surging strings that build to majestic proportions by the song’s dramatic finale. The orchestration is never pandering or gratuitous, and is there to manifest a certain emotional gravitas before swiftly receding, never a second too late. It’s just as it was with her considered inclusion of the choir in “Bug Like an Angel”; in both cases, her relative restraint ensures that these crescendos never outstay their welcome, and after multiple listens, the emotional impact does not diminish. The shivers still come.

“Star” places the orchestration front and center as strings swirl and multiply, steadily building to a dazzling frenzy. This is Mitski reaching for the firmament. For her, love is like a star in that, despite it no longer being there, still shines on when you look up at it. “I’ll keep a leftover light burning / so you can keep looking up,” she emotes. “Isn’t that worth holding on?” Mitski’s dense metaphorical prowess is on full display here, and one of the many ways she likens love to a greater outside force throughout the album’s slim 32 minutes.

Some might recognize the influence of Mazzy Star on mid-album track, “The Deal”. The band shuffles along on a “Fade Into You” sway, while Mitski sings, “There’s a deal you can make on a midnight walk alone / Look around, listen close, hear it call from above / It will ask you what you’d give and what you’d take for it in return.” She is ready to give away her soul, “just to give it,” and will face the consequences. As the urgency in Mitski’s voice continues to rise, a maelstrom of drums comes crashing in, leading to a menacing climax as Mitski repeats, “I’ve made a deal.”

On “The Frost” a warbling church organ and mandolin are added to the mix, and the song advances, sans the orchestral accoutrements, as a gorgeous meditation on loneliness. Mitski observes, “The frost, it looks like dust settles in the world / after everyone’s long been gone / But me, I was hiding or forgotten / the only one left, now the world is mine alone.”

The stunning “I’m Your Man” unfolds quietly, just Mitski and her guitar. “One day you’ll figure me out / I’ll meet judgment by the hounds / People always gave me love / others were never to blame, after all / You believed me like a God / I betray you like a man.” As the song comes to a close, she is surrounded by barking dogs, croaking peepers, and a multi-part choir singing into the night.

With The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We, Mitski seems to have regained her footing and created a laser-focused album, filled with sadness and hope and defeat, all with the brilliant backdrop of organic Americana and bombastic orchestral passages. The album’s brevity only adds to the allure, as it is stripped of any excess, and devoid of a single misstep. It is a distinct departure, but ultimately unsurprising in its flawless execution. As long as Mitski is at the helm, fully rejuvenated from her hibernation, we can only expect the best from her from here on out.

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#mitski #the land is inhospitable and so are we #music #Youtube

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