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goldenmayhem · 2 years

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Part Three

series masterlist

Pairing: Frankie Morales x F!Reader (no use of y/n)

Rating: E/18+ only (no minors)

WC: 5.9k

Tags/warnings: cis F!reader. characters have a child. established relationship (marriage); mentions of death, mentions of drug use/addiction/alcohol, PTSD, depression, dark thoughts.

Summary: Frankie hasn’t been the same since he came back from Columbia. You’ve been trying to convince him to get help. When he finally does, where does that leave things?

A/N: If I have missed any tags/warnings etc. please let me know! This is unbeta’d. I am absolutely not an expert in PTSD or mental health.

It’s late. So late that Diego should probably be in bed right now, but at least he’s had something for dinner, even if you did have to resort to a Happy Meal. It’s fine. You just need to get through the next hour, you tell yourself. Glancing at the rearview mirror as you break for a red light, you catch sight of the dark circles underneath your eyes and stress lines embedded into your forehead. As with so many other things in your life lately, you don’t have the time or the energy to worry about how to fix it. The light turns green and on cue Diego prompts you enthusiastically, “Go mama!”

You ease your foot on the gas and make a mental checklist in your head.

Get home.

Get Diego to bed.

Check on Frankie.

Pretend it doesn’t cut you bitterly when he lies and tells you he’s fine, if only so you’ll leave him alone.

Get yourself to bed and release your tears into your pillow, crying yourself to sleep before you wake up tomorrow, put your mask on and do it all over again.

Diego cheers happily as you pull up in front of the house, but you take a deep breath, trying to gather the strength to go in. Life has been about just getting through the day lately, and tonight is no different. It had been nice to get out of the house tonight, though a Kindergarten showcase has never really been your idea of an exciting evening. Clearly it wasn’t Frankie’s either, since he’d opted to stay home instead. Well, it was his loss. Diego had been cast as a sunflower in the class showcase and seeing him up on stage, radiating with joy as he’d sung and danced with the rest of his class, was totally worth it. Hopefully it’s still worth it tomorrow when he wakes up tired and grumpy.

“Race you inside, Mom,” he calls, the second you unbuckle him. He throws open the car door and hustles out, a blur of green tights and yellow stage make-up as he rushes to the front door.

You laugh to yourself because you have the key and you’d locked the door when you left, in case Frankie fell asleep while the house was quiet. He barely seems to sleep at all anymore, but you’d told yourself it would be great if he managed to get some rest, if only to stop from feeling so bitter that he hadn’t wanted to attend Diego’s performance.

To your surprise, when you get to the front door, it’s already open. When you step over the threshold, you see Diego with Pope, who looks to have taken up residency at your dining room table. Presuming he’s here to see Frankie, you set your handbag down and hang up your coat.

“Mom, Uncle Pope is here!”

“I can see that, baby,” you reply, setting your eyes to Pope. You hadn’t seen his truck in the driveway, but that doesn’t shock you. Like Frankie, it’s his job to be discreet, only seen when he wants to be. “Hi Pope.”

“Hi,” he replies, tone sounding cheerful enough, but his expression looks somewhat morose, his features tight and downcast. He’s serious when he needs to be, but usually when he visits he’s wearing a grin, drinking beers with Frankie, showing up with gifts for Diego. The way he’s sitting at the table now with his arms folded and fingers tapping restlessly on his biceps is making you feel a little uneasy.

“You here to see Frankie?” you ask him. “Where is he?”

Pope looks away from you, turning his attention to Diego. He smiles down at him, telling him what a great sunflower he must have been and that he’s sorry he missed it. Then he clears his throat and gently places his hands on Diego’s shoulders.

“It’s pretty late right, niñito?” He asks and Diego nods. “Why don’t you go upstairs, brush your teeth and put on your pajamas? You can choose a book and I’ll come up and read it to you in a little bit.”

Diego buzzes with excitement, visibly thrilled to have someone else to play storyteller tonight, but your uneasiness only doubles, settling in your stomach like a heavy boulder. You have no idea where Frankie is, why Pope’s here so late or why he is willingly signing up to bedtime stories just to get Diego out of the room. But as soon as Diego skips across the room to you, you put your questions on hold to say goodnight.

“Sweet dreams, my darling. I love you,” you tell him, pushing a hand through the errant brown locks falling in front of his sunflower-painted face to lean down and press a kiss to his forehead. “Don’t forget to wash this beautiful yellow faceprint off when you brush your teeth.”

“Okay. Love you, Mom.”

As soon as he’s out of the room, the sound of his light footsteps on the stairs sufficiently distant, you start in on Pope, belatedly realizing not only did you not see his truck in the drive, but you didn’t see Frankie’s either. He can’t be at work; he got his license suspended a few weeks ago when he got caught with coke in his system during a routine drug test. You remember how distraught he’d been when he’d had to tell you, confirming what had only been suspicion on your part until then. He hasn’t been coping–you knew it. You could see it. Ever since he came back from that trip to Columbia. The one that had claimed Tom’s life. But he wasn’t accepting any of your offers of help either; shutting you down every time.

You feel your heart plummet to your feet and through the floor– your imagination leaping to the worst possible assumption of why Frankie’s not here and what Pope might be about to tell you.

“Where is he, Pope? Tell me where he is! Tell me he’s okay!” you demand frantically, feeling distraught. Your heart rate floods your ears with a deafening rhythm and you don’t even realize how hard you’re panicking until Pope gets to his feet and sets his hands heavily on the edge of your shoulders.

“Hey, hey,” he says, trying to calm you. “Hey.” He ducks his head a little, trying to put his face directly in your eyeline. “It’s okay. He’s fine. He’s good.”

You swallow the rest of your immediate worry on your tongue and fight to take a breath. Drawing it in through your nose, you slowly feel it expand your lungs, filling your chest. At your sides, your hands are still shaking. Pope keeps repeating quiet reassurance as he helps you take a seat in one of the chairs at the table.

“Sorry,” you apologize to him when you can finally speak again, breathing and heart rate under better control. “Habit.”

Pope nods understandingly. Frankie’s line of work has had you in this position of fear more than once before, and while you know that there’s obvious risks to what he does, each time it takes you by surprise with how the panic and dread consumes you so physically. Racing pulse, gasping breaths, ice cold veins, sweat collecting at your brow, mouth bone dry. Frankie’s landed in hospital upon his return only a few times, usually only nursing bruises, cuts and stitches, but it doesn’t erase your fear.

“I’m sorry for not letting you know I was going to be here,” Pope apologizes, guiltily.

You try to shrug it off. “It’s not like you need my permission to visit Frankie. I’m sorry for overreacting and thinking the worst.”

Despite all his training and stealth, the way Pope’s face falls apart gives him away. You feel your brow furrow, the wave of dread threatening to drag you back under.

“Pope,” you say, hearing your voice a mere squeak of desperation. “What’s going on?”

He takes a long, deep breath of his own and scrubs his hand over his face. When it’s gone, his face still looks just as stressed. “Frankie….” he starts slowly, sounding like he still hasn’t decided the best way to break this to you, despite however long he had been waiting here for you before you arrived home. “Frankie decided to get some help for well….for everything.”

You feel your head spin, trying to take that in. It hits you in two waves. First, Frankie finally decided to get help? Where, when, who, how? You want to ask. Secondly, the way he generalizes with the phrase ‘everything’ gives you whiplash. You’ve been convinced it’s PTSD, and you’ve been telling Frankie as such for months now. You don’t have a medical degree, but you can detail the intricate hell Frankie has been living through. The sleeplessness, the night terrors, the closed off way he’s been, the struggles he’s faced with you and Diego, icing you out and searching for solace in the bottom of a beer bottle. Despite your pleas to help him, this is the first you’re hearing of him actually being receptive to it.

“H...he what?”

Pope swallows. “There’s a really great program out of state,” he explains, “they’re said to be the best. Highly qualified and well recommended. They help Veterans exclusively. They gave Frankie a place in their program and he took it.”

You’ve given Frankie binders worth of pamphlets and research the last few months, but none of them included a place out of state. You didn’t even think of it. If the place he’s gone to is out of state then he must have found it himself. A faint ember of pride flickers inside of you for him, proud of him for seeking and accepting help. Though it still doesn’t explain why he didn’t tell you about it.

You look back at Pope. “How come he isn’t here to tell me this himself?”

Pope’s eyes cut to the floor before they come back to you, looking big and glassy, as apologetic and guilty as the rest of him. “He said he had to go and he asked me to be here for you and Diego when you came home.”

Suddenly, the missing piece of the puzzle slots into place inside your head. Why Frankie didn’t want to come to the showcase. You feel tears sting your eyes, blurring your vision. “Pope?” you ask in a weak voice.

“Yeah?”

“When did he tell you about this place? This out of state program.”

Pope’s head drops. You guess he’d been hoping you wouldn’t put it together. Maybe he’d hoped Frankie wouldn’t have done it this way at all, but you don’t blame him for following Frankie’s instructions, no doubt wanting Frankie to go through with his plan of getting help.

“Pope.” You’re on the edge of bursting into tears, but now that you assume, you need to know. You need him to confirm it so you can face it. Accept it.

He winces when he looks at you, as if it hurts him to do. Or to say. “Last week. He mentioned it to me last week. Said he’d been accepted and they’d given him a start date. Made me to promise to be here tonight when you got home.”

Vacantly, you nod. You feel resounding hollow. You feel angry. Confused. Mostly, you feel hurt. Overwhelmingly hurt. The agonizing feeling sprouts in your chest and bleeds through your entire body, seeping into your bones. From your head to your toes, every inch of you grows unbearably heavy. You almost can’t believe it. Frankie deliberately chose not to mention his plan to you. Not a word of it. And by design, he chose tonight to leave, knowing you and Diego would be out at the showcase for most of the night. Long enough for him to leave without any goodbye.

Tears spill over and streak down your cheeks, racing each other to your chin.

Tenderly, Pope’s hand stretches out to touch your arm. You quickly smack it away with a flick of your hand and he flinches, not used to such a cold reaction from you.

“Don’t touch me,” you warn him, getting to your feet. You stand tall, straightening your shirt, trying to steel yourself. You feel heartbroken inside, but until you can close your bedroom door, slip beneath your covers and fall apart in the darkness, you need to pretend you’re fine. Diego is waiting upstairs and he will want to know where Papi is for his goodnight kiss. And tomorrow, he will have questions about where his Papi is, when he will see him again and where he’s gone. Those will fall to you. This house will just be the two of you from now on. The weight on your shoulders has felt unmanageable for a while now, but you refuse to collapse underneath it all until you know Diego is in bed asleep.

“Thank you for telling me. You can go now,” you tell Pope curtly. You don’t want to shoot the messenger, but you don’t want to have a breakdown in front of him either, and you're teetering on a knife's edge.

“Come on,” he protests. He lifts his hand again but lowers it when he remembers how that had fared last time. “I know this is upsetting for you.”

“It’s not,” you lie through your teeth as tears still trickle down your face, some sliding down your neck. “I’m glad Frankie is getting help. I hope he gets well again. You should go.”

His eyebrows set, challenging your dismissal. “Frankie wanted me to--”

“Fuck what Frankie wanted,” you bite back.

Pope chews his lip. “At least let me keep my promise to do the bedtime story? I don’t want to let Diego down.”

You can’t stop the scoff that leaves your lips. As if Diego won’t be let down tomorrow when he wakes up to hear that his father took off without a goodbye. Still, the more reasonable part of your brain wants him to have this, a nice moment with his Uncle, before you have to break his heart tomorrow.

“Sure,” you say reluctantly, “go do the bedtime story.”

He nods in thanks and goes to move for the hallway, but stops himself after only a few steps. “I really am sorry,” he says.

“You have nothing to apologize for. You want Frankie to get better. So do I.”

His lips quirk, as much of a smile as he can muster tonight. Once you’re sure he’s left, you pick up a coaster from the table and throw it as hard as you can across the room. It’s one of the decorative ones Frankie had bought back from one of his work trips for you, claiming it was hand painted, so meticulous and beautiful, just like you. It glowers at you from where it lands on the floor near the wall, taunting you. You squeeze your eyes shut tight, hoping, but when you open them again, this is still your life. Your sad reality.

On your way to the stairs, you pause outside the door of the spare room, the one Frankie had voluntarily moved himself into weeks ago. The dagger in your chest twists when you open the door and find it empty. Besides the staple furniture, there’s no sign of him at all. No clothes on the floor, no photo frames on the bedside tables, no shoes in the closet.

Fresh tears fill your eyes as you shut the door and lean your head on it, biting down on your hand to muffle the sobs, not wanting them to echo up the stairs and disturb Diego’s story time.

You have spent so long watching the light leak out of Frankie, and wanting desperately to fix it. You’ve dreamed of the day he would agree to talk to someone, go to a meeting or see his Doctor, and each day you’ve felt him slipping further from you, but you never imagined a scenario like this. One where he would specifically wait for you and Diego to be out of the house so he could leave without any word of it. Making Pope break the news and pick up the pieces.

You lift your head off the door and then drop it back against the hardwood, again and again but it doesn’t help. The pain inside your chest still feels worse than anything else.

Three weeks later, you’re shopping with Diego for his friend's birthday party, trying to convince him that the $100 toy he picked off the shelf as a birthday gift is far too expensive. Your phone rings, the ringtone blaring out of your purse as you try to reason with him.

“Pick something else please, honey. Something cheaper,” you instruct with a sigh as you rummage through your purse, swatting away baby wipes, car keys and lip balm to fight your way to the phone at the bottom.

Diego skips back down the aisle, his attention caught by a large shiny transformer. You roll your eyes and glance at the screen of your phone, shocked to see Frankie’s contact ID showing.

Heart in your throat, you slide to answer the call and lift the phone to your ear. “Hello?”

“H-hey,” a nervous voice replies. “It’s….it’s Frankie.”

You nod lamely, and then belatedly remember that he can’t see you. “I know,” you force yourself to articulate with words instead.

In the last three weeks you've toyed with the idea of making a call like this yourself; wanting to know he’s okay, wanting to tell him he’s in the right place, despite the way he chose to leave. You never brought yourself to do it though, instead taking his actions as a clear sign of where you two stand. But your heart flutters in your chest now, wondering if he’s about to change that. About to tell you he misses you. That he loves you. You can’t help but hope.

“Thanks for the photos you sent,” he says appreciatively.

You blink dumbly, before remembering the picture of Diego in his uniform on the field for his first soccer game that you’d sent to Frankie, without any comment. The next day you’d sent one of Diego falling asleep in the back of the car, ice cream dried in the shape of a moustache above his top lip. After that, it became a habit to send one every few days. The last one you’d sent was just yesterday; a picture of Diego with the next door neighbour's cat curled in his lap, a giant smile on his face as he petted it.

“Sure. Anytime,” you manage to reply.

“They help,” he says thickly, “on hard days. It reminds me why I’m here.”

You stay quiet, looking down the store aisle to see Diego reach out for a large stuffed toy, nearly as big as he is. “Mom!” he calls excitedly.

You shake your head. He pouts but he puts it back and grabs another, this one a teddy. “Matthew’s favorite toy is teddy bears!” he shouts, brandishing a plush one that at least looks a reasonable size.

“Is he there?” Frankie’s voice asks in your ear, hopeful. “I was hoping I could speak to him.”

Your heart soars and gets shot down in one breath. You’re so glad Diego will get to finally hear from him, but the ambiguity of further ignoring the situation between you both makes you ache.

“I’ll put him on,” you say quickly, lowering the phone before you’ve even finished your sentence, hoping he can’t hear the hitch of your breath. “Diego,” you beckon. “Come here, honey. Someone special is on the phone and wants to talk to you.”

Diego comes running, still clutching the teddy. You exchange it with him for the phone, adding the plushie to the shopping cart.

“PAPI?” you hear him exclaim excitedly. “Oh my gosh!”

Over the next six months, you can count on one hand the ways in which you see your now practically estranged husband.

A photo of him on your Lock Screen as a video call notification pops up.

Glimpses of his face as you answer the calls before handing your phone to Diego.

Curt, polite waves once the two of them have exhausted themselves in conversation and you have to end the call.

That’s all you see of Frankie for the next six months. Half a year passes like that. And he says nothing.

Well, not nothing technically. Turns out, when Diego is the topic, Frankie can talk at some length. After his first call, he calls almost every other day and checks in on Diego each and every time.

How is he going in preschool? Has he recovered from the cold he had last week? What time is his play date this weekend?

It’s not just questions either. You send him a video of Diego reading a small picture book and Frankie returns a long text, the length of which resembles a novel, praising the smarts of his son and thanking you for sharing it.

For someone not even in the state, he’s as attentive a father as he can be. But about the two of you and the state of your marriage he says nothing. Less than nothing. A few times you wake in the middle of the night to the chime of your cell phone, hoping to see a heartfelt ‘I miss you’ text, only to be disappointed by a data limit warning courtesy of your service provider. The date of your wedding anniversary approaches and you wait with baited breath, but there’s no mention or acknowledgement of it, not even when he calls on the date, unscheduled. Turns out he’s at the zoo and he wants to show Diego the giraffes via video call.

It’s frustrating. It’s hurtful. It’s maddening. If it weren’t for the ring that used to sit on your finger, now worn on a thin chain around your neck, you’d wonder if your marriage ever existed at all. You have all the hope and sympathy for him and what he’s working through, the years of trauma he must be unpacking in order to save his life. You fight to respect his privacy and his journey, but part of you still feels abandoned. Though you fought and prayed for him to get help, you never considered not being a part of his healing. You imagined helping him through it all, doing whatever’s needed or asked of you. So far, all he’s asked is that you don’t visit, and don’t bring Diego to visit - not until he gives it the okay.

He doesn’t talk about how he’s doing. You hear only via Pope that Frankie’s apparently stopped using, stopped drinking and had his suspension lifted thanks to clean drug tests and being in the Veterans program. He’s got a local job as a helicopter pilot and is doing well in his therapy appointments, but he hasn’t once mentioned coming home yet.

It’s made for a confusing situation. You love him, but you feel rejected by him. You want him here, but you know it’s better for him to be where he is. You’re married to him, but that relationship now feels unacknowledged. At social events, you don’t know what to say when people ask where Frankie is. At a school function, a parent who has a kid in Diego’s class quietly asks you if you and Frankie are now divorced and you nearly explode into a mess of bone-wracking sobs at the mention of it, because you have no idea how to answer that. Are you divorced? No. Are you together? There’s no clear answer to that either.

Luckily, you don’t have to pretend with the boys; Pope, Benny and Will. Will returned a few months ago and was obviously informed about Frankie’s absence before he stepped foot back in town, because he’s never brought it up with you. In fact, the only sign that he even knew anything of it was the tight, lengthy hug he’d pulled you into when you first caught up with him at a BBQ at Pope’s house when Pope made the long awaited introduction to his girlfriend, Maria.

She’s wonderful. Absolutely delightful. You can see how Pope is so captivated by her, why he chose to keep her to himself for so long. The way you catch him looking at her often leaves you longing for Frankie, for that feeling of being loved, that comfort of belonging to someone. Despite the jealousy you feel, having Pope and Maria for friends is absolutely invaluable. You wish you could clone them both so that every person, every parent, could have friends like this.

Benny and Will are good at stopping by and playing with Diego, tiring him out in the backyard with endless games of tag or a flurry of Nerf bullets, but Pope and Maria are like a two-man care team. They make a habit of coming over for dinner or inviting you and Diego, always with a small gift for Diego and a bottle of wine for you. Once Diego is tucked in bed, the three of you sit at the table and talk for hours, laughing, commiserating and enjoying each other’s company long into the night.

You can’t thank them enough, even when it hurts. Because while it’s sweet to look out the kitchen window and see Pope kicking around a soccer ball with Diego, it’s also yet another reminder of Frankie, of the fact that he’s gone, and how things have changed.

When six months turns into seven, things get a little rocky. You go out one night with your coworkers and come home stumbling out of a shared Uber. You fumble your way in your front door only to be greeted in the dim lights of the house by a very judgmental looking Pope. He looks like he’d woken from a nap on the couch, the flatness of one side of his hair and the bleary look in his eyes giving him away.

“Thank fuck you’re home,” he breathes in relief, but his tone is short, like he’s more pissed off than relieved. “Any longer and I was about to send a search party.”

You chuckle just a little as you step out of your heels, thankful to feel the cold tile under your sore feet.

“What’s funny?” Pope asks, folding his arms. He casts a glance down at his watch and it reminds you of your Mom when you’d come home past curfew as a teenager. “It’s 4am.”

“Didn’t realize I had a curfew, Mom,” you chide him, shrugging off your coat and hanging it on the hook before moving past him to the kitchen.

“A curfew? No,” he answers, following you. “But you do have a son.”

You frown comically at his stupid remark. “It’s not like I took him with me, Pope. He was here, safe and sound with you.”

“Yeah, but it would have been great to know when you were coming home to him. I was expecting you at one am at the latest.”

Needing water, you ignore his last remark and reach for the cupboard that houses your glasses.

Undeterred by your avoidance, Pope switches on the kitchen lights, pursuing both you and the ensuing argument. You wince at the sudden brightness, taking a glass to the sink, keeping your eyes on the tap as the water fills.

“What the hell is that on your neck?” Pope accuses, coming to get a closer look at whatever he’s crowing on about.

You reach your freehand to your neck, wondering if it is a bug or something, but your fingers touch a patch of sensitive skin instead. Oh, you think to yourself as the water overflows in your glass and spills out over your hand that holds it. You probably should have kept your coat on. Or maybe not have made out with that cute guy at the bar.

“Were you with someone tonight?” Pope questions indignantly, his fingers brushing the collar of your shirt as he stares at the evidence. “Were you with another guy?”

Equally as indignant, you switch the tap off and bat away his hand. “So what if I was?”

“You have a husband!”

“Do I?” You argue, matching his outraged tone. Meeting his eye, you give him an icy stare feeling the liquor in your bloodstream no match for the hurt and ache that’s been living in your bones. Baiting, you glance around the room dramatically. “Funny, because I don’t see a husband here, Pope.”

His anger melts away, melding into something mixed with pity and pain.

“Merida,” he curses, looking visibly stricken. “Frankie—“

Your simmering rage ignites like fuel on a fire, flaring at the mention of Frankie’s name. You understand he has a duty of care to Frankie as his best friend and all, but you also don’t care. Pope has been here, seeing you fight and struggle and he was the one that had to break Frankie’s news to you. If he can’t understand then no one can.

“Take a look around, Pope!” You shout. “Frankie’s not here! He left.”

“He left, yes. To get help. To get better.” He pleads on Frankie’s behalf. And that’s just the problem. You've been living your life pleading for Frankie, but the cold reality is that he’s not here and if he does care, he certainly doesn’t show it or say it. And you’ve finally tired of waiting.

“He left without a word, a goodbye or so much as a call or a fucking note,” you remind Pope, shattering his rose tinted glasses. You’re sick of them. You’ve been trying to frame this positively for months now. You’ve been trying to desperately hold on to the fact that Diego still has a relationship with his father, that Frankie is getting help, but that doesn’t resolve the hurt of the way he left, or the heartbreak of the way things deteriorated between you two long before that. And now you’re being questioned about your commitment to this marriage? The one Frankie walked out on? You don’t want to fight to keep a lid on your anger anymore. Don’t you deserve to let it out at least once before you go back to dutiful mother tomorrow?

Pope curls his lip in a scowl. It only eggs you on. The lid has well and truly blown off tonight.

“Not that I should have expected him to mention it, I guess,” you laugh, so bitterly that it’s not really a laugh at all. “He was barely speaking to me when he left. Hardly ever looked at me either. We stopped talking about anything that wasn’t absolutely essential. Stopped having sex. He moved into the guest room just to get away from me, as if sleeping beside me was too much of a hardship. He moved his stuff in the spare room before you came over for beers. That’s why you had to get a ride with Benny when you couldn’t drive home. Because he was already living there. Just to get away from me.”

Ever dutiful to his brother in arms, Pope can’t help but continue defending Frankie. It’s like it comes out of his mouth on autopilot. “I’m sure that’s not true. It wasn’t to get away from you. He probably just didn’t want to wake you with the nightmares he was having.”

You scoff. “And not talking to me? Not touching me or looking at me?” You prompt. “What’s your excuse for that?”

“That wasn’t him. You know how much he loves you. That shit? That was the PTSD. Not Frankie.”

You close your fist around the glass on your hand. “That’s the most fucked up part,” you tell him solemnly. “The longer you live with it, the harder it gets to differentiate. PTSD doesn’t have a face, Pope. But Frankie does.”

You draw a long sip from the cup and let it fill your mouth before swallowing. A drop spills from your lips and races down your chin, so you wipe it with the back of your hand. “It was Frankie’s face I’d see turn away from me. It was his body that recoiled from my touch. It was his eyes that couldn’t look at me anymore. It was him who rejected me.”

“I’m sure that’s why he left–so that he can get well again. Back to his old self. We all know how much he loves you. There’s no arguing that.”

“Loved me,” you correct him darkly. “He loved me. Then. But not now. I’m so fucking tired of pretending that I’m not hurting. What am I even waiting for, Pope? You told me yourself that Frankie’s doing so much better. That he’s working again. Making a life. Why should I sit here and pine for him when he doesn’t give so much as a second thought about me?”

Pope refutes that. “He does think about you, all the time. The reason he’s doing so well is because he wants to be well enough to come back to you and Diego and be a better version of himself for the two of you. I know it’s hard waiting for it, and I keep begging him to let you guys visit, but he won’t let me or Benny or Will see him either. You know what he’s like–he’s stubborn and he likes to see things through.”

“And how long would you have me wait?” you ask. “While he’s working to his own schedule and refusing to speak to me about it, do I just sit here and cry myself to sleep for another six months? A year? Five?”

Pope grits his teeth, frustration tight on his forehead and visible in the clutch of his fingers curled around the edge of the countertop. “I’m not saying that it’s fair,” he growls. “But the ball is in Frankie’s court and I can’t rush him on this.”

You feel your lips curl disdainfully. “You can’t rush him and I can’t wait for him.”

“So, you’ll see this man again then?” Pope questions, looking like even asking the question makes him feel ill.

You respect his loyalty to his friend but you feel some power in imagining him relaying your night to Frankie and it finally triggering something within him. Forcing him to address your relationship. To tell you to your face if he’s done with you. Or, hopefully, to come clean and tell you if he still wants you. It’s a frightening seesaw of love or heartbreak, but anything has to be better than this holding pattern you’ve been caught in. You deserve an answer. You deserve love. You want that love to be Frankie, but if it can’t, let him at least have the decency to tell you and let you go. Holding on so tightly to something that grew thorns to protect itself from you has been painful, and you’ve reached breaking point.

Hardening your gaze, you draw a deep breath and gather a substantial dose of courage, enough to lift your eyes to Pope’s and say, “Yeah, I think I will. And if Frankie’s got a problem with it, you can tell him to take it up with me.”

Pope glares but you refuse to back down. This is it, you tell yourself, this is the line in the sand. Let the chips fall where they may. If the ball is in Frankie’s court, let’s see what he does with it.

#Frankie Morales #frankie morales x reader #frankie morales x you #francisco morales fanfiction #Francisco 'Catfish' Morales #Triple Frontier #triple frontier fanfiction #my writing #Renegade 'verse #it's been so long since i've been on tumblr #or posted #but I literally have chapters upon chapters of this in my drafts so why let it rot #i need to get out of this writing funk somehow #so here's what i've got

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blockgamepirate · 5 months

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Bolas Rojas Playlist

And the Hero Will Drown : Story Of The Year

Evil People : Set It Of

Twist : Korn

It's Been So Long : The Living Tombstone

Breaking Me Down : Soil

Rules of Nature - Platinum Mix : Jason Charles Miller

Unsainted : Slipknot

oops! : Yung Gravy

Break Stuff : Limp Bizkit

Friday Night Fire Fight : Aligns, Rubicones

BlastZone (ЗонаПоражения) : BONES

SugarCrash! : ElyOtto

Aerials : System Of A Down

King For A Day : Pierce The Veil, Kellin Quinn

Down with the Sickness : Disturbed

Witness : Mindless Self Indulgence

Throne : Bring Me The Horizon

Numb : Linkin Park

Freak On a Leash : Korn

BREAK LAW : Dog Blood, Skrillex, Boys Noize

When It Cuts : Ill Niño

GAS GAS GAS - EXTENDED MIX : Manuel

Becoming Insane : Infected Mushroom

Bricolen : Copain du web

Duality : Slipknot

Waltz of the Meatball Man : Gooseworx

I'm Not Okay (I Promise) : My Chemical Romance

Ani Mevushal : Infected Mushroom, Bliss

Laid to Rest : Lamb of God

Before I Forget : Slipknot

Renegades Of Funk : Rage Against The Machine

Downfall : TRUSTcompany

Hate Crew Deathroll : Children Of Bodom

Savior : Rise Against

Given Up : Linkin Park

Falling Apart : zebrahead

B.Y.O.B. : System Of A Down

Wait and Bleed : Slipknot

The Hand That Feeds : Nine Inch Nails

Stricken : Disturbed

Toxicity : System Of A Down

People = Shitm : Slipknot

In the End : Linkin Park

The Government Knows : KNOWER

We're Beautiful : ABSRDST, Diveo

Ponyboy : SOPHIE

Dumbest Girl Alive : 100 gecs

GOTTASADAE : BewhY

NIGHTMARES : Alice Glass

Can You Feel My Heart : Bring Me The Horizon

Kingslayer (feat. BABYMETAL) : Bring Me The Horizon, BABYMETAL

Goat Type Beat : harvoYT

Du hast : Rammstein

Zombie : The Cranberries

Squishy Caterpillars Riding On Bullets : Istasha

Captions Are Automatically Generated . Istasha

Rédeas : Project46

Wherever I May Roam : Metallica

For Whom The Bell Tolls - Remastered : Metallica

Path Vol. 2 : Apocalyptica, Sandra Nasic

White Rabbit : Jefferson Airplane

Animals : Architects

Tokyo Drift (Fast & Furious) - From "The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift" Soundtrack : Teriyaki Boyz

Roots Bloody Roots : Sepultura

Tenebre Rosso Sangue (ULTRAKILL Original Game Soundtrack) : Keygen Church

Parasite Eve : Bring Me The Horizon

We Got the Moves . Electric Callboy

EXILADA : NIKKO, Istasha

BRAZILIAN DANÇA PHONK : 6YNTHMANE, RXDXVIL

Flashback : MIYAVI, Ken Ken

Get Got . Death Grips

Controllah (feat. MC Bin Laden) : Gorillaz, MC Bin Laden

Hayloft II : Mother Mother

Automotivo Bibi Fogosa : Bibi Babydoll, Dj Brunin XM, KZA Produções

ワールドイズマイン-初音ミク「マジカルミライ 2021」Live- (feat. 初音ミク) : ryo (supercell), Hatsune Miku

Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na) : My Chemical Romance

BxMxC : BABYMETAL

Not Gonna Get Us : t.A.T.u.

Pleasure Model : Noisia, Former

Volcano : Woodkid

Misfit Toys (from the series Arcane League of Legends) : Pusha T, Mako

Snakes (from the series Arcane League of Legends) : PVRIS, MIYAVI

Idiots Are Taking Over : NOFX

Dead Limit : Noisia, The Upbeats

Sober : TOOL

The Pot : TOOL

All Falls Apart : Polyphia

How I Feel : La Dispute

Given Up : Linkin Park

Run : Bring Me The Horizon

Still Waiting : Sum 41

Bodies : Drowning Pool

Side by Side : BewhY

Falling Away from Me . Korn

One Step Closer : Linkin Park

Your Betrayal : Bullet For My Valentine

Tears Don't Fall : Bullet For My Valentine

Vicinity Of Obscenity : System Of A Down

Papercut . Linkin Par

The Diary of Jane - Single Version : Breaking Benjamin

#bolas rojas #qsmp team bolas #qsmp bolas rojas #qsmp purgatory #qsmp bolas #grabbed these from the preview so idk if these are all of them?

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ofliterarynature · 1 month

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FEBRUARY 2024 WRAP UP

[loved liked ok nope dnf (reread) book club*]

The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years • The Memory Librarian • Pixels of You* • Arch-Enemies • Moby Dyke • Pip Bartlett’s Guide to Magical Creatures • A Sinister Revenge • Lud in the Mist • Crying in H Mart • Something Close to Magic • Hula • (Renegades) • The Divorce Colony • Foundryside • Earthlings • A Far Wilder Magic

total: 13 books (12 audiobook, 1 print)

Not as many books this month! And not just because February has fewer days, I was really in a funk this month and struggling to pay attention to my audiobooks (and enjoy them). You wouldn't think there's such a thing as too many books, but I think the overtime hours at work are hitting their peak mental health destruction. Here's to hoping things improve in March!

The Divorce Colony (4.5 stars) - genuinely can't believe this was my 3rd nonfic of the year already! I picked a print copy of this up at a library sale in December after hearing about divorce colonies in the early 20th century on a recent episode of the 99% Invisible podcast. Turns out this book was actually about the beginning of the moment that took place in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in the 1800's. Western states had shorter residency periods and less strict divorce laws, so women (and the occasional man) would travel west and live there for several months in order to obtain a divorce. This book tracks the movement through the stories of 4 of the more infamous cases to make the papers, and does an incredible job of weaving in the surrounding political and religious discussions. Would recommend, and has a great cover to boot!

Renegades (3 stars) - a reread, and for some reason it was torture. I originally read this back in 2018 and loved it, and wanted to tackle it again and actually finish the rest of the series. But I kept getting worked up and frustrated this time around! It kept trying to take itself seriously while also being very YA and kind of superhero-camp, and I was absolutely overthinking it lol. I found the strength to press on into book two, Archenemies (3.5 stars). I liked it a bit more! Something about it being new, the story being a bit more settled and maybe getting a better grasp on its message/politics, the characters growing more, me figuring out that I shouldn't listen to the audiobook for more than an hour or so at a time, lmao. Not great, but fun, and possibly worth reading? I'll keep y'all updated when I finish book 3.

Hula (5 stars) - incredible. Part generational family story, part history, part discussion of what it means to be Hawaiian, culturally and legally. Not always the easiest of reads, but it was so so worth it. It was also doing something very interesting with parts of the narration voiced by a collective "we" (culture/community?) that I would love to get a look at in print. Highly recommend, I'll definitely be getting myself a copy.

Something Close to Magic (4.5 stars) - an absolute delight! The Gail Carson Levine comp on this one is not entirely unearned, anyone who's a fan of fairy tale type fantasies will enjoy this, I had a great time! Very interestingly, it has characters who are in their mid to late teens, but is written in a way where they're still allowed to be young, to the point I'm surprised it didn't get shoehorned into MG instead of YA. If the author writes any more of these I'd be happy to read them.

Crying in H Mart (3.5 stars) - nonfic number 4! I'm sure everyone's heard of this one by now, which is why I finally picked it up. It's fine (which is why it got an extra .5 star), but on the scale of take it or leave it, I'd leave it. It just wasn't for me and I kind of wish I'd dnf'd it. A great cover though.

Lud-in-the-Mist (3.5 stars) - this one seems to be considered a sort of early precursor to fantasy and fairy tale type stories from the early 20th century, and I was eager to try it! While I definitely don't think it would feel out of place amongst it's more recent fellows (think the Last Unicorn, Robin McKinley, DWJ, etc), I absolutely could not get into it. Probably the chief recipient of "my brain doesn't want to cooperate, sorry," so maybe I'll give it another shot someday.

A Sinister Revenge (4 stars) - enjoyable as always! Not to hide this deep in my reviews or anything, but have the Emily Wilde people tried Veronica Speedwell yet?

Pip Bartlett's Guide to Magical Creatures (3 stars) - This one's been sitting unread on my shelf for a while, and since I was on a bit of a Maggie Stiefvater run, I figured it was perfect! Well. Unless you are like 7, this was so bad. Not good. Having previously read and not liked a book by Maggie's co-author Jackson Pearce, I think it would not be unreasonable for me to assume she did most of the writing while Maggie did the illustrations - if the audiobook had been any longer than 4 hours I'd have absolutely DNF'd it, and I have no intention of continuing the series.

Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest to Track Down the Last Remaining Lesbian Bars in the Country (4.5 stars) - part of me was wondering what I was doing trying this lol, not being someone who drinks or goes to bars, OR, as previously mentioned, is not the biggest fan of memoirs. It was not, as I hoped, also part research project, but it is a travelogue, and as a consequence has a strong narrative thread. It also has a lot of discussions about issues in the LGBTQ+ community, and overall I really liked it once I figured out what it was doing!

Pixels of You (3.5 stars) - a very short sapphic rivals-to friends-to lovers graphic novel about a human-form AI and a human with an android eye competing for a photography internship at an art gallery. The creators clearly put SO much thought into their characters and worldbuilding, but sadly there is nowhere near enough length here to do it all justice, and a number of elements felt very odd or under explored. The relationship parts are great! I just think this needed to be twice as long to really given everything its due, or maybe explored in prose instead.

The Memory Librarian (3.5 stars) - to start, I know nothing about the musical album this is related to, so I don't know how much that might have affected my reading. Overall I wasn't super impressed - when I discovered that the first story was cowritten by Alaya Dawn Johnson - no shade to her - I almost dropped it then, I just really didn't like her writing style in the one book I've read. But I stuck through it. Of the five stories, only one really stuck in my mind - Nevermind, cowritten by Danny Lore, which I could have read an entire novel about. I wish I could recommend it on its own, but overall I just don't quite understand the world Monae has created.

The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years (3.5 stars) - I probably should say more about the book, it was fine, I was surprised to find that it's set in relatively current day, I found myself a lot more interested in the second narrative about the house's history, which did make me cry a bit. Mostly though, I really just want to let you know how MUCH of a non-entity the djinn was in this story, I have no idea why it was there and why it was included in the title of the book. All the author had to do was make the house a little more sentient and haunted and it would be fine, idk. Read it if you want, but it's not one I would rec.

DNF'S

Foundryside - I was so ready. I had the first two audiobooks checked out, I had the third one on hold. I started this but oh, the writing. bleh. I was looking thought reviews and someone referred to it as something like "21st century internet speak." In a high fantasy novel. I noped out at just 10%.

Earthlings - I've considered the author's other book before but haven't read it, but thought maybe a sci-fic book would work better for me? The beginning was odd but not uninteresting, and I might have continued if it had stayed that way. But then the main character was in school(?) and her teacher started getting handsy after class and I wasn't invested enough to stick it out.

A Far Wilder Magic - the success of Something Close to Magic made me a little too hopeful I think, bc while I'm still a little leery around YA, I know people have liked this. And it sounded interesting, truly, and I love the cover. But first it was the religion stuff. And I didn't really like the characters. Then it's like, oh, this is the same plot as The Scorpio Races, but nowhere near it's quality in any shape or form. I decided to stop while I was ahead, before I started to actually dislike it. (anyway here's your PSA to go read The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater, I recommend doing it in October if you can).

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purgetrooperfox · 2 months

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got tagged by @tomothythethird to pick a song for each letter of my username 👉👉

p — pining - parker millsap

u — ultraviolet (light my way) - u2

r — renegades of funk - rage against the machine

g — girl from the north country - bob dylan, johnny cash

e — even flow - pearl jam

t — teen age riot - sonic youth

r — rebel rebel - david bowie

o — our mother the mountain - townes van zandt

o — o death - kate mann

p — praise the lord and pass the ammunition - kay kaiser & his orchestra

e — ends of the earth - lord huron

r — reel it in - amine

f — fraulein - colter wall, tyler childers

o — ode to a conversation stuck in your head - del water gap

x — xanax - elohim

WHEW. I tried to vary genres some for this but there where a lot of letters 💀 tagging @persesnickety @hamburgerslippers @kiwikipedia @babygirljoelmiller @galacticgraffiti @scalproie @alwayskote @calamity-aims

#those os were tough kasndkdndj #nearly went give me one reason - tracy chapman for g. simply must say it #also nearly went grandma's hands - bill withers. augh #other honorable mentions include o i long to feel your arms around me - father john misty #and feels like summer - vince staples #and the games we play - kid cudi #and pale rider - the heavy horses #and fire in the empire - william crighton #ANYWAY. i lov music #tag game #leo.txt

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doyourememberrocknrollradio · 3 months

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youtube

Rage Against The Machine - Renegades Of Funk

#Youtube

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rogueddie · 13 days

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tagged by @i-ship-it-xoxo; thanks for the tag! 💕💕💕

rules: pick a song for every letter of your URL and tag that many people

R - Renegades Of Funk, Rage Against The Machine O - Overdose, Dam G - Go Crazy, Megan Thee Stallion U - Una Mujer, Christina Aguilara E - Emotion, Mia Rodriguez D - Dancing In The Moonlight, Thin Lizzy D - Disposable Heroes, Metallica I - Ice Cream, Black Pink E - Eyeless, Slipknot

tagging: uh. you?

Idk who to tag bc I've done this before. but it's kinda interesting for me to look back to the last one almost a year ago to see what's different in the music I'd recommend now though so... 👀👀👀

#tag game #almost recd a different dam song #been listening to them a lot recently #they're great #definitely listen to a letter from a prison cell (رسالة من زنزانة)

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inbarfink · 3 months

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List of which songs are included on each Polka under the cut

Polkas on 45: "Jocko Homo" by Devo, "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple, "Sex (I'm a …)" by Berlin, "Hey Jude" by The Beatles, "L.A. Woman" by the Doors, "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" by Iron Butterfly, "Hey Joe" by Jimi Hendrix, "Burning Down the House" by Talking Heads, "Hot Blooded" by Foreigner, "Every Breath You Take" by The Police, "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by the Clash, "Jumpin' Jack Flash" by the Rolling Stones, "My Generation" by the Who

Hooked on Polkas: "Twelfth Street Rag" by Euday L. Bowman, "State of Shock" by The Jacksons and Mick Jagger, "Sharp Dressed Man" by ZZ Top, "What's Love Got to Do with It" by Tina Turner, "Method of Modern Love" by Hall & Oates, "Owner of a Lonely Heart" by Yes, "We're Not Gonna Take It" by Twisted Sister, "99 Luftballons" by Nena, "Footloose" by Kenny Loggins, "The Reflex" by Duran Duran, "Bang Your Head (Metal Health)" by Quiet Riot, "Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood

Polka Party!: "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel, "Sussudio" by Phil Collins, "Party All the Time" by Eddie Murphy, "Say You, Say Me" by Lionel Richie, "Freeway of Love" by Aretha Franklin, "What You Need" by INXS, "Harlem Shuffle" by The Rolling Stones, "Venus" by Bananarama, "Nasty" by Janet Jackson, "Rock Me Amadeus" by Falco, "Shout" by Tears for Fears, "Papa Don't Preach" by Madonna

The Hot Rocks Polka: "It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It)", "Brown Sugar", "You Can't Always Get What You Want", "Honky Tonk Women", "Under My Thumb", "Ruby Tuesday", "Miss You", "Sympathy for the Devil", "Get Off of My Cloud", "Shattered", "Let's Spend the Night Together", "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" - all by The Rolling Stones

Polka Your Eyes Out: "Cradle of Love" by Billy Idol, "Tom's Diner" by DNA featuring Suzanne Vega, "Love Shack" by the B-52's, "Pump Up the Jam" by Technotronic, "Losing My Religion" by R.E.M., "Unbelievable" by EMF, "Do Me!" by Bell Biv DeVoe, "Enter Sandman" by Metallica, "The Humpty Dance" by Digital Underground, "Cherry Pie" by Warrant, "Miss You Much" by Janet Jackson, "I Touch Myself" by Divinyls, "Dr. Feelgood" by Mötley Crüe, "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice

Bohemian Polka: "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen

The Alternative Polka: "Loser" by Beck, "Sex Type Thing" by Stone Temple Pilots, "All I Wanna Do" by Sheryl Crow, "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails, "Bang and Blame" by R.E.M., "You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morissette, "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" by The Smashing Pumpkins, "My Friends" by Red Hot Chili Peppers, "I'll Stick Around" by Foo Fighters, "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden, "Basket Case" by Green Day

Polka Power!: "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls, "Flagpole Sitta" by Harvey Danger, "Ghetto Supastar (That Is What You Are)" by Pras featuring Ol' Dirty Bastard and Mýa, "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" by the Backstreet Boys, "Walkin' on the Sun" by Smash Mouth, "Intergalactic" by the Beastie Boys, "Tubthumping" by Chumbawamba, "Ray of Light" by Madonna, "Push" by Matchbox Twenty, "Semi-Charmed Life" by Third Eye Blind, "The Dope Show" by Marilyn Manson, "MMMBop" by Hanson, "Sex and Candy" by Marcy Playground, "Closing Time" by Semisonic

Angry White Boy Polka: "Last Resort" by Papa Roach, "Chop Suey!" by System of a Down, "Get Free" by The Vines, "Hate to Say I Told You So" by The Hives, "Fell in Love with a Girl" by The White Stripes, "Last Nite" by The Strokes, "Down with the Sickness" by Disturbed, "Renegades of Funk" by Rage Against the Machine, "My Way" by Limp Bizkit, "Outside" by Staind, "Bawitdaba" by Kid Rock, "Youth of the Nation" by P.O.D., "The Real Slim Shady" by Eminem

Polkarama!: "Chicken Dance" by Werner Thomas, "Let's Get It Started" by Black Eyed Peas, "Take Me Out" by Franz Ferdinand, "Beverly Hills" by Weezer, "Speed of Sound" by Coldplay, "Float On" by Modest Mouse, "Feel Good Inc." by Gorillaz featuring De La Soul, "Don't Cha" by The Pussycat Dolls featuring Busta Rhymes, "Somebody Told Me" by The Killers, "Slither" by Velvet Revolver, "Candy Shop" by 50 Cent featuring Olivia, "Drop It Like It's Hot" by Snoop Dogg featuring Pharrell Williams, "Pon de Replay" by Rihanna, "Gold Digger" by Kanye West featuring Jamie Foxx

Polka Face: "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga, "Womanizer" by Britney Spears, "Right Round" by Flo Rida ft. Kesha, "Day 'n' Nite" by Kid Cudi, "Need You Now" by Lady Antebellum, "Baby" by Justin Bieber ft. Ludacris, "So What" by Pink, "I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry, "Fireflies" by Owl City, "Blame It" by Jamie Foxx ft. T-Pain, "Replay" by Iyaz, "Down" by Jay Sean ft. Lil Wayne, "Break Your Heart" by Taio Cruz ft. Ludacris, "Tik Tok" by Kesha

NOW That's What I Call Polka!: "Wrecking Ball" by Miley Cyrus, "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People, "Best Song Ever" by One Direction, "Gangnam Style" by Psy, "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen, "Scream & Shout" by will.i.am feat. Britney Spears, "Somebody That I Used to Know" by Gotye feat. Kimbra, "Timber" by Pitbull feat. Kesha, "Sexy and I Know It" by LMFAO, "Thrift Shop" by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis feat. Wanz, "Get Lucky" by Daft Punk feat. Pharrell Williams

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figmentrinzler · 10 months

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Shuffle your music and post the first five tracks, then tag your moots:

Now that is a whiplash of music, let me tell you.

Alright. Tagging my mutuals:

@mrveils @coupleoffruits @sweetiepootato @gabrysiek91

and tagging @marcoofthemoon because even if you aren't listed as a mutual you are a friend.

#surprised to see epik high sneak their way in #but I had listened to them a lot around seeing them in march #so that might be it #Spotify

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filthforfriends · 11 months

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I actually made Victoria’s Spotify playlist from Måneskin on the road vlog #4!

I Wanna Be Your Man - Suzi Quatro

PARIS BIPOLAR - European Vampire

Renegades of funk - Rage Against The Machine

Motion / Fate / Pain - Boy Harsher

The Beachland Ballroom / Divide & Conquer / Mother / Mr. Motivator / Colossus - IDLES

Oh Bondage Up Yours! - X-Ray Spex

Typical Girls - The Slits

#maneskin #måneskin #må #vic #Victoria de angelis #vic de angelis #victoria maneskin #maneskin victoria #Spotify

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coffee-and-uhg · 2 days

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10 songs 10 mutuals 🎶

Thank you for the tag @sigelfire 💗

Country Grammar- Nelly

And Your Bird Can Sing- The Beatles

Texas Sun- Leon Bridges

Mardy Bum- Arctic Monkeys

Los Angeles- Blink 182

Renegades of Funk- RATM

Sing- Travis

19-2000- Gorillaz

I’m Afraid of Americans- Bowie

Stronger Than Me- Amy Winehouse

NPT: @reenie829 @jensensational71 @toooldforthisbutstill @paceysjcrewsweater @cristinalovesfrapuccinos

#tagged #tag game #music

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deathbecomesthem · 11 days

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I fucking hate TikTok sometimes. Some 20 year old just tried to explain that RATM is funk, and that they don't realize it.

Baby, they're the Renegades of Funk. Jesus CHRIST.

#ratm

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cyarskj1899 · 1 year

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Sent from my iPhone

20 - 1615 - 1110 - 65 - 1

MUSIC

The 25 Best Rage Against the Machine Songs

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

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

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

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

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

‘Darkness’ (1994)

MICK HUTSON/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES

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

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‘How I Could Just Kill a Man’ (2000)

MICK HUTSON/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES

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

SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT

‘Maggie’s Farm’ (2000)

BRIAN RASIC/GETTY IMAGES

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

‘War Within a Breath’ (1999)

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

‘Settle for Nothing’ (1992)

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

‘Microphone Fiend’ (2000)

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

‘Calm Like a Bomb’ (1999)

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

‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’ (2000)

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

‘Born of a Broken Man’ (1999)

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

‘Wake Up’ (1992)

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

‘Year of tha Boomerang’ (1996)

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

‘Sleep Now in the Fire’ (1999)

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

‘Maria’ (1999)

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

‘Vietnow’ (1996)

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

‘Bullet in the Head’ (1992)

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

‘Down Rodeo’ (1996)

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

‘Freedom’ (1992)

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

‘Testify’ (1999)

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

‘Take the Power Back’ (1992)

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

‘Bombtrack’ (1992)

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

‘People of the Sun’ (1996)

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

‘Guerilla Radio’ (1999)

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

‘Know Your Enemy’ (1992)

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

‘Killing in the Name’ (1992)

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

‘Bulls on Parade’ (1996)

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

IN THIS ARTICLE:

Rage Against the Machine,

Tom Morello,

Zack de la Rocha

MUSIC

MUSIC LISTS

By Taboola