#rick ross hold on

[hxltic]

Imagine being the anonymous girl Suna gets absolutely infatuated with at a friend’s party.

🎶 BLAME IT (CLUB MIX)- JAMIE FOXX (FEAT. T-PAIN)

🎶 NEW FLAME- CHRIS BROWN (FEAT. USHER & RICK ROSS)

YOU

He’s sitting comfortably on the couch amongst a group of other guys when you walk in. He doesn’t spot you yet since you direct yourself to the kitchen. Once you return with a drink in your hand, something light and fruity, it’s easy to locate who the coordinator of the party is, considering the entire living room revolves around their friend group and whatever game was on the TV.

Yeah the rest of them were attractive, you observe, but they clearly knew it, talking all loud and sending not-so-subtle flirts to the slightly tipsy girls around them.

Except him. He sat with his arm thrown over the back pillows, other hand grasping the solo cup as the music blares.

His dark brown hair falls over his low eyes, and it looks like he hasn’t said a single word— only sending small nods and lifting his lip the slightest bit into a smile every now and then.

Your thigh-high boots imperceptibly clack on the wood floor with your entrance, but the man’s eyes tell you he hears it. He’s sharp to his senses, making no question there isn’t alcohol in his system.

•———•

SUNA

His friends aren’t discussing anything in particular, just enjoying themselves, some even too much. Nobody was really watching the game anyway.

“Sunarin, ‘yer quiet today,” Atsumu turns to check up on him. He’s not as drunk as he usually gets around this time of night, so his intentions are good.

Aran retorts, “He’s always quiet,” shooting a quick message and taking another swig of his drink.

“Not really. He gets worse than me sometimes.”

This causes Suna to lift his back from the cushion of the couch to defend himself, inducing a hearty laugh from Atsumu (that would laugh at anything).

“Woah woah, let’s not go that far; I’ve seen you butt-ass naked on several unwarranted occasions.”

Atsumu shrugs and Suna rests his case, returning to his previous position, shaking his head at the audacity of the accusation, and bringing the cup to his lips. He resumes what he does best: watching.

It was a good sized party, and usually he knows who will show up, but when he heard you and felt the unknown presence, he knew he hadn’t ever seen you before. If he had, he wouldn’t have to stare as long as he did.

The boots accentuated your legs, stopping at your mid thigh and leaving about two inches of space between that and your tight leather skirt. The material was clinging to your skin in a desperate attempt to cover what it’s supposed to.

Your thighs were big even under the ruched fabric as well. Were you an athlete? Why hadn’t he seen you on campus?

Suna went to take another sip, but this time, the cup lingered at his mouth for a larger amount of time. As he trailed his eyes up your body, admiring the dip of your breasts into the low-cut, long sleeve shirt that was perfect for the cooler seasons in comparison to the bras and single strands of clothes he’s seen, all he’s thinking about is the best way to throw those long legs over his shoulders and which way to flick his tongue to make your hips twist. In fact, they sway back and forth when you walk.

Your plush lips reach the cup in your own hand as you sit on the smaller accent couch to the left of him. The thighs he loves must multiply when you cross your legs one over the other and they smash together, but Suna never even knew legs were a turn-on until he saw you.

Little did he know, the most sober of his friends followed his eyes.

He leans in close, “Fuck, look at that. An absolute dime if I’ve ever seen one.”

Suna ignores him, humming half-assedly in response— but if he would have known he would take it as encouragement, he wouldn’t have done anything at all.

“Hold on.”

He rises from his seat, stalking over to you. The brunette watches the whole thing unfold. A classic.

He holds a hand out in hopes you’ll take it. You do.

He uses the opportunity to take a seat and ask you about your day or where you’re from. You answer.

He brushes your hair behind your ear, mainly because it usually works.

Of course the irritation bubbles in his stomach, but it dies down as quickly as it came. Because he notices things his friend doesn’t.

Your shoulders are tense. Your smile doesn’t even reach the one you walked in with. The leg underneath the top one bounces. And the whole time, you were looking directly at Suna.

A shameless, intrigued stare the two of you shared. The conversation with the man beside you couldn’t have been interesting enough to engage in, but you’d probably feel bad, so you giggle fakely at him every now and then and nod your head. He raises your hand (that he never let go) and brings it to his lips.

Suna’s pride swells when you don’t acknowledge it. Instead, you gaze through eyes that haven’t fell from you since you walked in. With one last sip of his drink, Suna tests you, placing the empty cup on the coffee table in front of him while simultaneously grabbing his phone off it. This darts your eyes away and they trail along his movements, negating any doubts he possessed.

Suna smiles one last time and comes to his feet. If you were feeling anything like he was, you would follow behind him.

•———•

YOU

“Hey, where’s the bathroom?” You smile at the man before you sweetly. Poor thing, you don’t even remember his name.

Coincidently, he points the direction the mysterious guy went, asking if he needed to lead you there. Your hand pats lightly on his as you tell him it’s okay.

You clench the bag between your fingers and dodge through the crowd of people, only barely being able to keep the head of brown hair in your view. He didn’t even look back.

Finally, he opens the sliding door to the backyard and turns the corner. Of course, you follow.

It’s a little chilly even with only a few inches of your body out when you push the glass to the right, then turn around and close it behind yourself. You observe your surroundings: surprisingly taken care of grass with fallen leaves scattered around, a grill on the pavement, a fence going around the area. The only thing it’s missing are the lounge chairs.

“If I didn’t know any better,” you turn your head to the voice in the dark of night as he approaches you leisurely, “I’d say you were following me.”

His lip lifts upwards once reveals himself under the patio light. He doesn’t stop until he’s less than a foot from you, taller than you’d imagine him sitting down and even more overwhelming when you’re alone.

You retort, making sure to cross your arms and tilt your head just as he did his, “Oh come on. You mean to tell me you didn’t plan this?”

His eyes flicker to your arms, then your chest.

You remind him, “My eyes are up here.”

This catches his attention, eventually morphing his smile into a downturned one. Then he’s moving again, pushing his arms back, shrugging the jacket off, and reaching around your body to throw it over your shoulders.

It was then you realized. You had falsely accused him of thinking about something he shouldn’t be.

•———•

SUNA

He was definitely thinking about something he shouldn’t have been.

He should have never looked down.

The hanging gold jewelry rested just before the divot of your breasts. It was then he noticed the bumps prickling at your skin that signify your temperature, but even though there was good intent, he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about other things that would rest perfectly between them. His hand— the tent growing in his black jeans, perhaps.

Your cheeks flush red at the gesture, and the embarrassment shows itself in the lightness of your voice when you tell him thank you. You press your arms through the jacket and leave it unzipped.

“You can’t get embarrassed on me now.” Suna brings his finger to pinch under your chin. He brushes away the hair in your face from the cool breeze, making you close your eyes as a reflex, then stuffs the hand in his pocket. “Saw the way you were looking.”

And maybe he should have kept the hair there. And maybe he should have stayed in his seat. Because now when your eyes flutter open as he looks down at you, closer, willfully giving him control, he sinks in orbs that could easily end a man. They swam with want, still managing to be big and deer-like even with the desire lurking behind them. The only way he knew it was there was by the way you wouldn’t look back at his own eyes, but his lips.

“You were too.” Your voice floats through his ears, and you finally catch his gaze, but you can’t pick an eye to look in. His thumb comes to prod at your fluffy lip.

“You walk in like that and expect me not to? Look at you.”

He taps your hip with a finger, then nudges you around so your back is to his front. Your fingers gather the hair between you two.

He presses up close, making sure his breath fans on your neck and his hands are gliding up your body. From this high angle he could really admire all of your chest that was on display for him, even as he was pressing light kisses just under your ear. They were warmth in the cold.

His fingers roll over your shoulders that are covered by his jacket. “In this dark, green shirt that matches your skin perfectly.”

“Yeah?” You smile. The last thing you thought he’d say is something you were contemplating while getting dressed.

“Yeah.” He sighs back. His touch creeps downwards, to your upper back, then under your arms and to the side of both your mounds. He doesn’t squeeze them together, but gently rolls his hands around the front.

“Paired with your great posture, so your tits sit pretty.”

You release a satisfied humming sound that stills in the air. When he’s done feeling there, he slides down to your hips, rubbing circles into your back with his thumb using one hand, and the other lining the waistband of the leather skirt.

“And this little skirt that leaves little to imagination.” His voice gets impossibly lower when he says this one, reverberating through your core.

Before you can fall too deep into his complements, you quickly turn yourself around and rebut in the best way you know how to. Aggression.

“Is that all? Or do you want to flatter me some more?” You giggle, gripping onto his hands giddily. You have to stand on tiptoes to reach his lips.

“I can go all day.”

You try to ignore the innuendo and instead focus on the softness of his touch. The cold reddens his cheeks, softening his otherwise sharp features.

“What happened to ‘hello?’ Or ‘My name is?’”

He chuckles, and it’s a more than fulfilling sound. “I think you forget the part where you followed me out here. What if I was a murderer?”

“You wanted me to.”

“I did.”

“And you aren’t a murderer.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You would have killed me by now!”

He shakes his head, “Nah, I would’ve kept you around. Too pretty to die like that.”

You shine a bright smile at him and it’s like his world stops. Your face is all red from the complements or the cold, he doesn’t know, but even just holding onto you while you joke outside is enough for him.

“My name is Suna. Rintarō.”

“Suna.” You parrot. He tightens his grip on your hands. “What?”

“It sounds better when you say it.”

You decide to try and press his buttons like he’s done you so far. “It’ll sound even better if I’m screaming it, Rintarō.”

You almost trip with how suddenly he tugs you to his body by your hands, making sure to catch you as he was sure you’d stumble. One hand is firm on your waist while the other is at your nape to crane your neck up to him. Like a switch flips.

“I can arrange that,” he groans into your lips, then he passionately connects them while pulling your waist closer to his.

(He never got your number and only did once he attended every party after that)

#haikyuu!! #haikyū!! #haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu hcs #haikyu x reader #god i want him so bad #suna rintaro #haikyuu suna #suna imagines #hq suna #rintarou suna #suna haikyuu #suna headcanons #suna rintarō #suna x reader #suna rintarou #suna x y/n #suna x you #suna rintaro haikyuu #suna rintaro x you #suna rintaro x reader #suna rintaro imagine #suna rintaro x y/n #rintaro suna

[hausofneptune]

THE ARIES ARCHETYPE

﹕PLANETARY RULER: MARS

﹕ELEMENT: FIRE

﹕MODALITY: CARDINAL

﹕POLARITY: DIURNAL

﹕SYMBOL: THE RAM

﹕BODY PART RULERSHIP: THE HEAD

﹕PLANETARY DIGNITIES: MARS IN ARIES (DOMICILE), SUN IN ARIES (EXALTED), VENUS IN ARIES (DETRIMENT), SATURN IN ARIES (FALL)

↝ aries energy can be best summarized by rick levine's slogan for the sign; "ready, fire, aim". aries is the first sign on the zodiacal wheel, and therefore the youngest of the zodiac, as well as the youngest of the fire signs. i always refer to aries as the "toddlers" of the zodiac, as people with prominent aries energy in their charts always tend to have a childlike wonder about them. they interact with the world as if this is their "first life" in a sense. this is a sign that doesn't necessarily think before it acts, and would rather charge head first (like a ram) into something instead of prioritizing a methodical approach.

↝ they're the warriors of the zodiac, and are most comfortable acting on instinct. they wear their hearts on their sleeves, and as the toddlers of the zodiac, they're very much so prone to "temper tantrums". aries is not an evasive sign by any means when it comes to their emotions, and whether a situation calls for an intense reaction or not, they would rather express their feelings in the moment instead of holding it in. while this can be good in terms of not fearing confrontation or internalizing things like scorpio or libra, there is a level of "tact" that aries struggles to maintain when they become emotional. they're typically prone to stress, and may deal with chronic headaches/migraines. they have to work towards being more patient and mindful, and would benefit from meditation or yoga, as well as participating in a sport or exercising as a way to relieve stress.

↝ their lust for life can make them pioneers, and lead them to excel in more creative or artistic fields. they don't back down in the face of a challenge, and aren't resistant to approaching their fears head on. albeit, they need to have the ability to not be too headstrong, especially when working with others. aries is all about the "self", which isn't a negative thing inherently, but can become so if they can't be a team player or are too self-interested. ultimately, being ruled by mars, aries is a sign that is innately driven to get shit done. they're inclined to live life to the fullest, and while they have the capacity to be naive at times, their hearts are in the right place, and they refuse to back down when it comes to accomplishing their goals.

﹕ARIES CELEBRITIES: amine, anya taylor joy, aretha franklin, big sean, chaka khan, diana ross, dominique fishback, dreezy, elton john, halle bailey, jazmine sullivan, jill scott, juicy j, lady gaga, laura harrier, lil nas x, mariah carey, maya angelou, pedro pascal, pharrell, pinkpantheress, q-tip, selena

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#astrology #zodiac signs #aries #aries astrology #astro notes #aries zodiac #aries archetype #zodiac moodboard #aries moodboard #aries placements #astrology notes #aries energy #astrology observations #birth chart observations #birth chart reading #astrology aspects #astroblr #astro placements #astro observations

[8bitscarlet]

Winter Solstice

Summary: When the sun was taken without notice, your world was plunged into a darkness you almost didn't recognize. But as you sunk deeper into the shadows, you remembered why you'd given it up.

Pairing: Wanda x Reader

Genre/Warnings: Angst (mention of blood, canon fighting, use of knife, mention of torture)

Word Count: 4.1k

A/N: AOU Wanda here because there's no Wanda in this story, since you know ehehe. Here’s chapter 18 of AOP. 😂 Happy Reading everyone! 💕

*please do not repost or translate my material or claim as yours. reblogs, comments and likes are always appreciated!*

_________________________

“I’m having your vest checked before you leave!”

You watch as Stark grabs the tablet from his suit jacket hanging on the coat rack near the door. He came around as soon as the alarms started to blare. What he came home to nearly doubled him over. It took him some time to get back to his joking ways, along with everyone else. Trying to deal with what happened only hours ago. 

Everyone except you. 

“Whatever,” Yelena rolls her eyes but points towards a gadget on one of the tables she walks past, “Your stuff isn’t even cool, Playboy.”

Her green eyes watching Nat nod that she’ll steal the parts for her. Yel looks over at you, sliding a granola bar across the table. You glance down at the wrapper, a chocolate chip granola bar. She looks at you with a hopeful grin but you don’t eat it. You just spin it around as you wait for her to tell you who you’re not allowed to kill. 

“Four mercenaries checked in at that checkpoint,” your eyes wash over the map with numbered outposts scattered around the landscape, “They’re heading to a resting place, assigned to the General’s protection unit. This restaurant,”

Yelena slides all the information she got from her contact casing the business, “It’s a front. A place to grab gear and weapons before they switch positions.”

“They’ll know where that asshole is,” you grumble, smashing the granola bar into the table with every slow stab of your thumb. 

“I’m just waiting on Rick to give us information on where they're stopping next. We'll swing in after them and steal some uniforms and codewords,” Yelena gives Natasha a look, ensuring that you see it but you don’t give it a second thought. They can see exactly what you want to do to every one of these soldier's wearing this patch.

They could think whatever they wanted about you now. They knew your true colors. If they’re surprised, it should be over that you’ve hidden them for so long. 

Natasha sees how you grind your teeth and turns to Yelena, “What that cost you? Five cases of Stoli?”

“Only four. I’m his favorite Russian spy.”

You ignore their arguing as you flip through the file further. It’s a simple plan. Corner some soldiers and work your way up the pay grades. Eventually someone would know where the General was and he worked closely with Strucker. 

“We’ll call you guys when we’ve got a location,” you stand up abruptly and look towards Steve, “Just make sure you have Clint by then,”

The door behind you opens and Stark rushes inside, not bothering to hold it open behind him as you see how wide his eyes are. 

“I tried to stall,” he turns on his heels and all of you watch as a greying and mustached man in a crisp suit steps through the door that closed on his face. 

Ross clears his throat as he pulls against his sleeves and carefully looks over everyone. Half of the people in the room are weary and exhausted from the mission. The other half stare cautiously, collecting papers behind their backs. Only one stares with a fury that the man has never seen before and because of this, speaks to you .

“You’re not operating.”

Your jaw clenches so tightly, you’re surprised it doesn’t completely shatter. Each paused stare along the politician’s body are places you know would completely ruin the rest of his life. Steve sees the way you roll your wrists, your breath elevating. Your fingers crack beneath his iron vice grip and you grimace as Stark attempts to negotiate with Ross. The words buzz around your head. 

Treaties. Agreements. Violations. War. 

You chuckle, drawing some attention your way but Stark quickly draws it back to him. You’ve been at war longer than Ross could know. At war with Strucker. With your own mind. But he couldn’t care less about those wars. They weren’t important. Finding and killing Strucker wasn’t important compared to the obscure agreements he had pulled up by an assistant. 

They wouldn’t be important to him until it was too late for everyone else. 

You didn’t utter a word as you moved past him, your shoulder cracking against his. He slammed into the door with a grunt. One of his guards stepped in front of you and he flew across the room into the railing of the staircase, not realizing how quickly you could move. The second guard half steps away from you as the pistol that was printing against his jacket comes out. 

Holding out your hands, you wave your fingers towards yourself, “Go ahead, buddy. Make my day.”

The trigger depresses just slightly and you grin, you just need a reason. There’s movement from your side and Nat stands in front of you, looking at you like you’ve lost your mind. And you can’t deny to her that you haven’t.

“Stop being stupid,” she whispers harshly, grabbing your wrist and whirling you around. 

Your face slams into the floor but you don’t struggle. You just watch your breath fog up the tile as your body contorts to Nat’s will. Her apologies to Ross don’t make it past the ringing in your ears. There’s a pressure in your shoulder and your knees come up beneath you, your feet following behind them. 

Stumbling towards the back room, you remember this route. It was the walk you made every day back to the holding cells. The cells you tried so hard to convince yourself that the enemy surrounded you. That any day your meal brought by a redheaded witch would be sedated and you’d be taken within inches of your life. 

“Don’t be mad,” Nat tells you as you stare down at the same bed you sat and watched Wanda chew on her pens, “This is just for show. Ross is out of his mind, we’re going. I’ll exhaust my Rolodex. I’ve got favors to use up.”

There isn’t much warning and even less for Natasha when the dull numbness subsides. You sink down onto the floor, your back pressing against the frame of the bed and exhale sharply. Pressing your stinging eyes against your knees, you let out an uncharacteristic noise. A wailing sob that burns your throat. Your body shivering with shaking breaths that used to only wake you from nightmares. 

And then you realized. Your nightmares had become your life. 

_______________________

Your fingers play with the corners of the menu in front of you, eyes scanning words that you don’t comprehend. The only thing on your mind is the number of people inside, the paths around the tables and exits around you. Leaning against the wall behind you, you watch the waitstaff exit the kitchen from your right. 

“You know I hate eating out with you. Do you know why?” You pull your eyes away from a man sitting alone at the bartop and glare at the blonde in front of you, “Because you always want to sit next to the kitchen and anytime a plate comes out, I think it’s mine.”

Your grimace grows into a scowl, “You don’t know what you ordered?”

“Of course I know what I ordered,” she almost looks offended, as she crosses a leg over her thigh, “I just think it smells good and I’m starving and you’re making me sit here when you made me rush out of the hotel breakfast.”

You stare in silence before glancing back down at the menu, taking a sip of the odd tasting tap water in your glass. A slow breath gets pulled in across the table and you brace yourself for more complaints. 

“Do you ever realize how grumpy you get?”

She’s met with more silence. 

“Okay, I’m sorry. You’re not grumpy, you’re pissed off,”

You cock an eyebrow and watch her grumble down into her menu, “Times a million.”

The waiter makes their rounds again, oddly bypassing your table once again. Your brows clench slightly when he stops at the bartop and talks to the lonesome man. 

“I’m sorry,”

The words catch you off guard and you look back across the table, “What?”

Yelena fiddles around with the bag on her lap, drawing your attention but holding the conversation with ease, “That you actually listened to my advice. About being vulnerable.”

You sigh and adjust the piece of metal digging into your stomach, “She’s part of the team, Yel. I’d be worried either way.”

She hums and you sigh before looking her way again, “When are you going to stop lying to yourself? You wouldn’t be a part of this team right now if it wasn’t -,”

“We’ve been made,” you stop her from psychoanalyzing you any further and carefully watch more suited men enter the building. 

The waiter isn’t as subtle as they keep glancing your way, practically pointing at you. You push your shoulders back, it was inevitable. You weren’t regulars here. The two of you were bound to be noticed. And at least you could say now that you didn’t start the fight. 

Yelena stands up, stopping the waiter who just decided to walk out of the kitchen. You hiss at her to stop as she pokes and prods at the food. The three suited men are walking towards you, two already have their hands tucked inside their suits while the other has their knuckles lined with metal. 

“Yel!” you whisper at her. 

“Don’t bother taking this back to the kitchen, it’s trash!” she yells and whips the tray from his hands and slams it into the group behind her. 

You yell, punting the table away from you, knocking a few of the suited men on the floor. A few start stumbling to their feet amongst the shattered plates and sauces. Yel wraps her legs around the unsteady man who was knocked in the head with a ramekin. As she flips him to the ground, your breath is rushed from your lungs as you’re bulldozed back into the kitchen. 

Slamming your elbow into the top of his shoulder, you try to loosen the tight hug the man has on you. It loosens. After you back clangs against one of the many stoves in the kitchen. You grunt, shoving yourself down to the floor and frantically slapping your arm. 

Your shirt smokes after pressing directly against one of the burners. Your back throbs as you hold up a hand, 

“One second,”

The man waves his hand at you, “Thought you were supposed to be a problem. Don’t know why people are so scared,” His knee slams into your face and you’re knocked back onto the ground as the stove door slams between your shoulders, “Get up!”

“Careful,” you cough, trying to move the arm you swear you heard a crack from, “You’ll ruin your dinner,”

Reaching back, you pull yourself up with the help of the stove. Your eyes catch the sight of scallops cooking in oil. With a grunt, you swing your arm and throw the hot oil behind you, feeling it slightly burn your neck with some flyaway droplets. 

The man screams, holding his hands against his face as you smack the pan against the top of his head. His screams end as he collapses to the floor. The pan clangs next to him, 

“You got something in your eyes,” you say before you grimace from the unyielding pain in your shoulder. 

The kitchen door swings open and you see another man walk in. He doesn’t wear a suit like the other men. It’s a dark uniform and you can see the patch on his shoulder. His belt is lined with different knives and you let out a sigh, you really didn’t want to have to shoot anyone today. 

He pulls one of the long blades from its sheath and tosses it with a quiet grin from hand to hand. The blade reflects the light in every direction as it spins and flips through the air. You sigh, going to lift up your shirt but stop as the emergency door is cracked open. The talent show in front of you pauses for a moment as Yel waltzes inside, rubbing her reddened knuckles. 

“Room for dessert?” she asks, and eyes the man take out another knife with a grin.

“You’re the one who was starving,” you remind her, trying to get feeling down into your numbed fingers. 

She sighs, walking forward without hesitation towards the clanking blades. She grabs a simple chef’s knife from a counter she passes, not slowing her pace. The man swings his arm around, going in for a backhanded stab and is only met with air as Yelena sidesteps without a thought. Her foot slides around gracefully as she ends up behind him. 

She leans forward as the blade slices underneath his arm, pulling a yelp from his throat and the knife in that hand clattering to the floor. She ducks between his frantic swings, making it look like a dance as you look around for where they keep the ice. Spinning on her knee, Yelena presses the blade to his upper thigh and pulls her arms up without much resistance. 

Standing up, she steps around the shocked man and places the knife back where she found it, now dirtied with blood. The man collapses to the floor with grunts, trying to press his hands against the cuts that are profusely bleeding. 

“Hit the arteries. He’s got twenty seconds.” she says as she pulls out a bag of frozen peas, “They said always fresh, never frozen. This place sucks,”

Pressing the cold vegetables to your shoulder, you follow her out into the dining area. You see that she fought more than the two suited men that came for you both. The Hydra soldiers you two were waiting for finally arrived and their uniforms were now ripe for the taking. Tearing some of the unneeded clothes, you make a makeshift wrap to keep the frozen peas in place. 

As you folded up the uniform you’d be taking, you handed over one of the shirts that would fit Yelena better. She goes to take it but you hold onto it for one second longer,

“Thank you,” you say, watching as her eyes look at you with her mouth slightly agape, “I listened to you and stopped lying to myself. Now I’ve got three people to worry about.”

“We’re going to get her back. Alive and safe. And we’ll make sure Strucker draws his last breath, too.” she tells you, wiping off a mustard stain before looking up at you, “Wait, you worry about me? You know sweets ruin your dinner.”

You grin, “Speaking of, I saw some macaroni in the kitchen,”

“You ever dine and dash? That dude is definitely dead in there, we won’t get caught.” Yelena excitedly jogs back into the kitchen to get some road trip snacks and leave you alone to the thoughts that fill your head as the sham of a smile falls from your face. 

You hope both of her promises come true but you know you’ll be lucky to have only one come true. And this unending cycle will continue. Tapping the boots against your thigh as you walk, you wonder how much collateral you have to your name.

________________________

Your fist slams forward, over and over again. Making contact with a fury that leaves his nose cracked and blood to pour from split brows. With a grunt and one more crack, you whip your arm down and extend your fingers. They practically groan from being clenched for so long. You stare at the reddening of your skin, wiping away the blood that isn’t yours. You glance over to the soldier’s friend, waiting patiently in their chair as they stare at the wall. There’s soft mutterings coming from them and you wonder if they’re practicing their lies. 

With a sigh, you turn back to the soldier in front of you, his face bleeding and his left eye already swollen shut. You glance down at his dirtied name tag, Fisher.

“Tell me where they are, Fisher. Come on, you were there being a good little soldier. Where is Strucker?” you squat down in front of him, resting your arms on your thighs and attempt to hold onto your patience a little longer this time. 

He huffs and puffs but doesn’t give an answer, you grin at how loyal he is to this madman. You sigh, picking up the pipe you had previously ripped from the wall and used to make his arm slightly crooked. 

“Listen, I don’t have all this precious time and you’re not the only one I need to talk to so,” you swing the pipe with a strong twist of your hips right into his shin, watching as he conceals his screaming into his shoulder. 

“Okay! They, goddamit! I only know where the General is.”

“Keep it coming,” you say, pacing in front of him and manipulating the cold metal between your hands. 

You listen to his directions, the description of the hideaway the General uses for all of his vices. You grunt, knowing you’re sure to find the worst bachelor pad of your life. Fisher continues to babble on, telling you where you can find mounds of cash in the walls and all kinds of classified documents. You’re bareilly paying attention until he brings up a certain scientist. 

“Strucker… he’s trying to do something. Brainwashing or some crazy magic from this staff. I don’t know, please let me go.”

His voice cracks as he leans as far forward as his tied up body lets him. You stop your pacing and look at his miserable face, his lip now starting to swell. The blood mixes with his sweat and you feel a whole new level of hatred. You know what he’s talking about but you wish you didn’t.

“What?” you ask, making sure you heard him right.

He swallows roughly and you watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down, “You can’t save her.”

You clench your jaw, the metal creaking in your hands as he stares in fear, “What is he doing to her,”

Fisher grimaces and stares past you. He shakes his head, he’s done talking to you. He’s looked into your eyes and knows he’s not getting out of here alive no matter how much he tells you. You wish you could lie to him, stroke his ego that he’ll heal from his wounds and live a normal life. All you do though is shake your head at his decision. He’ll recover from his wounds but his face’s natural color is going to be blue from this day forward. Pulling back, your joints practically creak as you clench your fingers into a fist. 

“I’m a nice person,” you whisper and watch him shiver away from your breath, “I’m going to let you think about what you’ve done. And when I come back, we better be on the same page.”

Turning, you replace the pipe with a glass of water and take a sip from it. You realize how thirsty you’ve become and you wonder how much longer you’ll be upright. You’re exhausted and starving but every hour you waste, is another hour Wanda is subjected to hell. You remember clearly what happened when you both were captured. You know it’s only worse with that scientific madman. 

Wiping your bloody knuckles against your pants, you walk to the other soldier. They’ve been having a nice time relaxing and dreaming but they forgot to set their alarm. You toss the glass of water at them, shocking them awake. You watch them cough out the water they inhaled with their gasp and casually grab a chair. Pulling it in front of them, they shake at their binds, probably having gotten lost in their happy dreams. Sitting down casually, you’re hoping that this will be a nicer chat. 

Price has nothing more to say to you than their pal Fisher over there. They spit at you, your jaw clenching when you feel the wetness smack you on the face. She chuckles as you slowly wipe it from your face, flicking it down to your boot. You don’t let the rage show on your face as you look up at her calmly. 

“You feel like talking while your friend takes a rest?” you ask her quietly, crossing your foot on top of your knee.

She stays silent, glaring at you. 

“Tell me where the woman is,” you give her one more chance to offer you something useful.

“What woman, asshole? There’s only some freak of nature,” she sneers at you, thinking she can play games. 

You look Price dead in the eyes. Your graciousness continues, you won’t kill her just yet, “One last time. Where?”

“Fuck you,” she spats out once again and you groan. 

You nod with a smile and don’t blink as you slide the knife from your belt and slam it into her shoulder in one fluid motion. As soon as the blade cuts, her scream fills the cabin and the front door opens. You grab the handle tightly and quickly shake her, 

“You tell me where she is or so help me, you’ll never use this arm again!”

“I don’t know!” she screams, gritting her teeth against the pain, “I don’t know!”

Before you can twist the blade, your arm is twisted behind you as you’re shoved towards the front door. You don’t fight against them but you stop your feet to grab the jacket you left on the coat rack. 

“She knows. She knows where Strucker is,” you tell Nat, sliding your arms into your coat. Looking up, you see the worry in her green eyes and for a second you freeze. 

“Reign it in,” she tells you harshly, “You know how this works. You’re just finding an excuse now.”

You slowly button your jacket, “We need to find her.”

“And you’re not finding her if you’re becoming that,” she slaps the patch on your shoulder roughly, “Again. Go get some air, now.”

Stepping through the door, you slide your hands into the uniform jacket and glance down at yourself. The uniform is filthy, covered in dirt and food from the scuffle you had when you ambushed the place. Dried blood and sweat from the conversation you were having with the two survivors. You climb into the car with a sigh, what the hell was Natasha talking about. She knew as well as you that some things required certain tactics. Maybe you were right all along. She had gotten soft.

Yelena peers back at you from the front seat. She shakes a box of granola bars in front of you but you wave her away, listening to her mumbling about how you’re going to pass out. You run your fingers along your knuckles, feeling a stinging pain you hadn’t felt in a long time. A time you always told yourself you wanted to forget. But here you were, purposely living in the past. 

Glancing up, you see green eyes carefully watching you through the rearview. You raise your brows. 

“You okay?”

You stare at the front door you were pushed out of, “I’m fine.”

“Y/N,” Yelena sighs. 

“What do you want me to say?” you snap, watching the green eyes stare one moment longer and then look away. 

There’s a prolonged silence until a noise has you jumping out of your skin, “That you’re scared.”

Nat’s voice carried in from the open window and you watch her climb into the passenger seat, gently closing the car door. You look her over, she doesn’t have a single drop of blood on her and her face isn’t flushed from exertion. She nods quietly to her sister, the car starting to reverse and leaving dust behind all of you. 

You stare out the window, not giving her the answer she already knows. 

“We’ll find her. The General will know where she is and if he doesn’t, the files on his desk will.”

“Are we going to find her alive?” the real question you’ve been thinking of explodes from your mouth and it’s met with the exact answer you knew it. A heavy silence. “You promise me that and I’ll stand aside.”

“You know we’re doing everything to make that happen. So trust us, she's coming home.”

The car ride quiets until you hear the rumbling of your stomach. With a sigh, you lean forward and grab a few bars out of the box that Yelena had offered you. 

“When we get to the General’s safe house,” Nat peers over her shoulder to look at you properly, “Come in after we clear it. Please.”

You look at her, her eyes flashing down to your split knuckles. How hard they shake as you try to open the simple packaging of the granola bar. You think back to what she said to you in the house and realize the night is lasting much longer than you intended. You let yourself hide back into the darkness and you see that there isn’t always a light to rely on. You’d have to be ready for the light. 

If it came down to it and only one of you made it out, you wouldn't want Wanda to remember you with the things you did to find her. You didn't want her to remember the person that she met for the first time but the one she ended up loving.

Biting into the chocolate chip, you give a small nod, “Fine.”

______________Ch. 19

#wanda #wanda maximoff #wanda marvel #wanda x reader #wanda maximoff x reader #accidentally on purpose #scarlet witch #scarlet witch x reader #wanda fanfic #wanda maximoff fanfic #wanda fluff #wanda imagine #wanda maximoff fluff #wanda maximoff imagine #wanda x you #wanda x y/n #wanda mcu

[bixbiboom]

[ID: A video of Marisha doing squats at home while holding Omar, her red-and-white Pembroke corgi, in her arms. Omar just looks happy to be here. Text over the top of the frame reads “Trainer Omar, helping me with my late night #CreatorClash conditioning.” “Hustlin’” by Rick Ross is playing over the clip. /end ID]

#marisha ray #omar mercer ray #critical role #critical pets #cr insta

[jacenotjason]

Sooooo are all the different ways the characters are tied up symbolic of how Streber has a hold on them, or is it just for cool?

I just think it's interesting Leon's only tied up by part of his leg, meanwhile Dexter is completely untangled (understandable given how unstable he is), and Ross specifically has strings around his neck

YES!!!

ill put the photos here again for anyone that didn't see my last post!

anyways rant time

Let's talk about the Hatzgang first! i had some worry in my discord server that the strings around Ross's neck represented hanging or suicide, but it does not! It represents Streber's hold on his vocal cords, which is somehow grosser honestly. Notice how his little speech bubble is all tangled, too! Streber has control over their words and what they say, they repeat what he says because hes older and cool, and obviously he must know best right? Streber uses them to get word out about something quick and easy.

Dexter! So, for those unaware, in two of the endings Kevin goes out with Dexter. One where Kevin dates him successfully, and one where Dexter murders Kevin. In neither does Kevin actually have feelings for Dexter I have a doc for the endings that i will share eventually idk

Anyways, this entire route is Streber's fault. He plants the idea in Dexter's head that he can date Kevin, gives him Kevin's number and basically pushes the snowball off the mountain, despite knowing Kevin has absolutely no feelings for him.

This is Dexter, reaching desperately for something he can't have.

Rick! Notice how Rick isn't actually tangled? Rick doesn't fall for any of Streber's manipulation, he sees right through it, but... he doesn't care. he doesn't tell anyone if he sees them falling for it, and simply does what Streber asks. He isn't entangled, he's just there.

Leon doesn't have any symbolism, i just wanted to do an upside down one

However I will say! Leon isn't as entangled as anyone else because he doesn't see Streber as much as he did before. He still believes Streber is the persona he met years ago, but Streber doesn't use him anymore. He doesn't need him.

franks doesnt have any either i just thought the idea of his van being entangled was funny

the 31 boys do steal his van in one of the endings so

thank you so much for asking!!

#spooky month #spooky month streber #streber spooky month #the hatzgang #spooky month ross #spooky month robert #spooky month roy #spooky month dexter #spooky month frank #spooky month rick #rick hedony #spooky month leon

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Thomas Chatterton Williams

Published: May 19, 2024

We’d gathered that day at the cafeteria’s “Black” table, cracking jokes and philosophizing during the free period that was our perk as upperclassmen. We came in different shades: bone white, tan and brownish, dark as a silhouette. One of my classmates, who fancied himself a lyricist, was insisting that Redman, a witty emcee from nearby Newark, New Jersey, was the greatest rapper ever. This was the late ’90s, and for my money, no one could compete with Jay-Z. I said so, and the debate, good-natured at first, soon escalated in intensity, touching on feelings and resentments that ran far deeper than diverging claims about artistic merit.

“How can you even weigh in?” I still remember the kid fuming. “You ain’t even the pure breed!”

With that, there was nothing left to say. Friends separated us, the bell rang, and I headed home. A short time later, I went off to college, where I would meet a wider assortment of Americans than I had realized existed. But over the years, I have been reminded of that boy’s slicing racism, the lazy habit of mind that required no white people to be present but would nonetheless please the most virulent white supremacist.

Recently, two public controversies spirited me back to the suspicion and confusion of my high-school cafeteria. All spring long, an unusually nasty feud between the rappers Drake and Kendrick Lamar has been captivating audiences, both for the quality of the music it has engendered and for the personal and malicious dimensions of the attacks it has countenanced. Much has been written about the fight, in particular about the two men’s treatment of women, which I won’t rehash here except to point out that it’s a little funny that they both portray themselves as enlightened allies while also acting as if the ultimate disparagement is to call another man feminine. Less has been said about the potency of the racial dimension, which feels like a throwback to a time before Drake’s pop-culture dominance—indeed, to a time before the historic hybridity of the Obama era—and like a distillation of the skin-deep racialism of the current social-justice movement.

Drake, who grew up in Toronto, is the son of a white Jewish mother from Canada and a Black father from Memphis. Since the release of his 2009 mixtape, So Far Gone, he has been not only the most successful visibly mixed-race rapper—and arguably pop star—but also the most visible Black male musician for some time now. Anyone at the top will attract criticism. But not even a white rapper like Eminem has been subject to the kind of racial derogation that has been hurled at Drake.

Back in 2018, the rapper Pusha T released a diss track about him for which the cover art was an old photograph of Drake performing in a cartoonish blackface. The image makes you cringe, but—as Drake explained—that was the point. Drake began his career as an actor, and he wrote that the photograph was part of a “project that was about young black actors struggling to get roles, being stereotyped and typecast … The photos represented how African Americans were once wrongfully portrayed in entertainment.” But presented without context, it appeared to be a self-evident statement of inauthenticity.

Another rapper, Rick Ross, calls Drake “white boy” again and again in his song “Champagne Moments,” released in April. In an op-ed for The Grio, the music journalist Touré explains why the insult is so effective: “We know Drake is biracial. He’s never hidden that, but many of us think of him as Black or at least as a part of the culture … On this record, Ross is out to change that.” Touré calls this “hyperproblematic,” but his tone is approving—he admires the track. “We shouldn’t be excluding biracial people from the Black community, but in a rap beef where all is fair as a way of attacking someone and undermining their credibility and their identity, it’s a powerful message.”

In a series of more high-profile records, Lamar has built on Ross’s theme, both implying and stating directly that racial categories are real, that behaviors and circumstances (like Drake’s suburban upbringing) correlate with race, and that the very mixedness of Drake’s background renders him suspect. It is an anachronistic line of ad hominem attack that is depressing to encounter a quarter of the way into the 21st century.

Lamar’s most recent Drake diss is called “Not Like Us,” and reached No. 1 on Billboard Hot 100. It goes after Drake’s cultural affiliations with the American South. “No, you not a colleague,” Lamar taunts. “You a fucking colonizer!”

It’s hard to hear that and not remember that Drake’s mother is Jewish, and that this is the same invective used to undermine Jews’ sense of belonging in Israel. Such racist habits of thought have become potent rhetorical weapons in the progressive arsenal.

The second (if smaller) controversy followed an essay on language and protest published in The New Yorker earlier this month. The novelist Zadie Smith, who is of European and African descent, argued—carefully—that it is too simplistic to regard the world as sortable into categories of oppressor and oppressed. “Practicing our ethics in the real world involves a constant testing of them,” she writes, “a recognition that our zones of ethical interest have no fixed boundaries and may need to widen and shrink moment by moment as the situation demands.” This was an attempt to take seriously the tangible fate of Hamas’s victims on October 7, the broader implications of anti-Semitism that can at times be found in criticism of Israel’s response, and the ongoing tragic loss of Palestinian life.

Despite praising the protests that have engulfed college campuses and describing a cease-fire in Gaza as “an ethical necessity,” Smith was derided on more than intellectual grounds. One widely shared tweet, accompanied by a photo of Smith, stated the criticism plainly: “I feel like Zadie Smith uses black aesthetics to conceal her deeply pedestrian white middle-class politics. People see the head wrap and the earrings made of kente cloth and confuse that for something more substantive.”

This was not the first time Smith had been regarded as a racial interloper. The author Morgan Jerkins once wrote of the emotional “hurt” she felt reading another thoughtful essay Smith published in Harper’s asking “Who owns black pain?” Smith’s transgression here, according to Jerkins, was “intellectualizing blackness” from a distance instead of feeling it. “Do not be surprised,” Jerkins warned, “if a chunk of that essay is used in discussions as to why biracial people need to take a backseat in the movement.”

The retrograde notion that thought and action necessarily flow from racial identities whose borders are definable and whose authority is heritable is both fictitious and counterproductive. “Something is afoot that is the business of every citizen who thought that the racist concepts of a century ago were gone­—and good riddance!” Barbara and Karen Fields write in their 2012 masterpiece, Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life. “The continued vitality of those concepts stands as a reminder that, however important a historical watershed the election of an African-American president may be, America’s post-racial era has not been born.”

Of course, the first African American president was, like our nation and culture, himself both Black and white. One of the most disappointing—and, I have come to realize—enduring reasons the “post-racial era” continues to elude us is that it is not only the avowed racists who would hold that biographical fact against him.

==

This is why we call it neoracism, not "antiracism."

#Thomas Chatterton Williams #biracial #mixed race #racial identity #neoracism #antiracism #antiracism as religion #racialism #Drake #Kendrick Lamar #religion is a mental illness

[bootyshaker900o]

“Playlists of my unhealthy obsessions/Simping”

These men have caused such a brain rot- that like they are my whole personality. I made a little playlist of songs for them

Dave/William Afton (🧍‍♂️ I have problems)

Jocelyn Flores - XXXTENTACION

Can You Feel My Heart - Bring Me the Horizon

Yandere - Jazmin Bean

Sex, Drugs, Etc. - Beach Weather

R U Mine? - Arctic Monkeys

Play Date - Melanie Martinez

Perverted - Elita

The Neden Game - ICP

Stalker’s Tango - Autoheart

Say My Name - Alex Brightman

Imma Kill You - ICP

Blow My Brains Out - Tikkle Me

CHOKE - I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME

Ryn, Rabinit Run - Flanagan and Allen

Boogie Woogie Wu - ICP

Donnie

Dirty Harry - Gorillaz

Me and Your Mama - Childish Gambino

Hell of a Ride - Bo Burnham

Family Jewels - Marina and the Diamonds

I’m still standing - Elton John

Puppet Boy - DEVO

Afraid - The Neighborhood

Reflections - The Neighborhood

Fluorescent Adolescent - Arctic Monkeys

One day - Lovejoy

The Ending - Hobo Johnson

Trouble - Hazel Bloom

Teen Romance - Lil Peep

Alien Blues - Vundabar

Team - Mag.Lo

Bad - Michael Jackson

Orphan Tears - Your Favorite Martian

Draxum

Problems - Mother Mother

Zydrate Anatomy - Paris Hilton

Toxic - Britney Spears

Liquid Smooth - Mitski

W.D.Y.W.F.M? - The Neighborhood

Trom Cat - Tyler, the Creator

E.T. - Katy Perry, Kanye West

Molly - MSI

Enemy - Imagine Dragons, JID

Never Satisfied - CORPSE

Desire - Meg Myers

Venom - Little Simz

Daddy AF - Slayyter (don’t ask)

Supermassive Black Hole - Muse

Such A Whore - JVLA

Six Forty Seven - Instupendo

Silco

Daddy issues - The Neighborhood

Genius- Sia, Diplo, Labrinth, LSD

Same Old Love - Selena Gomez

Guys My Age - HEY VIOLET

Life of the Party - The Weeknd

High Enough - K.Flay

Government Hooker - Lady Gaga

Why don’t U - Father, ABRA

New Americana - Halsey

Do You Even? - Jorge Aguilar II

Sugar Daddy - Qveen Herby 

Royals - Lorde

I Feel Like I’m Drowning - Two Feet

New Person, Same Mistakes - Tame Impala

Cold - Maroon 5

Come As You Are - Nirvana

Fantasy - Bazzi

Raph (my sweet baby boy 😭)

Dark Red - Steve Lacy

Somebody To Love - Queen

Careless Whispers  - George Michaels 

Her - Tyler, The Creator 

Are We Still Friends? - Tyler, The Creator

Trumpets - Jason Derulo

Hold On, We’re Going Home - Drake

Rodeo - Lil Nas X

Ms. Jackson - Outkast

EARFQUAKE - Tyler, The Creator

Mine - Bazzi

Die for You - The Weeknd

Love on the Brain - Rihana

Crazy In Love - Beyoncé, JAY-Z

Lucifer

Gooey - Glass Animals

Love Me Dead - Ludo

The Distance - CAKE

Like A Stone - Audioslave

Luxurious- Gwen Stafani

Applause - Lady Gaga

Please Me - Cardi B, Bruno Mars

Take Me Out - Franz Ferdinand

Alejandro - Lady Gaga

Love Is a Bitch - Two Feet

Aint no Rest for The Wicked - Cage the Elephant

Animal - Sir Chloe

Mr. Saxobeat - Alexandra Stan

Judas - Lady Gaga

Livin La Vida Loca - Ricky Martin

White Flag - Bishop Briggs

River - Bishop Briggs

Blurred Lines - Robin Thicke

Sway - Michael Bublé

Juicy

Monster Energy Gun - KevinKempt

Chop Chop Slide - ICP

Get Low - Lil Jon

Crazy - Gnarls Barkley

Star Shopping - Lil Peep

Never There - CAKE

Shake That - Eminem, Nate Dogg

Everywhere I Go - Hollywood Undead

Revenge - XXXTENTACION

POLTERGEIST! - CORPSE

My Mom - Eminem

Asshole - hooligan chase

Under the Influence - Eminem, D12

Shots - LMFAO

Him and I - G-Eazy, Halsey

The Hills - The Weeknd

my boy - Billie Eilish

Leo

Ain’t Shit - Dojo Cat

Feel Like God - Gazy

Nightmare - Halsey

Good-Old Fashioned Lover Boy - Queen

Mujeriego - Ryan Castro

Sweet Dreams - Eurythmics, Annie Lennox

Let’s Groove - Earth, Wind, and Fire

Pizzazz - Akintoye

Slumber Party - Ashnikko

INDUSTRY BABY - Lil Nas X

Milkshake - BBY KODIE

Bad - Michael Jackson

Pony - Ginuwine

Death of a Bachelor - Panic! At the Disco

Blah Blah Blah - The Oozes

Everybody Loves Me - OneRepublic

Joker (Joaquin & Heath’s) (don’t ask- please dont)

Purple Lamborghini- Skrillex, Rick Ross

Fame - David Bowie

Wolf is Sheep’s Clothing - Set It Off

To Catch a Predator- ICP

Back in Black - AC/DC

Tentative - System of a Down

Rainbows and Stuff - ICP

Hokus Pokus - ICP

Murder Go Round - ICP

The Juggla - ICP

HAHA - Lil Darkie

Broken - Lund

I Hate Everything About You - Three Days Grace

Criminal - Britney Spears

Cradles - Sub Urban

Loki

Mind Games - Sickick

I’m A Slave 4 U - Britney Spears

Who is She? - I Monster

A Pearl - Mitski

Cigarettes Out the Window - TV Girl

Redbone - Childish Gambino 

All for Us - Labrinth, Zendaya

Sucker For Pain - Lil Wayne, Imagine Dragons

My Ordinary Life - The Living Tombstone

Bubblegum Bitch - MARINA

I Write Sins Not Tragedies - Panic! At the Disco

Partition - Beyoncé

Suit and Tie - Justing Timberlake

Jealous - Eyedress

Yellow - Coldplay

My Oh My - Camila Cabello

[therecordconnection]

Playlist: The Record Connection's Top Thirty Hit Songs of 1981

(Bear with me, gonna try something new here.)

Playlist Cover Border Created By: @ohmarigold, Font provided by: https://www.fontspace.com/las-enter-font-f19041

The Record Connection's Top Thirty Hit Songs of 1981

Playlist Description: "Exploring the strange year of 1981 by choosing 30 of the best representatives from Billboard's Year-End Hot 100 Singles of 1981"

Track Listing:

"(Just Like) Starting Over" - John Lennon

"I'm Coming Out" - Diana Ross

"Another One Bites the Dust" - Queen

"Sukiyaki" - A Taste of Honey

"Together" - Tierra

"(There's) No Gettin' Over Me" - Ronnie Milsap

"Queen of Hearts" - Juice Newton

"9 to 5" - Dolly Parton

"Suddenly" - Olivia Newton-John & Cliff Richard

"Guilty" - Barbra Streisand & Barry Gibb

"Just the Two of Us" - Grover Washington, Jr. & Bill Withers

"A Woman Needs Love (Just Like You Do)" - Ray Parker Jr. & Raydio

"Lady (You Bring Me Up)" - Commodores

"Celebration" - Kool & the Gang

"Don't Stand So Close to Me" - The Police

"Urgent" - Foreigner

"Take It On the Run" - REO Speedwagon

"Too Much Time on My Hands" - Styx

"Miss Sun" - Boz Scaggs

"Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" - Christopher Cross

"Hey Nineteen" - Steely Dan

"Tell It Like It Is" - Heart

"Boy From New York City" - The Manhattan Transfer

"Hungry Heart" - Bruce Springsteen

"Hold On Tight" - Electric Light Orchestra

"Kiss On My List" - Daryl Hall & John Oates

"Jessie's Girl" - Rick Springfield

"Time" - The Alan Parsons Project

"For Your Eyes Only" - Sheena Easton

"The Winner Takes It All" - ABBA

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

A Few Words About 1981

Time, Electric Light Orchestra's 1981 science-fiction concept album tells the story of a man who is transported to the far distant future of 2095. The album explores his homesickness while observing the many ways the world has changed around him. During "The Way Life's Meant to Be," bandleader Jeff Lynne sings, "I wish I was back in 1981." Lynne has never explained why he chose to use the year the album was made as the year the time traveler comes from (probably just convenience), but I've always found that yearning to return to 1981 in particular to be funny, because if people had a time machine to go back to the eighties, I highly doubt anybody would pick 1981.

For a long time, I've loved looking through Billboard's Year-End Hot 100 singles list for [insert year]. I think it's really fun to look through them and often times you can really get a good idea of what was insanely popular during a given year. Lots of stuff gets big or falls through the cracks in a given year, but this one is the stuff that everybody vibed with (or got utterly annoyed with).

1981 is a weird one. 1980 is considered a much worse year (a lot of really boring, nothing ballads got super big that year) but '81 isn't the winner that the '83-'85 years are considered. When people (over)romanticize the eighties, they're mostly going crazy about that chunk of the decade and 1987. The early eighties have no idea what the hell they're going to be yet. Then again, no decade ever knows what it's gonna be right out the gate. I think people tend to have this idea that the ball dropped on December 31st, 1979 and suddenly it was THE EIGHTIES! It doesn't work that way. Often times, the first two years of a decade are strange and they serve as a transition point.

1981 is definitely a transitional year. It's one of my favorite years in music due to just being an oddball time. Lot of strange new wave stuff was slowly crossing over, arena rock bands were really ramping up and beginning their reign, early eighties R&B was starting to find its groove, and more. The Hot 100 list doesn't reflect most of what was happening. It rarely does, but it is a really good starting point when trying to figure out what some of the biggest stuff was for a good chunk of the year. If you ask me, the eighties don't become the decade everybody loves until Duran Duran releases Rio and Michael Jackson makes the video for "Thriller." You can start to see the beginnings of what the eighties will become with 1981, but it's also not quite there yet.

So, this playlist explores that Year-End singles list and attempts to give a good overview of what was going on at that time. I listened to all one-hundred songs and cut it down to the best thirty. It was originally going to be twenty, but I found that I liked too much of the list to limit it that small. These songs are not arranged from #30 to #1, rather they're arranged in a way that highlights connections between certain songs, common themes, and hopefully ends up highlighting all the different musical worlds that were enjoying success during the year.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some Words Regarding The Process Behind This Track Listing

There were three John Lennon hits that year, which is fitting, considering he was killed in December, 1980 and everybody was still shaken about it for most of '81. I picked "(Just Like) Starting Over" as the representative, since I think it's tragically ironic and also reflective of why people were so upset about Lennon's murder. (Note: For the curious, "Woman" and "Watching the Wheels" were the other two hits that got big from Double Fantasy).

After Lennon, the next four songs highlight the last of the disco refugees (Diana Ross, Queen, and A Taste of Honey) and the final whispers of the previous decade (Tierra). "I'm Coming Out," "Another One Bites the Dust," and "Sukiyaki" are the songs that are just on the cusp of being eighties funk, but they're still clinging to disco in a lot of ways. "Together" by Tierra sounds has all the sonic hallmarks of a seventies one-hit wonder... but somehow came out in 1980. That's what I mean when I say that you can hear those final whispers of the previous decade.

There was a good deal of country crossover on the list. Not a lot of it survived the cut for me, mostly because a lot of it is corny and lame in a bad way. Kenny Rogers had three soft ballads get big in 1981 and I dislike all of them. Unless names like Eddie Rabbitt, Terri Gibbs, or Rosanne Cash mean anything to you, I don't think you'll be upset. Personally, I'm a much bigger fan of country in the nineties. The very best of the country crossovers are represented here. I went with Ronnie Milsap's "(There's) No Gettin' Over Me," Juice Newton's cover of "Queen of Hearts," ("Angel of the Morning" almost beat it, but I think this one is more fun) and finally, "9 to 5" by Dolly Parton. The three country songs here are light and super fun and I think represent that the country music world was having fun during the start of the decade and finding crossover appeal with the masses beyond Nashville.

After our journey to country, we explore some of the team-ups that got big during the year. "Suddenly" (a great love song from the not-so-great movie Xanadu) sees Olivia Newton-John and Cliff Richard together, "Guilty" sees Barbra Streisand and Bee Gee Barry Gibb at their best, and Bill Withers lends his vocals to an all-time classic Grover Washington, Jr. cut ("Just the Two of Us").

Ray Parker Jr. (still with his band Raydio) shows us some early eighties R&B magic and good advice with "A Woman Needs Love (Just Like You Do)" and the Commodores and Kool & the Gang bring the funk and the party with the classics "Lady (You Bring Me Up)" and "Celebration" (the definitive party song to end all party songs). These songs are missing the disco elements that were still found with Diana, Queen, and A Taste of Honey and represent the direction funk music was heading in. Lionel Richie would pivot away from the funk as the decade went on, but the funk was just getting started for Kool & the Gang.

After the funk, we take a look at what arena rock bands were doing. In 1981, they were worried about romantic relationships. "Don't Stand So Close to Me" finds a teacher being in a secret relationship with a young student and worried about people finding out. "Urgent" finds Foreigner in panic mode. The narrator is worried that his love is being taken advantage of and only used for one night stands. REO Speedwagon enters into the frame, worried that a certain someone has been doing some cheating (though they heard this from a friend who heard it from a friend who heard it from another...) Styx lightens things up by having fun and goofing around while Tommy Shaw laments that he has "Too Much Time On My Hands." These four bands are good indicators of where rock was heading in a world where a lot of the seventies rock giants were beginning to find themselves in unknown waters.

Speaking of unknown waters, Yacht Rock was still sailing the seas in the early eighties and three representatives are found here. Cool cat Boz Scaggs sings a groovy song for "Miss Sun," Christopher Cross sings about the movie Arthur and tells you the best thing you can do when you're caught between the moon and New York City in "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)," and Steely Dan tells the tale of pathetic older dude pining for the past and finding it hard to relate to a nineteen year old girl he's trying to pick up in "Hey Nineteen." These three represent the smooth cool cats that weren't pop, but weren't rolling with the arena rock of the moment either.

Speaking of pining for the past, 1981 was a year where some bands and artists gave us some throwbacks and tried to capture that old rockabilly jukebox sound that Lennon was doing at the start of the playlist. Heart provides a wonderful cover of the 1966 Aaron Neville classic "Tell It Like It Is" and The Manhattan Transfer present a lovable and fun little cover of the 1964 Ad Libs song "Boy From New York City." Bruce Springsteen gets in on the throwback fun with the awesome "Hungry Heart," and Electric Light Orchestra lead us into the future while still writing a love letter to the past with "Hold On Tight." These songs all have the common thread of "everything old becomes new again" and are the earliest examples of the eighties bringing the sixties back to life and turning it into something brand new.

The last five songs presented have no unifying theme, they just ended up being my five favorite songs on the list. "Kiss on My List" and "Jessie's Girl" are both fan-fucking-tastic songs and show how good both Hall & Oates and Rick Springfield were as songwriters. I never get sick of those songs. "Time" by The Alan Parsons Project is my favorite ballad on the list. Vocalist Eric Woolfson had this whisper like quality to his delivery that nobody else had. The entire song is just this beautiful, melancholic, transcendent song. The whole thing feels like it's floating. It sounds the way that the bright stars at night look. Just wonderful.

The final two songs feature fantastic performances from two dynamite women. Sheena Easton's "For Your Eyes Only" is my second favorite Bond theme ("Nobody Does It Better" beats it) and "The Winner Takes It All" is the greatest song ABBA ever laid to tape. Both are these sweeping pop masterpieces and Sheena and Agnetha Fältskog deliver some of the finest performances of their careers on them. You feel every emotion and every detail is done so incredibly well. I'm hopeful that you'll find the playlist ends on a high note!

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(Thank you for indulging in this little experiment. :) Making playlists is a lot fun and I'd love to make this a semi-regular thing if there's an interest for it. So let me know your thoughts and opinions if you have them! I would love to hear from you! Thank you.)

#original post #playlist #spotify playlist

[darklydeliciousdesires]

The Dark Passenger - Chapter Two.

I am absolutely thrilled with how well received this was, so decided to treat you all to another update, because I’m kind like that! :)

Previous chapters - One

Words - 3,093

Warnings - 18+ content throughout, minors DNI!

Tag list - In the comments. Please DM to be added/removed

The vibe on Friday night was completely different to when he’d visited The Luna Lounge on a quiet Tuesday, EZ entering the establishment to find it absolutely packed out. He expected no less; the music louder, the air thicker with testosterone, although, he noted, there were quite a few groups of women in attendance, the pounding roar of You Could be Mine by Guns N’ Roses blasting through the club as the girls on stage gyrated to the beat.  

He ordered a beer, thanking the bartender before strolling around, his eyes locking upon Camille, his heart flipping as soon as he saw her invert on the pole and slowly slide down, caressing her neck with her neon blue fishnet gloved hands, her underwear matching, the small crowd before her going wild, bills flung in her direction, as naturally they would be.  

He slowed, pausing for a second, making sure she saw him before he kept right on walking, heading to the end, where Raven danced like an amped up hellion, standing right in front of her. He could see out of the corner of his eye that Camille had noticed, her eyes flitting over to him, wondering why he’d blown her off in favour of another. And boy, it pissed her off.  

Ever since Tuesday, she’d found herself thinking about him, the guy who she’d danced for, and perhaps enjoyed more than she should have. She knew how to have that professional veneer up, even when her clientele was attractive, she had to hold back, not let the lines blur, but as she’d gyrated against him and watched his eyes burn gold as he came, something had been stirred within her, a switch turned on, a flame lit. She was heavily attracted to him, she had to admit.  

There was something there, and she knew it. She knew he knew it, too, yet there he was right in front of Raven, and not her. This did not sit well. Suddenly, Camille questioned whether or not there’d be a connection there at all, for him to return to her workplace and not immediately seek her out. If she had been less mildly irritated by it, she might have cottoned on to the game he was playing with her.  

EZ could tell with each little glance he offered in her direction that she was negatively affected by his tactics, smirking to himself as he turned his attentions back to Raven, smiling widely at her when she leaned down to pick up her money, sliding a ten into the top of her bra. She blew him a little kiss, continuing to gyrate for him, her curtain of silky, black hair swaying as she moved to the beat, EZ thinking how eclectic the DJ was to follow GnR with Rick Ross.  

Camille wasn’t stupid, and by that time she’d sussed his game. Why would he have one eye perpetually on her rather than both focusing on the girl in front of him if he didn’t want to provoke some kind of reaction? She slipped a few times, throwing a dark look in his direction, not appreciating someone playing her like that, but otherwise didn’t react.  

She was a tougher nut to crack than EZ had first anticipated. He wouldn’t budge, though. He was much too used to having women fawning over him, his status as El Presidente meaning that he truly did have the pick of whoever he wanted. Camille was no hanger on, though. She was someone who, although regretful over her decision not to go and enjoy the tall, handsome biker, took a little more effort to bed. Especially in the wake of the behaviour she witnessed that night.  

Before long, she was exiting the stage, going back to change into a little white lace dress, her neon blue underwear showing through, just as she wanted it to, taking a tour of the tables, schmoozing the guests, flirting up a storm in order to secure the lucrative commodity that was the private dance. She secured one with a college kid, the young guy twenty-one if a day, and a little startled looking, knowing she’d have to be gentle with him. She was perceptive enough to know what would work best in way of tease with her clientele.  

For this guy, she perhaps wouldn't grind against him quite as fiercely as she had the big, leather clad dude whose eyes she could feel upon her as she led her customer into the private room, but who was nowhere to be seen when she emerged a while later. She shrugged it off, continuing her tour of the club floor, securing another two dances. It was a profitable night, all thoughts of the dark-haired man who had attempted to play her leaving her mind.  

That was, until he returned the following night, Camille working the floor when she saw him enter the club, giving her a little glance before heading right for the stage, embarking on exactly the same routine again and seeking to show his attention to another. This time, he chose Kellie, a girl whom Camille absolutely couldn’t stand, bitchy gossip that she was. She had few friends within The Luna Lounge, Mai and Tallulah being the sole two girls she got on well with, friends outside of work as well. Sadly, their shift patterns meant they often didn’t work at the same time.  

Tallulah, or Lu for short was on that night, though, Camille replacing her on stage after an unsuccessful tour of the floor for private dances, the girls exchanging a little cheek kiss as they passed.  

“It’s tough out there tonight, babe,” Camille told her friend, Tallulah widening her eyes a little bit.  

“Yeah, they need more alcohol in ‘em, loosen those wallets a little!” She snickered softly with laughter, climbing up to the stage, passing Kellie by and taking a glance at the gorgeous Latino man she was dancing for. He didn’t even look at her. She would bend to him this time, he knew she would, watching her as she began to dance, her eyes flitting over to him every so often, checking to see if he was watching her. Of course, he wasn’t.  

“That’s right, babe. You work for it.” he thought, smirking to himself. He wasn’t about to give it, though, and in his arrogance, he thought Camille’s display was mainly for his benefit. It wasn’t.  

Well, maybe a tiny bit. A girl had money to earn, though. Where the man she desired so heavily was concerned, she was determined not to break, almost as much as he was adamant that he wouldn’t make the first move on her. She would come to him. As it turned out, though, an external force acted upon the latter, spurring him toward her, but not because of anything relating to his attraction to her.  

Keeping his focus on Kellie, he heard the commotion before turning his head, seeing a guy reaching up to make a grab for Camille’s legs, attempting to yank her onto his lap but only succeeding in sending her off her seven-inch heels and onto her butt. He could have left it to the bouncer, but instinct kicked in, EZ crossing the ten-foot gap faster than the security and hauling the man back by his collar.  

“She isn’t yours to fucking grab at, bro! What’s wrong with you?” he yelled at him, the bouncer giving him an appreciative nod before swiftly taking over, hauling the man from his grasp and out of the club. He then turned to Camille. “Are you alright?”  

She winced, trying to arrange herself in a less mortifying position, her right butt cheek feeling both numb and on fire with pain. “Yeah, yeah I guess.”

She was attempting to play it down, he understood that. “Can I do anything?”

“Help me down?” He nodded, reaching under her legs and wrapping an arm around her back, lifting her off the stage. He noticed a distinct lack of care from her fellow dancers, the bouncer jogging back over to make sure she was alright, though.  

“Yeah, yeah I’m okay. Thanks, Samuel,” she reassured him, sighing, not looking forward to the likely huge bruise she’d have to cover in body makeup in order to keep looking pristine while she worked.  

“Cool. I’ll go and tell Martin what happened.” He exchanged another nod with EZ before leaving to head up to the owner, Martin Yorke’s office and inform him of the incident.  

Turning to him, Camille smiled, leaning to kiss his cheek. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.” Wanting to move away from where she was being stared at, she began to limp around to the seating section, kicking her shoes off on the way, EZ following. “I appreciate you for doing so, though.”

He frowned slightly, taking a seat beside her. “You’re welcome. Women shouldn’t be grabbed at like they’re property.”

She shrugged, dropping her chin a little. “I’m used to it.”  

Lowering his head, he caught her eye, frowning. “You shouldn’t have to be, Camille.”

Immediately, she sat up a little straighter. “How do you know my name?”

“I know a lot of things.” He paused for a second, studying her face, feeling himself pulled in by her all over again. “Including that you shouldn’t put up with that bullshit.”

Her eyebrows fluttered a little, Camille touching her tongue against her top lip momentarily. “But yours is okay, right?”  

He felt a little affronted, not expecting her to be the type to call him out on it. Perhaps she wasn’t quite as meek as he’d thought. He recovered well, though. “I didn’t try to yank you off a stage.”

“No,” she began, cocking her head to the side, “but you did expect me to go home with you on Tuesday, and then came back here yesterday with the express purpose of ignoring me in favour of Raven because I refused. And then the same tonight, but with Kellie”  

“Is that bullshit, really?”  

“Some might say so.”

He snorted softly. “All I want to do is take you home and give you a damned good time. Is that really such an inconceivable idea, that two adults who find each other attractive actually admit to that and go and do something about it?”  

Direct, to the point. No dancing around it, as it were. Before she could answer, though, they were joined by her boss.  

“Camille, you okay, hon?” Martin asked, his eyes flitting between her and EZ a couple of times, a small frown denting his forehead.  

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine, just sore and a little shaken,” she confessed with a small shrug, Martin nodding. As strip club bosses went, Martin was a pretty good guy. He wasn’t a pervert, he wasn’t unfair, and he absolutely did not tolerate any of his employees being disrespected. The guy who had grabbed her would never be allowed back within The Luna Lounge. It was a small consolation for the fact that if they reported the guy in question for assault, usually nothing was done about it. Martin had been in the game for long enough to know that girls working under the banner of sex worker were not offered much respect from the authorities, if any at all.  

“Take the rest of the night off, go rest and I’ll see you Tuesday. Here, take your fee back, too.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out two fifties, handing them to her. Each girl had to pay a fee to the club of a hundred dollars a night to dance, and a percentage of what they earned from private dances. Stage earnings were not cut into. With that, he left them to it, EZ immediately turning back to face her.  

“So, that admitting?”  

She had to admire his tenacity, laughing softly, shaking her head. With the rest of the night off, and the tension between them doing nothing but mounting deliciously, she considered this the universe giving her the chance for a do over. She’d ended up regretting not going home with him before. Why do so twice?  

He was right. They were adults, they were attracted to one another, so why not do something about it? The chivalrous nature of him coming to her rescue in the wake of her being mauled had, in her mind, cancelled out the bullshit, his need to make her jealous. Besides, him doing that in the first place, was it really bullshit? Or creatively trying to get her attention?  

Either way, her mind was made up. “Do you want to come back to my place?”

The way his face lit up as the smile spread across it, oh! He was so hot. “Yeah, I do.”  

“Give me five minutes to go collect my stuff, and I’ll meet you outside.” Getting up, she was a little easier on her feet, only a slight limp to her otherwise feline glide, EZ standing and heading towards the doors, pulling his cell out as he approached his bike, leaning back against it while making a necessary call.  

“Hey Gus, you alright? Bouncer didn’t rough you up too much, did he?”  

“Nah, just threw me on my ass, bro,” Gus grumbled, lighting a cigarette. “You nearly fucking choked me out when you grabbed my collar, though!”

EZ laughed. “Yeah, sorry about that. Thanks, though. See you around.”  

Gus grinned as he ended the call. He had absolutely no idea why the president of the Santo Padre charter of the Mayans had wanted him to grab onto that specific girl, and he hadn’t asked either. He knew though, as a street hustler, if men in greater seats of power wanted a favour and were prepared to pay well, it was always better to take the cash and keep them happy.  

True, EZ likely could have simply used his own charm to get Camille into bed with him, but he sensed it would take considerably longer than he would have liked, so he cut a few corners. Also, he wasn’t prepared to bend to her either. His ego didn’t allow for it.  

What little good was left within him did feel a tiny slither of regret that she’d ended up hurt, but bruises were minor. And he’d make sure he gave her such a good time, she’d forget all about it. Most, if not all women forgot their troubles when they had him between their legs.  

His attention was diverted away from reading a message from his father when Camille exited the club, looking considerably more casual than he’d expected. Blue skinny jeans, a pair of tan Ugg boots, and a grey t shirt that sloped off of one shoulder. Even dressed down, she was still exquisite, though.  

“My place is fifteen minutes away; the red Mustang is mine. Try to keep up.” Her little eyebrow raise made him snort laughing despite his resolve, turning to look at the car she’d just clicked her key fob in the direction of.  

“Nice ride,” he commented.

“Oh yes. I am.” She was funny, he liked that, once again laughing. “What’s your name, by the way? I feel like I should know that already.”  

“EZ. Short for Ezekiel.”

She nodded, hitching her bag up onto her shoulder a little higher. “I’ll see you back at my place then, EZ.” She leaned in, making like she was going to kiss him, only to move away again, her fingernail trailing his neck. It was an action that had anticipation fizzing through him. Camille knew exactly what she was doing, even though she had no idea the extent of the games he was playing against her in engineering all of this.  

Throwing her bag in the trunk, she got into her car, grumbling a little when her butt stung in pain. Damn that fucking guy, but at least she’d landed on something fleshy, rather than her hip or side. “Oh well. You’re about to have your mind taken off it nicely.” she muttered to herself as she started the engine, four hundred and fifty horses ready and primed to charge beneath the hood, the V8 engine roaring as she pulled out from her place and shot across the parking lot.  

She’d always said that once she earned a decent living, she’d buy herself the car to reflect such. Between her day job, stripping and her Onlyfans modelling page, she earned decently enough to afford something nice, as well as a house in one of the better areas of Santo Padre. She wasn’t made of money, the nature of her work not always reliable and meaning some months were a scrape to make the mortgage and car repayments, but she was comfortable enough.  

Camille had only ever seen stripping as a way to see herself through college, until she’d qualified as a beautician, but having gotten used to the money, she had now set herself another goal which the meagre salary of a beauty therapist wasn’t enough to accomplish. She was saving to be able to open her own salon, hopefully followed by a chain.  

At twenty five, she had hoped to be there already, but previous debts on a home she’d shared with her ex, a home he’d absconded from and left her with a tonne on rent arrears around her neck had somewhat cut into her finances over the past five years, hence even more reason to continue stripping as well as working at a salon during the day. She was often tired, but she had what she needed, financial independence.  

Camille Smith would never again rely on a man for anything, even his share of the rent, hence why as soon as she was financially able, she’d bought the simple, modest home she pulled up to exactly seventeen minutes after leaving The Luna Lounge, a large Harley pulling onto the drive behind her car seconds later.  

She thought she was free of the bad men of her past, but as she walked up the drive, she had no idea how truly dark to the core the one walking behind her was. When his lips began to press kisses against the bare flesh of her shoulder as she opened her front door, darkness was the furthest thing she felt from him.

When he turned her around and brought his mouth to hers, all Camille experienced was fire, kicking the door shut before bouncing up into his strong arms, the inferno between them raging, as they knew it would as soon as they gave in.  

#ez reyes #ez reyes fanfiction #ez reyes smut #ez reyes imagine #ez reyes x ofc #ez reyes fanfic #ez reyes fic #mayans mc #mayans mc fanfiction #mayans mc imagine #mayans mc smut #mayans mc fanfic #mayans mc fic

[eunchancorner]

Dude, I can totally see the hatzgang teaming up to wreck someone. Like one of them distracting someone so the other two can ambush them

(The biggest victim I can see to this is Radford)

Couldn’t help but do this one next, it’s mah pfp boi, c’mon. Also these little crazies would so do this, especially since Rob already loves tkling his big bro

Lers Roy Ross and Robert, Lee Radford

Warning: cussing, rushed and shitty ending

Word count: 1410

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“So, guys, what’s the plan?”

Roy looked back at his two friends, the three hanging out near the door of the movie theater, plotting a very special attack on Robert’s very own brother and current movie theater employee, Radford. Robin, Robert’s older sister, had been nice enough to lead them here, but now they were on their own while she went in to see a movie.

“Well, one of us will have to distract him, but the question is, which one?” Ross asked, looking between his two friends. “It can’t be me, I’m not very distracting…”

“If I go in there and just start talking to him, he’ll know something’s up,” Robert noted, “We’ve used this to get the jump on him a lot at home so he’ll suspect something if it’s me.”

“Well, lucky for you guys, not only am I perfect at distracting people, but he won’t know to suspect anything if it’s me,” Roy stated proudly.

“Yeah yeah, good, now go!” the ravenette told him, shoving him into the theater lobby.

Radford enjoyed his job. It was a pretty small town, so it was usually quiet, and he got to meet some pretty interesting people, like Rick and Streber. Most of the people he met were pretty friendly, but he did have to deal with his fair share of Karens, inconsiderate people leaving messes, and people sneaking in. But usually, his job was peaceful enough.

He was waving to Robin as she went off to watch the horror movie when he heard the theater doors closing yet again, and turned to greet the next person.

“Hello, welcome to- oh, hey, you’re one of Robert’s friends, aren’t you? Roy, right?” he asked as the brunette approached him, leaning over the counter to see him better. “What are you doing here? I thought your parents didn’t like you leaving the house alone.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I just wanted to, y’know, see what a movie in an actual theater was like,” he reasoned, glancing off to the side, Radford assumed in embarrassment. “We have a home theater but I kinda wanted to see how different it was, and if it’s as good as Ross and Robert say it is.”

“Well, you’ve come to the right place! We’re the best movie theater in town!... Probably because we’re the only theater in town, but who cares? Which movie would you like to see?”

Roy pretended to think as his friends snuck behind the counter, feigning considering his options as the small blonde and ravenette crept closer and closer until, finally, he ‘came to a decision’.

“I think I’m gonna see- NOW GUYS!” he suddenly yelled, confusing and startling the young adult, before the other two teens leapt up and grabbed his arms, yanking him back onto the ground.

“WH- Robert!” he shouted angrily at his brother.

“Hi, big bro~”

“Dude, what are you doing?!”

“Well, you remember that time that you decided to tickle me in front of these two?” Rob motioned with one hand to the other boy holding Rad down, and Roy, who was coming around the counter.

Radford immediately knew what that meant and started tugging at his arms, anticipation bubbling inside him.

“W-wait, hold on, w-w-we’re in public, I- I need to check people in and-”

“C’mon, dude, you know how common PDA is in this town. Besides, almost everyone is home today thanks to the weather,” Ross pointed out, and Radford hated the realization that he was right.

“Still, you can’t just- You- I- All three of you s-EE-” he squeaked as he felt his little brother poke his side.

“You know, we’ll probably go easier on you if you don’t insult us,” Robert whispered not-so-quietly to the older blonde, who looked at his friends uneasily before deciding he was right.

“Alright, Robert, where’s his death spot?” Roy asked slyly, carefully studying the two blondes. While he knew Rob wanted revenge for their sleepover at his house, he wouldn’t put it past him to hide it for his brother’s sake.

Then again, maybe he wouldn’t, he thought after seeing the blondes exchange looks, Robert’s evil and smug, Radford’s nervous but giddy.

“It’s-” Rob started but was promptly cut off by his brother.

“D-don’t you dare!”

“-his back.”

“DAMN YOU!”

“Ah, perfect~ Ross, get his arms,” Roy told the ravenette, who raised an eyebrow at him expectantly. The brunette sighed a bit.

“Get his arms, please?” “There you go,” Ross praised him as he took the other arm from Rob’s hold and pulled them so Radford was forced into a sitting position.

“Robert, would you like to do the honors? He is your brother, after all,” Roy offered to the blonde, who nodded enthusiastically.

“Oh, you know it!” he chirped as he walked around to stand behind his brother. “This is what you get for being a little shit!”

Radford tried to protest but didn’t get anything out before he squealed at the gentle tickles he suddenly felt right next to his shoulders, both trying to scrunch away and pull his arms from Ross’s hold, and was almost successful.

“WOAH! He’s really strong for a scrawny guy!” Ross pointed out as he held fast.

“Or he’s just got a size advantage over all of us,” Roy reasoned, “weighs more than any of us.”

“Yeah, fair point.”

“Guys, I thought you were gonna join! Don’t make me teach him a lesson all by myself,” Rob butted into their conversation, peeking around his brother at the two.

“Wahait WHAT?!”

“Oh, that’s right, now let’s see, where should I…?” he trailed off, debating on different spots until he smirked and started squeezing Rad’s sides, eliciting yet another squeal from him, making him curl up with little kicks.

“NOHO! AAHAHA!!” he yelped as the two fairly bad spots were targeted, tugging at his hands even more, forcing Ross to plant his feet to keep himself steady.

“You know, Ross, if you let him go, you can help us,” Rob pointed out, and before Radford was ready, the ravenette actually did let go, making him fall backwards onto his little brother.

“OW- Rad!” he whined as though he wasn’t the one who coaxed Ross to let go.

“Hey, that was your fault and you kno-HOHOW AHAHA WHY-HIHIHI?!” he attempted to defend himself before suddenly his sides, back and belly were being dug into, pulling yet another squeal from his system. He tried to curl up or cover himself but nothing worked.

“Y’know, guys, maybe we could give him a way out if he really wants?” Ross offered the idea, not liking the idea of accidentally going past Rad’s limits.

“Fine, if he… Apologizes to Rob for embarrassing him at our sleepover!” Roy decided, and Robert nodded below his older brother.

“Yeah, apologize to me!” the blonde told his brother, tickling where he could reach around his shoulders, making him try to arch away from the devious fingers.

“YOUHUHU DESEHEHERVED IHIHIT!”

Suddenly the tickling stopped. He wasn’t sure why until he opened his eyes, looking up to see Roy and Ross staring past him in what almost seemed to be horror. What are they staring at?...

WAIT.

Just as he realized Robert must have been planning something, he suddenly felt a vicious raspberry right between his shoulders, his uniform offering very little protection as his ribs were kneaded into as well, sending him into silent laughter.

The moment he got his breath back, he screamed out the best apology he could manage to make legible, and finally the tickling stopped. He panted and giggled as Ross helped him sit up, Robert brushing himself off from being stuck beneath him and Roy patting his back.

“Mission accomplished, operation: Tickle Radford for revenge successful,” Rob cheered. “You ok, bro?”

“Ihihi… Ihi’ll be fihine…” he giggled out, slowly calming down.

“Need some water or something?” Ross asked, and Radford shook his head as his giggles died down.

“Nah, I’ll be fine. But what I do need is to get back to work. So y’all better leave me to it before I just so happen to return your revenge!” he threatened playfully, wiggling his fingers at the three, who left in a hurry.

He chuckled quietly as he stood, stretching out just a bit. It was nice to play like just a little kid again, even if he had to work. And even if it was his turn to check tickets.

Oh wait.

I am so fired.

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Fuck you guys and all your requests I’m making clone Tord theory fics

#eun writes #sm #spooky month #sm tickles #spooky month tickles #sm radford #spooky month radford #sm robert #spooky month robert #sm roy #spooky month roy #sm ross #spooky month ross #sm hatzgang #spooky month hatzgang #ler!hatzgang #ler!ross #ler!robert #ler!roy #lee!radford #ticklish!radford

[sickenoughsteve]

Beef, Bars, and Banter: Navigating the Drake vs. Kendrick Feud and the Hilarity Ensuing

When I first came across Pop Base’s prompt to write something for their newsletter based on modern-day pop culture, like Drake, I wanted to hire a ghostwriter. 

Allegedly! Anyway…

I went to ChatGPT to see if I could streamline the process and create something funny, witty, and on-trend without spending too much time. It didn’t work at all. What came out (with specific prompts, even) was incredibly corny and very clearly written by AI. This is why we need REAL writers to be compensated fairly and given the correct resources to entertain and inform us properly.

Anyway, that’s my little rant on writing. But let’s go back to Drake. Right now, this man is getting cooked by the entire industry, yet it seems he’s holding his own? Whether our favorite cornball, who everyone admits is actually somewhat appealing in a way none of us can explain, is your favorite, or if you like the Pulitzer Prize winner, Kendrick, you must tip your hat to the revival of beef in the rap game.

This is fun!

I mean, The Weeknd is out here singing sultry diss bars, Future is butt-hurt for what seems to be the first time ever, Metro Boomin is catching strays simply because he’s good at making beats but doesn’t rap, Rick Ross is on IG calling Drake “whiteboy”, J Cole avoided a massacre but might have lost some respect in the process, Pusha T is somewhere saying “I told you so,” Kanye is continuing to be his same insane self… even Quavo and Chris Brown are getting intensely and perhaps almost violently disrespectful on the undercard for this headliner beef.

That said, rather than diving into this beef from all angles, I want to acknowledge that this is a lot of information to digest, and many battles are going on in this war. That’s why I will do my very best to give a bird’s-eye view of this whole situation and see if this perspective can help all of us enjoy it for what it is. Not necessarily to tell you who to “support” but rather to recognize that negativity might save us in 2024.

We’re missing pop culture events that unite and get us all thinking about the same things. That’s where I believe Kendrick and Drake are doing a massive service to hip-hop. Putting it all on the line gives us something great to sink our teeth into. I, for one, love it.

So, as far as comparing this beef to past beefs, I remember in middle school, hearing Nas on ‘Ether.’ It rocked my world. I was raised on Nas and thought of him as the ultimate rapper. A rapper’s rapper. Instantaneously upon hearing “Fuck Jay Z” several times in succession on the song, I became a bonafide 100% Jay Z hater.

Did I have a problem with Jay? Not really. He was a star. I liked his music and had absolutely no issues with him. But not anymore! Nas had set the stage for me to learn as much as possible about Jay Z and become skeptical of everything about him.

This time around, the same feeling is back. However, it’s even weirder because the internet is out here internetting. Drake has a team of social media people who ensure he has the best and most impactful content strategy any rapper in a beef could ask for.

The internet is all about timing and trolling. Drake and his team are certainly better equipped there. And it’s showing to be necessary. However, one could argue if the bars are all that matters, Kendrick might have him beat there. Hence, the need for Drake to win these small battles on social media.

I think the best thing about beef between world-class musicians is that we are instantaneously reminded that everybody is insecure and we all make mistakes. The goal of beef is to expose those missteps and air out those insecurities. Before, I never would have guessed Drake had a BBL, fake abs, and other body modifications. Does that make me hate him? Not really. Does it even bother me? No. Does it make me think he’s very weird? Hell yeah.

In this politically correct world, toxic masculinity makes a resounding comeback whenever rap beef is declared. That’s probably the most upsetting thing about this all, but at the same time, let me reiterate that it’s fun. In a world of Israel and Palestine headlines, one of the most significant elections of our history, climate issues, and other general sad, sad truths, this is something we quite certainly NEED.

Silly bullying.

Drake making fun of Kendrick’s shoe size is, frankly, hilarious. I don’t care at all that Kendrick is short. Why would I? It doesn’t matter one bit. But if you put it on a song, it’s GOING to be funny. But of course, he refers to him as “midget” a few too many times for our PC culture to be happy with him. I found this most interesting when stepping back and thinking about it all. To come across as “real” also means NOT being politically correct.

Drake came for Kendrick for making music with Taylor Swift. Meanwhile, he’s in a commercial singing and dancing to Taylor. Is working with one of the biggest stars of all time something you should be ashamed of? Clearly not. But it’s not manly. So we have to be embarrassed by it. Beef is confusing in 2024; that’s all I’m saying.

And Kendrick isn’t guilt-free, either. He told Drake he doesn’t like it when he says the N-word. Of course, Drake has a black father but was primarily raised by his white mother. Now, he must feel bad about using our culture’s most controversial word. Of course, there’s a lot a sociology professor could unpack about why this is wrong, but in rap beef, it’s fair game. And it works as a way to poke holes in Drizzy's entire being! So it plays.

Another thing. Before we had Rap Genius and could look up what these guys were saying, some more subtle jabs would go under the radar. But now, the whole thing—from Kendrick naming the song ‘Euphoria’ because of the HBO show Drake is a producer on—and the connection there to pedophilia to Drake calling his diss ‘Push Ups’—there’s simply lore everywhere you look.

I used to write for a company that covered Marvel/DC, comics in general, and action franchises, and the main thing I took away from it was that people love Easter Eggs. We love digging into the material and finding references to the past or things meant to not just be on the surface. That’s what we love most about rap beef - especially nowadays.

We want to make discoveries about these greats that make them less untouchable, to bring them down a peg. Interestingly, human nature is to humiliate those on top whenever possible. 

But alas.

So, whether you “don’t trust” Drake or love and agree that he’s winning this 20v1, you must admit this is “for the culture” and far from over. So buckle up; this will be a hilarious and fun ride.

#rap #hip hop #hiphop

[dazzasarchives]

The Incredible Hulk Volume 1 Issue 4

Alright so in the last issue I stated how it felt like the early Hulk comics felt like two separate issues trying to be combined into one. Well in this issue they actually make two separate story lines and combine it into one comic. Anyway let's begin.

We start in Bruce Banner's lab with Rick Jones and the Hulk. Rick Jones is trying to turn the Hulk back to Bruce Banner via a machine. Recently it's been pretty hard on Bruce changing back and forth between the Hulk and himself. We then cut to Betty Ross who is starting to figure out the there is a connection between Rick Jones, Bruce Banner, and the Hulk. I really appreciate that they had Betty realize this. She then races to her father General Ross. Who is testing a new missile on a Hulk dummy. She then tells her father what she's discovered and he happily agrees to get a hold of Rick Jones so that he can defeat the Hulk.

We then cut to several soldiers outside Banner's cabin ready to capture Rick Jones and possibly Banner. Rick tells the Hulk to flee, since the Hulk is still under Rick's mind control somehow. Then Rick is captured and questioned by General Ross and Betty. The Hulk on the other hand wrecks some havoc through the city, as well as a Hollywood production, and then the production crew tries to stop him. Hulk uses his super clap for the first time and escapes the assailants. He then finds the army jeep holding Rick and easily rescues him by leaping away into the wilderness.

We then finally cut back to the beginning of the comic with Rick trying to return the Hulk to Bruce Banner. He does so with the machine, and Bruce is left very weak after the ordeal. In which case he tells Rick that he can't be weak. So he straps himself back into the machine and turns back into the Hulk, but this time the Hulk has the mind of Bruce Banner. I wouldn't really say if this is smart Hulk, id say this is more like Bruce in Hulk's body. Anyway this new Hulk form goes to save a family in a burning house but they end up shooting at him, and we find out that this version of Hulk, or Banner, although having Banner's mind and mannerisms gets angry very easily. After this Hulk and Rick return home and the Bruce returns to his normal form and the two rest. That's all for this half of the story now on to the next half.

Alright in the second half of this issue an Alien known as Mongu descends onto earth. He calls out for a challenger and Bruce Banner and Rick Jones just so happen to be watching Bruce then takes the form of the Hulk yet again and goes to face this new foe. Hulk and Rick descend on the alien known as Mongu as they are surrounded by Russian soldiers. We then find out that Mongu is actually a mech suit piloted by a Russian named Boris Monguski. The Hulk easily fights off the Russian soldiers, destroying their ships and the Mongu suit. He the. Captures them by tying them together with all of their belts. Then as the U.S. Military surrounds the Russian soldiers we see Hulk return to the form of Bruce Banner

Alright so I really like that they split these stories into two for this issue. I feel like it really helped with the pacing of both. Though it looks like in the next issue that this will not continue. Oh well on to the character analysis.

The Hulk, technically the Hulk's personality was absent in the issue, since he was either under Rick's mind control, or it was Bruce Banners mind in the Hulk's body, but not in a smart Hulk kind of way. Though I like to think everytime Bruce got angry it was the Hulk trying to regain control. I hope he does because it's a shame not having him, I miss the big green guy.

Bruce Banner, I really enjoyed him in this issue. I also understand where he's getting at with him not being as strong as the Hulk and wanting to be. So he has Rick turn him back but in a change of fate he takes on the Hulk's form but his mind and personality stay the same. I think as long as the trope continues I will be doing the Hulk and Bruce Banner as one single entity until the personalities split.

Rick Jones has grown so much in the past few comics, he was an annoying kid to a pretty decent sidekick. I can't wait to see how he continues to grow and develop over time.

Betty Ross got so much needed character development in this issue, albeit only briefly. I adore the fact that she's the one to realize the connection between Hulk, Rick Jones, and Bruce Banner, and that Rick Jones is the connecting link between the other two. I can't wait to see more growth from her.

General Ross, I love this character I love his pure hatred and determination for wanting to capture the Hulk, and that he comes up with the most cartoonish ways to capture him, like an ice missile. So far the best reoccurring antagonist. General Ross you have my heart.

Mongu, or Boris Monguski, yes I realize that technically this isn't a true antagonist or character, and that he also calls in the Russian Military to help him fight the Hulk. I just love that Russia invented this whole mech suit to trick the Hulk into fighting them. I love it.

Alright so that looks like the end for this comic, next issue we see the Hulk go up against a figure known as Tyrannus. Until next time true believers, Excelsior!

I do not own the images above they are owned by Marvel Comics.

If you want to visit the site I use to follow these comics in Chronological Order follow this link here:

If you missed the last post and are seeing this one and want to get caught up then follow this link here:

Want to start at the very beginning of this marvelous journey? Go ahead and follow this link here:

#marvel #marvel comics #marvel universe #earth 616 #marvel 616 #comic books #comics #the incrediable hulk #bruce banner #general ross #betty ross #rick jones #mongu #boris monguski

[chicknparm]

#3 for Spotify wrapped mini essays!

3. 327 - Westside Gunn, Joey Bada$$, and Tyler, the Creator

I've got a soft spot for rap with really elegant, lush production like this, but it's always make-or-break with how the rappers handle the contrast with the delicate instrumental. All three guys nail it here, I think.

Westside Gunn has a very love it or hate it style, and luckily I love it. I love the ad-libs, I love his voice, I love how smoothly he plays with the beat rhythmically. He has the kind of flow you can't help but bob your head to. He rhymes about shootouts and selling coke, Louis Vuitton vests, New Balance sneakers, and keeping guns in his Mercedes. There's the contrast I mentioned, the grimy and the elegant. Rick Ross made it work with his booming voice talking about Aston Martins, and Gunn sneers with enough conviction to make his machine gun ad-libs feel right at home with luxury fashion.

Joey Bada$$ takes a different approach and reflects on his adjustment to wealth and success, juxtaposing nights spent partying with moguls like Diddy and Jay-Z, with the days when he would get kicked out of school for smelling like weed. He also has a hilarious ad-lib following up the line "I went to school high, forgot to pick up my diploma" with "I was hiiiiiiigh" in an almost whiney tone. It's great. Also "I'm retiring the jewels...I mean it's usual. Everything that's new to you be the type of shit I'm used to" is a hell of a boast for such a relatively young name. At 28 he's already been in the spotlight for over a decade, as opposed to Westside Gunn, who is...hold on let me google something...

He's fucking 41?!

Anyway, Tyler steals the show here. He eases into his verse but starts off strong with a reference to All That and Keenan and Kel. I liked that :) He then dismisses anyone who has anything to say about the glitter on his body, whether it rubbed off from a partner or whether he put it there himself. He goes on to say "I been rapping and fucking, he 6'5, I'm a munchkin," which I think makes this the first time a mainstream rapper has bragged about how tall and hot the dude he's fucking is? That feels important, right? The rest of the verse is similarly celebratory, saying "my health good, my mama good, my n----- too, and they only wanna have good times like Josh Safdie." I also wanted to point out the Safdie reference. As I get older and increasingly uncool I cherish my victories when I understand a cultural reference in a rap verse. Please take me seriously. As for the end of Tyler's verse, he zeroes into the pocket with his flow and hits the beat hard as hell building up to a growled "Rah!" The last few bars ride out as Tyler takes a victory lap and the hook repeats. And then I play it again.

#ask meme

[pulseintlradio]

Winding Down with the weekend with Will Downing & the WIND DOWN on WPUR PULSE INT'L RADIO The Listening Experience. Enjoy the music of Keke Wyatt "Water Into Wine," Kevin Ross "Look My Way," Ashleigh Smith "Can't Help It," and Leela James "Right Back In It." This week's Interpretations segment includes Bill Withers and Anthony David with their renditions of “Lovely Day." Listen to more music by Victoria Monet Ft. Buju Banton "Party Girls," Commodores "Zoom," and Will Downing "What Part Of My Love." The spotlight this week is shining on Rick James with Superfreak and Give It to Me." Closing the musical ride with the music of Eric Roberson "Just Don't Hold It in," Ms. Mone't "Wonderful You," Brad Marquis "O.U.," and Johnny Brit "Occean Waves." Tonight at 8 pm EST, 7 pm CST, 5 pm, PST, 1 am UK time on the "WIND DOWN WAVES'" show. 𝐖𝐏𝐔𝐑 - 𝐏𝐔𝐋𝐒𝐄 𝐈𝐍𝐓'𝐋 𝐑𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐎 www.pulseintlradio.com/

#WillDowning #NYC #winddown #newmusic #Classics #rnbmusic #soul #SundayGroove #eveningvibes #waves

[caltropspress]

FEEDBACK LOOP #14: Voodoo Macbeth: Armand Hammer's "Windbreaker"

…Each new morn / New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows / Strike heaven on the face…

—Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Macbeth (1623)

They use me wrong, so I sing this song to this day.

—Nas, “I Gave You Power” (1996)

1.

Once upon a time, woods “had a gun once.” “Windbreaker” is woods’ adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedie Macbeth. Stories retold and resold—twice the first time, like Saul Williams once said. Not until you’ve listened to Rakim on a rocky mountaintop have you heard hip-hop. And not until you’ve staged Shakespeare in a sludge-slicked 150th Street Harlem sewer have you heard hip-hop either. A young Orson Welles directed what became known as Voodoo Macbeth on behalf of the WPA’s Federal Theatre Project in 1936. Featuring a full African-American cast, the play took place in a quasi-Haitian setting complete with tropical-cum-skeletal stage design—palm fronds and bone altars. We live in Storyville where the population density reaches hypersensitive levels and the murder police can’t keep up with the homicides. (Meanwhile, the Second Witch busies herself with “Killing swine” [1.3.2] in Macbeth.) We’ve been here before, before. Slick Rick’s “Children’s Story” (1988) told us to bite our tongues, that this ain’t funny so don’t you dare laugh, it’s just another case about the wrong path. He warned, in a playful and pajamaed manner: “Straight and narrow or your soul gets cast.”

2.

“Windbreaker” is a [re]mixture in the witches/bitches brew of Nas’s “I Gave You Power” (1996), too. The power, you could guess, is a wily one capable of possession. “Possession” in a legal sense—nine-tenths of the law and so forth; possession of a firearm [see: S. Carter, B. Sigel, Shyne, et al.]—but also the possession the gun holds over its owner. Those finding themselves possessed by the gun—a weapon which “made you buckwild,” in Nas’s terms—should brace for berserk behavior modifications. We can splice together epileptic seizures and Santería and call it spirit possession just the same. The possession is pervasive—everywhere. The ubiquity of guns in the collective imagination takes up serious real estate—we’re talkin’ eminent domain land grabs—and Nas’s psyche is no exception:

I was around a lot of guns then. Guns were in my sleep, in my car, in my home. Guns were on my person, guns were on my friends. That’s how much they were around. There was so much around me that I rapped about it. It’s crazy to think about that today, but it was my reality. It was in my head 24/7.

“Windbreaker” functions as an exorcism of that exact sentiment.

3.  RECKLESS WHAT

Blow wind! Come wrack!

—Shakespeare, Macbeth (5.5.58)

The wind forebodes. woods gets handed the gun “late night, right on the porch,” and it must be windbreaker weather. woods’ jacket rustles in the gusts. “I’ll give thee a wind” (1.3.12), the Second Witch says to the First, and the “wind” she refers to is what the witches bestow upon each other to exact revenge. woods, though, breaks their wind (true to the song’s title and his heroic epithet, likely). He’s not susceptible to their marshy shufflings, their murky hells. He “speak[s] things strange” (1.2.52-53), as Lennox says of the worthy Thane of Ross.

But the winds are everywhere (like guns)—they be blowin’ like Maceo Parker in a buhloone mindstate. They blow the horrid deed in every eye and “tears shall drown the wind” (1.7.24-25). Word to the RZA and Wendy Rene: after the laughter comes the tearz. But the winds swirl and cyclone and gyre skyward. woods, “like a naked newborn babe,” survives by “Striding the blast” (1.7.21-22) as a cherubim might, riding the breeze. He’s Kong learning to stop worrying and love da bomb. He straddles and hoots and hollers from the hydrogen missile. A hard acid reign’s a-gonna fall [RIP to Gajah].

Of Macbeth’s poor murderers, the second says: “I am one… / Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world / Hath so incensed that I am reckless what / I do to spite the world” (3.1.121-124). Shakespeare knows the sway of poverty over moral decisions, like the Apothecary in Romeo and Juliet whose “poverty, but not [his] will consents” to selling illegal, poisonous drugs to Romeo. woods gets beat back by the gale-force winds, but he bests those “buffets of the world.” Everything’s for sale except for the Beaufort scale.

4.  YO-HO-HO

The gun, in the case of “Windbreaker,” is equivalent to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Black Spot. That is to say, the song isn’t so much a billy woods metanarrative as a twice-told tale of Billy Bones in Treasure Island (1883). Passed from pirate to pirate, the Black Spot is a black-sided death sentencing, a Last Judgment on a scrap of paper. Biblical bad luck. A Book of Revelation back-page pressed into a fist. Maritime connotations aside, the Black Spot signals that it’s marring time, so make yourself scarce or knuckle up.

woods claims to have only had the gun “for about a month,” and he was none too keen on keeping it. The gun, we assume, had traveled many travails and trials, tribulations too; that it had “been in the hands of mad thugs,” as Nas puts it. Mad meaning “many” but also “crazed” and “deranged.” Mad like diaries maintained by gravediggaz. Pick, sickle, and shovel-wielding men. The gun, the “brandished steel, / Which smoked with bloody execution” (1.2.19-20) is bequeathed to woods as it was to so many others. Less a gift than a curse. “Sick of the blood,” Nas-as-gun raps, “Sick of wrath of the next man’s grudge.” This gun—like any gun, perhaps—is one that harbors a self-consciousness. Maybe it is the guns that kill people, personified with malevolence [male violence].

Unlike countless others, woods doesn’t choose to use the gun to cement his masculinity. As Macbeth tells his wife, woods is already man enough, and “who dares do more is none” (1.7.52)—a negation of that manhood. Overkill, let’s call it. Mac daddies and MAC-10s: Nas is like the phallocentric Asian, half-man, half-guns blazing. “The barrel’s my dick,” he explains, “Uncircumcised, pull my skin back and cock me.” Macbeth, meanwhile, questions his hallucinating senses, “Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand?” (2.2.44-45). The blade is bloody, possibly with menses, yet he still grapples for control: “Come, let me clutch / thee” (2.2.45-46). In doing so, he’s giving mics menstrual cycles. “The game is so irresistible to touch,” LL Cool J once said of the mic phallus, “You should see me when fiendin’ for microphones that I can clutch.” 

In a letter to his wife, Macbeth writes that he “stood rapt in wonder” (1.5.6), explaining what he witnessed held him in thrall. On the porch, billy woods is likewise “rapt withal” (1.3.60). Banquo knows “instruments of darkness tell us truths” (1.3.136). But woods is “too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness” (1.5.17) to use the gun; he doesn’t have “slaughterous thoughts” (5.5.16). And even if he does, his ignorance and mystification prevent him from reaching for the strap.

5.

A dagger of the mind, a false creation…

—Macbeth (2.2.50) 

The story told in “Windbreaker” raises questions of realities and false narratives, actual fears and imagined ones, authenticity and authorship—in short, the friction that exists between fiction and figment. woods mixes up the simulacra of hyperreality like the guy Quelle Chris knew on “PSA Drugfest 2003” that “mix[ed] up a spliff like witches with newt eye.” We’re pulled in by woods’ first-person point-of-view (“I had a gun once,” followed by a proliferation of Is) but put off by his reluctance to divulge the details. He bleep censors the name of who he “got it from.” By doing so, he protects the innocent, the guilty, and every gradation of conscience in between. The unidentified person who gives him the gun could be a peer, an elder, a mentor, a bad influence, or some combination thereof. Regardless, the nameless and faceless figure—a mysterious character, if we choose to lean into the fictitious realm—“showed [woods] how to load it” in the “same place [he] showed [woods] how to roll a blunt,” linking two illicit activities, both requiring punctilious attention to detail. Of gats and ganja; of heat and hemp. 

woods demonstrates the blurry border between fact and fiction in the scene details. The gun is handed off clandestinely under the cover of “late night,” yet the location (“right on the porch”) is indiscreet. This doubling (call it down-low and out-front) plays out anadiplotically when woods says, “[They] was speaking soft, / Soft pack of ’ports.” The sibilance of “speaking soft” suggests secrecy (if worse come to worse keep this on the hush, Lil’ Cease might say), but the point-blank alliteration of “pack of ’ports” sounds like when your guns go pow-pow (word to Big L). Furthermore, the soft pack of stoges—though its connotation implies silence—has a plastic wrapping that crinkles like a windbreaker, attracting unwanted attention.

6.

The gun given to woods is far from perfect, in fact, the weapon is “scratched and marred where the numbers was filed.” Like the bleep censors, the redaction of the serial number safeguards against snitching. But, as the pattern of the one-verse song shows, that which is criminal is liminal. Those defaced numbers, well, “you could still see ’em.” One thinks of Macbeth’s dagger cloaked in hemoglobin: “...on thy blade and dudgeon, gouts of blood” (2.1.58). One remembers Nas’s encounter with “a wrecked-up TEC with numbers on his chest that say: / 5-2-O-9-3-8-5 and zero.” The TEC yearns to confess, “hoping one day police would place where he came from, / A name or some sort of person to claim him.” But with his “serial defaced,” the TEC shares the same fate as Lady Macbeth: beyond saving. Just as doctors can’t “raze out the written troubles of [Lady Macbeth’s] brain” (5.3.52), so too can’t you resurface a scratched-off serial number. 

To include bleeped names and scratched-off serial numbers is to engage in a sort of scriptorium subterfuge. Historically, we’ve seen this in novels, as John Barth explained in “Lost in the Funhouse” (1967): “Initials, blanks, or both were often substituted for proper names in nineteenth-century fiction to enhance the illusion of reality. It is as if the author felt it necessary to delete the names for reasons of tact or legal liability. Interestingly, as with other aspects of realism, it is an illusion that is being enhanced, by purely artificial means.”

Uncertainty abounds. woods can’t even accurately identify the weapon he’s handed: “.38, .22—I’m not even sure.” It could just as well be Nas’s Desert Eagle, a “semi-auto with lead.” These redactions, this unknowingness, inevitably leads to confusion. One must forgo epistemic approaches and settle for feels. Nas’s aforementioned Desert Eagle, as an example, measures at “seven inches” and weighs “four pounds.”

7.

Emotional liftin’—please use the proper form: / Bend at the knee.

—“spongebob” (2019)

But little and heavy as a dead child. The game is the game, but the gravity of the situation increases with woods’ somber simile. That uzi, or .38, or .22— weighs a ton. But it’s the emotional weight that’s so exhausting. “Windbreaker” opens with a bevy of words with short-u sounds—words with heft, words that carry bend-at-the-knee weight: gun | once | month | blunt. A significant weight, like Biggie’s ubiquitous uh adlibs. woods throws haymakers, heaves shots. By all accounts, he’s acting “wild truculent” (as Breeze Brewin once said on “Weight” by the Indelible MC’s). woods holds the gun with “Macbeth hands,” a phrase he drops on Armand Hammer’s “Duppy.” Macbeth speaks of “dread exploits” (4.1.164), and woods works in dread[ed] talk (s/o to Velma Pollard), that Iyaric, a protest language and flexi lexicon, to ward off the weight of what violence he might have the capacity to engage in.

You show loyalty; they learn loyalty. But Macbeth disregards the value of his commander Banquo even after leading Duncan’s army alongside him. He keeps the plot to murder Banquo “from the common eye” for “sundry weighty reasons” (3.1.141-142), most of which are purely practical. The Thane of Cawdor doesn’t consider the guilty conscience he’ll have to carry. He doesn’t contemplate “that perilous stuff / Which weighs upon the heart” (5.3.54-55). woods does.

On “Heavy Water” (emphasis on the heavy—we’re talking some brine pool shit), woods told us “the play-within-the-play was G. Dep as Macbeth,” and thus hands us a key. G. Dep, who confessed to killing an innocent man seventeen years after the fact, couldn’t function under the weight of what he’d done. “I didn’t feel free and clear,” he said from prison where he’s serving 15-to-life. “Everyday I was faced with this memory, with this heinous act, that didn’t really have to happen….I had to do what I had to do to get that burden off my chest.” That burden off his chest. “Burden” from the Old English byrðen, meaning “load, weight” but also “a child.” (But little and heavy as a dead child.)

G. Dep endeavored to lift the weight off his chest, but woods prefers to hide the weight in a chest. woods secretes the gun—and his shame at even accepting it—in various places, all of which prove porous. He “had it hid under bed”—those deadweight d’s burying any misdeed deeply—but he “couldn’t sleep” like some Princess and the Piece. He’s a sensitive soul, feeling it penetrate his back leaving him black and blue all over his body. Mattress upon mattress upon mattress, and he still felt its presence. No quitter, woods seeks other unseen spots—ahem, hiding places—like “in the shed, somewhere Moms couldn’t reach.” I was made to kill, Nas rapped, and “that’s why they keep [the gun] concealed.” Nas tried to squeeze “under car seats” and sneak into clubs. By verse three of “I Gave You Power,” he’s “still stuck in the shelf with all the things that an outlaw hides.” As we see, any attempts at avoidance are mostly ineffective.

8.  THE WEÏRD TURN PRO

woods is unsettled. Who can make sense of machine gun etiquette? The man feels damned. “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” he raps, noticing “both shoulders had demons.” Can’t brush ’em off. As Macbeth says, “Cannot be ill, cannot be good” (1.3.144). Out, damned spot, out, I say! One. Two. (5.1.37). But the spot is blown, and Lady Macbeth can’t do a damn thing about it. She can try to sound like Biz Markie as much as she wants (“...a one-two, a one-two…”); she can make like Special Ed and fetch the Cascade, but there’s no getting those red stains off her hands.

“I was scared,” woods tells us, “’cause [redacted] heard [redacted] was tryna rob me.” But even self-defense shuffles closer to self-destruction. “I was more scared,” he explains, “when I took the gun, to be honest.” He fears both the threat on his person and the weapon intended to ward off any such maneuvers. He feels stuck: “By then, too late to say I didn’t want it.” We can assume his “dome was aching” like the man in Nas’s song who reaches for the gun, finally. woods “walked home in the darkness,” in his frantic thoughts. Somewhere along his route he was detained by “three witches on the marshes.” 

Rewind back to the beginning of the song. “And I know it better than before,” Fielded sings, “they want me to notice—even out the score.” Fielded becomes all three Weïrd Sisters in one: she turns to they. For weïrd read “fateful.” Depending on which Shakespeare folio you’re flipping through, the word is also spelled weyward and weyard. They all come from the Scottish form of wyrd, though—the Old English word for fate. The Weïrd Sisters, or witches, are tied up in some real Hussein Fatal/Fatal Hussein business. I’m pretty sure that I won’t be ready when they come through that door, Fielded sings with “the syllable of dolor” (4.3.9), evoking the lurking evil, the looming dread, that woods experiences. Fielded—whose stage-name is near-synonymous with the marshes and heaths on which the witches appear—sings of seething vengeance (“even out the score”) and simmering nervousness (“I got somebody coming for me in the night”).

Fielded, in their role as the Weïrd Sisters, is warmer to woods than Macbeth’s encounter with the witches. Fielded warns him, it sounds like, not to cross them. In an evasive move, woods goes metaphorical. He feels like a “dinosaur in the tar pit.” He marks sharks as “all cartilage.” (The witches include “maw and gulf / Of the ravaged salt-sea shark” [4.1.24-25] in their cauldron ingredients, by the way.) Sharks for woods; scorpions for Shakes. “O, full of scorpions is my mind” (3.2.41), Macbeth moans. woods feels his “blood cold as the water is,” while Macbeth looks to the “multitudinous seas incarnadine” (2.2.80), meaning the ocean turns blood-red. The arrival of Banquo’s ghost at dinner is likened to the approach of “the rugged Russian bear, / The armed rhinoceros, or th’ Hyrcan tiger (3.4.122-123). Bears, rhinos, sharks, scorpions, and tigers…oh my!

9.  SLUMB’RY AGITATION

A heavy summons lies like lead upon me, / And yet I would not sleep…

—Banquo, Macbeth (2.1.8-9)

“Fair is foul, and foul is fair” (1.1.12-13), the witches say in unison. woods hovers through the fog and filthy air thinking, Fuck a fair one—I get mine the fast way, like Biggie on the “Flava in Ya Ear” remix from ’94. On “Halloween Fell on a Weekend,” woods was talkin’ witchy: “Fair is foul, / Awkward smile.” Nas, for the record, noted how the intrusive gun thoughts were “making every ghetto foul.”

But what’s really foul and utterly unfair—a flagrant foul, a Flagrant 2—is the sleep troubles. “I slept with no dreams,” woods raps. But his dreamless sleep is more of an insomnia. “Methought I heard a voice cry, ‘Sleep no more!” Macbeth says, turning over in the sheets to speak to himself in the third-person, “‘Macbeth does murder sleep’” (2.2.47-48). woods looks a ghost now, a somnolent wanderer: “Asleep on my feet, / Awake when niggas sleep.” The repetition of sleep at the start of one clause and at the end of the next signals the circularity of the story being told. 

We can’t help but summon Nas’s “cousin of death.” And Macduff refers to “downy sleep” as “death’s counterfeit” (2.3.88). woods is restless, “tempest-tossed” (1.3.26), enduring the night where “wicked dreams abuse / The curtained sleep (2.1.62-63). “Headlights splashed the curtains,” woods raps, and instead of sheep he’s “counting every car passin’ in the street.” He may as well be midnight marauding like Lady Macbeth with a taper. When the Doctor notes that Lady Macbeth’s “eyes are open,” the Gentlewoman clarifies that “their sense are shut” (5.1.26-27). Nas, Queensbridge-bred, opens his penthouse lids to “see some cold nights and bloody days.” If only Lady Macbeth had been as alert as Nasir Jones or billy woods.

10.  BLACK MACBETH WILL SEEM AS PURE AS SNOW

The gun, which was described as “little and heavy as a dead child” (G. Dep’s debut was called Child of the Ghetto, as fate would have it), returns to haunt us at the end of “Windbreaker.” The baby image, in Shakespeare’s terms, becomes “doubly redoubled” (1.2.42). When the hurly-burly’s done, it’s the kids who suffer. A generational pain that folds back in on itself. An inheritance of the horrific. Look around: dead babies are everywhere.

Ross speaks of Macduff’s murdered household where he discovered “babes / Savagely slaughtered” (4.3.240-241). Nas delivers a choral ode about how he, as gun, “might have took your first child.” Slick Rick rapped of “a little boy who was misled.” That boy found himself in a woods-like dilemma, calculating the consequences: I’ll do years if I pull this trigger. If not a corporeal death, a death of the spirit. 

The Weïrd Sisters promise Banquo that he’ll father kings—bank on it, they say. And so Macbeth fears Banquo’s children will be the future kings of Scotland, usurping his throne. Macbeth decides: Banquo’s gotta go. Not only his brethren-in-arms, but Banquo’s son Fleance, too. Fleance “must embrace the fate / Of that dark hour” (3.1.156-157), Macbeth determines, all in order to assure his place on the throne. When Macbeth ambushes Banquo in Act 3, Scene 3, Banquo implores his son to “fly, fly, fly” (3.3.25)—he tells him to supa fly, to supa dupa fly. To be fresh, wild, and bold, too—like the Cold Crush would advise.

woods, as Banquo, is drawn into a terminal life, a posthumous life, when he is given the gun. That hand-off arranges his end. “Banquo when I think of my kids,” he raps. “Banquo when I kiss my son in his crib.” This is the Fleance farewell. But woods is unwilling to go the way of Banquo. He doesn’t only want to save his son—he wants to save himself. “Stunningly,” Nas says, “tears fall down the eyes of these so-called tough guys.” woods rebuffs the “heavy as a dead child” gun. The only weight he wishes to feel is his son asleep in his arms.

11.  THE WOOD[S] OF BIRNAM

It felt wrong knowing niggas is waiting in Hell for him.

—Nas, “I Gave You Power”

“Here’s a knocking indeed!” remarks the Porter in Act 3, Scene 1. He considers the vocation of “porter of hell gate” and mocks the incessant knocking: “Knock, knock, knock! Who’s there, i’ / th’ name of Beelzebub?” (3.1.1-4). Careful what you ask for and be wary of the knocks you answer to. woods can knock the hustle. He’s none-too-anxious to join the mobb of “murd’ring ministers” (1.5.55) we hear about in the Scottish play or Track 4 on It Was Written. Still woods, eventually, commits to composing a kind of murda muzik—equally bloodletting and bloodshedding in its emotional registers and range. “[T]he blood-boltered Banquo smiles” (4.1.138) knowing he’s secured futures for his kids. He rests easy. It’s presupposed that the gun gives power, but on “Windbreaker” we learn that the weapon deprives us of power, leaving us with nothing to pass on but the curse.

Images:

Photograph of the Nat Karson design used to create the backdrop for the Federal Theatre Project production of Macbeth at the Lafayette Theatre, Harlem, 1936 (detail) | Opening of the Federal Theater Project production of Macbeth at the Lafayette Theatre, Harlem (1936) | Winslow Homer, Hurricane, Bahamas (1898) | Andy Warhol, Gun, black, white, and red on pink (c. 1981-82) | Ravi Zupa, Mightier Than Guns sculpture series, disassembled typewriter, stapler, and scrap metal (c. 2016) | G. Dep, Child of the Ghetto album cover, 2001 (detail) | “Macbeth visits the Weird Sisters (Three Witches) on the blasted heath,” title page by John Gilbert for an edition of Shakespeare’s works (1858–60) | Canada Lee as Banquo in the Federal Theatre Project production of Macbeth at the Lafayette Theatre, Harlem (1936) | Photograph of the Nat Karson design used to create the backdrop for the Federal Theatre Project production of Macbeth at the Lafayette Theatre, Harlem, 1936 (detail)

#underground hip hop #billy woods #armand hammer #fielded #backwoodz studioz

[crossover-enthusiast]

Kevin can somewhat recognize people as a wolf, but like more so on “vibes” of how good or bad they are

Like streber has the most positive vibes to him

Then radford, rick, and haunted house gang and jaune and ross (going off them being related)

Robert roy and spookies get “they’re ok” sort of deal due to hatzgang always stealing and pulp and skid bringing trouble (he mainly stays away, though, if the hatzgang ever saw him they’d probably run away, screaming.)

John and jack get “stay away from me” cause all they ever do is accuse him of shit or hold him at gunpoint, sooo yeah. No good feelings there

Cultists are “stay the hell away or i will fight”

Dexter: KILL

I love how Dexter is ranked worse than the cultists that's so funny to me

But yeah, this makes sense!

#Spooky Month #Kevin #AU