#made this in five minutes forgive the crunchiness
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I want to make this an adapted meme format
#nahyuta sahdmadhi#spoilers but not really#aa memes#ace attorney#apollo justice trilogy#spirit of justice#made this in five minutes forgive the crunchiness#posted the blank version on my blog too!
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been seeing people talk about Ethel Cain a lot and had chills the entire time i watched her perform Morning Elvis with Florence so I'm playing Preacher's Daughter for the first time and writing notes as I go
fair warning this is an incredibly long post
first of all i have to say i love this album cover the dark warm browns are gorgeous and really give off that rural small town vibe and i read a few articles about her so i know she grew up in a place like that and the album title is describing her because her dad was a deacon of the church her and her family grew up in
the basssss the bass starting family tree ooooooohhhhh i love that
these crosses all over my body remind me of who i used to be and christ forgive these bones im hiding from no one successfully jesus can always reject his father but he cannot escape his mothers blood W H A T
THE BEATSSS THEYRE SO DARK AND DRAMATIC AND ATMOSPHERIC IM SCREAMING IM ONE MINUTE IN AND THIS IS MAYBE THE BEST ALBUM INTRO IVE EVER HEARD
my brain chemistry has already been altered i instantly need this on vinyl
loveee the guitar starting off american teenagerrrrrr
the suspended vocalization tooooooo)(U*U@PIHF@
i love love love her voice its so rich and she does deep and high notes both so amazingly welllllllll screaming
the melody the flow of the lyrics the beat the synthy floaty sounds im deadddd i love thissss i want to rip it apart like soft hot bread and eat ittttt
SAY WHAT YOU WANT BUT SAY IT LIKE YOU MEAN IT WITH YOU F I S T S FOR ONCE
MAIN CHARACTER TYPE SONG I LOVE THE IRONY I LOVE TEH SADNESS IM GOING TO WALK AROUND TO THIS SO MUCH THAT IS ONE OF THE HIGHEST HONORS I CAN GIVE A SONG @mothercain YOUR HAND IN MARRIAGE BITCHHHH
I HAVE FINISHED TWO SONGS AND ITS ALREADY MY NEW PERSONALITY TIME TO HYPERFIXATE FOR MONTHS AND LET IT TAKE OVER THIS WHOLE FUCKING BLOG
THE SUSPENDED PIANO NOTES FOR HOUSE IN NEBRASKA???? Y E S
THE ECHOEY VOCALS MAKE ME INSANE IM CLAWING AT THE WALLS RENDING MY GARMENTS GNASHING MY TEETH OH MY GODDDDDD
I STILL CALL HOME THAT HOUSE IN NEBRASKA WHERE WE FOUND EACH OTHER IN A DIRTY MATTRESS ON THE SECOND FLOOR WHERE THE WORLD WAS EMPTY SAVE YOU AND I WHERE YOU CAME AND I LAUGHED AND YOU LEFT AND I CRIED WHERE YOU TOLD ME EVEN IF WE DIED TONIGHT THAT ID DIE YOURS
YOU KNOW I STILL WAIT AT THE EDGE OF TOWN PRAYING STRAIGHT TO GOD THAT MAYBE YOULL COME BACK AROUND I HAVE FULL BODY CHILLSSSSSS
THE ROCK GUITAR SMASHING IN AND BEING SO CRUNCHY GODDDDDDDDD
He's never looked more beautiful on his Harley in the parking lot breaking into the ATMs sleeping naked when it gets too hot from what ive heard people say about Lana Del Rey's music this sounds like she might've been an influence
show me how much i mean to you while im lying in these sheets undressed id hold the gun if you ask me to but if you love me like you say you do would you ask me to troubles always gonna find you baby but so will i crying only because im happy hold me across every state line im never gonna leave you baby even if you lose whats left of your mind cause you know ill be right there beside you riding through those western nights
ooh there's another song called family tree the first one was family tree (intro) but there's track five without (intro) delicious
oohhhhhooohohoho same first two lines but then new lyrics
give myself up to him in offering let him make a woman out of me ooooh hoo hoo hooooo
so family tree is a banger
i immediately thought emo cowboy on hearing those lyrics and google actually gave me that so thank you whoever made this image because its truly the essence of this album
the next one is hard times and the first thing i thought of was paramore ive been obsessed with that song lately
nine going on eightaayynn lay it on meeeeeeheeeeheeeee yessssss
im tiiiiired of you too tiiiiired to leave im tiiiired of you still tiiiiied to meeeee
I MET YOU THERE IN TEXAS
MY ASS WHO LIVES IN TEXAS👀👀👀
i met you there in texas somewhere on the thoroughfare on the side of the road with a pistol in my pocket i didnt trust no one but you said baby dont run ill take you anywhere
AND YOU SAID HEY DO YOU WANNA SEE THE WEST WITH MEEEHEEEEEE CAUSE LOVES OUT THERE AND I CANT LEAVE IT BEEEEEE AND I SAID HONEY LOVES NEVER MEANT MUCH TO ME BUT ILL COME WITH YOU IF YOURE SURE ITS WHAT YOU NEED
love love lovvveeeeee the beat that comes in a bit before that part
sad cowgirl winter lets go girls
i am halfway through this album and ive made more notes than i have for some albums twice the length thats how good 13 track albums always are
its not a real cowboy album if youre not spending the last two minutes of a nine and a half minute song just vocalizing
oh the nexts songs called gibson girl ive heard of that but i forgot what it is hang on
a type of drawing by a man named Charles Gibson of the ideal woman of the 1890s ooh should be interesting
the intro for this songgggg
the production is the fucking besttttt
the echoes for this one too yesss i love this shitttt
i dont even know what image to put this over but just youre all the same black leather and dark glasses pourin another while i shake my ass hes cold blooded so it takes more time to bleed obsession with the money addicted to the drugs says hes in love with my body thats why hes fucking it up
the guitar breakkkkkkk:PO(*&^%$^;l;pqokpiaw
next ones name is ptolemaea so lemme go look that up too
oh yeahhh that greek astrologer dude okay
ooh the distortion in the beginningggg
the intensity building is so horror-like i love it
the screech on the last stop made me jump a lil goodbye
I am the face of loves rage what the fuck
the guitar and drums all getting more intense after that line remind of of the end of I Know The End by Phoebe Bridgers ill take ten million more songs with that please
the entire ending um???
its a good thing i decided to listen to this album around noon and not the middle of the night because i love demonic speaking parts but not when my eyes arent adjusted to the dark girl
ooh august underground is an instrumental i went to look up the lyrics and apparently its named after a horror film trilogy so ill probably check that out soon
televangelism is also purely instrumental and genius says its ethels ascent to heaven as music god this sounds gorgeous
what i wouldnt give to be in church this sunday listening to the choir so heartfelt all singing god loves you but not enough to save you so good luck on your own baby so i said fine cause thats how my daddy raised if they strike one once then you just hit em twice as hard but in the end the fire bent under the weight they gave me and this heart would break and fall twice as far eating these lyrics
WE ALL KNOW HOW IT GOES THE MORE IT HURTS THE LESS IT SHOWS BUT I STILL FEEL LIKE THEY ALL KNOW AND THATS WHY I COULD NEVER G O BACK HOME E T H E L THERE IS NO NEED TO EXPOSE ME LIKE THIS???
SO I MET HIM THERE AND TOLD HIM I BELIEVE SINGING IF ITS MEANT TO BE THEN IT WILL BE AND I FORGIVE IT ALL AS IT COMES BACK TO ME IM STILL PRAYING FOR THAT HOUSE IN NEBRASKA BY THE HIGHWAY OUT ON THE EDGE OF TOWN DANCING WITH THE WINDOWS OPEN I CANT LET GO WHEN SOMETHINGS BROKEN ITS ALL I KNOW AND ITS ALL I WANNA KNOW
one more song i have no idea what to say
freezer bride, your sweet divine look i have been obsessed with the locked tomb for over a year im not going to NOT think of Alecto when i see this
when my mother sees me on the side of a carton in winn-dixie's dairy aisle like the one promo picture for this right
and arlington's in texas👀👀👀
f.inisheddd thea lbum(*&#!OHPI#!HFo
wow what the hell was that im going to obsess over it forever
if there is not a colored vinyl of this i am going to fucking murder someone this deserves something gorgeous for me to stare at while its playing
in conclusion i cannot in any way let my religious mother know im trying to get this album so im going to work with my friend who helps me get explicit/gay music my mom wont let me because spotifys alright but i need to listen to this on my little portable cd player with headphones on full blast on the floor in the middle of the night because truly every album experience is better that way but especially shit like this
ethel if youre reading this how the everloving FUCK is this your debut album this literally deserves a grammy we all know they havent been shit for a while but if you dont get one for this im going to maul the entire Academy for real. keep doing weird shit i literally heard about you from Morning Elvis with Florence, my number one weird music woman and her taste has not failed me yet, especially not after an hour of being immersed in this
#ethel cain#hayden anhedönia#preachers daughter#mother cain#southern gothic#southern gothic aesthetic#my post
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tasting colors
(short symbiot au fanfic)
-flirting
-weirdass alien biology
-magic food
-benifits of sharing a body
-fluff
-slice of life ig???
premise: players are symbiots from space! vessels are hosts! sym killed the other one behind the loop and ate it to gain the reset, but then threw it away latching onto dust. sym also took him to the surface because it already had eaten a half digested human soul. after passing the barrier sym fully shattered the soul.
some time has past and these two have become very close! kinda skipped all the slow burn and angst lol. sym doesn't really have much history with dust to repent or seek forgiveness.
sym is just best boy/girl/thing. there for suppert.
"wake up sleepy head." it gently nudged his skull with it's head.
"mmmhm... five more minutes..."
he muttered furrowing his bone brows.
"want me to make breakfast?" it smiled enthusiastically.
"no humans ... taste gross" he frowned at last nights memory.
"oh stars no!" it gasped, slightly offended.
"you know I'm a cannibal with high standards. I wouldn't dare eat HUMANS or monsters~ not without your consent. wouldn't wanna upset your soul stomach. besides I didn't hunt today. you good with pancakes?" it grinned as sans could faintly feel himself being lifted from bed.
he instinctively pulled the blanket on himself only for it to turn into soft mushy matter.
he would have been taken aback but instead he insistently continued to fake his snoring stubbornly.
some time passed and he drifted back to sleep... how long had he been out?
he opened his eyes after the scent of sweet food brushed against his nasal cavity.
he was sitting in the kitchen with a neatly stack of fresh pancakes Infront of him... and ... ketchup instead of syrup.
"aw you made my favorite" he grinned lazily pouring the ketchup on the pancake.
sym let out an audible sigh shaking it's head. "rest in peace you sweet treat."
"hey, rude. my body, my food." he picked up another piece and took a bite of it.
"your taste buds are broken. your pallet is horrible." it retorted.
"how would you know? is it cuz you've borrowed my tongue?"
he smirked licking the fork.
it squeaked in surprise staring at him in silence, a red glow appearing on it's heart shaped eyes.
"... my tongue is better at detecting any physical flavor. magic food CAN'T taste THAT good."
it huffed in annoyance, trying to direct the conversation towards a more... scientific approved topic.
"should we maybe swap our taste buds?"
he chuckled..
"oh FUCK OFF."
its heart shaped eyes vanished as it hid it's face inside itself glowing bright red underneath the black mass.
he grinned playfully poking it with gentil taps as he muched on the food.
"aren't you curious? I know I am."
he teased, making it sound like he was eating the best thing known to man.
it perked it's face out, blowing a childish raspberry.
"yes but I'm not going to!"
it frowned while glancing at the corner of his mouth.
it really wondered if magic food would taste any different with using HIS mouth-
"want some?"
he smiled smugly.
it nodded timidly, shaking it's head from those thoughts.
he let it eat some of the sliced off parts where it wasn't DEFILED by ketchup stains.
it's eyes lit up like a small pup as it enthusiastically swallowed it.
"see? it's better without KETCHUP."
it beamed.
"nah." he replied lazily finishing his last bite but taking his SWEET time swallowing.
it could not resist anymore is HAD to know to satisfy it's curiosity.
a small tap to his soul and it felt... buzzy?
it tasted like tomato sauce but sweeter. a bit like the taste of the color green... no, redorange... wait colors weren't a taste? it could feel small tidbits of energetic particles around being absorbed into a nice blend of sweet and slightly sour fruity mix. felt actually refreshing. ice cold yet warm... electric yet awfully... crunchy groundyyyy. sweet mud after rain.
such a vague fascinating aftertaste...
"you finished the entire bottle. guess you like my pallet after all" he grinned.
it opened it's eyes to find it's head stuck in the ketchup bottle, chugging it like plain water.
"... "
it refused to pull it's head out, filled with embarrassment. this was it's life now. it was the hat of shame.
he snorted a small laugh pulling the tip off it's head.
"you like magic food huh?"
his smug grin sharpened.
sym let out a small annoyed huff.
"of COURSE I'd like anything your soul would like when I'm linked to it. that's not a fair argument."
it paused.
"but... yeah. it was... good."
"better than greasy human food even?"
he raised a bone brow.
"hrgnnnn" it let out a weird growling sound of refusal to affirm the question.
he rolled his eyes at it and sighed.
"you eat people, rocks, metal, and even your own kind but you're this picky? "
it looked back at him with a smirk.
"it's your body not mine. I wanna take care of it! of us! you rarely eat... and you're-"
he looked at it suspiciously crossing his arms, his playful grin widening even further.
"aw, getting sift in me now?"
"I mean ME! I want ME to be healthy so I'm making sure not to eat anything your body can't absorb. monsters have weak physical forms."
it glanced away the same red blush appearing on it's face.
"sounds awfully cheesy don't it? "
he wore the iconic shit eating grin as he held a flat piece of cheese on his hand.
"uuugghhhhh..."
sym face planted on his arm softly.
he patted it as he sat up stretching his arms.
"so what's the plan for today. any new targets?"
sym, now resting on his shoulder shook it's head.
"no. I don't sense any other anomalies. not yet that is. still! might want to keep an eye on the guy in the basement I think he lost his determination and the reset got passed to another random human."
"oh for fucks sake."
he grunted pinching his nasal ridge.
"it's okay. we'll find it!" it chirped as it disappeared from his side and proceeded to cover sans's eye.
"wanna go look for them?"
its red heart shaped eye flashed red in place of sans's right eyelight.
he chuckled as he infused magic into his socket. the blackness spread across his face charged with his own will.
a heart on his face slpit in two then both sides in three.
six mismatched eyes glistening with excitement.
"let's make this quick. it's risky in broad daylight." they muttered, disappearing in a flash.
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summary: the forest is your only escape from the everyday troubles with your family until you find danger lurking behind the trees. or rather, danger finds you. your fateful encounter with the vampire ravn leaves you wishing for a different life. you strike an unexpected deal with the stranger that will soon turn into something more…
pairing: vampire!ravn x reader
genre: vampire!au, angst, humour, romance, smut
warnings: stalking, eating out, handjob, vampire jokes
word count: 2.2k
part one 🌙 part two 🌙 part three 🌙 part four 🌙 part five 🌙 part seven 🌙 part eight 🌙 part nine 🌙 part ten🌙 part eleven 🌙 part twelve 🌙 epilogue
You were running in the forest aimlessly, tears streaming down your face. You had a fight with Ravn. It was about something so stupid, now that you thought about it. You were certain that you’d never want to see your abusive parents ever again and that you’d rather spend the rest of your life with Ravn. However, there was one problem that kept bugging you. You were going to die eventually.
Which meant that you’d lose him and he’d lose you. And you couldn’t accept that. Not when you knew there was an alternative. So you asked Ravn to turn you into a vampire. And he got so angry with you for even thinking of it. He said that he wouldn’t wish such a fate on his worst enemy, so he would certainly never do this to you.
You told Ravn that you couldn’t imagine life without him and that you’d rather be like him than be without him. Which made him even angrier. He said that you had no idea what you were asking for and that you were just a silly little girl who was deluding herself into thinking she was fond of him. Ravn also told you that nature had made predators appealing on purpose in order to lure their victims more easily. Which in turn, made you angry.
Who was he to question whether your feelings for him were genuine or not? He had no clue…You yelled at him and said some things you didn’t mean and eventually ran out of his castle and into the ever so familiar forest that had once been your escape and in a way, it still was. You were so upset you couldn’t think straight and just kept walking.
You had told Ravn you never wanted to see him again. That if he didn’t want to share immortality with you, you’d find someone else to do the job. Which was obviously a lie. Immortality meant nothing to you if you had to face it alone. Ravn was all you cared about. You had only said that because you knew it would hurt him the most. And now you regretted it immensely.
You wanted to take the words back and beg him for forgiveness. Immortality be damned, you just wished you could be in his arms again. You sighed in frustration and kicked the autumn leaves beneath your feet. You heard a crunchy sound behind you and turned around hopefully, thinking maybe Ravn had come after you. What you saw was far more unexpected.
A large, grey wolf was staring right into you, baring its huge teeth and glowing yellow eyes. You couldn’t scream, couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe. The huge animal approached you slowly, as if intending to take its sweet time. It was apparently in no rush of eating you. You panicked and ran for your life. Even though you loved spending time there, this forest was seriously cursed. First, vampires. Now, this?
You couldn’t tell if the forest was at fault or you just had some pretty bad luck. You could hear the animal looming behind you and even though you were running pretty fast, you had a bad feeling you wouldn’t make it. Your legs were starting to give out and you could sense your heart beating rapidly.
Suddenly, just when you were about to give up and face your inevitable demise, you felt someone grabbing you harshly and pulling you towards them by force. Before you could make out what was happening, you were somehow being dragged into climbing a tree. You were completely deprived of your senses because it was too dark already. You felt a cold hand being pressed against your lips, as if to silence your already loud breathing.
“Don’t breathe,” Ravn’s familiar voice whispered in your ear, making you relax this instant. And despite your earlier fight, in that moment you were so grateful for him that you would have sighed in relief had he not warned you against it.
From this different vantage point, you could see the wolf a couple of metres down, sniffing and looking around in confusion. The animal had lost its prey so quickly it couldn’t register how it had happened. It continued to growl for a couple more minutes but you were safely hidden in the tree’s leaves and the darkness was also serving as your protector.
Eventually, the wolf gave up and crept away with its tail between its legs. When it was at a safe distance, Ravn finally removed his hand from your mouth. You took a deep breath of fresh air and looked up at the moon, completely disoriented.
“I thought I told you not to go too far away,” he hissed angrily.
“I’m s-sorry,” you suddenly felt ashamed. You hated being scolded but most of all, you hated when Ravn used that disappointed voice on you.
“Do you have any idea what could have happened if I hadn’t followed you?”
“You followed me?” you asked him in surprise. You couldn’t tell how you felt about it. On one hand, it made you somewhat uncomfortable. On the other, you were so thankful he’d saved your life that you couldn’t find it in you to be mad at him.
“I-I…didn’t want you to get lost,” Ravn explained nervously, almost apologetically.
“Thank you,” you murmured dumbly. “I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
Ravn scoffed darkly.
“I just admitted to stalking you and you thank me? Seriously, Y/N, you need help.”
You chuckled lightly.
“I really do. It’s a good thing, then, you were closeby to help me out, don’t you think?”
“Unbelievable.”
“Will you just please take me home?” you begged Ravn.
“Home?” he laughed mockingly. “And where would that be? You made yourself abundantly clear earlier that you never wanted to see me again. Do you want me to take you back to the village?”
“N-no, please!” you stuttered helplessly, tears of frustration and fear clouding your vision. “Listen…I’m so sorry about earlier, Ravn! Truly am. I didn’t mean any of it. Please, please, don’t kick me out.”
“You stormed out on your own accord, remember?” he reminded you. “I didn’t kick you out.”
You nodded, letting the tears fall down your cheeks freely. Ravn simply sighed and pulled you into a hug. The next moment, you could feel him running towards his castle with you in his arms. Once you were back inside your room, you could feel a large weight being lifted off your chest.
“You just saved my life,” you were suddenly hit with the realization that now you owed him far more than before. “That wolf could have killed me and you saved me,” you repeated, feeling a little stupid but you had to say it out loud in order to process everything that just took place. “You saved my life even after I was behaving so rudely and recklessly. You must think I’m the most pathetic, ungrateful human in the world.”
Ravn smiled softly at you and took hold of your hands.
“Trust me, Y/N, I haven’t thought that for a second.”
You closed your eyes, overwhelmed by his kindness.
“I don’t deserve you.”
“You’re right,” Ravn agreed easily only to disprove you. “You deserve so much better. You deserve someone else, someone warm, someone human who wouldn’t drink blood from you, who wouldn’t follow you like a creep in the forest,” he laughed at that last part.
You shook your head.
“I don’t want someone else, I only want you,” you looked into his black eyes and pressed your hand against his cheek. “Ravn, I was a fool earlier. I don’t give a damn about immortality and-“
“Y/N, don’t-“ he interrupted you, his voice full of so much pain your heart couldn’t handle.
“No, you have to know this. I don’t care if I die tonight or tomorrow or after a couple of years, I really don’t. What matters to me is being by your side.”
A single tear smeared Ravn’s cheek as you told him that. You traced your finger alongside his cold skin and he tilted his head slightly, leaning into your gentle touch. You wished you could take away all his agonizing memories. And you tried your best, you really did.
You kissed the top of his forehead softly and you could almost hear him gasp, even though he had previously told you he doesn’t need air like humans do. Then, your lips touched his closed eyelids ever so fondly. Next was the very tip of his nose. He gulped nervously at the unexpected contact.
When you finally reached his mouth, he was already falling apart. There was a strange kind of power to it. Ravn was perhaps the single-most dangerous creature this world has ever seen. And here he was, on the verge of shaking because of a simple caress.
“Y/N,” he groaned into your mouth. A warning. “Don’t start something unless you’re ready to play till the end.”
“Who said I wasn’t ready to play?” you spoke boldly. A challenge.
“But I don’t want to h-hurt you,” Ravn admitted with great effort to restrain himself.
“I know you won’t,” you reassured him with another kiss. “Look at me.”
He opened his eyes and stared directly into yours.
“I want to be with you,” you said. “Do you?”
Ravn didn’t give you a verbal response and simply wrapped his arms around your lower back, pulling you closer. It was never enough, never too close for your liking. You snuck your hand beneath his shirt, eager to touch him. He seemed surprised when you didn’t jump away because of his even colder skin.
You decided you could be warm enough for two and continued unbuttoning his clothes. Ravn appeared intent on letting you do all the work for fear of rushing you into something you didn’t want to do. A small part of you was grateful for him trusting you enough to be in charge, but the bigger, more impatient part of you kept wondering what it would feel like if he took control completely.
You wanted to be completely under his power, but you were afraid he would get mad at you for being so impulsive. Once his clothes were completely off, you realized you were still fully dressed, because Ravn had not taken initiative. You felt somewhat awkward, towering over the naked vampire.
“Will you undress me?” you asked him sheepishly and when he didn’t respond immediately, you took hold of his hand and placed it on your dress’s ties. He looked up at you hesitantly and you gave him an encouraging nod. It was too late to turn back now. Ravn untied it slowly, almost aggravatingly so, and when your dress was finally off, you couldn’t help but sigh in relief at the newfound freedom.
“What now?” you giggled, feeling silly and a bit scared. Not of him, no, never, but because you were faced with an unfamiliar situation that seemed so daunting, making you feel out of your depth.
Ravn smirked mysteriously and ran a hand through your falling hair. Then, he swiftly flipped you around, laying you down on the bed. He slowly kissed his way downwards, similarly to the way you’d kissed all over his face. When his head finally ended up between your legs, Ravn gently pulled them apart with his long fingers.
“Relax. I won’t bite,” he joked inappropriately and you let out a half laugh.
“As if.”
He granted with you a gentle, almost impalpable lick that made your legs quiver slightly. Stirred by your reaction, Ravn did that thing with his tongue once more, this time more purposefully and confidently. You found yourself gripping his hair in desperation, hoping he wouldn’t mind the added pressure. You just had to hold onto something for support or you would have passed out.
Ravn was a very considerate lover and put all his attention on you and your pleasure. Soon enough, you were attacked by a sudden wave of enjoyment that had your legs trembling and your lips murmuring incomprehensible words. You were beginning to see little stars in front of you and your chest heaved as you struggled to breathe.
“That good, huh?” Ravn smiled proudly.
When you had finally gathered enough air to help you through this, you lifted yourself up to kiss him again.
“Can you taste yourself, love?” he asked you. “Delicious.”
You laughed.
“Not as delicious as my blood, I imagine.”
“Better, even,” Ravn complimented you.
“Teach me how to…return the favour,” you begged him self-consciously.
“You don’t have to,” he explained.
“I want to. Please.”
Ravn took hold of your hand and wrapped it around his length. You looked up at him shyly, blinking curiously as he motioned for you to move your hand. You were a quick study and did as he asked. You stared at his face, cautiously controlling your actions in accordance to his reactions.
When you realized he was enjoying himself, your movements grew more confident and speedier. A couple more strokes and he released himself into your palm. You gave him a hesitant smile.
“Was that okay?”
“Okay?” Ravn chuckled in disbelief. “You were spectacular.”
“Really?”
“I’m always honest with you, am I not?”
You nodded, not doubting him for a second. Though perhaps you should have.
To be continued…
#oneus#ravn#ravn x reader#twilight#oneus fanfic#kim youngjo#ravn smut#ravn angst#romance#vampire au#ravn fanfic#vampires#kim youngjo x reader#writing
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the object of her affection chapter 18 (FINAL CHAPTER)
Hello, Idk if anyone is still reading (i did post this for the 3 people who were kind enought to relpy they were interested, after all ) but if you read this all the way through:
thank you
PLEASE feel free to let me know if you liked it, or if you didn’t, or any other thoughts about it, really, i would be delighted!
I’ll be back by christmastime with another story, this time based on jugenea (not them irl but their movies) - i would post it now but it’s set on xmas, so i’ll wait - but again, feel free to let me know if that is somehting you would like to read :)
enjoy the last chapter, finger crossed it won’t let you down!
The next morning, Susan stood by the airport gate, Oscar secured into his doggy carrier next to the rest of her luggage. Her mother, father Joseph and Connor watched over her, some more misty eyed than others, but all quite emotional in their own way.
"Do you have everything?" Mrs. Holbrook asked.
Susan nodded, but her mother didn't listen and fished out a packet of ritz crackers and seltzer water out of her giant purse. "Here. Don't believe what they say. Airplane food is still airplane food, no matter what class you're travelling. This will help you with hunger and the altitude, in case you get sick."
"Darling, she's moving out, not shipping off to war!" her husband exclaimed, before addressing his daughter. "You know I'm not good at this sentimental stuff, but I'm proud of you, and I'm sorry if I caused you any trouble. Now, go out there and prove me right."
"Thank you. I will." Susan replied, hugging her father on an impetus. In turn, he patted her on the back.
Mrs. Holbrook, at this sight, couldn't help but burst into tears, sobbing into her embroider handkerchief.
"My baby!" she jumped into her daughter's arms. "Re-member to - call. Don't forget - about your poor folks!" she blabbed through sobs, refusing to let go.
“You’re wetting her suit!” her husband said, dragging her away gently and circling his arms around her shoulders. “Come here.”
When it came his turn to say goodbye, Joseph stepped forward, a nervous smile plastered on his face.
“So ...” he began. “I don’t know what to say.”
“I do.” Susan replied. “Thank you for calling Connor.”
“I didn’t know how else to get him here. I hope you’ll forgive my unorthodox methods.”
“You’re speaking to the queen of unorthodox methods. In fact, you don’t even know the half of it.”
Joseph furrowed his brows. “Always been a woman of mystery, uh?”
“It’s part of my charm.” Susan shrugged.
“So, friends?” he extended his hand.
“Yes. Friends.” she shook his hand back, and he dragged her into a quick half-hug.
Hug over, she took the chance to change the subject. “Have you talked to Helen, by chance? I saw her at the party last night.”
“We spoke briefly.”
“Make things right with her. I think she misses you, even if it’s hard for her to admit it. She’s a swell girl, you know? I like her very much.”
“Me too.”
“Good.” she poked him playfully on the shoulder blade. “Then prove it.”
“I hope you’re right.” Joseph replied, looking wistfully into the distance.
“Was I ever wrong?”
“Some things will never change.” Joseph laughed, and Susan joined him. “Have a safe trip.” he then said, said, before kissing her on the cheek and stepping away.
When it came Connor’s turn to say goodbye, the other three decided to give the two lovers some privacy, and sat on a bench a few feet away.
“I wish you could come there with me now.” Susan sighed.
“Me too. But It’s only a couple of weeks. As soon as I sort things out with work and find a place to stay, I’ll be there. What’s that compared to three months, after all?”
“That’s different.” Susan replied. “Before, I thought you’d never come back. Now I’ll count every minute until you do.”
“I’ll call every day. And as soon as I get my ticket, I’ll give you the details.”
Susan nodded, a slight pout on her ruby lips.
“Come here.” Connor said, holding her tight and pressing a kiss on top of her head.
Their interlude didn’t last long, for it was soon interrupted by a feminine voice, announcing final boarding for Susan’s flight.
“That’s me.” Susan said, gathering her bags.
“Alright. So ...” Connor said morosely. “I’ll see you soon.”
“Two weeks” she replied, a little misty eyed.
Then, before Connor could blink, she was already at the boarding door, waving in his direction. He waved back weakly, before she disappeared altogether from his sight.
4 years later …
"Gordon Hewitt ..." the Dean of faculty called in a resounding voice, and Susan tapped her shoes impatiently, watching the fair young man in front of her stepping on the stage, before accepting his diploma and turning the tassel on his left side as per tradition.
"Susan Holbrook ..." she finally heard her name being called, and all she could hear was the pounding of her heart and her heels clacking on the wood.
After she turned took her diploma and turned her tassel, she turned around to face the crowd. Connor and her parents stood by the middle row, slighly off to the left, applauding and smiling proud. Joseph couldn't be there as much as he wish he could've come, but to be fair, he had a pretty good excuse, so she didn't hold it against him. As usual, her mother was wiping tears from her face.
Susan smiled and waved, before winking in Connor's direction, who in turn shook his head, and laughed. Until she got married, or had children, this would be the best day of her life.
* * *
After the ceremony, her parents insisted to treat her and Connor to a british style five o’clock tea in one of the best (and most expensive) tearooms in San Francisco.
"I know this isn't exactly your scene." Susan whispered to Connor as they sat down in the ornate, Victorian style room. "I told them not to go to any trouble, but you know how they are."
"It's alright." He patted her hand under the table. "It's your day."
A waiter soon arrived, and after everyone made their orders, the group fell into an easy conversation.
“So, tell me everything about the baby.” Susan told her mother. “I’m so curious.”
“Joseph didn’t tell me much, he was quite frazzled himself. All I know is, her name is Daisy, she was born yesterday at noon, and she weighs six pounds.”
“How’s Helen?”
“Good. Tough, you can imagine, with two children under the age of four, she won’t sleep for a while.”
“Oh, I must ask her to send us a picture of the children together.” she told Connor. “We haven’t seen little Joey since Christmas.”
“He’s already three feet and half. He’s gonna be tall.” Mr. Holbrook said, as though that was somehow a point of pride.
Finally, their desserts arrived – lemon tart for Connor, chocolate pudding for Susan, coconut cream pie for Mrs. Holbrook, and scones for her husband.
“How’s the pudding?” Connor asked, beginning to dig into his tart.
“Uhm, Are nuts supposed to be in this?”she replied, after a couple of spoonfuls.
“I don’t think so. Why?” her mother asked.
“There’s something crunchy down there.” she wrinkled her nose.
“Dig it up, maybe it’s a cherry.” Connor told her.
Susan inserted her spoon into the glass once again, and lifting it up she couldn’t hide her surprise. “… I don’t think cherries are supposed to sparkle.”
“Well, how did that get in there?” Connor feigned innocence, as Susan picked out the Ruby red ring and cleaned it with a napkin.
“You tell me.” she replied back.
“You said you would think about getting married only after you graduated. So, let’s do it, before you start law school.”
“But – how did you know we would come here … “ she asked before turning towards her parents. “You guys were in on this, weren’t you?”
Her parents merely shrugged, smiling from ear to ear at their cleverness.
“I have to say, mother’s poker face game has seriously improved.”
“So?” Connor asked, quite impatient. “What do you say about a summer wedding?
“Summer’s perfect.” Susan replied, putting the ring on her left finger.
And it really was.
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My November playlist is finished and I've done something slightly different by actually ordering the songs into a cohesive playlist rather than leaving them in the order I added them. Listen in for everyone's favourite genre, acoustic guitar instrumentals, followed by old fashioned cowboy country, comedy and ridiculous songs, 80s and modern dance, out-there piano instrumentals, rocks and rolls, oddball rap, christian rock buried where nobody will find it, noise rock of all flavours and Mirror Reaper in full. I guarantee there'll be at least something in four hours of music that you'll like. listen here!
Deixa - Toquinho: I love how much happens in this song even before it even kicks off at about a minute in. It cycles through so many different feelings before it really powers up and the drums come on. The rhythm from then on is just mesmerizing, it's just so busy and never dwells on any section for too long, the interplay between the melody, bassline and chord rhythm is amazing. And then at about 2:20 it powers up again! Bossa Nova Strong. Also I'm feeling very disrespected because I just did some research on this song only to find out it was sampled by Nujabes on one of his bad anime youtube hip hop songs.
Just A Closer Walk With Thee - Marisa Anderson: Traditional And Public Domain Songs is Marisa Anderson's weakest album, which is a shame because I love Traditional and Public Domain songs. Her playing is on point as always, but the tremolo and distortion she's using overwhelms the recording more often than not. This song is the best on the album purely because she's playing so quietly that it only shows up when she gets loud so it works perfectly near the end as it crescendos.
The Three Deaths Of Red Spectre - Gwenifer Raymond: Gwenifer Raymond has a new 'non-holiday specific single for a cold climate' in her words and I absolutely love it. The sheer velocity of the middle section is flooring, before it breaks apart totally and reforms into a sort of shanty before metamorphosing again into a heightening mania. I love the constantly shifting structure of this, it barely stops to give you room to breathe all the way through before the very end where it almost feels like it's going to collapse entirely.
Mister Sandman - Chet Atkins: Happy to report that I've had Mr Sandman stuck in my head for three weeks now and still don't really know the words because of tumblr posts. It alternates between 'mr email / e me a mail / make the attachment a pic of a snail' and 'mr sandman / sand me a man / make him the cutest man car door hook hand'.
Do I Ever Cross Your Mind - Chet Atkins & Dolly Parton: I've never gone much on Chet Atkins but my girlfriend showed my this song and it has completely reversed my opinion and it's mostly due to Dolly Parton. She is just so lovely on this it makes me tear up - the song itself is so nice and the playing is perfect but her personality just shines through so brightly it's an absolute delight.
There's A Man Going Around Taking Names - Lead Belly: I've been doing research to try to find out what this song is referring to, or its origin but I cannot find anything concrete. A few people are saying it inspired Johnny Cash for The Man Comes Around, which is plausible and adds a mystic bent to it. It seems incomplete, like it's missing the turn at the end that reveals who exactly he is or what's happening so the whole song just ends up feeling very mysterious and ominous.
When Mussolini Laid His Pistol Down - Merle Travis: This song is from 1943, which is sort of amazing because that means it's not a song about history particularly but rather current events. A great paragraph from wikipedia: "On 24 June Mussolini gave his last important speech as prime minister. It went down in history as the "boot topping" speech, with the Duce promising that the only part of Italy that the Anglo-Americans would be able to occupy (but forever and horizontally, i.e. as corpses) was the shore-line (for which he used a wrong word to define it). For many Italians, that confused and incoherent speech was the final proof that something was wrong with Mussolini." Mussolini, truly history's greatest moron.
The Master's Call - Marty Robbins: As a result of Red Dead 2 and my own natural instincts, I've been having a bigger than usual moment with cowboy music this month which of course includes Marty Robbins' Gunfighter Ballads And Trail Songs. In my mind this song is both the true ending and end credits music of Red Dead 2. Arthur sees the face of Christ in a lightning bolt and abandons his life of crime and sin, pleading with the lord to forgive him and then God kills a hundred cows with another lightning bolt just to make damn sure Arthur knows He's serious.
Saga Of The Ponderosa - Lorne Green: I was hanging out with my old housemate a few weeks ago and it turns out we were both having concurrent Marty Robbins cowboy music phases which was great news because then he turned me onto this album by Lorne Green who was on Bonanza and apparently took it upon himself to expand the Bonanaza Cinematic Universe in the 60s with a few albums. This song is apparently an origin story of Bonanza which I have never seen. It's extremely good, very powerful music. Great story of this godlike man striding across the country and overriding his wife's decision by naming his son HOSS.
Hard Sun - Eddie Vedder: I think it's interesting in A Star Is Born that Jackson Maine doesn't seem to be a real life equivalent of any actual musician. He's not obviously an archetype of any real person and so it's hard to place how exactly famous he is in the world of the movie. He's washed up enough to be playing pharmaceutical conferences but still has enough industry respect to be playing a tribute at the Grammys. The closest I could think of was Eddie Vedder oddly enough, and this song from the Into The Wild soundtrack really does sound like a Jackson Maine original.
For Chan - Tim Heideker: I'm having a real thing with comedy music recently and I can't tell if it means I've got a brain parasite or comedy music is good to me now. I think what I like about this song is the bluntness. There's no two ways about these people, and after years of hearing about the alt right as mysterious political genius computer brains it's a nice break to just hear them called greasy fat basement guys like we used to.
That's Right I'm Five - Don't Stop Or We'll Die: More good comedy music! They played this song on Comedy Bang Bang without announcing what it was called first, so the chorus really surprised me and made me laugh a lot. "They're selling the stocks so buy them, launch the torpedoes, tell my wife I love her, and send my son to college, bury me in the desert in my osh kosh b'gosh - that's right I'm five!" might be my favourite lyric of the year.
Future Brain - Den Harrow: Den Harrow is very good. He's like a beautiful moron American man that some italian scientists built in a lab in order to conquer America from the inside. Here are some good highlights from his wiki article: "The name Den Harrow was conceived by producers Roberto Turatti and Miki Chieregato, who based it on the Italian word denaro(money)." "After years of fame and popularity, it was revealed by frontman Stefano Zandri and his producers that Zandri did not actually sing the Den Harrow songs; he was essentially a character who lip-synched to vocals recorded by a number of other singers. Furthermore, since they did not consider Zandri's name and origin to be "trendy" enough, the producers R. Turatti and M. Chieregato concealed Zandri's Italian origin, marketing him as having been born Manuel Stefano Carry in Boston. This was done so Polydor Records could market him more easily in the English-speaking world, where Italian-produced music was, at the time, viewed with skepticism"
Love A Girl Right - Little Mix: Check out this rewrite of the Thong Song they did for the new Little Mix album. It's beyond belief. My girlfriend loves Little Mix and she's right to because they're the only girl/boy band that actually takes advantage of the form and does harmonies instead of just having them all sing in turn or all at once. They've got good vocal arrangements but they have the worst fucking songwriters working for them. Songwriters that pitch 'what if the Thong Song had a crunchy nu-metal guitar in it'.
This City Made Us - The Protomen: It's interesting to hear a band change styles - most other Protomen songs are a sort of Springsteen pastiche but this one from their newer single is more like Iron Maiden or Thin Lizzy. Approaching the 80s from a different angle. It's impressive to switch so radically and still have enough of a unifying sound that it feels like the same band. 80s throwback rock is a generally pallid genre populated by freaks who can't move on but Protomen put so much heart into it it's hard to write them off.
Teardrops - Womack & Womack: I love this song because it has two choruses. The drums stay the same throughout, the chords stay the same through the verse and chorus and only change for the second chorus/bridge part ("the music don't feel like it did when I felt it with you"), which just gives the whole song this feeling of beautiful endlessness. It goes and goes and goes and you're always already living in the best part of the song.
Boys Will Be Boys - The Duncan Sisters: Very very good piece of disco with a very nice piece of country picking guitar near the start for some reason. I quit like that the chorus of 'boys, oh boys, will be boys - they can really hurt you!' goes from a lighthearted thing about relationships until the bridge near the end where it sounds more like a dire warning. She's staring straight into your eyes and saying 'they can hurt you. boys can hurt you. they can really hurt you.' while motioning toward the exit with her eyes.
Ayaya - Bicep: I've been trying to train my ear a bit better so I got a piano app on my phone and I just try to pick out the melodies of songs now when I'm bored. It turns out this is a very satisfying song to play. The melody is very simple, but the constant build and the couple of other melodies that come in around it make you feel like a super genius for just playing the same thing over and over.
The Call - David Mayer: I completely forget how I came across this song but I'm in love with the vocals on it. The effect reminds me of the one on Problem With The Sun by Nicolas Jaar, sort of pitched down and layered over itself. Outside of the vocals it's a pretty straightforward euro house chunk but damn sometimes a song just has a really good sound in it that you can't deny.
Problem With The Sun - Nicolas Jaar: My girlfriend's brother was telling me he was riding his bike the other day and had some kind of mental break where he was riding north in the afternoon but the sun was on his right, in the east - and for some reason his first instinct wasn't that he was wrong or disoriented, it was that there was a problem with the sun and it was in the wrong place. That boy ain't right but this song is good. I love that Nicolas Jaar uses this weird down pitched voice on a few songs and I really wish he'd bring it back, it sounds great and also funny to me.
Ensaslayi - Cecil Taylor: I don't have the brain power to comprehend any of Cecil Taylor's ensemble work that I've heard, free jazz in a band setting is simply too much for me it turns out -but I've really been getting a lot out of this solo album of his called Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly!. This song in particular is one of the longer ones on the album, where another is only 53 seconds long and a few last around ten minutes. This is a nice midpoint, where he gives himself so much room to get lost in different directions without losing the thread entirely. I said it last time I was talking about him but I've really never heard anyone play piano like this and I absolutely love it. A lot of reviewers describe it as him playing the piano like it's a drumkit, which I think is accurate to a degree - but I think looking back from here this music makes a lot more sense within the context of black midi and things like that. The extreme edges of what a piano can theoretically do, but with a decisive and beautiful human edge and human brain that's responsible for and making sense of the chaos.
The Homeless Wanderer - Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou: I found out about this album cause Benjamin Booker was posting about her on his instagram story and it's just incredible. The TL;DR of her story is she's an Ethiopian nun that studied music in Switzerland and Cairo and wrote this beautiful piano music based on traditional Ethiopian pentatonic music. I love the rhythm of it, every note in the right hand get swirled around and around before it's settled on while the left hand moves so smoothly and delicately. Unfortunately-ish she's obviously in that genre of Searching For Sugarman secret blog music evidenced by her spotify similar artists being Karen Dalton, Alice Coltrane and Connie Converse. That's not a bad thing exactly, at least people are hearing about her, but her music is unique and amazing enough on its own without needing much mythologizing.
Carnival Of The Animals: No 12 - Fossils - Camille Saint-Saëns: My girlfriend was showing me Saint-Saëns' The Swan and then we were going through the whole rest of the Carnival Of The Animals and I'm happy to report that he not only did he do one for fossils but also centered it around the idea of a bone xylophone. I'm going to write an article for Vulture tracing the origin of the cartoon bone xylophone and my thesis is it starts here.
Perth - Bon Iver: Just thinking about how good Bon Iver is. I love how massive this song can feel, the drums combined with the big brass. It's small and soft on the grand scale, but on an album that gets as quiet and soft as songs like Holocene this song blows up like an atom bomb.
Yet Again - Grizzly Bear: This really is one of the best songs of all time I've decided. It feels like I get into a thing of listening to it on repeat almost every month now. I don't know what it is exactly - I guess it's every part of it. The lyrics are impenetrable (check) the riff is simple and powerful (check) the drums are doing a lot and keeping it simple at the same time. The the way the harmony vocals all intertwine in the prechorus part is amazing. The way the whole song blows up into a big radio static solo at the end. Every part of this song is great, I just love it.
Fuckin N' Rollin - Phantastic Ferniture: I found out that Julia Jacklin has a side project with a very shit name and they make very good music. I love when people have a whole other band for another side of their self. This is just Julia Jacklin if the lyrics were just first draft whatevers instead of incredibly poignant and beautiful and the music was just rockin and rollin with your friends. It's great!
Soft - Kings Of Leon: Number one best song ever about havin a bad dick!! I'd love to hang out lady but my dick! I'm passed out in your garden, I'm in I can't get off I'm so soft! I'd pop myself in you body, I'd come into your party but I'm soft!
Soft Serve - Soul Coughing: I played this while I was driving with my girlfriend and she said 'what the fuck is this' and she's right, as usual. It's Soul Coughing baby! The 90s 'slacker jazz' band! They sound dated as fuck, a real product of their time but I think they've still got a lot to offer. I had the chorus of this stuck in my head for a couple days which made me listen to this album more than usual when I mostly prefer their first one Ruby Vroom. Irresistible Bliss might have the worst album cover of all time though, so it's got that going for it. Google it.
Ya Mama - Wuf Ticket: There wiki article for this band says they had two songs in 1982 and that was it. Then it has a section titled Greaseman and then the article ends. Here's the Greaseman section in its entirety: "Wuf Ticket's “Ya Mama” achieved its greatest notoriety, and airplay, as a music bed for bits by shock jock The Greaseman on WWDC-FM in Washington, D.C. and later his nationally syndicated radio show where Greaseman would argue with a surly service industry worker." Anyway this is more of that very good early hip hop shit where everyone assumed songs should go for 8 minutes. It's just extremely weak sauce Ya Mama jokes for a very long time before they change tack completely and start talking about how Every Woman Is An Angel And Without Mothers We Would Never Have Been Born So Think About That Next Time.
Gon Be Okay - Lil B: I had the part of this song where he sings 'things are never gonna be the same again' along with the piano in my head the other day and spent fully an hour googling to try to find what song it was from before giving up. I woke up the next morning and suddenly remembered it was this song but was very shocked to find out that he actually never sings that line along with the piano melody, he says it once at the start and that's it. What's going on with my brain. Anyway in my searching I found out that the piano is sampled from the Spirited Away soundtrack so once more in my life I've been led to ruin by anime.
2 Minute Drills - Allblack & Kenny Beats: This whole EP is great. More sports themed rap please. Allblack is ferocious and Kenny's production throughout is great, the perfect mix of simple straighforward beats that still have a lot of space and energy in them, plus 'Woah Kenny!' has my award for Best New Producer Watermark.
Don't Gas Me - Dizzee Rascal: I don't know how he keeps doing it but somehow Dizzee Rascal continues to make extremely fun bangers without ever slowing down. The best line in this is when he says "no I don't drink Appletiser" (the sparkling apple juice) which is an extremely weird flex if there ever was one.
Acid King - Malibu Ken: It feels insane that a Tobacco and Aesop Rock collab sounds as good as this. I love that there's no drums the entire time he's rapping and I completely love the Mort Garson vibes in the instrumental which turns out to be a perfect soundtrack to the Ricky Kasso satan worship LSD murder story that Aesop's telling. Also in reading about Kasso I just discovered the very good stoner doom band also named Acid King, so expect to see them in next month's list.
Pirate Blues - As Cities Burn: As Cities Burn have reformed and put out a new single so I've been thinking about them a bit. On paper they don't sound good, over three albums they morphed from a christian metalcore band to a christian alt-rock band, and while they never reinvented the wheel I think they're a remarkable band who took a lot of risks in their own way and made a lot of rock solid music. They've got a lot of great songs but I think this is my favourite from their third album when it finally felt like they'd settled into a steady alt rock sound informed by their much heavier past.
This Is It, This Is It - As Cities Burn: The thing I like about As Cities Burn is that as much as they're a christian band (yuck) they're more of a band of guys who are christians (slightly less yuck) and the difference is huge. Rather than evangelising or preaching, their songs are about their own personal struggles with their faith (still slightly yuck). I like this song especially because the lyric feels close to gospel, 'we're all singing for our sins, unless grace be the wind' but with the added twist of being furious that you're trapped by the sin of your physical body.
Timothy - As Cities Burn: I think this song is just incredible. The lyrics are so strong and direct and heartbreaking, the vocal performance especially is amazing and it may be the only time in history that a 6 minute guitar solo has seemed good and necessary.
Face Tat - Zach Hill: There's an incredible video of the recording of this song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGi9SOFX5rc that really looks exactly how it sounds and has a very similar energy to that video of 80 guys singing the halo theme in the boys bathroom. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRG9KwvbVhk . This is what it sounds like when the boys are left alone. The biggest draw to Zach Hill's drumming is the intense primordial immediacy of it. He is just pounding away like a possessed animal and it's really on show here, especially combined with the occasional punctuating shout. Carson McWhirter's guitar is incredible too, the tone he's got where it sounds like three at once playing these incredible twisting riffs that turn on a dime. I think what I like most about this song is just how in sync they are - for such a chaotic, noisy song it sounds so rehearsed, somehow every single note is perfectly in time in the storm.
Betty's Worry Or The Slab - Hunters And Collectors: This is maybe the sweatiest song I've ever heard. It's a disgusting song about being incredibly sweaty and horny and I love the weird squeaky noise he makes after he says 'say it! say it!'. The bass sound in this is so fantastically meaty too, and combined with the brass at the end it's just great.
Worms Of The Senses / Faculties Of The Skull (live) - Refused: I cannot believe just how absolutely ferocious live Refused is. Insanely powerful without ever missing a beat in a song like this that requires incredible timing throughout. For some reason I've always thought Refused were an only ok live band after watching Refused Are Fucking Dead because all I remember of it is a clip where the guitarist accidentally hits the singer in the face with his headstock and they have to stop the show.
Mirror Reaper - Bell Witch: I got to see Bell Witch live a couple of weeks ago and it's one of the best shows I've ever seen. I can't really describe it other than it feels like the closest thing to a legitimate summoning ritual that I've ever seen. An invocation and an expelling of raw power and emotion between two people, it was really something. Also the best part was about two minutes in when they were really setting the scene with the sort of ambient beginning of Mirror Reaper and the whole crowd was dead silent and entranced as they built this mystic atmosphere and set the vibe a guy behind me said loudly to his friend 'hm pretty good so far!'
What's You Gonna Do When The World's On Fire - Lead Belly & Anne Graham: This is in my opinion the best genre of gospel song where they they just roast you for not being saved yet.
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Hiking “South Brother,” Olympic National Park: 6/20 (Part II)
We sit at the top and take in the view and after we realize it’s the wrong top, just west of the one we’d been aiming for all morning (or for well over a year, really, in my case--I’ve been yearning to sit atop South Brother ever since I learned you could do it without rope), we don’t say anything for a good long time.
All the triumph and exultation I’d expected to feel is just...not there. I’ve been picturing this moment for so long and it’s the wrong moment, the wrong spot. All the rosy glow I thought I’d be flush with has made way for something else, a sinister chorus: You fucked up. You fucked up. You fucked up.
It’s beautiful up here and I start to kick myself for not making the most of it. Will and I talk it over: if we pick our way back down to the top of the Hourglass, we could almost certainly find the path to the true summit--we can see the damn trail from where we’re sitting. But there are no guarantees, and we’re completely spent, and the hour it would probably take us to get down and up and down again would be an hour of sun on the snow, meaning we’d be making the final descent that much more dangerous for ourselves. It’s hard enough to plant axes and kick in steps on steep slopes in crunchy snow; on slush you’re asking to eat it.
With the decision not to try it, with the realization that there is very little we could possibly do, comes a modicum of closure. I take a moment and look around and try to breathe in the vast expanse of mountain and cloud and sky. I eat half a PBJ and we pass a plastic water bottle full of whiskey back and forth. I’d meant to drink it in celebration. Instead it’s half for the searing heat it brings to the gut and half to steel my nerves for the long, difficult trip down.
Our leaving catches the attention of a family of goats--billy, nanny, and kid. Mountain goats are some mixture of formidable and hilarious and utterly captivating. Would that I could move so easily. We’d watched them come down off the true summit a few minutes earlier; stifling the feeling that I’d just had my ass kicked by a literal baby goat was no small feat.
Still: no time for appreciation. Mostly they just want to drink your pee, but they can get territorial, and a fair few Washington hikers have been killed over the years by getting knocked off mountains by goats.
The nagging feeling of failure (or maybe just the toll of five-plus hours of struggle) makes my legs heavy and my head starts to get thick and a little stupid. I used to get bogged down in anxiety spirals once in awhile on the PCT; this feels that way. Like I’ll never get where I’m going and that this was all a tremendously bad idea to begin with. It doesn’t help that I start to feel like dead weight--Will isn’t exactly breezing down the mountainside, but he’s still taking the lead across the snow and the rocks, spotting cairns and kicking steps and doing roughly 100% of the work. I’m reduced to a trailing call of “see a way down from here?”, a repetitious phrase I start to hate myself for.
This is all to say that I’m not in a super great place, emotionally speaking (physically I’m in a stunning place, the most gorgeous place I’ve been in a long time), and there’s no end in sight. Following Will, I try to delay the inevitable while picking my way down the Hourglass, but there’s nothing to be done: we have to glissade. On the PCT a glissade was a godsend, a relief from walking; here, it’s a 50 or 55 degree pitch that requires a real short stop lest one smash into an ochre field of rock.
A deep breath. I’m braking and steering with my axe, but it’s not enough--whether it’s my own fault or conditions I’ll never know. I don’t pull up quite fast enough, and I add a few bumps and scrapes to my total. Those are less of a concern than my general panicky attitude.
Fortunately I get a chance at redemption a short while later, because we still have to go down the same narrow snow chute where I confronted my mortality on the way up. This time I’m a little more prepared, though the panic and hesitation are still nagging. (High speeds, high heights--I’ve always been something of a coward when it comes to such matters.) Will goes first--of course--and I’m beside him a minute later, laughing off the latest brush with my own anxiety.
Below the trail becomes an endless series of rocky slopes that have to be scrambled and scooted down very carefully. The further we descend, the more I’m in awe of the fact we ever got up at all. It’s steep and treacherous and fuck, we somehow we walked all the way up it in a relatively short amount of time. Another layer of resentment about our false summit peels itself away to make room for that happier thought.
The goats are still behind us and gaining speed. They’ve found four companions, including two more babies, and when we finally slide down the last bit of scree adjacent to long snowfield No. 1, we sit for a long while and watch them bucking and jumping and just generally loving the shit out of life. No hesitation, no sliding, no panic. Just the joy of being on the mountainside.
I fill up my water bottle in the frigid runoff of the raging stream beneath the snowfield, whose division we can now see clearly open up into a set of ice caves that will probably be gone in a few weeks. I’m less furious at my own softness as I embrace the fact that the worst is over, the danger has passed. We still have a long way to go, but it’s all forested and we can ditch our microspikes and helmets for good.
It strikes me that I’ve been terrified for I don’t know how long. Weeks, months, maybe, as this trip drew ever closer. I think I realized there was a non-zero chance I could ruin (or end) my life out here if I wasn’t both careful and lucky. On the way down I spent a lot of time thinking about all the people who would never forgive me if I had let that happen. Now that the possibility is gone, I don’t know exactly how to handle the release of that anxiety. It’s dizzying.
The blowdowns and red dust of the forest are an uninteresting chore that my legs force themselves over and under until there’s nowhere left to descend, and I’m chasing Will back into camp, and all I have left in me to do is grab the rest of the whiskey and a salami and a wedge of cheese and set up my hammock, where I pass out cold for the next two hours.
#Washington#Olympic National Park#olympics#backpacking#hiking#mountaineering#hiker trash#mountain goats#goats#baby goats#explore washington
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Valbonne is trés bonne, and Nice is SO NICE.
I’m catching up on myself now, so forgive me the time lag between events and their corresponding blog posts. I’m a busy nomad at the moment. Places to see, busses to catch, vino to drink, pasta to eat. Werk, werk, werk, werk, werk. I know, your heart bleeds.
So in between the long mornings and slow afternoons at the beach in Antibes, I took myself on a couple of mini excursions.
In fact, the original plan included way more trips all over the south coast of France, potentials including St Tropez, Cannes, Monaco, Grasse, and maybe even Marseille. The problem was that faced with the reality of how lovely Antibes was, and also the reality of how likely it was to be able to do all these things well in five days and really enjoy myself, I narrowed my outings down to two: a morning in Valbonne at the beautiful Friday market and a day in Nice. With hindsight, I think I made GOOD DECISIONS.
Valbonne’s market was as vast and as beautiful as I hoped. I would say that it had a good ratio of chic classy French wares to tourist tat, say about 90:10. It’s not even that I think the tourist tat is always to be avoided, sometimes it’s worth a trip just for the tourist tat. My case home from China was building with some of the finest tourist tat that this world can offer and last year I spent a good fifteen minutes trying to take a good picture of a woman modelling her wares of dog baseball caps on her Yorkshire Terrier. I didn’t get a good picture, but by no means do I consider that time wasted.
However, Valbonne I kind of went to channeling my hopes to dive into the real life version of a book I recently read (A Pig in Provence, Georgeanne Brennan) that persuaded me that Provençal living is the finest kind of living, and that fresh goats cheese tastes more interesting than it actually does. So for me, Valbonne was a slice of French magical realism, and it hit that desire almost as well as any market could. To be fair, I just love markets as well. All it had to do to tick my boxes was sell any stuff from a trestle table under a plastic red canopy, with the potential of a haggling-type exchange.
I didn’t buy anything to take away with me, but I did eat some rather good Provençal street food: socca (a kind of chickpea pancake from the region that is crispy with good and black crunchy bits on the outside and tender like wet scrambled eggs on the inside) served with heaps of pepper and beignets of deep fried courgette flowers in batter. I loved Valbonne, but I did nearly die of melting away from the coast. I returned by a beautifully air conditioned bus that took me through some gorgeous villages, with a plan to jump straight into the sea. Feeling all adventurous, I nipped to the adjacent-to-Antibes Juan-les-Pins, but all that did was to satisfy my smugness at staying on the right side of the Cap d’Antibes. Too many private beaches, too much noise, and far too many crisp packets and floating plasters in the water.
Now Nice, if I’m honest, I kind of went to begrudgingly, reasoning with myself that I would just go back to Antibes if it proved disappointing and not worth wasting my last full day in France for. I was worried that it would just be too much of a city with less personality that a beautiful little town or village. I was wrong.
I hopped off of the train and walked towards the coast, through the city centre. Straight down the Avenue Jean Médecin, which is a generic (though not unpleasant) main shopping street, complete with packed trams zipping up and down. It wasn’t until I got to the bottom at the Place Masséna and Fontaine du Soleil that I was really impressed, and got to see a little of the Niçoise personality. It is paved with fabulous monochrome tiles, covered in plinths hoisting up crouching white statues, with public fountains-cum-water-parks to your left and right, one shooting up unpredictable and energetic spurts of water from the ground, the other steaming up cooling and calming mist that create iridescent little rainbows as the sun hits their clouds.
I moved further away from the city to the famous Promenade d’Anglais that I feel might be a little overrated (though in all fairness I was recommended to visit in the evening) and the packed out long-but-narrow strip of beach that runs along the promenade. The beach was heaving, with many private beaches, like Juan-les-Pins, and instead of sand there were piping hot pebbles that were being baked in the sun (alongside the many stretched out in glamorous swimwear on their glamorous towels). Though I can’t genuinely pooh-pooh the beach because, though packed and pebbly and a little sold-out, had a sea of the brightest aqua blue that impelled me to whip my clothes off right there and then (awkwardly shuffling around under my towel to be fair) and jump in (in my swimsuit). I believe that being in sea that beautiful makes you feel beautiful. It makes life feel beautiful and your soul shines. It’s just the science of the Mediterranean.
I hopped out and wandered up through the pretty Vieux Nice (the old town of Nice). I met Philippe who grabbed my arm and told me that he needed to show me the Cathedral. He kindly did, though sadly when we parted ways, I had to assure him that we would not be keeping in touch. Almost a holiday romance, but I find myself ok with missing what could have been. I marched my way up to the MAMAC (Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art).
MAMAC is a well regarded, though not one of the most famous art galleries to go to in Nice. Had I had more time I may have gone up to Cimiez that hosts the Chagall museum and the Matisse museum. But I didn’t so I went for contemporary art, as that is probably my favourite flavour. I bought a ticket at MAMAC and found out that actually I got a 24 hour ticket to many of Nice’s museums, so if I’d have planned better I may have taken an arty day in Nice, starting earlier. But you live and learn.
Anyway, MAMAC was wonderful. It was as surprising, shocking, inspiring and varied as any good contemporary art gallery. There was an exhibition on the theme of ‘Earth, Air, Fire and Water’, that for some reason spoke right to my soul. The whole gallery was laid out in an incredible building- amazing exhibition spaces, great and generous resting areas, and an amazing roof space made up of turrets, terraces, bridges and roof gardens that gave way to beautiful views across the city and coast.
After this I had a brief wander around the area known as the ‘Petit Marais’ for its elegant coffee shops, that is just next to the gallery. Then a final beer and socca (having got a taste for it), before hopping on the tram and heading back to the station for Antibes, and my final night in France...
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Leaf It To Me
Rating: G
Ship: DaiSuga
Summary: The day after the Shiratorizawa match, Daichi and Koushi go on a date and run into a slight hiccup in their plans.
AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/12882039
For Jackie12 on AO3 as part of the Fandom Loves Puerto Rico Auction. Thanks again for your support!
Fic under the cut!
It wasn’t often that Koushi got to sleep in. Between school and volleyball practice, there was rarely a day where Koushi could just lay in bed past 7 and revel in the comfort of his many blankets and pillows. That day, however was different. The previous day, Saturday the 27th of October, Karasuno had beaten Shiratorizawa three sets to two. After months of intensive training and practice matches, Karasuno had done it. They were officially Miyagi's representatives for the National Spring Tournament. And they officially had the day off from practice. Koushi and Daichi had plans later, but for now, he could relax all he wanted.
Koushi's alarm officially went off at 9am, but he allowed himself to press snooze a few times. The sun might have been out on that late October morning, but Koushi could hear the wind outside. It was going to be a cold day that day, and his blankets were warm and soft. Daichi would understand if Koushi was a little late to their designated meeting spot. That was, until Koushi snoozed his way to 10:15, and woke to his ringtone rather than his alarm. Speaking of Daichi….
"Mornin', handsome," Koushi slurred into the phone, his voice raspy from hours of disuse.
"Good morning to you too," Daichi replied. "I take it you're still in bed."
"I will neither confirm nor deny it," Koushi said as he rubbed sleep from his eyes.
"That's a 'yes', then," Daichi laughed.
"…Yeah."
"I figured as much," Daichi said. "I'm on my way over now. You don't have to be ready to go by the time I get there, but it would be nice if you were."
"Bossy as ever, Captain," Koushi teased. "Are you bringing caffeine with you?"
"Of course I am," Daichi replied. "What kind of lousy boyfriend do you take me for?"
"I love you so much."
"I know you do, see you in a bit."
After Daichi hung up, Koushi rolled out of bed with a long stretch and a yawn. He glanced toward the window, watching the saffron yellow leaves of the ginkgo tree outside flutter in the wind. Koushi inhaled, then exhaled.
"Guess I better get ready to head out in that," he grumbled. "At least Daichi's bringing me tea."
***
To Koushi's credit, he was almost ready to go by the time Daichi made it to his house. He had pants on. And a sweater. And one sock. So really, he was ninety percent ready to go. This fact apparently wasn't enough to keep Daichi from giving Koushi an unimpressed albeit amused look when the latter came pounding down stairs, then skidding to a halt in front of him.
"Hey, you did say that I didn't have to be ready to go," Koushi reminded him.
Daichi laughed, "You got me there. I imagine caffeine would help move this along."
Daichi presented Koushi with a cup from one of the local cafes. Koushi accepted it, bringing the cup to his lips and taking an appreciative sip. He hummed in delight as the tea's warmth spread to his limbs. Koushi leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss to Daichi's cheek.
"Best boyfriend ever," Koushi said before taking another sip of tea and sitting on the floor.
"I try," Daichi replied.
"Koushi, is that Daichi-kun?" Koushi's mom called from the kitchen.
"Yes, Mom," Koushi called back. "We’re getting ready to leave."
Sugawara Nanako poked her head out of the kitchen, her silver hair tied back in a loose ponytail. She gave Daichi a friendly wave, which he returned with a wide smile.
"Good morning, Sugawara-san," Daichi greeted. "Sorry that I'm stealing your son from you today."
Nanako smiled the same wide grin that her son had and let out a loud laugh. "I'll forgive you this once, Daichi-kun. You boys deserve a nice day to yourselves after all of your hard work yesterday. Congrats on the win, Captain," she added with a wink.
"Thank you, Sugawara-san," Daichi replied.
"So, where are you two off to?" Nanako asked.
"We're going to the movies. And then we'll probably wander around for a bit."
"Sounds fun! Will you two be back in time for dinner, or are you going to grab something while you're out?"
"We'll probably be back for dinner, but I'll text you and let you know," Koushi said as he finished tying his shoelaces.
"What a kind and thoughtful son I have," Nanako teased. "I hope you two have a good time at the movies."
Koushi stood, pulled on his coat and scarf, then picked up the cup of tea. "We will, Mom! Text you later."
Nanako waved as Daichi and Koushi left the house. Koushi closed the door behind them, then slipped his hand into Daichi's. Daichi gave Koushi's hand a quick squeeze. To Koushi's surprise, it wasn't as windy as he thought it would be. The two set off down the street, talking about the events of the past few days. By the time they made it to the park, they were reliving moments from the previous day's game and discussing what their teammates were doing on their day off.
"I'm almost positive that Hinata and Kageyama have broken into the gym by now," Koushi said.
Daichi laughed, "I wouldn't put it past them, but Ukai will kill them if he finds out that they're practicing on their day off."
"Don't you mean that you'll kill them?" Koushi asked.
"I wouldn't kill them for it, just very sternly tell them to go home. They deserve a break."
"They don't know the meaning of the word 'break', and you know it," Koushi said.
"They really don't," Daichi agreed.
Koushi shook his head. "I don't understand how they'd still have the energy to practice today. I was only on the court a few times yesterday and I was exhausted. I can't imagine what moving would feel like today after a full five sets."
"It was a bit of a struggle to get out of bed this morning," Daichi admitted. "I imagine Tsukishima and Yamaguchi are at home today."
"I think the second years were meeting up to do homework together," Koushi supplied.
"That's surprising," Daichi said. "I would have thought Tanaka and Noya would have joined Hinata and Kageyama in their hypothetical breaking and entering."
"I heard them talking about it at dinner last night. Ennoshita was pretty insistent that they get their work done."
"That's fair," Daichi mused. "What are the girls up to today?"
"Well, their work was probably done last week, so I imagine they're both getting some well deserved rest."
"So that just leaves our Glass-hearted Ace," Daichi said. "What do you think he's doing today?"
Daichi waited for Koushi's reaction, but it never came. He turned to look at his boyfriend, only to see Koushi eyeing a pile of multicolored maple leaves.
"No," Daichi said, immediately picking up on Koushi's new plan.
Koushi pouted, "Can't I jump in the leaf pile a little bit?"
"Not if you wanna get a good seat, no."
Koushi slowed to a halt, yanking Daichi back as the other kept walking. Daichi frowned over his shoulder. Koushi gave him a mischievous smile. Daichi went to tug Koushi down the path, but Koushi pulled his hand from Daichi's grip and took a step towards the pile of leaves.
"Koushi, come on, we're going to be late," Daichi groaned. "It's just leaves."
"Yeah, but what's stronger? My will to keep walking, or a pile of particularly crunchy looking leaves?" Koushi asked.
Daichi stared. "What are you, five?"
"In this moment, yes. And those are some extremely crunchy looking gentlemen."
Daichi sighed, "You know, the longer we stand here arguing about it, the more late we're gonna be."
"I'm just saying, the pile of leaves is doing a better job of convincing me to jump in it than you are of convincing me to walk away," Koushi said with a shrug.
Daichi looked back and forth between Koushi and the leaf pile. Koushi could see his resolve breaking. Any second now, and Koushi would win.
"The more I think about it, playing in that pile of leaves does sound more fun than sitting in a dark theater for two hours."
Score one for Koushi.
"Five minutes in the leaf pile?"
"Five minutes in the leaf pile."
With a gleeful whoop, Koushi grabbed Daichi's hand and dragged him towards the pile of leaves. They missed the movie. Neither really could really bring themselves to care.
After romping around in the leaves, the two decided to wander around until they found a spot for lunch. Koushi tossed his empty cup into a garbage can, and they made their way through the park. They eventually decided to grab something from a general store across the street and bring it back to the park. As they walked hand-in-hand, Daichi spotted something bright red on the back of Koushi's head.
"Koushi, I don't want to alarm you, but you have a leaf in your hair."
"Where?" Koushi asked, patting his head.
"Here, I got it."
Daichi dropped Koushi's hand and plucked the brilliant red maple leaf out of Koushi's hair. He held it up for Koushi to see.
"Thank you for saving me from a maple leaf," Koushi joked.
Daichi pressed the leaf into Koushi's hand. "Please accept this dead leaf as proof of my eternal love and devotion to you."
Koushi's hand curled around the leaf, and he brought it up to his chest. "Thank you, my brave knight," Koushi said. "I shall cherish this gift forever."
Daichi snorted and nudged Koushi a little with his shoulder. Koushi eyed Daichi, then nudged him back. The two continued to nudge each other until Daichi pushed a little harder than he'd anticipated. Koushi—dramatic as ever—took the opportunity to fall into another pile of leaves. There was a soft whump as he hit the pile. Leaves flew off of the ground before gently floating back down to the ground, partially covering Koushi in the process.
"I've been betrayed!" Koushi screeched from the leaf pile. "Eternal love and devotion my a-!"
"Koushi, language, there are children nearby," Daichi said with a chuckle.
"You and I both know that's a dirty lie Sawamura," Koushi replied.
Daichi crouched down next to Koushi and grinned at him. "Comfy down there?"
The twinkle in Koushi's eye should have been warning enough. Koushi shot out a hand and wrapped it around Daichi's wrist. With a mighty tug, he pulled Daichi forward into the leaf pile.
"Why don't you join me and find out?" Koushi asked as Daichi pitched forward.
Daichi caught himself on his elbows at the last second, just before he could land soundly on top of Koushi. He let out a small sigh of relief at not having crushed his boyfriend. Koushi gave Daichi a smirk, removing his hand from Daichi's wrist and wrapping his arms around Daichi's neck instead.
"Nice catch, Captain."
Daichi lowered himself enough to settle his forehead against Koushi's. Koushi found himself flushing pink as his boyfriend closed his eyes and smiled a contented smile. He closed his own eyes and let the moment sink into his memory. The chill air, the feel of the leaves tickling his neck and ears, the weight of Daichi on top of him, the distinct smell of sandalwood body wash that Koushi had come to associate with Daichi, the gentle puff of breath as Daichi's lips hovered over his own-
Naturally, Koushi's stomach had to rumble at that exact moment. Naturally.
Daichi pulled back, alarmed at the sudden noise. Koushi covered his face as it went from pink to red in under two seconds.
"I guess that's nature's way of telling us to hold off on the public displays of affection," Koushi said, dropping his arms to his sides.
"Yeah, I guess a pile of leaves in the middle of the park is not the best place to initiate smooches," Daichi admitted, sitting up and rubbing the back of his neck.
"I will pay for your lunch if you never refer to kissing as 'smooches' ever again," Koushi said, pushing himself up onto his elbows.
"What's wrong with 'smooches'?"
"You know exactly what's wrong with 'smooches'."
Daichi stared at Koushi for a moment, and that's when Koushi noticed the gleam in Daichi's eye. Before Koushi could squirm away, Daichi was back in Koushi's personal space. He placed his hands on either side of Koushi, bracketing him in and keeping him from moving.
"Daichi, whatever you're about to do, you better not do it," Koushi warned.
Daichi just grinned and leaned in closer.
"Daichi, no."
"Smooooooooch."
"Daichi, I swear-!"
Daichi pressed a quick to Koushi's nose. "Smooch."
"You're awful," Koushi groaned as he collapsed back into the pile of leaves.
"Yeah, but you love me," Daichi countered, standing and holding out a hand to Koushi. "Let's go get some lunch."
They retrieved lunch from the store across the street, then returned to the park. They sat underneath a tree close to the entrance, and leaned against each other as they ate. After they finished, Koushi turned and pressed his lips to Daichi's cheek.
"Thanks for a great afternoon," Koushi said.
Daichi covered Koushi's hand with his own, then intertwined their fingers. "You're welcome," he said with a smile.
They sat back against the tree, and watched the red and orange leaves wave in the wind. Koushi rested his head on Daichi's shoulder and smiled to himself. Today had been everything he had wanted it to be. It was perfect.
#daisuga#haikyuu writers#hq fanfic#fandom loves puerto rico#sorry this took so long#but i'm glad you liked it!
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focaccia sandwiches for a crowd
Last year, Alexandra Stafford published a very good book about bread. It sprang from a recipe for the peasant bread her mother made often when she was growing up. When she shared it on her site, it went viral, which is no surprise given that it’s no-knead, comes together in under five minutes, rises in about an hour, and after a brief second rise, you bake it in buttered bowls that form it into a blond, buttery crusted bread that she boasts is “the antithesis of artisan.” Because there are no hidden tricks; no steam ovens, special flours, lames to score the crust, or bannetons to shape the loaves. Her central tenet is that “good bread can be made without a starter, without a slow or cold fermentation, without an understanding of bakers’ percentages, without being fluent in the baking vernacular: hydration, fermentation, biga, poolish, soaker, autolyse, barm.” (None of those words appear in the book.) She knows that there are a lot of no-knead breads out there, but this is the only one that can be started at 4pm and be on the dinner table at 7.
I realize you’re thinking, as I briefly worried before I read it, how does one write an entire cookbook based on one recipe? But Stafford is a gifted recipe developer, and there isn’t a thing in this book — one part breads (with all types of flours, grains, and shapes, including pizzas, flatbreads, rolls and buns), one part toasts (including sandwiches, tartines, stratas, panzanellas, soups, summer puddings and so much more), and one part crumbs (a celebration of crunchy gratin toppings, stuffing, burgers, eggplant parmesan, fish sticks, meatballs, and brown bettys) — that I didn’t want to make. (I suspect that having four kids to feed ensures that these recipes were vetted by the most finicky of reviewer classes.) It’s also a gorgeous book, with a focus and format that my inner, long-surrendered organized person finds deeply pleasing.
My favorite thing in the book, and the one that I come back to again and again, is using the core bread recipe to make a focaccia that can be split and filled to make a sheet pan’s worth of sandwiches.* File this under things I never thought about pre-kids but obsess over now: Picking up sandwiches to go to the beach/park/pool/wherever your summer weekend takes you for a family or group of friends can be staggeringly expensive. I might even forgive the price if the sandwiches were usually better, but I’m sorry-not-sorry, they’re usually not. Either the bread is lousy and processed to the hilt, or they just don’t make them the way I want them, which is heavy on the vegetables and with a good mix of fresh, salty, crunchy, and pickle-like ingredients. Let’s fix this.
Below is the recipe for the simplest, quickest focaccia you’ll ever need to make and several sandwich filling suggestions (many vegan, too) I hope you’ll find good jumping off points.
* If you have Smitten Kitchen Every Day at home (do you? I bet you’d love it, I’m just saying) you probably already know about my slab-sized sandwich fixation. In the book, I use roasted tomatoes and more to stuff a focaccia *before* it is baked, inspired by a foccia ripiena we ate in Rome several years ago. This is concept is similar, but there’s no need to pre-commit to fillings.
Previously
One year ago: Blackberry Blueberry Crumb Pie
Two years ago: Summer Squash Pizza and Peach Melba Popsicles
Three years ago: Raspberry Crushed Ice
Four years ago: Three-Ingredient Summertime Salsa and Blueberry Crumb Cake
Five years ago: Charred Corn Crepes and Burst Tomato Galette with Corn and Zucchini
Six years ago: Pink Lemonade Bars
Seven years ago: Tomato Salad with Crushed Croutons
Eight years ago: Nectarine Brown Butter Buckle and Sweet and Smoky Oven Spare Ribs
Nine years ago: Best Birthday Cake, Arugula Potato and Green Bean Salad and Peach and Creme Fraiche Pie
Ten years ago: Garlic Mustard Glazed Skewers and Huevos Rancheros
Eleven years ago: Quick Zucchini Saute
And for the other side of the world:
Six Months Ago: Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cookies and Slow-Roasted Sweet Potatoes
1.5 Years Ago: Broccoli Pizza
2.5 Years Ago: Spaghetti Pie with Pecorino and Black Pepper, Banana Puddings with Vanilla Bean Wafers, and Taco Torte
3.5 Years Ago: Caramelized Onion and Gruyere Biscuits and Charred Cauliflower Quesadillas
4.5 Years Ago: Garlicky Party Bread with Cheese and Herbs and Fennel and Blood Orange Salad
Focaccia Sandwiches for a Crowd
Servings: About 12 sandwiches
Time: 2 hours
Source: Bread Toast Crumbs
Print
Servings will vary by how you cut the focaccia, of course. Here I show 12 small/medium sandwiches. Depending on how hearty your fillings are, each person may eat 1 to 2 sandwiches.
You can choose your own schedule with this bread, by proving it for 1 to 1 1/2 hours at room temperature, overnight in fridge, or 10 hours at room temperature. For the last option, you want to make the bread with cold tap water.
To use active dry yeast instead of instant yeast, add it directly to the lukewarm water with a pinch of sugar to proof it for 10 minutes (it will get foamy) and then add it below where you will the water.
For more of a traditional focaccia flavor, you can sprinkle 1 tablespoon chopped or minced fresh rosemary over the top with the salt before baking it.
4 cups (520 grams) all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon instant yeast
2 cups lukewarm water, made by mixing 1/2 cup boiling water with 1 1/2 cups cold water
4 tablespoons olive oil
Flaky sea salt
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and instant yeast. Add the water. Using a rubber spatula, mix until the water is absorbed and the ingredients form a loose, sticky dough. Cover with a tea towel or plastic wrap and [choose your schedule]:
Quickest rise: Set aside in a warmish spot for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until doubled.
Overnight in fridge: Set inside your refrigerator overnight, about 8 to 10 hours.
Overnight at room temperature: For this method, you will need to use only cold, no lukewarm, water. Leave the bowl on your counter at room temperature for 10 hours.
When you’re ready to make your focaccia: Pour 3 tablespoons oil onto a rimmed sheet pan (can use a 13×18, or half-sheet pan, but if you have something more 11×17-ish, as I use here, will make for slightly thicker loaf; you can line it first with parchment paper for maximum nonstick security).
Heat oven to 425°F.
Using two forks, deflate the dough by releasing it from the sides of the bowl and pulling it toward the center. Rotate the bowl in quarter turns as you deflate, turning the mass into a rough ball. Use the forks to lift the dough onto the prepared sheet pan. Roll the dough ball in the oil to coat it all over.
Let dough rest for 20 minutes (for Quickest rise or Overnight at room temperature) or 1 hour (if you used the Overnight in the fridge rise, so it warms up) without touching it. Then, drizzle last 1 tablespoon of olive oil over and use your fingertips to stretch and press the dough to the edges, leaving it intentionally dimply. If your dough resists being stretched all the way, get it as stretched as you can, wait 5 minutes, and return to stretch it the rest of the way, repeating this rest if needed.
Sprinkle with flaky sea salt all over and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, checking in on the earlier end, until lightly puffed on top and golden and crisp underneath. Remove from oven and let cool completely (this will go faster if you transfer the bread to a cooling rack) before assembling sandwiches.
To make sandwiches: If you’d like, you can trim off the very outer edges — this exposes the crumb and makes it a little easier to halve. (I didn’t do this because I like to make things hard, also I like edges.) Stafford recommends you begin the halving process by cutting through each corner, then running the serrated knife through the short end until you get to the midway point, then starting from the other short end until I get to the midway point. A sharp, serrated knife is helpful. Try to keep your knife as parallel to the bread as possible. She says she finds if she hugs the top layer as opposed to aiming for the center, she gets a more even cut.
Some ideas for sandwich fillings:
Avocado + Crispy Kale [Shown]: First, crisp your kale. I used a 5-ounce clamshell of curly kale leaves, tearing out and discarding any thick ribs. Rub/toss them with 1 tablespoon olive oil, spread them on a large baking sheet in one layer, seasoned them with salt and pepper, and baked them at 375°F for 10 to 15 minutes, until crispy and just barely brown at the edges (keep an eye on it). Then, scoop out and slice 4 avocados, fan the slices across the bread and mash/spread them smooth. Coat with olive oil, lemon juice, flaky salt, and red pepper flakes (like we do here). Spread crispy kale over avocado.
Hummus + Cucumber + Pickled Carrots [Shown]: First, coarsely grate 1 pound of carrots. Pour 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar, 1/2 cup cold water, 1 teaspoon kosher salt, and 1 to 2 teaspoons (to taste) of granulated sugar over it and stir to combine. (You could also add mustard or dill seeds or fresh chile peppers here.) Chill in the fridge for as long as you have — 30 minutes, an hour, and up to a few days. Carrots will get more pickled the longer it soaks. To make your sandwiches, schmear the bottom half of the bread with about 1 1/2 cups hummus (storebought or homemade). Squeeze out little handfuls of pickled carrot and sprinkle this on as your next layer. For you final layer, use a y-peeler to shave long ribbons off 1 large (1/2 to 3/4 pound) seedless cucumber. Tousel these on top; season them with salt and pepper.
Walnut pesto + grilled zucchini ribbons (skip the parmesan in the pesto to make it vegan)
This grilled pepper and torn mozzarella panzanella, minus the croutons
This crunchy asparagus and egg salad
Pickled vegetable sandwich slaw + anything else you love on sandwiches
This salsa verde + any grilled or roasted vegetables
This zucchini carpaccio salad, as a sandwich filling
Any of the sandwiches from the archives
Many of the salads from the archives, such as this egg salad, this chicken salad (not vegetarian, of course), that chicken salad, or even (I love this as a sandwich) this chicken caesar, with the dressing spread on both sides of the bread, the chicken thinly sliced, and the romaine cut into thin ribbons. I wouldn’t be sad to have a broccoli or cauliflower slaw between bread, either.
Or, of course, endless slices of peak-season tomatoes + mayo + salt, or the same plus sliced mozzarella + basil pesto
Source: https://smittenkitchen.com/2018/08/focaccia-sandwiches-for-a-crowd/
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The Lord’s Day: Vol. 2
October 1, 2017
One of Kewpie’s favorite days of the week is Sunday. It is almost as good as Wednesday when she gets to watch the garbage truck come and haul away our trash. But not everyday can be as exciting as “trash day,” so “church day” takes a close second place. It is a day when she gets to be praised and admired by all who witness her cuteness. Women gush over her adorable clothes, men pretend to be impressed by her powerful high-fives, and children tickle her tummy and do funny faces to make her laugh.
I had high hopes for Kewpie’s behavior this Sunday. She was in good spirits and was being extra generous with her smiles. Even though it was communion day —which means longer sitting and listening time— I decided that it was safe to sit near the front of the church since I doubted we’d need to make a hasty exit during the service. Kewpie has developed a lot over the last few months so I was sure she would be able to demonstrate proper church-going manners this time around.
When the service began I realized that we had unknowingly sat in a troublesome spot. The young lad who sat down behind us after we had already claimed our seats has a disability and he is unable to control his bodily noises…from either end. Those of us who are mature adults understand the social expectation to ignore his uncontrollable sounds and to not stare or make him feel uncomfortable. Kewpie, on the other hand, is unaware of this unspoken social practice, and at the first sound that erupted from the seat directly behind me, Kewpie’s eyes grew wide, her nostrils flared, and her mouth gaped open in disgust.
“MOMMYYYY?!” She asked loudly, completely stunned that I could have dared to make the poo poo noise in church.
“No it wasn’t me,” I tried to explain in a whisper. “It’s time to sing songs to Jesus now.”
My attempt to distract her failed miserably, and she continued her concentrated search of the faces of those around us to see who had produced such an offensive sound. Again the noise behind me echoed throughout the church, and this time Kewpie zeroed in on the source. She clamored up onto my shoulder and thankfully gave a charming smile to the fellow behind us. He is one of her friends so she simply acknowledged his presence and then sat back down in my lap. “Catastrophe avoided!” I thought to myself…Not quite.
Kewpie then launched into a boisterous speech, including hand gestures about the goings on in the seat behind us.
“PPPPBBBBB! PPPBBBBBB! PPPPBBBBBB!” Kewpie said, in imitation of the poo poo noise that she has so perfectly mastered over the last couple of months. She pointed to my rear end with an accusing index finger and made the sound over and over.
“Yes, Kewpie,” I said, trying to keep her quiet as the service continued. “Yes that’s the poo poo sound, but it’s ok. We need to listen to the pastor read the Bible now.”
That prospect held Kewpie’s attention for about one and a half seconds until our tooting friend let out a burp. Unfortunately, Kewpie loves burps and she practices them around the house all the time. So as the service progressed, Kewpie unexpectedly let out imitation belches every few minutes.
For a brief juncture, Kewpie remained entertained by the music and she focused on worshiping the Lord, complete with hand raising and clapping. But then it came time for communion, a time where one must sit still and remain quiet with an attitude of reverence. However, my baby was neither in the mood for quiet nor reverence. When the pastor asked us to take a moment of silence to ponder the gift of salvation that God has offered to us through Jesus, Kewpie, who was sitting in my lap, sighed emphatically, threw her arms up in the air, arched her back, and slithered out of my grasp and onto the floor. I made a grab for her, but she went limp at my touch and slumped to the ground in a heap of lifeless limbs.
At this point, Hubby picked Kewpie up and offered her a plastic container of Cheerios. This kept her momentarily occupied. Handful after handful, she shoveled the Cheerios into her mouth, crunching noisily just to make sure that all of the quietly praying people around us would know that she was no longer dying of hunger.
Kewpie was so enthusiastic about eating her Cheerios that her mouth got too full to hold anymore. She tried to stuff one more handful of crunchy treats into her mouth, but there was no more room. Cheerios tumbled onto my chair.
“UH OOOOOOH!” Kewpie bellowed. She tried to pick up her fallen goodies, but more cereal fell out of her container. “UH OOOOOOOOOOH!”
I quickly scooped up the Cheerios and put them back into the container just as the tray containing the communion bread was passed my way. I picked up two square-shaped crackers, one for me and one for Kewpie so that we could partake of the emblems after the pastor prayed. Kewpie, however, was not keen on waiting to eat her cracker. She grabbed my hand and tried to pry my fingers open one by one. I resisted, but she is a persistent little glutton. With her mouth still bursting with Cheerios she continued to wrestle the tiny cracker out of my grasp. Luckily the pastor’s prayer ended just in time for her to devour her hard earned sacred element.
Communion continued as the pastor began to speak about the juice representing Jesus’ blood that was spilled for our forgiveness. Kewpie lost interest again and turned her attention back to her Cheerios. She adjusted her position on my lap, and all of a sudden I heard an object fall to the ground and a flood of tiny little pieces of something spill.
“UH OOOOOOOH!” Said Kewpie, pointing to her now empty Cheerio container that was upside down on the floor.
“Oh no,” I whispered. “Pick up your Cheerios, Kewpie.” I set her on the floor, expecting her to start putting the Cheerios back into the container like she does at home.
But Kewpie had other ideas. She stared at the mess on the floor then raised her foot and stomped down on the cereal as hard as she could.
“No Kewpie!” I whispered and tried to snatch her up onto my lap. She dodged my grab and continued to smash the Cheerios over and over again, reducing the cereal to a fine powder.
Finally I scooped up the squirming rebel and held her securely in my arms. By this point the pastor was instructing us to drink our communion juice, which I did without inviting Kewpie to join me. I downed my tiny little cup in one gulp and Kewpie looked at me with a hurt expression that said, “Why didn’t you share with me?”
But I didn’t answer her, I just held her tightly and bowed my head as the pastor began to pray for the close of our time of communion.
Regrettably, I held a little too tightly to Kewpie and just as the pastor began his prayer, “Dear Heavenly Father—-“ Kewpie let loose a series of deafening flatulence.
“WOOOOOOW! Ahehehe!” Said Kewpie, pointing to her diapered backside.
“Yes, Kewpie, you tooted,” I whispered, sliding down as low as I could in my chair, trying to disappear from sight.
Kewpie squirmed in my arms and positioned herself to face backwards. She grinned at her gassy friend behind us. He beamed back at her, both basking in the warmth of their camaraderie.
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