#GOD I loved this zine so much dude

[ind1c0lite]

Mea Culpa is now free to download for everyone!!

So here's my first page for AAI1! + some close ups!

Progress stuff under the cut

[sp0o0kylights]

Eyes wide, body frigid in terror, Eddie felt the sheer horror of the current situation sank in. 

He was at Gen Con. 

In their hotel.

With zero vacant rooms and one minor, Henderson created, screw up.

The room only had one bed in it. 

“It’s fine, we can share.” Steve said, brushing past.

Like this was not the life ending, earth shattering, soul rendering issue that it was.

“I can sleep on the floor.” Eddie croaked trying to remember how a normal person acted instead of someone whose stomach had just fallen out of their ass. 

“Nah, I did this all the time with the basketball team.” Steve said as Eddie actively regretted every single decision that had led to this point in his life.

“Hell this is even a king sized bed. We have plenty of space!” 

Steve did a goofy little spin jump, landing butt first on the bed and bouncing on it with glee. 

“Space, sure.” Eddie echoed. 

Hands shaking, eyes determinedly focused on anything but the ex-jock, Eddie found himself chanting a mantra over and over in his head.

One that would valiantly get him through the next weekend, God and D20's willing.

'I'm fine, this is fine, everything's fine...'

“I don’t have cooties, if that's what you're worried about.”” Steve waggled his eyebrows. "Here,  I’ll even let you have one of my pillows.”  

Said pillow was flung through the air, to smack Eddie dead in the face. 

'Fuck it." Eddie thought wildly. "I am NOT fine!'

And after Eddie got his hands on him, Dustin Henderson wouldn't be either.

xXx

“I am going to kill you.” Eddie snarled, the very second he could get Dustin alone.

“No you won’t, you love me too much.” Henderson dismissed, a smug little smirk in place. 

The absolute brat. 

“I do not, and if I did, I would take it back after this.” Eddie glanced around once again, beyond paranoid about discussing this in the open parking lot of a shitty hotel, but knowing he needed to get this under control, now. 

“What were you thinking!?” 

“That I read a really interesting zine about this exact scenario, mostly.” Dustin shrugged. “Worked out great for them, I thought I’d try it for you!” 

Eddie groaned, head flying back as he fisted both hands in his hair.

(if only to prevent himself from wrapping both hands around Dustin’s stupid throat.) 

“What did I tell you? This isn’t something you fuck with man!” 

“I know, but as I told you, Steve is perfect!” Dustin protested, and didn’t even have the decency to flinch when Eddie lost control and grabbed him by the collar. 

“Perfect!?” He sputtered, actually sputtered, shaking the fist that held Dustin's shirt captive. “Perfect!?” 

“Trust me on this--you have a crush on him, he desperately needs someone in his life--seriously, Eddie, it’s sad how he acts when he’s not dating--and you guys get along great now! What’s the problem!?”

“He’s straight!” Eddie shrieked, startling several onlookers. 

“Laced!” He added immediately after, in panicked afterthought. “He’s so straight laced we could never get him to agree to that plan!” 

Dustin leveled an unimpressed look at him. 

“Dude, really?”

“We are still in Indiana, Henderson.” Eddie said, then got close enough that he felt comfortable hissing the next part through clenched teeth.

“They don’t exactly care for the queers here, even at a place like this.” 

“Are you sure? Because the Con’s welcome packet has a few different panels that--”

Eddie scrubbed a hand over his face, letting go of his idiot, freshman friend's shirt to grab at his hair again. 

“Henderson, for once,” He pleaded, and maybe it was the sheer desperation in his tone or how upset he looked but either way Dustin seemed to finally realize how serious he was.

“just once, I need you to listen to me. You cannot let Steve know I’m gay. This is something that has to stay between us, especially now I’m sharing a bed with him.” 

Which Dustin knew, because Dustin was the one who’d called and changed the room. 

“But Steve’s--”

“Most likely bisexual, I heard you the first several times you said it, but you can’t just--assume that about someone!” Eddie was well and good on a rant now, two seconds away from pacing about. “Even if you’ve been to a salon with them!” 

He pointed firmly at Dustin’s stupid face (and the kid's equally stupid mouth) before he could once again insist Steve was into men purely based on how anal he was about his hair.

“Steve might be cool with--other people,” Eddie was unsure of who knew what about Robin, and was not about to hand Dustin another secret given how he was acting about this one, “but that does not mean he will be cool with me--or you, pimping him out, to me!” 

“I’m not pimping him out!” Offended, Dustin patted at his shirt where Eddie had previously been holding it. “Look I’m sorry, but--”

Eddie groaned, loud and dramatic. 

“But,” Dustin doubled down, “You trusted me with the whole, you know.” He waved his hands in some sort of vague, unreadable gesture. “Can’t you trust me about this?”

“I didn’t trust you with that, you barged into my room and then dug around my closet insisting your character notes got mixed in with mine when I was hi-sleeping!--and then read something personal!” 

The snort he got in return let him know Dustin was well aware he’d been high as hell, but that was neither here nor there, given what had happened after. 

When Dustin, rifling through Eddie’s closet, came across one of Eddie’s private notebooks. 

The ones that contained equally private stories, penned by Eddie's hand.

One of which might have had characters--who did not sound like Steve, thank you,-- and definitely not paired with a character based on Eddie himself. 

(“So Sir Sylvan Harrachtáin and Edwin Morningson are random names you pulled out of your ass, huh?”

“Shut up.”

“Sir Sylvan with his great hair and--what’s this? A horse named…Beamer?”

“Henderson so help me--” ) 

It may have led to the two of them growing closer instead of Eddie getting chased out of town with pitchforks, but that hadn’t stopped the sheer panic it had caused when he realized just what it was Dustin was reading. 

“Potato, tomato.” The little shit dismissed, and Eddie felt the urge to strangle him return in full force. “Look I get it--I promised I wouldn’t tell and I keep my promises. But since there aren’t any other rooms in our inn…”

Eddie looked at the sky, because if he saw the little dipshit wiggle his eyebrows in relation to himself and Steve Harrington, his new friend, who baked cookies with Jeff and once helped Grant jump his car, Eddie was going to lose his mind.

Loudly, and with much fanfare. 

“You owe me. Big time.” He declared to the clouds. 

He pretended not to hear the sigh that got him, either. 

“If you so say. Now can we go to the convention?" A whine crept into Henderson's voice. "Steve’s going to think we’re fighting.”

"Fine.” Eddie finally lowered his head to glare Dustin dead in the eyes.

“But to make my ire clear, Henderson? That magic sword your dwarf just acquired is gone. Disappeared. Vanished like a puff of smoke."

He made a ‘proof’ noise, hands spreading out as he did it. 

Dustin’s jaw dropped.

“What!? Eddie--” 

“Nope.

“Edd-iieeeee--”

“I’m not listening.” He plunged both fingers in his ears, walking determinedly towards one of the other three hotel rooms Hellfire had crammed themselves in. 

Wished desperately that he could manage to swap beds with Jeff, or Grant, or someone without making Steve feel like shit--which it would, because Eddie knew things like that about Steve now.

Behind him Dustin rampaged, which at least, made Eddie a little happier.

xXx

“We can switch rooms.” 

“What?” Eddie asked, startled out of his present thoughts (and the giant pile of D&D related papers spread in a circle around him.)

He turned to look up at Steve, who was hovering awkwardly behind him.

“You’ve been weird ever since you realized we’re sharing a bed. If it’s making you that uncomfortable we can just switch.” He shrugged, like saying that didn’t hurt him, even as the kicked puppy look holding court on his face very much screamed ‘emotional damage.’

"I have not!” Eddie twisted himself around immediately. "I am perfectly fine, thank you!"

Steve frowned down at him. 

“Eddie, this is the longest conversation I’ve had with you since we got here." Steve deadpanned. "I’d blame that on the whole, you know, nerd herd gathering, but it’s pretty clear that’s not it. I watched you literally turn around and walk the other way when you spotted me earlier." 

Shit.

"It's kinda obvious you're avoiding me." 

Shit, shit, shit!

“I'm not, promise!" Eddie lied. "I’m just--distracted. There’s just so much happening and it’s--a lot.”

He said it like the con was overwhelming, and not chaos he was positively thriving in. 

Steve searched his face.

“Alright," He said doubtfully, "but I mean it. Say the word and we can switch. I'm sure Jeff'll let me share a blanket or something."

Which was the last thing anybody needed, on grounds that Jeff would try and fix things.

(Jeff, bless him, had never been good at fixing things.)

Drumming up every acting skill he possessed, Eddie flashed two thumbs up in response, painting a fat grin on his face.

“We're all good Stevie. Besides, I’m going to be up late at so many panels, you won’t even notice me coming back. You're practically gonna have the room to yourself!"

Because that was exactly what he was planning on doing, the second he realized the convention itself could provide a nice, neat little way out in the form of two different late night panels.

Who needed sleep anyway? Not him!

"Okay." Steve said, somewhat mollified.

Crisis averted, Eddie dove back into his plans, distracting himself as best he could while trying to ignore that Steve had dropped onto the bed.

(One of those plans might have involved revenge on Henderson, and that one he gave special attention to.)

xXx

There were no late nigh panels.

“Not until tomorrow, my friend!” The jovial guy dressed in what Eddie was pretty sure was supposed to be a wizard costume told him. “We had a few but the folks running them got stuck in traffic, so we had to cancel."

He beamed, like he hadn’t just disintegrated Eddie's one and only escape plan.

"Besides, if you go to sleep now you can catch some of the early morning panels!”

As if he hadn't planned on rolling into them anyway, lack of sleep be damned.

“Can we go back now?” Gareth grumped to his right, the only person who’d agreed to stay out all night with him (and who was not a 14 year old who’d been overruled by Harrington.) 

"We could go find a room party?" Eddie hedged instead, as they made their retreat.

"Dude."

"Fine," He muttered, defeated. "We can go back."

To Steve. 

And the single bed. 

In his head, he plotted out Henderson's death.

Maybe he'd use fire.

Or sticks, or even a fricken--toy horse, or something...

xXx

He'd done it.

Changed into the oversized shirt he called sleep clothes, and crawled into bed like a completely normal, totally straight human being.

Had even done a remarkable job of laying perfectly still. Exactly how a normal, not panicking person slept!

'I'm fine, this is fine, everything's fine...'

Steve was laying next to him.

He had to of course, that's how a bed worked, and yet somehow, Eddie couldn't get past it.

Or the fact that the dick wasn't wearing a shirt to bed.

His thoughts chased each other in nervous little circles, anxiety gnawing on his gut like a favored bone as Eddie did his best not to move one single inch.

Pity that the thing about attending a large convention, was the sheer amount of walking, talking, and expending general energy one had to do.

Entirely against his will, Eddie fell asleep. 

He had been planning on laying awake in frigid terror all night, to prevent any possible way Steve might clock him, but his body had other plans.

Some of which involved sleeping like Eddie normally slept--arms hugging a pillow, head buried in it's soft, comfortable, kinda ticklish surface.

He rubbed his nose further into it as the tickling sensation increased, pulling him away from the sleep he hadn't realized he'd fallen into.

Grumbling, Eddie went to adjust his stupid pillow when he had the weirdest realization that it too, was moving.

Pillows, his sleep addled brain informed him, did not move.

Steve would, though.

"Fuck!" He screeched, flying up into a sitting position as he registered that he'd gone full octopus--cuddling Steve with all four limbs.

Steve flew awake, his own body flying up into a sitting position.

His mouth started moving a mile a minute, and it took Eddie a second to parse that Steve was still partially asleep as he let out a string of absolute nonsense about code reds and being upside down.

"Whoa!" Eddie said when the guy nearly fell out of bed. "Shit Steve, it's just me!"

"Eddie?" Steve asked, halfway out of bed. "Are we--is everything okay?"

"Yeah I--yeah." He grimaced, grabbing a strand of his hair and pulling it protectively over his face. "I think I woke you up."

"S'okay." Steve ran a hand through his hair, before slowly sinking back into the bed, alarm fading. "Are you okay? Nightmare?"

Eddie blew out a breath.

"Probably. It's fine, don't worry about it."

Steve eyed him doubtfully.

"If you're sure..."

Eddie gave him a wobbly smile back, patting the space on the bed next to him as he made himself lay back down. "Promise. I'm--I'm sorry, I guess maybe I should have slept elsewhere..."

That did it.

"You're good. Startled me is all." Steve let out a sort of forced chuckle before laying back down. "I overreacted."

Eddie hummed, not trusting himself to say anything as the two of them settled back down.

It did not escape him that unlike most people who'd been rudely woken up in the middle of the night, Steve didn't try to keep any distance between them.

No, he had to scoot closer, like he needed to know his friend was near. 

Eddie squeezed his eyes closed and prayed for death.

"I get nightmares too, sometimes." Steve admitted in the following quiet and oh, God, no, Eddie could not do an emotional late night talk right now.

"They definitely suck." He said flatly, before rolling over to face the opposing wall. "Night Stevie."

Steve snorted, but it sounded amused instead of hurt.

Eddie sighed quietly in relief as he too, turned away to face the wall.

He could do this. He just had to make sure he didn't screw up and fall asleep again, and everything would be...

Perfectly...

...fine.

xXx

"--ddie, you're on my arm man."

"Wha?"

"My arm." That was Steve, Eddie's brain dutifully identified as it crawled it's way to consciousness. Steve who was his friend now, and was also talking very close to his ear. 

"Also my leg. And torso."

"You have a nice torso." Eddie mumbled thoughtlessly. 

Why was Steve here? They were doing something that should have been stressing him out, was stressing him out, but it was hard to think when he was this tired.

"Thanks," Amusement threaded it's way through Steve's voice, "but I'm going numb here. You have a hell of a grip."

Eddie frowned, the words sludging through the fog, until finally, the dots connected.

Eyes opening wide, he carefully took stock of the position he once again found himself in--wrapped around Steve like the guy was the only life raft left.

Oh my God.

"Shit sorry--" Steve oof'ed as Eddie smacked an elbow into his ribs as he let the poor man go, madly scrambling to get as far away as possible.

He tried to apologize for that, but was too busy fighting the bedsheets to get anything out. 

"Eds." Steve laughed, grabbing him as Eddie tangled them both up. "Calm down."

"I'm calm!" He protested, far too loudly, limbs flying every which way as he tried in vein to get the fuck away.

Stupid sheets-!

"Eddie." Two heavy hands came down on his shoulders, Steve having managed to get himself into a sitting position. "It's alright."

"It's not Steve." Eddie spat, and then panicked harder because fuck, that is not what he should have said.

"Hey, easy." Steve was talking quieter now, hands squeezing gently, like Eddie was some kind of spooked wild animal and fuck, he was really losing it here.

"I mean it. We're at the convention, remember? We're sharing a hotel room and you have a bunch of dorks and dumbass things to do in like, two hours."

Eddie violently shrugged him off.

"I know that!"

Steve, somehow, did not take offense to the very aggressive tone that had been snarled in. 

"Then you know you can breath for a moment. Seriously, you look like you're gonna pass out."

Which was probably true, given the rapid, rabbiting beat of his heart.

"Is this what you were worried about?" Steve added, as Eddie finally freed himself from the damn sheets. "That you have nightmares?"

“It's not nightmares.” Eddie spat instantly, chest heaving.

His head hurt, his eyes hurt, and he was exhausted to the point where he wanted to cry about it.

God did being gay suck.

“Then--what? That you cuddle in your sleep?” Steve was teasing, Eddie knew Steve was teasing but that was too on the nose. “Dude trust me, Tommy was an octopus growing up. I don’t care.”

“No it’s not, that, exactly--”

"So what is it then, exactly?"

Too. Fucking. Close.

"Drop it Steve--"

Emotions rose like a tidal wave, all encompassing. Overwhelming. 

"I would if you weren't clearly upset about something--" 

He lost control. 

“I’m gay!” Eddie yelled.

Then he clapped a hand over his mouth, like he hadn’t just panicked himself out of the closet. 

It died. 

The crazy, huge emotions. The way he'd been fighting himself, tooth and nail, the panicked thoughts that were zooming around his brain.

“I didn’t say that.” He said, eyes wide.

Steve blinked.

“I mean, you kinda did.”

Eddie shook his head.

“Nope. No. I said, I said--”

“That you’re gay.” Steve finished, then frowned when Eddie flinched. “Dude it’s okay--”

“Is it, Steve!?” He interrupted, hand finally falling from his mouth. “Is it? Because if you ask half the people at this convention--who are my kind of people and understand I’m not shilling souls to satan--if it's okay!? They'd say no!"

Tears pressed against his eyes, a reaction he hated that he had.

"They'd say no, and then they'd try to kick my ass for sleeping in the same bed as them!" 

A tear escaped and he swiped angrily at it. 

“I’m okay with it.” Steve said quietly, which had the effect of making Eddie shut up. “And those people suck.” 

The laugh that escaped Eddie's mouth was brittle.

Bitter.

He turned his head away from Steve, angry that he’d gone and admitted the very thing he knew better than ever speaking aloud. 

“Yeah well, I didn't think you would be, given how you used to accuse anyone and everyone of being a queer loser right along with the rest of the basketball team.”

Which wasn't fair, exactly--Eddie knew Steve had changed. Had seen it in the way he and Robin talked quietly about Will, when they thought no one could overhear.

(A habit Eddie would break them of, if he and Steve made it out of here as friends, still.) 

He wasn't Will though, and Will wasn't the one presently sharing a bed with Steve.

“That’s because we were all making out with each other at away games.” It was said so fucking quick Eddie briefly thought he hallucinated it.

Lucky for him, Steve wasn't done. 

“Robin thinks that whole thing was some kind of group denial. Like if we made enough of a thing out of it we could all pretend we didn’t have our hands down each others pants all the time. I am not exactly on speaking terms with that group anymore.”

He shrugged like that his fall from grace hadn’t been the center of the rumor mill for most of his senior year, and came with a lot of shit talking at his expense.

“But I can still prove it to you, if you’d like.” 

Shock--and six million thoughts-- hit Eddie like a mack truck. 

‘You’re lying/No way/that makes so much fucking sense/how did that even start/was it every game/whose pants exactly did you have your hands down and how do you feel about my pants--’ 

“How?” Eddie got out, sounding only slightly strangled. 

“Well--you’re here. I’m here."

And then Steve gave him a smile Eddie had only ever seen aimed at women, a slow lazy curl of the mouth that implied a hell of a lot.

"I'm fine with making the math work."

Maybe he was dreaming this.

(Eddie pinched himself and found that somehow, he was not.)

“I realize I don’t look like it, but I don't the whole casual kissing thing." Eddie blurted out. "Hasn't exactly gone well for me."

He regretted it the second it left his mouth. 

That was sharing too much of himself. The vulnerable gooey part who'd kissed a few girls (and even, once, a guy) and found he couldn't for the life of him make such things casual.

Plus Steve was kind of a good friend now, and Eddie had a crush so big that doing this and then never doing it again would kill him, and--

(and, and, and…) 

“It can mean something if you’d like.”

What.

“What?” 

Eddie stared at him.

Steve stared back. 

“Steve Harrington." He said flatly. "Are you trying to get in my pants?”

‘I will rip them off right here and now if you are,’ He thought wildly, like he hadn’t just tried to die on some “it has to be meaningful” hill. 

(Sue him, he was a horny teenager who'd just learned sex might be on the table, he could change his mind.

It totally wouldn’t tear his heart apart after either!

Nope, not his, made of steel Eddie’s heart was--) 

Steve raised his hands in the “don’t shoot” pose, looking all too pleased with himself. 

“Hey, you can’t fault a guy for trying. But,” and here he dropped the flirty little grin, which Eddie was only now realizing he was utilizing, “I meant it. I'm not opposed to trying this out, with you."

Trying? What the hell did that mean!?

Steve hadn't stopped talking.

"I won’t take it anywhere if you don’t want to though, don't worry.

Then he tilted his head and added; “I can also leave if that made you uncomfortable. Robin keeps telling me I can’t flirt with men like I flirt with women and--” 

“No.” Eddie’s mouth betrayed him yet again, terrified Steve might talk himself into leaving. “No--you offered!”

Steve raised an eyebrow.

“I did.”

“To have--” God Eddie couldn’t even say the words, “with me?” 

Somehow that last part came out as a question, and Eddie planned immediately to throw himself out of a window.

The grin was coming back. “Yes. With you.” 

“And it would…mean something?”

That was pushing it, Eddie knew that was pushing it, but it was like he couldn't stop himself.

This whole thing was now a runaway train and he'd ride it to it's inevitable wreck.

“For me it would.” Steve said, raising himself up on his knees. 

He inched forward, planting his hands down on the bed, face awfully close to Eddie’s own. 

“I don't like doing things anymore without it meaning something. To be honest, I don’t think I ever did. Besides, Robin's right."

"About?" Eddie asked, goin cross-eyed as Steve leaned ever so much closer.

"That when I say I admire you, or I miss you, or that I want to see you, I'm not exactly meaning it in a friend way."

Oh.

"Oh." Eddie said dumbly.

Steve closed the distance, mouth first. 

They were kissing.

Stars exploded in the sky. Fireworks went off outside, birds sang, people cheered--

(Eddie bit Steve’s lip, twice, in some sort of overexcited maneuver before he was gently guided into Steve’s lap, the ex-jock twisting to lay back down and bringing Eddie with him. 

It was smoothly done, a slow maneuver, and Eddie had to go and ruin that too by ripping his mouth off Steve’s to press sloppy kisses all down his neck. 

Thankfully Steve did not shove him off for that, or the hickie he definitely left on that stupid, tan neck, instead arranging them once again until things, finally, started to be less frantic. 

It was the best night of Eddie's life.)

xXx 

“So what does mean something involve, in this little situation we have here?” Eddie said some odd amount of time later, cuddled happily against a now naked Harrington. 

“I’m not supposed to say boyfriends.” Steve mumbled into Eddie’s shoulder. “Scares people off."

Apparently he was the type to need naps immediately after having the naked kind of fun. 

“Who the fuck told you that?” Eddie reached down, lacing their hands together tightly.

Steve kissed his shoulder. 

“We haven’t even gone on a proper date yet.” He said, rather than responding directly.

“We can’t, Steve, or did you forget where we live?”

Another kiss, this one turning into a grin when it made Eddie shudder. 

“Oh we absolutely can. I’ll prove it to you. Next Friday?” 

It took him a moment--a stupidly long moment, for someone who prided himself as a wordsmith--but Eddie got it. 

A smile exploded over his face. 

“Next Friday." He said. "It’s a date.” 

(A very long time later, Henderson would find out about all this and gloat about this so hard he’d fall off the steps of Eddie’s trailer. 

Eddie would only let him live on grounds that Steve was also there at the time, and was worried about Dustin’s ankle.

This did not stop Eddie from standing above the little shit, announcing karma would one day get him soon, and if not, than Max Mayfield, who absolutely could be bribed into committing murder.)

This was the bonus for Door Prize/Sugar, Spice (and Everything Dicey) which can be read in it's entirely here: LINK

[scoops-aboy86]

If You Were Serious (Secret Admirer pt 7)

Okay, so there will be more than seven chapters. For now, please enjoy Steve on painkillers and creative mix tape shenanigans.

(The crossed out thing after the first "Dear" is the first line of an E.)

wc: 3226 / rated: T / set end of/after season 3 / also on ao3

Dear I

Dear Secret Amdirer,

Sorry, painkillers kicking in. I got pretty banged up in the mall, in the fire. Well, less the fire and more getting hit by stuff. Mall fell down. I have ribs and eye and nose, and concussion this time so I had to stay over at Robin’s because someone had to keep an eye on me sleeping and my parents are still out of town. Dustin said I won at upper body injury bingo but I didn’t even know I was playing, that sounds like really a shitty game. 

Anyway, I haven’t been home so I don’t know if you tried to call. If you did, don’t worry!!! I’m not mad. I don’t not like you anymore just because you’re you. And this isn’t the durg drugs talking because I read your letter first before they kicked in, but I have to write this ASAP so it can get to you faster. 

You could’ve called back that night but if you needed some time to breathe I get it, it’s cool. And I kinda had a feeling after that you might be a guy? Like, shit, man, they’d eat you alive in this town. Not me, I learned my lesson after Jonathan wrecked my face after I called him and his family some bad things. I deserved that. Kinda funny how the next year he stole my girlfriend and now I like you. If you could still be interested in somebody who used to be like that. 

I know I like you because when you hung up I was really worried, you sounded like you were breathing really fast, maybe a panic attack? I have those after nightmares now. Robin too. (Don’t worry, we bonded and she’s like my sister now, she says we’re playdoh soulmates

“Oh my god, I knew explaining who Plato was was a bad idea. It’s platonic, Steve, not Play-Doh.”

“Stop reading over my shoulder! … How do you spell that?”

“P-L-A-T-O-N-I-C.”

“Thanks Robbie.”

she says we’re playdoh soulmates platonic soulmates.) I was worried about you and thought maybe you might be a guy but, that wasn’t as important as wanting you to be okay, you know? You still wrote me all those nice letters. You’ve made me feel really good about myself, why does it have to be different just because you’re not a girl? I can’t tell you why Robin knows about this stuff but she says I might be bysix bisexual. Not sure why I need a big fancy word for it when I didn’t have one for liking girls, I just know I care about you a lot and want you to like me. 

And you’re not a coward, you’re very very brave. You reached out first, you went for what you wanted even when I didn’t get it and tried to ask for too much too soon. And then you kept coming back to try again, even though I kept doing that. That’s so brave. 

I’m not feeling so awake anymore so I’m going to stop and have Robin mail this for me. (No way am I going out dressed like this. Her dad wears grandpa shorts dude, it’s pretty bad.) I’ll write more when I’m feeling better. Are you okay? Hope you weren’t anywhere near the mall the other night. Thanks for the rainbow song I will look for it.

Love Steve 

~

Once Eddie is done reading, he screams into his pillow for a different reason. Several, actually. 

First, he’s been so sure for the past week or so that he would never hear from Steve ever again. The only reason he’d checked his mail today was because he should have another zine coming in soon. He didn’t, but there was a yellow envelope with familiar, if slightly messier than usual handwriting on it. And inside that, stationary with colorful geometric shapes along the edges that Eddie now surmises is Robin’s. 

Second, Steve isn’t even writing to tell him to fuck off right to hell. Because yes, Eddie had heard the rumors about Steve calling Jonathan Byers a queer. The irony does send a seam of semi-hysterical laughter through his screams. It’s fine. It’s fine!

Third, Steve hasn’t been avoiding his calls. He just hasn’t been home. He’s hurt, and it sounds like his head and torso took quite a beating. Eddie remembers seeing him around school both times after the other concussions and that had looked bad enough, and that had just been his face. This sounds worse. 

Fourth, Steve is… still interested? Has talked to someone about this and might be bisexual?! Eddie’s never had anyone talk to someone else about him, has always been completely anonymous with a possible option of becoming a dirty little secret. And then the letter ends with ‘Love Steve.’ Love? Love Steve?!

Fifth, Robin knows he sent Steve that ice cream. Eddie doesn’t know what all “platonic soulmates” entails, but what if she tells him? What if she already has?!

Sixth, despite being injured, and having panic attacks apparently, Steve is still asking if he is okay. 

Seventh, beneath his name Steve had also doodled a lopsided happy face with what he can only guess is an ice pack balanced on top. Or… maybe it’s hair. Or some kind of hat. 

Any of these would be enough to make his head spin on their own, but it’s all happening at once and he doesn’t know what to do. So he screams into his pillow for a while longer, kicking his feet for good measure. 

He wants to rush out and find Steve, wherever he is. Wants to call him, but doesn’t know what he would say even if he did know the number to reach him right now. What he could say. Wants to wrap both arms around him and kiss his poor head better. Hell, if he’s turned Steve gay he doesn’t just want, he deserves to make that guy the little spoon for the first time in his life probably and just. Hold him. 

Except… he’s not sure he’s ready for face to face yet. He will be! Soon. Once all the emotions bubbling in his chest have settled a little. And after he’s pinched himself a few million more times just to make sure. But until then…

A thought occurs to him, and Eddie rolls over to frown consideringly up at the ceiling. He’s sent Steve words to comfort and reassure him before, right? Maybe there’s something else he can send, a different way of offering a part of himself to Steve until he works up the nerve to face him for real. 

It’s just going to take him a little time, and some recording equipment. 

~

Dearest Steve,

I hope this address is still okay to write to you while you stay with your friend, but I don’t know where she lives. 

You have no idea 

Holy shit man. Holy shit. Are you serious? No, strike that, you’ve been nothing but genuine in these letters and I trust you, I do. Holy shit though. It’s you. Clearly I never thought I’d actually have a chance, from the way I approached this whole thing, so you must forgive me for how utterly poleaxed, completely flabbergasted, and genuinely gobsmacked I am. 

And shit, I’m still sorry for hanging up on you. That golden years line—and this heavy secret of the most basic fact of who I am weighing on my shoulders, pressing down so hard I couldn’t breathe. I wish I’d just said something. But you’re right, I needed… space? And a push, to work up to writing the last letter I sent you. I got yours the day I put that in the mail, by the way, and that spun me even more because what if you read mine and took it all back?

But you didn’t. You didn’t, sweetheart. I’m still reeling in the best possible way. Again, axed like a pole, flabbers gasted, and gob thoroughly smacked.

Enough about me. More than enough about me. You’re concussed; I ought to wrap that gorgeous head of yours in bubble wrap and offer to fight all your battles henceforth, even against falling buildings. I’m glad you have someone out there who’s looking out for you though. I guess… you’ve told Robin about some things? Maybe these letters? Which is absolutely fine, by the way. It’s great! Fuck knows it wouldn’t have occurred to me to explain what bisexuality is, since I hardly dared to dream so big and only swing the one way myself. You’re an amazingly open-minded person by the way, Steve; I hope you know how rare that is, especially in a place like Hawkins. And Robin too, apparently. Please give her my highest regards, she is an angel among mortals and an inadvertent champion of this sad wet rag of a human being (me). 

At any rate, wishing you the speediest of recoveries and I hope you’re already feeling at least a little better. My condolences on the grandpa shorts, although personally I’m convinced you could wear a trash bag and still look like an Adonis. 

It’s taken me a little longer than I’d like to send this because I made something for you. Enclosed is a tape with some of the songs from our call that you said you liked, played acoustically by yours truly. Rainbow In The Dark is one of them. You mentioned having nightmares, and whenever I had bad dreams as a kid my mom would play for me until I calmed down. She’d hum instead of doing the words, to make it more like a lullaby. I hope it’s at least a decent distraction, sweetheart. 

Let me know if you like it? I can make one of your favorite songs too, just you let me know what they are. In the meantime, I remain, as always—

Your Secret Admirer

~

“You should tell him that you know,” Robin whispers, at some point during the fourth night in a row they’ve ended up crashed on the same bed listening to the Anti-Panic Attack Metal Mix. 

Her dad sleeps like the dead and her mom sleeps with earplugs in because he snores, so they get away with it, but Steve always insists on laying on top of the covers anyway. The friendship is still new, for all that they’re trauma bonded, and he wants to make sure she knows he’s not getting any funny ideas, that he gets the whole lesbian thing, that even though he’s new to being into a dude he’s committed to it and not wishy-washy or greedy or whatever.

He fiddles with a loose string on the blanket for a minute before answering. “No… I don’t want to freak him out again. It’s all going to be on his terms from here on out, no more pushing.”

“Well you’ve got to do something. Come on Steve, I’m invested now. Ask to meet him.”

He rolls his eyes. “What did I just say?” 

Immediately he gives an inward wince, because that came out bitchy. But Robin just snorts and murmurs “Fine,” sounding amused rather than offended, so he relaxes. 

They exist in silence for a while, side by side. Just close enough to not feel alone, drifting on the soft notes and low, rich hum. It’s soothing. 

“What if,” Robin starts, and ignores Steve’s huff. “What if you go somewhere you know he might show, and then give him the opportunity to talk to you?”

“Oh yeah,” he scoffs, “like what?”

“Summer house party.” Her whisper picks up a little in excitement as she warms to her own idea. “I bet we can find one that’s coming up soon. Everyone knows that Munson sells, it’s one of those never invited but always welcome things. Then if he doesn’t come to you, just buy some weed and see if he says anything.”

“No,” Steve whispers back. 

She rolls over to squint at him in the dark. “Just think about it, okay? You wouldn’t be forcing him to do anything, just… providing an opportunity. Come on, Stevie-evie, this is my chance to see a gay love story go right.”

“Vetoing that nickname.” With a sigh, he rolls onto his side too, facing her. “My face still looks like raw hamburger meat, Robs. I have like zero charm right now.”

The swelling has gone down, at least to where he can open his eye again but the bruising remains spectacular. It looks like a sunset exploded across the side of his face, and not in a good way. 

Robin rolls her eyes. “You’re more than just your face, dingus. It wasn’t your rugged jawline, sculpted cheekbones, or pimple-free forehead that wrote those letters, it was you. Steve.”

He goes to wrinkle his nose at the descriptions, but quickly remembers that’s still a bad idea with a swallowed grunt. “Please, never describe me again.”

“I make no promises. And anyway, if you’re willing to try makeup I think we could get most of it covered so no one’ll ever notice. Not at night, anyway.”

That gives him pause. He rolls onto his back again to think about it, staring up at the ceiling of Robin’s bedroom and tracing imaginary constellation lines between the glow in the dark stars she has up there. Beside him, he feels her settling on her back too without having to look. 

It’s not like when he’d found a little brother in Dustin—who has visited pretty much every day during Steve’s convalescence, sometimes with Erica or Mike, Lucas, and Max in tow, spouting off things he’s read in books about the various still-healing injuries. As annoying as it is, Steve appreciates that the little dork took the time to study what’s wrong with him enough to provide armchair diagnoses and give him advice about things that he already knows. 

Robin is… more of a twin than a sister. (Which, yeah, twin sister, whatever. That’s not the point.) They’re on the same wavelength in a way he’s never experienced before, not with Tommy or Carol or even Nancy. The closest thing Steve has ever had to this was during basketball games, in the heat of a play where everyone on the team knew where everyone was and where they’d be and how to work together as a unit, perfectly in sync. Only with Robin, it’s all the time. Sometimes they can even finish each other’s sentences—though they try not to do that around her parents, in the interest of not wanting them to think they’re a couple. 

They’re more like a pair of bonded kittens at the pound, Robin says. Must be adopted together. (“Okay, but why can’t we be dogs? Dogs are cooler.” “Because, dingus, you have a one-hundred-and-twenty-seven step hair and skin routine and you’re incredibly aloof when you want to be. I could go either way, but you’re one hundred percent cat.”)

“Maybe,” he whispers finally. 

He’s not sure she’s still awake—he’s not sure he’s still awake, with the soothing music lulling him back to a calm he hadn’t felt even before he’d gone to bed the first time. But he wants to think she hears it, just like he wants to think that he’ll run into Eddie and find out what it’s like to hold his hand, maybe even kiss him, all in the same night. He’s worn lip gloss, he can deal with a little makeup. 

“Maybe I’ll go.”

~

Dear Secret Admirer,

Thank you for the tape, it’s perfect. It helps me get back to sleep because it feels like you’re there, watching over me. Like nothing bad can happen. Sometimes the nightmares still come back after but I think it’s getting better. It takes a while, you know? Last time, after the after Billy after my last concussion it took a while to stop having bad dreams. I guess the mind needs time to heal too, even if the stuff that happens to it isn’t as “real” as breaking a nose or a rib. Who knew?

I really am serious, yeah. Even though I’m me. Whatever that means. I don’t really know what to do with myself or what I want right now. (Except you. Kind of cheesy, but maybe you like that about me? I guess it’s something I always tried to hide before because the guys would’ve made fun of me, fuck knows Tommy did all of junior year, but I kind of like the idea that maybe you saw it anyway.) Once my face heals up me and Robin are going to try and get jobs together somewhere else because we’re cats that have to stick together or we’ll get stressed out and claw all the furniture. Other than that I don’t know what I want to do except leave Hawkins someday. But stick around to make sure it’s to see the kids graduate. Dustin’s starting high school in the fall, maybe you could keep an eye out for him? Curly hair, no collarbones, ego bigger than the whole state, total nerd but in a good way, even if he’s sometimes a butthead about it. He plays that game with dragons and those weird looking dice, do you know it? Him and his friends Mike and Lucas are kind of bully magnets. (Max is starting freshman year too but she can take care of herself in that department.) They’ve all been pretty down after the mall and with Will and moving away and everything. Erica, Lucas’ little sister, I guess I’m her “babysitter” now too, is still in middle school but I don’t know if she’d be glad or insulted if I waited around to see her graduate. She can take care of herself too. She and Dustin were with us for most of the Starcourt burning down and it was a lot, but kids are resilient. I don’t think she gets nightmares, not that she would ever admit to anyone if she did even though in her own words “we’ve bled together.” She’s getting into the nerdy dice game too and is planning her campaign for President of the USA as soon as she turns, what, 40? 50? Whatever age you have to be before you can do that. I’ll probably still be in a town like Hawkins with another lame retail job by then, but she’s got my vote. She’d do a hell of a lot better job than Regan, that’s for sure. 

Is your mom My mom never sang to

Also, you are really good at guitar, man. I still think about your hands, I bet you have long fingers. Really… What’s a word for ‘good with his fingers’? I think about that sometimes. I don’t really know what kind of stuff two guys can do together except the obvious but I think about that a lot. I want you to play me like your guitar. I’d let you fight my battles too, at least until my ribs get back to normal and then we can both fight both of our battles. You know I’d do that for you, right? If you ever need me. I really like these letters. I really like you.

Love, Steve

P.S. If you were serious about making me another tape (which you really don’t have to, this was already going above and beyond), my favorite songs are…

Tag list (and if you missed the earlier chapters check the "#secret admirer steddie" tag on my blog): @hotluncheddie @lawrencebshoggoth @sofadofax @tangerinesteve @steviewashere

@cryingglightningg @theresebelivett @sleepy-steve @rozzieroos @lunaraindrop

@just-my-latest-hyperfixation @wheneverfeasible @swimmingbirdrunningrock @yesdangerpls @matchingbatbites

@ihavekidneys @p0lybl4nkk @grtwdsmwhr @cheesedoctor @whalesharksart

@thetinymm @envyadams-vs-me @practicallybegging @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @dauntlessdiva

@nerdyglassescheeseychick @fuzzyduxk @chaosgremlinmunson @greatwerewolfbeliever @goosesister

@dolphincliffs @friendlyneighborhoodgaycousin @beckkthewreck @pitrsattabhaadmeinjao @kurofuckingshi16

@bookworm0690 @millseyes-world @live-laugh-love-dietrich @the-tenth-mus-e

[alienssstufff]

Hello I just found you from the scarland artbook and your art style gave me instant happy brain feeling so I would just like to say! Hi! Hello! Your art is amazing and I wanna chew it like a gummy! Thank you so much for contributing to such an awesome thing with your super awesome art :D

ONE OF MY GREATEST WORKS AAAATHANK YOUUU >w<!!!

I remember the before stages so vividly (queue flashback to me telling it)

on god I remember being like THERE there when the (soon-to-be) mods tweeted implying it, writing up that interest form immediately as soon as it came out. I forgot how late into the application phase I sent mine in I wrote out drafts, carefully curated images (lie. i threw almost every concept art drawing i've done in that google drive folder i could get my hands on: 31 drawings), I legitimately remember spinning a wheel for which section of the park I was going to put as top preferences - funfact i still have a shoddy photo OF the submission screen for the application process

the behaviour of winners. dude when I tell you I wanted to be a part of that project so bad. I was SICK I started PRAYING..PRAYING. I DON'T DO THAT.

I went to bed the night before because no one lives in my timezone shivering and quakin', then I check my email first thing Sunday morning lo and behold ...i took a screenshot of that too. there's a star on that email (not showing that not doxxing myself)

Already love being a part of zines, I've already written my sappy thankyous everywhere for letting me have the privilege of being on this gigantic project I am eternally grateful for that opportunity. And huge thankyou for the success of the downloads and orders and general support from the community for such a legendary cause <3

[beatsboy]

7.28.24 / day 35 of romanticizing my life until i love myself again

it’s almost 2am, i woke up about an hour ago from a 5 hour “nap” after going to a queer day market to support my friend selling their art, and it was really cute and i was honestly super social as i have not had that much social interaction lately (getting used to living alone and having to actively go out and seek social interaction has changed my capacity when i do have it so much, like crazy not feeling drained every time i leave the house because i’ve already been like 5 people’s father/therapist/cleaner/etc before getting to the place i’m going to be supportive/present for someone else) but god damn it was so f u c k i n g hot and tbh i’m very proud of myself for making it as long as i did i only made it thanks to the ice cream vender who put my ice pack necklace (shoutout to my mom who has these for menopause and told me about them) in her cooler so it could get cold again and the lemonade vender who gave me a giant cup of ice to hold against various parts of my body to stay cool af and i got to talk about the music video, and future music videos, the more we talk about this stuff, the more motivated i feel to work on music i want to get to the part where i get to be the thing i’ve been building mostly in my brain for so long

originally, we were going for summer release, and then everything got all fucked up with my roommate situation and moving but i think it was meant to happen this way; this project is better suited for the fall, regardless, and clearly brat has taken over this summer in terms of music, on all levels, especially in the hyperpop scene there are still brat parties going on in la, smaller artists are still reaping the benefits of this album (though not getting much credit, as per usual) love seeing the dare dj a petal supply remix of a brat song and getting all the credit, it’s fine we can continue letting cis white dudes get the credit for queer artists, it’s fine i was literally at a brat market today, where everyone had brat merchandise it’s hard for any other music to break through the brat noise in pop/hyperpop right now, not to mention, boypop is kind of fucking freaky, so i do think sept/oct release would be good for the theme

i rewatch the assembly of the first minute or so of footage and literally cannot believe that that is me these are the movements i practice in the shower, in the corner, in my room, when no one’s looking, movements, expressions, i rarely actually see and the thing is, when i do see, i often shrink from them when i tried to practice performing like this in front of a mirror, i always lost it, the authenticity of it, the commitment, giving fully into the performance, the character, the self that’s the only way, in my opinion, to perform, because any level of restraint pulls you back to reality, that i am just a human, an insecure boy, going through puberty for the second time in his life of 27 years, afraid that he hasn’t done enough in his short time on this earth and wishes he’d taken a life-altering journey to a faraway planet where pop music was the harbinger of liberation instead of a stint in rehab and a coke addiction

anyway, market was fun, although so so hot, and after not going out all weekend, especially after thinking i was going to go to the rave on friday night and not, i really needed some socialization, with friends, and new people, and really needed some real time spent out of my apartment i got a really cute trucker hat that says “gay son” that i’m obsessed with and a really beautiful zine made by a trans guy about his gender journey (originally to raise money for his top surgery, which he had evidently already had, as he was standing there, fearlessly, with his shirt off) i honestly didn’t want to spend another $10 (i literally still have to make my rent in the next 3 days but telling myself i got this) but i think i just feel this intense awe when i see other trans guys post op shirtless, so free in a way i cannot imagine being so, naturally, i was blinded and overcome with this feeling, so i paid the $10 for the zine, and of course i do not regret it at all another vender had a kitten cafe with two 2 week old kittens inside (pictured) because they were too young to be left alone and while i was worried about them and the heat, they were quite cute

after being at the market for over 4 hours, af and i came back to my place, where i made us greek wraps with ground turkey and homemade tzatziki and cucumbers after we walked to h mart to get fresh tortillas i showed them the latest version of “boypop” which is so close i can taste the final mix (and am a bit mad i didn’t work on it today, but it’s fine, i was exhausted) they noticed the automation, the changes i’ve been making, i feel like i’ve actually been moving forward in my work this past week instead of just hyperfixating and going in circles, which is a danger i face in the finishing phase it’s hard to let go of a project, to let it be done i still listen to “king” and think of different harmonies i could record now with my current voice and i can sing whatever i want live, but the recording is done, the mix is done, there are no more changes to be made

i think, in the same way that i love people for their potential, and not always for who they are right now, i see a song as it’s potential, which is why i can imagine so much more than what is actually in front of me, and translate that symphony in my head into the daw, and i also why it’s so hard to let go, to stop, to step away from the infinity of changes and evolutions each project could still face sometimes it feels like i could just work on something forever and as i learn new things it will keep getting better and better, but at some point, i just have to let go

when i was a kid, my dad told me that an artist’s first album is always the best because it’s the cumulation of only their best works at the time, but then they just have to keep creating and they slowly get worse and worse i don’t know why i let this stick with me, more insidious influence from my father on a career i hadn’t even chosen when i knew him, it was just some dumb musing from a middle-aged man making himself feel smart by making a comment about maroon fucking 5

his birthday was 2 weeks ago i wonder if it makes him sad, on his birthday, at the age of 66, knowing he’s grown to be the kind of man who would offer back his relationship to his child, who has grown to hate him more than he hates himself, at a price, who has grown to be a man who can put a price tag on anything, even his love and support knowing he is one of the only people left in this planet, soon including even TSA agents and the DMV, to call me that name to wonder if i will ever come back, if i will ever call, if i will ever reach out, if i will ever show up and say i’m sorry dad you were right all along i got off the path and i sold my body and i want to go back to my normal life with a check for $5000, crying, and return to his control (i won’t) he tells my brother that it’s on me, ball’s in my court, if i want to come back that’s all i have to do, say sorry and pay the fine my terms have always been more simple, which i have communicated let’s talk, with a therapist present you two (parents) schedule (since they have crazy schedules) and i will be flexible (even though i too have crazy schedule) “he said he’s willing” my mother claimed, but it never came to fruition, of course not i blocked his number at first, i had to he wouldn’t stop calling, threatening me, telling me i’d made my mother sick with my behavior (becoming financially independent after realizing i was being financially/emotionally abused) i responded to his emails for a while, but they got worse, so i stopped then, his dad died, and i unblocked him just to call and give my condolences i left him unblocked after that. he could have called any time he wanted, but he didn’t i would know if he’d even tried

i wonder if my dad, too, ever sat alone in his first solo apartment journaling about his thoughts and reflecting on the ways his actions impacted other people mostly i hope not, because i don’t want to know if he did good things before he went bad, i want his fate to feel impossible for me to come to i already know that he read the tao te ching and the four agreements, things i’ve read as a young adult, that have brought me peace, that have taught me ways to move through the world, that don’t make sense when i think of him, and it makes me uneasy i don’t want to envision him being a morally good person and suddenly turning it makes me fear that i could still face the turn, when i want to believe that i have avoided it, that i am not capable of becoming a man like That

but, in truth, we are all capable of becoming like that, of selling out to some idea worse than what we believe in because it’s easy, because what we’re doing now is hard, because the rat race is tiring on the ground because our bodies are tired because maybe our fathers were right and the world’s a hard place and maybe i won’t because i know he wasn’t right, he never was, he was a professional bully who practiced on his wife and children but it is in every decision we make, daily, hourly, minute by minute, that determines who we are, and in ever decision, we can make the turn, we can cave and be cruel, we can give in and take the easy route, knowing that each of those decisions pulls us closer to That which we fear becoming the evil you fear lies as much in buying all your furniture on amazon as it does saying something cruel to someone who doesn’t deserve it just because you’ve had a stressful morning as much as the goodness you chase lives in being friendly to the coffee employee who’s taking forever on your drink when you’re late because it’s not their fault and their morning is just as important as yours as much as it lives in buying from local artists every decision determines how you move through the world, connecting each step and choice like a river, that is where you find where you’ll end up, which ocean you end up submerged in, which fish you will find yourself swimming into the dark night with and i crave free, calm waters for when i my end

[roostertuftart]

aside from your partners, who are some sp fanartists you can recommend? especially style since that's my favourite ship

Ahhh I love the excuse to make a rec list!!! This is gonna be bit long! I've collected as many names of people that I could think of that I feel relatively fond of in terms of their artwork and personalities, and I decided to include some fanfiction writers I find to be worth a follow as well!! Hope that's okay ^-^ Also I'll be including my partners anyway since I want this post to come of use to anyone else new to the fandom and looking for style creators here :3

@bbathsalts - AMAZING style artist but also general multishipper

@erratic-brainrot - great metawriter, creates a lot of headcanon related posts, multishipper but loves style, esp as a part of a poly

@pononoin - especially fond of their silly creatures and scene!Kyle x goth!Stan

@traitor-boyfriend - meta writer and amazing artist, and I love their style artwork so much.

@south-park-meta - Wonderful style artist and AMAZING meta writer. Super nice person too!!!

@emilyartstudio-s - I have to assume you already follow her because like- Who doesn't in this fandom??? And for good reason!! But yess, one of the most iconic style artists in the fandom!!

@foxydodo - Really talented style artist!!!

@stankyles - Beautiful artwork, makes some cute comics too!

@glitchygorge - SOOO many good ideas, talented artist, has awesome AUs and headcanons, and has a youtube channel where they post south park (including style!!) videos as well!! I know this is Tumblr recs but they have way too few subscribers tbh

@eatbabies0 - Very cute art close in style to the show's art!! Consistently adorable stuff!

@feralhoundbones - cute style artist!! Draws a lot of au stuff of them as monsters and doggos and stuff uwu

@rk-reikyo - GORGEOUS art, my god. It's so high quality, and they have such cute style stuff, some of it being fully rendered short comics!!

@rainyfroggy - Doesn't draw quite as much South Park as they used to but they still do occasionally!! Definitely check them out!! Their art is so adorable and they're a super sweet person!

@clint-eastworm - God, they are so talented- Their work is stunning and very sweet and warm!

@marshwayle - Their art style is adorable!

@kiritila - Gorgeous art style, it's so pretty, and he has a really amazing fanfiction you should check out that I'll just drop as well :)

@miraco - Really beautiful artwork!!!

@lozislaw - omg loz ilysm DEF follow her. Gorgeous artwork and AMAZING fanfictions- Writer of probably my fav fanfic ever that I'll just drop here as well :)

@cherrysleepover - Beautiful style artist and super friendly person!!!

@adriabun - Aghh, I love their art, it's so cute!!

@wormfan77 - Dude their work is STUNNING

@virgosfreckles - SO talented!! Makes a ton of little comics and has a really cute animatic!!! Beautiful art style :]

@stripen - Really cute art style, I love their comic for the stylezine!

@dusksmote - Really talented artist and writer!!

@chifrija - Really beautiful art style!! Aghh I love it

@maccha-1228 - Really beautiful art!! They do a lot of traditional stuff which is pretty rare online these days, and it's so good!!

@d00dlecj - Super pretty art, and has some cute style comics!! I actually just found them today for the first time and I cannot believe I have been missing out for so long

@bunytime - Very good style artists and (I think?) one of the people who ran the style zine.

And lastly, not an artist but an amazing writer, @fayoftheforest !! She's got some beautifully written fanfics, and just makes a lot of very good South Park (especially style) posts about headcanons and meta and all that fun stuff :3

Here's some AUs/ask blogs I also find worth checking out!

@ask-the-freedom-pals-au - Okay a bit of a self boost here but my AU with @erratic-brainrot

@shipstylennyman / @flippingyouoff - So this is a poly between the main four boys but technically still style!! Their main is worth following too!

@south-park-dimensions - Super cute art style and really neat AU that I need to catch up on lol

@wgo-southpark - I keep up with this over Instagram better and if you have one, I suggest following them there since they share a lot of extra stuff on their story- But anyway! Super well written South Park teenager AU, and they've got some style in there that is emotionally ruining me ahaha

And lastly, some style related blogs revolving around fandom events :)

@styleweek - Coming up in the next few weeks so follow them now!

@spstylezinestylezine - Just came out and full of very beautiful artwork from many of the people listed above as well as others I probably missed! Give it a look :)

[everybodyshusband]

eueueueeuh Im reading this zine right now and your piece is so cuteeee I love the little switches between like "this is whats Going to happen" back to the present moment. and rain with the bread lmaoooo. my heart dude uuugghhhh

aaaaahhhh thank you so so much for your kind words and for buying the zine !!! i'm really glad you're enjoying my contribution to it :)) especially the tense switches oh my god i was so worried about those not making sense sdkfbksdf

to those of you who haven't bought the @home-charity-fanzine yet, i know i'm biased but it really is filled with so many works written and painted by incredible artists and definitely worth a purchase if you're able !! and all of the money raised from the zine is being donated to palestinian fundraisers and charities, so it's a win-win situation <3

[angie-j-kay]

🌸 and/or 🍀

Lol, I messaged you asking which OC to write about without checking the list. I need more tea. 🌸 Who's your most morally questionable OCs (not including villains)?

Gods, this is a hard one. I mean, it's gonna have to depend on your definition of "villains." I've got a couple of characters who aren't formally antagonists, but are still very much awful people.

To be fair, NONE of my characters are paragons of virtue. Most of these guys suck a little bit. Hell, even one of my romantic leads eats a bunch of people in the first book. And the second... and... yeah, Reli's got a theme here.

And if we're considering that the Fae do NOT measure themselves by Human ethics? Even the so-called Good Guys are going to make some decisions that we all hate. I wish they'd ask me before they do this crap.

As it is, I'm gonna be stuck somewhere between Ser Elias and Agent Larson, though. I won't tell you why, because that would be a spoiler, and they're both allies in the first book, but yeah. These two... just nah.

🍀 Which OCs would get along the best?

Most of them do interact at some point, and oddly, Doctor Pertwee and Billy Jameson surprised me by getting along way, way too well. Two old dudes who are trying just SO HARD to not have any more adventures of their own, but keep having to step in to rescue those damned kids who can't stay out of trouble. I suppose it was only a matter of time before they wound up living together.

Other notable options: Tracey and Sarah The Reliquus and Tracey Billy and Elias

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

What You Cast Out: A Tale From Little Egypt (Novel Masterpost HERE!)

A small college town is rocked by a horrific murder, with only one suspect. Officer Gabe Nelson knows Tracey Rutledge can't possibly be guilty, but the only thing more incriminating than the woman's behavior is everything else that his investigation reveals.

Why does the case trace back to her childhood home, and why did she run away from it eight years ago?

Why is the FBI as interested in Tracey as they are in the murder?

What smells like wet dogs?

As the case closes in on Tracey, so does the real killer. Gabe will have to choose between the life he has always believed in and the values he has always held, while the world he thought was real starts to fall apart.

Chapter 1 will be released to the public on March 1, and Chapters 3-5 will be available to Patreon and Ko-Fi followers!

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

NO AI WAS OR EVER WILL BE USED IN THE PRODUCTION OF MY ZINES.

If you like this post, I'd love it if you shared it so more folks could see it. The more people share this post, the more people will be able to read the novel!

And if you'd like to join my taglist, let me know!

The current taglist: @wedgie-of-destiny, @nightacquainted, @storminmywake, @brokenandlonelysouls, @tattur, @theamazingchickenman, @solstice-muse-collective, @axl-ul, @tucsonhorse

[ryttu3k]

First tabletop experience! Played the New Blood scenario along with @robotslenderman , @nevertrustanoracle , and two others whose names I didn't catch. My character was Blake the Toreador investigative journalist whose first reaction to waking up in a meat locker was "oh hell no" with a good amount of staring intently at a clean patch of wall being all "I pretend I do not see it" and Suffering thanks to their bane, while also pretending their white trenchcoat wasn't covered in their sire's blood.

(They later changed into a white t-shirt. This turned out to be a Poor Idea when they got a messy crit and ate an SI dude.)

Very much a Baby Beckett - the sheet even specified that they carried around a recorder (which they used while narrating their actions in the write-up) and notebook, and their motivations were largely based around the truth. The scenario introduces you to both the Camarilla and the Anarchs, although Blake's stance was much more, "I don't want to make any decisions until I learn more about what's going on" and just went with the Camarilla plan to try and stay in a stable-ish situation while they learn more.

I think I might keep them? Unsure if I'll have the exact same story, ie. a new fledgling who woke up in a meat locker shortly after Embrace, but definitely the key concepts - a Toreador investigative journalist who focuses on The Truth and definitely carries around a video recorder and notebook. I actually may be able to work this into the idea I had for a Sydney Toreador who loves zines and street media, actually, that could be pretty fun!

In terms of the actual game mechanics, I vibed pretty decently with the V5 ones - the hunger rules, rouse checks, stuff like that. I think in the future I'd like to keep with the V5 mechanics, but more V20-compliant lore because fuck the V5 Tzimisce? Use my Tzimisce homebrew and the like, or, preferably, not have amalgams at all as replacements for entire discplines, and just keep combination disciplines as something rare and interesting instead of "the entirety of Vicissitude is now based on Dominating your body into doing what you tell it to" lmao god why. And I do still like a lot of the V5 lore! I super dig the SI, and I think what they did with the Banu Haqim and Ravnos in particular were great! It's just, you know, other stuff that bugs me, haha. So a hybrid version may work well for me!

[stevethehairington]

I watched stranger things s1 way back when it aired and thought it was pretty good but then couldn’t be bothered to keep watching when s2 came out and haven’t paid it any thought since and yet now after seeing gif after gif of Eddie fucking Munson and reading headcanons and ficlets about steddie on tumblr I’m suddenly in a position where I’ve read at least 300k worth of steddie ao3 fics and I can tell I’m not about to stop any time soon. I still haven’t watched any more of the show. What is this strange power Steve and Eddie hold

omggg i feel this in my BONES. only difference is i have watched all of it (some seasons multiple times hskgsd) BUT. i totally get what you mean. like there is just SOMETHING about eddie goddamn munson. like, they put fucking CRACK in that boy or something lol.

i was a VERY casual fan before s4, like i watched s1 when it first aired too and i really liked it! but it was definitely one of those this is really cool i really dig it but i'm not like obsessed kind of likes. and i got excited about the other seasons too and i binged them all when they came out, but again, super casual!! like once i watched that would be it. i wouldn't really think about it all that much after. i didn't seek out any fan spaces for it, didn't really discuss the plots or analyze it or anything outside of like very general predictions with family and friends who watched too, and i certainly didn't create or write for it at all.

but then season god damn 4. season goddamn 4 and eddie goddamn munson!!!! i fell in LOVE. i got SUCKED IN. i was pulled DEEP. the obsession set innnnn, that funky little dude sunk his claws in deep and dragged me headfirst into a full on stranger things fixation - dedicating my blog to it, reading a million fics, writing a million fics, joining discords, signing up for zines - and i am STILL hooked, 4? 5? months later?

there's just something SO good about eddie and something SO good about steddie!!! steve and eddie just FIT so goddamn WELL it's insane, truly, how complimentary they are to one another. i reblogged a post about it earlier, where it pointed out how steve and eddie so clearly want the same things, how they have plans for the future but those plans are not set in stone, they're flexible, and all that really matters is if they're together and are able to get and give the support they need to. also i feel like they're both SO easy to put into any sort of situation - ESPECIALLY eddie. because like as much as the show gives him plenty of interests and traits and all, he is still SUCH a malleable character, still SO easy to project onto and relate to and to shape into what you want him to be. and that makes for a WONDERFUL canvas to work from.

and honestly, i am SO glad that this did happen, because like i've met so many incredible people through this fandom already and i've had such a good time, and also steddie has sort of like reignited my love for writing too? like, i didn't not love writing before steddie, but i felt like i was sort of in a writing slump for a very long time. like i wrote for other fandoms and pairings but i would never make it past 10 fics (barely even made it past 5 for some!!) and it just wouldn't stick, and i just wasn't coming up with ideas or getting that spark of inspiration. but with steddie ohhh my god!!! it's been FANTASTIC!! i've been writing more the past couple of months than i have the last like 2 years. i've broken the under 10 fics curse with them haha and i have sooo many ideas still. and the response to the fics i have posted has been insane!!! like so good! and i am blown away!!

so yeah, basically i owe eddie munson my goddamn LIFE sjfdhksf

(also, i totally do recommend you watch the rest!! like the show has it's issues and some rocky narrative choices, like all shows do, but overall it is a very enjoyable show and there's a lot of good stuff that comes out of the other seasons too!! ESP season 3, my beloved. scoops steve?? YES. scoops troop team up?? YESS. robin buckley introduction!!! YESSS!!)

[superhero--imagines]

A/N: Yes this is a shameless written work to make my application for a zine stronger, what of it?

Jokes, just kidding, but if you like my work please check out this internet form, linked here, to gauge interest in an x reader Haikyuu Zine I’m thinking of making!

Might make this a series too idk, I have a really good idea for Hinata and Kageyama

Osamu

* I feel like the first pokemon he ever got was an Eevee

* It was definitely a well thought out decision that he spent a lot of time thinking and debilitating about

* Since the region they live in is in the Hyōgo prefecture, which is in Kansai (which was sort of the blueprint Johto was based on) he might have considered Chikorita, or a Larvitar.

* A hardy pokemon who he could grow with

* Maybe even a pichu, which has three evolutionary stages, perfect for each period of his life

* But Osamu is still learning who he is, he’s always growing and changing

* So he goes with an Eevee, a versatile Pokémon that can grow and change with him

* No matter how hard he tries the Eevee sits on his shoulder all the time

* “Man, yer an affectionate thing ain’t ya?”

* After a while he just gets used to it, holding his arms out on instinct so he can carry his little fox

* At first he and Atsumu travel together but it becomes pretty apparent to him that while the occasional battle can be fun

* He doesn’t want to battle all the time

* Honestly the most fun thing is cooking and learning to make delicious dishes

* So they split up so he can learn more about cuisine and what he wants to do

* I can see Osamu having a larvitar and a lapras too

* The Lapras he got purely by coincidence, someone he met on the beach said that they breaded a Lapras but, it seemed to like to battle, would he like to have it?

* Osamu, who is usually a little lazy and apathetic towards everything, has stars in his eyes as he nods

* He raises it with a lot of love and care, and often doses off on it’s back on lazy days when Lapras wants to swim but he just wants to nap

* The Larvitar he hatches from an egg he got from a traveler

* I feel like it would be stuck in the Pupitar stage for a really long time

* To the point it starts to get frustrated that it can’t evolve

* “Don’t worry, these things happen when they happen, ain’t anythin’ to worry about” he says patting it softly

* Eventually it does evolve into Tryanitar, and like Eevee it’s very affectionate

* I think they all play a part in setting up/helping out at Onigiri Miya when Osamu decides he doesn’t really like battling anymore and just wants to cook and make delicious food

* The Tryanitar, though clumsy at first, serves orders, or at least tries to

* Osamu usually take Lapras to various islands and locations to get ingredients and learn different cooking techniques

* And the Eevee is sort of the mascot for Onigiri Miya

* I’m a little conflicted, because I can see Osamu keeping his Eevee an Eevee, saying something like:

* “You’re fine just the way you are, no need ta change if ya don’t want to”

* But I can also see the Eevee evolving into a Sylveon just from how much Osamu spoils and loves them

* He also has a munchlax somewhere around this time, that he found in the alleyway looking for scraps and basically adopted to be his taste tester in the restaurant

* “How’s this one? Better or worse than the first?”

* He’s super proud of his Pokémon either way

* And he loves them all equally

* Hanging on a wall in Onigiri Miya is a picture of him and Atsumu with their Eevees as kids, and a picture of Osamu with his Pokémon team

* It’s all very sweet

Atsumu

* Oh my god

* This dude is an impulsive hot mess

* You know how Osamu thought a lot about his starter Pokémon and what he wanted long term?

* Atsumu saw Osamu pick and Eevee and said

* “Me too, Ah want one of those too”

* But that’s about where the similarities end

* He can’t wait for his Eevee to evolve

* “Man a flareon would be bad ass, but Ah wouldn’t sneeze at an umbreon or anything”

* The Eevee does a Pokémon equivalent of a sigh before turning so they don’t have to look at him

* “Aw, don’t be like that!”

* Osamu and Atsumu travel together at first

* And I 100% believe Atsumu gets into a feud with an Aipom who’s always pranking and torturing him

* “‘SAMU THAT DAMN THING STOLE MA CLOTHES AGAIN!” He shouts before stomping into the woods, following the trail of clothes that the Aipom left behind

* Osamu raises an eyebrow as he continues stirring the curry

* “They’re just teasin’ ya ‘Sumu, they’d probably stop if you didn’t react like that” he mumbles under his breath, smiling when his Eevee bounds over to him

* The Aipom is just trying to get a rise out of him, and can you blame him? Atsumu is pretty easy to tease

* “Ah just wanna have a heart ‘ta heart with ya” He’ll say one day, hoping this will change things between them

* After baring his soul to the Aipom for over thirty minutes it gives him rather soulful eyes, before stealing his hat and a pack of crackers, and running off into the woods

* “Come back here dammit! Ah really liked that hat!”

* Osamu and the two eevee’s just watch

* “Well at least this is entertaining” he shrugs

* I can totally see Atsumu challenging every trainer he see’s to a Pokémon battle and being super aggressive about it general

* “We locked eyes! That means we have to battle, ’s the law!”

* “No it ain’t” Osamu says lazily beside him

* “IT’s tHe LaW!”

* He totally befriends a Totodile

* “‘SAMU, ‘SAMU, LOOK WHAT I CAUGHT!” He says, holding up his caught totadile who spreads their arms with a wide smile

* “Hmmm”

* “AIN’T HE THE COOLEST?”

* He just totally digs this weird creature

* They both have super chaotic vibes tbh

* Around the time he catches his third Pokémon, a scyther he got lucky enough to find, he starts getting impatient about his Eevee not having evolved yet

* “When are ya gonna evolve? It’s been years!”

* “Atsumu it’s literally been three weeks”

* “WEEKS!”

* He pouts when his Eevee sighs like she can’t stand his outbursts, and turns away from him

* “I’m just looking forward to seein’ who you become” he sniffles, and eevee’s ears twitch. Sighing she moves and sits on his lap

* She’ll give him the benefit of the doubt for now, he is her trainer

* He doesn’t say anything, just pats her head and smiles

* Halfway through, Osamu realizes he’s really not into battling, and that he’s more interested in learning about the different cuisines and dishes in every town they visit

* Atsumu is all about battling though, and after a while they part, with Atsumu going to compete in the league and get all the gym badges he can, and Osamu sails away on his Lapras to learn more about food

* His first night alone Atsumu is feeling pretty lonely, he’s never been without Osamu, when he hears a rustling outside his tent, he charges outside with his camping light expecting to see a thief, or maybe a member of team rocket or something

* But instead it’s just his Aipom

* His in the sense that it’s the Aipom that’s always tormenting him

* “Oh, it’s you,” he lets out a sigh of relief as he sits on the ground “well what do you want?”

* The Aipom frowns rubbing it’s head then pointing to Atsumu

* “Oh him? He’s gone, why ya miss his curry?” He grins, but the Aipom’s frown only deepens

* “Don’t ya get sad on me, he just had a different dream ‘s all”

* The Aipom looks at the ground for several second, a determined gaze when he looks up again

* Then he scampers over to Atsumu and perches himself on his shoulder

* “Ya wanna come with me?”

* Aipom only nuzzle it’s face into Atsumu’s neck, and he grins

* “Alright, sounds like a plan”

* After that, things get a lot more relaxed

* The time alone does him good and he matures

* He spends his time battling and learning from trainers he meets, battling the occasional team rocket goon, and getting the random egg from a townsperson he might meet

* He still has some childish tendencies

* “Damn it! How long am I gonna have to spend at this stupid lake looking for a dratini?” He shrieks, sitting on the edge of a pond in the safari zone. Eevee shakes her head, stretching after yawning. “And how am I supposed to catch anything with just these dumb pieces of bait and poke balls?”

* He sighs, and goes back to the task

* His exercise of patience works out though, because he managed to find a dragonair

* Atsumu still keeps his aggressive battling style, choosing raw power

* But it’s much more thoughtful and relaxed than it was at first

* “Nothing wrong with taking a break every now and then” he says to his Scyther as they widdle different wooden figurines

* It take a little over a year, in which time all of his Pokémon have evolved

* His totadile to a Feraligator, Scyther to a scizor, Dragonair to Dragonite, and his Aipom to an Ambipom

* The only one that hasn’t is his Eevee

* “That’s okay, take ya time, there’s no need to rush and grow up”

* There’s a possibility that his Eevee becomes an Espeon or even a Leafeon, but I think his Eevee decides to stay an Eevee, comfortable just the way they are

* He probably gets halfway through the Elite 4, before he has to start again, the second time with a typhlosion, and becomes league champion

* But he declines the position

* “Standing around waiting’ for someone to show up so I can battle them sounds boring, I’ll pass”

* He decides to go to different regions to meet more people and have more adventures

[nostraightheadcanons]

Can we have some NPC headcannons please?

 You sure can! I love making headcanons for NPCS, they deserve so much more love in my opinion! I may only do two for now because they ended pretty long, but if you’d more don’t be afraid to shoot another ask!

Kayane

☆ Presumably around 19 to 21 years old. ☆ She comes from a rich family, her parents are both wealthy entrepreneurs and dote on her older brother while she is left more in the shadows. Her parents are the money equals affection type with her, I headcanon her as someone who is generally pretty lonely. Probably struggles with making friends her age that are genuine. ☆ She fell in love with 1010 not because of their ideal perfect boyfriend gimmick but rather the message they spread. 1010 is all about sharing love . She treasures them dearly because no matter who you are or what you look like or your background they’ll always have love to spare. Her adoration for them is not one of a creepy obsessive fangirl because I’m not partially fond of headcanons that depict her that way. ☆ Pretty peppy and bubbly! She’s actually really kind and helpful but most of the time her personality is overshadowed by the fact she’s a fan of 1010. Lost in Metro Divsion, don’t worry Kayane is here to help! She’s the kind of introvert who just adores making friends and will talk to just about anybody! ☆ She adores the community and friends she has found through 1010 and is seen trying to recruit others in the fanclubs because more people means more friends. All the fans gathered together under the same want of love and comfort, and through the boyband they have found friendships and bonds that are unbreakable. ☆ She was reasonably upset after the whole BBJ revolution because Mayday and Zuke destroyed them seemingly without a care. Mayday called herself a fan but she fought them anyway under the guise of revolution and freedom. However the only good thing to come out of the revolution in her eyes is the fact the fans got to see more of the mysterious producer of 1010! Neon J! Something about the fact he was so willing to protect his troops and the city was heartwarming and inspirational; she couldn’t help but make a fanclub for him! He’s super duper cool! ☆ 1010 and Neon J know her personally. She is afterall the head of the fanclub, and I believe she is a major drive in the fanbase as well. She loves to do fan zines and 1010 based fan events along with charity streams, so much so the troops and Captain know her and met her in person multiple times! She even earned the nickname Kayane Pepper from Yellow | Green.

Celine

☆ Around 29 - 31 years olds. She is the older sister of Gigi and Joey. Gigi [27] being  the middle kid while Joey [25]  the youngest. All of them share a similar colour palette so honestly I really do see them all as siblings. Celine is the mature older sibling who deals with both of her brother’s shenanigans. ☆ Gigi’s a very fun loving dude, chill and friendly- very giving and such- he tries to see the good and everything and is the one that often cheers and brings out Celines bubbly loving side- her protective and funny side that not a lot of people get to see- he’s the middle who had to watch his big sister give up everything and his little brother struggle in the world- he’s faced hardships and how the world is unfair-  ☆ Joeys uppity to fuck and had “refined” tastes as a music elitist he wants more his fine taste and how artists don’t seem to try in his eyes comes from his Celine worked her absolute ass off for what? Scraps! His bitterness comes from the situation and everything around him. If his sister can work harder than these diluted trashy pop stars can, why do they deserve his praise? ☆ All of them provide comfort for one another, and all can equally be the anchor that can ground the others too. Since they’ve all dealt with loss and pain before, trust and honesty is a really big thing for all of them. 

☆ Both of her parents sadly passed away while she was a teenager so she had to step up to look after her brothers. Taking on two jobs to support them and put money on the table she had to self her own dreams and wants for the time being. She suffers from having to mature so quickly in life she struggles opening up and letting her walls down. She’s so used to having to be the strong figure head she ignores and pushes down her own feelings in return. ☆ Her mother was an aspiring fashion designer albeit their family wasn’t the most wealthy. Her mother used to create clothes from whatever scraps she could find using hand me downs as well. The two always bonded by doing make up and dressing up. So fashion, art and makeup is a big comfort for her, she feels complete and close to her mother in a sense when dolled up in the clothes. It is an art form an extension of who you are. Beauty is pain. Each stitch, each yard of fabric comes with a price. She has a dream and she’ll work herself to the bone to achieve it. She wants to thrive in a world that was pitted against her. Her mother’s creations really inspired her to be the fashionista and designer she is today. ☆  Actually decent friends with Zed, the two met when they were in their late teens! She was a waitress in a small local diner and he was the nerdy guy who was always at the same table, same time of the same day each week with no fail. Celine may seem like a popular preppy girl but it was quite the opposite, she was more of the loner type due to home situation and Zed being the socially awkward nerd. The two despite the odds became good friends, seeing him was always the highlight of her week. ☆ Possibly has the biggest crush on Amal you’ve ever seen and hates it too. Somehow that dorky unicorn man galloped his way into her heart. With his god awful taste in fashion and his embarrassing love for unicorns, somehow she finds it cute and endearing although she’d never admit it out loud.

[tongowheel]

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ATTN: @constablegoo​

OKAY HERE’S THE REAL ONE i had to put yours off until the end because i needed to focus on it. where do i even start??? 

you just GET odo on such a deep level and i feel like you get him in the same way i get quark, which is to say, you are in his brain but you also make him your own but you also know what’s still in character and ghrjekghfje god im insane. you make me like odo in ways i never thought i would. you make me think about his stupid sticky face.

writing with you — be it threads or fic — is just EASY. it comes SO naturally, like we’re completely on the same wavelength, and it’s so very rare. i’m extremely extremely grateful to have a writing partner like you.

and you just! take everything you do so seriously and put so much care into it and idk HOW you manage to do it all because you’re a busy little bee but it’s amazing!! art, fic, threads, taking care of your butterflies, zine stuff—! and it’s all amazing. you treat everything you do and every interaction as if it’s the most important thing in the world and that must take so much brain power. i really admire (and envy!) that. 

PLUS you have so many characters on stationiners idk how you do it how u manage to juggle them all but it’s AMAZING. dude. your mind.

i love chatting with you and laughing with you and watching star trek and other stuff with you, and staying up until 3am or waking up at 4am while you’re still awake at 3am and getting into shenanigans and inside jokes and i can’t wait to do all that IN PERSON IN JUST A FEW WEEKS AND AND AND —

mostly, i am so beyond grateful that you agreed to join me on this undertaking of a fic. it’s been the highlight of the last few months and it (and our friendship) has made me so stupidly happy.

you should be so PROUD of everything you’ve accomplished. you’re doing amazing. and i’m so lucky 2 be your friend :’) <3

[fjoundfjamily]

126

the beard has GONE

wat

virgin minimum tit lane vs Chad maximum tit alley

Steve Napoleon??

ok I REALLY wanted-

veth: I don't think xhorhassian ladies shave their bits

beau: dude. none of us do. it's medieval fantasy

BUT ALSO this conversation is so so good

TAKE A COPY OF OUR ZINE

yessss talking in bits while dancing is the BEST trope. such pride. very prejudice. wow

VOLSTRUCKER WHST

THEY FOLLOWED

sksksksk Caleb makes the cognouza ward sound like the white walkers

god Caleb's American accent knocks me for six every time hhh

ASTRID

I love artagan so much

melora has smiled upon the number 126, for that is the number of the beauyasha date

UM

ALL OF THIS

[aiviloti]

my 2020 fic writer wrap-up!!

this is going to be incredibly long (a total of 1.1k lmao) so imma put a cut here, but basically thank you for being here all throughout my 2020! i appreciate you all very much <3

fav kind of fic to write:

i love writing about mutual pining slow burn process of getting together but i have NEVER WRITTEN ONE IN MY LIFE so i hope to change that in 2021

in 2020 i discovered??? humour??? so i enjoy writing about that and when people tell me i’ve succeeded in making them laugh it’s all 😳😳😳 for me

hardest fic to write but also most proud of:

to write you a song was a fic i struggled with from all of april to june which is very long?? to me??? considering i usually sit down and write things in one seating. fully fleshed ideas don’t usually take me thaaaaaat long to crunch out, but for some reason i struggled bad with this bc I really didn’t know where i was going w it lol

LA LA LAND gets an honorary mention of it’s own simply because it was 44k, and it took me all of july-september, but it’s something i still am proud of! to show how difficult it was to write/plot here’s the spreadsheet i had to use to keep track of the scenes and the chapters djkgfsjdfkjhgd

Shout out to kiroiimye , sweet , sirius and krypt for keeping my sanity intact

easiest fic to write:

this genshin impact fic: The Land Favoured by the Wind but its because ive been thinking about this idea for more than a month lol so the actual writing and editing took me less than 3 hours

there were several others too, bc ideas then to hook themselves to me then refuse to let go fjshlfgdfsg

fav fic to write:

Most definitely this sakuatsu monstrosity here by the name of Miya Atsumu's unwavering love for Sakusa Kiyoomi and an unholy amount of terrible food analogies that should not have the right to Exist lol, I only came up with the idea of Atsumu asking Osamu how to make friends bc I was friendship pining for someone at the time and then proceeded to write the entirety of it in a feverish daze! It’s as of rn my top hit / kudoed / bookmarked fic on ao3 and man, thanks for liking this as much as i did :’D

writing sequence:

i have to write from start to finish lmao i cant move on if the fic isnt chronological? the only exception was la la land bc it was too long and i had help from the spreadsheet so i alr knew where i was going i just had to write it down dfhdsfksfksdfhjg

deleting works:

the only fics i remember deleting are both first chapters of a multichap, bc i dont like having unfinished pieces on ao3, and far less if im not sure if ill finish them/if i dont know where im going w it!

if it’s dark history of shit 15 year old me wrote imma keep it there! it is an archive after all. go on, judge my fics from 5 years ago ahahahaha

best writing advice:

not a general thing and might just apply tome, but i tend to write in very convoluted ways and squish a lot in my sentences, or add to many unnecessary commas, so i received advice recently about being more mindful of the pacing and it’s helped me a lot!

worst writing advice:

none at the top of my head djgfkdsjfh if it’s bs to me i just forget it entirelyyyy

collab:

@actuallyasweetpotato​ (also aforementioned sweet) and i did a thing for bokuaka week!!!! you can find it here:  under my breath and into your scarf

wips:

9 unfinished zine pieces, 3 commissions, 1 exchange piece, about 10 or so other things

fav story of another writer:

favourite things 

manly man falls for manliest man krbk fic!!!

gently, like a winter wind iwaoi birthday fic

sunchaser krbk fic

JUNO atsuhina fic

best review:

dude i cried

and shoutout to tien , sirius for fan art, fan comics, fan animatics of fics ive written, and shoutout to akemiiiii for this song they wrote i am eternaally grateful

worst review:

no negativity today!

prequel/sequel to other people’s fics:

none at the top of my head hm, but if anything probably any of kiro skk stuff 

do i reread my stuff:

yes, but only if they’re old enough for me to go “it’s okay even if i dont like it bc this is old”

published:

hopefully! even though i do take part in zines and i guess they already have been published in a broad sense

fav/least fav chara to write:

no one at the top of my head! it’s instinctive for me to go ahead and think about character motives whenever i come across them, so if i ever write about someone, i usually just put my spin/interpretation of a character in a way that i can comprehend. the pros of this is i can write about many people, and the downside is that these characterisations can come off as out of character to anyone who doesn’t agree w me hehe

deadlines or goals:

if it’s a oneshot that’s under 3k i usually aim to have it done within 24 hours of beginning the fic. even tho i rarely succeed, having that as a goal usually pushes me to get it done faster than i would have if i had no goal altogether! if it’s anything long i aim for 1k a day, tho rn all my deadlines are zine deadlines and on top of that there’s uni, so to say im not stressing about writing would be a lie LOL

fav writers: (am too shy to tag but i swear these people are literal gods)

chonideno (mag): tumblr | twitter | ao3

batman (teesta): twitter | ao3

maplefudge (raei): tumblr | twitter | ao3

trope never written, would like to try:

aforementioned SLOWBURN MUTUAL PINING ANGST W A HAPPY ENDING GETTING TOGETHER!!!

but also royalty au

trope you will never write:

haha loads

how long have you been a writer:

began writing around may of 2014!! it was a horrible piece but im glad i started somewhere

influences:

chonideno/mag is one! maggie stiefvater who wrote the raven boys is also one, among many others

hardest part of writing: 

writing action? writing things that are happening right now, describing people talking, eating

easiest part of writing:

descriptions of people, places, feelings. internal monologues, the like

best part of writing:

sharing how i perceive the world w other people, and discovering other people agree

wip sneak peek:

cw: hanahaki, falling out of love

this was written in a friend’s dms lmao this is why i sound like this

something unique i bring to all my stories

i had a revelation the other day after talking to all my friends and realised i have really pretentious titles

IF YOU’RE HERE

did you know the wc of this thing is 1k words? idk why you stuck through all of that but thank you. i’ll keep writing in 2021, and all the years after that, and i hope i’ll find you doing things you love too :)

[itsjackgilbert]

Situation Comedy

INSCRUTABLE MUSIC-VIDEO GENIUS MAKES MOVIE. IT'S VERY GOOD. INSCRUTABLE FILMMAKER DOES MAGAZINE INTERVIEW. IT'S VERY BIZARRE. A VERY SMALL GLIMPSE INTO THE INSULAR WORLD OF SPIKE JONZE, WHERE MAKING AWESOMELY STRANGE FILMS, WEARING FAKE PENISES, AND GETTING BEAT UP (SORT OF) ALL ARE PART OF THE SCENERY

BY ZEV BOROW

"He came to visit me once and when he first arrived I got a phone call that I had to come pick him up because his car had been impounded because he'd been chased by, like, ten cops on bikes after he drove his car onto these little fairgrounds and did a bunch of doughnuts. So, then I had to drive him around all weekend." — Three Kings director David O. Russell

"Actors are more consistent. They tend to land their tricks." — filmmaker Spike Jonze, on who is easier to direct, actors or skaters.

"He wanted his brother to be in Three Kings, so he shot an audition tape with his brother doing the Sharon Stone role in Basic Instinct, crossing and uncrossing his legs. It was the weirdest fucking thing I've ever seen." — David O. Russell

I meet Spike Jonze at the production offices of his new movie, Being John Malkovich, which is a bizarre comedy about a love triangle between three people who find a secret portal into John Malkovich's head behind a file cabinet in an office building where the ceilings are four feet high. John Cusack and Cameron Diaz and Catherine Keener are in it. So is John Malkovich. It's really good and weird and funny, though not always in that order. Spike Jonze directed it.

Jonze is 29 years old and sort of famous for directing some of the best music videos ever made: the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage"; Fatboy Slim's "Praise You"; Weezer's "Buddy Holly"; Björk's "It's Oh So Quiet"; and other really good ones, too. He's also made some excellent commercials and two interesting short films. However, mostly because of the exceedingly cool videos he's done for, mostly, exceedingly cool people, Jonze has also become famous for being exceedingly cool. A wide and deep selection of the hippest people alive dig Jonze. They are his friends. This past July Jonze married actress, filmmaker, and fellow sort-of-famous person Sofia Coppola. Tom Waits sang at their wedding. Tom fucking Waits.

Jonze is small and wiry, with the body and demeanor of a skateboarder, which he is. He is relaxed, unfailingly polite, and has a voice suggesting a 15-year-old boy. When we meet he is wearing a T-shirt and scuffed-up $350 Marc Jacobs shoes. He tells me he's supposed to meet with Knox, an as-yet-unknown guitar player, to discuss ideas for his video and invites me along. But first we go to buy a big bag of cat food for his cat.

Jonze says Knox plays "sort of country-funkabilly-Prince-like music...really beautiful stuff." A friend gave him a tape, he says, and he fell in love with it. We get lost trying to find Knox's house.

When we finally arrive, Knox says he was asleep because Jonze was supposed to arrive hours ago. Jonze says he's sorry, that it must have been his assistant's fault. Knox is tall, with short, dark hair styled vaguely pompadour-ish. His apartment is small. Neil Young in on the CD player. An acoustic guitar rests in the corner.

"I'm the only one in the band, so I do the whole gig," Knox says. "My old man was a guitarist and my mother was, like...well, she was a capable pianist, not great. I'm from Tenness–Knoxville–that's why I go by Knox. My mother ahd a baby two years before me, a little boy, and it died at birth, and I am, like, the copy of that kid. And my little brother almost died at birth 'cause of me, so it's kind of all cyclical. But I'm still tweaking it. So, uh, what kind of ideas do you have?"

Jonze talks about making a video that's not very commercial, about something that's cool in and of itself.

Knox: "I just don't want it to be cute. Don't take this as an affront, but some of your videos are...cute. The 'Buddy Holly' thing was little fucking cute. I was thinking more of an early John Cugar-type of thing. Like 'Jack and Diane.' Maybe with some of the words on the bottom of the screen."

Jonze: "Uh, cool.... But it’s also cool to do something maybe not as literal.” He asks Knox if he wants to be in the video. Knox says maybe just his face, as a child.

Jonze says he could come over with a video camera and they could try some stuff out.

Knox: “Like what?”

Jonze: “Well, I don’t want to just throw stuff out.”

Knox: “Well, I’m not going to steal your stuff.”

Jonze laughs, sort of. There is an awkward silence.

Jonze: “How about a video with Xeroxes, just as a cool medium?”

Knox: “Yeah, well, that sounds schticky. Xeroxes are schticky.”

Jonze tries to say something about form. Knox says he likes “the Jazzercize” video Jonze did.

Jonze: “‘Praise you.’ Cool.”

Knox turns toward me and says he doesn’t think Spike looks very into it. Jonze says he doesn’t want to do anything he’s done already. He asks Knox if he saw the video he did for Sean Lennon.

Knox: “Nah. That guy’s too fuckin’ avant garde for me.”

Jonze: “No, I’m not saying that. It’s just I don’t want to make something silly out of your song, but at the same time....” He trails off.

There’s a tense silence, then Knox turns to me and asks if I have any ideas for videos. I tell him I don’t. Knox says “fuck,” loudly.

Jonze: “Look, I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do, and if you don’t really like my stuff maybe we shouldn’t work together. I like working with people who are....”

Knox: “Yeah, well...fuck.... Well, if you come up with some ideas, any ideas, call, but I just...shit.”

Jonze: “I should go.”

Jonze gets up. Knox begins to pace. Then he screams, “Fuck!” and throws a small wooden chair Jonze had been sitting on against the wall. It shatters.

Jonze: “Dude, chill.”

Knox: “I think you better leave!”

Jonze: “I was just....”

Knox: “Just fucking leave!”

Then Knox pushes Jonze into a wall, hard. I think to myself: Spike Jonze is about to get his ass kicked. Then, like a panther (or jaguar), Jonze jumps at Knox. They hit the floor. Jonze is on top of Knox, throwing punches at his head. After about 15 seconds, I pull them apart. Knox gets up and screams, “Wait right fucking there!” and runs into a back room. Jonze looks at me and says, “Let’s get the fuck out of here!” and runs out the door, fast.

Knox jumps out from the back room, glowering and holding a baseball bat.

DRIVING AWAY, JONZE MUSES ABOUT HOW “HECTIC” things got with Knox. He repeatedly pushes his face toward the rearview mirror and asks if I think his eye looks swollen. It doesn’t. He says nothing like that has ever happened to him before, except once “with Everlast, but it never got physical.” We pull into a 7-Eleven and he gets a juice and some Advil.

I try to ask some more questions about the movie. “I’m apprehensive about talking about it at all,” he says, “because I feel like it’s going to cloud someone’s opinion. You think about all the movies you had preconceived notions about, about all the ones you read stuff about until you were sick of them before you even saw them.

SPIKE JONZE’S REAL NAME IS ADAM SPIEGEL. He isn’t interested in talking about why, or when, he started going by Spike Jonze, or how much it has to do with Spike Jones, the 1940s band leader, but it’s probably related to the fact he grew up hanging out with a lot of competitive BMX bikers similarly fond of pseudonyms and alter egos. He was raised in Bethesda, Maryland, a well-heeled suburb of Washington, D.C., where his mother enjoyed photography and his father enjoyed being the scion of an extremely successful family-owned catalog company. Jonze is the middle child (younger brother; older sister) and was into skateboarding, photography, lots of Dischord-era punk rock, and, most of all, BMX.

In the mid-’80s, BMXing’s popularity was exploding, and Jonze was spending much of his time at Rockville BMX, a legendary retail and mail-order BMX shop in nearby Rockville, Maryland. At age 15, he accompanied the Haro pro-BMX team on a summer tour of the U.S., serving as part-time roadie, contest announcer, T-shirt salesperson, and using an old 35-millimeter camera, team photographer. By the time he was 16, he was writing and taking pictures for skate and bike magazines. At 17, immediately after finishing high school, he moved to Torrance, California, to work at Freestylin’, the sport’s preeminent glossy. There, he met Mark Lewman and Andy Jenkins, two kindred spirits.

“We were all living together in this apartment across the street from the magazine’s offices, in the Valley, which was like the epicenter of the skateboarding and BMX world,” says Lewman, who was 18 at the time and is now a creative director at Lambesis, a San Diego–based advertising agency that deciphers youth culture. “We’d skate to work, ride ramps, listen to Black Flag and Eric B. and Rakim, and get into adventures drinking Night Train, being weird, and stomping around downtown L.A.”

They’d also make zines. First, in 1991, Homeboy, then, two years later, Dirt. Clever and funny, they became popular with the 25-and-under, proto-extreme-sport, punk/rap-inclined hipster set. During this time, Jonze also started getting hired to take photos for magazines such as Details and Interview. And he began filming skateboarding videos, including one particular deft collaboration with ‘80s skate god Mark Gonzales titled Blind Skateboard Video.

One night, backstage at a Sonic Youth concert, Gonzales gave a copy of that tape to his friend Kim Gordon, who dug it so much that she asked Tamra Davis–who had just directed her first film, Gun Crazy, and had yet to become the wife of Beastie Boy Mike D.–to work with Jonze on shooting some skateboarding segments for Sonic Youth’s video for the song “100%.” He was 21.

Jonze has always lived in something of a rarefied world inhabited by bikers, skaters, emerging rock icons, and movie stars. Even so, he notes, he first met the Beastie Boys through his sister. She and Adam Yauch met in traffic school. The Beasties and Jonze share an appreciation for the absurd. Yauch and Jonze used to do things like rent police uniforms so they could direct traffic in Manhattan.

A few short years after “100%,” Jonze was established as America’s preeminent director of unusual music videos. This fact seemed to bore him. In 1998′s Fatboy Slim “Praise You” video, the one with the dancers in front of Mann’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, Jonze credited the direction to Richard Koufey and the Torrance Community Dancers. To this day, Jonze denies having been a part of it. Earlier this year, a typed letter arrived at the Spin offices vehemently demanding Spin retract its report that Jonze directed the video. It was signed Richard Koufey and included a detailed résumé for Koufey that stated he was a dancer in the “Thriller” video, the “Love Shack” video, the film Dirty Dancing, and something called “Dancextravaganza” at the opening of a Dellamo Fashion Center.

IN ADDITION TO BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, Jonze has another movie coming out, one in which he acts. It’s called Three Kings and was written and directed by David O’Russell. The two met when Jonze hired Russell to help him write a script for Harold and the Purple Crayon, which was to be a partially animated adaption of the children’s book, and Jonze’s feature-film debut, but never made it into production. Jonze costars in Three Kings with George Clooney, Ice Cube, and Mark Wahlberg. They play four U.S. soldiers who try to steal a secret cache of Kuwaiti gold at the end of the Gulf War. It’s a different, very sharp war-genre picture. Jonze plays a redneck private who is the sidekick of Wahlberg’s more seasoned soldier.

“I’d never really acted before,” Jonze says. “A few little things with friends, but nothing serious. And it’s not like I really want to get into acting. But David was really into me doing it, and Mark was especially supportive. In some ways I feel like I had no right to do it. But it was a lot of fun.”

Russell recalls Jonze’s commitment to the project. “He stayed in character a lot on set, and I think he eventually regretted it because Mark started beating the shit out of him as if Spike was really his tagalong sidekick. We tried telling Mark to go easy on him, but he was in character too. I think Spike was upset that that was happening.

AMONG THOSE IMMERSED IN THE CULT of Spike Jonze, the Weird Al prank is infamous. As partially recounted in an issue of the Beastie Boys’ zine, Grand Royal, Mike D. and Russell Simins, the drummer for Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, interviewed by Weird Al. During the interview, they got the conversation to come around to the Beatles. Precisely at that moment, they had Sean Lennon and Yoko Ono walk by and staged something weird and funny. No one at Grand Royal can remember exactly what happened, but it included Spike Jonze dressed up as a waiter.

I didn’t know of the Weird Al prank until weeks after meeting Jonze. As such, I spent a good portion of my evening immediately following the Knox vs. Jonze incident breathlessly telling friends all about their fight, until a friend, a longtime skater, looked at me and matter-of-factly said: “He staged it.”

Two days after the fight I go to meet Jonze for lunch, and, even though I’m not sure, I tell him I now that the afternoon with Knox was staged. Jonze demurs. “That would be gnarly” he says. “Maybe we should come back to this topic after lunch.

We pull into a Carl’s Jr. Things between us are slightly tense. I keep pressing him on the issue as we walk into the restaurant. Jonze doesn’t say anything until he’s just about to order at the counter, then he says we should walk outside. I follow him into the parking lot toward a parked black sedan. There is a guy in dark sunglasses sitting there, sipping on a Coke.

“Dude, it’s off,” Jonze says. “We’re busted.”

Jonze then reveals that he’d “planned something” for right there, right then, at the Carl’s Jr. We all had back inside the restaurant, where Jonze begins walking around the seating area and tapping on what appear to be lonely Carl’s Jr. diners on the shoulder. There are four of them, strategically placed; two have video cameras hidden on them, on has a regular camera. Two of them, including the guy from the car, who is Jeff Tremaine, the art director of the skateboarding magazine Big Brother, are wearing hidden microphones.

“This was going to be an all-out assault,” Tremaine says. “I was going to walk by and bump into Spike and my drink was going to fall all over me. And then I was going to get all jacked at Spike and knock some shit on him and get into a fight.”

“I was actually going to take a punch this time,” Jonze says, “but I was also going to bite down on some blood pellets.” He shows me two small capsules of fake blood. “I wanted the whole article to be about how I keep getting my ass kicked.”

“I was going to knock over the salad bar,” Tremaine says. “We were going to have the whole thing on tape. I twas going to be a turkey shoot, like Kennedy.”

“You are all extremely fucked up,” I tell them.

Jonze says he started planning for it late last night and tells everyone he’s sorry he didn’t go through with it. Tremaine tells Jonze that he was excited to punch him. Then, everyone tells me some stories of previous pranks, the best of which is described as simply the Hard-On One. It goes something like this:

The guy who played Knox yesterday–a friend of Jonze’s who also pulls stunts like getting himself hit by a car (for a Big Brother photo shoot) and shooting himself with a gun while wearing a bulletproof vest (for fun)–puts on a pair of flimsy gym shorts, out of which sticks a large, fake rubber penis. Then, he goes out and gets into a pickup basketball game. Next, he walks into a guitar store, where, when a salesman hands him a cord to plug in, the salesman is pulled toward the fake rubber penis. After that, he makes a quick stop at a karate studio, from which he is quickly removed. Finally, he goes to get measured for a tux, where, according to Jonze, the tailor exclaims [in a thick Indian accent], “What? You always run around with your dick sticking out?”

“It’s amazing,” Jonze says. “We’ve got the whole thing on tape.”

After Carl’s Jr., Spike lobbies me to concoct a wild, made-up story with him, one I could submit in lieu of the article. He’s got some funny, clever ideas for it, too.

“SPIKE DIDN’T GROW UP WATCHING A TON OF FILMS or even TV,” says Kim Gordon, who has known Spike ever since he worked on “100%.” “So he’s not tied to any sense of history image-wise, the way most people are. He just has a real instinctual feel for what people like. And he’s willing to try absolutely anything.”

“I think he kind of looks at everything like it’s a chance to take a golf cart and make it go 60 miles per hour,” says his old friend Lewman. “It’s always been about having a really good time.” Even so, by all accounts Jonze is meticulous, tireless even, whether it concerns a feature film, or taking down a Carl’s Jr. salad bar. His willingness to go to almost any lengths to maintain the integrity of any project–no matter how seemingly small, trivial, or twisted–is nothing short of spectacular. It is probably the one quality that best portends him making very good movies for a long time. A vast portion of Jonze’s creative energies are consumed by these tiny, hysterical performances that will never make any money, that are solely for the benefit of himself and his like-minded friends.

“But it’s not about being weird for weird’s sake,” Lewman says. “I mean, Malkovich is a movie that, at its heart, is about something everyone can relate to–desperately wanting to be someone else.... I think a lot of how [Jonze] looks at the world might come from skating and biking. You do that as a kid and you don’t look at things normally. You look at a hockey rink and see a place to skateboard. You look at a bench as a thing to do tricks off of.”

I SEE JONZE ONE MORE TIME. HE MAKES IT OBVIOUS he’d rather I not write about the Knox and Carl’s Jr. pranks. Further, he mostly turns off my tape recorder any time I start to ask him anything. He tells me he doesn’t know what to do because he doesn’t want to come off as a guy who is lucky enough to make cool movies with big stars but is all petulant about talking to the press. He tells me again how anything he says as far as explanation of his own work is less interesting than someone’s own interpretation of his, or any, movie. About an hour passes. I ask him to name some of his favorite movies and filmmakers.

“I like stuff that is unpredictable in terms of tone,” he says. “I like Tim Burton, The World According to Garp, Being There, all the Coen brothers’ stuff. I feel really lucky to even have the opportunity to try to make those kinds of movies.”

I ask about his movie, about what Malkovich was like.

“He’s just amazing. Really genuinely eccentric. He heard about the script and contacted us, loved the idea. It was weird because he plays himself in the movie, but it’s not really him, it’s the script’s idea of him. Whenever I see him do the Dance of Despair and Disillusionment, I’m like, this guy is my hero.”

The Dance of Despair and Disillusionment is reason alone to see Being John Malkovich. In the movie, John Cusack plays a puppeteer who enters the body of John Malkovich and forces him to give up acting for puppeteering. At one point, Malkovich acts out the dance he wants to be his ultimate master-puppeteer work, the Dance of Despair and Disillusionment. Just out of the shower, he acts it out in a towel. David Fincher, the director of Seven and Fight Club, fellow former music-video director, and close friend of Jonze, calls it “up there with Butch and Sundance jumping off the cliff, as far as greatest movie moments ever go.”

I try to get Jonze to talk about other things, videos, his commercial work. (Jonze often shoots commercials, the most recent being Lee Jeans’ “Buddy Lee” spots.) He won’t. A few days later, we talk on the phone. He asks how I’ve decided to “handle” the article, says he knows I’ll write “something good.” The next day, I call him back, ask him to clear up some factual stuff, dates he worked on things, how he first met certain people. He’s not into it. But, before we get off the phone, he does answer one question.

Me: Where did the idea for the “Sabotage” video come from?

Jonze: “Australia.”