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copias-thrall · 3 years

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Cause I'm Young and I'm Here and So Beautiful

A look into the rise and fall of Mary Goore's flash-in-the-pan modeling career.

~12.5K Mary Goore/Reader *drug/alcohol use; mentions of past child abuse; brief homelessness; plot no porn; POV shift*

This fic was inspired by and is very loosely based on Aurelio Voltaire's early days in NYC in the 90s, though I have set it in Boston in the early aughts. 😊

Many thanks to the artists who did commissions for this! 🥰

One Way Streets

Mary stepped off the regional rail and gripped his backpack. He had $72.57 in cash rolled into his socks and a give-em-hell attitude.

When he’d packed his bag the night before, he wasn’t even sure if he’d go through with it, but he couldn’t stand being home anymore. Some of his friends had told him he was crazy.

"Three more months, dude. You got this. Just finish high school, then bounce."

But they didn’t have to live with his dad and the step-monster. Every day was a new indignity. Having them bitch about his music and his style was one thing—that he could have dealt with—but everything else had just kind of…escalated.

Now that the kiddies were older, they’d turned into gremlins. They’d somehow sensed that Mary wasn’t their beloved older brother—he was some sort of half other. They’d stopped questioning why "mom was so mean" to him and had accepted that she was because there was something wrong with Mary. They realized they could be little shits and blame everything on him.

And dad just didn’t care. He’d throw up his hands and say, "I have to live with her"—as if Mary wasn’t in the same boat.

Dad hadn’t stopped her when—in a rage—she’d smashed every single vinyl album Mary had owned because the twins ruined her nice tablecloth. He’d shrugged when she cut all Mary's guitar strings so he couldn’t play "the devil’s music." He’d held Mary back when she took a match and burned all his secret stuff that Mary kept under his bed—action figures, books, guitar mags, journals—in the backyard because he got detention for smoking. He hadn’t said a word when the police showed up after she came at Mary with scissors because he’d dyed his hair black and he’d pushed her away before she could scalp him.

Mary thought for sure he was going to get carted off to jail as she screamed about him terrorizing the family and being afraid he was going to kill her sons in their sleep, but the officers had just looked at her bored and told her being a teenager wasn’t a crime.

So, no: Mary couldn’t wait 3 more months.

He’d scraped together what money he had left from his secret shifts working as a busboy under the table at a local dive downtown, packed his backpack with the essentials, and walked the 5 miles to the train station instead of going to school.

Eighteen was 10 weeks away. He could fudge it for a few months, especially since he could already get away without using his fake ID to get into shows most of the time.

So, to the big city it was.

He shifted his weight and tried to pretend that he belonged here in Boston, but actually facing the busy streets was a lot different from looking at a bird’s-eye view map. He had a printout in his pocket, but he didn’t want to look like a doe-eyed tourist. So he set off down the seemingly labyrinthine streets in the direction he could have sworn was the correct one.

It wasn't.

When he came out a side alley into Faneuil Hall, he almost wondered if he'd gone through a fairy portal, since he was clear on the other side of town. Begrudgingly, he checked his creased map, and set out once more.

And ended up spit out by the State building.

Finding the hostel turned into a fraught adventure, and he got turned around several times more. When he tried to ask for directions, most people pushed past him while one lady shoved $5 at him. He used the cash to buy a hotdog, and it was the vendor who ultimately gave him directions in his thick, Southie accent.

Of course, making it to the hostel ended up being just part one. The rates were almost double what it stated online ("Sorry, honey—that site hasn’t been upgraded since the 90s."), and two nights were practically all his savings. Mary had thought he’d at least have a couple of days to find a job, not 36hrs.

He left the hostel, wondering for the first time if maybe he shouldn’t go back home…but he decided it was a nice day out. Surely there was some place he could hunker down. Just for the night.

What he hadn’t anticipated was the cops at every fucking turn telling him to move along. And any place out of line-of-sight seemed to already be inhabited.

He finally found a place behind some rocks in the Seaport where he didn’t think he’d be murdered in his sleep, curled around his backpack, and drifted off into a fitful sleep.

Mary woke up damp from the dew and the morning sun streaming into his eyes. The birds were creating an awful racket, but Mary guessed it was as good an alarm clock as any.

He ran his fingers through his bird's nest of hair, and he made his way back to the South Station. The men’s room may have smelled like a sewage treatment plant, but at least it was free. He had expected it to be mostly empty at the crack of dawn, but it was full of commuters making that last run to the head before they had to take the train 2hrs out of the city for work.

And it was a sight: a bunch of suits with their fancy lattes washing their hands, and Mary in the corner trying to surreptitiously wipe down with paper towels under his Misfits t-shirt and his shredded jeans. At school, he’d have probably gotten into several altercations by now—no one would have let him just turn into Mary Goore without a fight—but this was Boston, and no one gave him more than a cursory glance.

Just another college kid.

It emboldened Mary to go full-out in the kind of way he had only done when going out to the punk shows downtown at night: kohl all the way around his eyes, and some on his cheekbones; mascara because his lashes are long and thick, and he knows it (his dad had said it made him look hard, and Mary had sneered that maybe that was what he’d been going for. But maybe it had been because he’d liked the way it had made his green eyes pop.); a smear of the step-monster’s fanciest matte lipstick on his full lips; and airplane glue in his hair to give it that lift.

He made a kissy face at himself in the mirror, and headed back out.

It was a nice Spring day—almost boiling in the direct sun—and it tempted Mary to wear only his battle vest, but even he kind of figured applying to jobs half dressed was a mistake.

He walked all over the city, trying not to get lost, looking for any kind of work—dishwasher, busboy, barback—but all he had to show for it was blistered feet and a raging appetite. The only good part of the day was that he noted any restaurant or bakery that looked like it might toss perfectly good food at the end of the day.

He and his friends had become experts at dumpster diving in his podunk town, and he felt confident that he had a good feel for a jackpot. Mary staked out a bakery and was rewarded with a find of "old" bagels. He shoved as many as he could into the nooks and crannies of his backpack before slinking off to the Commons to inhale at least two of them.

Cold, stale dough never tasted so good.

He watched the tourists and the professionals walk by in ones and in groups while he ran his bare feet through the grass. Some laughed with each other as they sauntered down the path while others seemed singularly intent on their ultimate destination. A pack of dogs ran and played with each other as their owners looked on fondly, and nearby the baseball diamond hosted a casual game.

Mary counted his lucky stars that his first week in Boston was April at its kindest—always mild during the day, even when it turned cloudy, and a few times even downright warm. The nights turned chilly, though, and it had Mary in more layers than an onion. If the birds or damp didn't wake him, his butt cramps from being curled in a tight ball all night did.

He spent those days walking around the city proper looking for work. He wasn't adventurous enough to make the leap across the bridges to Cambridge just yet, but his travels gave him a good sense on how the different sections of Boston connected—and showed him potential places to crash at night. He didn't even mind living off day-old garbage food and drinking from bubblers (he'd bought a water for the express purpose of reusing the bottle), but the barren wasteland that seemed to be the job market was beginning to weigh on him.

At home, he could always find a shit job if he was willing to put up with shit hours and ridiculous requests. Here, though, Mary was just one of many desperate people willing to do desperate work.

And he didn’t look particularly trustworthy or reliable.

@dipendancesld

Hashtag WTF

I’m scrolling through Insta on the T, and I’m way down the rabbit hole of hashtags. New content was at a minimum this morning (how can I follow accounts in triple digits and only see the same 4 posts?!), so I’d started with some art tags and ended up where I usually end up—trolling social media for blurry pictures of my boy.

His band has been a local staple for years—or at least that’s what he told me on our first date. I had just moved from New York after a nasty breakup, ready to start fresh, and I’d seen him at a coffee shop hanging posters for his next show in his leather jacket, asymmetrical Metallica crop top, and stomping boots.

Fresh had never looked so good.

Then, a few months back, an online publication had featured his band in the year’s 50 best bands "you’ve never heard of," and now the band's starting to gain traction.

He’s starting to gain traction.

Finding the new online content of him first has become a game the two of us play. We had to stop counting images posted from the popular fan accounts because Mary's now acquaintances with most of them, and I said it was hardly fair to snipe me that way. Mary had pouted—but it was to cover up his grin. So now we troll for the pictures of his latest gig or at his favorite haunts from either his casual fans or one of his new ones. I even have a whole range of hashtag typos saved if I really want to triumph, since Mary just doesn't have the attention span.

I usually win, though, by virtue of not keeping Rockstar Hours—and because Mary doesn’t have a smartphone. Mary delights in spending the wee hours while I'm sleeping finding new content, and I'll often wake to one he's pulled up on my laptop and a "suck it" sticky note stuck to my monitor.

(But I’m reigning supreme.)

There’s a thirst tag I sometimes comb through (for reasons), and today I’m desperate for that morning serotonin to keep me from dozing off, which is why I stumble across a particularly convincing cosplayer in some…risqué poses and outfits.

The dude is really good, and I have to admit he really does have Mary’s mannerisms down pat. He’s younger and a little skinnier than Mary is now, but his facial expressions are on point. I zoom in to see the contouring technique because he's using one of those filters to make it look old…and that’s when I sense something off. I can’t quite place my finger on it, but usually there’s an uncanny valley to his serious cosplayers, and this dude looks so real. He’s even 100% accurate with the mole placement, which is something I never see.

My heart does a flip-flop.

Is that…actually Mary?

Foundling

Mary's sixth night in the city, it rained. It was more of a brief Spring shower, but it was still enough to soak him and his backpack through. He shivered through the early morning hours until the sun came up, then he made his way to the Commons to lay his belongings—and himself—out into the sun to dry.

By midday, he had a slight sunburn across his nose, but most of his things were dryish—though the food was a soggy lost cause. He cut his losses and decided to buy a sausage from the hotdog vendor, even if that meant he was down to $52.37 in his sock bank.

It was the most amazing thing he'd ever eaten in his entire life (sometimes he still dreams of it), and he gobbled it down as he sat in the grass and watched the show of people pass by.

He could take today off from his job search.

Just another Groundhog Day of rejections.

A gaggle of kids about his age walked past, and he lit up when he saw them: studs and bright hair and cuffs and combat boots. They ran and shrieked and shoved at each other, and Mary had never felt such longing to be a part of something.

Not that nebulous feeling of "my world is out there somewhere," but "my world is right there if I can just get to it."

And he realized maybe he could.

These were his people.

Mary hopped off the bench and approached the boisterous group.

"Uh, hey…guys."

The pack stopped and looked him over, confused but not hostile.

"Oh hey, man" said a girl with green fins and a studded, leather jacket.

"Hey."

I have nowhere to go. Can I go with you?

"Sorry, I forgot your name."

"Oh, you don’t—"

A guy in a tight striped shirt, snake bites, and blue hair interrupted him.

"Shit, were you in my intro into film class last year?"

Mary was a high school dropout.

"Nah, dude. I’m new and shit."

…But he wasn’t stupid.

A curvy white goth with bleached blonde hair and a cream princess dress smiled at him.

"Aww, that’s rough, honey. If you think about it, they really ought to give transfers on-campus housing. It sucks to be so new and away from the action."

Mary nodded. "Yeah. Sucks."

"Well, we’re going to The Pit, wanna come?"

"If you guys don’t mind…"

"Fuck, the more the merrier!"

Mary smiled as they assimilated him into the group. He found out the goth’s name was Vanessa ("But call me Vanity."), green fins was Alexa ("Or Alex. I’m trying it out."), striped shirt was Billy, and the two other punks were Mandi (Manic Panic red) and Aaron (band tee, spiked collar).

No one laughed at him when he introduced himself as Mary or asked him why he had a girl’s name.

They took him onto the T at Charles MGH, and Mary marveled at the setting sun over the Charles River before the train ducked underground to barrel in Cambridge. At Harvard, they ushered him off the train and directly into The Pit, and Mary almost cried when he saw the pit rats there playing hacky sack, strumming guitars, and smoking cloves. Mary watched as his group high-fived, bumped chests, and hugged nearly everyone there before introducing him as if they’d known him for years.

He was shit at hacky sack, but he accepted a round on the guitar and shared a clove with a white girl who had a rat's nest of hair.

"Fuck their beauty stands," she said when she caught Mary staring.

Mary smiled and pointed to his own mess of hair. "Fuck ‘em," he repeated.

She cackled and handed him a brown bag with what he expected to be whiskey, but tasted like turpentine.

She laughed harder at his face as he coughed, and she pounded him on the back.

"Moonshine, dude. Lenny makes it in his bathtub."

"Which one is Lenny," Mary asked as he wiped off his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Oh, he’s not here. He goes to MIT. We have a strict trade agreement—booze for pot. I’m Katie."

Head fuzzy, Mary had made out with her until Aaron tugged on his arm.

"Shit dude, we gotta go before the T closes. You live close to here?"

"Uh…"

"Aww, I think he got into Lenny’s moonshine," said Vanity. "If he’s a transfer, I bet he’s at some shithole in Allston. You in Allston, honey?"

Mary just nodded.

"All right then," said Alex, taking charge. "We’ll put him up tonight. There’s no way he’s gonna make it back to Allston by himself, and I’ll be fucked if I’m trekking out there without a BU party to crash."

Mary wobbled slightly as Alex took his arm in his and led him to the T.

"Ok, we gotta go now or we’ll all be hoofing it."

They took Mary back to their dorm by the Hatch Shell and signed him in as a guest.

"Is this ok?" Mary asked warily—he didn't want to get kicked out in the middle of the night.

Mandi patted him on the back.

"We do it all time. No one really gives a shit. Vegan Mick dropped out 2 semesters ago and they don’t even check for his ID."

That night, Mary slept in the common room on a lumpy couch that was half as long as he was.

It was heaven.

The next morning seemed like the end, and Mary slumped as Vanity to sign him out. For one brief day he'd been a part of something, and now it was back to Mary, party of one. But Vanity took one look at his face and asked if he wanted to get breakfast at the dining hall.

Of course, he wanted to…but he thought of the dwindling cash in sock bank and hesitated. Vanity, bless her, misread his trepidation.

"It's on me, sweetie. I know most transfers don’t opt in. Too expensive when it’s not bundled. No worries, I got a ton of points I don’t use."

Alex and Aaron were already half done with their food when Vanity and he joined them, and they looked on in amusement as Mary ate half the breakfast buffet.

When the subject of classes came up, he shrugged off questions.

"None this morning."

Alex narrowed her eyes at him.

"What year did you say you were?"

"Sophomore."

"Not a freshman?"

Mary shook his head. "I’m not a freshman."

She seemed about to ask another question, so Mary quickly changed the subject.

"I thought I’d spend the day applying for jobs. You guys know of any place that’s hiring?"

"No work study?"

"No."

"What kind of work you looking for?"

"Shit, anything. I’ll sweep the fucking floors."

They bandied about ideas, places for Mary to try, but no one had any leads. Too soon, some unknown gong had them scurrying to get to class.

Mary suddenly panicked.

"Hey, do you guys mind if I spend the night again? I mean…"

"Yeah, sure," said Vanity. "Aaron?"

"Yeah, man. Meet me after class and I'll swipe you in."

It apparently was a time-honored tradition, passed down from upperclassmen to underclassmen, on gaming the guest system. Most kids used it to essentially move their significant others into their dorm rooms, but a handful every year used it to give haven to others who had questionable housing situations.

So, just like that, Mary had a place to rest his bones.

@dilfpassing

A Deeper Look

I’m so intent on scrolling through the comments on the grainy pics—which I'm sure now are actual scans—that I completely miss my stop, and I have to put my phone away so I can wheeze lightly jog my way to where I work as a receptionist at an alternative hair salon.

It’s really important that I start a good hour before we open so I can return any calls left on our voicemail first thing in case I can fit anyone in today. Which means I have to shelve my find for now, much to my irritation.

Mornings are super-busy because apparently there are some people in the world that like getting up with the sun and want everything done by noon. (June Cleaver’s salon lets me get away with a lot—like coming to work in denim short-shorts and ripped tights, free hair colors, and a snarky attitude—but late start times aren’t one of them.) I honestly don’t have room in my brain to obsess about the pictures because I’m too busy answering calls, making coffee, settling accounts, and giving the new customer spiel for the 57th time to a walk-in.

It’s just after midday, when Penny, the shampoo girl, collects my cash for the salon-wide sandwich run, and I finally have a moment to breathe. And obsess.

I take out my phone again, and I have to retrace my steps because of course the app has refreshed, which is why Sonia has the time to look over my shoulder.

"Missing dream boy’s dick so much you gotta spend your lunch hour ogling pics of him on the internet?"

I zoom in on the one of maybe!Mary in his underwear.

"Who does that look like to you?"

Sonia makes a guh sound in her throat and backs away.

"I don’t need to see your intimates!"

"That’s the thing! It’s not mine!"

"Your boy’s nudes get leaked??"

I wave my arms around.

"I don’t freakin’ know! They may not even be him. Fucking. C’mere and help me out!"

Sonia warily creeps back over, and so does Ryan, since all the yelling has attracted him.

The three of us peer over the phone as I scroll through the images again.

By the time Penny comes back with lunch, we’ve gone back and forth on who’s in the images—Mary or a fake—and I haven’t been able to do any actual research. The afternoon rush starts, and I have to table the whole thing again, having made no progress at all.

It isn’t until near-closing, when most of the other stylists have gone home—and it’s only June who does the post-work crowd—that I can really dig into the matter.

A deep dive and a couple of defunct, decade-old forums later, I find that what I took as an aspirational hashtag was actually the name of a zine called "Heroes."

There’s like, zero online trail about it—except for a few other grainy scans of other pages of articles, poetry, concert pictures, and art—but it seemed to be an early aughts missive for local underground culture and color.

It still doesn’t explain why Mary’s in there in various states of undress and poses.

Or why Mary has never said a word about it to me.

Stripped Bare

Mary settled into a sort of routine. He spent most days looking for a job—any job—with his backpack full of food from their dining hall. Most nights he rotated couches on different floors so the RAs didn’t notice that he basically lived there.

He made friends with Vegan Mick for about 5 seconds until Mary had eaten an entire Rotisserie chicken from 7-11 in front of him. Mick had launched into a whole spiel, and Mary had pointed out that Mick's jacket and Docs were made of leather. He’d only meant it as a joke—a callout in answer to a callout, like he'd do with his friends back home—but Vegan Mick had turned purple, then iced Mary out every time he saw him after that.

Oops.

The brief friendship had lasted long enough, however, for Mick to give Mary some tips and tricks of being homeless.

Homeless.

That had been a tough pill to swallow. Until Vegan Mick had put Mary’s situation like that, Mary had just thought of himself between places.

But it was true: he didn’t live anywhere. He skated by on the kindness of his new friends, and he didn’t know how much longer he could keep up the ruse of "transfer student who didn’t like his shithole apartment and was too busy job searching to concentrate on classes."

He still spent a few nights a week finding an out-of-the-way place outside to hunker down in or huddling in with Katie and a few of the other gutter punks under their boxes in the corners of the T stations. He knew they would have been more than happy to make room, anyway, but Mary always emptied his backpack of all the pilfered dining hall food for distribution amongst them.

It honestly wasn't so terrible now that he had friends and a warm place to go on cold or rainy nights, but.

He needed an actual place to live. To afford an actual place to live, he needed a job. To get a job, he needed a place to live.

It seemed like a catch-22, and he began to despair that he’d never get ahead…until Mandi offered him a leg up.

Mary was sitting on the grass in the Commons in the shade, thinking that with summer coming up, maybe he could fudge it until the gang came back in September. There was always Katie and The Pit, and Mary was sure he could chip in somehow.

Mandi sat down next to him.

"I thought that mess of hair was you, Mare."

"Hey, Mandi. What’s kicks?"

"You still looking for a job?"

Mary put his head in his hands and sighed.

"Don’t remind me."

"You over 18?"

Just last week. But Mary hadn’t said, since they thought he was a Sophomore.

"Yeah."

"Wanna be at least 21?"

Mary grinned at her.

"That’s what my fake ID says."

She laughed, a tinkling thing.

"You got anything against strip clubs?"

Mary furrowed his brows at her.

"Uh…what’s the right answer here?"

She shoved him playfully.

"Do you want a job?"

"Yeah?"

"Then say no."

"No. No problems with strip clubs." He squinted at her. "Are they looking for male strippers?"

She laughed again.

"Definitely not." She canted her head at Mary. "I mean, you're very pretty, Mare. I could probably put you on as one of the girls…even with these triple As," she flicked playfully at his nipple, which had him grunting and batting at her, "but I was thinking more behind the scenes."

Mary held up his arm and made a weak muscle.

"I don’t think I’d be much of a bouncer, Mands."

"You said you’d wash dishes, sweep floors and shit, right?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, the club I work at—"

"The club at you what now?"

Mandi gave him a strange look.

"Yeah. The strip club I work at."

Mary’s eyes bugged out.

"As a…waitress?"

"As a stripper, Mary. Duh." At his dumbfounded look she shook her head. "It’s kind of extra credit, as a dance major. I’m going to turn it into my thesis. Plus, I make hella bank."

She swept her arm across the park that made up her college "campus."

"How else do you think I can afford this rock-and-roll lifestyle? Not all of us are here on scholarship or mom and dad’s dime."

She tilted her head at him.

"I thought you’d get it."

When Mary didn't respond, she touched his shoulder.

"Mare. I know you don't go here."

"W-what…? I…"

He looked at her, wide-eyed as the blood drained from his face.

"Hey, it's ok. I'm not gonna tell anybody. Not if you don't want me to."

Mary looked down. "Thanks." He rubbed the back of his neck. "You know that means I've got no address."

Mandi bumped his shoulder and waved his words away.

"A lot of the girls dance. Paddy is used to dorm rooms as addresses. You can use mine."

Mary looked at her, hoping he could convey every ounce of gratitude he was feeling.

She grinned and punched him in the shoulder.

"So, you up for it? Sweeping floors and bussing tables?" She leveled a look at him. "Cleaning up puke?"

Anything.

"Fuck, I’m desperate, Mands. I’ll hold their hair back if it means a paycheck."

"That’s the spirit!"

***

Mary was sure Patrick was part of the mob—or at least in cahoots. The guy had taken one look at Mary’s ID and had said, "But how old are you really?" and Mary had said, "Nineteen."

Patrick had thrown up his hands. "Well, you ain’t gonna be serving alcohol anyway, kid. Your job is to do whatever I tell you. Some asshole breaks a bottle, you clean up the glass so the girls don’t hurt themselves. Some idiot ralphs all over the toilet seat, you scrub the shit out of that fucker. A bachelor party leaves a table a hot mess, you better be out there clearing off the table for the next one, got it?"

Mary had nodded.

"You show up at 5 to help the girls set up the bar. You stay til whenever it takes to close down—but you only get paid 'til 2am—and you get an hour to eat, unpaid. You don’t bother the girls, and," Patrick had leaned in, "you don’t steal from me."

Mary had gulped and nodded emphatically.

Patrick had jabbed a finger at him. "That includes the booze. If I get fucked because some snot-nosed, underage kid is drinking with my good friends Jim and Johnnie, I’m gonna be very put out."

"Got it, sir."

"Don’t call me sir. I’m Paddy to my friends, so you can call me Patrick."

"Yes, Patrick."

Patrick had looked him over.

"You get paid as an independent contractor just like the girls, so you gotta deal with your own taxes, you got that? I’ll start you at $10 an hour."

Mary’s eyes had gone wide. Back home he was lucky to get 5.

"Ten…?"

Patrick had tilted his head again.

"No, you’re right, 12. Do a good job, and I’ll think about raising it to 15."

Mary had to physically stop his jaw from dropping.

"You do weeknights for now so if you fuck up it’s not that much of a problem. If you don’t fuck up and the girls don’t hate you, you can get weekends. Deal?"

Mary had sat up straighter. "Deal." He’d held his hand out, but Patrick had just looked at it until Mary pulled it back into his side.

"Ariel vouched for you, so I’m giving you a shot. Don’t make her regret it."

Mary had shaken his head as Patrick had handed him some forms to fill out.

"Come back at 4 tomorrow with these and we’ll get you started. Now, get out, I got shit to do."

Mary had taken the forms and skedaddled.

Mandi was outside waiting for him, all smiles.

"Did you get it?"

"Yeah, but fuck—your boss is scary."

"Nah, he’s a teddy bear."

***

The job was awful.

The puke was an almost nightly occurrence, and by the end of the first week, little cuts covered Mary’s hands from the broken glass. The customers were loud, rowdy, and acted as if their mother was going to clean up after them.

Mary swore he would never get the beer smell out. It now lived in his soul.

One dude punched Mary and broke his nose for no reason Mary could tell before the bouncers dragged the guy away. The girls gave him some tampons to stop the bleeding, and Mary finished his shift.

Patrick paid Mary in cash at the end of every week with a "It’s your job to report that, not mine," and at the end of the month, Patrick bumped Mary up to $15/hr. He worked 5 days a week because, according to Patrick, "The Lord gave us a day of rest, and you get one day off per week."

Mary never reported a single cent to the IRS.

The girls loved him, and joked that Patrick had gotten them a pet. They showed him winged eyeliner and smokey eyes and how to contour. They guffawed when they watched him try out their shoes like a newborn deer. On slow nights, they tried to show him pole techniques.

He saw the gang less and less because by the time they were getting out of class, he was going into work, and when he was done work, they were crawling into bed. Fortunately, the desk sitters seemed to forget that he wasn’t an on-campus "student" and didn’t even bother signing him in anymore. There were a few sticklers, but Mary found that—while back home he was less than scum—here, he attracted all the right kinds of attention…and a smirk with the right compliment went a long way.

By the time their school year ended, Mary had saved up $1,000 (and he needed to transfer his money out of sock bank and into the ripped lining of his jacket).

Even though they didn't know just how much they'd saved him, Mary showed up on the last day as thanks to help them all move their stuff into family cars or rented trucks. They hugged him goodbye and said to ring them next semester.

Mandi bopped him on the nose and told him to keep his nose clean.

Mary took a sublet in Allston with 2 BU kids and a Berkley grad student. The "room" was a closed-in porch with a sleeping bag left by the last resident—but it was $400 a month until September, utilities included.

At first, Mary didn't know why the gang was so snobby about Allston, but the summer seemed to be one continual party. It didn't matter what day Mary got up, there were always broken beer bottles and stale beer on their front stoop, and the apartment had a designated watering can for washing away the vomit that dripped down from the top porches to their own.

But he took it in stride, and when he wasn’t at the strip club or sleeping, he was partying with the BU kids, or letting the Berkley grad show him better string fingering techniques.

Mary still tried to get out to The Pit with what groceries he could spare, but Katie had moved on with some of the others to do a protest tour with an activist street band that had come through town, and without her or the gang, it made Mary feel lonely.

By the end of the summer, Mary had saved up enough money for first, last, and security. He even had some left over to buy more than ramen and some new clothes. To Mary, it felt like a million dollars. He rented a garden-level apartment in the cheap part of Jamaica Plain for September 1st and spent that entire day with the BU dudes driving around in their rented truck for Allston Christmas’s best furniture finds.

Mary ended up with a mattress that he hoped on a wish and a prayer didn’t have bedbugs, a mismatched set of dishes, plastic drawers that were slightly warped, and a broken futon frame he swore he would fix. Throw in a few sets of slightly used string lights, and Mary’s cave felt downright homey.

When the gang got back, he simply told them he’d dropped out.

"Yeah, I just don’t think college is for me. Music’s my real passion, you know?"

Alex had groaned.

"I knew that Berkley kid was gonna be a bad influence on you."

Mary shrugged.

"My grades were shit anyway. But I’m still around, you know. The strip club’s only a block from campus."

"Because we saw you so much then," deadpanned Billy.

"Hey! Stop piling on Mary," said Vanity. "He’s following his path."

Mary shot her a wide smile.

"Thanks, Vanity."

Patrick finally gave him a little more leeway with his days off, and Mary started taking Saturday night to join the gang in Harvard Square for the shadow cast of Rocky Horror. One of Aaron’s classmates, Amber, was in it, and they all wanted to support her.

Mary felt that something again. That thing that told that this was his place and his people. This eclectic group who got up in front of strangers every week in their underwear for free enthralled Mary.

He and Amber bonded immediately, and Mary began going even without the gang. The cast welcomed him in as an honorary groupie, and Mary's friendship with the gang waned. There was still Mandi to cavort with at the strip club, but now when Mary wasn't there, he was at any one of the Rocky crew's apartments getting high and playing dress up.

"You’ve got such a Look, Mare," sighed Amber. "I’d kill for your cheekbones."

"I’d kill for your tits."

She slapped him playfully. "Don’t be gross."

"No, I’m serious. Someone once put it in my head that I'd be a hot chick."

The girls had giggled and proceeded to dress him up in bras and corsets with cutlets. They added a wig, and the glo-up surprised even Mary.

Still buzzed, they went out for girl’s night and hit up all the bars in Fenway and flirted their way to free shots from the dude bros before batting their falsies at bouncers to let them into the clubs ahead of the line and without the cover.

The cutlets eventually became a nuisance—and soon they were all flapping them about above their heads as they danced—but Mary had loved the feel of the lace and satin corsets against his skin.

When they’d all collapsed in a pile at the end of the night, Mary wondered if they’d tell him where to get some lingerie for himself.

***

By August, Mary was ready to quit the strip club.

He was tired of cut fingers (they were making it hard to play the guitar he’d bought), the drunks, and the sick everywhere. Now that he had a little cushion, he thought maybe he could at least find something with better hours.

Mandi had graduated and was well into a summer internship at Disney in hopes they’d bring her on as a dancer.

Alex had also graduated and moved out to LA to make it as a film editor.

Vanity and Aaron had started dating after finals, and they had moved in together in Cambridgeport for their last year.

Billy had stopped going to classes before dropping out altogether. No one seemed to know what happened, and when they called his home, his mother just said he was unavailable.

There didn’t seem to be much reason to stick around the Grid anymore, and it was a bitch of a commute back to his place if he wasn’t going to hang out with the Rocky crew. He landed a job at a record store that was walking distance to his apartment.

Patrick seemed surprisingly sad to see him go, saying, "Ah, the good ones smart up," and gave him a $500 bonus for not "fucking up."

Tim, one of the older Rocky people, turned out to not live too far from him, and when Mary started hanging out there, so did the party.

Now that Mary was no longer shackled by the strip club’s hours, his world opened a few more degrees. He spent his nights dressing up while he watched the cast rehearse. (When he showed them a move or two he learned from the women at the club, they tried to get him to do a guest star as Frank. But Mary had shaken his head and said that wasn’t the kind of performing he wanted to do.)

When they weren't rehearsing, they dragged Mary to TT The Bear’s, The Middle East, and The Milky Way Lounge for underground shows. They took him to fetish night at ManRay after a trip to Hubba Hubba for pleather and lingerie, and Mary made a lot of new friends.

Sometimes, Mary would show up to work straight off a night out in his club clothes, eyeliner smudged and lipstick smeared. It should have got him fired, but his boss just shrugged.

"I used to keep rockstar hours too."

Mary still wore all his old vestiges—his battle vest and his ripped jeans—it was just that now he sometimes added a corset and heels.

Wherever Katie was now, he hoped she knew he was still fucking their beauty standards.

ry.omen Insta

Answer Me This

I practically vibrate the entire way back to our place. I'm still trying to wring information out of the internet like it's too-wet clothes, but the only thing I accomplish is making myself motion sick on the bus, so I put my phone back in my pocket and breath through my nose.

When I get home, Mary is sprawled across the couch in his pjs with various limbs hanging over sides and edges as he watches some extreme sport show on my laptop.

I wonder if he just got up, but I see the start of dinner on the stove, so I decide not to snark at him.

"Hey," he says without looking up.

I am, however, gonna need some answers on "Heroes."

I gently close the laptop, and he meets my eyes.

"What?"

I climb onto the couch, and Mary’s limbs recede like vines to make room for me as I scroll through my phone to my photo app where I’ve saved screenshots.

"Lucy," I say in a terrible accent, "you have some ‘splaining to do!"

Mary squints at me and takes my phone, his expression morphing into one of surprise.

"Shit, babe. Where’d ya find these??"

"So they are you!"

He chuckles.

"Christ…I haven't thought about these in fucking years."

"Mind telling me what the fuck?" I ask, my hands on my hips.

I'm only half joking.

Mary grimaces at me.

"Ah."

"I'm gonna need more than that, mister."

He rubs the back of his neck.

"Fuck, you know those were hard times for me."

I know about his family, the homelessness. I know he tried out a lot until he found a life that fit. He'd given me the overviews with occasional anecdotes filled with names I never remembered.

But none of them included naughty pictures.

I worm my way under his arm.

"Yeah, I know, Mare."

His hand strokes down my arm.

"I mean, shit. I was kinda an asshole, you know?"

I wrap an arm around his chest.

"You're still kind of an asshole, Goore."

"Thanks."

"No problem."

When he doesn't say more, I poke him hard in the side.

"I’m literally dying here."

He laughs a little.

"Fine. But you gotta remember you asked."

Model Behavior

One day, Mary was walking down the street on his way to drinks with the new friends he'd made the weekend before. It was a good day. He wasn’t hungover as fuck, his makeup was only smudged artfully, and he was pretty sure he was going to get laid.

A guy in a leather jacket and tight jeans maybe a few years older than Mary stopped him on the street.

"Hey, man! I love your style."

Mary batted his eyelashes at him. "Thanks, dude."

"You ever think of dark modeling?"

Mary squinted his eyes at him.

"Dark what now?"

"You know—modeling but like," he gestured up and down Mary’s form, "for dark beauties. Show the world beauty isn’t cookie cutter."

"For like what? A website or some shit?"

The guy dug into his pocket, pulled out a card case, and handed one to Mary.

Heroes Greg Karson, Photographer/Web Design Butera School of Art

Actually, Mary had heard of this. It was a zine about the local happenings around town—concerts, art shows, parties, etc. There was a stack of them next to "Rrriot!" in the record shop. He’d flipped through one occasionally, mostly interested in the band reviews.

"We’re really on the lookout for anyone with the right look. You know, wear stuff you already own."

"So like a street fashion spread?"

"Well, we might do a little more with it, but—you know how it is. Most of the budget goes toward printing costs."

Mary perked up.

"Would I be paid?"

Greg laughed.

"Peanuts, my dude. But yeah. Even if it’s a T token. You interested, then?"

"Hell yeah!"

"Mind if I take a few test shots."

Mary smirked at Greg.

"How do you want me?"

"Just natural."

Putting his hands in his pockets, Mary arched his back and gave Greg his best snotty hipster face.

Greg dug out a digital camera from his carrying case and took a dozen or so pictures of Mary from different angles while telling him to turn this way or that.

Afterwards, the two of them huddled over the camera and scrolled through the shots.

"Aw yeah, this one. I love the attitude. The guys are gonna love it. You have a number where we can reach you?"

Mary gave him the number of the record shop. (His apartment had a phone, but he’d never gotten around to wanting to pay for service.)

Later, he and Amber looked up the Angelfire website on the back of the card. It was one page that contained the mission statement, bios of the creators, and locations to pick up the zine.

"Omigod—you’re gonna become a famous model, Mare!"

"Yeah, right. You know most of it ends up in the trash, right?"

But when Ben called, Mary said he was game. He directed Mary to a co-op in a converted warehouse in Dorchester, and Mary brought his favorite clothes in a borrowed duffle.

A girl in cat pajamas opened the door and pointed at a set of metal stairs with her cereal spoon.

On the second floor, Mary found Greg setting up a makeshift studio. A girl with multiple piercings and yarn dreads leaned against the wall in her black babydoll dress.

Mary sidled up to her.

"You here to model, too?"

She gave him an unimpressed once-over.

"I’m the art director, asshole."

Mary flushed hard as she turned to Greg.

"Couldn’t find one with brains?"

She turned back to Mary.

"I don’t know if you thought this would be a good way to meet chicks or what, dude. But I’m letting you know right now that I’m here on my day off to make sure this adheres to our aesthetic, so if you're not serious, fuck off."

Mary rubbed the back of his neck.

"Shit, sorry. I was expecting a dude named Ben."

She waved her hand in the air as if dispelling Ben.

"The Bens are morons. Good idea, terrible execution. I’m here to make sure we remain true to the idea of 'Heroes,' so don’t fuck up my shoot." She gave him a once over. "Christ. You have any experience?"

Greg turned from where he was testing the white balance.

"Angelique, stop harassing the talent. We get it, you have a degree from RISD."

Angelique snorted.

"As if I don't hear you going on and on about being a professional photographer. 'Hey, lemme shoot your portfolio, baby.' Whatever. As if we're not your only professional credit."

"Hey—you wanted a photographer for peanuts? You got me. You wanted models for peanuts? You got him."

Mary gave her his full snaggle-toothed grin.

"I take T tokens."

Angelique sighed, then pasted on a smile.

"Hi! So happy you’re here!" Her smile drooped. "You got your wardrobe in there?"

"Yeah."

Mary handed her the duffle, and she handed him release forms.

"Here: sign these"

She pawed through his offerings.

"Not bad, not bad." She pulled out a corset and his heeled boots. "We'll keep you in your jeans and have you wear your jacket over your corset. Cool?"

Cool.

The shoot was as professional as a shoot in a warehouse in what Mary was taking to usually be a living room could be. Angelique directed Greg with what she wanted. Greg called out positions and expressions for Mary to pose in.

It was surprisingly hard work, and by the end of a solid hour, his smirking lip was getting tired. Angelique and Greg scrolled through the shots, murmuring to themselves and nodding.

Mary waited—greeting at the other inhabitants as they squeezed by on their way either up or down—until Angelique approached him.

"That’ll do. You mind if we post on our website?"

Mary preened.

"Yeah, that’s kosher."

She handed him a pen and pocket notebook.

"Write down a quick bio."

He scribbled down a quick elevator pitch

Into general skulking and metal \m/

and handed the notebook back to her.

"Great, thanks."

She handed him a $20 bill, her eyes skimming him up and down.

"Next time we should show off those hip bones. Just jeans, I think."

Mary perked up. "Next time?"

"We’ll call you."

***

"Omigod, omigod!"

Amber perched on the record store counter, flipping through "Heroes," as Jon peered over her shoulder.

"Mary…look at you!"

Mary tried to swallow his smug smile.

Failed.

"Yeah. I’m hot shit, ain’t I?"

She bopped him on the nose with the newsprint.

"Don’t be vain."

He showed her his toothy smile.

"I like to think of it as confidence."

"So did Icarus."

Mary snorted and went back to putting prices on the new CDs.

"The camera loves you," said Jon, who was always quiet and reserved as you please…until he put on Frank’s corset and heels.

Mary had tried flirting with him, but Jon always ducked his head and played it off.

"Thanks, man," said Mary, giving him a softer smile.

"So??"

"So what, Amber?"

"Are you gonna do it again?"

Mary shrugged.

"I mean, if they call me, sure."

But he was kind of hoping they would.

When the next issue came out weeks later, Mary stared at the cybergoth on the pages and felt himself deflate. Listlessly, he thumbed through the delicate print, barely skimming the section devoted to the World/Inferno Friendship Society’s set he’d been at the week before.

He set it down with a sigh before he picked up his guitar and plucked out a tune he was trying to coax into a riff.

By the time a Ben called again, Mary had given up the modeling thing as a one-off.

"Hey, dude—thought maybe you guys forgot about me," Mary said in a teasing tone.

The Ben on the other end chuckled.

"It’s like herding cats to get shit out. Nah, dude—we definitely want you to be one of our regulars. You in for next Saturday?"

He was.

***

Over the course of a year, "Heroes" had Mary come out multiple times for shoots. Mainly, Mary wore his own clothes and did his own makeup, but occasionally, Angelique wanted something specific.

"How comfortable are you with boudoir shots?"

"With what?"

"Like a pinup, but more…saucy than sexy."

I'd pose nude if you paid me enough.

(Sure, he was a noodle boy, but he knew he had the goods.)

"Yeah, I’m cool with that."

Angelique brightened at him.

"Great!"

She picked up a set of complicated leather garters and thrust them at him.

"Put these on."

Mary had only ever worn lace garters—mostly out to clubs, but occasionally under his ripped jeans for an extra pop—but he found he liked these even more, liked the way they emphasized his thighs.

"Hey—where’d you get these…?"

(He was already thinking of what he could pair them with for goth night.)

"Local leatherworker. He mostly does pieces for Renn Fairs, but he'll also do custom. I can give you his info."

She led Mary into what was clearly someone's bedroom.

"Don't fuck anything up, or Joye will never let us use this again."

Mary shot her his best shark smile.

"Hey, I only mess up the sheets if someone asks."

Angelique gave him a flat look and called for Greg.

(But when he draped himself over the bed and told Greg to "Paint me like one of your French girls," Mary could have sworn she almost smiled.)

On one memorable occasion, she brought in a guy whose rope bondage demo she watched at a sex convention.

"Put on some of that lingerie and we'll truss you up. You ok with that, Goore?"

Mary ran his fingers over the coils and gave her a wolfish smile.

"You know I'm game for anything."

She gave him a vulpine smile of her own then, and she looked down at him from the height of her platformed boots.

"Good. I thought you should be submissive for once."

Mary had no witty rejoinder for that.

He listened with interest as the guy carefully explained what he was going to do, complete with pictures, and he relaxed easily into the process. (They put bunny ears on him, and it would be much, much later that he got that particular joke. Well played, Angelique.)

The ropes hadn’t let him do much posing, but Mary had kind of liked the constriction, and his thoughts were already on asking Amber to help him create a more versatile version for fetish night.

He’d left that day with a new kink…and the guy’s number.

"Why not just do one big shoot?" he asked another time. "Get it all done in one big bang!"

Angelique held up his garments to eyeball over him.

"Honey, we never even know if there's gonna be a next issue. The Bens spend most of the time arguing. My god you should hear them—Ben bankrolls the whole thing, so he says he should get final say on shit, and Benji wants total artistic control because it was his idea, because 'he's the graphic designer', and because it's his Kinko's employee discount they use."

She gave Mary a curled-lip smile as she tossed a few items at him.

"In the end it's this bitch you're looking at who gets shit done."

Mary began to change (they were long past modesty).

"How'd you get involved?"

"Went to school with Benji."

"Ben too?"

"Neg. The Bens are childhood friends. Ben works some cushy start-up job, so Benji lets him bankroll them both. Rent, utilities—everything. I love Benji to death, but he's a giant mooch."

"Shit, that must be nice."

Angelique shrugged. She stood back to appraise Mary's look.

"It's fucking lame. But it least it gets us fucking paid."

Mary didn't say I'd do this for free. Instead, he struck a pose and said, "I'm just happy for the exposure."

Angelique rolled her eyes and went to fetch Greg.

***

That year and a half would become a nonstop party with Mary as one of the VIPs; he wouldn't say no to anything—be it casual sex, club appearances, or whatever drug the current pretty thing was offering him in the bathroom.

But recognition started slow.

At first, it was customers who would leaf through the zine and recognize Mary.

Then, it was the occasional scenester who’d stop him on the street in JP as he walked about, and Mary would pose for grainy cell phone pics.

Soon, he was being approached at shows and clubs. The first time it happened, Mary was high off his new infamy and ready to please. A woman in a black bandage bra and pleated skirt with bondage straps approached him, and Mary was already thinking of what he could do with those.

"You look like that guy in ‘Heroes’!" she'd shouted to him over the music.

Mary had flashed her a crooked smile and leaned in.

"Maybe I am the guy in ‘Heroes’."

She'd given him an exaggerated once over before sidling closer with hooded eyes.

"I dunno…you're wearing way more clothes."

Mary had pulled his mesh top down by the collar in a tease as he'd curled over her.

"Take me somewhere more private and I’ll let you do a comparison."

She'd compared him all night.

And that was before he and the other "Heroes" models formed their own posse.

The Bens had thrown a BBQ and had invited everyone they'd ever met. There were people packed into their little 2 bedroom in Brighton, spilling down the back stairs, and equally packed into the little square of shared backyard. Ben had taken the 12-pack of 'Gansett beers Mary had brought, then introduced him to the other dark models.

"Now you're all here!" said Ben. He slung his arm around Mary. "Guys, this is Mary. Mary this is Mayhem, Lesley, Lola, and Bryan."

Mayhem was a rivethead, and Mary took to him instantly, but he was wary of the others. Lesley was the cybergoth who'd been in the first issue after him, and Mary still felt a bit salty at them, even though Mary knew by now the Bens rotated the models. Lola, the romantic goth, reminded him enough of Vanity that he felt guilty for losing touch with her and had him projecting a little. Bryan was a metalhead, so: competition.

Mary had thought they'd get along like cats and water, but weed, booze, and "Never Have I Ever" went a long way to creating a shared bond.

And there it was again. That pull. The magnetic force telling him that he'd found the place he was supposed to be. They quickly coalesced into their own pack, calling themselves the "Deathbutantes" (because they always killed it when they debuted for the night).

It had been rare for Mary to miss Friday and Saturday night shenanigans with the Rocky crew, but now, every night was Friday night. There was always a show or a concert or club that one of them knew about—and if they couldn't get lucky with the local color, they'd just go home with each other.

Mayhem taught Mary what Lola jokingly called the "grab a bat" dance, and the two of them cut quite the picture on the dance floors.

Lesley took to Lola, and the two of them could always be counted on for scintillating conversation in dark corners when Mary's limbst needed a break from flailing about.

The clubs weren't really Bryan's scene—take him to a sticky hole in the wall with concrete floors and a stage close enough to feel the sweat from the bands, and he was in heaven—but he liked to come along to hang. He'd drink PBRs, rub Lola's feet when she invariably abandoned her heels for the evening, and argue with Mary about the purity of death metal.

Mayhem and Lola weren't really into live music of the screaming kind, so—while Lesley, Bryan, and Mary bounced off each other in the mosh pits—they'd save a "home" base at one the bartops.

Amber noticed Mary's diminishing presence and stopped by the record shop to call him out.

"So you're not dead! Could've fooled me."

Mary was organizing the albums into order, and he grunted at her.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a cad. I'll make it up to you."

"You missed game night."

"Sorry. Jethro Tull played some tiny venue in nowhere Mass, and Bryan was salivating. I mean, Jethro Tull. Can you blame me?"

He looked at her, arms out wide in supplication. But she just blinked at him.

"You have no idea who Jethro Tull is, do you?"

"Sorry, dude. But christ, Mare. You should have invited me. I'd've gone. Maybe I would have even liked them. Now you'll never know."

"I could just lend you an album."

"Nope! The moment passed. Too late!"

Mary riffled through the stock and shoved a Jethro Tull CD into her hands.

She tapped it against her thigh.

"So, when do I get to hang?"

"I can get us into 80s night free."

"No, I mean, with your cooler friends. Your 'murder models', or whatever."

"You wanna hang out with the Deathbutantes?"

Amber scrunched her nose.

"That's so fucking pretentious."

Mary kind of liked it.

"Dunno if they're really your scene."

"Oh? And what's my scene?"

"Musical theater on crack."

She mock gasped at him, "Called out!" before smacking him with the CD. "Whatever. You love musical theater on crack."

Mary draped his arm around her shoulders.

"Yeah, I do. But I don't live it, you know? You guys have your niche—and fuck…I love to visit—but it's not mine."

Amber looked up at him, her expression serious.

"So the Dumbutantes are your niche?"

Mary shrugged and went back to shelving.

The Rocky crew had been good to him. They'd taken him under their wing, no questions asked, and helped him realize things about himself. Tim had taken him to the ER when Mary had come down with a serious case of the flu. Matty had taught him the basics of sewing. Gretchen had held him after a bad trip. Omar and he had had many drunken heart-to-hearts about their shitty home lives.

And Amber was his best friend. She'd been his #1 cheerleader for years and had never been afraid to call him out on his shit.

So yeah, he loved the Rocky crew…but they laughed at anyone who took anything too seriously. Mary would show up to game nights in his latest creation—with everyone else in pjs or jeans & hoodies—and they'd tease him about trying to impress the wrong people. He'd try to talk about the newest guitar god he'd been mainlining, and they'd make snoring noises at him.

How could he explain the kinship he felt with the Deathbutantes? That they were as serious about music as he was, that they just…got why he felt the need to dress the way he did to express the way he felt inside on his outside.

Instead, he said, "I'm just trying shit out, Ambs." He quirked his eyebrow at her. "I gotta do something while you guys do your real-person jobs."

(Amber had recently started as a junior marketing assistant at the American Repertory Theater. "Purely mercenary," she'd said. "Maybe it'll give me a leg up during auditions.")

She made a disgruntled scoffing noise in the back of her throat.

"Fuck, don't remind me. I actually gotta go to bed a reasonable hour now."

"Don't worry." Mary winked at her. "I'll keep ya honest."

"That sounds a lot like my head in a toilet, Mare."

"I'll hold your hair back."

She gave him a good-natured shove, and he pretended to cower.

If she wanted to cross pollinate, who was Mary to stand in her way? So, he invited her out the next time the Deathbutantes went to a show, and it went exactly like he thought it would.

They disliked her, and she was equally unimpressed. They thought she was too loud and frenetic, and she thought they had no sense of humor.

"I fucking told you," Mary had snorted as they sat on the curb sharing a clove.

"Shut the fuck up, Mare."

But she'd put her head on his shoulder.

"They make you happy, though. So I guess I approve. Just as long as I don't have to play nice."

Mary still hung out with the Rocky crew—there were still game nights and drug-fueled sex parties and theater games—but the Deathbutantes introduced him to the underground scene. They always seemed to have insider knowledge about the best up-in-coming bands and the secret shows. Theme nights at the goth clubs were always a must, and they rarely missed one. Sometimes, Angelique would crash, and they'd take the commuter rail to Providence to party at Club Hell before collapsing in a sweaty, smeary pile at a friend of a friend's hole in the wall.

As a bit player in the Rocky crew, Mary had been another made-up face in the crowd. As a certified member of the Deathbutantes, Mary became the face.

They all did.

The owners loved them because they bought round after round at the bar, and if word got out that the Deathbutantes were there, their admirers came to spend money as well. The employees loved them because they were fun and talked to them as equals. The clientele loved them because they were pretty young things.

Sometimes, though, Mary wasn't in the mood to party or get laid, so he talked to the DJs instead. He'd buy them rounds and stay past closing to help them pack up while they talked about the history of punk and 80s new wave and nu metal. There was one in particular, Dave, that Mary even considered a friend.

The two of them would sit in the club past closing, sharing a whiskey and talking about life while the bartenders closed down and cashed out. Occasionally, Dave's other friends would be around, and they'd all walk back to his place; he'd fool around spinning in his home studio, and they'd drink box wine as they danced and laughed before Mary would have to sit on the ground in an intoxicated exhaustion, good for only thumbing through Dave's vinyl collection.

Mary was just happy to talk shop with another music aficionado, but Angelique had pointed out that he should leverage his minor clout.

They'd been waiting for Greg to finish setting up, and Mary had been struggle city after a particularly hard night out. It was all he could manage to sit there quietly and hope some god would put him out of his misery.

"You need to get your shit together," Angelique had said out of nowhere.

Mary had cracked a puffy eye and had slowly (as to not bring the nothing in his stomach back up) turned his head to her.

"As if I haven't seen your melted ass on the floor wanting to die."

"Fuck, Mary. You've turned it into an art form."

He'd closed his eyes and given her the finger, but that hadn't stopped her.

"You wanna be a rockstar, boy? You can't just sit on your ass and hope the right person on the right night hears you. You're effervescent and charismatic—heads turn when you walk into a room and not just because of your skinny jeans—but you need more than air, Mary, which is all you are right now."

"Fuck you, Angela."

She'd clapped in front of his face, and she was lucky he didn't Exorcist bile all over her.

"You're a fucking pain in my ass, Goore. I'm doling out the good stuff, try not to bite my hand off, k?"

"All right, all right!"

"You wanna start that band? You wanna get play and amass fans? Well, make that demo you're always droning on about and give it to those DJs you're alway fanboying over. Fucking network, Goore."

At the time, Mary had been too hungover to care, but her advice would sink in…

Eventually.

For the time being, Mary was content. He loved the attention, and it made him feel invincible, made him feel like it was finally His Time. And he was going to make up for every slight, every unfair situation, and every beat down with sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll.

With his newfound nightlife, Mary's day job had become an afterthought. He started sleeping through opening shifts, but with the extra foot traffic Mary brought to the store, his boss seemed resigned to let Mary slide (after a stern talking to and a pay docking).

The shadow cast had started using him as a mascot of sorts, and he was happy to show up on Saturday nights and hype up the waiting line with a pseudo striptease. (Even if it was sometimes to kick off his evening with the Deathbutantes and not hang with the cast after.)

Mary started a band ("auditioning" any and all of the many admirers who said they’d be more than happy to join it), and after a few false starts and a couple of lineup changes, they began working on an EP. (At least, when Mary showed up to rehearsal, they did.)

A Boston Phoenix reporter got wind of the Deathbutantes and called around about doing a story on them. The Bens were excited about the exposure that meant for their zine, and Angelique and Greg were excited about what it could mean for their careers. Mary did a brief interview over the phone where he answered questions about his style and talked about his dream of making his band a household name.

Mary saw his name up in lights, and he was reaching for it, full speed ahead.

But then things turned.

The story fell through at the last minute with no further explanation or contact by the reporter.

His boss finally fired him after Mary showed up too high to function too many times—or not at all.

The shadow cast had a turnover, and suddenly he was old news—a cringey hanger-on.

A trip to the clinic and a round of antibiotics for an STI had him way more wary of who he hooked up with.

"Heroes" lost momentum when imitators popped up and Ben cut off the gravy train.

Angelique moved to NYC for "better opportunities," and the Bens took their brand of counterculture to Portland, OR.

Greg took down the website when he got offered a legit job as an apprentice at a food magazine, and that was that.

The physical zines were cheap things, most ending up papering the sidewalk after trash day or lining the bottom of cages. Without the online presence, did Mary's "modeling career" even exist?

Mary was a little sad to see the era go, but when he woke up in Maine on the hood of some girl's car and only a hazy recollection of how they'd gotten there, he was beginning to see Angelique's point. He needed to get his shit together if he was ever going to become a rockstar. And frankly, he kind of felt like he needed to spend an entire month eating carrots and hydrating.

The 24/7 party had always been an ephemeral thing; it had been sand passing through his hands in a finite amount as he'd tried to hold onto it

He put himself on detox, and waking up sober for the first time in months felt like a revelation. And as it turned out, playing the guitar without badly shaking hands was way, way easier.

He found another job in another music store, and his starter!band was bringing butts into the smaller venues, like Toad.

He still had his old Rocky friends and the Deathbutantes. The club and venue owners still let him in for free, and Dave was always happy to give his demos a spin. By anyone's else's measure, he was steal one of the scene's darlings.

But Mary was beginning to realize that he needed to stop seeing himself as that scared kid who’d arrived in Boston 4 years ago with only a backpack, $72.57 to his name, and void where his family should be.

He needed to stop finding people to please into loving him.

Instead, he needed to live for himself and let them love him for who he was—fuck ups and all.

@slimylayne

Epilogue

"Honestly, that’s probably the reason I even got a band together," he says. "I was still kind of shit at guitar, but people came to see ‘Model Mary’ perform in his underwear."

He shoots me a smirk.

"I’m sure there’re pictures out there of me looking more glam than metal. I kind of played up the whole pinup thing for a while."

"Fuck, I would kill, literally kill to see that."

He pulls me into his lap until I’m straddling him.

"I could open up my underwear drawer and show you right now."

"Goore, you temptress."

I lean down to kiss him, and his hands sneak under my shirt, but I pull away again.

"I kinda thought I knew all your torrid secrets by now. Shit, how come Dave's never needled you about it?"

After 2 years with him, I’m surprised I hadn't even heard a peep from his oldest friend.

Mary snorts.

"Dave would miss shit hanging off his nose. Great dude, amiable as fuck, but he's always had fucking tunnel vision for his music."

I smirk at him.

"Sounds like someone else I know."

Mary pulls a face at me, and I apply kisses to every line until he laughs and bats me away.

"But really, Mare—how come you never told me about your brief career in blue steel?"

He blows out a breath, his hands smoothing up my thighs.

"Fuck. Cuz maybe I was a little embarrassed at how off the rails I was then, ok? Didn't want you to know what I fuck up I was." He takes my hand and kisses my palm. "And even I know it's a shit move to pitch woo at someone by telling them about banging half of Boston."

I make a face at him, and he laughs.

"Yeah, that’s what I thought."

His hands rest on my waist.

"Christ, everything about that year's a bit fuzzy, and it was like 10 years ago. Sometimes it feels like it happened to someone else, honestly. And shit—most of those people aren’t even around anymore. College kids who moved on and 20-somethings that grew up and moved who knows where. I used to watch Amber have—what is it when it’s four people?—and now she lives in bumblefuck Pennsylvania with 3 kids. After she left, I just kinda drifted away from all that."

He shrugs, his eyes downcast.

"I’m sorry, Mare," I say as I smooth his eyebrows.

He shrugs again.

"I mean, we all kinda keep in touch. It's like the only reason I have Facebook."

"When was the last time you even signed into that?"

Mary grins at me.

"Lola's birthday."

"One of the models? What happened with them?"

Mary bites his lip and thinks.

"Mayhem found religion after an OD and kinda ghosted everyone. Lesley followed a girl to New Hampshire. Uh…Lola pursued a PhD for something sciencey involving renewable energy with sugar beets in Idaho, and Bryan moved back to Florida to care for his grandma, who raised him."

Mary leans his head back on the couch and rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands.

"I mean, shit. We were fucking babies back then. Head empty except for a good time and unlimited potential."

I run my fingers through his hair.

"You miss it?"

His eyes pop open to look at me.

"Fuck no. Not for a million dollars. Too many question marks." His eyes glint as he runs his hands down me. "I like what I got going on right here."

I wrap my arms around his shoulders and kiss his forehead. The fucking sap.

Mary picks up my phone and scrolls through the pictures again.

"Fuck. I used to be goddamn adorable, though. Half this shit wouldn’t even fit me anymore."

I squish his little potbelly, and he grunts at me indignantly.

"Do you still have any originals?" I ask.

He shakes his head, his eyes wistful and his smile sad.

"Nah. Got destroyed when my roof collapsed and leaked everywhere. Fuck, landlords are useless. Glad we fucking own now, babe."

He scrolls up, scrolls back down.

"Just these four?"

I nod.

"Yeah. They were the only ones I found—and I did a lot of searching."

"Christ, I think there were at least 10."

I smile ruefully at him. "It’s not gonna be long anyway before they make their way into the popular tags and shit starts coming out of the woodwork."

He tosses my phone onto the table.

"Whatever. Just shows that I’ve always been cool."

And then he’s kissing me again, his hand tangling in my hair.

"You know, I’m your family now, Mare. Just for you."

He brings my hand up and kisses it.

"Fuck, I know that. Why’dja think I put a ring on it?"

#mary goore #longfic #gender neutral insert #aurelio voltaire

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1tad0ri · 4 years

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Hello!! So remember that Anon asks about Yuuji with eyeliner and piercings like Naoya? So I did it 🙈🙈 I'm kinda newbie in digital art so I've tried my best 👉👈

Is it okay? 🥺The eyeliner are kinda subtle coz I don't wanna over do it.. How does he still look cute tho😩😩✌🏻

WHAT??? IS THIS OKAY????? THIS IS MORE THAN OKAY this is so good i love it omg 🥺🥺🥰🥰🥰 THE PIERCINGS AHHH PLS SJDNXJA AND THE EYELINER yes he looks so adorable!!!!! but also hot????? HOW HELP SKDJSJ omg i’m going to cherish this AHHHHH the little gasp i let out when i saw this in my inbox sjsjsjwjw i’m so happy. am thinking many thoughts now 🧎‍♀️

omg this look really good, especially since you said ur just starting out??? and i just ajdjsjajs THANK U FOR THIS 🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️💓💓💓💓💓 how long did it take you omg, i’m in awe whenever someone does digital editing <3

okay guys, it’s official, we don’t need naoya with his silly eyeliner and piercings bc now we have yuuji baby 🥰

#tysm for this i keep looking at it HAHA 🥰💓💓💓#asks #itadori #saved #WHAT omg u’ll literally be SO good when you have more experience if this is what u do as a BEGINNER pls <3 i’m in awe

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awilddreamermain · 3 years

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Hi, Chels! Congratulations!! I'm so happy for you! You deserve every follower and more! That is a threat, I'm holding everyone hostage 🔪

I would love to get a MHA matchup, I wanna see who you'd match me with! Got me so curious! SFW & NSFW if you'd be willing!

My name is Chloe but I prefer May, nicknames include May-May, Maybell or Chlo.

I'm 25, pronouns are she/he, Cancer Moon, Aries Sun and Virgo Rising. Quite the weird mash of zodiacs, huh?

My favorite colors are pink (that soft pastel kinda baby pink), red (especially blood/garnet red) and...can I add pink again? Any shade of pink this time. Bubblegum or hot pink.

Favorite AU's include A/B/O, Mafia, Historical, Fantasy and does Mythical Creatures count?

Oh...oh boy, I gotta look deep for some fun facts that aren't just...facts but I'll do my best!

1) My sneezes are so short and high pitched I go "chu".

2) I have vitiligo, makes me look like a dog because it's mostly around my mouth and my right eye so I have a spot!

3) I have atrocious balance, my knees and shins are always banged up because I cannot for the life of me walk correctly.

4) I have a stutter, on top of speaking so quickly it turns into a jumbled mess. So good luck understanding what I said because I have no idea either.

5) I have a growing unicorn plush collection. My favorite is Cupcake, one that's actually taller than I am. Big chunk.

My likes are pretty simple. Cute & soft sweaters, blankets, warm coffee and strawberry milk, pastries and the cold! Winter is my favorite season. History, particularly the Medieval and Victorian times.

My interests revolve around creativity and you could say they're my hobbies as well. Drawing in particular, I used to do digital but I'm stuck with traditional pencil and paper at the moment. I'm dipping my toes into painting and its very fun! Obviously writing and reading and if I'm not doing of those listed then I'm definitely playing video games.

Personality I might say I'm quite split down the middle. At first, to a complete stranger I might come across as cold, stoic, with a resting bitch face, that just wants to get whatever I'm outside for done so I can leave. I'd create a witty or sarcastic comeback if I was given sass by a Karen but with my speech issues? I'd be lucky to get one coherent word out at her...and spend the rest of the day fantasizing what could've happened. So I'm rather quiet, agoraphobia hits hard in large or crowded places so I'm an anxiety riddled mess on the verge of a panic attack. In private or with people that I'm comfortable with? Complete opposite. Happy, bubbly, cracking puns and jokes so get those groan worthy reactions. I try to be the "mom friend" and get over my issues if someone is having it worse, I'll march up to a counter and ask for ketchup if someone wanted it but was too scared to do it themselves. The shoulder to lean and cry on, I'm highly empathetic and understanding, compassionate at times. But I have to actively try and keep myself positive and say good things about myself because I do fall into the pit of self-loathing and hate.

For appearance I'd say I'm average height, pale with white splotches that are inching larger due to my vitiligo, chubby, ashy blonde, blue eyes, button nose. I'd say I'm decently cute? I don't know if I can rate myself.

Okay I know I said I'd be looking into Zodiac compatibility for this but— I literally just screamed internally "KIRISHIMA" when I was reading this. You two would be perfect omg. This Libra king would do anything for you. For this you're an artist and the daughter of a mafia boss :) I like to think of ship names sometimes so like, yours would either be like Eijmay or Mayjirou or Kiriloe— that last one and first are awful I know so lets go with the second? I can't write a proper stutter for the life of me so I tried to keep your dialogue to the minimum.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ Pairing: Eijirou Kirishima

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀AU: Mafia

⠀Theme Song: You're The One That I Want - Alex & Sierra

How you meet (his point of view):

⠀⠀The gallery was full of black and white suits, tight, floor length dresses with the sounds of laughter and clinking glasses meeting his ears. It was a joyous evening, celebrating the wonderful art work created by the boss's daughter. He had never met her before but he had heard whispers, all good as no one would dare slander the name of their leader's precious little girl. You were the boss's pride and joy, thus he kept you as far away from the darker side of the family business as possible.

⠀⠀Kirishima was still a new hire, a bodyguard of sorts and would consider this his first gig. He had an idea of who he was looking for as he walked further into the mass of people admiring your work but didn't expect what he would eventually come across. You were as far away from the crowd as you possibly could be, guzzling glasses of wine and over all appearing to be a deer in headlights. He couldn't fugure out for the life of him why you seemed so frightened until he watched people approach you to talk, noticing the stutter in your voice when you replied to questions and greetings,your body language telling people to stear clear of you.

⠀⠀So, he did what he was hired to do. "Kindly step away from the lady." He said with a smile, approaching with his large arms crossing over his broad chest as he towered over the guests. They looked at him as if he were a giant shark looking to devour them before scurrying away, leaving the two of you alone. He stood quietly, listening to the voices on the other side of his ear piece as his ruby eyes scanned the area around you. He made sure to not stand so close and avoided in letting his gaze wander.

⠀⠀He couldn't help but admire your skin in quick glances, finding the spot over your eye to be quite adorable. Your silky, ask blonde hair was all dolled up for the event, light make up on your face but not enough to cover the vitiligo. You were stunning and his heart hammered against his chest. So the rumors were true.

⠀⠀You thanked him, voice quiet and careful as you set down your wine glass and clasped your hands together. Out of the corner of his eye he watched you twiddle your thumbs. You didn't want to be here, did you? This obviously wasn't your idea, how could it be? A girl like you, timid as a mouse, didn't want to be surrounded by strangers. "Miss..." He began, thinking carefully because the last thing he wanted to do was piss off the boss and likely get himself killed. But this was his job wasn't it? Making sure you were happy and safe? "Would you like to leave here for a bit? We'll come back of course, but you look like you need some air."

Extra.

He ended up taking you to a drive thru restaurant and got you whatever you wanted, letting you talk about whatever you wanted or sat quietly if you chose not to talk at all If it was quiet in the suv then that was fine too, he just wanted to help you in any way he could. Eventually the silence becomes small talk and then leads to a rather deep conversation about whatever the hell was going on inside that beautiful brain of yours. Kirishima wasn't the smartest man but he wasn't stupid, he wasn't as clueless as most thought he was. You told him how your father made you do this as an attempt to get you out there, to socialize and possibly find a suitor. This was the mafia after all.

The Confession:

⠀⠀It was a tradition now, every Sunday you and Eijirou would go to your favorite café to have coffee and enjoy the early day weather before it got too hot. You sit at the same table, in the same chairs with him facing the door. You get the same drinks and food and just overall enjoy each others company. After that night at the gallery you two became fast friends, which your father obviously had to approve of but thankfully he did. Kirishima was a good man, he's trustworthy and puts you before himself.

⠀⠀The day he approached your father and asked to speak in private was the day he knew he was likely to get thrown in the deepest, darkest depths of the ocean. He has confessed his feelings for you to your old man, who listened intently with a blank face behind his desk. "Sir, I'm in love with your daughter, and with your blessing I'd like to... court her." He was utterly terrified when your father cleared his throat and sighed, shifting where he sat so he could stand and move around the desk. He reached out for a handshake which Kirishima looked up at him with a questioning look.

⠀⠀Your father gave his blessing and now... He just had to tell you, his best friend, that he loved you. God he loved you so much— "Kiri," you interrupted his thoughts, bringing him crashing back to reality," a-are you alright? You seem nervous." He swallowed hard in response but cleared his throat, taking a sip of his cappuccino.

⠀⠀"Oh yeah— definitely." He breathed with a laugh, moving a hand to the back of his neck to scratch. How was he going to say it? "So, uh—" he licked his lips, adjusting himself in his seat multiple times until he groaned and leaned forward. "Fuck, I'm just gonna say it— Maybell, I love you. I have for a long time now and I talked to your father and he said—"

⠀⠀"Said what, Eijirou?" Your eyes widened at his confession and he felt like a complete idiot. Should he had said something to you first? Was this a mistake? What if you didn't feel the same way? God his mind was going to explode—

⠀⠀"That I could... court you. With your permission." You were quick to nod and smile to his surprise, which prompted a grin if his own.

Extra.

Kirishima HAS to be facing the door in any public place you go to. I don't make the rules.

He never let's you walk close to the road, he has to be between you and it at all times when you're walking.

He oders your food and drinks for you when you can't but is there for moral support when you do. He wants you comfortable and happy. He wouldn't ever dare get in your way though, you're a lot stronger and braver than most may think you are.

The Relationship:

⠀⠀On days like this, Kirishima can't help but admire you. He catches himself staring wuite often but he just can't help it. What did he do to deserve such a beautiful partner? He looks at you and all he can think about is how much he loves you and wants to see you smile. He watched you from the kitchen island, leaning against it as you waltz around the kitchen in your pinky fuzzy slippers and one of his shirts that's much, much too big on you. He remembers your surprise when you found his clothing was actually too big on you and how happy you were.

⠀⠀"Maybell?" He hums, adjusting his stance and crossing his arms on the counter. He listened for you to him back in response, a smile on his lips. "You look so cute in my clothes.

⠀⠀You giggled, shaking your head and continued putting the dishes away until Eijirou appeared behind you, arms wrapping around your waist and his forehead coming down on your shoulder. "Need somethin' baby?" You turned your head just slightly, a brow cocked inquisitively. He squeezed you in response, swiftly lifting you and making you squeal. Thankfully you didn't have anything in your hands at the moment. He peppered kisses all over the side of your face, setting you down only to lift you again bridal style.

⠀⠀"I've got all I need right here in my arms." He chuckled and you playfully smacked his chest, letting him carry you to your shared bedroom.

Extra.

TICKLE FIGHTS.

He thinks your sneezes are the cutest thing in the world.

He loves your god awful puns, they crack him up every time.

Adores the fact you're a nurturer, especially with your friends. He thinks you'd make a great mother but if that's something you don't want he respects that.

You take care of everyone, but who takes care of you? Eijirou is always there to be your shoulder to lean and cry on, he's your sound board and is always happy to let you talk about your feelings with him. You're allowed to not be happy and bubbly all the time, he realizes how staying positive all the time can actually do more damage than goof, especially if you bottle everything up.

If on a particular day you're struggling with your speech he's happy to be your voice as well. He understands you better than anyone, even your own father.

Speaking of your father, he can't wait to make Eijirou his son-in-law! He's a good man with a good heart and treats you right, what's not to like?

He has trouble saying no to you and spoils you quite a bit.

The Fights:

...

Extra.

There's nothing, what you say goes and all he can say is "yes dear". He knows better than to argue with you, however when he's right and he knows he is, he finds a way to prove it without making you mad.

The Sex:

⠀⠀"Fuck baby—" he hissed, hands finding your hips and guiding you as you rub yourself on his cock. Your hands are on his thighs and your head is tossed back, giving him the perfect view of your tits. God he loves them, he loves the plush skin of your stomach and your thighs, your ass too, he loved seeing all of you. He was so happy that you allow him this privilege of seeing you, granted you've been dating a while now but still. Your sounds are music to his ears and all he wants is to make more, make you feel so good you're calling his name and making a mess.

He wanted— no, needed, to feel you, to feel inside your warm and wet cunt, to feel it squeeze him and milk him dry. He was quick to flip the two of you over, careful to not hurt you as he did. You gasped and giggled, reaching up to hold his face as he smiled, leaning down to capture your lips in a searing kiss. He loved your taste, he could go on and on about all the things he loved about you all day if he could. "You want it baby?" You nodded excitedly, lip caught between your teeth. He smirked and reached between the two of you, thick fingers tracing a line between your lips and slipping inside your soaked pussy.

"D-Daddy—" you whine, a slight pout on your lips as your face morphs into one of pleasure. He chuckled, pumping his fingers in and out a few times before removing them and grabbing his cock. He coated it more in your slick, guiding it between tge lips of your cunt before slowly pushing inside, groaning at how tight you are. You squeal of course, gasping for breath because Kirishima is an impressive size, you still struggled to take him sometimes but like a good girl you always managed.

"That's my good girl." He cooed, moving so his forearms were on either side of your head. He gave a couple test thrusts, waiting for you to adjust u til you nodded for him to continue.

Extra.

Terrified of activating his quirk while he's fucking you, but he keeps himself under control.

He loves his hair pulled and he loves to be bitten, he especially likes it when you scratch his back when he hits that good spot.

Eats you out for his pleasure mostly, but for yours as well. He loves when you grind on his face and moan his name when you do it. Speaking of, please sit on his face, he loves that shit. He knows how to be careful of his teeth!

If you have pets they CANNOT be in the same roon when you're doing the do, it's just weird.

He'd happily bend you over in the kitchen and do you right there. Hell, he'll fuck you anywhere you deem suitable.

He likes to do a mixture if praise and degradation with you, and edging and overstimulation is a big go-to. He just loves seeing you squirm under him, hr loves hearing you beg and say you need him.

#dreamer's 800 follower event

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bosskie · 5 months

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Molluck Study Night

Man, I don't remember when was the last time I managed to draw this many sketches in a day... Last night I studied Molluck's anatomy, so the rest of the sketches here will be about naked Molluck. But this was the last one I did since I also wanted to just practice drawing his face. I had no idea how to draw him but then I just looked at those cutscenes and wanted to draw this one because he is just so cute when he is pondering after looking at the blimps in the first part of the good ending! This wasn't easy one to draw and I actually fixed this a bit digitally since I realized my mistakes while editing the photo of this... It just feels like I still have so much to learn how to draw this Gluk... I feel like I lack of something, making me unable to ever be professional in art, but maybe I just haven't been doing enough art, studies etc...

But currently, I do am trying to improve my art since I feel like I'm just stuck and haven't really improved in a decade... So, here's some random Molluck anatomy studies, being in order I made them:

These are actually quickly made sketches, so that's how I was actually able to draw this much in one night... Though, I finished that portrait after waking up since I become too sleepy to finish it. I personally feel like these sketches only show how poor my anatomy skills are, so I wasn't even sure if I post these or not but well, still wanted to be brave and show my poor skills bare naked, just like Molluck is... This is just how I feel about these sketches... They show my real skill level and I don't think that it's good... Well, gotta just keep drawing. Though, I do still sketch a lot poorer stuff when I try to figure out how to realize my drawing ideas... Well, I guess that I could give you a look at these actually awful sketches:

All of these are made for a sketch/drawing I have posted here. (Yes, I tend to sketch stuff using Paint.) Frankly, this is how I tend to see my skills, how I feel when I look at my stuff... I know that it's not nice to see an artist calling their art bad but I just wanna be honest, like brutally honest about how I see my stuff, so here's kinda like a visualisation of how I see my stuff, at least during my worst moments... There do are moments when I do feel like I can actually draw but they seem to be just little moments and I'm soon back to thinking about that I cannot draw a thing. It's depressing and it makes me feel kinda depressed when I look at the stuff on this post but well, this blog has also kinda been about the journey I have been doing with my Molluck art/stuff, in many ways.

I'm sorry but I just cannot pretend that I loved my art... I love Molluck so much but at the same time, I just hate myself so much... I don't even know why but I just feel like my life is already a failure... Just feel like how this stuff shows how I cannot truly draw... How me being skilled is just a lie... Man, I just have so bad impostor syndrome... I feel the best when I forget myself but when I think about myself, it only depresses me... I just tend to think that every energy/time/etc. spent on me is wasted...

Even looking at the stuff on this post makes me feel worse, I still wanna post this bad art. I just don't feel like that the portrait looks great either but I tried my best and that's the main thing. I just feel so bad about myself... It feels like I'm only able to practice self-love thru Molluck, making him being kind to me while I tell myself the worst possible things... This is one of the reasons why he is so important to me... He is the one that tells me inside my head not to do it, not to end it all... Frankly, like I said some time ago, it's actually like a mundane thing for me to think about suicidal things, just nothing special anymore, it's been so long like this, over a decade... This also kinda one reason why I'm so open about my own situation, I'm getting so tired of this... To describe how awful my mind is, I can say that it has just laughed at me when I have been reading about how seriously suicidal thoughts should be taken, said how I'm not worth saving but all the others are...

But I'm still trying to fight, even I have felt like life is pointless for over a decade... The cycle of life has just felt so odd: born, grow up, (breed,) die... Like, what's the point of this all? Why to live, why to survive... Thinking this stuff was the reason why I got depressed, just don't understand the point of living, doing anything in life... Maybe it's my personality that just makes me unable to enjoy life, stop caring about this... But like I have said, I do still feel like I'm a failure, so I'll never really be anything... This is how I just feel and I don't know how to stop feeling like this... Just everything I have 'achieved' feels like mere luck or 'lucky mistakes'... I just feel like I'm a living lie, my impostor syndrome is this bad...

I don't wanna depress anyone else but my blog has kinda become like this, that I also write how I'm doing with my mind since it affects my stuff a lot and Molluck kinda just keeps my mental health 'in place'. I really had some positive things in mind to write here but I just cannot when I feel like my 'art' looks so bad right now... Well, another time then. I'm sorry but I'm just fighting for my own life with my mind... Since I more like hate my creations, I'm only able to show my stuff related to Molluck since this Gluk is just the love of my life... This was also the reason why I didn't take part in that OWI's fan celebration thing they just held, just have no mood for making my stuff more visible, show it around but here. Like I have said many times, I felt like deleting my submission to that SoulStorm tattoo contest I won, it just looked so bad in my opinion... I only wish I was able to see what the people who enjoy my stuff see... Why is my mind just trying to kill me, but there somewhere I still know that I'm not so awful as my ill mind tells me, that I do have hope, that I shouldn't take my own life... Man, brains are so odd too...

I don't wish that I end this all because of all the bad things I tell myself. I more like wish that me being open about this can help the others like me. That's why I'm also working on a game related to mental health issues like mine. Thinking about publishing/showing it makes me feel nervous though but I'm trying my best with being able to show my stuff since my life kinda depends on it... Man, why it's so difficult to feel anything positive about myself... I seriously don't know why I hate myself so much... Why I have so high expectations for myself... Why I feel like I can do nothing in reality...

#molluck #oddworld molluck #molluck the glukkon #oddworld #art like a bosskie

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mcrmadness · 3 years

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die ärzte stuff from my sketchbook 2/?

I wanted to keep these separate from the previous sketchbook post because this is all about hair "studies".

I know how to draw realistic hair, and I know how to draw comic book hair. But to draw something from between those? That was a huge challenge. So I tried out things and eventually watched some video tutorials too, and tried to use those freshly learn tips and tricks.

This was my second attempt with that one Richy Guitar scene I'm (still) trying to draw, but Bela's face was too difficult to draw once again, so I abandoned this one. And that failure is under the censored one because it really looked awful. I ended up making an edit of the scene in photoshop so that I can draw Bela's face from a more easier angle. Or the angle itself was not difficult, it just made him look quite weird to begin with and that was not fun nor easy to draw because it was impossible to get to look similar but also like Bela - when he doesn't even look like himself enough in that original screenshot.

But yeah, to the hairs now. The Farin/Richy on the left was my first try of these, and the second one was by using something I saw in video tutorials. I think all those Bela hairs I drew before these and really had a hard time figuring out how to draw black hair! I tried the brush pen and I tried fineliners but nothing seemed to work.

Then I went to watch some tutorials.

And this is what I came up with. It definitely was getting better and better, but this time Farin's hairstyle was causing me problems. It was really difficult to find even any tutorials because every "spiky hair" tutorial was about manga or anime, and most "hair colouring" tutorials were for digital art or real hair and that was not what I was looking for.

What comes to the texts... you see, I tend to become bilingual or even trilingual when I make notes. I switch between Finnish and English all the time and don't even notice it myself. The texts under Farin hairs go: "Meh...", "Could work." and "That is lacking something."

But otherwise I'm really proud of those Rod hairs! Finally managed to nail the black hair shading and highlighting :D And holy shit Rod's hair is actually so much fun to draw! Bela's 13 hair also turned out pretty nicely, and the last 80s Farin hair is already a step to the right direction.

This is the last scan so far and with this I decided to look for Farin photos just to figure out how to exactly draw this hair. It was not an easy task but I think the right top one is the best one of these.

The middle one has too round head so it looks more like Rod than Farin, but it tried to be one of the 80s Farin photos, the same one as the middle one on the left. I can see already things to fix and practice next time - some of the "spikes" at the back in the one on the bottom are too small, and it doesn't look like pointy hair between that and the front part - unlike it does with the top right one. There's still some stuff to do and practice, but this is already a LOT better than e.g. the first sheet in this post!

#mcrmadness draws #my sketchbook~#my dä sketches #dä fanart #die ärzte

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robin-the-enby · 3 years

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Hello!!!! Could I get a doctor who and marvel matchup/ship? I’m female/straight. I’m 5’1, athletic build, with long black wavy hair, brown eyes, tanned skin, and cat eye glasses. Im a Slytherin, Leo and chaotic neutral. I’m quite the lone wolf and extremely independent but I can be outgoing with very close friends. I’m creative, independent, confident in my own skin, and quite laid back. However, if someone tries to control my thoughts and actions I can be very stubborn. I have a sarcastic and witty sense of humor and love banter. I love art, digital art, video effects/vfx, video game design and graphic design. Literally anything to do with art combined with technology I adore. I also love kickboxing and strength training. I love playing video games and watching all sorts of movies (sci fi being my favorite). I don’t physically read much but I love audiobooks. I also love conspiracy theory, sci fi and true crime podcasts. Thank you!

Yay! A Doctor who matchup! Now, I feel like I have to apologize, because I haven't seen all of Doctor who, I think I ended somewhere in 3rd season, so I don't know many of the characters. But do not fret! I match you with:

9th Doctor

I think your personality coresponds best with the 9th Doctor.

He himself is quite the lone wolf, but your personality intrigues him so much he takes you on board as his companion.

He would genuinely enjoy being around someone as independent and laid back as you. He also very much apreciates your creativity, because I'm sure it's come in handy multiple times.

Your stubborness might cause you some problems or cause you two to fight sometimes, because Doctoor has the tendency to order you, when you two are in danger. Usually it's something along the lines of "You go back to the Tardis, I'll handle it here." if you listen or not is up to you.

You two would be such a power couple. Evenm in the middle of danger, your teasing and bickering would not cease. I can see the faces of other people/aliens staring back at you like "Is this funny to them??"

If you love art, the Doctor has no problem taking you back in time to meet your favourit artists, god knows he's friends with at least half of them.

He'll also love anything you create and would boast to anyone who would want to listen about his talented s/o.

When I tell you this man would be awed by your fighting skills, I mean it. He sees you kick some alien butt and man's like (0o0)

When you two aren't running around time and space, you can teach him how to play videogames, although I don't think he'd be a big fan of them. He'd much more like tinkering with Tardis while listening to some podcasts or audio books, while you draw or train. He'll like conspiracy theories and might even spark an idea to go and debunk them. As for true crime, I don't think he'd be into that genre either. He's seen so much death and destruction, it just doesn't do it for him. If you let him choose, he'll put on some classic comedy stuff, maybe listen to stand up.

Tony Stark

Tony and yours personalities also would go really well together.

He loves your independence and confidence, he finds it very hot, if I may be so bold :P

You both are very creative, so he often comes to you to help him with some designs and other stuff, because he likes to compare his genious ideas with the ideas of others. Y'know, to get a look from a fresh pair of eyes, that haven't been hunched over the project for weeks.

It's quite rare that Tony would try to control you or your actions, mostly in danger, like the 9th Doctor. Again, it's up to you whether you'll listen to him or not, but remember, he's doing it to save you from injury or worse, death.

Again, you two would be such a power couple. The rest of the Avengers can only shake their heads tiredly when they hear you two coming down the hall, already hearing you two bickering back and forth. And the smug smiles on both of your faces, my god -_-

Expect Tony to take you to galeries and art exhibitions and for him to buy you the best drawing equipment there is. He loves your passion for technology.

He likes the fact your into combat, at least he doesn't have to worry about you that much. you know, he has a lot of enemies, it's very much probable you'll get jumped.

Videogame nights are a must, he loves the competitive ones and horror ones and will buy the newest games and consoles.

I think Tony is the type of person who would relax to podcasts or audiobooks more than work to them, because he has to concentrate a lot while working. He's not really interested in conspiracy theories or true crime, if you let him choose, he'll pick most likely somethimg philosophical or a classic.

#the doctor #doctor who matchups #9th doctor #9th doctor x reader #9th doctor x y/n #marvel avengers #mcu #mcufam #marvel iron man #tony stark #tony stark x reader #tony stark x y/n #tony stark matchups #iron man matchups #iron man x reader #iron man x y/n

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dammitradar · 4 years

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Babe I just tried to download/draw/attempt to do digital art and my awe of your art just tripled like holy shit how do you do that??? I just wanted to draw some my bois all whumped up with no where to go and damn that sucked. *insert me being mad that I'm not good at something immediately and dropping it😂😂😂*

oh boy you should see the folder of abandoned/rejected How Do I Art wips i have 😅 i wouldn’t worry about it, honestly the best thing to do is just to literally mess around with all the features for a while for fun. it might help to not even think of it as practice, just as “messing around.” personally i just took like idk... a week? or so in quarantine uninterrupted to fiddle around with the software and get really comfortable with it. and even now looking back at the stuff i made early on (like the Dea puppet one I did) i’m just like “wow i made that a LOT harder than it needed to be 😅😅”

*insert me drawing feverishly at like 1 am cause I Can’t Stop Or Else I’ll Never Finish*

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odyssey-system · 4 years

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Enchanted: Part of Your World #1

"Can you do me a favor, sweetheart?"

Fiona Seville was on the phone with her father Dave as she sat on the couch in her apartment. Her frizzy hair was a slight mess as she adjusted her legs. "Y-Yeah, of course, Dad."

She could hear him sigh on the other end of the phone, along with a cough. "I was supposed to go to a benefit masquerade ball tomorrow night. The one that I go to every year."

"Right! The one for state arts programs?"

"That's right. Well... I can't make it this year. I ended up with bronchitis and your brothers have to take care of me at home."

Fiona frowned. "I'm sorry, Dad..."

"It's alright. I was just wondering, since you were closer, could you make the donation in my place at the ball?"

She bit her lip. She was not typically a person to deal with large crowds, but for the only parent in her life, she'd take a leap of faith. "O-Okay but if I make the donation for you, can you transfer me replacement money after?"

"Of course, sweetheart. You have my word."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

After a few phone calls with her agent, Ethan Blake, Fiona was able to donate money, book a ride and acquire an outfit for the night. She'd spent the past few days looking around for pop culture tidbits she might have missed over the past week or so. She practiced talking to people in the mirror, and she arranged to get out an hour early from work that day.

So now, here she was, sitting in the front seat of a Dryve car in a stunning silver ballgown made by one of Ethan's friends, Addison Sinclair. The driver wasn't much for conversation, preferring to listen to the radio, but she didn't mind.

Eventually, the car pulled up to the designated drop-off point for the masquerade in front of the Sheridan Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, a line of paparazzi along the velvet roped red carpet. Fiona put on her mask and took a deep breath.

Showtime.

Fiona made her way out into the stream of flashing lights, walking toward the start of the red carpet. She only recognized one face in the line of paparazzi: Ana de Luca of Trend Magazine, one of her favorites. She put on her sweetest smile as she heard murmurs about how no one knew who she was, and she prepared for the barrage of questions with a nervous glimmer in her eyes.

Surprisingly, none of them approached her but she was asked to pose for pictures, to which she obliged.

What mattered more to her was getting inside after speaking to both of the hotel's front door bouncers and the bellhop, who helped her find the ballroom in which most of the event was held.

The ballroom was massive, much more extravagant and intimidating than Fiona could have ever imagined. It felt like she was walking around in a fish tank full of people.

It terrified her.

"This place is pretty cool, isn't it?" A young man in his early twenties asked her confidently. "Definitely better than my prom."

Fiona smiled, the conversation alleviating some of her nerves. "Yeah, it's beautiful in here."

"Is this your first time going to this?"

"Yeah."

The man gave an understanding smile. "Me too. I'm Chadley."

"I'm Fiona." She fixed her hair and her mask, shifting her remaining nerves into movement.

Chadley smiled. "Do you want to go get something to drink?"

Fiona nodded back at him. "I'd like that."

The two made their way over to a table with refreshments, Chadley immediately going over to the flutes of champagne. "Bubbly?"

"No thanks." She tried looking for other drinks but only ended up finding water on the table. She grabbed a glass and a reusable straw kit, following Chadley.

"How'd you get an invite to this party? Did you have to pass some initiation or something?"

Fiona laughed. "No. Why, did you?"

"Yeah, kind of! Mr. Groot said that I needed to start sharing my brain cells with my kind and jump into a canyon with no braces for my teeth." He said it with nonchalance, making Fiona recoil a little. His eyes widened. "No no, it's okay! My agent Ethan told me that it was his way of saying I needed to venture out of my comfort zone or something.

She sighed in relief. "This Groot guy might need to find a better way to come across with what he's saying correctly... But at least you have Ethan. He's my agent too."

"Oh sweet! He always has the best suits."

Fiona could think of a few other outstanding qualities about Ethan that would rank higher, but she did have to give Chadley that. "What do you do?"

"I'm a film actor. What about you?"

"Oh! Um..." Fiona's cheeks tinged pink slightly. "I'm a barista but I do have this character acting gig. I do birthday parties and stuff."

"That's cool! Do you like it?"

"Yeah! It's fun to make characters on your own that you can help people with, you know?"

"Hell yeah! So are you working during this party then?"

She shook her head. "No, my dad's a composer. He comes here every year, but he got sick and couldn't make it this time. He wanted me to make a donation this year for him, and I'd do anything for my dad."

"I get you. I'm gonna go talk to more people but-" He took a napkin and wrote down a set of digits. "Here's my cell phone number if you need something. I've gone to some stuff like this, I can help you."

Fiona smiled warmly. "You're so sweet, Chadley! I appreciate this, thank you."

"No worries, Fiona! Hope I see you around." He went off into another portion of the ballroom.

Afte watching him go and making sure he was alright, Fiona went to go sit next to the stage. It was sparsely used at the moment, a few musicians tuning and doing mic checks. She took a few minutes to browse her Pictagram feed idly, pausing on a post by the Wilshere siblings when she noticed something familiar about the backdrop.

"Excuse me." A tall male with shoulder-length hair and a beard said as he approached, gentle and calm with his security badge visible on his belt. "I need you to not block the stairs, ma'am."

Fiona blushed and glanced at the stairs. "Sorry, sir..."

"It's okay. Some of the acts are just ready to sound check."

"Right, of course." She followed him out of the way before spotting a pair of blondes approaching the stage: the Wilshere twins.

Fiona was in awe.

The male of the pair nodded to the security guard. "Thank you, Damien." He turned to Fiona. "Sorry for making you find a new wallflower spot. We just don't want anyone to get hurt, especially a charming young thing like you."

"Arthur! Don't tease the poor girl!" His sister strode over and gave a wide, warm smile. "Sorry about him." She took Fiona's hands. "You seem overwhelmed, love. Are you alright?"

Starstruck but true to Avery's observation, Fiona bit her lip. "I'm not used to navigating parties like this."

"I understand. These things can make a girl feel so small in a world so big, especially for your first time at one of these parties." She squeezes her hands. "There's a few different rooms next to the ballroom being rented out for the ball as well. Those might help you find a smaller group of people around here."

"Avery? Your turn for sound check," her brother called out.

The blonde sighed. "I have to go. But you've got this. I believe in you."

Fiona watched Avery go onto the stage, still anxious but more hopeful than before. She gave both her and Arthur a wave before walking around the ball a bit more.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

After half an hour of roaming all of the other rooms, Fiona found herself in one that resembled a casino. It was a bit smaller than the other rooms, which helped her anxiety, but it felt very much like a boys' club in there with the amount of older men. Several men stared at her as she walked in, appraising her like jewelry. Or worse. She did her best to not give them any ideas or pay them any mind.

Unsatisfied playing games with any of the older men, she made her way over to the bar that was for the most part unoccupied. She sat on the other end of the bar, ordering a coffee instead of alcohol because of her need to have a clear head to survive the night.

When her coffee arrived, the waitress also placed a notebook in front of her, a pen tied to the spiral. She opened it cautiously, seeing neat handwriting on the first page.

Are you alright?

Fiona looked up from her spot and noticed the only other patron at the bar: a younger male but still considerably older than her, nursing a glass of scotch in his hand. His eyes met hers, and he smiled genuinely back at her. She pointed to him and then down at the notebook. He nodded in response. She quickly wrote a response after grabbing a pen from her purse:

Yeah. My first time at one of these events. It's a little scary.

She slid the notebook over to him so the waitress didn't have to do it. She watched him write, moving his hand in a gentle and elegant fashion, before he slid it back to her.

I understand. I didn't want to scare you and add to that. Do you want to sit with me?

Fiona took a moment to collect her thoughts before sliding her purse onto her shoulder. She collected the notebook and her coffee, walking over to sit next to him. "Sorry. I-I just figured if my answer was yes, I didn't want to be redundant.

He nodded in reply. "That's alright. I'm Thomas, by the way."

She smiled. "I'm Fiona."

I want you to know I'm a mirrorball I'll show you every version of yourself tonight

Thomas crossed his legs, right over left. "So what got you to come out here tonight, Fiona?"

"I-I came for my dad. He normally comes down here but he's sick this year."

"What's your last name?"

"Seville."

The name seemed to click in Thomas's head. "Ah yes, I believe I'm somewhat familiar. Dave's his name, right?"

"Y-Yeah."

"I remember him. We've met in passing before, I believe. The most I know is that he's a composer. Are you in the music industry as well?"

I'll get you out on the floor Shimmering beautiful And when I break, it's in a million pieces

Fiona shook her head. "Not exactly. I'm a barista most days, but I also do children's birthdays and other stuff like that as a costume actor. Sometimes it involves singing, but it's not the bread and butter of what I do."

Thomas smiled. "Impressive. You definitely achieve the Disney princess aesthetic tonight."

She blushed. "Thank you. You look nice too."

Hush, when no one is around, my dear You'll find me on my tallest tip-toes Spinnin' in my highest heels, love Shinin' just for you

The two could hear the bartender turn on the television, and a picture of Thomas without a mask on flashed across the screen as part of a television tabloid, along with his full name.

Mortified, Thomas partly covered his face with his hand.

Fiona looked at him sympathetically, reaching for his empty hand. "Is everything okay?"

Hush, I know they said the end is near But I'm still on my tallest tip-toes Spinnin' in my highest heels, love Shinin' just for you

"I... I have a problem with fangirls sometimes." He held her hand gently. "I'm sorry."

She shook her head. "D-Don't be." She looked around. "In all fairness, half of the people here look like you because of the masks and everything."

He uncovered his face. "You're not even a little starstruck at me?"

Fiona smiled and shook her head again. "I-I mean, I *do* know who you are now. But... I mostly look at Trend and music industry magazines, so I don't get your exposure a lot."

I want you to know I'm a mirrorball I can change everything About me to fit in

Thomas took another sip of his scotch, contemplating her words. "Well... What is your impression of me, then?"

You are not like the regulars The masquerade revelers Drunk as they watch my shattered edges glisten

She looked at him thoughtfully. "I-I think you seem like a hard worker. You have ambitions that aren't always in the realm of reality, but you try. And you make every effort to keep your private life and your work separate. You think art is a second life in and of itself."

Thomas sat silent for a moment, stunned. "And how did you manage to decipher all of that?"

Fiona's smile hinted at a hidden laughter. "You don't seem like you've sold your soul to any towel rack of a tabloid, Mr. Hunt."

He knew the game she was playing now. She seemed to warm up to him quickly, something that could hurt them both if they weren't careful.

But the angle she was going for now? Two could play at that game.

Hush, when no one is around, my dear You'll find me on my tallest tip-toes Spinnin' in my highest heels, love Shinin' just for you

"You'd think correctly, Ms. Seville," he said with a regal and teasing side-smirk. "However, seems it's my turn to pick your brain."

Fiona flushed, almost retreating from the teasing as her fingers on one hand started playing with the edges of her frizzy hair. "G-Go ahead."

Thomas was gentle as he shifted on the barstool, taking a full look at her. "You are definitely in touch with your inner child in a way I don't see often around here. Not necessarily the innocence, but you tap into that with your curiosity, your sincerity, your kindness."

Fiona shied away slightly at the very accurate read of her.

He let her have a moment to recover before continuing to speak. "I would love to have more time to figure you out fully, to get to know you, person to person... if you'll have me."

Hush, I know they said the end is near But I'm still on my tallest tip-toes Spinnin' in my highest heels, love Shinin' just for you

She looked up at him with soft silver-blue eyes, searching herself for the answer as she contemplated his request. "O-Okay. Can some of that time be without a crowd...?"

He smiled. "I know just the place." He took her by the hand and led her out to an open balcony, pulling her into a slow dance as the door closed after them when they got outside. He led her, one arm around her waist and the other holding her head protectively to his chest.

And they called off the circus Burn the disco down When they sent home the horses And the rodeo clowns I'm still on that tightrope I'm still trying everything to get you laughing at me

She pulled away from the close embrace, moving to hold his hands again. "I-I..."

Thomas smiled, a patient ease to his posture. "Yes, Fiona?"

"Can we have... more than just tonight to know each other?"

He held her cheek. "I would love nothing more."

And I'm still a believer, but I don't know why I've never been a natural All I do is try, try, try I'm still on that trapeze I'm still trying everything to keep you looking at me

In an instant, her lips tilted to reach his.

And nothing else that night mattered for a weightless, ethereal, eternal moment.

Because I'm a mirrorball I'm a mirrorball I'll show you every version of yourself tonight

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