#addition: my group projects are also just all going shitty because one group is fucking unable to get anything done and

[racemeyibo]

i wish i could cry, maybe that'd help

[cherrybombfangirl]

What's In Idaho?

@ginevrastilinski !!! here's your girl Darcy getting retraumatized and me projecting a lot of my religious trauma onto her, as promised <3 also this was 6,000 words actually, the religious trauma was stronger than I thought, oh well 😅

Content Warnings: heavily implied/referenced child abuse (physical, mental, and religious), lots of evangelical/fundamentalist cult shit, death and murder, descriptions of blood, lots of very strong swearing, Darcy's religious trauma, Darcy's shitty foster care experience and even shittier foster 'parents', brief mention of sex, gun violence

fair warning, I barely edited this, and there's a lot of places where I just plucked down brackets of [such and such happens here], and I might fill them in much much later.

After escaping the Roman demigod camp on the Argo 2, the others realize that they need to get a certain artifact that will help them in Europe that I will decide the details on later. Unfortunately, Darcy knows exactly where it is, and they have to go dig it up in a small town in Idaho where her worst foster home was.

~

Darcy closed her eyes and pinched her nose.

There was no way.

There was no way that the object Piper was describing from her knife was the same little box.

Reluctantly, she spoke up. “Uh, Piper, It wouldn’t happen to be uh-” She held up her hands to approximate the small size. “-yeh big, blue, and with a magical enchantment etched on it in Greek… would it?”

“Uh, yeah,” Piper said, “That describes it exactly… actually. How did you-”

Darcy sighed, trying not to show too much discomfort. “I… know where it is.” She turned to Leo. “Do you have a detailed map of Idaho somewhere? We’re looking for a pinpoint on that map.”

“I’ll… find something,” Leo said, giving her a weird look similar to everyone else in the room. Percy looked the most suspicious and concerned out of all of them.

Leo came back one awkward minute later, and tapped on the screen in the main room, pulling up a map of the United States, and zooming in on Idaho. “Ok… where are we going?” He asked hesitantly.

Darcy zoomed in the map more, at the base of the Rocky Mountains where a small road, river, and forest met smack in the middle of the state. “Little Rock Falls. It’s about there, less than a thousand people in the population, last I checked. They had to combine the elementary, middle school, and high school into one school because there were so few students and teachers.”

She pointed a little farther north up the map. “You’ll have to park the ship farther away, the people are pretty… superstisious, and me and Percy can make it the rest of the way on foot anyways.” She pointed a little southwest of where the town was supposed to be. “Once we have it, we can lie low in the woods for the night, and you can pick us up about here in the morning.”

“Wait,” Percy said, “Why am I going with you?!”

“Are you sure you don’t want someone else, or you know, a whole group?”

“It’ll be faster with just two,” Darcy said, “Especially cuz we don’t want to be followed.”

“How do you know where it is?” Jason asked, a little scared of Darcy’s knowledge.

Darcy was silent for a second before she gave a short, “I buried it.”

“Do you… remember where it’s buried?” Annabeth asked.

“I remember pretty clearly.”

Before anyone could ask her anything else, she disappeared into one of the cabins where she’d dumped her duffel bag. She started checking that everything she would need was inside, including her essentials for surviving in the woods- flint and steel, a little pocket knife, two wool blankets, an extra jacket, a coil of rope, a flashlight, a book of old road maps of the US, a small compass, and her most recent addition- a camping shovel (it was pretty big, so she tied it to the outside of the bag). 

She also poked around Leo’s stuff, and thanked fuck that she found a pair of shears for cutting metal- definitely going to need that. She also made sure that she had five or six meat sandwiches on her, courtesy of the Argo’s well stocked kitchen.

Annabeth came in, arms folded (Darcy knew she should’ve closed the door). “What’s in Idaho?”

Darcy didn’t answer, trading her sneakers for the hiking boots she’d stowed in her bag, pulling on thick wool socks before she put on the boots. Even in the summer, it would get chilly in the mountains, especially at night.

“Darcy.”

With a huff, Darcy pulled on a bomber jacket over her thin gray jacket. “What?”

“What’s in Idaho? Why do you know exactly where the box is?”

Darcy zipped the duffel bag shut and threw it over her head so that the duffel rested against her back. “It’s no big deal, we’ll be in and out before they even see us.”

Annabeth studied Darcy’s face, and her expression softened. “Most of your foster homes were in Idaho, weren’t they?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Most of them were in Idaho, weren’t they?” Annabeth repeated, trying to gauge Darcy’s reaction.

Darcy huffed. “Why are you asking me all this?”

“Because I don’t know much about how you grew up, other than you were in foster care. That’s it. I don’t know anything beyond that.”

“Why would you want to know more?”

“It was just me and you looking for Percy a few weeks ago, Darcy. You never opened up during any of that time about your childhood. About Percy, yes, but not you.”

Darcy bit the inside of her cheek, trying not to react.

“You can’t shut everyone out, Darcy, I don’t know what shit you went through but you can’t bury it and stay closed off about it. It’s not healthy to supress everything.”

After a beat of silence, Annabeth continued, “Then just now, you reacted the way you did out there to Piper describing the box and showing us exactly where to go.”

“Are you accusing me of something?”

“No, I’m worried about you. I think that something happened to you in Idaho that you’re not sharing.”

“Not much to share, Idaho is a boring state. It’s the even more boring version of Utah. Only thing worth mentioning is that it’s the only state in the US that grows potatoes as a major part of its economy. That’s a boring ass fun fact.”

“I’m talking about you, not the state. What happened to you in Idaho?”

“Nothing I feel like sharing,” Darcy growled, leaving the cabin to go find Percy and make sure he had wool socks and a thick jacket for the journey ahead.

~~~

Birds twittered sweetly and insects buzzed, echoing through the woods. The leaves, sticks, and pine needles of the forest floor crunched under their feet. Darcy pulled out one of the old road maps and a small compass- checking that they were on course.

“Alright,” Percy said, stepping up next to her, “You have some explaining to do.”

Darcy sighed, adjusting her hold on the compass and map. “Not you too.”

“Why me?”

“There’s safety in numbers,” Darcy said with a shrug, not looking up from the map.

“Then why not take some of the others too?”

“Too many will draw attention and make us easier to track, and we don’t want that.”

Percy grabbed her shoulder and turned her to face him. “Why did you choose me to come with you? You hate me.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“We both know you’d sell me to the devil for a corn chip if you felt like it.”

 “That is also true. But you’re also the most qualified in this situation.”

Percy stared, open mouthed. He then gestured to the woods around them. “We’re in a landlocked state, I don’t know if you noticed. My powers will not be super helpful here. Powers wise, Jason would be more qualified here, cuz air. Or Hazel, because her turf is everywhere there’s solid ground.”

Darcy went back to the map and turned her back to him, staying silent.

“Why did you pick me for this little quest? Everyone including me knows that you think I’m stupid, plus we’ll just fight the whole time, which I don’t think is going to be very helpful. Why not someone smarter or that you get along with more, like Annabeth?”

Darcy still didn’t reply, she pretended to be busy with the map, even though it was a little too long to be checking a map.

“Darcy.”

She tapped her foot, hoping he’d just drop it.

“Why me?!”

She bit the inside of her cheek, mind screaming the answer, but refusing to speak.

“Why. Me?”

Darcy snapped the map shut and shouted, “Because I don’t want anyone else to know, ok?!”

Percy blinked, taking a step back. After a few minutes of thick silence, he said softly, “What do you mean?”

Darcy took a deep breath, trying to seem uncaring about it. “None of the others know about what my growing up was like. Annabeth knows that I was in foster care, but nothing beyond that. The only people who know much more than that are you and Mom,” she aggressively folded the map and shoved it in her duffel bag, “And I would prefer to keep it that way. That’s why I picked you and not anyone else. Now let’s go.”

She started down the slope towards the small cluster of buildings in the distance at the bottom of the mountains.

Darcy didn’t talk to him the rest of the way to Little Rock Falls.

Steeling her nerves for what was to come, she hoped she looked different enough to not be recognized.

There was one road in town, and a few houses scattered in the woods that surrounded it. At the end of the road, the school had gotten a little bigger than Darcy had last seen it, but not by much. There were some people walking up and down the only street, most going to the small grocery store or poor excuse for a drug store.

Darcy made her way to the road that would take them up to their destination, Percy trailing behind like a lost kitten. She grabbed his arm and pulled him next to her, “Act normal, you look suspicious.”

Percy was about to shoot back, but a deep voice interrupted them. “Excuse me.”

Darcy turned to find a police officer. The only difference since she’d last seen the cop being that he finally had more hair on his face. The fact that he was blonde didn’t help that his chin still looked bare from a distance.

“Can I help you?” Darcy asked with a fake smile on her face, kicking Percy’s shin behind her to shut him up.

“Several years ago we had a delinquent foster care runaway. She was about eleven or twelve and had dark red hair.” The cop lowered his sunglasses and examined her face. “She looked a lot like you actually, and would be about seventeen or eighteen by now.”

Keeping a straight face, Darcy shrugged. “What a coincidence. Good thing I was a good child that grew up with loving parents in a stable home.”

The officer chuckled, then said in a more serious tone, reaching behind his back for his handcuffs or gun. “I’m gonna have to take you in-”

Darcy grabbed the cop’s shoulder and drove her knee into his groin as hard as she could.

The cop wheezed, doubling over as Darcy grabbed Percy’s shoulder and pulled him behind her as she dashed behind the cover of a large building across the street. 

“Darcy-” Percy panted, but she shushed him, listening for the cop and anyone else.

She could hear the cop yelling for them to stop, and she and Percy plunged into the woods near the rugged dirt road that turned up towards the mountain.

Percy said, “Will you just explain-”

“Later,” Darcy hissed, “We’re running out of daylight. And we need to get in there and grab the box before they realize I’m here.”

“Before who realizes?” Percy asked as they walked along the dirt road, using the thick woods for cover.

Darcy fixed her eyes ahead, focusing on not twisting her ankle on a tree root as they quickly walked.

Percy grabbed her shoulder and stopped her. “Darcy. We’re going to one of your foster homes, aren’t we?”

“The one I was at the longest, yeah. I buried the box in the backyard. Can you stop interrupting? We don’t have time for you to be asking your questions.”

“I’m guessing this family is the ones we’re worried about finding out that we’re here.”

“I wouldn’t call it a family, but yeah, they can’t know we’re here. This will go a lot smoother if we get in and out without them knowing.”

Percy said softly, “Darcy…”

“What?”

“You said this was the family you stayed with longest.”

“Yeah, why?”

“What happened to you here, Darcy?”

“If I get asked that one more time-“ she growled under her breath. Then she snapped, “I’m fine, ok?! Nothing happened here, I’m fine!”

Then she stormed off, up the road and getting closer to the mountains.

The road got narrower and narrower, and less and less traveled on. Darcy kept going, until they saw the first house in miles, nestled in the trees, surrounded by a chain link fence.

They circled around to the back of the house, where two dogs lay sleeping, chained up to the base of the house.

Darcy cursed under her breath.

“What?” Percy hissed.

“I should’ve known they got another dog. That’s going to be a problem.” She opened her duffel bag, and pulled out the bundle of sandwiches. “I hope this is enough for two dogs.” She pulled out the metal clippers, and handed the sandwiches to Percy. “Get ready to throw these at the dogs. Once you do we won’t have a lot of time.”

“You remember where you buried it?” Percy asked.

“It’s right next to that rock in this corner of the yard.” She took a deep breath. “Hopefully the dirt hasn’t frozen yet.”

She slithered forward across the grass on her stomach, pulling herself forward as quickly as she dared. Percy followed suit right behind her.

[ about six years before]

The old house creaked as it settled, just like it did every night around the time the other seven kids were fast asleep. The basement was crowded, each child having their own pallet. There was one dusty window at ground level, and the door was locked every night- to keep the devil out, as the parents told them.

Darcy was only eleven (or ten, no one was really sure due to the lack of birth certificate), but she knew they were full of bullshit, and refused to call them her parents. No matter how many times they punished her, or told her that God revealed to them that she was their spirit daughter as had been set apart in the premortal life- she wouldn’t call them parents. 

Just like most of the other homes she’d been in, she was an outsider, an alien to the family, and wouldn’t be staying long.

She had no family, abandoned at a hospital in one of the nearest cities a few hours away. Kicked from foster home to foster home since she was young. She’d learned very quickly to live off of a small duffel bag and not need anything she couldn’t fit in it.

She listened to the house above them, for the tell tale signs of the parents having the sex they’d had every night for the past few months. They said that God told them it was time for them to have another child, even though the basement could barely hold eight kids as it was. Most of the kids were girls, all of them close in age. 

There was a set of scriptures at the foot of each bed, and each of them was expected to read the scriptures before bed each night and first thing each morning- until they had the holy books memorized from cover to cover to Samuel and Diana’s satisfaction. If it wasn’t to satisfaction, you got punished any number of ways- no food or water for a random amount of time, sleeping outside with the dogs, or the worst one if Samuel was in a bad mood.

Darcy had gotten quite a few lashes and welts across her back and arms just in her first few weeks there for speaking up that this wasn’t fair or just whenever Samuel felt that ‘the devil possessing her needed to learn a lesson’. She learned pretty quickly to keep her thoughts to herself and her head down, no matter how unfair it got.

She’d managed to escape punishment for a while, until the day before when Samuel was inspecting how well she’d memorized the scriptures. He didn’t seem to care that she couldn’t tell what the squigles and blobs meant, or that she never could in the first place. He said she was just stupid, and must not care that her family was going to hell because of her because she didn’t care enough to memorize the holy scripture. Darcy protested, and got the worst punishment all up her arms and back.

She’d never gotten both at the same time before.

On top of that, Diana decided that the devil inside her must be winning power over her, and gave Darcy “a good smacking” to get the devil to leave her.

Darcy didn’t know what was wrong with her, but she was very sure that she wasn’t possessed by anything, and it wasn’t her fault the bible couldn’t be deciphered.

Her arms and back stung every time she moved them, but as Samuel and Diana’s actions got more intense upstairs, she knew this was the only chance she was going to get.

Darcy grabbed the small screwdriver out from under her bed, tucked between the thin mattress and the wood planks.

Moving as quickly as she dared, Darcy started unscrewing the screws in the small dusty window.

Darcy started clipping the wire of the fence, creating a hole for them to crawl through. The dogs started to stir and Darcy looked at Percy, ready to throw the sandwiches. She cut a few more links in the fence, and the new dog woke up and started growling, waking the other one as well.

“Throw them, now!” Darcy hissed.

Percy chucked the sandwiches over the fence, and they landed right in front of the dogs.

The two dogs happily started to devour the sandwiches while Darcy and Percy crawled through the hole.

Darcy shoved her duffel bag in Percy’s hands, and started to untie the shovel, which was small enough to cart up here, but big enough for the job.

She went over to the corner of the yard where a large rock sat, and started digging. Just a few minutes in, someone inside the house shouted, “What’s going on out there? You kids aren’t supposed to be out!” It was a man’s voice, booming and harsh, with a hint of ‘God-given’ righteousness to it.

Darcy cursed under her breath and threw the shovel into Percy’s hands. “Keep digging, whatever happens don’t stop until you have it, I can handle this.”

The voice shouted again, “Diana, did you feed those dogs? You know they ain’t supposed to be fed yet! … Well I can hear them eating something!”

While Percy kept digging, Darcy crept over to the corner of the house where the shed was. She checked over her shoulder, noting that the dogs were about halfway through the sandwiches.

A large, rough hand grabbed Darcy’s hair and pulled her back.

Darcy yelled, trying to rip free.

The strong hand threw her to the ground, knocking the wind out of her as she smacked her skull on the hard dirt. Head spinning, she scrambled backwards and tried to get to her feet.

[flashback continuing from the first one I have yet to write]

“Darcy, has your heart become so laden with guilt and sorrow you came crawling back here to repent?”

Darcy had backed up into the fence and used it to pull herself up, the wires digging into her fingers, biting with cold. Her heart hammered in her chest as blood rushed to her ears, Darcy tried her hardest to only react with a cold glare. “Nope. And I don’t need to. Just here for one little thing and then you’ll never see me again.”

“You tore this family apart Darcy. We might not make it to the Celestial Kingdom as a family because of you. Don’t you want an eternal family?”

“Not if it’s yours,” Darcy snapped. He stepped closer to her, hands on his belt buckle. He was wearing a rusty brown jacket over a white button up shirt, the shirt was off white and hadn’t been clean in a long time.

Darcy backed away as he stepped closer. He’d grown out his beard, and it was much longer than the last time she saw him. His brown hair was also long, almost past his chin, and was in desperate need of a wash.

“Darcy, you are a daughter of God-”

“Correction, I’m a daughter of a god, one of many, and your god is kind of pathetic.”

“Pathetic? Darcy, is that how we talk about our father in heaven?”

“I could take him in a fight, easy.”

“God is all powerful, he can’t be defeated, we know this from the holy scrip-”

“Considering I fought an actual god of the Greek pantheon- oh, yeah they’re very much real, and kind of douchebags- and a greek titan, which is just a much older and more powerful version of a god-” The dogs only had a quarter of the sandwiches left and Percy had dug so deep he must be close to the box. “Considering I fought both of those and won, I think your God would be pretty easy to beat. At least for me.”

“Don’t interrupt me, Darcy. You know one of the commandments is to honor thy father and thy mother.”

“You’re the farthest fucking thing from my father.”

“You may not have been born to us, but it was in Heavenly Father’s plan that you are part of our family. Your biological family on earth sure didn’t want you.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Darcy said, “I found my family after I left, and they didn’t want to leave me. Unlike you, they actually love me.”

“We do love you Darcy, which is why sometimes you need correction.”

“My real family doesn’t think I need correction,” Darcy said, folding her arms, “You’re a sick fucking bastard that only sees children as punching bags. Fuck you, and fuck your fucking family.”

Samuel’s eyes darkened. “The language you are using isn’t righteous or clean, Darcy. They must be the words of Satan.”

Darcy backed away, only for her back to meet the other corner of the yard where shovels, rakes, and other yard tools had been leaned against the fence in a pile. She squared her feet and balled her hands into fists, blood roaring in her head and ears. “Stay the hell away from me.”

“Darcy, you need to be taught a lesson, and a righteous parent, I must obey God’s will and teach it to you.” Samuel’s hands were undoing his belt buckle.

Darcy swallowed, as her brain and body disconnected, and it felt like she was trying to move through neck deep mud.

Samuel pulled the belt through the loops of his pants, and Darcy felt like ten years old again, as everything slowed down and sped up at the same time. Her head started to spin as she tried to get her body to fight back, do something.

“Hands on the fence, Darcy.”

Darcy didn’t move, breath frozen in her throat.

There was a loud snap, making her flinch involuntarily. “Now, Darcy!”

Samuel was starting to get impatient, raising the thing over his head.

But before the belt could come down on her and inflict red hot pain, the sharp edge of a shovel made contact with Samuel’s temple, and he fell to the ground, blood pouring out of his head. He groaned, curling up and moaning in pain. So he probably wasn’t dead, at least not yet.

Darcy collapsed against the fence, leaning against it hard as the rusty old shovel slipped from her hands to the ground. She was breathing heavily as the world spun around her and her whole body started to tremble.

“I got it! Are you ok?” Percy said, rushing over as he brushed dirt off the small blue box. It was about the size of his fist, and the bright blue of the box had faded.

Darcy was pretty sure this was the second time in her life that her brother was very visibly concerned about her, actually scared for her. “He wasn’t about to-”

“Not right now, please,” Darcy said, grabbing the duffel bag and shovel from him.

A new voice shouted from in the house, this one female, also rough with a ‘God-given’ righteousness to it. “Sam! SAM! What’s going on out there?”

The dogs finished with the sandwiches, Moses laying down to sleep while the new, young dog started barking ferociously, tugging on his chain so hard it might rip the chain out from where it was securely attached to the stone foundation of the house.

“Samuel!” Cried the woman’s voice, now outside with them as Samuel groaned and writhed on the ground.

A woman wearing a pioneer style dress with blonde hair took in the scene before her. After a few seconds of looking at Darcy, her eyes narrowed. “You.”

She charged forward. “You sinful, disobiedent, possessed child of Satan! You tear our family apart by leaving, and now you’ve come back to kill your own father!”

Darcy growled. “He’s not my fucking father.”

“And am I not your mother?”

“My mom’s in New York, and she’s the nicest, sweetest, most badass lady to grace this planet. She doesn’t think I’m a problem that needs to be fixed. She would also beat the shit out of you if she knew about what you did.”

“Your biological family didn’t want you, you’re lucky God chose us to be your family and we took you in,” Diana said, looking disappointed.

Darcy took a step towards Diana, fear replaced by pure rage. “You were wrong about me. You’re not my fucking family. My biological family did want me. I found them, and they love me so much more than you ever could. And I couldn’t read your fucking bible because I’m dyslexic, not a sinner you bitch.”

Diana gasped at the language, but before she could launch into a lecture, Darcy kept going. “I wasn’t something that needed to be fixed. I wasn’t possessed by Satan or any demon, I have ADHD and was being followed by monsters that I didn’t choose. I met gods, yes gods plural, and none of them were like the god you think is real. I even fought one, and also a titan god. My real family wanted to keep me, but had to give me up to keep me safe. I can be happy by being a decent person, not following your bullshit commandments. You never loved me or cared for me.” 

She was close enough to touch Diana now. “And I don’t need you.”

Diana was so shocked she couldn’t even speak. She watched wordlessly as Darcy grabbed Percy’s shoulder and they turned to leave.

Diana’s hand wrapped in Darcy’s hair, yanking her back and throwing her to the ground.

“Darcy Mary Larsen in God’s name-”

“THAT’S NOT MY FUCKING NAME!” Darcy screamed, hands finding a rock the size of her fist. She rolled over and tackled Diana to the ground.

“MY NAME IS DARCY ASTREA JACKSON YOU PIECE OF SHIT!” Darcy screamed so loud her throat burned, and with each word she bashed Diana’s head in with the rock, until her skull was sunken in and she stared up at Darcy with dead eyes.

Darcy sat back, rock slipping from her hand as she panted and her bloodstream still roared with adrenaline. She almost collapsed to the ground, but Percy’s leg was there, and she leaned against it for a minute.

Samuel started to groan on the ground, and Darcy struggled to her feet, body trembling. “We need to go.”

Percy swallowed, looking at the two horrible people on the ground, and just nodded, handing her the duffel bag again.

They rushed over to the fence, and behind her, she could hear Samuel starting to get up, cursing Darcy and calling her a murderer and a sinner, and saying he was going to teach her a lesson for this disobedience. Meanwhile, the new dog barked violently, trashing against its chain.

As Percy was crawling through the hole in the fence, the hair on the back of Darcy’s neck stood up. She whipped around, and saw that Samuel had gathered enough strength to crawl to the shed and was pulling down his shotgun.

[flashback here that mirrors this scene]

“PERCY RUN!” Darcy screamed, throwing the duffel bag over the fence and climbing over it, letting the barbed wire at the top leave rips in her shirt and jeans as she scrambled over.

She landed on the other side, threw the duffel bag over her shoulder, and yanked Percy to his feet. They made it to the trees when she looked over her shoulder and saw Samuel taking aim with his gun.

“GET DOWN!” She screamed, yanking Percy down with her to the forest floor.

An ear splitting gunshot rang out, the crack echoing through the woods.

Samuel was yelling, cursing and screaming threats. Darcy scrambled to her feet, yanking Percy with her, and they plunged into the woods. She was dragging Percy behind her as her feet pounded the forest floor. He could barely keep up with her, stumbling over tree roots and rocks.

But Darcy didn’t dare slow down (let alone stop), and she wasn’t about to leave Percy behind with those monsters.

[shorter flashback that again mirrors this scene]

She lost track of how long they’d been running, but some time later, the sun was starting to set, and she figured that they were far enough away now. They tramped over a few creeks to make sure their scent would be lost, and found an area that was secluded enough, but near the area where they’d told Leo to fly the Argo to come pick them up in the morning.

Darcy set to work on a campfire, and directed Percy to gather some firewood- no green stuff and to get sticks ranging from twigs to small logs. According to her, he did ‘a good enough job’.

When he gathered enough, she had already lit some small twigs and leaves. She then used the firewood to build a small campfire.

They covered the ground in pine needles, leaves, and twigs with the wool blankets on top to keep the ground from sucking the heat out of them, and sat down in front of the fire.

They dried their feet, socks, and boots in front of the fire. The entire time, Darcy stared into the fire, trying not to think about the last time she was in these woods. Percy was also silent for once, and she appreciated him for that.

She looked up at the clear sky of stars, a strange feeling hitting her as this sky looked almost the same as the last time she’d seen it. She was able to find all the constellations she knew very quickly.

Percy said quietly, “Can I ask something? You don’t have to answer.”

“Sure,” Darcy said, going back to watching flames dance across the logs.

“How long were you with them?”

“It’s all pretty blurry, but about a year I think,” Darcy said, pulling the extra jacket tighter around her, “The other houses I never stayed more than a couple months. Monsters either showed up- but I thought they were just really fucked up dogs or terrible adults- or my anger issues got me kicked out.”

“How much does Mom know?”

“Just that I was in the system and got kicked from house to house, and that all the homes were pretty much in Idaho. She doesn’t know more than that,” She shrugged, “She might suspect more though.”

Percy nodded, staring into the fire as well. “That piece of shit… Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“He reminded me of Gabe a little too much, though this guy was much more religious. Gabe wouldn’t set foot in a church unless there was beer and a poker table.”

“The shitty guy Mom was married to at one point, right?”

Percy let out a dry snort. “Be glad you never had the displeasure of meeting him.”

“Didn’t need to, I had a Samuel. Sounds like he and Gabe would’ve gotten along pretty well.”

“Well, Samuel wouldn’t appreciate the gambling and drinking I don’t think, but they certainly would’ve agreed on beating up kids.”

Percy nodded back in the direction they ran from. “So Mom doesn’t know about any of that?”

“Hell no, and she’s not going to,” Darcy grabbed a stick and poked at the fire, pushing the coals closer together, “She’s got enough to worry about, with you and me being demigods and you disappearing and shit.”

It was silent again for a minute. “What happened to Gabe anyway, you never told me.” Darcy said.

Percy smirked and said casually, “Mom turned him to stone with Medusa’s head.”

“What?” Darcy said, almost laughing, “Mom did that?!”

Percy nodded.

“How did she get ahold of Medusa’s head?”

“Oh I cut off Medusa’s head for a quest, mailed it to Olympus, and then Dad had me bring it home in a box.”

“Damn, really!?”

“True story, though I think bashing the skull in with a rock is just as effective.” He added, “How are things back home? You never did give me a proper update.”

“Well, I moved into the apartment with Mom, and so did Paul,” Darcy said.

Percy said, “I swear if you stole my room-”

“Ew, no, your room is a biohazard!” Darcy said, “Mom and Paul made some renovations to the apartment, they took out the washer and dryer and my room is the old washroom. They figured washing clothes downstairs or at the laundromat across the street will be fine. It’s small, and I don’t have a proper door yet, but I’d take it over your cesspool of a room.”

“My room is not a cesspool.”

“Your socks have their own ecosystem and you can see the smell!” Darcy said, smacking his shoulder.

“Cannot!”

“Can to!”

Percy gave up, giving his usual drama queen pout.

Darcy grinned, and her smile fell as memories from these mountains crept into her thoughts. “Last time I was here it took me hours to manage a fire,” She said quietly, almost to herself, “I still couldn’t sleep because the ground was so cold, and I couldn’t figure out a bigger fire.”

“At least you’re not alone this time,” Percy said, scooting a little closer until their shoulders were touching, “Even if it is with an annoying idiot.”

Darcy shrugged. “Well, you did have my back in there so… I think that makes up for you being an annoying crackhead.” Her eyes started to droop, and she allowed her head to rest on his shoulder.

[they are picked up the next morning by the Argo, and continue making their way to Europe. A few weeks later while on their quest, Sally Iris messages them to ask why cops showed up to their house and the suspected murderer of two people looks like her and has the same face, hair, and first name as Darcy. Darcy is like “it’s fine, they deserved it.” Sally pieces together that they were one of Darcy’s foster families, and wants Darcy to open up about what happened exactly (absolutely not going to turn her over to the cops). Darcy’s like, “It’s fine, Percy was with me.” and their Paul turns to Percy like, “You let your sister murder two mortals?!” Percy shrugs and accidentlly lets it slip what Sam was about to do. Darcy smacks Percy’s shoulder and is like “Dude! You said you wouldn’t say what happened!”. Sally is livid and wants to know the nearest entrance to the underworld so she can beat the shit out of those two horrible people.]

[fbfh]

I think you've horribly misread the situation [shitty roommate pt 2] - leo x reader

wc: 2.3k

genre: contemporary drama, you're definitly going to get second hand embarrassment, cozy fluff

pairing: leo x reader, attempted isabella x leo

reader: gender neutral, they/them

requested: hell yeah

warnings: mild swearing, roommate tries to steal your man once again, mentions of various mainstream vampire media (twilight, the vampire diaries etc.), brief mention of castlevania (even though i haven't seen it yet lol), breif mention of videogames and assassins creed, very mild delusion (roommate is secretly convinced leo is a vampire that's in love with her), attempted age gap relationship (she's 17 and leo's 19, he shuts that down real fast), very bad poetry

summary: You and Leo are both looking foward to spending a long weekend together, and Leo is determined not to let anything interrupt it, even if it means turning down your roommate's attempts to seduce him in the kitchen.

a/n: absolutley no hate or shade or judgement to anyone who has the same or similar traits as isabella!!!!!! at her core she's annoying because she's the antagonist, not bc of any isolated trait or traits

also she's shitty cause she keeps trying to steal your boyfriend?????

Edit: I forgot to mention before, but this is a college au where you're both still demigods, so you went to camp and on quests and stuff together

This weekend is going to be all about recharging. Recharging from the ridiculous back to back closing and opening shifts at work, recharging from having to redo that stupid project twice because your professor couldn’t decide on a clear way to define the criteria, and recharging from Isabella having her townie friend Regan over almost non stop to “completely shake up her look” as she put it.

Between the constant presence of someone you’d barely consider an acquaintance and Big Time Rush’s self titled album blasting on repeat out of her giant airpod shaped speaker, it’s been harder than usual to get in some effective self care. You have no idea how many more times you can hear the phrase “I’m going for Jade West meets Elena Gilbert, with just a little Buffy Summers” before you lose your fucking mind.

Thankfully, the hard part is almost over. There’s some minor holiday tomorrow on friday, so you and Leo both have a three day weekend ahead of you, which you intend to spend entirely together. You planned ahead, frontloading homework, chores, errands, and everything you could think of to remove anything that isn’t cuddling or playing video games and watching netflix together from your horizon.

This includes going straight from work to the grocery store to stock the fridge and get any snacks you and Leo want. You had texted him a while ago asking for anything he was craving, and head into the store with a concrete list. After a while, you circle around some aisles, avoiding the check out.

“I feel like I’m forgetting something,” you muse, knowing it’s untrue, but hoping to trigger a memory anyway. You can’t put it off any longer, finally checking out and heading back to your apartment. You’d be lying if you said you weren’t avoiding Isabella just a little.

You know bringing in all these groceries would be way easier with Isabella and possibly Regan’s help, but you just don’t have the social energy to talk to anyone, much less her, right now. By some miracle, you bring everything in yourself, and hope to get it put away before you see Isabella.

You turn to the freezer, putting away the ice cream. When you turn back around, you’re suddenly met face to face with Isabella, who has opened one of the boxes and is picking at a pastry.

“Hey girlie,” she says, elongating the hey.

“Hey,” you reply lethargically, putting the last of the groceries away. She looks at the pastry in her hand like she’s just noticing it.

“Sorry, I can’t help it, I’m italian.” She smiles, endeared by her own behavior. You have no idea what being italian has to do with asking before you open a box of your roommate’s food, but this really isn’t out of character for her. She brings up the fact that she’s half italian more than Lele Pons blames her behavior on being latina.

She’s wearing sweatpants that say chaser on the leg in red and gold varsity font, and a tight tee shirt that says “it’s okay to love them both” with silhouettes of the male love interests from one of the vampire shows she always watches. You collect the plastic bags to put in recycling, and see a piece of paper on the counter.

It reads as follows:

Drowning in my mind

No one hears me cry

Who was I before society

Before society put me in a pink dress

And handed me blonde hair dye

And told me to lose ten pounds or be labeled a freak?

The happiest people cry the most

Let the lyrics be your story

But I’m not like the other skinny blonde pretty girls

I’m

Different

-b.g. xox

You hold back a sigh.

“I think this is yours.” you say, handing it to her.

“Oh, it’s just some of my poetry I left lying around, that’s so embarrassing.”

I know, you think, you do that all the time.

“Did you read it?” She asks, hopefully.

“Nope.”

“Thank god, that would have been so embarrassing. My poetry is something really… deep, and personal to me.”

“Uh huh. Hey, I’m going to be doing a lot of self care this weekend, so-”

“Oh!” she interjects, eerily similar to Phoebe Buffay - you guess she’s been watching friends again - “I wanted to ask… is Leo coming over later?” Her voice is riddled with subtext, the expression on her face a little too invested in your answer.

“Uh, yeah. I told you the other day we’re spending the weekend together…”

She cuts you off again, a sudden, intense look on her face.

“When will he be here?”

You check your phone, scrolling through your recent texts.

“By 7 at the latest.” It’s around 6:40 now.

“Oh my god, I have to change,” she rushes back to her room, presumably digging through her recent additions to her closet.

You’re frozen for a minute after the interaction, left with a furrowed brow and the beginnings of a headache. You blink, then choose to reschedule processing why she feels the need to change for your boyfriend to a more convenient time. That’s enough of that for today. You don’t care what else happens, you’re not talking to anyone besides Leo for at least the rest of the day. You retreat to your room to finally shower and change into something comfy. As you pass by Isabella’s room, you hear her talking to Regan.

“...There’s something almost… supernatural about him.”

You bite back a laugh.

“Do you think he’s a…” Regan begins, ending the sentence with something too quiet to hear, but you’d bet almost any organ she said vampire.

So close. So, so close, and yet… here you are.

Not much later, Leo texts you to let you know he’s here. You read his text, and run out to hug him in the living room before even typing a reply. He picks you up, and spins you around. The embrace is warm and fulfilling and familiar, and you wish it would last forever.

“Hi, Sparky.” you murmur into his neck.

“Estrella…” he says, rocking you back and forth gently and pressing a kiss into your jawline, “I missed you so much.” He punctuates the sentence with another kiss, this one to your lips, and you smile more genuinely than you have all day. You’re about to agree when you remember the good news you’ve been saving to tell him in person.

“Guess what I got on sale for like, half off,” you start, excitedly, continuing at his invested expression, “the Assassin’s Creed bundle I showed you!”

“No way,” he starts, and you nod.

“I’ll go get everything set up, drinks are in the kitchen!” He watches you retreat into your room, disbelieving how he could possibly get someone as perfect as you to fall for him. He’s not going to question his luck. He grabs a couple caffeinated sparkling ices, and meets you in your room, setting down his bag and grabbing some comfy clothes to change into.

As you both get settled in, you fill each other in on all the ridiculous shit you’ve been through this week. You finally conclude the bizarre - yet somehow standard - Isabella escapades.

“So I will be avoiding all contact as much as possible,” you laugh.

“Yeah, no shit,” he agrees, “Consider me your human buffer.” You thank him, hugging him again and pressing a kiss to his lips.

The next couple hours are spent cuddling and finishing season 4 of Castlevania. Both reeling from the season finale, you agree this is a good place to take a break, get some food, and decide what game you should start with. It’s already 10pm, which most people would consider too late for dinner, but you have all weekend to fuck up your sleep schedules.

“Let’s review,” Isabella says, holding up two red lipsticks. She turns to Regan. “Which one?”

“That one,” Regan says, pointing to the one on the left, then turns to her list, and continues. “Here’s what we know; we’ve never seen him eat, and he never seems tired. He’s really smart-”

“Almost too smart,” Isabella adds, selecting black rose dangle earrings from her jewelry. Regan agrees, and continues.

“He’s almost hypnotically attractive, and his smile is a little too dazzling.”

“There’s something… supernatural about him. Like he’s not… all human.”

Regan writes this down.

“Plus he’s always wearing black and red, and those flowy button up shirts? It’s all adding up, Ree. That dream that someone was outside my window, the ring, everything…” She says, referencing the black and red cocktail ring she’d found with her stuff when she’d first moved, “I’m not saying it’s definite, just that… there’s a chance.”

“What about…” Regan says hesitantly, nodding toward your room.

“Please,” she scoffs, “he’s only with them to get close to me, like Damon and Caroline. Edward couldn’t have just approached Bella out of the blue, he had to infiltrate her friend group first, to seem less suspicious. Not to sound mean or anything, but they really don’t seem like the type someone… like him… would choose.” her voice gets dreamy when she mentions him.

In spite of having seen most mainstream vampire media almost as many times as Isabella, Regan still considers her the expert on these things, and decides not to point out that Edward didn’t infiltrate Bella’s friend group. Maybe it comes up in one of the retellings she hasn’t read yet.

“So, what now?”

Isabella sets down her lipstick, and turns to her friend.

“I tell him.”

Regan’s eyes widen.

“You’re going to tell him you know?”

“No… not yet. It’s too soon, we don’t have enough evidence. I’m going to tell him I know he’s in love with me, then once he’s secure in our relationship... we’ll see where it goes.”

She stands up, assessing herself in the mirror. She chose her outfit carefully; short red dress with black roses and black mesh collar, black rose bracelet to match her earrings, snug faux leather jacket, and black stiletto ankle booties with a very skinny heel, the zipper on the outside gold, not silver. She fluffs her wavy hair and turns towards the door. She looks back one more time, holding onto the doorway.

“Wish me luck.”

Leo enters the kitchen, seeing Isabella already there, leaning against the counter seductively. She’s wearing an outfit and jewelry this late at night that makes Leo wonder if she’s going to an emo tea party. He puts the takeout in the microwave. She’s still staring at him.

“Uh… hey.”

She lets out a dainty giggle, looking him up and down.

“... Hi.”

At a loss for words, and really wanting the awkward silence to be over, he continues, “Did you need something?”

“What I need,” she walks closer to him, tracing her finger over his collar, “is you.”

What the fuck?

His brain seems to stall for a moment, and she uses this opportunity to continue.

“I know why you’re here. I know that you’re only using them to get closer to me. I know-”

“Woah-”

“That you’re in love with me.”

Okay, double what the fuck.

She takes his stunned silence as shyness, and steps closer, putting her arms around his shoulders.

“You don’t need to play so coy, I-”

This time she’s the one that gets cut off. He grabs her arms and gently steps away, trying to make it abundantly clear that he’s not into this.

“Woah, okay, slow down. First of all, you’re 17 and I’m turning 20 in a couple months, so that’s a hard no. Second, I don’t know where you got this idea, but I am not dating them to get closer to you. We’ve known each other since we were like, 15, and have been through everything together. I’ve only known you for a couple months. I love them. Probably more than I’ve loved anything ever. I thought that was pretty obvious.”

He doesn’t want to be mean, he really doesn’t, but he can tell from the look on her face that she still thinks this is all part of some game.

“So why don’t I ever see you eat? Why are you so smart, and always up at night? I know what you are.”

He has to physically hold back a laugh. He takes a step back, and places his hands on the counter.

“Isabella, I have adhd. And I’m literally an engineering student. Why wouldn’t I be smart and have a shitty sleep schedule?”

She starts to protest, and he pulls out the reheated take out from the microwave.

“And for the record, I do eat.”

Exiting the kitchen quickly and retreating back to your room, he hands you your food.

“I got the game set up!” you say excitedly.

“Nice!”

You take one look at his face and can tell something happened. He sees this, and continues.

“I just had a very… interesting interaction with Isabella,” before he finishes the sentence, your head is already in your hands. You let out a groan.

“What did she do?” you mutter from behind your hands.

He pulls you into his lap, rubbing your back.

“I’m not totally sure,” you laugh, “but I think she thinks I’m secretly in love with her…” you’re both laughing before he can even finish the sentence.

“No…” you laugh, “no fucking way…”

“Believe me, I put an end to that as soon as it started.”

“Oh, I do.”

He runs his hand over your back, and you’re quiet for a moment.

“You know,” he continues, “I think getting our own place has definitely moved up the priority list.”

You couldn’t agree more.

[dustedmagazine]

Listed: His Name Is Alive

While Warren Defever’s name is perhaps less recognizable than that of his band His Name Is Alive, he’s also been connected with a seemingly endless array of other projects: Princess Dragon-Mom, Elvis Hitler, ESP Beetles, Control Panel, and far more. This doesn’t get into his recording and production credits for the likes of Michael Hurley, Iggy and the Stooges, and Mdou Moctar. Forever associated with Michigan’s weirdo-underground music scene, Defever has recently been issuing a series of long-buried recordings as His Name Is Alive. In February, the Disciples label released Hope Is a Candle, the third and final volume in the "Home Recordings" trilogy exploring Defever's teenage tape experimentation as well as A Silver Thread (Home Recordings 1979 - 1990), a four-volume collection of many of Defever’s solo home recordings prior to His Name Is Alive releasing their debut album Livonia on 4AD in 1990. In his review of A Silver Thread, Tim Clarke writes “For a collection of home recordings, what’s most striking about this music is how fully realized and carefully executed it sounds, comparable at times to contemporary artists such as Grouper, Benoît Pioulard and Tim Hecker. This is not the 1980s that I remember.”

Defever gives us his “What Else Is New” list, a set of personal snapshots, memories of a life spent in music, warning the reader that “the descriptions don’t always have an obvious correlation to the video, but welcome to my nightmare brain.”

In The Line of Fire

I started performing when I was five. My grandfather was a self-taught musician from Saskatchewan in Western Canada and he showed me and my brothers how to play banjo, guitar and fiddle. One of my earliest memories is having a full size 127 lb. accordion placed onto my lap and my grandmother voicing her disappointment when I refused to play. I did learn slide guitar from her later though. I have many, often terrible, memories of performing at square dances with his band and we would play old timey country music, folk songs, polkas and waltzes. There were also gigs at the trailer park, old folks homes and a convent. Although my grandfather believed that popular music died with Hank Williams in 1953, he still found room in his heart for Lawrence Welk and Slim Whitman.

Meet Me By The Water

By age ten I had a tape recorder and was using it to capture the sounds of nearby lakes, thunderstorms, and my older brothers LP collection played at the wrong speeds. I recently found the cassette, Echo Lake (1983) which features waves crashing onto the beach on the Canadian side of Lake St. Clair but it was recorded right after I got an echo pedal so it’s got a heavy dose of dreamy delay. Tape loops of the next door neighbor raking leaves and shoveling the driveway would be repurposed a few years later as rhythm tracks on the first His Name Is Alive LP, Livonia (4AD, 1990). Detroit in the late 70s and early 80s had totally insane radio and one of the highlights was Met-Ezzthetics, a late night show on WDET hosted by Faruq Z. Bey who also played saxophone in Griot Galaxy. Shortly before his death he played with His Name is Alive and we had a chance to formalize our student-teacher relationship.

Search For Higher Energies

In high school I was studying Bach Chorale harmonization and counterpoint during the day but recording and touring with the band Elvis Hitler at night. The other guys in band were older but at 16 I was a familiar sight at shitty Detroit punk clubs and Hamtramck dive bars, the nerdy teenager reading a book or doing homework sitting at the bar waiting ’til midnight or 1am for our slot to play our hellbilly hits, “It’s A Long Way From Berlin To Memphis,” and “Hot Rod To Hell.” I was still trying to make sense of the post 1953 music scene and when I met the guy with a giant afro and shiny super hero outfit complete with shiny cape I had no idea he was Rob Tyner of the MC5. We released three records before I was twenty one and played shows and toured with Devo, the Dwarves, the Dead Milkmen, Reverend Horton Heat, the Beat Farmers, Helios Creed, Babes In Toyland, the Cro-Mags, Corrosion of Conformity, the Frogs, the Gories, Pussy Galore, the Unsane and way more I can’t remember I was just a kid. It was some kind of education.

You Don’t Have To Go Home But You Can’t Stay Here

When I signed with 4AD I thought I was a composer and they let me write my own bio, so I called His Name Is Alive the work of a “fucked up, irresponsible teenage composer.” I had only been writing music for three years. When I heard “Tom Violence” by Sonic Youth I thought for the first time in my life, “I think I could do that.” In 1988 I made a mixtape with Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car, Leadbelly and some of Big Star’s third album and I tried to arrange it like it was an album, then I made my own album in that same shape, it was called I Had Sex With God and I sent it to 4AD. Our first album contained three of the first five pieces of music I had ever written. Within a few years I was playing festivals for contemporary classical composers and new age artists who were thirty or forty years older than me. His Name Is Alive played the Musicas Visuales Festival in Mexico with Harold Budd, Paul Horn and Jorge Reyes. The mayor of the city presented me with a guitar but then dramatically walked out of the theater during our performance realizing he had made a terrible mistake. I remember the surreal moment when from across the room Harold Budd walked in and greeted me as “Mr. Defever.” He had a cold and was sniffling during his set, the audience thought he was crying. I recorded his show and when I got back home to Livonia I added my own guitar to some of his songs and then edited the tapes, looping my favorite parts and editing out the parts I didn’t like, also adding additional layers of reverb and echo. More recently I did a concert in a five hundred year old temple in Japan where the unamplified meditation music never rose above a whisper and the monk had to turn off the furnace because the heat molecules were too loud. The show was recorded and released under the name Mountain Ocean Sun and features Ian Masters and Hitoko Sakai.

Energy Dealer

Both my parents were born in Canada, my mother in Saskatchewan, my father in Ontario. I have dual citizenship as my father was American and my mother had Canadian citizenship. I spent summers, holidays and weekends in a tiny cottage on Lake St. Clair that did not have a telephone and had curtains instead of doors separating the two rooms. Myrt Fortin who lived next door would receive phone calls for my mom, walk over to our place and yell into the window, “Hey wake up your ma, your dad’s on the phone.” My mom took a lot of naps, so she was always asleep when something important was happening. I remember always getting cut on broken glass while swimming in the lake or getting stabbed by one of the neighbors and having to go wake up my mom to take me to the hospital.

Lord I Don’t Believe You Exist

When I was ten my parents sat me down and told me it was time that I got a summer job. There were only two businesses in town, a gas station and a hardware store so I walked up to the hardware store and asked the owner for a job and immediately fell to the ground crying. Completely fell apart. He asked me why I wanted to work in hardware. I didn’t know what to say, I was only ten but I knew not to tell the owner that his store was stupid and I didn’t think he could handle the truth. It turned out he also owned the gas station so that didn’t really work out. Later that summer, I began working for the Pickseed Corporation as corn de-tasseling season was just beginning. All the moms would drop off their kids in the church parking lot in Tecumseh, just outside of Windsor, around 4:30am where an unmarked windowless cargo van was waiting that had cinderblocks and 2'x4' boards instead of benches so they could squeeze in the maximum amount of children. There were three job requirements to work in a cornfield, the child (it was only children, no adults) needed to show up with a baseball hat, a thermos with water and a large black plastic garbage bag. I think this was before sunglasses were invented. Upon arriving at the cornfield, we were separated into pickers and checkers, younger kids each taking a row of corn (a row could extend a mile or more) and a slightly older kid would organize and manage several of the younger kids. In the morning we were instructed to poke two arm holes and a head hole into our garbage bags and put it on like a raincoat because the corn was covered in dew and kids wearing wet clothes would walk slower than dry kids. So almost every day there was a point, usually around 11am when the dew would dry and we would be roasted alive from the summer sun coming down on our ridiculous shiny black plastic outfits. We worked from sun up until sun down. I received three dollars and thirty five cents an hour. For all you city folks, corn is planted in alternating rows of types of corn so that when the top part of the plant is removed, or “de-tasseled,” it can seed or cross-pollinate easily. It’s a terrible job with a high turnover rate and every day I would hear the sound of kids in nearby rows that had given up hope, sat down in the middle of the field and crying for hours. The following year, at age 11, I was promoted from picker to checker, and was put in charge of a group of about ten sixteen year old’s.

Sleep It Off

Mostly I like to record – His Name is Alive has over a hundred releases and I’ve done another fifty records under various names, Control Panel, Warren Michael Defever, ESP BEETLES, ESP SUMMER, Forest People, Infinity People, Jeepers Creepers, Layla al-Akhyaliyya, Mirror Dream, Princess Dragon-Mom, the Dirt Eaters, the Fishcats, the Whales, plus way more I can’t remember probably because the names were so dumb. I’ve recorded about four hundred records for other bands at my house or other studios. I’ve worked on records with Danny Kroha, Ida, Fred Thomas, Elizabeth Mitchell, Wild Belle, Michael Hurley, and when I was a teenager I helped record the first Gories album which was especially unique as I was the junior assistant engineer who helped move their equipment into the dirt floor garage next to the studio where it was decided the acoustics would be way worse. Also, I helped collage about a hundred Destroy All Monsters tapes from the 70s for a couple of their releases which led to remastering a bunch of tapes from the John Sinclair White Panther Party archives. I’ve done remixes for Thurston Moore and Yoko Ono and when Iggy and The Stooges started touring again I got a phone call from Ron Asheton seeing if I would help them record demos for their reunion album with Mike Watt on bass. They wrote the songs together while they were recording in Niagara’s basement sort of simultaneously. Iggy didn’t have a notebook with all his lyric ideas, instead he just sang about whatever happened that day – one song was about the airline losing his luggage, one about ATM machines and another was about reading in a newspaper that Ray Davies of the Kinks had been shot in New Orleans. In the end they weren’t terribly excited by my suggested song titles including “No Shirt” (you know because it’s like “No Fun” plus you know Iggy never wears a shirt) and they didn’t seem to love the mixes that I did that sounded kind of like those crappy Raw Power bootlegs.

Cost Of Living

Two summers ago I recorded an incredible concert by Mdou Moctar live at Third Man Records in Detroit. They’re wild hypnotic Hendrix style jammers who live in the desert. The band didn’t speak much english but I think I was able to communicate to them how excited I was about their amazing fingerpicking and hot guitar solos after the show by screaming and replaying the best solos over and over again and then screaming the word fuzz and pointing at their fingers. It’s insane and having seen them a few times since then with a different drummer and the addition of a bass player, I’m convinced it’s their best album. It’s wild but it’s still not Tchin-tabaraden wedding wild.

Licked By Lions

Jonathan Richman walks into Ethan and Gretchen's studio and asks if I can remove all the rugs, take the acoustic treatments off the walls and strike the baffles which normally separate the instruments, drums and amps, so the room will have the most echo possible, he has also invited about ten friends including Johnny Bee Badanjek the drummer from Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels and Mary Cobra from the Detroit Cobras to dance, sing and play percussion in the studio while he records. He has two vocal microphones set up at either end of the room and has brought his own microphones for the drums along with his own desired placement for them. He notices a tamboura near the control room and asks if I know how to play it or if I know how to tune it. Within seconds he’s tuned it and proceeds to sing Indian classical music accompanying himself on tamboura drone for about thirty five minutes. It’s beautiful and very surprising. He asks me if I recorded it, I lie and say no. Later he asks me not to play it for anyone. We record for hours. Some songs are quite long – ten and fifteen minutes, some are medleys of oldies or soft rock hits from the seventies segueing into new songs of his. It’s a confusing session as it’s not clear when songs are starting and ending and he often plays guitar and sings nowhere near a microphone. The distance between him and the microphone seems to have some meaning, there’s some formula to when he chooses to walk away in the middle of a verse but I am unable to determine the secret code. At the end of the session three or four songs are deemed usable, edited and mixed, although, sadly, an attempt at a completely insane and unexpected fuzz guitar solo is left unreleased. (The Harold Budd piece is at the opposite end of this spectrum.)

Calling All Believers

Shortly after Tecuciztecatl was released, I received an email from Dr. James Beacham at CERN inviting us to perform at a series of concerts that would combine experimental music with experimental science at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland. He didn’t contact our booking agent, which would be how we generally receive offers for gigs, instead he sent an email to me, which would be how we generally receive crazy messages from our completely insane fans (murderous, delusional, poetic, threatening messages usually). I assumed the invitation was fake or a prank and replied that we would prefer to wait until they had successfully opened a pathway to interspatial dimensions and we’d play on the other side or that if that was unlikely to happen at a convenient time then perhaps we could set up our equipment right on the edge of a mini-black hole and perform as the Earth is being destroyed so we could release the concert film “Live At The End Of The World.” After a few messages back and forth, it was clear that he was legit and I apologized for being such a jerk. Soon I discovered poetry within the language of particle physics as well as a certain beauty in the idea that these scientists have devoted their lives to dreaming, searching and discovering basic principles that connect all things in existence. The song “Calling All Believers” refers to this devotion. “Energy Acceleration” compares the scientists to monastic life in medieval times and mystics trying to find and define the line between this world and the next and at the same time invoking the incredible amounts of energy needed to create the collisions experiments. The Patterns of Light LP was released in 2016 on London London Records and is about interpreting visions of light, trying to find universal truth with whatever tools available, it’s about the search for how everything works, why it works and how it got that way but also about being inspired on a basic level by the way a thing looks and how all your senses take in a thing. A thousand years ago Hildegard Von Bingen was writing about this same thing in letters, songs, medical texts, and had even developed her own language to use in her mystical writings, similar to Magma drummer Christian Vander using his own language for their concept albums or French black metalists Brenoritvrezorkre and Moëvöt.

The Light Inside You

We get a lot of letters from fans, mostly weirdos though. I think it started when we released Song of Schizophrenia, that sort of connected us to a certain demographic I suspect. Here’s a recent typical message we received. “Growing up in Panama City, Mouth By Mouth and Livonia were like passages to other realms. I drank a ton of cough syrup at the time but those albums helped make life more livable. I was about to go to art school for sculpture and graphic design and the textures I heard on those records had actual shapes to them. Most music I knew at that time was flat or linear. I got them on cassette via mail-order from an ad placed in a bmx magazine. Mouth By Mouth arrived just before going to work at the amusement park and I was able to listen to it twice on the way thanks to the never-ending beach traffic. As luck would have it, I worked on “The Abominable Snowman” ride, basically a tilt-a-whirl inside a dome with lots of fog machine action, blue lights, mirrors, and lots of air conditioning. It took about 10 listens that day before it wasn’t as weird as when I first put it on. Maybe it was my bubblegum flavor/robitussin combo slushie on top of no-doz that pulled it all together, but it was probably a weird ride for a lot of vacationing beach tourists and townies when all they really wanted to hear was “Naughty by Nature” by O.P.P. I had no business running those rides at the age of 17 but I really loved how disorienting that ride could be with all the mirrors, the fog, the cold and for the final 90 seconds the ride would go in reverse. I had a buddy named Kevin that did acid at work and would repeatedly run the mini-train off the tracks and all the riders had to walk back through the woods for about a half mile that summer.”

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

@homosociallyyours

Not asking this bc I disagree with you, but genuinely curious what the alternative would be for a musician who realized how fucked up it is to only have white ppl touring with them and decided to fix it by firing some of the white ppl and hiring people who aren't white?

Obviously this is all hypothetical. It's assuming an interest in eliminating the racism in his hiring practices that Harry has never shown before, so it's important not to jump the gun. But it is an interesting question.

There are two things that mean Harry's current situation wouldn't be very hard for to navigate - if he was trying to move to being an anti-racist employer - one is money and the other is that almost all his crew will be new.

Harry can afford to hire new PoC musicians, without firing anyone who was working with him in 2020. He could do this one of two ways - either travel with a bigger band (the Grammy performance was basically that) or just pay Charlotte and anyone else he wasn't bringing their wages and explain why.

In addition, because Harry is crewing out of LA rather than Los Angeles, he'll be working with almost an entirely new crew (I think that is a bit of a shitty thing to do, but it's also the only way the tour can go ahead). Harry's racist hiring practices weren't just limited to his band, they were also very much true of the crew. If you've definitely got to find new people for 90% of the people you hire - then starting there sounds like there's lots of opportunities for anti-racist practice, while also taking your responsibilities as an employer seriously (particularly in the hellscape people are living in).

Obviously a lot of touring musicians don't have Harry's money, particularly now. I think a principled approach doesn't treat firing the people you've already hired as an option. That amounts to saying 'who should pay for my racism? I know this person who works for me!'

The alternative would be for artists to commit to changing as fast as they can and assume that they are the person who should pay the cost of changes. So start by committing to replacing anyone who leaves with a PoC. Then look at the budget - what can be cut to get another musician on stage? Can it be the money going to the people who made the racist decisions in the first place?

Another important part of this is unionisation - one of the really interesting aspects of the raft of media unionisation campaigns that have been taking place over the last few years is that so often they've been an important way of fighting racism in these organisations. Organising within a workforce that is currently all white has a history, but there are other options. What do multi-racial unionised workplaces in this industry look like? When PoC have had a say in how this work was organised what have they asked for?

I think it's important to be very suspicious of supposed anti-racist efforts which involve those at the top taking more power and using that power (for example by hiring and firing people). And understand that there are alternatives that involve ensuring workers as a group have more pwoer.

In a different environment, where the entire project doesn't depend on the person in power, the obvious answer is resign themselves. People who have set up or presided over an all white organisation have obviously failed and are not the people to lead. I think in the context of an artist, who can't resign, I would be much more comfortable with someone replacing highly paid members of their team with power, than visible waged workers (particularly in the context where no-one's been paid for 18 months).

I think one of the important questions is what is this hypothetical artist's goal. Is it to be anti-racist? Or not to make sure your racist hiring practices aren't visible to the public? My concerns about someone who starts with their band, as opposed to their crew, is that it's probably the second.

[xplrerdolan]

an analysis on and rant about what stan twitter did to grayson dolan:

as i mentioned earlier, i have quite a bit to say about the twitter stans trying to cancel the twins because of something they talked about on their podcast. not only do i have my own personal opinions on it, i also want to shed some light on the direction cancel culture has taken and why it’s so vile.

for context, here’s a transcription of what a very small but loud group of people are “upset” about: “people just want you to not be sober and not be on a diet, because, y’know, they-they kinda feel like shit that they’re not.” - ethan. also during the podcast, grayson mentions, vaguely, that he’s had an unhealthy relationship with food in the past, as did ethan. ethan later identified the problems as being eating disorders. from what i’ve seen on twitter, people mention either/or rather than both aspects when talking about why it should have had a trigger warning. for some people, the whole issue was the nine second clip of what ethan said. others said they were triggered by the mention of eating disorders.

let’s get into this, shall we?

first of all, let me identify myself as a fat girl who is the furthest thing from sober. my entire life, i have been criticized by my family and the world around me for my weight. i’m at a point in my life where i embrace being fat, and i am comfortable with it, which i constantly have to justify. i am directly affected by diet culture, fatphobia, and eating disorders. i personally struggle with disordered eating—different from an eating disorder in that i have a generally unhealthy relationship with food—and what they said does not warrant a trigger warning.

why? because they’re not talking about needing to be on a diet. they’re not shitting on people who aren’t on a diet. they aren’t forcing their diet & healthy eating onto us as an audience. they also didn’t talk about their eating disorders on the podcast; they said they might talk about it later. what they are doing is being condescending—but let’s unpack that quickly.

their condescension is not targeted or directed at us. it is directed toward people who try to pressure them to do things for instant gratification. specifically, other influencers and hollywood as a whole. not to mention, he’s clearly suggesting that people who try to get them to break their sobriety or their diets are the ones who probably feel shitty about themselves for not doing those things. idk about the rest of y’all but i’ve never seen any fans trying to pressure them into getting off their diet or drinking. so, it’s clearly not directed at any of us.

hollywood is hedonistic. the whole aesthetic of youth, the advertisement of satisfaction is rooted in indulgence. maintaining a healthy diet, just like sobriety, is the complete opposite of that.

the snark and the comparison to sobriety are there because he’s annoyed with others trying to pressure him into enjoying his youth “like he should;” a standard set by culture that he & grayson don’t want to participate in for personal reasons. let me remind you that we do not know what they hear from other influencers. we have not been surrounded by a group of other influential people—really influential, not your peers in high school—who are trying to get us to just have one little drink, or just have one little milkshake, or just eat one little burger. connections matter in hollywood. consider how separate the twins seem from other influencers—do you think that’s merely coincidental? i can almost promise you it’s not. they likely avoid people who pressure them one too many times or who put them at risk of disappointing themselves because they might succumb to peer pressure.

what i’m saying here is ethan was projecting. he was projecting his annoyance, frustration, and perhaps some amount of bitterness or general bad feelings in a way that protected himself. yes, it’s a little condescending because a lot of his fans—including myself—might struggle with diet culture or sobriety, or some of us might make choices in our lives that differ from theirs so it feels mildly offensive or just makes you feel bad. i’ll admit that when i first heard it, i was a little put off for a second. but then, i did precisely what so many twitter stans need to do: i got the fuck over it. because i’m not so unsympathetic that i can’t imaging that maybe their life looks a liiiittle different from mine, and i’m not so self-centered to believe that one passing comment applies to me or was ever intended to hurt me personally.

yes, delivery and effect matters more than intention. and if anyone was genuinely offended or triggered, yes, that warrants apology. but it doesn’t obliterate intention. intention matters.

onto my next point: responsibility. i believe people are responsible for correctly labelling potentially triggering information. BUT that doesn’t necessarily mean that you put a trigger warning on a podcast because of one passing comment and the mention of eating disorders. it’s not as though the twins were mocking them or carelessly talking about their experiences—which i note would be careless because eating disorders are a social disease and they get stronger with validation from others as well as through normalization of the disorder. by normalization, i mean saying things or making jokes that encourage one to restrict or to binge. knowing that they did none of that, and that people’s primary issue (what ethan said) was a major misunderstanding, it’s pretty clear that they were under no obligation to put a trigger warning.

now, let’s consider the following: the twins have recently been being more open with us about their insecurities, especially ethan. while talking about what helped him get to a point where he’s comfortable with his acne, he mentions that working out and taking care of himself physically played a huge part in that. in addition to the last two recent points of discussion on their platforms and channel, they have also been sharing their journey through veganism and are very excited about how great they feel because of it.

taking all of that into account, if you know that you’re at such a sensitive point in your recovery or your disorder (which is nothing to be ashamed about, i’d like to note) that someone mentioning their own diet, their view of their own diet, or just the general existence of eating disorders is enough to trigger you, you have to understand that you have a responsibility to avoid potentially triggering content. excluding their eating disorders, we all knew about their recent healthy vegan diet and their devotion to maintaining their physique. i mention this because it seems as though the people who are upset would’ve been triggered by the latter two things regardless—it’s not the words “eating” and “disorder” that suddenly break you like a hypnotic command, it’s the whole premise of two guys talking about how physically fit they are and how healthy they’ve been eating. since this is what they’ve been talking about recently and this is what’s going on in their life, you have to be responsible enough to not seek out or engage with something that could be triggering to you. you need to step away from those things yourself and come back to them when you are capable of hearing about someone else’s healthy choices without internalizing that information and inflicting it upon yourself.

i find it also incredibly important to note that the language ethan uses is very clearly a way to defend himself and ward off anyone who disagrees with his dietary choices. it’s his way of validating himself. which, if you’ve been paying attention, is a sign that he’s insecure about his diet to begin with; if you have more than three brain cells, you should be able to figure out from that fact alone that even if he didn’t have an eating disorder, he clearly has issues with eating. which is why i think nitpicking a nine second clip out of a 45-50ish minute episode of a podcast is absolutely disgusting to me; look at what’s happened now. in their lack of consideration for what he might be going through, despite them literally telling us that they have struggled with eating disorders in the past, they essentially ended up “outing” him. at least, i’ve spent enough time listening to that clip and typing up this analysis of the situation to see it that way.

the last overarching thing i’d like to talk about here is the how this whole situation demonstrates the dangerous and frankly disgusting turn that cancel culture has taken in recent times. cancel culture is no longer expository; it has evolved to be exploitative. people take any opportunity to cancel someone in the hopes that they get attention and validation from others. i believe—and i urge you to read this part carefully and to not misconstrue my intentions or meaning when i say this—that we have pushed the idea that we should support, trust, and listen to the disenfranchised to a degree that we no longer allow any space for critical thinking and analysis of a certain claim. LET ME BE PERFECTLY AND COMPLETELY CLEAR. this does NOT mean that a white person can analyze a BIPOC’s experience with racism to dismiss it, it does NOT mean that nonvictims can analyze a victim’s allegations against someone to disprove it, and thus, it does NOT mean that any oppressor of any kind can apply their ignorant, blind assumptions to any oppressed person’s claims to disqualify what they have said.

with that being said, the reason i mention this is because there are going to inevitably be people, like whoever started this whole mess, who make claims that are either false, dramatized, or that are based on misunderstandings. a part of me wants to believe that the person who initially claimed to be triggered by what ethan said misheard him or took what he said personally when they should not have. if we encouraged people to have discussions about these things, then perhaps someone would’ve pointed out to them that no where in that statement does he shame people for not being on diets or for not being sober. rather, he was projecting his feelings of being criticized onto those who criticize him.

now, the other possibility (that i would rather not believe) is that this person—the first person to say something—picked out a nine second segment of the podcast where ethan said something less than positive and went out of their way to make it seem like an issue. still, the same problem ensues: we’ve created such a culture that if you challenge the position of the accuser then you’re simply brainwashed by the accused and you’re part of the problem.

i can say with utmost certainty that even if the first person to complain about the clip hadn’t intended to make something out of nothing, a fair 90% of them who said blatantly disrespectful things to ethan and grayson DEFINITELY just wanted to hop on a bandwagon. there was one girl who replied to grayson several times, claiming that what they had said was VERY triggering to a lot of people, but within her frantic outcry for an apology from him, she admitted that she herself wasn’t triggered and didn’t even struggle with an eating disorder, before proceeding to tell someone else who does have an eating disorder that if they weren’t triggered it’s not their place to say the twins don’t have to apologize.

......................since the girlies from the bird app like to lurk here, let me spell that one out for y’all:

✨stop demanding apologies that you cannot accept✨

hopefully that gets through to them. because this is the second time in a row that they’ve gone ahead and demanded apologies from the twins that they cannot accept. the heteros were down their throats about the f-slur (which i use in reclamation as it has been used against me personally but i won’t repeat here on the off chance that someone is hurt by it).

it’s so painfully obvious that they’re doing it for likes, retweets, and replies. whether they want people to argue with them or just want attention, they’re hiding behind the guise of caring about a very serious issue and speaking FOR the people who might be offended. i believe people like this noticed a pattern under celebrity tweets when BLM was the center of discussion on twitter. if a celebrity wasn’t talking about BLM, people were under that tweet demanding that they did. those tweets would often get a lot of interactions from people who agreed that someone with a platform should speak up. and since local stan twitter does nothing but regurgitate what’s “trending,” they’re trying to find any reason to be the social justice warrior precisely no one asked them to be and absolutely no one needs them to be.

i don’t think that anyone really needs me to explain why they should be ashamed of themselves, but in case one of them is floating around: it’s because when a bunch of people demand an apology for a non-problem, gang up on that person, flood their replies with nothing but those demands in hopes that someone with as much sense as them on twitter-dot-fucking-com will engage with it and maybe join their futile efforts, it leads to people having to expose a part of themselves that they wanted to keep private. it’s a violation not only of their privacy, but of their emotional consent and the boundaries they had set up.

i’d like to leave anyone guilty of contributing to this situation with this to consider: they start to open up to us more, they start to be more honest with us, they try their best to show us their appreciation for support, and as soon as they mention having an eating disorder it’s a personal attack on you and they need to apologize for it? or worse—someone else said that it was a personal attack on them so you reply five separate times even though it’s not your apology to accept and therefore is not your apology to ask for. it’s bitches like you who make them keep everything vague and private. i don’t even want to consider what they’re going through right now; it breaks my heart to imagine how badly they’re hurting. all for likes and retweets on the fucking bird app. let me know what that gets you in five years.

[essie-essex]

anybody here remember night blogging??

You know thinking back on how I would do things differently, I would probably have gone to another school for college. I had assumed that you were required to write a thesis at every school to graduate, and at my school we had I.S. (Independent Study), which was kind of a final 100 page paper + project that we had to do our senior year, in addition to taking classes. But my school offered me the most money, and everyone I talked to said that it was a good school. I remember my English teacher being surprised that I got in. I wasn’t the best student, but during my senior year I started to be more engaged and pay attention in class. I think part of it was that my family (me and my mom lol) hosted a Japanese exchange student that year. She stayed for 10 months and I loved having someone at the house to do things with, and I think having her around really helped me out a lot with feeling less lonely. So, my grades improved (with the exception of math, I actually did a lot worse in math than usual despite studying every night for hours because my teacher was horrible, but that’s another story...) and for the most part I did a lot better academically. Also, I started running, lost weight, and felt generally better about myself (I thought that finally after all those years of depression, things were finally getting better, and I was stronger, and blah blah blah).

When I was accepted by a university, I was so excited, especially since my advisor told me I wouldn’t get into college (because of that awful math class--like honestly that year would have been so much better if I had had any of the other math teachers who could actually teach, and I came to my advisor meeting thinking that I was doing so much better with my grades than usual, like I literally had A’s in everything except for math, in which I had an F, and I thought she would ask me about what was happening in math and offer help, like seriously who sees a bunch of A’s and one F and thinks “this student clearly isn’t applying herself” and not “clearly this student needs some help with this one subject,” but no she said “I just don’t know what to do with you. At this rate, you’re not going to get into college.” And I just remember being so upset especially since I went in there without any emotional armor like I would have put up if I actually had really bad grades and was expecting to hear about it, but right that’s another story, so anyway... )

My problems started after I got back from Japan. Before that, while I did still have my moments of depression, especially when dealing with my boyfriend who had his own share of mood problems which tended to be a bit more high key than mine, it was a lot better than it was in high school. I loved my major, I had friends who actually appreciated my presence, and, for the first time in my life, I felt hopeful about the future. I remember when I was taking the bus back to my city after visiting my boyfriend and one of my friends, and I realized that for the first time I just felt like a normal person. I didn’t feel like some weird defective mistake that clearly didn’t belong in this world.

Then I went to Japan. And I fucking loved it, which is why I was so sad to leave. I’m usually a really quiet person, and in order to be outgoing I have to completely turn off my filter, which, I realize, can make me sort of obnoxious. It worked for me at first. I made several friends in different groups so I could have different options and be able to go out with friends more often.

My school only allowed us to study abroad for one semester. So, I had 4 months to do everything I wanted to do there. Like I’m not an energetic person at all, but basically I told myself “I’ll sleep when I’m back in the US, but right now I’m in fucking Japan and I need to do everything.” But basically everyone else was staying for the entire school year, so they weren’t in a rush to do and see things like I was. My no filter self helped me make friends, so I would have different groups to go out and do things with (like I changed my personality so much that when I told one of my dorm mates that I liked to play videogames, she said that I didn’t “seem like the type” who would do that. Like she was genuinely surprised.) Public transportation and the safety of Japan made it easier for me to be more independent than I was in the US. My college was in a small town, so while I was more independent there than at home (where if I so much as opened the front door, my mom would come rushing downstairs wondering where I was going/what I was doing/why was I going outside) I was still basically confined to one or two streets in the area. In Japan, I could just get on the train and go. Plus when you’re a foreigner you sometimes get random people talking to you on the streets and can even meet new people since you stand out. I went out to clubs at least once every weekend, and sometimes even twice (the advantage of having more than one group of friends). I didn’t sleep too much and always wanted to be out doing things since I just didn’t have a lot of time. I met guys, went out on dates and everything, had cultural experiences, and I mostly just didn’t care about any danger because I was in Japan and I basically had no plan after that and had done the one thing I really wanted to do (which was travel to Japan). The attitude was also brought on by me not giving much of shit about my studies because I was so angry and disappointed for not getting a placement in a program in which basically everyone who applied would get accepted. It was especially annoying because it allowed me to get experience in participant-observation while volunteering at a place that interested me, but most people who did the program were just doing it for fun, like there were a lot of various sciencey majors plus at least one math major, and I was just really disappointed. Luckily this attitude I adopted didn’t affect my grades too much, since most of the classes were pretty easy.

So, getting back to the point of all of this, I realize that the real problem was my shitty attitude, and I should have made the most out of my four months and then come back to “the real world,” as my mother put it, and be the same person I was before. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened. I have never been popular before, and having so many people not see my weird defective self was so exhilarating to me. For once I wasn’t the weird quiet girl. For once I could be independent. But then I was back to the small college town, and I wanted to go out and do things, I wanted to go to parties on the weekends. But my friends would mostly stay in and watch movies on the weekends. Like we went to the occasional party or did the usual hang out together and drink thing, but it wasn’t the same. I couldn’t be the same person I had been for the previous four months, and I didn’t take it well.

I had never had the kind of depression where I had brain fog. While I was still depressed in middle and high school, I could still do things like read books or write song lyrics. But brain fog made it impossible for me to get anything done. Like I could read a page and not know anything about what I read. I’d be stuck reading the same sentences over and over. When I hung out with my friends, I could muster up some energy, since I would cling to anything that brought me even a bit of joy, but mostly I just did nothing. I had this tiny room at the back of the house (we were a volunteer house and went to the local animal shelter every week) and I never even unpacked my clothes. Everything was in bags or boxes or in a clothing pile somewhere. I would have dreams of being back in Japan and wake up so disappointed. It was especially upsetting to think about all the people I knew in Japan, since they still were there. I tried checking in on people to see how they were doing, but--as is usual--they didn’t miss me nearly as much as I missed them. And I felt the same way about my friends at college too. I was back to just being tolerated instead of wanted. I always let them have their way and yielded to their decisions and just tried to keep my group of friends but I think a good number of them stopped liking me.

ANYWAY, getting to the point. I got on meds over the summer and felt kind of better. I didn’t having nearly as much brain fog. I was ready to do my IS and graduate, and then things went downhill again. My friends used to automatically include me in things, but now I always had to check in with them to see if they were doing anything. I started my IS, joined a local Pagan group to do my research, and started reading books to use as sources. My IS advisor was my favorite professor, but when I told her that I was having trouble doing everything because of my depression, she said “but you took care of that, right?” Like the meds I was on were supposed to fix everything. I just straight up never went back to her office. I stopped going to classes. I purposely avoided meal times and went to get food at times when most people were in classes. I stopped everything.

I feel like if I had gone to a different school, I might have been able to power through the year and finish my classes. Maybe. Or maybe not. I don’t know. This school truly felt like it was the best option though. They offered me the most money, and I was able to visit and write an essay while I was there to get an even better scholarship. I remember when I was offered a merit scholarship for the first time (for one of the schools I didn’t choose to go to) and I called my dad and told him they were offering me some money. He just thought it would be a few hundred dollars maybe, but when I told him $11,000 he was so surprised and was speechless. Like there was just silence for a few seconds for him to process it. The school I went to offered me $14,000 a year, and the scholarship I applied for and went there to write the essay for, brought the amount up to $18,000 (Sadly, this didn’t even cover half of the yearly tuition). It seemed like the best choice, even if they didn’t offer Japanese, I figured I could still learn on my own, and I didn’t realize that their IS program was so unique. If I had gone to any of the other schools, especially one of the bigger ones, I wonder if I would have made more friends. There would have been much more to do there. And all I would have to do was take classes and not be horribly stressed out by IS. Even if I was depressed toward the end of it, all I had to do was pass. Like even though I got good grades for the first two years, I would just need to pass the classes in the last two years to graduate. I got really off topic here I know. This is mostly just a stream of consciousness thing to get my thoughts out. And putting it here has probably stopped me from going into the kind of depressive rant that I usually go into when I write about my life.

Anyways, I’m not editing this or anything. I meant to write this while letting the Sims 4 load since it takes a while with the 938347283333 mods I have, but I forgot to actually start it, whoops!

tl;dr started writing this post meaning to talk about my college and senior IS, ended up having one of those sitcom clip episodes but in writing.

Also fuck my senior year high school math teacher, holy shit she was horrible at teaching

[365days365movies]

April 4, 2021: The Great Dictator (Review)

It's a 100%. Haven't given one of those in a while!

Here's the thing: this is a great film. Hang the comedy bit, even though it's also a very funny film! This is a great movie, no questions. I actually have no problems with it, and barely any actual commentary, gonna be honest. Fact of the matter is, it's essentially perfect in my book. Maybe it's not actually flawless...but I'm having a lot of trouble seeing any flaws. If you've got any, PLEASE tell me! I'm curious, really.

But OK, why am I even writing this, then? Because I want to close out this Golden Era of Comedy with a post about the end of its biggest star, Charlie Chaplin. Because from here...things are all downhill. And the seeds of that journey can be seen in this film. So, in other words, this post is a film history post. WELCOME TO SCHOOL

Yeah, sorry. If you like these history posts, I hope you like this one! And if not...yeah, that's entirely fair. Go ahead and skip this one! The next movie is Arsenic and Old Lace, so I'll save you the trouble of scrolling down! See you next time!

...

...OK, you still here? Cool, let's do this. Go ahead and "keep reading" for more on Chaplin after this film!

Review: Charlie Chaplin

Chaplin's walking on air, at least in terms of his film career! The Great Dictator will become his best-received film critically, and was a smash-hit in the United States. But that's pretty heavily contrasted with the reception of, well, Chaplin himself. Because unfortunately for him, Chaplin's ideologies would soon VIOLENTLY clash with that of his adopted country of the United States.

First things first, his love life was a mess, as was typical for the film star. His latest significant other was actress Joan Barry, and they separated bitterly (AKA, the only was Chaplin separates from anybody), after having a child together. This relationship would begin the downfall of Chaplin's image, starting in 1942. And that would be due to one of the most irritating, shitty dudes in the history of the FBI: J. Edgar Hoover.

Hoover HATED Chaplin, mostly because he was suspicious of him, as he was with EVERYBODY. Fuck Hoover, by the way, dude was a monster. He was also an INSANE patriot, bordering on straight up nationalism. But his hatred of Chaplin revolved around the fact that Chaplin's views were...controversial. I mean, Modern Times was an anti-industrialist film, and that's what the USA was ALL ABOUT at the time. And then, there's...one more thing. I'll get there.

Hoover launched a smear campaign against Charlie, and the Barry case was saddled with an additional allegation: violation of the Mann Act, which stated that it was illegal to transport women across state lines for sexual reasons. It was an attempt to stifle prostitution, and part of a massive moral panic of the time period. It was a bullshit charge, and Chaplin escaped it in trial. But damage had been done to his reputation, and Charlie was about to make it worse.

Shortly after, in 1943, Chaplin would meet his last wife, Oona O'Neill. She was 18, he was 54. Fuckin' OOF, dude. And in 19 years, the two would have EIGHT CHILDREN JESUS FUCKING CHRIST CHAPLIN!!!

Anyway, other than this positive development, the Barry trial had beaten the shit out of him, will-wise. But he began developing a new ambitious film project in 1946, which was called Monsieur Verdoux. This was a black comedy about a bank clerk/serial killer that killed women for money. Which is obviously pretty controversial in a moral panic-stricken America, but that was made worse by Chaplin more overtly expressing his political views...which were violently anti-capitalism! In post-World War II America!

Uh-oh.

In 1947, with the release of Monsieur Verdoux, the film was legit booed at the premiere in the USA. Fuck. Tensions finally came to a head, and Chaplin was "outed" as a filthy, filthy commie! And I put "outed" in quotes because, well...he wasn't. Sure, Chaplin was against capitalism and military nationalism, as well as sympathizing with communist ideals in some cases. He was also friends with suspected communists, and with Soviet diplomats. And that shit's barely OK NOW amongst a pretty big proportion of people in the country. In 1947? WAY FUCKIN' WORSE.

Chaplin was "dangerous and amoral" according to the FBI, and he probably believed in equal rights for minorities too, the FILTHY FUCKIN' COMMIE!!! But, yeah, he was targeted by Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee, and was nearly listed as one of the Hollywood Ten, a group of filmmakers blacklisted from Hollywood for alleged communist activities. Chaplin escaped that, but was still a major target for the Red Scare.

Chaplin, not giving a fuck as always, now decided upon a new project. Limelight was a semi-autobiographical film, in which he played an aging former vaudeville actor who had lost his popularity and fame, and falls in love with a younger woman. On the nose as always, Chaplin. Also, that's Buster Keaton in the GIF up there! Only time the two ever appeared on screen. Neat, huh?

Chaplin went home to the UK for the film's well-publicized premiere in 1952. And that's when the US Attorney General STRUCK, revoking Chaplin's VISA, and trapping him overseas permanently. Chaplin was banned from the United States, through really shitty underhanded tactics. Fuck, man. Worst part is, it's since been proven that there was no good justification for the VISA to be revoked. But the damage was done, and Chaplin willingly cut his ties with the United States, having been spurned by his adopted country for years.

Loved in Europe and hated in America, Charlie continued making films, with his next film being another semi-autobiographical parody called A King in New York. He also came out not as a communist, but as a straight-up anarchist! He hated government altogether at this point, and it's hard to blame the guy. He really did get screwed. But, ironically, his love life was now quite stable, and his marriage with Oona was happy, by all accounts.

His films were banned in the United States, and Chaplin banned them right back, not releasing his films there, and preventing American journalists from attending its premiere. But even ten years later, Chaplin's filmography began to re-emerge for movie audiences, and his popularity began to rebound. The man was just that good, what can I say? Chaplin made a romantic comedy in 1967, called A Countess from Hong Kong, and starring Marlon Brando of all people! It was his first color film, and...it did NOT go well with audiences, ANYWHERE. It just wasn't well-received, and that film would be Chaplin's last.

In 1967, Chaplin had his first stroke of many. He continued his marriage with Oona, and even continued making another film called The Freak, an ambitious project from what's known about it. Basically, it was about a South American girl with wings, which is interesting. In 1972, after 20 years away, Chaplin was welcomed back to the United States with open arms, and was given an Honorary Academy Award for his insane contribution to the medium since the Golden Age of Hollywood. He was given a 12-minute standing ovation, the longest ever given at an Academy Award ceremony.

Still planning on making his film, he returned home. But the film went on a permanent hiatus by 1977, by which time his health had badly declined. On Christmas Day, 1977, Chaplin was found dead, having suffered a stroke in his sleep. He was 88 years of age, and was buried two days later in Switzerland. And THEN...he was dug up.

Yeah, DUDE'S GRAVE WAS FUCKIN' ROBBED! A couple of guys held Chaplin's corpse for ransom, which didn't work out for them, and he was reburied a few days later, this time in a reinforced concrete vault, where his remains remain to this day.

Charles Spencer Chaplin is one of the greatest actors and filmmakers of his time, and didn't deserve the guff he got from the government. The guff he got from his wives...eh, that he probably did deserve, not gonna lie. Dude wasn't the best husband, or the best dad to at least three of his kids. But in an ongoing effort to separate the art from the artist, Chaplin needs to be appreciated for the mountain of talent that he was, and his films will make him immortal in the annals of film history. Long live the Tramp.

But with him and his influence, the film industry had a place to evolve from, especially in terms of comedy. After The Great Dictator, some comedies felt the freedom to take a bit of a darker tone. And from here on out, we're splitting the timeline by genre, tracking comedy films by the evolution of their respective genres. And we start in 1944, with a film about...MYURDERRRR!!! And sweet old ladies!

April 5, 2021: Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), dir. Frank Capra

[fandom-necromancer]

Android psyche

This was prompted by the amazing @detroitbecomestickman! Enjoy!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed900 | AU: human, coffeeshop

‘Hey, Tina, running late?’ ‘Fuck you Gavin, my bike had a flat tire, you know how it is. And I’m still on time.’ ‘Fine, I let the two minutes slide’, Gavin chuckled, bowing his head exaggeratedly. ‘Could you wipe the tables for me? I’ll go open up the shop.’ ‘On it, Sir’, Tina mock-saluted and grabbed rag and towel.

They were a good team. What Gavin lacked in customer service, Tina made up for him. He had other qualities: Without having to boast, he made the best coffee in all of Detroit. Even if his coffee shop was small, the knowledge had spread fast. And with the Wayne State University just around the corner, they couldn’t complain. Most days they had too much to do anyway and Gavin often thought about hiring another barista.

It was Thursday again, and Gavin told Tina to check on their Thirium reserves. They had a lot of regulars, but the newest addition was a group of androids on Thursdays. On point four pm they entered, mass ordering thirium coffee and retreating to a large table in the back. Gavin often found himself staring at them. At that time, their rhythm had always slowed down with little to no costumers and a lot of time for cleaning before the shop closed. ‘Why don’t you go over and talk to him?’, Tina whispered, elbowing him in the side. ‘What? No! What do you even mean?’ Tina laughed. ‘Gavin, I know you keep staring at that man and if you don’t speak to him soon, I will trap you both in this shop until the next morning!’ ‘Tina!’ She was right of course. There in that group of androids sat a remarkably handsome man. Neatly dressed in mostly black and white and the odd silver jewellery, freakishly tall, he was exactly Gavin’s type. Except that he likely was an android. ‘I won’t walk up to a group of androids and talk to one!’ ‘You don’t even know he is an android; he has no LED. Also, what’s the matter with that? They are persons now!’ ‘Tina, will you shut up? I won’t creep up on my costumers, that’s all!’

It still didn’t help keeping his eyes by himself. The man was handsome and looked even better when he laughed – what he did often. The android group spend their time here talking and laughing with each other. The group sometimes changed, some androids being absent, others there for the first time. But the man was a constant. And he seemed to ask them questions and take notes with no one betting an eye. Gavin had said they were students working on a project, although he didn’t know whether universities even accepted androids.

Regardless, Gavin only watched them and never talked to them except when taking their orders. It went on for several weeks, before their Thursday android-bingo-group changed pattern. This time it was only the man Gavin had kept an eye on. Gavin missed how he entered because he had to run to the toilet and saw him sitting on a table for two. He shrugged and returned behind the counter. Maybe he was waiting for his friends. But four pm passed. Half past four passed. And as the shop started to get more and more empty, the man started crying silently. No sobs, no hitching breath, just tears. Gavin didn’t know what to do, normally Tina was the one to handle these cases. He was more the the-shop’s-closing-phck-off man.

But the woman just nudged him forwards. ‘Come on, Gav, this is your chance. You know our policy! Everyone leaves happy unless they are rude, then they just leave.’ ‘Tina I-‘ ‘No. I watched you long enough’, Tina stood her ground. ‘You go talk to that man or I quit.’ ‘Tina…’ ‘Just go, idiot!’ So, he went. If anything, the man would stop crying and go on his way.

He walked up to the table, fidgeting with his small notebook. ‘Hey, I’m sorry, but could I bring you something?’, Gavin then asked, as he stood before the sniffling man. ‘It’s on the house.’ ‘What?’ The stranger lifted his head, quickly wiping his tears away, embarrassed. Despite the teary voice, it sounded soft. Beautiful even. ‘It seemed you had a bad day. Maybe something to cheer you up?’, Gavin tried again. The man looked at the desk, then up at him, slightly confused. ‘Why?’ ‘Hey, we wouldn’t exist if we just sold coffee’, Gavin chuckled. ‘Couldn’t compete with the big chains, you know? Usually my co-worker is better with this than me, but oh well.’ The man hummed, then leaned back folding his hands under the table. ‘A hot chocolate, please? With cream?’ Gavin stalled for a bit, before he nodded. ‘Oh. Okay, coming right up.’ He was already turning to get back to the counter, as the man held him back. ‘Wait.’ ‘Hm?’ ‘Why is that so surprising to you? My order I mean.’

Gavin quickly took out his phone to text Tina the order and to mull over whether or not telling the man he thought he was an android would be considered offensive. ‘Well, to be honest, I thought you were an android? I’m so sorry, I like androids, my best friends are- okay, that’s a lie, my worst enemies are androids’, he babbled thinking back at Connor, the android he had to pay the rent for this shop. ‘Err… Anyways, I mean-‘ He sighed. ‘Sorry for rambling, I don’t mean you or androids any offense.’

The man was smiling at him, amused about his awkward stammering. ‘You are cute’, he chuckled into the silence following, only to blush in embarrassment and slap his hand on his mouth. ‘Shit, I’m sorry, that’s inappropriate.’ Gavin wanted to disagree, but that was when Tina came with two mugs, one hot chocolate and one cappuccino. She put both down on the table, pressed his shoulders down, so Gavin would sit on the vacant chair and winked at him. He in turn now was red as a tomato and scratched his neck. ‘I… I don’t think it is. You-’ He gulped. ‘You are cute too, you know, when you’re… not crying?’

‘Heh, yeah, I think anyone would be’, the man said. ‘I’m Richard, by the way. Most people call me Nines though.’ ‘Gavin.’ ‘Nice to meet you, Gavin.’ He smiled, taking a sip from his cup. ‘Why did you think I was an android? I don’t have an LED.’ ‘Hmm, they don’t need to have them anymore. And you met with a lot of androids here.’ ‘Right…’ Nines’ smile faltered. ‘That… likely won’t happen anymore.’ ‘Really? Why?’, Gavin asked. ‘Sounded like you enjoyed the company.’ ‘I did. I am a psychology student, you know? But I’m not interested in human psyche, that has been thoroughly researched already. I am fascinated by deviancy and an android’s perspective on trauma. Unfortunately, some higher-ups decided android psyche is just bits and bytes and nothing I should spent my time with. They told me to become a programmer if I wanted to work with computers.’

Gavin lifted a brow. ‘Isn’t that racist nowadays?’ ‘Yeah, pretty sure it is. But I don’t think I can pull this argument when all my work, all my studies are suddenly invalidated. It’s always hard to see your dreams shattering. But I’ll pull myself up again. Find something else to do.’ Gavin thought about it. ‘But can you not still do your research?’ ‘With what funds? The university isn’t willing to pay me, because I may have told a certain professor to go fuck himself.’ He told this so deadpan, Gavin just had to laugh, thankful not to have any coffee in his mouth at that time. ‘Shit’, he wheezed. His futile attempts at getting himself back under control had Nines grinning. ‘Okay, that’s one way to go… But why not ask Cyberlife for help?’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Well, if I know one thing, no one says no to money. And Cyberlife wants to polish their image since the revolution. They try to become service providers for androids. I believe they would be happy to invest in android psychologists or research there. In the very end, it’s at least worth a shot before giving up completely, isn’t it?’

The man in front of him frowned, slowly nodding along. ‘That… might actually work… Thank you! I will try that! How do you know that much about Cyberlife?’ Gavin cringed. ‘Hmm. My brother is the CEO…’ ‘Your brother is Elijah Kamski?’ Gavin looked around whether anyone had heard Nines. Thankfully most other patrons were too occupied with their personal talks. ‘My half-brother and I hate him, okay?’, Gavin hissed. ‘We see each other on Christmas and birthdays and it never ends well.’ ‘Wow, I never thought-‘ ‘That Kamski’s brother owns a shitty coffee-shop?’, Gavin asked, ready to re-evaluate his opinion on Nines. ‘No! It’s not shitty at all. No, I didn’t think Kamski’s brother would be… normal.’ ‘You mean boring?’ ‘No, I didn’t say that. I like normal. You don’t know what people are running around at campus.’ He looked down on his empty mug. ‘Err… It was a pleasure talking to you, I… I have a few e-mails to write now. Thank you for everything, you don’t know how much this means to me.’

‘Come again to tell me how it went?’, Gavin asked, standing up after Nines. ‘Of course!’ The man grinned from one ear to the other but kneaded his hands. He rocked a bit back and forth, then stepped up to Gavin for a hug. ‘Thank you, gotta go!’ With that he near sprinted out of the shop, leaving an overwhelmed Gavin standing there.

‘See?’, Tina teased, walking up to him to get their mugs. ‘That’s what can happen when you finally begin talking to people!’ ‘Oh shut up!’

[lucidpantone]

Do you think wtfock will try and find a way to make amends for what little the have done to progress Moyo? It's not out of the question for them since they have repurposed characters on a few occasions.

similar anon: They took the piss out of Moyo. I hope Moyo and Robbe are assigned to a group project with Yasmina so Moyo can show peaks of another side of his personality in a way that can be enjoyed. Doing this won't take away from the original storyline, but it will give Moyo/Noa some respect on his name and if it's smartly done it will be a positive addition. Meanwhile Kato can be around, but, like luka, with even less screentime.

similar anon: Do you think wtfock will touch on the awful messaging presented in their resolve to the hit and run incident?

similar anon: What do we know about Moyo's life in cannon aside from his mom has bipolar, he has a younger brother, his father is absent? And he lives in the more humble side of town? Is there anything more substantial that was discussed or shown in a clip?

Disclaimer: This is super long its about Moyo but covers the grey remake characters. For wtfock to redeem Moyo they would have to write their ass off. Is it possible to write that subplot in the most muted tone to not overtake s5 big plots? Yes, but wtfock does not have the chops to execute that much depth they would need to leverage their social media similar to how we know Josh has pretty staunch abandonment issues in druck from the words he uses to express himself to Nora in text. We can see how his father absences has effected him profoundly and how he is pretty clingy and always jumps to Nora is breaking up with him as a 1st option. Wtfock would have to do something similar to that and they just dont have it in them.

From what I understand s4 was written by Bram and it was written not to long after s3. Remember when Bram had that weird good bye tweet or something like that for wtfock its was before corona that waste meant to be it for him and wtfock but ovi the world mind melted and he had a hand in s4 but he did not write the busy work I hear he only wrote large pivotal scene so probably the dance battle, the self harm scene and the crash scene but from what i get he didnt write the lead up to those scenes so when they happen they seem oddly place versus what brought us to that moment. Moyo is probably one of my fav grey characters in the skamverse up there with Arthur, Lola, Ismail and what I feel like Lucas in SkamNL would have been like. These characters can be unforgiving and vicious at times they have a pretty dark strike in them. They can railroad peoples feelings when they push the self destruct mode and they just typhoon. Anyone around them was just in their way in that moment it wasnt necessarily personal. Moyo does this a lot to Robbe and Aaron he is in a bad mood well watch out cuz he may use either one as a punching bag in that moment(all of them do this) and then later probably apologize because he gets it wasnt their fault. He is highly impulsive and emotional oh and his tongue forget about it (remind u of any1? Arthur maybe?). He’ll tell you to “fuck off”, “he doesn’t need you”, “your stupid” (who else does this? Lola and probably Ismail). Also all these characters give me survivor vibes meaning they well justify shitty actions to survive Moyo and the car scene he didnt care about the other person he cared about his Mother because I gather he is a deeply loyal person to people he loves anyone else they just exist and sometimes they are collateral damage (I think Lucas skamnl had these traits concerning his loyalty to Kes and Isa just being in the way) and Moyo has a temper but can also be a really loving person, funny, caring and empathetic towards causes he understands like Sander’s BP. Arthur and Lola are exactly the same. Fly off the handle one minute and then be insanely vulnerable the next (I suspect Ismail is going to have this trait too). I got a anon awhile back saying it would be powerful as fuck if the bench scene happened between yasmina and Moyo(or yasmina,moyo and robbe) and I was like I would be floored that would be so beautiful to me it would need to be something like that and like I said wtfock does not have the capacity to write something that deep and nuanced. All I can hope for is he dumps Kato and maybe dates Keisha hahah. I am keeping my expectations low. I know who am dealing with.

[smores100]

Yes, 100% agree with everything you said and your tags in that post about wtfock being like a group project patched together by 10 people trying to make it unique but still retain elements of the original. At this point I’m honestly just feel like I’m along for the ride and it’s not necessarily a good one but I’m here for it lmao. The two willems’ chemistry is holding the whole thing together for me. The cast is doing a great job. It’s just the writing that’s so frustrating and inconsistent.

It’s also frustrating because I feel like some of their ideas were good and had potential — I like the setting of the trip they went on, I love the whole art school thing, and I loved Noor so much and was really hoping they’d have Robbe open up to her. The flat share dynamic is so fucking cute, and I thought the buildup to the pool scene was also beautiful. It just makes me sad that they’ve gone so wrong with the drama. Idk why they packed so much shit in in such little time :( disappointing

exactly! i pretty much agree with all of this. the situation is so frustrating bc it’s not all 100% bad ideas, it would’ve been much easier to say it sucks and dismiss it completely if it was. but that’s not the case, there was some real potential here!

there have been some good ideas executed well - the flastshare ‘found family’ dynamic, for example, is the highlight of the season imo; the willems are believable to me as teens, their (great!) chemistry is what made the robbe/sander relationship seem less underdeveloped than it was, and when they’re allowed to be cute and loving with each other, they SHINE (this latest clip, for example). 

there have also been some good ideas executed badly tho - the week at the beach??? i will never understand why they waited TWO WHOLE EPS to introduce sander, the character who’s basically the catalyst for s3′s storyline - it made the first two eps feel repetitive and slow, it messed up the pacing of the whole first half of the season (first slow, then fast af when packing so much sander content all at once), it cut out one of the best things about the evak development (the slow burn! isak seeing him for the first time, the nerves when he talks to him a few days later, seeing him around school and the lowkey stalking him trying to find out everything about him and becoming even more enamoured, *more* nerves when he asks him over to his place and they spend all afternoon together getting to know each other….ahhh, lovely), and it made their relationship feel underdeveloped and rushed (an almost kiss after 6 days of knowing each other in which they interacted twice, kissing naked in a pool after a week and a half…..etc etc. realistic? maybe. good storytelling? less so). which brings me back to the week at the beach - they took away two weeks of sander, ok, at least make up for it by featuring him A LOT during that week at the beach??? use that week to focus on robbe and sander making eyes at each other, getting to know each other, talking, hanging out, listening to music….unlike all the other evaks they were on vacation TOGETHER, they were in the SAME PLACE together, it was such a ROMANTIC setting, the opportunity was RIGHT THERE. but instead that whole week was sander/britt and robbe/noor nonstop, with a bit of sad pining on top. which speaking of noor!!! yeah, the way she was introduced seemed like she could be one of the better emmas, i’ve seen people say they loved how they built up their relationship and the development they got, and like…..what a waste that ended up being?? if he’d ended up coming out to her and they’d become friends (since his own friends were being blah), then ok, i get giving them all this focus. but that didn’t happen. she ended up being like every other emma, confronting him about being gay and telling him to get out of the closet. so why did we spend so much time on her and robbe??? was it really that important to show them making out numerous times, even trying to go all the way twice….?? being gay and fighting your true self is sad, we get it, we got it watching og s3 without seeing isak force himself to make out with emma numerous times (and without lashing out at even accusing him of taking advantage of him and calling him a slur….and without watching him and even get gay bashed….and without one of his friends being homophobic to him when he came out….).

……i’m rambling. but basically, this could’ve been a good season, if only the writing was (much) better; if the writers concentrated and followed up on their original additions to the season instead of trying to stay with og’s timeline and follow its plot; and if the writers cared more about telling a good, hopeful story than they did about doubling down on the drama. s3 had enough drama without all this extra stuff, it didn’t need more! there needs to be a good balance b/w angst and fluff, and wtfock just didn’t have that this season. and again, it’s not *all* bad, and i do get why so many people are going gaga over robbe/sander - they’re pretty together, they have great chemistry and ust, and they’re super cute and fluffy with each other! but the writing, man…..i just can’t ignore it? if this were any other show, i probably could, lord knows i’ve watched (and still do tbh) shitty shows just for that one cute couple i loved and believed deserved the best. but it’s not just any other show, it’s skam, and og s3 was SO MUCH MORE than just a love story b/w two guys. there were so many layers, so much depth and symbolism and big themes throughout the season, the cause and effect and how everything that happened was important and everything was connected and had a big effect on isak’s story (e.g. the isak and sana friendship - apparently some people think robbe’s and yasmina’s friendship is better bc it wasn’t based on the weed plot? which is….listen, they’re hella sweet together and it’d have been nice to have seen her more this season, but *none* of the remakes have managed to fully recreate this friendship, bc *all* of them have failed to understand what was so great about it - i could write an essay on this, honestly). ANYWAY, my point is - i get why people are loving robbe/sander, they’re cute and sweet. but the writing hasn’t done them any favors (in fact it’s done more wrong by them than right and it’s really the willems holding all of this together, so good job boys!), and even if it’s all perfection from now until the end, it just feels like too little too late for me, like, the damage has already been done. i’m keeping up with it bc i’m curious to see how it ends, but it’s not what i was expecting and i’m disappointed. and to each their own ofc, but i can’t say i’m not baffled when i see people saying they like robbe/sander better than evak or how this season is much better than og s3. i just don’t see it??? especially the latter (the former is more of a personal preference, i suppose? but like i said, the writing for evak >>>>> the writing for them, so), which is to me one of the best seasons of tv EVER. it’s literally flawless. there’s not a single thing i would change about it (force me and i might change a couple of things, but nothing *too* major). but again, to each their own! 🤷‍♀️ just don’t disrespect the og when praising your favorite remake, and i’m good, idc. it’s when i see people disrespecting/belittling/diminishing etc etc og that i get into Fighting Mode, otherwise agree to disagree!

[fredseibertdotcom]

“When in doubt, count!” 

My mentor Dale Pon didn’t get much public recognition for his smart, strategic and successful creative work in media promotion. I’m posting about a few projects I was lucky to work on with him.

Scott Webb sent along this advertising campaign Dale Pon created on the cusp of the 1979/80 era of WNBC Radio in New York City. Bob Pittman, Scott, and I recount our view of it below, and I’ll update as more come in from other colleagues. 

There have been countless lessons I learned from Dale Pon about promotion and marketing, but the one that has stuck with me most is...

“When in doubt, count!”

Sounds pretty boring and I thought Dale was a creative guy. Count, like “4 out of 5 dentists recommend Crest”? Really, that’s a good solution?

But Dale’s point of view was the numbers can always point you to a creative solution that can work if you use them as a jumping off point. Basically, as you’re trying to figure out a pitch, a unique selling proposition for a campaign, if you get stuck, look at the numbers. It’s an idea that so pervasive that our mutual co-worker Bob Pittman has even started a podcast on the principal called “Math & Magic.”

To me, this maxim was often how to do a lot with a little, but it didn’t become super clear to me how “counting” could lead to anything useful until I saw it in amazing action back at the beginning of our relationship in the late 1970s.

Fred Seibert:  In 1977, Dale Pon had hired me at WHN in New York City, moved me to Los Angeles and back again. He’d successfully and ____ promoted WHN into the 2nd most listened to country music station in American –remember this station was in New York, home to Frank Sinatra, not Johnny Cash– and I was his lackey,

In early 1979  Dale abandoned me. He went to a New York radio competitor, telling me that not only could I run the WHN promotion department –a job for which I had virtually no experience other than my short stint with him. (“Hey, you produced a jazz record that got a Grammy nomination, you can be good at this too.” Really?) He’d been whisked away by WNBC, a relative ratings laggard, home to Imus in the Morning, run by veteran Bob Sherman and upstart program director Bob Pittman. Sherman’s public goal? “Beat WABC!, which had been New York's #1 station for decades.”

“Oh, I need you to help me produce the TV campaign. If WHN finds out and fires you, I’ll bring you over.” 

Oh great.

Next thing I know Dale’s whipped out the latest New York Arbitron radio ratings books and hands one to me. “Go to every demographic page and circle WNBC. Let’s see what’s what.”

A half hour later I said, “You’re fucked. At best they’re #14 in the prime demos.”

“Here!” he points, “They’re #2!!” It was something like Adult men 35-49. 

I was confused. The group that advertisers wanted was Adults 18-49, maybe on a stretch Adults 25-49. What the hell?!

“We’ll note the demo in the mouse type at the bottom. No one will notice!”

No one will notice?!

Within an hour Dale had sketched out the pitch. A take off on a successful Avis Car Rental campaign.

“We’re #2, we want to be #1! WNBC Radio 66!” 

Before I knew it, Dale had WNBC putting out a call to it’s listeners to send in  Polaroids of any twins who listened for a potential casting in commercials.

Huh, twins? “We’re #2.” Twins. OK, he’s got a creative idea. 

Soon enough, he had me coming to an audio studio after work to moonlight the soundtracks for the campaigns. (WHN never caught on, and I stayed until I want to MTV Networks.)

“Twice as many winnas!*** Twice as many prizes!! Twice as many chances to win!!!” 

And you know? The damned thing worked like crazy. When in doubt, count. Indeed. 

***Remember, we were in New Yawk City. You know, that accent.

Bob Pittman: “...being bold; getting attention; and dominating the airwaves…” 

In addition to my time working with Dale Pon when he created ‘I Want My MTV’ for us in the very early days of MTV and when he helped me relaunch Six Flags Theme Parks, Dale was a lifelong friend and was my partner in building WNBC Radio in the late 70s.

We had completely rebuilt the programming and brought Don Imus back to WNBC from Cleveland, and Dale used the Imus return to help build the huge cume for the radio station and lead WNBC to its eventual position as number one.  WNBC went from an old, staid, second-rate New York radio station to the number one radio station through building the right  programming; Don Imus was the anchor and nighttime disc jockey Alan Beebe’s introduction of ‘WNNNNNBC’ gave the station its unique hooks. Dale took those  – and the rest is history.

Dale taught us all about having a clear and valued claim; being bold; getting attention; and dominating the airwaves with frequency.  Although he may not have won awards for his creativity, it worked time and time again and those of us who adopted his philosophies had that same kind of success in other businesses at other times.  But make no mistake about it – it was Dale’s influence that got us there.

Scott Webb: “...creativity was about problem solving and winning...” 

I got an internship working for Dale Pon two days a week at WNBC Radio during last 3 months of my senior year at Sarah Lawrence College. There were 3 other interns and mostly we made sure that content winners got their prizes and that all the promotions were administered properly. 

There were A LOT of contests and giveaways. 

I had never worked at a radio station before and I just assumed this level of promotion fervor was standard operating procedure. The station was based on the 2nd floor of 30 Rock and at the time it seemed glamorous. I was in line with David Letterman at the cafeteria and Saturday Night Life was rehearsing on the 8th floor and Tom Snyder was in the office down the hall. 

Dale’s office was the dead center of the office when you walked in the door. He ran the team like it was a barroom in the middle of a battlefield. He was loud and always barking out orders. It was stressful and fun. On the last day of our internship we were given T-Shirts that read “I survived Dale Pon”. I, for one, was afraid to put it on - for fear of what his reaction might be - but also because I didn’t want it to end. 

A few weeks later, after he abruptly fired one of his managers he hired me on the spot to join his battalion, er I mean, team. We went to work on the TV advertising campaign that would take WNBC from #2 to #1 in the NYC market. 

We put a call out for twins and cast dozens of twins to kiss Imus. Shooting that campaign was the first production I had ever been part of and it was fast and furious and Dale took me to almost every meeting and along the way from storyboarding with the cinematographer to instructing the animator to directing sound and even buying the air time. 

I didn’t know it but I was getting a master class in creative strategy that was all about winning. It was not just fun – it was a mission to transform what had been a shitty, demoralized loser of radio station to being totally made over into an unstoppable #1 radio station. 

When the dust settled WABC, formerly #1 gave up completely and changed their format from music to News and Talk. An outcome that blew me away at the time. I thought Dale would be happy at the utter defeat he delivered to his competitor but he hated that they never took the bait to respond to his challenge. He wanted a worthy adversary but he never got it. They ran. 

It was the most stressful and wonderful time of my life and it was impossible to not be fascinated by everything Dale did. He was a great teacher and often just told me to sit close to him and just watch everything he did. He taught me how to see and how to think and to understand that creativity was about problem solving and winning. Thank you Dale.

[imadeletingmysocials]

My Final Say On The Final Fantasy 7 Compilation:

DILLY DALLY SHILLY SHALLY!

Now let me say something: I don’t fully hate the remake, my feelings are at best mixed towards it, because of course it plays on my heart strings at moments, I grew up with Final Fantasy 7, I recognize and fall for the fanservicey recreations of PS1 moments, I just hate it’s tone and different atmosphere because I recognize this is obviously fanservicey everywhere you go and rarely comes as close to the original feel, more on that later of course, here’s what’s core: Final Fantasy 7 Remake at best feels like a compromise between the new and the old fans, with some old fans not really feeling 100% about it from what I gathered around many people I know. Everything I hear is “The gameplay is fun and engaging! but some shit is definitely silly and could have been cut” stuff like: the amount of filler, characters that honestly don’t add that much to the world building, and the saturday morning cartoon prolongation of certain moments which were straight to the point in the original, this is a remake where you get to see fast-paced deep cut moments turned into a slow agonizing over-redundant slow insertion of a knife, it’s like using a butter knife to cut a well done stake.

Again, a compromise with the fandom, THAT fandom, the fandom that scared everyone into playing Final Fantasy 7 which was at best a REALLY Good regular JRPG, and it really was like this weirld proto-cringe culture built around a cult, Final Fantasy 7 was this grimdark game about ecology, direct action, the over reach of corporate control on resources, spirituality and all that, and it was ALL REDUCED TO YAOI SHIPPING, I will never forgive you guys for reducing Final Fantasy 7 to that shit and it is one of the main reasons why the Compilation became this anime shit, I’m not even someone who unironically says “this is too anime” but that’s my attitude with a lot of the compilation, there is stuff in this compilation series that makes it all feel like a fucking parody of Dragon Ball Z when outside of that, the original was pretty grounded.

The original was so grounded that it’s still debated if Final Fantasy 7 is cyberpunk AT ALL if not dieselpunk, with the compilation and remake adding more cyberpunk and high-sci-fi aspects like China-like social credit, or VR, and they’re all ham-fistedly added additions to the series, it’s just them running with the idea of “I guess we’re considered cyberpunk now, better play the part and add these cliche tropes”, Final Fantasy 7′s world clearly has a class division when it comes to who has technology and who doesn’t, some technology in the FF7 world is old and some is new, but in the original it’s really just a select places that hold power towards technology: Like the facilities of Midgar or the Golden Saucer.

Adding a lot of these sci-fi aspects and prolonging on the midgar section of course adds plot holes: In the original, the Midgar section flies so fast it’s just one event after the other WHICH IS GOOD, not letting air to breathe in your structure keeps the plot tight, keeps the momentum and pacing good, allowing that air to breathe too much results in what I like to call: Nomura’s Awkward Silence. You’ve probably seen it in Kingdom Hearts quite a lot but Nomura is a shitty director who manages to make scenes so badly and prolonged that by the end any logical person would go: “...But? Wouldn’t that not work?”.

FF7′s Midgar was fast-paced cuz this is a group of eco-terrorists which are on a constant verge of being caught so they’re constantly on the move, plot hole nitpicky shit starts to happen when you don’t have a fast-pacing to keep most hooked and here are examples which aren’t helped with the new plot device additions:

Why doesn’t Tifa confront Cloud’s past since they now have a lot of time to catch up

Why would a terrorist group just... Hire someone and let them stay in a normal ass 

Why is Avalanche just chilling around the sectors when they all live in a mass surveillance state, no really adding that mass surveillance plot device really makes everything fall apart, in the original SHINRA just IMMEDIATELY after the first bombing bombs sector 7 with absolutely no-restraint, them seeing AVALANCHE bomb one of their reactors makes them go: “Oh we can kill them all in one swell swoop and put the blame on them no problem we just giving them a false means of comfort” and the new bombing of Sector 7 REALLY does showcase my annoyance with all of the minor changes that were fine and better in the original: This is also best exemplified by how reno in the original just presses the button and is done with it but the remake prolongs this scene so much, that RENO has to fight you first??? Even if he is literally facing the fucking button??? cuz ANIME FIGHT! and then they make RUDE press the button when before they developed him as “somewhat nice guy” which only clashes even worse with the fact that he was the one who presses a button to SUPPOSEDLY kill an entire sector, well I say supposedly cuz now, there is no weight in that, Barrett doesn’t shoot the fallen sector’s walls in anger and (that’s what motivates him to go to Shinra once and for all) because actual stakes? what are that? No, everyone evacuated this time and the new NPCs are all fine :)

Throughout the whole game, they play up characters who are minor in the original but are FULL BIG FUCKIN IDOLS in the remake now, and as a result, the “bad guys who become good guys as the game on” HAVE TO HAVE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT IMMEDIATELY. Fuck pacing! We need to show that the HEROES HAVE A CONSCIOUSNESS NOW! and STILL MAKE THEM DO EVIL THINGS. Like what is the point in developing your villains and showing they have a conciseness if they are still going to do bad things? In FF7 the only start developing a consciousness AFTER the bad things, like ff7 remake makes Dude somewhat decent and showcases Reeves as a nice person but they still did evil things regardless so it’s uselesss. Now I won’t say FF7 doesn’t do this and shows Reeves has his gripes but it doesn’t go

Again, BARRET HAS A FUCKING GUN FOR AN ARM, HE SHOULDN’T BE OUT IN THE PUBLIC... AT ALL, HE SIGNED HIS DEATH WARRANT WHEN HE GAVE HIMSELF THAT ARM AND DEDICATED HIMSELF TO THE CAUSE, THIS IS WHY HE ALWAYS LIVES ON THE MOVE AND ALWAYS HIDING. 

Again, why did they introduce the idea of everything being a mass surveillance state if Cloud, Tifa and Barret can literally storm Shinra’s headquarters and Shinra workers are just... chilling in the lobby, it’s all empty, but in the original you had a somewhat sense of danger and the only way to progress was through going through specific corridors in a certain order or tricking Shinra workers.

Every single time the dementors appear.

Examples of the anime-transformation of the remake and making everything a lot harder to not take seriously are: 

Scarlet being a comical dominatrix who like a cartoon character smacks the character when in the original she was truly like a serious fucking villain.

Aeris (or Aerith, not sure anymore) pretty much becoming a Disney Princess

Every single villain going to saturday morning cartoon levels of overreduncancy. 

And of course I hate this shit, I have a connection with the original you know, if it wasn’t called a remake or if it didn’t touch the original maybe I wouldn’t have thought otherwise but because of the fact that it goes out to make these ridiculous changes feels like some sort of insult in a way. Minor inconveniences start to become major inconveniences and Final Fantasy 7′s remake is CHOCK FULL of it. 

It’s the weirdest comparison I know, but the one I feel still works is: You know how Disney movies would a TV adaption? Like how Disney’s Hercules had a Hercules TV show and it went on to develop background characters you barely knew, while basically overly expanding on that interlude of the movie? Well that’s what Final Fantasy VII remake feels like, some even said that this remake feels like as if they made a MCU movie series based on the original, honestly I don’t know which one is worse, sounds pretty bad which ever way you put it.

A controversial opinion but one that never the less is true is that: Midgar was not supposed to be ANYTHING BUT A SET UP, it was just there for the sake of world building, now I guess it’s just me and a couple of friends but we aren’t part of the gang of “I didn’t play Final Fantasy 7 pass Midgar” which apparently is a thing, it goes as far as cultural video game stereotype, I’m one of the few people who played passed Midgar, and i’m one of the few people who prefer the game past that section as everything when the world begins to open starts to build on that set up Midgar introduced, like Midgar isn’t everything FF7 has to offer, it’s just the setup, Midgar is the BIG BAD, but you need to recgonize how Midgar is pretty much a plot device at best and what is more important is the villages of the planet and how each are affected by Midgar’s reach and corruption, like Red Canyon, small villages with rocket projects or Wutai (which the Compilation LOVES to set up as the other super-power against Midgar, rather than letting Midgar be the only superpower like in the original I guess).

Midgar is structured like this fast-paced action film, beat by beat, in fact following the same structural high points of an action movie. Midgar was always designed to be a 2 hour experience, like a fun roller coaster ride or romp, it wasn’t meant to be the WHOLE GAME or that prolonged. 

And a lot of those things will be gone and sacrificed in the remake: For example, you cannot recreate well-placed shots and angles in the remake cuz it doesn’t have pre-background sets like the original. In doing so, you sacrifice shit and make choices LIKE THIS: 

Rather than the slow-panning of the shot that results in this iconic scene:

I want to be clear here: I do not hate Final Fantasy 7 remake for it’s lack of subtlety, whenever Final Fantasy 7′s remake has the chance to be political and preachy about it, that is actually where it expands VERY well on the original (unlike the whole fucking Compilation shit or the annoying quirky NPCs they introduce which honestly don’t add much and kinda remove and detach from what’s kinda important at the matter, again the pacing fucking sucks), the original works as it is with short burst of dialog without dwelling on actual political theory (It can get annoying of course for example: Barrett in the remake every 10 seconds talks about how he wants to save the planet, while Barrett in the original doesn’t need to be that repetitive, in fact I think you can count every time in the remake he says “SAVE THE PLANET”  almost as much “DARKNESS” is said in Kingdom hearts... NOMURA!!!), you know keeping it simple for all of the teenagers playing it in final fantasy 7, vague enough to be accessible.

I could go on about all of those weird changes in the remake which could have been left as it is, like almost every single side-mission, I don’t know of a single side-mission in FF7 I left thinking “Wow that was really worthwhile, thought provoking and added quite a lot to the world building!” cuz guess what, it didn’t. The children don’t add much like we get it children are not immune to SOLDIER propaganda (Cloud is literally the personification of this did we really need this), the angel of the slums shows stealing from the rich is good (like the entire game is about killing corporate people and despite Barrett feeling a lil bit remorse in his methods he never feels remorse in killing anyone related to SHINRA), like oh thanks for showcasing to me that thieves can be good people like the child I am. These are all engineered to make people who didn’t get the point in ff7, messages which feel are for children, which I guess a lot of gamers are, the dumbification of video games as a whole angers me but that’s a completely different subject, you ever notice how characters in the past didn’t talk about every single action they should be performing but every game after 2010 has to be annoying about that?

I still have mixed feelings on FF7R. Little things that are lil fanservice can be nice, but then the final fantasy 7 remake just throws the cake onto the ground as soon as it seems tasty, the best example of this would be the cutscene showing Shinra’s plan in Shinra’s headquarters, it is an EXCELLENT COMPLIMENT to the original, like the original has about the same amazing world building set up of how 2000 years ago FF7′s world was just a regular Final Fantasy world! Final Fantasy 7 is special because of that this particular world building, and compliments to that realism and tone ARE GREAT! Those are moments in which the tone of the game SHINE! It makes you go “Aw that was a nice recreation and it complimented the game fine” but then Sephiroth. You know... That one villain who isn’t supposed to be appearing every single second in the original but since the pacing is dogshit I guess he’s basically become Cloud’s little one winged angel on his shoulder that has to appear IN EVERY cutscene, I really do hate this mother fucker. I hate that Sephiroth bitch, I hate that he became more of an mascot for FF7 to the point it overshadows his role as just a pawn of a more deeper evil (JENOVA) sephiroth was nothing but the representation of soldier exploitation going wrong, and how that symbolically is connected to the end of the world and an evil very alien. Sephiroth was never supposed to be this actual character, in fact he stopped being a character when... you know.

Somehow Palmer can see Sephiroth but that makes 0 sense and is the dumbest fucking addition... Aren’t only people with Mako supposed to see him? And the idea is that Sephiroth can only gain physical form through the bodies of SOLDIERs cuz he’s more of a virus now. But you know... Sephy-kun is a star now! SO HE NEEDS TO SHOW UP EVERY FUCKING SECOND and PRACTICALLY SPOIL THE WHOLE ORIGINAL GAME, what clearer message of “we hope you played the original or else” than all of those forced flashbacks, and how funny that the original demon of FF7remake was straight forward and didn’t include sephiroth flashback but as soon as the game released they put them in! HM, I WONDER. I WONDER. That really does feel like a “haha you actually bought the game! sucker.” 

But by that point I’ve basically become that fan that goes “you should read the book, I don’t like it that in the movie they did all of these little changes”, but truth be told Final Fantasy 7 remake turned me into that kinda person. Again: It doesn’t help that this is literally not a medium conversion, but a full on re-writting from the people who worked, and I don’t care what Nomura considers a “remake”, this makes the original story flow a lot worse.

“You fuckers asked for it! So here it is” says Square Enix when people were angry that FF7 was being re-released over and over again, teased with tech demos since the PS3 era! Truth be told, I was always on the fence for a Final Fantasy 7 remake, I was fine with the original, I cannot speak for everyone else but on my side it was just people going “I REALLY FUCKING HOPE THIS ISN’T COMPILATION BULLSHIT“ AND hahah AHAHAHAH well

Final Fantasy 7 remake’s structure is... AMAZINGLY WELL PUT WHEN YOU START TO SEE THAT THE LONGER IT GOES, THE MORE IT STARTS TO STRAY AWAY FROM GOD’S LIGHT, In fact I think that’s brilliant, it’s like a well made bad prank, you get to see people in real time react to this shit and it’s almost a universal experience so props to the designers for managing to do that, at first it starts building your immunity with like dementors and you’re like “why the fuck did they add this? oh well i guess I’ll just keep going” but then by the end of the game throws shit at the fan and some people are devoted to those changes saying “ah fuck it” or you know: This is dumb. I’d say that 35% of Final Fantasy 7′s remake’s content compliments the original and 65% is modern Square Enix’s shenanigans.  

The rest of this thread is pretty funny also:

This might sound controversial but: When your shit is edited in the editing room, maybe, just maybe, there’s a reason it was edited out. Final Fantasty 7 Remake has this attitude of “WE GOTTA ADD EVERY SINGLE DELETED CONTENT WE COULDN’T HAVE PUT IN THE ORIGINAL, WE HAVE THAT POWER NOW TO GET SILLAY!” which is often the downfall of a lot of video games and their artistic integrity, it’s a constant thing and I’m sure I won’t be visiting it for the last time: video game directors are often these egoistical people who are left like children with this amount of power to just do dumb shit and because video games are an exceptional quirky medium, people just let bad writing and anime shit fly, I mean this is what I have always meant by video games as a medium being like b-movies and kitsch at best, you rarely see this medium be high art.

I think the best example of this is comparing to the movie medium, most importantly: George Lucas, George Lucas was a guy who because of a lot of editors their story became something that even overshadowed themselves, have you seen Star Wars without an editor? It sucks. This showcase should have killed the auteur but in the industry sometimes this is not the case, what results of that is a huge inflation of one’s ego and they start getting more and more power to direct stuff in whatever way they see fit!

The Video game medium has allowed the auteur theory to test it’s limits, I don’t know if it’s fair to blame everything on the black sheep Nomura (I mean Motomu Toriyama is as much to blame here, if not even worse, this is the guy who directed X-2, I’m sure if anything he might have done more harm) it is kinda hard to detach the directors from the product however, especially in this case when a lot of people’s gripes come from unnecessary filler, tone, and terrible pacing. That’s kind of all the directors job you know? 

I detest the idea that a good tone is only set by the standards of western cinema or the soviet montage standards. You can accomplish a good and serious tone by a lot of means, it doesn’t need to be 100% serious, but I don’t want it to become as ridiculous or redundant as a low-budget shonen anime. It doesn’t help FF7 Remake case because it doesn’t go out to compliment FF7 that well. It doesn’t matter what Nomura thinks a “remake’ entitles, because regardless, the changes in this will forever be compared to the original, FF7 remake does not exist in a vacuum, it isn’t a stand-alone original game, it just feels like a weird adaptation that doesn’t fair well to the original plot structure.

Which is where I’ll start to bring this long commentary to a halt! If Nomura himself admits that FF7′s Remake is Final Fantasy VII Compilation Part 5 well all I have to say, and what has and will always be my stance of this so called “compilation” is:

The compilation of final fantasy 7 has always been over redundant filler. It’s all either so bad it’s good or so fanservicey it’s obnoxious. Every single compilation is a mixed bowl of “This is actually cool” and “this is just dumb and unnecessary”. The novels, the side-entries on flip phones, they all feel as if they come from a smug aura of “Clearly you didn’t get the plot from one game alone so we clearly have to expand on it so we can get EXTRA MONEY!”

Oh and the whole one winged angel shit (now a plot device thanks to crisis core) and the NOMURA idea of “you gotta play all of the entries to understand this shit” fucking sucks man! 

Nomura games are so close to being so good, but there’s always that fucking CRINGE that appears, and this kind of shit makes me actually sincerely use the word “cringe”, cloud might as well pull a fucking keyblade in which LIGHTNING from Final Fantasy 13 is there saying how she is THE BEST CHARACTER EVER MADE whatever! Consistency and tone is dead, we get it. 

Every single sequel to Final Fantasy 7 is just cashing in on the fame and it’s unnecessary, you can enjoy FF7 on it’s own. It’s feeling a LOT, A LOT like Disney’s approach to Star Wars, you didn’t have to do all of this for Star War’s simple premise. I feel like that ungrateful child who got a shitty present: You really shouldn’t have.

I mean don't get me wrong, the original has that pre-famous Square Enix comic relief, and the only time you ever got that kind of subtle comic relief again was in Final Fantasy 9, the last call-back to the series being traditional. I think it's impossible to recreate Final Fantasy 7 in the style and tone it was created in 1997, because that WAS LITERALLY before Square Enix became famous and that fame went up to their head.

That's like expecting a “Final Fantasy 6″-type game to not be made by an indie developer or a small dev team today, it's not gonna happen. An AAA developer just does not have the soul to do that today. Many people were like “What if they just did the same thing as the game but with jus priddy graphics” well given the crusty JPEG skyboxes in the remake they couldn’t have even concentrated on that alone it seems, also my answer to that is: of course they’re gonna do that. Square Enix has just enough of an ego to not let shit be simple.

I mean it’s a given right, a lot of people were angry about Chrono Cross because it wasn’t quite Chrono Trigger either (at this point Square Enix was already transitioning into Final Fantasy 8-stuff and going all over the place in terms of quality, with multiple teams developing multiple games, trying to catch the high of Final Fantasy 7, but not really seeing what FF7 did to hook so many people, namely on how FF7 is the most serious and accessible entry in the whole series that isn’t Final Fantasy 6 (although Final Fantasy 6 wasn’t as cinematic which the 90s video games loved the opportunity with the gift OF 3D!).

Also:

Bull fucking shit, I am not convinced you aren’t gonna plaster Sephy-kun flashbacks at every single moment like you have, like if you really were to do a beat per beat Final Fantasy 7 remake after that that’s just so funny. 

"OH WE JUST FUCKING SPOILED THE WHOLE GAME IN THE FIRST ACT"

"BUT THE REST OF IT WILL BE NORMAL'

Like... How? Will you lower the budget for the next parts of the remake. That would legit be kinda funny,  "we just wanted to make midgar really long and weird like that, thats all, the rest will be 100% a remake! The alternative universe ghosts won’t come this time.” I just cannot believe that until I see it.

Uh what should I end this long rant with uhhhh...

[shesawriter39049]

CV SQUAD PT.1 (M)

Podcast host/Youtuber/Influencer BTS & OC

CV SQUAD TAKE: MIAMI,NEW YORK, LONDON, LA

CV SQUAD TAKE MIAMI- PART 1 OF 2

WARNINGS:(There’s both some M/F & M/M smuttyness in here so I’ll let you find out which warnings apply to who) Some hand fun,Hella dirty talk, cum play, spit play, light choking, public sex, light mirror kink ,a ton of teasing between all 8 “Characters” All the boy’s are Bi in this BTW . Tatted and Pierced BTS (Not all but most)

JIMIN/OC MAIN FOCUS OT7 SUBFOCUS (MXM/MXF) 

In this part Hoseok/Yoongi have a bigger roll in my opinion but again there all in it a ton 

There is a lot of dialog in this one but it’s needed…I’m introducing 8 people sooooo lol

9.7 K

AU SUMMARY : The “CV SQUAD” is made up of Jimin,YN, Namjoon, Yoongi, and Kookie a group of friends who run a podcast called “Candid Vibes” . That was created initially for a media arts project,in college which is actually how they all met! Now fast forward a good 4 years, a YT channel and millions of listeners later..and we have the CVSQUADTOUR.  A four city tour spanning over 16 days, with guest appearances from some of their good friends over at “TEAMJTH” AKA Jin, Taehyung,and Hoseok. Follow along to get the full candid behind the scenes access to everything that takes place over the next 2 weeks, including the moments there definitely going to edit out of the tour vlogs!!!  P.S the full backstory will be linked at the end!

***This is happening in real time, so in some scenes if there’s a [C] in front of the person dialog that means there talking into the camera. Or if it says [FILMING] that means there in shot but not talking directly to the camera***

****Wednesday July 4th, 5:45 AM,Valencia, CA -CV SQUAD HOUSE (Tour starts on the 5th in Miami) ***

“Ah fuck!!” A loud grumbled leaves Yoongi's chest as he sets the camera on the kitchen counter, ruffling his hands through his faded ice blue locks, readjusting his oversized cat eye glasses on his face before pushing the record button.

[C] “Aye, goodmorning guys, it’s ughhh fuck, 5:45 which is why the lighting probaly sucks in addition to the fact that I’m not Jungkook! Sooo as you guys know we all went out last night with the guys over at TEAMJTH, for a pre-tour dinner thing, which started at 7:30 but Y/N and Jimin didint get there till like 8 which, what the fuck else is new.” Letting out a slow exhale as his body just slouched along the back counter, taking a sip of coffee before continuing his thought.

[C] “ Well, Jin and I were the first to leave around, like 11:30 ish and I had the displeasure of spending the night here, because that’s the only way I’d ensure these asshats woke up on time. And  when I got up this morning my phone said the last time the alarm went off was a little after 3AM..and again it’s 5:45 and I’m about to go wake them up because come look at this shit!“  Turning the camera away from his face to let it lead the way down the hallway and into the PR room, or “Hell” as Yoongi called it .

There was a room on the first floor that was originally meant to be a “parlor” but obviously that's not anything the 4 of you would need or want! So it was turned into the PR closet, as you guys were always being sent items to review, or even paid to post about it. It only took one of you missing an ad that couldve made you an easy 3k to realize this shit needed to be kept out of your bedrooms until the job was done. So inteased you have a room filled with numerous clothing racks and boxes, separated by CV member!  But it was also where all of your luggage was sitting and it barely looked liked you guys were packed, or at least not 16 days worth!

Letting the camera pan the room as he let out an exasperated sigh, even in the dim lighting only fueled by the numerous neon signs along the walls it was still clear this room was a hot ass mess.

[C] “Can we all take a moment to appreciate the site in front of us, that is without a doubt bullshit!” Panning the camera over to the right, zooming in slightly, on all of your half-assed excuse for packing. “Yeah, so on that note, were gonna walk down the hall and wake up Jimin first, and then make our way upstairs to get everyone else.”

Making his way down a long dark hallway before making a right to head to Jimin’s room, until he hears an almost animalistic noise coming from the opposite direction. Heading to the laundry room instead only to find Jungkook, snoring,with his mouth open, on a bean bag chair..with a bag of chocolate covered lays to his right.

There was a very long pause, as the camera pans between Kookie and Yoongi, before his eyes flutter shut, holding the bridge of his nose between his index and thumb.

[C] “Ya know, sometimes...I just really don’t know what my life is….I really, really don't….” reaching down to shake Jungkook “Hey, hey,HEY! Kookie! Dude whyyyyyyy !? What are you doin on the floor in here of all places?” Pausing momentarily honestly hoping for an answer than even made a fragment of sense.  Instead he was greeted with a displeased grumble as kookie attempted to readjust on the oversized bean bag chair .

[C] “Nooo no, no up! Get up, go shower, and finish packing NOW! You got like an hour and 7 minutes. And then your taking this damn camera back because I hate this thing! ”

The tone alone has the younger abiding Yoongi’s orders, far too tired to argue anyway slowly rolling off the floor, grabbing his chips in the process. Managing to get chocolate all over the collar of the white “OFF white” Jacket he slept in. While Kookie slugged his way out of the laundry room, still whining like a bart in the process.

Quickly whipping out his phone to check Jungkooks IG, letting out a relieved sigh at his last 3 posts which all had well over 600k likes. But more importantly Jungkook posted the sponsored post, prior to ruining the jacket...and that’s all that mattered!

[C] “One down..two to go….”

What he actually meant was Yoongi didn't need to wake up was Namjoon, well aware that he was already up and well…..that’s because that's whose room he started and woke up in himself….

Finally heading back to his initial mission, Jimin, turning in the opposite direction, making a right, then walking down four very random stairs that lead to his bedroom . Two black framed french doors sat cracked, the room initially was a sunroom converted to a bedroom because Jimin wanted to be on the first floor and the guest room “wouldn’t even hold my shoes “. So this was the alternative...

Upon opening it he finds the both of you in bed together, but there's nothing even remotely sexual about this if anything it’s comical. Both fully dressed, like shoes and all, how you managed to sleep in that skin tight hot pink body con dress, that barely looked like you had room to breathe is besides me. The upper half of your body was almost hanging half off his california king while Jimin’s foot was damn near in a ballerina point. Evident even through his leather dress boots, neck stretched so far to the side it was almost on his night stand. One hand draped over your hip while the other hung off the bed.

[C] “Why am I not even remotely surprised at this point!?.” A combination of frustration and amusement laced within his voice as he slumped to the ground. Letting a low cackle rupture through his throat, as he still tried to keep his voice at a whisper. Only standing in the door frame at this point. “ I swear I don’t get paid enough for this…..” Walking over to turn on the lights, but unfortunately Jimin only had mood lighting so the dim aesthetic really did nothing to stir the two of you.

Flipping the angle so the camera was facing him again before speaking into it at a hushed tone [C]“Offf course this boy has strip club hoe lighting to go with his damn silk curtains because why wouldn't he! Alright guys’ Imma set this camera on the nightstand, because these two are damn near comatose, and I need two hands for this!  I’m not sure how much footage you will or won't get but I really need to get them up so blame Kookie for also being hungover if this parts shitty!”

At this point because of where the camera was sitting you could only see the bottom of the bed , but it was picking up the conversation taking place above it.

Yoongi reached over readjusting your body on the bed only causing you drape your arms around him in attempts to pull him in “No, no, no..Y/n get up..” Shaking your body until your eyes fluttered, making your roll over closer to Jimin, who welcomed you with no hesitation even in his sleep, always a cuddler even in the platonic sense.

“Alright fuck this..” Hopping on the bed between the two of you, shaking you both until your eyes fluttered open. Jimin’s even puffer than usual from lack of sleep, slipping into complete slits in his face. You weren't doing any better, suddenly your lash extensions felt like bricks hanging on your lids, as you struggled to keep your eyes ajar.  A loud screech comparable to banche left your throat as you stretched,managing to crack a few bones in the process… “Yo, it’s like 5 to 6...you two need to shower and finish packing,private or not we still gotta go through TSA, and you know how LAX is...we need to be outta here by 8! Let’s get movin!!” He was far from yelling but there was no room for debate within the leverage he held as he spoke.

Rolling over to your side, resting your hand on your temple, eyes zoning in on a very faint mark behind Yoongi’s ear making your smirk slightly. “Where did you sleep last night?” Brow quirked at the sudden implied question, the devilish grin on your face transferring to jimins as he ruffled his fingers through his long dark locks. Currently almost jet black, parted messily down the middle with a couple pieces falling in his face framing that lethal jawline of his! Kicking off his shoes and unbuttoning his white dress shirt, leaving his toned caramelized abdomen on display. Giving you a sneak peek at the roses that danced along his ribcage, as he readjusted next to you on the bed.

“Yeah Yoongi where did you sleep last night hmm? Needed a little stress reliever before tour even starts aye?” The playful yet taunting tenor in Jimin's voice eared an eye roll and middle finger from Yoongi.

“Fuck you both, I slept in the guest room thank you very much!” Snapping back with a snarl, while the two of you instantly exchanged glances, eyes meeting and rolling in the same direction simultaneously.

“Really!?” The word left both of your lips in unison, dry as all hell, as you tried to ease off the bed, your hangover knocking you right on your ass. Literally, plopping  back down next to jimin, causing him to smile over at you fondly, stroking the side of your jaw. The contrast of the metal from his rings soothing your skin, nuzzling your face slightly into his palm.

The tone in both of your voices screamed “BULLSHIT”! There were things that happened every once in a while that were kept on the DL, even within the squad ,typically never confirmed or denied, just forever the butt of every, inside joke.

“How the fuck would either of you know different? Your drunk ass couldn't even make it upstairs!” The words slipped from his lips so effortlessly it was like he was already prepared for the two of you to give him that reaction.

“Bitch” Bringing your hand down to meet his ass, as he rolled off the bed smaking it so hard your palm burned from the impact. Earning a low hiss to leave his throat, a noise that was secretly pleasing to both Jimin and yourself if were being honest.

“No, but  I’m serious, you two up! Up!” Shoeing his hands in your direction .

Jimin hopped off the bed first, throwing his shirt on the floor “For once, the little grimiln over there actually has a method to his madness, we need to get moving princess..” Abruptly grabbing you off the bed and throwing you over his shoulder before walking towards the door.

“Hey I heard that! You little shit!” Yoongi aimed a pillow at Jimin but considering he’s not even remotely athletic it landed on your ass instead! Earning a loud squeal from the sudden change of, well shit everything as now you're literally staring at the ground and his ass, in these skin tight leather pants.

The minute the two of you made it into the hallway and he walked up those 4 steps it was game over. All Yoongi could hear from inside Jimin’s bedroom was you literally screaming “Park, down,now put me down I’m literally going to throw up put me down!!”

Picking the camera off the nightstand as he plopped back down on Jimin’s bed , head jerking suddenly from the feeling of something rolling out of the pillowcase. Only to find it’s a bottle of lube, quickly looking at the brand before giving what appeared to be an approving nod, throwing it to the side before bringing the camera up to his face.

[C] “Well ladies and gentlemen..this is gonna be...interesting..to say the least..I’mma go make my rounds, make sure everyone is actually up. Make sure Y/N didn't puke in the damn hallway, I also need to check in with our boys over at TEAMJTH. I’m sure Jin’s the only coherent one, I know they were all over here at some point and I have no idea what time they left!” Pausing to pull his phone out of his pocket, letting his thumb hover over Jin’s contact.

[C] “ Maybe I’ll be somewhat nice and make a starbucks run….meh will see how I feel.But yeah, will check in once Kook’s sober so he can film because I’m sure this was a shit show! So on that note..I’m out! Peace!!”

~~~~~~

“How you wanna do this ?” Voice sitting barley above a whisper as he stroked your cheek, while you sat on the ground of the 1st floor guest bathroom. Hair all tousled to the right as your head rested on your arm, which was still braced along the toilet seat. A warm rag coming up to grace the back of your neck “You wanna shower here or go upstair-” cutting him off with a nod before he could even finish his thought. Needing to sit in the humidity before you even tried to walk upstairs. Nodding quickly before walking behind you to turn the shower up,  stepping out into the hallway to grab a towel.

“Someone slept in her makeup…” Tisking lowly as he placed the towel on the counter, before walking back out into the wall.

“Fuck, yeah I know thank god my skin is damn near bullet proof or else I’d be fucked, remind me to never drink on a stomach fuled by soley the dessert menu! “ Rolling your eyes in frustration at no one but yourself as you slowly got off the ground.Feeling slightly light headed in the process, pulling  your dress over your head. Only revealing a nude g-string, the dress was so tight you almost considered not wearing panties at all. As you stepped into the shower you heard the door open again, apparently he went to also grab you makeup wipes, only catching the tail end of your naked body as you disappeared behind the steamed glass.

Not even bothering to apologize because it wasn't the first time he’d seen you like that, sticking your head out the glass, extending your arms for the wipes, as you smiled over in his direction. “Thank you for taking care of my hungover ass…” Shooting him a lazy smile as you rested your head against the tile.

Returning the gesture with a slight bow of the head as he edged towards the door, “No need to thank me, I’mma go hop in the shower myself, I also sat some tylenol on the counter, but come find me if you need me okay?” The genuine care and concern in his voice forced you to give him a legit smile no matter how dead your body felt, Jimin was good people, you don’t meet a lot of them in this industry that’s for damn sure! Nodding in response, another thank you left your lips lightly before letting your body reunite with the steam.

“How’s she feelin?” Jimin heard Namjoon’s voice echo throughout the empty hallway , changing his direction from his bedroom over to the kitchen. Joon was standing behind the island shirtless, mixing together a protein drink, Jimin noticed the tripbod to his right that was holding his phone. Figuring he probably just filmed something, more than likely an instagram video. Shamelessly taking in Namajon’s honey dipped complexion, offset by his dark brows and ice blonde hair.

Joon went through phases were he choose to tone his body, always someone with a strong build so it didn't take much for him to build up muscle mass. In Jimin eyes he was the perfect combination of muscular yet soft all at the same time! A couple small tattoo’s dancing along his body, all quotes written in an old fashioned script. From various books, or artist that caught his attention, not one for random spur or the moment pieces they all held a lot of meaning!

A dimply smile pulled on Joon’s face as he observed the way the younger was damn near drooling “Thanks Chim, I’m glad your enjoying the progress I’m making at the gym” The smile quickly turned into a full blown smirk once he took in how red Jimin got, even though his tanned complexion.

Shaking his head lightly as he chuckled, slightly embarrassed, letting his eyes meet their freshly polished hardwood floors, before brining his gaze back to his elder. Raking his fingers through his hair before slowly letting them slide down his neck “What can I say, I appreciate the hard work that’s all...I know it’s not easy to stay committed!”Ending with a slight nod , that held equal amounts of sass and arrogance.

Strutting over to grab a seat in front of Namjoon “Are these any good, or are they just payin you well?”

A playful tenor rang through his voice as he recognized the very popular protein brand to his right. Finally putting two and two together, as far as his appearance and the tripod, he was clearly filming an AD for the company. Namjoon quirked his brow clearly not as amused as Jimin, while taking a sip, “Don”t try me, last I checked none of us were hungry enough to take a deal just because. We either actually like it or we don’t post about it..or did I miss something?”

Dropping his posture slightly, resting his chin on his knuckles as he locked his eyes with the younger Namjoon’s rebuttal had jimin throwing his hands up, waving his white flag immediately. “Touche, your right, your right! Lemme taste it..” He actually wasn’t asking more so demanding as he grabbed the cup, lacing his tongue around the straw before wrapping his lips around it.

Namjoon’s eyes narrowed into tiny slits at the sight, well aware of what this little shit was doing, making sure the diamond , from his piercing caught the end of the straw “Really? Is that what it is Park?”  Cocking his head to the side slightly, there was an air of amusement that danced along his face while Jimin faked innocence, earning an eye roll from namjoon while he stepped back relaxing against counter. Putting his full abdomen, V line and all on display, while his joggers sat dangerously low...I swear the two of them secretly got off on constantly tempting each other! Though in all honesty it was USUALLY always harmless and just playful, the four of you flirts by nature.

“So what time did you go to bed last night?” Jimin tried to play it cool but Namjon knew he was digging..trying to see if anything happened between him and Yoongi.

“Ugh, around 1, a little after Hoe-seok made an apperance….fuck, you two missed A LOT!”

“What? OH the lapdance!? Fuckkkk I know! That’s the last thing I remember looking at one my phone, just wait until drama channels get a hold of it, Next thing you know there engaged to be married! “ Jimin rolled his eyes annoyed at just the thought of how everything suddenly became an internet headline.Not that it’s ever stopped any of them from doing whatever they want, when they want!

There was suddenly a mischievous glint in Namjoon’s eyes before he shook his head “Nah, there was another lap dance, that hopefully isn't on anybody's snap chat…” .

Jimin’s brows furrowed in slight confusion, and annoyance at the way Namjoon was dragging this out “Just fuckin send it Joonie I don’t have all damn day!”

A snort left namjoon’s body as he dropped his head on the island before continuing “ Alright ,alright, so when  I got home, Kookie, Tae, Ryland, And morgan were chillin’ listening to The Weeknd doing jell-o shots. He was originally giving Morgan a lap dance,and like stripping and shit. Then I come in, we all know Hoseok can’t hold his liquor, I make a comment about his ass in those jeans he was wearing and the next thing I know he’s on my lap…and ugh, yeah...”

The hesitation as his jaw closed, let Jimin known there was more he wanted to say he just choose not too, now how much more is the question.

Jimin gazed back at him completely wide eyed, jaw damn near hanging to the floor, fuck what he would’ve given to be there for that!  “Careful you might catch something…” Joon teased as he took his phone off the tripod…”Fuck, it’s almsot 6:30 you need to get your ass in the shower before Yoongi cut’s your balls off , he just left, and he spent all morning bitching!”

“Ughhh, fine but were texting about this whole ..”dance” situation later because I got questions! Also when is Yoongi NOT bitching, you just love being his little helper huh? Such a good little boy for him aren't you Joonie!!” The taunting almost demeaning tone in Jimin’s voice had his blood boiling, brow quirked, jaw extremely tight. His lethal gaze was daring the younger to even think about saying another word!

Jimin was well aware if they did have sex theres no way in hell Namjoon was bottoming. So he was hoping if he struck a nerve Joon would correct him which would at least confirm if his suspicion of them hooking up in the past was right. But clearly Namjoon was a little too smart for that one…

“Nah, more like I just know how to keep my shit together so I don’t get bitched out, now how about you be a good little boy for your hyung and go take a shower yeah!?” Now it was Joon’s turn to taunt Jimin , his tone alone had jimin shifting in his seat, low, calm yet authoritative all at the same time. All of the boys were Korean-American, so there were obviously some cultural things that just weren’t done as often in america, and referring to your male elder as “Hyung” constantly was one of them. But considering Jimin can find a way to turn anything into a kink he already knew Jimin’s underwear we soaked on command!

Jimin exhaled deeply it was clear as day he was soooo damn annoyed “Sure, anything for you hyung…” Tone dry and snarky as all hell, adding a very condescending enfaces on the honorary as he hopped out the chair, making sure to sway in his skin tight leather pants as he exited the kitchen.

“That’s it, such a good boy for me Jiminie, such a good boy..” Namjoon coaxed with almost cynical smile, earning a very deserved dual middle finger from the younger as he fully exited the space.

~~~~~~

“Can you arch for me a little, a little more, a little..yesss just like that...just lean into it a little...perfect now stay like that for me…” If Yoongi didn't know any, he’d probably second guess himself before walking into this room. Actually he’s still second guessing himself, but to his pleasant surprise, it’s a photoshoot not an orgy! . As Jimin, Namjoon, and yourself, laid across your fluffy white couch in an obscene amount of Clavin Klein while Jungkook took pics for an IG post. With all the traveling you guys were about to be doing you just didn't trust yourself to get some of these AD’s up on time so you were trying to cram as much as you could! Forcing yourself to do your infamous “5 minute beat” but begging Kookie to edit the fuck outta these pic’s because you still felt like literal death!

Jimin, opting to go shirtless with the briefs peeked out from under the joggers, namjoon kept on a hoodie  leaving it completely unzipped, while you went for the short’s teasing a red and white thong above the waist band along with the matching bra. All of you going for variations of red, white, and blue due to the day at hand.

Rolling his eyes instantly at the sight in front of him “For your safety I really hope this means your all done packing and when the uber comes in 15 minues you’ll be ready to go!”  Setting down a tray of drinks and bagels, face hidden behind a pair of oversized designer shades. The low rasp in his voice let you know he was just exhausted as the rest of you, but you still had shit to do regardless!

“You reallllly have no faith in us!” You could literally hear the pout in Jimin’s voice without even looking.

“The outfits were sorted on racks, when our stylist and Sara were here yesterday we just ran out of time between that conference call and getting ready for dinner to pack it all. There really wasn't shit to do!” You perked up, with a shrug reaching up to grab the Lavender tea, typically a coffee person but you knew since you were sick this morning, and still felt a little off this one was for you! Reclining your  back into Namjoon’s chest slightly, while to stole your drink out of your hand, inviting himself to taste it.  Brining one hand over to soothe up and down your arm before having the nerve to pass your drink over to Jimin instead of returning it to you.

“Alright, and were sure?! Kookie, all your equipment, is packed, labeled, secured!?” Raising his glasses up to look the youngest in the eyes, that infamous chipmunk smile, meeting Yoongi’s glare.

“Yesss Yoongi, that stuff’s been backed, and double checked, it’s good, were good!!”

Stepping back slowly with a nod of approval, clearing his throat before speaking “Even though the four of you are going to be the cause of my premature aging, wrinkles and receding hairline...I just ugh, want you to know I’m honestly really proud of you guys!This was just some little bullshit project we did to pass trade school, in hopes of one day working in our field. And you guys managed to turn it into a career, we were just hoping to be able to do what we love without struggling now look  …” Pausing suddenly, you could hear his voice wavering, making you all equally teary eyed as this was NOT like Min Yoongi at all.

“For the record it’s the five of us, always has been, always will be, we wouldn’t have made it this far without you, hell we wouldn't have graduated without you honestly!” Jimin pipped in first, feeling the need to stroke his ego a little, even though he was speaking straight facts.

Yoongi was technically the eldest, and was wayyy better at managing the combination of partying and studying while living in LA! When you guys met originally 4 years ago , Yoongi was 21, Joon was turning 21, you were 20, Jimin was 19, and Kookie just turned 18. All at different walks in life, as you enrolled in this program for media arts just trying to turn your hopes into something feasible.

“Don’t ever forget that, Candid Vibes wouldn’t be what it is without you, and we love you too by the way, I think you were dancing around that phrase!” Smiling over fondly in Yoongi’s direction, as he tried to hide the smile moving up his face.

The three of you shared a quick glance before getting up to tackle Yoongi who gave a displeased grumped but you all knew he secretly loved it! Squeezing until his legs gave out and he was rolling around on the floor trying to break free.

“Alrigh, alright get the fuck off me!!!” Swatting in your direction. Face contorted in aggravation while the three of you cackled aimlessly honestly not even phased by him anymore. This was just the way he showed his love and you wouldn’t want it any other way!

“ While I go double check on the Ubers, quickly film your update for the CVSQUADTOUR IG account, and please just do another one over on your bags!”  There was a plea to his tone this time  as opposed to the normal hints of anger!

Jungkook mounted his phone on the tripod so you guys could film and the video could be uploaded directly after. Just a standard update, wishing them a happy and safe 4th of July,letting them know how excited you all were, and to keep following all of your socials for updates, and pop-up events blah blah blah!

2 UberXL pulled up, one solely for your luggage alone, the cars were also sponsored, the four of you used Uber on a weekly basis! The drive to the airport was damn near 40 minutes in traffic thank god you were flying private and the plane wasn't leaving until you got there. The 3 of you almost falling asleep the minute your bodies hit the seats, last night's festivities hitting all at once. While Yoongi made business calls making sure your house and other things were looked over while the four of you traveled. The only other girl on the team was Sara, who had the toughest job in your opinion, being your shared assistant. She left for Miami yesterday,since that’s where her girlfriend is for college, wanting a little personal time before you guys ran her ragged!

Amongst arriving at LAX a couple fans noticed you guys and of course you stopped taking pics outside and in the meantime the guys over at TEAMJTH pulled up!

[FILMING-THIS ENTIRE SECTION IS BEING FILMED CASUALLY PANNING BETWEEN ALL 10 MEMBERS WITH NO MAIN FOCUS]

Clearly they had a brand deal of their own, all of them in Tommy Hilfiger loungewear from head to toe, and they all looked damn good! Hoseok’s long burgundy locs messy pushed out of his face, while pitch black ray bans covered his eyes. His joggers were so damn tight you could damn near see the muscles flex as he walked. If you didn't know any better you’d think you were drooling, his toned arms fully exposed in his loose fitting white tank top, making his tan look even stronger.

“Jung fucking -Hoseok…” A low growl left Jimin’s throat he was standing right next to you as he said it, not even bothering to whisper, the two of you sharing a glance that read the same damn thing..this man  was fine as all hell!

While Taehyung trugged behind him, pulling a Jimin, as his hoodie sat slightly unzipped exposing his chiseled chest and the fact that he wasn't wearing a shirt, a couple thin chains dancing along his collarbone. His dark locks falling in his face from under his hood, this man had on looser fitting sweats, they were gray and he had on, no TYPE of underwear..none in site. Everything just slinging around as you walked.

“Oh fuck off…” You heard Junkgook whisper out to himself from behind the camera in a low almost aggravated tone at the site of Taehyung and you couldn't even blame him!

Last you had Jin in all black, fitted joggers and a pretty tight black tank top, and for the first time you realized how broad Jins shoulders were, and how nice this man’s arms were. His freshly touched up lavender locks bounced in the wind, offsetting the all balck outfit.

“Fuck..” left Nmajoon’s lips almost as if he was winded, at the sight of TEAMJTH approaching...yeah this was gonna ugh, be a fun little trip!!

All of the boys were openly Bi,as were you, there was no preference for any of you, you just liked who you liked. But something you‘ve noticed over the years is the 7 of them were a lot picker when it comes to their male counterparts.  Yet they seemed to fit each others criteria effortlessly

Hug’s and hello’s were exchanged, but it was clear all of you needed a damn nap, the energy level was at a negative 2 right now!

Hoseok draped his arm around your shoulder as you guys made your way through the airport, keeping your body close to his as he made casual conversation. Voice sitting exceptionally husky due to lack of sleep but fuck if it didint sound good.

[JK IS STILL FILMING JUST NOT THE TWO OF THEM]

The two of you waited while the others went into the gift shop for snacks neither of you could be bothered to move. Leisurely laying his arm around your waist pulling you in to snuggle into his chest amongst hearing you yawn, repeatedly. As they say yawns are contagious, the moment his neck reclined, and that sinfully chiseled jawline went ajar, the light reflected on a piece of metal that you‘ve never seen before.

“Holy shit….” Glancing up at him, almost wanting to die as those words physically left your throat instead of staying in your head! Bringing his gaze down to meet yours, brows furrowed in confusion.

“Oh I ugh-I just noticed your tong-” A smirk moved up his face cutting you off mid sentence as he licked his lips before slowly letting the long wet muscle fall from his lips, letting you get a full view. But you couldn’t help notice the shape of it seemed a little..different.

“I got it done almost 3 weeks ago, we've just been video conferencing for all these meetings so you haven’t noticed. This one vibrates when you push it..that’s why it’s a little bigger…” His voice dropped to an octave that made your pussy do the tightest kegal imaginable. The look on his face proved that was kinda what he was aiming for, loving the way your body shuddered against his own.

Your throat felt uncomfortably dry as you gazed up at him, his eyes were locked on yours...dead set on making you fall apart in his arms and it wasn’t taking much. Clearly the universe decide to help you out, as the rest of the group slowly trampled out of the store.  Jungkook leading the way from behind the lense. An almost arrogant smile curled up his face as he pulled back from you, easing back into casual conversation with the rest of the group.

~~~

[C] “Were walking through the airport….well fuck clearly you can see that, but were heading twoards the termal and I’m reallyyyy exicted!!” A squeak ruptured through your throat as you smiled over in Jungkook's direction. Jimin and Hoseok walking by in unison, fosseying there way towards the terminal Jazz hands, goofy ass expressions and all!

[C] “Kookie make sure you edit in some really dope Casey Neistat , type music, and editing on this part like I wanna look badd assss, slow - mos and all!” Namjoon hopped into frame out of nowhere earning a snort from kookie.

[C] “All right, let's go give it to me...I'll run ahead, and all of you give me your most badass strut and I’ll slow mo and edit that shit to the gods!!!” Kookie did as he said. Running to the end of the termal, counting down from 5 giving you all the signal to walk, and to be honest it was looking great. Until jimin had to end it with a casual almost  “modest” if you will...slut drop upon reaching the end, and of course you couldn't be out done so you joined. Jimin just stayed in the position for a moment almost as if he were gracing the world with the view of his ass, before sticking out his tongue playfully at the camera to his right!

“Buss it down thotiana buss it downnnn” Hoseok cheered from the side at the site of the two of you, forever the hype man, encouraging you to live you best life. An obnoxiously loud cackle left both him and jin’s throat as they no doubt had that on their snap within seconds!

You can hear Jin and Hoseok in the background jokingly making comments about making it rain on both of you asses or something along those lines as you two strutted down the hall.

[C] I’ve never in my life seen Casey do anything like that…EVER” Yoongi’s tone came through the side stale as hell!!

“I mean, I support it, both the left and the right side of it…” Namjoon smirked back in Yoongi’s direction taking in the site of both asses swaying in front of him!

~~~

Jungkook, and Brendan TEAMJTH’s videographer lead the way into the plane first, and it was gorgeous, seating 14 comfortably had a mixture of chairs, couches, and a work space, one bedroom, and bath. In addition to an array of food, drinks and desserts, a special card sitting on the table next to an edible arrangement. Taking a couple pics to quickly upload to your IG account before getting settled .

There was someone from JETTLY waiting as you guys bored, showing you the amenities, introducing you to the pilot and such but there wasn’t a flight attendant present for the trip which was probably in their best interest!

“Strawberry or pineapple?” Taehyung brought his gaze over to Jungkook as he sat the camera on the table..shrugging nonchalantly, trying to hide the smile moving up his face.

“I don’t know surprise me..”

A smirk moving up Tae’s face at that “Close your eyes..” Dropping his voice slightly, as if it didn't already set at a sinful tenor naturally. Walking over to grab a piece of pineapple, biting into it partially to make sure it’s sweet. Flicking his index finger at the youngers bottom lip letting him know to open up, sliding the fruit into his mouth, while letting his finger lingers over his tongue.  Making the younger smile slightly taking the hint, and lapping his tongue gently, fluttering his eyes open with a meek smile.

“You said surprise you…” Taehyung countered letting his lips hover over Jungkook’s before pulling back smugly making his way back over to the edible arrangement. Leaving the younger more than flustered….

“Alright guys, it’s gonna be a minute before we take off, since you're all finally in one place I need you guys to do one more update about tomorrow’s popup shop. Oh and we were able to get some of your merch there as well!! guys” Jackson, TEAMJTH’S manager spoke up, technically Jin,Hoseok, and Tae were just coming for shits and giggles. The plan originally wasn't a shared tour that’s why there only doing two shows.

But since it’s typical for you guys to have an alternating guest host at least once a month  and your audience loves the threesum it just made sense. Of course since they were coming , pay was worked out, they will be compensated accordingly for the New York and LA shows as well as any of there merch that’s sold. Besides them being your friend’s the five of you just didn't do shady business!

The popup shop would be from 5-10 on the 5th, selling merch and a limited supply of brand collabs the 8 of you have done over the years!

~~~~~~

It was a little after 10 once the jet actually took off, the video was uploaded and your lives got to go on airplane mode! All of you forever grateful for the extremely dim lighting and the fact there were blinds draping the windows. The flight to Miami was about 5 hours and with the time difference by the time you landed it would be rolling on 8pm, you all had a 9:30 dinner meeting with your sponsors so sleeping was crucial.

All of you bundled up in different areas of the plane, the hum of music buzzed through the speakers, while your head laid alone on the couch kiddie-corner at the very back of the room. To be honest it seemed like you were the only one up, the light from your phone catching Jimin’s attention as he invited himself to snuggle up behind you. Sliding your phone out of your hand , placing it on the floor “You need to get some sleep…” the whisper hummed though your ear, as his hand found its home draping over your hip you knew he was right. Eyes burning like hell yet you couldn’t fall asleep…

Head covered under an oversized Calvin Klein hoodie, hiding his face in the crook of your neck, while his palm massaged your hip. A slow exhale left your body as you relaxed into his touch, “Fuck, I know..I just hate sleeping on flights!” A humm left his lips at that and you swore you could feel him smirking into your skin, as his hand slipped under the blanket, past the band of your shorts, toying with the hem of your calvins...A low chuckle left your throat, already well aware of were this was going, you kinda expected it just not this soon.

It’s been 4 months since anything sexually has happened between the two of you, and for some reason it only happens when your traveling. Maybe there’s just something in the air , it was in the bathroom at a brand event, in Bora Bora you found yourself on your knees in Moschino and he found himself shamelessly on his in Gucci. It was a great night, needless to say, the two of you ended up buying the outfits afterwards because there was no way in hell they could be returned!

“I’m surprised your over here with me actually…” Your words coming out slightly muffled as you tried to be respectful of the current atmosphere around you.

“And why’s that..” Bringing his hand down to soothe under your ass, while his lips left faint airy kisses down the side of your neck. Teeth grazing the thin chain around your neck, toying it between his teeth.

“Well, with the way you've been eyeing Hoseok the past two days I figured you’d jump on the opportunity to cuddle up under him...”. Turning your head slightly with a playful smirk waiting for him to bring his lips up to meet yours.

“Coming from the woman who almost creamed her panties when she realized he had his tongue pierced today?” Even though he phrased it as a question his tone came off very “matter of factly” leaving no room for debate. Tugging your bottom lip between his teeth, before lapping over it with his tongue,letting the tiny diamond ball of his own dance along your flesh.  “How didn't you notice that last night?” Sucking your lip between his teeth, not even really expecting a response as he dug his nails into your ass, rolling his hips into you until your knead out slightly. Eyes fluttering shut, as you arched back into his touch, grinds your ass into him until you ripped a stifled moan from his throat!

 Sinking his teeth into the side of your neck in response until you dug your nails in his thigh “We have a meeting behave….”  A deep sigh left his lips but he abided anyway, using his tongue to assault your neck instead.

“I saw the way you were looking at him all night,I don't blame you, I was starting just as hard as you were baby.”  Bringing his hand up to grab your neck, applying  just the right amount of pressure, as his lips teased up your ear. Tugging your hoops between his teeth before sucking a nice little reminder right beneath your ear.

Sliding his hands past your panties to swipe of your clit, a low moan leaving both of your lips “Fuck, Hobi really did get your little pussy wet didint he? Can you imagine how good it would feel to have both of us smothered between your thighs? Telling you how sweet you taste and how good you look while you come.” His lips were literally buried into your ear as he spoke, trying to keep is voice as low as possible, the feeling of his breathe teasing your skin alone had your body shuddering. “God your always so sweet too, you know Hoseok has his cock pierced in 2 places right?”

That alone ripped another moan from your throat as he eased to two fingers in until the rings on his fingers were submerged with you heat. Walls flexing on command as he molded himself around you, curling his fingers upwards to tease at the roof of your pussy. Biting down on your lip so hard you thought you’d draw blood. Thrusting his fingers in and out at an agonizing pace, the girth between the two of them had you arching within seconds , sliding a third finger in and your walls welcomed the stretch effortlessly, as you coated him in your juices. “God your so fuckin’ tight, I bet I got you thinkin about him bending you over -”

“While I have your dick in my mouth? yeah that’s exactly what I’m thinking about. Me wrapping my lips around you until you come down my throat.” The words hissed from your throat as your heat pulsed around him you could almost hear your juices slushing around as he pumped his fingers in and out. “You always look so good when your begging, you turn into such a little slut it’s so sexy.” Now it’s your turn to tease, grabbing his face in your hands pulling his lips down to meet yours. Sliding your tongue into his mouth when you hear him let out an involuntary cry as you start grinding your hips back even harder. Allowing his tongue to map every area in your mouth, the cool sensation from the diamond ball in contrast to the warmth of his tongue has your biting back moans every second. Both of you kissing each other with the same amount of fever , tongues melding against each other, as he exchanged your hole for your clit. Placing the pad of his  fingers  against it before adding steady pressure, as he moved in swift circles.

“Or how about you fucking me, while Hoseok works you open with his fingers, god his hands are so sexy.Until your just begging for him to fuck you, you know how much you love to beg.” A low whine left his throat as he pulled back to lay his tongue flat against your neck, licking a long slow stride before sucking down lightly beneath your chin. Just enough to make you want more, even though you knew he couldn’t...

“Jiminnnn...” You whined slightly reclining your neck even more humming out against your skin in response, lips vibrating against your pulse as if he was actually curious as to why you were calling his name.

“god yes, making you fall apart up under him while you make me cum for you...making a mess all over you cock before he fucks you open with his.” Bringing his lips back over to yours with a slight growl, panting out against his tongue, not allowing yourself to pull away because your afraid of how loud you’ll become, needing his lips and tongue to muffle your cries, as you feel the heat growing in your stomach.

Sliding his oppiste had into your panites, gliding three fingers in knuckle deep, just keeping them stationary, only adding to the immense pressure building in your stomach.

“Your soo good, your fingers are soo good..” Moaning out against his tongue, as low as possible before sucking it into your mouth, his fingers always filled you perfectly, it never took much for him to get you off. Hoping the fact that his hoodie was draping over both of your faces muted out some of the noise.

The neediness dripping from his tongue aren't helping either as you grind your hips into his hand, helping chase your own orgasm. “Fuck I forget much of a promblem this mouth of yours is, your gonna fuck around and make me come from that alone, god your so fuckin sexy…” You could feel him start to build up momentum his fingers started working even faster, needing to feel you come just as bad as you “Your dripping down my hand right now, fuck I just wanna taste you, make you come all over my face.”

Burying your face in the crook of his neck, sinking your teeth into the base merissily, edging you towards your release. “That’s it, fuck yourself on my fingers baby, I can feel how tight your clit is, come for me, come nice and hard for me….” Panting out gainst his your hair as your muscles started to seeze biting down on his neck disgustly hard as you came…… body shuddaring in his embrase as he contiuned working your clit, easing you through your orgasm “Fuck yes, just like that...keep comming for me baby” No matter how sensetive you were you still kept rocking abck agaisnt him, his dick impposibly hard in his pants until you heard a low growl leave his chest. You knew Jimin well enough to know there was a 99% chance he just came….

A low chuckle left your throat at that ...reaching down in his pants as he swirled his fingers in yours. It was like the two of you worked off of one brain cell, brinings your fingers up to each others mouths, lapping your tongues around the digits effortlessly before bringing your lips together. Moaning out simultaneously the two of you tasted each other, the kiss was slow and lazy, letting his tongue have it’s way you as you were spent at this point. Eyes so heavy you almost couldn't open them once he pulled away “Get some sleep…” the words brushed against your lips with a lazy smile before kissing the tip of your nose. The scent of you rolling off his tongue as he spoke. “My entire bodies pliant right now...I don't have a choice, I’m not moving and neither are you!”

Placing one more kiss along your lips before readjusting the two of you under the blankets, before well needed sleep effortlessly washed over your bodies.

~~~~~

The feeling of someone’s hand roaming through your hair is what had your eyes breaking apart. It wasn’t Jimin though you knew what he felt like. These hands were longer, but equally delicate, eyes flutter up to see it was Taehyung. With a camera. Dead in your face.

[C] “Were hereeeee..” The words left his lips sing song like, back to his normal playful self, clearly sleep did him well. Soothing his palm over you back as you grumbled in dismay burying your face back in the blanket...until you remember the discomfort sitting in your panties from earlier, and you instantly felt the desire to hop up and run to the bathroom!

Stepping into the bathroom too quickly wipe down with a towel swamping out your underwear, putting a soiled ones in a bag and sliding them in your cosmetic bag. Upon walking out of course Hoseok would be the one waiting to use the bathroom.

Resting against the wall, shirt long gone, as his hands sat casually in his pockets, the look on his face just felt like he knew something. Or maybe you just felt awkward because you and Jimin got off to the idea of having a threesom with the man in front of you!

“Did you sleep well?”

“I ugh, yeah, yeah I did ..you?” Hoping to god your voice didn't come out as shaky as it felt.

Another all knowing smirk moved up his face, with a slight shrug “Meh, I mean...it couldve been better….” Easing his back off the wall to talk past you, body dusting against yours slightly as he entered the bathroom.  Allowing you to get a full view of beautifully done back piece, Hosoek had one tattoo, and the thing was HUGE...taking up a good 70 percent of his extremely muscular back. It was an extremely detailed leopard, with a tone of tropical themed flowers around it. He got it done in Thailand..about 2 years ago over the span of 3 day!

The minute you returned to the main area Jimin’s eyes met yours exchanging the same look before randomly bursting out into a fit of laughter causing everyone else to glare in your direction. THIS is why the two of you were able to have sex every once on and while, because once it was over..it was over, the two of you were able to just revert back as if nothing ever happened! Walking over to investigate your damage,  yanking his hoodie to the side, thankfully the brutal mark was low enough on his shoulder that any shirt with sleeves would cover it! But fuck if it wasn;t the deepest shade of purple imagiabele, a hiss left your lips at the site of it.

“Don’t worry about it, you know how much I get off on pain..” The words were barely audible as whispered out into your hair. Pulling back from you with a smirk, walking over to pack his blankets and such back in his luggage.

~~~

Once the plane officially settled and the 10 of you made your way to the airbnb it was pushing 8:30, and luckily the sponsors had a feeling this would happen and pushed dinner back to 10. But that still didn't leave MUCH time for getting ready.

Upon pulling up you all recognized the house, it was the “Santorini” very popular amongst influencers as it had 5 bedoroms 4 baths, nine bed all together, a hot tub, pool the full nine. Unfortunately you lot were far too rushed to explore or even pick out rooms, recognizing the car that was waiting outside thankful it was the hair and makeup duo you reached out to weeks ago through IG to do your glam while in Miami.

The house was a mess within seconds, all of you running around throwing clothes everywhere trying to find what you needed, the ten of you had never gotten ready so fast in your lives.

Jungkook and Brenden were ready first, within 20 minutes tops, the least high maintenance of the group, whipping out there cameras as they watched all the casos unfold. Even Though 80% would have to be cut as there were a lot of naked and or half naked bodies running through this house!

It was only a matter of time before Jackson and Yoongi were screaming that the car was outside and you all needed to leave ..NOW!

[FILMING]

“Fuck where are my shoes!?

“Who has hairspray, that won’t make my hair look flakey on my hair!?”

“Kim-Tae-fucking-hyung are you wearing my Saint Laurent boots!?”

“NO! My feet are bigger than yours ya dick!”

Everything and everyone was a damn mess, yelling from all ends of the house, no one really sure who the other was actually speaking too!

“Ahhh shit I gotta go I gotta gooo..” You found yourself running away from your glam team as they chased behind you with hairspray and fix plus,trying to spray you down in the process “Someone zip this pleaseee…” The first person you ran by was Namjoon, his silk paisley shirt sitting slightly unbuttoned giving you a sneak peek at his toned chest while reaching behind to zip up your dress.

[FILMING] ‘Shit I don't know if I like thissss..” You knew that whine anywhere it was Jimin giving himself a one over in the mirror.

[FILMING] “Your ass looks delectable Jiminie we gotta gooooo!!!” The praise came from Namjoon making the younger blush slightly as he licked his cherry stained lips, not hesitating to look at his ass in the frame one more time before abiding. Confidence instantly back on a hundred as he smirked, swaying away from the mirror while running his fingers through his hair.

~~~~

The 10 of you pilled into 3 luxury Ubers arriving to the “Lobster Bar Sea Grille” About 10 minutes late but hey, you tried, Jimin and yourself strutted together, the last two to hop out of the car. Hoseok came over casually draping his hand over Jimin’s shoulder. “I like these pants on you Jimine…” tone calm as ever as his hand gently brushed up Jimin’s thigh, making the older chuckle upon feeling his muscles tense under his hold.

Turning his head upwards slightly to meet Hoseok’s gaze, letting his tongue play at the corner of his mouth “Yea, I can say the same about you,they make your thighs look really good” Jimin’s voice dropped a little, adding that slightly whiny twang that never failed to get him his way! Eye’s shamelessly  trailing up Hoseok’s body

A humm leaving Hosoek’s lips in response as his hand coily trailed down Jimin’s back, the slight whimper that left Jimin’s throat the lower he got didn't go unnoticed. Once Hoseok's hand reached his ass he didn't hesitate to squeeze it firmly in his palm until the younger knead out slightly.  Pulling back with a smirk “Let’s ugh..go knock this meeting out so yeah?” Lips hovering over Jimin’s ear as he whispered into his skin. A low rumble ruptured through his chest at the way the younger was just putty in his hands. Typically Jimin had this effect on everyone else, he’s not used to being knocked on his ass, Hoseok’s a completely different type of creature that’s for damn sure. This time giving his ass a couple playful smacks before jogging over to Jin and Taehyung as the walked through the restaurant's doors.

“What. The. Fuck. Was. That.” Glancing over at Jimin with a smile, honestly you were kinda rooting for this, lord knowns he’s wanted to fuck Hoseok since they met.

“I have no idea, but if that mans dick isn't in my mouth by the end of the night..I’mma lose my shitt!!”

Upon walking in and exchanging hugs there appeared to only be seating left on either side of Hoseok..Jimin and yourself couldn't help but laugh as you took your seats, something tells me this was not a quisedence.

While Tae was next to jungkook Yoongi was sandwiched between Jin and Namjoon, and Jackson, and brenden were sitting in between the two Mike, and Jordan. They were behind the company sponsoring the actual aesthetic of the tour. Meaning they were the ones transforming these venues into the atmosphere all of your fans were walking into. Everything from lighting,seating, the podcast “set” the full nine. Each city was set to have it’s on vibe so none of the ‘set’s would look the same!

The night went well, not that you were surprised, you all knew time and place, and sitting in front of two men who were putting a shit ton of money into your tour was a place to act like professionals. But then midnight rolled around, and that’s when everyone started to get a little laxed Jimin and yourself were one in the same. The familiar smirk that tugged on his pouty lips as he sat in deep conversation with Hoseok told you to look under the table.

Only to find his fingers gently teasing over Hoseok’s cock through his pants, trickling up and down his zipper. Casually bringing his hand down to soothe up his inner thigh, fingers getting dangerously close to his length. Admiring the way Jimin kept gazing at him, the glint in his eyes were the perfect combination of innocent and sin all at the same time. You couldn't even help the smirk that tugged on your cheeks, feeling somewhat proud of you friend for finally going after what he’s wanted.

The sponsors left and graciously covering the bill, while the rest of you shifted outside towards the bar which set right off the water. But you couldn't help but notice Jimin get up to go to the bathroom, only for Hosoek to follow seconds later.

~~~~~~~

Walking in to find the younger pressed against the counter raking his fingers through his hair, not forgetting to arch slightly with a cheeky grin once his eyes zooned in on Hoseok.

Tsking lowly as he shook his head, one hand in his pocket as he strolled over causally “Such a little cock tease huh?” Smacking his ass so hard, even Hoseok moaned out at the sting, pulling a sharp gasp from Jimin’s body.  Making him fall forward chuckling lightly as he braced his weight on his elbows, grinding back into Hoseok. Turning his head slightly as his tongue flicked the roof of his mouth, locking his eyes with the elder as he felt him, digg his thumbs into his hips before grinding his clothed cock into Jimin ass.

Making Jimin moan out shamelessly sucking his plum bottom lip into his mouth as he zoned in on his own reflection.

“Ohhh, you like watching yourself get fucked? You like seeing how pretty you look while your bent over like a little slut getting fucked into the counter?” Rolling his hips a little deeper with a growl, bringing his hand up to take a firm hold on Jimin’s sinfully thick neck.

Brining Jimin’s body flesh to his, Hoseok’s blunt teeth sunk deep into a pulse point, making the younger strangle out a high breathy moan that bounced off every surface of marble in this bathroom.

“Fuck”. Hosek bit his lip, snaking his tongue down the side of Jimin’s neck to ease the sting, his body shuddering at the feeling of the metal brushing against his skin. “You sound so fuckin good and I haven’t even touched you yet…I wonder what you’ll sound like if IIII…..”

Finally bringing his hand down to cup Jimin’s throbbing cock as he rolled his hips into him electing another needy whine from his throat bringing something almost primal out of Hoseok’s body! “Jiminnnn, baby fuck...” The tone in his voice reflected as if he was in pain, which he was, his dick was ready to fucking explode.

The pet name and sudden hint of neediness in Hoseok’s voice had Jimin turning into complete mush in his hold.

Taking Jimin’s hand in his own, pulling back just enough to let Jimin squeeze his cock in his hands through the almost painfully tight fabric, making it twitch a couple times, and he swore Jimin’s knees went limp.

“You want it…” Phrasing the question more as a statement , as he turned Jimin’s head waving his tongue into his mouth, making the younger respond instantly swirling it around the muscle. Hoseok’s hand made its way back to the front of Jimin’s body , soothing it down his chest,before palming his length again. “Soo sexy…” slurred out against Jimin’s mouth, as he sucked his plum bottom lip between his teeth.

Jimin was the one to break away from the kiss “I’m over having your tongue in my mouth , I need your cock” Tone exceptionally bratty, nipping at the elders chiseled jawline,rolling his hips back even deeper “You want me on my knees here or at home?”

THAT’S ALL SHE WROTE FOR NOW! LOL

(Since this is the first chapter I kinda forgot that this one would be the longest for obvious reasons! So I decided I didn't wanna make this like 16 k...cut it off at 9.5 and if this is received well, Miami will be done in 2 parts. So if you enjoyed this and want more...show some love and hit up my ask.

BACKSTORY

[readandwritesilver]

can we just,,,,,, can everyone shut up with the debbie discourse for two seconds because i have had a Thought while sitting on my bed and analyzing her character,,,,,,,

you know the scene on the porch around the end of season ten (i think its 10.11, but i could be wrong) where her and sandy are teasing carl about his “undercover cop” thing,,,,, ok so bear with me for a second right these are the ramblings of whatever the gender neutral term for madman is,,,,

ok so like that scene makes me think of something. i already brought up the parallels between both sabbie/dandy (imo dandy is cuter but sabbie seems more popular) and s1-3 gallavich, as well as the parallels between sandy and debbie individually in s1-3 in this post. i go into a lot more detail but the summary of it is that debbie and sandy, both individually and in their relationship, reflect what gallavich could have been in the early seasons but didnt have the chance to, mainly because of one terry milkovich.

(cutting this because its fucking LONG man, sorry. i get really fired up about the parallels in this show because like,,, not to compliment the writing on shameless but they kinda make me go a little feral)

so, anyways, the porch scene.

throughout the first five seasons, all the way up until she leaves, we see glimpses at the dynamic of mickey, mandy, and ian as a group. but it’s never really allowed to thrive, first because of mickey, and then because on k*nyatta.

the reason k*nyatta interfered with mandy’s relationships with the two of them don’t really need to be explained. he was an abusive and manipulative peice of shit, end of story. but i want to look more at s1-3, where mickey was the one preventing it.

i think that in his head, ian was separate from everything else. ian was essentially his escape, even if he would never even admit it to himself (though he actually does admit it, to some degree, after yev’s christening in 4.11). notice how reluctant he is to let any part of what he has with ian interact with his family in any way, how when he’s with both mandy and ian at the same time (or, honestly, with any other human being and ian at the same time) he essentially pretends ian doesn’t exist, how he freaks out when ian makes any kind of effort to hang out with him but invites him to stay over the SECOND his family is out of town.

there are practical reasons for this, and the biggest one rhymes with berry bilkovich, but part of it is also that i think mickey needs to let ian be his own. anyone that grew up with abusive/manipulative parents (and this isn’t just me projecting, ive had this conversation with other people from shitty homes that have agreed) can tell you that, essentially, nothing is your own as soon as your abuser knows about it. it becomes fuel to their fire. and i think that mandy (and the rest of his siblings, as he clearly had a relationship with them, even if it was different than it was with her) were an extension of this. again, there are obviously practical reasons for this in that he had no way of knowing whether he could trust them (though it seems unlikely ian never told mickey mandy knew he was gay.) and there was a reasonable chance he would have been in just as much danger as if his dad found out, but i think this was only part of his reasoning.

so, going back to sandy, debbie, and carl.

i think that the three of them are an important addition to everything i already went over with dandy/sabbie and gallavich. obviously sandy isn’t really in season ten very much, and most of her time is spent with mickey dealing with wedding stuff and debbie is in no way involved (with the exception of the one time sandy texts her about franny,). but in the scenes that she does have with debbie, like i said in my last post, sandy is already at the point that mickey is after a lot of work, despite their (theoretically) reasonable age gap. yes,  there are practical reasons for this from a show-running perspective and yes we don’t know much about her pre-s10, i’m aware of all of this, but it’s not really relevant. the point is that sandy is clearly already comfortable with her family (mainly mickey, but she also point blank says to terry & several random milkoviches that she’s gay and receives no reaction, meaning it isn’t news) knowing not just about her sexuality, but also about her and debbie. sure, she never has a conversation of any kind with anyone about debbie, but, not only do they dance together at the wedding, but they have sex in 10.11 in an old, shitty house with most likely very thin walls with everyone there. also the bowtie scene, while it’s technically only them, once again theoretically happens in the kitchen of a house with other people in it.

ok, so, now that i’ve rambled for far too long, the porch scene.

i ADORE this scene. i think it sets up a fucking wonderful dynamic that i hope in my heart of hearts isn’t forgotten in s11. sandy telling carl he smells like shit and that he’s “not a very good [undercover cop]”, carl calling her “milk”, the three of them sharing the joint, it’s poetic cinema. and the fact that the pivotal moment in debbie and sandy’s (until that point) casually flirty relationship happens right after? i have a lot of problems with the writing on shameless because of how they handle the way that certain stories progress, but this scene is one of the things that i fucking love about the writing on this show. it’s one scene that’s, like, three minutes max and here i am rambling on for paragraphs about it. we already see an easy relationship building between the three of them, and it has a lot of potential to go even further.

so, this is all kind of building on my original post. but we’re seeing them, pretty much immediately, get a dynamic that mickey, ian, and mandy could have had, but were denied because of circumstances totally out of their control. granted, sandy and carl aren’t really friends yet, but we’ve been shown time and time again that gallaghers and milkoviches are kind of just drawn to eachother, so i don’t think it’s a reach at all (especially if sandy is still hanging around in s11, which i think she probably will be, between mickey and debbie) to say theres a reasonable chance it could happen.

obviously there’s no equivalent to lip in this situation, and i suppose they could just introduce a random milkovich for carl, but i honestly wouldn’t want that. to be fair, they managed to do start a decent romance with debbie and sandy pretty quickly, but i just feel like it would come off as forced and/or rushed. besides the fact that, as much as i loved lip and mandy together, and have always loved lip as a character, he honestly never really fit into the dynamic all that well. there wasn’t even a particular reason why he never worked as a part of the little group at any stage, he just didn’t, (which is fine).

TL;DR: Sandy, Debbie, and Carl could (either in s11 or post-canon, though i think the latter is more likely) become something similar to the sweet little “two of us are banging, two of us are siblings, and two of us are best friends” group that mandy, mickey, and ian never got the chance at, and i think it’s pretty damn neat.

[treehugginglibrarian]

Social Justice Bedroom Warriors

Social Justice Warriors need to stay out of people’s intimate lives, unless they’re personally invited in, because they’re starting to sound a bit like incels.  

Recently, a member of one of my childfree on-line forums posed a question regarding dating and mental health, being unsure whether it was acceptable for her to bow out of a potential relationship because the gentleman in question suffered from depression and anxiety. While most people, including those with one or both of those health issues, were quick to reassure her that she never has to date anyone she doesn’t want to, and she owes no one an explanation, others were less supportive. One entire sub-thread of this mess ended up dedicated to the notion that, if she did not date this man, she was an “ableist cunt.” That’s not how this works. THAT’S NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS. This also isn’t the first time I’ve seen this argument made.

As a population, we’ve gotten pretty good at reminding straight, white, men (and black men, on occasion) that women do not owe them anything. We don’t owe them our time, our phone number, a date, or sex. We do not owe them anything simply because they were born with a dick and took a fancy to us. It’s becoming increasingly clear, however, that the only people who don’t appear to be owed sex or relationships are straight, white, men. 

On multiple occasions during the course of my adult life, I have been called a “racist” by a black man who wanted my phone number and to whom I did not want to give it. Sometimes I didn’t want to give it to him because it was obvious he wasn’t my type. Sometimes I was just disinterested. Sometimes I was taken. In all instances, my rejection was not met merely with annoyance, but with a charge of “racism.” As though their blackness entitled them to my time, even if their maleness left me disinterested. As though a failure to be interested on my part could only be attributed to an aversion to brown skin, rather than an aversion to them, as an individual. I never thought much of these instances because I have, in fact, dated men of color before. As a child, my first Hollywood crush was on a black man. As an adult, about the only human I would consider leaving my wife for is a black woman (I jest. I would never leave my wife. But if I did it would be for Jessica Williams). My disinterest in these men was not because I am incapable of attraction to black bodies. I just wasn’t interested in those men; a fact they were quite offended by and quite willing to project over.  

Shortly after coming off of active duty, I got called “fat phobic” for the first time. It wouldn’t be the last time and, despite the general definition of oppressive hatred, at no time has this name been lobbed at me because I’ve been treating those who are overweight as though they are “less than.” I’m not scared of fat people. I don’t hate fat people. In fact, unless you are an overweight person with whom I am personally acquainted, I probably have effectively zero feeling about you or your excess weight. If you’re a fat person with whom I’m personally acquainted, my feelings towards you will have little to do with your weight and significantly more to do with your personality and your work ethic. You do you, boo, just don’t be a mean person or a shitty coworker along the way. That said, I acknowledge a lack of physical attraction on my part when it comes to overweight people. Part of it is that I’m just not attracted to the body type. Part of it is that I am an insanely active person, and I do make certain assumptions about other people’s lives and activity levels based upon their body types. I am going to assume that someone who is 150 pounds overweight is not going to be compatible with who I am as a person. My unwillingness to date people who fit this criteria, my disinterest in having sex with a body type that does not appeal to me, is apparently rooted in a deep and unacknowledged phobia of fat people. I got told by multiple women that unless I’m willing to force an attraction to fat people, I am fat phobic. How I treat these people out of the sheets is completely irrelevant. 

A little research showed that fatphobia was hardly the only politically correct pile of shite making its way into bedrooms. White people who won’t date outside their race are, with some level of regularity, told they’re racist. Refusing to date someone from another country, culture, or religious sect is now deemed xenophobic. Even refusing to date someone who had children or wildly different political views than your own was, somehow, deemed inappropriate. Even as society has been trying to drill into people’s heads that no one, NO ONE, is owed a relationship, that same society is doing an excellent job of telling us that we’re not allowed to say “no” to certain people. Saying “no” to marginalized or “othered” individuals is no longer a simple declination of sex, and is now an act of discrimination. Their marginalization, apparently, entitles them to both my time and my body. 

Through it all, sexism is a charge that has largely gone underutilized amongst most groups. Gay men are never called sexist for refusing to fuck women, and straight people are never called sexist or homophobic for not being queer. Lesbians, however, haven’t been granted this same dignity. (As usual, bisexuality is ignored. For once, the bi’s of the world are pleased about this). Probably because the idea that sexual pleasure can exist outside the scope of a penis is, for many, wildly inconceivable.     

For as long as lesbianism has been a thing, people with penises attempting to convince lesbians that said lesbians do, in fact, enjoy dicks have been a thing. For most of history, those people have been humans presenting as straight men, who apparently can’t conceive of a woman not wanting any dick at all, let alone their dick. In more recent years however, a vocal cohort of trans women, many pre-operative and still possessing intact penises, have taken to outing lesbians who refuse to date them as “transphobic.” As though one’s bedroom is an arena in which our efforts at establishing equality for all can be adequately assessed. 

Here’s the thing, a lack of attraction to a particular characteristic or a disinterest in having a particular characteristic in your bed or yourself, is not a form of discrimination. Why? Because absolutely no one, no matter how disenfranchised they may be by the rest of society, is ever owed personal time, relationships, or sexual intimacy from or by anyone else. They’re just not. Lesbians don’t owe transwomen sex or relationships, and they don’t owe them an explanation for why they’re not interested in these things. They are not suffering from a case of discriminatory genital preferences, because sexual proclivities are not preferences- they are ingrained parts of our beings. 

Do you really think straight women wouldn’t make the transition to vaginas if it was as simple as changing their genital preferences? The existence of straight women is proof positive that basically everything about our sexual attractions are beyond the scope of our control. 

While we can control whether or not we act on these attractions, control over what we are attracted to is pretty fucking limited. Do you really think pedophiles enjoy being pedophiles? If you do, I’d recommend reading an interview with one. It’s pretty eye-opening, if you can get past the part where you’re reading an interview with a pedophile. And all of them make quite clear that acting on their attraction to children is within their control, but the attraction itself is not. A fact that tends to leave them shunned by society whether they act on them or not, and pretty fucking miserable for obvious reasons. The list of things I’m not attracted to is relatively long and, while the list itself is mutable because additions have been made over the years, I have never found myself attracted to something that had once previously repulsed me. 

You will not change someone’s attractions simply by couching their sexual disinterest in social justice warrior language and attempting to shame them into being attracted to you. 

All you’ll do is piss them off and lose an ally. If you don’t want to date someone who is black, white, or purple, you don’t have to. If you don’t want to date someone with a particular set of genitalia, you don’t have, no matter what their external presentation is. If you don’t want to date a particular gender, you don’t have to. You don’t have to date people with mental illness, with food restrictions, with terminal cancer, or with webbed feet. You don’t have to date fat people, skinny people, or exercise obsessed people. You don’t have to date rich people or poor people, the fashion forward or the fashion oblivious. You don’t have to let anything other than your attraction to that particular person, or lack thereof, determine whether you date another person. And if you don’t want to date anybody, at all, you don’t have to. And you never, ever, ever owe them any explanation for why you are not interested. In fact, an argument could be made that you’re better off not giving them a reason.  

Get your shamey social justice warrior bullshit out of our bedrooms. NOW. 

No one owes you anything.