#and 90% of the reason for any detentions he got was because he was wearing it incorrectly lmao

[trickstercaptain]

watching hea/rtstopper just makes me want to info dump all of my school related headcanons for modern jack

[fite-club]

okay, i’m gonna talk about my own experiences for a second. this is not meant to invalidate the experiences of others, just to provide an alternate perspective. we have seen ample stories of asexual, demisexual, or graysexual people describing the alienation and otherness they felt during school and from their peers for not being sexual “enough”— what i want to discuss is how i felt those things as a hypersexual person, for being too sexual.

i was raised in the deep south of the usa, the “bible belt”, attending a private catholic school from ages 4-14. for most of my life i went to church twice a week. our self-expression was severely limited, and i got detentions constantly for wearing socks that were too short. the uniforms were very strict, and the bodies of little girls were treated like dangerous distractions. no shoulders, knees, or ankles could be visible, and no makeup or nail polish was allowed. one of the middle school teachers always said that no student needed to look like a prostitute. our “sex ed” was an animated movie from the 90’s where the moral of the story was, literally, i kid you not, “don’t have sex before marriage or you might die”. the messages i absorbed in my youth were that being sexual was unacceptable and that sex was something that should only happen between two married adult heterosexuals behind closed and locked doors. and, hell, my parents went through a divorce, so i didn’t even have any representation of healthy relationships let alone healthy sexuality. when i was 13 and had an orgasm for the first time after masturbating, i thought something terrible was happening to my body. i thought the reason i clenched my legs together was because i “wasn’t supposed to be doing it yet” (i hadn’t started my period). i believed for a long time that what i was doing was wrong and unnatural and that i was being punished, somehow, for doing it.

in high school i started dating for the first time. my friends and my parents disapproved. he was nerdy and not conventionally attractive. no one in my entire group of girl friends was dating or even really interested in dating. if they talked about boys, it was about rejecting them. when one of them actually did start seeing boys, she didn’t talk about it. probably for the same reasons i never talked about my boyfriend— those things were “private”, and we felt judged for not being “focused on school”. when i started sexually experimenting with my boyfriend, i told no one. we both lied to everyone about what we were up to. we both felt like, or in some senses knew, that what we were doing wasn’t acceptable. that it was wrong.

i can’t even get too into how me being trans and gay factored into this or i’ll be here all day. gay sex was a one-way ticket to eternal hellfire, and trans people were delusional sex offenders. gay men were dirty and perverted, and their PDA was not safe for children. if a trans person did exist, they certainly weren’t having any sex. a trans person could never be sexually desirable or attractive in any way. in fact, it’s hilarious that someone could be attracted to a trans person— obviously the only way that could happen is if the trans person was deceitful and tricked someone into thinking they were hot. LGBT was synonymous with corruption and damnation. do you see where i’m going with this?

i cannot stress enough the cultural undertone of “sluts are bad”. the guilt and shame that i felt for being horny, something very normal and natural, horribly affected my self esteem. my sexuality developed in strange ways because i had virtually no sex ed whatsoever, but was curious and had little parental supervision on the internet. i genuinely thought there was something wrong with me. i wondered if i had repressed memories of being sexually assaulted, or if i had some sort of sexual mental illness. i felt “broken”, or “alien”, or “wrong”. and i have spent the entire rest of my life unlearning those messages and healing my relationship with my own sexuality. it took me a long time to truly forgive myself for having feelings that were normal. to fully understand that i was not a morally bad person just because i wanted to sleep with people i wasn’t married to.

all of this is just to say that feeling “broken” is not something unique to asexuals or people on the “aspec”. of course i have sympathy for those who grew up feeling pressured to be sexual! i’m just saying that isn’t a universal experience, and it hurts to have my experiences be conveniently erased for the sake of making a point about “aphobia”. we did not all have classmates who bragged about the sex they were having, we did not all have parents who pressured us into dating, we did not all hear that “sex is important to your health”. acting as if everyone around the world was raised in the same environment as you is naive and self-centered. i once again stress that this is not directed towards aces simply speaking about their experiences, but rather towards aces/demis who frame their experiences as wholly unique and uniform. those who tell me that i can’t possibly know what it’s like to feel like you are different from everyone else, or that your body/brain is wrong. people who INSIST that the default/majority environment is one where sexuality is celebrated and a lack of sexuality is punished. plenty of us have suffered under purity culture! we do not have allosexual privilege! the feelings you had were real, but the world is bigger than you and your life.

[incorrectbatfam]

Can I get headcanons for an au where Bruce adopted the kids when they /were/ babies, please?

Use the bathroom, get comfortable, and maybe have some tissues on hand.

For these headcanons, we’re gonna assume they were adopted in order of age, and that they’re all under 18. So Dick and Babs are 16 (with Babs being older), Harper is 14, Cass is 13, Jason is 12, Tim is 7, Steph and Duke are both 5 (with Steph being older), Carrie is 3, and Damian is 1. Yes, I’m aware that it diverges from canon age gaps but once you keep reading you’ll see why I did that.

Now for the headcanons (in no particular order):

Alfred is “Grandpa” and Bruce is anything from “Dad”, “Pops”, “Old man”, “Baba”, etc. All the other adults, like Kate or Clark, are aunts and uncles.

Steph and Duke compete over everything, like who can tie their shoes the fastest or learn to ride a bike first. Steph makes a point of letting everyone know she’s older, but Duke fires back with the fact that he’s taller. They’re both at the top of their kindergarten class and are known for butting heads, but God help anyone who decides to pick on one of them.

Harper got her first period at school while wearing white shorts. Thankfully, Dick and Babs came in clutch.

At school, Kon told Tim that he got ten dollars every time he lost a tooth. Tim tried to hack the system by pulling a bunch of teeth out at once (thankfully to no avail) until someone caught him.

Babs has a different secret handshake with each person.

When Damian first came along, everyone expected Carrie to be angry or jealous since she’d no longer be the baby of the family. And she was a little jealous at first. But the moment she saw him, her eyes went wide and she whispered, “He’s so tiny” and vowed to protect him with everything she had.

The last business trip Bruce took was when Cass was a baby, and the reason why it was his last one was that while he was abroad, Alfred sent him a video of Cass taking her first steps and he burst into tears in the middle of a meeting because he wasn’t there to witness it in person.

Dick once used Damian as a wingman to pick up girls. It worked so well that Jason tried the same thing, only to have it grossly backfire on him.

Whenever Bruce needs a break, Alfred will call everyone to the living room for one of his infamous spy stories.

Cass is the queen of April Fool’s.

Tim, Steph, and Duke regularly climb on each other’s shoulders to try to reach the cookie jar.

Harper is a pro at getting gum out of people’s hair. Tim is a pro at the exact opposite. 

Bruce gives Dick “the talk”. Dick then gives it to Harper who gives it to Cass who gives it to Jason and by then it’s so misconstrued by then that Bruce has to re-give it to all the kids.

One time Jason lashed out at school and it led to the teachers referring him to a therapist. Bruce stayed with him during the first appointment and Jason admitted to feeling unwanted because of what some kids at school said. Meanwhile, back at home, all the other siblings were trying to get their names to be Damian’s first word, like a competition. None of them ended up winning because when the other two came home, Damian called out to Jason. (And Jason cried on the spot because it didn’t matter what people said at school, he was wanted by the right people).

Group outings with the Kents or the Allens are a normal occurrence.

Harper gave Bruce a heart attack when she DIYed her hair dye and piercings.

The first time Tim saw a shooting star, he was convinced that aliens had arrived to take over the world. His conspiracy-driven panic spread to his younger siblings and that’s how Alfred found them all hiding in a blanket fort wearing saucepans as helmets.

Steph once got lost at the mall and the first thing she did was buy ten Build-A-Bears. 

Cass regularly carries her younger siblings like suitcases.

Bruce never rushed Dick into getting a license or helping out around the house.

Harper once snuck on a train to the next town without telling anyone because she wanted to ask Kate advice on coming out.

Nobody got any sleep for the forty-eight hours when Damian’s favorite stuffed animal went missing.

Duke is a LEGO kid. Carrie is a horse girl. Together they created the ultimate toy equine sanctuary.

Bruce can’t ground the kids. They’ve unionized.

Jason is no longer allowed to pick movies on account of the time he chose an R-rated slasher.

It’s an open secret that Cass accidentally left Tim at a haunted house once. 

Alfred custom sews a ten-person "get along" shirt.

Duke once snuck Damian to school for Show And Tell. Steph ratted him out almost right away.

Jason tried to make his younger siblings reenact Shakespeare. It lasted a good thirty seconds before it dissolved into people hitting each other with props.

As a big mystery/conspiracy theory person, Tim was wholly convinced that Damian was an extraterrestrial because the first time he saw him, it was at the hospital where Damian was hooked up to a bunch of machines after he was born. It wasn’t until after three different people explained the concept of preemies to him did Tim finally get it.

Carrie loves to play dress-up and will rope in anyone in the vicinity.

Bruce’s favorite song to sing to someone when they’re upset is Lean On Me by Bill Withers

Cass taught everyone obscenities in sign language and it was all fine until someone caught Babs at school and she got detention

Alfred can’t remember the last time the house was not babyproofed.

Between birthdays, holidays, Gotcha Days, and other special days, there’s always a reason to celebrate at Wayne Manor.

Whenever they fly on the private jet Duke's in the cockpit insisting he knows more about airplanes than the pilots (Alfred or Kate) bc he watched the Planes movie.

Harper got matching leather jackets for all the sisters.

Bruce gives Tim "coffee" that's 90% milk and a splash of coffee for flavor.

Cass and Jason communicate solely in inhuman grunts.

Carrie can and will latch onto the first person she sees like a koala bear.

There's a running gag among friends on how many siblings Dick has because he tells stories without ever using names.

Bruce comes home after a long day of work and everyone drops what they're doing to dogpile on him.

Harper only got an after school job to pay for her Club Penguin membership.

They all make snowmen in descending size order with Bruce's being this huge towering one and Damian's being like three inches tall.

The girls have a "no boys (except the baby) allowed" zone.

Carrie can't pronounce the letters "R" or L".

When Damian learns to crawl suddenly all the other family members become a jungle gym.

Bruce doesn't notice when someone invites a friend over without permission because what's a few extra kids anyway?

Harper comes out and for a week people wouldn't stop making bi puns.

They try to do that thing where each family member puts a different colored handprint on the mailbox and they end up running out of space.

As the oldest Dick gets stuck with babysitting or he's forced to let Jason tag along when he goes out (bc all parents make their older kids do that) and he resents it but at the same time no one can talk trash about his siblings.

Damian's animal collection begins when he brings in a mouse from the yard. (Cue the hilarious siblings-helping-him-hide-new-pets montages.)

Someone beat Bruce for “World’s most attractive man”, but that’s okay because he was voted “World’s happiest man” instead.

[a-writes3]

The Breakfast Club (Part Four: Dot)

Hey! Sorry for not posting for a while i’ve been super busy with life and school but this week should have a few things being posted.

Dorothy Campbell. A loner like me but she stays good with the popular people because she deals them drugs. When she noticed me she gave me nod and a small smile before sitting down. Now i was thinking back to the other day when we met for the first time.

Flashback

We’re in our History class before the bell rang at the very end of the day with Dot Campbell sat next to me. We weren’t exactly friends but we bonded over our love for survival television and made small talk every day to pass the boring time. So when Dot was getting in trouble for her drug dealing at the end of the period I decided to step in and help her out.

“Miss.Campbell. Are those drugs?” The teacher asked loudly.

“Uhhh.” Dot didn’t know how to respond.

“Um, they’re just some Tylenol. I have a killer migraine and Dot here was just helping me out. See.” I took the two pills and swallowed. A very bad decisions that I will definitely regret soon. The teacher decided to walk away while Dot stared at me with wide eyes.

“Dude that was oxy.” She said in a hushed voice.

“I’m aware of my mistakes.”

“You are not getting out of my sight until the high wears off.”

“Why?”

“Because i am not letting you die on account of drugs that I provided.”

Just as she said that the bell rang and she grabbed my arm and pulled me to her car. I was starting to feel the high kicking in. Suddenly we were at Dot’s house. Which was empty. I hadn’t even realized, apparently i space out when high. Dot had began dragging me out of the car and into the house. When we got inside the house and setting me down on her couch. She disappeared into the kitchen and came back moments later with a water bottle.

“Drink this.” She demanded with a hard tone an annoyed look on her face.

I had learned by now that Dot has a harsh exterior. Not very welcoming to new people. Always alone.

“How long will this last?” I ask. Slightly slurring my words together.

“Well, Oxy lasts for about 4 hours so like 3 more hours maybe.”

“Ugh.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have been an idiot and taken Oxy for no reason.”

“Hey, I saved your ass. You could’ve gone to federal prison or something.”

“I appreciate that but you’re still an idiot.”

After out few minutes of bickering, Dot decided to have a movie marathon to make the high go by quicker and distract me. We were watching our fourth movie when i started feeling somewhat normal. I decided against my better judgment and started a conversation with the girl.

“I heard about your Dad. I’m sorry about that.”

“Uh, Yeah thanks.”

“What was he like?” I realized this could be uncomfortable. “I mean i heard that it helps to share your memories of the people you’ve lost. Helps with the grieving process. She nodded as if she were thinking and then spoke up.

“Yeah. He was great. Funny. Caring. He’s the only person i had growing up.” She had started tearing up at the thought. “You know, I was the one who gave him the drugs that killed him. It was necessary and he needed to get away from the pain but i can’t help but feel guilty.” Dot took a deep breath in an attempt to stop the tears welling in her eyes but was unsuccessful. I instinctively put my arm around her and she put her head on my shoulder. We stayed like this for a few minutes until she started talking again.

“I’m sorry. God, This is so embarassing. We barely know each other and i’m sitting here crying on your shoulder.” She laughs slightly and wipes her eyes.

“If it helps any, Sometimes crying it out is the only way to cope. Besides, you should never apologize for being vulnerable. It’s what makes us human.”

She just gave me a smile and we sat in a comfortable silence. 

“I should get going. My parents will freak if i’m home too late.” I say standing up.

“Okay. Well i’ll give you a ride.”

“Great.”

We headed to my house with Dot’s 80′s-90′s rock playlist playing at full blast both of us singing along to almost every song together. When we arrive at my place I head out of the car but before i could Dot said something.

“Hey, uh, Thanks for earlier. For saving my ass and for talking to me.”

“Anytime. See you around.” And with that i went into my house. 

End of flashback

I didn’t talk to her until now. At detention when she sat across from me and leaned in for a conversation.

“Hey.” She said.

“Hi. Why are you here?”

“Ah i got caught with some weed. But i pulled the dead dad card so i only got detention.”

“At least you’re making the best of it.”

Dot smiles before putting her headphones back in and going onto her phone. When i look up at the entrance i see a blonde girl walking in with her signature smile. 

Shelby Goodkind. AKA the devote christian girl.

[coll2mitts]

#28 Hairspray (2007)

Welcome to Hairspray, where a well-intentioned, woke, white teenage girl singlehandedly ends segregation in 1960s Baltimore.

Y’know, after watching Cry-Baby, I wasn’t super keen on revisiting Hairspray, but I figured it deserved a fair shot.  I hadn’t seen the original since I was in high school, so I booted up HBO Max and settled in for a long night of old-timey dance moves and racial inequality.  Guys... the 1988 version of Hairspray is flippin’ great.

The cast is just to die for.  Ricki Lake, who I only knew as a talk show host in my childhood, is a great Tracy Turnblad.  My favorite devious sea witch Divine is her mother, and Jerry Stiller is her father.  Goddamn Debbie Harry and Sunny Bono are her rival’s parents, and Amber Von Tussle is motherfucking Colleen Fitzpatrick.  As someone who has a vested interest in all famous Colleens, I was stoked to see that Hairspray was Vitamin C’s first acting gig.

FUN FACT: According to Wikipedia (which is never wrong), Graduation (Friends Forever) charts on iTunes at the end of every school year.  Colleen is also the VP of music at Nickelodeon, so she’s doing just fine.

Anyway, the original Hairspray is campy, edgy and hilarious.  If I were Miss Soft Crab 1945, I too would bring it up every chance I got.  The story really boils down to two horny teenage girls trying to claw their way to the top, but the charm of Tracy is she’s trying to pull everyone else up with her.  The way they handle segregation and racial inequality is over-the-top ridiculous, but somehow more realistic than its updated counterpart (put a pin in this).  I mean, a racist white woman shoved a bomb in her hair to own the libs and it gloriously explodes on her head.  I haven’t seen the musical adaptation of Hairspray, so my opinions of how true it is to its source material won’t be explored here, but the 2007 movie adaptation, to me, left a lot to be desired.

Hairspray might be the most popular in a recent trend of non-musical movies being adapted for Broadway.  I remember back in the 90s when Beauty and the Beast hit the stage - it was so successful Disney now has the movie-to-Broadway pipeline on speed dial.  But now we’re getting a shitload of movies with no musical elements being fast tracked to Broadway, like Kinky Boots, Bend it Like Beckham, Mean Girls, Beetlejuice, Heathers, Waitress, Legally Blonde, fucking Groundhog Day with music written by Tim Minchin, just, so goddamn many of them.  I love musicals, but to say I didn’t want to see The Heathers threaten Veronica in 3-part harmony would be an understatement, so I’m immediately skeptical to the quality of this content and hesitant to consume it.  Unfortunately for me, Hairspray is one of the few who had their *corny* musical adaptation also committed to film, and it is a neutered, earnest, high school choir translation of the original and it made my teeth hurt.

The two positives I’ll give the remake are the sets/costumes are great, and the cast serve their roles well, although I will never be OK with someone wearing a fat suit as a costume.  The songs are... fine.  Again, this era of music is not my favorite, so I’m never going to get excited over “It Takes Two” or “I Can Hear the Bells”.  It’s just the tone is so different from the original, and by the end of the movie I was exhausted and very glad it was over.  Writing about it now has required several breaks and side-tangents and I can’t even get to the fucking synopsis of the movie... ugh let’s just do this.

Tracy Turnblad is a “pleasantly plump” teenage girl living in 1960s Baltimore whose sunny disposition makes her oblivious to the reality of murky situation she is living in.  We’re quickly introduced to her obsession, “The Corny Collins Show”, which features a number of far-out teens that love to dance, including multi-year winner of Miss Teenage Hairspray and miss Pitch Perfect herself Amber Von Tussel.  Her mother, Velma, played by Michelle Pfeiffer, is the station manager at WYZT, and uses her power to keep Amber featured front and center.  

After a girl on the show gets knocked up, an audition is held to replace her.  While Tracy’s mother Edna, regrettably played by John Travolta in a fat suit, is afraid that Tracy’s weight will prevent her from landing the gig, her father, puzzlingly played by like a 60-something Christopher Walken, is generally supportive.  True to Edna’s feeling, Tracy is fat shamed by Amber and Velma and doesn’t make the cut.

After getting detention for skipping class for an audition that didn’t pan out, Tracy makes friends with a bunch of black students who are all excellent dancers.  Turns out her new friend Seaweed is the son of Motormouth Maybelle, the sometimes-host of "The Corny Collins Show”, played by Queen Latifah.  Velma, in addition to being a massive bitch, also segregates the station’s black talent from the main show, only to be featured one night a month on “Negro Day”.  While Tracy is boogying down, Link, Amber’s boyfriend and one of the stars of TCCS, peeps at her ass and tells her if she shook her rump in front of Corny at the Hop, he’d have no choice but to put her on the show.

In the original movie, Tracy Turnblad fucks.  She moves in on Link and devours him whole, with no mind given to her size.  She is a kind of bratty, confident young teenager that isn’t afraid to reach out and grab what she wants.  Tracy in the 2007 version is the most innocent cinnamon roll that has ever been baked.  Link gives her one compliment and she drifts into fantasies of marrying him.  Part of me is annoyed by this, but the other part of me appreciates misguided optimism played as humor.

At the Corny Collins hop, Tracy steals borrows Seaweed’s dance move and lands a place on TCCS council.  After declaring she wants every day to be Negro Day, the head of the station declares he wants that “chubby communist girl” off the show.  Corny, played by a dreamy James Marsden, sticks his neck out for Tracy and furthermore, says the show should be integrated.  As Tracy’s popularity skyrockets, the station shows more leeway to her size and her look, but to maintain some semblance of control, Velma works to completely edge out Negro Day.

Meanwhile, Link is clued into how fun it is in detention, and him, Tracy, and Penny all dance their way to Motormouth Maybelle’s record store for a potluck.  When Seaweed introduces his new white friends to his mother, Penny delivers my favorite line of the whole movie, “I’m very pleased and scared to be here.”  Amber rats out Tracy’s activities to her mother, and Edna arrives to Motormouth’s with the intention of dragging Tracy home until she realizes that black people are OK because they eat brisket.

After Edna shoves a bunch of food in her face, the gang finds out that Negro Day on “The Corny Collins Show” has been cancelled.  Tracy has the great idea to protest the television station, and all the black people are like, “Why didn’t we think of that?”  Link decides to bow out of the march because there’ll be talent agents at the Miss Hairspray Pageant, and he doesn’t want to give up his big shot at fame and glory to fight for a entire race of people’s basic rights.

The next day, Tracy and her mom are the only white people in a sea of black people to march to the station.  Queen Latifah sings a very earnest song about the resilience of her community, because this is the Serious Portion TM of the musical.  Tracy assaults a police officer without giving any mind to what it would do for all the black people she’s marching with, and runs away to let them handle the consequences.  The movie doesn’t show any police brutality because Reasons, and a bunch of protestors are arrested and immediately bailed out by Tracy’s Dad.  Tracy eventually ends up back at Motormouth Maybelle’s record shop so she can hide there without considering how dangerous it would be for Motormouth to harbor a fugitive of the law.  

The next day is the Miss Teen Hairspray competition broadcast at WYZT, and with Tracy being wanted by the police, they have to sneak her into the station.  She bum-rushes the set to sing a song with a now-enlightened Link about not stopping progress, while also inviting Motormouth Maybelle’s daughter, Little Inez, on stage to dance.  Everybody calls-in to vote for her because the only racist people in Baltimore run the television station, and Little Inez is crowned Miss Teen Hairspray.  Amber is like fine with it even though her mom isn’t, and everyone dances and sings to celebrate that “The Corny Collins” show is now integrated!  Meanwhile, I’m left wondering why Amanda Bynes was forced to wear a dress that she can’t move her legs in, even though they knew she would participate in the show’s closing dance number.  The end.

Oh, and there’s also a whole B plot where Velma tries to fuck Tracy’s dad and Tracy’s mom finds out and gets upset for like 30 seconds.  This is immediately resolved by a song and dance number among a bunch of laundry.

This movie is fine and competent or whatever, but for some reason it just rubs me the entirely wrong way.  Tracy constantly says that the 1960s are changing for people who are different, implying that an overweight white teen also knows what it’s like to be discriminated against in the same way black people are.  The movie does roll its eyes at some of her most tone-deaf “I’m an overenthusiastic ally” moments, like “I wish every day was Negro Day!” and “This is afro-tastic!”, but it also goes out of its way to talk about how much Tracy has helped the black community.  Like, by doing what?  Being fat and on TV?  That being said, she does use her privilege to feature black dancers on a major television broadcast, so by the end of the movie she becomes the person everyone says she is.  Also, I’m a dumb, overweight, white, middle-aged woman, so I’m not the right person to get all indignant about a well-intentioned feel-good Broadway musical.

Final thoughts: If you love bright colors, cheese, and sincere, glossy reflections of the 1960s civil rights movement written by a bunch of white dudes, this movie is for you.

[whitehotharlots]

Liberal cruelty has consquences

This semester is winding down. As I am desperate to avoid grading student papers, I’ve spent the morning reading longish-form online articles. I just came across one that I feel very conflicted about. The online reaction to it as been troubling. So I don’t know if I have anything particularly coherent to say, but I’d like to talk about it.

The anonymously written piece is titled “What Happened After My 13-Year-Old Son Joined the Alt Right.”  It documents a young man’s journey from a garden variety, liberal-leaning goon to a frothing neo nazi mutant.

The piece is understandably sympathetic, seeing as it was written by the boy’s parent. The writer’s whiny and heavy handed tone caused me, and most of my e-pals, to dismiss it. If anything, the essay showcases an immense failure of parenting. If my child were to ask me to take him or her to a “Traditional American Culture” rally, I would slap the everloving shit of them. Lord knows how many times the kid’s parents had dropped the ball before it ever got to that point.

But then I re-read the start of the article, in which the parent identifies the trigger point for their son’s downward slide:

One morning during first period, a male friend of Sam’s mentioned a meme whose suggestive name was an inside joke between the two of them. Sam laughed. A girl at the table overheard their private conversation, misconstrued it as a sexual reference, and reported it as sexual harassment. Sam’s guidance counselor pulled him out of his next class and accused him of “breaking the law.” Before long, he was in the office of a male administrator who informed him that the exchange was “illegal,” hinted that the police were coming, and delivered him into the custody of the school’s resource officer. At the administrator’s instruction, that man ushered Sam into an empty room, handed him a blank sheet of paper, and instructed him to write a “statement of guilt.”

No one called me as this unfolded, even though Sam cried for about six hours straight as staff members parked him in vacant offices to keep him away from other students. When he stepped off the bus that afternoon and I asked why his eyes were so swollen, he informed me that he would probably be suspended, but possibly also expelled and arrested.

If Kafka were a middle-schooler today, this is the nightmare novel he would have written.

At a meeting two days later with my husband, Sam, and me, the administrator piled more accusations on top of the harassment charge—even implying, with undisguised hostility, that Sam and his friend were gay. He waved in front of us a statement from the girl at the table and insisted that Sam would need to defend himself against her claims if he wanted to prove his innocence. But the administrator refused to reveal the particulars of the complaint (he had also blacked out identifying details, FBI-style) and then hid the paperwork under a book. He declared that it was his primary duty, as a school official and as a father of daughters, to believe and to protect the girls under his care.

Eck… who edited this? It would have worked so much better without a fucking Kafka reference.

So, maybe it was the tone. I dunno. But most readers seem to regard this section as exaggerated, possibly fabricated.  The takeaway was “boo hoo, the nazi kid got punished for sexually harassing  a girl.” Heck: If a reader is truly dedicated to the #BelieveAllWomen mantra, then this description doesn’t warrant sympathy even if it’s entirely true. The kid said something that upset the girl. It wasn’t directed to her and it wasn’t about her. But still, he upset her, and she’s a girl, so he is bad and deserved whatever punishment was doled out to him.

And this got me thinking about my experiences in high school, as a student in the late 90s and a teacher in the mid-aughts. Administrators seemed to always be adopting some or other policy of harsh punishment for bad behavior: zero tolerance toward weapons, drugs, hats, disrespectful posture, electronic devices, swearing, Simpsons t-shirts, and mentally unhygenic reading materials. During dances and social gatherings, my middle school allowed students to bring in CDs from home. That was a decent policy, but anyone who attempted to play a “hip hop” track would receive an immediate suspension for “endorsing violence,” regardless of the track’s lyrical content. My high school adopted a firm anti-bullying policy, but once a boy came to school wearing a gothic dress as some kind of vague transgressive statement, and two separate male teachers called him a fag--out in the open, in front of everybody, as part of the official business of teaching.

Once, in 8th grade, two kids were caught taking over-the-counter caffeine pills. They didn’t get sick or anything; a girl saw them and she narced. They were arrested by the school resource officer, taken in a cop car to the hospital to have their stomachs pumped, and then summarily expelled, their young lives effectively ruined over 50 milligrams of a safe and legal stimulant. At an emergency assembly held the next day, the frog-faced principal croaked out a dire warning that the use of such drugs was strictly forbidden and we would all be subjected to the same fate, should we attempt to sneak in any No Doz. As he issued his stern warning, he slurped gluttonously from a 22-ounce mug of gas station coffee.

The point is, zero tolerance never really means zero tolerance. Rules are always--always, literally always, without exception in the whole of human history--enforced arbitrarily. Harsh policies rarely make anyone safer. They are employed instead to further humiliate and brutalize those who have already been rejected by the system. In my last two paragraphs, I cited the dumbest and most conspicuous examples of arbitrary cruelty that happened to pop into my head. This doesn’t cover the everyday, petty cruelties that teachers and administrators would exact upon kids they simply didn’t like. Without exception, these were the kids who were already marginalized: effeminate boys, masculine but unathletic girls, kids who dressed poorly, kids who spoke with accents, black kids, kids with learning disabilities or behavioral problems. These kids would be given detentions or even suspensions for minor infractions--looking away from the chalkboard, slouching, sneaking in candy, laughing at importune times, etc. It wasn’t the teacher’s fault, of course: zero tolerance and all that. But, strangely, the zero tolerance policies never seemed to apply to the popular, athletic, and/or well-connected kids. If Suzie Creamcheese was caught sneaking some Starburst during Algebra--well, she’s probably hungry, seeing as she works so hard. If Raul, Roofus, or Sheena were caught doing the same? God help them.

Some teachers were nicer than others, of course. Some were downright supportive. Others were simply evil. There was one, when I was in 7th grade, who was particularly repulsive and cruel--no kidding, his admiration of Rush Limbaugh was formative in my early-adopted hatred of American conservatives. He had matted red hair and teeth like a cracked picket fence and would wear a leather jacket out to lunch. Anyhow, he would prattle on about his hatred of kids who “Just. Refuse. To. Learn.” These kids were almost always black. Pure coincidence, I’m sure. He’d make a show of tossing them out of class--sometimes physically--for infractions as minor as getting an answer wrong when called upon. One time, a twitchy white kid who wore the same t-shirt every day called him out: It’s unfair, he said, that I’m getting thrown out of class for getting an answer wrong, when right before me another kid got several chances to respond.

The teacher turned beet red. He got on his knees and put his face two inches in front of the twitchy kid’s eyes. 

“I’m not throwing you out because you got the answer wrong,” he explained. “I’m throwing you out because you are you.”

Again, these are the conspicuous examples. The everyday stuff is harder to describe twenty-five years after it happened.  Most people were not brutalized and they didn’t have a single moment that ruined their life, but they were still exposed to a deeply unfair and cruel system, and such exposure naturally engenders feelings of betrayal, hopelessness, and anger.

Here’s my story--it’s particularly stupid. 9th grade. One day,  I walked into Spanish class, and the large woman who teaches in that classroom before my section grabbed me by the collar, physically lifted me out of my chair, and shoved her moist biscuit of a hand into my face. “What is this,” she demanded.

This was all very sudden. I could see nothing but her hand, which had a distinct fecal aroma.

“I don’t know,” I said.

She removed her hand. I looked down toward desk. She stood silently. I had no fucking idea what she was talking about.

“You’re gonna tell me what you did, right now, or I’m gonna double the detentions.”

I was still silent. Seriously, no idea what was going on. This enraged her. She began to count upward, starting at 3 detentions and stopping at 10, by which point tears were welling up and my face was flushed. I said I seriously did not know. She pointed to a small pentagram someone had engraved into the desktop. The desks, by the way, were movable. Anyone could have done it. She blamed me because she didn’t like me. I served 10 detentions and had to pay over a hundred dollars (a shitload of money for a 13-year-old) to get the desk refinished.

This isn't the end of the world, obviously. But it really, oddly broke me. Before, I had thought that so long as I did was I supposed to and didn’t break any rules, I’d be okay. Now I realized that was bullshit, that any vindictive cunt with a few ounces of power could punish me for any reason, at any time, and I wouldn’t be allowed to mount a defense. That’s the sort of thing that fucks with a kid’s head.  I mean, christ--it’s 23 years later and I’m still kinda pissed about it. I hope that woman is dead.

I regained a sense of control by stealing books from the woman’s classroom. A few times a week, I would grab a textbook when I came in, use it during class, and walk out with it. At the end of the school year, some friends and I burned them in a glorious bonfire along the banks of the Mississippi.

My response was petty and destructive, but I don’t feel any pengs of guilt or shame in remembering it. I had to do something to reassert agency, to feel like I had some control, and I managed to find a way to go about doing it that didn’t hurt anybody or get me into trouble. Regardless of the morality of my particular response, we can agree that kids are now much more surveilled than they were 20-odd years ago, and that minor mischief is now much more harshly criminalized. If a kid finds themself on the outs within their school, there’s really no way they can push back. Their only available avenue of asserting control over their lives is to wander into welcoming communities elsewhere…

One more anecdote then I’m done….

My sister was in high school during 9/11. The attacks were on a Tuesday, and the whole rest of the week was assemblies and talking circles and other such activities meant to assuage fear and gin up the hatred of the dirty brown bastards that done this. Two of my sister’s friends, older boys, were the sort of kids who read Howard Zinn and listened to Jello Biafra’s spoken word records. During one meeting, they expressed exasperation at a girl who was sobbing because she just, like, didn’t know why anyone would do that. The boys certainly didn’t approve of the attacks, but they tried to explain the whole concept of the US being an unhinged and murderous imperial power that had done much worse stuff all over the globe. The audience gasped. The boys were hauled into the principal’s office. They were charged with verbally assaulting the crying girl. One was suspended. The other expelled.

So, I dunno… go ahead. If you think due process is evil, that all victimhood claims are valid and should be taken at face value, and that kids of lesser social status should be demonized and made into criminals for upsetting members of the fair sex, then you do you. That’s fine if that’s what you believe. But please don’t be so naive as to think that the bulk of these newly criminalized behaviors are going to actually be malignant, or that the genuinely malignant behaviors of secure kids will be curbed in any way. Please respect yourself enough to realize that school admins aren’t magic sages with mature moral compasses--a plurality of them were business majors in college, for fuck’s sake. And most importantly, don’t be surprised if the kids you dismiss wind up doing some crazy or awful shit in response.

[comradekatara]

Pls tell me random things about the modern au

sure!

please keep in mind this is not chronologically-ordered because i am far too pomo for (scoff) linear narratives

(* = chell’s contributions)

suki drives a truck, and said truck is a legend

azula goes to harvard, despite her objectively terrible character (ohhhh shots fired!!!!) 

zuko doesn’t try very hard in school, because he knows that if he were to actually try, he would feel worse about azula being better than him (he’s not living under ozai’s roof––anymore––so it doesn’t matter) but it’s way too easy to trick her into taking naclo, which is where he shines. it drives her crazy that he won’t tell her his score. “you just wont tell me because you know i did better than you” “….maybe :)” “UGH ZUKO JUST TELL ME WHAT YOU GOT!!!!!!!!” 

the day before aang’s first day of high school, sokka gently tries to inform him that he is too old to be wearing heelies 

toph isn’t allowed on any sports teams due to her blindness, so she fights the administration every single day, and (physically) fights random people just for fun, and they so desperately want to punish her for it but she is a genius wunderkind pride & joy of their institution and they know that unless she gets really out of line, their hands are tied. but they still refuse to let her play sports 

“suki’s nervous because today’s the day of the Big Game,” sokka tells zuko. zuko can swear he said the same thing yesterday. and the day before that. and the day before that. it is always the day of the Big Game. when zuko asks katara about it she rolls her eyes and says, “don’t be stupid, the Big Game only happens once a year.” and so, the concept of sports continues to wear on his sanity 

azula’s all, “i swear to god, if sokka is valedictorian i will burn EVERYTHING to the GROUND” and zukos like “why do you even care youre not even in his class” (but it’s the PRINCIPLE of it, zuzu!!!!!!!) 

aang has a really big dog named appa, and a flying lemur named momo. no one questions this 

it is very apparent to everyone except for mai and zuko that mai and zuko are not happy together. mais not “in love” with “ty lee” what an idiotic thing to even suggest 

toph’s favorite joke is stumbling into nothing and then yelling “OW! watch where you’re going!” to which zuko sighs and says, “toph theres no one there” and tophs like “no i can swore i bumped into something” and zukos like “no. u didnt. u know u d––” “mustve been your closet, then. EYOOOOO” 

sokka refuses to admit to himself that the reason he “doesnt do” relationships is to keep himself from getting hurt (see: yue). katara not so gently reminds him that if he truly “didnt do” relationships, then why does suki practically live in her house. 

katara thinks clubs are stupid and school spirit is lame but then she finds out that their school doesn’t have a straight gay alliance so she starts one. no one joins except for toph, who just sits there in the corner and eats peanuts with a wide smile, staring straight ahead. 

in his senior year, aang finally gets to be the mascot the night of the Big Game. everyone comes back just to support him. zuko has not set foot in his hometown in at least three years, but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t support aang’s dreams. (plus he’s pretty sure katara would kill him if he didn’t.) once the Big Game starts (the first and only Big Game zuko ever attends), sokka notices zuko staring really intently at the field, and that he has been for about a half hour now. he’s like “whats….goin on??” and zuko mutters, “i’m trying to figure out what sport theyre playing.” sokkas just like “oh my god” 

suki and sokka miss their prom because they got too invested in their game of monopoly. toph humbly accepts their crowns in their place. the teachers are just like “wait who even let her in here isnt she a freshman” 

katara plays hockey. azula does track and kickboxing. they are both fierce, violent, and terrifying. both katara and azula tried to join suki’s roller derby team, but suki wisely rejected them both because they were, in her estimation, “not a good culture fit.” she told them the team was already full.*

zuko, suki and toph are in a band. their music is very lyrical and also very screamy (only suki and toph get to sing, natch). believe it or not, aang is their biggest fan. aang plays the triangle and the flute and the harp, which you might think would not exactly fit with their style, but they do invite him onstage for gigs sometimes and somehow the combination is excellent.*

katara is a mediocre student. zuko is great in his literature classes and his art classes and kind of tragic at everything else. nevertheless, they try to study together. mostly katara just comes over to zuko’s house and scuffs up his coffee tables and eats a lot of food out of the fridge. zuko considers this direct action against his terrible father, and he loves it*

azula is obsessed with sneakers. yeah that’s it that’s a whole bullet point*

suki’s truck is disgusting and made up of a seemingly boundless mess, but there are three recurring themes that are most apparent when you enter: weed, construction equipment for some weird building project she never tells anyone the details of, and other girls’ underwear*

katara thinks sokka is a narc for having gotten jet suspended. “he called in a BOMB THREAT, KATARA” 

sokka is the head of the science club. because he loves science. toph and suki are also in the science club. because they love watching (and listening to) things explode. 

everyone agrees that debate should be renamed “sokka and azula fight for 90 minutes.” azula spends a week drafting up a foolproof argument, manipulating the whole class into picking said topic, and then pretending its unrehearsed, and sokka spends no time in saying “nope. thats wrong.” on days where he chairs the debates, azula always wins because he’s forced to remain impartial, and no one else can out-debate her. it is on those days that he goes home and proceeds to rant about how everything azula said was wrong and why. 

katara and azula also fight, of course, but never in a structured setting. sometimes it ends in bloodshed. toph enjoys egging them on way too much. 

sokka is constantly misplacing his possessions. that is, when neither zuko nor suki are around to personally keep track of all his belongings. he loses his phone about twice a day. he’s checking the chem lab to see if he left his phone in there, but azula is already there, presumably to work on a lab. she offers to call his phone for him, and he types his number into her phone because she is too embarrassed to admit she already has his number (and a tracking device in place but thats not important). unfortunately, azula is the one to locate his phone, so she sees that her contact name is, “ZUKO’S SISTER??!??!!!!???!???!!??!!!!?” she has never been more offended in her entire life. 

katara is always threatening to beat up anyone who so much as looks at aang funny. no one would hurt aang, though. everyone loves aang. 

sokka loves art class. he also hates art class. he likes that he has a structured time and space in which to paint, and he loves painting. he hates that his paintings always turn out looking like wet garbage, especially compared to those of the guy who sits near him, who clearly is not even trying. he is the rich to sokka’s jeff. at least in sokka’s mind. sokka will oft complain about “that asshole who thinks he’s too good for art class,” but suki pays him no mind and rolls her eyes. until one day, when sokka and suki are being particularly annoying and making out in the middle of the hallway, which is particularly upsetting for zuko because a) that is Hot Guy From His Art Class and b) he will either have to wait for them to finish or politely ask them to move, as they are right in front of his locker. he says, “do you mind moving?” and he means this as politely as possible, but sokka is like “wow what a haughty bitch” so he just holds his index finger up as if to say “one second” and that is that is such an asshole move that zuko has no choice but to yell “what the fuck?!?” far too loudly. it leads to a kerfuffle that eventually lands them both in detention (suki was an innocent party and sokka is more than willing to take the fall for her.) their detention becomes a breakfast club meets war balloon, and sokka actually sort of tells someone about yue. that’s weird. why’d he do that? neither of them know. zuko has no idea what to say. well, this is awkward. another half hour passes. sokka idly mentions that they could totally find a way out of this room by crawling through the vents and then climbing the beams in the gym and after that it’s only a matter of finding an open window––and not getting caught. this is a joke, a completely hypothetical joke, of course. zuko’s like, “let’s do it.” sokka’s like “oh shit this bitch is crazy,” but, y’know, they pull it off. they run out of the school and keep running and only stop when sokka has the dawning realization that if any of this goes on his permanent record that definitely lessens his chances of getting scholarships. but zuko assures him that mr. bumi doesn’t actually give a fuck, and then offhandedly mentions that he sort of gives him the creeps, and sokka wholeheartedly agrees. this prompts more and more conversation, as they just kind of wander about various streets. once they finally realize that it’s gotten completely dark around them, it occurs to them that they may as well have stayed in detention. 

people won’t shut up about the shit that went down at post-prom. “did you see when that one guy…??” “yeah dude that was wild.” suki just smiles knowingly, and so her friends are all “oh did u hook up with ty lee again?” and she’s like “even better. i won monopoly.” 

katara hates zuko for incredibly petty reasons. like, “he took the last popsicle out of her fridge” petty. then, she very obtrusively finds out that hes gay and is immediately like Oh We Are Friends Now. zuko’s life has suddenly become so much more convenient now that katara is no longer being mean to him that it actually takes him a while to realize that katara is being actively nice to him. 

they talk about waves in physics, and it shakes toph to her core. later that day, she asks sokka to explain what colors are to her. he does not do a good job. starts talking about plato’s allegory of the cave, and the double slit experiment??? what??? zuko explaining that “colors are a feeling” is only marginally more helpful. so toph ultimately enlists suki’s help in explaining to her which colors are lame and which colors are dykey. suki immediately says “flannel.” 

so yes aang may have technically stolen momo from the zoo but its not his fault because momo followed him home and refused to leave his side!!!! 

once mai grows out of her “everyone is an idiot and i hate the world” phase, sokka realizes that she’s actually really cool. they hang out constantly. they have a weekly board game night, and they take turns hosting, which is hilarious because mai lives in a mansion and has an actual butler. their secret handshake is needlessly complicated. zuko tries to pretend it isn’t weird. but…. it’s weird right?? and like, it’s weird that no one else thinks it’s weird???? ……..why does no one else think it’s weird?????

azula is, of course, valedictorian, and her speech is about as bone-chilling as you’d expect. her jokes are too cruel to land. she namedrops harvard about ten times. she manages to squeeze in an offhanded dig at sokka, which makes katara nearly fight her onstage. at the afterparty, azula overhears a conversation wherein one meathead jock whose name she never learned says to another meathead jock whose name she never learned, “oh, but remember that speech from last year??? it was so funny.” this prompts her to have a little too much to drink, which only sokka notices (he showed up for katara and then he was dragged to the party by his friends), so he ends up driving her home. as a graduation gift to her, he says, he changes her contact name in his phone to “Azula.”

sokka has en english teacher who really has it out for him. katara tells him she had him before and wishes she could punch him in the face, and that it’s not his fault that he’s doing poorly in that class. still, sokka begs zuko to tutor him in english. zuko’s just like “you’re perfectly fine at english pakku just sucks” but he agrees to tutor him anyway. sokka’s grades do not improve in the slightest, but he does not care.

the week in which SAT results are expected to arrive, azula is weirdly vigilant about the mail. she makes sure to check the scores and then put it back in the envelope before anyone sees that it was opened. she very casually asks zuko “so what did you get?” and zuko just kinda shrugs impassively and walks away. azula smiles to herself. 

katara comes home one night to find mai and sokka watching a movie on her couch. (the movie is phantom thread and there are tears of laughter streaming down both their faces by the time it’s over.) she’s like “oh hey guys i saw both your girlfriends making out with each other at a party twenty minutes ago,” and sokkas like “for the last time, katara, suki’s not my girlfriend!!” and mai just angrily shushes her because she’s talking over the johnny greenwood score!!!!! smh.

toph never stops yelling at the administration for their ableism. and you’d best believe her valedictory speech blows everyone else’s out of the water. 

[4lix]

bad boy hyunjin ☹︎ pt I.

literally after i posted that i wanted to write a bad boy hyunjin the whole world and their mama msged me a request dfjfsldj so here it is kiddos! 

part one. part two. 

ugh okay jfc where do i begin

this is gonna be a school au bc like, it just is 

bad boy hyunjin would honestly be the school’s heart-throb

he’s already gorgeous as shit and just something about his smirk drives everyone insane, except you of course 

because you’re an enigma, the odd one out, the only person who just sees him as a delinquent and a shit show

he’s just a complete ass, on countless occasions does he bump into people and not bother to help them up, he smokes on campus and comes to class just to sleep the whole damn hour before skipping the rest of the day 

him and his posse of idiot friends were so loud and obnoxious holy hell, especially that minho kid like did he ever shut up? 

but somehow the whole school was absolutely smitten. 

girls and boys alike would just fawn over him every minute of the day, especially after school when him and his gang of losers all lean on their motorbikes like some cringey street gang and smoke cigarettes to take the edge off of a long day of doing absolutely nothing besides skipping, talking back to teachers, getting into fights and flirting with the teacher’s assistant to get out of detention.  

so you’ve always hated him and his dumb hair and his dumb piercings 

and whats with the lollipops? on the days he’d bother to come to school he’d always have a lollipop in his mouth, his whole clique of fuck-ups did

bad boy hyunjin 100% would have that greasy 90s jock look, im talking leather jackets or the schools football team’s varsity jacket because he was their star player 

but deep down you knew you hated hyunjin because you secretly found him attractive as shit balls

you guys are chemistry partners, despite your protests to your teacher, and hyunjin always had the same stupid smirk on his face whenever you were paired up 

“oh this is exciting, now i know for sure i’m getting an A.” 

“yeah i’m sure you need it considering you basically flunked last year, oh and this year too.” 

“see thats what i have you around for babe, what would i do without that big bright brain of yours?” he’d say with an ugly wink before ruffling your hair and you’d just roll your eyes bc why the fook is your heart racing??

what sucks is that very same day, your class’ results were posted on the bulletin board outside your school

hyunjin was in the top ten and the honor roll, his whole squad of monkeys were, the name kim seungmin sitting bright at the top though, the school’s angel and student body president, luckily some things were still sane and in check. 

literally how hyunjin’s name sat beneath seungmin’s though was beyond you. 

“shocked? i know, i know, how can i be this hot and a genius?” shit he scared you, hyunjin was right behind you, a lollipop in his mouth again god how did he not have a billion cavities? 

he saw you glaring angrily at a sheet of paper stapled to the wall and figured it had to do with him, conceited asshole

“yeah i wonder who the poor soul is who’s doing your homework and projects for you. how much do you pay them? hell, doubt you even pay them, besides in bloody noses and black eyes huh?” 

“y’know, i’m not that bad of a guy y/n, you’d be surprised.”

“i highly doubt that, you’re an asshole and even if you cured cancer it wouldn’t change my mind.” you scoff.

“you’re so sassy, i like that, it’s cute.” he’d wrap an arm around your shoulder just to egg you on more and you’d shove him off, face burning slightly for god knows why

“fuck off hyunjin”  

“aw but you’re blushing, do you like it when i call you cute, babe?”

god what is wrong with him and what in the actual fuck was wrong with your face and heart? why were your cheeks burning so bad and your heart basically having a seizure in your chest?

“n-no i don’t, fuck off.” before he could bother you any further you grab your bag and practically run the hell out of there. 

the next day shit only gets worse 

hyunjin is breaking dress code yet again, not bothering to wear his blazer and his tie is a complete mess and did this boy own a comb? why was his hair always a damn mess

but what really caught your attention was the scar on his eyebrow, it wasn’t there yesterday, and for some reason you couldn’t shake the thought about how he could’ve possibly gotten it. 

in chemistry he seems a bit more quiet, and he’s actually taking notes for once, he hadn’t greeted you with the usual hey babe or good morning doll like he usually does and even though you tell yourself you hate it you secretly really liked it and just what was wrong with hyunjin?

it isnt until after school do you get your answer 

it seems like there’s beef between his clan of monkeys and the other bad boy gang over at sm high (im laughing my ass off) 

they catch hyunjin off guard, and the poor baby is basically jumped when he’s all laone

honestly? hyunjin got fucked up pretty bad. 

i mean like, busted lip, his eyes turning a shade of yellow so clearly they’re bruising up and his nose was bleeding slightly.

but where was the rest of his friends? why was he all alone? why the fuck were you the unlucky soul to have to clean up this damn mess?

but no matter how much your anger and hatred for him tells you to leave him just laying there on the concrete, bloody and bruised, sympathy, a shed of infatuation and pity drags your feet over to him

“they fucked me up pretty bad, huh babe?” he says with a bitter laugh, wiping at the blood on his lip

your heart kind of falls into your stomach at the sight of him, he still looked fucking gorgeous which sucked but the sight of hyunjin, so beaten, really took a toll on your heart. 

“are you okay? should i take you to the hospital?” you cup his face in your hands, wiping at the blood on the side of his cheek and he shakes his head

“nah i’m okay, i just, fuck-” he groans when you touch his arm, you apologize immediately

“okay come on, i’ll take you home.” you offer, helping him up and lo and behold, he’s fucking smirking 

“i thought you hated me, what happened?” 

“i do hate you.”

“then why are you helping me?” 

“because i have this thing called pity and a heart.” 

“huh, you have a heart? didn’t know.” 

“oh fuck off hyunjin before i leave you to limp home.” 

“you wouldn’t”

“you dare me?”

“you like me too much to do that.” he says with a dumb grin and you turn and scoff letting his arm go.

he immediately falls to one knee though, wincing again and his face contorting into one of pain and your heart just kind of aches at the sight 

you groan in frustration before wrapping your arms around his waist, hoisting him up and he just laughs, tucking his face into your neck

“i told you.”

“just shut up will you?” you say, trying your hardest to avoid eye contact with him because he pulls away from your neck and just why the hell is his face so damn close to yours?

“y’know its easier to just admit it than keeping up this facade y/n.” 

“facade? and admit what? that you’re a dick?” 

“that you like me.”

“i-i don’t like you hyunjin.” 

“then why are you stuttering? why are you blushing? say it again and look me in the eyes.” he teases, a glint in his eyes and you just know this isnt going to end well

“look can i just call minho or something i can deal with you.” your face is literally on fire and hyunjin keeps smirking at you and your heart is racing in your chest and just fuck why

“i’m just going to assume that was a yes.”

“it wasn’t.” 

“then say it.”

“no.”

“so you like me?”

“i don’t like you!” you practically yell, hyunjin’s face dangerously close to yours and his eyes literally staring into your soul

“then why can i feel your heart beating?” you forgot you were still basically hugging him, keeping his body held upright, and just shit hyunjin leans forward and kisses you gently, it only lasted for a second and your brain was practically short circuiting so you did nothing but stand there, frozen.

“you’re so cute when you blush.” 

of course that makes your face turn even redder who knew it was possible and before you can finally give in to hyunjin and his stupid good looks and irresistible advances, he opens his ugly mouth again. 

“but your breath is a little stinky, i’d recommend some mouthwash after lunch-” 

and then you just drop him at that moment, letting his body fall to the floor and hyunjin just lays there laughing his ass off while you give him the bird before screaming “crawl home you dick” 

minho luckily comes by just a moment later, only to see hyunjin still clutching his stomach because he can’t stop fucking laughing and a very red faced you walking the other direction. 

“what happened?” he asks while helping hyunjin up, clearly referring to his bloodied lip and swollen eyes but hyunjin couldn’t care less about the bruises, he’s just happy he got to tease you and finally kiss you. 

hyunjin just smiles dazedly, “i kissed y/n.”

“you still like them? and i was talking about your face, hyunjin.”

“oh, yeah, i got my ass kicked, do you have y/n’s number by any chance?” he says while slipping a lollipop into his mouth. 

✐  requests are open!

[two-blondes-and-an-eraser]

Some of the headcanons the mod has for her boys (warning loooooong) slight nsfw warning?? Maybe?

⁃ Aizawa is a trans gay male

⁃ All Might is a cis bisexual male

⁃ Mic is pansexual and genderqueer (but doesn’t mind he, him pronouns)

⁃ Mic is like 90% deaf and has been from a young age, he has special hearing aids made so as to not hurt is ears when using his quirk

⁃ Aizawa started a club for trans kids at UA, and yes he is called ‘the transparent’

⁃ (The kids are trying to change the name to “the trans cult”, it’s almost working)

⁃ Deku is a trans guy and all might is super supportive!

⁃ All Might is extremely ticklish, his skin (especially near his scar) is really sensitive to touch and you can bet your ass aizawa and mic use this against him!

⁃ Aizawa owns a hairless cat named Iris, she’s dark, long and has pretty blue eyes

⁃ Mic owns a cockatoo name Pom , he is silent and loves to bite things.

⁃ Pom only knows three words, ‘Dad’, ‘Yeah’ and Aizawa, everything else is just whistles and sounds

⁃ Pom hates iris but iris loves Pom (odd)

⁃ All Might has sleep through Pom screeching for 8 hours straight, woke up because iris hit him in the face

⁃ Aizawa has been known by the mics neighbors as cat man because of iris and her love of fallowing Aizawa everywhere

⁃ All Might was so tired once that, right in front of press, he put his head on Aizawa’s and just, passed out while standing

⁃ When their relationship went public, shit hit the fan! Aizawa couldn’t leave his apartment, all Might nearly had an aneurysm and mic nearly deafened someone when they startled him. They had to hold a press conference just to get everything out so no one got hurt or something else.

⁃ All Might is no longer aloud to know any memes, anyone to tell him a meme gets detention and 10x the amount of homework. This is because he yelled “yeet” as he dropped Aizawa into mics arms, resulting in a sprained wrist and a broken tail bone. This is forever called the yeet incident.

⁃ Bakugou has had a screaming contest with mic and, amazingly, got a tie.

⁃ Bakugou also is no longer around anywhere near microphones, not because of the sports festival, but because he yelled “ if your gay and you know fucking scream!” Into the schools intercoms for about 20 seconds,all of class 1-A now has that as their anthem.

⁃ All Might loves the whole class of 1-A, but he still can’t handle them calling him dad might

⁃ Kirishima showed all Might that photo someone made with a picture of small Might with a mustache and a gun, that’s called gun-Might. All Might loves it.

⁃ All mights eyes glow in the dark, Aizawa’s do too but only when his quirk is active. Mic is freaked out by this.

⁃ Mic loves vintage cameras and has at least 6

⁃ Aizawa ran away a lot as a kid, not because he hated his parents or they were abusive, they were just too clingy and strict so he’s not into a lot of touching for this reason

⁃ Aizawa has a big scar on his lower back from a villian with a quirk involving metal.

⁃ All Might was raised by a single mother and refuses to tell anyone about his father.

⁃ Deku’s dad isn’t dead, he’s a villian that got caught and is in jail but he and deku still have a good relationship, deku visits once every other month

⁃ All Might has a heart shaped birthmark on his thigh

⁃ Aizawa has nipple piercings

⁃ Mic’s mom and surrogate father are both quirkless, his quirk skipped a generation from his grandfather ( on his mothers side) to him.

⁃ All Might is Japanese American and moved between japan, America and Britain until he was 9 and finally settled fully in Japan at 10

⁃ Aizawa is 1/5 german, but knows the entire language as his mom taught it to him, it’s actually his first language and he reverts back when extremely mad or happy

⁃ The boys are all actually engaged but just don’t have time to plan so there is no date set yet.

⁃ Aizawa’s grandmother was extremely transphobic and was one of the main reasons he didn’t come out until middle school (the time she passed)

⁃ His mom and dad were actually okay with this,surprisingly, but did give him hell for being gay

⁃ Mic has two mothers and a surrogate father who’s very involved in mics life ever since he was born.

⁃ One is mom, the other is mama, his dad is called pops.

⁃ Aizawa was raised to call both parents mother and father, be responsible and respectful. His parents were very strict. (As said earlier)

⁃ All Might loves anything that even remotely reminds him of his mother, the reason he likes uraraka most of the girls in 1-A is because of this, his mother had soft cheeks and brunette hair the same shade as uraraka.

⁃ Also one of the reason he tolerates bakugou, he has the same eye color and nose shape as his mother.

⁃ Aizawa hates mic’s mustache with a passion ((like mod does))

⁃ All might fucking towers both these little shits so much, that Aizawa’s apartment doors are too small for him (6’3 is my height hc for all Might with his quirk non active, 6’6 when active)

⁃ All mights mother had a healing quirk

⁃ All Might hates miracle whip but loves mayo, he can always know the difference just by the smell.

⁃ Aizawa has allergies to polyester and isn’t aloud to go house shopping with mic and all might so he doesn’t get an allergic reaction, but he does get an input, mic sends him pics

⁃ Once Aizawa had an allergic reaction in front of the class and instead of ignoring like most would think, he literally said ‘nope’ turned and walked away sneezing. All Might had to watch the class but he was proud of aizawa.

⁃ All Might is the least of the three to start sexual encounters, Aizawa is the most, which is genuinely the opposite of what everyone thinks.

⁃ Aizawa has braces in UA and, oh boy, did it suck! He had to wear mouth guards until 3rd year when he got them out!

Well, that’s all I could think of for now, but if you want I can elaborate on any of them, just thought this might bring in some ask! - Emi

Ps. Sorry for the inactivity, I’m trying but Ive got no asks, and those are kinda the point of an ask blog sooo mmm

Pps. This was written at 4 pm in a sleep deprived haze so there is still some mistakes.

[little-klng]

Baldi’s Basics Theory

I’m sure everyone by now has heard of this new indie game called Baldi’s Basics due to the fact that almost every popular Youtuber has played it, including Markiplier. Markiplier, as far as I know, is the only major Youtuber to have gotten all endings and has played quite so much of the game as many like to reference in theory videos. I’ll cut to the chase, this is a theory post about something i developed in about 15 minutes. I spent a long while debating on whether or not to even post it due to the nature of the game. I wondered if people would make fun of me for making a whole theory on some silly game about a horror-filled schoolhouse that looks so thrown together, but my dear reader, strap on your seat belt and pull out your notebooks because this here is gonna be a bumpy ride

Now that you’re here, you’ve shown interest in what I have to say. Thank you for that.

On to the theory. Now, what is it that i have to go on here for any theory? Well, everything! This isn’t gonna be another ‘it was all a dream!’ theory because thats tired and worn out and completely erases all the work gone into the game (and any story for that matter), but understand it’s going to delve into a concept of that vein. Let’s lay out what we know;

-The game takes place in a bad CGI/2D schoolhouse setting from those old learning games in the 90′s. -The main antagonist is Baldi -All other characters look like horrible caricatures of what could have/should have been better modeled/rendered people/students -All characters in the game exist solely to harm or distract the player in some way -At the end of the game when you win, you’re met with a distorted voice asking you to do worse next time because they need to- That’s that. The end of the dialogue devolves into static there. But that gives us a hint of what to do next

If you just play the game as normal. you’d never really come across some pretty major points and plot. The game just dumps you in this setting of a weirdly laid out school and lets you run wild. But if you didn’t know any better, you would miss out on the fact that the only reason the player is in the school is to get your friends notebooks that he left in the school. Weird that no character, not even you, makes any mention of that. The whole premise of the game is that you collect notebooks, but you have to solve math questions for them that you always have to fail due to some questions being glitched out and unsolvable.

With the addition of update 1.3.1, the game now has a Secret Ending that you can only get by beating the game after getting 100% of all questions wrong (meaning Baldi chases you faster than ever. Go watch Markiplier do it, it took him 9 hours). But once you beat it, you’re met with the screen telling you to go to the principals office for tips on how to do better. Once there, you’re met with a long distorted Baldi in one end of the room and a mysterious character on the other. His name is Filename2 and he looks like this

Look at this dude T Posing out here. An absolute icon.

Filename2 is just what hes labelled as in the files, and his name is never actually spoken. Some theorize him to be the players friend from earlier, and honestly so do I! When you enter the room he says the following;

"Oh jeepers, you found me. Good job, I'm glad you found me, because I have something kind of important to say. *beep* It's about th-the game... Don't, *beep* Uh, Eh. Don't *beep* Don't, just, *laughter* this is.. This is probably looking pretty ridiculous *beep* Don't tell anyone about this game. You wanna.. Don't, don't bring attention to yourself. Destroy it, destroy the game. Destroy the game. Before, it's too late. *beep* What I'm saying is... is get out of this, while you still can. *beep* Just, don't.. don't know that you probably know I'm not saying that I'm trapped inside the game, no, that would be ridiculous. No I'm.. *beep* I can't... this is... I'm not... the game was... kind of...*beep* I got really corrupted. Yeah, I... *beep* I don't know what to say. Just... Just trust me. We gotta... *beep* * This isn't... This seems... I me-I mean it seems... ohh. *beep* They'd know I.. They intentionally... that's...I guess... I can't- They can't tell you, and some... stuff is classified. I can't say it. *beep* I wish I could say more. I can't talk normally. I-it's corrupted. There's...*beep*...Yeah...*beep* Just... close the program. Destroy it. Never come back. *long beep*"

...Yeah

There are a few things to take from this

-Filename2 is not ‘trapped in the game’ like most horror cliches. that would be ridiculous -He needed you to fail every single math question and still beat the game just to say all this. Weird. -He REALLY wants you to just delete the game and pretend you didn’t see it -He REALLY wants you to escape the game while you can -The game is ‘corrupted’ somehow, but he can’t really get into it because its ‘classified’ and ‘they’ would know he told you

There is something/someone preventing Filename2 from telling you anything more important than ‘get out of here while you can, don’t worry about me’. Throughout the audio, theres a constant stutter and some laughing, but more prominently the sound of shuddering and heavy breathing. It sounds a bit like crying to me. (warning to anyone about to go listen to the audio themselves, the beeps are REALLY loud and the speech is REALLY quiet)

Lets put him to the side again while we analyze the rest of the school

This doesn’t really look like any school I’ve ever been to, how about you? The weird hallways made to look like the stretch on and on and the actual classrooms being so far away from each other makes it feel less like a school and more like a hellscape prison.

About the schools inhabitants, they also feel like a hellscape prison.

We already know about Baldi, so lets see the other antagonists;

Aside from Baldi, Filename2, and yourself, there are 6 other characters that roam the halls. Each one has a simple description of themselves in the Principals Office.

Gotta Sweep;

What do you do when the school opens in 7 hours and you haven't hired a janitor? Hire a broom! It sweeps everything!

As you might imagine, Gotta Sweep is a badly condensed jpg image of a green and grey broom that spends its time, once released from the broom closet, roaming the halls loudly proclaiming its need to sweep. It moves quickly, sweeping everything in its path in the same direction it is. It stops for no one and nothing.

It’s A Bully;

Here at Here School, we believe every good school needs a good bully! That's why we have this kid!

It's a Bully appears as a poorly-modeled humanoid figure with an orange ellipsoid for a torso, blue cylinders for limbs, and small, peach-colored balls for hands and feet. He has an incredibly distorted and malformed face with dots for eyes, a gaping mouth with orange lips that clips into where his neck would be, a wide asymmetrical nose and brown hair. He doesn't wear shoes, and he has a brown text floating next to his head that says "THIS IS A BULLY" in all-caps. His pose appears to be in the middle of a run cycle. He spends his time blocking hallways and demanding that, in order to pass through, he must take one of your items. He can, however, be sent to detention should the principal wander by.

Playtime;

Despite her poor eyesight, she's always looking for a playmate! "Let's play!"

This character is a poorly drawn animated little girl whos eyes and hair are animated scribbles. Her poor eyesight has nothing to do with her characters mechanics, as she spots you easily and traps you in a game of jumprope. You can cut her jumprope with safety scissors to escape the game entirely, but doing so is considered bullying and you can be sent to detention for it.

1st Prize; 

Won 1st Prize at the Science Fair! Loves hugging people, rushing towards anyone it sees. Sadly, it turns super slowly.

If you liked Gotta Sweep you’ll definitely like this character. Hes a robotic hugging machine that barrels down the hall towards you, and pushes you until the hallway ends. He, unlike Gotta Sweep, turns very slowly. He can occasionally accidentally push Baldi into you if you’re not careful, but you can use the safety scissors to cut his wires and make him spin in place for 15 seconds to buy time. Dunno why you’d do that though.

Principal of the Thing; 

If I see anyone breaking the school rules, I'll make sure justice is served! It tastes good and fills my tummy!

Now, the interesting thing here is that when you start the game, Baldi refers to Here School (the school you’re in) as ‘his’ school, even though there definitely is a principal. There are posters in the school listing off the rules, and all are pretty standard like “no running” and “no students in the faculty rooms” and being caught breaking these rules by the principal sends you to detention for increasing seconds. An interesting thing to note about this character is that his name is a play on words for the phrase ‘It’s the principle of the thing’, though I have no idea how to fit that into a theory. This guy is a mostly average looking guy, except that his face is slightly contorted and his legs are partially erased

Arts and Crafters;

Shy, and tries to be avoided. Doesn't like being looked at, and gets jealous at people with more notebooks than him.

This guy is the final character, and he’s only important once you have all 7 notebooks. This guy is a sock puppet that, when looked at, will dart back behind whatever wall is closest and out of sight. However, once you have more notebooks than him (7, as he has 6), he turns hostile. He runs at you with his cardboard mouth agape and teleports both you and Baldi back to the starting position, ruining your run almost instantly. 

And that’s everyone!

The most intriguing thing about all of them is that they all share one quality; some part of them is horrifically malformed. Something about them is just... broken or stretched or erased. The only one in one piece and animated is, albeit poorly, Baldi. Everyone, however, has a function and could definitely be described as real cliques and people. All of these characters read as how you imagine a person you’ve only ever been told about, but never really met. Especially if the person telling you about them was only telling you about the newest drama going around or the latest experience the person talking has had with that person if they’ve only had bad experiences with them.

And here’s where the theory begins.

These characters are all fragmented and poorly animated because thats sort of how it works in your head when you’ve never actually seen someone in person. How many times have you heard about someone over and over only to meet them in person and realizing they look nothing like how you imagined, or that they dont act the same as you’ve been told. But that’s because often times you’re only ever told about the bad someone else has done, and very rarely the special good things someone does. 

These characters are not real people, but they are based on the real people your friend knows.

Your friend told you about the little girl in the school with bad eyesight but loves to play jumprope. Your friend told you about the bully that steals his stuff. Your friend told you about the principal and how he gets people in trouble so much. Your friend told you about his science fair project that won first place. These people are not people you know, but you’ve heard about them. You probably don’t know their names because your friend didn’t refer to them with names. Just with minor descriptions.

Why do they look like that? well I don’t imagine that, if one were to look at how your brain pieces images together based on description alone and makes them a real thing, they would look so good either. 

Every single character makes sense in this context. All but one- Baldi

Baldi, unlike every other character, is a whole animated character with lines that hint not-so-subtly that hes in charge of Here School, despite the principle. He’s an entity that is almost entirely immune to most things and hes the first thing you see as you enter the game. He’s also the last. But despite this, his weakness is the rules he follows. He tries to answer the phone, he abides by the walls of the school, he moves at a pace synonymous with the whacks of his ruler- if you’ve ever been to an old catholic school, you know that sound well and truly means power over others.

Baldi is a malicious entity that has trapped you in his Hellscape Prison constructed entirely from your subconscious memory. Personally, I think the map looks that way because the Player has been homeschooled and hasn’t actually seen much of the inside of a real school, but that’s up for interpretation. Baldi has manifested this area to fit the descriptions that your friend has fed you of this area you were already thinking about on your way to gather your friends notebooks. You were meant to be dumped in this world having forgotten your initial quest and forced to work on bare instinct. That’s why you don’t think to question the fact that, despite the fact that school is over at this time (”your friend forgot his notebooks and he needs them back before ‘eating practice’...” supposedly an after school activity Actually revolving around cooking and food prep. Maybe your friend works at a restaurant after school and Baldi doesn’t quite understand what that means due to his demonic or fae nature?) you’re still expected to finish all these math assignments just to leave. 

Now, why doesnt our brave and ultimately doomed protagonist just leave? Well, my dear reader, I’m sure you’ve heard of those old tales of Fae that trick wanderers into eat fruit or taking things that aren’t theirs to trap them for eternity? That’s right, the notebooks are what trap you in the game.

From the first moment you finish the first notebook scot-free, you are trapped, having taken a fae-world item to fulfill your own quest. Now Baldi can give you those impossible-to-solve questions and the notebooks regardless of anything else. You’re trapped and theres nothing you can do about it.

No matter how many times you get a Game Over, you’ll keep trying. And you’ll keep going. You won’t ever really escape

“But the, where does Filename2 come into play, Mona?” I hear you dejectedly cry into the night, “You didn’t forget about him, did you?” Oh you naive little thing... he’s what ties this whole thing together!

You see, Filename2 is you! Well, maybe not you but, he’s what remains of you. While you spend eternity trapped in a world built from your subconscious, your conscious self remains, though glitched out and corrupted. You aren’t fully there, and if you knew that you might be able to escape, but if Filename2 told you that, Baldi would know. Filename2 is your door to safety and salvation...  but unfortunately...

Baldi hears every door that you open.

[witchxng]

I’ve had a bunch of new followers lately, so I wanted to do a get to know the blogger tag!

1. What have you eaten today?

I had eggs and fruit for breakfast, and I’m making a salad for lunch rn

2. Who was your last kiss with? Was it pleasant?

It was with my ex, and it was delightful, but thinking about it makes me sad

3. What color shoes did you last wear?

Black, big surprise there

4. Who has made you laugh the hardest in the last week?

My best friend, Kaelyn!

5. What is your favorite scent?

Pine needles

6. What is your favorite season? Why?

Autumn, it is so beautiful

7. Can you do a handstand or cartwheel?

Neither, nope!

8. What color are your nails?

They are currently baby blue

9. If you had to get a tattoo on your face to save your life, what would it be?

I would get a crescent moon, I kind of want that anyway ha

10. What is something you find romantic?

Long walks at dusk

11. Are you happy?

I think so

12. Is there anything in particular making you happy or sad?

Adding to my crystal collection always makes me extra happy!

13. Dogs or Cats?

Cats!!!

15. Which do you prefer:a museum, a night club, the forest or a library?

The forest, I identify as a green witch!

15. What is your style?

Witchy :)

16. If you could be doing anything you like right now, what would it be?

I would be in a cottage in the woods, working on an altar

17. Are you in a relationship or single?

Single

18. What makes you attracted to the person you like right now?

He’s nice to me at work, but that’s about it. Super high standards, ha.

19. If you could replace your partner/best friend with a celebrity of your choice, would you? Who with?

Hell no

20. Are you holding on to something you need to let go of? If so then what? 

I’m holding on to a lot of resentment and regret, I hope I can let it go soon

21. How did you celebrate last Halloween?

Did some tarot readings and handed out candy to the kids!

22. Have you recently made any big decisions? 

Not really, life has been pretty mundane

23. Were you ever in a school play?

No, I was always too shy in school

24. What movie would you use to describe your life?

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

25. Is there something you have dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?

I’ve dreamed of owning my own flower shop, but you know, money

26. Complete this sentence, “I wish I had someone with whom I could share…”

I wish I had someone with whom I could share my passions with

27. What are two things that irritate you about the same sex?

Girls can be very catty, and superficial

28. What are two things that irritate you about the opposite sex?

Boys can be very rude, and aggressive

29. What is the best thing that has happened to you this week?

My aunt found out she is pregnant!

30. What is something that makes you sad when you think about it?

Oh, there are a lot of things.  Thinking about how I can barely afford rent is currently making me sad.

31. How long was your longest relationship?

A year and a half

32. Have you ever been in love?

Yes, I miss it

33. Are you currently in love?

I don’t think so

34. Why did your last relationship end?

A lot of reasons. He was mean to me, he found someone new, I didn’t make him happy.  The list goes on.  It was a mess.

35. What jewelry are you wearing right now, and where did you get it?

I’m wearing an amethyst pendant that I got off of etsy, and a couple rings I’ve gotten from different craft fairs!

36. When was the last time you cried and why?

Yesterday, because of Jacob ha

37. Name someone pretty.

I think Emma Watson is so pretty

38. What did you receive last Valentines Day?

Sunflowers and a very sweet note

39. Do you get jealous easily?

Unfortunately, yes

40. Have you ever been cheated on?

Again, unfortunately, yes 41. Do you trust your partner/best friend?

I don’t currently have a partner, but I trust my best friend with my life

42. Ever had detention?

I did fairly often in high school, I was a little shit

43. Would you rather live in the countryside or the city?

COUNTRYSIDE

44. What do people call you? 

Hannah, Han, Anna, Hannah Banana, Han Solo

45. What was the last book you read? 

The Book Thief! It was so good!

46. How big of a nerd/dork are you? 

The biggest nerd

47. What kind of music do you listen to?

I like indie/acoustic music!!!

48. How tall are you?

5′3″, I’m a shrimp ha

49. Do you like kids?

I like babies, but kids stress me out

50. Favorite fruits?

All of the above, ha. My top favorite though is pineapple.

51. Do you wear jeans or sweats more?

Black jeans :)

52. What’s your earliest memory?

Running around my grandma’s yard during the spring

53. Ever had a poem or song written about you or to you?

I wish! That would so romantic

54. Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?

Behind it, I am so shy

55. Do you have a collection of anything? 

I have too many collections!  Crystals, tarot cards, shells, postcards, and pressed flowers are my biggest collections

56. Do you save money or spend it? 

I try to save when I can, but I have so many expenses to keep up with

57. What would your dream house be like?

Tiny cottage in the woods, covered in ivy with a wildflower garden (I’m a basic witch, I know)

58. What top 5 things make you the angriest?

Animal abusers, people who litter, bigots, people with no respect, out of touch wealthy people

59. What top 5 things always brings a smile to your face? Witchcraft :), my best friend, cats, rainstorms, good movies

60. You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?

Save the dog, every time

61. 72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid?

I would tell only those closest to me, I would spend my remaining days do whatever I really wanted to do that day, and I wouldn’t be afraid at all.

62. Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart.

December 7th

63. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?

I’m going to Salem!!!

64. Do you like the beach?

I do!

65. Ever sleep on the couch or a bed with someone special?

I used to all of the time.  I miss it, I hate sleeping alone.

66. Do you have a middle name? If so what is it!

It is Amelia!

67. Do you talk to yourself?

All of the time, I probably look crazy

68. Describe your hair.

Shoulder length, fading from box dye blue to an ashy gray

69. What is the meaning of life.

The meaning of life is to live

70. What is your ideal partner like?

Kind, faithful, funny, passionate, and supportive.

71. Do you want to get married?

Maybe one day, if I can find the right person

72. Do you want to have kids?

I don’t think so

73. Like or dislike your family?

They try their best, but my family is dysfunctional and it can be hard to get along with them

74. Are you Chunky or Slim?

A lil chunky

75. Would you consider yourself smart? 

I would say yes

76. What would you change about your life? 

My financial situation, ha

77. Religious or Not?

I’m a practicing wiccan!

78. You’re drunk and yelling at hot guys/girls out of your car window, you’re with?

My best friend, Kaelyn!  She’s the outgoing/outspoken one between the two of us

79. You’re locked in a room with the last person you kissed, is that a problem?

It would be a HUGE problem, I don’t think Jacob and I can be in the same room anymore

80. Does anyone regularly (other than family) tell you they love you?

Kaelyn does :)

81. If the person you wish to be with were with you, what would you be doing right now?

We would be in his car, parked somewhere late at night, and just talking and laughing

82. So, the last person you kissed just happens to arrive at your door at 3AM; do you let them in?

My better judgement would say no, but I know I would always let him in

83. Do you like when people play with your hair? 

YES

84. Do you like bubble baths?

I do, but I like oil baths better!

85. Have you ever been pulled over by a cop?

Yes, I drive way too fast :X

86. Have you ever danced in the rain?

I try to whenever I can

87. Do you trust anyone with your life?

I trust Kaelyn with anything and everything

88. What was your first thought when you woke up this morning?

“I want to go back to bed”

89. If money wasn’t an issue, what top 10 places would you travel to? (You get to stay at each place for a week) 

Salem, Paris, Dublin, Yosemite, Amsterdam, Brussels, Montreal, Sicily, Switzerland, London

90. How was your day today?

It’s been alright, just kind of boring to be honest

91. Play an instrument? 

I used to play clarinet in school

92. Describe the what you think of the ocean.

It is breathtaking

93. Do you believe in aliens or ghosts?

Both!!!

94. Honestly, are things how you wanted them to be? 

NOPE

95. Do you have a mean bitchy scary side?

No, I’m a big softie

96. When are you vulnerable?

Um all of the time ha

97. How much free time do you have?

I work two jobs, so not much

98. Do you like to go hiking?

Absolutely!

99. Odd or Even Numbers?

Odd 100. Would you ever go sky diving, bungee jumping , cliff diving, wing suit gliding, parasailing, snorkeling, or other extreme activities?

Yes to all of the above!

TAG 15 FOLLOWERS TO DO THE GET TO KNOW THE BLOGGER TAG:

@woodland-lullaby @mysticnymphmagic @lookingforsummerland @floofypeach @forest-elf @shethinksoutsidethebox @pop-punk-dre @sugarmoonwitch @forgetmehots @meishallaneous @grimlilli @paganomicon @basil-witch @throwinstonesnc @starlightorchestra 

[artificialqueens]

Out Of Nowhere

In the midst of trying to finish other fics. This idea wouldn’t leave me alone. Enjoy. 

Out of Nowhere.

High School: Freshman Year “I wish this lunch queue would hurry up.” Matt exasperated, as he waited in line to be served. He hated school; He hated everything about it. He didn’t want to learn and especially didn’t want to go to college. It wasn’t in him. The only classes he were interested in were Art, because he loved to draw, and Drama. His reason for loving Drama wasn’t because of his ability to act. He was actually terrible at it, however, it was the one lesson where he got to see him. “Katya is lovely dude… But she always takes forever to serve us.” Jake moaned, while leaning against the wall. Jake was “that” friend that Matt felt like he needed. He needed Jake because he was one of the biggest players in the school.  He was insanely popular also. He was his shield. Matt was just your average guy. A rebel, according to his teachers, but deep down just a lost teenager. His face was littered with pimples and his sandy blonde hair often fell down into his eyes. His glasses framed his features and he was never without his backwards baseball cap. Matt often dressed in loose fitting clothing to hide his lean athletic body. He wasn’t all that popular, and he was sure he would be picked on more often if it wasn’t for Jake’s social status within their school. “Dorky Dardo walking past. Shall we trip him?” Jake asked while staring at the raven haired teenager moving past them. Matt frowned and gazed to the right where the tall boy strode with confidence, despite his school social status. “Jake, please don’t. Just leave him alone.” Matt sighed while digging his hands into his pockets and looking down. Jake noticed that Matt refused to look up until the tall boy was nowhere to be seen. “Dude what is your deal?” Jake asked, pushing away from the wall. “Nothing just… Leave Dardo alone. What has he ever done to you?” Matt argued, suddenly becoming defensive. “Jeeze. What is your deal?” Jake argued. “Jake just… Never mind. Fuck this queue. I’ll catch you later.” Matt stated, as he left the lunch queue in a hurry. “Dude wait! I’ll come with you!” Jake shouted as Matt walked away. “NO! I mean… No. Just, grab me a soda and meet me by the bins okay?” Matt pleaded. “Sure man, whatever you need.” Jake agreed, shaking his head before Matt took off in a jog. As soon as Jake was out of sight Matt took his phone out of his pocket. Looking down discreetly, he noticed a new message. “Usual Spot?” It read. Matt replied. “Always.” ________________________________________________ Jason Dardo seemed to come out of nowhere. Matt had always known he was different. He hadn’t ever been kissed. Not until Jason anyway. Jason was the opposite of everything that Matt was. He was beautifully intelligent and never let anyone know any different. People hated him because he was so confident in himself. He was a nerd, he aced his classes without seeming to try. He was every teachers favourite and Matt knew he wouldn’t ever consider smoking or ditching classes. However, he had no friends. During lunch he always went to the library unless he was with Matt. And Jake picked on him daily. Despite all of this. Jason Dardo’s tongue was currently exploring Matt’s mouth as both boys hid in the bushes at the very back of the school soccer field. Matt couldn’t explain it. As soon as he saw Jason in his homeroom during the first day of his freshman year, he knew he had to have him. Then one day in the locker room, they were alone. Jason blushed as Matt brushed past him to get to the showers, and the next thing Matt knew, Jason was forcing him into the lockers and attacking his mouth with his own. They quickly exchanged phone numbers, and ever since, have been meeting daily. Matt moaned as Jason’s tongue seemed to expertly massage his own. He glided his hands down Jason’s torso, stopping as Jason winced and pulled back. “What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?” Matt asked, concern grazing his features. “You’re cute when you’re worried.” Jason smirked as he lifted his top. Matt gasped as the nipple piercing glistened in the sunlight. He laughed nervously. “You’re crazy.” Matt chuckled, biting his lip. “For you.” Jason replied sassily before attacking the boy’s lips once more. Matt pulled back quickly. “When did that happen?” Pointing at Jason’s nipple. “At the weekend.” He shrugged. “Did it hurt?” Matt asked, lifting his top again to reveal the piercing. “Not really, they froze it. That hurt the most.” Jason replied, biting his lip as he watched Matt stare at his body. Matt’s eyes followed down from the piercing to the small trail of hair that lead down into the boys pants. It was almost like an arrow pointing directly to what he wanted the most. Jason bit his lip harder as he could feel himself becoming aroused under Matt’s gaze. “Hey.” Matt whispered, taking Jason’s face in his hands. “You okay?” He asked tenderly, kissing the side of his face as he did. “Yeah, just… Hormones.” He laughed. Matt chuckled with him. “Tell me about it.” Matt groaned before placing his lips, once again, over Jason’s. Matt took the lead this time. Kissing Jason carefully and tenderly. He then placed one hand over Jason’s unpierced nipple, while the other trailed down Jason’s body. He stopped when he cupped Jason’s erection in his palm. “Oh god.” Jason moaned. “Hey. Who’s down there? You are out of bounds!” A voice exclaimed from the other side of the bush and both boys flew apart like shrapnel. Both Jason and Matt had panic across their faces, only Matt seemed to visibly pale. “Matt, you have to go first. I have a slight problem!” Jason whispered, reaching out and pushing Matt towards the exit of the bush. “I can hear you Jason Dardo. C’mon. Out you come!” The teacher exclaimed. Jason started to panic. He had never gotten detention before. He had never done anything naughty before. At least, not before Matt. Jason knew he was gay. He was 90% sure that almost everybody had suspicions he was too. Everyone but his family, he was sure. Jason led a normal life until Matt Lent. Jason’s family had moved to Florida from Atlanta just at the start of his freshman year. Jason didn’t mind however. He didn’t have any friends at his old school and he knew he wouldn’t have any here either. He didn’t do friends. He didn’t care for them. He wanted to get himself the best possible education so that he could go to NYU to study Fashion. That was his one and only dream. Well, it was till Matt walked in with his perfect body and beautiful blue eyes. As soon as Jason looked at him in homeroom he started to get aroused. A week later, he couldn’t handle it anymore and he made a move. To his surprise, it was reciprocated and ever since, they have been making out in secret. “C’mon Jason I know that it’s you…” The teacher started. Jason looked at Matt frozen, and he could see the panic written across his face. “Matt… if my parents find out.” He started before a tear slipped down his face. Matt rushed into defensive mode and reached forward for Jason, pulling him into his chest. He had never seen this side of him before. “Hey its okay. Everything will be okay.” Matt said reassuringly. “Promise.” Jason asked. “Always.” Matt stated. High School: Sophomore Year “Matthew, Jason. I need to speak with you both at the end of the lesson please?” Mrs Hides lectured as she moved about the classroom, handing out scripts. Jason and Matt both looked at one another frowning. Matt looked like he had seen a ghost while Jason seemed a lot calmer. Don’t worry. Jason mouthed at the other boy across the classroom. A few things had changed for the raven haired boy over the past year. He had gained a small circle of friends; people he could trust. He often depended on them to cover for him whenever he and Matt went out on date nights. They knew about Matt, they knew he was gay. He felt safe with them. One of those friends, Kurtis, tugged at his t-shirt as Jason continued to stare at Matt from across the room. “Jason, you are making it obvious.” Kurtis quietly reminded him. Jason didn’t care. He wanted to scream from the rooftops that he was in love with Matthew James Lent. However, he knew the world would be unkind to his blue eyed angel if he did. Matt was still the same. Apart from his looks. Over the past year, the boy’s bad skin had started to clear up and girls were now starting to catch on that Matt was gorgeous. He still wore his thick rimmed glasses and he was still never without his backwards baseball cap. His fashion sense had evolved slightly and now it was summer, he was wearing shorter t-shirts that revealed his tanned arms. Those same tanned arms were wrapped around Jason’s tiny waist at the swimming hole this past weekend. Matt was still, very much, in the closet. One night, when he thought his parents would be out, he invited Jason over to watch a movie. All had been going well, until his Father arrived home early, and proceeded to quote the bible to them both for the rest of the evening. Ever since, Matt had been slightly more distant, and always insisted on picking Jason up and dropping him home on date night. Jason wasn’t quite sure how more people didn’t know about them. Or, maybe they did and didn’t care. Who knows? The end of the lesson rolled around quicker than either of them realised. Both boys were soon sitting on the edge of the school stage, waiting for Mrs Hides to finish her conversation with another student. “Any idea what this is about?” Matt whispered. “Not a clue…” Jason replied. His hand brushed Matt’s slightly and Matt pulled back as if Jason was a disease. The action pained his heart and it was written across his face. His chocolate eyes melted in sadness, as Matt’s deep blue pools seemed to look more like rapids as the panic started too settled in again. “Okay, boys. I need to speak with you both. You will be missing next lesson, so follow me.” Mrs Hides asked. Matt looked at her with panic and confusion. “Don’t worry Matthew. You don’t need to look so alarmed. it’s not bad. Not exactly. C’mon.” She stated, before she led both boys out of the hall and down the main corridor towards the office for the guidance counsellor. Her name was printed on the door’s window. Matt stopped dead and looked at the letters printed on the glass in confusion. He glanced at Jason and saw him looking at the glass with the exact same expression. “Okay, come inside please.” She instructed, while she opened the door wide for the both boys to walk into. ________________________________________________ “What the fuck Jason. This is bad. Why aren’t you freaking out more?” Matt exclaimed, kicking his car door in anger. “Would you calm down for a second? It’s not that bad. You just need a tutor. It was just about your grades. And, I’m the school nerd. It kind of makes sense.” Jason said, digging his hands into his pockets. “It’s not that. It’s not that I need a tutor… that’s not the issue.” Matt replied, looking away from Jason. “I’m just worried they will tell my dad that YOU are my tutor.” He continued. “Why would it matter?” Jason replied, confused. “I think he knows.” Matt declared, before looking up and staring Jason directly in the eye. Jason swallowed, not quite knowing how to react. “Then, we will get someone else. Let’s go talk to you know who. She’ll know what to do.” Jason advised, moving away from Matt. “She’s a really bad teacher. What would she know?” Matt retorted. “Hey, she’s the only adult who has kept our secret Matt. Don’t forget that. She has also been one of the only people who hasn’t passed judgement on us. AND has allowed us to pretend to want to stay behind to study, when really we go into her cupboard to make-out. Are you really challenging me on this?” Jason responded quickly. Matt continued to kick the wheel of his car before he stopped and sighed. “Fine.” He grunted, as he brushed past Matt into the science building. ________________________________________________ “Who else is smart Mrs Davis? Who else can tutor him?” Jason pleaded. “The only other person who comes close is possibly April… But… I don’t know. It’s really your call. I’m happy to say I need your help in a project for the science fair, but Jason, you aren’t much of a scientist. I know your passions are in the Arts… You may just have to let this one go boys.” Mrs Davis explained. Matt groaned and put his head in his hands. Mrs Davis had somewhat became one of his favourite teachers over the past year. After she caught them making-out in the bush, she promised to keep their secret so long as he tried in her lessons. He was trying. He wasn’t failing at least, and that kept her happy. Now, the boys often snuck into her classroom store cupboard at lunch times to avoid being caught in the bushes, till now, it was a win-win situation. “I’m just afraid. I don’t want to lose Jason.” Matt announced out of nowhere, both Jason and Mrs David looked at Matt with sadness. “Well, how about you think about it like this. Instead of your father finding out, and you losing him, that you embrace all of the extra moments that you get together. And who knows Mathew, you are smart, you might not even have to be tutored for very long.” She explained, full of optimism. Matt didn’t know how to respond, so he just looked around the classroom. Jason was at a loss for words also, so he just continued to stare at Matt. Deep down though, both boys knew it was the beginning of the end. High School: Junior Year Matt’s mind seemed to be clouding over as he stared at Jason from across the room of crowded people. The party was in full swing, smoke hung in the air and alcohol was flowing amongst the teenagers. Jake’s parents had gone out of town, and being the most popular junior in school had its perks, for him at least. It meant that anyone and everyone would turn up at his parties without him caring much. Jake was nowhere to be seen and Matt had spent most of his night looking after a drunk girl named Naomi, who puked all over Jake’s bathroom floor. Matt didn’t mind though, anything to distract himself from Jason. Matt and Jason didn’t hang out much anymore. Jason was out. As in, out out. To the school, to his parents, it was no longer a hot topic. Being gay was no longer an issue for Jason. Matt remembered when Jason had jumped into his car so happily, explaining that he had told his parents and although they weren’t jumping for joy, they were somewhat… civil. It hadn’t been like that for Matt, and he hated that he resented Jason for having understanding parents. It was one of the many things he hated about himself. About 6 months ago, while Jason was still tutoring Matt after school in the library. Matt got a text instructing him to come straight home. Matt went walking into the lion’s den without even being aware. Scattered around his room were his sketchbook drawings, all of which were beautiful portraits of Jason. His father cornered him and when he eventually admitted he had feelings for the boy, he was immediately banned from seeing him, otherwise he would be sent to live ‘elsewhere.’ Matt couldn’t risk it. He didn’t know what elsewhere meant and he could only imagine it wouldn’t be anywhere good. He broke it off and started to date a string of girls. And by ‘date’ he just kissed them. He couldn’t bring himself to do anything more. Jason seemed to hate him. Matt assumed Jason couldn’t understand why he suddenly wasn’t interested and he understood Jason’s hatred. He hated himself too sometimes. Every time he stated he was going out with a girl, his father beamed. He never actually went out with girls though. He usually ended up at the local gallery just staring at the beautiful art and in house painters that he admired so much. Matt continued to stare at Jason through the fog. He was laughing with his small group of friends and Matt laughed to himself that now Jason had more friends than him. One guy, the new kid, kept hanging off of Jason and handing him drink after drink. Matt didn’t think much of it, shaking his head and looking down. Jason slung his arm around Danny’s shoulder as he felt the liquid burn down his throat. Jason wasn’t much of a drinker, it wasn’t his style. However, it was the first day of winter break. He was attending his first proper house party. This was big for him. He wasn’t even sure he was invited but everyone was here. He always thought he didn’t need friends, until he had his small circle. Kurtis was now his closest friend, along with April, who was the only competition he had when it came to academics. Danny had recently joined their group, being the new kid, and April had taken a liking to him. However, as Danny touched Jason’s chest and graced his hand over his pierced nipple, it was clear that he wasn’t perhaps entirely straight. Although Jason had come out to his school and family. He wasn’t focused on guys. His focus was entirely on his studies ever since Matt had dumped him. He wasn’t stupid. He knew it had something to do with his family. And he knew Matt still had feelings for him. Feeling Matt’s eyes burning into the side of his face whenever they were near each other told him that. He understood. He knew what Matt’s dad was like. He knew there had to be a logical reason. It didn’t make the pain in his heart hurt any less though. Danny handed Jason another drink and he was sure it was stronger than the one before. He knew what he was doing. He wanted to forget. He didn’t want to feel Matt’s beautiful blue eyes on him anymore. Jason had to force himself to hate Matt every day because being in love with him was too hard. He had spent countless nights on the phone to Kurtis crying about how life wasn’t fair and why did he have to fall for the closeted guy with the insane family. Jason continued to drink before he needed the toilet, and he quickly moved away from his friends in search of a bathroom. Everything was a little fuzzy and he didn’t feel entirely in control of his body. He was okay though. He was sure of it. He glanced around and although he recognised the faces, he couldn’t put names to many of them. He did notice that a lot of people seemed to be staring and he wasn’t sure why. Jason joined the back of what he assumed was the toilet queue before taking his phone out of his pocket. Unlocking his phone, he scrolled through his contacts and stared down at the name below him. “Matt” Jason felt sick as the name seemed to mock him. He couldn’t deny that he missed him. He couldn’t deny that, more than anything. He wanted to stride over to where he had last seen Matt on the couch and kiss him. He couldn’t do it though. It wasn’t his choice to make. Realising he was at the front of the queue, he slid his phone back into his pocket before relieving himself and splashing some cold water on his face. As he stared at his reflection in the mirror, he started to realise that he wasn’t perhaps as sober as he would like. Jason made his way back to where his friends once stood, only to find the spot empty. Glancing back to the sofa, Matt was also nowhere to be seen. Deciding to just call it a night, he made his way towards the back door before he was grabbed and pulled into one of the side rooms. “What the fuck?” Jason exclaimed as he stumbled in the room. It was fairly dark but small fairy lights framed a large TV screen and bookcase. Around the TV area were an array of bean bags. It looked like the ultimate teen hang out and if he hadn’t been dragged in against his will he may of liked it. “Dorky Dardo, why the fuck are you and your loser friends at my party?” Jake stated, poking Jason in the chest with his finger. Jason frowned and looked down at the spot that Jake had just prodded. It hurt slightly, but Jason didn’t say anything. “Umm, isn’t like, everyone from our school here? Why does it matter?” Jason argued, wobbling slightly. He felt unsteady, but the reality of the situation was sobering to him. He felt uncomfortable and Jake’s eyes burning into him wasn’t making him feel any safer. “Well, you need to leave.” Jake demanded with confidence, before moving across the room and sitting down. He then took some weed out from a pot on the book shelf and sat down on one of the bean bags to roll a joint. “Why? Why me? Is that why I can’t find Kurtis and April?” Jason questioned, placing his hand on his hip. The room was blurring slightly and the smoke from Jake’s joint was starting to hurt his eyes. “Nah… I didn’t kick them out. Just you. So go through the garage in front of you and be on your way.” Jake replied, not making eye contact with Jason. Jason didn’t move though. He just crossed his arms over his chest. Jake stared at him before he jumped up from the bean bag and moved over to stand in front of Jason. “Did you not understand? You need to leave!” Jake reiterated. Jason noticed he was visibly shaking and he frowned in confusion. “What is your deal? I’m not leaving until you give me a reason to!” Jason argued. Jake hesitated before he grabbed Jason by the shoulders. Before Jason could understand what was happening he was being pushed back into the door behind him. The back of his head hit the door, a loud bang sounded as Jason yelped and held his head in pain. “Oh shit, Jason. Are you okay?” Jake enquired, he sounded scared. “Stay the fuck away from me! What the fuck is wrong with you?” Jason roared, forgetting about the pain emanating from his head. “He fucking loves you okay! And you being here is making him feel worse, so you need to go!” Jake confessed, before he turned around to stare at the book shelf. Jason didn’t move. He stood frozen to the spot. “Who loves me? What the hell are you talking about?” Jason whispered. He knew, of course he knew who Jake was talking about. But he needed to hear it from him. “Matt. He doesn’t know that I know, but when you two were fooling around I covered for him whenever his Dad would call my house, or whenever he was late to school. Or whenever he needed it. For 2 years I covered for him and he couldn’t even tell me. What kind of person does that Jason?” Jake stated, facing away from Jason the entire time. “The kind of person that is scared Jake. He is scared. And it’s okay… I’ll go. But you have to do me one favour.” Jason replied. “What?” Jake stated, turning around to face him. “No more Dorky Dardo.” He specified, wrapping his arms around himself. “Sure.” Jake confirmed, nodding. “Now, get the fuck away from my friend and let his heart heal.” Jake demanded. Jason sighed. There was no point in trying to explain to him that he didn’t dump Matt. He was dumped. He was the one with the broken heart. Instead, he just moved across the room, brushing past Jake to open the door connecting to the garage. “…Jake… Just, take care of him for me okay? Promise, when things get really shitty for him, you’ll be there?” Jason asked. He could feel tears threatening to spill over the edge. “I’ll always be here for him, he is my best friend.” Jake stated, smiling at Jason. “Then I’m happy.” Jason responded, before opening the door and leaving the party. High School: Senior Year Today was the start of the rest of their lives, or, that’s at least what their parents had told them. The results were in. College acceptance letters had come through the post and plans were in motion. There was just one thing, one more thing that both boys had to get through to make it. And that thing, was graduation. The sun was beaming down on Matt as he sat and waited for his name to be called. In all honesty, he wasn’t sure how he made it. As he expected, college wasn’t on the horizon for him. However, Jake had got into a school in Philadelphia and wanted to rent a room with Matt, rather than get student accommodation. Matt had cried when Jake had told him this, which was when he finally unloaded years of secrets to Jake. Mostly about Jason, his family, and his sexuality. Jake had been nothing but supportive and in a way, Matt was sure he already knew. Apart from Jake, he wasn’t quite ready to tell anyone else yet, but, according to Tumblr, the first person you told was always the hardest. Matt had applied for a bunch of jobs and had been hired to work part-time at two places within Philly; a day shift at an Art Gallery / Bookstore, and evening shifts at a bar. He was ecstatic. Philadelphia seemed to have a really cool art scene which had migrated from New York, which he was crazy excited about getting involved in. But most importantly, he just wanted to get away from his family. Matt could feel his father’s eyes burning into his back as he tried to face the front. He knew what was coming and he was dreading it already. He took a sharp intake of breath as Jason walked out onto the stage. Matt couldn’t help the smile that graced his lips as Jason stood proudly behind the podium. He had done it, Jason had been given valedictorian after a really close race with April. However, Jason had beat her to it right at the final hurdle and now, there he stood. Matt looked back at Jason’s parents as he welcomed everybody to the ceremony. He had never seen anyone look so proud. He felt a tear threatening to spill over as he observed Jason’s parents looking at their child. He desperately wished his own parents felt the same way

“Most of you sitting here will not know who I am. And I am here to tell you, briefly, not only who I am, but who we all are. Our journeys, our times of strength and weakness and how we all came to be triumphant today. I am that voice. And this is our story. Class of 2010.” Jason begun. “We are the young and reckless, and being so, we are entitled to make all kinds of mistakes. Mistakes are okay, so long as you learn from them. I used to think that I made the biggest mistake in my freshman year, when I was caught out of bounds with someone else. However, that was never a mistake, in fact it was the start of an amazing journey. It was the start of my strength.” Matt looked down at his mention of that time in the bushes. It felt like so long ago now. He could feel his hands shaking as he remembered that day so vividly. “Hey its okay. Everything will be okay.” Matt said reassuringly. “Promise.” Jason asked. “Always.” Matt stated. Matt’s heart broke remembering the promise he had made, and how he had broken it. “I am so thankful, not only to my peers, for allowing me to be who I wanted to be; but to the teachers, who helped me in a time of crisis. To my friends, who tolerated me when I wasn’t being fair. And to my parents, who didn’t turn their back on me when I came out as gay.” He continued, before pausing for a split second, and taking in a large inhale of breath. “But most importantly, to one person. This person was the reason why I am stood on this stage today. They taught me to be tough, and to not let bully’s pick on me. They taught me to be relentless, in what I wanted and how I wanted it. They taught me to be unafraid of my talents and to shove it down people’s throats, even if they didn’t ask for it. But, they also taught me to love, even if they thought it was a mistake.” Matt looked up to see Jason staring directly at him. Warm chocolate once again melted into blue oceans and Matt couldn’t hold himself together anymore as tear’s spilled over the edge. “So right now, remember this moment for the rest of your life. This is only the start of your journey and it is not yet complete. I am sure that every single one of you can relate to one aspect of my journey in some way. And that is why it is not only my journey, but our journey. Class of 2010. Thank you, and please, enjoy the remainder of the ceremony.” Jason breathed, finishing his speech with his bright smile. Before breaking eye-contact with Matt and leaving the stage. “…Fuck.” Matt breathed, before he cleared his throat and stood up. “Jason. You came out of nowhere…” 

[midnightiscoming-kasabian]

*Noel [Gallagher Fielding]

DIY Magazine, August 2017

Kasabian: Forever having the last laugh

Much loved and misunderstood in equal measures, Kasabian are still the band your mother warned you about. 

Keep reading

Back in 1998, when Tom Meighan was 17 years old, he stepped out onto the stage of The Shed in Leicester in front of a group of friends and family and began Kasabian’s first ever gig as though he were headlining Glastonbury. “I remember hiding behind the stairs and then appearing like it was some fucking [arena]. That’s the level my head was at then,” he recalls. “It was all our mates in the crowd, so everyone’s gonna tell you you’re good. But we knew we were good anyway. We knew we had something special.” Fast forward 16 years and four Number One records later to 2014, and Kasabian were headlining Glastonbury for real. This month, now with yet another Number One (current LP ‘For Crying Out Loud’) to add to the tally, they’ll headline Reading & Leeds for the second time. Tonight, they’re headlining Glasgow’s TRNSMT to 50,000 people. Taking top billing alongside Radiohead and hometown heroes Biffy Clyro, theirs is the only day to sell out.

Undeniably, Kasabian are one of the biggest bands in the country, sitting in a top tier cohabited by the likes of Arctic Monkeys, Muse and very few else. It’s a mountain they’ve scaled while being hit with endless criticisms along the way – for their lyrics, their ethos, their entire ‘schtick’; surely no other band of their stature has received such a media mauling as Tom, co-conspirator Serge Pizzorno and bandmates Chris Edwards and Ian Matthews. But through it all, Kasabian have always had two indisputable weapons in their arsenal: a world class live show capable of silencing even the most po-faced of doubters, and a twinkle of the eye that suggests they’re forever having twenty times more fun than any grumbling muso slagging them off. “We’re a big band. We sell albums. People don’t like it, that’s the way it is,” intones Tom, plainly. “We’ve never been arse-licked; we’ve grafted, me and Serge, to where we’ve got. Everyone hated us when we came out and we’re still here. I don’t regret any of [our choices]. It’s all tongue in cheek, you know? That’s the whole point, isn’t it?”

Our whirlwind 36 hours within the Kasabian machine begins the night before at Glasgow’s O2 Academy. The band have hired out the venue for a final rehearsal and, despite their flights from Estonia being cancelled the night before, meaning a time-consuming re-routing and a police escort to get them on a train to the city, they’re trucking on regardless. Flight cases emblazoned with the group’s logo fill up the venue and two delivery drivers bearing stacks of pizza boxes higher than their heads arrive to fuel the touring party; when the band appear just before 9pm, Serge recalls how he was bottled the last time they played here, requiring six stitches and leaving bloodied hand prints down the dressing room corridor walls. It’s fair to say that almost everything in Kasabian’s orbit is bigger and madder and more quote-worthy than normal life.

Their reasons for tonight’s additional run through, however, are impressively un-starry. Kasabian don’t like to go into a gig cold - “We’re trying to get this collective mass of people and take them somewhere, but if we have three or four days off, I feel like it takes half a set to get there,” explains Serge. “Whereas now I think, well, we were here last night so we just carry on” - and so for two hours, on the eve of one of their summer’s biggest shows, they play some of this decade’s most hedonistic hits to a handful of non-plussed roadies in an empty room. There’s possibly none more fitting a picture of Kasabian’s strange dichotomy – excessive and purposefully ridiculous yet grounded and down to earth – than watching them blast through a live karaoke version of ultimate sesh anthem ‘Fire’ (Tom’s ducked out by this point) to precisely no-one.“The thing is though, we really care,” enthuses Serge the next day, red roses stitched onto his tracksuit as he lounges with a cup of tea back in the band’s country house hotel. “There’s a responsibility when you’re at the top of the bill to end the night on a massive fucking high, and we’ve built a reputation for that. Anyone who’s indifferent to us and doesn’t get it, misses the jokes and misses the point, they see it live and at the end of the gig they understand. It’s really important to us that people go away thinking…” He pauses. “Well, we try and change your life.”While Tom bats away any mention of the band’s detractors with the dismissive attitude of a man who genuinely doesn’t give a shit (“Nah. Done it. Can’t do anything else. Headlined Glastonbury; got six albums; probably do another 10 more. That’s how it is”), Serge is more frustrated by people’s frequent misconceptions of his band. It’s indicative of the yin-yang personality types at the heart of the duo.

In conversation, Tom is gregarious and hyperactive, with the attention span of a six-year-old on Christmas Day. He says exactly what he thinks and is already distracted by the next thing before you’ve even processed the answer. Serge, meanwhile, is a generous conversationalist, ruminating in depth on any topic he’s given. On stage, Tom, says his bandmate, has been “exactly the same from day one. He was quite a powerful character [even] at school; he’d walk into the year area and you could tell his presence.” Serge, however, has only more recently come to embrace the thrill of the stage. “I didn’t feel the need to be Freddie Mercury - that compulsion some people have to perform,” he explains. “But there was a moment when I realised I can just fuck about. I think about what I can get away with to make the other lads laugh in front of all these people. It’s ridiculous standing on stage, so you should embrace it.” But while Tom and Serge might come from different angles, both have always been united in the pursuit of fun and playfulness, of keeping things just that little bit silly. During the campaign for 2014 LP ‘48:13’, they performed backed by a series of flashing slogans including ‘Free Deirdre’ and ‘Maggot Munch’. When they headlined Glastonbury, their only ‘special guest’ was pal Noel Fielding dressed as a cartoon vampire. Joyously irreverent, theirs is a humour entrenched as much in a Young Ones-esque tradition of eccentric British comedy as one of boisterous British bands. That’s the bit that so many people seem to struggle with. “One of the most frustrating things is when people miss the humour. There’s so much piss taking in everything we do,” begins Serge. “We’re in on the joke, that’s the thing that people don’t seem to understand.” The oft-quoted stereotype, we suggest, is of Kasabian as a kind of real life Spinal Tap, dialling up the rock’n’roll cliché to 11… “It’s that middle class, apologetic, broadsheet opinion,” he replies, getting slightly rattled by the thought. “Kings of Leon: that’s Spinal Tap. Kanye getting stuck on a fucking digger truck at Glastonbury: that’s Spinal Tap. I mean, hearing Kanye singing Freddie Mercury out of tune at Glastonbury is as Spinal Tap as anything anyone else has ever done, so… it’s rich, is what I’m saying. The parody and the ridiculousness of being in a band is all nonsense. It doesn’t matter what kind of band you’re in; it’s all nonsense.”

Back in the early days, around 2004’s self-titled debut, Serge admits that Kasabian embraced all the “nonsense” rather a lot more. “We didn’t think it was gonna last longer than one album, so we decided that we were gonna experience everything we could,” he grins, with the look of a man who’s seen a few detention slips in his time. “We’d turn up to festivals and just fucking go through people. Run in dressing rooms, off our fucking heads – honestly, we were so fucked. No-one liked us. We were just fucking horrible little shits, which was perfect. I love The Stooges and those kinds of bands… We wanted everyone to fucking hate us. It was great. It’s all part of the show.” If social media had existed back then, he notes, “it would have been disgusting”. Now, both Tom and Serge are fathers and in their mid-30s. Five albums after releasing the debut they thought would be their only record, they’ve settled into a space surprisingly far down the other end of the rockstar bullshit spectrum. Say what you want about the on-stage swagger and lairy bangers, but underneath it all Kasabian have kept remarkably grounded. “That’s the thing, we’re just not fucking like that. We live in Leicester with all our families and all our pals and that’s because we saw through the fakeness from day one,” Serge shrugs. “You could reel off the people who’ve turned into dicks and that’s fucked them, but that’s just not us. We saw through it. How can I write music for the people that I relate to if I’m not around them? 50,000 people aren’t gonna relate if I stand around with a load of supermodels opening envelopes. No one gives a fuck about that guy.”

Cut to later that evening and 50,000 people are most certainly giving all the fucks. Having spent the hour before stage time blasting out Beatles songs and milling among a small and unanimously entertaining group of pals including Trainspotting legend Robert Carlyle and a perma-sunglasses wearing old friend only known as The Turtle, Kasabian take to the TRNSMT stage to a deafening roar. “It’s about anticipation, it’s like a boxing match,” notes Tom about the build up to stage time. “We’re like monkeys in a cage, and it’s my job to rattle the cage. I go from Clark Kent to Superman. BANG - like that.” The set, as always, is huge and cathartic and powerful; a 90-minute, all-consuming escape from reality that has the entire field uniformly losing their minds in unison. To paraphrase Serge’s own words previously, even if you don’t get it before, by the end of the gig you’ll understand.Off stage, enjoying a post-show beverage or two, we notice that Serge is wearing not one, but three identical gold Casio watches up his arm. The theory, he explains with that twinkle in his eye, is that casually observed on stage, they’ll look like a standard bit of bling. “But then when you look closer…” he chuckles, with a wink. It’s exactly the kind of weird and wonderful thought process that characterises the songwriter and his band of childhood pals. Some people will scoff and chalk it up as another example of the band’s rockstar buffoonery, but Kasabian have always known it’s far more fun, having a laugh down here with the people. “I genuinely just think life’s too short,” smiles Serge. “The odds of any of this happening. I mean, just to be born in this country alone, you’re already dreaming - then to have the life I’ve had. So I figure, I’ve been given this, and I can’t explain why, but man, I’m going out in a blaze of glory. And I figure if I worry and hide, then what a waste. I’m gonna have the fucking time of my life on that stage. I’m gonna have it so big. And maybe that’s what people see in us? Like, you know what? They’re living it.” 

[closemyeyesforgood]

Growing up.

When I was very little, I don't have any particularly bad memories, other than being beaten up by my brothers (not badly, just maybe a bit rougher than necessary), or dad screaming so loud we had to cover our ears. I was attacked by a few dogs, a few cats, snakes, turtles etc. Regular life stuff for a 90's kid I guess.

When I was about 4, my mother's mother would take me every weekday. She must have hated kids because she would confine me to the living room with her cigarette rollers and that was what I was allowed to play with. I wasn't allowed to speak or come into the kitchen where she was, because she was smoking. She was always mean and short with me, and passed away when I was 7. My grandfather on that side passed shortly after, I remember him being nice, but I don't remember him being around much.

At this point I had already nearly died of a drug overdose on my mother's medication, almost drown at a horse show, and nearly suffocated during an athsma attack. My babysitter had thrown me down the stairs so I would "understand why it was so dangerous". And we also had a housefire, which the local fire department didn't believe, so we had to call the next town over. All before I turned 5.

So I start school. People are alright, I'm still assuming people are nice until they decide to be mean, silly me. I was a cute kid, but unfortunately it only brought me trouble. Girls wanted nothing more than to claw my skin and pull my hair. Boys only wanted to pick on me, push me into the mud, and throw rocks at me. It was hard to make friends, but I never stopped trying.

I did end up with a group of friends eventually, my best friends were these two girls, and we had 3 others that would also join us. One of these girls unfortunately had a much rougher home life than me and was pretty fucked up. Her Mom and my mom were best friends, and I would see them almost every day.

I've never felt closer to someone than I did to this girl. Unfortunately that is how people can make you feel when they want to use you. And yes even at such a young age, kids know how to use eachother. She manipulated me into doing things for her, stealing things, breaking things, saying things, etc.

Then she moved away, but I would still visit here and there, though I started becoming my own person again.

When I was about 8, my brother decided to go to the pond to catch frogs. I of course wanted to go. He said if I can find a jar to put the frogs in, I could come too. He left while I was looking for it of course. I grabbed a huge glass Mason jar to put the frogs in then jumped on my bike and tore towards the pond. I saw a car coming so I waited, but then when they passed I booked it across the street, not realizing cars come from both directions. I got hit. He was going 80 in a 50. I went in the air, did a flip, and landed right on my ass. Not a fucking scratch, glass jar unbroken.

It was a miracle honestly, if I had landed any other way, there was a chance I would have broken something or got that jar lodged into an organ or some shit. This was not long after my 8th birthday.

That same year, I found out my spine was twisted and I would need to wear a back brace indefinitely. That really helped me make friends, I thought they were going to bully me to death.

When I was 9, things got very different. My alcoholic, abusive father started beating me. He only beat my brothers, and my mom before, but I started annoying him with my "stupid questions" and crying.

He didn't do it often, because each time my mother would threaten to leave, but it took a lot of effort for him to stop. He switched from slapping to squeezing in hopes it wouldn't be as "bad". He was already very verbally abusive, and was essentially a tyrant with all of us. If we ever did something wrong, even by a little bit, the rest of the day would be filled with screaming and beratement. This encouraged our mom to have lots of people over all the time, because he was always a jolly guy when people were over.

When I told my teacher she said "it's not nice to tell lies" and very firmly gripped my arm and made me sit in detention. A week later CPS was called because my friends mom gave me his hand me down snowsuit. They assumed my mother was neglecting me, since I didn't have my own snowsuit. But my dad beating me? Ridiculous.

This teacher was horrible, would single me out in class, and encourage other students to pick on me and be abusive because I "needed to learn to have fun like the rest of the kids".

This same teacher would condone sexual assault from the boys in my class, and ripping my hair out and cutting me from the girls. She thought it was annoying that I "didn't appreciate the attention" and complained about "every little thing" and would often bruise me with pinching or squeezing my arm. She was horrible, and I don't know why she was like this. But I'll never forget the bitch.

So I'm 10 now. I've punched and kicked enough of the boys they stopped lifting up my skirt and grabbing my chest and ass. Threatening them with a knife might have helped too, who knows, I kind of took matters in my own hands when the teachers wouldn't listen.

This year, my best friend also moved back into town, so I felt like I had someone again. My other friends had already started joining the other kids in picking on me and hurting me physically. But this girl was always interested in only me. Maybe because she really did love me, or because I was easily manipulated. Maybe both. But either way I wasn't alone anymore, and I was so happy she was back. I did anything and everything for her.

This was also the year my dad met another woman. He was always a dog, but I never saw him LITERALLY turn into a puppy for someone. He moved her in, started an affair. We all had to cater to her and her son, or dad would lose his fucking mind.

Our Christmas and Easter were written off because he spent all of his money on this woman, and her son. Even paying for a portion of her trip out west where she was moving to, to be with her fiance.

My mom was completely fed up and told Dad he needed to leave. So over the next several months he basically just drank and screamed and packed his things. At this time mom also met someone. A man who moved into an apartment next door. They fell inlove immediately, and there I was, without my mom or my dad, and my brothers never wanted anything to do with me.

My mom, fearing for my safety due to my dad being super angry about moving out, started taking me to that friends place for several nights a week. At first it was amazing. All this time with my best friend, sleepovers, makeup, ghost stories, witchy stuff, you name it. It was awesome.

But then things began to turn. I knew about homosexuality, but not much, and honestly didn't realise you could know so young. But she then started being very affectionate, more and more, holding hands, cuddling, kissing... She then started becoming sexually abusive with me. I didn't like it, I hated it. I became afraid of her, but also dependant on her to feel safe or loved. She would mentally abuse me so I would do what she wanted, and at such a young age I really just didn't know how to process it or defend myself. She told me if I told anyone, her dad would murder us both, I believed her, her dad was way worse than mine.

This went on for a few months, and one day we ended up watching porn. Hey older siblings were watching and got us to watch too. She had already seen it a bunch apparently. The problem was this have her ideas, and she decided to get her brother involved. This went on for another few months until my dad moved out and my mom had a fight with my friends parents because of something that I can't recall.

It is unfortunate that this happened to me, but it happened and I'm still here. It didn't really hit me until a year or so later when I was into Junior high.

So I'm 11 now. I've been told I need to have spinal surgery before my 12th birthday. There is a 5% chance I will become paralyzed from the waist down. So my mom is terrified naturally. They say I need a blood donor, my dad is in Alberta, and my brother is kicking up a fuss about having to be on standby in case I need blood. He was hoping he could hang with his friends instead.

My mom's new boyfriend moves in. With his rules and restrictions on me and my mom. He became the new tyrant. He wasn't an alcoholic, he want physically abusive. But he was controlling and definitely was generous with the drugs and alcohol.

I have a few months to go before the big day. But those months have a lot of appointments. I missed a lot of school, but always got my work done. I was very vocal, and contrary with the teacher we had, because she was almost an exact repeat of the previous teacher I mentioned. Only she was all about verbal abuse, not physical. Singling me out. Making an example of me, making fun of me, encouraging other students to do the same. I called everyone out on everything but it was futile. I didn't know gaslighting and invalidation were things yet, so I eventually just believed them. Again thinking people were nice and honest unless they had a good reason not to be, I just eventually figured I deserved it.

I made a close friend, coincidentally with the same name as my previous friend. Turns out they were very similar, they saw they could manipulate and use me. And they very much did so. I became dependant on her. My mom was virtually ignoring me at this point because she had a new man to give all of her attention to, so naturally I was feeling alone and unloved yet again.

This friend manipulated me into doing many things for her and being a part in many schemes that I was ignorant to. I opened up to her a lot about my life because I thought she cared, but she just needed it as ammunition to keep control over me. I was hooked and we stayed friends for many years. More about that later.

So I have my surgery. I have to learn to walk again, and I didn't end up needing a transfusion, so a big huge win. Not paralyzed, no more back brace, didn't lose any blood, feeling like a rock star. Got drives to school and people to carry my books every day for to weeks was pretty awesome too. Until it wasn't.

My teacher immediately began berating me, telling me I would never amount to anything. Because I missed time for my surgery, I was definitely going to fail. Depending on others to carry my books was weak and pathetic. I was stupid, worthless, a waste of space. It was like her and my mom's boyfriend were exchanging notes or something. She was wretched, and was even more angry when the school asked me to present a donation to the hospital that did my surgery. She thought that was ridiculous and would "go to my head".

Finally the year was over, and I could go and be with my grandmother on my father's side all summer. Normally I would only be there for a few weeks, but she saw what life was like for me at home and wanted me to be with her all summer. If it wasn't for those Summers, I don't think I would have been able to handle all of this alone.

So I'm 12 now. Started my period, going through puberty, living on poverty, still trying to figure out how I'm supposed to act. Good behaviour breeds hate and jealousy, bad behaviour breeds punishment and cruelty. It was confusing. But my teacher this time was one of the kindest people I've ever met.

Over the summer my mom and her boyfriend got pretty comfortable with a house that didn't have a young girl living in it. So they had a lot of his friends over. He was a "retired" gangster, so I'm sure you can guess what kind of friends he had over all the time. There was alcohol and drugs around constantly. People fighting, people fucking, injecting heroin, snoring cocaine, blowing smoke in every direction including my face. The only person who ever said shit about it was one of my brothers, and my stepdad would just reward him in ways that would make him "forget about it and have fun with us" because he was a boy. I wasn't really a person, neither was mom, we were women.

I would come to school traumatized from witnessing people having sex on our kitchen table, or putting needless in their veins, and not sleeping because they blasted music until 4am so loud I couldn't hear myself scream. Also all the men I would find passed out, outside my bedroom door... The first few times I didn't have a lock, but someone would always catch them before they got under the covers. One of them was too drink to get passed to doorway and I woke up to them passed out with their pants down right beside my bed.

When things started to settle down and my mom's boyfriend started seeing me as a human being, he started to get protective. Which was better than before, but still wasn't ideal. I still feared him, and became powerless, afraid, alone. I didn't have any positive attention in my life, and him becoming protective was both good and bad. More rules, more restrictions.

One day, a man came to visit with his girlfriend. I was practicing on my grandmother's keyboard, and he came in to see me. Sat beside me and asked me to play him another song. So I did. He grabbed my hand and kissed it. Telling me I was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen and he wants me to come over and play the piano for him this weekend.

Excited for this kindness, I said "of course!" Since they only lived a few doors down. I was used to adults telling me I was beautiful, and asking me to play the keyboard, so I guess this didn't alarm any bells for me. My stepdad came in, asked the man to step outside, and for me to go to my room. I heard yelling and then them leaving shortly after.

I found out later that he got his ass fucking beat. As did all the men who tried to come into my room. This 45 year old man, in front of his girlfriend, my mother, and my now stepdad, was clearly trying to lure me into his house so he could take me. His girlfriend was the first to point this out, so she knew he was a predator, and let him come into our house anyways.

I had no idea what was happening, thought he was just being really nice. People enjoyed hearing me play, so it wasn't an odd request for me.

So time goes on, life at home is still pretty horrible for me. Either alone and starving and freezing, or in a house full of drive out people partying to club level volumes of music. But school isn't so bad.

I'm 13 now. Excited to be a teenager. My mom gets me a pretty gold ring, and a purse with money in it. Biggest gift I've gotten since I was 4 when I got a tricycle. Mom still had moments of love with me, but they weren't often anymore, because her attention was monopolised.

I made another really close friend who was a genuine person, and I still miss her, but she has become a stranger after all these years. She didn't understand my struggles, but she made life bearable, and she helped me feel wanted. Her family happily took me in every weekend, as I would cook, clean, and help babysit her younger siblings.

We hung out a lot. And I was even allowed to have her over at my place... Once. She screamed really loud when she came to visit because she saw a mouse

[zucchininutto]

All of the bussiness!

1. The meaning behind my url: I was craving zucchini nut bread2. A picture of me: nah3. How many tattoos i have and what they are: none but changing on July 8th4. Last time i cried and why: today, cause we surprised my uncle for his bday and he cried5. Piercings i have: ears but they closed up cause i hate wearing earrings6. Favorite band: The Beatles or 5SOS7. Biggest turn offs: big mustaches and not being told I look hot when i know im looking hot8. Top 5 (insert subject): Top 5 Snacks - goldfish, pop tarts, ritz crackers, oreos, any chip that ends in "-o"9. Tattoos i want: strawberry(ies), whatever molecule I do my thesis on10. Biggest turn ons: uncomplicated spectra, neck kisses, grabbing my waist 11. Age: 20 12. Ideas of a perfect date: full day at disney (24hr disney)13. Life goal: make my own success 14. Piercings i want: none15. Relationship status: in one :) 16. Favorite movie: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band17. A fact about my life: im the youngest in my entire family18. Phobia: being burnt alive or buried alive19. Middle name: Joan20. Height: 5'9" 21. Are you a virgin? Nope22. What’s your shoe size? 923. What’s your sexual orientation? Mostly straight24. Do you smoke, drink, or take any drugs? Drink very rarely25. Someone you miss: Saw26. What’s one thing you regret? Losing a friend27. First celebrity you think of when someone says attractive: HARRY STYLES28. Favorite ice cream? Ben and Jerry's Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Dough or Dairy Free PB and Cookies29. One insecurity: my small vocabulary and lack of pronounciation skills30. What my last text message says: "I don't like strawberry shortcake anyway" (this may or may not have been a lie)31. Have you ever taken a picture naked? Mhm32. Have you ever painted your room? Yes33. Have you ever kissed a member of the same sex? No34. Have you ever slept naked? Yes35. Have you ever danced in front of your mirror? YES36. Have you ever had a crush? Of course37. Have you ever been dumped? No38. Have you ever stole money from a friend? Nope39. Have you ever gotten in a car with people you just met? Don't think so40. Have you ever been in a fist fight? No, but i have urges 41. Have you ever snuck out of your house? Nah42. Have you ever had feelings for someone who didn’t have them back? Mhmm43. Have you ever been arrested? Nope44. Have you ever made out with a stranger? Nope45.Have you ever met up with a member of the opposite sex somewhere? No46. Have you ever left your house without telling your parents? Yes47. Have you ever had a crush on your neighbor? Nope48. Have you ever ditched school to do something more fun? Like once49. Have you ever slept in a bed with a member of the same sex? Yes50. Have you ever seen someone die? Sorta51. Have you ever been on a plane? Yes52. Have you ever kissed a picture? I think so53. Have you ever slept in until 3? Yes, the first time i stayed up until like 6 am.54. Have you ever love someone or miss someone right now? Very much55. Have you ever laid on your back and watched cloud shapes go by? I don't know56. Have you ever made a snow angel? Nope57. Have you ever played dress up? Yes58. Have you ever cheated while playing a game? Yup, sorry grandpa59. Have you ever been lonely? Yes, often in high school60. Have you ever fallen asleep at work/school? Who hasn't?61. Have you ever been to a club? No62. Have you ever felt an earthquake? Nope63. Have you ever touched a snake? Yes :) (Thanks G-dawg)64. Have you ever ran a red light? Maybe...65. Have you ever been suspended from school? Nope66. Have you ever had detention? I was assigned detention but my best friend served it because she was the reason I got the detention67. Have you ever been in a car accident? Nope68. Have you ever hated the way you look? Yes69. Have you ever witnessed a crime? Don't think so70. Have you ever pole danced? Nah71. Have you ever been lost? Yea72. Have you ever been to the opposite side of the country? Yes73. Have you ever felt like dying? 74. Have you ever cried yourself to sleep? Yes75. Have you ever sang karaoke? On the wii76. Have you ever done something you told yourself you wouldn’t? Yes many times77. Have you ever laughed until something you were drinking came out your nose? Yes and ouch cause it was bubbly 78. Have you ever slept with someone at least 5 years older or younger? Nope79. Have you ever kissed in the rain? Yes 80. Have you ever sang in the shower? Only all the time81. Have you ever made out in a park? Yes82. Have you ever dream that you married someone? Yes83. Have you ever glued your hand to something? Probably in art class 84. Have you ever got your tongue stuck to a flag pole? No lolz 85. Have you ever ever gone to school partially naked? Nah86. Have you ever been a cheerleader? No but Color Guard for a year87. Have you ever sat on a roof top? Don't recall88. Have you ever brush your teeth? What is this question89. Have you ever ever too scared to watch scary movies alone? Yes I don't like scary movies90. Have you ever played chicken? Yes 91. Have you ever been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on? Yes, I've also fallen in trying to get my pupper his ball.92. Have you ever been told you’re hot by a complete stranger? Yes93. Have you ever broken a bone? No? Maybe my toe? 94. Have you ever been easily amused? Just give me sugar95. Have you ever laughed so hard you cried? All the time96. Have you ever mooned/flashed someone? Maybe?97. Have you ever cheated on a test? Just once98. Have you ever forgotten someone’s name? Yes99. Have you ever met someone who didn’t seem real? Yes 100. Have you ever give us one thing about you that no one knows. ??? Idk

[romancandlemagazine]

An Interview with Rack Lo

Ralph Lauren has always been a master of appropriation — from hunting jackets to polo shirts, the great man’s finest designs are heavily indebted to the world of functional clobber. But what happens when the appropriator is… er… appropriated?

In the late 80s, at a time when Ralph’s American dream was aimed squarely at the minted elite, a crew of working-class kids from New York known as the Lo Lifes took to nabbing his most audacious creations from the racks as a way to stand out on the streets of Brooklyn.

And whilst most would look daft in head-to-toe Polo ski attire, this lot managed to pull it off, helping to take hip-hop style beyond fat laces and leather tracksuits.

Rack Lo was one of the original Lo Lifes, and is still heavily involved today, running his own brand dedicated to Polo-inspired paraphernalia, and helping to organise the various Lo Life gatherings that take place throughout the year.

I sent him a barrage of questions via trans-Atlantic e-mail, and thankfully, he replied…

Do you remember being into clothes as a kid?

Oh man, I remember well. As a kid, my brother was more into materialism and brand names, and I was satisfied with whatever my mother and father were able to provide for me, but as I got older things changed and I became very materialistic.

Growing up I remember wearing Lee jeans, Pro Keds and Converse. Back then it was more about your style as oppose to what brand you was wearing — people cherished the look more than the name.

Growing up in Brooklyn in the 80s, how important was it to wear the right stuff?

It was very important because what you wore told a story in itself — what you wore pretty much separated you from the others. For instance, if you didn’t have street respect or a reputation, there were some things you just couldn’t wear, and it would be very dangerous to do so.

So in Brooklyn before you wanted to get fly and fresh, you had to know how to fight and defend yourself. If you didn’t have a reputation for defending yourself, you became what we called ‘The Herb’, and people would take advantage of you anytime you were seen.

In Brooklyn getting fresh was a part of the street life for many of the street legends.

When did the Lo Life Crew start? When did it go from being a few people wearing Polo stuff, to a full crew?

It started in 1988. The crew got bigger and gained more members once I decided to unite both parties, Marcus Garvey Village and St Johns. Then some time later, the late, great Boostin Billy started a chapter in Philadelphia, and it started to pick up from there.

Why Polo? What was the appeal of this stuff?

Polo just stood out the most. For some reason we were just attracted to it. First, it had amazing color ways and wasn’t prevalent in the United States ghettos. Polo wasn’t designed for poor urban kids; it was made for the upper class, waspy and collegiate kids. So when we started wearing we took it to a whole different level.

The Lo Lifes made Polo popular in the ghetto. We took what Ralph Lauren designed and created new looks and styles based around our concept of ‘Lo Down’. Lo Down is a term used when a person is wearing Polo Ralph Lauren from head to toe.

I was going to ask you about that. Could someone ever go too far and wear too much Polo stuff?

Many of the times we dressed in what we called ‘layers’ — layers of nothing but the finest Ralph Lauren Polo on the market. From head to toe all of our clothing was Polo Ralph Lauren. This particular dress code shocked a lot of people, and even Ralph Lauren was amazed.

For us it was never about just having Polo, but more about how you wore and coordinated the Polo — that is what made you special.

Do you remember the first Polo item you got?

The first Polo item I remember shoplifting was the Anniversary Cross Flags Sweater in 1987. An OG named Mike-Lo (cousin of Friz-Lo) had taken us to Riverside Square Mall out in Bergen County, New Jersey. We had taken the sweaters from a major department named Saks Fifth Avenue.

What was New York like in the late 80s and early 90s? What was a normal day like back then?

New York was very violent and filled with a lot of criminals from all communities. At any time you could have lost your life for the pettiest things — people just didn’t see the value in life back in those times.

A normal day for me was doing crime, and by me engaging in criminal activities I was able to sustain who I was and my lavish lifestyle.

I suppose it’s probably pointless talking about the Lo Life Crew without talking about boosting or racking. Wearing all that bright gear, you lot were hardly inconspicuous – so what were your tactics for getting your hands on Polo gear?

Our first tactic was called ‘geeing’ or ‘city slicking’. Using this strategy was more of a calm approach. Even though we wore bright colors, we were still clever in the stores.

Then I coined the term ‘million man rush’ as I helped usher in our newest strategy called ‘steaming’. This is where we just entered the store with a mob of like 50 heads and would just snatch what we wanted and headed to the door. I would say the ‘Million Man Rush’ tactic was the more dangerous. And further that act brought you a heavier jail/prison sentence if you were apprehended.

Did you ever get caught?

Yes, I have been caught on many occasions. As a result I was locked up in juvenile detention and I was an inmate on the infamous ‘Riker’s Island’. But in my case I was still fortunate because I never spent time in prison — only in city jails for very short time periods. The longest I spent incarcerated was four months.

The whole thing of nabbing and wearing aspirational clothing wasn’t too different to what casuals were doing in England and the Paninaro were doing in Italy around a similar time. Were you aware of any of those subcultures?  

No, I never heard of those, sounds interesting out in England though. Dope!

Why do you think people gravitate to this high-class functional stuff? A lot of people wear hunting jackets or skiing coats, but they'll never go hunting or skiing.

That’s just how the ghetto operates. Although the clothes were made for those occasions and atmospheres we simply turned those wears into hood fashion artefacts. We never played by the rules, we made our own rules.

The Polo stuff at that time seemed to be particularly intense. Lots of bright colours and big logos — what were the main items you’d go for?

My favorite polo pieces are the Crest, the Yacht, the Anniversary Cross Flags and the Cookie.

Was there a competitive element to all this? Were you trying to one-up your friends by finding rarer stuff?

Yes, every day each Lo Life’s intension was to out-dress the next. The competition was high amongst individuals in the crew and we also competed against other crews as well. Some of the greatest show downs took place at Empire Skating Rink’.

What else were you lot wearing back then? What else was in the mix?

Besides Polo, I wore Guess, Tommy Hilfiger, DKNY, Nautica, Gucci, Descente, Head, Prince, Sergio Tacchini and Coca-Cola. There was a lot of fresh brands we rocked.

Obviously the clothes were a big part of it, but what else was Lo Life about? What else was going on?

Everything that was a part of hip hop was happening. Remember this was 1988 the golden era of hip hop. But besides the clothes we did a lot of crime, partying and just running the streets. It was all about survival. So either you were a street kid or you played it safe and stayed out of trouble. But for us, we always found trouble, because most of the times we initiated it.

How has New York changed since the late 80s? Do you think you lot could get away with the same stuff if you were growing up now?

New York has definitely changed. The time I’m reflecting on is considered ‘The Old New York’. Nowadays, there are cameras everywhere. The city is filled with surveillance, so yes in the current times getting caught would be a realistic matter. Plus there are a lot more cops on the streets now. In the 1980s you had cops, but you also had crime fighters like ‘The Guardian Angels’ who also tried to prevent a lot of the madness from happening on the New York City streets. It worked sometimes, but for the most part, the criminals prevailed.

But I know for a fact, if the Lo Life’s were committing the same acts in the 1980s in the new millennium a lot of us would be in jail for decades and life on the back of the sentence. Because a lot of Lo-Life’s are three time losers meaning they already have three felony convictions. So a fourth one will keep them incarcerated for life. 2018 is not the time to being doing anything stupid.

What are your thoughts on streetwear today? Now that kids can just sit on a computer and buy whatever they want, is it still ‘street’?

No, it’s not street. I’m not into the new fashion and styles — I like gear that stands the test of time. Nowadays, a lot of the brands don’t have staying power. Polo has been here since 1967 and it’s still so relevant — it’s timeless and will never go out of style.

This staying power is what all of the other brands fight and struggle for. Will they last for the next 10 or 20 years? I see clothing brands come and go so often.

Have you ever heard what Ralph thinks of all this?

Yes, Ralph had no choice but to acknowledge our movement. I never cared about meeting Ralph or none of that. He was a non-factor in my life as far as my aspirations are concerned. I’m a realist.

The Lo-Lifes go hand in hand with Ralph. In the same way he created a brand, so did the Lo-Lifes. We have come a long way and we are still on the front lines doing it big.

What do you get up to these days? What’s an average day like for you now?

Nowadays, I’m all about business, traveling, family, being a great husband and father and truly helping other people realize and pursue their dreams. I view myself as the Creative Director and Visionary in all that I engage in. I have a lot of great things coming down the pipeline.

Sounds good. Any wise words you’d like to add?

Yes, check out my book Lo Life: An American Classic. It feels great to be a published author, and this is just my first book, I have plenty of stories to tell.

Thank You! 2L’s Up and SaLLute!

Lo Life: An American Classic is available now. Get it here. Interview originally published in 2018.