#and then it did fit and i was like ive surely got the longest title done

[taskmastersource]

TASKMASTER EPISODE TITLES — Series 14

[red-dyed-sarumane]

OKAY VOCACOLLE SUMMER TOP 15 SONGS (my ranking) LETS GOO

1. Kannagi - Hiiragi Magnetite: the lyrics on this are going to keep me occupied for the longest time until i understand it better. the atmosphere of this song is just incredible, the addition of the bells in her hand in the song, the light chime-y parts of the the instrumental, the piano, the longer notes, u dont need to know the lyrics to know theres a sense of regret in here. theres enough in the chimes u can feel the inner reflection in this, & like other series songs it hits that standing at the end of world in the rain feeling. its paced so perfectly it doesnt even feel like 6 minutes. series wise i think thats not only a call back to kyuuyaku but like shoushitsu & kyuuyaku it shows off that loop theme, getting into whats going on building it up, theres a bit of calm and then it picks up again. lots of story telling & details in it to add to the narrative. haru fits it so perfectly & that's definitely by design. this song has already embedded itself in my heart

2. Stockholm Office - Crump: if kannagi wasnt posted this would take first place EASILY IMMEDIATELY. i cant say in words how much i loved this so instantly. the light whispery-ness of kafu & the spacey-ness of certain instruments and parts combined with the heavy groundedness of the rest of it is so so perfect. the poetic way the lyrics show off the state of things in this song without being super blunt about the complaints in it & the overall rhythm of it draws me in so so much. they really matched the mood of the instrumentals & the lyrics so perfectly. its not spacey enough for me to say true dissociation type feel but theres such a strong feeling of disconnection in this, that feeling of lying to urself to stick something out which im sure is entirely intended given the title. im about to become the number one promoter of this song its one of those found it at the perfect timing things for me.

3. Candy Drop - yurame: this has the usual yurame song feel. i can only describe it as sounding how carbonation in drinks feels. its trendy sounding but at the same time is all its own thing and authentic feeling. the lyrics are written in a way its like ah yeah i get that feeling. despite the lightness of the instrumental its good at getting that melancholic feel across & isnt jarring in the slightest. flower has that mix of rough & cute to suit this as well. very good song.

4. Quiet - szri: szri's usual quick & heavy pacing definitely building off what they did in anaphylaxis. even includes the smallest part of it & u know i love songs that connect to each other. gekiyaku & kafu are such a good combination too especially how they pull it off. not a very light song in terms of content but fun nonetheless & isnt that what vocaloids about.

5. Euthanasia - Dopam!ne: a lighter/simpler song in terms of instrumentals that he does. nice change & still very distinctly his style. definitely not a light song in terms of content the guy even put a content disclaimer at the end. still easy to listen to if u like his style tho. good song

6. Waste - mairu: this ones probably about as heavy as szri's quiet musically speaking though theres a few calmer sections. flower's roughness fits the topic well i think. another one where the mood of every part of the song just seems to align well. i dont have anything profound to say i just think its neat

7. OSINT - Sheeno Mirin: i love the atmosphere in sheeno mirin songs a lot & this one doesnt disappoint. interesting vocal combination choice not that they overlap in any part & they work well with what they were going for. theres something brain scratching (in a good way) about the instrumental, a full sound thats got a weight to it but isnt too much. its really good idk what else to say

8. groom groove - yowanecity: i feel like its been forever since ive seen anything from yowanecity i really should follow them anyway i got really excited to see they posted & this didn't disappoint. its got that bounciness i expect from their songs. fun & smooth sounding. makes u want to dance. definitely worth your time.

9. Capsule - Fuyuu: cat rime & sekai thats so fun i love that and then the gachpon theme on top of it so fun. the sound is not what you'd expect from that description tho. it has a darker feel to it almost grungy i want to say but definitely not off putting. as part of the rime lover nation i love this song. this is going to end up stuck in my head all the time just like crow crow does. very good & both sekai & rime sound like they belong in this song 👍

10. Gambit - Yunosuke: another trendy, almost bubbly sounding song from yunosuke. pretty atmosphere to it. love the whistles & traditional sound instruments mixed in with the otherwise modern electric type sound its got going on. this would be fun to sing if i take the time to learn the lyrics. super good very worth your time

11. Rain - Gomennasai ga ienakute: the usual simple sounding style they have, deceivingly simple sounding bc its very clearly not. the tension building part right before the 3 min mark hits me in particular. very cool rin high notes at the end. very nice melancholic mood to it. maybe i should rank this higher its growing on me the more i listen to it. their lyric sense is very good. compels me. definitely give this a listen.

12. Static Love - Hagino: kafu rap nation rise up. its got that chiptune sound at first that gradually gives into a more modern edm sound. a good mix of cute, cool, and fun sounding. underrated the mixing & execution of this is too good to only have a few hundred views & yet here we are. worth your time

13. Prototype - Aira: THIS SONG GOES SO HARD!! coko chisei is such a good combo too. interesting theme going on here but the melody & such is just very good. the lalala parts make it seem a little lighter than it actually is. love the slightly wavering slightly squeaky sound on both vocals. lends a certain charm to this song.

14. Lewder Liar - Zensen: another great electro swing song from zensen. very fun fresh sounding instrumentals & flower's in no way out of place here. good mix. kind of an interesting theme going on here what with the demon stuff etc.

15. Death Game - Uron Riyu: this one is so fun to me. kafu running a death game. posting this as a vocacolle song feels like its framing vocacolle itself as a death game between songs & thats such an interesting way to look at it. kinda fun. the composition on its fun in its own way too. ik it's supposed to be dark but its just a fun song to me.

[daedalusdavinci]

ao3 wrapped

taken from here. i thought this would be fun!

1. How many words have you written this year?

i published 316,173 words this year, including the drabbles i only posted on tumblr. if i added wips... i dont even want to think about it.

2. How many works did you publish this year?

i wrote 62 tumblr drabbles and posted 31 works on ao3, amounting for a grand total of,, 93 works..... theres.. theres no way..... oh jesus christ

3. What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

you know what i think it has to be hollow americana. i really wanted to write a fic that captured how i felt on roadtrips, and how empty a roadstop in a desert can feel. i wanted something that was haunting and melancholy and hung you up on all of the little details, and i think i pulled that off perfectly. its exactly what i wanted it to be

4. What work of yours has the most hits?

this year home intrusion got 4,033 hits, which i guess makes sense, since its batfam and also not a part of the jdau.

5. What work of yours got more feedback than you expected?

ummm all of the jdau, basically. it was such a niche idea and i really just wrote it because i was fucking obsessed with harvey and jason and tfz and its amassed more of a following than i expected it to

6. Favorite title you used

i like “son of dent” because its a direct reference to traditional jewish headstones and i think im soo clever for that, and i love “hollow americana” because it fits the energy of that fic so well. i think “like an oil-stained phoenix” is pretty good, if a little pretentious, but my favorite is definitely “the mystery of the old boathouse” because i really really wanted a title that references old mystery books i grew up reading and ties into the detective au theme, and it fits well!

7. If you use song lyrics, which artist’s songs did you pull from the most?

i dont think i ever used song lyrics for anything other than like. titles. i hope i didnt anyway. i know “sharp edges” in “lost days” is a linkin park song, and “temporal shenanigans” is part of the homestuck soundtrack. thats literally it tho

8. Pairing you wrote the most for this year?

i dont even have to look to know that it was bruharv.

9. Favorite pairing you wrote for this year?

actually probably jason/nico. theeen bruharv

10. What work was the quickest to write?

one of the drabbles im sure. sometimes i just shit those bitches right out and theyre often under 1k so its liek. lol

11. What work took you the longest to write?

fucking level 2. unless you count the jdau series as a single work, in which case, that

12. How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year?

one :’) just the one. and im not sure yet if ill keep it

13. What’s your longest work of the year?

i dont even have to look to know that its level 2. level 2 is 126,596 words and 23 chapters long and its my biggest regret

14. What’s your shortest work of the year?

one of the drabbles im sure. but on ao3 its out of sight, a very very short harvmatches drabble i posted before i started posting drabbles on tumblr

15. What WIP are you taking into next year with you?

theee only one in my docs. wdym. its supposed to be another part of the jdau, which i guess is also a massive wip? but i dont like to think of it as that

16. What’s your most common “Additional Tags” tag?

im sure it was fucking “Harvey Dent Adopts Jason Todd” this year

17. Your favorite character to write this year?

harvey and 2f clearly, theyre like babygirls to me. but writing jason (grace and todd) is also very cool

18. The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year?

bruce. that insufferable old whore. maybe if dc could just stop being stupid and give him af ucking consistent characterization, i wouldnt have so many PROBLEMS. im out here merging different sources like its a game. build your own bruce. i hate it here.

but also harvey ive done so much goddamn research to try and write him right and i sitll worry all the time that its not enough

19. What’s one pairing you want to explore next year?

personally i want to explore some bitches /j

no but like idk man im really tired and writings been really hard lately and ill be happy to just write anything and feel good about it after

20. Which work of yours have you reread the most?

i reread the stupid jdau all the time just so i dont fuck up the next installment

21. How many kudos in total did you get this year?

3,145, apparently!

22. Which work has the most comments?

level 2 has the most comments at 31. which is kind of surprising, because it did not do very well otherwise!

23. Did you do any collaborative works this year?

nope

24. Did you write any gifts this year?

i wrote literally dozens of requests which are all sort of gifts i think, but in terms of literal gifts on ao3, i gave @roomfulloferidans many

25. Did you receive any gifts this year?

nope. things were not written for me nor was i given an Ao3 Gift(TM). but eri drew some very nice pictures for me! they drew equius from ammfh and my ocs and i have them saved on my computer so i can come back and look at them all the time

26. What’s your most common category?

its M/M because im gay and i think men are hot

27. What do you listen to while writing?

i listen to white noise if im really struggling to focus, otherwise ill loop a playlist or a single song. its switched around a ton over the year but right this second im looping an arcadian wild playlist i made that has other bands with similar sounds on it in addition to the entire arcadian wild discography

28. Favorite work you wrote this year?

also hollow americana, for reasons i already said

29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

bro. im grabbing you by the shoulders right now. i wrote 300k words. i promise you i do not know the answer to that.

i know i like some of the headcanon stuff i put in starting over and hollow americana has a lot of good lines but i cant think beyond that even tho there are probably some real bangers because i wrote 300k words and i cant remember all of them

30. Biggest surprise while writing this year?

now. this may blow your mind. but. did you know. that if you dont like your ocs. you can just... get rid of them. and start over? still reeling from that one tbh

[littlebitluckywc]

hello <3!!! i found this around and i just wanted to try some of it out … i didnt answer some questions that i didnt get much of a drive for but maybe eventually ill come back to it :D

meme for roleplay muns by @/roleplaymemeworld

what is your favorite trope to roleplay?

one of my wildest little roleplays ive done was with a good friend of mine on a discord server - between badgerstar and luckystar, leaders of two different clans throughout the wacky world of warrior cats. a pair that's known each other throughout their entire lives, and never wouldve suspected either they themselves or that the other would rise to the title that they have now. luckystar is the kind of cat who'd always make sure to stop by whenever the gatherings would happen - she'd always come up to him and pull badgerstar aside, she'd always pop by and check in whenever she saw him on the borders and out in the territory … she'd always try to make sure things were going alright for him. she'd always try to make sure he didn't have anything to be upset about, or to be sad about … and eventually, its probably one of my favorite kind of ideas whenever it comes to a forbidden romance. luckystar had plenty of cats around her - she had a family, she had kits, she had her friends and parents in the stars … but he had none of it. he messed up plenty of times in his life, and when their forbidden relationship one day led to fights and wars between their two mighty clans - in the end of it all, when their tales both came to an end, luckystar had a little bit of a choice to make. she had her family, her loves and her friends she could be with. cats who had oh so much ruined by this feline that only she seems to understand and she decided to step away from them to be with him. to be with badgerstar. after all, she got to live her whole life with these cats - but she never got to be with her true love, and now in the unlife, she'll have her time to finally be with him. she'll always be there whenever the rest of the stars avoid him for what he did in his life, for how he acts and his crimes that he regrets… she's always been there whenever he's alone, and now she follows him on to every end of the stars. we havent got to finish it, but… god its something i really want to try some more. its one of the things i love the most, and it got onto an aspect of luckystar that's truly amazing to me - because, for how selfless and loving she was towards him… she had the option to try and redeem badgerstar in the stars. but she finally decided, after all of this time, after all of her lives - to have someone to herself. that's absolutely the sort of thing i love the most and smthn i wanna do again someday … badluck <3

who are your longest roleplay friends?

we don't meet as often as we used to, but a little group chat im in with 4 other people has some of the closest friends ive made through roleplay! two of them i met about 4 years ago through pokemon roleplay, and the other 2 i found through the very same warrior cats server and got to bond with before we started gaming together … we dont rlly roleplay too much anymore, but its been a blast and we still vibe quite often with each other!! i wouldnt say i have really many stories that have gone on for that long though,, i havent had many roleplays that have lasted all too long and its so hard to find people that do warrior cats stuff PFF, although i hope eventually that i can say smthn fits this part of things!

do your friends outside the internet know your roleplay?

ohh absolutely not lol … i feel like they would be accepting, but im terrified to say absolutely anything about it to anyone irl. i dont have the confidence to mention it to anyone, the closest thing ive gotten to it was my sister being in a roleplay server for a few days a couple years back - im 99% sure she does roleplay, but most defo not like me lol

why do you write?

writing has gotten me where i am if im being honest. i dont think i would be anywhere near as good as i am at ideas like game design or just making stories in general or programming if it wasnt for roleplay, and i feel like id be a lot less interesting of a person without it wfhuegih?? ive learned so much through this community and its changed my life over the past 6 years or so, i dont know where id be without it! it prepared me for where id end up going, writing funky lil mew mews…

do you welcome duplicates of your character or stay away from them?

YES!!! I ABSOLUTELY ADORE IT SM…. i really like seeing peoples interpretations of my mysteries and lil ideas, yet ive only ever found once or twice an idea that actually had someone else using one of my ocs - i absolutely love the thought of it … a lot of my ocs are the sorts of ocs that i not only rlly love to play around with, but are also what id ADORE to roleplay with!

is there one trope you can’t stand?

i really … don't like things with romance and other sort of points where one person is supposed to be superior to the other, like love triangles n whatnot. its something i have a lot of past trouble with and probably would only do with a group i REALLY trust not to take it ooc like??? lord

what is your opinion on writing smut?

have your boundaries, dont force it on people - but i don't see why it would be much of a problem, especially with someone you trust and whatnot! it's a good way to explore!

do you need music/noise to write or do you prefer silence?

i almost never write with music or whatnot ,,, i am SO BAD at writing with it LMAO i am very easily distracted and while i might be able to vibe with some lil things without lyrics like rain and little tunes, anything more and i wont rlly be able to do it very well i absolutely do play music before writing some stuff though, i get inspiration from it but definitely not while actively writing

what is your opinion on tagging triggers?

always if youre asked, its not that hard to do! otherwise i try my best for the more obvious stuff, but in general there isnt much i write about without intentionally nulling it down a little with things like more gorey writing or whatnot

do you prefer long or short replies and why?

in between really! i am absolutely capable of both but long replies i feel like depend so much on motivation that makes my writing a lot more infrequent, while short replies is a lot harder to make a story out of …. but something in between would absolutely be amazing, a nice compromise between smthn that takes more work and something that can be done in a short amount of time <3 the main time im fine with short replies is things like one shots … ive never found someone to do things like just little romance or adventure one shots at night with to pass the time but i feel like thatd be the time for it! i adore the idea a ton though <3

thats the main stuff ive got the time for rn at least!!! maybe ill post more, but also was inspired by @kittimuses to write this :D thought this would be a nice little thing to fill out and try!!!

[gloomybabygirl]

{mrs.} Poe Dameron x fem!reader

A/N: this is plagiarized from inspired by the last scene in Pride and Prejudice (2005, the only acceptable version). I’ve loved this story for as long as I can remember and have had this scene memorized for the longest time. I couldn’t get a Poe version out of my head today :) if you haven’t seen the movie what in the fuck are you doing go watch it?? but even if you have, I’ll link the scene below so you can refresh your memory <3 p.s. it has just occurred to me that this is only the ending in the U.S. version so if you are from somewhere else please you need to see this 

warnings: mentions of sex?, plagiarism, pure fluff, danger of falling in love with Poe, bad writing :) this is fem reader bc of the mrs. i’m so sorry!!

word count: 

song: Mrs. Darcy- Original Film Score!! highly recommend listening while you read

link to scene 

You hoped the novelty of calling Poe Dameron your husband would never wear off. The way saying the word husband when referring to him made your stomach flutter and heat creep up to your cheeks. It filled you up to the brim with happiness and love that you got to call him your own. 

The first few days of married life were being spent on Yavin IV so Poe could show you where he intended to raise a family with you once the war was over. You loved nothing more than hearing this man talk about the future. It was something he didn’t dare to do for a long, long time. But something about your love and hope showed him the stunning glimmer of a light at the end of the tunnel. Now, the thing that kept him going through each mission was the thought of one day being able to tell his kids about them. 

While your honeymoon had been mostly spent... honeymooning, you were falling more in love seeing Poe like this. Childlike almost. Taking you to all the places he remembered from his youth. 

He dragged you to a huge tree, with a hole through the base of the trunk, big enough to fly a tie fighter though. It was easily the tallest tree you had seen on Yavin and it must have been around for at least a thousand years.

“Under here,” he said stepping into the hollowed trunk of the ancient tree “is where I had my first kiss.” 

“Hm, should I be jealous?” You asked, smirking at the man boy. 

“Nah, because now you’ll be my favorite kiss inside this tree.” He gently pulled your wrist, and wrapped his arm around your waist. His free hand cupped the side of your face and brought you in for a sweet, lingering kiss. 

He pulled away for a moment and just looked at you in adoration. You saw a change in his eyes and caught a devilish gleam before he said: 

“Come on, I’ll show you were I lost my virginity!” and ran from the kissing tree.

“Poe! I don’t want to see that!” You yelled, laughing and running after him.

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He did not, in fact, show you where he lost his virginity. 

He instead lead you up a small mountain that was closer to his childhood home. About midway up the mountain was a circle of light colored boulders, in a oblong circle. Poe had a soft smile on his lips, but when you met his eyes, there was a shadow of sadness.

“Over by all these rocks here, this is where I would play with all my toy A-Wings. I wanted to be just like my mom.”  

You grabbed his hand and squeezed, silently letting him know you were there for him. He squeezed back and gave you a swift kiss on the cheek. 

“This is where our kids will play with toy X-Wings because they want to be just like their dad.” He laughed at your eyeroll following the comment. “The I’ll have a whole squadron of just Damerons.” 

“I’m sure Leia will be thrilled to pieces to have that many trigger- happy flypeople under her command.” 

He chuckled again, kissing your temple this time. 

Once again, taking off at light speed, he started running further up the mountain. 

“Come on, I have one more place I want to show you today!” 

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“Poe, baby it’s getting dark.” You had been following him up this mountain for several minutes (not that you minded the view). 

“I know,” he threw you a grin over his shoulder. “Don’t worry Princess, we’re at the top,” he extended his hand back to help you up the rest of the way, kissing the back of your hand tenderly when you got to him. 

He walked you over to a small clearing and laid down on the thick grass, pulling you down with him. 

You lay your head on his chest so you could hear the quiet, steady beating of his golden heart. Your hand clasped tightly in his was laying next to your face on his chest. Perfect for giving him sweet kisses across his scarred knuckles. 

You angled your chin to look up at him. “So... is this where you lost your virginity?” You asked, only half joking. 

He laughed lightly, “Nah, I can show you that tomorrow. This is where I would go when I was scared, or sad, or just... whatever. I would look up at the stars and it would remind me of how small and miniscule my problems were. That there were so many other people out there who needed help. My help. reminding myself of that would ground me and get me it of whatever mood I was in. I wanted to bring you here because this was my special secret place where even my dad couldn’t find me.” 

You stayed silent, letting him have this moment for himself. The thick feeling of nostalgia for a childhood that wasn’t even yours filled the space between the two of you. Suddenly, he sat up and sat cross legged facing you, wanting to look at you. He took your hands in his roughed up calloused ones and studied your face for a moment. 

“How are you tonight, honey?” He asked, making you wince slightly. 

“Very well. Only, I don’t like it when you call me ‘honey’,” you said gently. 

He looked a little hurt, causing you to reach out to cup his cheek, his stubble tickling your palm. “Why not?” 

You giggled a little at his hurt expression. “Because it’s what my dad always called my mom when he was mad about something.” 

Relief flooded his sweet, brown eyes. “Then what pet names am I allowed to call you?” 

“Well let me think... ‘Baby’, for everyday,” He beamed at you. “’Princess’ for holidays. And ‘kitten’ but only on very special occasions,” You said winking at him referring to a nickname he had grown fond of using in the bedroom. 

“Okay,” he was still grinning from ear to ear, “Then what should I call you when I’m mad? Mrs. Dameron?” 

“No!” You would never want him to use your favorite title in a negative way. You kissed the small gold band around his ring ringer. “No. You can only call me Mrs. Dameron when you are completely and perfectly and incandescently happy.” You said smiling up to him. 

“Well then how are you tonight, Mrs. Dameron?” He asked, kissing your forehead with featherlike softness. 

He looked at you, smiling lightly, before whispering again, “Mrs. Dameron.” He then leaned to press a kiss to your cheek, causing the blood to rush there. 

“Mrs. Dameron,” He moved to warm the frosty tip of your nose with his tender kiss.

He couldn’t get enough of how that pet name rolled off his tongue and fit you perfectly. “Mrs. Dameron,” He hesitated for a brief moment to take in your scent and then kissed your other cheek, feeling you smile under his lips. 

“Mrs. Dameron,” He whispered one last time before finally capturing your lips in his own. 

You knew this feeling would last forever.

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taglist (currently open, message me!): @softly-sad​ @clumsy-writing-rdb​

[det395]

a self-indulgent writing wrap up post

(thank you @jestbee​ for the word count tracker) 

i was less good at following daily goals than i was just having a few odd days binge-writing and catching up. quarantine made me lose motivation for school and work but i funnelled a lot of my energy into writing fic to ignore the world which is super responsible obviously

Fics posted:

Starlight (Star Wars, Poe/Finn)

Elegy to the Void (Star Wars, Poe/Finn)

Stay The Same (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley)

Love (Fleabag, gen sorta)

Jigsaw Falling Into Place (Dan/Phil)

Dreams Tonight (Dan/Phil)

Love that I give (Dan/Phil)

Make Me Feel (Dan/Phil/original characters)

as long as i’m here (Dan/Phil)

I never wanted any other way to spend our lives (Dan/Phil)

Trapped in the dark, you found me (Dan/Phil)

Glitch (Dan/Phil)

The sun will always shine (Phil/original character)

I see it in your eyes (Dan/Phil)

In my arms I’ll catch you (Dan/Phil)

Whisper (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue Series, Monty/Percy)

the sky is falling in (Hannibal, Hannibal/Will)

Bathe in the glow (Hannibal, Alana/Margot)

This beast that you're after (Hannibal, Hannibal/Will)

Tenderest touch leaves the darkest of marks (Hannibal, Hannibal/Will)

scattered thoughts:

i wrote exactly 20 fics which satisfies me to find out they fit on one ao3 page

i posted 157,654 words on ao3. i have so many wips in docs rip

the first four fics i wrote were from various media that i watched and didn’t feel quite satisfied with and then after getting those thoughts out, my interest halted and i was at peace

recently i’ve been less invested in the phandom (though i’ll probably linger forever as my interest ebbs and flows, can’t abandon my first fandom or where all my best pals are) but i was surprised to see that over half of the fics i wrote this year were still for them. time is strange. remember the fun moodboard trend? i also have an unposted, mostly finished ginormous wip from summer that will see the light of day one day too bc it is my child that i am neglecting

i felt like jigsaw falling into place was underrated (am i allowed to say that about my own writing?) but that’s just bc it was essentially a confusing diary ramble 

i’m very proud of make me feel

why do i barely remember writing some of these fics? it was me being zoned out for half of quarantine i think

in my arms i’ll catch you is one of the most creative things i’ve written

writing hannibal fic has opened my eyes to the fun of writing surreal, almost supernatural elements and all of the potential there is in dark metaphors. my life is changed forever and my new kinks terrify everyone

i have so many ideas for hannibal fics. someone needs to stop me 

i am most proud of the sky is falling in. i had ambitious plans that i was sure were going to fall apart but it ended up pulling together in a way i am super happy with. i never lost momentum on it and it is now the longest story i have ever written. i got completely lost in it. this is one of the only fics i sometimes reread parts of and it feels like my child

tenderest touch leaves the darkest of marks is the most recent thing i posted and the most popular thing i wrote all year based on kudos. also the 2nd most popular thing ive ever posted, which is cool and kind of funny that it’s had the least time to gain attention. not to toot my own horn again but it was one of those fics where when i wrote it, it just came out exactly how i wanted it to. and i made myself cry. i am so invested that i have almost 10k written of a sequel making everything worse.

i wish id written more fics about women. i wanted to write for killing eve but i struggled with their voices and didn’t have strong enough idea for them getting together. i also had an idea for waverly/nicole that didn’t pan out well. i have 6.4k of an abigail-centric and heavy-on-alana fic written that i also think is intimidatingly ambitious so i might mix it as a co-POV fic but we’ll see how it goes. i did read more f/f than i wrote this year but i guess i still have complicated feelings

the only consistency i have in fic title format is that all of them are based on songs

i may never be the grammar queen but i feel like my writing improved a lot this year and im proud of myself for getting so much out onto a page in some manner

[angrylizardjacket]

sweet chaos {Brian May}

Anons asked (in a roundabout way, I lost the original prompts): Brian/Reader where she has a crush on him but he thinks she’s into another one of the band members, and when he confronts her, he tells her he has feelings too? Also, Brian/Reader where they meet in the studio and there’s flirting and they end up together.

A/N: 3640 words. Something about Brian just makes me wanna write a lot apparently. Y/N is just.... so chaotic. ANYWAYS, so this is the fic I wrote last night and then lost, but I’ve managed to salvage it, and I’m happy with how it turned out. I’m so sorry to the two beautiful anons whose prompts were lost to my mistake last night, just know this goes out to you.

“Deaks, when did you get cool?” You gaze around the studio with an almost awed expression, hands shoved in the pockets of your jacket, before finally turning your grin on John, who was crouched by his bass case, looking up at you with a singular raised eyebrow.

“I’ve always been cool.” John was adamant about this, pulling out his bass and clicking the case shut. “You just don’t appreciate me.” After a moment, in which you rolled your eyes at him, he secured the strap on his instrument and looked up at you with an amused smile. “A year ago.” He conceded, and your eyes went wide.

“A ye- John Francis Deacon-” You cut yourself off, spluttering in surprise.

“Not my middle name.” He interjected, though you just talked over him, bouncing on the balls of your feet.

“You’ve been in a band for a year and you didn’t think to tell me? I’ve been living with you for like a week!” You crowed, and your theatrics had earned both a chuckle from John, and the attention of the three other boys in the room; the rest of the band.

“You care to introduce us to your friend?” The blonde one asked, eyebrows raised, confusion clear on his face.

“If I must,” John gave you a long suffering smile, before turning on his heel to face the others, “Roger, Brian, Freddie, this is Y/N. Y/N, this is Roger, Brian, and Freddie, the band.” He gestured between you all, and it takes a moment for him to finally finish processing everything you had said. “How have you known me this long and not known my middle name?”

And, okay, he did have a point; you’d grown up living next door to each other, had been practically joined at the hip since some kid had tried to push you off the swing beside him, and so you’d pushed the kid back, yelling ‘go away, he’s my friend’. You been through primary school and high school together, and it was only when John went to uni and you took a year to backpack across Europe, that you really spent a meaningful amount of time apart.

“Is it Jonathan?” You asked, feigning innocence, and John had to actually stop, where he was tuning his bass to suppress a smile. You couldn’t look at him, if you did, you knew you would just break into a fit of giggles. Instead, you took the moment to really give a good look at the band. The blonde one behind the drums, Roger as he’d been introduced, didn’t seem to know what to do with you, and instead just went back to setting up his equipment. Freddie, who had been quietly warming up his voice on the other side of the room, had paused for the moment, analysing you with a serious look before his gaze came up to meet yours. He gave an approving nod, and went back to his work, already bouncing with energy and anticipation. The guitarist, Brian, just seemed amused by the banter, looking between you and John with a loose grip on his guitar.

“Yes, my mother named me John Jonathan.” His words were practically dripping with sarcasm, but you kept your composure, not even cracking a smile.

“I’ve met Lilian, I wouldn’t put it past her..” You clicked your tongue, raising your eyebrows at John. After a beat, his eyes went wide and he tried to protest, but your facade cracked and you chuckled fondly at his exasperation, and you hear Brian laugh too, before he goes back to also tuning his guitar. “I’m kidding, Deaks, you know I love your mum,” your waved him off with a fond smile, making a move to leave the recording studio, but thought better of it, turning back with a mischievous grin. John’s expression immediately became suspicious. “And of course I know your middle name; it’s Dick.”

“Richard.” He corrected automatically, the word accompanied by an eyeroll. You heard Roger snort out a laugh.

“How do you get Dick from Richard?” Freddie asked with a confused frown, stopping his pacing. The moment the words left his mouth, you’re pretty sure you can see John spontaneously form a headache, and your grin sharpens.

“You ask him nicely.” You hear both you and Brian say at the same time. There’s a beat of silence, and you both look at each other, sharing an amused moment of camaraderie, much to John’s exasperation.

“I like this one.” You say, voice firm, pointing directly at Brian. His smile widened before he ducked his head, going back to his guitar. John had just started shaking his head at you, but he was smiling so you knew you weren’t in any real trouble.

In the sound studio, the tech they had on, as well as the other two girls, Mary and Kristin, they introduced themselves as, greeted you warmly enough, and thus started one of the longest and best nights of your life so far.

John was good at bass, much better than you had realised, much better than he had any right to be, at least that’s how you phrase it in your head when you’re resting your chin on his shoulder, listening to the playback of his latest version of the song they’d been working at for about half an hour. Eyes glassy, your mouth remained shut as the boys bandied about musical terms and ideas that you didn’t really understand, though you knew you’d appreciate their end product. John sort of loved that about you, your ability to walk the fine line between irritating and lovable, yet also knowing when to keep your mouth shut if you didn’t think you could contribute to a conversation as well as you’d like.

“You’ve been awfully quiet, what do you think, Y/N?” Brian’s smiling up at you from where he’s sat in a wheelie chair they’d co-opted from the office in the next room. Snapping back to reality, you take a step back from John, looking to the now-empty studio, and then to your best friend.

“What do I think?” It takes all of your effort not to just blurt out exactly what you had been thinking; I watched John eat a worm once and now he’s making kick ass music and I don’t know how to consolidate those two mental images of him in my mind. “Great.” You answer instead. “I think it sounds great.” After a beat, you duck your gaze, laughing a little self consciously, “I don’t know a lot about music so I can’t really offer much feedback.” 

“Well, if you stick around, we can probably teach you a think or two.” He shrugged, but there was clearly an offer in his words, and you smile, before turning and raising your eyebrows at John, as silent question asking if you could stay.

“He’s the one who made the offer, not me.” John just put his hands up in mock surrender, pushing you a few steps closer to Brian as he maneuvered around you to head back into the recording studio. “She’s your problem now, Bri.” He called over his shoulder, giving you a sunny smile, which only served to make you irritated.

“Problem?” You huffed, before stalking over to the sound desk, leaning over it as you turned on the microphone. “Don’t disrespect me like that, John Jonathan, I watched you eat a worm!” And to that, John, along with the rest of the band and those in the sound studio, laughed, and you felt the tension leave you as you cracked a smile. After a moment, you see John pulling up his bass, and there’s a gentle tap on your left hip, and you turn, seeing the sound technician waiting with pointedly raised eyebrows. Stepping back quickly, you move to make room for him, promptly falling right onto Brian, who was the one who had been trying to get you to move in the first place.

John’s started playing again so no-one else hears Brian’s quiet grunt of discomfort at your landing. Scrambling to stand up and apologise, you hear him quietly laugh, reaching out to take hold your wrist, not to keep you there, more like a reassurance.

“It’s fine, you’re my problem, after all.” And despite the fact that you resent being called a problem at all, the way he’s smiling at you, the way he says it, well maybe it didn’t sound too bad.

The sound got more experimental as the night wore on, and once they’d reached the tipping point while recording the tenuously titled ‘Seven Seas of Rhye’ the night became electric. You spent your time often on your feet, bouncing around the space, listening with a grin as the others would suggest a new, eclectic ideas. If you weren’t in Brian’s lap in the wheelie chair, which you’d claimed as your seat for the night, you were dancing with Mary, or John, or even Roger and Kristin, you’re pretty sure you’ve been a part of something truly extraordinary by hearing this album being created.

“Alright, alright,” when the night wraps up and John comes to collect you, you’re with Brian, chatting to Mary with his chin on your shoulder, “time to head home, dear.” Mary excused herself from the conversation, heading off to find Freddie, while you turned and gave John’s outstretched hand an unimpressed look.

“You cut me loose, Deaks, I was in the market for a new best mate and you pushed me at poor Brian here,” shaking your head, you lay the faux disappointment on thick, crossing your arms and leaning back just a little further against Brian, who was grinning with amusement at the whole situation, “this is really all your fault.” You added, but John just rolled his eyes, smiling exasperatedly at you.

“It’s fine by me, I’d love to have you off my sofa, but I just thought I’d let you know,” and he cast his gaze towards the recording studio, “Brian lives with Roger.” He said pointedly as Kristin’s high, sweet laugh rang through the air, and you saw Roger was grinning confidently, showing her how to twirl a drumstick in favour of packing up his drum kit. Standing abruptly, you took John’s free hand.

“Yeah, probably a good call.” Brian’s expression soured, but then he turned back to face you, smiling brightly. “Lovely to meet you, though; we’ll be seeing you again, right?”

“You guys play gigs?” You asked, and he nodded. “Well then, now that John’s let me in on this dirty little secret of his, I think you’d be hard pressed to stop me.” And with a final, playful wink, you loop your arm through John’s and leave the studio.

And, well, you do see them again. You see them a lot; you’re there every weekend, at gigs, sometimes in rehearsals, you become as regular of a fixture as Mary. The boys liked having you around, you were friendly and bright, and you actually seemed to bring John out of his shell a little. In general, you found it easy to be around them, being close to them, and soon enough, you’ll find yourself comfortable enough to just lean against them when you’re standing close, at bars or during a break in rehearsals. Casual hugs, arms around shoulders, it’s a staple of your existence with the band, which you love because - yay! Human contact! - but with it comes a pretty big detractor.

It’s damn hard to establish whether or not the goofy guitarist who smiles like goddamn sunshine, and who you may have an enormous crush on, is even remotely interested in you as more than anything more than a friend. You’d really tried not to like him like that, for John’s sake at least; he was your best friend, you couldn’t jeopardise your friendship with him, and his band mate, but the heart wants what it wants, and yours wants Brian to never stop smiling at you the way he does when he’s on stage and he sees you cheering for them in the crowd. He’s always the first to hug you when you arrive to a show, never one to brush you off when you tuck your arm into his when you’re both waiting for drinks at the bar, he plays along well when you’re doing a bit, and he’s always the first to drag you away whenever you’re about to get in a scrap with Roger.

That was the main problem you had with the band; Roger was far too easy to wind up, and you were far too willing to kick that hornet’s nest whenever the whim struck you. He respects you well enough, likes you well enough, is even willing to share the armchair in the hall outside the rehearsal room when you two are the first ones to arrive, and the others show up and you’re both arguing over an article in the paper but he’s got an arm around you for stability. It’s not that you don’t get along with Roger, it’s just sometimes fun to watch him get worked up over a joke. Like when you’d told him you’d seen better drumming in a high school marching band. You’d almost copped a drumstick to the face for that one, but you’d caught it just before it had landed, and after a beat of silence in which the both of look a little impressed at your reflexes, you both break out into unintelligible arguing, drawing the attention of both John and Brian who had been chatting at the side of the room. 

You’re about a foot away from the drum kit, brandishing the drum stick and threatening to shove it somewhere unpleasant, and Roger was standing, looking a little like he was two seconds from crashing directly through the drum kit to tackle you, when you feel a pair of arms around you, and you’re being dragged away. Looking around, you see John advancing on Roger like he’s a spooked horse, trying to calm him down.

Once you realise it’s Brian, you stop trying to get away, and simply let yourself be walked backwards until the two of you are near the door, and he turns you, arms still around you, so he’s blocking Roger from your sight.

“Why do you have to rile him up like that?” Brian asks, and you turn around so that you’re toe to toe.

“It’s not my fault he doesn’t know how to take a joke.” You grumbled, crossing your arms awkwardly as they’re trapped between the two, though Brian doesn’t loosen his grip, in fact, he seems rather endeared by your antics.

“Can I have that?” He asks, eyes dropping to the drumstick in your hands, and you snorted. You can hear Roger in the background angrily murmuring that he’s fine.

“I caught it, it’s mine, fair and square.” You say, voice lofty. “It’s a trophy.” You added, and that set Roger off again, just as Freddie walked through the door.

“It’s a trophy, my ass! Give me back my drum stick, you knob!” He hollers, and you use the element of surprise to shift both yourself and Brian to face the enraged drummer, though he doesn’t let go of you. John’s got his arms around Roger, but he’s not being held nearly as securely as you.

“This trophy will go up your ass! Call me lazy again!” You dared at the top of your lungs, even as you were being hauled backwards. “Let go of me, Brian!” You protested as Roger broke free of John and started wrestling one of his cymbals from it’s stand, to both John and Freddie’s shouted protests. “You throw that cymbal and I’m keeping it too!” Are the last words you get in before the door to the rehearsal space shuts and you hear it lock, presumably by Freddie. Brian lets go of her and promptly sat himself on the armchair in the hallway, looking like he was trying to process what had just happened.

With your back against the door, you twirl the drumstick absentmindedly, a skill you’d picked up quite by accident, simply by virtue of having seen Roger show off so much. It’s not something that goes unnoticed by Brian, but he doesn’t comment on it.

“Why?” Is all he asks, and you finally look up. When your gazes meet, you lob the drumstick gently over to the side of the room, already bored with it.

“He was being a dickhead.” You sighed, as if it were answer enough, letting the tension out of your shoulders and resting your head against the door. Silence stretched between you, and when your gaze shifted from the ceiling to look at Brian, he was waiting with a half-smile for an elaboration. “Rog told me that if I was going to just laze around I should start looking cute or being helpful,” already your explanation made far too much sense, and Brian chuckled. “So I said I only help out people with talent, and that the rest of you were fine-” you don’t know what to make of his pleased little smile, but you’re already getting to your feet and making your way over to him, “and of course he feels the need to prove himself.” You say, sitting down on Brian’s lap. Sitting sideways, you hang your legs over the arm of the armchair and rest your cheek on his shoulder. It’s automatic, the way he rests a hand on your thigh, the other coming to wrap around you in support.

“Wouldn’t have mattered what he’d played, would it?” You can hear him smiling, and he already knows your answer.

“He implied that I was lazy and not cute.” You made a face, like you couldn’t believe it, even after the fact. “Me!” Brian couldn’t help but chuckle at that, though his heart wasn’t in it.

“I have to ask, is this some weird, passive-aggressive flirting technique you’re using on him?” And when he says it, you sit bolt upright, frowning deeply, flushing with embarrassment; he thinks you’re flirting with Roger of all people?

“I don’t know how to flirt with people I do have a thing for, let alone Roger.” But as soon as the words left your mouth, you felt your face heat up further, and you scrambled to a standing position. “What makes you say that?” 

“Well you do talk about his butt a lot.” Brian himself seemed unable to look at you, and you started pacing.

“I threaten his ass a lot, I’m not- Is this about what I said about the drum stick?” You asked, eyeing the singular wooden drum stick where it’s lying on the floor. You don’t pick it up.

“You also- the spinny thing he does with it. It’s a thing he does to show off, like his signature, I just-” He’s floundering a little bit, and you find yourself smiling despite the situation.

Coming to a halt, you stand, facing the chair, fond smile on your face as you see where he’s a little flustered. Heartbeat thumping in your ears, you throw caution to the wind, just a little.

“If it was just as easy to learn guitar as it was to twirl a single drumstick, I’d’ve been Jimmy Page months ago from watching you.” You half smiled, heart in your throat. He finally looks at you, radiating pride despite his bashfulness, which is a sweet look on him, and you gently step forward, settling back down into the chair and curling up by him.

“I like seeing you in the crowd, you know?” He murmured, tapping out a gentle rhythm with his fingers on your thigh.

“I like watching you play.” You respond, before admitting. “It’s one of my favourite things in the world, seeing you up there, all confident; you’re very talented, you know-” and you look up to gauge his reaction, but he cuts you off with a kiss. Relief floods through you as you kiss him back, indulging in what you’d been hoping for for what was months at this point, since the first studio recording.

“Y/N-” John unlocks and open the door in quick succession, takes one look at where you and Brian had just broken apart, caught absolutely red handed, and immediately shuts the door again. You and Brian take a moment to look at each other, processing what had just happened, before bursting into laughter again, which quickly devolves into more kissing, until he’s gently moving you off of him, reminding you that he still had the rest of band practice to attend.

John is smug during the entire drive back to his house where you’re still crashing on his sofa, a few days away from the paperwork for your own place being finalized.

“I knew it.” Is all he says when you finally snap and tell him that smug, righteous asshole wasn’t a good look on him.

Freddie caught on almost directly after John; he’d picked it up from context clues, and also because at your next gig, Mary seemed to know without you or Brian barely speaking two words to each other. She’d leaned over to Freddie during one of the breaks and asked how long the two of you had actually been together, saying that she’d meant to ask before but it’d never been so obvious. When Freddie tells you this, you almost do a spit-take.

“You’re joking.” You respond, eyes shining with amusement. “What? Is he looking at me differently?” You cheeks flush as you look over your shoulder at where he’s waiting by the bar, and he looks back at you, shooting you a bright grin that made your heart flutter. Looking back, Freddie’s wearing a knowing smile.

“No, he’s always looked at you like that.”

[itsblosseybitch]

Griffin Dunne by Lynn Geller (INTERVIEW Magazine, May 1985)

At 29, Griffin Dunne has seen the movie business from many different perspectives. Born in New York City to Ellen Griffin Dunne and television producer-turned-writer Dominick Dunne, Griffin grew up in Los Angeles and is the nephew of Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne. Eleven years ago, he returned to Manhattan to pursue an acting career and, after roles in Off-Broadway plays, television, and “An American Werewolf in London,” teamed up with Amy Robinson and Mark Metcalf [misprinted with an e at the end] to produce the film “Chilly Scenes of Winter,” in which he had a small part. He and Amy went on to produce “Baby, It’s You” and, most recently, Martin Scorsese’s “After Hours,” starring producer Griffin Dunne in the male lead. As if this weren’t enough responsibility, the past year has also included acting roles in the films “Johnny Dangerously” and this spring’s “Almost You.” 

Looking remarkably fit for such a busy man, Griffin strode into the Lion’s Head in Manhattan only fifteen minutes late and carrying a briefcase full of future projects.

LYNN GELLER: You come from a literary family--your aunt, uncle and father are writers--were there any actors before your generation?

Griffin Dunne: Well, my mother was an actress until she had children, meaning me. I was the first. She was raised on a ranch in Nogales, Arizona, and my grandfather sent her to school in the East. My father was an actor then and he met her at a play. Actually, she hated being an actress.

LG: I didn’t know your father had been an actor.

GD: He wanted to be an actor before he became a producer. He was a stage manager and actor, studying with Stanford Meisner, who ran the Neighborhood Playhouse. Meisner told him he would never be a leading man because he was too short. When I say short, I mean my height, five-seven, five-eight. He left the profession because he wanted to be a leading man, not a character midget, or whatever he thought he would be. This was in the pre-Dustin Hoffman days. He became a stage manager for live TV, everything from Howdy Doody to Playhouse 90 in the ‘50s. When I was two, he got a job in L.A. and that’s where I was brought up. 

LG: Is that home?

GD: Well, yeah, home is where the mother is, but I’ve lived in New York for eleven years.

LG: Why did you move here--you went to school in the East?

GD: I went to boarding school in the East [more specifically, Fay School in Boston, Massachusetts, based on a New York Times article from the -late ‘90s and the Alumni page] , a pre-prep school that was very repressive. Coats and ties, whippings--if you ever saw the Lindsay Anderson movie If... you know what I’m talking about. You stay through eighth grade and then hopefully you graduate and go somewhere like Exeter and Andover. 

LG: Did you?

GD: My response was to get the hell away from the East Coast and go to a liberal arts school in Colorado called Fountain Valley.

LG: I know about that school. That was supposed to be a very wild place.

GD: Well, I was hoping it would be. It was wild in my wildest imagination. You could grow you hair as long as you wanted and you were allowed to smoke cigarettes. You could pretty much get away with anything, but I did manage to get myself kicked out.

LG: What did you do?

GD: I smoked dope and a teacher saw me through a window. The next night I was going to appear in Othello, and I never got to do the play. 

LG: So you were acting at an early age. Was that because of your parents?

GD: No. I was planning to be a writer. But a guy who taught acting talked me into auditioning for Zoo Story, the Edward Albee play. I got the part and that was the end of that.

LG: How old were you when you got kicked out?

GD: I was 17 and almost finished. They wouldn’t let me graduate, which was really depressing. It was more depressing that I didn’t get to play Iago. They felt that my performance would be tainted by the fact that I had been kicked out and I might be unduly rewarded by applause.

LG: What did you think you might do after that?

GD: Be an actor. I finally got some work. I was in a movie called The Other Side of the Mountain.

LG: Then you came to New York?

GD: No, then I got a job on a television series called Medical Story. I had about ten lines. I played a doctor, stuffing an IV in Linda Purl’s veins [misprinted as Linda Pearl] and answering Meredith Baxter Birney when she came in and said, “What’s the diagnosis, David?” I’d memorized the diagnosis, which was complicated medical jargon. 

LG: What did you use for inner motivation?

GD: My major motivation was to say the words correctly. I figured if I did it like a real scientist, I’d pull off a real character coup. Then right as we were about to roll, the medical adviser on the show came over and said that the diagnosis wasn’t accurate, we had to change the description. They changed the lines and every time we’d go for a take, I couldn’t remember the lines and I’d clam up. The director would go, “Cut. What’s your problem? What is your problem?” I said I needed five minutes, so he said, “Okay, five minutes, the kid’s got five minutes.” I went into a little room and I was so nervous about ruining my career that when I went to light a cigarette, I set my lip on fire. So when I went back to give the diagnosis I hadn’t memorized in the first place, I lisped. The director was furious. He said, “Cut. What’s the accent? Are you doing an accent on me?” Finally, the actress, Linda Purl, took out one of my pens in my top pocket and without me knowing it, she wrote out the diagnosis on her arm, where I was to insert the IV. So when they said, “Roll ‘em,” I had no idea at first what my line would be and then I looked down at her arm and there it was. It was very sweet of her.

[Based on the available information I have, the Medical Story episode that Griffin Dunne was on was titled “Up Against The World” or “Us Against The World” depending on what you check. The episode is said to have aired December 4th, 1975. All I could find on the show was a promo on YouTube.]

LG: You must have fallen in love.

GD: I did, but we never got to say goodbye. So I got the lines out, but what I realized from that experience was...nothing. Absolutely nothing, but to have a cigarette in your mouth when you go to light one. Shortly after that I moved to New York and signed up at the Neighborhood Playhouse.

LG: Because your father had gone there?

GD: I didn’t know he’d gone there until I was already in there and he told me the Stanford Meisner/leading man story.

LG: While you were studying acting, did you work as a waiter?

GD: Yes. At Beefsteak Charlie’s for a limited engagement. At Joe Allen once for two weeks. I lied and said I was experienced and I clearly wasn’t. That was enough to get me the job at Beefsteak’s. I hung in the longest there--they liked my work.

LG: Then you would go on auditions? Is that what you do when you’re a waiter/actor?

GD: When you’re a waiter/actor with no agent, you read Backstage and go out for plays that you never see in ads for openings. They never appear as productions. I went to an audition for an original play once, written and directed by a woman with a long Russian name. She thought I was perfect for the part. It was the first time a director said, “You are going to be great, you’re it.” She told all the other actors to go and took me out for coffee. I couldn’t believe my luck--I’d just arrived in New York. She took me out, we talked intensely, and at some point I realized she was stark raving mad. She had this long scarf that dragged behind her picking up dirt and pizza crust. I looked closely at her and realized she was a bag lady. I realized that anyone can hold an open casting call, a trick I haven’t really employed yet as a way to meet new and exciting people. 

LG: How much does it cost to take an ad out? As much as a bag lady collects in a day?

GD: No, these people weren’t quite bag. They have apartments and enough money to be able to decide, is it Safeway tonight or an ad in Backstage? At some point, they just cross that line. 

LG: How did you get involved in producing?

GD: Well, Amy Robinson, Mark Metcalf and I were unemployed actors hanging out together. We were working on the play Cowboy Mouth, which we were going to do for ourselves and hopefully get a production. That never happened, but the three of us had a lot of energy together. Eventually that translated into our trying to get a movie off the ground. Amy loved the book Chilly Scenes of Winter by Ann Beattie, and we agreed. That became our first project. We were all frustrated at being out-of-work actors. At the time I was working at Radio City Music Hall selling popcorn. I carried around a big set of keys as the manager of the popcorn concession. I wasn’t getting a lot of feedback on my work.  

LG: Had you ever thought of producing before?

GD: I never had dreams of producing, but I was with Amy and Mark and what we wanted to do was much closer to what I wanted to do than what I was doing. It felt as good as acting. 

LG: How did you end up doing Baby It’s You?

GD: I was in Poland acting in a TV movie called The Wall. Amy was talking about the idea for the film before I left. It was loosely based on her life, about a middle-class girl who gets involved with one of her classmates, a guy from the other side of the tracks. While I was away, she got John Sayles involved. We discussed it over the phone from Poland, the conversations closely monitored by the hotel staff. God knows what they made of it. But I didn’t have too much to do with development. 

LG: You mean in terms of the story?

GD: More in terms of getting the development deal at the studio. Amy and I have a very good relationship. We both rely on each other’s opinions and support. We were both line producers on the film. Our job was to keep things rolling and to make sure that John Sayles had everything he needed. 

LG: Are you good at that?

GD: Yes, to my surprise. I never considered myself much of an organizer, but it turns out I’m good with money and at getting along with people, making sure that everyone has what they need and keeping those needs within the budget. 

LG: Let’s talk about some of the films you’ve been acting in recently. Have you seen Almost You yet?

GD: Yes. I liked it. The characters were incredibly human and sympathetic. And screwed up. Not homicidal--but normal, confused human beings. My character in particular was a very confused fellow. 

LG: That was a movie where someone approached you with a script. What made you decide to take it on?

GD: Well, Adam Brooks, the director, had a script he’d been telling me about when he was a script supervisor on Baby It’s You. One day, when I was living in a beach house with Brooke Adams, he came up with the producer, Mark Lipson, and the script. We had a great day at the beach. Brooke cooked this great meal. After they left, we read the script and thought it was really charming, funny. Brooke and I wanted to work together and this seemed perfect. We said yes, thinking, this sweet little picture is never going to get made anyway, but, of course, we’ll do it if it does. Ha ha ha. All we did was say yes, and Mark and Adam took the ball and ran with it. The next thing I knew, we had a start date.

LG: What was the time lapse between those two events?

GD: Six months. It was shot in February. Very quick--I was pleasantly surprised. 

LG: But at this point you’re no longer living in that beach house? 

GD: Six months is also a very. very long time. A lot can happen in that time. Brooke and I aren’t living together anymore, nor were we when we did Almost You.

LG: Wasn’t that hard?

GD: It was interesting. We get along very well. We’re good friends, and we were very professional. I think we both dreaded the idea of letting the crew think there was something more to this than there was. 

LG: Do you think people see you as wearing two hats now, actor and producer?

GD: It’s hard to tell. I don’t really know. I have noticed that scripts that are submitted to Doubleplay Productions that have a character that is anywhere from 20 to 35, they say, “This would be a good part for you.” I don’t know if that’s supposed to be a lure. 

LG: Well, aren’t you looking for movies to produce that you can act in?

GD: Whatever movies Amy and I decide to do, it’s totally collaborative. I can see doing a movie that I would rather produce than act in, but it would have to be very special, like Chilly Scenes of Winter or Baby, It’s You. But doing After Hours revitalized my interest in acting, it really inspired me. So my dream is to be able to continue producing movies with Amy that I can act in.

[ghostmartyr]

Fic: A Terrible Idea [7/?]

Fandom: Attack on Titan Title: A Terrible Idea Author: Immi Rating: PG-13 Summary: Ymir’s pursuit of the hot cheerleader was meant to stay strictly lustful. But it’s a high school AU with a ship tag, so you know, fuck that. Notes: Hey, so if you’re just seeing evidence of this fic now thanks to the Galliard ship tags, this is a yumikuri fic, but this chapter is in Galliard’s pov, and so his romantic woes are unavoidable and awkward. And hopefully entertaining. Obviously it’s not meant as a standalone, but it probably can be read as one for the sake of ship feels.

Segment summary: Porco is a bi disaster.

I II III IV V  VI

This wasn’t happening.

Mr. Smith had a standing policy. Help out cleaning his classroom at the end of the week, get extra credit as judged by the custodian. Porco did not need the extra credit, Ymir could fuck right off with that, but he wasn’t going to turn it down. Kenny’d had them fighting for Levi’s approval through chores since second grade. He knew how to clean a room.

For anyone who cared to know, that meant he was easy to find on Friday afternoons, scraping gum off desks with Connie and Sasha (who did need the extra credit).

Reiner Braun was not supposed to care.

He wasn’t supposed to be sitting on a desk Porco had just cleaned, pretending to be cool, while people who did care were prepping for practice like the coaching staff told them to. Good to know this was the work ethic that kept him off the team.

“Hi,” he’d said, smiling that toothpaste commercial grin Porco’s way, stepping into the history room like he belonged there.

He didn’t. He had history with Mr. Dok. Reiner had no reason at all to be sitting on a desk in Mr. Smith’s classroom, shooting finger guns at Connie and breathing so deeply that the buttons on his polo shirt were straining to keep his oversized muscles from bursting free.

That wasn’t some kind of accident.

Marcel joked that Reiner was too swol for things like clothes. Marcel, being a normal person, didn’t get it. Porco had survived a year of PE with Reiner before. Mr. Quarterback Superstar had a thing for flexing in front of mirrors. He would come to school shirtless every day if he could. Wearing clothes that barely fit, showing off the body that everyone fell over themselves to praise every time his team scored him a touchdown, was as close as he could get.

Ymir said he was too much of a square to use steroids. He was, but there was no natural reason for someone’s arms to be that big. Marcel was ten times the athlete Reiner was, and he still looked like a person, not a teenage bodybuilder.

“I was looking to hit you up, and Marcel said you’d be here,” Reiner had said, propping his sculpted ass on top of Porco’s hard work. Yeah sure, Levi wouldn’t notice that at all.

Now Reiner was looking at him like Porco had anything to do with this conversation. It wasn’t even a conversation. Reiner just decided to walk in and ruin his day, and since that couldn’t be enough, he was trying to turn it into a group project.

Did he somehow not remember what those went like? Those five weeks of third grade where they were paired in art were the longest of their short lives, Kenny getting called in three separate times—culminating in him being permanently barred from PTA thanks to Reiner’s mother (what was her problem)—and last Porco had stepped in that room, the air conditioning vent was still clogged with papier-mâché.

Not to mention last year’s English mess. It was like he lived to tear down Porco’s grade point average.

Cluing in a little in the stony silence, Reiner got to the point.

“Your sister’s friends with Historia Reiss, right?”

The point was that this was actually fucking happening.

“She is not my sister,” Porco said, sourly.

Reiner barely had eyebrows, but what was there knit together. “Ymir?” he said, like Porco couldn’t figure out who they were talking about on his own. “Marcel said you guys were family.”

There was something sick about Reiner using Marcel’s good nature as a weapon. Porco glowered at the concerned pouting thing his lips were doing. He hoped Reiner knew it made him look stupid.

Porco cleared his throat. The words weren’t showing up the first try. “She’s Ymir. What do you care?”

Reiner perked up. Like, his whole body bounced like a spring. “You know how homecoming’s next week?”

No, really? That thing the student council had thrown away their budget for to get banners covering every other hallway? That was happening? Who could have guessed.

Porco nodded obediently, jaw clenched. Ymir had dragged him into enough school plays for him to know when he was supposed to be following a script. Not that Reiner would care. He had his pep talk face on. Sunshine confidence was leaking out of his pores. He was impossible to talk to when he got like this. He was impossible most of the time anyway, but it was somehow worse when he had that sparkle in his eyes to go with his teeth.

“I,” Reiner announced, “want to ask Historia to the dance.”

Porco’s concept of a just and fair world crumbled.

“What.”

“Yeah,” Reiner said, somehow not hearing the blood-curdling scream resounding in Porco’s chest. “It seems like the thing to do, you know? Every school has a power couple. Doesn’t hurt that she’s some kind of saint. She raised more money for the cheerleaders’ fundraiser than they’ve had in years, and—”

And what, he didn’t get enough pretty blond when he looked in the mirror? Blood pumped loudly in Porco’s ears. Reiner’s visage blurred.

Perfect logic. No, let’s not date someone we know, and maybe like for reasons that aren’t total crap, let’s go with the person who matches some absurd popularity scale that neither one of us really deserves. Such sense. Much thought. Wow.

Where did he get off, anyway, thinking about asking someone out on such short notice? Asking someone out he clearly didn’t know anything about, and dragging Porco into it because he wouldn’t know tact if it bit him on his perfect ass, and holy fuck, Historia Reiss?

Really?

Connie and Sasha were scrubbing windows. The squeaking matched his grinding teeth.

Was taste just not a thing? Did he miss something? Was walking around like an alien abductee in now?

Reiner had never even talked to her, if he had he wouldn’t need a damn proxy to hold his behemoth hand.

He was talking to Porco just fine—he was still fucking talking, so clearly conversational skills gave him some kind of buzz—but sure, no, go for the opposite of that. Treating each other like equal human beings who didn’t need stilts to be at eye level was way too conventional and un-creepy for the undisputed lord of the school.

“—pretty, too—”

Porco saw red.

“Fuck off, she’s already dating my sister!”

…

…

The windows stopped squeaking.

Reiner’s mouth stayed open, without sound, and that was so damn preferable Porco was going to kill something, hopefully him. The pressure in his head let off, and a crisp twinge of satisfaction took its place.

For the five seconds of peace he had before his brain caught up.

“Oh,” Reiner said.

Connie and Sasha were both staring, looking like summer break had come back early.

Oh, Porco thought.

Oh no.

“I guess that doesn’t work, then.”

Reiner lifted himself off the desk, arms flexing for pure show. The creases in his ill-fitting shirt said his abs were doing all the work, and Porco didn’t know why that mattered, but he was in hell now, and some of that meant watching Reiner-the-human-specimen getting to his feet in slow motion while flames crept up Porco’s face.

This was not happening.

“They aren’t public about it,” Porco blurted. Dawning horror made his voice come out echoey. He made as much eye contact with Reiner as he could stand. “Don’t go—they aren’t… Don’t spread it around.”

Reiner’s face melted into compassionate understanding. Awful look for him. “No problem. I wouldn’t—hey,” his hand was on Porco’s shoulder and he wanted to bite it off, “I know how it can be.” What did that mean. “Don’t worry about a thing, man. I’ve got your back. And theirs.”

He was smiling. Why was he smiling. Porco needed him to stop.

“You should let Ymir know they’re a really cute couple.”

They weren’t, and there was no way Reiner had ever had that thought until five seconds ago.

He gave Porco’s shoulder an extra pat. “I’ll catch you at practice.”

The silence left in Reiner’s wake when he exited the classroom was how most horror movies started.

Porco looked at Connie.

Connie looked at Sasha.

Sasha looked delighted.

“Ymir finally has a girlfriend?”

Hell.

----

Staying in Mr. Smith’s room until every other human being in the school was gone was not going to work out. Ymir would find him and laugh at him. Then maybe never speak to him again. Marcel would find him and want to know what was wrong. Levi would find him, ignore him, and tell Kenny something was wrong.

Pieck would find him, and be so wonderful he’d want to tell her what was wrong.

Pieck did find him.

She stood in the doorway, leaning too heavily against it. Her arms hated going a full week with crutches. Ymir usually made good on playing pack mule for her backpack, but there was a limit to how much they could help. It sucked.

Pieck smiled through the shadows under her eyes. “It’s not like you to take so long with the cleaning, Pock.”

There were days when that smile was all Porco needed to love life. Today was one of them before Reiner showed up and got him to ruin everything. Porco stopped viciously scrubbing his desk with a paper towel. “Pieck,” he said, “have you ever done something really stupid.”

“No, never,” was the real answer to that. Pieck was the only person he had ever met who was immune to bad decisions. He’d known her since they were five. She was just gifted like that. Even Marcel had his screw-ups. Like being friends with quarterbacks.

Pieck rested her chin on top of her crutch. “Oh dear, what have you done?”

He frowned at his abused paper towel. Cleanser and force had torn a hole in it.

“Reiner wanted to ask Historia out to the homecoming dance.” And that was still the most fucking irritating thing to think, forget saying it out loud. If these people wanted a blonde, short, emotionless girl to rip their hearts out of their chests, they should hit up Annie. All the same stupid kinks, none of the delusion that there was something real there.

He’d told Ymir that and she told him to shut his whore mouth.

Pieck cocked her head. “He hasn’t heard? She’s not going.”

…

Well fuck that, too. Historia Reiss was some kind of cursed object designed to fuck with his life. Days after talking to Reiner weren’t supposed to get worse. Before Ymir and her stupid crush that he wasn’t allowed to call a crush without her whining, him alone in a room with Reiner was peak misery.

He sucked the injustice up and glowered at his desk. His stomach wouldn’t stop squirming. “I told Reiner Ymir’s dating Historia,” he said.

He could hear Pieck’s brain humming in the empty space of a thousand missing comments about how tactless and idiotic that combination of words was. And he’d said it in front of Connie. Sasha could remember when not to gossip. Her best friend knowing the gossip and giggling with her in study hall helped with that. Connie could not keep his mouth shut. That was how he kept losing the stashes of weed he tried to hide around school. He told people about them. Regularly.

Porco’s fingers flexed.

Ymir was never going to forgive him.

It was over her sex life—which she didn’t even have, it didn’t matter how many times she called it that—so what’d he care, but.

“Less accurate things have been said,” Pieck said. Her crutches thumped across Mr. Smith’s floor.

Porco moodily ripped his paper towel into smaller pieces. “Yeah, dating isn’t really what she’s after.”

“Isn’t it?”

Porco gave Pieck a look. It melted in the face of her smile. It was a lot closer than the doorway now, and proximity upped its powers to reincarnation levels of healing. He probably didn’t deserve that right now. Fucking Reiner. He murdered the butterflies and focused on the much easier target of Ymir being a horrible person. “You’ve had to listen to her just as much as I have. I don’t think she knows what romance is.”

And if she did, she definitely didn’t care about it. He knew enough about Historia now to feel like a pervert by association.

Pieck sat down on the desk next to his. She twirled one of her crutches. “And we all know that people never evade their feelings by telling themselves it’s something else.”

Porco snorted. “Are you kidding me? No one really does that.”

Especially not Ymir. He could almost say he liked that about her, when she wasn’t making her main mission in life having sex with a girl she barely knew. If Historia turned out to be a serial killer, she had the money and family lawyers to get away with it. They’d already sprung one family member out of jail. It wasn’t like he and Marcel and Kenny could back up the legal fees to bring someone like that to justice. He wouldn’t even get a chance to say I told you so.

“Well,” Pieck said, after a delayed pause, “you would know your sister best.”

“Not my sister.” His mouth got tired of saying that over and over again, and it was doubly annoying with people who knew what was up, but Pieck just smiled at him, sending rainbow cotton candy fluff to fuzz up his brain.

“She won’t hate you, Pock.”

Porco rolled his eyes. Mr. Smith needed to do something about his air conditioning. He was overheating.

“She won’t,” Pieck repeated. Her calloused hand stroked the back of his before cupping it warmly. “She knows how important Reiner is to you—”

“Pieck.”

She squeezed his hand. “And even if she didn’t,” Pieck continued, like she wasn’t leaving him scarred for life by making his heart swoop through the air and crash into a brick wall at the same time, “she will be delighted to have something to hold over your head. You are now the horrible person who started the rumor that she’s interested in feelings. You’re going to be doing her chores for weeks.”

Hurrah. He could hear all about how badly he was folding the sheets she planned to defile her not-girlfriend on. “Are you trying to make me feel worse?”

Pieck patted him compassionately on the head. “Never.”

Porco scoffed and looked out the window.

Stupid air conditioning.

Fucking Ymir.

Next

[cressed]

50 bookish questions tag

thanks to @midnightinkspill for tagging mee

1. What is your favourite book and/or book series of all time?

lol why u do this to me. i honestly love solitaire by alice oseman a lot but also harry potter and the lunar chronicles. honestly just check my goodreads its in my bio 

2. What is the longest book you have ever read? How many pages?

i think les miserables idk how many pages because i got it as an ebook. either that or lord of the rings cos i got the three in one thingo

3. What is the oldest book you have ever read? (Based on its written date)

the iliad

4. What is a book series that everyone else loves but you do not?

throne of glass lol let me die i hate that series so much dont come @ me

5. What book or book series would you like to see turned into a film/ TV series?

i mean ive always said that the lunar chronciles would make a great movie so :)

6. What is your favourite stand-alone book?

solitaire and i also just finished the hate u give and that was phenomenal

7. What is a book that you feel glad for not reading?

lol rest of the throne of glass series.... even though im gonna download them one day lol

8. What is a book that you feel guilty for not reading?

none because i know im gonna read them eventurally

9. What is a book you have read that is set in your country of birth?

i cant remember the full title but its something something cinnamon girl by melissa keil lol

10. What is a book that you own more than one copy of?

i have three philosopher’s stones and two Emma’s by Jane austen even though i havent read it. 

11. What horror book made you really scared?

ive never read a horror that scared me. i dodnt really read much horror tho

12. What book do you passionately hate?

tog

13. What is the biggest book series you have read? How many books are in it?

does all of rick riordans mythology series count? thers like 25 idek. if not then i will have to say harry potter and im slowly making my way through a series of unfortunate events

14. What book gives you happy memories?

harry potter and lunar chronicles

15. What book made you cry?

i cry in everything lol most recently was half blood prince cos im reading the series again

16. What book made you laugh?

Ihonestly theres always a scene in rick riordans books tha makes me giggle

17. What is your favourite book that contains an LGBTQ+ character?

lol. i dont have an all time fave so im gonna recommend some some. radio silence by alice oseman (every character is lgbt), song of achilles (gay and bi ithink cant remember), raven cycle (gay and bi), perks of being a wallflower (gay side character), the dark wife (lesbian) by sarah diemer, solitaire (gay and bi side character), if i was your girl (trans mc), the complete works of sappho (lol)

18. Have you read a book with a male protagonist? What is it?

who hasn’t lol. rn im reading 20000 leagues under the sea 

19. Have you read a book set on another planet? What is it?

yeah lunar chronicles it was on the moon. also does high fantasy count? then lotr and daughters of the storm by kim wilkins. those are the only two high fantasy i like.

20. Have you ever been glad to not finish a series? Which?

nah i try to finish everything just in case. but im not mad if i dont

21. Have you ever read a book series because you were pressured?

oh my god.carrie by stephen king (shit) and misery by stpehen king (even shitter). (sorry caitlin). 

22. What famous author have you not read any books by?

i mean ive attempted jane austen a few times, never read mark twain either. im slowly making my way thru the classics. 

23. Who is your favourite author of all time?

i stan marissa meyer so hard because she is like so well rounded? great plots, characters, writing and themes. although if there are no lgbt characters in renegades im unstanning lol

24. How many bookshelves do you own?

two but only one is for books

25. How many books do you own?

goodreads says ive read 490 so i’d have probably about 300-430 on my shelf perhaps

26. What is your favourite non-fiction book?

I constanly think abour Eartha kitt’s autobiography ‘i’m still here’ nearly every day lol. that was amazing.

27. What is your favourite children’s/middle-grade book?

his dark matericals by phiilip pullman

28. What is your next book on your TBR?

the kite runner

29. What book are you currently reading?

20000 leagues under the sea

30. What book are you planning on buying next?

hunted by megan spooner

31. What was the cheapest book you bought?

it was this weird book called in search of ancient gods and its about how religion is invented by aliens. i got it for free from a church op shop.

32. What was the most expensive book you bought?

i think it might have been the casual vacancy by jk rowling. 

33. What is a book you read after seeing the movie/ TV series?

girl interrupted

34. What is the newest book you have bought?

the kite runner

35. What three books are you most looking forward to reading this year?

im doing the popsugar reading challenge so i usually dont even know what im gonna read until its time. im gonna try and fit renegades into it somehow, also that beauty and the beast spin-off book ‘lost in a book’, and tbh im pretty excited to read hunted.

36. What is a book you love that has a terrible trope? (Love triangle, etc)

lunar chronicles. the terrible trope was heterosexuality.

37. Have you read a book in a different language? What was it?

i tried to read the history of alexander the great with a greek-english dictrionary but i couldnt do it lol

38. What is a book you’ve read that is set in a time period before you were born?

u kno there are a lot of better examples but all i cant think of right now is outlander.

39. What book offended you?

im offended by the existence of throne of glass >:)

40. What is the weirdest book you have read?

yeah. insearch of anceint gods. ill give u abit of the blurb.”before the dawn of recorded history, the Earth was host to extra-terrestrial beings ... [who] left signs unmistakable of their visit.” if you’ll remember its about how religions are created by aliens. one of the reviews is by ‘the universe’. i dont know if thats a newspaper or what. its also non-fiction.

41. What is your favourite duology?

soc is the only duology ive finished pretty sure. i did like passenger by alexandra bracken. i just havent got wayfinder yet. 

42. What is your favourite trilogy?

lord of the rings

43. What book did you buy because of its cover?

ghostgirl by tonya hurley (its honestly so pretty). stealing snow by danielle paige. also the 20th anniversary edition of harry potter.

44. What is a book that you love, but has a terrible cover?

the cover i have of anne of green gables is ugly af. also the uk covers of percy jackson are disgusting. 

45. Do you own a poetry anthology? What is your favourite poem from it?

yeah i have a few. leonard coehen, sappho, rupi kaur, amanda lovelace, and lang leav. i also have this teen poem anthology i got from netgalley.

anyway sappho is my fave poet so i will do one from her things.

i shall be ever maiden

if thou be not my lover,

and no man shall posess me

henceforth and forever

but thou alone shalt gather

this fragile flower of beauty -

to crush and keep fragrance

like a holy incense

thou only shalt remember

this love of mine, or hallow

the coming years with gladness,

calm pride and passion

46. Do you own any colouring books based off other books?

no

47. Do you own any historical fiction?

yeah there is a few

48. What book made you angry?

tog. also the hate u give but in a good way

49. What book has inspired you?

all books inspire me

50. What book got you into reading?

harry potter and also twilight lol. then lunar chronicles made me read heaps more than i did before because i doubted i could find a book as good as it and i wanted to challenge myself

idk how many booky people follow me back who will do this so i tag whoever wants to do it just tag me in it so i van see ur answers!

[angel-gidget]

Stars Unearth Your Fires (ch4/?)

Title:  Stars Unearth Your Fires (Ch 4/?)

Fandom: DCU, Teen Titans, Red Robin (preboot)

    Rating:  PG  | Words: 2800  | a03 link 

    Summary: Tim Drake never thought of himself as a troublemaker as far as Robins go. But a passing accusation quickly escalates into a case of stolen memories, technologically backwards clues from his past self, interdimensional hijinks, reflections on the good old days, and possibly the rekindling of a foregone romance. Eventually Tim/??? Mystery ship!

Ch 4: Tim has to look up an old friend or two before he can dig up his (hopefully existent) clue.

A/N: Hey guys! Sorry for the lateness of this chapter. It’s ended up becoming my longest one yet. Thank you so much for the amazing reviews! While there is sadly no Core Four in this chapter (Bart tried to elbow his way in, he really did), they will make more appearances soon. It’s time for Tim to reconnect with a few non-caped companions. My lovely beta Kiragecko took a much-deserved break this week, so all mistakes are 100% me. Sorry if I missed anything!

He and Ives were still friends. He was pretty sure. Mostly. At least, the guy hadn’t taken it too personally the last time Tim had visited out of the blue without speaking to him for over a year.

If anything, Ives had been shocked that Tim wanted to hang with him when he was in the middle of cancer treatment, as so many other friends had flaked out when things got too intense. Tim had just been grateful to have warning, for once, that one of his friends might die. He wasn’t usually so lucky, though he didn’t know how to tell Ives that without telling him way too much.

Two rings. Three. And then—

“Does my caller ID deceive me, or is this richest and dorkiest of my foul weather friends?”

“Don’t you mean fair-weather friends, Ives?”

“No, no, I don’t. You should brush up on your Shakespeare. And cheap surfer-stoner productions in the park don’t count, by the way,”

There were voices in the background, and music too. If anything, Tim would have sworn Ives was in the middle of a… club?

Ives continued, “I do mean foul-weather. That’s what you call people who stick with you when life is sucking but unexpectedly ditch you when it’s time to party. Case in point: I’m throwing a party and you’re not here. Because you never pick up your damn phone, you ass.”

Oh. OH! “Congratulations on your remission, man.”

He could hear the smile through the phone. It wasn’t the same as being totally forgiven, but Ives wasn’t the sort of person who could be happy and hold a grudge at the same time.

“Thanks. It’s my one-month anniversary of the big NED. Looks like for the time being, I’ve rolled a twenty on breathing. It’s worth celebrating.”

Smooth opening. Here we go.

“Feel like doing a more personal celebration too? Maybe something nostalgic? Like digging up our time capsule from the 8th grade? I’ll buy the pizza.”

“Oh, man. Yes. You better, Prince Midas. Hold up.”

He was distracted, clearly talking to somebody else at the party. Tim took a moment. It was just as well that he’d caught Ives when he was distracted. The guy didn’t do parties much. Introvert that he was, they took a lot out of him, including his tendency to say no to things. Even before he’d been sick. Tim didn’t have many childhood friends, but they were bookish gamer geeks, the lot of them.

Ives voice came back on the line.

“I got a friend who wants to come with. The dude’s curious about everything, a real Nancy Drew. Wants to know about my nerdy little 8th grade self. I told him the biggest difference was that I was little and in the 8th grade, but he’s bored and I promised to include him in more stuff.”

“That’s cool. Saturday, noon?”

“That’s high noon to you, buckaroo. And yes.”

——-

He’d outgrown his best nerd shirts.

Tim didn’t even know when it had happened. It wasn’t that they didn’t fit him through the arms and chest—he was wiry enough that they did—but he’d gotten so long in the torso, that the edges of his shirts rose up obnoxiously from the waist of his jeans, constantly baring strips of skin.

When this had happened to Cassie, she’d embraced it and pulled off the sexy belly-shirt like a pro. Tim… couldn’t do that. Or rather, he couldn’t do that without pulling out a persona.

Ives had an meet-up with Tim Drake, not Mr. Sarcastic. So belly nerd shirts were a no-go.

He’d yanked out what appeared to be his least-expensive hoodie and Alfred-purchased designer jeans, and hoped for the best. This was supposed to be about nostalgia for Ives, though Tim had mixed hopes.

What would be worse? Finding nothing but exactly what they had buried years ago, and pretending to laugh with his friend while secretly pulling out his hair over a dead end of evidence? Or finding the evidence he needed in its place, but then having to somehow cover for the oddness of whatever they found by lying to Ives again?

It had been a while since he’d had to lie to someone he loved, and Tim wanted to keep it that way. (And lies of omission didn’t count. Especially to Bruce. And to Dick. And to whomever else he’d been lying to by means of omission lately.)

“Best not to overthink it,” Tim muttered to himself. He had been ten minutes early to the discolored tree that had been the site of his and Ives’ 8th grade paint-ball fight. Also, the site of their only paintball fight, because apparently nobody had told Ives that there tended to be bruises from such a thing.

If Ives was anything like his old self, he’d be five minutes early, and… yup.

Tim smiled and waved as Ives’ old Chevy pulled into the park’s lot. He was about to say hello, when a second person slid out from the car, following after Ives with a growing Cheshire grin on his face.

Tim gasped, “F@*#$ing hell.”

Bernard Dowd.

Ives new Nancy Drew pal was Bernard. Fragging. Dowd. The nosey-est (and therefore worst possible) person to have on a dig that might or might not yield incriminating signs of inter-dimensional antics.

“Why Timbo! With a greeting like that, one would almost think you weren’t pleased to see me.” Bernard bumped the car door closed with his hip as he balanced a brand new shovel on one shoulder.

Ives blinked, “You two know each other?”

Tim scratched his head, “You two know each other?”

“As I’ve told you both,” Bernard set the shovel down by the largest tree root, “I know everyone who’s anyone.”

As if to prove the solidity of his nonchalance, Bernard took his best guess as to which patch of dirt housed the capsule, and made a sweeping ‘you first’ motion with his arm at Tim and Ives.

Tim pulled out Alfred’s trusty gardening hoe, and braced himself as Bernard began to snicker. Because he’d brought a hoe. Because, for all his eloquence, Bernard was emotionally twelve. Ives stared at them both like they had doubled their number of arms and limbs and turned green.

Tim felt his eyes narrow in suspicion in Bernard’s direction, “You knew I’d be here.”

Bernard pulled back his laughter into a finely-controlled smirk, “When dear ol’ Sebastian told me he had an eccentrically neglectful, ridiculously rich childhood compadre named Tim… well, I did the math. But I waited for a face-to-face to be sure,” He winked, “It’s more fun that way.”

Tim purposefully and carefully ignored that entire description of himself as he stared incredulously at Ives.

“You actually let him call you Sebastian? Him?”

“It was the only way to get him to stop calling me ‘St. Ives’ along with several other unholy variations of my surname,” Ives took a deep breath and pitched his own shovel into the dirt, “Now lets get this show on the road.”

Once the digging began, it was a simple matter to let Bernard dominate the conversation, explaining to Ives that he and Tim had gone to the aptly-named Grieve High for a semester together. Until the Aquista gang war had come to their front door step.

Tim’s mind remained vaguely on Bernard’s story, but mostly on the ground they were unearthing. There was a reason Bernard had been able to see the digging spot. It was especially uneven compared to its surroundings, overgrown with grass that was clearly seeded, a slightly different color than what was surrounding it.

Which was suspicious, considering Tim and Ives hadn’t laid down any grass seed when they were kids. Not that someone responsible for the park couldn’t have laid something down, but it didn’t look quite right. It had been what? Six? Seven years since he and Ives had buried the thing? It should have blended with the rest of the milieu perfectly. But it didn’t. Not quite. As though it had been dug up again at least once in the interim.

“Earth to Timinator,” Ives poked him in the forehead, “Is it true?”

“Is what true?”

Ives looked like he wanted to smack Tim with his shovel and Bernard looked… oddly serious.

“Did Bernard’s dream girl turn into a super villain and try to kidnap you?”

And this was why he didn’t want Bernard here. There was the guy’s ongoing conspiracy theory habit, and then there was the fact that he had actually seen way too much.

“No,” Tim heard Bernard begin to protest, but he continued, “Darla didn’t try to kidnap me. She tried to make me into her personal moral compass and I told her where to get off.”

Bernard stared, “You what??? But she—you—she dismantled my car! She had these… these…”

Ives jumped in, “Phenomenal cosmic powers?”

“Yes,” Bernard continued, “And you just told her to go jump off a cliff? And got away with it? What the hell, Timothy!”

Tim blinked. He had forgotten about that. When Darla Aquista had died and returned from the dead with dark magic powers via one of Robin’s enemies, she had sought out her friend Tim Drake out for “advice.” Tim had forgotten that she had gone to Bernard first. He had never bothered to call Bernard and let the guy know he was okay. For all Bernard had known, he’d sent Tim’s untimely demise to his door when he told Darla where to find their former classmate.

Tim put the shovel down for a moment.

“I’m sorry I scared you, Bernard. I meant—I meant that if Darla wanted to be a hero, and she did, she couldn’t rely on me to tell her right from wrong and hold her to it. Heroes take responsibility for their actions. She gets that now. She went off with a superhero team called Shadowpact. She was okay.”

“And you?” Bernard exhaled.

Tim grinned.

“I’m always okay.”

Neither of his friends looked like they believed him.

Ives returned to digging, “See this is why you should call me more often,” He grunted as his shovel finally struck metal, “Your life gets really, really weird without me. Dating undead superheroes, Tim? Really? Oy vey.”

“We didn’t… never mind.”

He could have pulled the chest from the remainder of the hole without grunting, but watching Ives and Bernard wheeze and strain from the physical activity set a good bar for Timothy Drake Wayne’s level of sluggishness. So he panted along with them.

“Makes..nnghhh… a lot of sense in hind sight, though.” Ives breathed.

“What does?”

“Cancer probably doesn’t look like so bad of a boss battle after you’ve seen the fire and brimstone.”

“I…” He could be honest about this much. He could. “It made me glad for the people who are alive. However long they’re alive. Y’know?”

Ives gave him the most earnest smile Tim had seen all day.

“Okay, geeks! And Tim, for all your previous disguise, I see now that you are—in fact—a geek. It’s time to unbox this baby.” Bernard crowed.

Their “time capsule” was less a futuristic tube and more pirate-chest themed lockable luggage from the nearest department store. It had space for stuff, and it looked cool. Even as an adult, Tim felt he could stand by that choice.

Three seconds to blow off the dust. Forty-two to smash the lock. (He and Ives could both remember Tim swearing when they were kids that he would remember the combination, but well, he hadn’t.)

“A moment of silence for the defunct game boy who’s grave we have disturbed.” Ives mock-solemnly intoned, as he pulled out the old system preserved in plastic.

Tim blinked, “You buried your game boy? You loved that thing.”

“Exactly,” Ives poked him in the chest, “I was committed to this project. Unlike you.”

Tim frowned.

“I was too committed. Behold,” he lifted a green mud-crusted travesty that had not aged well, “Rusty the water pistol. Never got in a water gun fight without him. And look! My pog collection.”

“You mean my pog collection.”

Tim shrugged, “Our pog collection.”

“You are both the nerdiest nerds who ever nerded in the eighth grade. I don’t know why I expected differently.” Bernard sighed.

“I did warn you, buddy.” Ives laughed.

Bernard muttered something unintelligible, but it set Ives off on a lecture about the impact of popular culture. Tim took it as a much-needed distraction.

It wouldn’t have done Tim any good to have remembered the lock combination anyway. The lock wasn’t as old as it should have been. And while the capsule was filled with mementos from younger years, there were two small evidence bags at the bottom that were Batman standard issue.

They were hair samples.

Easily researched. Easily pocketed.

Tim breathed a sigh of relief as he quietly slipped them into the back of his jeans.

That had… not gone nearly as badly as he anticipated. He reminded himself that it wasn’t quite over yet. After all, he owed Ives pizza.

Ives and Bernard were still arguing amicably.

One of the reasons Ives never had too many friends as a kid was because most people couldn’t understand that the guy’s favorite form of conversation was a heated debate. When he felt like conversing at all outside of Wizards and Warlocks.

Bernard… well, Bernard just decided when someone was his friend and treated any attempts to escape his friendship as an amusing joke. It worked for him. But he also had a tendency to look down his nose at people who fit too neatly into a category, and Ives tended to wear his categories loud and proud. So it was… curious.

“So, how did you guys meet?”

Ives and Bernard paused and then grinned in unison.

“Elizabeth Spillgrave.”

Who? It took Tim a moment. Right.

Elizabeth Spillgrave. Real name: Jodie Weise. Internationally recognized alien conspiracy theorist, and one of Ives favorite authors. Or least favorite, depending how one looked at it. He always holed up in his room on the day one of her books released, reading voraciously. He would spend the next two weeks debunking her entire book paragraph by paragraph. Sometimes with charts if he was feeling particularly zealous and homework wasn’t challenging him enough.

Tim blinked, “And you became friends over this?”

It didn’t seem possible. Because while Ives was the sort to spend two weeks disproving the sort of theories that were the woman’s bread and butter, Bernard was just the sort to spend the same amount of time proving it. Or perhaps editing how such events would be possible, turning each paragraph into a spring board for his own theories. He would stop short of making charts, though. Bernard thought excessive chart-making was for nerds.

Ives shrugged, “We were both late to her book signing last year, and had to team up on scalping tickets to get into the VIP meet and greet.”

“We shared mutual disappointment that she could but spare us two minutes each, even after all that hassle.” Bernard sighed.

Ives rolled his eyes, “And then he started going on about his idea that the UFO’s mentioned in her last book might be Kryptonian. From a hundred years ago.”

“Magic is a thing, Sebastian.”

“They’re aliens, Bernard. Superman is vulnerable to magic. He’s not going to carry around something that could kill him.”

“Humans do it all the time.”

They continued on as they packed up their tools and piled into Ives’ car. Tim didn’t get a word in edge-wise to ask where they were going, but he quickly recognized the route Ives was taking. Pizza Planet, appropriately enough.

He pulled the clear evidence bags from his pocket to glance at them once more.

One contained extremely short snips of dirty blond hair. The other contained a single jet-black lock that looked like it had been curled around someone’s finger before getting cut.

Both sets were sufficient for a DNA database search.

Tim sat back in his seat.

First pizza, then catching up with the two civilian friends who were still speaking to him, maybe some nostalgic passing around of ye olde Game Boy, and then…

Answers.

[smokewizard992-blog]

Its not done but this is my longest story so far please excuse any grammical errors.

Title: Kurokus revelation Another bright and sunny day in the leaf. kuroku returning from a short and simple misson he took to alive his usual boredom. "Now that im home i wonder what to do now" said kuroku as his coat fluttered in the wind. He stops with a face of uneasy wonder as he places his hand on his chest "the ticks are uneasy" kuroku pondered "something isnt right i probably forgot to clean something in the cafinic.." kuroku said with an uneasy grin. And in an instand several explosions can be heard through out the village. "WHAT THE HELL!" said kuroku as he unwravels the hive. "For once things wont be boring!" Said kuroku confidently as he takes off to go meet the challenge. Moving quickly through the village he notices several large centipede creatures thrashing around the village. One of these large beasts turns its attention twards kuroku and lunges towards him kuroku jumps landing on a near by building. "Have a taste of this then!" With a few flicks of his finger tips the hive takes off into the sky above the centipede. A series whirling and click of gears from the hive is heard as several compartments open in the hive revealing ticks fit to burst. The ticks quickly detach and begin to plummet twards the beast eventually exploding in rapid succession "special move: aburame light show" said kuroku with a large toothy grin on his face as the smoke cleared revealing the beast in multiple pieces but kurokus victory is short lived when he senses another presence close to him but before he can turn and retaliate he takes a hard right hook to the cheek sending him across the rooftop. Kuroku now bleeding from the corner of his mouth he looks up and becomes stricken with suprise "i...its you! Theres no way my ticks blew you to pieces!!!" A deep voice radiates the air "you didnt honestly think those little flys of yours would be enough did you?" Chapter 2: Brains vrs brawn "Ok first off meat head they arent flys they are ticks" said kuroku in a irritated groan as he slowly stands up to his foe "Akui kosodoro this time ill make sure i do more than just give u a parting gift on your face" kuroku muttered wiping blood from his lip. Loud cracks echo through the strangely still air as akui cracks his knuckles. "Speakin of which i need to return the favor bug boy" with out a seconds hesitation akui charges across the roof top chakra collecting in his drawn back fist to deliver a more powerful blow as he lashes out his blow once again connects to kurokus face but before he flys off kuroku bursts into a puff of smoke revealing a log "A Substitution?!" Said akui with a shocked tone of voice. Akui quickly notices a patch of paper on the log showing a crude drawing of kuroku giving the finger saying "catch me if u can boxer breifs" the log then opening two side doors revealing 4 ticks. Akui quickly launches back knowing what those bugs mean. Narrowly escaping the blast akui is forced off the roof top and onto the city streets. "Where did that snail slip off too" said akui angrily quickly throwing up hand signs for a jutsu. Boar,dragon,rat his eyes intensify and chakra forms infront of them in an almost binocular fashion and through his eyes all the scources of concentrated chakra are highlighted in his vision. Akui knotices theres chakra strings all over the street attached to random objects and sputtering off into what seemed to be random dicrections. "Tsk youll have to do better than that" akui then focuses even harder revealing the chakra in each string one in particular glowing brighter than the rest "there u are!" Said akui as he runs following the string leading him to a pottery shop. "This again...WHY DONT U COME OUT AND FIGHT ME LIKE A MAN!" Akui shouted into the building. frothing with anger akui hesitantly walks into the shop following the string up to a gourd in the back of the shop "ive seen this trick of yours hide by disguising yourself as the gourd your puppet rolls up into while that damn doll attacks from the shadows well not this time i have you now!" Akui said excitedly as he smashes the gourd with his fist busting off the top half only to reveal theres no kuroku but more ticks ready to blow akui quickly backing up in a panic he knocks over some other pots which have even more ticks inside "SHI-" akui intterupted as the entire shop bursts into a torrent of smoke and flame. Across the street kuroku hops out from behind a tree "first off i dont fight like a man i fight like a shinobi. Second off. Special move: Basket Bomb" said kuroku as he adjusts his shades and reels the hive back into its gourd shape. (End of chapter 2) Chapter 3: we all know pain As kuroku wraps up everything from he previous encounter which included making sure the shop keep and any civilians were unharmed. A roaring voice echoes throughout the village "ALL MIGHTY PUSH" says the voice as the village begins to shake and rumble and a large crater begins forming during this a large gust of wind and dust blows up sending kuroku flying. Hitting his head upon his landing rendering him unconscious. Moments of kurokus life past by in an instant and yet he experiences every moment like they just happend. Most of these moments included hinata in every moment she appeared kuroku felt a warm joyous feeling overwhelm him but as they went on that feeling faded and shifted into a red hot jealousy because he realized hinata wasnt looking at him but rather naruto instead the memories became blurry as they went by faster faster eventually kuroku saw his own face with a scowl and furrowed brow he opens his mouth and says "its not ment to be". Suddenly kuroku jerks awake realising hes buried under a pile of rubble blood running from the top of his head to his chin on the right side of his face. a small chip in the left lense of his shades. His throat dry his body sore. "I have to find her" kuroku grumbled as he began to shift and move to get out from under the rubble. Upon finally digging out his upper torso he saw something that crushed him not physically but this hurt more than any broken bone down at the bottom of the crater he saw her.. hinata standing in front of what kuroku first thought was the fourth hokage but looking more closely it was naruto trying to protect the village and she was protecting him. Kuroku couldnt hear most of what hinata was saying but the message to kuroku was vividly clear. Kuroku heard these words as if he was right next to them "i love you naruto" and just as kuroku heard these words he felt his body become 100 times heavier and his heart drop into 1000 pieces his ticks became restless as one lonely tear fell down his cheek kuroku didn't fully understand how he felt . he was hurting but there was something else a tiny something a small glimmer of somthing deep down past all the pain....it was peace kuroku felt at peace with what he saw and then he realized why kuroku felt happy so long as hinata was happy and if konohas hyperactive knuckle head ninja was the one who made her happy. Kuroku began to try and pull himself outt of the rubble but he was to exhausted to continue eventually collapsing once more. (End of chapter 3) Chapter 4: recovery Kuroku opens his eyes to realize he was napping in the woods and needed to get back to the village so he stands up and begins walking kuroku eventually reaches behind him to grab something and starts to panic "HEY WHERES MY uhhhh..." he said forgetfully he begins patting all over himself for he couldnt shake the feeling of something thats very symbolic of his character is missing as he pats his coat pocket and finds his shades "ah here they are" kuroku said as the feeling mostly dissapated kuroku eventually stops and kneels at a small creek and leans over to see his reflection and he quickly knotices the one black tuft of hair that sticks up no matter what he does "in my dream it was red...i may do that it looked pretty good" kuroku said to his reflection "that way youll look far cooler when your older" he said with a playful childlike chuckle. Kuroku eventually looks up and sees a man in white cloth staring down at him from atop the hill. Kuroku being the agravatable child he is began to march up to the man to tell him its rude to stare but as he got to the top the man turned and walked away only to reveal to kuroku that theres a small log cabin at the top of the hill but hes sure that he shoulda been able to see the cabin from where he was but ever determined kuroku marched on into the cabin only for him to see rows upon rows of large doll like items of all shapes and sizes kuroku is filled with wonderment he sees the man at a small work desk at the other side of the cabin so kuroku wanders up "what are these things.." kuroku said curiously "Puppets" said the man in a kind but stern voice "i build them to keep from being home sick" said the man again kuroku astonished his mind began to scribble all the possible aplications for these tools "TEACH ME HOW" shouted kuroku as a grin makes its way across the mans face as everything fades away once more with a quick glimpse of kuroku learning building and training eventually completeing the hive as once more he wakes up only in a room he did not recognise on a bed that wasnt his as he felt around he knoticed his legs are in braces and he bumps into a book accidentally "HEY watch it will ya im trying to study here" said a voice as the page gets turned kuroku quickly looks up quickly being a loose term since hes very sore and he knotices hanabi hyuga reading her book at his bedside as she looks up and realizes that hes awake and she stands up and runs out the door kuroku is very confused but remains calm as neji and shino walk in "about time u woke up natsu has been working tirelessly treating you and taking care of hanabi" said neji in his usual stern voice "im actually astonished this isnt a result of more of your breeding projects" said shino as a way to mock kuroku "honestly it kinda is" kurokus face suddenly went strawberry red as natsu walked in and and lit up "oh im so releived your awake" said natsu gently. "Y-your a woman?!" Said kuroku with embarrased suprise in his voice "does my name not give it away?" Said natsu "to be honest its not at all what i imagined" a flash of a pink haired pyromaniac appeared in kurokus head. Natsu looks down and says "sorry i didnt meet your expectations kuro-san " kuroku quickly retorts 'NO no u exeeded them greatly ! Uhh how long was i out anyways? Natsu looks up "about a week." She says reluctantly "A WEEK?!" said kuroku with a shock "that means at somepoint youve......" his face turning even more red natsu walks up and starts removing the braces "it wasnt bad" said natsu very quietly kuroku looks to be on the verge of a heart attack as he falls out of bed from celebrating (End of chapter 4)

[mastcomm]

What Happens When You Get Famous Off One Song?

MILTON KEYNES, England — Last summer, a teenager named Tom Austin decided on a whim to record a rap song. He’d never made music before. But even as he was writing down lyrics — picking out references from an iPhone note of random stuff he’d been keeping — he was strangely sure of himself.

“I don’t want to sound bigheaded,” he said, “but I knew it would do bits.” (Translation: Mr. Austin knew the song would connect widely.)

The result was “Mary Berry,” a delightful, deadpan ode to life in small-town Britain. The title is a nod to the 84-year-old former “Great British Bake Off” co-host. In the song, Mr. Austin says he “needs a girl like” Ms. Berry; he defeats a local man in badminton; pulls out a secret Android cellphone; performs his own circumcision; threatens to fight the TV host Piers Morgan; flexes his discount Slazenger sneakers; and announces, “Top thing on my bucket list is to slide tackle the Queen.” For his rap alter-ego he borrowed the name Niko Bellic, an Eastern European gangster character from the video game Grand Theft Auto IV.

As Mr. Austin later wrote on Instagram: “I decided to make a song within like 2 days and then 3 weeks later I signed a deal for it, now it’s 2mil+ streams across 3 platforms CRUUUD.”

This success seems both calculated and hilariously accidental. In the intro to the song, he offhandedly shouts out the flashy East London afrobeats group NSG; not long after its release, he was touring Britain as their opening act. He’s taking meetings and other “bits and bobs,” Mr. Austin said, and carefully planning a second single with a record label. He is now 19.

In 2016, 13-year-old Billie Eilish posted the song “Ocean Eyes” on her SoundCloud and went to bed. She woke up to see it had accumulated thousands of plays overnight. She is now one of the biggest pop stars alive.

The 16-year-old rapper Bhad Bhabie has built her career off a catchphrase-minting “Dr. Phil” appearance. The 13-year-old country singer Mason Ramsey has capitalized well off a recorded Walmart yodeling session. Their sudden, culture-saturating music moments would have been impossible before SoundCloud, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. Now the music industry, social media and the influence industry at large are racing to adapt for, and borrow from, such overnight success stories.

Tom Austin — or Niko B, for that matter, as he’s now calling himself, possibly to avoid litigation — is nowhere near as well known as Bhad Bhabie or Billie Eilish. His success, to date, is very much niche, and contained within Britain. But he’s at a crossroads each saw for themselves. He made a song. It did bits. What’s next?

Getting Down on Friday

A decade ago, instant virality could be a curse. Rebecca Black was 13 in 2011 when her uncanny-valley banger “Friday” — written for her in exchange for $4,000 of her mother’s money — exploded.

“It took me years to get healed,” she said in a recent interview. “When you’re 13, nobody can explain to you how mentally extreme everything is.”

Back then, she had vague dreams of Broadway, but no real career plan. In the years after “Friday,” she fended off all kinds of cynical business entreaties.

Now at 22, she’s built a team around her that she trusts. And she’s back making music: “Sweetheart,” her latest release, is available on all streaming platforms. She’s also talking about her experience, and getting very positive reactions.

“I had to figure out the long and hard way that nobody can give you this career,” Ms. Black said. “I had to do it in my own way.”

In the years since “Friday,” it’s possible audiences have become less judgmental.

While there’s still a bit of stigma associated with sudden virality, especially when it feels easily won, maybe we understand now that tunes can come from anywhere. Maybe we got tired of getting upset.

Or maybe the latest generation got better at being ready. In the end, Bhad Bhabie has bangers. Mason Ramsey is a legit country radio presence. And Lil Nas X’s path to success was, on a much grander scale, similar to Tom Austin’s. He used meme knowledge and a social media base to turn “Old Town Road” into the longest-running No. 1 single in Billboard history.

Ms. Black, as a pioneer, had no idea what was about to hit her. Teen creators now live knowing that any given thing they post might just change their life.

Crafting the Second Single on the Poets Estate

On a recent weekday on the high street of the tiny old town of Newport Pagnell, near London, Mr. Austin sat in a foofy coffee shop with a Realtree-style coat zipped to the neck. (He only opened it once, briefly, to remove a single key from a Prada fanny pack surreptitiously strapped to his waist.) He grew up, and still lives, in a humdrum subdivision down the road called the Poets Estate. He and his buddies used to skateboard, break into abandoned places, hang out at the kebab shop.

And the rest of the time — “deffo, 100 percent” — he was on the internet. At 8 or 9, that meant building Lego animations on YouTube. (“Like, a skeleton horse chasing a guy,” Mr. Austin said.) By 14 or 15, it was prank calls and mock news channel stuff. He managed to build up a bit of a YouTube following, then switched his attention to Instagram, where he first posted cool-guy fit pics before having a revelation.

“Mate, if I’m just showing you what I’m wearing, that’s not gonna get me anywhere. This is Instagram. You can’t deep it,” Mr. Austin said, meaning “take it seriously.” So he pivoted and started posting stuff like “me looking in the mirror, and in the mirror is this really buff guy,” he said. “It was the right turn to make.”

Around the same time, inspired by the multi-hyphenate talent Tyler, the Creator, he introduced a clothing label called Crowd; he now sells to customers as far as Dubai. He used to work at a Subway, but quit when a Crowd pop-up netted him more money in one weekend than he’d previously made in a month. He even wrote an elaborate resignation letter: “Thanks to everyone even Carlos bye Marisa I hope I can transfer my sandwich making skills to my future day to day life.”

As much as anything, “Mary Berry” was a promo for Crowd. (The video is full of Crowd clothes, and a post-video drop was his best-selling to date.) But it was also born of a generational D.I.Y. ethos: Why not do it?

Mr. Austin points to Alex From Glasto, a fellow pasty British teen who won viral fame last summer when he was pulled onstage at Glastonbury by the rapper Dave to perform the hit “Thiago Silva.” Since then, Alex From Glasto has released his own single. “I was like, ‘No offense to him, but if this guy can blow up …” Mr. Austin said, trailing off.

The making and release of “Mary Berry” was tied — breathlessly, naturally — with Instagram documentation: edited fake DMs from Drake asking to get on the remix, surreal footage of Mr. Austin surrounded by a platoon of life-size Mary Berry cardboard cutouts. “I did a video of me throwing a basketball out a window and then the Lakers being like ‘yo, we need to sign you right now,’” he said. The first Instagram Story tracking the journey is just captioned “about to become a full time rapper.”

He also got friends who are big on Instagram, like @GullyGuyLeo, to post a snippet of the song.

Then he landed attention of @ImJustBait, an influential British meme account run by a slick operator named Antz. (According to lore that Mr. Austin repeats reverentially, Antz started it without even having a cellphone. “He used his friend’s phone! Now he’s got, like, the most known Instagram page!”) Antz messaged Mr. Austin, saying, “yo, you’re jokes.” Now Mr. Austin is signed to Antz’s imprint, WEAREBLK, an entity created specifically to avoid the pattern of established labels profiting off viral successes they had no hand in creating.

So Mr. Austin is now officially, and accidentally but not accidentally, an independent musician. At an appearance at the taste-making Boiler Room Festival, he heard people sing his lyrics back to him for the first time. His tour with NSG took him to London and Birmingham and Manchester alongside “mad big artists.”

“I felt so bad because all these artists put in so much time and I’m just like, ‘what is going on,’” he said. The juvenilia-fueled song made the rounds and even got back to his grandma. (He said she texted him about one of the more anatomically graphic lyrics.)

Next up, hopefully, is some money. “My dad’s a builder and he doesn’t work right now, which is tough. And my mum’s a teacher in a special needs school. So pay off my parents debt, that’s the very first goal,” Mr. Austin said. “And after that it’s like — whatever. Literally tomorrow I could try beatboxing, and then, a year from now I could be a really famous beatboxer. Anything I wanna do, I’ll just do it. Cause there’s no reason for me not to do it. So I’ll do it.”

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