#anyway. textures making me go insane. i had a different aesthetic in mind for this but this worked out just as well

[noro124]

weird dream again! summary: i'm in prague again stuck in a room full of spiders the size of my fist & a guy i feel like wants to kidnap me & sell my organs on the black market. fortunately, i escape & then turn into steven universe.

part 2: lobotomy corporation is real life but everything keeps going wrong lmao

so! first: the setting. i’m in a dilapidated apartment with bad corrugated carpet flooring with my prague roommate Lindsay. we’re sitting on this couch that’s got a huge spiderweb to the left, & smaller, brightly colored spiders are busily spinning their way onto the couch cushions with no mind for proper spacing. across from us is a large, bulky, balding guy wearing a red shirt. he makes me feel very suspicious and unsafe, but i don’t remember why i was in the room. in the dream, i was like “oh this is the room i stayed in in prague!” but it wasn’t. the whole thing was kind of shaped like my bf’s apartment actually but only in layout. 

anyway, there was that juicy fist sized spider. it was brown & iridescent green. it was really big & had a huge fat abdomen, so i moved away from it in the room, but it grew wings & chased me, which was horrifying. the balding guy told me it flew under my butt so i hopped up & sat back on the couch, but away from the other spiders too. 

eventually the guy got up to leave but said “don’t go anywhere” which made me even more suspicious, so i snuck out of the door just as he closed & locked it. then i ran into my boyfriend (?) but as if we’d never met. i explained the situation & we hung out & i did Pokemon Go Quests, which were sort of like research except the tasks it asked you to do had nothign to do with pokemon go, it was like “smash three jars” “throw 5 rocks into the river” etc etc. prague again looked different from my memories - it was nicer & more aesthetic. it looked like someone with too much free time & a minecraft shader pack & also a texture pack went ham on bridges, flowering trees, and lamp posts.

i exited the apartment building which also apparently doubled as the school & saw a sign thta said “

I HATE GRAPHIC DESIGN

I HATE PRINTING

I JUST WANT TO PLAY VIDEO GAMES

HERE’S MY CASHAPP”

& it was signed by a bunch of people proclaiming solidarity, so i signed it too in gray & wrote “you are so brave i suppport you sister”

then i turned into steven from The Universe, & was accompanied by one of his Steven Univers Friends? his other friends were sitting on some benches looking for me. there was uh. amethyst, garnet, lapis, peridot,, & the wizard. the wizard was light pink with a pointy hat that had green tassels. I was walking past him with my Steven Universe Brand Friend & couldn’t call out to them for some reason could only keep walking, so if i walked past them i’d be gone...

But they did see me! so i was freed from my walking past them spell. 

There was a brief cheerful rejoin & then The Wizard was gonna teleport us back to the states. Before she could charge up her spell, however, I was like “Hey! As long as y’all are here, can I show you my favorite places first?” & everyone was like “yeah okay” but since Prague was completely different from how I remembered it again, I couldn’t find SHIT lmao

dream 2: lobomy comporation? except different. abnormalities were weird rare items instead that were just placedi n hallways and rooms as decorations, like a museum. There was an item - a mask that cried blood - that if you placed it in a room, everyone in the room would go insane & start killing everyone around them. 

Also there were the shoes items, the ones that will occasionally possess someone, except they were absolutely fucked up in timing & would just possess anyone that came into a certain range rather than one at a time every time the counter goes to 0, & they seemed to take twice as many clicks to fix.  

i had a character that was like. a 7 year old with a bowl cut & only he could negate the effects of the insta-insanity from the bleeding mask but ONLY if i put him next to the shoes room where he would get possessed every 5 seconds & i had to spam clicks on him until he was cured. 

anyway. wack

[ofcloudsandstars]

I had a really colourful (but long) dream last night! I haven't had such a vibrant adventurous dream like this in a while. It was very vivid and somewhat thrilling. I used to get them more as I was younger but now the pop up every once in a while.

It is a bit long so I'm going to make a read more

It was sometime in the near/far future and I'd guess I was somewhere warm (yet not tropical??) in south east Asia. I was on a beach with a rich pink sunset, brown sands and castle ruins with this extremely attractive dark skin Indian guy. We were apparently investigating the castle ruins together, flirting, checking out the wildlife and showing off some talents. I had certain magic powers in this world like I could fly gracefully and control things with my will and he was impressing me with his skill of chemistry and showing me local nature I was deeply interested in. The space was beautiful it felt like another planet. The grass was tall and bronze and would glimmer in the setting sun, and the trees I don't know how to describe it but were slightly different with large brown circular leaves.

We were hunting for mutations which I was reading as natural unbalances. Like I vaguely remember it was us looking for strange animals we've never seen before cause nature survived some environmental crash and new species emerged to correct it but humans survived and were still living their old ways but the new creatures, society named mutants and put them of course in a bad light cause they often are the cause of why we can't continue living the same way now that there are 'monsters' lurking out there. Of course the big ones get battled off and killed (though even those are difficult cause some evolved to resist destruction) but the more troubling ones would be like small worms similar to electric eels that have an appetite for electrical wires that destroys cities power systems, or bugs that evolved to thrive in algae polluted waters that make new toxic ecosystems that humans and livestock can't be around.

I was trying to understand these new 'monsters' and was checking out this vibrant blue and neon striped scorpion/lobster crustacean on the beach (apparently locally referred to as tiger scorpion in case you want to know the local names of monster creatures in my dream world), that was threatening to puncture a highly toxic venom in us if we didn't keep away. We clung to the side of the castle as it menaced us but as I made sure we were both calm and sent it calming/friendly vibes it calmed down too and left us alone. I held the extremely hot guy and floated us down gently to the sand and I was trying to explain that maybe these creatures weren't bad it's just evolution. He was very VERY open minded I could tell cause apparently this belief was highly controversial for the future society we were living in but he somewhat agreed. He took me around the castle and off the beach towards some bronze grassy fields where cows were grazing. There was a pond with dark brown water and a few dead cows around it. Some had large holes in their heads. It was from one of the bugs that live in the toxic water. For some reason animals can be attracted to the water like flies to a pitcher plant and the bugs get to them. I had to agree that the site was very ugly and gruesome but we still shouldn't villanize these 'monsters' but see this as some grave imbalance. I kept asking 'how did this happen?' As if I knew deep down it was more than just humans being irresponsible with the environment but also governments not controlling something they've been keeping a secret and now it's karmic consequences humanity is facing.

Suddenly a very elegantly and luxuriously dressed woman emerges from a black car. She's upset yet too polished and elegant to show it outwardly. I could just feel her anger and disapproval. She had a long taffeta type iridescent wine gown that shone bright red, lots of onyx jewelry, a tight upbun with more black jewels in it and beautiful red shoes. She's clearly the guy's mother and is asking him what he's doing so far from the estate in some dangerous area (we were awfully too close to the pond and it was weirdly tempting to at least dip a foot in though your logical brain was screaming don't do it). She couldn't fathom why someone normal would want to be out in the wilderness, especially a space with wild beasts and monsters JUST to appreciate nature? Who even appreciated nature?¿? That was her expression. She looked me up and down and dismissed me as someone wayward and obviously lower class since I was dressed not in the most expensive gowns capitalism could buy. I don't remember my clothes, they were comfy and average as much as I could remember.

Anyway I thought it was the end. I hugged him goodbye and was going to be off but he asked his mom if I could come. She said of course and I was surprised? But excited! I got into the car, they took us to a train station where we saw more beautiful views of the landscape (and towering metallic iridescent neon city spires far away on the horizon), and then finally to an estate where the manor was like several huge black cubes stuck together in a mowed bronze grassy lawn that was expansive until the foresty horizons.

There were servants but they were mutated. Like it reminded me of brave new world where there were an epsilon class of humans. These guys were like mutated monkeys that could talk and were just aware of themselves and their surroundings so they can serve. They looked cartoony with huge watery blue eyes, white fur (she got the white fur breeds for the fashionable aesthetic) and dressed in colourful red vintage clothing like the uniform of an elevator man. It was really sad and unnatural but the wealthy class was happy they could buy something to work for free for them. I asked why she couldn't get AI since they have android servers (in this world apparently) and she listed all the reasons of them being faulty and breaking down and having to invest in new models every other year while these creatures live for at least 8-10. And I'm like: I remember reading they inject them with diseases on purpose so they die earlier and you have to buy another one and she gave me this Irritated look. You know that look someone gives you when you point out that their new iPhone was created by exploited child labour in Africa but they're the type of person who doesn't care cause they just want to look cool and show off their money? Yes that look of apathy towards capitalisms wrongs and irritations for you pointing it out.

Anyway the guy was so happy I was still there and was ready to show me around but his mom reminded him he had to spend time with (I forgot her name so let's call her Carmella since I remember it starting with a C.) Carmella was a beautiful yet terrifying woman who was my age and her beauty was also subjective but I'd guess she fit the beauty zeitgeist that was the standards of this future. She was south Asian too but her skin was pale like she bleached it until it was milky tea coloured. Her hair and eyebrows were a metallic platinum blonde and her eyes were the colour of greenish blue opals with the same opal like specs that flash. They were pretty but you could see they were artificial like implants. She wore Indian Jewelry like the bridal nose ring that connects to the ear and the hair jewelry that ran across her silvery blonde parted hair but they were both made from turquoise stones and fiery pink crystals that matched her bright hot pink iridescent gown with turquoise and goldfish orange accents on it. I think it was the style of the upper class to dress almost like Marie Antoinette royal court fashion that was modernised by the unnatural colours and blended with the local culture by mixing it with south/south East Asian jewellery, shoes and accessories. Carmella looked like a living doll but had the personality of a kardashian. We found her in her suite of the home surrounded by hypercolorful boxes filled with shoes and bags of all different colours and textures. She didn't really budge to say hello to him until she saw me with him then she smothered him in hugs and aggressive kisses and though I couldn't understand their language she said something to him that I could tell was dirty. She kept asking him in different ways if he wanted to spend time with her and was was sucking on some type of sweet loudly and suggestively and he did not want to but his mom was there and he felt pressured so the mom closed the double doors and ushered me away. I was confused but the mom explained that him and Carmella were engaged and that Carmella parents were some insanely wealthy oligarchs (clearly as well as this family and I could tell the marriage was arranged to keep money and power with the family) and she further mentioned that she would gladly liked to have left me dumped by the fields by the beach but she never saw her son so happy in years so I could stay as his servant (strongly hinted as concubine).

I was so confused, I tried to protest but she showed me my room which was very doll like and custard yellow. It was near the rooms where the white monkiesh servers slept. She forced me out of my clothes and wanted me to wear something fashionable which was a white lacy Victorian gown with a long lacy collar. I wore neon yellow boots and custard yellow and neon elaborate jewelry (like necklaces, a nose ring I was sure was a tracking device but was too painful to remove, chandelier earrings).

I was restricted from entering parts of the manor like there were no locks on the doors but the doors could read the details of your face and register if you were allowed to pass or not. I was stuck in the servants quarters unless the guy would visit me. I realized I was imprisoned but that didn't stop me from my investigation of where humanity went wrong with its experiments and disregard for nature. The mutated servants were a small piece of the puzzle. I was devising ways to escape as well but the mother scared me and has a personality similar to cersei so I was trying to be as sneaky as possible. Even though the doors wouldn't let me pass I'd sneak across the elegant black marble manor by using my powers to open the doors mechanical lock with telekinesis.

I finally met up with the guy who I saw for the first time was wildly depressed. Something happened which he felt he had no control over his life (probably cause his parents controlled his life and his future) and he turned out to be a heavy drug abuser in effort to escape his reality. He was just very drugged when I found him and lounging in the corner of a room. He warned me that I couldn't use my powers in his home cause if his mother sees they'll think I'm some mutant/monster as well and will hand me over to the government that'll get me killed or worse, experimented with. I asked if he wanted to run away with me and he looked so sad I could feel pain in my chest. I understood it that he was just a very important person and no matter where he left to he'll be found. He just said that he'll never be free before doing another fat line. I understood he'd be no help and I'd have to escape the manor by myself.

I got a slightly interesting revelation from that final conversation. Maybe I was a monster too. Still in this futuristic world there were witches, even more powerful than before with powers of telekinesis. We evolved, and we evolved with nature. We could communicate with our emotions to other animals and monsters that could read our vibrations. We understand the earth and can understand her change and adapt to her, yet still the capitalist society that clings onto her like a parasite won't ever accept that and nature has to undo it with force. The monsters are only villanized cause they challenge that way of life and bring destruction to cities and resources humans depend on and I would be villanized since I still love and accept a changing environment and hate capitalism and have the ability to break through mechanical doors that oligarchs put up.

I can't tell you what happens after cause my FUCKING ROOMMATE WANTED TO PLAY FUCKING SHOOT EM UP GAMES AT 9 AM THANKS but that was my dream!

[gothify1]

For $42 a pop (a worthy investment, we promise!) come DeRoest's four-shade eyeshadow quads—two sisters, one warmer, one cooler. According to DeRoest, the shades and tones were perfected for months and with all skin tones in mind.  Another fun fact? In addition to being insanely pretty, the shadows feature what the brand calls a "first-of-its-kind proprietary eye shadow formula that's nor a powder not a cream, but an intensely dreamy combo of the two. Plus, they're clean, vegan, and free of talc, gluten, and parabens. Meet DeRoest's favorite child within her glitzy brood. Aptly called Disco Eye, it's the same user-friendly hybrid that meets somewhere in the middle between cream and powder—"right in the sweet spot," as DeRoest describes in the brand's official press release. Ultra-pigmented and dusted with chunks of mega-watt glitter, you can use it on its own or layered on top of other shadows. (We love dabbing a thumbprint of it right in the middle of the eye and in the inner corners for extra sparkle and highlight.) Even though all of the Roén shadows can be effortlessly applied with your fingers, everyone (especially a makeup artist) knows that the perfect brush can play a crucial accomplice when it comes to blending, smudging, or lining your shadows. Therefore, DeRoest wanted to create the ultimate double-ended brush that can be used for every need when it comes to decorating the lids. It's made from the most superior quality of vegan bristles, (they're synthetic but feel as soft and lush as real hair) and is conveniently double-ended with two different sizes and shapes to cater to every need. The first time I saw Roén Beauty in all of it's shimmering, mystical glory on social media, it was pretty much love at first sight. I couldn't wait to get my hands on it, but I was a tad bit worried about one little thing. I absolutely suck at applying eye shadow. And because of that, I hardly ever wear it. However, Amanda (my fellow beauty editor, and my friend and roomie) is kind of the eye shadow queen—she loves cream formulas in particular—and over the year or so we've lived together, her makeup habits have started to wear off on me. I've become less intimidated by shadows, and since I hate fallout and intense dark shades, I've started to gravitate toward creamy formulas in shimmering metallics or sparkling nudes in lieu of my signature bare lid and liquid liner. As expected, opening Roen's chicly packaged eyeshadows didn't disappoint in real life. The colors and finishes were just as mesmerizing up close and personal as they had been on my iPhone's screen, and I was instantly worried I wouldn't be able to do the pretty formulas justice considering my eyeshadow novice. Although the shadows look like powders, when you work your fingers into them, you realize they're actually more of a cream, which, truth, be told, I couldn't have been more thrilled about. Although both the 75˚ and 52˚ palettes are gorgeous, I immediately glommed onto the former, which is more earthy and warm. The first time I applied the shadows I used the brush, and while the shape and size of both ends are perfect for application purposes (the bristles are also insanely soft!), I felt like I wasn't able to deposit as much color and pigment onto my lid as I would have liked. I was in a hurry, so I did what I could, tapped on some of the Disco Eye in my inner corners, and headed off for an appointment.  The next morning, I did a little more research and saw a few videos of the product being applied with fingers. Since that's my natural inclination when it comes to eyeshadow anyway, I ditched the brush and went full steam ahead with my fingers. And, it was amazing. The colors came to life on my lids in all their saturated high-shine glory, and then after I had patted and dabbed everything where I wanted it, I then went in with the brush and blended everything out to soften the overall look. I also used the other end with the smaller-sized brush to go in with the darker shades called Nikki Dust and J'adore to line my eyes. To take it further, I capped it all off once again with the Disco Eye, concentrating my finger application in the middle of my lid and the inner corners of my lids.  Even though Amanda said she did notice some creasing with the 52˚palette, I didn't have any problems during the day, and I applied my shadow around 6:30 a.m. (yep, it stays put!!). Perhaps this is because we prepped our faces differently? Not sure. All in all, I'm obsessed with these shadows. They're fool-proof, easy to customize and layer, and they're super versatile depending on your makeup or shadow M.O. Oh, and they also make you about 150 times more photogenic.  I'll start off by saying I'm a bit of an eyeshadow fiend. That said, I almost exclusively use cream formulas because I like to create simple looks, and I like to be able to apply my favorite products quickly and on the go. So, the offerings from Roén seemed kind of perfect in regard to my typical eyeshadow aesthetic. Erin gave me the cooler-toned 52˚palette to test out, a quad of cream-powder hybrids that I could apply with my fingers and blend really easily. I love that all the shades coordinate, and you can easily use all four to create a look that has more dimension, or you can just use one or two for something simpler. At first blush, I was impressed with how pigmented the colors are but not in a way where they become intimidating or difficult to apply. The formula is effortless to blend and this palette really flattered my hazel eye color. No complaints there! My only qualm is that over the course of the day, the pigment seemed to fade a little bit, and I definitely noticed some creasing which called for a few touch-ups and reapplications. Does the staying power stand up to my holy grail Tom Ford Cream Shadows? No. Do I think the colors are really pretty, the texture clever, and the quad convenient? Yes. Overall, I can definitely see myself keeping these shadows in my car for those days when I resort to doing my makeup at a red light and still want a pretty, and put-together payoff, but I can't say I see myself replacing my normal eyeshadows with this for everyday use. I will say though that I did receive an insane number of compliments on my makeup the day I took this picture which definitely counts for something.  Next up, I Re-Created My $436 Makeup Routine for Less Than $100.

[florchis]

I'd love to hear more about your demisexual Fitz headcanon because the more I think about it, the more I love it. Like, do you think Fitz knows he's demisexual? Is he out to anyone? Give me all your theories! :-)

Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you. I never knew I had so many *ideas* about this until I started writing it. For some reason this ended up being a re-telling of the canon-Fitzsimmons storyline with demisexual Fitz? To be honest, I think I didn’t change the story much, but it still was so important for me to tell.

{Mentions of both of them being with other people, mentions of both of them being bi, mentions of Will Daniels, a lot of discussions of sex, but nothing explicit.}

Growing up, Fitz knew that he wasn’t much into girls like his classmates were, which led him to a small sexuality crisis, like, was he gay??? He finally decided that probably not, because he didn’t care much about boys either (the discovery of his biromanticism came later in life), he was just Weird Like That, and too busy building things and getting a PhD at fifteen to pay much attention to people.

Then he met Simmons at the Academy, and Simmons was still a genius, still his own age and still fanning herself over people?? Like he couldn’t process it? Again, he assumed his lack of interest became from His General Weirdness and from his “it’s not like anybody would give me the time of day, anyway” belief.

Simmons talks about sex all the time. Like. All. The. Time. Not in much detail, but since she is bored by people that is not him, she usually has a lot of comments to share. “I kept him longer than usual because he is not that bad in bed” and “If he put the same effort into giving oral that he puts into trying to get me to give him oral, maybe he wouldn’t be half bad”. Fitz is baffled by this. Like, not disgusted, but for him sex is a thing that exists in a plane outside of reality. One of that kind of things that your parents tell you “You will understand it when you are older.” But apparently he is old enough now- because Simmons is-, and still he is not getting it?

Just before they graduate from the Academy, he decides that he has to know what is all the fuss about. It’s not a decision made out of desire, it’s not something his gut is telling him to do, it’s a very conscious, intellectual decision. He is a scientist, and scientists ought to try things before drawing a conclusion.

He picks a Nice Girl, one that is a freshman and therefore doesn’t know much about his weird reputation, but still one or two years older than him. He takes her out, does all the expected things, or so he imagines. When she invites him into her dorm room, he says yes.

It is… an okay experience, but nothing to write home about. He still doesn’t get it. He can get as much physical satisfaction by jerking off and way more emotional satisfaction during a night in with Simmons.

During they stay at SciOps, Simmons sets him up a couple of times with female co-workers. Fitz goes out obediently with all of them, but never asks them for a second date, and just barely kisses them goodnight. He doesn’t connect with them as much as he connects with Simmons, and then what is the point in getting physical with them? He barely has enough free time as it is to add up another thing to the list.

After the fifth lukewarm date, Simmons confronts him.

“Are you gay, Fitz?”

“No. I mean, it doesn’t make much difference to me, a man or a woman. I am just not interested in them, okay, Simmons?”

“Don’t you get sexually frustrated?”

“… should I?”

“… Fitz, are you asexual?”

“I’m not repulsed by sex!”

“You don’t have to be repulsed by sex to be asexual, silly. Let’s look it up.”

They look it up. Simmons redirects him to tons of webpages, forums, personal blogs. Always the biologist, she is the one more interested in Putting Things Into Categories. Always the engineer, he only cares if Things Works, and they don’t need to have a label to work.

“Okay, but don’t you find Amy hot?”

“I find her aesthetically pleasing, if that is what you mean.”

“… and what about the Doctor?”

“Well, he sure is a sight for sore eyes.”

“I will just say it very crudely: wouldn’t you bang one or either of them if you had the opportunity?”

“No, why would I?”

(He has sex dreams about Simmons from time to time, but that is normal, yes? To have sex dreams about someone with whom you are close, about whom you care very deeply? He refuses to acknowledge that sometimes those “sex dreams” are not “dreams” at all, because he is fully awake during them.)

He tells Simmons that her research is dope, but that it doesn’t feel quite right, that he is just Weird and they should leave it at that. He doesn’t tell her why.

He still wigmans for her from time to time, but always comes home alone.

“Don’t you get lonely, though?”

“How could I, when I have you?”

“You are absolutely right.”

Right before they are assigned to the Bus, Simmons is courting this legs-for-forever-ballet-dancer during a night out, and Fitz gets stuck with her brother. They hit it off quickly, talking about football (real football) and engines. They end up making out heavily in a dark corner. Things are going sort-of-smoothly, but when the boy asks him- very gentlemanly, by the way- if Fitz wants to go back to his place, Fitz feels like someone is pouring a bucket of iced water over his head, and he flees. Simmons never gets to find out if the dancer is as flexible as she claimed to be.

“At least we found out that is not a gender-related thing, yeah?”

“Shut up, Simmons. Just shut up.”

It’s strange living in the Bus, so close to so many people, after living only with Simmons for so long. He feels a little dizzy, getting used to new people, and he flirts with Skye almost unintentionally, because he truly likes all of them- and Ward is so way out of his league-, and when Simmons points out that she thinks that Skye may not be picking up on his flirting, he shrugs. That’s almost better, in a way. He doesn’t know how he would react if she flirted back, and had expectations about him, and.  

When he realizes that he is in love with Jemma, the sexual urges don’t come right away. First comes the desire to kiss every inch of her face, and hold her close, and tell her that he loves her. Which are, frankly, some of the few non-sexual things they still don’t do together.

The sexual desire for her comes with time, but it is so shocking and new that it almost throws him off balance. One day she is leaning down on one of the lab’s counters, and he just side-looks at her and his brain goes Damn, would I tap that, with no intermission whatsoever. He starts hyperventilating, and has to shoo away her concern before things get even more awkward.

Things only escalate from there, and he feels deeply ashamed, because she is his best friend, and her own woman, and a human being, for god’s sake, but he still gets bombarded by sudden desires to lick every freckle he knows she has on that milky white skin of hers. He tries to repress so much consciously that his dreams get absolutely insane.     

He wonders, sometimes, why did this sudden change happen? Why with Simmons, of all people? He has been so apathetic about sex for all his life, why that had to change? Deep down, he knows why, but he doesn’t have much time to process, because the fall happens, and then the pod, and then everythings goes to hell.

While she is away, he tries his best to not think of her on any romantic or sexual capacity. He just thinks about his best friend, and about how much he misses her, and about how much he needs her, and about how betrayed he feels. All the hurt and all the anger and all his struggles cover up all his other feelings pretty well.

But then Jemma comes back, and she is even more pretty than he remembered, and she is sad all the time, and he is angry all the time, and wanting to kiss her is the least of his problems, to be honest.

Life within S.H.I.E.L.D. is never easy. There is always something crumbling down, someone on the verge of dying, someone on the verge of taking over the world, someone keeping a terrible secret, someone gaining superpowers. But maybe there are certain  things that they still can make okay. When he leaves the Playground with Fury’s cube, his favourite sandwich and a Love, Jemma forever imprinted inside his eyelids, his heart is beating faster than it has beaten in a long time, and there is no time, there is never truly time, but he still says to himself So this is what being thoroughly turned on feels like.   

Life within S.H.I.E.L.D. is never easy. He doesn’t have time to relish what she told him before he took off, much less to savour the triumph of asking her out, that she is taken away.

He gets single-minded after that, trying to get her back. (Or he wish he could be single-minded. He keeps getting distracted by the curve of her lips saying oh after he asked her out, by the texture and the weight of her hand on his, by the intensity of her voice when she said maybe there is. He misses her with a fervor he never thought was possible, he misses her in every way he ever had her and in some ways he never did, and it is an all-consuming feeling. He dreams about her, sometimes in platonic-ways, sometimes in so-not-platonic-ways, and he wakes up in twisted, sodden sheets, crying bitter tears.)    

Having her back in his arms, tattered and bruised, scrawny and dehydrated, but alive, is the most wonderful feeling in the world.

Jemma is having a hard time adapting back to Earth. That’s okay. He can wait. He has waited twenty-eight years. She is healing, and he can wait forever for her. Her happiness has always been his priority.

The harder part is that she is not opening up to him, and he can feel her running between his fingers like water. Or like the sand of that goddamned planet. She dresses on his clothes and walks around the base holding his hand, and searches him for comfort during sleepless nights, but that doesn’t mean that she is talking to him, and he wants to respect her time to process and her boundaries, but his heart aches for her.   

Then she tells him about Will, and it’s like someone filled up his lungs with liquid lead. It makes total sense, just because she is the sun of his solar system, it doesn’t mean that the feeling had to be reciprocal, does it?

But he is still her best friend and there is still a good man stranded on a planet for fourteen years, and there is still work to do. There is always work to do. He has no right to grieve something that never was. (Never, ever, has he felt more guilty for the way he just wants her, not even while she was missing.)

There is a recording of her talking about how much she thought about him and about them, about the future she wants with him, and she claims that it was the more clear-headed she ever was. It takes every ounce of willpower on his body to not jump her then and there. (It’s so confusing. What is he finding so arousing: the promise of a future, the love confessions, her? How is he supposed to tell all of them apart, define what is the source of his emotions?)

Then they are screaming at each other, in the lab nonetheless, and she shouts that he dived into a hole in the universe for her, and he has to kiss her, because she still doesn’t understand that it’s the less he would do for her. While he kisses her, his blood turns to liquid fire. He never knew there were so many nerve endings in his body. (Or he knew. But he never felt them before.) It’s hopeless, anyway. They are hopeless.

(There are some things he never talks about; hearing Jemma scream, unable to do anything to alleviate her pain, having to listen to her asking him to let them kill her, are only some of them.)  

When Ward teases him about killing Will because he slept with Simmons, he tells him to grow up because Ward is a dick. And he is not a killer. And Will is a decent human being who deserves so much better. And Jemma is not his possession. And what he feels for her goes so much deeper than just sex, not that Ward would ever understand that.

In a way, he knows he did the right thing in Maveth. But the guilt is real, the responsibility is real, the weight of Jemma’s disappointed gaze is very real.

Everything is too much, and he needs to take a step back. It doesn’t matter that his heart pleads for her, his mind pleads for her, his body pleads for her. Some things are just not meant to be.

Jemma tells him I miss you, and Can we start over, and maybe they should do that, so Fitz doesn’t have the heart to tell her that he doesn’t think he can.

Apparently it was a long-con, because she then takes his own quantum physics explanation and turns it against him, and says that the future is set and that they are inevitable. His heart literally melts.

She is highkey flirting with him, and his body is screaming at him I have only ever wanted this one thing, why are you denying it to me? Some things apparently are inevitable, or at least they are, because he is not sure who kissed who, the only thing that matters is that they are kissing, and it’s magnificent.

Her hands are on his neck, she is sitting on his lap, and Fitz’s body feels electrical, like a high-wring spring, full of potential energy ready to be transformed into kinetic.  

“Sorry, sorry, I don’t want to push too fast either.”

“What?”

“You know, with everything with you, and, and, and sex. I’m cool with whatever makes you comfortable. I don’t want to overstep any boundaries.”

“Jemma?”

“What?”

“You are rambling.”

“Oh.”

“I will let you know if I’m not comfortable with something, okay? But I- well, let’s say that I have thought about it. Before.”

“You mean… sex?”

“… yeah.”

“Sex, sex and, and us?”

“You don’t have to put it like that, like, like I am some kind of-of pervert, or something!”

“Oh, Fitz.”    

“We should consider all variables as we move forward, because things are bound to get… complicated.” He needs to ask for confirmation that nothing will change between them if- when- they have sex. He is scared, scared of how much he wants her, scared of messing this up, scared of being in unknown territory. Sex is not a thing that comes natural to him, and combined with their complicated history… yeah, chances just aren’t good. He wants her deliriously, but he is also scared shitless. He has thought it over and over so many times that the only solution that comes to his mind is to stop thinking and just listen to what his body and his heart are telling him.

“I’ve been thinking about it, about us, and, um, it clicked. The crux of our relationship is like the singularity in transhumanism. Singularity is the defining moment-”

“-the point at which a measurable variable becomes infinite.”

“Our friendship is linear. Simple, comfortable.”

“Effortless, really.”

“As soon as we deviate from that path, change becomes exponential. The point of no return.”

“Are you comparing us sleeping together with crossing the event horizon? It’s quite lovely when you think about it like that. And also terrifying.”

“Yeah, exactly. So, we should stop thinking altogether… “

“… and just do.”       

(He feels very comforted that Jemma also finds this experience a little terrifying.)

He is not nervous anymore when he gets to the hotel room. So many things have passed during the last two hours that the only thing he wants is her, her, her, in all the ways she wants to give herself to him. And most importantly, he wants to give himself to her in every way imaginable, and that’s a certainty that he has never had before.

They laugh so much during sex, and that is truly the best thing that could have happened to him. They are still the same people, this experience is not changing the baselines of who they are, and that’s good. His love is real, his desire is real, and right now, everything he has to give is for her.

[chorusfm]

Bleachers – Gone Now

One of my favorite musical memories was a moment of serendipitous timing outside a record store in Florence, Italy. We found this store almost as an afterthought, popping our heads in at the end of a long day of traveling. But as we left the store, we saw a man busking across the street, singing “Sex On Fire” by Kings Of Leon at the top of his lungs. And I’ll never forget watching this man, singing the lyrics in both English and Italian, crooning “This man is on fire” to a person passing by on a bike. As I watched the assembled crowd start to sing along, again in a mix of languages, I was struck by how a deliberately audacious, silly slice of pop-rock bliss had transcended cultures and boundaries. All this is to say that when I heard the saxophone on “Everybody Lost Somebody,” made to sound not dissimilar from the street busker I saw in Florence, I knew that Jack Antonoff has had experiences like that. Experiences that made you become not just a spectator in the world around you, but a participant, connected with others. And he realizes that so many of these moments and connections are made through our most universal of languages: music. In many ways, that is what Gone Now, the sophomore record of Jack Antonoff’s project Bleachers, seems to be about: living presently and openly engaging and trying to connect with the people around you. The refrain in “Goodmorning,” which is repeated with different syntax throughout the album, sets the stage for this attempted human connection, as the narrator takes his first steps towards trying to open himself up to people: “Good morning to the cops, good morning to my upstairs neighbor, and to the kids at 42, anyone who lent me a favor.” But it takes the song’s second verse for us to transfer from polite greetings to transfers of human connection and empathy: “She touched me and said I know you’re not to blame. What a weight to live under, what a lie that’s been covered.” And I think that moments like these are the crux of what Gone Now strives to reflect. Moments when you no longer need to hide those rolling thunderclouds which threaten to overtake your mind, but instead someone, a loved one or a compassionate person you meet, gives you the ability to let go of these feelings of regret and loss that so often seem to be bottled up. In writing about Gone Now’s centerpiece “Everybody Lost Somebody,” Antonoff summed up his feelings about the universal weight of loss: “It’s like we all have a suitcase. We don’t want to carry around too much — then it would be impossible to keep moving. We don’t want to empty too much out — then we wouldn’t be ourself [sic]. It’s this strange balancing act that seems to be the core of being a person. The more I look around…The more I realize that the one thing we all have in our suitcase is loss.” “Everybody Lost Somebody” is an open-hearted and open-armed embrace to those suffering with or trying to bandage over the scars of loss and grief. It’s a well-documented part of Antonoff’s life that he lost his sister to cancer when he was just eighteen years old, and it’s not at all a stretch to say that has been the catalyzing agent for his entire music career to date, but “Everybody Lost Somebody” feels like his most profound and nuanced tackling of the subject so far. Having lost my father at seventeen, around the same age Antonoff lost his sister, its easy for me to relate to Antonoff’s sentiments about setting impossible standards for yourself about needing to ”get over” or “move on from” this loss of your loved one. “There’s a reason I can’t stop at all from changin, come on motherfucker you survived you gotta give yourself a break,” Antonoff writes. And I think he’s right, that baggage never fully goes away, perhaps over time, things start to fall out, memories of your loved ones, and that makes the suitcase a little bit lighter and easier to carry. Perhaps you find someone to help you carry your suitcase, meaning your suitcase is lighter. But then you carry part of their suitcase for them, too, and there’s no guarantee that suitcase is lighter than your own. But you keep carrying that suitcase anyway, because that is what makes you human. But while “Everybody Lost Somebody” touches on some weighty topics, Bleachers adroitly straddles the line tonally on the record, balancing the contemplative and heart-wrenching with transcendent, feel-good pop music. “I Miss Those Days” is a nearly saccharine bombastic singalong, while “All My Heroes,” perhaps my favorite song musically on the record, builds layer upon layer onto its instantly iconic refrain: “In the focus, I’ll be dreaming / In the focus, I’ll be something better yet.” Antonoff is still heavily indebted to John Hughes movies in his musical aesthetic. He recently live-scored The Breakfast Club and it shows. “Let’s Get Married,” one of the album’s most energetic songs, could easily have fit in on a new score to that film. In a fit of inspired creativity, Antonoff enlists Anthony Paul Jeffries, professionally known as Ninenteen85, to co-write and produce the track. Nineteen85 is most well-known for his collaborations with Drake, including “Hold On We’re Going Home”, “Hotline Bling” and “One Dance.” To see Jeffries lending his savant-like production talents and ear for atmosphere and vibe to what is otherwise one of the most straightforward songs in Antonoff’s discography is a showcase of just how important every texture is on Antonoff’s records. It’s not just the Nineteen85 collaboration, though, that stands as a testament to this. Gone Now pushes the boundaries of what pop music can be in 2017. Gone Now supplants the very idea of a separation between pop music and other genres. It’s a record that at times feels like a throwback to late period Beatles records on songs like “Goodmorning” and “I’m Ready To Move On/Mickey Mantle Reprise.” The latter especially has a moment where Antonoff soars into a computer aided falsetto before a descending horn arrangement explodes in with a vibrancy. It could easily have been created in the Summer of Love as bands were experimenting with tape modulations and new recording techniques. But at other moments it feels like Gone Now is looking forward, past the present, to where pop music is headed. Collaborations with Sounwave, Julia Michaels, and others make songs like “Foreign Girls” and “Hate That You Know Me” sound unique and alien to the landscape of pop music. These are songs that are at once massive and undeniable and delightfully vulnerable. The thing I love most about Gone Now is just how simply audacious it is. I think many people were surprised by how Antonoff seemed to strike gold with Strange Desire. The perfect confluence of factors led to one of the great pop-rock records of the decade. He could have easily played it safe on Gone Now and released another set of nostalgic 80s pop songs and it probably would have been well-received. But this is a daring, challenging set of dense songs, inspired by every corner of pop-music, with insane textures and attention to detail in the production. Nothing about it is a safe follow up record. What I’ve loved about Bleachers since the very beginning, the moment I heard the project’s lead single “I Wanna Get Better,” is how Antonoff can make a personal mantra feel so universal and so uplifting. Gone Now continues that legacy with lead single “Don’t Take The Money.” Of the track’s refrain, Antonoff wrote, “It’s not about actual money. It’s about following a light, a gut feeling. Not following a gut feeling destroys your art and the people around you.” Those four simple words seem to sum up the entirety of Bleachers as a project. Antonoff could have continued cashing checks and playing huge amphitheaters with Fun. for as long as he so desired, but instead, he took the leap, and that self-belief has lead to one of the most fascinating and inspiring pop bands of our time. It’s enough to become a reminder in our own lives, don’t chase the things that are only superficially important. We should chase the things that will make our lives fuller and more enriching, the moments that will take our breathe away, the people who know us so well that we are frustrated by it, and the songs that we will keep coming back to for decades. --- Please consider supporting us so we can keep bringing you stories like this one. ◎ https://chorus.fm/review/bleachers-gone-now/