#but seriously trying to imagine myself in a mini van

[theadventurek9]

As the Subaru approaches closer and closer to 200k miles and it is getting more and more rattly. I'm considering my next vehicle.

So help me god it might be a mini van. I might be THAT dog person.

[5hining-aus]

Unfinished Business AU (Key X Reader)

Warning(s): Language, Mentions of Death

“Remind me again why I couldn’t just break in and grab the flash drive?”

“Because there’s about 200 armed guards on the property and only one of you.”

“You underestimate me, Jinx.”

You heard Jinki sigh heavily over the comms unit in your ear.

“Y/N,” he said exasperatedly.

“Fine,” you conceded. “You win. But if I suffocate because of this gown, then I’m blaming you.”

“That’s fine. Now, stop standing in the corner suspiciously and go mingle.”

A look of shock came over your face.

“How did you,” you asked, looking around the ballroom frantically. A few seconds later, however, you found the answer to your own question.

“You’ve already hacked into the security cameras, haven’t you?”

Jinki didn’t respond vocally, but you noticed that the camera you were looking at had started moving up and down, as if it were nodding.

“Well now you’re just showing off.”

You almost had to switch your comms unit off due to how loudly Jinki had started laughing.

“Of course I am. And you’re still standing in the corner. Go. Talk to people. Make friends. Recover illegally obtained documents filled with international secrets...And bring me back some mini quiches if they have them.”

After flashing a quick thumbs up to the security camera, you made your way into the throng of elegantly dressed people, quickly disappearing amongst the silk and satin, just as you had done hundreds of times. 

                                             ~

You had been making small talk with one of the gala guests when you heard a sound. It wasn’t a bad sound per se, but it was a strange sound, mainly because it sounded so familiar. It was almost as if…

No, that’s impossible. It was just a coincidence.

You tried to focus back on your conversation, but you couldn’t get the sound out of your head. Figuring that a bit of air would clear your mind, you excused yourself and made your way over to the veranda.

Focus Y/N, you NEED to get those documents. You can’t let anything distract you.

You took a few minutes to collect yourself before heading back inside. However, once you had reentered the ballroom, you saw something, or more accurately, someone, that almost made your heart stop.

What? There’s no way that’s him. It’s been three years, that’s just a lookalike.

You were about to take a second look when, in the blink of an eye, the person was gone. Vanished completely, as if they were never there.

Am I hallucinating now? This isn’t good.

“Y/N,” you heard Jinki call out worriedly through your earpiece, “what’s going on? I’m watching the cameras and you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I thought I did.”

The line was silent for a beat.

“What?” Jinki whispered, a concerned tone in his voice.

“Nothing,” you said far too quickly for it to be comforting. “I’m sure it was nothing, don’t worry about it.”

“Y/N…” Jinki began hesitantly. “Are you alright?”

I don’t know.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine, just want to get out of here, all this small-talk is exhausting. Am I good to go?”

You knew that you probably hadn’t convinced Jinki, but you also knew that he knew how important this mission was.

“You’re good to go,” Jinki confirmed. “The guards just rotated, you have about ten minutes to get the flash drive with the files on it and get out.”

“Ten minutes? I can do it in five.”

“Don’t get cocky.”

“You know it’s true.”

                                            ~

Sneaking around dark hallways in ballgowns wasn’t exactly your idea of fun, but it was something that had practically become second nature to you. Sticking to the shadows, you made your way to the room that contained the flash drive with the documents that you needed to retrieve.

After glancing in all directions to ensure you hadn’t been followed, you quickly opened the door, the final thing standing between you and finally being able to get out of the restrictive dress you had been wearing all night. Though, as you slunk into the room, something felt...off.

I’m just imagining things, you thought to yourself as you looked around the room and saw nothing amiss. Slipping through the room, you worked your way over to the large desk against the right-side wall. That was it, that was where your prize was.

You had found the flash drive and were just about to grab it and go when, suddenly, you heard something. It was a doorknob jiggling. More precisely, it was the doorknob on the door that led to the hallway that was jiggling. Somebody was about to enter the room!

“Shit, Jinx, you still there? I’m in-mmph!”

Before you could finish your sentence, there was a hand over your mouth and you were being yanked into a closet next to the desk just as the door swung open.

“You need to stay quiet otherwise we’re both in trouble.”

That voice...It had been so long, but you knew that voice anywhere. Whirling around to face the person who had grabbed you, you were greeted by the sight of a familiar pair of warm brown eyes and one scarred eyebrow.

Oh my god…

Time stood still and so many memories flooded through you. An empty bowl of cereal, a phone call, helicopters, desert cliffs, a briefcase, guns, one last kiss and an apology, all things that you had tried so hard to forget were suddenly the only things you could think about.

“Key,” you muttered, so quiet that it was barely even audible to you.

“Hi Y/N,” the man in front of you whispered back, equally quiet.

The two of you stood there in silence for what felt like hours until you were both sure that whoever had entered the room had left. Upon leaving the closet (and finally allowing yourself to breathe normally,) you were hit with a plethora of emotions.

“Three years,” you mumbled, looking at the ground. “You’ve been alive this whole time.”

“I’ve missed you so much, Y/N,” Key replied tenderly, reaching towards you to cup your cheek.

You turned your head away.

“You’ve been alive this whole time, and you never told me.”

Key was silent.

“You’ve been alive this whole time and never told me, meanwhile I was mourning you every day and blaming myself,” you continued through gritted teeth, lifting your head to meet Key’s eyes.

It was at that very moment that Key likely realized that he had fucked up.

“Y/N,” he said hesitantly, “I understand if you’re angry-”

“ANGRY? Of course I’m angry! Who wouldn’t be angry? You ate all of my cereal and faked your own death for three years!” You exploded, causing hot tears of rage to well up in your eyes.

Did I seriously just bring up cereal right now?

“I’ll buy you more cereal,” Key responded quickly, though his tone indicated that he was just as confused as to why you had brought up cereal as you were.

“This isn’t about the cereal, Kibum,” you retorted. “I couldn’t care less about the cereal! What I care about is the fact that you’ve been alive this whole time and not once did you try to let me know, and now you’re here, standing in front of me saying “I missed you” like you were on a fucking business trip!”

“I swear I had a good reason.”

You took a deep breath, praying that you wouldn’t get choked up.

“I had to tell your parents that their son, their only child, was gone. I carried an empty casket and buried it six feet underground. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep. Kibum, I didn’t leave the house for months, so your ‘good reason’ better be that you were saving the world or else I’m not sure I’ll agree that it is one.”

There was silence once more as you strode over to the desk and pocketed the flash drive that had indirectly caused your reunion with Key. Realizing that he had no responses left, and knowing that it wouldn’t be wise to sneak back out through the same way you got in, you walked towards and opened a nearby window. Before climbing out, though, you looked over your shoulder, taking one last glance the man who had once been your everything, before slipping out the window and climbing down to the ground, just as the tears that had been welling up in your eyes started to silently stream down your face.

This is fine, you thought to yourself upon reaching the ground. This is fine, this is okay, this is...this is a form of closure. This is a strange form of closure and now I’ll never have to see him again.

You repeated that mantra that whole way back to where Jinki was parked. Even after you clambered into the van, you were still internally chanting it.

I’ll never see him again.

Or would you?

[thewadapan]

I rewrote the most infamous Transformers comic of all time.

I wanna give fair warning here. See, when I started working on this comic, I wasn’t really expecting it to turn out quite as dark as it did, and I suspect neither are you. After all, this is The Beast Within, right? The story where Grimlock goes crazy and talks in Comic Sans? How bad can things get? It turns out that - with just a few decisions made in poor taste - the answer is “very”, to the point where I feel the need to stick some kinda content warning at the top of this post. Unfortunately, I also feel like I’ve got a responsibility to the story, and there’s no way for me to do so without ruining it, so this is the best you’re gonna get.

This isn’t the first time I’ve made a comic like this. All the way back in 2016, I made “its christmas... so what??”, a kinda-bad re-lettering of a four-page ‘80s Marvel comic called “The Night the Transformers Saved Christmas”. I wasn’t too happy with the result, so half a year later I tried again - producing “PASS”, a re-lettered version of an obscure six-page UK-exclusive Marvel comic originally titled “Peace”.

“The Beast Within (My Pants)” is quite a different, uh, beast.

Each of the three comics I’ve produced was intended to be the last of its kind - standalone, yet fitting into the same overarching continuity. You can read any one of them alone, or you can read all of them in the order I made them. They’re individually available as albums on Imgur at the following links:

“its christmas... so what??”

“PASS”

“The Beast Within (My Pants)”

Alternatively, you can download the whole set as .cbz files - renamed .zip archives of images which you can open with a standard comic book reader.

It’s not too late to turn back.

Still with me? All caught up? Good. You’re probably wondering what the hell I was thinking...

I. I Have Summoned You Here For A Reason

Our story begins all the way back in 2004. The UK company Metrodome, looking to spice up their DVD box-set releases of the original ‘80s The Transformers cartoon, hired some local talent in the form of Mr. Jamieson (owner of a then-notable fansite) to write up some bonus features. They also commissioned him to write a mini-comic to be packed in with the set - with art by Mr. Gibson, a self-proclaimed fan since childhood with seemingly no other ties to the franchise.

The comic wound up being published in two parts (the second being subtitled “Consequences”) across the “Season 2 Part 2″ and “Seasons 3 and 4″ box sets. As a kid, I actually owned the latter of those box sets, and would watch it almost religiously - to what I can only assume must’ve been great annoyance from my poor parents - but I have no memory of it including a comic of any kind. Maybe it did, but it got separated at some point, and is lying around in some forgotten folder. A damn shame, that is. No, seriously.

I’m sure some record of the fan response at the time exists out there, in the doldrums of one of the many hard-to-search often-defunct forums which existed back then. I can’t really be bothered looking for it, sorry. You’ll have to content yourself with this TFWiki talk page for “The Beast Within” from mid-2007, which speaks of “Consequences” in hushed tones - as though it is a fabled artifact, prophesied to bring about Armageddon.

Another record - this one from 2009 - comes in the form of an eight-page TFW2005 thread ominously titled “Anyone afraid of the Dinobot combiner?” If you’re reading this commentary, you’re already strapped in for the long run; I recommend reading the thread in full. Well, okay, I don’t: it made me wince throughout, and I’ll be explaining the salient bits here, so there’s really no point subjecting yourself to it.

User “Razorrider”, after reading the TFWiki article on the Beast, opened the thread, noting “I don’t feel afraid of him myself.” The reactions soon started to pour in - some agreeing that the design was in fact “awesome”, others describing it as “hideous”.

Just going off my own personal opinion here, I think it’s fair to say that effectively nobody on the first page of the thread had any idea what they were talking about - and the pages that follow fared little better.

I think the main issue stemmed from the fact that a lot of those users didn’t think to explain the metrics by which they judged a “good” design (or, indeed, a “bad” story). When one person says “I think Optimus Prime has a good design”, they might just mean “I think he looks cool”, or they might mean “I think his proportions and colours give him a heroic stature which reflects his personality”. In that sense, a “good design” is one that communicates aspects of a character visually, even if it’s ugly. The Beast is hideous, yes, misshapen, yes, and it looks like the result of a teleportation accident, fine - but those are all intentional design decisions that perfectly reflect the nature of the character. In the foreword to the first part, Mr. Gibson notes the following (you’ll have to imagine that it’s written in Comic Sans for yourself):

Creating ‘The Beast’ was probably the most interesting aspect of the project. I wanted him to be a grotesque, twisted character that contained the design elements of the Dinobots he is created from.

People proclaim that the Beast “should never have existed” - a line from the comic’s narration, note - but somehow fail to realise that this is the comic’s own intent.

(Compare the Beast’s design to that posted by one user on the second page of the thread, which - minus an admittedly-inspired Triceratops-fist - just looks like an upscaled version of Grimlock.)

Okay, the alarm bells should be ringing in your head now. This is all starting to sound disturbingly like I’m some sort of The Beast Within apologist, isn’t it? How slippery is the slope that leads from “the Beast is a good design” to “The Beast Within is a good comic?” Have the hours spent poring over this thing in MS Paint turned my brain to mush, capable of only vague all-caps-Comic-Sans-penned ponderings?

...Well, yes, but- look, just stick with me!

The most accurate recurring statement in the thread - though perhaps not in the way it is intended - is that The Beast Within reads like a work of “fanfiction”. See, Transformers is a franchise with an ever-growing history, and many of those who work on it now have been lifelong fans themselves. This is true of many franchises which have stumbled into the new millennium, finding themselves seemingly unable to die. We live in an age of fanfiction - yet some fanfictions are fanfiction-ier than others.

When compared to the likes of Star Wars and Star Trek and Marvel’s comics, one sees a marked difference in Transformers. Throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, every story Hasbro put out seemed to fit vaguely into a single guiding narrative - each distinct strand of their multimedia barrage falling into contradiction with one another, yet still seeking to adapt some underlying premise. The 2001 series Robots in Disguise - in the West at least - saw a complete departure from that narrative. The ramifications of that strange borderline-afterthought cartoon cannot be understated, yet in retrospect feel like they’ve been a part of the franchise for as long as anyone can remember.

Almost every year since, Hasbro has effectively wiped the slate clean. Each new series tries to be its own thing. Continuity between series - if it exists - is understated, ignored, or overwritten. To date, this is still something that confuses us geeks; so used are we to the mired pits that are the canons of Star Wars and its ilk. This can be frustrating - there are only so many times one can retread the same story - but so too has this rare cycle allowed authors to really explore the concepts and themes presented by the premise of “car robots” to a level of depth which I believe is simply unattainable in franchises which adhere stringently to a single narrative.

That’s the bright side.

In practise, many Transformers stories have become increasingly myopic - existing only in service of themselves, or (more often) in service of older (better?) stories. The single most influential of these stories is almost certainly 1986′s The Transformers: The Movie, and it’s that influence which is felt most strongly in The Beast Within.

Of the countless insights offered by Terry van Feleday - if you don’t know who that is, don’t worry, I’ll explain later - I find that this one rings most true:

When Optimus Prime du jour mouths off “One shall stand, one shall fall” for the twentieth time, there is simply no longer that understanding that he will not be the one who stands.

Where so many modern Transformers stories are misguided recreations of the animated movie, The Beast Within is a reaction to it. But we’ll get to that. First, let’s talk a little about the story’s artwork.

Mr. Gibson himself, I believe, deserves almost none of the criticism he’s received over the years for his work on this comic. Though his layouts are occasionally cluttered, and he does seem to have been trying a little too hard to emulate the style of Pat Lee (the man behind Dreamwave Productions; license holder for Transformers comics at the time) in the first part, his panels have a strong sense of energy and tone.

Though he didn’t exactly get to explore a broad range of emotions over the course of the comic, he managed to keep the characters expressive - always a challenge, when dealing with visors and mouthplates - and, crucially for a cast of this size, on-model. Look at the fury on Razorclaw’s face! The way Prime’s fist flies out of the panel! Menasor, torn in two! Predaking’s sundered legs! The mishmash of heads inside the Beast! The sickly colours of the second half! While it lacks the practised ease seen from some fans-turned-creators on more recent books, it’s still impressive work.

Regardless, Mr. Gibson’s first outing with Transformers proved to be his last. He didn’t end up getting paid work from Dreamwave Productions as he’d perhaps hoped (though in retrospect, neither did most of the people who illustrated for that company, so that was probably for the best). There’s no mention of The Beast Within on his personal website, which bills him as a “children’s picture book illustrator”, amongst other things. To put it simply, the guy’s always been a talented illustrator, and his style’s come a long way since this comic - the portfolio work on his website is very impressive.

(On a whim, I went back to late 2004 on the internet archive, and did in fact find the comic’s first spread buried at the back end of his portfolio. The entire website is a product of the early-2000s - there’s a link labelled “Go to Flash site” in the sidebar, though the page it takes you to sadly seems to have been lost to time. It all seems like it was borne of another age entirely.)

Anyway, let’s get back to that TFW2005 thread. The thing that makes it particularly notable is that, on the fourth page, Mr. Jamieson himself wades in to try and set the record straight. It goes about as well as you’d expect.

For a lot of people, I think, the idea of interacting with an author might seem strange. They’re aware of J.K. Rowling’s online antics, and are becoming increasingly comfortable with celebrity interactions on Twitter, sure. But there’s a difference between those kinds of interactions and the kind that take place on forums or in chatrooms - places where everyone’s on a level playing field. I come from those corners of the internet, and am lucky enough to have had conversations with lots of people who’ve made things I like, and have seen almost the full range of approaches those people take when dealing with their audiences. It’s safe to say that Mr. Jamieson’s approach in that decade-old thread is just about the worse one there is: over the course of just five posts, he smugly lashed out at the people in the thread, whipping them into a fervour that lasted for three more pages after his departure.

Regardless of whether or not Mr. Jamieson was correct - in the attacks he levelled at the other users, in the defence he offered for his work - there can be no question that this kind of behaviour is grossly inappropriate.

(Whether it is more or less appropriate than digging up old threads and archived web pages in an attempt to justify a bastardisation of a much-maligned comic book remains to be seen, I suppose.)

The key point that Mr. Jamieson kept returning to is that he sought to avoid the dreaded “info dump” (a hallmark of early Transformers stories), and didn’t want his readers to be “spoon fed”. A recurring criticism of the story is that it seems to begin halfway through, with little explanation for what’s going on - but I, like Mr. Jamieson, don’t think that complaint holds water. The Beast Within begins “in medias res” because we already have the context: eighty issues of a comic, ninety-eight episodes of a cartoon, and - crucially - a movie. Everyone knows the story of the Transformers, because the story of the Transformers - ironically enough - never really changes. “Is it ever really over, Jetfire?”

(That’s the last line of the original version of The Beast Within, by the way. I had to add the comma in myself.)

Like the impact of Robots in Disguise, the impact of The Transformers: The Movie is kinda hard to see unless you were there at the time - and I wasn’t - but in 1986, it did something which was profoundly shocking to thousands of children: it introduced them to death.

That’s about all I’m going to say about the movie itself, because much more experienced critics than me have already mined it for every ounce of subtext. I’ve already quoted the work of Terry van Feleday, who did some excellent scene-by-scene analysis of the film in a thread all the way back in 2010 - and I’ll come back to her writings a few times in this post. This very year, sorta-famous YouTuber hbomberguy released his own long-form take on the movie - what I find interesting when comparing the two interpretations is that van Feleday struggles to find much merit in the movie outside of its opening, while hbomberguy employs a reading that allows him to be much more optimistic and charitable even towards the end of the movie.

In a way, I think Mr. Jamieson had an intuitive subconscious understanding of the subtext which both of those critics later brought to light, an understanding which directly informed the premise of The Beast Within. In the same way one can read the monster planet Unicron as a physical manifestation of death, so too can one view the Beast - and Mr. Jamieson (almost certainly unconsciously) posits that, although death does not belong in a children’s cartoon, it is an inevitability that all children must eventually face. It is the dark spectre that lurks beneath the surface of every childish thing made by an adult.

An author places some of themselves in a book - but the reader withdraws something of their own perception as well. I wondered what I might see in the book: a child believes a lie because they know no better; a grown adult sees the lie because it fails to line up with experience. In this way, a child’s story could be so many different experiences. With enough subtext, a thing made for a child becomes an entirely different world to an adult. [...] There’s no telling when subtext will defeat the facade of a thing.

(I’ll tell you what that quote’s from later.)

I wonder, perhaps, if the endless swathes of edgy reimaginings of children’s stories are something of a mass outcry from those who grew up being told - every Saturday morning - that when people got blown apart, they’d be put back together by the next week’s end. What was it like for those children, in December of ‘86, to learn that some people could never be rebuilt?

II. It Pleases Me To Be The First

It occurs to me that I never did really do a commentary on “its christmas... so what??”, although I did talk about it a little in the commentary for “PASS”. Its title is a reference to the famous (well, you know what I mean) cover of “Stargazing” (issue #145 of the original UK run), which featured a banner reading “IT’S CHRISTMAS!” over an image of Starscream, arms out, yelling “SO WHAT?”

(Side note: at first I thought that I hadn’t read that particular story, but it occurs to me that as a kid I used to borrow a lot of Titan Books’ reprints from my local library - and I do in fact have distinct memories of reading Transformers: Second Generation, which did collect “Stargazing” amongst other Christmas stories - so I guess I probably did read it, even if I don’t remember doing so.)

The Women’s Day comic is something of a curio, as explained in this excellent article (which reprints the comic - with its original text - in full). It’s basically the only US strip which was published outside of the eighty issues of the run proper. This rare, standalone nature is something I have sought across every re-lettering I’ve done - from the UK annual-exclusive not-by-the-usual-author set-in-the-future “Peace” to the UK DVD-box-set-exclusive set-in-an-ambiguous-cartoon-inspired-continuity The Beast Within. These works feel like they’ve been lost to time - and corrupting them feels like unearthing buried treasure (and smearing it in turds). But I’ll get to that.

Back to “its christmas”. As I explained last time, I just went through the comic panel-by-panel and changed stuff to whatever I thought would be funny. I didn’t edit the two-line introductory blurb (which ended up informing the backstory detailed in the new set of AtoZ profiles). I barely paid attention to established portrayals of the characters beyond Soundwave’s association with music. I had no large-scale plans.

There’s a lazy (and poorly-conceived) gag where the little girl calls Bumblebee “gay” (also note that at the time, I misinterpreted the art in the third panel of the third page - I thought it was the girl speaking, when in fact it was her mother - leading to some erroneous dialogue), which in retrospect feels like a less-drawn-out version of the excruciating opening scene from Freddery McMahon’s Combiner Wars abridged special. That spoof somehow manages to be less funny than its source material, and I sometimes think that the same holds for my own creations.

Still, that’s not to say that “its christmas” doesn’t do anything that I like. I’ll admit that lines like “lol without mustard christmas will be CANCEL suck it nerds”, “toot toot here come some flutes”, and “help me drag it to the hospital” still kinda make me laugh. I like the way Bumblebee drowns out the little girl’s insults by tooting loudly at her. The final panels - wherein the humans steal Bumblebee’s blood as the other Transformers watch impassively - have an offbeat intensity to them, and when it came to writing Bumblebee’s AtoZ profile it was those which I chose to call back to.

If I had to sum up “its christmas” in a single word, I’d pick “childish”. The jokes, the characters themselves, the entire concept behind the comic - all feel kinda immature, and that was kinda by design. Summer Meme Sundae was a terrible piece of work, but - if I had to ascribe a theme to it - that theme would be growing up; realising that you’re running out of summer holidays. “PASS” and “The Beast Within (My Pants)” kept that atmosphere, but became increasingly cynical and obscene. That was just the natural direction they had to go in.

III. Every Place Reminds You Of Some Place Else

I’ve long had an idle fascination with abridged series, and have toyed with the thought of making an abridged series of my own. Most notably, I’ve long fancied the idea of abridging Machinima’s Prime Wars Trilogy of Transformers cartoons. Here’s an extract from a message I posted in Allspark Chat (the Discord server associated with the Allspark Forums):

I'd probably try and keep Megatron mostly the same as he is in the show as it is. Optimus'd be kinda murderous - you can tell he can't wait for Rodimus and the rest of the Council to kick the bucket so he can retake unilateral control over Cybertron. I'd maybe try to go for something of a more sympathetic Starscream - he wouldn't actually have any plan, he just has Cybertron's interests at heart and ends up trying to use the Enigma solely to rid the world of Megatron and Optimus forever. Windblade'd maybe be trying to force some hero's journey stuff - picking fights with progressively bigger opponents in a misguided attempt to prove her narrative worth

As pitches go, it’s not much. It doesn’t help that, as I previously mentioned, Freddery McMahon himself - pretty much the only name in Transformers abridging - has already tackled the series; his style of parody isn’t really to my taste, but his production value is fairly impressive and would largely overshadow any improvements I made on a script level. I feel like the Prime Wars Trilogy has potential, because it’s a fascinating piece of media, but I find myself unable to answer the question of how to parody something that already feels so much like self-parody. Sound familiar?

By the time the last entry in that series - Power of the Primes - was wrapping up, I'd been posting semi-frequently in the Allspark’s threads with a borderline-apologetic tone. Takes included:

The emptiness of Cybertron lends it a Beast Machines-esque tone

The Mistress of Flame’s death is cathartic

You can see right through the script

I want to get off Machinima’s wild ride

Wow, Windblade sure screams a lot, doesn’t she

The finale of Titans Return is good, actually

Hearing Megatron say “piss me off” is an unpleasant surprise

Hey, this soundtrack’s pretty good

Wait, no it’s not, but Galvatron’s implied reversion to Megatron is

Narrative emergence gives rise to Buddhist allegories in TFTM

Grimlock acts like his cartoon self - but only around friends

Okay, for realsies, the soundtrack’s good now

They’re right to kill Sludge; he’s the least toyetic Dinobot

I’d probably describe a lot of what I saw in the Prime Wars Trilogy as a kind of narrative pareidolia - only instead of seeing faces in inanimate objects, I was seeing value and meaning in an indefensible web series.

The problem with abridged series is that they require a ridiculous amount of effort. You need to be a good writer in the traditional sense, but you need to be able to work around the visual material available - you’re gonna have to edit everything yourself, you’re probably gonna need to do custom animation, and you’re certainly gonna need to wrangle a cast of voice actors. All of that for ten minutes of animation that’s probably gonna get taken off YouTube within ten minutes of upload. It’s just not feasible - and yet there’s part of me that loves the idea: commentary and content, all rolled into one.

To pretend that it was Combiner Wars that led me to create “The Beast Within (My Pants)” is a little misleading, however. The real answer - I’m sorry to say - has more to do with ponies.

See, every now and again I get very acute nostalgia for My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, which was perhaps my first brush with fandom - or at least, proper fandom. It’s heard to measure these things, y’know? Anyway, when that happens, I realise that I don’t really want to sit and watch a cartoon for little girls, so I usually just listen to some fan-made music or - as was the case last time - rewatch one of the abridged series based on the show. I use the word “series” here in plural because there were in fact two (well, two that matter): Friendship is Witchcraft and The Mentally Advanced Series. There’s long been quiet debate over which of the two is the (soundwave) superior series, and I’ve historically believed that they’re (buy some) apples and oranges. The latter is a more thoughtful parody of the source material, while the former is more polished and standalone.

However, after blitzing through Friendship is Witchcraft once more in its entirety over the course of a couple of days, something about it clicked for me - a bigger-picture thesis - and I realised that it had much more to say about its source material than I (or, well, most people) had given it credit for. It was at that moment that I felt the awful urge to create a My Little Pony fanwork of my own.

(The quote I used earlier, about subtext in children’s stories, was spoken by Princess Celestia in Rainbow Dash Presents: The Star in Yellow, a Mentally Advanced Series special inspired by a fanfiction which, fittingly enough, was written by Matt Marshall (AKA Blueshift/blue/Yartek/RockLordsRock), who was also the man behind the infamous “JaAm” relettering which effectively inspired all of these projects of mine. It’s like poetry.)

As we’ve already established, making a fancy-schmancy animation was out of the question - but a crudely-edited-in-MS-Paint comic was the next best thing, clearly. I started glancing through IDW Publishing’s official My Little Pony comics - having purchased a few in a Humble Bundle many years ago - but, aside from a couple of promising stories, quickly realised I didn’t have much hope. The comics are just, to put it frankly, not as good or as interesting as the show, and the fact that I’d need to adapt at least two issues at once (over forty pages) to tell any complete story made doing so an unappetising prospect. Furthermore, IDW’s comics are still very much in print, and (as the abridged series show) any such parody would stand on shaky legal ground.

Seeing as I wasn’t about to delve into the dark realm of prose any time soon, and the idea of messing with some other fan’s work rubbed me the wrong way, I decided to give up on my equine dreams and instead turned back to more familiar territory. I glanced over the list of old Transformers Marvel comics, but nothing like those I’d previously relettered stood out to me. I perused the short stories included in Dreamwave’s 20th Anniversary Transformers Summer Special. I even looked into some Fun Publications stuff. Nothing sparked my interest.

Perhaps my most promising lead was “An Arcee Sort of Day”, a vaguely-maligned (as in, “meh”) three-page standalone comic released mere months ago by IDW as part of an anthology - but the poor resolution of the available scan (the comic had been released in its entirety as part of the free preview for the anthology) meant that editing it would be a nightmare, and there was very little in the way of dialogue for me to mess with besides. More than that, the idea of directly mocking a comic from a compilation designed to showcase female creators (particularly one featuring Arcee, who’s been a controversial character in recent years) struck me as tasteless in the extreme. If only I had an easier target!

Oh wait, I did.

IV. Let The Slaughter Begin

If I actually ever read both parts of The Beast Within before starting work on this project, I don’t remember doing so. I do remember reading the Beast’s TFWiki page when I was much younger, and remember feeling like the wiki’s take on the concept seemed disproportionately harsh. To be honest, it was quite vindicating to read the source material and discover that I still agreed with my younger self’s assessment - the problems with the story are not on a conceptual level, but in the execution.

I barely gave myself time to digest the story before diving in and working out how exactly I could mess it up. I knew from my previous comics that the Autobots would all be unrepentant shitheads, so the natural choice was to portray the Decepticons as favourably as possible. Where the Autobots are callous, poorly-spoken, stupid, and divided, the Decepticons would be caring, articulate, intelligent, and united. In the story’s context, these traits would be weaknesses: remember, only the Beast has the killing instinct needed for decisive victory in this endless children’s story. I also knew that everybody in the story would hate Grimlock, and that - unlike with Roadbuster in “PASS” - they’d be right to do so.

That was pretty much the extent of my planning. I gathered up all the pages and started clearing out the text from the speech bubbles. Already, I had something of a problem: the use of the infamous Comic Sans MS font in the first part of The Beast Within was one of its most iconic features, and I wanted to retain that, but my own previous reletterings had canonically established Times New Roman as the “voice” of the Autobots. In fact, as far as those older comics were concerned, Times New Roman was the voice not just of the whole Cybertronian race, but also of the narrator.

The only lines which used a different font were those where I’d chosen to retain the comic’s original lettering, and with Roadbuster’s dialogue. It’s hard to articulate what exactly the joke with Roadbuster was - he seemed like the odd-one-out in the opening panels of the story, so I ran with that by having him be persistently ostracised by the other Autobots. The twist, as you find out when he finally speaks, is that he seems to be the only Autobot who’s unambiguously a good person; the rest bully him for effectively no reason.

In the commentary for “PASS” I released earlier this year, I explicitly ask:

If these are the Autobots… then what were the Decepticons like?

My own gut feeling was, I think, that they were people like Roadbuster - genuinely good individuals who never wanted a fight - and so for this comic I knew I had to give them Roadbuster’s Arial voice. I also knew that I’d have to keep the Autobots’ Times New Roman voice for the most part. The only question, then, was what to do about Grimlock, the combiners, Jetfire, and the narration.

(It’s worth noting that Soundwave and Triton were both Decepticons too, yet they both spoke in Times New Roman. The Doylist reason for this is simply that, at the time, I was happy to have everyone share a voice. In Triton’s case, the Watsonian reason is that he’s trying to mimic the Autobots’ “accent” to better fit in. If I had to make up a reason for Soundwave, I’d say that he’s only recently defected from the Autobots, as a reference to van Feleday’s insane Soundwave-as-an-ex-prisoner-of-war theory. Had Soundwave had a speaking role in the comic, I’m sure I would’ve explored that backstory in his AtoZ profile - but alas, it wasn’t to be.)

In fact, there was initially some ambiguity over who the comic’s narrator would be - if I used Times New Roman, would I have to keep the voice of the same narrator as in the previous two comics? In the end, I decided to draw from my source material: the on-panel narration would be Grimlock’s inner monologue, rendered in full Comic Sans glory, while the "Interlude” would employ a more omniscient third-person voice. That third-person voice is, I think, distinct from the narrator of the previous comics, and feels like a more solemn version of the narrator of the AtoZ profiles I released alongside the commentary for “PASS” (or, indeed, the latest batch included here). Remember, I wrote the first two comics years before all of this recent material. More on the text-only pages later.

When he speaks out loud, Grimlock uses the regular Times New Roman of the other Autobots. In fact, the only dialogue which uses Comic Sans is that of the Beast, which I view as the true externalisation of Grimlock’s feelings. You can also view it as the “real world” (as depicted in the text-only pages) leaking through into the comic’s reality, in much the same way that an aware-of-death adult perspective seeps through into a seemingly-innocent children’s cartoon. The other combiners simply use a slightly bigger font than the individual Decepticons. Oh, and all of the combiners use red text.

In the original toyline, Jetfire was something of an odd-one-out, as he was really a Macross “VF-1S Super Valkyrie” toy licensed by Hasbro from Bandai (who had in turn purchased the molds from the recently-bankrupted Takatoku toys). Both Whirl and Roadbuster have similar origins. I was under no obligation to do anything special with Jetfire’s dialogue, but because of the way he’s introduced in the comic - and as a nod to his shared real-world history with Roadbuster - it felt right to give him his own voice. Though he still uses Times New Roman, the font is scaled up and he speaks entirely in capital letters. His dialogue was a challenge to write, as most of his speech bubbles are very small, but I think this worked out in my favour: his speech often ended up butting up against the bubbles’ outlines, giving the impression that he’s always speaking just a little bit too loudly.

The lettering in the first part of the original comic - aside from being technically legible - is generally shoddy on every level. For emphasis, it alternately uses italics or inconsistent font size. Occasionally, the dialogue switches to lowercase, which kinda gives the impression that everyone’s been shouting the whole time. Most of the text is left-aligned. Some bits of text seem to have been squashed. Most of the narration boxes are parallelograms, but some are plain rectangles. Red hand-lettered text is mostly limited to the combiners’ speech, but also sees use a couple of times for Megatron and Optimus Prime. Some of the combiners’ speech just uses normal red Comic Sans MS text. Meanwhile, the second part switches entirely to black hand-lettered text - presumably from Mr. Gibson - which is a marked improvement in terms of tone and consistency, if a step down in legibility.

It’s interesting to me that, despite my version of the comic sharing the dearth of commas and full stops which plagues the original, it reads very differently. For all its stylisation, it’s my hope that each line I write for these comics comes across realistically - not in the sense that it’s something you’d hear someone say, but perhaps in the sense that it’s something you’d maybe read on the internet. More on that later - first, some miscellaneous notes on the comic’s text:

When I first wrote it, I used the style of self-censorship from “PASS” (and, by extension, the rest of Summer Meme Sundae) wherein the first letter of any curse is replaced by an asterisk. It was one of my prereaders, Tindalos, who noted that “the censoring kinda takes a bit from it”, and I decided that I agreed with him - it felt like I was holding back. You can decide for yourself; I’ve collected the pages with lines that were revised between drafts in an album.

Through pure coincidence, it’s Springer (well, Bulkhead) who gets the first line of dialogue in the comic - just like in “PASS”. In case it’s not clear, the joke is that he thinks he’s safe on the floor and berates Jazz for not doing the same thing, seconds before getting stomped by Megatron. I think this sequence perfectly encapsulates a big part of what I wanted to show about the Autobots: they all criticise one another relentlessly, despite being deeply flawed themselves. It’s a dynamic that, to me at least, actually evokes that of the Autobots in Michael Bay’s movies.

The line “thats me grimlock in the corner losing my religion” is, of course, a reference to R.E.M.’s song “Losing My Religion”, which was itself included as part of writer James Roberts’ “soundtrack” for More Than Meets The Eye. Though he did not appear in the issue for which Roberts selected the song, Grimlock was a recurring character in that series. Hopefully my depiction of the character surpasses that one - though if you ask the people I usually talk to, I wouldn’t be setting the bar particularly high with that comparison.

Optimus uses the insult “grimdick” shortly after Grimlock’s narration provides the example “grimcock”. I intended this to show that, while the dynamic between the two’s been cemented for a good while, Grimlock is always a step behind and still can’t predict Prime’s actions.

Snarl’s line was originally “hey speak for yourself swoop me and grimlock are tight as *hit”, which expresses effectively the opposite sentiment to his final line. The idea that Snarl was okay with becoming part of the Beast was intended to add a bit of brevity to the sequence - but I decided it was better to keep as much emotional impact as possible in the moment.

A more minor change a couple of pages later is Grimlock’s line “how do they do it”, which replaced “love is stupid”. I wanted to expressly draw a parallel between the Beast’s combination and Predaking’s.

The line I’m happiest with is “eat shit megatron this is what you get for being such a fucking weapon”. One of my friends occasionally cracks out the word “weapon” to describe someone - and what better application for it is there than a guy who literally turns into a gun?

Megatron’s line about the “black hole” in Optimus Prime’s spark is a twist on Megatron’s own canonical link to a black hole - an aspect of his original bio which was revisited by Roberts.

I struggled to think of Menasor’s final words. The longer I stared at the panel where he gets torn in half - from which I’d already cleared the speech bubble - the more I was struck by the emptiness of the scene. If one considers Menasor to be a symbol for the Decepticons as a whole, then his silence in that panel is my way of showing that - from this point forth - the Decepticons no longer have a voice; the second part of the comic shows naught but their corpses. Death exists, and nothing is good any more.

None of the text on the final page of the first half remained unchanged between drafts. I wan’t happy with Optimus Prime’s original line at all, and the internal monologue “don’t you deserve happiness” felt a little too serious. The phrase “no u” is the archetypical low-effort comeback, and seemed like the perfect beat to end the first part with.

Prime’s line “gotta jettison some dead weight” is a nod to Astrotrain’s iconic line in The Transformers: The Movie: “Jettison some weight, or I’ll never make it to Cybertron.” I had to check for the exact quote just now and found “jettison transformers the movie” in my search history, so obviously I’d done the same when writing the panel. More than just being a trite reference, I was hoping to draw an obvious parallel and to contrast the unilateral decision Optimus Prime makes on the following page against the more shall-we-call-it-democratic process the Decepticons used in the movie.

I’m probably a little too proud of “big red irredeemable fucking monster of a robot semi fuck”, which is a line that could absolutely only exist in this travesty of a comic.

Jetfire’s use of the phrase “GOTTA BLAST” is a reference to a line spoken by the titular character of the early-2000s CGI cartoon Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, one which has turned into something of a meme. When I wrote the panel, I intended to imply that Jetfire was aiming to crash into the city - but I think it ended up doubling as foreshadowing for the fact that Jetfire flies his passengers into the sun. Additionally, the meme often sees use as innuendo, which shines through in the following panel: Jetfire expels propellant into the Beast’s face while Bumblebee remarks “gah okay i did not want to see that”. The less said about the sound effect “CHOOOM!”, the better.

Remember how all the text in the first part of the original comic was left-aligned? So’s the text in my version! MS Paint simply doesn’t have the option to change the alignment of your text - I actually had to throw in extra spaces at the start of each new line, eyeballing things until I had an approximation of centre alignment. This is something I never did with “PASS”, and I found that doing so gave me more freedom to squeeze more stuff into the speech bubbles.

As immortalised by countless memes, you can’t rotate text in MS Paint either. I tried to use this to my advantage on the comic’s first page, where the steps between the words in Grimlock’s narration give them a faltering quality.

Grimlock’s narration actually ended up being one of the most challenging parts of the comic to write. I wrote a draft of the first page pretty quickly, but decided I wasn’t happy with it and that I’d have to replace it later - which I did, but only after having written pretty much every single other bit of dialogue.

I think the central conceit of “PASS” - that somebody’s farted and the Autobots are trying to find out who dealt it - didn’t solidify until I reached the second page and looked at Rodimus Prime’s body language. In much the same way, the crux of “The Beast Within (My Pants)” didn’t solidify until it came to writing Swoop’s line.

V. Me Grimlock Not Nice Dino

At some point during the creation of “The Beast Within (My Pants)”, I started thinking a lot about incels.

(To be clear, this is the part of the commentary where things get a bit weird, and I start talking about storytelling decisions which I think were made in poor taste but which I don’t think come across overtly in the comic itself. Feel free to skip ahead to the next section. Or, y’know, stop reading entirely.)

Grimlock is childish, despite his age, and is desperate to be liked - no, respected - at any cost. His only asset is his BRUTE STRENGTH. He hates Prime, but wishes he was Prime. He has trouble treating any of the other Autobots like people. He rages against an outgroup whose ideals are - at least ostensibly - rooted in empathy.

I wouldn’t say “I wrote a comic where Grimlock is an incel”, because that’d be a pretty stupid thing to write and I’d feel pretty stupid saying it.

Looking back at a lot of my previous work on this blog, some things do crop up again and again. In abstract, I’d say that the idea of a character seeking friendship and/or respect - and failing to understand why they can’t find those things - is one that I’ve revisited a couple of times. This was a strong theme in the latter half of Another Son - a story which dealt heavily in misanthropy - which featured a character inspired by Sam Witwicky from Michael Bay’s Transformers. The protagonist of Retrace Steps spent the whole story unable to even ask the question “why am I alone”. Many of the characters in Are You Happy - particularly Mr. Hernandez - deal with similar problems to varying extents.

So this makes, what, practically four stories in a row? I didn’t set out to approach things this way again with this comic, but from the moment I wrote Swoop’s line I knew I didn’t have a choice. When people talk about the Beast’s combination sequence, they talk about how violative it appears. Metal tentacles spring from Grimlock like one of Alien’s chestbursters, penetrating or melding with the other Dinobots’ bodies. After that, the resulting monstrosity ambles around, horrifically murdering its former peers. As much as I can have the characters in the story play this stuff off for laughs, I’ll never be able to erase the undercurrent.

This isn’t supposed to be a direct mapping - a perfect metaphor - and by the time this commentary’s done I hope I’ll have pointed in the direction of some alternate perspectives. It just seems important to put my cards on the table and say that, when I was working on this comic, this is the kinda thing I was thinking about. We thought children were safe with Transformers, and then a gun came and shot people they cared about, and for some reason we were surprised to see that they got upset.

With all of that in mind, I take some solace in the fact that I actually found getting into Grimlock’s head to be extremely difficult. His dialogue was a breeze to write, sure - that’s the outsider’s perspective - but actually trying to construct his thoughts in anything approximating a convincing manner was very difficult. The first draft of his narration literally included the phrase “we live in a society”.

VI. Such Heroic Nonsense

I’ve already touched on Terry van Feleday’s opus a couple of times, but I think it’s worth delving a little deeper into how exactly her analysis influenced this comic. For some reason the idea that nearly five-hundred pages of borderline-conspiracy-theorist-level ramblings about perhaps the most maligned movie franchise of the 21st century might be a tough sell is one which I can’t quite wrap my head around. I’d say that it’s because I’ve read the thing and already know that it’s good, but in truth I was pretty much sold from the moment I found out it existed.

Anyway, I frequently get into not-quite-arguments with internet strangers about Transformers, and during those discussions I frequently find myself saying “a good Transformers story should do X”, and then I have to resist the urge to add “like Michael Bay’s movies” because doing so would completely delegitimise the point I’m trying to make. The problem is that, because I’m deliberately omitting the context of my opinions, they come across as being even more bizarre.

I think that same problem exists in some capacity with this comic, where I’m drawing on sources which are intuitive to me but completely alien even to a typical Transformers fan. I’ve yet to even mention the other primary inspiration for this story, which is even more arcane.

Perhaps it’s important to stress that van Feleday doesn’t offer a typical "theres actually zero difference between good & bad things. you imbecile. you fucking moron" take. Rather - and I realise I’m about to butcher this - she shows how the humans in Bay’s movies give increasing amounts of power to an alien cult leader because their only alternative is to get wiped out by an alien warlord. So in terms of this comic, “Autobots bad” is very much rooted in her reading of those movies, while “Decepticons good” is just something I thought would be funny.

Well, not exactly. I’ve already mentioned Combiner Wars; something that continues to baffle pretty much everyone who watched that show (and its sequels) is that, while it seems to have no idea what it’s doing most of the time, its portrayal of Megatron is an absolute riot. He is absolutely the protagonist of that series, the Only Sane Man in a world of bizarre psychotic caricatures. I think the same kinda holds in the continuity of my comic, only he’s had more time to bring the people he takes in around to his way of thinking.

Let’s not forget the official “good-is-bad” continuity of Shattered Glass, which - while heavily compromised - was the source of many interesting reinterpretations of popular characters. Effective reinterpretations require you to forget what you know about a character and strip them back to the core signifiers, which you can then put to different use. One of the posters in Terry van Feleday’s thread, “Lobok”, observes:

I like the idea that Bay or the writers looked at Optimus Prime and thought "What would a guy who calls himself that really act like?" Imagine you knew or heard of someone, a human, who called themselves the equivalent of "The #1 Bestest Superior" or "King Supreme Ultimate" - do you not picture either a 7-year old boy or a mentally deficient oo-rah alpha male? Maybe the two combined? Seems much more apt than a wise, noble father figure.

Of the course, I don’t for a second think that Michael Bay had any such thought - but the connection still exists for the audience to make. Therein lies one of the greatest unspoken strengths of Transformers storytelling: the sheer breadth and depth of the signifiers at play. Much of what van Feleday did in her thread was to boil down the concepts found in Transformers stories to reveal those core signifiers.

(Almost a year ago, I wrote a piece for the Refined Robot Co. blog which explored some of her findings by delving into the subtextual meanings of the countless alternate modes worn by Megatron over the years.)

By the same token, I think there’s something to be said for the way Grimlock’s alternate mode ties into his portrayal in my take on The Beast Within. He turns into a dinosaur - something which is rooted in the past, extinct, unable to develop - while most of the other Autobots turn into modern vehicles. Kids may love dinosaurs, but they’ll likely grow up to have a stronger interest in cars or tanks. Grimlock is immature almost to the point of childishness; his beast mode is the lizard king, and he doesn’t understand why you won’t bow.

(Obviously I’m making some big generalisations here for the sake of a point - the other Dinobots have their own prehistoric disguises, and kids’ interests develop in varied enough ways that perhaps this link is only noticeable to those who experienced the transition I describe. When I was much younger, I was obsessed with dinosaurs, and would consume all the dinosaur-related media I could get my hands on. Eventually, however, my crippling fear of sea monsters led me to stop reading books about them - I'd turn the page, see a full-spread painting of a pliosaur taking a bite out of a pterodactyl, and shit my pants. Okay, no, that’s a huge exaggeration: more likely it just got to the point where I knew basically all of the cool dinosaur facts already, and suddenly the deep lore of the grim darkness of the 41st millennium or whatever seemed way cooler. I just find it funnier to imagine that my prosperous future in paleontology was averted for fear that I’d discover the last living specimen of a plesiosaur.)

VII. Where’d You Learn To Talk Like That

Back in “PASS”, I think there was some question as to who exactly was the coolest dude; the biggest guy. Rodimus was in charge, but the others didn’t really respect his authority in the end. Although Triton was an underdog in that story, he wasn’t at the bottom of the pack - no, that role went to Roadbuster. Everyone seems to like Ultra Magnus, but it’s never really made clear as to why that is.

Grimlock’s personality and role within the Autobots was pretty much the first thing I solidified when it came to writing “The Beast Within (My Pants)”. I knew that he was the lowest of the low; the nail in every Autobot’s tyre. As Grimlock evolved, so too did Optimus Prime - the second-most-prominent character in the comic. "The #1 Bestest Superior" became a murderous jock, and the Autobots became his cult of personality.

Speaking of cults of personality, I’ve been posting regularly in the Homestuck Discord server since November of last year. There’s no other place like it on the internet, and - truth be told - I’m not sure any explanation of it I could provide would suffice. The server was created by some guy called Makin - at least, we're pretty sure he’s a guy - who nobody’s ever met but who seems to have an uncanny knack for managing online communities.

Major events in that server have been comprehensively catalogued since July of 2017 by long-standing moderator “Drew Linky” in his journal Several People Are Typing. Between the entries and the related materials, it’s probably around half a million words in length. There’s no other document like it on the internet.

For the first fifty or so pages, Drew had no intention of making his document public. Apparently, one of the reasons he wrote it in the first place was as a way of holding Makin accountable - the guy used to be (and sometimes still is) a bit of an ass. Now, I wasn’t around in 2017, so I can’t really comment on the accuracy of the document’s early entries - but as a newcomer I was struck by how different Drew’s depiction of the server was to my own experience there. If I had to guess, I’d say his style of prose and the cherry-picked nature of the document make it seem like a much more hostile place than it actually is.

In particular, Makin effectively starts out as journal’s main villain (alongside various problem users and Homestuck creators) - a capricious and unknowable entity with absolute power over the server - and many of the entries deal in some way with what users jokingly refer to as his “redemption arc”. Of course, in reality, he’s just some guy, and everyone knows that real people don’t have character arcs.

I still haven’t finished reading SPAT, but I was doing so around the time when I was working on the comic. At some point I started to draw parallels between my bizarro version of Optimus Prime and the journal’s bizarro version of Makin, and I decided to play them up. Much of Prime’s dialogue is inspired by Makin’s style of speech, using phrases like “shut the fuck up”, “nobody cares”, “holy shit”, “get fucked”, “lmao”, “literally”, “literally [...] who”, “guys”, “rational” and “you’re welcome”. I just checked and at the time of writing, with the exception of “literally who” and “you’re welcome”, he’s used every one of those phrases within the last week. Oh, and while the word “suckers” isn’t really a Makin quote, in Homestuck it’s associated with the not-quite-biggest-bad evil empress. It bears mentioning again that the complete lack of punctuation in the comic’s dialogue mirrors the most common style of typing I see online, where people drop their capital letters and full stops.

(In fairness, a lot of us kinda talk the same way in that server. I remember one time Makin said “I also need to worry about lmao becoming some kind of anime catchphrase for me”, which cut pretty deep as I’ve been overusing that phrase instead of “lol” or “haha” or whatever for ages. Look, it’s just a funny word to me: in my head I pronounce it “luh-mayo” instead of “el-em-ay-oh”. Like “I throw my sandwich in the air sometimes / saying aaay-oh / I ordered maaayo...”)

In the comic, the self-aggrandising Optimus Prime is hostile and dismissive to those around him. It might all be a front, but it might not. Even though Grimlock hates Optimus, the Dinobot seems to agree with him a lot of the time, and the narrative itself never really manages to conclusively condemn his actions. The name “Optimus” echoes the word “optimise”; so frequently thrown around in rationalist circles. One could even go so far as to say that Optimus Prime’s ultimate goal in the comic is to kill death-in-the-form-of-a-shitposter.

In seriousness, I’m drawing these comparisons in a pretty tongue-in-cheek way. I don’t actually think that the Homestuck Discord server is a cult of personality - even if, to check the user-contributed “SPAT Epilogues”, some of its populace seem determined to behave like it is. Even if this section of this commentary exists. At the end of the day, I’m gonna write what I know, and I like to think that I know a little about online communities and what happens when they go wrong. I wish I could say that “The Beast Within (My Pants)” is a cautionary tale to that effect, but in truth I don’t think it offers any conclusive answers in the same way that “PASS” perhaps did. “Only worry about the opinions of people who actually care about you,” maybe? “Death is an abomination and we shouldn’t let it anywhere near our kids”, perhaps? “You can’t force other people to like you”?

“You can’t force other people to like the things you made”?

VIII. Burnt-Out Toaster Ovens

In the re-released version of “PASS”, it seemed right to throw in something in the way of extra content. I had fond memories of the Seacon profiles published alongside the original “Peace”, and lifted the format to create short bios for all sixteen characters who appeared in the comic. These fitted neatly on a four-by-four spread (though I ended up merging Topspin and Twin Twist’s profiles and throwing in an extra one for Computron, who did not appear in the comic proper).

From the start, I knew I wanted to do something similar for “The Beast Within (My Pants)”. In fact, I already had two text-only pages to work with; each part of the original comic was prefaced with a prose introduction and a note from Mr. Gibson. I decided that I could rework the text-only pages and add another spread of profiles, using the freedom granted by prose to explain away many of the comic’s oddities.

It took me some time to carefully erase the existing text from the scans that I had, using nothing but the brush tool in MS Paint. It took me even more time to work out some potential approaches to take with the text itself. Eventually, I came up with the following ideas:

A flashback depicting Grimlock and Swoop’s breakup.

A conversation between Grimlock and Jazz (or, perhaps, Slash).

“How Ratchet Got His Head Back”, the interlude which I ended up using.

A synopsis of events between “its christmas... so what??” and “The Beast Within (My Pants)”, which ended up being my first stab at the introduction.

Some in-character commentary as Mr. Gibson, which I did end up including.

From the moment I conceived it, I was pretty set on “How Ratchet Got His Head Back”, and it ended up being a breeze to write. I didn’t end up getting a chance to squeeze in the title - a reference to an issue of More than Meets the Eye - as it didn’t really fit the original format of the page. The introduction, on the other hand, proved much more challenging. My main problem was that, were I to preface the story with a text page, I’d be asking them to read a bunch of probably-mostly-serious words before allowing them to read the comic proper. Not the best first impression!

Nonetheless, I gave it a go - you can read my first attempt in the album of the draft pages. It mostly served to lay out the continuity between my three comics. Rodimus Prime’s crew were abandoned on Cybertron by Optimus Prime (presumably Hot Rod changed his name in Optimus’ absence). Megatron, Optimus and their crews crash-landed on Earth, and millions of years later the events of “its christmas... so what??” occurred. Meanwhile on Cybertron, it took a few million years for the other Autobots to wipe out the remaining Decepticons, as seen in “PASS”. Humanity was wiped out by Optimus in retribution for their transgression (a nod to Mr. Gibson’s depiction of Earth as an empty wasteland), prompting the conflict seen in “The Beast Within (My Pants)”. Much of this timeline remains implicit in the final version of the comic.

When I wrote it, I was pretty happy with the way this information was conveyed in the first draft. It was the ever-ardent Gitaxian - one of my long-time prereaders - who made me realise just what a mistake I’d made:

Something was rubbing me the wrong way about that first prose page and I finally realized what it is / Expositing that Optimus is horrible right off the bat takes away a good chunk of the impact the comic had before you added it

He was right. My prereaders’ initial response to the comic was that Optimus Prime’s motivations were completely opaque, and I overcorrected, not realising that his inscrutability was one of the things that made him interesting. You kinda want him to behave like the Optimus Prime you know and love, but he keeps doing weird things and you never really find out why.

Suddenly, I was back at square one - no closer to having a clear idea of how to introduce the comic. Another of my prereaders, gearshift, had the solution:

It's Transformers or some shit. You've seen the cartoon right? The one with the tape guy? Yeah, the tape guy is barely in this one. What do you mean no sale? Look, fuck, it's got the dinosaur guy. He's right on the goddamn cover, you like the dinosaur guy right? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Bitch.

I liked her pitch because it seemed like it’d do a good job of filtering out readers who wouldn’t enjoy the comic. To quote Alexander Wales, author of Worth the Candle:

I kind of hate blurbs and taglines, especially for something so large and varied as Worth the Candle / My ideal synopsis would tell people what kind of story it was without actually telling them that much about the story; it would select for all the people who would fall in love with the story, and select against all the people who would find it a waste of time. / How to actually write that ... I've got no idea.

(Side note: I’m one of the people who fell in love with that story, to the point where I’ll use any opportunity to recommend it to others. It’s maybe my favourite thing written by anyone ever.)

A closely-related issue is that of content warnings: so far as I’ve been able to work out, there is no warning which I can give for “The Beast Within (My Pants)” which adequately selects against people who won’t like it while also preserving its conceptual twists and avoiding colouring the audience’s interpretation.

Getting back to the actual content of the introduction - I wound up writing less than I would’ve liked, leaving the page looking a little sparse, but hopefully making things easier for the reader. There’s relatively little to talk about in the way of trivia here. When I wrote the phrase “cut right to the spectacles” I was probably thinking of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Cut To The Feeling”. When I mentioned “moist towelettes” I was probably thinking of Hawthorne Wipes. The phrase “truth time” was an iconic - to me, and literally no-one else in existence - line spoken by the trolling narrator of a crack story written by a high school friend of mine, the energy of which I feel like I’ve always been channelling with these comics.

The interlude, on the other hand, is crammed full of references and was a breeze to write. It was the first piece of prose I completed for the project. In general, I was trying to write in a verbose style that would be simultaneously at odds with the bulk of the issue and reminiscent of the prose of veteran Transformers scribe Simon Furman. He was known for using certain distinctive phrases repeatedly in his writing - one such phrase being “like some vast, predatory bird”. The phrase “neither sufficient inclination nor wingspan” is supposed to subtly evoke another Furmanism: “CANNOT, WILL NOT”.

In all likelihood, the interlude would not have existed had I not noticed that Ratchet’s head was in its cartoon colours in the first part of the story, but in its Marvel colours for the second. I had the idea to explain that error away in story - tying into the general schtick of “correcting” the comic - and did so by way of a reference to Ratchet’s original toy, which had a sticker with a face on it behind the windshield rather than a proper head. I was also determined to highlight the fact that Predaking’s legs remain standing for like three pages; I think this minor detail in the artwork is pretty indicative of the fact that Mr. Gibson did a good job.

The way Swoop’s contribution to the combiner is described as “puny” ties nicely to the history established between him and Grimlock in his profile. I like the way the Beast tries to hit Optimus Prime with a “truck-sized fist”. The “antimemetic shielding” was my attempt to explain the recurring disappearances of Optimus Prime’s trailer in a novel way - I did so by namedropping the key phrase from qntm’s There Is No Antimemetics Division; the trailer’s there, you just can’t perceive it and forget that it exists. Finally, “dull surprise” refers to the vague expressions that characterised Dreamwave’s house style.

For the most part, I was able to retain the ordering of the pages as in the original comic, to keep things print-friendly. The one exception to this is the prose page for the second part, which I unfortunately had to move forward so that its cover could fall across a spread. The original comics must’ve included something in the way of backmatter - art cards, perhaps, or adverts - which made up the space.

The huge cast of The Beast Within made creating a profile for every character an impossible task (especially when so many are just crowd-fillers like some of the Technobots were in “PASS”) - but it was perfectly possible to provide one for each non-combiner character with a speaking role.

(If you’ll indulge me in one last barely-relevant tangent as we head into the final stretch of this commentary, there are some rather odd inclusions/omissions in The Beast Within. On the Autobot side, pretty much every 1984-1985 character appears, with the exceptions of Trailbreaker, Hoist, Tracks, Smokescreen, Grapple, Beachcomber, Seaspray, Perceptor and Omega Supreme. The Autobot combiner teams are absent with the odd exception of Silverbolt. Twin Twist - who had been pretty much entirely absent from the original US fiction - makes an odd appearance without his partner Topspin. Steeljaw is the only one of the four 1986 Autobot cassettes to appear. Meanwhile, on the Decepticon side, oddities include the toy-inspired versions of Viewfinder and Spectro (most of the rest of the cast use cartoon-inspired character models) and the omissions of Spyglass and Buzzsaw. Some Decepticon combiner team members - Motormaster, Wildrider, Breakdown, Blast Off and Swindle - only appear in combined form. Just two of the four 1986 triple changers - Springer and Octane - appear in the comic, looking slightly out-of-place in a cast consisting mostly of characters present in the first two seasons of the cartoon. Oh, and the Deluxe Vehicles and Deluxe Insecticons are absent, but that’s to be expected in a cartoon-inspired setting.)

Here’s the first draft of Optimus Prime’s profile:

Unpredictable. Unstoppable. Unrepentant. Many words have been used to describe OPTIMUS PRIME, yet the abrasive leader of the Autobots remains something of an enigma even amongst his followers. He has ruled Cybertron for many millenia, by dint of the fact that he's apparently the only Cybertronian with a shred of competence.

It’s a product of the time where I wanted to really flesh out Optimus Prime and communicate his thoughts clearly to the audience, and as such is pretty blunt with how it characterises him. The final version is a little more subtle, drawing in elements of the scrapped introduction. I figure I may as well go through the other profiles one-by-one to give a sense for what I was thinking:

Megatron initially had a much more personal bio - which seems to have been lost to time - but I wound up cutting much of it to make space for elements of the story’s scrapped introduction.

Starscream draws inspiration from van Feleday’s interpretation of the character - she posited that Michael Bay’s version of the character was actually the Decepticon most loyal to Megatron. The contrast between that interpretation and pretty much every other in the franchise��s history (excluding Shattered Glass Starscream, of course) is pretty funny to me. I tried to use the phrase “fools errands” in as benign a way as possible, which I felt evoked a more traditional relationship between him and Megatron. “Starscream, you fool!”

Razorclaw has little in the way of characterisation in the comic beyond “noble warrior”, and his profile is a wholesale reference to The Chronicles of Narnia: he stands in for Aslan; the rest of the Predacons for the Pevensie siblings. So yes, this version of Razorclaw is a Christ-like figure. As for the witch... maybe Blackarachnia? Eh, who cares. Oh, and the idea of combining with a dead bot was one which cropped up a few times in IDW’s comics, most notably with the Combaticons in Mairghread Scott’s Till All Are One.

Onslaught was in a similar boat to Razorclaw. I found myself drawing from Till All Are One once more, hinting at a (complicated?) romance between him and another teammate.

Blitzwing has only one speaking role in the comic - a shared line with Megatron and Starscream - but I decided to count it for the sake of having a nice set of sixteen characters once more. In Transformers Animated, Blitzwing had multiple personalities, and would change forms depending on which was in control. This interpretation of the character has seen plenty of criticism, so I deliberately tried to come up with something new. I quickly settled upon the idea of tying his vehicle forms to his mood, a metaphor which seemed to dovetail nicely with the way aerial alternate forms were treated in “PASS” and which also allowed me to cement the Decepticons’ supportiveness.

Bulkhead was borne of the realisation that Springer appears prominently in both “Peace” and The Beast Within. This inconsistency is entirely the product of my decision to place my versions of those comics in the same continuity, and I decided to correct it in the tradition of “Bluster” and “Firster Aid” by having them be two separate (but related) characters. I named the new Springer after Energon Bulkhead, who was inspired by “Generation 1″ Springer - the name’s since been used more prominently by an Animated-original character and variations thereof, and is effectively fair game for “Generation 1″ stories. His actual characterisation was inspired by Springer’s behaviour in “PASS” - I liked the idea that Bulkhead bullied Springer, and Springer bullied everyone else in turn. Oh, and I wanted to tie their helicopter modes back to Blitzwing’s profile on a thematic level.

Bumblebee is the only character from “its christmas... so what??” to recur with a speaking role in “The Beast Within (My Pants)”. After scrapping the original introduction I’d planned for the comic, I was left with a single profile to bridge the gap between the two stories. My original idea was that, for their negligence in allowing the humans to steal Bumblebee’s blood, Prowl, Tracks, and Hoist would have been executed by Optimus Prime - though I’m sure he didn’t pull the trigger himself, it’s safe to assume that he didn’t warn them before setting off the nukes.

Ratchet has a characterisation inspired by something “Jonny Angel” posted in van Feleday’s thread: “Ratchet is an ambulance who practices no medicine”.

Jazz is an extremely prominent character in the comic, despite the fact that his only line is a scream in the opening panel. The comic relies on the wider context of the brand to let the audience be invested in him, but in a vacuum it’s kinda funny to see the Autobots fret so much over an effective nobody. Pretty much the entire joke in my version is just a reference to Ryan Gosling’s misguided quest to “save jazz” in La La Land - some of his character’s lines are lifted wholesale to comprise Jazz’s profile, which takes pains to avoid using any kind of pronouns (thereby maintaining the confusion over whether or not “Jazz” refers to the character or the music genre). His profile was the first I wrote.

Ironhide has a role amongst the Autobots loosely inspired by that of Drew Linky (or at least, the version of Drew Linky presented by SPAT) in the Homestuck Discord. I thought there was some symmetry there with Ironhide’s history in IDW Publishing’s comics.

Skids was a tricky character to portray, but ultimately his profile turned out to be one of the ones I’m happiest with. It’s kind of a loose riff on his portrayal towards the back end of James Roberts’ stories, where much of his arc revolved around his relationship with Nautica. According to Word of God, he had unrequited feelings for her - I decided to amp this up by giving him unrequited feelings for everyone. To tie this back to Homestuck, think Eridan/Cronus. Oh, and in terms of the Homestuck Discord server, think your typical hornyposter (and then follow the implications through in terms of Optimus Prime/Makin). The actual name “Skids Maximus” is a play on the way the suffix “Maximus” has historically been used for some combiners, “Optimus Maximus” in particular. I’m convinced I’m not the first person to do a joke like that, but nobody I asked could think of any older examples.

Grimlock was fleshed out pretty well by the comic itself, so I took his profile as an opportunity to expand upon the history of the Dinobots. I saw them as being akin to a group of friends who stuck together throughout school, winding up as an impenetrably toxic and incestuous mess with a ton of deep lore. In a way, there was a time when I was the Grimlock of my group of friends... but we all grew up.

Swoop is Grimlock’s ex-partner, a concept inspired by the other Dinobot combiner we all wish we could forget about. I’m pretty happy with the use of the word “bottom” in this context.

Snarl is based on a combination of various people I’ve known in real life - people who are perfectly nice and reasonable but have zero patience around certain other individuals. From the outside, it’s behaviour that comes across as pretty damn harsh, but - and please note that this is not an endorsement of such behaviour - it’s usually the product of a long period of aggravations.

Jetfire was the last character introduced in the comic, so it felt fitting to save his profile until last. His biography is effectively a mashup of his portrayals in the original cartoon (where he gets frozen in the Arctic Circle) and in Revenge of the Fallen (where he was a Seeker who wound up on Earth), a combination which neatly parallels Bay’s Megatron’s origins. It also references J.J. Abram’s infamous “mystery box” storytelling device, which I intended to mirror the offbeat lack of closure in the comic itself.

The final challenge I faced - one which had hounded me throughout the development of the comic - was what exactly to title it. Titles considered included:

“The BEE” (Tindalos’ suggestion)

“The BEE Within”

“The REEEE Within”

“SHIT” (Gitaxian’s suggestion)

“IM THE BEAST”

“AWWW SHIT” (Fear or Courage’s suggestion)

“AW SHIT ITS THE BEAST”

None of these resonated. Then, almost a whole month later, out of nowhere:

This was the entirety of Daniel111111222222’s contribution to the story - and what a contribution it was.

There were several reasons why I loved his idea. Firstly, it was easy to edit: most of the other suggestions would’ve required me to move lots of letters around, while this one would simply require me to append a few. More importantly, it felt like the title of a Chuck Tingle novel.

The subtitle for the second part - “No Pants” - seemed like a natural choice after that, the idea being that it evokes Grimlock’s inhibitions falling away with his transformation into the Beast. It narrowly edged out “Pants Off”, which I managed to squeeze into the final version of the introduction.

The parentheses in the comic’s title were my own addition, and in retrospect I kinda regret them. They seemed like a good idea at the time, but I’m not sure why. I was wrong to try and improve upon perfection.

IX. Why Throw Away Your Life So Recklessly

So far, the bulk of this commentary has mostly focused on the aspects of this project which I think went pretty well. In a way, that's probably fair enough, because - on balance - I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

At the same time, I can't help feeling that “PASS” - a comic which I probably threw together in the space of one day two years ago - is both funnier and more meaningful than the one which I spent a couple of weeks on.

When I started working on “The Beast Within (My Pants)” towards the beginning of May, I expected to have the project finished and out of the door by the end of the month. If you glance at the release dates of the various things I made, you'll see that I like to put out major projects on the last day of a month - it's a way of setting myself a deadline and it lets me associate a given project with a given period of time.

My first draft of the dialogue was released to prereaders on the 11th of May; my second on the 13th. Around that point, exam season started to kick in and I decided to prioritise to other projects - the Retrace Steps commentary and the Are You Happy retrospective - which both ballooned out into much longer pieces than I'd planned. I successfully met my self-imposed deadline for those projects and pushed back the release date for the comic to the end of June. I released the first drafts of the text-only pages on the 9th, but the profiles didn't follow until the 24th. By the time you read this, I'll have been working on the project on-and-off for over three months; despite the fact that I was ostensibly on vacation for most of that time, I was somehow busier than I tend to be at university.

For context, it took me just four months to adapt Retrace Steps from a short film script to a webcomic (well, “webcomic”), and that was a process which actually required original artwork. At the time I noted that I needed to re-evaluate the way I approached commentaries, as the amount of time required to produce one of a high standard seemed only to increase - they're extremely valuable to me, and seem to be well-received by the few who read them, but are they justifiable if they take longer to create than the things they comment on?

All of this is my long-winded way of saying that I've probably spent more time thinking about The Beast Within than the vast majority of people who know about it, and that I kinda regret that. See, in the sense that The Beast Within provokes a visceral emotional reaction, it’s a “good comic” - but so too does a punch to the face. The Beast Within is not a good comic. It’s mean and deconstructive and poorly-done. My version is borne of contrarianism and hubris, and softens the blow not one bit.

At the time when I was writing Grimlock's dialogue, I found that my own typing style was becoming increasingly acidic.

The truth is that “PASS” is probably the most successful thing I have ever made, and I wanted to make a comic which would put it to shame, and I failed miserably. In fact, I feel like I’ve made something which only I could ever enjoy. It’s derivative in the extreme. As my deadline for this project drew closer, I resorted to drafting bits of the commentary on my phone in public, and at one point somebody idly asked me what I was writing, and - after failing to think of a convincing lie - I said something along the lines of “it’s kinda a long story, and I wouldn’t enjoy telling it, and you wouldn’t enjoy hearing about it”. They seemed perfectly satisfied by that answer, but I wasn’t.

Must we justify the things we create? Mr. Jamieson’s attitude seemed to be to say “screw you, I don’t have to justify myself to stupid people” (while pointing at everybody else in the room). My attitude, as evinced by this commentary, has been to justify every aspect of everything I make in excruciating detail, so that if you tell me “I don’t like X” I can say “I already explained why I thought X was a good idea” and you can say “well you were wrong” and I can say “maybe”.

You’ve probably twigged that, throughout this commentary, I’ve referred to the creators of The Beast Within only by second name. At first, perhaps, it came across as some mark of mocking respect - like citing a scientific source - but the real reason is cowardice, not confidence. Some people occasionally put their own names into Google. There’s a couple of people to whom I really don’t want to have to justify myself.

Over a decade after the release of the The Beast Within, Hasbro released a brand new set of Dinobot toys which combined to form Volcanicus. The creators of the Prime Wars Trilogy and of the Earth Wars mobile game gleefully included the new combiner in their stories, and the fandom at large embraced it wholeheartedly.

As her thread drew to a close, Terry van Feleday wrote something which I think about often:

Of course [...] let’s not forget that no matter the amount of earnest work put into something, sometimes it just turns out shit. There’s a strange perception I noticed in critical response where people seem to find it difficult to consider something both earnest or satirical and, well, not very well made. Sucker Punch can’t be an honest indictment of cinematic objectification and a somewhat poorly conceived, almost hypocritical attempt at being more clever than you should. Transformers can’t be an inversion of the traditional hero/villain narrative showcasing the effects of authoritarian propaganda and a meandering, under-focused, often poorly communicated, destructive mess. Maybe it’s a strange entertainment-version of the Just World Fallacy where lacking results must necessarily result from lacking effort, or maybe it’s modern audiences’ strange worship of subversiveness, where a work critical of old tropes must by default be better than the works it’s commenting on throwing to the dustbin of history, but either way, people are extremely resistant to the idea that films they found emotionally dissatisfying could express depth and meaning and tend to dismiss them as another ‘genre film’.

Mr. Gibson is a children’s picture book illustrator. The Beast has no place on his website.

X. Proceed On Your Way To Oblivion

TFNation - the UK’s biggest Transformers convention - has become something of an annual pilgrimage for me, and (as of the time of writing) I’ll be making that pilgrimage in a matter of days. If you see me there, feel free to come over and punch me. Or, y’know, just say hi. I’ll have some limited-edition printed copies of “PASS” to give out. For more information on that - and for infrequent Transformers-related musings and updates on future projects - wander on over to my twitter!

What are those future projects? Well, after the convention I’m planning to release an original short story. It’s not very good, but it’s got a few stylistic similarities to this comic (read: lots of swearing). I might have a little bit in the way of Transformers prose coming out down the line, but can’t really elaborate further on the form that’ll take. I’ve been planning to get back to Huskyquest for ages, and hopefully I’ll finally be able to do so once I settle back down at university. After that, I plan to focus my efforts on prose, so you may as well expect more radio silence from me.

If you’ve made it to the end of this almost-fifteen-thousand-word monstrosity, you, uhh... win all my internet points? Sorry, that’s all I have.

Remind me never to do this again.

[kinghoranshit]

This is Love (LT) Ch 13

Word Count: 1,170

Quietly, I overlooked the, now, empty apartment. It seemed so full yesterday, and living. The cream walls were so bland now, and the crack that had been made from me falling into the wall was visible now; not hidden by the TV.

My mind raced of all the memories made in this tiny apartment. So much had happened in a mear two and a half years here. For two and a half weeks, I'd been preparing myself for this day, but I was still not ready.

I lightly rested my hands on my belly and couldn't stop the memories from flooding me.

*Boxes of our stuff we shipped over stacked around the living room. We had yet to find anything to sleep on. Katie came waltzing into the apartment with a happy, yet tired look on her face. She slipped her black Vans off and placed them by the door. The first real thing that was out and showing that we lived here. It was our new home.*

*The boys sat around on the floor, chattering a good bit and laughing. Katie and I sat criss-cross applesauce on the futon Katie had found the day after we arrived and held our ukuleles. We made goofy faces at each other and Katie signaled me to get ready. The four quieted down and looked at us, excited. We had played them all the songs we could by them, and others we knew. We had our own mini uke concert. Katie and I love to do it on our own, but to have the four watching us made it even better and more fun.*

*Katie flew around the kitchen as she cooked. It was her first time seeing Niall in a couple months. He'd been touring, but finally caught a small weekend he could come see her. Louis was stuck in LA for an interview or promo. Katie's eyes went wide and she screamed out something, throwing her arms out. I had to help her clean up the mess of pancakes on the floor. She was making breakfast, so when Niall arrived he could eat and go straight to sleep. She knew how to take care of him, but it didn't mean she didn't get nervous seeing him after a while. After calming her down, and helping her finish up despite my little cooking skills, Niall arrived.*

*I turned in circles, tugging Louis with me. I was singing along to the mixed CD that Louis had made. Louis was trying to get me to stop, but of course I didn't want to. I was having too much fun. Finally, I let go of him, and it had been when he was trying to get out of my grip, so both of us went flying backwards. While he landed on the futon, I landed on a wall. It hurt, but I was laughing more than anything. When I got up, I saw the crack. Katie would chastise me for it, so I hid it with the TV. I just told her I decided to do a little rearranging and she didn't care.*

*Katie had frames everywhere, trying to get the papers framed. And I had papers everywhere that needed to be graded. It was not one of the prettiest moments in our apartment. But somehow, we managed, after yelling at each other to move one another's things. It'd been the first time we "fought" in the apartment, and in ever. Honestly, we just started laughing cause we had never fought before, and we couldn't take each other seriously.*

*Katie and I were huddled on the couch together. We'd decided to watch all the Marvel movies, which Katie brought from home. We started with all three of the Iron Man movies. Then proceeded to go onto the two Hulk movies, two Thor movies, and both Captain America movies. We ended with watching the two Avengers movies where they all come together to fight evil. It made me think of the time Katie and I wrote a superhero story, and sometimes I do wish I could have a power, or just be a hero. I thought it would be awesome.*

*I looked at Katie in slight shock as she was bellowing out a laugh. She'd just splattered some flour onto my shirt. I narrowed my eyes at her, jokingly of course, and I reached to take a handful of flour to throw at her. She tried to dodge, but some of it still managed to get on her. Now, I was the one laughing, but she was still a little bit too. She grabbed the leftover cake batter this time and flicked it at me. We were in a full on baking food war. The kitchen and us getting messy in all of it. By the end, we were just sitting on the floor, our backs against the cabinets, and laughing.*

*I laughed as Barbie didn't know how to drive, yet she was a race car driver before. Katie and I were watching Barbie and the dreamhouse on Netflix, while doing our nails, stuffing our faces with popcorn, and drinking hot cocoa. We'd taken turns doing each other's nails. Katie chose red and I chose green; it was Christmas time. We had a small Christmas tree in the corner by the TV; bright colors lit it, different shaped ornaments decorated it, and there were a couple small presents wrapped underneath it.*

I found myself looking at the particular corner we'd designated as the Christmas tree corner a couple years ago. It was never a big tree; it was actually a small, store bought one. I laughed a little; no more cheapo tree. I'd make sure the Christmas tree Louis and I had was just as crazily decorated, but it'd never be the same.

I looked at the kitchen and smiled. No more bake fights that end up in a pile of mess. Well, in that tiny, cramped kitchen.

My throat tightened up as I looked at the main part of the apartment, and there was no futon, coffee table, bookcase, and TV. I could still imagine it there; every single edge of material. We never rearranged the furniture; except when I did after the crack in the wall.

My eyes landed, once again, on the crack in the wall. It'd be the only evidence that we ever lived here, and I was the only one who knew about it. I was sure the next people who came along would have it redone. If I came back, and it's gone, I'd still be able to tell where it was.

A soft knock sounded on the door. "Ready to go, my love?"

I looked back at Louis, who looked at me expectantly, and I made a small nod. I let out a deep sigh as I held the door knob, and overlooked what was Katie and I's home one last time. I bit my lip and a small tear slide down my cheek.

Finally, I closed the door.

Next: Ch 14

[Masterlist]

[nostalgiaispeace]

680.

5000 Question Survey Pt. 45

4301. Suggest a question for the 5,000 question survey: anything not super outdated. 4302. What’s your preferred form of artistic expression (writing, drawing, musicianship, etc…)? music 4303. Name one thing that’s overrated: taylor swift. Name one thing that’s underrated: metal 4304. Are the beatles overrated? not sure. never really listen to them.

4305. Do you smoke? if so, what brand? yes. L&M 4306. Why do you choose to listen to the music you listen to? i like it? 4307. Does music these days suck? mostly. 4308. Are personal ads acts of desperation? seem so. 4309. Have you ever been/are you a vegetarian? no 4310. Who are the three most important musical artists in your life? Lana Del Rey, Lacey Sturm, Asking Alexandria. 4311. do you find it disrespectful when contemporary musicians cover older ones? no. How about when people attribute the writing of these songs to the bands that only covered them? well I’ve never heard anyone do that so.. 4312. Do you believe in arming civilians? i have my own opinions. 4313. Do you find desolation and darkness sometimes beautiful? sure 4314. If you were drafted to fight in Afghanistan, would you willingly and proudly go? no. i’d be fucking scared. i’m mentally ill so probably wouldn’t be able to go anyway so it wouldn’t matter. 4315. What is people juice? don’t wanna know. 4316. aisle or window seat? aisle. i pee alot. 4317. What is your Favorite Simpsons character? none. 4318. Have you ever been to Mexico? no. 4319. Are people that wear glasses more or less attractive? no opinion? 4320. What sucks more, a Mini Van or SUV? i don’t like driving either so.. 4321. Are the days of writing and mailing letters lost? yeah, sadly. 4322. What do you think about right before you go to sleep? worries...but i try to focus on daydreams. 4323. Do I ever cross your mind - anytime? no 4324. Have you ever solved a Rubix Cube? no 4325. Why is everyone so emotionally and spiritually dead???? Are YOU?? their problem; no 4326. What can you feel BURNING UP inside your head? death 4327. What life experience do you have? not enough. 4328. Have you ever hit rock bottom? What was that like for you? if i haven’t i don’t want to; it sucked ass. 4329. Are you self destructive? yes 4330. Are you very extreme? probably. 4331. Are you completely full or do you feel empty? comfortable 4332. Can you turn the whole world inside out? um..no 4333. Are you potentially a criminal? no 4334. Where is your PASSION?? in music. 4335. Why do we hide our souls? to bare it would make us feel weak. 4336. How many times have you lied today? Did you just lie to that question? not sure if i have? 4337. Do you always notice when you are lying? yes 4338. Do you think that lying is so built into our culture that we can’t help it? probably. 4339. What are fighting against? What are you fighting for? Why aren’t you fighting? stigma; mental health awareness; i am tho 4340. Give the following things a rating. One is completely normal, ten is completely crazy/rebellious. tattoos: 1 no piercings or tattoos: 1 piercings: 1 pink hair: 1 openly discussing sex: 1 bob Marley: n/a green hair: 1 extreme emotion: 4 a tie: 1 spiked bracelets: 1 4341. What’d you think of the Grammys? don’t watch them. 4342. When you see the stars and the waves crash in how do you feel? this question is stupid. 4343. What do you think about under a midnight sky? i wanna go home. 4344. Who are ‘they’? Dunno 4345. Who cares what they think??? no one 4346. Do you ever let them stop you? depends 4347. What would you do if there were no limits? There are no limits. Go Do it. everything 4348. Will you dance with me? no 4349. Will you drink yourself on the floor with me? no 4350. Will you sleep in the streets with me? no. 4351. Courtney love or Madonna: musically? neither personality wise? neither looks? Courtney 4352. Do you have a negative attitude towards the opposite sex? no 4353. Can you imagine anything that would seriously improve the world? Trump going away 4354. Have you read the book Venus in Furs? Did it turn you on? no 4355. Velvet Underground with or without Nico? what 4356. Is there any similarity between what eminem is doing and what manson is doing? not really. 4357. Who wants to be your dog? a corgi does 4358. Are you SURE you aren’t pretentious(I’ve been reading SOME surveys that sound pretentious to me)? probably am 4359. Can you understand and express subtle and complex ideas? when i’m not exhausted probably. 4360. Is writing akin to thinking for you? yes 4361. What do you imagine it feels like to be a member of the opposite sex? probably nice 4362. Bowie’s Outside, can you tell who the murderer is? no? 4363. Are you a bad banana with a greasy black peel? no 4364. What do you think of the Atkins diet? diets are stupid 4365. 'If it bleeds, I will fuck it' How does that make you feel? ew 4366. The greatest shock rocker of all time is: no one The most pathetic shock rocker is: no one 4367. Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, or Red Dragon? none. 4368. If Dr Lechter were to visit you what would you do? nothing 4369. Who is your favorite director of movies? Chris Nolan 4370. What is Kubrick’s best film? A Clockwork Orange 4371. Fill in the blank as if you were speaking. I don’t want anybody else. When I think about ___ I touch myself. Lana Del Rey 4372. Are you overly confident and blinded to your own faults? If you were you probably wouldn’t know the extent of it. no; cool 4373. Do you like: King Crimson? no Emerson Lake and Palmer? no Tajmahol? no Republic? no Thursday? no 4374. Do you write your favorite bands on your clothing? no 4375. Are you wild and crazy? no 4376. Do you party like River Pheonix? no. 4377. What is it that you still are hiding? why would i say it if i’m hiding it? 4378. How attractive is a girl is a suit? How attractive is a guy in a dress? attractive? 4379. Why is it more acceptable for a girl to dress like a guy than for a guy to dress like a girl? i don’t care 4380. Why is being a girl seen as somehow something LESS than being a guy? ask someone ignorant. 4381. What are three things you value? honesty, loyalty, support 4382. What are three things you normally do that go against those values in some way? i lie...that’s all i can think of. 4383. Name three things society in general values? dunno 4384. Name three behaviors that society accepts as normal that go against those values? they lie, they aren’t loyal to their people, they don’t support their people. 4385. Name three highly specific things you look for in a potential mate? Matthew Charles Aselin. 4386. Who is the basis for your comparison when choosing a partner? if you’re not Matthew..I don’t want you. 4387. Have you ever given someone multiple orgasms or received them yourself? I’ve received them. 4388. The older generations thought the Beatles were hip. Now they think today’s music is shocking. What could music evolve into that people might find more shocking ten years from now? who knows 4389. Do you have any motives for your actions other than anger and lust? Lust isn’t even a motive for any of my actions lmao. Fear. 4390. Would you be more likely to rape someone or to kill someone? neither. 4391. What have you read by James Baldwin? not that i recall. 4392. Can you read Naked Lunch straight through in one sitting? dunno. 4393. Are you a snob? If yes, in what regards? probably; in things i like. 4394. Fill in the blank. ___ is all there is. Life 4395. Is common sense dead? basically. 4396. Are you unapproachable? i feel like it. 4397. Are you the kind of person strangers like to talk to? no 4398. Do social interactions energize or drain you (in general)? drain me. 4399. What’s the longest you have ever gone between sexual encounters? a while. I don’t have a sex drive really. 4400. Compare John Lennon and Kurt Cobain: i like Kurt Cobain better?

[whatshouldieatforbreakfasttoday]

Portugal Road Trip with a Toddler

Portugal is breathtaking. Travelling around Portugal made me appreciate each little moment. Morning coffee on a beach, looking at the ocean, tasteful veggies and, obviously, all the traditional sweets.

We went there in a high season and it was still amazing. Especially the Northern part of Portugal, which is very van friendly, people helpful and sympathetic, the views spectacular. It felt like I’m in a country perfect for me. My problem is that I love to be on the road. I do not stay in one place longer than 1-2 days, as I am always curious what's next. Tomasz got used to it, Mia is just like me. Sometimes, when we found a perfect spot and I want to stay for longer, she simply said "let's go auto". She's the boss. I also love life in my campervan, which is not as photogenic as the previous one, but I love it like crazy. It means, that when I wake up somewhere on the coast with the perfect view of the ocean and I can accompany it with a good cup of coffee - it's my private heaven. I do not mind a very small space, nor showers from a cup. But it's me, so if you prefer a proper pressure in your shower, there's plenty of beautiful and not pricy campsites.

To start with I just want to write that it’s almost too easy to travel around Portugal in a van. We stopped at a campground only once as there was no need at all.

Some more practical knowledge:

-internet is easy over here, you can buy 30GB SIM card which worked everwhere :D

-highways are paid, at some parts there are only cameraswhich take pictures of your vehicle, so you have to pay it later on. We did it in a post office.

-laundry - you have Inter Marche supermarket with washing machine and dryer and well. It'slocated outside of the store,so you can make loundry (20 minutes) and meantime get some supplies. Easy and fast.

-places, where you can refill water, get rid ofgrey and black waste are almost everywhere. There is this website that can help a lot, I mostly used this one. For water you can always stop on a gas station, it's usually next to the air machine.

-showers - we took it in a van (super easy to refill water and get rid of the grey one), but you can find some on a beach and on gas station.

-stopping for a night - there’s so many beautiful spots to stop. It’s really easy. At some point I could not believe that we’re staying in such unique spots.

-food - we did cook a lot as we like it. But, seriously, Portugal is so delicious that you want to eat out from time to time. Obviously prices in Porto or Lisbon are higher, but when we stopped in smaller towns or villages we had meals of our lifetime for a surprisingly small price. There’s so many things to try… You can also buy an octopus or fish from a fisherman and BBQ it.

Our route:

First stop was in Caminha - Vilarelho. There was this long and beautiful beach, totally empty. Just. Behind a corner there were groups of people. I remember being surprised that they all stay in one spot, when the other beach is so much better. I went back an hour later and the wind almost blew me away. Now I get it :D But still, the beach is amazing. I am not a sunbathing kind of a person, so for a walk it was great.

There was also a beautiful little town with delicious ice creams, pastel de nata (it was my first tasting after a break so I had like 5) and beautiful tiles everywhere. There was also a great market, but as I was holding Mia on my hands all the time, no pictures from there.

In this beautiful town, it was the first and last time we stayed at a camping site.

Braga - wow! This is a city with a history and it’s simply beautiful. I was positively surprised that there was not so many tourists. Easy to park a van - another surprise. We had lunch at Mini Sport, which was such a cool experience! Only locals, delicious fish and super nice owners. Mia loved the fish as well, so win-win. This was also the town where Mia gave her first public performance - she started to sing on a street, kept doing it for the next 30 minutes and asked herself to sing one more time constantly.

Agucadoura - has a beautiful long beach. This is a beautiful little town and we did not see any tourist over there for 2 days. Just look at this beach! I had the happiest moment over there, while sitting in the evening in our van, windows open, watching sunset. Just beautiful! At some point local men came to me and asked if that was my van. I was sure he wants me to move it, but he suggested a better place to park it. It was a much better place and he made us stay there two days.

Porto - you have a whole guide over here.

Cappella Sr. Da Pedra - beautiful little chapel on a beach. When I got there it was super foggy and it looked like a scene from a horror movie, so cool! It was 6am, I was there all by myself and I loved it. We stayed there for a night, in a parking next to a beach.

Sabrosa - we got there to see all the wineries, but it got to 42*C, even the wind was hot so we run away. But it was stunning for a moment. If you get into this area, go to Restaurant Veladouro in Pinhao, the food was amazing!

Costa Nova - this little town loves stripes and each house is covered in it. It was full during the weekend, but I can imagine that off season, it’s much calmer over there. They have a beautiful long beach, great street market and quite awesome spots to park for a night almost on a beach.

Piodao - it was a treat just to get there. The views were stunning, my ‘Sweetheart’ almost gave up a few times and we could drive only on 1st gear at some points. But we did it and it was worth it. Maybe it’s because we got there around 9pm and left before 10am, but there were no tourists at all. This is one of the most beautiful villages I saw my life. So authentic. I met a woman doing her laundry in a pond, she was so friendly with Mia. This is also the place where Mia met a tiny dog and decided to become best friends with it. She sat there, talking to it and refused to leave.

Obidos - town surrounded with a wall, you can walk around it and be scared, as sometimes I just wanted to glue to a side. Obviously, it was worth it. All buildings are white with elements of yellow and sometimes blue. Portuguese towns are so beautiful. We stopped there for a lunch break, but I can imagine that it’s really beautiful early in the morning, when there’s not so many people around.

Peniche- it’s surfers area and you feel like you’re in Australia. Boards everywhere, many cheaper places for a bite and great mood. If I was only surfing…

Ericeira - is surfers’ favourite as well. A beautiful little town not so far from Lisbon. I liked walking around the narrow streets and to find a tiny restaurant or a store. I also love that it’s all white with elements of blue. Very photogenic.

Praia de Santa Cruz - beautiful town, very friendly with an incredibly beautiful coastline.

Praia das Azenhas do Mar - this is one stunning town on rocks. It is super tiny, has an incredible restaurant facing the ocean and a small natural pool with the ocean water. In the evening you can observe fishermen and it is so relaxing.

Nature Park of Arrabida - this is something! Green, impressive with hidden beaches.

Comporta - it’s kind of a Portuguese Venice, but not at all. It is something that you want to see and experience. Long narrow wooden bridges getting you into fishermen boats. The sunset was incredible.

Praia da Vigia - another of my most favourite beaches. It’s located in Melides and it’s 40km long. There are hardly any people around and I loved it. Mia was running around, there was a feeling of space and you can do some horse riding over there! Can you imagine riding a horse on a beautiful beach? It’s the most amazing experience!

Porto Covo - this is a lovely little town. In the morning, fishermen go to look for octopus in between rocks and it feels homey. I hope to go back in winter and stay in Casa da Cabeca da Cabra , so I can enjoy walks next town ocean and feel the atmosphere of this area.

Praia do Brejo Largo -it was not easy to get there and to leave as well, we even got stuck. But it was definitely worth it. During the season the beach was almost empty, at least in the evening. It also is beautiful. You can walk around the dunes, which was pretty awesome as well.

Zambujeira do Mar - we all loved it! It’s a small town located on a rock and it’s definitely impressive. Beaches were cool, people friendly, the food good, beer cold ;) It’s one of my favourite spots, such a sweet vibe. We were walking around with Natalie and photograph everything possible.

Praia de Odeceixe - beautiful spot for a night, but on the other side of the river. We even put some lights outside as it was so stunning over there. The beach is wide and I saw quite a few surfers. In the evening, it’s empty and perfect to wander around.

Sagres - we mostly visited the port. It is tiny but full of life. Early in the morning you can meet many fishermen and they were super friendly. They must be, as they all take care of the many cats living over there.

Fortaleza de Sagres - beautiful minimalism, stunning views, awesome walk. Even Mia did it!

Sagres is also called the end of the world and at night the sky is covered with stars which you centrally see. We stayed overnight in Raposeira, on the rocks and it was definitely worth having this drive. There was also a man driving in his van around all the crazy spots where vans usually stop and selling fresh veggies and fruits (home delivery, well… almost).

Monsaraz - I am not being original over here, but, yet again, a stunning town. I could stay there for weeks, just to watch the sunset. It’s located quite a drive form a coast, but it’s worth it! Go there! It will be hot, really hot, but thankfully there are lakes in this area, where you can cool yourself down. We did :) I remember sitting on stairs, waiting for a table in a restaurant, chatting with friends and feeling happy.

Odemira - magical beach stop. Parking on a cliff, I can definitely imagine staying there for a night.

Praia dos Estudantes - definitely worth checking out and definitely very early in the morning, unless you like crowds. Lagos is a busy place during the season.

Almancil - our last stop. South is beautiful, but during the season so crowded that it made me miss north. Nevertheless, definitely worth seeing. I hope to be back, but this time of the season :)

[sierrabinondo]

my first tour.

i’m currently sitting in a ford e350 riding down I-95 back to new jersey, to hurriedly clean out the rental van we took for my band’s first tour ever and drop it off at bandago. we’ve been up since 8:30 am, not an unusual time for us, but we’re running on about 5-6 hours of sleep. that’s the average amount of sleep we’ve been able to squeeze in every night of tour. nine nights straight away from home, a gig almost every night. and of course, as physically exhausting as it was, it was a week that changed us and challenged ourselves as musicians.

8/12 - asbury park, nj

day one was our jersey hometown show in asbury. boy it was stressful at first, and absolutely sweltering outside from the humidity. i was so stressed because i was in a panic (when aren’t i lol) dealing with a sinus infection. anyone who knows me knows i’m a nervous wreck. i am a perfectionist, and i loathe not performing at my best; i try really hard to be perfect. i was flushing out my sinuses every hour and inhaling my humidifier that resembles a mini-nutri bullet if they came in white and also had a vaporizer tank inside. i looked pretty ridiculous sitting behind merch like this but i wasn’t taking any chances. i needed to take whatever measures i could possible to avoid a poor performance. there were a good amount of friends and people who came out to support us and i didn’t want to let them down. i was also really excited to see funeral attire, the band we went on tour with, and for people to see the progress we made in the month and a half we took to rigorously prepare for tour.

the asbury show ended up being really great, and a couple people said it was the best they’ve ever seen us. i felt overjoyed to hear such awesome feedback. i was also just really happy i could get our tourmates and close friends in funeral attire a show in asbury park. we sold out of pretty much all of our ramen shirts, which i was hoping to save for the rest of tour, but we ended up having enough to sell at least one ramen shirt a day to somebody. it was also really cool seeing like five people walking around the venue with ramen shirts on lmao

8/13 - long island, ny

and so our week of tour began- my sinus infection lessened but it persisted. the next day was long island, and we were looking forward to reuniting with our friends in i dreamt the sea who graciously put the show together for us. all of tour, whenever we played a bar with a juke box i spent $2 to play “smooth” by carlos santana featuring rob thomas and it was worth the allocated cost of $4 for all of tour. the show was a ton of fun. however i strangely sang worse than i did the day before- which was weird, and frustrating, since i felt the symptoms of my sinus infection less than i had in asbury. i was extremely upset. but i was surrounded by friends and i tried really hard to put on a brave face. all the bands we played with were super nice and liked us a lot, we made new friends and people who came out to the show dug us a lot too. we finally got to gig with u blue who are also a blue swan-eque band. so i guess even though i sucked, we did something right.

as we were getting ready to leave to go crash at my close friend jenni’s house in bellimore, our van’s battery died. bandago mentioned when we picked up our van earlier in the day that the battery had died the day before, but all they advised was that we drive the van around for a half hour or more once we began our rental. they didn’t mention anything about being wary of the battery beyond that. kelly and cassidy straight up saved us and gave us a super quick jump, and we were on our way finally. jenni was the first friend we crashed with and she really treated us to a nice sleep and some delicious bagels. so glad i could get to see her for the first time in a while too.

8/14 - nazareth, pa

the next day we headed out as quickly as possible to make our way to PA. something i feared on this tour was that we would lose our personal belongings, or have something stolen from us. this did happen - our tour photographer julie’s power strip was stolen in long island. fortunately, we were able to help her replace it. what had happened as we arrived to PA and stopped at walmart, was that i magically lost my phone somewhere between holding it in my hand walking out of the store, and sitting down to leave for our hotel. i was pretty much convinced it was gone or stolen. we ripped apart the entire van to try to find it, ran back inside walmart to see if i put it down somewhere, and even walked back to a spot we had the van parked in for a few minutes. i was convinced i was going to spend all of tour without a goddamn phone. and then, it occurred to me- maybe check… the garbage? and christ almighty. in a swath of basura juice, there was my phone. i ran back inside walmart to scrub the SHIT out of the case and carefully wash the phone itself and we finally made our way to check in at the days hotel in allentown, PA.

seriously- if you have a band of 5+ people, and/or if you are willing to spare the expense, buy hotel rooms for whatever nights you don’t have somewhere to crash for free any night of tour. i realize this isn’t feasible for 2+ week stints, or for people who literally do this for a living, but it was amazing to have beds to sleep in and free breakfast every morning for about $12-$15 a person. i actually don’t know if we would have been as healthy and happy without having that convenience. hotwire was how chris donis from funeral attire and i booked rooms, and the rates started at about $60 plus fees and tax per night. and it was fun crashing in hotels.

we met up with our friends in funeral attire and ethan from whittled down who was doing merch for most of the tour for a quick swim before the show in nazareth. we love hanging out with those guys. my obnoxious laugh is probably amplified by 10 dB just being around them. seriously almost pissed myself laughing in the pool because the guys were playing chicken and then ethan was doing kick flips into the pool with the life-saving device hanging by the pool the size of a massive surfboard. but POOL TIME was over around 3:30 pm because we had to get ready to head to the next venue, which was stehly’s bakery in nazareth a town over.

playing stehly’s was sick. small place, but they give each band member at least one free treat of some sort. i got a couple kiffles- little pastry dough roll-ups filled with fruit jellies- they were soooo cute and so good. i also caved to a helping of six potato and onion pierogies after the show. the only concerning thing was that after the first band jetsam played - awesome instrumental prog doom band - we soon realized that the show didn’t have a sound guy. there was a small PA set up, and we had mics and mic stands missing. the confusion pushed us quite a bit behind schedule but enough people at the show were resourceful and helpful enough to keep the show moving. i felt like i didn’t play an awesome set, and we also had some technical difficulties with our click track/Interlude mixer, but the funeral attire guys still had very nice things to say about us, so i trust them haha.

i was frustrated with how i totally blew my performance in long island, when we had a decent amount of people watching us, and then had a great show the next day. i actually don’t care about playing to a room of few people; i consider any opportunity to play to any amount of people of equal worth to another. so when i blow one show but not the other, i feel regret for not winning over potential fans we could have had, had i just been a better vocalist.

8/15 - philadelphia, pa

so then imagine my absolute blind rage, when we played the barbary in philly the next day, and we played our worst show all of tour. we were truly looking forward to this show and we were so devastated afterwards. my top most anticipated three shows were asbury, philly and cambridge. we love playing philly, we had some great bands on this bill we like a lot, and we actually had people coming out for us.

we were just making sure that the band on before us had almost all their gear off before we could load on, it was a really small stage. but the sound guy beckoned for us over the PA to start loading on regardless. we barely got a line check and it set the precedent for the whole set. ryan was starting to have volume issues with the volume levels on the mixer, and then because our individual levels were out of whack one of us would be louder than the other, or too loud to hear the drums. it was a straight up mess. and i didn’t know if we would win over anyone at the show anyways, but i just wanted to play well enough to have their respect. i put a lot of pressure on ourselves. i put a lot of pressure on myself.

when i have a bad set and i can’t deal with the disappointment i tend to shut down. even if i try my absolute best, even if people tell us we were still good - i just, i don’t believe them. it feels like they’re just being polite or i’m being lied to. it’s pretty pathetic of myself and sad; it’s something i need to work on. i actually wrote the small verse of lyrics in the intro of this tour about that. i just don’t think with all the experience of singing and performing i have that error is excusable anymore. after taking my best friend laura to her car i started chugging alcohol. i told myself before tour i wouldn’t drink until the last day to keep my throat in a healthy condition - whoops. i was so pissed i didn’t care and we had the next day off anyways; figured if i chugged water before bed i’d be fine. and i was right.

even when we had bad shows, my favorite perk each night was just getting to see funeral attire play every night. their song “joy” is one of my favorite all-time songs. the drowned god, blueroom and flowercrown were awesome too. oh! and a super fun thing we did was place enormous orders for cheesesteaks and had them delivered to the venue. we got guest lists this show and two free drink tickets each too. not gonna lie, it felt cool haha. we also explored a bit and FINALLY did our nine month-overdue interview with our friend brandon from audio addiction.

8/16 - day off at delaware water gap, days hotel in allentown, pa 

the next day, our day off, marked the halfway point for our tour. the original plan was hershey, but we did delaware water gap instead. it was a much better plan. we started the day with the whole tour together at cracker barrel. we then started to head up to delaware water gap, specifically milford, PA to check out hackers falls and milford beach. this day started out as absolute dog shit for me because i was dealing with a kinda heavy personal issue at home. didn’t anticipate i’d have anything to worry about in this regard, and my mental health has been worsening over the course of this year. so imagine at this point how hard it was for me to hide behind my hair and not be upset the whole morning. i’m also a horrible liar so i was fucked if i wanted to lie and say it was seasonal allergies fucking up my face lmfao

on top of that, we were super behind schedule for del water gap. we were all supposed to go jump in the waterfalls together, but we couldn’t find the specific waterfall we wanted to jump in. and the one we did find, the one i sort of swam in, it turned out that the trail to the bottom of the waterfall was closed off- which i believe had a more ideal swimming hole-type area. oh! and the worst part! we kept forgetting funeral attire had a commercial van for this tour. and one of the roads linked to where we were, PA-209, doesn’t allow commercial vehicles to travel through. so on top of me dealing with shit at home and now feeling like i was immensely inconveniencing my friends, i felt like an asshole. on my fucking day off lmao

but to my pleasant surprise it ended up being fine, and insanely fun. funeral attire didn’t get to chill at the waterfall with us but we made our way to milford beach and hung out there for the remainder of the day. thank god it was still open we didn’t get there until 5:30 pm. a bunch of us were swimming, couple of the guys just read or laid in the grass, and a few of the guys were throwing around a baseball. some of them swam across the river and back, the other side of the river was new jersey haha.

that night we got together to drink VERY heavily and hang out. that was probably one of my favorite highlights of the tour. at this point i was feeling much better. i shared a fat bottle of some pink moscato with julie. by the way, it was so sick having another girl on tour. not just because julie is talented but is also a great friend and was just an awesome presence to have for the week. her and donis helped me a lot on this day, if it wasn’t for them i don’t know i would have gotten through it.

my band partied hard for the first night all tour. funeral attire has the absolute strength and stomachs to drink most nights and then still play amazing sets every day- we’re not there at least not yet haha. holy fuck i made it halfway through this post and haven’t mentioned TIKI TIME??? TIKI TIM???

so funeral attire kept a couple sweet luau decorations from the long island venue hahaha and one of them said tiki time- can’t say i can truly encapsulate what tiki time is in a short explanation. tiki time was when we drank, but tiki time was also sort of the entire tour??? so i might be beat for explaining it well haha.

so we got super drunk and sang to old fueled by ramen/myspace emo bands, and my bandmate jaime and i played a four-way battle of magic the gathering with frankie and fez from funeral attire. i had my ass handed to me but i’m still learning anyways, it was fun regardless. it was really cool getting to know the guys in funeral attire better, i was already pretty close with donis but i feel like i got the chance to actually talk and hang with everyone.

arguably one of the funniest moments on tour - my bandmate joe got absolutely TRASHED. he somehow managed to get lost lmao or jaime had to escort him back to our hotel room late in the night. and even after joe was safe with us he woke up at 6 in the morning when housekeeping came walking in so he got up to shoo them away hahaha and THEN- he PANICKED because he realized he didn’t take a room key when he walked out the room and shut the door HAHA so he called ALL of us SEVEN times, he also accidentally called the jam room in howelll LMAO and finally as he’s on the phone with our friend ed, ed was just like “ask for help” so joe pulled aside an employee. and as that employee was approaching to help and joe turned the door knob, the door OPENED. the poor kid was sooo hung over the entire next day.

8/17 - brooklyn, ny

the second half of tour began with our drive out to brooklyn and nursing poor joe back to health. both bands arrived to brooklyn around the same time. we briefly went to a dog park, and then went to a big thrift shop where bren bought the sickest light pink leather jacket. after about an hour or so of walking around, we realized we were out of ideas of shit to do until showtime in about eight hours. we were all hungry as hell, but half of us wanted ramen or pizza. so we split up - my bandmates went to pizza, and julie and i went to ramen with funeral attire and ethan. we went to zamurai ramen which was absolutely fantastic. the prices were reasonable, too.

muchmore’s was a cool spot- a handful of my good friends came out too, it was awesome to see them and have some comfort from familiar faces. bartees cox jr was one of my most anticipated artists we were to play with on tour, and just, wow. originally his whole band stay inside was to play, but when he could only play solo i knew in my gut i still needed him on the show. what an exemplary musician of genuine talent, he truly stole the show. his voice, god. some people just sing, and some people make you feel by way of singing- i truly felt what he was singing. it’s people like him that inspire me.

well UNFORTUNATELY, i blew it at this show again too. and it felt horrible for me, considering my bandmates still played well and we promised we wouldn’t let the philly set happen again. i hate when i encourage everyone to play their best but can’t even set a good precedent for everyone. i was insanely upset, but i suppressed the urge to despair. 

after the show we crashed with jaime’s friends tim and erica who - holy shit - really pulled out all the stops for us. we had to pay $79 to park the van in the city, but even in a small lower manhattan apartment they were able to make us feel so goddamn comfortable. beds for everyone, a dinner table set for all of us and incredibly nice wine. i wasn’t going to eat but holy shit i COULD NOT turn down what tim made for us - this like, primavera white wine bowtie pasta and some DUMB thicc succulent pork. holy shit it was some of the best pork i have ever had. they also gave us breakfast for the next morning. what ANGELS

8/18 - manchester, nh

as we awoke we geared up for what would be our longest drive all tour - manhattan to manchester, new hampshire. we had at least six hours of driving to kill in time for load in at 5. we took this opportunity to watch selena- aka one of the best movies ever. the rain all day was real inconvenient, but we were excited to now be in funeral attire’s neck of the woods- new england that is. this also meant we were in the final stretch of tour; the dread was starting to set in.

this show ended up being one of our favorites. we had an enormous stage! it was fun to perform on and i felt like i personally had a great performance. it was cool to look around and see my bandmates looking super content and as into it as i was. the bands we played with were all awesome, we also played with a cool touring package (glass half empty and crafter). i was so excited to check out pinnacle, i really love their sound and their vocalist is so sick. damnit i just remembered i forgot to buy a shirt from pinnacle. I DIGRESS-

so funeral attire showed us mr. mac’s in manchester, a spot with over a dozen kinds of mac and cheese. i wanted to get the lobster one but i ended up getting jalapeño cheddar. woooOOOOOOOW it was GOOD - but of course i could only eat a little bit due to the fact i had to sing and also, milk products and my body are not a good mix anymore :—–) so i saved the rest for later and ate some while watching funeral attire’s set hahaha. julie got the carbonara which had like three different white cheeses and bacon, i almost got that one originally but we both just swapped bites. hiiiighly recommend going if you’re ever playing bungalow bar and grill or going to a show there!

8/19 - cambridge, ma

our second-to-last show was in cambridge, MA- it’s like boston’s brooklyn. rob kindly put us up for the night in his basement, and after we packed up we went to explore cambridge. to my very nice and pleasant surprise there was a GODDAMN H MART - an asian supermarket - with a food court. so we ate lunch there! i got a poké bowl, couple of the guys got ramen and sushi, and julie had this amazing dark curry. we also tried café nero, really great coffee/espresso spot that is also a chain and i straight up just had no idea. there was a bao place (super soft dumplings, kinda look like lil sandwiches) next door that julie and i grabbed baos to eat at. i got the MIT and- oh christ i forget the name of the other one- but the MIT had lamb, lettuce, sesame seeds, pickled onions and spicy mayo, and the other had most of the same ingredients but with crispy tofu. soooo delicious. the guys also bought a couple records at a shop across the street from the venue.

the venue we played was out of the blue too art gallery, an art gallery that hosts shows. AND THEY HAD AN ALASKAN MALAMUTE WALKING AROUND NAMED XO. the biggest malamute i’ve ever seen, xo was so cute. had colored feathers in her fur too. this show was funeral attire’s hometown show, so we met a lot of the musicians they’re most friendly with and they were all so kind. i wanted to get oldsoul on the show so badly and donis and jess from oldsoul made it happen, just such a wonderful band. i got hooked on em from their litter box sessions, jess has such an incredible voice. and the best part was they were all so nice, ugh. rainsound and newfield were awesome too, we got to talk to the rainsound guys a good amount. i didn’t do so hot this night - i hit a difficult note but still botched a bunch of other things - but honestly i was having such a great night so it didn’t even matter. and it was cool to see people who love funeral attire as much as i do singing the words.

8/20 - attleboro, ma

for the last night of tour frankie put us up, we left his place around noon to go back to café nero and get coffee and breakfast before checking in to our last hotel. by chance, hotelwire’s best deal was the holiday inn in mansfield, MA and holy SHIT- they upgraded our room so that we had a sofa with a pull out bed AND THE ROOM WAS MASSIVE. it was bigger than my boyfriend’s apartment in asbury park. two fluffy queen sized beds, that sofa bed, huge flat screen TV, spacious bathroom AND the sliding door in the room gave access right to the pool and jacuzzi area. we went for a quick dip in the jacuzzi and swam before we each had to quickly take real actually showers for the first time in two days. we managed to all somehow get ready within less than two hours and make it in time for load in at 5 pm, doors were at 6 pm

the last venue was cool - it was another art gallery, patterson creations. it was really nice and brand new inside. after both us and funeral attire loaded in we still didn’t have set time info, but going by the event page we assumed we at least were going on third - so minus jaime and ryan who already grabbed pizza across the street from the venue, we drove to north providence quickly to get hot dogs at olneyville new york system. it’s funeral attire’s favorite place to get hot dogs. we all pretty much ordered the way they do which is two hot dogs all the way, that comes with ground beef, mustard, celery salt and onions. i was hesitant to get two hot dogs but i was glad i did, because the one definitely wouldn’t have been enough. well, i WAS glad i did, until i got a very unpleasant phone call ha ha ha

jaime calls me as everyone is still finishing their food, and he says- “the door guy just approached me and said that… you guys need to get back here because we’re supposed to go on second.” holy shit i YELLED lmao. somehow, every other band but us and funeral attire got schedules, and we were supposed to go on at 7:05!!! it was 6:25 when jaime called me and we were twenty minutes away!!!

we quickly settled our bills and donis took me, my bandmates and julie back to the venue right away. we tried to get bands to switch but they couldn’t. thankfully the promoter was able to swap us with another band, so we had some additional time to get ready. i knew the promoter wouldn’t have done that to us out of malice, super nice guy. i had just wished we had the info prior to doors. we never go out for food if we know we have to play extremely soon. i don’t even eat less than three hours before i sing. i was losing my goddamn mind afraid of blowing our set on the last day of tour.

and i diiiiid ha ha ha as great as we started out, i blew almost the entire set. everyone also lost each other a couple times. because of the fear of fucking up royally we also completely abandoned the mixer for the interlude tracks, which we had to do several times over the course of tour. however usually we’d keep it hooked up so that ryan could hear the clicks, this time we didn’t use them at all but ryan’s tempo was still fine.

i was devastated our last set of tour went the way it did and i just couldn’t suppress the disappointment this time. i immediately inhaled a glass of wine at the bar and disappeared for a bit. as grateful and proud i was that we had just finished our first tour ever, i felt an overwhelming sense of failure. if i’m not consistently performing every night, am i fit to do this long term? am i costing the progress of our band? i worked so hard to be the best i could before we left. extra band practices and singing lessons. i did my best to proactively be aware of breathing technique while singing. is this just not in the cards for me? am i wasting my time and my bandmates time? it’s not a waste of time if it’s something i love, but am i an idiot to keep going? i know change doesn’t happen overnight, but i’ve been at this for so goddamn long now. even if i had confidence on stage to mask any evidence of error, my imperfect performance is still up for criticism. and that’s fair. i’m just afraid i’m sabotaging my own band.

after i was done cradling a box of tissues and watching newfield, i gathered my bandmates and my friend ben (we actually met on this site years ago lmfao he’s from worcester nearby the venue) to go get shit to mix alcohol with for after the show. i was also insanely depressed that funeral attire had to go home right after the show for work early the next day, so no post-show celebratory hangs. we had this stupid huge hotel room to have tiki time in and no funeral attire, we could have fit all twelve of us so comfortably.

but the saving grace of the night was singing flowers with funeral attire. what a FUn number but in all seriousness, my second favorite funeral attire song. their split with i dreamt the sea, the split that song is from, is sooo great. that perked me up a lot. 

after we parted ways with funeral attire we picked up a fat order of taco bell and went back to the hotel to eat, sad drink and watch the lion king. we spent the night sitting around in our new funeral attire merch just shooting the shit, and drinking until we fell asleep. we were easily dreading going back home, but hopeful for what the fall will bring for us as a band and to get back to EP 3 planning.

i know we’ll get to do this again. i just hate that i don’t know when right now. had some pretty bad financial scares on the road, and felt so tired i passed out in the van constantly, but i could sincerely do this forever.

i guess i also should maybe attribute some credit to the fact that chris donis and i booked this tour without any help from any booking company. no guarantees but we at least got something every night. i really don’t know what i would have done without him. i also realized maybe i have more ability as someone in the industry than i think. i feel slightly more knowledgeable now.

now that we know what it’s like to be on the road gigging every night, we can be sooo much more prepared next time. and i’m hoping to redeem myself, and i hope i can be better than ever. jeremiah was right when i called him last night crying - i’m an infinitely better vocalist than i was a year ago. i just hope our progress as a band now is enough to show people we have what it takes.

[erincardenthailandblog]

Bali, Indonesia

From Laos Sam and I flew to Bali, Indonesia, the third and final country I visited during my summer holiday. We stayed in Ubud, a town located in the north of Bali and known for its traditional crafts and dance. Beautiful Hindu temples and shrines surround Ubud. There is an extraordinary variety of ornamental woodwork and carvings. During my stay in Ubud I saw a lot of carved mythical figures- lions, horses, cats, humans, ornate panels, doors, and windows. Hundreds of carvings and wooden art line the narrow, winding roads.  

We stayed in a beautiful hotel garden called Puri Garden, which got its name from the fact that it was quite literally a garden. From our room we had to walk through the garden and along a walkway made with stone slabs placed on top of dirt in order to exit the hotel. I liked Puri Garden because of the garden but also because it proved to be a hotel that represented the authentic spirit of Bali for it was decorated with magnificent Balinese statues. Every door of every room was wooden and decorated with ornate, gilded designs.

Our first day in Bali began with an accidental purchase of colored SPF chap stick. Sam and I entered an Xtra Mart looking for sunscreen when we spotted the chap stick. During my last visit to the beach in Koh Phagnan my lips got terribly burned by the sun and so although the chap stick was unusually expensive, we both thought it a wise purchase. When I took the cap off to apply the chap stick I saw that the stick was blue but thought nothing of it. Then, as I put it on, I watched Sam’s eyes widen and her face break into an enormous grin as she exclaimed laughing, “oh my god.” As she said that I knew I had just smeared bright blue chap stick all over my lips. Sam opened hers and found that hers was yellow. She reassured me that at least mine was “cool.” It could potentially “look good” whereas her yellow chap stick made it look like she had “just finished puking.”

Our second day in Bali was spent visiting Monkey Forest, a nature reserve and Hindu temple complex where hundreds of monkeys live. It was incredible how physically close we were to them. The babies were indescribably adorable. Some looked like they were only a few days old. At first Sam and I were freaked out. The monkeys are so used to people that they have no problem jumping on you at any given moment. Half the time I felt as if I were trapped in a Planet of the Apes movie. There were a few stalls selling bananas. People were meant to buy the bananas and hold them up to their shoulder so that the monkeys would perch on them and eat the banana. I bought a banana and experienced it for myself. I envisioned a cute little monkey climbing up my leg, hopping on my shoulder and munching on the banana. It wasn’t as I imagined at all. It was terrifying. The monkeys were fast as lightening. The entire thing lasted about five seconds. One second I had a banana in my hand, and the next thing I know a monkey is flying out of a tree, landing on my head, grabbing fistfuls of my hair, and snatching the banana out of my hand. I closed my eyes the entire time. When I opened them the monkey was gone. One of the women who sold us the bananas took pictures of us. In all of the photographs we’re shielding our faces as if under attack. In one photograph you can see the monkey pulling my hair. I want to frame this picture. It is definitely one of the best photographs of all time.

On our third day in Bali Sam and I went to Pandawa Beach, a beach about 1.5 hours away from Ubud, and which was hidden behind large limestone cliffs. These cliffs are unique because they’re installed with deeply carved arches that hold 6 large statues draped in colorful Balinese cloth.  Each statue depicts hero characters from the Hidu epic story “The five Pandavas.” Along the beach local stalls sold snacks, grilled seafood, local cuisine, sandwiches, burgers, and drinks. The sand was white and the water, although very shallow, was a striking combination of both blue and green. We found a perfect little spot to spend the afternoon, a bar with beanbag chairs and a sun umbrella. We laid out, looking at the blue green water, and dug our toes into the soft sand.

After spending several hours at the beach bar Sam and I decided to change locations in search of some deeper water so that we could swim. As we started walking down the beach we saw hundreds of teenagers, all fully clothed in various matching colored shirts, which made it seem like they were all on some sort of school trip. What would have been a five minute walk turned into a thirty-five minute walk. We could not walk for longer than one minute without getting stopped to have our photograph taken. A group of seventeen-year-old girls asked if they could speak to us and filmed our conversation. At first I was somewhat annoyed by all the attention, these swarms of students felt like paparazzi, and I wanted to enjoy my day at the beach without feeling like a zoo animal. But after meeting these sweet girls I was quiet flattered and charmed by their politeness and eagerness to speak English with us. They told us that they were not from Bali, but from another part of Indonesia, which made perfect sense because Bali is extremely touristy and if these students had been from Bali they would not have been so amazed to see foreigners.

To put it lightly, Sam and I had a very hard time leaving the beach. Around 5 pm we decided it was time to leave and find somewhere to have dinner. We walked to the entrance of the beach, which was a fifteen-minute walk up a steep, windy road, in order to call a taxi because we didn’t have cell phone service near the water. After waiting twenty minutes the taxi cancelled. By this time the sun had set and so we decided to walk back down to the beach to see if there might be a taxi there, or if someone could help us call one. It was dark and there were no streetlights along the road and so it was quite scary walking down because we were afraid of getting hit by one of the many motorbikes and cars speeding past us. When we finally reached the beach area we found that there were no taxis. In fact, there were no people at all. The hundreds of students that we had seen only an hour ago were all gone. All the shops had locked up their gates and turned off their lights. It was as if the entire area was evacuated. It was spooky. Thankfully there was one security guard who we asked to call us a taxi but he spoke hardly any English and so it took some time trying to communicate to him that we needed help. We showed him that we didn’t have service on our cell phones and we needed to get back to our hotel. Eventually he understood what we had asked of him but when he called the taxi dispatcher he told us there were no taxis. “What do you mean there are no taxis?” We asked. “We have to get back to our hotel. How can we get back to our hotel? How do we leave?” We didn’t understand why he couldn’t find a taxi for us. It was only 7 pm! It was clear that we were concerned but the guard just looked at us and laughed, not a genuine laugh, but an unsettling, suspicious, malignant laugh. He gave me the creeps. He wasn’t taking us seriously at all. All of a sudden I pictured the end of our life. This man was going to kill us. There we were, stuck on a deserted beach on the southernmost tip of Bali, standing in the dark with no cell phone service and no where to run to, with a man who told us we could not leave. Wonderful. At this point the panic was starting to kick in so I kneeled over and pretended I was sick. I clutched my stomach and pleaded, “Please. Taxi. Sick.” At this point the guard seemed to register my “pain” and chuckled, “okay okay” as he proceeded to make another call. I prayed he was calling a taxi to come to our rescue. After exchanging a few words in Indonesian, the guard ended the call and told us to sit and wait for twenty minutes. “Taxi?” We asked. “No taxi.” He told us. “My friend.”

I did not sit. I paced back and forth in the dark and exchanged worried looks with Sam. Obliviously we had both been raised with the rule to “never get in a car with a stranger” but this seemed to be our only option to escape the beach and the creepy guard. Soon a mini van arrived and we got in. The driver didn’t speak any English but we gestured to him to drive straight ahead just so that we could gain cellphone service again and use our GPS. As we sped up the mountain, out of the darkness and onto the road lit by traffic lights, a wave of relief passed through my body. We soon gained cellphone service and used Sam’s Google maps to tell the driver to drop us off at the nearest hotel. We decided we wanted to get out of the car as soon as possible and we were sure the hotel would help us call a legitimate taxi. The entire ride lasted only five minutes but we paid almost an equivalent of $10.00. We didn’t care. We were just happy to be alive.

Our last day in Bali was spent taking in breath taking views and embarking on an awfully terrifying biking tour. The beginning of the day started off wonderfully. First we drove about thirty minutes north of Ubud to Tegallalang Rice Terraces, famous cliffs of expansive, lush, rice terraces. I have lived for nine months now in rice field heaven, and while Thailand is scattered with flat rice paddies, Ubud is surrounded by rice terraces, which gave me a new perspective on the beauty of rice farming. After visiting the rice terraces we went to a coffee plantation called Teba Sari where we learned about Kopi Luwak, otherwise known as “cat poo” coffee. This is how “cat poo” coffee is made: A civet cat (a small cat native to tropical areas of Asia and Africa) eats these coffee beans found in the wild, and then poops the beans out. It’s that simple. Locals collect the poop, wash it, and then clean and dry it. An outer skin covers every coffee bean. When the beans are dry, locals pound them together to break off the outer layer. After this the beans are removed, dry roasted, and viola, they’re ready to be brewed. After learning about this miraculous, though slightly disgusting gourmet coffee, we were invited to sit down around a large wooden table under a thatched roof. We were then served numerous small cups filled with a variety of tea and coffee. I tried lemon tea, lemongrass tea, Balinese coffee, and vanilla and coconut coffee. My favorite was the vanilla coffee. After the tasting we were taken to a restaurant for breakfast. The restaurant was located along the edge of a mountain that offered a panoramic overlook of the glorious rice terraces and majestic mountains. It was definitely the best view I had ever had while enjoying a meal. It was as if I was staring at a painting.

After breakfast our bike tour began. I didn’t like the tour for these reasons.

1. The bikes were old, damaged, and falling apart. I was sure the bike was going to break into pieces as I was riding it.

2. The biking was down steep hills that were poorly paved so I was afraid I was going to hit a bump or one of the wheels was going to get stuck in a pot hole and I would fly off the handle bars.

3.The tour guide led us down a tiny dirt “path” that was filled with deep craters. I almost fell of my bike twice. I don’t understand why this was part of the tour. It was so clearly dangerous.

4. There was absolutely no warning about the type of biking this tour entailed. The tour was advertised for “beginner bikers” and yet this was not biking for beginners. This was race down steep hills while dogging craters and potholes and pray for your life kind of biking.

5. We didn’t stop enough during the tour. It was a beautiful ride but everything whizzed completely past me. I couldn’t appreciate the beauty we were riding through because I was so stressed out about the fact that I could die any second.  

6. The bike didn’t fit me. I had to reach way too far in order for my hands to touch the handlebars. It gave me horrible back pain and riding through the potholes killed my butt. I could hardly walk once the tour was over.

One of my favorite and most memorable experiences in Bali was visiting Tirta Empul Temple, otherwise known as the Holy Water Temple. The temple is dedicated to Vishnu, the Hindu god of water. It is both a temple and a bathing structure that is famous for its spring water. Balinese Hindus go to Tirta Empul for ritual purification because it is believed that the spring water is holy. There are 30 waterspouts that feed into one large pool of water. You are meant to dip your head under each spout. Once you “cleanse” yourself under the first spout you move to the second spout and so on. You are meant to continue this process until you have cleansed yourself under each of the 30 waterspouts.

I took part in the cleansing ritual. I changed into a green sarong and slipped into the cool water. I dipped my head under the gushing waterspout, closed my eyes, and counted my blessings.

[escape-in-travel]

Day 5 - 02.01.17 

Today is a day of surfing! Night was pretty cold but I think I got used to it. I woke up and I have nice walk to the coast and I’m just sitting on the rocks. Today I have to be at 11 AM in Famara because We’re going to surf togheter with Andrew. Good, after breakfast I packed myself and I’m wating for a cars. After very long wait, something like 30 minutes finally I’m going with Dutch couple who are going by a van. They don’t have a seat for me so I’m laying on their bed. Cute start for a nice day. I get a lift to the Teguise. I made some photos and in 2 minutes the Mini Cooper is stopping and two italian girls inside. Anita and Greza, they have always smile on their faces and they were very curious about hitchhiking. We’re going to Famra, and I’m there at 10PM so I have a lot of time. I went to the shop and sat on the bus stop eating my second breakfast. It was cool way to watch people fighting with their cars when they had to drive on sand pillows. Andrew came little earlier and we went to surfing schools to check prices. We choosed the Red Star Surf School. They said we should come back at 12:30 because at that time the lesson will start. So Andrew asked me to go for a coffee. I don’t usally drink coffee but this one was the best I’ve drunk. Thank you Andrew! After short talk with surf couple about our first lesson we went for a short trip to La Santa to watch Waves. That was amazing... So we came back to Famara and we took two suits and two boards and we were waiting for the lesson with German couple. Nice people! Red star packed us to a little van and we went to the beach. Andrew hasn’t got any shoes and flaps so he had to go barefoot through stone field. I gave him one of my flaps and we were jumping through it. Australian guy and instructor had a lot of laugh of us :D. After our little jumping exercise we sat with the rest of group and Andrew had a talk with thie Australian. Pretty cool surfer dude. Okay, this is time to learn surfing. We went to the boards and we heard a little lecture about how to get up on a board. It sounds not so hard.. But when we went to the water... I realised how hard it is and how weak my muscles are. We were fighting with the sea for 2 hours and we get some instructions. I woke up on board my one time, but I loved it... Feeling when you are up is something special. After this great adventure I decided to come back here in another day to try once again but without instructors. Andrew said he will go with me, nice! I’m glad that I met him. He was wondering what he can see today on Lanzarote. I proposed him El Golfo. And that was our purpouse. We had one hour of ride ahead of us. And somewhere in halfway in Mancha Blanca I saw to hitchhikers. Andrew stopped for them and as he said, he did it for two reasons. First they have a guitar and second, he got a bigger car than he should have. It was very good decision. Johannes and Merli are a pair of hitchikers from Germany who are travelling since October, from Hamburg to the South America. To be honest, I was so jealous because it is one of my dreams. To make trip that long and that beautiful. They are true drifters. They are going to the same place which I’m going, Playa Blanca, because there is a sailboat where they can sleep and they will sail on it to Cuba. Seriously. CUBA! We went to see El Golfo together and I was asking about a lot of things, they are very patient and chill people. Place it’s very beautiful and I felt truly inspired and finally I felt I lost myself in that travel. I forgot about literally everything what is in my oridnary life. Andrew gave us a lift to place 10 kilometers before Playa Blanca. There were two roads to go there and we decided to split out. And if someone will get a hike will shout to the other person that we have transport. I catched myself about egoistic thoughts. I mean, I wanted to sleep on the boat with them because when I imagined the bed and even only warm room with a floor I was happy. It wasn’t okay because I wanted to use them, and it’s seriously unfair. I get this conclusion on the road when we were catching and I decided to spent time as much as I can with them but I shoudn’t go to the sailboat with them because they are working for that captain, and I’m just ordinary hitchiker, I can’t ask for it. Unfourtanetly they get a lift first and there were only two places in a car, so I was again alone. But I wanted to catch them and then chase has begun. I went to the place where they were catching because there was a better traffic. I remembered car which they went and I get a hike after 3-5 minutes. I thought it was to late. But you don’t know how happy I was when I saw their car and Johannes hair inside. My driver couldn’t talk in English but his wife was talking fluently. I started to greet them and to even praise them. When car of my german friends has stopped, our too and I get out to surprise them. I was so grateful for my driver and his wife. I felt so proud. We were together again and we went to the Spar shop. Little shopping, and I called to my parents. After it we were walking for one hour in diretion of Marina where they sailboat were waiting. That was a lot of talking about everything. They recommended nice hammocks from http://www.ticketothemoon.com

Okay but everything has to have end. So we walked through the Marina and we bid farewell. Meril asked me about cold, but I wasn’t scared about it. There was cave waiting for me 5 kilometers from Marina. I throw my backpack on my back and I walked. Meanwhile I ate a dinner (sandwiches with cheese, yummy). I passed the most rich district probably on Lanzarote and after it there was only darkness and sound of waves. I walked through these darkness something like half a hour and I was scared, but finally I think I beated my fear of  the dark. Finally I landed in another cave which had very nice view on sea. Only problem was about smell inside, but it wasn’t that bad. Time to go sleep. It was very good day!

Link to the blog of Meril and Johannes trip: https://panamapost.de