#drawing his mass amounts of hats was very fun

[prisma-palace]

when i first saw scars pirate skin i thought he was wearing a skirt so have a scar in a skirt

ive been forgetting to post this 💔💔 click on it for better quality bc tumblr hates me

[nightswithkookmin]

chile i'm so glad i came across your blog, the amount of "i'm not going to assume they're dating" or "we can only draw certain conclusions but i can't say for sure" "we don't know their sexuality, BUT" type blogs i follow is getting kinda wack lmao. while i appreciate their perspective and nuanced takes i need to strike a balance. like let's get a lil delulu every once in a while. 💀

lol the im-not-a-shipper-but-call-jikook-boyfriends-every-other-post blogs are the funniest to me. the shipping hierarchy, so to speak is so weird. maybe just because im not a "shipping real people is bad" person i don't see the big deal. gonna get called delulu anyway, might as well go full out. they is gay/queer and they're fucking. i'm so sorry.

*also can we touch on the fact that shipping in this type of fandom (kpop) is kind of inevitable and unavoidable??! these boys are the other people we see them with day in and day out, interacting with each other and no one else. i feel like it's natural to ship when there's no other people around to break up everything, idk maybe someone can articulate this better than me. and people who are made to feel stupid for thinking that 2 members could actually be dating is so dumb. like is it really out of the realm of possibility that two people (jikook, cause all them other ships are....😬) who spent almost every waking minute together for like 8 years could fall in love. really?

/rant

It's the delulu hat for me

Lmho.

I guess for me being queer, I feel it's gaslighting for these people to be saying things like that. As silly as it is, it inadvertently deny and invalidate the existence and queerness of gay individuals and so I struggle with it.

This is the consequences of straight people in gay people business. They like defining gay parameters for us and it's like who asked you?? I feel people who say things like that are just plain ignorant or tone deaf or willfully homophobic.

I don't think everyone in BTS is gay but it makes me feel safe to see half the community assume them to be and celebrate them in that way. They are not cussing at them and threatening to leave the fandom or cancel them for this assumption and that is huge inspiration to me.

Those parts of the fandom are a safe space to be in as a queer army.

When people assume a person's queer sexuality they are simply admitting to themselves at the very least that LGBTQ EXISTS. This is important to me because I grew up in a community where LGBTQ didn't even exist in the collective consciousness of the people and EVERYONE IS AUTOMATICALLY ASSUMED TO BE STRAIGHT AND EXPECTED TO BE.

People read people's sexuality all the time and have done so since time immemorial and a lot of the time when they have had a sexuality read it's in the lines of straight, cis, rich, poor, superior or inferior. And that is a problem for some of us too because that discrepancy in the assumptions is as a result of homophobia and heteronormativity.

That whole don't assume a person's queer sexuality debacle sounds to me like a boujee way of denormalizing and preventing the normalization of queerness disguised under care, disguised under intelligence and disguised under wokeness. Especially when straightness is the default setting in this giant blue bulb.

We need to radicalize that. We need to change the cis straight default setting and if you are perpetuating this narrative you really aren't helping the situation. SIT DOWN.

I'm rarely assumed to be queer in certain circles and while that makes me feel comfortable within those circles it often times make it hard for me to admit my queerness openly in those circles too because I fear I will lose that comfort and respect and love and privileges that comes with being percieved straight in those spaces.

When I started my blog, I noticed some people assumed I was white and would use certain black descriptors as slurs when describing other people to me. I quickly had to switch the formal way in which I wrote to a much casual tone so my blackness would show through. Don't get it twisted. She black. She blackidy black black.

Then on the other hand, I was hesitant to let my queerness be known too because being black, I was marginalized as it is- you is black, or sound black💀 you know how it is- it's that intersectionality of oppression at play. Double double homicide.

When certain people realized I was black POC minority, their attitude towards me changed. I had those who didn't so much understand what black language is or perhaps wasn't used to being in black spaces and were uncomfortable with my blackness- these would take offense at me saying certain things in certain ways. Like chilee relax Karen, all I said was these motherfukkers gay as shit and they gay. Why you acting like I called them twinks or sommin. Right there, I'm cancelled for calling Jikook motherfuckers. They get sirens and everything😭😭😭😭😭😭

Same vein, I struggle destraightening myself or correcting people who assume I'm straight because I fear they will treat me differently if they knew I wasn't.

Straight privilege exists in the same way as white or even pretty privilege may exist and because these exist there's that automatic conception of queer, poc, ugly, fat disemfranschismet to run along side it.

People treat you differently based on how they perceive you. That's a fact. And for queer people, perceiving us as straight is the only way we get to be treated as human by the masses. And a lot of us embrace that- straight until proven gay am I right 🤣🤣🤣🤣

It's the duper's delight for me. Untill you catch me with a 5'8 melanin skinned silk pressed auntie on my left nipple good luck proving I'm gay.

It can be fun, I akekeke when some people around me are totally oblivious to the fact and even sometimes defend my straightness with their dying breath when nasty friends throw them shades or try to out me unprovoked.

A lot of us don't want to admit we are gay because we don't want to be disenfranchised.

I speak for myself when I say this.

But 'Don't assume someone's sexuality' is a double edged censorship used for and against queer people. It seemly offers protection on the surface of it for queer people but underneath it promotes heteronormativity and standardizes straightness and it is also used to promote closet culture, under the disguise of care and concern for the autonomy of queer people but that is a fallacy because our autonomy has never mattered to anyone since the dawn of homophobia.

And I don't know where this interpretation comes from. Why do people not want to assume queer people's sexuality but it's ok to assume straight people's???

It feels like a hijacked movement to me.

THIS IS THE ACCURATE MOVEMENT AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED.

Don't assume all people are straight. It's ok to assume some people are queer because queer people exists too.

It is wrong however to assume queerness based on how a person talks, walks, dresses or even on their body type. That is stereotyping. And stereotyping is wrong.

When it comes to Jikook, Jimin is often stereotyped as gay more so than Jungkook because they have different body structures. Jungkook is stereotyped too solely because of the way his wrists hang, or based on moments he's femininity shines through.

But I don't think shippers stereotype Jikook in that way at all. I dont think shippers believe Jikook are dating eachother simply because Jungkook applied setting powder to his face that one time. They assume they are gay only because they believe those two to be dating eachother. That is not stereotyping. If those two were heterosexuals I don't think people will accuse their shippers of stereotyping.

It's one thing to assume Kai is gay because he looks skinny and dances well. It's another to assume he is gay because in a relationship with Gdragon. And if people can't tell the difference between the two, they should get some education and stop talking about things they know nothing about or only know because they stumbled across user69 on Twitter. They are not helping.

Untill people get offended when people assume others are straight, that rhetoric doesn't matter in its inequality. If you ask me, everyone is gay until proven straight.

Yet how many people will take offense at that?

Assuming people can be gay is not delulu.

It's ok to assume people can be gay. It's wrong to stereotype them as gay. If you can't assume they are gay, don't assume they are straight and don't assume at all. Run with this sis.

Wait, they don't ship Jikook but they call Jikook boyfriends???????👀👀👀👀👀

The fake woke syndrome will kill people in this fandom with these mentally confused thought crisis bunch💀💀💀💀

Jikook themselves are shippers💀

Smh

GOLDY

[honey-dewey]

Sway

Pairing: Jack ‘Whiskey’ Daniels/Assassin Reader

Word Count: 1,838

Warnings: a bit sexier than my usual writing, one pretty knife, reader wears a dress so I guess it’s a female reader, but other than that I think it’s safe.

Permanent Taglist: @phoenixhalliwell @star-wars-hell

They say when you engage in immoral or risky behavior that you’re dancing with the devil. If that’s true, you must be very good at dancing. Killing people is typically your area of expertise, but what happens when your target is much more interesting than you’d expected? 

Being an assassin had its perks. For one, you got paid a lot. You got into lots of places both legally and not so legally, and the thrill of the hunt made your entire body pulse with excitement. It was the perfect job.

However, it was jobs like this one that made you absolutely exhausted.

Your target was a man named Jack Daniels. He was, to the public, a high ranking employee at the Statesman distillery. But you knew better. He was a Statesman agent, and a damn good one too. You’d had your own share of Statesman encounters, including one with the mysterious Agent Whiskey who you’d identified as your target. Since then, you’d had a few more run-ins with Jack, but he’d never been your assignment.

Adjusting your dress, you sighed. Undercover work was always something you excelled at, and this time would hopefully be no exception. Statesman had announced a gala, although you didn’t know what the occasion was. They had a few every year that you ignored unless you had to, but this time, you would be attending. You had even bought a new dress for the occasion.

The dress in question was slinkier than you were used to. It was silk, colored in a deep rich red that reminded you of blood. The dress had a low back and front, showing what you hoped was a professional amount of skin. But it wasn’t the thin straps or the tight hug of the dress that made your heart flutter. It was the slit up your thigh, the cut of the fabric ending just below your dominant hand. Under the slit lay your weapon of choice. An ornate dagger, one of the only weapons you could possibly sneak into the gala.

You unsheathed the dagger, examining it before testing the edge on your thumb. A tiny drop of blood pooled on your skin, and you nodded, slipping the dagger back into its sheath and sucking on your thumb until the blood stopped.

The gala was being held in a ballroom closer into town, a place you were familiar with due to working there more than once. You knew the hallways and the doors, the secret passages and the security measures, knowing exactly where to make your move to ensure no one would find the body until you were long gone.

Music echoed behind the closed ballroom doors as you gathered your nerves. Jobs no longer made you nervous. In fact, you had to steel yourself so you wouldn’t get too excited, the adrenaline pumping before you needed it.

The doors opened silently, but your entrance drew a few eyes. People watched with a detached interest as you walked down the stairs, black heels clicking on the stone. To them, you were just another guest, here to mingle and drink and have innocent fun.

You caught his gaze quickly. He was standing to the side, talking to a few women all dressed as elegantly as you were. You smiled at him, and he tipped his hat ever so slightly in your direction. You had his attention.

The song ended, and as Jack Daniels excused himself to come talk to you, a song you recognized came on. ‘Sway’ by Michael Bublé.

You walked towards Jack, head held high. When you finally collided, you grabbed his tie and dragged him to a secluded corner. He smirked as you pushed him against a wall, one perfectly manicured hand on his chest, holding him in place. You were inches from his face, his breath tangling with yours as he breathed heavy, pupils wide.

Your non-dominant hand began to explore Jack’s chest, and his breathing picked up. You could feel the heavy pattering of his heart under your fingers as you slowly reached down with your other hand. Your fingertips were just brushing the tip of the dagger’s hilt when Jack’s hand caught the wrist of the hand exploring his body.

Next thing you knew, you were the one with your back against the wall, looking up into Jack’s eyes. He had one elbow pressed to the wall, the brim of his hat brushing your hair. His legs were barely touching yours, but his knee was against your thigh, trapping you in place. He was so close. His other hand brushed your bare thigh, smirking as he reached up your dress and slowly took your dagger out.

“Oh darlin’,” he drawled, spinning the dagger across his fingers. “Don’t you know it’s rude to kill a man on his birthday?” He took the ornate hilt and quickly stabbed the wall centimeters from your ear, effectively drawing all breath from your lungs. It quivered in the wall, and Jack leaned in close to your other ear, shifting his weight so his breath sent shivers down your spine when he spoke. “Why do you always have to kill the mood?”

He gave you one last smile before walking away, leaving you and your dagger against the wall, both shaking.

It took a minute for you to compose yourself, but when you did, you quickly tugged the dagger out, sheathing it and smoothing your dress down. Jack had walked away to go talk to someone at the bar, but he kept stealing glances in your direction, as if he was daring you to approach him again. The music, which was back at the forefront of your hearing, continued to play as you walked up to the same bar, sitting at the opposite end as Jack and ordering something to sip on.

“Well hello darlin’. What’s a pretty thing like you doin’ all alone at the bar?” An unfamiliar voice asked, and you rolled your eyes. A man who smelled strongly of alcohol was beside you, his smile lopsided and his tie half undone, the hat on his head tilted, but he made no move to adjust it.

You, instead of doing what you’d normally do, decided to incite some panic. You shifted your dress, showing the man the hilt of your dagger. “I’m here to kill the birthday boy.”

The man, despite his intoxication, leapt up, his eyes wide. “You’re-“

“Yep,” you said, walking off. Alarms rang out seconds later, but you didn’t move with any urgency. Slipping past the mass of panicked bodies, you slid into a secret entrance that was typically used for wait staff. Climbing the stairs, you soon got used to the emptiness of the slim hallways, the only sound being the click of your shoes.

Until you heard another set of footsteps behind you.

Whirling around and unsheathing your dagger, you pressed the tip against Jack’s neck, his mildly amused face curling into a smile as your heartbeat picked up.

“I should kill you right now,” you growled, pressing the dagger tighter into Jack’s neck, forcing him to take a step back, so he was pressed against the wall. Without the music, you could hear every little sound his breath made as his chest rose and fell.

“You won’t,” Jack said, hands up.

“Why?”

Jack’s smile never faltered. “Because you can’t.”

It was almost enough to make you drive the dagger through his heart. You had found it already, and knew exactly where you’d have to hit to kill him almost instantly. But you couldn’t bring yourself to draw your arm back. Instead, you sighed and sheathed your dagger. “Dammit Jack,” you grumbled. “I hate you.”

“No you don’t,” Jack said, putting a hand around your waist. “How many times is this? Four?”

“Four,” you agreed, leaning into Jack’s touch. “I’m persistent.”

Jack nodded. “I see that,” he said, his other hand tracing over your thigh. “Well, I guess that’s a promise that I’ll be seeing you again.”

You grinned, pulling his hand out from under your dress. “And soon,” you purred, kissing Jack’s cheek and leaving a blood red lipstick stain.

Your trip home was uneventful. You’d removed your shoes, despite the fact that driving barefoot wasn’t the safest idea. Your head reeled with thoughts of Jack. You’d left him in the hallway, a smile on his face as he watched you go. Now, halfway to your apartment, you couldn’t stop thinking about him.

The apartment was dead black when you opened the door, but someone was lounging on the couch. You snuck up behind the figure, putting your hands over his eyes and smiling. “Guess who?”

Jack laughed. “Baby doll, did you really have to ruin my party?”

You turned a lamp on and sat down beside Jack. “I have a very specific skill set,” you said, leaning into Jack’s chest and kissing over the lipstick mark, renewing the vibrant red shade “Once an assassin, always an assassin. You’re home early, so what does it matter?”

“I asked you to help me come home early,” Jack pointed out. “Not to make it seem like someone’s trying to kill me.”

“Potato,” you said in a sing-song voice. “Anyway, do you want cake? I picked some up when I went to get groceries.”

Jack nodded. “Nice dress,” he added, watching you go. “Where’d that come from?”

Reaching into the fridge, you grabbed a cake and put it on the counter. “It’s my birthday present for you,” you said, cutting a slice of cake. “Happy birthday.”

As you handed Jack his cake, he pressed a warm hand to your bare thigh. “I get a knife to the throat and a pretty red dress for my birthday?” He asked. “God above, what did I ever do to deserve you?”

You laughed, swiping your finger through the icing and sticking it in your mouth. “We both tried to kill each other. Multiple times,” you reminded.

Jack fed you a bite of cake, and you hummed around his fork. “Darlin’, you trying to kill me somehow became the best thing that ever happened to me,” he said. “Thank you for springing me from that damned party.”

“Thank you for almost letting me kill you,” you said, leaning down and kissing Jack, the sugar sweetness from the icing mingling with the flavor of Jack’s lips. “I’m gonna go change. Meet you in the bedroom in ten?”

Jack smiled, putting his hand yet again on your thigh and pinching the soft flesh there. “Make it five. It was a damn struggle to keep my hands off you today.”

“Oh was it now?” You cooed, leaning in close. “Someone needs to learn some restraint.”

“Well maybe you should teach me,” Jack said in an equally teasing tone. “After all, you’re the assassin here.”

You chuckled, walking towards the bathroom with Jack not far behind. “Jack,” you said, unzipping the dress and letting it fall off your body. “I’m an assassin. Not a miracle worker. I don’t think God himself could teach you restraint.” You turned, grabbing makeup wipes so you didn’t stain the sheets again. “But,” you said softly, seeing the look on Jack’s face. “I’ll certainly try.”

Jack smiled, leaning on the edge of the bed and unbuttoning his shirt. “Yes ma’am. Where do we start?”

[jenny-kirk]

Story Time with Jenny: Nightmare

(Micah x Jenny- Fluff/Angst. TW: Pregnancy, Nightmares, Panic Attack)

Much like that time a tired Jenny sought to convince Micah to sleep, the roles were at first reversed. Not long before the Blackwater Job, Jenny wonders if maybe, Micah is willing to amend some of his ways...poor naive thing.

The crackling of the dying campfire was barely audible over the snores and shuffles of those sleeping close by it. Swanson, Javier and Lenny nearby, fast asleep. Jenny sat alone by the dying embers having placed an extra log on it to no avail. A steaming cup of coffee doing a better job of warming her, too tired to fix the fire properly.

It was the nightmares again. The ones since her suspicions of a suspected pregnancy was confirmed by the small bump, since the plans for the blackwater job became so real and looming.

Jenny was rarely one to show fear in battle, usually enjoying the chase and adrenaline a job created. Saving someone’s life and mocking them for it the whole day. But for some reason, things felt different about the ferry job, foreboding almost.

Hiding a pregnancy was one thing even though Miss Kirk was damn near positive a few in camp already harboured suspicion. Wearing her shawl all day no matter the weather, a blanket her constant companion, clothes noticeably becoming tighter, it wasn't exactly subtle.

Javier was more attentive than ever, most likely recognising something to be the matter when she declined her favourite pastime; swimming.

 Lenny always offering help when her morning sickness struck. “I just ate a bad berry,” was the excuse she had ready but Mr Summers would only shake his head, “like shit you did.”

And of course her regard towards Mr Bell was noticeable enough, sitting on his lap by the fire, reciprocating his attention, the two disappearing without warning, sometimes for days at a time.

It would be pathetic to admit her fear now. Not after how excited she’d been. But what if the nightmares were a warning, the job wasn’t safe, something went wrong with the pregnancy, someone gets injured, caught, or worse...

No that wouldn't do. It was just paranoia! She’d treat it like every other job. Exciting and fun. What’s the worst that could happen?...

The dark liquid trembled, rippling in her hands as Jenny’s breathing searched for regularity, a cold sweat tearing at her forehead.

“It’s a good plan Dutch, you know it. The money-we gotta try.”

“I-I know just, make sure it’s worth the risk. I'm trusting you on this Micah”

The two moustached men spoke quietly as they emerged from Dutch’s tent, the seeming hotspot for blackwater discussions. Up until now, Jenny had been regularly listening in on such conversations, hearing the plan, the take, making her heart race ever faster.

Thankfully as the pair kept their voices low, their contrasting eyes failed to spot Jenny sitting on the dusty ground, leaning tiredly against the log specifically put there to be sat on. Excited as Jenny was for the job, she couldn’t help the dreadful feeling that something was wrong. 

At their presence Jenny did her upmost to wipe the sweat from her forehead, taking deeper breaths to calm herself. So focused on this process the girl hardly heard the clomping footsteps so uneven from her side until out the corner of her eyes a mass joined her on the floor with a sigh.

“Y’ain’t tired Missy?”

Shaking her head Jenny managed a small smile Micah’s direction, a witty response to yet again commence a back and forth of banter lost among her thoughts.

“You ain't been givin’ me much reason to be,” her hazel cut eyes shot to pieces, reddened by past tears despite her pathetic attempt to tease.

The blonde’s brows creased, squinting his eyes to observe her. ‘Damn pregnant women always so sensitive’. Something was the matter but that wasn't any of his business, nor did Micah wish it to be. 

Contemplating leaving to sharpen his knife or rob a homestead, Micah then devised a cunning plan. This woman was carrying his child after all and if he wished to get any kind of action, it was probably best to keep her happy

“Then you gonna tell ol’ Micah Bell the matter?”

“Ain’t nothing the matter Micah, just needed some air is all”

The blonde pulled a knowing, mockingly agreed face with a nod before sniffing looking about the silent camp.

“That why you’re shakin’ like a leaf is it?”

Noticing he stared directly into the cup within her hand, Jenny quickly placed it to one side. Micah was defiantly the observant type, Jenny was clearly frightened by something, unusual, not only this but that headstrong spark had disappeared into the night, leaving her reserved and quiet, unable to make a move or joke.

With a sigh an arm wrapped around Jenny’s waist drawing her closer to the man, her head resting against his shoulder, suddenly grateful the rest of camp slept, allowing Micah to show such a side he always fought against. A weak side that did nothing but get those you cared about killed.

Remaining silent for a short while, Micah could feel Jenny’s breathing hot and hurried against him, a sniff that turned into a choke prompting his question.

“Y’need a cry?” 

Jenny looked up at the man, expecting such a comment to be sarcastic and mocking yet his soft gaze harboured no trace of that. Surprise and hope made the woman’s heart heavy. Was Micah really allowing this? In the middle of camp with no mocking? Maybe this baby really was going to change things...

Feeling her eyes tear up in almost an instant Micah allowed her to sob into his shirt, making it a darker shade of red with her tears, her long brown hair getting tangled in his hand which combed through it, the other keeping her close.

Repositioning herself so as to hide her face away from the world, she knew what a mess she was leaving. Saliva, snot and tears all plastering itself to Micah’s already destroyed red shirt, which, by the way, absolutely stank of all things nasty. 

But that didn't matter right now.

Jenny near scrambled to face Micah, clinging to his shirt as if it would somehow make everything better. All her worries cured. About the baby, about the gang, the job and even them.

God how he’d surely mock her for such an emotional moment...A weak moment, as he might say. 

But for now, she sat clinging as Micah’s larger hands held her steady, one dropping from her hair to rub and pat circles across her back with a hush.

It went without saying that Micah was not one for comfort or care, leaving him very much at a loss within the predicament.

“It’s alright...I don’t sleep much neither.”

Telling folk sleep was overrated was only half the story. Growing up Micah’s father didn’t leave him or his brother Amos much time to do so. Drilling into their heads that letting your guard down would spell disaster, making him and his brother keep guard so as he might sleep in their place.

And so to this day, sleeping was too dangerous a task even for Micah, the amount of enemy’s he had it was too much a risk. That and sleeping reminded Micah too much of his past, dreams could be nasty things.

Miss Kirk’s small bump rested close against Micah’s own potbelly, the warmth of his embrace and uncharacteristic softness calming, already finding her heart-rate slowing in the comfort of his embrace as she coughed and spluttered helplessly into his shirt.

Eyes burning a yawn breaking her from the sobs Jenny began to calm down, remaining buried in Micah’s shirt, his hand grazing through her dark hair, patiently waiting for her to regain herself. It wasn’t like this happened often.

“It’s pathetic,” Jenny admitted with a shake of her head, voice muffled.

Waiting for a ‘Yes, it is. Pull yourself together woman or our kid’s gonna be just as useless.’ Jenny looked up to Micah who merely waited, listened, such attentiveness was lingering on concern.

“Nightmares. Never used to have ‘em...but now...” Some shuffling behind the pair made them look only to see it as Uncle shifting in his sleep against a tree. 

“They feel so real. I-I don’t want ‘em to be real Micah.”

With a sigh, not comfortable nor used to comforting another, Micah perpetuated the question, “What kinda nightmares?”

“Oh awful, awful things. That job, somethin’ goes wrong, people get hurt, bad.” Not telling Micah the full extent of her fears while answering his question posed, staring into his cold eyes.

Holding her tight Micah continued. If Miss Kirk was not ordinarily so full of life, so fun and optimistic (or if she was not carrying his child) Micah would have mocked and berated the woman for days over such news.

‘Carin’ for people, that's how you get hurt.’ But no, he was already contradicting his father’s teachings as he himself had learned to care (to an extent) for someone himself.

“Ain’t nothing going wrong. We go there, get the money, n’ we’re far away before the law even find out.” 

Jenny merely nodded. It wasn't like Micah would actively put them all in dangers way, right? Having caught her breath, reduced now only to a few odd snivels, Jenny leaned back a little, seeing the state she’d left the older man’s shirt in. 

A sheepish look over her as Micah tutted, placing his wide brimmed hat on Jenny’s head lopsidedly making her huff a chuckle as she wiped her eyes with her own sleeve.

“You go on ‘n sleep now, y’hear sugar?”

Unhappy reluctance had Jenny look to her tent.

Placing a kiss on the sniffing woman’s forehead, his moustache which would soon be roaming somewhere very different, prickling lightly against her cold skin, Micah offered a rare gentle smile. Already working on undoing his dampened shirt.

“Come. Reckon I know what helps~”

[scarlet-star-witch]

Never Enough (Jim Hopper/OC) - Part 3 (NSFW)

Summary: Devon and Jim find themselves in a whirlwind romance, the kind that swept the both of them off their feet. While things in Hawkins start to take a turn for the worst, Devon realizes she and her son are more involved in this small town conspiracy than she ever would have believed. At least she has the surly but loveable Chief on her side and in her arms.

Previous Part 

Devon looked up at the clock for what may have been the hundredth time that night. Jim had promised to come by and stay the night. He’d been working so hard at the station lately, she felt like she’d barely seen him in the past couple of weeks and they were finally able to get time together.

But, it was already past midnight and there hadn’t even been a call from him. She sighed and turned her attention back to the sketchbook in her hand, trying to focus on her next project instead of the man who drove her insane.

This wasn’t the first time this had happened. Jim had a habit of promising things and never delivering. The amount of sleepless nights she’d had waiting for him were already too many to count.

She would be angry if she wasn’t so worried. She knew it was unlikely anything dangerous would be happening in Hawkins, but she spent almost all of her life in Chicago. It was hard not to be worried when she was used to the violence of the big city.

Devon was finishing up the final touches on the sketch she’d been working on all night when she finally heard the sound of keys in the front door.

She looked up, keeping her expression neutral, though she couldn’t deny how relieved she was, as Hopper walked through her door.

“Hey, baby. I’m sorry I’m late, I got held up at the station.”

Devon just nodded silently. She’d heard those words before. She’d heard them too many times in the last three months to really have a reaction to them anymore.

Jim immediately noticed her aloof reaction and he was on edge within seconds. They may have not been together long, but he could tell when she was in a mood. Especially when it was because of him.

“What happened?” She asked, keeping her eyes on her sketch in her lap, refusing to look up at him.

“Just a shit load of paperwork.”

“I was worried about you.” She admitted quietly.

Jim sighed, looking over at her with a smile. He took his hat off, kicking his shoes off quickly and made his way towards her to take a seat next to her on the couch.

“Baby, we’re in Hawkins. What’s the worst that’s gonna happen?”

“I dunno. You’re the Chief, you have the most responsibility. Anything could happen.” She shrugged.

Jim smiled and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his side, his face nuzzling in her mass of curls.

“You flatter me.” He mumbled against the skin of her neck. “But, really, what’s the worst that’s gonna happen to me? Some old lady’s gonna pull out a gun on the noisy teens across the street?”

“You never know!” Devon argued, making Jim laugh.

“You’ve spent too much time in Chicago.”

“I know, and you’re lucky we’re not in Chicago or I’d never let you leave the house.”

“You don’t think I could handle it?”

“I mean, you complain every time you have to do work here. I don’t think you’re cut out for the big city.” Devon teased with a smirk which grew as she heard Jim guffaw in disbelief.

“Those are some fightin’ words baby.” Hopper warned playfully, his eyes lighting up. Devon looked up at him with a quirked brow. She knew by the look in his eye what her teasing does to him. The smirk on his face was enough to tell her what he was thinking of.

Devon fought back a laugh, trying to focus on drawing instead of Jim’s hands that wandered over her waist.

“You know, you could’ve called.” She mumbled, trying her hardest to keep her focus on the conversation and not on his wandering hands, but he was making it very difficult.

“I know, I’m sorry.” He whispered against the sensitive skin of her neck, forcing her to hold back a shiver. “But, you know, duty calls.”

“I thought you hated this town, darling.” She teased.

Jim laughed and leaned forward, his lips pressing to her neck as he pushed her hair over her shoulder to open up more room for him to explore.

“This damn town is where I met you, how could I hate it?”

Devon laughed, her shoulder rising on instinct as he kissed her sweet spot. Damn him, he knew exactly what places made her weak.

“Jim Hopper, you’re too charming for your own good.” She moaned, her eyes falling closed.

“You complaining?”

“Only if you stop.” She whispered. Jim pulled back, at first a little shocked by her blunt words, before his devilish smirk matched her own. He leaned down, his lips crashing to hers fiercely. He knew she hated it when he was late, when she didn’t know where he was, and this was the best way to make it up to her.

He kept his lips pressed to hers as he took the sketch book from her hands and threw it down to the ground. She didn’t care, it allowed his hands to roam her body and she wasn’t about to start complaining.

His hands started at her hips and as they moved across her ass, she pushed her hips forward to grind against his, making him groan.

“You’re playing a dangerous game, sweetheart.” He huffed against her lips, unable to fully pull away from her, and growling lowly when she pulled away, looking down at him hungrily.

“You complaining?” She echoed his words, earning her a playfully dirty look.

Jim kissed her again, taking her breath away. She felt like a teenager with the way he leaned her back against the couch and continued to kiss her passionately. She hadn’t felt this rebellious in a long time.

“Jim,” She moaned, her hands dragging down his back and up to his front, her fingers trailing over the buttons of his uniform. He hummed in response, unwilling his lips to part from her dark skin. “Take me to bed.” She whispered and the sultry tone of her voice was almost enough to do him in.

“I got you, baby.” He whispered roughly and picked her up in her arms, reveling in the wide smile it earned him. He carried her down the hallway, making sure to be extra quiet as they passed Charlie’s room.

The last thing they needed was a curious one year old ruining the moment.

Hopper was quick to get rid of his clothes, Devon would have laughed at his eagerness if she wasn’t so eager herself. It had been weeks since she had alone time with him, she was aching for it. She hated how hard he worked himself and the sleepless nights he always had.

Sleepless nights were only ok if it meant them having fun, not doing hours of paperwork.

She took the initiative and pulled her shirt off, biting her lip to stop herself from smiling too widely as she noticed his lust filled gaze locked onto her. His eyes trailed over her face and down to her exposed chest, the fire in his eyes bringing heat to her cheeks as though she were a shy teenager.

She always felt like a goddess under his gaze. He never failed to make her feel beautiful with the look of awe in his eyes every time they were together this way.

She leaned up on her elbows, her hand snaking over his shoulders and through his hair to bring him back down to her to crash her lips to his. She didn’t want to waste any more time.

Jim had been very self conscious of his size and body shape when he met Devon, something she never understood, because it drove her wild. She loved that he towered over her, she loved when he draped himself over her. In a way, it made her feel so safe and secure.

And his bigger body shape was definitely no issue to her. He was big everywhere and she wasn’t complaining one bit.

Devon had to remember to be quiet so as to not wake her son as Jim first pushed himself inside of her. She bit her lip and pressed her forehead to his shoulder to muffle the moan that slipped out.

Jim was less inclined to think about reason and let loose a loud groan as he began to move his hips back and forth. Devon pulled back, giving him a warning look while smirking in satisfaction at his response. Just because they had to be quiet didn’t mean she didn’t like seeing what she did to him.

As Jim moved slowly, knowing they’d both be unable to hold back if he went any faster, his grip on Devon’s waist grew tighter. He leaned down, pressing his lips to her neck messily, biting and sucking at every inch he could find, reveling in the soft whimpers it earned him.

He moaned gruffly as she wrapped her legs around his waist, allowing him to thrust deeper. He quickened his pace involuntarily, his body reacting to her seemingly without control.

“Fuck, you feel so good.” He whispered, his voice raspy and gruff, which sent a shiver down her spine.

Devon gripped onto his shoulders, her nails pressing into his skin. Her head fell back and a gasp escaped her parted lips as he thrusted harder, reaching a spot within her that left stars dancing in her vision.

“Jim, don’t stop!” She breathed out, sounding desperate. Hopper just grunted in response and moved faster, his hands trailing up from her waist to grip onto her back as it arched under his touch.

“So beautiful.” He told her, watching in fascination as her eyes closed and her cheeks flushed. He still had no idea what the hell she was doing with him and he was sure the whole town was wondering the same thing. But Jim wasn’t going to think anymore about it, he was just going to be thankful she settled for him.

“Faster.” Devon moaned in his ear, making his eyes roll to the back of his head at the sultry sound of her voice.

“Dev,” He warned gruffly, knowing if he went faster they’d get too loud.

“Please.”

It was the sound of her voice and the way she raised her hips to thrust against his that had his mind melting and his inhibitions out the window.

He groaned and pulled her closer to him, her breasts against his chest as he moved faster, now roughly pounding into her.

Devon cried out as she felt herself nearing her peak. Her grip on him got tighter, to the point where she knew he would have scratches down his back tomorrow that she’d need to apologize for. Jim was right there with her. He grunted at the feeling of her walls tightening around his length, leaving him breathless. He panted her name softly, sounding desperate for release.

The two of them were so in sync and so desperate for each other, they lost control at the exact same moment.

~~~~~

Jake Pierson threw the monitor across the room, a roar of anger leaving his lips. Watching her with him made him angrier than he thought it would.

Listening to Devon cry out for him and hearing the Chief say her name in pure pleasure as they both reached their peaks, it made his blood boil. He hated seeing that man hold her so tightly, making love to her the way he used to.

He didn’t think he cared about her this much, if he knew he would feel like this, he never would’ve let her get away.

His chest heaved and his hair was sticking up at odd angles from his trembling hands running through them every few minutes. Watching those two together sent him spiralling in a way he hadn’t in a long time.

“I knew I shouldn’t have put you on surveillance.” A calm voice spoke from behind him.

Jake turned on his heel, his anger swelling at the sight of Doctor Brenner with a smug expression on his face.

“What the hell do you want?” Jake spat, not fearing that this was his boss that he was talking to, the man that held all the power over the lab.

“It’s been months and we still don’t have the boy. Why do you think that is?”

“You said we need to be discreet, follow silently for a while to learn her schedule and pick the best opportunity to strike.”

“So no opportunities have come up? None at all in the last four months?” Brenner asked, almost sarcastically.

“It’s… complicated.” Jake said hesitantly, not willing to admit he had done something wrong. His ego was too big for that to happen.

“No, your emotions are complicated. You still have feelings for this girl. You see that boy as your child, not as the job.”

Jake hung his head, his hands clutching the table in front of him tightly, until his knuckles went white. “I don’t love her and I don’t love the kid. I know what I signed up for and I did it, she had the baby.”

“And yet we don’t. Because your ego is hurt over the fact that she left you before you could finish your job. That boy is number twelve, nothing more.”

“I’ll get him here.” Jake stressed, worried he’d actually kill Brenner from pure anger if he stayed and belittled him any longer.

“Don’t let that woman and the child get in your head.”

“I haven’t.”

“Then why is the monitor in pieces?” Brenner countered. “That woman was nothing more than a surrogate for the next stage of this experiment. Don’t tell me you actually feel something for them?”

“I don’t.” Jake said through gritted teeth. It was true, he didn’t love Devon, he didn’t love the baby she had, his baby - though he didn’t see it as his. He was merely the sperm donor, there were never supposed to be feelings involved, and there weren’t.

Jake just hated to lose and seeing Devon live her life with that boy at her side meant he was failing. There was a small part of him that was jealous, Devon was beautiful and if Jake could’ve kept her around he would’ve loved to - only if she could stay out of the way, which he highly doubted she would.

“I’ll get the kid, I promise. That fucking Chief is a mess, even if he is around, it’ll be easy to take him down. He won’t get in my way.”

“I know he won’t. Because you won’t be on this case anymore.”

“What?” Jake spat, turning on his heel and taking the few steps forward to get nose to nose with the doctor.

“You’ve proven you’re too close to this. I’ll send another out to scout for me.”

“You can’t just-”

“I can. We can’t waste anymore time.” Brenner spoke calmly and without another word, left the room and left Jake in the room alone, knowing he would let his anger out and destroy anything else he could get his hands on.

Brenner walked through the halls, keeping his head high. He made it to the door on the end and motioned for the guards in front to unlock it.

The dark room was illuminated by the lights in the hall. Brenner stepped in slowly, smiling down at the young girl who was huddled in the corner. He knelt in front of her, holding his hand out to her, which she hesitantly took.

“No more frowns, Eleven. You’ll have a friend soon enough.”

“Friend?” The girl whispered, her brows furrowing at the unfamiliar word.

“You’ll see.”

~~~~

“Hey, boys, I just have to run out for some supplies. You gonna be ok here by yourself?” Devon asked, leaning against the door frame of what used to be her clutter room, but was now the radio room that belonged solely to the group of pre-teen boys.

“We’ll be fine, Devon.” Will told her with a smile.

“Ok, I trust you. Don’t break anything. And don’t touch the wet paint.”

“We won’t, promise.” Dustin said, smiling his cheshire-like, toothless smile that always made Devon melt at how cute it was.

“Ok, I’ll be back soon.”

As soon as Devon left, the raucous cheering and yelling was back in full force. She shook her head, she had no idea where those boys got all their energy from. As she stepped outside onto the quiet main strip of town, she could’ve sworn her ears were ringing.

She walked to Joyce’s work, waving through the window as she passed to get to the door.

“Hey, are those boys giving you too much trouble?”

Devon laughed and shook her head. “Of course not.”

“Is Will acting on his best behaviour?”

“Always. You raised two angels. You’re gonna have to give me your secret.”

Joyce scoffed in amusement. “Like your little guy isn’t an angel.”

“He hasn’t been lately.” Devon called out as she roamed the aisles for what she was looking for. “He refused to let me give him a bath last night. He would only let Jim do it.” She sarcastically spoke his name as if he was some kind of god that must be worshipped. Charlie certainly saw him that way.

Joyce awed, as if it were the cutest thing she’d heard, making Devon scowl at her playfully as she approached the counter again.

“Yes, how sweet, I’ve been replaced.”

“It’s better than Charlie hating him.”

Devon nodded in agreement, remembering her boyfriend before Jim. Charlie would cry hysterically every time he was around. It was unbearable.

“How did Jim take it?” Joyce asked tentatively. Devon seemed like she was in a good mood so she doubted there had been a fight, but Joyce was still reluctant to bring it up in case she was just hiding her feelings well.

“He was really sweet.” Devon said, a soft smile on her face as she thought back to the night before. “I was worried he’d freeze up and get scared again, that we’d be having the same fight as before, but he was really good.”

Joyce smiled in relief, happy that the drama was over for those two.

“But he had this look in his eye.” Devon continued. “I could tell he was thinking about Sara. And I, I dunno, I just worry that it’ll be too much for him.”

“He said he could handle it.” Joyce reminded her, not wanting her thoughts to get in the way. Joyce knew how destructive that could be.

“I know, I just… I worry.”

Joyce nodded in understanding. She reached over and grabbed Devon’s hands in hers, squeezing comfortingly. She sighed heavily, her words weighing heavily in her mind as she debated whether or not to divulge everything she wanted to say.

She decided that Devon was too important to her and she was willing to give her advice, no matter how much it hit close to home.

“You know, when Lonnie was still around, I always got the feeling that there were a thousand and one things he would rather be doing.” She started, her face drawn tightly with suppressed emotions. Devon held her hands tighter, giving the only comfort she could offer.

“He wasn’t cut out to be a father and I could see it. You can tell who a good father is. It hurt when he left, it was overwhelming, but honestly, it was for the better. I’m so much happier without him and I know my boys are better off for it too.”

Devon smiled lightly. Joyce would always amaze her. She didn’t look like it, but the woman was a spitfire and strong and stubborn as can be.

“Jim can be an idiot sometimes, but he’s a smart guy and he’s far too stubborn to put himself in a situation he doesn’t want to be in.”

Devon nodded and smiled softly, looking at Joyce with thanks. She reached over the counter, wrapping her arms around the small woman who hugged her back just as tight. She cleared her throat from the emotion she felt welling inside her, blinking rapidly to stop her hormonal self from crying.

“Thanks, Joyce.”

“Of course.”

Devon pulled away, shaking her head and letting out a small laugh.

“We’re such moms, getting emotional at the drop of a hat.” Joyce laughed and nodded in agreement.

“At least we’ll be crying together.”

Devon smiled, giving her one last look of gratitude.

“Ok, I should go before those boys get the cops called on them for a noise complaint.”

“Welcome to my world.” Joyce chided her.

She quickly paid for her things and moved to the door, exhaling harshly. She didn’t expect to get so emotional on this errand run.

“Hey, Dev, can you tell Will to be home by 6?” Joyce called out to her before she left.

“You got it.”

Devon waved one last time and began making her way back to the studio. She was so thankful she had found a friend like Joyce. She would be totally lost without her. She had a few girlfriends back in Chicago, but none of them were moms and as soon as she became pregnant, they seemed to not understand her anymore and they had drifted apart quickly.

She would always owe so much to Joyce for everything she had done for her since coming to this town.

Devon was caught up in her thoughts, barely taking note of her surroundings, until something stood out to her, making her stop in her tracks.

The person walking behind her passed her, giving her a dirty look, which Devon didn’t even notice. Her eyes were wide and locked across the street on the white van that was parked just across the street from her studio.

She had been a little spooked after seeing it twice in one day at different locations, but now, seeing it where she worked after seeing it by her house and the restaurant she would go to, it was too many times to just be a coincidence.

The voice in the back of her head told her it was a red flag, that it wasn’t something to be ignored.

She averted her gaze from the van and quickly made her way to the studio, trying her hardest not to be too obvious and outright run.

She thought of those kids in there all by herself and her heart started to beat faster. What if something happened to them? What if someone hurt them? All because she had stepped out for five minutes.

She would never forgive herself.

Devon practically tore the door off its hinges as she stormed into the building, quickly making her way to the back room. She skidded into the room and let out a loud sigh of relief at the sight of the boys in the same position she’d left them in, yelling and playing just as they should be.

“Devon? Are you ok?” Will’s voice snapped her out of her daze. Her eyes fell on him, the only one that seemed to notice her, and she nodded, sending him a small smile.

“I’m fine. I just talked to your mom, she wants you home now.”

“Oh, ok.” Will frowned. Her words caught the others’ attention and they all pleaded with her to stay longer.

“Sorry boys, rules are rules.”

She felt bad as she saw them all dejectedly get their backpacks on and leave the room. She may have been paranoid over nothing but that voice in her head would not be going ignored. It had never steered her the wrong way and she wasn’t about to take any chances.

“I can drive you home, come on.” She offered, knowing there was no way she was letting them go in separate directions unsupervised.

~~~~

It took longer than expected, getting everyone home safe, but it was worth it. Her motherly instinct would not let those boys go alone when she knew something suspicious was going on.

She tried to tell herself to calm down, to think of it rationally, but every time she tried to think of an explanation, she couldn’t find one.

She had no idea why she seemed to see these white vans everywhere she went. There definitely wasn’t some colossal, town wide, plumbing crisis. She would’ve heard of it, or read it in the local papers. That kind of news would be hard hitting in a town as small as Hawkins.

It seemed like it was only her that saw them and it made her feel as though she was going insane.

Devon pulled into her driveway and as she got out of her car and turned to go to her neighbor’s house to pick up Charlie, she saw another white van down the street, turning down the street over.

Her heart dropped to her stomach and her face fell. Did it follow me?

“What the fuck?” She whispered. She felt certifiably crazy, she even closed her eyes and opened them again to make sure she wasn’t seeing things.

She quickly picked up her son, being a little too curt with the sweet old woman that watched him, and almost jogged into her house, locking every door and window she could find.

“Mama?” Charlie asked, on the verge of crying, as if he could sense her frantic mood.

“It’s ok sweetie.” She whispered, picking him up and pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Mommy’s just had a long day. Why don’t you go watch your cartoons, ok?”

Charlie immediately lit up, nodding eagerly. She placed him on the couch and turned the TV on for him, knowing it would keep him distracted for hours.

Devon sighed shakily and made her way to the kitchen to the phone on the wall, she dialed the number she knew off by heart, her fingers tapping against her thigh nervously as it rang.

“Hawkins Police, this is Flo.”

“Hi, Flo, it’s Devon. Is Hopper there?”

“Hi, sweetheart. No, he’s off for the day. Probably on his way to see you right now.”

The teasing tone to Flo’s voice would usually have Devon giggling nervously and girlishly, but she was too wound up to really notice it this time.

“Ok, thanks, Flo. Have a good night.”

Devon barely heard her reply and hung up swiftly, biting her lip roughly. She moved to the front window, looking out the blinds, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. The white van was nowhere in sight, which was a relief, but she still didn’t feel quite so comforted by that.

She closed her eyes, feeling her frustration rise. Jim better be getting here soon, she thought to herself.

Twenty minutes passed and there was still no sign of Jim. Devon paced across the kitchen, her thumb nail bitten down to nothing. It wouldn’t take him twenty minutes to get to her place from the station, so he had obviously gone home.

She called his place, tension rising as it rang and rang with no answer. She slammed the receiver down and cursed under her breath. Over the next hour she had tried to call him numerous times, even calling Benny’s with no luck.

Devon sat on the couch, her body stiff with fear and paranoia. She ran her fingers through Charlie’s curly hair as he sat on the floor in front of her, his eyes glued to the TV. She let out a shaking breath, leaning against the cushions behind her.

She knew she looked crazy and too paranoid for her own good. But she wouldn’t ignore that voice in her head that told her to be worried.

Jim, where the hell are you?

~~~~

Hope you all enjoyed this part! Season one will be starting soon, hope you’re excited ;)

Tags: @agirlinherhead

Let me know if you’d like to be tagged for the next parts!

[3wisellamas]

Character Creation Tag

Tagged by @the-golden-ghost​

I...don't talk a lot about my OCs on here.  ^^;  But, for the purposes of this thing, think I'll rant about Kelly, since I just think she's neat.  If you don't know her (and you probably don't), uh...think big blob alien.

1) What was the first element of your character that you remember considering?

To be honest, she kind of came out of me trying to think about how her species would really work, or especially how they'd interact with the humans that had taken over their planet, back when the plot happened after a SUCCESSFUL human invasion.  Since I was still figuring out the characters in general I didn't have any aliens yet, it was actually mostly about the robots, so I just...made her up, to have a way of exploring that stuff.

2) Did you design them with any other characters from their universe in mind?

Admittedly, not really.  She was just...some rando, a test character that I figured I would end up plugging into a tiny part of the story eventually, after finally coming up with it.  Her having any real development or even being a major character wasn't a consideration for a while!

Heck, she still clashes with the non-gel characters a lot, kind of on purpose, to show how alien she is -- or, rather, how alien THEY are compared to her!

3) How did you chose their name?

Uh...picked it at random?  ^^;  Okay, I actually did have a thought process.  I came up with her full name, Alkeli, first -- a little play on the word "Alkaline", since she's made of an extremely basic/low-ph material.  Kelly was just a cute nickname for her that stuck.

4) In developing their backstory, what elements of their world played the most influential part?

Hoo boy, here we go.  Like I said, she was originally a VERY inconsequential character that I was just using for playing with concepts, but then I changed the plot to deal with the consequences of a FAILED human invasion of the aliens' planet rather than a successful one.  So, since the aliens were still top dog and actively trying to wipe out the few humans left, the human characters needed some leverage in order to survive.  I reworked Kelly as a character with connections to both worlds -- she's an alien, but was raised by the humans.  And I thought it'd be especially funny for her to technically be considered one of the main humans' "twin" sister as a part of that (I get a lot of joke mileage out of reactions to that little fact.)

5/6/7) Is there any significance behind their hair color/eye color/height?

Well, she doesn't have hair, so that's a problem.  She also doesn't actually have eyes, though she does have fake ones as part of her translator device -- them being blue really isn't too significant, other than her dad just picking it because it's his favorite color.  :P

Her height actually is kinda significant, though!  Most gel who interact with humans do so via translator devices, which give them a "face" and shape them to look a tiny bit more humanoid as part of it, but they usually still stay kinda blobby and close to the ground.  Instead, Kelly is super tol and intentionally tries to look more human-ish with hers, to show that she literally considers herself more human than gel.

8) What do you relate to within their character/story?

Let's see here.  Zero social skills, doesn't relate to really anyone at all, and is often a jerk to others without realizing it?  Check.  Forced by her parents into their own future plans, with her own dreams pretty much disregarded?  Check.  Low-key wants to be an artist even though she has exactly zero talent?  Check.  Total weeb loser who mostly just hides in her room playing video games all day?  Triple check.

9) Are they based off you in any way?

She might actually be the closest character in the whole thing to a self-insert.  ^^;  Which is saying something...

10) Did you know what your character’s sexuality would be at the time of their creation?

Nope.  I still don't even know.  Her species doesn't actually...reproduce, like at all (that's even a major plot point, since Kelly's birth and existence is VERY unusual!), but that's as far as I went in thinking about it.  Like to think of her as ace/aro nowadays though.

11) What have you found is the most difficult art form in creating your character?

She's actually pretty easy to draw in my usual 2D cartoony style, but...I honestly have NO idea how she'd work in 3D space at all, so if I ever tried to render her in any 3D medium it wouldn't go well.  ^^;  And neither does anything more realistic either -- did I mention she's literally a mass of semitransparent goop?  Trust me, I've tried.  It doesn't work.

12) How far past canon events that take place in their world have you extended their story?

I typically have my characters' ENTIRE lives planned out.  So...yeah.  All of it.  Not elaborating though, because spoil.

13) If you had to narrow it down to 2 things you MUST keep in mind while working with this OC, what would they be?

1.  Even if she's pretty much a human culturally, she is NOT one physically.  She works very differently from the other non-gel characters; she can only see in certain circumstances, for instance, and her other senses all work differently too, including ones humans don't actually have.  Her physical capabilities are also very different, too, which I gotta keep in mind for the various shenanigans the cast get into -- if everyone has to jump off a thing she can't follow them, but if they need anything underwater they'd be stupid not to go right to her!

2.  Her manner of speaking is also VERY different from the humans and robots, because like all gel she doesn't have a mouth and all her speech has to be translated -- can't slip up and accidentally have her use a contraction!  (until the plot twist that she's totally faking it for reasons and CAN speak like everyone else, hehe...)

14) What is something about your OC that makes you laugh?

She's definitely one of the snarkier characters, always taking shots at my more ridiculous characters and plot points.  ^^  Plus, take away her mask and she's...literally just a big angry blob of jello.  That sleeps in a tiny fishtank.  There's just something inherently funny about that.

15) What is something about your OC that makes you cry?

Just...a lot of her backstory, and how it shapes her attitude as an adult.  I put a LOT of the shit I've been through into her, good and bad, and sometimes it's...a bit much for me admittedly.

16) Is there some element you regret adding to your OC or their story?

She can be TOO standoffish and aloof, REALLY taking after her father, and her character development goes along some pretty dark routes.  It fits her, and is totally appropriate for her role in the story, but...unlike her dad, she isn't always a lovable asshole, and writing those scenes is NOT fun or easy, when she ends up making mistakes and hurting my other OCs and especially her family because of it.

17) What is the most recent thing that you’ve discovered about your OC?

Um...  oO  Not 100% sure what this means.  The newest thing I added to them?  Probably that she'd totally make a kickass spy if she actually went for it.  She's definitely got the stealth and detective skills!

18) Favorite OC fact?

She considers herself a white hat hacker.  Well, as long as she's hacking the people she cares about -- to her enemies, she can wreak a surprising amount of havoc, and is the main source of info on the villains' plots from all the data she steals from them early on in the story (and continues to be, as she starts decrypting it throughout...)

Tagging:  Nah.  If you wanna steal and gush about an OC, go for it.

[otomeshistarlight-blog]

Rant incoming

I was scrolling through the JoJo tag when I saw this post and I just ... I’m really tired y’all.

First of all, according to a google search it looks like the age of consent in Italy is 14 (if I’m wrong, please correct me) so Narancia is very legal, as is Giorno. America’s laws are not universal. The world is not so UScentric that whatever we as a country deem inappropriate is likewise considered to be inappropriate in other countries. There are varying standards throughout different societies and one is not necessarily more correct than the next. Whether or not I think real life fourteen year olds should be having sex is irrelevant- because even if I don’t agree with it, it’s gonna happen anyway - but Narancia is not a real fourteen year old so whatever the law dictates in America OR Italy is irrelevant.

What this boils down to is that there is no victim here. Narancia cannot be taken advantage of. Narancia cannot be sexually assaulted and face the physical/emotional consequences of such trauma. There is nothing inherently wrong with shipping him in ANY pairing, regardless of the ages involved. If I want to write about him getting wrecked by Bruno I will damn well do it because not a single person is being hurt by me doing so. If this is something that triggers you and causes you distress then don’t 👏🏻 fucking 👏🏻 look 👏🏻 at 👏🏻 it. 👏🏻

Fighting for the rights of fictional characters solves nothing. It helps no one. It doesn’t benefit real victims and it sure as hell does not stop real people from being victimized in the first place. This is a nonissue that people are taking up arms over for no reason other than a perceived moral superiority that makes them feel more in control of the world around them. It stems from feeling helpless and lost in a society that doesn’t bend to their every whim. Fandom space is the only place they feel like they have any power so they take on the role of morality police, try to dictate what people can and cannot like, and then accuse anyone who won’t do what they say of heinous crimes. It’s extremely toxic and harmful, not to mention it lessens the severity of sincere pedophile/abuse finger pointing so the chances of a real predator getting away with it are greatly heightened, and I’m just done with it at this point.

Let’s say I’m looking through the porn tags as I am won’t to do and I come across a post that features blatant child porn. Real child porn. The 3D kind that, yknow, actually features real children being exploited and assaulted for realsies. I’m understandably appalled so I file a report with tumblr and they don’t even look at it because they’ve been bombarded for the last year with false harm to minors reports and the user is never penalized for actually doing something inherently wrong and immoral. Y’all have heard about the girl who cried wolf right? Like, y’all know how that story ends don’t you?

But no. Instead of directing your efforts towards anything worthwhile, you’re going to keep going after shippers. And for what? Because oh no, the fictional seventeen year old who could just as likely be nineteen is being paired with a fictional twenty-five year old. The horror. What is the world coming to? Think of the children!

Except ... these supposed children don’t exist. How can you victimize a piece of paper? The same argument applies to loli/shotacon too mind you, and there is no crime in looking at drawings regardless of their perceived age, especially when the topic is anime where you can have a character who looks like a five year old girl and she is in fact a 400 year old vampire. Like?? There is absolutely no logic you can apply to this that has any internal consistency let alone actually makes sense.

Me: these fictional minors don’t even look like sixteen year olds, where have you seen a real teenager who looks like this?

Antis: they look like teens you pedo!! And ageing them up is still pedophilia because they are canonly sixteen so you’re still thinking about teenagers in a roundabout, highly contrived way

Me: *shows you a 300 year old loli vampire* okay so I can definitely fuck this one right? She’s unrealistically old!

Antis: no!!!! You’re just using her canon age as an excuse to be a freak who preys on children! She might be 300 years old but she still has the body of a child!!

Me: okay so I’ll just age myself down to self ship, no biggie.

Antis: absolutely not!! You’re still an adult and ageing yourself down doesn’t make it okay!! I’m reporting you to the authorities right now!

Me: but ... who am I supposed to imagine fucking then?

Antis: one of the few adults you find in anime, except this one because he’s an abuser, or this one because he tortured a little girl and not the serial killer either because wow problematic

Me: so what you’re telling me ... is that I’m only allowed to thirst after your preapproved, precious cinnamon roll faves even though my tastes or needs in a relationship might vary greatly from yours?

Antis: yes, exactly. I’m so glad you’re finally on my level of intelligence and moral superiority. : ^)

Me: oh, I see now. So what this boils down to is that you just don’t want people to enjoy something you don’t personally agree with. Got it.

Antis: absolutely not!! I’m thinking about the betterment of society by telling you what you can and cannot enjoy! You liking these questionable things is harmful against the greater good! Won’t you think of the children!?

Me: soooooo we’re just gonna ignore how much that sounds like a fascist/communist society or ...?

Antis: : ^)

Y’all should absolutely read 1984. It would do you some good. Because having an attraction to a fucking anime character is not a slippery slope, but this puritanical shit? It sure as hell is.

Let me pose this query: what is stopping an anti from going on a book burning campaign or fighting to get certain books banned? Lolita? Flowers in the Attic? All of the works by Marquis de Sade (a personal hero of mine)? Alternatively who are the only people who actually engage in book burning/banning?

Overzealous religious nuts. Everything about the anti movement is the same “our children shouldn’t be exposed to such filth” battle cry that religious sects - specifically the western ones - have screamed for decades now except with a cute little sjw hat on top. No rock n’ roll music. It’s Satan’s music. No porn. It’s tainting America’s youth. No alcohol. It’s leading our country down the path of sin. No violent video games or movies. They’re turning people into mass shooters. No problematic themes in fictional works because it’s turning people into pedophiles/abusers.

And that is just ... factually incorrect. There is absolutely no correlation between Lolita being published and an uptick in children being sexually assaulted. There is no correlation between lolicon or shotacon breeding more pedophiles. Because that’s literally not how it works. Period. I’m not going to accidentally stumble on a loli doujin and think “huh yknow what? This sounds fun!” I could even read loli doujins at length and that’s still not going to convince me that actually engaging in sexual situations with toddlers is okay. Like ... I don’t know why these people think we’re so stupid that we don’t know the difference between right and wrong but this is just insane. The only people who look at loli or shota and then go on to commit crimes against real children are the ones who were already having those kinds of thoughts in the first place. The only people who play Grand Theft Auto and then go shoot up a church are the ones who were already having violent thoughts to begin with. These thoughts are not magically implanted into our brains regardless of what media we consume and that’s just a goddamn fact.

Yes, media impacts reality but not the way you think it does. Even all those sources antis link to about the supposed correlation between the two are twisted to meet their own rhetoric. It’s called marketing and anyone with half a brain cell knows that it exists. It’s meant to encourage us into thinking we need some product so we spend money on junk and keep capitalism going strong. it works more often than not. However no amount of marketing is going to convince a mentally sound person that shooting up a mall is a valid life choice to make. It just doesn’t work like that and you could scream until your blue in the face that fucking kids is the bees knees and I still wouldn’t touch a real child because that’s gross. Period. And since I can’t touch Bakugou Katsuki or Narancia because they’re just figments of someone’s imagination and pen and paper ... then where lies the problem?? What is the issue with writing or drawing fictional characters, regardless of age or moral compass, in sexual situations?

I’m a CSA survivor that has been on the internet for a LONG time. I’ve seen some shit I sorely wish I could forget. Everything from real life gore, real life death, bestiality, necrophilia and yes even real life child porn. I don’t think there’s a single problematic thing I haven’t accidentally stumbled on and it’s horrific. It’s disgusting. I know all too well how awful these things are and I know even better how it feels to be a victim of rape and sexual assault and pedophilia and grooming. Like. That was my life growing up. I know what these things look like and I can assure you without a shadow of a doubt that whatever is going on in fandom space isn’t even comparable. Please. Draw your OC fucking a dragon mascot character instead of fucking a real animal. Please write about a fictional father fucking his fictional son instead of fucking a real child or a real sibling. Do whatever you want with your imagination - and I do mean WHATEVER. If you want to think about eating your favorite characters shit then by all means. Enjoy. It doesn’t effect reality in any way besides maybe giving someone a cathartic coping outlet and there’s nothing wrong with it.

There’s nothing wrong with ANY topic being explored in fiction.

The only problem is when someone commits a crime in reality. When someone hurts another living being. And consuming this so called problematic fiction does not lead someone to real life crimes. Period.

Finding myself on that stupid gore site when I was 14, BestGore I think it’s called? Did not make me want to try killing someone. I’ve never even seriously contemplated doing it because death is awful in every regard, I wouldn’t seriously wish that on anyone let alone convince myself that it’s okay. But according to antis me being exposed to that sort of content means I’m more likely to go out and commit murder?

Literally what crack are you smoking?

Get the fuck out of here and do something worthwhile with your time if you honestly find these topics so disturbing. If not then shut up, sit down and let people enjoy their fandom experience however they see fit. Because this right here? This treating fictional characters like they matter, like they’re real people? It’s not fucking cute. And as someone who was raped from the time I was eleven until I was eighteen by a family member I can safely say that you aren’t doing shit to help anyone with this holier than thou, I know better than you crusade.

And that is the goddamn truth whether you like it or not.

[finsterhund]

Finsterhund’s 2017 Summary of Art (and by extension, the rest of my life)

I’d be lying if I said that 2017 wasn’t an incredibly difficult year for the easily excitable finsterhund but it was also a very productive year for my art. I’m not going to deny that. A lot of issues came about that pushed me really hard, and I did break, but I mended too. I grew stronger in some ways. My writing took a nosedive and I’m not sure how to repair that, but my art, well... this is the first time I’ve ever done one of these. That should speak for itself.

In some months it was difficult to pick which one. I decided against choosing ones that may have been partially rotoscoped (such as my reaction images and most memes) and also because I tend to draw too similar to reference images I use. So no redraws of blurry HoD concept art or stuff.

January: [x]

This was supposed to be the picture for holidays 2016 but I’m a lazy earth boy who must’ve been slacking off because I finished and posted it right on January first! I remember at the time I was really proud of this one, and spent a lot of time on it. It was drawn traditionally and then scanned and digitized in GIMP... yes gimp. Fishy loved it and that made me happy. Nowadays I can pick apart so many flaws, especially in Andy. The lines look so shaky! Maybe I’ll redraw it for January 1st 2018! Assuming I don’t slack off again.

February: [x]

It was hard picking one from this month because I didn’t really like my drawings from then. Here’s art in paint of Red Spot eating a burger. I used to draw him with food when I was hungry for a while. Mmmmmm borger.

March: [x]

This is the month things started to take a nosedive. There was lots of good things happening, but some bad stuff too. A few new problems arose, but at the time the biggest was I found out my birth mom was being evicted and I would have to help her clear the old house. THAT old house. I retreated heavily into my artistic comforts and drew a lot of pictures of Red Spot being comforting and supportive to Andy. Red was created for that purpose after all, and Andy being a character I so closely identify with ended up being the comfort I needed especially then. Despite its crudeness in ms paint I do love this picture and should redraw it in Sai at some point.

April: [x]

The trials I had to face were unreal this month. The Wannabe War(tm) is well underway, and the time to return to the old house rapidly approached. I drew like there was no tomorrow, and these paint pictures were the best. Smoother lines, and more detail. When the time came to face that house things got ugly. Mom hid that my dog Jack had been dead for over half a year and broke the news only when I became distraught when I arrived and he didn’t come when I called him. My fixation on the “monkey’s paw” that was ruining everything I ever wished for started around here, and I kept breaking down. Bad regressing back to before I left that place happened. But something else did too. I DIDN’T. STOP. DRAWING. I drew more and more. Choosing to bring my laptop allowed me to make more pictures. A lot of Red Spot and Andy comfort ones, some mean little immature vent comics, and memes. Lots of memes. I was able to do the job I went there to do and returned home exhausted but VICTORIOUS. My art? Well I think I actually improved a lot then. It was predominantly due to surviving in spite of everything and the sheer volume of cruddy little paint drawings. I didn’t want to pick a mean comic and already had one ms paint Andy and Red picture in this line up so here’s a surprisingly detailed xenomorph queen being licked by a prequel era character who is a massive spoiler. Not only were both characters very complicated to draw, but I’m genuinely shocked I was able to draw an xenomorph at all.

May: [x]

After the painful embarrassment of April I tried really hard to relax. I was still really scared and anxious about the Wannabe incident, but it had more or less turned into a post-arms race stalemate where he wasn’t really doing anything and I just had my weapons of mass destruction pointed at him with my grubby little orange paw over the launch button which is where things have been ever since. My art took a relaxation break, but it was still steadily getting better. Late May I wanted to come up with a reason to actually celebrate my birthday (June 3rd) so I did a silly little “June is International Heart of Darkness month” post featuring Red and Andy sharing a slice of chocolate cake. I went on to say that June 3rd was “International draw heart of darkness fan art” day (real smooth you egocentric mutt) but I thought it’d be a good way to actually celebrate the day but make it about the video game that gave me a reason to live another year instead of about me aging, as I openly hate that I grow older.

June: [x]

A few of my friends drew HoD stuff this month, but a lot of my friends were busy due to jobs, school, life, etc. We used to be a lot more active in 2015 and even in 2016 so this did hit me pretty hard. As a result, I become very frustrated and out of spite decide it’s finally time to test my “new toy.” I don’t remember when Kale actually gave me his old tablet, but in June I finally install its drivers, get a copy of paint tool sai, and draw a lot with it. At first I hate these pictures and go back to paint whenever possible. There’s something wrong with my copy of sai and windows 10 doesn’t like the drivers. But I push myself, and I start to make more pictures of Andy, Whisky, Red Spot, etc. Not a lot of my early Sai pictures ever got posted or even made it past the inking stage, but one night I just couldn’t sleep so I drew Andy cradled in the crook of Red’s wing and got it to the flat colors stage.

July: [x]

I try to calm down. it’s a good month I think. Not much happens. It’s the month I finally give myself a new fursona. I decided that Red Spot isn’t “me” and I can’t use Andy in furry communities so I come up with a solution. It... it’s just Andy as a doberman. It’s a little orange doberman that wears a red bandanna and Andy’s hat... Doberman Andy. But he’s cute, and I can draw him, and so I do draw him. And he helps me get better at drawing in Sai.

August: [x]

The month of the solar eclipse! Me and my friend were going to go down to the US to see it together and... nope... that plan fell through. It makes me a brat, but that’s okay because I can just draw six hundred thousand drawings of Andy. That’ll help me feel better. I ended up having a sabbatical from my blog after some people on tumblr began to bother me and I put up a drawing of Andy’s shoe so nobody could go in. This is an MS Paint picture! Sadly, I’ve stopped really drawing in the program. I like how I did Andy’s face even if his hat and hair weren’t the best.

September: [x]

I return from my sabbatical and begin to spam my tumblr with Andy drawings I’m making in paint tool sai. The quality and style of Andy in these pictures varies drastically as I try a whole manner of new things. At one point I make a post that has five color pictures of Andy in it. It’s slowly becoming difficult to pick which picture I wanted to put here. Not because I didn’t like any, but because I liked too many. SMOL Andy was probably my favourite of the bunch. I made him more chibi and cute than I normally do. It was on accident but I thought he was too cute to go back and make him more on-model.

October: [x]

I was supposed to do an Andy version of Inktober but I guess the extreme amount of Andy pictures was a September thing because I burned out relatively quickly. I had some drama involving a prototype disc and also ended up having to pay way too much extra money every month until further notice but it’s a relatively calm month all things considering. The way I drew Andy in this art isn’t particularly stellar, but I love what I did with Red’s mouth and nose. I wanted to show that the way I draw Red improved too.

November: [x]

My chronic pain gets worse for no good reason, I get a very disturbing creeper threatening me online, and I’m generally depressed, but I’m drawing. That’s good. I start a new revolutionary technique when I rely almost entirely on the cinematics as reference and don’t reference other cartoon styles whenever I can when it comes to drawing Andy. I enjoy the result. Drawing him in a cute penguin-themed suit made my day. It was so hard to decide which one to pick this month. I loved so many of them.

December: [x]

Like November, but somewhat better I think. I’m still drawing Andy a lot, with Red coming along for the ride too. This one I tried to draw Andy in a more Disney-like style. I love how I did his face and freckles. The drawing of Whisky from the same post is great too. I look at a lot of my newer drawings and feel genuinely pleased with the result. I think I actually am improving, and whilst I think it is due a lot to getting sai and a tablet, it can also be because I’m becoming more skilled and getting more practice as well. Lets hope the new year brings us smooth sailing, lots of fun, and happy times our way. HoD will be 20 in 2018 and I’m ready to bring the subject of my love and joy a great two decade celebration.

[gender-ninja]

Phew! Got the little sister BNHA OC done! I love these two to bits! And still wish the gold metallic marker would show up better. I had a lot of fun developing both the pros and cons to their quirks! And I love to see my sibling pair interact with @ryonello OC sibling pair! They were great inspiration for my own!

#2  As mentioned in her character sheet, Suzu idolizes and has a bit of a crush on Momo. Maybe it's because she idolizes the amount of research Momo puts into making her creations (just as she has to research to make her paper dolls believable). Or maybe it's cuz she's just super cute and a great leader. Crushes don't always have rhyme or reason.  Once he figured out that his little sister has a crush on his classmate he likes to tease his little sister by trying to get the two of them on a fun play-date. While they may have their moments antagonizing each other but no one supports the other more than this brother and sister pair.

#3  Suzu is extremely impressed with all the things Kyuu (@ryonello‘s other OC) can do. Including eating all that ice cream without getting brain freeze. ...The background was going to be simple but ended up not. woopsie? I really like Suzu's "meow-ny" purse. Both of them are so adorable and so much fun to draw!

Big brother Daiki info here!!

FOR MORE ABOUT THIS CUTIE PLEASE READ BELOW!

Genetics: Taking more after her father's "Origami Puppeteer" which uses saliva to animate origami into puppets (kind of like licking an envelope). Unlike her father though, Suzu uses the ink that she inherited from her mother. She also inherited her mother’s tentacle hair but Suzu hides it by wearing a jellyfish-like hat in attempts to seem more friendly--fearing that without it she'll be completely isolated from her peers. Age: Suzu is currently in the same middle school that Izu and Bakugou both went to. This is why she doesn't have a hero suit design just yet even though she says she wants to follow after her big brother and join the hero class. She is 2 years younger than him.

Additional info!

Kitsune: Suzu's companion that is ever-present. They were the first creation she ever successfully summoned. This particular "doll" often takes the role of the voice of reason, almost independently of Suzu's own feelings. It is also unknown how Suzu is making such a believable projection of them since she has never met a fox like them. Mysterious.

Also, if Suzu is ever in great pain Kitsune becomes twisted into a Nogitsune. This has only happened once and has added to her isolation from her classmates since some children were sent to the hospital with moderate injuries resembling a million papercut teeth marks.

More about her quirk: The paper must be of proportional size. A paper doll for a person cannot be made from a shred of paper. However, a shred can be turned into something small like a frog or cricket. A doll cut-out is not necessary but aides in the transformation for humans due to the complexity.

> Additionally, if she creates a person, the degree of believably is dependent on how well she knows that person. 

        For example a paper doll made from an idol on TV (All Might) would only be able to repeat phrases she has heard him say. Which means that if she tries to use that doll to carry a conversation it wouldn't go very far without being caught for a fraud.

> But if she makes a doll of someone she knows well (eg. her brother Prism) it will be an almost identical clone in personality and appearance. >  Any previously shallow-personality dolls can be upgraded as she gets to know the person/object/animal.

> She also always carries a notebook with her so she has paper on hand at all times. > Later on when she has more control over her powers she may be able to use non paper items (cloth, leaves, candy wrappers) but the believably is severely decreased. They appear as 2D images rather than a mass-made "holograph". The texture of the non-paper object may also make the doll appear deformed. Kinda like paper-jam Dipper.

Fun stuff!

Kyuu (the little sister of Akki) is probably Suzu's first genuine non-paper-based friend. When Kyuu made a voice for Kitsune and asked to see more of Suzu's creations their friendship took off running and then flew. Only Kyuu seems to be able to get Suzu bubbling with excitement. They can often get in trouble doing pranks on other people and their friends by combining their quirks. Still pretty sure that video of "All Might" singing and dancing to PONPONPON continues to be viral to this day.

Casual wear: Pastel Lolita fashion; anything frilly and lacy! Esp with aqua-green (her favorite color)

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[tumblunni]

I wish I could hug y'all!

In fact I think I will make it A LIFE GOAL I really really wanna someday be able to visit all my friends who live in different countries! Its something good to save up for, even if it'll probably take years. So.. lets randomly ramble in a journal about Plans!! IDEA THE FIRST TRIP THE FIRST FIRST THE FIRST: THE SEQUEL I think it'd probably make sense to go to america first, since i have a lot of close friends living there and I don't need to learn another language. (I am notoriously dumb...) But then afterwards I could set another goal to save up and visit another friend in another country! IT WILL NEVER ENDDDDD, THATS WHY ITS CALLED FRIENNNNDDDDD So far all I have confirmed is that two of my friends would be happy to see me if I was able to visit america, @darkeiya and @summon-daze But its not like I've exactly asked everyone else, so I dunno really how many people I might be able to visit. And it depends on time constraints too, i might only be able to spend a full day or two with the closest friends and maybe then if there's more than three of us we could all meet up together and hang out en masse? Depends on how tricky it'd be for everyone to get to the same place! SO! PLANS AND THINGS I NEED TO PREPARE! workin to figure out a precise money goal im gonna save for * Become Fab * no but srsly i wanna look my best if im meeting friends in person for the first ever time. need to acquire Cool T-Shirts * figure out what exactly you can and cannot take on an aeroplane, and how to deal with anxiety if i cant take electronics. Nothing's as distracting as videogames when you're freakin out! * DO NOT SCHEDULE ANYTHING ON THE 11th-14th OF THE MONTH. i have a bad history of my period landing on these days ONLY when i have to do something important. Or when its my birthday :P I dont need even more reason to feel nauseous on a plane! * figure out how many days the stay will be, and how many clothes etc I need to bring. probably a basic thing, but this is my first time going on a holiday alone so i need to write stuff down to make sure i remember! * figure out how long exactly I want to spend with each friend, and how long I can afford in hotel fees. And does a plane ticket cos more if you're staying for longer? * find out what kind of luggages are easiest to carry and how to carry three luggages when i have two hands. Can you tie them together and make a luggages train??? * Find some sort of secure way to carry large amounts of money. I'm gonna have to do that since I need to get all my currency converted before I go. I was thinking maybe a little matchbox tin chained to the inside of my coat or around my neck? Something where you couldnt get it without roughhousing with me, and it'd still be hard to pull it off the chain. Gives me a precious few extra minutes to yell for help/possibly bludgeon a guy with a suitcase * Figure out hotel(s) in different areas of america, depending on how far I'll have to travel. And figure out affordable ways to travel the difference if its not a situation where the friend can pick me up. And make sure they are cool hotels, not just the absolute minimum! i wanna make a fun tourist experience of the hotels!! I havent been in a hotel since I was a kid! * Possibly schedule it like a 'safehouse' thing? Returning to home base! I need to make sure I schedule around the potential anxiety of doing so much travel in a new place. So maybe schedule it out so I have a period of me-time in between visiting each friend? Itd probably cost too much to rent a hotel room for an entire day in between so maybe just schedule it out so I have half a day at least. I dunno if hotels allow you to sleep in all day tho, are there rules about what time you need to be up and out? * I'm kinda looking forward to using hotel beds and showers cos theyre like luxury compared to my house XD man, I wonder if I could get a place with a hot tub?? or the fabled mini-bar?? (which i would drink nothing of, but it would be fun to take photos!) And it'd be so cool to see what american breakfasts are like! And lol all my friends have just been like 'YOU NEED TO SEE OUR LOCAL RESTAURANTS' and im like... dude, i dont need to get fatter XD lets limit it to ONE! * I dunno if my friends would just wanna hang out in their local mall or something, or if I could visit their house and say hi to their family? that might be going too far. i'll still bring gifts they can give to their family tho, i wanna show my appreciation to everyone!! * are you allowed to bring extra empty suitcases onto the plane with you? I'm anticipating that knowing myself im probably gonna buy enough souveniers to need one. I'm planning to basically have half the money be for travel and then half again is just for buying NOVELTY HATS! * need to make sure to finally get a passport, and also consult heavily with my support worker and friends to make sure i have every form of travel documentation in order. I know stuff is... not good, in america right now. Thats probably why it'd be good that it'd take me years to save up for a visit, hopefully i'd be there after the next election. But I need to prepare anyway, in case border control is even more stringent. * Prepare the 'ol misgendering, because getting strip searched and treated as a suspicious threat is a very big reality for trans people. Having the wrong gender marker on your birth certificate is treated as 'this passport must be a forgery' rather than.. yknow.. transgender people exist. And then you need to be invasively handled by the guards to make sure you aren't packing explosives down your goddamn pants, they have to inspect the parts of you that you're most self concious about. *shudder* I've heard a lot of horror stories. I dunno if america is any better about it. But yeah I'm probably gonna have to just pass as female during boarding and hotels and stuff, and not wear my binder til i get to meet my friends. Saves trouble... Man, I might have to even go buy some more cliche feminine outfits or something, to make sure. Itd be fun burning them afterwards, I guess... * BRING GIFTS FOR FRIENDS N FAMILY! Figure out what is and isnt allowed to be transferred between countries. As far as I know I cant bring any form of food or drink right? I'm only allowed to eat the in-flight meals? Thats a shame cos I wanted to bring welsh cakes, theyre the only one of our local delicacies that's not a super acquired taste. (I tried bara bryth for the first time and DIED) And I dunno if anyone would be interested in silly souveniers of my country but I could get a pile of em if you are! Want an eight foot tall lovespoon? Want a giant inflatable daffodil? Want a bazillion ceramic dragons? * I am determined to bring at least one personalized super awesome gift for each person! It might just be an expensive merchandise of their fave show, it might be some form of handmade handicraft of one of their ocs! whatever I'm able to do! ^_^ * BRING SKETCHBOOKS SO WE CAN DRAW TOGETHER. LEARN THE WAYS OF THE AMERICAN MASTERS. * hey does anyone wanna trade trading cards yo. They'd be like the single easiest thing to bring with me, but I only have a handful of pokemon ones and i only really have one friend that I know likes yugioh. (And she's in england) * WE CAN FOOL AROUND LIKE DOOFS. God willing, if anyone wants to join me I will play water balloon tennis or jalapeno roulette or any sort of insane friend activity you can think of!! Gotta make up for the fact im a boring teetotaler. Tho lol I probably already act more drunk than the real drunks at a party XD * TAKE A LOT OF PHOTOS!! And possibly try and acquire a portable video camera? I'd only photo/video anyone if they gave me permission, and I wouldnt post it online unless I also had permission for that. I just wanna make a lot of memories and record them forever! Whenever I feel down, I can remember this amazing trip!!! * remember to get one of those plug adaptor thingies cos american plugs have one less prong. Gotta trade the pokeymons!! I know I can already do that easily online but BATTLING IN PERSON WOULD BE EPIC * ...bring an Ash cosplay? XD * no but seriously if i could schedule this right to coincide with an american convention or something that'd be awesome! EVEN MORE SOUVENIERS! And I could actually try cosplaying!! I'd have to find a character that suits me tho, I dont wanna get laughed at like everyone always does with fat people cosplaying thin characters. (Like... almost every character is thin, yo. let people do what they want) * possible idea: magma admin tabitha from pokemon? he's like the only fave I have who's chubby but not like... inherantly a comic relief ugly guy or a seventy year old grandpa. I wanted to do quina quen from final fantasy 9 but I dont think I have the charisma to pull it off. I'd get paranoid if people just treated the character how they treat the character, my brain would twist everything into an insult on my costume or myself XD also I kinda already look like tabitha, tho I'd either have to go without hairdye or like... wear a wig in my natural hair colour. Also his costume is super heavy and sweaty in a convention setting, according to what I;ve heard from other team magma cosplayers. (Makes you wonder how on earth they all wore it on a volcano!) * WHAT IS AN AMERICAN BISCUIT. They look like savoury welshcakes??? Learn about all the language differences! Man I wish I could bring food souveniers back with me, I'd never be able to try every single different foodstuff in america in one day without DYING. AND DYING AGAIN. * Collect product wrappers and advertisements! Its always really interesting to me to see the differences between countries! A friend mailed me an american cola once and the bottle was a whole different shape??? (he also mailed me a bunch of spent shotgun shells, which was kinda terrifying cos I was currently in a christian homeless shelter and I didnt exactly wanna cause trouble XD Apparantly it is totally legal to own unuseable bullets tho, as long as you dont have a gun.) * I dunno if any of my friends would be equally interested in similar things? i could take requests for weird british stuff to bring with me! * for summon-daze specifically: since we are both cuddly honest goofballs of childlike joy, maybe bring some of my plushie collection to show her? I'd usually just bring one as an emergency anti-anxiety measure. Tho the embarassment from having a full on meltdown in public and having to be seen hugging a plush toy to keep from crying means its not 100% effective. Only works good when I'm with people who arent judgmental. Secret pocket gengar plush is good for other times! (I've been squeezing that thing during doctors appointments and nobody noticed!) * extra reason why I'd love to visit my friends: visiting my friends's pets. I have been absolutely blessed by images of dazy's pet cat Pam, and apparantly her family has a few other cats and a dog! O_O WHAT AN AMAZING LIFE YOU LIVE. I always tell her to give pam a hug from me, and I know pam probably wouldnt like me very much when we first meet cos she's shy, but still I'd love to at least see her. I wish cats could somehow know that they give joy to people through the internet! * ...are you allowed to bring medications across the border? is there a procedure I need to go through to be allowed to bring my antidepressants? Would painkillers be allowed too? If not, is there anywhere I could buy plane-bring-onnable headache meds in the lobby or something? Just anticipating that I might get a stress migraine on the plane, cos it'd be my first time ever flying. * are you allowed to take photos out the plane window, if you use a non electronic camera? i know you cant really see anything but panning landscapes but it still sounds awesome!

[bloomingtonsolidaritynetwor-blog]

Who Will Survive in America?

CW: Racism, Gaslighting, Police Brutality

The following is a testimonial by a former IU student who requested that BSN help share his story. As the reader will learn, Daven Patton has been the recipient of extreme discrimination, intimidation, harassment, and gaslighting. His story helps to demonstrate the lived reality of oppressed people in Bloomington and the U.S. more broadly. Bloomington and Indiana University are not immune to the racism and classism engrained in the very fabric of our society despite what local leaders and revisionist historians might lead us to believe. These issues have always been here and the rapid development and speculation in the housing market has only led to an increased militarized police presence designed to secure the gap between the wealthy and the poor and oppressed. Please read, share, and discuss Daven’s story so that we can begin to build a counter-narrative to the rosy picture of the idyllic liberal town that is sold to attract investors while the stories of people’s suffering and resistance are lost or forgotten. Please also consider reaching out to BSN to find out how you can help support Daven

March 3, 2016, my junior year of college at Indiana University, I left a box outside of the Student Center building with a tongue-in-cheek note attached: “Call the bomb squad, because this shit is mind blowing,” along with a reference to the Kanye West song “Who Will Survive in America?” scribbled on the outside. My only hope was that someone would curiously open it and be inspired in the same way I was. The box was filled with books. My intent was not a hoax, a replica, or a prank; it was simply a box of books. Little did I know Student Center employees would soon report the box to authorities as a “suspicious package”, and later that night, guns drawn and in full tactical gear, my house would be raided by IU Police. By the end of the day, I had been accused of inciting “terroristic mischief” because of a box of library books.

I remember clearly the night my room was stormed by IUPD. I had gone to a Lil Wayne concert at assembly hall wearing my brand new “Yeezy 2020” shirt; I had completely forgot about the books. I had no idea that the IUPD had called in the IED disposal unit from the Indiana State Police department for the “suspicious package”; no one at the concert knew, either. The school didn’t think the box was a threat and didn’t send out a safety alert. I left an old I.D in the box in case someone wanted to return the books to me. On the shuttle ride back home from  Assembly Hall to Linden Hall no one was talking about a “suspicious package” or “terroristic mischief” on campus; they were talking about how good the concert was. The Student Center is right across the street from my apartment, and there was no way to tell that the I.E.D disposal unit was there that night. When I made it back to my apartment, I played Fallout 4 for a couple of hours and then took a shower to get ready to go to bed. While I was still drying off I suddenly heard yelling in my apartment hallway. It was the IUPD. I walked out of my room naked with my hands up to see a squad of all white, aggressive officers pointing rifles at me and screaming. My roommates also had guns pointed at them and were lead out into the hallway at gunpoint by the IUPD. Still naked, I surrendered peacefully. The IUPD double-cuffed me and sat me in my kitchen. They wouldn’t even allow me to get dressed.

Handcuffed and nude in my kitchen, I asked them why they were there. They said to search my apartment. I then asked to see the search and arrest warrant. The officers hesitated at first, but then put a copy on the table and I quickly picked it up. Once I saw what was on the search warrant I realized what was going on. I saw that they were looking for my “Yeezy 2020” shirt (I found out later in the police report they described Kanye West, 21-time Grammy winning hip hop artist, as a stereotypical ”heavy set black man”), some more clothes, and strangely a “weapon of mass destruction”. The officers also took a picture of my “Hands up Don’t Shoot” calendar I had got from a protest in Ferguson which they described as “evidence”. I also had a newspaper taped to my window which I got from the same Ferguson protest that said “Who Killed Sandra Bland?* This GODDAM System! We Need REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS” which you could see from the street if you walked past my apartment.

The IUPD used the search warrant as an excuse to rummage through me and my roommate’s apartment. The IUPD took miscellaneous items from my room like tape, my balaclava, some bucket hats, and a small, novelty pocket book I got from Urban Outfitters called Insults and Comebacks. I jokingly told them that if they search hard enough they might also find some anthrax. The IUPD also confiscated some prescription Ibuprofen(Tylenol) from one of my roommates(because it was his girlfriend’s) and a small amount of marijuana from another roommate of mine. He wasn’t home at the time but the IUPD cited him later. Most of the items the IUPD took were not on the search warrant.

One of the officers finally gave me some boxers to put on and one of my shirts and then took me away. An officer put me in one of the squad cars and then went to go talk to another officer. While I was in the car over the police radio I heard a cop say “You get that n***er yet?”.  

I was already afraid, but when I heard that I began to fear for my life.The arrest already seemed unusual, but now it was obvious it was motivated by racial animus. I know once the police found out I was black from the I.D card I left in the box, they classified the box as a “bomb threat” so that they could arrest me. Unfortunately I wasn’t simply arrested, first the cops took me on a joyride.

First I was taken to the IUPD station, then to the hospital, then to jail. At the IUPD station the officers tried to interrogate me without reading my rights or allowing me to have a lawyer present. As soon as they walked me into the interrogation room I saw a camera and made sure that I clearly stated to the camera that my miranda rights weren’t read. The officers tried to coerce me into talking to them, but instead I started making fun of them. After a while the cops stopped trying to interrogate me and called me a “danger to myself and others” as an excuse to take me to hospital. Before they took me to the hospital they took me outside in the early spring cold and stood me by the squad car in nothing but my boxers while they wore their warm police jackets.

When I was at the hospital they handcuffed me to the hospital bed. There were more officers at the hospital than were at my apartment when I was arrested. There I was given a forced blood draw, and later that night they attempted to inject me with an unknown sedative despite hospital staff saying I was being “intentionally difficult” to the officers.  I refused and started yelling my objection to taking the shot. After they saw concerned people starting to leave their hospital rooms to see what was going on they gave up on the shot. They then took me to Monroe County Jail where I has held all weekend.

When I got out on March 6th I had found out that my face was all over the news saying that I was accused of “terroristic mischief” and that the cops had lied about what the box really said. The cops lied to the media to assassinate my character and to cover up their illegal search and seizure of my apartment. I told the school that the IUPD violated my civil rights, that I wanted video tapes from the incident, and asked the University questions like “Why wasn’t a campus safety alert sent out if the police claimed there to be a ‘bomb threat’?”, “If the police ‘believed’ a weapon of mass destruction was on campus later in the night then why wasn’t Linden Hall evacuated? Why wasn't the IED disposal unit from the Indiana State Police on campus at the time when I was arrested if the police claimed there was a “weapon of mass destruction?”, and “why wasn’t anyone told about the alleged “weapon of mass destruction?”. The school responded by detaining me again and again taking me to the hospital for a 72 hour psychiatric hold because the cops said I was a “threat to myself and others”, but in reality this was an attempt at gaslighting me. and the school used this as a pretext to retaliate against me by summarily suspending me because of my allegations of police misconduct.

I spent the next year fighting the malicious charges of “terroristic mischief” and another retaliatory charge of “intimidation” because I called the Monroe County Courthouse asking for video tapes and accusing the IUPD of violating my 4th amendment rights. All of the charges were meritless and were eventually dropped. I also spent time recovering from the trauma the IUPD caused me, studying political theory, economics, and philosophy, and in November of 2017 I decided to fight back against the school and file a Clery Act Complaint with the Department of Education. The Clery Act is a federal statute enforced by the D.O.E’s Financial Student Aid Office that deals with sexual assault and campus security.  I am alleging multiple violations of the Clery Act. One for not sending out a safety alert for what the IUPD claimed was a “bomb threat,” and another for the IUPD lying about “Weapons of Mass Destruction” to obtain a search warrant and not following protocol. The D.O.E followed up with me in January of 2018 to let me know my complaint was filed and I have been working with the D.O.E ever since. My complaint serves two purposes:

1). Improve Campus Safety

2). Substantiate my allegations of Police Misconduct(Perjury)

In March of 2018 the school retaliated against me as a “whistleblower” under the Clery Act by denying my petition for reinstatement and used the PTSD the University Police caused me as an excuse despite my evidence of police misconduct, me providing a letter from my therapist saying I have recovered from the trauma without them asking, and me improving campus safety by filing a Clery Complaint. I again felt like the University was trying to gaslight me. Because the University used a discriminatory reason to deny my petition for readmission the D.O.E Office of Civil Rights opened an investigation into unlawful discrimination. Little did I know that the University police also started targeting me again around this time because of my accusations of police misconduct and me filing complaints against the school with the D.O.E.

Then in June of 2018 the University again retaliated against me for standing up for my civil rights by again falsely arresting me on bogus and meritless charges of “intimidation”. The University used numerous emails I had sent them about the D.O.E, and various related topics in my reinstatement letter such as the war on terrorism, censorship, state violence, police misconduct, anti-fascism, white supremacy, mental health, black power, and revolutionary socialism as a politically motivated excuse to arrest me for bringing them under investigation. In the e-mails that IU cited, I make it clear I was intentionally sending them inflammatory, radical left wing topics and articles to mock their politically motivated crimes against me. The same e-mails that University officials call “threats” contradict them and prove that there is no wrongdoing on my part.

As a result of these numerous e-mails the University used one e-mai in particular containing a song from Kanye West’s new album as the pretext to arrest me the second time. The song is the first song on Kanye’s new album “I Thought about Killing You”. The song title is the title of the email and with an explicit link to the song in the title. The intent was to make fun of the IUPD for making up “threats”, which the University in turn ironically did. You did not even need to open up the email to see that the title of the email is a song as gmail (University email accounts are powered by google) allows you to see the first part of the email without opening it. The cover art on Kanye’s new album says “I hate being bipolar and its awesome” which I thought was a perfect coincidence, because I am a Kanye West fan, he is open about his “disability”, and the University is currently under investigation for disability discrimination. The e-mails debunk the University’s motivations as further politically motivated harassment and intimidation and prove my innocence. The University is trying to keep the “terroristic mischief” incident secret and censor me so I have decided to make the emails public. I will not back down to political suppression and repression by the school and am well within my constitutional and federally protected rights. I am also a strong believer of openness and transparency. My arrest was retaliatory and I can prove there is direct causation between my D.O.E complaints, my allegations of police misconduct, and my online activism.

You can find the link to the emails here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ruXAD_jvD2Pi-ZcAuAdydtFqRVjcQxmS

The IUPD tried labeling me a “terrorist” as an excuse to try stripping me of my civil rights and the University’s actions have been unconstitutional starting with police officers committing perjury to accuse me of “terroristic mischief” and then violating my 1st amendment rights for trolling them about the D.O.E investigation. Standing up for your civil rights is not a crime and I will not be silenced by the University. Civil rights activist Julian Bond once said “an American can be black and an American can dissent, but no American had better compound these two crimes” and I unapologetically dissent to the American system built on inequality and systemic racism and am unapologetically black. If the University did not want me to file a Clery Complaint against them then they shouldn’t have classified a box of books as “suspicious package” and as a “bomb threat”; they shouldn’t have lied about a “weapon of mass destruction” in Union Street, and if the University didn’t want to be investigated for unlawful discrimination then the University shouldn’t have violated my civil rights. Indiana University is a public college and has no right to attempt to censor criticism and radical viewpoints. IU is mandated by the federal government to obey federal statutes and antidiscrimination laws like every other institution that accepts federal financial aid funding. The college on one hand pays lip service to “inclusion”, “tolerance”, and “diversity” and on the other engages in extreme discrimination and retaliates against victims of police misconduct. The corruption of the University’s administration runs deep and the University’s “progressivism” is nothing more but white supremacy with a smile.  IU’s racism is institutional and systemic. From the covert racism of officials in the administration using discriminatory seemingly neutral policy, practices, and procedures that have a disproportionate adverse effect on members of a protected classes to the overt racism of the overly militaristic state violence of the IUPD. I will not let the University and University officials intimidate me and stop me from exercising my constitutional and federally protected rights and I cannot, as a man of good conscience, be afraid to speak up or back down from the oppression and malice displayed by the University and the IUPD.

“If, in the present chaotic and shameful struggle for existence, when organized society offers a premium on greed, cruelty, and deceit, men can be found who stand aloof and almost alone in their determination to work for good” - Lucy Parsons

I am asking other people of moral and good conscience aid me and show solidarity with me in not only my personal struggle but also the collective struggle against classism,racism, and all other forms of discrimination.

-t

[4ever-untitled]

My Favorite 20 albums of 2017!

Do these things really need an introduction? This year sucked once again, so let’s just focus on the good music that happened okay? Without further ado, my favorite 20 albums of 2017:

Honorable mentions

St. Vincent - MASSEDUCTION 

Rapsody - Laila’s Wisdom 

Blanck Mass - World Eater 

Kesha - Rainbow

Pond - The Weather

Rostam - Half-Light

Birthing Hips - Urge To Merge

20.  Alex G - Rocket

“Incoherent” is a word I suppose you could use to describe Rocket, the seventh album from Alex Giannascoli, but I prefer the term “idea-full”. When your head is full of shit to say, it’s not all gonna come out as a simple little guitar ditty. It might come out as a strange looping piano ballad, or even a Death Grips-esque noise rap track. What I’m saying is, feelings are complex and hard to pin down, and Alex G does his best to wrestle with them on here. It’s a balls-to-the-wall, heart-on-your-sleeve country/folk/rock/noise odyssey that feels immensely personal and universal at the same time. Incoherent? Hey, aren’t we all?

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPuxLpVus-k

19. Vince Staples - Big Fish Theory

Everyone’s doing trap. Everyone’s doing mumble rap with the Migos flow. Fuck rattling high hats. Fuck ad-libs. Big Fish Theory was an important statement this year; a high profile rapper who teamed up with some underground electronic music producers (not beat makers) to make something truly unique that tried to give the hip-hop envelope a little shove. Here’s the thing though: it still goes really REALLY hard. Vince took a lot of risks on Big Fish Theory, songwriting and production wise, and the results speak for themselves.

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6iAzyhm0p0

18. Mount Kimbie - Love What Survives

Sometimes cold, nearly inhuman music can be some of the most emotionally potent. Radiohead's Kid A comes to mind. Albums that are unflinchingly ugly in their worldview and take every effort to make the music sound like it was created against their will, or perhaps by some machine. Love What Survives manages to sound distant, even otherworldly, and yet also jam packed with feeling. Electronic music has an inherent disconnect to it, like the listener was never considered in the first place, but Mount Kimbie manages to put a great amount of humanity to their throbbing electro post-punk. The results, a mix of electronic bleakness and a rich emotional core, are extraordinarily potent front to back, with excellent vocal performances from some of indie music's most unique voices. Mount Kimbie puts humanity into ugly music because, when you take a good look at it, life as a human is pretty damn ugly.

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1kzMFnFSh0

17. Neil Cicierega - Mouth Moods

(Read my full review here) Yes, I’m serious. You know why I’m serious? Because everyone has their thing. We all have our little niche that we fulfill in this world. We all have something we’re good at. Neil Cicerega’s niche (while he is multi-talented) is making mashup albums, and I’ll be damned if he’s not the best at it. With this, his third installment in the Mouth series, Neil has made the mashup a form of high art. The lines between ironic enjoyment and genuine appreciation are blurred as songs you’ve become familiar with are chopped and screwed and combined in a way that seems in one sense horrific, but in another sense totally amazing. Mouth Moods is hilarious and incredibly enjoyable, but after a couple listens, you don’t listen to laugh, you listen to appreciate. A lot of time and care went into these tracks, and the mere idea of some of these combinations are commendable in their own right (AC/DC’s ”Back in Black” and Vanessa Carlton’s “A Thousand Miles” absolutely should not work together, and yet...) This is some of the most fun I’ve had with an album this year, and many moments left me genuinely very impressed, so I’d say that more than justifies it being on this list. It’s not just a meme. This is good music, whether you like it or not.

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsoCe7C4Kmk

16. milo - who told you to think??!!??!!??

“I don’t even really have to rap/my nigga, it’s about if you can talk good” proclaims Milo on so the flies don’t come cut “A Song About a Raygunn (An Ode To Driver)”, and on who told you to think, it seems he’s begun talking really good. Milo’s lyricism on flies was poetic, but what he does here on the follow up is straight-up poetry. Less focus on hooks and beats (though those are also very good) and more focus on the words. He seems like the kind of person who obsesses over every syllable, and will never throw in a bar that doesn’t mean the world to him. Milo’s meticulous and abstract style makes diving into his lyrics an absolute blast. He’s a rapper for kids who are tired of hearing about bitches and hoes and want more Shakespeare references and terms that they have to look up in the regular dictionary rather than the urban one. High poetry over a beat. The essence of hip-hop.

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mMOsl8qpfc

15. Richard Dawson - Peasant

I, and I’m am sure many others, would file this album in the same category as Joanna Newsom’s Ys. What category is that you ask? Lyrics and melodies that exude a sense of adventure, song structures that meander and drift like waves on the ocean, and stories that feel like mini epics. It doesn’t have a name, but it’s a damn exciting little nook of music that isn’t heard often, and Dawson nails it. Listening to this thing really does feel like a journey; one that’s constantly evolving and never ever boring. Dawson appears to have some sort of fascination with medieval storytelling and instrumentation. But don’t worry, this thing doesn’t sound like Renaissance Fair music. It has a great sense of modern experimentation and loose song structure that differentiates it from actual medieval music, and from pretty much anyone else making folk music right now. It’s an ambitious and wildly fun freak folk album that will draw you in with both its story and its charisma.

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7iW5OEeCUw

14. Remo Drive - Greatest Hits

Aw man I miss being in a band in high school. We were one of the smart ones who weren’t under the illusion that “getting big” would be easy if we just really wanted it. We were just in it for fun. Remo Drive, a Minnesotan emo band, are some young whippersnappers who were in the same boat as me in high school, but through some good promotion (including a shoutout from a certain popular music nerd), the boys made it big. I’d be jealous if these guys didn’t completely deserve their success. Okay well, I’m still a little jealous. Regardless, Greatest Hits is a remarkably good debut, and one that has given emo kids around the country something new to latch onto and rightfully obsess over. Is it perfect? No. There are still kinks to work out. But I fucking love this thing and, considering this is their debut album, they can only get better and will hopefully one day become one of the emo greats. Just a prediction though. Maybe they’ll totally blow it. That would suck, but at least we’ll always have the awesome soaring hooks of Greatest Hits to re-listen to over and over and over. And over. 

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kaMiIaT-sg

13. SZA - Ctrl

Love in 2017 is a weird thing. Everyone's so sex positive (which is a great thing!) that more people are open to hookups or being friends with benefits. That's all good and fun, but it can potentially lead to a lot of hurt feelings and heartbreak if there is a lack of communication. Modern music likes to pretend this isn't the case and that we're all out there trying to find a soulmate, but SZA knows what's really going on. She's tired of being used, and she's not afraid to call out shitty behavior by the men in her life. As you could probably guess, this album is very sexual. In fact, “Doves In The Wind” features the word "pussy" exactly 27 times. But sex and relationships is topic that needs to be discussed in 2017, especially from the female perspective. Having a casual hookup can be awkward and being sexually adventurous sometimes leaves something to be desired; a deep connection with another human being. It's not easy, but it's something worth fighting for. SZA tackles all this with a unique flow and swagger, while still keeping herself vulnerable enough for the listeners to connect to her struggle, which is one the most relatable struggles for young people today: have fun and be casual, or try to find something serious? What Ctrl teaches us is that the answer will only come if you try both, inevitably fail, and then learn from your mistakes. Maybe make a great album about it while you’re at it.

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMD63TwzB1o

12. Open Mike Eagle - Brick Body Kids Still Daydream

Your childhood home is more than just 4 walls with a floor and a ceiling.  Your childhood home is your childhood. Every memory, good or bad, significant or minor, revolves around your home. Mike Eagle’s childhood home, the Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago, was demolished several years ago. Using this symbolic destruction, Open Mike Eagle crafted a subtly ambitious and low-key concept album. He uses it is a jumping off point for insightful takes on life for poor minorities in big cities. He also takes time to reminisce on his memories of the projects, both good and bad. It's intimate, smart, and breezy. But most importantly, it's a meaningful exploration on what it really means to be at home. 

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQxXubLTIBw

11. Fleet Foxes - Crack-Up

Six years may feel like a long time to wait for an album, but the scope and ambition of Crack-Up justifies it. This is Fleet Foxes’ most dense and intricate album, and one that takes a few listens to fully digest, but also rewards multiple listens with it’s lush soundscapes that reveal a little more of themselves each time. People who, like me, felt that Helplessness Blues was near perfection may not completely vibe with this, but I think that if you truly sit down and give this album a chance, you’ll find a deep beauty to it that’s just as satisfying as anything the band has ever made. It really does feel like an album that would take six whole years to make.

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GqgNebPm50

10. Brockhampton - SATURATION Trilogy

In a decade or so when I’m looking back at music through the years, I’ll think about 2017, and immediately go “Oh shit! That was the year of Saturation!” I can’t remember the last time I was as excited about a new force in hip hop as I am about Brockhampton. The three records they dropped this year were somehow all excellent in their own way. Every member shines in their own unique beautiful way, and the production choices are fresh and wonderfully off-kilter. The Saturation trilogy was an amazing feat that could have gone horribly wrong, but all the members and all the fans were extremely invested in making this work, and it did. And then some. The truth of the matter is, no one made an impact this year quite like Brockhampton. 

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_ZRRlVDVa8

9. Tyler, The Creator - Flower Boy

Growing up is really a decision you make and not a fact of life. There are always gonna be man-children who never decided to do something with their life. Flower Boy is the sound of Tyler, The Creator finally deciding to grow up and give listeners something that’s been lacking in his music: sincerity. For the first time, Tyler really lets his sensitive side show, and he created a project that peels back the layers on the wild persona he’s created. Turns out he can do a lot more than just shock value rap. He actually has a great ear for melody and production, and his lyrics have become much more nuanced and emotionally resonant. It seems crazy to say this about a Tyler, The Creator album, but Flower Boy is beautiful, and hopefully Tyler will continue to follow this musical direction for future projects. There’s always more room to blossom.

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxlBOBOZHqI

8. Perfume Genius - No Shape

While 2014’s Too Bright was an exploration of Mike Hadreas’ beaming confidence trying its best to balance out his crippling insecurities and fears, No Shape is pure confidence with no room for fear and all the room in the world for love. The opener “Otherside” recalls the opening tracks of his previous albums with its hushed piano balladry. but a minute goes by and suddenly there is an explosion of sparkling synths that pulls you right into the majestic world of this album and lets you know this one isn’t like the ones that came before it. From then on it’s one excellently written and immaculately produced track after another on what may be Perfume Genius’s most endearingly weird and wonderful project to date. Mike’s heart was full of love when he made this album, and you can tell. The grace and care that was put into every song is clear, and it makes for a tremendously satisfying listen.

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EVhFTw4igw

7. Julien Baker - Turn Out The Lights

The most astounding part about Turn Out The Lights is that, after you hear how heartbreaking and beautiful and fearless it is, you listen a little closer and realize how damn relatable it is. Baker makes epic songs about little things that secretly hurt a lot more than we wished they did. The things we’ve all felt and thought about on lonely nights. Like all great art, it’s not just about the artist, it’s about all of us. It’s about the pain of existing and trying to be a human. Julien’s words are the words we’ve all been wanting to say but have never quite know how to put it, and every line hits like punch to the gut. But through all the turmoil, Baker maintains a sense of hope. As she herself put so gracefully, “The existence of anxiety or depression does not negate my own capacity for joy, or my intelligence; when I can embrace those things, I can have power over them.” Through her music, she gives herself power over her illness and let's us know that, even if everything feels like it's breaking, there is still hope.

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV1dMqeb4_U

6. The National - Sleep Well Beast

(Read my full review here) I think Sleep Well Beast might be my favorite National album. That’s right, even better than the near-unanimously agreed upon high mark Boxer. I came to this conclusion when I realized that for every great song Boxer has, Sleep Well Beast raises it one. Boxer’s melancholy opener “Fake Empire” is pretty, but “Nobody Else Will Be There” takes the emotion to whole new levels of devastation. You a fan of “Mistaken For Strangers”? I raise you “The System Only Dreams In Total Darkness”. Like “Brainy”? You’ll love “Day I Die”. It’s basically a better version of Boxer, but it still manages to sound entirely distinct. The main difference being that their songwriting has become more mature and subdued, which in turn made room for the emotions to really ruminate within the music. I mean, it’s been 10(!) years since Boxer hit shelves, and since then The National have really grown up. Everything has more nuance, more depth, and more maturity. Out of all their albums, it’s the one that hits the most consistently, and also hits the hardest.

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O6duDDkhis

5. Father John Misty - Pure Comedy

Pure Comedy isn’t for everybody because it wasn’t made for everybody. Honestly, it wasn’t really made for anybody but Josh Tillman himself. He decided to take a step back from the personal squabbles he dealt with on the fantastic I Love You, Honeybear and takes aim at...well, everything really. No topic is safe from Tillman’s deadpan wit and hilariously cynical worldview. The music itself is merely a vessel for Tillman’s impressively coherent rants, which walk that fine line between genius and complete pretension, admittedly slipping into the latter category on some occasions. But even though it can seem like a little much, the scale and ambition of it all can not be undersold. Plus, considering the shitshow that 2017 was, I’d say it’s a perfect time for humanity to get a bit of a wake up call. We needed some crazy old man like Father John Misty to go up on rooftops and tells us that what we’re doing is fucked up. So fucked up, that it’s actually pretty hilarious when you think about it.

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHpV08wI-bw

4. King Krule - The OOZ

It really does ooze. Every song, every word, every little moment seems to just pour out of you speakers like syrup. The OOZ is like a puzzle. It has so many moving parts that it takes many listens for it all to start sinking into place. The big picture it slowly reveals is pretty ugly. Krule’s worldview seems tragic, and he constantly feels alone and lost in this world. Nothing makes any sense to him, or the listener for that matter. Why is it called Biscuit Town? What’s a Dum Surfer? I still don’t have all the answers, but every time I listen I get a little closer to this album’s real main idea. I don’t know if I’ll ever get there, but the joy of listening comes from those little revelations, and from the amazement of knowing how much meaning and detail King Krule put into this wild, unflinchingly weird record. It doesn’t need to be fully understood to understand that it is absolutely brilliant.

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5-f1Bnltu8

3. Kendrick Lamar - DAMN.

What is a king to do now that he’s sitting comfortably on his throne? The answer: do what everyone else is trying to do to replace you, and do it way better than any of them. First, he releases  “The Heart Part IV”, a track that dares anyone to fuck with him. Then a week later, he shuts down anyone who would ever try with “Humble”, a track that sees Kendrick being anything but. After the absolute shock of “Humble”, we got DAMN, an album very different from but in many aspects just as admirable as To Pimp a Butterfly or Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City. Kendrick manages to blow every other rapper completely out of the water with his brilliance and talent while still making it look easy. He breezily flows over some of 2017’s most unique instrumentals with bar after bar about life post-TPAB. Kendrick tries not to let his fans, his haters, his family, or Fox News get in his head. He reflects on his past, looks towards the future, and secures his spot as one of the all time greatest rappers to walk the earth. Damn is right.

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glaG64Ao7sM

2. Lorde - Melodrama

If there is one musical lesson I’ve learned over the past 2 years, it’s that you should never underestimate pop music. Last year, Beyonce blew me away with Lemonade, and now in 2017, Lorde is the pop star who didn’t let her one hit wonder define her and ended up with an absolute stunner of an album. When pop music is done as well as it on Melodrama, it strikes a nerve with the listener, connects with them on a deep level, and unleashes their basic instincts: to dance, to cry, to laugh, to remember, to hope. This album makes me want to do all of those things, often all at the the same time. I listen to this album and I feel a real connection with Lorde as she too tries to make heads or tails of life as an adult. Does she ever make heads or tails of it? Of course not, but she’s not here to give answers, she’s here to give you an album that will help you through it, an incredibly powerful and mature album at that, and one that perfectly captures the feeling of being on the edge of adulthood in 2017. This early adulthood college era is a messy time in our lives where we try to pretend that we’re fine and that we totally get it, but at a certain point we just can’t keep pretending. It’s all wild parties, broken hearts, lost friends, and trying to just enjoy it all while we’re still young. It’s a confusing, scary and amazing time in our lives where our only focus is getting what we want. It’s all for fun. It’s all for show. It’s all just a bunch of fucking melodrama, and Lorde captured all of it perfectly. For college kids, Melodrama is a gem. A pop album that wasn’t manufactured by a company, but created by someone who really is just like us. Someone who actually gets it. In a time where millennial bashing seems to be the cool thing to do, I am very happy that this album exists to remind me that it’s okay to be young and a little reckless. I mean, if we’re not reckless now, when the hell else can we be?

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0DjcsK_-HY

1. Mount Eerie - A Crow Looked At Me

I really wanted to make Melodrama my number one this year. I mean, did you see what I wrote up here? That’s an album of the year write up if I’ve ever seen one. Alas, I had to give it to this album. It would be irresponsible not to. No album, hell, no piece of art that I am aware of has ever captured and expressed the experience of grief so intensely as this album. After the passing of his wife Genevieve, Phil Elvrum hid away in his home and eventually gave us this collection of 12 vignettes discussing the complete and utter emptiness he feels now that his greatest love has gone. Every single thing he does, every place he visits, every word he hears is a reminder of her death. It’s completely and utterly heartbreaking, so much so that listening to it feels almost disrespectful, like you’re eavesdropping in on someone’s very private life. Some call it exploitative, and I would be inclined to agree, yet the songs on here treat her with such deep, rich love and true respect. Even so It is a bit paradoxical. As he says in the beginning: “Death is real/someones there and then they’re not/and it’it’s not for singing about/it’s not for making into art” He dismisses the idea of turning the death of a loved one into art while doing just that. But can you really blame him? Phil just doesn’t know what to think about all this, but he knows how to make music, and that’s what he did. Was it to help with grieving? Was it for closure? Understanding? Was it to honor her memory? No one knows, and I don’t ever need to, because the fact still stands that this one of the most powerful pieces of art I have ever experienced. So yeah, it’s the best album of the year, and in fact one of the best ever made.

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2R2Ck8qKWM

Well, thanks for reading everyone! Here’s to a great 2018!

Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/1241380934/playlist/03JmDr3dJSvNigvFAISnbh