#especially when that thing has pre-paid tickets

[runawaymun]

help i'm already so tired and I still have a social thing tonight and a dog to walk and no time to nap

[alltootayloralisonswift]

how could anyone ever doubt how much taylor swift cares about her fans when:

1. she is the queen of using second (and third) stages to get closer to her fans on tour to ensure that, even if her fans can’t afford the ‘best’ or pit tickets, they can get close to her and have an awesome view.

2. taylor invited her fans into her homes for secret sessions and trusted her fans with her unreleased albums, despite this being a risk to her safety and increasing the likelihood of leaks / spoilers about her new music.

3. she has risked her safety multiple times by walking through the crowd on her tours to say hello to fans, hug them and squeeze their hands to show her gratitude for them coming to her show and to make them happy.

4. she has never done a paid meet and greet. all her meet and greets are free and she is known for giving her fans her undivided attention and time when meeting them.

5. taylor held swiftmas where she sent her fans presents and turned up at a fan’s home with presents. she even included handwritten cards.

6. taylor has a reputation for knowing her fans’ names and recognising faces when she meets them.

7. taylor is very personable with her fans - she bakes them cookies, let’s them talk about their worlds and let’s them hold her cats.

8. taylor puts on shows that are 2+ hours long and will perform medleys to be able to include as many songs as she possibly can in her sets. she will even sing surprise songs, all to ensure that her fans get to hear the songs that they love.

9. at her shows, taylor has included pre-show meet and greet for fans she’s chosen (usually from online interactions or ‘taylurking’) and post-show meet and greet for fans who her mum or her team (taylor nation) chose at / during the show. did i mention both meet and greets are free as well as taking a long time?

10. not to mention, the countless hours taylor has spent interacting online with her fans, especially in previous years which she spent a large amount of on tumblr interacting with thousands of fans: following them, liking & reblogging their posts, and having inside jokes with them.

yes, taylor swift is a capitalist business woman. she’s no different to her male peers in the music industry, or her female peers for that matter. her success is just much greater than most. taylor swift’s success is as large as it is for three reasons: 1) her talent and hard work; 2) her business mind and work ethic; and 3) the relationship she upholds with her fans and the way that she is able to generate an investment in her music and her storytelling. of course she wants to break records, of course she wants to make money and of course she wants to be a successful star, however whilst achieving all these things she has remained nothing but humble and grateful to those who believed and invested in her. taylor recognises that her fans are a huge part in where she is today & shows that through all of her efforts above, and more. never doubt that. <3

[1ddotdhq]

🍌Wed 2 Dec ‘20💚

Harry Styles Reacts to Banana Innuendo Rumors by Making EVEN MORE Banana Innuendos part TWO

Good morning/evening/night to Harry’s post and Harry’s post ONLY! (Okay that’s not true but it was definitely a highlight of my day). In case people haven’t seen it yet, it’s Harry in a light blue custom made suit putting a penis banana in his mouth. The picture is captioned “Bring Back Manly Men” so take a suck on THAT Candace Owens! It was only one of many great pictures in his variety shoot (including another, um, fruity picture of him biting into a pomegranate okay Persephone we get it), but Harry did indeed choose That One to post on This, the day after banana necklace dickscourse, BLESS. Harry’s interview was a little more in depth than they have been in the past, touching upon his feelings on race (“Historically, I can’t think of any industry that’s benefited more off of Black culture than music. There are discussions that need to happen about this long history of not being paid fairly. It’s a time for listening, and hopefully, people will come out humbled, educated and willing to learn and change”), as well as his tattoos (the only time he regrets them is in the DWD makeup chair), his love of reading, fashion and art, his exercise routine (Kid Harpoon couldn’t keep up!),  and his feelings on success and acclaim (“It’s never why I do anything...it's always nice to know that people like what you’re doing, but ultimately — and especially working in a subjective field — I don’t put too much weight on that stuff...Fans are the best A&R”). 

The problems arose - as they so often do - when One Direction was mentioned. The article said that “The proof [of the band’s benefits] is in the relatively seamless solo transitions of at least three of its members- Payne, Malik and Horan in addition to Styles- each of whom has landed hit singles on charts in the U.K., the U.S. and beyond”. Leaving aside the bad math (that's 4 people!) one name, of course, is notably missing: Louis has in fact enjoyed quite a lot of success both with Walls (remember when his album went #1 on iTunes in the UK AND the US literally 2 months ago?) and his pre-Walls singles like “Back To You” and “Just Hold On”. It got worse because the author tried to back up her claim with Harry’s quote, “When you look at the history of people coming out of bands and starting solo careers, they feel this need to apologize for being in the band...but we loved being in the band...I think there’s a wont to pit people against each other. And I think it’s never been about that for us. It’s about a next step in evolution. The fact that we’ve all achieved different things outside of the band says a lot about how hard we worked in it”. By linking her own words with Harry's quote she made it seem as though Harry said it to agree with her biased take, which we'd know he didn't even if we hadn't heard him say this exact quote without that slant multiple times before. Fans were quick to point out both to the author and to Variety that they were wrong (to describe the reaction mildly), and the author rather than fixing the mistake, doubled down and began blocking fans. Plenty of people were quick to say that of course HSHQ and Harry had approved this content, despite more knowledgeable fans trying to be heard protesting that that is not how it works. (Remember how just recently Vogue got Harry’s whole ass FAMILY situation wrong and it was not corrected until after print, for example?) In fact, even the magazine didn't really proofread this- the print version of the article is different and says, “The proof is in the relatively seamless solo transitions of at least three of its members - Styles, Malik and Horan”, effectively erasing both Louis AND Liam. It's an annoying take either way, but it's one the author more than likely picked up by doing her research on harrie twitter, not on orders from Jeff.

And because we DO NOT STAND FOR LILO ERASURE ON THIS BLOG, let’s talk about Liam’s Web Summit panel! It was 25 minutes of Liam and Marian Dicus (VP of Spotify) being interviewed about the current and future state of the music industry. Both of them, of course, noted that things had changed very quickly in their careers back at the beginning of lockdown, and how it had seemed surreal, at first, but that Liam had found that the way he was operating now (with Veeps and Tik Tok and Instagram lives) had made his platform a two way interaction with his fans. “For a long time I've been living in a dream world where I thought I was speaking with my fans but really I was just talking at them whereas we as artists ask a lot of rhetorical questions... I wanted to start a conversation”. Marian discussed how engaging fans differently WAS one of the most difficult things to puzzle out at the beginning, but that as months have passed, it seems artists like Liam have found a viable virtual future in the music industry (Liam tells us that he's been doing “stadium size shows” on Veeps which is an exciting clue about the mystery of how many tickets they're selling). They also went into the way music trends change as a response to social and political occurrences, how comfort songs gave way to protest songs this summer. Liam said, “People want their artists to have an opinion nowadays it's not that we can stay out of the conversation anymore-- and nor do we feel that we should in many places-- but for me it's a fine line because I realize what I do for people is an escape, people don't want things rammed down their throats every day and news messages from me about things that they don't want to hear about if they've come to listen to music, so its a real fine line that we kind of teeter on”. And about his opening acts, he acknowledges that his fanbase are mostly young women (based on the data breakdowns he gets from his team), and so he feels a responsibility to mentor young female artists in the industry so that more people like his fans have a voice. In an interview full of really fascinating music and technical discussions, this remained my favorite moment from Liam. Just like we won’t erase HIM, he refuses to erase US! And let's not forget our Liam alarm of the day-- it starts out absolutely adorable (“good moooorning!”), is hilarious in that apparently he just rambled completely unscripted and then they awkwardly cut it into 25 parts, but today's installment is frankly not relaxing! “only 23 sleeps til christmas have you done your shopping are you prepared” excuse me Liam YOU ARE STRESSING ME OUT. The promised relaxing sleep story affirmations are still 'coming soon'-- hurry up please I need them to decompress after that alarm!

Now for a lightning round of epic proportions: DWD darling pictures and vids keep comin’ and Harry and Florence are both looking GORGEOUS as Jack and Alice,  after the Variety shoot dropped ‘THE CAPTION’, ‘BRING BACK MANLY MEN’, and ‘LOUIS IS SUCCESSFUL’ trended worldwide on twitter, Tan France said “yes please” to Harry's banana post, Harry reiterated that London was home and he didn’t want to be in LA for longer than he needed to,Variety has its virtual show tomorrow at 5 pm PST so see you there! Veeps is sending out emails promoting Louis’ show to people who bought LP show tickets, fans have already started to receive their Louis Tomlinson Live From London merch, Trinity College in Dublin’s Law society presented Niall with an award for, uh, his Irishness, I guess? (Just kidding, it’s for “his incredible talent and work ethics which is famously underscored by a distinct humility despite unthinkable success”). It looks like he will be giving a talk when he’s presented with it, and I’m honestly really interested to see what it’s all about - is he...gonna be talking to law students? Idk but tune in on December 7th at 12 pm GMT to find out!

[pl-panda]

The vines that bind us - Chapter 2

Chapter 1 || Next

-----

Until a trip to Gotham came knocking on the front doors

“I can’t believe Lie-la of all people managed to somehow get us the trip to Gotham!” Mari moaned with a mixed expression on her face.

Adrien, who was walking next to them, showed absolute disgust. “Technically, It was my father and I that did the heavy lifting. She really wanted to go to the Wayne Gala and…”

“What Lie-la wants, Lie-la gets.” The three finished in unison before laughing a bit. 

“Don’t worry Mari-bear. I can promise you that this no good liar won’t get to ruin your return home.” Chloe pulled her best friend closer. Best friend. Much better than a servant. Who would’ve thought? “And we can even try to find your mom on free Saturday.”

“Yeah…” The girl with black-blue hair didn’t seem particularly cheerful at that. 

“Now I refuse to have you making sad faces throughout the whole flight. You cheer up right this moment and that’s an order!” The blonde commanded. 

“Yes, Maman-bear.” Mari giggled.

The three of them finally arrived at the rest of the class, who were already gathered around madame Bustier. Of course, Lila was bragging about a million different things, but the three paid her no mind. Adrien did his best to hide behind the girls, cherishing the last moments of freedom. Finally, Mari and Chloe had to step forward for their tickets. The blonde got hers without any problem, but for Mari there turned out to be none.

“I’m so so sorry Marinette!” Lila said with fake regret. “I must have accidentally miscounted the number of students… It must’ve been when I was helping those poor orphans. You know, at…”

“Sure…” Mari didn’t even try to act as if she believed her for a moment. When Lila scowled, realizing that it didn’t affect the girl, she smiled. “I guess Chlo, Adrien and I will have to go with the contingency plan number 1.” 

“What?!” The sausage-hair shouted.

“Of course my Daddy would not send us to travel like peasants. We have tickets for the first class.” Chloe supplied, looking smugly. “We did plan to maybe sit with the rest of the class. What a shame…”

“Yeah, My dad also didn’t want me to travel anything less, but I convinced him to let me stay with my friends. Guess he will get what he wanted in the end.” For his part, Adrien at least tried to look apologetic. He didn’t try hard at all, but it’s the thought that counts, right?

“But… But…” Lila tried to come up with something, likely a lie, to counter it. She didn’t have time as the trio handed their teacher the filled forms from their parents/guardians/Nathalie and proceeded to the plane. The tickets were personal, so she couldn’t do anything. The Italian girl came up with a lie to tell to the class, but it would do no good until they landed. 

--------

“Did you see her face?” Plagg was rolling in the air while holding a giant roll of camembert. 

“You were amazing my queen.” Pollen complimented. 

“I still can’t believe your dad just… bought out the whole first class!” Marinette sighed. 

“Phi! Daddy always gives me only the best. You should know it by now, Mari-bear.”

“Okay. Mari. You are the Gotham expert here. Any advice?” Adrien asked a bit more seriously. 

“Gotham survival guide is probably unlike any other city.” She started. “The first rule is, believe it or not, run away if a person laughs too much or smiles too widely. The downside of living in the same city as the Joker is that most people don’t laugh in public. Secondly, never show that you are lost. Wherever you are, it’s exactly where you wanted to be. Finally, the third is to never flaunt your wealth.” She looked critically at Chloe before taking away her purse and lipstick in a golden case. “This,” She then pulled a mobile phone in a ridiculously sparkly case and popped it out of the cover, “this,” finally, she detached the golden chain on which the purse was supposed to be suspended and replaced it with a pre-prepared white one with copper clips, “and this must all go away.” 

“Ridiculous! Utterly Ridiculous! Now it will totally clash with my comb!” Chloe complained.

“Oh no! How will you ever survive that?” Mari deadpanned. All three of them had another burst of laughter. After they calmed, Adrien started.

“Do you think it’s wrong that I want to bet which rule will Lila break first?”

“Ten macaroons she will say out-loud about money.” Mari threw. 

“I raise, four tea parties she will start by asking for direction.” Chloe had a grin on her face

“Are you sure?” Adrien asked. When the blonde nodded, he shrugged. “Movie night and double popcorn bowl refill that she will do both in one conversation.”

“Hi, could you be so kind to point me to my exclusive hotel? You know, I’m staying at the penthouse of this luxurious new one.” Mari gave a quite good parody of Lilia. 

“So to sum up, the pool is now ten Macaroons, Four Tea parties, and movie night with triple popcorn?” Chloe asked. When they nodded, she quickly noted it on her phone. 

“Now, who wants a movie? I think they have the newest Thomas Astruck one.” Adrien pulled a disc from the container next to his seat.

“Good for me!/Go!” The girls said. Chloe, who was in the middle loaded it and the other two leaned onto her to watch together. The three were happy. Faintly in the background, there was knocking on the doors to their part, but nobody paid attention to very angry Liela and some classmates. For some reason, the doors were stuck and the blinder rolled down. Later if someone asked, Pollen would deny everything. 

------------

When the plane landed, the class was practically kicked out. The team walked calmly down the stairs, all of them having smug expressions. Lila wanted to comment, but a glare from Mme. Bustier shut her up quickly. Mari and co. would later try to guess, what got the crew so pissed at their classmates.

Once everyone was accounted for, the class made its way to the customs to retrieve their luggage. There was a small problem with Mari’s travel bag as it was apparently misplaced to the flight to Timbuktu, but luckily her true suitcase, which had her things inside, arrived safely. She giggled at the thought of custom office in Timbuktu receiving a bag full of Adrien’s old socks that smelled camembert. 

Overall, the airport went mostly unproblematic. At least until they found themselves cleared and gathered in one place while Mme Bustier left to check on their bus. One of the men, wearing a dark blue suit started to laugh almost maniacally. Everybody immediately cleared away from him, out of sheer self-preservation. Lila must’ve decided that a show of kindness was a good way to regain class’ good grace. She was confidently approaching the man before suddenly Mari grabbed her and pulled her away. The designer might’ve despised the liar, but Joker… you don’t mess with Joker. 

Of course, Lila used the chance. She faked falling on the ground and started crying crocodile tears. “Marinette?! How can you be so heartless? I wanted *sniff* to check on the man and you trip me?” Lila sniffled, eyes watering with crocodile tears.

“I might have saved your life genius!” Mari snapped. Joker was a really touchy subject with her. “Does the world Killer Clown mean something?”

“Don’t invent things, you bully!” Alya shouted. That seemed to break the dam and at once the class started to say awful things to Mari. A year ago, it would hurt her. Half a year ago, she would be sad. Now? Now she pitied them. Chloe didn’t, and she was ready to jump to protect her best friend. 

“Ridiculous! Do you like… share a single brain cell? What if that man was…” she didn’t get to finish because Mme. Bustier returned. The commotion immediately calmed. By now the man stopped laughing and returned to talking with his friends.

“The bus is waiting. Come on children. Follow me.”

----------------

Arriving at the hotel, the class was split into different rooms. Of course, Lila tried to lie her way into some privilege, but Mari was too dead inside to care. The Jet Lag was killing her. At least she got some sleep on the plane. From the rumors she heard from the class, they didn’t because of Lila’s drama with the staff. 

“Now I want you all to be ready here at eight a.m. sharp. A Wayne Enterprises representative will come here to explain the details of internships.” Mme. Bustier instructed them. This, for some reason, caused outrage in students.

“What do you mean internships?!”

“Wayne Enterprises?”

“Shouldn’t we be preparing to go to Gotham Academy or something?”

The terrible trio in the back had trouble holding back laugher. Adrien warned the girls about what his father planned, so they could all prepare. Gabriel Agreste, devious as he is, decided to punish Lila and teach Adrien something about running a company at the same time and using his connections to put the class up for an internship at WE. He did send the liar all the details, but she must have skimmed over the corporate jargon because the class was fed overexaggerated stories about what they would and wouldn’t do during two months trip. 

Most parents were more than happy to send their children away from Paris for two months, especially since the Internship was free and the employment rate after it was quite high. WE kept quite a lot of the interns, if only out of habit. But perhaps it was mostly because the class has become a go-to place for the Akuma. Only Mr. Pidgeon and perhaps Gigantitan were akumatized more often. Mari actually picked up to cleansing their class weekly through a ritual she learned, otherwise there would be enough residual dark energy to power a demon portal. Not something one would want in the middle of a classroom.

“I was told you’ve all read the brochure provided and Lila summarised it for you.”

“I did!” The sausage hair defended. “Marinette must have told them some imaginary story about the trip!”

Immediately, several other people started to nod and confirm this. Chloe actually started to walk toward the liar almost red, but Mari grabbed the back of her blazer and held her in place. All the while she had a completely deadpan expression like it was normal for her (it was).

Mme. Bustier sighed. “Well, In that case, I will…”

“Excuse me, but shouldn’t we be going to sleep today already? We don’t want to be late tomorrow.” Adrien asked with an innocent expression, but there was some satisfaction hidden there too.

“Well… um… I…”

“We will be going then.” Chloe grabbed the key and led Mari to their room. Calline didn’t even question it. She wanted a pay raise after this. 

-----------

The next morning, Mari was woken by a frantic Chloe

“Mari-bear! It’s already late! You don’t want to be late for your first day of Internship girl! It would be utterly Ridiculous!” 

At first, the girl mumbled something, but once she finally processed everything she leaped out of her bed and started getting ready in record time. She was brushing her teeth, packing her purse, and tossing clothes at her best friend all at once. Once she had everything, she turned to see Chloe on the ground tied with a gray blazer. Mari just burst out laughing.

“How…”

“Ridiculous!” Chloe shook her head. “I demand you untie me this instant! We don’t have time for this!”

Once they dressed and did their hair, both girls were ready. Chloe now had a black button-down shirt, deep red blazer, and a matching pencil skirt. Mari also made her wear smart black stilettos (instead of her usual that were slightly more extravagant). The look was completed by a tablet in leather flip-over cover. Mari had a similar outfit, except her shirt was white and the suit was in dark blue. She opted for flat shoes to spare the embarrassment that was Marigold on heels.

“Ready to rock Gotham City?”

“Like you have to ask.” Mari smiled. There was something about the city of crime that made her feel safe and open up more. Maybe being on home turf gave her the much-needed confidence boost. 

When Chloe tried to open the doors, she found them stuck. She was about to go on a rant about poor quality when Mari casually grabbed the doorknob and twisted it. There was a faint creaking sound as the mechanism gave.

“Um…”

“It must’ve been old,” Chloe said with a devious grin. “Nothing happened. Don’t you worry! I will deal with it.”

---------------

When the doors to the elevator opened and two girls strode into the lobby, their class was already pushing toward the exit. Adrien looked very much uncomfortable with Lila hanging off his arm, literally sinking her claws into him. He mouthed them a muted ‘later’. Alya stared at the girls with loathing. 

“Ah, you are here.” Mme. Bustier spoke. “Lila said…”

“Whatever.” Chloe dismissed their teacher. “Aren’t we in rush?” The blonde practically seethed the last word. 

“Yes, good to see that someone is responsible.” The teacher gave Mari a pointed look. Apparently, she still didn’t get over the fact that she resigned from the class rep position. 

“But…”

“Drop it. She is not worth it.” Chloe whispered. “Daddy will take care of that once we are done.”

Mari just nodded. She knew Chloe was preparing a lawsuit against the school, but their hands were tied until they graduated or Damocles could try and undermine it. Both girls knew that no adult would help them with the lawsuit beyond Chloe’s father signing whatever dotted line she asked him to. That man was more whipped than a fresh can of whipped cream. 

The ride to the WE was short and uneventful. Girls took up to gossiping in English, effectively limiting any eavesdropping. Mari spent most of the time tearing down the outfits of all the villains. She started with Riddler, more as a joke than actual rant, but then she somehow got onto this new guy Anarky. From there, she just kept on, smoothly sailing from one to the next. Even her mom got some shots. Mari still couldn’t stand how skimpy it was. Her rant carried over when they exited the bus and entered the WE. Security led them to a conference room, where they were told to take seats. 

Mari guessed that it wouldn’t be Lila if she didn’t immediately start sputtering lies about how well she knew the building already because of her Damiboo giving her private tours (All while clutching Adrien like a leech). She didn’t have enough ducks left to give to try to expose Lila about several facts. Such as that Damian Wayne definitely wasn’t living with Bruce when he was five. Any Gothamite could tell her that. Bored, she returned to her rant. 

She was nearing the end of the list and was very much engaged in complimenting Harley Queen for her recent change in wardrobe. She still considered it a disaster, but at least it was somehow human. 

“Ekhm…” A voice broke her out of the rant. “Good morning. My name is Richard Grayson. You are the french class chosen for the internship program, correct?” When people nodded, he continued. Idly, Mari noted that Alya and Lila stiffened and suddenly stopped talking at all. “We reviewed the individual profiles and appointed each of you a mentor that will help you settle into your roles. As I read the names, please come forward so I can update your badges. Do carry them on your person all the time or we will have to take you to our human cloning facility.”

People stared at him. 

“Okaaay… That’s that about jokes…” He sighed. “The rules will be explained by individual departments. Now, who’s up for a tour?” 

People started to cheer at that and Dick smiled. Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad?

-----------------

It was that bad. Even worse. He knew from the background check that the class was both insanely talented… and borderline criminal. It was like someone de-aged the Rogues and put them in one class. The report called them Akuma class, which (if google is to be believed) meant demons. He questioned how they got accepted into the internship. 

They only toured two floors when Dick wanted to tear half of them to shreds. He noted immediately that they were bullying the girl with black (slightly blue? Maybe it was dyed?) hair. What surprised him was that the teacher didn’t react. If he was to be honest, the girl and her friend slightly irritated him too. They kept talking and seemed to ignore him. It was not because they kept tearing down each and every bats’ fashion choices. Definitely not that. When they brought up Discowing he had enough. 

“Ekhm. Excuse me, girls,” he stared at them. Both immediately stopped talking and looked at him. “Could you pay attention? I wouldn’t want any of you to waste your internship lost on our maze-testing floor.”

“There is no maze-testing floor in this building.” The blonde pointed out.

“And besides, we memorized all you’ve said.”

“Care to recall?” He heard several people groan at his pun.

“The first floor is most representative, where guests are welcome and low-level meetings happen. There is a separate kitchen for employers there that is always fresh on fruits. Don’t use the coffee machine there as it was only patched up and there is a high chance it will set itself on fire again. The…”

“Fine. You’re good. Still, I don’t appreciate the chatter.”

“They are always trouble!” A girl in bright pink colors shouted. 

“Yeah! Why do you have to ruin this trip for Lila!?”

“You’re just jealous of her boyfriend!”

More voices like this came from the crowd of kids. Dick started to feel bad that he singled the girls out. It definitely gave the class a reason to gang up on them. And the teacher still did nothing! He sighed. What did HR think when they accepted them. He would have to look into it later.

--------------

Mari decided that she didn’t like Dick. Everyone in their class kept talking, but for some reason, he singled them out. For the rest of the trip, she made sure to pay as much attention as she could. There was this silent determination on her face. Chloe wisely also kept silent. 

After the trip class was led back to the conference room where another employer handed out the identificators and folders containing their assignments. 

“Keep the IDs on you at all times. As opposed to the ones you received, this won’t expire and are synched with your jobs, so you will have access to anything you might need. They are also mandatory to receive lunch in our canteen. When you get acquainted with your tasks, you can go to the level specified at the end of sheet one. Your mentor will meet you there.” With that, he left. Dick really needed to do some in-depth research on this class. Something kept icking his detective sense.

“Well, I’m going to the law department. Apparently whoever made the assignments knew my well.” Chloe bragged to her friend after opening the folder. 

Timidly, Mari also opened her folder. She skimmed over what was inside and groaned. “Apparently, I’m interning as personal assistant to one Tim Drake.”

“They actually assigned you to the sleep-deprived coffee addict?” Chloe asked in disbelief.

“You know him?” She asked in surprise

“He and his brother ruined my daddy’s parties two years ago. They got into an argument that ended up with them wrestling over a cake. It took me weeks to get the cake out of my hair! Weeks!” The blonde summarized.

“oh…” Mari tried to hold back the giggles.

“Don’t laugh! It’s a serious matter! Do you have any idea how much work it takes to have such a perfect hair?!”

“Of course… cakehead.” The girl couldn’t stop herself.

“Ugh, you… you… plant leg.” Chloe said.

“Really?” Mari raised an eyebrow. “That’s the best you can come with?”

“Well, I usually have better things to do than thinking about good insults.” Still, Chloe hugged her best friend. “Be careful. I wouldn’t put it past The Liar to try and sabotage you somehow.”

“I’ll be careful. Wish me luck.”

-----

The elevator took Mari all the way to the highest floor. When the doors opened, she stepped int a large room with one desk. As soon as the doors closed, the woman who was standing there rushed toward her. The girl tensed for a moment but she reminded herself that there is no real threat.

“Oh finally! I was asking them to hire someone else for months!” She had a messed bun of red hair on her head and looked like she didn’t sleep in a week.

“But… I’m just an intern madame!” Mari tried to explain.

“An intern?” The woman paused her packing and stared at the girl with wide eyes.

“Um… Madame Sarah Jackson?” 

“Yes. An intern…” She said in a disappointed voice to herself. “Ah! That’s no problem at all!” She started to tap on her Waynetech Tablet and after a moment she smiled. “There! You’re hired!”

“Wha…?!” Mari shouted, but was interrupted when Sarah pushed the tablet into her hand, followed by a large box full of documents and a small mug with a coffee bean pointing a gun at the reader and words ‘Your Coffee or your life!’.

“They are your problem now! Everything you need is in the box. I left detail about ongoing stuff and whatever you might need. Don’t call. I’m outta here!” She shouted before grabbing her personal belonging and leaping into the elevator.

“But…! But…!?” Mari shouted after the closing doors. She could hear a cheerful shout as the elevator left the level. 

--------------------------------------

Next

[jenniferisacommonname]

Bonus Level Unlocked

This week marks the release of Jason Schreier’s Press Reset, an incredibly well-researched book on catastrophic business failure in the gaming industry. Jason’s a good dude, and there’s an excerpt here if you want to check it out. Sadly, game companies going belly-up is such a common occurrence that he couldn’t possibly include them all, and one of the stories left out due to space constraints is one that I happen to be personally familiar with. So, I figured I’d tell it here.

I began working at Acclaim Studios Austin as a sound designer in January of 2000. It was a tumultuous period for the company, including a recent rebranding from their former studio name, “Iguana Entertainment,” and a related, ongoing lawsuit from the ex-founder of Iguana. There were a fair number of ghosts hanging around—the creative director’s license plate read IGUANA, which he never changed, and one of the meeting rooms held a large, empty terrarium—but the studio had actually been owned on paper by Acclaim since 1995, and I didn’t notice any conflicting loyalties. Everyone acted as if we always had been, and always would be, Acclaim employees.

Over the next few years I worked on a respectable array of triple-A titles, including Quarterback Club 2002, Turok: Evolution, and All-Star Baseball 2002 through 2005. (Should it be “All-Stars Baseball,” like attorneys general? Or perhaps a term of venery, like “a zodiac of All-Star Baseball.”) At any rate, it was a fun place to work, and a platformer of hijinks ensued.

But let’s skip to the cutscene. The truth is that none of us in the trenches suspected the end was near until it was absolutely imminent. Yes, Turok: Evolution and Vexx had underperformed, especially when stacked against the cost of development, but games flop in the retail market all the time. And, yes, Showdown: Legends of Wrestling had been hustled out the door before it was ready for reasons no one would explain, and the New York studio’s release of a BMX game featuring unlockable live-action stripper footage had been an incredibly weird marketing ploy for what should have been a straightforward racing title. (Other desperate gimmicks around this time included a £6,000 prize for UK parents who would name their baby “Turok,” an offer to pay off speeding tickets to promote Burnout 2 that quickly proved illegal, and an attempt to buy advertising space on actual tombstones for a Shadow Man sequel.)

But the baseball franchise was an annual moneymaker, and our studio had teams well into development on two major new licenses, 100 Bullets and The Red Star. Enthusiasm was on the upswing. Perhaps I should have paid closer attention when voice actors started calling me to complain that they hadn’t been paid, but at the time it seemed more like a bureaucratic failure than an actual money shortage—and frankly, it was a little naïve of them to expect net-30 in the first place. Industry standard was, like, net-90 at best. So I was told.

Then one Friday afternoon, a few department managers got word that we’d kind of maybe been skipping out on the building lease for let’s-not-admit-how-many months. By Monday morning, everyone’s key cards had been deactivated.

It's a little odd to arrive at work and find a hundred-plus people milling around outside—even odder, I suppose, if your company is not the one being evicted. Acclaim folks mostly just rolled their eyes and debated whether to cut our losses and head to lunch now, while employees of other companies would look dumbfounded and fearful before being encouraged to push their way through the crowd and demonstrate their still-valid key card to the security guard. Finally, the General Manager (hired only a few months earlier, and with a hefty relocation bonus to accommodate his houseboat) announced that we should go home for the day and await news. Several of our coworkers were veterans of the layoff process—like I said, game companies go under a lot—and one of them had already created a Yahoo group to communicate with each other on the assumption that we’d lose access to our work email. A whisper of “get on the VPN and download while you can” rippled through the crowd.

But the real shift in tone came after someone asked about a quick trip inside for personal items, and the answer was a hard, universal “no.” We may have been too busy or ignorant to glance up at any wall-writing, but the building management had not been: they were anticipating a full bankruptcy of the entire company. In that situation, all creditors have equal standing to divide up a company's assets in lengthy court battles, and most get a fraction of what they’re owed. But if the landlords had seized our office contents in lieu of rent before the bankruptcy was declared, they reasoned, then a judge might rule that they had gotten to the treasure chest first, and could lay claim to everything inside as separate from the upcoming asset liquidation.

Ultimately, their gambit failed, but the ruling took a month to settle. In the meantime, knick knacks gathered dust, delivered packages piled up, food rotted on desks, and fish tanks became graveyards. Despite raucous protest from every angle—the office pets alone generated numerous threats of animal cruelty charges—only one employee managed to get in during this time, and only under police escort. He was a British citizen on a work visa, and his paperwork happened to be sitting on his desk, due to expire. Without it, he was facing literal deportation. Fortunately, a uniformed officer took his side (or perhaps just pre-responded to what was clearly a misdemeanor assault in ovo,) and after some tense discussion, the building manager relented, on the condition that the employee touch absolutely nothing beyond the paperwork in question. The forms could go, but the photos of his children would remain.

It’s also a little odd, by the way, to arrive at the unemployment office and find every plastic chair occupied by someone you know. Even odder, I suppose, if you’re actually a former employee of Acclaim Studios Salt Lake, which had shut down only a month or two earlier, and you just uprooted your wife and kids to a whole new city on the assurance that you were one of the lucky ones who got to stay employed. Some of them hadn’t even finished unpacking.

Eventually, we were allowed to enter the old office building one at a time and box up our things under the watchful eye of a court appointee, but by then our list of grievances made the landlords’ ploy seem almost quaint by comparison (except for the animals, which remains un-fucking-forgivable.) We had learned, for example, that in the weeks prior to the bankruptcy, our primary lender had made an offer of $15 million—enough to keep us solvent through our next batch of releases, two of which had already exited playtesting and were ready to be burned and shipped. The only catch was that the head of the board, company founder Greg Fischbach, would have to step down. This was apparently too much of an insult for him to stomach, and he decided that he'd rather see everything burn to the ground. The loan was refused.

Other “way worse than we thought” details included gratuitous self-dealing to vendors owned by board members, the disappearance of expensive art from the New York offices just before closure, and the theft of our last two paychecks. For UK employees, it was even more appalling: Acclaim had, for who knows how long, been withdrawing money from UK paychecks for their government-required pension funds, but never actually putting the money into the retirement accounts. They had stolen tens of thousands of dollars directly from each worker.

Though I generally reside somewhere between mellow and complete doormat on the emotional spectrum, I did get riled enough to send out one bitter email—not to anyone in corporate, but to the creators of a popular webcomic called Penny Arcade, who, in the wake of Acclaim’s bankruptcy announcement, published a milquetoast jibe about Midway’s upcoming Area 51. I told Jerry (a.k.a. “Tycho”) that I was frankly disappointed in their lack of cruelty, and aired as much dirty laundry as I was privy to at the time.

“Surely you can find a comedic gem hidden somewhere in all of this!” I wrote. “Our inevitable mocking on PA has been a small light at the end of a very dark, very long tunnel. Please at least allow us the dignity of having a smile on our faces while we wait in line for food stamps.”

Two days later, a suitably grim comic did appear, implying the existence of a new release from Acclaim whose objective was to run your game company into the ground. In the accompanying news post, Tycho wrote:

“We couldn’t let the Acclaim bankruptcy go without comment, though we initially let it slide thinking about the ordinary gamers who lost their jobs there. They don’t have anything to do with Acclaim’s malevolent Public Relations mongrels, and it wasn’t they who hatched the Titty Bike genre either. Then, we remembered that we have absolutely zero social conscience and love to say mean things.”

Another odd experience, by the way, is digging up a 16-year-old complaint to a webcomic creator for nostalgic reference when you offer that same creator a promotional copy of the gaming memoir you just co-wrote with Sid Meier. Even odder, I suppose, to realize that the original non-Acclaim comic had been about Area 51, which you actually were hired to work on yourself soon after the Acclaim debacle.*

As is often the case in complex bankruptcies, the asset liquidation took another six years to fully stagger its way through court—but in 2010, we did, surprisingly, get the ancient paychecks we were owed, plus an extra $1,700-ish for the company’s apparent violation of the WARN Act. By then, I had two kids and a very different life, for which the money was admittedly helpful. Sadly, Acclaim’s implosion probably isn’t even the most egregious one on record. Our sins were, to my knowledge, all money-related, and at least no one was ever sexually assaulted in our office building. Again, to my knowledge. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure we remain the only historical incident of corporate pet murder. The iguana got out just in time.

*Area 51’s main character was voiced by David Duchovny, and he actually got paid—which was lucky for him, because three years later, Midway also declared bankruptcy.

[corneelvf]

For the StarKid fans that ask “Why are the Homecoming/Reunion videos gone on YouTube?” AKA What’s free and what’s not.

They were taken down, probably at the request of Team StarKid themselves. Someone had posted some clips from StarKid Homecoming on YouTube, a few days after the download was made available. I guess StarKid noticed them and checked for other clips, like the Reunion ones. In the next few days they were all gone.

And essentially, this is a good thing. StarKid doesn't make (a lot of) money off the musicals, they do make some money on sales of DVD's and Digital Downloads, like A Very StarKid Reunion or StarKid Homecoming. So they rather not see those things floating around on YouTube, and actively ask people to take these clips down. It has happened before when someone posted excerpts from the Apocalyptour DVD. Those aren't available anymore too. The same goes for any digital ticket StarKid releases, especially when the musical will be available at a later date for free. Either buy the digital ticket for a small fee, or wait until it’s up for free on YouTube.

So, quick rundown:

Available for free:

Little White Lie

AVPM

AVPS

AVPSY

MAMD

Starship

HMB!

Twisted

Ani

TTO!

Firebringer

TGWDLM

Black Friday

Movies, Musicals and Me

StarKid Homecoming Behind The Scenes Documentary

Nightmare Time Seasons 1 & 2

VHS Christmas Carol: Live! (2021)

A bunch of promotional clips and trailers for their paid content

Ridiculously fun announcement videos

Available to buy from the StarKid Website / Store (should not be uploaded in part or in whole):

SPACE Tour

Apocalyptour

Airport For Birds

1Night 2Last 3Ever

A Very StarKid Reunion

StarKid Homecoming

Any behind-the-scenes documentaries that are exclusive to the DVDs/Digital Downloads

The album recordings of the songs

Official sheet music from Twisted and StarKid Homecoming

Nerdy Prudes Must Die digital ticket

Currently in development, available for free on YouTube at a later date

Nerdy Prudes Must Die (YouTube proshot)

Backstage tour videos for both Jangle Ball and Nerdy Prudes Must Die (stretch goal for the StarKid’s Back campaign)

Currently in development, available at a later date, not intended to be posted on YouTube:

Workin' Boys Short Film (Intended to be filmed around April 2023 and released to SK10 Kickstarter Backers around Halloween 2023, though StarKid might be looking into a wider release in some way as well)

Jangle Ball Tour recording (possibly to be released around Holidays 2023?)

Unfortunately not available by any means at the moment:

Yes, I Am Afraid of the Dark!

A VHS Christmas Carol (2020 Pre-Recorded Version)

[classic80sand90smovieloves2]

Meeting and dating Dean Portman

(Not my gif)(requested by @rschelberry )

- You saw Dean before you met him. You were stood off to the side watching the new recruits when he first came out onto the ice. You watched apprehensively as he threw people down and made an interesting first impression. He was entertaining that’s for sure.

- You; just like the other ducks, were unsure of the newcomers and not so keen on sharing the ice with a bunch of strangers. But you stayed back when they went to argue with each other knowing that nothing you said or did would change the predicament you were in.

- Dean “first saw you” or rather first paid attention to you when you smoothly skated over as Bombay and Tibbles spoke. You shared looks with your fellow teammates while he caught his first glimpse of your face and what a face it was.

- It wasn’t until later that you spoke to him for the first time. It was right after Les tried to ask about his tattoo that you stepped in, stretching out a hand and introducing yourself. He put on his best tough guy face and gave your hand a firm shake.

“Enforcer huh?”

“Mhm.”

“Well I’m a left wing so we’ll be seeing a lot of each other. Welcome to the team Portman.” You said as nonchalantly as you could while you walked away. Oh he liked you.

- Like Fulton said: “Deans not scared of anything” and once he’s set his eyes on something he’s going to find a way to get it. You just happen to be that something.

- At first he just watches you a lot especially when the team isn’t exactly a “team”. Your fellow Ducks don’t take too kindly to the brutes infatuation. They glare at him and warn you to stay away from him, often purposefully trying to block you from view.

- When (and before) the team starts to bond you notice that Dean acts differently around you or at least to you. He’s nicer, slightly quieter, and more helpful. There’s definitely a visible difference between how he treats you and everyone else.

- You two are on friendly terms before anyone else which slightly irritates the Ducks. They don’t want you around him, much like an older sibling/parent doesnt want you around a “bad influence”. They don’t trust him.

- But, it’s only when everyone’s on good terms that he actively starts to pursue you. One day things just sort of … change? He starts flirting with you which throws you for a loop; you think he’s just kidding at first but then you realize he’s being serious. You’re confused but at the same time you…sorta like it?

- His flirting consists of teasing you, twirling your hair, complimenting you, flexing and winking when he catches you looking at him. And you let it go on for a while because it makes you feel good and you kinda like him back until one day he decides it’s time to confess.

- You’re hanging out with him in your room and he’s messing around with your stuff while you do your homework. You’re both just in a comfortable silence until he speaks.

“Hey y/n/n?”

“Mhm.”

“What would you say if I told you I loved you?” You sort of freeze as you try to ignore the butterflies in your stomach.

“Well I don’t know,” you smile. “Why? Is there something you want to tell me?”

- He looks at you and shakes his head with a smile. “Y/n y/l/n I am completely, madly in love with you.”

“Well Dean Portman, it’s a good thing I’m in love with you as well.”

- He nearly tackles you onto your bed before the two of you share your first kiss. The whole time you’re thinking that any minute now you’ll wake up but you don’t and you open your eyes again to find him staring back at you with a smile.

- Technically that was your first date but you don’t really count it as such. No, your first date was at a theme park. He bought both of you tickets and the two of you had a blast screaming your lungs out on roller coasters. He even won you a prize on one of the games they had which you still have sitting on your bed to this day.

- After he won you the prize he asks if he’s “won your heart too” and you guess he really has because the two of you have been together ever since.

- He’s honestly the sweetest guy you’ve ever met. Behind his tough exterior he has a heart of gold.

- Soo many pet names. Babe, baby, honey, sweetie, angel; he rarely ever says your name.

- You call him your/a big teddy bear and he never outright denies it even though he has his bad boy reputation to keep up.

- The instant you seem even the slightest bit sad he’s trying to figure out what’s wrong and getting all soft on you. This boy turns into the human embodiment of comfort. His voice softens, he hugs you, kisses your forehead, listens intently, just everything and anything you could ever want when you’re upset.

- He scares off anyone that annoys you. You don’t even have to say anything, he just senses your impatience/discomfort and acts.

- You think you’ve seen protective, you’ve seen nothing yet. If he even hears about someone bothering you he’s immediately ready to kick ass. He offers to fight them which you laugh at but he’s only slightly kidding.

- It’s a good thing it’s sort of his job to take care of you on the ice because he’s constantly making sure no one gets to you and putting people who knock you down in their place.

- He’s like a moderate to severe on the jealous scale. If there’s a real reason to be jealous then he’ll get jealous (and will probably take it up with the guy). But if there’s really no reason to be he won’t be, like when you’re being platonic with a guy friend or just talking to a guy at lunch.

- He’s well aware that he’s good looking and…athletic; especially for his age, so he isn’t really all that worried about you running off with someone else. Just his appearance alone keeps people away from you, let alone his reputation. It’s rare that a guy is genuinely flirting with you.

- And regardless the both of you make it obvious that you’re only interested in each other which means you don’t have to worry about any girls getting to him either.

- He’s a cuddle bug; he can’t last a day without cuddling. He’ll always deny it but time and time again he’s the one pulling you onto the bed. Doesn’t matter where, doesn’t matter when; he’ll find a way to cuddle you.

- Tracing his tattoo.

- Sitting on his lap.

- Straddling his stomach while he runs his hands up and down your thighs.

- Makeout sessions while listening to rock music. He’s probably made a makeout mixtape for the two of you.

- He just loves making you mixtapes. He’s genuinely spent hours making you; what he thinks is, the perfect mixtape.

- Dancing and yelling out the lyrics to your favorite songs together.

- Doing stupid reckless shit together.

- I’m convinced that he’s the type of guy who buys cheap glass/porcelain and invites you over to smash it with him.

- He always makes sure he’s next to you when you’re sitting with the team on the benches or hanging out with friends.

- Obviously being really close to Fulton. He never minds being a third wheel or having you tag along on “bro nights”.

- The two of you share looks at each other constantly. Someone does something stupid or weird you’re immediately giving each other side eyes and looking to see if the other person saw.

- Bear hugs.

- He’s always touching you in someway. Arm over your shoulders, hand on your waist, hugging you from behind, etc, etc.

- Swatting his hands away when he tries to touch your butt.

- Ice cream and fast food dates.

- Taking long walks together. Sometimes you find something to do along the way, other times you just enjoy each other’s company.

- Having your own handshake.

- Matching bandannas? Matching bandannas.

- Wearing his clothes even though they’re huge on you.

- He always loves when you wear his old jersey. He just can’t stop staring at you and smiling whenever you have it on.

- Giving each other pep talks and having little pre game rituals.

- Calming him down when refs make a harsh or ridiculous call. It’s honestly pretty easy since the moment he sees you he just naturally calms. He’s a big tough guy but he was raised right and that means no taking your anger out on others and not taking things too seriously.

- Even though he’s a total macho man he loves when you take care of/baby him. Want to bandage the tiny cut he got on his hand? Be his guest; he’ll subtly play up the pain just to get an extra “Aw” and a kiss.

- Beach dates.

- Theme park, carnival and amusement park dates; just places with that general chaotic aura.

- Bowling dates.

- He always carries your things for you. Doesn’t matter how light, doesn’t matter how heavy, he’s taking it.

- He likes to pick you up at random. Just throws you over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes or lifts you off the ground and places you a foot or so away from where you were previously standing. He feels very satisfied when you shriek in surprise, lightly smack him on the arm or break out laughing.

- He constantly tries to flex and show off in front of you. …yummy….

- He takes great pride in making you flustered.

- He likes teasing you in any way he can. Holding something over his head, tickling you, straight up (playfully) making fun of you, all that good shit.

- Soo many compliments and ‘I love yous’. He wants you to know that you’re his world goddamnit!

- He genuinely cannot wait you make you Mrs. Portman and will tell it to your face.

[aventurasdeunatortuga]

Laredo Part 2

Week 1

Hey friends,

After a long travel hiatus, as some of you may already know, I am back in Laredo, Texas. I’ll be here for about 3.5 weeks working with shelters to support recently arrived asylum seekers at the US Mexico border. I was here 2 years ago doing the same thing, you can go through the laredo tag on here to get some more background about what is going on here and to read about my experiences in 2019.

I have been here already for about a week and have been so exhausted I haven’t had the energy to write anything, but here is more or less what is going on.

So since Fall of 2019, the border was closed to all asylum seekers thanks to 45’s cruel Remain In Mexico policy, which forced asylum seekers from Central America to wait along the Mexican border for an undetermined amount of time until they could get an immigration hearing. In the past asylum seekers could wait with their families in the US for their court dates (it can be a long wait). Waiting at the border in Mexico, a country they are not from, left folks vulnerable to human trafficking, kidnapping, gang violence, and extortion from the cartels operating along the border. During COVID folks were living in makeshift tents along the border with no running water and were left vulnerable to exposure, flooding, disease, dangerous wildlife, and the millions of other dangers that come from being outside in 113 degree heat with no water. There was no international aid brought in and support was limited to the few aid workers allowed to cross the border, which was very dangerous given the amount of gang violence on the Mexican side. One shelter director in Nuevo Laredo was kidnapped and murdered last year.

When Biden was elected, he reversed the Remain In Mexico policy just a few weeks into his presidency. Meaning that asylum seekers could now enter the US after surrendering at the border and being held for indeterminate amounts of time in ICE detention centers. Once they are released from there they are given a court date in wherever their final destination in the US is, but are left on the street with nothing.

Most folks are illiterate, none speak English and some only speak indigenous dialects. All of their possessions and money have been taken by either cartels or by ICE. Most havent eaten in days and many are seriously ill. None of them know where they are or how to get where they’re going. ICE will drop them off at random towns along the border after releasing them from detention, sometimes hundreds of miles from where they crossed. They just have a name and phone number memorized of a friend or family member in the US that is sponsoring them and who they are planning to stay with.

The vast majority of folks are from Central America, they are fleeing cartel violence , government persecution, extreme poverty, and natural disasters caused by climate change. The instability in these countries (Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador) was caused directly by US intervention, but that’s a whole other topic I won’t get into now. Folks must show a credible proof of being threatened or persecuted in their home country to even be granted the status of asylum seeker and to be given a court date.

Shelters in border towns do what they can to support folks being released from detention. They help them make phone calls, provide translation, help them buy bus and plane tickets, give them food, water, medical care, showers, clean clothes, toiletries, and a safe place to sleep until they are able to make travel arrangements to their final destinations.

During the last 2 years under the Remain In Mexico policy, no one was being admitted and so shelters lost a great deal of funding, staff, and volunteers. They turned more towards community work, which was especially needed during COVID.

Shelters are in a difficult position now though, folks are allowed to enter now which is good news but shelters are having to meet even more extreme needs with far fewer resources than they had pre-COVID.

For a long time the shelter I worked with before, La Frontera, was closed due to lack of funding; but only very recently reopened again. I have been spreading my time between La Frontera (run by Catholic charities) and the other shelter in Laredo, Holding Institute Community Center, which is a community center run by the Methodist Church. Both of these shelters have 2-3 paid staff members, a revolving door of volunteers from around the country (the majority of them nuns), are entirely donation based, and receive 200-300 new people every single day.

About 20-30% of each busload of people that ICE drops off are infected with COVID. ICE refuses to test folks that they detain for COVID because if they knew they had positive cases they would have to provide healthcare and a place for them to quarantine. Instead they lump everyone together in cramped conditions and COVID is allowed to run rampant in these detention centers.

In detention folks are kept in overcrowded rooms, communicated with almost exclusively in English, are provided limited food and toiletries, and are kept in refrigerated rooms (65 degrees) with no blankets. These places are called the ‘ice boxes’. Sometimes folks are separated from their families here as well.

Lately there has also been a dysentery outbreak due to the fact that the city of Laredo does not currently have drinkable water, residents are advised to drink only bottled or boiled water, which asylum seekers do not have access to until they reach the shelters.

When folks reach the shelters, they are given on the spot covid tests by a team of nurses and public health officials. There is no room for them at the hospitals, even if there were room hospitals wouldnt accept them because they have no insurance. The city government has offered bottled water to the shelters but thats it.

After being tested for covid, the health team divides folks into 2 groups, positive and negative. Folks who test positive have to quarantine for 10 days in an empty warehouse next door to the shelter or if they’re lucky and the shelter can afford it, a motel. Yesterday the shelter bought out a motel because there were 200+ covid patients who arrived. We have two small classrooms at the shelter that have been converted into sleeping areas for about 40 covid patients. The medical team leaves boxes of food and clothing outside their door, and once a day they are taken to shower and then the entire bathroom is sanitized.

Those who test negative are immediately vaccinated on site, and then taken to get clean clothes, food, and a shower. They sleep on cots outside under the trees in the fenced courtyard of the shelter.

For the first few days I’ve been here, I’ve been working at Holding only because I didn’t know La Frontera had reopened. I was mainly working on sorting and organizing clothing and helping folks find clothes that they need. Last night though 200+ covid positive patients arrived and we had to stop allowing people in the building to pick out clothes, and today we moved to just putting together kits of different sized clothes to give directly to them.

I was feeling a bit frustrated the last few days because the staff member in charge of organizing donations was being extremely critical of me and it was very frustrating and degrading to be around. I was yelled at a number of times by her. For example, I saw a pile of 200 towels on the ground and folded them. I was told that I did it wrong, to unfold them and fold all of them a different way. Or I started organizing toiletries and was just told ‘no, you’re messing it up, don’t touch that’. I understand that I’m new but no one took the time to introduce themselves to me, orient me, or show me what to do and I was trying to be helpful. I also understand that folks are stressed and under pressure but please don’t take it out on people trying to help you. Most everyone there is extremely nice it was just one of the staff members in particular that was acting this way. I was told I wasn’t allowed to give water or shoes to people who needed them because “I didn’t know how to do it” and because “if you give water to one person, everyones going to want it, and i don’t have time for that”. I didn’t come down here to sit inside doing nothing next to a giant case of bottled water and be told I’m not allowed to give it to the thirsty person in front of me.

So I walked out and I left the shelter in the middle of the day to go drive around town and take a breather, because everything I did seemed like made someone upset. When I came back I inserted myself into the kitchen crew and ended up making 200+ sandwiches for dinner. I also had a long talk with one of the nuns who assured me that that staff member is like that with everyone and has a lot of control issues due to the amount of pressure she is under, and not to take it personally. She told me that La Frontera had reopened and so ever since then I started dividing up my days between the two shelters. This has made a big difference and I feel a lot better and more useful.

I also connected more with some of the nuns here and they invited me to dinner tonight which was nice. One of the sisters is writing a book based on narratives of folks passing through these shelters and is interviewing people she meets. It was fascinating to talk to her. She has worked with undocumented immigrants and DREAMers from around the country for 28 years, and wrote another book based on those experiences called Silent Voices In The Shadows (Paula Schwendinger), which I just finished reading and highly recommend.

Oh, also it has been raining really hard for the past day or so with 95% humidity and constant thunder and lightening, which has made things even more interesting.

I will try to keep posting semi regularly while I’m here.

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Women are Space Orcs

Alright ever one, been pretty excited to give you this one. I have a few female characters, including Sunny, that I thought deserve a little love. Plus I wanted to explore the dynamic between Sunny and other members of the crew. 

Its just supposed to be a fun little adventure, so nothing philosophical or anything :) 

Sunny walked beside Adam as he paced through the cargo bay checking off shipping manifests on his clipboard, checking and rechecking the equipment they would need for re-supply. They had stopped on the Tesraki home world for a much-needed rest and some recuperation. They would be here a couple days, so shore leave was in order for a night or two, a prospect the entire group was excited about considering what the Tesraki home world had become.

If the Tesraki and humans had one thing in common, it was their desire for a good time. It had probably been a horrible idea to introduce the Tesraki to the idea of gambling and casinos. Honestly it had probably been a bad idea to introduce the Tesraki to capitalism as it was, since they took to the idea like fish to water, but mistakes had been made and there was no turning back.

On the coattails of that debacle, the Tesraki;s home world had quickly transformed itself into the Vegas of the galaxy knowing, in true business fashion, that humans couldn’t resist debauchery and a good time. The sheer amount of revenue and inherent benefits that had come to them simply by way of human tourism had been astonishing, raising their planetary gross income to 7% more than any other planet in the GA system.

Commander Vir paused beside another pallet of cargo.

“Hey, SUNNY! SUNNY!.”

Sunny Turned her head in a wide arc searching for the voice and found a group of women standing next to one of the shuttle doors, each waving at her. She left Commander Vir out of curiosity and walked over.

Dr. Katie was there with a few women from engineering and a couple female marines. Maverick, a short female marine with buzzed blond hair and grey blue eyes greeted Sunny with a wolfish grin. “‘Bout time. I’ve been yelling at you for half a minute.” Sunny looked around the circle. It was strange seeing the marines in anything other than their usual uniforms. Maverick was wearing camouflage cargo pants, a black tank top and a pair of blue tinted sunglasses perched atop her short blond hair. Dr. Katie wore a form fitting black dress and pointy red shoes. Another marine had her warm strawberry blond hair curled down past her shoulders.

“Where are you guys going?” Sunny wondered. 

“Out on the town, where else. A couple of us decided to get together and go get wasted, or whatever trouble we can get into, maybe lose some money. We don’t know, yet.”

Sunny glanced back towards where the Commander was standing, still going through inventory. “Oh, well I don’t know if we were-”

“Oh come on, the two of you hang out all the time. I think it’s about time you got out more, besides we’re prettier.” The group laughed. Dr Katie flipped her hair and grinned at Maverick, “Well, except for Maverick, but we had to have an ugly one to make the rest of us look better.”

Maverick snorted and waved a hand, “Are you kidding me?” She motioned seductively, “Nothing can top ‘this’.”

“A sack of lard,” more laughter.

“Keep laughing ladies. You’re just jealous of my stunning physique. As I was saying though, seriously Sunny, you need to get out. The Commander has work to get done anyway and he's going to be boring for the next 48 hours.”

Sunny wavered on the edge of indecision as a pair of boots thudded on the ground next to her.

“What are you jackals trying to get sunny into?” 

Katie linked an arm through one of Sunny’s, “Girls night, and YOU aren’t invited.”

“Yeah only women or those who identify as such are allowed’” one of the engineers piped up from the back.

Commander Vir snorted, “Y’all better be glad I don’t identify as a woman,”striking a quick pose and flipping imaginary hair over his shoulder, “because I’d be the prettiest.”

“Yes, a beautiful monkey, sir.”

Jackie tilted her head, “You know, now that I think about it probably not the prettiest, or the smartest, or even the strongest. Bet Mav could crush you with her thighs if she wanted to, pop your head like a melon.”

He raised an eyebrow, “As fun as THAT sounds, I am afraid you might be right. You all are too much for my delicate sensibilities. I was actually coming over here to give you the pre-leave lecture.” He cleared his throat, “Don’t get pregnant, don't get anyone pregnant, don’t sell your body for money, don’t accept drinks from strangers, any bail, ransom, or parking tickets will be paid out of your monthly wages. Keep all debauchery, drunkenness, fighting and gambling to a minimum, and please for the love of Jupiter, try not to kill anyone.”

“Yes sir, I will try very hard not to get anyone pregnant,” there was laughter about the group.

The commander raised a hand, “It is 4023, so I am SURE you could find a way.”

“What if I get kidnapped Commander, can I hurt them then?”

“You wouldn’t need to hurt them Jackie. They would bring you back and I would make them pay ME ransom to take you back,” he tucked the clipboard under his arm and looked at Sunny. “Good luck with this group. Don’t die, and don’t kill anyone.”

She hadn’t exactly decided to go with them just yet, but it appeared as if that decision had been made for her. She waved a hand at the Commander who turned back to his earlier duties as the group of marines, engineers and one doctor stepped their way into the small shuttle. The strawberry blonde CJ was a passable pilot and took them down through the clouds with a loud whoop. Sunny’s stomach flew into her face reminding her rather unpleasantly of what she had had for breakfast.

Mav sat next to Katie opposite and over the roaring of entrance into the atmosphere Sunny heard bits of conversation. “I hate it when people assume that you have to choose one or the other. It’s the 41st century, if I want to play with big guns and explosives AND get my nails done afterwards, I am going to damn well do it. You’d have to be stupid to turn down either option, so I say, best of both worlds.”

Katie raised an eyebrow. 

The way the light cut across Mavrick’s arms and shoulders made it pretty clear she spent a good portion of her time at the gym.

Dr. Katie through a strand of hair over her shoulder, “Ok, yes I agree, but also at least be careful when you do that sort of thing. I have been a doctor long enough to know what degloving skin looks like, and yes it is exactly how it sounds. So please for the love of all that is holy BE CAREFUL. Personally, just give me a good book and a bag of chips and I’m set for the afternoon.”

“What genre?”

“Meh, whatever strikes my fancy. Mostly fantasy if I am being honest, sometimes romance hits the spot, but other times I can do for a western. It just depends on the day.”

Sunny tilted her head, listening intently. While she had spent a lot of time with the marines, she had never actually gotten to know them on a personal level and she barely knew the name of the women from the engineering and science departments.

If she was being honest, she didn’t really have much of a relationship with anyone, especially not women.

She never really had, considering her history with her mother.

She grew up spending most of her time with her brother and her father and eventually she had become such good friends with Adam that she had become rather short sighted with her other options aboard the crew. To be honest though, it didn’t much matter on her home world, so she couldn't imagine that it would be much different here. 

She couldn’t help but pipe in on the subject of weapons which turned into good natured banter between her and Mav who had some pretty strong opinions about the nature of projectile vs energy weapons. Though when it came to other subjects, she was a bit lost. The humans were an interesting race in that they enjoyed both their war and their relaxation in equal measure, so the topics they were discussing went heavily over Sunny’s head.

She got involved in a couple of conversations she probably could have done without. Humans were gross no matter which group of them you talked to. The only difference was this group of humans was more willing to share

The discussion on how to properly scratch a nipple in public was followed by a debate that included but was not limited to scratching in other unmentionable places, random overgrown hairs, body fluids, body smells and on and on.

Sunny turned the conversation back to music, something she was comfortable with. Mav liked punk, alternative, and hard rock, Dr. Katie was ok with anything as long as it was catchy. Jackie, the engineer, had a thing for country music, and CJ was some strange mix between classical and R&B it just depended on the day. The other women chimed in with their favorites and soon all genres were accounted for.

They were all laughing about something by the time they hit planet side and Sunny stepped from the shuttle, eyes wide as she turned in a circle talking in the bright neon lights and a million billboards shamelessly advertising for human tourists. Billboards hundreds of feet across showing pictures of half-naked models, both men and women, rose high into the sky.

The one sad thing about the future was that it hadn’t stopped the objectification of the human body, but had simply equalized the amount of objectification between the sexes, men and women in equal measure, because it was always easier to sell a product when you were really just selling sex instead.

The Terasaki certainly had no moral qualms about doing it either. It wasn’t their species after all.

CJ clapped her hands together throwing her strawberry blond curls over one shoulder, “Alright, we need a game plan.”

Mav eyed one of the billboards, “How about we start there?” she pointed.

The group of them turned to find an advertisement for nightly ring fighting, “It’s just like what I was saying, gotta go see someone get fucked up before I get my nails done, that's just how things should be. Plus twenty bucks says there will be alcohol for those of you who are less interested.” “Hey, I am down for anything as long as I get a massage later.”

Mav nodded, “Deal, I get to watch someone get the snot beaten out of them and you can get wasted. Everyone wins.” Sunny wasn’t entirely sure what she had expected, but she liked what she got. Sunny, Mav and CJ got seats just outside the ring while Jackie, Katie and a few others stormed the bar. Turns out CJ had a thing for yelling at the referee. Mav didn’t care what happened just as long as someone was getting punched in the face and Sunny, well Sunny loved it yelling and screaming with the rest of the humans as Drev and Humans alike beat the pulp out of each other.

Halfway through the night Sunny was interrupted 

“Hey,, HEY, Scarab.” Sunny turned around to find a large human looking at her from the aisle, “Why don’t you go stand with the rest of the Drev. I reserved these seats.” 

Sunny looked down at him, “Uh ... yeah, there’s room.”

“Let me talk slow since you don’t seem to speak good human, but you’re big and I don’t want your arms getting in the way of my view so why don’t you get lost.”

Sunny was ready to ignore him, but before she knew what was going on Mav and CJ were standing in front of her arms crossed, “The hell you say, you DON’T talk to our friend, bitch.”

The guy looked a bit nonplussed, but straightened himself up, “I told her to go sit with the other Drev.”

“I didn’t know these seats were segregated.” Mav shot back, “but if that’s the case, I think idiots are seated on the other side.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“No, I’m not. Now either you can back up, or I can back you up.” Mav was right in his face now, but CJ put a hand on her arm warningly. It was human culture that the first person who threw a punch, whether man or woman, was opening up to a fair beating.

Sunny stood from her seat looming a good foot to two over her short companions glowering down at the man. She didn’t say anything. The man backed up a few steps.

“Aww….. little bitch gonna cry to mommie,” Mav taunted, much to the chagrin of CJ.

The guy’s face turn beet red, “If you weren’t-.”

“Here let me finish-”

 CJ grabbed Mav by the arm and pushed her back to her seat, “Down Mav.” She turned her eyes back to the guy “Look Imma make this as clear as I can. We aren't moving, so either you get over it and take a seat or you get the hell out. Pick your poison.”

The guy took his seat and shut up. Sunny couldn’t help making a point to step in front of him a few times blocking his view with her bulk. Mav got a kick out of her pettiness, but eventually they left to find Jackie, Katie and the others at the bar. Just a few drinks in and already they were coming up with stupid dance moves.

Grabbing them, they moved out of the bar and onto the street. It was leaning towards late evening, but managed to get themselves checked into a nice little spa hunched between two buildings, a bit out of the way and pushed back from the rest of civilization. Everything going on here was pretty foreign to Sunny.

The Drev had nothing comparable in their culture to this practice, and she watched in confusion as the other humans took their seats at strange tables. Mav was “getting her nails done,” pointing out that there was nothing better than a hand massage and anyone who disagreed could go right ahead and fight her. Katie had her feet soaking in a pool of hot water, while Jackie lay on her stomach on a strange flat table towel wrapped around her curly dark hair obscuring her face while her dark skin shone in the delicate white light overhead.

Water trickled somewhere in the distance, and the entire room was done in shades of white and pastel giving it a very un-Drev aesthetic.

It was an extreme 180 from the earlier venue and Sunny wasn’t entirely sure how to behave.

Eventually, someone came to her rescue as she was ordered to take a seat and relax by CJ, who determined she was in for a treat. Sunny had to admit the warm towel around her neck was nice and she hummed softly as her feet soaked in a pool of water. The human that walked in looked a little surprised to see her, but shrugged and got to work. It took a little more elbow grease to get through Sunny’s tough hyde, but when they managed it Sunny had to admit it was probably the best feeling she had ever experienced… in pretty much ever.

Mav snickered, snapping a picture of the big blue Drev, face covered in a green mask, cucumbers over her eyes, sprawled in a chair as one person messaged her huge neck muscles, one worked on the claws of her left upper hand, and another knelt at her feet.

Sunny was quite displeased when her time was up. She needed about an hour more work on her shoulder muscles and at least another ten minutes on each of her hands, but her time was up so they paid, leaving just as a few familiar faces walked in. Another group of tipsy marines, who made it very clear that they intended to get their feet done while they were here, were filing in.

Sunny found the image somewhat amusing, but was glad to see they were having fun and agreed with their decision. She had a new favorite pastime now and understood why they had chosen it. 

With that amazing ritual behind them, they went out to eat. The humans ordered a round of drinks and Sunny asked for some water, not actually capable of getting drunk in the same way that humans did. The berries and fruit that her species ate were often fermented when preserved, giving her species an extreme tolerance to ethanol such that it wasn’t even worth trying to get drunk since you would likely die of heightened liquid consumption before actually reaching the point of intoxication.

Humans on the other hand reached that threshold pretty quick. A few of them were a bit closer, having consumed a few drinks earlier in the day and were not yet totally down from that high. As the night grew on the conversation got louder, and much more interesting.

Dr. Katie raised her hands, “ok ok… you wanted to hear it so I’ll give it to you. I’ve worked in the ER for fifteen years plus trauma centers and other level one clinics and there is NOTHING I haven't seen, and I mean nothing.”

“Worst story,” Mav urged.

“No…. no, no, no, not at the dinner table,” begged one of the ladies.

Katie took a drink, “There was this one time I come into a room to check on a patient, and there is this guy with real shifty eyes and he can’t stop squirming. Real professional looking type right, so immediately I know he’s got something crammed up his ass.” The table burst into a fit of giggling. “So I go up to him and I ask him what’s wrong and he hems and haws and he's all like ‘Doc, I have some intestinal pain, a stomach ache,’ you know because of the thing he's got jammed in his ass.” More giggling. “So of course I ask him all the usual questions, where is the pain, is it something he ate, how long has this been going on, you know and the entire time I am just trying to figure out what he's got up there, because I KNOW he's got something up there, but of course he won’t admit it. We go around like this for like twenty minutes, right, and eventually I am just like send him down to radiology. If this guy won't give me a straight answer, I bet an X-ray will.” Sunny shook her head. “Low and behold, the x ray comes back and what does this guy have spelunking in his insides? None other than… a Barbie doll.” 

“No!”

“Yes, and he had thought about this, like, he had tied her arms down to her sides with rubber bands to make sure they stayed in place. So I go back in there, I look at him and I show him the X-rax and of course he plays it like I’m a moron. ‘Well doctor, I was cleaning my kids playroom, naked,’ as you do, ‘and I slipped and fell.’” Maverick snorted into her drink. “And of course I am like yeah sure, but why didn’t you tell me that when you came in, and you know what this sucker does? He Looks me dead in the eye and goes…I forgot.” 

The table erupted into laughter. CJ laughed and wiped her face with a napkin, “Now hold on, I got one. It was in boot camp.”

Mav rolled her eyes, “Oh no.”

“Oh yes, some of the guys had been clearing an abandoned hotel, as part of our training. I wasn't there at the time, but I guess while they were looking around they find this nine inch, monstrous rubber dong stuck to one of the walls. So of course they laugh it off right, and go back to what they were doing. Well, when they come back later, it isn’t there. Kind of weird, but whatever. At least whatever until this thing starts SHOWING UP around barracks. Like our Sergeant walks in one morning to do an inspection and we had all just gotten up right, so none of us were paying attention. She starts yelling at us like she does and then goes all quiet. She tilts her head one way and then the other. I swear I have never seen someone look so confused in their entire life and she’s all like, “What the fuck is that?” We all turned around to look and this thing is sitting in the middle of the damned floor and it just flopped to one side, and you know of course we can’t stop it so we just start laughing. The sergeant is trying not to laugh and everyone is trying not to laugh, but it just gets worse. When she could finally talk she just starts screaming at us, trying to figure out what the hell we had been doing the night before. I don’t think I’ve ever done so many pushups in my life.”

Jackie raised a hand just then, “No hey, I have always had a question for you guys about the whole boot camp thing. So what do you do when it’s your time of the month? I mean do they let you guys off easy to go fix things? Or do you just have to suffer?”

“Suffer,” Mav piped in. “Mostly suffer. Like I knew girls who would be bent doubled in pain and still had to stand in formation with us like it was nothing. I mean honestly the shit we had to go through. Seriously, there is nothing worse than standing in front of your sergeant and feeling half your innards just sort of shlop out of you and you have to look this guy in the eye like nothing is going on. Like yes sir, no sir, like insides aren’t totally falling out right now.”

Jakie moaned, “Tell me about it, cramps are the worst.” She glanced towards Dr. Katie, “Seriously, when is the medical field going to do something about that?”

Katie finished off her drink and set it back on the table with a thud, “You would think after more than 200,000 years of menstruation we would know how to fix cramps, but nope, the medical field still has no friggin clue how to deal with them. The general consensus is to throw an anti- inflammatory, a heating pad or a shit-ton load of chocolate at it and pray, but otherwise sucks to suck.”

Sunny looked between the group of them, “Cramps? Your insides falling out…er ... are you guys ok?” 

The group turned to look at her with incredulous looks on their faces, “You aren't serious?” Jackie asked.

Sunny stared at her blankly.

“You guys don’t have cramps, periods on your planet…like really?”

“Explain?”

Sunny wasn't entirely sure that she appreciated the explanation once it was over and shook her head vigorously, “EWWW no…. no,” she shivered. Battle sounded like a more amusing pastime.

“How does it work on your planet?” Katie wondered, the scientist in her taking over.

Sunny shifted awkwardly, “Well uh…we have a mating season. The female can become fertile twice a year. It’s during the dark season, so generally all the kits are born during or right before the bright season.”

“So, what? Do you guys just get really horny twice a year or something?”

“Er…. well no. Any time of year is fine but you are just more likely to get a kit during those times of year.”

“Uh huh, how interesting.” 

Sunny didn’t exactly see how it was all that interesting. She had never been caught in this sort of conversation, oddly enough. Adam had never asked so she had never been forced to answer the question. In fact, she learned more about humans in the last ten minutes than she had learned about humans in the last year she had been aboard the ship and not all of it was great.

One of the biggest things she learned was that humans get slightly strange the more they drank.

“Ok, Ok,” CJ slurred, “Hottest guy aboard the ship, go.”

“Ramirez,” Katie responded almost immediately. 

Mav snorted into her drink again, “Really….. no…. no way.”

“What, he's cute, I’d do him.”

Jackie raised her hands over her head, “I couldn’t tell you who the hottest guy on the ship is, but I CAN tell you who the hottest girl is.”

Mav didn’t bat an eye, “Well of course that would be me, like we even have to debate that subject.”

Jackie rolled her eyes and the rest of the table laughed, “Ha ha, your confidence never ceases to amaze, but you're not my type.”

Katie waved a hand, “Oh come on, I know you don't’ LIKE guys like that but you must be able to tell when one of them LOOKS nice . Come on, a shot in the dark.”

Jackie shrugged, but thought about it for a second, “Uh…. well, how about Adam, he’s good looking, right?”

The table thought about it for a moment. Mav tilted her head to the side thoughtfully, “Well I mean yeah he is, but he's also a super massive juvenile.”

CJ shrugged, “I don’t know, I think it's kind of cute.”

Katie waved a hand at all of them, “Not like it matters, because I have a couple of theories.” Sunny and the other’s looked on in interest, waiting, “I’m pretty sure he's: A into guys, B not into anyone or C a closeted extrial. There was some muttering from around the table, but Mav shook her head in disagreement.

“No, he’s too uncomfortable around women to like guys, and you can’t say he’s hiding it because he has no reason to. If he really liked guys he would be indifferent to women and awkward around men. If he wasn’t into anyone, he wouldn’t be nearly so awkward… however, I can probably get behind C.” 

Sunny did not noticed the glances pointed her way 

The conversation moved on to the hottest girl on the ship which sparked a furious debate despite Jackie being the only one that like girls. Turned out though that female humans had no issue discussing the perceived hotness or notness of other women. Nairobi down in engineering took the title with almost unanimous agreement.

That lead into the subject of who was the best looking DREV aboard the ship and once Sunny explained that height and carapace color were the most important outside factors mixed with fighting status, it turned into a rather entertaining debate as the humans tried to decide which Drev was the hottest while continuing to steadily drink. It finally devolved into a slurred argument between Cannon and another of their Drev members, Roc.

Sunny would have found the entire thing funny if it wasn’t also rather disturbing. Her vote was the tiebreaker which was obviously biased considering that Cannon was her brother and that was super weird, so of course Roc won the title.

The drunker they got, the worse they got, until the conversation was oscillating constantly between being mildly lewd and hilariously embarrassing stories that Sunny wouldn’t have admitted to in her wildest daydreams.

In the end, it was up to her and Mav, who also didn’t drink to get the other girls back to the shuttle. That was all before realizing that CJ was the only one who could fly the ship so they had no way of getting back on their own. In the end, they had to call for backup and a rather amused shuttle pilot showed up on scene to take the staggering party back to the ship.

Sunny wobbled onto the ship holding up two drunk women while Mav helped a third.

Together they collapsed onto some cargo containers laughing and slurring.

A shadow fell over them a moment later and Sunny looked up to find Commander Vir standing over them with a raised eyebrow, “Fun time, Ladies?”

A burst of giggling, “Yes sir,” Mav smirked. 

Katie almost fell off her seat, but Vir caught her by the arm, “Alright, to bed with the lot of you.”

Kate tried to wave him off but nearly fell over once more. “Krill is going to have a fit when he sees the state of you. Come on, let’s get you to bed to sleep it off.” He glanced over at Mav, “Get the rest of them back safe.” Mav saluted and Katie giggled drunkenly, but managed to make it to her feet and together they wandered off towards the medical bay where the medical staff usually slept.

Sunny also helped Mav get the other two to their quarters before retiring to her own room exhausted, but happy.

It had been a good day. She determined to do it more often.

[ghoestys]

and this is ruby! my 4th and final muse! been wanting to use gayoung’s pretty face since she was in tempted and now that shes in true beauty it made me want to use her even more! and the content she gave us while playing yeo hajin? iconic this is ruby <3

STATISTICS

full name: ruby odette im nickname(s): rue, rubes, ro, odette, od, odettie age: twenty two date of birth: october 8th, 1998 hometown: tba! gender: cis female pronouns: she/her/hers religion: christian (raised, non-practicing) sexuality: bisexual & biromantic hair colour: brunette eye colour: brown height: 5'9″ tattoos: dainty colored lavender on her left ankle facing outward (ex) piercings: standard & upper lobe (both), forward helix & industrial (right), daith (left)

PROMPT + BLACKMAIL

a legacy and member of the yale's elite, they're twenty-two and a sophomore undergrad student majoring in law. they are as positive as they are negative.

● was caught with a dui and almost got her license revoked because of it, but she flirted her way out of the ticket and convinced the police officer to kill the report by giving him tickets to a movie premiere where she held a small role.  background: this happened in new york after she was attempting to drive home from a party with her 3 model friends who were also all drunk. she was 20 at the time and should’ve also gotten in-trouble for underaged drinking along with driving under the influence, but she truly utilized her fame status and looks. luckily no one got hurt and the road was pretty empty so there wasn’t many cars, but it was still dangerous and irresponsible because if she wasn’t pulled over, then she would’ve hit busier traffic and something definitely would’ve happened. after being pulled over and saving her ass, ruby stopped driving and ordered a lyft to pick up her and her friends to drop them back to her apartment in new york. 

● was convinced her father was having an affair with a news anchor, so ruby convinced producers, news channels, and everyone in the business to blacklist them from ever working and essentially ruining and ending the new anchor’s career. unknown to ruby, though, is that the news anchor was never having an affair with her father and it was actually colette who was having an affair with her father at the time.  background: her relationship with her dad has always been rocky, but the minute she found out he was having an affair and cheating on her mom made ruby go batshit. she wasn’t sure who the person was exactly except for that her father was having an affair because she was overhearing flirty & secretive phone calls and was seeing bills for expensive gifts that her mother was never receiving. when ruby saw her dad meeting with a news anchor frequently, ruby automatically assumed that was the person her father was having an affair with and essentially ruined that new anchor’s career. the new anchor’s career ended very abruptly and ruby loved seeing it. she loved her mom and she wasn’t going to let anyone hurt her- not her father and not the news anchor. unknown to ruby, though, is that the news anchor was never having an affair with her father and it truly was just business. ruby framed the wrong person and ruined an innocent person’s career for no reason. 

ABOUT

family/upbringing/childhood

ruby’s family consisted of her father (randolph im), her mother (marissa im, nee byun), and her three younger siblings (edeline, brietta, and dominick)

her father, randolph im, is a top politician and was formerly a senator before being removed from officer and losing to his component- senator ahn. instead of being a senator, he’s apart of the house of representatives. other than being a politician, randolph also runs a loan business that’s not  known unless you’re also apart of the top 1-10%. since they have so much money, he doesn’t mind giving out loans to those in need, but he always expects something in return (like a vote or an endorsement) and he always expects being paid back in time with interest included. if he doesn’t get his money paid back in time, then he’s a loan shark who sends his henchmen to do all the dirty work for him.

her mother, marissa im, is a house wife who happily takes care of her kids. 

the family is as tight knit as it can be. it’s not hard for them to act loving and family-like infront of the media because that’s how they are everyday. they have their tense moments like every other family does, but they’re healthy for the most part. 

healthy until it involves ruby and her father. these two are constantly butting heads and always arguing over something. maybe it’s because she’s the eldest daughter or maybe it’s because she doesn’t support her father’s shady loan business. she just doesn’t like him and the only time you’ll catching her supporting her father’s political career is when it’s family involved and her presence is required. other than that, ruby is typically absent from whatever political campaign her father does. 

ever since ruby was a toddler, she loved the spotlight and performing. she loved acting and she loved when the cameras were on her whether it be for performing something or posing for something. since her mother noticed this, she was quick to put ruby in auditions for acting and modeling and since ruby was a natural, her acting and modeling career began at a very young age. she acted in children’s shows, movies as the younger version of a character and modeled for campaigns and spreads for brands like guess kids. 

due to her career being a success at such a young age, ruby never experienced “real school” and was homeschooled her entire life. when she was on set for tv shows where she had to act in a school setting was basically her only experience as a student in a “real school”. 

although her siblings would grow up differently (attending private schools instead of homeschool), ruby never minded this and never felt like she missed out on anything because she still learned how to socialize and got to act out wtvr she was possibly missing out on

career/college/the elites

luckily, as ruby got older and went from being a child to a pre/teen, her career didn’t stop and just kept growing. she filmed some tv shows and mostly focused on movies. when she turned 16/17, that was when her modeling career began to become more prominent because she was “old enough”, looked old enough, and was taller. she was having fun, living life, and traveling the world. 

since she was a politician’s daughter, she was getting tutored on information about law and politics by the time she was 13. she had interest in law especially so she could spite her dad by telling him what he was possibly doing wrong, but also so she could negotiate her own contracts and understand what’s being said during the meetings. as a minor, she can’t sign contracts without a guardian but she sat there at the meetings feeling lost and wanted to know what they were saying. 

although she loved spotlight when she was younger, by the time she was twenty she was starting to get over the fame. her career was successful, but she was starting to see and feel all the negatives that came with fame (especially in the modeling world where they criticized her looks often) and simply wanted out

when she turned 21, as a gift to herself she decided to take a break from her career/the spotlight so she could attend school and actually get a degree in law so she truly could negotiate her own contracts and understand all the legal terms being used during those meetings. she applied to yale and luckily she got accepted (mostly due to her career and philanthropy and because of yale being her father’s alma mater). 

her father was a member of the yale elites, which makes ruby a legacy so that made her entrance into the organization very easy. 

she still does modeling when she has the time, but her acting career is on hiatus until she finishes her bs in law. 

don’t really know where to put this, but her stage name is odette im (her middle name) and only those that actually know her like friends & family call her ruby. she prefers to be called ruby because it’s her actual name, but professionally and in the tabloids she’s known as odette. she will still respond if you call her odette in a non-professional setting and honestly if ur muse met her while she was working then they probs know her as odette 

personality

out of all my muses, i think ruby is the most genuinely nice one with no ugly intentions. silvia used to be like this, but silvia was also just willing to do shady things versus ruby who only does shady thing when shes truly hurt or angry or doing it for someone she loves (like ruining a person’s career to avenger her mom) 

like taking care of people because shes an eldest daughter but also loves being taken cared of much more. whenever she’s being babied or treated as the youngest she’s happy because she’s used to have to take care of other people instead of herself

is honestly tired of the constant spotlight because she experienced it for so long, so think she’s more lowkey now except for those moments when shes modeling and partying at extravagant places and cities 

believes honesty is key and the biggest way to lose her as a friends is to lie to her. she grew up away from the political setting, but it was still something she was apart of nonetheless and she knows how shady that area can b. knowing this, she tries to b as honest as possible and likes to hold people at a very honest level too like pls just be real with her and she’ll be real with u

doesnt mind talking about herself because thats what shes used to (her having to do interviews n shit all  the time makes it easy for her to talk about herself) 

basically an open book and even tho shes an award winning actress, shes terrible at hiding her real emotions infront of people who know her on a non-superficial level 

can be very superficial with others due to her job and having to present herself a the best possible version of herself, but shes usually genuine for the most part like. if ur her friend then ur her friend she wont treat u like a professional associate or wtvr like??? does that even make sense

probs actually enjoys philanthropy work so shes involved n shit 

can cook because she was the eldest daughter and also because she had to take care of herself while being in different cities by herself bc she couldnt eat out everyday 

cant bake for shit tho like.. that shit is just not her thing. cant even make box brownies

fiercely loyal to those she loves and will legit do anything to protect them. also loves spoiling her friends bc like. if she has the money for it y not 

WANTED CONNECTIONS IDEAS

someone that her father loaned money to! ruby is aware of her father’s business and is also aware of the clients because her dad doesn’t keep it a secret within the family. maybe your muse borrowed money and still hasn’t paid her father back for the loan so now the father found out information about ur muse and is holding it against them. ruby could be aware of this and attempt to help you-- if the muses get along tho :) 

someone she met thru work! whether it be thru acting or modeling but i think that’d be so fun!! could be a good experience where they became friends or maybe they’re rivals in their careers that the media loves to put against each other. maybe they were even costars who didn’t get along, but the media loves making them out to be bffs! 

bffs! friends! close friends! 

enemies! betrayals! negatives!

cousins! because why not! 

romance! ex flings! flirtationships! someone who leads her on! 

ruby isn’t the type to do fwb or non-attachment style relationships because she gets attached to people very easily. with her job shes constantly surrounded by people and while she loves traveling, it can get very lonely. if she fell in love with u then she fell in love with u genuinely and whole heartedly. i think of all my muses, she falls in love the easiest

[ohwereusingourmadeupnames]

Let’s Talk About Your Hair

Pairing: Peter Parker/Tony Stark Rating: Mature (M) Warnings: AU, Peter does a little hop, skip, and jump that’s sudden. There’s some smut and a little bit of angst. That’s about it, though!  Notes: I found @whenstarkerwillbecanon‘s post about May being Peter’s cousin & had to go with it. I loved the prompt, so thank you for that. I tweaked it to fit my writing style, but I hope it’s kind of what you had in mind!  Word Count: ~13.5k Summary: 

A snazzy little AU where Peter and May are cousins. Peter has been in Minnesota for school over the past 6 years and returns to New York to take a job. Going back home means hanging out with his favorite cousin, and when she introduces him to her new boyfriend - he's surprised to see Tony Stark - his ex and long time love - sitting there next to her. Goodness ensues.

Read on AO3 here

6 years ago… 

Peter was 21 and desperately in love. 

Or - the one where Peter gets the shock of a lifetime and yearns away a little bit at a time.Peter was 21 and desperately in love.

Despite the fact that the end of college was quickly approaching and so many decisions needed to be made, Peter felt okay. The pre-med track he took through NYU connected him to his true passion, physical therapy and if all went well, he’d be attending PT school in the fall. His clinical rotations were a lot of fun and he enjoyed working with the patients – especially the younger ones, the dreamy eyes on those kids were a big motivation to chase all  of the things he wanted. Things like his education and the beautiful Tony Stark.

He met Tony in Microbiology lab his sophomore year and they immediately clicked. Tony’s brain was fascinating and the vivid way he lived his life drew Peter in like a moth to a flame. Aside from acing their lab final and coming out of what was rumored to be one of the harder classes in his degree, Peter found himself with a Tony Stark attached to his hip, too. It felt good, being close to someone the way he could be with Tony – the lack of expectation and abundance of goodness made their time together priceless.

For two and a half glorious years, Peter and Tony learned the necessary things to graduate college and mapped out places in each other’s lives. With Howard still running the company, Tony was free to do whatever he wanted, and thankfully – what he wanted included Peter. The prospect of attaining his dreams and keeping the man he loved the most couldn’t be beat. It didn’t matter that there were better PT schools to go to, or that New York was starting to feel a little suffocating – he liked the flow of his life and didn’t want to change it.

Then – Howard Stark died. The entire thing was stupidly sudden, not a single person was prepared for it. Not the board of Stark Industries, and sure as hell not Tony Stark himself. Throughout their time together, Peter met Tony’s dad a handful of times. Each one of the witnessed father-son interactions was forced, boarding on the edge of hostile. There was no love lost between the two of them – Tony’s grief seemed to be based around the loss of his freedom, not the death of his father.

Like every powerful family, Tony walked into a legacy that took things from him in all directions. Between board meetings, R&D presentations, and the terrible Obadiah Stane’s never ceasing presence, it got a little harder to picture that happy ending they’d been planning for. No matter how well he knew the situation, Peter couldn’t shake the feeling that things were different. Or, maybe he was just different – he couldn’t really pinpoint the dark bit of energy that sat in the center of his chest and started to collect.

By the end of the semester, Peter was barely getting to see Tony. With  his rotations and the hectic schedule of a young business owner, there wasn’t a lot of time to kick back and relax – to fuck all over the apartment and waste the rest of the day recovering just to go again. In fact, Peter couldn’t remember the last time they even got to fuck. It was petty – deep down, he knew that. Holding anything over Tony’s head when the man was trying to juggle running a business and struggling not to mourn someone he couldn’t help but miss.

Peter didn’t often find himself in a place of selfishness – where he wanted what he wanted, and nothing was going to change that. Yet, he got there, anyway. Applying to Mayo Clinic School of Medical Sciences in Minnesota felt like a little act of rebellion.

He loved Tony too much to ever hurt him in a physical sense, Peter didn’t have any interest in cheating, or anything like that. The card he held removed his presence all together and the closer he got to the point where decisions needed to be made, the more uncertain he felt himself becoming.

About a week before graduation, Peter got his acceptance letter in the mail – the school he actually wanted to attend wanted him back. How interesting a concept that was – he could almost remember when he felt that with Tony. He was lost and that wasn’t anybody’s fault but his own.

The door to their shared apartment opened a couple of minutes later, Tony peaking his head in hours earlier than usual, a smile on his face.

The annual Stark Gala was later that evening and as promised, he’d taken the afternoon off to spend with Peter – their time later that evening would more than likely be very limited. Leaving the letter on the table, Peter got up off the couch and wrapped Tony in a hug. For some reason, tonight felt like the turning point. His heart was already beating out of his chest, Tony’s hands doing things to him without a second thought. Peter wanted to stay – he just wanted to be whole enough to want everything that came with staying more.

The delicate caress of Tony’s hands became distracting no less than a few minutes later – his fingertips digging into Peter’s ass cheeks through his jeans. It’d been a while, so Peter went with it, his arms wrapping around Tony’s neck tightly. Their kisses were hot, like each man could feel the bit of separation between them – Tony clung to him a little tighter and for the first time in a while, Peter felt good. He felt Tony making him feel good.

When he came a little later on with Tony’s name on his lips, Peter relaxed into the bed, a light smile on his lips. They stayed snuggled up together until a knock on the door was sounding and any other thoughts of intimacy were out the window. There wouldn’t be a single moment of peace for the rest of the evening. With one last kiss, Peter got up and out of bed, the haze of happiness rolling off of him.

Later, when he put a bag together and left without saying a word – Peter didn’t realize how blind he’d been. Without him knowing, Tony saw the letter and planned to surprise him with champagne later that evening. He didn’t get to see the other man sitting on the arm of the couch, fisting the bottle – wondering what in the actual fuck happened.

Instead, he got a bus ticket and made his way to Minnesota, his acceptance email to the Mayo Clinic PT school fresh in the sent folder.

For days to come, he would look back and wonder what the hell compelled him to just up and scram – to leave everything behind other than the basic necessities and his favorite picture of him and Tony. Even presently, Peter can’t come up with the greatest reason. He acted on instinct and fled. For whatever reason, he lacked the feeling of completion and needed the space to find out what that meant – and how he could change it..

Present Day

In the six years that he’d been there, Minnesota sort of grew on him. The cold sucked – that’s the first thing he realized when he got there. What he’d been wearing in New York, even in late May, was not appropriate for the small town he walked into after getting off the bus. He did a quick perusal of town and figured it would be as good of a place to start over as any other. Rochester, Minnesota – he remembered he picked the Mayo Clinic PT school there just because it reminded him of New York – he thought it was ironic.

Now, it’d been home away from home for a few years. After getting a pretty decent one-bedroom apartment and a job at the PT clinic within the actual medical school – Peter set up camp pretty quickly. He dropped his New York number and started completely fresh. It tore at his heart, turning off the last line of communication he had with Tony – he’d been ignoring all of his calls and texts, the desperate emails – but he made his decision.

Why not get all the breaking done at once?

He figured the longer he was gone, the easier the heartache would get. It felt deserved, for being callous in the way he just up and left – dropped off the map. The longer it lasted, though, the more Peter started to doubt his decision. School was going great and he loved getting to receive the education he actually wanted – but was it worth the cost?

To try and take his mind off of it, Peter tried to date – as miraculous as that sounded with the busy schedule he kept. A part of him could honestly say he knew going into each date that they were already doomed. He tried – at least, he wanted to say that he did. The new guys were always held up against the highest pedestal, no matter how hard he tried – Peter couldn’t stop seeing Tony, couldn’t keep Tony off his mind. Tony, Tony, Tony.

In the collective whirlwind of time, Peter finished PT school and immediately stepped into a job as a traveling physical therapist. He worked with a couple of the local sports teams in the area and covered their games when in his little jurisdiction. It was satisfying – he got to do a bit of wandering around the state, watch sports in leu of doing an actual job, and it paid well. Yet, the longer he stayed in it, he felt himself getting further from that genuine feeling of happiness.

When it became more effort to get his ass to work and do his job, he figured it was time for a change of scenery.

May’s call came at just the right time, too – Peter dealt with a particularly difficult man-child of a soccer player that morning, his patience frayed and wearing down thinner than he ever thought they could. The buzz in his pocket drew him away from the notes he’d been trying to put together on the athlete, his eyes lighting up when he saw her name.

“May, my favorite cousin! How are you?” Peter said in a way of greeting, his tone warm, voice inviting. Of all the family Peter had left, May was possibly the only person he cared to keep in touch with. Her parents were great for taking him in his last couple of years of high school, but they weren’t his – not like they were May’s.

He heard a chuckle on the other side of the line, her voice never stopping him from smiling, no matter what. “I’m your only cousin, Pete,” she started, the thick sarcasm wrapping the words up, delivering them beautifully. “I’m on to you. I’m good, though – very good. I am also calling with a purpose.” She cleared her throat, the sign that she was serious.

Leaning back in his chair, Peter felt interest flare up within him – May’s suggestions and adventures usually ended up horribly, but they were fun, and they didn’t usually steer him wrong. He rubbed at the scar from their tubing adventure his senior year fondly, the memory one of his favorites to think about. “With a purpose. I’m sure this’ll be good,” Peter remarked, a chuckle leaving his lips, the laugh soothing the sting of truth in his words.

May rolled with it, the eye roll obvious in her next words. “Shut up – you know my ideas are the best. It’s not coming from me this time, though. I got a tip from one of my coworkers that the Nets are looking for a staff PT – thought you might be good for the job.” He felt his breath hitch – he’d been trying to get on with a singular pro team for a while now.

She must have caught the change – her voice excitedly talking again, “Oh, I knew you’d be interested, Petey! I’ll send you the information.” He could practically hear the claps coming down the line, her perpetual ability to be happy both delightful and irritating all at once. Shrugging, Peter didn’t deny that the job looked promising when he clicked on the link to look at the details. Within the hour, he clicked the submit button and sent the damn thing off.

The itch to go to New York was there – now he just needed to scratch it.

Luckily, his resume reigned supreme. During his time in school, Peter did a bunch of outreach with youth sports programs and adult recreation leagues. He took a big internship with Rochester and Oakland University his last two semesters in PT school – if anyone was qualified, it was Peter Parker. And the hiring bodies seemed to agree, after a lengthy Skype interview, Peter was flying out for a quick 24-hour turnaround trip. One in which he came back to Minnesota with a brand-new job and the chance to finally go home.

The move was pretty easy – much like his first trip, he didn’t bring much with him. The team put him up in one of the nicer apartment complexes in Brooklyn, a place that came fully furnished and with a delightful view of the back porches of the 3B patrons. When May came to help him, he could see the grin on her face – the idea of getting done sooner rather than later obvious. They took a look around the box riddled place when they were finished and decided that dinner out was the best way to finish off the night.

There were many things in the city that he missed, but good Thai food ranked pretty high on that list (that and Tony – but he wasn’t about to go and tell anyone that.) Settling into the low-lit booth of the place they found right down the street from Peter’s apartment, he let out a long sigh. “It feels good to finally not be moving. I feel like I haven’t stopped since I got here yesterday,” Peter fiddled with the silverware in front of him, a smile on his lips.

“I’m just glad you didn’t have more stuff to move around. The ER was hopping last night, so I’ve been feeling more tired than usual today,” she placed a hand over his, her touch stopping the restless fretting. “I’m really glad you’re here, Pete. It’s been weird in the city without you.” Her red lips pulled into a grin, eyes twinkling.

Peter dropped the utensils and turned his hands, surrounding May’s with his own. “I’m glad to be here, too. Disappearing like I did was stupid – “ he stopped, breath catching a little. So stupid, he thought to himself. May was in college when he left, her own experience just starting to get off the ground. She didn’t even know anything about him during that time – no matter how ‘close’ they were. “I’m happy to be back. And in Brooklyn – who would have thought?”

They chatted until the food came – the world narrowing down to noodles, deliciousness, and not much else for Peter. She might have been talking at him, but he wasn’t listening. For the first time in years, it felt like being at home. This wasn’t Pho’s from down the street in Queens, it wasn’t the best he’d ever eaten, either – but it felt familiar. He’d been missing familiarity for a while now, that realization hitting him harder than he figured.

Self-induced isolation could do that to a person.

As he finished up, Peter clued back into the conversation, his eyes watching May gesture through the rest of her story before he met her glance. “I didn’t hear a word of what you said. Sorry,” he admitted, his mind split in a million different directions. New York brought back so many things – memories and wants. Trying to pay attention to May was proving difficult.

“I said you have to meet the guy I’ve been seeing. It’s pretty new, but I like him. He’s unique and smart and sort of weird – but who isn’t these days?” May repeated, her cheeks flushed. “We’re going to meet at Sully’s in Manhattan. You know the old place.” She waved at him nonchalantly – like they’d spent so much time there over the years. He remembered taking her with him during her first winter break and hadn’t been back since.

Chomping down on those words, Peter shot her a sheepish grin – “I’m not going to be a third wheel, am I?” Peter questioned, his tone light, but the question serious. He hadn’t been successful in his own dating life in a while – the last thing he wanted to do was watch May get her flirt on for too long.

She shook her head, eyes bright – the pure shininess of her personality a little overwhelming, especially right that moment. He dropped a hand beneath the table and clenched it into a fist – the countdown backwards from ten starting (ten-nine-eight…) in his head. The tightness left quickly, but he felt a little rattled – his patience still on the wrong side of thin. “I promise that you won’t be.”

He took her at that and reluctantly agreed, his inability to say no to her something he needed to work on now that they were back in the same place again. Peter Parker grew into a respectable adult – he could put his foot down when necessary. Maybe. He hoped.

The next afternoon, Peter left his brand-new office and grabbed a cab – the process still as exhilarating as ever. At least he’d grown in his absence and the vehicles actually saw him when he waved from the curbside. Minnesota didn’t have the same hustle and bustle – so the luxury and relative newness kept him staring out the window the entire drive. The upscale buildings made his heart race a little – the reaction another clue telling him he was home.

The little café looked exactly the same as it did in his memory – upscale with a side of hipster. They tried to make the record player in the corner look vintage, but the current technology couldn’t be disguised. The Upper East Side had standards after all. He took a second to catch his bearings before approaching May and the dark-haired man sitting next to her. The particular color struck him as familiar – but then again, who the fuck was he?

Like she knew he was there, May turned to look over his shoulder and caught his eyes, her token smile pulling today’s pink coated lips up, causing a swift crease by both of her eyes. “There he is,” he made out, a hand coming up in a slight wave.

And then – he stopped in his tracks.

The man who turned to look in the same direction as May wasn’t just any man – no – his beautiful cousin was dating the one person Peter could honestly say he missed more than ever. His Tony – well, not really his anymore. Obviously. His heart wanted to jump out of his chest and run over there, every part of him paralyzed except for that particular muscle.

His mouth watered and for a second, he thought about turning right around and getting the hell out of dodge before something went wrong – before he lost control and got down on his knees to beg the man for forgiveness. The thought was so fucking enticing, especially when his eyes finally caught gorgeous amber honey eyes, the look there a mixture of surprise, excitement, and hurt. Gulping in a big breath of air, Peter forced himself to keep walking.

He could do this.

Rounding in on the table, Peter stayed on his feet next to the other open chair at the table – the idea of running still sitting in the forefront of his mind. May reached a hand over and patted his, the touch he figured was supposed to be comforting – instead, it made his skin itch. How dare she – ! And then it hit him that he didn’t have a singular right to feel that way. Guiltily, he flipped his hand over and gripped hers, the skin soft under his own calloused palm calming.

“I’m glad you made it,” she said genuinely. “Babe, this is – “ May started to say, her hand drawing back from Peter to pat against her boyfriend’s arm, his gaze fixing on Peter’s once again.

“I’m Peter, May’s cousin,” Peter blurted out, his hand shooting into the space between them. He felt like an idiot, a total loser still standing with his hand out and the single most confused look on his face. He didn’t need to see his own expression to know how freaked he look – he could feel the way his stomach was trying to drop out of his asshole.

A warm hand gripped his own a couple seconds later, the hold firm, the touch familiar. The natural chemistry between them swallowed Peter whole – his hand on fire and the arm attach to it numb and the chest attached to it trying it’s best to collapse in. The audacity of his body to be so mutinous – fuck the littlest bit of joy that settled over him. But god, he’d missed this man.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Tony, the boyfriend.” Tony shot him the still recognizable shit eating grin – his hand keeping Peter’s in the tight hold for another couple of heartbeats, each one dragging him down further and further. What were the odds? How could this possibly be happening? Chuckling, Peter covered up his freak out by dropping Tony’s hand and finally taking the seat he’d been standing by.

For a second, it seemed like May could read the tension suddenly infiltrating the room. Her eyes roamed between the two of them, eyelids narrowed. Then, she tilted her head and smiled sheepishly – “Great, now that’s over with – I’m going to grab some coffee. You two get to know each other.”

Peter shot her a look, the silent plea in his eyes obviously not recognizable – she merely nodded her head towards Tony and turned around, the conversation obviously over.

That same hand from before touching his made Peter glance up quickly, his eyes wide. Now that he wasn’t being watched directly, Peter took a second to really look at the man across from him. There didn’t seem to be any signs of aging, Tony’s face was smooth, aside from the goatee he’d only been nursing when Peter was around. His eyes were still that deep brown, the heavy wave of their darkness never failing to pull him in. His hair was a little longer – like he’d purposely been trying to grow it out.

Time was very kind to Tony Stark – so kind, in fact, that Peter could easily admit he was even more handsome than 6 years ago, a feat that didn’t seem fair. The hand didn’t move during his perusal, though the fingers attached to it did start to roam over the skin of his palm. The mechanism Tony used all those years ago to bring Peter back to the present. Blinking away the thoughts, Peter forced himself to teether to the spot, this next interaction one he probably didn’t want to miss.

“My May, Tony?” Peter ended up saying after a few more heartbeats of Tony tracing the lines of his palm, the familiar touch so goddamn soothing. There wasn’t much else to say – not when there were so many things unsaid, so many things that Peter wanted to explain, and by the looks of it – Tony felt the same way. Glancing over, Peter sighed with a sort of relief when he noticed May completely engrossed in the drink board, her fingers playing with her lip.

The deep vibrato of Tony’s laugh shot a tingle down the middle of his spine – his body not taking long to once again tune itself to the delicacies that were Tony Stark. He balled his right hand into a fist, a blinding hope that out of all the times he’d done it, this would be the time it actually allowed him to relax. No dice, though – Peter almost melted into a puddle when Tony started to speak.

“I didn’t even know you had a May, Pete. I was supposed to meet your family when they came in for graduation – but you know how well that went,” Tony pointed out, his hand drawing back now, the man knowing he had Peter’s full attention. “I’m just as surprised about this as you are.”

Peter could tell, too. There was a sort of vulnerability in Tony’s eyes that even in all their time together, Peter didn’t get to see often. For a second, he wondered if May knew that look – if she understood the gift she was being given. It took him way too long to realize Tony was a man of simplicity who gave affection the only way he could – with subtlety and in the littlest of ways. Oh, how he’d taken those little things for granted.

“I can’t believe it’s you that I’m sitting here with right now. Of all the people in New York,” Peter muttered, his hands spinning the pile of coasters sitting on the table. He couldn’t, either – it felt like the universe’s way of slapping him in the face. The karmic retribution for being a total fucking asshole to someone who in the end, didn’t deserve it – not a single bit.

Tony laughed then, his upper body adjusting against the back of the chair, his arm slinging over the back of the chair, resting there like this was some casual meeting, like just looking at him in such an open position wasn’t killing Peter from the inside out. Or maybe Tony knew exactly what he was doing to him, each move calculated to get the biggest bang for his buck – to pull the reactions from Peter and watch him squirm.

Either way – Peter couldn’t tear his eyes away. The thought of running coursed through his head again, this time to save himself the humiliation of this – this situation that could not go anywhere but further and further into the garbage. May didn’t know anything about their shared past, though – she wouldn’t understand the immediate need to get the hell out of dodge and avoid her for the next however long. Preferably long enough for her to no longer be dating Tony, but he didn’t get to decide that little detail.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Tony finally uttered, a smirk on his lips – he was trying for snark, for aloof and uninterested. Peter could see the way he glanced at him, though – his rebuttal the guiding hand for their interactions from here on out.

Peter took the bait, the part of him that still belonged to Tony speaking before his brain could get in on the action. “I’m not disappointed. It’s so good to see you. You look amazing,” Peter prattled off, his restless hands spinning one of the coasters from the pile between his fingers. “I’m far from disappointed, Tony.”

He didn’t know how true that was, either, not until he heard the words for himself. Despite May being the person Tony sat next to, it immediately felt good to be in his presence. Like simply being in his orbit set things right, the magnetic field surrounding him finally put back into the correct position. The brunette across from him should have a piece in his life – the fact that he accidently walked into it a second time sign enough.

They didn’t get to talk for any longer after that, May brought over three coffees and sat down, the woman immediately starting in on her babbling – he forgot how much she could talk and how passionate she could be when she did. Peter didn’t stay much longer, the thought of sticking around to witness anything coupley between them making his stomach turn.

After making his escape, Peter walked for a while, the haze of Tony Stark and all he’d been to him bringing him under. When he eventually caught a cab home, it was well into the evening – he passed the whole day away thinking about a man from his past, someone who he felt like he had unfinished business with.

----

In an attempt to forget that entire meeting existed, Peter went out of his way to avoid May – with his job starting up and the season just coming to an end, it was easier than he figured it was going to be. There weren’t a lot of things for him to do, yet – but he enjoyed getting to know some of the athletes and familiarizing himself with the facilities equipment. It far surpassed the places he’d been conducting his rehabs in before.

There was no forgetting Tony Stark, he understood that after years of trying to clear his brain of the man – but maybe he could avoid dealing with him and the unsettling and unmoving feelings that were settling in again, taking root. He loved May and he knew enough about family code to keep his distance and remove himself from a situation that could get very bad, very quick.

It sort of worked, too – sooner than expected, Peter finished his first month in the city. Most of his apartment was put together and he finally felt settled in at his job. They team was on a little break, which meant he also got to take some time for himself – a thing he thought he might actually enjoy. There hadn’t been time for vacations over the past couple of years, surviving came first.

About to settle in for a nap, Peter sat straight up when his phone vibrated, the notification that “Maybe: Tony Stark” was texting him stealing all the air from his lungs. Throwing the phone down like it burnt him, Peter forced himself into a comfortable position and drew in long breathes, his chest so goddamn tight, it felt like he couldn’t breathe. Finally able to use his brain to think and not just perform simple bodily functions (like breathing,) Peter picked up the phone again, his hands trembling.

Maybe: Tony Stark [2:26PM]: PICTURE MESSAGE Maybe: Tony Stark [2:27PM]: Do you remember Dum-E? He got an upgrade.

Peter lost his shit when he saw the picture, Tony’s prized robot was flipping him the finger, his traditional DUNCE cap sitting proudly on the top of its head. He pressed on the image to zoom in, the articulation of the joint almost spot on. Saving Tony’s contact, he moved to reply. It was against his better judgement – he shouldn’t even be thinking about it. But – he was weak. Peter didn’t have any trouble admitting that.

Peter Parker [2:31PM]: Tony Stark – did you teach your robot how to throw the bird just for me? Peter Parker [2:33PM]: Glad to see you’re still as elegant as ever.

He put his phone face down on the couch and forced himself up – his stomach growling all of the sudden. In times of desperation and nervousness, Peter didn’t get sick to his stomach. No, he felt the need to eat everything in sight, instead. The crumbled carcasses of 4 Doritos bags were already sitting on his counter, the evidence of his emotion fueled binges staring him straight in the face. Deciding on something healthier, Peter brought a bowl of cereal back to the couch with him. Finally letting himself look at the phone again, Peter got lost in the back and forth for a while.

Tony Stark [2:39PM]: Anything for you, Petey. Tony Stark [2:41PM]: I was just telling him about our little reunion, he wanted to show you how much he missed you. Tony Stark [2:42PM]: Still can’t believe that’s how you walked back into my life.

Peter Parker [2:45PM]: You two are such gems. Peter Parker [2:46PM]: That makes two of us. Peter Parker [2:47PM]: I am the king of great timing.

Tony Stark [2:50PM]: I am a delicate ruby, you’re absolutely correct. Tony Stark [2:51PM]: I literally just laughed out loud. It’s a good thing my private lab is y’know – private. Tony Stark [2:53PM]: You’re actually a huge dick with the worst timing.

Peter Parker [3:00PM]: You’d be a delicate opal, don’t lie. Peter Parker [3:01PM]: Are we talking about my dick now? Peter Parker [3:03PM]: In all seriousness, I know. I am. I’ll admit it. It probably doesn’t mean much, but I am sorry. Peter Parker [3:05PM]: Very.

Tony Stark [3:15PM]: I’ll take that as a compliment, Peter. Opals are multi-faceted. Tony Stark [3:17PM]: You started it. Tony Stark [3:18PM]: It doesn’t – mean much. I do accept it, though. Your apology. Tony Stark [3:20PM]: I knew where you went the second I saw the Mayo Clinic letter still sitting there. I wish you just told me, instead.

That last text message made Peter pause, his hand coming up to press against his mouth – the gesture a dashed attempt at keeping the gasp from falling from his lips. He never considered that, the fact that Tony would have simply gave him a hug and congratulated him. Peter took the strain and stress of Tony figuring out how to step into big shoes as something completely different, a lot bleaker. Maybe, at the time, he let it be an excuse, too.

There was a desperate sort of hatred for himself whenever he thought about what he did. On the other hand, Peter knew the only way he was going to grow was to get out and do it. There were obviously better ways to go about it – but he couldn’t change that now. The fact that May was dating the man he loved so much and treated so dirty – it all kind of made a twisted sort of sense.

Peter Parker [3:35PM]: It was a compliment. Peter Parker [3:36PM]: I did – it’s nice, I have to be proud when I can. Peter Parker [3:38PM]: Thank you – that’s all that I can ask for. Peter Parker [3:41PM]: I don’t have a good excuse as to why I didn’t. You were doing your thing, I didn’t think – I just went and did the same. Peter Parker [3:45PM]: I needed to figured things out – and I did exactly that. Just – a little too late.

When he didn’t get a response after that, Peter wasn’t all that surprised. Typing the words out felt lame and he knew there’d been no justice or retribution. At this point in either of their lives, it didn’t seem prudent for there to be – Tony had May, even if it still weirded him out a little bit to think about it. Peter made his decision six years ago, choosing himself over everything else. The least he could do was stand by that.

Making up excuses that would never explain the density of his want to figure himself out before he gave himself completely to another. And, wow did he want to give himself completely to Tony. Of course, there were better ways to go about it – there were much better ways. Stepping away from the situation, he formulated twenty, thirty – tons. Yet, Peter wasn’t sure he would have been able to pull off any of them without chickening out.

So – he dealt with the consequence. Hurting the person he loved the most, watching him with his cousin, feeling just the slightest bit incomplete – that was his penance. At least he knew he did the right thing for him. When the right person came around, no matter how much he wanted it to be Tony, he could genuinely and honestly be in it – giving himself would be so very easy. That thought made him just a bit more content – even if it didn’t keep him warm at night, it kept him sane.

The next couple of weeks went by quickly – he spent the days he didn’t go into the office wandering around the city, his heart truly full now that he was back. There truly was no place like home. When Ned and MJ found out he was back, they got together a couple times a week just to hangout and catch up. Ned worked for a computer engineering company and got to enjoy the spoils of his youth behind the keys. MJ taught at Midtown and came packed with the best gossip.

One night in the middle of June, the three of them were gathered around Peter’s coffee table, the remains of Chinese food scattered around. Peter had been in the city for four months now – each one better than the next. It felt good to be able to do what he wanted – to be able to afford copious amounts of food and stupid movies on DirectTV. They were watching the newest Men in Black when Peter’s phone vibrated. A soft smile slipped across his face when he noticed it was Tony.

For the first couple of days, it felt weird to be texting Tony so much. Tony sent him another message out of the blue the very next day that broke the weird spell of the past they decided to dredge up – and they’d been texting ever since. It remained casual – despite the vibe that Tony wouldn’t mind if it did. Peter wouldn’t, either – if he were being completely honest. But, May deserved more than that.

Glancing down at his phone, Peter felt his smile grow – Tony’s initial jump into conversation was always off the wall, always completely random.

Tony Stark [8:01PM]: Did you know that the state sport in Maryland is jousting? Tony Stark [8:03PM]: Like, legit medieval era shit.

Peter couldn’t hold back the laugh, despite not wanting to give himself away. He wasn’t ready to talk about any of it with anyone – but he’d already been caught out, MJ was too smart for her own good. “What, or I guess who, has got you smiling like that?” she quirked a brow at him, the lady like a bloodhound sniffing out a scent.

Biting into his bottom lip, Peter didn’t answer for a few seconds – his fingers too busy sending off a reply.

Peter Parker [8:07PM]: I did not know that. I’ve been to a Renaissance festival, so I’ve seen it – I couldn’t imagine that being a very practical sport, however. Peter Parker [8:08PM]: Did you find that on the back of a Laffy Taffy wrapper?

A warm feeling settled within him, the ease in which he could talk to Tony hadn’t gone anywhere – even with 6 years and a ton of baggage between them. Finally glancing up at MJ, he took a deep breath, the news he was about to give something that would probably confuse the fuck out of her. She was the only one he told about leaving for Minnesota, she knew how big of a deal it was to disappear like he did.

“It’s Tony,” Peter mumbled, his face heating, though his eyes never wavered.

In true Ned style, he jumped into the conversation randomly, his voice echoing around the room. “You mean like – Tony Stark? The Tony?” he asked, his entire body shifting, his attention now on Peter and MJ completely.

Blushing further, Peter nodded – his fingers brushing through his hair as he did. “The one and only. It’s weird – he’s dating May and I know that. And things are strictly friendly between us – but it could easily be something else.”

MJ moved a little closer, a hand pressing into his thigh. “I always thought it was a little weird that you were dating the golden boy. And when you left – I thought maybe that was the end. I don’t know, Peter – I hope you’re thinking about what you’re doing,” her voice sounded concerned, his heart warming a little at the sentiment.

“I am – I’m thinking about it, pretty frequently, actually. The last time I saw May, she didn’t talk about him much or bring him up at all, really. I can’t tell – but nothing is going to happen while he’s with May. Maybe he’ll stay with her, who knows,” Peter started to ramble, so he shut his mouth, his thoughts so scattered on the matter. Things were so natural, so easy – it made the whole situation a whole lot more confusing.

MJ brushed her long hair out of her face, an indifferent look in her eyes. From the get-go with Tony, MJ took that approach. She kept herself in it just enough to be a shoulder that Peter could lean against. “You’ll never convince me that he’s the great guy you say he is, but whatever you decide – I support you. Just don’t fuck up your relationship with May, we all know how important that is to you.” MJ stated, her eyes doing the smiling for her. She turned back to the TV and said nothing more.

As always, Ned followed suit. Shaking his head at the group antics, Peter shifted his focus back to his phone, his conversation with Tony completely absorbing him for the rest of the movie. He’d seen the movie before, anyway – the end was the only part that was really worth watching.

A couple hours later, MJ and Ned filed out of his apartment – Ned lightly punching his arm and MJ pulling him into a hug. She kept him in her arms for an extra second, her grip tight. “Be careful, okay? Can’t have you running away again.” Her words were whispered and driven home by the softest press of a kiss to his cheek.

He closed the door and leaned against it, the flurry of emotions from the evening hitting him – making everything he’d been thinking about magnifying tenfold. Nights with his friends were always fun, but stupidly exhausting – especially when MJ got into detective mode. In any other case, the details would have gladly come out of his mouth – it was nice to have friends he that he knew kept secrets like the pros that they were.

The collective thought of Tony still made him feel a bit raw. Like the wound could heal – he just didn’t know what the remedy was. A part of him knew he was dancing with the line, keeping his conversations with Tony going. Another part figured that they were both adults and could make sound decisions. Tony understood what he was doing just as well as Peter.

Which is why he was surprised to hear a knock on his door about ten minutes later. Checking his phone, he didn’t see a text from either Ned or MJ – though, it wouldn’t shock him if they just came stomping back in. At least they decided to knock instead of using his not so well-hidden spare key.

Pulling open the door, he started to speak, his mouth moving before his eyes bothered to take in what was in front of them. “What’d you guys forget – “ Peter picked up his head while he spoke, a soft smile on his face. Realizing who actually stood there, Peter straightened up, brown eyes wide. “Tony?”

Taken aback, Peter wondered for a second how the hell the man even found him. Though, he quickly realized he was dealing with a technology genius. He could also recall a conversation about an AI that dealt with most of Tony’s affairs. Licking his lips, Peter desperately tried to cure his dry mouth – just the sight of the other man enough to sweep his feet out from under him. He ran a hand through his hair, the strands still sticking up from earlier.

“Hey, Pete,” Tony started, one of his hands pressing into the doorframe, his body only a foot or so away from Peter’s. The tightness in his chest made him want to buckle in on himself – the feeling way too fucking much. He watched Tony draw in a deep breath, his eyes murky with a gale of emotions. “Jarvis told me where you lived. I hope it’s okay.”

And just like that, Peter was stepping back from the door, the both of them hovering in the hallway, the space between them narrowed down even more now. “It’s okay – it wouldn’t be you if you weren’t doing crazy shit like that.” He let a light laugh leave his lips, the exhalation of breath doing nothing to ease the tension inside of him. “Why are you – why are you here?”

Tony straightened his posture at the question, the softness in his eyes hardening a little. So – they were going to have a serious talk, then. Crossing his arms, Peter steeled himself for whatever Tony had to say. In all of the time they’d been reconnecting – this conversation never made its way back to the surface, at least, not until this very moment.

He watched color spread over the top of Tony’s cheeks, eyes dropping to look at their feet. “I always wondered when you stopped loving me. I told myself that’s what happened – because it made it easier to accept that you left. You didn’t though, did you? Stop. You’re just a selfish prick,” Tony got out, his words harsh, despite the soft tone they were delivered in. “I thought – maybe we could be friends. There’s been enough time for the hurts in my heart to be patched. I got over it a long time ago. I did not take into account, however – how I didn’t get over you.”

The words felt like a punch to the gut – not because he didn’t want to hear them. Oh, no – he’d been longing to hear those words for years now. Digging himself into a hole didn’t have to mean certain death – he thought maybe he could find his way back to Tony someday. The damage came from the fact that, despite the immensity of want coursing through him, Peter couldn’t act – wouldn’t.

“You haven’t said a singular false statement, Tony. I never stopped loving you. I took the only out I could find – you finding yourself and giving more and more of your time to it – and decided I needed to do the same. Once I mustered the courage, I knew it would be the only time, so I left. I wouldn’t have left otherwise. You, me – we deserve this Peter, the one who knows what he wants and can make it happen. I’m just – the king of bad timing,” Peter whispered the last few words, the reality of them feeling like the final smackdown.

A silence settled between them then, the tension in the room coming to a head. Thinking about it later, he couldn’t decide who made the move first – all of the sudden, Peter was wrapped up in Tony’s arms and they were kissing – kissing like their fucking lives depended on it. He felt long fingers slid into his hair and tug, the warm press of Tony’s torso against his own absolutely divine. His own arms wrapped around Tony’s middle, his body on fire from that simple little touch.

The inability to think kept him under the haze of their joined passion, his lips moving without thought or hesitancy. Tony’s tongue plunged into his mouth and Peter hung on for dear life, his own head tilting to deepen the kiss even further. His chest burnt from the lack of oxygen, but he couldn’t pull away – the second the high of his skin against Tony’s left, Peter’s conscience would reign supreme again.

Tony’s chocked off moan snapped the delicate spell controlling them, Peter’s body on fire, his mind all over the place. “Fuck. Stop – Tony. We have to stop,” Peter mumbled, his hands moving from the solid flanks of Tony’s sides to the bulk of his shirt, fingers digging in. “We can’t do this.” Even as the words were coming out of his mouth, he felt himself leaning in, his nose dragging over Tony’s. “This isn’t rejection – I just can’t. Not when you’re with May. I refuse to hurt her like that,” he pressed a final kiss to Tony’s lips and forced himself away – chest still heaving.

Both of Tony’s hands came up in surrender, the look in his eye resolute. “You’re right. You’re right. I’m sorry, Pete – I shouldn’t have come here like this.” He kept his glance tied to Peter’s, the other man still so easy to read – his hurt and confusion written plain as day.

“It’s okay, Tony. It’s okay.” Peter didn’t know what he was saying was okay, or even if it was – but the need to soothe took over. He reached forward and palmed Tony’s cheek, his thumb brushing over the arch there.

For a second, Tony leaned into the touch, the bourbon color of his eyes buried under closed eyelids. Peter trailed his finger back and forth, the digit moving until he felt a breath of air against his forearm and Tony was pulling away. He didn’t say anything, he simply opened the door and walked through it. His eyes trailed after the other man until he was down the hallway and out of sight.

This time, he shut the door and slid down it – his head falling into his hands.

----

Never prescribing to the age old ‘when it rains, it pours’ thing, Peter wasn’t expecting the knock on his door early the next morning. After Tony left, Peter barely made it to the couch before passing out into a fitful sleep. Between tossing, turning, and a mind that didn’t want to slow down and stop – Peter could count on two fingers how many hours of complete sleep he got. Sitting up, Peter looked groggily around the room, the disturbance in his sleep something he thought he might have dreamed up until another knock sounded.

“Peter, I know you’re home! I can see your open porch door from the street.” May’s voice was the last thing he figured he’d be hearing. The taste of Tony still lingered on his lips – Tony’s stubble making the skin above them a little raw, too. How in the world could he face May right now – when he hadn’t even had time to process what happened, or how he reacted, or even how Tony reacted.

Grumbling, Peter got up off the couch, his feet heavy in their steps towards the door. It felt like he spent the night before getting completely wasted, yet he didn’t have a singular sip. A couple of quick runs of his fingers through his hair and Peter finally felt ready to pull open the door and face whatever might come his way. Even if it was terrible.

Peter took a couple of deep breaths, his hand not wanting to move to actually get the damn door open. He braced himself, the idea that he might take a hand to the face or harsh words thrown his way that would eclipse him. There was nothing, though. May simply looked at him, two to-go coffee cups in her hands. “Are you going to let me in?” she asked, her voice neutral, the look in her eye hard to read.

He took a step back quickly, his arm sweeping wide. “Hi May, yes – please come in. I just got up, so my brain still isn’t working all that well.” It would have sounded like an excuse if he weren’t still shirtless with marks from the couch all over his right side. He stepped back further, the space now more of an open invitation that May took gracefully.

If this were a social call, they would have wandered to his makeshift bed of a couch and sat down – his cousin’s hands already moving to take the remote and put on whatever show she was currently addicted to. She would have jammed the coffee she was holding into the thickness of his chest, the joke of almost scolding him something they’d been doing since Peter came to stay with May and her family. The atmosphere would have been a little bit more accepting.

Yet, none of those things happened. May put his coffee cup on the middle of his kitchen table and sat down in one of the chairs. Knowing how different things would have been, Peter didn’t hesitate to take the seat opposite her, his hands wrapping around the warm to-go cup on instinct. He didn’t even take a second to put a shirt on – he simply sat down and waited, each second that past like a sweet torture.

Eventually, she pulled her phone out and started to flip through it, a concentrated look on her face. Finding what she needed, May pushed the phone over towards him. He took it a little hesitantly, his mind wandering around all of the possible things that could be on that phone. There wasn’t anyone else around when Tony came here last night – so with that, at least, they were in the clear.

His breath caught, though – the photo on her screen one he knew with familiarity, one that he glanced at more times than he cared to remember. The memory of the day the picture was taken still sat fresh in his mind. They were at Tony’s place, probably about a year into their relationship. They were celebrating the end of the semester and people were everywhere – the streaks and blurs in the background their friends caught in a second of chaos. Peter and Tony were in the middle of a conversation when MJ called over – “Snuggle up, love birds – let me take a picture.”

Peter could still remember how quickly Tony stepped up behind him, arms embracing without hesitation. They both beamed at the camera, the smiles on their faces so genuine. What Peter liked the most about it, though, was the fact that MJ caught them a second before they looked back at each other.

Peter’s face was turned as if he were trying to look over his shoulder, his smile bright and big but eyes oriented in Tony’s direction. The hand on his chest was splayed open wide, Tony’s fingers one of the main focuses in it. The look on Tony’s face showed affection and happiness – but most importantly, love.

MJ gave it to them both in a frame a couple of days later, the gorgeousness of it something that even she couldn’t deny.

Eyes a little watery, Peter looked up from the phone and over at May, a questioning look in his eye. “Where did you even find this?” Peter knew for a fact that his copy was tucked into the box in his closet – one in which he only allowed himself to go through every now and again, one that he specifically brought in and put away himself.

“It’s in Tony’s lab. We were supposed to meet for lunch a few weeks ago, but he couldn’t leave, so I met him there. He left for a minute to get cleaned up, so I snooped – because why not, right? There are a couple of the two of you, but that one is right in the middle of his workspace. He told me a little bit about this epic love he still wasn’t really over, and it never once crossed my mind that it was with you.” May stopped then, her hands reached across the table for his. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

The soft touch of her hands felt like a drastic juxtaposition to the raging war of emotions keeping him right on the edge of panic. As a distraction, he watched her thumbs brush against his hands, the movement hypnotic, easy to get lost in. The lull seemed to help calm him a little – Peter glanced back up at her, apprehension still so very visible.

“I didn’t treat him well at the end. For a while, it was nice to have this thing that was all my own. And when it got serious, I freaked a little. I ran away because I felt too much. It was easier not to acknowledge it out loud – because telling you about him made the selfish thing I did a lot more real. It took a while to find me and then a while after that to cope with how big of a dick I am.” He paused then, taking a long breath.

“I never thought I’d see him again – never. Then, he’s sitting next to you and everything I have neglected for six years suddenly hit me square in the face. May, you seemed happy – I’ve been selfish enough,” Peter knew he had to get all of that out, or he probably wouldn’t, the acknowledgement of so many things harder than he ever imagined possible.

He gripped her hands, pulling them towards him a little. “The last thing I want to do is hurt you.” And that was the truth. Regardless of how badly he handled other things, Peter couldn’t be careless with something like that – May and her feelings. Even if that came at the cost of his own.

At that, she chuckled, her lips quirking into the first real smile on her face all morning. “I saw the way you two were talking to each other the day I introduced you. It doesn’t take a genius to know chemistry when you see it. The picture just sort of – put all the pieces together. It’s okay, Pete. Really.”

Quirking a brow at her, he pulled his hands away and sat more fully in his chair. “There’s nothing going on, May. I – “ Peter stuttered out, but she held a hand up, a soft little smile on her face.

“There’s nothing going on between Tony and I anymore, either. He came over last night, started to talk a bunch of nonsense. It seemed like a good time to tell him I’d been seeing someone else, anyway. You remember Ben? Either way – he is single and not attached to me, so you no longer have to factor hurting or upsetting me into any of your life choices.”

She got up then and came around the table, her arms engulfing Peter into a tight hug. “This is a lesson on when to keep secrets from me. I hope you learned that never is probably the best course of action,” she mumbled against the side of his head, Peter’s chest shaking with laughter before she let him go. And just like they were kids again, she slapped the back of his head hard, a cackle slipping from her lips. “Stop ignoring me, okay? Let’s be friends again.”

It took a few more minutes of banter back and forth for Peter to totally comprehend all the things May told him – he couldn’t get past the green light of acceptance; despite all the other juicy things he’d just been told. His mind immediately went to Tony, the thought of pulling his phone out and texting him flashing across his mind. Then, he realized just how much he missed May and put it on the back burner. If he were reading the room right the night before, he didn’t think Tony would be going anywhere anytime soon.

“Yeah, alright.” Peter said after a second, their eyes meeting. He could see nothing but clarity in those hazel eyes, a look he knew to be acceptance and contentment. It felt good to be able to read her again, the crippling guilt no longer between them. “I’m not going to the office today. Want to binge something on Netflix?”

Her lips pulled into a smile, the look in her eye mischievous – “Actually, I think we should find you something to wear to this,” she murmured, hands rummaging in her bag until an envelope came into view. Peter didn’t need to see the Stark Industries logo in the corner to know what she was referring to. The Stark Gala – the height of events for the engineering and technology society. It seemed kind of fitting, a reunion at one of these events after the shitty end to the last one.

A soft blush set in his cheeks then, a silent sort of understanding happening between them. This wasn’t just acceptance from May, but a push in the right direction, too. He took the envelope from her, then pulled her smaller frame into his arms. “Thanks, May.”

When they parted for the afternoon, May pulled him into another hug and wished him luck. The suit they picked out was going to look pretty damn good on him – even if it wasn’t one of the fancy custom-made ones. The whole time, it felt like being with May when they were younger, when there wasn’t a care in the world. Maybe that was because the trauma between them was officially over, or maybe May felt like she knew Peter a bit better. Whatever it was, Peter enjoyed the time thoroughly.

It felt like the first time since getting here that he wasn’t stressed or watching over his shoulder. Even though he enjoyed every single second of being back in the place that felt like home, there were so many things still trying to press him down and keep him there. The weight of his chain felt a few links shorter now. In hindsight, the simple truth would have been much easier than all the angst – but hey, that’s how lessons are learned.

There was just enough time to sneak in a nap – Peter grateful for that fact. They decided early into their conversation that the surprise of his presence would make much more of an impact than a text, so Peter kept control of himself and didn’t say a word to the other man. He could already picture the look on Tony’s face. With the rest of the night on his mind, Peter slept pretty peacefully – his body finally content with where things were headed for him.

Actually feeling refreshed upon waking up, Peter took his time getting dressed. The blue suit and light grey shirt combo looked great in the mirror at the store, the jacket fit his shoulders nicely and the slacks hugged the curve of his ass just right. With the addition of some product in his hair and a small white-gold chain around his neck, Peter looked ever better. It’d been a long time since he dressed up like this – he appreciated the view and hoped Tony would, too.

Peter splurged on the relatively expensive Uber into Manhattan, his conversation with Paula the driver helping to ease any nervousness that wanted to bubble up inside him. Surprisingly, though, there wasn’t much other than excitement coursing through him. No matter what happened, Peter felt a sense of freedom he didn’t before. If Tony decided the craziness they were able to build was what he wanted, Peter couldn’t wait to give himself completely to it. Finally.

It was pretty easy to slip out of the Uber and into the party without dealing with any of the press. They weren’t interested in someone like him. He gave his name and flashed the invitation to the man he remembered as Happy at the door – the exchange easy and over before he knew it. There were lots of people scattered around the upper floor of Stark Industries, the age range wide and varied and the dress much the same. Peter fit right into the people flitting around and used that as an advantage to scope out Tony.

Looking around, he felt a little disappointed when he didn’t see the man right off the bat. He decided to put the search on hold and get a drink when he felt a hand on his arm. “Hope you’re not leaving already.”

He didn’t need to look over his shoulder to know who the hand belonged to – the ghost of Tony’s touch still haunted him on a pretty constant basis. A soft smile slipped across his lips, the other man’s presence did that to him – especially now that it didn’t come with the not so gentle pang of guilt. “No, not yet. I just now found what I was looking for.” Peter’s response was shift, said with confidence.

Tony tugged on his arm until they were facing each other, their chests almost pressing together. After so many years, it felt like the first time all over again – this dance they were doing. Their even height made it easy to catch amber colored eyes – the yellow tinted glasses Tony took to wearing enhanced the color of his eye, the depth of it so easy to get lost in.

“I’ve done my rounds for the night, come upstairs with me,” Tony mumbled, his voice just loud enough for Peter and Peter alone to hear. The warm caress of the liquid smokiness arousal always made Peter think of washed over him, his arms wrapping themselves around Tony’s neck. He pressed in for a kiss, the need unable to be denied. It stayed chaste for the sake of not being in public when things turned steamy.

“Lead the way, Tony,” Peter responded, his brain forcing his body to step away, to keep some space until he could have all of the other man. A work-roughened hand gripped his own, their fingers tangling – Tony led the way through the crowd seamlessly, his ability to fit in despite the sheer amount of attention he could attract was impressive. Probably learned from all the times he did his best to escape the charade over the years.

It was nice to see that some things never changed.

Once they were in the elevator, Tony didn’t hold back – this one led to his part of the penthouse, so they wouldn’t be disturbed. “I’m guessing May talked to you and this is your way of saying that it’s okay to do this,” Tony babbled before grabbing his cheeks and pressing their lips together, the kiss hot and on the right side of desperate. Peter figured he didn’t need to verbally answer, he gripped Tony’s hips instead and kissed back, his tongue pressing forward to join the warmth in the luscious caverns in Tony’s mouth.

Forgoing the tie ended up being a good idea, Tony’s hands were everywhere as they kissed, the tips moving from Peter’s cheeks, down his chin, neck, and under the slight gap of his button up shirt. Each place he touched felt like molten lava, the stroke of his fingers branding his skin – every inch becoming Tony’s once again. Finally, the elevator doors broke open, the dark comfort of Tony’s home just a couple steps forward.

Peter broke away then, his chest heavy from too much carbon dioxide, breaths coming in pants. “It’s okay. I want you, Tony. All of you. Because I finally know how to give all of me, too.” He used the lapels of Tony’s jacket to seal their lips back together, his feet working on their own accord, the path back to Tony’s room still etched into the forefront of his brain. Aside from bumping into the wall a couple of times, Peter and Tony were in the bedroom in no time.

Nimble fingers started to work on Peter’s shirt, Tony’s eye wide with eagerness and heat – the pupils blown open, taking over that precious brown warmth. His gaze made Peter feel a little on display, his skin on fire – the seconds passing making him feel like he needed to crawl out of it. A soft sigh of relief left his lips when the cool air hit his skin, the scalding deliciousness of Tony’s touch all of the sudden bearable again.

Quickly getting in on the action, Peter worked on Tony’s bow tie, the knot coming undone without much effort. Tony tried to press in for a kiss, but Peter kept some distance between them. “I’m going to cum in my pants if you keep doing that. It’s been a while – let me see you,” Peter stammered, his words lazy, the blood meant for his brain traveling lower, instead. He got all of the buttons open without fault, a look of triumph on his face. Greedy hands pushed the suit jacket and shirt off in one go, Tony finally shirtless – skin on display.

His fingers skimmed across tight pecs and prickled nipples, down across each of Tony’s ribs, and along the seam of his abdominals. The trail of hair Peter remembered so fondly seemed a little thicker, the change one of the only signs of aging he could really see. His dress pants sat on slim hips, a v on either side guiding his eyes to the real treasure. He could see the bulge there, Tony’s length long and eager, exactly the way he liked to remember it.

The rest of their clothes came off in a fumble to get onto the bed, Peter’s back hitting the mattress without any fight, a sigh of delight slipping from his lips when Tony settled over him. The weight felt divine, the tangibility of being pressed down amping up the slow spread of arousal tenfold. “Fuck, you feel good,” Peter gasped against Tony’s shoulder. The man was caressing his flanks, fingers moving reverently, like devotion and memorization were the only options.

The ticklish feeling kept him from getting too close to the edge too fast – Tony’s touches driving him crazy in so many ways. His hips rolled up every now and then, the semi-constant friction just enough to stave off the intense itch that needed to be scratched. Peter did his best to memorize the way Tony’s hips felt against his own, how the sweat on his brow rolled down so very slowly, how even after so much time – this felt so goddamn right.

Throwing his arms around Tony’s neck, Peter pulled him down for a fierce kiss, feelings overwhelming him, the earnestness of the interaction so much – everything he wanted. Their lips met for a sloppy kiss, tongues tangling between them, the taste of Tony in his mouth just as exciting as the slip slide of their bodies together. Peter’s fingers roamed through Tony’s hair, the softness of it a nice contrast to the heat overtaking them both.

The need to breath forced them apart, Tony’s forehead leaning down, resting against Peter’s. “I’ve missed you, Pete. So much,” the other whispered, the words kissing his cheeks in a tender brush. His eyes were closed, but Peter could tell he was trying to hold back tears or emotion – or maybe both.

With both hands, he cupped Tony’s cheeks, the other lifting his head enough for them to be looking into each other’s eyes. “I missed you. I’m here now, though – not going anywhere, either,” Peter said softly. He hoped to convey how genuine the words were – that despite how big of a shit he’d been, there still might be a future. He didn’t deserve it – but fuck did he hope for it.

“I won’t let you,” Tony replied, his cheeks lifting into a wide smile. “Jarvis can find you, so don’t even think about it.” He turned his head to press a kiss to Peter’s palm, his nose nuzzling into the same spot. “Can I fuck you?” Tony murmured into the skin there, his eyes hot and hopeful. Peter could feel Tony’s cock against his flat belly – the length throbbing at just the mention of pressing into him. Peter grinned and used his grip on Tony to slip their lips together once again.

“Fuck, yes – please, Tony. I want you.”

Tony didn’t need any more prodding after that, he moved until he was on the bed next to Peter. “Turn over onto your side,” he mumbled, his hands pushing and tugging at Peter’s hips until he turned over. “I’m going to make you feel good, Petey – promise.”

Peter elongated his neck and let Tony pepper kisses against the skin there, the man’s hands still working over lean sides. He threw a hand behind himself and grabbed Tony’s hair, his fingers gripping to keep him as close as possible, so that the other man couldn’t pull away, even if he wanted to. A gasp left his mouth when Tony’s wandering hands wrapped around the front of his body and started to teasingly stroke his cock.

The pulls started off slow, like he was trying to orient himself with Peter again. His fingers were rough, a little bit more scarred than the last time Peter felt his touch – and yet, still completely perfect. The tip of his cock was already leaking, so the glide of Tony’s hand was delicious, the friction faultless. With the slightest of thrusts, Peter could feel the other’s cock against his ass. “Mm, you’re so fucking hard,” Peter babbled, his hands tightening in Tony’s hair.

“Fuck me, please. I want to be yours again.” He thrust his hips back and ground into Tony, if the words weren’t enough, he hoped the move would be.

Tony pulled his lips away from Peter’s neck to pant against it, a soft groan leaving his lips. “God, Pete – I, you’re too much,” he murmured, his hips thrusting forward again, his fingers tightening around Peter’s length. “I can’t wait to feel you.” He squeezed Peter again, then the fingers were gone – Tony’s hand now slipping down to slip between pert ass cheeks.

There were a few soft teases to Peter’s hole before Tony was pulling back – the mattress dipping with his weight. Peter immediately felt the cold of the room clinging to his back, the sweat there staring to dry. Absentmindedly, he let his hand trail down his chest – his fingers ghosting straight down his abs, the tips teasing along the sensitive skin there. His nerves were on fire and he couldn’t let that tingly sensation die down for a single second.

The warmth was back within a couple of minutes, Tony’s hand trailing down his side, the other tucking under Peter’s neck to keep him close. “Tuck this leg up a little,” Tony whispered, lips brushing against Peter’s ear. Complying quickly, he bent his leg – a moan leaving his lips when Tony’s finger filled the newly made space. The barely there touch had him clenching his eyes, mouth open wide. “Fuck!”

The snick of a lube cap opening pulled another sound from his chest, anticipation settling low in his belly, the heat there compounding with it, his cock dribbling a bit of precum at the thought of what was to come next. The first touch of the lube was cool on his skin – and immediately forgotten, the first press of Tony’s finger into him after so much time exquisite, painful, and just right – just enough to distract him.

He couldn’t help the constant stream of ‘Tony’ leaving his lips, each thrust of one, two, and then three fingers shredding ever sense of self and control and conscious thought. It was only Peter and Tony and the aching touches that could tear him apart and then delicately piece him back together. “I’m ready, Tony – I’m ready.” His words were desperate, as was the hand that shot behind him to get a nice grip on Tony’s hair again. “Please – “

“I’ve got you, Pete,” Tony said, his fingers pulling out, only to be replaced with the warm head of the other’s cock. Tony pressed his hips against his loosened hole and thrust forward slightly, just the tip slipping inside. Peter let his jaw drop in a silent moan. He felt Tony’s grunt against his neck before hearing it, the gust of breath sending goosebumps cascading across his skin.

Inch by inch, Peter felt himself relax and accept more of Tony – the stretch turning from a sheer burning sensation to delectable with every passing second. Then, Tony hooked an arm under his already tucked leg, the move opening him up further.

The last couple of inches were easier now, Peter’s hole exquisitely stretched and full – the press of Tony’s hips against his own the best part of all. “Fuck, you’re so tight. You’re clenched around me like if I pull out, you’ll never be whole again,” he babbled, hips pulling back ever so slightly.

Just like Tony said, Peter clenched down a little tighter around him, his heart rate picking up with the sweet ache of his hole stretching further. “Maybe I won’t be,” Peter responded, his eyes closing, Tony’s cock slipping almost all the way out of him, the head resting just past the ring of muscles. He already felt empty, the rightness of being filled missed dearly.

The teasing roll of his hips didn’t last, though – Peter clenched each time he tried to pull out and before long, Tony was panting heavily against his neck, the snap of his hips long and hard. “Harder, Tony – more,” Peter ground out, his jaw clenching with ever thrust in, the tip of Tony’s cock hitting his prostate dead on.

Leaning into Peter more heavily, Tony pressed his leg down until he was almost up on his knees, the weight pressing him fully into the mattress. “I’m so close. Touch yourself – “ Peter barely heard, Tony’s words spliced with pants and groans. He could feel the pulse of Tony’s cock inside of him, the harder and faster he moved, the more it seemed to thrum in time with their joint heartbeat.

It took a second for Peter to register the plea – he was creeping closer and closer to the edge, it felt hard to focus on anything. He complied, though, his fingers gripping tightly and stroking at the same pace as Tony’s thrusts. There was no holding back after that, the boiling heat in his stomach finally bubbling over – each spasm of his body drawing shot after shot of cum from his body. “Ah, Tony!”

He barely felt the hard bite against his shoulder blade, the world tilted on a different axis at the moment. The warmth of Tony finishing inside him kept him grounded, though – his hole tightening to keep him there, deep and exactly where he should be. Tony mumbled Peter’s name over and over again, his forehead coming to rest against the back of his neck.

It was a few minutes before Peter felt with it enough to move or talk or even feel his limbs. He felt Tony slip out and the delicious feeling of cum dripping from his hole – then he sunk into the mattress further, everything about him boneless. Tony’s weight pressed against him a moment later.

The room was quiet when Peter came down enough to turn a little, his arm reaching back to pet at Tony’s bare skin. “Let’s go shower – I’m gross,” Peter said softly, a chuckle leaving his lips when arms wrapped around his waist, Tony sink down into him a little further.

“Do we have to?” Tony whined, his nose brushing Peter’s ear, every breath he took ruffling the hair there.

“I need to,” Peter retorted, the man using his arms to push up a little, his leverage dislodging Tony from his back. “The way you had me pinned down, I came all over myself – I’m already a little itchy.” He moved until he could sit up – the cooling cum on his chest making him pull a face. Tony’s arm reached out to attempt to pull him down once more, but Peter avoided it – a soft smile on his face when he looked over his shoulder. “Come join me if you want.”

Luckily, not a lot had changed about the bathroom, the shower was a little bigger – but Jarvis was easy enough to access, the water starting without much of a hassle. Peter stepped under and let out a relieved grunt – the nerve endings of his skin still sensitive, the hot water just enough to ease that feeling a little. He stood there letting the water sleuth over him – the peace of it nice after such an adrenaline-fueled event.

The shower door opening a few minutes later didn’t surprise him – he simply relaxed into the arms that wrapped around his waist. “Will you stay?” Peter heard, his head tilting to the side to accommodate Tony’s head resting on his shoulder. “I just got you back, I don’t know if I can let you leave now.”

Pressing his head against Tony’s, Peter let his hands grab onto the ones around his waist – the grip tight. “I’ll stay. For as long as you’ll have me.”

[is6621]

Your Cash is Worthless, the Rise of Cashless Payments and E-Commerce  - Kelsey Koswick

You know how kids today think a floppy disc image is just the “save button” and have no idea that a floppy disc was an actual thing?  Or that texting began with T9 (an ancient form of language) and you could only text after 9pm since that’s when it was free?  Hot take but you heard it here first, physical coins and bills will be nostalgic memories and the next generation will have no clue that people would ACTUALLY use the physical objects to buy stuff. 

I know this may sound far fetched but the world has been shifting to cashless/contactless/credit card free payments for a while and recent events have only poured gasoline on the cashless movement.  Prior to COVID-19, U.S. e-commerce sales were an estimated $600 billion, and had an average growth of 126% year over year.  In 2020, e-commerce sales are expected to be at $709 billion, a growth of 146%, the largest growth of e-commerce in a year according to Forbes.  And the U.S. is not the only country seeing this trend.  In Italy, where cash is the preferred payment method, the volume of e-commerce sales surged an estimated 80% as reported by the New York Times.   To keep up with the trends, many credit card providers lowered limits, provided instant e-credit card for e-commerce upon approval (vs. waiting a few days to receive your card to use) and new payment platforms such as Venmo have launched their own credit cards/contactless payment options to compete.  

Additionally, many venues, retailers and sports teams for example, have taken cashless and contactless to the next level.  In the 2020 season, the Jacksonville Jaguars teamed up with tech company Tappit, to launch their own cashless/contactless payment system as TIAA Bank Field called “JagsPay”. The club has completely eliminated cash payments as an option in their stadium. Fans credit cards can be directly synced to the club’s app where JagsPay lives to purchase merch, tickets, and food.  For those that bring cash?  Kiosks have been set up in the stadium to collect cash and disperse a pre-paid JagsPay card with your cash uploaded to the card. Now, there is no formal data saying that cash transmit the virus.  But the perception of money being “dirty” and touching shared objects such as money, has only increased the desire to go cashless.  In addition, with teams and vendors offering these initiatives during these times, has allowed for easier acceptance and behavior change that would have been much more challenging in a non-COVID world.

Sports teams aren’t the only ones leaning into contactless payments and e-commerce.  Many social media apps are changing their platforms to integrate with e-commerce experiences, allowing social media platforms not only a way to connect with other users but a way for merchants to connect with you.  E-Commerce giant, Shopify, has recently partnered with social media tycoon TikTok to launch an integrated shopping experience on the platform.  See something you like?  Chances are you’ll be able to buy it right off of TikTok soon.  The partnership now allows for merchants to push out advertising and have access to TikTok’s younger audience, allowing the merchants to directly target and engage with customers in a more authentic and direct way.  The integration also decreases the time of the buyers journey allowing for that quick, need for speed shopping experience we all now crave.   TikTok is just the latest social platform to integrate to the contactless/cashless/e-commerce phase, as we’ve seen Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook provide these options as well.

So what does this all mean?  The most obvious answer is spending habits are changing, shopping is becoming much faster, easier and digitized.  But there’s an underlying benefit to merchants (and possibly you) to a cashless, digital shopping experience?  By integrating payments on an app, through social channels or what have you, payments companies and merchants now have a much stronger understanding of customer preferences, habits and interests with all of your payment history being collected digitally.  With all of this data, merchants will be able to curate customized content and products for individual users, stores will be able to understand shopping trends better, and venues can have better insights on their fans purchasing habits in and out of the stadium.  All of this may sound either really scary or really awesome.  Gone could be the days of scrolling through websites to find that one shirt that speaks to you.  Now, it’ll be the first sponsored post on your insta, click twice and in 2 days it’s at your doorstep for that party on Friday night. Creepy or cool?  I’ll let you be the judge.  Overall, do I think cash is going to be obsolete tomorrow? No and probably not for a long time.  But I do believe this, recent events have dramatically shifted behaviors at a rate the world has never seen before (especially with financial decisions) and lowered barriers to entry for acceptance of our contactless world and we will be there much sooner than you think! 

#IS6621

Sources: 

https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/27/tiktok-invests-in-social-commerce-via-new-shopify-partnership/

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/business/cashless-transactions.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jiawertz/2020/08/01/3-emerging-e-commerce-growth-trends-to-leverage-in-2020/?sh=7a6890546fee

https://tappit.com/introducing-jags-pay/

[thegeminisage]

the south is like another country

i have an entire essay on how the current radicalism and steep political divide in this country can be traced directly back to the civil war - rural white southerners here playing the part pre-ww2 germany, the part of a resentful, conquered nation assimilated into the nation that conquered them, because if you think about it the south/the confederacy WAS its own nation for a time, that lost a very bloody war, and paid very steeply for it (not that slavers didn’t deserve every bit of misery the “carpetbaggers” threw at them), and the bitterness from that loss/the lost capital from having their slaves freed has been handed down through the generations, to people who now live in abject poverty while their livelihoods are destroyed by late stage capitalism, and their schools are so broke a lot of people here don’t even know how to read, and their towns are eaten alive with meth, and they’re still looked down upon by most of the country for being racist uneducated backwater hicks (to be clear, we should always look down on racism and racists, but it’s not making them any less bitter/ripe for being drawn into the cult of tr*mp’s america and f*cism).

but anyway this post isn’t about that! this post is about how when i go up north and i say “y’all it really is like i’m living in a different country” NOBODY BELIEVES ME. we speak the same language, we’re all americans, right? PFFFFFT. this amazon van thing just drives it home (pun intended). here’s a list of differences from the deep south* to the rest of the country*:

*the deep south here meaning the RURAL deep south. sorry to everyone who lives in cities/the suburbs and/or in border states like maryland and virginia. i’ve been to maryland and virginia and they are technically southern and some of this applies to them but it is not quite as extreme as it is here. the rest of the country includes the other states i’ve been to (california, washington state, new york, etc), which are in mostly every area except the midwest. i cannot personally vouch for the midwest. sorry, midwesterners! rural midwest probably has a lot of things in common with the deep south because rural life is different and also how easily people move around this country, but whatever

this is a long-ass post get ready

difference #1: DRIVING. driving & pedestrians are entirely different un rural areas vs urban areas. for starters, southern towns often do not even have sidewalks. this is because of 1. budget and 2. racism.

budget: rural towns are very spread out, and it costs major $$$ to put sidewalks in. it’s just not worth the trouble, financially, to put a sidewalk where only 12 people are ever going to use it, AND spend the money to maintain it. never gonna happen. racism: initially, suburbs especially in the south were seen as safe havens where people could get away from the stress of living in “urban” (re: integrated) areas. that the neighborhoods were only accessible by car and NOT by people who were too poor (black) to afford automobiles were just an added bonus. 

as such, the first time i left the southeast, i was SHOCKED to see people walking and biking WITH (or indifferent to) the flow of traffic. down here we are taught that if you are walking along the road (or biking, because bikers get lumped in with pedestrians down here), it is very very very crucial that you walk against the flow of traffic, because you cannot expect drivers to see you and not mow you down. the onus is on YOU to get out of THEIR way. additionally, walking in knee-high grass along the side of the road sucks, and because there aren’t many people here, the roads are usually totally empty. so oftentimes pedestrians just straight up walk ON the road. and if you do that you absolutely have to be able to see a car coming from a long way away, because rural drivers on completely empty roads tend to take them at extremely high speeds just for fun. the people who live diagonally across from me have had to replace their mailbox four times because folks take that blind curve at 90mph. i had a cat get hit by a car on that road. (they all live indoors now.) i even witnessed a car accident happen there when i was just outside minding my own business. ever see a tire fly 12 feet into the air and come down into someone’s windshield? that’s what happens when you hit power line pole driving like that.

the first time i ever encountered one of those pedestrian crossing buttons was in california in the early 2010s. i had literally never seen one before because we simply don’t have them here. they’re not very self-explanatory if you have been jaywalking your whole entire life because all you’re taught to do is look both ways and make sure the street is empty before you cross. northern/urban roadways are made so that pedestrians and drivers can both get to where they’re going. in rural/southern areas pedestrians might as well not bother.

interestingly, while not an entirely southern problem, there’s a loose correlation between rural areas and more problems with drunk drivers.

on the driving side, driving in a city is batshit insane. it’s both faster and slower. there is NO space and you’re expected to go whenever you have so much as an inch to worm your way in. there’s more traffic, and the traffic totally dictates your speed. in the south you can change lanes if you want to drive faster or slower and weave around traffic or let it weave around you, but in a city there’s no other lane to change to and if you don’t drive at the speed of the people ahead of and behind you you will die. you turn fast, you brake fast, etc. whenever i come back from driving in a city the people who ride with me think i’m insane. you don’t PULL ONTO A ROAD if you can SEE ANOTHER CAR THERE, what the fuck? meanwhile i’m like “lol that is six miles of space i have plenty of time” and give everyone in my vicinity heart palpitations until i readjust. 

tailgating in a rural area is something only assholes do (done by people on a two-lane road to encourage the person in front of them to go faster because the only other lane is for oncoming traffic), and if someone gets within one car length of me on a two-lane road i can very passively aggressively slow my vehicle to a crawl until they back the fuck off. in a city you’re lucky if you have a twelve inches between your bumper and the next car’s hood ornament.

difference #2: LANGUAGE. this is a small one, but the southern dialect combined with the lack of literacy means i am learning certain things late in life. phrases i have heard verbally with my ears but had never seen written out include: “chest of drawers” which i thought was “chester drawers” - “seven year itch” which i thought was “seven year each” - “albeit” which i thought was “i’ll be it.” i’ve made a deliberate effort to unlearn mine own accent/dialect but i run into weird shit all the time. remotes are mashers, shopping carts are buggies, you put stuff up instead of putting it away, i fix you a drink instead of pouring you one, we shoot the game instead of play it. my mom LITERALLY can’t understand me if i speak too quickly - she has to remind me all the time to slow down and put on my southern.

difference #3: TECHNOLOGY. issue of whether or not you personally have the creepy amazon vans aside, the rural south is behind the rest of the country on technology. things in cities are AUTOMATED. things like the little button you press to cross the street, tickets you take at parking garages, even the parking meters you find in cities, that’s just the beginning of it. one time i came across a little computer touch screen in a MCDONALDS where you put your order in. you didn’t even go up to the counter. you just put your order on the screen and swiped your card and then they got it ready for you and you never had to speak to a human person. self-checkouts, gas pumps where you can swipe your card and not go in and pay at first...the south got those YEARS behind everybody else. in the mid-2010s i went to DC and visited a target for maybe the 5th time ever and i was BAFFLED by the self-checkout. i had no idea how to use it! it was like less than ten years ago and i was IN MY TWENTIES and i had never seen one before! when we send a package we have to talk to a human person. when we order food we usually have to talk to a human person. apps for places like dominos and subway have not been in use here for very long. my county just got doordash LAST YEAR. 

because i am 31, and because the south is so technologically behind, i am actually old enough to remember how when you used to go to a gas station an attendant would not only pump your gas but wash your windshield for you while you just SAT IN THE CAR. that seems like something from the 50s but it actually was a thing here in my childhood IN the 90s. i wish i was making this up.

difference #4: INFRASTRUCTURE. this sort of goes hand-in-hand w/ the last point because so much of our infrastructure is made of technology, and it’s also more of a rural/urban thing than a south/north thing. but just for fun here’s a non-exhaustive list of things i don’t have in my town:

starbucks* - the first time i went to a starbucks i was in my 20s

a public pool - we used to, but now the only pool here requires a YMCA membership. the only baseball diamond in this county is also at the Y.

walmart

in fact, ANYWHERE to buy clothes that is not a goodwill or other secondhand store. i cannot buy clothing unless i order it online or LEAVE MY TOWN. almost all of the clothing i own is from walmart because it’s one of the only places in my entire county where you can actually PURCHASE clothing.

grocery store chains? pffft. my town has two entire stores and both are small southern chains. i didn’t go into a publix for the first time until two years ago when i went to florida. i’ve NEVER entered a whole foods.

food delivery? yeah, no. like i said, we got doordash last year, but before that the only place you could get delivery from was a pizza chain. we only have two pizza places in my town that deliver, and one is a local place, not attached to any chain, so i can’t spend my loyalty points there. (it’s very expensive there too.) last year it was CLOSED for six months because the manager got caught dealing meth. every last one of the delivery drivers was trafficking it for him. they all got fired and had to restart from the ground up. for that short time, it was not possible to get any food delivered to your house whatsoever.

a hospital/ambulance services - if someone is sick, we have to take them to the hospital in laurens, the town next door (about 15-20 minutes by car). the town i live in lucky - we have our own police and fire departments. (acab but you know what i mean.) joanna is a smaller town next to mine that isn’t a real town - it’s been demoted to a census designated area because only 2000 people live there. if they have an emergency, they have to use OUR fire and police departments, and LAURENS’s ambulance/hospital system

after-school places kids can go to keep from getting into trouble. we have the Y, if you have money (no one here has money), and we have churches, but mostly schools can’t afford to run too many extracurriculars. there’s nothing to do here but church and meth.

food banks: zero. we have food DRIVES sometimes where people will come from further away and bring free food, but if you’re hungry, there’s nowhere you can go for help - you have to wait for help to come to you.

libraries: we don’t have our own library. we have a branch of the county library that’s physically located in our town. but we share books with the rest of the entire county, so everything is always checked out or at the other branch. 

*we technically have a starbucks that’s in the local college campus, but only college students are allowed to be there. they’ll still serve people without a college ID because no one gives a fuck, but you can’t linger and loiter and hang out like you do in a normal starbucks. we also have one in the barnes and noble in greenville, which is about an hour away by car, but again, it’s a mini starbucks that serves a limited menu and none of that weird Starbucks Culture™

here’s a few things i don’t have in my ENTIRE COUNTY:

movie theaters - technically. we have a Historial™ one-screen theater in laurens that shows one movie for two weeks a month after it hits regular theaters and then switches to another, and if you miss it, too bad. this is a VERY recent addition - it wasn’t restores until i was in my 20s as a kid and a teenager i had to ride in a car an hour or more to go to the movies.

target. only commies and yankees have target. down here we do walmart.

malls

arcades

skate parks/skating rinks

bowling

museums

zoos/aquariums

campgrounds

fairs. our county fairground got razed a decade ago because there just werent enough people showing up to justify the expense. so no more fairs. you have to have people to fund things and down here there just aren’t enough people anywhere.

you get the idea. we don’t have entertainment. like i said, nothing to do but church and meth.

CLASSES FOR STUFF: knitting classes, dancing classes, driving classes? nope. gymnastics, karate dojos, golf, knitting groups, books clubs, cooking classes? [GAMESHOW BUZZER]. you can’t even hire a clown for a birthday party out here. we do have a shooting range. ONE. in the entire county. and a race track. and a rather infamous former kkk memorabilia store. they made a movie about that (serious tw for this trailer - they’ve got white hoods, burning crosses, pepper spray, the whole nine), which, yes, takes place in laurens, aka right next door to me. i used to walk by that place all the time when i was playing pokemon go. haven’t seen the movie but the shooting locations in the trailer make laurens look a lot bigger and prettier than it really is in real life - especially the racetrack, which, in the trailer, is actually PAVED. (this is inaccurate to real life.)

EDUCATION: lots of people can’t read. we have two schools for illiterate adults, one religious college, and one branch of one of the state colleges that has a skeleton staff and a fuck ton of computers (you basically just go there to distance learn/e-learn - if you want to take real classes from this college, you have to drive at least an hour.)

support groups/group therapy: almost none. we have al-anon and weight watchers, but that’s about it. there’s only half a dozen therapists in my entire county, and none that operate from my town. mental healthcare down here is bullshit.

on food: we don’t have many sit-down restaurants, where servers bring you your menu and your food. if you don’t count waffle houses, my town has 4. my county has 9. in and out, 5 guys, applebees, ruby tuesday, red lobster, olive garden, panda epxress? forget it. those places were and still are rare treats. i’ve only been to an olive garden twice. red lobster once. whenever i leave my county i BEG for chinese because there’s only two chinese restaurants in our entire county and one of them is crazy expensive and the other one sucks. 

we also don’t have the more important stores you need to like, live. if we need to exchange our router at a charter store? yeah, we don’t have one. need to visit the sprint store to get your phone repaired? nuh-uh, we don’t have any phone stores either. my family recently switched to at&t because it was the only company that had a physical location in our county. before that, we had to drive an hour for even the smallest repair.

on a grimer note: we don’t have homeless shelters! homeless in laurens county? too bad for you. we do have homeless PEOPLE. they just have nowhere to go except the churches

hospitals? only kind of. like i said, our county has one, but it’s not equipped to take seriously sick people. when my mom had a heart attack she had to be driven straight to greenwood, which is 45 minutes away if you’re not in an ambulance. they obviously made it faster than that, but still. that was scary. it took them a long time to get here. i had a distant relative of mine die before the ambulance made it because they were SO far out in the sticks, even further than me.

we also don’t have any specialty stores. sporting goods, gamestops, shoe stores, florists, craft stores, bookstores, best buys...forget it. if you can’t buy it at walmart, you just can’t buy it. the exceptions: my TOWN has one jewelry store, two hardware stores, and two auto repair stores. my COUNTY has three clothing stores, none of which are in my town, one place that sells used TVs, and one movie rental place. thrilling, right? i can rent a movie if i drive out of town. (i know streaming killed the rental business, but we also only had two places when i was a kid, if you counted the rental section in the grocery store.)

so, yeah. i know the term “shithole” is really loaded these days, but rural areas are just plain less developed, and often in seriously poor repair because nobody fucking uses them. there USED to be more stuff here - my mom was on a bowling league, and as a kid i had a birthday party at a skating rink - but late stage capitalism and drugs destroyed it all. people ran out of money to do things like skate and bowl and so those places closed. the south is full of empty store fronts and deserted strip malls slowly being eaten by kudzu. my brother got out of this town and whenever he winds up back here (not often) he remarks on how completely and utterly dead everything feels. “my friends who live in greenwood now think they’re all rural,” he said once. “they complain constantly about how remote it is. but they have no idea. they wouldn’t make it five minutes out here.” greenwood has its own movie theater, mall, starbucks, homeless shelter, food bank, and hospital.

so, yeah! if you were wondering what rural white southerners are so fucking mad about, that’s part of it. propaganda and xenophobia and racism has their anger directed ENTIRELY at the wrong people, but it’s hard to argue that the anger itself isn’t just a little bit justified.

difference #5: CULTURE. specifically culture around food, and the culture around the civil war. i could write an entire other essay about the culture of the church being everything because the church IS the only semblance of infrastructure we have and this is why the south is so homophobic, but we’ll skip that for now.

food: this is a quickie, because i sort of touched on it already, but there are like, almost NO vegetarian options here. there’s very limited choices of cuisine. it’s ALL waffle house and soul food. we have a lot of mexican places because we’re physically close to the mexican border, but aside from that, forget finding like indian or thai or japanese or anything like that. no sushi. forget finding a menu that has meals that are halal or kosher. there’s just. no culture here. no variety. you know? like i said, our entire county doesn’t even hit double-digits for proper sit-down restaurants.

civil war: i’m not going to go into the big stuff since i sort of covered it at the top and also this post is getting way too long, but to other white rural southerners there is legitimate baggage around the fact that my mom married a yankee and that i am half-yankee. and he’s not even a real yankee! he was born up north but raised in southern florida. (florida is weird. the further south you go geographically, the less southern you are culturally.) yet: my family makes jokes that are sometimes not jokes about this. when i drop this information in casual conversation people get that look on their faces like: ah, that explains it. it being that i am not religious and don’t laugh at racist jokes and maybe i am queer?? (strangers tend to be unsure about this last part, even when i’m wearing rainbows.) it’s because i’m half-yank! that explains everything! the xenophobia is SO strong here that white people are even xenophobic at OTHER WHITE PEOPLE. 

so in conclusion when i say the north is like another country, it’s because the people who raised me think of it like another country. and culturally! it is buck wild! the differences that there are! when i leave this town i feel like i step into fucking star trek! if you are not from the rural south, and you have never been to the rural south, please do not come here! i’ve been to a few different places now and this is definitely my least favorite one. 

[x--daughters-of-darkness--x]

9 ways you can help your favourite band

Cancelled tours mean one thing for touring musicians: no income. But you can make a real difference

9 ways to help your favourite acts

1. Keep buying tickets For small acts, this is the most direct and immediate way they can make money and it is a critical part of their income. Buy tickets in advance (rather that walk up on the night) as the venue, promoter and act will be closely monitoring sales – and shows can get pulled if ticket sales are slow. Even if the worst comes to the worst and the show is cancelled, you will be refunded. Buying tickets now is a very public display of support, especially for a band that's rescheduled its tour for November.

2. Buy merchandise from band's online stores If a band are not able to tour, their online store is a good place to show support. Rather than buying their CD or LP from a “tax-efficient” online retail behemoth, buying direct from the act means that more of the money actually goes to them. They still have fulfilment costs, but the margins in selling this way are much higher. Plus they generally have nice limited-edition items (e.g. signed or coloured vinyl) and offer good deals on bundles (e.g. album + T-shirt + ticket) that can keep the wolf from the door in the lean times.

3. Pre-order the album If your favourite act has a new album coming out later this year, check if they have pre-orders open on their website, on iTunes or other online retailers. Buying it in advance not only means that some cash is coming in, it also sends a message to the retailers that there is growing anticipation for the release. Strong pre-order numbers can see the album pushed up the pre-order charts on download stores and online retailers, resulting in extra editorial support that it might not otherwise get.

4. If they have a Bandcamp presence, buy music there Bandcamp is an enormously important platform for new acts as it lets them easily sell music downloads and merchandise items direct to fans – and they get to keep the bulk of sales income. On top of this, Bandcamp has a subscription feature that means acts can make money from fans taking out a monthly or annual subscription in exchange for access to a wealth of things like live recordings, demos, interviews, early access to shows and more. It also means acts know what money they have coming in each month and can budget accordingly.

5. If they have a crowd-funding page, fund it The ugly and painful collapse of PledgeMusic at the start of 2019 had catastrophic effects for a multitude of acts as projects they were trying to get off the ground either fell apart or their profits were wiped out. It exposed how important crowd-funding is for so many acts.

Thankfully there are many other platforms – such as Patreon, Kickstarter, Indiegogo, ArtistShare and more – offering acts ways to get much-needed money to bankroll their next record or tour. They all have targets to hit otherwise the project gets cancelled or scaled back (depending on what platform they are using) so every pledge counts. Now, more than ever, it is critical to show your support, not just for what an act has done in the past, but also what they want to do in the future.

6. Get political: campaign for better deals for acts Musicians have to do much more these days just to keep their heads above water and sometimes they are fighting against unfair systems or seemingly insurmountable odds. There are, however, schemes and bodies out there that are trying to tilt the balance back in their favour. In light of this, lobbying from fans can genuinely change things.

Take Sofar Sounds, for example, which allowed acts to play in a host’s home – a great way to get in front of new audiences. Except acts felt they were not getting paid properly. The company, seeing the groundswell in favour of the musicians and being dragged over the coals and fined by the New York Department of Labor over how it treated “ambassadors”, changed things and said it would move to give acts better payments.

Meanwhile bodies like Music Venue Trust are fighting to keep grassroots venues open. Supporting these initiatives and signing petitions is not so much digital landfill: it really can change things for the better for acts at the sharp end.

7. Treat streaming as “try before you buy” The record business has been back in recovery position in recent years (after a decade and a half of steep decline) and streaming is a huge part of its financial renaissance, making up almost half of global revenues in 2018. But this digital windfall is not always making its way down to the smaller acts. The fractions of a penny per play paid by a service like Spotify or Apple Music add up if you’re doing hundreds of millions of streams but not if your average track does 40,000 streams. Treat these streaming services as a tasting menu and a way to discover a new act; but when you find that album you can’t stop streaming, instead of hitting repeat, go and buy it from their online store or Bandcamp page.

8. Sign up to mailing lists & subscribe to channels This might sound a bit innocuous or even dull, but signing up to an act’s mailing list is one of the most supportive things you can do for them that doesn’t actually involve putting your hand in your pocket. The way social platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter work is that “organic reach” (i.e. getting in front of people without actually paying) is pretty much non-existent today and bands have to shell out to promote their own posts on the platforms that stand between them and fans.

A mailing list, however, is theirs and they own it, meaning they have a way to talk to fans that is virtually free. Also following their official profiles on Spotify and Apple Music as well as subscribing to their channel on YouTube lets the platforms know that not only are you a fan but that these acts have the kinds of fans who want to know everything about them as soon as they can. That all sends up positive messages to the algorithmic gods that decide what acts get pushed up their recommendations and when. It also means you get notified when they have new music so you won’t miss out.

9. Tell your friends That’s the joy and the power of being a fan – that compulsion to be a total evangelist for the new act you have just discovered and love. Talking about the new album on social media, posting YouTube links to the new video, telling everyone that you have bought tickets to the tour – the cumulative effect of that can be significant.

Personal recommendations are always better than someone seeing an ad as it cuts through the noise and those who see your passion will often be intrigued and play the music. Word of mouth was always the best way for acts to build a following. Now you have a loudhailer and your advocacy can be the best weapon your new favourite band will ever have. May your enthusiasm be undimmed.

[liskantope]

I’ve just reread my collection of political articles written by H. L. Mencken, in the book A Carnival of Buncombe: Writings on Politics. These articles span early 1920 to late 1936, over five presidential elections.

Below are a few of the passages I found the most interesting, as a glimpse into American political culture during this period (although Mencken is overtly snobbish and somewhat bigoted -- far from an objective observer -- and seems remarkably obtuse about some pretty obvious things).

[This turned out long-ish. For me, the most interesting passage is the last one I quoted actually, although I’m not really sure if any of my followers would be that interested in any of it and this is for my own note-keeping as much as anything else.

After living abroad for a while, I’ve become increasingly interested in what is unique about American culture and common American mentalities, and it’s interesting to see the following musing from a century ago:

It seems to me that this fear of ideas is a peculiarly democratic phenomenon, and that it is nowhere so horribly apparent as in the United States, perhaps the nearest approach to an actual democracy yet seen in the world. It was Americans who invented the curious doctrine that there is a body of doctrine in every department of thought that every good citizen is in duty bound to accept and cherish; it was Americans who invented the right-thinker. The fundamental concept, of course, was not original. The theologians embraced it centuries ago, and continue to embrace it to this day. It appeared on the political side in the Middle Ages, and survived in Russia into our time. But it is only in the United States that it has been extended to all departments of thought. It is only here that any novel idea, in any field of human relations, carries with it a burden of obnoxiousness, and is instantly challenged as mysteriously immoral by the great masses of right-thinking men. It is only here, so far as I have been able to make out, that there is a right way and a wrong way to think about the beverages one drinks with one’s meals, and the way children ought to be taught in the schools, and the manner in which foreign alliances should be negotiated, and what ought to be done about the Bolsheviki.

- from “Bayard vs. Lionheart”, July 26th, 1920

On President Harding’s inaugural address (this, like many other things, makes me wonder what Mencken would have made of Trump):

I rise to pay my small tribute to Dr. Harding. Setting aside a college professor or two and half a dozen dipsomaniacal newspaper reporters, he takes the first place in my Valhalla of literati. That is to say, he writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean-soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm (I was about to write abscess!) of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of post. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash.

- from “Gamlielese”, March 7th, 1921

At the risk of being redundant, here is Mencken’s comment on the lack of defined policy differences between the two major parties as they existed in 1923:

Both [major political parties] have lost their old vitality, all their old reality; neither, as it stands today, is anything more than a huge and clumsy machine for cadging jobs. They do not carry living principles into their successive campaigns; they simply grab up anything that seems likely to make votes. The old distinctions between them have all faded out, and are now almost indiscernible. The Democrats are just as hot for centralization as the Republicans, and just as friendly towards a protective tariff; they stand together on the money question; there is no choice between them on the question of foreign policy; they are both wet and both dry.

The only reality that remains is their division on sectional lines. In the South the morons still vote the straight Democratic ticket. But even this brand begins to wear off. We have seen Maryland and Tennessee take to the fence; we have even seen some wobbling in Virginia and Texas. The time may come, and it may be soon, when the solid South will fall to pieces. Out of the wreck, I venture to believe, a new alignment of parties will come, and it will be based, not upon outworn traditions and shibboleths, but upon genuine differences of opinion. What those differences of opinion will be I do not risk prophecying, but it would not surprise me at all if one great party advocated the inspection and control of bootleggers by rigid Federal legislation, and the other, clinging to the tattered remains of local self-government, advocated licensing them by the commune.

- from “Next Year’s Struggle”, June 11th, 1923

Mencken’s (rather lofty and prejudiced) perception of cultural differences between rural and urban America and how they play into differing attitudes towards Prohibition (the Volstead Act):

Prohibition is essentially a yokel idea. It mirrors alike the farmer’s fear of himself and his envy of city men. Unable to drink at all without making a hog of himself, he naturally hates those who can. When a city man goes on a grand drunk, the police take charge of him humanely and he is restrained from doing any great damage. The worst that happens to him is that his wife beats him and he loses his job. But when a farmer succumbs to the jug his unmilked cows burst, his hogs and chickens starve, his pastor denounces him as an atheist (or even an Episcopalian), and he is ruined. Thus he favors Prohibition, especially if he is given to heavy drinking -- first because he hopes it will protect him against himself, and secondly because it harasses his superior and enemy, the city man...

I have never encountered a genuine city man, not obviously balmy, who was in favor of Prohibition. There seems to be something in the urban mentality that rebels against such imbecilities. Perhaps the fact is to be ascribed to familiarity with the police. The yokel, seeing policemen very seldom, retains a considerable fear of them, and a high respect for the laws behind them. But the city man takes the cops lightly, and the laws with them. He has no respect for laws as such; he respects them when they are useful and plausible. Such grotesque concoctions as the Volstead Act he knows to be neither.

The yokel’s answer to this sniffishness is that the city man is a scoundrel, and ought to be kept under restraint. His opposition to Prohibition, as the hedge pastors argue, is due to a consuming love of rum. But that argument quickly runs aground on the fact that the city man, despite the Eighteenth Amendment, still has all the rum he can consume. For he is not only contumacious; he is also ingenious, and knows how to beat laws that he dislikes. So the yokels and their spiritual advisers have to fall back on the doctrine that Prohibition is ordained of God, and is hence binding upon every good citizen, regardless of his private convictions. But the city man simply laughs at that. He observes that the chief agents of revelation are Methodist bishops, and that he has heard too much balderdash from them to have any confidence in them.

- from “Real Issues at Last”, July 23rd, 1928

Commentary on Herbert Hoover’s character just before his election, as I provided it in the comments section under the (very interesting) SSC post on Hoover:

The contrast [Al Smith] makes with his opponent is really appalling. Hoover stands at the opposite pole. He is a man of sharp intelligence, well schooled and familiar with the ways of the world, and more than once, in difficult situations, he has shown a shrewd competence, but where is character ought to be there is almost a blank. He is the perfect self-seeker, pushing and unconscionable; it is hard to imagine him balking at anything to get on. His principles are so vague that even his intimates seem unable to put them into words. He is an American who came within an inch of being an Englishman, a Republican who came within an inch of being a Democrat, a dry who came within an inch of being a wet. He is what is today because it has paid him well so far, and promises to pay still better hereafter.

- from “Al in the Free State”, October 29th, 1928

Now Mencken’s attempts to predict the results of the elections of 1932, in which he demonstrates how oblivious he was to the effects of the Great Depression on public sentiment:

That Dr. Hoover will be renominated by his party next year is as nearly certain as anything human can be, and that he will be reelected at the ensuing plebiscite is highly probable.

- from “The Hoover Bust”, May 18th, 1931

Barring acts of God of a revolting and unprecedented character, Mr. Hoover is almost as sure of reelection next year as he was of election in 1928... [Mencken argues in terms of several states that Hoover might lose but won’t need anyway.]

All this should be plain to anyone able to add and subtract. It is as obvious as that 2 and 2 equal 4.

- from “Hoover in 1932″, July 27th, 1931

Right before the election, Mencken finally recognized that Hoover was going to lose but seems to emphasize almost every other complaint against Hoover (particularly his acting on the wrong side of the Prohibition question) over his failure to cure the Depression:

My guess is that the thing which really finished the right hon. gentleman was his singularly disingenuous and unconvincing dealing with Prohibition.

- from “Pre-Mortem”, October 24th, 1932

I’ll end with the passage I found maybe the most interesting. Mencken had identified as a Democrat and enthusiastically voted Democrat in 1928 and 1932 (although he didn’t support the Democratic candidates in 1920 and 1924 and loathed the legendary Democrat William Jennings Bryan). But well before the end of FDR’s first term, he had turned against the president’s new-dealing ways. Here is an excerpt from his article on the eve of FDR’s reelection:

Nevertheless, and in spite of all Hell’s angels, I shall vote for the Hon. Mr. Landon tomorrow. To a lifelong Democrat, of course, it will be something of a wrench. But it seems to me that the choice is one that genuine Democrats are almost bound to make. On the one side are all the basic principles of their party, handed down from its first days and tried over and over again in the fires of experience; on the other side is a gallimaufry of transparent quackeries, puerile in theory and dangerous in practice. To vote Democratic this year it is necessary, by an unhappy irony, to vote for a Republican. But to vote with the party is to vote for a gang of mountebacks who are no more Democrats than a turkey buzzard is to an archangel.

This exchange of principles, with the party labels unchanged, is naturally confusing, abut it is certainly not so confusing that it goes unpenetrated. Plenty of Republicans who believe sincerely in a strong Federal Government are going to vote tomorrow for the Hon. Mr. Roosevelt, and plenty of Democrats who believe sincerely in the autonomy of the States and a rigid limitation of the Federal power are going to vote, as I shall, for the Hon. Mr. Landon. Whether the shift that confronts us will be be permanent remains to be seen. But while it lasts it is manifestly very real, and those who let party loyalties blind them to its reality will be voting very foolishly.

This is particularly interesting to me because it reflects an interpretation of the history of our political parties often claimed by Democrats: “The two parties switched places.” I’ve always been a little impatient with the simplistic way this is put (although of course it’s nowhere near as bad as Republicans, including the president, who love to imply that theirs is still the party of Lincoln out of one side of their mouths while idolizing Andrew Jackson, the founder of the Democratic party, out of the other). It’s not as though the parties one day just up and decided they wanted to switch names or switch positions. Mencken himself had pointed out in the early 20′s, in one of the passages I quoted further above, that there was little differentiating the two parties at the time apart from the demographic and geographic subgroups of Americans who formed their respective bases. Moreover, the Democratic party had been displaying somewhat of a fiscally progressive streak in the past few decades, arguably starting with William Jennings Bryan in 1896. (Although to be fair, the Republican party flirted with progressivism in a very big way thanks to Theodore Roosevelt, and none of this earlier progressivism looked that much like the revolution FDR was waging anyway.)

That said, if one had to point to a single turning point in history for Democrats and Republicans which played the greatest role in directing them towards where they are today, the early 30′s with FDR’s New Deal is probably the most reasonable choice, and Mencken’s above contemporary commentary is evidence supporting this.

[acti-veg]

do you think Greta Thunberg is being exploited?

The only reason people think this is because they assume that because she’s so intelligent and has accomplished so much, someone must be feeding her lines. People said the same thing about Malala, and that’s not a coincidence. These people have absolutely no idea how intelligent and capable young women can be. I’ve met many teenagers who are just as intelligent as she is, some also on the autism spectrum, she is incredible but she is not unique in her intelligence or her determination. This assumption that someone else must be using her comes from a place of prejudice and I have absolutely no doubt about that. Look at her own words on the topic, from back in February:

“Recently I’ve seen many rumors circulating about me and enormous amounts of hate. This is no surprise to me. I know that since most people are not aware of the full meaning of the climate crisis (which is understandable since it has never been treated as a crisis) a school strike for the climate would seem very strange to people in general.

So let me make some things clear about my school strike. In may 2018 I was one of the winners in a writing competition about the environment held by Svenska Dagbladet, a Swedish newspaper. I got my article published and some people contacted me, among others was Bo Thorén from Fossil Free Dalsland. He had some kind of group with people, especially youth, who wanted to do something about the climate crisis.

I had a few phone meetings with other activists. The purpose was to come up with ideas of new projects that would bring attention to the climate crisis. Bo had a few ideas of things we could do. Everything from marches to a loose idea of some kind of a school strike (that school children would do something on the schoolyards or in the classrooms). That idea was inspired by the Parkland Students, who had refused to go to school after the school shootings.

I liked the idea of a school strike. So I developed that idea and tried to get the other young people to join me, but no one was really interested. They thought that a Swedish version of the Zero Hour march was going to have a bigger impact. So I went on planning the school strike all by myself and after that I didn’t participate in any more meetings.

When I told my parents about my plans they weren’t very fond of it. They did not support the idea of school striking and they said that if I were to do this I would have to do it completely by myself and with no support from them.

On the 20 of august I sat down outside the Swedish Parliament. I handed out fliers with a long list of facts about the climate crisis and explanations on why I was striking. The first thing I did was to post on Twitter and Instagram what I was doing and it soon went viral. Then journalists and newspapers started to come. A Swedish entrepreneur and business man active in the climate movement, Ingmar Rentzhog, was among the first to arrive. He spoke with me and took pictures that he posted on Facebook. That was the first time I had ever met or spoken with him. I had not communicated or encountered with him ever before.

Many people love to spread rumors saying that I have people ”behind me” or that I’m being ”paid” or ”used” to do what I’m doing. But there is no one ”behind” me except for myself. My parents were as far from climate activists as possible before I made them aware of the situation.

I am not part of any organization. I sometimes support and cooperate with several NGOs that work with the climate and environment. But I am absolutely independent and I only represent myself. And I do what I do completely for free, I have not received any money or any promise of future payments in any form at all. And nor has anyone linked to me or my family done so.

And of course it will stay this way. I have not met one single climate activist who is fighting for the climate for money. That idea is completely absurd. Furthermore I only travel with permission from my school and my parents pay for tickets and accommodations.

My family has written a book together about our family and how me and my sister Beata have influenced my parents way of thinking and seeing the world, especially when it comes to the climate. And about our diagnoses. That book was due to be released in May. But since there was a major disagreement with the book company, we ended up changing to a new publisher and so the book was released in august instead.

Before the book was released my parents made it clear that their possible profits from the book ”Scener ur hjärtat” will be going to 8 different charities working with environment, children with diagnoses and animal rights.

And yes, I write my own speeches. But since I know that what I say is going to reach many, many people I often ask for input. I also have a few scientists that I frequently ask for help on how to express certain complicated matters. I want everything to be absolutely correct so that I don’t spread incorrect facts, or things that can be misunderstood.

Some people mock me for my diagnosis. But Asperger is not a disease, it’s a gift. People also say that since I have Asperger I couldn’t possibly have put myself in this position. But that’s exactly why I did this. Because if I would have been ”normal” and social I would have organized myself in an organisation, or started an organisation by myself. But since I am not that good at socializing I did this instead. I was so frustrated that nothing was being done about the climate crisis and I felt like I had to do something, anything. And sometimes NOT doing things - like just sitting down outside the parliament - speaks much louder than doing things. Just like a whisper sometimes is louder than shouting.

Also there is one complaint that I ”sound and write like an adult”. And to that I can only say; don’t you think that a 16-year old can speak for herself? There’s also some people who say that I oversimplify things. For example when I say that "the climate crisis is a black and white issue”, ”we need to stop the emissions of greenhouse gases” and ”I want you to panic”. But that I only say because it’s true. Yes, the climate crisis is the most complex issue that we have ever faced and it’s going to take everything from our part to ”stop it”. But the solution is black and white; we need to stop the emissions of greenhouse gases.

Because either we limit the warming to 1,5 degrees C over pre industrial levels, or we don’t. Either we reach a tipping point where we start a chain reaction with events way beyond human control, or we don’t. Either we go on as a civilization, or we don’t. There are no gray areas when it comes to survival.

And when I say that I want you to panic I mean that we need to treat the crisis as a crisis. When your house is on fire you don’t sit down and talk about how nice you can rebuild it once you put out the fire. If your house is on fire you run outside and make sure that everyone is out while you call the fire department. That requires some level of panic.

There is one other argument that I can’t do anything about. And that is the fact that I’m ”just a child and we shouldn’t be listening to children.” But that is easily fixed - just start to listen to the rock solid science instead. Because if everyone listened to the scientists and the facts that I constantly refer to - then no one would have to listen to me or any of the other hundreds of thousands of school children on strike for the climate across the world. Then we could all go back to school.

I am just a messenger, and yet I get all this hate. I am not saying anything new, I am just saying what scientists have repeatedly said for decades. And I agree with you, I’m too young to do this. We children shouldn’t have to do this. But since almost no one is doing anything, and our very future is at risk, we feel like we have to continue.

And if you have any other concern or doubt about me, then you can listen to my TED talk in which I talk about how my interest for the climate and environment began.”