#what does it mean if you had an interaction with someone at artists alley together

[protosstar]

google what does it mean when someone travels 7 hours during a rail strike just to visit u in ur boring village for 4 days

[art]

Creator Spotlight: @jijidraws

Jiji Knight is a latina pinup illustrator. Her work is overall geared toward thick ladies and dedicated to fat positivity out of a purely selfish need to create art she wished she had seen growing up. She often features sexy and soft macabre themes on vibrant or sweet colours and takes great joy in making folx feel good about themselves with her work. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration and operates out of her very sunny hometown of Las Vegas.

Check out our interview with Jiji below!

Have you ever had an art block? If so, how did you overcome it?

Oh my gosh… I have art blocks all the time. My favorite way of overcoming it is by making fanart. Funnily enough, that’s something I don’t do in my own work anymore. But there are still IPs I return to that still bring joy to my heart. I love returning to drawing Sailor Moon like when I was in first grade. Or I’ll even look up the last fashion week and start drawing the fashion week outfits from the Paris or New York show. Stuff like that is what gets my creative juices flowing.

What medium have you always been intrigued by but would never use yourself?

Resin. Resin art is so stunning. People make the most amazing and beautiful sculptures using resin, and I don’t think I could ever bring myself to play with something so complicated. There are a lot of ways to cure it, and sometimes, it doesn’t cure properly…I already work with enough chaos as it is! I respect resin artists, but I don’t think I would ever touch it. I’ve admired it from a distance. There is an artist I follow who does these resin layer paintings. So they’ll paint a layer of resin, then cure it, and paint on top of the cured layer. They build up these amazing paintings using resin…I could never. Maybe one day!

What is one interaction you had with a fan of yours that has stuck with you over the years?

I still remember…It was my first and only Flame Con in New York. I had a fan come up to my booth. They didn’t say hello or that it was nice to meet me. They started to cry! They cried, and the first words out of their mouth were, “I’ve never seen myself in artwork before.” So, of course, I started to cry! So we were just crying across the table at each other. It was just one of the sweetest interactions, and it really sticks with me still to this day.

What is a recent creative project that you are proud of?

My latest collaboration with the artist Missupacey. We’ve been collaborating for two years now, and our last collaboration was for Midsummer Scream. It was two very cute clown girls, and I designed our T-shirt. It was one of the most fun projects we’ve done in a long time. We love doing collaborative work because it keeps working in the art industry fresh—being able to bounce ideas back and forth. So we do it where someone picks the color palette, and someone picks a theme. We’ll get references together, put them on a big board, and send each other sketches. It’s really nice to work with somebody else.

How has technology changed the way you approach your work?

Honestly, it changed everything. I mean, I used to draw for myself a lot. And while I still do that, I now predominantly draw for my Patrons. For a while, I was drawing for the internet. So I was drawing stuff people wanted to see in terms of plus-sized versions of characters—a plus-sized Poison Ivy or a plus-sized Sailor Moon. My Patrons have allowed me to start drawing for myself again. But technology, for a while, essentially dominated what direction I was taking with my art, so I’m grateful to take some of that power back.

If there is one thing that you want art enthusiasts to remember you by, what would it be?

Body positivity. I would love for them to remember that there is an artist making work that is making people feel good about themselves and about the way they look at themselves.

Top tips on setting up an Artist Alley booth?

Have a method of taking money, have a method of displaying your work, and have a way to take a break. I have a plastic picnic cover that costs like a dollar at any store. All I have to do is clip it to my display grates, and it covers up my entire display. I feel secure enough to take time for myself in a 10-hour workday to eat something, go to the restroom, or even take a moment to breathe and reorganize my inventory. So it’s so funny that this one-dollar piece of plastic is like the most life-saving item in my display of items.

Who on Tumblr inspires you and why?

@mayakern comes to mind. She is another body-positive artist who expanded into making body-positive clothing. She’s amazing, and just to see someone else out there promoting body positivity. Maya’s been doing it longer than I have, I believe. It feels good to know that I’m not alone. Her work is always stunning, and I love her body-positive DnD characters and the fact that she’s still plowing through the clothing industry. For example, she’s expanded from skirts to button-downs and even custom-wrap shirts. I love to see what she’s doing, and it inspires me to pursue different avenues with my own work.

Thank you so much for stopping by and sharing, Jiji! Be sure to check out their Tumblr blog over at @jijidraws.

[staticscreenwriting]

California Summer - B.H. Smut [one]

Synopsis: Kings Cove California is Billy Hargrove’s hometown. It’s also a popular summer vacation destination for rich couples and their spoiled kids. (Y/N) is one of those rich girls. Proper, sweet, innocent. Only that all bores her to death and Billy is just the adventure she’s been looking for. It’s all fun and games. A summer fling. Not strings attached. Right? 

Inspired by the songs “dreaming of you” and “Kiss it off me” by Cigarettes After Sex.

 A/N: This is smut, babes. Filthy. I will sit in the shame cube after I post it. Please if that is not fore you, don’t read it. Also do not interact if you’re under 18, that’s just not cool. Kay, thanks ♥

Might fuck around and make this a series.

[additional note: I am German. Sometimes I get the tense wrong or make mistakes. I am useless when it comes to punctuation. Go easy on me, please.]

There’s something about California summers, Billy thinks, thank makes them special. They’re hot and sticky and messy but they’re also exciting and exhilarating. The world seems to be dusted in a perpetual golden glow and days seem endless and full of possibility.

Maybe that sentiment is what brings all the tourists to the little coastal town of Kings Cove, California. A town caught between the undeniable charm of an old sleepy coastal town and the ever-expanding demand for tourist-friendly beach houses in gated communities where rich people can relish in the charm the town brings and then piss off once their vacation days are over.

Billy was born here, raised here until he was 17 and shipped off to forge his path in shitville Indiana. He was miserable then, but a shadow of himself. Angry and sad and overwhelmed by emotions he never learned to properly deal with. Singers and artists always seem to find something poetic about being young and angry and lost. Truth is: there’s nothing poetic about it, nothing romantic or desirable. It’s hard and it kills you slowly. Starting with your heart and then taking over every part of you, slowly but surely.

Soon as he turned 18 and was handed his High School diploma, Billy packed all his belongings into the Camaro and was off. The drive back to California, back home, it felt cleansing. Like a rebirth. A return to life at his own terms.

He got out. He survived. This, Billy is sure, he would always pride himself with no matter how trivial it may seem to anyone else. He got out. Not completely whole. Severely bruised. He got out with a heart so scared he’s sceptical it will ever fully heal. But he got out.

Though coming home didn’t come without its hardships and obstacles. There was nothing waiting for him here but a bunch of questions and an uncertain future. Finding a job, a place to stay, a point from which to start — it was hard. It still is hard. But he’s trying his best.

Kings Cove has a handful of restaurants, some convenience stores, a gym, a few bars, a drive-in, a normal cinema and a bowling alley. It’s really nothing spectacular and yet it seems there’s more and more tourist making it their temporary home in the months between May and September. It started about 5 years ago, that the town started changing with the increase in tourism. They bulldozed the playground Billy always played at, the one closest to the beach and built a bunch of fancy-ass houses and condos and a fucking Starbucks. It pains him to see it. To watch the town he loves so much, the one that holds so much charm, turn into a sandbox for rich people to shape and turn and make it something it isn’t. Something empty and lifeless.

The good thing about those tourists though, is that they are really really rich. Absolutely filthy rich. The kind of rich where they don’t know what to do with their money so you can charge them insane prices for ordinary things.

And that’s what the locals have started doing. A scoop of ice cream used to be 30ct, now it’s a dollar. You gotta bend with the world. You gotta adapt. Surviving means changing even if it sucks ass.

When he first arrived back, Billy had no idea how to navigate this place with all its changes. He felt so god damn out of place in his own home. That’s until he reconnected with Johnny, an old friend from middle school. A kid who grew up in a home filled with anger and sadness just as Billy did. Someone who understood. Someone who understands.

Johnny had it all figured out, adapted and changed. Got Billy a job at the maintenance business he works at. Fixing rain gutters and mowing lawns and cleaning driftwood off the sections of private beach belonging to the beach houses. It’s not the greatest job in the world but it’s alright and it pays good money and sometimes Billy even gets to hang out at the houses when the rich people are out taking surf lessons or doing a wine tasting a town over or try their luck on a god damn banana boat.

Kings Cove is small and the locals know each other. They’re a community tightly bonded through their shared disdain for the change their beloved town went through and the knowledge that though they can’t change anything, they can at least make the vacationers pay big money for everything.

It’s his second summer now and most of the families whose houses he tends to he’s already familiar with. You don’t forget the people who tip you 50 bucks each time. On Mondays, Billy cares for the Millers’ backyard. On Wednesday he makes sure the Callaghans’ pool is clean and still stinks of way too much chlorine. On Thursdays, it’s the Franklins’ estate that needs tending to. And weekends? Those are off.

Weekends mean he gets to enjoy the California summer himself. He goes out to the beach just after sunrise, to catch a few waves or just hang out in the ocean and let it wash away the stress resting on his shoulders from a whole week of hard work. Later, much later, when the sun is about to set, the real fun begins. There’s a bonfire almost every week. No one is ever quite sure who starts it and no official invitations are ever spoken though everyone knows and sure enough, every Saturday a crowd of young people gather by the driftwood pile and hang out and drink and dance as the bonfire crackles on.

It’s not just locals either. There’s always a few stray tourists there. Billy isn’t really all that interested in getting to know them. This is just a blip on their radar. A temporary adventure. But to him this place is home and he’s so fucking tired of these rich kids coming around and acting like they own the place. He’s the first to admit though, that the girls are quite hot and he doesn’t mind a little fling here and there without the fear of having them want anything permanent, knowing their time together comes with an expiry date. They can be quite fun and they’re so willing to let themselves fall into an intimate adventure with a local.

There’s no chase, no effort from him. The only annoying thing is they usually don’t grasp the idea of a summer fling and get clingy to the point where it becomes frustrating.

It’s a bonfire like any other, when his eyes drift across the beach, filled with people mingling all clutching a bottle or a cup. Nothing feels different or spectacular or special. But maybe that’s the thing about special moments — we don’t realise they’re special until we look at them in retrospect. And then they mean everything.

His eyes meet hers across the way. There are no fireworks. His heart beats at a normal rate. Whatever the movies and the songs try to sell you, that’s not how it really happens. Your world won’t shift and there will be no hummingbirds going wild in your stomach. It’s just a glance, a flicker. A moment that seems to hold no significance at all.

Billy can tell she’s not from here. Her outfit says it all. She’s wearing a long flowy skirt and a white tank top and some denim jacket over it that looks like it probably belongs to some boy with a trust fund and a name like Kyle or Charles. In her hair, there’s a clip with a fake flower on it. She looks expensive and fancy and like a piece of work that he’s not willing to put any effort in. He bets the guy beside her, the one that keeps playing with her hair. The one in the polo shirt. That’s probably her boy. His dad owns a boat for sure and probably fucks his secretary.

And even though he pulls his eyes away, he can feel his thoughts drift back towards her. As if some magnetic force tries to keep his mind there, with her. On the way she smiles, or how the wind blows through her hair and makes them looks messy and disorderly and — hot. On how he wants to be the one making a mess of her. He wonders what she feels like, tastes like, sounds like. Even Billy can’t deny he wants her. She’s just his type though something tells him she’s different from his other flings. There’s something deeper in her eyes. A secret he wants to unravel. It’s hidden there and it’s screaming out to him and only him.

As he turns back towards her, he sees her looks straight back at him. With those eyes full of secrets and that smirk on her lips.

Maybe his heart does beat a little faster then. Though he’ll never admit it.

That night he goes to bed and dreams of her and the beach and California.

California summers come with heat but they also come with thunderous storms. Mighty and unforgiving and rough.

Billy makes his way down the roads of Kings Cove, windshield wipers just about dealing with the heavy rainfall as it drums down onto his car window.

“ It’s the wrath of all women scorned and mistreated “ his mother used to say when he was younger and a storm washed over them. He always thought that was silly. Women aren’t thunderstorms, they’re April showers. They’re sunshine on your skin. They’re dewdrops on the lawn.

It’s so dull and gloomy he almost doesn’t see her. Only the peach coloured baseball cap makes her stand out against the grey. She’s slowly walking along the side of the road, unbothered by the downpour. Casual and relaxed as if she’s not getting soaked right this moment. There’s a Slurpee in her hand, blue raspberry.

He wants to drive past and no let himself be bothered with it. This, she, it’s not a mess he needs to get involved in. This can only end in a disaster. Rich boys don’t like you picking up their girlfriends. Rich boys also don’t like you lusting after their girlfriends. And rich boys who see you as a threat can get your ass fired real fucking quick.

And yet he pulls up to the curb and rolls down the window. “ Do you need a ride? “.

She smiles at him, the same way she did that night at the beach in the glow of the bonfire. Her lips are cherry red and for a second he wonders what they taste like. It’s like a primal desire, to taste her. To have her. God, he’s such a guy.

“ Need? No. I’d like one though.”

It’s the first time he hears her voice. It sounds so proper, so innocent. And yet there’s an edge to it. She’s all riddles and mysteries and things he wants to unpack and unravel. Something tells him all the red and the ribbons are only the outermost layer of who she really is. And wouldn’t he like to see more of her?!

“ Get in then,” he instructs with the nudge of his head. A gust of wind follows her as she opens the door and slides into the car. She smells of sunscreen and salt and artificial raspberry flavour. She smells like summer.

“ I’m Billy. “

“ I know. “

That catches him off guard. Sure he knows the locals and some of the kids whose parents he works for but that’s about it. He’s not nearly as prolific as he used to be in Hawkins. He’s a bit more mellow now if he can say so himself.

“ And you are?”

“ (Y/N). (Y/N) (Y/L/N). You tend to our beach house on Tuesdays. I saw you clean our pool the other day”.

That’s news to him. The fact that the (Y/L/N)s have a daughter. He thought it was only her parents alone in that big house in some attempt to rekindle the fire of their marriage. Last year it was only them two, he could swear.

“ Is that so? I could’ve sworn it was just your parents in that house. “

“ Was just them last year, I was in New York City last summer. This time they decided to bring me. Let me enjoy the California sun. “

“ So you enjoying it? “

“ Verdict is still out but I quite like the view yeah. “

The teasing edge in her voice does not get lost on him. If Billy Hargrove is good at one thing, it’s realising when a girl is flirting with him.

“ You watching me then? What does your little boyfriend think about that, huh?”

“ Boyfriend? “ she sounds almost offended at those words, spits it with a certain malice that takes Billy by surprise. “ You mean Dawson? “

Dawson. Of course, that’s his name. Fucking Dawson. Dawson with the swoopy hair and the polo shirt. Dawson with the trust fund. Dawson with the DUI and the state attorney dad. Dawson with the scholarship.

“ Dunno his name.”

“ He’s not my boyfriend. He’s a friend that’s a boy that thinks if he waves around his money I’ll spread my legs for him. As if I don’t have my own money. It’s so unsexy it makes my pussy dry as the Serengeti.”

Billy has to stop himself from pushing the brakes too hard. It’s not something he has expected her to say. Not this outright at least. Something about her brashness and her honesty is truly charming though. It’s endearing for sure.

“ Wearing his jacket though, poor guy thinks he’ll score soon enough.”

“ Eh. Maybe I’ll let him. I’m getting a bit bored. If nothing better comes along— “ she says it casually and shrugs her shoulders but Billy swears there’s an open end to that sentence. Almost like an invitation.

“ Hope pretty boy does it for you then. So — where to? “

She faces him, peach baseball cap on her head and cherry smile on her lips. “ See, the thing is that my parents aren’t home right now and I don’t have a key so … “

“ So...? “

“ Just wanna hang somewhere until they get home tonight. Maybe somewhere dry? “

Everything in him screams at him not to do it. Not to get tangled up in this. He knows, god he knows, this is a bad idea and yet he says it anyway.

“ Do you wanna chill at my place? “

She bites her lips then takes another sip from her Slurpee. “ Yeah, sounds good to me.”

God Billy, you are such a dumbass.

Billy’s apartment is small but he feels more at home here than he ever did in any house he shared with his father.

There’s an open kitchen/living room area, a bathroom and his bedroom. It’s not much but it’s his and that makes all the difference.

“ Well uh — this is my place. “

He almost expects to see some kind of disdain on her face, disappointment too maybe. She’s used to big fancy houses with white shutters and stucco ceilings. Though when he turns to look at her there’s none of it. Just curiosity. No judgment. Not even a tiny spark. Not even at all.

“ It’s nice. Do you uh — I’m soaked. Do you have a shirt or something you could give me?”

It’s now, that he lets his eyes travel down her body, and notices her shirt clinging to her body. She’s not wearing a bra and it’s painfully obvious and he swears he dies in that moment. There’s only so much a guy’s heart can take.

“ Uh. I — mmh.”

As if his body works on autopilot, Billy hurries towards his bedroom and rummages through his closet until he finds a shirt that’s even baggy on him and will surely work for her. God, seeing her in his clothes is gonna give him another little heart attack.

“ Here you g — “ she’s naked. Not completely but her shirt and jeans are gone and all she’s in is a pair of red underwear and no bra and some socks and that damn peach baseball hat.

“ Huh? you never seen a pair of tits before? “

“ No, I have. “

“ Good. “

“ Yeah. Here “

She smirks as Billy hands her the shirt, doesn’t break eye contact. Not even once and she slips if over her head and almost drowns in the fabric. It reaches down to mid-thigh and she looks glorious. Wet hair clinging to her skin, shirt covering everything but just barely. Bily is usually suave and charming and smooth. Why not now? Why not with her? What is it about this girl that she plays his games better than he does it himself.

“ You want something to eat? “

What the fuck, Billy. There’s a half-naked girl in your kitchen and you’re asking her if she wants food? What is going on?!

“ Sure, what’ve you got? “

“ Lemme see — “ Billy says and turns towards the kitchen cabinets and (Y/N) slides up and sits down on the island. Her ass must be flush on the counter and Billy has to stop himself from following that thought any further because that would result in a serious hard-on right now.

“ So I got some Nachos aaand — “ he says and squats down to open a lower cabinet, “ I think there’s guacamole somewh— “

A soft thump interrupts him and, as he realises what’s caused the sound, his heart drops straight down into his pants and his whole body goes hot. Like his entire system is going haywire.

His hand reaches out to take the flimsy red fabric into his hand. Her underwear. This has crossed flirting long ago. This is an obvious invitation and if this was any other girl or any other situation he’d already be balls deep inside her so why not now?

As Billy turns to look at her, the teasing smirk is back, her eyebrow is raised in a way that tells him she’s challenging his next move, and the secrets are back sparkling in her eyes.

“ Oops “ she says though he can tell she’s all but sorry.

“ What are you doing? You have a boyfriend. “

“ Uuuugh ”  (Y/N) moans in annoyance, “ I told you, he’s not my boyfriend. He’s just a boy who doesn’t get it. I have a lot of boys in a lot of cities who all do not get it. They think because they’re rich and their parents have influence, everyone has to do as they wish. They’re not used to not getting what they want and I like to see ‘em get pissy once they realise they can’t have me. Billy those guys — they are so boring. So dull and if I have to listen to one more lecture about politics or their scholarship or how their daddy helped finance the university’s library I am going to off myself. “

“ So what role do I play in this game? You’re just a rich girl who’s bored with her suitors then, huh? What am I ? “

“ Exciting. You are different. You are you, no ifs or buts. You are your own person not a clone of your wealthy father and his even wealthier father. You are exciting and so. fucking. hot. “

Billy doesn’t notice it happening but suddenly he’s so close he can feel her breath on his skin. She’ so close. So close. All he has to do is reach out and grab her. Touch her. Kiss her. Taste her.

“ Fuck me.”

“ You sure? “ he murmurs, voice low and deep and soothing. “That’s all this is gonna be. Sex and fun and nothing serious. “

“ Just fun. No strings. I’ll leave at the end of the summer anyway. Until then we can — explore. “

“ Explore? “

“ Mmh. There’s so much we can do.“

“ Sounds good to me. “

Billy doesn’t give her time to reply before his lips descend on hers. She doesn’t taste like cherries or chapstick or sugar. She tastes cold and like fake raspberry slushy. Billy thinks it’s his favourite flavour now.

His hands wander up and down her sides and hers get tangled in his curls, combing through his hair and tugging slightly. She’s breathing deep, quick breaths as his lips make their way across her neck and down towards her boobs. He bunches the shirt up and pulls it over her head leaving her naked on his kitchen counter. She’s absolutely fucking breathtaking and his jeans are getting awfully tight around the front.

“ You’re so hot “ he murmurs against her skin as he buries his head in the crook of her neck. Her skin is flushed and there’s a cute red tint to her cheeks. Maybe he was wrong about it on all accounts. Maybe she’s not as innocent as he has first thought.

Her fingers slip down his body and straight into the front of his jeans, grabbing his dick and squeezing his hard on softly. Yeah, she’s definitely not as innocent as he had first thought.

It’s a clash of teeth and a tongues and a lot of saliva. This is messy and raw and rough and he feels like he’s died and gone straight to heaven. With every second, his lips wander a little further down her hot skin, placing kisses one every inch he can reach until he’s kneeling in front of her. Her eyes lock on his as she spreads her legs further letting him see just what he’s been lusting after since the first moment he’s laid eyes on her. He feels like a man starving being presented with an all you can eat buffet.

Their eyes lock as his lips kiss the spot where her abdomen meet her thighs. It’s not where she wants him but it’s enough to make her go fuzzy in the head.

“ I’ll make you forget about all those rich fuckboys, baby.”

And he does. God, he does. As soon as he licks at her clit she can’t recall a single name of any other boy she’s ever met. He devours her like he was born to do nothing but eat a girl out. There’s kisses followed by kitten licks followed by more kisses. It’s driving her crazy, the way he flicks his tongue.

(Y/N) lifts her leg to rest on his shoulder as her hand reaches down burying herself in his hair. The way she tugs, the slight pangs of pain, it’s delicious. Billy can’t get enough of it. He adds a finger, then two, slowly in and out, the faster, then even faster. He knows she’s close by the way she throws her head back, bites her lips. Her lipstick is everywhere, her hair clings to her skin now from sweat instead of rain. She’s a mess and he’s so proud of getting her to this point. He further spreads her lips, lapping up the wetness, sucking at her clit, making her come undone right there on his kitchen counter.

The moans that fall off of her lips are almost pornographic, he wonders if her parents know the kind of activities she gets up to when they’re away. He bets they don’t. She’s a princess at home. Nice and proper. A princess who spends her free time getting fucked by their poolboy.

Billy pulls away at the last minute which (Y/N) really doesn’t enjoy. She pouts at him, gives him a sound of pure dismay. “ Why did you stop? “ she questions, voice breathy, almost incoherent.

“ Cause I wanna feel you cum when I fuck you. “

He’s not usually this bold and brash. Girls like lovely words. They like soft voices and hushed whispers and for boys to say nice things during sex. Not her. She wants the dirt and the mess and the honesty.

(Y/N)’s hand finds its way back to his crotch, pulling down the zipper of his jeans and freeing his solid boner.

“ No boxers? “ there’s a glimmer of mischief playing in her eyes.

“ You complaining? “

“ Fuck no. I’d suck you off but I want you inside me — like right now. “

Billy only nods, before fumbling a condom from his wallet and pulling it down his cock. He shares her sentiment. All he wants to be right now, is inside her.

Rough hands grab her hips and turn her around before pushing her down. Her boobs as flush against the counter, ass on full display. She’s a sight for sore eyes. A masterpiece.

Billy can’t keep his hands off her ass. He has to grab a handful, squeeze it, caress it. There’s boob guys and butt guys and then there are guys like Billy who know that both those features are mutually phenomenal and to limit yourself by choosing one or the other is a move only a fool would make and he ain’t no fool.

Billy lines himself up at her slit. He can’t wait to feel her around him, wet and warm and throbbing and —

“ What are you waiting for? “ she grunts, impatience clear in her voice and she tries to wiggle her ass closer to him.

“ Patience, baby.” Billy instructs as he grabs onto her hips and pulls her even closer. Her skin is so soft, so perfect. There’s a primal desire in leaving his marks of passion there so he leans over and places little love bites on her shoulder. They’ll be easy for her to cover up with a shirt but he’ll know they are there and that’s all that matters to him.

Slowly, painfully slowly, he trails his erection up and down her entrance, coating it in her arousal. He’s really not looking forward to clean this mess later on but right now it’s damn worth it by the way she’s trembling and wiggling underneath him, desperate for some stimulation.

“ Patience is not a word I know, sorry “ she’s so god damn desperate it almost makes him cum before he even gets a fuck in.

“ Yeah me neither. “

With those words he sinks into her and it feels heavenly. Engulfed by her warmth, her wetness, her passion. Quite frankly, he’s convinced, there’s no better place to be in the entire world, than buried in the pussy of a pretty girl.

Billy moves his hips slowly, deliberately, set a rhythm and a pace. He watches his cock disappear inside of her then slide back out in a delicious cadency as he dings his fingers into her hips, surely leaving bruises.

The moans tumbling from her lips are almost pornographic though he can tell they’re real and honest. There’s no reason for her to fake anything. He’s pretty sure she’d set him straight if he was doing something wrong.

“ more. “ she gasps, breath hitching as she pushes back against him, taking him even deeper. This girl is a dream if he’s ever seen one.

Billy speeds up his movements, slamming into her at a faster pace, pounding her against the counter. The air is hot and both of them are so sweaty and the room smells of sex and salty ocean air. God, he loves California summers and pretty girls.

There’s a fire lit in his lower abdomen as she whimpers and arches her back off of the counter. Billy lifts one hand off of her hips and grabs onto her front, caressing her soft tits and pulling her upright so her back is flush against his chest. The sheen of sweat covering them makes it hard to figure out where one of them ends and the other begins. Right then, they are one. Her peach colored baseball cap falls off of her head and onto the floor, where the rest of their clothes lie discarded.

His hand desperately moves across her chest, squeezing and teasing and trailing fingers around her nipples, hard from arousal.

“ Oh fuck yes. “

The confirmation that he’s doing something right, that he’s making her feel good, makes Billy’s ego grow 3 sizes. He’s such a sucker for validation.

He snaps his hips faster, harder, tries to go deeper. His hand grabs onto her thigh and lifts it up so her knee is resting on the counter letting him fuck her at a whole new angle.

At the way she cries out in ecstasy he knows he’S doing something extremely right. “God, right there. “ she almost sobs. Billy’s sure she’s biting her lip so hard it must be close to drawing blood.

Billy buries his head in her messy hair, softly traces kisses and love bites up and down her neck, tugs on her earlobe with his teeth. “ Yeah? Your pussy is a dream, baby. A fucking dream.” he grunts, voice laced with lust.

“ I’m gonna cum, Billy. “

He can tell, by the way she trembles, clenches around him. By the way her breathing hitches. And he’s right there with her.

There’s a fire pulsing through him, shockwaves rippling. It bubbles in his abdomen then boils over. With every snap of his hips the movements get more arrhythmic, messy, uncoordinated, desperate

A bunch of expletives fall from her lips but Billy can hardly make them out as his own orgasm washes over him. It feels like time slows and every sound disappeared into a white static. Nothing matters then but to chase that high and catch it and get some sweet release.

Billy feels her cum around him, squeezing him tightly in the process. The way she moans his name, as if it’s both a secret and a confession to himself and the world, that’s what does it for him.

Grabbing her hips with both hands, he holds her in place, before pounding into her with a few last uncoordinated hard thrusts. And then his vision goes black for a moment and his brain stops functioning as he cums into the condom.

For a moment there’s no sound but them trying to catch their breath as they slump down against the counter, spent from the activities. Sweaty, filthy, messy. But oh so satisfied and content.

Billy pulls out of her and for a second he misses her warm and tight around him. Like he was meant to stay there forever. Fuck, he’s such a guy.

Another heartbeat passes and (Y/N) lets out a melodic but breathless giggle. “ I could go for some Nachos and Guac right now. “

This girl is really something else.

They devour the snacks while lazing on his couch. Naked as they came to this earth, unbothered. Maybe this is what makes him go so absolutely feral about her, the fact that she’s so uncomplicated. Yeah she comes with all kinds of warning signs and bad news for him but being with her like this it’s so easy. Like they’ve been some kinds of friends for a long time.

Their bodies are always touching in one way or another. As if they can’t get enough. Billy’s sitting on the couch, feet resting on the coffee table while her legs are places on his lap, cigarette dangling from her fingers. The air is sticky and humid and even the late afternoon breeze doesn’t bring any cooling-off.

As his eyes fall onto the clock on the wall, Billy lets out a frustrated grunt. “ Fuck.”

“ What’s the matter?”

“ I’m supposed to meet my friend Johnny at the gym in about 10 minutes. Totally forgot about it. “

“ Do you have to go? “

“ I really should. “

“ You’ve had quite the workout today though. “

Billy scoffs a laugh at her words before plucking the cigarette from her fingers and taking a drag. He lets the smoke sit in his chest for a moment, hoping to capture even a bit of the warmth he felt when buried balls deep inside her cunt.

It doesn’t work.

“ He’s waiting for me. “

“ Aw, that’s too bad. “ she says grabs the cigarette back and, after one last drag, then stubs it out in the ashtray resting on the coffee table. “ I was just about to ask for a round two. Guess I’ll have to do it by myself then. That’s fine. “

Her fingers trail down her body, teasing her nipples before descending towards her slit. She slowly circles her clit. Billy is honesty sure she’ll be the death of him. This girl is so sweet yet so dirty and he’s not sure he’s ever met someone like her.

“ You gonna sit there and finger yourself on my couch ? “

“ You gonna sit there and watch and not join in? Come on Billy, I can give you quite the workout. No gym necessary. Do I have to beg? “

Yes. God he wants to hear her beg but that makes him feel a bit — uneasy. He doesn’t want her to think he doesn’t want this just as much as she does. Maybe they can leave the begging for another day.

“ You’re insatiable, huh? “ he asks as he settles himself on top of her, lips colliding with hers ina fiery kiss.

(Y/N) just nods, a satisfied moan slipping from her lips as his fingers nudge her hand away and replace them softly trailing up and down her slit, slipping inside every once in a while.

“ What can I say? It’s a bad habit I just can’t seem to quit.”

Maybe this is a really bad idea. Maybe he’s getting himself into more trouble than he needs right now. But the way she feels and sounds and taste make it worth it.

As the sun sets upon the horizon and the summer storm has long passed on to another coastal town, Billy thinks that it’s so worth it if only he can feel like this for the rest of the summer.

There’s really nothing quite like a California summer and a pretty girl with a dirty mind.

[greenninjagal-blog]

Waterspout

 (whoops a spiderverse au)

Summary: Virgil finds himself stuck on the side of a building with an impending storm overhead and he’s helped by an annoying--admittedly attractive--guy.

Totally inspired by @sugarglider9603 ‘s Spiderverse Universe though I took a different spin with it. 

Ship: Prinxiety

Warnings: mild language because Virgil.

Words: 4075

Virgil doesn’t even notice the breeze had picked up until he’s suddenly yanked in the wrong direction as useless as a puppet on a string. He has a total of one second to think the usual “Oh shi--” before his body slams into the sleek surface of an office building some twenty-thirty-forty stories into the air. The air in his chest splutters out, and his shoulder does this weird pop-pop thing that he’s sure its not supposed to do. His hands open on reflex and his web escapes his fingers in his panic-- a panic that nearly swallows him whole because he knew how high he was, and it had taken weeks to get the dropping of his stomach every time he left the solid ground. He scratches at the glass of the window before he manages to get his fingers to stick and stay stuck along with his left knee and his right foot. 

Then when he can, he worries about inhaling. Then he worries about everything else. 

Like the fact that he was a dizzying height in the air, which by the way, was tormented by a series of unexpected cold fronts. He doesn’t remember the forecast saying anything about rain, but the clouds are gathering and the thunder isn’t that much farther behind. The chill of the atmosphere crawls into Virgil’s suit, along with the flecks of teeny tiny suggestions of rain. 

He lets out a curse (on the wind, on the height, on himself).

Okay, let’s start from the beginning: Virgil was an artistic introverted emo. A year ago he was bitten by a radioactive spider-- because honestly that’s just his luck-- and received epic superpowers that he really, really didn’t ask for. Since then, he’s been the one and only Recluse: a spider themed superhero/vigilante who does his best to save the normal people from the baddier people.

The rain starts several seconds later because the universe also hates him. The rain starts, and Virgil guesses he has about five minutes before the window he’s clinging to-- his only available perch-- becomes a slip-n-slide to his death. 

For someone who has a spider sense that tells him when giant rocks, knives, or bullets are coming for him, Virgil feels like he was truly blindsided. By something as finicky as the freaking weather. 

He hisses in pain as he tries to move his arm, the arm that had caught his entire body when he splattered on the window like some cartoon. Oh yeah, it hurt a lot, enough that his entire breath has to hiss out between his teeth and his bottom lip, and he’s pretty sure it shouldn’t be making that Pop-pop-popping sound when he tries to roll it. Spikes of pain shoot straight from his limb to the back of his eyes. 

The rain picks up slowly: fatter, heavier drops, colder chills, sharper winds that slice around his body trying its best to unstick him from his purchase.  

The truth of the situation hits him seconds later: there’s exactly no way he’s going to be able to swing out of here, not with his shoulder crying uncle at the thought of moving and the wind cutting the air in odd unpredictable sections. He’d have better luck trying to plaster his entire body against this window or another of the others and hope the water doesn’t wash him away. 

(because until the popular nursery rhyme, Virgil was pretty sure if he got washed away Officer Dee would be finding his broken body on the roof of some poor saps car. There would be no sitting up from that, much less climbing back up here.)

Suddenly Virgil’s mask feels too tight, his limbs not strong enough, and his heart is beating far too fast. He knew becoming a superhero was a bad idea. Why did he do this? Dee had spent so long telling him all about how Recluse was “just a kid” who was “going to get himself killed one day”. It figured that he would be right about that--this. Virgil is going to get himself killed and he can’t even remember the last thing he said to Dee (though it was probably something along the lines of “I promise I’m not going to go graffiti the old subway station alleys again.”).

He’s so caught up in what he might have, or might not have said, and what his last words were going to be it takes him a moment to realize there’s another noise striking his senses. Really was this spidersense useful for anything--

The window next to him suddenly flicks open, despite the rain that was definitely pouring in. Virgil isn’t sure what to do when a head bravely sticks out into the open air. 

“Hail!” The boy says all smug smiles that Virgil immediately loves hates. “You’re Recluse aren’t you?”

As if there was some other spider themed weirdo who clung to buildings in their free time.

“No,” Virgil says, because he can. What, the citizens of this town have had a year to know him, and they all knew his dislike of social interaction. (They did not know it was because his anxiety flared up, reminding him of how obvious it was that Virgil was Recluse already.)

The boy laughed. He folded his arms on the window sill, completely oblivious to the pouring rain that was matting his brown hair to his face and the spouts that were sure to be getting into his office. “Alright, alright. I guess I deserved that one. Can I ask a question?”

“You just did.” 

The boy’s eyes narrow, his lips pursed together in a way that’s more comical than anything else. If Virgil had to venture a guess, he’d assume that this guy is his age, which does little to explain why he’s some forty floors up on a building Virgil is pretty sure is owned by the government.

“Wow the news was right about you being a smartass.” The boy says, “I was just wondering why you wear a sweatshirt over your suit. It really can’t be practical, and it looks terrible.”

Virgil takes back anything nice he’s thought about this guy. “Excuse me?” 

“What?” He responds as if he can’t believe Virgil would be annoyed at him, “You have a whole edgy look about it! A hero can’t be edgy!”

“Yes they can!”

“Name one!” 

“Batman!”

“Name two!”

Virgil shakes his head, rolling his eyes though the other can’t see at all.  Flicks of water splatter off him, for all the good it does. He can feel his hands starting to tire from holding him up, and the water is slipping between his foot and the glass.

“Why do you care what I wear?” He snaps, “Shouldn’t you be asking why I’m just hanging out up here?”

The boy raises his eye brows as if the idea never occurred to him. He glances back in the office and then back out, with a mischievous smile “I don’t see an issue with you out here. I mean I got a great view through the window over. Anyone ever tell you, you’ve got great calves?”

Virgil unsticks his foot to kick at him. It’s a mistake, and he knows it the second he does it (which is the only reason why this asshole doesn’t taste the rubber of Virgil’s sole). Water runs over the slick surface of the window, thunder booms, and Virgil curses as knee looses its hold and he drops--fuck--until his fingers are the only thing holding him with overextended elbows and a shoulder screaming bloody murder. 

“Oh fuck--” the boy half yells, and jumps back inside. Virgil clings to the idle hope that he’s running to get help. He’s disappointed when the window where he had been dangling flicks open and its only the boy there. He reaches out and catches Virgil’s wrists tightly, cementing them. The window howls. Somewhere not too far off lightning shoots between the clouds, and the resulting thunder shakes the building.

Or maybe that’s Virgil’s body threatening to give up on him. It would be really easy just to free fall to his death at this point. Far easier than trying to fight the agony in his shoulder. 

“Hey!” The boy yells, “Hey, come on! I can’t pull you up by myself!”

“Then don’t,” Virgil forces between his gritted teeth. The boy doesn’t hear, and Virgil isn’t sure if that’s a good thing or bad thing. He kicks against the window pushing the balls of his feet into the glass and scraping upwards in a pseudo bunny hop. 

The boy yanks his wrists at the same time, perfectly planned and yet not at all.

Virgil juts through the window, colliding face-to- chin with the boy. His rib cage scraps the window sill, and they fall to the floor in a weighty piles of limbs and soaked clothes. 

Virgil curses again, rolling off the boy, and grabbing his shoulder with a twisted expression, “shit.” Because it was definitely going to need to be looked at by a professional, and Virgil hated lying. There wasn’t a good way to explain how he fucked up his shoulder, especially when the truth would get him grounded for life (probably literally).

It takes him another moment to recognize that the boy is laughing. At him.

“What?” Virgil snaps.

“I just saved Recluse,” He says as if that was some kind of accomplishment. “That makes me a hero!”

“It really doesn’t,” he responds just to make that stupid smug smile go away. He wishes the adrenaline would fade already because he can’t think when his heart is beating this fast.

“I’m Roman,” He says offering a hand, “I figured you should know, since were fellow heroes.”

“Saving me does not make you a hero.”

“Of course it does,” Roman says disregarding his sour tone with a flick of his hand. “You save people, I saved you, therefore I saved all those people too.”

“That’s not--” Virgil sucks in a breath and counted to ten like his old guidance counselor had told him to do. He punched evil guys in the face all the time, and yet this Roman character managed to get under his skin more than anyone else. He glances around at the office they’re in-- a cubical that looked pretty standard of some pencil pusher. It reminded him of Logan’s dorm room: all neat and orderly and so, so boring. 

Minus the puddle that Virgil and Roman were creating in the center of the room. The rain pattered on the windowsill soaking some wastebasket and dripping onto the floor.

“Oh shit,” Virgil said, because he really didn’t need another reason for someone to hate him. 

Roman looked down and then shrugged off the water. “whoops!” He grinned, getting up and closing the window. “Good thing this isn’t my place.”

“You’re place?” Virgil repeated. Water dribbles down his mask, distorting his view of Roman for a second. 

Roman waves him off, “I’m here often enough that they gave me my own cubical, you know next door.” He smirks, “Still has a great view.”

Virgil fights his blush and fails, but it’s okay because Roman can’t see him anyway. He slowly pushes himself up to his knees and then manages to get himself standing without aggravating his shoulder anymore. If he’s lucky Patton will be asleep by the time Virgil climbs into the room again and he’ll have until tomorrow morning to figure out how to explain it to his best friend and roommate. (Because Virgil knew that both Logan and Patton would be against him doing anything superhero-ish so they had not been informed of where Virgil went on his daily trips out of the school.)

((Actually now that he thought about it, there was literally no one in his life that would approve of what he was doing. They would all tell him to stop before he got himself actually killed.))

“You work here?” Virgil asks.

“hm? Oh nah!” Roman laughs, “No way. This place would kill me.” He motions around the room to prove his point “So dreadfully boring. I was born for the stage!” He poses in what Virgil supposes is a dramatic pose. 

He doesn’t say that Roman definitely looks like he was born for the stage. Because Virgil definitely doesn’t notice that his eyes are a fiery brown made so with a passion, that there are slight crinkles around his eyes from lots of laughter, that his laugh itself is loud and booming and Virgil feels his heart do a stutter at the sound of something so freaking perfect. He doesn’t look like a Prince swooping out of no where to save the day. He doesn’t.

“Whatever you say Princey.” Virgil tells him, and then panics because what the fuck Virgil.

“Princey?” Roman repeats with smug smirk, “Are you my damsel in distress then Recluse? I wouldn’t mind.”

“Of course you wouldn’t mind,” Virgil rolls his eyes so hard his head tilts enough for Roman to know what he was doing. “You don’t have a brain to mind with.”

Roman gasps offended. Virgil cheers himself on.

“How could you say something so mean to the person who just saved your life?”

“How could I not?” Virgil huffs, “You just pulled me into this building. Isn’t this owned by the Government? Don’t you need a clearance level to get in here?”

“Rules are meant to be broken!” Roman cries dramatically, then he shivers, visibly.

It’s then that Virgil realizes that they are both soaked to the core, standing in the middle of an air conditioned cubical. His own freaky spider healing ability was probably keeping him from totally freezing, but Roman was not as lucky. 

“Oh man,” Virgil says lamely, “Do you have something dry to change into?”

Roman scoffs a laugh that’s nothing if not awkward. “What? Eager to see me undress, Recluse?”

Virgil is doing the blushy blotch thing that he hates he does when he’s flustered, but he’s pretty sure Roman’s ears are turning dark red so at least he’s not alone. Virgil splutters some series consonants and vowels that’s not actually English but close enough.

“Look, just--” Virgil grunts, turning away from him because he can’t speak when he’s looking at the wannabe actor. “I’m not going to be responsible for you getting a cold because of me!”

Roman shivers again, a thing that makes his entire frame jerk, and his shovels his hands under his arm pits and retains a copy of his smile. “Aw you care.”

“Shut up,” Virgil says without the heat he meant it to.

“Aren’t you cold?” 

“I’m part spider.”

“I’m part Italian.”

“What?”

“What?”

They both stare at each other, and Virgil shakes his head when Roman ducks his. Their laughs mix somewhere in the middle. When Virgil looks back at him Roman is staring at him with some sort of unreadable expression on his face. His cheeks were definitely dusted pink now.

“What?” Virgil asks again.

“I was--you--uh--” Roman’s mouth opens and closes twice before he seems to find the words he’s looking for, “do you have a phone?”

Virgil isn’t sure what he was expecting. He’s also unsure why he isn’t running far, far away by now. He chalks it up to the exhaustion from the near death experience. “Why?”

“I, uh, think you’re a--uh-- rather dashing sort of fellow,” Roman says, “I was--hoping-- I could, presumably, uh, obtain your number.”

“Is this a joke?” 

Roman stiffens with panicked look on his face, “No! NO! I would never! I mean it when I say I think you’re amazing, even if no one else thinks so! The way you save people all day and never ask for anything in return-- and even if you’re hard to approach and you make me doubt everything I say-- I still think you’re really cool. I’d like to be your friend.”

There are a million reasons for Virgil to say no. Most of them involve a certain amount of “it’s not safe” and “what if anyone ever found out”. 

“I won’t tell if you don’t!” Roman says and Virgil has a hard time not believing him. He looks earnest, trustworthy. Virgil wonders if he hit his head when he slammed into the window or if he’s actually getting sick.

“I’m not telling you my real name.” Virgil warns him.

Roman has the decency to look embarrassed, “I didn’t expect you, too! It wouldn’t matter anyway.” He mutters the last part under his breath.

Virgil is about to ask what that means when there’s a resounding ding of elevator doors somewhere not far away. Roman’s eyes grow wide and his hisses a noise from his teeth. 

“Hide!” 

“What?” Virgil says.

“Roman?” Another voice makes the hair on the back of Virgil’s neck rise. He has just enough time to panic--he’s really good at panicking-- before the telltale click of heel on the tile floor catches up with them and a woman glances into their cubical. Her eyes fall on Roman, and then search the rest of the cubical, looking straight at Virgil and moving on.

“Roman,” She says, “What are you doing in here--and why are you all wet?”

Roman glances between Virgil and her for a second before his posture closes and he rubs the back of his neck with mock sheepishment. “The window was open, auntie. I came in here to close it and it was harder than I thought it would be.”

She doesn’t look convinced. “It was...open?” She glanced around the room again, “No came in right? You haven’t seen anyone?”

Roman laughs, and Virgil’s impressed by his acting ability, “Of course not. We’re on the forty third floor. Who would be climbing in this building this high?”

That seems to calm her down. “Sorry, its just that the technology we’re working on is highly classified. I just clocked out for the day, so we can go now.”

“Really?” Roman says.

“What’s wrong? Every other day you’re begging me to leave! Plus we need to get you in dry clothes and rested up for the big day tomorrow!” 

Roman gives another look towards Virgil-- well through Virgil, because he can’t see something that’s invisible. It had been a private joke that Virgil had kept to himself: that he an introverted artist with anxiety was barely noticed in a crowd as it was and now he could literally turn invisible when he panicked. 

“Yeah,” Roman says. He turns away and he exits the cubical. Virgil stays still long after his chattering has faded and he’s left he building. He wonders if he’s ever going to see him again. For a superhero was a secret identity and an introvert with anxiety, the answer is surprisingly disappointing.

“Seriously Virge!” Patton whines, “Skateboarding in the abandoned subway rails?” He looks at the dislocated shoulder that Virgil just had set by the school nurse. “Kiddo, you’re going to be the death of me!”

“Sorry Pat,” Virgil tells his roommate.

Patton sighs and tussles Virgil’s hair because that was the type of person Patton was. “I’m sorry too kiddo. I’m not mad, I just worry. A lot.”

Virgil knows this, because he had been Patton’s roommate since he had come to the Sanders Academy for the Gifted (which was funny because Virgil got in for his art and now he really is gifted-- with superpowers). Patton had luckily been asleep when Virgil had made it back into the room, long after the storm had cleared by doing a strange super dangerous swing with one arm and his webshooter. 

“Oh shoot!” Patton exclaims looking at his watch, “We’re late!”

“Late?”

Patton blinks, “Logan’s new dorm-mate is moving in today! I promised we’d be there to help them get settled in!”

Virgil tugs the zipper of his jacket--which was still a little damp, but he was ignoring it. It wasn’t like anyone was going to recognize it. “Both of us?” He says quietly, which he knows sounds like a plea, and it is: a plea to Patton to let him skip out on meeting new people for the day.

Recluse could, because Recluse could just snarl at the people he didn’t like and swing away. Virgil could not.

Patton takes his hand off the zipper and links their fingers in a way that is brazenly lovingly-- because Pat had a lot of love to give to everyone. “I’ll be right here the entire time, I promise. We can just go say hi, and then we can go hang out in our room until class starts.”

Virgil is not a people person. But Patton is giving him the puppy dog eyes that haunts Virgil’s dreams. He hates denying Patton anything he wants. When he agrees the smile that lights up Patton’s face is almost enough to drown out the cannon ball sized dread in his stomach. 

Logan’s room is right across from theirs anyway. It is a simple thing to duck out of anything that happens and both Patton and Logan are kind enough that they can explain Virgil’s in depth issues with--

The door to Logan’s room is open, but Patton knocks and enters anyway. Virgil stops short because there is no way that this is happening. 

Logan is OCD, even if he denies it. His room is neat and orderly and perfect. Everything has its place and he starts to lose it when things aren’t where they belong. Virgil tries to avoid going in his room if he can help it, because he’s terrified of messing something up. 

His new roommate appears to be the opposite, if just from the stacks of haphazardly placed boxes in the room. Its too much stuff, but he doesn’t seem to notice. Logan does and he looks absolutely terrible: as if he’s about to short circuit at any second. Virgil can relate.

Because standing in the middle of Logan’s room is Roman. Roman. The same Roman who had saved Virgil’s life yesterday night. The same Roman who had sat there and talked to him while they were soaked. The same Roman who had asked for his number.

Roman looks up from whatever he’s saying at Patton’s entrance with that smug smile that makes Virgil’s heart jump and this time he can’t blame it on the adrenaline. 

“Hi!” Patton says.

“Greetings!” Roman booms, “I’m Roman, Actor!” He gives a bow to Patton that makes him giggle-- but he freezes when he sees Virgil standing there behind the glowing Patton. 

“Roman?” Logan asks, worried despite his internally barely hidden frustration. He makes a motion like he’s about to unpack on of the boxes and just barely stops himself.

Roman doesn’t respond. Instead that stupid smile widens just a bit as he nods to Virgil, which makes no sense because he doesn’t know Virgil is Recluse, “That’s a terrible jacket. Completely impractical.”

Virgil can’t make a noise-- he really can’t. Because Roman shouldn’t be here, much less recognize him from this jacket of all things. And Roman does recognize him, because there’s a playful twinkle in his eyes and Virgil couldn’t get their conversation out of his head if he tried.

He doesn’t dare try.

“Excuse you!” Patton exclaims, “How dare you insult my--”

He trails off at the sound of laughter. Virgil is as surprised as he is to find its his own. 

“Shut up, Princey.” Virgil manages, goes for intimidating but he knows he failed, “No one asked you.”

“This won’t do!” Roman says, “I’m going to have to save your fashion sense as well as your life!”

“Pardon,” Logan cuts in, fixing his glasses, “You two have met? Roman has saved your life Virgil?”

“Yes, just last night--”

“Skateboarding!” Virgil cuts in, a bit too loud, a bit too quickly, “I was skateboarding! In the subway alleys!”

Roman laughs slightly. Virgil is worried for just a second that he isn’t going to go with it, but its misplaced worry. “Right, Skateboarding. I happened to be walking along there as well. We talked for a bit. I don’t think I quite caught your number. Mind if we rectify that?”

Patton seems to burst with happiness. “Kiddo! You didn’t tell me you made a friend!” He wraps Virgil in a hug.

Logan looks less convinced.

Roman looks perfect.

Virgil realizes at this point Roman is a waterspout, and Virgil was completely unprepared for it. But Virgil thinks he doesn’t mind being washed away.

[irrevocably-delicious]

Cultivating an enjoyable video games experience with non gamers aka How do I get my non-gamer significant other to play games with me?

Video games.

Once a niche hobby of adult programmers in the 70s, before targeting 10 year old boys in the 80s and 90s, video games are now a mainstream hobby and entertainment product that has shown tremendous growth in the past 30 years. While films and serialized shows have shown some developments, with new technologies and the invent of streaming, the gaming industry has undergone a complete transformation in only a few short decades. Entire genres have been created, along with improved graphics, mechanics, and storytelling.

But with more people getting into video games now more than ever, the age-old question continuously resurfaces:

“How do I get my significant other to play video games with me?”

And it’s an understandable question! Games are an important hobby to some, and it’s nice to be able to share in that passion and joy with the person you love most. I completely understand this. I’m a cosplayer and I’ve definitely conned my boyfriend into pressing seams for me or sitting in hour long panels about EVA foam. It’s not exactly his number 1 priority, but we have fun together doing it, and he’s able to appreciate my craft a little more because of it.

Similarly, he’s not an artist, but he always helps me table in Artist Alley, gives advice on new prints to make (“If you’re going to make a niche DnD print, at least display it near the DnD stuff to be a conversation starter”) and stays up til 2am cutting stickers with me. It’s exhausting, but we have a lot of good memories from doing it together.

It’s nice to include your significant others in activities that bring you joy.

So how the hell do you convince your partner to engage with video games… if they never have before? And what kinds of games are going to give you the best experience?

Hi. Welcome. This is where I come in.

I’m not a gamer. At all. I’m awful at video games. Whilst my boyfriend was growing up and devouring every console he could convince his parents to buy, I was being a horse girl. No Halo for me today, sir, I have a showjumping class to attend. The only video game I would willingly participate in was Singstar during sleep overs, and that was because I was a musical theatre kid and knew this would be the only video game that I could completely decimate my peers with. Street fighter? No thank you. But I will wreck your shit with Stacy’s Mom by Fountains of Wayne.

But somehow, even though this is my upbringing, I have to acknowledge the fact that over the past 10 years I’ve actually played… a lot of video games. I think I’ve figured out the key. I think I’ve distilled the answer. Now obviously this is purely based on my experience, and everyone will have slightly different results, but I will now present you with my scientific anthropological findings of how you may be able to repeat this process.  

“How do I get my significant other to play video games with me?”

Now I think there are two ways to go about this.

1.       Play a video game together where both of you are holding a controller and in charge of some aspect of the game. Ie. Character, assistant, the right foot, etc.

Now I realize this seems obvious.

“You mean I can play a video game with my significant other by actually playing a game with my significant other??? Uhhhh yeah…. I WOULD THINK SO”

But hear me out. Out of the two ways you can go about this, I actually think this is the hardest way (I’ll explain why soon). My partner and I do not often play games together like this. What we usually do, and what I would be more likely to recommend is:

2.       Play a game where you (the gamer) have the controller, and your SO participates or watches from the couch.

This is what my boyfriend and I usually do, and it’s the less likely of the two options to cause arguments, fights, and tears.

But let’s first look at option 1.

Playing a game together

Do you remember when you were in high school and you had to do a film study for a semester? And your teacher would explain all the different camera shots and angles and what they meant? A low angle shot where a character towers above makes them seem intimidating. A character cloaked in shadow indicates that the character is sneaky.

Your teacher told you all this, but in reality, all of these meanings were probably pretty obvious to you. You intuitively knew what they meant because you had been raised on watching movies. You were already familiar with this language of film because it had always been present in your life.

Well guess what? Video games have a language too.

And just like film, if you have played video games your whole life, you might be surprised at just how much of this language you have absorbed, and how much of this literacy is REQUIRED to play a modern video game.

The fact that triangle is always jump, x to interact, L2 to aim, R2 to shoot, circle to crouch, square to reload… all of that is assumed knowledge that you would probably have ingested over time, so it comes completely natural to you now.

Your SO doesn’t know any of this. They probably don’t even know that the L and R buttons exist. I didn’t. I still forget.

This is why choosing a game to play together is so difficult. When you finally do choose one? You have to be patient. You cannot get annoyed when your SO has to ask every five minutes what jump is again. They may have difficulty navigating around menus and UI. They may have difficulty moving around in game. Side scrollers are pretty intuitive, but games that require you to position a camera? Ie. Most third person or first person anything? Oof. That’s hard. They might fall off a lot of bridges or stare at the ground a lot. This is a skill you have to build up. You have it already. They don’t. It’s important to remember that saying anything like “You can do it, it’s easy!” or “Why are you having so much trouble with this?” is NOT HELPFUL. It’s only going to make your SO feel stupid/bad. Remember, they don’t give a shit about video games. Their life has been just fine without them until now, and it will continue to be just fine without games. They are only doing this FOR YOU. So why would you want to make someone feel stupid for just trying to make you happy?

Treat them like a baby deer. Gently. Tentatively. You are slowly drawing them into the clearing. Any harsh comment will send them running.

Based on all this, here are some recommendations on games that work well to play with your SO.

1.    Games you are SUPPOSED to be bad at.

You know how I just talked about how there are general conventions over controls? And that it can be frustrating for your SO to learn these whilst they come intuitively for you?

Well what if you eliminated that disparity by playing games where the controls intentionally make no goddamn sense? By playing a game with whacky controls, it evens the playing field. Your SO is learning and struggling with controls, but so are you! This way your stupidity is not humiliating, it creates a sense of comradery. There’s no shame, just silliness and fun. The game I played with my partner that made me first realise the genius of this was… Octodad.

Octodad is collaborative. It’s an absolute nightmare to control, but for once my boyfriend’s muscle memory was actually a detriment. He would instinctively go to move like he would in other games, but that’s not how Octodad works. So he was rewiring his muscle memory whilst I was just a blank slate.

“Trigger to grab things? Yeah sure. Why not? I don’t know any better.”

It also hits that sweet spot of being short enough that the silliness doesn’t grow stale, and has a sincere enough story that you do become invested in the fate of the octopus in your hands.

10/10 Octodad. Highly recommend.

Other games in this genre that I feel would be worth a look:

-          Man Fall Flat

-          QWOP

-          Surgeon Simulator

-          Super Bunny Man

 2.    Hey! It’s Nintendo!

Ah Nintendo. It’s where most children start, so it seems like a logical place for a burgeoning gamer to begin. But specifically, what I want to recommend are the range of excellent Nintendo party games that are simple to navigate, fun, and often cooperative. I can’t play an FPS, but Mario Kart comes very easy to me…. Or as easy as it does to anyone. Similarly, Mario Party requires almost no video game literacy, and you can introduce it to your SO as “It’s just a board game that happens to be a video game”.

Although we do joke about Mario Kart and Mario Party being “friendship killers” because of their competitive nature and how easy it is to sabotage other players. If you are worried about these games maybe causing to much distress, I would also recommend the tried and true Wii Sports or the more modern 1-2-Switch. It has a cow milking game! It’s fun! And you can laugh at one another as you make terrible dick jokes.

I DO NOT RECOMMEND SUPER SMASH BROS. THAT IS NOT AN INTRODUCTORY GAME.

If you really want, play it on co-op team mode.

 In summary, when picking a game to play with your SO my general recommendations are:

- make sure the game has very simple controls and linear movement (if any at all)

- or have a game with bonkers controls so you can learn them together

- avoid competitive games to start. Or play competitive games that require no video game literacy. The best FPS or Tekken player is NOT going to win Mario Party. It’s just luck.

Playing games this way with my partner is fun, but not how we usually play games. This is because if I want to play a AAA title, or maybe a great JRPG I’ve heard about, I have to move on to the second method.

 Playing games where the gamer has the control and the non-gamer watches/participates via other means.

This is how my partner and I generally play games. Because my partner is the one holding the controller, navigating the game, combat and menus, I am not required to have any of that assumed knowledge I mentioned earlier.

But how can you make watching a video game compelling?

It’s actually not as difficult as you might imagine, but you’re right in that it does rule out a chunk of games. If you have grand dreams of your non-gamer girlfriend fawning over your sweet League of Legends skills… then I think you need a bit of a wake-up call. Competitive online games, FPS and sports games (such as FIFA) are generally not fun to watch. This isn’t a blanket statement! Some non-gamers could find these fun. But generally, if you don’t know the skill it requires to perform certain moves or strategies, or are unfamiliar with even the basic rules… these games just look like a mess.

Me watching someone play Overwatch: “Wow… I suddenly have motion sickness”

I find the most compelling games to watch are: Narrative driven

Think of all the games that are basically movies with some gameplay thrown in. Uncharted and the Tomb Raider reboot are just long form Indiana Jones movies. The Last of Us is a survival, drama, horror movie that makes you question your morals and how far you are willing to go to help humanity. The Witcher captures a rich narrative and lore comparable only to the Lord of the Rings films. The Yakuza series might be the best mob movie I’ve ever seen. All of these games are great and as engrossing to watch as they are to play. Lovable characters, compelling obstacles, and a good dose of spectacle keep them entertaining. Narrative driven games are my favorite to just sit and watch whilst my partner plays.

However, “narrative driven games” encapsulates thousands of titles, with some being more suited to watching than others. To help narrow down games that are enjoyable without a controller, I’ve narrowed it down into 3.5 sub categories.

1.       Games with a looser/more predictable narrative, but the visuals are just so damn appealing

2.       Choice based games – with the sub category of puzzle games

3.       Mediocre games, but they’re fun

 Each of these categories creates a uniquely different gaming experience, ranging from a cinematic “sit and watch” style, to a higher participation, more co-operative team based style. Let’s start with the first as it’s the easiest to define.

 1.    Games with a looser narrative, but engrossing visuals

Sometimes games will have a good story, but you’re just not sure if it’s good enough to sustain someone’s attention for 20+ hours. Maybe it’s a little predictable. Maybe you know the hero is destined to save the day. Will this be enough to hold my SOs attention?

And I think you are really the only one to answer that.

But let me first tell you about one of my favorite games, and probably only the second game I ever played with my partner.

DMC.

I fucking adore this game.

Eat my ass. It’s great.

But is the story that great? I mean it’s cool. Half angel, half demon boys. Long lost twin brothers. An evil demon who killed your father and has now essentially become a mob boss and corrupted your city. It’s cool. It’s interesting enough, but at the end of the day, you know Vergil is going to betray you. You know your cardboard cut out girlfriend(?) is going to be a liability. You know you’re going to defeat that demon boss with your big sword.

But god damn, if it isn’t a riot to watch. Devil May Cry has some of the most stylish and slick combat, that it’s really entertaining to just witness. You can cheer on your SO on as they climb up to a SSS ranking and maintain their combo over 5 whole minutes. The soundtrack is blasting. The level design and art direction are stunning. Watching Dante get dragged into Limbo is always an experience, and you’re never quite sure what you’re going to walk into this time. DMC still has one of the most inventive boss fights I’ve ever seen and I’m honestly waiting for another game to top it.

So, I think if your visuals are captivating enough… that can definitely save a game with maybe just a good to average story. It’s just a treat for the senses.

Other games I would put in this category would be:

- The Arkham games, particularly Arkham City and Arkham Knight. God the combat is just great to watch, with each punch really feeling brutal and heavy. The spookiness of Gotham is eerily beautiful, and finding all the easter eggs in the world is a real treat.

- The latest Spider-man game from Insomniac games

- Breath of the Wild – I just like… being in this game

-Nier Automata – this one is a bit weird. I wasn’t sure which category to put it in, but felt because of the interesting mechanics and gimmick of playing over and over again to reveal more of the world and story, I decided to put it here.

 2.    Choice based games

This is definitely my favorite type of game to play, and the one that I think is the easiest to engage with, despite the lack of controller in my hand.

The whole reason I started playing games with my partner is because he was playing a game and after a while I just… sat down… and started watching.

The game was Mass Effect 3, and I just became really involved in the story and the choices my partner was making. We have since gone back and played the entire Mass Effect series multiple times, and I feel it really exemplifies what is so fantastic about playing a choice-based game with a non-gamer.

Choice based games still allow your SO to be heavily involved. If you are letting your SO make choices, then they are still playing the game. Just because I wasn’t the one actively shooting Collectors does not mean I had no impact on our game experience. It was my choice to cure the genophage. My choice to spare the Rachni queen, and you can be damn sure that it was my choice to romance Garrus across the series. Choice based games are fantastic for keeping your SO engaged and the two of you can cultivate your own story and endure consequences together.

Obviously I love Mass Effect, but some similar games in this style would be:

-          Until Dawn

-          The Witcher

-          The Persona series – but be careful! These games are long so may not be great as an introductory game

 Visual Novels! – Visual novels are excellent for this! They’re purely choice based, and it doesn’t matter who is clicking the next button. For an added amount of goofiness, take on roles and do stupid voices. Do it. It’s great. Nothing makes me laugh harder than romancing an anime schoolgirl with an old man voice.

 They’re short, but can be replayed for a different ending if you wish. My partner and I played Dream Daddy together multiple times and were avid about who our favorite dads were. I liked Robert and Craig. My partner liked Damian and Brian. 

 My partner and I have actually just started playing a new visual novel, but along with it being choice based, I would also classify it as a puzzle/problem solving game.

 2.5  Puzzle/problem solving games

Puzzle games are great for a similar reason as choice-based games, as they keep your SO involved. Only this time they are helping to problem solve. Many times I’ve been able to figure something out before my boyfriend, so I can go “ohhhh take that, drop it here, then move that here” and it’ll work!

Currently we’re making our way through the Danganronpa series, which is a bit of a hybrid between a visual novel and puzzle game. It’s not a difficult game to control or navigate at all, so I could play it on my own, but I like playing it with my partner as we bounce theories off of one another and work together to solve a crime. I’ll remember certain pieces of evidence he doesn’t, or he’ll remember one throw away line from the opening 3 minutes of the game that is now an alibi. During free time, we’ll each pick a character to talk to, so we both get to learn more about our favorite characters.

“I wanna talk to Sakura because she seems sweet and I want her to have friends”

“Ok, then I’ll talk to Mondo because he seems funky.”

And so on. The process is collaborative.

Some games of a similar genre that might be fun:

-          Catherine from Atlus

-          Portal 1 and 2

-          The Phoenix Wright series

-          Resident evil 2 – this one is a bit odd, but resident evil 2 is almost a memory game as you work to remember all the things you’ve picked up, the pieces you need to unlock doors, and prioritize the weapons you’ll take with you. “No take the grenade rounds. If we’re going in the offices, we left that face hugger there, remember?”

Finally this brings us to our third category, and also the most difficult to explain. So I’ve just called it:

3.    Average Games, but there’s just something enjoyable about them

Sometimes games are just… fun. Sometimes the story is alright, the gameplay is repetitive, but the characters and writing are just so inherently likeable or interesting that you can keep watching. For me, this whole category was created as a way for me to justify my fondness for the Saints Row series.

Saints Row is, on paper, pretty unremarkable. It’s a ridiculous series of games about a street gang coming into fame and eventually political power, and the outlandish things they have to do to climb that ladder. Often cited as a “GTA clone” the gameplay is repetitive and almost boring at times, with most of the missions falling into the “Go here, kill people” category. The world isn’t particularly pretty or interesting. It’s just a city. One that you’ve seen a million times if you’ve played any city-based open world game.

So why do I love this unremarkable series? Why am I oddly attached to these characters?

Ultimately, I think it comes down to the characters being written with a certain amount of honesty, and the interactions between them feel genuine and oddly heartfelt. I don’t really care about rival gangs or accumulating money, but if it lets me ride in the car and have another sing along with Pierce, then I’m going to do it.

I like the weird sexual tension between the Boss and Shaundi, which only seems to become more prominent if you play as the female Boss. I love Matt Miller and him ranting about his Nyte blayde fan fiction. I like finding out the Boss has read Jane Austen.

It’s just silly and fun, with a good amount of ridiculous spectacle. It’s definitely not a series that I could recommend. It just kind of appealed to something in me. I think there are lots of games that could fit this category. Most people will say that the Borderlands series is “Alright” but it has a lot of fun dialogue and characters who keep it entertaining. Similarly, despite lack luster reviews, I know a lot of people really enjoyed the 2013 Deadpool game because Deadpool was written just like he is in the comics.

This category is the hardest to nail, and you may go through several games that you think are “hilarious” or “crazy fun” that just don’t gel with your SO. That’s ok. As you play more, you’ll eventually be able to develop a sense of each other’s tastes and what will appeal to you.

 General Advice in closing

TL;DR, here are some good parameters to stick to until you reach a consensus of what games your SO might enjoy.

-  Games with a good story and compelling characters will always be entertaining

- If the combat is long and takes up a good proportion of the game, it should be visually interesting to look at. If the combat is repetitive or boring to watch, it should clip along at a good pace and only come in short bursts. Bonus points if there’s party banter!

- Start with shorter games, then build up. It’s a big demand on someone to sit through a 60+ hour game for your first few attempts. Maybe put that Tales game on the shelf for now.

I’ve tried to keep this advice general, but obviously you and your SO will have different interests, and you should appeal to those. I love anime. I love hot boys. Due to these factors, I am more than willing to sit through a long form JRPG about two rival noble boys, as it appeals to my weeb sensibilities. This is not something I would expect others to be able to do.

I generally don’t like films about heists or organized crime. It’s just not a genre that appeals to me, so asking me to sit through Grand Theft Auto is probably not the wisest choice. I have played GTA5 for those that are curious, and it’s not my favorite. It’s definitely not bad, and I do expect other non-gamers would be entertained playing through the story of it. There’s definitely a good story there! It’s just not one that satisfies all of my needs. Just like how I don’t expect every person to love sitting through God of War or Jak and Daxter.

Getting to learn each other’s likes and dislikes takes time. Favorite movies can be a bit of an indicator, but transferring to a different medium complicates things. The most important thing is to listen to each other and be respectful. If your SO doesn’t like your favorite game of all time, that’s not a personal insult. You are likely just experiencing the game in a different way than they are, and they can’t relate to that.

Along with being respectful, obviously don’t pressure your SO into anything. Sometimes you’ll find that your SO might not want to play games with you because they had such an awful experience trying to play with their exes or other friends previously. I know I was really hesitant to ever pick up a controller again after an incident where I couldn’t navigate my character over a log, because I was not used to controlling a camera, and was made to feel really stupid and useless. I threw up my hands and said “Fuck this shit” for a long time. Your SO might be hesitant to play games with you because they worry that you’ll just get frustrated with how bad they are. You can reassure them that this won’t happen, but it’s still their choice to say no.

At the end of the day, it’s ok to have different hobbies. You don’t have to share everything. If you are lucky enough that your non-gamer SO might want to try playing games with you, then be kind, and be patient. When picking games to play together, try to pick something you can both enjoy. Go on a journey together. Have fun!

It’s a game after all.  

[callboxkat]

(Un)Broken - part 3

Author’s note: I’m back! It’ll be at least a week before you guys get another part, but have this one for now. :)

Warnings: self deprecation, headache mention, doctor mention, injury mention, food mention

Word count: 1579

Masterpost in the notes!

...

Patton walked into his apartment and quietly shut the door behind him. He slid the lock into place, then leaned back against the door with a soft sigh. He didn’t know why he was upset. He should be happy, shouldn’t he? He’d spent the evening bowling with his friends, after all.

He just kept remembering that moment, when he’d cheered about Logan knocking down those two pins—because Logan had been having a really hard time, and it was the first time they’d hung out together having fun like they had before his injury, and Patton had just been so excited to see him finally hit some pins! Logan, though, had clearly not been nearly as excited. Patton had seen how he rolled his eyes. Probably thinking that Patton was making fun of him. But Patton would never do that—Logan was one of his favorite people in the world!

Patton traipsed over to his sofa and threw himself onto it heavily, facedown on the cushions.

He knew that it was dumb. It was just one little thing, one little eye roll. It just hurt him to think that Logan might have thought poorly of him, even for a second.

He was distracted from his wallowing when his phone chimed its text tone at him. Patton reluctantly rolled partway over, just enough to grab his phone from his pocket and bring it up to his face.

Oh! It was Logan! Patton quickly swiped to open the message. It was a group text, sent out to all of them.

Logan: I greatly enjoyed our excursion to the bowling alley this afternoon. I hope that everyone else had as pleasant of a time as I did.

A second message popped up a minute later.

Logan: My apologies if I somehow lessened anyone’s enjoyment of the evening. I understand that especially while I am still in recovery, I am not the most ‘fun’ person to be around. Thank you for inviting me along.

Patton started furiously typing, but a series of other messages were already flooding in from Joan, Virgil, and Roman, all telling Logan that they’d had fun too, and yelling at him for implying that he’d somehow made the evening any less fun. Patton sent off his own message anyway, and as soon as he did, the notification that Talyn was typing their own response came up. Good. Logan didn’t get to talk bad about himself! Not on their watch!

Several long minutes went by, and then Logan responded.

Logan: Perhaps I misread the situation. Thank you for your assurances. It will not be necessary to ‘march over to my house’, ‘physically fite’ me, or hug me so tight that you ‘wring out the nerdiness’

Logan: Additionally, Virgil, I feel the need to remind you that Patton may decide to physically fight you if you continue to insist that gloominess is your area of expertise.

Patton paused, then scrolled up. He must have missed that message in the barrage of notifications. He found it—Virgil didn’t get to be self-deprecating either!—then scrolled back down to reply.

Patton: I will! I’ll fite both of you if I have to!!!

Virgil: Ok Pat chill, no fighting necessary

Patton: Good!

Roman: We should go bowling again. You all only got a glimpse of my skills.

Roman: (Virgils dont interact)

Virgil’s and Logan’s replies came through simultaneously.

Logan: I do think I would enjoy another such outing.

Virgil: You can’t stop me

The chat devolved into banter after that, mostly between Virgil and Roman. Patton just read the messages as they came through, not replying, until the others had to leave.

…

Monday rolled around all too quickly for Patton’s taste. He didn’t particularly want to get up early today, to go to class—one of them was math, after all—but he supposed there were bright sides. He did also have an art class today, and he would get to see his friends at lunch! He just preferred Tuesdays and Thursdays to the other three days of the school week because he had his actual classes with his friends.

Patton struggled through his morning class, which felt like it was moving at a glacial pace. He felt like he’d been there for so long. But finally, the bell rang; and with immense relief, he traipsed down to the cafeteria to meet his friends.

“I don’t blame you,” Roman said when Patton had finished sharing today’s math class woes. They and Virgil were sitting together, eating lunch in the cafeteria. “When are you ever going to need to know how to calculate a third derivative?”

“Exactly,” Patton sighed, putting his head down on the cafeteria table. “But it’s required, for my major….”

“You—you could always ask Logan for help,” Virgil suggested after a moment. “He’s pretty good at math.”

“Uh, yeah, I sure hope he is,” Roman said, his tone of voice mimicking that of a certain well-known six-second-video. “He’s a math major.”

Patton shook his head, but he did so without lifting it off the table, so it was more like he just rolled it morosely from side to side. “I don’t wanna bother him. He’s still got his concussion thingy to deal with.”

“C’mon, Pat, it couldn’t hurt to ask,” Roman said. “Besides, he could do derivatives in his sleep. Concussion or not.”

Patton just let out a soft, extended whine. If he hadn’t still had his head down on the wooden table, he would have seen Virgil and Roman glance at each other.

He felt a gentle poke on the top of his head. “What’s up?” Virgil asked.

“He’s gonna think I’m dumb,” Patton mumbled.

“Why would he think that?” Roman sounded genuinely confused. Patton could hear Virgil’s chair creaking as he shifted.

“Because he already does,” he heard himself whine. He knew he should just stop talking, but… whoops.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Virgil argued.

At the same time, Roman said, “That’s preposterous!” He normally had a habit of pronouncing it like ‘perpostrous’, which annoyed Logan to no end. He was pretty sure Roman did it on purpose at this point, evidenced by the fact that he said it correctly this time, when Logan wasn’t there.

“Logan knows you’re not dumb,” Virgil continued. “And it’s not like he hasn’t helped you before. What’s up?”

Patton sighed, gathered his willpower, and lifted his head from the table, sitting up. “I… I guess you’re right,” he sighed. He forced his features into a meek smile. “Sorry, kiddos. I’m just tired.”

“That’s okay.” Roman said.

“I mean… I get it,” Virgil said quietly. “Logan’s got stuff to worry about already. But he’s getting better, isn’t he? He’s allowed to drive and use phones and everything again. And it’s—it’s like Ro said, the stuff you’re working on is easy for him. I’m not—I’m not saying it is easy,” he amended quickly, even though Patton hadn’t been offended. “Logan’s just….”

“A huge nerd?” Roman suggested.

“A huge nerd. In a good way. Not being like him doesn’t make someone dumb. And you—” he fixed Patton with such an intense stare that the sophomore actually shrank backwards a bit. “You. Are. Not. Dumb. Nobody thinks you are. Not me, not Roman, not Talyn or Joan… and Logan sure as heck doesn’t think you’re dumb either.”

“But….”

Virgil was clearly running out of steam (that still happened sometimes when he talked a lot, though he was getting better) so Roman jumped in.

“If we’re not allowed to talk bad about ourselves, neither are you.”

Patton looked at them both for a second. Virgil was chewing the corner of his bottom lip and Roman had half a piece of Crofter’s-covered toast forgotten in one hand, but both were looking at him intently.

“O-o-okay. You’re right. I just got a bit silly, I suppose. I don’t like not understanding things.”

“We know,” Roman said. “You could always get someone else to tutor you, but I’m sure Logan’ll help if you ask…. Where is he, anyway?” He frowned slightly, leaning away from the table to look around.

Patton searched the room for a moment too, then glanced at the Mickey Mouse watch on his wrist. Logan should definitely have been here by now, if he were coming.

Virgil briefly chewed his lip a bit more intensely than before, then stopped and opened his mouth. “He—could he be sick?”

Roman sighed. “Probably… I hope he’s okay. Logan never misses class.”

That was true. The first time any of them remembered Logan missing class had been when he’d gone to the hospital after his accident. Logan valued class attendance too highly, and he was religious about hygiene, so he rarely so much as caught a mild cold. Recently, though, things were different.

“Could be another doctor’s appointment,” Patton mused noncommittally.

“I thought he had one on Friday, though,” Virgil pointed out with a frown.

Roman shrugged. “He’s probably fine.” He set down the toast that he seemed to finally remember was in his hand. “I for one am just glad he’s taking care of himself.”

Virgil nodded in agreement. Patton took a sip from his drink and didn’t respond.

“Hey…uh, you’ve got an art class today, right?” Virgil asked, changing the subject.

Patton nodded, brightening. “I sure do!”

“What are you working on?”

Patton turned to grab a little sketchbook from his backpack and opened it up, showing Virgil a few sketches as he talked about his current project. He knew Virgil was trying to distract him. He let him do it.

...

Tag list: @patton-loves-coloring @starryfirefliesbloggo @purplesoul-at-hogwarts  @gaylotusthatexists @quoth-the-sparrow @awesomelissawho @amuthefunperson @faithfreedom @heck-im-lost @gayfandomsaremything @bunny222 @syndianites @astraastro @momolinia @captainswan618 @hamilin-manuel-miranda @goldenkiddos @afilhadehades-blog @virgeofselfdestruction @theresneverenoughfandoms @iris-sanders-athena @super-magical-wizard @rainbow-sides @thefallendog @fanficptsd @zodiac-awesome @lookitsthatquietgirl @nerd-in-space @pearls-of-patton @ab-artist @angered-turtle @im-so-infinitesimal @raygelkitty @dr-gloom @whats-going-on-kiddos @the-dumbster @oh-star-how-the-mighty-fall @fillyourteacup @kittiebrick @youtuberswithalex

[tysonrunningfox]

Ripped: Part 12

So I was going to write more sacrificecup before this but I woke up yesterday morning like like...18 jokes in my head and had to get them all out before I lost them, so here is this.  

Ao3

Hiccup tried valiantly to talk Mr. Grisly into a Grimborn book containing actual information but all attempts were brushed off repeatedly with the insistence that he’d been given a budget to hire experts for that.

Hiccup didn’t miss the dig that he is not considered an expert at the level of A. M. Mildew, but he wanted Grisly out of the library more than he wanted to argue. He knows Astrid doesn’t need his protection, but the way Grisly looked at her was uniquely sinister and the lopsided kind of glee in his voice when he talked to her is stuck in the back of Hiccup’s mind like a popcorn kernel in his teeth.

By the time he finally gives up and watches Grisly leave the library with a single beloved but largely sensationalized book, the archives are closed, and Hiccup finds himself suddenly completely underwhelmed. Given that he has not shifted his schedule back while his tours are…temporarily postponed, he texted Astrid pretty soon after waking up.

All in all that was a pretty landmark start to the day.

He starts the long walk home, glancing wistfully into alleys as he crosses them. He can’t help but feel disconnected and exposed on the main streets, surrounded by false modernity made out of plywood with a million percent markup. He knows Snotlout is right. He does look suspicious and he’s hiding enough by not telling Eretson where Dave’s prosthetic came from, but he’s sick of it taking so long to get everywhere.

Plus, assuming a Grimborn copycat working backwards, doesn’t he just have to stay away from the second murder site?

Unless the order of the two murders was a fluke and he should be staying away from the first site, a stomach clenching thought that’s categorically impossible. He couldn’t stay away from Astrid now if she lived in a volcano or had a loft in Atlantis, not after she told him that she likes him. Him. She likes him. Astrid. The beautiful, violent toothbrush assault artist who makes sure he sees what she does likes him.

His phone buzzes with a slow to download text message, lagging from the library’s thick brick walls.

Astrid (5:21pm): how’d that go?

He stops short and a man in a suit slams into his back, glaring at him for interrupting the flow of pedestrian traffic. Hiccup would thank the guy for restarting his heart, except talking is a little hard with it pounding in his throat.

How’d that go? Does she want…a review of some kind? Should he inform her of her 10.0 perfect score kissing skills but deduct a half a gold star for startling the hell out of him? Not that he minded being startled, really, but Astrid seems like a tough love type.

“On your left,” a bike whizzes by and he stumbles, still staring at his phone and barely snapping out of the haze with the insult that follows, “fucking tourist!”

“No bikes on the sidewalk, asshole!”

If he critiques her, does that mean she’s going to critique him? She doesn’t let him get away with anything else, after all. If he weren’t so giddy about her kissing him, he’d be more confused that she still wanted to after all that murder site sex idiocy that fell out of his mouth at Gruff’s.

Hiccup (6:04pm): I thought it was nice

He settles for neutral or something like it.

Astrid (6:05pm): I meant the creepy guy making you find a book for him

His heart drops. Of course she meant the whole Grisly thing, not—why would she be asking him how kissing was? She was there.

It’s a twisted kindness that he knows he’s said and done dumber things to and around her, so this probably won’t be the instance that scares her off.

Hiccup (6:06pm): right that makes more sense than you asking me to critique your kissing Hiccup (6:06pm): which was top notch by the way no comments, don’t change a thing Hiccup (6:07pm): so I do it anyway, fuck, anyway grisly is creepy as hell and I really hate that he’s investigating murders, it’s not fair because his breath’s death count is probably higher than any small time grimborn copycat

None of that made it better.

Astrid (6:07pm): I thought it was nice too Astrid (6:08pm): so you really think it’s a copycat then?

The morning’s roller coaster of emotions repeats in miniature and Hiccup pauses to unlock his front door and set his stuff down inside. Maybe his dad’s old chair has enough common-sense energy left to keep him from making more of an ass of himself and he flops into it.

Hiccup (6:11pm): no, we aren’t talking about grimborn, I forgot sorry

Astrid (6:12pm): it’s fine

Hiccup (6:12pm): no, we said we weren’t, let’s…talk about the next time we can not talk about grimborn

Astrid (6:14pm): is that a euphemism?

He blinks at that text for a second, trying and failing to shove his comprehension of it back into a neat little cube that will let him think or breathe or do anything but burn remembering how she felt against him.

Hiccup (6:15pm): Tomorrow?

And he has no money. Very minimal money at least. Not the kind of money that adults have for dates when there are euphemisms involved. Not that he’d pay for them like Viggo Grimborn luring some unsuspecting woman into an alley—this is why he’s single.

Astrid (6:16pm): Sure, what do you want to do?

Everything. Nothing. Ask questions and actually let her talk, for once, but that would require a personality transplant apparently and he doesn’t have time for one of those. Plus those probably cost money. Maybe he could pay for it with that frozen yogurt gift card, hell using a frozen yogurt gift card would practically be a personality transplant in and of itself—

Hiccup (6:16pm): frozen yogurt!!!

Astrid (6:17pm): so you’re…adamant about frozen yogurt, alright

Hiccup (6:17pm): oh no, I hate frozen yogurt, but I have no money and a gift card

Astrid (6:18pm): you know I can pay, right? This isn’t the middle ages, you don’t need to demonstrate your chivalry to me.

Hiccup (6:19pm): oh, I know, plus I’d cry if you expected me to put my hat down on a puddle so you could cross it Hiccup (6:20pm): I guess…this sounds weird but bear with me

Astrid (6:20pm): I think you just defined every interaction we’ve ever had

Hiccup (6:21pm): In a roundabout way, getting frozen yogurt sounds like a good idea because taking you places that I love has had really weird and complicated results, so maybe the answer is to take you somewhere that I hate

Astrid (6:22pm): it’s a date

00000

“Anything for me?” Hiccup yawns on his way out of his bedroom the next afternoon when they wake up, watching Snotlout juggle a shoebox sized cardboard box and a handful of envelopes through the door.

“Looks like a credit card offer and a student loan notice,” Snotlout holds out the box for Hiccup to take his mail.

“Two of the four horsemen of the adult apocalypse,” he tosses the credit card offer and opens the loan statement with a grimace.

“You know you can get those online right?” Snotlout sits down on the couch with the box in his lap, using the butter knife from his morning toast to open it.

“Hey, I sold my soul to the devil for an Art History degree, I want the hard copy receipt.” The number on the notice looks worse than normal though and it takes Hiccup a second to put together why.

It’s not about being able to pay for Astrid, she’s obviously not someone who cares about stuff like that. It’s about not…dragging her down. It’s different when Snotlout is the only one who sees him survive on ramen in the summer when tour interest goes down, Snotlout has seen worse. It’s different when he has a pocket of cash too.

He started doing tours for his own entertainment, he helped Heather start her company when it was all about the mystery for both of them. It was the notoriety that bugged him and that only amped up when the crime scenes got a fresh coat of caution tape.

But right now, staring at that number that really does keep growing when he doesn’t pay it, he’s reminded full force that he also does tours for the money.

“I’ve been thinking, I should start tours up again,” Hiccup sticks the mail to the fridge and nods to himself, “yeah, that’s a good idea, Berserker tours must be booking months out by now, I could get full share of the spontaneous customers. Any idea if there’s any issue at the crime scenes?”

Snotlout doesn’t mock him, which should be his first clue that something isn’t right, and when he turns around, Snotlout is staring into the open box on his lap with a pale face and wide eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

“This isn’t my self-tanner.”

“You ordered self-tanner?” Hiccup raises an eyebrow and crosses the room to see what is so offensive to receive in self-tanner’s stead.

It’s not skin bleaching cream, which would have been apt.

It’s a foot.

A foot standing disembodied in the shabby cardboard box, almost waxy in appearance, harmless except for the dread emanating off of it. Hiccup’s never seen an unattached right foot before, and he can’t say it was on his bucket list. There’s a note taped to the lid of the box and smeared with streaks Hiccup doesn’t want to think about, so he tries to focus on the letters. They’re blurry either from damp paper or his struggle to keep his eyes still on them, but he can see they line up in neat rows.  

It reminds him of a letter he saw in glass in a collector’s museum. A letter that had been delivered wrapped around a victim’s finger and sent to Deputy Detective Ryker over a hundred years ago. A letter that had led to his eventual stint in custody.

“Is that a poem?”

“It’s a foot!” Snotlout jumps up, holding the box at arm’s length and shuffling towards the kitchen, “I know you only have one but you should still recognize it!”

Hiccup leans over the box when Snotlout sets it down, squinting at the writing and willing his heart to slow down enough to let him read, “is that in comic sans?”

“It’s a fucking foot,” he starts pacing, pulling his phone out and presumably dialing the station. “Yeah, I’ve got human remains in a fucking box—no, they were shipped here, are you crazy, Johnson? Yeah, maybe send a car, that’s a fucking brilliant idea, great job!”

Thoughts of Grimborn letters, fingers, Snotlout’s badge, and disconcertingly, of Astrid wondering what he’d do if the murders continued rush through Hiccup’s head as he fumbles with his phone, snapping four or five quick pictures of the box, as close as he can to the message.

“What are you doing?” Snotlout snaps as he hangs up and Hiccup holds his phone up.

“Oh, you mean—”

“Yes, I mean, are you taking pictures of evidence for your creepy collection? Because it’s bad enough that I touched the box,” he shudders, “oh shit, I set it on my lap, did I get dead foot juice on my junk?”

“No—”

“Are you sure?” Snotlout is more preoccupied with his lap than Hiccup’s phone now, but it’s still better to pad the lie.

“No, I’m not taking pictures of for my creepy collection.” He’s taking pictures for another reason, so it’s not technically a lie, “I’m texting Astrid that I doubt I’ll be able to make our date today.”

Hiccup (4:00pm): I don’t think I’m going to be able to do anything today, do you want actual reason or wild excuse?

“Yeah, they’re sending a car over,” Snotlout huffs, “goddammit, I thought I had one day without Eretson’s smug face—but no, some creep had to send us a hacked off foot, great.”

Astrid (4:02pm): actual reason

Hiccup (4:02pm): snotlout received a package that he thought was the self-tanner he ordered, but actually was a disembodied foot, and there’s a blurry message with it in a font I believe to be comic sans

Astrid (4:03pm): I had to read that three times to make sure I didn’t accidentally say wild excuse

Hiccup (4:03pm): raincheck?

Astrid (4:04pm): Don’t go spending that gift card without me

“Dude, put your shoes on,” Snotlout throws Hiccup’s shoes at him, one of them hitting him in the side.

“Hey!”

“They’re outside,” he points at Hiccup’s plastic left foot, “that’s a secret, remember?”

“Shit,” the rush to yank his shoes on is a perfect capsule of the anxiety that multiplies over the next hour or so as a forensic team takes the box and swabs what feels like every inch of the apartment. Snotlout isn’t happy to be in the back of a police car, even if he knows the officers in front, and he’s less happy to be plopped in Eretson’s office on the wrong side of the desk.

It doesn’t help anything that they’re both still in pajamas.

“About the self-tanner, dude,” Snotlout clears his throat, looking out the office window and presumably checking if Eretson is on his way, “it’s going to be really natural and gradual, you weren’t even going to notice.”

“That’s what you want to talk about right now?” Hiccup’s phone burns a hole in his pocket, and he hates how much he hates Heather. He needs to show it to someone. Then again, Heather wasn’t trustworthy when he trusted her.

“I watched a video on how to apply it—”

“Yeah, did it include directions to the jersey shore?”

“You mix it with your moisturizer for the first week and the color grabs slower, plus I have black chest hair, it was going to blend!”

Eretson opens the door somewhere between jersey shore and moisturizer, as stony faced as Hiccup has ever seen him.

“Mr. Haddock, Jorgenson,” he sits down and starts typing efficiently, not so much avoiding eye contact as metering his attention where he sees fit.

“It’s Officer Jorgenson to you, thanks,” Snotlout crosses his arms, flexing too obviously, and Hiccup elbows him. Officer doesn’t make anything seem better right now. The whole reason Deputy Detective Ryker spent two months in custody as Grimborn was because they could blame the bungled case on him.

“You’re not on duty, Mr. Jorgenson, in fact I believe I overheard you planning a beach vacation, don’t let my investigation interrupt it.” When he does look up, it’s at Hiccup in particular, “at five o’clock this time?”

“I know how you love your job?” Hiccup shrugs and Eretson sighs.

“So, Mr. Jorgenson, you received a package of unknown origin—“

“I thought it was from Amazon,” Snotlout tries to kick his feet up on the desk but they don’t quite reach and Hiccup rubs his eyes to avoid seeing Eretson’s reaction.

Hiding his eyes doesn’t help, every ounce of repressed irritation comes through in the detective’s pinched voice.

“Was the package addressed to you?”

“I was expecting a package so I opened the package,” Snotlout scoffs.

“You didn’t check if your name was on it?” Hiccup hisses at him and he flings his arms up, still trying to look bigger.

“I ask the questions,” Eretson doesn’t quite pound his hand on the table but the intent is there, and Hiccup tries to mentally will Snotlout to behave but his skull has always been too thick for that. “The package was addressed to an SG Jorgenson, is that you?”

“Those are my initials.”

“And they stand for?” The detective readies himself to write it down.

“My names,” he deflates, “Snotlout Gary Jorgenson, but—wait, someone sent me a cut off foot? That’s super fucked up.”

“Yes, you’re getting it, murder is fucked up” Eretson sets down a picture of Dave, or his body, coroner sheet thankfully pulled up directly under his chin. “The foot was an exact match to Dave Ralston.”

“Well I don’t know that guy,” Snotlout lies semi-convincingly, “I definitely don’t know why anyone would send me his foot.”

Eretson turns to Hiccup, “I understand you knew Dave Ralston from the homeless shelter.”

“Are you saying I mailed Snotlout a foot of a homeless man I knew in passing?” Hiccup’s fear manifests as it always does, a reason to be indignant and loud. He thinks of that leg and how he can remember having it fitted, learning to hobble on it and imagining toes. “Because no, that didn’t happen.”

“Your alibi for—“

“I was at the archives, you can talk to Astrid, you can talk to Fishlegs—“

“The package was mailed from the archives yesterday in the last package pickup at 4:30,” Eretson glances out his office window and Hiccup does the same, trying not to wince when he sees Mr. Grisly, talking to someone he can’t quite see.

He can’t lie.

“I was—“

“With Astrid,” the detective fills in, “of course.”

“I have texts,” he fumbles with his phone, but of course his camera is still open, the bloody note tiled in the corner as the last picture he took and he shoves it back into his pajama pocket. If he starts tapping his foot, it might creak, he didn’t fully tighten it down before they had to leave. “I can send them to you or something. To keep the um…encrypted dates for official—“

“Well Grisly was there too, right?” Snotlout trusts the office’s soundproofing far more than Hiccup would. “Who says he didn’t do it? It seems like the kind of creepy shit he’d do—“

“That’s enough,” Eretson booms, the sound reverberating like a ghost off of the walls. Snotlout opens his mouth to continue and Hiccup smacks him in the arm, shaking his head.

“Guess that beach vacation is cancelled, huh?” He nods at Eretson in understanding, “good thing you can get the same golden glow from a handy bottle that won’t take us out of town.”

“I’ll be following up.” Eretson gestures at the door and Hiccup leans carefully on Snotlout’s shoulder to stand, making sure his leg doesn’t creak or buckle or give itself away when it takes his anxious weight.

“Sure thing,” Hiccup drags Snotlout from the room before he can decide to go back onto tiptoes or something equally stupid.   Of course, that means it’s Hiccup’s turn to be stupid and he balks outside the door, eyes widening when he sees who Grisly is talking to, “Heather?”

“Hiccup,” Heather cocks her hip, holding a thick, official looking file that isn’t labeled with her usual red sharpie. Someone else’s file. A police file. “Nice…jumpsuit.” She looks down at his plaid pajamas and he knows her too well to ignore her concern. It’s deeply buried but there and he glares at Grisly. Not even Heather deserves to deal with Rasputin’s mangy ghost.

“Miss Berserker is the Grimborn expert we hired, she’s already been explaining the concept of Trader Johann to me,” Grisly grins and maybe he’s exactly what Heather deserves, “very concise and articulate.”

“Yeah, easier to feed conjecture in small bites—“ Hiccup starts, but Snotlout grabs his arm. “I don’t know though, ‘Zombie Trader Johann’ is a little hard for anyone to swallow.”

“When solving a mystery of this magnitude,” Grisly chuckles, “we must consider all angles. Right down to resurrection.”

“Hiccup, let’s go,” Snotlout tugs and speaks a little too loud, clearly for Heather’s benefit, “don’t you have that date to get to?”

“Are you still doing tours?” Hiccup ignores him.

“Dagur’s taking over some of them,” she tries to sound professional and he remembers her wide grin when he showed her the ‘All Safe’ wall for the first time. Astrid’s picture is a piece of proof she doesn’t have, and it doubles his compulsion to get it out there. “Are you still—“

“I will be,” he nods, “I’ve got some new evidence.”

“I’m sure you do,” Grisly cuts off the conversation and points at the door, “official police business, I’m sure you understand.”

“He does,” Snotlout grumbles, glaring up at Grisly as he shoves Hiccup along, either barely remembering to mind his leg or getting lucky that he’s not causing a limp. “When we get home, I’m going to take a shower, because I swear I got dead foot juice on my lap, and then I’m going to look up ‘how not to be weird and morbid’ in your freaking office, and shove whatever book I find that definition in up your—“

“Gobber?” Hiccup once again stops short as Snotlout tries to forcibly drag him from the police station yet again. Eretson must have snuck around while they were talking to Heather, because he’s at the front desk with Gobber, discussing some notes.

“Can’t say I’m glad to see you here,” Gobber chuckles, “but I’m always glad to see you. And oh, you have Snotlout with you.”

“Yeah, I know, you must be thrilled to see me too,” Snotlout grins, apparently finding a new thing to hold over Eretson.  

“Eh.”

“Well, I can’t say I’m glad to be here, not really my choice,” Hiccup glances at the detective.

“Oh, I’m sure you look guilty for something,” Gobber leans sideways and whispers loudly to Eretson, “it’s his specialty.”

“No, assuming I’m guilty is everyone else’s specialty,” Hiccup crosses his arms, leg feeling shaky like it never does.

“Aye, cops especially, so it’d be fastest if you let the handsome detective do his job—“

“Handsome?” Eretson isn’t used to being caught off guard and it doesn’t last long. “Of course, you were making a pass at me, and here I thought you were the only one in this damn town trying to help.” He collects his files, mumbling under his breath as he stalks back towards his office, clearly further from leaving the office than ever.

“Can’t it be both?” Gobber shrugs and Hiccup shakes his head.

“Twenty five years of friendship and you sell me out for a hot piece of ass?”

“I don’t think it counted as friendship when you were a baby.”

Snotlout scowls back towards the offices, “who cares about friendship? I’ve been working out just as much as he does, why does he still get everything?”

“For the best probably,” Gobber shakes his head, “you couldn’t handle me.”

Hiccup blinks at his father’s best and oldest friend, “you know, Gobber, thanks for that. Now I won’t have nightmares about mutilated body part mail.”

“Anytime.” He nods and this time it’s Hiccup dragging Snotlout outside.

Snotlout wasn’t kidding about the immediate shower, and he must have been serious about the ‘dead foot juice’, as he put it, because he throws his pajamas in the kitchen trash on the way back to his room to get dressed. Hiccup doesn’t like thinking about them in there and Snotlout agrees as he ties up the mostly empty trash as soon as he’s dressed, looking around at the ghost of forensic swab marks on almost every surface.

“Yeah, no, I don’t want to hang out in the foot-mail apartment right now,” he shudders, “Gruff’s?”

“Uh, sure,” Hiccup glances at his dad’s office door, wanting to print out one of the pictures he took and start deciphering it, but knowing if he wants to research right now it’ll be suspicious.

“I’m sure a girl as hot as Astrid already has another date lined up, you can talk to her tomorrow.” Snotlout sighs, “just put on some actual pants and come hang out until I stop thinking about…saw marks and—”

“Yeah, ok,” Hiccup doesn’t make him say it, swallowing hard against his own repressed memory as he changes. For the first time ever, he avoids looking down at his right foot and trips a little getting into his jeans because of it, but he shakes it off to engage full scale Snotlout distraction mode. “So, did you notice Eretson had a mustard stain on his shirt?”

“What? Where was it? Was it on his tie?” Snotlout snorts, “I bet he eats sandwiches like an idiot.”

Hiccup makes up enough details about the imagined stain to preoccupy Snotlout the entire walk to the bar, even throwing in a few fake laughs at a very bad impression of a British accent. He’s not quite cheerful by the time they’re sitting at the bar, but he’s cheered enough to start his version of the standard cop lecture.

“As little as possible actually means as little as possible in this situation,” he gives Hiccup a disappointed look, “like if you want to make Heather jealous, just tell her you have a date like a normal person, don’t say you’re going to start your creepy tours back up, especially at a time when that Grisly dick thinks Venison Greenland has something to do with the murders.”

“Ok, I’ll work backwards on that,” he numbers on his fingers, “Venison Greenland isn’t even clever, I am going to start tours back up, and I don’t care about making Heather jealous. And my date was cancelled by a surprisingly efficient postal shipment, which makes me wonder—”

“You can’t start tours back up right now, dude.”

“As I was saying, it makes me wonder if the person behind all of this has some sort of government sway,” Hiccup nods importantly.

“I can’t tell if you’re bullshitting me to avoid talking about Heather or not.”

“I don’t know why you always want to talk about Heather.” Hiccup stares at the row of dusty bottles above the bar and tries not to think about their comfortable nights at the Ripped Tavern, before things got contentious. Heather’s pet theory was Ryker before it was Johann and it makes his stomach churn.

“Because she was my friend too and I always thought shit would get weird in the group because you two paired off to have a murder themed wedding or something,” he shrugs, “not because you disagreed about research.”

“Snotlout, my issues with Heather are with her, if you want to be her friend that’s between you guys.”

“Are you kidding?” He snorts, “even before she teamed up with Mr. Grisly she screwed you over. Not a chance.” It would be sweet if Snotlout didn’t punctuate it by punching him in the shoulder so hard he almost falls off of the stool.

And if that package didn’t neatly line Snotlout up with Ryker.

“I’d have way better luck getting back at her by restarting tours than by making her jealous with some cancelled date.”

“You know what sucks? I used to be able to explain to you that girls care more about you moving on with another girl than they do about hundred-year-old murders, but now you’ve got Astrid whispering Grimborn in your ear—”

“Oh god, don’t go there,” Hiccup winces, “not today, haven’t I been through enough? Didn’t you hurt me enough by hitting on Gobber—”

“I wasn’t hitting on him, I just don’t know why he was hitting on Eretson when I was right there.”

“Probably because he’s known you literally your entire life.”

“Yeah, and so has your mom—”

“I’m restarting tours,” Hiccup cuts that off, “I need the money, for one—”

“Amen to that, Hiccup,” Gruffnut leans on the other side of the bar and glares at Snotlout, “it’s tough not being employed by the government to be a narc, isn’t it?”

“Just because I’m the only one with a job that makes money doesn’t make me a narc.”

“Oh, I do plenty for money,” Gruffnut numbers off, “I dress up as my dumb boy cousin and scam people, I wipe the counters, I pour beers for people, I sell alcohol for way more than I pay for it—”

“Except for the first thing, those are all just part of being a bartender,” Hiccup points out and Gruffnut shakes his head like it’s heavy with exhaustion.

“I know, right? I go above and beyond and I still barely make rent,” he whispers conspiratorially, “all the toilet paper in the bathroom is stolen from McDonalds.”

“I can hear you,” Snotlout shoos him, “so if you don’t want me to tell McDonalds—”

“See? Narc.” Gruffnut shuffles off to the other end of the bar.

“You could get a job, you know, with a boss and a paycheck and insurance that you don’t have to pretend to be my domestic partner to get.” Snotlout doesn’t need to know how much he sounds like Hiccup’s dad sometimes, it would go to his head.

“Yeah, I’m sure the five-year gap in my nonexistent resume would be great for that.” He sighs, “I guess I’m worried about…if I’m not giving tours, Heather’s basically controlling the whole Grimborn narrative in Berk and now she’s apparently working with Grisly, who—I didn’t tell you this because I didn’t think it mattered but he came by the archives yesterday—”

“I know,” Snotlout rolls his eyes, “Astrid told me.”

“Anyway, Grisly wanted a copy of that Admiral Haddock book, which means that the so called ‘experts’ at the station aren’t exactly people I trust with the truth.”

“Just a couple of weeks ago you were saying how shitty Heather was to be giving tours to active crime scenes.” Snotlout orders another beer, foot tapping against the rung of his stool, and Hiccup still never knows how to act when his cousin is worried about him.

It’s even harder when the feeling is mutual.  

“I guess I was really hoping that this wasn’t connected to Grimborn,” Hiccup shrugs, “but now with the modern equivalent of the Ryker finger showing up at your—our door. Our door. I guess that me not doing a tour didn’t prevent the body part mailing, but maybe I could calm down the hysteria a bit while Heather is too busy to dump gasoline on the flames.”

And he can see what kind of information is spreading. Call him paranoid but this is all starting to circle a little too close to home.

“That’s stupid.”

“Well, I’m stupid,” Hiccup is at least keeping his promise to Astrid with that one.

“Yeah you are, given you’re actively deciding to harass Astrid’s apartment nightly when she’s your alibi for a bunch of sketchy shit.”

Hiccup opens his mouth to tell him that Astrid doesn’t mind, but then he remembers something she said when he thought she wouldn’t read a book, let alone go on a private tour with him.

“Can I borrow fifty bucks?” He stands up, “and I mean borrow, I will pay you back when this all works out.”

[bluering8]

for the dnd meme, i'm gonna send you the same prompt someone else sent me: prime numbers!

2. Your favouritecharacter that someone else has played.

My favourite character was probably Pax! Her player is nolonger around because Reasons, but I still love Pax. She was hilarious and anabsolute delight, top-quality belligerent homeless drunkard with more arms (four)than brain cells.

Favourite character who is still active is maybe… Glitz??That’s a really hard choice because I particularly love the entire Navarenegroup, the Glitz-Levin-Aradi trio is super fun for me to watch interacting becausetheir personalities bounce off each other in really entertaining ways.

3. Your favouriteside quest.

I don’t think we really… do side quests… Numenera iskind of like Side Quests: the RPG, the whole point of it is that you’resupposed to explore and get distracted by random shit and race off in twentydifferent directions at once.

5. Favourite NPC.

Ssenofyn Srelthyn Syntysus! Ssen’s hilarious to me because he’sso consistently deadpan in the face of wacky shenanigans and questionablesocial skills. He cares only for science and it’s delightful. It also means he’sreally good at the job of Being A Party NPC: all he wants is for the party tokeep running around and exploring, so he’s content to stand in the backgroundand only help out when asked. He lets the PCs do all the Fun Stuff, and it makes sense for his character that he’d act that way.

7. Your favouritedowntime activity.

We don’t really… do downtime either… I mean, we could do downtime, but I’m a veryimpatient man and want lots of things to be happening at all times. Okay, wejust jumped out of a plane after encountering/rescuing a new PC and there’snothing immediately important happening, this would be a really good time torelax and take stock and have some RP where we get to know our new teammateright? Well, we could do that, or wecould investigate this weird space lego in a nearby pond let’s do thatinstead!!

11. How often do youplay and how often would you ideally like to play?

We play pretty irregularly? Mostly as a side-effect of wowthere are so many different time zones and conflicting schedules at play here.We’ve switched to play-by-post rather than having actual sessions, which has helpeda lot with the scheduling issues, but we still don’t play very often. I’m like68% sure we’re maybe on hiatus until the new books come out?

13. Introduce yourcurrent party.

There are three!

Draolis party: Tom Sideways (Charming Jack who Works theBack Alleys), useless layabout on a quest to locate a gun which fires weird timebullets and also an occasional pawn in his crime lord brother’s scheming; Aeli(Clever Glint who Crafts Illusions), a con artist who got herself involved inOracle’s political shenanigans; Styx (Ultraterrestrial Glaive who IntegratesWeaponry), a boisterous adventurer from the Timelands who found herselfstranded in the Ninth World by accident and is seeking to repair her worldlineshifter; Oracle (NPC), an overdramatic “””terrorist””” who likes to yell aboutpolitics a lot.

Navarene party: Enodyne (Perceptive Nano who Abides inCrystal), an imperious supervillain with a mysterious backstory; Levin (WeirdNano who Rides the Lightning), Aeon Priest, mom friend, and also an avidknitter; Glitz (Manipulative Jack who Possesses a Shard of the Sun), a fancyboy who wears impractical shoes and is super Extra at all times; Aradi (GuardedSeeker who Manipulates Force), a Gaian who is just here to explore ancientruins and doesn’t know why these strange people keep talking to her like shetolerates them.

Techhunter party: Mote (Mystical Jack who Fuses Mind andMachine), a space ape from space on a quest to find her lost god; Flux Dynamo(Mercurial Glaive who Employs Magnetism), who is ADHD as hell and loves spaceso much you guys so much; Ssenofyn(NPC), who is just here to do science.

17. What are somehouse rules that your group has?

Anyone who draws an art gets an experience point, AKA therule which lets Hap advance at approximately the ten times the rate of everyoneelse put together (I’m not deliberately spamming art specifically for the purposeof XP gain, I’m just Like This). The GM insists this is fine.

The new books are gonna be introducing Player Intrusionsalso, which presumably is gonna mean players get to spend an XP to make goodthings happen to themselves. The GM’s said that if there’s no mechanism to letplayers make bad things happen tothemselves they’ll houserule it in just for me, which on the one hand I feelkind of offended but on the other hand shit yes time to shoot myself repeatedlyin the foot!! I promise to use this power responsibly and only cause disastersfor myself so I don’t ruin the game for other people. On the gripping hand thisshould go some way to correcting the ridiculous amount of XP I’ve accidentallyaccumulated with my constant fanart, so it all balances out in the end I guess.

19. Do you or yourparty have any dice superstitions?

Nope! Except that back when we were using physical diceinstead of a dicebot Jack’s dice hated them, which was less superstition andmore objective fact because one time we had a session while they were visitingme and they borrowed a set of my dice and suddenly they could make non-shittyrolls.

23. Do you usepremade modules or original campaigns?

Mostly original stuff I think? Don’t look at me, I only haveaccess to the character-creation books, I don’t know how much of what goes on is canon and how much the GM makes up on the spot. Fortunately all my characters areeither foreigners or complete idiots so my relative ignorance of the NinthWorld doesn’t matter super much.

29. Do you prefer RPheavy sessions or combat sessions?

As a GM? RP sessions, mostly because the game I’m GMing usesa ridiculously ruleslite system so there’s not really anything interesting youcan do with combat. This might change if I ever get organised enough to runsomething with more than a single page of rules. But also, when the players are RPing and treating their PCs like characters instead of sticks to solve problems with, that’s super super pleasing for me because it feels like they’re enjoying themselves and getting engaged with what’s going on.

31. What is yourfavourite class? Favourite race?

My favourite type is jack! They seem to be, like… the bestset up for interacting with the world in the way I want to interact with it. Ilike having the variety in what I can do and I’m not super bothered by the lackof high-powered/specialised skills. It looks like the new book’s going to bemaking jacks their own Thing instead of just being a nonspecialised mishmash ofall the other character types so iunno, we’ll see how that one shakes out.

Numenera doesn’t really doraces the way DND does races. You get races, but they’re in place ofdescriptors rather than a separate trait. I ain’t give a shit about function orbuilding a mechanically-optimised character, if you tell me I can either pick aspecies trait or a character trait I’ll pick the character trait. So I guess Iprefer the default “race” (which is… not necessarily human, Mote’s a spaceape but she still counts as the default mechanically) because then I can picksomething else interesting to have going on. I did super enjoy playing an ArtificiallyIntelligent character one time, but the GM let me pick two descriptors so I wasAI/Mad and honestly if I could’ve only picked one, Mad all the way.

[smhtxmhxlland]

Can’t Help Falling In Love

Artist: Elvis Presley

Relationship: Peter Parker X Reader

Summary: You love him, but you’ve never spoken to each other.

Warnings: FLUFF

Word Count: 2,434

Want a Song?

It hurt, looking at him hurt. The ache in your heart as you watched him perform the chemistry lab in front of you.He was so smart and so cute. He was also so out of reach.

“Pour in iodine.” Your lab partner brought you back from your daydream.

You smiled at her, grabbing the bottle marked ‘iodine.’ She frowned. 

“Nothing happened.” She blatantly stated. She moved over to the bottle and stared at the liquid in the bottom. “Isn’t there supposed to be a puff of smoke? Or something interesting?”

“No,” a new voice spoke. “It only changes the color to show a reaction.”

You looked up and saw Peter looking at your table through his lab goggles. He looked so cute in them your heart nearly flew out of your chest. You smiled at him, giving him a playful eye roll. Your partner wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box, but she was nice enough.

“I hate chemistry.” You heard her groan, sounding utterly defeated.

The moment you thought you were having with Peter was broken when your teacher told the class to clean up their spots. You were ordered to go back to your seats and complete the lab questions. For yours, you had to explain why yours changed to the color it did. Your partner was lost the entire time, but you didn’t have the patience to help her. 

You finished up your own lab report and looked up at the sound of papers rustling. Peter was at his desk, pushing his papers together, making them neat for when he stapled them together to hand in. All you wanted to do was talk to him. You were so shy. So reserved. You wouldn’t even know where to start the conversation.

Peter and you were very different. He was cute, you were average. He was a genius, you were average. He excelled at everything he’s ever tried, you came out a little bit average. It didn’t bother you at all, he was perfect in every way. It just bothered you at how intimidating it made him. You were afraid to speak to him. You were afraid to sound dumb. 

So you kept yourself safe, and never purposefully tried to get to know him. 

“Spider-Man, Spider-Man, Spider-Man. That’s all you ever talk about anymore.” Your friend sighed next to you.

This was about the only thing that was just above loving the nerd in your chemistry class. The new hero on the block had everyone raving, but you? You were obsessed with him.

“Doesn’t it make you the least bit curious on who he is? Come on, he’s gotta be our age. Don’t you think?”

Your friend groaned. “How would we know that exactly?”

You shrugged. “It’s a feeling. I just, I feel like I know him.”

“You know him? Meaning,,,,”

You sighed, this didn’t even make any sense to you. “I feel drawn to him.”

This time they laughed in your face. “Alright, you’re officially crazy. I liked it better when you were gushing over Peter’s hair.”

Your eyes widened at the loud tone in your friend’s voice. “Could you please not out me to the entire cafeteria maybe?”

They laughed again, this time louder. “Don’t want your not-so-secret crush out? I feel like this would be good. You two are perfect. The two little nerds of the school skipping down the sidewalk holding hands. It’s a cliche, you’ve gotta make it happen.”

You shook your head. “Heck no. That isn’t a cliche because I’m not a nerd,  and never going to happen.”

They shrugged. “If you say so.”

You were walking down the street towards your home that was just a mile from your local library. You went there to study or read after school. Your house was always loud and boisterous with your little brother running wild all over the place. It was your getaway, where you could get your thinking done in complete silence. It was also comforting, the smell of books.

The walk home wasn’t a long one, so usually you weren’t bothered by anyone, However, tonight you had a funny feeling. It was darker than usual, winter bringing a faster darkness to the city. The only thing illuminating your nose in front of your face were the streetlights. 

A loud crash to your right made you jump. The alleyway seemed empty enough, but you weren’t about to take your chances. You began walking a little faster until you heard a groan. You looked over your shoulder and saw a familiar figure step out from the darkness. You squinted to see who it was and recognized him immediately.

“Peter?” You asked.

He looked up, panicky as he saw you standing there. He gave a slight, nervous wave.

“Where did you come from? Why were you in that alley?”

He paused, looking uncertain of the answer he’d almost given you. “Nothing?”

“Okay...” You trailed off. 

“I gotta go.” He rushed out. He turned and began scurrying quickly away.

“Wait!” You yelled after him and he stopped. Say it. Say something. Why’d you even yell that you idiot. You had nothing to say to him. You just didn’t want him to leave. You couldn’t help it. You wanted him so badly. You wanted to know him. You needed to know him. Your heart needed it. 

“What?” He asked.

“Uh, I just...”

He looked at you expectantly, waiting for you to continue. Nothing came out.

“Look, I’m really sorry, but I have to go.” This time he rushed off and you didn’t say anything else. You were stuck there staring longingly after him. Even when he disappeared you hadn’t moved. He was glorious, and you loved him. 

Another one of your favorite places was the fire escape right outside your bedroom window. Your parents had purposefully given this room to you in case there ever was a fire. They told you they wouldn’t know what to do if you ever were to burn in a fire. Now, you knew they were being a little dramatic, but you were their first kid. You couldn’t blame them for being overprotective. 

You were reading your favorite book, Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers, when a body swung out of nowhere. A blur of red rushed past you and you leaned over the fire escape railing to see what it was. Except you knew who it was as soon as you saw a flash of blue. 

Spider-Man.

You tried to lean out further, not wanting to miss the chance of seeing him in action. You failed. So you came up with a better idea. You began climbing over the railing. Using one arm, you kept your foot in place, and hung out over the road beneath you.

You hadn’t really thought about the drop until he had vanished from sight. You totally forgot about your fear of heights and the anxiety it caused being up this high. Usually it didn’t bother you being on the fire escape because you never looked down. Never looked through the cracks, you were smarter than that. Now, though, you were screwed.

“Oh god,” you huffed out, gripping the railing with both arms. You were shaking now. 

You tried to hoist yourself up, but your foot slipped and you let out a scream. The cry echoed throughout the buildings. In your attempt to regain your footing, you hadn’t noticed that your hands were now sweaty and you were losing your grip. 

You whimpered slightly, tears filling your eyes as you tried your hardest to get back to safety. It wasn’t working, though. Out of all this time being on the little fire escape, you never imagined this happening. All for a stupid guy in a mask, too. 

Your foot slipped again and this time your chin hit the top of the railing. You felt your fingers come unhooked from the tiny rail and a scream flew from your throat as you plummeted. It felt like hours before you felt yourself hit something.This something had come flying at you from the side. You had your eyes closed, so you couldn’t see what had caught you, but you knew right away who it was.

Your arms had flown instinctively around his neck to hold you in place and he swung you both to a top of a building. He set you down, squatting at a distance.

“Oh my god.” You whispered, your heart hammering in your chest.

“Are you okay?” 

You didn’t answer. You were still in shock. Not even from the near fall, but just the fact that he was there in front of you.

“Hey, miss. Are you alright?”

You nodded and looked at him. You studied him, trying to find if you could tell how long his hair was under the mask. The outline of his body. Did you recognize it? You couldn’t tell. The voice, though, it sounded so familiar. Sort of like someone you knew, but you couldn’t put your finger on it.

“Okay....well I have to go. Don’t uh,” He pointed a scolding finger at me, trying to act official. “Don’t go on the ledge again.”

That voice....

“Peter?”

He had began to turn away to leave, but he froze immediately at the sound of his name. You knew you had him and you knew he was right. You would never miss that voice. You couldn’t. It was a voice that could lull you to sleep. The voice that you yearned to hear everyday. The voice that made you melt. 

“How....How did you know?” His voice squeaked when he asked, nervous.

You shook your head, your cheeks flaring at the discovery. “I can’t tell you that.”

He reached behind his head and pulled the mask off, fully staring at you now with curiosity. “You could not have just guessed that.”

You shrugged, your heart pounding. You were stuck now. How do you admit to the love of your life that they are the love of your life? That you’ve loved them forever. That you don’t even know them, but you’re in love with them. How does that even?

He was so close now. You hadn’t even noticed he had been taking steps towards you. Your hands began to sweat again from nerves. You never imagined your first ever interaction with him being this weird. He was Spider-Man, your second obsession. 

“Your voice.” You finally choked out.

He groaned, looking up at the sky. “Are you serious? My voice. God, I hate my voice. It always gives it away. Honestly, why is it so...”

You didn’t let him finish. “No, I just. I recognize your voice because I can’t help it. I’m drawn to it almost. It’s weird. I just really like your voice.” The words came out of your mouth too fast. You couldn’t stop them. You instantly regretted it.

He looked at you, not saying anything, and you couldn’t read what he was thinking. His face was unreadable. It was terrifying. You needed to fix it.

“Don’t say anything. I’m sorry. This was a mistake. Forget I said that. I’m just being silly. Didn’t eat this morning and its messed me up all day.”

He didn’t say anything again and now it was getting awkward. Beyond that, even, your skin was beginning to crawl with discomfort. 

“You know, I really need to get home. Do my homework. You know...”

He shook his head finally, chuckling. Why was he laughing?

“What’s so funny?” You asked, hurt by the reaction. He was laughing at you.

“You know you don’t do your homework at home.”

You were at a loss of words. How’d he know that. It wasn’t like you talked about your routine on a daily. You just did your own thing and kept to yourself. Plus, you never saw him at the library. How could he possibly know. He didn’t even know me.

“I’ve sort of kept track of you. I don’t know. Now I’m the weird one, but you don’t have homework. What was it about my voice again that you’re drawn to?”

You felt as if your face was on fire. He was messing with you now. You couldn’t tell if you liked it or not, but it felt so normal. Like you’d done this forever.

“You’re right, I don’t do my homework at my house, but how did you know that?”

He shrugged. “Guess the same way to recognized my voice. I’ve noticed you.”

He didn’t understand that you haven’t just noticed him, but you’ve fallen head over heels for him. Quite literally, at one point, you remember clearly the day to tripped over yourself just to pick up the kid’s pencil he’d dropped. 

“I can’t help it.” He continued. “I just, fell in love with you. Not a love at first sight thing, but I fell in love with what I saw for sure.”

You nodded. This seemed like a dream. This couldn’t be real. You were hearing things. You were going to wake up on the fire escape, your book on the ground, and it was going to be fake.

Should you stay and find out if it’s true or.... you weren’t sure. You were so scared. This was everything you ever wanted.

“It’s crazy, I know. You’ve suddenly gone quiet and that’s horrifying, but I love you. I really do.”

You looked him dead in the eyes, your scared expression matched his. He was shaking, and it looked like there were tears swimming in his eyes. It broke your heart, but you smiled at him.

“I’ve been in love with you forever. I can’t help it either.”

You both didn’t really know what to do next. You were so shy and awkward and he was just so.....Peter. He was so close to you though. He had walked all the way to stand directly in front of you. He was still in his Spider-Man outfit, making this even more unreal, but you were just going to run with it.

He finally reach his hand out to touch your cheek. It wasn’t as awkward as you ever imagined it. Actually, you’d imagined it exactly like this: his hand perfectly fitting to your cheek. 

His other hand cupped the other side of your face and he pulled your lips to his. You’d never kissed anyone before, but the sensations you were feeling were amazing. It wasn’t short and it was too long. His lips were soft as they moved in sync with yours. You had no idea what you were doing, but at the same time pretended you did and it was absolutely perfect.

[theliterateape]

The Sales Gene and Why I Don’t Have It

By Don Hall

“I’ll admit, most neck tattoos look like shit but that one is actually cool.” “Yeah, I got it in Mexico after I played a few gigs in the area. So, you got a contest or something?” “Yup. $10K in free windows and doors. Are you a homeowner?” “Yeah but my windows are good.” “How old is your home?” “I’m really not interested but thanks.” “Are your windows aluminum or vinyl?” “I’m not…” He shook his head and walked away.

My trainer sidled up to me.

“We don’t curse.” “Huh?” “You said ’shit.’” “I did? Uhm… sorry.” “And you need to get him talking about the three pain points*. You let him off the hook way too easy.”

When I was in college, I took one summer to come home to Kansas. I got a job as a telemarketing sales representative for a company selling Amoco Multi-cards to old people who didn’t need them. Cold calls based on cursory interest. Someone who signed up for information or took a survey and now were in the system would get a call and be strong-armed into getting the card (with all the padded-on fees and inflated interests rates with which these sorts of cards are loaded up). There was a script filled with pages of rebuttals — the built-in responses to any objection someone might have for denying the rep a sale.

”I appreciate that. However…”

Every objection was appreciated and we never said But. However was the go to vernacular. No matter what their objection might be, the goal was to steer them back to the pitch. Sales were rarely focused on the positives of the product. Rather, drilling down on the negatives of their lives the product could improve was the dance.

I was relentless. I never took No for an answer. I was really good at it. So good that a month into my summer, I was promoted to floor manager, running around, checking other reps’ phone calls and motivating them to close those sales. The people on the other end of the calls were simply numbers to tally on a white board in the front of the room. They were mostly lonely and wanted to talk to someone. They were easy pickings.

At first, it was thrilling. I was setting company records every day. I was bringing home some bank. I got bonuses and my natural over-achiever mentality was fed. One morning, I woke up and realized I was an awful human. I was pigshit in the disguise of a guy set to help these people by selling them something they didn’t need or want. I hated myself. I quit that afternoon and swore I would never do telemarketing again.

Thirty-three years later, after moving to Las Vegas and discovering that my varied and substantial resume in Chicago meant next to nothing in this new, money-driven town, my need for some work and some cash to pay the freight of living superseded that three decades-long lesson. At least it wasn’t phone sales, right?

The position was listed as Events Representative, which sure sounded like something to do with events. The cold splash of water in my face when coming from the midwest was that, in the desert, events means something almost completely different than the industry I had spent the past decade or so involved in. Here, events are simply designed to sell people things, involve a contortionist, or get them married. This position (Events Representative) was standing in front of a table in a the lobby of a gym or Ace Hardware or in the rows of vendors at a street fair and selling them window replacements. For ten dollars an hour plus commissions. Wearing a lime green or shocking pink nylon polo shirt.

Hell, I needed the dough and Dana is working part time in a bowling alley so I bit.

I noticed in the training an odd but predictable dichotomy. The training was designed to sell me on the idea that what I was doing was specifically not high pressure sales. In bold writing it told me that “CUSTOMERS are not cold statistics. They are human beings with feelings and emotions like our own. CUSTOMERS are people who bring us their wants. It is our job to fill those wants. CUSTOMERS require trust, are respected, cared for, and delighted.” I liked this. It felt right and ethical.

On the other side of the training was the script. The videos I had to watch were adamant that I follow the script verbatim. The dude in these videos was intense. The hard sell from his angle culminated in a semi-rant about people who thought they were smarter than his system and his assurance that, no, I was not smarter than the script. If I held true to the exact wording, I would succeed.

The trainer was adamant about this as well. There were the five commitments required from each customer. There were the six key principles to keep at the front of every interaction (my favorite being “Control direction, timing, and conditions of each conversation”).

The script with its pages of rebuttals and forced language (“NAME — from what you’ve told me, you do know that you will have to replace some or all of these windows in the next couple of years — whether you want to or not — right?”) was dripping with manipulation. It was no different than the multi-card script except to be done in person rather than on the phone. Instead of “I appreciate that, however…” the language toward direct statements of intent followed by the go-to closer “Does that sound helpful?”

My first few days of shadowing other sales reps… er… events reps… wasn’t difficult, but the cues from everyone who had been doing this for a while were in conflict with the training. “No one really uses the script,” I was told. “Tell them what they need to hear. Push the appointment. This is all about getting those numbers up.” A few were a bit more humane. “I go with a soft sell. Trying to convince someone who doesn’t want to even think about replacing their windows to do that is weird so I just make conversation and try to gently guide them that way.”

The bottom line was the number of appointments set in a given shift. No appointments set meant you blew it and would get hauled in and re-trained. Or canned.

In high school, the Wichita Aeros needed a mascot. You know, one of those dudes in a giant fluffy costume whose sole job is to rally the crowd and get them pumped up? Except that the guy before me had stolen the Captain Aero costume. They said they’d pay me 100 dollars a game but I had to supply my own outfit. I culled together some masks and big shoes and whatever I could and went out to do the gig. No one was interested.

I had beer bottles thrown at me. I was called every filthy name you can think of, and one woman, drunk on cheap beer and a horrifying life, tried to punch me out. I smiled a shit-eating grin throughout, doing lame cheers I remembered from basketball games and trying goofy shit to get the crowd less hostile.

It was a nightmare. After three games, I told them I couldn’t do it anymore. They never paid me a dime.

That’s exactly what sales feels like to me.

*Three Pain Points

These are defined as locating using specific questions the problems people may be having that your product or service can rectify. I’m told that these are the key to quality sales. Building up a sense of urgency in solving these pain points is the skill required and that sense of urgency is created through appealing to an emotional rather than pragmatic foundation.

I was told that I had exactly the right personality for this. I had been told that before. Outgoing, enthusiastic, dominating. Except for one thing: I hate being sold. I can’t stand aggressive sales tactics. I don’t want to be confronted on the street with a forced conversation that ultimately ends with a request for my time or money for almost anything. The inauthenticity of that faux interaction is designed solely to separate me from dollars. I empathize more with those hapless souls being accosted than I do with the cutthroat game of selling. Now, I’m being paid to be one of those bullshit artists. And wear a fucking day-glo polo shirt in public.

I get it. Most of capitalism is driven by sales. Most sales are made by people selling things and ideas. The time-share thing here in Vegas. The guy on the street-corner with the spinning arrow sign trying to get you to come into the third-tier mobile phone store. The kid with the box of candy to raise money for his basketball team. All some variation on the theme of non-stop, unwavering sales.

The window replacement company was actually a good one. The service was amazing, the warranty was amazing, the product is the best in the business. If I wanted new windows, this was the place without any question. And when I spoke to someone in the field who wanted new windows and wanted to talk about it, it didn’t feel like selling, it felt like helping (which was the first message of the training, right?). Unfortunately, replacing windows is not generally on the top of the to-do list for most families. So, 98 percent of the people walking by do not give a shit and are annoyed when their time is invaded by some fucker trying to get them to stop and have a conversation about window problems.

It was the day I spent in the lobby of a high-end gym that broke me.

People coming and going with one singular purpose: to workout. I stood there, smiling and announcing the $10K giveaway. No one — no one — was interested. It felt like a set up, placing me in a location where failure was the only option and bothering people with a sales pitch my only tool. I spoke to one guy about his workout but as soon as I diverted it to windows, he walked away. Not an “Excuse me, I gotta go” sort of thing but a stop talking and simply walk away sort of thing. There was enough time in between waves of people that I really had some space to float my perspective up and over myself and see what it was I was doing. I racked my brain to find a way to be good at this job without being that douche bothering people with a fake smile and faker concern.

I realized that I didn’t want to be good at this.

I admire a good salesperson. Geary Yonker, David Raphael, Chris Davila. All amazing verbal magicians with the built-in DNA designed to convince people of those three pain points, establish that sense of urgency and close the deal. David once told me that sales was like dating — tell them what they want to hear, be the person they can trust and rely upon, have sex, then move on to the next one. I once dated like that but it didn’t make me feel very good about myself. It felt empty. It felt sad to see people as merely a means to an end.

I’ve ruminated on my decision to take other work and leave this Willy Loman of the New Millennium Lifestyle by the wayside. Is it ego? Am I just too proud to stand out and try to sell shit on the street to strangers? Or is it merely that I don’t have the instinct for it? I have no problem handing out flyers for BUGHOUSE! and inviting strangers to come see our shows. A friend used to laugh at me as stood outside WNEP Theater before shows and would remark on “Don Hall, out peddling theater.” That feels different, though. Inviting someone to see something versus creating a forced dialogue to sell something is a horse of different color, I think.

Sales is a skill in manipulation. I do not have the gene. I could probably learn but the feeling I get when trying to steer a nice, normal conversation into a place where I control the direction, timing and conditions of that dialogue is a quagmire of self-loathing. Perhaps it’s the reason I’ll always be an artist before a businessman. Perhaps it’s why I’ll never have a fat bank account.

I’m okay with that.

Hopefully, I won’t forget this thirty years from now.

[noiseartists]

BEREMY JETS: The powerful Shoegaze from Sweden

The Beremy Jets is the Shoegaze solo band from Swedish artists Paul Saarnak. I discovered the music when doing the interactive presentation of the record label SomewhereCold Records. The “band” is one of the artists from the label.

I loved the first EP that existed at the time. It is powerful, melodically and rhythmically clever.

When Jason Lamoreaux, the label owner/manager had the kindness to propose the world premiere of the Beremy Jets new single, Proud Button, for Noise Artists. I discovered the new LP and the quality of the writing, the sound and the arrangements was second to none.

A very motivated Paul Saarnak was contacted for a collaboration and I got more than I had expected out of it. Paul’s vision of his music is exceptionally clear, and the outcome, that you will find here, is amazing. 

When asked what his music is about, Paul’s answer is as follows:

In short it is about making music I want to listen to myself. That in itself is an impossible task since when a recording is done I am so tired of it :)

My music has no message I want to tell the world, the lyrics say nothing important or anything like that. The music is 100% based on feelings, and I try to describe those feeling sonically. I want to take the listener on a trip, I want the music to hit on an emotional level, not through lyrics, but through mood.

A big thank you to him for taking the time to put so much into is answers.

THE INTERVIEW

The Band

Noise Artists (NA): Where are you from? Where are you living now?

I am from the south of Sweden, and live in the town of Malmö. It is Sweden third largest city, but still pretty small.

 NA: What did you study?

I have studied a lot of different things, with not too good results :) But my main focus has been computer science and programming. However, my university days were more filled with playing in bands than studying.

 NA:  What is your day job at present if any?

I work as a developer at a company providing ecommerce solutions for online store owners.

 NA:  Do you dream to live from your music or is it a passion you do not want to spend your full time on?

It has always been a dream to make a living from my music, but I have always also known that is not going to happen - the genre I love and play is not big enough for that to happen. Also, if it would ever bring enough money to live by there is a fear it would take the fun out of it. Perhaps I would have to compromise to bring in the money needed to live, and that is a path I do not want to go down. It also helps that I love my current job, so I have no desire to get away from it at all.

 NA:  You have a great history. Could you tell us more?

I have been playing the drums since I was eight years old if I remember correctly. When I was maybe thirteen or fourteen I started playing in bands, and that was that, I knew what I loved most of all. At first I played a lot of covers, like The Beatles, Iron Maiden, ZZ Top, whatever someone in the band suggested.

Then I had a run with some more prog influenced music, which was great fun. But this was not exactly what I wanted to play, and one day a friend of mine found a note from a band looking for a drummer. They said they liked bands like The Smiths, House of Love and The Boo Radleys, and that was straight up my alley. I got the position, and that was another life changer. After some personal changes we ended up as the band Rottingdean in Lund, Sweden, and that was the first band I played in that played what I really wanted to. We made some well received demos and all that, but never managed to break through, and in the end we split up after some years of good fun.

Me and Jens, one the guitarists in Rottingdean, had a lot of similar ideas so after a while we formed LKWRM, at first supposed to be just us two recording whatever we felt like, but after having some gigs offered to us we became a full band playing really noisy shoegaze/postrock-stuff. We managed to snag a supporting gig for the mighty Einstürzende Neubauten, and played at Club AC30 in London, as well as supporting The American Analog Set in Malmö. The band is currently in hiatus, but the members of the band are still playing together in other constellations - if The Beremy Jets would ever play live those guys are the first to ask.

The singer from Rottingdean formed Slowmotion Club after Rottingdean, and I have been the drummer for Slowmotion Club for a lot of years now.

Tobias, guitarist in LKWRM, has his own band, Orange Crate Art, where I am the live drummer as well. So it all connects in a very nice way.

 NA:  Could you tell me how the band meet and decided to do music together?

After LKWRM went on a hiatus I still wanted to record my own music and thought it was the perfect time to try to do it on my own. In LKWRM we always recorded everything at home, but Jens was always the more technical one who knew how to operate all the equipment. Of course I was not completely lost in those regards, but had (and has!) a lot to learn. So part my inner necessity for making music, and part the challenge to see if I could do it made me start The Beremy Jets.

  NA:  Can you tell me the inspiration behind your band? You can detect the influences of Shoegaze and have a very unique sound. You took all these influences to make your own music, your own sound, which is not easy. Could you tell more?

My two big influences from the Shoegaze world are Swervedriver and My Bloody Valentine (and Ride, and Lush etc :) ), but there are so many other bands that has influenced me heavily. I am a rock fan, the noisier the better, so bands like Killing Joke, Sonic Youth and Band of Susans are a huge influence on me as well. Then I also love stuff like early Mogwai, Seefeel and Boards of Canada and their influence is absolutely there, but maybe not as apparent. But really, everything good in music is an influence.

I think what makes my sound a little bit different is that I really like to bring it on full force, I am not drawn to the dreamy, “pretty” side of Shoegaze as much. I like to blow the hats of the audience live and want to recreate that feeling on my recordings. I don’t achieve that by layering ten guitars, rather I like to see how massive I can get it with two or maybe three guitars. I like to arrange my records in a way that would be possible to recreate live, at least for the most part.

 NA:  Was there a vision of sorts or did you know what you wanted to do when you started up

My first few songs I wrote for The Beremy Jets were at bit all over the place, but quite quickly I returned to my favorite style, really noisy Shoegaze. So the vision was always there in the back of my mind.

 NA:  Do you have any other musical side projects apart from this band?

I am the drummer of Slowmotion Club and LKWRM, and also the live drummer for Orange Crate Art. Apart from that there are some things cooking which will hopefully come to fruition soon.

 NA:  Could you tell me more on the band composition? Do you have plans to add new members, or is there possible departure scheduled from existing band members?

It is just me, and for the time being it will remain that way. That said, I like to bring in friends on songs. My sister Anne (also bass player in Slowmotion Club) sings on Proud-button on Careless, and Jason from The Corrupting Sea / Somewherecold Records sings some awesomely ghostly notes on Shut Up Forever.

 NA:  Can you tell us more how you came to have the band’s name?

Finding a band name that is both good and not yet taken is not very easy :) But I watched some Sherlock Holmes, the 80s BBC version and love the main actor Jeremy Brett. So The Beremy Jets is a play on his name. Silly, but sounds pretty cool!

 The Creative process

NA:  Who writes the song and the music and how do you get to the final song? Is it a community process, do you have leaders in composing or arranging music?

I do it all :)

 NA:  Do you listen to the advice of your band mates? What would you do if they said a song was shit but you liked it?

Since I don’t have any band mates my answer is not exactly applicable, but I do play some rough takes to members of my other bands now and then to hear what they have to say. I value their honesty and if they said a song is shit I would take that to heart and try to figure out what it is they don’t like. In the end though, what I like is what ends up in my recordings.

 NA:  There’s a degree of unconventional songwriting with you guys. Was it kind of intimidating going to record knowing people might not be engaging with the songs in terms of hooks and such and trying to deliver an engaging sound on record?

In a way I feel it is a relief not having to follow conventions at all, I can do whatever I like. That said, I want people to like my songs, no doubt about that, but I am also aware a lot of people won’t like it too much. That does not bother me too much to be honest. It is not that I feel that people “don’t get my music” if they don’t like it, it is more me trying to write music that I myself want to hear, not what anyone else wants to hear.

 NA:  Talking about the lyrics: who write them? Is there a common thread in them, a theme?

I write all the lyrics, and that is the hardest part for me. The common thread is it is almost always about my feelings, insecurities, anxieties etc - I do have a shit ton of those. But I don’t really like to be too open about myself as a part of my insecurities, so I kinda write the songs to sound like for example a love song - but it is really about something completely different. Only I understand what I really mean, and that is ok.

Lyrics for me aren’t really that important anyway, when I listen to music I listen to the chords and melodies, and the way the lyrics sound together with everything else. The words themselves aren’t that important to me, unless they are really good, or really bad, or even worse, for example promoting white supremacy or something like that. I could never listen to that shit.

 NA:  Do you labor over your lyrics? Is that something that comes easy?

I tend to write pretty quickly and then after a week rewrite the parts that annoy me. Often the lyrics come fast, but there has certainly been cases of lyrics eluding me for months.

 NA:  Do you have a message that you want to get across in your music? If so, what are some of the messages you want to spread?

No, not really.

 NA:  Did your listening habits changed over the years and does it affect what you write?

I used to listen to a lot more music in younger years, now I listen to fewer bands and I find I am a lot more picky with what I listen to. I think I am much more aware of what I like, instead of liking everything, and that affects my writing in the way that it kinda narrows down what I want to do. For better and for worse.

 NA:  How is your recognition going worldwide? Is it growing? Are you happy with it?

There is a very small recognition, REALLY small :) I think it is growing slowly, and perhaps the release of the coming album will boost it a little. I am very happy with whatever I get to be honest, the fact that there are people out there listening to what I do still amazes me.

 The path to music

NA:  Is it easy to find producers and studios where you lived for indie-rock?

I really don’t know since I record everything at home. But from what i hear it is probably not that hard to find around here.

 NA:  Your recorded sound is very good, which is not easy. Did you engineer the sound yourself, or did you have a sound engineer with you? If yes could you tell us more about him/her?

I did everything myself, and there is a lot of learning and hard work behind it :)

 NA:  Was it a community work to try to have the best sounding music possible or mainly driven by the sound engineer or by the band?

I have the unfortunate tendency to compare everything I do with the best, for example how does my record sound compared to Swervedrivers latest, or Loveless. My records will always sound worse, and the struggle for me is to say, that is ok, it does not have to sound better than Loveless to be good. That struggle continues :)

 NA:  Can you tell us how the recording process was?

Since this was a full album I laid down some rules for myself from the beginning, the main one was that it is adapted for vinyl. The songs fit on a vinyl and in my mind there is a definitive side A and B. I took the most promising old ideas I have recorded (there are loads of those on my hard drive) and put them together in an order that seemed decent.

Then I started listening to those sketches in that order to get a feeling for how it sounded. It became very apparent that the songs would not do at all, apart from a few, So the next step was to get a feel for, what do I want to replace them with? A fast song, a noisy song? All the time while recording I kept rearranging the song order to make them fit on a vinyl, but more importantly to have the song order make sense to me. This ment I cut a few song really late in the process of the recording, and had to write new ones.

In short, the writing and the recording was done simultaneously, which might not be the best idea :)

I did not finish any songs to more than perhaps 70% before the final song list was decided upon, then I finished them all. As usual I underestimated the time it would take to actually do that, and that time delayed the album quite a lot - for the better though, but still weighing on my mind.

After I felt “this is not done, but it is good enough”, I almost immediately sent it all to Jason at Somewherecold Records to put and end to the process. I find it very hard to let go of the songs, there are always things that does not sound the way I want them to. The truth is of course that it will never be done if that is the criteria.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable process, apart from feeling bad for delaying the release.

 NA:  Could you let us know some important technical tricks you learnt during the process that could help other musicians not as experienced?

This is an area I am still very new to, but a few things that worked well for me is, always record the dry guitar signal as well as the processed one - then you can reamp if the take was great, but the sound was not.

Don’t record too loud, try to stay around -18Db.

Do not use too many plugins, eq, then another eq to fix the first eq, then another etc. I on several occasions just removed everything and started from scratch, always for the better.

Make sure your cables etc are good enough to not make unwanted noise :)

Don’t buy too much new expensive stuff before you know what you need to upgrade. Learn what you have first, and then identify what needs improving.

 NA:  How did the recording work differ over time?

Not too much. Of course early on there were more tracking done, later on more mixing. But I tend to do everything at the same time.

 NA: Is the recording material yours when you are out of a studio or do you borrow/rent it?

It is all mine.

 NA:  Any interesting anecdotes on some recording session you would like to share?

Nothing in particular per se, but one big thing for me are happy accidents. If I play something wrong, take a good listen anyway, might be better than planned for!

 NA:  Did getting the live experience across on record create any pressure for yourselves in the recording process?

I try to get a live sound across (even though The Beremy Jets don’t play live, I do with other bands), but it is more of a guidance than a strict rule. I will try to make it sound as good as possible, and if that means doing things that might be hard to do live, then so be it.

 NA:  Instruments: are you mainly a Fender band? Could you tell me what inspire you to use fenders rather than other brands?

I am absolutely a Fender band. Most of my favourite bands use Fenders and simply put, nothing beats a Jazzmaster when it comes to looks - it is so good looking, and I luckily love how it plays and sounds as well. However, I like to mix the guitar sounds, so I will try to have say one Jazzmaster with a classic Fender sound, and something else. For that I own a 12 string Danelectro guitar, really cheap, but good! And then I have a Jazzmaster HH with humbuckers that sound different enough to make it interesting.

I have a Jazzbass as well, lovely instrument!

 NA:  Do you have one favorite instrument or do you change often?

I have my small collection of guitars and a bass, and I use them all all the time. They have a different enough sound so that I usually know when to use which guitar depending what I am about to record.

 NA:  Tell us what you are looking when trying to achieve your sounds? Do you experiment a lot or have a clear idea of what you want?

It is a mixture of both. I usually have a pretty clear picture of what I want to achieve, but I also often think my picture is pretty typical for me or the genre, so I want to see if I can make it more interesting when recording. If I only achieve the initial vision, I know it is good. But if I can make more interesting, even better!

 NA:  Who is the more knowledgeable with pedals? You use them a lot, to great effect.

I have learned a lot through the years about pedals. Still very much left to learn, but I am getting a good grasp of which pedals sounds good with which guitar and amp etc. I kinda wish I was nerdy enough to just experiment with sounds for the sake of experimenting, but I usually only do it when looking for something interesting when recording.

 NA:  How many concerts a year would you do on average and what would be the size of the venue?

None for the moment.

 The Scene

NA:  Swedish Shoegazing is not very well known internationally. Could you tell us more about it?

I am a bit ashamed to say I know virtually nothing about the Swedish shoegazing scene. I have been out of the loop for quite some time, and while recording I listen to very little shoegaze, I tend to listen to other genres to clear my head a bit.

 The Future

NA:  What is the next album due?

I am not even in the planning stages yet for the next album (or well, somewhere in the back of my mind some stuff is shaping up to something…)

 NA:  Any other project (ie movies soundtrack, …) or plans

Right now I will focus on my other bands a bit. Slowmotion Club is recording an album where I pretty much handle the mixing part, so that will need some attention. There are also some yet unannounced stuff coming hopefully.

 NA:  Do you plan to continue music for a long time or are you tired of it?

I will probably never stop doing music. That is the plan!

 THE MUSIC 

THE COMPARISON GAME

It is difficult to compare Paul’s music to a band or two. But is is not difficult to compare it to a scene: the 90’s Shoegaze masters. Yes, we are talking of MBV, Ride, Boo Radleys to quote but a few. More explanation in the next section

WHY WE LIKE THIS MUSIC?

Because he was inspired by the masters: as said previously, Paul took inspiration both musically and sonically in the masters, on the noise side of the scale. His powerful sound, his very tight sound mix, his efficient sense of loops are all coming from them.

Because he also developed his own sound: inspired indeed, though it is difficult to find any song that sounds like any of the Masters. He took their receipts and made them his own. A bit like a chef that improve what was done with the same ingredients but with a completely new approach. There are bands around whose sound is close to some of the 90’s bands, from Slowdive to Lush, from MBV to Ride. The Beremy jets are not.

Because it is a one man project: usually, this kind of sound, this tightness in the composition comes from the conjugated effort of several individuals. In this Case, Paul was able to do everything and arrive to the same result. It’s remarkable.

MUSICAL WORK

 EP Collection I, March 2018

The first EP Alchemy Attack was actually rather painless to record. I guess I was filled with joy of actually doing it, and having no pressure at all since not a single soul knew about it. I basically released it unannounced on Bandcamp at first, and then posted in a few Facebook-groups. My friend Tobias from Orange Crate Art pushed me to make a couple of videos, which was fun.

When it came to Backup Friend EP, there still was very little pressure from the outside, but I felt I wanted to make it better that Alchemy Attack. I think I succeeded, but not by far. This EP however made some more splashes out there and people started to notice it. It got on a couple of really nice year best lists, not least on spot 5 on The Big Takeover Magazines EP list of the year, and 3rd best EP of the year on Shoegaze Alives lists. It led to Somewherecold Records reaching out to me and to the release of the EP Collection and now the coming album Careless.

 1. Misadventure  06:14

This is a pretty complicated song with a strange structure and it took some time to get it to work. I wanted it to be a noisy statement since it is the opening track. The lyrics are pretty much nonsense on this one :) Vaguely about going too fast through a process to maintain control, but somehow managing anyway.

   2. All But Gone  03:39

This is the first song I recorded that really hit the sweet spot for me, I played the chorus part by accident and then struggled for half an hour to repeat that accident. It is really noisy in a way I love. The song is about communications breakdown between people, and signs it will improve again. Being a drummer I restrained the drums quite a lot on this one, all for the better.

   3. Reticulating Splines  04:00 

One of my favorite songs that is super delay heavy, one guitar is absolutely drowning in delay through the whole song. I like the laid back calm sound of the song, which is in contrast to the lyrics that are about anxiety attacks.

   4. Mark Collins, Age 45  08:16 

One of my few instrumental songs with The Beremy Jets. We do a lot of those with LKWRM, but on my stuff I want to use vocals more. This is one of my favorite songs, very dreamy yet incredibly loud and noisy at the end. I see it as a Shoegaze lullaby basically. The name and (for legal reasons not) samples comes from a cheesy action movie from 1985, Blood Debts. I have a very weak spot for those! It was also a kind of a statement, to make something REALLY powerful and noisy as a finale of the EP

   5. A.C.  03:41

This is the first song on Backup Friend, and the last one to be recorded. It was a very smooth process since I kind of was in the zone when recording it. A pretty straight forward Shoegaze rocker that I really like. It is basically about not daring to take steps to change ones life for the better.

   6. Six Degrees of Separation Anxiety  04:28 

Perhaps my best song to date, at least in my mind. It is also one of those that was written incredibly fast, it just fell into place immediately. I had two different guitar melodies for the intro part, and could not decide which to use. So I used one at the start of the song and the other after the first chorus, which was exactly what was needed. I also played something like a guitar solo, which I am not at all very good at :) A nice nerdy detail is that during the solo the guitar chords use a four bar pattern but the bass a five bar pattern. The song is basically about nothing. Part missing some people I hold dear, and part about the heat of the summer which I hate.

   7. Scandi Sneakers  04:58

This is a song I at first thought was orkish, but then it dawned on me it is pretty good :) It has this very nice groove, smooth and hypnotic. It is pretty saturated with delay which came out very nice. The lyrics are again about anxiety sneaking up on you almost like a movie monster. I want to make more songs in this style, but so far the new songs have led me in other directions.

   8. Feedback Over Talent  06:58

This is probably the oldest song released, and first I planned to have the song My Team Lost Again here, but decided not to due to how the overall sound of the EP would have been then. I took the old recording and fixed it up, added bass, drums etc in a very short time, and love the result. One might think there are a battalion of guitar layers on this one, but it is actually just two fuzzed out guitars, and one quietly in the back providing ambience - the one that is alone at the very end of the song. Lyrics wise it is basically nonsense again, somewhat about trying hard to fix a situation, but feeling it won’t work. I like how the completely over the top fuzzed out delays are working together to make something magical happen.

   Careless, LP, July 2018

After the buzz surrounding Backup Friend I this time did feel some pressure to deliver something good, and that was both good and a bad thing. There aren’t that many people following what I do, but the ones that do, I feel I really want to give them my very best. It took longer than expected to finish the album, much due to stress and other real life stuff that haunts me from time to time - I think many creative people know what I mean.

And this time I had a responsibility towards the record company as well, there are still things to consider like release windows etc. It was a lot on my mind, which might not have helped with the anxiety. But in the end, I am very pleased with the result. There are a thousand things I wish I had done differently, but there always is. I compare it to the EPs and I find I miss some elements that made the EPs good in my mind, but there are new ones that hopefully are even better.

The album is a bit more live band oriented in its sound, not from a conscious decision, I noticed that after a while basically.

The overall theme of the lyrics are pretty self loathing and negative and those are things I really do feel. But of course that is not all I am, I am a pretty happy dude overall, not some moping sad person that wallows in self hatred. I just find it a lot more easy to write about the negative parts.

 1. Be Happy

This is the song I by far had the most trouble with getting right. It is a challenging song with a heavy beat, lots of phasered out guitars and delays, and making sense of it all mix wise was very difficult. I think I mixed it about 20 times before I was somewhat happy with the result. I think it is a nice opener for an album, quite danceable and groovy with a massive sound. In the long outro there is a really cool almost screaming guitar melody of sorts that came out of a combination of shimmer reverb, fuzz and wa-wa. Happy accident. The song is about the pressures of fitting into society's norm of what is cool, and how I reject that. I am not a cool person, and I am happy with that :)

 NA: We strongly disagree. There is very high element of coolness in doing such amazing music!

2. Good Times

A fast rocker of a song. Quite easy to record and mix, this one. I wanted it to be pretty drum heavy with pounding toms. It is about wanting to change, but never daring to actually do it, since there is comfort in the familiar. The long outro came from a guitar that is present in the chorus as well, but hard to hear. I loved the sound and wanted to have a section that displays that, and the outro was a perfect way to do it, and a good bridge to the next song.

   3. No Am No

Somewhat close to a ballad, this is a pretty sweet song that some have described as happy sounding, but the lyrics are pretty unhappy about loss and fear of change (a common theme for me). It is built on chords played on the 12 string Danelectro, which gives it a kind of magical shimmer. That shimmer is somewhat lost in the fuzz and pulsating bass, but it is there. At first I thought it weird to have it so early in the song list, but after listening to the flow of the album, I think it is where it should be.

   4. My Team Lost Again

This song was first intended for Backup Friend, but I decided to use another song instead. Also a bit of a ballad, in 6/8 beat. The lyrics are basically about losing in life, combined with images from a dream I once had. It is a long song with a slow buildup to a massive delay saturated end. I wanted to make the song very dreamy.

   5. Daily Internal Monologue

This song is a mixture of a song and an interlude of sorts. Just a nice grove played over and over with me chanting some daily thoughts about being boring and stupid :) At first I wanted to make it more of a full song, but could not make something that worked, and I am really happy with what it is. It is also the end of my imagined side A of the album, which is very fitting.

Again, the song features a lot of delay and fuzz, but not in your face, but more mellow and smooth.

   6. Proud-button  05:09

This is the last song finished right before the release. It features my sister Anne, also bass player in Slowmotion Club, on song and I am super happy with how the singing came out on this one. It is a pretty straight forward rocker of a song, and more than one person have said it has Dinosaur Jr vibes in the verses, and I agree! The outro are just chord, at first I had other plans with layers of melodies etc., but in the end I found this to be the best version, just droning chords repeating. Sometimes less is more :)

The song is about stress and anxiety as usual, and how one can overcome it at least temporarily, and the knowledge of that can be very comforting.

  7. Scary Pint

I never try to sound like other bands on purpose, but this one to me is pretty Boo Radleys influenced in its sound. Just a nice short song that I like a lot. It is about social awkwardness basically.

  8. Shut Up Forever

Shut Up Forever is the first song written for Careless, apart from My Team Lost Again, but that one was not written specifically for the album. I love some of the guitar parts on this one, just a theme that works with different pedals and sounds, varying over the length of the song. When the fuzzes kicks in Jason from The Corrupting Sea sings some wonderful and weird ghostly chants in the background that I love. I wanted this one to the classic lull the audience into a nice cozy state, then kick their faces off with volume. I think I did not succeed completely, but stil it is a cool song. The lyrics are pretty angry, definitely about self hatred and anger.

9. Waves of Wonder  05:08 

One of the positive songs on the album, and one of my favorites. It was a late song and was written and recorded pretty fast. I did not want to make things too complicated, just a nice Shoegaze rocker basically. The songs is about when me and my mates went to London in 2008 and saw My Bloody Valentine four nights in a row at the Roundhouse. Happy times :)

   10. Thanks, Future Client

As usual I wanted to end the record with some noise, but this time it is a more mellow version of the noise wall. The lyrics are nonsense, just about capturing some kind of dreamlike feeling. The song overall is a pretty good conclusion to the album, a dreamlike state.

   MORE ABOUT THE BAND

Some good videos to watch

WHERE to find their work

Apart from the big digital outlets like Apple Music, Soundcloud or Spotify, the music is best bought here: 

Bandcamp

Bandcamp (SomewhereCold Records)

Their presence on the web

I am notoriously bad at maintaining an online presence. But the best way of following me is on Facebook

 Other bands

Provide some bands from your country, that would be worthwhile listening:

“Apart from my other bands (Slowmotion Club, LKWRM, Orange Crate Art) there are a couple of good bands, not necessarily in the Shoegaze genre. The Moth Gatherer and Cult of Luna comes to mind”

  Thanks from Paul to

“My sister Anne and all of my other band mates Anders, Jens, Tobias and Micke for making my life so much better.

Jason from Somewherecold Records for being a true champion of good music and a great friend. And everyone who takes their time to listen to my music, it is mind boggling and very humbling.

Not least, thanks for the interview!”