#60 years is. .... a lot but also not much from how damn famous it is

[fdrsamericanflagduckfloaty]

Grandma I’m watching a video on the Kennedy assassination are you proud of me

yes grandchild, i am very proud of you. keep learning as you may

[sbrown82]

I just saw your post about Marsha and how Mick treated her and thought why don’t The Rolling Stones fandom not know about her except how he got her. They always talk about Marianne and how sorry they felt when she was put on drugs, had a miscarriage, almost committed suicide, and was suffering from deep depression. But never bring up Marsha and how much she suffered. They bring up how “amazing” Anita is and they things she did for The Stones or whatever thousands of times but never talk about how Marsha introduced a new band member, and a new manager for them and even gave Mick’s brother a job. They’ll even bring up the loads of groupies they had and all the things they supposedly did for them, but never bring up Marsha and how amazing she is, they just love to slander her name. They’ll acknowledge Bianca and say she was “THE QUEEN” ? Talking about how she controlled Mick and keep him in line, how “fabulous” she is. It’s irritating. The worst part of it all is that people only talk about how she was just Micks first babymomma and nothing really more than that. 🤦🏾‍♀️ She wasn’t a bitch, so I guess she gets slept on!

Great question! Well, for one thing, Mick and Marsha’s relationship was very clandestine and private, which was quite different from Mick’s other relationships which were more high-profile. You always saw Mick and Marianne together, hand-in-hand at events, or splashed across newspapers from some scandal. And Bianca and Jerry were socialites who loved attention, too. Marsha is the only one who really minds her damn business to the point where she lived in nearly complete isolation in France for a while by herself. She loved Mick, but she never wanted to be famous or to be known as his ‘girlfriend’. She just wanted to make music and do her own thing, much like him!

Also…..she’s BLACK …and we all know how Black women are treated in mostly white fandoms. So i think she's just disregarded. But let’s be honest, people always talk about Anita Pallenberg as this fashion-forward, super metropolitan muse to the Rolling Stones who changed up their style in the late 60s, which in many ways she was. I mean, she was influential. But, she was also in a way, a glorified junkie who rattled cages. She was a damn mess from the start. She fucked Brian, then Keith and rumor has it, Mick, too. Many people have even said that she was a shit starter, and an instigator who brought out the absolute worst in people. Bill Wyman even called her an actual witch. Notice that Brian, Marianne, and Keith's drug addiction got worse (way worse) after they started being around her.  She even once messed with some 17 year old boy who shot himself in the head with Keith's gun in their house. A mess! Marianne is another overrated white girl who started fucking Mick when she knew he was with somebody else. In fact, he was dating R&B singer, P.P. Arnold (former Ikette), so I really don't understand why she was always crying and going on about Marsha Hunt and how she supposedly stole his ass from her. I mean, Mick and Marianne weren't married. Plus, Mick constantly complained to Marsha about Marianne’s drug addiction and how she was ALWAYS high and strung out so much so that their relationship had become pretty much platonic when he started talking to Marsha. The girl was just gone. Bianca is another over-glamorized chickenhead, I can't stand her ass either. She’s very nasty and mean. Another thing is, Marsha’s career never really took off after getting with Mick. The 70s and 80s were tough on her, she didn’t have a lot of opportunities and she was raising a child on her own with practically nothing (sis even resorted to getting food stamps and cleaning people’s houses for money), plus suing Mick ruined her reputation on top of all the lies and bullshit he was saying about her to the press.

Like I mentioned in part 2 of the Mick Jagger & Marsha Hunt thread, when Mick met Marsha, the motherfucka literally showed up at her house unannounced, even after she turned him down the first time. And after they started dating, she listened to ALL his damn problems, sis got him a new guitarist after the Rolling Stones fired Brian Jones from the band, got him a new tour manager and a new secretary to handle ALL the Rolling Stones concerts and affairs, consoled him when Brian died, consoled him after his girlfriend tried to commit suicide, was there for his monkey ass after that shitshow at the Altamont Speedway where 4 people were killed during the Stones’ concert, she even hid him out and kept him safe after the Hell’s Angels security put a hit out on his ass and tried to murder him after he blamed them for what happened. Here's them talking about how they was gone kill his ass and why he had a price on his head:

Marsha even got his younger brother a job after he came back from India and was completely broke and damn near homeless. After he got married, Mick would even call Marsha up and complain to her about how Bianca was getting on his damn nerves. In her book, Marsha said she would’ve died for him if he asked her to…and he fucking played her. Even after all that, she never once bad-mouthed him, or called him names, none of that. She just wanted him to take responsibility. He completely deserted her and their child. It was horrible and he sounded like a complete lunatic talking about Karis wasn't his. Marsha has always been kind to his wife Bianca and Jerry and all of his children who love her too. But I find it really ironic how she always said never wanted to be known as Mick Jagger’s girlfriend and that’s exactly what happened. Ya'll need to show that woman some motherfucking respect because none of them hoes deserves it more than her. Give Marsha her damn flowers. She's a QUEEN!!!

[eolewyn1010]

Farewell, Darkover - part 1

So. Once upon a long past time, I was a kid of 10 years who was given a book that said on its cover it was rated "13+". Well, I was a wannabe-precocious kid who mistook reading complex Fantasy for having a personality, so I read the damn thing. It was one of the Darkover books Marion Zimmer Bradley had written. It was several years after MZB's death (not that I was aware of that; at that age, I didn't think much of the authors of books that I read), but several years before everyone learned what, by now, everyone knows about MZB and her husband. Back then, there was no way for me to know that this particular series and 'verse had been created by a pedophile rapist and abuse apologist.

The book caught my attention, and I went and asked for more. The friend who gave me the first soon borrowed me the entire series, one by one, and the same way others got engulfed by Hogwarts or Middle Earth when they were young, I got engulfed by Darkover. It was Fantasy, it was Sci-Fi; I loved it. And while I enjoyed them immensely, I didn't have much more critical reading comprehension than your average pre-teen, or else some alarm bells might have gone off earlier. Back then, they didn't. I didn't analyse what I read; I built myself into that world, made myself a home there. It was a world of magic, powerful women, difficult relationships, its very own kind of technology and society, a play on speculative history - it was my very first great love among books, just a little more obscure than the usual picks of most of my generation because the friend who introduced me to them was a generation older and as such had books from the 1970s just lying around. And by now, I've reached the point where I taste bile whenever I see MZB's name. Oh well, it is a farewell comparable to what many young trans people had with the Harry Potter books. And rejecting books that had such an impact on me hurts, which I'm sure is an experience a lot of kids had with some revered media at some point.

From 10 to maybe 13 or 14, I read everything Darkover had to offer. I spent hours upon hours talking about them with my friend, I drew my favorite characters, I drafted up fanfiction long before I knew the word "fanfiction". There were parts of the books, parts of the worldbuilding that, even then, were a little dark for my age. Discussions of sexuality, incest, abuse in families and relationships, systemic oppression... I wasn't ignorant of these themes, but I also can't say that I fully comprehended how Darkover presented them. If I had, I might have noped out way back when. I knew the books discussed pedophilia, incest, rape and controlling, abusive, authoritarian relationships in the framing of its fantasy society - but I would have claimed with all the same certainty that these things were being condemned in the books. In hindsight, and with a look at a critical review of MZB's way more famous bestseller, The Mists of Avalon, I can't help but think that a lot of Darkover was actually, much like MoA, some form of apologia.

After MZB's kids told the public in 2014 what the hell had been going on in their home, I feel like her books very quickly made their way into obscurity - which is right and well; the generations who grow up without them will probably be happier and healthier for it. But I haven't seen a lot of later reflection by those who have read MZB, and who were influenced by her writings. I suspect it's because I'm born too late to be in contact with the people who did; that isn't actually my generation, as the books reached me by way of someone in whose time they "belonged". Despite MZB being occasionally called a "female Tolkien", her books weren't the evergreen The Lord of the Rings is. They were very much 60s' and 70s' books. But there's also a darker side to this: A few people whose opinions I've read who insist, even now, that even The Mists of Avalon, the darkest and most vile of hers in terms of apologia and disgusting content, is and always has been a feminist masterpiece. Which it is not. It's not worthy of reverence, it's not worthy of praise or of being defended. Because it cannot be separated from MZB's crimes. The concept of Death of the Author fails where the author made her books all about her personal views - and those views are a nightmare.

MoA will be part of what I want to talk about here, but my primary experience was with Darkover, the oldest books of which predated Avalon by about 20 years. I genuinely think MZB got a lot worse and a lot more blunt about her bullshit in later years, and perhaps that's part of why I didn't get it. Perhaps Darkover was too subtle for dumbass lil' me. This is the first part of what'll be a sort of serial essay in which I look into my personal history with MZB's books, and how I came to terms with recognizing, rejecting and condemning wholeheartedly what had once been my fantasy refuge. It's also a bit about taking a stance - by now, I should be enough of an adult to say out loud that MZB was a piece of human garbage who should never have been celebrated as a feminist heroine writer (no, not even "for her time") and whose ideas should hold no place in highly praised literature. And that includes literature I used to love.

[ronoken]

So, who wants a publishing story?

No one?

…Tough.

To preface, this was prompted by a post I saw about always making sure you read a contract before signing it. I wholeheartedly agree.

So, I write books. A roundabout result of writing books is I occasionally get to speak at conventions. When I do speak at conventions (which hasn’t been for a year. Thanks, covid), a standard question I get asked is about the benefits of self-publishing versus getting a contract. And yes, I fully realize that everyone’s experience in this is different, and I get that. Here’s mine.

So, several years ago, I wrote a book. I put a solid year into it and did numerous rewrites, edits, etc. with three wonderful editors and boom. Book. Done. And then, like many who are impatient or who don’t want to run the risk of rejection, I self-published my first novel.

And to my great shock, I actually sold some copies.

Quick aside. I’m not famous. At. Fucking. All. Some is not millions. Some is several thousand at best. And that’s over YEARS. I am not widely known and I do not claim to be. At all.

So yeah, like, I didn’t sell a million or anything, but I was moving over 100 copies a month when I was putting in the marketing work. Not too shabby. I was hustling on Twitter, FB marketing, Google ad marketing, working the review sites, doing interviews, everything I could. And it actually worked. I can honestly say the number of copies I moved a month directly correlated with how hard I pushed. And when I pushed, I pushed damn hard. I even got to a point where a reviewer who became an editor for DC would routinely provide public reviews for my books, and I was doing a superhero series. Not gonna lie- it was fucking rad.

Anyway, after a couple years of doing this, putting out a second novel which sold okay, a bunch of novellas, and so on, I received an offer out of the blue to have my work officially picked up. For realsies.

Admittedly, I was over the moon about this. I was being contacted by an unsolicited source! AND THEY HAD MONEY!

Now, my work wasn’t Shakespeare. I knew that. They did, too. They offered me a nice little starting sum. Not a lot, but holy shit it was FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS UP FRONT. One of my editors reads my Tumblr and I don’t think I’ve ever told them how much it was. It was 5k. To start. Not a lot, publishing-wise, but that’s because the work was already done. See, most publishers will give you more, but the catch is it’s considered a down payment for more books in a series. They pay you to write future novels, and then they expect you to pay it back. I already had a shit ton of content out, so I essentially skipped that step. Which tells me that publishers really don’t expect to have to actually pay you much, but that’s another post.

To my editor- sorry I never said the exact amount. It felt weird, but it’s been years, so it’s not as weird? I dunno. That logic train made sense as I was writing this.

So, 5k upfront, and then 50% of all sales thereafter, and they would handle EVERYTHING. Marketing, scheduling tours, covers, putting me in stores, the lot. Considering how much time, money, and effort these things took, this was not a terrible deal, but there was a catch.

My story would officially no longer be mine.

Oh, my name would be on it, and I’d write it, but from there on out, the publishing house would have 100% control over how it was marketed, where it went, and so on. If they wanted to option it, I would have zero say and zero rights, meaning they could take it and do fuck-all, and I would be left with nothing. Per the contract, they could even go so far as to issue me a cease and desist on my own work and hire a new person to take over. I was signing away everything in my universe if I said yes.

So, despite the allure of having things offered to me like a legit marketing team, book tours, and money (such as it was), I said no thank you.

Now, it didn’t hurt that I’d already made 5k in sales by that point. I knew my worth and how to push to keep it that way, if I so chose. Also, it helped that I was in an okay place when that offer came in. I could look at it and say, “well, that sure would be nice, but I don’t need it.” A lot of talented writers aren’t in that space, and the offer of several months rent or money for food as well as REALLY-REAL PUBLISHING can be hella tempting. And I get it, for some folks, the deals work out alright. And for some they don’t. And I sure as Hell am not going to judge. Seriously, I still have vivid nightmares about working 60+ hours a week and not being able to afford baby formula. Hell, if they had offered that to me just one year earlier, I would have been forced to take it. At that stage of life, 5k would have been life changing. I was just starting to hit the OK section of life, and only barely. Money when you need it is fucking awesome, and sometimes, you take what you can get.

But if you are a writer? And you’re in a place where it’s not life and death? Read the damn contract. Every single time. Make good and sure you know what you’re getting into and ask yourself, is it worth it to you? If it is, awesome. Again, not gonna judge, and every situation is different.

In my specific case though, it was choosing a nice bit of cash over something I had slaved for years over. I couldn’t do it. I still can’t. It’s the one property I’ll never let go of because when I wrote it, I didn’t even know if I could write a book. It proved to me that yes, I really could, and that was worth more than I can put into words.

TLDR: Read your contracts. Make choices good for you. Some things are worth more than money.

[centrally-unplanned]

Hot damn does this channel rock - finally someone willing to get into the real details of the production process, tool choices, org structures, etc over just being, a bird’s eye view. I have, through other *much* less accessible sources, learned a lot of of this information over the years, but it still has tons of great info that I am picking up from its videos.

The ‘intro’ video linked here is the most big picture, looking into how the individual staff members form a production pipeline and how their roles sit together, and it inspired some big-picture thoughts about how the anime industry over time is sort of a microcosm for the wider transformation in workforce structure that has happened over the years, and all the benefits (like efficiency) and issues (like inequality) that resulted from that. 

To recap for those who don’t know: Anime productions obviously have a ton of roles, but the core of any “shot” in a show are the key frame animators and the in-betweeners. The KFA’s start off a shot by drawing just a few of the most ‘important’ frames, that show off poses, positioning, effects, etc, which they sink a lot of time into for just a few frames. These are then passed on to in-betweeners, who draw the ‘rest’ of the frames (they actually re-draw the key frame via tracing as well, ty video!) that fill the space in-between the key frames, bridging those frames together to form a continuous animated shot. They spend much less time per frame doing this, which they can do since they are just tracing/altering the key frames. 

As you can probably guess the KFA’s have the ‘good’ job and the in-betweeners have the grunt-work ‘bad’ job. And you might not be appreciating how bad it is, but from a financial standpoint it is, uh, really bad. The average industry salary for an in-betweener in Japan full time is ~$10k a year. For comparison, the minimum wage full-time in Japan is ~$17.5K. They get away with it being way, way less than minimum wage by the usual trick of structuring it as contract work, which of course means it also includes absolutely no benefits. If you want to deep dive into how terrible these roles are, you can have at it.

So why do it? As the video points out, in-betweening can be essentially a mentorship. You can learn a ton from the process of seeing amazing key frames, interpreting them, and getting feedback on corrections, production speed, etc. And it is essentially mentorship because, in the early days of animation in Japan (so 1960′s-1970′s), it was *explicitly* a mentorship. Almost every animator would start as an in-betweener, work that way for 3-5 years, then be promoted to, well okay first to 2nd key frame animator, or in-between checkers, or maybe branch out to layouts, but *eventually* to key frame animator, and so on up the chain. It was essentially an apprenticeship, and that is how all companies worked in the 1950′s! Every division director of a company started out as a salesman, or desk analyst, or something, and promotions happened internally, and based on seniority. The low wages at the bottom were *justified* by the promise of future promotion.

But economies changed, and the anime industry did too. There are a million reasons why they changed, but for talent-based industries like anime, where the quality of a worker is in fact quite easy to observe, as the demand for anime skyrocketed the idea of trapping obviously-talented animators as in-betweeners for years to “pay their dues” made no sense. They left, joined new studios or founded their own, and by the 1990′s that system was totally falling apart. In-betweeners were no longer guaranteed promotions, and for many animators it would be the only job they would have in the industry for years before quitting entirely. Technology helped accelerate this - in the early days when animation was all done by hand, the in-betweeners and key animators sat in the same room, comparing notes and building connections, and letting younger animators learn from old. Now that they are all doing their work digitally, often they just get a file dump, and don’t even talk to each other (tons of org work has gone into building consistent ways of communicating, via notation on the drawings, expectations for what the in-betweeners need to do, so no meetings or human conversation is required. Efficiency! Also, alienation!).

And of course, as communication technology improved, wages stagnated, and demand increased, globalization came to the rescue. I don’t have solid figures, but I have definitely seen estimates that put the majority of in-betweening for Japanese animation being done overseas in Korea or China, where that 10k wage can go a lot farther (the town of Wuxi, in Jiangsu province, China, actually has an “Industrial Design” park almost solely devoted to doing outsourced Japanese animation work). This outsourcing is probably a net good thing for those workers, and for anime, don’t get me wrong! But as you can imagine, approximately zero of those Chinese or Korean animators get promoted into Japanese animation studios, while Japanese native in-betweeners are left competing with Chinese wages to afford a Japanese cost-of-living. All of these trends accelerate the winner-takes-all dynamic for the industry - just like every other industry in developed countries, neat!

But of course, its not like ‘outsourcing’ is new to anime - it was just done differently back in the 60′s and 70′s. Kyoto Animation is one of the most famous anime studios, and in particular is famous for having an uncommon number of female animation directors and leads. Certainly a big part of that is due to the fact that it started out as an outsourcing house for cel-painting for studios like Pierrot composed of otherwise-unemployed housewives picking up a side job! Female artists, just like female (and minority) workers in other industries, were the actual cheap labor backbone that justified the more ‘equitable’ salaries of the official workers for companies in the Good Ol’ Days. The inequity just shifted spatially, to new demographics, but has always been there. 

Yet there is something to be said for the fact that, of that early days Kyoto Amination clearing house approach, those women were almost all married to men in the animation (or other artistic) industries, and so those wages got pooled. They worked gruelling hours for less pay, but their *household* income was notably higher, as the men would universally have higher wages. Its how working for such wages got justified after all! If you are an in-betweener in Japan today, there is no such pooling, outside of by chance - yet the wage structure remains unmoved.

I think these days the plight of the in-betweener is increasingly well known, but to understand why its so I think the way the anime industry chased the trends in other industries helps not only understand it, but also understand the solution space, or in this case the lack thereof - what industries have solved this problem after all?

[maxwell-grant]

Can we talk about the Black Bat both in general, and and how he may have been an influence on two superheroes (Dr. Mid-Nite and Daredevil) and a supervillain (Two-Face), but was proven in a court of law to have no connection with the superhero who immediately comes to mind (Batman).

Having finally read a couple of his original stories and runs, yeah I got some thoughts on him. 

While not the first bat-themed pulp character, nor the first fictional detective with a disability turned superpower (that would be Max Carrados, who actually was blind), Black Bat’s main claim to fame nowadays is his correlation to superheroes with the mixed traits he has that would all become massively popularized by characters who debuted afterwards. Regarding the Batman lawsuit, it wasn’t so much proven that they have no connection, as much as the publishers of both characters argued they did it first, and then agreed to stay out of each other’s territory, with Batman staying out of pulp magazines and The Black Bat staying out of comics (not that it would stop his publishers from rebranding him as “The Mask” and doing comics).

Black Bat actually couldn’t have inspired Batman, because Batman debuted 4 months prior. Plus, both were already ripping off the same guy, and both of them were far from the first bat-themed pulp characters at the time. And the idea that he inspired Daredevil I find too much of a reach. Dr Mid-Nite I can definitely see the resemblance, and while Two-Face doesn’t have much similarities to Tony Quinn past the origin and the anti-hero aspects, “handsome crusading District Attorney disfigured after getting splashed in the face by acid goes on a rampage” is not exactly vague enough of a concept to pass for coincidence. Two-Face debuted just 3 years after Black Bat, while Bat was still a pretty successful character (he managed to outlast nearly every other pulp hero), so it’s very possible that Kane and Finger had a look at Black Bat’s origin and used it as the basis for their Jekyll & Hyde-themed villain. 

Okay so, that’s that for Black Bat, but what’s the character actually like? What’s there to him other than historical oddities? Does he have what it takes to survive and thrive again in a modern landscape?

The thing that sticks out to me about Black Bat is that he is a pulp character who feels like he was designed specifically with the arrival of the superheroes in mind, as when comic book superheroes began to carve a space for themselves, one of the responses the pulps had was to put out new heroes intended to be a part of both worlds, hybrids of pulp heroes and superheroes who could try to capture success in either format, characters like Ka-Zar and Black Hood who started in one and then jumped to the other. 

Black Bat’s got a lot of the usual hallmarks of dark detective pulp heroes and his adventures are largely him battling ordinary criminal masterminds and gangsters, but he’s got an iconic costume, he’s got a super dramatic origin story that the stories keep coming back to (unlike most pulp heroes whose origin stories are not usually mentioned), and he’s got superpowers brought in the aftermath of a tragic accident. Not just skills anyone can have by training hard enough, actual superpowers, even if they don’t see as much usage as his pulp hero skillset. 

To the world that knew about him, Anthony Quinn, once a virile, upstanding representative of law forces whose name had held terror for evil doers, was now an impotent blind man whose sight had been permanently destroyed by acid thrown at him in a crowded courtroom, and whose face was horribly scarred about the eyes. For a long time he had seemed to live in a world apart.

Such actually had been the case during the long months when Tony Quinn had lived in a sea of blackness. But Nature had been as kind as possible, giving him something in return for what had been taken from him. As a result he had since realized that his senses of feel, smell, and hearing were far more acute than formerly. Under his sensitive fingers whatever he touched had begun to tell strange new stories. His sense of smell had sharpened. His ears had become the ears of a hound, picking up with ease and sifting multitudinous sounds that once had been inaudible.

More months had gone by until, in the darkness of a lonely night, a girl with golden hair and blue eyes hadcome in through an open window like an angel out of nowhere to offer him hope where eye specialists had said there was no hope. Through a delicate operation by an unknown small town surgeon the corneas of the eyes of Carol Baldwin's policeman father - dying from paralysis brought on by a gangster bullet - had been given to him. An extraordinary thing had occurred. When at last Tony Quinn had been allowed to remove the bandages, he had been astounded by the miracle that had happened. His were the eyes of darkness as well as the eyes of day!

Interestingly also, Black Bat actually became one of the most prolific of pulp heroes when brought over to Germany. When German publishers Pabel decided to reprint a couple of Black Bat novels for the KRIMINAL-ROMAN serial, they discovered “Die Schwarzen Fledermaus” was somehow so popular that in 1962, they retitled it Fledermaus (Bat) and ran with it, reprinting all the original 60+ stories and then, when those ran out, creating 900 more at least. In fact, it seems like they are still publishing Black Bat stories even today, and now that he’s public domain it’s something just about anyone could get into.

Problem with that is, it’s not easy to conceive of The Black Bat having any kind of substantial popularity again, when he’s doomed by design to always be compared to Batman, to always just be seen as first glance as “oh it’s earless Batman with Daredevil’s shtick and Two-Face’s backstory”, and of course he doesn’t have a chance in hell of playing catch-up to the popularity of those characters (well, at least outside of Germany). Whatever niche he could have as an alternative to Batman is also null by the fact that said niche of Not-Batmen is already filled out quite extensively. He doesn’t have an incredibly strong personality the way Batman and The Shadow do, nor is he, despite being ostensibly a serial killer, enough of a trigger-happy anti-hero to latch on to the appeal of characters like The Spider or Punisher. The latest Black Bat comic run by Dynamite played up his ruthlessness, outlaw status and drew him on the covers perpetually holding guns and often with a big creepy smile. But smiling murder pulp Batman is already a niche that Midnighter fills considerably better than Black Bat ever could. So what’s left for him?

If I had to find a unique niche for Black Bat, I’d play his unique traits in ways that separate him from the super characters that ran with those later. I’d ditch the whole “oh woe is me I’m poor and helpless because I’m blind” shtick that’s terribly condescending to actually blind people, and make him at least truly blind in some form. Maybe he’s blind by day and by night he sees too much, or maybe his vision has some terrible secrets that go beyond mere enhanced eyesight. Maybe his powers are growing and expanding in ways he doesn’t know where they will lead him. But alongside that, one take on the character could be based on the fact that he really has nothing to lose. He is not Batman, he is not The Shadow, he isn’t Daredevil, he’s got little reputation to speak of, and he’s never going to be any of those characters.

He’s lost the position he’s coveted his whole life, he’s lost the respect of his peers, his former professional ethics don’t mean shit now, he’s had a long and painful brush with darkness that scarred him for life in ways both literal and metaphorical, and in the aftermath he’s begun spontaneously developing abilities that would be incredibly painful and uncomfortable for an average person to just develop without years of growing up with them. And then, a mysterious woman walked through his window one day, gave him the eyes of a dead man, and now he sees things in ways no person was ever supposed to, and now he goes around at night terrorizing and killing criminals in an animal-themed costume. 

The most he has to lose currently is the life of his sidekicks who’ve worked very hard to help him heal and focus and find a new purpose, which only means that they are on the chopping block everytime you wanna give a gut punch to Tony Quinn. And no matter how famous, or even great, his adventures are, or how prolific and successful he is or even has been, he’s always going to be the Bat-themed superhero who couldn’t cut it. He’s Not-Batman, stripped of all the grand splendour and allmighty self righteousness and reputation and role as foundational figure of an entire genre and most popular bestest superhero of all time ever praise be thy Bat God, sharing more traits with one of Batman’s most personal and tragic villains than the titular character.

That’s not an indictment, that just means that Black Bat ultimately should have more narrative freedom, since he is unburdened by reputation and status. He is a public domain nobody best known by his association with characters who eclipse him in popularity, who’s always going to have that accursed Bat prefix and costume to damn him by association, so why not work with it? He could be the character you go into to tell stories that you couldn’t tell with Batman or other big name superheroes, the grimiest, sickest, even weirdest crime tales of all. What does the Black Bat have to lose?

Those who have nothing to lose stand everything to gain, after all.

Also, Masks 2 once presented an alternative version of the character called The Black Bats, who dresses like a baseball player and dual-wields baseball bats, which is nutty and I’d definitely prefer Black Bat to ditch the generic pulp hero guns and instead just go crazy batting everything in his way.

“I gotta tell ya, this is pretty terrific! Hahahahah, yeah!”

[obscuremarvelmuses]

Ahaha I got asked this in Discord about Wanda: “From what I gather Wanda and Pietro were originally the biological children of Magneto (who is Jewish) who were adopted by a Romani family? Then the dad thing got retconed. But they’ve always been at least half Romani? Most of the time they’ve been ethnically Jewish as well, with Magneto being their father? She started out with red telekinetic bolts but then switched to reality warping? God damn you Marvel for being unable to stop retconning.” OH MY POOR FRIEND They then had to suffer this LENGTHY EXPLANATION and NOW YOU SHALL TOO

“ The twins are introduced in the 60s. They're not related to Magneto or anyone else at that point, nor are they Romani or Jewish, just "from the heart of Central Europe" They're described as orphans iirc. We later learn in the 70s that actually, they are the long-lost biological children of The Whizzer aka Robert Frank and his wife Miss America aka Madeline Joyce (not to be confused with America Chavez, a much later character) They were actually called Wanda and Pietro Frank for a little while after discovering this. Then about twenty issues later we meet Django Maximoff, the man who raised them, and a few issues away from that, we meet Bova. Bova is a humanoid cow woman created by the High Evolutionary, who has a habit of "uplifting" animals like that. Bova was also the midwife who delivered Pietro and Wanda. She explains that their mother was a woman named Magda fleeing her husband who had strange powers and didn't want the twins to fall into his hands, but it's not revealed who the husband was. She explains how she tried to give the twins first to Robert Frank, because she had ALSO delivered his wife's baby, but both Madeline and the Frank child died in the process, and Robert ran away in grief before he could hear the whole story, hence why the twins and he thought he was their bio-dad. So the High Evolutionary had Bova give Wanda and Pietro to Django and Marya Maximoff, a Romani couple, instead. It's not until 1983 that Magneto reveals his discovery that they're his children. At some point around this same time Magda gets established as Romani too. Magneto and Magda being their bio-parents is pretty static for the next few decades. In 2014, an event called Axis happens that I don't know about but it results in Wanda casting a spell that effects everyone she's related to, and Magneto isn't effected, showing he's NOT her bio-father after all. In 2016 the Scarlet Witch miniseries reveals Magda's not her mom either, Natalya Maximoff, sister of Django, is. Bio-father still unknown. But most fans haven't recognized this retcon because it's stupid. As for her powers that's a trip too, strap in. She's introduced in the 60s with the ability to fire hex bolts. They're often described as "probability manipulation" but they're really more very specific, localized telekinesis. Makes people trip, guns jam, screws in a structure come loose, etc. Minor disasters that negatively impact her enemies, but she wields it really well and effectively. I honestly liked that better; it seems like it can only be an annoyance, but because she's creative and a quick thinker in crisis, it does a LOT of damage. 

In the 70s, she meets Agatha Harkness, the nanny of Franklin Richards who it turns out is a badass witch, and she says Wanda actually is a witch too, a real one, and she wants to tutor her. Unlike the WandaVision series, which I haven't seen and don't plan to, she's not evil. She starts tutoring Wanda sincerely. Wanda begins to learn magic, which augments the power of her hex bolts. Wanda later discovers that the reason she has magical aptitude is that she was touched by the dark god Cthon at birth so that he could use her as a vessel for his return, and he posses her. Getting posessed by Cthon or other magical beings happens a lot to Wanda after this point, as does various losses of her agency/free will. 

While she's famous for "chaos magic" now, the term isn't actually used for her til 1998, over 20 years after she started practicing witchcraft. The chaos magic does allow her to warp reality to a certain degree. The reality big huge warping she's famous for doesn't happen til the 2000s, with House of M, when she rewrites the entire world. A common misunderstanding is that this is how her power NORMALLY is. It's not. She was yet again posessed by something, in this case the Life Force of the ENTIRE PLANET, which was a big boost. It's not her normal state. 

What she can do now though is still nothing to sneeze at. Like she's very OP at this point just at her default. It'd be easier to list what she CAN'T do than what she can.  I go with her having the backstory that's most well-known and lasted longest and makes the most sense (Magda/Magneto bio-parents, raised by Maximoffs)  And just her hex bolts as her power, they're cool enough. Plus like. . . I don't think she needed chaos magic and reality warping and a ton of trauma and loss of agency to be cool. I'm kinda sick of the tendency in superhero media to give a woman a ton of raw power but at the expense of her sanity/agency/control/etc. Just gimme someone with a strong interesting personality who makes her own choices!”

[writer-k-pop]

Garlic

즐기는 것은 이상한 일이지만.  Though it's a strange thing to enjoy.

Description: The story of how you met Dokyeom through his grandma and a shared love for peeling garlic. [Please don't judge me >.< I thought of this while peeling garlic for my mom so that happened.] Warnings: None Genre: Fluff Word Count: 2.3k

Seventeen Masterlist | Masterlists

"Grandma Minnie!" I call out as I step through the front gate, "It's me, (y/n)."

From inside her home, I hear Grandma Minnie shuffling towards the door, "I'm coming! I'm coming!"

Two seconds later, the front door swings open and Grandma Minnie comes running out, apron still wrapped around her waist. She runs over and envelopes me in a hug.

"How are you darling?" She asks, grabbing my hand and leading me towards the house.

"I'm good. I've got some deadlines coming up but nothing too taxing." I tell her, slipping off my shoes. "How are you?"

"Me? Oh, honey, I'm fantastic. Especially now that you're here." Grandma Minnie chuckles and walks into the kitchen. On the table sit giant empty bins and one medium sized bowl filled with unpeeled garlic bulbs. The counters are filled with veggies waiting to be made into one of Grandma Minnie's many dishes.

"Grab the garlic, will you?" Grandma Minnie asks as she grabs two small knives.

I nod and pick up the deceivingly heavy bowl. Bowl in hand and tools ready, we head to the side porch where Grandma Minnie's already laid out a blanket for us.

Just as we sit down, Grandma Minnie's phone begins to ring from inside the house.

"Aigoo," She grunts as she stands again.

I pick a garlic bulb up and begin to peel the dried outer layer to reach the covered cloves. Each clove gets snapped off from the rest and I lay them all in a pile.

"Alright, alright. I'll see you soon then." Grandma Minnie ends her call, returning to her seat. "Here, put the peeled cloves in here." She places another bowl next to the one sitting between us.

Nodding, I pick up my paring knife and a clove. Starting at the flatter end where it connected to the stem, I peel back the thick skin.

"Any new gossip for me?" Grandma Minnie asks, picking up a bulb of her own. I look up and notice the mischief on her face.

I laugh, "I mean I don't have much from my neighborhood but part of me feels like you have more neighborhood gossip than I do."

Grandma Minnie smiles, "Oh, you bet I do." Her skillful hands quickly peel back the outer layer. "You know the lady who lives next door?"

I nod. I've seen her outside her house a couple times when I would walk by.

"Well," Grandma Minnie leans forward slightly, snapping off a large clove, "She and the grandpa down the street have been visiting each other almost every day for the past week."

"That's sweet." I comment, the thought of a relationship starting making me smile.

"Isn't it?" She agrees, "She's been alone for way too long."

"When did her husband pass away?" I ask, curious.

Grandma Minnie tilts her head up, her paring knife stilling against the clove in her hand. "I think 20 years ago?"

"I see." I nod along taking in the information. I check the clove to make sure there aren't any stray pieces of skin left before dropping it into the second bowl.

"Oh, the Park's, at the end of the street, with the bunny statues in the yard," She rattles off details of their home to spark my memory, "They have a new granddaughter!"

"Oh cute! What's the name?" I smile, a vision of chubby cheeks and tiny hands floods my mind.

"Kim Hyerin, I believe." She informs me, tossing her cleaned clove into the bowl.

"That's pretty." I pause to focus on a particularly difficult clove, whose skin doesn't seem to want to peel off. "Did you have any visitors?" I ask, once I successfully clean the clove.

Grandma Minnie shakes her head.  "Not this week. But- oh! He's probably here by now." She suddenly looks around the yard.

I scrunch my eyebrows and set down my knife and current clove. "Who?"

"My grandson. He was the one who called me earlier. He's dropping by for a visit." She informs me. "He's the one who visited that one weekend you went on your trip a couple months ago."

I nod as the memory of her telling me about his last visit surfaces. Searching around the memory, I try to remember his name and anything she told me about him but I'm coming up with squat.

"GRANDMA!" A male voice shouts and struts through the front gate.

"My grandson!" Grandma Minnie gets to her feet and runs over to him with arms wide open and the biggest smile on her face. Nothing beats a visit from family.

He towers over Grandma Minnie but that's not surprising. Grandma Minnie is quite short and even an average height man would tower over her. His hair is well kept and styled to part in the middle. He's cargo shorts and a plain colored tee shirt and in his hand is a plastic bag.

"I bought these for you." He shows her the contents of the bag, "From the famous stand in the station."

Grandma Minnie pinches his cheek, "You didn't have to."

He shrugs, "I know."

"Come, we can share them." Grandma Minnie pats his shoulders.

"With who?" He asks, looks around, and spots me sitting so awkwardly on the side porch.

She drags him over by the hand, "Dokyeom, this is (y/n). (y/n), this is my grandson."

"Hi." I greet with a small wave.

"Hi." Dokyeom also greets, then turns to his grandma, "You didn't tell me you had a visitor."

"But it's Friday." Grandma Minnie argues, "She always comes on Fridays. Plus it's fine, now that you're here, you can take my spot peeling garlic and I can start on cutting up the veggies."

"You peel garlic too?" I ask, slightly surprised that he would enjoy it.

Dokyeom nods, "Growing up, when we visit, Grandma and I would sit on the porch and peel for hours. I've always wondered where all the garlic goes within a week."

I chuckle, "I've wondered the same thing."

"Alright, alright. Give me this," Grandma Minnie takes the plastic bag from him, "And go inside and bring me one of the bowls on the table along with the squash and the radishes, please. Oh! And the peeler and the big knife. Oh oh! And the red cutting board."

Dokyeom nods and ducks inside to collect the ingredients.

"He's a good kid." Grandma Minnie comments. "Here, try one of these." She pulls out a little rice cake. "They're filled with the smoothest sweet red bean paste you will ever taste."

I take it from her and take a bite. Her words were spot on. The red bean paste is silky smooth and just sweet enough. "Woah, that's really good." I tell her and pop the other half into my mouth.

"The lady who runs the stand has been doing it for 60 years." Dokyeom comments coming back out onto the porch with the bowl filled with veggies, "My older sister and I think that she's some sort of witch who is going to sell those cakes for eternity." He says, setting down the bowl next to me.

"And never sell her secret to the silky smooth paste." I add with a playful smile.

Grandma Minnie sits beside the bowl and begins to peel a radish.

As I go back to peeling a clove, Dokyeom takes Grandma Minnie's old spot and picks up her paring knife.

"How are your parents?" Grandma Minnie asks. "They haven't called me in a couple weeks."

"Yeah, they're busy with work and Noona's wedding." Dokyeom answers. "Which is why I came. Thought it'd be better if I visited in person rather than just calling."

"In person is always better." Grandma Minnie and I say at the same time which causes us to burst out laughing.

"I must be spending too much time around you." I smile at Grandma Minnie.

"That better not be a bad thing." She laughs back.

"So how did you come to start visiting my grandma?" Dokyeom asks, picking up another clove.

"I was a volunteer with a program that visited elders in the area who wanted visitors and then it became a regular visit." I tell him, "First time I came over, she shoved a paring knife in my hand and asked if I like peeling garlic. And lucky for her, I do enjoy it. Though it's a strange thing to enjoy."

"I understand the joy." Dokyeom nods his head. "What do you when you're not peeling garlic then?"

"I work at a design company in the business district." I tell him, "You?"

"Assistant teacher in the neighboring town." He says.

"He's so good with kids. So good." Grandma Minnie comments, absentmindedly.

"What grade?" I question.

"4th grade." He tosses a clean clove into the bowl.

"That's gotta be a handful." I smile at the thought of 20 some 4th graders running around a standing Dokyeom.

"It is but I've got the energy to match them." He throws a finger gun at me.

"I think you have the energy to outrun them, DK." Grandma Minnie says. "Even when he was in middle school, he was constantly running around, wanting to do everything, help with everything, go everywhere. He was like the energizer bunny."

"Grandmaaaaaaa." Dokyeom whines and I try to stifle a laugh.

"Don't you laugh, (y/n). Even though it's only been a year, I still have lots of embarrassing stories about you." Grandma Minnie threatens and my laugh immediately suppresses itself.

Now it's Dokyeom's turn to laugh.

"Damn, she's mean." I whisper to Dokyeom.

"Tell me about it." He whispers back, "When I was younger, she told me that a chilli pepper wasn't spicy. So I took a bite and it was the spiciest pepper ever."

"Ya!" Grandma Minnie yells and slaps his arm. "I didn't know it would be spicy."

Before long, all the garlic is peeled and the veggies and peeled and cut.

Dokyeom takes the large veggie bowl inside. Grandma Minnie takes the cleaned garlic bowl inside while I clean the peels that decided to try and run away from the rest. Once inside, Grandma Minnie already piling more veggies into another large bowl. Carrots, potatoes, onions, green onions, cucumbers, and mushrooms.

We head back out to the porch and begin peeling and cutting the veggies to how Grandma Minnie wants them. I hold out a cucumber for Dokyeom to take but he shakes his head.

"I don't like cucumbers." He informs me and picks up a carrot.

"You don't like cucumbers?" I repeat. "How do you not like cucumbers?"

He shrugs, "The smell throws me off."

"So you won't touch them either?" I pull the cucumber closer to me.

"Nope. I stay away from cucumbers if I can."

I open my mouth to say something else when Grandma Minnie interrupts me.

"Don't try to argue with him." She says, waving a potato at us. "He's been that way since birth. Won't ever touch a cucumber."

"Huh, interesting." I nod and start to peel the cucumber.

"A couple of my best friends are the same way." Dokyeom defends his dislike of cucumbers. "Can't eat or smell cucumbers."

"You have weird friends." I joke.

"Wait until you actually meet all of them." Grandma Minnie adds on.

"They're not that bad." Dokyeom immediately counters. "Grandma just thinks they're bonkers because of the stories I've told her. I swear they're not that bad."

I chuckle, "Don't worry, I don't think they're as bad as my friends."

"Ooooh, you're right." Grandma Minnie nods, "Both of you have insanely weird friends."

...

"Are you sure you don't want to stay for dinner?" Dokyeom asks as he walks me to the front gate, "Grandma can get pouty if people don't eat her food."

I let out a small laugh, "I'm sure. I have a prepared dinner waiting for me back at my apartment."

For a second, a look of disappointment crosses his eyes but he quickly covers it up, "Well,

that's a good reason to skip Grandma's dinner. Did someone prepare it for you?" He asks.

"Yeah, my roommate did." I reply, "She's constantly trying new recipes and Friday nights are designated to us."

His face seems to light up after telling him this. "That sounds like so much fun. You guys must get along really well."

I nod, "I've known her for a couple years. We're pretty much inseparable except when we want to be separated." I laugh thinking of the times my roommate and I don't see each other for a couple days though we're both stuck in the same apartment.

"I know the feeling." Dokyeom agrees. He holds the front gate open for me, "Hey, maybe we can get together sometime and you can tell me why you enjoy peeling garlic so much?"

"Only if you tell me why you enjoy it so much." I smile back.

"Deal." Dokyeom nods., "I'll see you around."

"You too." We say our goodbyes and I start walking towards the subway station to get back to my apartment.

As I reach the subway platform, I can't help but feel like I've forgotten something back at Grandma Minnie's house. My phone rings with a text but I don't recognize the number.

"Hey, it's Dokyeom. Got your number from Grandma Minnie because I was an idiot and forgot to ask you for your own number." It reads.

And the light bulb goes off. His number. We never exchanged numbers. Well, thank goodness for Grandma Minnie.

"You're not the only idiot, I forgot to ask as well." I reply back as the subway train arrives at the station.

"Yeah, well, you're not the one Grandma almost kicked out of the house because he forgot to ask." He answers.

"She would never!" I type.

"Oh trust me, she almost did." Dokyeom adds two laughing emojis.

[faerociousbeast]

I posted 6,887 times in 2021

2743 posts created (40%)

4144 posts reblogged (60%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 1.5 posts.

I added 2,710 tags in 2021

#belly of the beast ✧ faerociousbeast - 1567 posts

#anoninopinopinono - 262 posts

#fae plays stuff - 221 posts

#faecore - 134 posts

#prepcatto - 113 posts

#ginger (derogatory) (affectionate) - 102 posts

#mothie from stem (stabbing torture evildoing murder) - 100 posts

#faevourite - 91 posts

#one shot wonder - 75 posts

#fae watches stuff - 45 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#cryign dying sobbing all of the ings i dont even post content hardly i am just i am the most vibing person ever please i dont thjrbfkdjgfjkd

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

uncropped screenshots are fun bc you can focus on everything except for what they were trying to show you. why are you at 2% charge? check your damn discord notifs. wtf is that tab you have open

77 notes • Posted 2021-11-15 14:05:44 GMT

#4

HE ASKED FOR NO PICKLES!!!!!!

77 notes • Posted 2021-11-26 23:13:41 GMT

#3

i think we should all be able to wear whatever we want and afford it while also not getting looked down in society upon like why the fuck are you getting mad that someone walked in during your shift dressed in wizard robes jessica you should be grateful youre getting to witness this

93 notes • Posted 2021-11-04 00:43:39 GMT

#2

most fucked up found family to date has got to be the tumblr mutuals

236 notes • Posted 2021-11-26 01:43:08 GMT

#1

made one of these :DD id under cut for accessibility, and also bc my handwriting kinda sucks i prolly shouldve typed this out instead

[ID: An ask game featuring 9 different coloured circles. In order, there is a lime green circle, navy blue, magenta, in the next row there is light blue, yellow, purple, and in the final row there is red, pink, and green.

Energy:

- very upbeat! uses a lot of caps and exclamation marks!!! - SO MANY MUTUALS - has a favourite animal and rbs posts of them

zzz...

- PLEASE SLEEP - always online - incomprehensible posts - what??? timezone??? - intimidating cryptid

Disco:

- YEAAHH FUNKY - great taste in music - doesn’t really stick to one aesthetic

Lofi:

- chill vibes doesn’t really post much - might have different fandoms/mutual groups

Lemn:

- FUN FUN FUN - greatest ideas ever - bestie material - really awesome to talk with

Sweater:

- famous artist/writer pal - cool! nice! how are we even mutuals - GENDER.

Vampire:

- soo cool. what is up with that - also weird hours - famous for weird reasons, had at least ONE post blow up

Cherry:

- AESTHETIC! - so talented but doesn’t realize it - really sweet but seems to be afraid of interacting :( (sad emoticon)

Cactus:

- parent friend - actually has some sort of schedule - mature, makes self help or drink water reminder posts

/End ID]

253 notes • Posted 2021-10-24 01:54:15 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[alexandrasavior]

ALEXANDRA SAVIOR: loneliness as an impulse to create

At sixteen, she signed a contract with Columbia Records - a label that released albums, including Adele, Daft Punk, Arcade Fire or LCD Soundsystem. On her debut album, she surprised many in her collaboration with Alex Turner (Arctic Monkeys). “It's been almost ten years since I started my career and I feel some kind of loneliness. Feels like I'm at a standstill, like I'm constantly failing. After all, in this industry you live in a world of constant ups and downs,” Savior tells us.

We meet a year after the release of your second album, The Archer. Due to the pandemic, you could only promote it on streaming platforms, previously you also had to face the producer’s departure and the loss of a music label. How do you view these events in retrospect?

A lot has passed since its release, at least for me. This whole year has been so crazy that it seems as if it lasted nearly a decade. When it comes to touring, I always feel anxious during my live performances - so maybe it's a good thing that people haven't heard the album live (laughs). The recording process was completely different from my debut because I wrote all the songs before finding a producer. I recorded a few demo versions with the band, we played a few songs during the concerts in various arrangements and I immediately knew how I wanted them to sound. Not having a label turned out to be a blessing: there was no pressure, I had no one over me, and I also gained a lot of valuable time to finish the project the way I wanted. I entered the music industry at the age of sixteen - before The Archer I always had a person telling me what to do.

NME wrote that The Archer is "your vision of love stories inspired by B-movies from the 1960s." You get the impression that this is a "soundtrack album" full of autobiographical elements, suitable for inclusion in a movie. How many are you in the second album?

I had a vision of a few songs (ex: But You) planned straight away, I wanted them to sound like those stylistic songs from the 1960s and 1970s. Now I'm wondering in which exact film I would like to put my music... I think everyone would like to "appear" in David Lynch's film. A few days ago I watched Blue Velvet, that’s what I’d pick. It doesn't seem to make much sense, because The Archer is something unlike the director's vision, but I would like it to happen one day. Anyway, talking about my second album is like digging into the past. Now I'm working on a new album, we've even started recording it in the studio.

Can you reveal anything more?

I've been writing for a long time, but I haven't found the final shape of this album in my head yet. Moreover, I don't have a label again (laughs). It's completely different music compared to the previous album. It will be less cinematic, also more slow and gentle, because this whole year brought us to a stage of stagnation. To be honest, I don't even know when this album will be released - without a label I don't have any money to record. With a bit of luck, it might come out at the end of this year (laughs).

Recently, I am fascinated by folk artists who recorded between the 40s and 60s. They created great music, but due to the fact that the situation of women at that time was very difficult, they never managed to achieve success. Karen Dalton and Connie Converse are damn inspiring to me! They started out as young, aspiring girls, and in the end they would collapse anyway. Their music had to wait for its moment for someone to rediscover it after about fifty years. It was the same with Alice Neel, my favorite painter who became famous at the age of 70!

You also started young - by giving up your education at the university, you chose a new life path, which at the beginning was not assigned to you. You could have a "normal life" with the rest of your friends. The music industry has changed the way you have come, it has influenced your growing up.

It was all difficult. The biggest difference between me and my friends was that in the end I was left alone. I was discovering my identity and interests on my own; I didn't learn from professors, I didn't attend any classes. Now my friends are finishing their schools and starting in the same place I was eight years ago. Sometimes I feel like I would like to have the chance to go to university and live this "normal life". I'd like to learn more than just from myself, but the Columbia Records deal did a full 180 on my life. I know something about the world, but it is not university knowledge. I don't think young people should sign big contracts when they're sixteen. It's been almost ten years since I started my career and I feel some kind of loneliness that is also present in my music. The fact that I cannot support myself financially seems to be a failure in itself. But it is also the fault of expectations (both mine and those from outside). These elements make it feel like I'm down, like I'm constantly failing. After all, in this industry you live in a world of constant ups and downs. One month you release a new album, you have a lot of interviews, people are interested... and the next month nobody remembers you, and you have to move on. Then for three years, in constant uncertainty, you work on a new album and you have no idea how the public will receive it. All work can collapse in one second. You feel ruined in the end.

In your lyrics, you can notice a feeling of sadness combined with enjoying it. It's such a musical masochism. In Soft Currents you sing: "My fate is at the hands of my mistakes / and that’s alright." Have you changed your creative formula with the advent of the pandemic?

The last thing I would like to write songs about is the coronavirus and the pandemic. In my lyrics, I am talking about uncertainty, about living in the past, because the present is full of contradictions and anxieties. At the same time, I tried to send this past into oblivion, I also focused on my personal innocence and my self-centeredness. I even mention how Instagram makes me feel! (laugh). These are my experiences: no less, no more, but I don't want to be the person who writes about confinement within four walls; they all do it. I try to approach it from the perspective of my reflections on my life and myself. During the pandemic, I recognized many of my behaviors that turned out to be negative and self-destructive - and this thread will probably also be visible in my writing. I wrote The Archer from the perspective of a person who felt like a victim. Now with my third album, I have accepted the choices I have made and I understand my responsibility. I'm not weak anymore.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #384

“watch your tongue or have it cut from your head”

Do you post to say happy birthday on other people’s walls? Sometimes. Depends on my mood and the person. When was the last time you saw a rainbow? Idr. What’s your favorite television commercial? I don't watch TV enough at all to have one. And who has a favorite commercial, anyway? Do you trip a lot? I don't really trip a lot, but kinda fumble over my footing and stray a bit. I'm horrible at walking straight, and it's gotten worse as my legs have. How old is your television? The one in the living room is god knows how old. My parents were still together when they bought it. When did you last talk on the phone with someone? A couple days ago for my appointment with my psychiatrist. Are you currently sleepy? I'm quite convinced I'm permanently tired. Are you hot or cold natured? I am ALWAYS fucking hot, ugh. Do you take any advanced classes? I took mostly Honors classes in school. Do you have weak upper body strength? My body is just weak as a whole. What is the worst insult someone can call you? Emotionally weak. Are you good at sketching? If we're talking meerkats, haha. They're the only complex thing that I can freehand no problem without needing a reference, honestly. Ever play Angry Birds? Nah. I thought the movie was cute, though. Have you ever been to the zoo before? Yeah. Has anyone ever been weirdly obsessed with you? No. Are you afraid someone might steal your identity someday? It's not something I actively worry about at all. Like, you don't want my identity, I promise. Do you have any talents that come naturally? Growing up, adults always told me I was a "gifted" artist and writer. Also that I seem to have an unnaturally strong connection with animals. I've always been that person where a pet's owner is like "omg ____ never lets people do that" and whatnot. Have you ever had plastic surgery before? I haven't. It's funny though, how opposed to it I used to be... Like goddamn, I was such a fucking stupid and honestly judgmental teenager, regarding many things. I look back on her and cringe. Like damn dude, if you have a safe surgical procedure to help you enjoy the body you're stuck with the rest of your life, you go for it, boo. Are you afraid of airplane rides? Not really. What’s the best Valentine’s Day gift you’ve gotten? There was this one year where Jason had to go to work on Valentine's Day and I was super bummed, yet he still surprised me with a heart-shaped box of chocolates, roses, and a game I really wanted, Heavy Rain. I thought it was the sweetest. What is something you lose often? My phone. ;-; Do you enter a lot of sweepstakes? I don't enter any. Do you consider yourself physically active? *chuckles nervously* Do you have Netflix? Yeah. Favorite salad dressing? That Olive Garden replica you can buy at the store. Do you enjoy dancing? Once upon a time I did. My body could never handle it now. Have you ever considered writing a novel? Many times. Snow or sand? Snow, by twenty thousand miles. It is VERY hard for me to walk through sand, and I also hate hate hate hate HATE the sensation. Do you like sour candy? Heeeeeell yeah man. Have you gotten any injuries lately? If so, what & how? Nothing notable. Are you a clumsy person? Like you would not fucking believe. Last male you talked to in person? I think my primary physician's nurse. Are you thinking about asking anyone out? No. Pink lemonade or regular lemonade? Pink lemonade, for sure. But I love both. Chocolate or strawberry milk? CHOCOLATE. Strawberry milk is disgusting. Have you ever won a contest on the radio?No. Is there a song that reminds you of your best friend? There's quite a few. Has a book ever made you cry? Yes. Do you automatically check your phone when you wake up? Yes, for the time. Do you know anyone who has a pet bunny? Not that I'm aware. What store or website would you most like a gift card for? Rebel's Market. How do you feel about wolves? I adore wolves. Beautiful, majestic creatures with very interesting social dynamics. Name your top 3 favorite musical instruments. Electric guitar, violin, piano. What was the last book(s) you bought at a bookstore? At an actual bookstore, I think it was The Fault In Our Stars, which I never actually read. Do you use Pinterest? Yes. Do you know any sign language? No. Do you have a favorite poem? No. Do you have a dog? No. The one we were pretty much stuck with has a home now. Have you ever read The Little House on the Prairie series? I haven't. Have you ever gone on a service trip to an underprivileged country? No. Have you ever performed in front of more than 100 people? Yes, for dance. When (if ever) was the last time you went to church? Forever ago, I don't even remember the last time. What's a quote you think is really powerful? There's a whole lot. The first one that came to mind was, "An eye for an eye will leave the world blind," which I do believe has great depth in it. Have you ever had to do your laundry at a laundromat? Yes. Are you the oldest person who lives in your household? No. My mom is turning 60 (... I think?) this year. If you have tattoos, how long have you had them? I got my first the day I turned 18. Do you and your dad have similar personalities? We're alike in some ways, imo most notably in that we have NO fucking common sense, embarrassing as that is to admit. We're both kinda slow at understanding things, too. What were the last three things you had to drink? Mountain Lightning, milk, and water. What did your family usually do for Easter when you were a kid? Us three kids all got Easter baskets full of stuff, and we'd go egg-hunting when we were all awake. My little sister Nicole would always wake our parents up in excitement, haha. My parents hid plenty throughout the house, and there was always this one "special" egg that was actually from Mom's childhood and was extremely intricate and beautiful. You basically "won" the hunt if you found it, and it was extremely well-hidden. When you have house guests over, where do they sleep? Historically since living here, my two half-sisters and their spouses (the only people who've stayed over) slept in what is *technically* Mom's room, but for whatever reason this woman still insists on sleeping on the couch in the living room, I guess because she's used to it after all the years she didn't have her own room and bed. Are you emotionally stable? LOLOOLOLOOLLOLOOLOOLOLLOOLOLLLLLLLLLLL Do you still talk to the very first person you had sex with? No. Are you an atheist? No. I don't quite know how to define what I am, but since I believe there's SOME higher power, I don't think it's fitting to call me an atheist. What’s the largest bug you’ve ever found in your house? Hm... I'm unsure. Probably a male mosquito, 'cuz them bitches are big'ins. Would it annoy you if a stranger called you "sweetie?" If it was a man, I'd be creeped out. Are you into fashion design? Not really. What’s the worst thing you’ve gone through in the past year? My leg muscles continuing to degrade, honestly. I have to do something about this shit. How did you get your last bruise? I fell when stepping over the stupid dog gate. Have your parents ever forgotten your birthday? Yikes, no. Would you rather have some bacon or beef jerky? Bacon. Do you like your orange juice with lots or no pulp? NONE. Do you wear skinny jeans? Back when I wore jeans, they were the only kind I wore. What projects are you doing now for school? I'm outta school. What’s the most number of comments you have on a Facebook picture? What is the picture of? I have no idea. Do you like coconut flavored things? No. Have you ever met a famous author before? No. Do you know anybody who has been raped before? No, thank god. I know someone who might've almost been, though. I don't know what the fucking pig was going to do to her if my sister and I weren't there. Have you ever wished for bigger boobs? No. Being overweight, I just want smaller ones now, haha. Have you ever gone a full day without interacting with another person? I've gone many days without it. How many relationships have you been in that lasted less than a year? Four, if you're counting everyone that had the "boyfriend" title. Where were you going the last time you were on a plane? Home from Illinois. Where were you going the last time you were on a train? I've never been on one. Have you ever been significantly more physically fit than you are now? Holy fuck, yes. You would never guess now that I was perfectly healthy in high school especially, yet I still thought I was kinda fat. It hurts so much to look back on. When growing up, did you parents keep the house very tidy? I mean not excessively, but Mom was pretty dedicated to keeping the house in decent condition. With three kids though, of course the house was somewhat messy with toys and all. When you shop at IKEA, do you always stop to eat a snack/meal in the cafeteria? ... There's a fucking cafeteria in a furniture store? o_o I've never been there before. How many watches do you own? None, save for one in my "treasure box" from when I was a kid. I was SO SO SO obsessed with Finding Nemo that I kept my broken one. I did the same with my horribly aged sneakers, like the soles were coming off and Mom finally made me stop wearing them, ha. Are there any ways in which you greatly differ from everyone else in your family? I do fucking nothing and am useless to society. Should teenagers be allowed to have their cell phones with them in class? Yes, because emergencies happen. I personally think it's best to maybe have your cell phone flipped over on the corner of your desk or something and on vibrate, that way the noise isn't too disruptive and the teacher can see you're not just using it for other purposes. Do you have any gay relatives? Yes. Have you ever had to have a pet put down? Sigh, multiple. Have you unfollowed, deleted, or blocked anyone on social media recently? If so, what was the reason? Not recently. How many cups of coffee do you typically drink per day? None. Do you know what your vocal range is? No, but it's not very broad. What’s the biggest financial mistake you’ve ever made? I haven't been in this position before. Have you ever been in a relationship where there was a large difference in maturity levels? No. What’s the longest you’ve ever stayed as a guest at someone’s house? I wanna say over a month while we were technically homeless. How bad was your acne when you were a teenager? Oh dear, it was rough. Like there were people who had it worse than me, but ya girl was lookin preeeetty rough lmao.

[greatfay]

since ur answering asks and shit can u explain what u meant by generational differences in communication

Damn it’s like 2015 tumblr when my inbox used to be WET. So if you’re talking about the controversial opinions post, YES, like I totally understand where people are coming from when they say that generational divides aren’t real (because they aren’t, they’re arbitrary) and distract us from real problems and yes they paint past generations as collectively bigoted when Civil Rights protestors in the 60s (who are in their 70s and 80s now) are mirrors to BLM protestors today, who could be of any age, but the most vocal and famous (at least online, especially irt to the founders, like Patrisse Cullors who is 37.

But how we communicate is sooooo different. I really point to the Internet and Social Media as a major influence in how younger millennials (more Tom Hollands and less Seth Rogans—see even there, I feel like there are two different types of Millennials) and Gen Zrs/Zoomers and even Generation Alpha behave and communicate. We live in a world where we grew up either knowing right out the gate or discovering the hard way that what we say and do has permanence, the kind of permanence that prior generations have never experienced until today. The dumb things kids have been saying since forever can now follow them... forever. We have an inherent understanding of how online spaces work. Compare that to, idk, let’s say you posted on your Facebook (for the first time in 18 months) “All these big and bad grown ass Senators going after actual child Greta Gerwig lol ok, you’re so brave for attacking a CHILD over climate change” and then your aunt, who’s turning “forty-fifteen” in May replies to your post with “So happy to see my passionate niece! Much love from us, hope you’re doing well. Paul is doing great, waiting on his screening results. Tell your mom I said we miss her, we need to get together, we forgive her for last Christmas.”

Like... ok there’s a lot going on there, but your hypothetical aunt is oversharing on a publicly accessible post. And even with the most strict of privacy settings, she’s oversharing where your other Facebook friends (which may include classmates, coworkers, etc.) can see. But she’s saying things that would only be appropriate in a 1-on-1 conversation. This Aunt doesn’t have an understanding of such boundaries, she’s not as technologically literate and hasn’t grown up in a world of Virtual Space, she still gets most of her news from TV, she trusts what a reporter on Channel 4 will read off a script more than what actual video footage of an incident might reveal on Twitter, and she has no clue that she’s been sharing her location data with every post she makes.

There’s such a huge difference. I think it even affects how we experience and express stress and frustration. I think growing up partially in online spaces has made me more accustomed to conflict and consequence-free arguing than someone who never had to worry about that. I’ve been exposed so much to harassment and bullying, triangulating and echo chambers in forums and threads, and vastly opposing point of views at such an early age that it’s had an effect on how I see the world. Compare this to a customer I helped two weeks ago who was looking for a specific type of supplement for children. I found it for her, I handed her exactly what she was looking for, even though her description of the product actually matched several different products; to make sure I’d done my job thoroughly and that she leaves happy and satisfied and doesn’t bother me again, I then show her more products that match her description so that she knows she has options. And she proceeds to freak out, saying “NO, NO, I’M LOOKING FOR [X] AND IT HAS TO BE [XYZ]” and when I say freak out, she looked stressed and PANICKED. And being a retail employee wears you down bit by bit, and add COVID on top of it and little shit like this makes you snap, sometimes. So I have to cut her off like “Why are you screaming and freaking out, jfc you’re holding what you said you wanted. It’s in your hands. I gave you what you wanted, I’m just showing you more things.”

That customer is not an exception, she’s not a unique case. She’s representative of a frightening percentage of her generation, the kids who watched Grease and The Breakfast Club and Ghost in theaters when they were originally released. This is how they communicate and process information. She could not, for some reason, register that her need had been fulfilled, and defaulted to an extreme emotional response when given new and different information.

I’ve yet to deal with someone younger than 35 act the same way, the exceptions being the kids of very wealthy people at my new job who reek of privilege I gag when they walk in—but even they are like *shrugs* “ok whatever” and understanding when there’s something I can’t do for them.

Me: “sorry, we are totally out of that one in your size, but I can order it for you, it’s 2-3 day shipping at no cost to you and we ship it straight to your house”

A rich, white, attractive 22-year-old who’s had access to organic food, a rigorous dermatologist, and financial security since she was born: “mmm... sure, I’ll order it”

A 47-year-old of any socioeconomic background, of any race, in the same situation: “AHHHHHHHHHHH”

I just think it’s crazy how three generations of kids and young adults raised in a world where everything moves so much faster, where knowledge and entertainment and communication can be gathered so much faster, are often so much more polite and patient and understanding. Yesterday I told an older man (mid-50s) whose native tongue is the same as mine, as clearly and succinct as possible, that what he’s looking for is “in aisle 4.” He proceeded to repeat back, “Aisle 7?” four time before I dropped everything to show him what he needed in aisle 4, despite his insistence that he didn’t need me to walk him there. 4 and 7 sound nothing alike in English. There’s just something going on up there 🧠 that’s different.

Oh, other generational divides!!! We have different approaches to labor and working. Totally different! I’m a “young” millennial where I’m almost Gen Z, and I’ve noticed an awful trend among my demographic where people actually brag about working 90 hour work weeks. Or brag about how they skip breaks and live on-call to get the job done for “the hustle” like this “hustle, become a millionaire by 30″ culture that’s dominated these kids, idk where tf that came from. Like why are you proud of being a wage slave, getting taken advantage of by your millionaire/billionaire overlords. Compare this to my mother’s generation (she’s a borderline Genius X’er, she and her best friend were a year too young to watch Grease when it came out and had a random older woman buy tickets for her; she went to Prince concerts, took photos of him, then sold the photos on buttons at school, that’s her culture and teenage experience), where she’s insistent on her rights and entitlements as an employee, and these things she instilled me: “whatchu mean they didn’t schedule a break for you and you’re working 12 hrs today? oh no, you’re off, don’t answer your phone cuz you are NOT available!” There are Gen X’ers who entered the workforce at a time that America was drifting toward this corporate world, with more strictly defined regulations, roles, and understandings of labor rights (and also, let’s talk about how the 80s there was so much more attention on workplace harassment, misogyny and gender divides in wage gaps, etc. etc... not that much has changed, but at least it was talked about!). There are young people today who are taken advantage of because they aren’t as informed or don’t feel as secure and valuable enough to claim what belongs to them.

At the same time, those generations (Gen X and older) have a different viewpoint of hierarchies in the workplace and respect irt our direct supervisors. That’s how you get this blurring of boundaries between Work Life and one’s Personal Life that leads to common tropes in media written by their generations, where oh no! I’m having my boss over for dinner and the roast beef is still defrosting :O is such a “relatable thing” for them... meanwhile us younger generations are like I don’t even like that you know where I live, and if I see your 2017 Honda Civic pass my place one day, we’re going to have a problem. I think older generations have a different relationship with the word “Respect” than we do. Like, my grandma, who’s turning 87 (?) this year, and the other seniors in my area, they have a different concept of honor and an expectation of professional boundaries that I, and my mom and her generation, just don’t see (so then there’s something in common with Gen X’ers and the rest of us.) My dad grew up in a world where talking and acting like George Bailey and knocking on someone’s door with a big smile could get you a job, a job that could pay for college and rent no problem. My mom grew up in a world that demanded more prestige, where cover letters and references could get you into some cushy jobs if you’re persistent and ballsy enough. And I grew up in a world where potential employers literally don’t see your face when you apply unless they lurk on any social media profiles you have publicly available and they hold all the cards, and you need all those CVs and reference letters just to make minimum wage... so I feel like I am powerless in the face of such employers.

[vanityloves]

anyways im gonna listen to/read the fuckin...rise of the ogre shit bc ive been putting it off 🪓🥴 im gonna put stuff under the cut bc im gonna be TALKING n dont wanna make a new post everytime

piss

ok he performed for 2 pounds 50. which is basically $3 today i- well it was absolutely a power play on his father behalf that also had the promise of money so.

also lol he said Rejection fueled my ambitions which, yknow,, i already knew but it still hurts and i will continue to talk ab it xoxo

AH HELP. "...if ebay had been invented at the time he would've sold me online there and then,"

"man hands on misery to man, yknow"

THEN PROCEEDS TO CONNECT IT TO MUSIC/HIS CAREER. this man said :) the one thing i truly have a passion for. the one thing i fucking like.

oh yeah. bullied by students AND teachers.

oh god hes 42ish during this interview? ok.

the fuckin school bully saying he wouldve acted differently if he knew what hed become

getting called "faceache", then proceeds to call 2d that. jfc he really does just repeat what everyone says. really "treating others how i was treated/how they treat me"

maybe thats why? hes kinder to fans? bc :] you support me and like me so, ok ill return that energy

MURDOC GETTING HIS ASS BEAT N PARADING HOME LIKE WELL I WON BC 'I PISSED YOU OFF' SJDJD

a real rowdy boy. absolute nasty boy. fraud and arson... shooting ppls windows with his air pistols

black sabbath being a huge inspiration? fucking absolutely.

became a satanist n shit at age 16? "it fitted me like a glove" "heavy metal and devil worshipping became my favorite past times" ajsj funny that ppl in trying times often seek religion or following of some sort

heavy metal being his favorite, n loving the clash, while hannibals was more punk based

hannibal breaking murdocs nose for the 2nd and 3rd time for playing his music on hannibals turntable

he doesnt sound that bitter? ab hannibal? he doesnt sound incredibly fond but he talks ab how he got him into a lot of music. so, i imagine they we're a bit closer than i thought?

international baccalaureate in antisocial? anthropology?

MURDOC IS ACTUALLY SMART HE WAS JUST. NOT INTERESTED IN THE SUBJECTS? I GUESS? (also,,, he literally Built cyborg noodle and i think he had a PhD too lol. but its always nice to hear hes actually...yknow, interested or good at other things)

alright but murdoc having a fascination w/ other cultures - or at least some interests, that lead him to actually study the damn subject and "pass with flying colors"

'fuck college though. im gonna be a rockstar'

he sold his soul at 18ish? whenever the fuck he got kicked out but college was mentioned so my brain goes to 18ish idk

he lived with his father still and paid rent via low paying jobs one including 'part time dressing as santa'

help he was ab to take a Personal Job for quick cash and uhh well, "still made me call him sir though" he really said 20 dollars is 20 dollars, huh "that story was totally true"

alright, 1997,,,

2d stuff

loves zombie stuff? thats really cute, and is freaked out by the way they move. god he rambles

both he and murdoc are horses in the chinese zodiac

[[jfc ok if the official shit compares them a lot i understand why ppl ship them but Dont. its a narrative foil and that doesnt always mean Romance jfc.]]

SUMTHINK.

truly... a lil stinker. super cute bouncing baby and a "bit thick" which is stull so endearing to me. hes just a happy man!

excitable 10 year old and would dance around his room

jfc the fact he has normal/caring parents. i kinda forget how opposite hes supposed to be from murdoc but i think thats another thing jsjsysg (murdoc said why isnt my tragic story making me famous why does he get to be the Star. no wonder he acts like a loon)

i still dont get how gettin bonked by a tree branch made him go bald and also turn his hair blue

big tiddy nurse mommy,,,

went to the same school as The Cure and got decent grades despite hittin the noggin quite hard. WANTED TO BE A STORM CHASER... OMG??

oh thats really cute, hed bond with his dad by building keyboards toegther 🥺💕

messed around with paints and graffiti? artistic king

MURDOC AGAIN: QHDJ 'VILLANOUS' GANG HELP

oh yeah d day...new instruments, new band, new singer - and 'had to be the best or no dice' and absolutely CONFIDENT that his songs were bangers ajsjd

but on that same note, had absolute faith (or desperate) in 2d which i love

ransacked the fucking music shop jdjdj and 2d said he was Just Standing There behind the counter the whole shift hdhdh

"thats when your eye came out, yeah" "yeah!-" HELP WHY DOES HE SOUND SO HAPPY AB IT ?? yes he said ut hurt but he sounds...ok

jfc murdoc ragdolling this poor mf around. dunking him and slapping him around. actually? so incredibly terrible and abusive and i hate him for that 🔫 im sorry 2d stans. we dont condone that behavior here ong.

how and why the FUCK did 2d's parents allow that fucker near their child after that i??? help. wtf. his moms a nurse why didnt she just have murdoc sit in plain view of other people. god damn.

2d flying out the window n hitting the curb "whoops"

"just two black holes...[ah] it looked great...a blue hair, blacked eyed GOD- the girls would go wild-" "pretty boy looks" ???? HELP. HE DOESNT GO LIGHT ON THE COMPLIMENTS, HUH

RUSS TIME

oh yeah, he straight up kiddnapped this man help. idk how he managed that, russ is a Big Man??

AND MURDOCS MUSIC WAS SO FUCKING SEXY GOOD that russel said hm alright ill stay, :] out ifbhis owm free will im screaming.

"oh this is one of them febreeze commercials" "uh . yeah sure. *murdoc turning on his Sick Tunes*" but that either means? it was just his guitar playing the convinced russ? unless he and 2d recorded sumn?

"2d was the looks, murdoc the brains, then russel truly was the heart"

'while 2d and murdoc liked music, this man was a MUSICIAN' god fucking bless this book holy shit ny man russ getting some respect. he said back hurts from carrying this band.

murdoc basically heard this guy had big trauma that gave him So Many Skills n said "thats what i want" ok idk thats actually really? inch rest ting to me. seems that murdocs fine handing out compliments but i guess that where his charisma really helps out yeah?

"he was going to be in my band whether he liked it or not" ...murdoc-

HELP. 2D IS LIKE BRO GO ON IM LISTENING 🥺 despite hearing the story 50-60 times and murdoc said fuck off you lil shit.

ok irrelevant but i love his voice! its super comforting n nice to listen to 🥺

HELP MURDOCS SO BITTER. "NOTHING THAT HAPPENS TO US IS NORMAL" WELL YEAH. THIS IS TRAUMA CENTRAL.

idk how/why he sucked up all his friends souls though ... how are they all possessing the same person. they said "its my turn on The Russ"

DELL IS HIS ACTUAL, LITERAL SOULMATE...KING...😭

went to a private school,,, and was already possessed? and the thing where he gets bigger and smaller is a reoccurring thing?

was in a coma for 4 years?

hiphop machine...time and history...the ultimate set i guess.

his knowledge was infinite and hes a "Renaissance man" hes so fucking smart our king. jack of all trades but a master of drums. he said i know im good and what of it

PAULA.

HELP. HE RMBRS THE STALL: CUBICAL NUMBER 3 🥴 IF I DO RECALL 🤤

yes russel our king. fuck up his nose 5 more times. probably stunted his growth too. he shrunk after russ gave him a wallop im sure

why dies paula sound like tracer overwatch

also only dated 2d for 2 months before joining the band?

HELP SHE REALLY WAS THE FIRST MURDOC FUCKER: "but when i saw murdoc with his thick greasy hair, green teeth and yellow skin i thought 'oh this is the ine for me!'" "OH HES SUCH A DANDY-" HELP ME IM HQJDHD

sick in the head...like i want to hurt people help girl. shes fucking Crazy. but she rly said damn i didnt hear back from him again 😭 and my purse is gone JSHHD

MURDOC: SHE WAS DEPRESSINGLY UGLY *still fucked her*

NOODLE TIME

"small japanese person!"

2d: we werent gorillaz until noodle arrived!

im dying the reason he chose gorillaz. 'swinging through the jungle baring my ass'

noodle really said "im just happy to be here" and she balanced everyone out 😭 "she gave off pure love and the fact that she could laugh at murdoc REALLY helped too" RUSS... IS BABY

JFC MURDOCS SO FUCKING CONFIDENT IN THIS BAND IM LIVING FOR THAT. HE SAID YOU WANT US SO BAD IT MAKES YOU LOOK STUPID. THE CHARISMA

2d rambling ab some girl he met and "ssSs" "whats the s stand for hawhaw" "i dont know!".

THE RECORD LABEL GUY.

one song is all it took i ❤ good for them

just murdoc talking ab the party that they threw for thier deal and saying "you dont know how much of a dick i felt like [when carrying one of those huge checks]" like oh thats whatll make you a dick? alright.

A FOOD FIGHT THAT WENT SO HARD THAT IT KNOCKED 2DS TONSILS OUT? WHAT THE FUCK

ahshdj damon and murdoc not getting along bc of Rival Band One Uppery + damon calling murdocs cuban heels crap since ge wore steel ones with gold spurs.

MURDOC FEELIN EMBARRASSED BC HES 'QUITE PROUD OF HIS SHOES'

but the band and damon getting over music and their ambitions and became a "paternal figure"

HELP MURDOC SAID AWIOGA @ RACHEL WHICH MADE HER THROW HER DRINK IN HIS FACE AND SPLIT FROM 2D. kinda sad actually, she said i still like 2d but murdoc kinda ruined it by trying to get it in with me, it put a strain in our relationship :/ oh god murdocs That Dude

nov 31 1998: started recording :]

40 tracks that got cut down to 15 holy shit

KONG STUDIOS 🤲

hooking up cameras in every room ejdjsu

webby artist of the year in 2006? holy shit

noodle learning ab kong studios omfg

JFC. YES I KNEW KONG WAS BUILT ON/IN A CEMETERY BUT I DIDNT KNOW PPL FOR THE FUCKING PLAGUE WHERE THROWN THERE HDJD

built in 1739?

the ghost of the first owners ghost still roams around in the kitchen in the early hours and moans 'aaa glass of water'

theres some rotting bullshit near the studios and in the summer its fucking TERRIBLE

the former owners were a biker gang, and they all died in a fire

murdoc said this place has bad vibes. i want it.

grim weather

the building feels impossible to escape from huHgg

[ihatetaxes99]

Death Note: The Glorious Manga Ending (And the anime that failed to deliver)

Well, this is certainly something a tad different from my usual affairs. Yes, I'm delighted to bear the news that I am taking a break from writing sub-par fanfiction and selling weapons to Middle Eastern terrorists in order to follow something a little less creative, but more immediately interesting to me in my current time of writing. I mean, hell, there's probably a 60% chance that no one will ever read this, since I'll likely drop it halfway through and go back to my black market dealings. But, in that small 40% chance that I do get this out the door, or indeed any further than this very sentence before I forget about it for all eternity, then I want to have a little discussion, a fun little analysis. And of course, I'm going to analyse everyone's favourite slice of life fluff comedy, Death Note. Specifically the ending and how I think the manga surpasses the anime in many, many ways.

If you haven't yet read or watched Death Note, then you won't be reading this anyway, so it would be rather pointless at best and an insult to your intelligence at worst to give a recap of how the series works. If you must have a layman's explanation, big murder book gets dropped into the human world, shenanigans ensue. There, now go watch or read it for yourself. Preferably read, as I am about to discuss. The manga is far better, entirely because of the second half. It's no secret that the Death Note anime handled the second half poorly. Content was cut, elements were skipped, scenes were changed entirely and Near, my favourite character from the manga, was done so dirty that he generally ranks as many people's least favourite, for some understandable reasons and others that I consider rather weak. But the main part of the second half aside, I want to talk about the final showdown, the confrontation in the Yellow Box warehouse, and how I feel the anime adaptation butchered a near-perfect ending for the sake of either time, or budget, or maybe to appease Light fangirls (because that definitely has a factor in why I don't like the anime's ending as much.)

So, to recap, most of the confrontation at the warehouse between the SPK and Kira plays out very much the same. Mikami writes the names down, Light reveals himself, the notebook is revealed to be a fake and Yagami has his famous mental breakdown, followed by one of the most powerful lines in the series:

(Note: I condensed the speech to fit neatly into two boxes)

I love this speech. I think it's one of the best in the series, for reasons that very much tie into why the ending in the manga works better. I want you all to think for a moment; I've seen a lot of people say Death Note is a series that doesn't take sides on the conflict. No, that is bullshit. In the early series, maybe, but from the moment Light Yagami killed Naomi Misora, and arguably even earlier than that with Raye Pembre, he was consistently portrayed as being more and more callous, more evil, more of a scumbag. Let's look over what he did, especially in the later stages of the series.

He:

Murdered the FBI agents tailing him.

Only expressed regret over Utika's death because it may negatively affect Kira's reputation.

Watched with no emotion as his father died and indeed, encouraged him to use the Death Note moments before he died.

Mocked Matsuda for mourning his father's death.

Manipulated two seperate women into doing his bidding (albeit, one was unintentional) and killed one himself, with plans to kill the other had he not been killed.

Instigated a riot in New York with the intent of killing Near and the SPK.

Killed FBI agents who were tailing him.

Only cared about Utika's death because it compromised Kira's strong public image and not because he was actually a good man.

Manipulated two seperate women into falling for him (albeit one was accidental) and promptly killed off one with no hesitation, with plans of killing the other had he not met his end first.

Watched emotionless as his own father died and even tried to get him to use the Death Note in his last moments.

Mocked Matsuda for mourning the death of his father and used it in a last ditch effort to distract the detective and escape.

Staged a riot with the intent of killing Near and the rest of the SPK.

And these are just some of them. By the end of Death Note, Light was not a good person. I personally never agreed with him, but he went from a disillusioned kid with a minor saviour complex to A full-blown, sadistic, perverted image of what he used to be, utterly unfeeling and cold-hearted, with a major God complex, a complete lunatic. As Near said, a mass murderer and nothing more. After everything Yagami's done over the course of the series, it was just too satisfying to read this for the first time, and I will concede, the anime did a great job adapting it. I feel a lot of Light fangirls agreed with him because his ideals sounded good on paper, but in reality, they're completely childish and self-serving. I am not one to moral grandstand, I believe those who take any excuse to give lectures about morality are annoying and often hypocritical scum, but my point here is that this is not a man any reasonable person could agree with if he were a real person. So, this teardown of his ego was perfect.

Now, the first big difference is the ultimate fate of Teru Mikami. In the anime, he kills himself in the warehouse, in a scene that makes me laugh every time due to the comically large quantities of blood spewing from him. He dies defending Kira's ideals, believing in his God. Or, if you choose to interpret it another way, he has accepted that Light is not God, and he has nothing else to live for. Either way, the anime lacks a key scene, after Light is shot by Matsuda and begging for help:

This is extremely important, as it continues what Near did with his speech and sets in motion the following trend for what is to come. Light is humiliated, his second most faithful pawn has turned against him, called him scum, seen him for what he truly is, and worse still, he's done it in front of everyone else. Teru Mikami has denounced his God, and this is just the stepping stone for the humiliation Kira is about to suffer. Also, it's worth noting that just before Mikami denounces Kira, there's a scene of Light crawling on the ground, bleeding, calling out for Misa and Takada to help him, seeming to have gone totally delusional, forgetting that Takada was already dead. This may have been excluded from the anime, or it may have been the fault of the subs I was using. It still serves as a vital part of the theme that the final few chapters hammer in, over and over again, that being the complete and total humiliation of Light Yagami. And the worst for our criminal-killing protagonist is still to come.

Finally, we reach the fate of the original Kira, the end of Light Yagami. In the anime, he uses Mikami's suicide as a distraction to escape, wherein he runs off, seeing visions of his past self, and dies out in the middle of a staircase, from a heart attack delivered by Ryuuk, calmly and quietly. This is all very nice and emotional, we see for a moment, Light contemplates what he became and wondering how it could have ended differently, and him dying in the middle of the staircase, as many people have stated before, is oh so very symbolic of how he finds himself unable to reach Heaven or Hell. However, this does not hold a candle to the manga.

This is what Light is like upon his death there:

Yeah, there's no real doubting it, he's going out like a complete bitch. Like the anime was thoughtful and silent, with an underlying sombre soundtrack, in this the once great Kira is reduced to a blubbering mess, throwing a tantrum because he refuses to accept his time is up. It was made very clear to him at the beginning that he was to die at Ryuuk's hand one day and now that it's here, he can't take it. He tries to cheat death, the one thing no human nor Shinigami can do. I mean, just look at the panels. He's a mess. A privileged, pampered brat who isn't getting his way. That is why I consider the Death Note manga ending to be superior to the anime in almost every way. While the anime gives us symbolism and a sense of calm, the manga goes all the way in tearing down this character, who has been a piece of human garbage for years at this point. I find it so satisfying to watch him get what he deserves, not only the death but the shame.

Light's own hubris and mental instability stole from him the honourable death he received in the anime. And that is everything I believe he needed, far more than the mere reality check he was given in the anime.

Phew, damn this was a ride and a half to write. I always appreciate feedback, if anyone wants to share their own thoughts on the ending. Please do feel free to do so, and I'll hopefully be back soon with your regularly scheduled shitty fanfics.

[horansqueen]

AM Conversations : chapter 48

A Niall Horan fanfiction ; rated MA

CHAPTER 1 || CHAPTER 2 || CHAPTER 3 || CHAPTER 4 || CHAPTER 5 || CHAPTER 6 || CHAPTER 7 || CHAPTER 8 || CHAPTER 9 || CHAPTER 10 || CHAPTER 11 || CHAPTER 12 || CHAPTER 13 || CHAPTER 14 || CHAPTER 15 || CHAPTER 16 || CHAPTER 17 || CHAPTER 18 || CHAPTER 19 || CHAPTER 20 || CHAPTER 21 || CHAPTER 22 || CHAPTER 23 || CHAPTER 24 || CHAPTER 25 || CHAPTER 26 || CHAPTER 27 || CHAPTER 28 || CHAPTER 29 || CHAPTER 30 || CHAPTER 31 || CHAPTER 32 || CHAPTER 33 || CHAPTER 34 || CHAPTER 35 || CHAPTER 36 || CHAPTER 37 || CHAPTER 38 || CHAPTER 39 || CHAPTER 40 || CHAPTER 41 || CHAPTER 42 || CHAPTER 43 || CHAPTER 44 || CHAPTER 45 || CHAPTER 46 || CHAPTER 47

NOTES:

-one chapter is her pov, the next is his. -4.2k -im sorry, i never proofread, i hate it. -there WILL be smut. but not only smut. -this is a romance, comedy, smut story. -for the summary, check my MASTERLIST.

- if you want to be notified when this is updated, please message me or leave a comment!

- note for this chapter: i know my last chapter didnt get many notes but the chapter is ready so why not post it you know? sex is vanilla again. thought it was cute. sue me lol. theyll have kinker sex dont worry hahaha! i would LOVE to know what you think of the characters and their reactions and stuff. so please, message me!

here are the requests for this chapter! for the instagram one, i changed it a bit because i dont think her character would want to be in the spotlight like that i hope its ok! also i had already talked about their first time and such so I added the others :)

Chapter 48 : His chapter

NIALL

"Oh my god! Look at you flirting with that woman like she's not 30 years older than you!"

I started laughing and let my head fall back slightly. My arm was on the couch's back right behind her head and I brought it closer, pulling her to me by her neck.

"Is that the tone you use when you're jealous?"

I noticed her nose raise up in a grimace but she kept staring at the tv, making me laugh even more. For some reason, Olivia wanted us to watch old One Direction interviews, pretending it would help me for the ones I had planned in the next few weeks. It didn't really help, all it did was make us laugh and I had to admit it was quite entertaining and I was pretty sure I had never watched most of them.

"It was tough watching interviews back then." she admitted, raising a shoulder. "Especially the older ones. You were such a horny kid."

I frowned slightly at her comment. I could hear a lot of pain but also a bit of blame and it bothered me. I was young, I was newly famous and not shy at all. Of course, I was a bit stupid and I tried to be funny but out of all the people in the world, I thought she'd be the last one to comment on it.

"I just enjoyed flirting." I let out, shrugging too. "I don't do that anymore."

It took her a few seconds but she turned my way, staring at my profile.

"How many times did it work?"

I frowned, still looking the old 60 minutes interview we did a few years ago playing on screen. Did I really want to have this discussion?

"What are you asking?"

I held my breath and turned to her, noticing how painful it was for her to ask me something like that. I felt my annoyance falter a bit but not leave completely.

"How many girls did you have sex with?"

We had never talked about that before. I thought about asking, especially when we started dating, but I was scared it would start shit between us. When I was younger, I didn't mention my stories mostly because I didn't want to hear hers. Now that I think about it, it was probably out of jealousy, too.

"Liv, please-"

"More than 10?"

I stared at her a few seconds and nodded a bit. I watched her lick her lips and breathe in and nervously, I felt my fingers play with the fabric of the couch. I hated this, it could only turn wrong.

"More than 20?"

I could feel myself getting angry and I closed my eyes, trying to calm down. I didn't know why I was so touchy, it was not in my nature, but perhaps the way she asked me didn't help. It was not just a casual conversation, there was clearly a reason why she asked and I suddenly regretted that we never talked about these things before.

"20 sounds about right." I just said, impatient to talk about something else.

"That's more than twice my number."

We remained silent for a few seconds and I raised my eyebrows at her.

"Am I supposed to answer something to that?" I just wondered a bit rudly. "I don't know what you expected Olivia, but clearly you're delusional. I've had a lot of opportunities it's true, and no of course I didn't jump on all of them, but you don't ask an 18 year old boy to be reasonable after being thrown into fame. I don't think you can really understand what it's like."

I shook my head and sighed louder than needed before getting up a bit roughly. I felt her fingers wrap about my wrist and stopped immediately.

"I'm sorry."

I stayed motionless, standing up with my eyes closed as her fingers pressed around my wrist more.

"I'm just scared. And insecure." she added low as i felt her fingers slip and free my hand. "I don't understand why you're dating me, Niall. You could date so many girls or just fool around with anyone you want. But you're here with me and it just makes no fucking sense to me. So when I see how things used to be for you, it scares me for the future and at the same time, it reminds me how much I cried during those years."

I sighed and slowly sat back down next to her, still not being able to look at her.

"Why did you propose we watch that then?"

From the corner of my eyes, I noticed her looking down and swallowing. I couldn't pretend I knew how she felt, not now and not back then, but I was dating her now, I had been dating her for over 9 months. The fact that she was still doubting me... doubting us, was tough to accept.

"I thought i'd be okay, I thought since you were next to me, holding my hand, that it wouldn't bother me." she explained in a low and ashamed tone. "I was wrong."

I sighed again and rubbed my eyes before getting up again. Her head shot up quickly but I just held my hand out to her. It took her a few seconds but slowly, she slid her palm against mine and I pulled on her hand, helping her get up.

"Let's go outside, okay?"

She didn't say anything, she just let me bring her outside, in the backyard. I took my socks off after letting go of her hands and sat on the side of the pool, putting my feet in the water and waited for her. It took her a few minutes but I still didn't turn to her. The night was calm and warm enough, especially for late september, and I looked down at her feet moving slowly in the water.

"At the lodge, I saw you and Harry making out naked on the side of the pool. It made me very jealous, even if I didn't really realize it back then. Not really because you two were having sex, but mostly because he had your full attention, and I was so used to have it all for myself that losing it was like a slap in the face." I admitted, licking my lips. "I'm not saying I know how you feel, Liv, or how you used to feel. I just think that holding on to that is changing you and stressing you for no reason."

"Maybe."

She didn't comment on the part about Harry and I closed my eyes.

"The first date I ever went on was with a girl from school." I added low.

"Grace, I remember."

"The whole time, all I could think about was kissing her. I didn't care about anything else. I was young, I can't even remember if I liked her, but I wanted my real first kiss and it's all that mattered." I made a pause and sighed. "Then I had girlfriends when I was a bit older, and then I joined One Direction and met other girls. And whenever I hung out with them, I was never jealous, I thought 'hey if it doesn't work then it wasn't meant to be' and that's it. I didn't expect it to last because I didn't want it to last. I had nothing to lose. I thought about sex and having fun."

I turned to her and sighed louder when I noticed tears falling down her cheeks. I moved my body her way slightly and shook my head.

"Olivia, why are you crying? I'm trying to tell you that it's different with you. I care about you. And the first thing I thought of when it came to you was not sex, it was not kissing you. It was making you happy, it was how good I felt around you. Why would you cry for that?"

"Because you seem to forget that I was there, Niall. I saw you with these girls. I cried myself to sleep because I desperately wanted to be in their shoes. My first kiss was with a guy at school who was harassing me to go out with him and when he kissed me, all I thought about was you. The first time I had sex with Rian I wished it was you. Every single decision in my love life seems to have been related to you. I'm not blaming you, it's all on me, but its still not easy for me."

My eyes roamed on her face and I watched her wipe her tears and sniff a few times before clearing her throat.

"We both need to make efforts. You can't spend all your time asking questions about my past that's gonna hurt you, you know."

"I'll work on that." she whispered. "But you're gonna have to be patient with me."

"Okay."

We remained quiet again for a while, just looking at the lights of the pool shining on the water. I knew I should reach for her hand but I wasn't sure I wanted to.

"Remember the first time we got drunk together?" she asked with a chuckle, moving her feet a bit more vigorously and making the water move around her. "You were so cute, and so damn tactile. At some point I was so close to tell you that I loved you that I got scared and hid in the bathroom for half an hour."

I smiled at the memory and chuckled.

"You were so dramatic and I didn't even know!" I let out, making her laugh too. "I don't know how you kept it inside for so long."

"Fear of losing you." she shrugged. "I just looked at you, both of us totally pissed, and I thought 'everyone wants a piece of him but he's with you right now, don't ruin this Olivia'."

"You were cute, you had that really high ponytail. I remember because whenever you'd turn around, your hair would brush against my arm and I was so drunk it made me shiver every time."

My eyes found hers and she was not smiling anymore. Her lips were parted and her eyes were glued to me. I raised my eyebrows and moved my face closer to hers.

"Yes, I remember things. Not the same things you remember, and maybe not for the same reasons, but I do remember things."

Slowly, she pressed her lips together and they curled as she kept looking at me.

"I love you, Niall."

I moved my upper body over hers, forcing her to move down on the hard cement but she didn't complain. I placed both my hands on each side of her chest to hold myself over her and bent down to kiss her.

"I love you too." i answered, moving up to a bit to look at her.

Her eyes traveled on my face until my lips and she licked hers.

"You said you'd make love to me whenever I'd want." she whispered so low i barely heard. "I really want it now."

"It's not really comfortable." I pointed out, the right corner of my lips moving up.

"Then you're gonna have to be extra gentle with me."

I nodded and sat up, immediately reaching for the hem of her sweatpants and she moved her butt up to help me. She brought her feet off the water and placed them on the ground, her knees up, and my eyes roamed between her legs as I let out a low groan. I took my shirt off and didn't even react when it fell in the pool. It made Olivia chuckle and I just moved gently over her, placing myself between her legs.

One of her hands ran on my chest as I pressed myself against her. I felt her grind up slowly against me and bent down to kiss her. I could feel myself get harder with every move of her hips, even if she was barely moving and I let my lips brush on her jaw and down her neck.

"You should keep your shirt on, I don't want your back all scratched."

I brought my mouth back on hers and I noticed her lips curling in a fond but amused smile.

"You don't want to see me completely naked?"

"Don't be silly." I chuckled again, glancing down and noticing her hard nipples through the fabric of her shirt. "I really fucking do. But you don't need to be naked to turn me on."

She smiled more and I moved down on my elbows, moving her head up gently and placing my hands under it to make sure her head wouldn't rub against the cement.

"Are you sure you want to try it here?"

She didn't say anything, she just kept looking at me as her hands moved between us. One of her palms pressed on my cock and I groaned low. She started nibbling on her bottom lip, slowly pulling my pants down and I pushed myself into her. I was surprised at how wet she already was and how easy it was for us to do this, like our bodies just seemed to fit perfectly together.

"I love you."

I bent down again, kissing her as I started thrusting in and out of her so slowly that I could feel everything incredibly well. So well that it brought sensations in me that I hadn't felt before. I felt impatient and my whole body throbbed even more than usual. It was definitely different than what I was used to but I loved it. I could really see all of her facial expressions and ended up letting out a very low curse word when her lips parted and her eyes fluttered close. I watched her as she moved her chin up and I could feel the back of her head rubbing slowly against the palm of my hands, making a mess of her hair. She looked amazing, all fucked beneath me, and it made me realize how much I loved her.

"I love you too." I whispered back. "So much."

"Just me?"

My movements faltered and her eyes opened slowly. I stared at my best friend, laying under me, and I thought of all the things we went through together and all the things we'll go through together too. I thought about our friendship that turned into love, I thought about us when we were young, I thought about everything I missed with her and everything I lived with her, and I could swear I felt my heart skip a beat.

"Yes, only you."

Her hands traveled on my back until my ass and she let out a short whimper as her thighs pressed on my side to keep me close. I could feel my elbows and the back of my hands hurt from rubbing slightly on the cement but it was really the sharp pain in one of my knees that made it worse. I tried to push it out of my thoughts to focus on her and when she arched her back and started shaking, I knew she was cumming.

"Oh god Niall... I.. I'm..."

I tried to keep my movements slow and steady but it was pure torture until I felt an orgasm reach me. I felt it coming and held my breath as my eyes closed and I groaned again as it spread inside me slower than normally. I could feel it until the tip of my fingers and in my toes and when I came down from my high, I blinked a few times.

"I'm literally seeing spots." I let out with a short laugh.

"Me too." she chuckled just as my sight was getting clear again.

I looked at her laying under me and sighed. Now that it was over, I was more aware of the pain and I grimaced. I let myself roll on my back next to her and she moved her upper body over me with a frown.

"You okay? You're not bleeding are you?"

I brought my hands up to look at them and shook my head.

"I'm sorry." she added, raising her nose up. "We should have tried on the grass. Do you need ice or something?"

"And pizza." I pointed out with an exaggerated pain expression, making her laugh.

"Alright i'll bring all that in the living room."

She was about to get up but I put my hand on her thigh to stop her, my fingers brushing gently on her skin.

"Wait." She stopped and turned to me. "These girls, they mean nothing. You need to trust me."

She sent me a sad smile and shrugged a shoulder very slowly. I was tired to fight and I was scared it would ruin things between us.

"I'll try."

                                                         ---

I was driving the first time I heard 'This Town' on the radio and she was sitting next to me. I didn't know why but I felt incredibly lucky that I was not alone, and even luckier that she was the one with me. Her face illuminated and she let out a short scream, making me smile even more. I parked on the side of the road and she threw herself in my arms awkwardly since we both still had our seat belts on and we looked at each other the whole time it played until the very end.

"This is so fucking good Niall i'm so proud of you!"

I cupped her face and brought her closer a bit roughly, crashing my mouth against her and making her laugh. She grabbed the front of my shirt and deepened the kiss slightly, making me smile through it.

"Fucking hell."

She laughed as we pulled away slightly and smiled more.

"It's a big deal. Your first solo song." she whispered. "And you worked hard for that."

We remained in the car for a while, just flabbergasted by what had happened and a bit ecstatic. I looked at her reacting almost as intensely as me and it made me realize so many things that I just leaned against my seat and sighed. Despite all the fights we had, despite my almost total absence in the past few weeks, despite the fact that we had it hard recently, she was there, she supported me, and she was happy for me.

"A few drinks tonight to celebrate, how's that?" she proposed as I started the car again. "We could invite a few friends?"

"Yea, yea good call!" I let out, glancing at her. "Hey take my phone and go on instagram!"

She frowned a bit but she was still smiling and she did what I was told before looking at me again.

"You want to add something to your story?"she asked as I nodded. "Okay, go ahead!"

"Hello lovers, so we just heard 'This Town' for the first time on the radio a few minutes ago and we went completely crazy!" I just said with a laugh, trying to focus on the road as I passed one of my hands in my hair and shook my head. "Let me just get back home and I'll do a live and answer a few questions!"

She stopped filming and played with my phone for a few seconds before looking at me again.

"That's a very good idea."

With a smile plastered on my face, I parked the car and unlocked the front door before quickly getting my laptop. She put her purse on the couch and I sat next to it right before she disappeared in the kitchen. It took me a few minutes to go live but when I finally was, my smile hadn't faltered not even for a second. I started answering questions, glancing from time to time at Olivia that remained away from the camera. I knew she didn't like to be in the spotlight and that a lot of times, I brought attention to her without meaning to, but the fact that she was still there, in the shadows, to support me, meant the world.

"I was with Liv, it's her you heard on the video." I explained, answering an other question.

I saw my girlfriend grimace when she realized everyone had heard her voice and her probably her laughter when we recorded the small video in the car and my eyes found her again, her expression making me chuckle.

"From the face she's making now, it was clearly not intentional." I pointed out, laughing again.

My eyes caught a comment that made me frown but I tried to ignore it until I saw an other one and I finally closed my eyes, breathing in.

"Okay, i'm normally not the type to give attention to bad mouthing but we're trying to have a nice time and reading shit about my girlfriend is no fun."

I could feel Olivia tense near me as my eyes roamed on the comments.

'No Niall pls stay!!!'

'Ignore them we love her! OTP!'

'Fuck whoever talks shit about her'

'They don't deserve your attention!'

I didn't add anything else but kept on answering questions about an upcoming album, more songs, the process of writing and tour. After over half an hour, I said goodbye and turned my computer off. Olivia had left and I joined her in the kitchen, wrapping my arms around her waist from behind. My lips reached her neck and I squeezed her tighter against me.

"Hey, darling." I whispered. I heard her sniff and my heart twitched. "It wasn't that mean. I promise."

I watched her fingers grip the side of the sink more and suddenly felt extremely bad. I shouldn't have commented, that way, she wouldn't know about the mean comments, but when I saw them, I didn't think, I just reacted. It was not like me but reading shit about her made me a bit impulsive and now I regretted it.

"That's what I mean when I say I don't understand why you're dating me." she murmured after swallowing hard. "No one understands why you're dating me."

"People who know nothing about you or our story don't get it, so what?" I just replied, nuzzling her nape. "Fuck them. I know why i'm dating you and i've got a shitton of good reasons."

"Don't tell me you don't doubt us, sometimes, Niall." she shook her head. "Don't tell me it never crosses you mind that you should be dating someone who's in your league. A tall, skinny, gorgeous actress, model, singer... I don't know."

She moved away from me and turned around, her back still facing me. I let my arms fall on each side of my body and sighed a bit loud before rubbing my eyes. I was trying to comfort her but it seemed like nothing i'd do would change anything.

"I'm telling you it's you, okay? I love you!" I argued, getting annoyed again. "I don't get how it's so hard to understand!"

She finally turned to me slowly and I felt a pain at heart when I saw the tears on her red cheeks. I didn't know why it was affecting her that much and I felt like i'd never understand.

"Love is not everything. Contrary to popular belief, love is not all you need." she pointed out, her arms crossed on her chest. She shook her head again and licked her lips as I stayed still, holding my breath. "I don't get why you don't understand how I feel, and I can't seem to explain it. It's useless, Niall. I'm useless."

Without waiting for an answer, she turned around and walked in the hall. I closed my eyes, trying to calm the beating of my heart. I should have ran to her and took her in my arms. I should have tried again to tell her how much she meant to me. I should have begged her to believe me and trust me. Instead, I sat on a chair and sighed loud. I felt defeated and exhausted at the same time. I just wanted us to be happy like we used to be but I didn't know how.

After a good twenty minutes of thinking, I got up and walked to our room, opening the door slowly. She was laying in bed, on her side with her knees up. I took a few steps closer only to realize she was asleep. I put my hands deep in my pockets and stared at her for a few seconds. Her lips were slightly parted and I could hear her breathe a bit louder than usual. I sighed again and found a blanket before putting it over her and bending down.

"You're so much more than you seem to believe." I murmured close to her ear. "I wish I knew how to show you. Maybe i'm the useless one."

[syms-things-5]

Clear The Area

Warning: Not explicit (yet); some mild language. This has been quite cathartic in a way.

Summary: 29-year-old nurse Sarah Bernette has worked hard to get where she is. Moving to Boston from a nowhere dump of a town, she’s studied hard and is grateful her stress is finally paying off. Despite being fostered repeatedly throughout her childhood, she’s since found some comfort in the form of her adopted parents, Jocelyn and Noah, and a pseudo-adoptive family of sorts in form of the Evans clan who have treated her as one of her own ever since she moved in with best friend, Shanna. Valuing them above all else, she appreciates their support even more when her long lost birth mother decides to reappear in her life after so many years, and is surprised to find out just how supportive Chris is in particular. As she struggles to maintain a firm grip on both her professional and private lives, she finds an ill-advised solace in her growing mutual attraction with him but how long before everything unravels and threatens to pull the rug out from underneath her?

Note: I have two chapters written and will post ‘Chapter Two’ at some point this weekend to get things moving. I apologise for my spelling/grammar errors. Let me know if there is something wildly incorrect here and I’ll change it. Still figuring out a few things and I expect this will be a slow burn but it’s exciting to finally get off my arse and…sit down and write. 

CHAPTER ONE

Today was probably a 4 out of 10.

4.5 if she was feeling generous.

Sarah thought about the decisions she had made in the past decade that lead her right to this moment, this moment being cleaning neon-coloured vomit off her scrubs for the second time in the past hour.

“You would think people would have learned downing shots of Absinthe was not a great idea by the time they’d left their teens,” snickered Audrey before shooting her a sympathetic look and handing over another wipe. “I can’t believe how green it was. It looks like you got punked by the Marshmallow Man!”

“Thanks for that.” Sarah was scrubbing as hard as she could while internally questioning her decision to pursue Nursing all those years ago. Her History teacher once told her she could have “a decent stab” at becoming a Middle School teacher if she applied herself right. Right now, she could be knee-deep in teaching half-interested kids about the 27 Amendments without an ounce of sick in sight. Instead, she was baffled. “Fuck. It’s practically luminous…”

This must have been payback for pushing herself as a teenager. Being fostered in and out of care homes during your formative years could turn you one way or the other, and Sarah chose “the other”. She was sure the universe was telling her she should have stayed put and been happy with her lot in life, in her too-small town with no feasible job prospects, where everyone knew you and held that against you, instead of moving halfway across the country with next to no money to study at a University she couldn’t afford and would most likely be in debt to for the next twenty years. Now, however, she got to convince local drunks that climbing on to roofs was, in fact, not a great idea despite the bet they had made with their “friends”. On a good day, she got to help children pick out the colours for their plaster casts. 

Or take today. Today, she got to lecture a group of young people about the trials and tribulations of playing “run the bus” with 60% proof. Every day was just a little bit different so as to keep things interesting. That, she reminded herself, was something she had to remain glad about.

She sighed and threw the last wipe in the bin. Taking a last look in the mirror, she turned to her friend for reassurance that she looked at least passable. She caught her frown before Audrey realised Sarah could see her and quickly gave her a thumbs up. She did love her Audrey which is why she decided to repay her kindness by forcing a hug on her as a thank you.

“Silver lining, though,” Audrey said, shoving her away, laughing in protest. “You’re lucky you didn’t get any in your hair.”

“Yeh bastards had a good aim at least.” Sarah dusted down her arms one last time to check for anything she might have missed and the two of them left the locker room. The place was now eerily quiet, thank god. Just run out the clock and they’d be home and dry in no time, figuratively speaking in Sarah’s case.

Audrey placed a comforting arm around her pal. “You want me to find some spare scrubs? I’m sure they’ll have some upstairs. It’ll only take a minute.”

“Nah it’s OK. I’ll be done in 20. Just gotta sign Mr. Richardson out from cubicle 5 then I’ll run home and shower.”

“OK, well, if you have to hang around, avoid triage because you-know-who is there and I don’t want you ruining your chances again.” Audrey pinched Sarah on her hip and headed back to her work.

You-know-who was Greg Anderson, an attractive 30-something medic from a hospital on the other side of town. He was up-and-coming in Paediatrics apparently and had been shadowing a Consultant for the past few weeks. He was 6ft plus with dark hair and brown eyes and his father was something big in Economics in MIT. He drove a Porsche and wore Louboutin’s on his rounds which had Audrey practically foaming at the mouth. Indeed, he hadn’t bypassed the attentions of the majority of females in the ER, as well as a few men and even a couple of patients but as always, Sarah was solely focussed on the job at hand to pay him any heed. Audrey thought she caught him staring at her the other week, though, and made it her mission to set them up. She took great pride in playing matchmaker for her friend given that she herself got locked down nine years earlier and “it’s a damn shame to let these skills go to waste.’ She had somehow also managed to get Shan and Lisa onside, too, however that had happened.

Greg was handsome, she’d agree with that, and definitely her type in the right light but something was a little too Republican for her liking. Plus, he was a Rangers’ fan and Sarah swore blind early on in her life that she couldn’t bring children up in that kind of hostile environment. Sarah briefly contemplated walking past triage with the lingering scent now clinging to her clothes but as Audrey kindly repeated to her at regular intervals during the days, Greg was her only realistic prospect right now and figured it was perhaps better to keep her options open, at least for the time being.

Mr. Richardson was gone pretty soon afterwards and, accepting defeat for another day, Sarah grabbed her bag and headed home.

*

There was definitely beer left in the fridge, she was sure of it. She’d bought a six-pack at the weekend and could only remember drinking two during the Bruins’ game, so…

“Oh yeh, you’re out of beer.” 

Sarah turned around from the fridge to face a sheepish looking Chris holding the last frosted bottle in his hand, his ball cap low over his face attempting to hide the faint black circles under both his eyes. There was a 5 o’clock shadow forming now he wasn’t required to shave. As drained as she was, she briefly contemplated wrestling him to the ground for that last swig. He looked just as tired. She figured she could take him. At least he had the decency to look guilty about it.

“I’ll run out and get you some if you…Jesus! Why do you smell like a brewery?!” He practically recoiled holding his free hand to his nose.

Sarah rolled her eyes and grabbed a glass for some cold water instead. “Are you here to just annoy me or steal my beer as well?”

“Both now you ask but seriously, what have you been doing all day? You don’t usually smell this bad.” He joked.

“Oh, some kids took it in turns to throw up on me and I didn’t have any clean scrubs to change into.” She downed the water and went to fill the glass up again. God, she didn’t realise she was this dehydrated. Chris shot her a look of confusion. “It’s a long story. Is Shan around?” She shed herself of her scrub top and headed into her bedroom down the hallway, Chris casually following behind.

She had to pop out for something so I’m just handing here ‘til she gets back. You coming for dinner at Ma’s? She’s doing her famous lamb roast. Might wanna shower first, though.” He joked, playfully sticking his tongue out at her.

“God, I forgot how hilarious you are.” she overtly rolled her eyes at him. “No, I’m good. Just gonna head for an early night, I think.”

“OK, well, if you change your mind, we’re leaving in half an hour. You know she’ll make me drive back to get you otherwise.”

That was true. For as long as she’d known and lived with Shanna, Lisa had treated her like any other member of her family and Sarah had never fully grasped how much she had appreciated it, coming from where she did. Lisa knew Sarah’s folks weren’t as close by any more and compensated for this by inviting to every dinner night she held, every games night, school events, theatre events, and more besides. She spent Christmases with them, visited Disney with them, and had New Years with them on occasions she wasn’t working. Lisa even organised a surprise birthday get-together for her as well despite Shan’s protests that she wasn’t a birthday kind of person. Sarah had learned to stop feeling awkward or out of place soon after.

Once Shan told Lisa Sarah had wanted to start learning to play piano as a new year’s resolution, Lisa had insisted she could teach her whenever she had some spare time. There soon after followed afternoons of tea and gossip and not much playing of the piano but it felt comfortable and nice for the first time in a long time. Shan would make excuses so Sarah didn’t feel obligated to attend everything but in truth, she didn’t mind so much. It was nice to feel wanted.

Chris was lounging on her armchair with one leg over the armrest, messing on his phone. Sarah could count the number of times on one hand the nights he had spent in his own place since returning to Boston a fortnight ago. As true as it was that he rarely spoke about filming in any great detail, she could nevertheless tell he’d been left particularly drained by this particular experience and wasn’t looking forward to the reshoots scheduled for next month. There had been a rumour he’d started sleeping with his married co-star and she guessed Lisa had been mithering him about it hence him turning up on their doorstep last week. Other than one night back in his own bed, he had remained on their sofa ever since, clearly relishing in the familiar company.

“So what made those kids throw up?” Chris called out, still engrossed in his phone. A quick glance over his shoulder told her he’d been ignoring someone’s text messages.

By now Sarah was in her old yet comfy sweatpants and a Boston hoodie Shan had bought her as an anniversary present of her 5th year living there. “Um, Absinthe. The nasty kind.” She was gathering her washing together.

Chris whistled low through his teeth, a kind of “been there, done that”.

“Rookie mistake.“ he laughed to himself. He frowned at his phone before chucking it onto her bed and turned around in her chair to plant both feet on the carpet, leaning forward to rest his arms on his knees. He looked like he wanted to get something off his chest but was struggling to find the words. He was reluctant to drag Sarah into anything given how exhausted she looked. Despite their differences in careers, sometimes it felt like she was the only person he knew who could understand how long and tiresome the days could get. Then he would inevitably feel embarrassed he was out there only pretending to save lives when she was out there day after day actually living it for real in all of its bloody glory. And for a tiny fraction of his pay. He tried not to water than thought too much.

“I take it you know,” he asked quietly, still not looking up from her bedroom floor.

“Know what?”

“About Jenny?”

“Oh,” she paused for a brief second. He’d know straight away she was lying if she tried to play dumb. “I mean your mom might have mentioned something in passing,” she shrugged unconvincingly. He scoffed knowing she would have talk about nothing else since the rumours started gathering pace online. He knew he hadn’t done himself any favours by avoiding the conversation either but he simply couldn’t stand another lecture of disapproving look. Dinner tonight was to be his mea culpa.

Sarah was thankful when she heard the front door go and then the sound of Shan dropping her bags in the kitchen and heading towards Sarah’s room.

“I signed for this for you this morning while you were out.” she handed Sarah a brown envelope before turning to Chris with a hand on her hip, looking like she was scolding her 7-year old nephew. “Mom’s been trying to get hold of you all day. She wasn’t sure if she needed to lay an extra seat for you this evening. Sarah, she wanted me to make sure I couldn’t persuade you to come as well?” Sarah shook her head and held up her stained clothes and enjoyed Shan’s visible flinch.

“I’m not even going to ask.” She held her hands up and walked out. Chris rolled his eyes in mock imitation of Shan and Sarah smiled sympathetically, mouthing a “good luck” to him as he left trailing behind her.

Sarah was left looking down at the envelope in her hands. It looked very official; the kind you would receive if you’d been summoned to a court hearing or Jury Duty. She didn’t recognise the address or the stamp but recognised her home town almost straight away. It had been years since she’d been there. Why the hell were they dragging her back now?

*