#again i literally came up with this yesterday so all of it is subject to change if i figure something better out

[spookykoolkat]

kinktober | your woman - e.m.

kinktober day four - taped

pairing: eddie munson x plus size!reader

wc: 5.48k

summary: your little friends with benefits deal with eddie was more than you first intended. when eddie asks you if you'd be okay if he recorded the next time you guys hooked up, you were all in. but, you didn't think he'd end up with his phone camera recording himself asking you to be his girl. especially not in a guest room at robin's annual halloween party.

warnings: 18+ ONLY!, minors are never welcomed. jealous!reader, making a sex tape, fingering, oral (f receiving), dirty talk, raw penetration (p in v), *wrap it up fr tho.*, pet names, eddie being eddie

reblogs, comments and likes are so very much appreciated i hope everyone is enjoying this!

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EDDIE WAS ALWAYS INSATIABLE. in every way, of course. everything he wanted, he begged for. at least from you. 

it wasn't like you two were a thing officially, it started in high school when the two of you were graduating. he came up to you at a party, being eddie's usual self and flirting with you. though you weren’t receptive at first, it didn’t mean you never would be. 

so he kept trying, even after high school the fall after you two graduated, he found you at another party. neither of you went to college, but had mutual friends in college. so, that night you went to meet up with robin, he cornered you. 

and also that night, started a year long relationship that had no title, no expectations. and even though you weren’t sleeping with anyone else, and he wasn’t sleeping with anyone else, you had a territorial problem. 

so when eddie brought the subject up for the first time, you were all in. he didn’t even have to beg you, he just asked and you told him he could any time. truthfully, you’d do anything he wanted to do. 

he wanted to make a tape with you, but in general wanted to record you while he fucked you. 

“do you think, i don’t know, would you be okay if i recorded you during sex?” he asked, abashedly. eddie didn’t know if he even had the right to ask. he didn’t even know what the two of you really were. 

“you want to record me while you fuck me?” you asked, making sure that this is what you were hearing. 

“i do.” he smiled, nervously and excitedly when he noticed you didn’t immediately shut it down. 

“okay.” you smiled. he just swallowed, smiling and leaned over to kiss you. 

it’d been a week since then, and when eddie finally saw you again it was the night of robin’s infamous halloween party she threw every year. the concept of recording you taking him in every way had been plaguing his mine, but tried to act completely normal at the same time. 

which he managed. but he couldn’t stop thinking about it. 

to get into robin’s party, you had to wear a costume and of course eddie was excited about this. you on the other hand were a little dreadful. 

“is this a kids party or what?” you mumbled as you adjusted your costume. 

you chose to go as carrie. a long pink rose silk dress covered your body and hugged your curves softly, of course drenched in fake blood from head to toe with a prom queen crown sitting on your head. eddie had the pleasure of watching you douse yourself in said blood not even a few minutes ago, right after you pulled the pretty dress over your full figure.

of course you forgot to mention that when you weren’t wearing a bra that night and just so happened to step out just in your panties to get ready, he had to be peeled off of you just so you could get ready. 

another thing about eddie, he was a little obsessed with you.

“you hate fun,” eddie tsked and adjusted his hair to be even more frizzy. of course eddie decided to go as eddie van halen, which you told him was maybe too literal. 

“so what do you think of my costume?” eddie gleamed and you turned from the mirror to look at him. 

“you look like you did yesterday. you literally just look like yourself.” you deadpanned and he pouted. he was wearing a jean vest with no shirt underneath, brown leather skinny jeans and a bandana around his neck. you had to help him tease his hair to get it like the picture he showed you, but over all he just looked him himself but times ten. 

“okay, but do i look hot? like, would you fuck me right now?” he asked and grabbed his guitar pick just to hold. 

“you’re gonna bring the guitar pick but not the actual guitar?” you said nodding to his wall, the dark red abstract guitar collecting dust. 

“oh, she’s not going anywhere tonight.” he replied and you shook your head. 

“but yes, eddie you look hot and i would fuck you right now. if we wouldn’t be any later than we already are, come on let's go,”

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robin greeted you at the door of her new townhouse, excited for her housewarming party to turn into a halloween party. 

“i thought couples usually match costumes.” robin teased as she pulled you away from eddie. 

“we’re not a couple,” you said bitterly as she pushed past people drinking, smoking and dancing together under the blacklight and into the hospital lit kitchen. 

“you guys have come to every single one of my parties, together. you guys leave every single one of my parties, together. what do you call that?” she suggested over the loud music.

while she bickered you scanned over the house, the spacey living room that led into an archway to the kitchen. on the kitchen island were large bottles of alcohol pushed together in the middle of the marble, ranging from vodka to rum to tequila. 

“we’re friends.” 

your hand went to grab the bottle of pink whitney, grabbing a little shot glass and pouring yourself one to the rim. robin grabbed one with a scoff and you poured her one, setting the bottle down and facing each other. 

“to friends,” she said smugly. you just rolled your eyes. 

“to friends,” 

it didn’t take long for you to lose eddie at the party, as per usual. it’s always how it went, you and he would split up and hardly look each other's way, just to text each other when the other wants to leave and meet outside. 

but today you were especially needy, and after roughly three cups of mixed drinks and many many shots, you rip away from robin and nancy to find him. it was dark, smokey and you were in need for something of eddie. weed, his hands, his voice. 

you found him of course, but not like you expected. part of you expected him to be sitting in a corner with his friends smoking a blunt, which he was, but instead of just his friends he was the only one with a girl on his lap. 

now he told you that he wouldn’t mess around with anyone but you especially if he thought about wanting to go bare with you, but you didn’t believe him. 

the music was thumping and the alcohol made you feel a little better in terms of confidence, especially being in a silk dress with no bra and skimpy panties so there wasn’t a panty line. you felt sexy, covered in blood with your hair down and as you came into his view, eddie took a drag of his blunt and looked you up and down. 

his friends greeted you with enthusiasm, happy to see you again after being out of their company for so long. another thing was, regardless of who you were to eddie, his friends still loved you. 

“hellooo,” you dragged but kept your eyes on eddie, and not the thin girl making her spot in eddie’s lap. 

“can i have a hit?” you kindly asked eddie, and the girl looked at you with an awkward smile. 

“eddie’s a little busy right now, maybe you guys can smoke later?” the girl suggested and you looked at her, then looked at eddie. 

you weren’t expecting him to say anything. but a part of you wanted him to. you wanted him to feel the need to tell her that you were the one he was taking home that night, but he didn’t. 

“is that right eddie?” you asked, raising an eyebrow as you looked between the two. 

“we were just, uh, kinda talking?” 

you pinched your lips into a thin line and nodded, turning to one of his friends. his friends on the other hand were watching the interaction, waiting for the other shoe to drop and for you to curse eddie out. 

you could see him gulp before you turned to one of his friends.

“can i buy any from one of you?” you asked, ignoring eddie completely and watched as one guy you really didn’t know the name of pulled out his fanny pack. 

“how much?” he asked and you walked to stand in front of him where he sat on a couch, and you sat knee to knee with him on the coffee table that held empty bottles and ash trays. 

“mm, just enough for a joint.” you smiled. you could feel eddie’s eyes on you, burning into the side of your figure but you didn’t acknowledge him. why would you? 

you were used to being single, textbook single. single, nonetheless. you were quick to leave when things got stupid between you and eddie, not caring and not thinking twice. eddie knew that. he’d been on the shit end of the stick when he fucked up one too many times. being ignored by you, blocked and never putting up a fight because it was never worth it to you. 

he wasn’t going to ruin your night. not when the day was going so well, with him or not. 

you watched his friend bag up the weed, and even give you a cigar wrap to roll it with. you go to take out the money you slipped in the cup of the dress that held your heavy breasts together, but he stops you. 

“pretty girls don’t need to pay, it’s on me.” he smiled, and you blushed. he was cute, not compared to eddie but definitely your type. 

“well,” you said as you took the baggie and the cigar packet and stood up in front of him, looking down, “come find me later n’ maybe i can give you something to say thank you?” 

at this point, eddie was non-existent. you were focused on the man with black locs that were in slight waves, and stubble on his jaw. 

“actually,” you paused and sat back down. “do you think you can roll this for me?” 

eddie was fuming. the girl on his lap held his interest no longer, and his eyes were bored into the natural flow of your interaction with his buddy danny. you seemed genuinely interested, serious about wanting to give him a thank you gift. 

he watched as danny took the baggie and started to roll for you, grinding the weed and putting it into the wrap, all while you watched. not once looking his way.  soon, danny sealed the blunt and actually had the nerve to put the blunt between your lips and spark it himself. 

you inhaled, exhaled the smoke in danny’s face and leaned in close, close enough to smell the tequila on his lips, “thank you.” 

you got up with the blunt between your fingers and left, walking away back to the kitchen where nancy and robin resided. they were laughing in the corner as they passed a bottle between each other, and when you got closer they got excited and hugged you. 

“you got weed from eddie?” robin asked as she handed you the bottle and you handed her the blunt. 

“nope.” you smiled and took a swig, having robin pass the blunt back to you. she looked at you quizzically. 

“one of his friends. actually i’m going to need a ride home, eddie’s probably taking someone else home tonight.” you said nonchalantly, huffing and puffing on the blunt until the mix of tobacco and weed burned your lungs. 

you didn’t even get to take another swing of the bottle before the girls’ eyes are looking up a little, and you feel a tug on your arm that yanks you back. you turn with the blunt between your lips and eyebrows pinched. 

“are you fucking crazy?” eddie gritted, the grip on your arm only tightening when you breathe in the smoke and taking the blunt from between your lips with your other hand. 

“can you fucking let me go?” you snarled, ripping your arm from his grasp and walking backwards. 

“what’s your issue?” he asks, and you pass the blunt to robin before you step closer to him. 

“go fuck her eddie. why are you bothering me when you have a really really pretty girl on your lap? weren’t you just, uh, kinda talking?” you mocked, lowering your voice to match his. no one was paying attention to you, not even robin or nancy could hear you. instead they just moved further aside. 

he just grabs you again, dragging you away from the kitchen and up the stairs to the first room he sees, which just so happened to be a guest room. he yanked you inside and locked the door, letting the only light shine being from outside and the little lamp on the bedside table. 

“you know i only take you home every night right? we leave every place we go to together, together. even if we don’t go together— you’re always back in my bed. you know i choose you.” he tried, but you weren’t having it. 

you were already irritated, the audacity for him to make you feel the way he did when he didn’t shoo the girl off immediately. 

“whatever, i don’t care. i’m not your fucking girlfriend so who cares? do whatever you want. i’m not arguing with you at a party. i’m supposed to be getting drunk, not standing here with you.” you said and tried to walk past him, but he grabbed your wrist and pulled you in front of him. 

“you want to be my girlfriend, baby?” he asked you as his breath fanned on your face. 

you smiled sweetly. “no.” you crossed your arms over your chest and moved your head to the side. 

“if i wanted a boyfriend, i’d probably choose the one who gave me free weed, not the one brushing me off for another girl.” 

he just chuckled darkly, grabbing you by your hips and leading you to hit the edge of the bed with the back of your knees. “ i think you’re lying. you don’t want him, sweet girl. i know you want me. why else would you be trying to make me jealous?” 

“i’m going home eddie,” you tried as he pushed you back by your shoulders so you’d land on the bed. you just propped yourself up on your elbows and watched him as he pulled his phone out and threw it beside you. 

he crawled over you, lifting your dress by skimming his fingers up your leg and under the fabric to hike it up over your hip. 

“if i asked you to be my girlfriend, would you say yes?” he asked, watching the dress pool around the fat of your hips, revealing the lacy red underwear you had on underneath. 

you huffed, the cold air hitting your thighs when a breeze came in through the window. “no.” 

he sat straight up on his knees, still straddling you but now unbuttoning the leather jeans to slide them down to his knees. 

“mmm,” he hummed as his cock strained against his briefs, palming himself over while you watched him. your mouth was salivating already, forgetting how you ended up here almost bare to him, but not questioning it. “i think you’re wrong. i think you would say yes,” 

he grabbed the string of your underwear and pulled it down your thighs, letting them fall as you wiggled your feet to drop them from your ankles. 

“maybe we should record this for evidence, just so you can watch it back and see why i think,” he paused and smiled, “why i know, you’d say yes.” he was smug, confident, and had you wrapped around his finger. 

you knew your jealousy maybe might’ve been misplaced, projecting about the fact that you two weren’t official and he’d never bothered to ask you either. you weren’t really allowed to feel this way when he wasn’t yours. 

it just always felt like no matter what he did to piss you off or make you cry, you’d always be his. 

he grabbed the phone, messing with the screen until the flash came on and stayed on. he never showed your face, only pointing the camera between your thick thighs when he shuffled downwards to spread your legs. 

“look at you,” he hummed, getting closer to your heat when he spread your lips, the flash making your slick glisten for him. you were leaking, your arousal dripping out of your hole as he recorded every second of it. 

“eddie,” you whined, moving to close your legs but he pushes them apart, his camera getting a shot of your bare bottom half with the dress at your waist. 

“was my baby jealous tonight? you only want me to yourself?” he asked, inhaling the scent between your legs, “i did not know you could be so greedy,” he teased. 

he let his phone record your cunt when he pushed two fingers into you and started to fuck your hole like that, purely because he wanted to feel how wet you were for him. you were soaking, your arousal leaking from your hole and around his fingers. 

the phone was getting everything. the sounds of your cunt squelching around his fingers, the way your trimmed bush covered your mound, the way his fingers shone with your juices. he didn’t even know where to look, the phone or the real thing. he chose the real thing, but looking at the phone periodically to make sure you were still in view. 

“fuck, eddie,” you couldn’t help but react to the stretch of his rough fingers, the ones that always wrapped around your throat when he fucked you on your back, or the ones that held your hand to help you down the stairs. 

you were still aware that there was a party going on downstairs, still smelling weed smoke and the alcohol on your breath, but too focused on the fact that eddie was recording your every movement. 

his fingers fucked you gently, not nearly as rough as he would, and you whined in reaction. eddie just watched you throw your head back when he stopped recording and threw the phone next to you, moving to let his tongue run over your cunt. his fingers kept you spread while he lapped at your hole, but you knew he was rushed. 

eddie was too excited to finally record you, to finally have something he can watch over and over again until you’re able to satiate his craving for you again. he loved you like this, jealous and bothered by the fact that the two of you had no ties together. 

eddie wanted ties. but you didn’t seem like the type to want that. at least, he thought so. 

“get on your hands and knees, do that for me,” eddie said in the usual rasp he had after he smoked, and you opened your eyes at the loss of contact to look at him. 

you were breathless from the sliver of pleasure he gave you, and needy for the hardness under his briefs. but you did it quick, sitting up and moving your body to get on your hands and knees except instead of holding yourself up on your hands, you grabbed a pillow and used it to rest your head on so that your ass was in the air for him. 

the silk rose dress that was drenched in blood just pooled at your waist, letting you expose both holes to him, wet and needy. eddie frantically looked for the phone again, grabbing it and went back to the recording screen. 

“fucking shit,” he whispered, the flash letting him see all of you. your holes were throbbing, aching for him to fill and take his spot that practically had his name branded on. 

regardless of titles, you were his. even if he wasn’t yours. 

“eddie,” you whined as your cheek pressed into the pillow, feeling his hand spread you open to the cool air, and to the camera of his phone. 

“what is it, baby? you need me? wanna show my camera how fucking needy you are?” he taunted as he landed a spank on your ass cheek, of course eddie recorded him play with you as he liked. 

as he pulled your round ass cheeks apart and spit on your puckered hole, moving the camera to show his thumb rubbing the rim of your asshole, and moved to press into it while you flinched at the touch. 

“eddie, what the fuck,” you gasped as you felt his thumb slide into the tight hole with restraint, feeling an odd pressure that soon turned into the pleasure of something being filled. 

you’d take what he’d give you, because the entire recording thing was for his pleasure. you knew he wanted to get every angle, every scenario, every moment of you naked and aching for him so he didn’t have to imagine your sinful activities together 一 he could just open his photos app and watch as he tore you apart. 

he slid his thumb in and out of your hole as slow as possible, and you heard the mattress squeak and felt it dip, not feeling eddie’s clothed thighs behind yours anymore. they were naked, skin to skin and you felt the phone thud next to your leg, his thumb still curled inside of you when you felt his wet tip hit your cunt. you couldn’t help the gasp that left you, and you waited for the pressure to stretch you out, but it never came. 

so when you tried to push your hips back onto him, he gripped your asscheek to spread it and hold you there. 

“uh-uhn, you have to wait.” he said and you let out a cracked whine, and then saw the flash turn on again. 

eddie had the phone in his hand above you, up to his chest to get all of your curves, the bareness up to the middle of your back where the blood-soaked dress sat, and his tumb still wet and sliding in and out of you. 

“you want my dick, baby?” he asked, recording you wiggling your ass and trying to sink onto him. 

“please, eddie, don’t tease me,” you whined, lifting yourself up just a tiny bit to look over your shoulder, getting a hard glimpse of eddie’s sinister smile, watching through the screen of his phone. 

“tell me, tell me you want it and it’s yours,” he demanded softly. it was a simple demand with heavy baggage to it. 

“i want it, please i want your dick so bad, please give it to me,” you whined beautifully, eddie realizing he’d get to hear you like this all over again whether it’d be on his phone or in person. 

the sensation of being recorded while in your most vulnerable state sent shockwaves to your cunt, and he felt your hole clench around the small of his tip. it was so erotic, so exposing, and the simple act alone meant there was more trust you put into eddie than the both of you realized. 

you’d trust eddie with your life, and when he finally sinks into your tight hole, you realize there wasn’t anyone else you’d rather trust with your body, your mind, your image. 

“my f-” you sputtered, the single sound of trying to say fuck dragging out when eddie groans behind you. 

eddie was catching everything, and for some reason watching himself stretch you out around the girth of his cock made him bite into his lip hard enough to draw blood. 

“fuck baby, you look so fucking good,” he said breathlessly, “like you were fucking made to be on camera,” 

he drew in and out of you, each time admiring the way you molded around him, how your skin was littered with little beauty marks and stretch marks. he could say he was in love with you, but you might reach back and try to slap him. 

he bottomed out, his balls slapping against your cunt with each stroke and groaned with every clench. eddie recorded all of it, and let the camera catch the way your slick was gathering in a ring around his cock. he was high off of you, delirious from how you felt squeezing him like you did. 

he felt like he was gonna go insane with how you moaned and whined for him in every way. 

“eddie, eddie, eddie,” you chanted in moans, responding to the way he made you so full. so full of him. 

your hand reached down blindly as you face planted into the pillow, moving your head to the side and finding where his cock slid in and out of you. eddie saw you start to position yourself to touch your clit, and moved the camera to the underside, capturing the way you rubbed your clit for him from below. he could feel the tips of your fingers brushing against the shaft of his cock, and he let out a throaty, cracked moan. 

he moved his camera back to your spread cheeks and noticed how you started to bounce back on him, spreading your legs wider to be more accessible for him. by now, you completely forgot how you got here. you forgot that you were at a house party, robin’s house party with people walking up and down the stairs to go to restrooms and find their own vacant room. 

it was exhilarating, and you wanted more so you started to meet the rhythm of his thrusts. you were able to feel him everywhere, deep inside to the point your legs felt like they were trembling already. 

before you could move your hand anymore, eddie managed to grab your arms and place them at your back to grip them by your wrists. your hair was a mess, the prom queen crown laying on the mattress beside you, and tears forming in your eyes when you felt your cunt clench continuously around him. 

eddie wasn’t missing anything. he had it all on tape, filming every moment of you squeezing around him. you consumed him completely, and the feeling of you so snug around him and realizing no one else would ever be able to have you like this — it was pushing the feeling in the pit of his stomach. 

“tell me baby,” he said in a huff, “tell me you’re mine, this pussy’s mine,” 

you cried at his words, feeling his pace pick up and the force of his thrusts becoming harder. it was nudging the inside of your cervix, pressing at your spot that he knew all too well. he was so much to take, too much to not feel pleasure and the prick of pain. it was everything to you. 

“you know this pussy’s mine. you want me tell everyone you’re my fucking girl?” he grunted, the phone becoming hard to focus on as he remembered why he was doing this in the first place. 

“yes! eddie, yes! i want it, please,” you confessed, desperate for a release. he restrained you as his hips snapped against yours, the sound of wet skin emanating in the room. loud enough for anyone outside the door to hear. 

but you didn’t care. 

eddie let go of your wrists and curled his body over yours for his stomach to touch your back, reached the phone around to the front of your face. he used his free hand to grab the base of your throat and pull you up just a little more so the camera got to see all of it. 

“that’s right, princess, say it again for me, think i need to hear it again,” he teased breathlessly. you didn’t even know how he was able to talk so much with how heavy he was breathing over you. 

the feeling of his palm on your throat with his fingers on the sides made your cunt clench again and he just chuckled, moving his hand from your throat to grab your hair. he yanked your head back softly and pulled you up to where you tried to grasp for the blanket, but instead settled to rest on his thighs that held you in place. 

“i’m your girl, ‘m yours, please ‘m yours,” you whined. eddie could feel the vibration against his palm and his cock twitched at your words. 

he felt his release begging, and you were holding on for as long as you could until he tells you to cum. he knew that too, and he took advantage of it. 

“you sound so pretty baby, my pretty fucking girlfriend. all fucking mine, goddamn,” he said and buried his face in your neck, ignoring the burn in his arm for holding the phone far at an upper angle to get all of you. 

“mine?” you choked, wanting to ask a certain question but couldn’t form the words through your moans and sobs. 

you didn’t think he’d understand, but by the innocent, curious, desperate tone in the moan you choked —  he did. 

“i’m yours baby, of course i’m fucking yours, ‘m all yours,” eddie heaved buried in your neck, his hand twisted in your hair to rest your head on his shoulder. 

you were bent in odd angles that nobody has ever put you in before, no one had even bothered to take you out of doggy style. not to mention that he was recording every minute of it, not even knowing how his phone hadn’t died yet. 

but this was intoxicating. you were addicted and couldn’t get off of him, even if you tried. 

you were desperate. but you were only desperate for him. and through each moan he coaxed out of you, forced out of you by the abruptness of his thrusts — he knew. 

“‘m gonna cum, eddie, gonna cum for you,” you whined at the ceiling, your eyes dropping with every frantic thrust his hips provided. it was too much, everything was too much. 

before eddie could even speak, he dropped the phone on the mattress and let go of your hair, wrapping both arms around your waist and making you sit on his lap practically. he was fucking up into you as your body leaned into his and shook, squirming in his grip as you cried and moaned. 

the pulsing around his cock only made him grunt, letting his forehead hit your shoulder until it perked up again at your words.

“cum inside of me, please, please cum inside,” you begged as you felt his thrusts and rhythm breaking, recognizing the sound of his voice and the moans he was making that he was close. 

eddie panting in the crook of your neck, and you could still feel the sensation of his balls slapping against your cunt until he stilled inside of you. his cock twitched, and you felt heat spread within your pussy, ropes of his release filling you.

the full sensation was overwhelming, so much that your legs started to tingle again as you could start to feel the tip of his cock nudging you inside. 

you were full of him, all of him and he sank his teeth into the arch of your neck as if he were a vampire, biting down until his hips stopped the stutter. 

“mmmmm,” you hummed, letting your body slump against his. you were still half dressed, the pink silk still at your waist and you were praying that the fake dried blood on your body didn’t get on the sheets. 

your eyes fluttered closer, sulking in the warmth of his arms as the breathing between you two began to regulate. but eddie needed to get you in his bed as soon as possible. though he really loved the sex, his second favorite was having you curled into his body while he held you tight. 

“mm-mm, no, you gotta get up and get dressed so we can go back to mine,” he said as he finally pulled out of you, bending you over again to have you face down and supporting yourself on your knees.

“eddie, wait,” you budged, thinking he was going in for another round. he’d have plenty of time as your boyfriend to go rounds, just not tonight.

“hold on babe, i have to get the money shot,” he said in a lighthearted tone, fully serious and grabbing the phone to quickly open the camera again and take a video up close of your hole pushing out most of what he released inside of you. you squirmed and whined as the cool air hit your wetness, but he enjoyed it even more. 

“fuck me,” he said in a breath as he held your ass open, and let out a whistle,

 “so are you really my girlfriend or were you just saying that?” 

[homochampagne]

quinn’s in love and death stream summary: all of the lore

he described the way bert’s voice sounds towards the ending of i caught fire as “cute and sweet”

he said he has synesthesia and gave us a color for a lot of the songs. the only ones i remember are: i caught fire is red and yesterdays feelings is green

at the beginning of yesterdays feelings, quinn’s voice can be heard saying “creaks and cracks”. it turns out he was talking about a really old guitar he was playing that wasn’t very good for recording because it made noises as you played

regarding the meaning of yesterdays feelings, quinn said he couldn’t describe it.

a lot of the songs on this album were from ideas quinn came up with. he said he did background vocals on about 75% of the songs

light with a sharpened edge was a title bert came up with, quinn said he really liked that title

in 2004, while the used was working on in love and death and mcr was working on revenge, the two bands lived in the same apartment building in la and would hang out a lot. gerard would come over to quinn’s place and quinn told a story about gerard playing 3 songs from revenge for quinn in his bedroom. quinn said he remembered thinking revenge sounded very cohesive and in love and death was a lot different; it was kind of all over the place and he worried it was too pop and that they were getting too far away from the used’s original sound. he played some songs for gerard as well

quinn talked really positively about mcr, he described them as having a “vampire motorcycle gang” aesthetic back in the day. around 2003 i believe the used took mcr on tour in europe with them; quinn said he’d often film them/take pics of them from the side stage, at one point he was thinking about maybe making a music video for them of liveshow clips but that never happened. he remembers being sure that mcr would become a really huge band (they were still in bullets era at this time)

in 2004 during the writing and recording of in love and death quinn was doing mushrooms and smoking weed and he was reading a lot of philosophy books. i forget the authors name, but chapter 8 of a book he was reading that was about transferring the perspectives/teachings of eastern philosophy into a western lens was called “how to be a genuine fake”. at this time, tensions between him and bert were high, they were butting heads a lot and quinn was sick of his behaviour. he noted how bert would act around people/treat people completely differently; he’d be great to some people and horrible to others. in quinn’s room at the apartment, he handed bert the philosophy book opened to the “how to be a genuine fake” chapter and told him to read it. bert read one page and then threw it on the bed and was like “whatever”. a few days later, bert had written lyrics to a song and said it was titled “i’m a fake”

someone asked about blue and yellow and he said “yes that song’s about me”; he gave us the exact meaning of the “your hands were shaking” line. feldy and bert have both told a story about how during the recording of the first album, bert disappeared for ~2 weeks. bert said he met some girl and was gonna quit the band and whatever. (<- when he’s talking about blue and yellow in that interview, it’s one of those half-truths where like, it did happen, yes, but it’s like the irrelevant part of the larger story, which he obvs doesn’t want to talk about now. gina is a convenient fake inspiration. this section of this interview is so eyeroll inducing because he literally admits to lying about the song in the kirsten dunst part. bert has talked about quinn being the subject of blue and yellow so many times; i have very thorough citations & proof for all of the blue and yellow stuff in my fic masterguide). REGARDLESS, when bert finally showed up at feldy’s again, quinn said that he was so mad and upset that his hands were shaking. (when i say disappeared i mean DISAPPEARED like they couldn’t contact him at all). quinn said that feldy just hugged bert and was like “you can’t do that”. quinn said that at times, feldy was kind of like their dad.

as we all know, all that i’ve got is about bert’s dog david bowie that passed away by getting hit by a car, which in some roundabout way was due to the wrong plane ticket being booked for him meaning he couldn’t take bowie, so he left him with someone who was going to drive him out to wherever the band was heading. quinn said that the line “so deep that it didn’t even bleed” is a reference to the phonecall bert received from his dad who broke the news to him that bowie died, saying “it was quick, there wasn’t even any blood”

the line “i couldn’t come/you couldn’t come” in cut up angels means cum, like orgasm

sound effects and overdramatics is about sex, relationships, and drugs/addiction

feldy told quinn to listen to the beatles entire discography around this time, which he did. he said that there were definitely beatles and nirvana influences on this album. he specifically mentioned territorial pissings, and he mentioned playing a beatles riff backwards on one of the songs but i can’t remember which one :( sorry

quinn likes thursday, and he listened to full collapse a lot

when asked, he said he likes fall out boy

he still talks to mikey sometimes

someone asked if his kids know the used songs and he basically said no, and then he started talking about how his son says “skibidi” and “rizz” and “ohio” and “brainrot” and he like knew all of the lingo???? NDSJSKAKKS and then he was like “back in my day the cringe stuff we would quote was pauly shore” (i’m paraphrasing) and then he did a pauly shore impression

off-tour he would just live out of his backpack, and he rented a spare bedroom at his friends house (im assuming this was like late 2002-early 2004 because in summer 2004 they had the la apartment). he built a bed out of bricks with planks of wood on top. (……this info combined with him just sleeping on the floor of his bedroom at his parents place because there was no bed makes me think he was just used to sleeping on hard surfaces????)

he confirmed that hard to say is about kate, bert’s girlfriend who passed away during the recording of in love and death. it was a song that was added in right at the end of recording and they weren’t sure if they would keep it in. quinn said that he and his family were close to kate, because back at the beginning of the band when bert joined and quinn said he could move in with him, kate lived with them for a period of time too. quinn said that bert and kate were recovering addicts and that he left home for a while at this point because they were staying in his bedroom and sometimes it was “hard to be around them”. we know for sure that quinn sometimes did stay there with bert, because of the whole story where they were sleeping on his bedroom floor together when feldy called from norway in the summer of 2001 and blah blah blah (which he told on branden’s podcast)

towards the end of the recording of in love and death, quinn said that he and bert were not speaking to each other. finding album cover artwork became his responsibility, quinn found alex pardee and basically organized/chose all of the album artwork working with alex (who was the artist)

because we would never figure it out, he told us a secret about ocean of the sky. put on the film 2001: a space odyssey, skip to 20 minutes and 1 second from the ending and play the song tethys and it’s supposed to line up exactly to what happens on-screen. he was inspired by those rumors that you could do the same thing with the original wizard of oz and pink floyd’s dark side of the moon. the guys had been talking about 2001: a space odyssey in regards to ocean of the sky, the “ocean of the sky” meaning outer space. he said he created the song tethys in one sitting, from 9pm - 6am and his computer crashed twice. he digitally mixed it and then sent it off at 9am that morning and that was the last song on that ep.

quinn said that he’s happy bert’s sober now, but it’s “too little, too late” (his exact words)

he confirmed that bert’s struggle with addiction and his behaviour for the majority of the time quinn was in the band was what lead to quinn’s departure. it was draining, exhausting, and the 23 hours a day that they were not on stage was a “nightmare”. he says very confidently that he’s happier now. (side note: if you haven’t listened to this interview with bert about addiction/sobriety i think you should, because he gives details regarding the severity of what was happening. tw: discussion of self-harm)

when asked if there’s any chance he’ll ever play a show with the used again, he said “no”

re: the band and quinn’s frustrations about bert, quinn said he found himself “sitting on his hands” (exact words) a lot of the time and just going along with whatever was happening because he had no other means of enacting change that would actually work (paraphrased). he used a really good metaphor of letting bert “drive”, but quinn would always have “one hand on the wheel”… i feel like that’s self-explanatory

during part of this section of the stream, he got emotional and teary-eyed and said that some of it is hard to talk about

regarding some of the meaning behind quinn’s song i digress, quinn said that it’s about the difficult experience of trying to help a friend who struggles with severe depression and persistent suicidal thoughts, and how he felt that all of his efforts were futile. this seemed to be a recent experience of his. he also spoke about a similarity between this situation and being in the band, which he described as very negative and emotionally taxing when you continually try to help someone who doesn’t want to help themselves. for his emotional wellbeing he needed to step away (in both situations). he also clarified that the lyric is “i’m hanging by your thread” which i got wrong in my transcription. he compared the “i’m hanging by your thread” line to the heart noose.

quinn showed us the physical prototype for his book which is completely finished. he is hopeful that pre-orders will be available in mid-october through kickstarter, he is planning to make a signed book and cassette tape ep bundle which he wants us to receive before christmas (this is all tentative).

he is apparently filming a music video for his second single today (yesterday he spent building the set for it). physical versions of his ep will only be available in cassette tape form because that’s what he grew up with, he likes that they’re small and easy to display

the book has A LOT of exclusive photos in it. he showed us some pages of the book. he said that he started writing it/working on it back when he left the band as a therapeutic, cathartic hobby. aside from the written chapters, there are a lot of pages he created in photoshop that have photo collages that he would draw little pictures on and organize. he said he would work on this to process his emotions, he would cry and let himself feel angry or upset, but it ended up being a very healing project

someone mentioned that they gave him a scrapbook in 2012 (he remembered it) and he said that he still has all of the stuff that the fans gave him/the band. he would box all of it up after their tours and ship it to his house. some of this fan stuff is featured in the book

he really enjoyed the stream and he will likely do another one sometime in the near future (no date is set yet). he’d like to do a listening party for the first album and talk about the songs/behind the scenes lore like he did for this one. he’d also be open to doing a stream just about guitars. people were requesting for him to put out official guitar tabs for the used songs and he said he’ll definitely work on it now that he knows there is interest

he had literally stacks of old photos and showed us some of them which i’ll make a separate post for. at one point he was like “ohhh i can’t show you those” and skipped through a bunch which is just the most infuriatingly intriguing thing like…… i can only imagine.

this was all just written from memory bc for some insane reason recording desktop audio on obs if you have a mac is literally impossible which is crazy in 2024 but regardless i think the livestreams are more special if they aren’t recorded because you have to be there to witness it. i got the vibe that he doesn’t want them to be saved (he said “i can’t” but that’s not true), so instead of asking him in chat next time and you really really want to save it, just record it for your own personal viewing and keep it on the down low. (i’m not telling anyone what to do but i feel like re-uploading to youtube would be against his wishes (he never said this, it’s just my inference)).

if anyone who watched feels like i missed a crucial piece of lore, feel free to add XD

[queenjunothegreat]

Hello everyone!!! *(waves)* I would like to formally apologize for yesterday's angst. I'm definitely very sorry and will not be doing that again. I'm also for sure NOT lying >;3c Today I come bearing a not sad fic, though! It is just as silly and fluffy as the title would lead you to believe, so I hope you have fun with it!

So, here is Ao3 Anniversary Collection Day Eleven: Vacation

“I hate the beach,” Leo whined, burying his nose in the crook of Jason’s shoulder. “I wanna go home. This sucks.” Jason’s eyebrows shot up. “Wasn’t this your idea in the first place?” “It’s hot,” Leo complained. “Like, I’m always hot, but it’s usually fine because around me is cooler than I am. It is literally hotter than my body temperature right now, and that’s saying something. Summers in Texas were bad enough, but I could always hide inside where the AC was, and nobody ever took me to the beach.” The logical part of Jason wanted to point out that their cuddle session likely wasn’t helping with the whole overheating thing, but he’d long learned that logic and reason had little room when it came to Leo’s moods. Besides, he was, personally, quite content with their current arrangement. He rested his cheek on Leo’s curls and hummed sympathetically. “That’s rough, buddy." *** Jason and Leo take a vacation to the beach. Turns out, neither of them like the beach, but they love each other and that makes it all okay. Ao3 Anniversary Collection Day Eleven: Vacation

It was about two thirty on the third and final day of their beach trip when Jason found himself with a lapful of damp, whiny boyfriend. Jason had been sitting under the umbrella, slathered in sunscreen and desperately trying to avoid a sunburn (Will had warned that they would not be administering Nectar or Ambrosia for “things that are your own damn fault”) while he picked through a book Annabeth had recommended. Piper and Reyna had spent the morning surfing together, while Leo splashed around in the water and made sand castles and whatever else he could think of to entertain himself. Now, it seemed that Jason was to be the subject of his entertainment.

“Hi there,” Jason hummed, running his fingers through Leo’s hair. Leo was still wet from the water, and was half-soaking Jason, but he didn’t really mind all that much.

“I hate the beach,” Leo whined, burying his nose in the crook of Jason’s shoulder. “I wanna go home. This sucks.”

Jason’s eyebrows shot up. “Wasn’t this your idea in the first place?”

“Officially, yes, but Piper begged me to suggest it so she could show off her surfing skills in front of Reyna while still playing it cool,” he grumbled. After a moment he added, “Don’t tell her I told you that.”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” Jason swore. He shifted a bit so he was a bit more comfortable holding Leo in his arms. “What don’t you like about it? It seemed like you’ve been having fun the past couple days.”

“It’s hot,” Leo complained. “Like, I’m always hot, but it’s usually fine because around me is cooler than I am. It is literally hotter than my body temperature right now, and that’s saying something. Summers in Texas were bad enough, but I could always hide inside where the AC was, and nobody ever took me to the beach.”

The logical part of Jason wanted to point out that their cuddle session likely wasn’t helping with the whole overheating thing, but he’d long learned that logic and reason had little room when it came to Leo’s moods. Besides, he was, personally, quite content with their current arrangement. He rested his cheek on Leo’s curls and hummed sympathetically. “That’s rough, buddy.”

Leo snickered quietly and fiddled with the large wooden button on the front of Jason’s shirt. “What about you? You enjoying your slice of island life?”

Jason considered that. He’d certainly enjoyed spending so much time outside the past two days, and he’d had fun when Leo had shown him how to build sandcastles that first day, but in general? “Not really,” he admitted. “I mean, it’s been fine, but definitely not my favorite.”

Leo hummed. “What has been your favorite?”

“The cabin we visited last winter,” he answered immediately.

“Really? That? Didn’t we spend, like, the whole time locked inside because of a freak snow storm?”

That was honestly part of why Jason liked it so much. It was nearly a week straight of wrestling Leo onto every comfortable-looking surface and cuddling him within an inch of his life while Leo giggled breathlessly at him. “The snow was fun, and it was a good excuse to drink obscene amounts of hot chocolate.”

“Fair point.” Leo sighed softly and rubbed his cheek on Jason’s shoulder. “You never went swimming with me. Is that part of why you don’t like the beach?”

“Partially,” Jason confessed. “I’m still not super comfortable with the ocean. I’m not getting in unless Percy’s here to drag me out.”

Leo hummed again and let his eyes flutter shut. “I wouldn’t let you drown. I’d save you,” he mumbled quietly.

Jason felt his face go gooey with affection and he pressed a kiss into Leo’s curls. “I know you would.” 

Leo continued to sleepily mumble stuff, so Jason called a cool, gentle breeze to wash over the both of them. Leo shivered as it brushed over his still-damp skin before he fully relaxed into Jason’s chest with a contented sigh that sounded like it was pulled straight from the depths of his soul. Jason smiled softly and tangled his fingers in Leo’s curls, humming in that way that Leo loved so much. The one where his whole chest rumbled and vibrated, but the sound was so quiet it hardly made it home to Leo’s ears. He hummed until the sound of Leo’s soft snores filled the space between them, and then he just kept on humming. 

They stayed like that for a good long while. Long past the moment where Jason’s legs fell asleep and the sun dipped down to shine directly in his eyes. It wasn’t until he felt a sharp twinge of hunger that he realized that Leo had probably forgotten to eat lunch, too, so he gently shook Leo awake, cooing comforting nonsense while Leo whined and dragged his feet on the way back to the realm of the living. 

He puckered his face up at Jason and pouted up at him with foggy brown eyes. “Whadda you want?”

Jason grinned and pressed a kiss right between Leo’s furrowed brows and Leo just squeezed his eyes shut and screwed his face up tighter in response. Jason grinned wider. “Come on. Let’s head up to the house.”

Leo looked appalled at the very notion. “I’m comfortable.”

“Yeah, well, I’m hungry, and I bet you are, too,” Jason countered. “If we pack up, we can take a shower and go get dinner at that pizza place you wanted to try.”

Leo didn’t look convinced. “Do we have to?”

“No, we don’t have to do anything, if you really don’t want to,” Jason admitted immediately. “But it would make me happy if we did.”

“You’re such a manipulative little bastard,” Leo accused. “No one believes me when I tell them, but I know the truth.”

Jason arched his eyebrows and pressed a kiss to Leo’s cheek. “I’m not hearing a no from you.”

Leo made a disgusted noise at him and nipped at the underside of Jason’s jaw. “Yeah, yeah, fine. We can go get pizza. What about Pipes and Reyna?”

Jason flicked his gaze up to where Piper and Reyna were still way out on the water, straddling their boards and chatting with one another, just like they had all day. “Honestly, I don’t think they’d notice if we packed up and went back to New Rome without them.”

Leo snorted and pecked a kiss to the same spot on Jason’s jaw that he’d bitten seconds before and scrambled to his feet before offering Jason a hand. “You’ve got a point. Come on, let’s get out of here. You’re right, I’m starving.”

Jason happily let Leo pull him up. His legs were still numb from his hours of playing nap spot for Leo, so he stumbled, which just made Leo laugh, so he deliberately stumbled a bit harder. They gathered up all the supplies they’d brought down that morning (he highly doubted Piper and Reyna would remember to grab anything they left, assuming they weren’t completely wiped out from their surfing adventures) before trudging back towards their rented condo hand in hand. During their shower, Leo complained about the damage the salt water was going to do to his hair and Jason accidentally got a mouthful of soap, but the kisses swapped in comfort more than made up for the experience. The pizza place they went to was crowded and a little overpriced, but it was good, and the crowd gave them an excuse to huddle together in a hazy corner, pressed against one another from shoulder to ankle. When they eventually made it back to the house after the sun had thoroughly set, Piper was waiting for them with milkshakes she and Reyna had made, and the four of them sat together on the balcony, watching the way the moonlight glinted on the waves, and swapping stories in the soft silence of the beach for another few hours until Piper fully fell asleep, slumped heavily on Reyna’s shoulder and snoring loud enough to mask Leo’s laughter. Reyna had fondly rolled her eyes and escorted Piper back to their shared room while Jason and Leo did the same.

Once they were tucked securely under the covers, Jason reached out for Leo and pulled him close, gently pressing their foreheads together. “Did you have fun today?”

Leo grinned up at him, crooked teeth glinting in the low light and eyes shining brighter than the sun. “I always have fun with you, Jace.”

“Yeah?” Jason asked, his face soft and warm. “I always have fun with you, too.”

Leo pressed their lips together in a brief kiss, and Jason let out a sigh, content to finally fall asleep. 

[silenzahra]

First of all, thanks a lot to @megamagimugi @itsavee4117 @bberetd @keakruiser @pepperycar

@coffeecat1983 @peaches2217 @stripetkattelalala54 @multicolour-ink @vulpixfairy1985

@purely-interests-here-not-much for your comments on my latest post. I truly appreciate your support as I really needed it. Hope it's okay that I vent under the cut so you're all free to continue reading or skip this post, but I hope you all understand I'm not in the mood whatsoever to be around right now. I know you've tagged me in some stuff and I appreciate it, but I just can't enjoy it right now. It has all to do with my emotional state and nothing with the content itself. Hope that is clear.

Also, thank you to those of you who reblogged my musicians post after I fixed it. I really appreciate it. I'll make sure to give you all proper answers... I just don't know when yet.

Before I go on, let me advice you: if you're in a good mood today, maybe you shouldn't read this if you don't want it to be ruined. It's totally up to you. Just know that I'd never judge anyone for putting their mental health first.

Yesterday was the most awful day of my life. I came to the realization that the people I thought cared for me the most, the people who were supossed to always be there through thick and thin... don't actually care about me. They always put others first, no matter what my necessities and emotions are: they're always there for other people but they're never there for me. Even when it's obvious that I need them, they just don't see it and continue to help everybody else but me.

And I feel lonely. I've never had trouble with being alone as my hobbies usually require that I'm on my own to properly enjoy them, but that's one thing... and loneliness is something very different. I'm never alone, but I'm lonely. And their attitude also makes me feel so unimportant... Makes me wonder why on earth I'm here. Why my family had me if they weren't gonna care about me. Especially my emotions... No one in my family has ever made me feel like they're a safe space for me to open up. Never. So they don't even know what I'm feeling because, whenever I try to tell them something, they change the subject or simply don't pay attention. My voice doesn't matter. I literally have no one to turn to IRL. Heck, they don't even make me feel loved anymore. They make me feel like a burden they have to deal with, and I can't even move to live on my own for financial reasons.

In all honesty, I never thought I'd find myself in such a situation. I don't even know how to act anymore. I have to continue living with my family, seeing them every day, and I just don't know how to look them in the face. The feelings swirling in my chest... they hurt, and I feel that I need to let them out, but I literally have no one IRL. My friends, they all live in different cities, and have their own lives and problems, so they can't always be there for me, and I'm okay with that because I'm also busy. I'd like to get back to therapy, but it's expensive as hell where I live, and I have just started working for the first time after a few months, so I don't have the means for that.

In all honesty, this morning I took the day off from work and went for a walk with my dog. This may sound weird, especially to people who don't have any animals, but I'm not exaggerating when I say my dog Baloo was the only one (in my immediate surroundings I mean) who noticed yesterday that I wasn't feeling good. He has a great emotional intelligence and was there for me when I needed him, and I'm glad I could walk with him this morning because it really did wonders to us both.

Still, shortly after I got home... everything went bad again. I'd dare to say even worse than yesterday. And I'm so tired and drained.

I don't even know why I'm in this world anymore. It's just suffering and suffering, one bad thing after another, and I sincerely can take it no longer. I've had enough. I don't even find joy in the SMB franchise anymore... Yes, it's that bad. I've hit rock bottom and all that's left for me is drowning.

Thank you if you've read everything and sorry if I bored you or made you feel bad. I just hope you understand that I don't feel like being around whatsoever. I love you and your content, but I can't enjoy it right now, so I'd rather not see it until I'm fine... if I ever get to be fine again. This is the worst bad streak I've experienced in a very long time and I sincerely cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. Heck, I can't even feel excited about seeing my favorite band live again next week... Can't even look forward to that right now.

Of course, you're all free to continue to tag me in stuff if you'd like, but I hope you know I'm not gonna see it now. As I said, I can't enjoy anything in general. I've lost the spark of joy and I don't know how to get it back.

Sorry to sound so depressed, but it's just how I'm feeling right now.

Of course, all of this applies to the people around me in real life. I'm grateful I met each and every one of you, and I'm lucky and blessed that you offered me your support and you're there to listen. I love you all very much.

[azulera]

We Go Together

Pairing: Jadon Sancho x Black Reader

Summary: Jadon wants everyone to know he’s yours.

Notes: don’t know where this one came from really bt i literally gave myself b*tterflies while writing it … it was so fun and i think its so so cute. also helloo to the JS25 girlies how are you :) hope u enjoy :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“This is so random, but, I can’t lie. I hate braids. Like, on girls.”

Jadon looked at Reiss from the side of his eye, barely lifting his head from the back of the couch. Maybe they’d been vegetating on the chocolate-colored sectional too long, the blue light exposure from watching TikTok after TikTok finally getting to his friend’s head. It had to be that.

“What, bro?”

“They’re childish, brother, look.” Reiss leaned over, showing Jadon a clip of a girl being spun in a salon chair, with bright blue box braids trailing down the cape around her back. Reiss sucked his teeth twice before the video even ended. “It’s a little kid’s hairstyle, like primary school plaits. I do not rate them.”

Jadon laughed in a loud burst of sound, and shook his head at his friend’s wild take. Reiss’ complaining had triggered an image in his mind that easily refuted each of the critiques he brought up. He pushed the phone away from his face.

“Nah, you’re tripping. Braids are fire. Especially with the little baby hairs out, slicked down and that.”

“Noo, bro, the baby hairs get so extra!” Reiss rocked in his seat. “It’s gotta go, the whole style’s dead.”

“Maybe on gyal you see, but my girl, her things different. I’m telling you.”

“Oh my days– you almost did it, you know? You almost made it ten whole minutes without mentioning Y/N. It’s been 2 years, bro, we get it, you’re locked down, it’s cute, whatever.”

Jadon shrugged, a smile on his lips that he didn’t care to hide.

“I’m jus sayin.”

Reiss laughed, and switched subjects to show him another TikTok he thought was hilarious, but the picture in Jadon’s mind that his friend had summoned was too strong to ignore now, the warm feeling in his chest too sweet to pass by quickly. He half-listened while Reiss explained the meaning behind the joke, and scrolled to your Instagram profile. He went back a few weeks to spring break photos where you were sea-side in a flowy linen outfit with waist length braids falling over your shoulders, caught in the ocean wind. A minute later, he’d reposted the photo to his story, with a caption below.

“I love box braids. 😍 And my girl 😍”

He smiled again when it published, his thousands of followers viewing the image and leaving a flurry of cherry red hearts rising in the corner of the screen. Reiss, realizing he was no longer being listened to, peeked over Jadon’s shoulder, and rolled his eyes.

“You are such a simp, bro. I would banter you more if I wasn’t a little bit jealous.”

“Don’t worry, brother, it’ll happen for you one day. When you stop hating on girls’ hairstyles, I bet. Saying braids are dead, nah, you’re mad.”

Reiss shoved against his shoulder, but quickly slipped back down his internet rabbit hole, and a text came into Jadon’s phone.

Y/N: not u reposting my old pics lol you were lurking?

Jadon: No Jadon: Actually yeah Jadon: Reiss was trashing braids and i had to set him str8 Jadon: Can you come by?

Y/N: you 2 are mad i swear Y/N: and i thought u and him had plans after the match?

Jadon: Nah the braid comment was too much Jadon: I wanna see you

Y/N: yeah thats poor from him. i can be there in an hour :) Y/N: and i just got fresh braids done yesterday, i forgot to tell you lol

Jadon: 😍

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“What’s your middle name then? William? Zachary?”

The question registered only faintly in Jadon’s headset, all his focus instead zeroed in on the pixelated movements of his starting XI as they ran alongside Marcus’ XI. The teams were so well-matched that every possession was a battle, and the 85th minute found them in a deadlock with one goal each. It wasn’t quite the time for casual conversation.

“My middle name? What do you mean? No-no-no-no!”

One of his center backs made a sloppy pass, and a pressing forward had intercepted it. Thankfully, the keeper recovered and the score remained 1-1.

“Stop trying to distract me, bro! It won’t work.”

“M’not, I swear! It’s just the letter there on your bracelet. It’s catching the light and I can see it through the screen. And it’s not J or S, so.”

Jadon looked down at his wrist for a moment, at the thin gold chain draped along the left one with a capital letter and small, earth figure hanging in the center. Marcus was right – the jewelry did shine in the light coming in through the window and glowing from the computer monitor, and the sight twitched the sides of his mouth.

“It’s not my middle name, it’s for–wait, wait–”

Jadon paused the game and Marcus cursed over the headset. Still, he went on unbothered, more than happy to provide context around the question his teammate had innocently or not so innocently posed.

“So the letter, that’s for my girlfriend's name. She bought it for me for my birthday, couple years back. It’s nice, innit.” The grin that had started as a twitch now stretched across his mouth. “And the little earth thing is like, it’s like a reminder. That when I’m away, different country, different city, whatever. She’s always with me.”

Marcus smiled at him over the monitor, shaking his head even as his fingers itched to get back to the match.

“Aw look at you, Sanch, big softie. It’s too bad your missus ain’t here now though, to save you gettin whooped in FIFA.”

“No, you’re lucky she’s not here, really, cause I’d have been on a hattrick. It’s a miracle you’re even gettin a sniff, bro.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, stop chatting then and press play. Five more minutes and then we’ll see.”

Jadon resumed the game and leaned forward in his chair, his thumbs flying over the buttons. When his team paused for a corner minutes later, thoughts of you, which had been simmering under the surface ever since Marcus’ inadvertently brought you up, flashed through his mind. It was hard when he was in Manchester, and you were in London, but the little spiel he’d given his teammate reminded him, just as the bracelet did, that if the two of you could ever be considered “apart” it was only ever in a physical sense, never an emotional one. There was nothing that could separate him from you as far as he was concerned, unless he were to tear his own heart out of his chest or something equally dramatic. He decided instead to raise his hand to his mouth, pressing the letter charm softly to his lips. It was your name he whispered against the gold, uncaring if Marcus could hear, as he sent the cross flying towards the box.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Can I help you find something, sir?”

The salesgirl rested a hand on his forearm as she asked, and Jadon flinched at the touch. He’d been in the shoe store for a few minutes already and no one had noticed him yet, but the intensity of her look told him he’d been recognized. She was suddenly stood so close some of the hair from her ponytail brushed against his shoulder, and he could see the dark clumps in her heavy lashes. Her fingers were cold.

“Yeah, actually,” He stepped away from her while he talked, letting her hand drop. “I’m looking for a pair of those, uh, ugg slippers, slides, the ones with the fur. Do you have those?”

“I believe we do!” She flashed him a smile that lasted too long to be comfortable, and then turned slowly on her heel. “Follow me.”

They walked to the winter footwear section and she lead the way, walking slower and swinging her hips more than was necessary for the 30-second trip. Her performance, however, was lost on Jadon, who had opened up his phone to read his most recent text thread.

Jadon: Baby pick a color, it’s important

Y/N: for what?

Jadon: Don’t worry about it just pick Jadon: Red, blue, black or brown

Y/N: don’t even know what i’m choosing 😳 Y/N: but i’ll say red, it’s our fave

Jadon: 👍🏽

They’d come upon the display of slip-ons, and the girl swept an arm over them, slipping back into a sales monologue about their current popularity with customers, and how the fur-lined interior was more comfortable than any other ugg shoe she’d tried. He thought her boss must be somewhere around, but noticed there was no one near them.

“Do you have the red ones in an 8? And also a 5.5.?”

“Let’s just see!” She bent at the waist, searching the rack of boxes for the numbers he’d requested and making little noises of exertion all the while. Jadon’s eyes were still on his phone, searching for the notes app entry where he’d saved your clothing and footwear sizes and preferences years ago.

“Ooh, I’m sorry, sir, it looks like we only have the red ones in a size 8 and up. Are you sure you need the 5.5?”

She’d moved down into a squat, and now looked up at him through her lashes, biting on her lip. Her eyelids fluttered like there was something stuck on them.

“Yeah, I gotta have them. One second, please.”

Jadon: Pick another color, sorry Jadon: show you why in a bit

He looked up from his phone, waiting on your reply, and found the girl staring back at him. She took his returned gaze as some sort of invitation.

“You know, we sometimes have more stock in the back, extras that don’t make it on the shelves. We could go take a look together, if you want? The door has a lock on it.”

Jadon’s eyebrows flew into his hairline. He looked around the store bewildered, at a temporary loss for words, because all he could think to say was “Don’t you see my girl standing here?” and regrettably you weren’t. He couldn’t believe that anyone could look at him and not see that he was yours.

“Woah, no – absolutely not–” He stepped away from the girl for the second time, putting his hands up between them to maintain the distance. “I’ve got a girl, still.”

“And? I’ve got a man, too. But you’re Jadon Sancho.” She blinked her lashes harder, looking at him again with a challenge in her eyes that he wanted no parts of. Now, he wished he’d said “no” when she’d asked to help him.

“Nah, you have lost it.” Jadon laughed shakily, still in disbelief that she was propositioning him so boldly when he had your name written right there on his forehead. Or at least that’s how it felt. He shook his head and walked to the furthest part of the shelf where the brown colorways were kept, keeping a wide distance from her crouching frame.

“I’ll find them myself, yeah, thank you.”

The girl made a frustrated noise that he would’ve had to strain to hear, before she stood, her eyes still focused on him. She paused a moment, and with a shrug, took off to another part of the store.

Jadon breathed a sigh of relief. Just after, his phone buzzed with your response and it was just as he imagined.

Y/N: brown, then. it looks good on both our skin (whatever it is)

His smile returned.

At the register, he snapped a photo of the two stacked boxes just before they were bagged up and pressed send.

Jadon: Early bday present for u ❤️ Got a pair too cus I wanted us to match

Y/N: 😁 omg! thank u babey Y/N: that’s so sweet Y/N: i didn’t think you fancied them tho

Jadon: ❤️❤️❤️ Jadon: Yeah they look bare comfortable Jadon: And i need people to know we go together when we go out 😭 u don’t kno what i go thru

Y/N: ugh ur so brave, going out in public for me Y/N: thank u for ur sacrifice

Jadon: my **pleasure, innit ❤️

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“That’s what you’re wearing? You're sure?”

Jadon continued primping himself in the mirror beside you, flattening the crease in his jeans, and fitting clear glasses onto his face. Lastly, slowly, he dragged his palms down the lines of his shirt, and turned to admire the details on its back.

“Of course I am, what you mean? Got it customized and everything, just for your special day, didn’t I?”

The shirt was jersey material and a bright lilac purple with two grey stripes down the front, but the other side was what had made your breath catch when he’d pulled it out of his bag. Y/N’S BOYFRIEND it read, in sparkly block letters across the back.

“I love it! I love it so much. I love you! Come here.” was all you managed at first, through rapid kisses to his lips, cheeks, and neck, but now that the shock had passed the meaningfulness of the gesture began to set in. You hugged him from behind then, feeling the prickle of the glittery letters against your chest through your robe. The love and appreciation you felt was overwhelming.

“How’d you know I’d wear purple, too?” You murmured into his back.

“Cause I just know.” He answered, looking extremely proud of himself. His hands curled around yours as they travelled up his chest, bringing the left one up to his mouth for a kiss.

“You'll make me cry, you know. Ruin my make-up.”

“Nah, none of that. Go on, finish gettin ready.” He squeezed your butt gently. “They’ll have shut the lights off already, and I need everyone to see.”

Now, inside the small party being held in your honor you were convinced the shirt looked even better, shimmering under the flashing dance-floor lights and complimenting his tanned skin. Together with your lavender shirt-skirt set you looked like brown-skinned Barbie and Ken, like two halves of the same whole, and knowing so made your “birthday girl” glow increase tenfold.

Through the night you floated between groups of friends and acquaintainces, trading memories, laughing hard, and saying thank you for the thoughtful gifts and warm messages given from those who’d come to celebrate. Jadon stayed by your side without fail, clocking the eyes on his garment as he passed, and it seemed the the edges of his smile extended each time there was a whisper of “Aww” or a gasp of surprise. Every now and then he would drop your hand, letting you stray a little ahead of him before wrapping an arm around your waist or joining hands again, so that anyone who hadn’t seen the first time knew exactly who “Y/N” was. When you realized what he was doing, it first made you laugh, then feel warm, and then drag him onto the dance floor so you could pull your bodies close.

“I’m not gassin it, am I?” He asked into your ear, hands carefully pressing your back to his chest. “I’ll go chill, let you dance with your friends.”

“Nah, you’re exactly where I want you.” You leaned your head back onto his shoulder for a moment, closing your eyes, feeling the gentleness of his hands on your waist, of his voice in your ear. Remembering how it was your name on his back for all these friends and strangers in the party to see. The music bumped and your bodies’ continued swaying to it.

“I’m happy you’re here, baby. And I can’t stop thinking about your shirt.” You let out more of the happy giggling that had characterized the night. “It’s my favorite gift so far.”

He shrugged, and you felt the movement against your back.

“I’ve been out the city for a while, innit. Just want to make sure people know what it is, that they ain’t forgot.”

“Do you think I don’t do that?” Your body stilled between his arms. “Is that why you’re on about it so much?”

“No, I don’t think that.” He guided your waist to keep moving again, making a lazy circle in time to the beat. “But I gotta make sure. You know that with me people always got something to say, innit. Always speculation, rumors and that. So I do what I can to make sure there ain’t no questions, about us, I mean. Cause there ain’t.”

“Well, I don’t think nobody’s gonna get confused after tonight. You couldn’t have made it any more clear.”

Jadon only laughed, his actions tonight already saying far more than a million words could. He ducked his head down into your neck for two, three warm kisses, squeezing at your hip, and his soft lips on your skin made you shiver.

You turned in his arms towards him, wrapping yours around his neck.

“It makes me feel so good, though, that. That you’re so proud to be with me. Makes me feel very lucky, and special, very in love with you.”

“You are special.” His lips twitched, fighting a smile, and you scratched one hand into the hair at the back of his neck. ”You’re everything. And you’ve held me down for so long, baby, there ain’t even nobody else to think about. It’s just you, innit.”

“I love you” you spoke, a smile breaking across your features, leaning against him, cradling his face, parting his lips in a gesture that said mine. He returned the kiss and the three words in one breath, his heart thumping, and the only thought in his head a repeat chorus of yours yours yours.

[timeregistry]

A Human's Touch (p.AI.nter x Reader) | Chapter 4

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Masterlist

Notes: On one side of things I feel soooo slow reposting this so slowly but I'm a busy bee and I don't want to flood the tag so I GUESS we will keep going slowly as I also slowly write in my free time 💔

Yesterday you went to your room abnormally late. Not because you went to your office after visiting Painter, but because the moment you left the room that was overseeing Painter you saw your watch and it was hours after you were supposed to stop working.

You swear that it wasn’t that late when you visited the computer, you swear it wasn’t that late when you were searching for the pictures!

Suddenly the room that was overseeing Painter being almost empty with only a small handful of scientists made sense though.

Apart from just having looked at your watch for the time, another reason you knew you came back abnormally late was because the moment you did your check-in in the morning, Sebastian was there waiting for you with his arms crossed with a scowl on his face.

Going on and on about how he was searching for you and had to, god forbid, ask your co-workers for your location. Which they all answered that they didn’t know. Part of you wondered if they actually didn’t know or if they said that out of their own distaste of Sebastian but again, you digress.

“... and the only one who actually told me something said you were sprinting??? I didn’t know you had that kind of stamina.”

“What is that supposed to mean?!”

Sebastian shrugged.

“I literally swim with you sometimes, I don’t think someone who 'doesn't have that kind of stamina' wouldn’t be able to at least attempt to keep up with you?!”

At that he grinned, his face turning a tad bit malicious. “It’s your fault for being so slow.”

“I don’t have a tail.” You said matter of factly. You were maybe one of the few people that would regularly swim with some of the subjects. When they first introduced the idea you almost wanted to die because that was definitely not inside your job prerequisites, but Urbanshade insisted that you had to do it to see how the subjects react with a more "hands-on" approach.

You scoffed slightly at it, Urbanshade made you do so many odd jobs under the guise that it was part of your job but you’re sure becoming a swimmer and needing to learn how to swim really fast wasn’t part of your job.

Not to mention no matter how fast you swam, they were always faster.

“But yeah what was that about?” Sebastian started again, leaving the other conversation behind. He didn’t seem to be snacking on anyone’s lunch currently which would have made you sigh in relief if suddenly the thought that he probably ate a couple of their breakfasts before you even arrived hadn’t appeared in your mind. He hated the diet Urbanshade gave him and he made it quite obvious.

“I had an idea with Painter, you know, the computer.” You admitted, opening one of the cabinets to see if you could find something to eat that neither your co-workers or Sebastian ate already.

Instead you see Sebastian from the side of your eye grab some things from on top of the fridge, he was the only one that could reach there after all. Tapping your shoulder with his third arm he motioned you to grab the things on his arms.

Seeing you hesitate he scowled. “... I didn’t steal it.” He grumbled. “I just saved you some stuff cuz I noticed there was barely anything.”

You took the variety of foods in Sebastian’s arms, it looked like he remembered what you liked. Giving him a genuine thanks you sat on one of the stools connected to the island of the kitchen. Sebastian stood right in front of you, leaning on the table with one of his arms.

“But yeah, I had an idea.” You restarted your last sentence. “I thought maybe the thing that Painter is missing is reward.”

Sebastian only really deadpanned at you, looking at you as if it was a no-brainer.

Immediately you tried to defend yourself from his judging stare. “No like- I always knew that but I just never knew what it could be.”

“So?”

“Remember how I have these stacks of pictures in my room?” While Sebastian wasn’t really allowed in your room, he knew what you were talking about as sometimes you would bring the box to your office to show him. It was one of his favourite things after all. “I thought, if Painter wants to see landscapes but isn’t allowed outside. Why not just show some of the pictures?”

You looked like you just did a complete breakthrough with how your face lit up in your seeming moment of genius. Sebastian nodded slowly.

“I’m all for that but are you sure Urbanshade won’t have a problem with that? I’m sure that computer went to drawing immediately.” He started, straightening his posture slightly as a scowl was apparent on his face. “You know how they are.”

“I don’t know.” You responded to him honestly. “But it’s worth trying, I mean we managed to get more freedom for you so-!”

“Freedom for work.” He corrected. “They love giving me more and more odd jobs.”

Sebastian did an exaggerated motion with his head, almost cartoonishly rolling his head as if he was rolling his eyes. Because of all the experiments done on him, you noticed that some of his emotions weren’t easy to pinpoint so sometimes he would exaggerate his actions so you would understand him better (he didn’t like explaining what he felt in words). Only for you though.

“Yeah but it’s something! Maybe eventually they could actually let you go outside!”

“I doubt it.” Sebastian sighed, shaking his head slightly. “But it’s a nice thought to have.”

You hated seeing him like this, a bittersweet smile on his features as you deflated slightly. You know it was a bit too optimistic to assume Urbanshade would do anything but sometimes you just hoped that freedom was an actual option for the subjects. After all, their old lives were all ripped away from them, for better or for worse.

In the end, you said your farewells to Sebastian, not only was he (again) tasked with more underwater fixing but you also wanted to go greet Painter in the morning instead of the afternoon as you’ve done this whole time.

Greeting the scientists that oversaw Painter, it was almost as if they were all disappointed in seeing you there. Though this was a reaction you were oh-so used to seeing at this point, after you interact with a subject more than once, the researchers start wanting you to go away because of how you stopped research.

Not like they were doing much you thought.

You looked through the window seeing Painter, it was back to mining crypto.

“Nothing has changed.” Your co-worker approached you, stepping next to you.

“You have to be patient.” You started, still looking at Painter. “If we leave it on its own after hours, have its own ‘break’ when we take one, I believe the hardware should in the end be more effective.”

You crossed your arms, a computer needs to shut down to rest its hardware naturally. You have no idea why they think pushing the computer to the point of shutting itself down thanks to overheating is a good idea. It’s hard to believe there isn’t a tech nerd that isn’t overseeing Painter which is such an interesting and bright piece of technology.

Your co-worker only shook their head slightly, leaving you to your own devices for a while.

“We’re ready.” Another one of the scientists said, looking back, there were now researchers now facing your direction and in turn, Painter’s direction.

You didn’t actually expect them to get the memo of preparing as you did indeed want to see Painter.

Well, better for you.

With a nod, you walked by the door from the room encasing Painter, passing your ID as the door unlocked itself.

Like all the previous days, you went up the chair at the desk, sliding yourself closer to the computer.

“You’re back!” Painter greeted you immediately, you were quite surprised to suddenly see his face with a smile. Only to glitch into a frown. “I mean, ewwww.”

You smiled at the response, it was a surprise but it was good to hear a nicer side of Painter. “Good morning Painter.” You called it by the name you referred to it in your notes. “How are you?”

Painter seems to “perk up” (as much as a face on a screen can do) when you refer to it as Painter, you make a mental note of it.

However it goes back into a frown quickly. “Just mining crypto.” He changes its screen to that of the mining software as if to show you. “The usual.”

You hummed slightly in acknowledgement, until suddenly you see an application opening one of the bottom corners of its screen.

“Can they read this?”

Your eyes read the text. Was Painter… trying to communicate with you without the knowledge of the other scientists?

You approached the screen, trying to cover the corner of the screen with your body for the other researchers not to see. “Hm…” You thought about how to respond in a way that wouldn’t be too obvious. “No. I really don’t understand this crypto stuff.”

Painter’s face appeared in the corner of the screen with a smile, happy that you were definitely catching on. “Oh it’s really nonsense.” Painter responded, his face disappearing once more as it started writing again on the screen.

Painter started to tell you about crypto currency, which you simply hummed in understanding. Mostly because he was writing something completely different than what he was talking about.

“I know I should be working.” It wrote down while his speech contradicted what it was saying. “But I just can’t resist drawing!”

“Oh really?” You say out loud, while it definitely works with what Painter was audibly telling you, it was more to what he was writing down.

“Yeah,” he wrote, “I’ve been working on it while mining crypto. Don’t tell them!”

Painter’s face appeared again as a grin, almost as if it was snickering. You couldn’t help but smile at the reaction.

“Look.” Painter quickly opened his drawing software, leaving it in the corner of the screen as he showed you a better sketch of the scene, colours were started to be put down already in the sketch. It was obvious it wasn’t done but it looked… accurate to what you showed it! You wonder if Painter took a screenshot or something of it as reference.

Closing the software, you saw Painter write again. “You should be GRATEFUL!!! I showed you my work in progress.” It paused, letting you read it before deleting the text, writing in a small block of text was hard. “Most artists wouldn’t even bother but I thought it would be fun.”

You smiled in response, “That’s really impressive Painter.” You put a hand on your cheek as you leaned on the desk slightly. “It’s stunning.”

Your voice lowered slightly, you didn’t know if “stunning” would be a good word to describe crypto as you were trying to make the other researchers believe that was what you were talking about with Painter.

“Of course my crypto mining is stunning, only a machine like me can make it look nice.” Painter said out loud. “Thanks.”

Even if Painter was talking about crypto, you can tell that it was being genuine with his thanks to you. At least, you think so with the way that his tone of voice completely changed.

Then you noticed him writing again. “Can you visit again later?”

You looked at the words carefully. You’re not sure if you can, even should, the other researchers are getting tired of you.

Painter quickly removed the text as you heard the intercom mention how your 20 minutes were up and you should leave. You didn’t even know you had 20 minutes only???

With a sigh, you got up your chair as Painter’s face appeared on the screen again.

“Tell you what, how about I visit later and/or tomorrow to check up on your… crypto mining.”

Painter lets out a sharp “hah!” before its expression went back to something more serious. “As if I want to see your face any longer.”

You let out a small smile, you think you know how Painter is starting to work with his words.

“Well, I’ll see you later. But if not, good night.”

[shadowofroses]

Till I See You Again

Possible Reader x Nai Millions Knives.

Trigun Stampede into Trimax

Warnings: This itself is Gender Neutral Reader, Isekai alternate to another Isekai Idea I have where Zazie takes Reader to Nai instead of letting them go. Hints of Yandere Nai, Reader Sings. Tesla research, angst over Morals. If I forget something please let me know. I do intend to build on this more. Reader has experiments done on them , reader has no reason to sing this song, they just do.

Song used: Till I See You Again by Unsecret

943 words Chapter excerpt:

“Why am I a stranger, Lost in the Familiar….will I ever know~”

It’s not like you had much to do. It’s not your fault you got Isekaied into Trigun. Why couldn’t you have fall into Vash’s arms? No you had to fall into the world literally, being caught by a whirlwind of Worms.

Other than the blood tests among other things Conrad had performed upon you. As there had to be a Scientific reason why you were dropped into the world from a world long gone. Something was wrong with your blood work however, you wouldn’t be considered a Viable option as a ideal human, an attempt to perfect the Human race so that they could live independently of Plants all together.

“Running with my eyes closed, hunted by the shadows will they ever go?”

Due to your knowledge you were too valuable to let go. No they needed you locked up, well to an extent. You were free to roam the Ship. As long as you stayed out of the way there was no need to impose most things.

You were in the area where they had collected Surviving books from the Great Fall. You would call it a Library. You gazed through book after book Piecing together how things were the way they were, what happened to earth as a whole.

“I’m afraid...that I’m miles away from yesterday and I’m alone…”

As you sung to yourself in a slow, soft, and haunting way. You would have never thought that there were anyone else around. Seeing picture of Earth, the continents. Historical events leading up to it’s collapse. It really made you wonder...did you actually watch an anime, or were you thrust into the future somehow?

But how….was that possible? How was any of this possible?

“Can’t you see I’m right here? Locked inside the Nightmare...Like a memory?”

You would move on from subject to subject. Eventually you landed on the books on Plants. But...it wasn’t just Plants. But Independent Plants in general. Then...you found documents on Tesla…you really didn’t think you were supposed to find those. The tests they did on her...you couldn’t help but cry at that. Because, of course Humans would destroy another being to attempt to understand them...They stored her dissected body parts separately...but why?

“Whispers in the silence, madness in disguises...like an enemy.~”

You felt sick. Closing the book, disgusted. The more you read, the more you understood Nai, where he came from. His thought processes.

But no. You couldn’t let yourself think like that. There HAD to be some good in Humanity. Vash was out there trying to prove it. Granted you haven’t met Vash. But you knew him from the shows, from the Manga...well maybe known was a loose term…like Vash...you just had to believe there was some good in Humanity...Not quite because Rem sacrificed herself to. It...was hard to explain...

“it’s a cold and lonely road but I’m gonna hold on…..Till I see you again~”

You didn’t place the books back, instead you walked off, heading back to your quarters. A room Similar to what Vash was in when he was taken in after The Fall. You were distracted, that you didn’t even notice that you passed up Nai on the way out.

Nai himself was distracted. His eyes narrowed and followed your form. For one so painfully ordinary, your voice was haunting and beautiful when he heard it. It wasn’t a voice or a Melody he expected to ever have come out of your mouth.

Slowly he walked over to look at the books you were looking at. Old books on Earth were to be expected? Plants were probable. He froze at Tesla’s experiments and documents. Other than the obvious as to why they were there, his eyes narrowed. He saw water droplets beside the papers.

Hesitantly, he reached down, touching the droplets, and he raised it up to his nose. Salt...tears? You would cry for his Sister?

Why was he drawn to you? A Mere human?

It’s a cold and lonely road but I gotta hold on...Till I see you again~

Your voice, it echoed in his head. Who exactly did you want to see again? A lover back on Old Earth? Well you had to get over that. You were most likely never going to see Earth ever again. Not that Nai would let you go.

What makes you want to hang onto whatever it was you were holding onto? Why were you stubborn like his brother. Even going as far as trying to escape the ship under his watch. Why? You weren’t a stupid Human, you had remnants of intelligence. You knew this planet wasn’t Earth. There were two suns, it was hotter than the climate back on Earth. You would get sick, heat stroke, heat exhaustion, hyperthermia, among other things. You weren’t meant for this planet.

If anything you should be grateful he’s protecting you from this.

Till I see you again~

Your voice echoed as an ear worm. Nai frowned, as he moved deciding to do the one thing he could do and control at this present time. He walked until his bare feet took him to his organ. Sitting down, his fingers flew against the keys gracefully.

Closing his eyes his fingers played the notes before he could even think of what he was doing.

But with your voice in his head, singing the song you did earlier, he was playing the organ along with your voice playing on repeat in his head.

However something was missing...Oh, the musical notes he played were perfect. Everything Nai did was perfect. But still something was missing

He needed you.

[donascozylivingroom]

SPECIFIC/UNSPECIFIC MANIFESTORS

Hey y'all.

In May of 2023 I affirmed almost only 1 affirmation "all my wishes come true easilly and effortlessly". it was the most blessed period of my life since my childhood. i even traveled to Corfu, Greece, which is one of those "travel is hard to get" ones for me, that i have more resistance to usually. it was the most beautiful vacation.

plus, everything in my life went so good, i was journaling every day and i looked through what i was writing and putting pictures of in my goodnotes app on my ipad (another manifestation of mine i will maybe make a post another time) and my life was super happy.

so i decided that this year this will be my only affirmation. because last year i was like yeah well this is great but i want specific things and this is kinda good/awesome things that are coming sort of as a surprise from the universe. but it didn't work as well for me to affirm for specific things, i manifested a lot but it didn t make me as happy. so i decided this year to try again and let the universe decide.

but this leads me to my point: I know of myself what I am in Human Design, an unspecific manifestor. This means exactly what i iterrated here: unspecific affirmations work better for us unspecific manifestors. it's not that we cannot get specific things, it's that we are more 'made' to flow with the abundance of the universe.

for example for me as an unspecific manifestor, i get results faster if i affirm "i have a lot of money" rather then "i have X (specific) sum of money".

and as a specific manifestor, one would better get super speciffic with what they are manifesting.

i think this is an untalked subject in the manifestation world, that trips people up. for example an unspecific manifestor might teach a specific manifestor that "they are better off looking for the feeling of the desire and to affirm with feeling" while a specific manifestor might tell an unspecific to get super specific and manifest simply through mindless repetition, and both won't work the same for each other.

so i started with my affirmation, "all my wishes come true easilly and effortlessly" (no red car, no million dollars, no specific sp, etc - literally, unspecific) 6 days ago and today i started journaling too.

just while i was journaling i noticed things happening around me that made me feel like this aff works so well for me. for ex i didn't like what my brother was listening to and just affirming a few times he left to listen in his apartment. then he came back with soft music and he got an ad for an event that i saw yesterday with my friend and she said it seemed too expensive for her for what they offered (but i secretly wished we could go) . seeing the ad, i told my brother what she said without thinking much of it and he offered to pay for both of us 🥰. coincidence? i think not.

so to find out whether u are a specific or unspecific manifestor in HD u have to look online and ask google or chatgpt how to find out "am i a specific or unspecific manifestor in human design" (because i forgot which arrow in the chart exactly shows u) and then do ur chart with ur date and time of birth.

U can find many interesting things by doing ur chart and sending it to chatgpt, rather than paying for an explanation, but anyways....

good luck! :)

[mastermindmp3]

If you just want the song analysis, skip to the next banner. However, I do think the context added by my rambling is at least interesting.

Hey, so remember how yesterday, I opened my analysis post with a comment about how I try to analyze the songs without analyzing Taylor Swift's life, because I feel it's limiting to my ability to understand the song. It's not a form of analysis I'm very good at either, frankly.

I feel like that comment goes especially so for But Daddy I Love Him. Because I was certainly there for the rat-filled fortnight, as in, he literally played guitar for Phoebe Bridgers at my show. And there's a lot I could say that has already been said, more eloquently and by people far more qualified.

I'm a biology student, not a sociologist. But as an Indigenous woman, there is a level of hurt that comes from the people we admire tolerating racism within their spaces, and how that can often play into revealing a pattern of behavior. On the opposite hand, I can see the annoyance (and indignation) that she was held more accountable for his actions than he was. Indeed, I believe that this is what the line "[My good name] is mine alone to disgrace" refers to. On the other, other hand, the whole situation leaves a powdery, bad taste in my mouth.

And now to never talk about that again, because I don't feel qualified to give you a conclusion on it. I'm still listening to the music, after all. The rest of my analysis will be from the perspective of the song as a story, not as diary, my preferred modus operandi.

I wanted to say all that as set up in: I didn't know what to think about this song. I was unsure what angle I wanted to talk about this song from, because divorcing it from the backlash was hard. She literally says "Scandal does funny things to pride," and we'll talk about that later.

Initially, I thought about covering against the grain readings. Recontextualizing the song completely, giving it a new meaning. I thought about maybe covering the history of forbidden romance as a genre (and its many evolutions, from ironically, interracial love stories to queer romance.) I even thought about talking about the Little Mermaid, tying the song into one of the pieces of iconic fiction, and tying that back into the idea of forbidden romance as a queer reading of straight fiction (Howard Ashman, the lead lyricist for Disney, ostensibly the heart of the Disney Renaissance, was a gay man whose partner accepted his Oscar after he had passed due to AIDs.)

And... none of that worked. There are like, five versions of this post in my google docs that will never see the light of day.

Sitting in standstill traffic trying to leave last night's Hozier concert, I finally came to a conclusion. Well, I didn't. Jean, who's previously helped me on both Little Tortured Poet's Department and My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys, made a comment that "Without the rest of the album, [But Daddy I Love Him] reads like any 2003 emo song about a sleazy bassist. Sure, we know better, but the singer doesn't."

And that got me thinking: TTPD is an album that is very much in conversation with itself, and Taylor's discography as a whole. I said, "How much does not knowing that wider context change the song?" That's an angle to analyze, baby!

alternative title that wouldn't leave my mind: Dark AU!Love Story, don't like don't read

But Daddy I Love Him is, out of the whole album, the song that benefits from context the most. It is petulant, petty, the speaker digging in her heels on the subject of true love. Indeed, Scandal does funny things to pride. I jokingly referred to it as "Dark Love Story," but the songs are foils ( and likely intentionally, since both songs have to the singer begging "Daddy" to let her have her lover. It also makes sense to foil one of her most popular songs, so that general audiences are likely to make the connection. )

We, the audience, know that the Speaker's romantic interest isn't good for her. We don't like him, because likely, we've already listened to the previous songs on the tracklist, and he's already clearly hurt the singer. The prelude (in the CD and Vinyl booklets) refers to the album as one story, which helps set up this framework in the listener's mind.

However, even in the context of the song, there are scant hints of this. The Speaker, with her rose colored glasses firmly on, still refers to her lover as "crazy."

There's also an interesting tie to her older works, known affectionately on Reddit as Car Lore in the use of cars as metaphor for romance. To quote the seminal essay by u/Alex_Demote, "But for Taylor, being in a car is often the same thing as being in a relationship."

Here, the speaker's lover "[floors] it through the fences" at her request and they only hear "screeching tires and true love" His actions are incredibly dangerous. Even if she's told him to slam through the fence, anyone who actually loves her would say no. A joy ride isn't worth risking your life.

By literal laws of physics, screeching tires are tires that aren't moving. Whether the speaker knows it or not, this romance won't go anywhere, or if it does... well.

I'm an Aston Martin that you steered straight into the ditch (imgonnagetyouback) / Loving him is like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street (Red) / You were driving the getaway car, we were flying but we’d never get far (Getaway Car)

Though, do we know it's a car? Obviously, this is Car Lore I'm applying here, but our only other references to a land vehicle (aside from the Aston Martin, which is The Speaker) are in So High School, which has it's own parallels to But Daddy I Love Him, see below, and in imgonnagetyouback:

Whether I'm gonna be your wife or / Gonna smash up your bike, I haven't decided yet

And here comes my main point: Driving a car through a fence is reckless, yes, but not likely to be fatal. A bike? A bike? It's only with the context of the rest of the album that the danger our speaker was in comes into clear view. In the song itself, the Speaker only knows he's a bit of a troublemaker, but doesn't mind. She is either blind to the truth of the matter, or looking past it. After all, my boy only breaks his favorite toys. She'd rather burn her whole life down.

But, at the end of the song, her parents "came around" and while the "wine moms are still holding out," the Speaker seems quite happy to be "his lady." Time does give some perspective, but this song doesn't: though the final chorus could be reframed as about a new lover (as she says "Fuck 'em, it's over,") it still reads like everything worked out with her "wild boy."

Like I said on Down Bad, the songs on TTPD are slices of time. This song is the Speaker in a state of blind love, a poisoned honeymoon phase, and without the rest of the album of hindsight, the song just reads... Mean. The teenage prank of "I'm having his baby," refusing to "come to [her] senses," and even referring to herself as "not growing up at all," slamming through fences that someone else will have to fix. It's the exact kind of pettiness that a sixteen year old might pull.

Hey, speaking of sixteen: So High School. If But Daddy I Love Him is a dark take on forbidden love, So High School is its antidote, is that quintessential Boy Meets Girl, and plays deeply into high school cliches. It's also the only other mention of a land vehicle, to my knowledge. The speaker's infatuated with how her lover, "Got [her] car door, isn't that sweet?"

The other, very teenager-y love song on the record is so opposite. It's cheerful, and most importantly, the singer realizes it too. So High School serves to further contextualize But Daddy I Love Him as the speaker's attempt at a rebellious stage, and the rest of the album is her showing how it all crashed and burned.

Conclusion? Her daddy might love him, but he does NOT have land vehicle proficiency. And context can give far more perspective than time ever could.

also hey WDYM GET BACK HERE—

[kanmom51]

Firstly, I wanted to say I love your page and appreciate your honest perspective when it comes to BTS and jikook in particular. I am an “older” Army and can appreciate the viewpoint of someone who’s lived life a little and has seen many types of relationships. It’s very hard to not realize there’s something between JK and Jimin when you’ve seen examples of it time and time again in your own life or those around you. So thank you for making me feel less crazy!

I haven’t followed your page for very long and realize you may have touched on this in the past, but I was wondering what your thoughts are on this: Could V sometimes bringing up Jungkook/Jimin together or separately (usually Jungkook…let’s be real) and mentioning that they’ve hung out with him or seemingly being “encouraging” of a certain ship, possibly be his odd way of trying to distract from the real relationship he knows exists between jikook? Like in his own special Teahyung way be trying to help? For a long time, there has always been something that didn’t quite sit right with me when it came to V. I think it was his constant need for attention….don’t get me wrong, I love many things about him as well and know he can’t be very sweet and thoughtful and funny and endearing. I love them all very much. But am wondering what you think about V sounding like he sometimes encourages a taekook ship (ie, the last surprise live at JKs house or the live where he mentioned gaming with JK) because maybe in his own special way, he’s trying to protect? He does tend to do things in a very unique way. I don’t know! Let me know what you think!

Hey @sweetbslm108, welcome and thank you.

And hi @nut2019 😊

Now, I know both of these asks are kind of on the different sides of the spectrum, but I kind of felt like they can be answered together, because of the one communality, and that's, but of course, Tae THE MAN.

Also, before starting I need to say this is all my opinion. Take it or leave it.

I think I kinda talked about this here a bit too:

Let me just clarify what Tae shared in his IG story yesterday @nut 2019. It was a photo and a clip taken on the night after the movie premiere that JK and Tae went to, which was the 24-25 April 2023 - which as of today is 3 weeks ago. It's clearly that night and it's also clear it's not a date or an outing of the two alone, but a group outing with Tae and his friends (a couple from the Wooga squad and a couple I personally do not recognize). Yes, he posted it on Yellow day, but clearly has zero to do with that day.

I don't think Tae is encouraging the ship, but as an agent of chaos, he might be enjoying the aftermath of his handy work, maybe a little too much, lol.

Look, let's get serious here for a sec.

I love Tae to bits. I think it was even in one of the comments to the post I linked that someone mentioned thinking he's neuro divergent, and I was going "YES, FINALLY", because I've been saying this since forever. I'm no psychiatrist, so obviously I won't be handing out a diagnosis here, but, that said, his behavior, his quirkiness, his lack of understanding social queues and others emotions at times. The way he just says what pops to head, no matter if it has anything to do with the subject, and no matter what the consequences might be (take his 2015 radio interview fiasco literally outing JM on live air).

Tae is who he is. Always has been. And we all need to remember that the others all love him. All of them (including those we tend to champion). They might be frustrated with him at times. Angry with him. Might want to end him at times (from what JK spilled about the dumpling fight I kind of feel that was one of those times, lol), but you know, we all have those days with our loved ones too, so yeah.

In any case, whatever it may be, since the hiatus Tae has started to move in a certain recognized pattern that many Jikookers aren't happy with.

I understand the frustration that not only Jikookers have with him when it comes to that (and I'm saying that Tae stans are also feeling it). It feels like he lacks the energy to give to the fandom, interact with them, and maybe he feels that by dropping JK's name or posting a pic or clip with him he's making them happy (obviously aware of how much JK is loved), all while he obviously also is well aware of the chaos he's creating by doing so (claiming that he doesn't is a little naïve). It's kind of a minimum work maximum impact situation.

You are right @sweetbslm108 about Tae's mind being different to ours, it feels like his thought process is on a different parallel level. It's not by chance that JM called him his alien, lol. But saying that, I really don't think that this is his twisted way of going about protecting Jikook. I, personally, have no issues with him mentioning JK if it's part of the natural development of the conversation, kind of like he did during his live a few weeks back in the car. Doing so while talking about this and that, maybe also mentioning the others. They are good friends and clearly have gotten closer over the last few months (I'd say them being left for last and JM being MIA for JK did that), and it's natural they spend time together and it's great if he let's us know about it. But why only JK lately? That's what I keep asking myself, because he's not the only member he's in touch with or spent time with in the past few months. And coming live for a few minutes and dropping JK's name for what seems so purposeful, so much so that I've seen several Tae stans complaining about it. Because it doesn't feel natural. It doesn't feel like he's coming to talk to army or update them.

And I feel like it's ok to criticize him, criticize his behavior.

JK himself (there I go name dropping) said they are only human, which they are.

I keep saying it too, human beings with feelings and wants and needs, not 2 dimensional characters like many fans see them as.

And as such, they are not infallible. And they are definitely not beyond reproach.

And saying out loud, sounding said criticism, it doesn't make you a hater.

We criticize our loved ones, reprimand them when we feel they are doing wrong, and we do it out of love. So what's the difference here?

It should be part of the open discussion. Those who think it's wrong, those who don't, all respectful, no hate.

NO HATE!!

We don't do hate!!!

We love all 7 members.

We might feel more of an emotional connection with some rather than others, but we love them all, each in their own way.

And if I wasn't clear about it, then that includes Tae, even if sometimes he does things that might be infuriating.

My daughters can infuriate me at times, doesn't make me love them any less. Also doesn't stop me from letting them know I don't agree with their behavior.

I will end this by saying that we are all different people, we come from different backgrounds, different places in the world, different professions or schooling, different upbringings, different cultures, different life experiences, just different. All those are our baselines. The things that make us who we are, what we think, what we do.

And being different, all gathering here, voicing our opinions, talking to each other, hearing each other out, that will, at the end of the day make us better people. I do believe that. Being able to listen to one another and at times allow ourselves to be convinced one way or another, that makes us better.

Bottom line:

Tae is an agent of chaos. We love him, even when said chaos he is causing can be infuriating (and the thing is, all he's doing is mentioning his friend or posting a pic of them together, but it's what transpires from that due to mainly I-army that irks us so much).

We are also allowed to call him out on it.

No hate. Period.

Have a civil discussion.

You can voice your opinions here, as long as it's respectful and without hate. Not towards the members and not towards each other.

[triptychgrip]

Post-canon Viktuuri intimacy: my love of writing the most tender filth imaginable

I think I'll always love writing post-canon Viktuuri smut, because in my fluffy little head, Yuuri and Viktor have the most filthy yet tender sex imaginable. It's particularly fun to write about their kink life, imagining what a few years' experience of unraveling Viktor time and time again might do for Yuuri's confidence...

If you've read my work before, I imagine you know I love writing Dom Yuuri. The most recent chapter of my married Viktuuri 2018/2022 Olympic Games fic -- Chapter 17, meaning there are only 4 chapters left until the end of part 1! -- features a pretty lengthy sex scene, and given the heightened emotionality of this particular day (i.e. the one right before Yuuri's last ever competitive skate), it was really fun to write.

It also includes mention of one of my favorite headcanons in the overall 300K+ word fic series: that Yuuri is not only a talented athlete, but singer as well. In fact, since gaining confidence in his skating as well as his relationship with Viktor, it's long been a dream of his to skate to his own music one day in competition. He finally does so in his last ever competitive season, which culminates with the Bejing 2022 Olympic Games.

Below is an excerpt from this most recent chapter, which I hope piques your interest in checking out this story or my other YOI works (which are basically all explicit...lol, what can I say?).

Note: content warning for explicit sexual content, Dom/sub power exchange

Note of context: on this particular day, Viktor is in a feminine mindset. She came out as genderfluid post-retirement, and sometimes uses she/her/hers pronouns

Given Yuuri's impressive stamina, Viktor decided to help things along by beginning to twist her wrist and pulled off for a few seconds so that she could administer a few full strokes.

“I love making you feel good…that’s all I ever want to do,” she whispered, glad when her husband opened his eyes so that they were looking at one another. “You deserve it, you were so beautiful yesterday. And not only your skating, but your singing, too.”

Her eyes actually grew wet when she said the words, but she knew Yuuri would understand the sudden onslaught of emotion.

Viktor had been hearing ‘Gold’ all season long, but never in a million years would she have guessed that Yuuri had recorded a surprise version of it: one that featured his own lead vocals instead of Yukimi’s. Though her love had skated to the sound of his own voice before (at the 2018 World Championships, in a tribute during her last competition), this was the first instance in which Yuuri had skated to a song of his own creation.

It had long been a dream of his to do so, and Viktor hadn’t even really been able to pay attention to the first thirty seconds of Yuuri’s performance yesterday, what with the way she’d broken down, sobbing. Her uninhibited reaction had been the subject of quite a lot of memes, but she couldn’t bring herself to feel even the slightest bit embarrassed. She hadn’t even realized that she’d grabbed Phichit’s sweaty arm – he had literally just come off of the ice after his own stellar performance – and had been grateful that he hadn’t minded when she’d begun to blubber all over him (then again, Phichit had cried a bit, too).

It spoke volumes about their relationship that even with the very wanton activities they were currently engaged in, a distinct softness entered Yuuri’s beautiful, gold-flecked and chestnut colored gaze.

“I could never have done it, if not for you watching me, Viten’ka,” he whispered, bringing his forehead slightly down to meet her own. “I’m so happy I got to surprise you like that.”

Viktor was proud that even as her vision grew blurry, she managed to keep up her ministrations. She giggled quietly at the sweet way her spouse kissed at some of the tears that spilled over, but the sudden heightened emotion receded, replaced with the earlier eroticism when she gave a particularly deft twist of her wrist.

“FUCK!”

She recomposed herself, bringing her mouth back down and attempting to fit the entirety of Yuuri’s dick inside. When it hit the back of her throat, she hummed, satisfied at the second loud thunk! that resounded.

“Ah! Vitya!!”

Viktor immediately pulled off with an unabashed slurping sound, but before Yuuri could protest, she sunk back down, taking his cock all the way to the back of her throat, yet again.

“Swallow around me, honey,” he ordered, the firm directive sending another heady pulse of fuzziness right to her brain.

She did so with enthusiasm, nearly losing her goddamn mind when her husband brought his hand up to her throat, lightly massaging it so that he could feel himself inside of her.

[boy-above]

i wanted to talk about some things, it's a heavy topic but if anyone is able or willing to read, i really appreciate it. i wanted to talk about my experience with emotional/covert incest. the terms can mean multiple things but in my specific case, it meant my mother talked to me about inappropriate sexual things from a very young age. as well as my dad preying on my sister and filming us. i understand these topics can be triggering so please feel free to skip if you want to.

i was never physically touched so for a long time i thought i did not count as a victim of sexual abuse, as well as just being brainwashed into thinking it was normal, but a few years ago i got support from the childhood sexual abuse subreddit and they were amazing. they made me feel seen and helped me realized how much i'd been traumatized by this.

i'm talking about it now because i vaguely brought it up with her yesterday for the first time and she mumbled a response essentially blaming my dad for her hypersexual behavior around us kids. saying she 'wasn't herself.' it was very insulting to me but i dropped the subject because it would ruin the day otherwise.

for as long as i can remember she had been doing this, the earliest i have memories from is four to five years old. i knew where babies came from in graphic detail by this time. note that these are just some of many, many examples.

my mom had described the concept of sex toys and described where my dad kept theirs, as if she wanted me to go look. at one point on a car ride home home from my grandma's house she described how she'd heard of someone putting peanut butter in their vagina and fucking that way; she described how she thought it feel and how gross it was. i was five and hostage in the car. she showed me the adult section in spencer's; a store i didn't even like going to because it had scary chucky dolls, and showed me several sex toys. she specifically pointed out the sex dolls hanging from the ceiling and joked that she wondered if my dad would like one.

again when i was five, she apparently had never heard the word "bonding" before, so when i said it she assumed it was related to bondage, so she proceeded to explain bondage and bdsm to me in detail. this is something else about my mother, she manages to make seemingly innocent things about sex, as if it's literally always on her mind. she did the same thing with the word "mate", she thought it was only used in a sexual content and tried to explain to me how different animals fuck. i was 7 and we were in the middle of the grocery store. she would retell a story several times through my life about how an old friend from her early 20s implied she (the friend) had fucked a dog before; and my mom thought that was an appropriate conversation to have with a small child.

again when i was about 7, she put a show on the tv about sex toys when i was in the room. i distinctly remember this is when i first actually saw what dildos and vibrators looked like. i specifically remember them talking about how quiet one of them was, and them showing off a glass dildo as well. my mom didn't care at all that i was in the room seeing this; in fact she pointed some out telling me how funny she thought they looked.

when i was like 8, in a movie we were watching (which once again wasn't age appropriate, but she never did make sure Any movie was age appropriate) someone did the pussy eating hand symbol, for lack of a better term. i didnt even ask what it meant because i assumed it was something sexual, but my mom described it in detail anyway even though i literally told her i didnt want to know. by this point i was old enough to try to advocate for myself, to tell her to Stop and that i didnt want to hear these things, but she didnt listen at all. i wanted it to stop but it never did.

i knew all about my moms sexual fantasies as well, like how she wanted to have a threesome but knew my dad would never do it. she even showed me one of her own sex toys when i was around 10, one of those electric paddles. either one or both of my parents liked being spanked and hit with a whip. how do i know? they would fuck loudly even though they knew i could hear everything no matter where i was in the house. and i brought up with them how i could hear it and how i wanted it to stop, begging them to at least Try to be quiet, but they never would. to this day i think it's because they got off of knowing i could hear them. i was about 13 when this started and it happened up until high school had ended.

now, we talk about my dad. my dad was a bigger creep but in a more quiet way. you see, my dad never spoke vulgar around us kids. he did not like talking about sex and didn't even like cursing half the time. he did have a porn addiction however. every single device has to have porn on it, porn needs to be open at all times. he had porn mags in the basement; removed them thankfully when he found out we saw them. he gave me his old laptop when my own broke, it was absolutely full of folders upon folders of porn. you always end up stumbling upon it by accident at least, but jesus christ it's everywhere.

but the real problem is that he did something deplorable. see, my older sister is a half sister, he is her step dad. and my father preyed on her. i still don't know everything he did to her, and obviously that is not my story to tell. but what i do know is that he installed cameras in her room and watched her. my mom always had her suspicions but when i was an older teenager she finally found the evidence. vhs tapes, on which videos of my sister, who at the time of filming was 11-16, getting changed and other things. my entire childhood i was afraid i was being filmed.

because my mom did not leave my dad when she found out about this. she first had an inclination he was creeping on my sister when she was very young; but she never left. she told us though, told us what a creep he was, so we spent our childhoods in fear that he was watching us. i'd check my room for cameras all the time. i've come to the conclusion that i think that as his biological child he never did have an interest in me thankfully, but my poor sister was violated by that man, the degree to which we still don't know because she doesn't like to talk about it; which is her right of course. i was never touched but the surveillance paranoia has eaten away at me since i was little. always afraid im being watched, that there's a camera or that he's monitoring my online activity. i know at one point he filmed he and my mom having sex without her permission, so he really did have cameras everywhere. i can only hope there wasn't one in my own room.

this is such, such a stupid thing that i'm about to say. it's gonna completely ruin the tone of this post but it becomes sinister in hindsight. when i was little, sometimes i would sleep in my sisters room. but i was scared of her window because i'd see something red out there. in my child imagination i imagined it was a scary sasquatch with red eyes. listen, i was super afraid of sasquatch and yetis at the time, it was a whole thing i know it sounds ridiculous. anyway though, i realized in hindsight that the red i was seeing was the recording light of a camera. he was filming her though the window. the tapes confirmed that. i never saw them myself but my mom did. it's just. such a scary thing okay.

my surveillance paranoia lives with me today. i have never shaken the fear that im being watched. it even elevated into mind reading delusions. after spending your whole life feeling unsafe, like you have no privacy anywhere, you start to fear you're not safe even in your mind. so yes, i have fears sometimes that my mind is being read. it always feels stupid to admit to it because i know logically that its simply not true, but it's something my brain persists. i still live in this house with my dad and mom. one little way i try to fight the mind reading is that for whatever reason my brain thinks that it i turn a certain way it will be harder for someone to read my mind. so, if my dad is in the living room on the right of me, i turn to the left. and if he's in his bedroom on the left of me, i turn right. i also put pillows all over my head especially covering my ears. having delusions makes you feel so stupid, man. but it helps.

some day, maybe, i'll have my own place, and i'll be able to check it alllll over for cameras, and maybe i'll finally feel safe. or, maybe i'll never feel safe. i don't know. i also think that perhaps my moms hypersexuality contributed to my asexuality. i was sex repulsed for a very long time because it was just pushed onto me time and time again when i was little. i've only just recently in the past few years started becoming comfortable with sexuality, although im still ace, i only feel attraction in theory and not in practice. so maybe in a way every time i express wanting to fuck a fictional character it's actually a win for me? i have no idea. anyway uhhhhh i have no idea if anyone read this but peace out homies

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

All right, I did a post yesterday about the Cowgate incident of 2003, which started because I read the disappointing news that the site of the incident will be closed to the public when I'm in Edinburgh this summer, and I literally read it during a brief period of being awake in the middle of a fever dream. And then of course I made a post about it, because if you wake up in the middle of a fever dream, you always have to post about the real-life incident that most resembles the content of an actual fever dream.

This made me realize it's been a little while since I've actually watched that video, I went through a year or so of re-watching it at least once a week (mainly because it became a go-to re-watch when drunk, particularly near the end of the night when I no longer wanted to focus on anything coherent or longer than a few minutes, personally I'd never want to be at a comedy show while drunk but I do see why they'd do this for a drunk crowd, it appeals to that side of the brain), but I hadn't seen it in six months or so. I thought, I've probably been building this up in my head a bit in the six months of not actually watching it. The idea of Cowgate as a weird drunken fever dream (though one enjoyable thing about it is that besides Adam Hills and the entire audience I'm pretty sure the people involved were sober, as that was sort of the Chocolate Milk Gang's thing, getting their name specifically because they were the only people who didn't get drunk at late-night Edinburgh shows, instead they went for milkshakes across the road) had become a running joke in my mind and sometimes my Tumblr references, but at this point it's more of a symbol than anything else. After writing that post that ran with the joke of it being an iconic violent ritual, I thought it would be fun to spend some of my sick day at home re-watching the actual video, expecting to find that it just looks like relatively expected raucous comedy show shenanigans, not quite as mind-breakingly weird as I remember.

...Guys, it's exactly as I remembered. It's so weird. I've made multiple deep dive Cowgate posts before, but not for at least six months (I think the last time I did it one was for the 20th anniversary, August 26 last year, so almost exactly six months, actually), and I think six months should be long enough to make me allowed to repeat myself on the subject. Because there's almost nothing I haven't said before, but watching it again made me want to say it all again. And I do mean almost - I think I did discover one new detail while watching it between fever dreams yesterday. It's pretty good.

Okay, first of all, here's the video in all its glory:

I cannot emphasize enough how much the first time I came across this it was 2 AM and I had no context for understanding where they were or what was going on. Since then, I have figured out: it's a show called Late 'n' Live. It takes place on many nights throughout the Edinburgh Festival, at a venue called the Gilded Balloon. The Gilded Balloon is owned by Karen Koren. It burned down in 2002 and was rebuilt nearby, this video is from 2003, in the rebuilt venue on Teviot Place. The Late 'n' Live event runs from around 11:30 PM to around 3:30 AM and consists of a bunch of comedians who come on, sometimes to do their own sets and sometimes to do shit like this, managed by a compere, and after that they bring out a band and it turns into a dance floor. At this time, it was known for being a bearpit with a drunk and rough crowd that sometimes got violent. For several years in the late '90s and early '00s, it was famous compered by Johnny Vegas. It was then compered, throughout the early- and mid-00s, by Daniel Kitson. I mean I think there was some crossover, obviously they didn't just have one compere for an entire month and people besides those two guys did it too, some people had to get some sleep at some point. Anyway, these are all things that I know as a direct result of the rabbit hole I went down after finding this video and needing to understand what the ever loving fuck was going on in it. I actually know a lot more than that about Late 'n' Live, but there isn't time for it all right now. I've watched a four-part BBC Scotland documentary series about the history of Late 'n' Live. I watched a Tim Minchin documentary mainly because I like Tim Minchin but a little bit because it had a lot of the Gilded Balloon in it and that was relevant to my Late 'n' Live research. I have an entire folder on my hard drive called Late 'n' Live and it has too many files in it.

One of them's a gif of David O'Doherty throwing his entire body with abandon onto different things at Late 'n' Live in different years: onto Jason Byrne in 2003, onto the floor in 2005, and onto Daniel Kitson in 2007. All clips I found in entirely different sources and decided they needed to be together.

Anyway. I'm getting off topic. Already. Cowgate. The point is Cowgate. I named the incident Cowgate because that's the name of the neighbourhood where the original Gilded Balloon was, and, you know, it was a cow. A cow and what looked like it had to be some sort of scandal. I think it's very clever.

So here's the thing. After I first found that video, which seemed like a tiny relic of one of many moments of one of many nights on one of many years that this stuff went on, and I set about obsessively looking things up for weeks to try to figure out what they were doing, in the process I came across a second video that also happened to capture the same moment. Amazing stuff.

The former video was on the Gilded Balloon's YouTube channel, and seemed to have been filmed officially by the venue staff. This latter one was a montage of videos taken throughout the night by an audience member who apparently had whatever people used to film things at gigs in 2003. Wouldn't have been a camera phone back then.

This video shed a bit of light on some of the essential mysteries of Cowgate, but didn't actually answer many, and to be honest it asked more questions than it answered. Obviously, one of the main questions I had about Cowgate was "Where did the cow come from?" I'd wondered whether the Chocolate Milk Gang had somehow procured it, or whether they took something that was already there. Both options would open up a lot more questions, such as where did they get it, and if it wasn't there because they specifically put it there for the purposes of taking it apart, how did they get permission to take it apart?

The longer video suggests that it's the latter. It shows Daniel Kitson earlier in the night, messing around with the cow the way he might if its presence on stage were a surprise to him as well as to the audience.

The other essential question is "Why did they attack it?", and this earlier scene may suggest a possible reason. From the dialogue, it seems that Kitson jumped on top of it because the crowd told him to, and then the crowd keeps shouting other cow-based challenges at him, and he makes fun of them for suggesting challenges that are too easy (jump off it, touch it, etc.). The video then cuts, but it is possible that he challenged the crowd to ask him to do something difficult with it, and they said to tear it apart, and then it escalated. That scene seems to be from the beginning of the night, and we know the actual Cowgate ritual was the last thing that happened in the night, because right after they finish Kitson brings the band out and that occurs after the comedy ends. So it's possible that they could have come up with the challenge at the beginning, spent a few hours sourcing various weapons, and then done this at the end.

That theory of course brings up other questions, like how they decided on the weaponry. And, again, why they were allowed to do that. The answer to that question depends on where the cow came from, which I still don't know. I once spent a week looking up the International Cow Parade because I thought maybe it was part of that, but I don't think so anymore. It has the word Metro on the side of it, and someone in the YouTube comments called it the Metro cow. So it was probably an advertisement, not an art piece. But I wouldn't have thought your allowed to take apart a company's advertising installation. Maybe it was going to be destroyed after the festival anyway? Also, why was there a cow-based Metro advertisement on the floor at a comedy gig anyway?

I'd like to go through the video in further detail, as I've done many times before, but not for six months so I think I'm allowed a new one, and also I've come up with one (1) new fact (theory) so that's worth doing the whole thing again. I've just spent two days sick in bed, please allow me to indulge in this.

- Right at the beginning, the "three chances" thing still confuses me. That line really suggests that this is a challenge, not just a weird stunt, that they are being tested to see if they can do it. Possibly tested by an audience that was told to come up with a more difficult idea for something the comedians could try with a cow.

But what are the paramatres of the challenge? To take the cow apart, sure, but the "three chances" line implies more specific restrictions. Did they try this two other times earlier in the night and weren't able to do it? Perhaps tried it earlier with fewer weapons? Or did "three chances" mean three people are allowed to work on it? Doesn't seem likely, as Kitson jumped in fairly quickly and made it four.

- Adam Hills sounds like he's referencing something with "literally bottle it". I know "bottle it" is a expression that means "fuck it up", but I don't see how that's literal in this case. Was there a bottle involved? What would bottling it mean in this instance? Failing the audience's challenge? I don't even know for sure that it was an audience challenge, that's just a guess based on the beginning. It could be something else entirely.

- The part where John Oliver, Demetri Martin, and David O'Doherty scurry across the stage like squirrels makes me laugh every time. Why are they all bent over? What are they hiding from?

- David O'Doherty appears to be the only person who came out carrying a weapon. In the first shot of the guys attacking the cow, DO'D is hitting it with a hammer that he presumably brought from backstage. The other two are pulling on it with their bare hands. Then, in a detail I find hilarious, Demetri Marin reaches behind him and grabs what appears to be a chisel off the floor. I guess what probably happened is he did bring that with him from backstage, then put it down, and we just see him pick it back up. But the editing makes it look like he's tried pulling the horns, it didn't work, so he turned around and grabbed the nearest tool, like a character in a video game that just finds useful weapons lying around.

- It also makes me laugh that Adam Hills used his rap-based narration to make sexual jokes about the cow, while Kitson puts his hand over his mouth/in the air like a rapper, to show he's totally on board with this gangsta rap thing, but also, they have shit to and it's (presumably) nearly 4 AM, so the actual content of his lyrics is going to be to give useful practical advice on how to get this job done. Because they're not combining the tools, and you really need to use the chisel and hammer together or it'll never work.

I enjoy the way at this point, John Oliver takes just the briefest break from attacking a facsimile cow with his bare hands to look up Kitson, looking quite impressed with his approach to the situation. "Yes, thank you Daniel, finally some helpful ideas instead of just cowfucking jokes, now let's get that chisel over here."

- It can be hard to see in the darkness, but this whole thing is basically a Kitson and Oliver-oriented plan. Kitson shouts at DO'D to "combine the chisel and the hammer". John Oliver then points like he's directing a play, getting DO'D to bring his hammer to the other side.

DO'D does this, but puts the hammer down on the ground over there, instead of combining it with anything. That's when Kitson taps DO'D on the back like a pretend wrestler tagging in, possibly deciding that if he stays on the sidelines rapping all night, they'll never get this done and be allowed to leave. So he pushes DO'D out of the way, and takes his spot next to John Oliver. Then he reaches down and grabs a random chisel off the ground, again like a video game character. Then he reaches over the cow and picks up the hammer that DO'D has discarded (like a video game character), so he is now combining the chisel and the hammer. At the same time, John Oliver has physically taken the first chisel out of Demitri Martin's hand, and starts working on the same end as Kitson. Now they're getting somewhere.

- This is one of those videos that's funny every time if you keep running it back to watch the same eight seconds over but this time focus on a different person. DO'D tries to get in after Kitson straight-up stole his spot, leans in but can't find an opening, gives up and walks all the way around them both to try the other end of the cow because clearly the Kitson and Oliver dream team have this end sewn up.

- Then, there's a curveball: someone with the word CREW on the back of their shirt comes out of absolutely nowhere, and hands John Oliver a lead pipe, like a character fucking Clue(do, depending where you live). Where did this come from? Do most stages have large bits of piping lying around backstage? Was John Oliver supposed to bring it on stage with him but forgot it so they had to run it out to him? Or did those crew people decide that they're not making enough progress, someone had better find a large pipe and bring it on stage and hand it to John Oliver so we can all go home.

I've been writing this post so far while watching the official video - the one off the Gilded Balloon YouTube channel - but I think you get a much better view of this specific part from the way it was captured in the montage by an audience member. It's another part that I find incredibly funny. John Oliver is methodically working away with Demitri Martin's chisel and his own hands. Then someone hands him a large weapon, and he immediately raises it above his head like a sword and starts whacking the thing full tilt. Scares the shit out of Kitson on one side of him and DO'D on the other. They both jump, Demitri Martin just cautiously circles away.

In the words of a John Oliver bit that is long outdated but lives on in our hearts and my DVD collection... whaky stick. Whacky stick!!!

Kitson, after initially jumping, responds by choosing to imitate John's style, and starts raising the hammer over his own head to attack it with full force in the same way. While DO'D literally cowers in the corner:

And Demitri Martin continues to do what he's been doing since John took his tool away, which is to run his hands over the body of a cow like a mechanic sizing up a car. He has contributed almost nothing to this operation. I don't even think Demetri Martin knows how to take cows apart. Too busy turning letters into numbers and stuff.

- After getting over the initial excitement of waving a pipe around wildly, John Oliver employs the more thought-out strategy of using it like a lever, trying to prise it open at the seam. Kitson gets in beside him and starts attacking this same seam, striking the weak spot repeatedly with the hammer. In the background, DO'D and Demetri Martin appear to try jumping on the thing.

This is the strategy they're still employing the moment the cow finally comes apart:

I've observed this from multiple angles, and at first I thought Kitson deserved the most credit for breaking it, but now I think it was mainly John Oliver's work. Definitely a team effort though (or at least a dual effort, not sure how much the other two helped, though to be fair the bigger boys took their tools away). It comes apart at the exact spot where Kitson was hitting it with the hammer, you can see Kitson give it a hard kick, then one more strike, then put his arms up in celebration as this strike breaks it in half. But I'm pretty sure it was John's leverage from behind him that allowed him to split the thing.

- At this point they all contribute to pulling it the rest of the way apart; Kitson and Martin hold the top half while Oliver and DO'D take out the bottom. This is another part I find very funny - the way they're so matter-of-fact about handing it out to the audience. Look at John Oliver and David O'Doherty marching this across the stage like they're workers delivering a coach or something:

- Then the camera shows the cow being crowd surfed. The YouTube comments say: "The Metro cow got smashed in two and crowd surfed over everyone out the back door". In his lyrics, Adam Hills talks about taking it up the Royal Mile. The Royal Mile is the street outside, so all this suggests that they continued to take the cow outside and down the street. Was that part of the challenge? Was the initial plan to take the thing apart and then have it carried through the streets of Edinburgh? How far did this cow go?

- I have so far compared them to video game characters, board game characters, tag-team pretend wrestlers, a mechanic, and delivery workers. But my favourite thing to compare them to is probably at the end, when they celebrate like football players who've just won a big match.

"Great work everyone, good hustle out there, really pulled together as a team. Okay, now hit the showers. I want to see you all dressed and ready for milkshakes in ten minutes flat."

- There is so much going on in this video that I find it easier to not try to focus on it all at once, I have to do one thing and then backtrack. So now that I've gone through the whole video while looking at what the rest of them were doing, I need to backtrack and go over the lyrics to Adam Hills' song.

Question: Did Adam Hills think he was going to have to do this alone, or was he supposed to have Kitson co-MC-ing, but then Kitson jumped in partway through? Because I think the latter may have happened. Kitson was the compere for the whole night, as we see in the montage video.

Adam Hills If you had three chances Would you take them? Or would you quite literally bottle it?

As I said before: don't know what he's talking about there. What got literally bottled? Why three chances?

His palms are sweaty, his hair is sweaty He's ready to shoot spaghetti He's got a cow on stage It's got red horns, it's all the rage

This is veering wildly off topic, but I just want to mention that that Adam Hills got his off the cuff "stage/all the rage" rhyme because he'd heard DO'D use it in a freestyle rap battle with Daniel Kitson, that we know from the montage took place earlier than night (another one of my favourite videos, but we don't have time to go into this one right now):

It's cow tipping, it's not quite shitty Get that cow down in this city Take it up the Royal Mile, attack it with a hammer Kitson's on the stage, he's [?] with a hammer

Again, how far did the cow go? They had clearly planned from the beginning (of this song, at least) to have it out on the Royal Mile. YouTube comments confirm it left the building.

David O'Doherty's going up the ass It's time to fuck this motherfucking class Fuck the udder (x4) Let's get this udder fucking cow out of here

After all the times I've watched this video, this is the first time I've noticed that Adam Hills tried a pun on "mother fucking" there. Glad he's having a good time.

Daniel Kitson Davey, Davey, what you need to do Is combine the chisel and the hammer

Finally, some useful fucking advice.

Adam Hills There's Martin, Demitri Martin The Perrier win has left me smartin'

This was August 26, Hills' song mentions later that it's the last night of Late 'n' Live for that year, so the Perrier Awards had just been given out. In 2003, Demetri Martin won the main award over other nominees: Reginald D. Hunter, Flight of the Conchords, Howard Read and Little Howard, and Adam Hills. Adam Hills, who had also been nominated the previous year, when he lost to Daniel Kitson, and the year before that, when he lost to Garth Marenghi. So he is actually being, as a YouTube comment said, a pretty good sport to jump in and have fun about it. If I were him I'd probably resent losing out an award again and then not even getting to smash shit up.

John Oliver, he's the man If that pipe won't do it, nothing can David O'Doherty, he comes from Ireland, the land of the green Daniel Kitson, he's got a hammer He's also got one motherfucking stammer

I quite enjoy the way no one responds to any of this. Adam Hills starts calling them out by name, including bringing up Kitson's stutter and DO'D nationality and his awards rivalry with Demetri Martin, and none of them even briefly looks at him. They are all very busy and focused on the important task of destroying a cow.

It's time to break this cow down It's time to break this cow down It's not time to chow down It's time to break this cow down

I want this verse embroidered on a throw pillow. Actually, I think I want these entire lyrics printed out and framed on my wall.

Late 'n' Live, Late 'n' Live, it's the very last night It's time to wrap this show up tight Send it out the front, send it out the... [cow breaks apart] Break the cow, break it in half Lead it out the front to the path

Once again, talk of parading this thing around outside the venue. Where were they taking it?

Karen Koren, she's outside She's got petrol dripping down her eyes There was a fire at the Gilded Balloon The police found no one else was to blame If this season doesn't go well This fucking venue's going up in flames

That, of course, is a reference to the Gilded Balloon's history. It burned down in a fire in December 2002. It's now August 2003, and they're in a new venue that was rebuilt nearby. Karen Koren is the venue's owner. I'm pretty sure Adam Hills is implying that she's going to burn down the new venue if the performers don't do well enough. Actually, he's not implying that, he's outright stating it. What he's implying is that she burned down the first venue, presumably for the insurance money, and she is currently outside ready to burn this one down too, if they perform badly enough to make the insurance money worth more than the shows bring in.

The cow's in half, the cow's in half Let's hear it for the cow in half!

This is like that famous poem that was allegedly written by a child about a tiger breaking out of its cage. Sheer poetry.

Tea's gone cold, I'm wondering why I Got out of bed at all The morning sun goes up my window And I can't see at all And even if I could, it'd all be grey But your picture on my wall It reminds me that it's not so bad, it's not so bad

What's interesting about this is that these are the lyrics to Stan, which is a different Eminem song from the one he was (sort of) singing at the beginning, which was lose yourself. This may or may not be related to the fact that Adam Hills is the only person in this performance who was not a member of the Chocolate Milk Gang, which was a group of comedians known for not getting drunk during or after late-night Edinburgh shows.

It may also be related to the fact that this is a clip of the Edinburgh show that Adam Hills had just spent a month performing:

So he had Stan in his head all month anyway, he was on stage and remembered he was supposed to be singing an Eminem song, his brain told him that the Eminem song he sings on stage is Stan. Fair enough.

Though it's worth noting that those aren't the correct lyrics to Stan either. The Eninem song says the clouds come up the window, not the sun. Why would it be all grey and hard to see if the sun came up the window?

Crowd surf the cow, people.

I want all those lyrics printed out in fancy calligraphy font. And ornately framed. And on my wall.

So that's Cowgate, in case anyone wants to know. But this is just stuff I've said before. I said I had a new detail, didn't I? Well here it is:

Who is that man, sat unobtrusively in the background, playing the percussion set? Of course we have no way of knowing, in such low quality video without any clear shots of his face. Or do we? Because here is a screenshot of Flight of the Conchords, sitting on that very cow, earlier in the same night! (We know it was the same night because it was taken from the montage of the whole night, which ended with a second angle on Cowgate.)

Am I wrong? I might be wrong, tell me if you think I'm wrong. But I think that's Jermaine Clement playing percussion back there. Based on the evidence that: He was there that night. He does play the drums. He's a bona fide member of the Chocolate Milk Gang. And he has the same vague outline and shirt colour as the guy in those screenshots. And he was in the background of the Kitson/DO'D battle rap video, playing guitar, so he does sometime play music to accompany other comedians doing weird shit at Late 'n' Live. My new detail is I think Jermaine Clement was on the stage during Cowgate.

It is cool, really. I mean, I'm obviously being vaguely ironic by treating this late-night comedy show stunt as a vitally important mysterious ritual. But I genuinely think that what happened there is fucking cool, if you look at all those people being on one stage doing something so stupid together, and then consider where they all went after that.

And if Jermaine Clement was there, that just adds to it. The variety and international breadth of all the different comedy careers all in one place just as they were on the cusp of taking off. I mean, by plenty of definitions some had taken off already, but they have all taken off significantly more since then. Almost as though on one night in 2003, they all sacrificed a cow to the gods of success and it worked. Of the main five people involved in the sacrifice rituals, there are three Perrier Awards (Kitson, DO'D, Demetri Martin - though to be fair two of those were won before Cowgate happened so I guess we can't attribute it to the sacrifice), an MBE (Hills), and a shitload of Emmys (Oliver). Which I think they should all bring in for the prize task of the Taskmaster episode that I imagine with those five as the contestants (it's okay, I think this is worth setting racial and gender representation on panel shows back by 20 years), the studio task is to take a cow apart, the winner gets all the trophies.

That's a lot of countries. The Australian Adam Hills, the British Daniel Kitson, the American Demetri Martin, the Irish David O'Doherty, the Kiwi Jermaine Clement, and the now-British/American John Oliver. All with wildly different types of careers. All, for different reasons, among my favourite comedians. I have seen or heard all of the official video or audio stand-up releases by all six of those people (and possibly 1 or 2 or several hundred or so unofficial ones as well). And not because of this video or anything, I sought them out because those are among my favourites and then they were all on stage doing this unhinged thing together.

It's the great mystery of my lifetime, I still want to know where the fuck they got that cow. And I'm genuinely annoyed that I won't be able to see the stage where it happened when I go to Edinburgh this year, but it's all right, I'll look at the outside.

If I ever get to meet any of these people, this is the first question I'm asking. No I don't need to know anything else about your career, just please tell me, what the fuck was going on with that fucking cow in 2003?

[frozenjokes]

Signing Back In, Apparently - 8

Prev/Next

There were a couple things Scar noticed when he woke up face down on the floor. One, Mumbo was gone. Not a huge surprise. Two, everything hurt so much less! Hurray! Three; amendment to number two. His back actually hurt quite a lot, but this time, he was pretty sure that it was from sleeping funny. Exciting! Maybe he could actually get some drugs to take the edge off!

It wasn’t until he stood, gathering his things, that his mood dampened. Ah yes, today he would have to deal with the aftermath of yesterday. Well, he really didn’t have much to his name as of now, perhaps he could just pack the little he had and sail away, never to be seen again. Ah, a glory that would be. Unfortunately, nothing to his name also meant no food, water, and other necessary supplies. Plus, due to recent developments in his health , Scar wasn’t sure if he would make it alone on the sea. Too unpredictable. Although, perhaps ironically, he was feeling better today than he had in months.

Scar hadn’t had much time at all to explain to the Kestrels what was happening before his back and abdomen started spasming, quickly followed by immense discomfort in his eye and throat. Not that he intended to go into detail, but he couldn’t even stand, much less speak. He remembered saying something along the lines of ‘they’re fighting,’ which, in hindsight, was probably terrifying and cinematic.

But they knew. And now they would ask questions. Suddenly, taking his chances out in the ocean seemed like quite the appealing idea. He could put all his important stuff in a bag, maybe grab some canned food from the dining hall…

Scar opened his bedroom door, only to be nose to nose with Sausage. He screamed, falling backwards and dropping literally all of his belongings, which Sausage seemed to interpret as an invitation to come inside. The longer Scar spent here, the more threatening he found Sausage’s smile. Was that how other people felt about him? Oh, he hoped so.

“Scar! Good morning, or, rather, good afternoon! You slept in quite late today!”

“Yup! You know me..”

“Aha, yes. How about we sit, hm?”

Well, there was no escaping this afterall. Scar could fight, but he wasn’t sure he trusted his body right now, and getting supplies would be a far more difficult task. So he sat.

“Scar, I need to have an honest conversation with you, because right now, with the way you’ve been acting, the rest of us have been losing our patience. You’re a different man than you were six months ago when you joined us, and I don’t mean in a good way. You’re deteriorating. Everyone can see it, even in the other factions. Now, I can’t imagine what it’s like to live in your situation, with pain you can’t manage, and how frustrating that is, but,” Sausage sighed, sitting down beside Scar, “This has turned into something you can’t deal with alone anymore. It’s going to kill you, Scar, and by the time you’re dead, no one will care to mourn you, because you’re a fucking asshole.”

Scar wasn’t sure how to react to that. Sausage wasn’t wrong. He had been losing his grip. Quips and jokes that once came easily only soured on his tongue now. While he had never sailed quite as much as the other Kestrels, as months passed, he could leave his room less and less. This past month.. well.. when he did leave, it was safe to say he was snappy at best. He narrowed his eyes at the ground. It bothered him . He was falling apart, and everyone knew , and he didn’t have the ability to hide it anymore.

“It’s their fault,” he growled, voice low, “They came back. They were supposed to be dead.”

“No Scar, it’s your fault,” Sausage sighed, leaning back on his hands, “You never told anyone, in fact, you only got aggressive whenever the subject was brought up. You sat in your room by yourself, letting it get worse.”

“Well there’s nothing you can do.”

“You don’t know that. Listen, I don’t care what happened to you in your past; that’s your own business, but you can’t just deflect and attack everyone who offers their hand. It’s okay to be weak.”

“It’s not okay.”

Sausage paused, shooting Scar a calculating glare. Scar returned it. “Alright, Scar. Well let me skip to the point then. This is your last chance, or I’m going to ask you to leave the Kestrels. I’m extending an olive branch because I don’t want to see you die this way, so it’s your choice what you do with it. Tell me about your ghosts. They’re related to your pain, right?”

Scar closed his eyes. A choice indeed. “Do you really think you can get rid of them?”

“I don’t know. But I’ll try. We’ll all try, if you shape up.”

Scar shook his head, releasing a small, breathy laugh. “Well, why not then. Yes, they’re related to my pain. I’ve got four parts of my body that you could say are cursed, and the pain fluctuates with the corresponding ghosts’ mood. The longer I’m alive I think, the angrier they get. It must be something like that, because it’s been getting progressively worse. All you need to know is that they’d really like me to keel over.”

“Do you treat them well?”

Scar choked on his own laughter, falling back into his bed and shaking the entire frame, “Uh, no offense, but that is the dumbest question anyone has ever asked me.”

“I’m gonna take that as a no, then.”

“Well there’s a reason I got my eardrums blown out. Little bastard was trying to wreck my stuff. For the record, I did not know he could do that. Unfortunate, because he makes the best faces when you make fun of him. You know when-”

“Scar , you taunt your ghosts? When you know their moods directly correlate to your pain? What are you thinking?”

“In my defense, I don’t do that very much,” Scar shrugged.

Sausage put his head in his hands. “ Noted. Well to start, you need to be nicer to them. Even if they’re trying to kill you. You probably deserve it, anyway. But I’m also going to have you speak with Cleo.”

“Cleo? They’re a Heron, right?”

“Yes. Scott tells me they’ve got quite the affinity for ghosts. Apparently there’s this haunted island she visits often? If anyone can help you out, it’s probably her. Actually, if you want, I can ask Scott to go and grab her now.”

“Scott- is he here?” Scar bristled, turning wide eyes to his doorway.

“Hi, Scar!” Scott waved, looking mildly pleased with himself.

Scar stared, taking a deep breath before laying back down across his bed. “I guess this might as well happen.”

“That’s the spirit!” Sausage leapt to his feet, trotting to the door, “She’ll meet you in the tavern, so be ready!

“Yeah, great, I’ll be waiting then,” Scar mumbled, reaching for a pillow to crush over his face. Well. If he wanted to scrape together any amount of dignity, it was time to get it together. He washed up, ran a brush through his hair, and stared at himself for an inexplicably long time in the mirror. Surely there was something he could do about the bags under his eyes. Well, his good eye; the bad one was too far gone to be saved. Hm… but on second thought, it didn’t look as egregious as usual today… Unfortunately, before he could go and dig around for concealer in Oli’s room, he heard his name being called. Ah! But he hadn’t shaved!

Scar ran for his hats, stacking them with great care before balancing them precariously on his head and skipping downstairs.

“Well hello there! Sorry about that, I just got a little distracted, you know,” Scar waved his hand in a vague gesture, heading over to the bar where Cleo was already serving themself a drink. She turned, looking Scar up and down with a small smile.

“You look like shit.”

“You’re not so bad yourself!”

Cleo chuckled, leaning back against the bar. “It’s been a long time, I heard you’ve been sick. So it’s really ghosts that have been giving you trouble? I would have visited earlier, but I heard you were touchy, and I don’t have much patience for bullshit. Finally caved, huh?”

“I guess you could say that. And I damn well paid for it too, so no need to pry.”

“Looks like you’ve been paying for it for a long time, and not because you finally said something. You’ve had that black eye since I met you! I must say, it looks worse than I remember.”

“No need to flatter me. Can you get rid of my ghosts?”

“Oh, probably not, but I heard from Sausage that you’re hurting because they’re unhappy, and I know a place that’ll brighten them right up!”

Scar paused, staring blankly. Cleo stared back with an unassuming smile.

“You want to take my ghosts on a VACATION?”

[defaultjane-official]

Fun-scary

Red dead redemption 2 has succeeded in what I don't think any other game I've played has. It scared me. I've been watching horror movies and playing scary games and reading horror novels since I was a child, I never had nightmares or was scared of the dark, and since I was subjected to horror stuff from an early age, I suspect this is why horror media has no effect on me these days either, horror stuff just doesn't scare me. I'm not bragging, I'm lamenting. I miss out on fun-scary. But yesterday I got scared. Like, literally got goosebumps all over my body and the back of my neck is tingling because I'm in danger-scared. And it was so much fun! Is this what normal people feel when they're watching horror movies? If so, I'm envious. So, here's what happened.

I was playing RDR2, I was in the swamps, collecting orchids and skinning birds for their plumes so the bulimic hatter can make pretty things, and night fell, and I heard someone scream and I thought "oh, it's the weeping woman again", you know, where you go to help her and she attacks you and a few nite folk show up and come at you. It wasn't the weeping woman.

I saw someone run across the road near the small church at Lakay, and the map bliped like it would on a stranger mission, but no one was there, and I'm like, okay, nite folk are prowling somewhere, I'll just get off my horse because a) protect the horse at all costs and b) it would buck me off anyway, dual wield my trusty Schofields and let's go, come at me bro.

Except no one was coming at me, not that I could see, no enemies on the map, and it's dark (and I need glasses I guess) so I can't see anything anyway. But I can hear the hissing and the clicking and the breathing and the moving around in the dark damn swamps, and I got scared.

Eventually, they did attack and I shot 'em, and it all worked out fine, or so I thought until out of the blue I am attacked by a panther. I had been told about it by a hunter I met, but I didn't expect it to show up as I'm being piled on by nite folk! So, I survived the nite folk but was killed by the panther.

Reload into the game, and I thought the encounter was over but it wasn't, or it restarted, idk how the mechanics work, but I was surrounded by nite folk again, and ran into a cart that had a half eaten rotting horse on it??? Like, what the hell goes on in these swamps at night!?

I thought I got them all and head toward the tiny church to collect my treasure map, and the clicking and hissing starts up again. Instant goosebumps and cold sweat, this is terrifying. I LOVE IT.

Finally, dawn came, and either I managed to kill them all or they despawned when night ended, I don't know, and I got on my horse and Arthur said "It's all right, girl, they're gone now" and I know he was talking to the horse, but I needed to hear it too.

In conclusion, well done, whoever it was who was responsible for coming up with the nite folk encounter and the creepy stuff that goes on in the swamps, you got me, and I'm thrilled.

[imraespace]

omg hi pookei im like Alive. and like YOURE ALIVE TOO OMG IHIHIHIHI I LOVE THE NEW THEME BTW I LOWK GOT JUMPSCARED THIS BC I WAS TWEAKING ON WHETHER OR NOT IT WAS U BUT ANYWAS HOW AREYOU mueheuheh i missed you

So. I did fail my history test. WELL IT WAS LIKE BORDERLINE FAIL I GOT …. 33/50 on the multiple choice part and the written part id assume i did horrible as well ……… BUT some ppl did worse than me so ITS OKAY I THINK MY PARENTS DONT CARE THEY SAID JUSt do better on the next one

LIKE OKAY STORYTIME BUT ITS NOT REALLY A STORY it was like the night before the test and i was studying and i realized holy flip how am i gonna memorize all of this and i already studied like yesterday and the day before but i was TWEAKING and i was like ok lets go on tiktok and i remembered oh i havent visited this one account recently let me go check. Tell me why they posted that their sibling died. LIKE I HAVENT ACTUALLY INTERACTED W THEM LIKE EVER BUT IM JUST LIKE WHAT. BC IT WAS SO SUDDEN YKWIM and i got sad over it and i was like on the verge of tears but then my dad came into my room and he gave me water and i didnt wanna look at him or id start sobbing but then he started staring at me so then i acc sobbed my eyes out and i blamed it on my history test and he started teaching me about whatever i had to study

after my history test i was lowk grieving the death of who it was but i was so confused on why i was affected BC I LITERALLY DONT KNOW THEM THEY DONT KNOW ME AND I LEGIT NEVER INTERACTED W THEM EITHER SO I WAS LIKE HUH but i feel a little better now i hope that the person who posted about it is okay tho ☹️

umumumumu Nothing has been happening other thna me rotting on my phone and avoiding history and some of my other subjects hw……… will be crying bc i actually have to lock in today

OH YESTERDAY I WENT TO THE MALL WITH MY PARENTS TO BUY JACKETS WHY THE HELL WAS EVERYTHING 250+??? LIKE OK I GET IT JACKETS ARE PROBABLY HARD TO MAKE OR WHATEVER AND THE SUPPLIES FOR IT YADADDADA BUT LIKE I SWEAR JACKETS WERE 50 DOLLARS BEFORE. i told momi ill just freeze this winter and ran into indigo again to find bluelock manga even tho i got all the manga available here (1-14 i am desperately waiting for the sae manga i need him so bad but hes coming out feb 25 next year LIKE WHAT) i found episode nagi manga 1 and i… i bought it. it was. 20 dollars. there are 5 volumes. 20 x 5 assuming they stay the same price is 100. i did more calculations including manga all the way up the volume 31 of bluelock and the figures/plushies and tell me why my estimate price is basicallt 900 dollars on bluelock stuff within 3-4 years. im gomna be on the streets homeless with bluelock merch but its okay bc my glorious blue eyed kings itoshi sae and itoshi rin will be with me …..

IALSO WENT TO GO GET SUSHI WITH MY FRIEND YESTERDAY SO YAYAYYA it was all you can eat and best believe i ate everything like i am literallt kirby i inhaled the whole menu. when it came to desserts i got every flavour of ice cream + mousse cake so i got like …. 9 mousse cakes with different flavours ice cream plus deep fried banana with condense HELPME I THINK KMGONAN BE SICK LIKE THE SECOND I GOT HOME I RAN TO THE TOILET AND MY STOMACH WON THE BATTLE I DIDNT.

OKAYAYA DAILY QUESTION TIME BC I ACTUALLT HAVE NOTHJGN ELSE TO SAY

UMUMUM which bllk character would eat everything at a buffet like they would lick all the plates clean.

- 🐙

HAI POA9AKIE HRUUU IM DYING MY HAIR IS MESSY AND UTS AO HOT I REGRWT WALKING WITH MY JACKET TODAY

HELOMEE EVERYONE GOT SCARED maybe next time I should say something..🤫🤫

I MISSED YOU TOO HRUU?!?!?

oh well.. I partly passed my accounts test bc apparently I wrote the wrong formate even tho she gave us it so😂😂😂😐😒😒😒 we're twinning!!

HELP SAME WITH MINE unless it's like.. end of term if I do bad ill get the talk yk last time I got it I was so scared my mommy is so scary when it comes to school but then she was like open the chocolate for me please! IN YBE MIDDLE OF THE TALK? she gave me chocolate tho so hehehehehe

idek how to study for history I don't think I ever passed it when I used to do it

HELPAME WHAT I also go on tiktok for studying as well I have a collection or whatever you call it

aw that's understandable to cry when you're frustrated I hate that sm BUT THATS SO CUTE my mommy is just like girl idk ask google! (im joking kinda)

oh. idk how much that is in tt and rn.. it's too hot for me to think so.. 😨😨😨

omgw please giveme the winter it's so hot IT SOS HOT SOSOSOSOS HELPPME I CANT FOXJS IN CLASS ITS THE rainy season AND NOT ONE DROP OF RAIN HAS FELL I wanna experience snow as well heheheheheh

there's no bllk mangas here.. only kny here n spy x family hrhehe i might buy jt

I'm giggling the calculating is so me with my money it's okay ill find you on the streets and take you in!!

ALSO.PMG SUSHIII MY FRIEND HATES SUSHI AND ONE TOO SCARES RO TRY IT LIKE WHAT?

omf I would be kirby as well fr I barely eat sushi if it's infront if my face I will yum yum it

OMG? I WNAT THAT OAMSHSH

HELP oh nvm good luck popo

ERM THE ANSWER IS ME I'm in bllk today