#but at the end of the day wendy just like her dumb oblivious little guy

[stanleys-marsh]

stan trying to be more political for wendy in bigger, longer and uncut:

[joyxsoul]

han jisung as ur boyfriend

-lmao there’s so many of these, but here’s another !! (highschool au rlly lol)

-okay, so u two met at school in ur senior year. he was a class clown type, always making jokes, being loud with his friends annoying every one of his teachers along the way.

-bUt, you made him soft !! like the instant he saw you, a little smile was on his face, making his friends (especially his best friend Felix) tease lil jisung, wondering who, or what could have made him this flustered

-i mean, he stopped talking for a full two hours after he saw you, your power

-anyways !!

-you had a couple of classes together, being history and english, and jisung just loved to watch you whenever there was free time between lectures

-it sounds hella creepy (it kinda was), but the way you scrunched your nose when you were concentrated, or your smirk when you finally figured something out or finished a project made his heart jump in his chest

-you were making THE han jisung shut up

-(like i said, your power :3)

-eventually, he grew the courage to talk to you (which included a pep talk from all of his closest friends, making him stand in front of the mirror and scream, “YOU ARE THE SHIT !!”)

-his tactic was to start with a pick-up line, a very classy, “on a scale of one to america, how free are you tonight ?” 

-hyunjin cringed listening to that one, seungmin was sure jisung had blew it and was gonna beat his ass after

-you were a bit surprised; you two weren’t in the same friend group and you hadn’t been seated together at any point

-but you DEFINITELY knew who he was bc who in this school didn’t know his group (a weird combination of crackheads, intellects, and stoners)

-i’ll let you decide who the stoners are in skz ;)

-being as easygoing as you were, you just laughed, responding with “are you from tennessee ? because you’re the only ten i see”

-jisung thought he was going to piss his pants he was so nervous 

-glad that he hadn’t completely ruined his image in front of you, he pulled out the empty chair beside you and struck up a conversation, most likely something related to the substitute asleep at the teacher’s desk

- you guys began to talk more often, working together on various projects, “studying” in the library (all it was was him pointing out random people in a textbook and saying, ‘that’s you’), and sitting together at lunch

-one night, he was facetiming you about homework for your history class. it was probably around 10 pm, and he spent most of the call complaining about how the pizza place messed up his order and gave him pepperoni instead of cheese 

-he had this gray hoodie on; he looked so tired and you constantly fussed over how he should get some more sleep, but he looked so cute in-

-wait did you just call him cute

-you couldn’t lie, jisung was attractive; his almond shaped eyes, his heart shaped mouth, his fluffy long hair, how his nickname was ‘quokka’ due to his face and his personality, how he texted you every morning and night, the way he said your name-

- “y/n ? is something wrong ? stop staring at my face.”

-oh shit you have a crush on han jisung

- “i told you to stop staring !! what, you have a crush on me or something ?” you shook yourself out of it, staring at him through the screen with wide eyes

-he was playing with the strings of his hoodie, his hair being messy with all the times he ran his hand through it. it was a habit you always rolled your eyes at; he’d obviously spend time in the mornings to make it look nice, only for him to ruin in ten minutes into talking about the cold war

-your other friends (wendy and lucas in particular) always teased you about your relationship with jisung

-”DO YOU SEE THOSE PUPPY EYES ?? LOOK AT HIM STARING AT YOU! !”

-”lucas please shut up.”

-but when you did look, jisung was staring at you, his smoothie straw hanging out of his mouth

-you couldn’t help but laugh at how dumb he looked

-and wow, you almost thought you saw his cheeks turn pink when you giggled 

“i know i wasn’t the only one who saw that.” lucas was looking like he was going to cry, wendy just looked fed up

-you didn’t know when your crush on him started. in those seconds of silence where you and jisung were just ogling at each other through the phone camera, you reflected on where it could’ve all gone wrong

-was it the time he held your hand when he was walking you home when an older man got too close for your liking ? or was it the time you were hanging out at his house and he fell asleep on your lap, only to smile in his sleep when you began running your fingers through his hair ? or was it the time when you two went out for boba tea when the waitress said you were a cute couple, only for him to smile and say, “thank you.”

“..y/n ?”

-”jisung, i have a crush on you.”

-silence

-pure silence

-oh my god, you messed everything up. the screen had gone black, you didn’t hear anything. building up your courage, you actually saw that he had hung up the phone, the numbers taunting you. 

-call ended  2:29

-you didn’t know what to do. your body felt numb, all sounds muted. you could only focus on a car passing by, a bird flying against the wind, the soft raindrops against the window.

-what are you supposed to do ? you had just lost the one person who you cared about the most. you two had known each other for a little over two months, but you'd already grown extremely close. you told him everything, he trusted you.

-and you fucked up a perfect, amazing friendship.

-the rain was getting heavier now, but you didn’t mind. it was always comforting to listen to, especially when you felt upset. your parents weren’t home until sunday, and as it was a saturday night, you had plenty of time to cry it out.

-”Y/N !!”

-god, you were going crazy, you swore you just heard jisung’s voice

-”Y/N !! PLEASE LET ME IN ITS RAINING AND I’M TIRED”

-dumbfounded, you looked out your bedroom window to find jisung, still wearing his gray hoodie, a little drenched, with pebbles in his hand

-oh wow he rlly went full rom com with this one

-rushing downstairs, you pulled open the front door, only to be attacked by a hug from jisung, giggling to himself in glee

- “i got here as fast as i could, i need you.” with that, he pressed his lips against yours, still wet from the rain. he smiled into it, letting out a chuckle when you kissed him back. you pulled away quickly though, the blush on your cheeks turning into a full on tomato. jisung pouted, you poking his face as he flushed pink

- “in case you couldn't tell, i like you too. thought it was obvious.” he elbowed you, leading you up to your room while muttering “this isn’t real, this isn’t real”

-”you sleepy ?” you asked, making room for him on the bed. he just nodded, saying the homework could wait

-it was a little past midnight, and all you wanted to do was sleep. you climbed in, turning off all the lights, feeling jisung’s arms snake around your waist. he put his head into your neck, humming a song that wasn't familiar. just feeling his breath on your neck was making you drift off

- “goodnight sunshine, i’ll see you in the morning.” he placed a lazy kiss on your cheek, and drifted off.

-when it came to you two actually dating, no one was surprised (except mark, but he was oblivious at the best of times). the rest of skz couldn’t care less about what you looked like; they all knew how happy you made jisung and really, that’s all that matters

-jisung was always clingy, but dating him made it worse. he was always nearby, wanting to hold your hand, wanting to play with your fingers; basically any excuse to touch you. if you don’t like pda, he would definitely respect that, it made all those moments you shared with him that much more special

-he always had a nickname for you, but ever since you had first met, ‘sunshine’ had stuck. you never knew why, but jisung just thought you glowed, even at 3 pm on a school day or 7 am on a weekend because wow he loves you

-more than anything, he loved when you played with his hair, whether you were just touching it, or running your hands through it

-he might have liked it a bit too much, but uh you were not ready to venture down that path

-jisung would also spray his cologne on all of the hoodies he gave you because he knows how much you love it

-you have SO MANY OF HIS HOODIES IN YOUR HOME

-it’s not funny

-you keep telling him to take them back, but he doesn’t want them ?? “cooties bro. can’t.”

-you aren’t complaining, they’re comfy >:((

-jisung teases the ShiT oUt OF yOU

-like one day you came into class with your friend acting cute in an attempt to steal some of her hot cheetos

-only to have HEADASS just stare at you blankly, exclaiming “you look mentally unstable” while he laughed at you

-this along with doing middle school boy shit

-i’m talking taking your notebook and hiding it in another spot of the classroom, scaring you in the hallway, making you pull worksheets out of his hands while he passed them out

-think of ANYTHING that gives off middle school boy energy, he’s done it

-as annoying as he is

-he loves you. a lot. like, his main goal in your relationship is to make sure you’re happy with him, that you aren’t going to leave him because he isn’t putting the effort in

-you keep assuring him you love him, that you’d never do that to him. but no matter how many times he nods, or smiles

-there’s uncertainty in his eyes. because of that, he always assures you how beautiful you are, stays up all night if he has to when you pull an all nighter to study, gives you all the hoodies he can provide

-not only because he feels like he has to, but he’d do anything to see you happy; no matter how tired he feels 

-it breaks his heart to see you upset

-one day, you had gotten a test back while hanging out at jisung’s house, trying to help him study. you opened your score and your heart dropped. a 59%. that’s the worst you’d ever done. you had stayed up multiple nights to study, putting off your own personal needs in order to success

-it wasn’t enough. and that hurt

-jisung saw you start to cry and he  f r e a k e d

-oh god, his precious sunshine was crying and he didn’t know what to do

-he fumbled for a bit, saying, “it’s going to be okay !! it’s just one grade !!” only for you to cry harder and him to freak out even more

-eventually, he just hugged you from behind, laying you down on the couch. you were shaking so bad and it was making jisung tear up; he really hated seeing you like this 

-he knew talking wouldn't help, so he let you cry, wiping away your tears and rubbing small circles into your back. 

-”you’re okay sunshine, just hold onto me.” you always thought you didn’t deserve someone like him. someone so loving, so supportive. 

-but you love him. you’ve never loved someone like him; how dumb he sounded but always gave the best advice, always teasing you at any time during the day but shows up in front of your door with flowers just because

-and so when he sings “i smile” while caressing your cheek, you know there’s no place you’d rather be. in his arms, the vibration of his voice lulling you to sleep and just how warm he was

-and when you got to see him perform with the rest of his rapping group, your eyes just couldn’t leave him. his charisma, his confidence, how he’d always wink at you when he spotted you in the crowd. he was truly ethereal there, almost angelic in whatever he wore, because look at him

-almost nothing was better than seeing him backstage after a show to see him; him smirking when he’d pull you into his arms still sweaty when he’d whisper “missed you babydoll”

-no matter how much he’d nag you for staying up too late and not putting enough time into yourself, and no matter how much you’d nag him for not eating enough, you wouldn’t trade each other for the moon and all of her stars

-if soulmates existed, you were lucky enough to find yours in a shitty high school at 9:40 a.m. with a cheesy pick-up line

-but you wouldn’t have it any other way

AGHHHHH i really hope everyone liked this ?? ugh, it feels so rushed, but it’s really late here, so i hope i did sungie justice :((

[textales]

“The Kid is Hot Tonight.”

One of my best friends in Junior High was a girl named Sam. Her mom was the first female Top-40 Disk Jockey in Montana, and the reason I got into the radio business.  

Back then AM still ruled the air – even if it was in mono and all crackly.  The FM band was obscure - saved for nerdy technocrats who smoked pipe tobacco and hung out at the library…or worse, Radio Shack!   Even though it was in stereo and superior in sound quality, FM was not yet as popular as AM. Most FM stations ran in automation, playing boring lectures from some college, or “beautiful music” suitable for any elevator.  AM was fun and live and fantastically phenomenal.  The kind of radio that came standard in every car, AM was the real deal.  And Wendi Carpenter rocked afternoon drive on 1450 KQDI, entertaining countless central Montana listeners hungry for anything other than country.    

Most days after school, Sam and I would stop at “the station” while her mother was on the air, to scoop-up free records and kill a little time hanging out with the other DJs.

“Early Adopters”

Record labels sent music to radio DJs everywhere.  Even stations in places like Montana were great for launching new artists…and hungry programmers looking to make their mark would take the suggestions of record reps by adding new songs to the playlist.  If the new song sold more than 500,000 units, those “early adopter” radio DJs would get their name and the station call-letters engraved on a plaque with a gold record, mounted in a fancy frame to hang as a brag piece.  

One breezy afternoon in the early eighties, Sam and I were hanging out at KQDI when the Music Director told us “This band will never go anywhere,” and carelessly flipped a 12” vinyl record at me.  I wasn’t sure if he was joking – but who cares if he was, it was cool to have a first pressing of a record with a stamp that said: “Promotional Use Only – Not for Resale.”

Little did we know in just a few months that Loverboy would become a big deal, and soon I’d be making a trip with my neighbor to see them play live.

“Working for the Weekend”

As neighbors go, Don was the coolest guy on the block.  Not only did he have two of the greatest classic cars ever built (a red and black Chevy Chevelle AND a pretty blue Shelby Mustang 350 GT), but he was also a huge music fan with the biggest record collection and the nicest stereo on the North Side.  His wife Judy was stunningly pretty and they were a model couple, making all the right choices like buying a home and saving for retirement starting in their early 20s.  

Don was a bit of a purist when it came to music.  He had strong opinions about music videos that played on the new cable channel called MTV…he found most of them fake and cheesy - he just wanted to see the musicians play. He also preferred vinyl LP records to the synthetic sounds of the new Compact Disks which were just barely making their way onto the scene.  

I didn’t expect Don to give a shit about Loverboy – they were hardly a “real” rock band like Foreigner or Boston or Journey – so I was surprised when he invited me to go see them when they came to a college town nearby.  

Because I was just 17 we had to promise my dad that Don would make sure I’d behave.  Oh sure, I assumed Don would sneak a beer or two my way (and there’d be no need to bother my father with that detail!) but I was stopped like a deer in the headlights when he asked if I would mind if he smoked a joint.

At that moment I learned that he and Judy smoked pot.  It didn’t bother me that he might want to imbibe in what has been considered essential for almost any concert-goer since the 1960s.  What bothered me was the fact that I hadn’t even thought about it.  

By no means did I think less of them for this – hell, lots of people smoke pot – I just felt like a fool for being so incredibly naïve for not even considering it.

Now that I look back, I wonder if there were other secrets.  What else didn’t I know?  

“The Feedlot” served gargantuan sub-style sandwiches using whole loaves of bread.  I worked there for a stint between radio gigs.  As high-school jobs go, this was so much better than actually having to make the stuff - I just delivered it using one of two company cars….a 1978 Chevy Chevette or a brand-new 1981 Mercury Lynx.  I got paid to drive around?  How cool was that?!

The manager thought it was cute that some of the regular customers would specifically request me as their delivery person – they wanted “the cute blond one” and she obliged.  

Two big burly truck-driver guys who lived on Bootlegger Trail were particularly fond of me. I can’t remember their names, but they were always having parties and seemed so very happy and friendly. They’d invite me to stick around for a beer or a Coke.  I would routinely turn them down - I had to get back to the Feedlot.  I was on the clock after all, and my employer should get full value for the $3.35 an hour she was paying me.  

Although they were “old” and lived in a trailer, (they were maybe in their twenties, it was a double-wide with full skirting and a tip-out), they were clean and smelled good and were always so very nice.  They paid by check (everywhere still took checks back then), and they tipped well – very well, in fact. The tip for a five minute drive to deliver a sandwich in a paper bag was more than I made in an hour on minimum wage.  My goodness, they were generous.

I remember their checks were so weird – not the blue or yellow “safety paper” most people got for free with their account at Northwestern Bank – theirs were “personalized” – printed with the Strawberry Shortcake cartoon character.  

Strawberry Shortcake?  WTH?   That seemed kind of strange.  And I remember how they would say “Bye” with an unusual inflection.   It made no sense at the time because I didn’t realize they were dropping heavy hints and hitting on me. Hmmm…maybe they knew I was gay – I know I sure didn’t.  And what else didn’t I know?

Hindsight is 20/20…and looking back I realize there were so many other times that I was so very oblivious. Like when I would surprise guys who were “entertaining” in their rooms at the all-male barracks on Malmstrom Air Force Base. This was a decade before “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell” made being gay in the armed forces passable.  

“Oh, duh, THAT’s what they were doing!”  NO WONDER it took them so long to answer the door.  You’d think they’d be expecting me – although the wait-time on a sandwich is hardly that of a pizza.  Maybe they wanted to be interrupted? 

Huh. What else didn’t I know?

Naiveté has its place, mostly to serve and protect the innocent.  Although I usually got A’s and I considered myself fairly witty and articulate, I was completely naïve.  I was guilty of being “wholesome,” and my selective attention wasn’t at all finely tuned.  Or, on the other hand, my selective attention WAS finely tuned, with a filter added to keep out the unsavory thoughts I was consciously trying to avoid.  

In the early 1980s a new disease called AIDS was killing everyone in its path. However devastating, this “gay plague” was an epidemic confined to places far away, where homosexuals congregated in bars and bath houses and did unspeakable things in the dark.  Although gay men in big cities were dropping like flies, Montana was safe.  We didn’t have “those people,” and those places where unthinkable things occurred didn’t exist in Big Sky Country.

I got why people were scared shitless, and a majority equated being gay and having AIDS as an automatic given.  Misconceptions, myths and hysteria were rampant.  Victims were treated like lepers. Some feared you could get AIDS simply by being close to someone or kissing or hugging them.  

Most who had this opinion were essentially just naïve and innocent.  But the gleefully, willfully ignorant were the most troubling - often expressing their fear as “god’s wrath.”  Not surprisingly, many in this crowd also refused to believe Liberace was gay – go figure.

Hall & Oates sang: “Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid” and Ronald Reagan took the hint. The President said absolutely nothing about AIDS until 1987, near the end of his second term and years after his friend Rock Hudson had died from the disease.  At that point in the U.S., over 36,000 people were diagnosed with AIDS and over 26,000 people had died from it.  Montana was barely a bleep on the radar and it was still easy enough for the general public (and even the medical community) to avoid the issue for years.  “Not in my backyard” was a common sentiment.

Throughout most of the 80s and 90s nobody in Montana knew anyone with HIV or AIDS and if they did they wouldn’t tell you for fear of being shunned from their church or social group…or worse, being fired from their job or attacked by the gleefully, willfully ignorant.  Even doctors were dumb – my stepmother had a nurse friend who worked for a MD who threatened to fire her because her son had AIDS.  

For the longest time I was able to say “not a single person in my friends and family circle has been affected by AIDS.”  This was remarkable given that I had moved to a “real city” and was an open member of the very community in crisis hit hardest by the epidemic.

But hardly better than the gleefully, willfully ignorant, I had a self-righteous, cavalier attitude and figured I knew all I needed to know.  I wore my “garbage bags” and knew to never get in a situation of risk.  “I’ll just keep myself safe and sanitized and won’t have to learn anything about this unsavory thing.”  Even though I gave money to various AIDS and HIV charities, I separated myself from “those people” and wore a protective coating to prevent me from getting too close.  I still had tons of fun, knowing the rubber sheath would keep me safe, but I wouldn’t let love in or out…not in any way.  Figuratively or literally…emotionally or physically.  “Not in my backyard.”  

My personal “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell” approach on HIV and AIDS worked until 1990 when my roommate Robert tested positive, and I was forced to pull my head out of the sand.  I was not going to let myself become a victim of fear and ignorance, so I told myself I best learn about this shit and what to do about it.  I loved Robert and wanted to do everything I could to keep him alive.  My self-righteous stance had softened.

What else didn’t I know?  I discovered having an open mind and open dialog gave me the courage to reach out to people I’d been shutting out, including my high-school best friend Ross. My buddy, Buddy, with whom I had a one night encounter in college, had come out of the closet and announced his status, and others I knew were starting to surface.  Although I was no longer able to say “Nobody in my life is affected by AIDS,” I was happy to kill that willful ignorance that was getting in my way of loving people.  I let curiosity have a place at the table, right next to security. I started asking more questions. Not that I became obsessed, I just wanted to stop being scared to death.  I refused to let hate and fear win over love and understanding.

It was a sad story two decades later when I learned that Don and Judy both died from AIDS. I heard he got it by a blood transfusion and unknowingly infected his wife.  They died at home, both frail shadows of their once vibrant selves.  Many friends and family volunteered with home hospice, trying to make the torture tolerable.  They left behind two teenage kids…I can only imagine the emotional torture they had to endure with not one but both parents dying, made worse by bullying school kids mocking and making fun.

Somehow it was supposed to make it more palatable that the source of the infection was not self-induced but completely beyond their control.  “Good lord, it’s not like they got this by having sex or doing drugs!”  They were innocent and deserved no shame or blame.

Yet there was a shroud of secrecy.  Nobody was supposed to know.  If Don got AIDS from a blood transfusion beyond anyone’s control, why all the shame and silent treatment?  What else didn’t I know?  And why do I care?  Am I as bad as those so called Christians who want so badly to assign blame and often end-up showering the victim in shame?  I can hear them now: “You reap what you sow.“ “Play with fire and get burned.”  Blah blah blah.  

It was easy for me to have such a callous curiosity from a big city thousands of miles away.  My job or reputation wasn’t at stake and my life wasn’t under the sharp scrutiny of the terrified in a small town where even just talking about sex was taboo.

Don wasn’t naïve and clueless, was he?  Even though he was straight and a “guy’s guy,” I had no difficulty imagining a “what if” scenario.   WHAT IF he had been at the wrong place at the wrong time?  WHAT IF at a concert in Seattle or Calgary he smoked a little too much pot and drank too much?  Maybe he stumbled into the wrong crowd who took advantage of his innocence, or worse, if he was coerced into something he didn’t want to do and by then it was too late?   WHAT IF that was me instead of Don?  

I only recently learned that in his dying days Don sequestered himself to a room in his garage in a self-induced quarantine.  I wish I had been around to ask why….was it to protect himself from the outside world or it from him?  And I’d like to think I would have had the guts to face my own fear and spend time with him talking about classic cars and music.  But as much as I want to figure it out, I’ll have to be satisfied with a “You’ll never know” when asking “What else didn’t I know?”

It happened almost overnight: FM became the preferred band for radio listeners. The sound quality was infinitely better and in stereo, after all.  And by the ‘90s every car had an FM radio that came standard from the factory at no additional cost.   Program directors started putting more time and attention to programming their FM stations, and the AM signals were the ones left for automation and a disintegrating audience share.  

In the next decade medical science had revolutionized treatment making HIV something people live with by taking just a pill a day. And now Prep offers what is essentially a vaccine against HIV.  

It would be great if we could restore humans like we restore cars.  It would be great to have some of those classics back in our lives.  And it’s so unfortunate that so many who passed were essentially victims of bad timing – I’m fairly certain they’d still be alive if they got their HIV in this current era.  

Ross, Robert, Buddy, Don and Judy.  It didn’t matter how they got AIDS and died….they were all victims.  Unfortunately, none of them got a gold record to hang on their wall for being “early adopters.”      

What else didn’t I know? Too much to write…but one thing I did eventually figure out: whether the injection was by needle or by penis, knowing how it happened didn’t make the pain and suffering any easier for anyone.