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bunni-teeth81 · 4 years ago

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Slender bros rewritten by me

Cause I want character development

(This is mostly Offender, trender, and Splendor. Also if you like Slendey/slender dad you might not wanna read this cause I do not make him a good guy in the slightest)

Possible tw for mention sexual assault, pedolophilia, necrophilia, and zoophilia!

To start off, Offender is not a rapist, he isn’t a pedo, and he doesn’t fuck animals

He doesn’t do anything without consent, plain and simple. Him being all those things was a rumor started by someone he fucked in the past who got caught cheating. They said Offender forced them and the rumors have escalated since with his legend.

He actively avoids children cause he doesn’t like them. So he literally couldn’t be a pedo.

He doesn’t hate kids, he just prefers to not be around them.

He won’t fuck someone with kids unless the kids are out of the house and somewhere safe.

He’s wary about fucking 18 and 19 year olds and usually doesn’t

Occasionally if he sees a kid sad while he’s on a walk or whatever he’ll give them some daisies or something. Though they kinda just appear near the kid. He doesn’t actually go near them.

Though he will fuck old people. He has no problem with that. But he will go gentler cause they’re frail

He likes animals, but not like that. Like.. ew

He has a kind of respect for the dead, even people he’s killed to eat, so he’d never do that. Also it goes back to the consent thing. They can’t consent so he ain’t gonna fuck them.

He’s pansexual.

He’s very kinky, obviously. He’s willing to do pretty much anything in bed

He prefers to top but he has no problem being pegged-

Has tried every drug there is.

Usually just sticks to weed, alcohol, crack, shrooms, and the occasional LSD

Bath salts fucked him up majorly and he will never do them again.

He works for trender, who has a whole ass company (will be touched on later)

He helps trender make clothes for more alt styles (punk, grunge, goth, emo, all that good stuff) and he helps with lingerie (masc and fem. trender makes both. Offender tests it out and gives feedback on what could be added or changed)

He also finds models for Trender (there’s really no qualifications to be a model, you kinda just have to want to be one. Trender, his assistants, and other models will help fill new models in. And they never have to wear something they don’t want or pose a way that makes them uncomfortable. also theres do discrimination when it comes to models, any one of any race, body type, gender (or lack there of), sexuality, and age to an extent (depending on the clothes being modeled and (if parent permission is needed if they get it)) are welcome)

He also does side jobs like art (he does realistic art) plays piano or violin for songs, every so often he’ll join a strip club. Definitely has an OF.

He learned piano from his dad. Their dad made them all learn piano. His dad was very against him learning violin but his mother let him learn it (she knew how to play)

Their parents kept them pretty reserved from the rest of the world (particularly humans) for safety reasons. The brothers didn’t find out they were the only ones of their kind till they were like teens and went hunting for the first time.

Their parents suddenly disappeared when they were teens. They still haven’t found them and have no idea what happened to them.

Zalgo killed them cause the dad was constantly fighting him, so was the mom but less so.

There were originally 5 brothers, but one got murdered (It was Tenderman. Who wouldve been the oldest, then slender, offender and trender are twins, then splendor)

They don’t know how tender was murdered. All they know is they can be murdered. They still haven’t figured out how tho.

They do know that they can regenerate any part of their body (teeth and nails grow back almost instantly, limbs take longer, they can just put their head where it should be and the bone, muscle, skin, tissue and all that will pull back together, skin can either regenerate in about an hour or two or a couple days depending on the size of the wound. Their organs can regenerate but it takes like a month.)

Drugs don’t effect them the same way they do us. Our massive hangovers that put us out of commission is what happens after they do LSD. A regular hangover for us is what happens when they do coke or a drink shit ton of alcohol.

Offender has the highest tolerance, then it’s trender, splendor, and Slender has the lowest cause he hasn’t done drugs.

Splendor has tried them but doesn’t like doing them. He doesn’t drink much either.

Trender will do them every so often, usually with Offender. He either drinks or smokes a blunt usually. Shrooms are for special occasions, and LSD gives him major anxiety so he doesn’t do it.

Trender and Offender were the only ones to try bath salts. They don’t know what happened. Splendor says they disappeared for a month and murdered a shit ton of people. They almost got caught. And at some point Offender ate a whole ass headstone and took a chunk out of a mausoleum

Slender hunts whenever the hell he wants, he doesn’t care about being caught

Offender hunts every couple of months or so

Trender hunts about 2 times a year. He spreads out his food pretty evenly

Splendor hates hunting and usually Offender or Trender will do it for them. They’ll maybe hunt once a year.

Human food to them is like sweets to us. They can’t live off it but it’ll keep them from starving. If they don’t eat human for about 3-4 years they’ll start to starve, but the process is slow and would probably take a while to actually kill them

Trender, Splendor, and Offender try not to get caught or make suspicions rise. They just wanna live their lives.

The amount of people they consume and how long they stay in their human form determines their power levels.

Slender is the most powerful, then Splendor, Offender, and Trender is the least powerful (but they’re all still mega powerful)

Slender is never in his human form and consumes humans whenever he wants so he has nothing holding back his power

Splendor may not eat human much but they’re rarely ever in his human form. And if they are it’s not for more than an hour usually

Offender is in his human form about 50% of the time. He’s in his normal form at home or hunting and any other time he’s human so-

Trender is in his human form like 90% of the time since he spends most of his time at work (he’s a workaholic to the highest extent. When it becomes really bad is when Offender will step in and be like “hey let’s grab a drink and chill out”)

Offender and Slender’s relationship is like Raph and Leo’s from tmnt if their relationship was genuine hatred and violent

Splendor tries to med their relationship and makes times where they all hang out and have dinner together but to no avail

This is the only time Slender can be seen in his human form. He doesn’t want to go but for some reason he does

Slender is stuck in his ways

Their dad hated humans with a passion, and Slender looked up to their father and wanted to be exactly like him so the hatred rubbed off

Slender blames humans for his parents disappearing and Tender’s death. Tender was the brother he bonded with the most

Splendor used to be a really emotional kid and their father hated that so now they bottle up everything

Their mother tried to help as best she could

V support

Trender’s company is a fashion company that produces just about everything

And the sizes go up to 4 or 5 x

And the prices are reasonable and don’t go up with the size

Trender really doesn’t give to shits about money. If he could he’d just give everything he makes away but unfortunately he needs some money to produce what he makes.

He makes kids clothing, teens clothing, adults clothing in every aesthetic you can think of. Rarely will you see basic shit from him

He makes jewelry (real and fake (for the kiddies) and specifies very obviously which is which so someone doesn’t accidentally buy the wrong one)

He makes shoes!

His prices are usually around 10-25 dollars for clothing, sometimes 30 if it’s a specific brand (like Gorillaz or something. He doesn’t work with brands like Victoria secret, brands that have sweat shops, things like that. He doesn’t support them whatsoever)

His business is huge but he always listens to the people and tries to improve. And all his products are made ethically. He tries in every way possible to produce good products without polluting the earth more

Splendor usually only hangs around babies-young adults. They help them through rough home lives, trauma, and helps them find joy. They do everything they can to make them feel better

Splendor is the one who takes care of Sally. And they feels incredibly guilty for not being able to stop what happened to her, or punish her uncle himself.

Animals and mystical creatures are drawn to them and their home. They go to it for shelter and safety, as well as some food. But because Splendor isn’t always there they have a nymph friend there to look after everything.

Slenderman is the only one with proxies

Splendor is demisexual and bi, leaning towards men

Trender is queer and demisexual/demiromantic

Slender doesn’t love anything. Ever.

Trender gets annoyed easily but rarely ever gets pissed pissed (like original face altering pissed) if he does it’s either cause someone did something to his brothers or his models. And the unfortunate soul who did such will never be seen again afterwards

Offender doesn’t really get pissed pissed cause he usually either bottles it up or makes a joke out of it. It’s really only if something happens to his brothers that he gets pissed pissed.

Splendor has a list of people they wish they could rip to shreds. All of them parents. But they don’t want to do that to the children. They only intervenes and gets pissed pissed when the abuse gets physical or sexual. When it’s physically they’ll give the parent one change to never do that again. They’ll scare the shit outta them but won’t hurt them. If it’s sexual they kill them. Plain and simple.

Splendor started wearing pokadots to make the kids happy. Trender hates the suit but doesn’t comment usually

Splendor’s black hands are a skin disease their species can have. The skin is black and kinda ridged.

Splendor wears gloves because of their skin disease. the blood stains and they can’t get it out. Also they’re very insecure about their disease

Splendor put the bells on their tendrils so their movements didn’t scare the kids. They would always know when he was moving and where he was moving to so they’d be more comfortable. It was painful but it was worth it

Slender was in the woods when he was younger and almost got attacked by humans, but his mother came and saved him. (Her tendrils could be used as a shield)

Eden is not related to the brothers.

But eden looks a lot like their mother, so much so that Spendor legitimately mistakes her for their mother.

Slender’s human name is John (splendor had to come up with it on the spot leave them be)

Offender’s human name is Dimitri and I’ll die on this hill

Splendor’s human name is Faer

Trender’s human name is Quael

They can change their physical appearance to be fem or masc. like their body can change.

Slender doesn’t give two shits about pronouns

Offender doesn’t care but he/they/xem works

Trender goes by he/him

Splendor goes by they/them

(Im including Slenderwoman now so uh... 🤷)

Her hair is her tendrils.

She’s not part of the Slender bro family nor does she know they exist (though eventually she will. She’s way younger than them so)

✨Lesbian✨

Has met Slenderman tho. She hates him

Like genuinely hates his guts

She hates almost sharing a name with him.

Prefers to go by her human name; Eden

As long as you don’t use the pronouns he/him she doesn’t care.

She just kinda... appeared at the ripe age of 4? (She doesn’t remember anything past 4 so that’s what if feels like to her.)

Splendor is a switch and you can’t change my mind

Trender is also a switch

Slender doesn’t get any cause he’d kill them, purposely or not, being radioactive and all.

Eden is a top but can bottom is convinced

Offender, Splendor, Trender, and Eden can all control their radiation output so they can glitch tech when they chose and won’t hurt anyone

Slender could but doesn’t want to 🤷

They can be killed by their hearts getting impaled. The reason they don’t know that is because the skin will heal, but the heart can’t.

Offenderman’s real name isn’t Offenderman. That name was dubbed to him when people believed the rumors of him. But he kept it. He can’t really explain why but he did. And now he forgets it’s not his real name sometimes. Though he does prefer to go by Offender/Smexy.

Splendor calls him Offendy and he’s the only one allowed to do so

Trended has four arms, plus his tendrils. He can hide his second pair of arms like his tendrils but it takes energy

Getting their limbs/tendrils cut off only stings to them. They’re only in full on pain when their organs are involved

Eden’s blood has healing properties.

Someone can be turned immortal by being injected with one of the brother’s (or Eden’s) blood in large amounts. It’s extremely painful though.

Doing it slowly can ease the pain, so doing it over a week’s time nonstop will get the job done.

The injected person will be very weak after it for a couple days. A week. 2 weeks in worse cases.

The only one who’s done this is Splendor. They were dating a guy for a very long time and they told him about the procedure and he wanted it. After gaining back his strength he left Splendor. They’re not entirely over this even though it happened a long time ago.

They (mainly Offender and Trender) had to track him down and kill him. (Ya know, heart stuff)

That’s when they figured that’s probably how they could get murdered

#slenderverse #slenderman #offenderman #trenderman #splendorman #Creepypasta #creepypasta headcanon #slenderverse headcanons #stars slenderverse

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the-cookie-of-doom · 3 years ago

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Vampire Mitch/Bloodwhore Stiles; putting it under a cut with warnings for like. Everything lol (but mainly some mentioned self-harm and dub-con in a few spots. And also it’s like 3k long)

The general set up is this: Mitch frequents goth clubs in search of victims to feed on, because that’s the easiest way to find willing prey. One night, he meets Stiles, and is intrigued by the scent of blood on his skin. Later, he finds out it’s because Stiles is cutting, and that night he tried to kill himself, after his father’s recent death, but he couldn’t do it. Then he meets Mitch, and thinks/hopes Mitch will do it for him.

When he was finished, Mitch cut the pad of his thumb on a fang and rubbed it over the bite. It would stop the bleeding, and Stiles would be healed by morning.

"Look at me," Mitch said, cupping Stiles' cheeks. His eyes were glazed, the glamour already working.

"You're not going to kill me?"

"I told you I wouldn't."

"Oh." Mitch could have sworn he heard a note of disappointment in Stiles' voice, but that wasn't his concern anymore.

Mitch isn’t interested in leaving a trail of bodies; that’s a quick way to attract hunters, and he likes living in peace, thank you very much.

He sees Stiles a very different times before it becomes a regular thing. Even after taking his memories the first time, Stiles is drawn to him, and he keeps coming back.

Mitch has no guilt for what he’s doing with Stiles; he’s totally fine letting his pretty boy cut himself when it means he can lick up the blood, and Stiles is perfectly happy to be his blood whore. It gives him a sense of purpose again, it makes him feel needed, giving him something he needs to survive. (Though as we saw in the above snippet, Mitch doesn’t need Stiles when he can get blood from anyone, reminding him of his place.) But Stiles doesn’t need the reminder; he knows Mitch could easily find someone else. But this is the most content he’s felt since his dad died, so he’ll take whatever he can get.

But poor Stiles felt so alone and useless after his dad died and his friends moved on, so why keep going, right? But now he has a reason to live. Even if it’s not a good one, it’s good enough for him, and Mitch is happy to keep him around like a beloved pet.

Mitch pushed up Stiles' sleeve, his fingertips brushing along the lines of scars. There were dozens, too many to count, some deeper than others. Nights when he had been more determined, no doubt.

"Why do you do this to yourself?" he asked softly, watching blood bead along a fresh cut that Stiles had hastily tried to hide, jerking down his sleeves and crossing his arms even when it pained him to do so.

Stiles was ashamed of his weakness, his pale cheeks showing his humiliation. He didn't try to pull away now that his shame was bared; there was no point, nowhere left to hide.

"To feel something, I guess."

"I could smell the blood on you when we met. I didn't know why." Mitch looked up at Stiles, understanding in his dark eyes. "You wanted me to kill you that night, didn't you?" Slowly, Stiles nodded.

"I couldn't do it… I tried, but I couldn't. I thought it would be easier if something else made the choice for me."

Mitch bit his lip then tenderly kissed Stiles' arm, smearing his blood over the wound so that it would heal. When he sat back up, Stiles had tears in his eyes; he gave Mitch a watery smile.

"I like it when you bite me, you know. It didn't hurt that first time. I thought it would, but it felt… I don't know. Better than this. Will you do it again?

"If Mitch were a better man, then he would leave his lover, get him the help he so dearly needed. Instead he let Stiles climb into his lap, folded into him and held Stiles closer. Turned to gently sink his teeth into Stiles' wrist when he offered it, petting his hands down Stiles' back when he shivered from the elation.

Mitch is Complicated. On the one hand, he does like Stiles, and wishes he weren’t so sad that he turned to self harm. On the other hand, he’s a selfish creature by nature, and he can’t deny that he benefits from it. Pretty soon, though, Stiles trades his blades for Mitch’s fangs.

Then one night, further into the relationship, but not far enough that Mitch has Feelings yet (so he’s still a soulless prick), Stiles starts asking some morbid questions. Eventually Mitch says something like if he wanted to, he could keep Stiles young and beautiful forever. And that’s the end of the conversation; he doesn’t offer to do it, and Stiles doesn’t ask, thinking that if Mitch wanted to keep him around that long, Mitch would offer to. So he’ll just content himself with however long he gets with Mitch before he eventually gets bored and kills him.

The blood ritual wouldn’t turn Stiles; he’d be more than human, but less than a vampire. It would bind him to Mitch as his blood whore forever. But the catch: if Mitch dies, so will Stiles. Interdependence at its finest.

But as far as Mitch is concerned, Stiles is a sweet snack pack with the added benefit of sex, and feeding while fucking is quite the high; it’s not something he’s had in a long time, because he doesn’t like to sleep with someone and then take their memories of the night. He does have some morals. But he hasn’t decided if Stiles is worth keeping around forever, yet, which is why he doesn’t offer to do it.

Changing tracks to much later in the relationship, which Mitch has caught Serious Feelings (but is still in denial). Mitch works in the hospital which is how he normally gets his blood, which his weekly outings being used to get something fresher than the frozen stuff. Then one day while he’s on shift, Stiles gets brought into the emergency room.

Whatever happened, Stiles almost dies and Mitch realizes that he really doesn’t want to lose him. And not even because it would be inconvenient to go out and find someone to replace him, he just Really Enjoys Stiles (it’s okay Mitch, you can admit you love him) and he is unwilling to give him up. So he shoots Stiles up with his blood to help him heal/keep him alive, and after he offers to do the binding ritual for Stiles, to keep something like this from happening again, because he can not risk losing Stiles again. What if someone hadn’t called an ambulance? What if it had been just a little slower to respond? What if Mitch hadn’t been there? It’s not something he’s willing to consider; Stiles means too much to him. But Stiles just has hearts and sparkles in his eyes because Mitch! wants!! to keep him!!!

Once Stiles gets discharged and Mitch takes him home from the hospital, he’s still weak from the blood loss, and they should really wait before attempting the ritual, but Stiles doesn’t want to give Mitch a chance to rethink his offer. (He wouldn’t, but Stiles has self-worth issues). So they do it practically as soon as they’re through the door; there’s set up of course, preparations to be made, but as soon as it’s physically possible, they’re doing it. (Featuring bloodplay and ritual sex for the win.)

My friend once asked if the binding out reinforce Stiles’ obsession with needed to be worthy of Mitch, or if it would comfort him, and it’s definitely the latter. The ritual is damn serious; it binds their souls, and it can’t be broken; it’s not something a vampire does lightly. Most never find someone they care about that deeply, that they would tie their lives together in a way that one can’t live without the other. Not when it’s so much easier to make a thrall, and have a similar effect. But it’s about more than having a slightly-immortal-human to feed on. It’s about complete devotion to the one person you want to spend eternity with.

Mitch isn’t very emotionally expressive most of the time. Nothing extreme, anyway. His natural state of being is pretty apathetic, just as a result of being undead. But when he almost lost Stiles, he was devastated, and Stiles was just aware enough to see how broken Mitch was at the possibility of him dying. It’s enough to tell him Mitch really does care for him, that it wasn’t just an act to keep Stiles coming back, or a passing infatuation. Mitch loves him, enough that he can’t live without him.

(Not back to the beginning of their story)

Stiles could barely breathe past the hand around his throat, Mitch’s nails lengthening into sharp claws that savaged his skin. His smile was cruel as Stiles scratched at his hand, trying to pull it away.

“I like you, Stiles,” he said, sweeter than poisoned honey, “but I don’t need you. Don’t forget that.”

Mitch carelessly cast him aside, leaving Stiles to collapse in a gasping heap on the filthy alley floor. The vampire stalked off without so much as a look back, having already forgotten about the pathetic human pleading for him to come back.

In the beginning of their acquaintance, Mitch is Very Unkind at times. He has no problem using Stiles up and throwing him away when he’s done like a Capri Sun. He’s not always like that, a lot of times he’s perfectly nice, but he’s also a fickle bitch. It’s no wonder Stiles is so desperate to please, because now that he’s been with Mitch, he can’t imagine not having him again.

(Heads up for some lamb-to-the-slaughter flavored dubcon)

Mitch left Stiles feeling thoroughly used, curled up in filthy sheets with every part of his body aching. There was nothing left unscathed, from the welts raked down his chest by sharp claws to his aching insides from too rough sex. His fingers were cramped from digging into the sheets, a litany of bite marks spanning his neck and shoulders and thighs, angry red and still sluggishly bleeding, a perfect match to the thin scratches and cuts covering his chest.

Stiles curled up around a pillow, wrapped around it for comfort. He felt cold, colder than Mitch. His lover hadn’t bothered to heal him this time, not sharing the rejuvenating properties of his blood before he left. Tonight, he wanted Stiles to hurt. Even as he sniffled into his pillow Stiles smiled to himself; it smelled like sex and blood and Mitch, comforting even if he lover wasn’t there to hold him.

(That sounds worse than it is in context; Stiles likes the rough sex lol. But he’s also being super self-destructive about it, basically using Mitch as a replacement for his self-harm. Once Mitch figures that out, he’s sweeter during sex.)

Mitch is super dismissive when he wants to be. But he can also be kind. After that,t he next time he sees Stiles he’s very gentle with him, making love instead of making him hurt, and Stiles loves that side of him, too. Especially when Mitch stays afterwards, feeding him chocolate and giving him kisses as a reward for being his good boy, and making amends for being so rough with him. Sometimes he forgets Stiles is only a delicate human.

There’s also the issue that vampires feel differently than humans. I keep mentioning that his emotions are dulled, because once you’ve been alive for hundreds of years, things starts to just... flatten. Which means Mitch can be incredibly callous, and not take into account how Stiles feels. It’s easy to treat him like an object.

But no matter what Mitch does, Stiles is never afraid of him. Not even when Mitch probably tries to scare him; when he realizes he’s catching feelings, and doesn’t know what to with that, so he tries to push Stiles away by frightening him. But Stiles refuses to see him as a monster. But it’s not just that: what’s Mitch going to do, kill him? That’s what Stiles originally wanted, anyway, and now he would rather die than live without him. Stiles has zero sense for self preservation.

(Mitch is... a little concerned about that, actually, when he realizes just how deep it goes. Stiles is the complete opposite to him, as someone who’s a pure survivalist, that only cares about himself and staying alive. Stiles cares about everyone else, and doesn’t care if he lives or dies.) But it doesn’t matter what Mitch does, as long as he keeps coming back, and that has him like woah. That’s A Lot for him. He doesn’t even really understand it, because he’s never felt like that about someone before. (Except Stiles, of course, he’s just in denial. He doesn’t truly get how deep he is until the hospital incident.)

(And now to the end of the story, so to speak.)

After they do the ritual, part of the binding is that they can feel what the other is feeling. This means Stiles can immediately tell when Mitch is in a Mood, and knows just what he needs, and the reverse is true. Stiles deflects with humor, but Mitch can always tell what he’s really feeling. Now he has no choice but to consider Stiles’ emotions, and the bond takes away all the guesswork.

Then of course the feedback loop is a thing. Mitch hasn’t been able to feel strong emotions in centuries, but like everything about Stiles, his emotions are so vibrant. He feels things so deeply, it’s a rush, and Mitch can’t get enough. It’s like a drug; he does something to make Stiles happy/pleased/excited and he gets some of that back, and it’s Great. (He liked pleasing his precious boy before, but now it’s Even More, and Stiles has to admit, he loves it. He thinks it’s cute the way Mitch does different things to see the effect it has on him, like a kid with a new science experiment. It’s adorable.)

Unfortunately, the binding has an unforeseen consequence.

Ronnie, the vampire that turned Mitch, finds out he has a new pet. Word travels, and it’s not every century someone is binding themselves to a human. And isn’t that just the sweetest *gag*. It’s clear Mitch adores Stiles, and really? Mitch of all people has fallen in love with a human? Ronnie almost doesn’t believe it. (He was probably very Vlad the Impaler back in the day. Dracula Untold kind of vamp.)

Ronnie thinks it’s pathetic. He thought Mitch was better than that. It was bad enough the way he used to get so guilty when he killed someone to feed, starving himself for days or weeks at a time until he couldn’t take it anymore, instead of killing whoever and whenever he wanted like Ronnie. (Little bit Lestat and Louis, but Mitch isn’t that much of a bitch about it. Maybe more Damon and Stefan; Mitch overdid it when he was first turned, then felt bad about it once he got a handle on himself, and went to the other extreme trying to make up for it. Now he’s equaled out.) Anyway, now Mitch has reached a whole new low in Ronnie’s eyes.

So, he decided to pay Mitch a visit, see if the rumors are true, and finds him being all disgustingly domestic and in love with Stiles. Hardly the fearsome predator befitting a vampire of his status, and he is irrationally angry over it. Feels betrayed. The meeting doesn’t go well. Mitch tells him to fuck himself and stay the hell away from his mate -and isn’t that interesting. Mitch knows it was a mistake as soon as he said it, but he can’t take it back, can’t pretend like Ronnie didn’t hear it. He really has drunk the Kool-Aid; Stiles isn’t even just a bloodwhore for him anymore; he’s gone and fallen in gross, sticky love with the human.

Ronnie leaves, but not for long. He decides to find out what it is about this particular human that’s got Mitch all ruffled and weak-kneed, and kidnaps him. He bides his time until Stiles is alone, Mitch nowhere near close enough to save him. Stiles wasn’t there for the initial reunion, but he can guess who Ronnie is; Mitch has told him about his life, and who he was before, when he was still human. About the monster that turned him. But he knows Mitch will find him.

Mitch immediately knows Stiles is in danger, can feel his distress through the bond, but by the time he comes home it’s too late. They’re gone. The house is trashed, and he can smell Stiles’ blood, and he has no idea where they could have gone, and he can’t think because all he can feel is Stiles’ fear, and it’s driving him crazy because he doesn’t know what to do. Where to even begin looking for them.

Ronnie starts off by torturing Stiles, knowing it will get Mitch riled up. Drinks his blood, makes him hurt. He’s not particularly impressed; there’s nothing special about Stiles, he’s just another human. Nothing he can see to make him worth tying his life to Mitch’s own, putting his own life at risk. Because just like Stiles will die with Mitch, the reverse is also true.

Slowly, Ronnie begins to use his thrall on Stiles. He’s gradual with it, so that his slow acceptance of his new place in life feels natural. Stiles doesn’t even realize it isn’t, so of course Mitch won’t. Until Stiles is completely under Ronnie’s influence, a perfect little blood slave, who Ronnie keeps naked and chained to his bed. Not because he’s particularly interested, but because it keeps Stiles afraid, he knows it will kill Mitch to imagine the kinds of things he’s done to his mate. (Not that Ronnie would eve debase himself by lying with a human, he’s Better Than That, but that doesn’t mean he can’t have his fun in other ways...)

Since it’s not so much physical feeling that comes through the bond, Mitch would have no way to know if someone else was touching Stiles, or if he was being ordered to touch himself, putting on a show for Ronnie’s amusement. Mitch would only know that Stiles was getting off, and assume the worst given the circumstances. But with how much Ronnie hates humans, and is angry at Stiles in particular for having one of his old “friends” whipped like a bitch, it wouldn’t be far-fetched for him to find someone else unsavory to play with Stiles for a while, and give him back his mind just enough that the fear bleeds through to Mitch.

By the time Mitch finds them, Stiles is barely clinging to life. He’s slightly more immortal than your average bear, but he’s still only human, and Ronnie has been doing the bare minimum not to kill him, if only because he doesn’t want to actually kill Mitch (yet). He still hopes he can bring Mitch back to his way of things, and relegate Stiles back to the worthless bloodwhore he is.

Mitch finds them mid-feeding, and Stiles’ heartbeat if so faint, Mitch would think he was dead if not for the fact that he was still standing. Ronnie has been keeping him weak as a kitten from the frequent feedings; Stiles doesn’t even register Mitch is there.

Of course Mitch is going to kill Ronnie for what he’s done, Stiles watching in a daze from the bed, feeling like it’s all a dream, still under the effects of Ronnie’s compulsion. It finally breaks when Mitch tears his throat out, and Stiles is so relieved but he’s also so tired. And then Mitch is there, holding him, wrapping a blanket around him, trying to keep him warm. Gives Stiles his blood to help him heal, and Stiles sluggishly realizes Mitch is offering to turn him, but Stiles doesn’t want that, because then Mitch won’t be able to feed on him anymore - except Mitch doesn’t care, he just wants Stiles to be safe, strong enough to protect himself, since apparently he can’t, he failed, and he can’t risk that happening again so please-

But Stiles refuses, because it might not be important to Mitch, but it’s important to him, because it means Mitch still needs him, and if Mitch turns him, he’ll be taking that away. He’s half right; Mitch does need him, but he’s never needed Stiles for his blood.

#cookie writes #stitch #stiles stilinski #Mitch rapp #whooo boy this is an old one #this baby is from the dregs of my tumblr chat 3 YEARS AGO #this is some vintage stitch babey

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theladysexpistol · 4 years ago

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Ok so i have this thought like La Squadra's reaction to their s/o being a witch and have a hellhound familiar please ?

Man you guys keep bringing up things I forget to say I LOVE and am ECSTATIC to write about! I love paranormal/occult stuff!! I was in a paranormal club in college undergrad and we did ghost investigations, had psychics come and guest speak, spent nights talking about cryptids and aliens and all kinds of conspiracies... it was amazing!! We’ve talked about witches and hellhounds loads of times!!

I really, really had a lot of fun with this one 😈

~~~

Risotto

- The first thing that caught his eye about his s/o was their asethetic. In what I can only describe as like, witchy goth, with a big black dog. He’s a fan.

- Ris thought they were just into the occult stuff, figured they probably were into astrology and tarot cards and crystals and such.

- Here’s how im imagining he finds out: a rival gang learns his s/o is dating Risotto, the capo of the hitman team. His team has probably killed a lot of rival gang members. So naturally, they’re gonna target his s/o. Risotto learns about the plot and goes to rescue them, only to find their big Rottweiler-looking dog spitting fire and moving like a shadow, while his s/o chants in some demonic/ancient language and puts a curse on their attacker.

- Honestly? Risotto’s totally into it.

- I mean I would say his Stand is pretty violent honestly, the way he makes razor blades and needles and scalpels pop out of his victim’s own blood. So the witch stuff wouldn’t bother him in the slightest.

- In fact it probably makes their relationship a little more, idk kinky? His s/o is probably very interested in the ways he can manipulate blood, both for their witchy spellcrafting and on a sexual pleasure level

- Risotto keeps his s/o a secret, from his team but that’s mostly to keep them from the boss. He knows the boss would probably try to use them for his own gain, and Ris is not interested in letting the boss get a hand on them. His s/o could be his advantage in taking down the boss, too.

- The two of them are an absolute power couple. You cannot beat them when they’re together. That’s not including the hellhound either. Witchy s/o and Ris would have demolished anyone in the Bucci gang, unless they were like all fighting together against the two of them.

Formaggio

- Again, Formaggio was probably really drawn in by the s/o’s witchy goth asethetic. He’s kinda dumb.

- Formaggio is a cat guy, so he doesn’t like their familiar at first. Especially because it’s a big, scary looking dog.

- But the hellhound reflects its master’s feelings, and as soon as they feel affection toward Formaggio it will too.

- Formaggio finds out when he’s showing his s/o his Stand. He shrinks himself and they think at first he’s a witch too. Formaggio is very confused; he’s only known Stands. He didn’t know witches were real.

- But he likes that they can shrink things too, and that they definitely don’t think his Stand is useless (the way the rest of his team seems to think)

- Is probably now even more afraid of the hellhound now knowing it’s a hellhound that could roast him alive, but figures as long as he doesn’t break his s/o’s heart he’s probably safe

- He tries to brag about them at least to Illuso for sure, the smug bastard. Most of the team doesn’t believe him, except Pesci and Melone.

- Would absolutely let them try out spells and curses on him. He strikes me as an adrenaline junkie. As long as he gets rewarded for it 😏

Illuso

- Okay I’ll be honest I guess since this is the third one I’m like “he’d be into the asethetic” I guess I just imagine most of the hitman team would absolutely be into goth/punk. Also witchy goth is just very hot okay and that’s what I’m imagining here

- Illuso finds out very quickly they’re a witch because he uses his mirror world to spy on them

- After a couple times of doing that though, the hellhound starts to sense his presence

- Finally his s/o is straight up like “I don’t know how you’re here Illuso, but I know you’re here. Come out and maybe we can get a little alone time together 😉”

- He comes out of the mirror and honestly they’re more shocked than he was when he learned they were a witch

- But they’re also incredibly intrigued and would probably want to try and go into the mirror world. Think of all the information they could gather on people they want to hex

- The two of them are a mischevious, trouble-making couple and fit together almost a little too perfectly

- Like Formaggio I think with a little encouragement I think he would be willing to be a test subject for his s/o

- Unlike Formaggio he loves the hellhound. He really wants to see it in action.

Prosciutto

- Okay first boy not interested in the asethetic at first

- I imagine witchy approached him first. There was something about him they really liked - that intense, cold expression in his eyes, they could tell what he did as his job from a glance

- Prosciutto agreed to go on a date with them to determine if they were a threat to Passione - most importantly, his team - that needed to be taken out or if they were harmless

- Halfway through the date Prosciutto is thinking they’re dangerous and he’ll have to kill them so he brings out his Stand but as he does the hellhound appears from the shadows and growls at him for threatening its master. Witchy sighs and explains to him that they’re a witch. I don’t think they’d necessarily be hiding it, just that they know most people would probably be freaked out by it

- Prosciutto is intrigued and continues to go on dates with them. Next thing he realizes is he’s in love.

- Did they slip him a potion? He’ll never know

- Prosciutto is extremely protective of his s/o. He worries that if anyone finds out they’re a witch they’ll be attacked by a mob or something.

- For that reason he and the hellhound get along pretty well. They’re both interested in protecting his s/o

- The hellhound still likes Pesci the most though

Melone

- Okay back to boys who were drawn in by the asethetic, except it’s like 1000x worse than the others for Melone

- At first he thinks it’s like, oh they’d make a great host for Babyface. Then he realizes no, he’s like really attracted to them himself, not because of his Stand

- Melone has a weird taste in like science and experimentation, I think his s/o would be pretty comfortable early on in the relationship telling him they’re a witch

- He is the most enthusiastic about being used as his s/o’s guinea pig. Honestly probably gets a little turned on by it.

- Not the biggest fan of the hellhound, but they respect one another’s place in his s/o’s life

- Because the thing his Stand creates is a homunculus, I think his s/o would also be very interested in his abilities as well

- The two of them are just experimenting left and right, helping one another as they push the limits on their abilities. It’s like putting two mad scientists together. Eventually they’re gonna create a monster thats unstoppable lol

Ghiaccio

- Another one I think witchy would approach first, similar to Prosciutto because they can see the eyes of a killer in him, but also because he’s just pure rage. It intrigued them

- Ghiaccio likes them because they don’t tell him to shut up and they just let him fully rage and destroy things, watching him the whole time and comforting him when he needs it

- The hellhound likes him too. Ghiaccio’s anger is very familiar to his demonic roots

- He’s probably not going to find out for a while that they’re a witch. It’s not that his s/o didn’t feel comfortable telling him, it’s just that there wasn’t really a good way to bring it up.

- Honestly they probably witness him use White Album first, and think he’s also a witch, and that’s how he finds out

- Ghiaccio is a little freaked out at first honestly. He didn’t know witches could exist. He’s also a little peeved they didn’t tell him and they again, observe him as he has another freak out

- Witchy admits they really loves how angry he gets, feels the power behind it, and wishes they had a way to harness it

- I don’t think Ghiaccio would be a guinea pig with any incentive, but he might offer to let them try and figure out a way to take the raw energy of his fury and channel it into their spells

- They’re an odd pair, but his s/o is so calm and collected that they balance out his explosive temper

#bree writes #jojo headcanons #la squadra x reader #risotto x reader #formaggio x reader #illuso x reader #prosciutto x reader #melone x reader #ghiaccio x reader #reader is a witch hehe #because yanno what vampires and zombies and shit are possible im gonna say witches are too #i started hysterically laughing while writing this #because i imagined risotto with one of those cliche big tiddy witches #and i was like oh my god they are a big tiddy power couple

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passionate-reply · 4 years ago

Video

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Passionate Reply is back, and taking a look at one of the best known and most influential albums in industrial history: Nine Inch Nails’ Pretty Hate Machine! Transcript of the video below the break.

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! Today, it’s finally time to discuss arguably the best known industrial musician of all time, and his debut album: this is Pretty Hate Machine, by Nine Inch Nails. Released in 1989, it is, technically, an “80s album,” but given how stylistically influential it would become on the music of the 1990s, it’s hard to think of it as a product of the preceding decade. Still, it’s worth remembering that this album came out almost fifteen years into the history of industrial, and Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor has never denied his indebtedness to, and appreciation of, the genre’s 80s pioneers, like Coil and Skinny Puppy. Pretty Hate Machine didn’t go down in history for being the very first industrial album, but rather for being the first one that most people actually heard--particularly, in Reznor’s native America. What really set Nine Inch Nails apart, then and now, is Reznor’s ability to marry those harsh textures and machine beats with a real knack for that most elusive of songwriting goals: the pop hook.

Music: “Head Like a Hole”

Pretty Hate Machine’s unforgettable opener, “Head Like a Hole,” is the track on the album that you’re most likely to have encountered before, and sits just behind “Hurt” and “Closer” in the ranking of the best-known Nine Inch Nails songs. There’s not a whole lot to say about it, musically, that hasn’t already been said--each of its three parts have that devilishly catchy quality about them, and despite its underlying electronic structure, inspired by European EBM, it’s got just enough rock credibility to appeal to American audiences. It wasn’t a huge pop hit, of course, but I think it’s easy to hear how and why it earned its acclaim, and high rotation on MTV.

As far as the lyrics are concerned, I’m always happy to listen to an anti-capitalist jam, especially when it comes to industrial, but I feel like that lends a weird tension to “Head Like a Hole.” Reznor wants to sell us his denouncement of “God Money” and the relentless hunger of capital, but using such an approachable, or marketable, pop formula forces us to question its sincerity. Despite industrial music’s deep roots in counter-cultural values, the sociopolitical commentary of the album doesn’t dig any deeper than “Head Like a Hole”’s vague indignance at being controlled by something-or-other. While I won’t argue that artists ever “owe” anybody more political art, Trent Reznor popularized a style of music that began as an expression of working-class struggles on another continent, partly by stripping away most of the truly subversive commentary, so I can’t say I don’t understand why many die-hard industrial listeners see him as something of a profiteering poseur. So, if Pretty Hate Machine isn’t about class struggle, what is it about? The short answer is, atomized personal struggles, particularly in unhealthy relationships.

Music: “Sanctified”

While a track like “Sanctified” isn’t quite as explosively hooky as “Head Like a Hole,” it’s made of the same basic stuff: tight mechanical rhythms, shouty vocals, and distorted guitars that offer just the right amount of edge. As the title implies, it deals with themes of religious purity, darkly inverted--a common enough subject for traditional goth music, though a bit less so for industrial. Still, it’s not unheard of, and seems like a good fit for this particularly American take on industrial. The sort of push-and-pull, love-and-hate dynamic on display here is a consistent one throughout the album, though at times, it feels a bit more low-brow.

Music: “Kinda I Want To”

“Kinda I Want To” is certainly a catchy song, which is once again cut from that same dominant songwriting formula, but I find it’s one that I have my own love-hate relationship with. Whether or not I like a given song is rarely determined chiefly by its lyricism, but in this case, I find “Kinda I Want To” to be almost insufferably puerile and crass. For as much as the critical consensus has really turned around on Nine Inch Nails, with Oscars, Emmys, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame smiling at Reznor’s artistic achievements, I still remember growing up in a world where this was panned as music for angsty teenage boys. While I obviously think *Pretty Hate Machine* has more value than that, it’s moments like “Kinda I Want To” that make me see the argument. It’s always struck me as a track that takes itself very seriously, and yet fails to convince me. On the other hand, you’ve got a track like “Down In It,” which feels unashamed of being slightly lighter fare.

Music: “Down In It”

In fairness, “Down In It” isn’t entirely “light” material, with its lyrical theme of addiction and its delightfully scratchy soundscape, but it’s danceable and club-friendly in a way that really sets it apart from the rest of *Pretty Hate Machine.* It’s even got a bit of hip-hop influence, with its pseudo-rap verses, and that distortion that sounds vaguely like record scratching--calling back to the early days of hip-hop when it was chiefly employed as party music. Reznor and company famously mimed “Down In It” on the TV program *Dance Party USA,* which a lot of Nine Inch Nails fans see as incongruously absurd, but I think this track genuinely does fit in just fine in that milieu. I don’t look down upon dance music, and I don’t think it’s insulting to suggest that “Down In It” is some great dance music. It was actually the album’s lead single, and a fairly successful one in its own time, so clearly, people were moving to it.

Pretty Hate Machine’s iconic cover is somewhat abstract, featuring this tightly framed streak of lurid magenta and teal that’s boxed in by oppressive walls of black. While that artificial colour palette makes it difficult to ascertain exactly what we’re looking at, it appears to be some sort of large machine with a symmetrical row of spokes, though it’s possible to interpret it as something more organic as well--perhaps a ribcage, or a row of teeth.

The album title “Pretty Hate Machine” strikes me as almost pithy with how straightforward it is. Yes, you can put this album on and expect to find some electronic, machine music, with a fair amount of spite and vitriol, but covered over in that “pretty” pop sheen. Like a lot of the album, it’s on the nose, and perhaps a bit simplistic, but functional enough that I don’t overtly dislike it, even if it isn’t exactly clever.

Reznor’s follow-up to Pretty Hate Machine, 1994’s The Downward Spiral, would go on to even greater acclaim than his debut, and it’s considered by many to be his magnum opus.

Music: “Reptile”

Given its greater emphasis on guitar-driven noise-scapes, and its concept album style narrative, chronicling its protagonist’s descent into madness, I completely understand why the rock criticism establishment is high on this album. In what will probably go down as one of my most controversial opinions, I really don’t care for The Downward Spiral very much at all, precisely because it fits the “rock album” mould so much more than albums like Pretty Hate Machine. Give me the EBM beats any day of the week.

My favourite track on Pretty Hate Machine is its closing track, “Ringfinger.” While “Ringfinger” is yet another toxic relationship-themed number, I like the emphasis on work or labour in its lyrics. The context is quite different, but I’d like to think it has a hint of that working-class consciousness of industrial’s European forebears. Musically, I think this song’s outro is to die for. It closes out the album with some impressively cacophonous rhythm, almost ridiculous in the density of how many loops are playing at once--and yet it works! Overall, I think the percussion tracks throughout the whole album are really remarkable, despite often being overlooked by critics. That’s all I have for today--thanks for watching!

Music: “Ringfinger”

#music #album review #album reviews #nine inch nails #industrial #industrial music #pretty hate machine

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makaylajadewrites · 4 years ago

Text

What it Means to be a Fish

Summary: Spencer Reid wasn’t known for being the most social creature alive. He struggled with most social situations and was quite awkward in his every day life, and if he told his night time companions that he worked for the FBI, they would most likely laugh at him or simply dismiss him outright. But it was true. An FBI agent by day, a drag queen by night — who would have ever thought?

Potential tws: N/A

Spencer Reid wasn’t known for being the most social creature alive. He struggled with most social situations and was quite awkward in his every day life, and if he told his night time companions that he worked for the FBI, they would most likely laugh at him or simply dismiss him outright. But it was true. An FBI agent by day, a drag queen by night — who would have ever thought? Certainly not him. He had experimented once with makeup when he was still a boy, but from there, it had simply evolved into an outright fascination, that he was incredibly good at too. Even Garcia would be jealous if she knew how well he could rock a cat eye.

Any drag queen would know that Spencer was experienced with the way he owned the stage and held himself with a pride that was absent in his daily life. He wasn’t nearly as confident at the bureau as he was in gay nightclubs, strutting around like a peacock with his feathers on display for all to see. He was good at it though, and it had been a hobby of his ever since he was able to get into nightclubs legally. Who would have thought that the awkward genius kid completing his third PhD at the age of eighteen would be a drag queen? Absolutely nobody, and that was why Spencer didn’t put extra effort into hiding the fact; because he was almost certain nobody would ever find out.

In the drag community, there were different types of queens. Eleven, to be exact; faux, androgyny, fish, club, goth, pageant, camp, transdrag, fluid, tranimal, and activessle. Spencer fit into one of those categories perfectly, and he always had: fish.

A fish drag queen was the type of queen who summoned every bit of femininity in their body and accentuated those features. They were determined to be the authentic woman, to the point where people wouldn’t think twice about her gender because to them, she was a real woman. Fish were polished, clean, and certainly weren’t shy with their makeup.

Now to be clear, Spencer was not gender dysphoric. He was comfortable with his masculinity as a gay man, but breaking the gender lines was always something that excited him. Dressing up in skirts and dresses and slipping a pair of heels on was empowering, and in Spencer’s opinion, any open minded person could feel like they ruled the world if they just slipped some stilettos on.

With the ever expanding appearance of drag queens in popular culture and media, Spencer wasn’t hesitant to join them. His colleagues wouldn’t ever suspect this from him, so there was no reason for them to go snooping. Garcia would never possibly consider this as a possibility, so why should he even bother to hide it? It would only prove to stress him out if he focused on the ‘what ifs.’

So he created a social media account. Just an Instagram at first, nothing too flashy, although as the follower count rose and rose, he began to feel like maybe he was just asking to be discovered. But apparently that wasn’t enough of a warning for him, because he went on to create a YouTube account on which he did makeup tutorials, for beginners and for the most experienced queens. It was a nice way to get rid of some stress, and after all, he liked to feel pretty: Who didn’t?

If his team had ever suspected anything, they would have found out by now.

But Spencer wasn’t really helping his case.

The first time he slipped, it had been a long night, and despite his initial plans to head home immediately after his show, he ended up staying with the girls a little longer than he expected, and hadn’t made it home until nearly three that morning. He was usually thorough when getting rid of the evidence, specifically with removing his makeup, making sure his hair wasn’t sticky from the wig-cap glue or tape, and taking off fake nails or nail polish. But he had failed that morning, and had completely forgotten about the bright pink polish on his fingers because of his sleep deprivation. What a shame. This wasn’t missed either. Because as soon as he was in Morgan’s line of sight in the break room, the older man looked somewhat shocked and began his torment.

“Well, well, well, Pretty Boy. You let your girlfriend do your nails last night?” He teased, innocent enough. Reid was confused at first, doing a quick, mental self-assessment before his eyes widened, his face glowed red, and an expression of absolute mortification took over. Instead of responding and embarrassing himself any further, he simply stuffed his hands in his pockets and treaded to his desk with faster steps, ignoring the sounds of laughter behind him and completely neglecting himself of coffee. Damn. So much for secrecy.

“What is it, Reid?” Prentiss questioned upon seeing him, a sharply tuned brow raised slightly. Spencer’s could look better though.

“Nothing. It’s nothing,” he stammered, internally cursing himself for his unbearable nerves. Emily looked humored but didn’t push it, thank god, and dropped it, not bringing it up again. Spencer kept his hands out of sight for the rest of the day.

The second time was completely Spencer’s fault. It had been a normal day, he had a show coming up that Friday, unless of course they were called on a case, and nothing was out of the ordinary. In short, it was a paperwork day and Reid was completely fine with that, simply because he usually finished early and the last hours of work were reserved for preparing for his upcoming performance. So, when his teammates thought he was simply staring off into space with some complicated equation taking over his existence, he was in truth thinking of outfits for the drag show.

He didn’t get to attend that show unfortunately, because a case came in right as he was packing up. He wallowed all the way to the roundtable room.

But when Penelope came into the room, it was over. A tight, somewhat outdated polka dotted dress fitted her curvy form and four inch pink heels that didn’t at all match the pink fabric of the dress nearly threw Spencer into a conniption fit. He was used to her bright and eccentric outfits, but this… How could she forsake the name of fashion so rudely? He nearly gasped at the sight, but he didn’t let it happen until his eyes had finished scanning over her body and rose to her face. What… What in gay hell?

Her eyeshadow was turquoise in color, the wings were sharp, and the contour… Oh god. Spencer was feeling nauseous already. It wasn’t blended. It wasn’t blended. It wasn’t blended. It was just straight blocks of color on her cheeks. He tried to hide the horrified expression on his face, but she saw right through him immediately since when Reid showed emotions, it was usually a big deal.

“Alright my furry friends, we have a—Why are you looking at me like that?” She said, stopping herself mid sentence and looking at Reid accusingly, the rest of the team instantly looking to him, clearly having missed the situation because nobody seemed as outraged as he was about the makeup disaster. He tried to look innocent, shaking his head quickly.

“O-Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stare,” he said dismissively, but Garcia didn’t buy it. Profiling wasn’t in her job description, but she knew when someone was lying to her, especially Reid. But JJ beat her to it, tilting her head slightly and smiling in his direction.

“What’s wrong, Spence?” She asked. She was too sweet for her own good, her pretty blonde waves tumbling over her shoulders so naturally. Funny how his wigs looked just as pretty.

“Oh it’s… Something on your cheek, that’s all,” he said, Garcia looking horrified immediately and whipping out a pocket mirror, seemingly from thin air, and overlooking her plump face in confusion when she didn’t seem to notice the problem.

“What is it, what is it? Get it off,” she said frantically, approaching the young doctor with a tatter of heels and leaning down towards him. Reid did a quick glance in JJ’s direction who regarded him with a shrug, and Morgan seemed interested now. Spencer hesitantly rose his hand, a slender finger working the edges of her contour on either cheek until it was smooth and not just a straight line. JJ giggled beside him, quietly, and Prentiss looked incredulous at his actions, but when he deemed her fit, Spencer couldn’t resist the little pat he gave to her cheek. Penelope looked both pleased and surprised, thanking him before standing and returning to the front of the room where she reported the case as if nothing had happened. But the little sparkle in her eye made it clear he wasn’t going to be let off for this incident.

That had been four months ago now, and Spencer hadn’t let up at all in his pastime activities and instead began to embrace it even more. He had come out as gay a couple of weeks ago to JJ who was both excited for him and eager to help him get into the dating scene, but little did she know, he was somewhat infamous in the D.C. gay community. He had a following on nearly every social media platform, and whenever he looked at himself, he felt so happy to realize that that beautiful person was actually him. He had so many issues with his self esteem when he was younger, ranging from his physical appearance to his awkward sociality, but when he stepped into the shoes of his drag persona, he was no longer Supervisory Special Agent Doctor Spencer Reid of the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He didn’t have to try, because something about wearing a leotard and high heels was freeing.

He had a show that Saturday night; nothing unusual about it, pretty routine and just what he expected. But the moment he saw his female colleagues walk into the club with a hesitant Morgan following suit, he was doomed. He had been on stage when it happened, strutting down the mini catwalk effortlessly yet suddenly feeling very exposed. He never hesitated, but the slight stumble in his step wasn’t missed, and as soon as his and Morgan’s eyes met, he knew the man had to have seen right through him. The eye connection was long and somewhat awkward, and soon, Spencer realized he was looking at a very confused man.

Spencer turned without incident though, leaving the stage the same way he entered it: confident. He couldn’t let them know, and if he had to go all night convincing them he wasn’t Spencer Reid, he would. He didn’t interact with them when he wasn’t on stage, and it was almost like he was daring them to identify him. His second time on, in a completely different outfit which consisted of a tight, mini dress and heels as high as the sky, he winked at Derek, and the handsome grin he received in response was enough for him to smile back, innocently enough.

At the end of the night, the other queens huddled around him and chattered about the handsome man who kept looking at him. He made a comment about getting the man in his pants, and they giggled away as if nothing strange had even happened. Hopefully nothing had, and tomorrow would be a completely normal work day.

But that was not the case. Not at all.

As soon as he stepped off of the elevator, something felt off, but before he could even make it into the bullpen, two hands landed on either of his arms, and he was whisked away into Penelope Garcia’s office by JJ and Prentiss. The resident of the office was there, but so was Derek, and he instantly felt uncomfortable.

“You have some explaining to do, Pretty Boy,” Morgan said first, arms crossing over his broad chest and suddenly Spencer felt naked. He mimicked the other man, a frown taking residence over his full lips as he looked back, overcoming his initial fear of intimidation.

“About?…” he asked, seemingly confused, but internally, he was panicking. Oh god, they knew, they knew, they knew, they knew.

“Well,” Garcia butted in, typing rapid-fire on her keyboard before an image of him popped up on her monitor, “Maybe we can start with this.”

It wasn’t a normal image. Sweet Jesus, he wished it was. He would prefer any high school picture over this. Instead, it was his most recent Instagram post: a selfie of him in drag. It was from last night, in fact. A bubblegum pink wig looking as natural as real hair falling straight over his shoulders, framing his done up face prettily. His makeup was perfect, a pink rosy blush dusted over his high cheekbones, glitter in all the right places. His eyes were winged, falsies set in place, faux brows arched high. But his lips were the attention grabber. A full burgundy pout, a touch of highlight bringing out a glossy accent. Dark eyes looked ahead with no hesitation; bedroom eyes. Fucking Christ.

“Who’s that?” He questioned immediately, having prepared himself for a moment like this in his moments of paranoid. He doubted himself in his panicky moments, assuring himself that nothing was going to happen, but here he was, living out his worst nightmare. He would quite literally prefer to be stabbed by an unsub than be stabbed with those accusatory looks.

“Reid…” Prentiss started, her hand coming to his shoulder. He looked down at her, trying to keep up the confused act, but the knowing look in her eyes he received was what made him realize he couldn’t hide it anymore. He had been completely and utterly busted.

“That’s you, man,” Derek said, a smile curling his lips upwards, although it was awkward and somewhat confused. Spencer had a tendency of making people question their sexuality when he was in drag.

“You’re so pretty, Spence,” JJ was quick to add in, a smile brightening her face. Spencer practically melted, his brows curving inwards and a hesitant smile curling his own lips upwards.

“You think so?” He said in response, nearly a whisper, as if he didn’t already know the power he possessed with makeup and a wig on. JJ rubbed his bicep reassuringly.

“Bria Monique, huh?” Garcia said his drag name aloud, beaming up at him from where she sat, beginning to scroll through more of his pictures, gasping quietly at one that was somewhat… suggestive. Not for a drag queen, but especially for Dr. Spencer Reid.

“Whoa, kiddo! I didn’t know you had it in you!” She applauded. It was a picture of him, a pair of high black stilettos on his feet yet he was crouched down, the supple curve of his bottom quite apparent from the tight black jumpsuit. His head was tilted back, exposing his bare neck and upper chest while those eyes looked directly towards the camera; bedroom eyes again. It had been a recent photoshoot he did, just for the fun of it. But he wasn’t having fun as of right now.

“I-I…” he started, stumbling over his words and debating on whether he should run or own up to it. He was left with one option; stay. But his friends didn’t look any less impressed with him than they were before. In fact, they looked somewhat proud, but the way Morgan looked at him within those few minutes was definitely enough for him to notice. He didn’t say anything though.

“You have got to show me how to do my eyeshadow like that,” Garcia piped up again, now on his YouTube channel, watching one of his quick makeup tutorial for advanced artists, specifically on a sunset eye. He nodded hesitantly, and the smile he flashed towards her was enough for her to giggle excitedly.

“A-Alright…” he said softly, Emily and JJ also adding in their own questions of makeup techniques and styles.

They let him go eventually, not without requesting invitations to his next show of course. Morgan was quick to catch up to him when he left Garcia’s den though, a large hand splaying over the small of his back as they headed towards the bullpen. Reid came to a gradual stop in the middle of the hallway though, and a shiver ran pleasantly down his spine as Morgan leaned in and whispered flirtatiously.

“I can’t wait to see you perform again.”

Spencer’s eyes widened, and he looked towards Derek with both confusion and subtle excitement on his features. All he got in return though was a quick wink and a gentle pat against his ass. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.

Part 2: Girls’ Night->

#criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fandom #spencer reid #derek morgan #moreid #drag queen Spencer Reid

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sunjaesol · 4 years ago

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Review of WORK IT, starring Sabrina Carpenter, Jordan Fisher and Liza Koshy

When Quinn Ackerman's admission to the college of her dreams depends on her performance at a dance competition, she forms a ragtag group of dancers to take on the best squad in school... now she just needs to learn how to dance. (imdb)

So I was really excited for this movie. For one, I’m a dancer myself and therefore am permitted to watch every single dance movie out there. Secondly, it starred Jordan Fisher and I am a sucker for anything Jordan Fisher.

Overall, it was a cute movie.

What this movie is suffering of, is very tired tropes. Which is unfortunate, because the actors are quite good.

Sabrina Carpenter plays Quinn, the quintessential Netflix coming-of-age protagonist that will do anything to get into the college of their dreams but falls flat since they don’t have that “spark” those colleges are looking for. We saw it in Sierra Burgess, The Perfect Date, and probably countless others I’m forgetting.

Her best friend is Jas (Liza Koshy) who is on the famous school dance team The Thunderbirds. Jas is loud, opinionated, unapologetically herself and would do anything for Quinn, somehow placing herself second for most of the movie despite the fact that she is outspoken and a talented dancer. Jas is just the typical friend character we’ve seen countless times before and I wished she was more, that she wanted more. It also didn’t make sense how she got into a dance program in NYC when she only showcased hiphop at the final dance competition, when literally every university-level dance program prefers contemporary and ballet. Hiphop is an elective, not the thing that gets you in.

(I’m not degrading hiphop, it just doesn’t make sense that this was the style that got her accepted.)

Isaiah (Keiynan Lonsdale) even said it: Juilliard didn’t accept him because of his style of dance, which is commerical. Speaking of Keiynan, he was amazing as the overdramatic, nearly caricatural depiction of an ambitious dancer/Ru Paul wannabe. I wish we saw more of him though, a little depth would’ve done him well.

Jordan Fisher was a joy to watch. He basically played himself under the name of Jake Taylor. He was the starlet of the dance community until he tore his ACL (also a classic) and now teaches dance to children at a studio. Jordan and Sabrina have great chemistry and amazing dance sequences together. I wonder if it was a nod to Baby and Johnny from Dirty Dancing, as he taught her to dance and some of the moves he was teaching her were sometimes a bit provocative. While their chemistry is great, I did have some concerns about the ages? He should be about 21 years, whereas she is 17 or 18. If she’s 18: fine, but I did find it concerning how they never mentioned his age. He’s at least 21, could be older.

The movie kind of meandered in the middle, not really going anywhere and just developing the relationship between Quinn and Jake. While that was cute, the entire dance team they created (TBD) is underdeveloped. You have the Goth Girl, Indian Girl, a DJ hiphopper, Nerdy Kid and Jock. If I forgot someone, that means they were that insignificant. I wasn’t surprised they were stereotypes, as this is typical for a dance troupe movie, but even movies like Step Up gave them some flavour. Jas, meanwhile, was being horny for a matress shop worker. There were a few other edgy jokes sprinkled in that were... interesting (boner jokes), but the delivery of said jokes were mostly good, so it’s okay.

I was very peeved by the final dance (because of many technicalities and that they just shoud not have won) but we’re going to gloss over that and just call it “movie magic”. Sure.

It sounds like I didn’t like the movie, but I did! The tragical third act moment where it all falls apart is well-done and logical for our characters and Jas had every right to be mad. I’m surprised she came back in the end! I love how they showcased and highlighted how amazing disabled dancers were! I love Quinn and Jas’ friendship, Jas’ quips and jabs, and all the dance montages Jake got to have. I enjoyed the cinematography and lighting (!!), the soundtrack, Michelle Buteau gracing us with her presense, and I respect how Sabrina had to pretend she didn’t know how to dance.

Like I said: it was a cute movie. It’s a mindless watch without any deeper meaning other than to let yourself go every once in a while and to go to the beat of your own drum. I wish coming-of-age dance movies would find the balance between generic dance movie with -insert trendy actors- and the overly pretentious John Green-esque movies. I’d suggest talking to dancers and observing an actual dancer’s life. I'm also wondering if this film would’ve been better set in college or a dance club outside of high school, but I’ll have to think about that more.

Will it go down in dance movie history like Step Up, Dirty Dancing or Footloose? To Be Determined.

3/5

#work it #jordan fisher #sabrina carpenter #jake taylor #quinn ackerman #netflix #review #spoilers

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radramblog · 4 years ago

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Ninty Direct Feb 2021 Thoughts

That was uh. Kind of disappointing, actually.

I suppose it was inevitable that we weren’t seeing Pokemon since they’re gonna do their own announcement. But like. Coulda done better here.

(oh no you’re now introduced to my awful awful handwriting, is this better or worse than my cursed interests? you decide)

Anyway I wrote down everything they announced so here we go

Pyra/Mythra in Smash: I don’t give a single shit about the Xenoblade series, but it’s one of like 2 IPs Nintendo has had in the last decade so sure whatever they can have second a character as a treat. I’m mostly just annoyed this wasn’t a third-party character.

Fall Guys Switch: This feels inevitable. It also feels about 5 months too late.

Outer Wilds Switch: I’ve heard some absolutely excellent things about this game, so fair enough. I’m not sure I’d buy it on the Switch, but I haven’t bought it at all yet, so.

Famicom Detective Club: This looks like a Ren’py game if it had an actual budget, but still used Ren’py for some reason. Prooobably not biting on this one chief.

Samurai Warriors 5: The only Warriors game I’ve played is the first hyrule warriors, and the only Nobunaga game I’ve played was Pokemon Conquest (it’s a trip), so. I don’t understand the obsession they have over there for this bloke, like imagine if Australia made like a tv series a year and a large handful of video games about Ned Kelly or something.

Legend of Mana: Shit I should go play Octopath Traveler huh

Monster Hunter Rise: Those monster designs looked pretty kickass, and those human designs made me crack up laughing. I’ve never played Monster Hunter, and I don’t think this is gonna change that.

Mario Golf: Hey look they confirmed Waluigi as playable ahead of time so people wouldn’t complain, good job guys. The multiplayer of this looked silly as hell, but I’m not spending 80 bucks on wii sports tennis for a multiplayer mode ill drag my mates to play all of once before we go back to playing Beetle Adventure Racing.

Tales from the Borderlands: Wait telltale is still around? Ok…? I haven’t played Borderlands and don’t really care for the Telltale style so nah

Capcom Arcade Stadium: They could have made a peripheral like the NES/SNES mini, but they didn’t, and it’s for the best. The fact that one of the games is free implies to me that the rest are going to be overcosted, though.

Stubbs the Zombie: What the fuck am I looking at. Apparently this is a remaster of an old Xbox game, but I’ve never heard of it. Weird as fuck, but sure.

No More Heroes III: No more Heroes is a franchise that I’ve never played, but always wanted to. It seems right up my alley aesthetic-wise, and the gameplay looks pretty solid too- probably gonna try one of the older ones first, though.

Neon White: Speaking of aesthetic. This looks anime as fuck and edgy in a good way, and the gameplay looks real fun. I actually really want to check this out, and no, it’s not just because of the skull masked goth gf on the cover. (Doesn’t hurt, though.)

DC Super Hero Girls Teen Power: Jesus, this looks like a bad tie-in game from the mid 2000s. Not like Battle for Bikini Bottom, more like a Jimmy Neutron. And while I really liked the Jimmy Neutron game as a kid (shame about the show), this doesn’t look like it’ll stand up to that…high bar. Listening to this trailer made me want to die a little bit inside.

Plants Vs Zombies: Battle for Neighbourville: I miss PopCap. Peggle 3, never.

Miitopia: This looks cute, and will probably lead to the same sort of 3am DMs that happened with Tomodachi Life. If it’s a full priced game, it probably won’t sell at all.

Animal Crossing New Horizons Mario items: uhhh sure. Don’t have that game, so.

Triangle Strategy: Aww fuck it’s a final fantasy tactics that looks like octopath and it might have an actually good story, shiiiiiiiiit. I’m gonna give the demo a try before I land on this, but I’m optimistic.

Star Wars Hunters: When was the last time we had an actually good Star Wars game? And don’t say Fallen Order. Yeah, didn’t think so.

KO City: Ah, the bottom of the barrel. Didn’t think it would take this long. At this point, the pseudo-cartoony style everything has because they’re trying to ape Fortnite is extremely grating on me. (I definitely thought this ad was for Fortnite stuff at first)

World’s End Club: OK this one has me actually hyped. I knew that Kodaka (director/writer of the Danganronpa series) and Uchikoshi (director/writer of the Zero Escape series) were working on a joint project, and we’re finally seeing the results. Both of them have multiple excellent games under their respective belts, and this new game looks like a fun spin on what I’m sure a lot of people were expecting from the pair. Literally both of them have made a game where (spoilers I guess, Keara stop reading here you haven’t played VLR yet) there’s a death game going on while the characters are unaware the world fucking ended, so to see the idea of the death game getting interrupted and the characters actually having to live in the dead world is really cool. I’m paying cloooose attention to this one.

Hades (Physical Release): Dang now if I buy hades I can choose to have some of my money go to EB games or JB hifi or something. Cooooooooooooool.

Ninja Gaiden Collection: This just made me wonder why Ryu Hayabusa isn’t in Smash yet. Is it because there’s already a Ryu?

Age of Calamity DLC: I don’t think I mentioned this in my post yesterday, but I would have put money on DLC for this game coming out. I still haven’t played it, but the first Hyrule Warriors had so much fucking DLC so this was inevitable in my eyes.

Bravely Default 2: Uhhh its another JRPG man idk what you want me to say. Didn’t play the first one, apparently its good.

Ghosts n Goblins Resurrection: Kinda funny having this next to the free original in the Capcom Arcade Stadium. Capcom is reviving old franchises, I guess? Where’s Mega Man Battle Network, cowards?

SaGa Frontier: I’ve heard good things about the SaGa series, but this looks awful. Not like gameplay wise, the style for the models and shit in game just disinterests me.

Apex Legends: Is anyone still playing this game?

BOTW 2 (no news): I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed. Next Direct, I guess.

Skyward Sword HD: I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.

Seriously though, I was expecting 3 of the best Zeldas ever made to get ports, and we got the one that I wasn’t interested in. Fuck you too, I guess.

Splatoon 3: I actually was super interested in this, seeing as the trailer looked like it was gonna be for some like… side game, 3D RPG or something, exploring the origins of the Splatoon world? But then it’s just Splatoon 3. And like, I know people really like that series, but it never appealed to me. The world is neat! But I’m not interested in the series as it is.

And that’s the tea.

ADDENDUM:

shit that’s this weekend? huh ok -New Hearthstone expansions revealed, kinda like WOTC does with magic every so often, just like “here’s the next couple sets btw”. Since they do nothing but plagiarise off each other and MTG is having a set based on another WOTC property this year (D&D), there’s going to be a Starcraft set. -Diablo 4 release date that will not be stuck to since COVID is still a thing -people are hoping for starcraft 3. Blizzard to announce Starcraft 2 Episode 1. -New WoW expansion announced, determined objectively to be “worst ever” before trailer is even finished

#ramble #video games

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gothwarlocks · 4 years ago

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OC?

Thank you!! Sorry for the delay, but I made up for it with writing way too much about my oldest character. Hope that makes up for it! Under cut for length.

Sorry but it's visual appearance headcanon time. Darth Atrox is probably my only toon that really doesn't look like their in-game model. I've always headcanonned them as a little taller than average and of a willowy-but-tone build, as someone who was an underweight child and grew up to train in swordsmanship. They have an "aquiline" nose, prominent bone spurs and ridges, and a silvery, notably masculine voice. Some of this is because they’ve medically transitioned, having been on Star Wars HRT and had top surgery, but Bioware won't let me change characters' gender sooo...they're stuck with this form for now. (Btw, they're my oldest character! I made them about a half-year after SWTOR's launch and have since had like 5 iterations of them ldkjfs)

Atrox is fluent in spoken and written forms of the Sith language. Regarding it's written form, they've had to master High Sith (Kittât?) to be able to interpret ancient Sith relics and recordings. It took them many years to be able to near-flawlessly interpret the language, but their mother lorded over them until they rivaled her own ability.

They are very minimalist in their style and have retired a lot of piercings. Currently, they only wear silver jewelry in their septum, tongue, left upper helix and right daith and lower helix. That sounds like a lot for most people anyway, but I imagine it's in the lower range for Sith Purebloods lol.

Without getting too much into reasoning and backstory, Atrox loses a portion of their left arm (about halfway between elbow and wrist) in a pivotal point in their life and the severed end on their forearm is damaged beyond any hopes for reattachment for the hand. They instead opt for a customized cybernetic limb with the capacity to conduct and withstand their use of Force lightning. It comes with retractable claw tips (an aesthetic choice that doubles as an interrogation tool lol).

To help process the trauma of aforementioned event and loss of limb, Atrox has the section of skin connecting to their cybernetic blacked out with tattoo ink. The solid color breaks up into a sleeve design as it stretches above their elbow, the details of which I've yet to completely determine. There's definitely a large Pureblood skull and some incantations in High Sith. (Examples: X , X)

In the first year of their time as a Darth, some Sith felt their claim to power was illegitimate. Their mother had a fairly high reputation as someone who had worked their way from "nothing" to rubbing elbows with Dark Council members over cafs at brunch, so to claim they murdered her in true Sith tradition and claimed her assets and powerbase was...contested. While there is a lie in that claim, the fact stands that Atrox an undeniably formidable Sith; they proved that much by doing away with their would-be assassins and challengers in violent, public displays of power.

Atrox is known by their closest colleagues to be avid fan of Imperial operas, their music in particular. In true villain-y fashion, they enjoy having famous arias play in the background as they conduct their archaeological research or read up on the newest publications of other Sith and the Imperial Reclamation Service. They also love dusk music (I'm headcanonning that it's just Star Wars goth rock or whatever), but they only really get to talk about or enjoy it by themselves or when relaxing with Darth Verentis (one of my warriors, and their ex lol). They definitely still go to goth dusk clubs together regularly lol.

On that note, Verentis and Atrox have known one another for nearly a couple decades and remain very close friends. They dated briefly upon Atrox's departure from the Sith academy, though it wasn't serious. Nowadays they often spend time together and aid one another in their respective endeavors when possible. Verentis helps Atrox find both of their apprentices!

They have a pet tuk'ata named Zayin that doubles as their laboratory guard on Dromund Kaas when they're dealing with business elsewhere. Atrox likes to take him hunting on Korriban or let him tag along to planets with wildlife. He was originally bred by Verentis’ family and presented to them as a gift when they dated Verentis.

"Canon" Atrox romances Andronikos for a while but drifts apart from him the closer they get to their seat on the Dark Council. The power difference between them makes Atrox feel uncomfortable, having once been on that end of the dynamic with their mother, and so they feel their breakup is a healthy choice. Andronikos has to swallow his misery and settle for being their good friend and confidant. Once they get through the ordeal on Ossus, Atrox reunites with Khem Val and they get Dashade-engaged. Funnies aside, I think Khem is an excellent romance for dark side-leaning inquisitors. His attraction to them is a little spooky, but that fits with the class's theme and overall I am stoked for it! It's like his undying honor-love for Tulak Hord is renewed in the canon inquisitor, but like, more romantic lol. Even more so because the canon inq doesn't enslave Khem and worked to grant him true independence the entire way through (at least, mine did). Bro I just love Khem Val a lot.

#ty!!!!#having a full time job that also essentially gives you homework sucks ass. anyway sorry this took ages lol #I STILL HAVE ONE ASK TO GO......at this rate I might get to it next week #oc: Atrox

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artistshadow · 5 years ago

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My thoughts from the newly released trailer for 4th and final season of the Netflix show “13 Reasons Why.”

• “Don’t freak out”???? Sure Justin. How could he possibly freak out over someone writing MONTY WAS FRAMED across the school doors?

• I like how after that, the camera glances over at Alex and Jessica.

• Oh Clay, you have more than a few problems (but one of them isn’t your hair which actually looks nice for once!).

• What’s with the bonfire??

• Y’ALL NEED TO PROTECT MY SON JUSTIN AT ALL COSTS!!

• No Justin, I’m afraid this all going to haunt you all forever.

• Awwwwww, Winston is looking through the Liberty yearbook and sees Monty’s picture. (Why does their yearbook look better than my school's????)

• Eeeeeeewwwwww!!!! Ani's back.

• Ooooooooh is Winston going to school there now!!??

• Can we just talk about the look Winston gave them? It’s almost a smirk.😂

• Ani…I’m pretty sure he does have proof. I’m pretty sure he is the proof.

• Hmmm…though Clay might be onto something.

• I wonder if Winston is going to join the photography club or even yearbook since he was in that at his old school seeing as though he’s in the yearbook room at Liberty. Maybe it’s to get close to Tyler!!!!!😱

• What is that symbol???

• “We got to figure this out for Monty.” Oooh.

• Who that guy in the football jersey?

• They found the guns!!! Hahahaha!!! Sucks for y’all!!!😂😂😂

• Poor baby boy…it ain’t ever going to be over.

• You thought wrong Clay.

• Who is the “him” that’s being watched???

• Here comes Jessica asking all the right questions.

• Hahaha Clays starting to lose it! He’s seeing things now!😂

• This therapist fellow is onto something…

• That dark room with the pictures looks really creepy.👌

• You’re not wrong, therapist man.

• Okay we’re in jail now.

• Clay's having nightmares about being in jail. Foreshadowing?

• Justin is right. At some point, enough is enough.

• Winston lurking and watching. Better watch out Clay.

• Who is Jessica fighting!? It better not my other son Winston I know that!

• Why are the students running like the Devil himself is chasing them?

• Clay and Tony are getting arrested! What is happening!!??

• Clay…who’s blood is that?

• Is Clay losing it? Is this one of those scenarios where a bunch of friends do something wrong and one of them starts, you know, showing signs of cracking and all the others are like “Don't do anything stupid or start freaking out or you'll take us all down!”??? Because if it is then ha-ha!😂😂

• Where is Clay at and what’s Jessica doing with (I think) the guy Winston was talking to earlier???

• Oh who broke through the door?👀

• Clay and Tony are watching Tyler give something to what appears to be a shady person in a car. What did you give him, Tyler and who is he!!??

• Yes, Ani. Things have fallen apart and I wonder who’s fault that is?

• Oh crap! Jersey boy from earlier is beating the crap out of what appears to be Zach!!

• Okay either Clay’s having a nightmare or the police are arresting (or checking) kids at his school during what appears to be a power out with cop lights flashing outside.

• Hey it’s those goth kids Tyler hung out with!

• Clay are you okay??

• Who just hit the school camera?

• Oh, believe me there therapist man, Clay is keeping secrets.

• And back to jail we go.

• Is Clay having a dream of visiting Monty in prison?

• Okay demonic Monty. That’s scary.

• Why is Jessica Davis crying!? Who did what to Jessica Davis!!??👿

• Okay never mind!😂 She’s having a hallucination of Bryce. Dang, I’d be freaking out to. Though why did it look like she had a red light on her face?

• The actor playing Bryce is getting some money even after his characters death.💰

• Is that…Alex and Bryce in the water??????

• Do I even want to know why Alex and Zach are breaking into what appears to be the school?

• Oh God, Justin looks nervous.😨 (Though I love his hair.)

• What the heck is Clay pointing at those guys!?

• Is that an actual person lying (what appears to be bloody) on the ground or is that a mannequin in what appears to be prison clothes?

• Why is Clay slightly bloody?

• AND WHO ARE THOSE CREEPY BLACK-HOODED PEOPLE!!??

• Yeah Clay, are you ready to let those secrets out?👀

• Ooooh Winston is coming for all of them!

• Looks like Clay is FINALLY getting the help he needs.

• It appears that Winston is coming for them HARD.

• I feel like this is going to be a nightmare like season.

So these are my thoughts I had while watching the trailer. Can’t wait for June 5th. Can’t believe this is the final season but I know it can’t go on forever.😭😢 This season will determine if I hate or love this series. Feel free to comment on this post just know that any hateful, rude, or horrible comments will be met with either deletion, reporting, or blocking.

*Let this be said: I do not condone what Bryce or Monty did. At all. It doesn’t matter if they felt bad or had crappy things happen to them in the past, what they did was inexcusable. But did they deserve to die? No. If we were allowed to kill everyone who does something bad there would be absolute chaos. Did Monty deserve to be framed for Bryce’s death? No. Does Alex deserve to be in jail (or a mental asylum)? Yes, very. That psychopath needs to be locked up. And Tyler almost shot up the school (even though I was rooting for him to shoot Monty) so he should get some kind of punishment. And everyone of them has helped cover up these crimes and I'm pretty sure that's called aiding and abetting so…just saying. If they don’t get punished, I’ll be disappointed.*

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jawnjendes · 6 years ago

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slow | shawn mendes

university au, shawn x goth gf

AN: its a smutty smut. i wasn’t gonna write anymore shit about the beginning of their relationship but SOMEONE just HAD to be in an underwear campaign so here we are. its not even that dirty, it’s the beginning of their sex life so yeah

masterlist | series playlist

I had to set dating rules for myself if I wasn't going to fall into old habits. For one thing, I had to have a friend check in on me via text while I was out with Shawn. Stella never failed at sending her hourly "you good?👀" messages. If it wasn't Stella, then it was someone from my video game club. Someone was always on standby if I needed it.

Another rule I had to set was that I needed to be engaging if I wanted things to go somewhere. In the past, there was little communication between both parties, so I quickly got used to keeping my mouth shut about everything. Shawn was the opposite. He talked about everything and nothing, including extremely mundane details about his classes. However, because I did in fact like him, it was easy to listen and be entranced by his words. I tried not to talk about the personal things he asked me about, like my stomach problems, or my hometown. I was getting there, though.

Then, there was the biggest rule of all: don't have sex with him right away. My therapist suggested that one because of my past relationships. If I slept with Shawn from the get go, it would have kept me from opening up to him and it would have gotten me into the habit of using sex to hide the baggage I unfortunately have. Therefore, I couldn't have sex with him until I was ready. It was a good rule. It was a good way to determine if he just wanted sex or if he actually wanted me. When I mentioned that rule to him, he was perfectly okay with waiting, and it gave me some peace of mind.

Things moved slowly but pleasantly over the last ten dates I've had with Shawn. On the eleventh date, he invited me back to his apartment after spending ten minutes in the backseat of his car in a movie theatre parking lot. I was straddling his lap, having my breath stolen by his kiss only a minute prior. I had to take it slow, that doesn't mean I wasn't allowed to make out with him!

"Going to back to your place implies that something's gonna happen," I said, my hands on his very broad shoulders.

"Oh, so what's happening now?" he asked, a smirk on his pretty face. His fingers laced together behind my lower back. "Come on." He leaned in and pressed his lips on mine again, sweet and yearning. "Stay with me tonight."

It had been less than a month since this thing started, and I was already a fucking fool for him. Technically, I wasn't supposed to get into a compromising position like this. Every part of my body was screaming for me to accept his invite, wanting to give him all of me. But the paranoid, crazy side of my brain was working hard. It was warning me of past experiences when things like this would happen. Shawn has the same pretty face and charming demeanor of every guy I've been with, which is what made him untrustworthy.

He's going to sleep with you and never call you again. He's playing you. There are no feelings here. He wants you to think he likes you.

"We're taking things slow, remember?" I reminded him as I climbed off his lap. I sat leaning against the door, folding my arms.

Shawn took a deep breath and ran his fingers through his hair. Then he touched his swollen lips, and I couldn't not stare at that gesture. I just wanted those lips so bad. I wanted those lips on my-

"I understand," he spoke at last. "This isn't something you get into easily, right?"

I didn't want to unveil my past right away. I didn't want him to think less of me because of it. I chose my words carefully.

"Well, I told you, I have rules," I said. "It's out of respect for myself."

"Meaning?"

He said he understood! Why does he need details?! Why does he want to get in my pants so bad!?

I looked around at the walls and ceiling of the vehicle. Then I started to tap my leg. "I used to think of myself one way, and it made me throw caution to the wind. Now, I know I deserve to have rules for myself. I'm proceeding with caution. Can you understand that?" That last question had a bit of unintentional snark.

Shawn nodded, sitting up straight. "Yeah, a hundred percent."

"Or do you just want to get in my pants and get it overwith?" I asked, paranoia making her dramatic entrance before I could stop her.

"What? No!"

"If you just wanted one thing you could have told me! You don't have to lie to me!"

"What - no, wait! Stop," Shawn told me, a confused look on his face. "Stop for a second, look at me. Honey, look at me."

My eyes were daggers as they pierced into Shawn's. He had his brows furrowed, trying to read every bit of the soul I refused to hand over. In his eyes, I just lost my goddamn mind for no reason. In reality, he was implying I go to his place to fuck and then kick me to the curb.

"If I wanted just sex, I would have asked," he explained. "If I didn't want a relationship with you, I wouldn't have asked you out. I've had casual sex before, I know how that works. But with you, it's not just casual, and I don’t want it to be. And when the times comes and you're ready, it's not going to be like my previous experiences. It'll be better, because there's feelings-"

I cut him off before it could get too mushy. "Okay. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you." I paused. "I intend on waiting, I just didn't think it would be this hard."

"Well, whenever you're ready, I know it's gonna be amazing."

My face went hot.

I needed to spend time away from Shawn so my entire body could cool down, but I also needed to spend time with him to get things moving. Do you see my problem?

School and work kept me busy, though. I was especially glad to not have to think about past mistakes while I was at work, even though a specific one worked three feet away from me most days. When I was on campus, I had that irrational fear of running into Shawn, even though we shared exactly zero classes. I didn't want to run into him because I was worried he would give me those affectionate eyes and cute smile…. And then I would pounce on him in public.

Would that be such a bad thing?

I couldn't sleep that much either. If I did, I dreamt about pretty pink lips on my skin and hips between mine. I came to the conclusion that I probably should not have kissed Shawn on the first date. My sanity was gone now because of it. I had a little taste of him and now it was all I wanted. He really had to be handsome, charismatic, and a good kisser. He had it all.

Two more dates went by with minimal kissing and no sex talk. We spoke of more mundane things, got to know each other some more, but so help me god if either one of us let a simple hand touch linger too long. I always wanted to scratch at the skin on my hands and arms because he left a trail of fire with the tips of his fingers.

Shawn liked touching my hair a lot, as it turns out. It was a gentle way of reminding me to make eye contact. These days though, whenever he moved a strand behind my ear, I couldn't help but think of how he could hold my hair up while I-

"What are you thinking about?" he asked, his foot nudging mine under the table.

"The inevitability of death and how everything is essentially meaningless and we're just on a rock that's hurtling through space," I answered like I wasn’t thinking about dropping to my knees under the table.

"Hot."

He was joking, but we shared a certain look. There was a tiny undertone of seriousness in that one simple word. The restaurant we were at was crowded but I found myself tuning out all the sounds as I looked at Shawn's face. This would have been a lot easier if he had been a one night stand, or a full time fuck buddy.

"What are you thinking about?" I asked in return. My eyes flickered down to his blue button up, where the first three buttons were left undone. It wasn't helping the situation, and I think he knew that.

"That cute little skirt you're wearing." He quirked his eyebrows once and smiled.

Okay, I wasn't helping either, I'll admit it. I didn't intend to wear something that could be seen as teasing, but the weather was tolerable and I wanted to take advantage. That's totally the only reason why I paired a tight black long sleeve with a black skater skirt.

"I'm not cute, I'm edgy," I corrected, despite the blush rising on my cheeks.

"Yeah, the black lipstick says it all," Shawn said, reaching across the table for my hand. "Which, by the way, I haven't seen you wear since we started dating."

"If I wear black lipstick, I can't kiss you," I told him, looking at his hand tattoo. "It'll make a huge mess on our faces, and I have rules to follow. Black lipstick is how I know nothing will happen tonight."

"Nothing, eh?" Shawn narrowed his eyes like he was taking on a challenge.

"Absolutely nothing." I smiled.

My phone screen lit up from where it sat on my lap. Check in time. I let go of Shawn's hand to answer the text.

"you good?👀"

"ye bb"

"ok be careful and remember your rules."

I was lucky to have Stella.

When Shawn dropped me off at campus later that night, he kissed my hand and told me that I was not making this any easier. I should have been put off, but my brain was short circuiting and not working how it normally did. I left the car excited and extremely frustrated.

By the thirteenth date, neither of us could really take it anymore. After a movie, Shawn and I were in the backseat of his car again, sitting awfully close to one another, but keeping our hands to ourselves. The idea was to just innocently sit together and talk about nothing, because neither of us wanted the date to be over yet, and I absolutely could not go to his place. However, so much making out has happened back here that we couldn't not think about that.

Our foreheads were touching, and my hand was on his face. I had given that much, and it was almost impossible to resist closing the distance between us. Shawn's breathing was shallow, like he was forcing himself to not take me the way he wanted. His breath touched my lips so softly, I brought my thumb up to his lower lip, thinking about how bad it would be if I nibbled on it just a little.

"I can't believe you had the nerve to wear that skirt again," he murmured, then he leaned back to look at me.

"I can't believe you don't button your shirt all the way," I said back, running my hand down his neck and to his exposed chest. Touching his skin was sending electricity through my veins. I was teetering on the edge, I couldn't wait anymore.

Shawn looked down between us and placed a big hand on my thigh. He was over my skirt, but I still felt my skin get hot underneath. It was the last push I needed, and he didn't even have to move. Just a touch was all it took.

"I don't wanna go all the way," I told him. "Not yet."

"Okay." He retracted his hand. "That's fine, I'm sorry if I overstepped."

I took his hand like it was a lifeline, and I looked him in the eyes. "You're not hearing me. I don't wanna go all the way yet, but I need you."

His eyes widened with excitement, and the corner of his mouth went up. He didn't even hesitate to cup my face and bring our lips together.

There was no room for shame in the slightest; His tongue tasted mine like he would never get the chance to again. My hands shook as I reached for his shirt, undoing all the buttons as quickly as I could. A sigh left my throat when I was able to touch his delicious abs, and it made me squeeze my thighs together.

Shawn broke away from me, but I went in and started trailing kisses along his neck. Soft, wet prints went down his collarbone and back up to his jaw. But he firmly grabbed my wrists to get my attention.

"Wait."

My stomach sank, and a pout formed on my face before I could stop it. I only had a good minute of feeling him up before it was sorely interrupted.

"Let me focus on you," he said, moving a strand of hair that had stuck to my mouth. "I, I don't want you to think I'm, like, using you or anything. Let me just make you feel good. You won't have to do anything in return."

"That's not fair to you, though," I replied.

"It's okay. I'm more of a… pleaser. I want to please you. Make you feel good things."

He let go of my wrist to place his hand on my thigh again. This time, it slowly moved up, taking my skirt with it. Shawn leaned in to me again, his lips softly calling my name. But before I could give into him, I had one request.

"Just take your shirt off."

A wave of heat went over me as Shawn stared into my eyes. Without breaking the gaze, he pulled off his button up and let it drop to the floor. His arms were thick and muscular, something I never had much interest in until he came along. His pecs and his abs were sculpted just right, and it made my mouth water. I could see his Calvins peeking from the top of his jeans, and I couldn't help but notice the protruding bulge he had going on. I lost all coherent thought, squeezing my thighs together once again.

Shawn noticed this, and a cocky smirk grew on his face. Silently, he went for my thighs again and gently spread them open. "Want me to touch you, honey?"

Oh god, yes.

I could only nod before grabbing the back of his neck and pulling him in for another sloppy kiss. The only sounds were from heavy breaths, desperate sighs, and our tongues tasting one another. Shawn had one arm around my waist, the tips of his fingers touching the hem of my shirt and the skin on my back. His free hand dove right in between my legs, stroking firmly against my covered core.

"So fucking pretty," he whispered against my lips. "So fucking wet for me, eh?"

I didn't know what to say, I just let out a sharp breath as he touched me.

He gently kissed my cheek, and then he moved his hand away from where I needed him. Instead, he grabbed the hem of my panties from under my skirt, tugging on them slightly.

Almost too eagerly, I moved my hips up to help get them off. Once Shawn got a look at the lace, he chuckled like he was impressed.

"Really? A red thong?" he asked, letting the skimpy lace hang off his index finger before it dropped to the floor.

I smiled. "They were there just in case you wanted to see them."

"You little tease." Then, he took my right leg and lied it across his lap, thus exposing me to the world. Or, in this case, his car.

What can I say, I loved being a tease. I thrived off of someone chasing after me and my lust. I was supposed to wait, but it turned into a little game over the last couple of weeks. It felt a lot more intimate knowing that Shawn was always ready to lap that shit up like nobody's business. He played when it was time to play, but he had also been very respectful and patient with me.

Not to mention, he had quite the dirty mouth on him. It was a delicious contrast from his typical boyish charm and sweet nothings.

Shawn was rubbing in just the right place in no time. It was so good, so right, I was actually surprised. It was like he knew which exact place would send me. My eyes squeezed shut and my hand was on his chest in seconds, my fingers gently scratching against his skin.

"Right there?" he guessed. I could hear the smug grin in his voice.

"Mhmm," I moaned, for my lack of speech was now very compromised. My head went back against the seat and my jaw went completely slack.

"You don't even know how fucking hot you look right now," he mused, his mouth against my ear. He ceased the soft but rapid rubbing to insert his index and middle fingers into my dripping hole. "You don't even know how good you feel against my fingers. I can't wait for when you let me have my way with you, baby…"

Oh, fuck. Neither could I. As much as I wanted to hear him tell me everything he wanted to do, I knew it would leading to acting out those things. We're going slow. I was perfectly content with Shawn fingering me until I couldn't take it anymore. He was surprisingly good at it.

His soft lips pressed against my temple, and then he was nosing my hair. His fingers were relentless, making obscene noises as they pumped the night away. I really wasn't going to last.

"Oh, fuck yeah," Shawn groaned when I let out my first desperate whine. "You dirty fucking girl."

I gripped the hairs at the nape of his neck, needing something to keep me grounded. My hips twitched once, and my toes were curling the way they did before-

Another loud, pornographic moan came out of me. My body was starting to shake with how quick and smooth Shawn was going, and it was making my mind go fuzzy.

He kissed my neck feverishly, mumbling dirty, dirty words against my skin. The sweet, soft boy I had at the beginning of this date was long gone, and I thrived on the filthy sex fiend he left behind. I couldn't get enough.

My hips were moving on their own as I got closer to my finish. My eyes were still shut because if I looked at Shawn, I was sure to just pass out on the spot. I felt my thighs shake, something that had only happened on my own time. This was way too good to be true.

"I'm, I'm gonna come," I managed to speak in a broken, needy whisper. "Fuck, I'm gonna come…"

Shawn actually growled in the back of his throat. He fucked me faster with the two same digits, and my stomach tightened intensely. His lips were on my cheek as he desperately whispered, "Come on… come on, give it to me…"

"Fuck! Fuck!"

Soon enough, my breathing sped up until every part of me was shaking and spasming. My moans were borderline sobs as I burst all over his hand and onto the car seat. Shawn quickly removed his fingers to rub at me just to keep it going for that much longer. I cry out, only for the sounds to get softer and softer as I came down from what was probably a life changing orgasm.

Why was it life changing? Because that was the first time anyone has made me feel like that.

I couldn't catch my breath once Shawn took his hand away. I couldn't speak, or even open my eyes, so I just turned my body into his and curled into his lap, desperately seeking comfort and cuddles. His arms went around me with no hesitation, stroking the back of my head.

"Slow your breathing, honey," he told me, planting a kiss on top of my head. "Just slow down."

"Holy shit," I breathed out.

Holy shit. I was so done for.

#shawn mendes #shawn mendes fanfic #shawn mendes imagine #shawn mendes blurb #shawn mendes smut #shawn x goth gf #now let me play video games in pieces you six foot hot piece of ass #skhsdkjs i meant to say peace but yknow i really do feel like im in pieces hahahaha

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nov-the-book-dragon · 6 years ago

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My Top Four YA Fantasy Sets

City Of Bones by Cassandra Clare (The Mortal Instruments)

When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder― much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It's hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing―not even a smear of blood―to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy? This is Clary's first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It's also her first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like an angel and acts a lot like a jerk. Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into Jace's world with a vengeance when her mother disappears and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. But why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother? And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know.

It's been a while since I’ve read anything by Cassandra Clare but in the past I have laughed and cried and loved in her world. I got the first Mortal Instruments book some time ago as a gift and it lay unread on my shelf for some time until my family went away for a week and Mum said I could only bring books I hadn’t read before (Troy by Adèle Geras and The Girl In The Mask by Marie-Louise Jensen were the others; also excellent books). I devoured it. I sat down and absolutely lost myself in Clare’s New York and the world of the Shadowhunters. I have since collected most of her books and read the original series at least three times fully through. It’s powerful and drags you right in even if you’re a stubborn thirteen-year-old determined to hate it. I know it’s gotten a lot of hype and that often puts me off but in this case it’s because it’s magic. It does get a bit confusing in the third and fourth book, but all makes sense in the end.

Even the prequel and sequel sets are enjoyable and draw you in. I didn’t think I would like the Clockwork series because of how much I’d loved the original characters and their little nook of life but once again Cassandra Clare proved me wrong. I highly recommend these books but do expect to get your heart at least a little bit broken.

Glass Houses by Rachel Caine (The Morganville Vampires)

College freshman Claire Danvers has had enough of her nightmarish dorm situation. When Claire heads off-campus, the imposing old house where she finds a room may not be much better. Her new roommates don't show many signs of life, but they'll have Claire's back when the town's deepest secrets come crawling out, hungry for fresh blood. Will she be able to face the town's terror or will she drown like everyone else?

Probably one of the first sets on this list that I read. The Morganville Vampires is filled, once again, with a group of close friends. Claire a sixteen-year-old science student, Eve a goth coffee shop employee, Shane a chilli cooking video game lover and Michael an up and coming musician.

The complex love-hate relationship between the human and vampire inhabitants of Morganville is often a cause for conflict and suspense.

I will admit that the plot starts to get a bit far fetched nearing the end but then again, there is fifteen books so it can’t be easy coming up with storylines for all of them. The ending is a classic happy ending I am glad to say.

One thing I really love about Morganville is the number of characters with questionable morality, those who you are never quite sure whose side they’re on. There’s nothing I’m such a sucker for as eccentric characters, grey morality and platonic love so it’s no wonder that I like these as much as I do. And really, who couldn’t love a character with vampire bunny slippers and a giant pet spider called Bob?

My Soul To Take by Rachel Vincent (The Soul Screamers)

She doesn't see dead people. She senses when someone near her is about to die. And when that happens, a force beyond her control compels her to scream bloody murder. Literally. Kaylee just wants to enjoy having caught the attention of the hottest guy in school. But a normal date is hard to come by when Nash seems to know more about her need to scream than she does. And when classmates start dropping dead for no apparent reason, only Kaylee knows who'll be next.

I found the fifth book in the library and absolutely loved it. However, I wouldn’t recommend starting with If I Die because it’s a major turning point in the series, the first book is probably a better starting place.

Kaylee is a complex heroine who never wanted to be in the limelight, she just wanted her family and friends to be safe. She goes through so much development as a character throughout the series and emerges stronger than ever at the end. You finish the series feeling proud of what the main characters have achieved and a tinge of sadness for those that didn’t make it.

These books are a prime example of slotting fantasy elements into our world – it is bone chilling because it’s so easy to see how it could be real and how easy it would be to be one of those clueless, helpless humans. The scariest things are those which are very close to something normal but just slightly off.

The thing that really stands out about the Soul Screamers is that the supernatural beings are varied and not just your bog-standard vampires and werewolves. The diversification of urban fantasy is something I love and one of the reasons why I love it so much.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love happy endings as much as the next man – characters deserve happiness and perfection. However the bittersweet ending of this series feels right and not forced or realistic.

Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

Lissa Dragomir is a Moroi princess: a mortal vampire with a rare gift for harnessing the earth's magic. She must be protected at all times from Strigoi; the fiercest vampires - the ones who never die. The powerful blend of human and vampire blood that flows through Rose Hathaway, Lissa's best friend, makes her a dhampir. Rose is dedicated to a dangerous life of protecting Lissa from the Strigoi, who are hell-bent on making Lissa one of them. After two years of freedom, Rose and Lissa are caught and dragged back to St. Vladimir's Academy, a school for vampire royalty and their guardians-to-be, hidden in the deep forests of Montana. But inside the iron gates, life is even more fraught with danger . . . and the Strigoi are always close by. Rose and Lissa must navigate their dangerous world, confront the temptations of forbidden love, and never once let their guard down, lest the evil undead make Lissa one of them forever . . .

I read the first one a few years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it though didn’t go looking for more. However, when I found the next three in the charity shop last year I had to read on. I devoured the and read the entire set of six in four days. I will admit that my homework suffered that week. They begin slowly, getting you used to the world of Moroi, dhampires and Strigoi – all words used to describe creatures in Romanian folklore and not words made up by Richelle Mead as I first thought. But good grief when it gets started, it really goes for it. Rose is a firecracker and incredibly loyal to her best friend. Dimitri is a rock, trustworthy and ever dependant. Just a rock with a stake. Mead writes in a way that even if you don’t like a character first off - *cough* Adrian *cough* - you end up thinking of as one of your favourite characters. They take twists and turns that you never see coming – and a couple you do, with an ominous churning in your stomach.

Even the sequel set Bloodlines is excellent. I didn’t have high hopes initially after the joy of the Vampire Academy but I was surprised. It’s not as good but still highly enjoyable.

The only negative I could highlight is that the main romance in each set follows the same ups and downs. It gets to a point where it’s almost predictable.

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forever-more-never-again · 6 years ago

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In My Dreams (Scene Eleven/Fifteen)

Word Count: 1923

Pairing: Slow burn Dean Winchester X Reader

Summary: What happens when you wake up in the Supernatural Universe? And also happen to have a crush on one Dean Winchester! Will you make it back to your normal college life? Slow burn romance. Angsty Fluff.

Scene One / Scene Two / Scene Three / Scene Four / Scene Five / Scene Six / Scene Seven / Scene Eight / Scene Nine / Scene Ten

Masterlist

Eventually two O’clock rolled around. Dean still nowhere in sight. I spent the whole afternoon pacing in the hotel room, Sam watching from the corner of his eyes as he tapped away on his laptop.

“Ready to go?” He stood up and pulled on his suit jacket.

I sighed, realizing that I wasn’t going to be able to apologize to Dean before the meeting, “Yeah, let me find something nice to wear.” I walked over to the duffel bag and shifted through the men’s clothes.

I pulled out a white dress shirt and holding it up, I caught a whiff of the heady, whiskey, woody smell that was oh so familiar. Dean.

Closing my eyes, I inhaled deeply before ducking into the bathroom and slipping it on along with a pair of Dean’s jeans.

Walking out with Sam, I watched as he locked up the room and slid into the driver’s seat of Baby.

“Do you think he is okay? He’s been gone all day.” I couldn’t help but voice my worries. If I Knew the show Dean as well as I thought I did, he would be at a bar right now, getting shitfaced and flirting with anything with breasts.

Sam seemed to know which way my thoughts were drifting as he gripped my shoulder, his hand big enough to crush my head. A weak smile on his face, “He’ll be okay. He just needs to think things through. And he won’t blame you.”

I frowned, “But he should. I said some hurtful things,” I held up a finger to Sam as he opened his mouth to argue, keeping my eyes on the windshield, watching the town fly by, “and I know you said I should choose happiness for now, but I can’t turn off my brain. And it’s headache inducing trying to keep the two lives separate. Sometimes I wonder if I should just give in to this reality me and forget about the other one.”

The rumble of Baby cut off as Sam pulled into the parking lot of City hall, where various rusty trucks and mini Suvs were parked as well.

Before I could reach for the door handle, Sam spoke up, his voice soft and low, the tone of voice that I knew as him being sincere and hoping for a heart to heart.

“[Y/n]....I don’t think it’s a choice of choosing which one you want to be. I think it’s the choice of choosing to live in the moment. Who says the two realities of yourself are so different in their wants and desires? SUre, their pasts are different, but their future...your future, is right in front of you, right now, and you’re letting it slip away from you. Think on that.”

I sat, stunned, frozen, as Sam slowly unfolded himself from Baby’s driver’s seat. Shaking my head, I got out of the car and walked up to where Sam stood waiting before the doors.

Entering Ocean Shores City Hall, we found it to be quiet. The soft smell of seawater and mold tickled my nose. As we followed the signs to the meeting room, the low murmur of conversation grew louder.

Standing before a wide set of double doors near the back of the building, me and Sam stood for a minute to listen.

“The police are helpless, and they think we’re crazy!”

“Well, Donna, who wouldn’t. You went in their raving about mermaids and shouting that they were stupid! You ruined our chance at stopping more deaths.”

“Yeah right Carl, like you had a better plan.”

“Why don’t we ask Serena? After all, it’s her clan that is doing the killing.”

At that, Sam shot me a determined look.

Nodding back at him, we opened the doors and walked inside.

The room was white and empty, aside from a circle of metal chairs were five people sat, all staring at us in varying degrees of surprise and suspicion.

A big burly man with a wide, bright red handlebar mustache stood up and rested his hands on his wide hips, glaring at the pair of us, “And who might you two be? You ain’t from around here.” His tone was layered with distrust and his face was weathered and bore the look of extreme distrust.

A homely older woman with gray curly hair stood up and swatted the man on the back, “Oh you shush Carl!” Turning to us, she widened her smile and her hazy blue eyes sparkled, “We always welcome newcomers to the Mermaid Club! I’m Donna! The founder!”

Despite his girth, Carl seemed properly chastised by the grandmotherly elder, his countenance fading to chagrin. He took of his baseball cap and rubbed his balding head, “Sorry about that. Always been suspicious of strangers.”

I could feel that my mouth was open, watching the proceedings with something akin to disbelief and awe.

Luckily, Sam had experience, so he stepped up during my minor shock.

Sticking out a hand to Carl, and then to Donna, he gave an easy going grin, “Hello, I’m Charles Zeppelin and this is my Sister, Sarah Zeppelin. We’re moving in to town and saw your meeting flyer. Sarah here,” At this he placed a hand on my lower back and pushed me forward, jump starting my self-preservation as I smiled at Donna and shyly took her warm hand, “Swears she saw a mermaid last night by Pacific Beach and wanted to come to the meeting.” Sam let a slightly derisive laugh slip in, “Of course, I had to indulge her. Even though There’s no such thing.”

Carl glared at Sam while Donna gasped and whirled onto me, eyes wide with awe and wonder, “You saw a mermaid?”

I nodded, still play acting the shy younger sister.

Donna tugged my hand, pulling me into the circle where the other members still sat, watching the previous introductions.

She spun around, pointing out everyone, “The goth teenager,”

The fishnet, black eyeliner, bedhead teen glared through her bangs and hissed, “It’s Emo.”

“Is Emma. The Hippie looking blonde young man is Zack, and this here,” Donna dragged me to stand in front of a metal chair where a young woman, with shocking silver hair and porcelain skin sat, milky white eyes seeming to look through me, “Is Serena, our resident Mermaid.”

At this, Serena spoke, and my eyes widened as her voice flowed towards me. It was like windchimes, melodious, and soft and seemed to wrap around and trap me in it, “Could you describe what you saw?”

I shot a look over my shoulder to where Sam was stopped from entering the circle by a defensive Carl. He nodded at me, saying that it was okay, before he redirected his stare to Serena. I could see his hesitancy to believe Donna’s claim that the woman before me was a mermaid, she looked nothing like the thing we had seen last night.

I kept my voice meek as I described what I had seen, “There were big ripples in the water and then this blue person popped their head from the water. Their eyes were black as night and they had no hair. Their mouth was full of razor sharp teeth and they…” I stuttered for a moment, “They spoke to me.” I finished in a whisper, dropping my gaze to the dirty tan tiled floor.

A gasp from everyone, even Carl had turned around, taking his attention off Sam, while I told my encounter.

Serena stayed perfectly still and then she slowly raised a single hand. “What did they say?”

The words rolled off my tongue without my permission, “It’s not over.”

A musical sigh, Milky White eyes closing slowly as she breathed out. I took a moment and saw that her teeth seemed a little sharper than normal, but not as sharp as the creatures from last night.

“You have had an encounter with my Kin.”

A silence flooded the room. Stifling as if everyone held their breath waiting for Serena’s next words.

“You have no chance. If they have their sights on you, if they have shown themselves to you, you will die by their hands within the fortnight. Dragged to a watery grave where they will consume your flesh and laugh at your strangled cries for help.”

“Bullshit!” Sam’s angry, very loud exclamation startled me so badly, I yelped and fell to the ground, Donna’s hand slipping from mine as gravity took ahold.

Sam stormed up to where Serena sat, her white eyes open once again, settling in the direction of where Sam was.

He jabbed a finger at her, “How do you know? Why don’t you look like them and how are you walking around?”

Carl grunted as he moved to where Sam stood and barked at him, “Now! You listen here young man, you can’t just accuse-”

Serena interrupted him, “He is right to be cautious. After all, you are a hunter, are you not? Sam Winchester..”

I held my breath as I watched the blood drain from Sam’s face, a split second before he had the demon knife in hand and pressed up against Serena’s throat.

The group members screamed. The hippie Zack, running from the room. Donna leaping back and hanging off of Carl’s girthy frame, while Emma stared at the scene and smirked while whispering, “Finally something fun.”

A snarl ripped out of Sam, the sound so terrifying I forgot for a moment that it wasn’t targeted at me.

“How do you know who I am?”

Serena didn’t even flinch, her eyes staring through Sam, her creamy flesh pulsing against the knife as she breathed evenly, “I made a deal with a demon when I was still a younglin. I didn’t want to terrorize people. I wanted to walk amongst them and feel the love that my clan often spoke so callously about. They gave me legs and hair and skin to blend in, but they took away my sight. So that I could never see the beauty of Mankind. I heard about your kind from my Clan, and then when I was on land, I heard whispers as I wandered. Sam and Dean Winchester, the boy who lived and the demon boy king.”

She slowly rotated her head back to me, the blade that Sam held against her neck wavered as he took in her words.

“And [Y/n] [Y/l/n]...a ghost.”

I gathered my strength, and ignoring the excited whispers from the strange little emo teen and the frantic whispers from Donna dn Carl, I stepped forward and asked, “How do we kill them?”

Serena smiled, but it was not a pleasant smile, “Why?”

I cocked my head to the side in confusion, “What do you mean, ‘Why?’. They’re killing people! More people will die if we don’t stop them!”

Serena took in my passionate words, but then she spoke and shocked me again, I was starting to get irritated at her seemingly pleasant personality and her condescending attitude, “That is his reason,” She tilted her head to where Sam still stood bearing down on her with a frown, “But why do you care so much? What are you running from that has you so desperate to get away from this place?”

“I-I...wh-what? I-I..” My eyes flickered over to Sam, who wore a similar shocked expression.

I took a step backwards...and then another. And then I turned and ran.

“[Y/n]!” I heard Sam shout out in concern as the doors slammed shut behind me.

FOREVER Taglist:

@sxph-t @mialeelavellan @rainydaysrnevergrey @platonic-plots @sociallyawkwardcircus-freak-hi @ayyidkeither @queenbbarnes @mythixmagic @chas-z @thefridgeismybestie @strangersstranger @princess-evans-addict

In My Dreams Series Taglist:

@jadepc @stevieboyharrington @clarinette07 @topthis808 @wolfkg @heythereamigodude @100kindsofblake @animegirlgeeky

#supernatural #dean winchester #dean x reader #dean x reader imagine #dean winchester x you #supernatural fanfiction #Supernatural tv show #supernatural x reader #supernatural x you #Sam Winchester #siren #Mermaids #reader insert #imagine #supernatural imagine #please give credit #please give feedback #rose writes #tag list

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dippedanddripped · 5 years ago

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One afternoon in 1999, when the designer Shayne Oliver was in the sixth grade, he came across a magazine ad for Dirty Denim, a line of “pre-soiled” jeans by Diesel. The ad featured a collage of faux paparazzi photographs documenting the meltdown of a fictional rock star. Oliver was struck by the campaign’s tagline: “The Luxury of Dirt.” “That blew my mind,” he told me recently. “Spending money on something that looks dirty? I was, like, ‘This is genius.’ ” He informed his mother, a schoolteacher from Trinidad named Anne-Marie, that he needed a pair immediately.

Oliver’s father had abandoned Anne-Marie before Shayne was born, and she had struggled to raise him on her own. They lived in a tiny apartment on Halsey Street, in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Oliver, who attended some rough schools—he witnessed knife fights in the halls—was highly intelligent, and Anne-Marie was determined to nurture his gifts. She stood up to people on the street who heckled him because he was effeminate, and fought with school officials who wrote him off as a rowdy black kid. She didn’t have the money for the jeans, which cost three hundred and seventy-five dollars, but she respected Shayne’s sense of urgency. “How are we going to afford Diesel clothes?” she asked herself. She soon began working evenings at the Diesel store at the corner of Sixtieth and Lexington. She got an employee discount, and her kid got his jeans.

Oliver began accompanying Anne-Marie on her shifts at Diesel, folding shirts, examining seams, and offering customers unsolicited style advice. Although his suggestions were impeccable, after a few weeks the management told him to stay home, noting that it was illegal for twelve-year-olds to work in retail. Undaunted, Oliver walked a few blocks to a Roberto Cavalli store. Employees there were so charmed that they offered him an unpaid internship. He didn’t take it, but he continued to visit the store—and pester the staff. “I would just be in the shop, hanging out all the time and talking shit,” he recalls. “It was fun.”

Oliver was a recent arrival in New York. He was born in 1987 in Minnesota, where Anne-Marie had immigrated to pursue a teaching degree, and he had spent his childhood shuttling among female relatives in St. Paul, St. Croix, and Trinidad, before settling with his mother in Brooklyn, in 1998. In St. Croix, at the age of five, he had begun making his own fashions out of scraps of fabric scavenged from his grandmother, a dressmaker. After moving to the United States, he started cutting up items in Anne-Marie’s wardrobe. In an effort to discourage this practice, she took him on regular trips to Jo-Ann Fabrics. He kept looting her closet.

When Anne-Marie rode the subway with Oliver, she noticed him staring at men who were wearing streetwear brands like Mecca and FUBU. “Why are you looking at all of these guys?” Anne-Marie asked him. “You’re all up in their Kool-Aid!” Oliver protested that he was inspecting them for their clothes, which was only half a lie. He began cutting up his jeans and ripping out the crotch, which made him a target at the Pentecostal church that he and his mother attended. “I was being expressive!” he recalls, adding that other parishioners expressed themselves by speaking in tongues. At thirteen, he quit the church.

That year, Anne-Marie sent Oliver to a public school in Long Island City which focusses on the arts. For weeks, he came to class wearing a head scarf, and was often mistaken for a Muslim girl. (“I should’ve played that up a little bit,” Oliver told me. “Muslim girls get a lot of attention.”) Shortly after he enrolled, Anne-Marie rented for him a videocassette of “Paris Is Burning,” the 1990 documentary about voguing competitions in New York. A year later, he became a member of the House of Ninja, one of the groups featured in the film. “The Ninja people were all offbeat and not glamour kids,” he recalls. They encouraged him to explore various looks, and in competitions, he said, he “swayed between ‘vogue femme’ and ‘runway.’ ”

As a teen-ager, Oliver began applying his ingenuity to his hair: “There was one point where I was mixing textures—it was, like, a mullet of dreads and then permed on the sides. I’m sorry, that hairstyle was so nasty! It was ridiculous. It was so good.” He went out most nights, commuting between the largely white electroclash scene centered on Club Luxx, in Williamsburg, and the mostly black and Latino scene on Christopher Street, where he liked to “smoke, go to the pier, and then vogue.”

Before entering the tenth grade, he transferred to Harvey Milk, the country’s first high school for L.G.B.T. youths. Many of the students there wore three outfits a day: one for their neighborhood, one for school, and one for going out. It could be dangerous to wear the wrong thing in the wrong place, so kids kept outré clothes in their backpacks and changed on the subway platform. Oliver, though, prided himself on assembling outfits that worked in all three environments: butch enough for Bed-Stuy, smart enough for school, glam enough for the club. He devised subtle, colorless ensembles, the drape and shape of which sent coded messages to the educated eye. “If you have on all-black, you can go unnoticed on the block,” Oliver explained. “Then you go intothe city, and someone who’s thinking about clothing in a different way notices all the cuts and layering.” Styling choices helped him adapt his look to different contexts. Oliver liked wearing tight poom-poom shorts, but on his way to school he pulled them low, so that they sagged “in a masculine way.”

At Harvey Milk, Oliver made friends with another boy who was obsessed with fashion, James Garland. Each was an only child, raised by an indulgent single mother who had given her son the master bedroom. They recorded television broadcasts of runway shows and pored over the designs. Garland liked the debonair luxury of Tom Ford; Oliver preferred the forbidding moodiness of Rick Owens. Before long, the boys began making clothes, conducting photo shoots in Fort Greene Park, and staging runway shows at school. They generated new pieces through collage, stitching together items from vintage shops, children’s jackets from thrift stores, and treasures from their mothers’ closets.

After creating their first line of T-shirts, named Ammo, and their first collection, Cazzy Calore, Garland and Oliver graduated from Harvey Milk and enrolled at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Garland flourished there, but Oliver chafed against the curricular constraints and dropped out in his freshman year. In 2006, he diverted the tuition money that Anne-Marie had saved for him, and launched a fashion line with his friend Raul López, who also hung out on Christopher Street. Oliver called the new line Hood By Air. The phrase suggested a style that was proudly ghetto and proudly élite (“putting on airs”). Within a few years, the label had become the most prominent high-fashion brand to have emerged authentically from street culture.

Oliver’s original mission with the label was to bring to fine menswear what he calls the “thug silhouette”: the shape created by a long T-shirt paired with saggy pants, as if the wearer had a very long torso and very short legs. He also believed that he could turn streetwear basics such as oversized hoodies and multipocketed jackets into high-concept luxury items.

By 2007, Hood By Air clothes had begun showing up in boutiques in downtown Manhattan. The collections cannily combined the audacious (trousers with a dozen pleats) and the accessible (silk-screened T-shirts). The first Hood By Air T-shirts featured bold graphics and slogans like “Back to the Hood.” Oliver and López had the shirts custom-made by Dominican tailors, and they were expensive: two hundred dollars apiece. From the start, they sold well.

In the aughts, Manhattan boutiques were awash in designer hoodies (many of them by Jeremy Scott and Raf Simons). Oliver judged their stitch too fine, their length too short, their colors too bright, their patterns too busy. He felt that designers who appropriated streetwear had a fascination with urban men but were also afraid of them—he considered their skittish engagement to be “peckish,” “gross,” and “disconnected from the real masculinity” driving street culture. He told me, “It’s, like, ‘I think that guy is really hot, but I don’t know how to approach him, so I’m going to put elements of myself in him.’ There’s a power play where you’re inspired by something but you don’t want to give it credit.” Turned off by these “fey” imitations of streetwear, Oliver made clothes that were aggressively harsh and masculine. The graphics on his T-shirts often played with urban-horror imagery: a panorama of a prison yard, red marks evoking blood spattered by gunfire. At the same time, instead of hinting at homoeroticism, he foregrounded it. The first Hood By Air editorial video, uploaded to YouTube in September, 2007, featured a model repeatedly grabbing his crotch.

Oliver also embarked on a conceptual exploration that he calls “formalizing sloppiness”—highlighting the transitional phases between dressed and undressed. “It’s like when someone is horny and in a T-shirt, and it’s dropping off the shoulder,” Oliver explained. He liked conjuring those alluringly awkward moments when an amorous couple still has a few items of clothing on: “The idea of that being so open and so vulnerable—it’s, like, ‘Where’s my pants? Where’s my underwear?’ ”

By the end of 2009, López and Oliver had put Hood By Air on hiatus. López founded his own clothing line, and Oliver focussed on hosting a new dance party called GHE20G0TH1K (Ghetto Gothic). Held in various spaces in Brooklyn and lower Manhattan, the gatherings united disparate musical tribes—urban, goth, queer, punk. Oliver ran GHE20G0TH1K with his friends Jazmin Soto (a pansexual Latina) and Daniel Fisher (a straight white Jew). Soto was in charge, but Oliver sometimes took a turn as d.j., and he favored a dark sound. “At the time, no one was playing Marilyn Manson, and I was playing records that resonated that way—the idea of, like, fear of the world,” he recalls. “I was prying into my past—all my history of being provoked.” Many of the party’s charismatic attendees wore Hood By Air T-shirts. Interest in the brand was so strong that Oliver decided to relaunch it.

This time, he had crucial help from Leilah Weinraub, a filmmaker who was working on a documentary about a lesbian strip club in South Central Los Angeles. (The film, which she plans to release in 2017, comes off as a female-focussed update of “Paris Is Burning.”) Weinraub, who was Soto’s girlfriend at the time, began doing projects with Oliver, and one day they shot a look book for the designer Telfar, a mutual friend. Oliver was among the people cast, and Weinraub was unafraid of challenging him. She recalls, “He was wearing the wrong piece—a shawl—and he refused to be styled. He said, ‘Style me like a lady’—he had on this I’m-a-demure-woman voice. I asked, ‘Can you stand a little more like a man?’ The room stopped.”

In 2012, Oliver asked Weinraub to work alongside him on the relaunch of Hood By Air. (The partnership with López was completely dissolved.) She said yes. Weinraub, who is eight years older than Oliver, told me that she felt protective of Hood By Air. “It was at the point where other people started seeing it as a success,” she said. “And at that point people start to rob you—blind. They start to trick you.” She was wary of mainstream cultural figures looking for a quick way to acquire edge—of invitations to, say, “work on Katy Perry’s team.” Shortly after Weinraub became Oliver’s partner, investors offered to buy Hood By Air and put Oliver and Weinraub on fixed salaries. She was appalled. “This isn’t fucking Motown!” she said. Hood By Air, she declared, would remain closed to outside investors while it was in its “incubation period.” (To date, the company hasn’t accepted any outside investments—an arrangement that is virtually unheard of in the fashion industry.)

In order for Hood By Air to maintain control of its intellectual property, Weinraub believed, it had to grow quickly and attract media attention. Otherwise, the company’s designs would be pirated by bigger labels, which treated avant-garde street culture as a resource to be plundered. In a 2013 article in the Times, Guy Trebay suggested that Riccardo Tisci, the creative director of Givenchy, had referenced Hood By Air designs “without crediting them.” (A spokesperson for Givenchy said, “Hood By Air has never been a reference for our brand.”)

Around the time that Weinraub joined Hood By Air, it presented a runway show at Milk Studios, on Fifteenth Street. One of the models cast for the show was the rapper A$AP Rocky, a friend of Oliver’s at the time. Rocky’s participation helped the brand reach a wider audience, affording it a measure of protection against fashion-world vultures. Rocky also boosted Hood By Air’s reputation by incorporating endorsements of the label into his lyrics. His devotion eventually cooled, though, and in 2014 he released a diss track that included criticisms of the brand. He gloated to a reporter, “I birthed it, so I can kill it.” But Rocky was too late. Hood By Air had established a cult following among affluent teen-agers, avant-garde adults, and pop stars like Rihanna, Justin Bieber, and Kanye West. The label was critically acclaimed, too, winning the Swarovski Award for Menswear, from the Council of Fashion Designers of America, and a six-figure prize from L.V.M.H. Although Hood By Air remained rigorously experimental, it also became profitable, as fans lined up to buy T-shirts with the H.B.A. logo, which cost as much as six hundred dollars each. According to Hood By Air, its sales have doubled every season since 2013. The brand’s reach remains unimpressive by Gucci standards, but business has been good enough to give Oliver “the ability to do whatever the hell I want” in the studio. (He still shares an apartment with his mother, in Prospect Heights.)

Last September, I visited a cramped office that Hood By Air was renting on Hester Street, on the Lower East Side. The space, crowded with garment racks, could have been mistaken for a costume shop, were it not for the giant poster boards propped against the walls, which were covered in mini-Polaroids of harsh, alluring faces. Attached to each photograph was a Post-it scrawled with a concept: “spanish hustlers,” “obscure fetish.”

A dozen men and women, including Leilah Weinraub, sat in a circle, with only one subtle sign of hierarchy: Oliver was the only person not taking notes. Since 2012, Hood By Air had grown into a small collective, and its members were meeting to finalize plans for the Spring/Summer 2016 runway show. They had been joined by an outsider, Rich Aybar, a freelance stylist. Born on the Upper West Side to Dominican parents, he looked like a cross between a Rastafarian and Rasputin.

Oliver was dressed in jeans, a black vest, and a Hood By Air necklace—a chunky chain and a padlock—that he never removes. “Ooooooh!” he said. He had just received a text. “Connie just got confirmed for the door.” He was referring to Connie Girl, a doorwoman who was famous for being impossible to get past and impossible to book. “Taste that,” he said. “Ta-a-a-aste.”

“What’s the lighting like at the space?” Akeem Smith, Hood By Air’s chief stylist, asked. His hair was in small braids gathered into pigtails, and he wore a T-shirt bearing the words “The Black Genius.”

“Bright,” Weinraub replied. “White-blue.”

“Clinical,” Oliver said, approvingly. The show was being held at Penn Plaza Pavilion, a cavernous, fluorescent-lit building, opposite Madison Square Garden, that was slated for demolition. Hood By Air shows are traditionally held in unglamorous spaces.

Several people got up to leave, and a smaller group began discussing the casting of models. Each season, labels compete to book them, and Cathy Horyn, a critic at large at New York, told me that Hood By Air had some of “the best casting of the season, and I mean anywhere.” The brand is known for “streetcasting”—enlisting people who aren’t professional models.

The group stood and went over to a casting board, which was crammed with photographs of prospects. “We have to edit,” Oliver declared, inspecting the images. “We have to be really hard right now.”

“I think your story up there is really strong,” Aybar said. “It’s, like, Undernourished Retards—in a beautiful way.” He liked the “living-under-the-bridge vibe.” Then Aybar started ripping photos off the board. One boy, a Ryan Lochte type, was deemed “too dopey—a white guy in the most boring way.” Oliver asked that another male model be removed for having a swishy walk that struck him as off-brand. “It’s gay-y-y-y-y,” he said. After thirty minutes, a dozen pictures had been taken off the board.

The designing of clothes follows a similar group dynamic. Paul Cupo, the brand’s fashion director, told me, “The top concept is Shayne’s concept, and there’s a very select group of people that are allowed to contribute to this concept. Shayne then comes up with some shapes and silhouettes he wants to show, and then I plug in fabrics and colors.”

Cupo, an Italian-American from Bensonhurst who favors loose tank tops and sneakers, showed me a creation for the upcoming show. “The basic idea is a bomber,” he said. Instead of using nylon for the shell, however, he had used taffeta—a material often fashioned into ball gowns and wedding dresses. It was a surprising choice, he acknowledged with a smile: “It’s sort of a weird fabric for ‘young edgy cool designers’ to be using.” A Hood By Air bomber jacket sells for nearly a thousand dollars.

few days later, at Penn Plaza Pavilion, Hood By Air sent a male model down the runway in a tight bun, a shirtdress, and black heels. The shirtdress, made with black silk, was divided into sections, which had been loosely lashed together with chainlike zippers. The bottom had a feminine band of ruffles, as one might find on a dress worn by Michelle Obama to a state dinner. The middle was a wraparound panel of fabric that, from a distance, resembled high-waisted athletic shorts. The top was a button-down shirt with a crisp collar and oversized chiffon sleeves. Like a chimera, the shirtdress was incongruous but beautiful.

The model, who had been spotted on Instagram, was a twenty-seven-year-old from West Harlem named Mello Santos. He had a thin mustache and a goatee, and as he walked down the runway he allowed the zippers holding the outfit together to start coming undone. Dark silk was peeling off his torso like a rotten-banana peel, and the garment threatened to self-destruct at any moment, revealing Santos’s many tattoos (and parts of his anatomy). From some angles, Santos looked like a cross-dressing gangster; from others, like a futuristic pop star.

Subsequent models showed off equally mongrel creations: bomber jackets recut into togas, backpacks made from tufted sofa pillows. Some models looked like bullies, others like prey. A recording of the Jamaican dancehall performer Buju Banton roared over glitchy speakers. “Circumstances made me what I am,” he sang. “Was I born a violent man?” For the finale, each model took a seat on a raised platform, as if posing for a class picture. Together, they looked scary but sexy, butch yet femme.

The collection was called Galvanize, and the idea for the runway show was to evoke the ramshackle school that Oliver briefly attended as a youth in Trinidad. To galvanize is to electrify—to shock and inspire. But it also means to coat scrap metal with a layer of zinc; it’s the poor man’s version of gilding. Galvanized steel is a common roofing material in Trinidad, and the show’s name suggested a duality about growing up in the West Indies: Oliver claimed that the education he received at the school was exceptional—“college-level English in fourth grade,” he said—but the building was decrepit. This duality extended to the students’ clothing. Oliver and his classmates modified tattered, hand-me-down uniforms so that they became fashionable looks. The Galvanize collection—manufactured in Italy from sumptuous materials but with roots in a Caribbean schoolyard—was gilded streetwear whose aim was to electrify the audience and inspire a new generation to carry the countercultural torch.

The show impressed many critics. Sally Singer, the creative digital director of Vogue, told me that Hood By Air had presented one of the season’s top collections. Cathy Horyn, the New York critic, who was seeing a Hood By Air show for the first time, wrote that the clothes represented a “shock from the future” and a “fist in your face.” She told me that Hood By Air’s startling designs were welcome mutations in an era in which high fashion is controlled by bland international conglomerates.

Several critics described the clothes in the Galvanize collection as “deconstructed.” Deconstruction—whether of a novel, a soufflé, or a shirt—means breaking down a concept into its constituent parts, often with an eye toward destabilizing our vision of the whole. In fashion, it’s traditionally associated with accentuating raw edges and functional elements like seams. Hood By Air’s collection, however, riffed on the modifications that wearersmake to those designs—details like slashing, cropping, and sagging, which typically define a look only after professionals have finished their work.

Galvanize was an homage to the expanding cohort of shoppers who use clothing to revise standard images of race and gender. (Weinraub calls such consumers “modern people.”) In blunt terms, a rich white woman can wear a Hood By Air garment and feel modern because it makes her look like a poor black man; a poor black man can wear it and feel modern because it makes him look like a rich white woman. Whereas other labels had merely broken down design, Hood By Air was breaking down identity.

A classic deconstructionist turns garments into sculptures and models into scaffolding; Martin Margiela often covered his models’ faces. In the show for the Galvanize collection, the models’ faces—adorned with splotchy, wraith-like makeup—were key visual elements. The splotches paid homage to YouTube makeup-contouring tutorials, evoking the moment just before blending tools transform a painted monster into a Kardashian.

Despite the show’s triumphant reception, it did not unfold without flaws. There was a monumental error in the execution of the choreography: the models failed to crisscross, as directed, along the venue’s multiple catwalks, with the result that much of the audience saw only half the collection. It was a mistake that might have sent a tyrant like Coco Chanel or Alexander McQueen into a rage. Oliver, though, was unfazed. After the show, he appeared briefly at a bar on the Lower East Side, and spent only fifteen seconds conferring with Weinraub about the mistake before moving on to a more vexing problem: someone had given Oliver’s mother the address of a rented penthouse where the Galvanize collection had been put together, and where a post-show gathering would be held. (The Hester Street office was too small to accommodate dozens of models.) Anne-Marie had just arrived at the penthouse with pink hair and an entourage of younger Afro-Caribbean women. Oliver was forlorn. “This is exactly the moment I want to turn up!” he moaned, rubbing his cherubic head, which was shaved, and clutching at a floor-length sweater-dress of his own design. “Now my mother is there with her friends!”

I happened to know the identity of the culprit who had supplied Anne-Marie with the party’s address. It was Weinraub, who enjoys seeing Anne-Marie at every runway show. Her own parents have never come to one.

In late March, items from the Galvanize collection began to arrive in stores. Barneys New York installed life-size silicon replicas of six Hood By Air models in its four windows on Madison Avenue. Two of the models were Hood By Air regulars named Chucky and Sunny—Angelenos whose bodies (and faces) are covered in tattoos. In the window, the fake Sunny wore a pleated pant-dress, and his mouth was held open by a guard typically used in dental surgery. Chucky wore a padlocked baby pacifier and a purple leather shroud that might look good on a Jedi. It was the first time that the windows had featured mannequins in menswear. When I stopped by to see the display, in April, crowds of tourists, joined by local one-per-centers, had gathered to gawk. Many observers reacted with baffled revulsion. Inside the store, meanwhile, none of the radical clothes worn by the mannequins were for sale. The Hood By Air racks were instead filled with logo tees. The runway pieces may have blown fashion critics’ minds, but it was the T-shirts that had changed the way people dressed.

Leilah Weinraub studied film as a graduate student at Bard. Before joining Hood By Air, she had no experience in business. Her official title is C.E.O., but she told me that the designation is “fictional.” She recoils at any suggestion that she is Oliver’s Pierre Bergé—the commanding executive who helped Yves Saint Laurent become an international brand. She took the title of C.E.O. in part so that she would be taken as seriously as a man would be: “If I were just Shayne’s friend, and a woman, and me, people would just be, like, ‘O.K., bitch, get the fuck out of the way.’ ”

As Hood By Air has expanded into a collective, she explained, everyone with authority is essentially a creative director—even if, like her, they don’t literally design clothes. The early phases of the label’s design process take place in group texts that unfurl over weeks. For the Galvanize collection, eight employees contributed to what she calls a “running personal diary.” In addition, the label has an iCloud folder for sharing found images—Hood By Air’s equivalent of a mood board. Weinraub wouldn’t let me examine the entire folder for the collection, but she sent me a selection of the materials. There were photographs of Ike and Tina Turner, a jpeg of Aunt Viv, from “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” and a picture of a Chinese acupuncturist who stuck two thousand and eight needles in his head, in honor of the 2008 Summer Olympics. “It’s memes,” Paul Cupo, the fashion director, explained to me. “It’s never really literal—you’ll never see a jacket on our reference board.” In 2015, when Women’s Wear Dailyasked Hood By Air for an “inspiration photo,” the label sent back a screenshot of porn.

Weinraub is one of only a few lesbians in high fashion. (Others include Patricia Field and J. Crew’s Jenna Lyons.) She grew up in the Koreatown section of Los Angeles, the daughter of an African-American textile designer from Compton and a Jewish pediatrician from Fort Wayne, Indiana. She is small with squinty eyes, broad shoulders, and an almond-shaped face. The skin around her eyes is darker in tone; these raccoon-like circles are so formidable and stylish, and presented with such aplomb, that strangers often can’t decide whether the coloring is congenital or cosmetic.

Rebellious from the start, Weinraub ran away from home several times as a teen-ager. In response, she claims, her parents threatened to put her in foster care. (Her parents deny this.) As a compromise, Weinraub went to high school in Israel, through an exchange program.

After a year, Weinraub returned to L.A., legally emancipated herself, and looked for a job. Her uncle knew a buyer at Ron Herman, an upscale clothing store, and helped Weinraub secure a shopgirl position. “It was in Brentwood,” she recalls. “There would be kids shopping there that were my same age. I hated it.” She soon took a job at Maxfield, a boutique with a more progressive bent. Its owner asked her to help oversee the books section, where she befriended a regular who liked to linger in the store and discuss topics such as slavery, America, and Judaism. It was the director Tony Kaye, who had just made a film about a white supremacist, “American History X.”

One day, Weinraub saw Kaye’s face on the cover of a magazine. She read an interview inside and noticed something: many of Kaye’s answers borrowed language that she remembered using during their conversations at Maxfield. Weinraub sensed an opportunity. She called Kaye and said, “I want to do this for you full time. I’ll be your voice, I’ll answer all your questions, I’ll do your research.” There was a catch: Weinraub was feuding with her family again, and she needed money to pursue higher education. She told Kaye, “If you send me to college, I’ll be your professional student, and you can own all my papers.” Kaye agreed, and began paying her tuition when she enrolled at Antioch College, in Ohio. When Weinraub returned to L.A. for breaks, she assisted Kaye on commercial shoots and chauffeured him around the city. The arrangement lasted until Kaye got a girlfriend who demanded an end to the tuition payments.

Kaye famously lost control of “American History X” in the editing suite, when New Line Cinema allowed Ed Norton, the film’s lead actor, to do the final cut. (Kaye disavowed the version that was released.) The incident left a lasting impression on Weinraub: if you don’t control celebrities, they’ll end up controlling you. She was happy to leave people like A$AP Rocky behind. As she put it, she preferred to go it alone and make Hood By Air’s “own world happen.” She was adamant that she would not temper the label’s provocations. “People are into high concepts and respond well to them,” she assured me. “People want drama. They love it.”

The penthouse that Hood By Air rented in the weeks before the Galvanize show had cathedral ceilings, a vast terrace, and an eight-person hot tub overlooking the Lower East Side. An apparent extravagance, the penthouse was leased in order to save money on hotel rooms by providing a live-and-work space for collaborators flying to New York. This frugal-luxury strategy would succeed, though, only if the palatial digs survived the week intact. (The label has a history of losing hotel damage deposits.) To keep the proceedings professional, alcohol was banned from the penthouse until the work was finished.

Five days before the Penn Plaza Pavilion show, I visited the penthouse, which was fragrant with expensive leathers and gleaming with racks of lustrous silks. Models began to arrive, lining up like supplicants to be dressed by the label’s clergy. Hirakish, a twenty-two-year-old African-American artist and musician from New Orleans, was one of the season’s most charismatic new models. He was walleyed and skeletal—you could see every bone in his cranium. For the show, he was to be dressed in a slashed wedding gown and accessorized with a strip of gauze affixed to his forehead, as if he had just survived a street fight. He was in drag, but the effect wasn’t campy: he looked mutilated but threatening, like a zombie. Hirakish had moved to New York a month earlier, after breaking up with his girlfriend, and this was his first fashion show. “This is what I dreamed of,” he confided, gazing at the penthouse’s occupants, who included several d.j.s whom he followed on Instagram. “This is the modern-day Andy Warhol.” (I never heard the principals of Hood By Air compare their workplace to the Factory. Instead, they referred to the label as a “family company.”)

As evening fell, I spoke with Ian Isiah, Hood By Air’s “global brand ambassador” and an in-house muse. Isiah can pull off the label’s clothes with confidence—or, as Oliver puts it, with “a lot of swag.” Isiah wears the brand exclusively, and between runway shows one of his responsibilities is to attend events where he will be photographed. He also coaches celebrities on how to wear Hood By Air properly. Six feet tall, he shaves slits in his eyebrows and styles his hair in tendril-like dreads.

Isiah went out to the terrace. Disrobing and getting into the hot tub, he said, “Now, this is a fashion interview.”

Isiah had been helping to recruit other models for the Galvanize show. The label, he said, had sought to create a unique tableau: “Black doll-babies. Transgender babies. Little skater boyish-boys. Boys with rashes on their face—less albino, more scabs everywhere. Braces! There’s a braces girl on the board.”

Isiah told me that the more established fashion brands were trying to keep current by copying Hood By Air’s streetcasting (and, sometimes, by poaching models with the promise of more money). But he wasn’t worried about the competition. “All the grannies of the ten-year anniversaries”—he was disparaging Alexander Wang, who was celebrating his label’s decennial—“are trying to latch on to what’s happening now, which you can’t do by getting a random model. You need a culture behind it.”

Oliver appeared, and Isiah urged him to get in the tub.

“What, you want me to do Mariah?” Oliver asked, alluding to Mariah Carey’s passion for swimming fully clothed.

“Yas!” Isiah squealed. “We got a dryer.”

Oliver decided to forgo clothes. A casting associate named Walter Pearce walked onto the terrace. A frenetic twenty-year-old with sixteen thousand Instagram followers, Pearce looked like a member of the cast of “Kids,” but he had come to the Lower East Side by way of Chappaqua, where he graduated from Horace Greeley High School. Like Oliver, he had dropped out of F.I.T.

“I started interning for Shayne when I was fifteen,” Pearce said. “They literally raised me.” A gifted streetcaster, Pearce was responsible for bringing on Hirakish, the New Orleans model. “He’s a legend,” Pearce declared. “And it’s not only because his look is unreal; it’s because he lives the life—he’s a maniac.”

Oliver confirmed that Hirakish was “extremely H.B.A.” He grabbed a towel and took a seat on a nearby bench. “I have conversations with him, and I’m, like, ‘Whoa, his mind is so insane—I want to work with this person.’ ” Hirakish’s mind was so insane that, later that night, he urinated inside the penthouse elevator. The mishap panicked Oliver until he discovered that there were no security cameras to record the violation. Oliver admired Hirakish’s uninhibited spirit, and felt a duty to place people like him under Hood By Air’s wing: “It’s almost, like, not orphanage-y, but I want to see these energies succeed.” (Later, he added, “New energy is very intimidating—it rewrites what has been created. We all get jaded by experiences in life, but I try to create environments for younger kids.”)

Pearce, who is gaunt and pale, got into the hot tub, and Isiah cooed, “Oooh, we got trade in the water.”

Cupo and Akeem Smith, the stylist, joined the group, along with several interns. Weinraub eventually got in, too. Many of the people in the hot tub, if viewed from behind, would be hard to identify in terms of race and gender. Oliver and Weinraub had complained to me that fashion critics often described their work with terms like “unisex” and “gender-fluid,” which evoked shapeless androgynes. Oliver hated “unisex,” because the word was unsexy. Weinraub had a similar problem with “gender-fluid”—in her estimation, it was “not hot.” She had come up with a syntactical solution, though. “You can say it differently, and it could be hot,” she said. “Like, ‘Wait, I smell gender fluid.’ ‘I’d like a little gender for my coffee.’ ”

By now, more than a dozen Hood By Air employees were in the hot tub, and the gathering looked at once absurd and utopian: creative directors splashing and laughing alongside their junior associates. At one point, Weinraub spoke ruefully of how Hood By Air was perceived by outsiders. She said, “People are, like, ‘The super-gender-bending, nonconforming, all-day-all-night party that’s coming at you so windy! Who’s a boy? Who’s a girl?’ Then you’re embarrassed by your own life.” ♦

#hood by air #streetwear blog #fashion blog #urbanwear blog

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spookbusters · 6 years ago

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I Feel It Coming (Pt. 1)

Summary: It was supposed to be a fun night of drinking and dancing. What will happen when the co-owner of the club takes an interest in you?

Pairing: Armitage Hux x Reader (Nightclub!AU) // Word Count: 1.5K (I HAD TO END THIS PART EARLY BC IT WAS GETTING SO LONG) // Warnings: I am an idiot who can’t write so Hux isn’t even mentioned until the end, oops :((

This turned into a nightclub!au so I am so freaking sorry Anon :’( There WILL be more Hux in the next one, obviously. This is honestly a prologue more than anything substantial. I really hope you guys like this though, I’m so sorry it took me so long! Enjoy!

You couldn’t believe your best friend had managed to drag you out of bed to go out tonight.

“Y/N,” she had called, bursting into your room, “C’mon, wake up! We’re going out.” In that moment, you heavily regretted giving her the key to your apartment. She ruined a perfectly good nap. Rolling over in your bed, you groaned sleepily. She giggled softly, immediately walking into your bathroom and turning the shower on for you. “Shower’s on! I’m getting an outfit for you.”

You sat up, rubbing the hazy exhaustion from your eyes. “Nina, why are we going out,” you mumbled. Peeking her head from the closet she’d moved on to, you could see the excitement on her face, “They’re opening a new club downtown and I got us VIP entry!” You lighten up a little at the mention of a new club. If there was an outing you ever enjoyed, dancing with Nina was at the top of the list.

“What’s it called,” you inquire, trying not to let your enthusiasm show. As soon as she knew you were eager to do anything, Nina tended to take things a little out of hand.

“Starkiller,” she answers, and you can hear the entertained smirk plastered on her face. Damn, she knew you too well. “It’s supposed to be a newer, darker kind of club scene. You know; less pop, more goth?” You stand up and stretch, your brows raised, “Hmm… edgy.” You hadn’t really delved too deep into your black clothes in quite a while.

Pulling an underwear set and a towel from your dresser, you step into the shower. “So, how did you manage to get us VIP entry in to this place,” you questioned, lathering your hair with shampoo. You were genuinely curious. Your city was quite well known for it’s night-life, and the opening of a new club or bar was always an event packed with local celebrities.

As much as you loved her, she was not one of them.

“Remember that guy I dated in junior year of high school,” she begins, “The one who’d put love notes in my locker every Friday?” You made a sound of confirmation as you rinsed the conditioner from your hair. “We reconnected online and I found out he’ll be a bartender there! He was hoping we could get back in touch,” she enthused, “So he got my name and a plus one on the list for opening night!”

You emerged from the shower, slipping into your undergarments and towel-drying your still dripping hair. Lying across your bed was an ensemble you almost couldn’t believe came out of your closet. “Holy, hell,” you murmured, picking the long sleeve up, “ Did you tap into my Halloween stuff?” The material between your fingers was a turtleneck crushed velvet and deep red.

“That one came from a devil costume I found,” she confirmed, “And I found a pair of fishnets in there too.” You immediately pulled the shirt over your head and admired the way it floated just below your navel. Staring at the reflection in your mirror, you become increasingly anxious to get the rest of your ensemble on. Starting with those fishnets. The diamond pattern ended at the bend of your waist, allowing it to be seen in the gap between your top and whatever bottoms you’d don.

Nina was having the time of her life dressing you, and by the time you’d pulled the black skirt on, she was ready to reveal the pièce de résistance.

“Okay,” she grinned, “You gotta close your eyes for these.” You did so, but quirked a brow nonetheless. “I picked these up from a thrift store when I saw they were your size, and got them fixed up.” Her explanation stoked your curiosity and when she finally told you to open your eyes, you were floored. In her hands were a new-looking pair of leather boots. The heel was moderate in height and the lug sole was an eye-catcher.

“No way,” you squealed, leaping to hug your best friend, “You’re the best!” She stated remembering how much you wanted a set and when she saw this particular pair, she knew you’d love them. “So, put them on so we can get out of here,” she giggled, “ I want to get there a little early so we have time for drinks!”

The drive over was a tad turbulent. You’d brought your makeup bag with you to work your magic in the car, but in your haste you’d left all hairstyling items on your dresser. Which meant you hair would be a tad more unruly than you’d like. Incidentally, you’d have quite a while to do your makeup. Traffic was awful. In the time it took the two of you to get into the parking lot, you’d managed not only a smoky eye, but winged liner to boot. As nice as you looked, you were quite upset about not being as early as you wanted.

As you walked up to the club, you admired it’s aesthetics on the outside. The building itself was painted black, with vivid neon purple and red lighting designating its name. “Looks nice,” you commented to your counterpart. She nodded in agreement, “I’m so excited to see what it looks like inside!”

The two of you strolled right up to the bouncers, by-passing the line of people hopeful for an entry not guaranteed to them. You felt a little bad.

“My name’s on the list. Nina Kinsley,” Nina says to the man. He’s tall, muscular, and undoubtedly intimidating. “I see you,” another man with a clipboard says, “I take it this is your guest?” You nodded, and the two of you were welcomed inside. The same color scheme of red, purple, and black played along the interior decoration and lighting of the club.

Almost as soon and you’d entered, you were being pulled toward the bar. A swift, “Let’s go find Mike,” was the only explanation you got.

On any usual opening night of a club, you’d lose Nina in the swarm of dancers, drinkers, and other patrons. This time, though, she was able to lead you through the small crowd without much incident. The bar wasn’t crawling with people either; a welcome refuge from your usual outings. The two of you found seats and it wasn’t long until a bearded bartender notices your presences. Or rather, notices Nina. Her name is on his lips in a happy introduction.

“Mike,” she calls back happily, and when he arrives in front of the two of you, he’s beaming. “You remember Y/N, right,” she questions. “Yeah,” he smiles at you, “Great to see you guys again, it’s been so long!” He offers the first of many on-the-house drinks and Nina decides cosmopolitans would be a fun way to start the night.

Several of these deliciously fruity drinks later, you were loose enough to be on the dance floor with everyone else. Your hips rolled and swung to the music blasting over the speakers. You could feel the sweat drip down your back, but you didn’t care. As far as you were concerned, this was the best club you’d been to in your life. You could dance to your hearts content without bumping into people, the drinks were amazing, and the music was definitely your style.

The song ended and you made your way back to the bar. After all the alcohol and dancing, a water was in order.

As you step up towards the bar you hear Nina’s giggly cheering. “Hell yeah, Y/N!” You laughed along with her. “I feel amazing,” you breathe. You stretch, your top riding up a little, and with that lone action you feel a single set of eyes watching you intently. It sends chills through your body and you look over your shoulder to see a man in an all-black suit.

“Who’s that,” Nina asks curiously. You take your seat next to her, your eyes never breaking contact with the ice blue ones across the dance floor, “I don’t know.” You run your tongue along your upper lip. Your mouth felt so dry. “Well, he’s hot.”

Unfortunately for you, she was right. A smirk directed at you lazed on thin lips; a gaze that could stop even the most determined in their tracks burned holes into your eyes. High cheekbones and a sculpted jawline made your heart jump. You admired the way his hair was gelled back in sheer perfection. You were in actual awe of the beauty of this man. Who obviously had taken interest in you just the same.

Calling Mike over from his station at the further end of the bar you sit up straighter than normal. “Do you know who that guy staring at me is,” you asked, keeping you voice low as to not draw much attention to the conversation. He peeks over your shoulder briefly only for his eyes to widen.

“That’s the co-owner of the place,” he chokes out, “And he’s coming over here.”

DUNDUNDUNNNNN WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT??? I DON’T EVEN KNOW JUST YET!!!! If you have any suggestions or ideas, lmk and I’ll consider them while writing part 2!

Taglist: @songforhema

#armitage hux #general hux #general hux imagine #armitage hux imagine #hux x reader #general hux x reader #armitage hux x reader #star wars imagine #Star Wars Fic

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