#if you want content based around shipping then look at the romance genre it's literally right there for this very reason

[redysetdare]

All this aroace character shipcourse has proven to me that a majority of people that interact in fandom cannot actually interact with characters and media outside of shipping and genuinely I believe you need to learn how to interact with media outside of shipping.

[moghedien]

Could you recommend some adult sff? Love your blog btw!

Thank you! 

And ok, I could give you better personalized recs if you give me some idea of what you’re looking for or what you like, but I’m gonna give you some general recommendations. Also I only really feel comfortable recommending books that I have personally read, and there are tons more out there than what I have read. If you want to find more, looking at recent Hugo nominations over the past few years might be helpful. Also one of the reasons why I know anything at all about the SFF world is that I’ve been listening to the Sword and Laser podcast for like, a decade. I never really mention that podcast, but its literally why I started reading at all and also they have a pretty active goodreads group as well. 

So recommendations: 

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie: 

This is one of my favorite books period. This is a far future space opera about an artificial intelligence who used to be a spaceship and now is only one human body, and she is ANGRY ABOUT that. I don’t really want to say more than that, but if you like AI shenanigans and being sorta confused as to what is going on the entire time, then this is the book for you! It’s the first book in a completed trilogy.

The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan: 

Obviously I’m gonna recommend the Wheel of Time. This is the first book in a 14 (actually 15) book series and if you need something to do with the next 1-5 years of your life *motions toward EoTW*. 

So the Eye of the World, I think is uniquely good as a book if you kinda want to get into adult fantasy for a few reasons. For one thing, its kinda considered to be one of those “classics” of the genre but its not too old to be offputting to some readers. It’s a 30 year old book, so its not reflective of the genre now, but you can definitely see its influence all the place, even outside of just books. The Eye of the World specifically, also goes out of its way to make readers comfortable. It leans heavy on Tolkien references and tropes at first without being a straight up copy of Lord of the Rings like some classic fantasy books are. Its done very purposefully, in my opinion, to make the reader feel like they have some idea of what’s going on, and the series quickly drops the Tolkien references as soon as its established itself enough. 

Also the Gandalf parallel for the series is a smol bi lady and there is 24 year old rage healer who wants to fight everyone with her own two fists.So many women to stan. 

Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey

This is the first book of the Expanse, which is a nearish future space opera that takes place in our solar system. Mars has long ago been colonized and is a completely separate government entity than Earth, and conflict between the two planets has been stirring. The Asteroid Belt has also been colonized and have long been little more than tools of corporations that run their colonies. A group of ice haulers working in the outer planets get in the middle of one of the biggest secrets in the solar system and find themselves in all kinds of trouble. 

I don’t really want to say more than this, but this is probably the only SF series that I actively keep up on when a new book comes out. There are 8 books our currently, and the 9th and final book will be out sometime in the near future. There are also several short stories and novellas set in the world, and there’s a TV show that I really like though I need to catch up on it. 

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

Hello, this book comes with content warnings for literally everything, but it is such a good book/trilogy. This is book about a woman trying to find her daughter again in the middle of the apocalypse. Definitely a heavy read but absolutely brilliant. The world has a magic system based on geology and the people that can use that magic....saying they’re discriminated against is an understatement. I don’t want to say much more about it, but if you have any kind of content you can’t read for whatever reason, I’d check before picking this up. This is the first book in a completed trilogy

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

So this isn’t really super SF heavy and is actually sold as a literary book, but it takes place after a flu pandemic has wiped out a large portion of the population...so maybe this is a bad time to read this book, OR its the best time to read it. Depends on how you’re dealing with *motions at the world*

The book flashes back to before and during the pandemic a lot, but is largely about art’s importance and is actually quite optimistic in its messaging, and this is another of my favorite books ever. But yeah, might be a bad time for you to read it of you can’t deal with the content now. 

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon 

I just remembered that this book also has a plague, but its a subplot and not the major thing. So this is a big ol’ chonky standalone book that is high fantasy, deals with multiple cultures having to interact and work together, and has dragons. Also there’s a genunine slow burn f/f romance and *chef’s kiss*. I can’t really say much else, mostly because I struggle to explain this book, but its very good and probably my favorite book from last year. 

The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal 

In this house we stan Mary Robinette Kowal, ok? 

So this is a science fiction that is more an alternate history that poses the question, hey, what would have happened if an asteroid slammed into the east coast in 1952 and the world had to scramble to colonize Mars so that everyone didn’t die on earth when the climate got catastrophic, because that’s the inciting action of the book. The main character is a Jewish woman who was a WASP pilot in WW2 and is a computer for the space program when all this happens. The book deals with sexism, and racism, and xenophobia, and all the social issues that are gonna come up with it being set in 1952, but Mary Robinette doesn’t flinch away from addressing social issues in any of her books, even when it makes her main characters look bad. (Also if you like Pride and Prejudice, she has a series that is just Pride and Prejudice with magic and like, yeah, its good). 

A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan

This is a book which poses a question, what if dragons were like weird animals that were real and an eccentric woman spent her entire life traveling the world to study them and then told the stories of that in her memoirs when she was too old to care about the consequences of publishing all her scandals. That’s what the book is about. This one is probably actually the weakest in the series, just because it deals with so much set up. It’s a great series to get on audio because Kate Reading is a fantastic narrator, and the prose works so well as audio, because it’s just someone telling you her life story. There are five books in the series. 

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

So this is a novella and is the first in the murderbot series. Basically a killer robot gets addicted to television shows and accidentally became sentient. I haven’t read the others in the series, but I really need to reread this one and get to the others. 

Jade City by Fonda Lee

This is a fantasy set in world sorta inspired by the early 1900s but is in a fantasy world. It’s like a mafia movie and kung fu movie had a baby and it was this book. The sequel is out currently, but the third book is set to release next year.

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon 

This is another heavy read. This is a SF story set on a generation ship that has a society very heavily inspired by the antebellum south. There’s class issues, race issues, gender issues, mental health issues. All kinds of things intersecting here. Its fantastic, but a heavy read.

Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb

This is another fantasy classic, and is the first of the Farseer Trilogy. The title is sort of also a description of the book, so like. I’m not sure what else I can say. I haven’t read further into the series, but people I trust love it, and honestly I need to reread this and read more of the books. 

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

So if you think that Station Eleven might be a bad book to read at the time, then this is THE WORST POSSIBLE BOOK TO READ RIGHT NOW. Or, maybe the best. Depends on how you cope. This is a book about time travelers based in Oxford and the main character accidentally gets stranded in the past right as the Black Plague is about to hit. And it hits. The book is horrific. The second book in the series is much funnier. This one ain’t funny, but is good. Just, oof. 

Mistborn or Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson

So if you want to get into the Cosmere, which is a series of series that interconnect and will ruin your life, then then my personal opinion is to either start with Mistborn or Warbreaker. People might not agree with me, but that’s my personal opinion. 

Warbreaker is currently a standalone (a sequel will come out eventually but its not set up for a sequel so you can 100% read it as a standalone). The magic in this world is based on colors, and the story revolves around two sisters. One of them is betrothed to the horrific God King of their neighboring kingdom. The other sister ends up being sent in her place because their dad hates her. I adore Warbreaker so much. It has it all. Two women discovering their true places on the prep/goth spectrum. Talking swords. Vivenna. Everything you can need right there. 

Mistborn is a trilogy that is very emo and will ruin you. Its about people who swallow metal to get magic powers and live in world where the dark lord won already, so they’re all emo. And that was the worst description of Mistborn I ever could have written, but I find it too funny to change. 

So if you’re interested in the Cosmere, but are afraid to commit long term, pick up Warbreaker. If you want to get into a series right away, pick up Mistborn. 

[dulcetminds]

some (concept) playlists

find my spotify here ✨ & my fandom character/ship playlists

this page is updated monthly!!!!

💫 monthly, yearly & get to know me playlists:

 monthly mixtape: updated daily and refreshed every month with no correlation to anything what so ever.

twentytwenty: a song for each day of the year

the soundtrack to my life

my favourites

pass the aux cord, fool: car vibes

🍾🌉 playlists based off cliché concepts:

coming of age indie romcom soundtrack: cigeratte burns on film, a first kiss that tastes like beer and chapstick, and laughter falling on train tracks

not another coming of age soundtrack: red party cups and the never-ending feeling of nostalgia

Mother Nature reclaims: a soft apocalypse mix

tragedy in the dark: set in the 90's, you're driving at night on the highway, passing under street signs and street lights that illuminate your lovers tired face as they trace circles on your thigh

rise up!: (a futuristic teenage rebellion playlist) you live in a world full of holograms and plastic food, the government is corrupt and somewhere out there is a bunch of rebels that are fighting back

an angels kiss in spring: it’s the roaring 40′s and you hit the town in bold red lipstick, curled hair, flared dresses & traditional swing

a wispy field of sunshine: there's something alluring about falling in love under the sun, sipping on raspberry lemonade & kissing someone who tastes like chapstick

the air is fresh out here: i am lost beneath the earth; dirt and moss fill my lungs and i cough up ivy and rose petals as the trees whisper my name so soft, it gets caught in the wing of a butterfly floating by

3am dancing with my lover: fairylights are hung low around the kitchen, my lover has tired eyes full of wonder and we trip over our own two feet, laughter pumping our hearts alive

the last dancers at midnight: my prom could have been better so we're gonna visualise it like a teen romance movie; tired feet, starry eyes & a tender kiss under the disco ball in your high-schools' hall

even my phone misses your call: 'hey, this is [redacted] please leave your message after the beep!' 

you’re so nice to come home to: finally moving into a small apartment with your lover; succulents adorn the windowsills and you both have a love for vintage polaroids and dream catchers — a dreamers dream

I've been in love with you forever: best friends that live next door to each other & know one another like the back of their hand, connected windows, rooftop talks, sleepovers, & everything that comes along with we're best friends & i don't want that to change but i am definitely in love with you

found you in this life: my mother once told me that some of the people we meet in this life, we knew in a past life and it’s up to us to decide where it goes from here

raspberry stains: spring flings includes squashing raspberries between finger & thumb, and dancing under the sun

rollerskating disco rink fever: we're twelve years young & there's a disco ball highlighting our hair as we dance the night away & i'm pretty sure we've happened to scuff the linoleum floor

endless summer afternoon: hopping from shadow to shadow, blisters on our feet; summer, summer, summer!

summer ate me alive: and I want nothing more than to sleep through the next three seasons

ragtag band of misfits from the year ‘87: group of four trying to solve the murder mystery of their late best friend / everyone’s hiding something / he might be in love with the boy he’s known since childhood

[our hands are brushing against each other as we walk]: i want to slow dance with you in the middle of the street

hey, new kid!: its highschool and life is full of rumours and giggling girls & boys with sharp teeth and then english class rolls around ━━ and did the principal just introduce a new student?

🧚���‍♀️ specific concept playlists (mostly based on moments and emotions that I've experienced & can’t get over):

head’s a buzz!: stoned out of my mind, I'm pretty sure I met the girl of my dreams last night

 I should be sleeping: but i am walking aimlessly under street lights trying to forget your face, your taste, your voice; with vodka stained cheeks and chipped nail polish

pity party for two: the sudden realisation that the future is scary and we're two lost souls stuck in love with people who helped us grow

we’re under the same stars: It’s talking under the stars till the sun breaks through the trees with him, who makes your stomach ache full of laughter and although the wind is cold against your skin and the sleeping bag is thin, he burns just as brightly as the stars in the night sky, and you want to exist between 3 and 4am forever.

I fell in love for one night: he kissed my shoulder & held me tight

moments left unsaid: I love every part of you when it’s loud, when it’s silent, when you don’t know it at all (basically falling in love with your friends in the moment over the smallest of things like the way they dip their head back to laugh or hide their smile behind their hand or when they slow down waiting for you to catch up or pull you aside to ask if you’re doing okay, etc)

angel in disguise: can angels fall in love?

skate park shenanigans: I spent a the hours 8-11pm at a skatepark with my friends and we don’t even skate but this is the specific energy those hours gave off

you’re dreaming beside me: & I’m dreaming of you

how to be soft, sad & content at 4pm

I wish we could live forever: knowing someone you love is gonna die is the one of the hardest things you’re ever gonna witness

remember when we were in love?: 2015: yellow. open roads. a boy. a girl. my house. high school musical. clouds. stars. a pillow. sunflowers. beauty and the beast. skype calls. a bear. / 2017: a girl. blue, blue, blue. / 2019: a girl. a boy. picnics. skateboards. burgers. your house. an empty promise.

the pretty reckless: my friends fall in love too easily

the ceiling is staring back at me: it’s 1am and I'm thinking about everything and anything

me against the world, vol. 1

me & my apathetic brain: basically Russian roulette with I’ll die anyway by girl in red & just a girl by no doubt

🏳️‍🌈🌈 lgbt+ playlists:

this is for the gays!: for pride month 2019, gay bops to rock your socks to

all I see is her: girls r great!

we should fall in love or something: just kidding... haha... unless?

I don’t wanna b ur friend, I wanna kiss ur neck: yeah, it’s based off I wanna be your girlfriend by girl in red & also my ex but we’re gonna take the former

please look at me the same!: my bisexual teen angst

🦋🏹 ‘old groovy, 70′s, 80′s, 90′s etc music’ playlists:

butterfly dust: old time music that goes together

groovy, groovy: 70′s, 80′s, 90′s

lovestrucklovestruck: nothing goes wrong when you live in your head

she’s gold dipped & cherry wine kisses

funky glow

🥁🍒 genre specific playlists:

metamorphic: rock n roll

devils advocate: it’s like white noise before you enter hell (mostly ghostemane)

you’re not indie till: you skate, own a pair of hot converses, have good fashion taste, drink ice coffee and and and

monsters live amongst us: hiding in plain sight, the people we call our friends / a horror pop playlist

hazy affection: anxiety reducing songs and study beats

softly, sweetly: relax your eyes & dream of simpler times

bubblegum pop: the radio is overrated but here we are

glazed eyes, cherry skies

darkness looms overhead

magic under fingernails / under veins

state of mind: kinda like rap but not, definitely an easy listen to while stoned

moon rockets: fly me to outer space where we’ll become another star in the night sky.

dream & folk pop

my dreams reach the stars: my mind is far away from here / starry-eyed and captivated

local neighbourhood party: songs I'd bang my head to at a party

heavenly hymns

fluorescent heartbeats

take me away, into the night

if you see me listening to this, look away: literally Disney musicals mainly Disney’s descendants & zombies

autumnal breeze: a mix of bedroom pop & 80′s tunes

blueberry feelings: is this soundlcoud or tiktok?

untamed glory: the songs dont vibe together as well as they should but i guess thats ironic given the name of this mixtape

all strung up: my favourite female pop songs & then there's sunflower, vol. 6 by harry styles

candyfloss kisses: baby pop

and that’s on tiktok luv: literally what it says

candle lit afternoons: candles + rain = a gentle quiet in it’s purest form

tenderness: soft, quiet, yielding; murmurs at dusk & the playing of hair

my bed is the warmest place: for rainy days & the chill in your nose

🚀🍁🍓 playlists to listen to when your doing this specific thing:

classic picnic bitch: (cute songs that give me picnic vibes) and we bond over a pack of UNO cards and strawberry-filled desserts

beach bums, baby!: a beach-y playlist

hotboxing ur friends car: get high w/ me!

🥺💫🌞🌻🤩🐝 playlists to grow & fall in love with yourself to:

falling in love w/ myself !!!!!: I'm still learning how I work

then I defy you, stars!

seventeen: I made this when I was seventeen and getting over my first heartbreak and realising that I should never wait for people who can only give half back

no negative vibes here!

💌💖 my romance / love centred playlists:

dancing in my room to the sound of you, you, you (middle school crush vibes)

love cluster: and i guess there are lot of love songs out there but there are also a lot of songs that aren't about love that got me feeling like i'm in love so which is it

lovelorn: (a unrequited love playlist) and we yearn for the hearts we cannot hold; lovelorn, lovelorn, lovelorn

our love has gone cold: I love & I loved

whimsical lovers falling out of love

baby boy blues: fell in love for a day with a boy whose smile is contagious and ever-lasting

you gave me panic attacks & I called it love: unsure if you’re in an unhealthy relationship? leave them.

regret in the simplest of forms: I could have loved you / I think a small part of me did

my favourite ‘what if’: soulmates who weren’t meant to be

seeking love among cruel hearts: perhaps we were friends first and lovers second. but then perhaps this is what lovers are.

it’s a long way down from your window: everyone’s favourite secret relationship trope

heartbreak hotel

i’m yearning for his heart while he gives me his body: I love you, don’t you love me too?

make out w/ me?: songs I'd kill to make out with someone too

miss you forever: sad pop love letter

I liked you better in my dreams: the idea of them has taken root in your mind and it’s much different to how they really are

little bit in love with u: alterous attraction? we KNOW her

drowsy cacophony of love

tracing you back to the roots of my house: I'm sifting through the memories of us, where did we go wrong?

love; a choice or a feeling?: and it is both I suppose, it is a feeling, it’s happiness and soft giggles, faint blush. and then it is a choice, a choice to stay with them or leave. it is a choice to not only love them, but yourself too.

tenderly, tragically: this used to be a collab playlist with someone who loved me fully and unconditionally, things have changed since, but this is whats left; it's our story compiled into a playlist

second chance at love: you make me hard, but she makes me weak

lonely in love: (it was supposed to be just casual sex but fuck, I think I'm in love with you)

silent lovers: skinny love (n.) a type of love where two people are in love with each other but are too shy to admit it

my first love: they say your first love never dies, and love, they’re right

my lover is a liar: victim to broken promises and false truths by a boy who died when he gave me his heart

love locket type of love: I loved you in secret !!

the charms of love: don’t fall in love with the moment & think your in love with the girl! (yes, she’s american by the 1975 lyrics)

almost lovers

💸💄💅🏻⛓ playlists that give off bad bitch energy:

rich girl$: my cash flow will never ever end

kiss the boys n make em die!: femme fatale, girl revolution, girl power

GIRLS. FOOD. GEAR: loosely inspired by people by the 1975

girl, interrupted

you’re like a rhinestone pick-up line: picture this — a girl with a hard attitude that you can’t just seem to get off your mind

back on my bullshit: just got my heartbroken; revamped!

👻👽 my halloween inspired playlists:

hallohalloween: basic halloween playlist

 the fae know my name: humans beware the manic pixies & lip curling fae for although they don't lie they are cunning creatures with kind eyes!

frothy vampire chick meets soft green witch: red fanged lover & a green house full of potions, spells & succulents

sirens lament: sharp teeth hidden under a pretty face

murder at the casino: (in breaking news: monster hunters just cant seem to catch a break!)

the howling

witchy renaissance

fuckin vampires, man!

🥀 if I were series (playlists that only feature one artist based off something specific):

if I were to dance in a faerie ring to hozier songs: maybe I want to fall in love with a faerie and be under Hozier’s rule

if I were to live my teenage years to Lorde songs

if I were to get high by the beach to skeggs songs: BIG greening out energy

 if I were to fall in love to tom rosenthal songs: tom rosenthal songs that make me feel like I'm in love!!

if I were to reminisce about heartbreak to LANY songs:

Hogwarts Houses:

🌻 Hufflepuff

�� Gryffindor

🐍 Slytherin

📘 Ravenclaw

[justmysicklypride]

P-P-P-Play that shit: ptv analysis - Part 2

 Hi what’s up everyone and welcome to this week’s pew news. This is a continuation of my last post where I pretty much summed up Pierce The Veil’s career from the beginning to present and gave an overview of their rise and downfall. You can check it out here, but if you already know about everything or have read it already then feel free to ignore it. In any case, I was originally gonna make these two posts as one but ran out of room bc who the hell would read that much text in a blog post (me) so here you go - part two of this fucking conspiracy theory because I didn’t even get to share any of my thoughts in the last one. (I also forgot to put headers with each new topic smh apologies to the English language)

Edit: it’s been fucking eons since I wrote the last one/started writing this one like legit I even changed my user. The reason why this has been put off for so long will be explained later but yh smh

Gigantic obligatory disclaimer: Everything that I will discuss whether it be in this post or my last, or any future posts that relate to this subject IS NOT going to touch on the subject of the “sexual relations with a minor” incident in itself. I will not go into detail about my own views on this specific matter as there is literally no way to win because whatever I say could be taken out of context by literally anyone. That being said, I do not condone pedophilia, I do not condone sexual harassment or rape, and I do not undermine the importance of consent. I respect the laws of different states, as I know they vary with time and place, and I understand that everyone has their own opinions and I do not wish to impose my own onto others.

In regards to this, however, I do have to acknowledge that I, first and foremost, do not think that Mike Fuentes is innocent, and I strongly believe that how the band handled this situation was just plain terrible, but I do also have to acknowledge the fact that this situation is to stay between the accuser and the victim, as well as their respective legal teams and that I should not go nosedive headfirst into anything like this when it does not directly affect or require my judgement as a necessity, lest I face any legalities or blacklash as a result. Furthermore, everything that I will be talking about are conspiracies only and I do not in any way assume or imply that any of this is true.

In other words, I don’t mean to offend anyone but if you end up getting offended then that’s on you, not me. Let’s begin.

Introduction 

The points that I am trying to highlight in this essay post is, in simple words, that Pierce The Veil’s... well, everything, comes off as kind of a conspiracy, almost, to me. I have had these thoughts for a long-ish time, and so this post is basically me finally making a post that covers all things that I have been thinking of in the past. Unlike my previous post, this one is a lot less fact-based and a lot more opinionated, so if you’re not into that, then that’s fair. Otherwise, I will be discussing the following things (in this order): the topic of kellic, Misadventures, and the accusation + response.

When Life Gives You Lemons, You Ship Them Together And Call It Lemonade

I refer to my last post and assume that everyone understands how “kellic” came to be and what it means. To summarise to the bare minimum best of my abilities, it’s the ship name of Vic Fuentes and Kellin Quinn, aka what people call it when someone wants or is keen on the idea of these two frontmen having an affair with each other in a (typically) fictional setting. It happens all the time, especially in this day and age where you can easily just find someone with the same obsession as you with a click of a button. That’s why King For A Day, and inadvertently Collide With The Sky, became such a huge success. It appealed to the right demographic of teenagers and tweens who were ecstatic at the prospect of shipping, and went on to achieve even more impressive feats following that. How you ask? Well, by going on a tour around the world of course. Together. Playing shows every night that ends with one of them literally carrying the other off the stage. Gotta give the people what they want, hey?

I have a strong belief that the key to success is through beating the system at its own game. In this case, the game is simple - get fans, get money. Unfortunately, as we all know, getting fame isn’t as easy as simply earning it through grit and determination. To achieve fame, one must find a way to do something at the right time in the right way so that people will notice. If one person does, and your fire doesn’t die out right away, then you’ve got yourself a forest fire. Then later on, all you gotta do is keep this forrest fire going, but assuming that there isn’t someone standing on the other side with the whole fire department’s resources in tow, then the only thing stopping this fire is itself, because with all things in life, fire dies out, and fame stops accumulating after a while if nothing is done about it. Humans need entertainment. If something starts to fail to pique their interests, then they move on. That’s why YouTubers are required to change up their content every now and again in order to try and relight that spark they once had, and even then there’s a good chance that they won’t. 

I was originally going to write another blog essay about this whole YouTube analogy thing but quickly realised that for one, I don’t have time bc I’m getting my ass fucked by university on a daily basis; and that for another, there’s most likely a billion other videos or essays about this topic as is, so I’ll just link one or two of them here. I haven’t watched them all yet or I don’t remember much of them, but all they do is pretty much summarise up stuff like how YouTubers become successful and their downfalls and all that, and even though they kinda focus on a specific person or group of people, I feel like it could be generalised.

Even without the YouTube metaphor, we know shipping works. It is evident in multiple works across various media that giving the fans what they want is often what gives these people their continued success, such as Dan Howell and Phil Lester, who have all but stopped trying to create their own individual branding (save for their separate merch stores that are probably there just to get more people to buy their overpriced clothing), and who at this point have become such an overused example that I actually hesitated writing that. Why do you think movies and shows and cartoons mostly have a romantic subplot? Romance is an essential trope in literature and easily one of the most popular genre out there for various reasons. According to a Bustle article written in 2016, romance often gives the readers a sense of hope or gives them a way to live out their fantasies in the easiest way possible, and while this may not apply to everyone, (personally I’m not a romance fan much at all but I can appreciate good literature), it’s hard to deny the phrase “sex sells”.

Given that, you’d think that any company with half a brain would learn to exploit it, but for some reason this wasn’t the case in Pierce The Veil’s management, and no matter how I look at it, I can’t really see the reason why. It’s not like the band members are uncomfortable with the ship - Jaime Preciado has been seen kissing Vic Fuentes on stage (not on the lips guys chill) (I had forgotten how fucking difficult it takes to find this one specific clip so here’s a couple different fuenciado pictures instead to make up for it smfh), and Vic Fuentes has mentioned kellic in a live stream once jokingly - and Kellin Quinn is notoriously known for being completely okay with it (so long as he doesn’t have to look at it), so just what is the reason?

This Ain’t A Hiatus, It’s A Goddamned Arms Race

I’d be lying if I didn’t miss all the memes that all stemmed from the Pierce The Veil boys not being able to release an album when they’d promised, before postponing said album yet again and disappearing off of the face of the earth digitally for another year or two, giving them a total of four years as their unofficial, unannounced hiatus. For this, I have several questions.

We all know Vic Fuentes loves taking his sweet ass time releasing music - he’s admitted to remaking his first album a second time before releasing it, as stated an interview a couple years back - but you can’t honestly tell me their management just let them get away with it. Sure, through this time they’ve been pushing out new merch to no end, but something tells me that this giant gap they’ve wedged between the new album and Collide With The Sky isn’t gonna be good publicity, despite all the memes that’ve sprouted from it. There’s been fans who stopped taking interest in this band because of it, as well as fans who have just gotten fed up with having to wait so long. They scrapped a whole completed album in the process of creating Misadventures too, and while it’s not uncommon for bands to throw away near-completed ideas at whim, it’s also not unlikely for there to be some external factors or reasoning behind why they did it. Could it be that the album they threw away stayed too close to their roots and management or some other person told the band to start again, so that they can create something more appealing to this day and age? Or could it be something else that is hard to see at face-value?

You’ll Never Get Ahold Of Me Now

Finally, I’m gonna address the overdue elephant in the room. If you want to read the full thing, here it is because I’m tired of having to reiterate what happened. Mike Fuentes received a sexual allegation by some girl(s) and the band released a shitty statement that has since gotten deleted - that’s the general gist of it. 

Like I said, it’s been literal months (or weeks idk my perception of time is severely fucked) since I actually started making this post so literally no one cares anymore, but regardless of what past me has promised or written down, I’m not going to be discussing the allegation in itself, but rather what and/or how the band and their subsequent management has handled it, in that they handled it so bad that I honestly can’t believe they did it like that. 

Edit: I wasn’t gonna bother finding another copy of the statement bc no one’s gonna give a shit but then I’d be doing some baseless shit and I honestly can’t stand people who half ass these things, despite my growing urge to do the same thing, so here’s the statement. 

For starters, who the hell waits one whole month before releasing a statement? From what I can remember, their excuse was allegedly that pretty much management forbade them to talk or make a statement about it earlier for... reasons? (Just realised I don’t actually have the source for this so idk take it with a grain of salt I guess because I was sure I had read this somewhere but I can’t back it up.) 

That’s not even the worst part, either. The statement itself gave zero closure to literally everything. Yes, they acknowledged the allegation, but that’s just about as far as they went. The whole point of a statement is to clear things up, whether the accuser was right or wrong, and what steps will be taken from there, whether an apology is to be issued or not. No shit you know about the incident, who in the fandom wouldn’t? Instead pointing out the straight up obvious, what they should’ve done was 1) not waited an entire fucking month before talking about it, most likely hoping the whole thing to blow over by then and 2) actually talked about the incident in their statement instead of tiptoeing around the subject like some sort of time bomb ready to go off. There is no right or wrong answer, because literally all they had to do was tell the truth - as in write down a statement from Mike (not the whole fucking band mind you) about his take on the whole thing or get him to say what had happened from his point of view. Then resolve it privately with your legal team and whatnot if they really feel the need. Hell, all he needed to do was apologise. Whether something like that classifies as assault or rape or whatever is up to you but the fact of the matter is that she’s underaged at that point in time. Even if she was fully aware of the risks and whatnot and gave legitimate consent, under the eyes of the law and pretty much 80% of the people reacting to this incident, it will be deemed illegal and inappropriate behaviour. All these people had to do was literally just be open and honest about it regardless of whatever the hell happened, because this is all happening on a public platform where everyone can see/read it to their hearts’ content. Viewers can’t judge or make a decision to support or not support you if you don’t tell them your side of the story, so for the love of god, why the hell didn’t they?

The statement was filled with bullshit about how they love the fans and all that shit, and honestly my thoughts can be accurately summed up in this video right here. So much backlash could have potentially been avoided had they just told it as it is, because now all we have is a vague ass response that gives no closure and tell us nothing as to whether Mike actually did it or not, because in the statement he manage to spout some bullshit about how he’s “never intentionally manipulated or abused anyone in [his] life” and that he’s just a ball of empathy which at first glance could suggest he at least thinks he’s innocent, but then they go on to say how Mike’s taking a temporary leave from the band for, you guessed it, absolutely no reason. At least, no reason that they’ve given us (what else is new) (I’m becoming more petty as the night drags on it’s literally 1am). Honestly, .@piercetheveil, please tell me why the honest to god fuck did you have him leave just after suggesting that he might be innocent? I know the world isn’t black and white but when you’re making a stance and defending yourself or admitting to something, it really is - black and white that is. Either you’re innocent or believe that you’re innocent and stand your ground by not leaving the band, or you admit that you are guilty, in which case your leaving of the band would actually feel justified, because now it’s like you’re gonna come back as well, so what does that even mean? Mike isn’t gone indefinitely, he hasn’t pleaded guilty or innocent, and now the band is telling us they love us? Fuck out of here with that bullshit.

Yes, I support the band’s decision to pull out of the All Time Low tour and to not have Mike out there in case fans feel threatened or unsafe or whatnot, but if you’re pleading innocent, then honestly the whole band should’ve just said “hey we’re gonna go on hiatus for a while until our legal team’s finished with taking care of everything”, and not just said hey guys we’re gonna kick him out because he may or may not have done something that we’re not gonna tell you because we’re shady fuckers like that. I know they are on hiatus right now, but at the “start”, they only said that Mike would be withdrawing temporarily or whatever so it’s kind of like, okay? Sure? It’s a right mess I assure you. Honestly, throughout this whole incident, it was this statement part that made me really fed up with this band. My interest in them had died down significantly from since I hit fifteen all those three years ago, and right now when I dug up an old iPod shuffle to bring with me to university to save my phone battery throughout the day, I can honestly say that I won’t be adding any Pierce The Veil songs onto it anytime soon unless I get peer pressured to. Personally, I feel like that’s kind of the mentality of a lot of had-been Pierce The Veil fans, too.

That’s Great And All But What’s Your Point?

Pierce The Veil’s management sucks ass.

There’s no easy, lawsuit-prone way for me to say it but, and this is just a conspiracy theory I swear to god if I get the fucking ASIS kicking down my door in the middle of the night you better read the fucking disclaimer, there’s obviously some shady shit going on in there no matter what way you slice it. Either they’re sabotaging Pierce The Veil’s success or whether it’s all some big confusion or misunderstanding, or if they’re just plain dumb, we can all agree that this whole thing - the kellic fan service, album making, allegations and subsequent statements - should’ve and could’ve been handled a hell of a lot more gracefully and professionally. Believe it or not, waiting until things blow over is frankly just childish and solves literally nothing, so either they can pull their act together quickly with this next “special secret” album to redeem what little quality/dignity they have left, or they can just fade away into irrelevancy and become a band that no one cares about anymore. 

History repeats itself. This band is quickly becoming just another Leafyishere, and as ominous as that sounds, it’s honestly not unlikely at this point. I am intrigued as to where they go from here, because if they manage to breakthrough again, then I would be very surprised given their current situation. I want to know how they choose to handle this - whether it’ll be the same or not, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Thank you so much if you read through this honestly like I am beyond happy that this is fucking over because I have a bunch of non-band related post essays I’ve been meaning to post but this one’s been nagging at the back of my mind for the past few months or however long it’s been. I’ve clocked in at around past 3k words for this one, and none of this is edited because I’m honestly so done with this you don’t understand. Like I said before, this took ages because I was gonna make another post talking about other shit that relates to this before realising that there’s way too many people that’ve addressed the whole YouTube thing so me doing it would literally be pointless, and even though no one really reads this shit, as big of a nerd as I am, I do enjoy writing bullshit because maybe then I’ll stop ranting to my friends and family about topics they don’t care about.

Regardless, that’s it for this two parter thing, and until next time or whatever.

Catch’ya x

[el-ly-bts-ff]

Like A Boy- Chapter One: Me and My Boys

Hey, friends! El and Ly here!

So, let’s begin with a little story about a girl named Ly, who had an idea when she saw the music video(and heard) Serendipity for the first time. Her plan was just to write a one shot, and because she has no self control, couldn’t stop writing, and I (El) thought she was trying to end my life. If you saw the comments left in Google Docs...

Eventually, El, because she also has no self control, wrote a little drabble based off some characters, and well, here we are. We have logged thousands and thousands, and thousands(like a whole lot!) of words for this story. We are super proud of it, and what better way to share our love for Like a Boy and the saga that follows than with all of you!

Enjoy ^_^

Pairing: Yoongi x Jimin. There’s others, but you gotta read to find out.

Genre: Angst, Fluff, Smut, Romance, YOONMIN TRASH

Warnings:

Explicit NC-17 content...in literally every chapter. What can we say? We love smutty goodness.

Language

Drug and alcohol use

Ships galore...be prepared

Word count: an amount of 3,956

Chapter One: Me and My Boys

Volunteer by Kamo Kush

Suga wasn't gay. If he were that would mean he was in hell, right? He didn't fantasize about his friends, especially not his friend Jimin: at least that was what he told himself. Though he couldn't deny that each and every one of his friends were unreasonably hot, none of them made Suga’s heart rate fluctuate and bend at their will... none save one.

Taehyung drove him crazy with his constant lip licking, and Jungkook’s body was unreal. Namjoon was his boy, and Suga didn't have to work to notice the monster Namjoon hid in his pants, it was impossible not to know that his buddy was packing. His friend Hobi was hysterical but his dominant energy butted heads with Suga’s too frequently for comfort and while Jin was handsome, Suga knew better than to mess with Joon’s affections that he struggled to keep hidden under the pretence of his and Jin’s friendship. But Suga knew Joon: he saw the way he looked at him when Jin would tell a dad joke and Namjoon would hold back a wide smile and stare at his feet. He heard the way the two effortlessly flirted with one another, and the late nights spent helping Jin study for his graduate finals. He saw Namjoon’s silence because it mirrored his own: his pain was Suga’s pain, Suga who knew what it meant to love someone from afar. Which brought him to Jimin.

Suga hated the way that Jimin’s raven locks would lay dangerously against his forehead when he would come up from behind and try to wrap his strong arms around his waist. The sensation of Jimin’s hands touching his body made his skin break out in goosebumps and a lump form in his throat while he would push him away and pretend that the feeling of his skin repulsed him, because in truth Suga repulsed himself. Jimin’s smile was bright enough to set the sun on fire, and one glance from him made Suga want to do dark and terrible things to his friend, but Suga wasn’t gay right? He wasn’t in hell, right?

He stood outside of the guys’ apartment as he held his duffle bag behind his back and stared up at their balcony on the third floor. Suga and his friends had decided weeks ago that they all needed a break from life--work, family, obligations that kept them up late and made them tear their hair out: the group knew that their annual cabin trip for the weekend would be their one chance of breaking away for the next six months, and none of them were willing to pass up the opportunity. Suga had moved to the city a couple of years prior, and it was rare that all of them were able to be under the same roof at the same time. Although the others shared the same apartment, save Jungkook and Hobi, their conflicting school and work commitments often kept them from ever actually seeing each other. The only one Suga saw on a daily basis was Namjoon, who commuted to the city every day with Suga in the music studio they both worked for. He talked to Jin nearly twice a day, and had grown impossibly close to the both of them as he watched their quiet romance harken to the surface: the stretched breath before one breaks the surface of the water and is brought to life once more. It was only a matter of time before one of them broke, and Suga prayed he wasn’t there when they did.

He was driving down to the campsite with Namjoon, Hobi, and yes… Jimin. The four of them were heading out a day early to get settled while the others were expected to meet them there the following morning. Every year, the group made a point to get away for three days at a cabin in the mountains: they would go, drink, party, hit up the beach and let themselves go wild in the wilderness. Only as he ascended the stairs outside of the apartment did Suga realize he was definitely screwed in more ways than one: not only would he have to ride with Jimin beside him for the next four hours, but he would have to share a room with Hobi, and neither one of them were thrilled with the idea. Suga loved Hobi like a brother but recently Hoseok had become uncharacteristically aggressive towards him and he had grown fond of picking fights with Suga for what seemed like no reason: it was really starting to piss him off.

Ringing the buzzer to their loft, Suga went upstairs and let himself in: setting his bag down beside the door, he was greeted by a beaming Jimin who knelt next to the kitchen counter as he laced up one of his boots.

“Suga!” He jumped up and tackled Suga in a bone crushing hug as he picked him up from the floor and spun him in circles: the second Jimin’s skin made contact with his, Suga felt his body tense and his heart stop while he focused on controlling his breaths, pretending to push Jimin away as he kicked his feet until Jimin put him back down on the ground. Brushing his fingers through his hair, he smiled at Suga as he wagged his finger at him.

“Don’t pretend you aren’t happy to see me.” He winked at him as he shrugged off Suga’s indifferent stare while he turned to call for Namjoon and Hobi in the other room. He must have forgotten what happened… thank God.

The two returned from the dining room as they roared with laughter at Hobi’s face as he danced around Namjoon and flapped his arms like a lunatic. It made Suga smile to see his friend being he usual, playful self as he went to embrace his friends. Hobi’s copper hair sparkled in the light that poured in from the large windows of their living room as his eyes met Suga’s and he smiled cutely.

“Min Yoongi! Suga Suga! Give me your cheeks you adorable little monster.” He took Suga’s cheek between his fingers and squeezed as Suga pushed his hand away and laughed at his reaction. As the two hugged it out, Jimin came up from behind Hobi and tickled the sides of his waist while he looked up at Suga and bit his lip: his eyes burning into his as Suga felt his chest swell with rage at Jimin’s hand that slipped around Hoseok’s hip and lingered there. The corner of Jimin’s lips twitched as he held back a smile and refused to look away from him. He felt Hobi stiffen against him as Hobi pushed Suga away and frowned: turning to look at Jimin, Hobi smiled weakly as he excused himself to finish gathering his things. What the fuck just happened? Suga wondered as he locked eyes with Jimin, whose narrowed as he stared at him and suddenly licked his lip. Feeling his cheeks redden, Suga turned away from him and went to hug Namjoon who was oblivious to whatever the fuck was going on, and Suga wasn’t far behind.

“What’s up man? You ready to get the hell out of here?” Namjoon clapped his friend on the back as he pulled him to his chest while Suga laughed and e returned the gesture, nodding in anticipation,

“Definitely, it’s been way too long bro.”

“Yeah, bro.” Hoseok returned from the bedroom and rolled his eyes at Suga as he pinched his own cheeks while he mocked him,

“You ready to go Chimi?” Hobi turned to Jimin and motioned towards the door as Jimin bent his head over and nodded quietly as he followed him.

As the two gathered their bags, they left Namjoon and Suga to themselves as the two looked up at each other, equally bewildered and irritated.

“Dude what the hell is his problem? Did I fucking hurt the little girls feelings or something?” Suga crossed his arms as he looked at his friend and waited. Namjoon raised his hand behind his head and scratched at his hair as he furrowed his brow: Suga could feel his hesitation as Namjoon battled over whether or not to answer.

“He’s… dealing with some things right now man… just let him unwind for a while and he’ll be back to himself in no time. Until then, I’m driving and you’re sitting bitch with Chimi so you and Hobes don’t kill each other before we even leave the city.” He smiled as he grabbed his backpack and slung it over his shoulder, and Suga just grit his teeth silently and grabbing his bag, followed Namjoon out to the car.

Jimin sat in the seat behind Hobi as the Namjoon and Suga shoved their bags into the trunk and got in beside them. As Suga sat down in the seat beside him, Jimin held out his hand to him and Suga reluctantly slapped it away as he put on his seat belt and rested his head against the window.

Wincing at his touch, Jimin held his hand as he looked out the window and away from Suga. He hated treating him like this, but ever since the last time he saw Jimin, Suga couldn’t go there, he couldn’t break the barrier into the floodgates that weighed so heavily on his chest. He couldn’t think of his hands on him, or his eyes, or his breath… no. Suga couldn’t go there.

It had been three months since all seven of them had been able to get together for a night out, and Suga remembered how excited he had been to see his best friends, especially Jimin. He saw Namjoon everyday at work, but it wasn’t often that all of them were able to get away long enough to get together and go out like they did when they were kids. He longed for the days when he and his friends could stay out late and reek havoc on their neighbors and schoolmates: but those days were long over, and reality set in quickly that they were no longer boys having fun but men with responsibilities. Suga knew it was bullshit but he also knew that life had a way of grinding you down into acceptance, until you wake up and find yourself living a lie that mirrors the mask instead of what’s beneath.

They had decided to meet up at a local bar and then later found themselves thoroughly intoxicated as they raged through the doors of the club down the street: the music thundered on the dance floor as they demanded shots and drinks from the bartenders. Halfway through their night of drunken debauchery, Suga stumbled into the club bathroom and found himself standing in front of a totally and completely wasted Jimin, who sat on the floor and looked up at his friend: a stupidly large smile on his red cheeks, he clapped his hands and held out his arms to embrace Suga from the ground. Bending over beside him, Suga hooked his arms under Jimin’s shoulders and lifted him roughly against the bathroom wall. The impact sent Jimin’s head back into the tile as he looked up at him and bit his lip as he smiled,

“Did Suga come here to find his Chimi?” Sweat dripped down his forehead and neck while he steadied himself against Suga’s chest as he struggled to hold himself up. Suga felt his stomach churn and his heart beat out of his chest as he realized how close they were. When did Jimin become the most beautiful man he had ever seen? It had been months since he had seen his friend, but never before had he looked at him the way he did now: so close after all those years of shy looks and words unspoken as a torrent of lust singed his soul and made him breath fire, his length stirring inside of his jeans. Placing his hand on the back of Suga’s neck, Jimin pulled his face close to his and paused as he focused on his eyes and Jimin held his breath: a deep flush erupting on his cheeks. Leaning back, he undid the top buttons of his gray shirt and opened his collar to reveal his drenched and heaving chest. Suga remembered the choking sensation that gripped his throat when he bent his neck and stared down into his eyes: he could feel Jimin shrinking into the tile under the weight of his gaze as he reached out his hand and touched a hand to his pulsing neck. Suga’s feet practically carried themselves as he stepped toward Jimin and backed him to the wall with his hips, pinning him there. The rush of heat into his member set Suga on edge when he leaned forward and hovered his lips over his skin.

At that moment, some drunken oaf stumbled into the door and went head first into Suga’s back as he tripped over his undone laces. Reacting instantly, Suga braced his hands on either side of Jimin’s head and hovered himself over him like a shield, and took the force of the impact as he was crushed against the ground beside him with a rocking force.

Before Suga could look up from the corner of the room, he heard the sound of crunching as he sat up and watched Jimin’s fist connect with the man’s jaw and sent him flying into the stall behind them. His back to Suga, Jimin stood with his fists balled and his teeth bared as his back arched against his hammering chest. His passion made Suga panic while got to his feet and threw Jimin into the wall beside the stall: pressing his hands against the metal, Suga buried his teeth into the side of his neck as he crushed his pelvis into Jimin’s. Throwing his head back, Jimin’s fingers tore at Suga’s brown locks as he lapped his tongue over his throbbing flesh and Suga kissed his way up the side of Jimin’s neck as he felt himself falling, and for once he didn’t care. His lips traced the edges of his jaw as he made his way to Jimin’s lips and froze when he realized what he was about to do: it was like a light went off in Suga’s mind as he went cold against Jimin and pushed himself away from him. The raven haired boy looked devastated as he stood there silently and held back tears while Suga just looked at him in disgust and turned to leave as Jimin sprang forward and grabbed him around his arm. The contact sent Suga through the roof as he whipped around and slapped Jimin’s hand away, taking his wrist in his hand and crushing it in his palm.

“Don’t fucking touch me.” Was all Suga could say as he growled at Jimin and left the bathroom. Immediately after their encounter, Suga found Namjoon and told his friend that he was leaving: he hadn’t seen him since. And Suga told no one. Not even Namjoon, how could he find the words to tell him what just happened? Yeah bro, you’re never gonna believe this but me and Chimi almost just fucked back there. Oh and by the way I may or may not have been in love with Jimin since freshman year. Good talk, man. The thought alone made him cringe as he felt himself attempting to keep his eyes on anything other than the body beside him. In the corner of his eye, Suga watched Jimin fidget with his hands as he stared out the window and listened to his headphones. The look on his face made Suga’s chest throb as he realized that he had hurt his feelings, again. Why am I such a fucking prick all the time?

Attempting to apologize, Suga dropped his hand beside his slowly and with caution, stretched his fingers across the seat onto Jimin’s knee: his heart pounding, Suga tapped his jeans awkwardly as he glanced over at Jimin and gave him the saddest and sorriest look he could muster. His face was pathetic and Suga knew it, and he really fucking hoped no one could see him in the rearview mirrors or he knew he’d never hear the end of it.

Jimin looked over at him surprised and smiled tenderly as his eyes softened while he took Suga’s hand in his: turning his attention out the window as he went back to listening to his music. About an hour into the trip, Suga had apparently fallen asleep because he woke up three hours later to his head cradled in Jimin’s lap as the boy gently brushed the top of his head. Pretending to still be asleep, Suga breathed quietly as he enjoyed the sensation of Jimin’s finger tips scratching against his scalp while the other pet the side of his face as he fought the urge to arch his back into his abdomen.

Despite his best efforts, Suga couldn't stop himself from releasing a quiet moan that made Jimin’s fingers pause as his hand held the side of his face: he could hear the sound of Jimin's heart thumping in his chest and knowing he was the reason why made Suga blush. Deciding to test something, Suga nuzzled his hair into Jimin's lap and rested the back of his head into his hard abdomen. Jimin's froze solid beneath him as his fingertips graze the edge of his ear and down his lobe as he lightly pinched Suga’s soft skin. Suga felt his lip curl into his mouth as he remained still and held back the groan building in his throat.

He felt Jimin lean forward as he bent his neck over Suga’s hair and inhaled deeply. Was he smelling me? Suga asked himself as he suddenly felt his stomach clench at the shudder that rippled through Jimin’s torso: feeling a twitch against his other ear, Suga turned beet red as he felt Jimin’s length pressed into the fabric of his jeans.

“Fuck.” He heard Jimin whisper under his breath as he attempted to readjust himself under Suga’s head and tried to conceal his growing erection. Suga took the opportunity as a cue for him to “wake up” and lazily stretched his limbs in front of him while he turned his head and looked up at Jimin, a sleepy smile overtaking his features as he rubbed his eyes and remained perched on his friend’s lap. As Jimin looked down at him and grinned, Suga couldn’t decipher the look in his eyes as he tucked a strand of raven hair behind Jimin’s ear and sat up on the seat beside him. His friend’s eyes smoldered as he tightened his jaw and forced the smile that remained plastered on his cheeks. Thinking nothing of it, Suga ruffled his hair and sat forward in his seat as he went to talk to Namjoon behind the wheel.

“How much longer? I gotta piss.” Suga yawned as he turned his attention towards Hobi who sat with his head leaned against the passenger’s seat, fast asleep. How could I pass this up? Suga wondered to himself as he reached his hand over the seat and tickled Hobi beneath his chin: Hobi loved to piss Suga off while he was sleeping and it often took a hovering Jimin to get him to stop, so Suga felt no shame in returning the favor. Pinching the skin beneath his neck, he clucked as he felt Jimin’s eyes lock on his hand.

A feeling of strange guilt swept over him as Suga ignored it and continued to torture his friend, who stirred at the sensation of hands on his face as Suga’s fingers tickled his cheek and ear.

“We should be there any minute, and you can piss all you want. I’m dying up here while the three of you are sleeping like a litter of kittens.” Namjoon laughed as he saw Suga roll his eyes in the mirror as Hobi stirred from his sleep and yipped at the pinch on his neck.

Smacking his hand away, Hobi smiled widely as he realized that Suga was the one torturing him and scrunched his face up as he giggled and tried to hit Suga from the front seat.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Namjoon’s voice rose as he held up his hand in warning.

“Don’t make me come back there Suga, I’ll spank your ass.” Namjoon grinned from the from seat as Suga shook his head at his threat and fell against the backseat, bored now that Hobi wasn’t there for him to play with.

As he turned his head to look at Jimin, he grew curious at his friend’s reaction: his cheeks were bright red and it looked like he was breaking out in a sweat. As Hobi and Namjoon talked in the front, Suga faced them as he felt Jimin’s hand touch the side of his thigh. Lingering there for a moment, Jimin suddenly turned his palm upright and waited for Suga to place his hand in his. Suga debated whether or not it was a good idea as his fingers acted without his permission and rested on Jimin’s forearm. The heat radiating from them drove Suga’s fingers into Jimin’s palm as he traced the folds of his hand against the tips of his fingers. Jimin inhaled sharply as the two silently touched one another and Suga folded his hand into his and looked out the window beside him. The void between them sent an ache through his chest as Suga desperately wanted to look over at him, but he knew what it would mean if he did, so his eyes remained glued to the trees that were sprinkled over the rough terrain of the surrounding forest as the cabin came into view in the distance.

The two sat in a painful silence as Jimin suddenly squeezed his hand and motioned his head towards the cabin: a wide smile on his lips as his excitement grew with childlike wonder that warmed the blood in Suga’s veins. As Namjoon pulled into the driveway Suga went to break his hand away and felt Jimin grip onto his skin for just a second before releasing him and stepping out of the car.

His lungs in his throat, Suga breathed in slowly as he opened the door and went to grab their bags. Stepping up to the large wrap around porch that led to a wide and sprawling cabin with six bedrooms...and seven guys. The group bet on  the best two out of three and Suga and Hobi came in last so that meant the two would be sharing bunks and it made Suga’s head hurt.

Normally he would be thrilled at the idea of rooming with Hoseok because the two always had good times: Hobi had a way of bringing the fun out of any situation. Lately… Suga would have to wait and see. I'm not leaving this cabin without an answer to this fucking riddle so we can get on with their lives. Suga thought to himself as he opened the door to their room and stood in the doorway as he dropped his duffle bag on the floor. His hair was pissing him off today as it fell into his eyes: he should've gotten it cut before the weekend and now Suga was damning his laziness for coming back to bite him in the ass.

Walking to the bed closest to the window, he flipped down on the mattress and covered his face with his forearm as he felt a second wave of sleep roll over him and he closed his eyes, his vision beginning to fade.

Thank you so much for reading! Any comments, likes, and feedback is much appreciated!

We Purple You.

El & Ly

[plumbobpost]

Fan(fic) Friday: Spotlight on Peni Griffin

Sul sul!

Today, I have a special treat for you guys. I had the chance to ask the very delightful @penig a few questions about Widespot and The Sims in general. For those of you who aren’t familiar with her work, she has created two widely popular hoods for The Sims 2: Land Grant University and the aforementioned Widespot. It’s longer than usual, and Peni expressed the concern that it would needed to be edited down, but in all honesty, her responses were such a wealth of information, deleting any of it seemed wrong.

I’ll stop teasing you, and let Peni speak for herself:

What inspired you to create Widespot?

“I’m always in story creation mode. This has been a large part of the appeal of The Sims 2 for me, as it allows me to tell a particular kind of story that I will never, ever be able to write for publication,  and have always wanted to: the story of a community in which we see every character as the hero of her own story, and how all the stories intertwine (often without the protagonists recognizing it) and affect each other as they all go about their business.” 

“At the time I started Widespot, I was in a situation in which my normal professional outlets were not available to me. You will excuse me from going into detail on the subject, which can be summed up as Health Crap. For our purposes, the important thing was that I needed a project, I couldn’t work on a book, I had been thinking for some time about the potential of my favorite game as a storytelling medium, and enough discussion of the matter had been generated over at MTS that I found/was directed to the late lamented Mootilda’s thread on creating a clean, safe, populated neighborhood for sharing.  ( http://modthesims.info/t/455403)”

“I actually went into some detail about the process on my writing blog at the time.”

( https://penigriffin.blogspot.com/2013/02/so-you-want-to-share.html )

Did you take inspiration from the Maxis neighborhoods?

“To a certain extent, yes. I decided that what I wanted to create was a neighborhood that would feel and play as if it had shipped with the game, but with less mess. No dead people without full character data, no memories that outright contradict each other, no hints in the bios that can’t be fully explored in the game.”

In your neighborhood, you included different story elements for each family that interconnect. What is your process in developing this story?

“Somewhere around here, I have the notebook in which I first started working it out, but I’d have to dig to find it. I remember starting with the admonition to myself to keep it simple, as your first attempt at publishing in a medium should be simple - you have enough to do mastering the new medium without trying to make something complicated with it. I knew my genre was soap opera, and though I’ve never been much of a soap watcher, my mother and husband are, so that set my parameters. I listed the tools at my disposal - the five base game aspirations, the jealousy mechanics, and the generational play. The question I asked myself at the start of the process was: “How do I create the most Drama for the least amount of effort?”

“Probably the notion of having five aspiration-themed households came almost at once, possibly as I started making name lists. I wanted to give elders a big role, because I had noticed that a lot of people thought elders were “boring,” and I knew they were wrong! I’ve always felt that Maxis missed a big trick by not having a Scheming Matriarch in Pleasantview. I wanted to shake up some stereotypes and have sims who didn’t obviously “belong” in their aspirations - shy Romance sims, outgoing Knowledge sims, lazy Fortune sims. I wanted all the households intimately connected to each other, which meant that for simplicity’s sake the story (story being defined as “person with a problem”) should center around one particular event that triggered events in all the households, a cascade of consequence. At which point I wrote down “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a fortune must be in want of a wife,” and decided that the wealthy Mann family coming to town with a highly marriageable son and a Dark Secret was a good place to start.”

“That turned out not to be the trigger, but you have to start somewhere.”

Aside from your official captions, how did you set out to convey plot to those who play Widespot?

“I tried to take pictures of enough key moments that the players could inspect the albums for clues. By playing out the development I had ensured that some important information already existed in the memories and relationship panels, but I also went in and inserted memories that seemed to me significant. I had specific meanings in mind when I gave Mary memories of potty-training her younger siblings that extend all the way back to teenhood and manipulated some of her relationship scores with the testing cheats, but I wanted the players to be free to interpret those memories and relationships according to their own ideas, so I tried to background my own opinions as much as possible.”

“The plot, after all, is the players’ job, not mine!”

As far as literal world building goes, how did you factor in your characters’ surroundings to both their plotlines and their characterization?

“The smallness of the town, necessitated by the decision to keep things as simple as possible, gave me the starting point and the town’s name - it’s just a wide spot in the road, hardly a town at all. Rural areas have a certain vibe; certain types of people grow up there, and certain kinds of people wind up there, so this was on my mind as I designed the characters, built their homes, and decided what order they should be created in CAS and moved in.  Each house has a history, not all of which is necessarily made explicit to the player, and some of which really, really made me long for something more than BG Maxis content! But I think most people get that the Land cabin was built piecemeal over time, that a lot of Skye’s house was DIY, that the Beech house is Daytona’s house and the rest of her family just lives there, etc. Skye only got educational toys for his kids, but the Lands have a teddy and a dollhouse as well. The Mann’s house is the only one with a fence, and Rich ensures his privacy with stained glass windows in certain rooms. He also has that ominous closet full of aspiration rewards. (I hate that I couldn’t get him a counterfeiting machine - he clearly needs one.)”

“Some details were dictated by the game mechanics. Penny needed a double bed to get pregnant in, but there’s no particular reason for one to exist on her lot; so the heck with it, everybody in that house gets a double bed and I don’t even try to explain it. The lowest-numbered playable in the hood is always the telescope slapper, so I had to create the Mann family first in order for the guy with the Dark Secret to be the one who was incensed at the possibility of being spied on. But who would beard Rich in his own den when he, Lana, or Junior used the telescope in the daytime? That would be the local cop, wouldn’t it? This is why the Land house (with the nubile Land daughters) is right behind the Mann house and the Mann telescope is pointed straight at it. I also used the house to train the Manns - especially Junior - into wanting to buy things by furnishing it minimally to start with, and then adding items as wants were rolled for expensive artwork, games, etc.”

“When I gave characters their starting skill points, I assigned them partly at random, partly according to the implied backstory and role, and partly according to what would be possible in the game. If logic or a random roll indicated that someone in a household had a skill, I made sure that suitable skilling items existed in that household. Woody has an easel because it’s a solitary tool for gaining creativity points; the other families have the more sociable piano.  Neither family is much concerned about the impression they make on the outside world, so they are not oversupplied with mirrors, unlike the other families, where Charisma matters.”

“This all works back and forth; the character or situation requires something in the setting, and then I realize that having this thing here means that I also need this and that means I should improve the relationship between these two characters, or whatever. My first and best playtester insisted to me that Goldie needed a teddy bear, and made a good case for it based on Goldie’s characterization, both in the bios and as played; and she was right, so I added it almost at the last minute. (Which is why, so often, the first thing Rhett does it pick it up and try to talk to someone through it.)”

“One thing that I was aware of during development, but am a little reluctant to discuss, is the possible implications for the setting of the racial makeup of the neighborhood. At the time I was born, in the state where I was born, the Land and Beech marriages would have been illegal; and I had that in mind when I mentioned familial disapproval in the Land bios. Some people pick that up and run with it, most people ignore it. Most people look at the Hart’s Spanish-style house and decide (despite the name) that the family has a Mediterranean or Mexican background, but others have decided that Valentine is black/white biracial and all the Spanish influence comes from Angel. I have no desire to dictate anybody’s interpretation or play style, but I do want to enable as many interpretations and play styles as possible, and this variety is an indication of success to me.”

In a lot of ways, fans have come to regard Widespot as highly as they regard the original three Maxis neighborhoods. Did you envision the neighborhood being this popular?

“I beat my “expectations” about the reception of any particular work to death years ago. While I was building Widespot, I told myself that if the only person who liked it was Aegagropilon (my first playtester), that would be good enough and anybody else’s approval would be gravy. Well, Aegagropilon loved it; and I’ve lapped up quite a bit of gravy since then. I don’t have much of a grasp of how popular it actually is, and that’s not the important thing. The important thing is that I know some people are playing it, and enjoying it, and using it in different ways. How many there are, and how it stacks up next to the many other (and in some cases far more sophisticated) fan made hoods out there, is out of my hands. I’m better off not dwelling on that.”

How did Widespot evolve after you started? Were there any massive deviations from your original plan?

“Development was an alternating process of playing (including building, character design, and actual play) and working things out on paper in illegible notes, which is always how I work. I haven’t properly thought anything till I’ve written it down, but I’m a “pantser” rather than a “plotter” - i.e. I tend to fly by the seat of my pants when creating. Too much planning kills the story for me. So once all the preliminary work had been set up, and the broad strokes of the storyline determined, the rest was done directly in the game, with a little help from the testing cheats, Tombstone of Life and Death, and so on.”

“I knew I needed to wind up with a baby for every adult woman, but I didn’t always know who specifically would be the father of each baby until I saw how characters interacted. I knew one of the households would have a ghost, but for awhile I thought it might be Lana. I assumed Candy would have two lovers but I thought one of them would be Hamilton until she informed me otherwise. As mentioned earlier, I thought the Manns would be the central, triggering household rather than the Harts. I had no plans for the teens or children at all, and they took care of their own storylines”.

On a different note, what was your inspiration for the dynamic between the Harts and the rest of Widespot’s inhabitants? How did you develop the idea for these entanglements?

“As a family of Romance sims, their job was to wreak havoc. And boy, howdy, did they! But only after I realized Angel had to be the town ghost. The family ran much too smoothly when she was in charge - she and Valentine constantly smooching it up, Rhett being Mama’s boy, Candy being Goldie’s social support. Kill Angel, and everybody falls apart and starts making bad decisions. I designed Valentine as a Dirty Old Man; but he refused to be only that. I designed Rhett as a heartless jerk, and he can be that - but he’s also the only one of the immature Mama’s boys in the hood who has lost his Mama. I designed Candy as a golddigger, and yeah, she is - but she also made friends with Daytona and Goldie without any prompting from me, and she put herself in the middle of what turned out to be the hardest knot to untie in the whole hood, the Mann Triangle.”

“And Goldie - well, Goldie was a darling who autonomously put the rest of her family ahead of herself repeatedly, could never finish her homework, and never once brought anyone home from school or came home with anyone else.”

“TL;DR: I didn’t develop the Harts. They did.”

You’ve been very active on both Mod the Sims and Tumblr for a while now. How has The Sims community evolved since you first got involved? Why do you think there is still such a strong following of the series?

“It’s hard for me to speak to how it’s evolved, since I was never part of the Age of LJ and only started playing Sims 2 since after Sims 3 was already out. Also, having been on the fringes of a lot of subcultures in my life, I have become adept at keeping away from the stuff that stresses me out. So I’ve never hung out at SimSecret. I block tags on tumblr. I avoid anything smacking of edition wars, don’t allow anonymous communication, and back out of controversies as fast as I can - with an apology if necessary, because face it, everybody’s a jerk on the internet sometimes, and the most you can hope for is to not be one any more often than you can help.”

“So I have no idea how the Sims community as a whole is going on, and I only have a limited knowledge of the portion of the Sims 2 fandom that hangs around specifically at MTS and attracts my attention on Tumblr (often by tagging Widespot). Within this limited sphere, I have noticed a few changes. I used to see it assumed as common consensus that all Maxis premades were “ugly” and that “ugly” is a bad thing; moreover, that certain sims - Goopy Gilscarbo and Sandy Bruty in particular - are more “ugly” than most and are to be avoided at all costs. Now people are shipping Goopy and Sandy (that’s largely @holleyberry’s doing, I believe) and embracing the cartooniness of sims with enthusiasm.”

“On older websites I often see “realistic” (i.e., modeled on airbrushed photos in fashion magazines) sims that, as far as I can tell, are identical to each other and to the ones on the other old websites they link to. With current websites, however, I can not only tell the sims from each other, I can tell Person A’s versions of the premades from Person B’s at a glance. This is especially marked on tumblr, where I often know who originally posted the pics I’m looking at regardless of the attached avatar.”

“And there has been such a flowering of creativity in so many directions in the last eight years it’s overwhelming, though I don’t know how that compares to the days before I started participating. I like to think of Widespot as the vanguard of a Golden Age of hood-sharing. Nobody moans about the lack of clean fan made neighborhoods anymore; they’re agonizing over whether to play Europa or Widespot or Emerald Heights or Polgannon. And suddenly people are making new face sliders. Neighborhood deco lights up at night now. There’s mods for parking on the street, taking toddlers and pets on vacation, hunting, foraging, beekeeping, on and on and on.”

“I think the main difference between now and eight years ago is, that people were defensive about still playing Sims 2, and a general air of playing a “dying game” hung over us all. Now we are joyous and defiant and declaring that Our Game is the Best and Will Never Die.”

“Or maybe that’s just the people I self-select to see. How would I know?”

As a writer by trade, did you find many similarities between creating Widespot and writing a novel?

“My experience has always been that there’s an underlying unity among all kinds of creation, and in particular that storytelling is storytelling, whether it’s the language of text, sound, line and color, or whatever. My writing habits and skills translated seamlessly into the medium of the game. The chief difference, once you factor out technical matters, is that in most forms of storytelling, you need to provide a discrete unit of Story and give the reader the pleasures of closure and narrative structure, pruning out everything that disrupts that weakens the sense of completeness.”

“When making a sims neighborhood, though, you need to be as open-ended as possible, and you need to discern the optimum moment to turn the hood over to the player, while it’s still bristling with plot hooks and unresolved situations. You don’t need, as I did, to deliberately choose the moment at which a bunch of hard choices must be made immediately; but you need to put the player into a situation in which the choices he makes will matter and shape how the neighborhood develops from that point.”

You often play neighborhoods like Pleasantview and Strangetown. Do you prefer playing your own sims or those created by Maxis?

“That’s like asking if I prefer to read Diana Wynne Jones or Megan Whelan Turner. (And if you aren’t familiar with those authors, boy do you have some great reading ahead of you!) The answer is “both.” I enjoy playing characters I’m engaged with, regardless of who made them. Sometimes I wonder what’s going on with Vidcund and want to play Strangetown; sometimes I want to reconnect with the sims in Drama Acres, my personal custom neighborhood; sometimes I want to play with some of my own plot hooks from Widespot. It’s all good.”

If you had to pick between Widespot and Land Grant University, which would you choose?

“I’d attach LGU to Widespot and play them both. I don’t do either/or choices.”

(She just defeated the Kobayashi Maru.)

Do you intend on creating more neighborhoods?

“I actually have three on hand right now: a downtown called Bigg City (an empty version of which is available on SFS  http://simfileshare.net/download/207580/ ); a Seasons/Pets neighborhood I call Knotthole County; and an AL neighborhood called Port Cochere. The populated Bigg City got real complicated, real fast and when Health Crap is in a certain state I can’t work on it. Knotthole County is almost completely built but got interrupted while I was designing the characters; and Port Cochere is an SC4 map and a bunch of illegible notes. And at the moment I can’t work on any of them because I need two disk drives in order to use AGS, and one of them has gone wonky. However, I should be able to replace that soon, and then - well, maybe I’ll finally get that last week of work done on Bigg City. Or maybe I’ll decide (again) that if I’m organized enough to work on that, I should seize the moment and get queries out instead.”

Your content is themed around The Sims 2; have you played other titles in the series?, If so, which installment in The Sims is your favorite to play? For storytelling? For building? For creating sims?

“I’m a late adopter by nature. I started with the original The Sims and played it till I felt I didn’t have anything more to discover in it, at which time I started looking into the Sims 2, assuming that I’d eventually plumb its depths, too, and move on to Sims 3 about the time Sims 4 came along. Then I discovered that Sims 2’s depths are unplumbable, and that it was the perfect vehicle for that all-community storytelling I’d always longed to do.”

“The more I learn about the later iterations, the more certain I am that I will never play them. I’m sure they’re fun in their own ways, and I certainly don’t look down on anyone who chooses to play them; but I don’t like the way they look, I don’t like the lack of a storytelling tool, and most of all, the mechanics and structure of the game don’t enable my style of neighborhood play. The Sims series consists of four distinct games with four distinct sets of strengths and weaknesses; and the first two are the only ones I feel any call to play.”

Lastly, why do you still continue to play The Sims? Do you feel that the games provide a positive creative outlet?

“It still gives me pleasure. And I still have Health Crap and need projects, and have a computer that will play it. The Sims 2 is as much a part of my life as reading and playing tabletop RPGs and board games with my friends. So why would I stop?”

“The game is a positive creative outlet - it has nothing to do with my feelings on the subject. One of the most rewarding things about having made Widespot and LGU is seeing people use them as springboards for developing and experimenting with their own creative capacities. Also, a lot of simmers are deliberately using the game to control or relieve some condition or other. Depression, OCD, chronic pain from which they need distraction - I’m not the only one with Health Crap, and I am honored whenever anyone uses something I made to  deal with theirs.”

“They could have done these things without me, of course - but they didn’t. They used something I made for their own benefit, and I can feel good about that.”

Any parting comments, teasers, spoilers, public service announcements, etc.?

“One of the core concepts by which I live my life is that creativity is the quality that defines humanity best, and that it is the birthright of every single one of us. But we’ve been educated to think that it’s something special and separate, accessible only to certain special “talented” people; and brainwashed to think that personal creativity that can’t be monetized is a trivial use of time. On the contrary, creativity is to a large extent what time is for. Whether it’s a book, or a game, or a prom dress, the process of making is fulfilling and enriching, and sharing what we make is nourishing to us and to those we share with. So whatever your medium is, whatever resources are available to you, whatever ideas are quickening in your brain and hands - go for it.”

“It is not a silly waste of time.”

To those of you who haven’t played Widespot, go check it out; you won’t regret it. Thanks again to Peni Griffin for allowing me to pick her brain, and I hope you all enjoyed reading it. I certainly found a new favorite word in “pantser.”

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to visit my ask box. If you are interested, give Plumbob Post a follow, and reblog for anyone else who you think would enjoy this blog. Stay tuned for upcoming posts!

Dag dag!

[kelleyschorn]

Kelley Reviews: Tag (Spoiler Edition)

*If you’ve already read my non spoiler review of this movie, skip to after the SPOILERS sign!

Quick word about the movie poster I chose for this review: It’s not my favorite one because this one kind of makes the movie look stupid but I went with image resolution over image content.

That being said, I was hooked on this movie since I first saw the trailer. The concept was original and it even had the added interest of it being based on a true story, “we’re not kidding”. So many things drew me to this movie from the plot to the fantastic trailer and then there’s the amazing cast. Tag is a comedy inspired by a real group of ten friends who have been playing the game of tag since high school. There is a great video on youtube that gives a more in depth look at the real story that you can find right here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8C-VFbP-JQ

Because this reality acts as more of a writing prompt than a fully realized story, the writers for Tag exercised their own creative liberties when telling the story inspired by this amazing group of friends. There are hundreds of potential stories that could come from this prompt and I think the writers were smart to pare down the cast from ten to five so as to make a story that was more easily grasped. The movie centers on Ed Helms’ character, Hoagie, and his goal of finally tagging their impossible-to-catch friend Jerry, appropriately played by Hawkeye—I mean Jeremy Renner. Lately I’ve been a bit put off by comedies that rely heavily on jokes centering on sex and hoping that this will convince the audience that the crappy plot is worth overlooking for the crass punch lines. That being said, movies like Game Night and Tag have been a breath of fresh air in comparison. While both do have similar jokes throughout, they also have a good plot to stand on making room for situational humor to shine through.

While some critics disliked Tag, saying that it lacked the fun loving essence of the true tale it draws from, I would say that those critics missed the point of the movie. Without giving anything away, I would say that this movie exemplifies the importance of staying young, even when you get older. It does a great job of portraying the realities of keeping up with old friends and the fact that, while you may not see them as often as you did in high school, when you get together, it’s like no time has passed. Not only does Tag give you all of those warm and fuzzy things, but it also delivers them in a hilarious way! I saw this movie with my mom and sister and we were dying laughing throughout. The all-star cast definitely helped with this as well as the quality of the story itself.

The plot was kind of all over the place with some seemingly pointless subplots and some downright unbelievable moments but overall, I would say that this is a solid comedy and it stands out among others in its genre.

WHAT WORKED

The cast. What an awesome cast for a comedy am I right? I love Ed Helms because the Office (duh). I love Jake Johnson because I know him from New Girl. And I love Jeremy Renner because he is Hawkeye and he basically plays Hawkeye in this movie and I was all for it. Of course I also love Rashida Jones and I felt that she was a bit underused in this movie. If a less talented cast had been chosen, I would not have liked this movie nearly as much as I did. I especially feel that Ed Helms did an exceptional job seeing as how his role required more seriousness than his fellow cast members.

The plot. Yes there were issues with the plot, but what worked for me was the direction they chose to take the story in. Also the fact that they chose a direction in the first place. Like I said above, the original story acts as writing prompt and I think that that is pretty cool. This is what the writers came up with based on that prompt and I or you or anyone else would have come up with something completely different. They had to create a fully fleshed out story from that one tiny prompt! Writing is so cool! Ok nerd-out over. Anyways what worked for me about the plot were the more serious” themes of friendship and the importance of staying young, even when you get old. Despite it being a comedy, I found these themes, and the implementation of them touching. Also the twist at the end was unexpected and pulled off really well by Ed Helms. I didn’t believe it at first but once I knew it was real, it added so much depth and clarity to the story. Again, props to you Ed for pulling that character off so well. I also loved how they included a lot of the real life epic tags from the source inspiration seamlessly into the plot—the tagging at the funeral, the dressing up as an old lady.

The characters. The characters for me is where the comedic elements in this movie really shined. Such a wide range of characters for some epically hilarious interactions. I loved Hoagie signing up to be a janitor despite his “PHD in veterinary science and a flourishing practice” (I’m paraphrasing but you get it). Randy and all of his weed jokes were great and the scene where he’s smoking in the basement with his friends reminded me of That 70’s Show. Jerry was made even more funny to me because he was played by Jeremy Renner. I could totally see Hawkeye being all about this and being this hardcore in the Marvel Universe. (I know I said the nerd moment was over but I lied—sorry!) Hannibal Buress had some funny moments as Sable but some of them fell flat. I felt like his character lacked some of the cohesion the other’s had, like they couldn’t really decide what comedic angle they wanted to go with him so with his tragic back story some of the jokes just felt a bit awkward.

The funny. A lot of the jokes came from the absurdity of their situation and I loved that! They didn’t have to rely heavily on cheap sexual jokes (the adult version of fart jokes) to be funny. The premise and the characters themselves created hilarious scenarios for the viewer’s entertainment.

Small highlight to the parts where they show the gang as kids and how this game started and then it shows them as adults driving next to those kids as a transition—that part was genius!

WHAT DIDN’T WORK

The plot. Ok so here’s my issue, some of these subplots just didn’t really add anything to the movie for me. The Randy Vs. Callahan romance subplot. This was unnecessary. I do love Rashida Jones but this did not add anything to main plot other than (maybe) some more characterization of the characters. I don’t think it was needed and I don’t think it added anything significant to the plot other than a distraction for those characters that causes them to miss Jerry and that could have been done by a lot of other things, (Randy could have gotten too high, Callahan could have been distracted by flirting with the reporter). The other subplot that I have some issues with is the reporter. She was literally only there as an interpreter for the audience so that we would know what was going on. She never really advances the plot and doesn’t ever cause any sort of drama with the group. She’s static and could have been used better. I’m not saying that it wasn’t a clever way to clue the audience in, but I think they could have paired her with Callahan as a romantic interest (I shipped it) to at least give her some sort of importance. Or as a more extreme fix, I would have taken her out altogether and had one of the guys, maybe Hoagie, narrate and explain various things throughout—though I’m more in favor of the love interest thing because she did bring some comedic elements of just not knowing what’s going on.

The scene at the wedding shower. Specifically the giant traps and the extremes Jerry went through to mess with his friends took me out of the story a bit. I get that it was supposed to funny how absolutely ridiculously into the game these grown men were but some of the jerry stunts pushed it a bit too far for me.

The characters. I already explained my issues with Sable and the reporter but the other characters that didn’t quite work for me were Cheryl (Rashida) and Hoagie’s mom. Hoagie’s mom felt like a lazy character to me. Like the writer’s forgot about her until the end and were like, oh wait, how can we make her funny? Let’s just make her into one of her son’s friends. I thought maybe it would have been funnier to have her be one of those completely unaware types, like all this stuff is happening around her and whenever she finally looks around, it’s all gone. And then Cheryl, her plotline was doomed from the start but as far as that subplot goes, what smart woman in her right mind chooses the unemployed broke pothead living with his dad over smart successful Callahan in a choice between two exes?? Ok rant over. That character had no real purpose in the story, I say cut her out.

While I did have all those issues, I did thoroughly enjoy this movie. I laughed a lot and was fully entertained. I would highly recommend this movie it was a fun one! Unfortunately I do not have a ticket stub to show for this movie because the theater I went to screwed me over! I’m just not going to go to that theater anymore, It’s not worth losing my precious ticket stubs!

Let me know what you think of this review and what you thought of Tag! If you liked this review please share it! Stay tuned for the next one: The Incredibles 2!

[makemoneyonlineprofit-blog]

Meet the Entrepreneur Ushering Vinyl Into the 21st Century

https://120profit.com/?p=2204&utm_source=SocialAutoPoster&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Tumblr As a teenager, VNYL founder and CEO Nick Alt worked at a record store in his Ohio hometown. It would be a dream job for any music lover, but for Alt, that gig was formative: Not only did it serve his passion for interacting with people, but it also helped him develop a skill for understanding their musical tastes and introducing them to the artists they may not have otherwise discovered. Years later, Alt would funnel his passion for music and record curation into VNYL, a monthly record subscription service that launched in 2015. The concept of a monthly subscription service may not be new—everything from your smoothies to your skincare products to your dog toys can be delivered straight to your door—but VNYL’s relentlessly personalized experience certainly is. Every month, VNYL members receive one or more records chosen by an in-house expert, based on their tastes, preferences, and current record collection; and that information is based on information they’ve provided themselves, as well as data culled across several of their social platforms. (As a bonus, they’ll get a handwritten note from the curator explaining their picks and why they’ll love them.)   For Alt, nailing down this unusual combination of software and retail took time, experimentation, and lots of love-driven labor. Here’s how he did it.   Entrepreneurial Beginnings Professionally, Alt came up in the age of early web development and video. In 2006 he founded Clear-Media, a video production agency that happened to work with several hospitality-focused clients. That service-based work resonated with Alt; it harkened back to his clerking days of putting the customer at the center of his efforts. On a practical level, it taught him the importance of developing a product with the goal of solving the customer’s pain point—not solely from the desire to strike gold. Soon Alt ventured into software, eventually developing award-winning apps, like Appetites, an instructional cooking app that was the first to feature video from a point-of-view perspective. Alt then parlayed those skills into creating an iPad/iPhone tool for video creators. That, too, proved successful; in 2013, his company Echograph® was bought by Vimeo.    While his extensive experience in the digital space was rewarding, Alt still found himself itching to get back into the music world. Then he came up with an idea that would seamlessly blend his software experience with his passion for music, as well as his deep understanding of customer-based products. That idea became VNYL, a bespoke subscription service that delivers its 10,000+ customers with new records every month.   Founding VNYL Like most businesses, VNYL started with the desire to address a couple of problems that, Alt decided, didn’t need to be problems at all—they just needed to be inventively solved. As a music lover, Alt recognized that there were a ton of talented musicians out there. But if they were unsigned or on very small indie labels, these artists didn’t have the ability to reach their target audiences as widely and effectively as, say, a Top 40 artist would. How could other music lovers discover these bands, Alt thought—and ensure that these bands are aligned exactly with their tastes—on a regular basis? “I saw that there was a problem inherently with music discovery. Unless you’re someone like Ed Sheeran, it becomes very hard to reach fans and find your intended audience. The old business of music was a firehose approach: We used to discover music by way of radio and radio promotion, and that would lead us to a single point of purchase, which was the record store. And that would allow people to experience the music for free, and then go and buy that artist. When that all imploded with the age of the internet, I’m not sure that anyone re-thought or reinvented that model.” The solution, Alt found, was in part to leverage valuable customer data that was already available. “In the age of streaming, a lot of that data is available to third parties, but most people don’t really know what to do with it,” Alt says. “I translated that into a music subscription box.” How Does VNYL Work? How exactly does VNYL retrieve all the necessary data to create a box tailored exactly for you? It’s a combination of that readily available streaming data, information you provide yourself, and the work of a VNYL curator. Here’s how it works: When you sign up for VNYL, you’ll choose a plan—the Solo, which sends you one record per month; the Trio (three per month); the Triple Triple (nine records over three months); or the BFF (36 over the course of a year). Then, you can hook up your Spotify, Discogs, SoundCloud, Last.fm, and Rdio accounts so your curator can take a peek into what you’re regularly listening to. You also have the option of linking your Instagram and Twitter accounts so the VNYL staff can get a holistic understanding of your tastes and lifestyle. In addition to that digital data, you’ll also answer questions about your current record collection, the type of record player you have, which genres you’re into, which artists you like and dislike, and any other information you’d like the curators to know about your musical tastes that would better inform their decisions. Every month, you’ll also choose a marquee record or mood that becomes that month’s #vibe, which sets the tone for the rest of your month’s records. But if that month’s vibes don’t resonate with you, you can simply choose the #curated option, in which case VNYL’s team will choose a record based on the information you provide in your profile. So what makes VNYL special—and effective—is that this service isn’t powered solely by predictive metadata. In addition to that data, VNYL’s curators, whom Alt calls “modern record store clerks,” pore over these customer profiles to match them up with the artists in VNYL’s record catalogue that they think they’ll love. “At any given time we have a few hundred titles in our inventory that refreshes monthly, so that gives us plenty of variety to match up the right music to the right customers,” Alt says. “The VNYL staff is about six curators at any given time, and historically that’s the magic number for us to service upwards of 10,000 customers at a time. Sometimes we’ll need to scale up or down. But every piece of that information is not being driven by metadata or BPM—it’s all being driven by real humans who take the time to review a customers profile from day one.” As Alt mentions, VNYL maintains their own, physical vinyl inventory, which they purchase “from anyone who’s manufacturing them. That could be a major label like Sony, or it can be from a large assortment of independent labels.” In keeping with VNYL’s mission to deliver artists’ music right into their target customers hands, occasionally VNYL buys their inventory right from the artists themselves—if, that is, the artist is “scrappy enough to produce their own records. “We love to find new content that way,” Alt says of these artists. “Often, we’ll even assist artists in producing their own vinyl. In the age of digital, there’s no shortage of amazing music out there, but I would imagine that less than 10% of the music has been made available on vinyl or a physical disc. Again, the goal here is to service our customers, as well as the artists who are like, ‘I’m killing myself making all this music, but where am I supposed to put it? I’m not really differentiated in the age of Spotify and Apple Music.’” What’s So Special About V(i)nyl? When Alt first created VNYL, he didn’t necessarily set out to create a subscription service centered around vinyl. Rather, he started with the problem that needed solving, and worked up from there. That said, vinyl has been undergoing a resurgence in recent years. Leveraging its revitalization perfectly aligned with Alt’s idea for a consumer-focused subscription service, as well as his desire to return to the music world for his next venture. The physical product wasn’t the inspiration behind the company’s name, either. Instead, it was what that tangible object represents: a human-to-human interaction. On a personal level, Alt found that a connection with the customer was what was missing from his years of building apps from behind a screen. “When I named the company VNYL, it wasn’t because we were shipping vinyl records; it was the sentiment that vinyl represents. There was an age when you went to the record store and had an interaction with the clerk. We want to re-create that sentiment. We can kind of act as your friend in town. We can say, ‘Hey, we know what she likes, and here are some things that are definitely not going to pop up on the front page of Apple Music or in your Discover Weekly on Spotify.’ That’s huge and unique and awesome, and it’s very tangible, too.” Incidentally, that sentiment echoes Alt’s beliefs about entrepreneurship. “That’s fundamental to building businesses: It’s about knowing your customer and trying to solve a problem for you them. As shockingly simple as that sounds, there’s no shortage of businesses that exist that don’t really line up with that, so it’s hard for them to grow and scale unless they look at themselves from that perspective.” That said, Alt is a true believer in the pleasure of experiencing music on vinyl—which, as you’ll know if you own a record player (or did years ago), is a superior listening experience to piping a song through your phone or laptop’s tiny speakers.    “I’ve collected vinyl for decades, and this format makes a lot of sense to me. It makes so much sense to us as humans, for some reason. It sounds different, it feels different, and it has this romance and charm to it. It’s literally the first format in which music became commercially available, and I don’t think people understand how special it is from that regard. ” Part of Alt’s goal, then, became not only to contribute to vinyl’s renewed popularity, but to remove the elitism that’s grown up around that resurgence and make vinyl accessible to all music lovers. “There’s this whole cohort of music buyers who consider themselves the ‘musical elite,’” Alt says. “Their tastes are precise, they focus on technicalities like fidelity and sound quality, and they’ve established what they do and don’t consider ‘good’ music. But the music business was never built on the people who are often attached to this so-called vinyl resurgence; the music, artists, were built off of fans who were impassioned and felt the emotional effects of the music, who could get into the deeper meaning of the songs. It’s a very special experience for people, and that’s what we’re going for as a business. Our overall pursuit is simply trying to expose everyone to awesome music.” Finding New Solutions In VNYL, Alt hit upon a model that achieved his goal of building a customer-centric business that delivered music directly into the right customers’ hands, and which made vinyl accessible to all. Or, almost all. To experience vinyl (or VNYL), of course, you need a record player. So, a couple of years after VNYL launched, Alt developed TRNTBL, which bills itself as “the first wireless record player.” Its setup is super-simple—it just requires plugging in a cable—and then it integrates with your home’s Sonos or Bluetooth speakers, as well as your Spotify account. Based on the music you’re playing on your TRNTBL, Spotify can then automatically create playlists for you. “TRNTBL started from that sentiment of, if you can detach yourself from the notion that vinyl is catered to particular, audiophile segments, then playing the music is inherently part of the experience,” Alt says. “So it felt wrong for me to be sending out new music every month, but not really putting a stake in the ground and saying, ‘Hey, this is how you could experience this.’ It provides a more cohesive solution to the overall problem VNYL is solving.”   Retailing at $499, TRNTBL is also more financially accessible than many record players on the market, which can require hundreds of dollars worth of accessories to set up. “I thought, why are we making people buy all these records, then you still need to buy over $1,000 in [turntable] equipment? It’s ludicrous. But I would imagine that that same customer probably has a Bluetooth or Sonos speaker. So, let’s just make it work with all that existing equipment.” TRNTBL’s wireless integration actually serves a dual purpose. It’s a unique feature for customers, but the link to their Spotify accounts also gives VNYL’s curators more insight about their listening habits. That’s valuable, precise information they can then use to put together that customer’s subscription boxes.    “It’s the first record player of its kind that can identify what songs are being played when the listener has the device on. So, if they’re a subscription customer to the record club, it allows us to have a completely different level of insight into the records that the customer actually spends time listening to. Because streaming data is great, but it’s so ephemeral that it’s hard to create a value system around. With streaming data you think, well, maybe they just listened to that, or their kid just listened to that, or maybe they share the account—there’s all types of weird things that you can’t solve for in digital. But when it’s on the record player itself, you know what the household is spending their time playing. That makes for a better experience for us to help them find the music that they would really be excited about.” Financing for Growth Like most small business owners, Alt bootstrapped his venture at the beginning. As a supplement, VNYL also launched a lucrative Kickstarter campaign, which was crucial in helping them vet the market and hone their product. VNYL then grew steadily, and layering in the record player a couple of years after the launch increased their earnings. They were finding new ways not just to grow, but to optimize what was already profitable. Once the company had proven its ability to grow with its own funds, Alt understood that they could explore outside financing. With those additional funds in hand, VNYL could do what it was already doing—growing and evolving—but exponentially so. But Alt also understood that there were plenty of venues through which to source that outside funding, some more legitimate than others. But when he discovered Fundera, Alt immediately recognized similarities with VNYL’s technology and customer-focused service. When he signed up, Alt worked with senior loan advisors Michael Yang and Nate Causey to navigate the loans process. And while working with Yang and Causey, Alt was drawn to the human interaction inherent to the Fundera experience—another aspect that was reminiscent of his own company.   “As a small business owner, what Fundera presented to me was quite compelling. It aggregates the more trusted names in financing, but it’s not just a dashboard of all these different products and offers. With a loan advisor, you really have an advocate—which I think of as my version of the record store clerk—to help steer you in the right direction,” Alt says.      “I already thought the brand was really interesting and cool, and I also saw that the founding team were respected folks in the tech industry. But the minute I had a call from Yang and Nate, saying, ‘Hey, tell me a little about your business, what are you trying to accomplish’—when there was that personalized touch—I felt like that was the equivalent of VNYL sending three records a month to a customer, including a handwritten note in the box explaining why these are the best options for you.” Like those handwritten notes his curators provide VNYL customers, Alt appreciated that Causey took the time to explain each of Alt’s loan options. With Causey’s guidance, Alt secured the funding that worked with his business’s current financials and, importantly, can facilitate Alt’s determined pursuit of building a better product.     Moving Forward, Branching Out With a business loan, Alt has more freedom for experimentation. Next up, he wants to branch out beyond the product itself and find ways to implement VNYL’s unique concept into other industries. “The way I see it, we’re sitting on a significant amount of technology that best powers a user experience. And unlike a lot of subscription retail, we’re completely vertically integrated. Other than owning a record pressing plant, we do everything: shipping, curation, design, tech— it’s all in-house. So any one of those concepts makes for an interesting business as it relates to the age of subscription businesses. Even the concept of real-time supply and demand, and making better use of your capital so it’s not just sitting in unfilled inventory, is a whole white paper in and of itself. That’s a potential product that we could spin out and create more opportunity for ourselves around.” As VNYL’s “exceptionally ambitious” foray into the consumer electronics space with TRNTBL proves, Alt is constantly seeking new ways to “grow, scale, and optimize” what’s already working about a proven model. That way, he and his company can best serve his customers (and fellow music lovers), who are at the heart of all of his ventures.   Editorial Note: Any opinions, analyses, reviews or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. 120profit.com - https://120profit.com/?p=2204&utm_source=SocialAutoPoster&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Tumblr

[tune-collective]

Katy Perry, Desiigner & More Are Spotify Editors' Picks for New Music Friday

Katy Perry, Desiigner & More Are Spotify Editors' Picks for New Music Friday

Every week, Spotify updates their “New Music Friday” playlist, featuring 50 of the freshest new tracks hitting the service that week.

On the heels of Billboard‘s partnership with the streaming giant, we’ll be tapping Spotify’s editors to sift through the soon-to-be-hits and highlight the best of the bunch.

Check out the picks and listen to the entire “New Music Friday” playlist below.

Katy Perry – “Chained To The Rhythm” ft. Skip Marley

At this point, Katy Perry knows us all too well. With today’s release of the superstar singer’s new single, “Chained to the Rhythm,” the 32-year-old not only makes her overdue return to the top of our playlists but humbly reminds us that she’s long been a fan-favorite for a valid reason, singing, “Turn it up, it’s your favorite song / Dance, dance, dance to the distortion.” While that foreshadowing line may be a safe bet given Perry’s impeccable past success, even in the song’s first initial run-throughs, its potential to be the next major earworm is undeniable. While Perry is warming up for a 2017 takeover, starting with her recently confirmed performance at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards this weekend, she chose to debut the song in an epic fashion, literally scattering speakers masquerading as disco balls all over the world, inviting fans to participate in a scavenger hunt to seek out her latest tune. “Chained to the Rhythm” enlists a guest feature from Bob Marley‘s grandson, Skip, who made his debut on our #SpotifyNMF playlist just last week. Much like his new single “Lions,” the collaborative track holds a strong-but-subtle political message woven into it, simultaneously inspiring us all to do better and rise above what is looking to tear us down. As Perry readies her first studio album since 2013’s Prism, it’s clear she’s not holding anything back this year, proudly declaring, “We gonna call this era Purposeful Pop.”

Migos – Spotify Singles

While Atlanta may have had the upset of the year with last weekend’s unpredictably theatrical Super Bowl outcome, Migos is here to save the day. As the rap group continues to hold it down as ambassadors of the culture enjoying the recent fruits of their labor, recently releasing their second studio album, the reigning champs stopped by Spotify’s New York headquarters to bless the studio with their signature lavish trap sound and have some fun in the process. Although their album, Culture, debuted at the number one slot on the Billboard charts, the group stays on their grind, even creating a brand new single that doubles as an ode to their recent collaboration with hip-hop’s favorite snack food company, Rap Snacks. For their own special edition bags of potato chips, the group went with a sour cream flavor, aptly naming their catchy new track, “Dab of Ranch,” after their own Rap Snacks’ branding. After the group posted a viral video of themselves freestyling about the fact they now have their own chip, the next logical step naturally was to lay it down in the studio. During the Spotify session, the group’s members go back and forth creating what feels like an unlikely love story, with the lyrics playing into the theme brilliantly, with lines such as “Money like bags of chips / hunnits of bags I flip / finger-licking with the ranch / leaving crumbs on your lips,” and “Get your rap snacks with a dab of ranch / If there ain’t no more call the ambulance” the song is surprisingly (or not-so-surprisingly) incredibly well-written and full of personality, not straying far from Migos’ traditional bangers. In fact, this one can arguably hold its own weight in the club, proving not everyone can pull off a potato chip tribute quite like the Migos can. Rounding out their session with a unique rendition of their track, “T-Shirt,” the Atlanta heavyweights continue to secure their sky’s-the-limit legacy.

Adam Friedman – “What If”

Adam Friedman has been wisely preparing for the very stage his career in music has now arrived to for ages. While many artists are eager to release their music into the world the exact second an engineer sends back the master, this emerging singer-songwriter has opted to forge his own path. After graduating from the Berklee College of Music in 2014, Friedman headed straight to the studio, where he worked on Mike Posner‘s second studio album At Night, Alone, while also creating the original song score for an animated feature film Rock Dog, going on to become the singing voice of the main character, who was played by Luke Wilson. After staying busy with these endeavors, Friedman released his debut single into the wild, with “Pretty Things” going on to debut at #10 on Spotify’s Global Viral Chart. Now that he’s gotten his feet wet, it’s just the beginning, with the LA-based musician today releasing his debut EP, Green. While the 5-track collection features two singles that may sound familiar, his celebrated collaboration with Mike Posner “Lemonade,” a track that has since impressively racked up over 6 million streams as well as his lead single, “Sad,” the other tracks on the project serve as an exciting reminder that Friedman is slowly and steadily making his way onto everyone’s radar. With “What If,” Friedman’s opening vocals are perfect for a pensive reflection, as he wonders what would have happened if things with someone who had caught his eye went a little bit differently. The ambience of the song then erupts into warm electronic production full of pan flute-esque synths and a delectable variety of drums, swirling with inevitable sing-along moments proving that Friedman’s ability to borrow elements from pop and dance music alike continues to work in his favor.

Desiigner – “Outlet”

While 2016 put Desiigner on the map in a permanent way with the release of his platinum singles “Panda” and “Timmy Turner,” this year finds the rapper on a whole new level but chasing after the same goals. The 19-year-old is wasting no time getting back down to business after enjoying the breakout success he’s now received his first heavy heaping of, recently announcing a six-week U.S. tour to kick off in April. Not only that but he also followed up the exciting news with a fresh new single, “Outlet,” a song that shares the same name as the 25-city tour run and gives fans a taste of the new material the G.O.O.D. music emcee has been cooking up for his highly anticipated Def Jam debut, The Life of Desiigner. On the new track, the Brooklyn native navigates less-familiar territory, straying a bit from the patterns used in his previous singles, while tactfully weaving in his signature chirps, buttery rhyme-singing and braggadocios battle cries. While the song interestingly enough doesn’t feature the word “outlet,” the song doubles as a reminder that the reputedly high energy Desiigner is still charged up and ready to go. While discussing the new single, Desiigner naturally is already looking toward the bigger picture, using his new music as fuel to get him to where he wants to go next, even thinking as ambitiously as an astronaut. “I got millions and trillions, I’m here to entertain,” he recently declared. “If I gotta get to the next planet and it’s the first ship going up there and it’s a performance, I want to do that. You feel me? So I’m trying to just be everywhere man, just be everywhere.” With “Outlet” the first reveal of what Desiigner has on deck, it’s without a doubt that while the rapper may have a long ways to go until he reaches his out-of-this-world aspiration, he certainly is heading in the right direction.

Fifty Shades Darker – Official Soundtrack

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, today’s timely release of the second installment of the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise is making sure that regardless of how one may feel about the hallmark holiday, the film’s soundtrack is here for the die-hard romantics and the reluctant population alike. As the best-selling book series went on to takeover the big screen, with Fifty Shades of Grey and now Fifty Shades Darker, it’s only fitting that the accompanying soundtrack is full of major players, unlikely collaborations and as much sex appeal as the erotic romance tale itself exudes. While the film’s first soundtrack birthed some of 2015’s most sultry anthems, including The Weeknd‘s “Earned It” and Ellie Goulding‘s “Love Me Like You Do,” this year’s collection appears to hold just as much promise as its predecessor. As recently featured on #SpotifyNMF, Taylor Swift and Zayn‘s collaboration “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever,” has already racked up an impressive 175M plays on Spotify, with Halsey‘s offering “Not Afraid Anymore,” gliding past 6M, building anticipation to see what else the star-studded collection has in store. With songs from John Legend, Tove Lo, Sia, Kygo, The-Dream, Nick Jonas, Nicki Minaj and more, Fifty Shades Darker covers a lot of ground, both in both the lyrical sense and genre-wise. With songs ranging from tropical house-tinged tracks to piano-led ballads to sinister pop, the soundtrack explores an overall theme of lust, with each track tackling a new interpretation of the complicated emotion and experience. While the film’s at-times controversial plot is a bit more dark than the content of its soundtrack may be, Fifty Shades Darker is poised to dominate theaters and the airwaves alike this weekend and then some, with the conversations surrounding the cultural phenomenon destined to continue well past its debut opening.

Source: Billboard

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