#it's an interesting thing. michael jackson was an interesting little kid. the way he picked up on everything

[leapinarmadillo]

i wish they had him doing more blues(y) songs at motown. like on his solo albums. Doggin Around is a real highlight

[midwesternvibes]

Time for more Seperated Leo Human AU! (I really need a name good lord-)

As promised, we now get to look into Leon's lore! He's a funky little guy, and shockingly well adjusted!

Lore drop under the cut!

His full name is Leonardo Tomás Esposito, and he is quite proud of it! He picked it out himself when he was about 10 years old, and he's happy to say that he still loves it to this day! (Fun fact: all of the names have double meanings to them hehe)

But anyways, his Mamà is in fact, NOT Big Mama (but it was a solid guess!), her name is actually Mia Esposito! (+10 Fandom points to anyone who can guess her full first name) She is a full time nurse and used to travel around the several NYC hospitals as an on-call nurse, but once Leon was born she stuck her roots down to one and has been there ever since!

She's actually an incredibly interesting character (with her very own arc!) with a lot of depth and meaning. She grew up with her Puerto Rican mother and Italian father, but after a series of misfortunes and despair, she ended up immigrating to NYC to start a new life for herself. About 10 years later she began raising a baby all on her own as a single immigrant mother in New York City (Sound familiar?). Whenever Leon asks about his father she tells him that she doesn't remember his Papá, only that he had the same almond-shaped brown eyes as her baby boy....

But ultimately she doesn't remember him hahaha maybe Leon should stop asking questions and get back to studying!

(Leon knows that she's hiding something, but ultimately he doesn't care about his father that much, he just assumes that he did something to hurt his Mamá and wants nothing to do with the man at all)

Leon and his Mamá are very close, they're very similar to Percy and Sally Jackson from the PJO series, and they would definitely fight God for each other.

Leon was raised very much with the mentality of "It takes a village" and has many aunts and uncles and relatives in the hospital staff that he considers family. Mia couldn't really afford childcare as Leon grew up, as it often came down to food or rent for the month. The hospital staff saw this and absolutely adored little baby Esposito, so they were more than happy to raise him alongside their own children. Mia owes her life to this staff and considers them her family through and through.

As he grew up, Leon saw all his favorite people as nurses and doctors and considered each and every one of them heros. He decided very early on that he wanted to be a doctor when he grew up, and after a terrible injury when he was 14 it cemented the fact that he wanted to be a pediatric surgeon, to help kids just like him.

But the issue is, Leon and Mia definitely do not have enough to cover medical school for Leon on a single nurse's income, even with all the jobs that Mia and Leon have taken over the years. That's why Leon NEEDS the athletic and valedictorian scholarship, without it he won't be able to achieve his dream. The only thing standing in his way is.....

THE HAMATOS

(Except Michael, he's a gift)

Leon is willing to do ANYTHING to get those scholarships, but his Mamá always reminds him that the Hamatos might need it just as badly as he does, and that's about all that's keeping him from REALLY doing anything to hurt/sabotage them. His Mamá has instilled a really strict moral code into his psyche and he won't actually do anything to them, he just....really wants to give his Mamá a better life, one she deserves.

Although, he is kinda curious as to why the Hamato brothers have the same eyes as him......

First // Previous // Next

Whew! That was pretty much just a really intense ramble, sorry there was no actual structure to that, I just really wanted to talk about my Leon lore! Props to anyone who figures out the significance of all the names, and to clear up any confusion, Mia is Half Puerto Rican, half Italian, and Leon is 1/4 Puerto Rican, 1/4 Italian, and 1/2 Japanese (but shhh he doesn't know that yet) and obviously he's got that amazing vitiligo (shout out to anyone and everyone with vitiligo, y'all are amazing and beautiful)

Thanks for reading my lore dump, see ya next time for..... huh idk yet, vote ig

See ya next time!

[palmett-hoes]

I like your meta and I got to thinking about all the stuff in these books that requires the suspension of disbelief to roll with and tbh the biggest thing Nora ever asked us to overlook is Riko's entire schtick. Tell me who in real life looks at a short, West Virginia college freshman, even the ones who are good athletes, and says 'oh yeah they are definitely the authority on who should be thought of as the best players in the league, the tattoos are normal, he's normal' Like !??? Hello???

yea i personally have a lot of questions about the moriyamas as they’re presented to us in canon. i think they’re a very confusing detail, and also a not-exceptionally well-considered one on account of the unfortunate racial implications

personal take: the moriyamas should have been russian bratva instead of japanese yakuza. it would change absolutely nothing about the story, but would fix a dozen small details that i’ve been leaping through flaming hoops to justify watsonianly in how i flesh out the extended universe

nora is VERY much a character writer, not a world-builder. her characters are SO nuanced and life-like, but her world-building often feels random, disjointed, and unaddressed

that being said though, i don’t think riko’s schtick is really one of these details

calling riko just a “short, West Virginia college freshman�� is very uncharitable to exactly what he is. riko is a celebrity, the ward of a celebrity, and he’s been in the media eye since he was born. it would be accurate to compare him (and kevin) to people like blue ivy carter and north west kardashian, children of a-list, instantly-recognizable celebrities who got added to their guardians’ brand as children. blue ivy is nine-years-old and has already won a grammy

(i don’t want to imply that either the knowles-carter or the kardashian-west family, or any other celebrity i might mention here are abusive like the moriyama family. while there are plenty of concerns about the psychology of child stars, i’m not talking about their personal lives or the way these children are being raised, because that’s none of my business. i’m talking about them from the perspective of their media visibility and the legitimacy that gives them with the public)

journalists LOVE celebrity kids. every argument and wardrobe choice is headline news in a-list houses, and why some celebrities (like famously michael jackson) have to go to such extreme measures to give their kids even a modicum of privacy, because they're hounded by reporters and photographers every time they step outside.

tetsuji, however, took much more of the joe jackson approach and turned his nephew and ward into a public brand and set them loose on the media circuit as soon as he was able

you have to think about exy as a global movement, one with two distinct figureheads at the helm. it came out of nowhere and completely reshaped the world of sports in an extremely short amount of time. think of kayleigh and tetsuji as being like mark zuckerberg or steve jobs: innovators and figureheads

and even if they’re “just” sports celebrities, they’re sports celebrities on a tier with people like babe ruth, michael phelps, tom brady, serena williams, usain bolt, lance armstrong, the rock, muhammed ali, john cena. people whose sports celebrity is SO great their names enter the mainsteam. that’s the MINIMUM level of fame and influence they have

it's no stretch of the imagination for me to think that the Princes of Exy brand was inextricable with the rapid growth and popularity of the sport. kevin and riko were mascots, ambassadors, and symbols, not just for the ravens but for exy itself. the sport viewed as coming of age alongside them

even if it seems ridiculous to us from outside their universe, inside it people have been hearing about the Perfect Court for over ten years. it’s something their sportscasters and news anchors talk about. you’ve heard it on every early-morning and late-night talk show. it’s a tagline on the covers of magazines and up on billboards. every little league kid who picks up an exy racket dreams that they’ll be the next pick and wear that three or four on their jersey

riko and kevin may have been two of the most famous children in the world

and with celebrity comes extensive forgiveness of... “eccentricity.” remember when jared leto started a cult and everyone just,,, let that happen? gwyneth paltrow’s new age wellness pseudoscience brand? tom cruise is literally a scientologist? even if it’s absolutely ridiculous, it’s okay if a celebrity does it

in-universe, riko isn’t just a “good athlete,” he’s a house-hold name with a consistent vision, every tool at his disposal to get it done, a massive platform of people listening to his every word, and the mainstream media spreading it for free

some tattoos at 16? that’s nothing. ESPECIALLY if they’d been drawing them on for years before

once you think about these things in the context of things that are familiar to us, rather than strange and random and contextless the way they (admittedly) come across in canon, riko starts to make a little more sense

also, while i think it could have been pushed more, i think that nora actually did a pretty decent job of conveying this idea of Celebrity as a theme in the books. there are a lot of very consistent references to kevin and riko’s fame and influence. however, because of how much of an unreliable narrator with such a narrow scope of interest neil is, it’s a detail that can slide past you especially if you haven’t read the books in a while and you mostly engage in the fandom. fandoms tend to be character driven, not theme driven, so a lot of the recurring themes and imagery of a work tend to get lost over time

however i try to keep in touch with the canon. the last time i fully read the books was less than a year ago (and i’ve been in the fandom for like,, 5 years?) and i fact check it often for posts, meta, and fic beta-ing. at some point i’d really like to do a series of scene breakdowns and literary analysis of the lesser-acknowledged themes bc ideas like Celebrities In The Public vs Private are interestingly approached and i think we’re missing out a bit by only talking about them from a character-first perspective

i think one thing i would LOVE about getting some kind of visual-media adaptation of aftg (animated series or visual novel preferred) would be all the passive worldbuilding we could get that neil declines to describe to us. things like billboards and magazine covers and t-shirts and commercials for exy and the Princes of Exy in particular. i really think it would push so much more dimension and context into the story for us to really SEE these things

[chibicalzones]

what the characters of haikyuu smell like pt. 3

featuring: 𝐧𝐞𝐤𝐨𝐦𝐚, 𝐟𝐮𝐤𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐧𝐢, and 𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐤𝐢  

read part one and two! 

DISCLAIMER: (just in case) this is my sister’s first impression on some of the boys so don’t take it too seriously! 

warnings: touches on gender and sexuality at some parts.

post made by: alex 🍒 - ALSO I FIXED OUR ASK BOX AND SUBMISSIONS! i didn’t even realize they were disabled i apologize :c but yes, feel free interact with us!! maybe we shall open requests? or at least on my end hehe 

— kuroo: nail polish

a strong aura

has a superiority complex but he knows bc he genuinely believes he’s better than everyone else

a cheater... in every way

wanted to be cool but then he created his own level of c00L B)

was popular - like the freshman that was friends with the seniors for nO reason

wears platform shoes

prefers vans over converse

drinks straight up expresso shots instead of coffee

uninterested in finding a relationship

(little does she know that this actually geeky science loving nerd is the loml so)

— kenma: wet fall leaves

tired of everyone’s bs

wanted peoples’ approval when he was younger but he’s grown out of that. already figured out it doesn’t matter 

“i dont care if my roots grow in”

trans

hangs with the boys

shy

has a mysterious vibes

his old friend group kicked him out and is now a lone ranger

started playing volleyball to find friends and get his emotions out

has his own superiority complex because he wants to feel that he’s better than everyone else but he knows it’s unhealthy 

acknowledges his own problems

likes edgar allan poe

— yaku: apple cocktail with vodka

mix of things: nice but also gets ticked off real easily

if he went to parties, he’d just be playing beer pong

has a girlfriend - one of the few things keeping him nice

doesn’t look he cares for people’s approval of him but he really does

B student

likes science but thinks astrology is stupid

jealous of vinnie hacker on tik tok

straight now but will become gay

— yamatoro: leather

grew up in a uhm... unfortunate place? 

originally dyed his hair to look cool but went with the mohawk 

people think he’s cool but just wants approval

single

dresses different than everyone else 

but now since it’s becoming a trend, he’s really annoyed that he used to get bullied for it

had a michael jackson phase

likes edm

really bad at showing his emotions

pansexual

— lev: pool / chlorine

the kid that pushes you into the pool when you didn’t wanna be there in the first place

makes fun of you for watching anime but recently started watching it

grew up watching pokemon as a kid but he only liked team rocket

ALSO has a superiority complex

capricorn energy, moon in aries

actually dresses up scary for halloween

parents are sweet but he can be a bit of a meanie 

had a toxic relationship with a woman... because he’s actually gay

— bokuto: gasoline

A CAR DUDE SKDJFSKDFJ 

infatuated with cars

specifically owns a tesla in which his dad probably bought for him

spoiled as a kid

the popular kid

every popular person has at least dated him twice

everyone thinks he’s attractive 

the class clown but may unintentionally make fun of people in the process

“iTs mEnTAL iLLnesS isN’T IT?”

has rich parents but at least he has morals!!!

but also might take your lunch money

taken, straight

changes girlfriends every two weeks

my sister basically thinks he’s your every day local fuckboi

— akaashi: burnt pasta

really trying his best 

has good intentions but his execution’s either subpar or just awkward

likes science, specifically physics

really likes making paper airplanes and that’s how he flirts: he writes love notes and sends them your way 

bad at showing emotions so he writes them

doodles and writes in class a lot

a transfer student

hasn’t had his first relationship yet

doesn’t like swimming but he likes pool floaties

knows how to play piano

straight... for now

— konoha: miso soup

a warn person

people who don’t know him are afraid to approach him but to people who are friends with him thinks he’s very comforting

hard on others because he’s hard on himself

has an arch nemesis that fights for his position

passive aggressive but means well

was bullied for the smallest reason... like he owned a spiderman lunch box in third grade

one guy stole his girl and his is SALTY

he’d be very startled if someone came up and hugged him

with that being said, his love language is acts of service

straight

— kita: ink

artistic

he does calligraphy

dabbles in spray paint

a bit conservative 

enjoys watching skateboard falls, parkour gone wrong, etc.

cheated in elementary school

a- a bully

doesn’t let people get close to him

people don’t know what to think of him

rather good at things that people may not realize, but he really doesn’t care if they realize or not

prefers iced tea over lemonade

takes health very seriously and doesn’t drink soda

uses they/them and states he doesn’t need a relationship

but he’s had one in the past and that’s how he figured out

— osamu: cotton

a reliable person

doesn’t necessarily have a lot of friends but cherishes to make sure they feel appreciated 

has a creative side

specifically sketches using pencil

likes movies and goes on movie dates

people like him for how forgiving he is

a hopeful person

has a realistic outlook on life 

very practical 

has several friends that are girls that think of him as an older brother

a lot of people like him but he he already has his eyes on set on someone 

a closeted bi

— atsumu: butter beer

GEEK

a popular kid with a quirk

a marvel geek, his favorite superhero is the th3 classic iron man

likes girls who don’t wear a lot of makeup, also goes for bruh girls

genuinely a nice person

tries his best to be a approachable person but his geeky-ness gets in the way

has strange intentions?

puts a lot of thought into what he does but does it in a not-so-logic way 

needs guidance

questioning life

is NOT like his brother

wants people to like him but he portrays himself weirdly

also questioning his sexuality

takes a gap year before college because he doesn’t know what he wants to do yet

— suna: battery acid

“there’s a potency to his presence”

takes all AP classes

does things for himself but he’s not that full of himself

wants to make it far in life

he doesn’t know what he wants to do but he knows he wants to make a difference in the world 

always chooses to pick up trash for volunteer work

likes math because it’s straightforward

his dream significant other is someone just like him: he needs someone to care for him and soften him up

people say he’s intimidating but his friends say otherwise

into alternative rock

he would dress the way he wanted if he didn’t get bullied :(

pan and single

𝐛𝐨𝐧𝐮𝐬!

— sakusa: the inside of a missionary

overwhelmed by his own thoughts but whatever he thinks, stays there 

not much of a talker 

he tutors people in math and science

reads a lot of fanfic

has a famous tumblr account - swashbuckler26 and posts abstract and contemporary art

desperately wants to graduate

wanted to become a doctor until he actually started researching

now wants to be an artist

owns peacocks

he has one best friend because they share the same interests but that leads them to argue a lot 

goes by they/them and doesn’t care for a relationship 

asexual 

this is the last part but i’m sure i missed some :/ if you guys have any other characters that you would like her to react to, lmk! hopefully i’ll be able to write for them soon!!! - alex 🍒

[the---hermit]

Tag 9 people to learn about their interests!

Tagged by @just-a-cup-of-anxietea thank you 💜🌿

MUSIC

Favourite genre?

I grew up listening to metal and rock, and that's where my heart is. Expecially symphonic metal. But I also listen a a lot more.

Favourite song?

I could say so many songs, if I really have to pick just one I would say Fear Of The Dark by Iron Maiden. That's the song that made me fall in love with music as a kid.

Most listened song recently?

Lately I have been really into Rain Paris' covers, she's really good.

Song currently stuck in your head?

Below My Feet by Mumford and Sons

5 fave lyrics?

Although I felt like giving up

It's not the road I chose

The path less often traveled

Held the highest, the highest of hopes

(The Curse Of The Fold by Shawn James)

Man, he took his time in the sun

Had a dream to understand

A single grain of sand

He gave birth to poetry

But one day'll cease to be

Greet the last light of the library

(The Greatest Show On Earth by Nightwish)

The first thing I ever heard

Was a wandering man telling his story

It was you, the grass under my bare feet

The campfire in the dead of the night

The heavenly black of sky and sea

(Song Of Myself by Nightwish)

And suddently Hades was only a man...

(Epic III from Hadestown off Broadway)

You can be every little thing you want nobody to know

(Wilder Mind by Mumford and Sons)

radio or your own playlist | solo artists or bands | pop or indie | loud or silent volume I slow or fast songs | music video or lyrics video | speakers or headset | riding a bus in silence or while listening to music | driving in silence or with radio on

BOOKS

Favourite book genre?

I have a thing for the very first horror/scifi/fantasy that bloomed in gothic litterature at the end of the 1800s. I have no idea if that counts as a genre, but I have always had a thing for that part of litterature, and when I don't know what to read I usually just go for something that falls under this category

Favourite writer?

Neil Gaiman, and many others, but if I have to pick just one that's him. His writing style, the topics, everything is just perfect for my taste in writing.

Favourite book?

I usually say Frankenstein by Mary Shelly cause that is a great way to present the type of story I like. I was also lucky cause I read that book in the perfect moment of my life to connect with it amazingly. At the same time I feel like I am lying because to only pick one single book is so reductive.

Favourite book series?

I have commitment issues, I don't usually go for series. I would like to cheat by saying The Lord Of The Rings, but Tolkien considered it a whole book. Other than that the only full series I have read is Harry Potter. ( I have also read a few books from the Percy Jackson series, which I enjoyed at the time. And last year I started reading The Witcher series, which I am really liking but I am only two books in and I don't know if that would count).

Comfort book?

The Humans by Matt Haig. Anyone who knows me, or has been following me for a while knows about this, amd no I will never shut up about it until everyone has read it. It just gives me hope in a way didn't think was possible. (Also shout out to The Hobbit cause it just makes me feel so good)

Perfect book to read on a rainy day?

Okay so not an easy question. I think I would either go for a short book that I could read in one sitting or a collection of short stories. For the first category my first thought was Tarocchi Magici E Cavallereschi : La Vera Storia Di Rolando by Marcello Simoni. I have no idea if this was translated but It was a great retelling of the medieval story of Rolando I read last year, I'd love to re-read it. For the second category any short story collection by Neil Gaiman. I particularly love Trigger Warning.

Favourite character?

How can you ask me to pick just one? I love the Creature of Frankenstein, I connected so much to that character. But also Herger from Crichton's Eaters of the Dead is a character I love. I adore his positive spirit and his way of seeing life. At this point I should also mention Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit, one of the characters that I feel more close to me.

5 favourite quotes from your favourite book(s) that you know by heart?

Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.

(Frankenstein by Mary Shelley)

A paradox: The things you don’t need to live—books, art, cinema, wine, and so on—are the things you need to live.

(The Humans by Matt Haig)

Don’t aim for perfection. Evolution, and life, only happen through mistakes.

(The Humans by Matt Haig)

Herger said to me, "Be thankful, for you are fortunate."

I inquired the source of my fortune. Herger said in reply, "If you have the fear of high places, than this day you shall overcome it; and so you shall have faced a great challenge; and so you shall be adjudged a hero.

(Eaters Of The Dead by Michael Crichton)

Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.

(The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien)

hardcover or paperback | buy or rent | standalone novels or book series | ebook or physical copy | reading at night or during the day | reading at home or in nature | listening to music while reading or reading in silence | reading in order or reading the ending first | reliable or unreliable narrator | realism or fantasy | one or multiple POVS | judging by the covers or by the summary | rereading or reading just once

TV AND MOVIES

Favoutie tv/movie genre?

I have no idea. I don't know if I feel different about the genres I watch the most. You know what? I'm gonna go with animated movies because at the end of the day that's always the best option when you don't know what to watch.

Favourite movie ?

There is so many movie. In my family we religiously rewatch a bunch of movies every year, how could I pick just one? I'm gonna go with Young Frankenstein cause that movies is hilarious, and everytime I rewatch it I laugh as if I didn't know all the jokes already.

Comfort movie ?

Honestly it depends on what type of comfort I am looking for. I could go with a couple of my favourite disney classics like The Emperor's New Groove and The Lion King. But also The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings movies. This list could go on for days honestly.

Movie you watch every year ?

The list would be way too long, I am a serial rewatcher. I can say a few I haven't mentioned yet. Big Trouble In Little China, the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, Wasabi, The 13th Warrior, Lo Chiamavano Trinità and A LOT of other movies.

Favoutie tv show?

The answer to this has changed many many times through the years, but I can confidently say Brooklyn Nine Nine.

Comfort tv show?

Brooklyn Nine Nine, Friends, and I know there's something else but I can't think of any title at the moment.

Most rewatched tv show?

I could say Supernatural, but I really don't want to say Supernatural. I have watched The Mentalist a fair amount of times (the first couple seasons). Now that I think about it I have seen Lie To Me a lot of times aswell. B99 too but I disn't awant to be too repetitive.

5 fave characters?

I don't know if this is supposed to be on tv shows or movies so I will randomly list a few from both. Bilbo Baggings from The Hobbit (yes I am saying it again BUT you don't understand how much I feel like him cause I also both want and not want to go on an adventure). Rosa Diaz from B99, Patrick Jane from The Mentalist, Elizabeth Swan from The Pirates Of The Caribbean. I know it's just four but I can't think of anyone at the moment.

tv shows or movie | short seasons (8-13 episodes) or full seasons (22 episodes or more) | one episode a week or binging | one season or multiple seasons | one part or saga | half hour or one hour long episodes | subtitles on or off | rewatching or watching just once | downloads or watches online

I tag (no pressure) : @anxiousoptimist101, @contre-qui , @justanotherstudyblrinthecrowd , @starrystvdy , @sage-studies , @occhicerchiati , @fly-away-from-here , @illuminatingnun and @outsassing-nero, plus whoever whats to do this just pretend that I tagged you!

[sunsetinmyvein]

The Radio Station - Chapter Three - Stay Another Hour or Two

A/N - Sorry this one’s a smidge late, guys. Been laid up a bit these last 48 hours. 

19th of September, 2013

 Unbeknownst to her, Matty had been just as excited about a second interview as she was. After the praise she had given both him and his music the first time, he had found himself a bit smitten. Waiting for the next time he was in London to hope that the station reached out again had been mildly nerve-wracking, but his patience had been worth it. It gave him the chance that he wanted. He had given her his number in the hopes that maybe she'd make a move. If she came to him first, that saved him a lot of trouble and allowed him to side-step any awkward tension if it turned out she wasn't into him. She hadn’t managed to get out to Reading around her other work obligations, but she’d let him know that she tried. He had hoped this would be the start of more frequent communication. But, they hadn't really had much of a chance to act on anything in that regard. Because as soon as the full-length album was out, the station wanted Matty back on the show.

“It feels like it was only yesterday that I was here.” Matty laughed from the seat across from her as she fiddled with a few things on her side of the desk.

“It’s only been a month, I think?” She mumbled, clearly focused on something.

“About that, if I recall.” He nodded.

  “No George this time?” She asked absentmindedly.

“I'd rather have you all to myself.” She hummed a noise in response that made it hard for him to work out if his flirting had landed or not. But he did think that maybe she was trying to avoid looking directly at him. And... maybe blushing? “Been up to much in the last month?” He segued.

“Not particularly.” She said with a shrug. “You? Touring?” She asked back, but he skipped right over that.

“Haven't been painting the town red? Going on dates? Suddenly acquired a boyfriend?” He asked as nonchalantly as possible, suddenly busying himself with his phone.

She let out an abrupt laugh as she finally looked over at him, “No, Matty.” He just nodded thoughtfully. “Come on, you dork. Let's do this.” She said, looking fairly amused by his antics as she pulled her headset back on.

  “And we're back, with a voice a few of you might find familiar as he was on the show only a month ago.” She gestured to him to do a little introduction.

“Hi, it's Matthew Healy from The 1975.” He spoke in a calculated voice into his mic.

“Back again so soon?”

“That's what I get for complaining it was too long last time.” He said with a light laugh.

“But you've done a lot in a month! Your full length, self-titled album is out now, you played Reading and Leeds, and you're even playing at the O2 Sheperd's Bush Empire tomorrow.” She listed off.

“Yeah! We never stop, really.” He chuckled as he shook his head a bit. “The acceleration over the last six months has been crazy fast. But we’ve been a band for such a long time so it feels justified.”

“Your enthusiasm and motivation is truly next level.”

“Gotta keep the hype going, you know?”

“Has it left you guys feeling a bit worn out?” She questioned. “That sort of non-stop lifestyle would've burnt many people out by now.”

“Ah, no way! We’ve had five years of doing nothing. This is fun.” He grinned broadly. “I’ve got a break of about a week and a half  over Christmas, but I’ve gotta move into  a new flat. I’ve got loads of stuff to move. I had to buy luggage while on tour. I have so much fan stuff now – letters, drawings, puzzles of my face.” She couldn't help but laugh at the thought of that and how surreal it must be.

  “So, the album is out now. Have you been happy with how it was received?” She asked.

“Like everything that we do, it was totally down the middle. Half the critics absolutely loved it, half of them hated it. I think Vice called it the worst album of the year.” He said with a loud laugh. “It’s so funny how subjective music can be. But I don’t really care, you know. Our fans have embraced it massively.” He smiled.

“Well, it went to number one!” She reminded him.

“Yeah! That was pretty awesome. The fact that it went to number one is amazing.” He huffed with a look of giddy disbelief as he pulled a hand through his hair. “We didn’t really need any kind of statistical validation to be proud of that record, we were as proud of it as we could be as soon as we finished it. But it was nice to know that people still like good music.”

“I can imagine that would've been quite satisfying for you guys. It definitely deserved to reach number one.” She said with a nod.

“You've listened to it?” He asked in curiosity.

“Yeah, I’ve listened to it a bit.” She confirmed with a nod. “Actually, 'a bit' is probably an understatement.” She corrected.

“Oh really?” He blurted out eagerly before clearing his throat and trying to dial it back. “That’s cool.”

  “Are you able to tell us a bit about the thought process behind the album? What ties it all together?” She questioned. He noticed she didn't have a notepad this time like she had previously.

“I don’t think there’s a concrete narrative that runs from the beginning to the end. It's not that sort of album. We knew we wanted to make a long album. Sixteen tracks, you know. But I suppose it’s all about me and my relationships, like the EPs…” He hummed for a moment as he tried to pull his thoughts together. “The album ended up being like a scrapbook of conversations and situations that kind of, when it was all put together, made this story of our youth? I think that’s what the album is.”

“Stylistically it’s all quite different, some of the songs sound like they could be from entirely different artists, let alone on the same album.” She noted.

“There’s a bit of a stylistic polarity, it’s quite genre-bending, the sounds.” He nodded in agreement. “But then again, we kind of wanted to make one of those records like the best pop records from the 80s. Like Michael Jackson on Bad. That was kind of the vibe we wanted to do. We didn’t pull any punches. We didn’t think we need to be a bit ‘cool’. We thought we’d just do exactly what we want.” He explained simply.

  “That attitude seems to have resonated well with your fans.” She continued.

“Well, we wanted people to feel about our record the same way we felt about records that were really important to us. I want people to love the album, I want people to be able to not listen to the album because it reminds them of someone, I want it to bleed into humanity.” His passion for his music was unmistakable. She felt it was a shame that her interviews weren't filmed, so much of his personality and sheer enthusiasm came through in his expressions.  

“It's interesting that you've been able to achieve that sort of appeal with something you've described as so personal and so heavily based around your own experiences.”

“The more specific you are, and the more honest you are about you, the more grandeur the idea becomes. Because if you give someone a really, really specific idea instead of something vague, they can read into it so much more.” He said thoughtfully. “It’s immediately captivating. Rather than a vague idealism that you may or may not have experienced. Whereas if you hear a really specific thing, hopefully across the album there will be something that someone could really,” He clicked his fingers with a look of sincerity, “immediately feel you’ve experienced.”

  “You would've definitely gained some new fans now that the album is properly out. I believe I've even heard of a few big musicians singing your praises.” There was always seemingly some artist or other causing a stir on Twitter by tagging The 1975 in their tweets. “Do you guys have any biases towards someone who's famous being a fan? Or do you see all fans as equal?”

“Oh, well, you know, all fans are equal. I mean it’s nice to be validated by those you respect and interesting to be validated by those that you don’t. But that is a nice thing about it – when your heroes become your peers. But…” Matty made a face like he was trying to pick his words carefully, “I don’t really care about the whole celebrity thing very much, it doesn’t really mean anything. My parents are famous. I grew up around it. I kind of understand what it means – or more importantly, what it doesn’t.”

“Do you find that sort of celebrity complex of what that attention means gets to you?” She asked.

“Sometimes.” He shrugged. “It's weird reading so much about yourself. Am I actually this celebrity person I see on my phone or am I me? I don’t really know.”

  “Leading on from that then, how are you finding being a role model to so many people now that your celebrity status has grown so much?”

He instantly grimaced. “I’m really uncomfortable with it. Part of me thinks, it’s better they look up to me than a lot of people I know. But I shouldn’t have that responsibility as a 24 year old guy… y’know?” He huffed. “It’s hard for me, because I don’t really hold dear a lot of the values that fame presents. But the world of fame, the world of celebrity, has picked me up from a life of obscurity and put me into this whirlwind of money and bollocks and girls… I think we kind of invest in our own relationships a lot.” He stopped himself for a minute as he took a drink from the mug of tea she'd given him. “I don’t know what to say to a lot of these kids. The whole thing of becoming a figure of sexual desire, that’s understandable. That comes with the territory, that comes with young girls, that comes with them growing up. But the idea of me becoming a figure of intellectual desire? Something people look up to as almost an orator or a speaker or somebody with opinions? That makes me feel uncomfortable.” He shook his head as he scratched at the back of his neck. “Because I’m not this honest person that’s been depicted in the media. I’m very, very defiant about being honest lyrically, but that doesn’t come from a place of genuine lack of care – I’m actually really neurotic and insecure. The only reason those lyrics are like that is because I wrote that album before anyone knew who we were. I didn’t have to think 'am I being too honest?' ”

  She paused for a moment as his words sank in. It hadn't been her intention to get him onto such a heavy topic, but he certainly seemed to have no trouble dissecting his thoughts on the matter and she was certain her listeners would be enjoying the insight. “Let's shift onto a lighter topic.” She started, knocking him back to reality. “I've probably heard interviewers ask you about the origin of the band name... three dozen times by now since I asked in our first interview?” Matty chuckled at that, but urged her to continue. “Is it validating to know people are so interested?”

“Good question… I don’t know. I think because… I get a bit tired of it. “ He admitted truthfully. “I really, really appreciate it when someone looks at an interview from my perspective and how it might be for me, because I’m the one who does the majority of them. I don’t know why people are so interested in the name. But then I think, hold on a second, if I didn’t know where a bands name came from would I be genuinely interested? And maybe I would… I think people like to understand music. They like music to be something that’s really consumable and palatable and understandable. Whereas we’re the total antithesis of that, aren’t we?”

“I'm almost tired of hearing it come up in interviews.”

He laughed loudly, “Yeah, so am I.” He nodded. “So. Am. I.”

  “That seems like a good point to cut away to a few tracks.” She said with a sigh as she pushed herself back into her chair. “Do you have any requests off the album, Matty?” She asked.

He thought about this for a moment, “What's your favourite off the album?” He asked with a smirk.

“At the moment? I've been listening to Girls a lot.” She answered as she began queuing it up.

“Then let's hear that.” He nodded decisively.

“You heard it, folks. This is Girls off The 1975's self-titled album.” She said into her microphone as she watched Matty take his headset off and sink back into his chair. “Sorry for getting you onto such an intense tangent there.”

“It's all right, I'd rather have an intellectual conversation than have to repeatedly explain the band name.” He said with a short laugh. “That's why you do good interviews - you ask proper questions.” He added as he finished the tea.

  They chatted a bit about what they'd been listening to lately, what bands they thought were going to headline next year's festivals, before eventually the interview picked up again. “We're here with Matty of The 1975, and just before we heard their song Girls. Now, Matty,” She leaned forward, and for a moment the look in her eyes made him feel like he was in for another hectic question. “I heard a lot of controversy about the video clip for that song being in colour.”

He couldn't stop himself from chuckling. “Yeah... But it wasn't our first video in colour!” He said defensively. “When we put out the album version for Sex, that came from the idea that everything got so big so quickly, but we still wanted the album version out there before the album came out, you know, to impose our identity and say this is who we are. With that we did a new video for it and it was in colour, it was the first video in colour and everyone went mental. We were made aware that a lot of kids were saying stuff that we were ‘conforming to a major label’ you know, the whole cliché’d band getting too big.” He waved his hand dismissively. “And we got obsessed by that idea because it’s… so not true. It’s so ridiculous. And we wanted to make a video about that – about conforming to a major label. Because music videos are silly, we wanted to make a tongue in cheek video. We just wanted to make a pop video that was really aware it was a pop video. We knew it was obviously gonna split people down the middle but… whatever…” He finished with a shrug. “It was funny.”

  “I agree, I thought it was pretty funny.” She replied with a smile. “What do you hope people are getting out of the album now that it's out there for them to listen to?”

“I can only hope that they react in the same way that I do. Because I can only make music for me. Therefore I can only expect people who are likeminded to embrace it in the same way that I do. When we finished Robbers, I cried my heart out. When we finished Settle Down, we went on a night out on the Friday, and it was like five in the morning and I made the engineer steal the keys to the studio and we went back and broke in to listen to the record all the way through. If a song doesn’t make me laugh through joy, or it doesn’t make me dance, or it doesn’t make me cry, or it doesn’t provoke me to be really introspective, then we just fuck it off. Just leave it.” He answered, before quickly trying to summarise himself. “I want our music to make people think about their own life more than our music.”

“That makes sense. The best music always reminds you of specific moments and people in your life.”

“Exactly.” He grinned.

  “I heard rumblings that you're already working on the next album?” She asked, watching as he nodded a bit. “I suppose I shouldn't have expected any less given how little time off you allow yourself.”

He let out a laugh, “Yeah, you'd be right. Although, we've had this one ready to go for nearly a year and had some material leftover from it that didn't quite fit in, as well. The new album sounds mental already… it’s very... weird…” He frowned down at the desk as he played the tracks through in his head. “I can’t really tell you what it sounds like. I think it’ll probably be closer to the EPs. We’re so confused now about our lives, that I think this record will be a genuine representation of our confusion in different cultures and different cities and different mindsets.” He explained. “But who cares? We’re only making it because we wanna make it.”

“And from what you've said, song-writing is a big part of your expression.” She prompted.

“One hundred percent. I can’t have a record that is so self-deprecating and self-aware and then be interviewed and not have that translate in the way that I am. Because this band is a genuine extension of my identity, all of the music is me trying to figure myself out lyrically.”

“Has that process taught you much?” She questioned.

“Yeah. It's helped me get my head straight about a lot of stuff. But mainly I’ve really learned that I have a creative responsibility. I used to think I didn’t have any responsibilities when it came to my art, because it was mine. But I’ve realised that so many people genuinely invest in it. I do have a responsibility for it at least to be as good as whatever preceded it… hopefully better.”

  “All right, we're nearly out of time.” She sighed, straightening up in her chair. He threw a disappointed look her way, forcing a smile out of her. “But before we call it, last time we spoke was right before Reading and Leeds. How was it?” She asked.

He let out a bewildered sound before speaking, “Reading and Leeds was like a culmination of everything that has happened. It was amazing.” He started with a faraway look in his eyes. “We went to that festival – it was the first festival we ever went to as a band. Just to watch. You don’t expect more people to come and see you over the course of one festival period, because it seems too fast. But we were definitely pulling much bigger crowds by the end of the Summer, it was mental.” He said as he shook his head in disbelief.

“I told you that you guys would be really hard to get a hold of in the future.” She reminded him. “We've had Matthew Healy of The 1975 on the show with us discussing their latest self-titled album. It's out now in stores. Go do yourselves a favour and give it a listen. Thanks, as always, for chatting, Matty.” She said with a sharp nod.

“Always a pleasure.” He said with a grin.

  By now, she was expecting him to hang around as she talked through her outro and switched back to the music. He stood up and walked around from his side of the desk, leaning against the wall as she faced him.

“So, where are you off to now?” She asked as she pulled her headset off and placed it on the desk. “Gonna go fill up your free time with overworking yourself more?” She added with a playful smile.

He scoffed, “We don’t get free time. When we do have free time, it’s in London, where we don’t live, when we’re in a hotel, and you have one day off which you do your washing in.” He answered as he rolled his eyes. “But, I assume that you do live near London?”

“Around these parts, yes.” She said vaguely. “Why?”

“We're stuck up here for a couple of days, if you wanted to get a drink or anything.” He suggested with a casual shrug.

“I appreciate the offer, but stand by what I said before.” She started. “It's easier to keep work separate. I've seen it get messy for colleagues.” She elaborated.

He nodded in understanding. “All right, well...” He let out the breath he was holding. “You have my number.” She watched him walk out of the studio as she tried to get her heart rate back under control.

  * * *

  She probably should've known better than to go out that night knowing that Matty was around London. But her friends had invited her out for a drink, and it was Thursday, it was close enough to the end of the week. And most importantly she felt like she needed a drink after being in such close confinement with that man. Thankfully, her professionalism was easy enough to maintain at work (despite his best attempts at flirting). However, when she was faced with the dilemma of George and Matty walking into the bar they'd been in for the last couple of hours, after she'd already had a few drinks, the lines between work and social life were suddenly a lot less obvious. She shrank back down into her seat slightly, hoping that he wouldn't notice she was here and she wouldn't have to deal with the uncomfortable feeling in her chest. But it was too late. George noticed her and instantly pointed her out to his mate. Fuck sake, George. Matty flashed her a friendly wave, which she returned anxiously. At least he didn't walk over. He and George walked across to the other side of the bar and started playing pool.

  She mentally checked out of her friend's conversation after that - finding it too hard to not focus on Matty when he was in the room. The magnetism he radiated was annoyingly undeniable. She nodded occasionally and made approving noises here and there when there was a pause in the conversation for a response. But eventually she was dragged back to reality and actually had to give a response when she heard one of her friends calling her name. She looked over to them with her eyebrows raised, asking them to repeat the question.

“I said,” They laughed before repeating themselves, “we’re going to grab some food down the road. Are you coming?”

“Uh…” She mumbled, suddenly meeting Matty's gaze across the room. “No. I’m not hungry.” She shook her head. “Might hang around here for a bit.”

“Suit yourself.”

  Her friends grabbed their things, promptly leaving the bar and thus leaving her to her own devices. She briefly considered that staying here might be a bad idea, but that thought was quickly squashed by the smile Matty threw her way. “Fancy seeing you here.” He grinned as she walked over to where he and George were standing.

“Should've known you'd find me somehow or another.” She said in amusement as she watched George sink one of the smalls.

“Hey, don't blame me.” He held up his hands in defence. “This bar was his idea. Right, George?” He asked as he turned back to the table.

“He's right.” The drummer nodded.

“We just wanted to get out of the hotel for a bit.” He explained with a look of innocence. “You wanna get in on the next game?” He added, suddenly looking eager.

“Sure.” She shrugged as she pulled a barstool over and took a seat.

  As she watched them play out their game, she noticed that George was a much better player than Matty was. “You don't seem to be very good at this.” She noted as Matty missed another shot.

“It's still our first game. I need to warm up.” He replied as he rolled his shoulders.

She hummed thoughtfully, “I dunno, George is kicking your arse.”

“George, tell her that I'm not that bad at pool.” He said with a frown.

He shook his head, “I’m not getting involved. This is between you two.”

“I'll show you.” He grumbled under his breath as he took a sip from his beer. “Next game. You and me.” He said with a nod.

“You're on.”

  The game took a little longer to finish up than what she had initially expected as Matty tried to hone his skills. She ended up excusing herself to get another drink right before George sunk the last shot.

“Good game, Matt.” He said as he cracked his back. “I'm gonna head back to the hotel. You coming?” He asked as he nudged the singer in the ribs.

Matty eyed the girl standing at the bar. “Nah, I'm gonna stay for a bit.” He answered.

“All right. Don't kick on too late.” He said as he clapped a hand down on his friend's shoulder. “Remember, we've got a show tomorrow.”

“Yeah, yeah. I won't.” He said as he brushed off George's hand. Matty racked up the balls and set up the table again as she came over with her drink.

“Where's George?” She asked, quickly looking around.

“Went back to the hotel.” He answered abruptly.

“Oh.” Was all she could muster in response. No longer having the buffer of someone else suddenly made this situation feel quite... different.

“I've got a wager for you to prove I'm not as bad at this as you think.” He said as he held out the pool cue to her. She raised an eyebrow in question. “If you can beat me in a game, I’ll buy you a drink.”

“And if I don’t beat you?” She questioned with a sceptical look.

“Then you’ll have to buy your own drink to have with me.” He shot back, holding her gaze. He offered out his hand and waited for her to shake on the bet. After a moment of weighing up her options, she shook his hand firmly. “You break.”

  For a man who wanted to make a bet on his skills, they hadn't really seemed to have improved any since the last game. After about ten minutes of playing, he had only sunk one ball in comparison to her four. It seemed that he was practically handing out free shots.

“I feel like you’re losing on purpose.” She accused eventually.

“What gives you that impression?” He asked as he shot the cue ball directly in between every possible ball he could’ve hit.

“What were you even aiming for just then?” She huffed with a laugh.

“I was trying to do a bounce shot off the cushion into the five.” He lied as he took a drink. “Your shot.” He handed the cue back to her.

She looked back at the table, seeing that the five was nowhere near where he ended up. “Sure.”  

  “So...” He started, leaning back against the table. “I thought you said earlier that you like to 'keep work separate'?” He asked casually as he busied himself looking at his fingernails.

“What a good thing neither of us are working right now, then.” She muttered as she sank another ball.

“Hmm, seems that way.”

“And I didn't exactly intend to hang out with you this evening.” She added, taking her second shot and holding the cue out to him. “It's not my fault you invaded my Thursday night.”

“You say that like you're not having a good time.” He frowned as he took it back.

“I wouldn't be here if I wasn't having a good time.” She answered honestly. As soon as he heard that, he sank his final shot. He watched as the eight went straight into the corner pocket. “You… you just lost the game?” She asked in confusion.

“What a shame.” He sighed. “I guess I owe you a drink.” He said with a shrug as he brushed past her and walked to the bar. She should probably feel a bit more confronted about the fact that he'd just lost that game to spend time with her, but her brain was too clouded with the knowledge that he'd just lost that game to spend time with her.

  They continued playing pool as Matty brought over the next round, and for some sudden reason, they seemed to be a lot more evenly matched. It was unquestionable how easily the conversation flowed between them, and it was also pretty easy to see the chemistry quickly forming.

“I'm not as good with girls as people think I am.” He debated as he took his shot, after hearing her prattle on about how much women fussed over him on the internet.

“You don't need to be good with girls at this point.” She said as she rolled her eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t think you realise how many people want to date you, Matty.” She laughed. “I mean, you’ve got a queue longer than the one to get into Glastonbury.” He couldn't help but join in with her laughter at the reference.

“That doesn't mean anything if I'm not attracting the right people.” He pointed out.

“What sort of people are you aiming to attract?” She asked in an attempt at nonchalance, intentionally looking away from him to hide her nerves.

“Someone like minded. Other musicians, people in the industry,” He paused, waiting until he had her attention before he finished his sentence, “cute radio presenters. That sort of thing.”  

  As her brain ticked into overdrive at this, she heard the bartender call out for anyone wanting last drinks. It was getting late. “I really need to be getting back home.” She groaned.

“Ah, but the bar doesn't close for another hour!” Matty protested.

“I've got work tomorrow.” She said, shaking her head. “And you,” She punctuated her sentence by jabbing him in the shoulder. “have a show.” He gently took her hand in his, using it as an excuse to pull her closer to him.

“I've done worse than play a show while I'm tired.” He argued, trying to convince her to stay a little longer.

“Well, I have a level of professionalism to uphold.” She smiled back at him. “When are you back in London next?”

He thought about this for a moment, “January.”

“That's forever away.” She said with a frown.

“Good thing you've got my number then.” She nodded slightly, suddenly finding herself losing her voice when she noticed his expression shift. He leaned in closer, and before she'd really had time to properly process it or kiss him back, he'd already moved away. “Keep in touch, love.” He grinned.

Taglist: @imagine-that-100 @dot-writes @tooshhhy @robinrunsfiction @approved-by-dentists

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7

Title: Godly Marine: Killed Author: Scarpool Fandom(s): NCIS, Percy Jackson & the Olympians Pairing(s): Gen Rating: PG/K+ Summary: Chapter 7 (9/13) — Staff Sergeant Michael Kahale, Marine Corps Mechanic and Son of Athena, was murdered. Annabeth Chase is determined to find out who did it and why. She, along with Percy Jackson, Grover Underwood, and Clarisse La Rue, infiltrate NCIS where they team up with NCIS Agents Leroy Gibbs, Anthony DiNozzo, Timothy McGee, and Ziva David. Complete Genre: Fanfiction, Mystery, Drama, Humour, General, Action Warnings:  N/A

Gibbs's command to 'bring them all' was still ringing in Tony's head as he finished dropping off the Kahale kids in the conference room. Their father was waiting for questioning.

The elevator dinged, signaling Ziva's and Gibbs's arrival. They lead Patricia Kahale in, Ziva taking point and escorting her to interrogation.

Tony walked next to Gibbs to report. "One in interrogation, the rest in the conference room."

Gibbs nodded and glanced around the bullpen. "Where are they?"

The long Island Agents. "Uh, don't know, Boss. They weren't here when we came back."

Gibbs lifted an eyebrow but stayed silent.

"So, how do you want to do this, Boss?"

"Let's start with the father."

Tony snatched the case file as they passed his desk. Then, not because he had an urge to share his current opinion, Tony said, "And the evil step-mother?"

"Let her stew."

"Right, Boss. How about the kids?"

"Have McGee bring them down. He's in charge of any incoming calls."

"Right." Tony started for the center stairs.

"Hey!" Gibbs called out. "You're with me. Write to him or something."

Tony frowned as he followed Gibbs. Although interrogation was way more fun than dealing with McProbie and the kids, Tony was uncomfortable that Gibbs wanted him to send a postcard through the building.

"Write to him?"

"Through your phone," Gibbs said.

"Oh! Er, you mean send a text."

Gibbs stopped in his tracks. Tony cringed. "I'm writing to him, Boss."

Gibbs continued on, leading them to the interrogation wing and pushed open a door even though he was never told in which room the man was being held in. Tony shuddered. The Gind. What power it beholds.

"Hey, what's going on?" Johnathan Kahale questioned as they entered. "You said this was about my son? What's going on with the investigation?"

"Mr. Kahale," Tony said, "This is Special Agent Gibbs."

"Hi," Kahale said and, after a brief hesitation, held his hand out. Gibbs shook in greeting.

"So, you are also on Michael's case? I had only met two other agents before being picked up by Agent David and Agent DiNozzo here. I didn't realize how big your teams are."

"Yeah," Gibbs chuckled, "I'm getting that a lot recently."

"Oh," Kahale said, unsurely. Tony understood. He would have said the same thing to that.

"So, how long is this going to take? With the kids here, I should really speak to my wife."

"Your wife is also here, Mr. Kahale," Tony said.

"Really? Can I please see her?"

"No," Gibbs said.

"What? Why not?"

"You are both suspects," Gibbs said.

"Excuse me?! I don't know how you came to that conclusion, Agent Gibbs, but I assure you that neither of us had anything to do with my son's death."

"Then I'm sure you can account for your whereabouts during that time," Tony said.

"I was home."

"Asleep?" Gibbs asked.

"Yes."

"Your wife?"

"Right beside me."

"Did you know about Michael's presence in the area?" Tony asked.

"It's like I told the other agents. No."

"And your wife?" Gibbs asked.

"No."

Gibbs reached into the case file and placed a sheet down.

"Explain," Gibbs said.

"I don't understand," Kahale said. "Are these my phone records?"

"Yeah," Tony said, "There were three calls during the night. One of which you made. You called Michael."

"How do you know it was Michael? It could've been anyone."

"Like who?" Tony asked. "Who would you call at one in the morning that used a number that magically disappeared after use?"

There were a couple of 'um's and 'well's as Kahale fished for an answer. And Gibbs was able to fill in Kahale's awkward moment. "Adrian Rodriguez."

Johnathan Kahale blinked. "Who?"

"Don't know him?" Tony said, hoping to get any sort of recognition, although it was apparent the name was meaningless to the man. "First Lieutenant Adrian Rodriguez. He was assigned to the same ship as your son. He used the same technique Michael used. Make a call. Dump the phone. You have quite the phone history. Remarkably, so do the First Lieutenant's parents. In fact, most of the calls you received from out of service numbers align perfectly with the First Lieutenant's folks. Gap lengths and all. Same day. Same hour. Same location."

Kahale sighed heavily. "It was Michael."

"Why'd you call him?" Gibbs asked.

"Wanted to set up a place to meet?" Tony suggested. "A place to kill him?"

"No! Never!"

"So why lie about contacting him?" Tony asked. "Was it your wife? She doesn't like him. That much is obvious. So what? Keep it hidden? Keep the son you had with another woman a little secret?"

"Michael wasn't some dirty secret!"

"He went missing," Gibbs said.

"Yeah," Tony said, adding some interpretation to that topic. "Why did he run away?"

Kahale shifted in his seat. "He didn't run away," he said. But his posture displayed the doubt he had. Interesting. If he had communicated with his son, shouldn't he have known the answer to that?

Gibbs opened the file again and placed down pictures of Michael's body in autopsy. He also placed down Ducky's official report. "He had tissue and muscle scars old enough to have been done before he disappeared," Gibbs said.

Kahale's eyes flashed up at Gibbs. "You imply that he had ever been beaten in my home, Agent Gibbs?"

"He was different," Tony said, hoping to diffuse the situation and redirect some of the clear revulsion from Kahale onto himself. "No pictures. No social life. Behavioral problems. No steady school. Mother doesn't exist. Who was she? Just some random chick?"

"She wasn't random. And she wasn't just some chick. She was intelligent. Exquisite. Knowledgeable about every subject. Well-travelled. Skilled beyond measure. She knew me before I even laid eyes on her. She's a goddess. And I fell for her, even knowing the consequences."

Wow. Tony might be jealous if his partner lit up like that about a previous flame that had no records. Not to mention, bringing a kid into the picture.

"I loved his mother. I still do. No matter how much she may now despise me. And I love Michael. I could never blame him for any of the things he brought with him. How could I blame him?"

'Blame him?'

"What happened?" Gibbs asked.

"Why'd he leave?" Tony said.

Kahale let out a breath. "He wanted to find his mother's relatives."

"Is she dead?" Tony asked.

Kahale shrugged. How helpful.

"You didn't know where they were?" Gibbs asked.

"No."

"So, what," Tony said, wrapping his head around this idea. "You just let a ten-year-old kid travel the country? Unsupervised? Alone? With not a clue where to go?"

"It wasn't planned," Kahale said, "He didn't say anything; he just left."

"But," Tony dragged the vowel out. "You were okay with his disappearance?"

The silence was the confirmation.

This was crazy! Who would do that? No, scratch that. Tony knew the answer to that. But these people just didn't fit that profile. This guy had to be lying. He was just following the given story, hoping that it would pan out.

"Well," Tony said, "that would explain why a couple of lawyers sent a missing person file knowing nothing would happen."

"Get someone to review his statements," Gibbs said, packing up the case file. "You're not charged with murder yet, but you will be charged with a list of other crimes."

Tony flung the door out dramatically. "Yeah, like child neglect."

Gibbs walked out, and Tony started to close the door, slowing down so it wouldn't close too fast. He waited for Kahale to plea. To bargain. To let loose.

But he didn't. And Tony had to eventually close the door. The click as empty as the amount of nothing they had gotten from that interrogation.

-Ζήβα-

Ziva sat on the corner of the table as Gibbs took up his spot on the chair.

Patricia Kahale sat on the other chair, hands folded and eyes pointed straight at the one-way viewing glass. She had remained silent on the car ride over. Interestingly enough, she had not requested a lawyer even though promising she would when last questioned.

Gibbs placed down the profiles of the two children, Jeremy Swallar and Natasha Hibashira.

"Last time you were here," Gibbs started, "You told me you did not recognize them."

Gibbs waited for a reaction. Mrs. Kahale did not so much as avert her gaze.

"Mrs. Kahale?" Ziva asked. 'If this is how it's going to be, we might as well just cut-'

"Who's on the other side?"

Ziva blinked, forced out of her thoughts.

"Another agent," Gibbs said.

"One of yours?"

"Yes."

"No one else?"

"No, just my guy."

"Good."

Ziva remembered how Mrs. Kahale reacted to Agent La Rue and seemed to dislike Agent Jackson. Did she know something they did not?

Gibbs tapped on the pictures. "You said you didn't know them."

Mrs. Kahale glanced at them. "I did."

"You lied."

"A mistake, surely."

"You were seen talking to them at a bar," Ziva said.

"What did you say to them?" Gibbs asked.

"I didn't say anything to them," Kahale stated. "Besides, aren't they a little young to be at a bar unaccompanied?"

"Who said they were unaccompanied?" Ziva asked.

"Was that not what you implied? Why would I talk to them, if they had their parents with them?"

Ziva had to hand it to Kahale. She could dance. Ziva gave her a little smile. If only just.

"They were looking for a ride," Ziva said, "We believe you suggested them to go to Tarsibo. He is your client, after all."

"I did not speak to them."

"You don't want to talk about them. Fine," Gibbs said, "How about we talk about your stepson. You haven't seen him for years?"

"No."

"You haven't spoken to him?"

"No."

"Your husband was," Gibbs said.

"N-" Mrs. Kahale stopped and threw them a questioning look. "If he was, I have no knowledge of that."

Ziva frowned. "So, you did not know that your husband was in regular contact with Michael?"

"No."

"Did you know your husband called him right before he died?" Ziva asked.

"No."

"You told me you didn't know he joined the Marines. Did you not know what happened to him? That he was even alive? Did you not care? Your husband never told you anything, and you never asked?"

"No," Mrs. Kahale said.

Ziva leaned back. One word for all of her questions. She was used to it, but Gibbs at least cared.

"I suppose it was his way of respecting my desire to not be a part of it," Mrs. Kahale said. She scoffed. "His way of shielding me from that side of his life."

"His ex-wife," Gibbs clarified.

"She was never his wife," Mrs. Kahale said.

Gibbs shrugged. "Your husband had a kid with her. He speaks very highly of her. I would understand if you were resentful."

Mrs. Kahale glared at him. "I don't hate her, Agents," she said, "But if she's so smart, why does she make so many rash decisions? I'll tell you why. Selfishness. Pride. She doesn't have to deal with the consequences of her actions. Someone else always deals with them."

Ziva raised an eyebrow. Yes. Definitely resentful.

"Sounds like you know her," Gibbs said.

"No. But I've heard plenty of stories."

"What kind of stories?" Ziva asked.

"Dramas."

Gibbs hummed. "You would describe them as tragedies?"

Mrs. Kahale lifted her chin. "I would."

"Like the epic stories of the Greek myths," Gibbs said.

Mrs. Kahale said nothing.

"Your husband said she was a goddess. So, was he a part of some cult?"

Mrs. Kahale kept silent.

Ziva narrowed her eyes. The woman obviously did not like whatever it was her husband and this mystery woman were a part of. Why keep silent?

"You can tell us what's going on," Ziva said, "We will help you. Why don't you say anything? Are you being threatened? Your children are here and safe."

Mrs. Kahale swallowed. "It's nothing like that."

Oh, but it was. There was a response at the indication of being threatened and her kids, just as clear as to when Gibbs mentioned Greek myths.

"The kids," Gibbs said, tapping the pictures. "How do they fit in this?"

The woman looked down and took a breath, collecting herself. Ziva sat back. 'Just when we were making progress.' Were they looking at this wrong? Were the kids simply an unrelated event?

Patricia gave an annoyed huff. "As I already told you-"

The files flew from the desk. Gibbs was frustrated. Ziva did not envy this woman. He slammed his hands on the table, glaring down at her. "Then tell me something new. And make it the truth."

No. Ziva did not envy this woman at all.

The door clicked open.

Gibbs turned his death glare at McGee.

"Um, B-Boss," he stammered, "you really need to know this."

Ziva quickly followed after Gibbs. Although apparently suicidal, McGee was still a dear friend, and Ziva wouldn't like to see Gibbs murder him.

Gibbs growled. "What."

McGee nervously wet his lips.

"Well, Ducky has already released his findings. All these reporters who were following the case got them and reported the info to their respective medias. Reshaun Sachs, the bartender; you knew that, of course- well know, you haven't forgotten. Well, he decided to find out what was going on since his business is obviously involved and-"

Oh no. McGee was rambling. And Gibbs's face was darkening with each word. Would her gun be helpful? Or perhaps her knife would be more practical. She decided on simply clearing her throat. Loudly. McGee stuttered to a stop. Ziva gave him a pointed look.

Ziva was relieved when she saw his face alight with understanding.

"Patricia Kahale was at The Drowsy Owl during the time of death. She could not have killed Staff Sergeant Michael Kahale."

-Αντώνης-

Tony did not like this.

He watched as Gibbs and Ziva entered the interrogation room.

"You are free to go, Mr. Kahale," Ziva said.

"Thank you. If I can just see my wife, then we can-"

"Your wife isn't cleared," Gibbs said.

"What?"

"She admitted to killing your son."

"What?! No! She couldn't have."

"How do you know?" Ziva said, clicking the door shut behind her.

"She was at home."

"Weren't you home as well?"

"Yes, but- she just couldn't have done it."

"We know," Gibbs said, taking a seat. "Although not in your house, she is witnessed being at a bar during the time of the murder."

"Then you know she didn't do it. That she's innocent."

"Mr. Kahale, aren't you curious as to why she would be at a bar so late at night?" Ziva asked. "Not telling you and lying that she was?"

"Maybe she was meeting with her friends. I trust my wife."

"Have any idea as to whom these friends might be?" Gibbs said.

"No, I did not see them."

"What did they tell you?"

"Nothing. As I said. I did not see them."

"But you spoke with them. You received a call before and after you spoke with Michael. A blocked number."

"You had to be awake to answer your phone. You had to have known your wife was not lying asleep next to you. Why did you lie?"

"No, I-"

"Did you follow her?" Ziva said.

"Were you at your house?" Gibbs asked.

"Ye-"

"We have your kids here," Ziva said, "We can ask them."

"How about you ask them?" Gibbs said.

"Stop, please-"

"Maybe," Gibbs said, "you can tell them why you killed their brother."

"THEY HAD HER!" Mr. Kahale screamed. "They had Patty! And they were going to kill her! Unless…unless…"

"Unless you killed Michael," Ziva finished for him.

A gasp broke Tony's attention away from the interrogation room to the reason he was placed behind the glass. Patricia Kahale stood next to him with her hands over her mouth, staring intently at the scene before her.

"I warned him. I called him. They gave me a car and a bullet. I needed to save my wife. I wanted him to help me. But he said there was no time and that there was no one in D.C. that could help."

He bowed his head. "They had my wife," he sobbed.

"No," Patricia whispered.

"She's not part of this life," Mr. Kahale said, "She shouldn't die from it. How could I have brought her into it?"

"No," Patricia said again, and the look in her eyes gave Tony a bad feeling. "John, no!"

Tony was a half-second too late. The woman ran out of the viewing room. Tony sped out after her to see her flinging the interrogation room open.

"How could you do it?!" She cried.

"Boss," Tony said, "I'm sorry she just…" He stopped as Gibbs held a hand up.

"I'm sorry," Mr. Kahale said, "But I couldn't let you be involved. I couldn't let them have you! And you came back home and didn't say anything, acting fine-"

"I was always involved! Michael's stench led them to our family even after he left. They threatened to take me, you, our kids. They told me what they did to people."

"You took up a deal," Gibbs said, "You help them get what they wanted, they leave you alone."

Mrs. Kahale nodded.

"How many are there?"

"Too many. It's a nest that has grown through some sort of pact between them all, and nothing is killing them."

"Why didn't you call the police?" Ziva asked her.

"That would just make things worse. Besides, Michael has obviously delivered a message to his people."

Gibbs froze for a second.

"Boss?" Tony asked. What was going on?

Gibbs snapped out of it. "You two," he told the Kahales, "Stay."

He stalked out of the room. Ziva and Tony followed, having to jog to keep up with him. Tony quickly texted McGee a heads up and to send the Kahale kids back upstairs. When Gibbs took the stairs, they knew whatever he figured out was bad.

"McGee!" Gibbs barked. "Search the Long Island team."

"But I already- okay," McGee easily complied, after looking at his boss, "Looking up Lima."

McGee shared his screen on the plasma as he loaded up the federal database.

"No," Gibbs said, "Not Lima. Don't go through any federal sites."

"Um, okay? Doing an internet search of Percy Jackson."

"News sites," Gibbs said.

"Boss there are hundreds of Percy Jacksons," McGee scrolling through articles, "We'll never find-"

"That one," Gibbs pointed.

It was an article from a few years ago. "Percy Jackson, Criminal or Victim?" The photo had an image of a young, disheveled Percy Jackson. And by his side…

McGee was freaking out. "Boss, I'm sorry. Their profiles should have-"

"Her," Gibbs pointed, "Age her up to now."

"Right. Aging."

McGee cut out the photo of the blonde and plugged it into the program. He had wisely shut his trap. As the image began to come into focus, Tony felt his heart stop. There was no denying it.

"Gibbs," Ziva said, quietly, "That's-"

BANG! Gibbs slammed his desk drawer closed and shoved his firearm in its place at his hip. There was utter silence in the bullpen as Gibbs strode off.

A few seconds later, Tony was the first to move. No matter how angry Gibbs was, Tony was still a cop. The rest of his teammates quickly followed.

They left the image of Annabeth Chase, otherwise known as NCIS Special Agent Anne Lima, on the screen behind them.

Previous Chapter Chapter List Next Chapter

[samsexualdeancurious]

Hold on Tight (You Know She’s a Little Bit Dangerous) (NSFW)

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Words: 2,832

Prompt: Post-Endgame. Sam drags Bucky to a bar to try and cheer him up, and they run into one of Sam's old military buddies.

Warnings: Unprotected sex (wrap it up, kids)

Written for @saxxxology for her September 2019 Angel request

Title from Dangerous by Roxette

Betaed by @mrsimoshen

---

If there’s one thing that hasn’t changed that much over the many decades Bucky’s been alive, it’s bars. Low lighting, the buzz of conversation broken by someone who’s either a happy or an angry drunk, music that could probably be turned down a few notches. It’s a little warmer than he would like, with his long sleeves and single glove to cover his arm. Sure, the technology has improved and Bucky doesn’t really recognize most of the brands on the shelves behind the bar, but the vibe is the same. Something about that is kind of comforting, even though a bar is probably the absolute last place he wants to be tonight.

“Two of whatever’s on tap for me and my buddy,” Sam is saying to the bartender as the two men slide onto stools. Two beers in tall glasses are pushed towards them a few minutes later.

Bucky might not particularly want to be here but he can’t deny that a beer might be exactly what he needs tonight and he accepts the glass when Sam nudges it toward him. He tries for a small smile - it feels more like a grimace - before taking a sip. It’s decent. Not his favorite beer in the world - his favorite doesn’t exist anymore - but he doesn’t mind it too much.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in!”

A woman has appeared on the stool on Sam’s other side, all bright smiles and brighter eyes. How anyone can be so happy, Bucky has no idea, but she’s pulling it off and doing so well. Somehow her presence isn’t overwhelming at all.

“Y/N!” Sam says, leaning over to give her a one-armed hug. “Long time, no see!”

“Five and a half years,” she replies, smile never faltering. “Heard you got caught up in the Blip. How was that?”

“Dunno, can’t remember it,” Sam chuckles. “Probably a good thing. What’ve you been up to? Still with the military?”

“Just retired, actually. Five years of office work, you know how it is.”

“Looking forward to retirement?”

“Hell yeah.”

“Congrats.”

She signals to the bartender and orders a beer for herself. As she waits for it, she glances around Sam to Bucky. As soon as their eyes meet, she very obviously gives him the once over and then smirks.

“Gonna introduce me to your friend?” she asks, nudging Sam.

He glances over at Bucky, who shrugs. “This is Bucky,” Sam tells her. “He works with me. Buck, this is Y/N. We served together in the Air Force.”

“Nice to meet you,” Bucky says, reaching out his good hand to shake hers around Sam.

“What’s with the glove, Michael Jackson?” she teases, gesturing to his glove with one hand and picking up her beer with the other. “Hiding something cool under there?”

Bucky blushes, tucking his gloved hand against his belly. He’s never felt nervous about someone seeing his arm before but he really wants this new woman to think the best of him and he’s pretty sure she wouldn’t associate with him if she knew the truth.

“Buck’s a veteran, too,” Sam says before Bucky can come up with a response.

Y/N studies him for a minute and then her eyes go wide as things kind of click into place. “Ah,” she says. “Understandable. Didja get one of those fancy new ones from Wakanda?”

Bucky’s pretty sure his face is on fire now. “Yeah,” he mumbles.

She’s looking at him with a new appreciation and, dare he say, a new hunger. He’s still surprised, though, when she hops off her stool and comes around to sit by him instead of Sam.

“What am I, chopped liver?” Sam complains, pouting a little.

“I know you,” she reminds him. “I wanna get to know Bucky.”

Bucky musters all the confidence he can and shoots Sam a smirk. “Yeah, Sam. She wants to get to know me.”

Y/N laughs, a wild sound that makes Bucky’s heart beat faster. He hasn’t met a woman who made him feel like this in decades, if ever. The last date he went on was with Connie at the Stark Expo before he left for the war and while that went well, he definitely didn’t feel like this. He was a different man then, though, and Y/N is a very different woman.

“I don’t know if you actually do want to get to know me,” Bucky admits once Sam has turned away to talk to someone else.

“Don’t be silly,” Y/N scolds gently. “Of course I want to get to know you. Any friend of Sam’s is a friend of mine. Besides,” she nudges his arm with her elbow, “you’re cute.”

Bucky chokes on his beer. Sam looks concerned but Y/N just laughs, slapping his back until he gets things under control.

Things go a little better from there. Y/N is surprisingly easy to talk to. Part of that is because she dominates the conversation and Bucky doesn’t have to talk quite as much; part of that is because she seems genuinely interested in what he has to say when he does speak. Bucky soon finds himself relaxing, body turned to face her. He leans in when she speaks, eager to hear what she has to say and let her know he’s interested in her. Her body language is equally as open and when she puts her hand on top of his, Bucky’s heart does a happy leap.

“Wanna come back to my place?” Y/N asks, leaning in so her words are just for him.

Bucky glances over his shoulder at Sam to see that his friend is deep in conversation with a pretty Asian woman. “We should let Sam know where we’re going,” Bucky says.

She smiles, giving his hand a squeeze. “Of course. I have to hit up the ladies' room. Meet you at the door?”

He nods and she kisses his cheek before slipping off her stool. He watches for a moment as she weaves her way through the crowd before turning to bump Sam’s elbow.

“Sup?” the man says, twisting around to look at Bucky.

“Y/N and I…” Bucky says tentatively, suddenly nervous.

“You heading out?” Sam finishes with a smirk.

“Yeah,” Bucky murmurs, rubbing the back of his neck.

Sam just winks. “Have fun. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Face on fire, Bucky leaves a few bills to cover his part of the drinks and then heads off toward the door. He’s only waiting a few minutes before Y/N shows up, a bit of a bounce in her step. She takes Bucky’s gloved hand without hesitation, smiling brightly at him.

“My place is a couple of blocks away,” she says as they step out into the night. “Wanna walk?”

Bucky nods and lets her lead him off down the sidewalk. His heart is racing with excitement and nerves and he’s glad she’s holding his gloved hand so she can’t feel how sweaty his other palm is. She keeps up the conversation as they walk, easing Bucky into telling some stories from his childhood - the ones he doesn’t think will cause too much alarm.

Y/N’s apartment is in a nice complex with a doorman and a security guard. They both clearly know Y/N and they eye Bucky warily when he enters but Y/N’s brightness seems to put them at ease. She waves hello to them both as they pass before leading Bucky up the stairs to the third floor. Her’s is a few doors down from the stairs, differentiated from the others by a colorful summer wreath on the door.

“Home sweet home,” she says, flicking on the light to reveal a clean, modern apartment - white walls, cool neutral-toned furniture, splashes of blue and green in the form of rugs and art pieces.

“I like it,” Bucky tells her honestly, taking it all in.

She grins over her shoulder at him as she locks the front door. “Thanks. I’m pretty happy with it. Do you want something to drink?”

“Water would be nice.”

She fills two glasses from the faucet on the front of the fridge and Bucky gladly accepts one. It's been so long since he was in this position and he’s not quite sure what to do with himself.

Y/N drinks some of her water and then sets the glass by the sink “Bucky,” she says softly, moving in close to him. “You do know I didn’t just bring you here for water, right?”

He nods, turning his own glass in his hands. “I’m, um. I’m a little out of practice.”

There’s no judgment in her eyes. “Been a while?”

If a few decades counts as a while. “Yeah, it has.”

She smiles, settling her hands on his hips. “That’s okay. I don’t mind being on top.”

Arousal shoots down Bucky’s spine. He reaches around her to set his glass down and then loops his arms around her waist, pulling her against him. She laughs quietly and tips her chin up so he can kiss her.

Things escalate quickly from there and it’s only minutes before they’re stumbling into her bedroom, so wrapped up in each other that it takes her a second to turn the light on without breaking the kiss. She guides Bucky over to the bed and he sits down heavily when the backs of his knees meet the edge of the mattress, pulling her into his lap. Her fingers play at the hem of his t-shirt and Bucky breaks the kiss, gloved hand flying down to grip her wrist.

“Whoa,” she says, freezing. “Everything okay?”

He draws a deep breath, steadying himself. “Sorry, I just… you’re okay with… me? Right?”

She frowns thoughtfully, bringing one hand up to cup his cheek. “Do you mean your arm? Why wouldn’t I be? It’s just a part of you. Maybe it’s made of a different material but it’s still yours.”

He relaxes a little and kisses her again. She loops both her arms over his shoulders, pressing their bodies together. Bucky is rock hard in his jeans and he’s pretty sure she can feel it.

“Want me on top?” she asks when they come up for air.

“Fuck yeah,” Bucky gasps against her lips.

She kisses him firmly and then pushes at his shoulders, lifting her weight off his lap. “Then get this shirt off and lay down for me, big guy.”

Bucky doesn’t hesitate this time, pulling his shirt up and off, and taking the glove with it. Y/N’s eyes go right to his metal arm but they don’t linger long, instead moving to admire his torso.

“Damn, boy,” she says as he scoots up to lay in the middle of the bed. “That’s a sight I could get used to.”

Bucky blushes even as he toes off his shoes, letting them drop to the floor. His socks follow as he watches Y/N begin shedding her own clothes. He bites his lip at the sight of her bare body as she strips down to her panties, a lacy green pair that make his mouth water. She’s absolutely stunning, every inch of her - even the thick, knotted scar that curls around her right shoulder.

“Gonna ride this cock,” she cooes, fingers quickly undoing his belt and jeans so she can pull his pants down. He lifts his hips to help her out. His boxers follow and his cock smacks against his belly, eager for attention. Y/N makes a happy noise and wraps her hand around his cock, smirking when he gasps and his hips jerk. “Oh yeah. Gonna treat you right, Buck.”

“Let me… gotta get you ready,” Bucky manages, reaching for her.

“Oh, yeah?” She allows herself to be tugged up to straddle his chest, smirking when Bucky’s eyes lock onto that hidden space between her thighs. “You wanna eat my pussy?”

Bucky nods, gripping her thighs as tightly as he dares. He doesn’t want to hurt her.

She curls forward, one hand tugging lightly at his hair and drawing his eyes up to her face. “Don’t be afraid to leave bruises.”

He growls and pulls her up further so he can finally get his tongue on her pussy. She gasps, bracing herself with the hand in his hair and the other against the headboard. Bucky hums happily, eager to make this wonderful woman - who doesn’t seem to care how broken he is - feel good. He’s a little out of practice but gets the hang of things quickly and has her cumming on his face in no time. She’s quiet when she cums, breath stuttering and body pulsing above him. Bucky holds her in place, keeping his mouth on her until she’s giggling and squirming away.

“Fuck,” she gasps, sliding down to straddle his hips and blanket him with her body. “That was… wow.”

He grins, running his hands over her back, and then moans when she grinds her slick pussy against his cock.

“Gonna ride this big dick now,” Y/N purrs, nibbling at his collarbone.

Before Bucky can formulate any sort of response, she reaches down to line things up and sinks down onto his cock. He gasps, head flying back against the mattress as he’s engulfed in what feels like liquid heat. Y/N doesn’t stop until Bucky’s balls deep in her cunt. Only then does she pause to take a deep breath and grin down at him.

“Feels so good,” she tells him, sitting up and bracing her hands against his chest.

She rolls her hips experimentally and chuckles at the choked sound Bucky makes. His hands settle on her hips, firm enough to bruise, when she starts to move. He can’t take his eyes off her as she bounces on his cock. When she leans back and puts her hands on his thighs, he almost cums right then. The sight of her, all soft curves and strong limbs and that tight, tight pussy split open on his cock, is something Bucky’s pretty sure he would never get tired of. She’s still quiet, the only sounds in being little hitches of her breath, his own groans, and the dirty, wet slide of his cock in her cunt.

“Not gonna last,” Bucky manages, hands sliding up her sides to cup her breasts.

“That’s okay,” she answers, arching into his touch. “I wanna feel you cum in me. Fill me up, big guy.”

Bucky groans at those words, hips jerking beneath her. His thumbs flick over her nipples and her own hips stutter. One hand flies up to grip his metal wrist.

“Cold,” she breathes. “Do that again.”

He obeys, using his metal hand to tease her nipples until they’re puffy and tender, and she’s making little whimpery noises that go straight to his cock. That’s when he brings his metal hand down to her clit, rubbing careful circles with his fingertips. Y/N’s whole body jerks and it seems like mere seconds before she’s falling apart above him. The rhythmic pulse of her pussy around his cock is more than enough to pull Bucky over his own edge. He drags her down into a kiss as he pumps her full of cum, the hand on her hip keeping her in place while his other hand rubs her clit until she pushes it away.

“Fucking hell,” she gasps against his lips. “For someone out of practice, you sure know what you’re doing.”

He grins, grinding up against her as he rides out his aftershocks, before gently guiding her to lay next to him. She snuggles against his side without any hesitation, throwing one arm over his chest. He tentatively wraps his arm - the metal one - around her.

“Gonna stay the night?” Y/N asks, hooking one leg over his.

“Would you let me up if I said no?” he replies, tone light and teasing.

“Hmm, probably not.”

He laughs. “What if I needed to pee?”

She sighs dramatically. “I suppose. It’s the first door on the right.”

Bucky drags himself from the bed, chuckling, and goes to do his business. Y/N uses the bathroom right after him and then she flicks off the bedroom light and they crawl under the covers together.

“What do you want for breakfast tomorrow?” she asks as she settles against his chest once more.

“How does pancakes sound?”

“Pancakes sound great.”

He smiles into the dark, fingers playing along the curve of her spine. She shivers under his touch, her own fingers gently tracing the scarred line on his chest where skin meets metal.

“Gonna tell me about this?” Her voice is soft, curious but not pressing for anything he’s not willing to give.

“Maybe someday,” he answers as his hand finds her scar. “Will you tell me about yours?”

He can feel her smile against his collarbone. “Guess you’ll have to stick around and see.”

Bucky tilts his head to press a kiss to her hair. “I might just do that.”

---

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—

Team Forever: @mrswhozeewhatsis @laughing-at-the-darkness​​ @tumbler-tidbits​​ @imsuperawkward​​​​ @emoryhemsworth

[tabloidtoc]

OK, March 8

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Bruce Springsteen

Page 1: Big Pic -- as part of Coach's latest campaign Jennifer Lopez posed with a supersized pink version of their new Pillow Tabby purse

Page 2: Contents

Page 3: Contents

Page 4: Chris Harrison gone for good? The Bachelor host's future with the show remains uncertain after his controversial interview with Rachel Lindsay

Page 6: Since the start of his career Justin Timberlake has endured his fair share of scandals but after welcoming his second son with wife Jessica Biel over the summer and celebrating his 40th birthday, he is confessing that he feels immense guilt about the past and he won't be making the same mistakes in the future -- Justin's done some soul-searching and accepts that he's wronged a lot of people over the years with his own terrible mistakes and he says he's still a work in progress, but step one has been to stand up and admit he's hurt too many women -- in addition to a boozy night out with his Palmer costar Alisha Wainwright in 2019 and his part in the now-infamous Nipplegate incident with Janet Jackson at the 2004 Super Bowl, Justin recently came under fire again due to the documentary Framing Britney Spears which showed him exploiting his breakup from Britney Spears to help his solo career -- Justin's learned from his mistakes and has a lot more sensitivity about the impact of his actions on other people and that's the big difference between the Justin of today and his old, immature self and that self-awareness was evident in an emotional statement that he posted apologizing to both Britney and Janet for the errors in his ways -- his words drew praise from his wife Jessica who says he's come a long way as a husband, a father and more importantly, a human being

Page 7: Wendy Williams is on the prowl for a new man and he's got to be husband material and she is ready for a serious commitment -- Wendy's been staying up until all hours of the night checking out guys online and on exclusive dating apps and she wants someone age-appropriate, fun, kind, independent and of course has no history of cheating -- she's feeling very optimistic and even buying new perfume and clothes and jewelry for all the dates she hopes to have once lockdown lifts

* Texas native Matthew McConaughey is seriously considering throwing his hat in the ring to become the state's next governor -- he's been putting out feelers to see if he's got sufficient support and if enough donors are willing to write checks, he'd mount an aggressive run in 2022 -- he's already gotten the thumbs-up from his wife Camila Alves and their three kids -- at this point, he needs to see an actual path to winning because he's not interested in just making a protest statement; don't be fooled by his aw-shucks attitude, Matthew means business

* Now that Keeping Up With the Kardashians is coming to an end, the hunt is on for a new family to replace the clan and one reality pro is poised to nab the prize: Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Lisa Rinna -- there's already been talk about Lisa picking up the torch and her family is camera ready, consisting of husband Harry Hamlin, and their daughters Delilah Hamlin who's dating Love Island's Eyal Booker and Amelia Hamlin who's dating Scott Disick

Page 8: Things keep going from bad to worse for Armie Hammer -- he was forced to drop out of his upcoming movie Shotgun Wedding with Jennifer Lopez after direct messages he allegedly sent to women in which he described himself as a cannibal and detailed disturbing sexual fantasies were leaked online -- Armie was also fired by his talent agency WME and now the disgraced star may get cut from his new film Next Goal Wins which has already been shot -- he's radioactive and everybody knows it and his completed but unreleased work is getting a second look as studios want to do damage control, and that includes another of his finished projects Death on the Nile where his part could end up on the cutting room floor -- he's a pariah now and it's hard to see how he's ever going to come back from this

* Jennifer Aniston has always had a spiritual side but these days she is taking things to a whole new plane -- Jen has surrounded herself with psychics and has been doing Goddess Circles with the same group of close friends for 30 years, but now she's taking courses to learn to heal herself and be her own guru -- BFF Courteney Cox has been a big influence and Jen's learned a lot from Courteney, who's had a long-term interest in mediums, astrologists and horoscopes, and she's trying to fuse it all together into her own brand of spirituality -- Jen's had a lot of time alone, which has only deepened her questions about the universe and how she can make the most of her life and she's determined to find the answers

* Princess Eugenie is over the moon after welcoming her first child, a baby boy with businessman husband Jack Brooksbank but now the new mom is torn about taking time out from her royal responsibilities -- Eugenie would love to take a long break from everything and focus solely on raising her son however she knows deep down how much she's needed, especially since Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are showing no signs of coming back -- as she weighs her options, Eugenie is looking to her multi-tasking cousin-in-law Duchess Kate for some inspiration because she's impressed by how Kate is able to juggle her official duties while raising three young kids

Page 10: Red Hot on the Red Carpet -- stars captivate in enchanting puff-sleeve numbers -- Bel Powley, Aubrey Plaza, Lupita Nyong'o

Page 11: Kaitlyn Dever, Lucy Boynton, Margaret Qualley

Page 12: Who Wore It Better? Hilary Swank vs. Madeline Brewer, Bella Hadid vs. Devon Windsor, Alison Brie vs. Dua Lipa

Page 14: News in Photos -- Tayshia Adams and her fiance Zac Clark felt on top of the world when the visited the Empire State Building together

Page 15: Chrissy Teigen and John Legend were inseparable while out and about in Beverly Hills, Bill Murray and NFL player Larry Fitzgerald Jr. were among the many stars to shoot their shot during a charity golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Rita Ora performing on an episode of the U.K. show Dancing on Ice in Hertfordshire

Page 16: At the Australian Open Serena Williams came out on top during the fourth round, Bachelorette alum Jordan Kimball and fiancee Christina Creedon couldn't wait until they got home to enjoy Candy Pop popcorn's new Peanut M&M's flavor from Sam's Club in Houston, Heidi Montag spent the day hitting the slopes at Lake Tahoe

Page 17: Hailey Bieber starring in Beyonce's new Ivy Park x Adidas collection

Page 18: Brody Jenner had a blast snow tubing while shooting the second season of The Hills: New Beginnings in Lake Tahoe, Avril Lavigne stepped out with her new boyfriend Mod Sun for a romantic dinner in West Hollywood

Page 20: Justin Bieber looked like he'd just hopped out of bed in a sweater and checkered fleece pants in L.A., Robin Thicke in front of a piano in L.A.

Page 21: Steve Martin doubled up on face coverings on the set of his new project Only Murders in the Building in NYC, Michelle Obama on her new show Waffles + Michi, Cardi B spoiled herself with high-end goods during a day of shopping on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills

Page 22: Brooke Burke romancing with boyfriend Scott Rigsby on Valentine's Day, Lucy Hale accessorized her look with her newest rescue pup Ethel in L.A., Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon masked up for a snowy outing in NYC

Page 24: For Galentine's Day Vanessa Lachey snacked on macarons and sipped on wine in L.A.

Page 25: Bella Hadid alongside models Mayowa Nicholas and Heejung Park in Michael Kors' new campaign for the Spring 2021 collection, Hugh Grant stepped out for some fresh hair in London, Sofia Vergara kept it casual during a visit to a pal's house in Beverly Hills

Page 26: Inside My Home -- Katherine Heigl and Josh Kelley's Rocky Mountain retreat

Page 28: Marriage isn't easy especially during a global health crisis but for Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard divorce is not an option -- Kristen said she and Dax at the start of the pandemic were at a point in their marriage where they definitely needed a little therapy brush-up and every couple of years they're being very antagonistic towards each other and they don't want that so they go back to therapy and figure out how they can serve their team goal better and it's been incredibly helpful and even in the toughest times they always have each other's back and they're committed to being each other's biggest support systems -- while their relationship may never be perfect, they're happy and love each other and that's what matters most

Page 29: Now that Tom Brady has won his seventh Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, he has set his sights on the next prize: baby No. 3 with wife Gisele Bundchen -- they've been telling friends they hope to make an announcement by summer at the latest and Tom and Gisele have been super loved-up since leaving Boston and moving to Florida after the QB signed on with the Bucs and the change of scenery has worked wonders on their love life and put them in baby-making mode -- the duo, who recently bought a $17 million spread on Miami's exclusive Indian Creek Island, plan to build a luxury mansion there complete with a nursery and they hope to be all settled in when the new arrival comes -- they've never felt healthier or been happier

* Aaron Rodgers looked positively giddy when he revealed he had a fiancee, Shailene Woodley at the NFL Honors, but the QB is dreading the next step: bringing her home to meet his parents because it's no secret that Aaron's been estranged from them for years and the last thing he wants is for Shailene to get caught up in the drama -- Shailene wants Aaron to clear the air with his folks, but he's not ready to do that and he doesn't want to bring Shailene into a toxic environment

* It's only been two years since Miranda Lambert married Brendan McLoughlin but she's already itching for some alone time -- she's headed to Texas in April for her first concert in over a year and she's told Brendan he shouldn't come because it will be all work and no play but she really wants to get away from him for a while and after the pair's recent road trip together, Miranda is desperate for some space -- sometimes Miranda feels like she's living with a baby because Brendan whines and complains about life on her farm

Page 30: Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker's romance is heating up fast, so much so that she's practically handed over the keys to her Calabasas estate and she loves having Travis sleep over and sometimes he'll stay the whole weekend -- he gets along famously with her children and Travis has been a friend of the family for years, so the kids have pretty much known him their whole lives and they'll do fun stuff together like hiking or playing video games and Travis loves making breakfast and showing off his pancake-flipping skills --Travis is spending so much time at Kourt's place that he's moved a bunch of his stuff in to make it easier for his kids Landon and Alabama with ex Shanna Moakler to visit him there -- everyone's convinced they'll be living together full-time before you know it

* Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were met with a flurry of well-wishes after they revealed they're expecting baby No. 2 -- the couple decided to wait until Meghan was safely into her second trimester to share the news and they only told a handful of family members before the public and they wanted to cherish this secret for as long as they could -- Harry and Meghan have been nesting at their Montecito mansion and have been busy prepping the nursery and making sure it's eco-friendly with energy-efficient lighting and they're keeping it as plastic-free as possible

* Love Bites -- Clare Crawley and Dale Moss reunited, Kit Harington and Rose Leslie welcomed a baby boy, Paris Hilton and Carter Reum engaged

Page 32: Cover Story -- Bruce Springsteen's private world -- he's an open book in his songs, but here's Bruce's untold story of his struggles with depression and regret -- he still has dark thoughts from time to time but therapy and medication have helped a great deal

Page 36: Stars' Cheating Confessions -- sometimes all you can do is beg for forgiveness; these celebs have all had to plead their case -- Donny and Debbie Osmond, Jude Law and Sienna Miller, Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith

Page 37: David Letterman and Regina Lasko, Dean McDermott and Tori Spelling, Kevin Hart and Eniko Parrish

Page 40: Interview -- Elizabeth Olsen -- the Avengers star dishes about getting witchy again for Marvel's mind-bending WandaVision

Page 42: Golden Girls -- how these Golden Globes nominees get their award-worthy figures -- Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicole Kidman, Lily Collins

Page 43: Kaley Cuoco, Michelle Pfeiffer, Amanda Seyfried

Page 44: Aadila Dosani's vegan recipe for Chickpea and Potato Soup

Page 46: Style Week -- Ashley Graham is the new global brand ambassador for self-tanning label St. Tropez

Page 48: What's Hot Right Now -- create a naturally gorgeous, flushed look with fashion designer Jason Wu's namesake makeup collection

Page 49: Haute hippie retro jeans -- take a trip back to the '70s with Revice Denim's ultra-cool capsule, Los Angeles Lovers -- Delilah Belle Hamlin

Page 50: Flower Power -- floral prints are spring's hottest trend -- rock the pretty blooms for a fresh, boho-chic look -- Kaia Gerber

Page 52: DIY Blowout -- these foolproof finds deliver impeccable hair right at home -- Drew Barrymore

Page 54: Entertainment

Page 55: Q&A with Mary Fitzgerald of Selling Sunset

Page 58: Buzz -- after months of playing it coy, these celebs confirmed their relationships on Valentine's Day -- Scott Disick and Amelia Hamlin

Page 59: Vanessa Hudgens and Cole Tucker, Sharna Burgess and Brian Austin Green, Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker, Kendall Jenner and Devin Booker

Page 60: Sound Bites -- Halsey on not conforming to conventional beauty standards, Anderson Cooper on coparenting with his ex, Ashley Graham on the importance of self-care, Kate Winslet on feeling like a fish out of water in Hollywood

Page 61: Tom Holland on the plot of the next Spider-Man flick, Mila Kunis joking about keeping her family entertained during quarantine, Drew Barrymore when asked if she's ever been skinny-dipping, Madelaine Petsch on playing a teen in Clare at 16

Page 62: Horoscope -- Pisces Lupita Nyong'o turned 38 on March 1

Page 64: By the Numbers -- Riz Ahmed

[2bstudioblog]

Konami’s wheels are turning... slowly

Lot’s of interesting news heading to our heads this Monday from what I heard from Yong Yea’s video about Konami wanting to outsource their IP’s to 3rd parties.

Obviously, Akira Yamaoka has kinda given away a strong hint that he’s working on a project with Bloober which in this case would be the long awaited SH remake or the direction they had with PT before it got cancelled. Akira Yamaoka also decided that (too late) he wanted to amend the article from his interview and release it later down the line. It’s very unusual that these news happen, but we all know Yamaoka is most famous for his music in Silent Hill.

Which brings me to a funny story about my own involvement of a Silent Hill game. I mentioned this on a podcast that I was part of 2 Konami-owned IP’s that went into another direction and killing off their franchises which have been like dead bodies in a morgue for the last 7 years.

I got the request to write industrial-metal music for a Silent Hill (of course at this time I only knew the IP and their most famous version of the game has been Silent Hill 2.) game. First I was of course very excited to be part of the series, but I jumped to early until I found out it was a Pachinko-machine (A japanese style pinball-game mixed with a touch-screen and a one-armed bandit and a slot-machine in one.), and my heart sank a little. I think I produced 4-5 cues for the machine, but I’m glad that nobody will be able to hear my “mediocre” masterpieces because all you would hear are metal-balls falling into a tray. But the thing about this machine, it had taken cut-scenes from Silent Hill 2, upscaled or even re-mastered/remade the graphics which would have looked great if it was its own game. But it was the same thing they’ve done with all their other IPs when those transfer over to this kind of entertainment. All what was left of it, Jim Sterling turned the game into a Meme and all I can hear is the -”HIT THE LEVER!” and the effects overpowering the music behind it. But I’m glad it didn’t go further then that. Technically here, Silent Hill(s) died with the arrival of the pachinko-slot machine and the series have tried to re-establish itself ever since.

Another game I was a part of was a Castlevania (Dracula in Japan) themed Pachinko-slot machine, with the revolutionary phrase “Erotic Violence” in it’s PR material and video-commercial. I mean, they took the music production part of this machine very seriously because I wasn’t aware of the “EV” part. I just thought it would be a machine praising the history of Castlevania. I was assigned to re-write and re-orchestrate a few songs from Neo-classical Metal music into more Progressive Metal style, and I was super-proud of this one because they had the sheet-music already available for me. All I had to do was re-arrange some parts for a string-quartet (1 cello, 2 violins and 1 viola) and I believe it was engineered and recorded by famed engineer Kenji Nakai who was under and working with famed engineer Mr Bruce Swedien (Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones).

From that moment me and Mr. Nakai stroke a friendship because he has a passion for Progressive Metal and he asked me if I could send more songs his way. From this we both have been incredibly busy on both of our ends, but I hope we can be able to work on something in the future. I have a feeling that might be soon.

So a long story short, Konami spent a lot of money for recording, they approved everything and we were done. But when it turned out to be a pachinko-machine and not a world-wide videogame release, I just had to facepalm myself, asking the question why they keep doing so many poor decisions. Why leaving all those fans out in the cold and really start making Castlevania mean something. This void of “lots of fancy things, but no substance” started right here...

Konami are turning their wheels a little bit too late and too slow until now. After they got rid of Hideo Kojima (Who I believe was thinking of the international-market rather than the domestic one), Konami had only one thing on their minds: Making money quick and domestically. No more wasted time on translations, straight for the gambling crowd. No need to write interesting stories. No need to introduce kids to this adult material. They wanted to earn it back as fast as possible. But we all see their decisions put them on the map as a “black-company”, who mistreat their staff, shaming them out in the office for overstaying their lunch-breaks. Moving staff from one business to another, from a programmer to a Konami-fitness Center-staff, or as a toilet-cleaner at a Konami-owned pachinko-slot gambling hall. The management of the company has been horrendous for the full-time employee. I’m glad I was not part of these later projects and only wrote stuff for them for Pro Evolution Soccer series from 2009-2012. (My work on 2010-2012 was unfortunately un-credited work. :(

Metal Gear Solid V - The Phantom Pain In My Ass

When the playable teaser called Metal Gear Solid - Ground Zeroes, came out on the PS3 and later on the PS4, it was an introduction for the new graphics engine designed by Hideo Kojima’s team, simply called The FOX-Engine. Basically this “game” was more of a demo rather than a full-product. But it looked great and with a fantastic score by Akihiro Honda, Ludvig Forssell and Harry Gregson-Williams, it had everything going for it to become something really awesome. It became a standard approach from Hideo Kojima now to produce “Playable Teasers” to show a great concept while offering a 3-4 hour short campaign, showing off the engine’s graphical capabilities.

Still, the story was under progress and I knew early on that Hideo Kojima really didn’t want to do it after he always felt that Metal Gear Solid 4 was final. But here is the curse of the die-hard fans, and I’m sorry to say it. No matter how many Iron Man movies Marvel crams out, at the 3rd movie, I started to feel “This does not feel like Iron Man anymore”. But that’s what the fans wanted and is a standard in the movie industry. Always produce a trilogy. Indiana Jones has always been the 3 movies from 1981-1989. The 4th one doesn’t really need to be called Indiana Jones at all. It was there I felt, just like with Metal Gear Solid V, they were beating a DEAD RACE HORSE.

I can’t deny the talents on display for Metal Gear Solid - Ground Zeroes. It laid down some really cool foundations for the gameplay, but I still believe the better game-series for stealth was beaten by the likes of Splinter Cell and most recently Thief. Stealth in MGS has always felt a little bit childish and I only really enjoyed MGS 1, MGS 2, tried to play MGS 3 (still have it one my Vita!) and will try to finish it. MGS 3 has felt like the TRUE Zeroes experience, with the inception of the story and lore behind the cloning of Big Boss. MGS 4 finally brought it all to a great finale and I felt, there is NOTHING more to tell. MGS 1, 2 and 4 is the Trilogy, MGS 3 serves as the Prequel and I see nothing wrong with that.

Mission - Erase Kojima’s Legacy

The making of MGS V - The Phantom Pain is kinda true to it’s title. Can you feel the nostalgia? Or are we just imagining the sensation of a Metal Gear Solid game past it’s prime? The missing link? The missing limb? And with the worlds biggest cop-out  of everything that had to do with story was completely missing.

Each mission is playing out every time the same, with an intro to a TV-show, giving away massive spoilers to who would appear in the mission, you do your thing (not so much of story, just a “go-here, do that approach, sneak back out, head to pick-up) rinse and repeat. I wonder how much of this was Kojima’s fault? I don’t think he was up to it. I’m sure he fought for more story but the big heads didn’t want to listen to what makes a MGS game a MGS game. The new management had now already played the hand to disown the man who put Konami on the map for games since the mid 80s.

The game is no longer marketed like before. The tagline “A Hideo Kojima Game” no longer exists and will never be part of Konami’s mission of erasing the person who gave them their fame and the recognition that a game carrying the name Konami was a brand of quality for any gamer out there. Me myself, personally only played PES because of the stellar animations, but its recently since 2012, I stopped playing the series. FIFA had already cheapened itself, PES likewise. Updating the graphics, but the same old animations have been recycled back to the PES3 days. Maybe there’s been an update in the collision engine, but otherwise everything stayed the same, with the huge amount of data collected from previous years of motion-capture, why do it all over when its all about the brand recognition? Saving money on processes wherever possible. Simple Math. And here it is. MGS V is not a MGS game.

We already knew it was going to be a massive budget behind the game of MGS V. But what can Konami do to save money on MGS V? They already have the Fox Engine running from Ground Zeroes. The assets for “Snake” (I’ll let you know why I put quotation-marks around it) and standard models will extend somewhat. Oh, yes, let’s save money on a character that doesn’t speak (Quiet), over-sexualize the character to start a fan-base of people who just dig character design, animated a sexy “shower” routine for the character for boys to go nuts over. What about voice? Let’s not really try to sync the voices to the mouths. Let’s have the guy from “24″ record his performances onto tape-logs. Kiefer Sutherland would have been a good “Snake”, but I understand now that you are not “SNAKE”. The game explains pretty soon at the end that you are just a Medic and all the tapes you’ve been listening to is the original Big Boss. You never where the character of Snake. Even though this all could have been handled better, Konami wanted to save money wherever possible. We also knew David Hayter was not asked or put forward to return as “The Voice of Snake”. But in this case I start to wonder myself, David Hayter might have dodged the biggest bullet in the most expensive, commercial and very controversial game of all time once Konami decided to kill everything that built up their reputation.

Even during production Kojima managed to start working on PT. The game Konami “silenced” after it was released on the PS-store. Guillermo Del Toro and his friendship with Hideo Kojima’s dream-game was put on ice. All because Kojima was about to get frozen out of the company that was according to Konami “Wasting too much bloody money”. I might get blacklisted for saying this, but once the new management started to mess with the other IPs for just domestic/gambling market, that’s where everything went sideways. Konami wasn’t treating their heritage with respect.

It took them 7 years to realize their mistake! And now, for those who wants to be part of 3rd party developers who would get a crack at a new Castlevania, a new Metal Gear Solid (remake I hope), Konami has realized that the only way they will survive (Yeah, Metal Gear Solid Survive killed them HARD) is to let other’s take over. Maybe my dream of scoring a Metal Gear Solid game would be somewhat more possible now rather than working in the confined space of limitations posed by the higher ups at Konami. Let 3rd party developers breathe life into the IPs because I know there are smarter ways to tell a story and I would gladly like to see the return of David Hayter in the seat, without having to deal with the blank-face approach that he was faced with every time he had to audition for Snake in MGS 2, 3 and 4! David Hayter is a fantastic writer, actor and voice-actor. He has the chops and I think we are all ready for either a re-make or a better follow up to MGS 2 and the time between that one and MGS 4.

[btsqualityy]

Wedding Series Q&A #4

Hoseok x Reader

How long have you been together?

“For eight years,” you smiled. “Dated for two and we’ve been married for six.”

How did the two of you meet?

“We had a bunch of mutual friends and one of them had a birthday party and we met there,” you answered.

What were your first impressions of each other?

“I thought she was the most beautiful girl that I’d ever seen,” Hobi grinned. “She literally took my breath away.”

“I thought he was fucking weird,” you laughed. “He kept staring at me and even after he introduced himself and I told him that I wasn’t interested in seeing anyone, he wouldn’t let up.”

“I bet you’re happy that I didn’t let up now, huh?” Hobi wondered with a smirk.

“Mm, it depends on what day you ask me,” you shrugged, giggling when Hobi slapped your thigh.

What was your first date?

“I took her to the aquarium,” Hobi said.

“And the highlight of the date was when Hobi was too scared to touch the starfish that they had on display,” you giggled.

“I was not scared,” Hobi defended. “I just don’t believe that wild animals should be touched like that.”

“But you took me to an aquarium, where wild animals are kept,” you laughed. “Real counter intuitive babe.”

Who said ‘I love you’ first?

“I did,” Hobi said. “And had to deal with the rejection when she didn’t say it back.”

“You said it when we weren’t even dating yet,” you exclaimed. “What did you expect me to do? I panicked.”

What song did you choose for your first dance and why?  

“’You are My Life’ by Michael Jackson,” you said.

What aspects of your life have stayed the same and what has changed since getting married?

“I was so used to our relationship being push and pull because of me,” you admitted. “But once we got engaged and got married, I realized that I couldn’t do that anymore. I had to become comfortable with the fact that I do love Hobi and that it’s ok for me to want to be with him forever because I know that he’ll never intentionally hurt me.”

“Damn straight,” Hobi assured with a nod, reaching over and intertwining his fingers with yours.

What are your favorite things to do at home as a family?

“The twins are really into listening to our music these days so we’ll turn on one of our albums while we clean up or cook dinner,” Hobi divulged.

“Mines is when we have our weekly family movie nights,” you smiled. “Every week, either us or the twins will choose a movie and we’ll all sit down and watch it together.”

What was the lowest point in your relationship?

“When Hobi gave me that ultimatum about continually pushing him away,” you grimaced.

“I just got so sick of her brushing off me and my feelings as if I didn’t honestly care for her,” Hobi added. “So, I said ‘Either you’re going to be with me and I mean really be with me, or we should both just stop wasting each other’s time’. It was hard for me to do that though, because I realized that there was a good chance that she would choose to not be with me anymore.”

“No, you knew what you were doing,” you chuckled. “He knew that I needed that extra kick in the ass so he gave it to me and it made me wake the fuck up and realize that I was going to lose one of the most important people in my life just because I was afraid.”

“So, she swallowed her massive pride,” Hobi laughed, yelping when you smacked his thigh. “And she told me how she honestly felt about me and how she didn’t want to lose me and we’ve been together ever since.”

What has been the impact of Hobi’s celebrity on your relationship? Like did Y/N hate it at first, have a hard time adjusting, etc?

“I hated it at first,” you said honestly. “That was one of the things that was making me continuously push him away, the fact that he came with so much.”

“After she came to me and said that she really wanted to be with me, I showed her that it wasn’t all bad and she warmed up to it,” Hobi finished.

What do you argue about the most?

“We haven’t really had any arguments these days,” Hobi shrugged.

“If we do, they’re honestly over the smallest things that aren’t really specific,” you said.

Were there any arguments about who's last name to take? Were either of you adamant about taking or not taking the other’s last name?

“She wanted to keep her last name and not take mines and I didn’t agree with that,” Hobi muttered. 

“We actually argued about it for a while, until he brought up the point that whenever we had kids, my last name would be different from theirs and I realized that I didn’t want that,” you laughed. “So I took his last name and dropped mines.”

Have the two of you ever fallen out of love? How do you work on your relationship after having Lennox and Berkeley? 

“I don’t think we really have,” you said, pausing to look over at Hobi who nodded in agreement. “But it can definitely feel like it some days.”

“Especially after having the twins,” Hobi added. “It honestly feels like we spend each and every day running around like chickens with our heads cut off and by the end of the day, you have no patience left for that towel that was left on the bathroom floor or somebody’s clothes that didn’t get put into the hamper.”

“But we’ve found that taking that time to reconnect with each other, whether it’s sitting down and eating some ice cream together after putting the kids to bed or even a quickie in the morning before our day gets busy, helps tremendously,” you stated.

Who needs more alone time between the two of you and what do you do in that time?

“I’d say both of us are pretty even when it comes to that,” Hobi shrugged. “I’ll usually just go to the studio and write or go dance.”

“I’ll get together with one of the other member’s wife and we’ll go out to lunch or something,” you replied. “I also like to run myself a nice bath or something like that too.”

In what ways are you two alike? In what ways are you different?

“We both have a huge thing about trustworthiness and being able to trust the people that are around us,” you divulged. “For differences, Hobi tends to be more optimistic than I do.”

Since couples become alike after some time, what habits of each other have you picked up during your relationship?

“I swear more now because of him,” you revealed.

“I eat a lot more junk food, because she loves sweets,” Hobi chuckled.

How often do the two of you have sex?

“We try, keyword try, to have sex everyday,” Hobi said. “It usually has to be only a quickie but it can make all the difference.”

What method of contraception do the two of you use?

“I’m on the birth control shot and Hobi uses condoms as well,” you stated.

What do you like the most about each other?   

“I love how generous he is,” you nodded. “He’d give you the shirt off his back if anyone asked him to.”

“Oddly enough, I love how argumentative she is,” Hobi laughed. “She’s always quick to defend her point of view and it keeps me on my toes.”

What has been the most special or memorable moment in your relationship? 

“For me, it would be after I had Berkeley and Lennox and we were still in the hospital and Hobi did skin to skin contact with the both of them laying on his chest,” you grinned, thinking about the memory. “It was the first time that it really sunk in for me that he was not only my husband now, but also the father of our two little babies.”

“Honestly, mines would be the days that I stay home with the kids and Y/N will come home from work and they’ll both just run up to her and hug her,” Hobi smiled. “Even though I can tell that she’s dead tired some days, she’ll still drop all of her stuff and hug them both as tightly to her as she can.”

How did you know that Y/N was the one? And vice versa? 

“I knew that Y/N was the one after I realized that I couldn’t get her off of my mind,” Hobi murmured. “Whenever I did something, I would always think about how it would be better if she were with me or how I couldn’t wait to tell her about it.”

“I knew that he was the one when he didn’t give up on me, even when I kept pushing him away,” you sniffled, starting to get emotional as you thought about it. “He knew that I was worth it and that’s more than I could’ve said for myself back then.”

“You’ll always be worth it to me Y/N-ah,” Hobi promised, grabbing your other hand that had been sitting in your lap. He then brought both of your hands up to his lips, kissing the backs of them gently.

[buzzdixonwriter]

My Five Most Influential

Someone asked:   Who are the most influential writers in your life?

Good question.

The broad answer is that one gets influenced many different ways by many different sources.  I enjoy poetry and song lyrics because they find ways of conveying the strongest emotional content in the most concise manner, music brings a sense of dramatic rhythm and fulfillment, the visual arts suggest ways of subtly adding many insights to a single strong idea, etc., etc., and of course, etc. (and that is also an example of a creative influence in my work).

But…to boil it down to those whom I most consciously made an effort to emulate, we find ourselves facing five creators that primed the pump.

This is not to say others whom I began following after them didn’t wield a lot of influence (thanx, Ernie, Bert, Jack, Bob, and Hank!) but these are the foundation of everything I’ve done in my career.

(And to those who notice a lack of diversity, I know, I know…but to be honest I have to acknowledge the truth, and the truth is for whatever reason, by chance or by choice, by fate or by fortune, these five dominated my sensibilities.  I trust that I’ve grown and expanded my horizons since then, but they’re the hand I got dealt.)

. . . 

Carl Barks

I loved ducks as a kid and my grandmother and aunt would always bring me a passel of duck-related comics when they came to visit.

There were some Daffy Duck comics mixed in there but while I know I looked at and enjoyed them, none of them stick in my mind like the Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge stories of Carl Barks.

Typically my grandmother would read these comics to me and I’d imprint the dialog and captions in my brain, replaying them as I looked at the pictures over and over again.

Barks never wrote down to his audience, and his stories covered a vast array of genres, everything from straight domestic comedy to oddball adventures to screwy crime stories.

Donald and his nephews encountered dinosaurs more than once (another big favorite of mine), and Uncle Scrooge setting out to explore the asteroid belt in order to find a new home for his fabulous money bin was another tale I loved literally to pieces, but A Christmas For Shacktown remains my all time favorite graphic novel.

I’ll concede there are better graphic novels, but none of them warm my heart the way that Christmas story does.

Barks showed it’s possible to combine heart (not to be confused with sentimentality or =yuch!= schmaltz), vivid characters, and strong, intricate narrative.  His plots where typically filled with unexpected twists and turns but his characters were always deeply involved in them, not just along for the ride.

He’s one of the greatest storytellers in the 20th century, and his work remains timeless enough to last for several centuries to come.

. . . 

Ray Bradbury

The first Ray Bradbury story I remember encountering was “Switch On The Night” in its 1955 edition, read to my kindergarten class towards the end of the school year.

This would place the event sometime in the spring of 1959.

“Switch On The Night” captivated me because it was the first story I’d ever heard that showed what could be seen in the dark that couldn’t be seen in the day.

Even as a child, it made me realize the night wasn’t scary, but contained wonders and insights we miss in the harsh glare of day.

I don’t recall if the kindergarten teacher told us the name of the author, and if she did it didn’t stick, but boy howdy, the story sure did!  Did it open the doors of the night for me, or was I already inclined to be a night person and it simply confirmed that as a valid identity?

I dunno, but I’m typing this right now at 12:24am.

And the thoughts Bradbury planted in little Buzzy boy’s brain stayed and grew and flowered, as you can read in my poem, “The Magic Hours Of The Night”.

The next time I encountered Ray Bradbury’s writing was in grammar school, certainly no later than junior high.  I was already interested in science fiction by that point, and had read “The Pedestrian” in one of my school English books (we weren’t taught the story in class; the teacher skipped over it for whatever reason but I read it anyway then re-read it and read it again and again).

Anthony Boucher’s ubiquitous 2-volume A Treasury Of Great Science Fiction was in my grammar school library and in it was Bradbury’s “Pillar Of Fire” (which I would later learn was one of his alternate Martian Chronicles and a crossover with Fahrenheit 451) and in that story he offered up a veritable laundry list of outré and outlandish fiction to be tracked down and read, authors to dig up and devour.

Oh, man, I was hooked.

So of course I began looking for all the stories and writers Bradbury listed in his short story but I also began looking for Bradbury’s own work and before you could say, “Mom, can I get a subscription to the Science Fiction Book Club?” I’d read The Golden Apples Of The Sun and A Medicine For Melancholy and R is For Rocket never once dreaming that at some point in the future the roadmap Ray plopped down in my lap would eventually lead to us being co-workers (separate projects, but the same studio at the same time) and friends.

There is a beautiful yet deceptive simplicity to Ray’s work, and even though he wrote his own book on writing (The Zen Of Writing) that has lots of good insights and professional tricks & tips, he himself wasn’t able to explain how he did it.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a good Ray Bradbury parody.

I’ve seen parodies that clearly are intended to evoke Ray Bradbury, but only in the same way a clumsy older relative might evoke Michael Jackson with a spasmodic movement one vaguely recognizes as a failed attempt at a moonwalk.

But, lordie, don’t think we didn’t try to emulate him, and while none of us fanboys ever came close, I think a lot of us did learn that less is more, that the right word carries more impact than a dozen paragraphs, and that there’s magic in even the most ordinary of things.

And of course I discovered the film and TV adaptations of his work, and in discovering them I also discovered that there are some things that just can’t be translated from one media to another, and that the light, effortless appeal of Ray’s work on the page (paper or pixel) can at best be recaptured with a good audio book reader but even the best dramatic adaptions -- even those by Ray himself -- are cold dead iron butterflies compared to the light and lively creatures flying about.

So eventually I stopped trying to write like him, and instead picked up the valuable lessons of mood and emotion making an impact on a story even if the plot didn’t make much logical sense.

Decades later I would become a fan of opera, and would learn the philosophy of all opera lovers:  Opera doesn’t have to make logical sense, it just has to make emotional sense.

Ray Bradbury, opera meister.

. . . 

H.P. Lovecraft

As noted above, Bradbury’s “Pillar Of Fire” tipped me to numerous other writers, first and foremost of which turned out to be Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

Okay, before we get any further into this, let’s acknowledge the woolly mammoth in the room:  H.P. Lovecraft was a colossal asshat racist.

He was a lot of other terrible things, too, but racist is far and ahead of the rest of the pack.

It’s a disillusioning thing to find people one admired as a youngster or a teen later prove to have not just quirks and eccentricities and personal flaws, but genuinely destructive, harmful, and offensive characters.

I’ve posted on that before, too.

How I wish it were possible to retroactively scale back that hurtfulness, to make them more empathetic, less egregiously offensive (in the military sense of the word), but that ain’t so.

We have to acknowledge evil when we see it, and we have to call it out, and we have to shun it.

Which is hard when one of its practitioners provides a major influence in our creative lives.

Here’s what I liked about Lovecraft as a kid:  He was the complete opposite of Ray Bradbury.

Bradbury’s instinctive genius was in finding the right word, the simple word that conveyed great impact on the story, drawing the reader into the most fantastic situations by making them seem more familiar on a visceral level.

Lovecraft achieved the exact opposite effect by finding the most arcane, bedizened, baroque, florid, grandiloquent, overwrought, rococo verbiage possible and slapping the reader repeatedly in the face with it.

If Bradbury made the unreal real, Lovecraft made the weird even more weirder.

And let’s give this devil his due:  The Strange Case Of Charles Dexter Ward and The Dunwich Horror are two masterpieces of horror and serve as the bridge between Edgar Allen Poe and Stephen King, not to mention his creation of Cthulhu and other ancient entities existing beyond the ken of human knowledge…

…oh, wait, that’s where the story simultaneously gets messy yet provides a convenient escape hatch for fans.

While Lovecraft created Cthulhu, he did not create the Cthulhu Mythos.

That was primarily the invention August Derleth, a writer / editor / agent and H.P. Lovecraft’s #1 fanboy.

Lovecraft had some loosely related ideas in his stories and several themes he revisited repeatedly (in addition to racism).

He also had a circle of fellow writers -- including such heavy hitters as Robert “Psycho” Bloch and Robert E. “Conan” Howard -- who picked up on his ideas and, as way of a tribute, incorporated them in some of their stories.

Derleth took all this and Lovecraft’s unfinished manuscripts and short ideas he jotted down and turned it into a whole post-mortem industry, linking all of Lovecraft and other writers’ tales.

And he did a damn fine job of it, too.

So much so that the Cthulhu Mythos has taken on a life of its own, and pretty much anybody can play in that cosmic sandbox now (including Big Steve King and a ton of Japanese anime) and so Lovecraft’s works have an enormous influence on pop culture…

,,,but Howard hizzowndamsef can be -- and is -- cancelled.

Derleth and various biographers downplayed Lovecraft’s virulent racism for decades, and I don’t think Ray Bradbury was ever aware of the scope and tenor of Lovecraft’s bigotry when he name checked him in “Pillar Of Fire” and other stories.

In a similar vein Bradbury didn’t know -- because thanks again to overly protective literary executors, nobody knew -- just how big a racist asshat Walt Whitman was, either.  It is one thing to call shenanigans on a Bill Cosby or a Harvey Weinstein or a Donald Trump because their egregious behaviors were noted long before they were held accountable, but quite another to do so on a creator who died while hiding their most awful behavior from thousands if not millions of fans who felt inspired and uplifted by their work.

It’s one thing to call out a contemporary bigot and not support them by not buying their work, it’s quite another when their bigotry has been shielded from view and fair minded, decent people have used their work to draw inspiration into their own creativity.

Of course, I had no way of knowing all this when I was in junior high and seriously began tracking down Lovecraft’s work.  

He possessed a flair of the horrific and unearthly that to this day is hard to match (but easier to parody).  He was a tremendous influence on my early writing (truth be told, I zigzagged between Bradbury’s stark simplicity and Lovecraft’s overarching verbosity, giving my early oeuvre a rather schizophrenic style) and the ideas he sparked still reverberate to this day.

If only he hadn’t been such a giant %#@&ing asshat racist …

. . . 

Harlan Ellison

In a way, I’m glad neither Harlan nor his widow Susan are alive to read this.

I cherished Harlan as a friend and greatly admired his qualities as a writer.

But damn, by his own admission he should have been thrown in prison for aggravated assault on numerous occasions (he was courts martialed three times while in the Army).

We’re not talking about arguments that spiraled out of control until a few wild punches were thrown, we’re talking about Harlan by his own admission stalking and ambushing people, knocking them unconscious or causing grievous bodily harm.

We’re talking about sexual abuse and humiliation.

We’re talking about incidents he admitted to which if true put people in life threatening situations.

And yet ironically, in a certain sense Harlan (a bona fide Army Ranger, BTW) was like the U.S. Marine Corps:  You’d never have a greater friend or a worse enemy.

I became dimly aware of Harlan in the late 1960s as I started diving deeper into literary sci-fi, transitioning from monster kid fandom to digests and paperbacks.  Harlan first caught my attention with his macho prose (years later a similar style also drew me to Charles Bukowski) in stories like “Along the Scenic Route” (a.k.a. “Dogfight on 101”) in which Los Angelinos engaged in Mad Max motor mayhem but soon it became apparent the macho posturing was just a patina, that the heart and soul of much of the work reflected great sensitivity and often profound melancholy (ditto Bukowski).

Harlan was a fighter, and again by his own admission, he acknowledged in his later years that he was not a fighter because his cause was just, but rather sought out just causes because he knew he would be fighting regardless of his position, yet possessed a strong enough moral compass to point himself in the direction of a worthy enemy…

…most of the time.

He hurt and offended a large number of innocent and some not-so-innocent-but-certainly-not-evil people.

He also helped and encouraged a large number of others, people who had no idea who he was, people who had no way of adequately reciprocating his kindness and generosity.

He defended a lot of defenseless people.

He also mistakenly defended a lot of terrible people.

If someone tells me Harlan was a monster, I’ll agree:  Monstre sacré.

What made his writing sacred was that no matter how outlandish the situation, Harlan dredged up from the depths emotions so strong as to be frightening in their depiction.

Skilled enough not to lose sight of humanity, outlandish enough to conjure up ideas and emotions most people would shy away from, Harlan hit adolescent Buzzy boy like an incendiary grenade.

Unlike my first three literary influences, Harlan was and remained active in the fannish circles where I was circulating at the time.  He regularly wrote letters and columns for various fanzines, including a few I subscribed to.

In a literary sense he stood, naked and unashamed, in full view of the world, and that willingness to go beyond mundane sensibilities is what made his work so compelling.

He certainly fired me up as an adolescent writer, and proved an amalgam of Bradbury and Lovecraft that got my creative juices flowing in a coherent direction.

I don’t think I ever consciously tried to imitate him in my writing, but I sure learned from him, both in how to charge a story with emotion and how to fight for what’s right regardless of the blow back.

I loved him as a friend.

But, damn, Harlan…you could act so ugly...

. . .

H. Allen Smith

Who?

Most of you have never heard of H. Allen Smith, and that’s a damn shame.

I’d never heard of him either until I stumbled across a coverless remaindered copy of Poor H. Allen Smith’s Almanac in a Dollar General Store bin in Tennessee in the late 1960s (it was a memorable shopping expedition:  I also purchased Thomas Heggen’s Mister Roberts and Let’s Kill Uncle by Rohan O'Grady [pen name of June Margaret O'Grady Skinner]).

Reading Smith’s editorial comments (in addition to his own essays and fiction he edited numerous humor anthologies) I realized I’d found a kindred soul.

Smith had a very conversational tone as a writer; his prose seemed off the cuff and unstructured, but he slyly used that style to hide the very peculiar (and often perverse) path he led readers down.

He sounded / read like a garrulous guy at the bar, one with a huge number of charming, witty (and delightfully inebriated) friends in addition to his own bottomless well of tall tales, pointed observations, and rude jokes.

Of all the writers mentioned above, that style is the one I most consciously tried to emulate, and one I seem to have been able to find my own voice in (several people have told me I write the same way I talk, a rarity among writers).

Smith was hilarious whether wearing an editor’s visor or a freelancer’s fool’s cap.  If you know who H. L. Mencken was, think of Smith as a benign, better tempered version of that infamous curmudgeon (and if you don’t know, hie thee hence to Google and find out).

Compared to my other four influences, Smith didn’t need to add the fantastic to his fiction:  The real world was weird and wacky and whimsical enough.

A newspaper man turned best selling author, Smith became among the most popular humorists of the 1940s-50s-60s…

…and then he died and everybody forgot him.

Part of the reason they forgot is that he wrote about things that no longer seem relevant (TV cowboys of the early television era, f’r instance, in Mr. Zip) or are today looked upon askance (and with justifiable reason; the ethnic humor in many of his anthologies may not have been intended as mean spirited, but it sure doesn’t read as a celebration of other cultures, viz his succinct account of an argument following a traffic accident between two native Honolulu cabbies rendered in pidgin:  “Wassamatta you?”  “’Wassmatta me’?!?!?  Wassamatta you ‘Wassamatta me’?  You wassamatta!”).

I’m sure I picked up a great many faults from Smith, but Smith also had the virtue of being willing and able to learn and to make an effort to be a better person today than he was yesterday, and better still tomorrow.

I’ve certainly tried applying that to my life.

Smith’s style was also invoked -- consciously or not -- by other writers and editors, notably Richard E. Geis, the editor of the legendary sci-fi semi-prozone, Science Fiction Review (among other titles).  Smith died before I could meet him, but while I never met Dick Geis face to face we were pen pals for over 40 years.

Geis certainly sharpened specific aspects of my writing style, but the real underlying structure came from H. Allen Smith.

Smith’s work is hard to find today (in no small part because whenever I encounter one in the wild I snap it up) but I urge you to give him a try.

Just brace yourself for things we might consider incorrect today.

. . . 

So there’s my top five. 

With the exception of Carl Barks and Ray Bradbury, none of them are without serious flaw or blemish (though Smith seems like a decent enough sort despite his fondness for X-rated and ethnic humor).

In my defense as an impressionable child / teen, I was not aware of these flaws and blemishes when I first encountered their writing (primarily because in many cases efforts were made to hide or downplay those aspects).

The positive things I gleaned from them are not negated by the negative personal information that came out later.

I can, for the most part re the more problematic of them, appreciate their work while not endorsing their behavior.

Ellison can only be described in extremes, but his fire and passion -- when directed in a positive direction -- served as a torch to light new paths (his two original anthologies, Dangerous Visions and Again, Dangerous Visions, pretty much blew the doors off old school sci-fi and belatedly dragged the genre kicking and screaming into the 20th century).

Lovecraft I can effectively ignore while finding entertainment value in the Cthulhu Mythos.

But I must acknowledge this isn’t the same for everyone.

For example, as innocuous as I find H. Allen Smith, if a woman or a member of a minority group said, “I found this in particular to be offensive” I’d probably have to say, yeah, you’re right.

But I can still admire the way he did it, even if I can no longer fully support what he did.

. . . 

By the time I reached high school, I’d acquired enough savvy to regard to literary finds a bit more dispassionately, appreciating what they did without trying to literally absorb it into my own writing.

I discovered for myself the Beat generation of writers and poets, the underground cartoonists of the late 60s and 70s, Ken Kesey, Joseph Heller, Philip K. Dick, Ursula K. LeGuin, and a host of others, some already alluded to.

Some, such as the Beats and Bukowski, I could enjoy for their warts and all honest self-reflection.

Yes, they were terrible people, but they knew they were terrible people, and they also knew there had to be something better, and while they may never have found the nirvana they sought, they at least sent back accurate reports of where they were in their journeys of exploration.

By my late teens, I’d become aware enough of human foibles and weaknesses -- every human’s foibles and weaknesses, including my own -- to be very, very cautious in regarding an individual as admirable.

While I will never accept creativity as an excuse for bad behavior, if a creator is honest enough and self-introspective enough to recognize and acknowledge their own failings, it goes a long way towards my being willing to enjoy their work without feeling I’m endorsing them as individuals.

It’s not my place to pass judgment or exoneration on others bad behavior.

It is my place to see that I don’t emulate others’ bad behavior.

Every creator is connected to their art, even if it’s by-the-numbers for-hire hack work.

Every creator puts something of themselves into the final product.

And every member of the audience must decide for themselves if that renders the final product too toxic to be enjoyed. 

    © Buzz Dixon

[grownups-are-the-real-monsters]

What do you based your music hc's for the Losers Club on? Richie, specifically? I love this stuff lol!

Fantastic question!!

Well, my music head-canons are based on the novel Losers Club mostly but they are signs in the mini series & movies.

How I kinda picked everyone’s taste up was from reading the novel, obviously lol, and I gathered each Losers music references/mentions and then combined this with their general tastes and personalities. (I hope this makes sense!)

I’ll just go loser by loser to explain, I guess!! I will link each characters Spotify playlist that I made as well!!

Starting with Stan, his big music tie-in is his wonderful Paul Anka impression!!! Oooof what a kid! Stan kinda strikes me as the kind of guy who would grow up listening to more stuff of that sort. He also grows to wear bell-bottoms…love that hippie fashion kid. SO for me, Stan’s always into those weird, pop 60′s stuff like ‘Diana’ by Paul Anka. He also was mentioned to have discussed Neil Sedaka with Eddie which is another artist that fits under this umbrella. Stan is a weird kid, so I always give him the weird songs. Stan has artists like Paul Anka, Neil Sedaka, Herman’s Hermits, The Monkees etc. I will also stand by ‘Goodbye Cruel World’ by James Darren & ‘Happy Go-Lucky Me’ by Paul Evans being top Stan songs. (His playlist)

Next is Mike, SO as of this moment, I can’t remember if Mike has any specific music references to him. BUT from reading about him and falling in love with his character, I gathered what I think is an accurate music taste. Mike strikes me as a folk, country/country rock kind of guy. I tend to give him artists like Bob Seger, Jim Croce, Eagles, Jackson Browne, Neil Young, etc. Artists that fall under that genre umbrella, y’know? Singer/Song-writers who sing about their lives with their whole soul. People with songs that really make you feel!!! I LOVE picking out his music because it’s so…emotional lol!! (His Playlist)

Moving on to Ben, I can pick out a music mention for Ben which comes from the chapter, ‘Ben Hanscom Takes a Fall’. In this scene he reflects on how he always thinks of Bev when he hears ‘Earth Angel’ by the Penguins. This kinda fuels the music vibe I got from him which is kinda romantic. He might be a little embarrassed by it but I think Ben gravitates towards romantic songs. I don’t think he particularly cares about artists, more so songs WHICH is why I think if any of the Losers were to listen to modern music, It’d be Ben. So with Ben, I’m more song focused. Songs about love, friendship and life. (His Playlist)

Now to Beverly, I tend to align Bev with Richie (who we’ll talk about last because he’s THE music man) so they enjoy the same bands but they usually have the opposite opinions on specific topics such as Beatles VS Stones. She’s more for stones. I also got the vibe that she generally just likes 50′s/60′s dance music. Take her appearance in ‘11/22/63′ for example where she’s teaching Richie to Lindy-hop to Glenn Miller’s ‘In The Mood’. The thing with Bev that makes it more difficult to combine each version of her to create a definitive taste is that book Bev is very different to movie Bev. (Her Playlist)

And now to Bill, he’s got some specific music tie-ins especially with the band: The Grateful Dead & has a poster of theirs. He also apparently gets maudlin when he’s drunk and plays Grateful Dead records too loud (that quotes comes in around page 137). SO Bill kinda overlaps with Mike for me. He also gets a lot of folk, country/country rock vibes. LOTS of songs about growing up and leaving past innocence behind because that’s his general thing. So again, Bill’s got artists like Don Henley, Grateful Dead, Jackson Browne etc under his umbrella. (His Playlist)

For Eddie, his taste was very interesting to gather!! First off, Eds mentions his collection of Barry Manilow records-actually, their Myra’s. He spent fiftreen hundred dollars on a sound-system so she wouldn’t miss a note on her ‘Supreme Greatest Hits’ album. BUT Eddie definitely loves Barry too, I have a post about this here.  Eddie also LOVES to go past the Neibolt Street Church school so that he can hear the Gospel music coming from inside. That’s actually one of my favorite Eddie traits!! I think that comes up around Chapter 7, ‘The Dam in the Barrens’. SO I tend to give Eddie softer things but some songs with edge. A lot of songs about having strength and pushing through. So he’s got artists like Barry, Billy Joel, Beatles etc. (His Playlist)

AND FINALLY RICHIE, this guy…..man. His whole personality is music. I made an older post about this here. Richie’s chapters are so FULL of music references, impressions etc. PLUS he grew up to be a disc jockey. He loves and mentions things like Bruce Springsteen, The Who, Jimi Hendirx, John Lennon, Michael Jackson, James Brown, and Paul Simon. ALSO you can’t forget the BIGGEST Richie + music thing, ‘The Richie Tozier All-Dead Rock Show’ around page 562. Music is so important to this man. Memories and such come to him as music references such as:  “What’s that Springsteen song say? Glory days…gone in the wink of a young girl’s eye. What young girl? Why, Bev, of course. Bev.” 

+ Richie’s chapters are full of this stuff. He LOVES Bruce Springsteen, The Beach Boys (LOVE the part in the mini series where he rolls up singing ‘I Get Around’), John Lennon, Paul Simon, Tom Petty and SO MUCH MORE. He is all about classic rock, it’s an insult to associate him with anything else other than classic rock. Plus Richie’s answering machine music is ‘Rock and Roll Girls’ by John Fogerty which leads to Mike saying:

“By the way, I liked the Creedance.” 

Richie laughed. “Shit, that ain’t Creedance, that’s ‘Rock and Roll Girls’ from Fogerty’s new album. ‘Centerfield’ it’s called, you haven’t heard any of it?” 

SO you know Richie is obsessed with music & isn’t afraid to correct people and talks about it ALL the time. 

Richie Tozier is THE Classic Rock Fan. (His Playlist) 

THANKS FOR THIS ASK! Most of my music posts are on my blog tagged as ‘Music’ + ‘Music Again’ if you guys are interested in this kind of stuff. I have A LOT of music posts/Losers Club + music posts. 

[inkribbon796]

The Midnight Hour is Close at Hand Ch. 1

Chapter 1: The Thriller

Summary: Sometimes heroics is more dangerous than it’s worth, especially when you have minors dressing up like superheroes and trying to go up against dangerous villains.

A/N: Warning! The death of a minor is detailed in this. This is for Robbie’s birthday, which is actually tomorrow but I didn’t want to push the release of another story back a day for that. Also no black magic was actually used in the making of this story because I refuse to be responsible for getting anyone in trouble. Titles of this story are a reference to Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Because that song and NateWantsToBattle’s Terror Time cover are pretty much all I listen to while writing this.

Chapters: 1, 2

~::~ Five Years Ago ~::~

The idea of the heroes getting apprentices or sidekicks had been around, jokingly, since they first started the Coalition. Roman, coincidentally brought it up first. The colorful hero liked working with and around kids since he practically had Disney Prince slapped over his forehead anytime he went out in public in full costume. Logan was forced to reign him in constantly.

Over the years many kids and teenagers had tried to be heroes but they lacked one thing or the other: the fact they were minors, parents understandably didn’t want their kids put against villains, and a real lack of an ability to protect themselves against the villains like Anti or Wil who were known to think weapon-first and consequences never.

Eventually, a couple teens made the cut. The first happened during patrol when Mark was surprised and almost punched a fourteen-year-old’s head off. He was in a costume that reminded Mark of his first couple of costumes. It was clearly a blue sweater, a pair of jeans, and a blue face mask which barely covered his identity. He was in items pulled from the boy’s closet.

Then, eager to prove his agility, the young would-be superhero did a backflip.

Despite his invisibility gift, and a sweet backflip that he would be embarrassed about for years to come, Blank didn’t immediately get a license to become a superhero. He would get that through proving that regardless of having the right equipment or permission, he was going to be a superhero, come hell or high water.

So there was a quiet agreement that Silver and the rest of the heroes would keep their eye on him and make sure he didn’t get into too much trouble.

The Coalition’s second side-kick was a bit different.

Robert Gravesly was much like any other teenager in Athlone, he liked to get into trouble after school. He tended to frequent areas that several gangs were in and got arrested by accident more than once. Robbie was a smart kid and over time had just ingratiated himself with the Septics, so much so that Henrik took the young boy under his wing a bit.

Chase bonded with his as well, the young man helping to sooth the gaping hole in his heart that his divorce had left him in.

The young fifteen-year-old had dreams of nursing school and at first he was more likely to be seen with Henrik and Iplier than the rest of the Coalition.

Then Ethan met Robbie and there began to be a serious discussion: Robbie despite a couple schoolyard scrapes didn’t know enough self defense to really protect himself. Logan even admitted that a plucky attitude and intelligence only get you so far, even he had tech to augment himself.

Eric and Randall were picked up shortly after, Randall more eager to be a hero but wanted to stay with his painfully shy friend. Iplier, by necessity, was more of a parent to them than a guardian.

It was all going well, Ethan was coming up on his seventeenth birthday, Robbie was about to turn sixteen, and Eric and Ray were fifteen.

But then Blank and Grave got a bit too confident in themselves.

“You sure we got the right message?” Ethan asked Marvin.

“Oh yeah, simple in an’ out,” Marvin smiled as he walked next to Silver. “Yeh two keep watch an’ we go in an’ talk ta the informant.”

To Blank’s frustration he was sent with Robbie to a neighboring building to the one Silver and Marvin would slip into. Ethan, half invisible as he looked out the window of an office building that matched the one across the street.

“Man I wish we could do something interesting,” Ethan grumbled. “I’m almost twenty, I know what I’m doing.”

“In a couple years we’ll be laughin’ ‘bout it,” Robbie shrugged.

Then they started to hear talking, the two sidekicks moved towards the open door to listen. Then they moved into the cluttered storage room right next door.

The voices were unfamiliar, a teen about their age and an older man.

“Why does the Old Man want me here again?” The younger voice asked.

“I don’t ask the big guy questions,” the older voice dismissed. “It’s how I’ve stayed alive this long.”

“Right,” the younger voice huffed out.

“Shit!” Ethan hissed out, “is it one of those guys? Why are they in this one?”

“We should go tell the others,” Robbie whispered.

“I can’t take both of us,” Ethan reminded, his powers still weaker and shorter ranged than they would be when he became a full-fledged hero.

“Yeh go, I’ll keep an eye on ‘em,” Robbie promised.

“You sure?” Ethan asked.

The younger sidekick nodded, “Go ‘fore I kick yeh out the window.”

With that Ethan made one of the only decisions he would truly regret, leaving Robbie alone in the building.

Carefully Robbie began to creep towards the voices, moving through the hallway until he had to duck behind a filing cabinet when the door opened.

“What’s taking so long,” a young man with a metal bat groaned in frustration. His golden eyes almost glowing in the darkness. The end of the bat hitting the concrete floor loudly. “I have books to write.”

“We’ve barely been here for a minute,” the older man followed the younger boy in, Robbie recognized him, it was one of Dark’s lieutenants, Lynel Bargs.

He also noticed that he seemed a little tense.

“Whatever,” the young author reached up for a bronze star something on his button-up short lapel and blew on it.

“No!” Bargs yelled out but clamped his mouth shut when a rip in reality opened up and after a couple seconds Dark walked through. He was straightening up his jacket and fixing his tie.

“Arthur? What happened?” Dark asked, and Robbie started mentally cursing as he clamped his hands over his mouth and hunkered down into the shadow of the filing cabinet, putting Dark out his line of sight.

“Ugh!” Arthur groaned. “I don’t know you called me here and never showed up.”

“Seems everything’s fine here Darky,” Wilford said, a giddy smile in his voice. “Maybe we should go back and—”

He trailed off, Robbie fighting his curiosity to look.

“Bargs, what are you doing here with him?” Dark asked, his tone almost dripping with accusation and threat.

“You told me to bring him here,” Bargs responded defensively.

The entire room seemed to chill as silence descended upon everyone in it.

Finally Dark said, “Go home, Arthur, I didn’t call you here.”

“Okay,” the normally caustic and belligerent teen sounded subdued and walked through the portal, it stayed open ominously.

Dark walked closer to Bargs, someone that minutes ago he’d considered loyal. “What are you doing here?”

“I told you,” Bargs said. “You called me here.”

“I thought you knew better than to lie to me, Bargs, especially about them,” Dark snarled angrily, his aura thrashing around, numbing into some of the objects in the room, including a filing cabinet.

The filing cabinet toppled over and Robbie tried to get out of the way, but space was limited and he was afraid of revealing himself.

With an audible crack, the cabinet’s weight landed on Robbie’s leg and snapped his fibula in half.

“AHHHHHHHHHH!” Robbie screamed out in agony.

Dark turned at the scream, he’d heard and caused thousands in the time he’d been sentient and been flinching towards them. But for the past fifteen years he’d been fighting with very parental instincts. And the scream of a young teenager almost struck him like a bullet.

“Well what do we have here?” Wilford commented, the scream hitting his brain wrong. He pulled out his gun. “Let me dig the poor lad out.”

“Wil!” Dark reaches out with his aura to stop him but the madman was faster and when Dark’s aura pulled him back, Wil shot the teenager in the chest instead of the leg.

With another tortured grunt the young man curled on himself a bit.

“Get out,” Dark ordered and threw Wil through the portal Arthur had gone through. It flickered closed before reopening and Dark haphazardly threw his traitorous lieutenant into it.

He could be dealt with later.

Dark rushed over to the young hero and was struck by the fact that he hadn’t seen this sidekick before. His informants in the police had told him the heroes had four, he’d personally been given three photos of children dressing up like vigilantes, but he’d never seen this one.

An angry pit burned in his gut, the faces of the children he had helped raise with Wil flashing through his mind, as he watched the kid let out pained gasps. This was a child, the heroes had convinced a child to meet up with an informant! At least Dark had the good sense to keep his Lost Ones supervised, even around Wil.

Trying to reign back his anger, Dark pushed the objects away and watched the boy flinch in fear when he saw him kneel down.

Dark knew he should leave, he’d get blamed for the boy’s death anyways, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave.

Robbie whimpered out when someone propped him up a bit and he looked up to realize Dark had gently set his head up on the Entity’s leg . . . his mask was gone.

“No,” Robbie choked out in a panic, he hadn’t even noticed it getting pulled off.

“Hush,” Dark said as he pressed all the buttons on Robbie’s watch, knowing one of them signaled the other heroes but not knowing which it was. “Save your strength, and hopefully they’ll get here in time.”

Dark scanned his eyes over the boy’s wounds, already knowing it was probably too late. If he was in a hospital, he might survive, but he wasn’t.

“The heroes made a mistake,” Dark told him, memorizing the boy’s face and brushed his messy brown hair out of the way. “They shouldn’t have let you into their world. Your death is a tragedy.”

Robbie couldn’t talk, a mix of pain and fear robbing him of speech.

“I have some boys about your age,” Dark admitted. “Maybe in another life you could have fought them as adults. But life’s not fair, least of all to children.”

The boy’s breathing was getting quieter, more labored, and he had a sad, panicked air about him as his life was slipping away. His strength robbed from him by his wounds so that he couldn’t even call out, couldn’t even scream if he wanted to.

And he wanted to.

“Sleep, and hopefully the heroes will learn,” Dark told him gently as he felt the tension in the teenager’s body finally slip away. Dark waited a minute before he checked for a pulse.

Nothing.

Dark slipped the mask back on and got up, the young teenager lying on the ground.

Before Dark could take a single step to go and find Silver or another hero, Silver found him first. He burst through the door and looked from Robbie to Dark and then went into a rage.

“No!” Silver screamed and flew at Dark so quickly that the Entity barely had time to throw up his aura, burying him a bit into the wall. Dark had his aura shielding him as Silver clearly trying to cave his face in.

“Silver!” Marvin called out, already starting to try and cast magic to revive what Dark knew was someone who was already dead. “He’s not breathin’, I can’t get him ta wake up.”

“What did you do?!” Silver demanded.

“What did I do?” Dark spat in outrage, his anger almost throwing Silver off. “I’m not the one that sent a child against a crazed gunman and hoped that he’d find mercy!”

“You killed him,” Silver accused.

“His death is on your hands, hero,” Dark shoved him away. “I am not responsible for the children you dress up and fill their heads with fantasies.”

“Yeh fucker!” Marvin shouted at Dark, “yeh asshole! He was a kid.”

“Yes,” Dark agreed, his tone terse and angry. “And how old was he gentlemen? Sixteen? Fifteen? Barely old enough to drive or try and get and job, and yet here he is, dead on the floor of some shitty insurance building. Clearly someone should not have entrusted their child to you.”

“He wasn’t supposed ta die!” Marvin shouted. “No one was even supposed ta be in here!”

“The rest of your sidekicks,” Dark turned his attention back to Silver as he opened up a portal into the Void. “Fire them and send them home. If he’s lucky, death has him. You should collect your dead and move on.”

Then he left, Silver finally turning to look at Robbie, “Jackie already took Blank back to the base.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Marvin’s eyes watering as he nodded desperately. “J.J’s still at the base, he’ll fix this. He’ll fix this.”

Silver sighed, Mark had to have some type of hope but in the back of his mind he knew that they could never remember the times J.J turned back the clock.

But Mark carefully picked Robbie up and cradled him against his chest. Death was already starting to permeate the room as he rushed to bring him to the base, calling ahead to make sure that Eric, Ray, and Ethan were safe at the base. Along with announcing the grizzly news: Robbie was dead.

[onestowatch]

Teddy Swims on His Upcoming Debut EP, Writing Process, and Metamorphosis [Q&A]

It’s Spring time in Snellville, Georgia and the year is 2019. Teddy Swims is living in a spacious abode with his producer, his manager, his videographer, his photographer and all of the musicians from his former rock band (the Elefvnts). This was more than just a typical living arrangement in a party atmosphere. It was a bonding experience that lasted for about one year. And it was a pivotal time period where Teddy Swims developed a songwriting formula that would help him blend his love for R&B and Soul with heavy components of Country Rock and Pop music. The writing sessions at this house spawned the release of an original composition called “Night Off” and a series of cover songs that would go on to help Teddy Swims garner the attention of legendary mainstream recording artists like Shania Twain.

Fast forward to the year 2020. Teddy Swims has moved to Atlanta and he’s now signed to Warner Records. With the studio release of “Picky” firmly notched under his belt, the brand new artist has set out for greener pastures. We spoke with Teddy Swims about his upcoming debut EP, his writing process and his metamorphosis from rock singer to to hip-hop/R&B artist.

Ones to Watch: With the help of your band, the name Teddy Swims has generated quite the buzz on the internet. Especially after releasing a series of covers that range from hit songs by The Weeknd and Luther Vandross to Shania Twain and Vanessa Carlton. Who’s responsible for coming up with the arrangements of these renditions and how do you determine what songs to cover?

Teddy Swims: It’s all my guys man! When we did the first cover [“Rock With You”] by Michael Jackson, it was ten years after the day he died and that’s what started us doing covers in the first place. And then sometimes we’ll do a new song that’s out and we’ll try to kind of get ahead of the curve and maybe get a little play off of something that’s number one of the charts right now…but we rarely do it like that.

What kind of reaction have you gotten from musicians whose songs you’ve covered?

We recently re-cut and put out a new version of a Shania [Twain] record. We did that with Dave Cobb. He knows Shania and he sent that to her. So just hearing that she loved it and is a fan now--that’s what it’s all about!

You lived in a compound with your management team and all twelve members of your band for about a year. Tell me a little bit about the song selection process when it came down to finalizing tracks for your upcoming debut album. Was that something that you included the core members of your team in on or did you make those decisions on your own?

At the end of the day, I’m never going to say that my way is always the right way… We built this ourselves…I always say: ‘If there’s twelve of us here it’s not a democracy—it’s a jury.’ We can all figure out why we have to make a decision. But if there’s two or three people that don’t have the same answer as us, there’s always time to make sure that everyone can get on the same page. Because we trust each other and we have each other’s best interest at heart.

Your music videos seem to be just as charismatic as your live shows. Tell me a little bit about the inspiration behind the music videos for Picky (directed by Kevin Johnson) and Broke (directed by Joel Chivington).

We do it all in-house. This whole past year we’ve been in a house in Snellville [Georgia] that had all twelve of us living there. My band, my producer, my manager… our whole team. So, what we wanted to capture with those is the story of family. Everything that we filmed in most of the music videos is right here in our hometown of Conyers, Georgia. Which is like everything that you see from the bar and the candy store in “Picky” to the coffee shop. It was right here in Conyers.

I looked up some throwback photos of you on MySpace, your fashion sense has evolved so much over the past decade. I noticed a lot of Rock influenced clothing during your high school years, but then you slowly gravitated towards hip hop attire. How has your sense of style influenced your music and which genre are you truly the most comfortable in?

Sometimes we’ll write a song and it will come out so Country. And sometimes we’ll write a song that will come out so Hip-hop….I genuinely don’t know if I’ll ever find out what my [genre] is. I think we’re getting to a place with music where genres are absolutely fluid and [music] can be whatever you want it to be as long as it’s honest. As long as it feels like soul, that’s all that matters to me.

If you had to pick one genre for the rest of your life--which one would it be?

Soul music man…baby making music. I think that could be any genre. There’s soul in Country, there’s soul in Hip-hop and soul in R&B. I love to listen to a song and if you feel that nostalgic feeling even though you’ve never heard the song…that’s what I chase, no matter what the genre.

You’re from Conyers, Georgia, but you’re currently based in Atlanta. A lot of great musicians have come from your home state. You’ve mentioned in the past how much your home means to you. Who’s on your Mt. Rushmore of recording artists from Georgia and why?

Andre and Big Boi [from Outkast], Ray Charles, James Brown and Otis Redding.

I read that the SWIMS in your last name is actually an acronym that means: Someone Who Isn’t Me Sometimes. Give our readers an in-depth description of the personal meaning of that acronym for you. At what moment did Jaten Dimsdale become Teddy Swims?

Last year in March, my buddy Addy Maxwell (producer, guitarist, trumpeter) was building beats and sending them to rappers around the area in Atlanta and they would send stuff back. So back in March, we ended up creating this SoundCloud rap song. The next thing you know we had the opportunity to go on tour. So, we built thirty minutes of music and went on my very first tour, after ten years of being in bands—we went on tour as Teddy Swims. At that time, when we started the rap thing I was going by “Swims” which is an acronym that I saw on forums and it just meant someone who isn’t me. So, I thought that I could just kind of be whoever I wanted to be in rap and never really take it seriously. It was just going to be a little rap thing for me to not take seriously. And then, we took it on tour…and it just kind of stuck that way.

The coronavirus has caused recording artists who are signed to major record labels, like yourself, to drastically change their plans for 2020. But what about your plans for 2021? Are we going to get a debut album out of you next year? And if so, can you tell us a little bit about it?

I can’t say for sure but that’s the plan. We plan on having an EP out at the beginning of next year and an album out sometime next year…At this point we’re writing right now, so I don’t want to tell you what something’s going to be about and then change my mind…I’m scared to commit something. Maybe the album will be about my fear of commitment (laughs).

What events in your life have made you a better songwriter? Heartbreak? A tragic loss? Falling in Love?

I’ll definitely say that I tend to put myself in situations to sometimes get hurt, to write better songs.  Some of my worst heartbreaks have been the best songs…it’s definitely been super inspiring in making me deal with some things that I don’t like dealing with and focus on some matters that I didn’t know that I needed to focus on.

What’s a typical writing session like between Teddy Swims and Elefvnts?

We have a B Room Studio and an A Room Studio in our old house. So I might be tracking vocals on something from yesterday and (the band) might be working on something or maybe Jesse [Hampton] has his own laptop and he’s recording a guitar and he just drops [the track] in the dropbox and the next day Addy [Maxwell] pulls it up and hears some piano and puts a beat behind it. And the next day I might pull it up on my laptop and then get an idea and write and then we all get together and kind of piece it together. So, we just put a bunch of files in a dropbox and people will just pick songs and say: “Oh I have an idea for this!” We are able to sometimes be in the same room and just jam and write. But before (Covid-19) we were able to just jam as a band and always be playing, which was great.

Not including anyone that you are currently working with, who would be your dream executive producer and why?

I would always have to say my best friend in the world, Lee Rouse (the band’s producer and engineer). But if it was someone that I wish I could work with? I’d have to say Timbaland. A record with Timbaland would be crazy! Pharrell would be crazy too…And Dr. Dre of course.

What kind of music do you think you and Dr Dre. could make together?

I don’t know (laughs). I’d do whatever he tells me to do. I’d be like: “You’re the man, whatever you say. Let’s go!” I would die to meet him, just to pick his brain and get the wisdom because I’m always a student to it. I would want to learn the mindset from producer to CEO to everything. Because that is everything that I want to be.

You donated the proceeds of What’s Going On (a song originally recorded by Marvin Gaye) to the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. Why’d you decide to donate to that cause in particular?

When we did it, I put a grand in to five different [social causes]. I wanted to give to something that was a bigger conglomerate in that way…I am so strong of a believer in the Black Lives Matter movement. Here we are, two hundred years later and we can’t open our eyes. I think that “What’s Going On” is perfect song written at the perfect time and it still just as powerful today!  I think that says a lot about us as a society…We always hear about the Breonna Taylors and the George Floyds, but there’s so many people like that who are getting brushed under the rug. In my hometown, there was a kid two years ago named Shali Tilson. He was having a mental health episode and he was arrested. When he got in the Rockdale County Jail, they put him in solitary confinement for nine days with no food or water and he died. A 22-year old black man. Nothing has been done about it…. So, if I could say anything, I encourage people to look into what’s going on in your small towns. There are small towns like Conyers where this has been happening for years and it just gets brushed under the rug.

[lovemesomesurveys]

5,000 questions survey series–part forty-two

These surveys always take me so long to get through, hence why I took such a long break from them. The questions are just too much at times and some are just plain annoying. But, I’ll try and finish it eventually. A couple of you have been taking it lately, so I figured I’d start up again.

4001. How would you rate your sex drive? It’s been non-existent the past few years, honestly.  4002. You are sitting alone with a stack of videos and a vcr. Of the following which are you most likely to puut on (1 is most, 10 is least) I’m just gonna bold which one I’d likely watch out of all of ‘em...

The good the bad and the ugly, dracula, slc punk, twin peaks fire walk with me, jerry springer too hot for tv, singing in the rain, flash gordon, the matrix, blade runner, the muppet movie 4003. Are you more likley to get or send random instant messages? I receive nice messages more often than I receive random ones. I got a rude one recently; however, about how I’m still a 31 year old virgin. Does it affect their life? No. So, don’t worry about it. *eye roll* I do get a lot of random comments on my surveys from su*ar da**ies, though... super annoying. 4004. If you were writing an ad telling people to come to your town what would you say about it? I wouldn’t write such an ad. My town sucks. 4005. What part of your body can you not stand to get an itch on? One that’s hard to reach.

4006. How many people do you suppose have stolen that System of a Down album called 'steal this album'? I haven’t heard anything about that, I’m not even familiar with that album of theirs. I’m there were people who tried/did.  4007. Name a band you like: Linkin Park. What are/were this band's roots and influences? Zeppelin, Run DMC, Public Enemy, Rage Against the Machine, Depeche Mode. 4008. would you rather have a poster of john lennon or a cute fuzzy black cat? Cute fuzzy black cat. 4009. make a public service announcement: Wear a mask! 4010. What makes you feel the need to escape? Just the need for a change of scenery and to help take my mind off things a bit for a little while. I’m sad I couldn’t go to the beach at all this summer because that’s my one place where I’m able to relax at all and just zone out. 4011. You and your signifigant other, crush, interest etc...who is the ernie and who is the bert? I don’t have any of those. 4012. When was the last time you did something and later asked yourself 'did I do the right thing?'? I hate when I forget if I took my medicine or not. I end up taking it, questioning and hoping that I didn’t already take it. I feel so robotic at times and like I’m just living life on autopilot, so things like that tend to happen. 4013. What do you find it hard to say goodbye to? I have a hard time getting rid of things because of my emotional attachment to them. 4014. What is your fantasy valentine's day like? I’ll admit it, it would be nice to experience a Valentine’s Day with someone and actually do something. It’s always been just another day for me. 4015. If you had to have a color for a name, what color would it be? Jade. 4016. Should preference be given to minority students during the college admission process? I think everyone should have the same opportunity.  4017. Sweet wine, fresh crisp appples, bagles with creme cheese and lox...what is the most incredibly luxurious food? I don’t know about those options, but if I were to think of luxurious foods I’d think of like expensive wine, cheeses, fresh fruits, and seafood like caviar and lobster and whatnot. I’m picky so I personally don’t care for fancy foods. 4018. Is there really anything to fear in communism? I don’t know enough about communism and socialism and all that to speak on it. 4019. Best sesame street character: Uhh, Big Bird. most annoying sesame street character: Elmo can be a little annoying sometimes. 4020. feast or famine? I don’t need to overindulge and have excess, I just would like to be able to have food.  4021. Write a poem right here in five minutes or less: Nah. 4022. Do you stay and help clean up after a party? I usually was one to leave early. 4023. Why was the teddy bear named after teddy roosevelt? His name was Theodore, Teddy for short, and apparently while out on a hunting trip he refused to kill a bear and someone dedicated a bear stuffed animal to him and called it Teddy’s Bear. Then it was just called a teddy bear and the rest was history. 4024. What are you the prince or princess of? Uhhh. 4025. Some people think that Christmas should be taken off of public school calanders because it is politically incorrect. What aould you say to this? I say no. It can still be winter break for those who don’t celebrate. 4026. Would you rather go to an excorcism or a step aerobics class? Uh, I think an aerobics class sounds a lot better than an exorcism. I wouldn’t be able to participate in a step aerobics class, though. I’d have to do something else. 4027. Do you believe in spells and curses? No. 4028. What tv show does your family watch together? There isn’t really one all 4 of us watch, but there’s several that 2 or 3 of us watch together. I guess Family Guy or American Dad could be one all 4 of us could watch, although I don’t really care for either one much. 4029. What's on your calander this year? Nothing. 4030. Is anything ruining your life? It has felt that way with my health issues. 4031. How was life meant to be lived? “We were meant to live for so much moreeee.” 🎶

4032. What is your usual breakfast? I rarely have breakfast, but I like breakfast foods like eggs and hash browns. And country gravy, yum. 4033. If you had kids, would you worry about what they did online? Of course.  4034. Will you be maxin and relaxin this weekend? Sure. If not, what are your weekened plans? 4035. Who has the most interesting story to tell: someone who used to fly to asia as a drug trader the ceo of Nike a nyc homeless person a preacher's wife

^^^They all would. 4036. What do you have a bad feeling about? The future regarding this virus. 4037. Do you have a lot to say? No. 4038. If a smallpox vaccine was offered to you, would you take it? Wasn’t that one of the ones given as a baby or child? I should mention I live in the US. 4039. Would you ever work at a kissing booth? No. how about a dunking booth? No. 4040. There is a woman who paints by stripping naked, rolling around in paint and then pressing her body against the canvas. What do you think of her art? I’ve never seen it, but hey do your thing. 4041. Have you ever bought something you saw on tv? Yeah, I mean that’s what commercials are intended to do. However, I’ve never called the number for a product advertisement to order something that way. Like those as seen on TV products. There have been some of those products sold in actual stores, though, that I’ve got like the Snuggie and that Finishing Touch Flawless Razor. 4042. Name a relative:  that relative dies unexpectedly. On the same day 9/11 happens. You can either bring back your relative or bring back 1/2 the people who dies on 9/11. What do you do? I don’t like these type of questions. 4043. Have you gone mental? I’ve definitely felt like that. 4044. What do you think of jews for jesus? You word this like it’s the name of a group or something. Okay, so I Googled it and see that it’s an organization.  4045. Has anyone ever tried to 'save' you? Yes. 4046. Quick! picture santa clause in your head... ...Okay. Was he black or white when you pictured him? White. That’s just how I’ve often seen him portrayed. 4047. Would you ever buy a black santa clause? Sure. Santa isn’t real, you can make him look any way you want. 4048. or take your kids to vist a black santa clause? Yeah? why or why not? Santa is Santa.  4049. What do you smell like? I just smell my clothes laundry detergent scent. 4050. What kind of soup do you eat? I’m a ramen girl all the way. 4051. What have you heard about the next Harry Potter book? Will you pre-order it? I know this is old, but I haven’t read any of the Harry Potter books. 4052. Would you rather go out or stay in? I’m a hermit crab.  4053. What's your favorite song to hear on halloween? I like the classics like Monster Mash. Oh, and the Halloween movie theme music for spooky vibes. 4054. What song makes you feel all tingly like you want to laugh and scream and cry? Uhh I don’t feel that way about any song. 4055. If you were starting a website that was not about you, what Would it be about? Nah. 4056. Do you ever take the long way just for fun? I don’t drive. 4057. '..and god said let there be ____and there I was.' Fill in the blank, as if if you were talking about yourself. ‘...and God said let there be Stephanie and there I was.’ 4058. What do you think of when you hear the word 'mill'? A million.  4059. What do you think of when you hear the name: weird al? Parodies. bob dylan? Music. michael jackson? Moon dance. henry rollins? billy idol? White wedding. gary numan? will smith? Fresh Prince of Bel Air. paul mcartney? Black Bird. alice cooper? Rock and roll. J Lo? Jenny from the Block. 4060. What is one social disater you have had? It was really embarrassing getting sick in front of everyone at my party 7 years ago aka the last time I drank alcohol. I just threw up on myself in front of everyone and sat there and my friend had to help clean me up. What really messes me up is that I don’t remember drinking that much, so I don’t know how I got so drunk. 4061. Can you moonwalk? No. 4062. If a presidential candidate went on late night tv, picked up a guitar and rocked out on it and could really play, would that influence you to like/respect them more? I’d probably be like wow that’s cool, but no I wouldn’t let that influence my vote. Them being able to play an instrument doesn’t say shit about their policies or whether they’d make a good fit for the job. 4064. If it was possible for people to instantly change from one sex to another, would everyone be straight in the end? Uhh just cause they could switch their gender it doesn’t change their brain/sexual preference.  Would you change your sex? No. 4065. Finish the sentance: nobody broke your heart, if you're alone... I don’t know. 4066. Would you rather have a best friend OR a boyfriend/girlfriend on a Friday night? I’d rather stay at home and do my own thing, ha. 4067. Would a woman rather be complimented about her intelligence OR her looks? Depends on the individual.  4068. Do you tend to think of the right thing to say after the moment is gone? Always. Super annoying. 4069. Would you rather a potential mate have nice hair OR nice legs? Nice hair out of the two. 4070. Okay,…. nice hair OR a nice rack/bulge? I don’t look for a “nice bulge” when I look at guys. 4071. What is one thing you thought you would enjoy, but actually didn’t? Hmm. I’m blanking at the moment. 4072. Be in the spotlight OR in the shadows? In the shadows. 4073. What is your favorite part of the newspaper? I haven’t read a newspaper in several years. When I was a kid I loved the comics, though. 4074. What in your life has been an “acquired taste” for you? Alcohol. I never really cared for it, honestly. I drank because my friends were and felt like that’s what people in their early 20s liked to do. And because it was fun sometimes, though I more often just felt like crap. It’s been 7 years since I last drank and I truly haven’t missed it. 4075. Do you find sunlight makes you happier? No. 4076. If you could conquer one fear, it would be...? I’d take care of some health related things. 4077. What's the dumbest thing you've ever seen someone do or heard anyone has done? There’s been a lot of things. 4078. How do you feel about the fact that J-Lo earns 37 million dollars a year? Is that actually true? This survey is also like a decade or so old. Do you buy anything that contributes to her salary? I haven’t bought any JLO related in several years. Is J Lo the ultimate ideal of what a woman should be? To some people. 4079. What is unforgettable beauty? I don’t know. 4080. Worst fashion mistake EVER: I don’t know or care. 4081. What is your advice to someone on their first date? Ha, I’m definitely not one to ask for dating advice. 4082. Is there a musical performer more ridiculous than Avril Lavigne (I don't think there is)? I didn’t think she was ridiculous.  4083. What is the best: daytime talk show? Dr. Phil. late night talk show? I don’t watch any anymore. 4084. Are you afraid of total freedom? What would that mean? 4085. Do you live in an invisible prison? I feel that way with my mind and health. 4086. Who do you feel distant from, that you used to be close to? I’m not close to anyone anymore outside of my immediate family.  4087. Rate the following song lyrics (1 = you like it the most, 9 = you like it the least). Nah, I really hate the rating questions. Maybe you shouldn't care/throw away those dreams/& dare Eden lets me in/I find the seeds of love/And climb upon the highwire/I kiss and tell all my fears I know the pressure is on/In a race for the life of endless love/If it seems to much/Remember/All these things are endless I see the wind, oh I see the trees/Everything is clear in my heart/I see the clouds, oh I see the sky/Everything is clear in our world Inflatable doll/Lover ungrateful/I blew up your body/But you blew my mind Well I jumped into the river/too many times to make it home/I'm out here on my own/drifting all alone/and if it doesn't show/ give it time/to read between the lines The very thought of you makes/My heart sing/Like an April breeze/On the wings of spring/And you appear in all your splendor/My one and only love now I've had lots of girls/most of them from other worlds/but lookin through the galaxey/the valley girls are the ones for me I'm the dandy highwayman so sick of easy fashion/the clumsy boots, peek-a-boo roots that people think so dashing/so what's the point of robbery when nothing is worth taking?/it's kind of tough to tell a scruff the big mistake he's making 4088. Can you name any of the nine bands/songs above? I didn’t even read any of the lyrics. 4089. What would your reaction be if a total stranger called to say s/he loved you and told you that you were to pass the message on to others in a telephone call you make yourself? Uh, I wouldn’t answer a call from a total stranger first of all and even if I actually did, I would be like wtf and hang up.  4090. Would you like to take a journey to jupiter? No. I have no desire to take any trip to outer space. 4091. Can you crack nuts in your bare hands? I’ve never tried, but I’m going to assume that I couldn’t.  4092. Do you take walks at night? No. Or ever. 4093. Beavis and Butthead or daria? Neither. 4094. Cow or chicken? Chicken. 4095. Do you think you will visit China in this life? I don’t see that happening, but who knows.  4096. Are you having a happy day? No. 4097. When was or will be your 'golden birthday' (when your age is the same as your birthdate, like turning 17 on the 17th)? My golden birthday was 3 years ago. 4098. Enlighten everyone with something profound: Nah. 4099. When has the third time been the charm for you? Hmm. 4100. What is kinda sick, but fun? Uhhh.